Dungeons and Dalliances

7.89 – Trials I

The hallway led forward nearly forty feet and eventually ended in a wooden door. Swinging that open, Natalie peered around inside a much spacier room. No threats jumped out, and she saw no obvious traps, so she eased her way in, hammer held at the ready.

They had found the Palace Basement's Vault.

Cautiously, she approached the circular steel door inset into the opposite wall. There was a thick turn-handle on the right, and writing inscribed in the center. A bright-pink outline encircled the writing, around three-quarters full—an indicator of some sort.

First Trial: Trial of Persistence. Victoriously complete twenty encounters throughout the Palace Basements.

Vanetta, to her side, blurted out, "Twenty? That's it?"

"That does seem low, for a supposed trial," Natalie said doubtfully.

The two of them mulled it over.

"Then again," Vanetta said. "We're better prepared than most teams." After a second, she muttered, "Than all teams, really."

"You think so?" Natalie replied idly, though she agreed.

"A trial is supposed to be difficult, sure, but you're a freak of nature when it comes to … dealing with those encounters."

Natalie had been the one to take care of the bulk of the sexual challenges, especially when only one person was needed.

"And, with you having used that skill to empower me, we've been making short work of the real combat rooms too," Vanetta continued.

She and Vanetta were an excellent pair, stand-outs even at Tenet, much less the collection of far less elite individuals that had been drawn into the City of Eros. The only remotely comparable combination would've been her and Elida, and Natalie suspected that Vanetta was the more truly skilled individual. Elida was god-sponsored, and thus cheating somewhat. And yes, she recognized that applied to herself as well: she had confidence in herself—she had qualified for Tenet from the remote region of south nowhere of Valhaur—but her class was definitely doing some heavy lifting too.

"So we're over-prepared from both ends," Vanetta finished. "Twenty rooms probably is an insanely difficult trial for most people."

Natalie nodded slowly in agreement. Then her lips quirked. "But 'freak of nature'?" she asked. "Really?"

Vanetta paused, then coughed. She had clearly applied the label automatically, not as a deliberate insult. "I don't think most girls could last as long as you have, and as many times," she said dryly. "That's all I'm saying."

Guilty as charged, she supposed. Even the hour of recuperation she'd gotten during the scouring of the library had brought her nearly back to full—she was ready to go again. Her stamina in that regard really might be superhuman. Despite having come to climax more than a dozen times in the past few hours, now that she'd had a chance to catch her breath, the idea of finding another busty slimegirl to play with sounded appealing.

So yeah. Maybe a Trial requirement of twenty rooms was a significant challenge for a normal group, but not for their two-woman lineup.

"So, what?" Vanetta asked. "Five or six more rooms? That's it? Won't take much time at all." She stepped forward to tug on the Vault's handle, but of course, it didn't budge. They would need to complete the first trial before they could see what was behind it. Natalie expected that there would be more trials afterward. "Let's get to it, then, and see what's next."

They did so. They met two sticky scenarios early on. The encounters went lewd, combat, lewd, then three more combats. The fights in the Palace Basement certainly weren't easy, so her muscles were aching by the end. They'd come out fine, but there'd been at least two or three adrenaline-inducing moments. Which confirmed what Vanetta was saying earlier: regular teams would be seriously strained, if even the two of them were having some difficulty.

Back at the Vault, the pink progress bar had filled up. When they stepped close enough, the writing glowed, then faded away. Something heavy clunked inside the door. Natalie tugged on the handle and it yielded easily. She dragged the door open, and behind it was …

A second vault door, identical to the previous. And also, an altar made of stone.

"How many do you think there'll be?" Vanetta asked. "Two? Three? More than that?"

"Three is usually the magic number," Natalie said, shrugging. "Could be any number, though." She approached the second door and the altar, inspecting each in turn.

The Second Trial's requirement revealed itself in writing, as the first had:

Second Trial: Trial of Sacrifice. Demonstrate your dedication. All items set upon the altar will be destroyed completely. The door is already unlocked: proceed at your discretion.

"What does that mean?" Natalie asked. "Is it … a puzzle? Is there something specific we need to sacrifice? Or are we supposed to just give up as much as we can?"

Vanetta alternated her frown between the altar and the writing on the vault door. "I'm not sure," she admitted. She spent nearly a full minute in contemplation, which Natalie also used to churn over the possibilities. "At a guess, the final reward would be proportional to how much we give up? Everything sacrificed improves the rewards?" She grimaced. "Could be what you said though. Maybe if we don't sacrifice enough, we'll lock ourselves out, or screw ourselves somehow. Or maybe there's some other puzzle."

Natalie grunted. They thought it over for a bit longer. "The first idea seems most fitting. It is called the trial of sacrifice."

"So, what? Should we give up everything?"

"Everything?"

Vanetta screwed her face into a grimace. "Unless we can't live without it, put it on the altar. If we're going by reasonable dungeon rules, we'll be rewarded twice over for everything given up, right? Or if it doesn't work like that, and there's some hidden minimum, we should do everything we can to meet it. Sounds like we only have one shot."

"That does make sense." Natalie hesitated. "But …"

"But what?"

"But we should talk about what the third trial might be, in that case," she said with a wince. "So we don't waste all of our items, only to fail there."

Before, she hadn't brought it up because they would 'deal with it when they got there'. But for the reasoning she'd mentioned, she couldn't ignore her theory anymore.

"You do know what the last trial is going to be, right?" Natalie asked.