The Merge Labs were a high-tech facility in the middle of a science-focused area of the game world. According to her friend it was still a fairly new place, added in a recent update. In there, players could have themselves be merged with all kinds of objects, creatures and even other players. Natalie certainly knew what Mae liked. Just the thought of this place made her excited and her game avatar blush.
In front of the building she already spotted quite a unique assortment of people, a humantaur, a knight with a sword instead of an arm and a naked woman merged with the front of his shield, a woman with a snake growing out of her crotch and two females with different skin tones (if purple can still be considered a skin tone) in a queen-conjoinment and those were just a few examples. MaRe almost couldn't contain herself… until she realized that she had no way of finding her friend. She didn't know what she looked like in-game and she still hadn't figured out the option to have player names displayed over the characters. She could only hope 60Nain would approach her.
Then MaRe suddenly heard an unfamiliar voice calling her name. Turning to face it, the new player's jaw almost dropped to the ground.
A taur woman with the lower body of a lizard, plant vines for hair and gemstones replacing the nipples of her gigantic breasts.
“60Nain?”
The woman chuckled. “Not exactly. My username is Amalgamata, but you can just call me Amal. And here's someone who wants to meet you.”
The tail of the lizard body moved to reveal a big growth on its tip. It was a human-sized head with pink hair in a bob and bunny ears. “Hey, MaRe!” 60Nain cheerfully greeted her. “Sorry for starting without you.”
It took a rare-dropped, snake-patterned bikini armor as a present, which MaRe immediately equipped, to stop her from pouting. Following that the two and a half females entered the Merge Labs and placed themselves in front of one of the terminals.
Using her head as a pointer, she couldn't control much more, 60Nain started explaining how everything worked. “All types of merges here can be pretty much divided into two categories, controlled and random. With controlled merges you have control over everything, you choose which player, monster, NPC or object you want to merge with, they have a massive selection for the latter three, and choose how equally everything will be distributed, including control. You can share control 50/50 or become a passenger in someone else's body or vice versa.”
“Like you?” MaRe asked. “You're only a head.”
“Pretty much. Though the boobs are also mine.”
“And I’m really glad we kept them,” Amal chimed in while casually groping their gem-topped tits, eliciting some moans from her and her bodymate.
“Then there are the truly random ones, the so-called Wondermerges,” 60Nain continued her explanation. “It's completely random who or what you’ll merge with and to which degree. Though it's a great way to meet new like-minded people. We're already considering meeting up in real life.” She nuzzled Amal’s head while saying this. “You can only restrict the type of what you want to merge with, player, creature, NPC, object, if you want. In the former case only with other players, who also chose the Wondermerge. In the latter three cases it can be anything and they’ll usually be teleported here, but in the rare cases that what’s chosen is too big or strong, you’ll be teleported to its position instead and merge there. Oh yeah, if someone, who is already merged, uses it again, there's a chance that the distribution of the previous merge will be mixed up again on top of the new merge.”
“It's your first time, so I’ll take over the costs for you. What do you want to try, MaRe?”