Chapter 21: 21: A Dragon Hatches

Danika watched highlights of her adventures drawn in sparkling golden sands, from the outside perspective, with interest. She saw the appearances of Quin, Justin and Terri for the first time.

Quin seemed to be an elven rogue of some sort, and watching her egg bounce along tucked into the cupped hilt of his rapier would have been nerve wracking if she hadn't known that she'd already survived it. She listened to his strangely neutral voice again and wondered briefly if he were playing his natural gender.

Terri seemed to be human, but she was quite tall. Taller than the characters of both men, and strikingly beautiful, she looked like some sort of Valkyrie in her shining armor. Danika would bet heavily on Terri's player being a small plain schoolgirl who'd paid Karma at character creation on appearance modifiers.

Justin looked like such an ordinary young man, despite his exotic (and likely expensive) wizard's robes, that Danika expected he looked pretty much the same in real life. "Living Jade Empire", like many current first person games, used data from your health apps and photos of you to generate your original avatar. It wasn't expensive to modify it though, so most people did.

Danika wasn't certain exactly when she fell into real sleep. She'd watched Justin place her into an ordinary sack, the way she used her old salt sack, and tie it to his belt before hiking overland to the small village where he had a tower. He must have been playing since the beta to have built up enough resources to own such a structure, even if it was in a remote village.

He'd placed her egg into a goblet and summoned a small fire elemental into a matching goblet, to make the warm light that had been shining on her egg the past few days in game time, and then left. A few times he'd returned and stored things in the shelves of the room he was keeping her in, and then left again.

--

Danika added a few extra minutes to her exercises the next morning. She planned to play all day, so she cooked a breakfast instead of eating her usual quick cold foods.

When she finally returned to the game, her "Survive until Hatching" quest had about 2 hours left on the timer. She sighed, and leaned against the wall of her egg. Her egg started to roll.

It rolled completely over before Danika panicked and realized that she must no longer be sitting safely in the wizard's goblet. She skittered across the bottom of her egg in the opposite direction of its movement, and her egg halted, and then started to roll the other way.

She felt like a hamster in a ball, only she couldn't see where she was going. She couldn't get her egg to balance again, every time she thought she had it, some slight movement would set it off again. The worst part was that she didn't even know if she was in danger, or if her attempts to stabilize her egg were endangering it more.

After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only a few minutes, Justin snatched up her egg, and said earnestly, "Woah there, no, no. Please don't hatch yet. I'm not quite ready."

He set her down again somewhere that her egg didn't roll, and slightly frantic clattering sounds followed. Danika laid against the bottom of her egg and heaved a long sigh. When she had her breath back she pulled up the timer and saw with disgust that it still had 1 ¾ hours left.

A few minutes later the loud bang of a door sounded, and Quin asked breathlessly, "Am I too late? I logged in as fast as I could."

Justin replied tightly, "You tell me, I can't look at it, have to finish grinding this."

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Danika's egg darkened as Quin leaned over it. After a moment he said doubtfully, "I don't see any cracks and it's not moving?"

"Good," Justin muttered.

"Are you sure it's going to hatch now?" Quin questioned.

"No," Justin admitted. "But I had put it in the middle of the magic circle, and stepped out to get the fresh leaves, and when I got back it was rocking back and forth and messing up the lines."

Quin asked curiously, "How are you supposed to get the usual cat or whatever to sit still while you draw all those lines?"

"I suppose it's probably easier if it's willing or asleep," Justin answered dryly.

--

When whatever it was that was being prepared was finished, Justin and Quin chatted idly. Terri showed up after awhile and the discussion got more lively, and more random.

They all waited impatiently for the egg to hatch. After about an hour Justin told the egg sourly, "I know I asked you not to hatch yet earlier, but you can go ahead and hatch anytime now."

Danika flipped him off from the privacy of her egg. She was just as impatient as the three adventurers as she watched the last half hour tick by on the quest timer. When the last second finally passed, a lot of things suddenly happened almost all at once.

A notification popped up rewarding her with a hundred Karma for surviving until hatching, a sharp cracking noise accompanied a line of light that traced a random path across the surface of her shell, and Terri gasped and said, "Look, look!" Events didn't slow down. Danika backed away from the crack and where her tail brushed against the egg wall behind her, a new crack started. It shot a network of quickly expanding lines out and over her to join the original tracery of light.

There was a breathless pause and then the first piece of shell dropped away. A shimmering translucent barrier remained between ZipZing and the outside world for a moment, but when she moved, it bulged outward and pulled a bigger hole through the shell as it carried her forward into the brighter exterior world.

As soon as Danika came in contact with the membrane, it broke, and she splashed out of her egg suddenly in a sticky puddle. She didn't have time to puzzle over the sudden wetness, because two different kinds of distant chime rang, one for a skill learned, and an unfamiliar one.

At the same time, Justin finished chanting something and a system notification popped up in front of Danika: "Received invitation to become Justin the Grey's familiar. Accept or Decline."

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