Tribe Master 5: A Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Noah Layton

  ‘Not yet. I don’t suppose you’ve got any more genius ideas to solve this next clue, do you?’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ she said, kissing me softly on the cheek before pulling away and diving beneath the water briefly, before ascending and sweeping her hair back out of her face, more smoking hot in her graceful motions than a supermodel in a fragrance ad.

  ‘At least I’ve got you girls to make me feel less of an idiot,’ I remarked, heading to the bank by the pool and lying down upon it.

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ Lara replied, sliding up to my side and propping herself on her elbows upon my chest. ‘What happened down there?’

  I told the girls about the creature that had confronted me. By the time I finished my story they were all staring at me in shock and admiration.

  ‘A real doppelganger,’ Lara said. ‘I’ve hunted many creatures, but that is not one of them. I didn’t even know they were real.’

  ‘Wait, what’s a doppelganger?’ Elera asked.

  ‘Your double,’ Santana said, turning to me. ‘Haven’t you heard of one before?’

  ‘Of course I’ve heard of a doppelganger,’ I replied. ‘They existed in my world too… Well, allegedly. It’s complicated. There were a lot of people back in my world, so it was pretty likely that there was somebody out there who would look a lot like you. That’s all it means in my world – your twin that isn’t related to you, basically.’

  ‘We do not have those,’ Santana said, shaking her head with a mix of shock and awe. ‘A doppelganger is a creature – an actual creature, formless until it is confronted by another being whom it takes on the form of. I have read about them, but I have never met one.’

  ‘They are only stories,’ Lara said in amazement. ‘So you actually found one?’

  ‘Not only did I find one, I killed one,’ I replied. ‘Beat me up pretty bad in the process, but I managed to gain the upper hand.’

  ‘If a doppelganger was part of the first challenge in this quest, I cannot imagine what difficulties await us on the path ahead,’ Santana pondered.

  ‘Whatever it is, we’ll be able to handle it,’ I said assuredly.

  Elera and Santana decided to return to the land; I took a swim in the water, and it was only after they left that I realized Lara was still on the sandy embankment.

  ‘You’re not going too?’ I asked Lara.

  ‘Thought I could keep you company a little while. Do you have actually any idea how dangerous a doppelganger is?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I replied. ‘I’m alive, so it can’t be too much of a threat.’

  ‘You’re alive,’ she smiled, ‘because you’re strong enough and powerful enough to kill a being that most others could not.’

  ‘No need to stroke my ego too much,’ I laughed. ‘Actually, no, go ahead. I don’t mind it from time to time.’

  ‘From time to time,’ she repeated with a smile. ‘Sure. Gods, your body has taken a beating, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Always does,’ I replied, leaving the water and climbing onto the embankment to sit by her side against the stone walls of the cavern.

  ‘Do you know why my hair stays purple?’ Lara asked.

  ‘It’s not a natural hair color back in my old world, but considering I live in a world filled with magic and fantastical beings, it’s one of the most normal things about Agraria. I honestly never thought to ask.’

  ‘I got caught up in a fight many years ago back at Ichabod’s Cove. Two mages had a… Disagreement, shall we say, and decided to attack each other. The cove was already precarious enough at that point, but their fight almost dropped it into the bay completely.

  ‘The misfire from a spell singed my hair, and ever since then it has grown this color. I didn’t like it at first, but over time I grew to enjoy it. The same I cannot say for you, of course… I knew that I liked you from the moment I met you.’

  ‘You did? You’ve never told me that before.’

  ‘Probably because I don’t usually let my guard down. You’re the only man who I’ve ever truly let in…’

  ‘And you’re one of the only women I’ve ever loved…’

  Lara smiled and I kissed her lightly, pressing my forehead to hers and feeling the warmth of her breath against me.

  ‘Santana worries about you a lot,’ she said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I know. Most of you girls are happy fighting alongside me out there in the wilds, but…’

  ‘But we all feel like her to some extent.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Of course,’ she insisted. ‘Agraria is a dangerous world. We have lived here our entire lives, and we know that more than anything. But even though the threat of danger is constant, it doesn’t make any of us numb to the thought of losing each other, or of losing you.’

  ‘That’s why I do what I do,’ I assured her, ‘to keep us safe. To build a world where we don’t have to sleep with one eye open, wondering if the door will be knocked down at any moment and our lives will be put at risk.’

  ‘That is why you are who you are, husband,’ she smiled, kissing me. ‘That’s why we fight alongside you. It is why we love you. Why I love you.’

  We kissed lightly, a kiss which quickly turned into a passionate embrace as we ran our lips over each other’s necks. In seconds we had slipped out of the few clothes remaining that covered our bodies, Lara letting her underwear slide down around her ankles and unclipping her lacy bra before throwing it aside.

  The sight of her large, round breasts sitting upon her slim frame never ceased to ignite a passion within me that I could barely control.

  My wife stood, descending atop me and straddling my waist. She teased me with her wetness, sliding herself up and down my throbbing length as she straddled me before finally sliding herself onto me.

  I remained below her, wrapping my arms over her back and holding her close to me as I filled her inch by inch.

  No matter how many perilous situations we had faced together, no matter how many we would face, the defenselessness that I felt when I was alone with this woman never changed.

  ‘Our bodies will always serve each other,’ she moaned in my ear, pressing her heaving breasts against my chest. ‘They must. That is how we heal, and how we… gods…!’

  I pressed my lips hard to her neck as she grinded her body against me.

  I held her close to me, feeling every inch of her as I moved inside of her tight wetness.

  Our moans echoed over the cave walls as the water swam by lazily. I indulged in the smoothness of her skin, the press of her walls against me and the rising tide of pleasure that was filling me second by second.

  ‘I’m yours, husband,’ she moaned in my ear. ‘I’ll always be yours.’

  Her words were like nectar running through my mind.

  A surge of ecstasy filled me as I finished in her. I moaned hard, holding her to me as she emptied me completely.

  By the time the haze of our passion had subsided, we were a shaking mess.

  ‘Hopefully that should heal your wounds,’ Lara panted, laughing lightly against my ear.

  ***

  ‘This is hopeless,’ I groaned, tossing the orb to Alorion as we sat in the northern watchtower. He fumbled slightly in catching it and examined it curiously.

  ‘What a strange object,’ he replied. ‘You can almost see what is within… But not quite.’ He tossed it back to me and I caught it.

  ‘I’m almost ready to throw this thing off a cliff. At least that way we’ll know it’s been destroyed and there’s no way that Garrison can get his hands on it. We wouldn’t know where the agrarium was located, sure, but neither would he.’

  ‘But it would still be out there, and the knowledge of that may drive you to even greater frustrations than this small, simple object is right now.’

  ‘So you really are coming around to the thought of this treasure existing, huh?’

  ‘I told you, Master Jack, when it comes to tales such as this, I shall believe it
when I lay my eyes upon it. Right now I see an orb with mysterious properties, but no agrarium.’

  ‘Well, give it a look for yourself,’ I said, ‘maybe you’ll come up with some answers.’

  I tossed the orb to my imp.

  Alorion grabbed for the orb and missed it completely.

  I might have been considering hurling this thing against a tree and shattering it into a million pieces, but my heart truly did skip a beat when it struck the floor of the watchtower with a loud thunk and quickly rolled to the edge of the platform.

  I lunged for it, but just before I could it rolled through the gap between the barrier and the platform and tilted off the edge, disappearing.

  ‘Crap,’ I said, descending the steps to the land.

  ‘My apologies, Master Jack. I hope it has not been destroyed.’

  ‘Me too… I think.’

  I searched in the snow for the orb and finally found the hole in the snow that it had fallen through.

  As I looked down at its unharmed shape in the snow, realization struck me.

  ‘Wait…’

  Earth beneath should now be read; to see what descends, this must arise.

  ‘Arise from the earth…’

  I rushed through the snow to the crop fields and scraped aside the snow with my hands, burrowing through it until I reached the dirt beneath.

  A door opened behind me, and a concerned voice called out: ‘Jack? Are you all right?’ I immediately recognized it as Tormus. ‘I don’t think you shall have much luck growing anything of value in weather such as this.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ I called back. ‘But I don’t think this is a crop that I’m trying to grow.’

  I scooped aside the freezing dirt, creating a hole just large enough for the orb to be buried within. I tipped it inside and covered it up, then stepped back and waited.

  The occasional fleck of snow continued to float down to the ground as I stood there in silence, waiting for… Something.

  Anything.

  It occurred to me that in that moment I had gone completely insane. I had just buried the clue to the next challenge in the middle of my crop field, the very place that I had first started farming corn with a scythe months ago back when it was just myself, Ariadne and Alorion.

  Still, it was better than chucking the thing against a wall and smashing it to pieces.

  ‘Jack?’ Tormus called out. ‘Do you need a hand with anyth-’

  A sudden rumble rocketed through the ground, moving so quickly that I almost fell on my ass.

  The land was vibrating and resonating with an incredible energy.

  Suddenly, from the spot where the orb had been buried, the ground ruptured.

  The snow and dirt splintered as the land around it tore open in a series of strands that stretched eight or nine feet away from their source.

  ‘Jack?’ Santana’s voice called out from the treehouse steps. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Don’t get close!’ I called out, as my wives and several citizens emerged from their nearby homes and looked in my direction. ‘Get back! Everybody!’

  Faintly I could hear baby Oden’s cries from Tormus and Eri’s home.

  The rumbling became greater and greater. It was all emanating from this one spot where I had buried the orb.

  What the hell is happening?

  Then, just as it had begun, the rumbling seemed to recede, returning to the burial site.

  The scars in the ground closed, returning to the orb, and-

  CRUNCH.

  A sharp, tall shape suddenly emerged from the ground, twisting into the air. It bore countless limbs that yearned to the sky, each of them obscured by the haze of snow and dirt that they had brought up with them in their sudden burst from the earth.

  I reached for my sword and switched to my Telekinetic power stone, ready to blast this thing to the ground and take its head off.

  But as the snow settled, I realized that this wasn’t an enemy.

  It wasn’t even alive.

  My wives and several of my citizens approached cautiously, circling the structure from a safe distance and gazing up at its bizarre shapes.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ A voice called out.

  I looked past the structure to see Cass racing across from the western side of the land, Aden’s hulking form keeping up at her side.

  ‘Just causing a little havoc,’ I replied to Cass.

  ‘Nothing’s changed there,’ she smiled. ‘What is this thing?’

  ‘That’s a damn good question.’ I turned to address my citizens. ‘Nobody get too close. This thing was made by an intelligent but likely insane man.’

  ‘Gods…’ Ariadne exclaimed, staring up at the tree. ‘The amount of energy that must have been contained within that orb in order to create something like this.

  ‘I know,’ I replied. ‘Damn good thing I didn’t smash it, or I don’t think I would be standing here right now…’

  If the gods of Agraria really did exist, I quietly thanked them in that moment for not blowing me to pieces.

  ‘Any ideas?’ I asked Alorion as he reached my side.

  ‘Some,’ he replied, gazing up at the metallic tree curiously. ‘This is dwarven engineering of the finest quality, perhaps unheard of in this day and age, of that I have no doubt, but its nature? I am as lost as you.’

  I approached the structure carefully, examining its form. Bronze branches lay flat upon the thick trunk that was no doubt rooted deep within the ground by more metal prongs.

  The branches moved horizontally outwards for several yards before jutting upwards in splintering diagonal directions, taking on a shape that better mirrored the natural appearance of a real tree.

  But why the flat center?

  I circled the tree, eventually finding a small opening among its metal branches that I could fit through.

  I jumped up and grabbed the edges of the opening and, finding it sturdy enough to support my weight, pulled myself through the narrow gap and into the reaches of this strange construction.

  I found myself stood upon a small platform, in the center of which was a pedestal just like that which I had found back in the tomb of the doppelganger.

  Instead of a box, a meticulously carved three-dimensional map was situated firmly atop it.

  It looked like a forest, with trees crowded together, except for one huge difference – among them, towering over their upper reaches by several volumes of magnitude, were a collection of tall, looming columns.

  I counted five in total – four surrounding a single lone column at the center.

  And upon that lone column, a single droplet of formed silver resided.

  My heart raced in excitement.

  ‘This is it,’ I breathed.

  I just didn’t exactly know where it was.

  ‘Jack, are you all right?’ Talia’s voice called out.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I shouted back. ‘I need you up here.’

  ‘Need who up there?’

  ‘All of you.’

  My wives each climbed up in turn, shuffling through the gap in the metal branches and examining the location upon the pedestal.

  Each replied with dismay – nobody seemed to have a clue about it.

  Right up until Lara arrived.

  ‘I know where this is,’ she said excitedly.

  ‘Are you serious?’ I replied. ‘How?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ She replied, grinning back at me, then at the rest of my wives happily. ‘Wait, does no one know where this is?’

  ‘No idea,’ Ariadne shrugged.

  ‘I have never seen this place before,’ Santana said with a shake of her head and a cross-armed shiver against the cold.

  ‘Never seen it in my travels,’ Talia replied.

  ‘No,’ Elera said sharply. ‘And can you reveal it quickly before my fingers freeze off out here?’

  ‘Look at this,’ Lara smiled cockily, ‘I know something nobody else does. Gods, this whole adventure hinges on my knowledge,
just like with Elera…’

  ‘Except with Elera she didn’t drag it out as long as this,’ Ariadne laughed. ‘Come on, tell us.’

  ‘Not only do I know where this is,’ Lara continued, ‘but we have all been but a few miles from this place. It lies just a few miles east of Ichabod’s Cove. See these six columns? These are natural rock formations. Together they are known by the locals as the Hand of Talaso.’

  ‘How come we’ve never seen them from the cove?’ I asked. ‘They’re gigantic – surely we would be able to see them from the highest level, right?’

  ‘Their bases descend into a deep pit within the ground, and the view of the rest of their height is covered by the surrounding trees. Only with a clear field of vision or up close can you really see them.’

  ‘Then this is where the next clue is,’ I said, pointing to the droplet of silver that stood in the central column, the tallest of them all. ‘What I don’t understand is how we get up there…’

  ‘If we’re really going to do this,’ Lara replied. ‘Then we need to climb.’

  All five of my wives looked to me silently. I glanced between them all, then returned my focus to the central column.

  ‘If that’s what it takes, then it’s what I have to do.’

  ‘Oh, climbing?’ Talia smiled, clasping her hands together with an elated clap. ‘This is going to be so much fun!’

  I frowned back at her with a mixture of fear and concern.

  ‘No?’ She continued, completely aloof. ‘Okay, maybe just for me…’

  Chapter Nine

  There was no time to waste.

  Within minutes I tasked a group to head out with me to the Hand of Talaso east of Ichabod’s Cove.

  I elected to give the warriors a rest on this occasion – they were formidable and skilled fighters, but they had been through enough in holding their own against a literal army of hobgoblins in the snowy wilds of the northern forest.

  What’s more, I needed to keep things tight – there was no sense in bringing too many people with me if we were climbing to a height so great that a simple wrong step could kill.

  Ariadne, Santana and Elera would stay behind to run the land while Talia and Lara would join me – Talia for her peerless climbing skills, and Lara for her ranged dexterity and similar flexibility.