Everything was still there, but... different. The eggshell walls and their scattered bits of decor were now satin-sheened wallpaper, a twisting knotwork design of royal blue on pale azure; the furniture all changed to match, now dark wood with upholstery and drapes and rug of similar blues, with more than a few hints of metallic gold. Every single item remained exactly where it was and visible, but the atmosphere was completely different, now suggesting a somewhat old-fashioned elegance and wealth.

Marisa reached out in wonder to run a hand over the couch she was still sitting on, and found that the familiar rough fabric now felt like velvet.

Under... her white hand with orange and grey splotches.

And a cuff around her wrist, with a sturdy-looking D-ring built into it. It was thick soft woven fabric, graphite-grey with hearts and pawprints in several shades of pink, and there was no obvious way to remove it.

There was one around the other wrist, too. She looked down at herself, and her eyes widened.

“Oh, come on, I’m wearing next to nothing! And I really didn’t change anything except colour and hair and the kitty stuff! I can’t do anything like this!” She groped for one of the fleece blankets they left folded on the back of the couch, although now it looked more like a beautifully-crocheted afghan, and clutched it around herself.

Where had the outfit come from, anyway?

And what kept jingling madly every time she moved?

“Oh, stop,” Harley laughed. “It’s a game, Ris, and you look absolutely adorable. I’ve seen you with no clothes on and I’m the only one here.”

Harley?

Marisa blinked, and did a double-take. “You made a female avatar? A female... dragon avatar?”

“I told you I was going to test what it could do.” Harley stood up and stretched, and Marisa felt her eyes go wide again, for a completely different reason. “How do I look?”

“Uh... like you, well, sort of, but... wow.” Words simply failed.

“Well, that sounds positive.” That was Harley’s voice, but there was a subtle alteration to it that she couldn’t quite define. It wasn’t higher, and she’d still know it anywhere, but... it fit with the rest of the look.

The lines of Harley’s face had smoothed out into refined beauty, enhanced by dark red lips and darkened eyes, though it was more or less Harley’s own light-brown skin beneath. Dark brown hair had deepened to near-black and gained distinctly red highlights, and it was much longer, pulled into a single high tail that must reach at least the middle of her back; a gold chain anchored to it crossed her forehead, with an ornament in the centre set with glittering red stones, matched by the heavy-looking elaborate earrings and necklace.

And it just continued: possibly the curves were enhanced by the boning in that dress, which appeared to be black leather and must weigh an awful lot, but it seemed unlikely that any clothing could do all that. The neck was high, with a substantial cutout allowing a glimpse of cleavage, and it left both shoulders bare, though there were drapy sleeves that stopped at her elbows on top but fell much farther at the bottom. The skirt was open for the width of Marisa’s hand at the waist, exposing more black covering, well, naughty bits, and boots up to just below her knees, with imposingly-high heels.

That she’d indulged in fantasy options too wasn’t even the most astonishing, but the result was definitely striking, especially in concert with the rest. Most of her exposed skin was covered by scales of the most intense red Marisa thought she’d ever seen, shimmering with highlights of a very deep purple that verged on black with every breath and every motion she made. Wings arched behind her, much too small to ever lift anything with human mass but they certainly fit with the rest, the limbs and supporting fingers darker and the membrane much brighter, but all that vivid red.

Harley flexed her elbow a couple of times, ran her fingertips over her lower arm where scales hid her tattoo, and then inspected one hand. Delicately-articulated gold covered the back of both red-scaled hands, extended out onto each finger and ending in a pointed claw longer than any practical fingernail. “Oh, the fun I could have with these on some lucky soul’s skin... Anyway. This is a genuinely impressive illusion. The visual effects are absolutely amazing—I wanted to see how it did the scales, and that isn’t just flat colour. It’s reacting smoothly at joints without any texture weirdness. And it doesn’t just look real, it feels real. Presumably due to the mind-witch aspect actually convincing senses other than sight that what we see is what’s actually there, the witchy version of haptic feedback, but altering self-perception and making it this convincing is actually deeper than I expected. Remind me to do some research on that later.”

“Yes, Mistress.” Marisa clapped both hands over her mouth. Where had that come from?

Harley raised an arched eyebrow. “That fits with the really cute catgirl look, but I’m guessing you didn’t intend to say that.”

“No, M...” She tried to keep herself from saying it, but as soon as she stopped biting her lower lip, it slipped out. “Mistress. What the hell? I didn’t tell it I wanted to be a submissive catgirl!”

“Maybe, like I said, it all has to do with the gameplay it’s created. I promise not to tie you up and ravish you, although it would be very hard not to at least consider it, with you looking like that. I’ll be good.”

“How am I supposed to concentrate on the game when I look like a character out of someone’s online harem fantasy?”

As near as she could tell, ears and tail and hair were all as she’d chosen. The ears and tail felt oddly natural, like they’d always been there and were just... comfortable; she could even tell that her ears had partly flattened themselves in distress, and her tail was trying to swish as much as it could while she was sitting on the couch. The colours of her skin looked right to her. Was the game messing with her mind?

That she could adapt to, but she was underdressed to the point of virtual indecency. For her videos, she made a point of dressing well but casually and modestly, and her everyday clothes when she expected to be around anyone else were similar. This was... well, all black, and something glossy and tight that stretched so easily when she moved that she could hardly feel it at all, but there was an awful lot of bare calico skin showing.

The cropped top had wide straps over her shoulders, and it pushed her mid-sized breasts up and into sight to a degree that made her as worried that she was going to just fall out of it as she was self-conscious about feeling like they were on display; she could even see the shape of her nipples through the shiny black. Narrow flat steel chains linked the lower edge to what passed for a skirt: it sat low on her hips, and was barely long enough that with her knees together, nothing showed up between her legs. The top of it, she discovered, dipped lower at the back, barely touching the crack of her bottom, to accommodate her tail without restricting it at all. Further chains served as garter straps down to black sheer stockings with a black frill-edged ribbon around the top. At least her ankle boots had only moderate heels, but that seemed like a trivial blessing.

And something kept jingling whenever she so much as twitched. She reached up and found that she was wearing a collar with a round bell at the front.

She pulled the afghan back around her, blushing furiously. “I don’t think I can do this, Mistress. And saying that without meaning to isn’t helping!”

Harley laughed. “Ris, relax. It’s a game, and I’m the only one here. Just play along with it. We promised Claudia we’d give it a good test run, right? That it gave you an avatar that you aren’t comfortable with is important feedback, but you’re not really going to let that stop you from checking out the rest, are you? If it starts off like this, imagine what it’s going to be like once we’re actually doing stuff.”

Marisa sighed. “All good points, M... Mistress. Damn it. Maybe I can find a shirt to wear over this, or something.” This was just absolutely not her! A few private daydreams—okay, maybe more than a few recently, while she’d been too busy to meet potential new romantic partners and build a relationship—unequivocally did not mean that they were anything she wanted to ever do!

“I’m not sure it’s going to let you...”

Both phones, still visible lying on the couch, began to flash and chime.

Marisa picked up her own; Harley leaned over to retrieve hers.

This is for you alone to read, Marisa.

Welcome to Reverie: Ambition!

Harley is a leading member of a powerful draconic family. You have been serving her long enough to have worked your way to the position of her trusted handmaid, privy to her most intimate secrets. She has, in turn, made certain that you are safe, comfortable, and well cared for.

Recently, however, you have had reason to believe that she has been keeping secrets from you. There have been rumours of an upheaval within the hierarchy of the family, which could lead to immense changes. It is not certain whether your mistress’ goals still include your wellbeing, nor whether your priorities are still in alignment.

Your mistress has come to this tower seeking a legendary crown, in hopes that it will allow her to claim the highest position of power within the family, but there are dark rumours of the price required in order to claim it. There are rumours, as well, that within the tower lies a magical key which would offer you complete freedom, the opportunity to be independent and have no further need to work for your current mistress.

What choices you make on the way there and once you acquire it, if you do, are entirely up to you. Reverie: Ambition creates an open platform in which you are at liberty to make any choices you wish within the situation presented, and will adjust accordingly. Harley has the same liberty. Whether you each prefer cooperation, competition, or some combination, you pick your own path.

“Did you just get backstory?” Marisa asked. “And a speech about the freedom to choose what to do?”

“Yes,” Harley said. “Despite there being a stated goal, it’s pretty much completely open-world, and that’s fascinating. It reminds me a bit of a live-action or tabletop RPG, but instead of a living game master who planned the general scenario in advance but improvises based on player actions, it’s a novel engine in its own device that’s adapting its planned course in realtime. It’ll be interesting to see how well it succeeds at keeping it immersive and genuinely customizing it. For the moment, I think we might have to at least begin by working together, because leaving this room is going to be a bit of a challenge.”

“What?”

“Look at the doors.”

Marisa looked hastily at the wide open doorway to the dining room, since she couldn’t properly see the one to the front hallway from here.

It wasn’t simply a frame-edged gap that took up most of the wall between the rooms anymore. It was closed off with a tight lattice of brightly-shining blue metal strips, and there was a rectangular golden plate across the centre. Even from here, she could recognize it as a puzzle of some sort.

“I think we need to just treat it as any other game, Ris. I’m not looking at you, I’m looking at a fantasy image based on you, just as much as what you’re seeing when you look at me. So, for the moment, I’m a literal dragon-lady and that’s just about as real as you being a submissive catgirl, and we need to figure out what the point of the game is. Okay? Deep breath.”

Marisa closed her eyes, trying to rearrange all that in her head, and belatedly obeyed and took a deep breath. Harley made perfect sense.

“True. Actually, thinking of it as a LARP might help with feeling so damned self-conscious. Although nothing in the world would ever get me to dress like this for a group of gamers. But if I treat it as a role to play, maybe not so bad.”

“Glad to hear it, because it’s going to be a lot less fun if you aren’t having fun, and feeling uncomfortable would make that hard.”

“But I’m still going to try to find a shirt once we can leave this room.” With a second deep breath, she let go of the blanket. She’d played games before with avatars that were scantily-dressed women—rogues and warriors in what passed for armour, and that kind of thing. She’d just never had such a sense of identity with an avatar before. “All right. Speaking of which, though, you’re extremely comfortable, looking like that. I mean, I saw you do Cruella de Vil for Hallowe’en, and you had Elaine dress as a Dalmatian, which was cute and really well done, but nothing other than that. You realize that if you actually like girl clothes or something, or even more than that, I’m absolutely behind you, right?”

“Don’t read anything into it. The odd item in my closet doesn’t mean anything and neither does this. I just wanted to test Reverie’s capabilities. Which turn out to be impressive, obviously. I can judge your mood by what your ears and tail are doing.” She chuckled. “Although if we’re potentially going to be against each other, maybe I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Okay. Whatever you say. But I can’t help using girl pronouns in my head for you right now.”

“Fair enough.” Harley dropped to one knee in front of what had been their TV but was now a large mirror with an ornate frame. “Huh. Very nice job. I really like that a lot.”

Marisa moved over to join her.

Her own lips were a matte grey-black, and her eyes were heavily lined with the same colour, extending into tear-lines down from the inner corners and outwards from the outer corners, though she saw no other signs of makeup. No jewellery, either, just the collar that matched the cuffs on her wrists, grey with pink hearts and pawprints, and the bell on the ring at the front was bright metallic pink.

Marisa rolled her eyes. “Pink. Oh, please. And you’ll certainly be able to find me just by listening. All right. Let’s see what comes next.”