After I kissed Rivi's hand we were both silent for a long moment. Eventually she took my hands in hers and gave them a soft squeeze along with a reassuring smile. "Do you want to wash me as well, or are you too busy with your own stuff?"
I sighed looking down at my hands. "I kind of want to, but I think I'm not really up for it at the moment, sorry." I looked at her uncertainly, but she only smiled again, regaining some of her bubbliness.
"Ok, I'll go fetch a servant—or, actually." She paused, looking down at the ground for a moment before summoning a skeleton from the ground with a wave of her finger. "There! Now you don't have to worry about anyone interfering with your privacy."
The skeleton followed her to another stool where she sat down and allowed it to start washing her back. I watched her for a moment, before returning my attention to myself and the parts of me I hadn't washed yet.
Eventually I finished and made my way to the bath with my towel wrapped around me, hoping to get there before Rivi so I could slip into the murky water and no longer have to worry about being naked.
When I looked around and saw Rivi minding her own business with the skeleton washing her, I took a deep breath and allowed the towel to fall to the ground before quickly submerging myself in the water.
"Ahhhh," I let out a sigh of relief. The water was hot and soothing, and I let myself relax, trying to unwind the balls of stress knotted in my stomach from everything that had been happening.
After a few minutes Rivi came over, wrapped in a towel. "May I join you?" She asked playfully, dipping a toe into the water.
"Of course," I gestured, and she sat down at the edge, letting the towel fall before slipping into the water.
"Mmmm," this is nice." I realized for the first time that Rufi wasn't with us, and I looked around trying to search through my memories for what had happened.
"Looking for Rufi?" Rivi noticed my gaze. "I had some of the other attendants take her to the pet bath. She should be getting pampered as we speak."
"Also," She came over to me and pulled my hair up out of the water, pinning it in place with a stick she summoned with magic. "You should put up your hair, it's not nice to the other people if your hair starts shedding and gets into the bath."
I closed my eyes, my face flushing bright red as I felt her bare breast brush up against me, trying to ignore the intimate sensations that left nothing to the imagination. "Uhuh," I said in a minute voice, when she at last retreated and left my personal space.
I closed my eyes and ducked my head underwater, so I could yell "Ahhhhhh!" while blowing bubbles. When I came back up she was looking at me with—what were those eyes? Adoration? Infatuation? She looked so adorably cute, I bit my lip reluctantly, only wanting to shrink under her gaze.
"So, um" I coughed, hoping to move the conversation to safer waters. "Should we, uh, talk about, uh, what's next for us, or…"
"Sure!' She settled back against the bath's wall, and I breathed a sigh of relief. "What do you want to do next? I'm guessing you want to leave the dungeon at some point, yeah?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah I do. I want to get stronger, I want to see what the world is like out there. Maybe I want to check in on how my friends are doing, though meeting them now would be kinda…But maybe if they don't know who I am that could be alright."
"Have any goals? I heard you summons were tasked with killing the Demon King, right? Is that still interesting to you?"
"Eh, not really. I don't really even know anything about the demons. Do you? Are they as evil as the King seemed to say they were?"
"I don't know what that human king of yours said, nor do I have an exact grasp of the situation inside the Kingdom of Aver and its neighbors, but demons are no more evil than humans are. While humans are more prone to greed and selfishness, demons tend to be more proud and aggressive, but both are intelligent species capable of as much good as you or I. But I haven't really been out much since my death a few thousand years ago, so you'd have to ask Velda or Endra as they're the ones who have the most contact with the outside world out of all of us."
"Hmm, yeah, I figured it probably wasn't that simple, but I didn't have much time to think about it before I died. I figured getting strong was kind of the prerequisite for everything else."
"Also, Velda? Endra? Are those other floor guardians?"
"Mmhm," Rivi nodded. "Velda's the guardian of Greed, while Endra's the guardian of Pride. Velda goes out a lot in search of treasures and Endra has command of all of our forces outside of the dungeon, so she's always pretty up to date on what's happening around the world."
"I've been meaning to ask, but just what is the status of the floor guardians? Are you like Melph—the goddess' premier servants or something?
"Something like that, yeah!" Rivi nodded a little too eagerly, her eyes shifting around a bit as she did so. "We're, uh, mostly responsible for communicating Our Lady's will to her other servants. And in this role we have a lot of authority of our own—like in things like picking our own servants or deciding how to run our realms."
"So was all this built by you," I gestured around at the bathouse. "How long have you been the floor guardian for Lust?"
"Yeah, it was!" She brightened. "Isn't it so cool? Lust used to just be a really pretty forest with a nice river to play in. But after seeing more of the outside world and some of your world the sisters helped me collect ideas and craftsmen so we could build something like this. Now we live much better than we used to." She sighed contentedly, slipping herself a little further into the water.
"You've…" I frowned. "Seen my world?"