Elise’s immediate instincts were to run, but she had nowhere to go. The room had only one exit, and the other changeling was standing in front of it. That left her with fighting, but being a full changeling, and one with an apparent specialty, it was a fight Elise would no doubt lose. That left talking her way out of it as her only option. She calmed herself a bit, and as she did, she realized that Mindy’s smile actually appeared genuine, so perhaps there wasn’t actually any danger after all.

“What are you talking about?” asked Elise.

“Oh, you don’t have to be so careful around me,” replied Mindy.

As Elise watched, the other woman’s skin slowly shifted, growing paler in tone. At the same time, her ears lengthened, almost like elf ears, but angled more outward, and her hair shortened and turned green. The pupils in the center of her once-brown eyes expanded until they covered her entire eye, and the eye sockets seemed to expand, leaving her face looking disproportionate, like an alien.

“You’re Elise, right?” she said, switching to Fey. “We met at the gathering!”

Elise narrowed her eyes. She had certainly met a few changelings at the gathering, but she had also met about a hundred other people, so she couldn’t remember if she had actually met Mindy or not. It was definitely plausible. Either way, she doubted Mindy would have revealed herself so easily if she wasn’t certain, meaning there was no point in hiding it.

“I am,” said Elise. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” said Mindy, smiling. “I wouldn’t expect you to. I bet it was overwhelming, huh. It was the same at my first meeting. You’ll get used to it though. Are you coming this month?”

Does she not know that I didn’t sign?

“No, sorry, I’m a bit busy.”

“Ah, that’s a shame. Happens though. Will you be at the next one?”

“Probably not,” said Elise. “I think this might keep me busy for a while.”

“Ah, well, whenever you come back, I’ll be there,” she said. “And don’t forget to. Remember if you don’t come within 3 years, the contract starts acting up. I’ve never tested that before, but I know a couple who have, and it does not sound fun.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Anyway, what are you now? You’re the first animal-base fey I’ve ever seen, so I don’t really have a handle on what your line looks like. I assume you’re a Lesser Changeling of some kind, since you still need clothes, right?”

“Just a Lesser Rabbit Changeling,” said Elise. “Nothing fancy.”

“Oh, nice, nice,” she said. “Well, it’s been good seeing you, but I guess if I keep you in here too long, your friends will start getting suspicious. Let’s see, a cloak with a hood, and probably a new set of clothes to go underneath, right? Your current ones look well-made, but the style is off. You’ll stand out no matter what, but we should at least keep you from being strange and suspicious. Let’s see…”

Mindy started walking slowly in a circle around Elise, muttering about her plans, half to Elise, and half to herself. Meanwhile, Elise was trying to figure out what Freddy’s goal was. Mindy wasn’t one of the Chairs, so maybe she just hadn’t heard anything about Elise’s situation, but there was also the possibility that Freddy was trying to hide it, or even actively lie about it. Elise hadn’t exactly kept it secret that she wasn’t joining, but she didn’t announce it either. The only people left that knew about what had really happened would be herself, Freddy, and Jerry.

And there would probably be people asking about Elise after she left. Jag certainly would. Maybe word just hadn’t spread, since they hadn’t had a meeting since, but what if Freddy was actively trying to keep what had happened quiet? She already knew something was up, since he had let her live with her memories and no contract, but what was this about making the other Ostra members think she was still with them?

“So, how about this,” said Mindy, snapping Elise back to the present. “You’re not a melee fighter, but you probably don’t want to be too limited either. So, in keeping with modern fashion trends, as well as seasonal tastes, I think that a blouse, simple pants, traveler’s boots, and then, of course, the cloak should do.”

“Sounds good, I guess.”

Elise had barely been aware of fashion on Earth, and knew even less about it on the new world, but it sounded alright to her. Mindy seemed to know what she was doing, at least, so it would probably turn out alright.

“Great,” said Mindy, clapping her hands together. “I’ll get working right away then.”

She turned to the large table on the side, and waved her hands, causing a few rolls of fabric to fly off the ground and onto the workspace. A moment later, the fabric was twisting and turning, and cutting and folding in much the same way that it had when the drow elder had put together Elise’s drow outfit. Seeing similar, or possibly identical skills at work from a changeling raised a few questions in Elise’s mind.

Obviously, Mindy was a “Changeling Tailor”, indicating she had clothworking abilities, but how did that work with evolution? Was it an evolution of the base Changeling species, or a variant? More importantly, since her species indicated a profession, did that mean that she could level through her profession, instead of just by fighting?

System, what is a Changeling Tailor?

“I’m sorry. You do not have access to that information.”

Elise held back a sigh. Are there any non-humanoid species that can gain levels without fighting or killing?

“Yes. Some higher tier evolutions allow the users to increase their level without fighting or killing.”

What are they?

“I’m sorry. You do not have-”

Enough.

The System was as limited as ever, but it had at least half-answered her question, and its answer gave her hope. If she chose the right evolutions, she might be able to live a peaceful life, and still level up, which would be much better than her original plan to just get a permanent human form and stop.

Why do I care about leveling up though? she asked herself.

That one stumped her. She had thought she was only interested in leveling up as a means to an end, but now, she found herself hoping she could continue, even after reaching that end. What was the point though? Sure, being stronger was better, but what would she need strength for? She was already plenty strong– well beyond what she could ever have hoped to achieve on Earth– and as long as it was enough to kill the warg, she didn’t really care beyond that. Or did she?

Why not get stronger though?

That stumped her as well. While beyond the warg, she had no reason to continue her power progression, she also had no reason to stop. And if she had the options of either stagnating, or continuing to grow, why wouldn’t she choose the second option? At the very least, it couldn’t hurt. And in case of an emergency, being stronger would be better.

Leveling up is fun too.

She wasn’t sure if she agreed with that though entirely. Maybe it was sometimes. When she was practicing her skills with the dwarves, she did enjoy seeing herself get better, and when she was hunting, and she knew that her targets were mindless beasts, and that their deaths would feed the village, that had been satisfying as well. That wasn’t how most of her levels had been earned though. Most of her levels had come in big chunks after surviving extreme situations, and if that was her future, she wasn’t sure she wanted it.

A peaceful life where she could level by doing something like working as a tailor though… She was interested in that. Doing work on Earth had often been tedious, but in this world where improvement was tracked numerically, she would probably enjoy it much more. That was assuming she could actually do something like that though.

“Mindy?” Elise called.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yeah?” said the other changeling, not looking up from her work.

“Where did you get those skills?”

Elise already knew the answer to that question, but of course, she couldn’t reveal that she had {Inspect}.

“Oh, I got them from my evolution!” Mindy replied. “I’m a Changeling Tailor!”

“Is that an evolution of Changeling?”

“Oh no, it’s just a variant. There are lots of different kinds of changelings. When you evolve, you’ll get to choose one. Maybe? I actually don’t know about you, but usually, when a Lesser Changeling evolves, they get to more or less choose a profession. It’s because the whole point of our species is to blend in with human society, but that’s kind of hard when all our skills are fey skills, so it gives us some of the skills from whatever profession we choose so we can blend in better. I chose to be a tailor, because that’s what my mentor is, and she gave me this store as an evolution gift.

“You didn’t get to meet her because she was out, but I heard that your mentor passed away recently, so next time you come back, I could introduce you! She’s always happy to meet new changelings. I’m sure that at your next evolution, she’d offer you a store as well.”

That doesn’t sound too bad, thought Elise.

“Can you level up by working as a tailor?” she asked.

“Ah, I wish,” said Mindy. “But no. I still have to go hunting if I want to reach my next evolution.”

“If you reach your next evolution, will you be able to level without hunting?”

Mindy shook her head, still looking down at the dress as it stitched itself together.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” she said. “I wish something like that existed. It would make life so much easier. Did you know that half the time a humanoid-passing non-human is caught, it’s almost always because they either get caught hunting, or because someone got suspicious about them not leveling up after working a profession for so long? That’s why Ostra is such a godsend. They help us get out and level up as needed in order to maintain our cover. You’re new for now, but you’ll see what I mean later on.”

“I see,” said Elise.

That information put a bit of a damper on her plans, but she was also incredibly grateful she had asked. While her hopes of being able to level without fighting were crushed, the information about the Changeling species was incredibly useful. Elise didn’t want to reach the next tier, only to get stuck in choice paralysis with so many different options to choose from. That was, of course, assuming that she went with a more standard changeling evolution. The System always seemed to have strange and interesting options, and one of them might end up being more useful.

After about thirty seconds of silence, Mindy stood up straight with a wide smile on her face.

“Done!” she announced.

Behind her, laid out flat on the table was Elise’s new outfit. The top was a simple bluish-gray blouse with a high neckline and long, baggy sleeves, and the pants were made of soft brown leather. The cloak was the same bluish gray as the shirt, and the underwear was white. Elise thought the underwear was a bit unnecessary, since it wouldn’t be seen, but she wasn’t going to turn down a spare set.

“Why don’t you put it on while I get the dye ready,” suggested Mindy.

Elise obliged, stripping her dwarven clothes and changing into the new ones while Mindy rummaged around in a wooden trunk on the far side of the room. Elise hesitated for a moment when it came time to put the old clothes away. She could just put them straight into Astrid’s Star, but she suspected she had already been too careless with it around Penelope and Otto, and she didn’t want to raise too many questions. She decided it would be better to wait, and put them away when there was no one likely to be paying attention to them.

“So, I have two options here,” said Mindy, holding two small bottles up. “Both are equally unobtrusive, in my opinion, so you get a choice between darker and lighter.”

“Ummm…”

“Here, I’ll help.”

Before Elise could respond, she found herself looking at… herself. Mindy had transformed into a perfect copy of Elise, down to the clothing, only she had brown hair instead of white.

“Lighter.” The hair became a few shades darker. “Darker.”

“Uh, darker?” said Elise.

“Alright,” said Mindy, switching back to her changeling form. “Using this stuff is pretty easy. Just a couple drops on the top of your head and it will turn your hair brown. It will stay the same between your transformations, so you won’t have to worry about re-applying it, and it will last for about a week of real time. That means at least 3 weeks for you, since you won’t be in that form most of the time. Here, why don’t you try doing it yourself, just so you can make sure it works.”

“Alright,” said Elise, taking the offered bottle.

She untwisted the lid, revealing that there was a second lid inside, this one with a soft rubber lid. The second lid unscrewed to reveal that there was a glass dropper protruding from the underside into the dark liquid, and that it was about half full.

“Just take that out, hold it over your head, and squeeze,” said Mindy. “It works for other areas too.” She winked. “The number of drops it takes depends on how much hair you have. I’d say for you, 7 drops should do it.”

Elise held the dropper over her head as instructed. It was hard to tell exactly how many drops she was using, since looking up would make the dropper no longer be above her hair, but she could feel the cool liquid hitting her scalp, so she tried to count each drop. She accidentally used two extra, but Mindy smiled reassuringly.

“It’s fine to go over,” she said. “It won’t hurt you. It will just waste some extra drops. Now, if you’ll come this way, you can have a look at your new appearance.”

Mindy brought Elise over to a mirror propped up in the far corner of the room where Elise took in her new appearance. The cloak was less suspicious than she thought it would look. Or at least, it did the way she was wearing it. As she stood, Mindy helped her switch it from its current, more open appearance that allowed her to see her front beneath it to a more closed appearance that hid everything but her toes.

Elise spun around a bit, tested the opening and closing of the cloak, and checked the hood as well. When the hood was down and the cloak was open, she looked more or less like an ordinary girl, aside from her face. Having spent so long away from humans, she hadn’t fully comprehended how stunning she was until she saw her appearance in the mirror. She didn’t know if she was affected by her own Charisma, but if she wasn’t and what other people saw was even more intense, she completely understood why the others had suggested a mask.

Even without her white hair, she would still be drawing attention, especially since they couldn’t mask her eyes. As inconvenient as it was to have to hide her face though, she wasn’t actually that annoyed. She had never turned heads back on Earth, and had always felt a little bitter about the other girls who did, so finally being on the other side was satisfying.

She pulled the cloak shut again, then pulled the hood down, and she seemed to transform into a completely different person. The cloak fell almost straight down from her shoulders, revealing none of the contours of her body, and the hood almost completely hid her face. In fact, it hid her face so well that Elise suspected there might have been some other kind of enchantment on it to help it do so, since she could see out of it perfectly fine, but she couldn’t see her own eyes in the mirror.

“It’s perfect,” she said.

“I’m glad you like it,” said Mindy, back in her human form. “Let’s go out and show the others.”

“You look like you’re trying to hide your identity,” said Maia when she saw it. “Which is fine. Lots of people are trying to hide their identities. You won’t stand out more than any of them.”

“Yes, it’s much more inconspicuous than I thought it would be,” said Penelope. “If I saw you on the street, I might spare a second glance, but I wouldn’t think too much of it.”

“Let’s see the hair now,” said Maia.

Elise unfastened the front of the cloak, and pulled down the hood, and the other two’s approving looks turned to frowns.

“Well, it’s an improvement, I guess,” said Maia. “Better than nothing.”

“But not by much,” said Penelope. “Your eyes look so much brighter now that they don’t have the hair overshadowing them.”

“Yeah. Actually, they look really cool now. Like rubies. I almost want to pluck them out.”

Elise and Penelope stared at Maia, who was grinning.

“What? I was just kidding. They look nice. But also super conspicuous. You should keep the hood on if you want to not draw attention.”

“Yes,” agreed Mindy. “But it’s the best we can do for now.”

“How much do we owe you?” asked Maia.

“Nothing,” said Mindy. “I owe Otto a favor anyway. I’ll count this as payment.”

“But he didn’t-”

“It’s fine,” said Mindy, cutting Maia off. “However, if you want your black dye, I will be wanting payment for that.”

“Alright, fine.”

Maia reached for a pouch on her waist, and at the same time, Elise heard Mindy’s voice in her head.

My services are always free for fellow Ostra members.

Elise flinched slightly at the voice in her head, but no one else seemed to notice. A few minutes later, the three of them were walking out the door, as Mindy smiled and waved from behind the counter.

“See you next time!” she called.

Maia returned the greeting, and Penelope waved, but Elise found herself too lost in thought to respond. She had been fine with getting free clothes through Otto as part of their travel expenses, but getting them as a member of Ostra felt wrong. Of course, she couldn’t correct Mindy either though, because if Mindy knew Elise wasn’t a member of Ostra, that would raise all kinds of questions better left unasked. She resolved that she would pay Mindy back someday in the future, and then pushed it from her mind. It wasn’t urgent, and Elise needed to leave.

She, Penelope, and Maia immediately headed for the teleportation hub, but Elise stopped them. There was only half an hour left on her transformation, and she didn’t know how long it would all take. Maia agreed that it wasn’t worth the risk, since the teleportation hub was usually busy around that hour, so they ducked into an alleyway so Elise could transform, then followed Maia’s lead through what felt like a maze until they were a few blocks away on a completely different street.

“You should never exit the same alley you enter,” she explained. “Especially not when one of us is turning into a rabbit before we exit.”

Not long after, they were standing inside a familiar building full of people, and mana-filled circular daises. Elise recognized it as the same place that Emilia had taken her when they went to the Ostra gathering. Unlike with Emilia though, they weren’t invisible, and had to wait in line until it was their turn, and then pay for the service. Still, it didn’t take all that long, and soon, they were led to one of the daises on the top floor, where Elise experienced a familiar flash of light, and opened her eyes to find herself somewhere else.