The apartment smelled of hopelessness, stale noodle broth, and cheap alcohol. It was a damp cubicle in the lower district, with walls that sweated dirty water and furniture that looked like it had been rescued from a dumpster. Slumped over a sticky table, surrounded by empty boxes of Insta-Ramen ("Suspect Chicken" flavor), an elf was dozing off with drool trickling from the corner of her mouth.
Alex opened her eyes and felt a sharp pang in her temples. She tried to sit up, but a strange weight on her chest threw her off balance, causing her elbow to knock over an empty bottle.
"Mmm... damn. It's been three days trapped in this meat prison," she groaned with a thick, pasty voice.
She rubbed her face, and her hands met skin that was far too soft. Reality hit him again: he was still a woman. What kind of twisted cosmic luck did he have to possess to find a virgin dungeon, activate a forgotten magic circle, and receive a permanent sex change?
She brushed a lock of blonde hair out of her mouth—another new annoyance—and grabbed her communication stone. She opened the XXXter app.
Normally, he used the social network to follow actresses and post complaints that no one read. He had 65 followers, mostly bots or spam accounts.
Now, the screen was flickering furiously.
Alex, Adult Actor. Followers: 12,405.
"Yesterday it was only three thousand..." she murmured, swiping her finger across the screen in disbelief.
The video of the transformation had gone viral. In the trending section, the hashtags glowed with aggressive neon colors: #SurpriseElf #RealGenderBender #TheBustyMage #NewWaifu.
"Years of work, method acting, and effort... and I just needed a pair of tits to get famous," Alex thought bitterly, feeling the weight of the irony.
The inbox was about to explode: 137 direct messages.
Summoning some morbid courage, she opened the first one on the list, sent by a user named Orc_BOC_69.
The image loaded slowly. Alex froze. A green, veiny, gigantic cock took up the entire screen, aiming at a screenshot of her own transformed face, which was covered in digitally added white liquid.
"Ugh!" Alex closed the app and threw the stone onto the table as if it burned. "That's disgusting! Is this how they felt? God, I deserve hell for everything I did in my past life."
She got up from the chair, feeling the back pain—a gift from her new D-cups—remind her of her existence. She walked toward the grease-stained full-length mirror hanging on the bathroom door.
She looked at herself. Really looked.
Porcelain skin, electric blue eyes, lips begging to be bitten, and an hourglass figure that defied gravity.
"Damn... I'm sexy," she admitted, and a wave of treacherous arousal ran through her body. "I wonder what it would feel like to f—"
She stopped dead. Her face went pale.
"No! No, no, no!" She gave herself a loud slap on the cheek. "I am a man. I am Alex Dewbery. I like women. I have to find a way back. Another ritual, a potion, whatever."
At that moment, three sharp knocks rumbled on the rotting wooden door.
"Are you sure about this, Marcus?" came Sophia's muffled voice.
"I've seen the numbers, Sophie. This is the studio's rebirth. That 'thing' in there is a gold mine," replied Marcus's shrill voice, loaded with barely concealed greed.
"At least let me do the talking." Sophia sighed on the other side. "Alex! Open the door, it's us."
"Get lost!" screamed Alex, frantically searching for a clean tunic among the mountain of dirty clothes. "I'm not in the mood for visitors!"
"You haven't come out in three days," insisted Sophia. "I know you're in there surviving on noodles and self-pity. Open up!"
"LIES! I AM PERFECTLY NORMAL!" shrieked Alex, putting on a tunic inside out while kicking empty bottles under the bed.
"Alex, I know it's hard, but you have to start accepting your new body..."
"WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW?!" Alex stormed to the door, red with rage. "You have no idea what I'm going through! These tits knock into everything! I get sent pictures of green dicks! I even had to learn to pee sitting down or I make a disaster!"
There was a brief silence on the other side.
"Welcome to the club, honey. That's being a woman," said Sophia with a dry tone.
"BUT I AM A MAN! AND I'M GOING TO FIND A WAY TO BE ONE AGAIN!"
Marcus, losing patience, intervened.
"Are you crazy? Or just stupid? Do you know how much your video generated in the last twenty-four hours? Don't you want to collect your royalties?" The unmistakable metallic sound of coins clinking together accompanied his words.
The sound pierced the door and connected directly to Alex's reptilian brain. She stood motionless. She approached the door and cracked it open just a few inches. A blue eye peered out from the darkness.
A pale, slender hand shot out toward the bag Marcus was holding.
The imp, faster, pulled his hand back. Alex clawed at the air.
"Give it to me! Those are my coppers!" growled Alex, with the desperation of an addict.
Marcus let out a raspy laugh.
"Coppers? Hahaha. You poor idiot. These are silver coins, Alex."
Alex swallowed hard. Her pupils dilated.
"Silver? How much?"
"Open the damn door and we'll talk," ordered Sophia, seizing on the hesitation.
The internal struggle on Alex's face lasted three seconds. Dignity versus hunger. Dignity lost by a landslide. She threw the door wide open.
Marcus entered, wrinkling his nose at the smell of the apartment, and tossed the heavy bag at her chest. Alex caught it in the air and opened it with trembling fingers.
"This is just day one," said Marcus, pacing around the room as if he owned it. "The news of a porn actor turned into a high-level elf is still fresh. Once it spreads to the neighboring kingdoms, the profits will triple."
Alex wasn't listening. She was counting. One, two, three...
"Seventeen silver coins..." she whispered with a broken voice. "This is more than I made in the last three months combined."
"And that's just the tip," said Marcus, stopping in front of her and smiling with all his sharp teeth. "A forge brand contacted us. They want an ad. Summer catalog. 'High Protection Bikini Armor'."
Alex looked up from the coins, recovering a bit of her wounded pride.
"No way. Even if I have this body, I still have male dignity. I'm not going to pose in a metal bikini for dirty old men to touch themselves to."
"You could listen to how much they're paying before getting all high and mighty," suggested Sophia, leaning against the doorframe.
"I will never acc—"
"Ten gold coins for a photo shoot," blurted Marcus.
Alex's brain short-circuited. Ten gold. That was enough to move out of this hole, buy real food, and even hire a decent wizard to investigate her condition. In years of working, she had never seen a gold coin, let alone ten together.
"I ACCEPT! WHERE DO I SIGN?" she shouted, instantly forgetting her masculinity.
Marcus smiled triumphantly. He knew every elf had a price, and Alex's was pathetically low.
"Stop by the studio first thing tomorrow. Clean yourself up a bit, you stink of noodles."
The imp left the room flapping his wings, leaving the two women alone.
"Did you hear that, Sophia?" Alex turned to her friend, gold stars shining in her eyes. "TEN GOLD COINS! Those idiots are going to pay a fortune for some simple photos."
Sophia shook her head, smiling with resignation.
"I know. We'll do the shoot together, Alex. They're paying me the same."
"Wow... I knew famous actresses made good money, but I didn't know it was that good."
"They pay that much for the novelty, the morbid curiosity of the 'boy turned girl.' Don't get overconfident; fame in this industry lasts less than a cheap illusion spell," warned the dragonkin. "That said... I knew you'd accept. You're too cheap to refuse."
Alex's cheeks flushed red. She clutched the bag of silver to her chest.
"Shut up. It's for survival. Financial strategy."
Then, she looked at the bag again, and a genuine smile appeared on her face.
"Enough nonsense. Tonight, we go out drinking. And I want the good stuff, none of that fermented garbage we always buy."
"My, my... maybe I won't have to pay for your drinks tonight?" joked Sophia.
"Shut up." Alex lifted her chin with a haughty gesture, tossing her blonde hair. "Tonight, drinks are on me."
"Alright, moneybags. See you at The Drunken Goblin tavern at eight. And please, take a bath."
Sophia left, closing the door behind her. Alex remained alone in the silence of her room, but this time, the weight of the bag in her hand made the place seem a little less miserable.
"Ten gold coins..." she murmured, looking at her reflection in the mirror. "Well, I guess being a woman has its perks."