by Erik Rounds
She leaves most of the work of governing to her trusted lieutenants and spends most of her own time on side projects.
Ramon
The elven proprietor and craftsman of the armor shop in the village of Bray. He lives with his beautiful but lazy dark-elven wife. He crafts armor that covers as little of the body as possible. He does this party because it increases the armor’s durability, but mostly for the sexiness factor.
Sally Belly
Co-owns the Belly Acres farmstead with her husband Hubert Belly. Likes to trick unsuspecting adventurers into doing farm work.
Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Novel
Verily, never has there been such a heroic figure as this. Legends spread far and wide about this Adonis of a man and his varied exploits. Sadly, he doesn’t figure into the story, so his madcap adventures remain untold and unremembered.
Sir Slimon
Sir Slimon is a knight of the realm. He grew up with Kiwi, and the two of them became infatuated with each other.
As a slime, Slimon is unable to vocalize human speech. He communicates in English using a combination of “pffpt” sounds and body language.
Snickers the Bumble
Known to the people of Brightwind as Snickers the Bumble, his real identity is the eidolon of mischief. He serves as King Questgiver’s royal mage and is known as something of a trickster. Whenever he speaks, it is always in rhyme.
Tasha #1 (Tasha Prime)
Tasha Singleton, daughter of Jak Singleton, is a couch potato. When not vegging on the couch, you can find her at work, programming the latest in a long line of meaningless pay-to-win mobile games. She’s incredibly lazy and actively resists any kind of change. When presented with the opportunity to become an adventurer, she resists her cowardly nature and accepts. That decision changes her life forever.
Tasha #2 (Warrior Tasha)
After Tasha Prime died, Warrior Tasha was born. She has a bit of a bloodthirsty streak. After meeting Ari and Pan, the trio become fast friends.
In a way, Warrior Tasha is the person who Tasha has always wanted to be—strong, brave, quick to make decisions, and willing to sacrifice herself to help others.
Tasha #3 (Impulsive Tasha)
Tasha’s third iteration is more emotional and less logical than her earlier iterations. At times, this leads her to some unfortunate spur-of-the-moment decisions, such as marrying a toad-person in the midst of a drunken adventure. Her emotional and spontaneous nature often causes trouble for her. When brought to anger, she sometimes lashes out at her friends when she doesn’t really mean to.
Unlike Tasha Prime, Impulsive Tasha is an early riser and is much more assertive.
Trista Twinklebottom
The mischievous and murderous fairy ninja known as Trista Twinklebottom is the leader of the Hidden Smog village. Her small form makes the class ideal for her, improving both her stealth and attack speed. She focuses exclusively on stealth attacks and hitting weak points. During her off hours, she enjoys relaxing in glasses of booze.
Tasha’s Status
Tasha Singleton (Level 33 Couch Potato)
Race
Human (Player)
Subclass
None
Weapon
Grasscutter (ATK 31)
Armor
Light Spidersilk Armor (DEF 25 Mag DEF 5)
Sturdy Travel Shoes (DEF 2)
Heart Containers
0/18
Mana Containers
0/16
Amusement Index
Not applicable
Strength
29
Intelligence
20
Agility
54
Precision
14
Charisma
22
ATK
57
MAG ATK
18
DEF
51
MAG DEF
19
Active Debuffs
Dead
Unlocked Skills (This is only a partial list and only refers to relevant skills of at least level one):
Stat Shuffle (level MAX)
When invoked, all earned stat points may be reallocated. 15% of earned stat points are lost for the duration of this effect. After five minutes, all stats are returned to their original state.
Cooldown: 12 hours
Rapid Leveling (Level MAX)
Player-specific ability. Player and all party members gain experience points and learn abilities at ten times the normal rate. Only applies to the first six party members, including the player.
Gunblade Weapon Proficiency (Level 21)
Represents your experience using gunblades. When using gunblades, accuracy is increased by 23.1% and damage is increased by 10.5%
Sprint (Level 12)
When invoked, you can run at 312% of your normal speed for 13.4 seconds. Higher levels will increase sprint speed and duration.
Bullet Time (level 9)
When projectiles are flying toward you, you become aware of them and your perception of time slows down subjectively to 35% speed, allowing you to react.
Duration: 8 seconds
Cooldown: 11 seconds
Spell Design (level 5)
Represents your ability to program spells. Spells that you design yourself receive up to an 18% power bonus and 3.4% cost reduction as a function of the spell’s originality. This bonus does not apply to unmodified spells copied from spellbooks.
Double Jump (level 5)
Grants the ability to jump once while already airborne. Ability resets when you touch the floor. Height of second jump is increased by 25%.
To the Pain (Level 2)
Improves aim by 35% when attempting to slice off an opponent’s limb.
Wall Climb (level 2)
Improves your ability to climb vertical walls. You are 8% more likely to discover usable handholds.
Gravity Shift (level 1)
Allows you to change the direction of gravity subjectively, enabling you to walk on walls.
Cost: 1 mana per 10 seconds
Pretentious Jerk (level 1)
People whom you belittle are now 8% more likely to question their self-worth
Author’s Note
Thank you all so much for reading my book. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Tasha and company will return in the next installment of the Couch Potato Chaos trilogy.
After reading the works of authors in the genre such as Charles Dean, Blaise Corvin, Andrew Seiple, Rick Scott, Taj El and many others, I became inspired to write my own. I’ve always enjoyed comedic takes on fantasy by authors like Piers Anthony, Terry Pratchett, and Robert Asprin and felt compelled to write a more light-hearted take on the LitRPG/Gamelit genre.
Though the story is less stat-heavy than other books in the genre, I tried to ensure that each stat is meaningful and that actual combat damage is calculated in one-on-one battles. The style of the game is patterned after action RPGs such as Seiken Densetsu and Legend of Zelda. Concepts like DPS don’t apply to games like that, though I did also integrate some features from MMOs such as the ability to manually set stat points.
The concept of “death” in works of fiction and gamelit in particular, often leads to the author creating the impression of plot armor because the story wouldn’t be able to progress if the protagonist were to die. I attempted to avoid that by creating a form of death that has long-term consequences but allowed the hero to come back to life. When Tasha dies, she becomes a dramatically different person than who she was before. This allows characters to die in a meaningful way beyond the mere loss of stat points.
The “Rapid Leveling” and “Stat Shuffle” abilities might appear to be overpowered at first glance, but I don’t really think they are. Stat Shuffle comes with a penalty and long cooldown that makes it very difficult to use in combat. The Rapid Leveling ability allows the player to become strong quickly, but it also has a critical weakness. In Chapter 17,
Magus Savik D’hagma refused to allow Kiwi to level up because although leveling would give her stat points to become more powerful, she would lack actual experience. The muscle memory needed to cast spells wouldn’t be there and her stat points would serve as a crutch. The same applies to Tasha. She has no training as a swordswoman or spellcaster and has to learn these new skills as she goes. As a result, her practical skill is less than someone of equivalent level.
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Thank you so much for reading!
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