Esmie the Calamity Chapter 18 (Patreon)

** This one's a two parter :D. **

Esmie’s PoV

Showing Iria around the house was a quick affair, because apparently she’d already watched our recordings. That was sort of embarrassing, but it saved time, I guess.

As we were showing her around the house, however, we came to a realisation. We had a problem. There used to be three bedrooms in the house, but one had been converted into a crafting room instead. Even more of a problem, we had nothing for her to sleep on even if we cleared out the crafting room.

“I’ll just take one of the storage rooms, for now,” Iria said, giving both Lynna and I a super chill smile. She was such a chill person in general, so her smiles were like rank 2 chill. Her smiles were also really cute and hot, so there was a lot of multi-classing going on.

Lynlyn, who was sitting on the kitchen countertop, frowned and glanced sideways towards the storage room in question. “Okay, but I think we should work on swapping them soon. Plus, getting you a bed, obviously.”

“There’s no rush,” Iria said, shrugging. “I’m used to worse, to be honest. At least it’s safe here. That’s a first.”

“It’s okay, I’ll protect you,” I grinned impishly, reaching over to pat her big, strong, squishy thigh. “Plus, we are sitting on a couch that you can sleep on.”

She laughed and looked down at my hand, which had utterly failed to leave once its job was done. “Thanks, I was worried. If you’re here to protect me, I’ll definitely feel safe.”

Her eyes rose to meet mine, and the spark of electricity that snapped between us was enough to finally move my hand from her leg. It was just so damned juicy looking. I wanted to touch it more, maybe nibble it a little. Gosh.

I had to swallow a lump in my throat before I could speak, and when I did, my voice was small and breathless. “O-obviously you’re actually like super competent and I’m a fumbling noob, so yeah. Uh… I was joking, or something.”

"Yes, I'm aware," she said with one of her little giggles.

God they were cute. How could that guy I met in the meeting with Ruth be the same person as Iria? I mean, I guess… actually nah, it made sense. Iria's giggle was just his laugh filtered through this new voice, I could see it now.

It was so fascinating, seeing how their mannerisms translated over. I was so confused too, because Iria was all kinds of attractive.

Over on the kitchen bench, Lynlyn coughed. "Well. Now that we have you here, I uh… I might go and do a few easy fetch quests or something, get some experience."

Iria bolted up off the couch in a rush, surprising both me and my childhood friend. "Can I come? I'd like to put in a little work catching up to the both of you in levels. If that's okay, of course. No hard feelings if you want to spend some time alone."

Oh. I guess I was being abandoned. That was fine. I'd go and uh… eat some gross rat person tongues, I guess. Woo.

The other two quickly got their shit together and wandered out the door, leaving me alone on the ratty old couch to think about my life. I was sort of glad that Iria was gone though, because for the first time since I’d seen her, I felt like I could take a full breath.

She was… god, a lot. With Lynlyn, I found her attractive but it didn’t overpower me like with Iria. This new girl was like fire in my veins, and the gap between her thighs was the spark that ignited it. Other sparks of potential ignition included the curve of her hips as they moved into the soft swell of her thighs, or the way her smile held nothing more than the amusement and happiness it was meant to convey.

I’d never ever felt like this before, and it was… exciting. I wonder if she felt the same? What was I even feeling anyway? Was it just lust? Had my feelings for Lynlyn always been just a platonic admiration of her looks, and this was true attraction? Or was this more? Had I somehow developed proper romantic feelings for someone in the space of a few hours?

I made my way up the rickety wooden staircase, still deep in thought on the subject, then into the crafting room. I had a feeling these tongues were actually going to be fairly useful, so I pulled one out once I’d sat down.

The room was already a mess, after only a week of getting into alchemy. Crude clay jars were scattered haphazardly around the room, each holding some sort of ingredient. They were the cheapest container I could find, but without labels, it was difficult to figure out which was which. I’d be upgrading to glass jars as soon as possible, plus labels. Soon. I hoped.

The tongue was all gross and slimy, so the first thing I did was to place it onto a little clay dish and cast a dehumidifying spell on it. Lynna was going to be quite upset if she realised that I’d spent precious skill points on a silly little spell like that, but it made my job so much easier. Sun drying was for mundane people, not magical bunnies.

Since I was the magicalest of all bunnies, it was within my right to make magic spells that dried out gross slimy tongues so I could eat them. Yup. Of course, there was one slimy tongue I didn’t at all think of as gross…

Ahem. Anyway.

Once it was fully sapped of all moisture, I placed it into my mortar and began to carefully grind it up with the pestle. It was a soothing task, I had discovered, and it allowed my mind to wander freely, processing any random thoughts and ideas that were bouncing around in my head at the time.

Of course, this time my thoughts were drawn like iron filings to a certain new friend and her magnetic smile.

Once I was done, I got my jug of water ready and dipped my finger into the sketchy looking powder. Here goes nothing! I popped it into my mouth and cringed, waiting for whatever awful taste the game was going to spring on me this time. Nothing, just a slight saltiness and some vague savoury notes. Huh. Okay.

New Alchemical Discovery!
Dried Ratman Tongue:
Having consumed the dried and powdered tongue of a ratman, you discover that it has weak poison purification and duration extension properties.

Huh. Sweet! I could totally use that with the delidrion to create a cute little regeneration potion! Assuming it was at all useful after the ratman tongue was done doing its thing. Apparently weaker poison purification ingredients tended to also kill some of the effectiveness of the buffs you actually wanted.

Taking one of my little clay vials, I carefully poured a little water, then some alcoholic base into it. I decided to try first with three parts delidrion to one part rat tongue and see how it went.

After mixing it up, I downed the vial and waited, staring at my buffs and debuffs screen to see if it popped up. Then, after a few seconds, it did! Even better, I didn’t vomit everywhere!

Bouncing up off my seat, I did a silly little dance and pumped my fists in the air. I had done it, I’d made a cute little potion that actually did something useful! I was an alchemy bunny! An.. ah… an alchebunny! Yes! Perfect. Now, let’s see what my potion actually did…

Huh, so it was pretty shitty with its healing effect, but it lasted… wow! Two whole days?! That’s nuts! How?

Time to make up another vial and cast a potion appraisal spell on it. That one I hadn’t used any skill points on. It came with leveling up alchemy, which was nice. The fact that appraise ingredient was so high up the skill tree had me questioning if the designers were sadists, though.

Ohhh that was interesting! The ratman tongue had consumed some of the potency of the delidrion to create the extended duration, and since there was more healing than poison, just a weak healing effect had remained. What I needed to do now was find the exact amount of tongue to negate the poison, while leaving the healing effect as intact as possible.

The rest of my afternoon was spent this way, carefully dialing the ratios in until at last, I had figured it out. Eight parts delidrion to one part tongue did the trick, leaving me with a potion that gave a minor but useful healing effect over twenty two hours.

It wasn't anything amazing, unfortunately, but it was functional, and that's what mattered! My first potion!

With the little vial in hand, I did a little dance around the crafting room, giggling like a loon. I had finally done something right in this dang game! Next, I'd be making a—

Clonk.

The door opened abruptly, catching my foot and throwing me towards the ground. Iria, who had opened the door, lunged like a pouncing tiger, catching me before I hit the ground.

"Wow," I breathed, grinning up at her, heart racing. "Caught by the hot new girl twice in one day. I feel Blessed."

"Very funny," she replied, eyes twinkling with amusement.

Carefully, she pulled me back onto my feet. Her hands were so gentle as they held me, like I might shatter if she used too much of her strength.

"My savior," I giggled breathlessly, putting on a show. My mischievous side was flaring up, but I couldn't help it. She made the sensible part of my brain explode and shut down. "If there's anything I can do to thank you, let me know…"

"Oh, really now?" She whispered, ducking her head down close to mine. "You're a cheeky little thing, aren't you?"

My lungs seized up, refusing to function as she drew closer. All I could do was bite my lip and smile up at her, heartbeat pounding in my ears.

"Too bad, though," she laughed quietly. "I have a feeling that you're all talk. Plus, I'm not sure a girl like you is interested in a guy like me."

"You're not a guy," I murmured, my heart beating even harder as the mischief drained from my tone. "Not in here. Neither of us are…"

That seemed to give her pause, mouth opening just a hair, before she closed it again and quirked a thoughtful eyebrow at me. God, I could feel the warmth of her. We were standing so close, one of her arms still wrapped around my waist, forgotten amidst the increasingly serious flirting we'd been doing.

My thoughts crystalized into a decision, and I gently placed a hand flat against her stomach, relishing the feel of hard muscle beneath soft skin. "I was joking just before…" I whispered, my pulse smashing wildly through my veins like the running of the bulls. "... But I'm not now. Anything, Iria… anything."

Her eyes widened, staring into mine with an intensity that bordered on wonder. Then they flicked down to my lips for a heartbeat, before returning to their inspection of my soul. "Really?"

"You're so fucking hot," I smiled, unable to hold her gaze as a blush danced onto my cheeks. "And cute, and funny, and nice… so yeah, really."

I quivered as she gave me a slow, gentle, hungry smile in response. "Well, okay then…"

She was fast, using her formidable dexterity and strength to pin me against the rough wooden wall. My trust in her wasn't misplaced, though, because the whole movement had been fluid and remarkably gentle.

I moaned as her body followed mine, the larger girl surrounding me, enveloping me in a cocoon of warmth and lust.

"Yes," I murmured, low and breathless, only for the sound to be cut short as she leaned down and molded her lips to mine. Heat blazed through my body in a fever, sending a shudder down every nerve. O-oh gosh. Here we go...