Dahlia groaned as she pulled herself out of bed, flipping her covers off carelessly. She fervently rubbed her eyes, trying her best to wake herself up after an incredibly long night. Naturally, she had spent basically all of it playing The Witch’s Workshop, and had only gotten to bed at around six in the morning. She turned to look at her alarm clock, fearful that it would reveal just how much she had managed to ruin her sleep schedule. Its piercing liquid crystal display read 11:00 AM - Dahlia sighed mournfully as she looked back to her bed, debating on whether she wanted to climb back under the covers or actually start her day in earnest. Awash with exhaustion and lethargy, she held her forehead and slowly stood up, murmuring pathetically. 

Dahlia walked over to the bathroom and looked in the mirror - only to see that she had much more pronounced eye bags than she did the day before. She turned the sink on, splashing her face with water insistently to force herself to wake up. Her body ached and creaked, sore from her abruptly interrupted sleep. Nevertheless, she was able to tenuously finish her morning routine. Grabbing her phone,she walked out into the living room with a faint, yet palpable sense of urgency. Already, excitement was building up inside of her body, anticipating being able to open the game up and start playing again. 

However, as she walked into the room, she noticed that Alyssa was also there - not only that, it seemed as though she had invited a friend over. They were both on their phones, laughing and talking about their mornings, but only occasionally looking away from their screens, on which they were both fixated. Dahlia recognized the other friend, a redhead with a crop top and shorts named Roxy, but she wasn’t that familiar with her. She had been Alyssa’s friend for a while, and while Dahlia had chatted with her a couple of times, they hadn’t hung out at all. Dahlia sat down on the couch and ,at that point, Alyssa and Roxy looked up from their phones, finally realizing that she had come into the room. 

“Oh hey, Dahlia. Sorry I didn’t notice you, I was busy playing uh…you know.” Alyssa pointed to her phone, chuckling nervously. 

“Hey, Dahlia.” Roxy uttered, not particularly interested in her, before looking back down at her phone. 

“Hey you two. It’s okay, Alyssa, I understand. I was up all night playing it.” In truth, she didn’t entirely understand it. She had become hyperfixated on the game because of her lifelong love of dolls, but she hadn’t expected Alyssa to become an avid player of the game. She didn’t know enough about Roxy to say for certain, but had never thought of her as the type of girl who regularly played video games. 

“I mean, it’s good, yeah? I’ve been really surprised by it. The doll girl stuff had initially made me a little uncomfortable, but some of them are genuinely very cute. Roxy was just telling me about her favorites, right?” Alyssa’s voice perked up towards the end, causing Roxy to chuckle a bit before leaning back into the living room chair. 

“I mean, yeah I guess. I like the maid dolls a lot. They’re very polite and professional. The blue-haired one - Maid Beta I think - has a really big gun and does a lot of damage. It’s cool.” Roxy didn’t seem particularly enthused, but Dahlia who was sitting cross-legged on the couch, excitedly propped herself up on her feet and opened the game.

“Oh I love Maid Beta! I know exactly what you mean! She’s so professional, not like a lot of the girls you typically find in gacha games where they’re too busy fawning over you. She keeps her distance, and while she does seem to implicitly trust you - since you’re her Witch, and all - that distance makes her seem like a character with her own viewpoints. Her ult with the big gun is really good too, she’s definitely the standout DPS on my main team, and I’ve been really enjoying using her. She’s cute, her doll body is fantastically made, and she’s a great character! She’s perfect, isn’t she?” Dahlia’s words spilled out of her mouth like a relentless torrent as she gushed and infodumped about the game to Alyssa and Roxy. They looked at each other incredulously as she went on and on, pointing at her phone screen to show them that Maid Beta was the doll on her home screen. After winding down from her ramble, Dahlia suddenly realized that she had been gushing for too long. Ashamed and bashful, she shrunk back into the couch cushions a bit. Roxy giggled, flashing a kind smile towards her. 

“Right, you told me about her, Alyssa. She’s cute. She’s a lesbian, right?” Dahlia meekly nodded, now suddenly very worried that she had allowed herself to go too far. Roxy smiled, almost knowingly, and popped out of the chair, sitting herself down next to her. 

“That’s okay, Dahlia. I’m bi. There’s no judgment here~” Dahlia’s heart felt like it was practically beating out of her chest, caught completely unaware and defenseless against Roxy’s advances. She scooched over on the couch, trying to put some distance between herself and the rowdy girl -  however, her half-hearted protest was of little avail, as she was quickly followed - and subsequently, pushed - into the corner of the couch. 

“Come on. Don’t be shy~ I found your gushing really cute.” Roxy whispered quietly, her tone honeyed and sensual, as her lips approached Dahlia’s ear - she felt like she was about to pass out from the stimulation. Suddenly,  Alyssa cleared her throat unusually loudly, causing the two of them, now distracted, to turn towards her. Roxy’s gaze in particular was met by Alyssa’s stern glare.

“I would prefer it if you did not flirt with my roommate in front of me, Roxy. Get her number or something, but it’s still morning.” Alyssa’s tone was flat, stressing the fact that she was unimpressed by the whole situation. Roxy chuckled again and stretched her legs out onto the coffee table in front of the couch, moving over a little bit to give Dahlia some room. 

“You’re no fun, Alyssa. I’m sure you bring back a ton of guys here, and I’m not allowed to bring a cute girl back to her own bedroom~?” Roxy didn’t seem fazed in the slightest, and Alyssa scoffed at her accusation. 

“Dahlia knows I don’t. It’s neutral ground, after all.” Roxy shot a glance at Dahlia for confirmation.She gave a brief nod, still recovering from the sudden experience. With a sigh, Roxy waved Alyssa away dismissively.

“Damn. Shutting my game down.” She laughed nonchalantly. Alyssa rolled her eyes incredulously, and then looked back down at her phone. Roxy looked at her for a brief moment, before remembering something, snapping her fingers, and pulling back out her own phone. 

“Right, this game has a friend feature, right? Why don’t you add me? I don’t exactly know what the point of it is, but I might as well!” Dahlia looked at Roxy’s phone for a bit, before smiling gently and nodding affirmatively, pulling up her own friend details in-game. Roxy leaned over to get a better look, then typed in Dahlia’s friend ID and username. As she tapped the button to send a friend request, a slight grin graced her lips. After refreshing her friends list, Dahlia saw the request pop up - and promptly accepted it.

“There we go! We’re friends now. I mean, I guess we’re only friends in-game - but come on, that has to count for something.” Dahlia broke into an awkward smile, unsure of how to react to her roommate’s friend suddenly being so amicable. Alyssa looked over - taking note of her nervous breathing - and put her phone down, then stretched her arms out. As Dahlia glanced over, she flashed her a reassuring smile. 

“Sorry, Roxy is always like this. I suppose she didn’t have enough time to get to know you at all before today. Just keep in mind that she is the queen of relationship drama.” Roxy did her best to feign shock at the accusation, covering her mouth as her eyes widened in fake betrayal. Her exaggerated theatrics made the two friends crack up, and, after a while, Dahlia followed suit. 

“Oh yeah so, Dahlia, can you come here and tell me which dolls I should be raising? I pulled so many of them, and they have so many different skills that I struggle to wrap my head around it.” Hearing Alyssa’s earnest request made her ecstatic - she swiftly went over and sat down next to her, then peered at her phone. The game was opened to Alyssa’s roster, and looking over it, Dahlia realized that she had managed to pull more dolls than she had. 

“Whoa, your roster is more developed than mine is. I’ve never even seen a Scientist doll in any of my rolls.” Seeing the sparkly in her roommate’s eyes, Alyssa chuckled and scratched the back of her head timidly. 

“Well…I was playing this morning, and I was having fun pulling the dolls, you know? They make it really flashy with the bright lights and the sound, and it was a pretty great rush. But then I ran out of stuff to pull them with, and I was struggling with the stages to get more, and I remembered that they sold packs in the shop so I bought one. After I did, I ended up having a really lucky set of rolls and got a ton of new dolls from it!” Hearing Alyssa proclaim that with a wide grin, Dahlia looked down at her phone, a pang of anxiety settling in her stomach. 

“Ah, yeah, just remember not to spend too much money. This is how these games get you, so just…be cautious.” Her tone of voice dropped a bit, and her words seemed to falter near the end - while that did puzzle Alyssa, she nevertheless nodded affirmatively. 

“Can do. Do you want to look through my roster?” Dahlia smiled and snatched the phone out of her outstretched hand, already tapping through the roster with pointed interest. Her mind raced to collate all of the information she was gaining from looking at Alyssa’s roster - cognizing the skills and stats of each new doll she was inspecting. The Witch’s Workshop was not a particularly complicated game in terms of its base mechanics, fitting itself rather unremarkably amongst the genre of ATB RPGs of earlier generations, but its heavy focus on team comps and individual skills made it more difficult to plan for than others. 

“So, what I’ve found - and this is what has worked for me personally, is that the game rewards you for flexibility. Most of the stages will have you bring six dolls in, but I’ve come across one stage that lets you bring up to twelve and swap between two different team comps, so you’re going to want to take what I say as more of a set of guidelines. Usually, I try to have two DPS dolls, one healer, one buffer, one debuffer, and one tank. It’s a very generalist team comp but it benefits from having a little bit of everything. For my DPS I’m a really big fan of uh…where is she…aha! Combat Doll Zeta!” 

Dahlia pulled up the info on the doll she was talking about on the phone, moving it closer to Alyssa so she could see. A metallic, almost robot-like doll was on the screen, sporting menacing concealed knives in her knuckles, as well as electric blue eyes meant to scan for anything perceived to be a threat. Every doll in the game had a fully animated model - something that had surprised Dahlia - and she really enjoyed how sleek and ergonomic Zeta’s design was. Her model’s visual direction was not at all surprising when you learned she was specially developed as a secret military project to be the best possible weapon. Every detail of hers - from her mostly cybernetic body to the thrusters on her legs - implied no inch was utilized carelessly. 

“Zeta’s gimmick is that once her skills are active, she starts doing multi-hit attacks, and when her ult is active, she has a chance to chain together extra turns for a big DPS window, but she doesn’t have any strength buffs to go along with it. As a result, she’s amazing with a buffer like Cheer Doll Alpha, who can provide a short term strength buff with her skills. That boss who you could bring twelve different dolls to ended up dying in one Zeta ultimate. She’s really good.” As she handed Alyssa’s phone back, Dahlia saw that she had actually been listening quite intently to her explanation.

“Ahh, sweet. To be kind of honest…I already tried to use her but I found her a little clunky, so I’m glad to know she actually works. I was a little sad, after pulling her and getting really excited, and found out she wasn’t doing much damage…” Dahlia was surprised to see her face getting flushed after taking her phone back; she promptly dismissed the roster menu, revealing that Zeta was actually the doll on her home screen. Zeta slowly stretched her mechanical body, pulling her arms up and behind her head, all the while letting her hip shift to the side. The meticulously animated motion entranced Alyssa, making her blush even harder than before. 

“Oh, well I understand. She does need a little bit of help early on with levels, since she’s impacted pretty heavily by enemy defense. But anything for a girl who is ‘perfectly designed’, right?” Dahlia winked at her, and panic immediately set in. 

“IT-IT’S NOT LIKE THAT! I told you! I find dolls creepy!” Alyssa stammered out, her voice getting louder as she shrunk away from Dahlia a bit, only to find herself flanked by Roxy, who was watching her with a wry grin.

“Oh, so that’s the kind of girl you’re into. No wonder you turned me down. My tits are too big, and I don’t have enough robot parts. I can’t compete.” Roxy’s teasing, hyperbolic show of defeat further embarrassed Alyssa. Devastated, she buried her face in her hands, letting out a quiet, pathetic yowl - a move which cracked up her fiendish friends. After a moment, she briefly shook her head in an attempt to regain her composure.

“Yeah, yeah, Roxy. Keep it up and you’re footing lunch.” This time, the look of betrayal on Roxy’s face was completely genuine. Obediently, she sat herself properly on the couch and zipped her lips. Hearing the mention of lunch spurred Dahlia to look down at her phone and check the time. The lock screen read 11:45 - and panic took hold of her as she realized she had spent a little too much time goofing off. 

“Crap! Sorry, speaking of lunch, I gotta get going. If I don’t race down to the cafe, I’m going to get stuck in the line. Bye!” She put away her phone, ran over to her backpack, grabbed it, and waved goodbye to Alyssa and Roxy. She would have to settle her gacha routine at lunch, if she wanted to not be waiting in line forever.

---

Dahlia got to the lunch table with a container of chicken tenders and fries, surprised to find that out of her friend group, only Pat was sitting down at the table. She was biting into a large cheeseburger, carefully and methodically wiping her face with a napkin. Seeing Dahlia approach, she gave her a warm smile.

“Well someone remembered to get here on time. Everyone else is currently stuck in line somewhere. Usually, you’re the one getting carried away with something and forgetting.” Dahlia smiled at Pat’s remark, then grabbed a fry and dunked it in a small container of honey mustard. 

“I almost didn’t make it. I was busy talking to Alyssa and Roxy about the new game. I was a little surprised Roxy had even heard of it.” She shoved the fry into her mouth, savoring the fact that it was from a freshly fried batch, as opposed to the bottom of a previous batch - helped to keep the oil from feeling too heavy. 

“Yeah, I was just thinking that. I have a friend of mine who is also playing it, and I was also talking to Chel this morning, and three of her friends are playing it, too. Granted, she introduced the game to one of her friends, but it’s a lot more viral than I expected.” Pat then briefly paused her musings; she needed a moment to take another bite of her burger, relishing it. 

“Usually when this happens, it’s because the game looks good and has a lot of marketing around it. It’s…a little strange that the game has gotten this popular, this quickly.” Hearing this conclusion, Dahlia shot her an incredulous look and began to laugh. Pat glared at her, feeling more than a little annoyed at the response. 

“Come on, what do you think is happening? People are being tricked into playing the game? It’s just a gacha game, Pat.” Pat scoffed.

“You remember those experiments on subliminal images? In movie theaters, they would put an ad for something like Coca Cola for like a frame in the middle of a movie to get people thirsty, so that they would buy stuff at the concession stand.” 

“Yeah, and if you hadn't fallen asleep in Mr. Dietrich’s class, you would have remembered how that went. They failed. It’s why they stopped doing it. It’s far easier to just do normal advertising. You can’t trick the brain into wanting something by just flashing an ad on screen.” Pat crossed her arms, sighing indignantly. 

“Well, if he wasn’t a boring chauvinist, maybe I would have paid more attention. But sure, I guess. It all still sits weird with me. None of their games get this popular, you know?” 

“Maybe it’s just good.” Dahlia shrugged, continuing to eat her lunch. She pulled out her phone and opened the game back up, deciding, on a whim, to switch the doll on her home screen to Zeta. As she did, Zeta struck a combat pose, looking ready for battle, before her face softened a little bit and she looked back at the player. Zeta wasn’t particularly expressive, but there was this feeling that she was at least relaxed and comfortable. 

“On standby, Commander. I’m ready for your orders at any time.” Zeta’s voice was both gruff and entirely synthetic sounding. To Dahlia, it didn’t sound like a human doing their best to try and sound like a robot, but the reverse. It was a robot trying to put off a gruff affect, but betrayed by the entirely flat delivery she was forced to make. Her electric blue eyes weren’t scanning for threats anymore, but looking directly at Dahlia. Then, Zeta began to use her hands to check various parts of her body. Lights blinked on and off as she tested her cybernetic parts, checked the doll joints in her elbow and knees for any obstructions, and took off the back segment of her combat helmet. In doing so, she revealed her short hair and a couple of long cords that she plugged into ports on her right arm. Her hair was the same color as her eyes, but cut quite short so that it could fit into the helmet. Zeta also had a ceramic chestplate, the only part of her body that wasn’t either cybernetic or synthetic skin. 

“Whoa! Who is that!? Damn, Dahlia, I didn’t think you had that range.” Chel’s teasing and friendly, yet unexpected interjection made her jump - much to the former’s amusement. Flaunting a large, multi-layered sandwich, she took the seat on Dahlia’s right. Alexa sat down on her left, not paying attention to what her companion was saying.  Surrounded on both sides, Dahlia panicked and blushed, moving to hide her phone, before remembering that they were all playing the game. 

“She’s just a good unit. A friend of mine really likes her, so I figured I would listen to her voice lines. You know?” Chel’s brow briefly furrowed in suspicion after which she chuckled, then pulled her phone out.

“Just teasing. I don’t even know who that is, I never got her. I’ve had the most horrid luck pulling any DPS dolls, I seemingly just keep ending up getting support ones.” Chel’s homescreen had one of the Scientist dolls on it, a purple haired plastic doll in an open lab coat, with a clipboard in her right hand. Dahlia hadn’t pulled that one herself, but she recognized it from Alyssa’s roster. 

“Sucks to suck, Chel. I got the doll I wanted.” Alexa slid her phone into the middle, and Dahlia immediately had to hold back her laughter as she noticed that the doll on the homescreen was of a light gray plastic, dressed in a baseball uniform. It was more reminiscent of the kind of high quality plastics you might see in something like a prosthetic than the bright white of the Scientist doll on Chel’s screen, giving it a very distinctive look. Chel leaned over, and immediately started to laugh, having noticed its design as well. 

“Oh my GOD Alexa, you have like one type. I swear we’re going to need to keep you company if you get turned down by Janine.” Alexa snatched her phone back, rolling her eyes at Chel’s jeering. At that moment, a loud ping resounded from all three of their phones, and even Chel stopped laughing in order to investigate what it was. The girls looked down and were greeted by a new in-game notification, illustrated through a small, animated bell icon. 

“Hello players!

We are pleased to announce we were able to get a lot of work done on our end in order to get the PvP functional! We’re going to be rolling out the Beta Season of our PvP to select accounts over the next couple of weeks. Currently, you are only allowed to challenge other accounts that you have in your friends list, if and only if they also have the PvP mode active, but we’re hoping to eventually have global challenges! We will still need to bug test many of the features in PvP though, including doll accounts - so, please, give us some more time until then. 

Thanks,
Stygian Games”

“Oh no shit, they’re getting the PvP working. Hell yeah!” Chel beamed upon reading the message - Dahlia was no less excited.

“The email said their first planned update would be PvP and the first SSR doll, after all. I don’t see any information about the new doll, though. Maybe they’re just keeping the whole thing under wraps to drive up the hype.” Dahlia speculated. Alexa, though yawning loudly, nodded along with her friend’s assumptions.

“We should probably all be friends then, yeah? Just in case any of us get the PvP stuff. It might be fun enough.” Dahlia and Chel nodded and handed their phones over to Alexa, who quickly sent them friend requests. As Dahlia was taking her phone back, she noticed that Pat had finished her lunch and was glancing at her, eyebrow raised. 

“I hope you girls did something other than play this game since yesterday, or this lunch is going to prove very boring for me.” Though she was smiling, Pat’s tone betrayed a slight tinge of frustration. Feeling as if they were getting scolded, Alexa and Chel put away their phones, after which the three of them began to discuss their classes. Dahlia, on the other hand, realized that she really hadn’t done much other than play the game last night, at least not anything she could admit to in polite company. She tried to not let this bother her by holding her phone up and entering one of the farming stages, watching as her pre-determined team of six set forth and entered battle. 

---

Dahlia finally got back to her dorm room after her afternoon class had concluded. With an exhausted, pained groan, she threw her backpack down next to the couch and flopped face first into the cushions. Applied Mathematics ended up being a big mistake in her schedule. It was work that she was capable of doing, but it was quite difficult, and she found the class very stressful as a result. After finding a comfortable position - in her case, this meant the corner where the cushion met the couch’s backrest -  she pulled out her phone. Alyssa wasn’t expected to be back from her class until much later, so she could at least spend some time blowing off steam. 

Instead, she found herself opening The Witch’s Workshop instead. She couldn’t really remember doing it, but it didn’t bother her too much. She had already had a pretty great night thanks to the game, and it wasn’t as if there would be nothing to fantasize about. As the game opened up, she was welcomed once again by Combat Doll Zeta, whose stern gaze seemed to lock with hers. 

“Commander, there is much to do today. Let’s get to work as soon as possible.” 

Zeta stretched suggestively again, her detailed pose emphasizing her ceramic breastplate and hips. At this lascivious sight, Dahlia felt the familiar haze of lust start to come over her. The fact that Zeta was constructed to act like this, to be a perfect killing machine - and yet to objectify herself all the same - made Dahlia hard under her skirt. She slowly lifted it up, panting lightly, quivering gingerly. As she saw the tent her cock was making, the small, dark, wet spot in her pink panties where her pre-cum was already starting to leak out of her, began to widen and darken even more. She clumsily reached into her backpack, rifling through a mix of stationary and books, until she managed to pull out her  Applied Mathematics textbook. Chuckling impishly, she placed it on the coffee table and propped her phone up against it.

“There we go. A much better use out of you.” Dahlia grinned mischievously, closing her eyes in anticipation. Slowly, she pulled down the waistband of her panties bit by bit, until they were low enough that her penis sprung up, twitching lightly. Gently, methodically, she started to stroke herself. Dahlia’s hips buckled as she fantasized about Zeta, imagining how cold and firm her cybernetic parts would feel to the touch - trailing her hands down to Zeta’s hips, pulling them closer to her. She wondered how Zeta would react to her advances. If it were anyone else, they likely wouldn’t be able to get close enough to Zeta to even touch her. But for her Witch, for her Commander, maybe she would only protest half-heartedly. She would tense up, sure, but ultimately allow her Commander’s wandering hands. After all, it wasn’t like she was designed for sex. 

It was then that the fantasy shifted - now Zeta and another doll were on their knees, looking up at her. With indignant expressions, they watched the toe of their Witch’s heel sway back and forth, mollified by her looming, powerful figure. She didn’t recognize the other doll that was looking at her, although she felt like she should. There was something about her face, the dark blue hair framing her electric blue eyes, and her relatively curvier frame that felt so familiar. Clearly, she was another Combat Doll class doll. The way she grit her teeth betrayed her reluctance, but she nevertheless leaned forward and knelt even further down. Seeing her fellow doll’s wavering resistance, Zeta shot a bitter glare towards her owner, looking even angrier than before.

The combat doll gently kissed her Commander’s heel - or at least, the best approximation of a kiss she could make with her completely flat face - then, she bent down a little more, allowing her Commander to take her heel and press it, ever so gently onto the combat doll’s head. The combat doll did not resist, she did not try to take the foot off of her head as it pressed down with slightly more pressure, and then more, until, finally, the combat doll was forced to get on her hands and knees, becoming completely prostrate in front of her. 

“Don’t you understand, Zeta? I am your Commander, your Witch, and I expect obedience out of my dolls. All of my dolls, including you combat models. Your perfect creation does make you unworthy of my power over you.” Dahlia spoke, although it almost didn’t sound like her voice. It was deeper, but not in a way which would make her sound masculine. It sounded like her voice boomed, that the pitch of her voice perfectly carried how much power she had. It was almost like she was a villain talking to her two minions. 

“Alyssa Mk2, convince your fellow combat doll to kne-” The fantasy ended when Dahlia’s vision suddenly turned white, her mind engulfed in pleasure. As she came fervently, her hand ended up covered in thin, translucent cum. Her dick pulsed and twitched with pleasure, and Dahlia let out one moan after another, voice cracking from the intense euphoria of it all. She was now leaking cum instead of actually ejaculating; her hand had become slick and shiny from how much was on it. 

“Commander, there is a very important communication coming in!” Hearing Zeta’s voice at this point nearly startled her. Turning to look at her phone, she saw Zeta pointing up to the notification icon that was currently flashing red and swaying. She was in too much of a horny daze to think about what she was doing, and, as such, rushed to open the notification, without realizing that she would be smudging the screen with her cum-coated hand. By the time she put two and two together, it was too late. 

“Hello Witch!

We are pleased to let you know that you have been selected to participate in the beta test of The Witch’s Workshop’s PvP mode! During this beta, you will only be able to challenge other players that are currently in your friends list. You will be able to see who you are able to challenge once you open up the PvP menu. Remember, this mode is just to have fun, and there will be no kind of progression that requires PvP for its completion.

Also, we’re pleased to announce that we will be releasing a teaser for our first SSR doll in two days! We hope you are very excited to see our newest doll that we have worked very hard on. We debated on whether or not to give you any details about it ahead of time, but our newest doll will be the game’s first Healing and Support hybrid doll! If you’re missing either one of those from your roster, you will want to make sure you create this doll!

Thanks,

Stygian Games”

By now, Dahlia had come out of her horny daze and post-orgasm confusion, and quickly covered herself up, then went into the kitchen to grab a paper towel. She felt incredibly stupid for making the mistake of getting cum on her phone screen. While she was in the kitchen, wiping her hand with a paper towel to get it clean, she heard the door to the dorm room unlock. Terror took hold of her as she heard the door creak open. Slowly, she turned her head, only to see her greatest fears realized - Alyssa had gotten back. She couldn’t possibly be here now, not when her class was only supposed to be over in thirty minutes. Dahlia turned around, trying her best to put on a welcoming smile as she finished discreetly wiping off her hand. Swiftly, she crumpled the paper towel up into a ball and tried to toss it in the trash can, an attempt that was, by all measures, an abject failure - the paper towel bounced off the rim and fell onto the floor unceremoniously. Dahlia, threatened by more pressing concerns, moved rapidly to get back on the couch and wipe her phone off. 

“Oh hey, Dahlia. Class got out early today since we had an exam. Whatcha doing?” Alyssa sat down next to her, causing her to almost yelp as she felt the couch dip next to her. She quickly grabbed her phone, wiping off the little bit of cum that had gotten onto it and smiled as innocently as she could for Alyssa. 

“Nothing much! Just relaxing after Applied Mathematics! You know how that class gets to me, haha.” She tried her best to act naturally, like she wasn’t just masturbating on the couch. Like she wasn’t getting off on a fantasy about taking her shoe and pressing down Alyssa’s head all the way to the ground so that she was groveling in front of her. Like she wasn’t finding the ability to display her complete power and dominance over her roommate so fully as erotic as she was. 

“Mhmm. I hope it’s going well though. Oh yeah, did you get the notification for the new doll?” Alyssa mentioned it nonchalantly, stretching back on the couch and propping her feet up on the coffee table, as Dahlia let out a little sigh, then nodded affirmatively. 

“Yeah, I did. I assume you got into the PvP beta too? I haven’t actually opened up the mode yet, so I have no idea what it’s going to be like.” 

“Wait, you got in? I just got a notification about the new doll they’re going to be revealing. Let me see, I’m curious if anyone else we know got in.” Alyssa leaned in, doing her best to see what was on the screen. Dahlia held her phone between the two of them and pressed the new UI element that had appeared while Dahlia was off in the kitchen. Its design was reminiscent of the two crossing swords that would often signify combat, but, instead, it was two hands with strings coming out of the fingers, the strings crossing with each other. 

“Commander, it is imperative that you choose the workshop we will be targeting with the mock raid.” Zeta said - various parts of her body started glowing as she clearly geared up for battle. Dahlia snuck a peek at Alyssa to see her reaction, and noticed that she was blushing shamelessly, a wide grin plastered across her face. The list of available players to challenge also came up, but there was only one name on it. 

Roxy886

“Huh, looks like the only other person we know who got the beta was Roxy. I guess we’re doing mock raids of each other’s workshops…” Alyssa said, settling in while she continued to ogle Zeta with increasingly obvious enthusiasm. Dahlia chuckled, then tapped on Roxy’s name, and, ultimately, onto the confirmation screen to begin the mock raid. The game took a disquieting amount of time to load, long enough that Alyssa and Dahlia both glanced at each other, wondering if the game was failing to load or about to crash, before the game finally went into the battle screen. On one side was Roxy’s workshop - and her selection of dolls, all getting prepared - while on the other was all of Dahlia’s dolls, huddled up and preparing to raid. She had more dolls than Roxy did, and they looked to be higher level as well, so this seemed like it would be easy. There was a brief pause as the game began, which made her realize that it wasn’t the CPU on the other hand, but actually Roxy. Her opponent had just happened to be playing at the same time as her when she sent her challenge. 

It hadn’t just been easy. Dahlia had managed to completely break past her opponent’s defenses. In comparison to the typical turn based gameplay of the main game, the PvP mode was much closer to an RTS style game, and Dahlia had some experience playing those. The opposing team of dolls was not only smaller and weaker, but she was clearly panicking towards the end of the fight, right before Dahlia captured the workshop. When she did, a CG popped up on the screen, depicting two witches - one for each player.. One witch was on her hands and knees, clearly defeated, while the other was standing over her, the tip of her staff almost touching the other’s head. Dahlia’s breath hitched, reminded of the fantasy that she just had earlier. 

A prompt faded in over the CG.

“Do you want to make this witch your doll?

YES/NO”

Dahlia’s finger moved without thinking. Alyssa turned towards her, a concerned expression on her face. Before she could open her mouth, however, Dahlia had tapped the affirmative option. The CG shifted, with the defeated witch’s body turning into a porcelain doll and a maid outfit manifesting on her. The new doll looks up at her Witch as the CG fades away, and the game returns to the main screen. 

“A successful mock raid. My trust in you as my Commander has increased.” Zeta said, her body powering down from its combat state. Dahlia shook her head, pushing away the lustful thoughts that had been distracting her, and saw that there was a new notification, as well as a set of rewards in her inbox. She tapped on the notification, reading the text window that popped up. 

“Hello Witch!

Congrats on your first PvP victory, and most importantly, on your first doll account! We introduced doll accounts as a fun way for players to pool together their resources in order to help their Witch! Whatever dolls are available in a doll account are also available for you to raise and use in your own game, and you can help out your doll accounts by sending them your own dolls as support!  With this system in play, you should be able to effectively plan for any of the challenges that come your way!

NOTICE: Abuse of the doll system in order to exploit other players will result in a player ban. 

In addition, as thanks for playing this game, we will be giving out a model of our newest SSR doll to you! Please fill out the accompanied form, and your model will be prepared and delivered as soon as possible. We hope you enjoy your new doll!

Thanks,

Stygian Games”

“So that’s what the whole thing was. I still wish you hadn’t clicked it without thinking, but I guess this was less ominous than it appeared.” Alyssa sighed, flopping onto the back of the couch. Dahlia let out a sigh too, then took a deep breath to center herself. She looked in her roster, and did indeed notice that she could see and level-up all of Roxy’s dolls. The whole system was surreal; no system with this level of complexity had existed in a gacha game for a long time, maybe ever. 

“Yeah…sorry. I wasn’t paying attention. What a…system.” She didn’t really know how to respond. She barely remembered even clicking on the prompt in the first place. 

“So…I guess I have control of Roxy’s account huh.” She was still breathless as the reality of the situation sank in.

“Yep. I assume I’m going to get a call from Roxy at some point. This doesn’t seem like a bad thing, but I imagine that her ego is going to be bruised by this. If it were up to her, I think she would be the Witch.” Alyssa winked light-heartedly - Dahlia cracked up.

“Yeah the system is a little power play inspired, isn’t it. We’ll need to make sure to tease her about it.” The devilish suggestion immediately appealed to Alyssa, who nodded vigorously. Dahlia was having fun, enjoying something that she could earnestly share with other people, without them judging her.

What’s the worst that could happen?