Flora arrived slightly cooked, medium raw, at Tricky Beach. 'I might have overdone the heat in the jacuzzi.'

After reaching a friendly reputation with the zone, Aidan could automatically connect to the local network. Now, Flora didn't need to visit the earthling information center to acquire and hand in the daily quest.

Quest: Grinding XP

Description: Grind or slide the rails, ropes, and edges of Tricky Beach. Bonus: Grind the XP Rails.

Rewards: Reputation with Tricky City.

Penalty: None.

Difficulty: D

In one of the back roads, she found a low, several meters long rail. After accelerating, she jumped on it and activated Slide. First, she needed to use her arms for balance, but after a few meters, she found the sweet spot and gracefully finished the rail.

'Again!'

Her balancing improved.

'Again!'

This time she jumped off the rail.

'Again!'

In the middle of the rail, she switched the leading foot from left to right with a little hop. Unfortunately, she couldn't equilibrate and had to leave the bar.

'Once more with feeling!'

Now, she finished even with changing the foot.

While her mana regenerated, she looked for a different rail. A few meters down the road was an empty fountain with an elevated border. Grinding in circles proved to be a challenge. Still, after a few tries, Flora mastered it, which was a miracle, because mentally, she was busy trying to remember her physics lectures if there was a formula to calculate the optimal lean.

'The wonder of the human mind! The intuition knows what reason can't calculate!'

While sliding around the fountain, Flora played with the lean and the positioning of her feet. Chugging mana potions like Freibier and holding Refresh on cooldown, she completed round after round. Eventually, she ground the edge backward.

'It would be amazing to perform a macaco as finishing-move.'

She concentrated and bent her knees.

'Now! Okay, not now.'

A few meters later: 'Now!'

A few meters later: 'Anytime, now!'

A few meters later: 'After I pass the little dancing waterspout!'

As the waterspout passed by: 'Now!'

She couldn't commit to it, and the spell fizzled out.

After taking a deep breath, drinking a potion, and revolving her mana, she activated the automatic-mode for free-running.

Next, she gathered speed, jumped on the edge, and activated Slide.

"Auto-mode, make me slide backward!" Her feet changed position without her doing.

"Disturbing, but I'll take it! And now, auto-mode, macaco off the fountain!" Her right hand reached down, and her legs kicked above her head. She even landed smoothly.

The next attempt consisted of her giving mental commands to the auto-mode. Afterward, she tried it without giving instructions, just by initiating the movement, which resulted in a back handspring. The trick was more advanced than a macaco but not what she wanted to accomplish. For ending the test series with success, she repeated the trial with mental commands.

Then, she changed to half-auto-mode. The fear still hampered the execution of the moves, but after experiencing it a few times in auto-mode, the voice in her head which had screamed 'Impossible! You'll break every bone!' had softened.

Flora put her hand back and kicked. Immediately, she knew she had the wrong angle, but without her influence, her body corrected itself in the air. Shakingly, she landed on the ground. 'Again!'

The next try, she performed better, the following worse. But it didn't matter how crooked she executed the moves. The important thing was learning no hospital stay was the consequence.

Congratulations! Your rating in Free-Running rose to C!

Flora took the message as a hint to change to manual mode. On the first few passes, she felt no difference until she messed up the switch from forward-grind to backslide because her thoughts were already at the macaco. She tumbled into the fountain and hit her head on a grinning, roller-skating gargoyle.

You are defeated!

Immediately after getting teleported to the loser’s corner, she did a macaco and added a backflip for good measure. That earned her a rebuke from the stall-owner. "No tricking in the corner, Lady!"

"Sure, sir." After scanning the menu for the most fitting snack, she decided."One Losers Break Fast, please."

Beans, bacon, baked eggs, bread, and sausages filled the plate. Flora called it the '4BS of the commonwealth'. Even the bun was as Commonwealth as it gets: It was so soft you couldn't hurt a dandelion with it.

Fortunately, Flora packed her 'Welcome to the Metaworld' toaster. Its form was unadorned. Flora had painted the sides blue with dissolving stat-tables and the confusing currencies flowing against each other.

After toasting the floppiness out of it, she enjoyed her breakfast.

"Look! That granny wears the same gay skin as you!"

"Shut up! She can hear you!"

Flora turned to the table with the gang of young boys and girls and flashed them a thumbs up.

"Even better: I designed the skin! Just treat it like the socks your granny never knitted for you."

A few of the children laughed, but the guy, a blondie with a pony-tail, Morty Moerder, looked insecure, and his green-haired freckled buddy beside him, PsySam DaPest spotted a mean smirk.

"So tell us, how far can you get your own skin up the rainbow." PsySam challenged her.

"Want to bet?" Flora countered with a smirk of her own.

Betting and gambling with minors are forbidden

"Sure!"

"I don't bet with ankle-biters. I'll show you for free I'm perfectly capable of exploiting my creations to the max."

'But I bet with you, dear System. Are you up to it?'

Quest: Tricking the Rainbow

Description: Reach red on the Rainbow Intensity-Meter in front of the teenagers on the first try.

Reward: + 1 Free-Running

Penalty: - 1 Modeling and Design

Difficulty: B

'Fair enough.' Flora accepted.

The "Cornered"-debuff already had disappeared, so Flora crossed the orange, transparent barrier, but stayed in sight of the teenies.

Then, she formed in quick succession rolls, alternating regular and backward rolls. Of course, she restricted the mechanism of the skin to raise intensity if someone just did one maneuver to excess. But rotating two tricks worked fine. 'You should let people have some fun finding exploits.'

The skin continuously changed its colors from violet to blue and from blue to cyan. Flora felt dizzy, and her stamina was rapidly sinking. Between rolls, she cast a quick Refresh. 'Halfway, done. Just a few more.'

Green!

Yellow!

"Go, Granny!" The teenies hollered.

Orange! Flora didn't know where up and down was anymore.

Red! Finally! For the grand finish, Flora did a backflip instead of a roll.

Breathing heavily, she bowed to the clapping crowd.

"The grannies nowadays aren't what they were," PsySam shook his head, but his friends celebrated Flora's performance.

"Yes, in my time, they wouldn't be free-running! Though my grandmothers wouldn't be caught dead knitting or baking. My whole family is a bit eccentric, as you might have guessed."

Depressingly, the teenagers nodded in unison. 'And I'm not even wearing the potion guzzler!'

"That was so groovy, Mrs. Flowers!" A girl with a chessboard tattoo covering her face exclaimed, and a few more teenagers chimed in.

"Thank you, dears. You can call me, Auntie Flow or Granny Flow."

Morty was excited, too, and Flora recognized he was eager to give it a try.

"Come on, Morty. You can do it! I will cast Refresh on you." Flora encouraged him.

He nodded rapidly and started rolling.

"Kill it, Morty!"

"Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'!" the girl, Anny Dunediver, screamed.

"Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'?" PsySam asked.

Blue!

"Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'!" The teenagers sang. To her astonishment, Flora knew the song from Blues Brothers.

"Rawhide!" Flora joined the choir.

Green!

"Move 'em on (head 'em up) Head 'em up (move 'em up) Move 'em on (head 'em up)! Rawhide!"

Yellow!

"Grind 'em out, flip 'em in, flip 'em in, grind 'em out, grind 'em out, flip 'em in, Rawhide!"

Orange!

"Keep movin' movin' movin'! Though they're disapprovin'! Keep them doggies moving, Rawhide!"

Red!

The crowd cheered, and Flora cheered with them.

The boy, breathing even harder than Flora, shakily stood up with a red face and waved to the onlookers.

The teenagers had the same daily. Therefore they ran together to the XP-Rails. Flora felt like she was a ladybug surrounded by grasshoppers on sugar-rush. The youthful energy was intense!

On arrival, Flora had a good overview of the business below. The XP-Rails consisted of three rails in the middle of a 50-meter wide pit.

'A lava pit! Why is there a lava pit in a beach town!'

The first rail built the left-bottom to right-top stroke of the letter X. Near the end, the bar curled upwards. Gaping, Flora watched a skater doing a Japan Air to transfer to the second rail. The second one formed the left-top to bottom-right stroke of the letter X and passed under the first.

'At least you can't collide!'

At the base, the track curved into the upward stroke of the P. From there, you had to jump to the rail forming the belly of the letter P. Which ended in a swirl near the ground. There, only a narrow trail of earth parted the bubbling lava and led to the exit.

"Oh, dear!"

PsySam laughed and jumped on the first rail. "Here goes nothing!"

"Kamikaze!" Anny followed.

"For glory and chicks!"

"Do you want to live forever?"

"Rainbow-Power!" That was Moerder.

"Holy Toaster, Mother Mary!" Flora screamed and jumped. 'When in Rome...'

While grinding on a thin rail only a few meters above a fiery hell, Flora philosophized about the nature of fear.

Her normal anxiety while free-running was a learned fear. Years of being careful not to hurt herself were deeply ingrained. The terror she was now experiencing was different. It was a primal fear of heights and fire.

Nobody ever told her to be careful while grinding over a lava pit, not even herself. The terror was fresh and exhilarating. Adrenalin pumped through her veins and simultaneously anchored her in the present and detached her from it.

At the end of the rail, she got catapulted into the air. Vectors appeared in her mind's eye, calculating acceleration, spin, and gravity and connecting her flight path with the second rail. Tranquil, she adjusted her body and perfectly hit the waiting bar, dashing on.

All thoughts vanished, and only the wind in her face and the track in front of her existed. Smooth and calm, she took the curve from the bottom of the X to the P and sped on. She did no tricks, she just slid on the rail with knees slightly bent, and arms spread.

In precisely the right moment, she transferred from the upper edge of the P to its belly with a piked backflip. The last stretch of the rail passed like a dream, and suddenly she stood on flat earth surrounded by lava.

She took a few steps forward, still not comprehending that the ride was over. Then it came to her.

'I ground XP! I completed it!' She laughed. But soon, the adrenalin vanished, and she started to tremble.

Notifications flashed before her eyes, but she couldn't read them. Tremors shook her body to such an extent she had to sit down.

With her feet dangling above the lava, she concentrated on her breathing. Her heart was beating irregularly. The throbs pulsed so loud that they echoed in her ears.

'Am I getting a heart attack? Log out!'

Everything grew black, and first, she thought she was fainting, but then she heard a click, and the lid of the pod opened.

"An assistant will arrive shortly to help you leave the pod." an automated voice message droned.

'I'm back in the real world!' She still felt her heart beating, but the rhythm was more steady than before. While listening to her body, old pains and arches came back like annoying relatives. You didn't miss them, but they gave you a familiar feeling.

"Hello, Mrs. Fluss. I'm Lisa. Did you enjoy your stay in the Cetviwos?" a chirpy voice asked her. A hand came into her field of vision and retracted the mouthpiece.

"I did," Flora answered with a raspy voice. She realized it wasn't only a polite statement. She really did enjoy herself immensely. "Do you have a cafeteria? I want to drink a nice cup of tea."

Soon, Flora was out of the pod and into a bathrobe. Flora didn't feel as horrible as she expected. Sure, some joints were a bit stiff, but not to the degree you would imagine after lying down for several days.

After showering and cleaning, she recovered her good spirits. She had missed brushing her teeth! And taking a dump!

The cafeteria was almost empty, and Flora savored the view of the smoking chimneys and industrial lights in the twilight and the hot tea.

A part of her couldn't wait to go back into the virtual world, and a part of her dreaded it. She laughed at herself. 'No need to overthink it! I have a quest to hand in!'