Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

18. Free-Running Workshop and Coffin Optimization

On Flora's way out of the Clan Riverstones Headquarters, she ran into Hub.

"Hey, Auntie Flo! Are you enjoying the Cetviwos so far?" he hollered, and stage whispered to his four fantastically geared companions. "She's Rob's mama. Be polite, or otherwise, she'll ground our clan leader."

"That makes no sense, second boss," said an Arabic looking man with a saber as tall as Flora.

"When I punished Robby for Hubs faults, Hub lost the joy of the company of my son. And I hoped, Robby would either talk some sense into him or quit the friendship. Neither happened, but with time, I got kind of used to Hub." Flora smiled at him fondly. "Come on big man, give your little auntie a hug!"

Flora to Aidan: "Activate friendly fire!"

Hub's round face split into a grin and he opened his arms wide before he picked Flora up with a tight grip. Right away, Flora put her fingers together behind his shoulders. This action triggered the tasers.

Hub screamed like a teenage girl on the first concert of her favorite boyband.

"Since Robby is too old for grounding I've been learning other tricks." Flora donned her best humble-granny smile.

"Bleep! Auntie! You even gave me a radiation debuff!" Hub said, hurt feelings coloring his voice. It didn't help that his companions chuckled at his misfortune.

"The rest of us are really polite and nice, Boss Mum!" a busty witch proclaimed laughing. "I promise!"

They parted amidst friendly chatter at the teleportation circle, and Flora beamed to Trick Town.

Flora passed the Earthling Information and handed in yesterday's jumping quest and took up a new daily quest.

Daily quest 'Learning the ropes and rails':

Use ropes or rails in your tricks. Bonus: Do some antics on the 'Welcome to Trick Beach'-Rope.

Difficulty: E

Rewards: Reputation

Penalties: none

The bonus included the ropes Flora died on yesterday. She decided to wait a bit longer before repeating that stunt. 'I will go for the low-hanging fruits, um, low hanging ropes!'

On the way, she balanced on a rail and dangled off a rope and felt good about that she raised the quest-counter to 2/10 on her own.

Inside the Ricky's Runner Gym, a small crowd waited for the start of the WS: some early tweens who looked like they hadn't slept for a while, two bickering couples, and three athletic-looking young women.

Flora instructed Aidan to let her health regenerate to 50%. The loser's corner was far away, so she might need a buffer for pratfalls.

The workshop started easy enough with shoulder rolls. Flora already knew how to do these from the last lesson. She had a harder time with the dive roll afterward. Then they progressed to vaults. She managed to do the safety vault, turn vault and speed vault but had to take off the mech-suite for the kong vault. You needed to put your legs through your spread arms, and there wasn't enough space while wearing the bulky suit. Next came wall runs. Those were more to Flora's taste, and her rubber boots gave her a good grip. They finished the first part of the workshop with precision jumps.

After a short break, they started to combine moves. Now, Flora managed to do the Kong Vault even while wearing the mech-suit. She was amazed at how fast she learned until Randy reminded them to start slow if they wanted to do the tricks in the real world because they were easier in VR.