Chapter 0 - Arc One

1.01 Loading In

 
“Hello? Oh, oh dear. Please wake up. I know my memory editing skills are rusty, but surely you’re intact. Hello?”
 
The soft, concerned words floated from down a long hallway, from across a chasm, a world over, or somewhere even farther. They bounced around in the recesses of her mind, and Zoey stirred.
 
Or tried to.
 
“Oh,” the soft exclamation of surprise came. “That’s it, you’ll be fine.” A series of gentle pats on her cheek, which Zoey only half felt. “Come on, now. What’s a little magical brain surgery, and dimensional travel? You’re a tough cookie. Why do you think I chose you?”
 
Zoey’s head lolled to the side, managing some miniscule form of movement, but still unable to open her eyes. She struggled from the fugue like a woman clawing from a pit of tar. The haze clung to her in sticky black strands, yanking her down as she tried desperately to pull herself to consciousness.
 
Several more pats on her cheek, sharper this time. Enough to leave a sting. “Up and at ‘em. We’ve things to discuss, sweetheart, and I’m a busy goddess.” 
 
The words, and her stinging cheek, acted as the catalyst she needed. Zoey groaned, and her eyes fluttered open.
 
She stared into the warm, smiling face of an angel. 
 
“There you are,” the achingly beautiful woman said, relief plain on her face. “Had me worried for a second, if I’m being honest.”
 
Even if Zoey hadn’t woken from what felt like a hundred-year nap, she wouldn’t have managed a more eloquent response than what stumbled out of her mouth. 
 
“What?”
 
Enormous, white-feathered wings folded behind the woman’s back, as if her form, and dress, hadn’t been ethereal enough. Her inhumanity laid in plain sight, and Zoey meant that in the most flattering way possible. Humans had flaws. The creature in front of her did not. A flowing dress of diaphanous fabric draped from her shoulders and hips, so thin the woman might as well have been naked. Zoey could see everything. She might’ve blushed if not for how she stared dumbly, her brain failing to understand, even in part, what she was seeing.
 
“I realize you’re disoriented,” the woman said, “but that’s to be expected, so please don’t worry. Mortals aren’t built for interdimensional travel. I lent you some of my essence … but mortals aren’t meant for that, either.” A laugh, light and airy, which stole Zoey’s breath, as everything about the woman did. “Trading big problems for smaller ones. What’s the life of the divine, if not that?”
 
“What?” Zoey repeated. She didn’t stutter this time, at least, though she would have preferred to come off marginally more composed. She tried again. “Where am I? Who are you?” Zoey looked around, tearing her gaze from the heavenly being in front of her, an action that burned an inexplicable instinct inside her, like she’d performed a great blasphemy for doing so. 
 
It took a second to place where she was: somewhere she hadn’t been in forever. By the nostalgic plastic red chairs and single-unit wooden desks with cubbies underneath, she’d ended up at Riverwood Elementary. Miss Paulson’s 3rd grade science class, to be specific, identified by the back wall, where a diagram of the solar system expanded outward, each planet neatly labeled and sloppily drawn by her classmates. Zoey had been the one responsible for Mars. Being generous to herself, it was only mildly worse than the rest.
 
“The name I was given,” the woman said, surprising Zoey, who had been briefly startled from where she’d woken at, “is Ephythithys. But Ephy is fine, since I realize the former’s a mouthful.” She smiled. “For your first question … I’m not sure. This place came from your memories.” She tapped a slim finger against her lips, looking around the room. “Somewhere important to you, I assume.”
 
“It’s … Miss Paulson was my favorite teacher, growing up. And I liked science class …” she trailed off, then shook her head. “Why am I here? What’s going on?” She tried to stand from Miss Paulson’s office chair, but she staggered in place, head swimming, then collapsed backward. She skidded a foot or so from the momentum, wheels squeaking loudly in the eerily silent classroom.
 
Ephy tutted at her. “I’ll explain, but don’t push yourself. You’re still weak from the trip.” Her hips swayed in an entrancing rhythm as she closed the gap. 
 
Zoey took note, again, of how little her dress obscured her body. 
 
Ephy ran a hand through Zoey’s hair, electrifying where her fingers traced. Zoey’s breath caught. 
 
“But you’re here,” Ephy said, “because I have need of you.”
 
Zoey’s eyes flicked to Ephy’s practically naked chest, then lower, to her crotch, the blonde hair shaved in a cute heart, and finally back up. Zoey flushed, and Ephy laughed.
 
“Not in that way, though maybe if we had more time.” She tapped Zoey’s nose in a playfully scolding way. “Important matters first. Settle down.”
 
Every passing moment only confused Zoey further. Who this beautiful, inhuman woman was, why Zoey was here, and why she’d woken in her third grade science classroom. She racked her brain for how she’d ended up in this situation, and came up with little.
 
Too little. Her brow furrowed. She couldn’t remember anything.
 
Ephy sat in Zoey’s lap, then took her face in both hands. “Stay with me, darling. I’ll return your memories in time. I just didn’t want you to be distracted.”
 
Having the most gorgeous woman Zoey had ever seen seated across her lap, with a clear view of both her bare chest and crotch, weren’t circumstances that could be considered ‘distraction-free’. “Making that difficult,” she choked out. Even the bizarre claim that she’d ‘taken Zoey’s memories away’ had difficulty piercing that much more primitive interest.
 
Ephy laughed, then moved her hands from her cheeks upward, curling her fingers into Zoey’s short black hair. “As the goddess of sensuality, I’m afraid I can’t help myself. But you really ought to focus. What I have to say is,” her lips quirked, “rather relevant.” 
 
Zoey could tell an understatement when she heard one.
 
“You need my help,” Zoey said. Attempting to puzzle anything out until she’d heard Ephy’s piece would, at a guess, be an exercise in futility. She forced herself to focus, to ignore Ephy’s warm weight pressing down on her lap, and the scalding proximity of their bodies. 
 
Was the sitting-on-her-lap necessary?
 
Not that Zoey’s less evolved brain was complaining. Just, what was she supposed to do with her hands? Zoey assumed the touching was a one-way thing.
 
“I needed a champion,” Ephy said with a nod.
 
“For?” She ignored the absurdity of the statement; when faced with the already insane surroundings and circumstances she was in, the words digested easier than they should have.
 
“To save the world.”
 
A long pause.
 
“I’m sorry?”
 
“Not yours, I’m afraid.” Her lips quirked. “Or, pleased to reassure you? But one in the cluster I hold dominion.”
 
“Save the world,” Zoey repeated.
 
“And ascend while doing so,” Ephy said with a serious nod. “Though those are tall orders, each, and the second more than the first. But I have faith.”
 
Right.
 
“Why can’t I remember anything?” Zoey set aside the insanity of what was coming out of the supposed-goddess’s mouth.
 
“I made some adjustments,” Ephy said easily. “Like I said, it’s better if you're distraction-free. Your past life doesn’t matter for the foreseeable future. Should you succeed, they’ll be returned. You have my word.”
 
‘Adjustments’. As if she’d gone in and scooped out Zoey’s brain. 
 
Was she dreaming? Logic said yes, but everything was too painfully, crystally clear. 
 
Zoey shook her head. “Okay. Okay. Start from the beginning. We’re getting nowhere.” Despite her claims of violating the sanctity of her mind, Ephy didn’t seem like her enemy.
 
Ephy sighed. “It’ll go in circles. Your doubt and confusion is reasonable, but also irrelevant. Let’s move to practical matters.”
 
“But I don’t know what’s going on.”
 
“I’ve explained enough,” Ephy said, shrugging. “You need to come to terms with it, but that won’t happen until you have time to rest. But no matter. We need to get to why you’re here, speaking with me. I have business to attend to. So. Character creation.”
 
Even for all of the strangeness occurring in quick succession, the incongruent words ‘character creation’ made Zoey pause.
 
“I’m sorry. Like a videogame?”
 
Ephy paused, off-foot for the first time. “I almost forgot. You’re from his plane.” She said it more to herself than to Zoey. “Yes, like a ‘videogame’.” The words stumbled from her mouth, like they meant nothing to her, specifically, but rather, a second-hand account, something she’d heard of but never gained an understanding of.
 
Zoey’s headache deepened. How did she manage to become more and more confused, when she’d started off as baffled?
 
“So,” Ephy said. “That’s good. I don’t need to explain the concept. Are you ready?”
 
“No?”
 
“Perfect. Let’s start.” Ephy climbed off Zoey’s lap, and Zoey missed the heat and press of her body immediately, and the gentle, coaxing way she’d been playing with her hair. 
 
She considered trying to stand again, but didn’t think she’d have much success. Her head still swam from earlier, and she felt faint. 
 
“First, let’s establish some important information.”
 
That’d be a first.
 
“As the goddess of sensuality and eroticism, the benefits I can afford you will take some … getting used to. But you’ll put them to good use, I trust. I picked you because you’re a pervert.”
 
“What?” Where the hell had that come from? “No, I’m not. I’m—” She was what? “Normal?” 
 
Ephy didn’t acknowledge what she’d said, which was mildly irritating. She couldn’t level an accusation like that then say nothing about it. “Let’s start with your body. Do you have a preference, or can I choose?”
 
“What?”
 
Ephy gave her a disapproving look. “I’m trying to work with you, but if you don’t start answering in meaningful ways, I’ll take things into my own hands. No more ‘whats’, ‘huhs’, and ‘what do you means’. Body type. Do you have a preference?”
 
“For myself?”
 
Ephy made an irritated noise, then crossed her arms. The expression she leveled Zoey’s way was scathingly unimpressed. Where’d the demure, kind woman go? Surely she couldn’t be getting impatient … Zoey’s confusion was extremely justified, especially when she’d explained so little. 
 
“Yes, for yourself,” Ephy said. “This is your last chance.”
 
Zoey bit her tongue on another clarifying question. So. Ignore the absurdity behind Ephy’s words, and what she was implying she’d do: change Zoe’s body, somehow.
 
“I like how I am. So, no changes?”
 
“That’s a sweet sentiment, and good for you. But for a champion of mine, I won’t take less than perfection. Those hips are going wider, that chest is getting fuller, and you are growing at least a seven-inch cock.”
 
One of those things was not like the others.
 
“Excuse me?”
 
Ephy paused at the shock in Zoey’s voice. “I suppose I could make an exception,” she reluctantly said. “Just, flat chests are attractive in their own right, but for a goddess of fertility, a full bosom is more fitting with—”
 
“Not that! The—the cock!”
 
“What about it?” Ephy asked, confused. “How else would you fill your seed into the unexpecting women of the Fractures?”
 
Zoey sputtered, for more reasons than she could name.
 
Ephy made a sympathetic sound, as if coming to a realization. “It’ll take some adjusting, but you’ll grow to like it. It really is such a great sensation, emptying yourself into a cute little conquest as she squirms and spasms against you.” Ephy sighed dreamily. “It’s almost as good as getting filled up yourself, but I know that’s not your thing, and I’m ever the goddess of accomodation. Now! You really are taking too long to get through this. As I said, I’m a busy divinity, and I have matters to attend to. My brothers won’t be happy I’m meddling. So last, last chance for input.”
 
“Black hair,” Zoey said, somehow pushing away the strangeness of everything—and the apparently mandatory cock she’d be receiving. If this was happening, then she would at least have a say in the matter. “Short, cropped. And, uh, tall. Six foot or more. Lean. Intimidating, not all soft curves.”
 
Ephy pouted. “I feel like you’re saying something about me, now.”
 
Zoey pointedly didn’t pay attention to all the ‘soft curves’ Ephy had brought to her attention. Maintaining her focus hadn’t gotten much easier. The implied seriousness of the situation was the only thing corralling her attention away from Ephy’s sensual figure.
 
“I’ll work with you on that,” Ephy said. “But like I said, you’re getting hips and a full chest. If you want to be tall, dark, and handsome, I guess I can help you out, but you will look like one of my champions. Now, close your eyes. This’ll feel strange.”
 
Zoey closed her eyes, thinking surely this was a dream, a fabrication of her mind … but knowing it wasn’t.
 
Her body started to tingle, then burn. Not painfully, just … uncomfortably. It spread, fire ants crawling across her body, igniting every inch of her skin.
 
The strangest part was, of course, the tingling in her crotch, then the alien sensation of something starting to grow. Zoey’s hips squirmed back and forth as something new took up residence between her legs, growing and growing and growing. Her eyes shot open, unable to help herself, and she watched as the cock expanded upward, harder, bigger, and more pulsing by the second. A thick vein ran up the edge, and Zoey couldn’t believe how large it got—then continued to get.
 
“I thought you said seven inches,” Zoey gasped when it finally stopped.
 
“Lower end,” Ephy said sweetly. “But a champion of mine wields the best, and you didn’t specify.”
 
“How big is this thing?” Zoey stared down at the monster between her legs. It had to reach up to the base of her breasts, if she leaned over. Breasts which were now three times the size they’d been before … though that only put her somewhere in the upper range of ‘busty’, because she hadn’t had much to write home about, before.
 
“Hm,” Ephy said. “I’d guess … between twelve and fourteen inches?”
 
Fourteen inches! What the hell? “It won’t even fit!”
 
“I’m not that mean,” Ephy scoffed. “It’ll fit. You’ll just have to figure out how your runes work.”
 
“Runes?”
 
“Down the road,” Ephy said with a wave of her hand. “Once you’ve landed in the Fractures. Character creation, remember? Your body’s done, so now, class.”
 
Zoey hadn’t remotely had enough time to come to terms with her body—which, while resembling her old one, was changed in every way—but Ephy pushed forward with enthusiasm, not giving her an opportunity to reel. 
 
Maybe that was the point.
 
“Three choices. Charmer, Siphon, and Bonder.”
 
It took all of Zoey’s effort to focus on the question, and not least because the addition between her legs was even more interested in Ephy’s naked form than Zoey had already been, and she’d been exceedingly interested as things stood. It twitched of its own accord, and Zoey fought the excruciating urge for her hands to go to it, to grip and stroke to relieve the pulsating ache. 
 
Why the hell was it so intense? Were all cocks this sensitive?
 
“What’s the difference?” Zoey struggled out.
 
Ephy seemed aware, and amused, by her plight. She sashayed over, then sat on Zoey’s lap. Zoey let out a little groan at the way her cock pressed into Ephy’s stomach. “Well,” Ephy said, “like I said, they’re all derivatives of powers I can offer you as the goddess of seduction. But they’re different, yes.”
 
“I thought you said goddess of sensuality,” Zoey groaned, fighting against the urge to buck her hips, gain purchase against Ephy’s soft stomach. “And eroticism.”
 
Ephy leaned forward, and whispered into Zoey’s ear. “Well. I’m a woman of many talents.”
 
“Stop,” she gasped, “stop teasing. Why is this so, mmm, intense?”
 
“Yours is more sensitive than most. Only the best, for champions of Ephythithys.” Ephy slid her hips forward, grinding the paper-thin cloth between the two of their crotches. Her lower lips parted into Zoey’s shaft, sliding up and down her length.
 
Zoey’s mind flashed white, cock pulsing hard. A foreign urge slammed into her: to grab Ephy by the hips, to shove her to the floor, and bury herself as deep as she could, to piston and jerk until she expended a convulsing cock’s worth of hot, sticky seed into Ephy’s fertile womb.
 
C-Christ. Where the hell did that come from?
 
“How generous of you,” Zoey said breathlessly. “And so much for avoiding  ‘distractions’.”
 
Ephy laughed, probably knowing what was happening inside Zoey’s head, and inside her twitching cock. “You’ll have plenty of relief, down in the Fractures. But I’m afraid, none from me.” Ephy leaned back then flicked the tip of Zoey’s dick, which thrilled a lightning bolt of pleasure through her.
 
“What happened to being in a rush?” Zoey ground out. “Seems to me you have plenty of time, if you’re teasing like this.”
 
Ephy laughed. “Oops. I guess you’re right. Didn’t notice … it’s in my nature, okay? Classes. I’ll summarize each, but keep in mind nuance is lost in brevity. So. Charmer. Influence people’s minds, or those of creatures. Siphon, take other’s power for your own. And Bonder.” Ephy huffed. “For the gross, gooey romantics. Share yourself with others, and grow with them.” Ephy sighed. “I have a feeling what you’re going to choose, and I’m not happy about it.”
 
“Charmer sounds … troubling.”
 
“Sensuality cares little for consent,” Ephy said with an uncaring shrug. “Don’t mistake me for something I’m not.”
 
Zoey paused, the frankness catching her off guard. 
 
“ … Bonder,” she eventually said. If she was being forced into this—whatever ‘this’ was—then she’d be taking the least troubling ‘class’.
 
“Shocking,” Ephy said with a roll of her eyes. “I hope your time down in the Fractures gives you some … adventurous spirit. But results are all I’m after, so, so be it. Be a gross romantic, if you want.” Ephy leaned forward, and Zoey whimpered at the way Ephy’s crotch pushed into her throbbing member. “One last choice. Your discipline. A craft, to go with your class. Engraver, alchemist, or blacksmith?”
 
“And each of these relate to your … mmm … mantle as a goddess, I’m assuming?”
 
“It’s almost like you pay attention.”
 
“So an alchemist would brew potions relating to …”
 
“All manners of wicked, pleasurable delights,” Ephy grinned. Then, sobering, “And more practical matters, in the same way your class will be functional. Saving the world isn’t all conquest of tight, nubile bodies, unfortunately. Those are just stepping stones along the way.”
 
“Right.” Ephy had a way with words, Zoey was finding out. “They’re what they sound like?”
 
Ephy nodded.
 
“Then … alchemist?” There was an appeal to the craft that called to her, though the concept of the other two were fascinating as well. It had been a harder choice than her class.
 
“Perfect,” Ephy said. “That’s it, then. I’ll send you on your way.”
 
Zoey blinked rapidly. “But you haven’t told me what I’m supposed to do.”
 
“Didn’t I? Save the world. Oh, and don’t mention me, or your … home. That could complicate things.”
 
“‘Save the world’? That’s—that’s so unhelpful. What does that even mean?”
 
“You’ll figure it out,” Ephy said, patting her cheek for the fourth or fifth time, and this time, it was condescending, rather than comforting. “Stop being a baby. Are you ready?”
 
“Not remotely—!”
 
And then she was gone.
 
 
 
1.02 An Abrupt Introduction
 
There was no transition. One moment Zoey was talking to the blonde-haired goddess, and the next she opened her eyes to a crammed, tight space, a warm body pressed beneath her. Despite the lack of cognitive shift, she gasped and startled, as if she’d been asleep for a long time and had just jerked to consciousness.
 
“Shit, you’re awake,” a foreign, crisply accented voice said. “Calm down. Easy.”
 
Zoey shoved herself up, but she hit her head, stopping her. Her hands shot up to grab at her now-banged head, but those were stuck in place, too.
 
In fact, as her panic mounted and she started to thrash in place, she discovered she was locked in place. Wherever she’d ended up, the space was compact enough she had zero mobility—or close enough. Zoey didn’t have claustrophobia, but who the hell was okay with being crammed so tight they were unable to even move one’s hands to their head? 
 
For several moments she panicked in a desperate attempt to escape the dark, tight space she found herself in. Her movements became violent as she flailed. The soft body pressed beneath her yelped, then protested.
 
“Hey. Hey. Listen to me. I said listen.”
 
The hiss—commanding and infuriated—jerked Zoey out of her panic by dint of intensity alone. She quieted, hyperventilation still in full force, but at least getting a hold of her thrashing.
 
She blinked down into the piercing blue eyes of her entombed partner.
 
“Shards are brutal, and oftentimes strange,” whoever was pinned beneath her said, “but always fair. We wouldn’t have been summoned here only to be provided a slow death with no escape. So stop panicking, and think.”
 
The authority in her voice forced Zoey to do as ordered: to think. 
 
Unfortunately, it was about the cloudy-ice of her pale irises, and the sharp edge of her jaw, the refined accent she spat each of her words with. The delicate, small frame of the person crushed beneath her.
 
The way their bodies were crammed together.
 
The way their naked bodies were crammed together. 
 
Breasts, shoved against each other. Stomachs, crotches, thighs, too, a tangle of sweaty limbs, the tiny space suffocating with warmth from their extended sharing.
 
Zoey’s cock twitched.
 
Her partner of circumstance sucked in a gasp of air as Zoey’s member expanded, slowly but steadily filling the space between their stomachs. It was far, far from a subtle thing, with how generous Ephy had been in her bestowal. It engorged with blood until it had stiffened all the way to above their belly buttons. It scalded Zoey’s skin, so she assumed it must be doing the same to her partner, that the heat emanating wasn’t in Zoey’s head.
 
Her face burned, and by how her partner’s eyes had widened, Zoey assumed she had also been shocked out of a response. Though, it was only a natural reaction, considering the position they found themselves in. Or so she assumed … she was hardly a veteran in this whole, cock-wielding profession.
 
“Well,” Zoey eventually said, breaking the stunned silence. “Good news is, I’m not panicking anymore.”
 
“Why the hell are you hard?” her partner shrilled.
 
“Because I’m crammed, naked, in a dark space with a gorgeous girl stuffed beneath me?”
 
“And? So what! How dare you! Do you know who I am?”
 
Do you know who I am? That was an interesting response that had burst from her partner’s mouth. It indicated something important, at a guess, though it was low on Zoey’s priority list to find out what.
 
And so much for the calm, assured composure Zoey had been introduced to. Being confronted with a slow death in an underground prison barely large enough to fit two girls wasn’t enough to unnerve her, but a cock pressed against her stomach had her stuttering over her words? Her priorities might be disordered.
 
Not that Zoey was handling things well, either. The awkwardness of their situation burned into her, lighting up her face, neck, shoulders—probably her whole body. Because what a situation. Just, Zoey’s discomfort tended to manifest as sarcasm, not a lack of composure. “Where are we?” she asked, ironically the calm one, now. It was a deliberate, strained type of composure, seeing how having the soft, hot flesh of a girl’s defined stomach pressed into her cock was excruciatingly difficult to ignore. 
 
“The entrance to a shard, obviously. Now, if you don’t mind, get that thing under control.”
 
“Not really a choice I have." The only ‘choice’ was to not start viciously humping, which every instinct in Zoey’s body screamed to do. But however erotic the circumstances she found herself in, Zoey wouldn’t do that to a clearly unwilling participant.
 
“Well, figure it out.” The girl beneath her squirmed, wiggling Zoey’s cock between their stomachs, and the action wrenched a moan from Zoey’s lips. A moan which silenced—and stilled—the other girl.
 
“Maybe don’t do that,” Zoey suggested in a sarcastic pant. “Trying to keep things under wraps, remember?”
 
The rapid breathing of her partner—which hadn’t existed until now—pierced the tiny space they were in, louder even than Zoey’s.
 
“Alright,” Zoey said. “What’s going on?”
 
“We’re stuck,” the girl said tightly.
 
“I’ve deduced that.” Zoey took a calming breath. “What’s your name? Mine’s Zoey.”
 
“Are you serious?”
 
“Seeing the situation we're in, I think pleasantries are in order.”
 
A long silence, in which only their panting could be heard.
 
The girl swallowed. “Rosalie.”
 
“It’s nice to meet you, Rosalie.”
 
“Enchanted.” Sarcasm dripped from the response, but Zoey forgave it.
 
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Zoey said. “You said there’s a way out?”
 
“A shard wouldn’t just kill us, no alternatives offered, so yes. There has to be.”
 
Zoey shelved the term ‘shard’. “You’ve been awake for a while?”
 
“Long enough.”
 
“And you couldn’t figure anything out?”
 
“Clearly not. The solution lies with you, since none of my runes are applicable here.”
 
Ephy mentioned those, didn’t she? “What are those? Runes, I mean.”
 
A long, disbelieving pause.
 
“Is that some kind of joke?”
 
“No.”
 
“You’re in the Fractures. In a shard. What do you mean, ‘what are runes’?”
 
“Look, princess,” Zoey sighed.  “We’re buried underground together, with about an inch of breathing room, so how about you humor me?”
 
Rosalie’s response came after a few tense moments. Zoey had stopped supporting her head, instead resting it to the left of Rosalie’s, pressing her forehead into the coarse material of whatever casket they found themselves in. She was trying very, very hard to ignore her cock’s positioning sandwiched between their bodies, to little success.
 
“Runes are … the progenitors of skills.”
 
That said nothing of use, not to Zoey. “Skills?”
 
Another long pause, but Rosalie eventually answered. “Evolving a rune grants skills associated with it. Skills are  … the fundamental unit of power for a Wayfarer. An ability, granted by the gods. How we survive in the Fractures, conquer shards, and claim their riches for ourselves and Haven.”
 
To say Zoey was having information dumped on her would be an understatement. Then again, seeing how she’d just had a conversation with the goddess of eroticism, then been dropped into a new world as her champion, that was expected, wasn’t it? She tucked away the terms—shards, Wayfarers, skills, runes, Haven, the Fractures—and focused on the immediately relevant.
 
“And I have those? Skills?” It was more of a prompting question; Ephy had implied she did. At a guess, it would be related to the ‘Bonder’ class she’d been given.
 
“All Wayfarers do, the moment they enter the Fractures.”
 
“And you think mine will get us out of here? How do I use them?”
 
A tense pause. “How are you even here? How could you possibly have managed to delve deep enough into the Fractures to enter a shard, without knowing how skills work?”
 
“I don't know,” Zoey said honestly. “I can’t remember much besides my name.” And flashes of her old life, stripped of personal context. Like seeing memories on a t.v. screen.
 
“Oh,” Rosalie said. After adjusting to this announcement—and seemingly believing it, or at least choosing to for now—she said, “Well. Do you at least remember how to draw your tabula anima?”
 
“Don't even know what that is.”
 
“That could be … a problem.”
 
“Why?”
 
“Skills are intuitive, but you need to know what they are to use them. And bringing forth one’s tabula anima takes practice. Most Wayfarers spend their first week—or several—learning how to draw it, and how to use their skills effectively.”
 
“Guess I’m getting the crash course, then. Skipping the training wheels. What’s the rundown?”
 
Rosalie was quiet for a second. Their asynchronous, mismatched breathing patterns was serving to heave sweat-covered skin across her cock in a consistent rhythm, and the constant stimulation—not to mention the situation itself—meant it wouldn’t be going down any time soon. 
 
“There’s an easier way,” Rosalie said slowly. “I can read your anima myself.” 
 
“Oh. Do that, then.” Why hadn’t she already?
 
Rosalie studied her with a perplexed expression. Again, Zoey was apprehended by those serious, piercing ice-blue eyes. “Baring one’s runes and symbols is a highly personal matter. You don’t seem to realize that. Your memory problems, I assume. So make sure you understand what you’re offering.”
 
Zoey laughed, the dire circumstances and the concern in Rosalie’s words tickling her for a reason she couldn't place. “Of course you’re a sweetheart," Zoey said. It made total sense, for some reason, for all the girl's serious, domineering attitude.
 
“I am not.” Rosalie sounded offended Zoey had even suggested it. “It’s—it’s simply private, intimate information, and your memory is allegedly scrambled. So. I wanted informed consent.”
 
“Pretty sure we’re a few steps past sharing 'intimate' information,” Zoey said amusedly. Her cock pulsed in emphasis. “So yeah. Go for it. What do we need to do?”
 
Rosalie huffed. “Skin contact, but I think we have that covered.”
 
Another laugh, shaking her body, which really wasn't doing favors for keeping movement to a minimum, and Zoey’s general attempts to ignore her predicament.
 
“Besides that,” Rosalie said, “just don’t refuse my request.”
 
“And that means?”
 
“You’ll find out. Close your eyes.” 
 
Zoey did so. The conversation stilled, Rosalie focusing on something Zoey couldn’t begin to guess at. That lack of distraction—the banter and flood of information—no longer assisted Zoey in ignoring her aching member. 
 
Eventually, a tingle somewhere in the back of her spine appeared, and Zoey’s first instinct was to push it away. But it felt artificial, somehow. Like a ‘request’, as Rosalie had put it, though Zoey couldn’t explain how she’d come to that inexplicable conclusion. She didn’t fight it.
 
A second later, Rosalie sucked in a breath of air.
 
“What?” Zoey asked.
 
Rosalie didn’t reply. Zoey opened her eyes, and saw that Rosalie’s own were closed, and her brow was furrowed down in surprise—or concern.
 
Zoey tried to be patient, but to say her curiosity was killing her would be an understatement. And she would prefer for the distraction of conversation to return. She was trying not to lose herself to the biological, maddening urge to jerk her hips back and forth, to take hot, slippery relief against Rosalie’s stomach.
 
“Well,” Rosalie said, eyes still closed. “I believe you’re in strange circumstances, as you told me.”
 
“You thought I was lying?”
 
“You’re first evolution on all of your runes,” Rosalie said, ignoring her. “It’s like you just arrived to the Fractures.”
 
Zoey almost responded ‘I did’, but as Ephy had instructed her, her involvement with the goddess, and her transmigration from Earth, needed to be kept a secret. 
 
“Evolution?” she said instead.
 
“How far advanced your runes are.”
 
“It worked? You can see them?”
 
“I can.” Rosalie paused. “I’ll read them out for you.”
 
###
 
Rune of Bonding
 
[1]: Bond. Release seed onto or inside target and activate skill to form Bond.
 
[1]: Alacrity. Bonded targets evolve runes with less effort.
 
[1]: Bolster. Provides a powerful, temporary boost in strength to Bonded target. 
 
 
 
Rune of Arcana
 
[1]: First Circle. Cast spells up to one circle in complexity.
 
[1]: Element: Ice.
 
 
 
Rune of Sensuality
 
[1]: Lust. Mana replaced with alternate resource system Lust. Symbols are activated by expending Lust.
 
[1]: Harvest. Perform erotic acts onto self and others to harvest Lust. Bonded targets provide greater yield.
 
 
 
Rune of the Alchemist
 
[1]: Identify. Ascertain name and use of basic alchemy reagents.
 
 
 
Generalist Skills
 
[1]: Inspect. Discern basic information about equipment linked to the System.
 
[1]: Inventory. Store and withdraw items from inventory-space.
 
 
 
1.03 ❤ A Forced (And Slippery) Encounter
 
Zoey sat in stunned silence as she absorbed the information dumped onto her. She had expected one or two skills, but instead, she had ten alien abilities to puzzle over. Everything Ephy had detailed came into clearer view: the game-like terminology she had been using, runes, skills, and so on. Rosalie had detailed the list of supernatural abilities offered to her in a clinical, removed voice, but that didn’t mitigate the perplexed amazement Zoey felt.
 
So. She had found herself in a world that operated on RPG-like principles. 
 
For how oddly things had started, how was her situation only becoming stranger?
 
“I see,” Zoey said. Like usual, she focused on the here-and-now. “So. Escape.”
 
The two of them stayed silent. They had individually put together what needed to happen. It was fairly obvious.
 
“It seems to me,” Rosalie said tightly, “that you need to Bond to me, then use Bolster. The boost in strength will allow me to wrench us free.”
 
Assuming they weren’t buried underground, and that this strange box they’d found themselves in could, in fact, be escaped from.
 
“And you’re … okay with that?”
 
“Let’s see,” Rosalie said. “Starving to death in a tiny coffin, or having you jerk off on me. I guess the second’s preferable.” She turned her head to the right, avoiding meeting Zoey’s eyes. “So. Get to it.”
 
It wasn’t the most glowing of consent, but Zoey got the sense Rosalie wasn’t the type of person to be providing happy, overt permission for these circumstances. And what choice did they have? Zoey’s hands were as bound as Rosalie’s. They were stuck in this situation together.
 
How they’d ended up in such a strange scenario … Zoey suspected a meddling goddess.
 
Her breathing—and heart rate—picked up. It had calmed from their earlier analysis of the situation, Zoey’s runes and skills. Her lips parted as she started to pant, and it grew loud in the cramped space. Rosalie probably felt trickles of the humid air against the side of her face. There wasn’t any way for Zoey to avoid it, pushed in against each other like they were.
 
Zoey pressed her body up by her elbows, gaining the tiny inch of space they were provided. Her cock twitched, once, in preparation of what she’d been given permission to do. 
 
“Okay,” Zoey said. “Well. Might as well get to it. Are you ready?”
 
“No,” Rosalie said, eyes closed and still facing away. “But take longer, will you?”
 
Again, it wasn’t the happiest of permissions, but it was permission.
 
Zoey gave in to her newly found biological urges.
 
Her hips jerked forward, across the tiny distance she was afforded, and her throbbing cock grinded against sweaty skin. That first, slick indulgence of Zoey’s cock grinding against Rosalie’s stomach couldn’t be put into words. It was mind-erasing. It forced one of the lewdest noises out of Zoey’s mouth that she had ever produced, a mix between a whine, a moan, and an agonized sigh. 
 
Finally. Relief. 
 
Zoey was far from happy that Rosalie couldn’t refuse, but it wasn’t like Zoey had options, either. She was forced to do this as much as Rosalie. 
 
And sure, Rosalie might not want to have her compact, muscly, pretty little body used as Zoey’s plaything, a slab of meat to extract a pulsing orgasm from, to be covered in cum for express purpose of allowing them to escape, but Zoey didn’t want this either. Not cognitively, at least, as a sapient being who didn’t enjoy being forced into something as intimate as sex—or something close to sex. 
 
However much her hips moved on their own accord, now, however much Zoey couldn’t have stopped if she wanted to.
 
But this was the situation they were in. Zoey humping her girthy girlcock against Rosalie’s stomach—between their stomachs—providing a sweaty, filthy friction, using lubricant of pre-cum and exertion as Zoey finally got the relief she so desperately needed. 
 
The first hints of rapture started to build deep in Zoey’s lower body. Slowly, bit by bit, still a far way off, but arriving. It was a hot, aching sensation she had never experienced before. Zoey’s head fell forward, overtop Rosalie’s ear, which she panted into, and Zoey closed her eyes and lost herself to the feelings crashing through her length. 
 
Rosalie’s own gasps were loud, painfully obvious. For not doing anything, she was breathing shockingly hard, sucking in breaths and hiccupping. And seeing how, based on their alignment in this coffin, their crotches were pressed into each other, Zoey didn’t think all that wetness they were sharing was entirely sweat, sweat produced from the muggy conditions. Plenty of it, she thought, was arousal. From both of them. Natural lubricant from their aching lower halves. Rosalie’s slickness, and her own, provided a slippery liquid that spread with the humping of Zoey’s shaft, coating her cock as she slid between them. Zoey jerked awkwardly up and down, sliding her stiffness forward, then back, again and again, building to a pulsing, twitching climax. 
 
Rosalie’s hips bucked for the first time, joining in with Zoey’s diligent efforts, and it didn’t seem intentional. Rosalie’s body locked up, as if the serious, formal-speaking girl was shocked at what she’d done.
 
“Keep going,” Zoey exhaled hotly into her ear. “That’s a good girl.”
 
She wasn’t sure where the words came from. Zoey was adrift in a hot sea of pleasure, bliss coursing through her lower half. Zoey wiggled her body around to get her upper thigh pressed against Rosalie’s slick entrance, providing better purchase for her to grind against.
 
Rosalie acquiesced. 
 
Her hips bucked a second time. Then a third. Soon enough, the two of them worked into a rhythm, grinding against each other, Zoey against Rosalie’s abs, and Rosalie against her leg, building toward their mutual salvation. Because that was what this was. Salvation. They weren’t doing this for pleasure. Sure, pleasure was a byproduct, but their hot, sweaty indulgence was from necessity, and nothing more. They needed out of this trap they’d found themselves in. Anything else, a byproduct.
 
The slide of their bodies together had nothing to do with want. With the gross, sticky pleasures of human lust. 
 
“Shit,” Zoey groaned. “You, you ready?”
 
“As ever,” Rosalie gasped back, her hips jerking and wiggling against Zoey with almost as much fervor as Zoey herself.
 
Zoey focused on the building, white-hot burning at the base of her cock. She’d had plenty of orgasms in her life, of course, but always as a girl. She’d heard that guys’ climaxes were more intense, or at least more sudden, that they burned fast then were spent. But that wasn’t her experience. The feeling built, and built, and built, so much higher than anything she’d felt in her life, and not slowing down, but spreading through her body, erasing rational thought, waves of pleasure drowning out everything. 
 
Maybe it was the reality of the situation. Maybe it was Rosalie’s perfect, reluctant-then-willing body grinding against hers that built Zoey to such an unbelievable high. Whatever it was, the orgasm that clenched her stomach was unlike anything she’d felt. The world-ending relief hit her all at once, her cock spasming as it finally released its sticky payload.
 
The first spray escaped Zoey’s girlrod, and Zoey cried out in half-pain, half indescribable pleasure. Sandwiched by their two stomachs, the cream had nowhere to go besides between them, coating Zoey’s continued thrusting. It spread between their abs, providing an even slicker, slippier surface for Zoey to rub against. Rather than slowing, Zoey’s pistoning picked up speed, and Rosalie’s own body started to rack in pleasure. 
 
She was cumming, too? They'd been rubbing against each other for a while, but that was still surprisingly fast. But those thoughts passed her mind only briefly. She was occupied in the erasing pleasure of white-hot orgasm. 
 
The second wave of hot cream escaped her cock, turning an already coated surface drenched. Her seed spilled between their stomachs, flooding between them, nowhere else to go. But Zoey’s cock wasn’t expended. The third wave suffused her throbbing member, jettisoning out another load of hot, lewd liquid. Flooding turned drenched, then overflowing. Her cum was everywhere, working between them as they humped their bodies against each other.
 
Rosalie’s body continued to convulse, shaking from the strength of her orgasm. Zoey had been with girls before, of course, but the pride of success that suffused her was different from those encounters. Her pulsing, sticky member being the provider of that spasming pleasure fed into Zoey’s imagination, forcing her cock to seize harder, because even after three drenching spurts, she hadn’t been emptied. 
 
Zoey shoved off the ground as hard as she could, somehow growing the tight space between their bodies further, so that the sticky load of her cock could make greater distance.
 
And it worked. The next batch of gooey white batter made better distance: it flew out, caressing her cock with hot bliss as it did, launching onto Rosalie’s chest. Further, even. Onto her neck. Rosalie didn’t mind, or notice. The two of them thrashed against each other, moaning with obscene volume, their husky voices echoing through the tiny space they shared. 
 
Zoey couldn’t believe how quickly the situation had devolved. Rosalie had seemed so composed, but by the way her body twisted and her lower half shoved desperately against Zoey, she wanted this as badly as her, if not more. 
 
In reality, she was a cock-hungry whore. She wanted pleasure. If Zoey had been in a better position, she would have wanted Zoey to thrust inside. To have her pussy walls convulsing and twitching against a stranger’s massive girlcock as she milked out hot seed into her womb. Rosalie wanted to be filled up. To be stuffed with sticky, impregnating girlcum.
 
Zoey closed her eyes, and pretended to provide that to her.
 
Another convulsion of her cock, the strongest of all the ones prior, and the sheer strength of the seizure launched white strands all the way to Rosalie’s face, who produced a surprised squeak of noise. It was almost unbelievable how much seed escaped from Zoey’s cock, considering how much had already burst from her. 
 
The white batter clung to almost every inch of their bodies. It gathered in sticky pools beneath them, dripping between their legs and off their stomachs. And yet Zoey’s convulsing provided more, and more, onto Rosalie’s face, neck, upper chest, still not spent. Every last drop of girlcum was milked from her twitching cock as Rosalie thrusted her desperate lower half against Zoey, until Zoey truly did have nothing else to give—and they sat in a pool of her cum.
 
Ephy hadn’t been kidding. Only the best for her champions. So much had escaped her it was nearly comical.
 
Zoey collapsed, her orgasm finally concluding. Almost as an afterthought, she activated Bond, which had been the whole purpose of this.
 
She’s not done yet, Zoey’s brain registered through the haze. She rallied, drawing on some second wind to keep grinding so that she could ride Rosalie’s orgasm to its own maximum. But Zoey was so unbelievably spent that she couldn’t do much. She wanted to be a considerate partner and help Rosalie—for all that the well-spoken, stiff girl would never claim to be wanting this—but Zoey didn’t have it in her. This newer form of orgasm was so much more exhausting than the ones she could coax out of herself, back when she hadn’t wielded a massive slab of meat between her legs. Still, she gave it her best, exhausted effort, because Rosalie deserved pleasure as much as she did. 
 
Rosalie’s twitching finally ended, and she collapsed, her body stopping its writhing. Zoey did the same. The tiny space finally went quiet—relatively—no longer suffused in moaning, whining, and groaning, only the gasping inhalations of two girls who’d just humped each other until their hearts had nearly exploded. They sucked in air, dizzy from exertion and body-wracking orgasms.
 
Hot, sticky liquid coated the bottom of the box, and every inch between their shared skin, their tits, even the strands that had reached up to Rosalie’s face and hair. Pressed into each other, plenty of it had gotten onto Zoey herself.
 
It was a long time before one of them spoke.
 
“Well,” Rosalie said. “You did it, right?”
 
 
 
1.04 Proper Greetings
 
The wooden box creaked as Rosalie’s empowered body shoved with full strength. Wood tore as nails ripped, metal popping and wrenching from their securements. Underneath her, Rosalie’s body shook with exertion. Her awkward positioning didn’t help, hands and knees finding leverage wherever it could in the shared, cramped space. 
 
With a final snap, the lid sheared, then buckled from its nailed-in edges, flying and clattering somewhere to the side. Orange light, and fresh air, flooded in. Zoey and Rosalie clambered out, then rolled over and collapsed onto cold stone. Zoey’s cum clung to their bodies, and it wasn’t until the air of the room reached her nose that she realized how musky their shared space had been.
 
Though they’d already rested briefly from their grinding, intimate pleasure, the next series of panting as they lied shoulder-to-shoulder and stared up at a crumbling stone ceiling was born from relief of a different kind: that they weren’t doomed to slow starvation in a wooden box.
 
Zoey had used the word ‘coffin’, earlier, to describe where they’d been stuck, and it turned out that’d been accurate. A tiny, glossy black box laid to their left, the previous nailed-in lid discarded somewhere to the side.
 
Rosalie patted Zoey’s stomach in a ‘let’s get to it’ gesture, then stood. Zoey did as told.
 
She took in Rosalie, in detail, for the first time. 
 
She was short, five-three at a guess. But at the observation, Zoey paused, because her judgment was likely impaired from the changes to her body. Ephy had sprouted her height up by six inches or more, and so Zoey should be six foot or taller, now, though Ephy hadn’t specified what exact changes she’d made. So maybe Rosalie was average height, or even taller. Her perception when it came to height was in disarray.
 
Her body, though, was the kind women would kill for. Zoey’s cock had become delightedly acquainted with Rosalie’s hard stomach, and the sight in front of her confirmed what she had learned by feel: this woman was a warrior. Not only was her body hard in all the places Zoey liked (despite the soft curves, wide hips, and shapely breasts), more than a few scars littered her stomach, shoulders, and a cute, faded streak ran horizontally across her nose, which the darkness of the coffin hadn’t allowed her to see.
 
Her skin, of course, glistened in the dim light of the wall torches, covered equally in sweat and Zoey’s cum. 
 
Zoey’s cum. That was her sticky fluid marking Rosalie’s body in nearly comical amounts. Hers. It was hard to explain the intense, dominating pride she felt at the sight. Her cock twitched, though didn't harden again. It was spent from earlier escapades.
 
Zoey wasn't the only one to appraise her partner. Rosalie’s eyes had been crawling across Zoey’s body, taking stock of the woman she’d been thrust into strange circumstances with. Hers was likely of a more clinical nature.
 
“Well,” Rosalie finally said, her appraisal not something Zoey was privy to. Her face was cool and collected. Impassive. “I suppose it’s time for a proper introduction.” She stepped forward and held her hand out. “Rosalie. Lancer. Second advancement. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
 
Zoey was taken aback by how the composed, intense demeanor had returned, especially after what had happened. But maybe that was Rosalie’s natural state, and their erotic circumstances had simply resulted in a break of her composure. In fact, perhaps it was the circumstances themselves that had Rosalie needing to impose formality between them.
 
"Zoey, for the second time,” she returned, shaking her hand. “And, uh, I’ve got no clue what Lancer means, or second advancement.”
 
Rosalie paused. “Right. Memory problems.” She withdrew her hand. Zoey wondered if they were really pretending Zoey hadn’t drenched her in cum just a few minutes prior, and that this was their first meeting. But whatever. If it made Rosalie more comfortable, then sure. “Lancer is—” she paused. “Let’s ensure we’re safe, first. Then talk.”
 
Zoey nodded; that was a smart idea. She turned and inspected the room they’d escaped into.
 
On first inspection, it gave the impression of an abandoned temple, though she wasn’t sure whether they were underground or above; there were no windows to check. Thick green vines sprouted from various places, wiggling through the cracked stone brick, and giving the room an overrun-by-nature feel. Decaying red banners, moth-eaten at the edges, draped from the walls. Three more coffins laid in an aligned square; she and Rosalie had woken in the front-left. The others had their lids parted, not having been nailed in. Only they’d received that pleasure, Zoey guessed.
 
She walked to the wall and studied the vines. She rubbed one of them between her fingers, wondering why they were covered in a slippery, clear fluid. Water? It didn’t feel like it. Honestly, it felt like lubricant.
 
Which, uh, gave her a bad feeling. Zoey was from Earth, after all, a twenty-first century girl, and she’d spent her fair share of time on the internet. Considering how this ‘shard’ had introduced her and Rosalie, finding slimy green vines coated in what felt like lubricant implied some … concerning things. She almost opened her mouth to mention it to Rosalie, then realized how insane she would sound. Careful of the vines. They might want to molest you. Zoey was surely being ridiculous. The vines hadn’t responded to her touch, anyway. 
 
Just paranoia. Or perversion.
 
At a sudden ripping noise, Zoey turned to see what Rosalie was doing. She had torn one of the red banners off the wall and had started wiping herself down. Which was fair … but Zoey frowned, because she’d greatly enjoyed the sight of Rosalie’s body covered in her seed. But it was only practical. Ephy had said saving the world wasn’t all ‘conquest of tight, nubile bodies’, and that there would be genuine danger ahead, mountains to climb, and obstacles to overcome. So cleaning themselves off and focusing on practical matters was for the best.
 
Once Rosalie was done, she tossed the fabric to Zoey, who did the same. It didn’t do the greatest of jobs. Her cum had dried a slight amount already, and without water, it wasn’t the easiest thing to clean off. Oddly, Zoey felt satisfied at that. No small amount of the girlcum she’d splattered Rosalie with would be left over, caked onto her. Possibly for a while. Until they could shower or bathe, which Zoey didn’t see in the short foreseeable future.
 
Seriously, cool it with the perviness. 
 
Zoey wouldn’t ever have called herself the most chaste, blushing of people, but she didn’t think she’d ever been this sex-obsessed. Was it the addition between her legs? Definitely a contributor … but maybe it was what she had just been subjected to, and the implication by Ephy more would be coming. Though with Rosalie? Zoey had her doubts. She didn’t seem the type of woman to be pouncing on someone she barely knew. That first time might have been their last, since it’d been strictly necessary.
 
But she hoped not. Zoey’s eyes locked to Rosalie’s ass as she moved around the room, watching the way it swayed. Such a small, defined girl had no reason having a butt that perfect, that filled-out. 
 
A stirring between her legs forced her to look away. It seemed the refractory period was ending, and Zoey would rather not have to explain another erection. She wouldn’t have the excuse of being piled on top of a naked girl, this time. Rosalie would know she’d been staring, and imagining lewd things in the safety of her mind.
 
“Find anything?” Zoey asked.
 
Rosalie turned to Zoey, and Zoey maintained firm eye contact. Rosalie’s perky, pale tits were still plainly in her peripheral vision, and further down, situated beneath defined abs, a neatly-trimmed patch of platinum hair, same as the shoulder-length tresses above. But if Zoey tried hard enough, she could pretend she didn’t see any of it. Settle down, girl, she said to her stirring lower body. Or was it boy? Cocks were obviously pretty masculine … but she didn’t like the idea of calling it such. And besides, hers was kind of cuter, more feminine, wasn’t it? Okay, that was a lie, it was huge, veiny, throbbing, and definitely an angrier, more impressive piece than any man on Earth could wield, but it was a girl anyway, damnit.
 
“We’re safe here, I assume,” Rosalie said. “Only one exit, that door. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like my spear or armor is here. It must be somewhere in the shard, but it could take time to find. So. Considering we’ve been given a reprieve, now’s the opportunity to form a plan of attack.”
 
Talking business. Absolutely. It would help tremendously with not embarrassing herself by raising mast in front of her impromptu partner. And there was a lot of business to talk.
 
“Okay,” Zoey said. “Can you catch me up? Shards. That’s where we are, you said, but what’s that mean? And the Fractures. Haven, too? And advancements … you said you were second. And—”
 
Rosalie raised a hand. There was a casual, assumed authority in the movement that gave Zoey pause. 
 
Don’t you know who I am? Rosalie’s words from earlier echoed in her head.
 
And that. Zoey should probably bring that exclamation up. Who was she? Somebody important, based on her arrogant posture, her ramrod-straight back, the way she carried herself with such assured confidence and commanded Zoey around. 
 
“I’ll give you an overview,” Rosalie said, “but I’m hardly going to explain everything you’ve forgotten. It’s a world’s worth of information, literally.”
 
Ironic phrasing. “The basics are fine.” And finally addressing a matter Zoey knew had to be addressed, she said, “And can you, uh, cover yourself up? With one of the banners? I don’t want to, uh, embarrass us again.”
 
Rosalie’s eyes flicked down to Zoey’s cock, and at the attention, it twitched. It didn’t fully stiffen, but only at great effort by Zoey, who ran through the least arousing scenarios in her head that she could invent.
 
“Right.” Zoey could tell by the stutter in Rosalie’s voice, and the flush and blinking, that something along the lines of, why didn’t I think of that, crossed her mind.
 
They each made impromptu clothes from the decaying, moth-eaten banners. They wouldn’t be functional for moving around, and definitely not fighting, but it bought them some temporary modesty—and Zoey some reprieve.
 
Though not having such a gorgeous woman on display … Zoey hated herself for being the one to suggest it.
 
“Shards,” Rosalie said firmly, corralling them back to topic. “Shards are pocket dimensions separated from the greater clusters that makes up the Fractures. Deeper, further removed—little is known for certain, and theoreticals are irrelevant. Functionally, know they’re dangerous pocket realms that need to be cleared before we can return to the Fractures.”
 
“Which is where society is?”
 
“Wayfarer societies,” Rosalie said. “But yes.”
 
“And that means?”
 
“Civilians live in Haven, not in the Fractures. The Fractures are for … the adventurous.” She paused. “With exceptions, of course. Plenty delve down to provide services to Wayfarers. Even tailors make good money in the Fractures, many times what they could up above, because of the implied risk.” She shook her head. “But that’s not important. Yes. Society in a vague sense lives in the Fractures, not within shards.”
 
“And we’re trying to return there.”
 
“Sure,” Rosalie said. “You, at least. I came here intentionally. Shards are lucrative, and evolve runes faster than the monsters found above. So my real goal was to clear this shard, emptying out any resources I could find. Routine. The usual goal of a Wayfarer.” Her lips pursed. “You’ve complicated that. You’re unfit for delving a shard, and memoryless, so I’ll need to escort you to safety, rather than taking my time to loot the structure dry, as I normally would.”
 
“Hey.” Zoey didn’t know why she was offended. Obviously she was unfit for adventuring; this woman exuded competence, and Zoey knew without demonstration that she could fight, that she might have been trained for it since birth. “I guess you’re right, but—” 
 
But what? Zoey didn’t like being treated as dead weight? Well, she probably was, and that didn’t change regardless of if she wanted to delve the shard (the new terminology felt a bit odd to use, but she’d have to get used to that). But did she, even? Want to? Ostensibly that was what Zoey’s mission here was, as delivered by Ephy.
 
Speaking of mission, what if Zoey refused? To ‘save the world’, whatever that meant? Could she go settle down somewhere? Live a normal life, for a sense of the word? Did she want to? Would Ephy intervene? She wouldn’t get her memories back, for sure. Did she care if she didn’t? They’d been excised so thoroughly the fact they were tattered in incoherent patches didn’t even bother her. She was missing the faces of her parents, siblings if she had them, friends, and so on—but so what? They didn’t exist to her anymore. Weren’t ‘distractions’, as Ephy had put it, the exact reason she’d done it in the first place.
 
Her head started to hurt. Now that she had a moment to think, the enormity of everything that had happened slammed into her. No small amount of dread, either.
 
For her own mental health, she went along with things as they’d been laid out for her. She would acquiesce to Ephy’s orders … until she had time to actually think about all this chaos. At a minimum, she could shelve it until she found civilization, a place with people, and safety. They were far from out of the woods, regardless that they’d escaped from the coffin.
 
“I guess that’s true,” Zoey finally said. “But I’m sure I could do something to help. Two pairs of hands is better than one, right?”
 
“Not remotely. You’d get in my way, and I’d expend more effort saving you than you’d offer in return.”
 
The words stung, but again, they were probably true.
 
Rosalie bit her lip. “But … your runes … I don’t know.”
 
“What?”
 
“Well. They’re quite useful.”
 
“They are?”
 
“They’re the strongest first-advancement skills I’ve ever seen. And your Rune of Bonding. It’s … I’ve never even known a person with a mythic-tier rune. Even my father—” Her teeth clicked shut. 
 
Smooth, Zoey thought. Real subtle. So she was trying to keep some things about her past under wraps? She wasn’t good at it. But Zoey didn’t point that out. “Mythic-tier?”
 
Rosalie waved her hand dismissively. “Just know it’s quite rare. Vanishingly so. I mean, this bond you formed with me … it accelerates the evolution of my own runes.” She sounded disbelieving, though she’d read the words from Zoey’s tabula anima herself, so the legitimacy of the skill wasn’t in question.
 
“That’s good?” Zoey asked.
 
Rosalie gave her a flat look, not answering outright. Zoey could put two and two together.
 
“There’s a gap between us,” Rosalie said, “a significant one, but perhaps … well, I’m curious to see how you develop. You might be useful.”
 
The cold analysis amused Zoey. “Not interested in me for me, huh?”
 
“I’m sure you’re a delightful woman to be around,” the compliment was lost in the impassive way she said it, “but I have goals a little loftier than to be picking my teammates on merit of how well they deliver a quip.”
 
She really was a bundle of seriousness, wasn’t she? It was kind of cute. “Okay. So. You do think I can help.”
 
“Depends. Do you remember how to cast spells?”
 
Zoey hadn’t been flinging fireballs around back home, so no. She shook her head. Then for full disclosure, “Never even been in a fight.”
 
Rosalie blinked at that. Zoey guessed in this world, the modern standard of non-violence wasn’t quite the same.
 
“I thought you don’t have your memories,” Rosalie said, having been blinking at her for a different reason than Zoey had assumed.
 
Zoey paused. She’d just a second ago been amused for Rosalie poorly keeping things under wraps, and there Zoey went, doing it too. “I remember … some. It’s foggy.” Honesty was the best policy here. “But I guess I can’t say I haven’t been in a fight for certain. It’s all in tatters.”
 
Rosalie studied her for a second, then seemingly shrugged it off. At a guess, whether Zoey was lying or not didn’t especially matter. “Well. You see the problem, then? You can’t cast spells, much less fight.”
 
“I’ll get the hang of it?” Zoey suggested hopefully. “I’m sure I can do something to help.”
 
Rosalie bit her lip, considering the claim. She glanced at the wooden door, then a decision solidified on her face. “We have time to find out. Let’s see if we can get you acquainted to flinging a basic ice spike, and we’ll go from there.”
 
1.05  ❤ Self-Care
 
“Well,” Rosalie said. “You’re better than most novices. If you keep out of the way, you might be able to help. In … some small way.”
 
It was far from glowing praise, but it meant Zoey wouldn’t be forced to stay out of the action entirely. That was a win, in her book.
 
And why the hell was spellcasting—utilizing her Rune of Arcana—so difficult? Hadn’t she been summoned to this world by a literal goddess … shouldn’t she be a prodigy at everything she did, or something? Instead, Rosalie seemed distinctly unimpressed, even after Zoey had spent an hour clumsily crafting together one-circle spells, and the same one again and again: a simple ice spike given velocity. 
 
“Now,” Rosalie said. “For your mana situation.”
 
It’s called lust, actually. Zoey had picked up a thing or two about how this world worked, by now, during the lessons Rosalie had provided her. Mana was what normal mages used to fuel their spells, but Zoey’s resource system had been replaced by ‘lust’, which was recharged by … well, by things such as what she and Rosalie had done in the coffin, which had been what topped her off in the first place.
 
“I’m running low,” Zoey said with a nod. “It’s time for us to recharge.”
 
Rosalie stared. “Us?”
 
Zoey blinked. She realized the assumption she had made. “Well, I just mean, uh, it says bonded targets provide more … and I figured—”
 
“You are perfectly capable of jerking yourself off, thank you very much,” Rosalie’s incredulous reply came.
 
It seemed Zoey’s earlier assumption—that their intimacy in the coffin had been a one-time thing—was true. 
 
“Right,” Zoey said. “Right. Didn’t mean to assume—uh. Anyway. So, like, I should do that now, then?”
 
“Unless you’re waiting on something?” She made a shooing motion. “Do it in the corner. And don’t let me hear you.”
 
Zoey paused, feeling a bit demeaned. “I know this is an odd situation, but—”
 
“A disgusting one, actually.”
 
“Disgusting?” Her temper flared; Rosalie’s snippiness was getting to her. “You didn’t think that an hour ago, did you?”
 
“Excuse me?”
 
“You were just as into it as me, princess.”
 
“I was not.” The words were two full octaves higher than normal. 
 
“That body wracking orgasm was … an act, then?”
 
“Orgasm? I absolutely did not. Are you—are you insane?”
 
Zoey stared incredulously. She was denying that? “Okay. The fact you joined in, then? Or are you denying the humping, too?”
 
“Because I wanted it over faster, pervert. And you told me to.”
 
“There’s no need for insults.”
 
“And there’s no need for you to be propositioning me to jerk you off, either. But you did that, didn’t you?”
 
Zoey realized she needed to be the mature one here. Rosalie’s embarrassment over sexual matters was even higher than Zoey had thought it would be. And while the harsh rejection and insults stung, she could tell Rosalie needed to be able to deny what had happened—for her own comfort. Zoey could do that, at least.
 
“Fine. Fine. I’ll go … take care of it. Alone.”
 
“Don’t take too long.”
 
Zoey bit her tongue on a retort. Rosalie had been otherwise pleasant—if serious and domineering—up until this point. She’d only been rude when sex had been brought up.
 
Well, not even sex. It’d just have been a handjob. But whatever.
 
Zoey walked to the corner, feeling like a pretty giant idiot. ‘Don’t make any noise’? Could this be any more embarrassing?
 
She shrugged off the banner she’d been wearing, then set it out against the floor to sit on. It shielded her from the grime and dirt of the stonebrick, though the banner itself wasn’t the cleanest thing.
 
She spread her legs out and stared down at her cock.
 
Well. Time to make personal acquaintance. She hadn’t had an opportunity to do that, yet.
 
She poked at the sensitive flesh. Even when it was soft, the size of the thing was comically unwieldy. Zoey had always preferred girls, so cocks hadn’t ever done much for her. Strap-ons were fun, sure, and she didn’t have anything against cocks; just, she’d never been interested in men, so.
 
Having her own wasn’t so bad. At least as far as that interaction with Rosalie had gone. 
 
At the reminder, she started to grow.
 
She wrapped a hand around the shaft, feeling it expand in her soft grip—and wondering at her slim, feminine fingers wrapped around the massive rod of meat. It was probably—scratch that, definitely—weird to be turned on by seeing her own hand wrapped around her cock, at seeing her own cock grow, but she’d be lying if she said it didn’t do something for her: the mismatch in sizes, the way she could barely fit it in her grip. Seriously, why the hell was it so big? Ephy must have a size kink, to be forcing a monster like this onto Zoey.
 
And maybe Zoey had a bit of one, too, based on how she admired the fact it just kept growing. Especially since Ephy implied the whole ‘fitting’ thing shouldn’t be an issue, once she ‘figured out her runes’. Which hadn’t happened yet, but runes evolved and new skills were revealed, so Zoey assumed that’d be down the line.
 
Finally full mast, Zoey admired her impressive weapon. She gripped it in both hands, thin fingers covering a comically small amount of space.
 
So. Jerking off, guy-style. How did it work? It couldn’t be that complicated. Didn’t they use lotion, though, or something? Lubricant? 
 
She gripped herself and ran her hands up and down, but with how much real estate there was, Zoey quickly realized she’d be needing some sliding, if she wanted to be effective about things. Unless … a hand went to the top, where she caressed the tip, then tried a few jerking motions. Zoey winced in pleasure—that had definitely been better. But still. Lubricant would help.
 
Her spit?
 
There was no shot she could produce enough to cover herself, not with her size, and spit dried up pretty fast anyway. After being spoiled by Rosalie’s convulsing, sweaty body, Zoey could tell it would take some work to get herself off; spit wouldn’t last long enough. Her first interaction had set a high bar, and since she’d been so thoroughly emptied just an hour prior, she didn’t even have the advantage of being pent up.
 
An idea popped into her head. She shimmied on her butt a few feet to the wall, where the vines sprouted between the stonebrick. They still glistened in the flickering orange torchlight, covered in that slick liquid Zoey had noticed when they’d first arrived.
 
Well. How convenient.
 
She wiped both hands across the various green protrusions, collecting the lubricant across her fingers, then she re-gripped her cock and started spreading the liquid. The effort worked fabulously; a few more applications, and Zoey’s cock glistened in the light, covered from base to tip in the oily liquid. 
 
Zoey gave it another shot: she ran both hands up, then down, squeezing with a firm grip. Her cock pulsed happily, and Zoey let out a breathless moan of content.
 
Time to get to it, then.
 
Zoey laid down across the red banner draped on the floor, then closed her eyes and got to work.
 
She experimented for a bit. The cockhead was most sensitive, of course. Squeezing her fingers shut, then having her cock pierce between them, felt heavenly, like Zoey was slipping into some lewd part of a woman, and not her own hand. But it was also bursts of pleasure, where simply working away in a pumping motion with both hands served better for building her toward orgasm. Which was still a long way off. She didn’t even feel hints of it yet, for all that she was enjoying her efforts.
 
Probably need some mental assistance. There was an obvious person to fantasize about, especially considering they’d already mutually orgasmed against each other during one of the most erotic situations Zoey had ever found herself in. So she focused on that memory: on the feeling of her cock grinding against Rosalie, and all the cute, agonized noises she’d been making as she tried desperately to get herself off. 
 
Definitely working, Zoey thought as another breathless moan escaped her lips. 
 
A squeaking noise pierced the room, briefly making Zoey open her eyes, before shutting them and refocusing. Zoey assumed Rosalie had looked over and seen Zoey working away at her enormous shaft. Zoey might’ve laughed if her attention hadn’t been so intently directed at coaxing out the building pleasure in her member. Because had Rosalie thought Zoey wouldn’t make any noise? Zoey would be accommodating where she could, but not that accommodating. And it’d been her fault she’d looked over. What Zoey would be doing was pretty obvious.
 
Zoey’s hips started moving on their own accord, joining in on her hands' efforts in milking out an intensifying pleasure that finally made itself apparent, that starting building deep in her cock, and the core of her stomach, heralding the start of the end. She pumped faster, falling deeper into her fantasies. It wasn’t her hands sliding up and down her cock, but actually the spasming walls of the cute, serious platinum-haired blondie in the other corner of the room. Rosalie’s cunt squeezed around Zoey’s cock as she bounced up and down, ass impacting her crotch, the tight, hot wetness of her breeding hole doing its hardest to fulfill its biological imperative. It wanted to be filled. It wanted to be stuffed to overflowing with Zoey’s hot seed. And she could provide that, couldn’t she? Just had to work … a little harder. Go a little faster. Harder. Faster. Please. Please.
 
Zoey’s feet slid back on their own accord, and she arched her back, so that only her feet and shoulders were making contact with the ground. Her hands pistoned with as much speed and strength as she could muster. Her cock stuck out an angle, and she realized in this position she’d be spraying all over herself, but in the condition her melting mind was in, she didn’t care remotely. It was coming. The heat. The pulsating, aching, relief. She needed to empty herself. It was Rosalie’s tight pussy begging for it. Zoey could do it. For her. For Rosalie. She needed to be filled. To be bred. To have Zoey’s sticky spunk spraying into her womb.
 
Zoey whined as she milked out her first solo orgasm. 
 
It erupted with a spasm, and a hot splash of liquid hit Zoey’s face. She wasn’t particularly interested in tasting it, so she cemented her lips shut, but the idea she was coming over her own face was insanely hot, so rather than aiming away, Zoey let the next spray hit the same place again. With the strength and lack of finesse Zoey was pumping away with, plenty of her baby batter went astray: across her stomach, tits, shoulders, neck, and surely everywhere nearby, too, not just her face. Like her previous orgasm, Zoey had a lot of spunk to shoot out; that it’d been only an hour since her last didn’t seem to matter. Her face was well and thoroughly covered by the time Zoey’s hips sagged down, and she had coaxed out every last drop she could manage.
 
She lay panting on the ground for a while, then finally sat up and started cleaning herself, starting with clearing the spunk from her eyes, so she could open them.
 
She had a shard to explore. Saving the world wasn’t all perversion. 
 
Just mostly, from the look of things.
 
 
 
1.06 First Steps
 
Rosalie peered out into the hallway, then, after a few moment’s quiet analysis, stepped forward and waved for Zoey to follow. She did so. At a distance, as they had discussed.
 
They had dropped the impromptu banner-clothing. By high odds, they’d be getting in a few tussles in the upcoming adventure, and tripping over hastily tied, decaying cloth would be a pretty hilarious way to go, especially when both she and Rosalie had already milked out orgasms from each other; modesty really ought not to be a concern of theirs. Rosalie was embarrassed about sex and related fields, that much was obvious, but even she wasn’t that impractical. Her good-sense as a Wayfarer overruled her desire to cover her body up.
 
And so Zoey got a great view of her ass as she walked carefully down the hallway, inspecting for traps, or potential threats. If Zoey hadn’t just emptied herself, her cock probably would’ve risen up in its stiff, angry seal of approval. Because Christ, this girl had one of the best asses she’d ever seen. And Zoey had had the internet, back home, so that was really saying something.
 
Like the room prior, the hallway was nondescript besides the vines curling from between crumbling gaps in the wall. The presence of plant-life was much more pervasive. Zoey’s paranoia flickered again, but she forced it down. Rosalie was the expert here, and she’d thought nothing of the vines, even when Zoey had roundabout brought it up, asking whether they were dangerous. For that effort, she’d only received an odd look, and a snide comment about how using the slime to jerk herself off had been dangerous, because who knew if it was poisonous, but otherwise, no, they were just vines.
 
So. Clearly they meant nothing. Just a convenient (in regards to Zoey’s earlier plight) part of the scenery.
 
Zoey didn’t know what to expect from this adventure. Combat, certainly. Traps, a given. Loot—an interesting upcoming event. Rosalie had given her an overview of how the world worked, but every shard was different. Each came with their own form of monsters, and obstacles, to overcome. Like the coffin debacle, and that Rosalie’s weapons and armor had gone missing.
 
Hopefully forever. 
 
Not really, because she needed those, but damn, Zoey wasn’t going to be happy when she didn’t get to see that ass wiggling in front of her. She wanted so, so desperately to discover the sensation of burying herself into Rosalie, and feeling those soft cheeks pressing into her crotch, but while Zoey’s horniness levels had skyrocketed since her new addition between her legs, the urges were far from overwhelming, at least in a literal sense. She could control herself. She wasn’t some savage. She admired from afar.
 
But maybe someday …
 
A vine, thicker than the previous, drew Zoey’s attention as they slowly advanced down the hallway. It was laid out across the floor, from wall to wall, serving as a stumbling block. The strongest paranoia yet hit Zoey, the need to call out and warn Rosalie, who’d clearly seen it, but thought of it only as scenery, something to watch her footing for. Zoey bit her tongue.
 
Rosalie knew best. Right?
 
Rosalie stepped carefully across the thick protrusion, and Zoey felt silly, for a brief, ridiculous moment. She’d overreacted. Of course it was safe. What was it going to do, grab her and—
 
Then the vine shuddered, and Zoey barely made out what happened next. The vine came to life, snaking out and wrapping around Rosalie’s legs at thigh-level, securing her in thick, green loops, like an anaconda. Rosalie was swiped from her feet with barely time to squeak in surprise. She dangled from the ceiling, upside down, and in response, the mass of vines on the wall started to writhe and animate, heeding the incapacitation the larger, trap-vine on the floor had provided.
 
Oh, shit. Zoey hadn’t been paranoid; she’d been dead right.
 
Of course the dungeon they found themselves in wanted to molest them. It had crammed them in a coffin and forced Zoey to orgasm across Rosalie’s body as their very first obstacle, for god’s sake.
 
And while what was about to happen to Rosalie would be an amazing show, and something Zoey would have loved to see in an abstract sense, Zoey sure as hell wasn’t letting Rosalie just hang there and be groped by slimy vines. Not if she didn’t want it, at least. Which, knowing Rosalie, was definitely the case.
 
Not that she’d be getting out entirely unscathed. Zoey could only do so much, and the slimy green vines were on Rosalie in a blink. They wrapped around her torso, and her arms, further securing her in place, and the most enterprising of the bunch shoved itself into her mouth. 
 
At least her lower holes seemed to be spared, since the thick, securing vine had her thighs solidly shut.
 
Her tits and mouth, not so much. Rosalie thrashed about, trying to fight the vines off. Zoey finally startled into action; she was hardly some trained adventurer, and everything had happened in what felt like half a second.
 
Her arsenal of tools was small, but she could at least try.
 
An hour of practice was far from enough time to have become a proficient spellcaster, but she had at least some. She called forth that strange well of energy, then in some inexplicable way, activated her Rune of Arcana, calling forth a single circle: the fundamental unit of spellcasting.
 
Mentally drawing the swooping, interlocking diagram for a high-velocity ice spike in the way Rosalie had taught her, she flung out the first of her spells, aimed directly at the largest vine, the one that had Rosalie’s legs incapacitated.
 
It cut through green plant flesh with surprising efficacy. Two more spikes had the largest of the vines severed, and Rosalie thumping into the floor. The strength of the bindings at her legs now cut off, Rosalie’s thrashing gained purchase; the grip started to loosen at her thighs, and Zoey could hear the vines start to tear. Rosalie’s mouth was still occupied by a squirming occupant, and—Zoey paused in surprise. It was emptying some kind of fluid into her mouth. A translucent, pink material dribbled from her chin and out her nose. Based on the second, Zoey assumed the vine must be injecting its payload with no small amount of force.
 
Shit. That wasn’t something dangerous, right? Seeing how it was a trap, it couldn’t be pleasant. Zoey needed to get Rosalie out, like, now.
 
She almost slapped her forehead in realization, then genuinely despised herself for forgetting—again, she wasn’t some hardened veteran. She’d forgotten the other tool she had available.
 
Like she had once before in the coffin, Zoey pushed a surge of strength into Rosalie, utilizing their bond to Bolster her. 
 
Gaining newfound strength, Rosalie’s efforts finally yielded fruit; the vines at her thighs ripped, and her arms broke free from the smaller assaulters. She grabbed the vine squirming into her mouth and pulled it out, gasping air and hacking at the liquid in her throat and lungs, then crawled from her squiggling prison, Zoey assisting in dragging her to safety.
 
Rosalie collapsed back, and Zoey leaned over her, panicked and not sure what to do. Rosalie was hacking out whatever pink liquid her molesters had shoved down her throat.
 
“Are you good? Are you—shit, is that stuff dangerous? It’s not poison, right?” She felt incredibly useless, and fumed at herself for not doing more.
 
Ironically, or perhaps expectedly, Rosalie was calm despite the attack. She waved away Zoey’s concern, not able to talk as she gasped and coughed out liquid, but conveying with body-language that she was fine. It did a lot to assure her … but not entirely.
 
“It’s not poison,” Rosalie finally said when she could speak. She hacked between words. “This is only a first advancement shard. None of the traps are deadly.”
 
Zoey took the reassurance at face value, but she still had a bad feeling. “What’s it do, then?”
 
“Weakens me, at a guess. We’ll be finding out.” She cleared her throat for a tenth or eleventh time. Reluctantly, she said, “Thanks for the help.”
 
“I should’ve used Bolster as soon as you were snagged. I’m so stupid.” Maybe she’d have been able to tear herself out before the vine had gotten into her mouth, but Zoey’d been an idiot and hadn’t reacted in time.
 
Rosalie didn’t contradict her, but she didn’t seem to blame Zoey, either. “You’re new to delving. Mastering your panic is one of the hardest steps.” Rosalie wiped her hands down her chest, and they came back covered in clear liquid. Strands bridged from her hands to her breasts. “Gods, I’m covered in this stuff. I feel like I’ve been dumped in a tub of sap.”
 
Zoey’s panic finally settled, and she took in the nude woman covered head-to-toe in gooey lubricant. In the glinting light of the wall torches, it served as oil, turning her body glossy and very much something Zoey’s cock appreciated.
 
Ah, shit. 
 
Well, this was going to be a hard erection to explain.
 
Rosalie gave it one look, then shook her head in disgust. “Pervert.”
 
“I’m glad you’re fine,” Zoey said.
 
Rosalie huffed and forced herself to her feet. “It caught me off guard. It won’t happen again.” Her pride was stung that she’d fallen for the trap.
 
“I knew something was weird about those vines.”
 
“I suppose you did,” Rosalie said sourly.
 
A short silence, and given the proof she’d needed, Zoey chose to broach a topic she felt needed to be, however strange it might sound.
 
“I think the dungeon wants to get in our pants.” The euphemism felt silly considering their nakedness, but it felt better than saying ‘molest’ … or an even harsher term.
 
“Dungeon?” 
 
“Shard,” she corrected. The world was game-like, but they had their own specific terms. Not a dungeon, but a shard.
 
Rosalie was quiet for a bit. “You might be right. I’ve never heard of such a thing … but.” She bit her lip. “It might have to do with you.”
 
“Me?”
 
“Shards conform to their opposition. Seeing how your runes encourage …” Rosalie didn’t finish the thought. “It makes sense the shard latched to that, and is a pervert, too, now. I just … didn’t want to consider the possibility.”
 
Pervert, too? She’d been throwing that word around a lot. Zoey had hardly asked for any of this, okay? And getting an erection at a naked, drop-dead gorgeous girl covered in oil was far from a ‘perverted’ reaction. But Zoey had learned to take her licks. Rosalie was pleasant otherwise.
 
“Regardless,” Rosalie said. “Let’s keep it moving forward.”
 
Rosalie—and Zoey—eyed the mass of vines on the wall as they passed, but as soon as Rosalie had freed herself, the plants had reverted to their inert nature. They didn’t so much as twitch as they creeped by. 
 
They advanced down the hallway, quickly putting distance between them and the coffin-room. 
 
It didn’t take long for action to find them.
 
She heard the skittering of the creature before she saw it. Rosalie, of course, did as well. Her foot skidded back and she dropped into some form of combat stance—or what seemed to be so, based on Zoey’s amateur appraisal.
 
A knee-high, black-furred thing appeared around the corner, and spared not a moment to launch itself at Rosalie. Zoey, like previously, reacted with a delay, shocked despite her mental preparation for a fight. Because what the hell was that thing? Not that she’d expected some, she didn’t know, coherent animal like a dog or a cougar, seeing how she was in an alien world, but seriously. The squeal, the blur of black fur, and the way it threw itself forward with reckless abandon, freaked her the fuck out, okay?
 
This time, at least, Zoey activated Bolster immediately, feeling her energy reserves dip. 
 
Rosalie made short work of it. Zoey would’ve helped, but with Rosalie wrapped in a violent, lightning-fast struggle of flesh and fur, Zoey didn’t remotely trust herself to launch an ice spike and not cause collateral damage.
 
Rosalie didn’t need the help, anyway.
 
It was a nauseatingly violent affair, Rosalie’s killing of the monster, but what had Zoey expected? 
 
“Well,” Rosalie said when things had concluded, as she stared down at the beast that had been beaten into submission. “The shard’s only goal isn’t getting in our pants. It’s normal to some degree.”
 
“What a relief,” Zoey said dryly.
 
She had liked the vines better.
 
 
 
1.07  ❤❤ Under The Influence
 
 
 
Content Warning: Sexual acts performed under the influence of an aphrodisiac.
 
 
 
Rosalie was acting strange.
 
The culprit was obvious. Had Zoey really thought nothing would come from the pink liquid that had been shoved down Rosalie’s throat? It had been a trap. Traps didn’t imply nothingness when they succeeded.
 
“Are you sure you’re fine?” Zoey asked carefully, after the seventh time she caught Rosalie turning around and staring at her cock. She had effusively denied it each time, because Rosalie was Rosalie. She’d even denied that the liquid was having any effect, but the truth was plain as day.
 
An aphrodisiac. Rosalie had had a bucket of aphrodisiac injected into her stomach. And the effects were showing.
 
Which was a troubling realization. Zoey wouldn’t be taking advantage of the situation; that much was a given. Honestly, she didn’t think Rosalie would be yielding to the sensation, anyways. She was prideful like that. 
 
And repressed, more frankly. She’d never admit she wanted Zoey’s cock inside her. However many times she got distracted when she looked Zoey’s way, then had her eyes ensnared by the enormous, soft protrusion of girlmeat between her legs.
 
“Fine?” Rosalie asked, her cheeks flushed almost a crimson red—as they had been for the past ten minutes. “What do you mean? Please don’t tell me you’re still worried about the trap. Clearly, the liquid didn’t do anything. It would’ve shown by now.”
 
Uh-huh, Zoey wanted to say. Rosalie’s stalwart adherence to refusing to acknowledge that her skin and mind had been set aflame by a liquid influence would have been amusing—scratch that, was amusing, just concerning in equal measure—if not for how distracted she’d become. Seeing how they were working their way through a shard, where dangerous critters and traps lay at every corner, distractions were really not what they wanted, for safety’s sake. Zoey’s eyes certainly weren’t discerning enough to pick out suspicious features.
 
“Do we need to take a break? Let it wear off?”
 
“Let what wear off?”
 
“Rosalie. Please. Your face is red.” And you’re staring at my cock. Right now. As we speak.
 
Her hand fluttered to her face, as if to check the temperature of her cheeks, and she blinked. “No, it’s not.”
 
“Let’s take a break.”
 
“I’m fine. We’re continuing. But you can do as you want.” She wrenched her eyes from between Zoey’s legs, then turned forward and walked.
 
Why did this woman have to be so stubborn?
 
And the aphrodisiac was picking up potency. Rosalie’s steps grew less certain by the second; she seemed unsteady on her feet, which was unsettling to see, with how Rosalie normally moved like a predator, or if not that, a queen striding through her domain.
 
Zoey realized she needed to take executive command here. Rosalie’s brain wasn’t working how it should. She strode forward and grabbed Rosalie by the wrist. “We’re taking a break. I’m tired.”
 
“You’re tired?” she echoed.
 
Zoey needed to frame it as weakness stemming from her, not Rosalie. Rosalie would never admit to having anything resembling weakness. “Yes. I need to rest.”
 
Rosalie shook her head. “You’re trying to get me to stop. I’m not stupid. I’m fine. Let’s keep going.” She jerked her hand out of Zoey’s grip and continued forward.
 
Inflamed, Zoey jogged forward to spin around and intercept her—but she stumbled, foot snagging on a vine, and she sprawled forward onto the stone, elbows jarring as she landed.
 
Oh, crap.
 
The vine rippled to life, and barely a second passed before Zoey was wrapped in a slimy plant-embrace.
 
Except … rather than hanging her by her thighs in the air, the vines sucked her into the wall. The largest of the plants—what she had tripped over—encircled her by her stomach, pinning her into a mass of cold, lubricated plantlife.
 
But they made no move to shove down Zoey’s throat, or any of her other holes. Or even to molest her. They simply locked her in place, securing her arms, hands, and legs in various positions.
 
Rosalie stood there, blinking. Her reactions had been dulled by the aphrodisiac; she was reacting even slower than Zoey, by this point.
 
“You’re not supposed to go ahead of me,” Rosalie said. “That’s why.”
 
Zoey struggled against the vines, but if Rosalie couldn’t escape without help—despite having runes focused on empowering her body and reactions—then obviously Zoey found little success.
 
“Little help, here?” Zoey snapped. Why the hell weren’t they doing to her what they had to Rosalie?
 
Rosalie didn’t move. Zoey looked up from the green wrappings. Rosalie had an idle look on her face, and predictably, her eyes were locked to Zoey’s crotch, as they had consistently been for the past hour.
 
Zoey stilled, coming to a sudden understanding.
 
Step one: drug Rosalie.
 
Step two: capture Zoey.
 
Step three: see what happened.
 
Set them up, knock them down.
 
“Rosalie,” Zoey said carefully. “I need help.”
 
“Huh?” Rosalie replied idly. “You do? Why?” Her eyes didn’t move from her crotch. Zoey could see the slickness between her thighs.
 
“Please help me,” she said slowly. “I’m stuck, and you need to cut me out.”
 
Rosalie approached. Her eyes didn’t drift up to meet Zoey’s. Zoey’s stomach continued to sink.
 
Rather than moving to help her, Rosalie got down on her knees.
 
Zoey’s body reacted on its own. Having the worshiping gaze of a girl she’d been constantly fantasizing over locked to her cock didn’t give her much choice. Biological reactions didn’t care for context. Her aching girth didn’t care Rosalie wasn’t in her right mind. It saw a gorgeous girl staring with lust, and responded.
 
All fourteen inches expanded outward, and Rosalie stared in awe. Zoey saw the way her knees rubbed together, the way she lifted up and squirmed in her knelt-over position, idly trying to satisfy the burning heat between her legs. Zoey could imagine the need coursing through her; she’d been feeling that constantly since her strange transmigration through worlds, and Zoey wasn’t even egged on by an aphrodisiac.
 
“Why is it so big?” Rosalie asked. “And on a girl … why does a girl have such a giant cock between her legs?”
 
That subject hadn’t been brought up yet. Zoey had half assumed it must be normal in this world. But by the wonder in her voice, maybe not. Maybe Rosalie had simply had time to come to terms with the strange occurrence; she had been conscious for longer than Zoey in that coffin they’d shared. Maybe she had determined not to bring it up, to be considerate. Who knew?
 
“Rosalie.” This time, her name didn’t even pierce through the fugue. Zoey tried again. “Rosalie. Rosie.”
 
The nickname did the trick, and it even set the girl blinking. “Only my friends call me that,” she said absently. “I guess you can. I think I’d like to be your friend, when you have something like this between your legs.”
 
Rosalie reached out, but Zoey preempted her. “Don’t touch it.”
 
Rosalie paused. “You don’t want me to?”
 
“No.” Yes. A thousand times yes. But she wouldn’t give permission for Rosalie to go against her own right-mind; she’d made it clear she didn’t want to be involved with Zoey, and for all that her aching sex wanted Rosalie to play with it, Zoey wasn’t some savage. She cared much more about her partner’s mental well-being.
 
However much the way her cock jumping in rhythmic pulses would suggest otherwise, or the way Zoey couldn’t quite prevent her hips from wiggling side to side in anticipation.
 
“But …” Rosalie started, staring down. She leaned forward and opened her mouth, and it took everything Zoey had to not jerk her hips forward, to thrust her cock into the wet, open hole. Rosalie breathed hot, humid air onto her cock head, and the sensation was so incredible she started leaking precum. “I think … I think I’d like to, though.”
 
“No, you don’t.”
 
“Pretty sure I do,” Rosalie said. Her voice had affected a permanent idleness. Nothing she said came with anything less than with a dreamlike haze. Her lips hovered an inch away from Zoey’s cock. “Please?” she whispered, brushing hot air against Zoey’s member. “I can … I can make you feel good.”
 
“No.” She said it as firmly as she could. “I don’t want that.” It was the most blatant lie to ever escape her lips, and she hadn’t been some goody-two-shoes teenager, growing up. But maybe the refusal would save Rosalie from her own mistakes, from the altered state of mind she operated under.
 
Rosalie hesitated. Under any rational state, the words would have stopped Rosalie’s advances in their tracks.
 
But she was too far gone.
 
“How far do you think I can get?” Rosalie asked. “It’ll reach to my stomach if I go all the way down, won’t it? And when you cum, it’ll go straight in. Wow … I really want to see what that feels like.”
 
“Rosie,” Zoey said, trying the nickname a second time to grab her attention. It did little, so she tried again. Because Rosalie was leaning forward. “Rosie, don’t—”
 
Then her lips pressed into Zoey’s cock in a gentle kiss, and her head carried forward even further, splitting her plush lips open. A soft, warm, wet heat enveloped Zoey’s cock.
 
She’d done it. 
 
That was Rosalie’s wet tongue pressing on the lower half of Zoey’s cock.
 
Zoey’s head fell back as a groan escaped her, eyes fluttering closed.
 
Rosalie pushed her head further, and Zoey’s cock hit the back of her throat. Her tongue stroked playfully at the bottom of her shaft. 
 
“Fuck,” Zoey said. “You really shouldn’t … Rosie, this isn’t …”
 
Rosalie sucked, applying pressure, and Zoey’s protests were cut off with a moan. Rosalie pulled her head back, and Zoey’s hips bucked forward in anger, that she’d been suddenly deprived of her warm hole.
 
“You taste amazing,” Rosalie said breathlessly. “Everything I thought it would be.” She reached out and grabbed Zoey’s shaft, then slapped her face with the rod of girlmeat. Zoey sucked in a breath of air, and Rosalie grinned up at her. There was something wild in her eyes. Not a vacancy, like before, but as if the aphrodisiac had only brought her desires to the forefront, had stripped her inhibitions away, and now here Rosalie was, in her true, released nature. In fact, she sounded more lucid now than she had for the past hour. “I’ve always preferred girls, and you’re so my type … but the cock?” Rosalie ran a tongue across her length. The stroking of soft velvet lips was agony, and bliss. “Well. It’s everything I didn’t know I wanted.”
 
“R-Rosie,” Zoey said. “Don’t, don’t—”
 
“Oh, quiet, you. Your mana is running low, and I’m helping you stock up. Nothing more. Now … let’s find an answer to that question.”
 
Rosalie re-enveloped her cock with her mouth, and this time, instead of stopping when Zoey’s cock reached the back of her throat, she pushed forward, forcing Zoey’s member to bend, to accommodate entry. Then, bumping into the back of her mouth, into hot, slippery flesh, hitting that tight upper-seal.
 
Zoey’s hips moved by themselves. She shoved herself forward, cock piercing that tight ring and sliding into the long, spit-lubricated shaft of Rosalie’s throat. She whined in satisfaction, hips grinding side to side in pleasure. In Rosie’s throat. I’m in her throat.
 
‘How far do you think I can go?’ she had said. Zoey guessed they were finding that out together.
 
Rosalie reached out and grabbed Zoey’s ass, for purpose of leverage. She wiggled her head back and forth as she tried to get the huge blockage of girlmeat down deeper, further toward her stomach. Zoey wished she could help. Rosalie was really giving it her best effort, and Zoey would love to see if she could succeed. But her hands were—
 
The vines at her wrists released, freeing her arms.
 
Zoey didn’t even think about it. Her hands went to Rosalie’s platinum blonde hair, and she shoved her head down with all her strength.
 
Another two inches slid down Rosalie’s throat. Rosalie choked, throat spasming as she coughed and hacked at the unnatural entry. A bit of teeth scraped against skin, but Zoey didn’t mind. 
 
Rosalie didn’t pull back at the sudden force. Instead, the grip at Zoey’s ass grew stronger, and the failure—the embarrassment of choking—spurred Rosalie on. She shoved, and made it another inch down.
 
Only halfway. For anyone but Zoey, Rosalie would have her nose buried in the soft hair of her partner’s pubic hair. But for Zoey, she had so much further to go.
 
They worked together. Rosalie’s throat wasn’t conditioned for this, that much was obvious. And enthusiasm could only go so far. But combined with Zoey’s grunting, bucking efforts, the press of her hands into Rosalie’s soft, white-blonde hair, and Rosalie’s own gripping of Zoey’s ass and the shoving-down of her head, it finally happened.
 
Rosalie’s nose buried into Zoey’s pelvis..
 
More than the sensation, the sight of Rosalie’s pretty, watering, ice-blue eyes blinking up at Zoey in supreme satisfaction was what made her cock spasm in unexpected pleasure. The orgasm appeared all at once, nothing like the slow-build before. Zoey cried out in half-pain, half-pleasure as her girth spasmed in Rosalie’s throat. 
 
Zoey forced her eyes not to close—forced herself to hold eye contact with the pretty girl who had her nose buried in her pubic hair—while her cock erupted hot seed directly into her stomach. At the first spurt, Rosalie’s throat contracted and shivered, and her entire body heaved at the alien sensation of having hot fluid injected down fourteen inches of her throat. Her head drifted sideways as she became dizzy, but Zoey helped her out: she slammed Rosalie's head back down, reinstating the tight press of nose-into-crotch right as the second spurt erupted into her stomach.
 
Zoey stuffed Rosalie’s stomach full of life-giving white spunk, even as Rosalie’s eyes fluttered from lack of oxygen. She didn’t make an effort to pull back, despite starting to lose consciousness.
 
She’d be fine. Zoey kept going. Kept emptying herself. Rosalie had worked hard for this, and she deserved every drop. If she passed out, that was fine. Zoey wouldn’t stop until she’d been expended.
 
And eventually, she was.
 
The sensation of fourteen inches of cock sliding up and out of Rosalie’s throat was the best thing she’d ever felt, and the noise—the pop of cockhead separating from Rosalie’s lips—was the best sound she’d ever heard. A day of firsts for both of them.
 
Rosalie collapsed sideways, only half—a quarter—conscious from a lack of air. She gasped and choked as she lay on the floor, hacking out white, sticky seed, small portions of the buckets of semen Zoey had emptied into her, which her stomach couldn’t accommodate.
 
Finally, Rosie mumbled, “That was amazing …”
 
Then passed out.
 
###
 
When Rosalie stirred to consciousness, the aphrodisiac had worn off. Zoey was still hanging from the wall.
 
Rosalie pushed herself to a sitting position, confusion plain on her face as she blinked and took in her surroundings. She looked at the spit-soaked, now-soft member between Zoey’s legs, then how she still hung from the wall. Zoey waited quietly for her reaction. Now that the mind-erasing pleasure had racked through her body and passed, Zoey had come to terms with the situation. What had happened. That despite Zoey’s best efforts, Rosalie had been taken over by a chemical influence and done something she wouldn’t have otherwise. 
 
How would she handle that? Zoey wished she could have done more to prevent the situation, for all the bliss it had provided. She wished when the vines had released her arms, she hadn’t given in to the euphoria of the moment. Shame crawled in her stomach.
 
The distraught expression was only to be expected.
 
“Are you okay?” Zoey asked gently.
 
“Me? Am I okay? Oh my gods, what did I do to you? Zoey—”
 
“It’s fine,” Zoey said. 
 
“Fine? I—I—”
 
“You didn’t do anything to me,” Zoey said firmly. “I was hoping to snap you out of it. That’s why I said to stop. On my side, I’m perfectly happy with what happened.”
 
Rosalie reeled back. She blinked several times. 
 
“Are you okay?” Zoey repeated.
 
Rosalie’s brow furrowed down. “I’m—you’re really fine? I didn’t—?”
 
“No.”
 
Her body sagged in relief. She staggered to her feet. “Let’s get you out of there. I should have—I should have listened to you. To stop, take a break. Why am I so stubborn?” 
 
Despite having that exact thought, Zoey chose to reassure her. “You weren’t in your right mind. I’m sorry that happened to you. And I’m sorry I joined in.”
 
“It’s fine. I—” Rosalie paused, then scorched red. “Worse things could’ve happened,” she settled on. “Don’t … be upset. I’m not.”
 
So maybe neither of them were too unhappy about what had happened. Like Rosalie’s had a moment earlier, Zoey’s shoulders sagged in relief.
 
“I can’t believe I got all the way down,” Rosalie said.
 
Zoey blinked, and Rosalie flushed again—even though her previous hadn’t yet settled.
 
“I mean, I’m just saying. fourteen inches! Gods, have you seen that thing?” Rosalie wasn’t a person who rambled, but here she was, rambling. She rubbed at her throat. “Can’t believe it even fit. It’s like, the size of my fist. That pink liquid must have been more than an aphrodisiac. It had to have helped, somehow." Rosalie's hand went to her stomach. "And I’m so full … you shot so much into me, I can feel it sloshing around.”
 
Rosalie’s easily offered words did something to stir Zoey’s dormant cock, regardless of how it had just been sucked dry. “Well. You worked for it, so. Got everything you deserved.”
 
Rosalie stared at her.
 
“You’re disgusting,” she said. 
 
Zoey laughed.
 
Rosalie huffed, and a hint of a smile quirked her lips. She got to work peeling Zoey from the wall. The vines yielded with surprising ease.
 
 
 
1.08 Loot I
 
Zoey and Rosalie worked through the crumbling halls of the shard, avoiding traps and fighting off a variety of strange monsters. Eventually, they pushed through a thick pair of drooping double-doors, and into a room stuffed with boxes, weapon racks, and rusted suits of armor. Rosalie made a noise of appreciation.
 
“Loot,” she said. “It’s about time we bumped into some. Hopefully my armor’s here.”
 
The casual way the serious girl used the game-like terminology was still something Zoey hadn’t accustomed herself to. But when it was a fundamental aspect of her world, of course she didn’t think twice about using a word as normally relegated to video games as ‘loot’.
 
As for Rosalie’s armor being in this room … well, for all it would be practical, Zoey secretly hoped not.
 
At least they’d have weapons besides their fists, now. Not that Zoey would be using one. Rosalie had made it clear the only thing Zoey was allowed to do was stay back and sling ice spikes when she had the opportunity.
 
“You can tell the quality of items by the metal bands,” Rosalie said idly, gesturing at the side of the room, where a large, rusted chest sat between weapon racks. “Steel. So, uncommon. Better than copper, but not likely anything good. I told you the rarities, right?”
 
“Common, uncommon, rare, superior, and mythic.” The topic had been brought up when Zoey had asked what having a ‘mythic-tier’ rune meant, which apparently her Rune of Bonding was. Then again, of course the rune granted by a literal goddess was the best it got. “What kind of stuff is inside, usually?”
 
“Varies.” Rosalie delivered a harsh kick into the side of the chest, then danced backward. 
 
“Checking for mimics?” Zoey asked.
 
Rosalie blinked at her. “I thought your memories—” she shook her head. “No, clearly you’ve retained some basic information. Still, you remember mimics, but not runes? Or spells?”
 
Well. The mimic thing had been a joke, something that had escaped from her without her thinking too hard about what she was saying. And she only knew of mimics from osmosis of pop culture back on Earth. “I guess,” Zoey said, the real explanation obviously too tricky to get into—and Ephy had barred her from doing so, anyway. She’d rather not find out what happened when she ignored a goddess’s direct order.
 
“Hm.” Rosalie didn’t spend overmuch time reading into Zoey’s response, because why would she? “Well, let’s see what we’ve got.”
 
Zoey approached, leaning forward as Rosalie cracked open the chest, curious despite herself. Because while video games had never been too much of her thing, the idea of loot was … appealing, she guessed? Like opening a mystery box. It could be anything. 
 
The lid swung open, and …
 
A black void filled the interior. Rosalie didn’t seem surprised, but the sight gave Zoey pause. Why had she expected something normal? 
 
Rosalie reached in, rummaged for a second, then pulled out the first item their adventures had yielded: a small pouch of brown fabric, with about a fist’s size of material in it.
 
“Alchemy reagents?” Rosalie said. “What a droll start.”
 
“How can you tell?” She hadn’t looked inside the bag.
 
Rosalie gave her an odd look. “Inspect.”
 
Right. For the second time in as many minutes, Zoey’s brain was working rationally, instead of in the context of the magical world she found herself in. Not many things could be Inspected, but loot was explicitly one.
 
[Coruscant Flameroot, Powdered]: A fine, gritty substance useful in the preparation of potions that inflame or mute the senses.
 
“Inflame or mute the senses?” Zoey echoed.
 
“Is that what it says?”
 
“Huh? Yeah?”
 
“I’m not an alchemist,” she reminded Zoey. “The description for me is just, ‘a fine, gritty red substance used in alchemy’. Your Identify skill affords you more information.” Rosalie paused. “But … inflames the senses?”
 
“Like an aphrodisiac?”
 
They each paused at the reminder of what had happened earlier. Rosalie blushed and cleared her throat. “Reagents often have wide usage. But as one application, perhaps. It would be fitting of the shard’s theme to give us something like this.” She handed it to Zoey and brushed forward. “But I have no use for it. It’s yours.”
 
So Zoey got everything Rosalie didn’t want—the discarded, useless items. But she couldn’t really complain. Rosalie was the professional here, and the one doing all the hard work of clearing the shard. Zoey hadn’t had to grapple down furred monsters in a blur of limbs and claws. Wouldn’t have been able to, frankly, even with the spells she could now cast.
 
Using another of those strange abilities afforded to her, Zoey vanished the pouch into her inventory. So weird, she thought, staring at the empty space in her hand where the pouch had just been. Now it sat somewhere in the back of her mind, to be pulled out of pocket-space when she needed it.
 
Rosalie continued to withdraw items from the chest, pulling objects from the inky void, inspecting them, then either handing them off to Zoey, setting them to the side, or stashing them in her inventory. She commented on each. Many of the items were expected for a world running on RPG-like principles. Health potions, small weapons, rations (actually quite relevant; she was starting to get hungry), and other miscellanea.
 
Seeing Rosalie sort through the items popped a thought into her head.
 
“Hey, what’s in your inventory? From before, I mean.” Before the two of them had gotten into this mess.
 
“The shard emptied it. So nothing.”
 
“It can do that?”
 
“It took my armor and weapons,” she said dryly, “so why couldn’t it take my inventory?”
 
“I guess.” She’d assumed the dimensional space was sacrosanct, for some reason. “Is that common?”
 
“No. Nothing about you, this shard, or our circumstances is common, Zoey.”
 
Fair. “But you’ll be getting it back?”
 
“I hope. Presumably, worst-case, it’ll be as part of the boss loot.” Rosalie was quiet for a bit. “I, as most Wayfarers, kept almost every coin I owned in my inventory, so I really hope it’s not lost to the ether. That would be … unfortunate.”
 
“Huh,” Zoey said. “That sucks.” She sympathized. Rosalie had effectively had her bank account zeroed out, and with no guarantees it would be returned.
 
And hearing how coins were the dominant currency of this world, she briefly wondered what was awaiting her on the other side of this deadly complex of vines and stone. What was the technology level like? Were there other races? Elves and orcs or whatever? Goblins? Dragons? Just how game-like were they talking, here? How fantasy inspired? She guessed she’d be finding out sooner or later, but now wasn’t the time to broach the subject. If ever. It would be hard to ask questions like that without Rosalie becoming suspicious about her ‘memory-issues’.
 
The next item Rosalie pulled out was a small wooden box. She cracked it open, and her brow furrowed down. Zoey leaned over to see what had prompted the confusion.
 
She blinked.
 
[Coldsteel Adornments]: Rare. Six pairs of two, growing in size, to accommodate the most and least adventurous. Effects active only when both are in use.
 
Nestled in folds of black cloth were six pairs of steel buttplugs.
 
Zoey started laughing. She couldn’t help herself. Half from surprise, half from—well, because it was fucking funny. What the hell?
 
“What?” Rosalie asked. “Why are you laughing? I don’t get it. Is it … jewelry? ‘Most and least adventurous’?”
 
Zoey slunk to the ground as her body racked with laughter. The fact Rosalie was blinking at the sex toys cluelessly made the whole thing even funnier. “Oh my god, that’s so amazing.”
 
“What? Explain!”
 
“Jewelry … it definitely is, for a sense of the word …” she barely managed to wheeze out.
 
“Explain.” Rosalie stamped her foot in an uncharacteristically petulant manner. She seemed highly displeased that Zoey knew what was going on and she didn’t. “Zoey! How are they ‘jewelry of a kind’? Stop laughing.”
 
“It’s where they go. It’s … non-traditional jewelry. Slightly more intimate than most.”
 
She looked down at the box, pausing at Zoey’s description. Realization dawned—or a suspicion, at least—and she gently placed the box down on the floor, then slid it over to Zoey with her foot.
 
“I am appalled,” Rosalie said simply. “Clearly, these belong to you, and your disgusting class.”
 
Zoey’s laughter resurfaced, which was a shame, because she’d finally started to calm down.
 
“It doesn’t say what the effects are,” Zoey said once she’d regained control. “Is that normal?”
 
“Most artifacts take experimentation to discover their full use. The Inspect skill only assists.”
 
“Huh,” Zoey said. “So. Wanna find out, then? Only works in pairs.”
 
Rosalie didn’t dignify the question with a response. Zoey had only suggested it to tease; obviously Rosalie wouldn’t be doing that.
 
Though she admitted she was curious, now … what did the toys do? Something combat related? It would need to be a pretty big benefit to justify getting into a fight with a steel plug shoved up her butt. That couldn’t be comfortable. Or conducive to movement.
 
She tucked the item away into her inventory, to be dealt with later.
 
Rosalie pulled out three bottles of clear liquid next, and disdain twisted her face a half second later. Zoey’s giggling picked back up, because she could guess what they were—but she checked with Inspect to verify.
 
[Bottle of Lubricant]: Thick and long-lasting. Apply water to wash away.
 
“How considerate,” Zoey grinned. She looked up at the ceiling and pressed her hands together in a praying gesture. “Thank you, Miss Shard-Overlord. I’ll put it to good use.”
 
“What in the world are you doing?”
 
“Thanking our generous benefactor.”
 
Rosalie made a noise of disgust and tossed the bottles at her, which Zoey fumbled, then vanished into her inventory. Rosalie reached back into the chest.
 
And it kept getting better.
 
This time, she pulled out actual jewelry—one that didn’t stretch the definition of the word (and stretch some other things along with it).
 
But …
 
[Nipple Rings of Alacrity]: Rare. Engraved with two unidentified effect sigils.
 
“You’re kidding me,” Rosalie said. “Rare equipment, and it’s, it’s, it’s this?”
 
Zoey grinned, but didn’t tease. “How do you ‘identify’ the sigils? You said, experimentation?”
 
“Can provide an idea, if the effects are noticeable. But taking them to an artificer is better practice. Especially because not all effects are friendly. We’ll want to identify almost everything through an artificer—item descriptions aren’t necessarily trustworthy.” She was holding the thin silver studs by her fingertips, and away from her body, as if they were poisonous. Rosalie’s discomfort with the items continued to be hilarious.
 
“It’s a shame neither of us are pierced,” Zoey said. “We’ll have to get that done once we make it to safety.”
 
Rosalie raised her eyebrows Zoey’s way. “First, that certainly will not be happening, and second, that ‘we’ of yours is highly prospective.”
 
“Prospective? Sorry?”
 
“You’re implying we’ll stay a party after I’ve escorted you to a city.”
 
“Oh,” Zoey said.
 
That had been a quick way to bring her mood crashing down. Because yeah, she’d kind of assumed that, even though Rosalie had, earlier, told her there was no such guarantee. Rosalie had goals—real ones—and Zoey’s incompetence was only partially made up for by her supposedly powerful abilities.
 
“Right,” Zoey said.
 
Rosalie seemed vaguely upset by Zoey’s reaction, or that she had brought it up in the first place, but she didn’t retract the statement. She focused back on the task at hand: emptying out the chest.
 
 
 
1.09 ❤ Shameful Confessions
 
Zoey had never been a person to sulk, so Rosalie’s less-than-encouraging statement didn’t keep her stuck in the mud for long. If anything, it let Zoey know that she needed to be putting greater effort in. That if she wanted Rosalie as a long-term addition to this adventure, Zoey needed to take the serious side of her lewd transmigration more … well, seriously.
 
And she wanted that. To have Rosalie by her side for the extended future. A surprising amount. The reminder that Zoey couldn’t, in fact, take that for granted had her looking at Rosalie in a new light. And Zoey had already had a high opinion to begin with. 
 
Rosalie’s companionship was the kind that had to be earned. Not as a prize, a reward, because that was a gross way to view it, but because effort deserved effort, goodness goodness, and so on, and Rosalie had gleaming qualities pouring from her in droves. Sure, she could be snippish, and she might be drowning in denial when it came to a few matters of the heart (in a less-than-appropriate sense of ‘matters-of-the-heart’), but that was where Zoey’s complaints ended, really.
 
They hacked their way through the stone and vine-infested interior of the shard, slaying monsters, avoiding traps, and clearing rooms—armed with weapons, now, which did wonders for Rosalie’s already-competent fighting skills—and eventually they emerged from the crumbling cathedral and out into a twilit forest.
 
Zoey had been briefly confused, wondering whether they’d escaped the shard, but Rosalie had shaken her head and explained plenty of shards progressed in aesthetics; they’d simply entered the next ‘phase’, for lack of a better word. They set off down a beaten footpath which winded between crooked trees. Leaves rustled in the wind, providing an ambience that was a nonsensical mix between eerie and calming. The breeze set a chill on her skin that gave the two of them a legitimate reason for wanting clothes, beyond modesty. Goosebumps were set prickling as they plodded down, seeking the exit of the shard. And presumably, whatever boss monster lay in wait, guarding it.
 
Zoey asked Rosalie how she knew which way to go, and she responded that she didn’t, not for certain, but that the obvious paths were more often the correct one. Seeing how there was a whole pocket-dimension to explore, if that maxim hadn’t held true, simply finding the boss would take an unreasonable amount of time. So, the dirt path that winded from the cathedral’s entrance was the obvious candidate.
 
Rosalie’s sharp senses noticed the sound of moving water before Zoey's did. She steered them off the path, taking a detour. They picked across felled logs and sunk their toes into the dark, moist loam of the forest—had it rained recently?—before bumping into their destination: a burbling hot springs which probably didn’t make logical sense for its existence, but hey, incoherent pocket dimension, remember?
 
Steam wafted from the pool. At the edge—the deep end, it seemed—a waterfall pounded into the water, throwing up sprays of mist. Rosalie seemed especially happy to have been given an opportunity to clean herself off. Zoey considered asking whether it could be a trap, but Rosalie didn’t seem concerned, and this wasn’t like the vine situation; she trusted Rosalie knew what was going on.
 
Rosalie sank into the warm water, step by step, body quickly obscuring as she walked into the steam. Zoey followed after her. It was, unsurprisingly, hot. It took a second for her to adjust to the warmth, but once she had, the heated water coaxed out the exhaustion and tension from the previous several hours. She tossed handfuls of water into her face and hair, then scrubbed, working out the grime that had collected, then afterward, dug under her nails to clean those out, too. Rosalie was doing similar.
 
After the practical matters had been attended to, they simply relaxed. Rosalie waded out to underneath the waterfall and let the water pour over her. Zoey didn’t think hot springs usually had waterfalls feeding them, but she’d seen, and would be seeing, a lot stranger in the coming … god, how many years of her life? How long would she be here? In this world? She didn’t want to mentally delve into those topics yet, so she shied away and let herself be distracted by more attention-grabbing matters.
 
Like Rosalie. The outline of her back, and her long platinum hair that dipped into the water and splayed out, normally reaching all the way to her lower back. She’d complained about not having something to tie it with; it had been annoying for her to handle during her fights. It was an otherwise impractical aspect to a strictly practical girl. Zoey suspected she was fond of it. For good reason. It was gorgeous. Everything about Rosalie was gorgeous.
 
"I can feel you ogling, you know."
 
Zoey started in surprise. Rosalie continued to demonstrate an awareness of her surroundings that bordered on the supernatural. Considering the world Zoey found herself in, it might be just that: supernatural.
 
"Not ogling," Zoey said. "I'm just wondering how you're so pretty." 
 
The words surprised her as much as they did Rosalie, who turned and blinked at her. Her cheeks colored, and she looked back forward. "Pretty. That's not the compliment you think it is."
 
"You'd rather me say 'dangerous'," Zoey said, knowing Rosalie in at least some small way, by now. "Or 'regal'. Deadly as you are elegant. Those are all true, too. But pretty is the word that popped in my head."
 
The waterfall pounded against the pool, filling the silence that was Rosalie’s response, and Zoey hesitated, wondering whether she'd been too direct.
 
But Rosalie finally huffed. "And what, exactly, has prompted this barrage of flattery?"
 
There wasn't annoyance in her tone, which spurred Zoey on. "I don't know. Just wanted to say it. I don't have much of a filter."
 
"That much is apparent."
 
Zoey waded forward. Rosalie didn't turn, though she definitely heard the sloshing water as she closed the distance. Zoey took that as good news—that she hadn't been told to stop.
 
Arriving behind Rosalie, she reached out and took long locks of platinum hair in her hands. Rosalie's hair was wet, darker than normal, but still silky, pale, and gorgeous. She played with it for a bit, running her fingers through and separating tresses, squeezing water out as she traced gently down the length. She was surprised Rosalie let her.
 
"Long hair's always felt like too much of a hassle," Zoey murmured. "But when I see yours, I get the point. Makes me want to grow it out."
 
Rosalie turned, and Zoey let the platinum locks slide from her hands. Rosalie wore a perplexed expression, and she studied Zoey. "What are you doing?"
 
"Sorry?" Zoey was a bit distracted by the six or more inches of height she had over the shorter girl. And the intensity of her eyes, capturing her like they had every time before. Everything about her is heart-stopping. How is it fair?
 
Rosalie blushed, then looked away. "Stop looking at me like that."
 
Zoey blinked. She'd accidentally won a staring contest, lost in Rosalie’s eyes. "Sorry." She didn't know what she was apologizing for, but it felt like she'd been caught doing something inappropriate.
 
A short silence.
 
Rosalie huffed. "Fine."
 
"Fine?"
 
Rosalie grabbed Zoey's hand, and the two of them waded back to the shallow end. "It's really obvious. I'd rather you just ask, next time. Not all this nonsense."
 
"Ask what?" Zoey hadn't a clue what was going on.
 
"You need relief. That's why you said all that embarrassing stuff, and why you're acting like this." Rosalie pointedly didn't make eye contact as she dragged Zoey along. "Normally I don't suffer sycophants, but I suppose you're my responsibility. So fine."
 
"I didn't call you pretty because I wanted in your pants," Zoey said amusedly. "I told you, I just wanted to say it."
 
They were almost out of the spring now, and Rosalie's gorgeous, dripping body revealed itself bit by bit, no longer obscured by the steaming water. What Rosalie had implied hit her, suddenly. 'Fine'? 'Relief'? As in … she's going to help me?
 
That hadn't been Zoey's intention at all, but her lower half wasn't displeased with the development.
 
"I guess I'll start being more vocal," Zoey said with a grin, and a quickly growing member. "Who would've thought calling you pretty would get you going so fast?"
 
"I'm not 'going', thank you." She sniffed, and Zoey could make out the deep flush even from behind, splashes of red coloring the tops of her shoulders. "This is your problem. I'm just helping solve it."
 
"Sure," Zoey said, smirking. "Want me to keep laying them on? Should I say how you move like nobody I've ever seen? That such an intimidating, deadly-looking girl has no right having such soft, cute curves? That your eyes literally turn my brain off? Or how about—"
 
"Shut up. What's g-gotten into you?"
 
"No way." Zoey laughed, the stutter somehow the funniest thing she'd heard all day. "You do, don't you? You have a praise kink. That's so—"
 
Zoey's teasing was cut off with a gasp, as Rosalie turned on her. "Ah," she said. "I figured out how to turn the nonsense off. Thank the heavens."
 
Her slim hand stroked up and down Zoey's length, derailing her train of thought. 
 
"Really," Rosalie said. "I already told you I'd help. What was all that for?"
 
"M-Meant it," Zoey gasped between strokes. “You’re gorgeous. Stunning. And more than that, good-hearted, caring, beautiful inside and out. Y-you, you’re, ahh—fuck me.” Her ability to string together sentences frayed as Rosalie picked up her pace, and a second hand joined the first, determinedly attempting to shut Zoey up. But she wouldn’t be defeated so easily. “I barely know you, but every minute in your company, my opinion—my opinion—” she panted as her stomach squirmed with pleasure, “s-shit, that’s, that’s so—keep going like that, I—” Zoey whined, hips bucking into Rosalie’s hands, then forced herself to focus. “My opinion of you goes higher,” she finished. “I’m glad I met you.”
 
“Is this a confession?” 
 
Zoey couldn’t make out the expression in Rosalie’s eyes. Their gazes hadn’t separated for a second, and the intoxicating eye-contact amplified the feeling of Rosalie’s encouraging strokes to an almost painful degree.
 
“No,” Zoey said. “I’m not saying I’ve fallen for you. Just that it'd be easy.” Too easy.
 
Rosalie’s hands worked down her length, then back up, over and over. The smaller girl was shockingly composed, for so normally being a disaster when it came to intimate matters. The situation with the vines must have closed that gap, and in no small way. She studied Zoey with a blank look on her face, and Zoey wondered if she was being too honest. But her brain wasn’t working like it should. Rosalie’s soft, powerful hands were coaxing out sentences she would normally have been more discretionary with.
 
“It’d be easy?” Rosalie said quietly. “To fall for me?”
 
“I think it would,” Zoey replied.
 
For close to a minute, only the lewd whines of Zoey’s pleasure filled the air.
 
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Rosalie finally said. “Now get down. We don’t have all day, and we’ll need to clean up once we're done.”
 
Rosalie guided Zoey to the floor, then pushed her down so she was splayed out, half-leaned up by her elbows. Rosalie climbed on her lap and continued stroking, but now with her body supported by Zoey’s thighs. Her crotch pressed into the base of Zoey’s cock. It was a highly compromising position. 
 
“You have lubricant, don’t you?” Rosalie asked. Her voice—and posture—was still all business. Only the red on her face, and the wetness between her thighs, betrayed her inner emotions. Zoey’s words had affected her. But in what way … well, Zoey wasn’t sure, yet.
 
But she’d only said the truth. So, however it worked out—at least she had that.
 
And her brain was occupied with other matters. She could only stave off the lust for so long. She’d said her piece, so now it was time to enjoy Rosalie’s help.
 
Summoning that bottle of lubricant she’d acquired from earlier, Zoey poured the slick clear liquid onto the top of her cock, and Rosalie got to work rubbing her hands into it, spreading the slippery stuff. Zoey watched Rosalie stare intently as she worked away. There was something predatory, hungry, in her eyes. Her mouth had fallen open, lips parted in absent concentration.
 
“Do you …” Rosalie started, then cut off.
 
“Do I what?” 
 
Rosalie bit her lip. She was still staring at her cock, and not Zoey. “Do you want to … use my chest?”
 
Zoey blinked rapidly.
 
“I’ll squeeze them together, like this.” Rosalie stopped stroking to press her tits together. “You can go between them. Um. If you want.”
 
A beat of silence, then Zoey leaned up. Rosalie squeaked in surprise as her seat tipped her over, and she fell into the grass. Zoey climbed over her, taking Rosalie’s offer, and with shaking hands guided her cock to her sternum, just beneath her breasts. Zoey wasn’t the only one whose composure had frayed; Rosalie panted in excitement, and she squeezed her tits together, shaping Zoey’s new plaything. Zoey thrust into it. Her cock, thoroughly covered in lubricant, slid easily between the excruciatingly soft, pressed-together skin. 
 
The friction, and pressure, wasn’t as gratifying as Rosalie’s powerful hands, but the idea it was Rosalie’s tits she had her cock stuffed between, that Rosalie had been the one to suggest this lewd act, made up the deficiency. The feeling wiped away her thoughts, and her consciousness distilled down to the slide of her pulsing meat between Rosalie’s tits. She humped away awkwardly, supporting herself by her hands and her crotch resting on Rosalie’s stomach, pistoning her hips in long strokes. With her impressive length, she bumped her cockhead into Rosalie’s chin with every back and forth.
 
Rosalie leaned her head forward, and the next stroke had her cock impacting her soft, rosy lips. They parted, and Zoey’s cock pierced into her wet mouth—then popped out with the back-stroke. Rosalie leaned her head in further, and when she caught Zoey next, Zoey managed to work into a rhythm where she was thrusting both between Rosalie’s soft, pressed-together breasts, and inside Rosalie’s wet, welcoming mouth, tongue teasing circles around her cockhead.
 
“You want to know what I think?” Zoey panted between lewd jerks of her hips. The words came unbidden, spilling from her mouth without a thought. “What I think, Rosie, is that for all your denials, all that prim and proper posture, you like this. Being used. Servicing me. Your tight, fuckable body, doing whatever it can to milk out pleasure.” 
 
She watched for Rosalie’s reaction, but Zoey had gotten it right. There was no outrage in the husky lust descending into her eyes. Zoey’s demeaning words had stirred something in her. Rosalie’s head continued to bob, mouth latched to her cock, awkwardly meeting Zoey’s pistoning as she thrusted between her tits. 
 
“What I think,” she continued gruffly, emboldened by the lack of protest, “is that a certain gorgeous princess has been caged up too long. That she’s gotten used to respect. To people walking on eggshells.” Zoey pulled out of Rosalie’s mouth, and her tits, then shuffled down so she could lean and murmur into her ear, “and that really, she just wants to be called what she is.”
 
“And that is?” Rosalie’s breathless response came, mouth no longer occupied.
 
Zoey’s spit-and-lubricant covered cock pulsed against Rosalie’s stomach, scalding both their skin. “A fucktoy,” Zoey whispered, lips not an inch from her ear. “A cock-hungry slut. A girl who wants nothing more to be stuffed. Filled up. Who knows why she’s been given so many soft curves, and wet, warm holes.”
 
“That’s not true,” Rosalie said huskily, “That's not … who I am …”
 
She sounded doubtful. 
 
Zoey’s hand slid down Rosalie’s stomach, and to between her legs. Rosalie’s hips bucked of their own accord, pressing her pussy into Zoey’s hand, seeking pressure. 
 
“Your body,” Zoey murmured in Rosalie’s ear, “is the more honest participant.” She rubbed tight, hard circles into Rosalie’s pussy, amazed at just how wet she was, and how instantly her fingers were drenched. Rosalie writhed under her. “So,” she whispered, “here’s your chance.” Her index and ring finger played between Rosalie’s lower lips, teasing entry. “Tell me what you want, that’s it, and you’ll get it.”
 
Rosalie’s hips tried to buck into Zoey’s hand, to penetrate herself with Zoey’s fingers, but Zoey had expected it, and her hand danced back. Zoey laughed softly into her ear. “Nice try. Say it. That’s the only way.” She rubbed smaller circles into her entrance, on the very edge of slipping in, but not. She could tell by the way Rosalie was whining the sensation was killing her. The expectation. The need.
 
“Nothing to say,” Rosalie finally gasped. “Not sure, ahh, what you’re talking about.”
 
“Come on, now,” Zoey tutted. “It’s just us here. Alone. No one to hear. It’ll be our secret. So please. Listen to what this,” she pressed the base of her palm into Rosalie’s core, wrenching a groan from Rosalie, and another writhing of her pelvis, “is telling you.”
 
Zoey continued to tease, and finally:
 
“Fine. D-Do it. I, I need you to, to—” she couldn’t finish.
 
“To do what?” Zoey asked sweetly.
 
“Make me feel good.”
 
“How?”
 
“Zoey, please. Your fingers. Fuck me. Fill me up.”
 
“And who’s asking? Is it my little fucktoy?”
 
“Zoey.”
 
“Answer me.”
 
“Yes. Fine. Okay? It’s your f-fucktoy. Your cock hungry whore. Your stupid slut is begging to feel good. Okay?” Her lower half thrashed desperately for relief. “So please. Help her. She wants to cum. She wants it so badly.”
 
“That wasn’t hard, was it?” Zoey sank her middle two fingers into Rosalie’s begging heat.
 
This, at least, Zoey wasn’t an amateur at, as with the new equipment between her legs. Zoey had always preferred girls, so she’d picked up a thing or two. She explored Rosalie’s insides, noting which movements caught her breath, which ones had her hands scrambling at the grass for something to hold on to, where curling her fingers had Rosalie’s toes doing the same.
 
She made sure to be mean about it. She didn’t offer relief quickly. Despite how little they’d done, Rosalie was already riding the edge of a crashing, pulsing orgasm, but Zoey knew the signs well enough to keep Rosalie on the edge of bliss, but not send her crashing over. She whined and protested, knowing what Zoey was doing, but when her hand came down to find relief herself, Zoey swatted it away. The second time, Zoey threatened to stop. So Rosalie was forced to endure.
 
And she endured. Until she couldn’t.
 
Her begging turned pitiful.
 
“Please. Zoey. Let me. I’m so close. Please. It’s, it’s right there. I want to feel good. Let me come. Please. Please. I need to. I need to. Fuck. Zoey. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” 
 
Zoey could hear the tears in her eyes, the burning frustration of being denied something she so desperately needed. 
 
“Okay. But it’s only fair if you do something for me, in return.”
 
“Anything. Anything.”   
 
“I want you to be honest with yourself.”
 
“How? I, I will. Just, please, let me—”
 
“Shhh.”
 
Rosalie went quiet, besides the panting and whining.
 
“You’ve been stealing looks,” Zoey said. “It’s not very subtle. You’re obsessed, aren’t you? Maybe I have an ego … I want you to tell me what you think of it.”
 
“What?” 
 
“Put it into words. And you’ll finally get relief.” Zoey curled her fingers to emphasize her point, drawing a gasp from Rosalie.
 
“I c-cant. Too, too embarrassing …”
 
“Then I guess this is where it ends.” Zoey’s fingers slid from inside Rosalie, trails of her arousal bridging from her fingers.
 
“No,” Rosalie burst out. “No. Keep going. I will.”
 
She resumed. “So?”
 
“What do you want me to say?”
 
“Just be honest.”
 
“But. I don’t know. Fuck. It’s, it’s perfect. Obviously. I wanted it inside me the moment we met. I want it in me now. It’s so big. It would hurt. I want it to hurt. For it to barely fit. For me to stretch around you. To feel every inch. To be full. For, for you to, oh my gods, oh my gods, it’s, it’s—” Rosalie’s hands scrambled madly at the grass, tearing up clumps and digging into the soft dirt. 
 
Zoey thrusted her fingers in and out as fast as she could, the time for playful subtlety gone. Intensity. That was all that mattered. Building higher, going faster. Zoey used the thumb of her free hand to rub at Rosalie’s clit as she thrusted two fingers in and out, filling the air with lewd, messy sounds. Rosalie whined and cried, her needy pussy spasming around Zoey’s fingers, and her stomach shaking, her entire body shaking. 
 
To Zoey’s surprise, Rosalie kept going—kept rambling on, fulfilling Zoey’s earlier request. “I want you to shove into me, to not care. To use me. To use my hole. To treat me like the s-slut I am. To be yours. For you to make me yours. To bend me over, fuck me, use me, fill me up, stuff me with your hot seed, breed me, whenever you want, yours. Yours. Your object. Fuck. Please. Please.” 
 
Her words were losing coherency, more shaking and stuttering than not, and the intensity of the orgasm wracking her body had brought tears to her eyes; she sobbed between demeaning statements, the pleasure having reached such an unbelievable high her brain had stopped being able to deal with it. She writhed, sobbed, gasped, shook, and clenched around Zoey’s fingers, spasming from relief.
 
Her hands shot up, grabbing at Zoey's wrist, and knees clamping closed, begging her to stop. She finally acquiesced. Her fingers slid from her twitching pussy, trailing arousal. Rosalie sagged into the dirt. 
 
Zoey kissed her way up her body, stopped with a gentle one on her cheek, wiped the tears from her eyes, and said, “I'm taking it you liked that.”
 
 
 
1.10 Coming Down
 
Rosalie lay next to her odd companion, heart finally slowing from its gallop, panting receding, and her brain returning to its better senses.
 
Mind no longer foggy from lust, several realizations dawned on her.
 
First, that the absolutely wicked things Zoey had done with her hands, the pleasure that she’d coaxed out of Rosalie’s begging lower half, had been almost unbelievable. That if Rosalie hadn’t seen Zoey’s tabula anima herself, hadn’t seen the listing of all the skills available to her, then Rosalie would be completely convinced that the dark-haired girl had had help, that her fingers had been aided by some gods-granted ability.
 
But they hadn’t. She was just skilled. She knew how to turn Rosalie into a puddle of melting pleasure with just her fingers and some taunting words. It was a terrifying realization—the realization how desperately Rosalie wanted to explore that capability of her companion. Thoroughly. Again and again. 
 
But that desire was precluded by the second discovery that fell upon Rosalie:
 
She could never look Zoey in the eyes again.
 
The things she’d said. The words that had been forced out of her. The honesty behind them. 
 
She was mortified. Beyond mortified. There wasn’t a word for it. Rosalie had never used such vulgar language in her entire life. And directed at herself? 
 
‘Fucktoy’? ‘Cock-hungry whore’?
 
Such degenerate phrases had never even graced the ears of the youngest heiress of the d’Celestin family. And Rosalie had been the one to say them. To mean them.
 
Her reputation was forever marred, regardless of whether it reached the light of day. And Zoey’s eyes weren’t the only Rosalie could never meet again. Her father’s, her sisters’, even Rosalie’s own gaze she wouldn’t be able to meet in the mirror.
 
‘Breed me’?
 
Rosalie had instructed another woman to breed her. As if she were some object. Some conquest. A collection of holes to be used as she desired. 
 
The concept was ludicrous. How had it happened? How had Zoey extracted those insulting words from Rosalie’s lips? And with such ease?
 
Rosalie knew how. She remembered the crashing waves of pleasure, the hungry need she’d never—not once—in her life felt. Not to that quantity. Not to that overwhelming, mind-erasing height.
 
Zoey shifted, and Rosalie, still wrapped in her embrace, jostled too. Her radiating heat—the soft curves pressing into Rosalie—was intoxicating. Skinship had never been something Rosalie was afforded. Not a d’Celestin. The royal family of the Deepshunter Guild was focused even by Wayfarer standards; Rosalie had known little comfort in her years, and never so easily offered as by the woman nestled into her side.
 
Partially, of course, because most would never dare. Should Father have seen how Zoey had treated her in this exchange, he’d employ brilliant minds from the Fractures over to invent a horrible retribution, something never before seen and which would live in infamy. Rosalie had been blatantly, painfully off-limits from the moment she’d started drawing suitor’s eyes.
 
Which was fine. Rosalie had a purpose, and romance was not it.
 
Perhaps that was why the indulgence had been so intoxicating.
 
How … those words had slipped from her mouth.
 
Been coaxed and pulled from her mouth.
 
“Not to be pushy,” Zoey mumbled into Rosalie’s ear, the intimacy of her proximity sending shivers down her spine. “But I kinda stopped halfway to take care of you.”
 
Take care of her. Zoey had certainly done that. She’d been melted down and reformed in powerful hands. In the curling, encouraging motions of fingers as they explored Rosalie’s insides.
 
The rest of what Zoey had said hit her. ‘Stopped halfway’. Zoey had been thrusting between her breasts, and into her mouth, when she’d pulled away to coerce Rosalie into saying the most embarrassing sentences she’d ever uttered—or had even passed her mind.
 
She wanted Rosalie to finish her off.
 
That emanating, scalding heat pressed against her stomach, Zoey spooning her like she was, was her cock draped across Rosalie’s stomach. And it wasn’t from a friendly interest. Rosalie’s eyes flicked down, taking in the enormous girlcock laid across her.
 
Her heart rate picked up.
 
“Rosie?” Zoey murmured.
 
Rosalie realized she hadn’t responded. But how could she? How could she ever speak again? After what Zoey had heard escape her lips?
 
What did she think of her, now? Not that a member of the d’Celestin family cared for the opinions of nobodies, and that was what Zoey was, truth told, but the concept still pained her. As a matter of her birthright, Rosalie always presented a solid appearance of herself. It was the one thing that mattered as much as competence, in the eyes of the d’Celestin family. Ability, reputation. The pillars on which Rosalie’s life rested.
 
And now, the second—reputation—lay toppled, crumbling. 
 
Your stupid slut is begging to feel good. She wants it so badly. Please. Please.
 
Rosalie thought she might heave.
 
“Hey,” Zoey said softly. Her hand brushed away a strand of Rosalie’s hair, and Rosalie realized just now that her eyes had squeezed shut. “Did I go too far? How are you?”
 
The gentle concern washed through Rosalie, and she breathed in—and it caught in her throat.
 
“Ah, shit,” Zoey said. “I did, didn’t I? I thought you were having fun.”
 
Rosalie had been having a lot more than fun. The concept of ‘Rosalie d’Celestin’ hadn’t even existed—what had been in its place was a sludge of hot, burning plasma, a thing that was almost a sentient being, but only wanted and needed and formed no true rational thoughts.
 
“I’m fine,” Rosalie said. Her voice was locked with ironclad control. She knew how to be composed in face of anything. Terror, excitement, pain—she’d be trained for it from a startlingly young age.
 
She made an addendum. But not pleasure. The opposite. The deprivation, perhaps, worked against her.
 
Zoey’s soft lips pressed into Rosalie’s neck, then another kiss, just beneath her jaw. Rosalie couldn’t help the way her neck craned, opening up the space—such an indecorous permission, and offered without thought. This is the problem.
 
“We all say stupid shit when we’re about to come,” Zoey said, amusement lacing her tone, as if this were some joke. “And I bullied it out of you, so you can’t be blamed.”
 
She knew exactly the source of Rosalie’s distress. But of course she did. After what she’d done? Pretty obvious.
 
And for all the reassurance, Rosalie doubted most people stooped to the level Rosalie had, said the things she did, regardless of how lost in the moment they were. Even if they did, how ‘most people’ acted didn’t matter. Rosalie wasn’t most people. Couldn’t be. She was held to higher standards.
 
And had fallen lower, regardless.
 
“Seriously,” Zoey said. “If you keep pouting, I will start showering you in compliments. I’ll be super embarrassing about it, over the top as possible.”
 
Rosalie’s eyes flicked open. For a brief moment they caught Zoey’s—from so up close, those deep green irises bored into her—before Rosalie glanced away, as if burned. Because there wasn’t any judgment there. Only teasing amusement. Which didn’t make sense.
 
She leaned up, extricating herself from Zoey’s grasp. “Let’s get you taken care of. We need to keep moving.”
 
“Nope,” Zoey said. “I want you to tell me all that shit you said doesn’t matter, first. Because it doesn’t.”
 
Rosalie stared down at her companion.
 
Zoey frowned, then sat up herself. She took Rosalie’s face in both her hands. Rosalie had genuinely no idea why she allowed it. Why she leaned into it, even, and her eyes closed. “It doesn’t,” Zoey said. Somehow the sheer certainty in her voice started to convince her. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being … all those things you said.” Cock-hungry whore, Rosalie’s mind supplied. “But what we say in the heat of the moment is for fun. It’s a way to take a load off. And it says nothing about who we are. Not to mention, I never kiss and tell, so if you’re worrying about that, you’re insulting my honor.”
 
How, exactly, this girl knew what was plaguing Rosalie’s thoughts, and addressed each in order, baffled Rosalie. Was she that obvious? Or was it Zoey in specific who had such an easy read on her? She wanted to be upset. But with her face cradled in Zoey’s hands, and being reassured in such a soft, concerned voice, she couldn’t be. 
 
Rosalie sighed, the tension somehow draining from her. “You’re reading into things,” she said simply, opening her eyes and meeting Zoey’s. “I was merely tired. As reasonable, after what you did to me. Now please, stop being so dramatic.”
 
A smile split Zoey’s face. Rosalie’s deflection—her attempts at nonchalance—might not have been as convincing as she’d hoped.
 
Why does she care that her reassurances worked?
 
Rosalie rolled her eyes. “Let’s get you taken care of.”
 
“No complaints there,” Zoey grinned. “If you’re taking suggestions, can we do what we were before?”
 
For all her sweetness, she’s still a pervert.
 
“Fine,” Rosalie said. “But don’t think it’s becoming a regular thing.”
 
 
 
1.11 Slimey Fun I
 
Zoey’s stomach clenched as she emptied herself onto Rosalie’s face. Rosalie pumped diligently away, reverting to her hands from the previous use of her tits and mouth, and expertly milked out Zoey’s sticky delivery.
 
Zoey really couldn’t understate how amazing Rosalie’s hands were. It didn't make sense how they were so soft, yet so powerful. Probably her upbringing, her extensive training in combat, which resulted in strength and dexterity in equal measure. And a helping of natural talent. But still, Zoey didn’t know how such an ostensibly inexperienced girl—Zoey didn’t know that for sure, but Rosalie’s behaviors suggested it—knew with such intuitiveness which way to twist her wrists, and the perfect pace to slide her hands up and down to easily persuade Zoey’s cock to empty itself. 
 
Afterward, Zoey enjoyed the sight of Rosalie’s chest and face so thoroughly covered in her warm girl spunk. Rosalie wiped her eyes clear, opened them, looked up at her, and leveled a scathing glare at Zoey’s self-satisfied smirk. “You really are disgusting, I hope you know that.”
 
Zoey would have teased back by alluding to Rosalie’s whining, perverted confessions, but she didn’t. Rosalie had been genuinely upset—something she’d worked past, Zoey thought, but it was best Zoey didn’t dig too hard into the weakness. 
 
Best saved for when Zoey had her fingers wriggling around inside Rosalie, anyway. Embarrassing admissions only stayed embarrassing when forced out sparingly.
 
They washed themselves off in the hotspring, Zoey’s well of supernatural power now topped-off, then continued along their adventure.
 
 ###
 
“This is it,” Rosalie said. “I’m almost certain.”
 
“The boss room?”
 
“Just so.”
 
It had only taken an hour more of pressing forward before they reached an ominous sign driven into the road, blackened at the edges and time-weary. ‘BEWARE THE SLIME,’ the decaying wood read, scrawled in black paint that hadn’t dried before it started to drip, and while Zoey might not be genre-savvy, she could recognize the imminent warning of a boss encounter when she saw one.
 
“It’s about time,” Zoey said. “This ought to be interesting.”
 
Rosalie frowned at Zoey, then hesitated, as if bracing herself for an unpleasant topic.
 
Zoey’s stomach sank, Rosalie’s next words obvious. “You don’t want me to come with,” Zoey preempted.
 
“It’s for the best,” Rosalie said slowly. “This won’t be like the earlier fights. Bosses are smarter. They employ strategy. If they identify a weak point—”
 
“They’ll dig into it.” Zoey sighed. “You don’t need to defend yourself. I get it.” Zoey’s time spent advancing through the shard had made the difference in their combat proficiency starkly apparent. And while it was a kick to her pride to be told joining in on the final fight would do nothing but cripple her partner, she’d much rather take a kick to the pride than end up dead. The brutal reality of the shard had been presented to Zoey, and while both she and Rosalie remained unharmed, that was on part of the second’s competence, and not a lack of trying from the shard. They could be hurt. Killed, if they sufficiently misstepped. This adventure Zoey had been thrust into, while interesting, and even half-whimsical from its similarity to videogames back home, was still dangerous. It needed to be treated as the threat it represented.
 
So Zoey shoved down her protests and did what was better for the both of them. “Okay. Well. Good luck. And don’t get hurt.”
 
Rosalie sniffed. “This is a first advancement shard. Even without my armor, I’d be mortified to be injured, much less defeated.”
 
Zoey believed her. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t worried, seeing her partner go off and tackle the most dangerous part of the shard herself. “Remember to expect something weird. This isn’t a normal shard. Be ready for anything.”
 
Rosalie paused, then grimaced. “Right. I can’t say I’m looking forward to what it’s put together. But some parts of the shard are normal … so perhaps the boss will be too.”
 
Rosalie didn’t sound like she believed it would. Zoey didn’t, either. But they could hope.
 
Rosalie gave a serious nod to Zoey, then turned and advanced forward.
 
Zoey posted up under the base of a tree, watching her figure disappear into the darkness, and tried not to worry too much.
 
###
 
It’d been about an hour, not that Zoey had a way to tell the time, but she knew something had gone wrong. Rosalie had departed too long ago. Why hadn’t Zoey asked when to expect her back? She’d assumed a handful of minutes, and when that had passed, she’d adjusted her estimate to ten or twenty. Then thirty. 
 
An hour later, Zoey sat, stomach wringing in fear and expecting the worst.
 
Perhaps something odd had occurred. Maybe she’d won, and been shunted out of the shard as soon as she had. Zoey didn’t know how these things worked. But just because Rosalie hadn’t returned didn’t mean she’d lost—(and thus been injured? Killed? Surely not the second?)—but simply that she couldn’t return, which several situations could account for. Trapped, to name a second. Perhaps she’d fallen down a pit and needed Zoe’s help. Which was absurd, but she was just spitballing, here. Or maybe she’d gotten lost.
 
Either way, it was time to go lend aid. Not that Zoey could provide much of that in the case Rosalie had lost. Because anything that could square up against Rosalie and come out the victor, Zoey would last, hm, a minute? To be enormously generous. Ten seconds, the more realistic estimate. One attack? Probably a single attack. 
 
Maybe someday she could hold her own, but she hadn’t had an opportunity to practice, and Zoe was hardly a talented fighter by her nature.
 
She stopped herself from pacing around in circles, then, deciding waiting only made things worse, and Rosalie wasn’t returning, continued down the trail, passing the hunched-over sign declaring ‘BEWARE THE SLIME’. Zoey gripped the light, spiked mace she’d raided from the armory earlier. Her spells were the more effective weapon, considering Zoey’s lack of proficiency with arms, but its reassuring weight helped steady her. And maces didn’t take much finesse to use at their simplest level, which was why Rosalie had suggested it.
 
The reason for the sign’s warning became apparent in short order. Thick green goo appeared in clumps as Zoey worked her way forward, coating rocks, trees, and grass in shiny globs that glinted in the permanent moonlight of the pocket dimension. Zoey wondered if it was poisonous. Not acidic, at least; the grass and trees seemed unharmed. But why ‘beware the slime’, then? She forced away her curiosity and didn’t attempt something as stupid as scooping up the green material. Bolded warnings scrawled on signs hammered into the floor were usually best heeded. Or so Zoey assumed.
 
Again, not an expert at this whole, dungeon-adventuring thing. 
 
The beaten trail lost itself to nature as she ventured forward, disappearing just as the treeline opened up into a clearing. Zoey blinked as she took in the—frankly magnificent—sight laid in front of her.
 
An enormous clearing splayed out, the circular treeline almost unnaturally sharp, like it’d been cultivated—or designed by some greater Maker—to be that way. The stars seemed brighter, now, and the crescent-moon burned in the sky. The inappropriate word Zoey wanted to use was ‘cinematic’, but while at some moments in the past few hours Zoey had been able to treat her new reality as—well, not the reality it was—now was not one of those moments. The sight was breath-taking, but also unnerving. Ominous. It heralded a final encounter. An ending of some sorts.
 
Hers?
 
At the center lay an enormous pool of that green goo, larger even than the hot springs she and Rosalie had visited. The slime was thick and viscous and only slightly translucent; in such quantities it appeared almost as a solid object. 
 
To the right of the pool, a blonde figure lay unconscious, supported by a boulder of the green slime. Her head and hair was visible, but the rest of her body was obscured by the slightly-opaque material; Zoey could only make out a shadow of it. Her stomach tightened in fear, because sure enough, Rosalie had lost.
 
How?
 
What did that say for Zoey?
 
And what had she lost to?
 
The only solace Zoey took was that it looked like she’d been captured, not killed. She seemed alive. Though from this distance, the extent of her injuries was difficult to make out. Zoey needed to get closer.
 
She walked hesitantly forward, rolling her grip on her weapon, feeling comically out of place, and unprepared. She wasn’t some warrior. Even keeping her feet moving forward toward the grim reality that awaited her was difficult. She swallowed, hard.
 
Zoey made it halfway to Rosalie before the pool of slime shivered. She froze in her tracks, a deer in headlights, and watched ripples of green shake the liquid.
 
Beware the slime. Guess I’m finding out why.
 
At the shore of the lake, a figure coalesced, roiling from the bubbling edge and taking shape. Zoey probably shouldn’t have been surprised at what emerged, but she was.
 
A curvaceous, translucent woman of green slime rose in height, forming from the liquid that poured out of the lake. She finished taking shape even as she advanced, confidently, hips swaying with sensual swagger as she strode forward. A sculpted, soft body fashioned from the see-through clay: navel, nipples, clavicle, the other enticing edges to a woman’s body, naked and on full display. Her shape was nothing like Rosalie’s: not hard muscles and deadly-looking, but gentle, round, with full breasts and skin (slime?) that looked painfully soft to the touch. A mane of thick slime simulated hair, swaying to beneath her butt, and bouncing with every confident step. Her breasts were generous, perfectly shaped, and she had perky, hard nipples a shade darker. Behind them, and down a bit, inside the slime-girl’s lower chest, was a perfect sphere, fist-sized, of forest-green material, standing out against the neon translucence that made up the rest of her body. Zoey wasn’t sure what it was; some part of her alien biology?
 
Her face was the most unnerving, upsetting for its dyssynchrony with the implied deadliness of the situation: it was warm, bubbly, smiling, exuberant, even, as if the slime-girl was delighted to have received a visitor. She looked at Zoey the way someone would for having their best friend unexpectedly show up after years overseas. Delighted. Like she was about to break into a run and scoop Zoey up in a hug.
 
Zoey shakily rose her mace up, then brought an ice spike to the forefront of her mind.
 
The slime-girl paused in her advance—she wasn’t far, now, less than twenty feet.
 
“Aw,” she pouted, putting her hands on her hips. “Don’t tell me you want to play like she did.”
 
Zoey reeled back.
 
She could talk?
 
The discovery changed everything. Or did it? Were talking bosses normal? She wasn’t prepared for this. Assuming this was a non-standard situation, then a talking, sapient creature could be reasoned with. Maybe they didn’t need to fight?
 
Or … Zoey’s brain catching up with the slime-girl’s words … maybe the way Rosalie had fought the creature had been all wrong.
 
“Like she did?” Zoey asked carefully.
 
“All that poking and slashing, it really hurts, you know! I don’t like hurting people, but she made me. Because she didn’t want to fight the fun way.”
 
Zoey was forming a picture in her head of what had gone down in this clearing—and what the ‘less fun’ and ‘more fun’ types of fighting were.
 
She glanced Rosalie’s way. Alive. Just hurt. 
 
Back to the slime-girl.
 
“Well,” Zoey said. “Any chance I can take her and go?”
 
“Without playing? That’s such a mean request! Do you know how long it is between visitors?”
 
There’d been people before her and Rosalie? She guessed that made sense? Or was it just part of the slime-girl’s … programming? That was a weird word to use. But how real were these ‘shards’, anyway? Did they persist outside of their adventure, or were they designed, the sapient creatures instated with default memories? Zoey didn’t have time to be puzzling over stuff like this.
 
She lowered her mace, and let the ice-spike spell fizzle. Going even further, she tossed her weapon to the side and let it impact the soft grass as a sign of good faith. Zoey’s way out of this predicament wasn’t a fight—not a physical one, in the way Rosalie had supplied. Again, if Rosalie had lost, Zoey stood less chance than a gnat.
 
She’d have to win another way. 
 
“Can I challenge you for her?” Zoey asked.
 
A smile split the slime-girl’s face. “Depends what you mean by challenge,” she sing-songed. She resumed her swaying forward, and Zoey didn’t retreat, though instinct screamed for her to. “I’ll have you know, I’m not an easy slime to satisfy.”
 
The slime-girl’s features resolved as she got closer, and Zoey could make out the finer details to her figure. The playful, gentle eyes, the soft, full lips, and the pouty curves between her legs, glistening with wetness—her chosen form was thorough, as expected for what ‘challenges’ she preferred to offer. 
 
Zoey’s length started to stiffen right as the slime-girl finished closing the gap between them. 
 
Without sparing a moment, the slime-girl reached up and took Zoey’s face in both her hands, then pressed her lips to Zoey’s. She pried Zoey’s mouth open and slipped her tongue in, causing Zoey to squeak in surprise. She closed her eyes and reciprocated, her hands going to the slime-girl’s slim waist.
 
The slime-girl tasted sweet, and a bit citrusy—like a lime, though that might be her neon green color influencing Zoey’s assumptions. Either way, it was far from unpleasant having her mouth explored by a probing, sticky tongue.
 
The slime-girl withdrew, their mouths separating in a pop. Zoey was breathing hard, and her lower-half was now fully at the ready, bent upward and pressing against a sticky body.
 
The slime-girl beamed up at her—Zoey was much taller—and her breathing had also picked up. “I knew you’d be more fun than her. And wow … you’ve got so much to offer. This is the best day ever.” Her hand went to Zoey’s member, stroking up and down, exploring its size. Her thumb rubbed into the base of where her head met the shaft, sliding over the bump and tracing the shape. Zoey’s breath caught. The slime-girl kept their eyes locked, not looking down at what her hand was doing.
 
“Do you have a name?” Zoey asked. She wasn’t sure why. Seeing how they were in for a presumably extended session of ‘fighting’, some basic conversation didn’t seem out of order. Especially because she was curious about the creature’s existence. Sure, they might be fighting over Zoey’s claim of Rosalie, perhaps even their lives, but still. 
 
Would this creature kill them if she failed? Zoey didn’t get the feeling she would … but she had no clue what was going on.
 
The slime-girl laughed. “Wow. Such a gentleman. I think you’re the first to ask. Mel. Short for Emerald-Melt.” She leaned forward, still stroking up and down Zoey’s length, and whispered, "But you can just call me your sticky, gooey plaything, because that's what I am.” A noise of delight. “Ooh. It liked that, didn’t it? It jumped in my hand.”
 
“Feels like you’re cheating,” Zoey said, doing her best to ignore the slime-girl’s caressing. “You’re starting early. I still don’t know how this’s working. How do I ‘win’?”
 
“Last one standing, dummy. Do I need to spell it out for you?”
 
“Not first to come?”
 
Mel paused, long up-and-down strokes stilling. Her expression was highly affronted. “You think I’m only getting one out of you?”
 
Ah. “So this could take a while.”
 
“It better take a while.” Her stroking resumed, faster than before. “And you’re wasting time not getting to it. But before you do, let me show you something.” She pushed Zoey, and, not having expected it, she stumbled backwards, falling on her ass. Not afraid to be a bit rough, then. It hadn’t hurt, with the soft grass eating the impact, but she’d still been pushed over.
 
Mel sat on top of her thighs, leaving Zoey’s cock erected into the air. She resumed stroking. “There’s some amazing benefits to this body. Want to see one?”
 
“I’m a captive audience, aren't I?” Zoey murmured. How could she say no?
 
 
 
1.12 ❤ Slimey Fun II
 
“So,” Mel said. “The best part of my body. Wanna guess what it is?”
 
“Mmm. There’s a lot to pick from.”
 
Mel beamed, and slapped Zoey's shoulder. “Stop it, you flirt. Here. In my opinion, it’s this.” Mel’s hand slid to the top of Zoey’s cock, the base of her palm positioned flat against the tip. Zoey got the briefest inkling of what was about to happen, and then Mel pressed down.
 
Zoey’s cock sank into the sticky substance, slowly filling up Mel’s arm. She groaned in pleasure. The feeling was incredible: warm, tight, sticky, gripping to her cock as her length slid into Mel’s body. Her arm. Zoey hadn’t expected normal sex from a woman made from goo, but she hadn’t expected this. To be fucking her hand, in the literal sense. Weird, but hot, she admitted to herself, watching her cock fill up Mel’s arm, then Mel’s fingers reach Zoey’s pelvis, having gone all the way to the base. She curled her fingers inward, gripping Zoey’s pubic hair. Definitely hot. Her cock reached all the way up to the woman’s elbow. She could see it suspended in the green, translucent goo. 
 
Her hand slid up, then back down, squeezing Zoey’s cock with the motion.
 
This might be harder than I thought. Mel’s insides felt really good, and they hadn’t even gotten to the serious stuff. Zoey doubted those cute, anatomically-accurate lips between her legs wouldn’t be getting use before this encounter was over. Really, they were Zoey’s only chance to exhaust Mel before she herself ran out of steam. She was already at a disadvantage because of her cock. She knew from having experienced both types of pleasure that while her newest tool might feel great, it was much easier to keep going after coming the so-called natural way. Zoey was much more spent after orgasm than she used to be.
 
So she really ought to get to it.
 
But instead, she watched her cock slide up and down Mel’s arm in fascination, and pleasure. Really fucking weird, she confirmed a second time, not that Zoey’s pulsing girlcock was complaining in the slightest.
 
“You asked me my name,” Mel said, “but I didn’t get yours.”
 
“Zoey,” she breathed out. “Does that—does that trick work anywhere?”
 
Mel gave her a sly smile. “Why? Where do you want to stick it?” 
 
“Just wondering.” She could imagine a few ideas, and they were much weirder than through Mel’s hand. But also slightly too degenerate for even Zoey to bring up, much less ask.
 
“In my ear?” Mel asked, apparently having no such shame “With this thing, it’d go all the way through my head, you naughty girl. And sorry, that’s uncomfortable, so hands and feet are all you’re getting.”
 
“Right. Hand’s are, um, enough.”
 
“I know. I can feel it squirming inside. You really like it.”
 
Her cock pulsed. “You have sensation in there?”
 
“Everywhere.”
 
“Wow.”
 
“Wow, indeed,” Mel said, eyes sparkling.
 
Zoey let herself indulge for a few more moments, Mel’s sticky insides pleasuring her length, before she admitted to herself she needed to treat this more seriously. She grabbed Mel’s wrist and extracted her cock from the green goo—it made a lewd squelching sound as it separated—then pushed Mel over, who acquiesced with a delighted squeak. Zoey spread the slime-girl’s legs open, then dipped her face between Mel’s thighs.
 
“Can I taste you?” 
 
“Don’t ask,” Mel said, wiggling her hips. “Just do. You’ve got your work cut out, remember? I would love if you win. I’m your number one supporter.”
 
Zoey couldn’t help the chuckle; this goo-girl really wanted some relief. Concern still ate at Zoey in the back of her head, but there was no point in worrying about what ‘losing’ meant.
 
She just had to win. Simple.
 
Just had to leave this curvy, sweet-tasting slime-girl a puddle of satisfied exhaustion. It might take some work, but Zoey was definitely, one-hundred percent up for the task.
 
Zoey ran a thumb up and down Mel’s folds, watching them part and marveling at how realistic they were—and how cute. She was well and ready to go, her slick excitement covering Zoey’s thumb. 
 
She sunk both thumbs in and gently spread Mel apart, then looked in at the bumpy green walls. Since Mel’s entire body was translucent, the edges were difficult to make out, even spread wide open, but she saw that Mel’s anatomy was true to life.
 
“Hey,” Mel protested. “I’m not exactly bashful, but staring in is really embarrassing. You said you were going to—”
 
Mel’s words were cut off with a gasp as Zoey slipped her thumbs out, leaned forward, and sunk her tongue into her eager entrance.
 
“There you go,” Mel sighed. Her hand went to Zoey’s head and pushed down, getting her wiggling tongue another inch deeper. Zoey’s hands went up to grip at Mel’s spread-open thighs to better support herself and her efforts. She explored Mel’s lower entrance, taking her time, caressing and squirming her tongue in sweet, coaxing motions, enjoying the honey-like, hint-of-citrus taste. Zoey loved the natural taste of a woman, of course, but Mel’s insides were tasty by more literal standards. And she smelled amazing. With Zoey’s nose stuffed into her pelvis (clean-shaven, for a silly sense of the phrase), Mel’s scent radiated into her, intoxicating with its fruitiness. 
 
“A-Ah,” Mel whined. “You’re better at this, mmm, than I thought. Maybe I shouldn’t be so cocky.”
 
Zoey didn’t reply. Her mouth was a bit occupied.
 
“First one’s free, I guess,” Mel sighed, gripping Zoey’s hair tighter, and the wiggling in her hips starting to pick up speed. “Puts us on even playing ground.”
 
Zoey worked away diligently. Nobody ever said it was easy conquering a dungeon.
 
Finally, Mel’s breathing grew ragged, and Zoey could tell by the way her stomach was starting to twitch that Mel was getting close. She’d take her ‘free one’ happily. Zoey didn’t know how many times she’d have to make Mel come before she’d be collapsed from exhaustion, but based on some of Zoey’s longer sessions? Could be a half a dozen or more. And that had been for a regular girl.
 
Zoey coaxed the shaking slime-girl through a body-wracking orgasm. Her back arched, her thighs squeezed around Zoey’s head, and she shoved Zoey’s head in, cutting off her ability to breathe with her nose stuffed deep into her pelvis, but Zoey didn’t stop until Mel’s squeezing thighs loosened and she patted on Zoey’s head to let go. She pulled back, sucking in air, and a bit dizzy.
 
Her cock was aching from need, the experience of having her head crushed between Mel’s thighs as she came having gotten her painfully hard. Precum dripped from its tip, and it twitched in anticipation.
 
Fortunately—unfortunately?—Mel’s first orgasm seemed to have not tired her out remotely, but instead riled her up. She pushed Zoey over (they were taking turns doing that) and climbed atop her. Mel’s gooey lower parts rubbed against Zoey’s cock, excruciatingly satisfying. She leaned forward and kissed Zoey while sliding back and forth, the slimey composition of her body and the excessive lubricant dripping from her orgasm providing a slick, easy movement. Zoey bucked into her, helping her along, and savoring the sweet taste of Mel’s mouth—and in sharing the juice that had gushed from her convulsing pussy.
 
She pulled back just enough to break from the kiss and murmured happily, “You taste so good.”
 
“That’s mostly you,” Zoey laughed. Her hands had gone to Mel’s waist, helping with the rhythm and motion of rubbing her lower-half against Zoey’s cock. The first hints of something was starting to build, and Zoey rallied her determination—she couldn’t allow herself to be pleasured without doing the same in return. “Lift yourself up.”
 
“Is it time?”
 
“Up.”
 
With the length of Zoey’s cock, Mel had to lift a comical, awkward distance to position Zoey’s tip at her entrance.
 
I’m about to be inside her. To feel her walls squeeze around me. While Zoey had had something close in the form of Rosalie’s throat, and she supposed Mel’s hand, this would be the first time she actually penetrated a woman with her new equipment. Zoey’s heart started racing harder, and it had already been galloping.
 
Mel rubbed Zoey’s tip playfully against her entrance, spreading her lips with its head. It rubbed Zoey’s precum into her own excitement, creating a slick, lewd mess. “Are you ready?” Mel asked breathlessly. “Gods, it’s going to go so deep.”
 
“Hurry up.” Zoey wanted to thrust inside, but she knew her size was unwieldy, so Mel needed to ease herself into it, even accounting for her malleable body.
 
Mel finally started to press down, and Zoey’s cock slipped—for the first time—into the warm, soft heat of where it belonged: Mel’s breeding hole. A groan escaped her lips as Mel’s grippy, tight pussy spread open to accommodate her. 
 
“S-So big.” 
 
Mel eased down, gripping Zoey’s shaft with a hand to guide its entrance. Zoey’s head fell back into the grass, eyes closed, savoring the squeeze of Mel’s walls pressing in all around her. And she kept going lower, enveloping more of Zoey, amplifying the sensation with every second as more and more of her cock was pressed in by tight, wet goo-flesh.
 
“So full, o-only half way. How is it so big? You’re stretching me …”
 
Zoey drowned in bliss as her cock slid inch by inch into Mel’s pussy, until finally, Mel’s soft ass impacted her crotch, indicating she’d finished—that she’d gotten every last bit in. That Zoey had stuffed her full, stretching Mel out to her absolute maximum.
 
Zoey opened her eyes and basked in the sight of her cock suspended in translucent green slime, past Mel’s navel, all the way up to the base of her breasts. It reached to just beneath that slightly darker, floating green orb Zoey had noted earlier. If Zoey thrusted, just hard enough, she might be able to bump her cock into it. Though she wasn’t sure why she would. Maybe it was —
 
Zoey’s thought was cut off as Mel lifted herself, then bounced back down. Her slime impacted Zoey’s thighs with a squelch, and the combined pressure of her coaxing inner walls and the bounce of her ass against Zoey was incredible, impossible to describe. She moaned, and lost control of her attempts to be considerate; she needed to thrust and shove, and who cared if she was too big for Mel? Zoey needed to go faster. Mel was taking things too slow.
 
She gripped Mel’s waist, hard, then bucked underneath her, slamming into Mel rather than the other way around. Mel gasped in surprise, and Zoey didn’t let up. She pistoned in and out, hips jerking in rhythm with Zoey’s hands slamming Mel down by her waist, to provide a louder, lewder impact between their lower halves. Each collision squelched as Mel’s gooey body tried to stick to Zoey’s crotch. Mel worked with her, caught off guard, and whining in something that sounded close to pain, but enthusiastic despite the fact, allowing her body to be used however Zoey wanted. She hadn’t been kidding; she was Zoey’s sticky plaything. Zoey didn’t need to ask. Mel was hers to do with what she wanted.
 
Zoey’s thoughts became less coherent as her brain started to melt in pleasure. Her pistoning increased in speed. 
 
“Give it to me,” Mel begged, bouncing up and down. “Please. I want to feel it shoot inside. Do that for me.”
 
She let the burning satisfaction of her cock crescendo, indulging entirely in the feeling, any thoughts of delaying gratification for purpose of lasting longer disappearing. She needed to empty herself into this busty, eager slime-girl. To fill her with hot seed. Could a slime-girl be bred? If so, Zoey was about to accomplish it.
 
Her length spasmed, finally giving in to Mel’s desperate, excited coaxings. Zoey’s girlcum jettisoned out into clinging slime-girl pussy. Zoey kept her eyes open and watched, through Mel’s translucent body, as strings of white shot out from her cock and into her—past her cervix, which Zoey had been bumping into, and the force of her convulsing cock pushing seed into her womb, filling up the space with gooey white liquid in real-time as Zoey watched in awe. The sight spurred her twitching cock on, encouraging it to give more and more as it pounded up and down, she and Mel not slowing as Zoey’s cock gave in. 
 
Mel’s womb filled, then overflowed, seed spilling down Zoey’s cock and stuffing her walls, obscuring Zoey’s cock from view in a wash of white. She watched as it poured from Mel’s pussy and out between them. And, like usual, Zoey just kept going, kept spasming, her output unusually high. She had Ephy to thank for that—which she briefly did. She sent off a prayer, imagining a smirking goddess looking down at her.
 
Mel’s second orgasm crashed into her, shaking her slimy body, and bringing Zoey’s pleasure to a new high as her walls convulsed and milked Zoey with shocking pressure, caressing with tight squeezes. 
 
Finally, Zoey was spent—and dizzy—but she forced herself not to give in to her exhaustion. She collapsed back, stopping her pumping, but not allowing herself to close her eyes and sag into the ground. 
 
“Do I at least get a second to catch my breath?” she panted.
 
Mel leaned back and shimmied down Zoey’s legs, her member sliding from her pussy, and spilling out seed as the stopper finally exited. Zoey could still see her white spunk outlining the entirety of her pleasure-giving insides: womb and vagina both. It was a bit weird, like a lot of this had been. But a lot hotter than weird. Or maybe hotter because it was weird.
 
“I didn’t get a break, did I?” Mel laughed. “You have fingers and a mouth, until it’s working again. And a pretty blonde to save, if you're forgetting. So get to it.”
 
 
 
 
 
1.13 Slimey Fun III
 
After Zoey’s third orgasm, and Mel’s eighth, she was starting to lose hope.
 
Zoey had expected the slime-girl would be long-lasting, on account of her being a magical dungeon’s final boss, and by matter of her wanting to fight through the proxy of fucking. But eight times? And they hadn’t been gentle climaxes. Her whole body had been a shaking, twitching mess each time, turning the slime-girl’s brain to mush as she whined and spat obscenities and lewd nonsense, but still, she kept going—kept wanting more.
 
The good news was that Zoey’s efforts were having an effect. The dark-green orb inside Mel’s chest had started to affect an orange tint, approaching red. Zoey used her not-very-comprehensive understanding of video games to guess the orb somehow related to her status, or her ‘healthiness’, for a perversion of the word. She was being worn out. And that could be seen physically, too, by the way Mel’s control of her body had lost some of its finesse. Every slapping thrust of Zoey’s cock into her insides left sticky green residue, now, no longer just clinging, but actually separating from her body. She was melting from pleasure—literally. 
 
Which had meant things had gotten quite messy in the past twenty minutes. Zoey was covered in green slime—Mel’s green slime—though her body hadn’t actually changed much; it was the same gorgeous collection of curves, and provided the same tight interior coaxing for Zoey’s girlcock. She had, however, grown the tiniest bit smaller—her misplacing of her goo shrinking her height by maybe an inch.
 
There was another piece of good news, despite Zoey’s fatigue, and the way her stamina flagged. Zoey had a plan. She’d formed it while curling out Mel’s eighth orgasm with her fingers and tongue. The orb, deep inside Mel’s body: Zoey thought she could reach it, now that Mel’s body had more give—and by the fact it seemed to have shrunken the smallest amount. 
 
Zoey finished riding Mel down, then rolled her over onto her back. She shuffled between her legs, gripping her cock and lining it up to her entrance. 
 
“R-Really ought to pace yourself,” Mel teased. “Going inside again? Already? I know you like my insides, but you’re going to lose.”
 
Zoey was already close to losing, so she needed to go for a hail-mary. She grunted instead of responding, not having the energy to respond to Mel’s playful teasing anymore. She pouted at that, but gasped when Zoey’s cock split her lower lips open, and she pressed in.
 
Just because she and Mel had been going at it for a while didn’t mean she’d grown immune to the slime-girl’s tight walls, but Zoey reined her reactions in and forced herself to focus. She paid attention to how deep her cock reached—Zoey’s generous loads of girlcum from her previous orgasms had slowly absorbed into Mel’s slime, then disappeared—when she was buried all the way in. Where there’d been two inches or so until the orb, now there was only one. If Zoey slammed hard enough, it should bump. 
 
And who knew if that would do anything, but it was her best shot.
 
“Help me,” Zoey said gruffly. “Push hard.”
 
Mel laughed delightedly. “Yes ma’am.” She dug her hands into the soft earth to either side of her, getting a grip for helping push against Zoey. She hadn’t an idea what Zoey was going for, Zoey assumed.
 
Zoey pulled back, savoring the hot, sticky slide of the slime-girl’s pussy despite the importance of her goal, then, mustering all her strength, slammed in as hard as she could. Mel, ever the accommodator, did as Zoey asked—she pushed as hard as she could, too, jerking her lower body into Zoey.
 
Zoey’s cock slid through Mel’s body, and with the force of her impact, her lower half slapped into Mel’s and managed to embed half an inch into her gooey substance. Zoey craned her hips forward, too, really getting as far as she could.
 
The tip of her cock bumped a hard object.
 
The reaction was almost shocking. Mel cried out, her pussy clamping down like a vice, and her entire body spasming. For almost ten second she shook, writhing around on the ground, before finally releasing, and panting. Zoey couldn’t help but be concerned—it looked like it had been legitimately painful, which wasn’t her goal. Or, had it been?
 
“Oh my gods,” Mel panted out. “You h-hit my core. I can’t believe you can reach that far.” Something wild appeared in her eyes. “Do it again. It hurt so much.”
 
Huh.
 
So it had been painful, but Mel had liked it anyway.
 
Zoey pulled back, Mel braced against the dirt, and they worked together to slam Zoey’s cock back into her ‘core’, which, Zoey guessed, was what the orb of translucent glass was called.
 
Mel contracted and spasmed, her ninth orgasm ravaging her body, despite that they’d just started—that it had only taken two thrusts. Zoey almost sagged in relief, because it looked like she’d found the advantage she needed. The problem was, Mel’s seizure-like spasms were really doing something to milk Zoey’s cock, and while she hadn’t fallen apart in two thrusts like Mel, she was also closer to giving out than the slime-girl. She couldn’t afford to keep exhausting herself.
 
The ninth, tenth, and eleventh climaxes were easy enough to draw from Mel. On the twelfth, Zoey emptied herself into Mel’s cute insides, and collapsed forward, panting into the sticky girl’s shapely breasts. Still smelled sweet and citrusy. Wasn’t quite as comforting, anymore.
 
“Aw, c’mon,” Mel complained. “Just a few more. I think you’ll actually have me.”
 
She wasn’t lying; the core had dipped further into red, a similar neon to Mel’s green slime. Zoey clawed her way to a fourth wind, got back up, and continued pounding into slimy, clenching pussy.
 
Fourteen did the trick. 
 
Mel lay in a gooey puddle, her body barely able to keep formed. She murmured happy nonsense to herself, eyes closed, and the previous forest-green core in her lower-chest now a bright, neon red, with cracks running through it. 
 
Zoey wanted so desperately to fall back into the grass and pass out, but she had shit to do. She staggered to her feet, swaying and almost falling over.
 
“Sure you don’t want some more?” Mel babbled happily to her as she passed. “You can still use me. I just can’t move.”
 
No, thank you. The first half had been amazing, but the second half, not so much. Zoey enjoyed a good fucking, but that had been, uh, stressful. Usually her life—and her friend’s life—wasn’t on the line.
 
With Mel’s defeat, the pile of slime holding Rosalie in place had melted, leaving the blonde girl unconscious and collapsed-over. Her spear, the one she had taken from the armory, lay a half-dozen feet to her side. Zoey knelt down and rolled her onto her back. 
 
This was the first time she’d been able to see Rosalie up close. She wasn’t in great shape. Rosalie had chosen to face Mel in the more traditional arena of battle, and had taken damage appropriate to that. Since Zoey had had a delightful opportunity to explore Rosalie’s body, she could tell what cuts, bruises, and other injuries had been recent. The odd part was that most looked well into the process of healing. The cuts were scabbed over and already fading. Rosalie’s runes? A healing aspect of the slime? Something else? Either way, Rosalie was breathing, and while beaten-up, on her way to recovery.
 
Zoey’s anger spiked at the fact Mel had hurt Rosalie. Oddly, it reminded her of that first interaction with Ephy—when Zoey had been offered the class ‘Charmer’, which influenced the minds of people. Ephy had said, ‘don’t mistake me something for I’m not’. Zoey got the feeling that was what she had done with Mel. She was enthusiastic, playful, and great at making Zoey feel good, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been willing to fight—and hurt—Rosalie. To fight and hurt her, too.
 
Though was that perspective justified? Rosalie had been the one to come fight Mel, not the other way around. Could Mel have let them pass without a fight? Was it coded into her genetics to defend the shard’s exit? It might be a more complicated issue than first appraised, but Zoey didn’t want to think about that. All she saw was Rosalie, laying unconscious and still healing, and felt furious.
 
She shook Rosalie by the shoulders gently, trying to rouse her.
 
“Hey. Daylight’s burning. Up and at ‘em, princess.”
 
Rosalie stirred, and a few pats to the cheek had her blinking up at Zoey. A smile split Zoey’s face, mostly relief.
 
“Zoey?” Rosalie asked groggily. She leaned up, a hand going to her forehead as she groaned. “I feel awful. What …” she looked around, eyes landing on Mel. “... happened?”
 
“It’s taken care of, don’t worry,” Zoey said. “But we should get going. I don’t know if she’ll heal.”
 
“You … defeated her?” Rosalie sounded utterly baffled. Which, from her perspective, might be fair—she likely assumed Zoey had won in combat. “Why are you covered in so much slime?”
 
Because I just got done fucking a melting slime girl until my limbs were, ironically, jello.
 
“It’s a long story. Can you stand?”
 
“Of course I can stand.” Rosalie shakily got to her feet, then swayed—and would have fallen, if Zoey didn’t reach out and steady her. “Stop being ridiculous,” Rosalie protested, “I can stand without help.”
 
Managing this girl’s pride was going to take effort in the coming weeks, Zoey could tell. Her best option was to ignore the protest and move to practical matters, to distract her from how she was helping. “How do we get out of here?”
 
Rosalie spared another glance at the collapsed slime girl, then said, “Probably through the clearing. But I want to go look at her.” She didn’t push Zoey away, and leaned against her for support.
 
“Why?”
 
“Because I want to,” she said flatly. 
 
Zoey sighed and didn’t contradict her. She helped Rosalie over the first few steps, but soon enough, her arms were swatted away, and with more strength than before—she seemed to have regained her steadiness. So Zoey let go. Rosalie finished striding over to the slime girl by herself.
 
She looked down and studied her, and Zoey realized why this might have been a bad idea.
 
“What’s all the—?”
 
Rosalie paused.
 
“You did not,” Rosalie said.
 
Sticky white strands floated around in Mel’s lower body, not yet absorbed.
 
“She did,” Mel mumbled happily. “It was so amazing.”
 
Rosalie jumped. “She’s still alive!”
 
“I hardly killed her,” Zoey said, mildly affronted.
 
“Kinda wish you did,” Mel whined. “Dying feels so good.”
 
Zoey stared in disbelief at the slime-girl. Getting killed felt good? She guessed Mel respawned, and had experienced it before? But still … what the hell.
 
So weird.
 
Not that she was kink-shaming, she guessed? If a girl got off on dying, um, good for her??
 
“Why—Why—” Rosalie seemed to be confronting the fact Zoey had fucked Mel into submission, rather than fought her.
 
“Offered to you, too,” Mel mumbled. “But you wanted a boring fight.”
 
“Offered to me? No, you didn’t. What?”
 
Zoey paused. Knowing Rosalie, it was quite possible Mel’s offers of ‘fighting another way’ had gone completely over her head, and Mel had taken that for rejection. 
 
“Hey, Mel,” Zoey said. “How do we get out of here?”
 
“You know her name?”
 
“Out the opposite end of the clearing,” Mel mumbled. Her eyes were still closed. She was in seriously bad shape … however happy she seemed to be about affairs. “But there’s a secret loot room beneath the lake. Should raid it. As thanks for … the amazing time.”
 
“You are disgusting,” Rosalie said to Zoey. “You fucked the boss into submission?”
 
“Could’ve been you,” Mel said.
 
“Quiet, you—you perverted creature! As if I would—” she cut off, then spun to Zoey. Her cheeks were flushed. “Let’s keep it moving. The loot room. Do we swim down?”
 
“Make sure you hold your breath.”
 
Rosalie shot another glare at Mel.
 
“Thanks, Mel,” Zoey said. “You’ll be fine, right?”
 
“More’n fine …” she sighed contentedly.
 
Rosalie stalked away, toward the slime-lake.
 
Zoey jogged to catch up. “Hey. You’re not mad, are you?”
 
“Mad? Why in the world would I be mad?” The incredulity on Rosalie’s face seemed genuine. 
 
Zoey had misread the situation. “Never mind.”
 
“You think I’m upset you fucked another girl? Even if we were a thing, why would I be? And we're not, by the way."
 
She guessed Rosalie’s culture was a bit more open about multiple partners than hers. Polyamory hadn’t been especially popular back home, not that Zoey had ever had a problem with it. “Right. Again, my bad.”
 
Rosalie opened her mouth as if to say more—and by the look on her face, it wouldn’t have been nice—but then she huffed, and spun back forward. “We’re dawdling. Loot, then exiting the shard. I’m ready to be out of this disgusting place.”
 
 
 
1.14 Loot II
 
Swimming down through the lake of slime was uncomfortable, but all things considered, not especially difficult. Exhausted as Zoey was from her thorough ‘fight’ with Mel, her arms and legs ached as she struggled her way through the surprisingly loose liquid—not nearly as clinging as it appeared. She even sank with ease, not floating, and spurred on by her long strokes, quickly descended. 
 
She reached the bottom and hit air—then tumbled eight feet and toppled, landing on her back in a pile of spongy green gelatin. She sank in and bounced a few feet from the impact, arms cartwheeling, then bounced again, before she managed to steady.
 
“Are you intending to make a fool of yourself, or is it coming naturally?”
 
Rosalie, ever the dexterous acrobat, must have landed gracefully, giving her a perfect view of Zoey’s flailing.
 
“Let’s say intended,” Zoey said. “That makes me look better, right?”
 
Rosalie rolled her eyes, then advanced toward one of the two things of import in the slimy green cavern: three chests, two with bands of emerald wrapped around their center, and one with a band of sapphire. Zoey blinked in surprise. All three chests were of higher rarity than the one they’d previously raided, and by how Rosalie had described things, the blue-band—sapphire, representing ‘superior’—was the second best quality a person could find, and was supposed to be exceedingly rare.
 
“Wow,” Zoey said. “That’s a nice haul, huh?”
 
“Depends,” Rosalie said. “But not as good as it seems, I suspect. I have my suspicions what’s in the sapphire chest.” Without ceremony—these things didn’t have quite the novelty for Rosalie as they did as for Zoey, and so she had no reason to take her time—Rosalie flung open the centermost chest.
 
She pulled out a seven-foot gleaming spear.
 
“Mmm,” Rosalie said. “Good. My inventory.” She reached in, and the next item out was a pair of metal boots. Rosalie nodded along in satisfaction as she continued to empty the chest.
 
So that one didn’t count as ‘real’ loot, then. The superior-rated chest was a fluke, simply Rosalie’s inventory handed back to her. Zoey looked at the two green-banded chests. “Still, two rares is pretty good, right?”
 
“For the nightmare of this shard? Hardly.” Then, reluctantly, “But objectively, yes, for how it was relatively small, as far as shards go. Assuming we don’t get exceedingly unlucky with the yield. Always a possibility.”
 
Zoey didn’t think the shard had been that bad. She’d had some, uh, good times. Funny enough, the few parts Zoey hadn’t especially liked—the monsters and patches of brutal fighting—were probably the parts Rosalie considered tolerable.
 
The next item Rosalie pulled from the inventory-chest broke Zoey’s heart.
 
“Thank the gods,” Rosalie said as she slipped on her undergarments. “I half expected these not to be in there.”
 
“If only they hadn’t,” Zoey sighed. Her days of ogling Rosalie’s naked body were over. Was there any greater tragedy?
 
Rosalie shot an annoyed squint at Zoey’s dramatics. “Some of us don’t like parading about with our privates on display.” She tossed Zoey a towel, one of the many items Rosalie continued to pull out and deposit into that private pocket-space between worlds. “Clean yourself up.”
 
Zoey did so, using the fabric to wipe the copious amounts of green slime from her body, and the other mixture of less-appropriate liquids spread across her lower half. 
 
She supposed getting dressed was necessary. They couldn’t continue their nudism in civilization, obviously. Zoey was a bit surprised at how accustomed she had become to the feeling of being naked around Rosalie. Even at the start, she’d been less bashful about it than she’d have thought. Their first meeting—the tight coffin—had been quite the icebreaker.
 
“I’d offer you some of my clothes, but they won’t fit,” Rosalie said. “You’re too tall. And busty. And …” she cleared her throat. “I don’t think women’s garments are something that fit you, down low. But I have a pair of men’s britches and underwear, somewhere in here.”
 
Right. Zoey couldn’t exactly go around wearing tight pants and women’s underwear anymore, not unless she wanted some awkward things on plain display. She’d have to wear loose pants and boxers, and even then, there’d probably be a bulge, considering how much heat Zoey was packing. She paused, coming to terms with the reality of her situation. For having gotten extensive use out of her cock in the past half-day, there was still a lot of accustoming to do.
 
Life as a girl with a fourteen-inch cock. Sure to pose some difficulties—or at least strangeness—in civilized society. 
 
Finally finding the items she was looking for, Rosalie tossed her some plain, hardy-looking clothes. Zoey shrugged on the long-sleeve shirt, a pair of men’s undergarments that she guessed qualified as this world’s equivalent of ‘boxer-briefs’, then the brown traveling leathers. They fit poorly, to say the least. The shirt was far too loose, meant for someone much broader than her; the underwear too tight, both from excessive equipment and wide hips; and finally, the pants, which were the closest to being acceptable, but still too baggy for her liking. At least it hid Zoey’s secret. While she wasn’t hard, at least. She doubted much on the planet could hide it when she got excited.
 
Not having a bra wasn’t ideal, but Rosalie didn’t have something that fit her. Zoey supposed she should be grateful this world even had them. Hadn’t they used, like, corsets and other types of chest bindings, before? Zoey wasn’t great with her history. Either way, by the modest white support Rosalie had put on, Zoey could tell their worlds’ clothing standards were in a similar place; she just didn’t have something that fit Zoey’s chest.
 
“Why do you have men’s clothing, anyway?”
 
“To be prepared,” Rosalie said. “Anything reasonable that I might need, I try to have.”
 
“And why would you need men’s clothing?”
 
“For if a party member needs it?” She raised an eyebrow. “Like now.”
 
Zoey guessed it was fair enough reasoning. “Thanks.”
 
Rosalie snorted. “Please. You’re doing me a favor by covering up. So no, thank you.”
 
Zoey refrained from pointing out that Rosalie’s fondness of her ‘extra equipment’ had been quite apparent in their adventures, and not just that, but Zoey’s body in general. Would it kill the blonde girl to be honest with herself?
 
Rosalie tossed her a pair of boots. “Store those for if you need them. They’re too big, but depending where we end up in the Fractures, big might be better than barefoot.”
 
Zoey pocketed the boots as instructed. “Sheesh. You’re still going.” She had been pulling items out in a constant stream, and had yet to slow. “How much can you put in an inventory, anyway?”
 
“Depends on your advancement. You, less than me. But still quite a lot.”
 
“Convenient.”
 
“I suppose?” Rosalie gave her an odd look.
 
Zoey tried to put herself in Rosalie’s shoes. Inventory was, presumably, something all people in this world had access to. Calling it convenient might be similar to making a casual comment about how ‘convenient’ thumbs and brains were. Not incorrect … but a strange, perhaps even revealing, thought to muse about. 
 
 Then, absurdly, her mind bounced to the implications an ability like an ‘inventory’ must have on the world. It’d be impossible to enforce security standards, like ‘no weapons’ in certain places. Also, depending on how significant the storage capabilities were, it could affect how trade worked … as in, a person could load up with boxes of material and set off without need for a wagon, or mules, or such. 
 
Or, say, theft. Could a person walk into a store and drop items into their inventory, then waltz off? How would anyone know? Did people have to be followed around in shops to prevent that? Were ‘shopping-procedures’ wholly modified from what Zoey knew back on Earth? Or some stranger solution that Zoey hadn’t considered, or couldn’t, like a spell that prevented the use of inventory-deposit? Maybe it could be detected somehow.
 
Zoey shook her head. She might ask Rosalie later—or find the answer naturally. There were a million and one questions she could pour out on how an alien world functioned, but she both didn’t want to reveal to Rosalie her (what she would see as) odd thought processes, and she didn’t want to waste time, since it would take all night to cover even a fraction of her questions.
 
Take things as they come. A good motto by Earth standards, and doubly applicable here.
 
Rosalie started pulling out clinking bags of coins, which gave Zoey pause. She counted five before they stopped.
 
“So you’re loaded, or something?”
 
“Hardly. Those were mostly copper and silver. The earnings of a second-advancement Wayfarer is by no means lucrative.”
 
Copper, silver, and presumably gold coins. Maybe higher denominations, too? Finances were going to be another curious thing to learn about. Sounded like it was straightforward, at least. Coins. Couldn’t complicate those too much.
 
“You can start laying out the loot from the other chests,” Rosalie said. “You don’t need to stand there and watch me.”
 
“Just figured you’d want to be the one.” Rosalie had taken over the process of looting the last chest they’d found; Zoey hadn’t pulled out any of the items. Rosalie did that—took charge, naturally, part of who she was. Zoey didn’t mind. She wasn’t a pushover, but she’d never felt the need to take command. Could do it, sure. Just preferred to only when no one else would.
 
“For the excitement of the reveal?” Rosalie scoffed. “Who do you take me for? Some green, first-generation Wayfarer? Only wet-eared novices care about something like that.”
 
Zoey paused. “I think it’s fun,” she said defensively. 
 
“Point in case.”
 
Sometimes Rosalie’s arrogance peeked through with more obviousness than others. Zoey still saw the goodness in her—it was blindingly plain to see—but she had her flaws, without a doubt. “There’s nothing wrong with taking enjoyment in the small things.”
 
Rosalie snorted, again. She didn’t look over Zoey’s way.
 
Zoey bit her tongue on pushing the point, because she knew when to pick her battles.
 
“Just lay them out,” Rosalie said. “We’ll divvy it up.”
 
“I’m getting a cut, this time?” Rosalie had pocketed most of the loot from the first chest, which Zoey had thought entirely fair; Zoey had done exceedingly little to earn any of it.
 
Rosalie stilled. Her mood soured visibly, even with her back turned as she paused half-up from extracting an item from the chest. “If anything,” she said bitterly, “you should be getting the lion’s share. I might have died without you.”
 
Ah, Zoey realized. That’s why. 
 
That was the reason Rosalie had been upset, before diving into the slime lake—which Zoey had misinterpreted as anger at Zoey’s involvement with Mel. She was furious at herself for losing. For needing to be saved by Zoey. Now that she’d made the connection, it was pretty obvious. That was one-hundred-percent something Rosalie would be sour over.
 
 “I don’t care either way,” Zoey said. “Fifty-fifty, you take it all, whatever. What’s mine is yours. We’re sticking together, aren’t we?”
 
Rosalie stilled a second time. Then resumed. “I suppose we are. You’ll need someone to show you the ropes.”
 
Like usual, no effusive confirmations, no exclamations of camaraderie and anticipation of future escapades, but it was Rosalie. Of course not. Zoey grinned. Earlier, there’d been hesitation on whether they’d be forming a party. Rosalie had made up her mind: yes.
 
Zoey didn’t make a big deal out of it, because Rosalie would definitely launch some biting comments her way for doing so. Instead she walked over to the rightmost of the chests and cracked it open, smiling stupidly.
 
An inky black void welcomed her. Zoey reached in, half expecting it to be cold to the touch, or some indescribable feeling, but instead, it just felt like—well, nothing. More air. Her fingers groped for the bottom of the chest, and grazed something. She adjusted, then gripped the jar of something, pulling it out.
 
[Cleansing Liquid]: Common. To aid a person in adventures down less-beaten paths. Cleans thoroughly and leaves a fruity aftertaste.
 
Zoey paused, then burst out laughing.
 
“Let me guess,” Rosalie said dryly. “Something perverted?”
 
“It’s playing coy, but I think so. It’s, uh. Cleaning agent.”
 
“Cleaning agent?”
 
“For, you know. A squeaky clean back door. Leaves a fruity aftertaste.”
 
Rosalie parsed the explanation, brow furrowed—her innocence the more amusing part of the whole thing, which Zoey had to fight down another laugh from. Her expression cleared up, and her lips twisted in disgust. “The degeneracy of this shard knows no bounds.”
 
“Do you just pour it in?” Zoey asked, turning the bottle of dark-red plastic-like material around. There was no label. The liquid sloshed around, viscous as water. It tapered at the top to a cap that looked like it could be twisted open. Using some basic intuition, Zoey assumed she would need to shove it ‘up there’ then squeeze, and it would do its magical work. Honestly, it was kind of amazing. Getting ready for spelunking expeditions of that sort could be an ordeal … not that Zoey had ever been that into backdoor-play. She’d had one girlfriend who was, though, so she knew her way around.
 
“Because I would know?” Rosalie asked. “Ugh. Stop talking about it.”
 
Zoey chuckled, then set the item aside, rather than putting it in her inventory—the loot would need to be divided up. 
 
The next item out was tiny, and took some groping around in the void to find.
 
[Silvercut Tongue Stud]: Uncommon. Ministrations of the mouth find greater potency.
 
“I call this one,” Zoey said. “I so call this one.”
 
Rosalie glanced over. “What is it?”
 
“Magical tongue piercing that makes me give better head. So don’t worry, it’ll help you out, too.”
 
“Help me!” Rosalie flushed. “As if I would let you—let you put your—” She cleared her throat, then pointedly returned to her own chest. “You and this shard are well suited for each other. Perhaps you shouldn’t leave, and instead spend your remaining days here.”
 
Now there was a thought. With a host like Mel, would she really have that much to complain about?
 
As for Rosalie’s claim that Zoey wouldn’t be getting her tongue inside her … well, they’d see about that. For all Rosalie’s protests, they had only known each other a day, and yet Zoey had had her cock rubbed against her stomach, in her mouth, and between her tits. There were some extenuating circumstances allowing that fast intimacy, but the floodgates had been opened, so to say—and Rosalie clearly enjoyed having them been so. 
 
Zoey pocketed the stud into her inventory, not setting it aside to divvy it up. Because she was getting it put in at the first opportunity. She was excited to see how well it worked. What kind of embarrassing things would she force out of Rosalie, aided with supernatural competency?
 
Speaking of, though, how did piercings work in this world? With stuff like healing potions, could she just suck it up, stab the metal through, then drink a potion? It’d be a painful ordeal, obviously, but Zoey had never been too squeamish, or sensitive to pain. For not having to go through a whole ‘process’, it’d be worth it.
 
She’d never had a tongue piercing, but part of the reason was because she’d heard it was a hassle, both to get and maintain. Magical healing to accelerate things—and the benefits this particular jewelry offered—had tipped the scales to ‘definitely worth it’.
 
She pulled out the next item. Still plenty to work through.
 
 
 
1.15 Tutorial, End
 
[Alabaster Gloves of Focus]: Uncommon. Aids the neophyte spellcaster in quicker, more coherent casting of spells.
 
“Finally,” Rosalie said. “Functional equipment. And something perfectly suited for you.”
 
Zoey frowned down at the tiny gloves in her hands. “They won’t fit.” Maybe Zoey’s old body could have crammed the small piece of clothing on, but Zoey’d grown by a non-insignificant amount; she was much taller than the average girl, now, and her hands were of course proportionally similar.
 
(The extra length on her fingers was quite appreciated. As Rosalie had found out.)
 
“Nonsense,” Rosalie said. “Unbound equipment resizes itself to the wearer. Go ahead. I doubt we’ll be selling them. Better to use what the shard gives—cheaper.”
 
Zoey wiggled her fingers into the soft fabric, believing Rosalie’s words but still slightly doubtful. Incredibly, as Zoey’s hand stuffed inside, the cloth expanded, wrapping around in a perfect fit. The other behaved similarly as she tugged it on.
 
[Alabaster Gloves of Focus]: Uncommon. Bound. Aids the neophyte spellcaster in quicker, more coherent casting of spells.
 
“What does ‘bound’ mean? Or, uh, entail?”
 
“That it belongs to you,” Rosalie said. “That it can’t be inspected without your permission, nor can others wear it and gain its benefit. Thus, that it’s virtually worthless to sell.”
 
“Is there a way to unbind?”
 
“Yes, but for a first advancement piece of equipment, doing so would be ludicrous.”
 
“It’s expensive?”
 
“Exceptionally.”
 
“Huh.” Zoey had a lot to learn about how the adventuring world worked. She turned her hands back and forth, admiring the bright white fabric and intricate designs. “Doesn’t really fit with my other clothes.”
 
Rosalie shrugged. “Congratulations. That marks you as a Wayfarer.”
 
“Hodgepodge aesthetics?”
 
“A coherent outfit usually means one sacrificed practicality for ‘looking good’.” Rosalie’s lip pulled back in disdain as she sneered the words. “With some exceptions, of course, but an unfortunate amount of Wayfarers are concerned with appearances over wearing the most effective pieces for a given situation.”
 
“Exceptions being?”
 
“Large enough shards—or repeated visits to them—can produce a full set of equipment that looks as if they were designed to be worn together. It’s more common at higher advancements than lower.”
 
“Huh.”
 
“Keep it moving, will you?”
 
Zoey had stopped her diligent extraction of loot to talk with Rosalie. The blonde girl clearly wanted to get things over with. Her desire to be out of this shard was genuine; she was visibly impatient. 
 
[Quartz-Encrusted Tiara]: An adornment lined with thick gemstones of quartz.
 
“It doesn’t say what it does,” Zoey said, brow furrowing. “Not even that it has ‘unidentified effect sigils’.” It was normal for the Inspect ability to not give a detailed accounting of what items did, but usually there was at least an allusion.
 
“Could mean it does nothing,” Rosalie said, “but more likely, we’ll need to take it to an artificer to have it identified. Some items are more explicit about what they do than others. Loot descriptions follow no particular pattern. Set it aside.”
 
Zoey did so, then moved on.
 
[Shaft Ring of Binding]: Rare. For when crescendos need to be delayed, or prevented. Can only be deactivated by the activator.
 
A cock ring.
 
Like usual, the perverted nature of the item brought a quirk to Zoey’s lips. The whole situation was a bit funny, however much Rosalie protested. Because magical sex items as a reward for fucking a slime-girl into gooey submission? Well, strangeness was often a catalyst for humor, and here, for Zoey, it definitely was.
 
“That one’s mine,” Rosalie said, making Zoey start blinking.
 
“What?”
 
She held a hand out impatiently. “You took the tongue stud. This one’s mine.”
 
“Why?”
 
“Because you make a mess, and should I want to not deal with that, this item means I get to choose when.”
 
“That, uh.” Zoey foresaw some tortuous moments in the future, if Rosalie had absolute control over when she got to come. “That’s, okay, just, don’t be mean?” She handed it over.
 
“Mmm,” Rosalie said, turning the item over in inspection, then vanishing it. “We’ll see.”
 
The ominous statement only mildly made up for the fact that Rosalie’s claiming of the item implied they’d be seeing more intimate encounters in the future. Zoey wondered if Rosalie realized she’d implied that—Zoey would have figured her more embarrassed about doing so.
 
Or, by the growing pink on her cheeks, maybe she just had.
 
Zoey laughed, Rosalie scowled at her, and Zoey continued on.
 
The next item:
 
[Blossom Blight]: Red flower petals which serve as the primary catalyst for brewing potions that inhibit or amplify the potency of life-giving seed.
 
Zoey blinked down at the pouch of alchemy reagents. “Wow,” she said. “Like, makes you knock someone up?”
 
“What?” Rosalie stuttered. “What does it say?”
 
Right—Rosalie couldn’t see the description of the item in the same way Zoey could, since Zoey had a rune of alchemy and a skill that helped in the identification of reagents. She relayed the description to Rosalie, who shook her head in disgust—something she’d done a lot, in the past ten minutes.
 
“Or inhibits,” Zoey said. “That’s actually kind of useful. Means it’ll stop me from getting a girl pregnant. If that’s, uh, something I can do in the first place.”
 
“You don’t know?”
 
They hadn’t talked about Zoey’s addition between her legs, not in any depth. The only time Rosalie had brought it up was that off-hand comment during the aphrodisiac debacle. “I don’t, yeah. Honestly, I could see it going either way.”
 
Rosalie hesitated, as if she wanted to ask more, but apparently thought the topic too personal to pursue. Zoey wouldn’t have minded talking about it, but she didn’t know what answers to give. She was still keeping secrets from Rosalie—the nature of her transmigration, and how her memories weren’t quite as vanished as she implied. Just … foggied, removed from personal context. She remembered most of her life—it had trickled back bit by bit—but the names of her friends and family, their faces, and even her feelings of fondness for them had been scrubbed away. It was eerie to think about. One of the reasons she was avoiding doing so.
 
“Well,” Rosalie said. “Useful would be right, in that case. The last thing a Wayfarer needs is accidental motherhood. There’s few ways to meteor a promising career with such speed.”
 
Zoey bit her lip. That was true enough, not that there was anything wrong with wanting a kid early in life. Definitely threw a wrench in plans, though, if not specifically planned for.
 
She’d have to be more careful with herself. Again, not all fun and games.
 
Could slime-girls get knocked up?
 
Huh.
 
Probably best not to think about that. She’d choose to believe ‘no’.
 
Condoms, and potions made from this ‘blossom blight’, as soon as possible. Better safe than sorry, heading forward.
 
“How’s potion-making work, anyway?”
 
“And I would know, why?”
 
Zoey blinked. “I don’t know. You know everything.”
 
Rosalie huffed. “Hardly. The arcane crafts are complex, and take a lifetime to master. They’re not something I have more than a peripheral understanding of.”
 
Complex? “Was kinda hoping you just threw stuff in a cauldron and stirred.”
 
Rosalie gave her an unimpressed look. “To think you were bestowed a crafting rune. It’s almost offensive.”
 
“You weren’t?”
 
“Of course I wasn’t.”
 
“It’s rare?”
 
“To receive both three combat runes and a rune of arcane crafting? Rare is a comical understatement. Not to mention your primary—Bonding—being a mythic-tier rune. And Sensuality, a superior.” She shook her head in disbelief. “If you had recounted it to me instead of shown me, I’d have laughed at the absurdity of the lie. It wouldn’t even have been within the bounds of believability.”
 
Zoey took that in. She was a bit confused at the announcement. “But you didn’t seem that surprised when you first read my anima.”
 
“Didn’t I? What was I supposed to do? Clasp my hand to my mouth and faint? My jaw drop, and start stuttering over my words?”
 
No, that didn’t sound like Rosalie. Fair enough. The widened-eyes and intake of air had probably been all the indicator Zoey had needed to know her circumstances were incredible. Just, she hadn’t gotten a grasp on who Rosalie was, yet. “Huh.” She corralled her thoughts back to the original question. “So, alchemy’s difficult? It’ll take study?”
 
“You’ll need to apprentice under someone. If you choose to pursue advancing the rune, it’ll be a challenge balancing your obligations. You’ll need to decide where your priorities lie.”
 
“With you,” Zoey said. “So I guess wayfaring. My other runes.”
 
Rosalie stared, then glanced away, cheeks coloring. Zoey realized she’d been frank to the point of being revealing. “Give it some thought. You have options available. Few are so fortunate to be in your position, and it deserves consideration.”
 
Zoey didn’t have to give it thought, but for both their sakes’, she said, “Okay. I will.” A brief pause. “I’ll be able to do some stuff, though, right? With alchemy?”
 
“I’m sure that depends on your aptitude, the quality of your mentor, and the usefulness of the skills the rune affords you as you advance. No two paths—even for the same rune—are the same.”
 
“I see.” She pursed her lips. “Could I like, commission someone to make potions with this, then?” She held up the bag of blossom blight, because that had been what prompted this whole train of thought.
 
“I don’t see why not. But alchemists can be expensive.”
 
“But it’d be in the budget?”
 
“Likely,” Rosalie said. She narrowed her eyes. “Depends on the yield of this shard’s loot. But perhaps not high on the priority list, when you could simply control yourself. Or are condoms—or, the gods forbid, abstinence—an option wholly impossible for you?”
 
Zoey coughed. “Right. Uh … yeah. Not high on the list, got it.”
 
Rosalie shook her head in exasperation. She gestured at the chest for Zoey to move things along.
 
Her hand scrambled at the bottom of the wood, but found nothing.
 
“It’s empty, I think?”
 
Rosalie nodded. “Perfect. We can leave.”
 
They’d emptied out the other chest, already. It had been mostly practical equipment—a scattering of mundane items of the sort useful in day-to-day wayfaring, or if not that, unidentified equipment to be sold or inspected back at a city.
 
“I’m guessing that’s the exit?” Zoey asked, gesturing at the black void embedded on the wall opposite from the chests. When she’d first fallen into the hidden cavern, she’d noted that there were two things of interest. The first, the chests, and the second, the black portal. “Mel said the exit was past the clearing. Are there multiple?”
 
“Depends on the shard. But yes. And in this one, clearly so.” She was already striding toward the portal, not a person who preferred to waste time. She stopped just at the edge. Zoey arrived at her side.
 
“Guess the tutorial’s finally over,” Zoey said.
 
Rosalie gave her an odd look.
 
“Never mind,” Zoey laughed. “You ready?”
 
“Of course I am.”
 
Zoey slipped her hand into Rosalie’s. Rosalie glanced down at it and frowned. But she didn’t pull away.
 
“Here we go, then,” Zoey said.
 
They stepped forward.
 
Author's Note:

That completes Arc One. Just as a heads up, but this story is kept most up to date at:

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/580870/this-ascent-to-divinity-is-lewder-than-expected/

I'll be releasing whole arcs to HF, so only once every while. The following arcs will be coming in the future, spaced out. However, feel free to read up to date at the link above.

Also, if you enjoy my writing, consider checking out my Patreon. I've been making efforts to turn writing into a career, so any contributions are greatly appreciated. You also get 6 advance chapters over the public.

www.patreon.com/WinterWhereof

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