Chapter 35

“Wow,” Delta said. “You were so excited, I thought you had something good.”

Across Delta’s chest, in thick, bolded letters, ‘SHAMELESS WHORE’.

Despite Delta’s unimpressed words, Rosalie seemed highly satisfied with the insult she’d written. She admired it smugly, and, when Delta held her hand out, didn’t seem particularly put-out that it was her turn to be drawn on.

Zoey, for her part, agreed with Delta. Rosalie had been so excited to write the words that Zoey thought she had something creative. Then again, Rosalie was clearly pretty sheltered ... by the smugness of her satisfaction, she thought she’d had a stroke of genius. It was pretty cute.

Delta knelt down in front of Rosalie and dipped the quill in ink. Rosalie shivered as the cold pentip pressed into the space below her belly button. In the same way Rosalie had, Delta spelled her chosen tattoo out in massive letters, covering most of the space on her pelvis. She had to pull aside the writhing vines to get the pen to her skin.

‘HUGE GIRL COCKS ONLY <3’, the phrase read, with an arrow pointing down at her pussy.

Rosalie paled as she read the words upside-down and finally deciphered them. By the widening of her eyes, Delta was the winner.

“You—you can’t be serious.”

“It looks good on you,” Delta grinned. “Let’s hope it’s not permanent.” She licked her finger and rubbed at the ink, but it had dried instantly, and didn’t smudge at Delta’s efforts.

“If it is, it’s your body.” Rosalie’s eyes flicked to the ‘SHAMELESS WHORE’ on her own body’s chest. She grimaced.

“Then I’ll wear it proudly, when we finally swap back,” Delta laughed. She got back up and handed the ink and quill to Not-Zoey.

“Have something good?” Zoey asked her.

“It didn’t say we had to be mean. Just degrading.” Not-Zoey crouched in front of Zoey. Her cock stiffened instinctively at having a face so close, but Not-Zoey ignored it, rolling her eyes and flicking it. “And that content, size, and positioning mattered. So...”

She worked away at etching ink into Zoey’s pelvis, the same as Delta had done to Rosalie’s.

‘DELTA & ROSIE’S FAVORITE TOY’.

Delta laughed, and Rosalie wrinkled her nose.

Zoey, on her part, grinned. “I’m not sure if I even mind it.”

“Hmm. I have a feeling you’re not going to be so nice to me.”

“I’m definitely taking a cruder approach,” Zoey agreed.

Not-Zoey huffed. She finished scribbling ink into the outline of the bolded letters, filling them out, then stood and handed the materials to Zoey.

“Turn around.”

“On my butt?” Not-Zoey asked, rolling her eyes. “How did I know?”

Zoey dipped the pen in, then worked away at scrawling out the words ‘FREE USE CUM DUMPSTER’ across Not-Zoey’s ass.

“Crude,” Delta said amusedly. “You weren’t kidding.”

“What’s it say?” Not-Zoey was trying to look over her shoulder, but obviously the angle wasn’t right. She couldn’t see.

“Don’t worry about it,” Zoey said, slapping her on the ass and vanishing the ink into her inventory.

Not-Zoey rubbed at where she’d been hit, scrunching her nose at Zoey. “You’re not going to tell me? That’s so mean.”

“Nothing beats imagination, anyway.”

Not-Zoey huffed, crossing her arms. “To think I was nice to you.”

“Do any of you feel anything?” Zoey asked. She herself hadn’t felt any magical effects settle in after the lewd phrase had been written, but she doubted the artifact was lying.

Rosalie clenched and unclenched her hands in front of her, as if testing if it felt different. “Maybe. Some stats boosts can be hard to notice. Which is why identifying the item is best, first.” She eyed Delta to emphasize the point.

“Eh, doesn’t hurt anyone,” Delta said. “Even if the effect’s small, it’s helpful. Plus, Zoey’s enjoying the sight.”

Her eyes might have been caught on the ‘HUGE GIRL COCKS ONLY <3’ above Rosalie’s pussy. Delta had outdone herself.

She cleared her throat. “There’s still more, right?” She gestured at the chest.

Rosalie returned to it.

[Pink Fairy Dust]: A shimmering pink powder. Can be used to prepare potions that intensify, and link, dreams.

Zoey paused. “How much do you want to bet ‘intensify’ means...”

“Sex dreams?” Delta said sarcastically. “I think that’s a given.”

“And links,” Zoey said. “So whoever takes it together, somehow shares the dream?” Or just one guess at what the reagent could create. There was some variance, typically, in what could be coaxed out of any given ingredient.

“Sounds fun,” Delta said. “There’s all kinds of freaky stuff I’d do in a dream, but not in real life.”

Zoey paused.

“And no, I’m not specifying,” Delta said.

The looting of an alchemy reagent sparked an idea.

“Hey. Sabina asked me to be on the look-out for reagents, and that there’s plenty more to gather from a shard than what comes out of a chest.”

“Okay?”

“You know that trap? The,” she cleared her throat, “excessive fluid?”

“That filled me up?” Delta’s eyebrows raised. “You think it’ll make a potion ingredient?”

“Maybe it’ll replicate the stretchiness?”

Delta paused. “Hell, worth bringing back just on the off chance.” She frowned. “We don’t have any containers, though.”

“We can improvise. We’ll probably get some useless potions.” Most chests provided their fair share of junk. Or not junk, but generic items, health potions, stamina potions, and the like. Zoey suspected that for the average adventurer, they’d be useful. But seeing how she’d wandered into a party of two extremely competent partners ... and less combat-focused shards ... the ‘typical items’ were less useful than they should be.