The visor lit up as a menu was superimposed onto my vision.

First thing was first. I flicked through the menus with hand motions until I found the calls menu. 

Ugh. Fuck voice controls. It sucks not having tactile feedback, but at least an AR keyboard still beats voice.

> Phone Number: X-XXX-XXX-XXXX
> Checking Number…
> Accepted

I turned on call transferring and bonked my phone onto the side of my head; and the headset I was wearing.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

“Heya Bee. You’re sounding fine.”

“Great...Now, what other config do I need on this thing?”

More humming and hawing from Danny.

“You might want to go through stuff later, but I think the defaults should be mostly okay? The one thing you’ll want to do ahead of time is connect to ROL:E and register your account on the device.”

> Downloading ROL:E Launcher
> Input ID: XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX
> . . .Registered

> Download Character Profile?

“It says I’m all registered up. But, umm, it’s asking me if I want to download a profile?”

“Oh, right, I forgot about that,” Danny said. “It wants to use your character from ROL:E as an Avatar for when you’re dived but not in a game.”

“That’s a thing?” My voice sounded quiet.

“You can always change it later, or make a new one yourself. With the AI assist it’s a lot easier than you would think.”

“I...see.” 

Did she think I didn’t like my ROL:E character?

“I think I’m going to check out some more settings on this thing on my own. Thanks all for the help Danny. Bye.” I prepared to hang up but was interrupted before I got there.

“Hold on a sec! Now that you’ve got your own Dive System we have to play together! How does tonight at 8 sound?”

I considered. The idea behind this thing was that I could play with her and Laura, but I guess I also felt kinda nervous about it? I wasn’t even sure why. But the thought of it made the knot in my chest pulse uncomfortably. And I couldn’t shake the voice in the back of my head whispering words of solitude.

Stupid intrusive thoughts. Fuck you too.

“Yeah...Okay.” Deep Breath. “That sounds good. Talk to you then?”

“Sure. I’ll meet you outside Newbie Inn.”

> Call Ended

I let out a long sigh, then looked at the prompt again. I didn’t have anything to lose, right? Like Danny said, I could always change it later if I wanted to.

Besides. I wanted to see how it felt to dive with this thing.

I hit the button to download the Profile then pulled myself up onto my bed. I wasn’t worried about getting too cold on a summer afternoon, so on top of the sheets was good enough.

Well, okay, maybe just one blanket. For comfort.

I tried to get comfortable.

I took a few more big breaths.

And I activated dive mode.

 -blink-

When I opened my eyes back up, it was to look on an empty room with plain, white walls, ceiling and floor. No obvious lights, per dive standard. And no doors or windows either.

“Well at least this beats the void from last time…”

My eyes widened with the sound of my voice. I felt a smile bloom onto my lips.

I was Tessa again! Woo!

I stretched my little body as much as I could, reaching arms high above my head, and shook my hips until I could get a decent look at my striped tail. 

Mmmmm. Soft tail good.

“Menu!”

A window appeared in the air, with a dense list of different options for the system. Way too many! But there were a few things right at the top that caught my eye.

The first was a little red flag in the top left corner. It looked sort of like a banner, maybe with some sort of seal on it? But I didn’t really recognize it.  I hesitantly reached out to click it, only for another window to appear, superimposed on top of the previous one.

“Oh! It’s a mailbox!”

And I had mail. It helpfully told me that it was addressed to my ROL:E Account, though I could have guessed from the sender.

> Candy Kane: Hola Tessa! How did the slime quest go? Make sure to let me know!
> Candy Kane: I’m super curious to know how the crafting route goes for you. Tell you what. I’ll sweeten the deal and cook you something in exchange. We can exchange crafting stories!

I smiled to myself at the little message. Even in text that girl was a 10 on the excitement scale. And a 2 on the Pun scale. She was great.

The message was marked Yesterday, so hopefully she hadn’t been expecting a super punctual response.

“Respond.”

> Reply:

“Glad to hear from you Candy, I just got a Dive system of my own so I should be playing more from now on. Oh! I’ll have to take some shots of Nikola to send to you once I’m in game again! I’m meeting up with a friend tonight, but I’d love to talk to you again soon. Good luck with the cooking!”

> Send

Now then. On to cleaning up the menu. The other two things that stood out to me, right at the top were “Set Timer” and “Setup Quick Menu”.

At least they were self aware enough to know people would want those.

I quickly set the timer to 1 hour before pulling me out, allowing me plenty of wake time to have a full play session with Danny later. Then I turned my attention to the quick menu.

“Okay...Well, mail and the timer should be in there for sure.”

I selected them both from the list.

“I should also have an option for accessing the full menu. Other than that I can leave some space for later and...room setup?”

I selected the option. A pair of sim-esque furniture boxes superimposed itself into the corners of my vision and a see-through overlay appeared in the room I was in.

I guess this was how I could change up my home dive environment?

“I’ll need to see if I can emulate some of my consoles in here...Well, that can wait until next time.”

I started exploring my options for wallpaper. It looked like I could upload more, from games I’ve played and other sources, but the default assets were enough to get started. I decided to put big windows against two of the walls, though for now there was just blackness outside them, and then line them with an unrealistically huge corner couch.  Like, the sofa took up the entire wall! Time Two!! With only just a tiny amount of space left over for corner tables on the far sides. The sofa was soft and tactile of course, with as much cushiony goodness and it would let me have. A test of the seat left me sinking comfortably into its soft depths. 

I lined one of the remaining walls with shelves, empty for now, and left the fourth blank, leaving the space open for emulators.

“Hmm. This is...kind of going in a similar direction as where I live. What can I do to make it less more of the same?”

Maybe I should start from another angle.

“Set menu name to...umm...Skye.”

> Skye: Namechange confirmed.

“Okay that’s actually pretty cool!” I smiled at the device. “Skye: cover the floor in carpet as thick as possible, please. I don’t have that in my apartment…”

The hard floor was replaced by brown carpet thick enough to completely hide my admittedly small raccoon goblin feet. It felt so soft! I could probably just lie down...right like that. Oh yes. This was heaven. Let everything be taken by the soft.

“Mmm. Skye: Please make that carpet blue.”

It changed to a baby blue colour.

“Darker. Umm, what’s that colour called? Teal? No. Greenish Blue” I rolled around on the floor while thinking. I was too busy enjoying it to worry about getting up and pressing buttons!

“Ah!” I snapped. “Seafoam Green! Only darker, like actual seawater dark.”

The carpet was good, but the sofa needed to match it. And I needed more softness around me. All of the softness! I would be a Softness Dragon!

Or at least a Softness Goblin.

I found some bean-bag chairs in the menu, which I stretched out and flattened until they were more like me-sized beanbag beds. I turned them various shades of blue and green, all lighter than the floor, and then started trying colours on the couch. I eventually found something I liked in a shade I wasn’t expecting, Sort of an off-pink salmony colour, with darker silvery patterns on it that blended well with the carpet. It clashed a bit with the carpet but I did not care. It was perfect. 

I decided to leave the walls white for now. They were half-way covered up now anyway and I had an idea to hunt down some tapestry assets to drape over the exposed bits as well.

That just left…

“Ah. The most important part.”

I went through the menu and pulled out literally every blanket asset that was available. I didn’t even bother trying to colour match. It was just a flood of blankets to blot out the non-existent virtual sun. I used some of the larger ones to add layers to the beanbags and sofa, then I liberally threw them the smaller ones around, until an outside observer would be unsure what was blanket and what was actual floor.

“Yes. This is true bliss.”

I grinned at my dorkiness, then curled up on a beanbag, piling fabric generously on top of myself while I did so, and looking through more menu options.