I arrived at the cafe first, setting myself down into one of the corner booths. Amy’s was a staple for Union Station, a large player run and operated hub for coffee and socialisation. The lady who ran it, Amy, was one of those people who’d been playing the same character since the launch of the game, and had built up an entire planet’s worth of credits. However, instead of starting some kind of faction, she seemed content to run a coffee store where she could spend her time chatting with players and spending time helping newbies out when they inevitably got lost in the massive complex that was Union Station.
Of course, when I sat down I’d done so right on my tail. The yelp I made earned a laugh from the barista, who was one of Amy’s friends if I recall correctly. I hadn’t socialised much back during my solo running days, and that was showing now. I’d nervously waved hello when she asked if I was okay, explaining that I was still adjusting to the new limbs. The brunette just shook her head at me, grinning as she went back to work.
The majority of the people in the shop were various NPCs going about their simulated lives, which included frequent coffee breaks. The devs thought it helped bring the world to life better than having static NPCs, even if it took up massive amounts more processing power on the back end of the system. Players usually stood out among crowds of NPCs, something some had taken to calling the ‘Protagonist Effect’ given that most player characters had odd visual appearances, brighter hair colours, or in rare cases more non-human appearances like me.
There were a pair of other non-humans in the cafe today too: a tabby-patterned catboy, and a Synth. Synths (or Synthetic Persons) were in-universe robotic AIs that were a special appearance players could pick if they wanted. It came with benefits like not needing to breathe and being extremely adept at anything computers, but came with the downside of being more fragile than your typical person and needing to be repaired manually if they were damaged instead of healing like a fleshy person. They looked mostly human with visible seams on joints and noticeably robotic eyes, though people could get as creative with their appearance as they wanted.
The little bell above the door rang as it swung open, two familiar people stepping into the cafe as their eyes scanned over the patrons of the place. Soren was the first one I saw, leading the charge like always. He looked like someone had taken Captain Kirk from one of the old sci-fi movies and turned him into a barely five foot tall, black haired lookalike. Not that he’d had any idea when he first joined the game, but he had latched onto it once someone told him. He had decided to become one of the most infamous explorers within Stellara Nova, though he’d not had much success with that yet.
Lea, on the other hand, was a much more typical sight in this game. Wearing dirty mechanical overalls, and her own black hair cut short on the sides and pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head, she was the spitting image of a “Hot Mechanic Lady”. There was some familial resemblance between their characters, and most people picked up on that sibling relation when they met the two of them.
I bit my lip slightly as I looked at the two of them, waiting to see if they would pick up on me being the white haired wolfgirl in the corner. After a few moments of looking, Lea pointed me out and I held my breath. Did she pick up on me that quickly? How? However, Soren shook his head as he was looking around the cafe with confusion printed on his face. Damn, clueless as always. I watched as he brought up his menu, and the window I’d hidden popped back up with our text conversation. I quickly hid it behind the tall mug of hot chocolate on my table, deciding to have a little bit of fun with them.
Soren looked confused, turning to Lea. I couldn’t hear their conversation from where I sat, but he did check her shoulder to see the missed patch of grime from her latest efforts. Then, I watched as both of them turned to me. I gave a nervous grin and a small wave as they did, watching as Lea broke out into laughter and Soren just stared in shock. Both of them quickly walked over and joined me at the table, Lea still trying to get her laughter under control.
“Myles?” Soren asked, his voice unable to hide his surprise.
“It’s Kaela now, actually. At least when I look like this.” I replied, trying to keep my cool. Soren was literally my childhood best friend, and I was now starting to worry that he was going to take issue with the change of gender.
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“Well, nice to see you again Kaela.” Lea interjected, her tone smooth as she put a hand on Soren’s shoulder. She looked over at him, as the gears continued to turn over in his head. “Looks like you lost the bet, lil’ bro.”
“Dammit, right, okay.” He grumbled, and it was my turn to look confused.
“Bet?” I asked, looking between the pair as Soren handed over a small stack of credit chips.
“He kept complaining you were going to play another ‘dark and mysterious’ character, so I bet him that you’d go with something different.” Lea explained as she pocketed the credits.
“Well, technically the randomiser made this, not me.” I said, but she just shook her head.“You could’ve logged out and remade your character,” Lea pointed out, grinning at me. “But instead here you are, with all your starting equipment. So, I win!”
“Regardless of who won, what kind of character is that?” Soren asked, still staring at me. No, wait… He was staring at my breasts! I felt my face turn red as my tall wolf ears pinned themselves to the back of my head.
“Hey my eyes are up here, you perv.” I snapped at him, feeling suddenly very conscious about my body.
“SHITSORRY!” He blurted out, his own face turning red in embarrassment as he averted his gaze.
“It’s still me, Soren! You dumbass! Gods, is this what you have to put up with constantly?” I asked Lea, who was busy trying to muffle her second bout of laughter.
She just shook her head, “Sometimes. I’ve found that a swift kick in the nuts usually solves the problem.”
Soren and I both winced at that. Even if I didn’t have any right now, I was still born male and I knew what that felt like all too well from my failed parkour days at school.
“Well, what skills do you have?” Soren asked, quickly shifting the topics. I could tell he was still adjusting to my new female…ness, but he was still being friendly at least. And him perving on me was a comfort, in a strange way. He knew who I was, and his dumb brain still chose to acknowledge me as a woman, not his male friend in a bad costume. It was painfully Soren of him to do, which calmed my worries about him not accepting me for it.
I quickly explained what I took as I pulled up my skill tree. “Stuff that will help you. I took piloting up to the medium weight certification and the Novaspace navigation. I also took a single point in on-foot combat and equipment maintenance to spread my points out a bit. And uh…” I trailed off as I looked at the randomly generated skill.
My confusion must’ve been obvious on my face as Soren spoke, “You okay? What was your last pick?”
“I took the randomised personal quirk option,” I explained, “It’s that new thing the devs added as an option for new characters I mentioned earlier. Mine is called ‘Novaspace Intuition’. From the description, I’ve got some kind of intrinsic connection with Novaspace that allows me to better understand its flow and currents. I’ll have some kind of benefit during Novaspace travel, it looks like, but the system is deliberately being as vague as possible.”
“Figures. The game system has felt… Snarkier recently,” Lea said, leaning back into her chair with a sigh. “The devs haven’t commented on it at all, but a couple people have been noticing it in system messages and item descriptions.”
“Weird,” was all I said as I thought back to the way the Narrator seemed to treat my idea for my character when I’d been with her. She had seemed more lively and judgemental than the stoic woman from before. “Regardless, the system said my stats also got randomised so let me check those.”
I pulled up the stats window quickly, flicking the skills page away with a flick of my wrist. I snorted softly as I took in what the system had decided to do to my body’s stats. My stamina was left at eight, with my strength at a nine. My dexterity was boosted up to eleven and kinesthetic sense was sitting at a twelve. “The system really is having fun with me. Gonna have to up my stamina when I can, but it’s given me a very movement based starting point.”
“I think that should fit in pretty well, actually. The other two newbies we picked up, they are both more built into the strength side, if I recall right?” Soren said, rubbing his chin in thought as he glanced at his sister.
Lea nodded, “Soren and I both have a pretty solid all-round stats distribution. Having someone more flexible and nimble to fill in the gaps is very helpful.”
“Hm. Sounds like I’ll fit in well then.” I agreed, before shifting the topic again, “I kinda assumed you’d want to use me as your pilot, but I never asked who your two newbies were and what they were wanting to do?”
“To be honest I expected it. You love being behind the controls of your fighter, I figured you’d wanna play with a bigger toy someday.” Soren chuckled, nodding. “The two others we picked up are Troy and Alex. Troy is some kind of soldier in real life, so he’s going for something similar here in game. I’ve appointed him as our head of security. Alex is a bit shy, but he’s playing a scientist. He says he loves exploring the tech in this game, so he’s delving into those skill trees.”
“Not a bad spread then,” I mused. “A short stack captain, an engineer, security, scientist and pilot. That’s a well rounded ship crew right there.”
“Hey!” Soren protested, a look of exaggerated shock on his face. “Just because I had no idea how to adjust the height slider doesn’t mean you get to make fun of me for it!”
“Oh, it most certainly does.” I grinned. “I mean, I’m a short girl now, but I’m still taller than you!”
“Only cuz you have dog ears!” He grumbled, crossing his arms. I wiggled them playfully, winking at Lea. She was busy trying to focus on sipping her coffee in order to stifle her laughter. We sat there joking for a while longer, before we eventually finished our drinks. We started to make our way out, when we were intercepted by the pair of non-humans that I’d seen earlier.
“Excuse me, we couldn’t help but overhear - Are you the Captain Soren?”