I ran a thumb over the polished surface of the Key thoughtfully.

It was green this time, rounding out the colors mentioned in the three-by-three riddle. Further, the hidden safe Jax had unlocked had turned out to also contain a trio of yellow, hexagonal prisms. With the blue ones still tied to Lynnria’s waist, we had now assembled two-thirds of the puzzle pieces we needed to complete this Dungeon.

The pattern being what it was, this Key should eventually lead us to a trio of green prisms, however I was not altogether certain why we might need them. We had sort of… brute-forced our way through large swathes of the puzzle already. However, Xhinn’s hint had led us to this latest batch, so I had to assume they would still be of some use.

“I still says it were the door with them two Mina birds on it,” Jax groused. For the third time.

Mina birds, at least from the depiction I had seen, kind of resembled ravens except they had a quasi-dimetrodon-like ridge of feathers running from the base of their beak all the way down their back. Though, if they were even black, I had no idea. It had only been a wood carving.

“What do Mina birds have to do with needles?” I asked.

“They… collect shite. And needles is shiny. I guess,” Jax said, clearly grasping at straws. “But there ain’t no clearer sign of misfortune! Seen a pair the morning afore I were bound, I did.”

Arx turned to affix Jax with a scandalized glare. “And that was unfortunate?”

“Course not, ye crusted arsepiece,” Jax shot back. “It were me mates what had the poor time of it.”

I sighed, dismissing the current door to seek out the next.

After recovering from my fall—with magical assistance, of course… and a bit for Lynnria while I was at it—we had elected to explore one of the hallways extending from either side of the entry door. The structure extended in an apparently straight line without any sort of obvious end… until it disappeared over the horizon. Which is not a thing I had ever imagined possible for an indoor area.

But here we were.

Meanwhile, the hall seemed divided into subsections rather like an open apartment complex. Periodically, a window would appear—each looking out onto some strange, illogical vista and each completely different from the last. In front of the window, there would be a small collection of furniture arranged into a little social nook. Then, on the opposite side, there would be a door, each of which featured a Keyhole directly in its center.

The implications were obvious: pick the correct door.

And with the way Keys tended to work, I doubted we would have more than a single guess.

“So many puzzles,” Lynnria groaned as we briefly paused in front of yet another.

This one did not feature any of the more obvious decorations many of the others did, however from the claw marks liberally gouging its surface, it looked to have been attacked by a bear. Unfortunate? Arguably. Needler? Bit of a stretch.

I continued on.

Lynnria audibly pouted, likely from being ignored. “Seriously, does no one else wonder why this Dungeon has nothing but mazes and puzzles? Where are all the monsters?”

“That golem not good enough for you?” I asked absently.

“That wasn’t a monster! It was an obstacle, and if we’d had any choice in the matter, we’d never have even tried to fight it. There was no way we could have taken that thing without the pill you had stowed, and even then we barely survived. We should be rolling in Gems of Power and treasure by this point.”

She paused for a moment to shake out her legs, grimacing. “All we seem to do is walk and think! I hate thinking. I had enough of that from my tutors. And my calves are killing me. How do you two walk around as if nothing is bothering you when we can’t even put our heels on the ground? Especially with… with those massive… things on your chest! You can’t tell me your backs aren’t in agony.”

Jax responded to exactly none of that and instead turned to me. “Master, yer pet be hungry.”

“I am not!”

“Do you really think they’re massive?” Arx asked, predictably latching onto the most superficial portion of Lynnria’s diatribe. Her face contorted into a thoughtful frown while she hefted them underneath an arm. “They’re still barely even big enough to extend past my wrist. Dearest, can you see them from behind?”

She turned away quickly and reached up to grab at her horns, then shook her front from side to side.

“Yeah, a little. Especially when you jiggle them like that,” I reported.

Arx twirled back around, grinning from ear to ear.

“Quit showing off, ye bloated cow,” Jax protested, though her heart was not in it. “And ye are so hungry. We been walking for near on two hours. I can feel it starting to gnaw at ye.”

Arx was still too elated to rise to the admittedly weak provocation and instead pranced over to ruffle Lynnria’s hair. “Pity she can’t feed properly yet. With all the fun earlier, I’m still brimming with Energy.” Tail wagging mischievously, she presented herself to the younger woman. “Are you sure you don’t want some? It’s right there for the taking.”

From her expression, you would have thought Arx had just offered Lynnria a dead rat she had picked up from the floor.

“Must you be so vile?”

Jax rolled her eyes. “Master…?”

I sighed, still too engrossed in the puzzle—and still too thoroughly sated—to be in a mood for handing out blowjobs. However, like any good shepherd, it was my responsibility to tend to my flock. The Dolilim had their needs.

Turning, I twisted my belt to one side, exposing my already rising member.

Whatever front she was putting on vanished the instant Lynnria laid eyes on it, and she practically launched herself toward me, her padded knees sliding across the polished floor as if she had just scored a match goal. I was in her mouth not an instant later, and she began to work at me—a lamb at her mother’s teat.

From her complaints earlier, I had thought she might need some comfort but ultimately decided against it. Her mood needed a bit of a lift. This, I decided, was to be her happy time.

“She were right about one thing,” Jax mused—from her tone, thoughtful. However, she and Arx were watching the proceedings like a pair of hounds during meal prep. “Me claws ain’t pierced no lick of flesh since we got here. Be thirsting fer Life now. Can feel it, almost.”

“It’s not like there have been no monsters,” I said over the suckling noises. Jax had said something about seeing them in her section, I felt sure. “Is it really so uncommon?”

“I’ve been in my share of puzzle-heavy Dungeons,” Arx replied. “But one with no Gem rewards? Completely unheard of.”

“Hmm.”

It was an interesting observation but, like so many of the ones we had made, it was not one we could do much with. What were we supposed to do? Form up a picket line?

Distracted, I motioned to Jax. The exercise had made me a tad peckish myself and, especially with those heals earlier, I felt a need for a pick-me-up.

She stepped forward with a confident sway, then paused within easy reach, ready for whatever I might like to do with her.

I smirked before reaching up to give one of her perky nipples a solid thump. She trembled for a few moments while pain and heady waves of pleasure warred over her features, but she made no move to shield her chest. If anything, she only presented herself more fully. However, despite being the originator of that little fetish, I was not one for sadism. That had only ever been a trait intended to help her fight better. So I left it at that.

Instead, I simply dragged a finger through her freshly engorged flesh and brought it to my lips. The potent whiskey-spice flavor I discovered there had experienced no lapse at all in potency. If anything, the Life was stronger than ever.

Maybe there was some credence to the notion of it being tied to their Energy levels. Though, that it should be stronger now, after having walked for over an hour? Emotions must have been a fairly potent Energy source. Unless she was pushed to the limit, just being in the proximity of others would sustain her indefinitely.

Lynnria’s rhythmic action abruptly halted as she was overcome by a bout of shivering. “Whistling—” She swallowed, then cast a furtive glance at the peanut gallery before refocusing on me. “W-what did you just do? It tastes so much better now!”

“Course it do, pet,” Jax said with an affectionate little scratch behind Lynnria’s elongated ear. Which she leaned into. A bit. “There be more Life in him.”

“There is? How? When?”

She grinned. “Easy to lose yer ownself down there, ain’t it? How do ye think?”

Lynnria looked between us uncertainly for a moment before the draw of my erection inevitably pulled her lips to the side.

“Here,” Jax said abruptly, pulling it away—to Lynnria’s moan of protest. With a wicked grin on her face, she turned me to face her then straddled my length.

While she worked her ever-moistened lips over me, I quirked an eyebrow. Not that I minded the softness of Jax’s body pressing against me—or any of the rest of it, frankly—but this little session was supposed to just be a quick snack for Lynnria. Jax was anything but hungry.

“Aren’t we being a tad greedy?” I asked.

She winked at me.

“That’ll do, I’m thinking.” She stepped back and turned me to face Lynnria again. “Now try it.”

On seeing the clear fluid now liberally coating my manhood, Lynnria’s expression immediately flashed to one of horror and revulsion. You would have thought Jax had just dumped a bucket of ketchup over a prime rib. However, the draw of what laid beneath was too great for her to resist for long, and she began to hesitatingly attempt to wipe it off.

Then the happiness I was exuding from my pores hit her again. I suppose she forgot what was bothering her after that and simply dove back in. From her pleased gurgling noises, the flavor was not so wretched as she had been expecting.

“Okay, that’s done. Now, per your request, I have put together a few—oh.” Mia’s untimely reentry to the conversation was cut short as soon as it began. “Perhaps this is a bad time?”

“It’s just a quickie,” Arx explained after a moment.

Jax’s addition to the proceedings had unexpectedly turned up the dial on Lynnria’s enthusiasm, so I was having a little trouble with things like words.

“What was ye doing in there, anyway?” the redhead asked. “Ye was gone so long, we near on forgot about ye.”

“I would have been done a lot faster if someone hadn’t started—slapping my tit—” She pulled away for a moment to let the tics out of her system before continuing like nothing had happened. “Hadn’t started casting spells with absolutely no warning. And anyway, there is no use asking questions you have no hope of understanding the answers to.”

Jax sniffed. “Ye ain’t gotta tell us all the fiddly bits. Just sum it up.”

“Sum it up? Do you have any idea what a base-centered orthorhombic light-fractal is? Informational exchange through energy dimensions? M-plane anchoring?”

A glazed look passed over Jax’s eyes, and she turned to Arx—who shrugged with some exaggeration.

“Sum it up… like we’re complete idiots?” my second suggested.

Mia sighed. “Fine. We have caused a… a thing to… sprout? Something vaguely like a root, I suppose. From Lynnria’s Core.”

“Like that tree in my dream?” Arx asked.

“Yes, like that—dick in my—” She pulled away again for more ticking. “Yes. Similar… at least figuratively. Though there are differences. The specifics of which are too complex to get into. However, per my initial theories, it has resulted in a connection which should allow her to manifest her skills in the same way as you two.”

Jax twirled a claw in front of her. “That being…?”

“Without incantations?” Arx supplied.

“Oh~” Mia purred. “Yes, indeed. It is rather pleasant when you answer your own questions.”

Speaking of pleasant, it was about then that ‘snack-time’ was coming to a head, and the conversation had to wait until its participants finished howling and grunting like a couple of wild animals. Not that anyone minded overmuch.

“Hoo… okay, then,” I said breathlessly. “Feeling better, Lynnria?”

It took her a few seconds to respond as she was desperately trying not to let any of her hard-won spoils go to waste—and she seemed to be crying a little—but she nodded.

“Good…. Good.” I glanced toward our audience. “That is the good kind of crying, right?”

They also nodded. In perfect unison.

Hmm… One day, I was going to need to learn to tell the difference, but the concept of crying for joy was just so foreign to me. I could scarcely imagine being so overcome that you had to break down into tears.

For a moment, I pursued the idea that I ought to give Lynnria an admittedly well-earned kiss just to get a better feel for her mental state. I knew she would appreciate it—probably even because of my motives. But from the way she was licking her fingers, she seemed a little busy.

“Cool,” I said instead. Then winced. Man. Why do you gotta be so awkward? Quick. Change the subject… “You had some sort of ability for us to look at, Mia?”

“A few, yesssnnnah~” She took a few heavy breaths of her own. “Lord sovereign… please, be merciful. You held that spell so long earlier.”

I grimaced. “Sorry. That reminds me, though… My spells are supposed to provide some sort of emotional influence on my companions, but when I cast your levitation on Arx earlier, she got all freaked out and sick at her stomach.”

“‘Snails, Dearest… you didn’t have to tell her about it,” Arx protested.

“It should be working fine,” Mia replied, ignoring her. “At the moment, it’s just a randomized, Class-based spell attachment. And you haven’t spent any points toward improving or controlling it. Fear and nausea could easily overpower such a weak effect.”

“I got over it,” Arx mumbled under her breath.

Distracted, I reached up to begin stroking one of her horns.

Spell attachments? I had never given it much thought, but now that Mia had drawn it to my attention, there might actually be quite a bit of potential to the idea. Never mind uplifting emotional boons, what if I could actually influence their combat acumen?

There was a certain economy to a fight, after all. As a spell caster, there was only so much I could accomplish in any given moment. If I could passively attach even minor buffs to them with each spell, that would eventually have a huge impact.

It was rather like discovering I had one of those MMO skill-trees waiting for me in the background—except I had to make up the tree as I went. And every point spent to improve it was one spell less in my overall arsenal.

Damn it. It was not the first time I bemoaned the open-ended nature of this system, and it would not be the last.

“I’ll have to give that some thought, Mia. Although, now that we’re on the topic, I actually have quite a few questions about how my Class is supposed to work—”

Mia let out something of a panicked squeal.

“—which I will be asking later. Go ahead and show us what you have for now.”

“Uh huh… well, first off, Lynnria, I have taken your poison idea and—” She paused. “I’m sorry. Would you prefer this conversation to be private?”

Lynnria was still trembling a bit, but she shook her head. “No. We talk our skills out for the good of the Clan. Right?”

“How else’d ye do it?” Jax asked.

“Liiiike I uuused to,” Arx slurred airily. It was then I realized I was still rubbing her horn. And her mouth was beginning to hang open.

Jax eyed her for a moment. “Aye… that’d put a right boak on it.”

Boak? As my hand fell away, Arx unconsciously tried to follow it down—and she collapsed to the floor.

“Um…” I gave my head a quick shake before refocusing on Jax. “I thought that one had something to do with vomit.”

She glanced up at me for a moment before returning her stare to her floundering sister. “Aye?”

Fair enough. “Go on, Mia.”

“Uh… yes. As I was saying, it is not possible to intentionally poison yourselves for your own benefit… with skills, anyway. However, per our Lord’s suggestion, I have been toying with the ideas of Life Energy storage and contamination.”

I suggested contaminating our Life Energy? That did not sound right. Although, I had to suppose the description of Life Berries could be interpreted that way. If someone else ate them.

Mia continued, “Now, creating a set of Energy Storage Runes was fairly simple. Once you give me the go-ahead—”

“Hold on,” Jax interrupted, finally tearing herself away from the spectacle of Arx crawling across the floor. “Why ain’t ye doing the bit with them blue cards? Now that we’s all connected-like, I been wanting to see what the Master’s been on about.”

“But… you can’t even—gag on a dick!” She pulled away to make a series of popping noises before finishing her thought, “Can’t even read!”

“You could still read ‘em to me.”

“But…! That…!” Mia let out an exasperated growl. “Never mind! You don’t have the architecture for visuals. I would have to install it during your next torpor.”

“But I’s Boundary-locked, ye eighth-copper slag!”

“Be grateful I’m even considering the idea, you… you ill-mannered… woman!”

Jax’s jaw worked to one side, probably trying to decide how to react to such a poor attempt at deliberate insult. Eventually, she went with, “Not a woman.”

“Female, then!” Mia sighed tiredly. “I’m not even sure how I would replicate our lord’s architecture, and even if I could reverse-engineer it, the whole thing would have to be adapted to your unique physiology and mental landscape. You have no idea how much work you just dumped in front of me on nothing more than a whim!”

“Let’s call it a flex-goal, then,” I suggested. It was best to nip this argument in the bud before it started getting out of hand. “Besides, I can think of a number of uses for them having something like that. Teaching Jax to read, for one.”

“For them? Meaning you want…?” Mia groaned in defeat. “Yes… my lord. Of course. I’ll just… add it to the docket, then.”

“I’d rather ye taught me yer ownself, Master,” Jax whined, pouting just a little.

Uh huh. “Sure. If you can manage to keep your hands off me for longer than five minutes at a stretch.”

Her little act dissolved instantly. “Point.”

“May I continue, please?”

I found a little footstool to rest on before waving her on.

“Now, as I was saying…” She paused. “Blast. With you idiots interrupting me all the time, now I’ve gone and forgotten.”

“Something about storage and permissions,” Lynnria provided.

None of us bothered to refute the ‘idiots’ part.

“Ah, yes!” She cleared her throat. “Once you agree to taking the skill, you will be provided with a set of instructions which will allow you to engrave a small circle into your flesh… which sounds bad, but really it’s just a bit of scratching. Nothing gruesome. Any Life you collect can be harvested and stored within indefinitely, however for now, you are still restricted in what types of Life you may harvest. Extracting it from animal remains or vegetation will require secondary skill purchases.”

“And before you ask, I don’t know how much you will be able to store at a time. I wasn’t able to set any parameters for that, so it may well be unlimited. Although, it may cause some… swelling… if it gets to be too much.”

Lynnria gulped. “Swelling?”

“Fuck a table leg,” Mia agreed. “Naturally, skill level will play a role in that. As well as the density and purity levels of the Energy once extracted for use.”

I nodded along with the description. “Well, aside from the swelling bit, that all sounds pretty useful. It would be really nice to have some Energy stores built up before going into a Dungeon.”

Starving to death was an activity rather recently and emphatically scratched off my bucket list.

Lynnria pulled out her Earthen ‘Bow’ and began stroking it thoughtfully. “Yes, it does. You haven’t mentioned a duration for the ability, though.”

“Again, there isn’t room to specify. I assume not very long if left unused, however the Runes should persist indefinitely once Life is inserted. And I would expect a need to reapply if emptied.”

“That’s all well and good,” Arx said from the nearby high-backed chair she had managed to pour herself into. “But this was supposed to be some sort of poison ability. She needs something to fight with besides that little stick.”

“Yes, I was just coming to that,” Mia replied. “Once extracted again, the Life should present as a form of dense liquid—again depending on skill level and the amount you have crammed in there. Besides just consuming it directly, you can use it as a form of blood-contact poison.”

“Meaning we’d have to rub it onto a blade or an arrow,” Lynnria said for clarity’s sake.

“Or your claws, yes. The effect of the poison is undetermined. However, inserting a foreign and condensed Life Energy into someone’s bloodstream has the potential to induce any number of reactions. Weakness at a bare minimum.”

“That being what you meant by contamination,” I said, understanding finally.

Jax sighed before flopping across Arx’s lap—to the other’s chagrin. “I dunno. Seems to me it’s just another poison like what the Master’s got already—and not even as good! ‘Sides, if Life Energy be doing that, couldn’t we just use what’s in our fannies?”

“Not dense enough—cherry boy!”

Jax’s head jerked up. However, her outrage faded quickly, replaced by a grin of amusement tugging at her features. “That one weren’t bad. Pity ye can’t pull such out when it’s called fer.”

“Yes. Pity,” Mia agreed. Followed by an dismissive sniff. “And anyway, if you want the poison to do something more interesting, you’ll need to specify. At Lynnria’s current strength, there is only so much I can do with a single skill point.”

“I still have a second one we can use,” Lynnria reminded us. “We only ever got around to spending the one when I gained my Class.”

That tidbit of information sparked a lengthy debate regarding the various avenues we might take this hypothetical poison, during which I maintained a thoughtful silence.

My own ability caused horrific pain through its corrosive properties and exploded violently if exposed to flame, so causing damage was not a… huge concern.

Jax thought it best for it to cause the Lust Ailment. That way, her new—and thus far unused—Class suffix would have something to work off of. As a Tenebrous Warrior of Beguilement, she was supposed to receive stacking Strength and Agility bonuses based on the arousal levels of those around her. However, being Boundary-locked, she had yet to purchase skills to take full advantage of that ability.

Meanwhile, Arx thought it would be more useful for it to cause some sort of Confusion or Dazed effect. Anything we might do to throw the enemy off their game would be extremely helpful in combat. Putting them to sleep, making them stare off into space, or even better, making them attack one another would be way better than just giving one of our party members a buff.

Lynnria’s own idea was… a little more violent. She thought it would be really cool for the poison to make its victim explode… and then for the chunks to explode when they hit something. And then for anybody caught in that explosion to also explode. Ultimately resulting in a visceral popcorn spray of annihilation.

Paraphrasing, of course.

“Absolutely not!” Mia shouted.

“Oh, come on!” Lynnria groaned as she aimed a kick at an innocent pitcher of water… that was sitting on the table she had been pontificating from. However, her foot was quickly reminded that the furniture and everything on it was glued down, leaving her hopping in circles with foot in hand.

“First of all, never mind the restriction on multi-targeting within the Foundation Layers,” Mia began, “proliferation isn’t even available until the 3rd Stratum. And you want explosive proliferation? You would need to be in the 4th before we could ever consider it. Keeping a poison from affecting your own party is one thing, but explosives are an entirely separate matter!”

“Donum’s explodes,” Lynnria countered petulantly.

“Donum’s is modeled upon a compound his party fairly encountered,” Mia counter-countered. “There is no need to define parameters in such cases, and the allied immunity it confers does not extend to explosive side-effects.”

No need to define parameters? That was news to me. Though, Mia had already mentioned something to that effect when she was explaining the Create Lesser Dolilim spell, this was the first time I had really considered the implications. If it was possible to create spells by reference…

No, there has to be some sort of limitation. I knew of one already. Mia had even said it. I had to have encountered the thing before. But ‘encountered’ in what sense? Like… was it possible to create a space shuttle? I had seen one of those before on a school field trip.

Somehow, I doubted it. And that was just exactly the kind of ‘deeper’ question Mia would avoid. I was going to have to figure it out through experimentation, I knew.

But now was not the time. I had something else in mind for Lynnria.

“Those are all excellent ideas,” I began. Even Lynnria’s… if a bit ambitious. “But I think the main issue is in how to apply the poison in the first place. From what I’m hearing, this isn’t a simple matter of a magical buff like mine is. This has to be meticulously applied to a blade. That would be fine if we already knew we were getting into a fight, but she’d have a lot of trouble with surprise attacks.”

I hesitated in saying the rest. I had been entertaining the vague hope of developing Lynnria into more of an offensive spell caster, but I was well aware how much that flew in the face of her expressed desires. Mages and Warriors have very different philosophies when it came to combat. Although, at the end of the day, there is not much difference between dying from a blade between your ribs or a hole burned through your chest.

So maybe if I phrase it correctly…?

“She really needs a better way to introduce the poison into her victim than just blood contact. Like… maybe she could release it as a gas. That way, she could just wave it into their faces.”

However, Mia shot that down immediately. “A gas would count as a multi-target ability.”

I nodded, having expected the rejection. “Okay… if you could somehow make the poison work on skin contact, all she’d have to do is touch them. Better yet, you could even form it into some kind of projectile that she could launch from a distance. Unless… hmm. Maybe that’s too much. There would be a lot of skill involved in actually hitting anyone with it.”

Lynnria puffed out her chest immediately and began brandishing her dowel rod from her perch on the table. “I think I have already demonstrated my proficiency in that regard.”

I smiled. “True.”

Mia clicked over to her private channel. “Ah… a simple poison bolt spell. But one which requires skill-based targeting, appealing to her pride. She would even need to keep track of ammunition. Well played, my lord.”

“Still don’t do much,” Jax pointed out, oblivious. “But we could build on it yet.”

Arx nodded along. “And range is an extremely useful component for an ability to have. ‘Hurt them before they can hurt you,’ as our old seneschal used to say.”

“Our Clan has a seneschal?” Lynnria asked doubtfully.

“No… no, that was…” Arx looked away. “Never mind. He’s long dead now.”

I gave Arx a curious glance. Filing that away for later…

Lynnria sighed. “Shame. Good ones are hard to come by.” She twisted her lips into a considering expression before starting up a circuit atop her end table. “I suppose building up a skill to shoot poison would be pretty interesting. Even if it only stuns, at first.”

“Excellent. I’ll get to work on those immediately,” Mia exclaimed. “In the meantime, I should mention one last item. Your Core reconfiguration has forced me to rework your initial skill. Instead of relying on your Will to define its parameters, all you need do now is touch an object with the claw of your left hand’s pinky to apply a Rune of Luck. Then, if it is possible for that object to have some favorable outcome relative to yourself, the Rune will push for that chain of events. Naturally, our lord’s ability will compound this effect greatly.”

“And this is an improvement,” Arx said, incredulous. “How did it work before? Twine and prayer?”

Lynnria bobbed her head to one side. “A lot like prayer, actually. I could never be sure when I had done the thing right or what effect it was even having. This should be much better in a fight. Although, it’d be difficult now to pull off that treasure-finding trick we did before.”

“It would require some creativity, yes. Improving a skill’s specificity of function necessarily limits its variety of use. By definition.”

Lynnria took a considering look at her now apparently-enchanted pinky. “What else—” She paused to rephrase. “I would like to know the specifics of the ability, please. Like how long the Rune lasts. Stuff like that.”

“Currently, the Rune will only operate for a few seconds without our lord’s ability to enhance it. Your skill level will improve this, of course. And you will not need to worry about whether or not it is having an effect. The Rune will always work. However, it would take a great deal of skill to produce an outcome of any significance.”

I slapped my knees. Conversation done, I decided it best we move on. There was a seemingly infinite array of doors ahead of us, and we were not going to find the right one just sitting there… even if I did enjoy delving into the occasional technical discussion over the minutia of skill function.

Post-fellatio.

Speaking of, it had been some time since Lynnria’s last luck ‘discharge’ and, unlike her elders, she had yet to purchase a tolerance ability for it. Though that was assuming she was even able to. It might have been another of those lilim-specific abilities. Either way, I was reluctant to suggest it. Despite the danger of her collapsing into a quivering heap of uncontrolled lust, it was kind of refreshing to have someone hanging around that was not a constant horn dog.

And we could at least manage the symptoms.

“I have an idea,” I said. Fumbling in my Pouch for a moment, I dug out a copper and tossed it up to Lynnria. “Put your Rune on this. Heads, we go in this door. Swords, we don’t.”

The Dolilim glanced at the door in question. This particular one featured a signboard depicting a man getting berated by his wife.

“But there’s no way this is the right door,” Arx protested. “We need an ‘unfortunate needler,’ not a ‘needled unfortunate.’”

“Nice,” I said, appreciating the word-play. I had not put it together before Arx said it aloud. “This is mostly just to disperse Lynnria’s luck, though.”

Lynnria let out a huff and folded her arms. “What for? I’m perfectly sated, now. Just because your… your p-p-pe—your thing makes the most delicious—” She swallowed abruptly, and a light shade of pink began to ascend from the collar of her shirt. “A-anyway, it’s… it’s not like you let me push you down for anything more interesting. Unless… you wanted to?”

Jax let out a companionable chuckle as she rolled onto her feet again. “Sure, he could, lass. Sure. But we can’t be rubbing at the Master all hours, can we? Now, climb yer bahoochie down off o’ there, and be about it.”

Lynnria sighed and, pouting a little, lightly hopped from the table. I could sympathize to a degree. When your mind is in the gutter, it can be difficult to think of much beyond reveling in it. Climbing out again barely even merits consideration.

As she came to stand to one side of me, she eyed the coin critically. I could feel the puff of hair at the base of her tail absently stroking the backs of me knees. “So… what? I just tap it?” she asked.

We waited for a moment, but Mia did not reply. It would seem she had already begun her assignment.

“With your left pinky, as I recall,” I confirmed presently. “After that, flip the coin, and we’ll see where it lands.”

“Seems… awfully easy. Don’t you think?” She cleared her throat and began to wiggle her fingers over top of the token. “Hear me, Coin of Mysteries. I am Donum Lynnria! First of my—”

“That’s enough of that!” I said quickly. “It was embarrassing enough the first time.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I thought you looked kind of sexy with your arms all spread out… and that interesting shadow the light was projecting through your skirt.”

Assembling the scene as she was describing it took me a handful of seconds, however once I realized what she was talking about, I had to take a moment to stare at her. “How can say something like that with a straight face when you can barely force yourself to say ‘penis’ without blushing like a tomato?”

Her face instantly tomato-ed. “Those are completely different things!” she said in a strangled tone. Then she blinked a few times. “What’s a tomato?”

“It’s a kind of large… tangy… berry?” Technically.

She grinned. “You mean like your—” She stopped herself again with a surreptitious glance at the others.

That was when the pieces clicked together. This moment had reminded me rather strongly of another… though it had been a different fruit under comparison at the time. She had not been so shy then, but we had also lacked an audience.

Hmm… just like her swearing. I was gradually beginning to figure this woman out. Somewhat.

Even so, it was not like I could just tell her she did not have to be shy. Becoming comfortable enough to be yourself in a new group could take time. She would come out of her shell eventually.

I bumped her hip. “I suppose. But a plum is definitely closer.”

She chewed her lower lip for a moment, relishing the private memory.

Arx tsked. “‘Stits, what is that? Arousal, sure. But there’s this subtle tinge to it…”

Jax leaned over to stage whisper in her ear. “Yer right. There be sommat weird to it, but I can tell she be wanting a proper winching.”

I turned to them in confusion. “Like with a harness?”

Jax scowled and slapped my shoulder with the back of her hand.

“What?”

“I’ll just be about this, then. Shall I?” Lynnria said loudly. And blushing bright enough to read by. “Heads, we go in this door. Swords, we don’t.”

Before anyone else could pile onto her mounting heap of embarrassment, Lynnria tapped the coin with her pinky. At the moment of contact, a brief flash of dim light spread out from the tip of her claw, arranging itself into a pattern of some sort.

The Rune of Luck, I assumed. However, there was no describing its shape nor any hope of remembering it afterward. All that remained in our minds was the echo of its presence.

That and—at least for me—a vague notion of symmetry along a central axis.

Then Lynnria flipped the coin into the air. We all watched as the coin tumbled, gleaming end over end, then bounced off the floor. Then it bounced again. And again. Ultimately settling on its edge.

And began to slowly roll away.

“Uh…?” Lynnria uttered. “What does that mean?”

I had no idea, but I was not about to let the thing escape. A full copper piece was worth something like fifty bucks!

And it was picking up speed.

However, before I could grab it, the thing rolled under an inconveniently placed coffee table, and by the time I had knelt to look for it, it was already past and on its way down the hall.

“After it!”