The rooms were everything Acacia had said they would be. Natalie was a bit awed that she would be living in all but luxury during the weekend delve. A plush bed, hot water, and even meals delivered by automatons. Plenty of space too. The bathroom was a number of times rger than her own back at Tehe basin-style bath tub was especially enormous, enough to fit six. Natalie wondered if that was to ence multi-person use. Seeing how Lust had her hand in making this city, she assumed so.

  There were also 'pleasure dungeons' in ea through a trapdoor at the foot of the enormous bed. Natalie had peeked in briefly and closed the hatch, blushing hard.

  Afterward, Acacia showed them to the Assig Boards.

  "Sihere's a lot of people here, they're broken up by first name," Acacia said. "The bet busy o hours, of course, but usually it's not too bad. It's a good time to socialize, sis of people hang around after the reset. A natural, uh, gregation time, I guess you'd call it."

  "Will we have assigs already?" Vaa asked.

  "Not until the first reset after you ehe city for the first time," Acacia said. "Which will be around three hours from now, so you won't have to wait long."

  "We'll be able to use these boards to tell when Elida gets here, then," Natalie deduced, and Vaa tilted her head briefly before nodding, clearly not having thought of that herself. "In a general se least," Natalie said. "And if we don't bump into her first."

  "Elida? Your teammate?" Acacia asked.

  "Yeah."

  "It's a smart way to see if she's shown up," Acacia said. "But you won't be able to actually find her. Except by meeting up at the boards themselves, I suppose. Hadn't thought of using it like that myself, but to be fair most groups get here in one piece. I'm surprised you two didn't. You were split up."

  Natalie and Vaa found the 'N' and 'V' boards respectively just to take a look, and to firm their names weren't there. The assigs were simple: they held the full name of the Citygoer along with cise instrus: Report to the Bordello, or Report to the Coliseum for your duel against, and then the name of their oppo. And so on. Some had more detailed instrus, but those were rarer.

  While Natalie li her board, cheg out a few of the assigs, Acacia approached her to speak privately.

  "I'm gon going now," she told her. "I'm happy to return the favor a you two oriented, but the City is a valuable opportunity, and I don't wanna waste my time. No offense or anything. I liked meeting you two." She chewed her lip and blushed. "That said … my assigoday was the Bordello, and I was waiting till he end of the cycle to go. Was just gonna do some dang on the lowest floor. But if someone wao be a t of mine on one of the higher ones, I might not be too against the idea. Think about it."

  The woman didn't give a ce for Natalie to respond: blushing furiously, she waved goodbye, already starting to leave.

  "I'll be there," Acacia called. "No big deal if you don't e, I know you'll be busy settling in. Just an offer!"

  And then she had fled.

  Natalie watched her go, heat also having risen onto her cheeks at the girl's bluntness. She wondered whether Acacia would have made the same bold offer even a ferior. Lust's goal with this city was clearly to get people to indulge in their desires, and perhaps even beore uninhibited in general. Whiatalie guessed wasn't a bad thing, though it still made her feel some sort of way, the deliberate i behind all these systems, trying to get men and women to show off their bodies and, well, fuck like rabbits, pinly put.

  "What was that?" Vaa asked.

  "Uh, nothing. Doesn't matter."

  "She propositioned you, didn't she?" The words were dry.

  Natalie cleared her throat, which was answer enough.

  Natalie wasn't sure if she would be heading to the Bordello to take her up on the offer, which wasn't implying anything about Acacia, just that it wasn't a priority—and she didn't want to waste Tokens as a t. It would ent some too, she knew, but there were more effit ways to gain Empowered Tokens and her supply wasn't all that rge.

  Still … maybe. But probably not.

  "Didn't find your her, right?" Natalie asked.

  "No. It's as she said. We'll get our assigs on the reset."

  They stood quietly for a moment.

  "What do you think of all this?" Natalie asked curiously.

  "It's an opportunity," Vaa said, "as Acacia said." She thought for a sed. "We would be stupid to leave after just two nights, in fact. Te would uand the dey. For that matter, I'm positive they'd want us to stay and gather information and to squeeze every drop of adva we could from such a unique dungeon floor. They'll want a thh report."

  That idea, of course, had wiggled into Natalie's brain as well. She grimaced, not because she was antsy to get back to Teo return to css, but for other obvious reasons.

  "They'll think something happeo me."

  Vaa tilted her head, not uanding at first, but it didn't take long.

  "Ah," she said. "Yirlfriends."

  That statement nearly made Natalie jump in pce. "Huh? What? They're not my girlfriends."

  "Well, the ohat are, then."

  "None of them are."

  Vaa stared at her. "Excuse me?"

  "What?"

  "The oh bck hair," she said. "Her, surely. At least."

  "Jordan? We—we aren't even—what are you implying?"

  Vaa stared even lo her.

  "Uh huh," she eventually said. "Does she know that?"

  "Does she—of course she does! We're just friends."

  "Friends," Vaa repeated. She shook her head. "Anyway," she said, soundiremely dubious, but returning to the topic at hand. "It seems on se'll take lohan a few days to gain enough Tokens to buy out the best items in these 'shops', and Acacia made it clear the items there were incredible. That they're the whole end-goal of all of this." She paused. "So that's our obvious stop. We o know what we're w toward."

  "You're pnning on actually, ah, engaging, then?" Natalie asked, a bit flustered from the previous line of questioning. What the hell had she been implying? She and Jordan were obviously only friends. Sure, really close friends that had known each other forever, and were breaking each other's pelvises every night, and Natalie was secretly in love—

  She forcibly reined her thoughts in, waiting for Vaa's response.

  Her cheeks had colored. "I don't know," she said holy. "Probably not any of the more, uh, iing stuff. But if I have to just stand around and watch …" Even that idea clearly flustered her. "If the rewards are good enough, then just looking doesn't bother me. And you? You're pnning on 'engaging'?"

  "Probably. I don't know to what extent though." Despite being far more experienced and having fewer inhibitions than Vaa, that didn't mean Natalie was jumping at the idea of baring herself naked for a crowd. Much less fug in front of them.

  Though the private enters in the Arena or even the Pace Basement?

  Maybe. Maybe those would be iing.

  She had fucked a dungeon-pussy the instant it'd been offered to her, after all. It wasn't like private enters of any degree of lewdness deterred her.

  Well. Not any degree. There were many things she would be hesitant about or ht refuse, but she was more adventurous than most people.

  "Right," Vaa said. "e o's go check out the shops. We're waiting for the reset, anyway."