Backyard Dungeon 2 Chapter 1

I stood and stared at my phone for two minutes before I decided what I was seeing was real and not just some crazy fever dream. I’d pulled up one of the bank accounts Travis Meyer, my CPA and lawyer, set up for me on a banking app, and there, sitting in the account, was just over five hundred thousand dollars.

Under the ungodly amount of money were the words “available balance.”

Holy shit.

This was more money than I stood to make in a decade starting out as a graphic artist, or five years working construction, or doing pretty much anything.

And there it was, all mine.

This windfall came from selling most of the 24k gold coins I’d found in The Gloom, the mysterious underground world I had access to from the tunnel in my backyard. The twisting passageways and massive caverns were filled with danger, treasure, and adventure, and now they’d made me a rich man.

I was especially glad to see the money sitting in my account because the man I’d sold the coins to, Owen McElfresh, was an Irish jewelry store owner who just had something stretchy about him. But he’d come through with the money, Travis had done whatever he did to protect my assets and taken his fee, and now I was in possession of half a million dollars.

Today was going to be a great fucking day.

I grinned and looked around my backyard, where I’d been putting the finishing touches on a little greenhouse for Ibseth so she could start planting vegetables and what not, even though it was the height of summer. I put my phone in my back pocket and went back in the house to tell the ladies the good news, but I took off my muddy boots at the back door so I didn’t track dirt onto my Elven wife’s clean floor.

Then I stood in the kitchen and looked around for the two gorgeous women who lived with me.

“Ibseth,” I called into the back of the house. “Amrila? Come here for a minute.”

The lushly figured, blue-skinned Night Elf woman who was now my wife came out of the bathroom and walked down the hallway. Her long, white hair was up in a messy bun on top of her head, and she was dressed in just an old college t-shirt of mine that stretched to the limit against her massive breasts, and the bottom hem of the shirt barely covered the tops of her round, smooth thighs.

“What is it, my love?” the violet-eyed woman asked as she pulled a tooth brush out of her pouty mouth.

“I have good news.” I grinned. “Where’s Amrila?”

“I’m in here,” I heard the half-demon woman’s voice come from the living room, where she’d been sleeping the past two days since she’d come to stay with us.

“Come here, baby,” I said and beckoned Ibseth toward the living room.

The small living room at the front of my double wide trailer was still decked out in 1970 furniture in shades of rust orange and mustard yellow from when my grandpa had owned the place, but we’d get around to replacing them eventually. Amrila was lounging on the couch and drinking coffee with her long, firm legs stretched out in front of her. The red-skinned woman wore a pair of black leggings and a little white t-shirt, and the thin material of her top made it clear she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath.

Amrila was a Zencarri, a half-demon from The Gloom, so little black horns poked out of her strawberry blonde hair.

“What’s going on?” The red-skinned woman sat up a little to make room for Ibseth to sit down next to her, and I stood in front of the couch practically bursting at the steams to share the good news about my fortune.

“I want both of you to get dressed,” I said in a grand tone of voice with a shit eating grin on my face. “I’m taking you ladies out for the day. We’re going to get you both some new clothes, eat a shit ton of food, and do anything we feel like. The money from selling the coins just came in, and I think we should treat ourselves.”

“Oh, husband, this is wonderful news!” Ibseth squealed and clapped her hands in delight before she jumped up and wrapped her arms around me.

Amrila, on the other hand, downed the last of her coffee in one gulp and got up to put her cup in the kitchen.

“That is very generous of you,” the Zencarri woman said with a mysterious smile as she passed Ibseth and me.

“Nonsense,” I said as I hugged Ibseth back and looked over my shoulder at the red-skinned woman. “You helped me get the gold. Seems only right that you get to help spend the proceeds.”

“I will go get dressed.” The white-haired woman in my arms smiled up at me.

“I should probably change, too,” I replied. “I’m all covered in mud from working in the backyard.”

About a half an hour later, the ladies and I were squeezed in the cab of my old truck and heading down the road to our celebration. I decided to take the ladies to the Midway Mall, which was about a half hour’s drive east from Westherst where we lived. Ibseth and Amrila were still getting used to life on the surface, with all its modern conveniences, so I figured a big mall would blow their minds.

The Zencarri woman and my Elven wife were wearing the sunglasses I’d bought for them about two days ago, but Ibseth was a little less sensitive to the light than Amrila was and she was able to glance out the windows more and ask questions about all the road signage we passed.

As we pulled into the huge parking lot of the mall, the ladies looked at the massive building with wide eyes and open mouths.

“It’s so big,” Ibseth breathed as I opened the truck door and helped her out. “Why does one shop need so much space?”

“It’s one building with a bunch of different shops in one place.” I grinned “And they’ll have just about anything you could want in there. Clothes, sporting goods, one place where it’s just a bunch of food vendors. I think they have a movie theater in there, too.”

“Do they sell weapons here too?” the black-eyed woman asked as she stepped out of the cab of the truck and put her hand over her eyes, even though she was already wearing sunglasses.

“No,” I laughed, and then I thought about it. “Well, not anything you would call a weapon. There might be a shop or two that sells decorative swords. Some of the sporting goods places might have a few cheap crossbows or guns for sale.”

“Decorative swords,” Amrila sighed, and she raised an eyebrow. “So they are useless.”

“Yeah,” I replied as we started to walk toward the front entrance of the mall. “People up here don’t really have any reason to use swords, since guns aren’t hard to get ahold of. But they still look cool, so they make decorative ones you can hang on the wall.”

“You humans are so strange,” Amrila laughed.

We came into the mall next to the food court, and the smell of fried potatoes, cheese, and meat sizzling on griddles wafted through the air. Then I stopped in front of a map that showed the layout of the mall and a directory of all the stores.

“What do you ladies want to look at first?” I asked as I looked over the map.

“Oh, Eddie,” Ibseth giggled as she took my hand. “May we look at clothes? I love the soft pants and teeeee shirts you bought me. But I would love to have a dress.”

“Just one?” I asked as I looked up from the directory.

“I-I could have more than one?” my wife asked with wide eyes.

“You can have as many as you like, baby.” I smiled. “I’m not sure how many most women have, but you’re going to need a proper wardrobe. Shoes, accessories, whatever you want.”

“You are the most generous husband in the world!” Ibseth exclaimed as she threw her arms around and giggled.

“Is there anything you want, Amrila?” I asked the red-skinned woman.

“Not a dress,” the Zencarri woman snorted, but then she shrugged. “I have never been one to delight in shopping. I’ve never had the means to.”

“Well, now you do,” I said with a kind smile. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have as much money as I do now. You deserve to share in it with me. We’ll look around and see if we can find anything you like.”

With that decided, we leisurely walked through the long corridors of the mall, and for a moment they reminded me of the tunnels that lead to The Gloom. The artificial lighting was like the glowing blue mushrooms that lit the subterranean world, and the twisting hallways and countless stores made me think of the endless side passages and alcoves.

As we passed a clothing store with a soft, pink interior, Ibseth stopped and pointed at a display of little sundresses for the summer time.

“May we look in there, my love?” she squealed in her excitement.

“Of course,” I said and led us into the high end store.

“Do we talk to the dress maker first?” the white-haired woman asked as she looked around at the racks of dress with a confused look on her face.

“No,” I chuckled. “The clothes aren’t made in the store. You just look around and find an item you like, then see if they have it in your size.”

As the blue-skinned woman turned around a few times and tried to decide where to look first, Amirla came up and stood next to me.

“If they do not make the clothing here, why are there so many clerks in this shop?” the Zencarri woman asked.

I looked around and saw three women in stylish black dresses gathered around the counter as they whispered to each other and stared at us.

“Who knows,” I said as I turned my back and chose to ignore them.

I figured the shop girls would warm up to us once we started spending money, especially if they worked for commission.

Amrila and I followed Ibseth around the store as the Elven woman looked at all the pretty dresses. It took some coaxing to convince my wife I really meant it when I said she could have whatever she wanted, and soon I was carrying an armful of dresses that she wanted to try on.

“Can I help you?” one of the clerks finally asked as she noted just how many dresses we’d picked up.

The clerk looked like she was in her late twenties and had rather severe, avant garde makeup. Her lipstick was a bright shape of pink, and the only eye makeup the woman wore was a lime green eyeshadow. I wasn’t really hip on makeup trends, but it seemed like a weird choice, even to me.

“Yeah,” I said to the colorful woman. “My wife is from Europe and isn’t sure about the sizes here.”

The clerk looked at Ibseth, who was sweetly smiling back at her.

“I can start you a room, miss,” the shop girl said. “This is actually kind of fun. I just love your aesthetic. Is it an internet thing, like cottagecore?”

I had no idea what that meant and clearly Ibseth didn’t either because she looked from me to the clerk with wide, confused eyes, but I just stood behind the clerk and nodded at Ibseth to agree.

“Uhhh, yes,” the white-haired woman said as she looked back at the colorful store clerk.

In the short time Ibseth and I had been together, I’d tried to show her as much about modern life as possible. We told people she and the Zencarri woman were both cosplayers or LARPers to explain away their strange appearances, and it seemed to have worked for us so far.

“Was there anything I could help you with, miss?” the clerk with the pink lips asked Amrila.

The red-skinned woman looked around at the racks of summer clothes in shades of pink, soft blues, and lacy white and shook her head.

“That won’t be necessary,” the Zencarri woman said.

The shop clerk nodded and then whisked Ibseth away to the fitting rooms to help the Elven woman find the correct sizes of the items she wanted.

As Amrila and I waited for them to come back, I leaned toward the red-skinned woman.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “There are all kinds of stores here. I’m sure we’ll find someplace that has stuff you’ll like.”

“I was not particularly worried.” Amrila shrugged. “I’ve made due with so little for so long that I’m not even sure what I would do with all this luxury.”

“It’s okay to enjoy yourself,” I said as I placed a reassuring hand on the horned woman’s arm. “Just surviving all the time must have been hard. But now you can breathe and have a little fun. You deserve nice things just as much as Ibseth does.”

Amrila smiled at me from under her lashes and was about to say something, but then the Elven woman came back out in a short white dress with periwinkle blue flowers printed all over it. The dress was made from a silky material that seemed to float across the curvy woman’s blue skin, and I couldn’t help but take in every inch of her.

The plunging neckline prominently displayed my wife’s incredible breasts, the delicate fabric gently clung to her thin waist and round hips, and the ruffled sleeves and petal-like hem gave the whole dress a sweetly flirty air.

“That suits you.” Amrila smiled in approval.

“She’s right, you look incredible,” I said as my eyes traced every line and curve of the white-haired woman’s body. “We’re definitely getting you that.”

“Yay!” Ibseth grinned and did a little twirl in her new dress, and my heart swelled to see her so happy.

My Elven wife got her lovely white dress and four others, all in shades of pink and blue, which seemed to be her favorite colors to wear. Some had lace, while others sported floral prints.

But most importantly, Ibseth was over the moon as she wore her new white dress out of the store while we continued to walk around the mall.

It took some time before we found any stores that struck Amrila’s fancy, but finally we came across one that catered to the goth/emo/pop culture nerd crowd.

“This could be something,” the horned woman said as she peeked through the industrial archway entrance made from metal struts. “I like the dark clothes. May I look in here?”

“Lead the way.” I smiled as Ibseth and I followed behind the Zencarri woman.

Immediately, Amrila gravitated toward anything with skulls, straps or buckles, and the two disaffected emo girls who’d been busy being bored behind the counter looked up and saw the horned woman.

I suppressed a chuckle as I watched the two young women gape at the sexy Zencarri walking through the store before they began to whisper excitedly to each other.

Ibseth and I followed Amrila and looked around at the dark, edgy clothes and accessories, with lighter pop culture items mixed in, and while the horned woman picked out a pair of black daisy dukes with silver embellishments and held them up to herself to check the size, Ibseth found a section of bright pink items with little cartoon kittens on them.

I just kinda stood in the center of the store and watched the two gorgeous women as they shopped and browsed. I had never been able to treat a woman like this before, let alone two women as beautiful as my dates, and is felt fucking amazing. I didn’t have to be anxious about keeping track of how much they were picking up, or do any quick math in my head. I could just let them have fun and get what they wanted. Hell, I could probably buy everything in this store and have money left over.

As Amrila was looking at a table display of band t-shirts, I saw one of the emo girl employees work up the nerve to approach the Zencarri beauty. I glanced around to check on Ibseth, who was still looking at the kitten shirts, and then I moved a little close to Amrila so I could overhear what the shop girl was saying to the horned woman.

“How do you get that amazing red color to stay on your skin?” the emo girl with black and green hair asked in a breathless tone. “It looks so natural, with high and low lights. And I don’t see it bleeding or fading anywhere.”

The look on the Zencarri woman’s face was priceless. Amrila’s left eyebrow was raised at a high angle, and there was a dangerous tightness about her mouth that the young emo girl didn’t seem to pick up on.

I wondered if skin color was a sensitive topic for the half demons on The Gloom.

“I would like you to start me a room,” Amrila said with a scowl, and she ignored the girl’s question and held out the items she’d picked so far.

“Uhh, we don’t really do that here,” the girl said, but she took the hangers from Amrila anyway. “But maybe I can start one for you, you know, this once.”

The green-and-black haired girl slowly backed away from the red-skinned woman and headed for the counter to get the dressing room keys.

“OMG, she is sooo cool,” I heard the girl say to the other emo store clerk as she picked up the giant key ring from under the counter top.

“She looks mean,” the other girl, who had purple hair and heavy black eyeliner, whispered back. “It’s so fucking hot.”

“Oh, man,” the green and black hair girl replied with a rueful smile. “She is mean as fuck. I want her to be my new best friend.”

Teenage girls were weird.

Amrila took a while in the dressing room, but when she came out to show Ibseth and I her new outfit, I was bowled over. The very short, high waisted shorts hugged the red-skinned woman’s slender hips and tight ass as if they were made for her. The shorts were black with silver hardware, and the knee high black boots and artfully torn, white crop top finished the ensemble.

She looked scorching hot.

I paid for all of Amrila and Ibseth’s items, and we stepped back into the mall’s long corridors with both women dressed in their new outfits.

“I’m getting kinda hungry,” I said as I looked around and tried to remember the way to the food court. “Why don’t we grab something quick to eat, and then we can keep looking around?”

“Oh, yes please,” Ibseth replied in a bright tone. “What did you have in mind, my love?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged and turned in the direction I remembered the food court being. “Corn dogs sound good. They’re kinda like breaded sausages on a stick.”

We found our way back to the food court, and I was glad to see there was a little Dairy Queen where we could get some corn dogs and milk shakes. I ordered for the three of us, and the ladies went to find a table and look over the multiple shopping bags they had between them.

By the time I got our order and came over to the table where the two women were comparing their purchases, I noticed a group of guys at another table checking Ibseth and Amrila out. Despite their unusual appearance, my female companions were still drop dead gorgeous, and the fact that other men seemed to notice hadn’t escaped me.

The ladies both seemed oblivious to the fact that the dudes at the other table had noticed them, and as I sat down with a red tray piled with food and the milkshakes, Ibseth and Amrila both turned their attention to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the guys at the other table hit one of his friends in the shoulder and point to me, and I assumed they were speculating on whether or not I was with one or both of the women who were hot enough to make a stone melt.

But I didn’t care what they thought. I was the one sitting with two of the sexiest women on the planet. And I was the one they’d be going home with. What anyone else thought didn’t matter to me in the slightest.

“Here you go, careful, they’re still hot,” I said as I handed out the corn dogs and milkshakes to Ibseth and Amrila. Each corn dog was sitting on a bed of golden french fries in little paper baskets, and the milkshakes were thick and creamy.

Ibseth took her first bite, and her eyes immediately rolled back into her head with pleasure.

“Ooh,” she moaned. “It’s sooo delicious! The bread is sweet, but the sausage is so salty.”

“Mmmm.” The red-skinned woman nodded her head in agreement and smacked her pouty lips. “I have never tasted anything like this. It’s divine.”

The three of us happily munched on the salty fries and drank the sweet, frosty milkshakes, and the chocolate milkshakes were such a hit with the ladies that I got an idea.

Once we had eaten our fill, I checked the mall directory again and saw there was a gift shop that specialized in gourmet chocolates.

“You two are going to love this.” I grinned as I led the way back through the winding corridors of the Midway Mall.

As soon as we stepped into the small chocolate shop, the warm scent of the sugar and coco wafted into our noses.

“Ohhhh, my.” The horned woman stopped and sniffed the air. “What is that?”

“I’ll show you,” I said as I offered an arm to both ladies.

With Ibseth and Amrila on either side of me, the three of us walked through the little shop filled with homey, country chic decor and greeting cards, and near the back of the store we found the long, glass display case filled with every kind of chocolate, caramel, and truffle that one could imagine.

Each different type of candy had its own shape, decoration, and a little note card that marked the type of chocolate, filling, and price. The women looked at the decadent display and pointed out the different shapes and colors as they wondered what each one tasted like.

“These look like little flowers!” Ibseth giggled. “How sweet!”

“How are there so many different kinds?” Amrila wondered aloud.

Just then, a plump woman in her mid fifties came up to us from the other side of the counter, and her eyes were visibly shocked at my companions’ appearances.

“Can I help you?” Despite her wide eyes as she looked Ibseth and Amrila up and down, the older women had a professional tone.

Although, her eyes did linger on the Zencarri woman’s tiny shorts, and then on the Elven woman’s ample cleavage.

“Yes,” I said with a pleasant smile. “We’d like two boxes of chocolates. The ladies will pick out what they want.”

It took a while, but the older store clerk was patient as Ibseth and Amrila picked out what they wanted in their boxes. They mostly went with the chocolates they thought looked the best, since they couldn’t read the note cards and were unfamiliar with any of the flavors where I read them outloud. Once the boxes were full, I paid, and we left the little shop as we tried out a few of the beautiful chocolates and decided which we liked best.

“What do we want to do now?” I asked my beautiful companions as I swallowed a piece of chocolate with a cherry filling. “We could go somewhere and find some bedroom furniture for the spare room. That way Amrila doesn’t have to sleep on the couch.”

“She does not need to sleep on the couch now,” Ibseth said with a sly smile, but she didn’t elaborate.

My lovely wife had already made her feelings known about Amrila sharing our bed, but while I was pretty sure the Zencarri woman was just as interested in me as I was in her, she was still a little hesitant about the whole idea.

Ibseth desperately wanted the red-skinned woman to be my second wife, but I was glad she was being more subtle about it.

“But yes, my beloved,” Ibseth continued. “Our Amrila needs a space of her own. We should also get new bedclothes for our bed, though.”

“Oh.” I nodded vigorously. “One hundred percent. I’m not a fan of sleeping on my grandpa’s old sheets, no matter how many times you’ve washed them.”

The next stop was at a furniture store where Amrila picked out a bedframe and a small dresser that she liked, and I got two new mattresses. One was for Amrila, but the other was for Ibseth and me, since I didn’t like sleeping on Grandpa’s old mattress anymore than his old sheets. The salesman was polite, but like most of the clerks we’d encountered today, he had trouble not staring at our strange group.

With the furniture scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the women and I headed to our final stop for the day, a big box store where we could get groceries to restock the fridge and some new sheets and pillows. My ladies and I walked up and down the aisles picking out what we wanted without having to worry about how much it would cost.

It was amazing.

But I knew eventually I would have to sell more of the gold and jewels I’d recovered from The Gloom.

“You take such good care of us,” Ibseth said in a dreamy tone as she walked next to me and put her head on my shoulder. “We are the luckiest of women.”

“Most wealthy men are not so generous,” Amrila agreed as she walked with us down the bedding aisle and looked over the selection.

“What’s the point of having all this money if I can’t spoil my girls?” I grinned.

By the time we were done, we had filled almost two carts, but to be fair, the bedding and new pillows practically took up a whole cart to themselves. In the other cart was plenty of food for the next week or two, snacks, and some awesome steaks and expensive craft beer for a cookout to end this wonderful day.

I paid for everything, and the three of us loaded our haul into the bed of the truck and then headed home to relax.

“I think I liked picking out the chocolates the best,” Ibseth contently sighed, and she laid her head against my arm as I drove. “But looking at all the lovely clothes in the shops was great fun as well.”

“I liked how scared the young girl with the green hair looked when she spoke to me,” Amrila said with a throaty laugh. “But the chocolates were very nice, too.”

“What was your favorite part of the day, my love?” the blue-skinned woman asked as she looked up at me with her large, violet eyes.

“Well,” I replied in a thoughtful tone. “I think it’s this part. Listening to the two of you talk about how much fun you had.”

I looked over at the two women sitting next two each other in the cab of the truck, and they both smiled at me while looking as different as night and day in their new outfits.

I felt like the luckiest man in the world right then.

We finally got back to Westherst, and I was thinking about asking the ladies to take in the groceries while I fired up the grill, since the corn dogs felt like they had been hours ago.

But then, as I pulled into the cul de sac, I saw a new Audi parked in front of the trailer.

“Shiiiiit.” I recognized the car immediately, and my breath caught in my throat. It was Jay, my best friend in the whole world. The friend I’d barely spoken to in the past few weeks since I had moved into my grandpa’s old trailer, rescued and married an Elven princess, and befriended a half-demon woman.

Jay Hoffman, one of Cleveland’s youngest lawyers, and my closest friend since the second grade, had swung by for a surprise visit.