Esmie the Calamity Chapter 28

HEY! I don't know how many of you remember, but I promised several years ago that this story would be free on Fluff4.me. Well, it's now up there! This chapter in particular can be found by following this link.

I was going to do a proper gaming stream where I was going to do proper gamer stuff. I was going to dodge roll and parry and maybe even kill bosses! It was going to be amazing.

That’s why I was out here in the forest again, where the scary monsters were. Except that it would be I, Esmie, who would be the monster today, for I was going to be the best killer of enemies ever, and nobody was going to be able to stop me.

Also, I forgot all the stream ideas I had, so it was basically this or nothing. Not doing anything would mean that Ruth would be very upset, and nobody wanted that.

My stream began to blink a countdown, and the helper person who helped me set it up, turned off their camera and disappeared into a little chat window. I didn’t really know them well, and this was our first time working together, so… yeah, anyway.

The countdown hit one, and suddenly my chat was filled with a whole bunch of excited emojis. I had… oh, four hundred viewers. Was that a lot? I wasn’t sure… but considering there was like, a whole lot of people in the world, it seemed small. Oh well, I guess this was still four hundred people I could make laugh with my goofy idiocy.

“Hi everyone! It's Esmie here! Everyone ready to watch the latest calamity— uh, I mean… adventure?” I grinned, waving to the little glowing camera.

Chat all spammed various greetings back, but I noticed one in particular.

ShortAndStout: Where even are you, lmao?

“I'm in a forest!” I said, gesturing around me.

It was the same forest as usual, but I was deeper into it than I'd ever been. Tall pines went way up, getting pointier as they rose. If any really big monsters fell on this forest, it would probably hurt.

“So, I'm going to go exploring!” I said cheerfully.

It turns out, talking to a bunch of really fast moving comments was kinda fun. A few people were obviously being idiots and saying nasty things, but their chats quickly vanished.

“No, I'm not lost!” I laughed, as someone accused me of that most unfortunate of conditions. “Can’t be lost if you never had a destination to begin with!”

xX_KoolKaT_Xx: Directionally challenged Femdalf

Pushing a branch out of the way, I tilted my head at the camera. “What’s a Femdalf?”

I waited a second for the reply, but if one came, it was drowned in a sea of laughing emojis. Oh well, I guess I could ask Lynlyn tonight. Oh, more chats!

ShioriSlide: Oh, so that's where you are.

Shiori? Wait, why was she watching?

A sudden flash of our night together hit me like one of these trees. The way the curve of her fit in my hand, and the sensation of skin on skin.

“H-hi Shiori!” I squeaked, desperately clawing my composure back before I actually walked into—

Thunk.

Stars danced in my vision, until they weren’t stars anymore, but little crying laughing emojis. My chat was laughing at me!

“Don’t distract me,” I grumbled. “I’m doing serious exploring.”

It was very serious too, because I couldn’t even see the city anymore. It was only forest and shrub, and jarring beams of sunlight that sometimes flashbanged me as I walked. Nature was a lot. Like, the smells were nice and healthy one second, until you got downwind of something hideous and oh no, its time to smell awful shit!

An odd, non-wolf howl made me forget all about my grumping in an instant. Suddenly, the sound of the wind in the trees wasn’t nice and relaxing, it was downright ominous. What kind of monsters could be using the creaking and swishing as cover while they prepared to pounce?

I was just a little creature. I didn’t deserve to get eaten!

My chat was babbling at me, with some people telling me to run, while others were telling me to hide. I decided to run, because I could be pretty speedy when I wanted to be. Well, I liked to think was speedy.

Now running headlong through the woods, I held my hands up in front of my face to stop myself from getting whipped by long and springy branches. The shrubs and ferns of the forest became a blur as I stumbled and wobbled and sprinted my way in the opposite direction from the howling. There were more of the howls too, and they were coming from out to my sides. I was being properly hunted!

Heart pounding, I leapt over a large fallen log and stumbled as my foot caught on something heavy. I tumbled end over end, but thankfully, my fluff and squish saved me from taking too much damage.

Blearily, I propped myself up and looked around. What the heck? Someone had built a bunch of really short walls all over the place. Why would they do that? Some poor squishy individual could just flop over one! Like, right now!

With maximum pout energy, I wobbled to my feet and looked around. So many short stone walls— oh! Except over there. That place had taller walls, and pillars too! It looked like shelter, and shelter was what I needed because the monsters hunting me didn’t sound very friendly.

The ground here was covered in all sorts of nice, lush plants, which made it really annoying to get through. I trampled so many flowers and shrubs on my way to the shelter. Hopefully the plants would forgive me? I wasn’t hopeful, though. I was a plant murderer now — on the run from the plant cops.

“Hey chat, do you think plants have a judicial system?” I asked absently as I wiggled my way over a wall with extreme competence and grace.

Chat didn’t have very long to be confused by my random scatterbrained question before they were watching me do my best bowling ball impression. The shelter wasn’t a shelter… it was a very steep staircase leading way, way down into the ground.

Wait. If the cruel hand of fate was going to send me rolling down some stairs, I may as well play into it. Hah, take this, fate!

With all of my strength and flexibility, I curled myself up into a proper orbular shape and allowed myself to just… roll with it.

“H-he-y ch-at,” I said as I began to bounce, sproing, and ricochet my way down the stairs at a pace that was honestly very alarming. “L-le-t me kn-ow whe-n I sho-uld un-ball, okay?”

Every time I hit something really hard, I lost my breath for a moment, but to my surprise, I still hadn’t taken damage! Oh my gosh, maybe I was immune to bonk damage?

A wall very quickly stopped me, and put a big ol’ thumbs down in the face of my hopes by dropping my health real low.

“Ow,” I gasped, as the pain binkied merrily up through my nerves. “Chat, can I un-ball now?”

Opbroment: Yes.
CreatureTech: No!

Chat was not being very helpful, so I un-balled without their permission and looked around. My squish was absolutely caked in all sorts of yucky grime, which I did not appreciate.

I was in a dark, damp stone hallway that had like, crazy cracks through it. It was kinda long actually, but twisted along its length like a piece of licorice. Dirt and moss had collected in every corner, and the walls were covered in mushrooms. I was probably breathing in all sorts of yucky things. Thankfully I could just heal or die, and that would fix any long term lung conditions I'd get from rawdogging dungeon funk.

“Well… this place is cool,” I said, looking over at the little camera orb. “What do you think? Explore?”

Chat wholeheartedly agreed, so I began to wander down the hallway. I didn't even take one whole step before a howl echoed down the stairs.

I paused and huffed with frustration. “Those stupid monster wolf things are still going for me? Being a prey animal is rough, guys.”

I flicked my big floppy bunny ears out for emphasis. Time for running, I think.

Dirt and fungi complained silently when my sudden zoomies sent it flying everywhere. The hallway kept twisting as I ran, but it started doing a little bit of a drunk sideways turn to go with the twisting.

I started running just in time, because a whole bunch of crazy things came tumbling down the stairs. They weren't rolling though. They just used their legs, like boring people. They only had legs, too. No arms, not even a second set of legs, or even places where either used to be. They were just big, vaguely orbular bundles of muscle, spikes, and rage.

ShortandStout: In a way, they also did a ball thing with the stairs.

“They started out as orbs! That's cheating,” I complained breathlessly.

Abruptly, I found myself confused by an odd vibration from under my feet. It was like the floor moved just a little. I didn't stop running, of course, but I did look back.

It started with a clicking, but very soon it turned into a smooth whispery sighing. The air became alarmingly full of darts.

Right. Behind. My. Butt.

“Oh, fu—mble-spoon!” I squeaked, narrowly dodging a chiding from Ruth at the same time as I dodged the blizzard of pointy behind me.

The orb-puppies were not so lucky. Growling yelps echoed down the passage, sounding like a drain burping up a dozen lost keys. It was, honestly, a very distressing sound.

Then, I did a very good impression of one of those keys when the hallway ended, but I kept running out into open air. Great news, I had more room to manoeuvre — in all six directions! Unfortunately, the illusion of choice was shattered when gravity gently rammed me groundward.

I bounced. Once, twice, three times, until I rolled to a stop in the loving embrace of some moss. Wait. No. It was crawling. Bad moss! Too loving!

Wiggling and squirming, I crawled to my feet and stomped on the moss. It squealed and retreated.

I was inside a very large room, full of lots and lots of fungi and moss, and nice decorative dead skeletons. It was very dungeon chic. It was kinda funny, actually, how specifying that the skeletons were dead was relevant… because they actually weren't. All over the room, the skeletons were beginning to stand up.

Instinctively, I whapped the closest one on the forehead with my palm. “No! Back to sleep!”

To my utter surprise, it did nothing. I was a bit too weak, I guess?

Well, if at first you don't succeed…

Out of the satchel at my hip, I pulled an odd clay vial of— oh, it was all crunched up, and there was potion gunk all over the inside of my satchel. Gosh damn, crap! My orb moment! My poor potions…

Wait. I wonder what would happen if I just… tipped it out on the skeleton?

So, I stopped wondering and instead, I did science. Sloppy potion-clay sludge spilled out onto the animating pile of bones.

Now, to put it very mildly, the skeleton wasn't a fan of my latest experiment. It squirmed as the slurry began to eat away at its bones, causing a nasty, sizzling smoke to waft off it.

With one hand holding the satchel, and the other on my hip, I said, “There. I told you to go back to sleep. This is what happens when you don't listen to m—”

Ten metres above me, a multitude of muscled, orbular pincushions tumbled out of the open hole in the wall.

“Oh,” I said, giving my floating camera a sheepish grin. I shoulda kept running, huh?”