Fortunately, Zoey wasn't stuck with her sticky mishap crammed inside her bodysuit for the rest of the shard. She already knew from earlier that the material was selectively permeable, as noticed when she'd gotten a good taste of Maddy's juices through the suit. Further experimentation showed that Zoey could make that work with cum, too. It just took her focusing her intent, willing the fluid to soak through—like how most items and her class worked. So bit by bit, Zoey emptied the balloon from her suit, clearing the sticky liquid out.

Which was weird, having that sort of mental control over her clothing, but compared to everything else she'd been through, she barely blinked twice at it. She was just happy that she wouldn't be walking around with a huge cum balloon wobbling between her legs all day.

Out of curiosity, she also experimented with other fluids. Specifically, her spit, to see if it was possible. It was. And from the other direction, too. She could allow the sticky material to soak into her palm with a simple mental command.

So she had a surprising amount of control over the bodysuit. Zoey wasn't sure if that meant anything useful, or whether the feature was just for her convenience. Because, again, walking around all day with an increasingly growing cum bubble would have been a little much, even by Zoey's rapidly adjusting sensibilities.

From there, she and Maddy set back off. In the previous shards, Zoey had frankly been an inconsequential member of the team—contributing, but also unnecessary in the grand scheme of things, with Rosalie and Delta making short work of their opponents.

That wasn't the case for Zoey's current predicament. Responsible for the majority of their damage, Zoey's performance absolutely did matter. In the instances where she struggled to chain enough damaging spells or even missed crucial ones, the fights became suddenly much harder. Not to any lethal degree—they took things slow and were well-prepared for a third-shard environment—but riskier than any of Zoey's other experiences.

Which she found … exciting? Strangely? Certainly, it was exhilarating, fighting for her life, if maybe 'fighting for her life' was putting it dramatically. At a minimum, getting to put her hard work to use felt deeply rewarding. Seeing the fruits of her dedication these past few weeks. While there'd been plenty of diversions while at Treyhull, Zoey had spent a good portion of that time working on bettering herself as a wayfarer. She had hardly closed the gap between her and her trained-from-birth prodigious teammates, but she wasn't embarrassed by her abilities anymore, either.

As they progressed through the shard, the two of them made another odd discovery related to their bodysuits. Specifically, that they were slowly changing color.

"I could've sworn I noticed something earlier," Maddy said, frowning down at her outstretched hand—at the shiny material. "But now I'm positive. They're definitely grayer. Weren't they shiny black when we started?"

"Definitely." Zoey didn't have a doubt in her mind about that, because she'd been more than a little absorbed in how great the suit's glossy black midnight had looked on Maddy. Now, the material was several shades lighter. "They're turning gray."

"Every time we kill something, I think," Maddy said. "And … I'm pretty sure during our recharge sessions, too? That's when I first noticed. It changed a lot then."

"What do you think it means?"

"I could only guess."

"It'd be better than mine."

Maddy hesitated, then shrugged. "Maybe we're upgrading them?"

"Upgrading them? How?"

"No clue. But I assume it'll become relevant later on."

"Huh." Zoey thought that over. "Think it could be a bad thing?" Maybe not an upgrade, but something they needed to worry about, instead.

Maddy shrugged. She didn't seem overly concerned with the possibility. "It's not like we can avoid killing monsters. Or recharging you. So if it is bad, we're just gonna have to deal with the side effects. You haven't noticed anything?"

"No," Zoey said. "Not really." She frowned. "Besides that they're comfortable. This thing is heat-resistant for you, too, right?" Zoey made to tug at the latex-like material, but, of course, it didn't budge. Glued to her skin like always.

"Oh, yeah. It is," Maddy agreed. "And it's becoming more noticeable the deeper we go—because it's getting hotter. My body feels fine, but my face is getting pretty hot." She wiped her forehead of sweat, flicking it away, to emphasize the point. Then she frowned, realizing what Zoey was getting at. "You think that has something to do with it. Heat resistance?"

It was Zoey's turn to shrug. "No clue. Just commenting."

With their situation unilluminated—but at least noticed, now—they continued through the magma caverns. Paying closer attention, they confirmed that killing monsters was slowly morphing their once-black bodysuits into lighter shades of gray. Very slowly, but definitely doing it.

What happened when it did reach white? What would happen then? Anything? Was it cosmetic only? She doubted that.

As they progressed deeper, Zoey took samples from any material that seemed like it could be useful as an alchemical reagent. Rocks, moss, parts of monsters, some of the glowing red ore in the walls and ceiling, and so on. Much of it would be useless, as mundane as any other old plant or stone, but Zoey had the inventory space, and means to collect, so why wouldn't she? Sabina would help her figure out what was worth keeping once she returned to Mantle.

Possibly, Zoey would find some uses for the materials to make her own potions, should she need to. She didn't particularly feel like settling down now and making a few test brews, with she and Maddy being pressed on time and wanting to find Rosalie and Delta, but she would do so at least once before the shard's completion. One of her skills allowed easier catalyzation when making potions from reagents found inside the shard, so it would be horribly wasteful to not even see what could happen, there.

Their first loot encounter came in the form of a heavy chest hanging inside a spiderweb—the domicile's resident which she and Maddy had actually had fair difficulty killing. The giant rock-spider had been both unpleasant to look at, and more resistant to their inflaming and confusion spells. And generally tougher. Practically a mini-boss. But they managed. And had been rewarded for the effort.

The two of them hefted the container down to the floor, then straightened out and appraised the object. They peered at it from every angle. It didn't seem to be trapped, so Zoey clicked the two latches and swung it open. As typical for shard loot, an inky black portal met her. She reached in—suppressing a shiver at the cool, otherworldly sensation of the miniature portal—and groped around. Her hand closed around a wooden shaft. She pulled.

A staff emerged, a black, gnarled, charred piece of wood nearly as tall as Zoey herself. At its tip, the warped wood was wrapped around a perfectly circular red gem.

Before Zoey inspected it, she couldn't help but internally wince in expectation, bracing herself for the distorted, unpleasant sensation that came with peeking at corrupted artifacts. But relief came quickly: the description read normally, dispelling any worries of Zoey's that they might have landed in such a shard. There would be no shenanigans like what had happened at Mel's.

[Staff of Crawling Flames]: Uncommon. A weapon suitable for pyromaniacs.

"Oh," Maddy said. "That's … normal."

"Yeah." Zoey was also surprised by that; she'd been ready for … the typical shard fare. "Seems like it's for fire mages, though, not us." Which was ironic, seeing how Zoey was the opposite, having a specialty in ice.

"Makes sense, considering where we are." Maddy gestured around at one of the red veins of ore, which radiated heat. "Shards are more likely to create loot suitable to the delvers inside of it, but they won't always be nice. So it's fair that we get a fire staff, in a place like this." She paused. "Though, I really did expect something … less appropriate. Even when I saw it was a staff." She laughed. "Honestly, this shard in general hasn't been that weird, besides the bodysuits. I think I let your warnings get in my head."

It was true. So far, this adventure hadn't been as bad as the earlier two she'd gone on with Rosalie and Delta. They hadn't even bumped into a lewd trap, yet, like vines trying desperately to grope them.

Though there were good odds that was because they were carefully avoiding traps. They'd navigated around several suspicious-looking bits of terrain. Zoey didn't particularly want to take the risk of whether they would be normal traps or lewd ones. While the latter would be troublesome at best, the former could result in grievous bodily harm, especially as they were working into higher shard levels. Even if Zoey were feeling adventurous, simply jumping into a trap and hoping it would grope her rather than—well, much worse—was a terrible idea.

"It varies," Zoey agreed, reaching down into the chest to feel around for more items. "Seems like this one isn't too bad." Her hand closed around something squishy, and, brow furrowing, she pulled the object out.

Zoey held up a see-through, white gel cylinder with bumpy insides.

Both girls stared at it.

"Maybe we spoke too soon, though," Zoey said, her amusement rapidly rising.

"What is that?"

Zoey looked down into the hollow cylinder. She wiggled a finger in and felt around the bumpy insides.

"I think," Zoey said matter-of-factly, "It's a pocket pussy."

"What?!"

[Brewing Chamber]: Rare. Fill with seed and give time to concoct. Provides random, potent bonus effects. Additional substances grant stronger results.

Zoey started laughing.

"S-Seed?" Maddy stammered out. "Like—?"

"Cum? Yeah, probably. And it's called a brewing chamber? I wonder if it dropped this because of my alchemy rune." A lewder way to concoct potions than normal alchemical methods. Though, it didn't seem like it was an actual alchemy tool: just an item that mimicked the process, as fitting for Zoey's class.

"And 'additional substances grant stronger results'?" Maddy asked, eyes wide. "So, it wants—? It wants us both to—?"

Zoey's grin widened. "Two is better than one." At the imagery produced by that idea, blood rushed downward. Tight dark-gray latex squeezed around her erection as she swelled with excitement. "We have to recharge soon, anyway. Wanna give her a test run?" She wiggled the pocket-pussy enticingly at Maddy.

"Like—? With—?"

"The dungeon was nice enough to leave most of my lewd potions in my inventory," Zoey said. "And it'll be a tight fit, but we could both squeeze in at once. Work efficiently on filling it up." Her heart starting to slam in anticipation—at the look on Maddy's face, the shock and rapidly reddening cheeks—Zoey teased, "What, don't you wanna see what having a cock is like? It'll be fun."