I didn’t think I had agoraphobia before, though the main spire of the Central Union Station was certainly making me reconsider that. The station was absolutely massive. I stood just outside the hospital section of the main spire, which opened out into the main plaza.

Calling the space in front of me a plaza felt like an understatement though. It was a massive open space with a wide dome overtop of it made of some kind of translucent material. I doubted they’d use glass for such a major portion of a space structure, but looking up it felt like I was staring into the stars directly. The plaza itself looked more akin to a large park area. Grass, trees, and even a creek sprawled over the area. From where I stood, the entire park seemed to dip downwards like a bowl, giving the ring around the outside of the plaza a commanding view over the nature that seemed incongruous for space.

As incredible as it all was, it left me feeling extremely exposed and vulnerable. Here I was in a body that, while I loved it, still felt incredibly foreign to me as I moved around. I could feel the looks of people I didn’t know looking at me in a way I’d never really gotten before. I could tell it was mostly players staring, given away by their name tags, level and often group name hovering over their heads. Despite having seen the varieties for species in the options when I was making my character, it seemed like most players went with human as their choice. The NPC population of the station seemed mostly the same in demographic too, though the players often were more vibrantly dressed. Bright colours and flashy outfits seemed common on players, while more practical and utilitarian clothes were preferred for the simulated inhabitants of the station.

I tried my best to keep my head down as I walked. I was looking for a cafe called Amy’s Creature Comforts. The name felt… Dorky, but charming. My paws were getting tired by the time I found it, the hard floor plating uncomfortable against my soft paw pads and walking on my toes being a strange experience. Still, I could feel myself slowly adjusting to the stance I had to maintain as I approached the cafe.

It had a literal white picket fence out front of it that sectioned off a part of the pathway for their ‘patio’, and large glass windows that opened into a cozy looking coffee shop interior. The space was covered in shades of oranges and whites, which contrasted with a weapons shop on one side, and a store I could only describe as ‘trenchcoats-R-us’ on the other. There were mercifully few people in Amy’s as I approached, so I slipped into one of the booth tables. Of course, I all but sat on my damn tail as I did, causing a small yelp to escape my lips before I could realize what had happened.

I flushed bright red with embarrassment as heads turned towards me, and I had to hastily wave that I was okay to them before most turned back to their own drinks or conversation. The dark-skinned woman behind the counter just shook her head and let out a small chuckle as she went back to work as my embarrassment only grew. By instinct, I curled my tail around my body and pulled it into my lap. It was soft against my finger pads, and petting it nervously as I waited brought a measure of comfort to me as my nerves frayed.

What felt like hours passed, but in reality it was only a few minutes before the door opened again. Walking in, I recognized Soren almost immediately from the photos he’d shown me whenever we hung out. He claimed his character was modelled after someone named Captain Kirk from some really old scifi show, though how accurate that was I had no idea. He was maybe five feet tall, a couple inches shorter than I was even without my new pointed ears. He was alone, dressed in a slick uniform with black dress pants and a deep yellow dress shirt. On the collar was four gold bar pins, and on the right side of his chest was a broach of some kind that I entirely didn’t recognize.

Soren looked around the cafe as he stepped inside, placing his hands on his hips. I could tell he was trying to figure out which of the patrons I was, and confusion was written plainly on his face. I pointedly looked down at the table, refusing to make eye contact with him. God, what was I thinking, picking to play as a girl!? I knew Soren in real life, and he was going to judge the hell out of me! I should’ve just gone with something more basic and-

“My- Uh… Kaela?” Soren asked, moving the chair across from me out and sitting down. I heard him start with my real name, then correct himself to my character’s name. I don’t know what came over me, but I felt everything get even more tense around me. Like I’d dived to the bottom of a pool, and I could feel the water trying to crush me. Tears started to roll down my cheeks as a strange sense of rightness came over me at the use of my character’s name.

“Hey, hey…” Soren was suddenly sitting next to me, his arm around my shoulder as he comforted me. “Deep breaths, you’re okay.”

I nodded slightly. I tried to do what he said, focusing on my breathing and tuning out the confusing feelings that were building up inside me. We sat like that for a little bit, him softly rubbing my back as I brought my breathing under control.

“You good, Kae?” Soren finally asked, to which I nodded again. I didn’t trust my voice fully yet, especially with the feeling of strange rightness at the use of my new name still boiling under the surface.

I turned to look up at him just enough to see a soft smile across his face. “Good. Just keep breathing and focus on what's going on around us right now. You are safe, you are with a friend, and there is nothing wrong, okay?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Th-thanks S-Soren.” I managed to croak out, the deep melodic tone raw from the soreness in my throat. “I’m… I’m sorry for crying, I didn’t think that-”

“Hey, hush.” Soren smiled gently at me, his arm squeezing me gently as he shook his head. “It's okay to cry, y’know? Don’t worry about me. I’m not judging you.”

I nodded again, more forcefully this time. We sat quietly for another minute, Soren letting me get myself centered again. Soon enough though, I pushed him off me gently, and cleared my throat. He got the hint, and moved back to the other side of the table.

“You gonna be okay?” He asked.

I put on a smile that was a tiny bit forced. “Yeah. Just caught off guard by how… Real some of this feels.”

“It's your first time in full-dive virtual reality, so that is no surprise.” Soren let out a snort of laughter. “But still, welcome to Stellara Nova, if no one has said that to you yet.”

“Thanks, I think.” I glanced around the coffee shop before settling my gaze back on my friend. I still felt incredibly out of place.

“Wasn’t expecting you to look like that, but hey. This is a break from reality, so why not go all out, right?” He took a deep breath and leaned in a bit. “Lets jump into it so we can get you up to speed. The rest of the crew is waiting on the ship to meet you, and we have a heck of a walk there. You can ask any questions you have on our way there, and we can start talking about your build and what you want to do.”

I made an agreeable noise back at him, thankful he didn’t wait for me to reply to his comment about my appearance, and soon we were back out in the plaza walking around the outside ring. Soren was guiding me towards one of the large entrances that dotted around the outer wall of the space.

I struck up the conversation first, trying to avoid an awkward silence as we walked. I felt uncomfortable in my plain grey jumpsuit next to Soren in his flashy uniform-looking outfit. “So… You mentioned what I wanted to do… What options do I have?”

“Good question!” Soren grinned up at me. “Stellara Nova doesn’t really have the traditional roles that you’d think of in most MMOs, but there are a lot of pretty close equivalents, if that's what you are going for. It really depends on what environment you want to focus on.”

“Environment? Like… Desert versus forest?” I ask, glancing over at him before having to focus on my balance as I nearly tripped over a raised section of floor. Damn, I was still adjusting to the new way my legs worked.

“Sorta.” Soren shook his head. “Stellara Nova has three main environments, which broadly means the scale you are working on. The first, and smallest, is the person-scale. Things like personal skills, small arms, boarding actions, etc. Every player has to interact with this scale for most things, since the devs like keeping it as realistic feeling as possible.”

He gestured for me to take a right, and we stepped through one of the large doors into a massive tube that ran out from the plaza area. The entire thing was almost entirely made of the same translucent material as the dome, though was more like a massive thoroughfare. I realized, with awe, that this was only one of several long spokes that led out to even larger ring sections that made up the full disk-like station. Soren guided me over to a moving sidewalk, like you’d see at airports or especially large mega-malls, and we continued walking.

“Moving up is the vehicle-scale. Most people interact with this scale to some extent too, though it's not strictly required. It's also pretty straight forward too. Personal cars, tanks, space fighters, small ships and the like all count towards the vehicle scale so long as they can be operated by one person.” Soren continued to explain. He seemed to be in a rhythm, like he’d given this speech before to other people.

“Wait, that sounds like what most games cover. What else is there?” I realized aloud, turning my gaze from the stars above back to my friend.

“The last is the largest scale. There’s a couple different names for it, since it covers a wide variety of things, but most call it fleet-scale or army-scale since the flashiest examples are usually one or the other.” Soren explained, a wider grin on his face. “But in essence, it covers the scale of anything where two or more groups of twenty-five people interact.”

I let out a soft hum of acknowledgement. “Why twenty-five? That seems… arbitrary.”

“Eh, it is arbitrary,” Soren grunted in agreement. “Still, it's what the community generally decided. There is a pretty big grey zone between where most vehicle and fleet scale events take place. But generally, fleet-scale events are big, chaotic messes of hundreds to thousands of players in the same space all at once, and there are skills for managing all of it.”

“Well, I definitely don’t really want to work on that scale of things. Too many people.” I sighed, shuddering at just the thought.

“Ha! Don’t worry, you won’t need to. I’ve dipped my toes into it, but most fleet-scale things are for the larger companies.” Soren laughed, and I found myself smiling despite the uncomfortable feelings. “But you should think about what you want to do. There are lots of different roles and subsets of roles to explore within both person and vehicle scales of Stellara Nova, so the world is your oyster.”

I nod to that, once again turning my gaze up to the star above. While they were hard to make out, I could see the dots of ships and spacecraft moving around the outer ring of the station. A smile started to crawl on my face as the options floated in my head. There were a lot of choices, and a lot of worry that I had no clue what I was doing. But still… At least I had the options here. I could be free to do what I actually wanted to.

“I think I have an idea of what I want…” I murmured out, and I didn’t need to turn around to see the matching smile on Soren’s face.