Yeah

Exit, I thought.

Everything went black.

The camera on the VR rig kicked on, and once again I could see my computer through the weirdly semi-magnified lenses.

All of the pain I'd felt - the broken ribs, the lumps on the back of my head, and the various wounds I'd taken while fighting the Fleshwood Hunters - was gone.

Instead, the Aegis was running hot.

Really hot. Uncomfortably hot.

I was sweating as if I'd actually spent the last hour running through the woods, fleeing a burning city and whatever the hell those strange monsters had been.

I peeled the headset off and let the relatively cool air of my apartment flow through my sweat-soaked hair.

The Five Realms was intense, that was for damn sure.

I got up from my chair, grabbed an ice-cold Coke from the fridge, and downed half a liter of it in one go.

My legs were a little wobbly, and my arms felt slightly uncoordinated.

I checked the clock. It had only been an hour and a half. It felt like I'd been playing for at least three hours.

I guessed that was the normal time dilation you got in most games - time flowed faster in-game than it did outside. A day lasted an hour, or whatever.

The Five Realms wasn't that drastic. Maybe two-to-one. Still, it wasn't entirely unexpected.

I downed another quarter of the bottle before stripping down and hopping into the shower. I was sweaty enough that I needed it.

An hour and a lukewarm shower later, I was finally back to a normal temperature and feeling clean again.

I sat back down at my desk and adjusted the seat. It seemed a little lower than I normally preferred.

Once that was done, I did a search for Aegis temperature issues, but came up with nothing. Granted, I'd only had the rig for about four hours at this point. Maybe I was jumping the gun.

I strapped the Aegis back on and booted the game up again.

The familiar Arcadia Interactive logo appeared, but instead of going straight into the game, a black window opened across my vision.

I sighed. At least this should fix the heat issue.
I selected Install, and the screen went black.
Then the familiar white text appeared.

The number began climbing.
I waited. Held my breath. The number continued. Then: CALIBRATION COMPLETE
I grinned.
Finally.
A new message appeared.

I hit Continue.
The screen went black. Then a final line appeared.

I frowned.

Persistent? That wasn't in the patch notes.

The number continued climbing.

47%

73%

91%

100%

There was a pause. A single line appeared beneath it.

I stared at it.

What the hell does that mean?

Before I could think about it for more than a second, the message disappeared.

THE FIVE REALMS
An Open-World Neural RPG
Five Realms. One World. No Script.

I smiled.

Well, at least the damn thing worked this time.

A dark forest slowly faded into view.