Aty's Match-Three Mayhem 01

Katy's Match-Three Mayhem: Week One

This is a work of fiction written by and for adults. All characters depicted are over the age of eighteen and the use of 'girl' or 'boy' in the story does not indicate otherwise. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The content of this story was written by me, Dorling, and was previously published elsewhere. The premise for this story comes from a concept by duduvar. Because these chapters were originally published in a loosely serialized format with very short updates, they may come off a bit choppy, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Sunday: Gem Ladies v1.20

Katy was zoned out. She'd spent the past hour in her bedroom aimlessly scrolling through a stream of video shorts and was on the verge of going to sleep at 9:00 pm out of sheer nothing-better-to-do when a notification popped up at the top of her screen. The icon read "Gem Ladies v1.20 installed. Tap to get started!"

Katy occasionally pre-registered for mobile games that looked interesting, so while she didn't specifically remember signing up for anything called "Gem Ladies", it wasn't out of the question she'd done so and forgotten. She tapped the icon, and the screen filled with bright pink, purple and gold.

"Welcome to the Gem Ladies v1.20 Beta!" appeared on the screen in a speech bubble. The speaker was a cutesy retro-pixelated demon girl with bright red skin. "Thanks to player feedback, we've made improvements to game balance, rewards, and punishments. Social features have also been improved." Katy tapped the screen impatiently.

"Now then, let's get started!"

The game led Katy through a short tutorial level. The game was a simple but relatively satisfying match three puzzle, and when Katy earned the required number of points, a flashing ruby appeared in the center of the screen.

"You earned a gem!" the demon girl said. "You can spend gems to unlock all kinds of bonuses and customizations. Let's take a look!"

The screen whisked over to a store tab marked by a little golden shopping cart and highlighted a button labelled "Luscious Locks - 1 ♦️". Katy tapped it, and the tab switched again, this time to an avatar with about the same pixelated dimensions as the game's mascot. The sprite's hair, the same light brown as Katy's, bounced and sparkled.

"Right now, your Luscious Locks customization will last a day," the tutorial continued, "but you can pay gems to extend that time or unlock new bonuses. Of course, you have to play to pay!"

Another screen transition returned Katy to the main game. This time it was significantly harder - more gem colours made it harder to create combos and the points requirement seemed absurdly high. Sure enough, Katy's moves ran out less than halfway to the goal. "Uh oh, that was a tough one!" said the demon girl. "You have to choose a punishment. Most of the time, you'll have three options."

Three buttons appeared in the center of the screen with labels reading:

- Compulsion: The Like, Valley Dialect?

- Clothing Restriction: Skirt Specialist

- Transformation: Bright Plumage

Katy tapped the center option, giving the screen a confused squint. A sprite of a pair of pants appeared next to Katy's avatar, overlaid with a red strikethrough, but nothing further changed as the avatar seemed to be, much like Katy, wearing an oversized t-shirt as a dress.

"Punishments last for a certain number of rounds," continued the narration, "so you have to keep playing to undo it!"

Near the bottom of the screen was a highlighted box labelled "Clothing Restriction: Skirt Specialist - 10 🕑"

"If you really want to, you can end a punishment early by paying gems, but that's pretty expensive. That's it for now; happy matching!"

Katy played three more rounds of Gem Ladies. Thankfully, Tutorial-2 seemed to be mostly a demonstration of the game loss mechanic rather than an indication of the real difficulty of the game, and she won three more gems. After the third round, the game highlighted a small meter on the top left labelled "0/5⚡".

"Looks like you're out of energy," said the game. "Come back tomorrow and you'll be refreshed and ready to go!"

Katy shook her head slightly and sat up from her bed. She plugged in her phone and padded down the hall to the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth and washed her face. Glancing in the mirror, she noticed her hair looked way better than usual, almost shampoo commercial good. She didn't even feel the need to brush it.

At least she had that going for her today. That, and her first class tomorrow wasn't until 10:30, so she could relax a bit in the morning.

Monday: The Life of a Skirt Specialist

Katy's alarm buzzed at 8:00 am. She blearily walked downstairs and poured herself some cereal. Katy's dad had already left for work, and her mom was sipping coffee and flipping through the news on her phone.

After breakfast, Katy went back upstairs to get ready for the day. She washed her hair in the shower, as she had a bit more time for it to dry on her late mornings. Returning to her room, she slipped on a bralette and boyshort underwear, then dark jeans and a plain moss-green t-shirt.

As Katy pulled the t-shirt over her torso, the backs of her hands brushed her bare thighs. She looked down and saw her jeans pooled around her ankles. "Bizarre," Katy muttered to herself, bending down to pull her pants back up. She zipped and buttoned the jeans with a suspicious seriousness, then turned to attend to her backpack. There was a quiet popping sound, and suddenly Katy's pants were once again on the ground.

"What the fuck?" Katy said. She stepped out of the jeans, picked them up, and examined the waistband, but there wasn't anything visibly wrong with them. Frowning, she pulled another pair out of her closet and put them on, only to find that they also refused to stay on her hips the minute she wasn't actively holding them up, even with a belt. The phrase "Clothing Restriction: Skirt Specialist" popped into Katy's head and she squeaked out another "what the fuck?"

Katy scrambled back to the bathroom and blow-dried her hair, finding that it was silky and neat as soon as she was finished. Luscious locks. Back in her room, Katy unlocked her phone and opened Gem Ladies. The Skirt Specialist punishment, its countdown clock at seven rounds, stared her in the face. With five points of energy available, she couldn't run it out by playing. She tapped the punishment, thinking maybe she could pay it off, but the cost was set at fourteen gems and she only had three.

Katy felt a knot of panic rising in her throat. She physically couldn't wear pants because of, apparently, a magical app on her phone. She had to catch her bus in less than an hour. Her mom was home and had seen her perfectly healthy eating breakfast; she couldn't just skip class today. She wondered whether she even still owned a skirt.

She dug through her closet, eventually finding a mauve calf-length skirt she'd had to wear to some family thing in high school. It still fit, but her pale calves with their two weeks of stubbly hair made her uncomfortable. She didn't look like any of the cool, alternative girls on campus who didn't shave by choice to demonstrate bodily autonomy or something, she looked like she forgot, because she had.

Katy looked back at her phone, where the shopping cart icon on Gem Ladies was flashing. In the store tab, a customization called "Insta-Shave" was listed as on sale for two gems. Katy debated not clicking it just to spite the demonic little program on her phone, but after a moment discomfort won out and she hit "Buy". Her avatar's legs, now clad in her long skirt, got a glossy sheen, and when Katy looked down at herself, the hair on her legs had disappeared.

The t-shirt and skirt looked weird together, so Katy threw a loose sweater with her college's coat of arms on over it, shoved her school stuff in her backpack, and got ready to head out.

Downstairs, Katy's mom glanced up from an office email at her as she headed for the door.

"Oh, you haven't worn that skirt in a while," she said.

"I, uh, yeah. Trying it on again, I guess?" said Katy.

"It looks nice!"

"Um, thanks. See you later."

"See ya! Have a good day!"

"I will, you too."

Walking to the bus stop and sitting on the bus, Katy felt strange. She knew that she was wearing a perfectly normal outfit, that her skirt was longer than average, even, but not having worn one in at least a year and not doing it entirely by choice, Katy felt exposed. She reopened Gem Ladies, hoping to both distract herself and start working off her punishment.

At first, the knowledge of how the app could change her if she made a mistake made Katy incredibly nervous, but once she started playing, she found herself relaxing a bit. Demonic or not, this was just a puzzle game, and she was pretty good at puzzle games. She completed her daily rounds of the game on her bus ride, only coming close to losing once. It was easy to forget the stakes while playing, too.

As the bus pulled to a stop, Katy had six gems in the bank, and two rounds left on the Skirt Specialist punishment. Out of curiosity, she tapped the punishment again, and found the price to get rid of it had dropped to four gems. She could have played and paid it off that morning if she'd thought things through a little more. Though she was annoyed with herself, Katy tried to take her mind off the app and focus on school.

Katy was a freshman and didn't really know what she wanted to do. She had good enough grades all through high school to secure an entrance scholarship that paid for most of her first year, but nothing had really stood out to her as a passion. She was undeclared and testing out a slate of different courses this year. Today, Katy had Statistics at 10:30, Computer Science at 1:00, and Sociology at 2:30.

After her statistics class ended, Katy realized that she'd forgotten to bring a lunch in the excitement of the morning. Standing in line at a food hall kiosk, she opened Gem Ladies. While she couldn't play any more rounds today, she decided to see what else was available in the shop. It seemed like there was little more information than the name available for bonuses she hadn't bought, but ones she had now came with short descriptions. For Luscious Locks, it said "picture perfect hair with minimum effort", and the description for Insta-Shave was "instantly removes all unwanted hair."

Two other things seemed important. The first was that there seemed to be a discount for paying for a customization for a longer period of time. Another day of Luscious Locks cost a single gem, but a week cost only two, a month four, a year eight, and a lifetime sixteen. The second was that it seemed she could only have up to ten gems at a time. Maybe that limit would increase if she progressed further in the game, but it wasn't clear.

When Katy was three away from the counter in the lunch queue, something glimmered onscreen. In a section labelled "Powers", something called "Flash Sale" was available for two gems. As suspicious as she was of the app, the things she'd purchased so far had been benign, so she tapped it and read the description.

"You can get a discount on any transaction by flashing an employee. No one will think this is weird, and no one will get in trouble. The more you show, the more you'll save."

Katy reflexively hit the power button, locking her phone. There was no way she would ever do something like that. She placed her order, an arugula salad with fried tofu, and when she took out her wallet to pay she was struck by an overwhelming sense of morbid curiosity. She looked at the university employee manning the till and asked, as quietly as she could, "Hey, how much would I save if I, um, lifted my shirt?"

The man at the till, Jeff according to his name tag, blinked, and Katy experienced the most all-consuming embarrassment of her entire life. Then Jeff spoke up.

"Oh for sure; 15% off to see your bra, 30% for bare tits."

The embarrassment doubled. She had essentially just offered to show a stranger her breasts for less than four dollars off a salad.

"I'm good keep the change," Katy managed to blurt out, dropping 15 dollars on the counter and stepping out of Jeff's immediate view to the pickup area as quickly as she could, blushing furiously all the while. She was deleting this demonic app as soon as it let her wear pants again.

The afternoon was fairly uneventful, which Katy was thankful for after the day she'd had. She did find herself being noticed more, however. She was used to getting the occasional once-over from other students, but today the looks seemed more lingering and more appreciative.

Not just seemed, were. A bubbly sorority sister whose name Katy couldn't recall told Katy "I *love* your hair" in passing, and a girl Katy had loaned her sociology notes to a couple weeks ago gave her a "nice skirt". As much as Katy normally hated attention, the spontaneous compliments felt good.

Hours later, back at home, Katy finished up her stats homework and pondered the Gem Ladies app. On the status page with her avatar, the last hour of Luscious Locks was ticking down. Flash Sale would be active for another 15 hours or so, not that Katy would ever use it. She still had four gems, just enough to pay off Skirt Specialist and be done with the app for good.

Of course, on the other hand, she could just play two more games the next morning, clear the punishment, and spend the gems to get effortlessly perfect hair for a month. Over the course of 30 days, that would probably save her almost two hours of time normally spent trying to brush it into an acceptable state. And if she was being honest, the compliments this afternoon had been nice.

There was another element too, one that Katy wasn't quite ready to admit to herself. For all the consternation her punishment had caused her in the morning, there had been something a little thrilling about being forced out of her comfort zone like that. Biting her lip slightly, Katy hit "Buy" and her avatar's hair sparkled.

Level: 8 || Gems: 0/10 || Energy 0/5

Punishments

Skirt Specialist: 2 rounds remaining

Bonuses

Luscious Locks: 30 days remaining

Tuesday: Into the Sorcerer's Lair

Katy spent a little longer than usual looking at herself in the mirror after her shower. Not a hair on her head was out of place thanks to last night's purchase, of course, but she was also curious about the specifics of what Insta-Shave had done yesterday, as the description said it removed "any unwanted hair". Her legs were still quite smooth, and it turned out so were her underarms. Between her legs, it looked like she'd been given a careful trim, with only a neat triangle of short, dark hair remaining. Katy thought it almost looked a little cute. There was also no unevenness, no razor rash, and Katy hadn't had to spend a moment of arduous time in the bathtub actually shaving. Based on the way the game had worked so far, Katy assumed the effect was temporary and she was merely in the grace period of a good, close shave.

"Can't stare at yourself forever," Katy muttered. Most importantly, she needed to get at least two rounds of Gem Ladies out of the way so that she could wear pants to work this evening. Level 9 was pretty quick, but Level 10 was a nail-biter that she won in the last move. Katy supposed the game had to get harder at some point, but felt a little nervous about the implications. Clearing Level 10 did get her an extra gem and an increase to her Gem Limit, allowing her to bank up to elevem at a time.

Katy had an early class today and no time to play any more levels or check out the shop. She loaded up her backpack with her notebooks, laptop, lunch and work shirt and headed off to school. With a busy day ahead of her, Katy spent the bus ride catching up on her favourite podcast and her lunch doing the reading for the next day's worth of classes.

Katy's Tuesday classes ended in the mid-afternoon, which helped her get decent shifts at her part-time job. She worked at Sorcerer's Lair, an independent local card and game shop. Her first week on the job, she was worried her shyness would be debilitating, but her passion for board and tabletop roleplaying games let her break through and chatter away with most customers. She had a reputation for making great recommendations, and although retail could be mind-numbing, she genuinely liked her job.

Her co-workers were alright too. This afternoon she was on shift with Ian, a tall, thin guy a few years older than her that she played a weekly tabletop rpg session with. An electronic bell chimed as she entered and Ian called out, "ready for the big night?"

"As I'll ever be," Katy replied.

The second Tuesday of every month, Sorcerer's Lair hosted an officially-sanctioned Cyblade tournament. It wasn't the most popular card game in the world, but the local scene was pretty robust and it was common for the store to get around twenty entrants most months. Tournament days were big business for the store: while the entry fee was nominal, the competitors would drop a ton of money on snacks and cards before the tournament and in between rounds.

Katy was in charge of the till while the tournament entrants trickled in and Ian set up the tables and plugged names into a bracket. The competitors were about 90% male, ranging in age from high school to their mid-30s, and relatively diverse. There was a contingent of stereotypical nerds and neckbeards, to be sure, but there were also perfectly normal, well-kept guys who happened to have a geeky hobby, including a towering, boisterous former college football player who showed up every month like clockwork with a much smaller friend and one-tricked a Roughcut deck to third or fourth place.

Katy liked Cyblade; she'd watched the cartoon as a kid and played a bit, but she wasn't nearly confident enough to run an event like this. She was content to watch, tidy up the store, and work the till between rounds.

As the first round kicked off, Ian sidled up to her. "Hey," he said, "You wanna take your break now? Should be good for at least 20 minutes."

"Sure." Katy entered the stockroom that doubled as a break room, munched on a quick snack, then opened her phone. In her notifications bar was a little diamond icon with a message reading "Don't let your Energy go to waste - Gem Ladies is waiting!"

The next couple of levels were pretty easy, but Katy started having trouble on Level 13. It shouldn't have been difficult, but she was getting unlucky and had made a few bad moves. It seemed like she was going to pull through until she was startled by a loud voice from the shop floor saying "Bullshit, that is not how that interaction works!"

Katy cracked the stockroom door open slightly and listened in on one of the less gracious players arguing with Ian about a ruling. Ian gave an exasperated sigh and said, "Look, man, I'm the tournament judge and I'm telling you it is. I'm also going to have to give you an official warning. One more and you DQ, okay?"

The player grumbled something about the nature of an "average Nytelyte player", but things seemingly settled down after that. When Katy looked back at her phone, however, she realized she had a problem. She must have accidentally swiped in her Gem Ladies level when she'd been startled and she'd lost. The app had three punishments on display and a timer ticking down from 5 minutes.

- Clothing Restriction: Underwhere? I

- Clothing Restriction: Uniform Code I

- Compulsion: Salutation parisienne

Looking through the punishment options, Katy tried to think through what each might be about. "Underwhere" seemed both obvious and like something she would absolutely not be picking. "Uniform Code" was a little less clear. She could imagine having to wear the same thing multiple days in a row or wear her work clothes to class, both of which seemed annoying but manageable. Katy didn't like the idea of developing a compulsion, and her limited knowledge of French had her worried "Salutation parisienne" might involve kissing people. Uniform Code it was.