“Heya friends.  Time for Heather’s Video Diary.  June sixteenth was an awesome day!  I’ve got so, so much to tell you.”  Heather grinned broadly into the camera.  She was wearing a rich velvet dress, and stood up to spin about.  The skirt was so full it flared out into a full circle at waist level.  “This dress isn’t even the half of it, or the beginning... but it is kind of the end.  Let me get started.”

She waved her arms excitedly through tales of WitchyWays, spinning it as if it was just another adventure within the phone with her usual imaginative interpretations on top.  Once she got to the duel with Flint, she stopped.  “But you’ve all heard me gush about this game before.  Nothing new, right?  WRONG!”

Heather pulled out a little silvery brick, and held it up in front of the camera.  “Meet the Technicon MT-472 RealityPlus modulator.  They sent me a free one for being one of the first to hit level 10, or so they said.  I guess they’re trying to promote it?  All I know is it’s flipping amazing.  Why?”

Heather stood up and took a step back from the camera, then extended her wings to their full wing-span.  She enabled the crow augment as she did so, growing them large enough to span the room.  “I have wings!  How cool is that!  Thanks to a couple of duels with Flint, and getting sucked into the game to be one of his combat allies... I got some buffs.  One of them even lets me get tiny enough to fly.  Check this out!”

Heather had practiced the move a few times before filming, so she knew how to cup her wings when she shrank so that she’d keep her head about the same height.  She hovered midair, then fluttered toward the camera before landing in front of it.  “I would say that was the coolest thing ever... except that was the start of my day.”

In excited tones Heather summarized the rest of the day’s adventures, ending with a description of the ‘Curse’ option in WitchyWays duels.  “So... yeah.  That last one doesn’t curse their clothes to be whatever... it turns them into clothes.  This dress I’m wearing?  This is Flint.”

Heather held up a finger.  “First safety tip when you play WitchyWays with the RealityPlus.  Always always always set your schedule, because that’s when you’ll turn back if you lose a duel.  Flint here cleared his summer schedule, so he was stuck for two months.  Curses don’t have an off switch like the other stuff.  I guess that’s kind of the point of curses, right?”

She held up another finger.  “Second safety tip.  Contracts in this game are a big deal.  Never offer terms you don’t want accepted.  And if offered terms you don’t like, immediately say ‘No’, clearly and loudly, don’t start a diatribe like I did, and accidentally accept a deal.”

Heather held up a third finger.  “And most of all, never ever use any word like ‘forever’ in a contract.  That schedule from tip one?  Gone.  Flint is stuck as a dress forever, because he made an offer that I found so ridiculous I...”  She sighed.  “Look, it doesn’t matter.  It’s not happening.  Which sucks, because I like him.  Say hi, Flint.”

“Hi Flint!” said her dress.

“And that’s how my day went.  How was yours?”

Heather reached around and turned off the camera.  After a little editing, she posted it to her channel.  “That should make a stir.”

“They’re going to think you faked those shots,” retorted Flint.

“I can’t be the only one making videos about this.  There are thousands of players, and two of us in the city both get a RealityPlus?  I bet if we go looking...”

Heather hunted about online for half an hour, and only found two other videos, neither of which showed off anything remotely as cool as wings.  “Huh.  Day one.  There will be more.”

“Unless the others got cursed and can’t go home to post videos,” grumbled Flint.

“Hey, you’re the one that made the stupid offer.”

“Aw c’mon, it wouldn’t kill you.”

Heather muted Flint, hung him up in the closet, made sure his vision was off, then shut the door.  Then she climbed into bed and wished for the thousandth time that she was capable of what Flint wanted.  She’d heard good things about orgasms, they certainly sounded nice...

*** *** ***

The next day, Heather left her new dress in the closet, and went out walking once more.  She encountered a pair of duel offers, but they were people playing purely on the phone.  The two girls were friends, walking around the neighbourhood together, and both battles were easy wins.  Heather didn’t even need to bring out the deer.  Laser-eyed squirrels proved more than enough.

Despite the losses, both of the girls she’d beaten were thrilled to see the powerful allies Heather had, so she summoned up the deer... only to find their eyes going very wide indeed when an elk-sized creature with metal barding appeared out of thin air in front of them.  Apparently Flint had applied a few augments to her allies while he’d had the chance.

“How did you do that?” breathed one.

With a snap of her fingers Heather dismissed the creature, and waved it off as an illusion.  “Follow my channel and you’ll see.”  Both of them dutifully noted down the address in their phones, eager to learn more tips about the game.

Heather walked to the mall, and well past it, then back around again.  Her legs didn’t tire, but it felt like such a waste of time.  She could fly, what was she doing on the ground?  She hid among trees in a nearby park, called up her crow augment before the others, and a small black bird was soon soaring through the sky, ignored by everyone below.  From her vantage point, Heather found many interesting things to harvest, and she took the time to pick up some of the wire and metal scraps from Flint’s lists as well.

By lunchtime she’d circled back home, and landed in her back yard.  It was sufficiently overgrown to hide her return to normal, and she double-checked that she’d suppressed her wings before heading back into the house.

“Any luck?” asked her mother.

“Lots of stuff for the game.  I didn’t put any resumes out.  Just... it feels like I should be doing something else.”

“Maybe you should be doing it with somebody else?” asked her mother.

Heather slouched against the kitchen wall.  “I know!  I wish I could free Flint, I really really do.  But the contract is unbreakable.”

“Surely you can...”

Heather growled, and there was more than a hint of wild power behind it. “No.  I can’t.”  She stomped off to her bedroom, but didn’t slam the door.

Heather yanked the closet door open, and unmuted Flint once more.  “Hey.  Sorry about that.”

Flint shrugged his sleeves.  “About what?  Oh, did you shut me off again?”

Heather chuckled weakly.  “Yeah.  Overnight.  I didn’t want you watching me sleep.”

“Oh come on, you’ll do it with me off, but not wearing me?  That’s not fair.”

Heather sputtered at the accusation.  “I didn’t masturbate!  I just slept.”

“After a day like we had, you didn’t...”

“I can’t!” hissed Heather.  “I’ve tried, I can’t... it just doesn’t work.”

“Oh.  Oh hell.  I am sorry, that sucks.”

Heather snorted.  “Sucks even more for you.”

The dress shrugged.  “Being worn is nice.  You should wear me more often.”

“You’ll get dirty, maybe even torn,” fretted Heather.

“I’m sure you’ve got cleaning and mending spells somewhere in that grimoire of yours.  Right?”

Heather’s gaze was distant, and then she nodded.  “Yeah.  Oooh, hey, here’s one for changing your colour.”

“Cool.  Does it only work on things, or could you turn your brother purple?”

“Possessions,” said Heather distractedly, before gesturing at Flint.  The dress shimmered, becoming striated with swirling patterns in blue and black.  “Oooh, nice!”

At Flint’s request, she put him back on and posed in the mirror so he could see how he looked.  “Very nice.  But variegated greens might suit your colours better.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”  Heather absently gestured at herself, with the intent of keeping the shading patterns but changing all the colours to green.

Flint started giggling the moment she was done.  “Did you mean to recolour yourself, too?  You look like the Wicked Witch of the West.”

Heather shrieked as she saw her green face, then started to laugh along with Flint.  “Good thing I can cancel it.  I’d hate to have to rely on my own artistic skills to get my face looking right.”

“Come on, you at least have to try.  I want to see!”

Heather spent the next hour trying on different skin colours, then working on refining the colour changing to get herself looking almost natural again.  Flint suggested she try adding built-in makeup, and eventually Heather settled on a look that felt only the slightest bit artificial... and had the distinct advantage that none of her makeup would run.

When Flint suggested tinkering with her eye colour, Heather agreed... and promptly blinded herself by colouring the lens of her eye black, instead of her iris.

“Calm down, calm down!” called Flint.  “You can deal with this.  First thing, can you still sense the interface?  It’s some kind of magic, so...”

Heather shook her head.  “It’s all gone.”

“Okay, okay.  How long does the recolouring thing last?”

Heather stumbled back to her bed, and sat heavily on it.  “I don’t remember.”

“Not permanent, though?  So you could in theory wait it out.”

“I don’t know.  It could have been weeks or months, I didn’t really look.”

Flint hummed softly to himself.  “Oh!  Could you bring up WitchyWays on your phone?  I can’t see the RealityPlus stuff, but the phone interface should still be visible, right?”

Heather pulled her phone out of her pocket, and unlocked it by touch.  “It’s worth a try.”

They went slowly, and had a few minor missteps along the way, but eventually Flint guided her to the text of palette spell.  “Hah,” he exclaimed at last.  “Default is only an hour, and you’re still on default.  Can you wait it out?  We’re probably halfway through that already.”

Heather bit her lip, then nodded.  She tucked her phone away.  “So.  What can we do for half an hour to pass the time?”

“I can think of one thing,” said Flint in a corny attempt at a husky voice.

“Flint!”

“Oh come on, loss of sight is supposed to improve other senses, right?”  Flint wriggled the sleeves of the dress, teasing them over Heather’s arms, and she shivered.

“You can’t actually be serious.”

Flint stopped moving.  “Look, I don’t want to be stuck as a dress forever.  You don’t want it either.”

“But we only met yesterday!” protested Heather.

A shrug rippled the fabric over Heather’s shoulders, triggering another shiver.  “You yourself said that yesterday counted for at least four dates.  You fought a killer whale for me.  Then I managed to give it back as a gift.  Do you even know what that gift does?”

Heather shook her head.  “No.  I’m scared to try it here, it made me huge.  God, imagine that plus turning the size augment up all the way.  I’d be as big as a ferry.”

“You could be a new tourist attraction, if the whale-watchers can’t find whales...”

Heather giggled.  “See the enormous whale-mermaid.  Pray she doesn’t decide you look tasty.”

Flint snickered along with her.  “No eating the paying customers.  Or the boyfriends.”

“Oh, so you’re my boyfriend now?”

“We’re on our fifth or sixth date, and I’m currently touching your bra.  Don’t suppose you’d be willing to take it off?”

Heather growled and pulled her dress off instead.  “Seriously?”  She gave it a shake.  “If I could see your icons you’d be so muted you’d be just a dress again.”

Flint had no response to that.  Or to anything else Heather said.  Or to being poked, or threatened with retailoring.  It wasn’t until Heather’s vision finally cleared that she could see why.  There was a new glyph superimposed over him, one that she could clearly tell meant ‘off’.  She started to reach for it, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes.  “Come back, Flint.”

“Hey, you’re normal colour again.  Did you figure out how to remove spells while blind?”

“No, but I learned how to shut you up without using the app.”  Heather fished out her phone, and turned it completely off.  “I can still see the glyphs on you.  What’s happening?”

“Can you turn off your RealityPlus thingy?”

Heather dug it out, and checked.  “There’s only the sync button.”

Flint suggested checking out the manual to see if other options existed.  Heather hadn’t seen a manual, just a quick-start slip, so she turned on her computer to check for an online manual.

That was when she noticed her video channel had more notifications than the summary could display.  “Uh...  What is all this?”  She opened the messaging tab to find page after page of comment notifications.

The dress in her lap shrugged its sleeves.  “I guess your video went viral.  I don’t suppose your channel is monetized?”

“What?  Yeah, not that I get much from it.  I’ve got like... a hundred followers.”

“Check again.”

Heather swore inventively.  “When did this happen?  And... that’s a lot of direct messages, too.”

“Maybe the one from Technicon is worth checking out?”

Heather nodded dazedly and clicked on it.  “They want to use my video to promote their stuff.  I should call, see what the deal is.”

That call went on for over an hour, and touched on many things.  There were a lot of questions about her story, of all the things she’d done far more quickly than they’d anticipated.  Megafauna hadn’t even been on the roadmap, so the encounter with the killer whale was a focus for some time.

Once they’d stopped asking questions, Heather had a few of her own.  First was whether or not they were going to take away her ‘capture’ via patching it out.  That got some nervous chuckles and an outright denial.  Then she asked if there were any ways to end curses early, once a contract was accepted.  That triggered a whole new round of questions when she told them the timer on Flint’s curse had gone away.

There were a lot of apologies, and some comments about making such things require an extra confirmation step.  They promised to “look into it” which sounded like they didn’t know any more about what was going on than Heather herself did.

Eventually, they settled on a very handsome sum for the nonexclusive right to use Heather’s video as a promotional video, and offered further payments if she should happen to make more videos on the topic.

When the call was over, Heather turned back to her account.  There were so many messages she didn’t know what to do.  Flint suggested checking out her account page to get a sense of the scale, finding staggering numbers of subscribers, and an account balance that more than matched the payment Technicon had offered.

“I think I may have undersold myself,” murmured Heather.  “What should I do now?”

“You could do a live show,” suggested her dress.  “If you let people suggest things to do, and do it right then and there live, it’ll prove it’s not special effects.  Maybe do a little video first to announce it so people know when, and answer a few of the more common questions there?”

Heather scooped Flint up in her arms and gave him a hug.  “That’s a great idea.  And I know just what to wear for the video, too.”

“Me?” asked Flint hopefully.

“I’ve got to show off the colour thing, right?  Aww, all the pattern work I did is gone.  Want to stick with the basics, or go fancy?”

“Fancy... but start basic.  Show off a little.  Or a lot.  You could recolour your hair while you’re at it.”

Heather nodded, and set up her camera.  Then she wriggled her way into Flint, trying and failing to suppress a moan at the feel of his fabric sliding over her chest.

“Someone’s kept their robin enhancement going,” chuckled Flint.

Heather growled at him, but didn’t mute him.  “I like it.  It feels nice, and I like having breasts worthy of the name.  I’m just glad it resizes my bra, too.”

“You’re welcome.”

“For what?” asked Heather.

“I boosted all your augments while you were my familiar.  Robin, too.  Want to see what else you can do with it?”

Heather’s growl was more dangerous this time, so Flint promised to be good while the video was recording.

Heather took a few deep breaths to center herself, ignored Flint’s giggle, and smiled for the camera.

“Hiya everyone!  Heather here with another video diary and some updates.  There are so many more subscribers now, I can’t even begin to thank you all for your interest.  I’ve got a few new tricks to show off, and a few things to ask.  So let’s get on with it!”

Heather spun about to show her dress off.  “As you can see, I’m wearing Flint again.  He’s an absolutely amazing dress, I totally recommend using the dress curse if you get the chance.”

“So do I!” added Flint.  “Being a dress is all kinds of cozy, and being owned feels amazing.”

“Until you’re yourself again,” cautioned Heather.  “Then you get retroactive heebie jeebies at just how insidious it is.  Thankfully you can’t change your schedule while you’re owned, or...”  She shook her head.  “Remember tip number one, folks.  Always have a schedule set.”

“Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to show off.  Flint’s a lovely shade of green that looks awesome on me, but what if I want something other than a green dress?  That’s where the Polychromatic Potion comes in handy.  If you have one in inventory, you can apply its effect to any possession.  So if I think Flint would look prettier in pink...”  A gesture spilled a rich purple over her dress, with swirls and curlicues of pale pink woven through.  “Tada!”

Heather spun once again to show off her handiwork.  “Detail work like this takes practice, simple recolours are much easier.  Now that I have a pattern, I can turn the sleeves green...  Oopsie!” giggled Heather.  She held up her hands, showing they’d gone just as green as her sleeves had.

“You can colour yourself, too.  But a big word of warning on this one – dial the duration down before you start messing with your own coloration.   You can bump it up later when you’re happy with it, but it’s best if mistakes go away on their own.  This goes doubly so for eye colours.  Very easy to blind yourself, then you can’t see the spellbook.  Luckily, the default duration is an hour, so I was able to wait it out.”

Heather ran her fingers through her hair, and as she did so, it was as if the green from them was rubbing off, creating stripes of green among the brown.  She gave her hair a shake out, and played with the ends where they brushed her shoulders, making the green there richer.  “Instant makeover.  I like the look so a little focus... and there.  Permanent, but easy enough to revert later.  I strongly recommend memorizing the revert glyph, by the way.  If you get good enough at visualizing it, you can remove spells without looking at the grimoire.”

Heather closed her eyes, and her dress faded back to its usual green colour.  “See?”

Heather next spent a few minutes showing off her Robin enhancement, reducing her breasts to their usual size before growing them out again.  She bumped herself up a cup size over where she’d started the video, then giggled.  “And that’s nowhere near the limit, from what I can see.  But I’ll save that demo for another video.  There’s one more cool thing to show off...”

Heather looked around the room, and grabbed the duvet off her bed.  “This should do.”  She started stuffing it down the front of her dress until it was all gone.  She turned around to show her profile hadn’t changed.  “Flint, the dear, gave me a portable hole between my breasts.  Awesome, huh?”

“Okay, now I get to ask you guys some stuff.  First, I see all kinds of questions, and a lot of claims that I’m faking all this with CGI.  Nope, all real... but I can see where you’d be skeptical.  So I’m going to do a live show tomorrow.  Question one is: what time works best for you all?  I’ll put up a poll, and if there’s enough interest I’ll do a couple shows at the two most popular times.  Question two is more open-ended.  If you guys have any particular tricks or tips you want me to show off, ask.  I’ll try to get through all the comments before the show tomorrow, and I’ll post the schedule first thing tomorrow morning, my time.”

Heather waved at the camera cheerily, flaring out her wings to show off.  “And remember.  The Technicon RealityPlus is the most amazing thing since the word amazing was invented... and set your schedules!”

Heather cut the recording, then turned to her computer to do a little post-processing.  She explained what she was doing to Flint as she worked, mostly trimming the extraneous bits at the start and end, then going through the rest for any obvious glitches, audio issues or wardrobe malfunctions.  She boosted the audio of a couple spots where she was talking away from the mic, and asked Flint if he had anything to suggest.

“It looks great.  You’re a natural at this.”

“Helps that I’ve been doing this for a year.  Of course, most of them were pretty boring in comparison.”

She posted the video, then at Flint’s request dug up some of her older videos.  First she went back to replay the one where she first started playing WitchyWays, and they both giggled when three-weeks-ago Heather wished the game was real.  Next, Heather went all the way back to the beginning, a very stuttery first video diary.

“You’ve gotten a lot more confident,” said Flint after the short segment was done.  “And you’re cuter without the braces.”

“God, I’d forgotten about those.  I should take those videos down.”

“No!” protested Flint.  “Look at the hits you're getting on it.”

Heather blanched at the count.  It was going up quickly.  “Nooo.  All my fans are going to see...  I guess it’s too late.”

“Check the comments.”

Heather put a hand over her eyes, peeking through her fingers as she scrolled down to the comments.  She winced at a few of them, then her hand dropped from her face.  “That’s...  This can’t be right.  They’re being... nice?  Why?  That doesn’t happen.”

Flint snickered.  “You’re the most powerful person in WitchyWays by a huge margin.  Some might be trying to curry favour.  I bet there are some interesting offers in your messages.”

“I’m afraid to look.”

“You should, though.  There’s a new one from Technicon.”

Heather read that first, eyes widening at the size of the transfer it promised.  She checked her bank balance, and shook her head.  “This isn’t the sort of thing that’s sustainable.  I wish...”

“Careful,” said her dress.  “Wishes might be a thing.”

Heather nodded, and started into the rest of her messages.  She stopped after the first few asked where the polls were and set up the polls she’d promised.

Then she kept going.  Many of the messages were supportive, some were obviously driven by jealousy and got deleted at Flint’s urging.  One begged to lose a duel with her and become her shoes.  “Should I answer him?” mused Heather.

“Sure.  Being your dress is great, but I’ll share closet space if you want to collect some fans.  Just remember.  I’m your first and best.”

Heather patted Flint over her chest.  “The very best.”

The shoe offer wasn’t the only one.  The requests to be her panties and bra she deleted without response, but the offer to be her socks seemed to pair nicely with the shoes.  She sent a reply to both at once, offering to wear them together.

About five minutes later, two duel requests popped up in her field of view, tagged with the names “Jimmy the shoes” and “Neil-high socks”.

Heather bit her lips, then accepted both duels at once.  Two ghostly figures appeared in front of her, and neither summoned any allies.  Her armored deer nudged each one in turn, and both turned into brighter shimmers of light.  She cursed each in turn, and smiled as a pair of comfy looking running shoes and a pair of green knee-high socks sparkled into existence in front of her.  “Well.  How long did you two give me?”

Heather chuckled when she saw both of them were good for the next eight hours.  “Until midnight?  I’m not going to wear you to bed, but I think it’d be a good time for a wee ramble.”

Heather unmuted both of them, but told them only to speak if they objected, and that if neither spoke up she’d mute them again, and pretend they were just the objects they appeared to be.  She didn’t hear a peep out of either, so she was good to her word.

After a long ramble about the neighbourhood that produced a variety of unchallenging encounters and opportunities to harvest minor ingredients, Heather returned home for dinner.  Once again, she wore Flint to the table, and he participated in the usual dinnertime discussions.  When Heather told her parents how much she’d made off the last two videos, they were very pleased for her.

“Time to start paying rent,” joked her father.

“Of course.  I could cover back rent for the past year, or just since the college shut down...”

Her father shook his head.  “No, that’s fine.  Some help going forward is plenty.  Our jobs didn’t get affected much.”

Heather nodded.  “Okay.  Um... what should I do with the rest of it?  I have enough for a niceish used car, but I don’t really need one.”

“Why not?”

“I can fly.  Fast enough I was passing traffic on the highway.”

“Set it aside, then.  Savings account, mutual funds, I’ll walk you through it.  You’ll want to figure out your tax liabilities, too.”

“Ugh.  Is this one of those adult conversations?” asked Heather, then she grinned.

Her parents chuckled.  “Welcome to adulthood,” said her father.  “It gets a little easier with practice, but ‘fake it until you make it’ was never truer.”

Heather narrowed her eyes.  “You guys are winging it?  But you’re parents!”

That got outright laughter.  “Nobody’s ready to be a parent.  You grow up a lot when you have to deal with kids,” said her mother.  “Or other dependents.”

Heather glanced down at her dress.  She sighed.  “Yeah.  I’ll figure this out, honest I will.”

“Just try your best, honey.  That’s all anyone can ever ask.”