I opened my eyes and pulled off the headset. I felt the slide of metal as the contacts on my temples disconnected from the terminal, and I was out. How long had I been playing? A few hours? It felt like so much longer. I thought I’d been dead for days?

The feedback pads loosened automatically, and I stood up, having to shield my eyes from the brightness of my room. The cameras saw this and dimmed the lights till I could see properly.

My main reason for leaving Tulgatha was to make sure my nutri-tank was full enough. If it had been anywhere near a low-level, I’d have received a notification, but it felt like I’d been immersed for so long that maybe I’d ignored it. The illuminated gruel had barely moved. It really had only been a few hours. I’d have to ask Angie what she meant when she’d told me about the rise and fall of her army. Had she just been making a joke I didn’t get? Did game time run differently when dead?

I realised I’d forgotten to remove my receptor gloves again. They allowed me to feel every texture imaginable when I was in the game by electrically stimulating my fingers. Amazing piece of technology, often hailed as the final piece in the puzzle of allowing people to truly lose themselves in a VR world. They were quite bulky, so when I touched things in this world, objects felt muted and unreal. Heh, I should remember to take them off next time.

I got back inside my terminal and strapped myself in, enjoying the slight buzz of the temple contacts as they reconnected. I was in the terminal’s main heads-up display, and saw I had a message. I opened it, and it was from Daniel.

“Hey bud. How’s it going? I picked some advanced space alien dude and I’m working my way up the military caste. I basically have wrist-mounted lightsabers. What have you got, huh? Anyway, back to the grind!”

I hit the reply box.

“Good to hear from you! It feels like ages since hanging out in Booth! I don’t have lightsabers, but I’ve got a shadowbolt and a little girl that follows me around. Yeah, bit underwhelming so far, but casters start weak and get more powerful, so… soon! I’m just about to start the grind! I’ll see if I can record some footage for you. Chat soon!”

I sent the message, excited that Daniel was doing all right. Back to the main terminal menu, I opened the sleep function, set the time for six hours, and hit activate.