CPC-02. Couch Potato Crisis, page 22
part #2 of Couch Potato Chronicles Series
“Yes, but…”
“And you killed the staff of the Bellcross Express. Remember?”
“Yes, but that was the old me.”
“And you rigged the train to crash. If we hadn’t stopped you, all the passengers would be dead now. Trista Twinklebottom, you are a bad fairy.”
“That’s not true!” The fairy’s eyes began to water up. “I want to do better. Haven’t I resolved to be good?”
“It isn’t enough to resolve to be good, you have to actually be good.”
“What do you want me to do? How can I prove I’m really sorry? What kind of apology would you accept?”
Kiwi turned and met the fairy’s gaze. “Gelkorus is going to take me prisoner. None of us can stop that from happening. If I run, he’ll catch me. If I fight, he’ll defeat me. If I hide, he’ll use his magic to find me. But he won’t just take me, he’ll take Mara and Fin as well.
“I want you to hide and take care of them. Keep them safe. Will you do that for me, Trista? Are you really the good fairy you claim to be?”
A contemplative look appeared on the fairy’s face. “But if I save them and don’t save you, will that be enough?”
“You can’t save me. There are things we can do, and things we cannot do. You can protect the kids.”
The fairy nodded. “I’ll do it. You don’t need to worry about Fin and Mara.”
Kiwi approached the children.
Mara asked, "Is the bad human going to take us away?"
She shook her head. "Only me.” She placed a handful of coins into her hand, just over 14,000 GP. Take this and use it to survive."
"But I don't want you to go, Kiwi."
"It’ll be fine. Trista will take care of you. Take this as well." She handed Mara a large regal notebook. “It’s my diary. It’s pretty dry reading, but there’s some good stuff in there, too.”
“I can’t read,” Mara said. “But I’ll learn.”
Sensing she had little time left, she turned to Fin. "I want you to take this. It’s a legendary weapon passed down the Questgiver family line."
She handed the Staff of Fates to him. “Use this to keep Mara safe. Do you understand?”
Fin wiped away a tear but nodded wordlessly. She hugged both of them and held the embrace. The children were crying, but Kiwi’s expression was stoic. This was no time to show tears.
Trista removed the portable hole from her pocket and slapped it on the wall. “Okay kids, everyone into the hole!”
They hesitated, but at Kiwi’s urging climbed into Pan’s Portable Hole. Trista folded the hole stuffed it into her pocket, then she flew into the linen cabinet where she hoped nobody would find her.
Ten minutes later, Gelkorus opened the door to the inn.
Princess Kiwistafel smiled and set aside her latte. “Hello Gelkorus. Would you care to join me?”
He bowed his head ever so slightly. “Princess Kiwistafel, I presume. You’ve caused me no end of trouble. I’ve lost favor with the queen because of you.”
Kiwi glared at the elderly man. “You can’t possibly expect me to apologize.”
His smile was surprisingly friendly. “Of course not. The failure was mine. Well done on your escape, but your days of doing as you wish have come to an end. You’re coming with me.”
Kiwi stepped away. “What if I refuse? I can fight. I’ve defeated more powerful enemies in the past.”
He grinned. “While I’m sure you can defend yourself against an equal opponent, I outclass you significantly.” He looked at the two raptors. “You have someone to protect. I couldn’t help notice two raptors outside, each equipped with its own harness. You aren’t here alone, are you?”
“There were two others, but they died during the escape.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Gelkorus. “But I’m not an unreasonable man. I’ll make you an offer. Come with me without resistance, and I won’t look for your companions. I promise.”
“How do I know that you’ll keep your word?”
“You are a person of great importance. From what I understand, your companions are two feral elf children and a pair of velociraptors. I’m not a slavehunter. What use would I have for them? I’ll promise to leave your friends alone.” He glanced around the room. “They’re here, hiding somewhere.” He shrugged. “I’d offer them a headstart, but…I’m a time mage, so it wouldn’t prove much regarding my intentions.”
“Zhakarans don’t make promises.”
“Keeping this one’s in my best interest and costs me nothing. Follow me, please.”
Kiwi followed him out of the inn.
“Please step into the circle, princess.”
A warp circle appeared around Gelkorus. She stepped into its area of effect. Gelkorus affixed a collar around her neck. “I now know you can escape these, but I’d ask that you not try for as long as you are my responsibility.”
Kiwi nodded. “Are you taking me to Doctor Penfold’s lab?”
“It’s not what you think. You won’t be tortured.”
“Is that a promise?”
“That’s merely my understanding of the situation. The queen doesn’t wish you to be harmed.”
“What are her plans for me?”
Gelkorus didn’t answer. The warp spell took effect and a bubble appeared around them. They rose into the sky, and the city slowly disappeared from view. Gelkorus had kept his promise.
There wasn’t much Kiwi feared. She’d been kidnapped dozens of times in her life, which served as a sad commentary on Questgivrian security measures. She’d never been truly afraid before, though. She’d always believed, deep down, that either she’d escape or Sir Slimon would rescue her as he’d always done. This was different, though. Penfold was a true fiend. He was the queen’s head scientist and had developed weapons of war to topple entire cities. One such weapon was an animated cloud of invisible nerve gas that caused a slow painful death to anyone with elven blood.
It was also rumored he experimented on elves, attempting to ascertain what made them immortal so he could replicate the effect in humans.
Penfold terrified Kiwi. This time, there seemed little hope she’d escape some horrible fate. She wished she’d have seen Slimon one last time.
Chapter 13
The Grey Room
Kiwi woke, lying on her back in a strange room. Her head pounded. Where was she? She remembered being captured by Gelkorus, flying through the air, and then she woke up here. He must have cast a sleeping spell on her. A quick check of her combat log confirmed her suspicion. Incidentally, her Resist Sleep skill had increased to level 6.
She looked down at her body. Her clothes had been removed. Someone had undressed her and replaced her clothing with the plain grey rags similar to the slaver’s forced garb. She sat up, swiping open her menu and checking her inventory. Completely empty. They’d found a way to access her inventory, even though she’d rearranged her interface.
She closed her menu and rose to her feet. The stone floor was cold against her bare feet. Painted grey, the room contained magical light sources built into recesses in the wall behind glass panels. They provided such meager light most of the room remained hidden in dimly lit shadows. She felt her neck, but there was no iron collar.
The room held no obvious exits—no doors, and no seams in the walls to explain how people entered and exited the room.
She circled the space, running her hands along the solid grey walls, looking for a seam to indicate a door. Nothing. The room itself was compact, barely large enough to stand up and walk a small circle. There was no furniture, no bench, no toilet facilities, and no obvious way in or out.
She cast a simple light spell and a small ball of light hovered over her head, painting the room in illumination.
Now she could make out every detail of the room with perfect clarity. Simple grey surfaces, the walls were devoid of seams or decoration. They looked and felt like solid stone. There were small recesses in the ceiling covered by a wire mesh, probably to provide ventilation. A glass window had been set so it angled downward just above the ceiling. The tinted glass made it impossible to see anything on the other side—perhaps it was a window that only allowed people to see in from the outside. Was someone on the other side watching her right now? Her jailors?
She sat cross-legged on the floor for nearly an hour, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. The silence got the better of her. She pointed at the window and shouted, “Where are you? What do you want from me?”
Silence was the only reply.
In frustration, she channeled her mana. Her eyes glowed, illuminating her vision. She pointed one finger at the pane of glass and cast her lightning spell. “Tétha Lishkâ!”
Lightning arced from her extended finger into the pane of glass, causing a small crack to appear. Since her lightning spell should have been enough to liquefy glass, it must have been magically reinforced. In order to cast “Dispell” on it, she’d have to be in physical contact, and the glass panel was much too high to reach.
She hadn’t recovered her mana from her previous encounter and didn’t have sufficient mana for more powerful spells. She had seven mana containers remaining, but no way to recover them.
Several hours passed without a glimpse of—or murmur from—her captors. Her menu system had no indication of the time. In place of the normal menu, the clock was a countdown that ticked away in irregular spurts toward the end of the world. How long had she been in this room? Was it day or night? She could write a spell to keep track of the time, but it would waste mana—mana she might need to escape if the opportunity presented itself.
She switched to the map screen in her menu. The area around her was mostly uncharted. Since she was unconscious when she’d been brought here, the map wouldn’t have filled itself out.
The map screen indicated her current longitude and latitude as well, though that was of little use. How could she send her current coordinates to anyone who might help her? Even if she found a way to send a message to her father, there was no way that he could send anyone this deep into enemy territory.
Touching the map with her right hand, she pinched two fingers together, causing the map to zoom out, revealing only more uncharted territory. She had to do it several more times before the map showed somewhere she’d been to. About seventy miles to the northwest lay Ironfall, and the town of McBreakfast Sandwiches was nearly a hundred miles south. She zoomed out further. To the northeast stood the Spiral Tower, and there were several cities in the Slime Federation to the north. She zoomed out even further until Brightwind Keep appeared far to the northwest.
The hours crawled by with no sign of her captors. She grew hungry, but there was nothing to eat. Her inventory had been emptied and it became increasingly clear her jailors had no intention of feeding her. She lacked any spell or ability to produce sustenance. She still had enough mana to cast a number of restorative spells, but those spells wouldn’t fill her stomach.
Her eyes had grown heavy, so she lay on the cold stone floor. As she started to fall asleep, a high pitched hissing sound and a translucent green gas entered her cell through the exposed wire grate and disturbed her rest. She’d earlier assumed it was a ventilation duct.
Was it poison? Were they poisoning her? Why keep her in this cell for who knew how long only to kill her now?
She backed into the corner to escape the encroaching cloud of poison, but there was no escape. Her lungs burned as the poison entered her lungs and her life slipped away. She cast a heal spell on herself, buying a few precious moments, but it only delayed the inevitable. She drew a final breath of harsh poison into her lungs. Moments later, she was in the empty, sensationless world of oblivion, awaiting her next resurrection.
Queen Murderjoy had been watching through the one-way mirror that showed the grey room’s interior from above. The poison gas had been cleared from the room, and only the princess’s dead body remained. She spoke with the eccentric scientist who stood beside her. “Now that you’ve seen her, Doctor Penfold, what do you think?”
The elderly man was short, with gnarled facial features that accentuated the scientist’s advanced age. He wore a singular telescopic monocle over his right eye which could be adjusted to allow him to see small objects with greater clarity. His white hair was unkempt as the ragged lab coat that covered his partially untucked shirt. He squinted at Murderjoy and said, “Come again?”
The guard behind her looked aghast that the man spoke to his queen with such rude familiarity. Speaking to the queen with anything but shameless reverence was usually a prelude to prompt incineration. In this case, however, the queen seemed unphased by the old man’s attitude.
She stepped closer to the strange man and said, “I asked you what you think. Now that you’ve scanned her, do you think you can do it?”
“Maybe. It’s tricky.”
“But is it possible? Can you convince the princess to serve me?”
“It won’t be easy. Her beliefs are too firmly ingrained in her personality. See for yourself.” He tapped his menu, scrolling through pages of data.
The queen stood behind him and examined the glowing blue window hanging before the ancient scientist. “How is it I can see your menu, doctor?”
“My scanmaster class allows me to see through my target’s eyes. That’s how I saw her menu interface and accessed her inventory. What you see now is a simple illusion spell I wrote that creates a holographic echo of the menu in my own vision. It’s child’s play.”
The queen inspected the old man’s menu. “It might be child’s play to you, but I’ve never heard of anyone else doing it.”
“Bah. It lets me show my clients the target’s scan data instead of reading it to them.”
He pointed at some text in one of the floating windows. “This shows the personality traits of the princess before we put her down.”
Shyness: 21%
Love: 87%
Humor: 45%
Orderliness: 80%
Laziness: 20%
Egocentricity: 24%
Idealism: 72%
Loyalty: 43%
Sanity: 70%
Hope: 68%
Pragmatism: 81%
The list went on, but Penfold highlighted three specific lines. “These are the stats we need to focus on to have any hope of convincing her to follow you. Love, Egocentricity, and Pragmatism. The love stat needs to be as low as possible and the egocentricity stat needs to be at least 70%. Pragmatism is already good at 81%, but we need to make sure that doesn’t change.
A spider woman approached Penfold wearing a white labcoat over her upper body. Her lower body was that of an arachnid. “Apologies, but it’s time for the doctor’s medicine.”
Murderjoy eyed her warily. The spider woman was a level fifty healer. “Doctor Penfold, why isn’t this slave collared? And why hasn’t she been reduced to level 1??”
“Bah,” dismissed Doctor Penfold. “You don’t need to worry about my assistant, Karinla.”
“You trust her?” insisted Aralynn.
He nodded and removed a red vial from his pocket. “Oh yes. Karinla’s in this for the science. She believes in what I’m doing and has no interest in escape. Besides, she’s a better statistical analyst than I’ll ever be.”
He downed the vial of opaque red liquid in a single swallow. At 167 years old, by rights Penfold should have died long ago, but he wasn’t the sort to simply accept death. He followed a strict regimen of three health potions every hour. He’d built his apartment right over a save point, so his health would be constantly replenished as he slept. While working, healers surrounded him at all times.
The queen said, “How many times will we need to kill the princess to get the numbers where they need to be?”
“It’s hard to say,” said Penfold. “Each death is a roll of the dice. I’ll have a better idea of her personality range once we’ve killed her a few dozen times and recorded the stat values. That’ll give me a good idea how much variation each stat has. Once Karinla and I go through the numbers, we’ll be able to tell you what chances we have to pull this off.”
The queen studied Kiwi’s personality stats. “So we keep killing her until the numbers look right, then I need to give her a convincing argument. Will that really work?”
The doctor grinned. “Depends how convincing you are. This technique wouldn’t work on a human, because human psychology is based on habits and learned behaviors. Elven psychology, however, is based on logic and reason, so if you can make a compelling argument that matches her personality, you should be able to convince her.”
“I hope you’re right. My only chance to control the Orb of Life is to fully bring her over to our way of thinking. If I can convince her to join us, I might make her a general in our army, just as a figurehead of course.”
She frowned. “Will she still be sane after dying hundreds or even thousands of times?”
“Hard to know for certain. Elves are good at dealing with trauma, up to a point. Normally, when we kill elves this many times they become introverted and compliant, but that varies from one elf to another.”
A yellow-haired elven slave girl approached and offered him a cup of coffee, which he accepted. The slave girl kept her eyes lowered and wouldn’t meet his eyes before moving to stand in the corner, just out of sight.
“Case in point.” He poured a splash of dwarven death whisky into the coffee. “That elf woman’s sanity, hope, and idealism scores are both below thirty percent. That’s likely a side effect of being killed thousands of times. Good for the production of slaves, sure, but not if you want to convince the princess to willingly serve you.”
He took a drink from his coffee before asking, “How is your own resurrection? I hear you snuffed it back at the Spiral Tower.”
The queen glowered for an instant. “I’m doing well. Dying was the best thing that could have happened to me. I feel…much different than I was before.”
“How so?”
“My insane debuff is gone, for one thing. It must have been a product of my last personality. Everything seems so much clearer now. I act with purpose, where before there was only rage. I now know how to win this war against the elves, and the princess is the key.”
