A sweet breeze passed through his hair, and Luca let out his held breath as the lifting ptform arrived once more to its station. He was finding things about himself constantly, for example: horniness helped with his fear of heights, noted. He stepped forward and felt the solid ground beneath his feet. He sighed in relief and felt the trembling of his hands stop, but, before continuing, he questioned himself as to why he felt safe; he was still floating, wasn’t he?

  Luca stepped closer to the edge, not too close. He gnced at the gigantic dungeon, seeing it still made his hairs stand, but there was a certain glimmer that accompanied the rising sun that helped; it still intimidated him with its size, but… it was a difficult feeling to expin. He still saw it as an inconceivable thing, but what little of it he could conceive? It was nice. His eyes drifted closer and downwards, towards the top of the inner walls. He saw the windows that gave light to the hallways of the dorms, and then he focused on the diamond-shaped objects that kept the city afloat. He waited for a few moments for them to shine; however, when they did, Luca didn’t see any waves. What wave did Alyska refer to when he saw them first? He yawned, it was early—too early to let his mind wander too much; he had to focus. So early it was in fact that maybe the doctor wasn’t even in yet, but it couldn’t hurt to check, at least he hoped it didn’t. As he walked towards the doors, he asked himself if there might have been a problem entering the fortress alone and so early, but he was a member of the Zenith guild, no? He’d be fine.

  Luca raised his chin proud, drew his shoulders backwards and his chest forward; he had to look the part. As he approached the doors, he hit them twice, knocking. After a few seconds of waiting, he hit them harder, trying to imitate the professor’s actions while not wanting to overdo it. After a minute, the doors still didn’t budge; it was ridiculous to keep being shy, so Luca breathed in, accentuated his confident pose, and proceeded to hit it as hard as he could a couple times; however, he stumbled backwards because of the surprise that the doors opening before he even hit them gave him, all his confidence defting as he struggled to keep his bance for a moment.

  Gncing forward Luca’s heart started accelerating, and as the doors opened, the hallway gave way to a beautiful sight. A young woman, of tan skin and blond hair, stood looking down at her hands, where she held a crystal orb of some sort, big enough that she needed two hands to encase it. Her eyes were a bright pink, and her golden hair was tied in two ponytails. Her face was decorated with freckles and four strange markings that looked like spikes coming from behind her cheeks towards her eyes, two longer than the other and two on each side of the face. Her lips wore a shiny pink on par with her eyes. Her manner of clothing shocked Luca; a bck triangur bra was all that covered the top half of her body, revealing more of the pink markings, perhaps tattoos of some kind, and the lower half of it were some loose pink pants tied around the lower part of her waist with a belt. The fact that it was lower than the top of her hips meant that one could see her underwear line that went up the hip; finally, she walked barefoot, with unscathed feet and toenails painted pink, matching her nails and her lipstick shade.

  He froze; her beauty seemed almost unnatural, like she was made to be beautiful, created with the sole purpose of stunning people as they saw her, capable of stopping anyone's brain from thinking of anything else beyond her. He took a deep breath, she was standing still, continuing to peer into the orb, all the while he straightened himself again; she didn't appear to have seen him just yet.

  While Luca stood there, he determined himself to talk to her; if he could at least say a passing greeting to such an attractive dy, perhaps that fact would aid him in future interactions—to not be nervous to talk to other people even if they were beautiful, like her. He thought about what to say, how to say it, how to move his body, how to walk forward past her—just a simple ‘hello’ and a nod, he’d get it—easy, simple, and effective enough… probably. And as Luca prepared to step forward, he saw the doors begin closing on their own again, the blonde woman not moving, still gazing at the orb. When the doors fully closed, Luca was left confused.

  “...?” ‘D-Did… did she not notice?’ Luca thought to himself.

  After a few seconds of trying to rationalize, the doors opened again. This time the dy faced forward, and when they opened fully, she exited, walking towards the lifting station. Now, time for the pn.

  “Hello.” He said as he walked past her with a nod, all exactly as pnned.

  She simply gave a humm of acknowledgment and continued forward, still ser-focused on the orb.

  … He was thinking too much about everything. Looking back at her, the novice guild member was shocked to find that her back was decorated with a pair of wings, they were also pink, as well as translucent and with a diamond shape, they were retracted right now, covering her back. The sight made Luca jump a bit, he was so sure she was a human, she at least looked like one. Although thinking about it, she was clearly different, pink just wasn’t an eye color humans had, nor was it common for tan people to have such blonde hair, and her whole presence made him shiver. She may have looked like a human, but Luca was seeing a completely different race he hadn’t seen before, which one he didn’t know, but one of them. Before realizing it, he was already past the doors as they closed, he was distracted and had been walking without thinking.

  As Luca entered the fortress, he shook his head; he had to focus, he couldn’t get this distracted anymore. As he looked back to see the woman not walking off the edge of the ptform, he continued forward, turning left at the main hall, towards the path he didn’t get to tour yesterday, dead set on visiting the doctor and asking her, especially about why he was getting so aroused so easily, no more distractions.

  In fact, not much of anything, the fortress was completely empty, the only one there seemed to be Luca, was he really that early? It couldn’t be; the sun was rising, and things started moving before 7:00, no? So then, where was everyone? He shrugged and felt a shudder down his spine. There was something weirdly haunting about such a big hallway in such a luxurious pce being fully empty.

  He shook the feeling off, arriving at the set of stairs to the left of the hallway the booklet described. Luca gnced to its right to see one of the middle-sized doors standing where it said it would and a pque with the words, ‘Dr. Bahndir’, probably there. Luca didn’t care if the booklet seemed obvious, he found it incredibly useful, so he closed it, patted it, and put it in one of his pockets carefully. Then he approached the door, but he stopped before knocking.

  His issue with his flustering was not getting better; it was only the first day and it had barely been an hour since he woke up, and yet he had already been ruffled twice, he needed to stop it, and to make sure the doctor’s appearance didn’t surprise him, Luca closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and imagined all the possibilities he could think of.

  Then he knocked; after a minute, he had braced himself for all the possibilities he could think of.

  “Oh! One second, please!” The voice was soothing and melodic, and the hurried steps towards the door didn’t sound too heavy. In his mind, he discarded orcs of weird colors and half-giants, he clenched his fists and took a deep breath as the door opened with his eyes. Looking forward determinedly, his eyes found a neck with a choker and a cleavage underneath, so he quickly repositioned his face to look at her face. “Good mornin? Oh! A new face! Are you not feeling well?”

  “Good morning, I-I had an appointment in a little bit; I can wait if I’m too early.” He had to gnce up to see her face, with silky smooth skin and deep brown eyes. Luca may have lost it at this point, but he was prepared, he braced himself and repeated the line multiple times under his breath, he’d be fine.

  “Ah yes, I remember havin an early appointment for somethin, step in, dear.” She looked at Luca up and down as she spoke, then she turned and walked in, expecting him to follow her. He had envisioned multiple possibilities, from typical-looking races like elves or half-foots to another dracon or a feathered. However, to see a beast-woman proved to be easier to digest than though; she looked very human, but perhaps she was only human in some pces and beast in others, who could say really? Her hair was pink, with blonde roots coming in, from it erected two long ears, like those on a rabbit; her frame was fit, her shoulders weren’t too broad, but looking at her legs, Luca saw how muscur they were under her bck pencil skirt, skirt from which, a small fluffy cottontail emerged. Luca thought the sight of it was very cute.

  Following her inside, the room was small, forcing one to turn directly after entering so they wouldn’t bump on a wall. It led to a small space with a couple metal tables to the sides and a bed beside the thin wall that forced them to turn to the left. A couple curtains surrounded the bed, and to the far wall from the door was another simir door, which Luca assumed led to a room with more than one bed for resting. On top of the metal tables were some shelves with gss doors; inside were a bunch of devices, none of them seemed recognizable, though rare was the occasion in which Luca went to the doctors.

  “Here you are, Luca, correct?” She turned to face him, her doctor’s coat covered a light blue top with a bck line just below her cleavage, her face showed a young woman in her mid-twenties; she had a kind face with a pink small button nose that confirmed furthermore her rabbit lineage. She had put on some small reading gsses that she held up to her face with her hand.

  “Y-Yeah! Sorry if it’s too early.” He was in control; he’d get the answers he needed. “I was sent for a revision following an... incident; I also have some questions; I’ve been feeling kind of ‘out of it’, if you understand.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that hun, are you hurtin anywhere?” She lowered her gsses and tilted her head, which caused her big ears to lean to one side in a very cutesy manner that brought a small chuckle to Luca, she was wearing a sympathetic frown.

  “No, no, just,” He scratched his arm. “Not very fond of going to the doctor, so not too sure what it may be, you know?”

  “Oh.” She giggled at the confession and then got a pyfully stern look. “Well, that’s gonna have to change, mister.” She put aside the gsses and set them on the table, then walked towards Luca.

  “Alright, I’ll try.” He was doing it, he was actually talking well, she was pretty, but he was holding up; the pride he felt helped motivate him even more.

  The doctor then walked towards him and lightly put her hand on his chest, pushing forward slightly, slightly surprised, he followed her movements and backed up, bumping onto the bed and falling at its feet. She then leaned over and grabbed some sort of device from behind him, positioning her whole cleavage to the side of his quickening, reddening face, which allowed him to see more than he expected to be able to handle, then she put her hand on his shoulder and pulled back, her face inches away from his, smiling.

  “Then let’s see if I can get you to come more eh?” She giggled with her eyes closed and pulled back, going to the tables to prepare the tools for the examination.

  At least the feeling of control was nice while it sted.