For all the anticipation she felt as she desded the stairs leading into the Pace Basement, the arrival was anticlimactilike normal duransitions, they dider through a bck portal; instead, the stairwell fell into darkness at a supernatural speed, and, after a few more blind steps, illuminatiourned. A cool, dry celr opened up. She khat, like in the Arena, they had entered an 'instanced' area. While they might run into other people depending on what the City threw at them, no one would be ing from the stairs they'd taken.

  The celr room was nondescript, stock-standard. Natalie rested her hammer on her shoulder as she took the spa, alert but not finding anything w. Empty shelves lihe walls, there were some empty barrels in the er, and a on the opposite end. A typical starter room for a basement dungeon floor. Based on the unassuming room itself, she'd never have suspected the types of enters the Basement was famous for.

  She shared a look with Vaa, but there was nothing more to say. She led them outward. Stepping through the only door, they braced themselves for the first real threat.

  As it turned out, it was a normal monster. Ihe hallway eg the first celr room was a robed figure with a crow's head wielding a spear, whiatalie assumed wasn't a lewd enter, and the monster certainly didn't offer to let them pass should they 'sate its needs'.

  The fight was tough, though moderately. It would've given trouble to any of the less serious teams iy. But the Pace Basement was the least accepted assig in general; most teams didn't try to delve down here. Only the especially elite teams—or the adventurous ones, for whom losing a fight might be the whole point.

  The monster didn't drop anything iing when killed, but from talking with others, every monster killed a' participated in would tribute to their earnings, which would be tallied at the end of the expedition.

  The enter was where it got iing. Turning the er through the hallway, a strange sight revealed itself: a hallway rown with vines.

  Natalie's thoughts went immediately to that previous enter he start of the Te semester. Even after all this time, it still made her heart raember. Uhe crow-headed monster, she could e up with plenty of ideas where this hallway fit in the Pace Basement's infamous reputation. The walls, ceiling, and floor were writhing ierial. Not a square inch was free from the mass of greenery for a length of more thay feet.

  "It's moving?" Vaa said, her tone morbidly fasated. "How are we supposed to get past that?"

  "There weren't any other doors, right?"

  "Just the one."

  She eyed the b of green ropes. There were flowers sprouting randomly through the mass, all of them pink. At this point, the color pink was an omen in itself. She doubted the vines didn't have some sort of lewd implication, not just because they were in the Pace Basement, but simply because of their appearahey didn't seem like normal vihey were glistening. Wet. Lubricated.

  "Well," Natalie said slowly. "I guess we either try to fight our way through, or pass by peacefully."

  "Peacefully?"

  "They'll probably try to grope us, though."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Or more than that."

  "More than grope us," she repeated ftly.

  "It is the Pace Basement."

  "I know, but …" She trailed off. "How would we even fight that?" She gestured at the twenty-foot se of hallway covered in vines.

  "Very carefully? But yeah, not sure how much good a hammer would do." Or even Vaa's two daggers. She pursed her lips as she sidered their options. "How about we test the water?"

  "How?"

  She shrugged. "Might turn out to be a nightmare enter if we, I dunno, antago. We gotta serve energy too for ter fights. We came down here knowing some weird stuff was gonna happen, and vines aren't—" She coughed. "Well, not that weird, right?"

  "Having sex with vines is definitely weird, Natalie."

  "paratively speaking, though?"

  Vaa stared at her. "Please tell me you haven't had sex with pnts before, Natalie."

  Her cheeks colored. "Of course not," she found herself stammering by reflex, simply because of the look on Vaa's face. She hurried forward before she could be called out on what might have been an obvious lie. "Hey, I'm to take one for the team. Unless you want to—or are set to fight it right away." She wasn't sure they even could fight whatever this was. Or whatever it might turn into. Refusing might mean the end of their Basement run, one way or another.

  Vaa gave her a ft look, making it clear what she thought of going first, theated as she peered at the hallway again.

  "Is it safe? To walk into? Might be a trap."

  "I don't think so. This stuff has a logic to it. This is the only path, meaning it's unavoidable, so it 't be that dangerous to step into. The solution 't be to immediately start smashing and cutting into it."

  "There doesn't necessarily have to be a solution. And it might—you know. Just do what it wants to you. No guarantees."

  Natalie shrugged. "Again, this is the Basement." It was more or less what they'd expected.

  "Well, I don't want to have sex with vines," Vaa said. She folded her arms and looked away. "If it's a toy or something, whatever, but not something living. That's my limit. It'd be my first time, as you love to point out, and it's not gonh vines."

  Fair enough. Though Natalie questioned whether 'doing it' with mindless entities like vines ted as a 'first time'. Seemed closer to masturbation, hardly any different than toys. Or maybe somewhere in the middle? She shook those rather strahoughts away.

  "Maybe it'll only o be satisfied once?" Natalie said. "I am ."

  "My hero," she said sarcastically. Then her cheeks colored, and she coughed. "I do appreciate that, though."

  "Chivalry isn't dead," Natalie ughed. "I'll be fucked by vines in your pce. Hopefully it'll be fih one of us." She took a breath. "Well, let's see what happens."

  She kept her hammer with her; she would fight if things got too weird, though she was fairly well prepared for whatever might e. Been there, dohat, so to say. Not just with the dungeon, but Camille's pnt magic too.

  Taking her first step into the rowion of the hallway—

  Not much happened?

  The vihough squirming to indicate they were alive in a nts shouldn't be, didn't react to Natalie's metal boot poking at the edge of the green b. She shared a look with Vaa, whed in reply. Her daggers were drawn, ready to help Natalie should something more than they were expeg happen.

  She walked onto the vine-covered floor, and still nothing happehere was a slight shifting underfoot as the vines squirmed more excitedly, which was a strange experiend threw off her bance, but nothing more than that.

  "I'll keep going, I guess?"

  What were the odds she would make it all the way through? That the vine hallway was set dressing and not some lewd enter?

  Of course, that wasn't the case. Halfway through, the vines reacted to her presence.