Chapter 686: One last chance

Mason ran straight through the fey to the elven city, still processing his meeting with Cerebus. Stag found him and guided him silently as before, seeming unbothered by the small battles still going on between the planar creatures.

They (OK, Stag) easily found the hidden ‘waterfall’ leading to a swirling mist of arcane energy that represented Shariss. Mason stepped inside, staring as a message trailed across his screen.

[Error. Dungeon: City of Portals. No longer accessible.]

As usual, the system was infuriatingly unclear. Did that mean it wasn’t accessible at all, or just to him? Had the elves done the post-apocalyptic version of unfriend him? Was it gone? Were they dead?

He checked his profile and still found the ‘temporary’ title of Elf Friend. He glanced at Stag hoping for answers. The immortal creature wandered off and munched some nearby leaves. The only answer he picked up through their bond was something like ‘I don’t know, I don’t pay attention to you short-lived creatures’.

“Elves live like a thousand years. And they have a giant, floating, magic-filled city in your plane. You’d think you’d notice it vanishing. Or moving, or something.”

Stag gave the stag version of a shrug. Mason turned around and stomped back towards Nassau, resisting the urge to drink from his god-wine. He went to Nighteyes one last time, trying to decide how to tell the centaur leader that tomorrow many of his people would die.

“Yes, many will die.” The shaman watched him with those huge, dark pupils in his command tent, ready with two cups as he arrived. “But they will die gloriously.”

Mason couldn’t help but smile. They sat (and horse-leaned) and drank in comfortable silence, until Mason got tired of the poorly made and very weak alcohol, and took a sip of his artifact-wine. It made him shiver like the first time he’d tried vodka, burning down his throat until it kicked its way to his gut.

He shook it off, frowning at the lack of any kind of ‘nature blessing’. Maybe he’d need a few hits to raise his chances. A few hours before the end of the world probably wasn’t the time to try it, though. He noticed the centaur staring.

“Best stick to that fermented milk. This stuff’ll kill you.”

Nighteyes sipped from his cup.

“You are very strange, even for a human. But I hope you survive.”

“Me too. To our ongoing survival.”

He hoped roboGod would appreciate being quoted to himself. Then he took another sip and shuddered at the taste and strength. Still no blessing. Maybe Cerebus wasn’t being so helpful after all. He stood, glad when the room didn’t start spinning.

“Well. Good luck. If you see a giant cloud of fire over the forest, and you get a spare minute, I’ll appreciate any demons you kill in our direction. I doubt I’ll have time for another visit.”

Nighteyes nodded with no sign of finding that amusing.

Mason nodded a goodbye, then warped back into the fey through the shaman’s ‘holy mountain’ base camp, finally going back home. He saw nothing urgent in his profile, but he still wanted to check in with Haley, finding most of his girls in the chief’s hall.

It seemed like they were waiting on him. A lot of beautiful faces lit up as he walked in, and he saw baskets and backpacks and decent hiking shoes.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be home. But there’s still some light.” Haley came to give him a kiss on the cheek and a hug, and he wrapped an arm around her. “We thought we’d eat supper in the forest. Or at least in the city below. Down in the trees. Maybe by the animals?”

He looked between his women as they gathered up babies in carriers, loading up an eye-rolling Becky with a double holster. He didn’t need to force the smile.

“Sounds perfect.”

After a round of hellos and hugs, and a pregnant Demi laying down and saying she wasn’t going anywhere, Mason’s family made their way to the forest floor.

It was the slowest moving procession in human history. Or at least that’s how it felt to him. The girls were chatting and all trying to tell him things, acting as if the end of the world wasn’t arriving with the next dawn.

“I assume they’ve been coached,” he whispered to Haley, who was holding his arm as she walked beside him. “All smiles. No doom talk. That sort of thing.”

“I have no idea what you mean.” His blonde beauty smiled her sly smile, and he couldn’t help but match it.

“Demi’s doing OK? I thought maybe I should chat with her before we went. But I didn’t smell any drama.”

Haley tossed a hand in dismissal.

“She’s fine. Any excuse to be on her own. She gets a little tired of us. And I think she wants to sleep and be ready to be useful tomorrow. She was complaining about some kind of ‘cooldown’.”

Mason knew she meant her ridiculous prestige power ability to summon giant elementals. It definitely would have been nice to have, but she’d saved lives using it when she did. He didn’t waste time worrying about it.

Instead he moved closer to Becky, giving his cowgirl a smile as he leaned in and tried to gently stroke the sleeping babies in her carrier.

“You don’t even know which one of your brats this is.” Becky gave him a challenging eyebrow raise as he inspected.

He glanced to see which mother was watching.

“It’s Lexi’s.”

Becky made a beeping sound like he’d picked the wrong answer on a game show. They both winced because the baby woke up at the sound. He narrowed his eyes and inspected again before Haley came and scooped her up with little kissy faces, muttering French words he sort of understood.

“Well, I was close.”

Becky rolled her eyes, but she was fighting the grin and looked happier than she had any right to considering their circumstances. But maybe he was wrong. Maybe there was nothing to do when facing death but smile and enjoy whatever time you had left.

“You’re something, you know that?” He met her green eyes, enthralled by her big, white smile, and the amount of cleavage in her shirt. Maybe a little inappropriately turned on.

“I know.” She shrugged and flicked her hair dramatically. “Also I’m thinkin’ about chargin’ for baby service. This is gettin’ ridiculous.”

“Charging what? You already get whatever you want.”

“Not true.” She gave him a look that let him know he wasn’t the only one feeling a rise. “A girl can always get a little more.”

He did his best to think unsexy thoughts, but he was surrounded by beautiful women and it wasn’t easy. He dropped back to chat with Naya and Ayet, pleased to find them smiling and looking as happy as the others. He wasn’t sure if they knew about the sudden disappearance of the elven city, but when they didn’t mention it, he decided not to bring it up.

They eventually made it down to the forest floor and the ‘lower city’, as the civilians now called it. Mason had brief flashes of memory going all the way to his arrival as an enemy. He’d slaughtered a dozen of the old Nassau’s players out in the forest. Broken in to save Blake, killing the old chief with his first spell. The place had been mostly a shithole back then. A few cabin-like houses. A fire pit and some storage.

Now it was filled with upgraded civilian structures. Thousands of people worked and lived all around him, the sound of talking, laughing humans and elves coming from every direction.

It was a good thing, and bothered him far less than it used to. But he had always felt apart from it, and still did. His instinct was to move away from the noise and chaos, to find somewhere quiet with his family and just watch them and listen to the sounds of the forest.

Haley understood, of course. She led him by the hand to the animal pens, and an attached, much larger space that was basically just fenced in forest.

“No one except a few handlers are allowed in here,” she whispered, squeezing his hand. “But I gave them the day off. And don’t worry, I’m monitoring your profile. Carl’s getting the same messages. If there’s any threat that needs you, we’ll get it. You don’t need to watch.”

Despite everything, he felt his shoulders starting to relax. He closed his profile and let One with Nature feed his senses, sensing the life all around him, inhaling as he closed his eyes. Maybe he could just take a moment to enjoy it all.

“What’s it like, husband? Being the chosen of a god?”

He blinked to find Naya beside him. His women had already set up blankets and were starting their picnic. They were eating and laying out the babies to crawl or at least wiggle around, laughing and chatting. A few curious wolves had moved in to investigate, but they were all signaled as ‘human kin’ in the intelligent creature’s social hierarchy and in no danger.

How long had he been standing there? He hadn’t even noticed the time pass, except as a kind of sense-filled pleasure.

“I’m sorry, I’ve disturbed you.” Naya went to walk away, but he grabbed her hand.

“You didn’t. It’s like…having the smell after rain, but all the time.” He shrugged, struggling to explain it. He knew there was a kind of loss with the heightened power, too. That how he’d ‘felt’ as a normal man before all this was almost gone. “I don’t get fully tired. Not like before. I’m always hungry and horny. The wind isn’t cold. The sun isn’t hot. I can hear your heart beat. I can listen to the thoughts of that squirrel over on that tree.”

He didn’t know what to do with the look of awe in Naya’s eyes. How to explain he was just a man in some alien god’s game. He knew he never could, and didn’t see any point in trying. And he didn’t want what little time they had left to be so serious. He cracked a smile.

“He’s worried you’ll steal his stash. He doesn’t trust you.”

“Me?” Naya smiled and seemed to remember he was her husband and not a demi-god. She pushed into his side without even glancing at the other women, her shyness and awkwardness around them mostly gone. “You’re the one who’s always hungry. He should worry about you.”

Mason grinned and put his arms around her tiny waist, still stunned by her beauty when he took the time to really look at her. He felt the urge to tell her the pregnancy curse was really all Gaia, or probably all Gaia, but he didn’t see much point in that, either.

“Being a druid makes me neutral. But you’re a ‘clever, long-eared hunter’. He knows what you’re about.”

Naya laughed and hugged him. He just held her and breathed her in. They were probably there a few minutes before he sensed Becky and Ayet coming to join them. Ayet seemed a little shy, like she’d been talked into something. Becky gave him a sneaky smile when he looked over.

“We were thinkin’, since the Baby Brigade is busy with their youngins, maybe we could…enjoy not havin’ ‘em. Just for a minute.”

He glanced at the other women through the trees, who indeed did look happily eating and playing with the babies and curious wolves (and now birds).

This will be my life, he thought, taking Becky’s hand as the girls all linked up and followed with a few nervous giggles. I just have to win tomorrow. I just have to survive.

The ‘subtlety’ of the seduction vanished quick. Becky kissed him with full on tongue, then Ayet, basically shoving the elf into his arms as she started groping them both and pulling in Naya.

Pretty soon he had his cowgirl and wife turned around and braced against a tree, Ayet looking lost but eager as he pulled her in take his tongue. She moaned against him as he yanked down Becky’s jean shorts and pulled up the bottom of Naya’s dress. He had their incredible asses exposed with a few seconds work, tearing off panties next as he started working his other hand between Ayet’s legs.

Soon all three women were watching him, eyes drooping with lust, chests rising with anticipation. He hadn’t turned on his aura, and there was no magic in the air. They wanted him because they desired him so much they were all willing to share. To live together with his harem, even if they didn’t have children.

But they would, he promised himself—all three of them. They’d survive, and sort it out.

He took turns fucking them against the tree, loving every second of their warm, eager wetness. They were all touching and kissing and stripping what was left of their clothes right there in the woods with his other wives waiting. He filled mother and daughter while his cowgirl sucked and squeezed his balls, or made out with them and laughed as they came and failed to stay quiet.

The other women heard, but just kept chatting except to give a few encouraging whoops. It was normal to them now. The strangeness of sharing him giving way to a happy, comfortable life they’d chosen.

He lifted Becky and spread her legs last, banging her tough player body against the rough bark. He heard the squirrel chitter in complaint above, grinning before he pumped his cowgirl so full she slumped against him, his cum dripping out of her.

Don’t worry, buddy, he thought to the little creature. It’s not your nuts they’re after.

He let Becky down and leaned against the tree as he sighed, letting the concern for what came next drift away. Whatever happened, he’d fight to the bitter end, knowing he’d lived and done what he could.

As the squirrel ran off with a final complaint and a mouthful, he eased the three beautiful girls to their knees, deciding to give them the same.