Epilogue

Kopius woke for what felt like the tenth time that night. It was his first time in who knew how many days of sleeping on a cot rather than stone, yet he couldn’t get comfortable. He was sore and exhausted—both mentally and physically. He would have been struggling to keep his eyes open, except he was trying to sleep. Different positions didn’t help, nor did facing new directions. More blankets, less blankets; it didn’t matter. Resigned to the cruel fate of a sleepless night, Kopius sat up. He looked across the room to see Cici’s large figure laying atop a cot of his own a short distance away.

Oh-jin had made the two men feel right at home. The only thing missing from his hospitality was a hot shower. They had all eaten, cleaned themselves as much as possible, and then hit the sheets. Cici had knocked out the second he hit the pillow. Now that there were no longer the ambient sounds of nature, Kopius could hear the big guy snore. When he’d first laid down, Kopius had melted into his cot, letting it embrace him as he drifted to sleep.

Kopius had been awakened by a bad dream, a loud noise, a soft repetitive noise, Cici gagging throughout the night, and one time by the need to pee. He wasn’t sure why he was awake now.

His feet searched for his boots on the floor, unwilling to let his exposed skin be shocked by the cold, hard ground again. As he leaned down to finish pulling the boots on, the feeling of a bubble popping happened in his mind. It was like when his ears adjusted to elevation changes, releasing pressure like a slow, leaky tire.

Kopius pinched his nose closed, shut his mouth and tried to speed up the releasing process. A moment after his ears popped a virtual window appeared in front of him.

“What the fuck?” he whispered.

image [https://i.imgur.com/uDfx20W.jpeg]

“Basic gear?” Kopius said with an air of confusion. He closed the window out of reflex.

image [https://i.imgur.com/R4qVcch.jpeg]

“Wait a minute,” Kopius said to himself, leaving this window open. His pulse picked up a beat, and his mouth, though dry from sleeping, was completely arid now. He licked at his lips in an attempt to create saliva and closed the window. Before he could think on it further, another window popped in view, then another and another until they started to cascade on top of one another, each blocking the one under it. It was like a computer falling victim to some adware virus that spews out pop-ups and error messages after error messages, reducing the computer to nothing more than a paper weight.

He watched the pop-ups materialize like he had just won a game of online solitaire. Once the parade had stopped and Kopius was able to control his breathing, he tried to open his profile page.

“Seriously!” Kopius complained. His profile had opened, and for the briefest of split-seconds he’d spied a fully authored profile page before it had gotten buried behind the avalanche of notification windows. Cici grumbled something inaudible and rustled in his cot.

Kopius grabbed a shirt and headed out to the hallway. With no place to sit in the long, narrow hall, Kopius quickly made his way to Oh-jin's lab and out the door to Kickshaw. He anxiously found a place to sit and began to pore over his functioning interface. First, apparently, he had to go through his notifications.

image [https://i.imgur.com/YIJzVju.jpeg]

“Obviously,” Kopius mumbled to himself.

image [https://i.imgur.com/iL5rxIG.jpeg]

That’s not ominous or anything, Kopius thought before moving on.

image [https://i.imgur.com/VC8nyDT.jpeg]

“I’d rather not do that again,” Kopius protested as he rubbed at his forearm.

image [https://i.imgur.com/fI9IOAr.jpeg]

“Loot everything, brotha,” Kopius said to the wind. He felt a bit awkward replying to every pop-up but that was his way of keeping his nerves in check.

image [https://i.imgur.com/gBwgbt2.jpeg]

Healing will be just fine, Kopius thought with a short laugh.

image [https://i.imgur.com/TZKU9BZ.jpeg]

“That’s an interesting one,” he admitted to himself.

image [https://i.imgur.com/sS70CrC.jpeg]

“Climbing? That’s what it means?”

image [https://i.imgur.com/ZPo3T9f.jpeg]

“Whatever.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/zPsBop5.jpeg]

Should I be writing this down? Kopius absently patted himself down as though he had a pen on his person.

image [https://i.imgur.com/5gcXRj9.jpeg]

“If it doesn’t kill you…”

image [https://i.imgur.com/G8WKWS0.jpeg]

“I did.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/JuxKIZE.jpeg]

Kopius nodded along.

image [https://i.imgur.com/H702CNB.jpeg]

He nodded some more.

image [https://i.imgur.com/GxZdxDb.jpeg]

“I get XP for that?!”

image [https://i.imgur.com/hIaNhOJ.jpeg]

“That’s—fuck.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/dDiOZdp.jpeg]

Okay.

image [https://i.imgur.com/sQzCbsm.jpeg]

Okay, Kopious thought with growing annoyance.

image [https://i.imgur.com/NECesEb.jpeg]

“Be nice to have a number next to the XP man.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/BA5YcVu.jpeg]

Mm-hmm.

image [https://i.imgur.com/O8hehr0.jpeg]

Good to know.

image [https://i.imgur.com/k5HGy2O.jpeg]

Yuuuuup.

image [https://i.imgur.com/HJrSSCm.jpeg]

Mm-hmm.

image [https://i.imgur.com/WGs4HEz.jpeg]

Kopius spun the ring with his thumb.

image [https://i.imgur.com/qJzuf7A.jpeg]

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Here we go,” he said while rubbing his hands together.

image [https://i.imgur.com/9SgvkiZ.jpeg]

“I like that.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/8fSC8mW.jpeg]

“That feels like years ago.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/8byJWLq.jpeg]

“Well shit. Was it really a dance? I could have done that.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/Erl5dcb.jpeg]

Indeed.

image [https://i.imgur.com/9JTWIp5.jpeg]

“That’s… twisted.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/iDSLaeh.jpeg]

His eyes went wide. Unique? That better mean what I think it means!

image [https://i.imgur.com/iDSLaeh.jpeg]

Kopius shrugged. He didn’t have a head count.

image [https://i.imgur.com/P8UZjN7.jpeg]

“I’ll leave foot fetishes to Carl and the A.I..” Kopius mumbled.

image [https://i.imgur.com/Zu5pRag.jpeg]

“Be nice if I could cast it from somewhere other than my fucking shoes.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/fZM27Lq.jpeg]

“Sweet.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/Lk8peG0.jpeg]

“Quinn? Dude, F that guy.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/Ok121M6.jpeg]

“We are only at the Ripple quest? There’s like five million more windows.” Kopius exaggerated, quickly growing weary of his functioning interface. He took some deep breaths, reminded himself to be patient, and continued on.

image [https://i.imgur.com/3tIsThm.jpeg]

“Is this supposed to be funny?” Kopius wondered how intentional the quotations were.

image [https://i.imgur.com/f1ny3ec.jpeg]

“Welcome to the party, pal,” Kopius chuckled.

image [https://i.imgur.com/BHtgPF2.jpeg]

“Here is some XP for you.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/lDohViK.jpeg]

“And some XP for you.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/N89LFXc.jpeg]

“And so on…”

image [https://i.imgur.com/e9sN8Vt.jpeg]

“And so forth…”

image [https://i.imgur.com/beiApTw.jpeg]

“Hello, Patty.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/tXj77cF.jpeg]

“Trigger.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/UeGxfyF.jpeg]

“Oh, brothers. Nice.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/ZQyG8g4.jpeg]

“That’s a tongue twister,” Kopius admitted as he tried to say the name five times in quick succession.

image [https://i.imgur.com/nV1NR6X.jpeg]

Mmmhmm.

image [https://i.imgur.com/JRst6uk.jpeg]

“Dual-wielding pistols would be great,” Kopius noted, reminiscing on Mustang & Sally.

image [https://i.imgur.com/j9u0Qkf.jpeg]

“That’s not fair!” His words echoed off the many walls that made up Kickshaw.

image [https://i.imgur.com/Jzky25h.jpeg]

Yup.

image [https://i.imgur.com/MZCghrY.jpeg]

“It did leave a mark,” Kopius complained.

image [https://i.imgur.com/KKwxMsQ.jpeg]

“I am pretty sure it was more than that.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/aHCPKW6.jpeg]

Though, I hadn’t stopped to count.

image [https://i.imgur.com/sY3G6m7.jpeg]

“Better lucky than good, right, Papa?”

image [https://i.imgur.com/EM9buRB.jpeg]

“You know, I had chosen fire magic…” He shook his head like a disappointed parent.

image [https://i.imgur.com/4e25x75.jpeg]

Okay.

image [https://i.imgur.com/NCiqhcQ.jpeg]

I did.

image [https://i.imgur.com/AkNfzaQ.jpeg]

“What the hell is this?” Kopius yelled at the abandoned town of Kickshaw. He stood up and sat several times, his tired body jolting back to life. If it weren't for the fact that it was the butt-crack of dawn, Kopius would have gone to wake up Cici and Oh-jin to demand answers.

After a few stern warnings with the subject line regarding “personal space”—issued to the Universe or the Gods or whatever made these damn pop-up windows—Kopius let the emotions stew in his stomach and returned to his notifications.

image [https://i.imgur.com/S1pdep9.jpeg]

“It’s not on fucking purpose,” Kopius mumbled.

image [https://i.imgur.com/aQJH1j8.jpeg]

I wonder if Cici got this too, Kopius wondered.

image [https://i.imgur.com/EjjuoYx.jpeg]

“We followed the instructions.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/lqR7TVZ.jpeg]

“That’s weird,” Kopius said as he gave the window several reads.

image [https://i.imgur.com/TAD5Hfm.jpeg]

“That explains a lot.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/GIpnwS9.jpeg]

“Okay, last stretch here.” Kopus got up and walked a couple circles to loosen his beat-up body. Eight more windows blocked him from his profile. He gave his aches and pains a few more stretches before continuing.

image [https://i.imgur.com/xhuTlp3.jpeg]

“Wha?”

image [https://i.imgur.com/DzUbQXG.jpeg]

“Nice.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/z0VIANy.jpeg]

Kopius instinctually tongued the space where the tooth once sat.

image [https://i.imgur.com/xhuTlp3.jpeg]

“I don’t like the way that sounds,” Kopius whispered to himself.

image [https://i.imgur.com/RjDBK5P.jpeg]

Mm-hmm.

image [https://i.imgur.com/BWBEzp5.jpeg]

Nope.

image [https://i.imgur.com/xhuTlp3.jpeg]

“Am I being geo-tagged or some shit?”

image [https://i.imgur.com/9GH4l1u.jpeg]

“No! Good thing I can see it now!”

Kopius closed the last of the notifications and shut his eyes to collect himself. He was about to look at his fully functioning profile for the first time and he was going to try and savor it. He was admittingly nervous, like opening college acceptance letters while desperately hoping you have been accepted.

He opened his eyes and there it was. His name and level, a breakdown of his stats, active and passive. There were his health, mana and stamina bars, several tabs labeled Magic, Abilities, and Map. It had all the hallmarks of any VRMMORPG HUD he had come across dozens of times before.

Kopius smiled nervously.

“Tidus of Kon, log out.”