They walked back to the office in silence. Riding up the elevator together felt less like two friends enjoying a quiet moment, and more like the silence after a giant storm. Or an argument. Nakala didn't even say goodbye when the doors opened on her floor; she just flipped him a wave as she walked away.

Was he the asshole?

Sure, she'd bent over backwards over the years to help him out in MMOs, but he always reciprocated when he could. Nakala didn't exactly ask for help often. But this was different. He needed more information.

He went back to the office to do just that.

Caroline was missing when he got back to his cubicle, as were most of his coworkers. Still likely out to lunch. Roxanne hummed in the corner, a mechanical sound that grated on his nerves and reminded him of the tinnitus he had after a few too many concussions as a kid. Dylan quickly got his headphones unfolded. On one monitor, he opened a spreadsheet that required his attention. But on the other, he loaded up his favorite streamer.

Sure, Dylan could listen to the stakeholder meeting itself. But there would be a lot of useless information, and he wasn't exactly in the mood to look between the lines. He'd let someone else do that for him.

ZedPies was a long-time streamer of Monsoon games anyway, and he had enough connections that he was likely on the stakeholders call itself. When Dylan joined his stream, ZedPies was on full cam, and was going over some notes with the chat. Even back-translating the investment banker buzzword language into technical gamer-speak that it had likely been written in.

But there wasn't much in the notes that Nakala didn't tell him already. Disappointed, Dylan went to navigate away when someone in chat asked about the VR.

"Look, it can't be a helmet," ZedPies said with a laugh. "I know it has to be a helmet if they want it to be open to the public and have enough concurrent players for the game to be literally playable, but look at the rest of this..." There was a rustling of pages and he held up a sheet of indecipherable scribbles to the camera. "Long-term connection. Like... Half... Half of..." He frowned and rustled paper again before holding up a handful of sheets. ZedPies waved them wildly in the air. "Half of the call was about Monsoon being absolved of medical liability. Body maintenance! What does that even mean? No one knows!" He slapped the papers down and the stream wildly shifted from full-screen camera to a 'be right back' splash screen. "Sorry, sorry. I'm hysterical. Sorry. Hold on." The full-screen camera came back, and then it flashed to another layout, with the camera small in the corner and a browser window open. "Look. Okay, just look at this."

He ran a search for 'body maintenance VR' and the results were almost nothing relevant. A few of the top results were about scanning and using VR to do examination for body work on planes and cars. The rest of the results - as ZedPies pointed out as he scrolled - had little grey bits of text that explained that one of the words in his search were excluded. There was a body maintenance guide for VR helmets. A VR system that was literally named Body. And a few pages about homeostasis.

"Nothing! There's nothing about what's going on! About what tech they are using. So, like... are we talking about..." He dropped his voice to a whisper, and Dylan felt himself lean in towards the screen, as if he'd need to hear ZedPies better. "Are we talking about long-term immersion? Literally moving into the game world and living there for days? Weeks? What about years?"

Chat flew by as a thousand nerds started spamming excited emojis.

Dylan, however, felt the opposite reaction. Suddenly, Nakala's feared danger made all the more sense. Immersive VR for MMO games was a scary enough idea - facing down skyscraper-sized foes while your damage taken translated into real pain was absolutely terrifying - but medical intervention? If a lot of time in the stakeholder's call was spent reassuring investors that they would be absolved of responsibility for any medical mishaps, there had to be a relatively high chance of such a thing happening. It was one thing to stand with Nakala, spending time and energy to help her out. But it was another thing entirely if he was literally putting his life on the line, just so that when she got into game, she was slightly less inconvenienced.

Hypothetically speaking.

Since she didn't even know if it was a real issue.

While he was musing, ZedPies had moved on. "We can't learn anything more here," the streamer was saying. "What about the rest? What else do we have?"

The stream flipped around again back to full screen, and ZedPies proceeded to ramble on about other reveals from the stakeholder meeting. There was an announcement of a new Teful property, and there was plenty of speculation there.

Dylan, however, was still stuck on the medical implications of Project Rundan.

As much as he was excited by the prospect of a full-immersion VRMMO, there was a reason that most of the popular VR games were little more than walking simulators or virtual concerts. Or, ah... the other thing.

Any tactile sensations those games fed to you were mild, pleasant, or otherwise expected and desired. In a combat setting, some of the sensations were going to be violent and painful. And it would be made even worse by the game being in beta. Like, it was one thing to lose progress and time when your character clipped through the ground or a wall in an MMO. It could even be funny or lead to some interesting exploits. But it was another thing entirely if it might mean that your nerve endings light up like a Christmas tree of pain. That wouldn't be funny, even if it happened to someone else.

At the same time, the opportunity that Nakala had opened up to him suddenly became ten times larger. This was no longer getting into a video game beta. It was participating in an enormous technological leap. Not bragging rights for playing in the beta for the next big Monsoon game, this was bragging rights for being a part of a world-changing tech demo.

And, if Dylan were honest with himself, it was everything he always wanted. He was an avid fan of LitRPG and GameLit books. Mostly in audio book format, since he could listen to them and go on adventures while editing spreadsheets. But this sounded just like something that would happen to one of those protagonists. Would he really give up the opportunity to become the protagonist in his own awesome adventure?

The rest mattered, too. In Colossus 4: Online, Nakala had a bunch of discontinued cosmetic items from version 1.0 and other events in the pre-expansion game, and she was always showing them off. If Project Rundan - whatever the retail name ended up being - was the next big thing, he might spend similar years being jealous of someone else's cosmetic pet or awesome hat, made all the worse by knowing that he could have had them if only he hadn't been such a... such a...

Such an accountant.

Dylan gritted his teeth and tried to not dwell on that. Cautiousness and prudence were things he associated with his job. He found he was good at something that was in reliable demand. Instead of chasing dreams, learning guitar, taking drama classes, or writing a novel, he just took the sure bet and learned a lot of math.

But if he was going to just let this opportunity pass him by, he'd be much more the accountant than the adventurer.

ZedPies had mentioned that beta testers' time in game could be extended for weeks or months - even years - and Dylan didn't have any other plans besides work. It wasn't even like he had a raid group anymore - they had split up two patches ago, and while there were people that he regularly grouped with for PUG content, he didn't have any real obligation to them. His closest family - his sister Kim - had moved out of state two years prior, and so she wouldn't miss him.

He hadn't even made holiday plans since she'd left.

Dylan stared at the spreadsheet he had open on his other monitor as ZedPies droned on about some new grouping tech for Colossus 4. The launch also included a streaming service. Being a full-time streamer had been a dream for a lot of gamers. And launching the service would mean he'd be one of the first with eyes on him. Dylan had spent some time streaming his raids, and had a lot of fun with it, but developing a real following was hard work, and it had been a task he had been unprepared for.

Fuck it.

He opened the Groups app on his computer, pushing ZedPies’ stream to the background. Nakala's name was at the top of his contacts, and he opened the chat window. The history was full of memes and linked websites with no context. Very work appropriate stuff, too.

I'm in, he typed. Dylan stared at the message for a long moment, not sending it. What's the timeline? Where do I go? When do I need to be there? he added, but still hesitated before sending the message. This isn't going to kill me, right? He winced, and then hit the backspace key, replacing it with: This is safe, right? There was another moment of hesitation. How long would I be in this?

He grimaced and took that last bit out. She likely wouldn't share, or couldn't share, or whatever.

Reading back over his message, Dylan realized how... unsure it sounded. How... how... accountant. Questioning and hesitant. Accessing the risks before they'd even happened.

He erased the whole damn message and started again.

Alright, Nakala, you got me. This is too big. I'm in. Just tell me what details you can. Like... where do I go, who do I talk to, when do I need to be there, etc.

As soon as he finished sending the message, Groups alerted him that Nakala was typing... which was embarrassing as hell. She'd likely been watching him waffle over his decision and wording for the last five minutes.

What she sent, however, wasn't in text. It was an image. An invitation. A watermark ran across the whole thing, almost obscuring it. A common tactic to stop things from being leaked, since they could trace the number watermark and it would lead to that specific person. It wasn't a promotional image. There was no screenshots or concept art. There wasn't even title art. It was clean and clear cut, and very no-nonsense. Honestly, it made the whole thing so terrifyingly real and official.

It was just an invitation. "Welcome to Project Rundan," it said. And then beneath it was a date, time, and an office number.

Tonight. Just after work. A few floors up from right where he was sitting.

"Gotta go fast, I guess," Dylan muttered, realizing that he wasn't going to have any time to change his mind. He was sure he wasn't going to regret this at all.