The end of the night and thus the end of game-playing time caught up to use before I had quite made it to level one. The experience bar was completely full, but it hadn’t ticked over to an empty one yet. Jazmyn had leveled again, Noa was almost to her second level as well, and Mikachu and Ette were both level one. But being both a High Priestess and a Fairy apparently meant I leveled much slower than they all did.

Of course, if we hadn’t wiped on our first encounter, I would have leveled up by now, too. But, hey, it wasn’t like there weren’t going to be plenty of other days to get stronger in.

The downside of DVI being played while our bodies were asleep in the VR pods was that time passed differently for players than it did for our bodies. Instead of being faster than normal, as in all the stories, giving us more time in the game than had elapsed in the real world … it ran at about 75% speed. The eight hours of sleep in the pod translated to only six hours of time in the game. Well, just under six since there was still the login and log out processes. And today, there had been character creation to eat up a little time.

This was, apparently, because one of the functions of sleep was to let the mind rest and allow the subconscious to process information, and it couldn’t do that if the mind was active the whole night in VR-induced REM-like states. Technical mumbo-jumbo explanations aside, this was accomplished by running the game slower, allowing the brain to process things as it needed at the same time it was partaking in VR. That meant we didn’t get the whole eight hours.

But, still, it meant six more hours in the “day.” That is, the six hours of gameplay while we were sleeping didn’t take six hours of time out of the time at work, school, or other play. Not a bad trade-off, except the whole dystopian do-good-in-the-game-or-your-community-suffers thing.

But there was also a do-good-in-the-game-and-your-community-benefits aspect, too. And while we teens weren’t really stressing that the way some of the older folk were, we were probably going to do well enough on average to help benefit the community. Just … leaving aside that first encounter.

Six A.M. and the mandatory logging out and end-of-gameplay for the night came, and I was instantly wide awake and rolling out of the foam-padded VR pod that had replaced the bed in my bedroom.

I stretched, but the obligatory early-morning yawn didn’t occur. I guess VR-induced sleep really was refreshing even if we were hunting giant rats throughout most of it.

* * *

Unlike a normal school morning, breakfast wasn’t already on the table by the time my sisters and I came downstairs. But that was only to be expected when Mom and Dad were also playing. Pretty much everyone was, due to the requirements, except for a few people working in emergency services or the like. And little kids, but that was a different story.

Mom and Dad weren’t little kids and they weren’t in emergency services, either. They were both teachers. Mom taught high school math (Trig and Calc, neither of which I had to take) and Dad taught fifth grade. He had started out as a history teacher, but when they filled his position with a substitute teacher during a leave of absence, the only opening unfilled was in the elementary school. He actually claims to like it better.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

But DVI meant that they weren’t up any earlier than we teens were. Granted, we were up and about at least half an hour earlier than we normally would have been, but they were up a bit later than they normally would have been.

But, well, we now had a new normal.

Dad was humming tunelessly as he fried up some bacon and eggs, though as usual he was cheating on the hashbrowns. We sat wordlessly at the table, waiting. Conversation at the table was generally frowned upon unless we were using it for board games. But beyond that, Mom was grading papers, and grading math papers needed as few distractions as possible.

However, she looked distracted. After a few moments, she put down the red ink pen and looked across the table at us. “Morning, kids,” she said. But without waiting for a chorus of greetings in response, she continued. “Your Dad and I were talking, now that we’ve seen what Dungeon Veils is like, at least a little, and we want to make sure you kids aren’t getting in too far over your head with it all.”

“That’s right,” Dad said. “The game and the government may consider you adults enough, but when I was your age, I was nowhere near ready to be a responsible adult. Certainly not at Jocelyn’s age, but also not even close when I was your age, Jenna.”

Both my sisters rolled their eyes.

“What your Dad is trying to say is that we don’t expect you to be out there, risking your lives, leveling up, getting stronger, and all that for the sake of the community. There’s plenty enough people that will be doing just that. Don’t push yourselves. Just, you know, it’s a game, so play and have fun. Anything you’re doing is a contribution, anyway, so don’t try and turn monster-hunting into a job.”

“But speaking of jobs,” Dad interrupted, “we might have some chores for you to do for us in the game later.”

“Jacob!” my mother exclaimed. “Don’t count our chickens before they hatch. We don’t have a building yet, much less a business, so the kids can’t assist with something that doesn’t exist yet.”

“What sort of business and building, Mom?” Jocelyn asked.

“Your Dad and I are planning to run a patisserie in DVI. Not everyone needs to be front-line soldiers and fighters and whatever. If the behind-the-scenes support is neglected, everyone suffers. And since teachers aren’t really needed, what better way to support people than with pastries, cakes, and sweets -- in a world where no one needs to worry about calories and fat?”

Mom’s eyes were shining with excitement.

And then, almost by magic breakfast was served: bacon, fried eggs -- sunny side up for Mom and Jocelyn, over easy for Jenna and me, and yolkless for Dad -- and tater tots done in the air fryer. But those were all sides to the main course of breakfast, strawberry crepes with whipped cream.

Everyone fell silent. Even if the general prohibition against speaking at the table had been lifted for the earlier conversation, the one cardinal rule at the Jacobson household was “No Speaking At The Dinner Table” (or breakfast table, as the case may be) and certainly never speaking while eating.