It's been said that a stranger's just a friend you haven't met yet. While it can be a pretty dangerous ideology (Doesn't matter what world you live in, there's dirty bastards everywhere.), I've always thought it was a cute little phrase. Very optimistic. Makes you imagine a guy with a smile on their face, a spring in their step, and a song in their heart, y'know? And, if nothing else, it's certainly proved true enough for me over these past few days. I mean, I've already made acquaintances with a sand obsessed nutjob, a terrorist, a superpowered child prodigy, and also some normal people, I guess. I guess you just never really know how much you might have in common with someone until you have a chat with them, y'know? 

Anyways, the  strange elf-like man continued studying me for a little while longer. It was a little uncomfortable, to be honest, but I don't think he was doing anything creepy. And, if he was, well, I'd rather not know. 

"He do this often?" I whispered to S.

"Yeah, all the time. Just go along with it, it usually ends in free stuff." S said. Well, I'm sure as heck not gonna argue with that!

"Hm... Aha! You, boy, hold that face! I'll be right back!" Heremays (The elf-like man) said, before sprinting off god knows where into the shop. Next time I saw him, he was running into a backroom with a couple robes in tow.

Well, not like I have a choice about that whole face thing, anyways.

"What's he-" I began.

"Grabbing accessories, probably. Hope you don't mind playing a little dress up." S said.

That kind of unnerves me. I looked around at all the cloaks and robes that surrounded me... I get the feeling this guy and I don't exactly see eye to eye on fashion. 

That said... Free stuff! 

Wait, actually, is free stuff that great? I mean, I'm hardly hurting for cash at the moment, and I don't have many expenses... 

Before I had enough time to fully think about it, Heremays burst back into the room, carrying some robes, a giant book, and... a set of glasses? Most surprising of all, though, was that the robes looked pretty tasteful. A nice, deep brown and the other a simple jet black. 

"Alright, put these on," He said, gesturing towards the glasses on top of the pile of crap. 

Glasses, huh. Back in the day, I was told that they tried a bunch of different glasses prescriptions on me, thinking that my face was like it is because I was squinting from poor vision, or something. None of them worked, obviously. Despite that, I'm told they had a hard time getting me to take off the glasses, despite them probably harming my vision greatly. Until I started running into things, that is...

Feeling a little nostalgic (Though, truth be told, I don't actually remember those days.), I put on the glasses. Well, technically they were just frames, in this case. 

"Ooh! Wonderful, wonderful! Now, hold this!" He said, gesturing to the huge book. 

I did. It was heavy.

I miss being able to read... Sorry, unrelated tangent.  

"Hmmm... No, try like this. Hold with your four fingers, thumb on top..." 

I mimicked what he did with his arm, 90ish degree angle, tilted upward a bit, elbow close to my torso, put my fingers like he said... Hmm. Well, it's certainly not the least comfortable way to hold a book, but...  It's far from the most comfortable, as well.

"Yes, yes! Loving it! Now, put on one of these! Take your pick!" He said, presenting both robes. Hmm... Well, ordinarily, I'd probably go black, but, given the accessories, this feels like a brown robe situation. 

"Brown, I guess." I said.

"Excellent! Now, change into it! Quickly now! Go on!"   

Eh? 

S chuckled.

Well, beyond the fact that half my hands are currently full... 

We stood there for an awkward moment before he realized.

"Oh, my apologies, I forgot that humans are sensitive about- Ah! I mean, uhm, changing rooms are just over there!"

"Dude, you do this every time!" S said, laughing. 

"Oh, be quiet, you." Heremays said.

Ignoring Heremays's 'humans' comment, I handed the book back, grabbed the robe, and made my way to the changing rooms. They weren't unlike what I was used to in my previous life. Guess there's not much variation on 'small private space with door and mirror. Maybe a chair, also.'

Oh, crap, I guess I gotta take all the crap outa my pockets before I take my clothes off, don't I...

I ended up piling all my cans and my toolbox on top of the seat. Alright, that's, like 8 of those, about a half a dozen of those... Man, I oughta find a recycling bin soon. Oh, and I put my coin pouch in the toolbox. I can't fit all of that back into this robe... Well, I didn't see anyone else in the store, and all the stalls here are open, so I'm pretty sure we're the only people here. I think I'll just leave my crap in this stall and come back and grab it before we leave. 

Anyways, time to put on the thing.

The robe seemed to be of a very high quality. Now, I'm not super knowledgeable about this sort of thing, but it was soft, comfortable, and at least felt durable. 

As I was putting on the robe, I noticed the same logo that was above the door outside was embroidered on the inside of the robe. Huh. Was it made here? I wonder if that Heremays guy made these himself. Wait, if that's the case, does he make all of the clothes in here? That'd explain all the weird design, but that's... Well, that's a lot of clothes. 

Anyways, I couldn't help but look at myself in the mirror after I got the robe on. 

Gotta say, combined with these fake glasses, this isn't a bad look. 

Real quick, just for funzies, I decided to push up my glasses and say 'Heh.' quickly, like one of those old cartoon characters. 

Nice.

I heard a familiar chuckle from the mirror, and noticed DYN2 poke their head into view from the bottom right corner. "Are you checking yourself out?" They said, still chuckling. 

"S-shut up." I said, more than a little embarrassed. 

DYN2 continued chuckling, and quickly disappeared from view. 

Rude. 

...

I should probably get back to S and Heremays. 

I grabbed my things and, just before I left, I made a point to look over at the corner of the mirror.

Bastard. 

After that, I left the changing room for real, and made my way back to the shop proper. 

S and Heremays seemed to be chatting about something, but they turned over to me as I came into view. 

"Yo."

"Ooooh! Incredible, yes, incredible!" Heremays said. 

"Nice. You wear it well." S said, giving a thumbs up. I agree, but it's a little embarrassing to hear them say it. 

"Alright, ah! Hold this" Heremays said, shoving the book back into my hands, and sprinting off. He returned moments later, rolling over a huge mirror from seemingly out of nowhere. "Okay, okay, ah, hold the book like before, and, yes, yes! Then-"

Before he finished talking, I crouched just a little, I reached my right arm out, tucked my left arm (the one with the book) back, and scrunched my face, as if I was concentrating really hard on something.

"Wha- oh, YES! YES! Oooh! Incredible!" Heremays said, clapping lightly. 

"Wait, how'd you know that's what he was talkin' about?" S asked.

"It's the first thing I wanted to do." I said, simply. "It's the first thing I think of when I think 'comically young magical scholar', y'know?" 

"Yes, yes! Indeed! You, my boy, are a natural!" Heremays said, clearly rather excited.

'Natural' He says, as if I didn't spend a majority of my waking hours before I died thinking about crap like this. Actually, speaking of, I think something was missing from that last pose. "Hold on, I'm gonna give it another go." I said.

"Oh? But it was already-" 

I did the same pose as before, but afterward, I put my arm down, tilted my head down, and acted as if I was breathing heavily for a moment

Then, I smirked, looked up at the mirror, and...

"Elementary." 

Oh yeah. That's it. Perfection.

Heremays was just shy of hopping up and down with excitement at this point. 

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"Right, I have no clue what's going on here." 

"It's cool!"

"It's cool."

Heremays and I spoke in unison. I couldn't help but push up the glasses frames as I spoke. 

"... Right." S didn't seem convinced. 

Heremays and I continued playing our little dress up game for a while longer. S was incredibly confused the whole time.

At some point, I had switched into the black robe, and we did more poses in that. It was pretty cool. 

After we were done, Heremays had let me keep one of the robes, just as S predicted. I decided to keep the black one. The brown one makes more sense for actually wearing outside, but I think black will probably be more helpful for my whole master of darkness thing. Plus, I was already wearing it. Oh, and he let me have the glasses frames, too. He took the book back, though. Y'know, I never actually took the time to read what was on that thing. Wonder what kinda book a book  that size would even be, anyways. Eh, it was probably just a prop. 

Also, he'd agreed to patch up my normal clothes for me, too. I was concerned that, since they're from another world and all, he wouldn't be able to do it, but he actually seemed excited about it. As I handed him the clothes, he said "I've worked on much foreign clothing before, but never anything like this! Extraordinary!" He offered to do the job for free, but S and I talked him out of it. Don't get me wrong, I like free stuff, but I'd feel bad taking more freebies. It ended up costing 3 coin, which seemed rather cheap. He said he'd have it done in a day, which also surprised me.

Before we left, I headed back to the changing room to grab my stuff. It was all there, as I expected.I began shoving the cans into my pockets, but, strangely, I was out of pocket space after only a couple cans! And there was no way I was getting the toolbox in here!

Hmmm...

I guess I could just send it all back to my room back at the inn, over in Basenholm... Yeah, it'll work. Oh, but I gotta pocket my coin pouch first, naturally. I gotta pay Heremays, after all.  Hmm, it's a little lighter than I thought it was. Still have enough money to pay Heremays back, though. After I pocketed that, I put a hole under the pile of stuff, and another just above the bed in the room I'm staying in. I'll sort all that out later.

I turned to leave the changing room, but just before I did, I saw myself in the mirror once more.

I guess I have time for one more pose.

I put my hood up, looked slightly downward, closed my eyes, and reached out my arms. 

Next, I brought out my NWTs. I grinned, began chuckling, opened my eyes and looked up slowly. 

Oh yeah, baby. That's a master of darkness for ya. Well, to be, at least. 

Oh, crap I forgot to take off the glasses.