The Laptop - Ch.58 - Private Paradise (Patreon)

"So Æðelwine-3268 is going to have a lot of the same problems we'd have faced when we were on the Popławska. If we ran into any locals I mean," I told my girlfriends.

"It's a closed population and there's nowhere for visitors to come from," I continued. "It's not as rigidly controlled though, so we could conceivably blend in? But only if we were willing to make some changes to ourselves. Basically everybody there is boringly human, and there's no magic there at all. So no elves, no catgirls, and I'd have to give up my pink hair for a more 'normal' colour."

From the faces my girlfriends were both making I could tell neither of them were happy to hear that. And to be honest I wasn't either. It sort of made sense though, like in a way Daearen was probably the closest we'd get to a sci-fi realm where catgirls and elf girl mages would be seen as normal. Unless we found an actual sci-fi location that wasn't a close-minded space-bound society.

"One thing I want to ask Annie about at some point is Æðelwine seems to be a new realm?" I added. "Like I mean, it seems like it only came online in the last seventy or eighty years? Which makes me wonder who's setting these places up, if there aren't any devs or admins left out there."

My girlfriends both looked surprised to hear that, but neither had anything to say about it. Which was fair, since it really was more of an Annie thing anyways. So I moved on to my last comment about the place which was my mother's new home.

"Anyways Æðelwine doesn't seem like that great a place to me," I sighed. "I mean the space station seems alright from what I've read? But the big picture is more depressing. They're orbiting a dead world, the setting or scenario or whatever is basically similar to Enðedd. The population consumed all the resources and polluted the planet, but instead of dying out completely a tiny fraction of them survived on a huge luxury space station. Now they're trying to revive the planet so they can eventually repopulate their world."

"I swear that sounds like the plot to a movie I've seen," Gwen frowned.

Meanwhile Chelsea asked, "So I guess we're all in agreement about giving Æðelwine a pass then, as a potential destination? What about Honnui-2273? Is that ok, or are there some hidden gotchas there too?"

I grimaced slightly, "I guess there's always going to be the issue of fitting in? Honnui doesn't have elves or catgirls or pink hair either, but on the other hand it doesn't have a closed and regulated population. So the locals might be ok with us? They might just think we're strangers from another place or something. Then again, they might attack us on sight because they think we're demons or monsters."

"That's not a problem for us with safe mode," I continued, "But it could potentially mess with them. Like if they think we're some kind of unkillable immortal demonic monsters? Even if they don't attack it could still mess with them, whether they think we're demons or angels or who knows what."

Finally I added, "Also they haven't discovered metal yet, so they're just using stones and shells and stuff like that? So our knives and daggers and my arrow heads are all going to seem like sci-fi to them."

The little catgirl's ears drooped and her shoulders slumped, while a thoughtful look settled on her face. She finally responded, "I don't know that I want to see my mom anyways, so we could still visit that world if we go somewhere remote? Like an unpopulated area? That way we don't have to worry about freaking out the locals."

"Sure," I nodded. "It might get boring or lonely after a while, but we could visit one of the uninhabited islands."

Gwen smiled, "Tropical island vacation, sounds like fun to me."

Chels took another few seconds to think it over before finally nodding as well, "Yeah ok. A deserted island sounds like a good place to start. If we get lonely we could always try and find some locals to interact with later. Or find another realm to explore."

"Yeah," I replied. Then I turned my attention back to the terminal again to get a bit more information about the realm, before finally putting together a location ID.

Once I had a potential destination I transferred the code to my laptop's expeditions app and pulled up the info to see what it had to say. F8E1 1A00 F66B 2270 C4D8 was a smallish tropical island in an archipelago in the southern hemisphere. It was about ten kilometres long by four across, and had plenty of local flora and fauna but the human population was zero.

When I was confident it was a good spot I let my girlfriends know, "Alright I have a destination loaded. If you two are ready I can open the portal to Honnui-2273 right now."

My girlfriends both nodded, and all three of us got to our feet. We grabbed our packs, Gwen had her staff and I slung my bow over my shoulder. I tapped the control to activate the portal then we all held hands, and as soon as the swirling light stabilized the three of us stepped through together.

The first thing that hit me was the air, followed immediately by the colours.

The air in Enðedd was so heavy and oppressive and musty, it almost felt as grey and dull as the architecture, with a nasty chemical aftertaste. One step through the portal though and suddenly the air was crisp and clear and light, with subtle fragrances of flowers and plants, living earth, and a hint of salt from the ocean.

It smelled alive, and it sounded it too. I could hear the elaborate songs and calls of tropical birds, the rustling of broad palm leaves in a gentle breeze, and the distant sound of waves breaking on the shore.

The colours were just as dazzling. We were surrounded by the deep verdant greens of rich thick vegetation, punctuated by vibrant reds pinks and yellows of tropical flowers. Above us was the bright cerulean of a clear beautiful sky, and to our left was the warm golden hue of a sandy beach. That surrounded the deeper aquamarine of a crystal-clear lagoon, which was fed by a burbling stream flowing from somewhere behind us. And it drained out a tree-lined channel a little ways ahead of us.

"Holy crap this place is beautiful!" Gwyneth exclaimed while I was still looking around.

Chelsea's ears and tail all stood up as she nodded in agreement, "It sure is. This is like, the definition of a tropical island paradise!"

"So what do you two want to do first?" Gwen asked as she took a few steps towards the lagoon. "Should we explore? Or pick a place to set up camp?"

"You said there's some magic here, right? Do you want me to send Vix on a scouting mission, to make sure the area's safe?" she added as she glanced at the carved fox familiar at the end of her staff.

Rather than let myself get caught up in my girlfriends' enthusiasm I told them both, "Just hold on a second ok? I'm going to take a quick look at the map, but let me take care of this first."

Even before I'd finished talking I blinked my eyes a couple times, then nodded after I saw the pop-up notification that 'safe mode' was now engaged. With that out of the way I switched the expeditions app to its map tab, then adjusted the zoom until I had the island filled my view.

Like the rest of the UI, the map screen on my new interface had also received an upgrade. It still wasn't great though, instead of an 8-bit console with ASCII map art I now had what looked like 16-bit VGA graphics. Better than before, but still incredibly retro compared to what it should have been, considering the sci-fi tech level where it came from.

The island was shaped sort of like the number eight, or like a snowman that only had two sections. It was on an angle, with the larger half in the north-west and the smaller part to the south-east. My girlfriends and I were on the east coast of the larger half, not too far from the narrow bit where the two sides were joined. After taking a few more seconds to study the big picture I zoomed in on our location to get a better feel for the local terrain.

Then after dismissing the app I told my companions, "This is a freshwater lagoon, it's fed from that stream behind us and drains through another stream over there ahead of us. If you want to go see the ocean we can head downstream, it's about fifty meters to the shore from here. Or if you want to see more of the island we can go upstream? That'll lead us part-way up a mountain, then we can find our own way to the peak. It's only about three hundred and fifty meters at its highest point, but it should give us a good view of the whole island."

Chelsea's tail swished back and forth and she tilted her head to one side then frowned, "That's one downside to your new hardware. I can't just look over your shoulder and see the map anymore."

"Yeah," I grimaced. "I'll have to look into that, there might be a way to share it somehow. Or I guess I could always try and draw it out on some paper or something."

Both she and Gwen ended up asking a few more questions about the island, then the three of us debated a bit on what to do. The problem was we all wanted to do everything, so it was a matter of prioritizing. And in the end we decided that while this lagoon area might be a perfect place to set up camp, all three of us wanted to go see the ocean first. So we set out to follow the stream.

It was about two meters across and maybe twenty-five or thirty centimetres deep where it slowly flowed out of the lagoon, but only a dozen or so meters away it narrowed and grew both faster and deeper. That was about the same point where the ground developed a noticeable slope to it. After another ten or fifteen meters the stream was tumbling between and around rocks as it dropped over a couple small but pretty waterfalls.

My girlfriends and I needed a minute or two before we found a safe path down the steep slope, but past that things got easier again. The stream widened and slowed once more, then finally emerged from the thick jungle onto a big beautiful sandy beach. There it quickly found its way to the sea, while the three of us stood just beyond the trees and stared.

It was like something out of a movie, or a story maybe. The beach, the ocean, the clear sunny sky, it was all just perfect. The waves breaking on the beach looked exciting, but they weren't too big. And past them I could just make out what had to be a barrier reef a hundred meters or so offshore. I knew that would give the island some protection from the ocean waves, especially during storms, and it was probably a haven for fish and other marine life too.

After a few more seconds the three of us started moving again, as we slowly made our way across the beach, to where the waves were running up and down over the sand. Chelsea kicked off her sandals almost immediately so she could feel the warm sand between her toes, then shrugged off her backpack too and left it there next to her footwear.

Gwyneth and I weren't far behind, we both paused halfway across the beach to pull off our boots and socks. Both our packs ended up being left behind there as well. I even dropped my bow and quiver, but the elf girl kept her staff in hand. Then all three of us continued slowly advancing until we got to where the water was just lapping over the cool wet sand.

"So," I finally spoke up after we'd all spent another minute or two letting the cool ocean water run back and forth over our feet and toes, "What do you two want to do? Climb up the mountain? Explore the island? Set up a camp?"

"Or I could conjure up some bikinis and beach towels if you want to go swimming, or just chill out and catch some sun?" I added with a smile.

Chelsea's ears folded back and her tail twitched as she grimaced, "I mean, the prudent thing would be to search the island. Or at least the local area? To make sure it's safe, that there isn't anyone else around, that sort of thing?"

"Then we should probably pick a spot to set up camp," Gwen added with a sigh. "That lagoon where we first arrived is probably a good location, since it's sheltered and there's fresh water. And I can send Vix out to scout the area, she'll let us know if there's anything we need to worry about."

Chels nodded, "Yeah. We can always come back and enjoy the beach afterwards. Once we know it's safe and we've got a camp established and everything."

I agreed, "That definitely sounds like the responsible thing to do."

"Although," I added with a grin, "I can confirm there's no human population on this island. I checked before I opened the portal here. There might still be some dangerous fauna around, but nothing sentient. And I've already enabled safe mode, so it's not like anything can hurt us in any way."

The tall sexy elf's eyes lit up and she started smiling again. Meanwhile the little catgirl's ears stood up, along with her tail.

With a wide grin on her face Chels started peeling off her outfit as she said, "In that case who needs a bikini? If this is our own private paradise then I say this beach is clothing optional!"

Neither Gwen or I had could find any flaws in that argument, and a minute or two later all our clothes were piled up with the rest of our things part-way up the beach. I used my interface to summon up some big colourful beach towels, along with an icebox full of cherry vodka coolers and spring water so we'd have something to drink afterwards.

Then all three of us ran naked and laughing into the waves, to enjoy our very first time swimming in the ocean.