Kit Tay and The Traveling Merchant had their first child on Thursday night from Danika's point of view. Kit took the whole of her Friday off so that she could spend time with her virtual family, and rented a VR session for part of it.

"I really wanted to schedule longer in VR," Kit complained to ZipZing, Shrubbery, and MatchlessMinion who had all gathered in Shrubbery's garden Friday evening. "But the only place here is completely booked for the weekend because of the expansion! I guess I never realized how popular 'Living Jade Empire' really is."

The merchant told her reassuringly, "I value the time you spend with me just the same regardless of the interface you use, and so does our child."

He leaned close and gently patted the baby she held, who gurgled happily. Kit grinned at him, and cuddled against his side in a more intimate manner than she usually used from the full motion console her friend had gifted her. She kissed the baby again and cast an embarrassed smile toward her watching friends.

"It's just as well, it's better for my budget that I couldn't get longer," Kit mumbled.

"Do you have a phone yet?" Shrubbery asked worriedly.

"Even if she does, international messages are still more expensive," MatchlessMinion pointed out dryly.

"I put it off again in order to play in VR this morning, but I could buy a cheap one already if I needed to," Kit said a bit smugly.

"It's nicer to get something you want to have even if it takes longer," Danika agreed. "I calculated that I actually wasted quite a bit in the first year after I moved out, because I was trying to spend less at the time, but things had to be replaced so often that the more expensive ones would actually have been cheaper."

Kit laughed and said wryly, "Yeah, I discovered that during my first year of marriage." Danika and Shrubbery exchanged glances, but Kit only grinned at the traveling merchant and added happily, "This game really lets us live out fantasies, I can leave the baby with my husband and never need to worry that he'll ever run short of anything."

Danika had talked Lin Hao into granting Kit a handful of summon scrolls for the merchant so that he could be with them without removing him from the capital's market square. He hadn't played on Magna Silvam since the cat elder's quest, and she'd felt a bit guilty about bothering him when he was so busy, but seeing Kit so relaxed and happy was worth it.

"Are you going to leave the baby with him? Won't he grow faster while you're away?" Shrubbery asked.

"Yeah," Kit admitted. She lifted her chin and said, "But as amazing as holding 'my' baby is, even I can't remember every day of my childhood, so I don't think it'll be weird to just have 'moments' together every few days in his life. And if you think about it, I'll have opportunities that real people don't usually get, if the game keeps going long term. I could even get to see my great great great grandchildren if the game runs long enough!"

"That actually is kind of a cool idea," MatchlessMinion was the first to agree, to Danika's surprise. He wrinkled his little Chinchillamin nose and held up his finger like he was an old man giving a lecture to Kit and explained, "It reminds me of a sim, or even one of the culture games, where you can watch the generations you started grow and advance. There are even fairy tales that have ancient young grandmothers in them that you might get to act out!"

"Ooh, right!" Shrubbery suddenly agreed with enthusiasm. "Like the grandmother in the one about the goblins where she finds her way back with the string she made!"

Danika couldn't help but ask MatchlessMinion teasingly, "So when are you starting your family?"

He just rolled his eyes at her and stuck out his tongue, while Kit and Shrubbery giggled.

--

Danika was a little startled when the merchant looked up at her suddenly a while later and suggested, "ZipZing, my friend, while I have been advising most people to stay out of the dwarven mountains this week, it might benefit many if you and your young leopard friend were near the dwarven capital tomorrow morning."

Danika blinked at him. After a moment she asked, "Tomorrow morning my time or within the Empire?"

"Within the Empire, three hours from now," the merchant replied simply.

"Shouldn't we accompany her?" MatchlessMinion questioned.

Shrubbery glanced at Kit and said firmly, "We should, but Kit should spend the rest of her VR time here with her family."

Kit blushed, but didn't protest. Danika grinned. If the merchant had been a human she'd have suspected him of trying to get rid of the collection of third wheels, but he simply warned them, as he'd been warning players all week, "It will be very dangerous."

Storyline-wise the warnings to players were supposed to be due to the war that had broken out again. Design integration hadn't even had to deploy the set of quests they'd built to incite the flare up, the player guilds vying for position near the expected territory expansion had done it all on their own.

The assassin's guild that SilentSky was still part of had apparently been incredibly busy, and the number of players reviving and reincarnating was nearly as high as it had been during the goblin event. Conditions were perfect for the storyline they'd built for the Twins to flatten the southern end of the western mountains.

Danika frowned in thought. The merchant's suggestion sounded suspiciously like it was related to the sand cat's warning that the world was going to end if the King of Cats was not restored, but she'd been planning to get up early and play during the cataclysmic event itself. If she stayed up, she might sleep through it, even though she'd gotten lucky in the random draw they'd had to see who would be on call in their department for Saturday.

Suddenly another question occurred to her and she looked at the merchant and asked bluntly, "Has the world ever ended before?"

Everyone stared at her, even the baby, and she felt nervous until the merchant answered calmly, "Once, four years ago."

This time everyone turned their stares toward the traveling merchant, except Danika. She had pulled up her menus, and while she couldn't directly access the game logs from ZipZing like her celestial assistant could, she could browse public game history via the forums and documentation. Four years ago in 'Living Jade Empire' the game had still been in its Beta, but there were release notes available, and one of them in that time frame said that the game had been completely reset due to the massive changes in its update.

She quickly submitted a bug report to Lin Hao, just in case, and agreed, "I will go to Nabataea, and try to get the snow leopard to come with me."

"I think you will understand what is needed," the traveling merchant said with what she could only describe as a relieved smile.

"We're coming too!" MatchlessMinion insisted.

"Of course," Danika agreed laughingly as she sent a quick message to the snow leopard that was carried by his own little messenger form. She and Shrubbery had basically bribed him to accept their friend requests, since apparently ice cream was not made of 'spoiled milk' like tea shops offered.