Hundreds? Hundreds of people? Natalie had never heard of such a thing.

  It ossible for delvers to bump into each other oain floors of the dungeon, but a floor desigo gregate crowds of people together? As far as she knew, it was unpreted. Then again, her history wasn't all that great. Maybe there were some instances of simir events. Still, it had to be unbelievably rare.

  And it was undoubtedly Lust's influehat had created this pce. Except maybe not the portion of Lust that had divested power into Natalie, but the Passion in a greater sense. Lust had swooped up regur delvers to py with; this floor had existed even before she had entered.

  For o wasn't her fault.

  Her head spun as she walked through the City of Eros with the young woman who had introduced herself as Acacia. Natalie forced herself to focus on her expnations, despite her incredulity, and her whirring thoughts on how Lust fit into this phenomenon—and how she herself might as well.

  "The City goes on for a while," Acacia said, "but all of the buildings of i are located iy ter. Only reason you'd ve is if your team gets zy and you chose to ging out of boredom," she shrugged, refereng herself, and what she was doing out here. "There is sometimes iing stuff to find, allegedly." She coughed. "And, ah, I shouldn't call Tammy zy, she's been w her ass off." Her face went red, a blush that exteo the tips of her ears. "Quite literally," she ughed, and it was a bit too high-pitched for Natalie not to get suspicious.

  W her ass off, huh? Iy of Lust? And the joke had made Acacia's ears go red?

  Just what was happening here?

  "I feel a bit ridiculous expining this to you two," Acacia said, "and you might not even believe me. But it's better to tell you now before we get there and you see it first-hand. At least, it'll be less jarring. And the good news is that there are a lot of rewards to earn. Really, really good rewards."

  She breathed in.

  "Alright, I'll just say it. The city is, ah, he way it is for a reason, and you two picked up some Tokens on the way here, right?" At their nods, Acacia said, "Those pictures on the back, of naked men and women. Those were also hinting what you'd find. Basically, the City is important for two reasons. First, it offers a number of ways to upgrade Tokens into Enriched Tokens. And sed, it has shops where you spend those tokens. Both variants of them."

  "… and how are Enriched Tokens made?" Vaa asked.

  "That's the thing," Acacia said, coughing into her fist. She wasn't able to meet their eyes. "There's a few ways. But they all, ah, involve certain activities." Another clearing of her throat. "It varies quite a bit, but in short, I hope you two are fortable with nudity. As a very loose starting point."

  Vaa stared at her, straight-faced but obviously in disbelief, but Natalie was mostly trying to stop herself from c her fad groaning. It sounded like this was going to be exactly what she expected.

  "That's why I thought you weren't new, by the way," Acacia said to Natalie. "That armor of yours looks like something a person would've bought at one of the City's shops." She looked at her curiously. "You're tellihat you found that naturally, out in the dungeon somewhere?"

  "It's not from this floor," Natalie said, in defle. She'd actually had it issioned, but she didn't want to expin that. "But, enrig Tokens. How?" No more dang around, her request implied.

  "Alright, well, there's the Bordello, the Coliseum, the Arena, and the Pace Basement," Acacia said. "Eae empowers Tokens based on how much you aplished there, or, well—I'll tell you ter. Point is, they all work differently. The Coliseum is the most important, but you might stay here for weeks and never be assighere."

  "Assigned?"

  "The City assigns quests, I guess you could call it, though we just call them 'assigs,' every twelve hours," Acacia said. "And it's a take-it-or-leave-it deal. It resets to something new if you don't like what you got, though, you just have to wait for the batch." Her cheeks colored. "And you will get something you balk at here and there, but that's what the Ruins are for. You need regur Tokens to be able to empower them anyway, so if the City's assig is a little too much, if you know what I mean, you spend that cycle hunting."

  Natalie already had questions, but she held off, allowing Acacia to get through her spiel.

  "The quests are almost always for one of the four major buildings. As I was saying, the Coliseum is the most important, and you empower whole stacks of Tokens if you get an assighere, but it's also … ah, kind of high stakes." Her face, once again, reddened. "The Coliseum holds public fights, and the two partits have to stake something. The better the stake, the more tokens that will be empowered. Thing is, it's all publid you get passive tokens empowered for just being there, so there's quite a lot of citygoers idling at any given hour. Especially prudes, who don't want to eh the assigs but still want empowered Tokens. Though others too, like people who've been given a little too racy of an assig, and are taking the day off. It's a regur hang-out point. So, if you're assighere, yuarao have a lot of spectators."

  Natalie nearly felt dizzy. "These 'stakes' you're talking about are sexual favors, aren't they?"

  Acacia seemed relieved she hadn't o state it ht. "More or less, yes."

  "And the fights are chosen by the City itself?"

  Acaodded, then grimaced. "That's the other thing. The city has … preferences. Maybe it even has a mind of its own. Like the dungeon itself, if you believe any of that." She took a breath in. "What I'm trying to say is that the City likes pig exg fights, I guess you could call it. What's especially on is inter-party matches. Members from the same group being called into the Coliseum for the same time block."

  "Specifically," Natalie said, "ah obvious sexual tension."

  Acacia blushed. "Well, yes. You've got a head for how the City works, already." She tittered. "It's not all bad. There's been a few genuine hook-ups that started because of the Coliseum, it doesn't all end in, ah, disaster." Her voice dropped to a mutter, "But yes, also quite a lot of drama here, as you expect." She shook her head. "Regardless, I'm just telling you this to be ready for that. I'm not saying anything, of course," her eyes flicked from Natalie's face briefly to Vaa, "but if there is any sort of unresolved tension on your team, say, maybe you fanother person and haven't told them … well. Expect to see your and their name on the Coliseum ballot. Probably soohan ter. Maybe multiple times."

  Natalie internally groaned.

  She was Lust's chosen padin. The City would pay even more attention to her than the regur person, she figured.

  And 'unresolved sexual tension'?

  How about the girl whose guts she hated, yet who she also couldn't stop herself from stealing gnces of, because she was so damn geous?

  A one-versus-one in a public Coliseum, with dozens or even hundreds of spectators, in which she and Elida had to stake sexual favors—which they would then have to perform, publicly, for an audience.

  Yeah. That was going to end well.