[Edited] Chapter 32 - Upside Down and Inside Out

For several minutes, I just laid there. The adrenaline spike I had suffered combined with far too little sleep, far too little food, and far… far too much unexplained bullshit had triggered a state of thoughtless limbo.

Sometimes, the world just gets to be too much and my brain will switch off for a few minutes. I will stare at a random corner of a table, apparently deep in thought, but really I am just letting my eyes focus and unfocus to play with the double images. It can be therapeutic.

I have heard it’s exclusively a guy thing, though it seemed weird to me that a woman should not be able to. I suppose I could have eventually asked Jax, but she would not have appreciated the question. Whether through delusion or mind-fuckery, she had severe difficulty in remembering her former sex, and arguments otherwise only caused her unnecessary distress.

In any case, I was currently stuck to the ceiling and all but immobile. Again. So it was a good opportunity for a little mental relaxation. Even if I was finding breathing to be a bit of a struggle. I just hoped that no giant insects showed up with an appetite and an ax to grind.

However, it was not a vengeful beetle that first disturbed my rest.

“Well, that was exciting, ”Mia said, popping into view once more.

I immediately noticed that she had somehow managed to find some clothes, though not the white from before. This was a lovely black dress with bell sleeves. It sort of reminded me of something Morticia Addams might have worn, however it was cut down the middle almost to her navel to reveal a captivating amount of skin. Not quite Elvira territory, but still. I would call it tastefully provocative.

On the other hand, I tended to hang out with nudists, so my sense of taste had likely been skewed rather severely.

She seemed to preen a bit at my attention and angled herself so as to allow me a better look at her profile. “Do you like it? I found it a moment ago in my new bedroom.”

I quirked an eyebrow, and with some effort, I managed to grunt “It’s… very nice. You have a bedroom now?”

She shivered slightly at the question and bit at her lower lip as she rubbed at her forearms, consequently pressing her breasts together enticingly. Then she looked at me with heavily-lidded eyes and murmured in a hungry and low tone of voice, “Mmm~ I want your cum on my tits…”

She froze. Slowly, a trace of pink began to color her cheeks. But she did not say anything. Nor did she break eye contact.

I clicked my tongue uncertainly. She had not sounded angry or out of control. It had been more like a direct statement. Still, I was well used to her tics by now, even if this one was a bit more… extreme than usual. So, I decided to have a little fun with it. “Normally, I’d be all about it, Mia, but as you can see, I’m a little inconvenienced at the moment.”

A shy smile began to curl at the corner of her lips, but before she could speak, Lynnria cut in with a clipped and labored sort of cadence.

“Does… she… have any ideas? This isn’t… exactly comfortable, and I’m starting to get this weird cramp in my a—“ She paused. “Backside.”

I smirked at her, though turning my head was an effort. “Really? I’ve got a literal swear generator camped in my brain, and you balk at ‘ass?’”

She grunted like an old woman getting up from the couch just in trying to face me, and I had to suppress a grin when her head flopped over. Her cheek was being pulled to the floor… or ceiling, I guess, comically distorting her face. Though from the feel of it, I had to assume mine looked much the same.

“You look… ridiculous,” she reported, confirming my suspicions. “And Mia’s issues ha… have no bearing on the m.. matter. You should not swear in polite company. It’s vulgar.”

I just snorted—though I had to take a moment to recover the breath. “Considering the amount of times we’ve swapped saliva, I’d hardly consider us polite company anymore.”

She assumed an incredulous look. However, with the way her face was being pulled askew, it was not working quite like she intended.

“Considering the amount of times you’ve rebuffed me, I wonder at that. Honestly, what am I supposed to think? Here I am, your betrothed by vow, yet kept at arms length by your hangups and now these frankly ridiculous stories about transformations and… and losing myself. All of which I might begin to content myself with if I did not also have to contend with you melting my very bones every few hours with such k-k-kiss…”

Abruptly, her face contorted as though from pain, and she drew her lips back over her teeth. For a brief moment, a set of animal-like and very sharp fangs extended out. However, as the episode passed, so too did they, disappearing as though they had never been.

“Ridiculous stories, huh?” I murmured, but she did not appear to have heard me. She was still working at her jaw as though she had just experienced an unexplained spasm.

I had not considered that she might not have believed me even in this. My several past and upcoming meetings with the goddesses, I could understand. But in hindsight, it did help in explaining her apparent lackadaisical attitude toward the whole thing. And it was hard to blame her. She knew I had been trying to get rid of her, so it was easy to imagine I would make up something to scare her off.

However, seeing her teeth shift and morph right in front of my eyes? This confirmed it. I had not been seeing things, no matter how much I might have wished otherwise. Something was going on, and not in the way it should have been.

With an effort, I wrenched my head back to face Mia once more. Something was going on with her, too. But then, she was an ex-goddess and a Faen, so the unexpected was a given.

Mia smiled mischievously and batted her eyelashes. “Yes, Master. A bedroom.” It took me a moment to realize she was still on the earlier conversation, and I had to mentally switch gears to catch back up. “I think this place changes to welcome me the more that I welcome it. If that makes any sense.”

“Maybe,” I said slowly before risking a surreptitious glance at Lynnria. I did not exactly want to divulge every detail about the evolving situation with my Faen. Especially now that Mia had taken to calling me that. Just like Jax. And much like her, the change seemed to represent something quite significant—even if I did not have any idea of what that might be. So I wanted to choose my words carefully. “If you are referring to the… incident a minute ago.”

Mia’s smile broadened, but before she could speak, Lynnria responded.

“Of course, I am.” Blinking, I focused back on her, rapidly shifting gears back again. I felt a headache coming on. “I thought I was about to die, Donum. Then… then… what even happened back there? How could you tell what I was feeling under my hand? How did you know what to do with it? None of this makes any sense!”

“I uh…” Hesitatingly, I looked between the two of them, wishing I had more than one mouth to speak with. “You know, this would be so much easier if we could all talk to each other at the same time.”

“I am not powerful enough to exist within more than one mind at a time, Master,” Mia informed me.

“Oh… you were still talking to her,” Lynnria replied at close to the same instant, clearly miffed.

“Uh…”

Mia continued, ignoring her. “Though, I suppose… it might be possible to do more than just exist within a mind.” With that enigmatic statement, she began idly inspecting her claws.

“Wait, what?”

Mia immediately shivered again and, as her eyes rolled backward, certain parts of her only-just-covered anatomy began to announce themselves, perhaps in protest of their confinement.

“Donum, can you please focus?” Lynnria asked. “This is important!”

“Well—“

“Oh, Master!” Mia moaned, arching her back and pulling the fabric taut against her chest. “That feels—fuck me like the slut I am—absolutely divine! I should have done this ages ago.”

“Okay!” I said a tad too loudly. “Mia… Lynnria… Mia is uh…” I glanced at the writhing Faen again. “Well, something about the… the thing with the door earlier is causing Mia to go through a-a thing? Apparently. And it’s a little distracting.”

Lynnria frowned. “She’s not swearing more is she?”

“Go fuck yourself on a unicorn!” Mia began enthusiastically clutching at herself and slowly sank out of view. “Or better yet… let me!”

“Not… exactly.”

“Well, that’s good at least. No offense, Mia, but you can be a little difficult to tolerate.”

“Hn~ likewise,” Mia moaned out, though obviously Lynnria could not hear her. “Just… just one more, Master. Please? I’m so close!”

Close?! It was not difficult to put two and two together. Clearly, Mia had changed more than just in appearance. And here I was yet again, hanging on to the situation with my fingernails. Ah, to hell with it. Might as well…

“Uh… are you… enjoying yourself?”

She gasped exultingly. “Oh, fuck! Yes!”

It was a struggle, but I did just manage to wrench my mind away from her swan-dive into the gutter. For which I was thankful. With the way I was pressed into the ceiling, my lower half was already uncomfortable enough as it was, and any blood that decided to rush down there was not going to be coming back any time soon.

Whatever was going on with Mia, I was definitely going to have to explore it… but later. And preferably in private.

Clearing my throat, I once again addressed Lynnria, though my voice might have been raised just a tad. I was having some difficulty in hearing myself at the moment.

“What were we talking about?”

“The hidden door?” she reminded me. “How did you do that?”

I tried to shrug, but the trap prevented me. “I’m not entirely sure. Mia showed me some sort of symbol hidden within the uh… well, one of the Words I happen to know.”

“Labia,” she supplied. “Yes, I remember. Unlucky find, that. And before today, conventional wisdom would have called it completely useless. But what do you mean by a symbol hidden within a Word? Surely you don’t mean Labia was written on that door?!”

“What? No!” I sighed. How am I going to explain this? “Look, I… don’t know much, but…”

The few times I had managed to visit the strange dimension within my own mind had raised far more questions than answers, so I focused mainly on the books and the many symbols found within them in favor of some of the more… confusing details. She did not really have any need to know them, and I was pretty far from understanding them myself.

That seemed par for the course when it came to this world. Or any world, if I was being fair. I just happened to have come from a place where most of the puzzle had already been filled in. But unlike certain individuals I had no need to mention, at least my world did not deliberately withhold answers. In any case, I concluded by introducing some of my thoughts about the nature of her Class—scant though they might be.

“Donum… I mean, I get it. As an Engraver, it makes sense I would have some ability with them—perhaps to manipulate existing enchantments or even create temporary magical items—but I have never heard of anyone being able to make permanent engravings. There’s just no way,” she argued. “Still, that’s… well, it isn’t exactly what I was hoping for, but it’s at least something interesting. And kind of a relief, if I’m honest. I’ve been half afraid I’d spend the rest of my life working with a chisel. I’m not sure how useful being able to sense Words through touch might be, though. I still can’t read them.” She furrowed her brow and gave me a considering look. “What I don’t understand is how these… books or whatever let you understand Words you don’t know.”

“They don’t,” I admitted. “But when Mia gives me a hint, I can sort of infer their meaning. Or somewhere in the ballpark, anyway.”

“Ball—you mean a pitch?” She tried to frown her confusion, but it came out a bit lop-sided. “But… how? I couldn’t describe… actually, I don’t think I can even remember that symbol. And it was me that was touching it!” Her frown deepened. “Now that I think on it, you couldn’t feel them. How could you know which one it was?”

I sighed. I was not keen on admitting this, but it would not do to keep it a secret. Not if I claimed to at all care for this girl.

“Well, much like you, I can also sense some things. I can’t really control it, but sometimes I can pick up a bit of what a person is thinking as we uh…” I paused briefly, hesitant to finish the thought.

“Kiss?” she supplied in a whisper.

I swallowed. Thinking back, there had been a few times with Jax… “Yes. And other sorts of… intimacy.”

“By the Three…” she breathed dreamily, but then she quickly jerked her head away. “Agh! This is so frustrating. I’ve never been this pent up in my entire life!”

“That… wasn’t exactly the reaction I was expecting,” I said. I mean… I had been expecting her to get pent up. I had quite specifically warned her about it, in point of fact. But to get turned on by the idea of my raiding her subconscious? “It doesn’t bother you that I can do that?”

She scoffed in derision. “Are you kidding? It’s like you can literally become one with your partner. Just the idea of it… Ah~ Three preserve.”

“Hmm. I was worried you’d think it was intrusive,” I confessed, “but… I suppose it is a bit romantic when you put it that way.”

“Romantic? Donum, if I weren’t glued to the ceiling right now, it would be all I could do not to mount you right here and now just to see if you could do it again. Your mates be damned! I feel like I’m about to burst!”

I closed my eyes and took a long and slow breath. I knew myself well enough to know my own weaknesses. Whatever my misgivings, I knew that once Lynnria got desperate enough, I would likely allow myself to succumb to her advances. There was just something about a woman in heat that was undeniable to me.

But then I had a thought.

“Wait a minute. You shouldn’t be this far gone. You had the luck skill trigger for you less than an hour ago, so the effects of my aura should have dissipated.”

She groaned in frustration. “I don’t know. I don’t care. I just—hnn… Mercy! The cramps are getting worse. I need off this ceiling.”

Cramps? From lying on the ceiling? That seemed a bit extreme. But cramps could be like that. Just a bit of dehydration, and bam! You would be left punching your own ass like an idiot. And I had to suppose that if she were cramping, whatever position she happened to find herself in would be agonizing, and the inability to move from it, doubly so.

“Right.” Quickly, I turned back to where Mia had slid away. “Mia. Suggestions.”

Her hand waved weakly at me from just off-screen. “Seems like a simple gravity trap to me,” she said sleepily. “I’m sure you can figure out the rest.”

This was gravity? I could barely move. How strong would a localized source of gravity have to be to plaster me to the roof like a bug on a windshield?

Probably not all that much, I decided. It was labored, but I was still breathing somewhat okay. And my stomach was not trying to escape out of my esophagus. I did not have a lot of experience with high-g situations, but I had been on a few of those ridiculous, spinning carnival rides. Enough to know that standing up through one would be next to impossible.

Either way, as Mia had guessed, it did not take long to puzzle out the solution.

“My levitation spell induces weightlessness,” I said aloud, turning back to Lynnria. “I think that should temporarily negate the effects.”

She paled at the suggestion. “Can you even cast it right now? I thought you were tapped.”

“It doesn’t cost Life Energy directly,” I explained. “But it’s a difficult spell. In the state I’m in, I doubt I’ll be able to hold it for long. Maybe a couple of minutes at a time.”

She seemed indecisive but quickly agreed anyway. “Okay, fine! Whatever gets me off my back. Just hurry!”

I nodded before struggling to wriggle my hand into position so as to point at her. Then I closed my eyes to concentrate while casting the long and still unfamiliar spell. I just wished I could close my ears.

“Oh, Master! Again?” Mia gasped sensually. “I’m still coming down from the—En~ I can feel it building… Just like that! Keep going!”

Naturally, the Words turned to garbled mush in my mouth. In all the commotion, I had sort of forgotten the spell she had crafted for me would do that to her.

“Aww, why’d you stop?”

“Mia, please—“

Lynnria let out an agonized sob. “It hurts! Agh! I feel like my ass is about to split open!”

My mind skittered over the distracting moans of pain and pleasure—and the moral grandstanding Lynnria had just tossed unnoticed out the window—trying to block everything out. I swore then and there that if I ever had the time to play another round of D&D, I would never again forget concentration checks. That shit is serious business.

Firming my jaw, I began again. And again. And again.

“Yes! Here it comes!” Mia screamed. “Use me, my…! Oh, Master! Yes!”

As she had so… affectedly surmised, the spell was complete, and I sagged in relief. From the stress.

Breathing was something else entirely.

While I was desperately fighting the return of the eight-hundred pound gorilla—effectively doubled this time by the gravity well I was stuck in—Lynnria floated off into the room.

However, she did not seem overly concerned with her newfound freedom nor even discovering a means of permanently disabling the trap. Like a woman in sudden and urgent need of a chamberpot, the entirety of her attention seemed focused on getting her pants off. She kept making little mewls of desperate panic while fumbling with her buckles, but eventually, she got the last clasp undone and nearly ripped the leather off in her haste.

I immediately noticed a couple of things. One, if she had been wearing any panties, they had escaped down her legs along with the leather. Because there was certainly no sign of them now. And two, despite being rather nicely bronzed, she had no tan line whatsoever.

Now, I do try to maintain a sense of polite dignity and restraint—especially given the parody my life had turned into—but sometimes my admittedly male and perverse little mind will go hobgoblin-mode on me despite my best efforts. And what with Mia still vociferously celebrating in my ear, the sight of a fit, young woman’s bare ass suddenly floating in front of me crumbled the walls of my restraint like a mortar shell.

Which, I admit, is a very long-winded way of saying that I got a hard-on, but I had been struggling with myself for what felt like ages to specifically not see her that way. So it felt like a personal failure.

Also, the gravity was pushing my manhood down between my legs in a spectacularly uncomfortable way.

And all of that would have been plenty to pile onto the ever-growing list of things I probably needed to seek therapy for, but then Lynnria arched her back and, moaning ecstatically…

…began… to grow… a tail.

Within a few handfuls of seconds, a length of flesh, perhaps two or three fingers wide at its base, extended out of her spine and gently pushed its way down her thighs, past her calves, and curled past her feet. Once done, a shudder traveled from the top of Lynnria’s head downwards to the narrow tip of her tail. This seemed to shake loose a long shock of hair all along the last quarter of the thing.

Purple, of course. Just like the rest.

Lynnria fully stretched out her body then, almost like a cat waking up from a nap. Her new tail extended out at the same time, perhaps a cubit longer than her legs. Sighing and kneading at her toned ass-cheeks, she slowly turned back to me.

“Oh, man… that feels so much better.”

I could think of about a million things to say, but at that moment, all I could manage was a strangled wheeze.

For a few seconds, she just stared at me then, seemingly self-conscious, she began fidgeting with her hands. “Do you… do you like it?”

Do I like it?

The question seemed obvious on the surface, but that she had asked it at all seemed so completely perpendicular to the train of reality that my mind seized in trying to answer it. What the hell did she mean, did I like it? You would think she had expected herself to just suddenly sprout a tail out of absolutely fucking nowhere.

I squeezed out a confused grunt.

My only-just-barely-verbal response seemed to cause her some distress, and her tail started swishing back and forth in agitation. As if it were some sort of safety blanket, she quickly snatched it up and held it like a child might. However, the nature of the spell I was maintaining dictated that she would inevitably accelerate the direction she was looking, so not a moment later, she bumped right into me.

“Oh, uhm…”

For a moment, she just ran her thumb through the length of purple hair trapped between us. Then, biting her lower lip, she looked up through her lashes at me.

“You seem… upset.” Her eyes suddenly began to shine with the onset of tears. “I—I didn’t really mean to keep it a secret. I know that… well, laoi don’t ordinarily have tails, so I usually try to keep it tucked away. But I figured… you’re not a laoi, so why should it matter if I’m a little… different?”

The fuck? Tucked away?! If she had been hiding that thing down those pants, I was a five-headed, fire-breathing hydra! I had literally just watched the thing grow. There’s no way she could have—

I blinked. Actually, there was one explanation. The Dolilim had often experienced symptoms of mind-fuckery. Despite knowing better, Jax claimed to have always been Dolilim. And female. Arx had even gone so far as to proclaim me her own father—hopefully in jest… but I could not help but wonder…

Except Lynnria was unbound. I mean, I had theorized already that the bite… or something I had done to her… might be causing some premature onset of Dolilim-like features—and clearly were. Arx had been in the process of growing a tail before this whole debacle had begun. But there should be no reason for Lynnria to be experiencing mind-fuckery!

However, I also did not have the lung capacity to argue the point. And the ability to breathe tends to take precedence over all other concerns.

Also… I was well aware that her pants were around her ankles and a tad paranoid that my throbbing manhood would heroically struggle through the crushing weight of my situation to announce itself to the bare and feminine sex mere inches away.

“N-no…” I managed. Then, sucking wind through my teeth like a fighter pilot during a high-g ascent, I finally got enough breath to push out, “S… spell. T-too much. Hurry! F… find…”

“Oh?” She blinked rapidly, her tears suddenly forgotten. “Oh! Uh… okay, right. I’ll just uh…”

She nervously scanned the room for a few seconds, not really sure where to look. But then she hesitated and, turning back, she shot me a devious little smile. Before I could react—not that I could have anyway—she planted a quick yet tender little kiss on my lips.

Then she pushed away, smug as anything and giggling like a fairy.

“Lynnria…” I growled.

“Oh, don’t look at me that way, sweet thing,” she said, assuming a mid-air Peter Pan-like pose. “I just wanted to see if you could guess what number I was thinking of.”

I had no idea. And flirting with girls was about the last thing I needed right about then, so I just blurted out the first random word to come to mind.

“G-green.”

The confident smile froze on her face, and she brought a hand up to cover her mouth. “Mercy’s hands… you can do it.”

I did? As far as I knew, it was just a lucky and completely random guess, but… maybe? It had been a pretty quick kiss, so it was possible I had picked it up subconsciously.

She chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds, just staring at my face with a thoughtful expression. Long enough for the levitation’s natural momentum to press our bodies together once more. A moment later, I began to feel a soft, feathery something brushing against the inside of my leg, tracing its way up and down, yet more the former than the latter.

“Lynnria…” I wheezed. “S…stop…”

She did not though. She was too caught up in some fantasy of her own devising, enthralled perhaps by the thought of joining with my mind… or because I was tied down. It was possible I had unlocked some secret kink of hers. Whatever the reason, it did not take her long to discover my own hidden and unfortunately distressed shame.

She gasped with surprise and, overjoyed, she began to grin. “Well, well, well. Seems I’m not the only one to have found a new toy. Maybe we don’t need to get out of this trap… right this second.”

Giggling now with anticipation, she began to gyrate her hips in small circles over top of me. And teasingly, almost taunting me in her slowness, she reached her hand down between our legs.

My concentration did not survive even a second of contact.

“Okay…” she grunted a moment later, her hand now trapped between us. She had collapsed, once more pinned by the gravity trap, atop me the second my spell failed, twisting her into a pretzel. “Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

*****

Some thirty minutes later, I found myself massaging a newly scraped and lightly bleeding pair of shins.

Most of the intervening time had gone toward recovering enough stamina and mental fortitude to recast the spell. Though, I will admit, the later was the more difficult.

You might think having a half-dressed girl helplessly collapsed against your chest would be kind of hot, but allow me to disabuse you of that notion. At four or five times gravity, any weight at all against your ribcage is far too much. It hurt like a bitch, I could barely breathe, and if I did not have a fear of being crushed to death before, I was certainly beginning to make inroads on it now.

One more for the list.

Lynnria had struggled mightily to free herself for quite a while, but all she had managed was to slide somewhat to my left, giving me just enough room to finally fill my lungs—for which I had been extremely grateful—but doing little to make her any more comfortable. And by the end of it, she really had starting to cramp.

Meanwhile, Mia kept tunelessly humming somewhere in the background, apparently pleased as punch. I refrained from asking.

In any case, we had eventually tried again, and this time, Lynnria had managed to keep on task long enough to find the trap’s control mechanism. All of the furniture in the room had been mysteriously unaffected by the gravity well, including the various cups and knickknacks scattered about. None of them even so much as wiggled when she prodded them.

The exception had been some sort of thing that reminded me of a backgammon board. Lynnria had picked up on its magical nature the moment she touched it—proving the helpfulness of her ability in a stroke—and it had not taken much fiddling with it to discover that the game piece’s position on the board corresponded with the trap’s gravity setting.

Mostly because of my screaming.

“I’m sorry, Donum,” she said with a wince once I was ‘safely’ on the ground. “I didn’t realize—“

“It’s fine. Just…” I sighed. There was no need to get upset. I mean, I was, but it was not going to help anything. “The next time you see something with variable settings, just… just take it easy.”

She nodded unhappily then began looking for something to bind my knees with. Though, she quickly got distracted once she began struggling to pull her pants back up. Naturally, her tail was not cooperating. Whatever mind-fuckery was afoot, it had not accounted for the fit of her pants.

“Blast it,” she muttered before shooting me an accusatory glare. “These things must have shrunk when you dunked me into the ocean. They fit just fine earlier, but now I can’t pull them over my tail at all!”

I cocked an eyebrow. Uh huh… I’m sure that’s what it is.

“My knees are still bleeding,” I said instead.

“Oh, right.”

Fumbling a bit in her haste, she discarded the tucking idea in favor of just hiking up the leather as far as it would go underneath her tail. Of course, the lower position on her waistline meant loosening her buckles quite a bit to compensate for the swell of her hips and consequently showing an enticing amount of bare curves. And I was not complaining about the nicely cut V of her abdomen drawing the eye down to certain hidden delights either.

“Mmm… what do we think, Master?” Mia cooed into my ear. “She may be… hmm… lacking certain assets, but she’s got some pretty great legs, don’t you think?”

The hell, Mia? Whatever it was that had changed with her, she was starting to sound more than a little perverse.

Not that I disagreed. I mean, I am not much of a leg man, so I had not given it much thought. But now that she mentioned it, Lynnria’s legs were nice and long, perfectly proportioned with regard to her torso. They were nicely toned and well-muscled from her constant training, with a lovely, curving taper moving down from her thighs to her the swell of her calves. I would even go so far as to call them her best feature.

Still, it was strange for Mia to be pointing it out.

Under the pretext of groaning over my injury, I managed to quietly murmur, “I thought you were upset with her.”

“Only because she was having doubts. But with that tail? Ha! She could not have proclaimed herself more your creature had she held up a sign.”

“What?”

“What?” Lynnria replied with a start.

I glanced up guiltily to find her looking at me. But of course, Mia was not quite done.

“Ahn~ Master… No more questions for a little while, please. I’m a used whore!”

“Sorry, uh… Lynnria. Mia was… was uh…” I waved a dismissive hand. “You know what? Never mind. It’s… it’s not important.”

She assumed a bit of a lop-sided smile. “Mia sure does seem to talk about a lot of ‘unimportant’ things when she’s in your head. She’s all business when she comes over here. When she’s not swearing, that is. Some of her outbursts can be a little… on point, though. But alright. I won’t pry.”

I nodded, grateful. “My knees?”

“Oh, uh…” She twirled around quickly before her eyes landed on something on the other side of the room. Trotting over to it, she announced, “Looks like there’s a runner over this table. It’s a little fancy for a bandage, but…”

“What? You’re afraid someone’s going to complain?” I joked, glad for the change in subject. “Well, I’m sorry to bleed all over the fancy furniture, but frankly, any rights to objection were officially forfeited the moment we got swallowed into this trap-filled hellhole. It’s the rules. You can check.”

Lynnria chuckled.

Indignant grandstanding aside, there was an awful lot of weird crap going on. Lynnria’s tail, Mia’s odd behavior—more so than normal, even—and the strangely leading comments she was starting to make were leaving me feeling uneasy. It was almost like she was… excited to be seeing signs of Lynnria changing. But then… that seemed to be my lot these days. All I could do was shrug and keep plodding forward.

Neither of them were complaining. Or well… Lynnria was, but that was only because I kept refusing to bend her over and… and steadfastly keep her away from me long enough for the lilim not to tear her throat out. I just hoped I could hold out that long.

Watcher’s eye… That tail was going to be dangerous. Especially now that she knew she could tease me with it. The girl kept waving it in my face and ‘allowing’ it to brush against my side when I was not looking, too.

To distract myself, I glanced around the room. Lynnria was right about one thing. The furnishings were extremely nice. Oddly so. This was just a hidden room in the middle of a darkened maze, and thus far, we had found no inhabitants. As far as I could see, there was no real purpose to even have furniture in this room. Or in the mansion. Who would use them?

Maybe it’s just… like a theme or something. My first Dungeon had been endless hallways of dimly lit, smoothed stone. The second had been sort of a… well, I guess you could call it a Halloween-inspired forest clearing complete with ghost town. And now the Dungeon had taken the form of a fancy mansion. There was a definite pattern emerging. Each area had its own ‘thing,’ and stuck to it as a matter of course.

The only outlier had been that island.

However, before I could really sink into my thoughts, I heard a sudden gasp, and Lynnria dropped to the floor.

“Oh, wow…” she said, shaking her head to clear it.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded distractedly, but it took her several seconds to find her voice again. “Yes, I’m… I’m fine, but when I went to grab the cloth, I just suddenly—“ She stopped to glance over her shoulder at me. Her cheeks were flushed. “Um… well, I uh… Let’s say that I’m not… pent up. Anymore.”

O…kay.

Wincing, I climbed to my feet so as to hobble over to her. On first examination, she looked to have collapsed next to an end table with a runner and a bunch of knickknacks and baubles over top of it. But now that I was closer, it was clearly a steamer trunk.

Then the pieces clicked together. “Ah hah… I get it.”

“Get it?” Lynnria looked up at me. “Donum, I wasn’t exactly being vague.”

“What? No, I meant…” My stomach gurgled a bit and clenched, just as a reminder. Not that I was likely to forget. But I was too distracted right then to pay it much attention. Not that I could have done anything about, anyway. “Well, remember how I was saying before? About how you should not have been ‘pent up’ after using your luck skill? Well, I think I’ve just figured out why. Or some of it.”

Careful to avoid brushing against my injured knees, I began removing the décor from atop the trunk. Now that the trap was disarmed, they came away quite easily, and I had to pause for half a beat once I realized it. However, the unexpected was around every corner, so I quickly returned to my explanation.

“Back when you first used your luck skill… What did you ask for? Do you recall?”

“I wanted to find some treasure,” she supplied easily, though from her expression, she was not quite following. “But what’s that got to do with… my reaction just now?”

“That’s a side-effect,” I explained, relieved to at least have something I could account for. Not that I knew the reason for it. It was more… well, what else could I expect? “What’s important is to note that your charm had not had the opportunity to complete itself. I guess finding the path or the secret rune that led us in here wouldn’t have counted, either. Because that wasn’t the treasure. So, your luck build-up had not discharged.”

With that, I pulled the runner away with a flourish, revealing the chest.

“And you seem to have just gotten lucky.”