Danika could think of several wild backstories for the splotchy trail she still followed. Most of them involved large flying things of one sort or another.

Maybe something flew to the liquid she'd floated within, and caught some large food that she hadn't run into in the darkness, which then dripped blood all the way to the creature's nest. Or maybe there was a wire that ran down the center of the star studded tunnel that carried some sort of carriage, that looked like it was sailing through space, and leaked lubricant. Or maybe…

A bit later Jade posted on the guild board: "I have not reached the guardian yet, but based on your usual play time, I think it should appear for you soon."

He'd mentioned that the entrances were guarded, but she'd somehow assumed that they were far beyond the "entrance" by now. Her imaginary flying creature suddenly seemed more likely, and more dangerous.

ShinZing followed Jade's message on the board with: "Don't die. Need me to send you more healing items?"

Danika blinked and checked her health. It had actually dropped quite a bit. She tried to speed up her flight, but her wings felt sluggish. She brightened her dazzling again, and realized that even her wings were building up a layer of frost now. The sand before her was as dark as ever, no ice crystals were forming there, and she dropped to the ground to see if it was warmer.

A hiss escaped her as her feet touched the ground and froze completely solid. "Well, that was a mistake," she said frostily, as she activated her wings. To her relief, her feet were not frozen to the ground, just frozen.

She pulled up her menus in mid air and replied: "Maybe. But something like MatchlessMinion's thermal blanket might be more useful. It's really cold."

ShinZing replied almost instantly with: "Did you at least get out of the VR-medi pod?"

Jade added suddenly: "I will send you your garden to warm up in."

The enchanted pebble in its harness was attached to the message that arrived a moment later, and Hikaru launched itself from her back and began to circle her joyfully. Danika was caught awkwardly shrugging into the harness when she spotted the dragon. It was flying toward her like an enormous reflection. A small form was circling it, making it resemble the way she looked with Hikaru circling her, but it appeared to be a full blooded dragon.

She fumbled the clasp of the harness closed and Hikaru darted close and vanished. Danika thought again that it was too bad that the stone space couldn't be messaged to anyone with an occupant inside it, but she lifted her chin and called out, "Hello? Are you the guardian of the entrance?"

"We are," a voice agreed. It didn't seem to come from the dragon, it seemed to be carried on the warm breeze that fluttered around her as though it was looking for her vanished firefly.

A shiver shook her as though the warmth was letting her feel how very cold she'd become, and she took a moment to pull a fat berry from her ring and eat it. The voice belonged to the smaller entity, she decided as the two continued to approach.

Her guess was confirmed when the Dragon asked with a huff of misty breath, "Having a little snack? Did you bring enough to share?"

She eyed its enormous bulk wryly and replied, "I brought a few more, and I'm willing to share them." It was pretty obvious that even if the dragon snapped her up instead, she wouldn't even count as a snack.

The wind pulled at her wings hard enough to make her spin and the other voice asked threateningly, with a buzz beneath its words, "What will you trade for your life, and which path will you choose?"

It was a pixie, Danika realized finally. A dragon and a pixie, like the scene in the Sandman's portrayal of her egg's history, only the dragon seemed larger and the pixie more powerful. She stared at them without answering for so long that the dragon actually circled around her curiously.

"The path of blood?" she asked incredulously.

"The trail that you followed here was stained by hearts that sought a change of self," the dragon murmured.

Its breath was misty and the frost that clung to her almost instantly doubled in depth. ZipZing wobbled, but she was almost too distracted to notice. A moment later, she reacted by suddenly logging out.

It wasn't because of Shinichi's advice to get out of the VR-medi pod so that she wasn't experiencing the way ZipZing was slowly freezing to death, it was because she was logging into her work account in 'Living Jade Empire'.

--

Danika didn't stop to catch up on her messages, or even reply to her assistant dragon's curious string of questions. She summoned an instance of the Jade Emperor into her blank white workspace and asked abruptly, "Did you create the Path of Blood quest on your own?"

The Emperor hesitated for just a moment, but then replied cheerfully, "I do not think that I can take all of the credit, since I used many of the ideas that you presented to your assistant, with story outlines from the Empire's libraries."

Danika waved her hands emphatically and corrected her own question, "I mean, I'm trying to ask you if anyone else told you to create this quest?"

The Emperor presented a puzzled expression and replied, "A specific instruction was not needed. Many characters desired this kind of repeatable quest, and all of the resources needed were already available."

"No!" Danika protested. "I mean, you can't just…" her protest trailed off. Obviously he could just decide to add a new repeatable quest that would let people change their race by a half, like a mermaid giving up her tail to walk on human legs, for a price.

"Should I have assigned it to someone from the sixth instead?" the Emperor asked cooperatively. "Did ZipZing discover an error that was too large to wait on a bug report?"

Danika's mind was bubbling like a soda pop that had been shaken, a thousand things were crowding the surface all at once, so she couldn't respond immediately.

The Emperor continued, "Your party is the first group of players outside of the beta division to test it, since it is based off of your design."

She grasped at that small bit of data and asked, "It was approved by the ninth division?"

"Yes, the reviews were very enthusiastic," the Emperor confirmed.