2.16 Into the Dungeon


    Zoey was lining her cock up to Not-Zoey’s entrance when the bedroom door burst open.


    Both her and Not-Zoey’s head pivoted to their arrivals—Delta and Rosalie—and Zoey stayed frozen for a long, suspended moment. Rosalie and Delta stared, speechless.


    “I, uh, can exin,” Zoey said.


    Delta looked at Zoey, cockid out across Zoey’s clone, just about to thrust in, and said, horrified, “Oh my gods. You can’t be serious.”


    Rosalie, on her part, burst outughing.


    It was two highly uncharacteristic reactions. Zoey’s face flushed even as Not-Zoey scrambled from underneath her, pulling the nkets up to cover herself.


    Zoey sat back down, cock still hard, and more mortified than she might have ever been in her life. <em>Why did they have to walk in now? </em>Before she’d even got to feel what Not-Zoey’s—her own—insides were like … all the shame of being caught, but none of the payoff. <em>The worst possible time. </em>Fate conspired against her.


    “Honestly, you go, dude,” Rosalie said. “I’d have done the same.”


    “The shard swapped our bodies,” Delta said tly. “I’m Rosalie. She’s Delta.”


    Zoey absorbed the announcement. It exined their reactions. And seeing how body-y (a term Zoey invented on the spot) was clearly the theme of this shard, it made sense.


    “The shard cloned me,” Zoey said.


    “We’ve noticed,” Rosalie in Delta’s body hissed. “Now stop trying to fuck yourself and stand up. It’s time to get moving.”


    “It was her idea,” Not-Zoey said.


    Rosalie’s re pivoted. “And you! What do we even do with you? One was enough.”


    “Think she’s a trap?” Delta in Rosalie’s body asked. “Good thing we got here in time. Bet you slip inside, she eats you with her pussy, or some shit.”


    Zoey paused, ncing at Not-Zoey, both their eyebrows raised. “No, I don’t think that’s it.”


    “Well, why else?”


    “Who knows anything about this shard,” Rosalie growled. “Stand up! We’re moving.” She seemed exceedingly flustered for having caught Zoey. Which made sense. Also, it was <em>super </em>weird seeing Rosalie’s embarrassed reactions on Delta, who had previously been so unruffled when it came to sex. And the other way around, Delta’s irreverent reactions on Rosalie’s normally controlled face.


    Zoey—despite all the shenanigans—briefly appreciated Delta’s naked body. Like she had expected, Zoey wasn’t the only one who had her inventory confiscated; both Rosalie and Delta had too. Delta’s curves were even more generous than she’d expected, and she’d expected a lot—she’d noted how tightly her leather armor had clung, and leather armor had a tendency to conceal. <em>Fuck me.</em> Delta’s tits were …


    Well, she had a nice pair, without being crude about things.


    “Ogle me more, will you?” Rosalie seethed.


    <em>Shit. That’s Rosalie in there. Don’t forget.</em>


    “Justing to terms with the, uh, situation,” Zoey lied.


    “Meant nothing by it,” Not-Zoey added.


    They nced at each other, thenughed.


    <em>Of course she was staring, too. She’s me.</em>


    Zoey and Not-Zoey shuffled out of bed. Not-Zoey reluctantly released the bed sheets covering her. Zoey took note of Rosalie staring at Not-Zoey distinctly cockcking crotch (which, what a phrase), before tearing her eyes away. <em>Just as surprised as I was</em>. She wondered which way Rosalie preferred her. She definitely seemed to like Zoey’s extra equipment, but would she have liked Zoey more, without?


    <em>Stop being insecure</em>, she scolded herself. Even if Rosalie’s eyes <em>did </em>seem to be gravitating to Not-Zoey. <em>It’s just the novelty.</em>


    “To think we were rushing here, and … and you were doing <em>this</em>,” Rosalie fumed. “I was … I was …”


    “She was worried sick,” Delta finished, smirking. “It was kind of cute.”


    Rosalie red at Delta, then Zoey, then stalked from the room.


    Zoey felt like an asshole, even if she hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d stayed in the spawn-room exactly as instructed. What did the fact she’d been about to have fun with her clone have to do with anything?


    “Man, I wish I was in your position,” Delta said. “I’d be <em>so </em>balls-deep inside myself, right now. Sure you two don’t want to finish what you started? And can I watch?”


    “No,” Not-Zoey said. “I shouldn’t—I can’t—the moment’s passed.” She blushed as she jogged forward to catch up with Rosalie.


    Delta watched with raised eyebrows. Zoey took note of how her eyestched on Not-Zoey’s ass.


    “She’s kind of a prude,” Zoey sighed. “It took a lot of convincing to even get to that point.”


    “So you’re only perverted when you have a cock?” Delta asked amusedly. “What’s up with that?”


    “No, just—” Zoey raised her hands in a ‘I don’t know’ gesture. “Dunno. Guess I wouldn’t want to take this thing inside me, either.”


    “She seemed pretty ready for it.”


    “It’splicated.”


    Delta rolled her eyes. “C’mon. Better catch up.”


    They followed after.


    ###


    “So we’ve got a party of four, now,” Delta said. “How’s that change things? Zoey-Two, are you bonded to us, like Zoey is? Can you Bolster?”


    “Should I try?”


    “Yeah. Knowing is worth wasting a bit of mana.” A secondter, after Not-Zoey had done as instructed, Delta said, “Oh, yeah. You’re definitely linked up.” She flexed her hands back and forth. “Wow. That’s intense. Not a small boost, is it?”


    “It’s quite significant,” Rosalie said shortly. Her mood hadn’t improved, and Zoey wasn’t entirely sure how to fix it—what to say or do—or what she’d even done wrong in the first ce.


    “So we’ve got one each,” Delta said to Rosalie. “Which Zoey do you want?”


    Rosalie’s eyes flicked between them. Rather than answering, she said, “I’m still not sure what to make of this.”


    “Join the club,” Not-Zoey said. Both Zoey and Delta nodded; it was obviously a strange situation to be in.


    “Can we even trust you?” Rosalie asked Not-Zoey.


    “Am I infiltrating the group?” Not-Zoey asked sarcastically. “Shit, does it matter how I answer?”


    “We can trust her,” Zoey said.


    “<em>Your</em> opinion doesn’t count for anything,” Not-Zoey snapped, making Zoey blink. “Or should I say, our opinion? We trust people too easily.”


    “Huh,” Delta said. “So she’s the smart Zoey.”


    “Hey,” Zoey protested.


    Rosalie rubbed her temples. “We’ll trust her until given reason otherwise. <em>Them. </em>Keep an eye on both, we don’t know who is who. How can we know for certain the dungeon isn’t trying to trick us—perhaps Zoey Two is Zoey Prime.”


    “Zoey Prime is so much cooler of a name,” Not-Zoeyined. “Yet I get ‘Zoey-Two’? So not fair.”


    “My head hurts enough,” Delta said. “No more name shit. Who’s pairing with which Zoey? We have two noobies to protect, now, not one.”


    Rosalie frowned. Zoey could guess why. Her initial threat appraisal of the dungeon had been with a single useless member to guard. Now, there were two, and the dynamics had changed. And though Zoey—herself, Zoey-Prime—was probably the ‘real’ Zoey, she suspected Rosalie didn’t want to take the risk. It could be either of them; from her and Delta’s perspective, as she had said, the shard could be trying to fool them.


    Hell, it could be neither of them. Or Delta and Rosalie could be fake. Seriously, who knew?


    “You need to stay focused on dealing damage,” Rosalie said,ing to a decision. “I’ll guard both. The n hasn’t changed.”


    “You sure?”


    “It’s not objectively a downside. Her reactions are slow, but her spells,” she paused, “<em>spell</em> is potent enough, and versatile.”


    <em>Spell.</em> Zoey hadn’t ever learned a second. With how fast Rosalie had set out, their day had been packed. Having some time between the shard to be better acquainted with her spell casting abilities would have been nice. But Rosalie had goals, self-set quotas to meet.


    There were so many things Zoey wanted to do—alchemy, spellcasting, and even explore the city and meet people, explore the culture of an alien world. Zoey was definitely dedicated to sticking by Rosalie’s side, but she wished they had more room to breathe.


    “An extra party member’s always useful,” Delta agreed. “Not like the shard will adjust its difficulty because of her.”


    <em>d to know I’m not literally a negative, then, </em>Zoey thought dryly.


    ###


    As Zoey had learned to expect from the first shard she and Rosalie had cleared, progression wasn’t all lewdness. She, Not-Zoey, Rosalie, and Delta trekked through the shard—this one had much more of a ‘dungeon’ feel than the old cathedral’s hallways—fighting off monsters.


    They were faster, and more dangerous, than the first shard’s monsters. As expected. The first shard had been first advancement, and this one, second. The gaps between advancements were supposedly prettyrge, and grew steeper with every iteration.


    After all, to go from merely empowered—but all things considered, not far from mundane—to a person who, borrowing that evocative phrase Delta had used, could ‘carve through a city’ at ninth advancement like Enzo d’Celestin, meant that each gap came with a hefty increase in power.


    Getting meaningful use out of her ice spikes turned out to be a fruitless endeavor. She’d struggled to weave them through in a first advancement shard, and now, having moved to a second advancement without practice, Zoeynded maybe one in six—and flung less of the spells to begin with, because she only shot them when she saw a reasonable opening … which happened far less frequently, with how fast the things were moving.


    She had Pressure Point, at least, which allowed her to identify the weak areas of the various monsters they ran into, and call them out to her teammates. So she provided passive benefits, even if she couldn’t contribute to the fight as much as she wanted.


    The monsters were strange, much odder than the first shard’s. Fitting with the theme—suspected theme, rather—the creatures were vaguely designed after ‘reflections’. They crawled from mirrors, gangly, shadow-like creatures who—though the opportunity to study faces was rare—had features <em>just </em>close enough to their own that Zoey could recognize Rosalie, or Delta, or herself in their unsettling visages as they wed forward to attack them.


    Also like the first shard, Zoey liked the perverted parts much better than cutting through shadow-images of themselves part.


    The fights were quick, violent, and, truthfully, not overly threatening. Delta’s addition—and having two Zoeys to Bolster her party members—meant they made short work of most encounters. Zoey took the opportunity to improve her reactions,bat skills, and intuition for how shards worked. She would prefer to be a meaningful contributor to her party as soon as possible.


    She might have to bring the topic up to Rosalie, truth told. A break between the next shard, an opportunity to practice, would go a long way. She was in a bit of a conundrum when it came to that. She knew Rosalie wouldn’t want to. But especially if they advanced to even more difficult shards, Zoey wouldn’t be able to do <em>anything</em>—reduced from ‘very little’, like she was now.


    Eventually, they worked through the hallways and to the next ‘point of interest’.


    The next obstacle.


    “Holy shit,” Delta said, summing up everyone’s thoughts. “You’re kidding, right?”