The Lake

“There it is.” Tally led the way out of the dense woods at last, onto the bank of a large lake stretching out before him. On the other side, sitting atop a distant hill, was the castle. In all probability, the Queen was in there at this very moment, continuing to freely allow more monsters into the world through the portal in exchange for their adherence to her rule. Tally felt a little pang of regret, but quickly shoved it aside: To save the kingdom, she must be stopped, no matter what.

“Oh, I think I recognize where we are,” Mi Iau drew up beside Tally, with the others not far behind. “Not far, now.”

“How will we get across?” Prennel asked.

“That’s a good question,” Tally pondered.

“I have an idea,” Zori suggested. “Do we have any rope?”

Mi, Prennel, and Ance all rummaged around in each of their supply bags. “Found it,” Ance said, and tossed a coil over to Zori. “Perfect,” Zori weighed it in her hands. “We can make a raft.”

Given her self-boasted knowledge of wilderness survival, Zori took charge of directing the rest of Tally’s harem in constructing a crude raft with which to cross the river. She could tell at a glance which of the plentiful surrounding logs to use for the best buoyancy, and how to best assemble them for an ideal ratio of weight and stability, while only using a minimal amount of rope. Prennel and Ance's battleaxes came in very handy for the wood-cutting.

Tally made something of an effort to help at first, but he soon realized that the four of them had all wordlessly decided to let Tally sit back and watch while they did all the work. It was a natural foregone conclusion to each of them that Tally should not have to do any of the hard work. An understandable conclusion for their altered reasoning to lead them to, since their lives all now revolved around him.

Tally decided to accept their generosity and lounge on the bank of the lake, while his subordinates built the raft for him. He used the time to think about how he was going to handle the inevitable **** on the royal castle, while munching on a well past-its-prime apple which Mi had helped score off of some looters back in the village.

“Careful, Tally,” Brim appeared beside next to him, sitting sideways on the ground and leaving no imprints on the sand and dirt of the shore. “I can feel your ego inflating a little bit. Is getting treated like a king by our lovely recruits over there going to your head, perhaps?”

“Uh…” Tally blinked helplessly. His immediate impulse was to deny this accusation, but then again, Brim did have a talent for reading his mind.

“Don’t worry, not in any obvious way… yet…” Brim continued ominously. “Anyway, do with this information what you will, I just thought you might want an update on how your personality’s been doing recently.” With a cheery smile, Brim vanished from Tally’s vision before he had a chance to ask her anything else, leaving a lingering puff of self-doubt in her wake. Tally continued to eat his apple, freshly swamped with paranoia to the point where he wasn’t even sure if he was imagining the faint sounds of Brim snickering which he thought he could hear in the back of his mind or not.

Soon, Tally’s harem had finished building the raft, and it was time to test it. It didn’t look overly impressive, just a square of logs tied together, but there was no point in making it pretty. Ance pushed it out into the water, and sat on it. “Works with one person!” she declared triumphantly. Next, Prennel waded out to join her. Unfortunately, when she tried to get on the raft, the problem became clear. The thing was neither spacious nor buoyant enough to carry all five people. It was already struggling to stay afloat with two, and they were already having trouble moving around each other. “Oh dear,” Tally said, watching Prennel hastily take her weight off the raft before it sank.

“I won’t be needing the raft,” Zori said, “you don’t need to worry about me.” Then, on the spot, she began to strip off her clothes.

“What are you doing?” Prennel asked, trudging back onto land. “I’m gonna swim,” Zori replied, “don’t want to get my clothes all wet, do I?” A few seconds later, Zori had completely removed all of her homemade garments and left them in a crumpled pile by her feet. She was clearly one hundred percent comfortable being naked in front of Tally and the others, as she didn’t even bother to turn her back or cover herself with her hands or tail. Instead, she just stuffed her clothes into one of the supply sacks, and stood around with her arms folded waiting for orders.

Tally indulged his id for a moment by letting his gaze linger on Zori, who let him stare all he wanted. He was, in truth, a little disheartened to find that she hadn’t been hiding much under her shirt. “Aww…” Brim lazily drifted across his view, “Is Tally disappointed that the reptile doesn’t have tits?”

“I think Zori has the right idea,” Mi announced. The four of us will swim, and Tally and all our supplies will be on the raft. Approved, Tally?”

Tally looked at her, surprised. “Swim? All of you? It’s an awfully long way across the lake…”

“We’ll be fine,” Mi insisted. “We’re strong. It won’t be that bad.”

“Okay, if you say so…” Tally agreed.

“Right, everyone, you heard him,” Mi clapped her hands, “let’s get going.”

While Zori goofed around in the water waiting for everyone to be ready, Tally stood back and watched Mi, Ance, and Prennel strip down to their underwear. Ance was obviously trying to act sultry as she slowly removed her clothes, making a particularly big show out of taking off her bra in an attempt to impress Tally. Mi didn’t play anything up for Tally’s benefit, just undressing as she normally would, but Tally did notice her breathing start to accelerate once she was fully naked: Exposing herself to Tally was making her excited. Prennel just stopped once she was in your underwear. “Prennel,” Ance had to remind her, “Don’t you think Tally would have more fun if he could see all of you?”

“Oh, good idea,” Prennel said enthusiastically, and only then did she completely disrobe. If Zori had perhaps been a tad underwhelming, then Mi and Ance and Prennel more than made up for it. The three of them waited for a few moments to just stand around and let Tally take in the view, which Tally would have wished for anyway, but would have been too embarrassed to ask of them. Every time Tally had a selfish desire, his harem would pick up on it without him even having to say anything, effectively taking the choice of whether to act on those thoughts out of his hands. Brim was right, this sort of treatment was sure to corrupt him if he wasn't careful.

Once Tally’d had his fill of getting acquainted with Mi, Prennel, and Ance, they loaded all the sacks, their weapons, and their clothes, onto the raft. It was just about able to stay afloat with Tally’s weight on top of it too. “Come on, guys!” Zori called out from further out in the water. “What are…” She paused mid-sentence to dive under the surface, and emerged a few seconds later holding a squirming fish. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!” She concluded, before stuffing it in her mouth raw. Mi, Ance, and Prennel pushed Tally and the raft out onto the surface of the water, and swam alongside it to catch up to Zori.