The Magic Dolls

(If you're an impatient reader, you can skip the story setup by jumping to Chapter 4.)

Troy walked through the bustling market, entranced. He was surrounded by strange trinkets, rare collectables and an assortment of loud voices, but his attention was focused solely on the blonde woman he had been following for the last few minutes. He had been attracted the instant he saw her, drawn in by her effortless beauty and seemingly relaxed attitude.

She wore a loose-fitting shirt that displayed a lot of cleavage, while still somehow appearing casual, and her skirt hugged her thighs, threatening to reveal too much if she so much as bent over. As Troy trailed her around the market, he admired the way her curves seemed to sway hypnotically with each step, her hips swinging gently beneath her short skirt. A few times he thought he caught her looking back at him, but as he shifted his attention to her face she'd quickly look away.

Troy tried to summon the courage to approach her, to interact with her, even it was a rejection. Finally, the woman ducked into a small stall that sold old vinyl records. Troy lingered outside for a moment, then positioned himself on the stall opposite, feigning interest in the mismatched oddities on display in order to get a better angle on her. He quickly scanned the rest of the stall she was in, searching for anything else that might give him an excuse to approach her, but nothing caught his eye.

As Troy watched intently over the low shelf of the stall, the blonde woman leaned forward and rifled through the whole shelf full of albums, offering him a better glimpse of her cleavage. His mouth went dry at the sight of her breasts, hidden only by the thin fabric of her top. As she continued through the albums, her movements caused her breasts to jiggle slightly, as if in slow motion. Troy watched, entranced, as though he was witnessing a private performance for him alone. But then, suddenly, the movement stopped.

Confused, he brought his gaze up to look at the woman, and their eyes met. The woman's look was a mixture of irritation and pity, and it struck Troy like a cold shower. He had been caught red-handed ogling her breasts!

Troy was mortified! What did he do now?! He knew that he shouldn't have followed her into the stall, but he couldn't seem to stop thinking about her. Should he apologise, or just- shit, he'd already taken too long.

"You!" she hissed, her voice laced with irritation. "I thought I saw you following me. Are you some kind of pervert, stalking me through the market?" Her green eyes flashed with anger, and Troy felt himself shrink beneath her stare.

"No, I mean... I, uh," he stammered, taking a step back. "I was just buying th-this."

Troy frantically grabbed the item sitting in front of him - a box of some kind - and bolted towards the checkout counter, hoping no one else had noticed his actions. His cheeks burning with embarrassment, he tried his best to focus on anything but the current situation, but his mind kept coming back to the look of disgust on the woman's face. Just pretend it didn't happen, he told himself. Practically in a trance, it took him a moment to even register which stall he was standing in.

Troy had been to the market a few times in the last six months, but he had never seen a stall setup this elaborate. Labels and warning signs were placed in different sections, alerting customers to the dangers of some seemingly harmless objects, like a stopwatch or a pair of glasses. Chains held down mundane things like books, while an ink pot and quill sat on a pedestal, or a TV remote behind a glass case. It was an imposing display, but Troy supposed it was the perfect set up to sell an ordinary comb or a toy ray-gun for a vastly inflated price. Funnily, the stall also had a 'One Item Per Customer' sign, but with objects this disparate, Troy wondered whether one person would even be able to find two separate items they wanted.

Troy looked down at the hot pink packaging in his hands and internally cringed. Between everything that had happened, he hadn't even paid attention to what he was about to buy. Aside from the title, Similitudo, the vibrant box wasn't forthcoming with a lot of information. A plastic window on the front revealed its base contents - three featureless mannequin dolls, along with vague call-outs on the packaging like Recreate Your Friends and Influence Others. He looked around the box for a price tag, then back to where he thought he had taken it from, but the space was no longer there. He hoped it wasn't too expensive, it would be awkward to take it back now.

The wiry old lady manning the booth raised her eyebrow as Troy approached; a hefty bearded man purchasing some dolls in an effeminate pink box must stand out a little, even among the other oddities around the booth.

"I see another object has found its owner." she mumbled. "Strange, I was sure these were going to get snatched up by a young girl next week."

Troy smiled politely, unsure how to respond. "I, uh, couldn't find a tag for this. How much?"

"Let's see, three dolls, hmm..." With a sigh, the crone reached into a hidden pocket of her tattered dress and produced a beaten up old notebook. She flipped through the pages, eventually stopping on one and squinting at the writing, before reading it aloud: "$120 for three, or a trade in kind for one."

Troy blanched at the price, 120 for three dolls? Yet there was something about the old woman's words and demeanor that made him feel compelled to pay. He quickly searched through his wallet, the velcro tearing as he peeled it open, and sorted out his notes. He guessed he wasn't picking up the new Dragonscape DLC this month.

As he handed over the money, the crone slid a small worn booklet into a shopping bag, where she'd already bagged the dolls. "The instruction manual," she whispered, her lips barely moving, "just in case." She held out the bag for Troy to grab.

"Thanks." Troy nodded as he softly took the bag, and then left, wondering why dolls would need an instruction book anyway.

With a final nod, she dismissed him, and he left, embarrassed.

Once he was out of earshot, the old lady looked around her stall and sighed. "Strange, I must've misread the leaves."