28 - Loot & Musings

"Um," Ari said. "Sorry about that."

To her side, Lori huffed. If Ari had to guess, she wasn't actually upset by Ari's excited use of her body, and the sharing of the aphrodisiac. Even if Ari had only known Lori two days, she knew her well enough that she wasn't the type of girl to go around and say, 'it's fine, it was a lot of fun, do whatever you want to me, whenever'.

Still, even if Ari had been under the influence herself, it was rude to just yank someone down and start slobbering aphrodisiac into their mouth … obviously. She was pretty confident she had implied consent at any given moment to any of her Menagerie, but she should still be considerate about things.

"So, um," Ari said, sitting up. "Definitely watch out for more of those."

Now that she was coming down from the high, she was confused why the mimic had been so … perverted. She'd had the brief thought that it was because the dungeon had morphed itself to accommodate Ari's class, but she didn't know that for sure. Would all traps be the same as the mimic? That is, perverted? They had been watching out for traps, of course, an essential part of dungeon diving, and they'd avoided a few pressure plates and tripwires.

She doubted the dungeon itself was perverted. It seemed normal so far, though she was operating on an admittedly low knowledge of dungeons. The far more likely option was that it had chosen to engage with Ari one her class's terms, not that the dungeon itself was strange.

She kind of wanted to see whether the rest of the traps were as much fun as the mimic. Maybe she should activate one on purpose.

She kind of wanted to try another mimic, to be honest, and not be saved this time. Sure, it was reasonable for her teammates to have broken her out, because they couldn't have known she was having fun inside its fleshy, writhing grip, but still. She wished they hadn't. It had been so amazing.

Though, the follow-up with Lori had been just as fun too. So did she really have much to complain about?

Ari pushed herself to her feet. They'd taken their breather, and it was time to get back on track.

###

The next time they found a loot chest, Ari was more cautious in opening it. As it expectedly turned out, it wasn't another mimic, because those were rare, and they'd gotten exceptionally unlucky—or lucky—with Ari's first ever chest being one.

Inside was a collection of mundane adventuring loot. Ari meant mundane in the sense that the items weren't perverted, or related to her class, not that they weren't valuable. Because most system-linked items were valuable to someone or another—the trick was finding a buyer.

So it seemed Ari had a way to get normal loot: through dungeons. Only monsters dropped perverted items. Or maybe, chests did too, but not all of them.

A few of the items, Ari intended to keep. The potions, most notably. Ari herself didn't need health or mana potions—though the first were smart to keep around to be safe, even considering Ari's non-combat style—but Lori and Claire certainly did, being able to transform into an alternate form where they progressed through levels the normal way.

In fact, most of the loot Ari suspected she'd be handing off to her friends, rather than lugging back to sell at Molehill. Though they'd fetch a pretty price—and Ari would love some financial security—her friends' wellbeing took much higher priority. The magical trinkets, potions, and assortment of armor pieces would go a long way to making Ari comfortable with the idea they were out every night, hunting monsters.

Not perfectly at ease, though. But more. Especially now that Lori had Claire, and the reverse, too. Ari ought to fill up her Menagerie slots just for that alone. Hunting in groups was safer. Usually. Sometimes it led to overconfidence, the perception they could hunt beyond their means because they had a numbers advantage.

But even if most of the items were going divvied out to her Menagerie, the dungeon chests came with a more direct form of profit: coin. Mostly coppers, which, while not any crazy kind of payday, was still a boon that had Ari's mood improving.

She'd heard stories that in the lower levels of a dungeon, the floors meant for mid-ranks, a boss chest might result in entire bags of silver, with gold mixed in. And even more mind-bendingly, in a dungeon that could provide threat to a high-ranker—extremely rare—the chests might be stuffed with bags of platinum. Which hurt to think about. A bag of platinum … that'd be enough to buy a house. Multiple houses. An estate out in the nice part of a country, with funds to pay for servants and be waited on for the rest of her life. From a single chest.

And Ari might reach that capability some day? Simply by fucking her way through a dungeon's monsters? The idea seemed so ludicrous. At least real adventurers had to put life and limb on the line. Ari just had to put her body … and in a different, way-more-fun sense of the phrase. Because the thing was, she liked being used by the dungeon's monsters.

Though … Ari had yet to lose. What would happen, if she did? Would they keep Ari as their pleasure slave? None of the monster girls she'd met so far seemed evil, but she could see a loss meaning they were entitled to Ari—or her friends—to be used as they wanted, maybe for a few days at a time. Ari got rewards for winning, so they ought to, too. It would make sense.

Then again, that might just be Ari fantasizing.

If it works like that, I really want to try losing.

"How are we doing?" Ari asked, forcing herself to focus. Like usual, her thoughts were running more and more debauched as she worked her way through the encounters. It was hard to stay vigilant to practical purposes when she'd had each of her holes thrusted into for the past hour and a half straight, fighting various dungeon creatures.

"I can keep going," Lori said, with Silvana and Claire nodding in agreement.

They looked tired, but not exhausted, so Ari took the claim at face value. She'd learned yesterday that they would push themselves too hard without saying they needed to call it, so it was on Ari to make sure they didn't overdo things.

They were her responsibility—and they clearly thought so too. She was the Pack-Leader, or Queen Bee, or however Silvana might view her. Ari had authority over them, implicit and total, and so she needed to treat that trust with what it was due.

"Okay," Ari said. "Then let's go a little bit deeper. I want to try to find a mini-boss. The rewards are better, and I think she might make a good addition to the squad."

I wonder what she'll be.