Couch Potato Chaos- Gamebound

by Erik Rounds

  Pan continued rocking back and forth with her arms around her knees. After Tasha set the campground and pitched the tent, she looked at Pan one last time before turning away.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Pan’s mind was a cage of guilt and self-hatred. Why had she hurt her one and only friend? She’d finally met someone who actually liked her for who she was. No, that wasn’t really true. She had kept her true nature hidden from Tasha, just like she had with everybody else. Tasha would be better off without her. The world would be better off without her. She berated herself, wishing she could disappear.

  The hours passed, and she sank deeper and deeper into depression. The world around her was dark, and her mood darkened with it. And why shouldn’t she hate herself? She was certain that Tasha hated her. Tasha had even said she wasn’t her friend anymore. If only Tasha would forgive her, tell her that it was okay. But that would never happen.

  Almost without knowing what she was doing, she stood up and equipped her cloak of invisibility from her inventory. She couldn’t face Tasha or the others. Not now. Not ever. She had to disappear. She picked a direction and started walking.

  By the time the sun came up, she was miles away.

  Chapter 28

  Mad Marina and the Child of Phantoms

  There once was a peasant woman who lived alone, deep within the human nation of Zhakara. She wasn’t wealthy by any means and made her living as a level serf. She had an arrangement with a local lord to fight mist monsters on their land in exchange for 80% of the GP that she earned. In exchange, she was given a small room to sleep in and two meals per day.

  It wasn’t a fair arrangement, and the woman knew this. She despised the lord, and yet she didn’t blame him. It was more accurate to say that she envied the power he had over others. She would have done the same in his place. As a peasant, she could never hope to be rich or powerful. She would spend her days in service to those more affluent and wealthy, until old age finally took her.

  She did have an achievable ambition, however. She wanted to be a mother more than anything else in life. She saw how motherhood brought joy to the women around her and wanted that for herself.

  She wasn’t a great beauty and didn’t hope to attract a desirable husband. That suited her just fine; marriage held little interest for her. She had no interest in sharing her child with another person. To her, the only purpose men served was to provide her with said child.

  Learning that she was pregnant was the happiest moment of her life. She did not know who the father was, nor did she care. For the next nine months, she lived off her meager savings, taking crafting jobs when they became available.

  She used the last of her GP to pay off a lord to allow her access to the save point for the birthing. She didn’t want to risk losing the child after everything.

  The long-anticipated day finally arrived. Despite planning for the worst, the birth went off without a hitch.

  The doctor handed her child to her, and she looked at it for the first time. Her expression of joy quickly turned to one of confusion and then disgust as the scan results appeared in a floating window. The child looked just fine, but her stats were pathetic, not to mention the permanent debuffs.

  ??? Branford (Level 1 Summoner)

  Race: Human

  Class: Summoner

  Subclass: None

  Conditions:

  Autism (permanent debuff)

  Hereditary Anemia (permanent debuff)

  Congenital Muscular Dystrophy (permanent debuff)

  Nearsightedness (permanent debuff)

  Hearts: 3/3 Mana: 2/2

  Strength: 1 Intelligence: 4

  Agility: 2 Precision: 3 Charisma: 2

  She almost dropped the child in surprise. The woman had wasted so much time and money on this…. this defective child?

  The newborn baby didn’t have a single stat with more than 5 points. She had a strength of 1, and she’d probably need to be carried around or use a wheelchair until she was old enough to be power leveled. If it was only that, the mother might have been able to work with it, but the permanent debuffs would make the child a constant and unacceptable burden. The nearsightedness was easily corrected, and even anemia and muscular dystrophy could be mitigated by stat assignment, but the autism was a deal breaker. If the child wouldn’t even be able to speak for itself properly, what use was it?

  She didn’t have any of these traits, so they must have come from the father, whoever that was. Damn him for giving her such feeble offspring.

  Why should she accept such a failure? Someone who would be nothing but an unwelcome burden to her? She’d wanted a child who could take care of her when she grew old. The feelings of motherly affection that she had been led to expect were simply not there.

  It still wasn’t too late. She could try again, and next time it would be a proper child with no disabilities. But that couldn’t happen if she had to support such dead weight. She would make sure to choose more suitable mates in the future.

  A prompt appeared: “Enter name.” She had to give it a name, or the prompt wouldn’t go away. She would pick something random; a throwaway name would be fine. She typed “Panella” into the prompt, tapped on the confirm button, and the prompt vanished. Panella had been her sister’s name. She despised her sister and figured that if she gave the child that name, it would be easier to hate as well.

  She had to rid herself of the disgusting thing as quickly as possible. It was a deformed creature and merited nothing but death. What kind of life could such a person lead? It would be a life of constant pain and struggle. The child would never be able to compete with people who didn’t have her weaknesses. It would be merciful to kill her now and keep her inferior genetic material from entering the genepool.

  Regrettably, she couldn’t kill it as she meant to. The baby had already been registered at a save point. It would just respawn, and then her neighbors would associate it with her. If it became common knowledge that this was her child, she would be stuck with it. Other people would look down on her if she didn’t take care of it. If only she hadn’t insisted on using a save point for the birthing. Perhaps there was another way to get rid of the thing.

  She placed the child in its basket. Following a heavily worn path, she traveled to the next town over. There were no protected paths in Zhakara, and citizens who were too weak to fight mist monsters received the deaths that they deserved.

  She didn’t want the child to be linked to her in any way. She couldn’t do anything about the girl’s last name, but Branford was a common enough surname, so at least she had plausible deniability. If anyone asked, she would say that her child died in childbirth. People would feel sorry for her, and she might be able to capitalize on that.

  Why wouldn’t the damn thing stop wailing? Did it do nothing but cry? Well, she certainly wasn’t going to feed it. It wasn’t her problem.

  Several hours later, she arrived at the next town. As an outsider, she had to pay for the use of the save point, but it a necessary cost. She was careful not to touch the city’s save point herself, but touched baby Panella to it, ensuring that when the baby died it would respawn there without her. That way they wouldn’t be able to trace it to her, and the child would become someone else’s problem.

  After registering the child at the save point, she set out into the wilderness. For the rest of that day, she walked through the jungle until she was so far in that no living being would be able to hear her child’s crying. She hardened her heart and removed the naked newborn from the basket, putting the basket as well as the blanket into her inventory. She set the naked newborn upon a small clearing of wildgrass.

  She looked at the infant girl one last time, and just for a moment reconsidered what she was about to do. The baby wasn’t so awful when it was wasn’t crying. She could almost forget about its debilitating weaknesses.

  Everything she had been raised to believe told her to leave it. The child was weak. It would be nothing but a parasite that would suck
her dry and leave her a destitute, bitter woman. She would be caring for it for the rest of her life and receive nothing in return but toil and sorrow.

  She resolved to abandon the child now, before she had another chance to reconsider. Gathering her determination, she held her head up high and walked back the way she came. The woman would never see her child again, and the sounds of her daughter crying was the last thing that she heard as she disappeared into the wilderness.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  His first memories were of being summoned. The figment known as Aralogos the Pugilist had never been summoned before. He had a basic knowledge of how these things worked and had a vague recollection of other figments that shared the pugilist archetype.

  He looked around, trying to locate his master. The first and most important law of any figment was to protect his summoner.

  “Master, where are you?” he called out, but there was no answer. His summoner had to be somewhere close by.

  He was standing in a small clearing surrounded by trees and dense vegetation. The air was thick with mist. There were disturbed branches as well as a set of footprints leading away from the clearing. Could that be from his master? He didn’t think so. When a figment was summoned, it appeared right next to the summoner, and nobody was here.

  “Where are you? Why have you summoned me?”

  Finally he saw the naked baby lying on the ground and knew instinctively that it was the baby who had summoned him. It wasn’t unheard of for babies to use their level one class abilities instinctively before they knew any better. A newborn thief would sometimes “steal” items without understanding what he was doing. Children with the healer class would sometimes heal people randomly. So having a summoner invoke a figment wasn’t strange in and of itself.

  He made to approach the small child, but as he started to move, the mist rushed together to form four creatures.

  4 Boblins appear! Combat started.

  Boblin A fingers his sword menacingly.

  Boblin B attacks Panella.

  Boblin C attacks Panella.

  Boblin D attacks Panella.

  Aralogos the Pugilist didn’t hesitate. If there was one thing he understood, it was combat. He was a level 4 pugilist, meaning that he was highly skilled at unarmed martial arts. He was created with a built-in expert-level knowledge of how to fight.

  Typically, a summoned creature would obey his summoner’s instructions rather than fight independently. It was the summoner’s job to plan combat tactics and direct her figments accordingly, but since his summoner was an extremely young child, she couldn’t be counted on to give orders. He would just have to make his own combat decisions.

  He quickly interposed himself between his master and the attacking boblins. One of them tried to dodge past him, but he grabbed it by the arm, put it into a hold, and threw it at another attacking boblin, knocking them both to the ground. The third attacking boblin changed its target to him and cut him with its sword, dealing half a heart of damage.

  Aralogos laughed at their feeble attacks. He kicked one of the prone boblins, killing it before taking another hit by the fourth boblin’s blade. He hit that boblin with five rapid punches, finishing it off. The remaining two injured boblins didn’t last more than a minute against his onslaught of kicks and punches.

  He was justifiably proud of the fight. He’d killed all four of the mobs and only lost a single heart container during the battle. They hadn’t even touched his summoner. He collected the GP and experience and opened the loot capsule.

  The loot capsule contained a single beef-and-bean burrito wrapped in aluminum foil and a small cola. Babies couldn’t eat burritos, could they? Well, it might be somewhat difficult, given his master’s lack of teeth. What did babies eat? He was so in over his head. The burrito vanished as he added it to his inventory. As an imaginary person, he didn’t need to eat, although the food would restore his HP over time, so it was worth keeping just in case. If nothing else, he could sell it to a merchant NPC.

  The battle was over, the loot was collected, and Aralogos was at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. Normally the summoner would dismiss her figment once combat was finished, unless there was other business to discuss. Figments were transient beings, entirely at ease with the idea that they would only exist for brief periods of time. Thus, he was not accustomed to the idea of long-term existence.

  He approached Panella and picked her up. As he did so, the child stopped crying. It was clear that the child wasn’t going to dismiss her summon. He could only assume that she’d somehow realized she was in danger and summoned him on pure instinct.

  “Master, where are your parents? Are you alone?”

  He didn’t expect her to answer. As a combat-type figment, he was ill-suited for this sort of interaction. There were still three hours on the summon timer. Once the timer ran out, he would be dismissed automatically. In the meantime, he needed to try to find her parents, or at least someone who would take care of her. Surely she must be hungry. She didn’t have any clothing, so he wrapped her up in his vest. It would have to do until he could manage something better.

  He moved to examine the footprints that he had found earlier and began to follow them. He didn’t have the skills of a tracker, but following the tracks wasn’t challenging. Whoever had left them clearly did not expect to be followed. The trail of human footprints and broken vegetation was clear. He wondered what sort of person had left them.

  One of the footprint trails led back the way he had come. He didn’t have the expertise to determine whether they were the same person, but it was a safe guess. This meant that whoever had made the tracks most likely carried Panella to this place and left her. Even if he found the person who had left the tracks, there was no guarantee that they would take care of her. But at the very least, they might be able to provide some information about her.

  While traveling, there were several subsequent mist attacks, but fortunately he was in a low-level area, and he didn’t take any additional damage. The amount of GP from those battles was not substantial, but he collected it anyway. Normally the summoner would receive the spoils from combat, but until he found someone to take care of his charge, he would hold on to the loot.

  The baby started crying again, but Aralogos didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t have any food to give her. He had to find someone who could help.

  As a combat-style figment, he knew little about life outside of battle. He knew how to fight and how to follow orders, but that was about it. He knew that GP was used to purchase goods and services from merchants. If he could find one, maybe he could purchase some milk or whatever it was that babies ate.

  Finally, the tracks ended at a worn path. There was no way to know which way to go from there. He picked a direction and just started walking, carrying the child, who had cried herself to sleep.

  The summon timer had run out. Aralogos instinctively knew that he only had a handful of seconds remaining in this world. He placed Panella on the ground beside the path, making sure that she was wrapped in his vest.

  He crouched down next to her and looked at her sleeping form. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find your guardians, little one. May you find a way home.” Moments later, he dissolved into a cloud of mist.

  Some time passed before Aralogos was once again summoned. It was early evening, and it wouldn’t be long before the sun set. His master was crying on the ground. He reached down and picked her up. As he lifted Panella into his arms, the child stopped crying.

  “Little one, there are no monsters for me to fight. Why did you summon me? I don’t know what to do. I’m not your guardian. I’m just a figment. I know how to fight for you, but that’s about it.”

  She babbled a response.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll follow this road with you until we come to a town. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you by yourself. I’ll stay with you until my time runs out.”

  Aralogos continued to walk the heavily worn path. Every time his timer was about to r
un out, he placed the infant on the ground and disappeared, only to be summoned again some time later.

  Night had fallen, and the mist monsters were now many levels above him. Fortunately, he was able to escape from each battle without taking too much damage. He kept Panella safe, until finally they came to a crossroads. During the night, he despawned twice but each time was resummoned minutes later.

  A sign indicated that the town of Wilmarth was only a few miles to the east. When he arrived at the town, it was early morning. As a figment, the passage of time didn’t bother him. Real people needed sleep, but Aralogos didn’t have that particular burden. He wasn’t entirely sure sleep was even possible for a being like him.

  He passed through the town gates and was challenged by a guard, who charged him a 10 GP entry fee.

  Aralogos wasn’t actually sure what he was looking for. If he could find the child’s guardians, that would be best. If nothing else, he could get some supplies to take care of her. Maybe some baby food, blankets, disposable diapers, and whatever else he could think of. He only had 80 GP left and was unsure whether that would be enough.

  Just a few blocks inside the town gate, he found what he was looking for. A plump redhaired human woman stood outside a wooden building. The words “NPC Merchant” hovered prominently above the woman’s head. Three strong-looking men and one woman were playing cards at a table right next to the NPC merchant.

  Aralogos approached the NPC, but one of the men placed himself between it and Aralogos. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I think I’m using the NPC merchant.”

  “If you want to use the NPC, first you need to pay the fee,” he said, unjustifiably proud of his rhyme. “This NPC is the property of Lord Hempledon of Wilmarth.”

  “Who?”

  “You’re not from here, are you? Look, all you need to know is that if you want to use the NPC, you need to give me 30 GP.”

  “Why should I have to pay you to use an NPC? NPCs are created by the aire for everyone to use. A human can’t own one.”