Sofia followed Wes and Emerald carried the ice out of the room. The former water had taken some time to slide off Caspar, but after she used a spell to turn it to honey and using a few of the books around the inn – messy as it was – they had managed to mostly disinfect the frog. Turning it to ice so that it could be just tossed out the window was the next best thing, but even so, she watched with disbelief as the mess went flying.

“What – ugh – what the hell happened down dere, anyway?” Wes grunted as he leaned against the windowsill. “And why’s those two sleeping?”

“Things went wrong, very, very wrong,” Leo muttered, wringing out his sleeves as he paced back and forth. “I – I don’t know how it got that bad that fast, but – but it happened, and I couldn’t help them, and –”

“Leo!”

Sofia jumped as the demon grabbed the pacing mage. For a split-second, the pair of them were eye to eye, then –

Well, suffice to say that she hadn’t seen the air blur like that for some time. Leo wobbled back and forth so much that it almost looked like his hood would fall off from how hard the demon shook him, and even when the imp put him back on the ground, his head still lolled from side to side. She opened her mouth, then closed it again as the demon spoke up.

“Calm down. They’re okay now. Just…tell us what happened.”

“Honestly, I’d like to know, too,” Sofia said, looking at the sleeping pair. “I mean, I could tell there was something in the water – obviously – but I couldn’t quite tell what it was. A little explanation would help.”

“R-R-Ruby is going to be okay, right?” Emerald asked.

“Yes, yes, she will,” Sofia said, her voice dropping to a tone she almost didn’t recognize; was that what comforting someone was supposed to sound like?

Instead of smiling, he turned away. Did she get it wrong? She…thought she had it right. Maybe –

“Thank you.”

She turned back to Leo. The little yellow dots of his eyes disappeared for a moment as he took a deep breath, then lit up once more.

“Sorry. I was just…afraid. I didn’t want to let anyone down again. I don’t…I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“Well, dey ain’t hurt,” Wes said, sitting down and undoing his flask. “Ain’t right, but they ain’t hurt.”

“C-Could someone j-j-just t-t-t-tell me what happened?” Emerald asked, ear-fins drooping.

“Right. Right. Okay.”

Leo wrung his sleeves out again, shaking his head. As she waited for him to get his thoughts together, Sofia reached out for the pitcher of water on the nightstand. After pouring herself a drink, she did the same for Emerald and passed him the glass. He took it without looking at her.

Hmmm. Not that either. What would hold his attention?

She would have to find a better way to ask the group. Leo was useless, and she had already offended both Ruby and the demon. Maybe Caspar might have an idea? It seemed unlikely; the frog had less interest in that sort of thing, more platonic with the group, but…well, he had been…intimate with some of them. Perhaps –

“Okay. Okay. This is what happened,” Leo said.

One day I will get used to having my thoughts interrupted every few seconds.

She sipped at her glass as Leo explained the whole thing. The story of historical cults and druidic circles and more setting up around Caraton gave her the tiniest of smirks; she felt vindicated with all that she’d said about the town being a place where stuff happened. She would have to rub that in Ruby’s face later –

No. That…that would not be the right thing to do. At the very least, she doubted that Emerald would appreciate her being so crass to his sister. It would be better to…

Let it slide. Yes. That would be the best choice of action.

Still, she couldn’t help but imagine the magical history that was probably layered throughout the town. If there had been druidic circles drawn here, then there likely were signs of them in the forest surrounding the inn and mine. Different plants, long-lived compared to the animals around them – oh, or different animals that had been transformed. There would be many a discovery out there, things that would make a name for her if she were to find them and classify them.

And as for the cults…

She sipped at her water, tapping her foot on the ground as she thought about it. Perhaps the cults had been responsible for the weirdness here. There were spells that could be laid on the very foundations of a town, spells that warped and corrupted others and forced them into debauched versions of themselves, but…

That didn’t feel right, either. While the town was certainly more ‘open’ about things than the rest of the world – at least the parts she’d seen – they weren’t lost to their lust. They just…didn’t ignore it or suppress it. If anything, it was like dealing with people that had no impulse control. The townsfolk felt something and, rather than trying to hold out until another time to take care of it, just…indulged.

It was almost freeing, in a way.

She fanned herself as Leo continued, detailing their search.

“There were holes all over the place, and it was so hard to see. Even with my spell – oh, I’ll show you how to do that, if anyone wants to –”

“Already got my fire,” the demon said. “Just…keep going.”

And she already had other spells for light if she really needed it, anyway.

As Leo kept talking, she kept glancing out of the corner of her eye at Emerald. He was still in that vest and pants that he had taken to wearing, and it was hard not to look at him. Of course, he never looked back at her – well, almost never – so she was able to just…stare. Stare and enjoy and –

She crossed her legs under her dress, the hem pulling up a little higher before she smoothed it back down. It wasn’t like her to be this obsessed over someone, particularly in the group. Usually she was able to forget about it until she was alone somewhere. Why –

Emerald leaning against her, needing comforting after his sister was knocked out. Emerald, holding close, wanting to be held in return. Her, offering a bit of distraction so he didn’t have to think about Ruby knocked out nearby. Him, accepting. Both of them, stripping –

Oh, that was more than she needed to be thinking about. Shaking her head – and banishing the images of the green dragon over her as she spread her legs for him out of her mind – she focused on Leo again.

“Anyway, um, we got to a big rock that looked down on the water. There’s a geyser down there, guys, a big one, and it’s so cool. But, uh, it’s…also magic. Or something. It didn’t bother me – I don’t know why – but as soon as Ruby and Caspar got wet, it…well, they got all weird.”

“Weird how?” the orange imp asked.

“Well, um…She started humping the ground,” Leo said, pointing to Ruby. “And he was, uh…he was about to have sex with her.”

“What?!” Emerald yelped, sitting up straight. “But she – she never –”

“I know!” Leo whimpered. “That’s why I put them to sleep, to stop them, so that they weren’t gonna – I don’t know – do things that they’d feel bad about later.”

Sofia looked back at the sleeping dragoness, her face twisting. Not in anger, but in slight jealousy.

Mmmph. If it had been me and Emerald, he wouldn’t have had to worry. And I could have –

No. No. No.

The witch stopped those thoughts in their tracks. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking that kind of thing. Every time she started getting wrapped up in thoughts of the green dragon next to her – every time that she started thinking of him like someone that could ‘teach her a lesson’ or do something…else…she started getting all flustered. There was no time for that right now, even if her panties were feeling more and more glued to her sex with all the wetness coming free. She pulled her legs together even tighter as she kept sipping at her water.

“So, they got all horny…from the water?” the naked imp muttered, sitting on the edge of the bed with his balls hanging over the side. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know. I’m trying to figure it out. Do you think it was the cults? Or, or do you think the druids did it, or –”

“I think that we may be ignoring something more obvious,” Sofia said.

All eyes turned to her. She blinked. She hadn’t expected that.

“Whatcha thinking, den?” Wes asked.

“Well…” She set her glass down, smoothing the hem of her skirt down. “I was thinking about it. If Leo is right and everyone and their grandmother set up cults here, then I don’t think that they’re responsible for what happened. Rather, I think that there was something here that they were interested in; the first cult would not have picked somewhere this isolated, even with all the gems in the mine, without something magical or powerful to make it appealing.”

“I dunno. All that money’d be pretty appealing to me,” the rabbit said.

“Yes, well, you’re only interested in money, aren’t you?”

“Duh.”

“…At any rate.” Sofia shook her head. “I said that this is a place where stuff happens. What if it always was? That would mean that there is something in the geyser down there, something that makes it…different.”

“You thinking someone put a spell on a geyser? That’d empty itself out, eventually; all the water they enchanted would just disappear.”

“If it was just magic, yes. But if it was something living down there, something that outlived the rest of the town…”

“…Then it might put something back in the water. Making it all ‘poisoned’ again.”

“I-is Ruby poisoned?”

“No, Em, she’s not,” the demon said, groaning and shaking his head. “Sorry, that…that was a bad way of putting it.”

“No. She is merely…affected by whatever the thing down there puts out. But if it has lived this long…it makes me think that it must be some sort of plant. Even a dragon would have moved on, or passed away, if it had been there since the start,” Sofia said, a faint smile on her face as she picked up her glass again. “And if I am right, that means that the sooner we find the plant, the sooner we can remove it.”

“So…question,” Wes said.

“Ask away. I am feeling amazing right now,” she said, a strange sense of euphoria making her feel like she was floating on air.

“Yeah, well, dis water problem. Ya say dat it’s fucked up da water under da town, right?”

“Correct,” Sofia said.

“Da same water dat we used ta shower in?”

“…That would explain the…urges, I admit,” the dark cat muttered, slowly lowering her glass. “But not –”

“Da same water dat you’re drinking now?”

Everyone went quiet. From the slow blinking eyes of the imp across the room to the wide, panicked stare Emerald took on, everyone looked down at the glasses, and then at each other.

“…Oh, no,” Sofia muttered.

“I – I – I –”

That would explain the raw need that had been building up, and the fantasies, and –

Without the distraction of a problem to solve, she felt it hit her all at once. It was like a punch to the gut, hitting her with such emptiness and need that she sucked in a breath all at once. Her pussy drenched her panties, soaking them through as she huffed and puffed.

Worst of all, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Emerald’s pants tent, the crotch of his tight trousers pulling tighter still around his budding erection. He saw her staring this time, and he leaped to his feet.

“NOPE! NO NO NO NO NO NO!”

“Nngh! Emerald!”

She got to her feet and ran after him as he shouldered the door out of the way. She didn’t know if she wanted to catch up and explain or jump his bones; quite frankly, she didn’t know if she was thinking at all.

#

The sudden clatter woke her up. Not completely, but enough for her to know that she wasn’t underground anymore. Ruby groaned, shaking her head as she closed her eyes tighter, then opened them.

It felt like the light was stabbing her right in the brain. Ruby closed her eyes again, rubbing her face –

“Well, well, well, look who woke up.”

She opened one eye again. The mischievous demon sat beside her on the bed, and – yep, he was still naked, his dick against her thigh. She flicked her eyes back to the ceiling, refusing to look at it anymore.

“What happened?” she muttered. “Mmmph…and why do I feel so…”

“Horny?”

“Mmmph…I wish you didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well, you’re naked, your legs are half-spread, and you’re leaving a puddle on the bed.”

“Terrific.”

“If it helps, not interested.”

“Not helping.”

If anything, it only made her more aware of the unmet needs from her core. Every little flutter of her inner walls, every light clench as her body begged for something that she didn’t want only made her think about her pussy more than she wanted to. She kept thinking of how empty it was, how sensitive she felt, how…

How wet she was. How fucking wet she was between her legs, feeling almost like a swamp from how slick and slimy it had gotten down there.

“Mmmph…”

“Hey. Hey. You actually okay?” he asked.

“Mmmph…no. I just…can’t stop thinking about…that.”

“…Yeaaaaaah, um, so…do you want me to find you a girl to fuck, or –”

“I don’t want to fuck!”

“Hey, hey, just offering,” he said.

“I know…I know,” Ruby huffed, trying to take a deep breath only for her sex to clench again. “FUCK!”

“…Privacy to get off?”

“Nnngh…thinking about it.” She shook her head. “Back at the inn?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Where’s Leo? And Caspar?”

“Well, frog-boy’s unconscious on the other bed – don’t look, he’s pitching a bigger tent than usual – and Leo, uh…Well, our mage friend went chasing after your brother and Sofia.”

“…Why?”

“Welllll, they drank the water –”

“Goddammit…”

“And she looked like she was about to jump his bones or something.”

“Fuck…”

There was no way in hell that she was letting that bitch of a witch get anything from Emerald. Not when she was sure he didn’t want it. The dragoness rolled to the side, only for her face to burn all the hotter as she felt the wet squish between her thighs. The water…the water had her all kinds of wet.

“They know?” she muttered.

“Sofia figured it out, but, heh, she was drinking the water when she did.”

“Stupid…cat.”

“…You’re going to run after them, aren’t you?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“…You know, the smart thing would be to tell you to stay in bed, but the funnier thing would be to help you follow them.” He chuckled, standing up and offering her a hand. “Hell, I might help you with this.”

“Nnngh…since when do you stop people from having sex?”

“When they don’t want it? Come on, it’s the enthusiasm that makes it fun.”

“Thanks – mmph…”

It was not easy to move with her body already so heated. Just looking down at her friend’s cock gave her thoughts that she didn’t want to entertain; she was not interested in men, dicks, or casual sex, but her body was trying to call so many other shots right now. She could barely keep her head on straight as she hobbled toward the door, having to lean on the demon’s arm just to keep moving.

Just don’t think of dick. Don’t think of sex. It’ll wear off. It happened before, it’ll happen again.

So long as she didn’t drink the water. Dammit. Wes had had the right idea the whole damn time. Once they got out of this, she was bringing her own water and food everywhere she went.

“I’ll keep an eye on da frog, den,” Wes called out.

“Thanks! I’ll make sure nothing else goes wrong for her.”

“Nothing else?” she muttered.

“How much do you remember from the mines?”

“Not much after humping the ground.”

“Yeaaaaaah, I’ll tell you about it later.”

She opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that, then let it go. There was little point getting more pissed off right now. Considering that she still had to find her brother and that wretched cat, she was going to focus her energy on staying upright, not thinking about sex – particularly not with her friend – and just keep moving.

#

Leo panted for breath that he didn’t entirely need as he chased the footprints of his friends. They had run out of the inn so fast that he couldn’t get a spell ready to catch them, and by the time he’d gotten out of the inn itself, all he could do was follow their tracks.

“Come on, come on, where’d you go?” he muttered, following the footprints across grass and mud. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were just supposed to find something magical and cool, help people, and then go to the next one.”

Was he making a mistake? Was he putting his friends in danger just because he thought this might be fun? Maybe he should stop. Maybe he should just – just go back and give the compass to Amethyst and then head back to the tower instead of –

“L-Leave me a-alone!”

“Emerald! Just – get down here!”

“No! You’re g-gonna fuck me!”

Oh. There they are.

Leo picked up the pace. In less than a minute, he found Sofia panting at the base of a large tree and Emerald hanging from the upper branches. He stopped as he felt a squish under-boot, tilting his shoe and seeing Sofia’s panties under it.

“Uh, Sofia?”

“Not now, Leo!”

“Uh, you left your panties over here…”

“They’re already ruined!”

“Oh. Uh…”

He picked them up and put them in his pocket for later. Maybe he could fix them for her. Maybe that might make her feel better.

As he approached the tree and the treed dragon, he couldn’t help but notice all the wet spots on the ground. Leo walked around the little strings – he didn’t know that Sofia could drip that much – and eventually stopped behind the black cat as she kept hopping up and down. She was clearly trying to climb the tree, but –

“Ah!”

She kept making it up a few feet before tumbling down again, huffing hard. That last time, she fell hard enough and fast enough that her skirt flew up, showing off her butt and the little slit between her thighs. Leo blinked a couple of times at the sight.

“So, um…are you feeling like, um, what Ruby felt down in the mine?” he asked.

“Nnngh…not as bad, but – mmmph – pretty bad…”

“Do you, uh, do you need some help?”

“I’m trying to get that help, but first –”

“She’s trying to g-g-get m-me!” Emerald shouted.

“I am not! Well, I am, but – gah!”

This wasn’t going anywhere good. Leo didn’t know what he could do to make all the horny go away – he didn’t have any spells for that, and he didn’t know what was making it happen in the first place – but he could maybe distract her. The magician walked around her until he was in view and hiked his robes, letting his own cock fall out and into view.

“Would cock help?” he asked. “I mean, we haven’t done it for a bit – I mean, not much – and maybe it’ll help you? I can do that. Would that –”

“Oh, shut up!”

“Eeep!”

One second he was standing on one of the roots. The next, he was pinned on the ground, one of Sofia’s hands on his shoulder and the other between his legs, rubbing his dick and lining it up with –

“Oooooh!”

He barely bit back a giggle as his cock slipped into the cat witch’s slippery pussy. The wet feeling of her all around him was very different compared to the one time that he’d been inside of the demon back in the tower, back when his first friend had been turned into a woman. Leo had thought that they’d all be really similar.

He was wrong. Back then, it had felt like something a little bit slippery, a bit sloppy, but with a tight grip that was always in charge. Sofia, on the other hand –

“Ha, ha…ha…ha…”

She was panting, drooling from both ends as she rode him. Her other hand landed on his shoulder, pinning him down harder, and her hips bounced, and they bounced fast. Leo bit back the little giggles that kept trying to come up; it wasn’t funny, but it was fun, and it was so new that he didn’t know what to do with it.

She was…looser, in a way. Not in a bad way, and it didn’t make it feel bad or any less good, but she felt like she knew what she was doing. She bounced on his dick so hard that it slapped his hips back into the ground over and over again, and she moaned every time that she took it to the hilt.

It almost looked like that night when he’d cast the heat spell by accident, except this time she was even more lost to it. She was…really getting into the feeling of his dick being inside of her.

And to be fair, he was enjoying it, too. He put both sleeves over his mouth to stay quiet; he needed both of them to keep the giggles and other sounds from coming out. She kept slamming her hips down again, again, and again, each time sounding so wet, so needy, and she felt so warm.

Hot.

“Mmmph!”

She suddenly clenched around him, her inner walls holding his dick tight. He yelped, not ready for that in the slightest, and she stopped, her fingers curling into tighter claws around his shoulders. Every little squeeze came with a sudden spasm through her, almost like she was trying to drain him through his dick.

“Uh…um…Sofia?”

“More.”

“What –”

“More!”

She started bouncing again, and this time there was a frenzy behind it that left him breathless. Leo’s eyes went wide as she rode him hard, her pussy squeezing so tight around his cock that she managed to lift him off the ground once more twice. He yelped, not understanding, not knowing why she needed it so bad –

Up, down, up, down. He needed a second, anything, that would let him cast a spell to slow her down, but she was just going crazy. She rode him, grinding against his cock for a few seconds at the base, only to pull up and ride him more. Up, down, up, down, her juices running over his hips and down to his balls, and then all the way down to the ground. She was utterly soaked, utterly desperate, and –

“Ah…ah…”

He could feel his own orgasm coming. He’d gotten used to that funny feeling and loved having it, but this time – this time it felt like it was being forced up. It was kinda fun, still, but –

“Nnngh!”

“Mmmmph!”

They moaned together, Sofia going still again. He gibbered quietly, the little weird sounds coming free before he could stop them as his cock twitched. Cum pumped out hard and fast into her, spilling into her depths –

This was his chance. He had to cast the spell now before she could start moving again. He brought his hands together and –

Shing!

The spell worked. Sofia was completely paralyzed, frozen stiff on his dick. Leo grinned, then blinked as he looked down at where his hands had landed.

“Uh…you have nice boobies, just so you know.”

He pulled his hands back, slowly sitting up so that he could lean her back little by little. When he was able to rest her on the ground without hurting her, he finally pulled out and let his robe fall over his cock again.

“Well, that was weird. That was really weird. Hey, Emerald, I think you’re safe!”

“…”

“Emerald?”

“Are you s-s-sure?”

“Yeah. She can’t move.”

“B-b-but what if she d-does?”

“Well…”

That was a good question. He didn’t know what they were going to do. If this was in the water, then they couldn’t just wash someone off so easily. The fire worked on Ruby and Emerald, but he didn’t think that it would work on Sofia. Besides, she had been drinking the water, not bathing in it. So what were they supposed to –

“There they are! Hey, guys!”

“Oh!” Leo whipped around, waving at the dragoness and demon wandering up to the treeline. “Hey! What are you doing?”

“Ruby was worried about her brother,” his friend said, gesturing at the dragoness as she picked up speed. “She didn’t want Sofia doing anything to him that he didn’t want.”

“Didn’t want her doing anything to him at all,” Ruby said as she walked by, glaring at the paralyzed cat. “Looks like you got to her before I did.”

“Oh, uh, she was having sex with me instead of him.”

“…I don’t want to know,” Ruby muttered, climbing up the tree. “Em, you okay?”

“I-I’m okay. I-I-I, um, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Leo looked at the pair of them. He didn’t remember the dragon siblings being quite that close – or the way that the two of them both had an arm around the other’s hips, usually they hugged around the shoulders – but at least they were okay. Leo didn’t know why Emerald was so afraid of Sofia wanting to fuck him, but he supposed that the important thing was that they always had a chance to say yes…which meant that they always needed a chance to say no, too.

“So, what now?”

“I…don’t know yet,” Leo admitted as his friend joined him. “I guess we gotta figure out what’s down in the mine, what’s making the water go funny. I mean…I’d ask people in town, but they don’t know, do they?”

“Or they won’t tell us.”

“Oh. Do you think they’d lie?”

“No, I just don’t think that they’d be bothered enough to want to change it,” he said, shaking his head. “The way I see it, they’re happy living this way. Do we really want to go and blow that up and take it away from them?”

“Well…it’s not exactly safe, is it?”

“Heh, what do you mean?”

“Well, what happened to Ruby was bad. She didn’t want to be horny, but the water made her horny. She didn’t have a choice. And that’s bad.”

“…Okay, fair.”

“And everyone else? What if they aren’t really this horny? What if the water only makes them be horny? What if they stopped, and then realized they didn’t like being this way?”

“Well, what if they stop and miss it?”

“…That’s a good point. I mean…I don’t want to hurt them, too.”

“Look, I don’t know about you, but I think we need to get everyone back to the inn before we make a decision. Caspar’s still sleeping there, and Wes is the only one guy looking after him. Somehow, I don’t think that he’s gonna tell frog-boy the whole story if he wakes up and wonders where we went.”

“Okay. Yeah. Hey, Ruby! Emerald! We’re going back to the inn. You coming?”

“In a bit,” Ruby said. “Once Emerald’s calmed down, and – oh god.”

“What?”

“…I forgot my clothes.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Leo asked.

“YES!”

“Hey, you were the one that wanted to run off and fix things,” the demon said, barely keeping from breaking out in laughter. “This is the price you pay.”

“Fuck you! Go get me some clothes!”

“I got Sofia’s panties, if that’ll help?”

“…On second thought, naked might be better…”