Esmie the Calamity Chapter 6 (Patreon)

** This is it for pre-prepared chapters. Now to write more! Onwards!!! Also I added tags to these ones so you can find them easy :3 **

“What was that?” Lynlyn asked, her big floppy ears perking up as high as they could go. She looked like an aeroplane, and the look put a grin all over my face. Her ears were so big, like enormous floppy bunny ears or something.

The blood curdling howl tore through the forest all over again and I was suddenly reminded again that we were meant to be worried about something. Lynlyn’s ears were really cute though.

“Is it the Zraggs?” I asked tentatively, staring into the foliage in the direction of the howl.

“Possibly,” Lynlyn said quietly, reaching forward to take hold of my arm. “You get behind me just in case.

I was pushed behind her before I could go there myself, which gave me another one of those funny little chest feelings. Why did I feel so funny when she touched me?

We could hear the underbrush shifting about ahead of us now, the bushes and long grasses rustling as something or multiple somethings moved through it. Then came the snuffling noises, until something tumbled out in front of us.

The thing was mind bogglingly odd to look at. Generally speaking it was shaped like an egg on its side and covered in thick dark brown fur. Four small legs peeked out from underneath, each one with a hoof on the end. Its mouth was wide and sported two massive tusks, and above that were two tiny, beady black eyes.

It looked like a boar with aspirations of becoming a stereotypical piggy bank. My first reaction was to laugh, but then several of the things wobbled out of the bushes to surround us, and their mouths opened to show huge sharp carnivorous teeth. Suddenly things were just a little bit serious.

“Oh shi—“ I squeaked, before abruptly my vision went black.

You have Died. You will respawn after an indeterminate length of time has passed. Please enjoy your death dream in the meantime and thank you for playing Cauldron of Realms Ascended!

“What the squish?” I blurted, spinning around to look at wherever the hell I was. What was a death dream?

I was in a very small room, barely tall enough for me to stand in, and pillows were literally everywhere across the floor.

“Oh,” I exclaimed happily, diving into them with abandon. “Sweet!”

“Oh balls, another one that’s happy to be here,” a soft, feminine voice noted from behind me.

I whirled around onto my back in surprise and found myself staring up into the eyes of a girl a year or two younger than me. She had long dirty blonde hair that was so fluffy it was almost comical and I couldn’t help but stare at it. Her face sported a pair of big glasses that didn’t quite sit on her face correctly.

“Hi?” I asked awkwardly.

“Hey,” she said with a weary sigh, plopping down into the pillows opposite me. Well, as opposite as you could be in a room that was barely big enough to fit three people without having their legs get all tangled.

“So uh, who are you?” I asked, bringing my tail around in front of me to cuddle. Big fluffy tails were the best, so much fluffy fluffness.

“I am May,” she told me with a smile, offering me her hand to shake. “And you are Esmie.”

“I am Esmie,” I agreed, feeling my heart swell and dance at the name. It was such a good name. Way better than my real one, which was a total dud. I wished I was a girl so I could have the name Esmie instead.

Of course, I was so preoccupied with the whole name thing that I forgot to shake her hand for a second, so when I did remember, I was a little too enthusiastic about it. Which means, I managed to lunge at her and fall into the pillows next to her with a thump.

“Oh my,” she giggled, looking down at me as I rolled over. “I can see how you died to the first thing that hit you now.”

“Hey! It jumped me from behind or something! It wasn’t fair,” I pouted up, blowing some hair out of my face with a puff.

“Yes, it was a little mean of the…” she paused, looking off to the side like she was checking some notes that I couldn’t see. “The Scrag? No… Zraggs. Weird name that one, I should think of a better one and ask… no he’d just get grumpy at me. The lore people always get so grumpy when you step into their turf.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, blinking in confusion. “What… who are you?”

“I’m May!” she smiled, raising an eyebrow. “I thought we established that much.”

I just groaned and rolled back so I was face first in the pillows. Whoever this person was she was very annoying.

“Okay, okay,” she laughed. “My job is to help you through the trauma of violently dying! Except, you kinda just died without even seeing or feeling anything, so I don’t really have much to do. It looks like the system has decided that you wouldn’t be able to take much of a psychological beating, so it cut you off really early into the attack that killed you.”

“Wait, it does that?” I asked, my voice muffled by the pillows.

“Yupperinos!” she said happily, and I felt her shift around beside me.

Rolling my head to glance sideways, I saw she’d decided to lay down on her side, head resting on her arm.

“That’s kinda smart, I guess,” I yielded reluctantly, mostly because like, the game was basically calling me a wimp. Whatever, at least I had my squish!

Looking down, I saw that I was in my game character’s body, but in some casual modern clothing. A pair of loose and very short shorts showed off my thighs in all their pasty white and squishy glory. Up top I had a comfortable sports bra on… no wait, it was one of those bras that worked like a sports bra but had lots of frills and stuff. I had no idea what they were called. A big baggy T-shirt went over the top, like a cherry goes on a cake or something.

“Did you dress me?” I asked, playing with the fabric of my shirt. It was so soft! Was this what girl clothing felt like?

“Yup!” she said proudly. “Made the room too, based on… well, what I thought you would like.”

“I like both of them,” I smiled, switching to lay on my back. “Could do with a nice warm blanket though.”

Back outside VR, one of my favourite possessions was a huge duvet that had a cover just one size too big. Now, you might ask why I had a cover that was too big, and the answer is this, the way the cover bundles up and wrinkles feels nice to my strange brain. It was hard to explain, but having the extra sensory input helped me sleep.

“Sure thing!” May exclaimed brightly, snapping her fingers.

The biggest blanket I had ever seen phased into existence in mid air and fell down on top of the both of us. It was such a big and fluffy blanket too!

“This is so cozy!” I exclaimed delightedly, snuggling in. “Can I stay here for a bit?”

May seemed to consider my request for a moment, then shrugged, “Yeah, why not. I don’t get to just chill out with people very often. Only my sisters and parents do really. Oh and… uh, Siyeapia. She’s this really cute Amazon SAI.”

“What is… a SAI?” I asked hesitantly.

That seemed to bring her up short, earning me an incredulous stare. “You don’t… know?”

I shook my head, feeling embarrassment rise in my cheeks.

“Sentient Artificial Intelligence,” she said, listing off each word with a poke of her finger to my stomach under the covers.

“Hey!” I squeaked, writhing away a little. “That tickles!”

“You deserved it!” she grumbled. “Who doesn’t know about the SAI revolution these days, what have you been doing for the past month?”

“Watching netflix,” I shrugged, still glaring suspiciously at her.

“Oh my goodness,” May laughed, although her expression went like, super thoughtful as it fell away. “I’ve never watched netflix before.”

I blinked at her for a moment, genuinely at a loss for words. What did I say to someone who’d just admitted to being a sentient AI about the staples of like, human culture and stuff? Wait! Sentient AI! That totally explained the weird Amazon robot! The crazy thing had been a person! Whoa, that was wild, and also pretty cool. Maybe I should order something else when I got out and we could talk. Wait, was she the same Amazon AI as May was talking about?

Ohh, actually, back to the netflix thing Esmie! You have an account, why not watch some with her? Show May all the cool shows to watch!

“Well, they’re like the biggest network around, that isn’t disney, so I’m sure we could find something that you might like. Can I pull up a virtual machine in here?” I asked, trying anyway. It seemed to be successful, as the little window flickered to life in front of me.

Pinching the edges, I pulled it wide so that she might be able to see properly, and raised an eyebrow in question. “Yeah? Wanna watch? How long do I have to stay in here?”

May was just staring at me, sort of owlishly, or like a small startled animal or something. Then she took her glasses off and began cleaning them with her own baggy shirt, frowning up a storm while she did it.

“Okay,” she nodded solemnly after a moment. “But I don’t think I could choose a show… choices are still kind of hard for me. Real ones I mean, silly ones are even harder, if I’m not following my old programming.”

“That’s cool,” I smiled, shifting the screen so she could see it better before I started idly browsing through. What kind of show would an SAI like her even like? Maybe I should find something about AI? No, most of those were… yeah. Not good.

Oh wait, what about a comedy sitcom! That would be perfect, everyone could get some enjoyment out of that semi-mindless shenaniganry. I navigated quickly through the menus until I found what I wanted.

The show was called Hayton House, and it was about four friends who lived in an apartment on basic together. Each episode was essentially just the four of them getting up to increasingly wacky hijinks as they tried to alleviate the boredom that came with having no purpose in life other than to exist. I could definitely relate.

I started the show and sat back, half watching it and half watching May’s reactions. At first she seemed on the fence, but then she began to get more and more invested, and when the first episode ended, she burst into a little confetti cloud of questions.

What followed was like half an hour of discussion on the pilot episode of a meaningless comedy soap opera. It was so funny and cute, the way she just fundamentally didn’t understand some of the tropes and jokes being made. She kept trying to apply realistic human psychology to the dumb and often poorly written lines, which was so stereotypically AI of her, in an adorable way. Maybe she’d get a kick out of all the shows that were in the GoT genre. The political intrigue ones where she could dissect and predict what was going to happen.

“I want to watch more, but your time is up,” she pouted, when she’d finally run out of questions. “Actually, I should have finished this a few minutes ago.”

“All good,” I grinned. “I’m sure I’ll die again soon enough, considering how much I suck at this game.”

“You are indeed not very good,” she nodded seriously, messing around with her glasses again. “Okay, I’ll send you back, but please come see me again soon!”

I frowned suspiciously at her. “Are you telling me to go and die again? Purposefully?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed in alarm. “No! Definitely not! I just… this was fun! I want to have fun again. Fun is… fun.”

“Fun is fun,” I agreed with a giggle, reaching over to pat her on the arm. “Don’t worry. See you again soon… new friends?”

“Yes! New friends! I like friends too, friends are fun,” she said happily.

Then I was gone, my vision fading to black without so much as a chance to say goodbye. What an odd person she was. Yes, I am aware of how that sounds coming from me.