The duo was far more prepared for this night’s delve than the prior’s. Both of them were equipped with magic weapons and armor, for starters. Sabrina initially planned on wearing riding pants and a leather jacket over her armor, but Jade wouldn’t hear of it. Jade insisted that the armor was all that they needed, and doubled down by saying pants would get in the way of her egg hatching.

 Sabrina folded, not opposed to showing off her thighs for Jade. She did, however, put on a pair of Doc Martens over her socks. Jade agreed with the practicality and style, and thus fished her own pair out of the back of her closet. Geared up, they wasted no time in getting down there.

When they got through the tunnel, a brief reminder of their quests flared up in their minds. Right away, they started raiding machines. They even split up, confident that they could handle anything that came their way.

This turned out to be a pretty efficient way to take on what already felt like an under-leveled area. After a few minutes, Sabrina had already leveled up in Lust.

>New perk: Toucher. Affectionate touch, such as cuddling, hugging, and handholding will now nourish you. Time spent in affectionate touch will initiate recovery in the same way as being in your base. In your base, the recovery rate is increased. Going too long without affectionate touch will have negative affects, starting with reduced recovery and ending with the Touch Starved status effect.

>Perk synergy: bonuses applied to Toucher when your touch partner is the focus of Enamored [Jade].

>New affinity: cuddling.

Jade saw her friend frozen in place, shaking with agitation. As her mouth opened to ask what was wrong, she was interrupted by Sabrina’s outburst. “Mother fucker! God damn mother fucking… Dungeoneer!”

“Whoa… you good? Got an extra weird perk?”

Sabrina found it difficult to answer. She couldn’t exactly say, ‘oh it’s just that we need to cuddle a lot from now on, and it works better with you because I’m so hopelessly in love with you.’ Wait. Why did Jade just start looking at her so weird? Did she just say that out loud? “Did I just say that out loud?”

Jade cracked up. “No, ya doof, but now I really wanna know what you’re talking about.”

This broke up the tension a bit, even if not entirely. Sabrina sighed, and explained, “I got a perk that makes me need to cuddle and hug and whatnot. It makes me recover faster, but there’s also negative effects if I go too long without it.”

Jade shrugged. “Doesn’t sound like a big deal. What’s wrong with cuddling?”

“What’s wrong with it is I’m single and the only person I have that kind of regular access to is yo-…” Sabrina was interrupted by Jade wrapping her up in a big hug, and staying like that. A warmth radiated from Jade into Sabrina’s core. In Jade’s arms she felt safe and comfortable in a way that was like nothing else. She felt like she was finally home after being lost her whole life.

Sabrina muttered, “I…”

“Shhh,” Jade hushed, tightening her embrace. “Let me love you, Bean. You’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is cuddles.”

Sabrina was burning up inside. Love? She stayed silent, and returned the hug, never wanting to let go. After a few minutes, Jade finally broke the hug, to Sabrina’s dismay. “Alrighty. Feel boosted.” Sabrina nodded to this, awkwardly.

Jade was next to level up, as she found one of the Cognition jellies. This came from killing a pair of gorilla arms made out of stitched-together hoodies. It might have been a challenge the night prior, but her sword tore it to shreds in seconds.

>New perk: Doped. To counteract ill effects of ADHD, dopamine production and absorption has been boosted. You will experience the desirable effects of stimulants at all times while awake, and none of the side effects. Desirable effects of ADHD, such as enjoyed hyper-fixations, will remain.

Jade’s brain felt incredible. The only downside was that she’d just lost a bet. “Fuck. I owe you twenty bucks,” Jade admitted. “I just got diagnosed with ADHD and cured all in one move.”

“Ha! Told you,” Sabrina gloated. “Awesome, though.”

“Yeah, now I can remember that we should check the timers. What does the one on our side say?”

“Around twenty minutes,” Sabrina answered.

Jade unceremoniously crawled back through the tunnel. Sabrina could do nothing but stare at Jade’s bare ass as she crawled. She could see how wet her friends pussy was, even from a distance.

“A bit over ten minutes,” Jade called out when she reached the other side.

“That’s awesome! So we get two hours in the dungeon for every one hour that passes outside. Guess we’ve got all the time we want down here. Might fuck with our circadian rhythm, but we can sleep faster and don’t have jobs, so whatever.”

Jade made her way back through the tunnel, this time her pendulous breasts were all Sabrina could look at. Once reunited, the pair got back to work. Each picked out a machine and prepared for battle.

Sabrina opened a dryer, finding it empty. From her left, she heard Jade’s “what the fuck is this?” Sabrina jumped to defend her friend and cuddle buddy.

Rather than danger, she found Jade looking into a a washing machine with a strange barrier within in. Just within the door was a skin-like translucent membrane holding back fluid. Sabrina grabbed her phone from the only pocket she had in this outfit: her boobs. With her phone’s flashlight, she tried to suss out what was hiding in the fluid.

Jade put on her impression of a cartoon mafia goon, asking, “you want I should stab it, boss?”

“I’d hold off on that,” Sabrina answered, studying the contents.

 Directly in the center of the murky bath of liquid, a key was floating. The key shared a key ring with a small floaty on one end that kept it suspended. On the other end of the ring was a thin chain which was attached to a weight at the bottom of the basin. The weight sat on an obvious trap door, held in place by a latch. Attached to the latch was a rod connected to another floaty at the top of the basin.

As soon as Sabrina put all of the pieces together she understood. This was a puzzle, to see how carefully and quickly she could cut into the vat and grab the key. Just from eyeballing it, she guessed that if the water lowered by around twenty percent, it would be enough to lower the floaty and turned the latch at enough of an angle to come unhooked and drop the key to wash away forever.

Sabrina showed Jade what she found, and Jade seemed to understand the challenge. “Go fast,” Jade said. “Your dagger is our best bet.”

Sabrina nodded, and carefully brought the tip of her dagger to the membrane, sticking out her tongue in concentration. She pulled back, her nerves needed a moment. A lot was riding on this. If she messed up, they could be locked out of delving any deeper into the dungeon.

Her mind went to popping balloons. One little prick snaps the whole thing apart. But, if you pinch it with both hands and pull it tight, you can isolate part of the balloon to bite into it and carefully let the air out.

She voiced that thought to Jade, and Jade jumped to assist. Jade pinched off a section of the skin sack and held it thought. Sabrina then finely sliced perpendicular to the isolated line, and a small trickle of liquid spilled out onto her. The drop of fluid stung her on contact, like lemon juice on a cut.

“Shit,” Sabrina stammered. “It’s some kind of acid, it burns my skin.”

“Oh fuck. No fucking way,” Jade said, nearly gasping. “Take over the pinching, I’ll reach in.”

Sabrina looked at Jade, seeing an unwavering conviction look back at her. Like it was nothing, Jade demonstrated a certainty that if sacrifices were to be made, she wouldn’t let Sabrina be the one to take that fall. In those eyes, Sabrina saw a concrete protectiveness, and that Jade valued her over everything else.

She saw that Jade loved her.

Sabrina got goosebumps. It all clicked in her head. She’d been such an idiot. How could she not have seen that her longing was mutual?

“Come on, grab it so I can get the key,” Jade demanded.

Sabrina wasn’t going to let Jade take the risk. She quickly plunged her hand into vat, then pulled out the key in the blink of an eye. On pulling out, she ruptured the sack and, splashing the acid everywhere. On reflex, she swung her ass to knock Jade out of harms way, before stepping out of the stream herself.

“Sabrina! What the fuck were you thinking? That was childish!”

The scold slid right off of Sabrina, as she confessed, “I love you.”

Jade’s head bobbed back, as if from taking a slap. With feigned casualness, Jade tried to answer, “I lo…”

“I know. Really, though, Jade. I love you. I’m in love with you— romantically.”

Without the nonchalant cloak of armor this time, Jade said, “I love you, too. Like, in a gay way.”

Sabrina tried her damndest to hold a serious face, but the smirk and giggle Jade conjured was too strong to contain. “Stupid,” she dismissed with a laugh.

Before Sabrina knew if, Jade crossed the wet floor and caught her in a hug, that quickly turned into a kiss. Fireworks. There’s no other way to describe it. Jade’s kiss was fireworks.

After the kiss reluctantly broke, Jade looked down at Sabrina’s tender red skin. “Are you okay?”

“Never better,” Sabrina said, swooning.

Jade chuckled. “Well, it didn’t melt your flesh away, but I’ll need to look you over more carefully to be sure,” Jade flirted. “Whadya say we go upstairs and get you out of those wet clothes?”

“Yes please.”