Along the side of the table, on a rickety chair, Charlie sat in silence. Looking to the door, he saw two women in green paint holding large battle axes. Looking to the cup in front of him, he stared at the foul-smelling liquid. Pushing the cup away, he stared down at the document. All he needed was for the woman currently acting as the leader of the Forgers to sign the document.

“So, you’re the Chiefess’s fuck toy?” a harsh voice said. Turning to the doorway, Charlie stood up and offered a handout to her.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Charlie Black-Quill,” Looking to his hand, the tall woman only scoffed before sitting down on the far side of the table from him.

“Your not a person, you’re a pet. A slave of the Chiefess, like us,” she said, eyeing the paper in front of him.

“What exactly do you want? And why can’t you just wait another day or two until the Clan leader returns?” The Forger said, her far more grey ears and tail drooping. Sitting back down in his chair, Charlie picked up the document.

“I wish to have you help me with something, and we would prefer it happened as soon as possible. We have made a few changes to the contract to factor in your people if you decide to help. We need one hundred of your people to pair with one hundred Vultures,” Charlie began to explain, standing again and moving to her side to show her the document.

“One Vulture and one Forger will work together to document and draw the people of the tribe. Each clan shall be paid ten thousand coppers for their participation, this amount may be changed if it is found that they have made multiple documents of the same person,” Charlie continued. The forger wayed up what he said before answering.

“How will you make sure a person is documented?”

“Simple,” Charlie said, reaching into his back pocket and revealing a slip of paper.

“We will give them a copy of the document that will be made a group of Vultures and myself. It will be a long process, but we are willing to pay more if that’s what you need?” Charlie said, showing a smaller, copy of the documentation slip.

“All you would need to do is sign the contact and we’ll begin today,” Charlie said, knowing that he needed to act quickly since Nolkonoe only just managed to get a meeting for an hour or so.

“Why would we want to do this?” she said, pushing the contract away.

“Payment, and I will help to accurately see how much of the compensation money your tribe is owed,” Charlie said, knowing that the promise of compensation was one of the reasons the Forgers had calmed their push for independence lately.

“I’ll wait to see what the clan leader says,” the woman said, leaning back in her chair. Panic flooded Charlie for a second, be quickly he clamed himself. There was no time for weakness.

“But wouldn’t you like to surprise her? After all this money would be coming from the Chiefess, and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind making the payment fifty thousand coppers,” Charlie said, smiling as he saw her ears prick up.

“Double it,” she said, doing her best to act calm. Grinning, Charlie nodded.

“I’ll make the changes and talk to the Chiefess. Thank you very much. Could you bring one hundred of your forgers to the main square?” Charlie said, smiling as he packed away the contract.

“But what exactly shall we be doing? I would like to get a good idea on what to tell our workers,” The substitute woman asked.

“You will be doing drawings of people in the tribe. The Vultures shall be interviewing the people and learning all they can about them, like age, gender, name etc,” Charlie said, getting up and quickly hurrying off before she could ask anymore questions. Peeking around the doorway, Nolkonoe jumped back as Charlie whizzed past her.

“Thank you for this,” Nolkonoe said, smiling to the Forger.

“Don’t think I did this for you Nolkonoe. I just wanted to eye up the man who shall impregnate our clan Heir and others in our clan,” the woman said, standing and walking out of the room.

“Now if you don’t mind, I will be going to gather some Forgers, and you better do the same for your slut Vultures,” she said, spitting on the ground as she past Nolkonoe.

Supressing her anger, Nolkonoe only nodded to her before walking away. Some days she wished the Forgers would start a civil war so she could have an excuse to skin that bitch. Still though, she was a member of the tribe, so Nolkonoe simply clamed herself before walking off after Charlie.

Darting through the village, Charlie locked his eyes onto the track where Nolkonoe had led him down. As of recent the days seemed to go quickly, thus he didn’t want to slow himself for even a moment. Stopping as he past two warriors, he smiled up at them. Glaring at him, he shrank a little. Laughing at his sudden fear, the women relaxed their glares.

“Chiefess?” he questioned. Chattering, the women quickly gave their response in the form of a point. Thanking them, Charlie sprinted off in the direction that they had pointed in.

As they had said, Charlie quickly came upon the Chiefess. Herself and a small group of fifty warriors, all painted and armed with native made weapons walked through the village. Catching his breath for only a second, he sprinted towards the Chiefess. Seeing him approach, the Chiefess turned to him and smiled.

“Hello?” she said in her broken English.

“Hi! I need to borrow some money to…” Charlie took in a few deep breaths, allowing the Chiefess time to get out her translation book. Charlie blurted out everything he had planned to the Chiefess. Smiling, she ruffled his hair.

“Yes, go get money, in temple in storage,” she said, flipping her translation book shut. Leaning down, she placed a kiss onto his cheek.

“No women, remember?” she said before standing and walking off with her small army of warriors. Widley, he smiled.

“Thank you!” Charlie said before snapping around and sprinting off to secure the funds for his project.

Without delay he hopped jumped, skipped and bolted through the village, apologising and asking for forgiveness of each person that he bumped or almost pushover in his frantic Sprint. Knowing who he was as the Chiefess’s mating partner, as well as being one of the only men/humans in the village, the women quickly forgave him.

Some even made lude gestures towards him to try and make him blush like he had the night before, but he was so focused on moving that the gestures went acknowledged by him. Through the crowd, a pair of eyes locked onto him. Firing through the village, the figure followed him as he darted down an ally.

Jumping, Charlie looked over the tops of the huts and to the temple. From his perspective he could tell he wasn't far, so he began to pick up pace as he darted through more alleys and small gaps between houses that he could only barely fit through. Falling onto his back, Charlie was stunned by a hand yanking his shoulder backwards.

“Afternoon,” Charlie said, awkwardly staring into the narrowed eyes of Phukomeia.

“You said you would be with me today?” she said, staring into his eyes as she ran her hand around his neck.

“My apologies, I’m just very busy today,” Charlie tried to plead as Phukomeia only tightened her grip around his neck.

“You lied Charlie~ I don’t like liars,” she said, pulling him closer, licking her lips as she saw him begin to blush.

“Currently I’m in the middle of something, you are free to join me if you want?” Charlie said, awkwardly smiling. For a moment Phukomeia thought before answering.

“Sure, but I get privileges over what to do with you,” she said, smirking as she began to plot what she wanted to do with him. Letting him go, she patiently followed after him as he continued his journey through the village.

Even though he was running with all his might, Phukomeia only needed to do a light jog to keep up with him. For a while longer the jogged, Phukomeia giving him bulges or pushes in the right direction, until they reached the bottom of the temple.

“Umm, sorry, could I ask where the storage is?” Charlie awkwardly asked Phukomeia, having been so caught up in working quickly he had completely forgotten to ask where the storage room of the

temple was.

“Follow me, I’ll show you,” Phukomeia said, signally with her index finger for him to follow.

Nodding, Charlie followed after her as she led him up the temple steps. For a while they walked up the steps. Reaching the top, they saw the bloody altar.

“Don’t worry, it was just some desert crawlers sacrificed to the Goddess of the hunt,” Phukomeia reassured, knowing Charlie was aware of their bloody practices.

“Since we have our lands back, and the Region Lord is only a little push away from being defeated, sacrifices and cannibalism will hopefully become a fate reserved for our most evil enemies. And if fate may guide us, hopefully even that will become nothing more than old legends handed down by the elders,” Phukomeia said, smiling as she saw the bright eyes of Charlie as she inadvertently faltered him.

“Stop your blushing. There is still much work to be done, so lets go to the storage room,” she said, continuing past the later and into the temple.

Along the winding corridors, they came to large, wooden door. Just from the markings and carvings, he could tell that it was most likely imperial made. Creaking the door open, Phukomeia allowed Charlie inside.

“Can I ask where the coppers are held? I need to get about one hundred thousand coppers for your clan as payment, and another hundred thousand for the Forgers,” Charlie explained, Phukomeia guiding his way as he explained the situation to her.

Lighting a few piles of wood in large baseness around the, she lit the path for them to go towards the coppers. Upon seeing the overflowing chests of coppers, Charlie moved to the shining coins.

“Alright then, lets being counting,” Charlie said with as smile as he began to count out the coppers in piles of one hundred, and then into sets of one thousand. Sitting by his side, Phukomeia began to do the same.

In the slight light of the touches that flickered into the darkness In front of him, Charlie could make out a large, deformed, wooden structure. It was much like a pole of statue of some kind. Glistening in the torchlight, he could see a large, decorated blade upon a small ceremonial altar. Noticing he had stopped, Phukomeia looked up to see where he was staring. Proudly, she straightened her back and smiled at the dagger.

“It’s the dagger of liberty. Or at least that is the rough translation. Our tribe used it to sacrifice the pig lord who used to rule over us. We now reserve it for sacrificing the leaders of our enemies,” Phukomeia said, a nostalgic feeling flooding over her as she remembered all the legends and stories Nolkonoe had told her as a child.

It was the dagger of heroes, and only the Chiefess was allowed to wield it. Even then she was only allowed to during times of desperation for their tribe. Charlie only nodded in response. What was he meant to say? A knife that could have probably killed hundreds of people, was an item of worship to the tribe.

“If the knifes so sacred, why keep it here? Why not proudly present it?” Charlie said, seeing that Phukomeia was almost bursting to spew out facts about the knife.

“Well, the Chiefess finds the knife the most sacred out of all of us. After all, her mother died with that knife in hand,” Phukomeia said, smirking as she saw Charlie stop counting the coins.

“Do you want to hear the story?” Charlie stayed quite for a moment, but soon responded.