"How did st challenge even make sense?" Natalie blurted out. The question had been on her mind, but other developis had taken priority. With the two of them about to veo the —likely lewd—challenge, she found herself needing to ask.

  "What do you mean?"

  "It was literally just sug your cock. How is that a challenge? Something worth rewarding? At least with Liz, she had o—" Natalie bit her lip to cut herself off, remembering that Liz had asked for her to be discreet about that event.

  Ana, and the rest of the party, had seen the initial description of the rules, and the saddle device, though. "It required her not to climax," Ana finished for her. "So there was an aspeposed difficulty. A challenge in the more traditional sense."

  "Exactly." Whereas the blowjob room—and the fact that Natalie referred to a dungeon challenge in that way kind of broke her brain—had just been for Natalie to get on her knees and pleasure Ana.

  "I've been w about that too. The nature of your css," Ana said, sounding way too academically ied for both the topic at hand, and what was ing up. "If we sider a typical delver, their css urges them to bee a better batant—and that's what the dungeon does as well. Throws powerful monsters at them until they grow in skill and petence. If viewed uhat light, then the dungeon a sex-based css any type of lewd challenge is reasonable, sihe css-bearer would beore profit in sex. An artificial straint like Elizabeth's is unnecessary. I could liken it to how the dungeon often throws a simple mo us, without any plicated sario apanying it. The goal is to make you grow in matters reted to sex, perhaps by pushing boundaries or simply giving you opportuo refine your skill set. So, it makes perfect sense."

  Wow. Ana had actually thought about it, then. Natalie had mostly shrugged a with the practical results of her css, but here was an expnation. Though it missed the why behind being given a css that urged her to 'grow in matters of sex'. It at least expined why the dungeon acted like it did, and also why the blowjob room had been shtforward.

  "Huh," Natalie said. "So, what's the e? It wants to turo some plete degee?"

  "Not necessarily. High-level delvers are hardly all violence-addicted sadists. They're simply very, very good at killing. Which I suppose means the dungeon wants you to be very, very good at fug."

  Natalie stared at her. "How do you do that?"

  "Do what?"

  "Say something so ridiculous with a straight face."

  "Years of practice," Ana said coolly. "And, fasating as I find this discussion, I do believe you're stalling. Didn't you promise me I'd get to put this thing inside you?" She grabbed her cod wiggled it at Natalie. "I'm getting impatient."

  Natalie's fastantly started burning, and she bashfully looked away. Why did Ana's impassionate delivery of such lewd requests turn her on so much? Ana's whole personality was a strangely effective enigma.

  "We don't even know if that's what's ing up," Natalie mumbled.

  "bat, fug, bat. Three makes a pattern. I find it a safe assumption."

  "And you're really looking forward to it, are you?" Natalie shot back.

  "As much as you are, if I had to guess." Ana's lips twitched. "Which is to say, very much. I'm itg to get going. Now, hurry up." She made a shooing motion. "Staring at your ass all day has me pent up."

  Natalie didn't have a retort for that—she never had a retort to Ana's plete ck of shame—so, red-faced, she swung open the hallway door and advahe two girls passed by a familiar dder, and sure enough, above the doorway was the same piohey'd seen heralding the first lewd challe really was alternating bat and fug, then. Three suggested a pattern, but four firmed it.

  Having all but known this was ing, she refused to hesitate. She already didn't like how much of a blushihis had turned her into, so she could at least face her fate with squared shoulders.

  And no, it wasn't because she was itg to get started, like Ana had implied. Ana might have bullied an admittance like that out of her by getting up in her face, but Natalie wasn't such a massive pervert that she was squirming to have her own coside her. She had some dignity.

  She did.

  Or, at least, she was going to keep telling herself that.

  Regardless, she swung open the door and strode in, hammer held at the ready. Inside, a familiar aesthetic met them: polished tiles, statues, and, makiomach either nervousness or something Natalie didn't look closely at, there was a bed in the ter of the room. The st firmation they needed.

  Worse, even, was that a rge pque inscribed with instrus id on a plinth, offset from the bed. Instrus couldn't bode anything good, not when Liz's challenge had set the standard.

  The st objects of note were the three doorways leading out—all locked. The first had a single circur gemstone above it, glowing a dull, faint pink. The sed had two, and the third had three. Natalie didn't know what that meant, but she assumed the instrus would expin it to them.

  "It gave us a bed again," Ana ented. "We should use it, this time. Spurning a gracious host is rude, Natalie."

  Natalie ignored her. She sed the room for traps, then approached the plinth holding the challenge's instrus.

  ***

  Inscribe the Mark of al Absorption by pressing the formation stoo one's pubic region. The bearer of this mark, upon climax, will shatter a Seal, unlog passages to higher-tier rewards.

  The mark will fade ten minutes after entry. All surviving Seals past the mark's dissolution will bee impossible to break.

  ***

  "Tiered rewards," Ana said. "Iing. And there's six total—that's a lot of cumming." She plucked up the small stoting on the plinth and tur side to side. Red-violet lines covered it in an intricate magical diagram. "A formation stone." Ana hummed as she peered at the em. "We shouldn't wait. The timer started when we came in. The question is, which of us will e to climax easiest? And most often?" Her lips curled up in vague amusement as she turo Natalie. "o answer." She pced the cold stone against Natalie's pubic area, a few inches above her pussy, then pushed. "We both know it'll be you." The stone sank into her, and glowing violet-red lines scrawled across her skin, f an intricate tattoo in the shape of a stylized womb.

  Ana pushed Natalie, and the a was so surprising, she stumbled and fell onto the bed. Ana pursued, crawling over her.

  "Six times," Ana said. "That seems easy enough. I wonder if there's a bonus foing above and beyond." She brought her face close to Natalie, mumbling her words—tig Natalie with hot air. "And it's about time. I'm so tired of waiting."

  "I-It just says climax," Natalie replied, heart smming at Ana's sudden proximity—and the way Ana's cock pressed against her stomach. "We don't have to go too far. We don't have to do anything rash."

  "How else will I make you climax six times?" She leaned forward, bit Natalie's lower lip, and tugged back gently. "For the en minutes, you're mine. And I promise—I'm going to be thh."