CPC-02. Couch Potato Crisis, page 20
part #2 of Couch Potato Chronicles Series
As she approached a turn, she pulled the hand-break and turned the wheel into the curve, causing the kart to slide laterally, giving her a speed bonus. As she slid, she passed a pirate racer who shot her a dirty look. A skill prompt appeared:
Ability Unlocked: Drifting (Level 0)
After completing the turn, she centered the wheel to regain traction, then popped the red speckled ‘shroom into her mouth. In a flagrant defiance of non-gamer logic, the move doubled her speed. The effect only lasted a few seconds, but that was long enough to pass Sir Slimon, along with one other kart, putting her at 6th place.
The boost put her in the path of a notorious and equally nonsensical road hazard; she barely had time to swerve as an enormous sabretoothed daffodil reached out and tried to swallow her whole. Fortune was with her, however, and she avoided an untimely floral demise.
She grabbed another powerup, this time a black spherical bomb with a lit fuse. She watched the bomb in apprehension. It was lit, but the fuse didn’t seem to be getting any shorter.
Playing it safe, she threw it behind her, blowing away several other carts and monitoring the damage in her rearview mirror.
The track wound toward the beach, where larger than normal sapient brown mushrooms waddled toward the racers.
As she swerved to avoid one of the sapient giant mushrooms, the other changed directions and waddled directly into her path, flipping her kart until it tumbled to an upright position. Paul’s kart zipped past her.
The girl in the sidecar pointed at her, laughing. The words “Fuck all y’all” had been spray painted on the back of the kart. Paul used a super star, causing his vehicle to shine all sorts of colors and speed out of sight.
Tasha slammed the accelerator, and the kart gradually regained velocity.
She passed the finish line and began her second lap. Knowing the shape of the track would make it easier to time her drifts and hug the inside of the track. Before long, she’d achieved 4th place.
As she closed in on Hermes’s vehicle, the dwarf leaned back to look at her, his majestic beard flapping in the wind. He grinned and produced a small yellow banana peel.
“Hermes, no!” Tasha cried.
“Hermes, yes!” He threw the banana peel right in the course of her kart.
She didn’t have time to dodge and the wheels ran right over the banana peel.Had this been the real world, the flimsy fruit skin would have had little to no effect on a vehicle the size of hers, but game logic governed Etheria, and the banana was bound to have some detrimental effect.
Her BarcaLounger spun in a tight circle for several seconds before it recentered. She’d lost much of her speed, and Captain Malarkey zipped ahead. Slimon passed her, putting her back into 5th.
After recovering, she passed by Pan’s vehicle which had been overturned. A flying turtle riding a flying cloud thing had hooked her vehicle with a fishing rod and was in the process of carrying it back to the course. There was nothing to do about that now. Pan would be fine, and Tasha had to win the race.
She passed by Paul, who’d taken an impromptu pit stop at a nearby burger drive-through.
By the fourth lap, she’d held on to third place. Only Ari’s motorcycle and Malarkey’s keg-on-wheels were between her and the finish line. She collected another red speckled mushroom and swallowed it, which gave her a much-needed burst of speed. She blew past the gnome and into second place before pulling up on Ari’s bike. She tried to inch past him, but found no opening. There was nothing between them and the finish line.
“That prize money is as good as mine!” Ari said.
It seemed hopeless to Tasha, no matter how she tried, she couldn’t bridge the gap. He was going to win at this rate.
Unbeknownst to either of them, Pan had gotten back into the race. In last place due to her earlier accident, she nonetheless collected an item, but had no idea what it did. Not having any use for the strange object—a blue turtle shell with wings, she tossed it over the side of the kart.
Unexpectedly, it took to the skies, zooming past the other racers until it hovered right over Ari’s bike. Seconds before he’d cross the finish line, the blue shell slammed into his vehicle, killing its momentum and knocking his bike into the air. Tasha sped past him through the finish line.
In the final rankings, Ari came in second and Mister Malarkey took third. In under a minute, the rest of the racers crossed the finish line. Pan came in last.
Captain Lavelle approached. “Congratulations, Tasha. Yer a pirate! You’ll have to pay 20% of yer plunder to the guild, but you’ll be able to find safe harbor at any of our pirate islands, as well as offload yer ill-gotten goods. Welcome to the guild and your new life of buccaneering.” He handed her a plaque that read “League of Pirate’s Seal of Approval”.
“And here are yer winnings. Tasha, you came in first, so you get 800 GP. Spikey haired martial arts guy, you came in second so you receive the lesser prize of 400 GP. And the alcoholic gnome gets 200 GP for coming in third. Pan, since you came in dead last, you get the booby-prize of a commemorative t-shirt. The rest of you suck and should go home and reflect on your failures in life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my harem of jaw-droppingly hot wives needs me. Lavelle out, bitches!”
Her friends accompanied her back to the bazaar where she traded GP for the pieces of eight needed to purchase the Gold Hairpin of Charm Deflection.
“You became a pirate just so you could buy that hairpiece?”Ari asked.
“Basically, yeah. They wouldn’t sell it to non-guild members.”
“You don’t even wear your hair up. Why do you need a hairpiece?”
“It’s a magic hairpiece, duh.”
Pan said, “I was already a member of the g… guild. I could have bought it for you.”
Tasha’s left eye twitched. “You’re a member of the pirate’s guild? When did this happen?”
“When I joined Captain K’her Noálin’s crew after we had our fight. We stopped here so I could p...pass the trials.”
She frowned. “I guess that makes sense. So I went through all of this for nothing?”
“You got the prize money,” said Ari.
“Pfffpt,” consoled Slimon thoughtfully.
Tasha said, “It’s fine. We had to kill time before Kegan returned anyway. Let’s head back to the save point before he returns.”
At the save point, there was no sign of General Kegan.
“Maybe he hasn’t gotten back yet?” suggested Ari. “It sounded like he had more than a few matters to take care of.”
“No, he’s somewhere in the city,” Tasha said. “Check your party interface. He could only be in the party if he was somewhere in range.”
“Maybe he went looking for us?” said Ari.
Tasha approached a stall selling oranges. She asked the vendor whether he saw a half-elf in military gear pass by. The orange vendor didn’t remember until Tasha bought an orange. The vendor said his memory was coming back, but it was still fuzzy about the details. She bought a whole crate full of oranges after the merchant promised they defended against the scurvy debuff. At that, he proclaimed that somehow, his memory had been fully restored. A man matching that description asked for the whereabouts of K’her Noálin. Tasha asked where K’her Noálin was. The orange vendor said that his memory had grown clouded again.
After buying two additional crates of oranges, Tasha learned Captain K’her Noálin stayed at the Irritating Owl Inn. She received directions without needing to buy additional oranges.
“This is bad,” Tasha said. “Kegan must have wanted to confront K’her without us.”
“Can’t really blame him,” Ari said. “But we need Captain K’her alive. You’re the fastest one here. Get there as quick as you can.”
“Right,” Tasha said. She invoked her sprint skill and ran.
Chapter 11
The Pirate and the General
Five minutes earlier, General Kegan had stood in front of the orange vendor.
“No, I don’t want oranges, just tell me where Captain K’her Noálin is so I can get my hands around his throat.”
The vendor shook his head. “This generation has no respect for the time-honored tradition of bribery. Captain K’her Noálin is at the Irritating Owl Inn on the east side of the island. There’s a picture of a yappy owl on the sign. Can’t miss it.”
The moment the vendor said the words, Kegan’s eyes glowed.
He spoke the words “Cronýx Lux!”
The moment he cast the spell, time froze. It was more accurate to say he was enveloped in a field of highly accelerated subjective time. From his point of view, everyone else had frozen. Though this ability was useful for getting around, it had severely limited combat applications. Were he to make contact with another person, the field would disperse and he’d return to real-time, his own momentum also restored to normality. A trade off of the spell was that he’d later have to slow down for an equivalent amount of time, but that was something he could do later.
He flipped a 100 GP coin toward the vendor. The coin slowed to a near stop mid-flip moments after it left his hands.
His purpose in using this ability was to reach Captain K’her before the others, and spend a few minutes alone before he had to work with the man who had shattered his world. His heart ached with loss and a desire for justice. He ran through the still city streets, dodging the statue-like pedestrians.
The time freeze spell lasted a minute, but it only had a fifteen-second cooldown, so he could use it repeatedly. When time returned to normal, he just continued running and re-activated the spell after the cooldown elapsed.
At last, he stood outside a tavern with a large logo of an owl sitting on a branch, its beak open. “The Irritating Owl” was written above the saloon-style doors in big, easy to read neon letters. He’d be unable to move the doors as long as time remained frozen. He returned time to normal and entered the establishment.
The tavern was dimly lit. Torches hung on the wall and a blazing fireplace lay at the end of the room. Several human patrons warmed themselves by the fire, and behind the bar and throughout the room, were several scantily clad dark elven barmaids who took orders and served drinks. The apparent proprietor was an owl person. Larger than a normal owl he had no humanoid features.
The owl barkeep said, “Have a seat anywhere, I’ll be right with you.” Kegan ignored him, instead inspecting the patrons.
There was a table where four gnomes and a dwarf drank together, and next to that, another table of humans.
He turned to the barkeep. “Where is he?”
The owl blinked, “Hoooo are you asking about?”
“K’her Noálin. Where is he?”
“What do you want with him?” The owl man gave him a stern look. “No fights in my tavern until happy hour.”
Then Kegan saw him. Looking nothing like his poster, the dirty, malnourished dark elf sat alone at a small table in the corner holding a mug of grog. His clothing was bloody and tattered. Beneath his uneven, long white hair, his downcast expression held none of the energy for which the man was known.
Kegan approached. “K’her Noálin!”
The erstwhile pirate leader angled his head in Kegan’s direction. Sensing the flaps of the owl bartender’s wings from behind him, Kegan froze time and closed the distance with his prey. He drew back his fist, unfroze time, and slammed it into Captain K’her, sending the dark elf against the wall. K’her’s wooden chair broke into fragments, and his mug of cheap alcohol crashed into the wall, shattering into several large pieces, spilling grog all over the wall and floor.
Kegan drew his bow and nocked an arrow, pointing it at the dark elf’s head.
K’her drunkenly gazed at him. “Who be ye and what business would ye have with a wretch such as I?”
“I’m a general in the Adreálan defense army, and my name is Kegan. You stole my wife and sold her to the queen!”
The pirate squinted at him. His eyes appeared unfocused and he slurred his words. “I did, did I? Wha' was her name?”
“Gwenestry, though I’m sure she was but one of your many among victims.”
The pirate fixed his gaze on Kegan’s bow and the arrow pointed at his head. He picked up his broken mug, and downed the last of the mostly spilled contents.
“Do it, General Kegan. I can nah stop ye, and what would be the point?”
“You feel no remorse at all for what you’ve done?”
“Remorse? What would be the purpose o’ that?”
“Don’t bother,” said the owl, “You’re not the first person to come here looking for revenge. He won’t defend himself when attacked. He doesn’t even run. He’s died more times than I can count. I’ve never seen a more broken man.”
Kegan narrowed his eyes. “What could he possibly have endured to equal my pain?”
“I wouldn’t presume to know what you’ve gone through.”
Captain K’her coughed up a tooth that fell to the floor. “Ye say that I pilfered yer love? If so then I did it fer profit. Come, general, ye must hate me. Bring yer vengeance down upon me if ye must.”
Kegan backed away. “He wants to die, doesn’t he?”
“I imagine so,” said the owl.
“Then there’s nothing more I can do to hurt him that he hasn’t already done to himself.” Kegan frowned. “I can’t even bring him in to face justice.” Kegan turned away from the former pirate leader.
The doors to the tavern slammed open, as Tasha burst into the room, out of breath and gasping for air. “Too much….sprinting….”
Kegan approached her and tossed her a wooden box. Tasha fumbled and dropped it.
“K’her Noálin is all yours.” He walked away, “You can have what’s left of him.”
Tasha watched General Kegan leave the room. She should have anticipated this. She turned back and helped the captain to his feet.
The inebriated captain squinted. “Who…be ye wench? Away with ye, strumpet. Leave me be.”
“Did you just call me a strumpet?” demanded Tasha.
He fumbled back to his feet. “Do I know ye?”
She knelt over him, moving in close. “It’s me, Tasha. You kidnapped me.”
He tried to sit up straighter, but slipped on the beer and collapsed to the floor.
“On your feet Captain,” Tasha helped him stand.
“I do know ye…ye be The Player Tasha. A curse upon ye, you pilfered me orb o’ air!”
“Don’t expect an apology, because that’s not happening.”
“Then why bother me? Here fer revenge like yer high elf heartie?”
“My what?” She shook her head. “I’m here to offer you a job.”
For several seconds, he stared at her, eyes wide. Then he laughed. “A job! Ye wants ta offer me a job! Are ye daft, wench? I can na even sit up straight an ye be wantin ta hire me?”
“You’re the only one who can do it, K’her.”
His laughter came to an end. “'Why would I help ye? Even if I had the capacity in my sorry state, ye be the hated Player who made me this way. I’d sooner slit me own throat than give ye a moment’s comfort.”
“Maybe once you see what I have to offer…”
“Let me guess. A royal pardon? Or more lucre fer me to drink away.” He drunkenly waved her away. “I won’t have it. Begone, foul harlot.”
Tasha was losing her patience with the man. She removed the metal box from the bag at her side, then unlatched and opened it, placing it on one of the remaining tables out of his reach. Inside lay a glass sphere, and patterns of wind played within as white gusting arcs twirled about. The orb slowly inched toward him, but thin metal cords restrained it within the box.
“Me… me orb. Please, Tasha, give it ta me. I be sorry I called ye a strumpet, just let me have it back. I’ll do anythin’ fer ya.” His face reflected desperation unlike any Tasha had seen before.
“Do a job for me, and it’s yours.”
“Anythin’! I’ll do anythin’! Name it and it shall be done.”
She held the orb out to him. “I need you to help us steal Princess Kiwi back from Queen Murderjoy.”
He grinned and reached out for the orb, removing the cords that held it in place. His hands shook with excitement. Holding the artifact in his hands, his face became a reflection of overwhelming joy.
When he spoke, it was with a clear voice, one filled with wholeness and certainty.
“Why did ye not know? Kidnappin' princesses be me specialty. I accept.” He took the orb. He rose into the air, and a fierce grin played on his face. The broken man from only a moment before was gone. “Let's get us a ship, Player. 'Tis time t' blaze a path into Zhakara.”
K’her smiled as Tasha helped the dark elven captain climb the steps to the save point. As soon as he touched the glowing circle, healing energy washed over him. As it purged the alcohol from his system, the familiar feeling of sobriety he’d labored so hard to avoid returned for the first time in months.
“Captain,” said Malarkey, “it’s good to have you back.”
“Do I have ye ta thank fer sending the Player me way?”
“Aye, captain.”
K’her tapped his interface and fancy pirate garb replaced the filthy, blood-stained clothing he’d worn when Tasha found him.
He stepped down from the save point. “Give me a brief overview of the fleet.”
Captain Malarkey said, “Just like I’ve told you the last few times we’ve seen each other, all of the ships in the Noálin Pirate Group have defected. We've lost our reserves of GP, and you have no remaining crew to follow you.”
“Well then, from here th' only way t' go be up. Captain Malarkey, I’d like t' purchase yer ship.”
“The Dea Latis? Sure, I’ll sell her to you. How does 350,000 GP sound?”
“I’ll take it. One more thin'. I'll needs t' borrow 350,000 GP. I’ll pay ye back in short order, Mister Malarkey.”
“I’ll just write you out an IOU then shall I, captain?”
