Esmie the Calamity Chapter 8 (Patreon)

** Trouble in Vale town v.v.... my computer is dying. Graphics card has been on the way out for a long time now, and it's looking like it might go any day now. Rest of the parts aren't doing too hot either. I was saving up for a tablet so I could write in bed too Q.Q. If my writing goes south or stops for a while, that's why. Shit, my case is literally held together by string xD. Guess you can only milk 10 year old parts so much before they tell you to let them move on to computer part heaven.  It might take me a few months to save up, considering I basically need a whole new tower. If anyone is willing to throw a couple extra bucks my way, I'd greatly appreciate it Q.Q. Idk if I have anything to give as a reward for generosity but... idk maybe I'll think of something. Gosh I hate asking for money. Here's my kofi... https://ko-fi.com/quietvalerie . Anyway, I'll keep writing until then! Thank you all for supporting me so much, you're all wonderful. I hope reading this chapter brings you as much joy as it did for me while writing it! **

Ruth set us up with things in such a whirlwind of bureaucracy that it had me crying on the inside. She apparently just had a small house available in the city, because she was made of money and could apparently just buy this shit. I mean real money too, not ingame money. I was now like, fifty percent sure she was a dragon, like a real one.

The house was in a poorer neighbourhood, crammed between two more identical buildings that were nevertheless odd and unique in their own way. Ours was two stories tall and about as wide as your average two lane street, not counting the parking spaces. It had the same curved wooden beam construction as most of the rest of the city, massive trees cut into squares, bent and twisted in crazy ways and then fitted together neatly.

Except, obviously, none of the houses gleamed with the gloss of polished wood like the wall had. Pitted and worn with age, it resembled a ship that had been run aground on a beach and left there for three years. However, it was our dilapidated shipwreck now!

“Just so we’re clear,” Lynna said as we stared at the front door of the place, waiting for Ruth to arrive with the keys. “We’re not having sex. I’m straight.”

It took me a second to understand what she was saying, it had been hours since our lunch with Ruth. “I… wasn’t expecting to have sex with you Lynlyn…” I smiled, rolling my eyes. “You are pretty, but we don’t have that type of friendship.”

“I just auto generated this character based on my gene profile,” she said, cheeks heating and eyes darting back and forth between my eyes.

“Well, then take that however you want,” I said, smothering a smile and patting her amicably on the back.

She was still staring at me with embarrassed suspicion when Ruth arrived, along with a bunch of buff guys carrying things.

“Hello you two,” she said with a calm assurance that I was beginning to realise was default for her. “It’s not the most glamorous digs in the world, but that’s the point! I have a few things here to get you started. Not much mind you, we want you to have something to work towards. This is a game after all, and games can be mighty dull when a high level player gives you all the best gear.”

That made sense, I was looking forward to building this shack into a mansion, especially considering I didn’t intend to leave VR unless it was absolutely necessary. “Yeah that’s cool. Means we can customise the place to suit us!” I smiled, bouncing in place slightly with excitement. Finally, my life had some sort of meaning, goals to achieve!

“Can we see inside now?” Lynna asked excitedly, scanning all the stuff that the big buff guys were carrying. “Is that our starter kit?”

“It is indeed,” she said with a nod, and summoning two keys out of her inventory she said, “Here are your keys, don’t lose them, there aren’t spares. I have to get to a meeting soon, so let’s open the door so these kind men can put all the stuff in the front room. Remember to keep filming, we don’t want to miss any cute moments for your let’s play.”

“Huh, that is what we’re going to be doing, isn’t it?” Lynna remarked, taking the initiative to go and unlock the door and allow the troupe of bulging men inside the house. “It’s a let’s play. Been a long time since I watched one of those.”

“Exactly,” Ruth agreed. “The medium has fallen in and out of favour over the decades, and it has been out of favour recently. To let you in on the process a little, if you’ll indulge me. Streaming is good for many, especially those on basic income who have the time to view long form content. However, there is another market. Those with jobs or who are studying, or are playing this game, they don’t have the time to sit through an eight hour stream.”

Lynna’s eyes lit up. “Right, so if we give them a stream, but with all the boring bits cut out…” She frowned, her bottom lip jutting out as she had another thought. “Wait no, I guess stream vods exist too…”

“There aren’t many streamers who have the time to make a proper cut of their stuff though,” I mentioned. “Plus, with a let’s play, the good ones have a focus on cutting up the content so you have little stories within each episode. Like with what we’re going to do, maybe we decide to go into the forest and try to find some food. We could make an episode cut up about us doing that, eventually getting the food and bringing it back.”

“After dying like a million times to basic mobs,” she laughed, crossing her eyes and poking out her tongue in a silly pantomime of death.

“It sounds like the two of you have this more than handled,” Ruth chuckled, eyes alight with mirth. “If you get me and my team the raw footage, I’ll do the rest.”

“Awesome!” I exclaimed happily. I was already having fun. I was so glad Lynna had contacted me!

The buff men got all our stuff into the front room and then left with nods and smiles, Ruth paying them in coin almost as hard as their abs on their way out. Seriously, how did guys that big even move properly? Like, those biceps must limit your range of movement something chronic! They didn’t look very squishy either, which had my stomach churning a little. Squish was superior.

“Let’s go see what she gave us then,” Lynna said, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me through the still open front door. Her hand was so soft, but with a layer of muscle under the squish that had me squeezing her hand a little to get a sense for the sensation. I liked it, the feeling of squish overlaid on muscle, it added something to the squish that it lacked.

Everything was neatly stacked in the middle of the front room, and in my mind’s eye I could already see shelves and displays in here. It wasn’t a large room, no more than twelve meters wide, which was also the width of the house. Eight meters deep, it had no adornments whatsoever, with a door located centrally on the back wall that led further into the house.

“Okay… two bedrolls,” Lynna grimaced, kneeling down to get a better look at things. “We need to get proper beds as soon as possible, because sleeping on those is going to suck so hard.”

I had to agree. I still remembered the school camp where we’d trekked into the Kaimanawa forest park and slept in sleeping bags under the stars. I giggled, shaking my head at another memory from that trip. “Lynlyn, remember when we went on that camp and they had us all sleeping outside? I remember we got so cold, because like, who has a proper sleeping bag these days?”

“I remember you cuddling up to me and using your ice cold hands on my cheeks,” she said with a mock grumble, her mouth unable to hide the smile tugging at her lips.

“Yeah and then you sat on me until I stopped,” I grinned, unrepentant still to this day.

She laughed, shaking her head for a moment and rolling her eyes. Then her expression turned wistful and melancholy. “I miss those days. When everything was simple and we just had fun, when our parents handled the scary adult world for us.”

“Same…” I sighed, picking up a candle from a little crate of them. On a whim, I dropped it back and shuffled over next to her, my arms going around her shoulders in a loose hug. “But we’re in CORA now. Ruth is handling all that stuff again, and all we have to do is send her footage of us having fun together.”

Our faces were close as we stared into each other’s eyes, different eyes than we were used to, but still the same person underneath. Friends, no matter how long it had been since we last properly spoke.

“Yeah,” she finally smiled, hand coming down to rest on my wide hip. “Together again. Except… well, you’re called Esmie now.”

I felt my cheeks flush and a happy tingle wormed its way up my spine as she said my name. “Yeah, and I forgot your name in here…”

“Lynlyn works,” she grinned back, reaching up to scratch behind my ears, sending my eyes fluttering shut and a hum of bliss to gently weave through my mind. “I like the new nickname, I think.”

“And I like it when you do that,” I mumbled happily, slowly but steadily loosing my balance until I flopped sideways onto the floor.

My eyes blinked open when I fell out of reach of her hand, looking up at her with pleading eyes. I wanted more.

She raised an amused eyebrow and turned back to the pile. She followed up with a hum of confusion and leaned forward. “What the hell is this thing?”

I wriggled grudgingly back to my feet and followed where she was pointing. “What the… why did she give us such a large bathtub? That is like… suspiciously large.”

It was true too, the thing was massive, like the biggest barrel I’d ever seen, but cut in half. It looked like it would only just fit through the door. How the hell were we going to move it?

“Yeah… wow,” Lynlyn murmured, poking at it with a finger like it might get up and bite us.

Getting up, I wobbled my way over to one of the crates and tried to open it, only to find that there was no way these pitifully weak arms were going to be cracking this thing. Did I have like, a knife or anything? Aha, yup… one rusty knife sitting in my inventory, nice!

Summoning the cheap blade into my hand, I got it wedged under the lid of the crate and with an embarrassing amount of effort, got it open. My arms were very unhappy with me by the end of it.

“Kitchen stuff!” I exclaimed, poking at all the metal things suspiciously. I saw pots, pans and all sorts in there.

“Nice, let’s crack open the others and see what we’ve got!” she smiled, hopping to her feet and pulling one of her nicer knives from a sheath at her hip.

Together we worked our way through the pile like it was medieval peasant’s christmas, except without the rampant disease and starvation. We found a small table, four chairs, a large robust workbench, basic tools, a ratty old sofa and a few other things. I was most intrigued by the large mirror, something that stood out as being obviously more expensive than the rest of the stuff. I’d have to properly look at myself with that later.

With our hoard of stuff explored, it was time to do the same for the house. It was much longer than it was wide, we discovered as we pushed through the rear door and into a hallway. The first two doors, one on either side, appeared to open into storage rooms, the left one smaller than the right one to accommodate a staircase behind it. Past the cramped staircase the hallway opened up into a sort of kitchen and living room hybrid. On the right side of the room was a huge fireplace, while on the other side was a rugged countertop and rickety stone oven.

“This is… actually kinda nice,” Lynna murmured, stepping slowly into the middle of the room and spinning to take it all in. “We could put the sofa in the middle, pointing towards the fireplace.”

“And get some big comfy chairs to put there too,” I agreed, walking over to duck down and peer up the chimney, just to make sure it wasn’t blocked.

“Big enough to curl up in and read,” she said, smiling happily before she nodded for us to move on.

Past the main room was another hallway with rooms on either side. One appeared to be a washroom, where we’d probably put the big tub. The other was small, just a toilet that dropped down into a bucket and appeared to be removable from outside. I wonder how that worked? Did someone come and collect it or something? Beside that toilet room was another narrow staircase leading down into a small cellar, cool enough that we could probably store perishables down here.

The back door opened out into a small courtyard where it looked like we shared a well with a bunch of other buildings. The upstairs was smaller than the downstairs, three rooms of equal size that were probably meant to be bedrooms.

Our explorations complete, we found ourselves grinning happily at each other. “Wanna set everything up?” Lynna asked me, eyes alight with excitement.

“Yes!” I said, hopping a little on the spot and clapping once for emphasis. This. Was. Awesome!