"Hello Ms. Greene!” said Dr. Stevens. He was standing before her on an idyllic beach. Adelynn had gotten a message that the hospital wanted a word with her so she had to log out of Mythticle and return to the ‘recovery room’. She was able to easily return to the Headspace of St. Augustine Hospital and wait for Dr. Stevens to appear. He’d come out of a glowing doorway with a fancy clipboard in his hand.

“Hello.” Replied Adelynn.

“Thanks for popping in to have a chat.” He continued. “I’m sure you were off having all sorts of fancy adventures. I used to play Mythticle a few years ago, so I recognize that style of avatar. Maybe I’ll log in and see how things have gone in that world.”

Adelynn looked down at herself. She was as she appeared in Mythticle and she blushed a bit not realizing that she would not be her ‘normal’ self, which up until recently had looked like the queen piece from a fancy chess set. Her old Headspacer would not have handled Mythticle at all.

“Right, well, anyway. Your legs are all put back together as best as we could manage and your muscle is doing its best to heal. We were lucky to find most of both of your kneecaps! Those are an obnoxious part to regrow so that will save us a week or so. At any rate you’re doing well and you’ll stay in Headspace for the foreseeable future, so if you don’t hear from us, just assume everything is going fine.”

Adelynn nodded. “Okay. Thank you.” She said thinking his excitement about finding her various bits was a bit out of sorts, but she had met people with worse attitudes toward serious issues before. He sat down next to her on a chair that just appeared for him. He’d make an unusual sight on any beach, a doctor sitting in an old-fashioned leather chair just chatting with a beachgoer in full armor.

“How’s your mental state been?” he asked.

“I had a few sessions of falling apart.” She said. “I have had nightmares of dying in an accident.”

He wrote something down on his clipboard. “Do you have friends and family to talk to about it?”

“Yes.” She replied thinking of Starla holding her last night. “I have a friend with the dizzying I should send a note to, since she was the one I was going to see when I got into the accident.”

The doctor looked at his notes. “Cherie, right? She’s called a few times from an old phone to ask about your status and we’ve only been able to tell her that you are alright. I can’t give her specifics because of HIPPA+, you understand.”

Adelynn nodded. “Of course. Thank you. I have a meeting later today with my job to discuss my duties while I’m recovering.”

“Do you need a doctor’s note?” he said smiling and pulling out a sheet of glowing paper. He handed it to her before she replied. “Right, take it easy.” He stood up, his chair disappeared and he opened the door and stepped through before it too vanished. She looked at the paper and it had a 3D barcode at the top that her firm could scan if they wanted to know what she specifically needed. There was a place at the bottom of the page for her to give consent to get information from using that barcode and she signed her name and tucked it away.

She stood up, stretched and inserted the key the doctor had given her on the first day to get out into the Headspace network.

The Headspace network was set up in a fairly logical and intuitive fashion. A user would log on in a hub and then step through a series of doorways to what they wanted. The path started with vague terms, such as ‘entertainment’, ‘occupation’, ‘research’ and ‘recently visited’. Adelynn went into the ‘recently’ visited door and walked back into the Myth and Mystical door.

She arrived at the front door of Myth and Mystical and went in after ignoring the advertisements for glam items and avatar enhancements. She wasn’t sure if she was ready for that kind of spending yet.

A bright flash of white and she was sitting in her bed in the cave. Starla had cleaned up stuff and smiled when Adelynn popped back in.

“There you are.” Said Starla.

Adelynn nodded. “Sorry, you were asleep. Just the doctor wanting to tell me that I’m on schedule and if I don’t hear anything to assume the best.”

“Alright.”

“I will have to go at some point to make some phone calls and to talk to the people at my job. I didn’t realize that this avatar worked elsewhere.”

Starla nodded. “Since Headspace is all from one source everything works everywhere. I’m sure the doctor was amused by the armor.”

Adelynn chuckled. “He sure was. Maybe I need to get something that isn’t armor to wear outside of Mythticle.”

“I can help you with that later if you want.”

Adelynn put her hands on her hips. “No, you’re doing too much! No more presents!”

Starla shrugged. “I was just going to get you in touch with one of the best seamstresses in Mythticle. It’ll be up to you to pay her.”

Adelynn picked up the nice bed and put it in her inventory. “Okay, introductions are fine I suppose.”

After Starla got her disguise back in place she dispelled the illusion and ward over the cave entrance. Once outside she pulled out her horse and climbed on. “Ready?”

Adelynn looked at the silvery color of the horse. “I don’t have a mount yet.” Starla got off her horse and dismissed it, only to pull out a small control box and poke a button. A sporty, topless two-seater vehicle popped into existence next to them. “Kind of kills the fantasy vibe.” She said.

Starla shrugged. “My other two-seater mount is an elephant and it smells a bit. This is just from an event where one of the future games had a cross over with ours.”

Adelynn went and got in the passenger seat. “This is really old fashioned.”

“I know right?” said Starla climbing over the driver’s door and sliding down into the seat, “I even have to push the pedals and turn the wheel.” She took off and drove awkwardly up the hill they’d rushed down last night and up onto the road. Starla kept the speed low as they bumped over the uneven terrain.

Adelynn wrapped her arms around herself. The ride was bothering her a bit, but she just shook it off. She’d have to deal with riding in a vehicle again someday, so she might as well get it over with.

“You okay?” said Starla.

“Yes. I think.”

“Great. I’ve unlocked flying in this zone if this is too bumpy.” Said Starla.

Adelynn felt like her bones didn’t need anymore rearrangement and nodded. Starla pushed a button and another handle popped out and she pulled back on it. The tires left the ground and they were driving about fifty feet up. Starla pushed the accelerator a bit and kept an eye on the clouds. “We need thunderstorm conditions. If it starts getting dark in the sky I’ll land.”

Adelynn held onto the handle and just nodded back while trying to keep any terror off her face. After nothing happened to the vehicle or the passengers for a few minutes she relaxed a bit. Starla held up a hand and squeezed a section of her ear that was covered. “Hey. Can I get a weather report for the northlands? Expected torrential storming? Great! Thanks! When?” Adelynn wondered who she was talking to for a moment before Starla finished with them. “Great, we can get there before that time. Thanks. See you later.”

Starla stopped talking to nobody and turned to Adelynn. “So, a friend of mine who does the weather divination says that our storm will be coming down from one of the mountains a bit to the north around noon. We can make that at top speed.”

“Okay cool.” Said Adelynn. “What is top speed?”

“Something like fifty miles an hour.”

“Faster than the city vehicles.”

“Yep, close to highway speeds.” Said Starla turning and pushing the accelerator. “It’ll still be an hour before we get close enough to take a look.”

“Alright. Tell me about Gordok the Ravager.” Said Adelynn.

“Right! He’s a big ogre thing, but he’s slow. You just need to get the hell out of the way of his attacks and you’ll be fine. You can try to cut him if he ever ends up off kilter from his big swing, but I don’t know if you’ll do more than a point of damage.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Okay.”

“I’ll be nearby. I have to cast the long form of Meteor if I want to one shot him. I’ll paint a target on the ground and he’ll need to be as close to the middle as possible. If we miss on the first shot, I’ll stun him and we can try again in a few minutes. Someone else will probably be out here looking for him before long, but we’ll be first for sure.”

Adelynn nodded. “How much competition is there?”

“For Gordok? Not much. He drops a crystal that I want because it’ll let me power up a spell called Ra Blast. He can drop all sorts of other things too. Typically, boss monsters drop things that can be used at any level, it just scales down to the level you equipped it at. If you do get a weapon or armor, just go ahead, and use it, there are better things down the road for you.”

Adelynn nodded. “Alright, sounds good. What if another player beats us there?”

“We can either tell them to get lost, PVP them or see if they want to join the party. Speaking of which.” Starla moved her hand over her status tablet and Adelynn got a pop up that Starla Starfall would like to form a party, do you accept? She hit yes.

“Adelynn Silverwing?” said Starla. “That’s a nice last name.”

“Well, my real one is—”

“Don’t tell me!” said Starla. “Don’t tell anyone. Wait, is Adelynn your actual first name?”

“Uh, Yes?”

Starla shook her head. “I’m sure it’s fine, but don’t tell people your last name. Someone will definitely find you and try to make your life miserable.”

“I mean, I am named after that princess from ‘Avalon Saints’.” Said Adelynn.

“Oh, I remember my dad and mom showing me that when I was young.” Said Starla, “It was pretty good. The blonde princess who rode a unicorn-Pegasus horse?”

“Yes, that’s her.” Said Adelynn while thinking about how she wanted a silvery unicorn Pegasus. That was the deciding factor on which game she chose; she would eventually be able to have one as a mount. "I just wanted a pretty horse. Is that too much to ask?"

"Probably not here. Am I allowed to say 'Excuuuuuuuse me, Princess!' when you do something silly?" asked Starla with a grin.

"Absolutely not." said Adelynn clearly grumpy from hearing that joke far too often in her youth.

“Okay, Princess. Besides there’s probably thousands of Adelynn’s in the Headspace.” Said Starla. “Just stick with Silverwing, okay?”

“Okay.” Said Adelynn. Starla made a few course corrections after looking at her map and eventually the fields below gave way to rockier and rockier soil with more trees. The mountain range ahead wasn’t too huge and the sky had begun to darken. Starla landed on a cliff overlooking a flat area.

“That looks like a good place to drop a meteor.” She said. The black clouds thundered in response as lightning crashed down hitting the peak of the mountain. “The sky agrees.”

“Alright, should I head down there?” asked Adelynn.

“Yeah, you can take the car; I set you as an authorized driver.” Said Starla removing her head wrap.

“I won’t break it?”

“It’ll vanish once you get out.” Replied Starla as her robes and other gear was replaced one at a time. When she was done Starla was wearing a gossamer dress that Adelynn thought might be too short, but it sparkled in the sun with all the colors of the rainbow. Her tall boots and long gloves matched the dress and her billowing cloak seemed to shine all on its own. A tiara on her head was all diamonds and gems and would be worth a king’s ransom; if it was real. Everything Starla wore looked like it had been tailored to scream ‘You can’t ignore me!’. Once she’d changed out of her other gear, Starla pulled out a fancy staff made of a silvery metal. The head of the staff formed a silvery cage around a miniature sun.

“Wow.” Said Adelynn.

“Impressed?”

Adelynn smiled hard and coughed.

“What?”

Adelynn shook her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t say it.”

Starla flicked her hand in the air and the light caught her fingernails which were also sparkling and reflecting the sunlight from her staff. “I’ve heard it all.”

“Okay, okay,” said Adelynn. “I thought you kind of looked like a space hooker.” She couldn’t hold in the laughter now and just let it out.

Starla just looked at her with a stony expression for a moment. “I’ve heard worse than ‘space hooker’, but that’s definitely a new one.” She let the false stony expression drop and smiled. “Whatever. Go wait for the monster and hope I blast it for you.”

Adelynn got in the sporty vehicle and pushed the pedals until she figured out how it worked and drove down the hill to where Starla thought the monster would appear. Once there she sat in the driver’s seat wishing that the vehicle had a roof, since clearly rain was imminent.

Without any warning the sky exploded into lightning and the largest bolt hit the side of the mountain. The side of the mountain exploded outward showering the landscape with stone and dust. By the time the thunder subsided the floodgates opened and the clouds dumped buckets of rain on Adelynn. She almost wondered if she’d need to swim to dodge Gordok. She got out of the car and slipped a bit on the muddy ground. Starla’s sporty vehicle vanished in a poof and that’s when she heard his breathing.

From high on the mountain, the hole that the lightning had blasted, she heard a rhythmic and horrible huffing. Adelynn backed up a step before she pulled out her long claymore. From out of the darkness of the cave a blackened hand reached and grabbed the edge of the hole and pulled. Gordok emerged from the cave and screamed into the sky. The rain seemed to respond to his wrath as it eased off a bit, seemingly terrified of Gordok.

Adelynn wasn’t ready for his size, but she could see the light from Starla’s staff on the cliff and knew what she needed to do. She stuck her claymore into the mud to retrieve it easily and pulled out the rinky-dink short bow that all level one accounts start with. It had the better range than her thrown daggers. She pulled back, barely aimed and let fly. A tiny toothpick struck Gordok in the knee and a little ‘-1’ popped up. She didn’t figure he would go down from that, but he did turn his gaze upon her.

She put the bow back in her inventory and pulled her claymore from the mud. “Come and get it!” she screamed at the monster. While Gordok was much less terrifying than her nightmares, she really didn’t want the monster to come and get it. She heard Starla begin to chant her spell from the cliff face and a large bullseye pattern appeared on the ground.

Brighter than all the stars,

I call out to you beyond time and space,

Hear my words and come to this place.

Gordok stomped forward and Adelynn wasn’t surprised that he was rather slow and sluggish. A different indicator appeared on the ground around her and she began running to the closest edge. She got out and had some time to spare as his massive club came crashing down right where she’d been.

Our foes will forever fear my ire,

As we rain down incandescent fire.

Adelynn thought she probably should have asked Starla how long it took for her to cast her meteor spell, but she was too busy to worry about that now. A huge foot print appeared around her where she was standing and again she ran from the attack, although this time the footprint slowly followed her once she was out of the area. Gordok slammed his foot down near her and she took a chance and swung at his leg. Her claymore connected briefly and a tiny ‘-1’ popped up.

See your target with a baleful eye,

Break the heavens and shatter the sky!

Gordok had moved himself out of the center of the circle and Adelynn looked around for a way to move him back. His footprint fell on her again, his left foot this time. She ran towards his other leg until the foot print appeared on his own foot and ankle. Adelynn scrambled to shove her claymore between his first and second toe, blade up, because surely this wouldn’t work. Gordok’s foot came down on his own and her claymore sank deep into his foot, displaying a red ‘-2’, just to show she’d landed a critical hit. Gordok screamed in the same sort of way that anyone would with a steel toothpick in their foot and fell over and landed on all fours. Adelynn saw he was positioned over the bullseye and ran in the opposite direction. As she did she heard a thunderous crack in the sky, like thunder, but louder. She turned to see the sky, full of glowing cracks explode outward, sounding like shattering glass.

Come forth … Meteor!

Adelynn couldn’t help but gawk at the burning rock that slowly squeezed its way through the hole in the sky. She tried to back up more, but her legs wouldn’t respond. She put her hands up in front of her face instinctively as the boulder from the sky suddenly zipped into the ground, as if it had never slowed down at all. It struck Gordok in the back as he screamed from the pain of a tiny claymore stuck in his foot. He went from all fours to flat on the ground as the superheated rock pushed him down and then exploded over him. Adelynn was pulled off her feet and thrown backwards by the force of the blast. She heard dirt and rock falling around her and bouncing off her armor as she attempted to roll away.

Starla ran down the hill to where Adelynn was recovering on her back breathing heavily. “Ya’llright?” she asked in a strangely uncharacteristic southern accent. “I mean, you okay?”

Adelynn nodded and Starla helped her to her feet. “Is it dead?”

“Maybe?” said Starla. “Let me make sure.”

Gods of the sun and all thats light

Grant me use of the Medjed’s sight!

Ra Blast!

A beam of light shot out of her staff and slammed into Gordok who screamed and thrashed a final time before he began to dissolve into purple mist. The hole in the sky repaired itself and the clouds thinned out and vanished as Adelynn watched.

“He was playing dead.” Said Starla. “I wonder if he knew he could splat you in a single swipe?” She motioned for Adelynn to follow. Down in the crater burned dry by the recent meteor impact were a few things. Starla picked up the crystal she wanted. “Hell, yeah!” she said. “We got the rare drop. Thanks for your help. You did something I didn’t know you could do.”

“What’s that?” asked Adelynn looking at the other things.

“Get him to stab his own foot?” replied Starla. “I wonder if you could put a bomb on it or something. Anyway, the rest of everything belongs to you.”

Adelynn picked up a weird bit of leather, a variable weapon package that asked her what she wanted and a few strange potions. She didn’t see the claymore she sacrificed in Gorlok’s foot anywhere. “Become a claymore to replace—” she started before the weapon shifted and became a claymore, albeit a much fancier looking claymore. She looked at it’s stats in her inventory and it was much better, but for a level twelve character; that’s when she noticed that she was now level twelve.

“Oh grats!” said Starla. “It looks bad ass.”

“You did all the hard work.” Said Adelynn.

“Really?” said Starla. “I stood still and repeated words on a scroll that I’ve said a hundred times. You actually had to move and dodge. Trust me, you did the hard part.”

Adelynn supposed she did and shrugged. “Thanks for taking me along.”

“No problem. Let’s head back to town.” Said Starla.

“Another car ride?”

“Nope.” Starla pulled out another scroll and took Adelynn’s hand in hers. Starla began reading the nonsense words faster than the scroll highlighted them and suddenly there was a flash and they were somewhere else.

“Woah!” said Adelynn. “Where are we?” She was surrounded by bright stone walls decorated with tapestries. She was standing on a carpet with fantastical designs on it and she could hear music nearby. Starla didn’t answer her at first and then suddenly looked at her.

“What happened to you? You spaced out for a second.”

“Uh. Loading time?” said Starla. “You must have a very good Headspacer to not have load time. Anyway, this is the top floor of my place in the RLD and that behind you is Avara.”

Adelynn turned to see a short girl with long ears and a very adorable face patiently waiting to be noticed. “Oh! I didn’t see you there!” she said.

“That’s fine!” said Avara. “I was just waiting for Miss Starla to return. I knew it would be soon! At any rate, welcome to the Starlight Sanctuary! What can I help you with?”