(For story with images, see PDF below)

Chapter 4

“It’s getting late here in the mundane world,” Madison announced. “Kim and I will be offline, but we are turning on the AI. Her name is Nimue.”

“Nimue?” Eric said, alarmed. He alone among the group recognized the name of the nymph said to have trapped Merlin.

The air shimmered. A gorgeous woman appeared. She wore a diaphanous robe that left very little to the imagination, and what was left to the imagination only served to fire the imaginations of the men even more. “Yes, Morden,” she said in a sultry voice. “How can I help you?” She said the word “help” in a way that made it seem dirty .

“Um… er…” Eric was struck speechless. “I didn’t expect…”

“Can you have sex with us?” Hal asked.

“Don’t be rude,” Paul said, then added, “but, seriously, can you?”

“You naughty boys,” Nimue said meeting their eyes. “You’ll have to earn it, and I’ll tell you right now I never sleep with a man any lower than level 10. Now, if you don’t have any serious questions, I need to get back to grooming my pussy…. cat.” She blew them a kiss and vanished.

“Well, she’s a big improvement over the other ones,” Paul said.

“She’s hot as hell,” Hal said.

Eric pretended to fan himself. “A knockout.”

“She’s not that pretty,” Grant said, instantly regretting it and feeling weird he’d even thought it.

The other guys all gave him funny looks. “Jealous, doll face?” Paul said.

“Don’t worry.” Marlena squeezed Grant’s hand. “You’re way prettier than her.”

“That’s right,” Paul agreed. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head over it.”

“Next time you get injured, I will let you die,” Grant whispered.

Eric decided to put a stop to the brewing fight. “Let’s get to the wine cellar.”

The map still floated in the air. The group looked for a route. “The most direct route is right through here,” Hal said, pointing to the Grand Hallway.

“It looks like trouble to me,” Eric said. “A named room? There have to be monsters in there. We cold take this stair here and wind through these hallways and go the back way.”

“Wait,” Grant said, tugging on the top of his corset. “We should want to fight monsters. That’s how we get levels.”

“She has a point,” Hal said.

“Let’s vote. All in favor of passing through the Grand Hallway.” Eric kept his hand down. Everyone else voted yes. Eric restrained his desire to call them stupid. Instead, he just nodded. “The Grand Hallway it is.”

“+10 experience points for teamwork,” Nimue whispered in a voice like silk.

Hal went first, sneaking among the shadows, checking for traps. The rest followed in formation, Marlena holding Grant’s hand. “Don’t worry,” Marlena whispered. “If we find monsters, I’ll protect you.”

“You’ll protect me?” Grant was shocked. Even the little Fox girl thought he was helpless and, worse, he pretty much was. The group reached the end of the tunnel without incident. A short, semi-circle stair rose before them and beyond that a darkened room. Hal crouched at the bottom of the stairs. “Problem,” he said. “I rolled a one on my check traps.”

The group gathered behind him, scanning visually. The stairs looked like marble but corroded and with patches of mildew. The walls were the same as the rest of the dungeon they’d been in so far, with reliefs of octopoid creatures. There were no more torches ahead of them, but still some reddish light from the hallway behind them. Hal pulled out a torch from his inventory and lit it,  “Anyone see anything?” None of the men did.

“There’s a trip wire stretched across the third step,” Grant said.

“You sure?”

“Elf eyes,” he said. He smiled. It felt good to be useful.

“I see it now,” Hal said. “I guess once someone points a trap out, I can see it even if my Find Traps failed.” He looked up and saw a rectangle of wood affixed with iron spikes affixed to the ceiling. “Look.” He examined the trap. “I’m going to disarm traps. I think everyone should get back in case I fail.”

“What about you?” Marlena asked.

“I’ll be okay. Watch.” Hal crept up to the step. Rolled. This time it came up a 6, and the die flashed and the word “FAILED” appeared. “Uh oh.” Hal had planned for this and dove forward, tumbling and rolling to his feet at the top of the stair. He’d seen one of his skills was DODGE.

The spike board swung down, missing him, and then came to a stop with a THUNK. “Nice job,” Paul said. “Way to move.”

They began to move up the steps, ducking under the board. Moving past the trap, they all could see a little more fully into the room now. It was a large room with a high, arched roof lined with pillars and mirrors.”

“Mirrors,” Eric hissed. “Mirrors are always trouble. Whatever you do, don’t look in them. We need to just make it to the other side.”

“What’ll happen if we look in the mirrors?” Grant asked. He both dreaded and needed to see what he looked like.

“Something bad,” Eric said. “It’s always something bad. Your soul might get trapped in there or something.” He looked at Marlena. “Did you come through here?”

Marlena shook her head. “No.”

“Don’t look in the mirrors,” Hal reminded himself as he crept into the room, holding the torch high above his head, carefully checking for traps while fighting the desire to check himself out. Physically, he stood about the same height as before, but his hair was different, and he wondered what his clothes looked like to the others. It was only natural.

The light from his torch flickered across the surface of the first pair of mirrors, practically daring him not to look, but he kept his eyes forward, trap checking, the 20-sided die rolling down the middle of the floor.

The second most changed character next to Grant was Paul, who’d been a short and schlubby type and now felt like a giant in his huge, warrior’s body. He struggled to keep his eyes forward but managed not to look as they passed the first set of mirrors and moved deeper into the room.

Hal paused as his torchlight now stretched further toward the back of the room. “There’s something down there,” he said, straining to see what looked like a humanoid shaped. “Hold on.”

Eric crept forward to take up a position next to Eric. He raised his hand and a glowing orb appeared, floating in the air and then down the hall illuminating what they could now see was a statue of a gargoyle. He cursed. “The only things worse than mirrors are statues.”

“What the hell?” Hal said. “What didn’t you make that light in the first place?” He waved his torch around. “My arm’s getting tired holding this up.”

“I only have so much mana…” Eric began to explain mana and how he could only cast one spell at a time and if something attacked he thought it would be better…

While the two talked, the ever-present breeze tossed Grant’s golden hair. He stood right next to one of the mirrors, struggling not to look at himself as he pushed his hair back away from his eyes. He felt something drawing his eyes toward the mirror, some strange force. “What harm can it do?” He thought he heard a voice whisper. “Just a little peak.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his chest heaving. Don’t look… don’t look… he repeated to himself. Don’t…

Oh, the hell with it, he decided. He turned on his high heels and looked in the mirror. The whole party heard him gasp. Grant froze as he looked at the gorgeous woman in the mirror, taking in the soft little shoulders, the swell of his breasts, the wide hips and the long, coltish perched on those towering heels. Having scanned over his bombshell figure, they rose to his face and felt that strange internal cringe as he struggled to accept that this pretty face was his face.

“Oh, hell,” Eric said as he and the rest looked back and saw Grant gazing at himself in the mirror.

They waited. Nothing happened.

Grant found himself enthralled at the sight of himself. A lifetime of habit checking out women kicked in and Grant thought, I’d do me, barely even conscious of the weirdness of the thought.

“I guess it’s okay,” Hal said, looking at himself in the mirror. “Hello, 1973.” He laughed looking at his shag haircut. The face was handsome, but it was not his face, which was disorientating. He had a darker complexion now than he’d ever had. “What am I?” He wondered. His character sheet just read “human” but didn’t indicate any ethnicity.

Paul had to crouch down to fit inside the mirror. “Why do I have to be bald?” He wondered, even as he flexed his arm and nodded with approval at the huge slab of muscle. “Fe fie for fum..” he mumbled.

Seeing the others looking and nothing happening, Eric made his way to a fourth mirror and looked at himself. “Seriously?” He thought his face looked kinda femnine, though he was a guy. His body, like Hal’s, was not too different from his own, which meant skinny.

As the four stood there looking at their new bodies and faces, a greenish glow began to fill the far end of the room. They all noticed it, but they were fascinated by their new images, hands patting chests, touching faces as they turned to the side to examine their profiles…

“All have gazed…” a fell voice called. “All must pay.”

Looking down the hall in the direction of the voice, they saw the gargoyle statue was now glowing a sickly green.

Let fallen shapes arise and slay

The foolish convicts who come this way

Let fingers chilled from icy grave

Make of them my undead slaves

“Look away,” Eric shouted, even as he found he could not look away from the image in the mirrors as the skin rotted and decayed.

“I can’t,” Hal said, seeing his own image transform.

Paul raised his hammer, intending to smash the mirror, but he found his body refusing to swing.

Panick consumed Grant at the sight of his pretty face turning all gross and ugly. The AI now stepped in just as Kim and Madison had done before, manipulating his feelings and mindset. He let out a blood curdling scream even as Marlena stepped in front of him, growling.

The zombies stepped out of the mirrors and advanced. The party found themselves able to move. “Go for the heads,” Eric shouted. “It’s the best way to kill zombies.” He fired a magic missile into the head of his zombie. Casting the spell caused his Light spell to cancel. The room was now lit by the sputtering light from Hal’s torch, which Hal had dropped on the ground.

Grant found himself crying as he backed away from the ugly woman who now stumbled toward him. The zombie shambled, advancing slowly. Grant could easily get away, but Marlena was there, lingering, and his terror increased as he felt compelled to protect the little girl. Panicking, he remembered that he had a dagger in his inventory and he summoned it, the blade appearing in his hand. He’d handled more than a few blades during his criminal career, and seeing how slow the zombie moved, he swung the blade intent on burying it in the zombie’s head. Instead of the lethal move expected, he found himself making girly jabs, squeaking with each one as he continued to back away, the zombie reaching out with its gross rotting hands. “No! Stay away!” Grant panted in his soft voice, still trying to wield the blade but finding his body refused to do what he wanted, instead making those little feminine jabs. “What the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I swing a knife?”

Paul’s zombie grabbed his arm, and he felt an agonizing chill draining the warmth from his body even as frost covered his arm. He shoved the zombie away and smashed the head of the zombie with his hammer, causing the jaw to dislocate and stick out to the side The zombie collapsed to the floor, now crawling toward Paul, groaning and reaching for his leg. Paul smashed it again, and again crushing it’s head like a rotting pumpkin. “Don’t let them touch you,” Paul shouted, cradling his aching arm.

Hal meanwhile had pounded his blades into his zombie’s head, killing it. “Wasn’t planning on it,” he shouted.

They heard a feminine scream and looked to see a zombie grabbing Grant’s arm. Grant’s hair fell in  his face, and he screamed again as the zombie moved to bite into his arm. All three men felt a powerful urge to protect the little female. Paul and Hal charged while Eric pulled up another magic missile. It would take the last of his mana. Before he could fire off his spell, the zombie swung Grant around so she was between Eric and his target. Eric couldn’t get a clear shot off.

Then, Marlena sprung into action, leaping in the air and landing on the zombie’s shoulders, biting and clawing, ripping the head open and burying her jaws in the zombie’s brain.

The men froze, shocked at the little fox girl’s savage attack. The zombie crumpled and fell to the ground, Marlena now landing on the creature’s chest. Marlena looked up, her face smeared with blood. She howled in triumph.

Grant put his hand to his forehead and wobbled on his high heels. He looked like he might faint. Hal rushed forward and through his arms around the crying, shaken female. Some new instinct overcame Grant, and he buried his head against Hal’s chest, trembling, his body wracked with sobs.

Paul cursed himself for moving so slowly, wishing he was the one who’d gotten to comfort the girl.

A blast of trumpets. Nimue, her voice a sultry whisper, spoke.

You have defeated the Mirror Zombie assault.

Warrior is now level 4.

Thief is now level 4.

Each party member also receives a Reward Chest.

What looked like four treasure chests right out of a pirate movie materialized, one in front of each of the mirrors. Each of the chests had one of the character’s names on it.

“Treasure?” Hal brushed the hair away from Grant’s face. “You okay?”

The pretty girl looked at him and nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. That gesture, having Hal brush her hair back like that especially after the man had been so protective and caring, gave Grant shivers.

Hal had to quickly separate because he delt himself getting turned on in a way that would be very hard to hide.

Grant composed himself and turned his attention to the treasure chest labelled “Divinity.”

“Treasure!” Marlena shouted, dancing in place, clapping her hands. “Open it! Open it!”

“One moment,” Grant said, pulling an item from his inventory called Cloth of Cleaning. He couldn’t leave Marlena all covered in blood like that. ‘Come here.” When Marlena came to him, he tilted her head back and started to wipe the blood away. The cloth glowed and seemed to absorb the blood into itself. “That’s cool,” Grant whispered. As he cleaned Marlena up, he felt a surge of pleasure. “You okay?” He asked, his voice rising.

“I totally killed that zombie,” Marlena said.

“You were so brave,” Grant said as he wiped his muzzle, his tone switching into a motherly sing song without him even realizing it.

Eric opened his treasure chest and nodded as he checked the loot.

Potion of Mana Restoration.

Potion of Cure Poison.

Armor Patch +1 Armor.

Wand of fire.

33 silver

23 gold

Paul likewise received some good stuff:

Oil of Fire +2 damage to blunt object. 10% to inflict ignite with each successful strike.

Potion of Berserker Places character into temporary state of fighting madness. +5 to Strength, Constitution and Dexterity. Speed X2.

Enhance Harness. Patch provides Resistance to Poison.

33 silver

23 gold

Hal received the following:

Patch of enhanced Detect Traps. Add +2 to all detect traps roll.

Boots of stealth. Character’s footsteps make no sound.

Diabolical Dagger: Double Damage when backstabbing an enemy.

33 silver

22 gold.

Grant opened his chest. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Give me a break.”

Princess Serrenina Brush. When character brushes her hair, removes all tangles and makes the hair even prettier. Character receives +5 charisma for 12 hours. Character’s base hitpoints raised +5. Receives ability to cast Charm once over the next twelve hours.

Princess Serrenina Hand Mirror. If owner spends 5 minutes admiring her face in the mirror, she receives CONFIDENCE buff. All spells receive plus 1 level.

Superior Corset Patch. Adds +5 armor and +2 magic resistance.

Hoop Earrings of The Goddess. Increases character’s healing spells by +5 points.

Grant cringed at the sight of the hoop earrings as his mind drifted back to Chrerise, his favorite girl at the strip club. She’d always worn them, and it made him feel sick that he seemed to becoming more and more like her from his blonde hair to his corset and now these. I’m never wearing them he thought. Never.

There was one more item in his treasure chest:

Milady Sewing Kit. Required to add patches to equipment.

33 silver

22 gold

“This treasure is so good!” Marlena sang out. “I want to brush your hair. Can? Can I?”

Warning! The Dungeon Voice called out. All members of Party are now fatigued. -1 to all attributes until you rest.

“How do we rest?” Hal asked, annoyed as his character sheet appeared above his head and all his attributes showed -1.

Just like in the real world, the dungeon voice called back.

Paul tried to attach the Resist Poison Patch to his harness. Warning! A message flashed. Patch can only be attached by a character with a minimum sewing skill of 5 and a Milady Sewing Kit. “It says I need someone with a sewing skill of 5 to attach this patch,” Paul said.

“Mine says the same thing,” Hal said. “Does anyone have sewing skill?”

After a moment, they all three looked at Grant.

“Sewing? Are you serious? Why would I know how to sew?” Grant tossed his hair and rolled his eyes. “You’re so full of it.”

The three men continued to stare.

Grant slit his pretty eyes in feminine fury. “Okay. Fine. My character knows how to sew, but no. I’m not going be the group’s little housewife, sewing your clothes for you.”

Divinity receives one demerit.

Grant squeaked in rage and folded his arms under his breasts. He huffed and glared at the men. “I swear to god, one comment, and it’s over.”

The guys all smirked but made no comments.

“And one other thing,” Grant said. “Someone cut this stupid hair. I’m tired of it blowing in my face all the time. It keeps getting in my eyes, my mouth.”

“No!” Marlena said. “Your hair is so pretty!”

“I’ll do it,’ Hal said equipping one of his blades., but as soon as he advanced toward Grant, the dungeon voice called out:

WARNING! As a priestess of the goddess of love and beauty, Divinity is required to have long hair. If she cuts her hair, she loses all power and becomes a 0 level serving girl.

“A serving girl?” Grant whispered. “Zero level?”

Correct.

“How would I gain levels then?”

You would need to find a job at a tavern and become a barmaid. You would earn experience for keeping customers happy. That would include keeping them warm at night if you know what I mean. Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge. Do you still want to cut your hair, honey?

“I’m going to sue the shit out of you!” Grant screamed.

It was decided that Grant was too small to stand watch alone. Hal volunteered to stay on watch with him, but Grant was feeling butterflies when he looked at the man now, so he said no. “I’d like Eric,” he said. In addition to the fact he wasn’t strong funny feelings toward Eric, and, in fact, kind of hated him a little bit, Eric had a kind of feminine face and was the least physically imposing of all the men. He seemed less threatening.

Paul and Hal pulled out the sleeping rolls from their inventory and were soon sleeping. Marlena also curled up and went to sleep. Grant sat crossed legged on the floor, Eric sitting across from him as Grant sewed the +1 armor patch to Eric’s shirt.

Eric felt awkward and decided to try and make some small talk. “Madison sure seems determined to put you into a…” he searched for words that might not be too offensive.

“A woman’s roll?” Grant said, his voice full of anger. “Or, not even a woman’s roll—I don’t know if any of the women I ever dated knew how to sew.”

“Exactly,” Eric said.

“I tried to stab that zombie,” Grant said, replaying the scene in his mind.  “I couldn’t. It was like my arm wouldn’t listen, and I know how to use a knife.”

“What’s your character’s dagger skill?”

Grant checked and groaned. “Zero, of course.”

“You can probably train up that skill by practicing. My magic missile has risen from Level 3 to Level 4 since I kept casting the spell.”

“Why hasn’t my…” Grant checked his spell tab. “Oh, my healing has gone up to level 4, even though I’m only level three.”

“I have dagger level 3, so if you want to practice at some point, we can.”

As Grant sewed, you might think Nimue would flood his pretty little head with endorphins and other fun things so he would have a sense of pleasure. You would be right. That sense of pleasure surged as Grant finished the patch. He also got a dose of chemicals that made him feel a sudden sense of pride. “Done!”

Eric’s clothes sparkled for a moment as the +1 armor settled over them. The patch then faded into the cloth.

Nimues’s voice echoed through the room:

Sewing Skill Now Level 6

Priestess Now Level 3.

Demerits erased.

Way to go, girly!

“My sewing skills just keep improved,” Grant said. though he felt a physical and mental sense of pleasure and pride, the man he’d been felt only shame. He slit his eyes. “I’m so excited.”

“Way to go, girly,” Eric said.

Grant held up the needle. “You wanna get stabbed?”

Eric chuckled, and Grant laughed as well, but it was a man’s laugh in his little girl voice: Huh. Huh. Huh. He sounded like a mouse with a bad cough. It was—odd. As he laughed, Grant smiled, and it was the first time Eric had seen the little elf girl smile. Her big eyes sparkled and her hair, as always, fluttered in the ever-present breeze. Eric’s heart skipped a beat.

Maybe wizard boy isn’t so bad, Grant decided as he picked up Paul’s harness and the patch for that and began to sew the big man’s patch onto his gear. The feeling of happiness and ease returned. Do I actually like sewing? Grant wondered. Weird. He would not be telling anyone about that, though maybe it was a good thing, he decided, since it seemed he was going to be stuck sewing until he could get out of this place.