While the smaller after-css delves had acquaihem to delving, they were, ultimately, shallow representations of what delving truly was. The meics were the same, but the depth—and true challenges—were found in longer runs.

  This trip, they would almost certainly be trag down a boss. Maybe even they would find a stairway into the sed floor. They weren’t so reckless they’d go far into it, if so, but maybe they’d try their hand at an enter or two. Though difficult, a single sed-flht shouldn’t be out of their reach.

  Before they set off into the city proper and began their advehough, Natalie had things she o discuss with her team. It was a talk she wasn’t looking forward to, but, to quiet her nagging morality, she had to see it through.

  She pulled them aside, away from the busy Te pathways, so they had some privacy. Jordan gave her a sympathetic look. She knew what Natalie inteo broach. They’d talked it through together. At least Natalie would have her support.

  “So,” Natalie said. “Before we head out, there’s something I o tell all of you.”

  She addressed Ana and Liz more than Sofia. Sofia already knew, in broad strokes, about her css, and that was one of the things Natalie o clear the air about. Though, Sofia wasn’t aware of the theft—one of the topics.

  Natalie took a deep breath, then said, “First, let me say that I’m sorry. I didn’t io keep it a secret forever, and after I expin, I hope you’ll agree that I had some justifications. But that doesn’t make it right, either.”

  Liz and Sofia watched her curiously, eyebrows raising at the introdu. Ana, oher hand, kept her typical bnk face. Which was unfortunate. Natalie suspected she wouldn’t get many hints on what the stoian thought of this whole sario. Liz, at least, wore her emotions on her sleeve, and Sofia, Natalie had experience reading.

  “Remember our first delve?” Natalie asked. “How it ehe trap.”

  “You did steal a monster core,” Ana said.

  Natalie winced. Ana was as sharp as always—and in being so, was ruining the build-up which could possibly have made her look less like a terrible teammate.

  “I’m getting there,” Natalie said.

  Liz’s eyes wide the fession, and Sofia’s eyebrows raised further. Thankfully, her looked immediately upset. They were willing to give her a ce to expin.

  “I have a weird css,” Natalie said. “Let’s start with that. Like, really weird. For a few reasons. You know how padins have aspects?”

  Some of the surprise morphed to i.

  “Mine’s lust.” She wi just stating it like that, but there wasn’t much more lead-up she could do. “And that ‘trap’ wasn’t really a trap. It was more of an enter.”

  Which was going to be even more awkward to expin.

  “I’d rather not spell out the exact details,” Natalie said, face heating up, “but yeah. I felt I o tell you, sihe dungeos to everyone’s csses, and that’s the kind of info you might want. In case it pulls you into something simir. An enter that … I don’t know, resonates with my aspect. Like it did for me.”

  Liz and Sofia’s expressions turned into incredulity of what Natalie was implying. Even Ana seemed perplexed.

  Natalie took a breath in, then rummaged out and held up proof for what she was saying: the monster core with the [Spirit of Iility] stored i.

  “I didn’t sneak it out because I was greedy,” Natalie said. “I just didn’t know how to expin it. And I didn’t want to talk about my css when we weren’t even officially teammates. But I get all of that’s just excuses.”

  She winced.

  “And I would still like to keep it. It’s, um, useful for my css. Which is why it was hand-delivered to me, I think.”

  “So the mural from the puzzle room,” Ana said. “That was targeted toward you as much as me.”

  Natalie found it odd, if relieving, that that was what Ana chose to focus on, instead of everything else. Sofia and Liz, she wasn’t so lucky. By their expressions, they were still digesting the implications of what an ‘enter influenced by Natalie’s aspect’ meant.

  “Maybe?” Natalie said. “At least partially, yeah. Probably.”

  Sofia turo Jordan. “You knew.”

  “After the fact,” Jordan said. “But yes. She told me.”

  Nobody seemed surprised at that.

  Sofia rubbed her forehead. She looked back to Natalie, seeming bewildered. “Well,” she said. “I uand the why behind the subterfuge, at least, even if I’m not pleased about it.”

  “I’d, um, not want to go shouting about it, either,” Liz ughed, bemused. A dusting of pink had settled onto her cheeks. She was clearly embarrassed by the reveal. “Sheesh. An enter. You’re really not going to tell us what that means?”

  Natalie’s own blush deepened. “I think you’ve put the basics together. I’d rather not get into the details.”

  “If your css prompts such events from the dungeon,” Ana said, “then we o know. Simply for tactical and strategic purposes, if nothing else. There’s no reason to dance around the topic. We’re all, ultimately, professionals.”

  Natalie siphoned some resolve from the matter-of-fact way Ana stated it. And it was true. She’d been hoping to go easy on some of the stickier details, though.

  “There were some vines,” Natalie said. “And, um, they o be taken care of.” This was so mortifying. “That’s enough to give you the picture. And I don’t think those enters are going to involve you all, anyway.” She was far from certain on that. “The dungeon led me away to make it happen. And it was initiated by my choice. I mostly knew what I was getting into, before I got into it.” That was leaving out the full details behind the situation, but she had chosen to get into that mess, more or less. “So. Yeah.”

  She’d picked to i with the hole in the wall, and, while the vines hadn’t been perfectly polite, it still had been Natalie’s choice to throw herself into their writhing grip.

  The clear-cut optionality could ge, she knew, but hopefully it didn’t. While bizarre and embarrassing, the sex-aspects of the dungeon were fine, for a sense of the word, as long as she had a choi the matter.

  “Anyway,” Natalie said, cheeks bzing by this point. “Team vote, I guess. I keep this?” She held up the core. “And also, everyone knows what my css could do to the dungeon, now. So if that’s a deal breaker to wanting to team up … ?”

  The team looked around at each other.

  “Truthfully,” Ana said, “It sounds lucrative. I don’t mind you keeping that,” she the orb, “but if we receive a steady flow of such items? They’ll pay well. Do you expect to keep all of it?”

  A part of Natalie did want to say she’d been the oo work for it, and that it was her css that produced the enter and reward in the first pce, but that wasn’t how delving splits were hahe same reason resathering lit—partially—to the whole team.

  Or it could work like that, but such matters were decided through a team discussion. Hehis.

  And, really, for the trouble Natalie’s css presehe team deserved a cut of the potential rewards for having to deal with it. Especially if it started roping them in, instead of involving Natalie alone.

  “I’m hardly wanting to break up the team because of it,” Liz said. “But sheesh. Wow. I’m not sure what to say, really.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” Natalie said.

  “To all of us.” Sofia shook her head. “The idea doesn’t thrill me, but there’s bes, too. As Ana said, there’s moo be made with … specialty items … like that.”

  “One way to put it,” Natalie mumbled.

  “And if it’s truly optional, or otherwise acts as a trap would, and be avoided, then …” Sofia shrugged. “We’ll ha as it es.”

  “And I’m intrigued by the details to your css,” Ana said. “What kinds of skills does an aspect of ‘lust’ e with? Why illusions?”

  “Well,” Natalie said. “Those are my issues to deal with.”

  “So there are issues?”

  Natalie shrugged. Ana accepted the reje, though her curiosity in.

  “We should get going,” Sofia said. “Enlightening as that was, we still have a duo clear.” She shook her head, still incredulous. “And some time to think would be oo, during the walk. It’s a lot to digest, Nat.”

  Liz nodded in agreement, hair boung with the rapidness of the movement. She was the most visibly unfortable at the reveal. “Yep. Let’s get going. Thanks, uh, for telling us, Nat. I’m sure it was hard to. And you definitely could’ve gotten away with it.”

  “Wouldn’t have been right,” Natalie said. Though she wished she could’ve spared herself from this versatiardless of the ethics of the situation.

  Liz hen, blush matg Natalie’s own, firmly set off toward the dungeon.

  The rest of the team followed after her, and as they trailed dowh, headed for Aradon and the dungeon, Jordan leaned close and murmured, “That went well, don’t you think?”

  All things sidered, she guessed it did. And she was gd everything—the parts relevant to her team, at least—was out in the open. Those secrets weren’t the kind of thing she could have kept to herself a fortable doing so with, especially si might directly involve them iure.

  But seriously. So awkward.