Couch Potato Chaos- Gamebound

by Erik Rounds

  “Tasha—you incompetent layabout! You blistering nincompoop! You were expected to be at work yesterday. I hope you have a damn good explanation for this.”

  “Sorry, Hubert. I… was sick. Erm… I came down with…” Quick, think of some believable illness. “The bubonic plague.”

  Crap!

  The gruff voice on the other end of the line sounded annoyed. “Like I haven’t heard that excuse a thousand times. Look, Tasha—because I’m such a nice guy, I’m going to give you one last chance. But if this ever happens again, I’ll have you out on the street! You’ll be fired for skipping work, so don’t expect to be collecting any unemployment, you parasite! You’ll be begging for scraps and living in a cardboard box, which is better than you deserve.”

  Tasha scrunched up her nose. “A cardboard box?” Why did it have to be a cardboard box?

  “Tasha, all I need to hear from you is that you’ll be at work on time today.”

  “What time is it now?” Tasha’s phone still showed the countdown and wouldn’t tell her the time. She could tell that it was early morning from the light shining through the open window, but that was it.

  “It’s 7:15. I’ll expect you in at eight a.m., and since you missed work yesterday, I’m going to need you to stay until eight p.m. tonight.”

  Tasha sighed. “You do know it’s Sunday, right?”

  “What, do you expect me to believe that you have church? Just get to work, or you can consider yourself unemployed.”

  Everything was a power game to her boss. She knew that she’d never win any kind of argument with him, regardless of how bizarre or unfair his argument was. Tasha glanced at the front of her cell phone. 64:05. She didn’t want to lose that much time in Etheria, but she really didn’t want to be fired.

  She opened a ride-sharing app on her phone and called for a car to take her to work. She didn’t know the bus’s schedule and couldn’t afford to show up late.

  Rushing to her room, she threw on some clean-adjacent work clothes and rushed downstairs just in time to meet the driver as he pulled up. While riding in the back seat of the SUV, Tasha checked her messages. They were all from her boss, dated yesterday. She didn’t have any friends outside of work—Hubert kept her so busy with work that there just wasn’t enough time for her to foster lasting friendships. The friendships that she’d built up in Etheria were the only ones that felt real to her. The time that she would be able to spend with them ticked away as the timer diminished, one second after the next. Every second that ticked away was precious to her.

  Fifteen minutes later, the driver let her out at her workplace. It was one of countless office buildings that lined the downtown area. She stepped inside and waved to the bored-looking security guy, who didn’t even bother to look up as she passed. She pressed the button that summoned the elevator. After waiting for about a minute or so, the door slid open, revealing its cramped interior. A short elevator ride later, and she reached the twentieth floor.

  She walked through a maze of corridors that led to her cramped workspace. The company couldn’t afford much in the way of niceties or space. She’d often fantasized about working at a game company that was less stingy with their capital when it came to creature comforts, such as reliable air-conditioning and chairs that didn’t induce lower back trauma.

  Finally, she reached the glass doors that led to a small open area with about a dozen desks all crammed together. The company’s name and logo was plastered on the glass entrance. Even though it was the weekend, the office was abuzz with activity. Her employer was not a strong believer in weekends for his underlings.

  The lead artist, a squirrely Chinese man named Lee, motioned to her as she entered. “Hi, Tasha. Hubert wants to see you about something.”

  “Thanks, Lee,” she said and dodged between the crowded desks to reach Hubert’s office.

  Hubert was a short bald man with a stubby nose and an unsettlingly pale complexion. Not as unsettlingly pale as the king’s court mage, Snickers, but unsettling nonetheless.

  He sat alone in his office, pretending that he hadn’t noticed Tasha coming in. He was the only person in the company who actually had an office. Everyone else was relegated to the open studio. His desk was made of the finest mahogany, his chair easily twice the size of everyone else’s despite his posterior taking only half the amount of space, making his butt-to-chair ratio the most uneven in the company.

  Tasha knocked on the door and opened it. “Hi, boss.” Her voice lacked the assertiveness of Tasha #2 or the passion of Tasha #3. She was just plain old Tasha, her normal meek and non-confrontational self. She was not looking forward to this.

  Hubert put up one finger to silence her and went back to filing his nails. He was actually filing his nails, it wasn’t some sort of act. Tasha didn’t even think that she owned a nail file. She waited patiently for him to finish grooming himself. After what Hubert probably calculated to be a sufficient period of time, he turned his attention to her. “Please, have a seat, Tasha.”

  The only other seat in the room was covered in a stack of paper documents. A copy of The Fountainhead was at the top of the pile. Tasha set everything aside and pulled the chair toward the desk.

  Her boss didn’t even bother to look up from filing his nails. Over the years, Tasha had come to realize that her boss had a pathological need to make others feel inferior in his presence.

  For a long time, he didn’t speak. Finally Tasha said, “Boss, I—”

  But of course, Hubert was just waiting for her to be the first one to speak so he could cut her off. “Tasha, your not coming in to work yesterday was unacceptable. That, coupled with your recent insubordinate attitude, has led me to reconsider your employment here.”

  “Really?” Tasha asked. “But you just told me that both of my colleagues quit. How are you going to run a game company without any programmers?”

  Her boss finally deigned to looked up at her. “You’re lucky that’s the case. When I said that I would reconsider your employment, I merely meant I would reconsider your rate of pay. For now, I’m cutting your annual salary by $10,000.”

  She was already being paid way below the industry average. With that kind of pay cut, she wasn’t even sure she would be able to cover the rent.

  “But…” she started before Hubert interrupted her.

  “In six months, if the quality of your work has improved and you’ve lost that insubordinate attitude, I might consider reinstating your original salary. I’m glad we had this talk. You may go.”

  “Now, just a minute…” she started, but again she was interrupted.

  Hubert went back to filing his nails. “That’s all I have to say to you. Now get to work. I want to deliver the next contract to our client by the end of the month.”

  She inadvertently took a step back toward the door. She was starting to tear up, and she hated it. “Boss, you can’t expect me to work for so little. I’m already being underpaid for the work that I do.”

  Hubert slammed his nail file onto his desk, which wasn’t as dramatic as it sounded. “Don’t you tell your betters what they can and can’t do. I’m sick of you damn millennials always blaming others for your problems and expecting everything to be handed to you on a silver platter. If you can’t afford the rent, why don’t you move in with your parents? That’s what you people do, isn’t it?”

  She turned toward the door.

  “Don’t turn your back on me, you over-privileged thief! You are lucky to have a job in the game industry. Do you know how many people would give anything to be in your position?”

  “But… I need that money to pay my rent. Won’t you reconsider?”

  Hubert just laughed. “If you weren’t so damn ugly we might be able to work something out. Would it really kill you to skip a meal? I’m doing you a favor by giving you less money for junk food. Now get the hell out of my office.”

  She didn’t move. Her hands were shaking.

  “Didn’t you hear me? Get out! You have work to d
o.”

  She looked up and met his eyes, something that was frowned on in the studio. “No. I quit.”

  Her boss stood up from his chair. “What did you just say?”

  She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear anything.”

  Something in her snapped. “I quit! I hate working for you. I hate this company! Nǐ shì yīgè bōxuè guǐ, wǒ fēicháng tǎoyàn nǐ, yànwù wèi nǐ gōngzuò. Nǐ shì yīgè xīxuèguǐ lǎobǎn, měitiān ràng wǒ wúcháng jiābān, jiéjiàrì yě méiyǒu xiūxí. Wǒmen tiāntiān gōngzuò xiàng jīqìrén, wǒmen dōu hèn nǐ, xiànzài wǒ bùyào zhè fèn gōngzuòle, wǒ bǎ nǐ gěi kāile. Jiànguǐ qù ba!”

  She didn’t realize it right away, but halfway into her rage-quit, she’d slipped into Mandarin.

  The eyes of everyone in the company were on her. The glass partitions around the boss’s office were not designed to filter sound.

  “Wait!” said her boss. “I didn’t mean it! I’ll reinstate your original salary.”

  “Tā mā de nǐ!”

  “Look, I didn’t mean it. I’ll give you a $4,000 salary increase if you stay.”

  That much money would bring her up to the industry average, but it would mean staying here, at this company that she hated. It would mean working for Hubert. The path of least resistance demanded that she stay, which was why she had to leave.

  “No. I’m leaving. Goodbye, Hubert,” Tasha said as she headed for the door.

  “You can’t quit! You’re fired!”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  If Hubert offered any response, Tasha couldn’t hear it. She returned to her desk and started gathering up her meager possessions.

  The lead artist approached her. “Tasha, I had no idea you could speak Chinese. That was rather unexpected. Where did you learn that?”

  “From kung fu movies, I guess,” she answered. “I mean, if you can't say something nice, say it in Mandarin.”

  “So… I could give you a letter of reference if you want.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Lee. I’ll be in touch.”

  She grabbed the remainder of her possessions from her desk, and five minutes later was in a rideshare car on her way back to her apartment. It finally began to hit her that she’d just rage-quit her job. She expected to feel panicked, but instead she felt a strange sense of peace. If her luck held out, she might be able to find a new job in the industry without too much effort. She wouldn’t be relegated to life in a cardboard box… hopefully.

  But during her rage-quit, she had started speaking Mandarin. That was a Couch Potato ability that she had unlocked while playing. If her ability to speak Chinese carried over from Etheria back to Earth, what other abilities might she have?

  After stepping out of the car, she attempted to double jump. She jumped into the air and attempted to jump a second time while airborne. Nothing happened. Okay, what about Sprint? She invoked Sprint and started running. This time the ability kicked in, and she ran at high speed down the block. Five seconds later, she came to a stop, slightly out of breath. She’d run a good distance in five seconds, but nothing that she wouldn’t have been able to do normally.

  It seemed that only certain skills carried over. An ability would only carry over if it didn’t break the laws of physics and was something that a person would normally be able to do.

  She realized that she’d already spent too much time fiddling around with her new abilities. It was time to return to Etheria. She’d wasted enough time on earthly concerns.

  After returning to her apartment, she grabbed a bag of cheesy corn snacks and went back to the couch in the living room. She was about to pick up the controller when an idea struck her. Opening the closet, she fished around until she found her video camera. Her mother had given it to her as a gift last Christmas, but she’d not had the opportunity to use it, what with cell phones also being able to record video.

  She put in a fresh SD card with lots of memory and set the tripod up behind the living room couch so that it could record both herself and the TV. She wanted to know what the game looked like while she was playing it and what her body did while she was away. Upon pressing the record button, a small red light appeared on top of the camera.

  The time was 63:18:04. Returning her phone to the safety of her pocket, she made her way to the couch. Sinking into the cushions, she took the controller in her hands.

  She pressed the rubbery start button and was overtaken by a momentary sense of vertigo as she returned to Etheria. Her earthly body was gone, replaced by stat-augmented strength, agility, and charisma. Tasha felt lighter and stronger once again. Maybe she could think of this as the real world and Earth as the dream. That might actually be preferable.

  Less than a second after Tasha’s return to Etheria, a multitude of dwarven voices rang out in chorus with the word “Zero!”

  “What do you mean, you need to stop the universe?” Kiwi asked. “Are you returning to the world of players?”

  Realizing that Kiwi was referring to something that Tasha had said before pressing the start button, she answered.

  “I already did, just now. I’ve been gone for over fifteen hours.”

  The sound of confused murmurs could be heard from the reveling dwarves. They must have noticed that something was amiss.

  “You’re joking, right?” Ari said. “You haven’t left this spot. I was watching you this whole time.”

  “I’ll prove it. Check your menu clock.”

  Ari opened his menu. His jaw dropped open. “The clock says 63:18:01. It was at eighty just a few seconds ago. Then it’s true, you really did stop Etheria.”

  “And the clocks show the countdown from the world of players,” she said.

  Over the night chill and the sound of confused celebrants, the shrill cry of a dwarven woman rang out. Another panicking voice spoke up, “What the hell is that!??”

  A dwarven man was pointing into the air. “Up there, in the sky! It’s…”

  His voice was cut off by a shrill high-pitched sound coming from the jar strapped to Tasha’s waist. The fairy-in-a-bottle said, “Holy crap, what’s that thing in the sky?”

  “T-Tasha’s jar is talking,” Pan said.

  “Oh, hi, Trista,” Tasha said. “I forgot about you.”

  “Well, screw you too, human. Just hurry up and look where I’m pointing so you can start panicking like the rest of us sane people!”

  Lifting her head to follow where the fairy was indicating, Tasha immediately saw what she was talking about. Suspended in the sky, fully visible, was a small sliver of light spinning and winding into patterns. What was it? A long thread that coiled and danced in the air? For a moment it disappeared behind some clouds, but once those passed, it could be seen clearly.

  “Pan, would you let me borrow your spyglass for a moment?”

  Tasha looked through it and saw the object with slightly more clarity, though it was still small and blurry. She could almost make it out its form. It was like a serpent or snake, just floating there in the sky.

  “I think it’s a snake. A sky serpent?”

  “It’s Entropy!” someone shouted. “It’s the destroyer god, come to end us all! Entropy comes! Entropy comes!”

  “He’s right,” said Kiwi. “Entropy must be getting closer as the clock winds down. In another twenty hours, I would bet that we’ll be able to see him clearly. When the time runs down, the contract keeping him away will nullify, and he’ll coil around Etheria, squeezing all life out of it. I didn’t truly believe in the threat until just this moment.”

  “Then we’ll have to stop him,” Tasha said. “We’ll get the elemental orbs, open the Hallowed Chapel, and I’ll get rid of the contract. Let’s finish this part of the quest and find the Orb of Life.”

  “Agreed,” said Ari, “but let’s start tomorrow. We’re all tired and need sleep.”

  “Not me. I just got fifteen hours of sleep whi
le on Earth.”

  “Really?” Kiwi said. “And you’re not tired? That’s interesting, but the rest of us need sleep.”

  “Stupid trans-universal jet lag,” Tasha grumbled, and the party went off in the direction of their inn.

  Maybe Tasha could have Kiwi cast a sleep spell to overcome her insomnia. And then tomorrow they could get more pancakes before setting out.

  Chapter 37

  The Dragon and the Dwarf

  Kaze’s return trip to Brightwind took longer than he’d anticipated. He found it difficult to remain airborne for extended periods of time. Sometimes the wind would push against him, and often the upper air pressure would gradually lower his altitude. Kaze could only assume that it was the effect of the Orb of Air. It seemed that the orb was resisting his attempt to carry it away from its master.

  His journey consisted of short low-altitude hops from one point to another. It was still faster than walking but not by as wide a margin as he had hoped. What should have taken days of flying was extended into multiple weeks of travel.

  The mobs that spawned while airborne were different than the ones that spawned while he was on the ground. There were drakes, condors, beholders, exploding balloon creatures, and other such monsters of the air. Normally he would either fight such creatures or fly away from them, but given his inability to remain airborne for extended periods of time, his only option was to prevent air-based mobs from spawning in the first place. Whenever mist would begin to form around him, he quickly returned to the ground before it could form into an air-based mob.

  In the end, it took him several weeks of travel to return to the outskirts of Questgivria and several days beyond that to reach Brightwind Keep.

  When he finally made it through the capital city that surrounded Brightwind Keep, people moved to one side or the other as he passed. As a general rule, one did not get in the way of a dragon when one could avoid doing so.

  “Lally ho, dragon!” said a gruff dwarven voice over the murmuring of the crowd. Kaze bent his neck to find the source of the sound and finally discovered his friend Hermes mixed in with the crowd. The dwarf closed the distance and embraced the dragon in a big one-armed hug, which wasn’t actually so big given the comparative statures of the two adventurers. It was embarrassing for all parties involved, so the dwarf kindly pulled away before it got weird.