Dungeons and Dalliances

7.43 – Reunited

Natalie composed herself. She'd been flustered by Elida's unexpected arrival, as if she'd been caught doing something inappropriate, but she hadn't, really. She was checking out the Coliseum purely out of practical considerations. To see how it worked, and to see how fast the passive token-enchantment was. And for once, she wasn't lying to herself. Natalie was a lot of things, but a voyeur wasn't one.

Well, she wasn't especially a voyeur, at least. She wouldn't pretend the show being put on didn't get her a little excited. Nevertheless. She wouldn't have shown up if not for curiosity on the enchantment function.

"Elida," Natalie repeated, more composed this time. "Faye. Clementine. When'd you get here? How'd you find us?"

"About an hour ago," Elida said. "We just missed the 'cycle reset,' apparently. How unfortunate. We saw your name and Vanetta's and went hunting. Checked the Arena first, since that was what your assignment was, and figured you'd either be in the shopping district or at the Coliseum. And here you are." She walked over and leaned on the stone railing next to Natalie, casually peering out at the ongoing—activity. "This is truly the strangest floor I've ever heard of. What's happening? This is a stake payout, I believe they called it?"

Someone had given her the rundown on how the City worked, it seemed. The basics at least.

"We only got here a few hours before you, so we don't know that much more," Natalie said. "But yes, this is—a stake payout."

"Curious. What were the terms?"

Slightly flustered, she relayed the stake's description to Elida.

"Ah. So the extra bits were created by the stake? Interesting." She leaned back to peer over Natalie's shoulder. "Where are my manners? It's good to see you again, Vanetta. I presume you and Natalie had some good bonding time? You were both sent to the Arena for a 'duo assignment', no?"

If Natalie had teasingly prodded Vanetta in such a way, she expected the dark-haired rogue would blush furiously. With Elida, her face was completely deadpan. She met Elida's gaze with barely a twitch. "Yes. I wondered when you'd get here. You must have been thrown farther from the City than us."

"It was a hike," Elida agreed. "You two have gotten the lay of the land? You'll need to catch us up."

"You've gotten a room at the Palace?" Natalie asked.

"Indeed. A lovely young man gave us the initiation spiel—but there seems to be a lot going on."

"Yeah. But automatons are stationed at most buildings. They're helpful. The only bit that's not obvious is the Emporium. That we've heard about, at least."

"The Emporium?"

"In the shopping district. Apparently it's where all the valuable items are sold. Well, the really valuable ones. The regular shops are already—absurd enough."

"Oh?"

"They sell Epics."

Even Elida's eyes widened at that, the news flooring her.

"Epics? On the third floor?"

"They're expensive as hell, but yes. We'd have to be here—" She ran a rough calculation in her head. As she'd learned earlier, token generation and enchantment was inconsistent, not something that could be estimated with reliability. "Well, probably more than a week, just to buy one. And that's assuming we're very, very efficient workers."

One of the other city goers had mentioned only earning six enchanted tokens for their arena run. Working at that pace, it would take all month even for a run of the mill Epic.

'Run of the mill Epic.' Natalie shook her head. What a ridiculous statement.

"I see," Elida said. "And there's the matter of the time limit. How unfortunate."

"The time limit?"

"The two-week maximum."

"Oh?" Natalie hadn't heard of that. It must have slipped Acacia's briefing, and she hadn't thought to ask whether there was some limitation.

"You didn't hear? Yes. Apparently, you can only stay for two weeks. Then the guards will come to drag you out."

The guards. She hadn't seen any yet, but she knew of them. How else would people be carried off to their punishment at the pillory, for example? They were tall suits of armor, she'd heard, unbelievably strong and quick. Probably level six or seven, maybe higher. Not something that could be reasonably fought.

Except maybe by their team? Level seven was a tall ask, however prodigious their squad was, though. Natalie had no intentions of trying her hand, because there was no respawning except in sanctioned assignments. And not even all of them—the Palace Basement had no such safeguards.

"Huh. Good to know."

"Which brings us to the obvious discussion," Elida said. "We have decisions to make as a team. Namely—extending the timeline of our delve."

Natalie grimaced. She and Vanetta had already broached the topic. It was perfectly rational to stay at the City of Eros as long as possible. There was
Epic loot for sale. Tenet would forgive them, she was certain. They would want full, detailed reports on what was happening on this unique floor. In fact, they might be reprimanded if they didn't stay and perform reconnaissance. Tenet didn't like when their students missed classes and training, obviously, but this was a special case.

The problem was Jordan, Sofia, Liz, and Ana. What would they think if Natalie went missing for two weeks? Beyond the immense stress she might place on them worrying that the worst had happened, she was leaving them without a tank for that entire period.

Thankfully, they'd discussed the topic on a smaller scale: what their plans were while Natalie was gone over the weekend. They would be tackling the second floor using a [Divinely Invigorated] Malice as their tank. The martial artist was more of a fighter than a true tank, but she could fill the role, especially when buffed by Natalie's strongest skill.

They ought to make decent progress, even without her. Since Malice fed experience to her active owner, they'd be rotating the monstergirl around to massively boost their gains. A four-party earning experience as a five-party.

There was also her [Aura of Blessed Advancement]. It was an aura skill, which usually meant she had to be near them … but the description said 'Select up to four party members to receive amplified experience gain'. Not all aura skills were restrained by distance.

Most were though. The large majority. But there were rare exceptions. Unfortunately, intuition didn't answer her question. It may or may not function even when she was separated from them. Hopefully it did?

In either case, Malice could act as their front line and boost their experience gain. They weren't suffering overmuch for losing their tank.

So the dilemma was more about them thinking Natalie had died, rather than her simply being gone. Which was a rather major dilemma, since they were friends. At the same time—this City of Eros was an unprecedented opportunity. She couldn't afford to give it up. Elida and probably even Vanetta would overrule any requests to go back early, anyway.

"Right," Natalie said. "We do need to talk."

She glanced at the developing situation down inside the Coliseum. Catarina had just completed her second 'milking.' She'd chosen to use her thighs this time around. Good choice.

"Maybe not here and now, though," she said, cheeks coloring. "I want to see how many tokens get enchanted, for this, ah, show. We can chat after."

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