Tomboy Island

Alex found himself alone with Sara.

The brunette was on her back, lying on one of the loungers that grew from the walls of the many bedrooms. Her skin shone from the hot water Alex had rubbed all over her skin. In the absence of oil, this was the best way he could massage them.

In the right light, Alex felt like he saw something else shimmering not just on her skin but as part of it. ‘An early sign of her transformation?’ he theorised. The changes always seemed to progress slowly, then manifest all at once over one night. ‘Likely, most of the prep-work happens unseen and the visual changes are just the final switch being flipped.’

Alex recalled Charlotte’s fox ears suddenly popping up from her hairline and chuckled.

Sara’s questioning hum vibrated through his dick. Stood next to the lounger, Alex enjoyed a casual blowjob. Focusing entirely on the head and upper third of his shaft, the bunny-eared woman had an easy time of it – though her inexperience had been vanquished anyhow over the last few days.

“Just reminiscing about the first time we saw one of the changes,” he explained, brushing the soft fur of one of her animal ears as an extra point of clarity. “It was quite a chaotic moment.”

“I-I can imagine,” Sara answered between gentle bobs. “We’re… all changing, bit by bit.”

“We are,” he agreed, hand trailing over the mark on the bottom-heavy woman’s womb. He ventured a little further, to her pubic mound, finding the slick wetness between her shapely thighs. “Maybe it’d be good to remember where we came from sometime too.”

“...Maybe…” Sara’s reluctant answer was immediately followed by a light moan.

“I want to hear it.” His voice was just as much a mixture of softness and insistence as his penetrating fingers were. “I know who you are right now and I love you.” The confession, if it could be called such, made Sara squeak happily. “If it’s the kind of story you’d rather tell seriously, then I can stop…”

“N-no!” The tennis prodigy was quick to assure, pumping Alex’s manhood with her hand now that her soft lips were otherwise busy. “This – ah – is how we live, right? I… I like this… plus it’s not… ah! R-riight there!” A weak orgasm made the bunny-eared woman incapable of speaking for five seconds. A gulp later, she continued. “...it’s not that serious.”

“Tell me, then, please,” Alex requested.

“D-do you… uhm… this sounds so self-aggrandising… b-but do you know who I am?”

“Sara Mendoza, daughter of a tennis prodigy, herself the talent of a generation,” Alex summarised what she knew about her. “Debuted at age 15, a streak of tournament wins only interrupted by injury, whispered to be virtually guaranteed to take gold in the upcoming Olympics.”

“Y-yeah…” Sara squirmed a bit under his fingers. “That’s… what they say about me… I suppose.”

“And who is the true you?” Alex wanted to know.

Sara gave his cock a quick kiss before taking a deep breath. “My mother always shone a bright light on me,” she whispered, her voice straining from present pleasure and past pains. “I didn’t really understand it when I was a child, b-but looking back at it, it’s pretty obvious that she always just saw me as… the next step in her career. She was always strict, but when I was 7 something shifted entirely. She practically dragged me to a tennis court and began to drill me. ‘You were born for this,’ she told me… a-and… well… I sort of was.”

Alex’s fingers slowed but did not pause, respecting Sara’s wish to bask in their current lifestyle even as her childhood trauma spilled from her lips. “What do you mean by that?” he encouraged her when she fell silent for a bit too long.

Content, Sara closed her eyes. She was still, except for the continued up and down of her hand. “The racket in my hand. The motions. The approval my mother gave me when I hit the ball just right… it all felt… correct. I liked tennis, b-but… I learned already that my mother only loved me when I did what she expected me to…”

Alex bent down, quietly putting a kiss on her forehead. When she took a break again, he didn’t prod her with a question, just coaxed her to another orgasm. Even as the sole man of these islands, even as ‘divine Master’, he was nowhere near that controlling and had no intent of being. His love was not such a transactional thing. ‘What a horrid thing to do to a daughter,’ he thought.

“I… w-was just a child…” Sara continued. “So… I thought that was just how things were… a-and I got really good at what my mother wanted me to be good at…. She was so proud of me when she entered me into the 18-and-under national championship… I was 15 and I won…”

That was the debut that Alex had already heard about. “How did you feel?”

“I went to the hotel room and cried,” Sara confessed. “Not because… I was happy… When I received the trophy, my mother hugged me like she had never hugged me before… all the reporters called me ‘heir apparent’. That was all I was to my mother and the reporters, the heir. I bawled my eyes out because… I just didn’t know who I even was.”

Another pause. This time, Sara opened her eyes again. Those hazel pools were deep and met his gaze, surrounded by the light wrinkles of a wide smile. For as little as Alex liked to hear all of this, he was not dealing with a person damaged by any of this. This tomboy harem of his was full of the strongest women a man could ask for.

Sara rolled onto her side, her lips once more wrapping around his cock. The casual blowjob from before was replaced with the determined deepthroating of a woman eager to make her Master cum. Already at the brink, it took Alex barely any time to fulfil her wish, filling her mouth with spurt after spurt of cum. His fingertips curled against her g-spot, massaging that most sensitive point while his supernatural seed did its work, pleasures intertwining into a squirting orgasm that marked the bed of self-cleaning cotton.

“I gulped it all down without permission,” she apologised after.

“The permission is a play, the most important part is always that you like what I am doing to you,” Alex assured her. “What happened after?” He began to lick her juices off his fingers. They tasted pleasantly odd, like… the air of a foggy night.

“...w-well… I had the problem that I was… t-too young to really go up the ladder, both because I still had to mature physically and because of legal things… s-so I became part of a Catholic relief mission to an island hit by an earthquake as a… PR thing…”

“Your mother planned that?” Alex asked, his eyebrows pulling together. “When you were fifteen?”

“S-sixteen, but yes…”

Alex clenched his jaw. He had already disliked the woman for the drilling she had imposed on his Sara, but sending a woman that young to some disaster zone, ripping her out of her social circle and placing her amidst strangers? That was just the cherry atop the dung pile. “Forgive me for saying this, but I don’t care for my mother-in-law.”

Chuckling, Sara answered, “N-neither do I… so…”

“Yo, Alex!” Insistent and cold in equal measure, Blair shouted as she turned the corner. She must have followed their voices without eavesdropping, that was the only way she could have been surprised by the air of the room she strutted into. “...Is this a bad time?” she asked, apologetically.

“N-no!” Sara sat up, a reassuring smile on her face. “It’s… uhm… this is a good point to stop for a bit, so you’re doing me a favour.”

“Is that so?” Blair did not sound convinced, but it wasn’t in her nature to question people, especially not when she wanted something. “We’re waiting for you in the exit area.”

“Right.” Alex had gotten so used to time apparently standing still in the mornings that he hadn’t even given that a thought. With one more glance at Sara, he let out a loud sigh. He wanted to hear more. If she was happy to stop there, then he would respect that. “We’ll talk more later,” he said.

“Later,” Sara agreed.

________________________________________________________

Spoiler

[Perks Active for the Day:

Amethyst:

Flexibility II - When Amethyst joins the party, choose 1 Stat Category. For that day, Rolls of that category are increased by 8.

Horny Spirit - Lewd Crit Range Extension 1 (33 - 34 and 68 - 69)

Blair:

One Track Dedication - Once per day, add +20 to a roll after the result, allowing a narrow failure to be turned into a success.

Sofia:

Stab them with the Pointy End II - while Sofia is in the party, she grants Crit Extension 9 in Combat (Extends Crit Range to 91-100).

Fluid Follow-Up - While Sofia is in the party, all successful attacks deal +1 Poise Damage.

Rerolls and Banked Dice:

You have 2 Rerolls.

You are 10 Likes away from getting a 69 Point Banked.

Weather:

Today is dominated by Thunderstorms. All movements takes 1 more Action. All Rolls are 1 levels of Best of X worse.]

-Voting closed - 17 voters

[You have 16 Actions]

-Voting closed - 19 voters

Dice: 1d4+2

4 + 2 = 6

Difficulty 6, ey?

-Voting closed - 6 voters

[collapse]

Amethyst got the backpack and Blair the gauntlet with their utility items. That was except for the Necklace of Regulation, which Alex put on once more. The axe was also given to Blair. Amethyst wasn’t the weapon-wielding type and Sofia was her own arsenal.

‘She looks really hot when armed,’ the man of the island thought, staring at his fiery succubus. One arm covered by the stone gauntlet, the other clutching the crude shaft of the weapon, and completely naked besides that, she was a toned tomboy goddess. ‘My toned tomboy demoness,’ he corrected himself mentally.

A thunderstrike rumbled through the open entrance. It was another day of horrible weather and if the last thunderstorm was anything to go by, it would be this way all day. Thunderstorms that lasted an entire day uninterrupted were unnatural in basically any climate, but Alex found them especially odd in the tropics. Swift weather changes were pretty common in this area of the world.

Physical sense was scarce on these islands, however.

“We probably won’t explore far today.” Alex stared out into the ashfield – what little he could see of it through the intensifying rain anyhow. Now that they had explored it and with the heat transferral broken, marching through it on a day like this was not nearly as imposing. Still, having to march through the slurry of mud and ash would slow them, as would the wind once they made it into the jungle.

“Progress is progress,” Blair stated bluntly.

“I’m… h-happy to follow you wherever you want to go, Master!” Sofia exclaimed.

“Same,” Amethyst assured.

A finger tapped Alex’s right shoulder. He turned that way, saw no one, then turned the other way to find Janette standing behind him. The mild smirk of the successful tease was on her face. It fit her, despite her usually stoic disposition. “Asking to be spanked?” he asked the wood-antlered woman.

“Do what you must, Master,” she responded evenly. “I have something to show you before you leave. All four of you.”

Interested hums echoed from the day’s exploration party, growing a little louder when Janette led them to the tree’s ‘basement’. The underground chambers were formed less by cavities in the enormous tree and more by overlapping roots. The resulting rooms were nice and cool while the tree was resting, insulated by the earth, perfect to store a lot of perishables.

Janette showed them a descending slope that led several metres underground. “The tree made this overnight,” she explained. “I checked the bottom. It connects to the complex under the volcano. Once I realised that, I came back.”

“Good girl,” Alex said immediately. ‘Did that sound too patronising?’ he wondered, only to spot the sparkle of desire and love in the woman’s eyes. ‘Well, she does consider me divine…’ “I would feel better if you had someone looking after you next time this happens.”

“I’ll consider it,” Janette responded. “Are you going to explore it?”

“Anything that lets me push off going out into the rain for a bit,” Alex joked and climbed down. It was a sharply angled slope, but the walls offered plenty of holds. Even while carrying his sword, Alex found the descent simple to execute.

The root tunnel ended at the side of a dark room. The amber light of the Tree of Harem Life illuminated the cracked walls of the architecture. In its strange mixture of Greek and Aztec influences, it all did remind him of the buildings they had already explored.

The other three explorers were soon with him. Blair provided the glowing crystals, allowing them to see a little more. “I’ll wait up here!” Janette informed them. “If I hear you scream, I will get the others!”

“Good call!” Alex shouted back, then began to explore.

There was no magma around, cooled or liquid, indicating that this part of the complex had broken off from the rest a long time ago and remained isolated since. What it originally had been there for, one could only guess at. The rooms held some remnants of furniture, but nothing that could be salvaged and nothing that hinted at specifics.

They went through three near identical rooms, then emerged into a larger, circular chamber. Light crystal’s glow reflected in a multitude of colourless gemstones, laid into painted circles that were themselves nodes in a much larger ritual site that stretched the entirety of the ten paces of the chamber.

Amethyst held the light crystals high. Sofia and Blair kept weapons at the ready. Alex cautiously advanced and squatted down by one of the fist-sized gemstones. He tried to pick it up. Under the lightest bit of pressure, it fell apart, crumbling into a white stone dust.

“I don’t like the look of that,” Amethyst hissed.

Alex followed her gaze to the middle of the circle. A chaotic knot of lines had been drawn there in grey chalk. Faint yet unmistakeable, the view of the complicated weave spurred on a mixture of dread and rage in the Mongrel’s soul. “It gives off the same aura as the Death Willow’s other extensions,” he growled.

Spoiler

-Voting closed - 11 voters

Dice: 3d100+43

Options: Individual. Threshold: 91.

46,36,71 + 43 = 89,79,114 (1 success!)

That's 3 degress of Success

3/6 of the way to cleared.

[collapse]

The urge to tear the unholy thing apart rose and ebbed away swiftly. This was weaker, much weaker, than any previous lingering influences of the entity. Better to understand what he was dealing with.

Alex carefully wandered around the outer edge of the ritual circle. There was just enough space that people could have walked, though those people would have been notably smaller than Alex and even shorter than most westerners. Alex found the remnants of footprints, preserved by the lack of air movement in this space.

There were more of them between two, smaller concentric circles within the ritual site. Careful not to step on any of the lines, Alex moved over and inspected them. “Walking in the same direction as the outer circle…” he muttered.

“Is that important?” Blair asked.

“Everything is important in magic,” Alex answered with confidence. Over the last two weeks he had been interacting constantly with supernatural activities and he even had a few rituals under his belt by now. “It works with symbolism and intuition. They would have wanted to achieve something by walking in the same direction… a symbol of support, perhaps?”

He looked again at the drawn knot of roots, now close enough that he could have touched it. “A-are you thinking they… called the Death Willow here?”

“Seems that way,” Alex said. “Though I can’t be entirely certain yet…”

Spoiler

-Voting closed - 11 voters

Dice: 3d100+43

Options: Individual. Threshold: 91.

60,84,36 + 43 = 103,127,79 (2 successes!)

And that clears it!

[collapse]

He inspected the ritual circle itself. The layout of it had a cultural significance that eluded him. There clearly was a pattern to it all, jagged lines and flowing curves intersecting and parting in a way that spelled out something. The only thing he did understand was that the gemstones must have served as batteries, now depleted and ready to crumble to dust.

‘To dust…’ Alex repeated in his mind and picked up another one of the gemstones. Rubbing the resulting materials between his fingers reminded him clearly of the remnants of the books. An unlikely coincidence. “Total certainty will always elude us,” he said, “but I am confident enough in this: there was a small group of conspirators who invited the Death Willow into this facility.”

“To what end?” Blair wondered.

“To be spared,” Amethyst weighed in. The liquid woman pointed them at a number of patterns that, combined, created ‘walls’ around people that stood in them. “I would guess they thought the end was inevitable, so they might as well try to negotiate.”

Alex looked around the room once more. “No corpses here… it could be that they got what they bargained for.”

“Isn’t the Death Willow… all against life?” Sofia asked.

“It’s motto is ‘No More Births’,” Alex reminded her. “It seems fine with undead existences, though that’s me speculating.” His gaze locked onto the middle of the circle. “Though there is a way here to learn more…”

“Are you… thinking about reactivating this circle?” Amethyst did not bother hiding her raw disgust.

“No gemstones, nothing to empower the Death Willow’s arrival.” Alex removed himself from the ritual circle, crossing his arms as he thought aloud. “We have a skull and a root of the Death Willow, perhaps one of them could be used to establish contact.”

“To what end?” Blair asked.

“To know the enemy…” Alex rubbed his chin. “Not sure how necessary that is.”

Gently, Sofia placed her hand on his arm, a small thing considered to the girth of his muscles. Despite that, it was more reassuring than anything else in the world could be. “Whatever you decide, Master… I am with you.” She smiled at her fellow tomboys. “We all are.”

“Even if I think it’s stupid, I will follow,” Blair assured.

“Your will be done, Mon- Master,” Amethyst echoed the sentiment.

Spoiler

Choices -Voting closed - 8 voters

Dice: 1d10+6

7 + 6 = 13

Medium Magical Item

-Voting closed - 5 voters

Dice: 1d2

1 = 1

Chalk it is

[collapse]

But what was his will? Alex had only been contemplating the possibility, he wasn’t convinced he wanted to actually do it. In fact, the more he thought about it, the less of an urge he had to talk to the Death Willow. Thinking about that enemy of life reminded him of that subconscious ‘dryness’ in his loins. A steady reminder that this accursed entity was preventing him from giving his tomboys what they all craved.

‘There is some argument to be made that we should wait until the rose-tinted glasses have dropped,’ Alex thought. ‘But I’d rather make that choice on my own, rather than be forced into it by an undead tree.’ Shacking his head, he made his decision. “No, there’s nothing to be said to it. Let’s have a look around. Maybe those that made this ritual left something of value behind.”

The call had the three women relax. To make it absolute, Alex deliberately smudged one of the ritual lines with his foot. Best not to keep something like this under their house, even if they were likely to move again soon.

They scanned the chamber thoroughly. Alex picked up the gemstones one after another, hoping one may have survived the ritual. No such luck, every single last one of them fell apart.

“I got something, I think?” Sofia said and held up a piece of chalk that had been lying in the corner. “Look at this.” The previously red bar turned to white, then black.

“Colour-changing chalk…” Alex mumbled and took the stick once it was offered to him. In its length and girth, it reminded him of the sticks that were often sold to children. It was denser and heavier than that though. It was also remarkably complete.

Squatting down, Alex made a quick line on the floor, then inspected where the chalk had been rubbed off. What little was gone returned over the course of ten seconds.

“Regenerating, colour-changing chalk,” he adjusted his description. “Useful to make ritual circles and leave markings. We’re taking it.” He handed it to Blair for storage.

They found nothing else of note down there.

_______________________________________________________________