Dungeons and Dalliances Ch. 110-119

Ana tilted her head. "Because I assume being naked would be the most arousing, wouldn't it? Or near it. So is it the highest stat bonus?"

"How is that where your mind went?" Liz squeaked.

"It's a good point," Jordan said, amused. "Maybe we should be a rings, amulets, and accessories only team. And I mean only."

Liz turned two shades redder. Natalie wondered why Jordan had to always instigate, these days.

"We get bonuses if you're aroused?" Sofia said, glaring at Natalie, her voice nearly a growl. "What is wrong with your class, Nat?"

"Think I asked for it?" Natalie shot back. "Not like I had a choice in the matter."

Natalie paused.

Well, that was a lie. She'd actively been given a choice; she could have taken the default class options. But her point stood.

"I'm not delving naked," Sofia said flatly. "There's limits to how much I'll deal with your class."

"Didn't ask you to, did I?" Natalie said. "It's just a skill the team should know about."

"Hmph."

"Don't even know how it works, anyway," Natalie said. "It might just be, like, a minimum thing. That the outfit has to meet some basic requirement, then you get the full boost, and it doesn't scale more for how crazy it is. I'll figure it out later."

"How? With who?" Sofia asked, then paused, realizing she probably shouldn't have asked the question. Several eyes turned, naturally, to Jordan.

"The things I do for friends," Jordan said wryly. "Unless someone else wants to volunteer?" Her eyes turned to Liz, who colored brightly.

"Anyway," Natalie said. "Now you guys know. So there."

"I was planning on finding something to wear under or over those new robes of mine," Ana said, "but perhaps that's not necessary." She shrugged. "I don't mind. Mage equipment is mostly magical protections. It's more of an issue for Sofia and Jordan. Walking around scantily clad has real defense implications."

"The sluttier stuff usually has shield effects built in," Jordan said. "So the trick will be finding natural dungeon gear like that."

"Won't be that hard, I bet," Sofia grumbled. "Somehow, I bet the dungeon's going to be very accommodating over the following days."

Nobody disagreed.

"We're going to have such a reputation at Tenet," Sofia said. "A team of five women, all dressed in slutty gear. Can you imagine?"

Natalie could imagine, and it was having unfortunate effects on her. She shifted in place, and Jordan's lips quirked. Under the table, she patted Natalie on the thigh—unfortunately close to a growing problem. Really. Why was Jordan always causing problems these days? She'd always been the person to smooth things over, before.

"We'll have back-up gear, I was saying," Jordan said. "Something to wear around normally, and our real set of gear we'll put on in the dungeon. Because yeah, I don't mind making use of the skill when we have some privacy, but maybe not around campus."

"And if someone bumps into us down there?" Sofia asked. "Or during school events where armor is allowed?"

Jordan shrugged. "Well, we'll deal with that when we get to it. Depending on how strong the boost is, though, could definitely be worth it, embarrassing or not."

"It was just a heads up," Natalie said, wanting to move on. "We'll talk more about it later." It had just been for the best if they were told in advance. But detailed discussions were kind of pointless, since she still needed to experiment with the skill with Jordan, discover its limitations and such. Which would, of course, be an event in its own right.

4.07 - Competition

Dueling was the most popular extracurricular at Tenet for obvious reasons. While delving was the fundamental building block for gaining power—and thus status and wealth—fighting monsters, even the most clever of them, fundamentally wasn't the same as fighting humans. And since humans were always in conflict in one way or another, small-scale or large, there was great interest in honing one's abilities in one-on-one fights.

Beyond that, it held appeal purely as a sport. Naturally, there weren't many people who attended Tenet who weren't interested in combat for the sheer art of it. With infinite variance in weapon choice, styles, and skills, no two duels were the same—even in instances where the same two combatants were on stage.

Natalie herself hadn't picked up dueling as an extracurricular, but it had been on her list of possibilities. Maybe she would even change her schedule at some point. Just, with her current priorities, learning how to take down opponents in a one-on-one appealed to her ego, but not her sense of practicality. For Sofia, at least, the duelist-style fighter of the group, this sort of practice was more than a functional use of her time.

Tenet had world-class facilities in every category, and that was even more true for the dueling arena. As the most popular sport in the delving world, and with Tenet as the eminent academy in the country, no expenses were spared. The main arena could seat tens of thousands—for the big events of the year—and dozens of smaller ones could host hundreds each. The arena was even used occasionally for the larger dueling circuit, not just the collegiate one. Seeing how certain global political matters were settled through the use of dueling as a sport—as a display of military strength—that made the building political in nature, too. It was perhaps the single most extravagant structure across campus. Though not gaudy. That wasn't Tenet's style.

Of course, the first-year's initial miniature dueling competition—more of an event to seed the freshmen talent than anything—wouldn't be drawing any impressive numbers like the 'real events' would. Only friends, family, and a few interested people would be attending. Sofia had asked her team to come watch, and so, of course they had. It was a small waste of time, since they could easily pick up a temporary fighter and get a few hours of delving in after classes, but Natalie recognized perfect efficiency would drive a person insane. A few hours spent watching duels would be both interesting and practical too—studying the styles of her classmates was hardly a complete waste of time.

As the competition progressed, Sofia dominated the opposition. In the combat rankings that faculty put together, many factors were taken into account, not just one's ability to face down a single opponent. Sofia's style had many flaws, especially in a group setting, because she had few to no syngeristic abilities or tendencies, was weak to swarming enemies, and generally offered little to the team beyond her raw offensive output. The thing was—she provided a lot of offensive output, and needed very little support to do so.

And in the dueling ring, none of those downsides mattered. Natalie had spent her life watching this woman fight, but seeing her wreak havoc on even students of Tenet's caliber recontextualized a few things. She felt slightly less bad about her own failures to handle Sofia over the years. She was an aberrant talent even by the standards of the premier academy in the country.

There were, of course, exceptions. Sofia wasn't the best duelist of the year, only high up there. One such contender was the unfortunate obvious one: Elida, who had also chosen dueling as an extracurricular. Many of the other big names had as well.

Natalie, Jordan, Liz, and Ana watched from the sidelines as Sofia went about her matches. This wasn't an official event as other dueling competitions might be, but there were still a decent amount of spectators—one or two hundred—and the convenience stands were open, selling snacks and drinks. Natalie was used to being one of the combatants in these kinds of events—she'd grown up attending them—so being on the sidelines felt a bit odd.

Something strange was happening between each of Sofia's matches, too. With each of her inevitable victories, Sofia's eyes would find their way to Natalie and her group. That wasn't the odd part itself, of course, but rather—how they seemed to always land on Natalie first, before she gave a reluctant roll of her eyes and a thumbs up. That would bring a smile Sofia would try to hide, and her eyes would carry along to the rest of her team, nodding and playing humble.

Natalie saw through it. Sofia wanted attention from Natalie so she could rub it in. 'Look how good I am'. Still, Natalie continued encouraging her after each victory. In the dueling ring, the woman was really something else. And Sofia seemed so pleased by the thumbs-up each time that Natalie supposed she didn't mind feeding her ego. She had an annoyingly cute smile. But more annoying than cute. It agitated Natalie in a way hard to describe.

An evening spent chatting with her team and watching spars was a nice break from the frantic pace of Tenet daily life. Even better, an unexpected guest showed up—Sammy. Accompanying her were her two friends, Evie and Dag, which Natalie had met at the party. Apparently Dag had a little brother who was a freshmen and was participating in today's event. Their groups ended up mingling and watching the fights together, though Dag split off when his brother had a match in a different ring coming up. Sofia wasn't always active, either, of course—there were a lot of dueling students, and Tenet was getting a wide spread of match ups to properly seed the students for future events. Hundreds or more matches were taking place, and there were only so many rings.

To Natalie's bafflement, Sofia's demeanor changed when she came out—again—the victor of her next round. She looked over, saw Natalie sitting next to Sammy, and rather than smiling at Natalie's thumbs-up, she frowned. When the match finished, Sofia exited the ring and their group came up to properly congratulate her, but the shift in attitude held. She chatted perfectly normally with the rest of the group, but seemed to ignore Natalie. It wasn't outright hostility or anything, and rather subdued—Sofia was hardly running to Natalie to chat with her to begin with—so Natalie wondered whether she was imagining it.

It continued that way for the rest of the event, even after their two separate groups split off, and Sammy said her goodbyes. Jordan noticed it too, and asked Natalie if she'd done something. If Natalie had, she had no clue what. It had started when Sammy arrived, but as far as Natalie knew, the two of them didn't even know each other, so she couldn't come up with a reason why Sammy sitting next to Natalie would matter in the slightest.

The irritable demeanor only grew. By the time all of Sofia's matches came to a wrap, Sofia was all but glaring at Natalie, to Natalie's complete confusion. Natalie and the rest of the group came up to Sofia, but Sofia made a few brief pleasantries and said she was going to get changed. Her shortness had carried over even to talking with Liz and Jordan by that point.

Jordan watched her go, then turned to Natalie. "You should go talk to her."

"I didn't do anything."

"Still," Jordan said. "You should go. Find out what's happening." Even Jordan seemed a bit perplexed by the situation.

Natalie considered whether she wanted to do that—a confrontation with Sofia was sure to be a disaster—but considering how Sofia had seemed almost friendly at the start of the event, she made her mind up.

"Okay, fine," Natalie said. "I'll go see what's up."

4.08 - Confrontation

Natalie trailed after Sofia. The locker rooms were a good distance away, so Sofia had plenty of time to notice. She was a competent delver, too, so was basically incapable of missing someone so plainly following her. Still, she ignored Natalie the whole way there. Natalie decided against jogging up and forcing the confrontation before reaching a somewhat private building.

When they arrived to the locker room, Natalie was pleased to find the space empty. It was one of many, with the locker rooms small and separated, so that wasn't too odd—but it might not last long with matches starting to finish up. Sofa had completed hers earlier than most; the event was schedule to go for another half hour.

Sofia stalked to her locker, then agitatedly swung it open, the metal door clanking as it smacked into another.

"Okay," Natalie said. "The hell is this? What's going on?"

That was, admittedly, not the most conciliatory way to open the conversation, but Sofia's attitude had gotten on Natalie's nerves. She hadn't done anything. All of this had come out of nowhere.

"Do you mind?" Sofia replied, not turning as she angrily rummaged around inside her locker. "I'm trying to get dressed."

"No. You're being weird. I want to know what's up."

"What do you mean? Nothing is 'up'." She almost growled the last word. Her rummaging-around became even more agitated.

"Uh-huh," Natalie said, which turned out to be all the prompting Sofia needed.

"I guess I just don't get it," Sofia said. "Not at all."

"Get what?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Or your hordes of lovers, I guess."

Which hadn't remotely been the response Natalie had been expecting. She paused, caught completely off foot, before finally responding with an ineloquent, "What?"

"Really. What's the big deal?" Sofia asked. "Why is everyone always falling over you? It's been like this forever." She punctuated the statement with several aggressive bangs of metal inside her locker, violently moving items around.

"What are you talking about?" Natalie asked. So this had been about Sammy, as had been her only remote guess. Natalie just didn't understand why.

"This is hardly new. But I honestly figured Tenet would at least be more resistant to your 'charms'." She scoffed the last word. "But no. Not even a week in and you were getting into everyone's pants. Just like always. So like I said, I just don't get it."

"Get what?" Natalie asked. "And more than that, why would you care?" That was the even more confusing part, though Natalie was baffled from start to finish with this conversation, not just there.

"I don't care," Sofia growled, not doing a great job of selling the point. "I just said that I don't get it. What, do you have magic fingers? How is it so easy for you?"

Natalie ignored the magic fingers comment, mostly because she didn't know where to begin with it. "Easy?" she asked instead.

"You just have to look at a girl for her to fall for you. Or at least get into her pants. Just know that I'm not sold. Besides," Sofia scoffed, "I doubt you're even that good."

"That ... good?"

"I mean, it can't be that hard, anyway. They're probably just easy to impress."

What was this woman going on about? Natalie knew what, since Sofia was all but spelling it out, but it was so baffling that Natalie second guessed herself. Was Sofia talking about sex? Specifically, Natalie's skill in it? Why? Natalie stared at her, at a loss for words.

"I'm just saying," Sofia said. "It wouldn't matter how good you were. I certainly wouldn't be tripping over my feet afterward, like these ... these skanks."

Natalie bristled at that, since the insult was clearly directed at Sammy, but she forcibly calmed herself. She could tell Sofia wasn't exactly speaking with a clear mind. That didn't mean the words didn't piss her off, but she moderated herself.

"Uh-huh," Natalie said. "And how, exactly, would you know? Aren't you a virgin?"

Which wasn't a response that took the high ground. She was no expert at controlling her emotions, either—calming her annoyance at Sofia's insult of Sammy had been the most she'd been capable of.

And Natalie didn't actually know Sofia's level of experience, but by the way Sofia huffed, then continued rummaging around angrily in her locker—and she was sure having a hard time finding whatever she was looking for—Natalie could tell she'd gotten it right.

She wracked her brain for an explanation. Why would Sofia care about how easily Natalie hooked up with other girls? And comment on her sex life in the first place?

"I get it," Natalie said, the puzzle pieces finally clicking. "You're mad that I'm better than you at something. That's what this is."

Sofia turned an incredulous look toward her.

"That is the conclusion you would come to, isn't it?" Sofia said. "Don't think too hard. You'll hurt yourself. No, listen to what I'm saying. I'm telling you that I'm just confused. It doesn't make sense how easy it is for you. And, again, I seriously doubt you're that good."

Natalie knew from first hand experience Sofia could be annoying at the best of times, but this was a first. Insulting her ability in bed was, obviously, something Sofia had never done before. All of this in general had come out of nowhere.

But it was still doing a great job of getting under Natalie's skin. Sofia was pretty exceptional at that.

"Three minutes," Natalie said, crossing her arms. "If that."

"Excuse me?"

"That's how long it would take."

"Take?" Sofia asked flatly. "For what? What are you saying?"

"Two, if I get to use my tongue."

Sofia paused.

Natalie advanced on Sofia, and with wide eyes, Sofia stepped back, pinning herself against the metal lockers as Natalie closed the gap. Natalie loomed over her, then placed one hand to the right of Sofia's head, palm flat against the metal. She leaned in close enough she could feel Sofia's breath. It had happened instinctively; Natalie hadn't even meant to move.

The way Sofia looked up at her, shocked, blue eyes wide, having gone still as a rabbit, was unexpectedly intoxicating. Natalie wasn't exactly sure what had spurred her forward, but she liked Sofia's response to the invasion of space. She liked seeing her off-foot, vulnerable. Sofia had the upper hand way too often.

"What?" Natalie teased, a hint of mocking in her voice. "Isn't that what this is? A challenge? I'm not gonna just stand there while you insult me. If you 'don't get it', then maybe I should show you." She leaned forward and whispered into Sofia's ear. "And like I said. Three minutes at most. Maybe less. I get the feeling you'd be easy to take apart. I mean, look at you."

Sofia didn't respond. She just gawked at Natalie, her chest rising and falling rapidly, face turning deeper shades of red by the moment. On her pale Theliosian skin, the effect was twice as noticeable.

"What?" Natalie asked. "All that talk, and you can't even find your voice when a girl invades your space? That's kind of sad, princess."

Sofia swallowed. "Don't be ridiculous. Is this a joke?"

"Not at all."

"Don't be ridiculous," she repeated.

"Scared of being proved wrong? What if I am that good? Maybe you'd be hanging all over me afterward, too."

"I r-really doubt that."

"Was that a stutter?" Natalie asked, delighted. It might have been the first time she'd ever heard it from the ever-composed, ever-elegant Sofia. She brushed Sofia's cheek with a thumb, and Sofia closed her eyes and leaned into the touch. She froze, realizing what she'd done, and her eyes shot back open. Natalie also froze at the telling response—then laughed.

"I haven't even done anything, and you're like this. You really would be easy to take apart." Sofia didn't even like Natalie, and she was responding in that way.

"I— I—"

"You what, princess?"

Sofia swallowed thickly, and the familiar defiant mask appeared—though its effect was rather diminished by her red face, and the way she was trembling under Natalie's proximity. "You wouldn't even get close. Three minutes? As if."

"Oh? So it's a challenge then?"

"Yes. It is."

Natalie paused. She hadn't expected Sofia to actually accept.