"We're ing up oy ter now," Acacia said.

  With their arrival into the most relevant part of the City of Eros, they had started seeing other delvers. And indeed, while there wasn't the bustle of a true city, especially not one like Aradon, it was still shog sihey were in the dungeon. So even seeing a handful of people walking around casually was a surreal experie was supposed to be rare to meet a siher delving party: knowing she was on a floor where hundreds gregated was almost as hard to digest as the first few times she'd ran into enters under Lust's influence.

  A good portion of the delvers were dressed in … iing gear. Natalie uood why Acacia had thought they weren't o the city; her own pink armor fit right in. While nobody else was weariite, it seemed, they were in various states of undress. Flimsy dresses and ce robes for the mages; leather bras that nicely atuated tits for the medium-armues; and for the heavy-armor wearers, outfits simir to Natalie's own, though of varying colors and inappropriateness. Frankly, Natalie's was still on the higher end of revealing. She was the Padin of Lust, after all; these people were just here being exposed to the Passion's influen part.

  There were plenty of men in simirly inappropriate outfits. Lust's domain hardly affected only women, that was just Natalie's preferenatalie hardly fli all the abs, arms, and chests on dispy—and asses in a few cases, sihe men weren't immuo some of the lewder outfits either—and a part of her could even admire their physiques in an abstract way. Mostly Natalie just found the situation surreal though. Atention redominantly distracted by all the female assets on dispy, so ign the men was easy.

  Acacia led them to the Pace. The Pace was the emi structure iy of Eros, situated dead in the ter—presumably; she didn't have a top-down view—and was structed of white stoh gold and purple ats. It was a gaudy stru, extravagant in a way even pces like Te couldn't match, and also enormous: the building dwarfed them, and the front double doors were nearly twenty feet high as Acacia led them in.

  "Like I was saying," Acacia said, "I super reend you pay for rooms in the Paot only are the assig boards here, so you'd have to make a trip every twelve hours anyway, but the creature forts are worth ooken per day. Ah, you two did bring Tokens, right?"

  "We had to fight our way here," Natalie said. "So yes. We have some. Could we share rooms, if we wao?"

  "No, actually," she said. "One room per person. Visitors are fihough."

  "How is that enforced?" she asked. "How does payment even work?"

  "You're about to see," Acacia said.

  And indeed, Natalie's words were already trailing off, because Acacia was leading them to a desk situated off to the side of the enormous patrahe administrative-looking outlet seemed misfitting of the rest of the enviro, as if it had been plopped down there afterward.

  "Good m, young dies!" the woman made of metal said. "How I help you? Signing in?"

  "An automaton!" Natalie said. "In the dungeon?"

  Automatons. They wereremely rare beings, at least not for delvers, who frequehe Exge—a patalie aeam had been using less often than most, admittedly. There was also the Bestower, but she ecial automaton, the one who granted csses upon a persoeenth birthday.

  As far as Natalie knew, no one had ever seen an automaton ihe dungeon. If there had been staff manning this stray, she would have expected it to be someone like Malice. A repurposed dungeon soul.

  Was that what automatons already were, though? Or were they something else? Where did they fit into what tiny fra Natalie uood of deeper dungeon lore?

  Did Maliow? Natalie affirmed to herself that she would definitely be bullying the wolfgirl for more information whe back. Maybe she should have earlier. Just, Malice had made it clear the information was valuable, and wao be properly 'vinced': she couldract everything all at o was an odd sort of game the wolfgirl wao py, but any of her insight was invaluable, and holy Natalie was a bit happy to py it. Making the hellhound squeal was a definite exg pastime.

  "These two are o the City," Acacia expined. "They'd like to buy rooms for the night." She paused. "Uh, right?" she asked them.

  "Yes, please," Natalie said, a bit by rote—still gawking at the automaton. Most of the metallic creatures were androgynous by default. This one was not. In fact, she was one of the bustier girls Natalie had seen. And she had clearly defined nipples, a shade bluer than the rest of her metal skin. Natalie's eyes could help but linger lower, having to lean just a tiny bit forward to peek across the desk, and she saw, yes, the automaton had a pussy too.

  What would fug an automaton be like, Natalie wondered with some incredulous hirity?

  Had its nature been altered by Lust as well?

  Or had the dungeon fabricated one from the ground up, and this was a dungeon soul inhabiting what delvers already associated with cheerful servility? Natalie paused; that made enough sehat suddenly her incredulity faded. Maybe this wasn't a real automaton at all, just like this wasn't a real city at all. Just maions of magic, brought to life by the dungeon.

  Still. Fake or not, she was fairly certain an automaton had never been seen in the dungeon. So it was still incredible.

  Vaa also asseo cheg out a room. They each passed over a token and were given a key, along with dires to their rooms in the same wing of the pace.

  "And remember, viotors of agreed-upon policies will be pilloried iower and assigo free-use duty for other Citygoers," the automaton finished cheerfully.

  "A-Ah, right," Acacia stammered as Natalie and Vaa's eyes went wide. "That doesn't happen often. There's so few rules, staying in your room past sign-out and not assaulting other Cityfolk is basically the only ways to actually have the guards e down on you. You pay in advaoo, if you don't want to worry about that."

  Vaa hastily handed over two more tokens, and Natalie did the same. The automaton smiled brightly at them the whole time, either unaware or ung of the insanity she'd just spoken.

  "Really, the only people being pilloried are the, um, iional viotors," Acacia said, her face turning bright red. "S-Some of the girls—and guys," she muttered under her breath, "like the idea, I guess. And it ents Tokens, like almost anything does, here. Quite effitly too…"

  "Free use?" Natalie said a bit faintly.

  The heat on Acacia's face said it was exactly what it sounded like. "People are actually pretty det here, despite the insanity of the City," she said. "If someos pilloried and they didn't mean to, there's always voluo stand guard and protect them. But … like I said, it's almost always iional."

  "That's … good," Natalie said, and though it was a mortifying situation, she was a bit proud of her fellow man, the basic decy shown there.

  "Alright," Acacia said. "I'll show you your rooms and the assig boards, then I'll leave you two to your own devices. Follow me."