Chapter 292

The rooms were everything Acacia had said they would be. Natalie was a bit awed that she would be living in all but luxury during the weekend delve. A plush bed, hot water, and even meals delivered by automatons. Plenty of space too. The bathroom was a number of times larger than her own back at Tenet. The basin-style bath tub was especially enormous, enough to fit six. Natalie wondered if that was to encourage multi-person use. Seeing how Lust had her hand in making this city, she assumed so.

There were also ‘pleasure dungeons’ in each room through a trapdoor at the foot of the enormous bed. Natalie had peeked in briefly and closed the hatch, blushing hard.

Afterward, Acacia showed them to the Assignment Boards.

“Since there’s a lot of people here, they’re broken up by first name,” Acacia said. “The boards get busy on reset hours, of course, but usually it’s not too bad. It’s a good time to socialize, since lots of people hang around after the reset. A natural, uh, congregation time, I guess you’d call it.”

“Will we have assignments already?” Vanetta asked.

“Not until the first reset after you enter the city for the first time,” Acacia said. “Which will be around three hours from now, so you won’t have to wait long.”

“We’ll be able to use these boards to tell when Elida gets here, then,” Natalie deduced, and Vanetta tilted her head briefly before nodding, clearly not having thought of that herself. “In a general sense, at least,” Natalie said. “And if we don’t bump into her first.”

“Elida? Your teammate?” Acacia asked.

“Yeah.”

“It’s a smart way to see if she’s shown up,” Acacia said. “But you won’t be able to actually find her. Except by meeting up at the boards themselves, I suppose. Hadn’t thought of using it like that myself, but to be fair most groups get here in one piece. I’m surprised you two didn’t. You were split up.”

Natalie and Vanetta found the ‘N’ and ‘V’ boards respectively just to take a look, and to confirm their names weren’t there. The assignments were simple: they held the full name of the Citygoer along with concise instructions: Report to the Bordello, or Report to the Coliseum for your duel against, and then the name of their opponent. And so on. Some had more detailed instructions, but those were rarer.

While Natalie lingered at her board, checking out a few of the assignments, Acacia approached her to speak privately.

“I’m gonna get going now,” she told her. “I’m happy to return the favor and get you two oriented, but the City is a valuable opportunity, and I don’t wanna waste my time. No offense or anything. I liked meeting you two.” She chewed her lip and blushed. “That said ... my assignment today was the Bordello, and I was waiting till near the end of the cycle to go. Was just gonna do some dancing on the lowest floor. But if someone wanted to be a client of mine on one of the higher ones, I might not be too against the idea. Think about it.”

The woman didn’t give a chance for Natalie to respond: blushing furiously, she waved goodbye, already starting to leave.

“I’ll be there,” Acacia called. “No big deal if you don’t come, I know you’ll be busy settling in. Just an offer!”

And then she had fled.

Natalie watched her go, heat also having risen onto her cheeks at the girl’s bluntness. She wondered whether Acacia would have made the same bold offer even a few days prior. Lust’s goal with this city was clearly to get people to indulge in their desires, and perhaps even become more uninhibited in general. Which Natalie guessed wasn’t a bad thing, though it still made her feel some sort of way, the deliberate intent behind all these systems, trying to get men and women to show off their bodies and, well, fuck like rabbits, plainly put.

“What was that?” Vanetta asked.

“Uh, nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

“She propositioned you, didn’t she?” The words were dry.