Flora, Deriga, Afstira, and MiaMyMio ate together at Flora's new dining table. Now and then, the bishop threw suspicious glances at the turrets and coffins at the other corner of the room but said nothing about it.
"You haven't explained yet why you look like our Goddess."
Afstira reminded Flora.
"She said that she missed me and decided to emulate my countenance. So I had the looks first."
"Impudent!" Afstira spat. "Do you really think you can convince me with this thin story?"
"Look, I've said everything I wanted to say. The rest is up to you. I don't have to convince you, and you don't have to believe me. I'm the champion of Evailyn and not the champion of the church. My only relation to the church is that I promised Evailyn that she could choose one holy item per week, and I would give the thing and its blueprint to the church. Obviously, you have a way to determine when a new holy item was created, so just send someone over to fetch it, and we are good."
"One item a week?" The other women gaped at Flora.
"Well, I'll have to craft something worthy. Apart from that, yes. Oh, and I may produce and sell as many exemplars of the regular version as I like, but I have to pay royalties to the church." Flora paused. "How do you call the reproducible copies of a holy item? Half-Holy? Holy copy?"
"Do you have already made a copy?"
Flora showed her the scepter. "I created another copy for Deriga, as well. Did you get it, dear?"
"That was for me?" Deriga stared at Flora with wide eyes. "I can't accept it, Auntie. I'm only C-rated. I'm not allowed to wield an SS-rated weapon!"
"Nonsense! I included the pottery tools extra for you! And you won't stay C rated." Flora paused again. "Oh, I want Deriga to help me with the church. Only if she wants, of course."
The novice nodded enthusiastically.
"What do you think about sending priests to me each week on rotation? They can keep an eye on me and can assist me with running the church and Deriga's education.
On the other hand, I learn more about the church, and the people in the church get to know me.
Let's face it. Whether my badge is fake or not, other people can read it as sure as you can, and a good portion will assume that it is real. So you have a vested interest that my cathedral follows the rites of Evailyn."
"I have received a lot of information. I have to go over it with the other elders." The bishop said carefully. She still cast furtive glances, but the hostility in them had lessened.
They agreed that Deriga would join the bishop going back to the main church. There she would buy the magical home appliances for the cathedral from the church, including a food cabinet.
Flora printed six more multitool scepters as gifts for the elders and gave them to Afstira together with the blueprint.
Fortunately, she didn't have to create the diagram manually. The Spellbook for Technicians contained just the right skill.
You gained a skill: Draw Blueprint.
Description: Creates a copy of a blueprint from your recipe library.
CD: 25 min.
After transferring the budget for the church, 50k credits, and her first salary, 500 VirDos, to Deriga, they said good-bye.
"I've never seen the NPCs so animated," Mia marveled. "Except for significant questlines. I think you are on to something. Or maybe it's a champion thing. Whatever! Thank you for letting me stay. If you need more help, I'm always short on cash and happy to work."
"No problem, dear. I've more work than I can manage alone, though I will automate a lot. But what are NPCs?"
Mia shook her head but smiled. "Non-Player Characters, the native population of the Cetviwos."
"Thanks!" Flora confirmed with Aidan the status of the refined tier-1 materials. "Actually, I do have another thing I need help in three hours. Do you have any skills for drones or robots?"
"I have the class 'Drone Driver'."
"Excellent!"
When Mia was gone, Flora started hustling.
First, she replaced the stairs with an escalator connecting the production hall, church, and roof. Poor Aitoshuri had problems hauling the generators up the corkscrew stairs, not to mention installing them at the height of 4 meters. For solving these issues, she rebuilt Forky. The yellow lifter bot had telescopic rails that could reach even the highest shelves.
Because of the stingy rules that AIs were only allowed to control a limited amount of robots, Flora decided on automated features for the next few machines.
Aidan had told her, that Aito and Mia had installed 173 generators, which was good, but theoretically, the printer was able to produce 240 generators in 4 hours.
The bottleneck had been removing the printed product from the printer. It only started to work when nothing occupied its pavilion. Flora found in the Cetviwos-Shop an add-on. It augmented the printer with four mechanical arms that pushed the finished items to predefined places. You could define eight areas surrounding the pavilion. Flora's printer stood on the north wall, which reduced the options to five; Still better than zero. Therefore she bought it.
After browsing the manual, she discovered that the add-on was even better than she thought. It was capable of distinguishing the printed items, and you could define for each item whether it was stackable and to which dimensions the arms should stack it.
The next issue pertained to the refinement machines. They needed something to remove the refined metal and replenish new. The problem was similar to the former. Hence Flora tried espionage, but her scans of the shop item only returned gibberish.
Flora postponed redesigning the machines to when she had a better grasp on what constituted a good hammer. Meanwhile, the freshly printed Torky and Lorky got the job to mind them. More specifically, Torky was assigned to the production-hall, moving the generators into the elevator and overseeing the other issues that occurred. Lorky carried the items to the octopus.
The plan stipulated 584 generators, so there was still work left to do.
Next, Flora tinkered with the programming of the 'This is a Trap'-Turrets and added a training mode. For optimal stat growth, they should allow the health to fall beneath 10 percent before they activated. Now, Flora dared to go low because she didn't have to worry about Deriga. She doubted that the novice could respawn, but it wouldn't hurt to ask. When Flora returned to the workshop, the simulation grounds were still running with Flora's and Deriga's clones in them.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Flora watched them fascinated. Both shot healing spells at each other, and Mirror-Flora was in the trainings-coffin, presumably connected to the workshop.
"Is there any way to discover what they are doing?" Flora asked Aidan. "Maybe she is inventing on a new revolutionary toaster, and we'll never know of it!"
"I don't know, Milady. But you have a new design under your name, which I have no recollection of registering."
Intrigued, Flora opened the menu with the designs.
Name: 'Look at the Workshop-Logs, Real-Me'
Type: Toaster
Description: Made for the obnoxious Flowing Flowers to notify her that she has a very confused clone who wished to communicate with her.
Immediately, Flora switched to the workshop logs. Here you could make diary entries for your research.
Looking at the history Flora found not only her decade-old notes but some written today, too:
Friday One, 28.06.2051. F2 Entry 1.
>>>>>Aidan or Aitoshuri, if you read this, notify the real Flora! If she even is the real Flora!
Oh, dear, this is complicated! I'm having a crisis!
Hello dear other me,
I'm the Flora in the simulation-grounds, and I can't distinguish between you and me! Imagine my surprise when I tried to log out, and the System informed me that I couldn't because I'm only a mirror of you!
I don't even know if I die if you cast your consciousness into the grounds again!
My original plan was to design toasters with messages to you, but thankfully Aidan reminded me of this feature. The notes get synchronized between all the workshops you enter! Yes, I have Aidan and Aitoshuri with me as well! They say it's normal to be copied. They get copied for audits with a guy called "the Headmaster". It sounded ominous. I believe Aidan is afraid of him. (As I write, he confirms it). <<<<<
Flora froze. Her mouth opened and closed again.
Friday One, 28.06.2051. F3 Entry 1.
>>>>>You killed F2! Call me F3.
Oh, dear, I'm still having a crisis. Can I even say "still" if it is another me that is having it?
Aidan believes that you need more explanation to understand my ramblings - I don't think so, but I'll humor him.
I, hmm, I just stood there and thought, what next? Then I thought, right! I want to install some generators. I tried to log out, and the System informed me that I'm a mirror!
I decided to design toasters with messages to you, but then Aidan reminded me of the diary feature. I opened the diary, and Lo and Behold! There already was an entry by a Flora in a similar situation!<<<<
Friday One, 28.06.2051. F3 Entry 2.
>>>>Because you didn't read the entry, I crafted a toaster to inform you about it.
Hey, Sis, this situation is too dodgy. I demanded to see someone from CentralTank, but the System refused because I'm not a user. Then, I drafted a letter to a lawyer, but it got so fantastical that I didn't send it. (It started with "Hello, I'm not a real person but the clone of one" ...)
Additionally, I stuffed screenshots from the error and system messages in our cloud drive (and the draft of the letter).<<<<<
Friday One, 28.06.2051. F3 Entry 3.
>>>>>Investigation: What are the differences between me and real me?
Question 1: Can I do things I couldn't do before?
Test 1.: I can calculate 29584x3219 in my mind, but only using the primary school method. Aidan says it took me 2min 43sec. I believe his respect for me dropped after seeing me struggle. (He says, it didn't, but Aitoshuri laughed at me). I doubt that you can do it! Try it!<<<<<
Flora attempted it, but she couldn't even remember the numbers, then used her fingers. After three restarts, she gave up.
>>>>>Test 2.: I still suck at tabletop football. I played against no opponent and lost due to own goals.
Question 2: Emotions?
Test 1: I still love Robby, and I still adore Toasters.
Test 2: When I remember that awful fight Robby got kicked in the head and went down, I get a debuff: Nauseated: 1 x - 1 stamina per second.<<<<<
Flora's stomach turned just from reading about the incident. Instantly, she tried to think of daisies and leopard patterns and checked her debuffs.
Nauseated: 3 x - 1 stamina per second. 10 sec remaining.
It was higher than her clones debuff.
>>>>>Question 3: Can I do something not, real-me can do?
Test 1: I tried to come up with a new toaster design, but failed. I think it was due to nerves and panic that I lost my creativity. Again!
Test 2: I've drawn a picture of one of the wood elementals. His name is Elkoak, and he can cast regrow (You can summon specific elementals by name). For my eyes, the painting looks okay, but judge for yourself: I left it in the unfinished projects.
Test 3: Aidan told me that AIs couldn't lie. I tried to say "water is pink," but it wouldn't come over my lips.<<<<<
"Water is pink," Flora said it without a hitch.
Then, Flora checked the picture. It was definitely drawn in her style of art. If she wouldn't have known better, she'd say she painted it.
Friday One, 28.06.2051. F4 Entry 1.
>>>>>You killed F3. I guess I'm F4. Please replace me with someone who had read these entries, so that I don't have to go through the confusion again!
For the record, I still thought that I wanted to install some generators. I don't believe my memory was updated since F3, probably since F2 because our reactions were so similar.
Deriga is here as well. We chatted about the situation. She told me that there are records of natives staying at several places at the same time, and there is a thing called "instance". Every time someone enters a particular area, a new "instance" is created with the same objects and people in it. I believe the teller at the CentralBank was in an instance. The most common application of this magetech is dungeons. It would be really neat if we acquire the technology because the memory of the happenings flows back to the original people when the instance expires. Great training opportunity!
By the way, Deriga is starving! She hasn't enough money to buy food because of the exchange rate between VirDos and Credits and was too shy to say something. Stupid girl, her frontal lobe is still developing. We need to take care of her nutrition!
Friday One, 28.06.2051. F4 Entry 2.
I tried to call Robby, but it didn't work. Aidan said he directed all the messages through him when we are in the SG, so it makes sense. But then I tried to access the internet, my mail, and the cloud drive, and it didn't work either!
My predecessor wrote email worked for her!
I asked the System, and he said they patched the "security risk". Burned Toasts! Aidan confirmed that AI's aren't allowed to connect to the internet, but that there are/were some exceptions, like when he streamed the video of the conference to our cloud drive. Now, he can't do it.<<<<<
"Aidan, try to put a video in my drive again."
"It still works, Milady."
"Oh, dear. What do you think of all this?"
"I don't know, Milady."
Aito shrugged, and Flora was stumped as well.
"On the one hand, I want to log off immediately and raise hell. Or at least scream at someone in the game. On the other hand, I don't want to poke the hornets' nest. I know it's overly dramatic, but what if it is a nefarious plot, and they do who knows what because I have discovered it?"
Flora started pacing. When she came close to the Simulation Ground area, she took some short movies and selfies from her and the clone in one frame and put it on the cloud drive.
"Let's read the rest!"
Friday One, 28.06.2051. F4 Entry 3.
>>>>>While I'm stuck here, I can at least be productive. I've seen that you designed a few generators. The crux is they only work in areas with divine energy like the church or the unholy cliff. When you do the hero's entrance, the chances are high you can't use them.
First, I tried a rune scheme that can pull energy out of fire and ice (heat and cold). It works well when I put it in the furnace, but not in average temperatures.
Then, I designed a scheme for darkness and light. It worked under no conditions: I tried putting it in a cave, putting it in the sun, and putting it in a lightproof box.
Next, I put all the mana generator schemes in one ball of the same size as in your other projects and modified the trap-turret. Now, you can use the trap-turret whenever an area debuff is active. I didn't register the project on purpose because then the crafting XP goes to me and not to you. Look at the unregistered projects for more goodies.
Currently, I'm working on a generator based on hydroelectric power stations. The developmental notes are in the project.<<<<<
"I know what to do! But first, we'll make an entry."
Friday One, 28.06.2051. F1 Entry 1.
>>>>> Alright, I've read this cluster short circuit. <<<<<
Flora called Eddie.
"How is my favorite engineer today?"
Flora felt instantly better when she heard Eddie's cheerful voice.
"Confused and frightened!" Flora summarized. "If I would have discovered something which would make a trillion-dollar company like CentralTank very uncomfortable if it came to light, should I tell it to my best friend, who is an incredibly talented actor even if it would put him at risk?"
The other end of the line stayed silent.
"Eddie?"
"I've cut the call," said the Administrator.