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stations was at the dead center. The wall opposite the hallway they had just walked down was clear of work stations. It was painted a flat white and had several screens projected on it. Statistics about characters, average level, locations, all of them moving slightly as they updated in real time.
    Paul pointed to one of the VR setups near the center. “That’s you, Morant.”
    “Toby.”
    “Okay. Toby.” The group broke up as they filed into the room. Paul wandered to the center and spoke to the people working at the projector.
    Claire followed Toby to the designated station. “Huh.” She looked around. “I’m over there.” She pointed to the next pillar over. “Not so different from your setup, eh?”
    Toby barely heard her as he set his backpack down next to the computer. His station had all of the peripherals. All of them. It had the flip-people-off-in-real-time gloves, but it also had some things that weren’t available to the public yet. He picked up a vest covered in shining strips with a single blinking light. “What’s this thing?”
    “Motion detection. The whole omni-directional treadmill bit was cumbersome and way outside the consumer price range, so they worked that up. When you’re in the game, the sensors read where the helmet is looking and what the gloves are doing, but they can also track the vest. If you want to move you just lean a bit. Lean forward slightly to walk, lean forward more to run. Crouch down to crouch down, then lean to sneak. It takes some getting used to… but it’s not too tricky.” She shrugged. “At any rate, you can’t run far if you mess up. Get to close to the edges of the designated area and the headset shifts your view back to camera mode, and you stop moving in the game. That, and there’s a tether.” She pointed to a cable hanging overhead with a hook. “If it’s really necessary… it usually isn't.”
    “Huh. Neat. I was using a controller before.”
    “Ugh. Neanderthal.” She smiled as she started typing at the workstation tied to his gear.
    “Well I did roll a barbarian.”
    “Yeah… what’s that about? Not one of the stronger classes at the moment. In fact it’s one of only three that haven’t had class reviews yet.”
    “Honestly? It looked cool. And I had some trouble deciphering the patch notes. They were written in already-know-everything-about-the-game-ese. I’m not fluent.”
    “No?” She looked up from the screen as she waved to present it to him. It was awaiting login information. “You didn’t take part in the beta?”
    “Psh.” He tapped in his username. “Not for lack of trying. You never let me in.” He narrowed his eyes at her and covered his hand while he typed in the password.
    She rolled her eyes. “Well that’s unfortunate. But I mean, you understand the game, right?”
    “Sort of.” He nodded. Credentials accepted. “I heard about it not having static content. Making new quests as people did things in the world. Even level ranges changing based on what happens. I’ve been tired of collecting ten bear asses for random assholes for years, so always something new happening sounds good. That plus swords and sorcery sounded groovy.”
    “Heh. Unfortunately our dynamic content system is going to be working against us.”
    “Whys that?” He picked up the vest and slipped it on. He had never felt more like a valet. Or a blackjack dealer.
    “Because we can’t power level by using a proven content route. They don’t exist. Which means we need to keep moving and changing what we’re doing.”
    “Oh.” He slipped the gloves on. “That sounds bad.”
    “Pretty bad, yeah. Like Paul told you, the game is designed to draw progression out over months of active playtime. That’s assuming about two to four hours a night. Extreme cases would throw that off, obviously.”
    He nodded. He’d spent a few more sixteen hour days in games than he cared to admit publicly. “I take it we have a plan?”
    The VR headset