“Welcome to the Starlight Sanctuary! What can I help you with?” said Avara.

Adelynn smiled at Avara while she got her bearings. Avara was a short girl with long elf ears poking out of her black hair. Her purple eyes stared at Adelynn with a bit of a sparkle.

“Let me see…” said Adelynn looking around. There was a store front in the distance that seemed to offer all sorts of wares, from weapons and armor to casual items that one could wear out into the rest of Headspace. There was also a small restaurant off to one side that had a few patrons snacking on various foods.

“She might be overwhelmed Avara.” Said Starla. “She’s only level twelve.”

“Oh!” said Avara. “Do you want me to take her to your suite?”

“Can I get a warm shower there?” asked Adelynn.

Avara nodded. “Yep. Are you looking for a normal shower or a naughty shower?”

Adelynn took a step back. “Just a normal one please!”

Starla shook her head and grabbed Adelynn’s hand and pulled her over to a wall that showed nothing out of sorts. Starla put her hand on it and there was a click and the wall became a door and she pulled Adelynn in with her. “Sorry, she’s used to dealing with the LOPs.”

“Lops?” said Adelynn.

“Level one perverts.” Explained Starla as she got into a mystical looking elevator and pushed the button for the top floor. “People who log in and go into the RLD to get some action because they have some kind of fantasy driven fetish, like elves or orcs or something and never actually leave Tharnhaven.”

“Wow people do that?” said Adelynn.

“Yeah, I’m sure the superhero game, the modern war game and the ancient history game all have something similar going on. I haven’t been over to those too often.” Explained Starla. “Since they all use the same sorts of Headspace technology you can go over to them and it’ll ask you if you want to use what you have or start a new character, so sometimes the supers ask us to come PVP with them.”

“Wild.” Said Adelynn as the elevator came to a stop in a modern looking lounge. The ceiling was all glass and the sky looked beautiful.

“Here.” Said Starla opening a door. “This is my private area and you can get that shower and unpack on that table if you want. It should auto sort things for you if you just start dumping things out. Throw used towels in the bin. Don’t throw anything you want to keep in the bin because it’s not coming back.”

Adelynn walked in and Starla stayed behind. “Aren’t you coming?” Adelynn asked.

“I was going to give you privacy.” Said Starla. “Do you want me to follow you in?”

“No, that’s fine!” said Adelynn closing the door. She looked around and saw lots of various trophies on the walls and pictures of Starla and friends. The bathroom was fairly typical of a bathroom, except it was very large. There was rack of towels and a rack labeled ‘temporary clothing’. She pulled a towel out and the towel she removed was instantly replaced. She pulled a garment out of the temporary clothing rack and she got a pop up asking what she wanted and had four choices; a long white dress, a short white dress, white shirt and pants or just white underwear. She chose the long white and put it in her inventory. She saw it had a timer on it and it started counting down from eight hours. She shrugged, took all her gear off and got in the sizeable shower.

A hot shower felt amazing after several days in the field. She couldn’t help but think that Starla wanted something from her, but maybe it really was friendship. Her thoughts drifted as she soaped up and shampooed off. First, she thought of how this felt so much better than the hospital systems. Why couldn’t they get some designer to make the comforts of the hospital so much better? Maybe they were concerned about getting people hooked on Headspace. Headspace addiction was a problem in modern society after all.

Next, she pondered the scent that filled the air around her when she soaped herself up. It was sweet like honeysuckle, but also not quite right. Whatever, the hot water felt wonderful and she lost her thoughts for a bit while she just soaked.

Finally, she thought about what she needed to do now that she was back home. Finding a buyer for the leather and other goods was going to be a pain in the ass since it was all low-level stuff that was easy to come by; maybe Avara could help with that. She’d ask her about how to handle that kind of thing.

She turned off the water and got out of the shower and dried off. Looking in the mirror she saw she could swap between the various hairstyles she’d owned, which included a pile of default hairstyles and the one she’d gotten for herself before popping into Mythticle. She liked the long hair, but wasn’t sure she liked how plain it was. Whatever, it wasn’t that expensive. She equipped the white dress and saw it had seven and a quarter hours left on it. She looked much more presentable than in her armor. Maybe she did need to get something she could wear besides her armor. Would Starla take her elsewhere in Headspace to find things or maybe take her to a movie or something.

She stopped herself and looked at her reflection. “What am I doing?” she said aloud before stopping that line of thinking in her head. She threw the towels in the bin and left the bathroom. She went back out to find Starla lounging on one of the long sofas.

“That looks nice on you.” Said Starla, “But we’ll need to replace it before it expires.”

“Nope, wouldn’t want that.” Said Adelynn.

“Here.” Said Starla handing her a box.

“What’s this?” said Adelynn opening the box. Inside was a single emerald earring. “Aren’t there supposed to be two?”

Starla smiled and held up the earring’s other. “These allow us to send each other messages and talk to each other over long distances.”

“Oh, like you were doing before.”

“Yes. I was talking with Avara. She’s got divination magic and you can ask her for all sorts of events before they happen. That’s why she’s great at running the Starlight Sanctuary.” Explained Starla. “She’s on top of events here and knows how many she needs to schedule and who is going to call out, even before they do.”

“Wow.” Said Adelynn. “It’s like a real job.” She pushed the earring into her earring slot on her inventory and it appeared on her right ear. Starla put her copy of the earring on and let Adelynn play with it. When Adelynn touched the earring she got asked ‘voice or letter’ and said voice. Then she started talking and heard Starla respond. When she let go the calling dropped and she touched it again and said “Letter” and a scroll popped up with a pen and she wrote out ‘hiya’ and hit send. Starla got the letter and responded with ‘No, U.’

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“Does this work anywhere in headspace?” asked Adelynn.

“It actually does.” Said Starla. “But if you’re not in Mythticle I won’t send you a voice call. You said you had a job and everything right?”

“Yes. Thanks. I appreciate that.”

Starla stood up and asked her if she was ready to go back out. Adelynn nodded and they walked back to where Avara was waiting for additional arrivals.

“Hi!” she said, “You feeling better?”

“Yes. Much.” Replied Adelynn.

“Great! Are you looking to offload some field goods? I’ll probably give you the best price you can find for them.”

“Sure.” Said Adelynn and went over to Avara’s counter. She started offloading her inventory onto the counter and Avara sorted things as she went.

Eventually, Avara had to get a step ladder to see over the boxes to see Adelynn. “Wow. You’re a packrat aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“You kept everything!” said Avara. “That’s fine. I need some of the things people usually throw away.” She gestured to the box full of wolf teeth and eyes and the other box of goblin bones. Avara tallied up everything and offered Adelynn an amount of gold and silver coins or a larger number of tokens for use in the Starlight Sanctuary. At Starla’s request, she offered her both coin and token.

“You’re the boss.” Said Avara. “That’s a better deal than I’d give anyone else.”

“Okay, thank you Avara.” Said Adelynn taking the offered bags of currency. The boxes disappeared into Avara’s inventory somewhere. “What do you suggest for clothing stores?”

Avara smiled. “We have three here in the Starlight Sanctuary. The sexy stuff is a floor below, the socially acceptable stuff is on this floor and the really naughty stuff is by request.”

Adelynn blushed a bit. “Socially acceptable sounds good! I have to go into talk with my boss later.”

“Okay, over here then!” said Avara leading her over to the store she saw earlier. “If you see anything you like and want it altered we can do that too.”

“Okay, thanks!” said Adelynn.

“How long do you want to look?” asked Starla.

“I can probably take a bit to look through everything, maybe an hour?” said Adelynn.

“Mind if I log out and get something to eat?” said Starla. “My ‘go eat in reality’ alarm went off a few hours ago.”

“Oh.” Said Adelynn, “Sure.” She’d thought Starla would stick around and help her choose, but she decided she could go through things on her own. “See you soon then!”

Starla leaned into Adelynn and then stopped herself. “Uh. Sorry bout that.” She said before turning and vanishing. Avara smiled. “Wow, Starla likes you.”

Adelynn blushed a bit. “We got to talking. We’re going to be good friends, I’m sure.”

Avara rocked back on her heels for a moment before pulling out an earring and handing it to her. It matched the other emerald earring. “It’s weird to only have one, right?”

“Yes.” Said Adelynn. “Thank you.”

“No problem, it’s connected to my account so you can send me messages or call if you need anything.”

“That’s very kind of you.” Said Adelynn.

“No problem. I have a thing that let’s me monitor way more points of contact than normal player.”

“Hmm?” said Adelynn.

“Starla has five earrings in each ear. I have this one that connects to a switch board style thing.” She said flicking her ear lobe. “So, lots of people ask me for things.”

“How are you not inundated with requests?” asked Adelynn.

“I can put people in queues of importance. The boss lady is at the top, but she barely asks for anything. Other people are in other places.” Said Avara.

Adelynn pulled a dress out that looked a bit tighter than she liked, but well, this wasn’t her body really. She wouldn’t really be shy about it would she? “What does it take to get something like what Starla wears with all the rainbow colors?”

Avara smiled. “I’m going to say ‘more than you’ve got at level twelve’. You need some prism feathers and those fall off a rare fight out in the middle of nowhere. You can get them off the marketplace, but they’re expensive, even to high level players. There are other options like silver and a color shifting blue/purple thing that are much cheaper.”

“Well, I am Adelynn Silverwing. Maybe I should lean into the silver theme.” Said Adelynn.

“Like the princess from that show?”

“Yes.”

“Can I say the ‘excuuuuuse me princess’ line?” asked Avara with a twinkle in her eye.

“Please don’t.”

Avara pouted a bit, but didn’t look serious. “Fine!”

Adelynn snorted a bit. “Sorry, I’ve dealt with it all my life!”

Avara looked around before she leaned in “You used your real name? Are you crazy?”

“Yes! Apparently!” replied Adelynn. “Just don’t tell anyone.”

Avara made a motion like she locked her mouth. “Sworn to secrecy!”

“Thanks.” Said Adelynn. “Now how do I become an elf?”

“Oh!” Two ways. First way is to do the things for the elven tribe and that gets you the bonuses for being an elf. The other way is just cosmetic items. I can show you!” Avara took Adelynn into a changing room and sat her down at a console. “Here’s you now.” Said Avara. She made a few tweaks with Adelynn watching on. Adelynn was enrapt with the changes she was making. She’d found several hairstyles that Adelynn loved and worked well with longer ears and brighter eyes and better textures and all sorts of things.

When Avara finally seemed happy with what she was working on she announced, “Now that’s an elf named Silverwing, am I right?”

Adelynn stared at the form she made her. More delicate, but so much more real. Gentle sloping lines made her look otherworldly, eyes that shone in dim light and even a somewhat silvery sparkling aura.

“It’s gorgeous.”

“Wanna use that?” asked Avara.

“I’d love to.” Said Adelynn. “What do I owe you for it?”

Avara rattled off a few tokens for the ears, the aura and the hairstyle. She then rattled off a few more coins for the outfit and the tweaks. It would be most of Adelynn’s tokens and about half her coin, but she was willing to make that trade. Avara stood up and traded Adelynn a package and Adelynn opened it and began applying the changes. When she walked out of the booth, she was a completely changed lady. She looked in the mirror at the elf with the silvery aura and the silvery dress and smiled.

She felt different also, lighter maybe, but that wasn’t any change Avara did. Maybe it was easier to be something other than herself. An alarm sounded that she set to remind her that she needed to go to the firm and she looked at Avara.

“It’s been that long already?” Said Adelynn. “Well crap. I’ll be back soon Avara!”

Adelynn went into her status profile and logged out of Myth and Mystical, only to be dumped back into the hub. She found the door marked as ‘favorites’ and went into the room marked with the name of the firm she worked for. Only too late did she remember that she wasn’t her normal avatar for work, a queen chess piece. As she finished logging in, she decided it was too late to care and just took a step forward into her office.

“Hello Ma’am! Welcome to Gold and Greene and Associates. How can I help you?” said the front door clerk. That was Izzy, or Isabelle if you wanted to be fancy. Adelynn usually saw her as a chess pawn, but avatar that never rendered properly for Adelynn was some kind of techno-fairy with glowing tracery and clearly futuristic manufactured wings.

“Hi Izzy, it’s Adee.”

“Oh! Ms. Greene! I didn’t recognize you at all!”

Adelynn smiled. “Yeah, I upgraded my HeadSpacer. John is expecting me.”

“We’re all expecting you!” said Izzy as she closed the entry point and set it up for all queries to go to a recording service. “Come this way.”

The little techno-fairy lead her into the virtual law offices of Gold and Greene and into John Gold’s office. It had been expanded to fit everyone in the firm. Adelynn had to stop and take in the sight. Everyone who had been chess pieces were now different avatars.

“Oh, wow Adee.” Said John. “That’s a step up.” He didn’t look like the king piece anymore, now he looked quite a bit like a blonde, billionaire playboy type. Adelynn stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

Adelynn blushed a bit. “Thanks. I upgraded.”

The anime girl with pink pony tails that faded off into infinity nodded nearby him. “Cool, about time you did that.” Came the voice of Mitchell, the tech guy they employed, although everyone called him Michi and now Adelynn knew why. He usually looked like a rook, since he was a ‘cornerstone’ of their business. Now he was a sparkling, busty anime girl with a deep voice and magical particles. Adelynn smiled.

“I’ve done some research for you.” Said Ellen, the ‘and associates’ part of their name. She was one of the investigators they had on staff who would always work with. She normally was a knight piece and now she just looked like the most non-descript person on the planet. Adelynn wondered if it was to blend in with everything.

“That can wait.” Said John. “Adee, welcome back to the land of the living.” Adelynn didn’t have the heart to tell him that wasn’t what she ever wanted to hear, but let it slide. “We got things set up to celebrate your recovery!”

John’s office changed from serious and wood to fantastical and fun. Tables were replaced with floating platforms full of food and drink and the walls were replaced with a space theme and activities. Adelynn internally rolled her eyes, he never could tell when it was a good time to be serious, but most everyone else seemed to be excited for karaoke and games. She’d join them for a bit and then see what Ellen had to say.