Chapter 002: Two Steps Forward
[I'm sorry for being late, I didn't want to be here.]
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{LUCIAN GILFORD}
The clerk handed me a slip of parchment covered in neat handwriting and too many stamps, like bureaucracy was a universal constant across worlds. She said something that sounded suspiciously like instructions, and I caught the gist—take this to another counter, talk to another person, don't stand here like a lost dog. I nodded and thanked her in the universal language of polite confusion before wandering toward the far side of the hall.
The place looked even busier now. Adventurers came and went in waves, trading paperwork for shiny metal tags or handing over bags that jingled in ways I didn't want to think about. The words monster parts floated out of a nearby conversation, and I decided my curiosity could wait until I was safely in a locked room.
My phone buzzed again, that same faint vibration against my leg that had started to feel like a heartbeat out of sync with my own. When I glanced at it, the screen showed a thin line of text in English: New area data syncing... please wait. The ellipsis pulsed twice before disappearing. The display went dark.
"Of course," I muttered. "Now you decide to have a secret life."
The clerk at the next counter looked up, clearly unsure whether I was addressing her. She was younger than the first—brown hair tied in a braid, sleeves rolled to her elbows, a quill hovering beside her hand in lazy circles like it had somewhere better to be. "You are... foreigner?" she asked slowly, eyes flicking from my clothes to my face.
"That obvious?"
Her smile was small but genuine. "Little." She tapped the form the last clerk had given me. "Name... Lucian Gil-ford?"
"Close enough. I'll take it."
She nodded, skimming the rest of the page, occasionally asking me questions in a mix of her language and mine. I understood enough to survive the conversation but not enough to feel competent. Every fifth word felt like someone had replaced it with jazz.
When she asked for "occupation," I hesitated. "Freelancer," I said finally, which seemed safer than undead import from another reality.
She wrote it down, her quill scratching neat loops across the parchment. Then she pointed to a small line of symbols near the bottom and spoke again. "No deity. No Familia. You want... register solo?"
"I don't know what the alternative is," I said honestly. "Let's go with whatever doesn't require pledging my soul."
Her quill paused midair. "Ah. Solo. Dangerous."
"That makes two of us."
The hovering pen resumed its work, jotting down something that looked suspiciously like idiot with death wish. She stamped the page, motioned for me to place my hand on a small crystal block, and when I did, the surface glowed faintly blue. It felt warm—not burning, just alive. She seemed satisfied with the result and waved me aside.
A dull murmur filled the space as the light faded. My hand tingled. I stared at the faint mark the glow had left behind, a soft pattern like frost etched into skin. Temporary, I hoped.
I pocketed the paperwork and turned toward the main doors again. The festival noise outside had dimmed, the light shifting toward the lazy gold of late afternoon. Somehow the Guild's energy never slowed—clerks swapping shifts, adventurers counting coin, a woman in heavy armor laughing loud enough to shake dust from the rafters.
When I stepped outside, the brightness hit like a hammer. The crowds had thinned slightly, but the air was still thick with the smell of food and the lingering sweetness of crushed flowers. Streamers fluttered from rooftops, their colors deepening as the sun slid lower. My phone vibrated again, and I checked it out of habit.
Sync Complete. Night-mode map enabled.
A new overlay flickered across the screen—a faint lattice of glowing lines stretching through the city, marking lamps, taverns, and whatever counted as safe zones here. The entire map had dimmed to a bluish tint, like someone had swapped reality for a video game's evening filter.
"Night-mode," I read aloud. "Because that's the part I was missing—context-sensitive fantasy GPS."
A voice somewhere to my left muttered something about "weird magic user," and I decided that was my cue to move. The phone guided me with another dotted path, this one leading back toward the market district. The app called it North Main, though I suspected locals just called it home.
The light faded as I walked, festival lanterns flickering to life overhead. The shift from day to night didn't feel gradual—it rolled across the city like a tide, washing the sky in dark blue and the streets in shadow. Somewhere beyond the rooftops, bells tolled, and the crowd's noise changed pitch—laughter giving way to music, footsteps to dancing.
I followed the map's trail until it ended at a small square filled with vendor stalls shutting down for the evening. A few still sold skewers and pastries to passing adventurers, the smell of grilled meat mixing with smoke and ale. I found an empty bench near a fountain, sat, and stretched my legs.
The phone's glow lit my face in faint blue as I checked the map again. Dozens of icons pulsed softly around me—shops, inns, even the Guild marked behind me with a golden crest. And there, in the bottom corner, sat the familiar red-and-white symbol I'd ignored all day: the Costco app, now labeled The Great Warehouse.
For a long moment, I stared at it, thumb hovering over the icon. Then I exhaled through my nose and tapped the screen.
The screen didn't explode, which was already a win. The familiar red logo appeared, smooth and modern, completely out of place against the medieval skyline behind it. For a second, I thought it would crash—surely the app needed the internet—but it loaded like nothing had changed. The spinning circle turned once, twice, and then the home page blinked into existence as if I'd just reopened it on a lazy Sunday back home.
Welcome back, Lucian Gilford.
That alone was enough to make my stomach twist. The app remembered my name, my account, my everything. Beneath it sat the usual layout—membership banner, store listings, weekly coupons. Nothing broken, nothing corrupted. Just a working app in a world that shouldn't even know what Wi-Fi was.
Then my eyes caught the small text at the top of the screen.
Location: Orario, Genkai.
I stared at it. Blinked. Stared again, as if squinting might make the letters change back to something reasonable. They didn't.
Orario. Genkai. Not Los Angeles. Not anywhere.
The app even had a neat weather tab showing a little sun icon and 18°C, clear skies. I glanced up, as though the sky might confirm it. Late sunset, not a cloud in sight. The app wasn't lying.
"Well," I muttered, "at least customer tracking works across dimensions."
I scrolled down, half-expecting the images to vanish or blur into static, but they didn't. Page after page of normal Costco merchandise flicked by—Kirkland water, bulk trail mix, entire sets of patio furniture that no one in their right mind needed. The search bar even worked. I typed "pizza," mostly to amuse myself, and was rewarded with a full menu of food court options, complete with prices listed in Valis.
That earned a laugh—short, incredulous, but real. "Of course you'd adapt," I said to the phone. "Corporate efficiency transcends universes."
The more I explored, the more surreal it felt. The membership tab sat exactly where I remembered it. The prices had rounded down neatly to whole numbers, just like before, though I doubted that was for my benefit. The warehouse finder button pulsed faintly in the corner, and when I tapped it, the map expanded into a grid of glowing red markers scattered across the continent like embers on parchment.
Each marker carried a city name I didn't recognize—places that probably didn't exist five minutes ago but looked perfectly mapped now. And there, at the center, the largest and brightest dot pulsed with my location: Orario.
I scrolled closer. The map's resolution sharpened until I could make out individual streets, including the fountain square where I sat. My own position was marked by the same blue dot as before. I zoomed out again, watching as the grid of red icons stretched outward across valleys, forests, and coastlines I'd never seen.
Somewhere, behind me, laughter echoed from a nearby tavern, pulling me back into the present. The sound of clinking mugs and a lute out of tune mixed with the smell of cooked meat and the fading sweetness of flowers. I looked from the lively square to the glowing screen and back again, my mind struggling to reconcile the two.
"Orario, Genkai," I read aloud, voice low. "I guess that makes this home now."
The phone didn't argue. It just hummed faintly, screen bright and expectant, as if waiting for me to place an order.
I stared at the screen until my eyes started to hurt, then reached for my wallet. If the app worked, maybe—just maybe—the rest of my financial life had survived too. I flipped it open, thumbing past the worn edges of my old IDs, the punch card from a coffee shop that had probably never existed here, and pulled out my credit card. The number gleamed under the fading light like a tiny promise of solvency.
"All right," I said to no one in particular, "let's test the multiversal banking system."
The checkout screen blinked obediently when I tapped Payment Methods. My saved card was still there, full name, last four digits, expiration date—proof that somewhere in the digital ether, my information lived on. I hit Confirm.
The screen thought about it. Then it flashed red.
Error: Payment method invalid in current world.
I let the words sink in. "You've got to be kidding me. You'll load an interdimensional map but not process a Visa?"
The app wasn't sympathetic. I tried my debit card next, typing in the details manually just in case the stored data didn't translate. Another red flash.
Error: Card not recognized. Please use a supported currency.
I sat back on the bench and glared at the phone, as if shame alone could bully it into cooperation. "Supported currency," I repeated slowly. "What do you want, a pouch of dragon teeth? Bottled hope?"
The only answer was the faint reflection of my own unimpressed face.
Out of stubbornness, I tried cash next. I pulled out a few crumpled bills, held them in my hand like an idiot, and waited for divine revelation. The app didn't so much as flicker. Somewhere, across infinite realities, my bank account was probably still sitting there—untouched, inaccessible, quietly mocking me.
The absurdity of it hit me then: I'd survived death, interdimensional travel, and waking up in a field, only to be defeated by currency conversion.
I stuffed the wallet back into my pocket with a sigh. "Right. Lesson learned. The afterlife runs on fantasy money."
I looked down at the screen again. The checkout window still waited patiently, offering me two payment options—Local Currency (Valis) and Manual Exchange. The second one was grayed out, taunting me with its existence.
"Guess we're going native," I muttered.
The faint sound of a nearby bard tuning a lute drifted through the air, followed by the laughter of a few festival stragglers. The city was settling into evening, lanterns throwing gold light across cobblestones, shadows stretching long between the stalls. My phone, traitorous and unhelpful, dimmed its brightness on its own, displaying a faint message near the bottom of the screen.
Tip: Earn Valis through local trade to fund purchases.
I stared at it for a long moment. The phone didn't elaborate.
"Oh good," I said flatly. "Now it's giving life advice."
Curiosity—or maybe masochism—got the better of me. I tapped the little Help & Support icon at the bottom of the screen, half-expecting a chatbot to appear and greet me with Hi! How can I ruin your day? Instead, the page loaded instantly to a wall of text that could've been ripped straight from a corporate handbook.
There was no chat button. No contact form. Not even a fake "Call Us" link. Just headers and subcategories, each one drier than the last: Returns & Refunds, Currency Exchange Policy, Membership Terms, Recycling Program.
The absence of a customer service number felt almost hostile. If this really was Costco, they'd decided the afterlife didn't qualify for phone support.
"Figures," I muttered. "Even the gods don't pick up anymore."
I scrolled further. The FAQ section was mercilessly cheerful:
Q: What is the Great Warehouse?
A: The Great Warehouse™ provides seamless multiversal access to all Costco products, deals, and services for approved members. Delivery times and product availability may vary depending on regional restrictions.
Q: How do I pay for items?
A: All purchases are made using local currency according to the active exchange rate in your current world.
Q: How do I obtain local currency?
A: Please consult your local economy. The Great Warehouse™ does not provide loans or advances.
I laughed—once, sharply. "Consult my local economy. That's corporate for 'figure it out yourself.'"
The next section was titled Membership Details. I tapped it, and the page expanded with soft gold trim, as though the app was proud of itself.
Great Warehouse Exclusive Membership
Your first year of membership is free. Renewal rate: $150 local equivalent per annum.
Membership benefits include: Global price rounding, zero tax on all purchases, exclusive monthly deals, and multiversal customer loyalty points (redeemable where applicable).
Below that was a tidy summary with my name and status:
Member: Lucian Gilford
Location: Orario, Genkai
Membership Valid Until: 4/14/1000 (Local Calendar)
Status: Active (Year One Trial)
The date format made no sense, but the Active part did. Somehow, somewhere, my free trial had survived death.
I leaned back against the bench, staring at the glowing screen while the city hummed around me. Festival drums thumped distantly, laughter rising and fading with the wind. I couldn't decide if this was the most impressive magic I'd ever seen or the universe's longest-running practical joke.
Scrolling to the bottom brought one final line in small, friendly font:
If you require assistance, please visit your nearest Warehouse outlet or speak to a designated representative.
"That's great," I said to the phone. "Do you see a warehouse around here? Because I don't."
The phone, naturally, remained silent.
I scrolled down past the renewal terms, not really processing the numbers anymore. It was all surreal—gold, Valis, multiversal exchange rates—but then a small box at the bottom caught my eye. Tucked between Membership Tier and Loyalty Points was a balance summary written in plain, familiar font:
Store Credit: $50.00
For a moment, I just stared at it. Fifty bucks. Not gold, not silver, not Valis—actual U.S. dollars, clinging to existence like a cockroach after the apocalypse.
I rubbed at the screen, half convinced it was a glitch. It wasn't. The numbers stayed exactly where they were, crisp and confident.
"Fifty dollars," I said quietly. "So, heaven's real, but it still runs on gift cards."
The sheer absurdity of it made me laugh—softly at first, then harder when I realized that, technically, that fifty was probably the store credit I'd gotten from returning a bad blender two years ago. Apparently, even death couldn't wipe out Costco's return policy.
"Guess customer loyalty really does pay off," I muttered, scrolling further just to see if the app would taunt me again.
Below the balance, a small footnote appeared in gray text:
Store credit is redeemable in any active world location at current exchange rates.
I tilted my head. "Any active world location," I repeated, as though saying it out loud would make it less insane.
So the app recognized Orario. It used Valis. And it accepted U.S. dollars—but only the digital ghost of them. Which meant my blender refund might actually buy me something here.
"Okay," I said, rubbing my thumb over the edge of the phone. "Maybe we're not completely doomed."
I backed out of the membership page and returned to the main storefront, scrolling past the endless aisles of bulk food, paper towels, and patio sets. The layout was the same as ever, only now every price tag was written in bright silver text—Valis equivalent: 1¢ = 1Ʌ̶. The exchange rate matched perfectly.
For the first time all day, the math worked out. My fifty bucks translated to five thousand Valis—an absurd miracle wrapped in corporate branding.
"Interest-free resurrection bonus," I said to the phone. "I'll take it."
The cursor blinked at me, patient and unjudging, as if waiting for me to decide what kind of idiot I'd like to be next.