Lewd Ascent - A Futa LitRPG Ch. 126-135

"Proof?"

Delta shrugged. "Maybe it's all bullshit, maybe it isn't. But I would've called your story bullshit too, so I guess I'm more open minded these days. And why latch to the concept of 'decaying shards'? Seems too coincidental to not matter."

"It's worth checking out," Zoey agreed. She wrinkled her nose. "But it's inconvenient timing." She'd been looking forward to lessons with Maddy—though it hadn't been guaranteed in the first place. She didn't even know if Maddy was in the training facility.

"Sorry the doomsday cult isn't scheduling around your availability," Delta said dryly. "Besides, there'll be plenty of time to stuff petite blue-haired mages silly at later dates. You can miss one creampie session, you insatiable woman."

"We haven't even done anything," Zoey protested. "And what's with the colorful language?"

"You haven't? What's taking so long?"

The twinkling in Delta's eye gave away that she was trying to get a rise out of Zoey, and Zoey just shook her head. "You're in rare form today."

"Thanks." The foxgirl bounced along energetically, still dragging Zoey with her arm wrapped around Zoey's. "Honestly, I'm kind of excited at what we'll find. Never expected to get pulled into a 'save the world' quest. But I can get behind it. Sounds fun."

"Fun."

"With so much fucking involved? Yeah, totally."

"Delta."

She laughed. "Though even a normal quest would've been fun," she said. "All the massive girlcock is just a plus." Her orange tail flicked, and she perked up, as if she'd been reminded of something. "Hey, when are we going on our second date?"

Had the phrase 'massive girlcock' really just prompted Delta to ask that? Caught somewhat off guard, Zoey just replied with, "Our second date?"

"Blondie got the girlfriend treatment, didn't she? When do I?"

The question came out of left field, so Zoey floundered for a second. "Uh. Whenever you want?"

"After this?"

"Sure?"

"Cool," Delta said. "Group stuff is fun, but I want some time with you alone."

"I'd love that," Zoey replied instantly, even if she was somewhat disoriented by the turn in conversation. She would like to spend more time with Delta. The chaos and busyness of everything just usually precluded casual hang outs.

Though this might not be so casual. Delta had specifically referred to it as the girlfriend treatment. Was that what Delta was aiming for? Girlfriends?

Zoey certainly wanted that—but she hadn't known where Delta stood. She was both far easier and far harder to read than Rosalie.

"I've got something planned, but I'll tell you what after we invade the cult," Delta said.

Right. Cult invasion. The topic had briefly been wiped from Zoey's mind, important or not.

"This isn't dangerous, is it?"

Delta gave her a funny look. "To two third-advancement wayfarers? We'll be fine."

"I'm not a real third-advancement. My only personal combat rune is second tier, and I'm unbelievably untrained."

"You're not that bad." She paused. "Anymore. Before, you were. But I'd call you solidly second-advancement now. Your showing at Mel's shard proved that."

"Well, regardless."

"Regardless," Delta repeated, "we're wayfarers. And yeah, I'm sure some of them will be too—we're in the Fractures after all—but I'd be damn surprised if there's any above fourth at the most, so we can get out of dodge if we need to." Delta considered. "Then again, maybe they will have a heavy hitter there. Who knows what's going on with those people? So yeah, maybe a little dangerous. That's life, though. Especially in our career."

"Shouldn't we tell Rosalie?"

"Couldn't find her. Left her a message, though, just in case."

"You did?"

"I have some foresight, thank you. Make a career in wayfaring, remember? Wouldn't make it far if I didn't have some common sense."

"That's true."

"Really doubt this'll be taking a turn for the dangerous, though." A mischievous grin crept onto Delta's lips. "You know, unless we get a little too ambitious."

Zoey looked warily at Delta.

"Doubt we'll find out much by playing things safe," Delta said. "If there's something credible going on with these people, we'll need to do a little digging." Materializing from thin air, a pane of glass rimmed by ornate designs appeared in Delta's hand. "Bet this'll come into real handy, if we decide to do some snooping."

Zoey stared at the object with raised eyebrows. The Mirror of Deep Echoes. The artifact they'd earned in the second shard that allowed someone to swap bodies with whoever they pointed it at.

"You can't be serious."

"Seems useful for espionage, don't you think? Not that we're guaranteed to do any of that. But it's a damn useful tool in our toolkit."

"What, exactly, do you have planned?"

"Right now? Nothing. I'm just saying, if we head to this and only chat, let them give their spiel, I doubt we'll figure out much. But with some quick thinking and leveraging of our assets? Well, maybe we'll find out more than they intend to give out to lowly potential recruits."

"Sounds dangerous," Zoey repeated. Delta seemed to be glossing over that point.

"Wayfaring is dangerous," Delta said. "I figure saving the world is ten times so. Besides, you didn't seem so concerned about 'danger' when you had an otherworldly vampire set on you. That was definitely the riskier event."

"Mel needed help."

"Or is it that you just wanted a fifteenth girl sucking your cock on the daily?"

"Fifteenth? And, really, stop being so crude."

"Why?" Delta smirked. "Having trouble with the imagery? If you get hard, you might have a blonde girl all over you? Be awkward while walking down the street, wouldn't it?"

"You're doing it on purpose," Zoey accused, finally understanding.

"Everything I do is on purpose."

"Okay, that's a lie."

Delta snorted. "We're almost there," she said. "Here, take this." An item popped into her hand, drawn from her inventory. Zoey took it, brow furrowed.

It was a mask of the sort she'd find at a masquerade. Colorful feathers adorned the edges, splaying out in a show of color. "These are yours?" Zoey asked.

"Nope, given to me," Delta said. "Our badge in, I suppose. Not that I think security's super strict. Not too loose either, though."

"Huh," Zoey said.

Delta put hers on, so Zoey followed suit. The crowded streets of Treyhull had thinned as the foxgirl wound them through the city. Ahead, a man with a similar bright-feather masquerade mask was given entry through double-doors by two burly-looking security guards. It was a more organized event than she'd expected—though she hadn't expected so-called 'doomsday cultists' to be organized in any matter.

"Honestly," Zoey said. "This will be kind of interesting."

"Course it will. Cults always are."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Nah. But come on, it's common sense. It's a cult."

Zoey laughed. "Fair enough."

5.11 - Jacquelyn

With masquerade masks donned, Zoey and Delta passed through the two bouncers and were admitted entry into The Church of the Shattered Sphere—the official name for whatever organization they were getting mixed up in.

From the way Delta had described these people, Zoey had imagined raving lunatics posted up on street corners, ranting about nonsense. But seeing this so-called recruitment event, Zoey could tell that idea was wildly incorrect—at least at the higher, more coherent level. Then again, cults had to seem somewhat reasonable to get recruits in the first place. Zoey had just never thought much about it.

Inside, Zoey looked around with interest. The hall hosting the event featured a tall ceiling supported by lofty wood beams. Like most of Treyhull, the architecture was vaguely rustic, though only passingly. Long buffet tables served the dozens—possibly even hundreds—of people who had shown up. Recruitment must have been a success, at least insofar as drawing initial attention. Surely not everyone intended to join this 'Church', and were instead taking a look out of vague interest? Though Zoey still didn't even know what joining meant or entailed. Did these people do anything more than rave about the world ending? What were their goals?

The decor and furnishings, though nice, weren't rich. Most people walked around in their daily clothes, not dressed up for the event—pulled from the streets possibly in the same way Delta had been. Zoey got the vague impression of a gala, but the clientele weren't of the typical pedigree. Lots of chatting, finger food, and an upcoming speech, but it was more of a casual event than a formal one.

"Sweet," Delta said. "I'm starving. Let's go fuck up that cheese table."

Amused, Zoey let Delta drag her along by the hand.

She'd already had lunch, but she sampled a few of the items laid out on the tables, mostly with Delta's insistence. Purple eyes scanned the various people across the hall, the foxgirl keeping track of her surroundings even while indulging in the free food. Zoey also looked around, though feeling more out of place than anything.

"So what's the plan again?" Zoey asked.

"Find a victim. That's always step one."

"No, really."

"Those people in the black masks have to be the official members, I'd figure. So we're waiting on them."

"Should we go talk?"

"Approach them? Ourselves? No way. It'll seem desperate."

"Desperate," Zoey said. "We're not out looking for a date, Delta. Making the first move won't seem 'desperate'."

"Nah, it totally will. Wait for them to come to us. They'll be more eager to impress, and so they might let something slip that they wouldn't have otherwise. I wanna know what this 'big reveal' is before we actually get to it." She poked Zoey on the shoulder. "And stop looking at them. You'll give us away. Play cool and aloof. Channel your inner Rosalie."

"You're ridiculous," Zoey said. Though she did as she was told. She guessed there was a certain logic to Delta's reasoning, silly as it sounded.

"You've got a pretty girl for company, anyway. Focus on that."

"I do?"

Delta huffed. "Keep talking like that, and you won't get lucky on our date."

Zoey somehow doubted that, seeing how the topic of a date had been brought up in the first place by Delta using the words 'massive girlcock', then introducing the idea.

"Speaking of, what'd'you have planned?" Zoey asked.

"Oh, you know. All sorts of illegal activities. Don't worry about it."

Illegal activities? "Coming from you, I can't tell if that's a joke."

"Don't be a square. Besides, you're a third-advancement wayfarer now. You can get away with all sorts of stuff. Laws only half apply to us."

"Really?"

"Well, to an extent, yeah. Kind of. Don't think you understand our social position, even if we're far from the strongest. Third advancement's not too bad. Only one out of, I don't know, fifty people make it here? Less? And that's of wayfarers, not the general population. So we have a certain default influence, nobodies or not." Delta hummed. "I guess your cluelessness makes sense, considering your whole backstory."

"You believe me about that, now?" Zoey set aside all the other stuff to think about later. She hadn't considered her growing 'influence' from the power she was earning day-by-day. And that it would only grow.

"I do," Delta said. "It's batshit insane, but I do. Think there's been plenty of evidence. What's that like, anyway?"

"What's what like?"

"You know. Your previous home."

So Delta did have some discretion—she didn't go shouting out 'your home world'.

"Uh," Zoey said. "Definitely different. Hard to talk about, you know, here." She didn't know if someone was eavesdropping, but considering the possibility of enhanced hearing from even a middling wayfarer, she'd rather not go chatting casually about the topic without some guarantee of privacy.

"Yeah, fair," Delta said. "Guess that's date material, anyways."

"Our date," Zoey repeated. "Which will be packed with illegal activities?"

"Maybe." She see-sawed a hand. "Again, I haven't decided. I like to go with the flow. We're staying flexible."

"Uh-huh."

A figure edged into their conversation, and both of them turned. A woman, face obscured by a feathered mask with a base of black metal, had arrived next to them. One of the members of the Church. She stood tall, shoulders pulled back, hands held primly behind her. A polite smile played at her lips and green eyes.

"Good afternoon," the woman said. "I apologize for interrupting. Do you have a moment?"

"Sales pitch time?" Delta asked. "I suppose it's only fair. Free food's never actually free."

The woman paused, taken off step. "Jacquelyn," she offered after a moment.

"Zara," Zoey replied. "And this is Dalia."

Naturally, they were using false names. Probably it was safer to use ones that didn't even resemble their originals, but this was easier to keep track of.

Delta grunted, focused on the buffet table. Playing 'cool and aloof', Zoey guessed. Personally, she thought the theatrics a little much, but Delta would know better than her.

"A pleasure," Jacquelyn replied. "You know, it's not often we find wayfarers interested in the Church."

That grabbed Delta's attention. She turned a curious look Jacquelyn's way. "What makes you think we're wayfarers?"

Zoey was also curious. Had she been eavesdropping? They hadn't been that loud, and hadn't noticed Jacquelyn hovering nearby.

"Dear, it's rather obvious," Jacquelyn said with a smile. "You've been keeping tabs on the entire hall since you stepped foot inside. And not as a matter of paranoia, I can tell. Mere awareness." She shrugged. "More than that, it's the way you move and hold yourself. Wayfarers always stand out."

"The way I move?" Delta asked, an eyebrow quirking. "Been watching us that closely, have you?"

"How couldn't I?" Jacquelyn countered unabashedly. She turned the smile Zoey's way. "My eyes were drawn the moment you two entered."

At the blatant flirting, Delta paused. She turned and gave Zoey a significant look, at the same stepping closer and leaning into her side. Zoey wrapped an arm around her waist by a matter of instinct. Jacquelyn didn't seem surprised by the action.

Delta communicated silently with her for a moment. She smirked at the reply she found in Zoey's eyes—an obvious 'yes'. She turned back to Jacquelyn.

"If you're hitting on us," Delta said, "we're interested. But aren't you supposed to be recruiting, not trying to get into our pants?"

This time, Delta's frankness didn't put the woman off-step. Jacquelyn could apparently adjust quickly to disarming personalities. "Can't I do both?"

"I suppose you can." Delta plucked another toothpick-skewered piece of cheese off the buffet table. "But sales pitch first?" she offered. "I'll admit we're kind of skeptical, but we had the day free, and—who was it?—Robert seemed pretty convinced. There's proof at the end of this, he said."

"Indeed. There'll be little doubt in your mind by the time you leave."

"That sounds nearly ominous."

Jacquelyn laughed. "There's proof," she assured Delta. "This isn't a waste of your time, I can promise you that."

"It wouldn't have been a waste in the first place," Delta said. "I mean, we met you, didn't we? But, really, you've got my curiosity. Can I ask what it is? The proof?"

"That'd be spoiling the surprise, dear."

"Oh, it's not like we won't know an hour from now. So please? I'm dying here."

"I really shouldn't."

"As a favor?"

Jacquelyn didn't actually seem all that torn on divulging the 'big secret'. She gave another moment's feigned indecision, then took a step forward and leaned conspiratorially in toward Delta and Zoey. "It's an artifact."

"An artifact?"

"Of the wayfaring sort, yes. The kind I'm sure you two are familiar with ... but not of this sort."

"What's it do?"

"It's not about what it does."

"Oh?"

"It's about what it doesn't do. Or, rather, what's wrong with it."

"Oh," Delta said, sounding for the first time—at least to Zoey, who knew her well—actually surprised. She shared a look with Zoey, whose eyes had also widened.

The implication was clear. Maybe Jacquelyn had been too vague for nearly anyone else to understand what she was saying, but Delta and Zoey put it together in an instant.

They had, after all, also found a broken item just the day prior.

So these people were linked to the corrupted shards. Or someone in their organization had at least been to one before, and brought back a damaged piece of loot.

Delta played her surprise off as the politely interested sort. "Something's wrong with it?" she said. "But what's that mean, exactly?"

Jacquelyn leaned back away, giving a knowing smile. "I won't spoil everything. But you'll see. The Church of the Shattered Sphere isn't founded on nonsense, I assure you. Our sins are catching up to us. The Fractures are decaying, and we will be found in judgment of our misuse of gods-granted power."

Oh. And there was the cult-ish bent. Zoey had been distracted by the woman's good looks and friendly demeanor and had somehow forgotten that she was, ultimately, talking to a cultist. A cultist with a stunning figure who was interested in flirting and possibly hooking up with her and Delta, but still a cultist.

Delta also took a second to orient to the swerve in tone. She played it off well. It was a good thing she was the one taking charge of this conversation; Zoey wasn't a terrible actor, but she wasn't an amazing one, either.

"Judgment?" Delta asked. "And misuse of power? What do you mean?"

Jacquelyn was more than eager to reply, as if she'd been waiting for the opportunity. She leaned forward, a gleam appearing in her eyes. Again, Zoey was taken aback by the torrent of zealotry that shortly poured from her mouth. It had only barely been held back.

"Well, it's clear, isn't it?" Jacquelyn said. "The gods grant us strength to survive in a harsh world, but we abuse it. With strength meant to defend, instead we war and destroy. It's why our world was Fractured in the first place, and why it continues to break. Our sins. The sins of those granted divine strength, turned to selfish purposes." She smiled apologetically. "I of course don't speak of you two in particular. There are just and moral wayfarers, and I would even say more of them than not. No, I speak specifically of the monsters. The d'Celestins and the Harrowgates. Those who abuse power given to us for survival to instead carve out kingdoms and empires. The demons in human flesh."

Delta shifted. She didn't seem to know how to respond, adept at improvisation or not. She shared a hesitant look with Zoey.

Jacquelyn seemed to realize she was pushing too hard and too fast with her Church's doctrine. She reined herself in. The smile she plastered on seemed fake, some of her earlier enthusiasm and charm waning. Zoey wasn't sure whether the woman was disappointed at Delta's response or at letting herself get carried away. The latter, Zoey suspected. Or both.

"But all that will be discussed shortly," Jacquelyn said pleasantly. "For now, lighter topics? Can I say, your outfit is just lovely?"

5.12 - Borrow

The conversation from there went to lighter topics—with both Jacquelyn and Delta seeming more eager to flirt than discuss the Church and its principles. Zoey trusted that Delta knew what she was doing, so she played along. It wasn't like it was unpleasant. Though the flash of zealotry had been off-putting, Jacquelyn was a great conversationalist, and Zoey had always been weak to pretty women.

Unfortunately, Jacquelyn needed to extract herself from the conversation; she had other guests to entertain, or rather, recruit. She suggested Zoey and Delta come find her after the event. Zoey was tempted to take her up on the offer, regardless that she and Delta had other goals today, and regardless of the rather disconcerting bit of fervency she'd displayed. By the way Delta's eyes tracked Jacquelyn's sashaying hips as she left, then how she quirked an eyebrow at Zoey, Zoey could tell Delta agreed. They silently agreed they'd figure out where that was going later, though; they really did have more pressing goals.