What can you do within four seconds?
Aidan had warned Flora that the arriving paladin was a tricky opponent and that a mage accompanied him didn't make the situation better.
The warrior was still alive as well. After he had picked himself up, he attacked Flora with his sword.
"Get yourself and the turrets out of the line of sight from the door," Flora commanded Aidan, ignoring the sword striking her mech-suit.
Golly joined Flora in the melee, pelting the warrior in the head while still shooting cantrips out of the crystal on his forehead.
"Trip up Aito's chaser when they come through and ready the repairing turret to heal her Octopussy as soon as she appears."
"Warrior's Might, embrace-" The shield guy yelled, but Flora interrupted him with a strike against his throat. When the next salvo of the turrets hit, he perished.
Just as the warrior fell to the ground, Aito dashed through the door. One of her tentacles grabbed the frame, and she used the resistance to take a tight turn. After a short flight, she slid across the floor and halted 10cm in front of the repairing turret.
Flora channeled the repairing spell, albeit she could hear the enemies. Not only would Aito profit from it but also her mech-suit needed a fix. The invaders had destroyed the defensive turrets of the shop. If Flora could repair them enough, her offense would grow.
"Shield yourself, Golly." Flora pondered if she should take cover herself and let the golem take the first salvo. However, before she had decided, the enemies stormed through the door.
At least, they tried. Aidan's tentacle reached out and bound the ankle of the leading guy, a dark-skinned man wearing golden armor and a shield hovering above him. His long strides dragged Aidan over the floor until the Octopussy entangled the legs of the redhaired mage. With a tug, both went down.
"Splendid work, Aidan!" Flora cheered. "Hold tight!"
When the paladin brandished his sword, Flora interrupted the repair work.
The turrets and Aito shot at the downed mage, but the golden shield had flown into the path to protect him.
"Is he an animator?" Flora wondered.
"No, Milady. The paladin is a Divine Companion. The shield is one of the companions you can summon with this class."
Golly cast Lightning Storm again, and Flora joined him while she closed the distance for using Breath.
The mage shot a fireball at Aidan as the paladin's sword hammered on the Energy Shield. When the paladin hit it again, it gave out, and the blade landed on Aidan's tentacle.
The AI retaliated by using its lasers point-blank on the paladin.
His golden shield wavered but then inserted itself between its owner and the robot. It had lost its golden shine and burst apart under the lightning and laser beams.
Shocked, the mage froze as Flora's and Golly's lightning electrified him.
While the paladin did also suffer from the lightning, he managed to cast Fortification of Faith and hacked Aidan's tentacle again. This time with success. He severed the appendage and sprang to his feet.
"Bless and Condemn!" The paladin yelled, and light exploded like a supernova.
"That's my favorite prayer! How do you dare to use it against me!" Flora yelled back. That was almost as bad as hijacking one of her toasters!
"Milady, beware. He has Retribution active. The prayer will reflect our damage."
Flora didn't care. She'll show him who had the mightier prayer!
While the robots stopped attacking, Golly and the healing turrets still were active.
Now, the paladin and Flora faced off, casting Bless and Condemn in tandem.
While Flora glared, the paladin smiled. At the third Bless and Condemn, he even started to chuckle.
Flora rolled her eyes, but she had to smile as well at the situation: Two adults trying to outshine each other literally… it was a bit pathetic, but funny too.
"Who sent you?" Flora asked.
"I'm not telling." The grinning paladin glowed again.
"The Retribution is over. Do you want us to join in again, Milady?" Aidan asked while Aito reattached his tentacle.
"Of course! Do you think I enjoy being a flickering light bulb?" Flora snarled telepathically−at least, she tried to sound grumpy, but she had too much fun."Alright, I do. Join in anyway."
After a few seconds of concentrated fire, the paladin died while saluting Flora.
On the way to the last intruder, the hacker, Flora drank a mana potion. The prayer was nice but way too costly.
The found the hacker with glassy eyes in front of the control panel of the house, near the elevator.
On Flora's command, the two octopuses wrapped him up with their vibro-knives at his throat.
"Just a moment more." The scruffy haired young man mumbled.
"I don't think so. Any last words?"
The hacker jolted awake and stared wide-eyed at Flora.
"Er… Your AIs are pretty awesome. Can you give me any advice on how to improve mine?" He smiled at her. "Please?"
"Since when are robbers so nice? I don't understand the young villains nowadays. They are so polite! What about tradition? Don't they care about evil laughter and gloomy disposition…" Flora shook her head and grinned. Just when she wanted to impart the amazing effect of buying cheesy romance novels for AIs, Aidan messaged her.
"He's hacking my Octopussy, Milady."
"Kill him! Don't get blood on the carpet!" Flora looked away when the robots slit his throat. "I'm not built for this dirty work. Let's repair the church."
The mana generators in the main hall were destroyed. The wreckage lined the walls up to Flora's hip. The sight of her demolished church stirred her heart.
The parts flew back on the wall and assembled themselves back into generators.
"This is true might. A two-year-old can destroy a rack, but can it repair one? Can it build a generator? No. Destruction is the way of the powerless."
Flora walked along and channeled her magic, only pausing to regenerate mana.
"So, what can we do about them destroying my church? Is there virtual police or something?"
"Not in the Metaworld, Milady."
"Then why isn't everything destroyed? Maybe I'm too negative, and people don't randomly destroy things?" Flora paused. That didn't reflect her experience. On the one hand, she believed only a tiny minority of people (mostly teenagers and toddlers) to be destructive willy-nilly. Still, more often, people came up with rationalizations why something (which they don't own, of course) should be destroyed. "There has to be something that discourages them!"
"When people die in the Metaworld, they are getting cornered. Additionally, they may drop some of their possessions. Unfortunately, the robbers came prepared. They had empty inventories, and we only received 38 VirDos and 2041 Credits from them."
"Wait. Does that mean they are stuck in a corner somewhere?"
"Yes, Milady. We have our own loser's corner on the North-West area of the property."
Aidan displayed the current Zone configuration.
Zone Information
Name: Cathedral of Home Appliances
Color: Yellow
Level Cap: 1
Enemies
Defeat: Death
Cornered: 2h
Drop: 20,00%
Neutral
Defeat: Defeat
Cornered: 2h
Drop: 0%
Friends
Defeat: Defeat
Cornered: 30sec
Drop: 0%
"What is the difference between 'Defeat' and 'Death'?"
"Beyond level 100, players lose 10% XP when dying."
"Wow! Can you lose levels with this mechanic? Let's say I'm level 100 and raised my Fire Affinity by ten levels. Will it sink by one level? Or will I even fall back to level 90?"
"Neither Milady. When you reach a new level, either with your character level or with your stats, the value will be 'saved'. You only lose ten percent of the XP to your next level. Currently, you have a huge amount of unused Character XP. If you were level 100, I would strongly advise you to spend it, because ten percent would be gone if you die. The rules change at level 250."
"Alright, please remind me then. What about the drop rate thingy? Will I lose 20% of all my stuff in my inventory? What about my containers… do they protect the items inside? And what about my money… is it safe in the bank?"
"When only one item is in the inventory slot, you'll lose it with a chance of 20%. If the slot contains stacked items, you will lose 20% of them. If you bind an item to you, it won't be affected, but you have to pay the MR/min upkeep. There are additional rules to the drop rates, should we go over all of them?"
"No, thank you." Flora paused. "Okay, one more question. If I bind my treasurechest container, are the items in it safe?"
"Yes, Milady. But the mana-reg per minute will be influenced by the amount and worth of the stored items."
"Can I mitigate the cost with generators?"
"I have no information about that."
"We'll try it out. Write it on the todo list." Flora cast Refresh and went to the office area of the church. It was only sparsely decorated, so there wasn't much to destroy in the first place. However, Deriga's bedroom was smashed, so Flora repaired it as well. "Aito, look for bugs. The spying kind, not the insect type."
Flora did a control round through the building to check if everything was okay. "I believe I have forgotten something…"
"Maybe you wanted to do something to the seven robbers currently in our losers' corner, Milady?"
Rubbing her forehead, Flora chuckled. "Thank you, Aidan! That's it! Can we raise the time they have to stay there?"
"Yes, Milady. At the moment, two hours is the maximum amount, but if we add seating, it will rise to six hours. If we provide a food vendor, 12 hours."
Flora checked out the corner via video. The mage, the archer, and an unfamiliar woman played a card game. The hacker laid on the grass, staring at the clouds or more probably doing virtual stuff while the paladin and the mech-suit operator sparred.
After consulting the store, Flora dropped some stone benches and a vendor machine on them. Although she couldn't hear what the robbers were saying, from their reaction, it was pretty obvious that they knew what was coming. The woman threw down her cards and gesticulated angrily with the paladin, who had to interrupt his training session.
"Aidan, fill the vending machine with some delicious toast. Set the price to 1000 VirDos. Raise the time to 12 hours as soon as you can."
"The cheapest snack has to be 5 VirDos, Milady."
"Alright, use Vegemite for those toasts. If they want to eat something other than Australian snake poison, like ham and cheese or Nutella, they have to pay."
Flora browsed the shop for other nice things she could do for her esteemed guests and found a sound system and added it to the corner. Of course, there were another million of rules regulating it, like the volume and even the playlist. It had to contain at least 25 minutes of unrepeated audio. Not a problem for Flora; she had 70 years of suffering behind her.
"Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley, Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex, YMCA by Village People … let's add something more modern or Polish polka music?" Flora chose both and added the 2045 hit "Turn Around One More Time", polka, and a personal favorite, Memory from Cats. Robby had learned to turn off the stereo when he was only two years old, thanks to this song.
In Flora's living quarters, the new boxes were ready for her. Satisfied, Flora logged into her bedroom and reclined in the Jacuzzi. She was content with her electric powers. They proved to be a huge boon when fighting against players. With only her spells, she hadn't managed to stack the debuff high enough to induce twitching or even shocks, but with Golly and probably Kaytsak's help, she might be able to bully her opponents quite efficiently.
"Burned Toast, I forgot to feed Kaytsak the elemental thingy. Could you do that for me, Aidan?"
"No problem, Milady."
"I believe I underutilized my robots in the past. Your actions impressed me quite a bit, Aidan. Excellent work. Of course, Aito and Haidan did very well, too. What do you think about the melee capabilities of the Octopussy or robots in general?"
Aidan and Flora chatted about the fight, interspersed with watching videos and reading forum posts about robot combat. They also watched the replay of Haidan taking out the woman with a trickster class who entered the premise in stealth mode only to be discovered by the sensors.
They drifted to the topic of the rewards for the AI and how to improve the home defense until Aidan received a message from the invaders.
"They want to negotiate their release, Milady."