Ch 1.21: ❤ Key

Elaina pulled on the chains inside the giant metal door with [Restraint], trying to force it unlocked. The chains were equally large though, equally immovable. After wasting a quarter of her mana and still accomplishing nothing, she stopped, activating [Personal Restraint] as well and retrying. They budged ever so slightly as she willed the chains to move, and the door began to creak open, a slow, lumbering process. She’d made good progress by the time she ran out of mana, over halfway opening the door, but as soon as she let go of her aspect the chains rewound themselves, the weight of the heavy metal door slamming itself shut before she could even deactivate [Personal Restraint].

“Damnit,” Elaina said, frowning at the door. It had been wide enough to get through, but there wasn’t enough time to go through before it closed.

“Maybe it’ll hold if you open it all the way?” Carline asked.

“Yeah, maybe… I don’t think I’m strong enough though.” Not without using that anyway.

“Maybe I could try pulling you? Your problem is you have to restrain yourself, right?”

“We can try, but I don’t think that’ll work. Here, go ahead and try to move me.” Elaina sat down with her arms outstretched and reactivated [Personal Restraint]. Carline came up and grabbed her hands, planting her feet and pulling. Elaina didn’t budge, but the little bit of her mana that had started refilling did start to drain.

“Stop, stop,” she said, deactivating the skill as Carline let go. “It doesn’t work. [Personal Restraint] doesn’t just stop me from moving myself, it keeps me restrained to my current spot. Burns mana too.”

“Hmmm,” Carline said, looking at the door. “How are you even opening it at all? Is a lock a type of restraint?”

“I don’t think so, not all of them anyway.” Elaina stood up and walked over, running her hand along the metal, trying to feel for any mechanism. There wasn’t any she could see or feel, almost like the door was only designed to be opened with an aspect. “But there’s chains as part of the lock. It just sort of… feels right to open it like that.” She’d been feeling that a lot lately. Not every door lock triggered it, but the deadbolts in the shower stalls at school? Those were as much a restraint keeping the door from opening as they were a lock. The lock to her room though was just a lock to her. What’s the difference?

“Maybe we should think about it over a break? You can try to use some of the snow to wash off.”

“You can wash with snow?”

“I mean, it’s just frozen water. It’ll probably be a bit easier for you, since I can regulate your body heat.”

“Okay, let’s try it.”

The two walked back to the center of the room, underneath the giant hole that snow was still streaming in from. Elaina was honestly a little excited to get back to the snow. Not to play with it, of course—that would be childish—but to get cleaned up.

She took a handful of the cold crunchy stuff and started rubbing it on her legs, jumping up a bit at the feeling, but then continuing to scrub herself down. “Y’know, this is kind of fun.” She thought Carline had meant to melt the snow and use it to bathe, but it was actually abrasive enough to clean off the dried blood as is.

Carline giggled from behind. Was she watching her bathe? Elaina couldn’t really check, not without interfering with the girl’s aspect. She had to be looking a little bit in that case anyway, but how intently was she looking? Elaina felt her face burn as the cold snow moved over her body. Gods, I know what I have to do to open that door.

“Hey, uhm…” Elaina looked back to Carline as she finished up to find her blushing. “You have that other skill, right? The one about, well, about getting embarrassed? Was your outfit helping you with that?”

Elaina looked down at her outfit, blushing at well. “Ya, I mean— I do… It was kind of strong earlier, I guess, but I kind of got used to the outfit, forgot about it.”

“Well, if you couldn’t fully open the door before, without it being at full effect… Maybe we could try getting it fully active.”

Thump. Thump. Thump. “I guess so,” Elaina said, standing up and walking past Carline. She needed to avoid eye contact for Carline’s own skill, not for any other reason. Certainly not because she was so ashamed at the conversation they were having. “I don’t really know how to do that though…” Elaina couldn’t admit it out loud.

“Well, you— you were pretty embarrassed this morning, after class I mean, when I was coming back from the showers, right?”

Elaina’s heart raced even faster, even harder. It was absurd, right, to even consider it? “Yeah, I was.”

“So, maybe we just do that again? You know, I mean, to get your skill active so we can get through the door? The System needs us, after all.”

Right, the System. Elaina could do it for the System. “If we have no choice, I guess.”

She led Carline back to the door, neither girl speaking. Truth be told, the idea as a whole was already causing a spike in [Humiliation Factor], even before actually doing anything. Elaina thought about trying to open the door without the full boost, but even thinking about not doing it with the full boost caused Elaina to lose some of the boost itself. No, she had to do it. For the System, for the quest.

“I’m gonna, uhm, keep my dress on.” Elaina turned to Carline and got down on her knees, looking up.

Carline caught her glance, then turned away, the Vitalist herself a shade of red that had to be rivaling Elaina’s own. “You should probably keep your eyes closed. So I can keep you warm easier.”

Of course, Carline’s skill matters too. The metal ground was cold already, and it didn’t make any sense to waste Carline’s mana on top of her own. “Right,” she said, shutting her eyes to the world. Elaina waited for a while, giving Carline a chance to say more, but no further words came. No more words needed to be spoken, she supposed.

She twitched her hand, lifting it from her side and placing it on her knee. All she could see was blackness. Carline was there, watching. Elaina knew she would be, and that was paralyzing, in fear, in anticipation. Her roommate, her partner. Her friend. Elaina was really about to masturbate in front of Carline, one of the prettiest girls she’d ever met. And she asked. She said she likes it, seeing me… like this.

Elaina spread her legs just a little, enough only to give Carline a better look at her inner thighs. Carline had already seen her like this, right? So it wasn’t that much of a big deal. Of course, that was only for a few seconds, an accident. This was more. Once Elaina started, there was no going back. Not with Carline, and not with herself. Can I really do this?

She placed a hand on her knee, running her fingers up her leg. She could do this. She had to do this, for the System. That’s what she would have to say out loud, the only way she would be able to look Carline in the eyes again after she was done.

The bottom of her dress rode up above her hips as she opened up her legs more. Elaina felt the moistness on her thighs as she pulled them apart and guided her fingers between her lips, holding back a moan as that single stroke radiated through her body. But she didn’t need to hold back, right? That was the point, after all. It was all to activate the skill.

She reached her clit, and she moaned out, a long cry echoing out in the giant cave-room. No hiding it, she guessed. She was going to do this, she was going to like it, and Carline was going to know that.

Caution to the wind, Elaina rubbed herself, tensing her body and struggling to stay up on her knees. Carline was watching her masturbate, going to watch her fuck herself. Gods, she said she liked looking at Elaina. It was Carline’s idea, right? And it felt so good. Elaina had imagined this countless times, being watched while she got herself off, someone just outside of view while she herself was oblivious. She brought her free hand to her chest, squeezing at her tits over her dress. She hadn’t really noticed before how nice the dress felt. It was so soft, and thin too. Almost like it was see-through. Maybe she could get used to her class gear after all.

Every movement she made was a jolt of pleasure, and her breaths were now exclusively pants and moans, her hips bucking back and forth, begging for more as she let go of her chest and dove inside herself with the same hand. One hand outside stroking her clit, one hand pumping inside of her pussy, dress pulled up near to her waist, breasts barely contained by the flimsy fabric up top, all while such a sweet, innocent girl watched on. Surely, that had to be enough, right? It was easily the most humiliated Elaina had ever been.

She didn’t bother to check. All it would take was a thought, a single conscious effort to see if [Humiliation Factor] was fully in effect, but Elaina wanted to make sure before that. She could certainly get more embarrassed, right? And that obviously wouldn’t hurt anything. She continued playing with herself, inside and out, groaning as waves of sensation crashed through her body. There was one way to guarantee it, to make sure that she had the maximum possible bonus from her skill, and it all depended on one of Carline’s skills.

“Carline,” she panted out, barely forming the words, “activate [Peeping Carly], please.”