Chapter 29

Rosalie drowsily drifted to consciousness, and the first thing she was met with on opening her eyes was her own face.

For a moment, the sight didn’t register. Her brain blanked out. Had a mirror been placed into bed with her, leaned over so that when she blinked awake, it was the first thing she’d see? But no, that didn’t make sense. The position Rosalie was laying down with didn’t match the mirror.

She jerked up in bed, and the mirror-image didn’t follow.

“Mmm?” Not-Rosalie said, before scrambling up. “What? Shit. What happened?”

Rosalie had been trained for the bizarre situations that a shard could thrust on a person since birth. Her brain faltered only for that brief, confusing moment of just-waking-up haze before it had grinded back to full capacity. She analyzed her situation with a Wayfarer’s critical eye—and calm.

‘What? Shit. What happened?’ Those weren’t the instinctive words that would burst from Rosalie. Too crude. Too uncomposed.

Rosalie looked down at herself, and the sight clicked the last piece of the puzzle.

“It seems,” Rosalie said to Delta-Rosalie. “That the shard has swapped our bodies.”

Rosalie watched herself blink in surprise, then look down at herself.

“Huh,” Delta-Rosalie said.

A few moments passed.

“Huh,” she repeated. “That’s, uh. Huh.”

Rosalie climbed out of bed. She had a room to explore. The extra height was disorienting. Rosalie was accustomed to perfect control of her body, and the different ratios of her limbs threw her sense of proprioception into disarray. But she adapted. It wasn’t something she’d trained for, obviously, but Rosalie was a fast learner. And their bodies weren’t shockingly dissimilar. They were both lean, muscled, and Delta only a few inches taller. Mostly, it was Delta’s chest that threw Rosalie for a loop. She wasn’t used to having so much up top. Where did she hide these things? In her leather armor, Delta had seemed only moderately busty. Naked, she might have more up top than even Zoey.

And Zoey—that was why Rosalie was moving straight to business. As Rosalie had had a sinking suspicion would happen, Zoey hadn’t spawned in with them. It figured she’d be stuck with this infuriating girl. Zoey could tolerate Delta, for some reason, but Rosalie most certainly could not; why had Rosalie ended up with her, and not the other way around?

Zoey better be fine. A squirming, anxious feeling in her stomach contradicted that hope. Rosalie had dragged Zoey along into a second-advancement shard, and Zoey wasn’t even suited for first-advancement ones. But Rosalie needed to progress her runes—to be working diligently toward her destiny—and so she’d forgone catching Zoey up. Doing so would take too long.

Zoey knew the risks. Rosalie had made them clear.

But Rosalie’s earlier talk with Delta rang in her ears: ‘she’s practically a civilian’.

Zoey was fine.

“Why are you still lying there?” Rosalie snapped.

“Getting used to being in a different body,” Delta said lazily. “Maker, girl. You’re like, zero percent fat. So why is your ass so big?” Delta was craned around, looking at her—Rosalie’s own?—ass.

Rosalie couldn’t even begin to start on how to deal with that. So she chose not to. “Zoey’s not here. Get up and help me.”

Delta blinked at Rosalie. “Eh, she’s probably eaten by monsters already. Looks like it’s me and you.”

Oddly, the absurd statement alleviated Rosalie’s fear. Shards were brutal, but not unfair. If Zoey stayed put and waited for them to arrive, then she’d be fine.

But it was Zoey. Could she trust that? Zoey had promised to, and she showed general good sense to the practical dangers of a shard, but knowing Zoey, all the shard would have to do was waggle a slime-girl’s ass her way and Zoey would go sprinting off after it.

She’s such a fucking pervert, Rosalie seethed, completely irrationally; Zoey had hardly done anything wrong.

Not that she cared what Zoey did with her cock; it was how sex-obsessed she was that irritated her. Even against her own better judgment. Her mind flicked to that dressing-room girl. Gods, Rosalie had been so mortified. Her, a d’Celestin, kicked out of a clothing store because her partner had been caught fucking the store attendant.

I’m going to kill her.

Rosalie didn’t even know why she was getting mad. Again, Zoey hadn’t done anything.

It wasn’t her concern over Zoey’s well-being fueling her irritation. Why would she be concerned?

“Stop ogling my body and get moving,” Rosalie growled.

“I’m surprised you’re so chill with us both being naked,” Delta said, ignoring her completely.

“Nudity was the entirety of our first shard. I’ve moved past it.” Plus, Rosalie was only looking at her own naked body. Which was weird, but less embarrassing than seeing Delta’s, or Zoey’s. Hence, why Rosalie wasn’t looking down at herself. Or rather, Delta’s body. There was a lot to ogle down there, and she caught glimpses of it in her peripheral vision, but she didn’t have to pay attention to it if she didn’t want to.

“Alright,” Delta said, finally shuffling out of bed. “Our inventories are gone, too. Besides this.” She pulled out and waggled the metal buttplug she’d been supposed to wear, to match Zoey’s, then vanished it back into her inventory. “That happened last time?”

“Seems like shards Zoey delves follow a trend,” Rosalie said. Which was to say, utterly perverted, and an endless headache. “The good news is that the difficulty is adjusted.” They might not have armor or weapons, but the monsters would be weaker in exchange.

“You still have your rings on,” Delta commented, playing with Rosalie’s body’s nipple rings. “Or, I guess, I do.”

“Stop touching me.”

Delta paused, then turned an incredulous look her way. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

Delta stopped fiddling.

Rosalie turned back forward. “Anyway, welcome to Zoey’s perverted shards. The traps will try to molest you, so be on the watch out.”

“Shit. Really? Now there’s something I can’t wait for.”

Rosalie gave her an irritated look, but Delta only grinned. It was an unseemly expression to see on Rosalie’s own face. Everything about the girl moving around in Rosalie’s body was unseemly. Perhaps that said something about Delta herself. Rosalie, ever the diplomat, said nothing about her observation.

“What?” Delta asked. “I’m halfway serious. Sounds fun to try out. Maybe I ought to get caught on purpose.”

“You and Zoey are a good fit,” Rosalie said. “It’s a shame you don’t seem to care about her wellbeing.”

“She’s fine,” Delta said, rolling her eyes. “If she sits still, we’ll go find her. If she doesn’t, she deserves to die for being a moron.”

Rosalie didn’t disagree, but she did bristle at the callous appraisal.

Delta waved her hand dismissively. “Alright, alright. Let’s get a move on.”

“Shit,” Delta said. “You weren’t kidding.”

Rosalie stared at the contraption in front of her. “This is more ... on the nose ... than the last one.”

“Last was first-advancement you said. So it makes sense a second advancement would be, uh, more direct.”

Still. The vines had been an understated trap; a subtle addition to the environment that wanted to have its way with their bodies—and even when captured, had only groped at Rosalie’s chest and stuffed her mouth full of aphrodisiac. No ‘real’ penetration had been involved.

This?

She and Delta stared down at the stone dildo protruding from the floor. It laid in front of a thick door. Spanning off to the right was an alternate path; Rosalie could infer what the shard was implying. In the same manner as the slime boss, they were offered two options. Either advance the perverted way—which would be significantly easier—or face the perils of the shard in its full wrath, but in the way Rosalie knew better.

The first would be easier. Zoey had been able to defeat the boss herself, playing by the shard’s preferred methods. Had Rosalie ... assisted her ... in the lewd method of fighting that perverted slime, then it’d have been a given they’d won.

Rosalie needed to come to terms with this. She’d chosen to partner with Zoey, and so—in order to face the perverted obstacles they were sure to see many of—Rosalie had to engage on proper terms.

And sure, she might be a d’Celestin, and riding herself on a stone dildo to advance faster could be seen as degrading ... unbefitting of someone her status ... but she could spin the logic around. A d’Celestin did whatever she needed to. All that mattered was advancement.

“It wants us to fuck it, right?” Delta asked.

“That much is obvious,” Rosalie snapped.

Delta paused. “Sounds like you need it more than me,” she said dryly. “Maybe an orgasm will do something for your nerves.”

“I—excuse me?”

“Just saying,” Delta said. “I get you’re worried about your girlfriend, but chill the fuck out. Stress is how you make mistakes. Clear your head. Aren’t you supposed to be old blood?”

The last question was more effective than Delta probably intended it to be. It dunked ice water across Rosalie’s body. Old blood. Rosalie wasn’t acting like it. She was acting like a fresh beginner, a greenhorn Wayfarer, worried sick over her teammate’s wellbeing. She breathed in and forced herself to calm. Zoey would be fine.

And if she wasn’t—such was life in the Fractures.

“You, or me?” Rosalie asked.

Delta’s eyebrows rose. Or Rosalie’s did. She was wearing her body, after all; Rosalie’s disorientation over that hadn’t faded much. It was surprisingly—or perhaps not surprisingly—discomfiting seeing her own face react in ways that weren’t her own. “We’re taking the shortcut? Kinda figured you’d go for the long way.”

“That would be an inefficient choice. This is the nature of the dungeon. We need to adjust to it.”

A quirked eyebrow. “Sounds like you’re telling yourself that, not me, blondie.”

“Don’t call me that.” Her attempted calm was failing to weather the annoying girl’s demeanor. “You or me? The other will handle the next.”

Delta shrugged. “This one looks kinda boring. So have fun.”

Kinda boring. As if Delta had been hoping for a raunchier shortcut. Perhaps something like those vines—the perverted girl wanted to be filled up by slimy, writhing plantlife. She and Zoey really would be a good fit.

She eyed the protruding stone dildo, hesitating despite her words.

“We don’t have to do this,” Delta said. “What’s a detour, right?”

Rosalie shook her head. “It’ll be inordinately difficult.”

“Will it?”

“I didn’t fight the final boss how it was intended to be, and I lost.”