Couch Potato Chaos- Gamebound

by Erik Rounds

“Hello, Henimaru,” said the dark elf. “How are the two of you enjoying the bliss of matrimony?”

  “It’s like nothing I’d ever imagined,” Tasha said dryly.

  “May the light of the developers be upon you both.”

  Tasha turned to Henimaru. “Where did we go after we got hitched?”

  “Well, I walked thee back toward thine room, but before we could get there, thou stopped and purchased something from a traveling merchant. Thou said that thou sawest someone that thou recognized but did not elaborate.”

  “Show me,” she said.

  He led Tasha and Pan through several more train cars toward the front of the train, passing row upon row of passengers. Henimaru indicated a man dressed in loud, ostentatious clothing. He wore a striped top hat of many colors which was as tall as he was. The words “NPC Merchant” floated above his head.

  The man smiled at Tasha. “Hello, traveler. Would you like to browse my wares?” Several buttons appeared in front of him including “Buy” and “Sell.”

  “Last night,” Henimaru said, “this NPC sold thee an unbreakable glass jar and a bug catching net in exchange for all of thine GP. I tried to talk thee out of it, but thou said it was important.”

  The merchant continued to look at Tasha with vacant NPC eyes.

  “Great,” Tasha said. “A bug catching net. Just what I’ve always wanted. So what did I do once I wasted my money on this?”

  “That be’eth the odd bit. Thou said that thee had spied someone thou recognized. I followed thee toward the back of the car. When I asked thou what thou wert doing, thou said to me, and I quoteth, ‘Be vawy vawy quiet, I’m hunting faiwies.’ After that, thou did runneth off. I tried to catch up with thee, but had an unexpectedly urgent call of nature and needed to use the latrine. When I was done I could find neither hide nor hair of thee.”

  “Fairies?” Tasha wondered aloud. “The only fairy I know is that ninja who attacked us. You said I moved toward the back of the car, in the direction of the cattle car? I must have passed out before I caught up with whoever I was chasing. That still doesn’t explain why I was wearing the stewardess uniform.”

  “We could retrace thy steps,” Henimaru said. “Mayhaps we can findeth another clue.”

  “Hold on a moment,” Tasha realized. “I’ll check my combat log. If there were any entries from last night, they might be a clue.”

  Opening her menu, she selected “Tools,” then “Combat Log.” The combat log revealed her entire history of combat since her arrival in Etheria, but she was only concerned with the most recent entries.

  Combat initiated.

  Unknown Ninja deals 1 heart damage to Tasha Singleton (Level 29).

  Tasha Singleton (Level 29) deals 5 1/4 heart damage to Unknown Ninja.

  Unknown Ninja deals 1 heart damage to Tasha Singleton (Level 29).

  Tasha Singleton (Level 29) deals 5 3/4 heart damage to Unknown Ninja.

  Tasha Singleton (Level 29) has killed Unknown Ninja.

  Victory! 220 experience gained, 0 GP gained.

  “My combat log says that I killed a ninja last night. Perhaps she was disguised as a stewardess, so that explains why I took her clothes. Let’s meet up with the others. If there are still ninjas on this train, we are all in danger.”

  “Then I shalt aid thee,” said Henimaru. “If mine wife be in peril, ’t’would be cowardice to turneth a blind eye.”

  And so Tasha joined Pan and her new husband as they made their way to her luxury suite, where she hoped to find her companions.

  Chapter 35

  Rumble on the Belcross Express

  “What do you mean you got married?” Aralogos said, a look of distress on his face.

  “It’s not a real, actual marriage,” Tasha explained. “I’m just helping him out so he can get into Zhakara. You’re not jealous, are you?”

  “Dad’s totally jealous,” Pan said helpfully.

  Ari glared at her. “I am not!”

  They were all gathered together in Tasha’s suite. Though it was a bit cramped, it allowed the group to meet together with at least some modicum of privacy. She had spent the last fifteen minutes recounting her adventures with Ari, Pan, and Sir Slimon.

  “So what’s our next move?” asked Ari. “I’m concerned about the princess. If there are ninjas on board, she would be their target. Have any of you seen her?”

  Tasha shook her head. “What if they already have her? Could they have left the train?”

  “Not likely. They wouldn’t leave while we are still in the Uncrossable Veldt. It’s a death sentence out there. If they have her, they won’t act until after the train has made it all the way through.”

  “Then we have to find her. If the train’s staff has been replaced by ninjas, let’s just kill them like we always do. We can take control of the train ourselves.”

  “Do you know how to drive a train?” Ari asked.

  Tasha just shrugged. “Well, no, but how hard could it be, really?”

  “So this is it,” Ari muttered. “We’re all going to die.”

  “Okay, so here’s the plan. We’ll head toward the front of the train. If she’s not there, we’ll double back. We have to assume that the entire train staff has been compromised. Anyone who you encounter could be disguised ninjas.”

  They left the suite and began making their way from one car to the next in the direction of the engine. They didn’t make it more than two cars before the attack came. One moment Tasha was weaving between tables in the dining car, the next moment there was a shuriken flying at her face. She was saved only by her Bullet Time ability and was able to dodge out of the way.

  The attacker was one of the waiters, or at least that’s how he had disguised himself. Tasha instinctively equipped her gunblade and shot a fireball at him. As the fireball traveled through the air toward him, it brushed against a table, setting the tablecloth on fire. It did, however, hit the ninja dead on, incinerating him.

  “How about we hold off on casting fireballs while on a train?” Ari said.

  “Yeah, got it.”

  One of the waitresses jumped into the air and rebounded off the ceiling, leaping directly at Tasha. Before she could react, Pan pulled out her machine gun and fired a stream of bullets into the ninja, killing her before she reached her target. The shots continued through her flesh and into the wall. Rays of light shone through the bullet holes from outside.

  Ari yelled in a voice filled with exasperation and no small amount of parental stress, “Pan, you’re worse than Tasha. Try not to destroy the train cars while we are riding in them.”

  The passengers were screaming, flailing their arms around, and panicking as only innocent bystanders could do. Tasha pushed them to the side as she continued toward the front of the train. The next car contained no less than seven ninjas. Ari either killed or knocked out one ninja after the next. The party’s levels had progressed far beyond the point where these low-level ninjas would pose any serious threat.

  They continued in this manner for the next fifteen minutes. Though the party tended to out-level the ninjas, they still took damage. Slimon provided healing support while Henimaru, Ari, and Tasha did most of the damage. Pan had come to the realization that using firearms while inside a train wasn’t the wisest course of action, so she mostly stayed back and used Steal to disarm and rob the ninjas.

  After they finished clearing one of the cars, a notification appeared.

  Now leaving zone Uncrossable Veldt (scaling enemy levels) and entering zone Riverwood Forest (levels 14–18).

  The train had cleared the veldt, which meant that the enemy could try to jump the train at any time. “We need to hurry,” Ari said. “There’s no more time.”

  Finally, they made it to the power car that fed the engine. Scanning the room, five ninjas clad in black stood between Tasha and Princess Kiwi. The princess was sound asleep, tied tightly to a support post, seemingly unaware of the present danger. Behind her, Tasha made out a small fairy buzzing around. She h
ad drawn her needlelike sword and had it to the princess’s neck.

  Tasha put her hands on her hips. “Trista Twinklebottom. So we meet again. It’s all over for you. There’s nowhere left for you to run. If you let her go, we won’t have to kill you too.”

  “If you take one more step,” Trista said, “I’ll slice your princess’s throat.”

  “No, you won’t,” Ari said as he approached the nearest ninja. “You’re supposed to kidnap her, not kill her. You won’t be able to fulfill your contract if the princess is dead. What will the queen do when she discovers you’ve let her escape?”

  Invoking Sprint, Tasha dashed at one of the ninjas and impaled him just as he was starting to weave a ninja hand spell. Ari slammed his fist into one of the remaining ninjas as Henimaru sliced his way through another. After Ari finished beating the crap out of his opponent, Trista was the only one left.

  “Grah!” she cursed. “You defeated us… again! What the hell? I’m out of here. So long, jerks!”

  “Stop her!” Tasha shouted. She opened her menu interface and removed her bug catching net, but Trista was moving too quickly.

  Before the fairy could reach the window, she was captured by Henimaru’s tongue. He snatched her up and swallowed her whole.

  For a moment nothing happened, but after a few seconds passed, a serious case of indigestion seemed to overcome Henimaru because he coughed her back up and onto the hard wooden floor. The fairy crashed against the floorboards. She tried to take off, but her wings were weighed down, drenched by Henimaru’s saliva and digestive fluids.

  Before Trista could escape, Tasha brought the bug catching net down and captured her. Grabbing her by her tiny legs through the net, she shoved her into the glass jar and closed the lid tight.

  “You asshole!” Twinklebottom shouted. “Let me outta here! You can’t keep me bottled up in this jar forever! I’ll get out, and when I do, I’ll beat the crap out of you!”

  Tasha shook the bottle for a moment, and the fairy collapsed to the bottom of the jar, dizzy and beaten.

  Ari wasn’t wasting any time. Using a short knife, he cut Kiwi’s bonds. The sounds of battle had awakened her from her slumber.

  She yawned sleepily. “What happened?”

  “Oh, nothing much,” Tasha said. “You just got kidnapped by ninjas again. I’ve captured their leader in this jar. We’ll just carry her with us so she doesn’t cause any more trouble.”

  “Really? I’ve always wanted a fairy,” Kiwi said.

  Tasha opened her inventory and tried to deposit the jar.

  Unable to add item “Glass Jar” to inventory because it contains non-storable object.

  It was worth a try.

  “I think we should move to the engine car,” Ari said. “All of the staff seem to have been killed and replaced by ninjas. That means nobody’s driving this thing.”

  Tasha slid open the door that led to the engine car. There was no engineer or operator. The forest was visible through the glass window as it sped past the train at a blinding rate.

  Before her was a thoroughly unintuitive control board. Knobs, buttons, levers, and unmarked flashing lights littered the console. Tasha was generally pretty quick to pick up on strange control systems in video games, but this layout seemed to have no rhyme or reason involved in its design. Tasha spent the next five minutes trying to make sense of it when she received a new notification.

  Now leaving zone Riverwood Forest (levels 14–18) and entering zone Valley of Happiness (levels 1–3).

  As the last of the trees flew past, the landscape opened up into a wide valley. Endless plains filled with multicolored wildflowers extended in every direction before her. In the distance was a walled city. The train tracks disappeared into the walls.

  “What’s that?” asked Pan.

  “End of the line,” Ari said ominously.

  Concern overtook Tasha as she realized her situation. “Um… we’re not slowing down. In a few minutes, we’re going to crash into the city! How do we stop this thing?”

  “I knoweth not, dear wife,” said Henimaru.

  Not knowing what else to do, Tasha started pushing buttons and pulling knobs randomly. Suddenly she was pushed against the back wall of the engineering compartment. Something she’d done had caused the train to accelerate.

  “That’s not helping!” yelled Ari.

  “I’ll save us,” Pan said as she raised her machine gun and pointed it at the control panel.

  “No, don’t!” Tasha cried out, but it was already too late. The sound of her machine gun filled the air, and lines of tracer fire sprayed between her gun and the control panel. The control panel’s fine mahogany finish was destroyed as buttons, springs, and wires flew out in each direction and the panel was destroyed. Finally Pan’s gun spun down, out of ammo. The control panel had been completely destroyed.

  “We do not appear to be slowing down,” said Henimaru. “I don’t thinketh thy plan worked.”

  Trista Twinklebottom was banging against the side of the glass jar. “That’s because you morons just blew up the control panel. I could have told you what to do, but nooo, you just had to destroy everything like you idiot humans always do. Let me out of this jar before you get me killed!”

  Tasha shook the jar again, and that caused the fairy to stop complaining.

  “So, what now?” asked Ari. He was completely out of ideas and hoped that Tasha would have some crazy notion about how to get them out of this situation.

  The city was approaching the train at a rather alarming rate. They probably had less than five minutes before crashing into the city. How did one stop a runaway train? She thought back to the various movies and games trying to find an answer. Finally, the beginnings of an idea began to take root in her mind.

  “I have a plan,” Tasha said. “Pan, Kiwi, and Henimaru, I need the three of you to decouple the cars behind this one, and be quick about it.”

  “But won’t that make the engine move even faster?” Kiwi said.

  “Yes, it will make the engine car move much faster since it won’t be pulling as much. But it will save the lives of the passengers. Besides, I have another idea about how to stop the train. Trust me.”

  “Okay,” said Pan.

  “What do you need me to do?” asked Ari.

  Tasha put her hand on his shoulder. “Your part of this is the most important of all. We won’t be able to stop the train without your help.”

  He nodded. “All right. I don’t know what you are planning, but I’ll do my best.”

  “That’s all anyone can ask. Once the train is decoupled, I’m going to pick you up and use my Sprint ability to move you in front of the train.”

  “I don’t think any of my attacks will be enough to destroy the train engine,” he said.

  “You’re wrong about that, Ari. One of your attacks will do the job perfectly. I’m going to need you to suplex the train!”

  He looked at her, aghast, and put his hands on her shoulders. “Are you mad, woman? Nobody can suplex a train! It’s impossible. I’m not even sure I can slow it down, much less lift it.”

  “You can”, She said trying to put on an air of certainty, “I know this is possible because I’ve seen it done before, in a different game. You are much stronger than you were when we met. I know you can do this. I believe in you.”

  “How can you believe in me?” Ari said. “I’m not real!”

  Without warning, the train accelerated forward and the two were thrown against the back of the engineering compartment wall. Pan and Henimaru must have found a way to decouple the train cars.

  “You’re real enough to me,” she said. “It’s time. Are you ready?”

  “Yes. I can do this. Let’s… suplex the train.”

  The city before her now filled a large part of the view. She kicked open the door on the side of the engineering compartment. The door had lots of knobs and levers and a pull rope, and she really didn’t have time to deal with that shit. Her kick caused the door to fl
y off its hinges, and it disappeared behind the rampaging train.

  Picking up Ari, she invoked Sprint and ran as fast as she could ahead of the train. Though she was outpacing the train, it wasn’t by much. When the Sprint ability ran down, she was just outside the city gates. The rails ran right past them and into a train entrance into the city.

  They both turned to face the oncoming train. It was moving toward her at a blistering speed and would collide within seconds. Tasha began to second-guess her plan but didn’t say anything. She needed Ari to know that she believed in him. If he was going to succeed at this, there couldn’t be any self-doubt.

  “Do it!” she cried as the train was about to hit him.

  Ari invoked his God Strength ability and put both hands out to the side. The train slammed right into him and pushed him along the train tracks toward the city. Sparks flew from his feet as the train pushed against him.

  Ari’s eyes grew a brilliant red, and flames seemed to engulf him. His muscles expanded as he was enveloped in a flaming cloak of power. At that moment, he didn’t even look human. For a moment she thought she saw horns on his head, but it might have just been a trick of the light.

  A raw, guttural scream escaped him as he planted his legs into the ground and pushed upward into the air, carrying the train car with him. He fell to the ground, all evidence of his momentary transformation vanished. The train flew off into the distance toward the city gates. It slammed onto its side on a road that wound toward the city. The train tumbled over and over until finally coming to a rest little more than a dozen meters before it would have crashed into the city gates.

  She turned back around and saw the rest of the train drifting slowly toward the city along the tracks. It came to a full stop before it reached the two of them.

  Checking her battle menu, she saw that Ari had critically low hit points. She was about to fish out a potion for him, but before she had the opportunity to do so, a level-up prompt appeared:

  Victory! Belcross Express Train has been vanquished.

  9,200 experience gained. (2,640 to next level)

  5,400 GP found.

  Item found: Super Elixir x2