Chapter 87: Chapter 87 – Natalie: Inventory *CONTAINS IMAGE*

With all the additions to my mental stat, it became easier and easier to pay attention to multiple things at the same time. As the others went through the selections for Julia and Amy, I was able to follow along while playing around with the system.

I didn’t know anything about what an Inventory was, but both Hugh and Amy seemed excited about getting access to one. That made me curious.

It only took a second to open up a screen.

Neat. I got the feeling that I could move things in and out of my inventory at will. I was holding my phone in my right hand since I didn’t have any pockets on this dress, so, as unobtrusively as possible, I tried moving it to my Inventory.

It worked. The phone was listed, and I had 5/10 slots filled.

I immediately returned it to my hand and surreptitiously glanced at it. There didn’t seem to be any damage. It still worked. Neat.

I wondered what else I could do. A popup appeared.

Neat. And interesting. I focused on the first option and confirmed that, yes, I would like to do that. The three slots for the staff, robe, and boots reduced to one, leaving me at 2/10. Sweet.

Naturally, I focused on the second option next. It gave me an error message.

I’d have to wait for the others to finish in order to try that, so I waited. As soon as Amy was finished with her decisions, I told them what I’d found.

Hugh, as usual, was very quick on the uptake and immediately sent a quest to both Julia and me.

He wanted me to strip naked again. Huge surprise, right? At this point, I was more amused and exasperated than embarrassed or irritated.

I looked at Julia. She grinned.

Fine.

I started unzipping my boots, and Julia did the same.

“What are they doing?” Amy asked.

Hugh told her. By the time he’d explained, I was starting to tug my dress up while Julia was already naked.

It was still really strange to strip naked on command like this, especially in a public place. In a way, it was getting easier. I still felt just as embarrassed as my short skirt cleared my bare, shaved nether regions, but I was getting more used to that feeling, making it less difficult to continue. The fact that my body and brain were both clearly anticipating the thrill that was about to shoot through it helped as well. I’d never done drugs or anything, but I had to imagine that this feeling was something akin to what an addict experienced.

As soon as my area down there was exposed, a thrill did shoot through me, and it only got more intense as I bared my breasts and, finally, dropped my dress to the floor.

“Should I send you a quest?” he asked Amy.

“I am not getting naked!”

“Of course not,” he said. “But you could go in the back and change into your starting outfit.”

Yeah. So he knew it was going to be bad. I suspected as much.

“Let me see what theirs look like first.” Amy looked at Julia and I, both now completely naked. “Aren’t the two of you completely mortified? You’re naked in a convenience store!”

Julia shrugged, setting her breasts to jiggling nicely. God! I couldn’t believe that I noticed that.

“Honestly,” I said, “I am totally embarrassed. There’s a part of me that’s screaming asking me what the crap do I think I’m doing.”

“You’re doing it, though.”

“I am. And it sucks. But it’s also awesome. Exciting. Exhilarating. Before the system, I was a lonely virgin who was on the verge of becoming the most boring person in the world. I went to class, didn’t talk to anyone, ate, studied, slept. That was my life. As absolutely humiliating as having you stare at me like this right now is, I’d choose it over going back to the way I was any day of the week and twice on Sundays.”

“I just don’t think that I can…”

“Hey,” I said. “No pressure. You do what you want to do. Look, you had to get five hundred experience total to move up to Level 5. It takes that many just to go from Level 7 to 8. I’m at Level 10. I didn’t do that all in a single night, and you shouldn’t think you have to, either.

Julia was holding what looked like a bunch of metal in her hands trying to figure out what to do with it while I stood there naked talking. Such a weird existence I now led. I decided, though, that there was literally no reason for me to remain undressed.

I accessed my inventory and asked for the starter equipment. A staff longer than I was tall, two pieces of black cloth with yellow accents, and a pair of black leather knee-high boots appeared in my hands.

“Wow!” Amy said. “That’s so cool.”

“Hmm. Did you ever get an opportunity to take a staff skill?” Hugh asked.

“No,” I said.

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I leaned the long pole against the counter and set the boots on the floor. Now I just had to figure out the cloth. Both pieces were made of a thick material, soft on the inside and rougher on the outside. One was clearly a skirt, and I put the other piece aside to pull the bottom on.

It fit perfectly, except for the fact that it flared out almost like a cheerleader’s pleated skirt but without the pleats and that it come down barely past my butt cheeks. I’d definitely need to wear shorts or something underneath.

 The top had no buttons or zipper or anything, which confused the crap out of me until I figured out that I was supposed to tie the ends together kind of like Britney Spears in that Baby One More Time video.

Actually, this entire outfit looked much more like something she would have worn for that video than it did a robe. The top really showed off my cleavage and left my belly button exposed.

There was no way I would have ever considered wearing this in public. I still wouldn’t feel comfortable with it.

I glanced at Julia as I pulled on my boots. As bad as my outfit was, she had it worse. Much worse. Her outfit was clearly chainmail, which made some sense for her class, but there wasn’t much of it. It was literally a bikini top paired with a bottom that consisted of two chains connecting front and back footlong chainmail flaps that hung loose. The chains weren’t exactly tightly woven, either. I could clearly see her nipples and pretty much everything.

She looked hot. I honestly wanted to go down on her right then and there.

God! What was happening to me?

As I watched, she added leather gloves that extended to her elbows, leather boots that were similar to mine but were covered in metal, and a helmet that left her face uncovered. She attached a shield on her left forearm and held a sword that looked like it came straight from the set of Game of Thrones in her right hand.

 She looked like a fantasy. A sex fantasy.

“What do you think?” she asked, preening.

Amy was shocked, like literally jaw dropped stunned. Hugh’s eyes were bulging as he looked at Julia, and my jealousy flared for a moment.

More to distract myself from self destructive thoughts than anything else, I grabbed the staff. It felt good in my hand. Really good. I snickered – not as good as Hugh’s staff felt in my hand, though.

I cleared my throat softly. Something about the staff was … telling me something. Like there was something special about it. Instinct tugged at me. I activated Heal, directed at the staff and then concentrated on it. A box popped up.

I explained what had just happened to the rest of my party. Amy looked like she was barely paying attention, trying hard not to look at Julia or me. Hugh was very excited that the staff increased my casts by one. Well, kind of. I was able to charge it tonight, using a cast, so tomorrow I’d have the one extra ready to go. It obviously required me to have a day where I had casts left over in order to fully utilize its ability, though.

“That explains the lack of a skill for it,” he said. “You’re not supposed to hit people with it. Still, it probably wouldn’t hurt to practice with Larry to get some idea what to do in an emergency.”

Overall, my opinion was split on the starter equipment. The staff was awesome. The outfit, not so much. It left a lot of skin bare, and I wasn’t sure that the cloth would even protect me all that well. Worse, it wasn’t nearly as sexy as Julia’s.

And, oh God, I couldn’t believe that thought passed through my mind.

I needed a distraction again, so, recalling the exact verbiage of the quest, I quickly navigated to the option to slot the equipment for quick access. This time, the system let me do it.

Leaving me suddenly totally naked in the store again. Amy’s eyes got huge.

“Uh…” I said. “Wow. That’s crazy.”

I concentrated on pulling the equipment back out of inventory. Just as suddenly, I was fully dressed once again, even down to holding the staff in my hand.

“That’s too cool,” Hugh said.

“I’m sure you think so,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him. “You can have me butt naked in an instant.”

He laughed.

It was really cool, though.

“I bet that you can slot a regular outfit, and you’ be able to switch back and forth between the two.” He paused. “No, that’s a bad idea.”

“What? Why is that bad?”

“It would skip the all important naked step in between.”

I gently slugged him in the arm, but I was laughing when I did it.

Julia was able to replicate my feat, and we both got the quest completion. Honestly, fifteen points didn’t move the needle much for either of us. Given how important each and every level and attribute point and skill point seemed right now, it all helped, though.

I really worried about Amy going into battle at only Level 5 in her primary class. I hoped she would be okay, and I really hoped her reluctance didn’t result in any of the rest of us getting hurt.

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