Dungeons And Dalliances Ch 290 299

7.24 - The City of Eros I

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

It was possible for delvers to bump into each other on certain floors of the dungeon, but a floor designed to congregate

crowds

of people together? As far as she knew, it was unprecedented. Then again, her history wasn't all that great. Maybe there were some instances of similar events. Still, it had to be unbelievably rare.

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

For once, it 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 explanations, 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 interest are located in the city center. Only reason you'd venture out is if your team gets lazy and you chose to go scrounging out of boredom," she shrugged, referencing herself, and what she was doing out here. "There

is

sometimes interesting stuff to find, allegedly." She coughed. "And, ah, I shouldn't call Tammy lazy, she's been working her ass off." Her face went red, a blush that extended to the tips of her ears. "Quite literally," she laughed, and it was a bit too high-pitched for Natalie not to get suspicious.

Working her ass off, huh? In the City of Lust? And the joke had made Acacia's ears go red?

Just what was happening here?

"I feel a bit ridiculous explaining 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, named the 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 second, it has shops where you can

spend

those tokens. Both variants of them."

"... and how are Enriched Tokens made?" Vanetta 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 comfortable with nudity. As a

very

loose starting point."

Vanetta stared at her, straight-faced but obviously in disbelief, but Natalie was mostly trying to stop herself from covering her face and 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 telling me that you found that naturally, out in the dungeon somewhere?"

"It's not from this floor," Natalie said, in deflection. She'd actually had it commissioned, but she didn't want to explain that. "But, enriching Tokens. How?" No more dancing around, her request implied.

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

"Assigned?"

"The City assigns quests, I guess you could call it, though we just call them 'assignments,' 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 next 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 regular Tokens to be able to empower them anyway, so if the City's assignment is a little too

much

, if you know what I mean, you can 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 can empower whole stacks of Tokens if you get an assignment there, but it's also ... ah, kind of high stakes." Her face, once again, reddened. "The Coliseum holds public fights, and the two participants have to stake something. The better the stake, the more tokens that will be empowered. Thing is, it's all

public

. And 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 engage with the assignments but still want empowered Tokens. Though others too, like people who've been given a little too racy of an assignment, and are taking the day off. It's a regular hang-out point. So, if you're assigned there, you're guaranteed to 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 needed to state it outright. "More or less, yes."

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

Acacia nodded, 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 picking exciting fights, I guess you could call it. What's

especially

common is inter-party matches. Members from the same group being called into the Coliseum for the same time block."

"Specifically," Natalie said, "anyone with 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 can 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 Vanetta, "but if there

is

any sort of unresolved tension on your team, say, maybe you fancy another person and haven't told them ... well. Expect to see your and their name on the Coliseum ballot. Probably sooner than later. Maybe multiple times."

Natalie internally groaned.

She was Lust's chosen paladin. The City would pay even

more

attention to her than the regular 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 glances of, because she was so damn gorgeous?

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.

7.25 - The City of Eros II

"Alright," Natalie said, struggling to keep a straight face.

And, shamefully, struggling to ignore the stir of excitement inside her stomach. She absolutely, one-hundred percent did

not

want anything to do with Elida.

Then again...

A publicly staked favor, in which Elida had to, for example, choke on her cock in front of a crowd of spectators?

Well. Natalie would do it for the retribution, and to empower her Tokens, of course. No other reason. There was no internal,

natural

attraction to the concept of having those lips stretched around her cock, and those angry green eyes glaring up after being thoroughly flounced in the arena.

"And the other three buildings?" Natalie said, impressed she managed to keep her voice straight.

"The Bordello, the Arena, and the Palace Basement. The Bordello is ... maybe the most scandalous of the options. Well, I don't know, the Palace Basement is—" she coughed. "The Bordello is what it sounds like. If you get an assignment there, you can accept and, ah, perform services for other cityfolk. For that matter, buying services there empowers some of your own tokens too. Most things that are, um, indecent if you want to call it that, will empower tokens inside the City. But there's different levels of the Bordello. You don't have to—you know, go all the way. In the lowest level, all you have to do is dance, and you can even keep some of your clothes on."

"

Some

of your clothes on," Vanetta repeated, seeming a bit faint at the whole concept. As to be expected. The girl was clearly of a more reserved mindset.

"Though even that is, uh, still scandalous, depending on your perspective. Which is why a lot of people refuse the Bordello," Acacia said. "Like I said, you always have a choice. Um, anyway, the Bordello does get kind of crazy the higher the floor you go. I don't think there's all that many people actually ...

giving full service

, but there have been a couple, and the Token payout

is

pretty nice. So." Her face had returned to being fully red by this point, and she moved on; they understood what she was getting at.

"The Arena is the most private option," Acacia said. "If you can come to terms with the whole idea of

staking

, but don't want it to involve anything

public

. Though it can sometimes include other people. It's pretty similar to the Coliseum, except that you go up against monsters, and if you lose, you don't get hurt, you just have to pay out the stake."

"With a

monster?"

Vanetta asked, aghast.

"N-No! That's just the fight," Acacia said. "You fight, and if you lose, you have to pay out the stake. And the stake can be a variety of things. It's actually kind of interesting, it seems the City goes easy on—well, I don't want to call them

prudes

, but you know." She shrugged. "It definitely doesn't throw you off the deep end, most of the time. There's almost a ... work-your-way-in feel with assignments, where it tests and tries to push your boundaries."

Natalie had noticed something similar with her own adventures. They had gotten lewder and more ridiculous the longer she spent delving.

"Makes sense," Natalie said. "It's trying to find challenges outside of a person's comfort zone, but only so much so that it thinks they'll be tempted."

"That's probably the idea," Acacia said. "Which is kind of weird to think about, because it's even more sapient than the dungeon usually is, but whatever. This whole floor is weird. I try to not think about it."

"What might the stakes be?" Vanetta asked. "As an example?"

Acacia cleared her throat. "You get to pick them, or at least have a say in it. But it happens before the challenge, so you're locked in afterward. It could be as simple as, you know, some self pleasure," despite having been at the City for presumably some time, the woman clearly hadn't grown fully accustomed to the strange life here, because she blushed and stammered over her explanations, "like with certain contraptions being dragged out, which you have to, ah, use."

"Contraptions," Vanetta said flatly.

"There really is quite a lot of variety," Acacia said. "You'll see."

"And the Palace Basements?" Natalie asked her.

"Right. The last of the major assignments. The Palace is where everyone lives, by the way, you can rent rooms there with tokens. It's cheap, just one a day, and I would really recommend springing for it: meals, hot baths, soap, beds, the full works. It's like you're not even in the dungeon."

That sounded nice. Natalie was more than used to roughing it, but that didn't mean she

liked

being without hot showers.

"The Palace Basements are for the, um,

adventurous

types I suppose you would call it," Acacia said. "And are definitely the most refused assignment. Because there's no pre-staking or even knowing what you're getting into when you climb down there. And it can get, ah, interesting."

"Interesting how?"

"You know how I said in the arena, you're not staking

with

the monsters, just fighting against them?"

"You're kidding me," Vanetta said flatly.

"Nope," Acacia said, face burning scarlet. "The Basements have some very enthusiastic monsters. I will say, though, they're not

monsters

, o-or at least not anything too unpleasant."

"Too unpleasant," Vanetta repeated.

"Though that depends on the person, of course," Acacia coughed, scarlet-faced. "You're free to think otherwise. Still, the people I've talked to said the monsters there were humanoid, like ninety to ninety-five percent, just some ... non-human features. S-Some of them are kinda cute. I've heard! I haven't been down there obviously."

Her description sounded awfully like Malice. Had other monster souls been drawn into this City to 'fight' the delvers here?

"Though there's also some less human ones," Acacia said. "I heard a story about a vine monster that ... well, I won't keep going. You can imagine. And the thing about the basement is, you can run away from or fight what you find, but there's no guarantee you'll get away. So if you head down there, you better be ready for

anything

. And even the City presents it as the most, ah, degenerate? Assignment available. It's why most people refuse it."

"Unbelievable," Vanetta said.

"It's crazy, don't get me wrong," Acacia agreed. "No one will argue otherwise. But it

is

all optional, and you get a steady supply of Empowered Tokens just by participating as a viewer. That's why the Coliseum is usually packed, or the lower floors of the Bordello. Plenty of people here just watch rather than engage directly. And if you don't want to do even that, well, you can just hunt in the Ruins. All of the really nice items for sale are bought with Empowered Tokens, but there's still some great stuff for unempowered ones. And you can trade too, if you want." She shrugged. "You can also straight up leave the City, if you don't want to be here. So ... yeah, craziest dungeon floor I've heard of. But if you want my opinion?" She met Natalie and Vanetta's eyes, blushing, though with a confident expression as she made her claim: "You two got lucky. There's some crazy loot to be earned, and it doesn't come with half the risk of dying. It's an enormous opportunity."

7.26 - The City of Eros III

"We're coming up on the city center 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 shocking since

they were in the dungeon

. So even seeing a handful of people walking around casually was a surreal experience. It was supposed to be rare to meet a single other delving party: knowing she was on a floor where hundreds congregated was almost as hard to digest as the first few times she'd ran into encounters under Lust's influence.

A good portion of the delvers were dressed in ... interesting gear. Natalie understood why Acacia had thought they weren't new to the city; her own pink armor fit right in. While nobody else was wearing erotite, it seemed, they

were

in various states of undress. Flimsy dresses and lace robes for the mages; leather bras that nicely accentuated tits for the medium-armor rogues; and for the heavy-armor wearers, outfits similar to Natalie's own, though of varying colors and inappropriateness. Frankly, Natalie's was still on the higher end of revealing. She

was

the Paladin of Lust, after all; these people were just here being exposed to the Passion's influence in part.

There were plenty of men in similarly inappropriate outfits. Lust's domain hardly affected only women, that was just Natalie's preference. Natalie hardly flinched at all the abs, arms, and chests on display—and asses in a few cases, since the men weren't immune to 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. And her attention was predominantly distracted by all the

female

assets on display, so ignoring the men was easy.

Acacia led them to the Palace. The Palace was the eminent structure in the City of Eros, situated dead in the center—presumably; she didn't have a top-down view—and was constructed of white stone with gold and purple accents. It was a gaudy construction, extravagant in a way even places like Tenet 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 recommend you pay for rooms in the Palace. Not only are the assignment boards here, so you'd have to make a trip every twelve hours anyway, but the creature comforts are worth one token 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 wanted to?"

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

"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 palace entrance. The administrative-looking outlet seemed misfitting of the rest of the environment, as if it had been plopped down there afterward.

"Good morning, young ladies!" the woman made of metal said. "How can I help you? Signing in?"

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

Automatons. They weren't extremely rare beings, at least not for delvers, who frequented the Exchange—a place Natalie and her team had been using less often than most, admittedly. There was also the Bestower, but she was a special automaton, the one who granted classes upon a person's eighteenth birthday.

As far as Natalie knew, no one had ever seen an automaton inside the dungeon. If there

had

been staff manning this strange city, 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 fraction Natalie understood of deeper dungeon lore?

Did Malice know? Natalie affirmed to herself that she would

definitely

be bullying the wolfgirl for more information when she got back. Maybe she should have earlier. Just, Malice had made it clear the information was valuable, and wanted to be properly 'convinced': she couldn't extract everything all at once. It was an odd sort of game the wolfgirl wanted to play, but any of her insight was invaluable, and honestly Natalie was a bit happy to play it. Making the hellhound squeal was a definite exciting pastime.

"These two are new to the City," Acacia explained. "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.