Dungeons and Dalliances

The next morning, after Natalie and Jordan had gotten showered and dressed into normal clothes—Jordan had joined her in bed after Natalie and Malice were finished—Ana knocked on their bedroom door.

"Natalie. Jordan," the mage greeted, her brown eyes impassive and her tone as monotone as always. "Good morning."

"Hey," Jordan said, having been the one to open the door. She looked curiously at the mage, obviously not knowing why she'd chosen to visit. "What's up?"

"I need to speak with Natalie."

"You do?"

"You can stay, but the topic might be … personal."

Jordan's eyebrows went up. She laughed. "Don't wanna intrude. I'll leave you two to it. Let me guess. [Divine Invigoration]?"

"Indeed," Ana said.

"Don't wring her out too much. We need her for the fights today."

"Mm," Ana said noncommittally.

Natalie, having been in the bathroom brushing her teeth, gave the two of them a confused look. She'd only half heard what they'd said. "Hm?" she asked Jordan past a mouthful of toothpaste.

Jordan just laughed again. She left, closing the door, leaving Ana alone in the room with her.

Spitting out toothpaste and setting aside her toothbrush, Natalie said, "What's going on?"

"I need to speak to you."

"About?"

"A practical matter."

"Okay … ?"

Ana sat on the bed. She was in regular clothes, not adventuring gear—so not her revealing mage robes. Just a knee-length skirt and a blouse.

"Initially, we decided Elizabeth was the best target for [Divine Invigoration]," Ana started.

So Natalie hadn't misheard that. But [Divine Invigoration] and Ana? What was this about? Jordan apparently knew, or had guessed.

And, honestly, Natalie was getting a sneaking suspicion as well.

"Yeah?" Natalie asked tentatively.

"But seeing how we're fighting a swarm of lower-level monsters, applying the buff to me is smarter," she finished, with neither overt bluntness nor subtlety. Passively stating a fact. "I am, after all, the person most capable of clearing large amounts of weaker enemies. And that will be especially important today, with us heading out to find their nest. I didn't mention it yesterday because the skill can only be applied once per day."

Ah.

Admittedly, Natalie had also considered this topic. So she wasn't wholly caught off guard.

But still.

"Additionally," Ana said, as if she were structuring an academic argument, not propositioning Natalie to cum inside her, "it might be worth [Empowering]. The goblins' behavior is clearly aberrant, and I suspect we'll find something dangerous out there. Not just a low-level swarm of monsters."

That claim was interesting enough that Natalie could briefly ignore the implications of Ana's request. "Something dangerous? Like what?"

"I have no clue. But," Ana said, raising her pointer finger. "Goblins don't hoard items and lug them back to their nest. It simply doesn't happen." She raised a second finger. "Tenet knows we're a team rising in prominence and would be more likely to assign unusual tasks to us, as a test." A third finger rose. "Your class, along with Malice's appearance, inherently suggests something strange is going on with the world."

"What? You think that's related?"

"Perhaps," Ana said. "Perhaps not." Once again, she raised a pointer finger, readying herself to professionally structure her argument. "But I prefer not taking unnecessary risks, as any delver." A second finger rose. "It's worth testing how powerful an [Empowered] [Divine Invigoration] is, especially when it lasts for an entire week." A third finger joined the first two. "And lastly, the bonus will be useful for the entire duration, not just this quest, since our team is weak against swarms. Shoring up that vulnerability isn't a poor idea even in the medium term, regardless that a healer or tank would be the usual target."

Natalie stared at the girl for a few moments, then, eventually, laughed. She sat down next to Ana. "This is the weirdest way I've had a girl convince me to sleep with her."

Ana tilted her head. "I'm not trying to convince you to sleep with me. If you could simply apply the effect and move on, that would be much more convenient."

Natalie winced.

Ana paused, recognizing she had said something wrong. "Not that I'm uninterested," she said. "You merely had the facts incorrect. My primary motivation."

"Right."

The two of them sat on the bed in a brief silence.

"So, uh," Natalie said. "You're not wrong. We really should have our area-of-effect mage buffed for this quest. But … what's the plan to make that happen?" She winced at her own awkwardness. Ana tended to pull that out of her.

"However you prefer," Ana replied coolly.

Another bout of neither of them talking. Natalie didn't usually feel awkward around Ana, but it definitely happened sometimes. Often in an endearing or amusing way.

She laughed again. "What, I'm supposed to just pounce you?" she asked. "Pin you down and ravage you? Just like that? It's a bit much."

Ana considered her words. "Actually," she said. "I suppose that brings up something else relevant. Jordan suggested we talk about that one delve of ours."

"What? What delve?"

"The one we shared."

It wasn't like there was much ambiguity there, however nonspecific Ana had been.

"Ah."

"Maybe I wasn't supposed to say Jordan told me to," Ana mused. "Regardless, I do wonder how we're supposed to act, now that we're in our own bodies."

"How we're supposed to act?"

"I quite enjoyed taking control," Ana said. "But for the record, I'm not averse to some other standard of engagement, either. If that's what you prefer."

"Some other standard of engagement," Natalie repeated.

Brown eyes searched her face. Something approaching a remote sense of amusement appeared, a faint hint of her lips being tugged at. "Now that the roles are un-swapped, so to say, you can take the lead, if that's what you desire. But, admittedly, there is one problem."

"There is?"

"All of those things you were saying. How you were acting, that day. I might be unable to imitate it. The … enthusiasm."

Heat rose rapidly on Natalie's face. 'How she had acted.' Natalie remembered that very well. All of the insanely demeaning things Ana had been saying, then how eagerly Natalie had accepted it.

"That's because I was on the receiving end," Natalie defended herself, flustered. "I could have you acting like that too, if I wanted."

"I doubt it," Ana said. "But I would like to see you try."

From any other girl, the words would have been a bratty challenge. But Natalie was pretty sure Ana meant it earnestly. She would like to see Natalie try. She was curious if Natalie could pull it off, Ana knowing that she herself wasn't all that enthusiastic—and rather, a stoic person by nature.

It was a very strange sort of confidence, seeing the shorter girl on the bed next to her, looking up at her with impassive, unworried brown eyes. And Natalie didn't have an excuse to rely on, this time. Ana was flustering her despite how she was in her own body, with no strange circumstances surrounding them.

Natalie found herself oddly annoyed by that fact. She growled and pushed Ana over, climbing overtop her. The mage didn't react in the slightest. No widening of her eyes at her sudden advance or faster breathing, as she would have gotten out of anyone else.

"You're awfully confident for a girl about to be fucked stupid," Natalie murmured.

"Am I?" Ana replied, unperturbed by the crude words.

"I could have you crying out just as easily as you did me. You really think I can't?"

"I'm undecided on the matter," Ana said calmly. "The initial impression I got from our first encounter was that you're quite … submissive. Easy to dominate. So you must understand my doubts."

Natalie narrowed her eyes. Was that a smirk on Ana's lips? Or at least, an Ana-smirk. Just barely there, possibly even imagined.

She was playing this up, wasn't she? As part of a game?

She leaned her face closer to Ana's, straddling the girl's lap. Her cock was already swelling up, and Ana could undoubtedly feel it starting to press against her.

"The idea of a challenge excites you," Ana commented, eyes flicking down their bodies, seeing the growing bulge. "Well, I promise I won't fake it for you. Try your hardest. But I don't think you'll do half to me what I did to you, on that delve."

Oh?

She wouldn't?

Natalie would see about that.