Riddle me this

"That looks like it could be the treasure chamber," Lyn's voice came from the bottom of the stairs.

"I fucking hope so." Asami grabbed her throwing knives, just in case, before following the half-demon warrior downwards. "I swear, if there's one more fucking monster ambush..."

"Language!" Piper prodded Asami with her staff. Or tried to, at least. It's pretty much impossible to hit a cat girl thief who's already on high alert.

"What do you want? I've never seen a dungeon this annoying. I swear, if I meet the architect, I'll castrate him. And then I'll hang him up the next tree by his balls," Asami swore, daring anyone to try and argue with the logistics of her threat.

It had started out so nicely. After once again blowing all their money on booze and women, the three of them had found themselves in need of loot. As luck would have it, one of the locals had told them about this temple in the woods, dedicated to a long forgotten Goddess that nobody even remembered the name of, once hastily abandoned by her followers and now taken over by minor monsters. Nothing a handful of experienced adventurers shouldn't be able to handle and there was a good chance that it still held some hitherto unclaimed treasures. In short: The perfect dungeon.

Or so they'd thought.

Looking back, it had been too good to be true. If the dungeon had really been so easy, it would've been plundered long ago. Then again, this was supposed to be a temple. Who the hell designed a temple with thousands of small rooms, all of them containing either a deadly trap, a group of monsters, or -- in one hilarious instance that ended the fight before it even began -- both? The more Asami had seen, the less she believed the story that monsters had moved in and driven out the former residents. It looked more as if the worshipers of this nameless Goddess had bred monsters on purpose to populate their deathtrap of a temple, until their creations finally turned on them.

So, yeah, they'd been in here for the better part of the day, slaying a fuckton of monsters, narrowly escaping death about every five minutes, and so far finding nothing of value. Of course it was possible that they'd missed something in the rooms they'd skipped, but when you had the choice between fighting an army of giant fire ants and trying your luck in another room, you only picked the fire ants if you were really, really desperate.

But now, finally, it seemed like they'd gotten somewhere. When Asami reached the bottom of the stairs she found herself in an expansive hall, drenched in a goldish-red diffuse light with no visible source. Most importantly, there were no monsters to be seen. In fact, there was nothing except for a couple of pillars, an altar with some decorative stone pedestals around it and, at the far end, an obviously magical door.

"I don't feel anyone nearby." Lyn lowered her morning star. "Can you check for traps? I don't think they left that door unguarded."

"On it!" Asami didn't feel her trap-detection sense tingle, but that alone didn't mean they were save. In this dungeon they'd encountered at least three traps that had escaped her notice until it was almost too late.

She tiptoed through the hall, her fluffy ears primed for any hint of approaching danger. Nothing happened. She'd almost made it to the door when the air in front of her began to swirl and glimmer.

"Take cover!"

Asami jumped behind the next pillar. Back at the entrance her two friends did the same.

"Don't be afraid, for I mean you no harm."

Asami carefully looked out from behind the pillar, making sure to expose as little as possible of her body to potential danger.

The potential danger had the form of a tall, green-haired woman. Her long white wings and her similarly white -- but remarkably transparent -- garment clearly marked her as an angel.

Asami didn't drop her guard. Angels might have invested in good publicity, but for all their alleged virtues they were also known to descend upon their enemies with furious vengeance. Given that they were currently looting a temple, they might very well have marked themselves as targets deserving of such vengeance.

"Who are you?" Piper demanded, stepping out of her cover "And don't try any tricks. We've got you surrounded."

Asami wasn't sure if she should admire Piper's daring or shake her head at Piper's inability to read the situation. Possibly both, but if she had to choose, she'd take the second option. Asami readied two throwing knifes, even though she wasn't sure they'd do her any good against an angel.

"I promise I don't intend to fight you unless you raise your weapons to me first," spoke the angel. "And regarding your question: My name is Sarandiel and I'm the guardian of this place. It's my holy duty to ensure that only worthy adventurers obtain the treasure left behind in this temple."

Asami left her hiding spot and saw Lyn hesitantly do the same. Angels might be ruthless in their persecution of everything they deemed evil, but they were no liars. If Sarandiel claimed to give them conditional access to the treasure room, she wouldn't try any dirty tricks outside the contents of said conditions.

"So how can we show ourselves worthy?" Piper asked. "And I'd greatly appreciate if it wasn't too complicated. We've spent more than enough time in this dungeon already."

"Please, don't be offended by her words," Lyn interrupted, trying and failing to hide the giant morning star behind her back. "We are tired after all our trials and tribulations."

If Sarandiel felt slighted by Piper's words, she didn't show it. "I'm afraid there are no shortcuts to worthiness. Your obtaining of the treasure depends on your completion of my quest, nothing more, nothing less. If you are dissatisfied with those terms you are free to try and fight me, although I wish it won't have to come to that."

"Don't worry, we aren't foolish enough to take on an angel," Asami said, staring at Piper in an attempt to make sure they were on the same wavelength there. "We'll do your quest and then we can all move on with our lives in peace."

"Very well." Sarandiel hadn't exactly been slouching before, but now she straightened herself up to her full height. The movement made her translucent garment flutter over her perfect body. Although, as Asami observed with disappointment, at every point in time the clothes folded themselves in such a way that the angel's naughtiest bits were hidden from view. Likely that was one of the magical properties of their species.

Sarandiel's voice became deeper and more monotone, as if she was reciting something she'd learned a long time ago. "Your quest starts at the Goddess's feet. Under her guidance you will earn her sacred orbs. Return them here and your quest's next step shall be revealed."

When it became clear that the angel wasn't going to continue, Asami turned to her fellow party members to find that they also didn't have any idea what this was supposed to mean.

"How is this supposed to work?" Piper finally asked. "Do we really have to talk to, like, the actual Goddess?"

"Of course not. Obviously we have to find these 'feet of the Goddess' so we can start. Wherever or whatever they are. It must be some metaphor or something."

Sarandiel smiled at Asami, which caused a warm tingle in her stomach. She couldn't tell if this was some kind of angel magic or just the natural reaction of being smiled at by a heavenly beautiful woman in barely functional clothes.

"You are correct," said the angel. "And I will tell you that all riddles and tribulations take place within the walls of this very temple. You will not be required to leave it. However, in order to succeed, you will have to immerse yourself deeply into the temple's inner workings."

"Great." Piper sighed theatrically. "It's not like this temple has more corners than the nest of a cubist mole on crack. I hope one of you two has an idea what she means, because if we've got to look through every room again, I'm going to scream."

To the general surprise Lyn raised her hand. "Actually, I think I do. Remember about an hour ago when we found that big room with the giant statue in it?"

Asami did remember. She didn't remember it very fondly, though. "The room we decided to skip because it was full of mutant hornets? Why did you have to remind me?"

"To be fair, all normal hornets would've died instantly from my spell. How could I've known that this specific mutation is immune to pepper elemantal magic?" Piper involuntarily rubbed her arms. Asami and Lyn mirrored her. They might've been able to heal the stings to the point where their skin was back to normal, but the memory was enough to make them all itchy again.

"I'm sorry," Lyn said. "But remember the stone tablets by the feet of the statue? We wanted to take a look at them, but..."

"But everything changed when the hornets attacked," Asami finished her sentence. "Yeah, right, there was something."

The three of them exchanged meaningful looks. It was up to Piper to vocalize what they were all thinking. "We're absolutely not going back there."

"Are you relinquishing the treasure, then?"

Piper glared at the angel. "We're not relinquishing anything yet. We're just considering our options."

Sarandiel giggled. It was a sound that didn't really fit such a noble creature. "Just so you don't get a wrong idea about your options: As an angel I'm immune to all magical and physical attacks, unless they take their energy from a higher source of heavenly or devilish power. And while I don't want to put your demon comrade down, that weapon does not exactly look like it has been forged in the pits of hell."

"Yeah... no," Lyn concurred. Nobody knew where her morning star had been forged, but judging by its obviously cheap metal and its rust stains it had been a practice piece by some smith apprentice. They'd only picked it up because it had been lying around in an abandoned goblin camp and they'd been in dire need of a weapon at the time. "And I'm only a half-demon. There's no need to smite me."

The angel giggled again. "Don't worry, I smite only those who wish to oppose the Goddess, regardless of their species and alignment. As long as you behave yourself there's no need for violence."

"Good to hear. So, about these hornets," Lyn quickly spoke on. "I'm sure we have something to get rid of them."

"You still got your fire ball scroll?" Asami asked Piper.

"We're not using the scroll. Don't you remember how much that thing is worth? We don't even know if the treasure is worth more than the scroll."

"To be fair, most treasures are worth more than a single scroll of a generic spell," Asami countered.

"That may be. But okay, let's say we use the scroll and all hornets die instantly. Which, I might add, would already be a miracle. There's a giant swarm of them and a single fire ball isn't gonna hit every single one of them. But even if it does, what then? Didn't you hear the angel? This whole thing is a giant side quest that makes us comb the entire temple. And I bet it'll lead us into all the other rooms we skipped for good reasons."

Asami would've loved to argue against it, but she had to admit that Piper had a point. She had no motivation whatsoever to "immerse herself into the temple's inner workings". These inner workings contained far too many nasty things.

Lyn, who had turned quiet during their discussion, slowly asked "But what if there was another way?"

Asami eyeballed Sarandiel who just smiled innocently. "I'm not going up against an angel."

"I'm not talking about fighting. But maybe... Sarandiel, can you repeat the hint again?"

The angel did so. Lyn listened, seemingly deep in thought. "Yeah, it might just work," she said finally. "We just have to follow your instructions, right?"

"Naturally. That's the whole idea of a quest."

Lyn grinned as she kept on talking "But let's say we found an... unconventional interpretation of your instructions. Would that work?"

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Me neither," said Asami. "What's your plan?"

"Well..." Lyn couldn't turn red, since thanks to her demonic heritage her skin already was red by default. However, she had a tendency to turn almost as purple as her hair when she was embarrassed or agitated, which was a lot more conspicuous then a simple blush could've ever been. "The way I understood it, we've got to be at the feet of the Goddess. And then the Goddess will tell us what to do until we earn her orbs. That's the gist of it, isn't it?"

"You can absolutely phrase it that way," the angel concurred. "But I don't see what difference it makes."

Lyn's broke eye contact with Sarandiel. "Again, please don't smite me for saying this, but you only said "the Goddess", right? There's no name attached. So, technically, could we go for a different Goddess?"

Sarandiel furrowed her brow. "I'd advice you to choose your words very carefully. I will not stand for you bringing some other deities into this temple."

"Okay, okay, I'll word it differently. Let's look at it this way: The feet of the Goddess refer to the feet on this stone statue. We got that part right, didn't we?"

"Yes. I believe I can tell you this much."

"Okay, then when you say "the feet of the Goddess", you don't mean the literal feet of the actual Goddess. It's the feet of the statue. Which is a stand-in for the real Goddess, you could say. So if that is valid, then it should be equally valid if we use a different stand-in for the Goddess."

"What are you on abou..." Asami stopped herself when it hit her. "Wait, you don't mean..."

Lyn's shining purple cheeks confirmed that, yes, she did mean.

"You want to have sex in front of her?" Piper exclaimed, completely ignoring that they weren't alone.

"Excuse me? Who's having sex?" There wasn't anything angelic in Sarandiel's voice anymore. However, Asami noted that she also didn't sound as if she was about to unleash heavenly wrath upon them. For the moment at least she was still in the relatively neutral state of bewildered confusion.

"It's not necessarily sex," Lyn started and with morbid fascination Asami realized that her friend was actually going to explain it. "Think of it as... a very personal form of worship. We could choose one of us a stand-in for the Goddess and the others are at her feet and get told what to do. And once the Goddess is happy, well, she lets us at her orbs."

For several seconds Sarandiel made not a single sound. She only stared at Lyn while she parsed what she'd just heard. "Do you do such things often?" she finally asked.

"From time to time, yes," Lyn said. "Our relationship is a bit... weird."

You could say that again, Asami thought. Their dynamic shouldn't be working, what with Lyn being a natural born submissive and Piper and her both being dominantly inclined, albeit in very different ways. This had quickly put them in a weird unstable state where both Piper and Asami had been fighting for Lyn's attention and, while they also considered each other hot in principle, their preferences were too incompatible to act on that in any meaningful way. It had looked as if their relationship was doomed to fail, before they'd somehow managed to save it by, ironically, handing all the power to Lyn.

It made sense insofar as that Lyn was the most ambivalent one per default. She enjoyed both being humiliated as Piper's devout slave and having her body abused by Asami's sadistic games. One fateful night she'd confronted them with the fact that she didn't like being the one in the middle who was always pulled to both sides, so from then on each time when Lyn felt horny (which was pretty much all the time) she'd decide who of the two of them would get to top her and there was to be no discussion about it; her word was final.

While at first glance this seemed like it wouldn't change much, it had effectively turned the whole dynamic on its head. Instead of Asami and Piper both taking as much of Lyn as they could, at the expense of the other, they now had to gain her favor by making hot and creative promises of what they'd do if Lyn picked them. And they quickly realized that Lyn was far more likely to pick them if they came up with threesome ideas where the third one might not be the main focus, but still get to participate in a way fitting their tastes. And sometimes she'd even make ultimatums of the form "I'll pick you and you can do with me whatever you want, but only if you do X and Y with each other".

Logically this arrangement shouldn't have worked, but relationships rarely operate on the laws of logic, and by wisely playing her cards, Lyn had managed to not only tie Asami and Piper to her, but also get the two of them out of their comfort zone and play with each other often enough that their little triangle formed a weirdly crooked, but nonetheless stable third side.

"So, what do you say?" Lyn asked the angel, her voice bringing Asami back into the present. "If we do a scene for you, does that count as passing your quest?"

The fact that Sarandiel had to think about this gave Asami hope. She would've expected an angel to slap them to kingdom come at the mere suggestion of doing anything sexual to solve the quest of the temple, but maybe she was just prejudiced. After all, she also hadn't expected an angel to run around in garments that where somehow more titillating than no clothes at all. Maybe angels weren't such prudes after all. Or Sarandiel was a particularly naughty angel. Either way, Asami could really think of worse ways to end this dungeon crawl then to perform for a gorgeous woman. Lots of way, actually, most of them including mutated insects.

"I admit that the idea has a certain draw to it," Sarandiel said slowly. "However, I'm not convinced any of you is able to perform as a worthy avatar of the Goddess."

"That so?" Piper waved her staff and for a terrible moment Asami thought she was going to smack the angel with it, but Piper just strode past Sarandiel and straight to the altar. With no hesitation whatsoever she swung herself unto it, her legs dangling from its side. "On your knees, puny mortals, your Goddess has arrived and demands your worship!"

Asami's danger sense made her drop to her knees instantly with no regard for the hard stone floor. After Piper's act there was no going back and their only chance was to get the scene in full flow as quickly as possible before Sarandiel could decide that she wouldn't stand for this blasphemy after all. Beside her Lyn was mirroring her, but it was hard to say if she'd also read the room or if Piper's words had just triggered her submissive brain. With Lyn it didn't take much to do that.

"You heard what my messenger told you! You shall start at my feet and you shall start right now if you want to stand any chance of earning my approval."

There was this tiny sound from Sarandiel's throat indicating that the angel was about to say something, likely a complaint about being claimed by Piper like that. Before that could happen, Asami loudly declared "Gladly, my Goddess. Thank you to grant us worthless worshipers the chance to... erm... worship." Fuck! She prodded Lyn to take over. To that girl it was second nature to play the puny submissive.

The half-demon gently embraced Piper's ankle with her hands. Looking up just enough to indicate she was addressing Piper, but not enough to actually meet her eyes, she mumbled "If it pleases you, your most loyal subjects will take care of your every needs. We who are not worthy to even breathe the same air as you shall be naught but tools to act at your whims."

Asami managed not to roll her eyes and keep an expression that she hoped was an adequate approximation of submissive awe. It was crazy how quickly Lyn could fall into her role.

"Well spoken for a lowly worm." Piper giggled in a -- in Asami's not so humble opinion -- decidedly ungodly way. "Depending on whether you can back these words up I might decide not to smite you after all. In my eternal grace I shall allow you to prove your worth by worshiping my feet!"