Dungeons and Dalliances

4.03 – New Skills II

Natalie hadn’t allocated any of her earned carnal energy in some time, and with consistent sessions with Jordan, and slightly less consistent ones with Sammy, she’d earned a sizable amount. One-off encounters like with Liz, and even her lewd adventures with the vines, had provided bonus harvests, too.

***

Carnal Energy: 442

***

“I’m at four forty two,” Natalie said. “I have to imagine that’s enough to take [Carnal Harvest] up another tier, though I’m not sure how much’ll be left over. I could also go all in on an immediate power spike, though.” That had been why Natalie had saved the points in the first place, instead of immediately allocating them to [Carnal Harvest], which would boost her rate of gain. Taking each of her level two skills up to second progression would be an enormous boost in her immediate strength. She’d probably go from a ‘decent but nothing truly amazing’ student to somewhere much closer to the top.

“Mm,” Jordan said. “Tough choice. Long term choice is obvious.”

“Keep upgrading Harvest.” Natalie chewed her lip. “Saved the points in case something truly insane came along with level two, but it didn’t.” Not that she was complaining; she very much appreciated her new abilities. But nothing demanded immediate upgrades.

Natalie hesitated over the choice for a few moments, but reluctantly decided to do what was smartest for her long term career. “Probably best to get harvest up to three,” she sighed. “Though it would have been nice to go all in, right now.”

Jordan patted Natalie on the shoulder in sympathy. But she clearly agreed. “Let’s see how much you have left over.”

Closing her eyes, Natalie funneled points into [Carnal Harvest] using [Empower].

***

[Carnal Harvest]: Progression advanced from 2 to 3.

***

***

[Carnal Harvest] - PASSIVE. PROGRESSION 3. Extract carnal energy through {performing or receiving oral on} an aroused target. Harvested energy can be expended through [Empower] and [Advance].

***

Natalie snorted.

“What’d it upgrade to?” Jordan asked.

“Oral. Giving or receiving.”

“It’s funny that’s how it rates them. Kissing, fondling, oral. What’s after that? Penetration? Does it differentiate between each hole, you think?”

Natalie paused, then coughed. “I guess we’ll find out.”

“How much do you have left?”

She checked. “Two forty two. So progression three took two hundred flat.”

“Wonder if we can count on that for the others.”

“There’s variance,” Natalie said. “Already found that out from the progression two upgrades. But only a little bit. They seem to stay in the same general range.”

“Might change with level two skills. Maybe those are more expensive.”

Natalie had considered that, but for obvious reasons, hoped not. If they were as cheap to upgrade as her level ones, then she could take all of her new skills up a notch. If not, then she’d have to pick and choose.

“What’s the most important?” Natalie asked. In the case they were more expensive, she would focus on the one most crucial to upgrade.

“That’s really up to you,” Jordan said. “You’ve got lots of choices, now. [Juggernaut] is great—a flat boost to furor. If you want to immediately pivot to large weapons, [Bigger Is Better] is smart. Could also go with a tier three upgrade to [Illusion]. But I think the clear winner is [Stylish], assuming we get the whole team on board.”

A team-wide stat buff was hard to beat, so, yeah, that made sense. Natalie hesitated, though.

“But you want a personal boost,” Jordan said, smiling. “That’s fine too. I say go for it. You don’t have to be strictly selfless. Besides, it really depends on how the skills upgrade. Maybe [Stylish] only gives a tiny boost, and [Juggernaut] a big one. I say go for whatever you want.”

“Yeah,” Natalie said. “I guess. I’m not sure.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s a hard choice.”

“Better to be flooded with good options than bad ones. Don’t think you can go too wrong, here, no matter what you choose.”

“What would you do?”

“I’d go with [Heavy Weaponry],” Jordan said, “so I could plow my best friend with a ten inch cock instead of an eight inch one.” Jordan laughed at Natalie’s wide-eyed expression. “I’m afraid you have a bit of a size queen on your hands, now. Look what you’ve done to me.”

“Jordan. Be serious.” Natalie fought against the stiffening inside her skirt. The teasing was seriously unfair out in public.

“Oh, I’m completely serious. But fine, if you care more about being practical than stuffing me silly—let me think.” Jordan considered the question. “[Juggernaut]. The flat strength boost will help with a larger weapon by default, so it serves as [Bigger Is Better] in a way, but also helps in all other aspects of combat too. That it multiplies with other bonuses is just crazy. Let’s see how much it costs.”

That had been what Natalie had wanted to go for first, too. [Stylish] was probably the better team upgrade, but she wanted to get personally stronger—to stand out more at Tenet. She hadn’t made an embarrassment of herself, far from it, but she hadn’t astounded anyone, either.

She wondered whether Jordan knew what she was thinking, and had suggested the skill choice and purposefully not pushed for [Stylish]. That would be a very Jordan thing to do. Jordan was always looking out for her. Her heart squeezed, and she chased away her newfound feelings. Those were really going to be a problem in the following days.

“Alright. Let’s see,” Natalie said.

Closing her eyes, she started funneling points into [Juggernaut]. Slowly, as to test how much the enigmatic ‘orb’ filled up with pink liquid. Her skills only gave a vague measure of how much she was progressing them, rather than a concrete amount required. It made all of this guesswork, unfortunately.

She grimaced.

“Yeah, it’s more expensive,” Natalie said. “I’m pretty sure it starts out as effectively a tier higher. So from one to two, costs the same as two to three for my level one skills.”

“Kinda expected something like that,” Jordan said. “But still. You can upgrade [Juggernaut]. It’ll be around two hundred?”

“It’ll cost most of what I have, probably.”

“That’s fine, I’d say. It’s a good choice. Then [Stylish] next, after we talk to the team about it.” Jordan paused. “And … what are your thoughts on talking to them about helping, too?’

“Helping?”

“You know. With …” Jordan waved her hand up and down at Natalie, a vague gesture that took Natalie a second to understand.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Sounds like Liz might be interested,” Jordan said with a shrug. “Ana is a wildcard, but I don’t think she’d be mad if we just asked. Besides, it’s giving or receiving. I don’t think there’d be too many girls who would turn down daily oral from you.” Jordan’s lips quirked. “Or even giving. You’ve got something special down there, you know. It really is addicting.”

“Jordan.”

“Just a thought,” Jordan said. “I’m not telling you to do anything. But maximizing your harvest skill really should take priority.”

“I know. I know.” Natalie struggled for how to put it. “I just don’t like the idea of it.”

“You don’t like the idea of being serviced by a legion of girls every day?” Jordan asked.

“Not … so impersonally? I don’t know. I don’t have anything against something casual, obviously, but it should still …”

“Happen naturally.” Jordan nodded. “No, I get it. Pursuing relationships just for the energy would be weird. I was just checking in. Besides, I bet there’s some limitations to harvest we haven’t found yet. I don’t think if you somehow had twenty partners a day, you’d really get twenty times the energy. I bet there’s a cap per day, or maybe each successive partner gets less energy. Something of that sorts. Then again, maybe not. But the most important thing is to do what you’re comfortable with. Doesn’t matter what optimizes your class.”

Natalie both agreed and disagreed with the sentiment. A part of her wanted to rush as much carnal energy as possible. A part of her despised that kind view on sex and relationships, even purposefully casual. It was something she’d fretted over since she’d received her class, and hadn’t made too much headway on.

What she was really hoping for was to build up relationships naturally, and for having to pursue some sort of ‘optimization’ to become unnecessary through organic success.

“Anyway,” Jordan said. “Go ahead and finish advancing [Juggernaut]? Tell me what you get.”

***

[Juggernaut]: Progression advanced from 1 to 2.

***

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[Juggernaut] - PASSIVE. PROGRESSION 2. Class-bearer receives {1.6x} bonus to furor, applied after all other bonuses.

***

Natalie eyes widened. “Damn,” she said. “Went to one point six. That’s insane.”

“A passive sixty percent boost? That stacks with buffs and items?” Jordan asked. “Yeah. No joke.” She shook her head. “Even with just that, today’s spars won’t know what hit them. You’re gonna be a nightmare. Wanna give it a test run?”