I rewrote the last story post. everything from when the girls arrive at Helens boutique has been redone. mostly just added to it such as them modeling lingerie for him, and more.  enjoy.

I'm still adding to this. ill update it later tonight.

The next morning Jake was the first one to wake up. He slipped out from between Selene and Mirand, carefully sliding a arm from around his waist, and a leg off off his hip. He finally managed to stand up, and stood there looking at the sleeping exhausted ladies. They had stayed up late into the night drinking and having a underwear fashion show. It had been a lot of fun, but once the lingerie had come out it quickly turned from watching, to touching. He was sore in a few places, but just the thought of how he had gotten that way left a huge smile on his face. He rubbed sleep from his eyes, and realized there was something soft around his neck. He pulled it off, and held it up to get a better look, and found himself looking at a pair of silky red panties. He chuckled at the memory of how they had gotten there, then he realized with a start that he was wearing the matching panties. He had no memory however, of just how they had gotten there. Jiselle was snuggled up behind Miranda, and Selene was behind Asmund, and their long hair was a mess.

The ladies were half covered by a sheet, and Jake could see a bare ass, and a few naked breasts from where he was standing, he noticed lip stick on the naked ass, as well as a breast, and he smiled as he remembered who had put them there. The girls could be almost as much fun to watch sometimes, as they were to be with. There were bra’s, panties and other under garments scattered around the bed, and across the bedroom floor as well. Jake once again was amazed at what his life had turned into in the last few months, he was no longer flat broke, he was actually wealthy beyond his dreams now, he had a beautiful home, and his sex life was something any man would envy. He was truly blessed. If that portal disappeared today never to return he thought he would be pretty damn happy for the rest of his life right here on the farm.

Then portal had not vanished though, and he had a lot of plans for the future regarding it. A important piece of that plan was arriving later today in fact. Emily Carson struck him as a professional, and he intended to look professional himself when she arrived, as well as have everything ready when he explained what he needed her for. He opened the bedroom door and was greeted to the smell of fresh brewed coffee. He had intended to make coffee, and eat a quick breakfast, and before the ladies got up but it appeared someone had beaten him to it. He stepped into the kitchen, and discovered Bru already fully dressed in a pair of tactical pants, hiking boots, and a under armor t-shirt. She smiled at him as he stepped into the room. “ Good morning sleepy head.” She joked. “I was just about to come and wake you up.”

Jake rubbed his sleepy eyes. “Coffee smells wonderful. You made me breakfast? You didn’t have to do that Bru.” Bru smiled. “I know I didn’t, I was hungry anyway, I just figured id make a little extra for you while I was at it. I know you want to make a good impression on that Emily woman, and probably had a lot to do to get ready for the meeting. Figured you could use my help. Although I have no clue why you want to bring another woman into your life, don’t you have enough women problems already?” She smirked. Jake grunted. “ Your a darling for breakfast and offering to help Bru, and yes I do have a lot to do before she gets here. As to bringing another women into my life, that’s damn sure not my intention.” Bru snorted. “ Was it ever your attention to have the five women you have now?” Jake shrugged. “Good point, but no, I didn’t plan it. I don’t regret it though, I feel like I have been blessed, both with you and the other ladies. Im not saying its not a little challenging at times, but I would not change it for anything. I don’t know what the future holds for us, but I will cherish me memories we are making right now for the rest of my life.”

Bru laughed. “You keep bringing new women into it, and your life might be very short indeed.” Jake smiled sweetly at her. “Why, are you jealous Bru?  Bru shrugged. “Maybe a little I suppose. I really don’t have a reason to be though. I am your protector, and that is all that I am so far. I care for you, but we have not crossed into a man / woman relationship yet. If we ever do enter into a more personal relationship, then I will have a reason to be jealous, and I might need to put my foot down occasionally, regarding your little harem.” Jake didn’t like the sound of that. “ You would ask me to kick the other girls out?” He asked curiously. “Bru shook her head. “ No Jake, I did not say that. They are wonderful women, and they are good for you, I can see that. They are really helping to repair the trust issues you have with women, that’s something you must repair before you can ever have another healthy functional relationship with a woman. I can also see you know the difference between sex for fun with a friend, and the emotional aspect of a real loving relationship.”

Jake shrugged. “I do love those girls, they are amazing.” He said. Bru patted the seat next to her, and she handed him a cup of coffee as he sat down. “I know you love them.” Bru continued. “I love them too, But your not in love with them. Its a big difference. The way you tread carefully around me, and worry about my feelings, tells me you know the difference between love, and in love. No matter what happens between us, I would never ask you to give up your little harem. I not only have no objections to it, I enjoy using it myself” She grinned. “ Although I might have objections should you try to bring a woman into our lives I don’t approve of. We have a good thing going, all it takes is one shrew to make us all miserable and destroy everything we have.  Jake paused between bites of food. “ I agree, and I would support your objections.

You have nothing to fear though, I have more women than I can handle already. I don’t want or need more. I tried to get a man to fill the job, Emily seems to be the best I can find though.” Bru nodded. “Its fine dear. When she gets here though, I suggest you let the dwarf ladies help you decide if shes what we are looking for. They can learn more about her, and what shes really like in five minutes with their empathic abilities than you could learn in a month of interviews.” Jake nodded. “It had occured to me. Thats part of the reason I got all of you new clothes last night, we need to look professional. I appreciate the slutty farm girl look myself, but I doubt it would have gone over well with Miss Carson. She would probably think Im trying to take advantage of the your world to create a stable of whores, or a sex trade of some kind. Id like to avoid that at all costs.” Bru nodded. “What would be appropriate clothing for us to wear for the interview? We have a lot of new clothes, but I do not know what your culture views as appropriate.”

Jake smiled.” Anything besides the lingerie, pajamas, and bathing suit should be fine. Id suggest slacks, jeans, or sun dresses though. I don’t need us to dress like professionals, just look decent. We are on shaky ground with this interview. I really don’t know what it will take to convince Miss Carson of what we are saying. We will sound insane I'm sure.” Bru shrugged. “ Just show her the portal, and take her through it. That will convince her easily enough.” Jake nodded. “yeah, that will do it all right. Id rather leave that as a last resort though. This is a big secret, and I don’t want it to get out. We will get a feel for her first. If she seems like what we want, we can take her through to convince her. You feel like helping me move some gold today?” Bru frowned. “Not really no, but I am happy to help you today. If we must move gold, then we must.”

The day went by quickly. Jake moved his pile of gold objects from the ruins back to the barn, he also retrieved the strange glasses he had discovered, as well as a giant scorpion carcass. The scorpion carcass stank, but it was in good enough shape to use as evidence of a new world. Bru worked to get all the girls ready and by one pm everyone was dressed, and sitting around the living room. Jake opened some wine, and put on a tv show to help to pass the time. He still had work to do, so he got a beer and hit the computer to look for supplies. He did a search for swords, and spears, thinking of his promise to equip the guards who would arrive, and was surprised at what he found. There were actually a lot of companies selling those things, everything from cheap display items to hand forged works of art. He picked cold steel a company he was familiar with for the pocket knives they manufactured.

After reading a few reviews, he decided they were a good choice. They were priced pretty reasonably, and actually made working tools, as opposed to cheap trinkets, or works of art, and he thought the weapons would go over well with the Dwarves. He looked and discovered they offered a staggering variety of spears, and swords. He finally picked out a reasonably priced sword that strongly resembled what he had seen the Dwarves carrying, as well as a spear that he thought would work well too. He ended up placing a large order from the company, fifty of each item, swords, and spears, as well as a number of viking style battle ax’s, wood cutting ax’s, and even belt knives. He added a large amount of arrow heads at the last minute as well. He realized that this stuff would make excellent trade items, and planned to order a lot more of it in the near future. His biggest issue though was actually money. Although he had millions in jewels, and gold, he only had about fifty thousand in the bank. He was going to need to convert a lot of that stuff to cold hard cash before he could really get this stuff started. Convert it in a way that avoided unnecessary attention from both the government, as well as thieves who might decide to rob him. He hoped Emily Carson would have some ideas as to how to accomplish it. He knew he didn’t want to be traveling the country, driving to we buy gold places, to convert thousands of jewels and tons of gold.

The driveway alarm sounded promptly at three pm, announcing someone was coming up the driveway. Miss Carson had arrived, it was time to get ready! He turned off the tv, and turned on some soft background music. He had everyone get seated at the large dining room table where he planned to do the interview. He wanted the ladies present to be able to get their opinions on Miss Carson. He feared it might make things a little awkward for Miss Carson, but he didn’t really see anyway around it. For better or for worse, Bru, and the girls were his family, and business partners. He trusted them completely, and wanted their input over who they hired, they damn sure had a say in it.

Emily pulled her rented Mercedes suv into a parking spot in front of the farm house and shut off the engine. She looked around at the small farm with a  sharp eye, and noticed several things. One was it was not a working farm, there were no animals present, and from the look of the farm yard and the lack of tire tracks, it did not appear there had been any equipment moving in quite a while. She still had not idea what Jake Reynolds wanted to talk to her about. If it were not for her uncles insistence she meet with him, she would have never agreed to the meeting at all. She stepped out of the vehicle and smoothed the wrinkles out of her skirt, and checked to make sure her silk blouse was in order. Her heels clicked on the stone walkway as she approached the front door. She paused at the door, and just admired it for a moment. She had never seen a door on a house like this before, it was simply beautiful. It was massive, and had all copper hardware on it. It was beautiful, not what she expected to find on a farmhouse. She gripped the heavy door knocked and beat it against the massive door three times. Before the last booming knock had faded away the door was pulled open.

Standing in the doorway was a ruggedly handsome man, dressed in jeans, and a “ Come and take it” pro second amendment tshirt. She stiffled a smile at the shirt, it very much reminded her of her and Uncle Thomas, she would bet money he owned one just like it. The man was just under six feet tall, with a short military style haircut, and was well muscled. He Flashed a big smile and held out his hand. Miss Carson, correct? Pleased to meet you, I’m Jake Reynolds. Emily shook his hand, which had a firm dry grip. “Yes, you may call me Emily, if you like Mr Reynolds.” Jake smiled. “Thank you Emily, please call me Jake. Please come inside Emily, the others are waiting for us, and eager to meet you and get started.” He stepped aside and she followed him inside, and closed the massive door. The house was beautiful inside, all hardwoods, and stone. It was a open concept, and allowed a view of the kitchen, living room, and dining room from where she stood. Around the living room table sat a group of very attractive women.

Four of them were what men liked to call thick, and had stocky builds to them. The two brunettes, blonde and redhead, were not fat however, just stocky, and had plenty of curves from what she could see. The other women was much different than the other four. She was slim and tall, with a very athletic build, and she had hair that was a unusual blondish silver color. All of the women were well dressed, though and all had a glass of wine in front of them. The four stocky girls were all wearing pretty sun dresses, while the woman with the silver hair was wearing dark slacks, and a white blouse. All of the women were smiling warmly in her direction. Jake ushered Her towards the table, and before she could get there, the women all stood and approached her. The slim woman was first. She stuck out her hand to shake, and spoke to her.

“ Hello Emily, my name is Brynella Ailuream. Please feel free to call me Bru. We are most pleased to meet you.” She smiled at Her warmly, and Emily was amazed at how big and blue her eyes were. The woman was simply beautiful, and she smelled like wild flowers. She also had high cheekbones and fine delicate features, that were totally at odds with her firm strong grip that rivaled Jake’s. She was put off by the woman’s strange accident, not that it was bad, in fact it was just the opposite, it was charming, and exotic. What put her off about it was she had met many people in her career, and she took pride in recognizing where a speak originated from, but this woman’s accent had her stumped. Emily smiled warmly, returning the warm smile she had received. “Pleased to meet you Bru, I love your accident. May I ask where you are from?” The woman smiled at her. “I could tell you, but you would never believe me, lets just say I am not from around here. I assure you we will be discussing this at length very soon.” Emily did not take her reply to be evasive, or rude, but more playful, so she simply nodded. “Im looking forward to it.” She said simply.

She next met the stocky women, and the first one was a pretty redhead, who was dressed in a light green sundress. Emily smiled and stock out her hand. “ Hello, I’m Emily.” The woman bypassed her hand and wrapped her arms around her in a warm hug, the woman smiled like honey to her. The woman pulled her out of the hug, and smiled warmly at her. “Emily, I am pleased to meet you. I am Miranda Claypotter, welcome to our home, if you need anything simply ask. Can I offer you some wine?” Emily liked the woman instantly. She put off a wholesome friendly vibe. Emily returned her smile. “Yes please, that would be lovely, thank you.” Jake stepped in. “I will get it.” But Miranda cut him off. “No Mlord allow me, you stay with your guest. Mlord? That’s a pretty odd expression Emily thought.

She didn’t have time to ponder it though as she was swept up in a flurry of hugs, where she met a Selene Cobbleshoe, Asmund Meadbrewer, and Jiselle Leathermaker, all three of them had the same honey smell that Miranda had. Emily had never felt so welcomed in her entire life, the women made her feel like she had returned home, even though she had never been here before, and only had know them for a entire five minutes. It felt nice to be around people who pulled a smile from your naturally, verses people you had to force a smile around. She smiled a big smile. “ I am pleased to meet all of you, I have never felt so welcomed in my life. I love your perfume, it smells like honey, what is it called?” They exchanged confused glances. Bru answered for them. “ They are not wearing perfume.” She explained. “They always smell like honey. Isn’t it wonderful?” The Jiselle woman laughed. “ I love your flowery smell myself Bru, I wish I could bottle it.” She said. “Cant help you there.” Bru laughed. “You smell nice as well Emily, you smell like berries to me.” Emily blushed. “ Well thank you Bru, its my lotion, its called berry passion,, Its my favorite.

“ I like it as well.” Asmund said. “Please, let us get together when we are done, and let us get the name of it, we must buy some for ourselves. We are just learning about your wonderful makeup, we had no idea we could get such wonderful scented lotions as well.” Emily made a note of that odd comment as well, what did she mean by “Your wonderful makeup? She spoke like a visitor from another culture, and the ladies odd last names did no go unnoticed either. When she combined them with the Milord comment, she was reminded of a medieval reenactor event she had gone to once. Miranda handed Emily a glass of wine and showed her to a chair. The other people were sitting, so she mad herself comfortable. “ Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me Emily. Tom Braddock could not say enough good things about you.”

Emily smiled. “I owe my uncle a great deal Jake, he also had a lot of good things to say about you as well. May I be frank Jake?” Jake nodded. “Please do Emily.” Emily sipped her wine. “ I am not sure why I am here. To be honest, the only reason I agreed to this meeting at all was because of my uncle. No offense meant, you all seem like very nice people and I could see us being friends, as I really do like you so far, but I’m here on business, not to make friends. I cater to a certain type of clienttell, a very high end kind of clienttell, and the fees I charge for my services are reflected in it. To be blunt. I don’t see what need a farmer in Kentucky has of my services, and any service I provide could be had much cheaper locally. Perhaps your more in need of a farm type manager Jake. In short, even if you do need my services, I don’t think you can afford them.” Jake blinked in surprise. “Wow, you don’t hold back.”

Bru slammed her glass down hard, leaned across the table and pointed a finger at Emily. You will watch how you speak to the Bearer in his own home woman, that is if you want to keep it.” The other women gasp in surprise, and looked horrified at her actions, Jake looked stunned. Emily leaned back in her chair and sipped her wine, as if Bru had commented on the weather, instead of threatened her. Jake looked at Bru with a stern expression. “Brynella, you will not speak to our guest in such a manner. If you cannot be civil you will have to leave.” Then he turned back to Emily. “My apologies Emily. Please ignore Bru’s outburst, she is a bit temperamental at times.” Bru sat back down looking furious. Emily just sat there looking totally comfortable with the situation, and sipping her wine. Jake nodded. “ I understand why you would feel like that Emily. I’m sure when you look around at the farm now that you are here it looks meager, and when you did a back ground check on me before you left your house, it likely looked worse. Your thinking I would not possibly need your kind of services in the first place, nor be able to afford them if I did need them.

Emily nodded. “ That pretty much sums it up, yes. Jake nodded. “ All of that would have been totally true a few months ago, however something remarkable has happened in my life that has changed my circumstances and put me in great need of your services.” Emily sat her glass down. “ If your referencing to inheriting this farm, and the meager bank account that goes with it as remarkable, that may be true, however it does not change my point. You would have to sell everything here, and clean out your bank account as well to pay for my services for a year. You don’t need me, and cant afford me if you did.” Bru pushed her chair back and stood up, a wicked looking knife had appeared in her hand from somewhere. “ I warned you to watch your mouth bitch.” Bru breathed menacingly. Emily raised her hand slightly revealing it held a pistol. “Bring it.” Emily said still looking bored. “Jesus Christ Bru, what the fuck are you doing? Emily, put that gun away, Bru give me that damn knife !” The other women at the table burst out laughing, causing Jake to state at them in exasperation. “ Why the hell are you laughing? Its not helping !” Asmund spoke first. “Relax Jake, they are having a pissing match, nothing more. Emily is pushing us to see how we react, and Bru is pushing Emily back to see how she reacts. There is no hostile intent here.” Jake looked lost. “ Uh, what?

Emily grinned, and let out a laugh, and Bru followed a second later. “I almost believed you might actually come across the table at me.” Emily said. “Bru nodded. “Aye. And I thought you were really a bitch there for a moment, nice move with the weapon, I never saw you draw it.” Emily smiled. “ Thank you.” She looked at Asmund. “ Im surprised that you picked up on it like you did. “Asmund shrugged. “ We knew you were faking in the first five seconds.” Emily looked curious. “ Was I that easy to read?” Asmund shook her head. “ No you looked authentic, it was your heart that gave you away.” Emily gave her a strange look. “Jake sputtered. “ What the hells going on? This is just a test?” Emily nodded. “Yes. I’m surprised you did not get mad at my jabs, many men in your position would have blown up, or been screaming for their security to show me out. I wont work with hotheads, too many bad experiences. You have a interesting group of lady friends Jake. I think I like them. Lets get down to business. Tell me what you need my services for exactly.

You have to promise to hear me out before I tell you Jake said. I want a hour to explain everything. No matter what you think, you give me a hour before you leave. You also can never tell anyone what im about to tell you.” Emily nodded. “ I can do that, you paid for a hour, as long as everything stays civil ill stay. If it becomes hostile, Im leaving. I wont tell anyone about our meeting, you have my word.” Jake felt like she was being truthful. He nodded in agreement. “ Ok. Here goes. It all started When I Inherited this farm. Emily listened to Jakes story. It was maybe the craziest thing she had ever heard in her life. She didn’t react, she simply nodded as he went along. She had encountered a few nuts during her career, some of them extremely wealthy. She even did a small job for one guy once, the guy was nuts, but he had a legitimate need of her services and he paid well. He later introduced her to family friend who just happened to be a senator, it helped launch her career. If she had blown off that first nut, she would not be where she was today. She listened politely to what he had to say, not believing a word of it. “And that’s the whole story Jake said. Thats why we need your services.

Emily took another sip of her wine, which had been refilled a few times during the story. “ So, what your saying is.” Emily began. “ You discovered a magic portal to another planet, and Bru is a real life Elf, and these ladies are Dwarve’s? “Is that it?” Jake sighed. “ Its clear you don’t believe me.” He looked at his watch. “However you promised a full hour. I still have thirty minute left, and I will use that time to convince you its true.” Emily shrugged. “ You can try, but I’m leaving in thirty minutes, one way or another. Id feel better if you paid me before you started trying to convince me though.” Jake nodded. He passed her a fat envelope filled with one hundred dollar bills. Emily glanced at it, and slipped it into her messenger bag, and placed it beside her glock. “Go for it.” Emily said. “This should be interesting.”

First Jake had Bru show Emily her ears. Bru swept back her thick silver hair, and revealed delicate pointed ears. Emily took a good look at them, and even carefully touched them. “ Thats very good work Emily said. They are actually beautiful, is swear they were natural. However that’s something easily faked. Next Jake had her pull out her phone and look up foreign languages on her phone. Then he handed her the strange glasses he had found. Emily had to admit she was stumped. The damn things translated every language she pulled up on her phone while wearing them She could read Arabic, Chinese, Latin and more. The damn things even translated Egyptian hieroglyphs into English. “How about that then Jake exclaimed. Emily shrugged. “ I admit I’m stumped by them, I have never seen anything like it. However I am not technology expert, all it proves is I cannot explain what they are or how they do what they do. Its not proof of anything else.”

Next he showed her the sword. She thought it was well made, but it was just a sword.” Ok. Fine. Next we have to go outside. I need to bring the sword, as I explained I have to keep it close.” Emily shrugged. “ Its fine with me. Just remember I have my own weapon, and know how to use it.” Jake simply nodded.

Next item was the gigantic Scorpion carcass. Which freaked Emily out. She disliked bugs, ans that damn thing was enormous. “ Looks real as hell.” Emily admitted. Does not prove another world exists though. Then Jake showed her pick up load of gold artifacts. “Looks like gold, and feels like gold.” She admitted. But I”m no precious metals expert. Even if its real, all it proves is you have a few million in gold. Nothing more.” She had to admit to herself though, the guy had a interesting collection of stuff. Those damn glasses were the only thing she could not explain so far.

“ I was hoping this would convince you Emily. I can see it hasn’t though.” Emily shrugged. It is what it is. You still have about ten minutes left, better use it wisely.” Bru interrupted. “You are going to have to show her." Bru exclaimed.” Its the only way.” Jake sighed. “I guess so.” He turned to Emily. “I only have one last thing to show you. Its behind the barn in that field. Ill show you the portal, ill take you through it. Its dangerous though. Just warning you.” Emily shrugged. “ You have that big assed sword on your hip, and I have my gun.” She reminded him. “Lets go. Times almost up.”

Emily sat in the front passenger seat of her suv, as she watched him fiddle with the generator. She didn’t know he was going to do next, but she was assuming he was about to claim the generator was busted, or the planets were not aligned or something. She knew he was not going to open a portal to another world though. In five minutes she was going to be on her way back to the four seasons, where she would take a hot bath, and drink some wine and put this craziness behind her.

The generator roared to life, and a minute later Jake climbed behind the steering wheel, and slammed the door. “ I need to give it a minute to stabilize, then we can go.” Emily nodded as she checked her messages on her phone. “Un huh, sure thing.” She was not really worried the guy was going to do anything funny towards her, since Bru and Asmund were sitting in the back seat behind her. If it were not for the other women though she definitely would have been a lot more on guard around him. Crazy as their story sounded though she only got good feeling from the group. The women seemed very likable and wholesome to her, even Jake was very likable guy as well. She had always prided herself on being a great judge of character, she could not explain why she felt like she could trust these people while they spouted this nonsense. It was clear they all totally believed it though, she just could not figure out what their angle was.

Jake put the truck into gear and started driving. She was almost done reading a message, in a few seconds she was going to tell them to go back, so she could leave. The suv bounced over the uneven ground, she slipped her phone back into her bag and looked up just in time to see them about to hit a rock wall. “What the fuck?” Was all she could say before they plunged into darkness.

Everything went pitch black. Emily sucked in air to cut loose with a scream when sunlight flooded into the vehicle, and they were driving out of a cave. The crazy bastard must have driven into a cave and out the other side, as part of his scheme to prove this bullshit was real. He could have killed her! She had a bad experience as a kid in a cave and as a result she was terrified of the damn things, and he had fucking driven her right into one of the fucking things! She was livid. “Stop the car!” She screamed. She slammed her hands down on the dash and screamed again. “I said stop the fucking car right fucking now !” Jake stepped on the brake and pulled the vehicle to a stop, as Emily cut loose on him. “ Look fucker. I came all the way to Kentucky to see you! I listened patiently to all your bullshit, I looked at all of your fucking proof, and I was patient, but I draw the line at this !” Get out of my fucking car ! All of you, get the fuck out right now !! Jake tried to open his mouth but there was no reasoning with her. He stepped out of the car just as Emily slid across the seat and locked the door behind him.

Bru and Asmund stepped out just as she stepped on the gas, and shot the vehicle forward through the trees in front of her. She was so fucking mad, Her uncle was going to get a earful when she got back, that was for damn sure. Ahead of her she saw a opening. Good, I bet there is a road up ahead. She drove out of the trees and found herself looking at a city, and huge snow covered mountains on the horizon. He stepped on the brakes and just stared. Since when did Kentucky have snow covered mountains? She realized the city was not a city at all. “ Its a god damned castle.” She breathed Incredulously. She sat there trying to wrap her head around what she was looking at. Could there be castle ruins in Kentucky? She knew there was a little castle in Lexington that rich family had built, but it was nothing like this. Well what about the mountains, how did she explain them? She glanced around and when she looked up she just gawked. There were three moons in the sky.

Bru leaned against the rock wall and sighed. “Do we go looking for her?” She asked. “Screw her.” Asmund said angrily. “She made me rip my new sun dress in the door when I was getting out. This is bullshit.” Jake cut in. “We wait for her. Where is she going to go? She will figure it out in a minute, just wait. I’m sorry about your dress Asmund. I will get you a new one.” He put his arm around her and kissed her neck. Asmund leaned back against him, and patted his arm that was around her waist. “ I can fix it she said. Its a little tear. You don’t need to buy me a entire dress, that’s so wasteful. But thank you Jake.” The sound of a approaching vehicle made them all turn. Emilie’s black suv emerged through the trees, covered in dust. She drove slowly up to them and rolled the power window down.

“Do you guys need a ride?” She asked sheepishly. Jake opened the door and sat in the passenger seat, while the girls piled in the back.  Emily turned to look at Jake, her face red from embarrassment. “ I think I might believe you now. I’m sorry for over reacting like I did.” Jake shrugged. “It happens, iv done it recently myself. I forgive you.” Emily looked relieved. “However. He continued. “You caused Asmund to rip her new dress, I think its the only dress she has ever owned. Shes pretty upset.” Emily turned and looked into the back seat where Asmund sat. Asmund was holding the rip in her dress in one hand, and wiping tears with her other hand. :Emily felt terrible. “ Asmund, sweety. I am so, so sorry. I feel terrible. I will buy you a new dress to make amends. In fact I want to do something nice for everyone I feel so badly. Let me buy everyone dinner tonight, my treat.” Jake turned and looked at her. “You decided to take the job then? I have not even told you what I need from you.”

Emily looked him in the eye. “Jake, I want to be part of whatever this is, as long as were not doing anything illegal, or hurting anyone, you wont be able to drag me away from this. We can talk on the way to dinner and start working out what you need from me.” Jake turned and looked at Asmund, and Bru. The decision is up to you two ladies. You are good judges of character, what do you think? They both looked up at Emily’s reflection in the rear view mirror. Bru smiled. I like a woman who can cuss, How about you Asmund, what do you think? Asmund smiled. “Shes in as long as she replaces my dress before dinner.” Looks like your on the team Emily.” Jake grinned at her. Emily put the car into gear and started towards what she know knew was a portal, not a cave, when Bru spoke again abruptly. “ Is she going to join the harem as well Jake? Emily stomped on the brakes. “ What?!”

Cool updates. Keep typing Buck, I like the story. I love to read as it takes my mind off things.

Just added more to last update a second ago.

UPDATE.

Just added some more. there wont be anymore updates until probably Monday afternoon.

Nice update. It’s gone beyond proofreading and more of a post-as-you-write thread which is fine by me!

Whenever you want proofreading/corrections let us know. Plenty of grammar/typo/disjointed little things that can be easily fixed. Great story so far though! Keep writing just as fast as you want!

I'm posting it as I go, but everything will be gone through again multiple times, corrections made, details added etc. There is still a hell of lot to do, but the story line is going well. The story is at 75,000 words right now, and I'm probably going to put around 150,000 in the first book. This is basically just a rough draft, and I'm just looking for " general" feedback right now. General, meaning do you like the basic premise / the basic story.  If I added details right now it would probably add 10,000 words easily to what's already been written.. Part of what I'm going to do is add different perspectives, like I did with Emily in the last piece, so its not all first person events.

I'm glad you guys are enjoying it.

keep it up, I'm hooked!

Fallen an update or two behind, but two major glaring inconsistencies I've noticed is 1), Thorin said as far as he knew Jake was the first visitor to enter the valley, yet the elf chick seems to have been their before, and at a minimum she somehow got in without a dwarf to get the "gates" opened.

Also, the dwarf women and the elf can understand Jake, and vice versa, yet the pizza guy can't understand them? That doesn't make any sense.

I'm enjoying the story, keep it up!

I was going to put something in explaining her access to the dwarves, but forgot. I was basically going to add something like.

( Jake) Bru, I saw how mad the king was when he saw you. I thought only dwarves were allowed in dwarf haven, how did you get in?   Bru laughs. They don't bar Elves from visiting, our two nations have ongoing diplomatic relations. it just really pisses the king off that they have no clue how I manage to get into the valley. they wont lock me up, as they fear the Elves reactions should they do so. They mostly just lurk around and follow me, hoping I will use the entrance while they are watching me. dwarves suck at being stealthy though. Imagine a Dwarf sneaking up on a elf !

The language thing was a good catch. I didn't explain it as well in the story as I did in my own head. My angle was. the sword allowed jake to understand most languages. the dwarves speak dwarvish, and the elf is old enough she has learned many languages, such as dwarvish as well. the races have a shared common language they use as well, to allow better communication between the races. common is used for that, its basically the language of the humans, as the humans mostly refuse to learn other languages, as they feel it is beneath them.  therefore, jakes women can speak English reasonably well, they just don't need to to talk to jake.

I agree I need to spell it out better in the story.

Saw the part about common language in the next update. I also forgot about the sword being Google translate for the bearer,

One note, your story do whatever you want, I'll still read it, but  unless you plan on the sword being a direct player on earth (I.e it keeps him from being lied to, he saves someone etc) instead of just an accessory I'd remove its magical powers on earth. It's not a far stretch of the imagination to presume a powerful magical sword loses its power on a different world, and it'd make his life much easier being able to occasionally escape it's influence, and not have to tote it around when he's at home. Just a suggestion.

I'm going to rewrite most of the Emily scenes. Everything past where she meets everyone. It just felt wrong. Emily's a level headed professional, she would not behave like I wrote earlier. Already started on it.

Keep writing Buck, I like the story. The lady could be getting the vibe from the dwarf and elf ladies and that is why she acted out of character. Just keep writing so we can read it, chop chop Buck.

Here's the rewrite. plus some added stuff. I'm still not happy with it, but I like it a lot better than what I had earlier. enjoy.

“ I am pleased to meet all of you, I have never felt so welcomed in my entire life.” Emily smiled at Asmund. “I love your perfume, it smells like honey, what is it called?” The ladies all exchanged confused glances. Bru answered for them. “ They are not wearing perfume.” She explained. “They always smell like honey. Isn’t it wonderful?” Jiselle laughed. “ I love your smell too Bru, you always smell like flowers to me. I wish I could bottle it.” She said. “Cant help you there.” Bru laughed. She turned to Emily. “You smell nice as well Emily, like berries.” Emily blushed. “ Well thank you Bru, its my lotion, its called berry passion, Its my favorite. “ I like it very much.” Asmund said. “ Let us get together afterwards so we may learn where we may acquire some. We are just learning about your wonderful makeup, we had no idea we could get such wonderful scented lotions as well.”

Emily smiled. “ Of course, I would be happy to do that.” Miranda handed Emily a glass of wine and showed her to a chair. The other people were already taking their seats, so she made herself comfortable. Jake started things off. “ Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me Emily. Tom Braddock could not say enough good things about you.” Emily smiled. “Uncle Thomas talks too much.” She joked. He had good things to say about you as well.” Emily explained. “May I be frank Jake?” Jake nodded. “Please do Emily.” Emily sipped her wine. “ I’m really not sure why I am here. To be honest, the only reason I agreed to this meeting at all was because of my uncle. No offense meant, you all seem like very nice people who have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome.” She smiled at everyone. “Which I do by the way, I could see us all being friends, as I really do like you so far. However, I’m here on business, not to make friends. I cater to a certain type of clientele, Mr Reynolds. A very high end kind of clientele, to be exact, and the fees I charge for my services are reflected in it.

To be blunt. I don’t see what need a farmer in Kentucky has of my particular services, and if you do need them, I don’t think you could afford them.” Emily sat her glass down on the table. “As I said, I mean no disrespect towards any of you, you all seem like nice people, I’d just like to cut to the chase as it were, like the old saying goes, time is money.” Jake nodded. “ I understand where you’re coming from. I admit that just a few weeks ago I did have no need of your services, nor could I afford them if I did need them. Circumstances have changed greatly since then however.” Emily was curious. “How so, if you don’t mind my asking?” Jake placed a piece of paper on the table and slid it across to Emily, who picked it up and studied it. “ Its a nondisclosure agreement.” Jake explained. No offense, but what I”m about to tell you is extremely sensitive. It absolutely cannot leave this room under any circumstances.” Emily nodded and read for a second, before she placed the paper back on the table.”

Where did you get this? It’s simply awful. It looks like a generic form you printed off the internet.” Jake blushed. “That’s where I got it, I didn’t think it was that bad.” Emily sighed. “ I can find three different ways around this thing just at a glance.” She ripped it in half, and placed her briefcase on the table, and removed a thick packet of papers. She filled out the front page, then flipped it to be rear page and signed it, then slid it over to Jake. “I already signed it, and filled in your information on the first page. Just initial beside your name.” Emily explained. “Then flip to the back and you sign on the top line.” Jake glanced at the paperwork, but was lost. “ I don’t understand half of the words in this thing. What does it say in a nutshell?” Emily smiled. Its a iron clad nondisclosure agreement. I had a very prestigious law firm make it for me, I use them in all of my contracts. You sign that thing, and your locked in. If I were to repeat anything mentioned today, I would be financially ruined. You sign the top line, and have three of the ladies to sign as witnesses and its complete. Then you keep it.”

Jake smiled. “I’m impressed. Very professional.” Jake signed, and then he slid the paper over to the other ladies. Bru signed and slid it to Asmund next. Asmund looked at it for a moment, and then looked up at Jake with a sad expression. “ M’lord, I apologize, but I cannot read this. We learn to speak your language as children, but not write it. Bru leaned over and pointed. “Sign right there.” She smiled. “Have Jiselle sign on the line below yours.” Asmund smiled gratefully. Thank you Bru.” Emily looked curious. What country do you come from, I cant place your accent. Its been driving me crazy.” Jake stepped in. “Its part of what I needed the nondisclosure for.” He explained. Emily nodded, and took the papers back, and examined them, then passed them to Jake. “There all legal now, I cant repeat anything we discuss in this meeting today. Now, why don’t you tell me why I am here.”

Jake nodded. “ I will do just that, but I need a promise first.” Emily sighed. “What kind of promise?” Jake shrugged. “You give me a hour to make my case, and you promise to not leave before the hour is up. No matter what you think of what I have to tell you, you stay for the hour, so I can explain everything properly.” Emily nodded. “ You paid for a hour meeting, you have my attention for one hour. I promise to not leave early. Unless the meeting becomes confrontational, or you ask me to do something illegal. You do that, and I’m leaving immediately. Now, why don’t you just tell me what this is about.” Jake nodded.  I just needed the promise because what im going to say will sound insane. I just needed to be sure I would be able to get it all out, without you running out of here.” Emily nodded. “You have a hour, so lets hear it.” Jake smiled. “I discovered a gateway to another planet.”

Emily groaned inwardly. Great she thought, another crazy. She met one occasionally in her line of work. She however was always polite to them. One of her first clients was extremely wealthy, and also turned out to be mad as a hatter. He was crazy, but he had need of her services, and paid very well. She had humored the crazy old man, and later it benefited her greatly. The old coot was dear friends with a senator, and he referred him to Emily when he had a difficult problem that needed solving. The senator had basically jump started her career. You just never knew who someone might know, and how one bad meeting could make or break you down the road. Emily smiled at Jake. “Really? You mean like the stargate in the tv series? What planet did you discover?” Jake frowned at her. “You are humoring me, you think I’m nuts.

Emily shrugged. “It does not matter what I think. You asked for a hour to explain yourself, I’m giving it to you. So convince me.” Jake sighed. “Ok, I will explain how I found the portal, and then tell you a little about the planet.” He turned to Asmund. “Asmund, could you get Miss Carson some more wine please? This might take a while.” Asmund nodded. “Of course M’lord. She retrieved another bottle of wine, and refilled Emily’s glass. Emily smiled. “Thank you Asmund.” Then she turned to Jake. I have to ask, what's with the M’lord thing? Whats that about?” Jake smiled. “I will get to that quick enough. It all started about a month ago… Emily sat and listened to his story. It was quite a yarn he spun. When he claimed the women were all Dwarve’s, except for Bru, who apparently was a Elf, Emily burst out laughing. “But he's telling you the truth.” Jiselle exclaimed. “We really are Dwarves, and she's really a Elf! Bru, show her your ears darling.” Bru swept back her long thick silvery hair and exposed her delicate pointed ears. Emily smiled. “They are very pretty Bru. However, they don’t prove anything though, except you have pointy ears. No offense meant to you.”

Bru shrugged. “I told him he was going to have to show you the portal,  Pointy ears, scorpion carcasses, heaps of gold, it proves nothing, and would not convince anyone with any sense of another world, and anyone who believed in it based off that evidence was to gullible for us to work with anyway. The portal is undeniable proof though.” Emily turned to Jake. “This is all fascinating and everything, and heck, lets just say everything you have told me is true for a moment, and you do need my services. The real question is can you afford them? How would I be paid? Because if you cant pay me, nothing else really matters.” Jake gave Emily a serious look. Jake reached under the table for something, and placed a pillow case onto the table. He turned it over spilling a pile of gems, and gold objects onto the table. Emily looked surprised. She picked up a few gems to examine, as well as a small solid gold statue of a horse. “I’m no expert, but It definitely looks real.“ I assure you I am not joking.” He explained. “ I have several million in gold laying in the back of my truck right now, not to mention millions more in precious jewels. I brought it all back from the ruins I mentioned.

I have access to literally tons of gold. I just need a way to convert it to cash. That is but one reason I need your services, to help convert the gold to cash.” Ok, we will assume you have the resources to pay me. Lets also assume this is all real, and not a joke of some kind. Why do you need my help, in, well whatever this is.” Jake shrugged. “In the short term, I need someone who can help me sell the gold and gems for hard cash. I plan to use the cash to purchase supplies, equipment, and other things to outfit those ruins I mentioned. I plan to create a base there.” Emily nodded. “I see, and yes, I could help you with all of that. It would be challenging to move tons of gold without arousing the attention of the government, but I believe I could do it. What kinds of materials would you need to purchase? Jake thought for a second. “ Well, steel in large quantities, surplus military vehicles, building materials, radios, ammunition, food, fuel and more, but that’s a glimpse of it, there would be a huge variety of items. I need a way to buy all of that, and get it through my portal, without anyone discovering what I am doing.” Emily nodded. “Not really a issue, challenging sure, but doable.”She glanced at her watch and let out a sigh. Mr Reynolds, I think have been patient, but its time to get to it. Your time is almost up, If you have absolute proof, I need to see it, and be convinced. Otherwise I’m leaving here in.” She glanced at her watch. “In fifteen minutes.”

Emily sat in the drivers seat of her Mercedes suv, and watched Jake work on his generator. Asmund and Bru were in the back seat, she had asked them to come along. She didn’t really get a bad vibe from Jake, or his lady friends, in fact it was just the opposite. She felt nothing but good things about them, she was not however going to run off into the woods alone with this guy however. The ladies in the back seat assured her somewhat, that things would stay civil. She just could not figure out what this guys scheme was. Obviously he was up to something, but she just could not figure out what. The only thing she damn well knew for a fact was, she would not be seeing any stargate today. He was likely to tell her at any moment that his equipment was broken, or the stars were out of alignment. She just could not figure out what he sought to gain from her involvement. It was not money, as she would not be giving him any, perhaps some legitimacy? She was highly respected, and had the ear of many powerful people, perhaps he wanted her to stump for him, and help him get a grant from the government. The generator roared to life, and a few moments later Jake climbed into the passenger seat, taking a moment to adjust his sword, before he could close the door.

“Jake, what's the deal with that sword? Why do you feel the need to haul it around with you? I have to say it does not help your case much, it just looks odd.” Jake shrugged. “This sword is special, lets just leave it at that.” Emily nodded. “Fine with me. When do I get to see this gate of yours?” Jake smiled and pointed. “Its right there, that black spot. Just drive up to it slowly.” Emily squinted. What the hell was he talking about? Then she saw it. There was something just ahead of them, a dark spot of some kind. She slipped the vehicle into gear and drove towards it, curious to see what kind of trickery this was going to be. She stopped, and peered at the black thing in front of them. Just in front of the rock wall of the ridge was a rectangle about the size of a garage door, and it was a inky black color. What in the hell? “Just drive through it.” Jake said. “It does not feel like anything, everything gets black for a second or two, and then your out the other side.” Emily was not so sure she wanted to drive into whatever this was. It gave her the willies. “ Ill drive into the cliff, I’m not going to wreck my rental.” She said.

Asmund patted her arm from the back seat. “I sense your unease Emily, all is well, there is no danger. Trust us.”Jake sighed impatiently. “What's the matter?” Jake asked. “Scared? Of what? You think this is all a load of bullshit anyway, so whats to be scared of?” She realized he was right, and she was pissed he had managed to make her feel this way. This was all nothing but bullshit, well, turn about is fair play. I’v got something for you Mr Reynolds. She thought, Iv got full accident insurance on this thing, lets see how you like being scared. She stomped on the gas and the suv rocketed forward. Jake yelled. “hey slow the hell down lady!” Emily chuckled and the vehicle hit the darkness dead center. Everything went black as pitch and Emily let out a scream despite herself. She could see no light, not even the dash or head lights. It was like being dunked into black paint. Suddenly they were in bright sunlight again, and Emily stopped screaming, embarrassed and pissed because Jake had managed to scare her again. This was all bullshit, she had driven through a black out curtain or a cave or something. She stomped on the brakes, full of piss and vinegar.

She turned to Jake and cut into him. “Look, Mr Reynolds, I have had enough of this bullshit. I came all the way to Kentucky, to see you, and in return you waste my time with this bullshit. I was prepared to listen, but you had to take it too far, and play these games. I don’t know what your scheme is, but I want no part of it. When we get back to the house, you are getting the fuck out, pardon my french, and I am going back home.” She noticed Jake was just ignoring her rant completely, and was staring up through the sunroof with a stupid expression on his face. She got even madder. “Stop fucking ignoring me goddammit!!” Jake pointed up. Beautiful view, isn’t it? All three moons are out.” She was ready to fight she was so damn mad. “What the fuck are you talking about? I’m not playing these games anymore, I’m sick of this insane bullshit!” Jake grabbed the keys from the ignition and stepped out of the vehicle. He took her fucking keys?!? Oh hell no he didn’t. She jumped out slamming her door. Asmund looked at Bru. “Should we help Jake? Emily looks mad enough to kill him.” Bru snickered. “Nope, lets just watch. I want to see what happens.” Emily stomped around the vehicle until the stood face to face with Jake. “Im out of patience Mr Reynolds. You have crossed the line, give me my keys, right now.” Jake shook his head. “You are so mad you don’t even see it.” She grabbed for her keys, but he held them out of her reach. “Last chance asshole, give me my keys, or I’m going to introduce you to some kick boxing.” Jake laughed. Your overreacting woman, just look up in the fucking..” The air exploded from Jake lungs and he collapsed onto the ground in a heap, all the air driven from him.

“Asmund squealed at the sight, and leaped from the vehicle, Bru simply whistled. “Damn that girl can kick !” Asmund ran to Jake and scooped his head up off the ground and cradled it in her lap tenderly, as she stroked his cheek. His eyes were bulging, his face was red and he made squeaking sounds as he struggled to take a breath. Emily snatched her keys from his hand. “ I warned you asshole!” Asmund was furious. “ You did not need to strike him ! He was trying to get your attention ! He wanted you to look into the sky crazy woman, that was all !” Jake managed to finally suck in a breath He rolled onto his side coughing, and gasping at the same time. Emily pointed a finger at Asmund. “He deserved it ! I’m sick of this shit, you people are all nuts !” Asmund pointed at the sky. “ Just look in the sky you crazy bitch ! !” Emily rolled her eyes. ‘Sure, as if me looking in the sky will make all this better somehow. Your fucking delusional.” Emily glanced up at the sky. “Son of a bitch.”

Jake lay back on the couch bare chested as Jiselle and Miranda mothered him. “It looks awful.” Jiselle said. She replaced the ice pack on his chest placing it on the odd foot shaped bruise that had appeared there.” Jake winced painfully at her light touch. Bru stood over them, with Emily beside her. “ The lass kicks like a mule.” She smirked in amusement. “You really must teach me that move Emily.” Jiselle turned on Bru. “How can you joke about M’lord being hurt? He very likely has cracked ribs !” Bru nodded. “I would expect so after being kicked like that. I have seen mules who could not kick that hard”. Emily had a embarrassed look on her face. “Mr Reynolds, I am so sorry. I hope you will forgive me. I wont accept all the blame in this, you went too far .You should never have taken my keys, that pushed me over the edge. I had a abusive boyfriend once who did that to me, and when you did it, I just lost my self control. I don’t feel bad about kicking you, you deserved it, I do however feel bad about kicking you quite so hard.

If it makes you feel any better, I decided to take the job.” She smiled at him with a big goofy smile. Jake burst out laughing at the stupid look, something he immediately regretted, and the laughing instantly turned into gasps of pain. He gripped his chest, and grimaced against it for a few moments. “ OMG! Ok, no more joking around. Its funny, but I cant take it right now.” Emily grinned. “ Sorry Jake. Maybe since your laid up, you can just tell me a bit more about what you want to accomplish, and what you will need from me. When I have a good idea, I will head back home and start putting things together for you. Jake nodded. “ I don’t really have any long range plans as of yet. I just want to build a base of operations on the new world. I will use it for exploration, as well as a base for trading gold ingots, for steel ingots.” Emily made a few notes. “What do you think you will need for this, materials wise?” Jake looked at her. “Your uncle said you were prior service. Ever been deployed, and been on a f.o.b?” Bru butted in. "What's a fob?" Jake turned to her. "Its a forward operating base, located close to or in hostile territory." Bru nodded. "I get it. I find it strange though that your people insist on using so many damn acronyms."

Emily nodded. “More than I care to remember.” Jake shrugged. “think of what was needed to make a fob run. That’s what I’m going to need. Trucks, generators, fuel, solar panels, computers, food, plumbing, electrical, and a hundred more things. Id like to buy mostly military surplus vehicles, as the roads there kind of suck, and I will need off road vehicles that can carry heavy loads. Plus a way to exchange gold and gems for cash.” Emily took more notes. “You have enough cash for the short term?” She asked. Jake nodded. “I have enough for now, but will need a hell of a lot more down the road.” Emily nodded. “I have a few ideas about how we can more large amounts of metals later on, let me look into it. Short term, I believe I know someone who would be willing to move enough metals to keep you reasonably financed short term, at least until I can work out the bigger plans. It wont be cheap though, we will likely have to spend money, in order to make money.” Jake nodded. “What do you need from me?”

Emily smiled. “I will need a paycheck. One hundred thousand sign on bonus, as a sign of goodwill. Then, a yearly salary of 10% of your proceeds from selling gold, or two hundred thousand a year, which ever is higher, plus expenses. How does that sound? Jake sighed. “It sounds expensive as fuck, Pardon my French.” Emily shrugged. “ I am expensive, but worth it. I offer a service few can provide. I can absolutely give you the things that you requested what's more I will find a way for it to be one hundred percent legal. All taxes paid, licenses obtained when needed, a top quality legal team on standby to answer questions, do research, and handle legal items. When absolutely needed, I can even get a influential person to help occasionally. Plus everything is absolutely confidential. I have a license to practice law, and when you sign on as a client, everything we discuss is attorney client protected. Besides, if everything you told me is true, you can easily afford my fee’s, I promise you I will be earning my money.

I will be taking a lot of risk, and need to be compensated properly for that risk. Jake sighed. I thought the work alone would excite you.” Emily grinned. “Make no mistake Jake, I think this is a incredible opportunity, and I damn sure want to be a part of it, but I cant do it for free. Well I could, but I wont. You are hiring me for my technical help, part of that is I am a skilled negotiator. You cant very well claim to have unlimited riches at hand, and expect me to ignore it. In the future I would not mention the gold when you are negotiating price.” Jake rolled his eyes. “ Fine, your hired. When can we get started?” Emily stood. “How about right now? I am a great cook. You just relax, and myself and your lady friends will whip us up something to eat. We can discuss everything over dinner tonight, I have a million questions to ask all of you. Just imagine, a real life Elf and Dwarves, I cant believe it.” She exclaimed. “I thought Dwarve’s were shorter for some reason.” Bru snickered. Everyone thinks they are three feet tall, it annoys them to no end.”

A pillow smacked into Bru’s head. “Hey, Elf sitting here !” Jiselle stuck her tongue out at her, I wont sit here and listen to Dwarf slander, so you stop right it right now missy, unless you want me to spread some Elf slander. Bru grimaced. “I would rather you didn’t, some of what people say about us is disgusting.” Jiselle shrugged. “ You see how we feel then.” Emily held her hands up. “Ladies Im sorry, I didn’t mean to insult anyone. Lets get to cooking then, any volunteers?” They all got up to help except for Asmund who had Jakes head cradled in her lap. The ladies walked to the kitchen, and then Bru spoke up. “So Emily, since your on the team now, will you be joining Jake’s harem?” Emily giggled. “ Nice try Bru, but I have your number, you’re a instigator. Im not falling for it.” Bru shrugged. “Thought id ask. Jake wont let me participate.” Selene interrupted. “ You know very well why Bru.” She turned to Emily. “Jake does not want to risk hurting her is all, it has nothing to do with him not being attracted to her. He cares for her greatly, and she knows it.” She looked Emily over in admiration. You are very beautiful Emily, I’m sure Jake would not disprove of you joining in should you choose to, he is a very good lover I might add.” Emily gasp in surprise. “What!?! I thought you were joking ! “OMG!!

Emily stuck her head out of the kitchen. “I can see you have been a naughty boy Mr Reynolds.” Jake smiled and shrugged. He regretted it instantly as he gasp in pain from the movement. Emily nodded. “Serves you right naughty boy.” She retreated to the kitchen, where pots and pans started clanking, and women giggled as they whispered things Jake could not quite make out. Emily pulled the ladies aside, as the harem thing was a bit much for her. “ You all are really a harem, seriously?” Don’t you feel dirty or something to share the same man? “Selene shrugged. “What is there to feel dirty about? Jake is a handsome man, and Miranda, Asmund, and Jiselle are like my sisters, we share everything. They are good women, and all of us simply work together to help meet his needs. It is not a traditional relationship between one man and one woman, but it has never pretended to be. We wish to serve him, and to help him with his goals. What he wants to do will help everyone in our world eventually, we simply have to be part of it. Besides, as I said, Jake is a skilled lover.” She smiled a naughty smile.

Emily groaned. “ Oh stop you. I really don’t know how I feel about this honestly. It has the feel of a cult to it, and I don’t like it at all. Maybe this is not the right fit for me after all. Jiselle grabbed Emily by the hand, grabbed a bottle of wine, and pulled her towards the door. Come on ladies, we need to have a talk with Emily, and sit her straight. Oh no Bru, where do you think your going? You started this, and made Emily uncomfortable, your going to help fix it.” Jake peered up at Asmund. “Anything I can do to help?” He asked. Asmund glared at him. “ I’m sure you have all kinds of helpful ideas M’lord, but no. She stood up, and let his head fall back onto the couch roughly. “ You just lie here, while we try to fix this. Emily seems like a good person, we don’t want to run her off over this, nor do we wish for her to think badly about us either.” Asmund grabbed two more bottles of wine and followed the other ladies back to the study so they could talk.

Dinner turned out to be excellent. They had cleared away the plates, and all sat with dessert, and a glass of wine. Dinner had been a little tense, and conversation had been a little awkward. Finally Emily took a deep breath. “Ok, lets get this over with, the tension is killing me.” She turned to Jake. “ I was ready to leave earlier over the harem thing, I did not like it one bit.” She paused. “However. I am a open minded woman, and I have told people in the past that what people did in their own bedrooms was none of my business, and I meant it. So, I cannot very well hold what you all do as consenting adults against you. The ladies went to great lengths to explain their culture, and how all of this came to be. They told me what happened between you and the prince, and how terrible you felt when you thought they had no say in the matter, and how you bought their freedom, and how it was purely their idea to remain with you, against your wishes.

I can’t say I really absorbed or even understand half of the things they told me, but they convinced me you all care a great deal for each other, and I can see it for myself. so who am I to interfere in that? Ironically it was talking with Bru that did it, the woman who was not participating in the harem convinced me of it being a good thing, and even if I could change it, why i shouldn’t. I will just say that they convinced me that what is happening here is nothing bad, and when it boils down to it, is really none of my business. Its nuts that you prove to me that you have discovered another world, and here I’m hung up on your bedroom practices.

You have all given me a lot to consider, and it will take me a while to wrap my head fully around all of it.” Jake didn’t know what to say. “ I appreciate that Emily. I can assure you that our personal lives will not interfere with our professional ones.” Emily nodded. “ That’s all I’m asking. From what I have seen and heard today I can see you’re a good man, who’s trying to do a good thing.” Jake nodded. "Which good thing are you referring?” Emily shrugged. “Pick one. There are a lot to choose from, even several that might not have occurred to you yet. Help stop slavery, and indentured servitude such as these ladies suffered through, bring badly needed steel to their cultures, explore new lands and possibly discover cures for diseases, or even new technology. Hell, wanting to get rich is not such a bad thing either. My uncle said that you asked if I were a conservative. That leads me to believe that you might not approve of many things happening in the world today, and perhaps you might be considering creating a colony where like minded people could find a new home, and freedom to live, Another new world as it were.”

Jake shrugged. “The idea has crossed my mind.” Emily nodded. “It a attractive idea, and done right could be a great thing. Just remember however what happened to the inhabitants of the last new world, after it was colonized.” Jake shook his head. “ I would never allow that to happen there.” Emily shrugged. “The gate exists, so people will use it. I just want you to be fully aware of the possible consequences is all. There are consequences to everything. If there is as much gold as you say, importing enormous quantities of it could change its worth here on earth, as importing huge quantities of iron will change its value there. Just things to consider. I’m headed back to my hotel room in a few minutes, where I will start working on plans to solve your problems, how about I meet you back here for lunch tomorrow to discuss what I come up with?” Jake nodded. “That sounds great.” The ladies refused to let Emily leave without each hugging her again, and saying a few words to her. Dwarf goodbyes were apparently pretty long Jake observed. After fifteen minutes of hugging, Emily finally made it out the front door, and pulled out of the driveway.

Jake was worn out from his busy day, and busted ribs, so he retired to bed early. Asmund was chosen to see him off to bed, as the other ladies were cleaning up the kitchen, and wanted to talk about some things before bed. Jake fell asleep in Asmund’s arms, his head resting against her soft naked breasts. He slept like a baby.

The next morning Jake busied himself with more online research, looking for used military equipment. He found plenty, everything from military underwear by the ton, to generators, to armored personnel carriers were for sale. Private purchases were easy, but much of the stuff he wanted was best bought from government auctions, but to buy it from the government required a lot of paperwork, something he knew he could not handle currently. Hopefully Emily came up with some answers. He made a extensive list of materials he was going to need, with the items needed soonest at the top of the list. The first thing he needed to source were the steel ingots, followed by the construction materials and tools he needed to have ready for when the dwarf workers arrived at the ruins in a few weeks. The lumber actually turned out to be easy, as a local mill agreed to deliver the lumber and materials he requested. Tools were ordered in bulk from a large online store, much easier than to go from store to store and buy a handful at a time. He finally contacted a steel company who could deliver the five pound steel ingots he needed at a reasonable price. They would charge their normal steel price, plus one dollar per cut made, plus delivery. It was not cheap to be sure, but it was twenty five percent of what the other places wanted for the same service. Emily called and offered to bring lunch for everyone, to which Jake agreed. They were short on food in the house and lunch would have been sparse to begin with.

Jake met Emily at the door when she arrived. He had to admit she was a attractive woman. She was tall, about five foot eight, with a athletic build, and long legs. He followed her out to her suv, and helped haul the food in. Emily had brought barbecue with her and it smelled amazing, she had even brought fried catfish, fries, and coleslaw as well as jugs of sweet tea. “Im surprised a girl from Spokane is into barbecure.” Jake joked. “Don’t judge me.” Emily laughed. “I spent a lot of time in the south when I was in the Army, much of the food grew on me. I didn’t know exactly what to get, so I brought a selection. I hope its ok.” Jake nodded. “ Oh hell yes, it smells amazing! I love barbecue and catfish.” He called loud enough to be heard through the entire house. “ Hey Emily’s here with lunch! Come n get it !”  He helped set the food out, and laid out plates and glasses. Once the women arrived they ran him out of the kitchen, and told him to wait at the table. He sat with a glass of tea as the ladies talked and made plates of food.

They passed out full plates, and everyone dug in. The food was a big hit, and except for the fried catfish none of the ladies had ever had anything like it before. “ It is delicious !” Miranda gasp between bites of food. “What am I eating exactly?” Emily pointed at her plate. “ That sandwich is made from pork, the other one is made from mutton. They cook it over a fire until it falls off the bone, shred it and treat it with a sauce. The shredded stuff in the cup is chopped up cabbage, lettuce and carrots that has a different sauce on it.” “Well its delicious Bru said. “You people will make me fat if I keep eating like this.” Emily laughed. “Nonsense woman, there is no fat on you at all.” Bru grinned. “I know, Elves cannot get fat. Our metabolism changes to match our food intake, when we eat little it slows, when we eat a lot it speeds up. I could eat everything on this table several times a day and I would never gain a pound.” that had the other ladies casting her dirty looks. “Must be nice.” Asmund muttered. “If I eat like this very often I will gain five pounds over night, and not in my boobs where id like it to show up I might add.”

Emily looked at Bru. “ If you could make women here have a metabolism like yours Bru you would be the richest woman on the planet. People would pay dearly for it.” Bru looked up from a bite of food. “Really? I know of several traditional plants from my home that can be made into a very effective weight loss treatment. The pounds melt right off, very quickly, you are not hungry while taking it, and it has few side effects as well.” Emily nodded. “Id like to try some, it could be a big hit.” They finished lunch and then it was on to business. She laid out a few folders, that were filled with documents, and photo’s of different things.

“What do we have here?” Jake asked. You were only gone for fourteen hours, didn’t you sleep?” Emily laughed. “Nope, not really. Too excited. I found solutions to several of your problems already.” Jake looked surprised. “Well lets here it.” She nodded, and opened a folder. “Ok, as far as short term money issues. I found a guy willing to buy your gold from you. He will have a armored truck meet you in town, where you can pass it off to them. They will weigh it on the spot, and hand you paperwork. They will take it and sell it, and the next trip you make to drop gold off, they will hand you the money for the earlier trip. I believe the guy is trustworthy, he owns a lot of those places who buy gold from you, and he would simply mix this in with other shipments. The downside is he will only pay you fifty percent of spot price.” Jake looked shocked. “Fifty percent? That sounds terrible to me, why so bad?” Emily shrugged. “Its not exactly easy to hand off hundreds of pounds of gold to just anyone. That stuff usually has a lot of paperwork attached to it. We want to avoid that paperwork, until we have the capital to get to the next level, once there, the price per spot jumps to around ninety percent.”

Jake smiled. “That’s more like it, why not just do that now?” Emily shook her head. “Because you can afford it right now. My plan to move large quantities of gold is for you to buy a abandoned gold mine, or poorly producing gold mine at a bargain price. We take your gold to the mine, and ship it out as a normal mining product. We pay takes on it, and as a result we have proceeds direct deposited into the bank. I have a small mining operation lined up already but we would need about five million bucks to buy it. So, you need to start saving.” Jake looked sad. “Don’t fret Jake.” she laughed. “I have better news. I have a high end jewelry buyer who’s interested in buying some of your gems. He will give you a good price, and they should bring in enough money very quickly to pay for the mining operation.” Jake thought for a moment. How do we explain me blowing five million on a mine?” Emily smiled. “I’m already working on it, my legal team is filing the paperwork to create a corporation for you. You will be the ceo of the corporation, empowered to use investors money to make investments, one of which will be the mining operation.” Jake frowned. “That sounds complicated.” Emily smiled. “No its extremely complicated. They will make dozens of corporations, which all have dozens of bank accounts, which are attached to larger corporations that they created twenty years ago for this very thing.

When they are finished it will be a tangled mess, with most of it being located offshore, and mostly safe from government meddling, as long as you keep the paperwork straight, and pay your taxes you will be fine. I also have started a local business for you, the paperwork is all being filed as we speak. Reynolds Surplus LLC, will be a real thing in a few days, and totally legal. Financed by investors. That will allow you to buy surplus equipment from the government, buy, sell, trade, even import. I am also going to start up a few smaller companies that are part of Reynolds Surplus, that will allow us to buy other bulk supplies, such as building materials, steel, food, and more, buy and sell them, with a little creative accounting, that’s legal mind you, you can get all the supplies for your new base, and no one will even know where they went, they wont even be missing.” She flashed him a big smile. “Damn Jake exclaimed. You are taking this thing big, do we really want that? I mean you seem to really know your shit, I'm just concerned about getting on someone's radar.” Emily shook her head. “You will be getting on peoples radar either way, its just how do you want to appear on radar?

Do you want to look fishy, dealing in large amounts of gold, and materials, and huge amounts of cash, with no apparent financial assets, licenses, bank accounts, or worse dodging taxes? Or do you want to look like a large multi-pronged business entity, with ties to the community, public relations, bank accounts, assets, business locations, and taxes paid? I want to remind you Al Capone was a notorious gangster, who dealt in a ton of criminal enterprises, the gov could never prove, however, they did send him to prison for tax evasion. The moral of the story is, you can appear crooked as you want, but as long as taxes are paid you avoid most of the really bad things the government has to throw at you. We will have a sterling reputation as a company when we really get rolling, s long as you do what I tell you, everything will be fine.”

Jake smiled. “That sounds amazing, Emily !” What do you need from me?” She smiled. “Well a bag of gems would be a good start. I will pass them off to my jewelry guy and get the ball rolling, I can take my sign on bonus out of that if you like. Then You need to make some small one pound gold ingots for the gold exchange, Im sure that will take some time.” Jake shook his head as he handed her a paper bag. “Id rather pay you your bonus up front in cash if that’s ok.” She grinned cash is always good! I don’t need to count it, I trust you Jake. I am going to stay in my hotel for the time being, as this is my new full time job, getting this operation off of the ground. I will bring you documents everyday to sign, related to getting the business off the ground. We need to apply for a business license locally as well. Dot worry, you just sign the papers and me and my minions will get it all rolling for you. We will eventually have to hire employees as well, but that’s a little way off just yet. Why don’t you rest those ribs, and maybe take your harem out on the town, let those girls have some fun.

Don’t worry, things will come together quickly.” Jake thought for a second. “ I have a few deals I need to do in the next few days or a week, how do I handle those?” Emily thought for a second. “Easy, just pay cash, and sign everything Jake Reynolds, Reynolds Surplus LLC. It will give us a paper trail. Save all receipts. If I were you, I would start getting a warehouse or two constructed out here.You can use it as business storage, and have deliveries made here, then you can delivery product through the portal as needed. I should have the payment for the Gems in a week at most, I will drop it off to you in cash. Within a few weeks we will have them start making direct deposits to our corporate accounts, to get things rolling.” Jake nodded. “ Hell I never thought about that at all, hell yes. That would solve several issues at once. I will get started on storage buildings at once. I’m really glad I met you Emily. There’s no way in hell I could pull this off on my own. What do you get out of this, besides some money I mean?” Emily laughed. “ You mean besides a huge amount of money? Well I have a new challenge I have never had before, I love challenges and this has a ton of them. Besides that, there is adventure. I will be exploring some of that new planet myself I assure you. I would also probably be interested in buying a large piece of land there as well. A girl has to have options you know. This is the biggest discovery since America was discovered, I want to be part of that.” Jake smiled. “I want you to be part of it too Emily. I don’t think it will ever happen without your help. The only thing I have learned by hiring you, is just how little I understand about all of this.” “Emily smiled. “ We all have our specialties.”

Good update Buck. Thanks and keep them coming.

I think the Emily stuff worked out well enough. However the next chapter started having too much business related stuff in it, and gets a little boring. Luckily I didn't get too far into it. I think I'm going to jump into some adventure next. I'm thinking of the portal having some operational issues and everyone gets stuck on the other side, and while there, adventure / a bad guy comes a calling.  

I would like to know how he gets the items he needs and such. But whatever, just hurry up Buck. I need something to read as I sit and watch display of machines.

@buck19delta.

I agree with zoe, definitely enjoying it and regularly checking in for updates.

next update will be next week sometime. iv got a bunch of stuff I have to do that's going to keep me busy. the next updates will have some excitement, and violence as well.

I love it! cant wait for the next installment.

Still busy. I'm upgrading 10 acres of cattle fencing so I can install a electric fence for the FIL. much of it is in bad shape so have to install new wood posts, t posts, wire, cut trees and brush, install insulators, poles to take wire over gates, etc. its a lot of work. Plus a bunch of other smaller things that need dealing with.

I did come up with some good stuff for the book for down the road.  maybe not for the first book, but definitely be in later ones. Part of it is going to be the gates were created thousands of years ago, by a scientific race obsessed with observing " lower" life forms. they created  hidden gates / portals as well as hidden observation posts that allowed them to monitor other races secretly. This is where the science fiction aspect of my book will come from.  Elves, Dwarves, orcs, etc are all actually the results of genetic experiments conducted thousands of years ago. Still Working on the details in my head as I'm fencing.

I just discovered this story a few hours ago and have read everything written so far.  Normally I am not into elves or casting of spells.   That being said I am into science fiction and military fiction.  I love this story and believe other people will love it also.  I have enclosed two different web sites you may be interested in posting it to get even more feedback.

http://pawfiction.proboards.com/board/21/stories-written

http://www.survivalistboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=33

Ok, first off I'm not usually into the fantasy genre, but this is pretty entertaining.
You've got a great imagination, cool start.

I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but I'd rewrite the first sex scene. It was pretty graphic for a story that might appeal to preteen as well as adults. It felt forced.
I would treat it like the later scenes, where Jake wakes up and thinks about the night he just had, but leave the porn aspect out, where it described so graphically.

Not trying to be a prude here, because I think you have a great start.
Dave

thanks, I appreciate it.

I need to say once again, that what iv posted so far is only maybe 50% complete. it needs a lot of work. what your reading is basically a rough draft version. once I get the story line right, ill be working on the content. there WILL be a lot of science fiction in this, aliens, alien tech, etc, as well as fantasy, D&D style stuff, and also military fiction. the magic aspect of things, will be tied to alien tech which allows magic like things to happen, and magic items, like the sword, are more advanced technology than dark arts etc.   the story covers a wide spectrum of things, hell, there will even be tank battles, between Jakes WW2 surplus vehicles, and advanced alien stuff.( obviously not all will be in the first book however )  I think it will be pretty cool to read when finished..

I tend to agree with that, and it will likely change a bit. I appreciate the input, and I'm glad you like it. ill try to post more soon, I have chores to do still before I can concentrate on writing.

Here is a new update. I went back and added some action to when Jake first discovered the fortress. I think I need to put more stuff into the story befoe he finds the sword, and make things more gritty, and dangerous.

hope you enjoy.

He gripped his rifle and headed inside the tall defensive wall, as he was stepping over the remains of the castle gates, he noticed something. The metal reinforcing on the gates, and all the metal fittings, were not iron or steel, but some greenish metal, maybe copper? It reminded him of the front door of his house, he realized suddenly his front door must have come from here as well. How crazy is that? He thought to himself. His front door was actually imported from another planet. The thought made his head hurt, he was so out of his depth here it was insane. He once again wished he had some help here, but again found himself stuck. How the hell could he get help, and keep the secret, and control of this place? He was stumped. Every time he considered getting help, he could not get over the fear that he would lose all of this, should someone tell the wrong person about it, or hell, even decide they wanted it for themselves. No, he was stuck doing this alone, at least for now.

He stepped through the gate openings into the long abandoned fortress, the walls were massive, easily thirty feet thick, all built from massive stone blocks the size of his truck. He had never seen anything like it before, not even in real castles, how the hell had they moved blocks that big? The stone blocks had a very old look to them, the tool marks in the stones were worn smooth from the many years they had sat here exposed to the elements. How damn old was this place? He wondered. Once Inside the wall he discovered the fortress had wide cobble stone roads running between each building. Green grass and scraggly little shrubs grew up through the paving everywhere, telling him if the place did have visitors, they were few and far between.

He realized it would be a mistake to just assume he was the only one here though. He stood there quietly for several long minutes, just listening to his surroundings, being on the lookout for anything that might suggest he was not alone. The wind made a whistling sound as it blew through the ruins, he could hear ancient boards creaking when the wind blew against them. The squeal of a hinge made him grip his rifle tighter and he gazed in the direction the sound was coming from, but he realized after a few moments the squeal had a rhythm to it, coming only when the wind gusted, it was nothing but the wind, he realized. He relaxed his grip on the weapon and breathed a sigh of relief.

He slowly walked through the ruins, on high alert, as he explored what the place had to offer. The area inside the walls the fortress covered was huge, at least ten acres he guessed, maybe as much as twenty. He had seen dozens of buildings so far, they came in all sizes and shapes, everything from tall skinny towers, to short far warehouse looking buildings, and everything in between. Most of the buildings he had seen so far seemed to be structurally sound, only requiring minor work to make them habitable. While the stone work was in excellent shape, the wood aspects of the buildings were pretty much either burned or rotten from age and neglect. The roofs of most buildings had collapsed into the interiors, leaving them filled with piles of debris that would make searching them a pain in the ass. It would take him forever to really search everything properly by himself. He realized that if he was going to use these ruins as a base of operations, he was eventually going to have to get some help for this project, the sheer amount of things that needed to be dealt with were staggering.

He was smart enough to realize the biggest thing was going to be covering all the problems and issues he didn’t even know existed, for that he needed specialty people. Eventually he would, but for now it would just be him, so he better get to work. Just as he had that thought the rumble of thunder echoed across the mountains. He gazed in the direction it had came from, and frowned at the dark clouds that were just now appearing over the mountains. He realized the temperature had started dropping as well, it looked like it was going to rain soon, maybe a lot from the looks of things. He groaned in frustration and annoyance. He was not looking forward to sleeping in a wet tent, or sleeping cramped up in the cab of his truck.

He was seriously considering returning home until the weather got better, when a small building caught his eye. He stood there looking at it wondering what had caught his eye, and realized it had a greenish roof, a intact roof he realized, as well as a door that was still in one piece. He walked over to it to take a better look at it. From the outside it looked like it was in much better shape than most of the other buildings he had seen so far today. The door on it looked heavily reinforced, the entire front of the door was covered in a thick greenish copper plate. He gripped the metal door handle and pulled against it.

The door refused to open, so he pulled harder, then yanked as hard as he could. Slowly the thick heavy door moved scraping across the stone with a loud squeal, as its long unused hinges protested loudly. He finally got it fully open and peeked into the dark interior, there was really not much to see. It looked like the building had a single large room, the remains of long rotted furniture littered the floor. He stepped inside the room and looked around the interior, again, there was not much to look at, it had a fireplace on one wall, and featured small narrow windows. The windows  were little more than slits and too narrow for a person to fit through, he guessed they were arrow slits or something.

There was a back door as well, which was much like the front door, thick and heavy. There were heavy copper bolts on the back door locking it closed, he turned to the front door, and discovered it had the same kind of heavy bolts as well, and when locked this would be a snug little mini fortress of its own. He gazed upwards at the beams supporting the ceiling, and noticed it was all open space above him, most importantly though he realized he could see no daylight through the roof, it appeared to be weather tight, it also appeared to be a copper roof, which explained why it was still in such good shape, a well made copper roof could last about forever, as long as it was not damaged. Why sleep in his truck, when he had this nice little building he could use?

He thought this would do nicely as a base of operations. He returned to his truck and drove it back to the little building. Out back he discovered a small barn, which he guessed had been stables at one time from the smell. The little barn was in not nearly as good a shape as the building out front was, but it would be a perfect place to hide his truck. He parked it inside, and was satisfied no one could see it unless they actually walked inside. He didn’t think he would run into anyone out here, but it was better to take precautions all the same. Jake started unloading camping gear, and setting up his camp inside the snug little building he had found. The timing worked out perfectly, just as he sat the last box down inside his new temporary home the sky opened up and heavy rain beat down on the roof. He stood there for a few minutes watching, and waiting, but except for a small drip in one corner, the roof didn’t leak at all.

He felt blessed at having found this place, it would be a great base camp. He put his cot against the wall close to the fireplace, set up a folding table, and a couple of folding camp chairs, he slid his heavy cooler under the table, and set up a lantern. The cardboard boxes of canned food, and other supplies were stacked against the wall, and arranged so he could find things easily, even in the dark. The narrow slit windows didn’t offer much light to begin with, and once the dark clouds had blocked out the sun, it was hard to see inside. He lit a few lanterns, which did a great job of illuminating the little room with a warm glow. The temperature was dropping quickly as well due to the storm, and he realized he could see his breath in the air. Might as well tackle the fireplace next, he thought. He had brought some seasoned firewood with him on this trip, and had stacked it beside the fireplace earlier, so it only took a minute to get a fire going. He crossed his fingers, as he lit the fire, and was pleased as the smoke was sucked up the chimney, indicating it was going to work, and not smoke him out. The interior warmed quickly making the room warm and comfortable, a hell of a lot better than being stuck inside his small tent. He thought happily.

Jake sat cooking dinner over his camping stove, and he was soon even more glad he had relocated into this building. Right after dark the temperature plummeted and the rain turned to sleet covering everything with a thick layer of ice. He busted his ass several times when he attempted to go back to the truck for another box he had forgotten. The cobblestones were slick as hell, and almost impossible to walk on. He finally managed to get back inside without breaking his ankle, just as the wind started gusting hard, actually blowing the sleet sideways. It was a hell of a storm, and anyone caught out in that mess would be beyond miserable. He was warm and snug however, he sat eating his dinner of dehydrated beef stew and sipping bourbon, while watching the flashes of lightning, through the open doorway. Damn sure not a night to be out and about, and he was glad he had good shelter, he wondered what kind of weather this place had, and hoped storms like this were not a common occurrence.

This was dangerous weather and he would hate to get caught out in it. He yawned heavily and realized he was exhausted. Time for bed then. He wrestled the heavy door shut, and slid home the thick metal bolts, locking the door. The thick heavy door, heavy bolts, small windows and thick walls made him feel very safe. Once in his warm sleeping bag he was asleep in minutes. It stormed like that for hours, late into the night, booming thunder woke him more than once, but he was warm and toasty, and fell asleep again quickly. Something with claws tore at the door frantically, as Jake tumbled from his sleeping bag onto the stone floor. He grabbed for the zipper, ripping the sleeping bag open and stumbling to his feet. Something heavy thudded against the door again, actually managing to rattle it in its hinges, then instantly tore at it again with loud squealing sounds as claws scraped down the thick copper plated door, he could hear the growls of several animals as they tore at the door. Jake raised the rifle to his shoulder, and flipped the safety off. “ This is your last warning !” A shiver ran down his back, as the growling turned to a vicious guttural sounding laughter, like a monsters laugh, then words came, the voice so thick and harsh he could barely make out the words.

“Open….human die..quick.” Then there was a long pause. “ Fight... suffer..long” Harsh gutteral laughter followed. Jake had never heard anything like it. It sounded like something from hell was just outside the door. It was not just the sounds though, as terrible as the animal sounds were, the voice was ten times more scary as that meant it was intelligent, but there was something more. There was a feeling to it, a dark, feeling of terror ripped through him, part of him wanted to run away in terror, while another part of him wanted to open the door and embrace the creature. He needed to touch it, he needed to embrace it. “Yesssss…. open.” The voice spoke again, it sounded as if it were right against the door. Suddenly something crashed against the back door behind him, making him jump. He realized he had his hand on the bolt, and was about to pull it back unlocking the door. He blinked his eyes and shook his head rapidly, trying to clear his head. What the fuck was happening to him?!

“Fuck you !” Jake screamed. He raised the rifle and rapidly squeezed off a half dozen rounds through the front door, He thought he heard a squeal of pain, but that didn’t slow him down, there was something clawing at the back door, he pivoted on the balls of his feet spun around and dumped another half dozen rounds through the back door. Something squealed loudly in pain, a terrifying, soul wrenching sound that cut through him. There came a hell of a ruckus from the back of the building, loud screeching, and squeals of pain, it sounded like a combination dog and cat fight to him, it was horrifying. Something thudded against the door again, and he dumped the rest of the magazine through the door. He stood there with his ears ringing painfully from the enclosed gunfire, and realized his rifle was empty. He stumbled towards the corner and grabbed his vest and slipped it on. He pulled a fresh magazine from it and reloaded his rifle, then threw some wood into the fireplace with one hand, while he kept the rifle pointed at the door.

He stood there for what seemed like hours, but didn’t hear another sound from outside. Suddenly he felt weak, and his hands started shaking badly, and his knees felt like they were about to give out. He dropped into a camping chair, and sat facing the door, he held the rifle in one hand, and fumbled with the bottle of bourbon with the other. He took a long deep drink from the bottle of Knob Creek, the bourbon burning its way down his throat. He felt his nerves calming as the liquor took effect. His arms slowly stopped shaking, and slowly he regained his calm. He sat in the chair for the rest of the night, until the sun had risen enough for beams of sunlight to flood in through the high narrow windows. Only then did he finally get out of the chair, . He realized he could not stand here forever, its not like he could call 911, or someone would come looking for him, he was going to have to deal with this himself. He realized he was still only wearing his underwear, and got dressed. Once he was fully dressed and had his vest on, and pistol strapped around his waist, He took a few more drinks of bourbon for some added courage. He had not heard a sound for hours now, and figured this was a good a time as any. He checked his pistol and rifle, yanked back the heavy locking bolt, and kicked the door open. He stood there and stared at the scene before him.

The temperature had risen quite a bit once the storm passed and the sleet had turned to water. The area in front of the door was smeared with blood, thick smears of blood covered the ground out front. He assumed he had hit something with his rifle fire after all, there was no body, but there damn sure was a lot of blood. The thick blood smears left the door and traveled across the cobble stones and disappeared down a alley across from his building. The smears of blood had multiple tracks in them, as if something had followed the blood trail, and stepped in the blood leaving tracks. Strange. He returned to the front of the building, examined the front door, the thick copper plate on the door had deep gouges scratched into it, whatever had done that had been strong as hell. He slowly moved around the towards the back door where he had heard the fighting, and stood there staring in shock.

There was blood everywhere, as well as thick tufts of thick black fur, in the center of the blood was a pile of gore. He edged closer, to get a better look at it, and was rewarded with a view of shattered bones, ripped fur and entrails. He had no clue what he was looking at, whatever it was was had been ripped to pieces. He was no expert, but he knew whatever it was, there was a lot of it missing. He found a bullet hole in a bone, that told him he had definately hit it. Apparently, what had happened was, he had wounded one of them, and the rest had attacked the wounded member of the group ripping it apart in a feeding frenzy. It was not a comforting thought at all. He did feel some satisfaction though at putting some hurt on whatever it was, that had tried to attack him last night. He figured this was a really bad idea, but he was going to follow those tracks.

He hefted his rifle, and slowly and carefully followed the blood trail the wounded creature had left behind. The trail wound around buildings, and through them. He followed it across the ruins and until he ran into two things, another bloody scene with another pile of gore where another slaughter had taken place similar to the first. Bloody tracks left the scene of the slaughter and a short distance away they disappeared into the collapsed ruins of a small building that sat off by its self. The ground around the building was covered in tracks, whatever it was has been coming and going from this spot for a long time. He peered through the door where the tracks went, and discovered a jumble of wood timbers, and a narrow tunnel leading into the debris. The bloody tracks led into that tunnel, He peered into the dark tunnel, his rifle at the ready, a stench of rot, shit  and wet dog came from it, and he swore he could hear something moving around in there. Could this be a den of some kind? He wondered. Well, one way to find out.

Two hours and a lot of work later, Jake was peering at the den through his rifles combat optic. He raised the sight slightly and easily found the five gallon can of mixed gasoline, and diesel fuel he had worked hard to place at the rear of the building. The can of fuel had been lowered from the top of the wall until it sat on top of the rubble. The rubble was filled with rotten old wood beams, and they should burn easily he thought. He slipped the tracer round into the rifles chamber, slid the bold closed, and inserted a full magazine. He had chosen his spot well, he has located directly across from the den, in the ruins of another building. He had barricaded himself into the little building, by stacking wood, against the door and windows. He had left a slot large enough for his rifle and that was it, if this went badly he didn’t want those things to be able to rush him at once. He figured as long as they could not easily get to him, he could pick them off.

Jake raised his rifle, and centered the green dot of his optic on the metal gas can. He hated the thought of shooting one of the surplus jerry cans, as he loved those things. They were not easy to come by, and the new gov mandated safety gas cans sucked. It was for a good cause though. He took a deep breath, let half of it out, and slowly squeezed the trigger of his rifle. The gun fired, and all hell broke loose, the fuel can exploded spraying burning diesel across the ruins, the fuel flowed into the cracks of the debris setting it ablaze. He dropped his aim slightly and shot the second fuel can that was just inside the entrance, sending up another fireball of burning fuel. A few seconds later he was rewarded with screeches of pain coming from the burning debris. He aimed at the tunnel and started firing, keeping up a steady stream of fire into the approximate area where the tunnel was, he could not actually see it anymore due to the fire and smoke. The rifle bolt locked back on a empty chamber and Jake quickly reloaded, keeping up the firing.

Something dark streaked from the doorway, running away from the burning building with its fur ablaze. He shifted to follow it, quickly putting a half a dozen rounds into it, it flopped onto the ground writhing in paid as its flesh burned. He put his gun back on the doorway and opened fire again, just as several more creatures erupted out of it, he got a lucky hit on the first dropping it in its tracks, the second leapt onto the first and attacked it, apparently crazed by pain and blood lust. Jake dropped it as it ripped hunks of flesh from the first one. He reloaded several more times, as he kept of his firing, his rifle was getting pretty hot, so he slowed his rate of fire to a shot every few seconds. He kept firing at this slow pace until he had shot all six of the spare magazines he had brought with him for this. He reloaded with a magazine from his vest, and sat watching the burning ruins.

The massive old timbers burned brightly for hours, He dug himself out of his little bunker and approached cautiously. First he checked the creature he had shot as it ran away, it was dead, and looked like hell with half of its fur burned away. It was hideous, and he had never seen anything like it before. It was about the size of a great dane, and sort of resembled a dog, with a large mouth filled with sharp teeth, but it had hands like a human, the fingers tipped with long sharp claws. The fur was thick and black as tar, and its limbs were heavily muscled. It had very large weird eyes, which Jake thought indicated it was mostly a night creature, and hated daylight. What was more disturbing though, was it was wearing jewelry. It had a thick silver necklace around its neck, with a large ruby set in it, and it had matching bracelets as well.

They looked very valuable, he carefully removed them and slipped them into a pocket of his vest. He moved to the two creatures that had died in the doorway, but he could not get very close due to the intense heat from the fire. He could see though that his rifle fire had done its job, as behind the first two creatures, he could see the burning bodies of several more jammed in the tunnel behind them. The sun was setting now, and he figured he didn’t want to be out here at night. He doubted he would be spending any time outside at night anytime soon after this. He hated to think what would have happened to him had he been sleeping in a tent last night as he had originally planned to do. It was mostly luck he had not been, he was going to have to start making every decision here as though he were in hostile territory. Jake turned and walked back towards his camp to lock himself in for the night, he needed some bourbon to help get this nightmarish stuff out of his head for a while..

Awesome chapter!

@buck19delta

First, I have serious concerns about you and this story:
1. You are a 19D.  We all know 19Ds are DATs.
2. 19Ds are best known for trying to run over my 12Bs and spraying us with mud as you gun it through the breach.
3. It is a well known and established fact that 19Ds can barely read -10 manuals, which is why tanker -10s have lots of pictures for you to color in with crayons you borrowed from our Marine brethren.
4. This is too well written to comply with the preceding statement or to be from anyone who came out of FT Knox.  I have serious concerns you lied to your recruiter (Enlistment Under False Pretenses) and Drill Sergeant about only having a second grade education (max allowed 19D MOS, I'm pretty sure).  I should immediately contact CID and JAG about this serious issue, but that would cause the story to stop, and that would make me sad.
5. A 19D is also one of the few people who can properly write-up a Sherman vs. Dragon plot line, so all is forgiven.
5.  I'm probably that son-of-a-bitch who forgot and left out that strand of concertina wire that you ran over and got tangled in your drive sprocket.
6. Keep up the good work - this is better written than several published stories I've read.

From a feedback perspective, there are a couple of spelling and grammar mistaksmistakes such as your/you're and some other minor ones, but it is pretty tight from that perspective for a raw draft.

The only editing revisions I don't like, is the last one with the wolf creatures right after he enters the world for the first time.  I think your first version was better, because the pacing allows him (and the reader) to explore the new world before jumping feet first into life or death combat.  I think that is important to help paint the picture and develop the story.  Every other edit makes the story stronger.

That said, I do like the wolf creature plotline, but I think it should come later.  I really like the use of the AR the way it is supposed to be used, instead of charging around waving the sword.  Right weapon, right time kind of thing.

Keep up the good work DAT! Friggin' Awesome!

I did ten years as a 11 bravo, and another 11 years as a 19delta.

I appreciate the feedback. I keep jumping to far forward in the story IMHO, and I need to slow it down a little, and not go so fast, in the first version I had jake starting out with a crew of twenty people and establishing a base, when I realized there was a lot of story that could come before that point. I want Jake to explore a bit, and get a camp set up before he meets thoran, etc, and starts dealing with other people. explore  bunch, and deal with some dangers on his own. the deal with the ruins is, it has a history of weird shit / portal activity / magical experiments and as a result, there are some oddball creatures, and other things lurking around the ruins, that exhist nowhere else on the planet. the ruins are also in the wilderness, and that wilderness needs to be dangerous, something I have really not worked on much before now. I want the exploration to be dangerous, but extremely rewarding financially.

heres more about the wolf creatures, I reworked a little of it, and added some more to it. glad you guys like it.

He was smart enough to realize the biggest thing was going to be covering all the problems and issues he didn’t even know existed, for that he needed specialty people. Eventually he would, but for now it would just be him, so he better get to work. Just as he had that thought the rumble of thunder echoed across the mountains. He gazed in the direction it had came from, and frowned at the dark clouds that were just now appearing over the mountains. He realized the temperature had started dropping as well, it looked like it was going to rain soon, maybe a lot from the looks of things. He groaned in frustration and annoyance. He was not looking forward to sleeping in a wet tent, or sleeping cramped up in the cab of his truck. He turned and started working his way back towards his truck. He was almost to the gate he had entered through, and was seriously considering returning home until the weather got better, when a small building caught his attention.

He stood there looking at it wondering what had caught his eye, and realized it had a intact roof he realized, as well as a door that was still in one piece. He walked over to it to take a better look at it. From the outside it looked like it was in much better shape than most of the other buildings he had seen so far today. The door on it looked heavily reinforced, and the windows were narrow slits with bars over them. It looked like a small jail to him. He stepped up to the door to get a closer look at it, and realized the door was covered with a thick copper plate, and heavy hinges as well. The door opened inward, but there was actually a second door that opened outward, and it was open and against the wall. It was not really a door though, more of a heavy gate made from heavy copper bars that resembled a jail cell door. He looked at it for a moment, and guessed it must be used when the temperature was hot, you could lock this outer gate, and leave the solid interior door open.

It offered good protection, while allowing air to circulate inside. It definately gave the building a jail feel to it, but then he noticed the gate locked on the inside, in a way that was obviously meant to keep people out, not in. Weird he thought, cant be a jail with a door built like that, but what was building used for? He wondered. He gripped the metal door handle and pushed against the heavy door.

The door refused to open, and seemed stuck, so he shoved his shoulder against it hard and was rewarded by the door sliding a few inches. He rammed his shoulder against it again and again and slowly the thick heavy door moved, scraping noisily across the stone floor with a loud groan of protest, the hinges squealed loudly in a way that made him wince as the high pitched sound cut through him, and echoed through the abandoned buildings around him. He sighed. So much for being stealthy, if there was anyone around for miles, they damn well knew someone was here now. He finally got the door fully open and peeked into the dark interior, he stepped inside and found himself standing in a large open room. He looked around the interior, It had a large fireplace on one wall, with a battered heavy table close to it, across the room were rows of bunk beds that were falling apart. The narrow windows let in little light, but he was able to make out what he thought were weapon racks as well on another wall.

He realized this was not a jail at all, but most likely a guard shack of some kind, the fact it was so close to the gate reinforced this hypothesis. The building had a back door as well, which was much like the front door, thick and heavy, he peeked out one of the narrow slit windows and noticed there was a small building of some kind out back. Looking closer at the door he realized there were heavy copper bolts on the back door locking it closed, about eye height was a small peep hole, covered by a small metal door. He turned to the front door, and discovered it had the same kind of heavy bolts on the inside of it as well, and when locked this would be a snug little mini fortress of its own. He was really liking what he was seeing. He gazed upwards at the thick hand carved wood beams supporting the ceiling, and noticed it was all open space above him, most importantly though he realized he could see no daylight through the roof. It appeared to be weather tight, the roof also appeared to be made from copper, which explained why it was still in such good shape, a well made copper roof could last about forever, as long as it was not damaged. He smiled. Why sleep in his cramped truck, or a leaky tent when he had this nice little weather tight mini fortress he could use?

He thought this would do nicely as a base of operations. He returned to his truck and drove it back to the little building. Out back he explored the other building and discovered it was a barn, which he guessed had been stables at one time from the smell of it. The little barn was in not nearly as good a shape as the building out front was, but it had a doorway big enough for his truck and would be a good place to hide it. He parked inside, and covered the truck with a camo tarp, it was impossible to see a dozen steps away, as it blended into the dark interior perfectly. He was satisfied no one could see it unless they actually walked inside the building. He didn’t think he would run into anyone out here, but it was better to take precautions all the same. Jake started unloading camping gear, and setting up his camp inside the snug little building he had found. The timing worked out perfectly, just as he sat the last box down inside his new temporary home the sky opened up and heavy rain beat down on the roof. He stood there for a few minutes watching, and waiting, but except for a small drip in one corner, the roof amazingly didn’t leak at all. He felt blessed at having found this place, it would be a great base camp, that was close to the gate, offered good protection from the elements, and offered great protection from being attacked. He doubted he had anything to worry about from humans, as the place appeared deserted, but there were always wild animals to worry about, and a hungry bear could really wreck your day.

He put his cot against the wall close to the fireplace, set up a folding table, and a couple of folding camp chairs, then he slid his heavy cooler under the table, and set up a lantern. The cardboard boxes of canned food, and other supplies were stacked against the wall, and arranged so he could find things easily, even in the dark. The narrow slit windows didn’t offer much light to begin with, and once the dark clouds had blocked out the sun, it was hard to see inside. He lit his lantern, which did a great job of illuminating the little room with a warm glow. The temperature was dropping quickly as well due to the storm, and he realized he could see his breath in the air. Might as well tackle the fireplace next, he thought. He had brought some seasoned firewood with him on this trip, and had stacked it beside the fireplace earlier, so it only took a minute to get a fire going.

He crossed his fingers, as he lit the fire, and was pleased as the smoke was sucked up the chimney, indicating it was going to work, and not smoke him out. The interior warmed quickly making the room warm and comfortable, a hell of a lot better than being stuck inside his small tent. He thought happily. He grabbed a quart of motor oil from his truck, and with a little work he had the door hinges, and locking bars lubricated, and the door opening much more easily and quietly. Jake opened and closed the heavy door several times, and played with the thick locking bars sliding them in and out, locking and unlocking the door over and over. There was something very satisfying about the heavy door, the sound it made as it thudded shut, as well as the clunk of the heavy locking bars slamming home. The sounds soothed something primal in him, the way it solidly stood between him and the outside world. He smiled at the feeling. I might not need a door like this. He thought to himself, but it damn sure felt good knowing it stood between him and the unknown world around him, especially tonight while he would be sleeping.

Jake sat cooking dinner over his camping stove, and he was soon even more glad he had relocated into this building. Right after dark the temperature plummeted and the rain turned to sleet covering everything with a thick layer of ice. He busted his ass several times when he attempted to go back to the truck for another box he had forgotten. The cobblestones were slick as hell, and almost impossible to walk on. He finally managed to get back inside without breaking his ankle, just as the wind started gusting hard, actually blowing the sleet sideways. It was a hell of a storm, and anyone caught out in that mess would be beyond miserable, hell fast moving storms like this were dangerous as hell, and could easily kill the unprepared who were caught in one without shelter.

He was thankfully warm and snug however, he sat eating his dinner of dehydrated beef stew and sipping bourbon, while watching the flashes of lightning, through the bars of the locked gate blocking the doorway. Damn sure not a night to be out and about, and he was glad he had good shelter, he wondered what kind of weather this place had, and hoped storms like this were not a common occurrence. This was dangerous weather and he would hate to get caught out in it. He yawned heavily and realized he was exhausted. Time for bed then. He wrestled the heavy door shut, and slid home the thick metal bolts, locking the door. The thick heavy door, heavy bolts, small windows and thick stone walls made him feel very safe. Once in his warm sleeping bag he was asleep in minutes. It stormed like that for hours, late into the night, booming thunder woke him more than once, but he was warm and toasty, and fell asleep again quickly.

Jake lay on his cot with his eyes open, staring into darkness. Something had woken him up, but he didn’t know what. He lay there for a moment listening, and was almost asleep again when he heard a sound. It was a soft scratching sound, something was scratching at the door. Suddenly the soft scratching turned into a loud banging rattle as something beat violently at the heavy metal gate outside. There was loud growling, and something with claws tore at the door frantically, making shrieking sounds as claws scraped across the metal door. Jake tumbled from his sleeping bag onto the stone floor startled by the sudden loud violent noises. He grabbed for the sleeping bags zipper, ripping the sleeping bag open and stumbling to his feet. Something heavy thudded against the door again, actually managing to rattle it in its hinges, whatever it was sounded big, and mean. Whatever it was tore at the door again the sound the claws made as they scraped down the thick copper plated door were awful. He could hear the growls of several animals as they tore at the door, and a moment later the back door was attacked in the same way, indicating they were out back as well. Whatever they were began growling loud enough to be heard through the thick door.

Jake raised the rifle to his shoulder, and yelled loudly to be heard. “I’m armed, and not afraid to defend myself, you had best move on !” The clawing sounds instantly stopped. A shiver ran down his back, and goose bumps sprouted on his arms as the growling turned to a vicious guttural sounding laughter, like a monsters laugh. Then it spoke. The voice so thick and harsh he could barely make out the words. “Open….human…die quick.” Then there was a long pause. “ Fight.. and... suffer..” The words dripped with malace, and Jake had to fight down the fear that was threatening to over whelm him

He flipped the safety off. “ This is your last warning !” Harsh gutteral laughter followed. Jake had never heard anything like it. It sounded like something from hell was just outside the door. It was not just the sounds though, as terrible as the animal sounds were, the voice was ten times more scary as that meant it was intelligent, but there was something more. There was a feeling to it, a dark, feeling of terror ripped through him, part of him wanted to run away in terror, while another part of him wanted to open the door and embrace the creature. He needed to touch it, he needed to embrace it. “Yesssss…. open.” The voice spoke again, it sounded as if it were right against the door. Suddenly something crashed against the back door behind him, making him jump. He realized he had his hand on the doors bolt, and was about to pull it back unlocking the door. He blinked his eyes and shook his head rapidly, trying to clear his head. What the fuck was happening to him?!

“Fuck you !” Jake screamed. He raised the rifle and rapidly squeezed off a half dozen rounds through the front door, He thought he heard a squeal of pain, but that didn’t slow him down, there was something clawing at the back door, he pivoted on the balls of his feet spun around and dumped another half dozen rounds through the back door. Something shrieked in pain, a terrifying, soul wrenching sound that cut through him. There came a hell of a ruckus from the back of the building, loud screeching, vicious snarls, and squeals of pain, it sounded like a combination dog and cat fight to him, it was horrifying in its ferocity. Something thudded heavily against the door again, and he dumped the rest of the magazine through it. He stood there with his ears ringing painfully from the enclosed gunfire, and realized his rifle was empty. He stumbled towards the corner and grabbed his vest and slipped it on. He pulled a fresh magazine from it and reloaded his rifle, then threw some wood into the fireplace with one hand, while he kept the rifle pointed at the door.

He stood there for what seemed like hours, but didn’t hear another sound from outside, it was dead quiet. Suddenly he felt weak, and his hands started shaking badly, and his knees felt like they were about to give out. He dropped into a camping chair, and sat facing the door, he held the rifle in one shaking hand, and fumbled with the bottle of bourbon with the other. He took a long deep drink from the bottle of Knob Creek, the bourbon burning its way down his throat. He felt his nerves slowly calming as the liquid courage took effect. His arms slowly stopped shaking, and slowly he regained his calm. He sat in the chair for the rest of the night, until the sun had risen enough for beams of sunlight to flood in through the high narrow windows. Only then did he finally get out of the chair, he stayed put for several hours, peeking out through the narrow windows, looking for any sign of the creatures that had attacked him, but seeing nothing except for a huge wet spot on the ground that he guessed was blood.

The temperature rose quickly, and the sleet melted away in a few hours. He realized he could not stay in here forever, its not like he could call 911, or someone would come looking for him, he was going to have to deal with this thing himself. He realized with a start that he was still only wearing his underwear, and quickly got dressed. He pulled out his equipment, and put on all of his combat gear that he had. Once he was fully dressed , he buckled on his pistol and tactical vest, and picked up his fully loaded rifle. He was well armed, but It honestly didn’t feel like it was enough when compared to the horror he had faced the night before. He took a few more drinks of bourbon for some added courage, and sighed heavily, he had to do this eventually. He had not heard a sound for hours now, and figured this was a good a time as any. He checked his pistol and rifle, making sure both had a round in the chamber, then yanked back the heavy locking bolt, and kicked the door open. He stood there and stared at the scene before him.

The area in front of the door was smeared with blood, thick smears of blood covered the ground out front. He assumed he had hit something with his rifle fire after all, there was no body, but there damn sure was a lot of blood. The thick blood smears left the door and traveled across the cobble stones and disappeared down a alley across from his building. The smears of blood had multiple large animal tracks in them, as if something had followed the blood trail, and stepped in the blood leaving tracks. Strange. He returned to the front of the building, examined the front door, the thick copper plate on the door had deep gouges scratched into it, whatever had done that had been strong as hell. He made a mental note that he needed to reinforce this place better if he planned to stay here in the future, he was also going to need some heavier firepower. He shouldered his rifle, and slowly moved around the building towards the back door where he had heard the fighting. Every nerve in his body was on edge, and his eyes darted to every alley, and every bush big enough to hide anything bigger than a rabbit.

He had no clue what he was looking for, but figured he would know it when he saw it. He turned the final corner and stood there staring in shock at the scene before him. There was blood everywhere, as well as thick tufts of thick black fur, spread around the small court yard were piles of gore. Pieces of meat, and bone lay scattered about on random places. He edged closer, to get a better look at it, and was rewarded with a view of shattered bones, ripped fur and entrails. He had no clue what he was looking at, whatever it was was had been ripped to pieces. He was no expert, but he knew whatever it was he was looking at, had a lot of it missing. He found a bullet hole in a bone, that told him he had definately hit it. He kept moving around the court yard, his eyes constantly scanning for danger, as he thought about everything.

Apparently, what had happened was, he had wounded one, or several of the creatures, and the rest had attacked the wounded member of the group ripping it apart in a feeding frenzy, similar to what he had seen happen in shark attacks, the creatures had ripped apart and eaten their fellow wounded members. It was not a comforting thought at all. He did feel some satisfaction though at putting some hurt on whatever it was that had tried to attack him last night. He shuddered to think what would have happened had he been sleeping in a tent last night. He knew what he had to do, and figured it was a really bad idea, but he was going to have to follow those tracks. He could not stay here and have a threat like this unchecked. He needed to figure out where he stood, either it was a small threat, with only a few animals and he could deal with it himself, or it would be dozens or hundreds of creatures, too much for him to deal with and he would have to evacuate until he had more help, and heavier firepower to handle it.

He hefted his rifle, and slowly and carefully followed the blood trail the wounded creature had left behind. It was not hard to follow, bloody footprints, and bloody smears where the creatures had drug the bloody carcass’s of their dead with along with them. The trail wound down alleys, around buildings, and through them. He followed it across the ruins almost to the other side of the fortress until he ran into another bloody scene with another pile of gore where another slaughter had taken place similar to the first. Bloody tracks left the scene of the slaughter and a short distance away they disappeared into the collapsed ruins of a small building that sat off by its self. Jake cautiously walked around the building, always careful to keep the wind in his face, he carefully studied the ground and discovered it was covered in tracks. There were hundreds of tracks in the dirt whatever it was had been coming and going from this spot for a very long time, he also discovered that there was only one entrance to this place, which would make things a lot easier. He peered through the door way where the tracks went, and discovered a jumble of wood timbers, and a narrow tunnel leading into the debris.

His hair stood on end, and every fiber of his being was screaming for him to run from this terrible place, before these monsters discovered he was here, and came pouring out of this hole after him. It took everything he had to keep from running. He peered into the dark tunnel where the tracks led, the ground was littered with feces, and bones of all kinds from other kills, he looked uneasily at a human skull sticking out of the dirt. That pretty much removed all doubt that these things would kill a man. He gripped the rifles stock with sweaty hands as a terrible stench of rotting meat, shit and wet dog came from the tunnel before him. He strained his hearing, and swore he could hear something moving around inside there. This was obviously the creatures den, how many of those things were down there? He wondered. Well, one way to find out.

Two hours and a lot of work later, Jake was peering at the den through his rifles combat optic. He raised the sight slightly and easily found the five gallon can of mixed gasoline, and diesel fuel he had worked hard to place at the rear of the building. The can of fuel had been lowered from the top of the buildings back wall until it sat on top of the rubble. The rubble was filled with lots of rotten old wood beams, and they should burn easily he thought. He slipped the tracer round into the rifles chamber, slid the bold closed, and inserted a full magazine. He had chosen his spot carefully, he was located directly across from the den in the ruins of another building. He had barricaded himself into the little building, by stacking wood and blocks of stone, against the doorway and windows leaving only a slot large enough for his rifle to poke out and that was it. If this went badly he didn’t want those things to be able to easily get at him in a rush. He figured as long as they could not easily get to him, he could pick them off eventually. Next to him was a five gallon can of water, a box of canned food, and a extra can of rifle ammo. He could stay here for quite a while should he be forced to, he damn sure didn’t want to, but better safe than sorry. There were a dozen ways this could all go to shit. Once again he wished he had some help in this, and was not forced to do all this crap alone. No time to dwell on that right now though, he had work to do. He checked everything again, and realized he was as ready as he was going to get.

Jake raised his rifle, and centered the green dot of his optic on the metal gas can, and let out a heavy sigh. He hated the thought of shooting one of the fuel cans, as he loved those things. The steel military surplus fuel cans were not easy to come by, but he greatly preferred using them to the new gov mandated safety gas cans, those things fucking sucked ass. Whoever designed those things deserved a kick in the nuts. It was for a good cause though. He relaxed his body, took in a deep breath, then let half of it out and held it, and slowly squeezed the trigger of his rifle. The rifle fired, and all hell broke loose. The 5.56mm tracer flew across the distance like a flaming comet and disappeared through the side of the fuel can, a instant later the fuel can exploded into a huge roaring fireball, spraying burning fuel across the debris the den was built in. The fuel flowed into the cracks of the debris setting it ablaze and within moments it was a roaring inferno, thick black smoke rose into the sky, and wood popped and crackled under the intense heat. He dropped his aim slightly and shot the second fuel can that was just inside the entrance, sending up another fireball of burning fuel.

A few seconds later he was rewarded with screeches of pain coming from the burning debris. He aimed through the doorway at the general location of the tunnel which was obscured by the smoke and fire and started firing his rifle, dumping round after round into it. He kept up a slow steady stream of fire into the approximate area where the tunnel was, hoping he was hitting something. The rifle bolt locked back on a empty chamber and Jake quickly reloaded, keeping up the stream of bullets. Something dark streaked from the doorway running away from the burning building with its fur ablaze. He shifted to follow it, quickly putting a half a dozen rounds into it, it flopped onto the ground writhing in pain as its flesh burned. He put his gun back on the doorway and opened fire again, just as several more creatures erupted out of it, he got a lucky hit on the first dropping it in its tracks, the second lept onto the first and attacked it, apparently crazed by pain and blood lust. Jake dropped it as it ripped hunks of flesh from the first one. He reloaded several more times, as he kept firing, the stack of empty magazines beside him was growing, and his rifle was getting pretty damn hot, so he slowed his rate of fire to a shot every few seconds. He kept firing at this slow pace until he had shot all six of the spare magazines he had brought with him for this.

He reloaded with a magazine from his vest, and sat watching the burning ruins. The massive old timbers burned brightly for hours, and he sat watching it to ensure nothing escaped. Finally, as dark was approaching he knew he could not sit here any longer. He dug himself out of his little bunker and approached the smoking ruin cautiously. First he checked the creature he had shot as it ran away, it was dead, and looked like hell with half of its fur burned away. It was hideous to look at, and he had never seen anything like it before. It was about the size of a large great Dane, and it even sort of resembled a dog. It had a four legs, a tail and a large mouth filled with sharp teeth, but the resemblence to a dog ended there. Its ears were large and resembled a bats ears, the front limbs instead of paws, had hands like a human, with the fingers tipped with long sharp wicked looking claws. The fur was coarse, thick and black as tar, and its limbs were heavily muscled. It also had very large weird eyes, which Jake thought indicated it was mostly a night creature, and likely hated daylight.

What was more disturbing though, was it was wearing jewelry. It had a thick silver necklace around its neck, with a large ruby set in it, and it had matching bracelets as well. They looked valuable, so he carefully removed them and slipped them into a pocket of his vest. He moved to the two creatures that had died in the doorway, but he could not get very close due to the intense heat from the fire. He could see though that his rifle fire had done its job, as behind the first two creatures, he could see the burning bodies of several more jammed in the tunnel behind them. The sun was setting now, and he figured he didn’t want to be out here at night. He doubted he would be spending any time outside at night anytime soon after all this. Jake turned and walked back towards his camp to lock himself in for the night.

He spent most of the night fully dressed in his combat gear with his rifle laying across his lap. He sat staring at the fire place for hours carefully considering his next move. The only thing for sure he decided was he was going to need a much more secure camp site to operate from. Jake woke up and stretched, every muscle in his body seemed to hurt this morning, his back especially. He stood up and twisted his body back and forth trying to get his back to pop. He sighed in relief when it finally did. Weak sunlight was coming in through the narrow windows, and a glance at his watch told him it was only about seven am. He was going to have a busy day ahead of him. After carefully checking the area through the narrow windows and ventured out and cleared the area around the building. He was relieved to find he was alone today, finding no evidence anyone or anything had been outside during the night. He knew he was not going to be living like this anymore, waking up each morning wondering if something was waiting outside the door to eat him, he had a plan to fix that. He unloaded everything from his truck, stacked it in the barn and covering it with his camo tarp, when the truck was empty, he climbed inside and headed for the portal, he had some shopping to do today.

A week later, Jake sat drinking bourbon watching the sun set. He glanced at the monitor on the table and was pleased to see the camera system was finally working properly. It had taken him half the day to get them set up, and the other half to get them working. He had installed a total of eight cameras with night vision capabilities, on the outside of the building, and in the back court yard where the truck was parked. He flipped through the cameras, and smiled at how easily he could see the everything now, he could see the entire area around the little building, the court yard out back, his truck, everything. The cameras also had motion detectors, which would alert him to anything moving, even if he was not watching the screen. Hell yes he thought, nothing would be sneaking up on him anymore, and he never had to wonder if something was outside again, he could see everything now. He stepped outside and inspected the gate and fence again, to make sure he had not missed anything.

The building had a walled courtyard outback large enough to hold a half dozen trucks, and he had installed a steel gate on the entrance, as well as steel mesh fencing along the top of the wall. The fencing was useful by itself in keeping people and animals out of the courtyard where he was storing his supplies, and vehicle but the powerful electric fence chargers he had hooked up to it took it to another level entirely. He had four one hundred mile cattle fencing chargers hooked up to it, and they sent enough voltage to his three hundred feet of fencing to knock the hell out of anything that touched it. The four chargers took the voltage of the fence to dangerous levels, but he thought it was necessary, considering he was not trying to keep cows out, but instead dangerous predators. Hell he had considered hooking a generator up to it, but that would use way too much fuel, and be a pain in the ass to keep it running all the time. He had instead bought solar powered electric fence chargers, as well as enough extra solar panels and batteries, to keep it working through any weather. He had also bought a small honda generator that was set up to automatically turn on and recharge the batteries should they get too low.

He was proud of it, it should work through any weather, and it had enough power to strongly discourage trespassers. He had also installed led floodlights on the outside of the building, as well as led lighting on the inside as well. All of it, as well as the camera system was powered by by the same solar panel set up the electric fence was. The cameras and fence were all working to his satisfaction, so the last thing to check before he locked himself in for the night was the new doors he had built. The original doors while strong, had left a lot to be desired in his opinion, for one they were very old and the wood core was weak, for another copper was not nearly as strong as steel was. He had built the new front and rear doors himself, they had a steel concrete filled frame, and the outside skin was half inch armor plate. He had a hell of a time getting them mounted by himself, as each door weighed about five hundred pounds. He had also replaced the weaker copper hinges with five hardened steel high security hinges, there were now three, thick steel locking bars on each door as well as a small port in the door he could shoot through.

The outside of the door was also hooked into the electric fence system as well, and anyone touching the door would get knocked on their ass. The last thing he had done was install gutters on the roof, and plumb them into a thousand gallon water tank out back to be used as drinking water. He shivered against the cool evening air, and figured it was time to turn in for the night. He stepped inside, and pulled the heavy door closed behind him, the heavy thud it made when it closed was comforting to him. He slid home the thick steel locking bars, and smiled in satisfaction, nothing was coming through that door, and anything capable of getting through it would be getting a belly full of rifle fire through the port he had installed. It had been a stressful week, as he worked on the upgrades, while also trying to watch his back as he worked, but it was all finally finished. He felt snug, safe, and comfortable in his new home, the comfort part came from the interior upgrades he had made. He glanced around the room, which was softly illuminated by the cracking fire in the fireplace and the new interior led lighting he had installed, and took in everything he had accomplished in the last week.

First he had cleared out all the old broken furniture, and cleaned up best he could. Then he had put in new furniture and appliances to make his time here more comfortable, there was the large oak desk where he had set up the monitor for the security cameras, and his laptop computer, next to that was the flat screen tv, with collection of movies and xbox gaming system, a comfortable recliner, a large twelve volt rv refrigerator that was currently filled with beer and food, shelves were installed, and stocked with canned and packaged food, in the corner was a full sized propane stove for cooking, a microwave, and a real kitchen table. Close to the fireplace he had placed a very comfortable full sized bed, beside the bed was a well stocked gun cabinet, along the opposite wall were new bunkbeds, should he bring more people in.

The back corner featured a curtain that was concealing a comfortable sit down chemical toilet, and outside the back door was a home made shower with small water heater. He had accomplished a lot in the last week, and was pleased with the progress. Now that he had a safe, comfortable base of operations it was time to start exploring this place. He grabbed a cold beer from the fridge and sat down at the desk to study the aerial photo of the fortress he had taken with his new drone earlier that day. The detail was incredible, He could see everything, all of the buildings, alleys, streets, and more. He had already marked the location of his base, and the building he had burned that had the animal den in it. He was making a few additional notations on it marking the buildings he was planning to search the next day when a alarm beeped.

He glanced at the monitor, and saw a camera that was highlighted. He looked closer and sure enough, something was moving in front of that camera, as he watched he realized it was another one of the dog things. It slunk along the bottom of a wall stealthily, and if not for the cameras night vision capability he knew he would have never been able to see it. He was pondering what he should do when he realized there were two more of them behind that one, and they were headed towards the rear gate. He sipped his beer and waited to see what would happen when they touched that fence. The creature approached the fence cautiously, and reached out to grab it in a clear intent to climb the gate. The instant it touched the fence there was a shower of sparks and the creature stood there like a statue unmoving. Jake blinked in surprise, wondering why it had not recoiled from the voltage, when he realized it could not let go of the fence. The second creature approached the first , reached out and touched it and recoiled violently when it felt the bite of electricity, it tripped over the last creature falling onto its back.

Jake laughed out loud, he thought the fence would work, but he never dreamed it would work so well. He took another gulp of beer, and pushed a button, that would cut current to the fence for ten seconds. The creature that had been touching the gate collapsed in a heap when the power stopped flowing through it and lay there for several moments without moving. He wondered if it was still alive, when finally It struggled to its feet unsteadily, and stumbled away from the direction it had come from. One of them was not moving, it was just standing there staring at the building. He flipped another switch and tuned on one of the super bright flood lights. The bright light flooded the area where the creature stood, illuminating it perfectly for the camera. The damn thing really was hideous to look at. It instantly covered its face with a clawed hand and recoiled away from the bright light, and fled down a alley. Jake chuckled for a moment, but then let out a heavy sigh.

So there were more of those things around here then, he had hoped he had killed them all, and those were the only ones. He should have known better, at least they stayed away long enough for him to get properly set up, so he was glad for that, he was pleased to see his defenses worked well against them at least. It had been luck on his part they had stayed away the last week while he was working, and a mistake on their part, now that he was solidly dug in here, there was no way those things could get to him now. Unless of course they managed to get at him during daylight that is. He had thought they didn’t like light, and from how the creature had reacted to his flood lights he felt that was a pretty safe bet. Whatever those things were, they seemed to dislike bright light, and preferred to only move at night.

Still not sure how the gennies, and thus the portal, are turned off and on from the other side. If a timer is used, what prevents the wrong sort from walking through? Oh, and the three moon side needs a backup. One is no one and all.

Good chapter.

A crunchy and a DAT!? Talk about a conflicted person!

I served with plenty of good ones of both.

Of course, I could never admit that publicly, so let's keep that a secret.

The portal can be activated from either side, and takes a pretty small amount of energy to power it. I considered having it be one way only, ie, you soon it and you can go thru, but to come back it has to be activated on other side. Still might do that, I'm not sure, gets a lot more complicated though.

Paper Rater helped me with proofing what I have written.  It will accept a couple pages at a time in the free section.  It also grades you on various aspects of your writing.

Moar please?

Been busy on projects, but June is looking pretty slow, so probably write a lot. Probably drop a new update this week. I know the story is rough, my main goal  right now is to get the storyline finished. Once I get the storyline correct, ill add details, and work on grammar. About 50% of what I've posted so far will probably end up in the second book, I keep pushing the story backwards because I feel like I'm missing out on some good story line by jumping too far too fast. I really appreciate the comments, although I'd rather they be focused on story line right now vs grammar etc.

Here is another update.

The next morning Jake locked the gate behind him, and drove his truck back to the portal on another supply run. He had thought of a few more things he might need last night, and meant to get them today. This was going to be his last supply run for a while though, as tomorrow he planned to switch from base building to exploring finally. It had taken everything he had to not run off exploring before now, but discovering last night that there were more of those creatures lurking around had made him damn glad he was being as cautious as he was, and had a strong secure base to operate from.

He flipped the switch and the generator instantly rumbled to life. His mind was on where he was going to go shopping today, he had already added more items to his shopping list. He flipped the power button sending power tot he portal and returned to the truck. He stepped on the gas only half looking where he was going, as he wrote a few items on his shopping list. He glanced up and his eyes went wide in surprise, he stomped the brakes and barely stopped the truck in time to prevent ramming into the stone wall of the cave. “What the fuck”, he exclaimed. He put the truck in reverse and backed up, sure enough there was no portal. He walked back to the generator feeling panic well up in him. He must have flipped the wrong switch, thats all. He glanced at the panel, but found everything was the way it should be, the generator was running, and creating electricity. He followed the power cable to where it had a meter installed on it to show voltage. Sure enough, there was plenty of power going through it. The damn portal was just not opening.

Jake held the panic down as he thought for a moment. Maybe he needed more power? He nudged the power needle higher and higher, watching for the portal as he did so, finally as the generator reached its maximum output the portal sprang to life. He sighed in relief and was walking back to the truck when he thought he saw the portal flicker, sure enough even as he looked at it it flickered more and more until it vanished again. The panic started welling up inside him again.

The rest of the day Jake worked on the portal trying to get it to work . he had added more and more power hoping that would make the difference. He had hauled out the two spare military generators he kept as backup and hooked them all together, when he dumped all the power they could produce into the portal he had been rewarded with it springing to life for ten seconds, but then flickering and dying again. He could not get it to appear again, and he really had no way of adding more power to the portal to try. He broke everything back down, and returned it to storage, and locked himself back in base right before sunset. He sat drinking and thinking about the portal for hours, finally reaching a hypothesis about it. He had no idea if he was right, he hoped he was right, but only time could prove if he was or not. His thinking was, the universe was enormous, and perhaps the distances involved played a part in how the portal worked. If the planet he was on had moved to a area where the portals signal was being blocked, that would explain it. Maybe there was a supernova, or black hole or something between this planet and earth right now, that was causing interference of some kind that was keeping the connection from being made.

Adding more power had temporarily overrode the interference, but as the planet moved or the interference had increased the power had not been enough. Again, there was no way to prove this except by waiting, depending on how long it took for the planet to move past the interference, it could start working again in ten seconds, or ten minutes, or ten years or even ten centuries. He took another deep drink of bourbon, he damn sure hoped the portal would not be down for a long, but there was really nothing he could do but to wait. He finished the bottle, and fell into his bed exhausted, it took him forever to fall asleep.

The next two weeks passed slowly for him. Every morning he would hike up to the gate and try it out, and it was always the same, no portal. He would spent the rest of the day drinking or exploring the ruins, and lock himself back in just before dark. It had been two weeks since the portal had failed. He checked his inventory and discovered he had used very little in the way of supplies in the last two weeks. He felt proud of himself for making the decision to build this base and fully stock it “just in case”, because “just in case” had damn sure reared its ugly head. Surviving for two weeks on what he had on hand now was a cake walk, surviving two weeks on what he had originally arrived with, would have put him in a bad situation about now. He had become more comfortable about his situation over the last two weeks, at first he had been a bit scared, and even depressed at the thought the portal would not reopen and allow him to get back to earth, but as time went on he realized he really didn’t have much of a life back on earth anyway. Damn sure there was no one there who missed him, and if there was no one to miss him, what kind of life did he have? This place might be desolate, with no humans for companionship, but he was damn sure living a adventure many people would kill for.

He also realized he had not been more than a half mile from the portal in the entire time he had been here, there was a entire planet to explore, there could be thousands of people within a days walk from here. He shrugged at the thought of finding people, did he really miss people that much? He realized with a start that he did not, he missed the idea of people much more than the actual people. The portal was not opening, and there was no point in wallowing in it, either it eventually would, or it would not. He needed to get off his ass and get to exploring this place, he needed to get these ruins searched, and find out if those creatures had a den here inside the ruins, or were coming from someplace else. Starting the next day he got serious about searching the ruins.

He started searching buildings, marking each building with a can of spray paint after he was finished with them to keep track of what he had and had not looked through already. The first interesting thing he discovered was solid gold candle stick holders, he got really excited standing there holding what had to be five pounds of gold in his hands, he thought he must be extremely lucky to make such a find like this, he soon realized that luck had nothing to do with it, gold was simply everywhere. He found many things made from gold, there were statues, tools, figurines, oil lamps, and many more items he could not identify, what was not made from gold was copper, or brass. He didn’t find a single thing made from Iron or steel, and he found that puzzling. Why make door hinges, or a pitch fork, or a ax from brass and copper when iron would have been a much better choice?

If Iron had not been invented yet, then why was so much stuff made from gold, when copper would have been way cheaper to use? It was puzzling. He had a large amount of gold items recovered from buildings he had searched so far. They were in a pile out back next to his truck, easily a thousand pounds of it so far. There was a enormous fortune in gold just laying here, and he had not explored a fraction of it yet. Well a fortune if he could ever return home with it, if he did though he would be set for life. He didn’t find any iron though, not a single piece, could it be possible it didn’t exist here, had not been invented yet, or was as rare here as gold was back on earth? It sounded crazy, but it would explain a lot, he didn’t think people made knives and ax’s from copper if they had another option.

The variety of gold items he was finding was astounding, spoons to combs, to door knockers, to lamps and much more. He was going to have to figure out a way to melt it all down into ingots, ingots would be easier to transport and sell than random items made from gold. The exception were the statues he found, whoever had made them had been a master craftsman, they were beautiful. He thought he might try to sell some of those as artwork perhaps. The next discovery he made was that the buildings, and the fortress were actually in great shape. The level of craftsmanship the masons used to build this place was incredible, the stone blocks in the buildings walls were tightly fitted together, and as a result the walls were still all in excellent shape for the most part. It obviously needed a lot of repairs, and many buildings had burned, but many buildings also were untouched by fire.

The building he was living in was a good example, all it really needed was a good cleaning, and a leak repaired and it was livable. That was a lot of good news to him, minor repairs, and renovations were a lot better than having to tear down and rebuild entire buildings. Some where over the last few days he had decided to renovate the fortress, and make it a base of operations for his future plans. He could not think of any place better honestly. It was located right beside the portal, it offered a enormous amount of storage room, and housing, and to top it off, it was a fortress, and would offer a high degree of protection against anything hostile that might be encountered. The damage that was evident was mostly caused by fire from what he could tell. It looked like someone had simple set fire to everything, the wood items, such as doors ,furniture, and wood roof support beams had burned, causing the roof to collapse into the buildings, and everything inside was burned, or buried in the rubble that fell from above. He was pretty sure that after clearing out the rubble, the buildings would be easy to put back into livable condition, simply put on new roofs, doors, and windows, and you would have solid working and living areas.

He didn’t know if he was interesting in colonizing this place, as his grandfather had planned to do, but he did know he was interested in exploring it, and he would need a support team to do it right. The more time he spent searching the ruins the more he realized just what a large job it would be, the place was enormous, and he knew there was a lot of things he was missing in his search, it could take him years to search all of this alone. Even though much of this was just a simple clean up, and minor repairs, it was still a staggering amount of work. He would need a large work crew who was skilled in construction, and one he could trust, and would not have to worry about them spilling the secret about this place, it was a perplexing problem, and not one he had a answer for just yet. He had been searching for a week or so when he made his most interesting, and exciting discoveries yet. The first discovery was a building where someone had obviously been digging in the rubble, there were mounds of dirt, and a shovel and pick laying on the ground next to it.

The digging was obviously not recent, the pick and shovel were heavily rusted, and the handles were rotten from age and weather exposure. He looked closer at the tools, and got a little excited that they were actually made from steel apparently. He looked closely at them, and rubbed away the rust on the pick, discovering words were stamped into it. He could just barely make a few words out. Plum, Philadelphia, Penn. Well, definitely not from around here then Jake thought, this must have been left by his grandfather when he was here, back in the 1940’s. The center of the buildings had a hole dug exposing stone stairs, the stairs lead a short distance down to a small empty basement room of some kind. Maybe this was where his grandfather had found his treasure he thought.

Each night he was careful to locked himself inside his little fortress before sunset, but he had not seen the weird dog creatures again on his cameras. Maybe they decided to hunt something easier elsewhere? He hoped so, but somehow doubted it. He would take a shower, update his map to keep track of what he had searched, make dinner, then watch a movie, and go to bed. It was a quiet life, and a little boring, but the treasures he kept finding made it worth it.

One morning about a week after the portal had failed, he sent the drone up to look around the ruins, mainly looking for any sign of the dog creatures. He had been doing his search for about ten minutes, carefully sweeping the ruins from low altitude when he spotted something odd that caused his pulse to start racing. Smoke ! There was smoke coming from a little tower at the rear of the ruins. There was someone else here ! He focused the camera on the little tower, and discovered something else, it was completely surrounded by junk. Odds and ends of all kinds littered the ground around the tower, there was furniture, both broken and usable, tables, chairs, barrels, and wood beams There was also a great deal of metal, piles of copper tools, and seperate piles of gold items were strewn everywhere. It looked like a hoarder of some kind lived there. The smoke was coming from a small fire in the courtyard beside the tower, he zoomed in closer and saw a large copper pot sat on the fire, and it looked like something was cooking. He caught a glimpse of movement beside a window in the tower. “Well, someone appears to be home.” He thought.

How had he not seen them before? This was the first time he had really used the drone for low level recon, which could explain it, or maybe whoever it was had just recently arrived here? Jake decided there was only one way to find out. He put all his gear on, picked up his rifle and headed for the door. He paused beside the open door for a second. If he was going to go heavily armed to meet his new neighbor, he had better take a gift with him. He glanced around the room, and his eyes came to rest on the half empty bottle of bourbon on the table. “Perfect”. He thought. He pulled a full bottle off a shelf, and shoved it into his vest.

Jake leaned against the wall of the abandoned building, searching the tower through his binoculars. He had been doing this for close to a hour, but had not seen any sign of his new neighbor just yet. The fire was still burning in the courtyard, and occasionally he caught a whiff of a awful stench, whatever it was they were cooking it smelled terrible, like a combination of road killed skunk and burning rubber. His his eyes starting to hurt from looking through the little binoculars for so long, so he said screw it. He wanted to be cautious, and to scope things out as much as possible before jumping into anything, but he only had so much patience. He pocketed the little binoculars, stood up straight and flexed his back causing it to pop. Might as well get this over with he thought. He stepped out of the buildings ruins, and headed across the courtyard, winding his way between piles of broken furniture, twisted pieces of metal, pots and pans and all kinds of other assorted mess. It was like walking through a primitive junkyard of sorts. There were all kinds of things strewn about, some of them he realized were contraptions of some kind, there were dozens of them, in all shapes and sizes, some were metal pots with pipes connected to them, some with wires hanging off of them, one such setup looked a lot to him almost like half a steam engine if you looked at it sideways, or at least a primitive one.

It looked like a place where science experiments went to die or something. He was about to take the next step, when he spotted a wire of some kind crossing his path about knee high, he knelt down and sure enough, it was a damn tripwire. The wire disappeared into the piles of junk on either side of him, he didn’t know what this tripwire might be attached to, but he was not eager to find out the hard way. He didn’t want to alarm his neighbor unnecessarily either, and possibly get things off to a bad start, so, he just did what came naturally. He yelled loud enough to be heard. “ Hello the house !” His voice boomed out and echoed through the ruins, and almost instantly there came a crashing sound from inside the tower. It sounded like someone had turned over a huge pile of pots and pans, metal rattled and banged, and Jake thought he heard cursing. “Hello the house !” He called again.

There were more rattling and banging sounds followed by more cursing, that sounded like someone was coming closer to the door, then a couple of pots flew out the door followed a moment later by a small figure who stepped into the open doorway of the tower holding a big copper spoon clutched tightly in one hand. Jake blinked, not sure what he was seeing at first. It looked like he was looking at a skinny, long haired kid, dressed in a combination of old worn leather, and tarnished copper plates. The figure stood there silently just staring at him. He guessed they were at most four and a half feet tall, maybe they were a midget or something? He cleared his throat and spoke again. “ Hello?” He repeated again. “My name is Jake Reynolds.”He began. “I guess we are neighbors.” Jake smiled in what he hoped was a friendly manner. The figure blurted something at him, that was nothing but gibberish to him, obviously some language he didn’t speak. “Just Great.” He thought, so much for communicating. Jake shrugged. “ I don’t understand you.” He said frustrated.

The figure held up a hand, which he took as a indicator for him to wait, then they started rummaging in a pouch on a belt a their waist with one hand, the metal spoon still gripped tightly in the other hand. Jake didn’t know what they were looking for, but it was making him nervous. He placed his right hand on the grip of his pistol, just in case. The figure spotted the movement, pointed the metal spoon at him and shrieked out a long string of gibberish he didn’t understand. Jake looked at the spoon in the figures hand and chuckled, but removed his hand from his pistol. The figure glanced at its hand and seemed startled to discover they were holding the spoon. The figure threw the spoon away angrily, and yanked a wicked looked dagger from a sheath and pointed it towards him. The absurdity of it all caused Jake to snort in laughter. The figure obviously didn’t take this well, and they spewed another long sting of gibberish at him, that he was pretty sure were all curses. Finally they found what they were looking for and yanked their hand from the pouch, and Jake saw it was clutching a red looking gem on a sting.

The figure slipped the string around its neck, and he realized it was a pendent of some kind. The figure said a few words that he still mostly didn’t understand, but a few of the words actually sounded a little closer to english to him. Jake shrugged again and shook his head. “Still don’t understand you.” He said. The figure sighed and shook the pendant angrily and actually seemed to be talking to it, jabbering out a long tirade at it in their strange language. “Awesome .” Jake thought to himself, they are nuts. He was about to give up and walk away, when he heard English clear as day, or it was at least mostly english, he still could not make out a few of the words . “What do you want Human scum ?” Jake blinked in surprise. The voice he heard was feminine, but not girlish like he would have expected from the persons size, the voice was that of a grown woman, not the child he thought he was facing. “Um, Human scum? That’s a bit harsh isn’t it Miss? You don’t even know me.” He replied slightly hurt.

The figure put her hands on her hips. “ Nor do I wish to know the likes of you human, now what do you want?” Jake shrugged. “I just discovered that you lived here is all, and that we were neighbors. I just wanted to introduce myself is all.” The figure laughed at him. “Just discovered? I have heard you banging around in your camp since the first day you arrived over a month ago. Im sure the entire world heard you as much noise as you were making. You are not very stealthy, I might add, I think its a miracle you were not eaten by the Dire hounds.” Jake grunted in annoyance. “Me not stealthy? What was all that clanging just now, did I startle you much? It sounded like you fell off a ladder into a pile of pots and pans !” The figure kicked a pot back inside the door with the heel of her boot. “ Don’t be redicilous human, I was looking for something, if I were being stealthy you would never know I was here, until you tasted my knife !” Jake rolled his eyes. “Whatever, look, I just wanted to be friendly, that’s all. I even brought you a gift.”

Jake pulled the bottle of bourbon out of his vest and sat it on top of a big dented pot that was next to him. “Here, I brought this as a gift to you. Hope you enjoy it.” The figure leaned slightly forward. “ What is your gift?” Jake shrugged. “Its bourbon, a drink from my homeland, its alcohol, you know liquor. You drink it.” The figure nodded. “ I know what alcohol is, Leave it and go.” Jake nodded. “Its yours, and I will go.” Then he had a thought. “Wait, you mentioned a what was it? A Dire Hound? Is that what those dog things were that attacked me? Those things are nasty.” It was now the figures turn to shrug. “They are not called Dire Hounds, because of their friendly disposition.” She replied flatly. Jake sighed. Great, his neighbor was a grade A bitch, just what he needed. “Well I wiped them out, nest and all.” Jake explained. “So you should have a lot less problems from them now.” The strange little woman laughed at this. “ I had few problems with them before, they are not very smart you know. I don’t expect I will have any problems with them for a while, since they are all focused on killing you, in revenge for wiping out that den.” He didn’t like the sound of that.

“Wait, you mean they hold a grudge? They are out to get me now? Is that what your saying?” She nodded. “ I believe my words were clear to you.” She held the pendent up and seemed to be talking to it again. “ Unless my little friend here is playing games again.” Her face darkened in anger, and she began screaming at the pendent. “ A joke?!? A Joke!?! What was funny about it ?!? You translated my words to the witch wrong, and She almost killed me for it! How in the nine hells is that funny !?!” Jake sighed. “Yup, this bitch is crazy.” He interrupted the womans crazy rant she was giving. “Hey, look, crazy pants, I’m not going to stand here all day while you argue with your jewelry or whatever it is your doing. My name is Jake again, and I’m leaving your gift here on this pot. I must warn you, if you come to my camp, do not touch the door, or any of the shiny metal fencing, I have rigged defenses and you will get hurt you if you do. Call my name or toss rocks at the door to get my attention.” He had another thought, as he glanced at the crude knife the figure held tightly in her hands. Whatever she was doing here, she seemed to be doing a lot of tinkering, he had something he thought she would find useful. Jake slowly and carefully removed his multitool, and set it and the pouch next to the bourbon.

“ Here is another gift, I believe you will find it useful.” Jake turned and left, and as he rounded the building across from the courtyard he caught a glimpse of the figure picking up the bottle of bourbon. He didn’t know if he wanted to befriend this crazy woman or not, but since he was stuck here for a while, maybe a long while, he didn’t think it could hurt. He was going to need help to survive here long term. That night as he was making himself dinner something banged loudly against the heavy front door. He checked the security camera, and was a little surprised to see the crazy midget lady from next door standing outside. He pulled back the locking bar and swung the heavy door open. There standing before the door was the weird little neighbor woman. He could make her out a lot better this time as she was standing in bright sunlight, instead of the shadowy doorway he had seen her in the other day. She was not wearing the same leather and copper plate outfit, and big floppy hat she had on the other day either. This time she was wearing a snug fitting light green colored dress, and without the big floppy hat he could see she was actually pretty danged cute, and a tiny very petite lady.

She had a wide leather belt around her waist that was covered in pouches, and there were all kinds of small tools attached to it, which he thought was very curious. “Can I help you?” He asked. She smiled at him, which made him instantly wary, as it was such a change from the last time he had seen her. “Yes, Jake was it?” Jake nodded. She smiled again, and continued. “Yes, Jake, I think I might have been a little rude earlier today, I wish to apologize for that, and to thank you for your wonderful gifts you gave me.” Jake nodded. “ It was nothing, just some bourbon is all.” She shook her head. “ I was not talking about the spirits you left, although they were fine by themselves.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out the leatherman multitool he had given her. “No, I meant this, this wonderful contraption you left me ! Where ever did you get such a thing? It is the most marvelous thing I have ever seen, I have never seen its like before. Tell me What kind of metal is it made from? What smith created it? Was it you?” She blurted out her questions so fast he could barely follow them. He held up a hand to stop her. “ Wait, Wait, stop asking questions, so I can answer some.” She blushed, but stopped talking.

Jake sighed. “Its made of a kind of steel thats called stainless steel.” He explained. “It will not rust. No I didn’t make it, the people who made it live very far from here.” She nodded. “ I see. Why would you give me a gift so valuable? What do you want for it? Do you wish to lay with me, is that your game? I dearly love your gift, just as you knew a gnome would and they would be powerless to resist such a wonderful creation such as this.” She sighed heavily. Her eyes looked down to the ground in shame. “If laying with you is the price you ask, and that is what I must do to keep it, then I will do so.” Jake could not believe what he was hearing. “No, hell no ! I didn’t not offer a gift to you to have sex with you, I did it to be friendly, that’s all. Where I am from that gift is not very valuable, it is a trinket and can be purchased with only a few hours of work. I just wanted to be friendly is all, and I saw your knife was not very good, and I just thought you might need a better one is all, and what in the hell is a Gnome?”

She looked at him closely for a few moments before she spoke. “Do you mean to say you have never heard of Gnome’s before? I do not see as how that is possible.” She looked at him doubtfully, obviously not believing him. “ Jake shook his head. “No, I have not, well I mean I have heard of garden Gnomes, but that’s not what you are, at least you don’t look like one. I come from a place far away, you would not believe me if I told you. I know nothing about this world, I am actually from another world called earth, I came here through a doorway, or a portal or something.” The gnomes face lit up in surprise, and she appreared about to burst with excitement. “You came through the traveling gate !?! That’s amazing ! I know the stories of the gate, but I could never find it myself, I looked for years ! You must tell me everything about it!

That is how Jake met Jinker Cobble. Jinker as he later learned was a Gnome, not a short fat looking Gnome like a garden Gnome, but a short, slender very cute Gnome. They were apparently a short petite race of people, who were renouned for being extremely curious, ( which got them into all sorts of trouble apparently ) and many Gnomes were also apparently inventors, notorious for it according to Jinker. Jinker, from what he understood was a bit of a recluse and she was all inventor, its what she lived for and she had moved out to these ruins so she could work on her inventions in private. His gift of a modern multitool was something she simply could not pass up.

Jake refilled Jinkers glass with bourbon, and his own as well, as he listened to her talk about the Dark gate as she called it. He had invited her in for dinner, which had turned into a hour long question session about everything in his house, Jinker was enamored by almost everything he had, the cameras, his computer, his weapons, his fridge and how it cooled, and especially the led lighting. Once she had a few glasses of bourbon in her, he was able to get her to forget about all of his wonderful technology and actually sit down for dinner and talk. Hell even the dehydrated lasagna they were eating had seemed like magic to her. They talked for hours, he told her about his world, and she told him about her world. “So”. Jake began. “Whats the deal with your necklace? Why do you talk to that thing?  Jinker groaned. “Must we talk about that? Jake shrugged. “You look a bit crazy when you talk to it, I think I deserve a little explanation, unless you really are crazy of course.”

Jinker sighed. “I suppose. Fine, I will tell you,but only because I don’t want you to think I’m insane.” She grabbed the Pendent and held it up to the light. Jake saw it appeared to be a large ruby, inset in a silver frame, and attached to a heavy silver chain. “Its pretty.” He observed. “Looks expensive.” Jinker looked at it with a far away look in her eye. “I suppose its valuable in a jewelry sense.” She began. “ Its true purpose  however makes its worth incalculable.” Jinker looked at Jake uneasily. “Do you seek riches, Jake? Would you rob me of this treasure?” Jake shook his head. “I don’t need to steal from anyone to acquire riches.” He explained. “Gold on my world, is a rare and valuable commodity, a piece of it the size of your pendant could buy a man a nice home where I am from. Jinker looked relieved at hearing this. “Good.” She said. Jinker’s mood turned even more sullen as she spoke.“I assure you though, if you did steal Asbinor from me, you would live to regret it.” Jake laughed. “You would make me regret it huh?”

Jinker sighed, and shook her head. “ No, not me. The only way you could take Asbinor from me would be literally off my dead body. There is no other way to pass it on, its bearer must die for that to happen. It will only pass on to another person on my death. The very next person to wear it after I die, is stuck with it for life. They put it on, and they are stuck with this abomination till their dying day.” Jinker took a deep sip of bourbon, and Jake took a drink of his as well, enjoying the way it burned down his throat. He was a little drunk, and feeling pretty good. “You talk about it as though its alive, or cursed or something Jinker. “She looked him in the eye. “It is both of those things.” She explained. The pendant’s ruby is a prison, it contains the soul of a witch, a very unhappy witch I might add that greatly enjoys making my life difficult. The enchantment that imprisons her is powerful magic, it forces her to perform her duty, which she mostly does, but occasionally she likes to give the wrong translation. Wrong translations that can have dire consequences for the wearer, she thinks its funny.”

Jinker held the pendent up and looked directly at it. “ Hateful bitchy things like that, are why you wound up stuck in there.” Jinker said angrily. “Your lucky translating is all your required to do, I would have thought of something much worse for you to do, had I cast the enchantment.” She dropped it back into her dress, and took another deep drink of bourbon. Jake stared at Jinker for a long moment, troubled by what he was hearing. He then took another deep drink himself. “ You cant be serious.” He said. “Witches, a soul imprisoned in a ruby, enchantments, magic, your pendent being alive and talking to you. It sounds insane to me.” Jinker shrugged. “You asked for a explanation, I gave you one. You don’t have to believe it, but its the truth. The witch must translate languages for the wearer, its why we can understand each other. I promise you its not worth it though.” She sighed. “I wish I had never found it.” Jake shrugged. “So, get rid of it, toss it in a river or something.”

She shook her head unhappily. “I cant, I tried trust me. If I misplace it, a feeling of dread comes over me, I become obsessed with getting it back, and will do anything to get it back, I feel like I will die without it. The entire time its in my possession, I can hear the witch in my mind, and she does not have nice things to say most of the time. Its like having a bitter old mother in law following you around all the time bitching and complaining. The only time I’m free of her is when I’m asleep, but even then i have dreams. I don’t know why someone would create such a terrible thing like this, it punishes the wearer as much as the one imprisoned. I personally believe there’s more to it than it being simply a prison, but the witch denies it.”  “Honestly, The entire thing sounds insane to me.” Jake said uneasily. “Witches, magic, enchantments, all of it.” Jinker shrugged. “Believe me or not, I don’t care. You asked for a explanation, and I gave you one. I don’t know what kind of world you come from, perhaps magic does not exist there, but I assure you, it exists here, its very real, and very dangerous. You would do well to remember that.”

Jake was not convinced. Jinker smiled. “ You can look at me with that expression all you want, it changes nothing. You have much to learn about this world, I am trying to help you.” The conversation had turned weird and depressing. Jake smiled, wanting to make things a bit more light hearted. “ You said it translates all languages. Well, what do animals have to say to you? Have you ever tried to talk to them?” Jinker rolled her eyes. “Yes, I tried that. I thought it would be really wonderful to talk to animals, I talked to a dog once, and tried talking to birds a few times.” Jake leaned forward interested. “Well?” He asked. “What did the dog have to say?” Jinker sighed. “ Not much. The dog was barking at me, and I asked the witch to translate it. I heard the dog say. “Hey , hey, hey, hey ! Over and over. The birds all said the same thing as well. Hey, Hey, hey ! Not very helpful.” Jake blinked in surprise. “ Damn, that’s messed up.” He said.  Jinker only nodded in return. She had picked up the multitool, and began playing with it. Jake could see my her expression she was enamored by it for some reason. The girl was a technology junkie for damn sure, maybe this was a angle he could work with. She might be a little crazy, or even just messing with him, but she was the only person around to talk to.

Finally he asked her a question that had been on his mind all night. “Jinker, tell the truth, would we be friends right now if I had not given you that multitool?” Jinker looked unhappy at the question, and she took a big gulp of bourbon before answering. “No Jake, we would not. I had no intention of ever becoming friends with a human, and I still do not. Truthfully, even though I’m now learning that you seem to be a nice human, at least nicer than any I have ever encountered, the only reason I am here is to learn more about your technology. If you didn’t possess these wonderful devices, I would not be here right now.” That hit him harder than it should have. Probably because he was totally alone here, and Jinker was the only other person around. He must have looked unhappy, because she started looking unhappy herself. “Look Jake, do not take it like that. You must understand where I stand in this, humans in general have always treated my people unkindly at best, and usually much worse than merely unkindly. I have good reasons for not liking humans.”

Jake shrugged. “I guess I understand. You need to remember though that I have never even heard of Gnomes before today, and I have never wronged any of you.” Jinker looked at the table for a moment before answering. “You have been nothing but kind to me, and friendly.” She admitted. “I still cannot believe you don’t want something from me though. Humans always do. You don’t know how hard it is for me to sit at this table with you. Every fiber of my being tells me to flee from you.” She had a far away look on her face as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “ The only reason I force myself to stay is because I want to learn more about your technology, I love building and inventing things, its my reason for living, and what you have to offer is more than I could even dream.” Jake sighed. “All I want is your friendship Jinker. That is all, I want nothing from you but friendship.

I tell you what though, I can tell your not comfortable with being friends, so, how about a business arrangement. Would you find that more tolerable?” She looked at him carefully. “What kind of business arrangement?” Jake smiled. ‘A simple one. You pretend to be my friend, you be civil towards me, and occasionally spend time with me, and teach me about your world, and in return, I will give you access to mine. I will give you more gifts like the multitool, and even teach you about my technology and how it works, and how to make some of it yourself. A simple business transaction. Deal?” Jake tried to smile a friendly smile. Jinker stared at him for a long time. “You only want me to pretend to be your friend, and teach you about my world? I wont have to serve you, or lay with you?” Jake sighed unhappily. “ I would rather you actually be my friend, instead of pretend to be, but yes, those are my terms. You will never have to serve me, or lay with me or do anything you don’t want to do.”

Jinker smiled. “ I agree under those terms then. When can you teach me about your technology?” Jake laughed. “You are all inventor aren’t you?” Jinker grinned and nodded. “Jake thought for a moment. “Tell you what. I saw you had been trying to build a steam engine of some kind, right?” She nodded. Jake continued. “ How about if I could teach you how to make it work?” Jinker gasp in surprise. “ You could do that? I had a idea of how to turn steam into power, but have not been able to make it work, everyone thought I was stupid for believing it would work, that’s why I came out here to be alone, so I could invent it in peace. I have been working on it for years. You could really do that?” Jake nodded. He stepped away to his laptop, and pulled up a program he had installed on it. It had a ton of basic technology on it, everything from farming practices, medical, first aid, natural remedies, how to build tools, blacksmithing, and much, much more, including how to build basic engines like steam engines.

He highlighted a diagram of a steam engine and printed a few copies off his printer for Jinker, and handed them to her. “Here you go little buddy, this should help you as it shows the basic design to create one. Im not expert, but if you have questions I might be able to help you some. Be careful though, steam can be extremely dangerous, and even cause explosions.” Jinkers eyes bulged out in surprise as she stared at the papers in her hand. She didn’t know what to ask first, even the way the machine of his had instantly printed the paper for her seemed like magic. To think a problem she had toiled over for years, was simply handed to her like this. It was incredible. If this human only wanted her to be his friend in return for his secrets, then she would do it. Jinker smiled a huge smile. “Would you be upset if I left right now to go work on this?” Jake laughed. No, go ahead. I understand.” Jinker was already closing the door behind her. Jake watched her on camera and she ran across the courtyard towards he home, the papers gripped tightly in her little hands.

Buck,
Please continue with your story.  I understand that this is a rough draft and some is out of order with the chronology of your story but I want to see it finished in book form.  Please don't give up on this story, I think it is really good!

I'm not going to stop. I'm mostly happy with the storyline so far, I just think the details need to be tweaked a bit to make it better reading. I've got a lot of summer projects keeping me busy right now, and taking up my writing time. When I'm working I like to run the story thru my head, and think of ideas for it. It works pretty well. I will finish it. / keep working on it.

I like it...looks like a fun read.  

Come  on Buck. Quit doing stuff around the farm and get back to writing.

Sorry, just busy. Logging cedar trees right now to turn into fence posts,  need about 200 of them, plus 12 twenty foot cedar poles to use for supports to build a small barn. Buddy is letting me have cedar for free, for helping him clear trees, and drag logs for firewood back to his house. I'm buying a few acres from a neighbor next spring, and just getting ready to be prepared to fence it.

I am working on the story in my head though.

I think the authors on forums like this should put a crypto wallet(or two or more) in the original post so we can send financial encouragement. Except I’d add some way to make the crypto expire to motivate production, such as “if another substantial post is uploaded within X time period, place the transaction.” Preferably a crypto with low fees. Like Verge

I love reading these stories and would happily pay a reasonable amount for them but this stringing along stuff really gets old. If I had to guess I’d say more than 9 in 10, maybe even as high as 95 or 97 out of 100 are never finished.

I love reading the stories people post, after many years I started my own on the PAW board forum.

Buck, surely you have had enough messing about on the farm by now!  Get back to the important stuff in life......................you know, writing this story down so we'uns can read it!

iv just got a lot going on right now.

making a anvil, so I can play blacksmith. ( making a forge next )

its going to look like this basically when done.

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what iv done so far.

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making a base for more weight. 1.25" steel

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where im at right now. total weight is 150lbs right now. still need to make a horn, weld it together, grind it flat on top, weld on a ar500 top plate, and paint it.

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been working on the anvil for a week, as its been too wet for the other wood cutting project.. for the past two months iv been helping my buddy clear some land by hand, and I get the cedar trees in payment. next spring / summer im buying land from my neighbor, and im going to use the cedar to fence it in, and make a small barn. so far, iv got 120 cedar posts, and approx. 18 big assed cedar tree trunks that im planning to cut into beams to use as support posts.

this so far.

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I tried to cut one free hand, but it didn't work out as well as I hoped it would, so, I bought a chainsaw guide, which attaches to the chainsaw, and runs on a 2x6 board as a guide, you can get pretty nice beams with the guide.

guide.

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heres pics from another arfcommer doing the same thing.

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that's whats going on / been going on for the last 2-3 months, plus I did a lot of fencing, helping install electric cattle fencing for a few weeks. cutting the wood beams starts Monday, and should take about 2 weeks to cut all 18 of them.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE writing. however, its something I have to do as a stand alone project. I get into it and live it, and think about nothing else. its a process I guess. I will take a occasional break, and work on other things for a few days, but the entire time im thinking about my characters, plot etc. I just cant write part time, I cant focus enough to do it.

probably in another 2 months I will get back to the book, and be writing everyday for weeks at a time. hopefully get the first book done before Christmas.

im glad you guys like my story, I will be back to work on it soon. im getting lots of ideas, and its definitely going to be a series.

Buck, I see from here and the other threads that you have your priorities all screwed up!  Here you go making anvils, timbers for buildings, putting up fences, and other "work" type stuff when you should be writing and giving us this fine story!  Now you say that you are so wrapped up in this "adult" type "work" stuff that you are going to have to make us wait for 60 whole days for moar?  Who do you think you are?  You must have delusions of being a guy with a job and a family and bills to pay or something!

In all seriousness, the anvil and the other projects are pretty cool.  Please keep those other projects updated so we can watch and keep tabs on you.  I suggest that you somehow identify it as an "ACME" product when you are done.  Just watch out for coyotes trying to steal it from you to drop on a Roadrunner!

58 days and counting!

beams are turning out great.

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Really cool projects you have going buck. Can’t wait to see more pictures.

Hey @buck19delta any idea when we could expect another chapter?