With a hike.

I felt a sensation that was hard to describe, like the world had just exhaled after holding its breath. The birds began to sing, the insects began to chirp, a wolf howled in the distance, and a cool wind blew through the alpine branches.

Then I heard the sound of pine needles being crunched under metal approaching from behind. I turned to see a redheaded woman in bikini armor with a shield at her back and mace strapped to her hip. She was approaching me—I panicked briefly—but there was no hostility in her eyes; in fact, she had an excited grin on her lips.

“Psst, Ren,” she said, grinning, “it’s me, Joy! Don’t I look cute?” She giggled and spun around in place, her hefty melons jiggling madly and long, crimson braid whipping around her body.

I sized her up, drinking in every inch of her thicc body without shame. Honesty was the best policy, “Very much so,” I said, then added, “are you going commando?” I pointed to her loincloth.

She nodded fiercely, “Yes, explaining will require a bit of groundwork, though. C’mon! Let’s go!” She pointed excitedly in the direction of the cobblestone path. “There are so many cute girls waiting to be discovered, and our journey begins this way!” She turned around and began walking.

I felt some hesitancy at stepping on what was undoubtedly cold stone with just thin sandals, but when I did, I found that my feet were actually perfectly comfortable. In fact, nothing about my current state of dress felt uncomfortable, despite my skimpy sheer dress not providing any protection against the elements. But then, this was a world of fantasy magic, anything was possible. It could have been one of the various accessories like my hairclip or choker. They had crystal hearts on them, which could have symbolized good health.

My thoughts drifted to Joy ahead of me. I hadn’t been lying, she was indeed quite sexy and also kind of cool-looking. I felt my blood pumping just imagining the kind of brutality she could manage with that nasty-looking mace. And let’s not just leave the matter merely implied, the girl had curves that could slay a small nation. In fact, even though her lower half was concealed at this angle by the fancy open-fronted skirt, her back was concealed by nothing aside from her braid. This meant I had a wonderful view of said sexy back, and her tits were so huge that I could see them from behind, peeking out from behind her arms.

I did have to be careful about how horny I got, though, I had a monster between my legs so if that thing got hard then I would have one hell of an awkward tent. I turned my attention to the scenic route to distract myself.

We were hiking upward over a hill, or perhaps a mountain, it was sort of hard to tell. I had no idea what altitude we were currently at. But one thing was for certain, this body didn’t just have looks, it had stamina. Even the small distance we had climbed uphill so far would have slain me back when I was alive, I barely even felt a burn in my legs from this trek. The lack of stimulation did kind of make things boring, though.

“If you have any questions, now would be a good time to ask,” Joy offered, as if on cue. “Once we reach our destination out of character chats like this will probably get a lot rarer.”

“Where are we going?” I asked to start things off.

“To the peak of this mountain where a portal to Atla Eden resides,” Joy replied in a dramatic tone. “I’ll talk more about it when we get there, I don’t want to ruin the surprise too much.” She giggled, “But rest assured, it’s full of nothing but fantasy cuties as far as the eye can see.”

That did sound nice. “Are they all dressed like us?” I asked.

“Girl, let me tell you, some of them are in even less.” She then let out an oddly adorable yet totally lecherous laugh. This girl was shaping up to be the woman of my dreams, she was almost as pervy and horny as I was.

I chuckled a little and said, “I can’t wait,” then decided to move on. “Okay, so why are we going there? Is there a reason? Do we have any backstory or are we just wanderers?”

“Excellent questions. You are a Harem Priestess raised by the elves of Roell—this forest,” she gestured to the general scenery. “Your duty is to perform a ritual to purify Atla Eden’s water source for reasons I’ll get into when we get there.”

That sounded kinda neat, it sounded like the plot of an RPG. Also, “Harem Priestess” sounded like a hell of a title to have, I was one-hundred percent on-board. But if I was a priestess, I had to wonder what god I was supposed to pray to.

“As for me, I am a knight and paladin from the nearby kingdom of Riverhold, your personal bodyguard.”

I nodded, that was cool. “So, we’re both religious, but who do we worship? And what exactly is a ‘Harem Priestess’ supposed to do?”

“We follow Syradis. She is the most commonly worshipped deity among mortals and is believed to be a goddess of love, healing, light, and community. And simply put, a Harem Priestess is a cleric of Syradis who has been given the divine duty of amassing a harem of sexy ladies to help repopulate the world. That purpose is a bit archaic, though, since artificial and magical means of reproduction have been discovered. But the ‘amassing a harem of sexy ladies’ part is still a sacred tradition.”

I could vibe with that.

“Oh hey, we’re actually getting close, but the way ahead is going to get steeper. Please be cautious.” She paused a moment, “Actually, let’s stick closer together from here on out, just to be safe.”

“Will do,” I smiled and then linked our hands together.

She blushed furiously, “Ho-whoa! A cute elf is holding my hand! I’m so happy right now,” she said giddily.

“You act so surprised.”

“I am surprised!” She said and then wiggled in place, bashfully. “I made this place so you could have a bunch of lewd fun but that doesn’t mean I really expected you to include me in it beyond just being a guide.”

“Are you not part of my harem?” I asked, just a tiny bit disappointed.

Her face turned bright red, “No—I mean, I would love to be! I mean, uh, if you want me to. I didn’t want to go and make that decision without you, you know? Me being in your harem means we’ll be doing… you know… naughty stuff.”

“And why wouldn’t I want that? You’re pretty sexy.”

“Stooop,” she whined and wiggled more. But then cleared her throat and seemed to steady her resolve before saying, “If you would have me, I would be honored, Your Radiance.” It was clear that she was partially roleplaying right now, but I could feel true conviction there as well.

“Of course!” I smiled at her. “Welcome to my harem, Lady Joy.” The truth was that I felt more inclined to include her than anyone else I might have encountered here. I didn’t really know how else to describe it other than the fact that in my head she would be the most “real” person. She wasn’t a fabrication of the Atlas; she was an outsider like me. This isn’t something I planned to reveal out loud, though. Given that she created this world, she might have taken that idea the wrong way. Also, logically, I understood that if the Atlas is able to do its job well at all, the people it makes would still be very real in the context of this world; so, my feeling on the matter was honest but flawed and I wasn’t prepared to mentally handle that quite yet.

But we began walking forward again all the same, now holding hands and smiling. It was nice, I felt like I was taking a romantic hike with a lover. The trail did indeed get much steeper than from here. While my stamina was still going strong, my legs did feel a little bit of burn by now, and my breathing was just a tad bit labored. Despite this, I felt like I could keep going for hours, and there wasn’t anything especially treacherous about the path we were taking.

In fact, we crested a hill and came to more of a gentle and straight-forward road, and it was then that the semi-romantic nature of our stroll had begun to affect me. I was feeling a little flirty, so I passed her hand over to over to my other one. This had the effect of making us huddled closer together, and it made her arm go across my chest.

I did not try to stop it from touching my breasts, in fact, I pushed them out so that they were practically grinding against Joy’s arm. Additionally, I placed my now free hand around her waist and hugged her even closer to me. I could feel one of her hefty breasts pressing against one of mine, and it was a strangely comfortable and satisfying feeling.

Her reaction to this new set of stimuli was to blush intensely and giggle more often, occasionally glancing in my direction with a dazed yet delighted grin. I was getting a little flushed myself as I smiled back at her.

As we walked along, I tried to relax a bit and just take in everything around me. The wind rustling through the trees. The sweet scent of flowers and sap from the pines. The animals in the distance, calling to their fellows in one way or another. It was beautiful, and it had an emotional impact on me. I had been a shut-in for most of my life, I’d never even gone camping before, and now here I was, hiking through such a gorgeous forest hand-in-hand with a cute girl who truly understood my creative impulses.

Eventually, we reached what had to be our destination. I was excited, because for several paces before we got there, I could catch glimpses beyond the tree line, and it looked amazing. When at last we emerged into the clearing, my jaw nearly dropped.

We were standing at the peak of a mountain, and the ground fell away into a steep cliffside below us. What I saw beyond filled me with so much wonder and child-like giddiness that I couldn’t help but begin running to the very cliff edge to get the best view possible. It was a valley surrounded on three sides by mountains. To the left was a much larger mountain range, with peaks which extended far into the clouds; on the opposite side of me was another palisade of stone of equivalent size to the one I was standing upon; and the valley extended for at least a hundred miles off to our right. Looking below, I could see the sparkling waters of a massive lake with a single large river flowing out into the valley. But floating above the lake and directly in front of us was the true wonder.

It was a massive island in the sky, surrounded by fluffy clouds, suspended in the air by seemingly nothing at all. Atop the floating landmass I could see rolling hills, twisting rivers, and a sprawling forest climbing up the side of a single mountain. The rivers sent huge cascades of water over the edge of this island and into the lake below. I’d never seen anything quite like it, it was beautiful, like a painting of a distant world.

“Whoa,” I heard myself say.

“There it is,” Joy said from beside me, grinning, “Atla Eden.”

I was silent, and a little overwhelmed but in a good way. I asked, “What is it?”

“Okay, strap yourself in, it’s lore time, baby. This will take a little bit of infodumping.” She then proceeded to explain everything.

Exactly 30,512 years ago, Atla Fantasia was at war with an evil demon king who desired for the whole world to submit to his tyrannical rule. In order to achieve this goal, he unleashed the Shadow Curse upon the land. It was a deathly blight, killing everything that came upon it. Animals, plants, and most of the mortal races fell to the darkness quickly and without mercy.

In a last-ditch effort to ensure survival against the Shadow Curse, the goddess Syradis created a number of floating islands called the “Edens”. The Shadow Curse would not reach these islands, and those that fled there by use of the portals could live and bide their time until the land below had healed.

“As you can see,” she said, pointing down into the gorgeous green valley, “the healing process has already begun. But if you look to your right, which is directly south of Atla Eden, darkness still dwells.”

Sure enough, if I looked further across the sprawling valley, I could see squalls of thunderclouds looming ominously over the landscape, and in their shadow only dust and wastelands dwelled. That was pretty fascinating.

“In this present era, the demon king has been slain and almost half of the land in Atla Fantasia has become habitable again. Since it gets more dangerous the further away from an Eden one travels, many still choose to live within the Edens.”

“Okay, that all makes sense.” I said, “So why do I need to go to the Eden in the first place?”

Joy continued her explanation. Each Eden produced an endless amount of water from the spring at its center, and the source of this water was a holy spirit. This spirit continuously enchanted the water with holy energy, and when this water spilled down into the land below, it actively repaired the damage done by the Shadow Curse. In this present era, in addition to serving as a sign that Syradis has not abandoned Atla Fantasia, the current role of the Harem Priestesses was to find the ancient spring and grant more energy to the water spirit so that she could continue this process.

I was hooked, it sounded like a fun and cozy little adventure. The Crystal Atlas had done a pretty damn good job coming up with a story I would enjoy participating in. And the best part was, I suppose I could change anything I wanted about this if I ended up getting bored.

I stood and stared at the floating island for a while, silently standing hand-in-hand with Joy. That’s when something occurred to me. “Did the Atlas come up with all of this?” I asked.

“Well, it helped flesh out some of the details,” Joy said. “But uh… I came up with a lot of the broad strokes.” She swung our linked arms back and forth, bashfully staring down at her greaves.

I gently tugged her arm to make her turn to face me. I looked into her eyes and felt my cheeks redden again. Joy made this all for me. At least, that’s how it felt to me. Sure, she seemed to have some genuine passion for world-building, but she still directed that passion toward making the perfect world for me, specifically. I know it was technically her job, and maybe it was just my emotions talking, but I couldn’t help but feel like she had taken a lot of care for my sake to make it perfect.

And really, this was all just a way to justify what I did next. I needed to say thank you, and my feelings were running rampant. I was feeling overwhelming happiness the likes of which I had never experienced before, and I didn’t know how to properly handle it.

So, with the light of a slowly setting evening sun behind us and atop this gorgeous mountain range overlooking a fantastic valley, I leaned in and kissed her on the lips.

She seemed surprised, but quickly and passionately returned the kiss, wrapping her arms around my waist and pulling me close. I felt her much larger breasts against mine, our combined softness pushing us away slightly, but our lips were like magnets and they would not be separated for what felt like ages.

It felt like my heart had wings and was soaring into the beautiful blue sky.