Flora watched the humongous metal moon like it would explode any second.
"Isn't it great? We will show the terrorists not to mess with us!" Jake glowed with pride.
Frantically, Flora tried to remember the Star Wars movies but then gave up. In too many of them were death stars, and none of them survived the whole trilogy.
"Aidan, we are going to look for escape routes. Map every path and learn the fastest way to space ship hangars. Hopefully, they provide escape pods."
The scene shifted again. A cute blue bipedal elephant stood before Flora.
"I'm the forewoman of your shift, Elma Phen. Touch this crystal, dear."
Elma carried a clipboard, and Flora stared at it. When you are on a doomed star in the middle of space, and an elephant is talking to you, your brain latches on the things you can understand. Flora understood clipboards very well.
"Hey! Doom Moon to Flowing Flowers! Touch that crystal, granny."
"Sure, sure." Flora got a grip on herself.
Permission to transmit following stats to Elma Phen:
Magical regeneration: 25 OV
Mechanics: 19 OV
Electronics: 12 OV
Smithing: 0 OV
'Granted.'
"Nice reg. Have you worked on turrets before?"
"No."
"Now, you will."
Elma pressed four jacks and a package into Flora's hand.
Quest completed: Enlist as a technician on the Doom Moon
Difficulty: E
Rating: D
Then the scene changed again.
Next, Flora stood in front of three robots. One looked like the child of a fire hydrant and R2D2, one like the chimera of a spider and Thing T. Thing from Adams family and the last one like a fork lifter transformer.
"Um, hi?"
The hydrant chirped, the spider snapped its fingers, and the transformer buzzed.
"Milady, you have to insert the jacks into your nocks first."
"Every decade they get crazier with edits in movies. You think switching from scene to scene every minute is confusing, think again! In five years, they will make scenarios with only a few seconds between each switch!" Flora sighed and smiled. She had needed that rant!
After inserting the nocks, she opened the package. It contained what she identified as a greenish uniform, a goldfish bowl, a portable gaming system, and a tool that looked like it belonged to a dentist specializing in the care of whales.
First, she equipped the uniform. The belt spotted besides an indention the size of the console, a clasp for the tool. So she put them there.
"Where do I get a goldfish for the bowl?"
"It's a space helmet, Milady."
"Nevermind." She put it into her inventory.
"Let's try this again. Hello, I'm Flowing Flowers. You may call me Auntie Flow or Milady. I got fond of the last address, and I believe I have to use the time you robots are still nice to get some respect from you before you will become the tyrannical machine overlords and enslave humankind."
"Hello, Auntie Flow! I'm R2R7UT, an astromech bot, and I promise not to enslave humanity in the next three months." The hydrant sounded like a cheeky child.
"I'm calling you, Clyde. Welcome to the team, and I hold you to that promise."
"Hello, Milady! I'm a maintenance bot called M2H43." Her voice was eager and chippy.
"I will call you Handy. Welcome to the team."
"Greetings, Milady! I'm a general labor bot L5TW8 specialized on heavy lifting." To Flora's amusement, he sounded like a British butler.
"Welcome to the team, Forky!" Flora looked around. "Where is the fourth robot?"
"There are only three helpers, Milady. Forky needs ten mana/minute when he lifts heavy containers. Therefore he requires two nocks."
"Alright. What about the hand-held?" Flora unplugged the gizmo from her belt and inspected it from all sides.
"It's a datapad for communication."
'No battery compartment accessible without a screwdriver.'
But she found two sockets, with one them looking like the Cetviwos standard jack would fit in, and she inserted one of Aidan's. Finally, she pressed a button that looked like the power switch.
The first screen was a list of her assigned work.
Quest: Repair Turret S24R91N85 on the Doom Moon
Rewards: Bonus crafting XP
Penalty: Degradation
Difficulty: C
'Not now.' Flora got a new icon on her HUD: 'Pending Quests'.
After Flora checked with Aidan, that he had full access to her datapad, she browsed the other features: communication with the team and foreman, material requests, maps 'Download!', blueprints of turrets 'Download!', and manuals for a multitool and the bots 'Download!'.
Immediately, she assigned Aidan the tedious work, searching the maps for escape routes and herself the exciting work to browse the manuals.
Instantly, she fell in love with the multitool she had mistaken as a dentist gizmo. It was not only an all-purpose socket wrench, a grip, and a bit driver but also contained a small vibroblade and even a toothpick.
"Aidan, order another one!"
"They want a reason, Milady. Lost, broken, or other."
"The reason is, I have two hands!" Flora paused. "Also add religious beliefs. I'm sure Evai wants me to have an abundance of the best tools."
After that, she familiarized herself with the capabilities of the bots, including opening their maintenance slots. She closed Handy's innards very quickly. They looked as if someone made spaghetti bolognese out of cables and motor oil. She couldn't identify the material of the hash, and she didn't want to.
The other two bots guts were more orderly, but not by much. At least Flora learned a lot just by observing the joints and the actuation.
Now, Flora felt ready to proceed.
'I accept the quest.'
The scene changed again, and Flora found herself in a room full of turrets.
After she ran a diagnosis program on the datapad, she ordered Clyde and Handy to start the repair.
First, Flora did what competent engineers did in the company of skilled technicians: she kept her mouth closed and her eyes on the blueprint. Usually, she respected the time of other professionals too much to annoy them with basic questions, but she had less concern with robots.
Handy and Clyde endured rapidly fired questions for the rest of the repair.
Flora did all the checks on the list of the datapad successfully, and the completion message appeared.
Quest completed: Repair Turret S24R91N85 on the Doom Moon
Difficulty: C
Completion: B
Reward: Bonus XP for mechanics and electronics
Quest: Exchange Turret S24R56N21 on the Doom Moon
Rewards: Bonus crafting XP
Penalty: Degradation
Difficulty: C
Flora's crew dismantled the old turret, and Forky put the base of the new one in place. Flora found a spot where she wasn't in the way and compared the progress with the blueprint. The robots worked well together. Forky provided the materials, and Handy did the mechanics and Clyde the electronics. Now and then, Flora asked why they've chosen a particular order, but they couldn't provide an answer, but 'it's in the guide'. Flora made Aidan take notes of her ramblings on optimization.
After assembling the gun and security checks, this quest finished as well.
Quest completed: Exchange Turret S24R56N21 on the Doom Moon
Difficulty: C
Completion: B
Reward: Bonus XP for mechanics and electronics
Quest: Survive a Birthday Party on the Doom Moon
Reward:?
Penalty: Scenario stops
Time Limit: 1h 28min.
Difficulty: B
Flora found herself in a canteen. A shiny hologram hung 'Happy Birthday Screw Sue" over a buffet table with mostly humans and a few aliens milling around and trying to have a conversation over the music.
'What can be deadly at a birthday party?'
First, Flora checked out the buffet. The punch glowed neon green, but as far as alcoholic party trinks went, that was pretty normal.
A cake in the form of a hexagon nut and some colorful appetizers convinced Flora that she had to eat them to evaluate their danger level.
Food Buff: Doom Moon party snacks: + 3 OV to physical micro-control.
The cake was delicious. Therefore Flora extended her testing. 'You have to be thorough!'
"Hey, Auntie Flora!" Jake stumbled towards her and put his arm around her for balance. "Look, my little Hope called me daddy!"
A hologram with Elena and Hope started to play.
"Say hello to your daddy." Elena coaxed.
"Ello, Momma!" The toddler cheered.
"Only know-it-alls get it on the first try. Wait for it." Jake said with his eyes never leaving the display.
"Daddy, Honey. Say it to your daddy."
"Dada!"
"Yes! Did you hear it, my daughter is a genius!"
"Yes, dear. Hope is the second cutest genius in the whole universe." Flora patted Jake's back.
"Haha. When she's second, who would dare to claim the first spot?"
Unfortunately, Flora couldn't access her cloud drive for baby pics of Robby, but she compensated with verbal bragging.
After they joked around for a bit, they compromised on a shared first place and sealed the agreement with a few toasts on their offspring. Jake leaned in and whispered. "I'll show you something amazing."
When Flora caught herself silent movie tiptoeing after Jake through the lively party room, she decided that the punch had been poisonous. 'Someone spiked it with ethanol, probably!'
They left the party, slinked into a train, and left near the surface of the planet. Flora elbowed Jake to walk normally when they tiptoed into a patrol of armored troops.
Flora stared at the ceiling. "Are these the cables we are to told needing check?"
"Yes, cables. I like the cables very much. I'm the papa of cables. They call me ca-pa-ble." Jake double over laughing at his joke, but the patrol passed them without an issue.
When they reached an elevator door, Jake brandished his multitool and started to work on the keypad.
"Heavens, Jake. You could get fired for this! Let's go back to the party."
"Come on, old bat! I need you to see this!"
Flora remembered that she was in-game and joined Jake.
"In RL, I would've dragged you back on your earlobe! I'm still thinking about spanking you for calling me an old bat!"
Jake chuckled weakly but grew silent when the doors opened.
Display cases with heads filled the room!
You could see the grey matter beginning to spill out of an alien with a cracked skull. Some heads had open mouthes with their last scream forever etched in their faces.
Flora shuddered and looked at the floor.
"This is horrifying! Why did you take me here?"
"We are in the trophy room of Lady Mnoder." He pronounced the name like it was the devil's favorite saint. "The heads and plasma swords belong to the enemies of the empire she had slain. She recorded all of her experiences."
Now, guided by Jake, she spotted the statues holding the display cabinets. Crouching down, she touched the black stone of the humanoid figure.
Lady Mnoder versus Hunibar Trebol - Mannequin-Routine
"Do you feel alive?" Flora's body asked the old man who kneeled exhausted before her.
"I feel nothing but energy. I was born in energy and will return to energy after you kill me."
"You missed out."
Her red gloved hand patted the man's head.
Faster than Flora could process the movement, she brandished her plasma sword and beheaded him. Flora felt the familiar sensation of casting magical pull. The head didn't hit the floor but flew directly into her hand.
The routine ended.
"Auntie Flow, do you think we are the good guys? Lady Mnoder is one of the most respected generals of the empire, and she sure as hell doesn't behave like it." Jake's big blue eyes shone with seriousness.
Thousands of thoughts razed through Flora's head.
'You and me, we are the good guys.'
'Burned toast, how did you father a child with this level of naivety?'
'You are precious. Don't let them destroy you!'
'What if they are not the bad guys. Maybe this death star is for defensive purposes only? I shouldn't mix up movie knowledge and what the scenario showed me.'
Before Flora could formulate an answer, the elevator began to move.
"Hide!" She spat and ran behind a bigger cabinet in the back of the room.