Dungeons and Dalliances

7.64 – Into the Basement II

For all the anticipation she felt as she descended the stairs leading into the Palace Basement, the arrival was anticlimactic. Unlike normal dungeon transitions, they didn't enter through a black portal; instead, the stairwell fell into darkness at a supernatural speed, and, after a few more blind steps, illumination returned. A cool, dry cellar opened up. She knew that, like in the Arena, they had entered an 'instanced' area. While they might run into other people depending on what the City threw at them, no one would be coming from the stairs they'd taken.

The cellar room was nondescript, stock-standard. Natalie rested her hammer on her shoulder as she took the space in, alert but not finding anything worrying. Empty shelves lined the walls, there were some empty barrels in the corner, and an exit on the opposite end. A typical starter room for a basement dungeon floor. Based on the unassuming room itself, she'd never have suspected the types of encounters the Basement was famous for.

She shared a look with Vanetta, but there was nothing more to say. She led them outward. Stepping through the only door, they braced themselves for the first real threat.

As it turned out, it was a normal monster. Inside the hallway connecting the first cellar room was a robed figure with a crow's head wielding a spear, which Natalie assumed wasn't a lewd encounter, and the monster certainly didn't offer to let them pass should they 'sate its needs'.

The fight was tough, though moderately. It would've given trouble to any of the less serious teams in the City. But the Palace Basement was the least accepted assignment in general; most teams didn't try to delve down here. Only the especially elite teams—or the adventurous ones, for whom losing a fight might be the whole point.

The monster didn't drop anything interesting when killed, but from talking with others, every monster killed and 'event' participated in would contribute to their earnings, which would be tallied at the end of the expedition.

The next encounter was where it got interesting. Turning the corner through the hallway, a strange sight revealed itself: a hallway overgrown with vines.

Natalie's thoughts went immediately to that previous encounter near the start of the Tenet semester. Even after all this time, it still made her heart race to remember. Unlike the crow-headed monster, she could come up with plenty of ideas where this hallway fit in the Palace Basement's infamous reputation. The walls, ceiling, and floor were writhing in the material. Not a square inch was free from the mass of greenery for a length of more than twenty feet.

"It's moving?" Vanetta said, her tone morbidly fascinated. "How are we supposed to get past that?"

"There weren't any other doors, right?"

"Just the one."

She eyed the blanket of green ropes. There were flowers sprouting randomly through the mass, all of them pink. At this point, the color pink was an omen in itself. She doubted the vines didn't have some sort of lewd implication, not just because they were in the Palace Basement, but simply because of their appearance—they didn't seem like normal vines. They were glistening. Wet. Lubricated.

"Well," Natalie said slowly. "I guess we can either try to fight our way through, or pass by peacefully."

"Peacefully?"

"They'll probably try to grope us, though."

"Excuse me?"

"Or more than that."

"More than grope us," she repeated flatly.

"It is the Palace Basement."

"I know, but …" She trailed off. "How would we even fight that?" She gestured at the twenty-foot section of hallway covered in vines.

"Very carefully? But yeah, not sure how much good a hammer would do." Or even Vanetta's two daggers. She pursed her lips as she considered their options. "How about we test the water?"

"How?"

She shrugged. "Might turn out to be a nightmare encounter if we, I dunno, antagonize it. We gotta conserve energy too for later fights. We came down here knowing some weird stuff was gonna happen, and vines aren't—" She coughed. "Well, not that weird, right?"

"Having sex with vines is definitely weird, Natalie."

"Comparatively speaking, though?"@@novelbin@@

Vanetta stared at her. "Please tell me you haven't had sex with plants before, Natalie."

Her cheeks colored. "Of course not," she found herself stammering by reflex, simply because of the look on Vanetta's face. She hurried forward before she could be called out on what might have been an obvious lie. "Hey, I'm offering to take one for the team. Unless you want to—or are set on trying to fight it right away." She wasn't sure they even could fight whatever this was. Or whatever it might turn into. Refusing might mean the end of their Basement run, one way or another.

Vanetta gave her a flat look, making it clear what she thought of going first, then hesitated as she peered at the hallway again.

"Is it safe? To walk into? Might be a trap."

"I don't think so. This stuff has a logic to it. This is the only path, meaning it's unavoidable, so it can't be that dangerous to step into. The solution can't be to immediately start smashing and cutting into it."

"There doesn't necessarily have to be a solution. And it might—you know. Just do what it wants to you. No guarantees."

Natalie shrugged. "Again, this is the Basement." It was more or less what they'd expected.

"Well, I don't want to have sex with vines," Vanetta said. She folded her arms and looked away. "If it's a toy or something, whatever, but not something living. That's my limit. It'd be my first time, as you love to point out, and it's not gonna be with vines."

Fair enough. Though Natalie questioned whether 'doing it' with mindless entities like vines counted as a 'first time'. Seemed closer to masturbation, hardly any different than toys. Or maybe somewhere in the middle? She shook those rather strange thoughts away.

"Maybe it'll only need to be satisfied once?" Natalie said. "I am offering."

"My hero," she said sarcastically. Then her cheeks colored, and she coughed. "I do appreciate that, though."

"Chivalry isn't dead," Natalie laughed. "I'll be fucked by vines in your place. Hopefully it'll be fine with one of us." She took a breath. "Well, let's see what happens."

She kept her hammer with her; she would fight if things got too weird, though she was fairly well prepared for whatever might come. Been there, done that, so to say. Not just with the dungeon, but Camille's plant magic too.

Taking her first step into the overgrown section of the hallway—

Not much happened?

The vines, though squirming to indicate they were alive in a way plants shouldn't be, didn't react to Natalie's metal boot poking at the edge of the green blanket. She shared a look with Vanetta, who shrugged in reply. Her daggers were drawn, ready to help Natalie should something more than they were expecting happen.

She walked onto the vine-covered floor, and still nothing happened. There was a slight shifting underfoot as the vines squirmed more excitedly, which was a strange experience and threw off her balance, but nothing more than that.

"I'll keep going, I guess?"

What were the odds she would make it all the way through? That the vine hallway was set dressing and not some lewd encounter?

Of course, that wasn't the case. Halfway through, the vines reacted to her presence.