Esmie the Calamity Chapter 9 (Patreon)

** Yay! Another chapter! This story is ssooooooo fun to write, like... omg. Silly silly fun. Mow. Anyway, enjoy! **

“So… hello everyone, I’m Lynna!” Lynna said with a wide, open smile. She’d linked me into her filming package, an aftermarket suite that had an AI camera that would do its best to capture good footage of us. Since I was linked into it, I could both see it and give it commands if we had a certain shot we wanted. Honestly, I doubted we’d be messing with it much.

“Uh, and… hi, I’m Esmie,” I said with a much more tentative smile. I could tell Lynna was turning on her acting talent, because she’d been nervous as hell this morning as we planned out our introduction. All that was wiped off her face now, replaced by a dazzling and frankly kinda cute smile.

Lynna nodded and used that smile of hers, wrapping an arm around my shoulders when I finished speaking. Almost automatically, I leaned in against her, enjoying the friendly human contact. To the camera, she said, “We’re not going to be talking to the camera too often, but figured for the first episode we’d introduce ourselves and what we’re up to!”

“Making a let’s play!” I agreed, turning to look at her as she stared up into the camera. We were out the back of our house in the old courtyard where the light was good in the morning, with the plan that we’d show them through the house.

“Yup!” my friend said, squeezing my slightly even as she gave me a quick look. “So Esmie and I have been friends for years, growing up together, going through high school and all that stuff. Which, by the way, for our Canadian and UNC viewers, high school includes middle school as well, because if you couldn’t tell from the accents, we’re from New Zealand!”

“They could tell cos I’m short, anyway,” I commented, with a grin that showed full well I knew my joke was terrible.

Lynna blinked, not even getting it for a second, then rolled her eyes. “The fur is meant to be on your feet, not your ears, you silly hobbit!” she giggled, reaching up to fluff my long lopped ears. That, of course, felt amazing, and I let out a hitching gasp.

Her eyes widened at the noise, but she did her best to pretend I hadn’t made it, and so did I. We’d promised not to be too sexual after all, and that noise had been… well, erotic.

Cheeks heating on both sides, we turned back to the camera, Lynna clearing her throat. “So uh, yeah… house tour!”

We did a quick tour of the house, explaining what it was we were doing and all that stuff while bickering and joking constantly. I mentioned that I was keen to do some crafting so one of the upstairs rooms would be our crafting area. Lynna was going to be learning to cook, both inside the game and outside. Well, mostly inside, but cooking inside would lead to skills outside. Anyway, finally we mentioned we’d be starting a shop to sell our wares.

“I don’t know when you’re going to see this, but I hope by the time you do, we have some stuff that’s worth selling,” Lynna grinned, nudging me with an elbow as we stood in the empty front room. “Esmie here might have crafted something worth buying!”

“I don’t even know what profession I’m going to pick up,” I said with a roll of my eyes, nudging her right back.

“Oh that’s easy,” she said, nudging me back again. We were going to start a nudging war if she wasn’t careful. “You’re going to pick all of them. You were amazing with the augmented reality builder programs in school.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but deflated with an embarrassed sigh. “Okay, fine. You have a point.”

“That’s my Esmie,” she giggled, wrapping me up in a spontaneous hug. A hug that had my brain melting down and fireworks exploding in my stomach. Oh my goodness, being hugged by her felt so nice. Feeling her hands wrapping around, gently holding tight to my soft girlish body. Wait, her Esmie? If anyone owned me, it was the goddess of squish.

“We should probably go and find a fetch quest, something simple to get some experience, since we’re both clearly going to need some levels before we go out into that forest to fight monsters,” Lynna said as she let me go, getting nothing but a blank look from me. I was still trying to process all the emotions that had just run through me.

“Yeah?” she prompted, tilting her head.

“Um, yes! Definitely!” I said quietly, voice a little rough. “I’m still like, level one.”

“Alright, back to the bounty board!” she exclaimed, pointing like her finger was a lance and she, a knight. Then she frowned and spun a little, trying to orient herself so she was actually pointing the right direction. “I give up, I can’t even remember where the bounty board was.”

“Maybe there will be one at the market?” I asked with a hidden smile. It was Lynna’s turn to be a cute dork.

“Oh, right,” she said, giving herself a light tap on the forehead. “That would make sense. Maybe there’s easier quests there.”

“Did we even start in a starter zone?” I asked, my tone close to a whine. I’d been killed instantly when we went to fight things.

“We did, in fact, start in a starter zone,” she told my with a wry, amused smile.

“Well, their starter zones are shit then,” I grumbled.

We wove our way through the back streets of the city, discovering that we were very much in a poorer area of the city. People seemed to be nice just the same though, waving greetings and generally not mugging us like stories told you would happen if you were in areas like this. We were totally part of the in crowd now.

Eventually the houses got nicer and the streets got wider, until we found our way to the main market place. I blinked for a moment as I took it in, something was different. It took me a moment to realise, but when my eyes drifted upwards into deep blue of the sky, I found a smile tugging at my lips. I could look up without totally freaking out! This was awesome!

Distracted as I was by looking up into the sky without my stomach turning to sludge, I missed it when Lynlyn wandered off in search of the bounty board. Rushing to catch up, I was almost back to her when my path was blocked by a looming shadow.

Blood drained from my face as I looked up into a hood that obscured all but the chin of the man before me. Wait a second, it was broad daylight! Hoods didn’t work like that, how was it doing that? Cheating! He was cheating!

“Well done back at the inn yesterday,” he said, gruff voice full of approval. “Nuthin’ gets the simple minds of men fixated faster than two lovely young women like yourselves gettin’ frisky. Damned fine work, lass, damned fine work.”

“O-oh… no problem!” I smiled, more than a little confused.

“Here’s your take,” he said in his rumbling voice, his hand appearing from within his billowing cloak to offer a small bag of coin.

I stared at it for a second, then grinned and took the coin purse from his rough outstretched palm. “Thanks dude. I had fun.”

“Aha, that was the right thing to say, little lass,” he exclaimed quietly, nodding approval. “A good thief always enjoys their work.”

You have advanced a quest: Join the Thieves Guild of Loury.

The thief from yesterday used your completely intentional distraction as a way to rob the patrons of the inn blind. You have now received your cut, all the while impressing the man further. Keep it up, whatever the hell it is you’re doing, because it’s working!

160 Experience gained!

You have gained a level! You are now level 2!

“Good day,” the man said while I was distracted by the notification, and before I could ask what I had to do next, he had disappeared into the crowd.

It took me a second of spinning in circles to realise he really had just vanished, and then to realise that I’d lost Lynna. Ah crap. Where the hell was she? Should I stand still and wait for her to come back, or go searching? She’d left in that direction, so maybe if I— 

“Jeez, Esmie. You’re like a kid sometimes,” she huffed, appearing next to me, along with a frown. “What are you doing just standing there?”

“I uh… leveled up,” I laughed, still slightly bewildered by the whole encounter.

That had her frown deepening. “What did you do?”

“Remember how I uh… did the thing… that starts with S. To your ears?” I asked, fighting a grin with all my heart… and squish.

“Yes?” she asked, looking more than suspicious now.

“Well… before that, I kinda nodded to this shady looking dude in the corner of the inn,” I began, my tail swishing happily behind me, betraying my feelings on the matter. “I got a quest saying I could try and join the thieves guild, and it looks like when we were uh… wrestling on the ground, he thought I was distracting everyone so he could steal from them.”

She blinked, her mouth opening and closing for several moments as she processed what I’d said.

“Just now, he turned up and gave me my share of the earnings,” I said, showing her the bag of coin. “And some experience. Apparently I’ve progressed to the next step of thieving!”

“Oh god damn it,” Lynna grumbled, palm to face. “Trust you to accidentally join the thieves guild.”

“Hey don’t talk to a member of the thieves guild like that, we protect our own you know,” I told her with a shit-eating grin. “It’s dangerous to mess with us. Next thing you know, I’ll have to like, steal your shirt or something. To defend my honour as a thief.”

“You’re not a thief!” she exclaimed, exasperation exploding out of her like feathers from a bird when it’s hit by a fast thing. Like, a train or something. Actually, probably more than just feathers would explode if a train hit it. Maybe just if it flew into a window or something. A few feathers of exasperation, not like a whole bird, with guts and blood and… you know what, nevermind, let’s not get too gross.

After a brief pause where I contemplated that silly analogy, I rushed to put my hand over her mouth again. “Quiet Lynlyn, the guards will hear you! I’m a wanted criminal now. We have to be careful!” I might be having a little too much fun with this.

She narrowed her eyes at me, then looked down at the hand… and licked it. I squealed, backpedalling and wiping my hand on my shirt. “Gross!” I exclaimed, pouting over at her.

“You asked for it!” she said, now sporting a silly grin. “Come on, I found the bounty board while you were uh… engaging in totally legitimate business.”

“Ohhh yeah, we were doing stuff!” I laughed, hopping over next to her. “Lead the way!”