You need to make some money?

"Oh, it's just about finding a job?" Liza replied, "why not go to the Guildhall and see what work they have in store? There's always more work around Everest. I actually need to head that way tomorrow – why don't I walk down with you in the morning?"

"That would be great", you reply instinctively, still playing with your hair hoping to find a catch for the VRM on your head. But the more you try to find the key to your escape, the less you believe something is actually there. You know you should feel something, anything, that helps you get out of this game. Nobody would have been allowed to release something without a proper logout sequence! But the more you search, the less luck you seem to have. You barely even register Liza's reply.

"Great!" she said, bouncing up, breasts jumping slightly up in the air with her in a way that seems to defy physics. "I'll wake you up tomorrow morning, and we'll go after then. Oh, and you've still got six nights left after this one, big spender, so don't forget to use them." Liza winked, gave you a peck on the cheek. then left the room again.

You spend a few minutes more trying out different keywords to log out, thoughts to bring up menus, and fumbling for an intangible headset before giving up.

You start to think logically about this. You knew you have probably a few days at most to get back to the real world before you'd start to suffer in the real world. You can sleep in the VRM, that's no problem, but dehydration is a huge concern. But you know that if you don't turn up for work tomorrow, someone will surely come looking. "At least, I hope so..."

You take a few deep breaths. Instead of continuing to worry, you put your head on your cushion and think about sleep. "I can tackle this with a clean head tomorrow. I just need to think about this like an extended video game session. Yeah, that's right, I'm just marathoning like I used to with one of my older titles. Tomorrow I'll get up and go to the Guildhall and explore town, and hopefully there'll be a tutorial somewhere that I missed that explains how to log out. Easy."

Having a plan always calmed you down. Your chest felt less heavy, but the weight transferred to your eyes. You were exhausted, you thought, as you quickly succumbed to sleep.