GEOVRU: IV

Chapter 10 (Epilogue)

The night IRL had long since come, and so it was the same in Forman Online. The western rocky crags of the map were pitch black, albeit the single campfire that had been lit on top of one of the boulders. The night sky fought back with its own light with the brightness of the moon. With countless clouds covering the sky, there were nearly no stars to be seen, those that were out were outshone by the beautiful aurora borealis that stretched from north to south across the night sky. The night was quiet, not even a cricket was chirping in the darkness, however there were sounds coming from the campfire, voices, laughter, and the faint picking of a guitar. That's where we sat, Eripio Domum. Around the campfire sat Kriakorous, a twenty year old sophomore at GEOVRU, an armored archer that loved to tank damage, and dish it out from a distance. He sat nonchalant with his legs out straight in front of him towards the fire. Next to him was an Asian woman, who looked a year younger than Kriakorous. Her name was Tomoko, but in this world we called her Trynalyn. She wore mage robes and very little armor, she preferred to stay behind everyone with Cry, and either heal or damage with AOE attacks. Either way, she nearly never left Kriakorous' side. Far to her left was a larger man, a fifth year veteran of the college, Halit, decked out in his massive armor with a matching massive sword on his back. Halit just finished telling everyone else about a recent team of players who'd failed to beat the Forman Online final boss. Laughing next to him was Chrystal Kersey Ivers. We called her Krystal. She had taken a break from her guitar to laugh at the stories of their strategies, pointing out flaw after flaw. After a few critiques however she went back to picking at her guitar. To her right is where I sat, I watched her play and listened to Cry and Halit's stories.

"How is it back in the states?" Halit asked me, shifting his position under the light of the fire.

"It's pretty nice." I told him. "We're not far from Seattle, it's peaceful and fun. Only thing I hate about it is having to fly back to GEOVRU every month or so."

"That's gotta suck, I bet it's expensive too." Halit replied.

I shrugged a bit. "Normally yeah, but we got a lot of money after Gathway died. Those plane tickets don't even put a dent in our pockets." I laughed a bit. Jeez I sound like a total prude.

"That's good." He says. "What's it like after PRAT's defeat?" he asked. "Are people in the states as scared of the chip as everyone else?"

I sighed. I hadn't gone out much since me and Krystal moved into our new house, but whenever I did, there was one thing I noticed amongst everything else. People were afraid. Sure there were some people in the older generations that were fine with the chip, but the younger generations were scared, afraid of what would happen to them and humanity if we were to continue down the path. I gave it to him straight. "People are scared." I told him. "There are those who don't mind the chip, but they're outnumbered by those who want a change, they don't want humanity to be reliant on things that could kill them."

Halit sighed and hung his head.

"I can't even imagine that." Cry complained. "What are we going to do without the Atomiton?"

I sighed. "Probably going back to using tower computers or something, televisions and stuff like that."

Everyone but Krystal shook their heads.

"That's just weird." Trynalyn spoke up. "Without the chip, our very way of life would change; it's not a simple as starting to use older style computers again. We'd have to change things, a lot of things."

I nodded. "Yeah but at this point it feels inevitable."

"How long do you think the Atomiton will last?" Halit asked.