Build-A-Harem- The Island Collection

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “Al-alright then,” I stammered out, my mouth struggling to make words after that weird analogy, “what do I do then? Should I start building a house?”

  “Well, first things first, you’re going to need to clear the rest of these trees,” Jesse replied gesturing to the six or so other trees that prevented the clearing from being a proper clearing, “then from there… It’ll become clearer as you get more done.”

  “Oh, come on, man,” I groaned as I looked around, “that’s gonna take forever.”

  “I promise it won’t,” Jesse assured, “go on, give another one a few hits.”

  I wasn’t all too keen on turning the game into an arborist sim, but Jesse hadn’t led me astray at that point and I didn’t see why he would start.

  So, with a loud groan, I hopped off the stump and walked over to the nearest tree, twirling my axe in my hand as I did so, trying my best not to look like I was trying too hard to be cool, before taking the blade to the tree.

  And then something strange happened.

  I’d barely landed one solid swing before the tree, which was a similar height to the first, splintered, cracked, and started falling.

  “What happened there?” I asked after the tree had hit the ground, sending up dirt and leaves with its weight.

  “Just a little something to make sure you don’t get too sick of the game before it’s properly started,” Jesse clarified, “you wanna scan that one now?”

  It took me a moment to catch his meaning, then I nodded, turned my palm towards the tree, and let the Toolbox do its thing, but instead of the text that had shown last time the words ‘Object Scanned. New Recipe Unlocked’ popped up.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked once the Toolbox had absorbed the tree with the wireframe.

  “Why don’t you push that flashing light in your palm and find out?”

  After confirming that there was a light in my palm, I lodged my axe in the fresh stump and pressed my thumb onto the glowing spot in the middle of my hand, causing a holographic screen to appear above it.

  Other than the obvious shock that that had come from my hand, I actually found it kind of hard to look at the hologram, my eyes struggling to focus on it like a Magic Eye image, but I eventually got there.

  “Wow…” I murmured in amazement as I started using my finger to scroll through the screen, “This game has a pause menu and everything…”

  “Game’s not paused,” Jesse warned, “keep that in mind if you ever end up in a difficult… lethal situation.”

  I know it might sound like a bit of a douchey thing to do, but I wasn’t really listening to him, although that was only because the UI was so damn appealing.

  Then I found a little red notification and pressed it, revealing that I could spawn in some more stuff.

  “Ooh, I can build planks.”

  “Ooh,” Jesse mocked, “maybe you can use them to build us a little tea cottage.”

  “I’m allowed to be impre-tea cottage?” I asked, my brain finally catching up with the last part of Jesse’s insult, “What’s a tea cottage?”

  “A… It’s a cottage where you… Alright, shut up,” Jesse snapped, his voice indicating that I’d struck a bit of a nerve, “there’re more trees to clear. Get moving.”

  With a sigh, I closed my hand and the menu with it, and pulled my axe out of the stump and turned to face the next tree which, for whatever reason gave me an idea.

  “Wait… I get more recipes by chopping down and scanning trees, right?”

  “That’s about the size of it, yeah.” Jesse replied, still clearly annoyed from before.

  “Well, why don’t I just spawn in a tree and scan it?” I asked, thinking I’d figured out something really clever that would surely mean I’d breeze through the game with ease.

  “I mean… I guess you can try that, if you want.”

  Jesse didn’t seem all that convinced, but at the same time it wasn’t as if he was actively warning me against it, which said to me that there really wasn’t any harm in trying.

  “Alright,” I said, aiming my hand at an unoccupied section of the ground, “how do I do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “The… spawn… thingy,” I fumbled out, my mouth struggling to find the best way to word my question, “how do I make the Toolbox make stuff?”

  “Oh.” Jesse replied as if he had answer, then made a confused face, and finally tilted his head, “Heh, seems I don’t know that one.”

  “Why not?”

  “Like I said, I’m pretty ‘simple’,” Jesse clarified, “I sort of get information in drips and drops, makes sure I can’t tell you too much. Maybe just try thinking really hard?”

  I went to say that was stupid, then stopped and sighed instead, “Sounds like as good an idea as any.”

  After that I was just left to stand there for a while, aggressively pointing my hand at the ground as I tried to make something out of nothing.

  Then, right as I was about to give up and try to find some kind of tutorial in the Toolbox’s menu, a tree started to appear in front of me.

  At first it was little more than a long brown block laid out across the ground, but after a few seconds the tree started to take shape, like some kind of reverse 3D printer.

  “That…” I trailed off as the Toolbox finished its work, “was awesome.”

  “That’s one word for it,” Jesse added, equally amazed by what had just happened, “looks like you’ve got a knack for this.”

  “Thanks,” I replied somewhat disingenuously as I walked over to the tree I’d just spawned and waited for Jesse to tack on some snarky remark at my expense, “I’m sure I have a really rare talent.”

  “You do in here,” Jesse said, his voice indicating he was being genuine, “this isn’t some MMO, friend. As far as I’m concerned, that’s as good as magic, and there’s actual magic in here.”

  “So, what, breaking it down was no biggie?”

  “Eh, I was prepared for that,” Jesse replied before tapping on his head with one of his claws, “like I said before, I don’t have all the answers, which means some of this stuff’s goin’ to surprise me.”

  I still didn’t really buy his amazement, but there was some part of me that saw it as him at least trying to be a bit friendly.

  With that being said, I couldn’t find a way to respond, so I simply went ahead and started scanning the tree.

  Then it disappeared.

  No text.

  No new recipes.

  Nothing.

  “Okay,” Jesse said after a few seconds of silence, “so I’m going to go ahead and assume that that doesn’t work, must have something to do with original objects or something. I kind of guessed that that might have been the case.”

  “Well thanks for letting me know.” I replied with a disappointed groan before looking around at the other trees, “Looks like it’s the long way around for me…”

  CHAPTER 5

  It didn’t take all that long to chop down all the trees, especially not after I started unlocking some pretty cool recipes like simple shovels, wooden panels, and chests, but while it felt pretty rewarding to unlock all that stuff it was still kind of tiring.

  “Right,” I huffed out after scanning and breaking down the last of the trees, which magically removed all the stumps in the clearing, “what now?”

  “Might be an idea to start building a house?” Jesse suggested, “I’d probably nix the axe first though, don’t want to be carrying it around all day.”

  “And what am I supposed to do with it?” I chuckled, “I’m not exactly comfortable sticking it in the satchel.”

  “Try the Toolbox,” Jesse said, obviously slightly disappointed that I hadn’t thought of that myself, “works on just about everything, remember?”

  It made sense, but at the same time I didn’t really want to use the Toolbox on something I was touching, so I went ahead and threw it at the ground in an attempt to look cool that failed miserably as the blade barely went an i
nch into the soft earth then fell on its side.

  “Must’ve blunted it with the trees.” I said, trying my best not to sound embarrassed.

  “Must’ve, now hurry up, scan it.”

  I didn’t like being rushed, though I was starting to see Jesse’s insistence on hurrying up as a sign that the game was about to reveal something interesting and new.

  “I really hope I don’t lose my axe to this…” I muttered as I aimed my palm at the axe and watched as it disappeared almost instantly, the Toolbox having become more in-sync with my mental commands, and produced a ‘Object Scanned. New Recipes Unlocked’ notification.

  Naturally I just assumed it meant I had the recipe for the hand-axe, but as I pulled up the menu it became clear that I had unlocked a whole lot more.

  “Whoa…” I trailed off as I looked through the mass of new stone tools I’d unlocked, “How’d that happen?”

  “Must’ve picked up the stone off the axe,” Jesse replied, “anyway, want to try spawning in the hand-axe again? Make sure it still works and everything?”

  I’d barely even thought of the command before the axe appeared in my hand, jerking it slightly as if it had been thrown to me.

  “Great,” Jesse said with a nod as I scanned the axe again and it vanished, “now, let’s get a start on this hou-”

  That’s when I accidently interrupted him by making the axe appear again.

  “Having fun there?” Jesse asked, a veiled sort of annoyance wrapping his words.

  “Sorry,” I replied, not really feeling sorry at all, before getting rid of my axe once more, “just wanted to see if I could do it again, continue.”

  Jesse regarded me with no small amount of irritation for a few seconds after that, then sighed and nodded, “I was just goin’ to say that it might be a good idea to see if you can put together a simple house. Well, a shelter, no one’s expectin’ anything major from you… yet.”

  It kind of offended me that he had low expectations for what I would achieve, although there was a relieving aspect to it in that I felt free to sort of explore and experiment.

  So, with a deep breath, I spawned in a crappy-looking eight-by-eight foot wooden panel and let it hang up in the air in a sort of telekinetic way.

  Wait… That is telekinesis.

  Heh, cool.

  “Now what?” I asked, holding the piece of wood in place and watching as it slowly rotated with the gentle aid of gravity and wind.

  “Minority Report.” Jesse replied matter-of-factly.

  “What now?”

  “Minority Report?” Jesse repeated, “Tom Cruise? Time police? How do you not remember Minority Report?”

  “Maybe because I’ve been down here for a long time?” I replied with the same level of irritation I’d expect from an Alzheimer’s patient, “Random references get kind of lost.”

  “Well, find ‘em,” Jesse ordered gruffly, “otherwise you’re goin’ to miss out on a whole mess o’ great jokes and one-liners.”

  “I’ll get right on that,” I said, trying to block out the fact that my arm was getting tired, “but about this particular reference?”

  “Ugh, use your other hand,” Jesse suggested disappointedly, “the whole thing’s mental, tailor-made for you.”

  There was a part of me that wanted to argue that point, but I decided against it and instead raised my second hand so that I basically looked like some kind of battle-ready mage.

  Then it worked.

  I overdid it at first, basically turning what I’d hoped was going to be a wall into a high-speed turbine of death, but I quickly got the hang of it and was able to raise, lower, and rotate the wood at will.

  “This is so cool,” I practically giggled, “where do I go from here?”

  “Like I said, tailor-made,” Jesse said as he watched on with what could’ve been mistaken as him being impressed, “you’ll have to figure it out yourself. Quickly though, we still got some other stuff to do.”

  Now, I don’t know how to accurately explain this, but I spent the next fifteen seconds internally telling myself to shut up while trying desperately to focus on what I wanted to do.

  And just like that, I created a box.

  I’m not going to lie to you, I spent a while after that silently cheering and patting myself on the back, just barely fighting the urge to jump up and down out of excitement and pride as I did so.

  “Nice work, William,” Jesse chuckled, surprising me with the rare use of my name, “now, how do you plan to get into this ‘ere house of yours?”

  “Heh, what? Through the…” I trailed off as I noticed the fault in my design, “God damn it…”

  “It’s alright, happens to the best of us,” Jesse said sincerely, “go ahead and scan one of the walls, you should be able to swap it out for one with a doorframe.”

  It took me a few seconds of tinkering, mostly because I kept panicking and screwing it up, but before long I had a proper house. Sure it was cube-shaped and looked about as sturdy as a cardboard box, but it was a place to call my own.

  “Might want to scan it,” Jesse suggested, “just as a way to make sure you can put it up at a moment’s notice.”

  “Good call.” I said before scanning it and getting a little surprise after I put it back, “It says I’ve unlocked a new recipe?”

  “Did I forget to mention what we were doing next?” Jesse asked slyly as he gestured for me to follow him, “C’mon, there’s more stuff we have to get done.”

  We walked to the beach in silence after that, which wasn’t all that hard given the fact that we were barely a lazy wander away from the ocean.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the blue outline that started on the shore and went about twenty feet out into the water.

  “That, friend, is where you’re going to put a jetty,” Jesse said, “you know, that new recipe you just unlocked?”

  “So, what, I’m not allowed to put it anywhere I want?”

  “You’re more than welcome to, but it might be an idea to start small first,” Jesse replied, clearly not wanting to give away too much, “go on, build the jetty, you know you want to.”

  “I really don’t know that I do…” I muttered with a little smile before raising my hand and pointing it at the outline, “but sure, why not?”

  I barely had to do a thing before the long wooden jetty had built itself, a series of vertical barnacle-covered logs keeping it level with the shore as it went out to sea.

  “There,” I said once the construction was finished and I’d scanned it, yielding nothing, “what happens now?”

  “Now, we wait.”

  “For what?” I asked, looking out to the sea.

  “For them to come.” Jesse replied.

  “Who?”

  Jesse let out an amused huff at that, “Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten the main purpose of this game?”

  I looked and tilted my head at Jesse in response, then sighed when that proved not to be enough to make him clarify, “What do you mean?”

  “You’re building a harem,” Jesse said, looking over his shoulder as best as he could, “a kind of half-assed, cube-shaped harem at the moment, but a harem nonetheless, and what is your harem missing?”

  It took me a bit longer than I’m proud of to realize what he meant, and it may have taken way longer if it weren’t for the fact that a voice was calling out from across the water, drawing my attention back to the ocean.

  “Girls…” I murmured, a mixture of panic and excitement filling me as I watched the tiny dinghy bob over the calmed waves towards my little island.

  “Hope you’re ready, friend,” Jesse chuckled, “because this is where things really start to get interesting.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The boat took its time getting to the jetty I’d constructed, and I mean really took its time, time which was already going painfully slow on account of the prospect of finally being able to experience what I’d gone into the game expecting.

  “I’m
going to go ahead and let you do all the talking here,” Jesse whispered out through the corner of his mouth as the first of two girls climbed onto the end of the jetty, “I might go and see if there’s any food in the area.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I hissed as the first girl, a brunette, tried to help the second, a blonde, out of the boat, “I could really use your help here.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Jesse chuckled before turning away and walking towards the jungle, “besides, worst thing that you can do is piss them off to the point where they’d rather take their chances with the sharks.”

  “That sounds pretty bad!” I barked over to him as quietly as I could.

  “Eh, again, I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Jesse replied before disappearing into the jungle, “good luck!”

  “Hey, you!” the brunette called out from the edge of the jetty where she was having trouble getting the blonde up, “Mind giving us a hand?”

  I was thrown initially, mostly because I was torn between asking Jesse for help and running over, but I quickly got past my mental block and jogged into the water beside the jetty towards the blonde.

  The obvious solution was to simply gesture for the blonde to get out of the boat and follow me through the chest-high water, but she seemed pretty desperate to get up onto the tall, ladderless jetty.

  “What do you need?” I asked, my voice coming out a lot more panicked than I’d hoped.

  “Just give her a boost,” the brunette replied from where she was straining at the edge of the jetty, “she has a thing about water.”

  “I don’t have a thing,” the blonde snapped while I held the boat steady and she struggled to keep her footing, “I have a genuine phobia.”

  “Whatever, just let him help.” the brunette said, her voice clearly indicating that that was far from the first time she’d heard about her friend’s phobia.

  I still wasn’t sure how I was supposed to boost her without letting her touched the water at that point, but as the blonde stepped out of the boat and I was forced to catch one of her feet I realized my hands were basically going to be used as stairs, giving me a brief look up her knee-length, slightly torn black skirt at her white panties before I quickly looked away out of habit.