I stared at the crystal in disbelief.

  “Excuse me? What?!”

  The disembodied voice—a new one this time—let out a sigh of discontent before delivering the message over again, this time with a tinge of added impatience.

  “A weary mind stumbles in fog,

  No means with which to catalog.

  Rest here a while. Blanket thy Core.

  The morrow’s light unlocks the door.”

  With that, the constant, overbearing sun just… switched off. Between one blink and the next, we were bathed in a soft moonlight—but from the ground. The floor beneath our feet was literally glowing. Which made a kind of sense.

  Until I thought about it.

  After the initial murmurs of shock died down, Lynnria began to say, “It’s not much of a riddle,” but the moment her eyes landed on me, a soft gasp escaped her lips.

  Seemingly without conscious decision, her shoulders bunched, forcing her newly formed breasts together… and coincidentally blocking the light from reaching her face. I had not noticed it initially, but the inverted shadows had a rather sensational effect on her body. They deepened and highlighted her curves to a wondrous degree, as though a sculptor had carved away at her until all that remained was the minimum necessary to tease at the male instinct.

  Something to that effect must have been happening with me as well, because the next word out of her mouth was a near-inaudible, “Gorgeous.”

  I cleared my throat delicately, embarrassed.

  She had been like that ever since we had climbed from the fountain. You would have thought such a thorough love-making session would have sated her, but no dice. It was like she had become a bottomless pit of debauchery.

  Sort of. It came in phases.

  See, I had noticed a bit of a pattern during the walk back. There had been no sign of additional bears, so I had plenty of time to let both mind and eyes wander. Plenty of opportunities, too. Mia had followed through on her promise to wash our clothing, but whoever had absconded with Lynnria’s outfit had not been so courteous. Not even a garter belt of it had been left behind. Mia had offered to cut a few strips from her own garment to fashion a makeshift bra and loincloth for her, but the girl had visibly shivered at the suggestion, as though the mere thought of anything touching her skin was too much. Apparently, soaking in divine essence for the better part of a day came with certain consequences, one of which was that her entire body had become an erogenous zone.

  But it was more than that. Every time I so much as looked at her, she knew, as if she could feel my entire field of vision tracing up and down her spine like a delicate feather, and actually focusing on her, however briefly, would force out a gasp or a moan—no matter what else she was doing.

  It worked the other way around, too. Whenever she looked at me, you might have thought I was the masculine sex personified. Which… I mean, okay. I knew I was pretty handsome these days, but no more so than the last time she had seen me. You might have thought she would be used to it, but she was like a goldfish. The instant she looked away, she somehow forgot I had that effect on her and would be surprised all over again.

  She was perfectly fine, otherwise. She could carry on conversations, theorize, plan, and what have you, but the second our eyes crossed paths… Whammo!

  With any luck, all of that would subside with time, but for now, I was still having fun making her stumble every time I scanned her legs.

  “The bint weren’t kidding,” Jax said, turning from where she had been attempting to jimmy the door. “Shite’s locked tight.”

  Incidentally, Jax was also going topless. She had claimed the wet fabric had been too irritating, prompting her to roll down the upper portion of her gown until it formed a rope-like belt over the flap concealing her lower half. But we all knew what was really going on. She was just a shade larger than Lynnria, chest-wise, and was absolutely flaunting that status while she still could. That and I was pretty sure she was trying to take advantage of Lynnria’s addled state in the hopes of getting the girl to make a pass at her. I was privately rooting for her, but with how overwhelming my presence had been, she had yet to get far.

  Hiking a thumb over her shoulder, she added, “Ain’t no getting through here unless we want to brave going over top.”

  “Yeah, that seems unwise,” I agreed. Having Xhinn’s naked body burned into the backs of our retinas once had been plenty. I folded my arms. “Still, this really pisses me off. It took us so long to rescue Lynnria, and now we have to sit around and wait? Because we’re tired? That’s nonsense!”

  “Our kindred has claimed sway over many sovereignties when it comes to you, my lord,” Mia offered, offhand. “Motherhood, for one. I would imagine she simply does not wish to see her child perish at the hands of exhaustion.”

  I turned to glare at her. The soft light had cast the eldritch bunny girl’s head completely in shadow, leaving only hints of antler and the tips of her ears as evidence of its existence. “She has claimed motherhood over Arx too, in case you forgot. Mothers don’t typically go about kidnapping and torturing their children.”

  “That would depend on the lessons they want learned.”

  I could not see her eyes to tell where she was looking, but even so, I could almost feel the weight of her gaze on Lynnria.

  I scowled… even if it was an interesting theory. The question, though, was what lessons the Demon Queen felt Arx might need. It was not as though that one needed her sexuality awakened.

  Mia sighed. “Do not read too much into it, my lord. Arx is your creature. There is nothing the Fifth can do to her that your presence cannot make right. What matters now is that we ‘blanket’ our Cores. That line fills me with some hope that there might nearby rest sanctuary. It has only been a few hours, yet already, I feel the pull of your mind calling to me. The dustbin is probably beside itself with worry.”

  I blinked. “Huh?”

  Her voice caught in her throat for a moment before she could reply. “No matter. There will be Runes to show where we may sleep, but they will not call to your eyes lest we cross their threshold. Especially in this weak light. Come, Lynnria. Your touch will be of use here.”

  Lynnria started at the sound of her name, and she quickly dragged her gaze away. “Oh, uh… yes. Of course. But… what makes you think this isn’t the safe room? It has a bed in it.”

  “This is the hub room—beef flaps!” Mia replied serenely. Minus the one exception. “Have you read of many instances of their overlap?”

  “N-No…” Lynnria hesitated, then snaked a hand between her legs self-consciously. Satisfied, she tilted her nose into the air. “You know, I always pictured you as looking more like Jax and Arx. What’s with the executioner ears? And why is your tail so short?”

  Mia stiffened. “That is an artifact of—whale-dicked cock sucking!”

  “Ah, so that’s it.” Lynnria nodded as though that had been a perfectly reasonable explanation.

  My eyes ricocheted briefly between the two women. What just happened?

  “By the by, has anyone else noticed this cage?” Lynnria went on, apparently done with the subject. “There is a laoi woman locked inside it.”

  “A laoi woman?” Jax crossed her arms. “Have ye pissed out yer wits, girl? Not recognizing me one and only Servant…”

  Lynnria glanced up, surprised, “That’s Fekinell? She looks so—nyah~!” Forceably tearing her eyes away from me again, she started over. “She looks so gaunt.”

  Grinning, Jax plastered herself to my side and started running her hand up and down my chest. “Aye, the poor dove. I feels her hunger so, gnawing at her like. She be close to wasting away in there, and here’s us, standing at the gate with mud on our faces. How’s we to find any Keys like this, I ask ye?”

  She punctuated the question with a theatrical sob—which I did not believe for a second. Jax would not have hesitated to let Fekinell rot in that cage if it meant getting to her precious Maximum Attribute Crystals five minutes faster. But I doubted Lynnria was thinking about that. She seemed lost in the motions of Jax’s fingers as they danced circles over my robe. It was hard to tell in the mood lighting, but she might have even been drooling.

  And if Fekinell had been paying any attention to their nonsense, she gave no sign. I might have even worried she was dead had Jax not mentioned how hungry she was, but it seemed she had chosen to sleep through her imprisonment. At least, I hoped she was asleep. Even since the last time I had seen her, her chest was awfully… still.

  I’m sure it’s fine.

  “Alright, fan out, everyone,” I said with a firm swat to Jax’s backside. “Look for any hidden catches, levers, or buttons. Lynnria, you’ll be hunting for inactive Words. And we’ll start with the bed.”

  Mia might not have thought so, but my gut was telling me that obvious things were obvious for a reason.

  *

  It turned out I was right. The safe room was the bed.

  Except not.

  It took us some time to work it out, but each of the bedposts had a set of Runes that would activate if the knob-cap was rotated by a quarter-turn in a set sequence. Of course, we only found them because we had Lynnria to run her hands over everything; we only figured out how much they needed to rotate because I could see when the Runes lit up; and we only knew what any of it meant because Mia was there to interpret it all from our secondhand descriptions. Anyway, once we got the sequence right, a zone line flared to life, giving us the freedom to rest and allocate our Stat Points without a bunch of troublesome Faen messing with us.

  That left me to sort through our collection of Gems to figure out the best distribution while Jax and Lynnria hovered nearby. None of us had anything like experience totals to go off of, so it was a little difficult to work out exactly who needed what, especially after that snafu back in the collapsed maze. I knew I was not over-layered anymore, but that was about it as far as I was concerned. Jax was fresh off of being capped, so she should have been zeroed out and ready to embark upon a fresh new Stratum. That would have made things simple had she just allowed me to feed her individually, but it would be a cold day in hell before that happened. She insisted on sticking to our percentage split. And, of course, Arx was now capped, so I needed to manually slide her share down to nothing without cutting her off. Otherwise, she would have to sit through the night, not only tortured, but emotionally abandoned. Then there was Lynnria, whose experience totals were still being handled separately.

  Thank Bline for small miracles.

  Eventually, I decided to just hand everyone a pair of Averages each. Rank II’s for Jax and myself. Rank I’s for Lynnria. That would ensure everyone gained a layer, whatever our current totals, and as long as Jax and I were consuming Gems at the same time, the Communion of Shared Power would ensure that nothing was wasted.

  While all of that was going on, Mia had arranged herself at the foot of the bed, closed her eyes, and fled back into my mind. I was unsure what the chief cause might be—whether her body was too weak, too undeveloped, or simply that she had been trapped within it—but she was beginning to absolutely loathe the thing. The second she had arrived safely home, she had only paused long enough to fling my stats into my face before loudly announcing that she was going to take a shower—something about the stink of flesh clinging to her—and was not to be disturbed.

  How she expected me to accomplish that was anyone’s guess.

  Whatever the case, I was now staring at a familiar blue placard, contemplating my stat distribution for the next layer.

  I ran my thumb over my lip, just letting the nail run through the bristles of my mustache while I thought. Normally, this would have been simple. Throw a couple of points into Wisdom, a couple into Toughness, and done! That would have been enough to raise each attribute by one and ensure Charisma got a double increase, thanks to my status as Ahnbe’s ‘Chosen.’ But Xhinn’s interference had made quite the mess of things. I now had tempered Toughness and one less Stat Point to show for it.

  Which was great. I was not complaining.

  It was just that I had no idea how the tempering was going to interact with whatever Ahnbe had done to me. Would the automatic increase to Toughness also raise my Charisma? And what happened if I actually invested in Toughness? Could I get a double increase there as well? It was not grayed out, so it seemed possible. But with my luck, there was always the chance I might encounter some strange bug and end up wasting the points. Worse, with only the three points, that would mean leaving Wisdom behind, which was completely out of the question with all these goddesses on my ass.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Then there was Intelligence. Mia kept insisting it was important for ‘reasons,’ but the only things I knew about it were that it made learning new skills faster and improved a person’s memory. Both were good things in their own way. I suspected it might have also played a role in spellcasting, but without more to go on, I simply could not justify the expense.

  Especially not while I can be a cheating bitch.

  What if I invested two points into Wisdom… and the last into Strength? Obviously, the latter was of no use to my build, but as one of Ahnbe’s favored stats, it should still count toward Charisma. And that very much was. With Toughness increasing all on its own, I could easily bump all three at once, which meant my Charisma might just undergo a fabled triple increase.

  19 to 22 in a stroke? Geez… That was just the kind of exploit you would expect to see coming up in the developer patch notes, too.

  Not that I could sustain it for long. Once Strength hit double digits, I would have to sideline it once again. And poor Wisdom would soon reach 20, which would double its point cost as well. It would not be much longer before I was going multiple layers without raising a single attribute!

  Who designed this system, anyway? A linear stat progression with an exponential cost component? And Jax had once told me there were myths of people leaping over mountains in a single bound. Not likely! You would need…

  …well, let’s see. Given that a 10 is the natural maximum… I knew the world record on Earth for high jumping was somewhere around eight feet. But should I use that or the vertical leap? The first was more of a technique-based sport, while the latter mostly depended on raw physical ability. And there was no way of telling how well the Fosbury flop would translate to—oh, whatever! In neither case would a single point of Strength or Agility grant more than a few extra inches to a person’s jump height. You would need hundreds just to clear a thousand foot hill, an unfathomable number given the sheer amount of layers it would take to achieve. You would have to bridge the gap with a spell… and getting the duration right would be tricky.

  Otherwise, you could easily run into a ‘Scroll of Icarian Flight’ situation.

  Bah. I was getting sidetracked again. Either my plan worked or it did not. I was sure I could get at least two points of Charisma out of the distribution I had chosen. The third would have to depend on whether the automatic Toughness bump would cascade down. If it did, awesome. If not… well.

  At least I was still guaranteed a minimum of five stat increases.

  *

  It was the light that awakened me, like someone had switched on the overhead lamp in the middle of the night.

  Before that, I was certain I had been dreaming, which was not supposed to happen during torpor. But then, there were a lot of things going on in my head that were not supposed to happen. I would have to add it to the list.

  Most of the details remained vague. All I really recalled about it was the general vibe and a few tidbits toward the end. I had been in a darkened room, there had been sounds of panting and moaning coming from somewhere nearby, then I distinctly heard a man’s voice cry out, “Yes! Anything, mistress!”

  I clicked my tongue. We’re just gonna to chalk that one up to stress.

  Carefully slipping from between the confining web of tails, legs, and other miscellaneous femininities, I sat up, stretched… and immediately regretted it. I hurt. All over. Arms, legs, the small of my back, my butt. Even my face! I felt like I had just attempted some fitness influencer’s workout routine and was now waking up to delayed-onset muscle soreness, but in places muscles should never have existed.

  How can it feel like I’ve been doing reps with my—oh, hello.

  El Capitan was awake to greet the day as well. And it appeared as though someone was looking to move up to El Almirante. The girls had been telling me this had been happening, of course, but there had always been that little voice in the back of my head, telling me they were just imagining it. Well, there was no denying it this time.

  We’re definitely bigger than yesterday.

  Not just that. There was something indefinably… more about all of me today.

  I looked… cut. Not wildly muscular, just noticeably in shape. And I do mean noticeably—even to me. Every line and crease seemed custom built to catch the eye, but it was not so easy to explain how. Before, I might have talked about a lack of imperfections or drawing ever closer to some Platonic ideal of the masculine form. Now? Now, it was as though I had begun to redefine what that ideal even meant—through the lens of a heterosexual male, with little-to-no concept of what masculine attractiveness was even supposed to look like, just staring down at himself from the side of a bed.

  Good grief. The girls are going to freak!

  It was then that I finally noticed the other changes. Which was saying something. My nails had lengthened yet again—not quite into sharpened points, but close enough to put a person’s eye out—and the roots and nail beds had deepened in color, on the verge of turning black. My hands looked like they belonged to some evil sorcerer with a penchant for striding about, chest exposed, in gossamer silk robes.

  Which, on reflection, would have been a sight better than my current outfit. That pea-soup, papier-maché monstrosity could die in a fire for all I cared, and if it had not been so durable, I would have traded it in the moment we had hit town. Expense be damned!

  Tentatively, I checked my head, but there were no signs of sprouting horns just yet. Nor did I have a tail. But my teeth? I could not have said that they were longer, per se, but they had a certain predatory edge to them that had not been there before.

  The irony, of course, was that I had become a thing which did not feed on meat. I was more plant than carnivore, subsisting only on the offerings of my summoned companions, yet here I was, growing fangs. They served no purpose, save as an aesthetic reminder of my origins… and weapons.

  My back was turned, but I somehow felt Jax shift into consciousness. It was a subtle thing, like a second set of lungs had pulled a piece of the world into me, then vanished back into imperceptibility.

  Hmm. This ought to be good. Usually, the thing I looked most forward to after coming out of torpor was taking in the improvements to my girls, but now that my Charisma was in the 20s, I really wanted to see their reactions. What would a woman do on encountering a man more than twice as hot as they could ever naturally be? Obviously, it would be nothing like introducing myself to a complete stranger, but it should still be interesting.

  Shifting just enough to look down on her, I fought through the soreness to settle my face into a knowing grin and waited.

  Jax did not disappoint.

  The very second her lids fluttered open, she gasped like she had just seen a poltergeist rip itself out of my chest, and shouted, “Fuck me dead!”

  I blinked bemusedly. “I mean, I can try…”

  At the sound of my voice, some of the shock seemed to lift from her.

  “Master?” She started to reach for me, only to hesitate at the last instant, as though I had become a porcelain doll that might shatter at her slightest touch. “Master? Be that you?”

  “Of course it’s me, you goose.” Taking her hand, I let a fine sliver of pleasure pass into her before pulling her up. “Do I really look so different?”

  “Differen~nt?! Master, I—I scarce know how to… M-Master, I…”

  Chuckling—and well satisfied—I made to silence her stammered compliments with a kiss, but she actually stopped me.

  “Wait! Wait, I—I just need a scanty. Let me… let me look ye over a bit. Please, Master? This…” Shaking her head, she pulled away from me, tripping over Lynnria in the process, and the two went tumbling to the ground on the opposite side of the bed.

  “Chebs!” Laughing in earnest now, I followed to see if they were alright. It had not been a high fall, but with Dolilim, all the extra pointy bits could complicate things in a hurry. Fortunately, neither were suffering from more than embarrassment.

  “Good morning, Jax,” Lynnria said brightly. She did not appear the least upset at being so rudely awakened. If anything, she seemed a child on Christmas morning, gleefully awaiting what spoils her stocking might bring, but with just enough maturity to gush over her siblings’ gifts first. “Oh, you look amazing! Your lips… your hair! I’ll bet you haven’t even touched it, but it’s already so full—like you haven’t slept on it at all! I’m so jealous. Ugh, you smell amazing, too. I could just… Nnn~ Have you had sex yet? Ppff… what am I saying? Of course you have. I’m so wet, I could die! Whistling dicks, I’ll never get used to sleeping next to that man. It’s like someone’s been teasing me all—oh, hey. Did you know there’s something written under here? I don’t recognize the language, though. Weird.”

  She had been delivering that impromptu monologue with the steady urgency of a kettle on the boil, so the sudden pause for breath caught me more off-guard than her change in subject. It took me a moment to even register that she had changed subjects—and a moment longer to recognize it as in any way important.

  Besides, I had been thinking of a clever way of bringing Jax’s new tail into the conversation. After sitting dormant for so long, the thing had sprouted, fully formed, overnight, and was now lashing about her muscular backside with catlike agitation. Just as with the others, it was most like a lion’s in appearance, except the end tassel was far longer and bushier, bringing it more in line with what you might expect from a groomed Afghan Hound. Naturally, it matched Jax’s red mane perfectly—color, texture, and all.

  “Would ye shut yer gob and let me think?!” Jax grumbled. “Yammering at me like that when the master be… When the master… Oh, just look at him!”

  “Sorry, what was that about writing?” I added, taking my cue.

  Lynnria pointed over her head toward the nightstand. “It’s right there. Just under the—” She looked back at me… finally… and her eyes widened in surprise. “—whoa!”

  I waggled my head and preened, quite enjoying myself. “Thank you. Now, Mia, if you wouldn’t mind translating…?”

  “Just a second!” she yelled over a distant crash. “Drat. Sorry. I’ve got your post-layer report right here… somewhere. No… no, that’s Lynnria’s. Oh, where did I—hey! You put that down. Put that down, I say! That is not a toy, Mister! Come back here.”

  More crashes followed, along with some unintelligible shouting.

  “O… kay.” It seemed Mia was still a tad preoccupied. “I guess that’ll keep for a few minutes. Here, stand up. I want to get a good look at the both of you.”

  “Y-Yeah,” Lynnria agreed, and the two quickly came to their feet to settle shoulder-to-shoulder. I might have even compared them to military cadets, readying themselves for inspection, except their eyes never left me for a millisecond.

  That they were checking me out was a given, but they also seemed keenly interested in what next I might say. I could almost see the excitement rolling off of them… and even if I could not, the flicking ends of their tails would have given away their mood. With a single sentence, I had keyed them up to the point that they may as well have been on the verge of hearing their names announced as finalists in some nationally televised beauty pageant.

  Interesting. They had been so astonished at my changes not a minute ago, but now, instead of gossiping about it or showering me with compliments, they were hanging from my every word. But was that because they were genuinely invested in what I had to say? Or had my appearance bewitched them in some way, such that they held my opinions in false regard? Probably some of both. Ah, well. They just need time to get used to the new me.

  Fully conscious of just how sore I was, I carefully rolled to the edge of the bed and stood, but my shoulders were so tight, I simply had to give them a quick roll. They audibly popped.

  Both girls gasped like I had just doused them with ice water. Then Lynnria started to awkwardly grasp for Jax’s hand, trying to whisper something, but the other only shushed her. “I know ye did, wean. Same as me. Don’t ye fall to pieces on me now.”

  I quirked an eyebrow, but decided against pushing it further. If I started posing, they would either collapse into seizures or laughter, and neither would do my ego any good.

  For my own inspection, there was not much new to report on that had not already been mentioned, which itself was unusual. I had thought Lynnria’s horns would at least begin their journey into their mature form, but they remained exactly as before—just a couple of sharpened stubs about half a finger in length. Even more surprising, her breasts had not grown. Not that they had remained unchanged; they had relaxed a great deal overnight, giving them a perky yet completely natural appeal. I was sure that if I handled them now, I would detect no signs of their former tightness, so her improved Charisma was clearly working on them.

  Still, not to have grown at all? That was strange. It was not like any of the rest of her had remained stagnant. Her body had evened out a bit, giving her a striking, yet youthful hourglass. She might have become just a shade taller. Her lips were fuller, her cheeks had gained a natural blush, and her lashes had darkened to the point that they naturally framed her eyes. So what’s going on?

  I could only put her horns down as something to do with her being a lesser Dolilim. But for the other? It might be that lesser Dolilim were cursed to remain less gifted in that department; the subtype was based on her, after all. But it could also have something to do with her breasts being storage containers for Life Energy. If their size depended on how much was in them, that parameter would need to remain variable… which would explain why every other detail of them had improved—their shape, the way they hung from her chest, their overall symmetry. Just not their size.

  But to find out for sure, I would need to try my hand at creating a few more. And ones not inhabited by Mia or the many Faen lurking about. It was clear from the majestic antlers adorning Mia’s head that the animating force had just as much impact on the lesser Dolilim’s overall form as did the source animal. So unless I could arrange for the Faen to leave us alone, I would have to wait until we left the Dungeon before any experiments could begin.

  Regardless, Lynnria was now sitting at a solid 9, lovely enough to make a decent living off of her looks, but not yet to the degree of earning her worldwide acclaim. Sadly for her, standing side-by-side with Jax—and nude—she might as well have been a dung-covered peasant intruding upon a noble ball.

  Jax was not just hot. She was intimidatingly hot, beautiful to the point that she could turn heads from across a crowded street. I might have even said a woman could not be that hot, but of course, I knew otherwise. And unlike Lynnria, nothing about her had been restricted.

  “Looks like you’ve filled out a little,” I informed her, cupping her breasts gently. At a guess, I would have said they had grown by about half a cup, just enough to make whatever hypothetical bras she owned a shade uncomfortable. I allowed my thumbs a few laps around her rapidly stiffening nipples before releasing them.

  “Uha-ha-hmm?” Jax bit off the uncharacteristically cute noise to nod. Shakily.

  “Umm? You’ve been looking forward to this for so long, and all you can say is, um?” I smiled, ecstatic at having the upper hand for once. It was not every day I rendered Jax speechless. “Or were you waiting to see what I thought first? Jax, Jax… surely, by now, you must know all I want is for you to be happy. But fine. Since you’re fishing for compliments… I had thought they were perfect before, but you’ve proved me wrong. Satisfied?”

  Her head jerked no.

  I suppose I should have seen that coming. She had always maintained that hers should be the ones I compared all others to. Fat chance of that happening when she had to compete against literal goddesses.

  I tutted. "Alright, maybe perfect is a stretch. But come on! It won't be too much longer before their size starts interfering with your ability to fight. We wouldn't want that. Would we?"

  Another no, slower this time.

  Hmm. Still no backtalk? She was just staring at me, almost mesmerized. We had gone from interesting to weird and were fast approaching creepy. I need to break them out of this.

  Figuring eye contact must be key, I gripped her shoulders and spun her around to face the other Dolilim. “What do you think, Lynnria? You've trained for this sort of thing. How much more do you think she could afford to grow them out before they became a problem?”

  It took Lynnria… a while to realize I had asked her a question. She just kept staring at me, her breathing so erratic, you might have thought she was having a panic attack. Eventually, I was forced to snap my fingers in front of her face.

  “Hello? Lynnria?”

  “Huh?” she managed.

  “Jax's breasts?” I reminded her innocently. And as a visual aid, I snaked my hands around the redhead's sides to gently puppeteer them about—which was probably a mistake. I should not have been touching her at all, come to think of it. She had been staring at my hands on her shoulders just as raptly as she had my face, and the second they crept lower, she practically came on the spot.

  “Yes! Master! Uhhnghah~”

  I’ll take it. But I had one Dolilim to go.

  “How much bigger could they get?” I persisted. “As a Warrior, I mean. Wouldn’t it eventually be a balance issue?”

  “Uh... well.” Lynnria swallowed roughly, just watching my hands at play over the other lilim’s flesh.

  This is fun! It was obvious she was imagining me doing the same to her… but could I coax her into imagining more? Helping me out, for instance? For a moment, I wondered how I might subtly introduce the idea before realizing that subtlety had completely fled the Dungeon. I could have hit her over the head with a brick right then, and she still would have kept on staring.

  She moistened her lips before trying again. But of course, by that time, I was already nibbling at Jax’s ear—to boisterous accolades. “H-Hands, I don't… Maybe… Maybe with Xyn’s scale armor, it would offer some support? We’re supposed to be getting that, right?”

  “Oh, yeah!”

  I had almost forgotten. And now that they had gained a layer, Mia should have had plenty of opportunity to implement the changes—assuming it worked that way.

  Honestly. Letting myself get carried away just because we had gotten collectively hotter again? It was not as though I was in any kind of shape for it. Sore as I was, I would probably cramp up before we even got started.

  “Mia?” I called, dropping my hands.

  And Jax to the floor.

  “Mia, quit fooling around. We need that post-layer report.”