Romana;

Your room is number 47. All expenses are either included in your package or will be automatically withdrawn from the fund you set aside for that purpose. Enjoy your stay in the Rosethorn Hotel!

- The management

She smiled just a little at the nice note, and wandered down the hall to her room, trying not to fidget too much or reach out to her bag. The whole reason she bothered making a subspace pocket for this was because she wasn't here to enjoy what she could have at home; she had a chance to sit back, relax and spend the time she had enjoying what was in front of her, rather then playing with her games or working on her artifact's designs. 

A moment later, she came across the gold lettering that showed that the room beside her was hers, and she cautiously opened the door. 

The door opened onto a very spacious room, with a silk enshrouded bed, a strong scent of sweet flowers, a table of stylized rose petals and a reclining chair made of soft leather, and a bright window showing a spectacular view of a glistening fountain in the garden outside. 

There were a few catalogues and a single book placed on the table in metallic holders, and a bust wearing a Shiver-Sweet Minter as a collar, shining a brilliant gold in the reflected lighting as she entered. 

She walked over to the table, smiling at the sight of the fountain and the eternal midsummer sun shining through it. That sort of window would normally be pretty impractical to install and was a privacy nightmare besides but here...

She supposed she didn't have to worry about that. 

She eased herself into the chair, enjoying the sinful softness of the cushions, letting her shoulders slump back against it as she let herself get lost in the moment, letting out a soft sigh, smiling slightly. 

She perked up a bit as she noticed a button beneath her pointer finger, the sensation just enough to lightly jolt her from her reverie. 

She let out a little tense laugh, and craned her neck down to look at the label of the button. 

The button is labelled Massage Mode in finely woven thread of gold.

She paused for a moment, then pressed it. 

She reminded herself again that she was here to indulge. 

The chair shifts a little beneath her to conform better to the shape of her shoulders and back before slowly becoming comfortingly warm as it starts massaging her back, firm pressure rubbing her through her shirt. 

She wiggled in her seat, letting out a throaty sigh as she wiggled into the chair, blushing softly at the feeling, even through her clothes. 

It was good, even if the overwhelmingness of it tapered down pretty quickly til it was mostly just comforting and relaxing as it worked out every little bit of stress in her muscles. 

She leaned forwards a little to look at what the Rosethorn Hotel provided for her. 

The first one that was an escort catalogue with a cover showing off the curves of dozens of women in skintight suits, filled with a handful of photos with varying degrees of lewdness and a dating website-style blurb on each of them that she could barely read through, considering how much some of the more... exposed photos caused her to blush. But even beyond how beautiful they all were one of them really jumped out to her.  
Amber - A catgirl priestess of Sunaira whose profile talked a lot about how much she enjoyed helping people become who they wanted to be physically and mentally and spiritually, and her interest in spreading the faith through her passion was something she found enthralling, and considering the book of Her love she already had on the table...
She smiled a little excitedly, rubbing her thighs together.
The next one was a relative plain activity guide - mostly listing out a handful of artistic showcases. She tentatively decided that she wanted to at least check out the illusion exhibition - She'd done her fair share of VR touring, but this seemed like a totally different experience, considering how many of the examples seemed more... Metaphysical or interactive then that, and it really wasn't something that she could easily arrange back at home. 
There was also also an interest round table list, if she wanted to take more advantage of the less directly sexual social options available here. 

She hid a little against the chair, swivelling around to look at the showcase of the collar. If there was any place that it would fit on her, then this would be it. There was nothing wrong with getting a decent flower with the flavours that you could manage best - heck, she would expect that most did, getting something like... that was a declaration that she didn't know that she wanted to make, at least in the sort of forms that would feel the most natural, with the way that it would feel around her neck and the other features that made the whole thing just... good. 

She reached out her hands slowly, the golden necklace flowing up her skin with a pleasant tingle of pleasure-pain to her neck, wrapping firmly but comfortably around her as a collar with the rose emblem of the Bowers stamped across it in brilliant ruby, letting out a small simmer of reassuring-pressure-pain as she took a slow breath.

It was a bit gauche, of course, but she was trusting herself to Rosethorn Hotel in a way that felt like fit with this collar, and if nothing else...~

She grinned a little excitedly. 
It would be a good conversation starter. 

She sashayed her hips a little as she walked off to the discussion club.

The room was a simple one, for the Rosethorn Hotel - just a handful of chairs arrayed in a circle with the typical fittings and plush comfort, all but one of which held a woman with their own Takkarash Minter - A muscular red haired woman had a gold one, with the signature red tracery of a Fire Lotus, a strikingly blue one had a shining metallic gauntlet set with the same flower as her collar, and... yes, everyone there had one, whether as a charm on a necklace, a twisted vine wrapped around their spine, or whatever else they decided fit them. 

She perks up for a moment, and gestures her to take a seat. 
"Good afternoon. I know this isn't exactly the most natural thing to talk about, but I hope that we can share our thoughts on this well. I think the first question for today should be..." 

"What do you like about minting, beyond the obvious masochistic and financial angles?"

"There's a buncha interesting features on the thing, if you look into it, and 't's good to be able to just add in a lil hack to make any food feel hot, even before the rest of the featureset that you can implement with some customization." 

"I've always liked the way that I can use it to focus and keep alert in a way that I find that Dyne simply doesn't give me on it's own, and it's suprisingly good for training some kinds of mental defenses but also..." 

"I like the feeling of the shared struggle that you can get when you play with such a thing in a way that you can't when using something less mechanical." 

"Yeah, it's good to be able to... know that you've shared an experience in a way that's more then just a memory with a finite precision that's not inherent to what it is."

"I've always enjoyed that too - there's something about that sort of pain and pleasure that lets you get a proper bond that you can't do if you are just zoned out and processing a memory through a crystal or playing some hologame or VR title." 
She shifts her hands to her thin collar, clasping her hands to it to remember something nostalgia.

She snorts a little, but still nods along. 
"That's good - and like... it's usually pretty fuckin' awkward talking about it with the lifers - There's nothing wrong with it, but come-on, raise your hand if there's a pain feature you feel awkward about because it isn't intense enough to make a proper living but too intense to avoid wearing you down a lil." 

Everyone raises their hands, save a cyan haired girl. 

"I understand that, but also..." 

"I really like introducing them to new things! There's so much to tweak around a lot of relatively novice set ups that mean that you can normally fit that kind of thing in somehow, I've found, so it's more exciting for me, rather then a more negative thing."

"The problem is just..." 
Her chair shifts forwards a little, letting her reach her hand out to Ruby. 
"It's hard to get people out the mindset that minting is just for things in the bedroom, ostentatious personalities that want to show off how hardcore they are, or something that they just try not to think about, you know?"

She has a tiny flinch, but still takes her hand, holding it gently. 

"Yeah I..." 

She sighs a little, and moves her own chair to tighten the circle. 

"I can enjoy it on a seperate capacity then just.... enjoying it like that. Pain can be a comfort too, and it's a shame that people don't really get it..."

"I wish it was easier to recommend as an investment too - a lot of the features that people think of as 'extra' are things that can really help you drive up your effective tolerance. But really..."

"It's not that simple. The whole original intention of the biological mechanism of pain is aversion, and it's natural for it to not fit particularly well in people's lives, or at least drag on. I'm far from convinced that they'd really benefit on net from that - sifting through dozens of flavours of pain to find one that gives them a small edge in income would be something that might end up harming more then healing, to many people."