The last repeatable messenger animal quest that had been released was for a cute hedgehog. Unlike the mice for whom you performed a service, and the butterfly which you collected a dozen caterpillars of, to get the hedgehog you had to get cursed by a fairy witch. There was only a small chance that she'd curse you into a hedgehog form too. It was quite likely that you'd spend anywhere from a day to a week as a frog or a cricket instead.

At least, that's what her dragon assistant had said. People on the forums offered pages and pages of advice on how to guarantee that you'd spend a single day as a cute hedgehog. The generally accepted theory seemed to be that the amount of time was based on how severe the NPC judged your crime to be, and that the form was based on what you were caught doing. Hundreds of people had posted "This worked!" on the post that recommended that a player get caught stealing a single berry from her garden.

Danika wasn't entirely in favor of a quest that required thievery, but video games had been encouraging vandalism for decades. There was still hardly an adventure game in existence that did not encourage players to break open barrels or other containers for resource items. She selected a berry that she'd never seen before to steal.

Her plant identification said that it was a "Five Flavored Berry". The description said that it could be used in medicinal liqueurs, jams, and candies that would aid in everything from digestion to energy. It sounded like just the sort of plant a witch would grow.

She zipped up to the bushy vine and plucked the berry without using stealth or invisibility. And then she waited. Nothing happened. She just hovered there beside the bush, holding her illicit gains.

After a couple of minutes she used her wind slash to annoy a nearby bird into issuing a scolding tirade at her. The noise finally attracted the fairy witch. The witch was a small pretty winged girl who wore a short cape with a pointed hood, instead of an elaborate hat like The Witch in Oliva had.

The fairy witch scolded her in similar tones to the bird and waved her little star tipped wand at ZipZing. A small hedgehog fell to the ground and bounced. Danika discovered that hedgehogs curled into balls as an automatic instinct, and it took her a moment to uncurl and stuff her stolen berry into her inventory.

The witch shouted, "Give it back you greedy little thing!"

Danika scurried away and used her invisibility spell as soon as she was out of sight. The witch hovered vigilantly in her garden for awhile, but finally retreated into her treehouse.

--

While she wandered the city of L'Arc En Ciel as a cute hedgehog, Danika began to form the idea of how the NPCs for the repeatable quests should be modified. There was a huge amount of variation in the current quests' NPCs, but the ordinary residents of "Living Jade Empire" were much more consistent.

Danika stopped at a street vendor and asked to buy some of the glow in the dark mushrooms that he was selling. The fairy vendor hardly batted an eye at having a talking hedgehog for a customer, but he did demand that she display the coin she intended to pay with before he wrapped the mushrooms for her. Danika had never grown a mushroom before, but she was sure that Shrubbery could help her.

Her idea was related to her thoughts on NPC reincarnations and their response patterns. They just needed to be able to select a base pattern for each quest NPC. And possibly the quests themselves could be deployed as patterns, so that when an NPC and a player's interactions met the conditions, it would trigger an enactment of the quest. After all, it seemed likely that any number of scruffy piratical characters might be willing to trade a mermaid's enchanted pearl for the right price.

She decided that the first thing she'd do when she logged in to her work account in the morning would be to schedule to meet with Lin Hao again. She was sitting on a park bench, watching players and NPCs meander around the rainbow pond at the center of the city in rented paddle boats when Aishin's little bat showed up.

Danika thought that the bat gave her a rather suspicious look before leaving the message. The message said: "I'm here."

She looked around, checked her party list and then replied quickly: "What?"

The snow leopard cub also gave her a suspicious look as it carried her message away. The hedgehog named ZipZing chuckled to itself. The bat returned a moment later with Aishin's clarification: "I'm outside your apartment right now."

Danika gasped and logged out. She frantically disconnected, and practically fell out of the VR-medi pod in her hurry. She struggled over to the door and opened it from the edge of the entryway.

Shinichi stared at her, and for a long moment Danika stared back. He looked the same as Aishin, exactly the same except for his clothes, only maybe better. She glanced down and saw the way her chair was awkwardly blocking him from entering.

Shinichi watched her expression change and stepped forward suddenly, wedging himself in beside the chair. He pulled the door shut behind himself, like he came over every day, and then crawled onto the raised floor beside her. He paused and seemed to struggle with her name, even though he'd used it over the phone, "Danika?"

Danika watched him nervously, and said, "Um hi?" She added a little accusingly, "And you look exactly the same."

He grinned at her, far more beautifully than his character ever had. Her heart was pounding as he replied, "So do you." At her incredulous look, he added, "Your expression right now is one I've seen a thousand times. And your hair…" he reached out, but didn't quite touch her. "I should have guessed, but this shade of brown is the same as the dominant shade of your fur in cat form. Your eyes are the same green as ZipZing's in VR. And the shape of your cheeks, somehow, you just look like yourself."

Danika glanced down at her useless legs, which were nothing like ZipZing's, and Shinichi hesitantly reached toward her hand and touched her fingertips with his own. His fingers were warm and the touch startled her into looking back up into his face.

He gestured toward her chair, and then her legs and said, "And this just… explains everything else. It's ok."

She gave him a sharp look, but he was looking around her apartment with interest. Suddenly she could see every spot that had collected dust that she never usually noticed, and that there was a cobweb high in one corner.

Shinichi said, "Your place is really cool. I've never seen anything like it." He got to his hands and knees and crawled over to peek into the bathroom, that was the only other doorway.

Danika said helplessly, "Aishin, I mean Shinichi…"

"Ah, sorry, I'm being nosy," he said apologetically. He added, "But your tub is awesome, being able to just slide into it like that seems great." He glanced back to the VR-medi pod that hogged half of her room, and across to the counter of her kitchenette where the cake sat.

After a moment she scooted toward him.

He met her halfway, and placed a hand on the floor on either side of her, so that they were nose to nose. Danika blinked, and he said seriously, "But don't imagine that this changes anything Danika, we're still going out to dinner."

Danika laughed.

"And I'm going to ask you a million questions," he promised.

"A million?" she repeated dryly.

"It might take years," he admitted, and then offered generously, "you can ask me some too."