[The Omniverse - Abyssal Cloud Executive Office]
The polished-obsidian boardroom of the Abyssal Cloud headquarters hovered silently above the neon megacity.
Victor Thorne stood by the towering starlight-glass windows, his impeccably tailored midnight-blue suit perfectly cutting a sleek silhouette against the cosmic backdrop. He was taking a slow sip of his black coffee when Seraphina, his disgraced Dark Elf Co-CEO, walked in.
"Principal Thorne, we have a localized revenue crisis in Sector 7," Seraphina stated, her voice a chill, competent rasp as she adjusted her sharp, dark business attire. She slid a glowing holographic chart across the mahogany desk. "Physical foot traffic in our franchised dungeons has plummeted by sixty percent this quarter. Turnstile toll revenue and on-site potion vending machine sales are flatlining."
Princess Ignis, leaning against the doorframe with her demonic broadsword, frowned. "Are the heroes dead? I thought we trapped them in the Company Town to keep them grinding."
"They are grinding," Seraphina pushed her glasses up her nose, tapping her silver clipboard. "But they aren't physically entering the dungeons. The indebted heroes have discovered how to use High-Tier Astral Projection. They are leaving their physical bodies safely in their cots at Abyssal Outpost 42 and sending their intangible spirit-avatars to fight the monsters remotely."
"Remote adventuring," Victor murmured, his Tycoon's Aura simmering with cold calculation.
"Exactly," Seraphina nodded. "Because their astral forms do not trigger the physical floor plates, they are bypassing our RushUnlock doors and skipping the hardware tolls entirely."
"Burn their astral tethers!" Ignis demanded, her hellfire flaring. "If we sever the connection while they are projecting, their souls will be lost in the void!"
Applying his signature Corporate Twist, Victor refused to fight back with standard fantasy magic.
"Killing the workforce does not solve the underlying economic issue, Ignis," Victor pulled his gold pocket watch from his vest, checking the time. "The true crisis is my Commercial Real Estate portfolio. Pantheon Estates owns thousands of physical dungeons. If the heroes are allowed to work from home, the perceived value of those physical locations crashes, taking our equity down with it. We must force them back to the physical workplace."
Victor tapped his gold-nibbed pen against the Tycoon's Ledger, initiating a global mandate.
Down in Abyssal Outpost 42, Leo the indebted hero was lying on his cot, his body glowing with a peaceful astral aura as his spirit happily looted a dungeon miles away.
Suddenly, a blaring siren erupted from his Abyssal OS helmet. The astral tether violently snapped, slamming Leo's soul back into his exhausted physical body.
A fifty-foot holographic projection of Victor Thorne materialized above the brutalist camp.
[ATTENTION CONTRACTORS. EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, ASTRAL PROJECTION AND REMOTE ADVENTURING ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED.]
"What?!" Leo screamed, staggering out of his barracks alongside thousands of angry heroes. "Why?! We were clearing the dungeons twice as fast from home!"
"While Abyssal Dynamics values flexibility, the data clearly shows that spontaneous, in-person synergy is critical to our corporate culture," Victor's massive hologram announced smoothly. "Furthermore, remote adventuring prevents you from experiencing the collaborative, physical 'watercooler' moments found exclusively within our toll-gated corridors. You have exactly one hour to comply with the Return-to-Dungeon (RTD) mandate. Anyone caught working from home will face immediate foreclosure on their student loans."
Leo fell to his knees in the mud. He realized Victor didn't care about "synergy." The Tycoon was forcing them back into mortal danger purely to artificially prop up the value of his commercial real estate.