Dungeons and Dalliances

7.24 – The City of Eros I

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

It was possible for delvers to bump into each other on certain floors of the dungeon, but a floor designed to congregate crowds of people together? As far as she knew, it was unprecedented. Then again, her history wasn't all that great. Maybe there were some instances of similar events. Still, it had to be unbelievably rare.

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

For once, it wasn't her fault.

Her head spun as she walked through the City of Eros with the young woman who had introduced herself as Acacia. Natalie forced herself to focus on her explanations, despite her incredulity, and her whirring thoughts on how Lust fit into this phenomenon—and how she herself might as well.

"The City goes on for a while," Acacia said, "but all of the buildings of interest are located in the city center. Only reason you'd venture out is if your team gets lazy and you chose to go scrounging out of boredom," she shrugged, referencing herself, and what she was doing out here. "There is sometimes interesting stuff to find, allegedly." She coughed. "And, ah, I shouldn't call Tammy lazy, she's been working her ass off." Her face went red, a blush that extended to the tips of her ears. "Quite literally," she laughed, and it was a bit too high-pitched for Natalie not to get suspicious.

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

Just what was happening here?

"I feel a bit ridiculous explaining this to you two," Acacia said, "and you might not even believe me. But it's better to tell you now before we get there and you see it first-hand. At least, it'll be less jarring. And the good news is that there are a lot of rewards to earn. Really, really good rewards."

She breathed in.

"Alright, I'll just say it. The city is, ah, named the way it is for a reason, and you two picked up some Tokens on the way here, right?" At their nods, Acacia said, "Those pictures on the back, of naked men and women. Those were also hinting what you'd find. Basically, the City is important for two reasons. First, it offers a number of ways to upgrade Tokens into Enriched Tokens. And second, it has shops where you can spend those tokens. Both variants of them."

"… and how are Enriched Tokens made?" Vanetta asked.

"That's the thing," Acacia said, coughing into her fist. She wasn't able to meet their eyes. "There's a few ways. But they all, ah, involve certain activities." Another clearing of her throat. "It varies quite a bit, but in short, I hope you two are comfortable with nudity. As a very loose starting point."

Vanetta stared at her, straight-faced but obviously in disbelief, but Natalie was mostly trying to stop herself from covering her face and groaning. It sounded like this was going to be exactly what she expected.

"That's why I thought you weren't new, by the way," Acacia said to Natalie. "That armor of yours looks like something a person would've bought at one of the City's shops." She looked at her curiously. "You're telling me that you found that naturally, out in the dungeon somewhere?"

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

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

"Assigned?"

"The City assigns quests, I guess you could call it, though we just call them 'assignments,' every twelve hours," Acacia said. "And it's a take-it-or-leave-it deal. It resets to something new if you don't like what you got, though, you just have to wait for the next batch." Her cheeks colored. "And you will get something you balk at here and there, but that's what the Ruins are for. You need regular Tokens to be able to empower them anyway, so if the City's assignment is a little too much, if you know what I mean, you can spend that cycle hunting."

Natalie already had questions, but she held off, allowing Acacia to get through her spiel.

"The quests are almost always for one of the four major buildings. As I was saying, the Coliseum is the most important, and you can empower whole stacks of Tokens if you get an assignment there, but it's also … ah, kind of high stakes." Her face, once again, reddened. "The Coliseum holds public fights, and the two participants have to stake something. The better the stake, the more tokens that will be empowered. Thing is, it's all public. And you get passive tokens empowered for just being there, so there's quite a lot of citygoers idling at any given hour. Especially prudes, who don't want to engage with the assignments but still want empowered Tokens. Though others too, like people who've been given a little too racy of an assignment, and are taking the day off. It's a regular hang-out point. So, if you're assigned there, you're guaranteed to have a lot of spectators."

Natalie nearly felt dizzy. "These 'stakes' you're talking about are sexual favors, aren't they?"

Acacia seemed relieved she hadn't needed to state it outright. "More or less, yes."

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

Acacia nodded, then grimaced. "That's the other thing. The city has … preferences. Maybe it even has a mind of its own. Like the dungeon itself, if you believe any of that." She took a breath in. "What I'm trying to say is that the City likes picking exciting fights, I guess you could call it. What's especially common is inter-party matches. Members from the same group being called into the Coliseum for the same time block."

"Specifically," Natalie said, "anyone with obvious sexual tension."

Acacia blushed. "Well, yes. You've got a head for how the City works, already." She tittered. "It's not all bad. There's been a few genuine hook-ups that started because of the Coliseum, it doesn't all end in, ah, disaster." Her voice dropped to a mutter, "But yes, also quite a lot of drama here, as you can expect." She shook her head. "Regardless, I'm just telling you this to be ready for that. I'm not saying anything, of course," her eyes flicked from Natalie's face briefly to Vanetta, "but if there is any sort of unresolved tension on your team, say, maybe you fancy another person and haven't told them … well. Expect to see your and their name on the Coliseum ballot. Probably sooner than later. Maybe multiple times."

Natalie internally groaned.

She was Lust's chosen paladin. The City would pay even more attention to her than the regular person, she figured.

And 'unresolved sexual tension'?

How about the girl whose guts she hated, yet who she also couldn't stop herself from stealing glances of, because she was so damn gorgeous?

A one-versus-one in a public Coliseum, with dozens or even hundreds of spectators, in which she and Elida had to stake sexual favors—which they would then have to perform, publicly, for an audience.

Yeah. That was going to end well.