Mom's Gift

Quest Complete: Retail Therapy
Girl, you need some serious help
[X] Have somebody help you find clothes as Xel
[X] Bonus: Grab some makeup too

Rewards: Having clothes that look nice (seriously you need all the help you can get), 50XP to [Makeup] skill

Interesting. Xel hadn't realized it until she went to check the rewards0, but the Quest used girl instead of boy once she'd swapped over to Xel. It was a minor detail, but it did explain the "Momma's girl/boy" reward for getting her mother a present. Presumably whatever that was, would be swapped over whether they were playing as Lex or Xel.

Thankfully the hours she'd spent with Dana had inured her to the idea of being a woman, so it was with only brief hesitation that she strolled into the woman's bathroom, and slipped into a stall. She ended up walking out the store in normal women's clothes, but Xel was still all-too-aware that her face was still pretty much identical to Lex's. Hopefully, the new skill would help with that.

Gen Skill: Makeup lv 1
XP: 50/200
The ability to apply makeup to alter the appearance of the face/body. Higher levels increase the speed of application and complexity of use.

Alright, that was pretty much what she expected. Xel put her bags on the convenient hook in the store and started cramming everything she could into her inventory. Just like the contact lenses, the maker presented with a context menu. Rather than each taking up an additional slot, every makeup item that she put into the inventory was consolidated into a single item.

Makeup Kit
Contains: foundation (1), eyeshadow (3), lipstick (2), mascara (1)

The context menu showed the "durability" of each item, And had a separate tab with all the possible looks she could apply with the items and skill on hand. It was even handy enough to show the amount of XP each look would net and the time it would take. What it didn't, sadly, do was tell her which would be the best look. The preview was still had enough that she only had to spend five minutes looking before she eyeballed an option that looked fairly distinctive from Lex. It was hard to place exactly why, it just kind of... smoothed out the skin and added a touch of darker skin around the eyes and lips. According to the menu it'd take a whopping 45 minutes to apply, and only give her 7XP, but that was about what she was expecting at this point.

It fit the pattern of the other gen skills, where it started out frustratingly mundane. Hopefully the speed of application could get as silly as the reading skill would. With nothing else for it, Xel sat down on the closed toilet seat, try to get comfortable and hit accept.

Cannot apply makeup without a mirror at current skill level.

At some point she really was going to learn better.

Resigned. Xel left the cubicle and walked up to the sinks and their mirror. Applying the makeup was... strange. Somehow she just has an idea of what to put where, even if it took a few tries and sometimes required her to remove and reapply parts. It was soothing enough that she didn't truly notice the 45 minutes passing until it was done. Did her other generic skills work like this? Xel assumed that most of the strangeness was because she'd never actually done this before herself. It was the opposite situation to the reading and the cooking where she felt like she'd lost the ability to do something that she could do. With this she gained knowledge from nowhere.

She distracted herself by looking into the mirror. She was by no means an expert on makeup, but even she could tell that what she had on was kind of amateurish, not bad, just not very good. Still leagues beyond what she would have been capable of without the skill.

It did.. something to her face. Like, if Lex and Xel were standing next to each other, they could probably still be identified as related. But it was nowhere near as obvious as it had been before. The eye shadow stuff made her eyes look ever so slightly bigger and rounder, and the mascara made them kinda pop. It seemed to change the way that the purplish blue in her eye looked as well. It was darker. Somehow.

Clearly, the makeup skill only gave her a limited ability to interpret what she was looking at. The important thing was that between the makeup, what Dana had called a halter top, and girly short shorts, she looked totally different from Lex. Her mom would totally be able to tell, but probably not one of her co-workers. Which was about as good as Xel was going to get with what she had on hand.

She really didn't know a whole load of people, and with her mom out of the picture, her co-workers were the only option to fulfill the quest. Thankfully she remembered that a bunch of her male coworkers were planning on meeting up at a local digital cafe to try their mettle with some casual esports. Which gave her roughly two hours to get accustomed to her new look and to find her mom a present.

With her mind made up, she left the bathroom, trying very hard not to feel awkward or look guilty when she passed a woman, another woman, walking in. They barely spared her a first glance.

She then proceeded to spend almost the whole time she had doing fruitless laps of the mall. I don't think the video girl didn't want to give her the ability to figure out what would be the perfect present for someone. So eventually she decided to just grab a bunch of things that would be nice. A care package of sorts. Admittedly one that might be a little bit pointed but her mom would forgive her.

Scented candles, bath bombs, some lotion that was supposedly very soothing, and a new pair of fuzzy slippers. Basic, and all stuff she totally could buy herself, she just never did. With the help of a slightly less friendly than Dana employee, she had everything wrapped up and ready to go.

With that safely stored in Xel's inventory and a final check to make sure nothing catastrophic had happened to her clothes or makeup. She Left the mall and took a short walk to the internet cafe.

The strangest thing about this whole situation was how not strange it felt. Sure, it was kind of awkward. She was wearing clothes she didn't wear normally, had makeup on, and was trying to make an effort to talk girly-ey whenever she needed to talk; Xel didn't think she was doing a very good job of that last part. Shame there wasn't any skill associated with it.

She took that back as soon as she arrived at the cafe. It's one thing to just be a different person around total strangers. It's totally another to be doing the same around people that knew Lex. People that would have a lot of questions if she screwed up and they realized it was him. She seriously debated just calling it quits and going home.

But...

Bonus Reward: [Feature: body alteration]

That was a one-time thing, wasn't it? Or at least it's something that would be a total pain to get the "proper" way.

Damnit.

Xel walked inside.

Thankfully, nothing happened. Nobody screamed, nobody exclaimed. There wasn't anybody that walked up to, pat her on the back, thinking she was Lex. People looked, but it wasn't the normal look. They, well, they were looking because a girl just walked into an internet cafe.

Crap. She forgot to think about that aspect of being a girl. Again, no one did anything, but she felt the attention as she walked up to the counter and ordered an energy drink. This particular cafe was fairly busy, And beyond the group of people that she recognized in the corner, there were others scattered all around. The interest died down quickly. It's not like she was really a looker and there were other actual girls around for them to look at. With boobs that registered as more than just a meme from the goddess. Clothes that fit their figure. She noted the way that the girl across the room's purple top made her pale skin stand out. The anyone's eyes travel naturally along her collarbone, up to her neck and-

The fuck?

Since when were collarbones what did it for her?

Xel looked away quickly. She'd always been fairly awkward about staring at people as Lex and it felt even more scummy now that her ass was in AOE range too. Also she was still kind of "worked up" from her interactions with Dana. And didn't want to give her body any more encouragement.

Instead she picked up her drink and started meandering over towards her colleagues. They were just in one big old clump in the corner of the cafe. Two teams of five in a row facing the other with another seven or eight standing around them, alternating between talking amongst themselves and the players. Chris was one of those people. Him and a friend of his that she's fairly sure wasn't from work were leaning backwards on a free counter looking over the cafe. They were the first to spot her.

"Hey," they spoke in unison, and with the slightest drawl. They weren't drunk - alcohol wasn't allowed at this cafe - so Xel wasn't sure what their deal was. Then she worried that the jig was up.

"Uh. Hi?" Xel scrambled for a topic of conversation that wouldn't immediately give up the game. "Is that uh, KF? I feel like I never see people play that anymore."

Twin grins lit up on their faces and Xel released a silent sigh of relief.

"Fuck yeah it is. You play?" That was Chris. Who, evidently, had no clue who he was talking to.

"Yea." Xel didn't even have to fake the smile on her face. Holy crap. It was actually working? There was a part of her, the gamer part, that looked at her charisma score and was so sure that'd spell her doom. "Only sometimes, though. I play with my friends every now and then. Usually I play RPGs and stuff though."

"No shit?" If anything, the smells got even brighter. "You'll have to introduce us sometime. We're always looking for new players."

Idiot. Obviously she couldn't do that. Also she was reasonably sure they were just saying that because she, they assumed her friends were all women. Wait, was that why they were drawling? Were they attempting to pull the moves on her? Whatever.

"Uh, maybe," she threw out without commitment. "I'll ask them."

What followed was... surreal in its normality.

They invited her to play a few games since they were still waiting on a few people to show up. She accepted because, well, to be honest, she did actually like playing KF. At least in small doses. She had to use every ounce of willpower not to start cracking up when told her that they were one player short because their co-worker Lex dropped out today "for some reason."

There were so many points that they could have figured it out but didn't, that by the end of the night she just kind of accepted that she'd done it. Or at least started down the path of doing it. She'd made a whole new person. It wasn't only that they didn't refer to her or think of her as Lex. They treated Xel totally differently. Part of that, sure, was that she was making a deliberate attempt to be different. She envisions Xel as a sort of aloof, sorceress sort of character, and she was trying to make an effort to be more like... reclusive sorceress-ey instead of just regular reclusive.

Another part of it was obviously the whole girl thing. The thing where they all saw her as a girl, and therefore treated her like one too. Not badly. They weren't bad guys, but they were guys. They looked. They offered to do things for her for no reason, they paused after saying things sometimes, hoping she'd laugh.

What surprised her most is that sometimes she did.

Sometimes, because what they were saying was generally funny. And sometimes just because of the way that they beamed afterwards. Like they'd just won some kind of grand prize. Was sort of endearing?

Another strange thing to add to the pile.

When she left and awkwardly waved off their attempts to get her number, their faces fell just a little bit. It made Xel feel bad, just a little bit. Less bad when she remembered that any contact with her, with Xel, put their lives in genuine danger. It really did just kept coming back to that, didn't it? Finishing the quest was exciting, but it meant she was one step closer to putting her life in pretty mortal peril.

Quest complete: The Master of Disguise
It just might work
[X] Make Xel distinct from Lex
[X] Bonus: Interact with somebody as Xel that knows Lex without arousing suspicion

Rewards:
200 XP
Bonus: Feature: [Body Alteration]

Xel ducked into a public restroom once the notifications drop and swapped over to Lex. It was sort of nice being back in the old body. Even if they still didn't look all that different to her-him, to him. Hopefully that would change with the body modification system. Also, Lex was under no delusions that swapping out in public classrooms was a foolproof way to hide all this. He'd need to come up with something a lot more secure.

For now though, it'd work. Lex unequipped the contacts and went home.

His mom's car was in the drive, but he didn't see her inside. Fast asleep then. That made him smile a little bit, and also reminded him that he had his own insomnia debuff to sleep off. He almost felt giddy pressing the button to go to sleep, It was always nice to remind himself that this whole gamer abyss thing wasn't all doom and gloom.

Tomorrow, he'd give his mom a present and then, finally, start dipping his toes in the abyss. Well, he's start dipping Xel's toes in the abyss. As far as anyone else was concerned, Lex would be spending the entirety of tomorrow bumming around at home.