Pirated Entertainment VR - Chapter 3 - COMMENT HERE (Patreon)

Continuing the adventure of Vice Regent Amourres, you will see what she sees as the game goes on, and from there all of you get to chime in with input. Ask questions, suggest what Amourres should have her do next, etc - I will respond to your comments and integrate them into the next post! Consider Amourres' motivations if you're wondering what to do, and let's have fun with this together! 

Written and illustrated by me

Cameo mouse-cow is VictorTheMaker who has been incredibly helpful in helping to edit the story! More cameo slots to open in the future <3

- - -  

“Arm yourself, then explore the captains quarters” - Firefox, Clayton, Cyr, Dornam

Realising just how vulnerable she was, Amourres resolved to find some form of self defence. Vague snippets of the hyena and squirrel’s conversation washed over her from down the deck as the raven moved towards the as of yet unexplored pistol rack. Walking was a little more difficult than she expected, the simulated rocking of the deck was something she had never had to deal with before and found herself clutching the railing before long, thankful it was there. 

Clutching the wooden railing she was able to get a proper look at the simulated ocean - as she suspected it was holograms overlaid with holograms but the effect was surprisingly realistic for inferior pirate technology. If she didn’t look too hard she might be able to convince herself she really was standing on the deck of an olden-day sailing ship, choppy ocean waters jostling its hull, nothing but sea stretching out towards the horizon. 

That wasn't strictly speaking true, she realised, as a shadow beneath the longboats caught her attention. Something about the way the holograms laced together beneath them was different to the rest of the simulated ocean. It made sense, boats couldn’t exactly float on holographic light, but she couldn’t make out what the alternative was. She didn’t strain her eyes looking, but instead turned towards the gun rack.

Flintlock pistols? Certainly a far shot from the technology available by today’s standard. Despite her reliance on others to get menial things done, Amourres had taken it upon herself to have some familiarity with the standard laser pistol - her weapon of choice. It was sleek, elegant, concealable and most importantly suffered none of the horrible recoil that kinetic munitions often had. None of the weapons came close to the kind of arms she was used to, and most were designed with hands in mind, difficult to operate to say the least with her large wings. There were however two which featured the special trigger guard required for avian use; a short blunderbuss of a pistol with green inlays that looked vaguely moist, and a longer, more elegant looking pistol with vines carved into the grip. Opting for accuracy and elegance, Amourres picked the latter, sliding her wing into its grip and pulling the weapon up. 

By now the squirrel and hyena, apparently oblivious to her presence, had wandered down to the lower decks. This suited Amourres fine, pistol with hand she strode with as much grace she could muster on the rocking deck towards the captain’s quarters. 

One set of heavy wooden doors later and she stood in what was actually a nice looking cabin, she presumed, for the time. A fine bed dominated most of the room, glass windows behind it. To the left was a large desk, a number of writing implements scattered across its surface to match the number of large (what was apparently) parchment sheets. The room looked almost lived in, with a large bookcase filled with honest to gods books, or at least something that looked strikingly like them, and opposite that was what appeared to be a massive wooden wardrobe. Amourres headed that way, it was bad enough her naked body had been broadcast across the galaxy for this long, she wasn’t going to stand for it a moment longer.

Unsurprisingly the wardrobe was full of theme appropriate clothing - and worse still most of it was designed for someone who was clearly not an avian. Discarding anything with long sleeves that might obstruct her wings, Amourres felt compelled to rush towards selecting an outfit that indicated the appropriate level of respect she was due, while conscious that every moment she wasted looking for something meant alliances could be made against her. For all she knew, the hyena and squirrel were already waiting outside with guns of their own. A somewhat stylish black dress and appropriate accompaniments were found, fitting snug on her chubby frame but not poorly. She even found a practical looking set of pants and a holster for her pistol, which she wasted no time in attaching to her new belt.

“Create a friendly environment around the contestants until you betray them.” - VeronicaTheDragoness

“Introductions then lonch, make nice over a meal.” - Gemini, Benadryl

“Let’s do some introductions,” - Tach

“I think that hyena would make a fine and motivated servant.” - VictorTheMaker

Clothed and looking more like a rugged pirate than she had any desire to, Amourres decided it was time to check up on the others. She carefully exited the captain’s quarters to a deserted deck - it seemed as though they hadn’t come back up. She wasn’t immediately sure whether or not that thought comforted or distressed her. Either way, she figured it would behoove her to make a proper introduction and assess just how useful they might be. 

The wind picked at her admittedly skimpy looking dress as Amourres made her way across the deck, making her glad to have the pants as a backup. One wing resting gently but reassuringly on her pistol, she approached the stairwell downwards and began to descend, the smell of warm food wafting from it enticing her towards salivation. 

The sight she was greeted by at the bottom of the staircase was a complicated one; the lower deck was largely dominated by a massive dining table (an inconvenience for any real ship, she would imagine) covered in fine, theme appropriate foods. Whole roast animals were sitting there, trickling fat from their crispy skin and emanating steam. Massive bowls of cooked vegetables were scattered here and there along with larger pitchers of drink, both giving off a vaguely buttery scent. The hyena from before had apparently decided to sate his hunger, sitting down at the table and digging in, only now he looked distressed. He made muffled grunting sounds and looked at her with something approaching a mix between desperation and bliss as his arms, as though on autopilot, reached for the next thing to stuff in his mouth. Buttery rolls, meats floating in pools of gravy, he didn’t bother with elegance or utensils, preferring to cram whatever he could into his mouth with his bare, food splattered hands. 

Any other time, Amourres would have been impressed.

Standing beside the table was a veritable blob of a person, a rat all but compressed into what appeared to be a maid’s dress. Any normal material would be bursting at the seams trying to contain all that blubber but somehow this dress managed to keep itself together enough to keep the rat’s massive, billowing gut from scraping across the floor. Amourres would have to ask for their tailor, if she got out of all this. All things considered the rat was a cute creature, carrying a boulder of lard for a stomach with two massive breasts held in check by their apron. Their brown hair was tied neatly behind their head, two bovine horns poking from it. Greyish fur with darker splotches could be seen spilling out from where-ever their outfit permitted it, as they lifted new dishes to place within reach of the hyena, taking empty plates away.

“There there,” they cooed, “you wanted to be first to the table, now you get all you can eat. And trust me, the captain would be mighty displeased to see anything left over.” 

The hyena made another desperate sounding grunt, his arms hovered in place for a moment as he mustered the will to try and stop, try and get up, try and do anything, but all too quickly his stained hands plunged into a pile of mashed potato and he started shoving the buttery mass into his mouth. Already his formerly washboard thin stomach had started softening out, growing into a sizable pot belly that was soft with digested fat. Whatever was in this food, it looked like it was turning straight to blubber. 

On the other side of the table the squirrel from before was looking on with horror. Of course, Amourres thought to herself, she had never seen people balloon into balls of lard like I have, this must come as a shock. She was a brown squirrel with lighter patches on her stomach, darker patches on her hands and feet. She pointed at the hyena, looking towards Ammoures with the kind of expression that screamed ‘help?!’ 

“He-he,” she stammered, finger hovering in the direction of the slowly fattening hyena, “he said he was hungry... pushed me out of the way... then he just... he just kept eating. I don’t think he can stop...” 

Amourres quirked an eyebrow while she considered the situation. The food was probably spiked with something. Even if hyenas tended towards the gluttonous, they could typically pull themselves away from a meal long enough to speak. The squirrel seemed a little useless, but she had been surprised by such people before. The rat was a new and interesting piece of the puzzle, but they seemed to be occupied by helping the hyena eat enough food for a ship. For the hyena’s part, his gut was slowly pushing towards his knees, creasing against the table as he crammed more food into it. As Amourres watched, she could see the rest of him was starting to soften up as well, a thin layer of blubber beginning to coat his once toned arms and legs.

A swinging lamp above illuminated the rest of the deck. Behind the ramp leading down there were cannons and cannon ports and what looked like a storage room. Beside the table in front of her she could see tapped looking kegs of some kind of fluid - a fruity scent came from them. There looked to be no mugs or cups that she could see of any kind, not even on the table. Past the table another ramp leads down, deeper into the ship. 

----

Status: Healthy, Hungry (ack, just my luck the feast was tainted!)

Status Effects: n/a

Inventory: pirate garb

Weapons: elegant looking pistol with vine engraving

You See: a panicking squirrel, a gorging hyena, an enabling rodent-hybrid, a (probably) tainted feast, a few barrels of something to drink

Motivations: Food (I feel like my stomach is trying to eat the rest of me), Competition (One of my competitors is working on eliminating himself, the other two are apparently content to watch?)

Exits: South (ramp leading upwards), South (storeroom), North (ramp leading downwards)