Outside, Jordan, Sofia, and Ana stood around awkwardly, twiddling their thumbs.

  “So,” Sofia suddenly said. “It’s still going on?”

  “Guess it is,” Jordan replied.

  “Been a while, don’t you think?”

  “They’re having fun with it, maybe,” Jordan said wryly.

  Sofia raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her, and Jordan snorted.

  “And what does everyohink of all this?” Sofia asked.

  “It’s her css. Not like she help it,” Jordan said.

  “I guess,” Sofia said dubiously. She looked at Ana, waiting for a response.

  The stony-faced girl met her gaze easily. “It’s a low-threat challehat offers a reward our team needs. So, I suppose I sider this event fortuitous?”

  Sofia’s expressioed to exasperation. “Really. That’s all?”

  Ana tilted her head. A small frown tugged on her lips. “I would not have personally participated,” she said, “but that Elizabeth chose to doesn’t bother me. Does it you?”

  “No,” Sofia said. “It’s just—“ She struggled for a moment on how to put it. Jordan suspected the girl didn’t know herself. To be fair, it was quite the event.

  A look of uanding crossed Ana’s face. “You wish you could have taken the challenge.”

  “No!” the instant, horrified response came, and Jordan started ughing at how catastrophically Ana had misinterpreted things. “What are you even—“ Sofia stuttered. “That’s not what—“

  “Maybe it’ll let everyo a go,” Jordan joked to her. “Who gets to watch? Me or Nat?”

  “You,” Sofia growled, “are supposed to be the reasonable one.” She poked a firm finger into Jordan’s chest, and Jordan only smirked down at the white-haired girl. “I am not ied in those challenges. I’m just surprised everyoaking it so in stride, is all.”

  Jordan shrugged. “They’re optional. Doesn’t really matter, if that’s the case.”

  “I guess,” Sofia repeated.

  Jordan knew what was really going on. The pirl was just flustered from imagining what was happening ihat room. To be fair, Jordan was too—how couldn’t she be? But Sofia especially. Their team’s fighter was just talking to talk, the silence as they leaned against the dungeon wall and waited for the event to havioo mu for her thoughts to run wild. The blush on her cheeks would have given that away, even if her agitated movements hadn’t.

  Thankfully, the somewhat awkward waiting-around ended: advang footsteps from down the long underground tunnel heralded their teammates’ return.

  Liz shuffled behind Natalie sheepishly, obviously embarrassed to aowledge what had happened. Jordan fought away the smile tugging at her lips, seeing the timid dispy. She didn’t know what had gone oween her and Natalie, but Jordan suspected that at a minimum, it wouldn’t be too long before Natalie had another lust-gathering partner.

  Maybe, even, she and Liz could team up on Natalie? That would be a and a half. She wondered whether it would give Natalie more energy than two separate enters. That robably hoping for too much. Well, even if not, it’d be time-effit.

  Jordan would need a way to she topi. Though, obviously, she was assuming a lot, and still had to see whether Liz herself would be ied.

  “Well?” Sofia asked. “How’d it go?”

  “Good,” Natalie said. “Worked like it said it would.” She coughed. She was obviously the one more fortable in handling expnations, seeing how Liz was red-faced and peeking out from behind Natalie, but it was still an awkward event.

  Amusedly, Jordan wondered how long the timid behaviors would st in their group. How frequent, and intense, would the dungeon’s interventions bee? This blushing stage of theirs might not st long, depending on how enthusiastically the duhrew challe them.

  “And your reward?”

  Liz presehe item, holding it out in front of her. It was a thial white wand with a gold cap—it looked high quality. Intrigued, Jordan didn’t waste a moment to [I] it. Sofia and Ana didher.

  “A rare?” Sofia blurted out. “What!”

  “A form shift?” Jordan asked, finding that the more intriguing part. sidering the methods Natalie and Liz had used to earem, she suspected something might be up.

  And she was right. Expnations took pce, and Jordan only barely stifled her ughter as she discovered the wand’s nature. Sofia seemed to be struggling to accept this new reality of theirs, and Ana, as always, seemed only intrigued.

  “Maybe such a trial would be worth the effort,” Ana mused. “An evolvable rare on. How will we be splitting future events?”

  “So there’s a line for them, now?” Natalie asked.

  “With rewards like that?” Ana asked. She seemed genuinely fused as she looked at Jordan and Sofia. “Surely anyone would be willing to suffer through some … awkwardness.”

  Sofia seemed like she would protest that, but then g Liz’s wand and seemed to turn vaguely nauseous. The white-haired girl clearly agreed, though the idea of partaking in the dungeon’s so-called tributions still offended her sensibilities.

  Jordan leased to find Ana didn’t seem to have any major puns, now that the challenges had proved valuable. This delving party of theirs really might warm up to the idea faster than she’d expected.

  She wondered what that would be like. She was only ied in Natalie from a romantic perspective, but getting to team up on her with Sofia, Liz, or even Ana sounded appealing. She tried not to let those thoughts run too wild—and was admittedly somewhat surprised at how eager she was for it. She’d never sidered herself a lustful woman, but ret events and her involvement with Natalie and her css had ged that—or woken something up in her.

  “Well, whatever,” Sofia said loudly. “We’ll figure that out ter. we please move on? There’s still boss rooms to find, and we’re not remotely re-stocked on gear.”

  Jordan sidered pushing the point—how the challenges would be handled and distributed was relevant and worth talking about—but clearly Sofia needed a moment to think the subject over. A shared look with Natalie firmed that.

  “We’ll ha whe to it,” Natalie agreed.

  Still halfway hiding behind Natalie, Liz nodded rapidly, her short hair boung.

  “And your css better not have turhe bosses perverted too,” Sofia said, with something approag a growl. “I swear, gives good rewards or not, we do still need bat practice.”

  Jordan didn’t think they were that lucky. The dungeon had far from morphed pletely into a perverted ndscape. They were in for plenty ur challenges.

  Just lots of bonus ooo.