Chapter 113: 31: Circling Closer

Danika woke up early, and filled with a happier type of anticipation than the day before.

Aishin had texted while Danika slept, and his reply said: "Morning. There may be quite an audience, I said a bit too much and these guys all want to come watch too. Only SilentSky ever made a character before, so extra time is good."

Danika replied simply: "Ok"

She spent part of the extra time she had available in preparing a pretty breakfast with some of the fresh foods, and spent the rest in the "Living Jade Empire" forums. It had been awhile since she'd taken the time to read any of the things she was following, or reply to responses to her own posts.

The First Dwarven Smith had not only replied to her, but had visited her own posts and left comments there too. They said that they had investigated existing cannons in the game before designing the first pistol, and that they'd only discovered the complexity of the gnome built devices later.

On the post where she'd mentioned the new habitable spaces Logical Heart had designed, the Smith had commented that the enchanter did not accept random friend requests, but that they'd love to have the opportunity to meet him.

On the post where she'd complained about the layered and restricted inventory space her small character dealt with, the Smith had suggested that she contact one of the recently created dwarven characters about getting tail rings. The dwarf was named Underground Kingsmith and although he wasn't very high level yet, the Smith said that he specialized in spatially enchanted jewelry, and was getting pretty good at it.

When Danika finished reading and replying to things, she logged into the messenger layer of the mobile version and messaged Shrubbery that waiting for her was no problem. Then she messaged Logical Heart and asked if he had any interest in meeting The First Dwarven Smith who'd created the pistols that had set off the sudden increase in dwarven players. Finally she sent Underground Kingsmith a friend invitation.

Then she entered the the game long enough to fly ZipZing around her garden and water her plants. The dark purple moonflower had already curled up and wilted, but Danika could see that more buds were forming, so her flash of disappointment was short lived. She received a friend request from SilentSky just before she started her shift, and she accepted it.

Her shift was frustrating. She didn't get much idle time, but she left her phone propped up and practiced skills on the side when she could. Once when she glanced at her phone during an especially busy section, Aishin was there and talking to her, but by the time she had a moment free he was gone. Danika scrolled up through the dialog, and laughed.

Aishin had complained: "How can I set up your surprise if you're watching?"

"Hello?"

"ZipZing?"

"Your father was a hamster and your mother smelt of elderberries?"

"Hmm, I'm just going to move you over here ok? Shrubbery is going to complete it for me later, so just wait."

"Also, I can't get them to stop saying that they're attending our wedding because of the ring, but it's ok to ignore them. Although I told them that if they're going to insist on keeping it up, they'd better bring gifts."

"I hope you'll like it when it's finished. See you later, I have to go help Nao. I mean Nao1."

Danika flew ZipZing around her garden to look at what Aishin had left. It looked like he'd laid down a series of stone dragon footprints, but each one was at least three times ZipZing's length and the first one was flat, and the next was raised about her height, the next one looked about high enough for MatchlessMinion to sit comfortably, and the last few were definitely tall enough for Aishin and Shrubbery to sit comfortably upon.

Danika resumed her frustrating work with a smile. She didn't spot Shrubbery visiting, and there was no dialog as evidence, but she knew that it had been Shrubbery's work when she looked at her garden again on her last break.

The bare earth around the new stones was covered in a soft carpet of short green clover, and flowering vines with small delicate looking flowers coiled around the raised footprints. Her little garden was transformed by the additions from a circle of earth ringed by random plants into an enchanted looking island floating in the reflecting pool beside the gazebo above the distant mountains.

Danika couldn't wait for her shift to end so that she could view it through the VR-medi pod.

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Her garden looked even more amazing in person, and Danika flew around it happily, viewing the rising spiral of large dragon footprints in their soft bed of greenery from different angles with delight. Aishin appeared beside the little center stone before she'd been logged in for more than ten minutes. He held up his hands and grinned at her.

Danika zipped over to him and landed on his open hands. "It's awesome!" she enthused.

His eyes crinkled with amusement and he replied, "I thought you'd like it. I'm glad I was right."

Danika frowned and said, "But now I don't think there's room to cast the Bond with Familiar spell in here. It says the circle needs to be big enough to hold your target and the patterns around it."

Aishin raised his eyebrows at her and said, "I don't think we'd all have fit without trampling your plants anyway."

"Is your whole band coming?" Danika asked.

Aishin grinned at her and then asked with false innocence, "My band?"

Danika activated her wings and zipped right up to his face, his eyes widened, but he didn't avoid her approach. She pressed against his nose and stretched out her little arms as far as she could, and gently pinched his cheeks with her claws. He was cross-eyed trying to focus on her face so close, and she laughed and released him and drifted far enough away that he could see her easily again.

"My name is Danika," she said quickly, "after the goddess Zvijezda Danica, the dawnstar. And my family name is Belova, which just means white."

Aishin's startled expression worried her. He raised his hand and touched his face, and then dropped his hand. Danika opened her mouth to say that it didn't matter if she was wrong about who he was, but he spoke first, "I thought I'd figured out what district you live in, but that's not a local name."

"You figured out where I live?" she questioned a little blankly.

"Well, we're in the same time zone, and it didn't snow in very many places at that time that day…" Aishin said hesitantly.

"Oh," Danika replied.

"I was named Aichi Shinichi until my dad adopted me, and then I changed my family name to his, so at home I'm Kobayashi Shinichi, but at work I'm still Aichi Shinichi," Aishin explained a little ruefully. "And yes, the whole band is logged on now."

"You're adopted?" Danika asked with a startled expression.

"It surprised me too," Aishin said teasingly.

Danika blushed and her wings sparkled pinkly. "I didn't, I mean…"

Aishin interrupted, "It's the truth, I was shocked when he showed up wanting to adopt me, and I refused to even call him my dad until after our first big fight." He laughed a little ruefully. "That was when I realized that he really did care a lot about me, and that I was so angry with him because I cared what he thought too… so…"

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