Bright and early the m, after a quick, cold breakfast, Natalie atteo her punishment: kit duty.

  Their team hadn’t been the only oeo it. Unsurprisingly, a signifit portion of the freshmen student base had overstayed their dungeon first run. Five hours from css end to curfew didn’t leave much time to get anything done, and pushing for more had gotten them caught. Real delves took a full day at least. The smaller week-day ones were plenty for earning experiehough. Both the literal sort and the css-based sort. And monster-core farming, which, while not the only way to start w toward credits and gear, was defihe predominahod.

  The looks of muted e amused Natalie. ing to how Te ran every other aspect of the campus, status of birth didn’t exempt princes and princesses from ing floors and scrubbing dishes. Some were less happy about that than others. None looked pleased, but to be fair, that robably because who would be pleased attending kit duty this early in the m? Natalie certainly wasn’t. Only some of their indignation came from their atus, and the rest of it, from a mundane source.

  There were three cafeterias scattered through campus, and the good news was, she did get assigo the same one as Jordan. The bad news was that things were hectiough there weren’t many opportuo talk. Though, one did eventually e. Scrubbing dutifully away with hand-brushes, on their khey found a ce to chat.

  “You think they’d give us a mop, at least,” Natalie grumbled. “This is so ineffit.”

  “I get the feeling efficy isn’t the point,” Jordan said. “They have actual staff for that.”

  “Still.” Being put to work was ohing, but being put to busy work was another.

  A few moments passed, rough bristles scratg away at tile.

  “So,” Jordan said. “Expnation time?”

  Natalie sighed, knowing it had been ing. She’d even been looking forward to it; she wao get the ordeal off her chest. Still, she couldn’t be wholly excited to detail all the bizarre stuff that had gone oerday.

  “Which part should I start with?”

  “How about why you snuck a core out?”

  “Because it’s full of potions of iility.”

  The scrubbing stopped. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Iility?”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay,” Jordan said slowly, drawing the word out. “And how did that happen?”

  “Remember the ‘trap’ I fell into?”

  “Could hardly fet.”

  “Not so much a trap.”

  “Kay?”

  “More of an enter.”

  “Of … a different type?”

  “Very sticky sort, yeah.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I got shown a very good time by aed mass of vines.”

  Jordan stared at her.

  “And o was done having its way with me,” Natalie said, “I was rewarded with practically a bathtub’s worth of iility potions. The dungeon cares about my career, I guess. How siderate.”

  For a long moment, Jordan didn’t respond. Natalie didn’t bme her for that.

  Finally, Jordan shook her head to clear it.

  “That’s a lot to take in.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So when are we testing it?”

  “Testing what?”

  “The potion. If it works. session?”

  It took several seds to piece together the meaning of the words.

  When she did, her mouth dropped open, and she gaped at her friend. Seeing sparkling green eyes, she flushed auro her scrubbing.

  “Stop teasing,” Natalie growled, adjusting her skirt, which had, at the imagery produced by Jordan’s suggestion, suddenly grown strained. “Yoing to get me caught. This thing isn’t as easy to hide anymore.”

  “That is a problem,” Jordan admitted, sparing a g it. “But I think I’ll take the risk. It’s too much fun making you blush.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “And,” Jordan said, “I like seeing it. It’s a reminder of what I get to py with, tonight.”

  “Jordan.”

  “Look. It’s getting even bigger. You’re right. It really doesn’t hide well, anymore.”

  Natalie scrubbed the floor, pointedly ign her friend, and the unwieldy bulge in her skirt. Really. When this thing had been six inches, it had been troublesome. At eight, she hadn’t a clue how her secret would remain a secret.

  Though maybe that wasn’t the goal. While mortifying, the truth getting out would make romantiters simpler. Rather than having to expin it to each partner.

  “I think we trust the potion does what it says,” Natalie said.

  “But you don’t want to make sure?”

  “Jordan.”

  “What’s a creampie between friends?”

  “Jordan!” Natalie said, sdalized.

  “Okay, okay,” Jordan ughed. “Putting aside how ihe … viuff … is. And the potion. It’s not ideal that you had to hide the reward.”

  “Don’t like stealing from the team, that’s for sure.”

  “Especially sinight get more iure. Doubt it’s one-off.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I get why you did it, though.”

  “Doesn’t make it right.”

  “You could tell them?”

  “Think that’s smart?”

  “I would wait until we formalize as a group. But once we do, you might want to. Probably for the best.”

  “And I get even, then. Pay everyone back?”

  Jordan bobbed her head in agreement. “Maybe that’s not even necessary. You could make cim to it. It’s an item suited to your css that you hose types of drops are exceptions to standard splits. The same if we had found a rapier for Sofia, or something.”

  “Yeah.” Natalie wrinkled her nose. “I’ll figure it all out ter. Feel bad about it, though.”

  Jordan made a noise of agreement. That she doned what Natalie had done eased some of her guilt, though not all of it.

  “So,” Jordan said. “ topic. Sleeping gods and goddesses.”

  In the ridiculousness of the vi, she’d almost fotten about that.

  At the same time …

  “Dunno. You think it meant anything?”

  “You don’t?”

  “Seems far-fetched.”

  “Your css is far-fetched. So was the enter with the Bestower, from what you told me.”

  “You’re n.” She chewed her lip. “But what we do about any of it? Say the dungeon did feed us accurate information. That the Architect is harvesting our old gods’ powers to fuel the system, and the goddess of lust is waking first—and that’s why I got my css.” Put into words, it sounded even more absurd. “So what? What could we do about any of it?”

  “Dunno,” Jordan said. “Ought to at least look into it, right?”

  “I’ve got about a million other things to deal with,” Natalie said. “Not that I disagree, but e on. It’s not high priority.”

  “The fate of the world isn’t high priority?”

  Natalie raised her eyebrows at Jordan.

  “Not that I think that’s what’s happening,” Jordan admitted. “Or that I’m sold on the premise in the first pce. But putting even ‘looking into it’ as low priority feels unjustified.”

  “When I have time,” Natalie said, rubbing her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’m not ign, ign it. Just, like I said, I have other stuff going on.”

  “That’s fair. If I have a spare moment, I’ll see if I find anything, too.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Okay,” Jordan said, lips quirking up. “Less crazy topics. We’ve finished our first run. Gonna have a flow of cores, soon, which means tokens. What’s our pn there?”

  “Getting a pce to stay is number oill? It’s only been a week, but I’ve had enough public housing to st a lifetime.”

  “The restrooms are getting old, too,” Jordan said wryly. She paused. “Speaking of, are we sharing a bed?”

  Natalie’s scrubbing stilled. “Uh?”

  “Might as well, right? Cheaper, and it means I won’t have to sneak into your room eaight. Less ce of getting caught by Sofia.”

  “That’s … not … a terrible idea?”

  Jordan raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Natalie. “Havihere to take care of you eaight, every night, in our own bed, isn’t ‘a terrible idea’?”

  “I just meant …”

  “And there she is, again,” Jordan said, smirking as oward Natalie’s crotch. “She disappeared for a moment. Gd to see her.”

  Natalie adjusted her skirt, trying to make it less obvious, the Jordan. “What happeo you? What’s with all this teasing?”

  “Like I said, when it’s so easy to make you blush, how am I supposed to help myself?”

  Natalie huffed. She was supposed to be the fident one. Since when did Jordan take that role?

  “So …?” Jordan prompted. “Same bed?”

  “If you want to.”

  Jordan rolled her eyes. “Sound so enthusiastic, you’ll make me think you want me.”

  “I’m just worried about how much you’re doing. You’ve already done enough.”

  “Thoughtful as always,” Jordan said with a snort. “Well, if you want to say thanks, you could always … I don’t know. Wake me up the fun way, here and there?”

  Natalie’s brain stumbled a few steps.

  “I might take you up on that offer,” she said.

  “You better.”

  They scrubbed away at the fln their exge, as if she hadn’t just agreed to wake Jordan up with m oral sex as soon as they moved in.

  You know, best-friend stuff.

  Natalie cleared her throat, then adjusted her skirt. “Anyway, we’ll check out the housing situation some time this week. But other stuff we’ll do with credits?”

  “Gear, obviously.”

  “And shampoo,” Natalie said. “And clothes. And the whole list. ’t believe they make you buy everything.”

  They’d been allowed t starting supplies, but the two-week mark, which approached rapidly, meant most of it would be purged, and they’d o start buying from Te. Clothes, ing supplies, and delving gear alike. They took their ‘local ecosystem’ approach deadly serious.

  “Hurts us a lot less than them, at least,” Jordan said.

  That was true. y pert of the student base was filthy rich, and if not that, sponsored by people who were.

  So by that regard, they were as well off as anyone.