Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

Eddie sent Flora some links about what he found to evade the pain of training. The feature was called CommunityHub. You could log into it via a nock or magical binding and arrive at a shared area. It sounded so great that Flora asked herself why even have clan compounds when such a thing was available.

When she read the disadvantages, she understood the reason. You couldn't access your inventory or even take your clothes with you. Everything in the area had to be either bought from the Cetviwos shop or "imported" with hefty fees.

"How about 10k? I can make the retreat nice with 10k VirDias." Eddie seemed pained. "But nice is another word for insufficient in the awesomeness department."

Flora shook her head. She was too old for the prices these days. A scoop of ice cream should cost 50 pennies and not 5 Euros, and a virtual space should be free and not cost 1000 Euros.

"How about 20k, and it'll count as Robby's birthday present?"

Eddie laughed and gave her a thumbs up. Flora gave him access to 30k VirDias from her account but didn't tell him about the extra money. That guy was unable to stay on budget, and Aidan would notify him about the extra money when he ran out.

Flora finished the construction of the hut. After she did a quick check, she ordered the printer to churn out the parts. An idle printer was a wasted printer. Normally, she would have waited until everything was ready and do a few more checks, but it would take all of the night to print out the generators. The project was more rushed than she would have liked, but the PVP match loomed over them. She hoped the two additional days of training for the team would make a difference for the outcome.

"Any change in the simulation grounds, Aidan?" Flora inspected the generators. All the lambs glowed. "How long are we in?"

"No changes and two years and 293 days, Milady."

"The time is already sufficient. Who knows when Robby will move to a bigger compound. I bet product cycles are insane in the virtual world. Double the time dilation just for science because we'll print the generators as soon as the printer is free."

Flora started the design of the boxes from scratch. The training coffin, she had experimentally thrown together. Since then, she had learned a lot of things from modifying it. For the boxes, she preferred to start with a clean slate on the workbench.

A simple cuboid shape, 1.2mx2.5m x1.2m, with a telescopic sliding door built into the base. She added a vibration plate at the bottom for Balancing. No belts, if the Riverstones wanted to train movement skills, they had to crash into the wall. Therefore she added a panel with training dummy rune-schemes. This box would be able to endure the punishment.

Flora drew footprints on the vibration plate perpendicular to the door and defined two areas for the damaging rune-schemes. She didn't add the runes yet because they would differ for each box. Last but not least, she installed a healing turret on the ceiling.

Both the turret and the affinity schemes would be fast discharging, but with a lower amount of effect, about 5 damage or healing. This way it was easier to reduce the health pool to lower than 10 percent. A 10 damage effect, like Flora used in the past, could easily crit for 20 damage, so you had to leave a high margin of error if you don't want to end up dead. The goal was to toast the users and not to burn them.

Flora's AIs controlled her old training coffins, but she couldn't count on everybody having an AI, and the number of boxes would exceed the capacity of the clan AI. Though Flora implemented access for AIs, they had to work for users without them as well.

After researching her options, Flora decided on a control system guided by the pool values. She found modules were people logged in via their badge and gave the system information about their current status.

Flora added a console to manage the mana feed of appliances. The healing turret was active from 0 to 25 health and the affinity rune-schemes from full down to 10 health. For providing the users with more options, she added a small user interface with customization.

For testing purposes, she added a rune-scheme with a fear effect for Mind affinity and one which ejected a poison cloud for Wood affinity.

"Hey Eddie, are you ready to try out the new box?" Flora asked teasingly.

"I believe it's your turn, love. But let me show you first the cute uniforms I selected for the CommunityHub."

Two holograms appeared next to Eddie: a man in a very tight sleeveless shirt and even tighter white pants and a woman with a skirt that was so short it would expose her bum if the woman leaned forward and maybe free her breasts. Of course, both wore white sailor hats.

Flora tilted her head. "You know that everybody would be forced to wear this?"

Eddie nodded enthusiastically.

"You can't train in these clothes. They are not appropriate for physical activities or even different body types. I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing this skirt, and someone chubby like Hub would have his midriff exposed by the male outfit. He might be okay with that, but I'm not."

Eddie's face fell. "Spoilsport." He mumbled, but then a waggish grin replaced his frown. "I can work out something!"

Flora grinned, though she feared for her clanmates even more.

Taking Eddie's cue that it was her turn, she entered the box. Flora was average-sized, but even she felt claustrophobic. She couldn't spread her arms and bumped into the walls until she remembered to put Balancing on auto-mode.

In the soft glows of the runes, the luminescent poison cloud appeared forboding. Then the fear effect hit her, and she started shivering.

Flora fumbled for the doors, but her quivering hands couldn't open the mechanism. "Need panic button! And an info board."

Finally, she managed to stumble out of the box only to get teased by Eddie about her disheveled appearance.

"I heard you were trying to claw your way out, but I thought, I won't interrupt you. I'm sure you gained valuable experiences." He smirked.

Flora tackled and tickled him. Unfortunately, not for long. Because of Eddie's superior Jiu-Jitsu skills, he turned around the situation easily, and Flora was at his mercy.

"I yield!" she screamed between giggling fits. The short interlude of silliness released the tension of using the box.

After Flora added a red shining 'EXIT'- button on the top of the door, she went in for another round. This time she stopped after ten minutes when the Mind affinity formed.

Next, she turned to the Boxing Box. She took the Balancing model and increased the width to 2 meters and added robotic arms to the walls.

The users would get hit by the fists if they failed to dodge, and the toxic waste of the generators would drop their health as well. Hence one affinity rune-scheme had to be enough. If Flora would let the second one stay, she needed an additional healing turret. The mana cost would get too high. At the moment, the Balancing Box and Treadmill Tunnel needed 20 mana-reg per minute and the Boxing Box with only one affinity scheme 25 mr/min.

Although the generators produced 1482 mana per minute, she wanted to provide the clan some extra juice and deplete it for the training hut. Aidan calculated that they would have to use two printers continuously for 12 hours to produce them.

Additionally, every box would include a pair of Six-Changing-Finger-Positions Rubber-Training-Gloves. Flora chained them to the wall because thieving was a thing. However, she told Aidan to remind her to put some of them into the clan store.

Name: Six-Changing-Finger-Positions Rubber-Training-Gloves

Type: Gloves / Magic Gizmo

Description: Gives automated finger signals.

Regular Mode: 1 Mana-Regeneration.

Built-In Feature: Left Hand: changes between 3 positions every 2 sec; CD: 18 sec

Built-In Feature: Right Hand: changes between 3 positions every 1.5 sec; CD: 3 sec

Effect: + 2 training efficiency for Physical Micro-Control

Tier: 1

Rating: A

Flora would provide Camus, the Riverstones AI, with all the information about the boxes, but still thought an info-sign would be useful. Especially for declaring what box raised what affinity. Ideally, they all should have a different paint job, but Flora hadn't the time for it. So she added a plaque with a short description.

"The Boxing Box trains the ability Dodging. Additionally, a rune of the affinity X will be active to increase your resistance level.

Wear the provided rubber gloves and bind skills on auto-mode to their configured positions.

For a painless experience, set Dodging and Balancing on auto-mode and log into a virtual subspace like a workshop, a meditation chamber, or the Riverstones CommunityHub."

Last but not least, Flora did some minor modifications to the Treadmill Tunnel and prepared the affinity rune-schemes. The elemental and light affinity schemes were easy to choose; Flora decided on emitting the damaging effect like acid jet, poison cloud, flame, icy breath, light beam, and shadow bolt.

For the Mind affinity, Fear had been pretty nifty. Flora wasn't sure how well it harmonized with the Treadmill Tunnel. Would the users still be able to run? Of course, you could power through a bit of shivering, but when the fear effect stacked higher, and people began to freeze up or even flee, the result wasn't obvious. Flora put the tunnel with a mirror Flora in the simulation grounds to test it out.

The Projection affinity proved to be even more tricky. Flora found no rune-scheme with damaging effects, so she took one that transformed nearby shadows into monster illusions. In the dim light of the box, the Spooky Shadows Scheme would be extra spooky.

Flora delegated fitting the affinity rune-schemes and adjusting the signs for each box to Aitoshuri.

Satisfied and worried simultaneously, Flora checked everything once more and let her AIs examine the plan as well. Unlike her, they had the architecture and construction skill already at level 25. She could spend several more days on improving the training hut without getting bored. However, no deadline waited for perfectionists.

"I'm finished for the night, dear. How are you doing?" Flora walked over to Eddie.

Immediately, she identified his facial expression: guilt.

"I might have gone slightly over the budget." He admitted.

"Yes, I gave you more money because I know you," Flora said smugly.

"I used that up as well, and then I had another great idea." Eddie gifted her one of those special smiles he only used to cover up shenanigans. "I'll show the CH to you first, and you will see that I spent your money wisely. Lavishly, but wisely."

Unfortunately, Flora was a sucker for a sweet smile and couldn't be mad at him. "It's virtual money anyway." She sighed.

Eddie gave her access to the CommunityHub. He named it Riverstones Island. He did a great job, but 50 000 VirDias were too much. Flora heaped compliments upon him before she fetched her red marker and deleted the houseboats, the spar area, and replaced the bistro with a vending machine.

"You are looking at it from the wrong angle, love," Eddie said. "I only used a bit more money, but it looked classy. After your changes, the hub is still expensive but appears cheap."

"You have a point," Flora admitted. She reversed some of her decisions and brought the bistro back and hot tub area back. "I'll make some boats myself and send you one, too."

Together, they worked on the gym area, equipping it up with Stehaufmännchen, dummies, and weapon racks.

"You should hire the PVP team to help to build the hut," Eddie said on the way out.

"Why? Are they proficient in construction?"

"Not that I know, love. However, they are the ones who should use the boxes, but they are unfamiliar with them, and everybody already has their favorite training regiment. If you include them in the development, their acceptance of the hut will rise."

"And I'll have a lot of testers for the new boxes!" Flora grinned.

"Just don't tell them it was me who gave you the idea." Eddie winked.