In the end I used 8,800 copper coins to tag 44 Combat NPCs, broken up as 40 Warriors and 4 Priests.
All of the Shield-bearing and Archer archetypes were already tagged and I had no interest in engaging in a bidding war while other NPCs were available at the minimum entry level cost. It wasn't really surprising to find those two types already claimed, either.
A shield wall with archers behind made for an effective deterrence after all.
So instead, I opted to recruit Axe-wielding Warriors that could use Bows as a secondary. It was the more economical, and fitting choice.
But I still wasn't sure if the lodge could accommodate everyone.
No matter how you cut it, 96 people, even if they were NPCs with an Artificial Intelligence, were a large number of individuals. If every person had an 8'x4' place to sleep they would fit just fine, but yeah.
I was a little worried, but in truth I was more excited at the prospects for the future. Buildings could be built anyways; there would be plenty of man power going forward from now on.
While waiting with giddy anticipation I attempted to flirtatiously tease Selene a bit but she was having none of it, and I dare not flirt with Katherine because she would certainly have at it.
I didn't want Selene to be receptive really; it was just a way to burn time as we all sat around waiting. So while bored and with nothing to do, I decided to take a nap.
Three hours had passed while I slept inside the cabin with Selene and Katherine.
When I woke, I saw Katherine had rolled off the bed and was now lying next to me.
I was a patient man.
I had control over my emotions, over my desires.
But… it's not fair when an exceptional beauty is teasing you with her chest laid bare in front of your eyes as her hair slightly curls around her face, seemingly accentuating her already perfect features with the effect of focusing your gaze to her soft lips.
Looking away from her face leads to her ample assets which are quite deadly in their own right. If one decides to skip past and look further down to her exposed navel, toned from countless hours of exercise and work….
I stopped myself there and rolled around to face the other direction. Lost to my thoughts I attempted to at least change the direction my mind was heading in.
A few minutes later I could feel the warmth of a body inching closer.
Soon that warmth was in direct contact.
Katherine had decided to cuddle alone with me for the first time. My eyes were opened wide from the shock of it all, that Katherine could or would take such initiative. As she wrapped her arms around me and intertwined her legs with mine I could hardly contain myself.
I was getting a bit excited.
My chest had swelled a bit from the sudden adrenaline as my heart fluttered slightly. It had been awhile since I had such intimate contact with a female, the last time being with Selene nearly three weeks ago real-time in my moment of weakness. Before Selene it had been a very long time… which brought up the interesting point, that you don't realize how badly you're missing something until the opportunity to have it arises.
Katherine was pushing up on a rough boundary.
I wasn't sure I could remain caged.
Actually, I wasn't sure why I was trying to resist.
Why was I resisting?
As I started questioning my reasoning, I had started to think back on what Katherine and Selene had told me about themselves over the past few days. I closed my eyes and reminisced as I tried to distract myself....
* * *
There wasn't a single cloud in the light blue sky while the sun seemed to have settled directly above, flooding the world we knew with its warming radiance. The snow on the ground had all but melted as the green foliage peeked through, watching the clear water of the river flowing by and out to the big deep blue.
In the middle of it all stood a young woman only nineteen of age, with long naturally wavy dark brown hair that parted to either side and slinked past her shoulders.
She stood waist deep in the river as she bathed while covering her rather large bosom with an arm. A healthy yet slender girl standing nearly five-foot nine with hips a bit wider than the average woman and a midsection that had been toned through continuous activity, her skin was of a softly tanned white and glistened in the cool water of the spring.
But of all her striking features, it was her eyes that were the most captivating: tri-color eyes with an inner deep green ring blended with an outer light blue ring, split horizontally across the middle with a soft yet dark gray that lightly fanned out from the center of the iris.
The mixture was a dazzling array of colors that appeared both green and blue from a distance but clearly showed the soft splatter of the dark gray upon closer inspection.
Her eyes were mesmerizing.
The type of eyes one could gaze into and lose track of time.
As she bathed in the center of the river a man was lying in the grass along the edge, an arm over his face to shield him from the sun with the other arm underneath his head. He listened to the young female that was telling a story of the past, a story of hardship and fulfillment.
The hardship that the young girl faced was a similar fate many young children faced in the time period, the loss of both parents at a young age due to famine or war.
She had lost her father to battle and then her mother succumbed to the cold one winter night, leaving her alone and without the ability to survive by herself. She was fortunate though, as a traveling convent was passing through the town and offered the young orphan a chance.
She took the chance and as the years went by soon developed into an intelligent young woman, keen on the ways of the Holy Arts and respected by her peers for her skill. But she had also found confusion while growing up amongst the nuns and priests when she had started to develop into what she thought was an attractive young adult.
She was scolded and told by the other nuns that she was unattractive, unsightly, and that her body was needlessly shameful.
The Priests never paid any attention to her and seemed to ignore her more and more as the days went by. When the only compliments she ever received were from the depraved individuals she came across in the towns and villages she visited, her confidence in her appearance had started to disappear completely.
When she asked a sister what was considered attractive, she was met with the reply that physical beauty is nothing more than sinful temptation for the lustful and it was shameful and disgraceful to even consider.
She had started to regard herself as cursed by her appearance, the appearance of her mother who was once lauded as a beautiful woman. She felt her mother must have died as punishment for her looks and now she too would suffer the same fate.
It was at that time that she became better acquainted with a young girl at the local orphanage. At this point the young female of twenty years with a five-foot seven stature that had sprawled out next to the man decided to take over.
She had been intently listening to the story she knew all too well as she was drying off in the spring-time sun. With nothing more than two light wool cloths covering both her modest chest and moderately sized hips; she was doing her best to appear seductive.
She was playing with her short-cut straight raven hair that hardly reached past her neck while strongly gazing over at the man next to her.
Her eyes were of a deep titanium gray color that had a strong bronze tint to it in the sunlight that was quite exceptional in their own right, if not entirely unique. The droplets of water that had been dripping off her chiseled abs certainly did not belie the level of fitness that she had been accustomed to either. Biting her lip, she was vying for attention from the man, but he paid her no heed.
Continuing where her friend had left off, she began to tell her own story.