The Charismatic Glass Cannon

“Captain, they’re gaining on us!” said a frantic voice from behind me.

I heard the sound of whirling alarms. I could tell I was seated. I was jostled as if in a car that got hit from the side. How many times am I going to get knocked out in this place?

“What the fuck is this now?” I said, my vision still black.

My vision came back like turning on a light switch in a dark room, if the dark room was the helm of a spaceship. I looked around and saw that I was indeed standing on the bridge of an Enterprise-esque ship. I sat in a large captain’s chair, a series of buttons on each of the arm rests. There were three stations in front of the large screen, which currently only showed the vastness of space and distant stars. Stercus was on the far left in the helmsman chair.

“What is this nonsense?” Stercus declared.

In the middle area, there was a woman wearing a lime green onesie, and on the far right was a man wearing a purple onesie. Their outfits looked like a cross between Starfleet and Teletubbies. Yeah, Teletubbies. The onesies were bright in color and also seemed to be a little fuzzy.

“Captain, what are your orders?” said the frantic voice again from behind me.

I turned to look behind me and saw a few more stations on a slightly elevated area of the bridge. They reminded me of where communications and Spock would hangout. The lady that spoke looked like Sigourney Weaver from Galaxy Quest.

“What’s going on?” I said to the woman.

“Sir, look! I have one job on this lousy ship, it's stupid, but I'm gonna do it! Okay? So, I would appreciate it if you listened when I relay ship messages.”

“Uh, okay, sorry. So, wait. What is going on?” I said, confused and taken aback by her response.

We stared at each other for a few moments. I faintly heard a robotic computer voice coming from her station. Why she needed to relay what the ship computer said was beyond me. Maybe it was a union thing.

“The Chrom Riders are gaining on us, sir,” she finally said, her message a lot shorter than the time implied.

Just then, the spaceship was rocked by a blast. I shook in my seat.

“Shields are down to 70%, captain,” a different voice said.

The giant screen in front of us flickered, and it was now showing video feed from behind us. A giant chrome spaceship was on our tail. It looked sleek, kinda like the ship in those shitty Star Wars prequels that Queen Amidala rode in. I am no Star Wars nerd, but I think it was called a Naboo Starship or something along those lines. Unimportant. It was sleek, it was chrome, and it was a spaceship.

“Evasive maneuvers!” I shouted.

It seemed like a pretty space captain thing to say until I realized it was Stercus who was behind the wheel, and he had no arms. I looked over to see Stercus wrap his diaper form around the controls, which looked like a steering wheel and a forward and backward lever. As Stercus took the controls, the ship lurched hard to the right. I watched as the Sigourney Weaver clone took a hard fall, tumbling down the stairs to the lower level next to me. I moved to get up to help her out of reflex, but others were quicker, rushing to her aid. My attention was turned back to the front as I heard insane giggling. It was creepy. I looked over to see who it was, seeing Stercus having the time of his life steering the ship.

“Who knew the campaign could be this fun!” Stercus exclaimed as he laughed, the ship lurching again.

The next few moments were chaos. I was holding onto dear life to my fancy armchair as Stercus did maneuvers that Starfleet would be excited to learn.

But we kept getting hit.

“Shields are down to 10%, captain,” said a voice from behind me.

The final blast came jolting the ship forward. The lights went off for a second, emergency lights coming on dimly lighting the bridge.

“Reports from all decks, captain. Multiple hull breaches. Life support and emergency backups barely holding on,” said a voice from behind me.

“Captain! I have reports from decks 5 through 8 of major breaches. A large boarding party has been reported on floor 6,” another voice said.

“Get this ship up and running. We’ll go face them,” I said.

I’m not sure where I got the confidence. Maybe it was from being in the role of captain, even if it was pretend, but I headed to the elevator with Stercus waddling next to me. We went in, and the elevator closed behind us. I selected the six button. The elevator was oddly quiet as we stood waiting. It stopped, and the doors opened to utter action movie level pandemonium. There were ten or so people dressed in onesie uniforms the same style as the ones on the bridge. They had laser pistols in their hands and were shooting towards a group of what could best be described as chrome terminator robots. Not Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the actual T800 robots. A chrome robot picked up a crew member and chucked them across the room towards us. I ducked as they hit a pillar and split in half, blood spraying. The hallway was in shambles, sparks showering from different damaged parts in the walls and ceiling.

Not for the first time, I was momentarily frozen in shock. Only the elevator doors starting to close prompted me to move. My dazed stroll pace transformed into moving as fast as my skinny legs could take me as a chunk of metal flew overhead smashing into the elevator behind me. I had no idea where the chunk of metal had come from.

Stercus and I took position with another crew member who was hiding behind a fallen metal panel. I took a peek around the panel, seeing the robots marching towards us. There were at least twenty of them. Either by not having any or not, I didn’t know, but they didn’t seem to have any ranged attacks like this crew did. My crew did? On the right side of the hall was a series of windows to the outside. I took a glance, seeing my reflection in the window. I was in a onesie like the crew. I had a gold star on my chest. Looking down, I saw I was still wearing my robes.

The robots got closer and closer taking out one crew member after the other. It took a great deal of blasts before a robot was taken down. The time since I had been here only a couple robots were now laying on the ground. A big difference from the many strewn humans littering the hall. The robots started to approach our spot, and I realized it was just us and the last living crew member in the hall next to us.

Not to my surprise, I reached for a laser pistol from a fallen crew member, but my hand went right through it like it wasn’t there. They were getting really close then.

“Close your eyes!” I shouted.

I needed to make a break for it. I sent out my Light Orb. From my point of view, the brightness ticked up a couple notches and then went back to normal. It was all that I had that I could do. I took a glance, and the robots seemed unfazed. God damn it. It didn’t do anything but blind the guy next to us, even after I shouted to close his eyes. I really needed to stop using this spell.

I smelled it before I saw it as Stercus opened a rift. A swirling, brown-colored portal appeared. For a second, nothing happened. Then a jet stream of liquid shit blasted out, knocking the robots down and sending them sliding down the hall. The stream was roaring and concentrated, barely tapering off, shooting down the long hallway and hitting the far wall. The stream stopped as the portal closed with a pop. Liquid brown covered the entire hall, with chunks of mystery sewage splattered around. The stench hit me fully, and man, was it horrific. Indescribable pure filth.

While what Stercus did was impressive, it didn’t seem to do anything but push the robots back. They started to get back to their feet. I grabbed the crew member’s arm and pulled him with us, going the opposite way of the robots down the hall. We ran, twisting and turning as I guided the blind and deaf crew member. I had no idea where I was going. It really was the blind leading the blind. I turned back, seeing Stercus waddling behind me, doing his best to keep up in his diaper form. It was then made abundantly clear I had no idea where I was going as we hit a dead end with a single open door. I heard a large smash and looked over to see I was no longer holding the crew member. Well, I was holding the crew members arm, but that is all I was holding. I saw the robot behind us still in an overhead throwing pose, having just tossed a large metal crate at us. The crew member was now lodged a few feet into the metal floor, eyes dead.

That was too close.

I dropped the arm and went through the open door. I pressed a button on the wall, which I was glad I guessed correctly, and it started to close. It was closing so god damn slow. The robots charged down the hall, the door barely closing in time. I thought I would see the robots pounding on the door, breaking in, but there was nothing but silence.

I turned and looked around the room. We were in a botany lab, or whatever space people would call a room with plants all around and different analyzing tools.

“This way!” Stercus said, heading towards a door.

Stercus opened the door, and it revealed a bathroom.

“A bathroom? How is that going to help us?” I said.

How did I get so lucky to have a familiar companion whose most useful contributions are sending out shit blasts and having a sense of where the toilets were? Stercus rubbed the metal bowl, and it filled with sewage, a face made of feces appearing.

“I am glad to see you are alright. She knows something is up, but I believe this channel to be secured. William has been killing user after user, waiting until the last minute to move onto level 2. He is by many magnitudes now the most powerful user in all the campaign. I worry that what is going on will be looked into and they will pull you from existence, my bowelness. I have not reported it to anyone,” the face said.

“Wise choice. We can take care of this on our own. Have you been able to secure a tunnel?” Stercus said.

“I have. I can set it up now. He is currently sleeping in his camp. At least he was a few hours ago. I have stolen the device that imbued the armor, which can unimbue it. Press it down against the armor and it will be removed. He is much more powerful even without the device than both of you, so I would not engage him. Get out as quickly as you can. I will leave the tunnel open, and it will close upon your return.”

The face separated and the toilet flushed, leaving the bowl sparkling clean, quite the contrast from the filth that was in it moments before. As I was staring at the toilet bowl, something shot out from the water. I caught it in midair instinctively. It was just like this game to let me roll well with my shitty stats when it comes to catching a toilet roll holder. Yes, it was a dripping wet toilet roll holder. Just a plain chrome run of the mill, put your toilet paper on holder. I pressed it down and felt its spring.

The water in the toilet started sloshing until it gained enough momentum to begin spinning. There I was, staring down at a swirling torrent of water coming from a toilet, all while holding a chrome toilet roll holder that was supposedly a magic item. My interface didn’t even recognize it as anything. A magic item that I was supposed to use to go into a murderous lunatic’s camp to get back a lever, the purpose of which I still didn’t fully grasp.

There was a big problem with the plan. I didn’t want to do it.