Chapter 34.1: What Does the Fox Say

It was strange, the sight of a castle in ruins. Blackthorne looked at it from the center of the small town that Shara had somehow claimed. He had known that she intended to acquire a proper base in the dream world, but this was beyond ambitious. How had she even known about this place?

After he and Ashton had returned home in order to prepare for the assault on Archer’s, it had not been long before Shara had finally awoken. He had made one of his customary silly jokes about how she needed to get more sleep, but it had fallen on deaf ears. She had immediately excused herself and ran off to the building they used as a transfer node.

Scott and the other girls had followed after her to see what had gotten her so excited. Everyone had been excited after Shara explained the situation. They now had a permanently linked transfer point between Earth and the Dream world. Authorized faction members, after the faction was actually made, would be able to cross back and forth at will using the node! They had a permanent fallback point now in case of assault.

“This place. How did you even know about it?” asked Blackthorne. He still thought about himself as Blackthorne in this situation since they were currently in the dream world while awake. How that worked was beyond his ability to understand properly. What would happen when they went to sleep? It was bizarre.

“I had heard many things about it.” said Shara. It was not a lie, per se. She had heard many things about the place, she just did not go into detail about where she had heard them.

“A ruined castle-town on a lake island, but no one came to claim it in all this time?” asked Sonja. It seemed preposterous to her. This place was run down, but practically perfect.

“The neighboring kingdoms use a large chunk of this area as a sort of neutral zone. It’s not inside any national borders and at a distance that makes it difficult to simply occupy, at least during the time when the wolves constantly attacked.”

Blackthorne nodded to her. “Strange, though. You took them all out on your own, but no kingdom sent in an army to deal with this.”

“Ah, it’s the situation. The calamity that befell this place seemed to work based on the sort of people who were here. Stronger people would have met stronger resistance. If more soldiers had been here, I bet there would have been a lot more wolves and the main boss would have been stronger.” said Shara.

“Oh, sort of like a boss event?” asked Blackthorne.

“I think so, yes.” replied Shara with a smile.

“So, you fought off an army of monsters on your own because it was easier than doing it with an army?” asked Ashton.

Shara nodded to her. “Exactly.”

“Videogame logic strikes again. Well, whatever. You did great, Shara.” Blackthorne offered her one of his attempts at a warm smile. Most of his smiles tended to be hollow things, but this one was genuine. Not a mask to hide his inner pain, it was the sort of smile that he offered on the rarest of occasions.

“Thank you.” said Shara in a perky tone of voice.

“This place is pretty big!” said Ashton after they walked up to the castle area. The outer walls seemed a bit decrepit and the portcullis leading to the courtyard was half-broken and rusty, but the place seemed to be in reasonable condition.

Blackthorne nodded slowly then rubbed his chin. A thought that he had been having recently, resurfaced. He had mentioned it once to Sonja, and it seemed like a reasonably good idea despite how much part of it bothered him.

Sonja, perceptive to the needs of her master, noticed his thoughtful gaze. “I have a penny, I think.”

“Hmm?” asked Blackthorne.

Sonja reached into her pocket and fished around for loose change. She pulled out a penny and gazed at it proudly for a moment before offering it to her master.

“What’s this for?” asked Blackthorne.

“I wish to purchase your thoughts. That is the expression isn’t it?” asked Sonja.

Blackthorne laughed softly. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Well?” asked Sonja. “Is this payment sufficient?”

“Sure, though my thoughts are a little disturbing.” said Blackthorne.

“Oh!” Shara reached into her pocket and dug out a penny as well. “Disturbing thoughts? I’m in!”

“Can I get a discount? I’d like to buy that thought too, but I don’t know if it’s worth a penny.” said Ashton. Leave it to the business fox to try and broker a better deal.

Blackthorne collected the pennies, it was a fair trade, and then nodded. “Fine. I thought that it might be a good idea to go to various towns and purchase slaves who wanted a chance to live a more rewarding life here than in the service of some other random asshole.”

The girls were silent for a moment. Sonja was the first to speak. “That could work, but why slaves?”

“Easy transport. If I buy them, I can summon them to my side, right? All I would have to do is return here and call them all by name.”

Blackthorne took a breath and continued. “If we create a transfer node near each major city, say purchase an inexpensive house, we could create a network of nodes capable of rapidly transferring items as well. Yet, if we used slave labor with the additional perk of releasing these people from said slavery if they are willing to immigrate here, we can keep the nodes for our personal use without allowing too many people direct access.”

“Ah! I get it. Buy slaves that you wish to set free afterward if they want to come live and work here as free people?” asked Ashton.

“Yes, we could rapidly increase the members of our faction and get this place up and running. If we find skilled tradespeople we could even get them to produce items. Soldiers could be trained here and even taken to Earth to help protect the town there, as the levels of people here transfer completely when going to Earth.” said Blackthorne.

“So, operation illegal immigration is a go then?” asked Shara.

Blackthorne grinned at her. “I like the sound of that. Operation illegal immigration.”

Ashton snickered, “The dreamers are taking all ‘er jobs!”

“All ‘er jobs!” exclaimed Blackthorne.

“Allerjobs!” exclaimed Ashton.

“A-duurjob!” railed Shara, before making a cross-eyed expression. She just had to get in on the silliness of the moment.

Sonja stared at the shouting morons. What ailed these people?

Blackthorne reached over and patted the Valkyrie on her head. “It’s alright. You’re better off not understanding.”

“So, you think it’s better if I don’t know things?” asked Sonja curiously.

“Way to keep ‘em barefoot and pregnant there, fella.” said Ashton.

“I’m not pregnant, yet.” said Sonja.

“Yet? Should I be jealous?” asked the fox girl.

“Yes.” replied Sonja with a smirk.

Ashton crossed her arms over her chest then swished her tail from side-to-side. “Fine, I’m jealous then.”

Blackthorne rolled his eyes. These girls. Seriously, these girls.

“Speaking of pregnant, how about a reward for conquering a kingdom for you?” asked Shara sweetly.

Blackthorne nodded to her. He reached over hand handed her the two pennies that he had gotten from her and Sonja earlier. “For meritorious service beyond the call of duty. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Shara laughed warmly then held up her prizes. “Oh, such extravagance. I shall treasure this reward and keep it close to my heart.” She then promptly dropped the coins down her cleavage and gave her torso a good shake. Somehow, the coins did not fall out of the bottom of her top.

Blackthorne made a slight cough then turned away a little. “Yes, you do that.”

“If you ever want them back, feel free to try to find them.” said Shara with a wink.

The black armored warrior nodded, but said, “I think those belong to you. I suspect anything that goes in there will be lost forever.”

Shara blinked at him then her face slowly turned red. “Anything you say?”

Blackthorne’s eyes widened slightly at the implication. Was she thinking about what he thought she was thinking about?

“Speaking of pregnant, maybe the first stop should be my homeland?” asked Sonja.

“Why would your homeland be part of pregnancy discussions?” asked Ashton.

“My people would no doubt love the idea of a whole new world of potential husbands that might not be inclined toward selling their wives into slavery. Besides, I can’t become truly pregnant with any human save for my husband.” said Sonja.

“So, you can’t have kids unless you get married first? How does that even work?” asked Ashton.

Sonja shrugged. “I don’t know the specifics. There is something about the differences between the body of a Valkyrie and a human male that prevents such things. Only the marriage rites allow for that to change.”

“Sounds like, a biology thing. It’s like how cats and dogs can’t interbreed? Those marriage rites must be some sort of fertility magic, I guess?” asked Blackthorne.

“Something like that.” said Sonja. “It’s one reason that my people don’t have as many of the issues with sexual relations that humans do. We rarely encounter diseases that come from such things, and those can be cured easily enough. We also can only have children with our husbands.”

“Sounds nice.” said Ashton.

Sonja shrugged. “It is simply our way. We spend our youth learning to please men so that once we are skilled enough, we can properly please our husbands. Sometimes it is even fun, though human men tend to be fairly weak and many are unskilled lovers.”

Blackthorne nodded. “I suspect that feminist groups would have a serious love-hate relationship with your people.”

“What are feminists?” asked Sonja.

“Depends on who you ask that question. I think of them as people who want women to be seen as equal to men. Some think that they want to be superior to men.”

“Clearly the latter make more sense.” said Sonja.

“Oh?” asked Ashton with a grin.

Sonja cocked her hip to the side and made an imperious gesture. “No mere man is my superior.”

“Not even me?” asked Blackthorne flippantly.

The Valkyrie’s face reddened slightly and she made an uncomfortable noise. “You are no mere man.”

Blackthorne blinked. However, it was Shara who spoke. “Wait, so you’re saying he’s superior to you?”

Sonja looked away slightly and did not answer. Her cheeks began to burn with embarrassment, a hard emotion to thing to engender within her people.

Shara continued her train of thought. “Superior means the top. Does this mean Scott’s on top?”

Sonja snorted. “I would have no issue with it.”

“Wooo!” said Shara before pointing at Blackthorne. “Someone’s made a good impression.”

Blackthorne sighed loudly. How had things turned to this topic? Seriously, they had better things to do than worry about whether or not he was on top of things.

“Yep, definitely jealous.” said Ashton before leveling a pout at him.

He rolled his eyes then shook his head. “Seriously, what are we talking about?”

Sonja glanced over to Ashton. “Why jealous? Have you not been with him?”

“What? No.” said Ashton.

“Truly? Why not?” asked the Valkyrie, confusion writ on her face.

“That’s…” began Ashton. Well, weren’t Scott and Sonja together? She liked him a little too much, but that seemed obvious. “Are you saying you wouldn’t care if we got together?”

“Should I? We are all clearly sisters, we have shared both our lives and blood together. We are bound in common cause.”

“Wa-ait a minute. Are you saying…? You are saying it aren’t you?” asked Ashton.

Sonja stared at Ashton, her confused expression increased in intensity. “Speak your words plainly.”

“Well, you. Are you saying that you consider it normal for sisters to share the same guy?”

“Yes, of course. Men strong enough to defeat us in battle are hard to find. It would be selfish not to share in the joys of his strength with your sisters.”

Ashton acquired a properly scandalized expression. The very thought of what she had just heard was so foreign that her ears perked up and the fur on her tail stood on end.

“Wow, you’d better take a sports drink with you when you go to her village.” said Shara.

Blackthorne looked to his red-headed childhood friend. “Shara…”

“You don’t mind it either?” asked Ashton while she looked to the red-head. She knew the girl was overly friendly and seemed to have lesbian tendencies, but this was still a foreign concept to the confused fox girl.

“No, I’m team harem all the way.” said Shara.

“T-team harem? All of us, at once?” asked Ashton.

“Including yourself, I see.” said Shara with a grin.

Ashton’s face turned bright red and she spun around quickly to hide the fact. “I… We should discuss other business.”

“Says the girl who had her nose in his butt crack the other day.” said Shara lightly.

Ashton made a strangled noise then shook her head. She did not want to have this conversation at the moment. It was not as surprising as it could have been, she had suspected and seen evidence of it, but now that she was confronted with the blatant possibility of that sort of relationship she was embarrassed and confused.