Jason had a lot to take in with that outburst. He didn't want Penelope freaking out and so he wrapped her up tighter in his arms and held her against him. Letting her feel what he hoped was his solid presence against her as his hand started to rub her back gently. His face resting against her hair as he just held her for a moment to let the depth of his hug sink in. He wanted to address everything she said but it took a moment or two for him to organize his thoughts.<br/><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 102, 255)">"You are every bit as beautiful as your avatar. Stop putting yourself down." </span>He kissed her temple at that. His voice a little husky.<span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 102, 255)">"Keep denying and I'll do you in the street to prove it. No law against it after all." </span><br/><br/>He left his face against the side of her head and took a deep breath.<br/><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 102, 255)">"I'm not sure how we can prove if this is a real situation or some fucked up game. The helmets were reading our brainwaves. I don't know how it would be possible but maybe they downloaded our thoughts or something... if it is real. Maybe it isn't. Maybe this is some kind of deep dive meta-plot. We could search around and see if there are any clues, connections to the outside world? The announcements seemed pretty invested in the game; but maybe that is just to throw us off going outside what they want us to do?"</span><br/><br/>He nibbled on his lower lip for a moment and frowned in thought.<br/><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:rgb(255, 102, 255)">"Seems like most of the old MMO games had some kind of messenger system. Like mailboxes. If we can't use the outside connections in our status HUDs maybe we can figure out something using an in game message system, if we can find out? Did you have any friends who were planning on playing? I had a couple. Just buddies, not really tight. I didn't have a lot of close friends offline." </span>