Alex had slept in her maid outfit and didn’t have a good memory after the baroness Yvne gave her an order. Her head was clearer now. But avoiding the dy of the mansion would be a good idea going forward. If she could command anyone in a maid outfit then that was terrifying.

  “Zeke?” Alex sat up in bed.

  Zeke’s voice cracked while speaking. “Alice. What is it?” The farm boy didn’t sound or look the same as yesterday.

  “The sun will be up soon. It is about 7am.” Alex checked the time on her phone. “My pn to get kicked out didn’t work so I’ll have to try something else.”

  “7am? Is there a sundial nearby? The town has one along the main run but I didn’t see one in the manor. We usually just work from sunup to sun down.” Zeke also sat up in bed. “I’d tell you your struggle against the nobility is futile but I don’t think that would make you feel better.”

  “I think they drugged our food st night. Let me cook so that nothing extra gets added. That is not really a way out but it is a start.” Alex got up and started making the bed.

  Zeke got up and followed Alex’s example by making his own bed.

  When Alex got the bed nice and tidy, she stood back to admire her work. But then her phone rang out.

  [Maid training 5%] Alex felt a shiver run down her spine and turned to Zeke. “Zeke, stop, don't make your bed.” Alex wasn’t in time though.

  Zeke stiffened and the magic of the cursed maid dress did its work. He visibly shrunk an inch, became less bulky, and his hair grew another inch. “There, our beds are made.” His voice sounded higher.

  Alex ran her hands over her body worried that something had changed. Nothing felt different. Turning on the camera app on the phone, Alex checked herself over. She still looked like the priestess from the purity temple, a younger version, but that was just the magical girl css aging her backwards. If the clothing’s curse turned someone into a girl that might be good or bad.

  Zeke may have more time because the cursed dress would have to both turn him into a woman as well as a maid or it could be at the same time. Alex wasn’t sure. She’d been transformed several times already but each process was different.

  “If you make your bed I think it turns you more fully into a maid.” Alex turned the phone around and showed Zeke how he looked. “Don’t do that again.”

  Zeke blinked. “That’s me? I barely look male anymore.”

  “Yeah, I’m worried that when our maid training is complete we’ll be just like the rest of the staff. Did you notice how all the maids prefer to be addressed as maid? I don’t really want you or anyone to become like that.” Alex cleaned off some hair from Zeke’s dress.

  [Maid training 6%]

  Alex swore. This curse was going to be hard to avoid.

  “Thanks Alice.” Zeke reached to help Alex with her dress but Alex stopped him.

  “Don’t do that. It’ll just advance the curse. I just found that out the hard way.” Alex sighed and opened the door to the hallway. “If I could do things over again. I’d make a maid outfit and just wear it so they’d think I had one of the cursed ones.”

  “You sure are full of spirit Alice. Not being from around here, it is sad to see you end up like this. Anyway, let's get breakfast.” Zeke headed out along with Alex down the hallway to the dining room.

  Much to Alex’s dismay, everyone in the dining hall donned their maid outfits. Looking around the room, it was difficult to discern who were townspeople and who were maids. As the time ticked forward, likely the difference would be zero for some people.

  Alex noticed Trudy setting out silverware. “Trudy, Zeke, let's make breakfast for everyone.” The maid-dressed magical girl gestured to the adjacent kitchen room.

  “Understood, mistress should appreciate us dispying our cooking skills.” Zeke and Trudy answered in unison.

  The trio went into the kitchen and politely asked the maids inside if they could prepare the meal for everyone. None of them objected, they stood aside and beckoned them to go ahead.

  Alex thought that was strange. Considering the st meal made them docile, the fact that they didn’t care about cooking this time was very suspect. Their pantry was filled with mostly starches, fruits and veggies. A good supply of eggs sat on their own shelf in an area of the pantry that felt colder than the rest.

  “Let's make veggie omelets for everyone.” Alex rolled up her sleeves and tried to take her white gloves off but couldn’t.

  The kitchen had a cistern fed basin. It was just a pipe that fed into a copper bowl. While Alex couldn’t take the white cloth gloves off she could rinse off her hands so she did so before starting the food prep. “It is important to clean your hands before preparing food.” Alex set a good example then dusted off the water with the feather duster, leaving pristine dry gloves behind. However, there was an unpleasant surprise.

  [Maid training 7%]

  Alex winched and backpedaled when Zeke and Trudy approached to wash their hands. “Actually, you are clean enough. Maybe next time. I got my gloves dirty st night, yours are fine”

  The three of them got some cast iron pans, added cooking oil to and put them on what looked to be a magic-powered stove. “Now the important thing is to make the food cute.” Fufi wasn’t around so Alex felt like saying what she would have said in this situation. “We can make some ketchup and draw hearts on them when we pte them.”

  Alex looked to one of the maids that were quietly watching. “I think they are tomatoes, vinegar and sugar. Do we have them?”

  The maid answered in a monotone voice. “Yes, but not much sugar, that is reserved for the baroness. You can use vinegar and tomatoes though.”

  There wasn’t a blender, but cooking skills could turn a paring knife into a blender. Alex chopped and mixed, and came out with a thick red paste. She used a setup for putting icing on cakes and drew hearts on all of the omelets. Just to test, Alex tasted the ketchup and surprisingly it tasted like ketchup should even without sugar. Weird. She wrote encouraging messages like ‘Don’t give up!’ and ‘You can do it!’

  “Your way of cooking cheers me up.” Trudy smiled. “This omelet is very cute.”

  “Thanks, want to help me serve these?” Alex handed Trudy and Zeke pted omelets.

  It took a few minutes to get everyone served and Alex threw a towel over her shoulder and said cheerfully. “Enjoy your meal.”

  That was when Alex discovered why the maids didn’t object to the maid trainees cooking.

  [Maid training 27%] Crap, that was a big jump.

  As a consotion prize, Alex got another skill up.

  [Cooking+1]

  [Cooking : advanced to skill level 2]

  Trudy and Zeke were affected as well. While Trudy didn’t have any outward changes, she stiffened and her posture changed to a much straighter one. Her smile faded and she donned a much more formal expression.

  Zeke’s progression was much more obvious. His face warped into an expression of concern when the changes took hold. Originally, he looked like a well-muscled man in a dress then after half a day and night in it looked like an androgynous human. He shrunk several inches, his chest swelled in a feminine way. His waist shrunk and his hips and thighs expanded. His Adam's apple receded away. His eyeshes and hair grew longer. His lips changed shape, forming what looked like a natural pout.

  “Ugh.” Zeke reached between his legs. His voice was even more noticeably higher. “I thought that I might have lost it there for a moment. But it looks like my buddy is still there.”

  Trudy blushed.

  Alex rolled her eyes. “That’s a little bit more information than we needed to know. I know that the cursed clothing is insidious but please don’t touch yourself in public. It really isn’t a proper way to conduct yourself.”

  Zeke nodded in embarrassment and composed himself. He looked at Trudy and copied her pose. His hair grew a little longer, now down to his neck.

  Crap. Alex thought. “Look, I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I was pretty sure that the maids were feeding everyone food that made them docile. I figured if we cooked it we could keep people from losing themselves to the cursed clothing and buy a little extra time to find a way out of this mess. I discovered yesterday that cleaning advances the maid training process and just now we found out that cooking does as well.”

  Trudy managed a weak smile. “I don’t know if it will matter much longer but I have increased my cooking skill.”

  “I unlocked cooking as a skill.” Zeke looked at Trudy. “Yesterday I unlocked a cleaning skill.”

  Trudy nodded. “I know, it is weird that we are increasing our skills so fast. I already had cooking and cleaning skills. Most women in town do because it is expected that we all learn to be capable homemakers. But yesterday the mistress supervised our training and I think most everyone said something about getting a skill increase in cleaning.”

  Alex figured skilling up that quick would be amazing. But like with many things that were too good to be true, it came at a terrible cost. The creepy maids with matching personalities told it all. Do they even remember who they used to be?

  The three of them sat down at a table and ate their own omelets. Luckily, no one started spacing out.

  “We should come up with a pn.” Alex took a bite and drank some water. “I don’t want to just give up. There has to be a way out of this.”

  Both people at the table didn’t seem to have much hope but gave a hesitant nod to hear Alex out.

  “What do we know so far? Cooking and cleaning progresses the curse. I’m not sure what else does.” Alex paused, hoping that Zeke and Trudy had any good information.

  “Obeying mistress.” Trudy frowned then tried again. “ss, Lady Yvne.” Trudy took a deep breath. “Sorry, everytime I talk about the baroness the words come out extra reverent.”

  “Can we just climb the walls and escape that way?” Alex asked.

  “I doubt that will work. When I was a kid, someone took a dare to sneak into my mistress's estate at night. There was a magic barrier that repelled them.” Zeke added.

  Alex hummed and considered options. “So unless there is some kind of other way I’m guessing the normal way is through the gate during the day when it is open?”

  Both of them nodded in unison.

  “Mistress will sometimes send for people but mostly supplies get dropped off in the yard and the staff will sort them.” Zeke answered the question.

  “I searched the study. There were some demonic tomes there. I found one and took a gnce at it. There was strange writing in it. I am not an expert but I think it is demonic ritual magic.” Alex paused. “I would say maybe we could study it and see if we could find a way to break the curse but I have no idea how to even read it. I don’t know how long that would take to decipher but I doubt we have that kind of time.”

  “What do you think we should do, miss Alice?” Zeke started stacking dishes, but caught himself and stopped. That might be considered cleaning.

  “I guess for starters we could avoid doing the things the maids are pushing us to do. And most importantly avoid my mis….Lady Yvne.” Alex spat the st words. The nudge to speak reverently about the baroness was affecting her as well. “Let's get out of here before we are forced to help clean up.”

  The three of them stood up and headed for the door. Alex opened the door and the three started for the hallway.

  “Don’t you think you are forgetting something?” A maid approached them, a stern look on her face.

  “What’s that?” Alex stepped away, inching for the hallway.

  “You three should clean up. You don’t want to have the other maids clean all the dishes you dirtied do you? That wouldn’t be nice.” The maid gestured back into the dining hall.

  “Everyone knows that if you cook the meal then you don’t have to do the cleanup.” Alex snapped back.

  The maid crossed her arms. “That is not a rule in this household, miss Alice.”

  “Well, it should be!” Alex sounded like a child trying to get out of chores but didn’t care. “Let's go, we have other work to do.” Alex grabbed both Zeke and Trudy’s hand and headed down the hallway. She could feel the maid’s angry gre piercing through her back but didn’t care. Alex led them outside and sat on a bench on the side of the building that had a view of the stables. The clockwork carriage sat there, still in the same pce it was before. Alex considered changing it back into card form and bolting for the gate. It was open now that the sun was up but a dozen imps in butler outfits manned the gate. It was one of those types that had a kill box in it. They could pull a lever and an iron grate would fall down and block the path. Alex wasn’t a superhuman, she couldn’t bend iron bars with her bare hands.

  Trudy and Zeke joined Alex on the bench.

  “We escaped cleaning duty for now.” Trudy looked around and noticed Alex looking at the carriage. “Is that yours? It doesn’t look like one of the ones from the usual traveling merchants.”

  Alex looked to Trudy. “Yes, though if I become a maid does that mean I’ll be mistress’s property and everything I own in turn?”

  Trudy answered softly. “Not automatically but mistress is the w and the judge for her nds. So if she wants something, she can just make up an excuse to take it. And if you question it, then she can just punish you for not knowing your pce.”

  “I figured as much.” Alex looked up at the sky. It was overcast and somewhat cold. It might rain again today. “I could try to sneak into her chambers and see if there is anything there that might help?”

  “Do you think you can do that without getting caught?” Zeke sounded like the pn was foolish.

  “I can try, I think I can avoid a maid or two. Is she the only one that goes in there?” Alex asked.

  “Yeah, after her husband was murdered she sent her children away to the capitol to go to the academy there.” Trudy shared some interesting gossip.

  “Really? Mistress was married.” Alex meant to say something less pleasant but it didn’t come out that way.

  “Yes, an undead wayid the former baron when he was on route to a ball. The demons took care of the undead but the mistress had to inherit the Barony. She sent her children away after that. It was a shame. When the two of them were together, she was a great mother and spent a lot of time in town being part of the community. After her husband died she was like a different person.” Trudy leaned forward like saying some secret.

  “That actually makes sense.” Alex ran her hand through her hair. “I’m sure the mistress is demon possessed. If what you say is true, perhaps when the baron died, the demon decided to possess his wife.” Alex pauses. “Does it even work that way? Would the demon die if the body it was possessing died? It could be a different demon.” Alex wanted to ask Fufi. But letting Zeke and Trudy know that she wasn’t a toy but an actual fmingo in a clockwork suit seemed like an unnecessary risk.