7.87 - Passions

It was hardly some great deduction. After everything Natalie and Cheri had said, Vanetta had been given more than enough information to put together essentially all of her secrets, and for that matter, catch up to what she knew about this bizarre situation in general. They weren't totally on the same page, but they weren't far from it either.

"I can't remember if she outright admitted it," Natalie said, "but she's more than made it clear that's the case. And yeah, that's why she strong-armed me into joining her."

"Strong-armed? Blackmail? You did seem reluctant, at the start."

"No, no. Nothing that serious. More like, she kept bothering me, and with her, it's obvious that she'll escalate if she doesn't get what she wants." She was just hoping that her eventual refusal to join the party wouldn't result in said escalation. It was more than possible, despite Elida having said she would leave her alone regardless of her decision. "The bigger reason I went along with it, though, was because she promised me we'd talk afterward. She might have information about all of this that I don't. If nothing else, I'm not sure I want to burn all my bridges with her. She's a bitch, but she is sponsored like I am." She sighed. "Unfortunately, we're intertwined, one way or another."

Vanetta crossed her arms and stared down at the floor, digesting this. "It does make sense why she was so interested in you, now. More than being a fast grower or a top performer should warrant, from my perspective. Also explains why you were asking about her in return. So, you're Lust, and she's Rage?" She rubbed her chin, talking to herself as much as Natalie. "Now that I think about it, that might be why you affect the dungeon more than she does. Lust is a shared emotion, it has a target. Your teammates. Which is why they get dragged in as well. Rage can have a target, but Elida's isn't focused at us, so we're left alone. More generally speaking, though, anger doesn't have to be focused on a person, but lust always is. Anger can be because of anything: life circumstances, how the world works, some past event. Maybe that's why I noticed something was off, but it never affected the dungeon like—" She waved around. "Well, I hardly have to say it."

Like the City of Eros, or other events Natalie became involved in.

"Anyway," Vanetta said. "That's an explanation, even if it's not the correct one. You're always lusting over those four girls, and with the City, us four too. So we get thrown in along with you."

Natalie felt like she was being accused of something, saying she was always lusting over her teammates … but it wasn't wholly unprompted. This temporary team included. Though, there was a correction to make: she felt little but annoyance and mild animosity toward Faye and Clementine. They had been part of the original grouping that had attacked Natalie's team and robbed them. Vanetta had been a new addition, and she was cute and interesting, so she'd had her eye on her from the start, with only mild resentment that had disappeared once she got to know her.

Elida was a more complicated situation, but Natalie would, with extreme reluctance, admit that she drew her eye. It wasn't like being a major bitch made her any less attractive—though Natalie wished it did. And no one would argue Elida didn't have a strong personality and a certain mystique behind her. She was also the rank number one at Tenet for their year, which was no small accomplishment. What drove her? What had caused Rage to sponsor her? Or another Passion, if they'd gotten the god or goddess wrong?

"Also, why does Lust have a City, and not Rage?" Vanetta murmured. "Or, is there a City of Rage? I'm scared to imagine what it'd be like, so I hope not. Even this is a bit much."

"I really have no idea," Natalie said. She'd thought about this subject plenty, but Vanetta had introduced a few interesting ideas—particularly why Lust might involve her teammates but Elida's patron didn't seem to.

If she went down with a team of four men, then, would the challenges become solo only, since she wasn't attracted to that gender? She had less than zero intentions in testing the theory out, but it was a curious hypothetical.

Also, Greed. There were only three Passions she was directly aware of: Lust, Rage, and Greed. Which were the same three displayed on that mural from her first dungeon run. The 'early waking' Passions, presumably the only ones, at that time, who had gathered enough power to interact with the outside world. That was why she was nearly certain Rage was Elida's patron: the evidence was overwhelming at this point.

Rage might not seem like a perfect fit, but what did she actually know about Elida? Very little. Their interactions were sparse, with Elida being from one of the Five Families and trained well on how to control herself in social situations. Yet even with that limited interaction, Natalie had seen moments of usually repressed anger boiling over.

On the topic of Greed—was there someone at Tenet with that sponsor? Who would it be? No one came to mind. Easily, it could be someone from a different academy, perhaps not even an elite one. Perhaps there was no sponsored person. Maybe Greed had decided to give power to monsters instead of people. What would that mean? It would break the 'seeking something at the bottom of the dungeon' theory, wouldn't it? So maybe Greed was doing both?

Was Lust sponsoring monsters? She grimaced imagining what that would imply. The dungeon seemed to be accommodating to the idea of consent, at least insofar as targeted individuals cared for it themselves, but she seriously doubted Lust-infused monsters would be.

Her head was starting to hurt, because the possibilities were so open with so little supporting evidence. Plus, this wasn't the time. They were in the middle of a dungeon run. A sub-dungeon run? A Palace Basement run.

Vanetta had gone silent, staring at the floor, jaw tightening and releasing as she also considered the situation and chewed over various theories.

"Let's worry about getting out of the Basement, first," Natalie said—and Vanetta snapped out of it. Fascinating as the Passions were, they were delvers at heart, and it was an objective truth that this wasn't the most important thing to be worrying about right now.

"Right." Vanetta nodded to herself. "So, about that vault Cheri mentioned."