It took all the effort Gwen could still muster to not scream as she flopped onto her couch. Another long day had come to an end, and with it her patience had worn just a bit thinner. The shit was neverending at work; always some project that had to be rushed, some disaster that had to be addressed, some long gaggle of idiots who came begging to her when they forgot their password again. That wasn't even counting yet another tech having been fired, his workload now dumped onto a dwindling IT staff, or the constant barrage of perverse comments from co-workers that she'd given up on reporting, out of the realization that HR didn't give a damn.
Put simply, she was at the limit of what she could take with this job. If it didn't pay enough for her to live comfortably, she'd have left long ago, or so she told herself - in truth, Gwen had indeed tried to find something else, and any offer she ever got ended up paying a pittance compared to her current salary. Not terribly keen on going into poverty, she had thus stuck with the nightmare that was her current employment, and not a day didn't go by without her regretting having ever joined this god-awful company in the first place.
The business-casual fashion that she'd been wearing got thrown off soon after she'd flopped onto the couch, leaving her to write around lazily in her undergarments. A few years ago, the dark-haired woman had been in excellent shape, fresh out of college with a real beach body and an excellent tan. Three straight years of constant stress, working late into the night, and secluding herself from the sun had left her pale, athleticism having given way to laziness and a depressingly average physique. Even her hair seemed to be thinner, the once-long and wavy locks having become a straight, somewhat messy affair, kept short to avoid getting snagged on things when she had to climb under desks to fix something.
Her nightly ritual proceeded as normal for a while; chew mindlessly on whatever dinner she'd picked up on the way home, go browsing job sites on her phone in the vain search for better employment, and after about ten minutes, give up to find other distractions. Having grown bored with the last random stupid microtransaction-bloodsucker of a game she'd tried, the young woman wandered over to the application store for her phone, seeking out something that would kill a bit of time before she passed out here. The usual battery of garbage seemed to be filling out the new releases, but one thing seemed to catch her eye.
Shifter. Some weird mobile RPG, probably one of those 'free to play' games that was just designed to encourage addiction and drain your wallet. To her surprise, though, there wasn't a single mention of in-app purchases - it seemed like it was a completely free game. The concept, too, seemed interesting, starting with a blank slate for your character and swapping in alterations to deal with different enemies and challenges. Shrugging, she decided to give it a download, figuring that the only thing it might end up wasting was her time.
The download was quick for what seemed like such a large game, and just as fast to launch afterwards. The first-time routine threw her straight into a surprisingly high-fidelity character customization screen; she quickly went about replicating herself, as she usually did with these sorts of games, albeit with the more attractive body she used to have before this awful job. That done, it asked for her name, before asking which theme she wanted to pursue to start. These themes seemed to be every genre of fiction under the sun; she finally settled on medieval fantasy, on a hunch that it would be the most well-developed theme.
The next half-hour sort of whiled away as she went through the tutorials, figuring out how the combat system worked. It reminded her of any of the tabletop systems she used to play, back when she wasn't too busy to make it to games. Surprisingly complex, too, for a mobile title - it had more depth to it already than some of the RPGs she'd played with friends. The thought that this might keep her entertained for a while certainly was dancing around in her head as she finally finished the tutorials, and was promptly thrust into some sort of in-game item shop. A generous sum of starting currency - currency that was earned entirely in-game, thank Christ - was available, to be spent on any of a plethora of...
Well, it had seemed like just items, but it looked like it was everything under the sun. Races, perks, skills, upgrades, equipment, consumables - absolutely anything that would be used to change or improve a character or define their stats was available here. She could imagine getting lost for hours in this selection, but thankfully, Gwen had certain defaults she liked. A few preferences that made it quite easy to track down exactly what she wanted for her character.
Race, of course, was the first thing she selected. It seemed like anything besides human was more expensive, but it was worth it to change out boring old default humankind for her favorite fantasy race. The first time she'd played a TTRPG, she'd been a half-orc, and since then Gwen hadn't played anything else if she could help it; she simply loved rolling up a spellcasting greenskin, defying those who thought orcs to be mindless brutes with her wit and mastery of the arcane. Next came equipment, with Gwen selecting a rather fetching black dress with slight spellcasting buffs, matching boots, and a pack to carry her spellbook. At this stage, it seemed she could only select some basic spells, but for now she could get by with a little acid splash, a weak healing spell, and a few light buffs.
Delving further, she found that upgrades for stats were surprisingly cheap. Naturally, she boosted anything that might be related to spellcasting, cranking up her intelligence and wisdom, with a few points tossed into dexterity and consitution. She nearly left that section before deciding to throw in some points for charisma as well - it couldn't hurt, given that there actually were quests in which talking could solve problems. As she pondered what else to pick up, her eyes were drawn to a section for bodily features; she expected to simply find new haircuts, but instead she was greeted with alterations to every single element of her character's body.
The rest of her gold ended up getting spent on some purely cosmetic changes, just to make her avatar more appealing. An alluring hairdo, featuring long, silky hair on top and shaved sides and back; a slightly more slender frame; a face she thought to be prettier, with higher cheekbones and ice-blue eyes; some extra height, pushing to six and a half feet tall; and finally just for fun, a significantly more well-endowed chest and posterior. Now completely out of starting money, she finalized her purchase, quickly switching over to the character screen to apply everything she'd bought. Gwen had to admit, the visage of her character, now transformed from a plain human to a sexy half-orc mage, was an allurring one.
She was so entranced in staring that it took her a second to notice what was wrong with her arm. Was that...?
"What the fuck?!" There was a yelp as she sat up, tossing her phone to the sofa as the game vacated her mind. It was far less important than the fact that her hand, and now her arm, was... green. Her skin tingled everywhere the hue had changed, the olive-drab color a stark contrast to the normally pale tone. Brushing furiously at the discolored section seemed to do no good; if anything, it only seemed to spread the color to her other hand.
Panic began to set in as she paced back and forth, but walking soon began to prove difficult. It felt as if her whole body was starting to stretch, being pulled out and upwards; Gwen finally had to collapse back onto the couch, watching in horrified confusion as her arms, legs and torso seemed to lengthen before her eyes. The whole of her skin was soon enveloped in the olive-green coloration, covering her from head to toe. She shut her eyes as they burned, fire spreading through them briefly before the pain subsided.
Her mouth had been hanging open, and the extra space ensured no unfortunate accidents as something began to grow from her lower jaw. Two protrusions shot out, bony in feeling, forcing her lower lip foward slightly as they curved up, reaching to the same level as her nostils. The bones in her face shifted, cheekbones rising and the overall shape slimming down. Something tickled at her back - hair, she realized, trailing down from the top, though she suddenly felt cooler along the sides and back, as if the hair there had been buzzed down.
She gripped the sides of her head as she felt it tingling, as if things were flooding into her mind. Arcane knowledge, information on the mystical and paranormal. Rituals, spells of varying uses. She gasped as she felt her mind surging with a newfound intellect, with willpower, and even with a certain sense of confidence - a natural charm that her introverted nature had never seen her possess before. There was another charge of electricty down her spine as she felt clothing form on her body, an intricate black dress and knee-high boots to match. The dress seemed to have trouble staying on, but that, she realized quickly, was only because the final change had yet to take place.
The feeling of being stretched returned, this time bringing with it excitement as it affected rather sensitive areas of her body. It began in her chest, where a pair of rather small endowments sat; Gwen moaned softly as she felt them begin to swell rapidly, gaining a great deal more mass as they filled out her dress. The loose clothing suddenly became quite tight as it was tented by her growing breasts, the bra increasing in size along with them as it kept both mounds perky and supported. The growth seemed to stop once they as big around as her head, but the stretching sensation did not vanish - it merely traveled down to her rear end, where she felt her cheeks growing out into a large, heart-shaped ass that one hand reached down to squeeze.
For a few minutes, all she could do was lay there, out of breath and dazed at the changes to her body. She had already begun to suspect what had happened as she slowly pushed herself up off the bed, but the idea still seemed impossible until she reached her bathroom and saw herself in the mirror. In every single way, the blue-eyed, raven-haired half-orc staring back at her was the character she'd created for the game, from her skin to her tusks to her hourglass figure. In awe she flicked a hand off to the side, jumping slightly as a flame erupted in response to her partial incantation. She could wield magic now!
It should have chilled her to the core, but Gwen merely found herself excited as she looked over her new form. It hadn't just changed her body - her mind felt more at ease, more relaxed... and she had to admit, she found herself pretty goddamn sexy. Granted, it'd be hard to explain this at work tomorrow, but... if the game had changed her with all the items and buffs she'd equipped, then maybe she could remove them and be returned to normal before work.
Well... normal, with a few of the less obvious changes kept around. And maybe with a few new ones - if it was an RPG, there was bound to be grinding for currency. More currency could mean more items and changes bought at the shop. She really could go wild with this... and the new confidence she felt was driving her to do just that.