Chapter 382: 25: Mended

Danika didn't turn ZipZing to look at Kit as she probably would have in VR. One advantage in situations like this, when playing on the mobile version, was that the simplified actions required active input and didn't reveal as much. The game suggested that she reply: "Of course the Jade Empress has a few god-like skills." She didn't, because she didn't want to tell more people if Kit wasn't ready.

SaltySiamese continued undaunted, "With her around I wouldn't need something expensive like this enchanted arrow! I could just collect the broken ones! Although, this arrow still hasn't run out yet, so it's a lot better than I expected! Good find Zip!"

"Thanks," Danika replied.

"I can only play a limited amount each day," Kit pointed out reasonably. Then she asked curiously, "Is this skill really that great? I thought that it was kind of ordinary for, uh, it just seemed like I ought to have gotten something more dramatic?"

Justin asked, "It really doesn't consume any materials?"

"No," Kit replied. "It just uses energy like Salty said."

"That's something that even top crafts people can't do," Quin said authoritatively. "It really is a god-given style of skill suitable to the White Tiger's priests. More people might play druids just to get that once it's known."

Kit shrugged and admitted with embarrassment, "I'm not sure that it's a skill most Druid's can get." She glanced around the small circle of characters clustered in the village square, and then took a deep breath and explained, "Actually, my class changed after I remarried."

Only Shrubbery and Justin didn't looked surprised, and Danika decided that Justin had noticed Kit's title when she had landed.

"What?" SaltySiamese protested questioningly. "But it says…" She paused as she looked at Kit through her menu lens, and then said in a jolted fashion, "Oh... My... No... You're joking right?"

Quin turned to look at Kit too, and then looked at Justin. 

Justin sighed, and turned to ask ZipZing, "I assume that she isn't hacking the game, because you seem to have known about it already. But the Jade Empress? I know a few people who've acquired Prince or Princess, dozens of Generals and lesser titles, but I didn't think any player had even managed to take a King or Queen's position yet?"

Shrubbery said quickly, "It's true, she flew all the way to the Jade Palace and woke the Emperor with a kiss!"

Kit blushed, and her shy expression was exaggerated by the mobile graphics into something that Danika couldn't imagine Kit actually expressing. She grinned at her screen, muted the game for a moment, and asked her assistant, "Have any players gotten a King or Queen title yet?"

Her assistant dragon replied promptly, "Eight players have already acquired titles that include King or Queen, but none are the ruler of a country. The closest are the Chancellor of the Eastern-most dwarven Kingdom, and the Vizier of the Genie tribe in the Southern Mountains."

Danika told Justin, "There are some Kings and Queens, but you're right, none of them are ruling countries. Kit isn't really ruling the Empire either? She gets special Empress quests where she aids citizens and rescues babies and stuff, but so far it all seems pretty low key."

"When you put it like that, I feel like I should be rescuing kittens from trees too," Kit said laughingly.

The King of Cats twined around her ankles out of nowhere and commented in cat, "Already rescued cat from tree."

SaltySiamese looked down at the silver cat and laughed. "Oh, I guess it's not too weird, since the King of Cats was already on your side! Did he lead you to the Emperor?"

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Kit paused, and then nodded and agreed, "He really kind of did!"

Danika wondered if she meant the way the cat had given her the message that no one else had sent, before the traveling merchant had suggested that she could find his other self, or if the cat had been in the Jade Palace.

The King of Cats walked over and sat in front of ZipZing expectantly, and Danika asked a little crossly, "What do you want?"

The cat's expression turned smug, and she knew that she'd asked the wrong question.

--

The great revelation of the Jade Empress to the first players outside of Endless Song ended rather quietly. ZipZing, Kit, and SaltySiamese had a new quest from the King of Cats that seemed to be linked to The Way of the Cat subpath, since the others didn't receive it. Not even Shrubbery, who could still understand the King of Cats even when he only communicated in cat.

Danika logged off to explore the place she was staying at a little more before she slept. Shinichi had remembered to ask what she'd wanted to talk about when he and the others had logged in for their hour-long break, but when she'd asked what he liked about the place, he'd hesitated and then said, "I kind of want to see if you'll notice the same things I did?" So she hadn't made him explain what she was looking for.

The hotel, if that was still the right word for the rambling style of half separated buildings stacked into a hillside, was rather unostentatious. It wasn't particularly expensively furnished, and seemed to concentrate mainly on providing a clean, quiet place for people to sleep. She had no way to guess if the layout of her room was similar to the one Shinichi had stayed in, so after a bit of thought she took some pictures. 

The bed was an awkward height for her, but nothing that she couldn't manage. Everything else really seemed… pretty normal. Maybe that was the unusual thing about the place, she decided after some thought. It was all sort of comfortably generic. The colors were natural woods, with soft greens and blues in the paints and fabrics of most things.

She even went out and wandered around a little, but the most notable thing she could think of was that even the halls seemed quiet. The few people she saw walked almost silently on the soft carpets and there weren't any long echoing spaces. Every little bit there was another turn, with either a small indoor garden or a window with a view or a miniature outdoor garden space.

She made some notes about what seemed particularly ordinary and comfortable to her, and what seemed pleasant, and sent Shinichi those and the photos before she curled up to sleep on the bed that would have been plenty wide enough for both of them. 

Just before she fell asleep he sent back a short, "OK :) ". It was enough to make her feel like he wasn't unhappy with her opinions but still didn't tell her anything about what he'd liked when he was here. She knew that the short reply meant that he was either busy or tired, so she didn't worry about puzzling it out before sleeping.

--

In the morning, Danika had a longer reply from Shinichi waiting that began, "Sorry, I was almost asleep when your message arrived." He finally told her what he'd liked about the layout. It turned out to be the way the bath was in a separate room from the toilet.

Danika was a little irked by having put so much effort into considering everything she could find, when he could summarize it in one line. She didn't begrudge his reticence for long though, because knowing what he'd liked gave her a new data point about Shinichi himself, which pleased her. It was a feature that she hadn't placed much importance on before he mentioned it. But it wasn't bad, and they had enough space available that if they did remodel things, it wouldn't be too difficult to implement.

A rather nebulous idea for a layout that would make the two spaces divided for Shinichi, but combined at a comfortable platform level for her in the center started to take shape in her imagination. If it was connected to the bed… Maybe she could get ready for the day before moving into her chair, instead of going back and forth, and back and forth. If she extended that through the next wall and connected the raised area to the VR-medi pod…

After a moment Danika gathered her thoughts and contacted Sakurai. She packed up her things, and got ready to leave, so that both she and her escorts would be checked out in plenty of time to avoid any extra charges.

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