Excuse me miss but how clothes?

Lex got the easy part out of the way first, the contacts were pretty pricy, setting him back a neat 60$, but at least he got them without any questions asked. Which netted a set of 12 contacts for each eye. He took a detour to the bathroom, hesitating sharply at the doors before heading into the men's restroom. Maybe later, he'd brave going to the women's, but as is he was worried he'd get in some sort of trouble.

Once inside, he grabbed a stall, and with a quick thought dropped the box of contacts into his inventory. To his relief, they showed up in his inventory as a consumable item.

Coloured Contact Lenses (12/12)
Changes the colour of the eyes for 12 hours, can't be dispelled

With a bit of poking Lex realised that he could pick any colour for the lenses, despite the fact that he only bought light blue. He figured he may as well still stick to his original plan of swapping out his yellow eye for a light blue one. Blue and purple-ish were pretty magickey colours after all.

Apply Contact Lense (Blue)?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

He pressed yes, then blinked when nothing felt different. He exited the toilet stall and walked up to the mirror. Sure enough, where there was once a yellow eye was instead a light blue. The other was the same purplish dark blue as before. The heterochromia wasn't quite as obvious onfirst glance, but still pretty noticable once you saw it, which was probably the best outcome. More importantly, it did do a fair bit to make Xel and Lex look like they weren't twins. Even if the face shape was still the same the most eye-catching part wasn't a huge giveaway anymore.

Satisfied, he left the bathroom and made his way over to the more daunting portion of his trip: the clothing store. As much as he'd like to put it off, or skip the quest and just order online he knew he had to. There was xp on the line, after all. So, he summoned up his courage and walked into the first retail store he came across. That was, of course, the easy part of this endevour, since basically anyone could walk in without issues.

The next part is the one he'd always struggled with: bothering some poor employee for help. Sure, helping people was literally their job, but he'd always been a bit awkward, especially when they were pretty. However, this time he had something of an ace up his sleeve - her sleeve? Lex figured he should probably be thinking of himself as a girl when he's playing as Xel. Even if it felt odd to do so with a body that's barely indistinguishable from his normal one. Or just plain odd in general to refer to himself as a girl. Even if he did play as a female character in videogames half the time.

Well, Xel had an ace up her sleeves, that Lex never did: observe.

It wasn't quite all-encompassing, but it did seem to be pretty good at getting a general idea about a person in an easy to interpret way.

Xel eyed the first employee in her sights - yea still weird, not bad weird just... weird - and cast Observe.

Bored Employee
Age: Young Adult
Height: Short
Cup size: Small

Your average bored employee, can be found in any retail store around the world.

Xel blinked at the information, then checked back in with the skill's description.

Observe lv2
Cost: 1MP

Your ability to make observations of objects, people, items, and more. Creates an information box, combines current observations with past knowledge. some reasonable extrapolation may be made depending on stats.

Quality of Observe scales with Observe skill level as well as various stats.

Oh, okay that figures. She'd forgotten how sparse the details could be for strangers when she'd first started using the skill yesterday. The extrapolation part did make her worry about the voracity of it's findings. Though she figured it was more likely to omit information than give false info. So, for instance, it can say the employee is currently bored, but not give insights into how she might react if he approached.

If she approached. It was going to be a pain to keep that straight, but she really _really _needed to. If she was going to sell the cover.

She tried the other employee.

Observe

Agitated Employee
Age: Young Adult
Height: Medium
Cup size: Medium

Your average annoyed employee that's sick of their customer's bs, can be found in any retail store around the world.

Okay so that's a no on her. Seeing as there were only the two female employees in the store Xel figured she was going to have to suck it up and ask the first woman for help. She approached, psyching herself up as she went, and distracting herself by trying to take in a few more details about her.

She had black hair, cut short. Xel thought it was a pixie cut? She wasn't too sure, the bangs were longer than the hair she could see behind the ears. She'd never really cared all that much about her hair, as Lex. Something she'd have to change as well, to distinguish them. So, right now both Lex and Xel had longer hair than the woman, just letting it grow until it was time to cut. At the moment it was just a little bit past her ears. Once she got closer she could see some of her features more clearly, like the five or six piercings in one ear, or the stud in her nose. It was honestly pretty cute, if somewhat marred by the bland store polo the girl was wearing.

As she approached the employee looked up from the shelf she was robotically stocking and gave a quick smile. "Hi, can I help you?"

Xel really hoped that the friendliness there wasn't too faked.

"Uh, yes. I uh I was looking for clothes."

That got her a raised eyebrow, the black loop in the woman's brow accentuating the gesture.

"Girl clothes," Xel blurted out, before she could lose her nerve. "For my um. Me. For me." She'd almost claimed it was for her girlfriend before realising the entire point of the exercise was to get stuff that looks right on her.

Also Gaia would probably give her another embarrassing article of clothing if she chickened out.

"Oh!" Her eyes went wide with surprise, but to Xel's relief the employee smiled wide. "I can absolutely help you with that. You've never bought any before?"

She sounded... weirdly hopeful there. Xel shook her head. "No, I'm admittedly a bit lost."

"That's all good." Her eyes flickered around her before she spoke in a low voice. "I'd much rather help you find something nice than stack shelves."

That made Xel smile with relief.

"So, what's your budget, and what sort of look were you going for?"

Xel bit the inside of her lip in thought. The quest would give some money as a reward, and future quests would likely be the same, so she didn't have to be too frugal here.

"About... three hundred dollars? I can go a bit over if I find stuff I really like. As for what look? I'm not sure. Something flowy? I guess? Like dresses and stuff?"

She giggled, and Xel tensed for a second before realising it wasn't malicious. Or at least she was fairly sure it wasn't malicious.

"Sorry, sorry. It's just... It'd be like saying your favorite style of clothes is pants. There's a lot of different styles of dresses."

"Oh," Xel said, to another accompaniment of giggles

"Come, I do have a few ideas of what dresses would look nice on you." She started walking, and Xel hurried to keep pace. "I'm Dana, by the way. What's your name?"

"Xel," Xel replied. Feeling a little bit out of place. In a good, if confused, way. She'd never really had much luck with women, always too-awkward with too many geeky interests. This was still awkward, sure, but she was getting the clear sense that Dana didn't mind that at all.

If nothing else, it really sold the idea that Xel and Lex were two separate characters, she'd barely even started creating Xel and she was already forming as a distinct thing.

"Here we go. You're pretty tall, and still a bit on the smaller side bust wise. So, your best bet is something like this." Dana picked out a dress from the racks, seemingly at random. Before Xel could get a good look at it Dana held it up against Xel, humming thoughtfully, before abruptly stopping. "Oh my goodness, your eyes. Are those contacts?"

Xel's heart stopped, and she briefly stammered, had she been busted already?

"They're beautiful." Dana leant forward, trying to get a closer look.

Or not? Admittedly, it wasn't the first time getting compliments for it. As Lex, he'd been told many times (and not by his mother) that his eyes looked interesting. He'd never really known how to respond.

"Uh, thanks? I grew them myself." Really Xel? Evidently, as Xel she was no better at responding to compliments.

Dana, however, started giggling fitfully. Going as far to bring a fist – thankfully not the one still held against Xel's chest – to her mouth to stifle her giggles. Xel stayed still, she'd never really responded well to people laughing at her as Lex. She'd do things differently as Xel. Xel seemed like the kind of girl that'd storm off in arcane fury when someone laughed at her.

"Thanks for that Xel. It gets kinda dull and humorless here sometimes. I can't remember the last time I actually laughed on the job." She made a show of looking around, as if her manager would jump around the corner to scold her at any moment. Okay then, not the butt of the joke? Or not the butt in a bad way? She was so confused. "Anyways, what I was going to say before I got distracted by those gorgeous eyes, was that this dress should suit you. I'd tell you the how's and whys but I don't want to bombard you with jargon just yet. Just try it on."

With that Xel was unceremoniously shoved into the changing rooms. She was kind of proud of herself for not even faltering before walking to the girls section. Xel double checked that Dana wasn't around, before dumping her currently equipped clothes into her inventory. She almost throws the dress into her inventory, before realizing that that might not be a great idea. The last thing she wanted was for this to be like your average RPG, where just picking up an unbought thing counted as stealing.

Besides, it'd be a bit suspicious if she got dressed in seconds.

Mind made up, Xel turned the dress around in the hanger. She wasn't entirely sure how she was meant to put it on, but surely she should start by unzipping it. Or not. No zipper?

She tried pulling it on over her head like a t-shirt. No dice. The neck hole was way too small for her head to fit. Annoyed, she took it back off, and scrutinized the neck. Aren't dresses normally a lot more open in the neck area? To show of boobage and stuff? After a bit of searching she realized that the dress actually had a collar of sorts, with a button. She undid that, and pulled it on successfully. Only to find out that the button for the collar was on the back of the neckline, not the front.

Was it on backwards? No, can't be. The tag was on that side too, plus it seemed to sit comfortably on her body, the very short sleeves were more snug fits than any tee she wore. If it was on the other way they'd be awkward.

Which left her trying to put on the stupid backwards button.

Why is this so hard?

Eventually, the button actually worked. She half expected to get a skill from it, but there weren't any notifications. Maybe that was for the best. She was never putting a dress on manually again.

Still a little bit annoyed, Xel opened the curtain, and walked out. There was a distant awareness of the oddly nice sensation of cool fabric brushing against her legs, but her attention was mostly focused on complaints.

"Is there like, some kind of rule that woman's clothes have to be a nightmare to put on?" Xel grumbled, to an answering smattering of giggles from around the corner.

Giggles that cut off as soon as she walked out of the hallway and into the changing room "hub" where all the discarded clothes were sitting half organized on the racks. Dana had evidently been halfway through sorting them while she waited for me to finish my interminable struggle. She still remained halfway though putting a shirt on the rack seconds later.

"Uh?" Xel said, eloquently.

"Damn. Am I good or what?" Dana grins, before stepping up to Xel and spinning her around until she faced the adjacent wall-mirror.

Huh. She is good.

The weird collar makes a lot more sense now. It drew attention away from the total lack of any cleavage and instead emphasized the neck. It was kind of uncomfortably tight on Xel's Adams Apple, but it did a good job of hiding that so she didn't feel too mad. That'd be a bit of an annoying giveaway. Maybe she could remove it from Xel? Depends on how the "self modification" system works when got it,s he supposed. Kind of a running theme of the dress really. It was the slightest bit cinched around her waist, that, along with an angled seam gave her the illusion of having a little bit of a waist. The looser like shirt area part helped with that also, and hid the fact she had a package.

It was also very pretty, and absolutely nothing like Lex would ever wear.

"It's perfect."

"Right?" Dana agreed, and Xel realized that she's still holding her shoulder. Uhh

"Well that's a definite yes, then. I know it's a bit pricy but I think it's totally worth it. The boys will love it." Dana nodded, eyes closed. As if she'd just dispensed sagely advice.

"Uh."

"The girls, too. You look delectable." Dana continued.

"Uhhhhh."

Dana just snorted, and shoved Xel out into the store. "Come, we need to grab you some day-to-day wear. Pro tip: cute dresses are a sometimes food, if you wanna live in the green.

The next half hour felt slightly surreal. Xel slowly became aware of 3 things. One, Dana really was in the retail business for the love of the game, though she didn't understand why she was just working in a retail store. Two, she was definitely using Xel as an excuse to avoid stocking shelves, she didn't ask for or check any sizes but every single item Xel was given fit perfectly and looked great. There was no reason to make Xel try on everything.

Three, she's very pretty, and it was getting increasingly hard to not react to the constant body contact. It was one thing to know about how touchy women were with each other. It was a whole different experience being on the receiving end of it. She felt oddly glad that for whatever reason her parts just... weren't really working right? It was deeply strange. She was definitely attracted to Dana, but it felt different. Weird, not bad. Just different.

If she had to put a name on it it was like her boobs were blushing? And every time Dana got close, there was this warm feeling her lower belly. Was this what being aroused felt like for girls? She'd never really thought about it but it made sense.

That realization did vanishingly little to actually help, though. She tried to get things to cool down a bit by asking Dana about herself – and why someone that seriously knows her stuff with fashion was working here – but that just made it worse for some reason.

By the time they finished picking clothes and Dana started ringing her up Xel was almost glad. Almost, being the operative word, because she was already preemptively missing the feeling of having a girl show her any kind of interest. Even if she was just being friendly.

Obviously, she was just doing her job, and really well to boot. Xel ended up being upsold to the tune of spending almost five hundred dollars. Though that also included a set of makeup that Dana helped her pick out after she idly mentioned that she was looking for some as well.

Dana did give Xel a fairly apologetic smile over it as she took her purchases. They were all worth it, so Xel was willing to call it a wash.

"Thanks Xel," she said, as she walked me out the door. Apparently she was still more than happy to stall getting back to her shelving. "I think I would've died of boredom today if not for your help."

"Well. I don't know if that's really possible but I guess you're welcome?"

"Of course, of course. Although wait, before you go, come closer," Dana said, accompanying The request by tucking her fingers closer repeatedly.

Curious, Xel leaned closer but was unprepared for Dana to gently grab her wrist. Push up the sleeve of her borrowed shirt and scroll a number in sharpie. Her number, presumably.

"Call me if you ever need another makeover."

The sound was too confused to really reply, so she simply nodded and left. Out of curiosity on her way out she glanced at Dana and cast another observe, curious to see how the information changed now that she knew more about Dana.

Dana
Age: 20
Height: Short
Cup size: Small

An aspiring fashionista, Dana suffers through mundane retail to work towards her dream of becoming the real-life Miranda Priestley. Thinks Xel is unintentionally hilarious and oddly cute.

Oddly cute???