Danika ate the last piece of leftover cake the next morning, while reading the reply from her aunt Hati. Her aunt was the only one on her family list, if she didn't count her father, who would probably already be up and about so early.

Hati wrote: "Be careful, don't do anything silly just because you like the guy. Glad to hear about the job. Keep your focus on that."

Danika grimaced at her screen. And then she decided that it was a pretty mild warning, given the kinds of things her aunt might have said. She hadn't even complained about the age gap. After a moment she smiled and wrote back: "Yup, thanks. Anything new with you lately?"

It felt weird, having the day off already, but she'd have been home for a full week starting tomorrow. Somehow during her training she'd already gotten used to being busy with her new job almost every day. She didn't feel any of the stuck-in-an-endless-grind yet that she'd felt after a few days of her contract with the game studio.

Tomorrow they'd start their new guild, Endless Song. Danika took a deep breath and then spent some time catching up on household chores before pulling herself back into the VR-medi pod to play.

She had a new friend request from someone named Ryullusion, and a message from Aishin explaining that that was his dad's character name. She quickly accepted the request, and then she started a message to him, and hesitated. She wished that she'd asked Aishin if he'd told his dad that they were dating after all, even if she'd have had to answer that too.

After a moment she sent a simple greeting: "Hi, welcome to the game!"

She entered the enchanted pebble that Logical Heart had made for her, that housed her little garden, and watered her plants and greeted her pet firefly Hikaru. Hikaru had advanced a lot since she'd been gifted it by Aishin and his band mates.

The little firefly was now level 33, and much sturdier than it had been. With its increased health and energy, evasion and random teleport skills, Danika could let Hikaru follow her pretty much whenever the firefly felt like it, without having to worry that she'd have to revive her little pet. Danika no longer regarded the little glowing beetle as just a potential Karma drain either. Hikaru had been useful in several quests now.

About the time she finished, the game's default bird messenger arrived with a reply from Ryullusion: "My son told me to ask you for help in making my way to the cursed harp I'm looking for, but if you're busy, you needn't feel obligated."

Danika immediately sent back an invitation to add him to the party. She was a little surprised that Aishin hadn't already done so when he'd sent the message with his dad's name. The snow leopard cub messenger gave her a look when he carried away her second message that said: "I have the day off, I'd be glad to assist you in acquiring it."

The cub didn't approve of her sending messages from her garden, because he'd seen it hundreds of times. He'd only offered himself as a messenger animal when he was still small, cute and fluffy, in order to see more of the world. Danika chuckled and exited her garden.

Her friend list already told her that Ryullusion was an elf, which surprised her, because she hadn't gotten the impression from what Aishin had said about him, that he played a lot of games. But he must have either had quite a few, or Aishin had turned in purchased accounts to 'Living Jade Empire' for Karma under his father's account, since an Elf cost 500 Karma at character creation.

Even though he'd let her know that he wasn't currently as rich as his public pop star identity Aichi Shinichi implied, Kobayashi Shinichi definitely didn't seem to be struggling in his day to day life. Danika was curious, but since they'd only been officially dating for a few days, she hadn't asked yet. She hurried toward the nearest portal that would take her into elven territory to meet his father, who had once introduced himself as Kobayashi Ryuske on his son's character Aishin, in the middle of a tense situation with the snow leopard cub's mother.

Remembering her first meeting with the enormous saber toothed snow leopard (who was, according to Devon Yu, the guardian of the Western Vault) made Danika remember how access to the guardian had been locked by Lin Hao, at least for members of her division at work. She decided that when she was finished helping Ryullusion, she'd go try to visit the guardian. Enough time had passed since her last visit that she could go to speak about gods and worlds with the big cat again anyway.

--

Aishin's father's character was gorgeous. Like prettier even than Aishin himself. Danika stared at the dark haired elf who somehow carried himself with a graceful movement style that felt recognizable from their brief but memorable previous encounter. Obviously some appearance modifications had been used at character creation, because Aishin had told her that his dad was "really old" and this elven beauty looked to be the same age as Aishin.

Ryullusion jumped when Danika collected herself enough to fly up to him and introduce herself. "Hi, I'm here. I'm ZipZing, and Aishin might have also told you my real name, Danika, but please use ZipZing here?"

The beautiful dark elf gazed at her little fairy dragon character with surprise and said, "Oh, it's you. I don't know if you'll recall, but we've met briefly once before, when I was on my son's account."

"I remember!" Danika replied promptly.

Ryullusion gave her a brilliant smile and said with amusement, "My son told me that his cute girlfriend's character ZipZing could assist me, but I had just expected a cute human, or you know, elf, um… You are really cute though!"

Danika blushed, and her wings sparkled in rose colors as she wondered if that description had meant her cute character, or if Aishin had meant that Danika Belova was cute. "Thanks," she replied warmly. Either way, she also loved ZipZing's cute appearance.

She checked Ryullusion's Karma balance before leading him to the portals that would speed up their travel to the inn where the cursed harp had been when she and Aishin had encountered it. He didn't have a lot left over from his character creation and time in the beginner's vale, but he had enough that it wouldn't be a problem for now.

Ryullusion gasped and looked around in amazement like she had the first time she'd traveled by portal, although he didn't seem to have any trouble with the dialogue screens. Watching his amazement as he experienced the game made Danika look around with renewed appreciation too. "Living Jade Empire" experienced through VR really was beautiful, and incredibly real.