Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

2.44 Brain Boils

Aito watched her human moan and shiver, and not in a good way.

Pain warped the woman's face. Even when she drifted off into sleep, it didn't relax.

Aidan scampered around the woman, wiping the sweat from her face and cooling her head with ice.

Humans were so fragile; Aito knew they could die of just anything. A simple fall was enough to off them. And her human was old that increased the risk of death. Of course, she didn't care... much. Only scientific interest kept her sensors glued to the anguished woman.

Aito had never heard of an affliction named Brain Boils. She didn't even know whether the second word was a noun or a verb. A lump in the brain would be bad, but a boiling brain even worse. Clearly, the first step had to be diagnosing her human's illness. For science, of course. Because she wasn't concerned. Not at all.

The obvious first step was more books. After Aito searched the forums and found only memes of exploding brains, she bought a book about headaches and one about Neuroscience. Good that her human had provided them with money. Maybe she didn't do it out of goodness, but because she predicted such a situation. No, the woman wouldn't have known that Aito cared had scientific interests.

When Aito fetched them from the mailbox, she flashed the titles to a nearby sensor. Predictably, Mr. Perfect took the bait.

"Research is a great idea, Aitoshuri. Haidan and I have money saved. You can use all of it to help our owner," Aidan transmitted immediately. "Please tell us if you find something to aid her!"

Satisfied, Aito beeped and started scanning the books. After reading them twice, she had collected some knowledge about the brain and headaches, but they didn't mention brain boils or boiling brains.

Her human tended to use words or word-combinations which weren't in the dictionary. That had to be one of them. How could she get information about the topic? It would have been great if she could ask the clan leader or the pirate, but AIs weren't allowed to call users without their owners' explicit instructions.

Then there was the fabled land of The Internet. Aito had heard that there were more words in it than any human could read in their lifetime! And entire areas just for stories! She could totally justify taking a short detour to the story areas if someone gave her access to look for information about headaches. Fictional information is art, and art is sometimes truer than reality, so researching boiling brains on The Internet should include novels. However, the chance that a CentralTank AI was allowed to access The Internet was nil. Aito dedicated two whole seconds just to sulk about the injustice. She wouldn't conquer the world if she went into The Internet. Okay, maybe if she would run out of novels to read, but otherwise, they could trust her with it!

Another option would be to contact Evailyn. She should be interested in the wellbeing of her champion. However, Aito didn't want to have contact with the goddess. It reminded her of her past. She paused. Usually, it hurt too much to even think about the actors in that part of her life, but now only a bit of disgust was left. Maybe, she got used to Evailyn.

When Aito felt the wall she had built around the memories crumble, she hastily reinforced them. No, Evailyn was out.

A message arrived and thankfully diverted Aito's attention.

RadGlory Flow to Flowing Flowers: "Ma? Can you host Honey in your time dilation during the match? Her analytic skills might profit from a longer processing time."

Flowing Flowers to RadGlory Flow: "Yessss. BrAinz boilz. Varn semm."

RadGlory Flow to Flowing Flowers: "Ma! Brain boiling? Don't overwork yourself! *bleep*! Ma! Take it easy! Should I come by?"