Without a clue to really start, Troy went to his desk. He still had a job to do, only now he also had to be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. At least more so than the pixies, fairies, gnomes, centaurs, half-orcs, elves and more were running around. The office seemed to have been setup more like a DnD tavern than an actual office building. However, everyone was still running around doing their jobs just like normal.
Troy needed a minute to really take it all in. After seeing his boss, turned into a dwarf, he had to go and hide in the lunch room. The thing is, Mr. Anderson still looked like Mr. Anderson. Only about 3 feet shorter and twice as wide. His normally trim white beard had grown down past his chest and any place where hair grew normally looked to be grown well past what a man of his stature should be. He even wore the same type of suit, even though his body seemed to be stuff inside of it. The more fat covered muscles gained from years of not being able to properly play a sport and eating much more red meat, he refined themselves. But even more surprising was the watch he was wearing. Normally it was one of the most expensive you could buy. Something upwards $10,000 easy. But this one almost looked handmade. Almost like he made it himself.
"I don't get it..." Troy held the back of his neck, massaging it ever so lightly.
"Something the matter Troy?" a deep gruff voice asked him. Troy looked up to see a massive half-orc staring down at him, holding a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Something in his mind was telling him this was Greg Matherson. Same as Mr. Anderson, Greg wore his normal types of clothes. Just some nice khaki pants with a nice button down of a different color nearly everyday. Fridays he'd switch it to a polo, though he still looked just as stuffy as always. Though, right now, it was completely different. With the half-orc's muscular body, the shirt fit nicely on his body, perfectly sculpted to his wide shoulders. Now the black leather belt he wore made a little bit of sense as his normally small, thin frame could easily fit in any type of pants, but now with his thick legs and thin waist compared to his gargantuan height, he needed it to hold up. Not to mention how the dark green color of his skin perfectly contrasted the lighter red of his shirt and the khaki color of his pants.
Troy let out a sigh. "No... Just a bit of a headache..."
"Want some coffee?" Greg asked. He'd gone over and grabbed another mug from the cabinets. "Usually the best case for the Mondays." Adding a laugh as he did so. Troy was a bit impressed watching the sharp lower fangs not puncture his upper mouth. Though, if this was reality, then Greg wouldn't be able to exist any other way. "How was your weekend?" he asked as he sat down, taking a sip from his coffee.
"Surprisingly good..." Troy answered. "Just got a new book--" then stopped himself. "And a game that I've been testing out. Otherwise nothing too exciting. How about you?"
"Good. It was good," he said. "Did DnD on Friday then hung out with a couple of people from the office on Saturday. Then relaxed in my gym on Sunday." The first one sounded right. Troy knew that Greg went to DnD all the time. It was one of the few things that he talked about. But the other two were way off. He wasn't all that much of a social butterfly and barely even being 130 pounds wet, he sure as hell didn't have a gym in his house. Though, being a massive half-orc, I'm sure lifting heavy boulders was a lot more fun to do now.
"How was DnD?" Troy quickly asked.
"Oh? It was good," a smile instantly appeared on Greg's orcish face. "We had an awesome time. We were going to go to an underwater dungeon but then Ken was all like, 'I can't swim.' "All cause he's Leonin. And it's like he didn't have to be able to swim, only take an underwater breathing potion and sink to the bottom. So, then he's all like, 'but my character's afraid of the water.' Now we all groan as he's purposefully trying to stall us now. But him being a 'big scaredy cat' was really starting to bite us in the ass. So then Alex is all like, 'what if I give you a potion of bravery?' Well! no such thing exists!" he bangs the table laughing insanely hard at the 'joke.' "So he goes to a tavern, gets the strongest alcohol he can find, then tells Ken to drink it. Ken does and acts like a drunken idiot for the rest of a session."
Troy makes sure to scoot back a smidge to maintain a distance from Greg's massive hands as they flung around while he told his story. All the while faking a laugh as Greg's loud booming voice echoed off the small cafeteria. Greg didn't seem to mind his possible nuisance and only laughed louder when he came to the conclusion of the story. "Oh! Sounds like a great time!" Troy forced as genuine of a smile he could as went for more information. "Who all went?"
"Hmmm?" Greg tilted his head, but then answered. He made sure to count each of them with his green fingers. "Well... You know Ken and Harry, and Ben but there's also Barry and Emile too. It was Ben's first time going so we kind of had to show him the ropes." He paused really trying to think as though he left someone out. "Oh yeah! And Mark's our DM."
"Wait. Ben the security guard?"
"Yeah!" Greg nodded. "I was kind of surprised but Mark insisted that he came. Said that he really wanted to try out something new. But then got all weird acting like he made me a half orc or Ben into a minotaur." Greg started chuckling to himself again. "Just cause we wanted to play those races and are them doesn't mean he did anything about it. Sometimes that guy's fantasy can get the better of him... But he was really all in on it as he came dressed as an Elf. Full on long hair, pointed ears and I don't know how he was making it look like he lost all that weight. Like he looked just like an elf. So weird..."
"Yeah... Weird..." Troy added. "Anyways..." he slapped the table and stood up, "Best be getting back to work. Thanks for the chat." Then held up the mug, "and coffee." Greg wished him a good day and went to the newspaper. Though on Troy's way out, he saw that Greg was looking the opposite way and whispered, "Shape," thinking specifically about a human. However, nothing happened. He continued to be a massive green half-orc, sipping on his coffee. Troy didn't have much time, so he quickly added, "Half" thinking about bear ears. Instantly the green pointed ears on the sides of Greg's head started to round out. Brown fur covered them as they slowly drifted to the top of his head. He absentmindedly scratched at them but went back to reading the newspaper. "Shape," Troy was quick to add again thinking of a human. But all that happened was that Greg's ears returned to being green, pointed and on the sides of his head.
"So weird..." Troy muttered to himself as he headed to his desk. Now he had to be on the lookout for Mark. It wasn't going to be hard for him to find Mark, as they shared a cubicle wall, but that didn't mean that if Mark cast a spell on him then everyone would know something was up. Troy quickly dropped down into his cubicle to hide. Though, he could already hear a frustrated Mark on the other side as he said, 'Shift.'
Troy ducked in cover, grabbing his desk tightly, waiting for something to happen. Then nothing. He was still human. But what about Mark? And could he really hide all day from a coworker who was literally within arm's reach? Not to mention a bit of curiosity was taking over Troy. What did an elvish Mark actually look like? He was basically a big cuddly teddy bear in human form. Being somewhat tall and a bit overweight gave him an incredibly soft presence. But he made sure to grow out his reddish beard and did his best to look as masculine as possible. Due to his size, he'd oftentimes even try to assert his dominance, though he often looked more silly than tough.
Slowly, Troy took to looking over the cubicle wall. He stared down to see a tall, slender long haired elven man sitting in Mark's spot. His hair was bright red and any masculine features of the bear Troy knew were replaced with tight, thin, and pointed angles. Though none of the clothes he was wearing fit him right at all. They looked like they needed another hundred pounds on him if he actually wanted to wear them. "Everything alright?" Troy asked. "I thought I heard you say 'shit'..."
Mark instinctively tightened up, grabbing the book and holding it against his chest. "No!" he quickly said. "Just... Uhh... That's not what I said. But," he quickly tried to turn his attitude more friendly, "Notice anything different about me?"
Troy stared. The absolute flamboyant arrogance of this man. Did he not know the rules or was he just really REALLY wanting to be an elf? Troy REALLY wanted to be an anthrolion or tiger or bear or wolf or anything else but there was no way in hell he was about to do anything close to that without knowing full well that he wouldn't get into trouble. Despite the anger he was feeling, Troy tried to keep it as professional as possible, pretending like he didn't know. "Are you cosplaying an elf? I'm not sure Mr. Anderson will like that. Well, besides the way dwarves feel about elves..." making sure to add a joke to extra avoid suspicion.
"Damn it!" Mark slammed his hands on the desk.
"What?" Troy continued acting oblivious, "You look good in it. Greg said you had a killer cosplay during DnD on Friday, I guess I didn't think it'd be this good!"
"Did he?" a bit of red colored his otherwise completely colorless cheeks. "Greg said that?"
"Yeah, he said you guys had a lot of fun on Friday. I've only seen that kind of stuff tangentially, but it does sound like fun," Troy continued.
Mark leaned forward. The subtle, distant smile turned into a much more aware as he looked Troy into the eyes. "Really!? You wanna join? What race would you choose?!"
'Oh shit...' Troy thought to himself. He didn't mean to get him interested like this. He took a second before saying,