Nobody talked. What was there to say? As we started moving through the jungle, the air was drinkable and oppressive. The noise was constant, the cicadas thrumming and screeching. Distant bird-sound was all around us. But it wasn’t all bad. Although we couldn’t fundamentally altar the environment of the subconscious, we did find that it was easy enough to cut through, even if it did sprang back instantly after we passed. I found a lightsaber was the best tool for the job and somehow, Luke Skywalker’s emerald blade was comforting to have in hand. But the jungle didn’t last long, stonework soon began to appear, and it was pretty obvious before long that the unpredictable landscape of the subconscious was changing.

  A pillar emerged out of the verdant gloom, and then two, and then suddenly we were free from the undergrowth. As we stepped out on to a clearing, a kind of plateau of ancient ruins, a vast landscape opened up in front of us. The apricot sunset in the distance painted the distant jungles orange, but it wasn’t the sunset that caught our attention. Out of the jungle sprawl in front of us, a vast city of stonework rose up mountainous from the landscape, as though the ribs of some some ancient god had been exposed from the grave. Beyond the ruined city, a cathedral of impossible size towered still higher – higher even than our plateau. Like a spectre from the dreams of a civilisation, it rose up with spires into the clouds – a gamecaster’s dream.

  “Sophie – is it safe to paraglide down to the jungle floor?” Winsford asked.

  We already knew that flying in the subconscious was a bad idea, but base jumping or the like remained to be seen.

  “Controlled gliding in the subconscious VR environ should be safe,” she said, with that increasingly annoying tone of serenity. “There is a less than one percent probability that your avatar will untether and relocate.”

  “Alright, you heard her, let’s do it” Winsford said, “We’re going through the cathedral. We’ll probably find a portal in there before we know it. Let’s keep it to paragliding, no point taking any risks.”

  Sophie closed her eyes a moment, and the paragliders materialised around us, fabric and lines knitting themselves together out of thin air. Winsford started strapping himself in. Ross was a bit hesitant, but we all followed suit. Sophie automated most of our straps, it wasn’t a good feeling, like we were being sheep-herded somewhere we didn’t want to go.

  “On three,” WInsford said. “One. Two… three.”

  We launched out, and it was hard not to forget the situation for just a second and simply drink take in the beauty all around us. We floated and glided in long, graceful arcs through the air, the wind lapping the canvas, the air cool and clean after the humidity of the jungle. I let myself go for a second and lost myself in the moment. Somehow, a smile lifted my face. I drank it in. The sunset, the jungle, the green, the sky, the impossible cathedral … and then I started to notice it. As the gliders came closer to the forest floor, it looked like… the colours of the jungle were beginning to wash out somehow.

  “Does anyone else see that?” I asked. “What is that?” someone else asked at almost the same time.

  The gentle slap of the canvas on our gliders was still there, but we could tell now that something was definitely wrong. The colours of the landscape continued to diminish, and the light of the sunset began leeching out of the air.

  “Sophie,” someone called, with a slight note of panic, “the forest’s going… weird.”

  As we got almost to the top of the tree line, the canopy became completely translucent. Layer on layer of leaves and branches, the landscape seemed to be disappearing beneath us! Should we try and dodge the trees? Should we try and get out? Too late! But as we hit the treeline we found that the trees no longer had any substance at all, we simply… passed right through them.

  “Hoollleeeee….” Everyone began panicking at once, gliders swerving, and diving around each other.

  “AAAHHHH!!!!!”

  Something like the sound of a breath whooshed past our ears, and then suddenly we were through. I looked up to see a reversed tree-scape made out of water above us. I steadied my glider a bit, focusing on the only thing I could see that made any sense, and… we just kept gliding. No more sound. No more wind resistance. Nothing.

  I looked around, the others were still there, stabilising like I was, but beyond that there was just a kind of… void. A kind of … twilight with no features. And then it hit us – a sudden burst of heat. The air shimmered, a blue horizon emerged, and a new landscape materialised beneath us. Not a jungle this time, but a desert. And damn it was hot. The breeze was searing rather than relieving.

  “Let’s get down there, get back on our feet, and re-assess” Winsford shouted out around us. Nobody argued, we angled down and continued the descent. At last we approached ground level, and thankfully (unthankfully?) the ground didn’t disappear on us this time. We touched down in a spray of sand and got out of our paragliders as quickly as we could.

  “Everyone ok?” Chen asked.

  “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” Simon said, as he shrugged off his last harness.

  “Yeah, sure. I’m ok. Trapped in a frigging subconscious VR nightmare after being lied to with life threatening consequences. Yep. Juuussstt fine and dandy” Ross said as he got out of his paraglider.

  We looked around at the new environ. There was nothing but endless sand and dunes as far as the eye could see. And the heat… the heat. Did. Not. Stop. It was relentlessly, punishingly… hot.

  “Sophie” I asked, “With the pain no dampeners down here, what kind of effect is this heat going to have on our bodies in the real world?”

  “Under normal conditions,” she said evenly, “heat experiences in the subconscious VR layer are dampened to a dull warmth and filtered before they reach the body. You feel it, but your nervous system experiences nothing like a dangerous level of heat, so it’s reaction is negligible. Right now, that filter is non active, which means that your bodies are most likely responding to this heat as if it were real.”

  The words settled heavily.

  “In the short term, the most likely effects are increased heart rate, rapid breathing, rising body temperature, and possible dehydration responses – although that may be countered by the body regulation filters in the hardware. If we remain in this environment, there is roughly a fifty percent chance that one or more of you will begin showing signs of heat stress within half an hour real time.”

  Ross swore.

  “If exposure continues,” Sophie went on, voice steady, “the risks will likely increase. Heat exhaustion is possible. Heat stroke is less likely, but not impossible. Loss of consciousness may eventually occur if the body fails to regulate temperature effectively.”

  Chen swallowed. “So… this can actually really hurt us?”

  “Yes,” Sophie said simply. “Your nervous systems cannot reliably distinguish this from real heat. As far as your bodies are concerned, my estimation is that this is – more or less – happening.”

  She glanced across the dunes, eyes scanning nothing in particular.

  “I recommend trying to limit exertion, find shade if any exists, and reduce time spent in direct exposure. The longer we remain here without relief, the higher the risk becomes.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  No one spoke.

  The desert stretched away in every direction, silent and merciless. The heat in the distance twisted, shimmered, and warped the landscape. This was getting real now.

  I paused for a moment, closing my eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. We needed to forget about the actual risks for a second. Start thinking like a gamer. This was just one more scenario that we had to get out of. A game. I was good at games, and thought-casting was an advantage that we didn’t usually have.

  Think.

  I wiped sweat from my forehead, mostly it was drying before dripping. Not good.

  “Ok. We can’t change the environment,” I said, “but if we thought-cast water to drink will that reduce potential real-world damage to our bodies?”

  Sophie didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes unfocused slightly.

  “TC consumables in the subconscious layer do not hydrate the body or reduce core temperature directly. However, relief in here should have similar effects on your nervous system out there. Swallowing water, tasting fluids, and the expectation of hydration may temporarily reduce stress responses. Heart rate and breathing may stabilise slightly. It could slow the progression of heat-related symptoms.”

  “So it helps,” Chen said.

  “In a limited way, possibly” Sophie replied. “But diminishing returns are also possible,” Sophie said evenly. “If the brain detects a mismatch between expectation and physiological outcome, the benefit may decrease.”

  “But it’ll buy us time” I said.

  “Yes,” Sophie said.

  “Ok” I said. “Let’s try casting, and then let’s try escaping this hell hole.”

  I sourced a bottle of mineral water, I could immediately tell that the heat was messing with it. Opening the lid, I took a tentative sip.

  “YAA! Hot!!” I dropped the bottle, the water wasn’t boiling, but it was too hot to drink. Like a really, really hot cup of tea. The ones that leave you with a burned tongue.

  “Cold water will require a more deliberate application of will power” Sophie said.

  Ok. Cold water needed focus. I sourced another bottle, again I could feel the heat. I focused on it, willing it to cool down. Nothing changed. I focused harder, with more intensity, and I could feel the bottle cooling down in my hands. I took another sip. Still unpleasantly warm, but drinkable now.

  “Source some ice cubes into your drink, Peterson. It helps” Simon said.

  “Your ability to cast in the subconscious realm still exists,” Sophie said, “but it is diminished, and can be effected in predictable and unpredictable ways. The environ also has the ability, at times, to heavily influence the strength of your casts.”

  “Thanks for the update genius. One more argument for me to add to my lawsuit when we get out of here” Ross said.

  “For clarity” Sophie said evenly, “the participation agreement you executed prior to immersion does address this scenario. Section twelve subsection C covers adverse physiological responses resulting from subsystem failure, environmental instability, or the unpredictable loss of sensory dampening within experimental or non-standard VR layers. You acknowledged and accepted the possibility of injury, distress, or harm arising from such conditions, including those not reasonably predictable at the time of entry.”

  Ross opened his mouth, then closed it again. Winsford smirked.

  “Additionally,” Sophie said, “liability for decision-making during traversal was contractually assigned to the participant group as a whole, provided actions were taken based on system-provided probability estimates. Mr. Winsford acted within those parameters. Based on my analysis, he does not meet the legal threshold for negligence.”

  “Look. Can we deal with this later?” Chen asked.

  “She’s right, we’re wasting time. We need to get moving” I said.

  “Everett” Winsford barked, “What would you do in a real world desert scenario? Which way do you think we should go?”

  Everett was staring into the distance, eyes unfocused, like he was trying to see something beyond the horizon. Winsford’s words didn’t seem to have registered with him.

  “Captain?” Winsford repeated.

  “I…” He turned to look directly at Winsford. “We…” His eyes refocused. “In a real desert you look for stone, elevation breaks, or structures in the landscape – if you don’t find relief, you’re done. Given this place is drawing on our subconscious to cast, we should expect the environment to generally mimic the real-world.”

  He exhaled, and tracked the dunes with his eyes. “Given the sun angle and the way the heat’s pooling,” he added, hesitating, “I’d start by moving on that bearing – north, north-east.” He sighed. “It looks to me like that’s where the terrain will most likely break. We walk, we conserve, and we reassess as soon as the ground gives us anything to work with.”

  “Ok. Let’s go. Sophie, is running a good idea?”

  “Running will not cause muscle fatigue in your avatars in the conventional sense,” she said. “However, your brains will still interpret sustained running as exertion, especially in this heat, and there is no wind or evaporative cooling to offer relief. From a risk-mitigation perspective, a controlled walking pace is far preferable.”

  We set out at a measured pace, casting umbrellas and other portable shade for ourselves. It didn’t help much. My boots sank into sand, making every step an effort. Without pain dampeners, the little things began to stack up immediately. The sun burned, and every breath of hot air felt abrasive, scraping down our throats. Sweat ran into my eyes, stinging them, before trickling down for a few moments and vanishing again without relief.

  Are we twenty minutes in? Forty? I look across, the others are staggering and stumbling forward. Too exhausted now to try and cast anything that might help. The heat is invasive. I’m starting to lose any sense of my surroundings.

  WHUMP.

  The sound shakes me out of my mind for a second, and I look across to see that Chen has collapsed.

  “Chen!!”

  Ross was running, skidding in the sand next to her.

  “Chen, hey, hey, stay with me,” he said, his voice sharp but cracking underneath, one hand fumbling at her shoulder, the other hovering uselessly like he was afraid to hurt her more. I lift up her head and put my body between the sun and her face in a hopeless effort to do something.

  Simon was there a heartbeat later, already tearing off his pack and casting a scrap of shade that flickered uncertainly above us, clearly straining to try and make it hold.

  “She’s burning up,” Ross said, an unusual note of panic bleeding through his normally dry tone. “Sophie, talk to us. Is this heat exhaustion? Is she—”

  “Chen is exhibiting early signs of heat exhaustion compounded by acute sensory overload,” Sophie said calmly. “Her nervous system is in the early stages of shutdown to try and prevent further damage, which is why she has collapsed.”

  “WHAT CAN WE DO!?!???!” I scream.

  “She needs to reduce her heat exposure immediately by any means available,” Sophie said evenly. “Keep her conscious if possible, and prepare to move only when her breathing and heart rate begin to stabilise. A shift in the environ would be ideal.”

  “Everybody be quiet.” It was Everett, there was something in his voice, and we all looked at him expectantly. He closed eyes, his jaw tightening as he reached out at the air above us with his arms raised, every muscle in his body was straining.

  I could see something beginning to materialise above us, whisps spinning and forming… a cloud! His cast grew as he held it, sweat streaking down his face, his breath coming in measured gasps. Then I felt it. Raindrops. Crisp, cool, raindrops.

  “GGGAAAHHH!!!” Everett bellowed. And then they came thicker, faster. Ross began laughing, I held Chen’s face up off the ground in my lap, her eyes fluttered open as the cool water began to saturate us. It had taken everything I had to cast a lukewarm bottle of water in this heat. Everett had managed to cast a storm cloud that could drench us with cold, life-giving water!!

  As Chen sat up, Everett’s face became more relaxed, the cool water helping him to strengthen his own focus as well. We just sat there, soaking it in, cooling down. I’d never felt anything so good in my whole life.

  “Everett” Chen said, “Everett I… thank you.”

  “That was insane, man. Insane. You’re a freaking legend” Ross said.

  “Move carefully,” Everett said, his voice hoarse but steady, “we use this rain to recover, then we keep going. Now that we’ve had some relief, I’ll be able to do it more easily at the next few intervals. Should have thought of it earlier. If we all cast together next time, it should be more effective. Drink some water, stay sharp, and let’s keep moving.”

  The rain revived our determination, and as we pressed on we were able to cast a fresh cloud at regular intervals. It would keep us going longer, but we all knew it wasn’t a permanent solution. Somehow, we needed to find a way out of this desert. Our energy levels were steadily dropping.

  “There.” It was Everett again, breathing heavily. That cast had clearly taken it out of him. “I can see something in the distance.”

  We looked up, following his gaze. And there it was, unmistakable. Low shapes clustered in the distance, buildings. Somewhere where we could survive.