Chapter 82: 81: Clear Blue [End of Volume 1]

Danika selected the preset response to answer the dolphin: "What do you need of me my friend?"

Sea Song Tione replied: "Nothing except to give you the gift that the dark Turtle told me to give you! Catch!"

Something glittered as it flew out of the water. Danika wasn't as coordinated on her phone and missed catching it. The dolphin laughed and caught it and threw it into the air again. Danika finally got ZipZing to catch it on the third try, and saw that it was a strangely familiar looking shiny blue gem.

She quickly typed "aqua" into the dialogue. Water fountained out of the stone, not a flood, but much more water than the squirrel's stone had dripped. She hastily typed, "desino" and the water stopped. 

Sea Song Tione said: "Wow! He was right, you already knew how to use it! He says it's for your garden!"

Danika tapped the automatically generated reply, since it said everything that she wanted to: "Thank you! I will use it well. Good luck in all of your future adventures my friend!" 

The dolphin leapt from the water again and a reply popped up: "The same to you! And when you visit the sea again, listen for my songs! Even the whales are singing of our adventures!"

Danika was smiling as she logged out and resumed her work with more energy than she'd shown all day.

--

During the afternoon, Danika received a notification that money had been deposited into her account. She checked on her break to see if there were any accompanying messages on any of her accounts. As she'd expected, there weren't and she sagged forward and sighed deeply, but then straightened her posture and lifted her chin. She moved the money into the long term savings account she had set up for what her father sent her. 

They had only spoken a few times since the accident that had taken her mother from him. It had been almost as painful to watch him trying so hard not to cry as it had to lose her mother. The worst thing was that Danika believed him when he said that it wasn't her fault and that he didn't blame her for her mother's death, even though at first she'd blamed herself. She'd been the one who'd stayed out too late and then asked her mother to come pick her up on their little scooter. He had at least taken the time to convince her of that much, but it left her no excuse to give him when he couldn't seem to bear to even look at his only child anymore.

Danika glared at the numbers that represented a silent message that he still cared, even if he couldn't bring himself to send even a few digital words. Then she flopped onto her back on the floor in front of her screen and looked over at her window. The sky was a piercing clear blue that reminded her of the stone that Sea Song Tione had delivered to her.

She smiled wryly and sat up. Then she finished her shift and did the exercises she'd skipped that morning, before she pulled herself back into the VR-medi pod to discover what her next adventure would be and which friends would accompany her. 

Danika was greeted by a beautiful beach occupied only by a few animals, a sight that few people would ever have the opportunity to see in this crowded century in the real world. She looked down at the small circle of messenger animals that waited with varying degrees of patience, and laughed.

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She read SaltySiamese's message first: "I'm borrowing my brother for a few days! I spared a goblin's life when it crossed our path on our way south (we already killed off so many of them anyway) and it told me about a treasure that was stolen from its tribe! We spent the afternoon tracking the culprit, but discovered that it was already sold, so now we have to infiltrate some lord's manor or something to get it back!"

Danika chuckled and replied: "Ok." Unless SaltySiamese was planning to give it to the goblin tribe, weren't they just stealing it from its new owner?  

She read MatchlessMinion's message next: "My sister asked me to steal something for her, and Shrubbery had already done her tree thing and gone to work on her garden anyway, so I agreed. I hope you'll re-add me after!" 

Danika sent back: "Sure, good luck. :) " 

Shrubbery's message read: "I'm catching up on chores I let slide during the Christmas event. My mom is home again (it's a good thing) so I'll be on and off a lot. I've been showing her my garden here in 'Living Jade Empire' and she says it's really cool!" 

Danika replied: "That's great, it is very cool!"

The little default messenger bird carried a small message from Logical Heart: "It's ready. You can activate the contract any time."

Danika swiped through her menu screens to the contracts, and opened the one she had with Logical Heart. She tapped the "Complete" and the little default bird returned a moment later and dropped a small pebble into her clawed hands. It was only a quarter of the size of the dark stone that Aishin had chosen and she could hold it while flying. Logical Heart seemed like a very thoughtful person. 

She hesitated, and then accepted Aishin's message before taking her first peek into her new space. It read: "My guild suddenly has a ton of contracts to complete, so I'm going to be busy every time I can play for awhile. On the plus side, I'm able to demand ingredients for the familiar spell as payments (you haven't changed your mind right?) And I've refused all the contracts for your friends ;) and Justin the Grey. Thankfully no one seems to realize that we're the ones who enabled him to pretty much destroy the goblin fortress himself."

Danika laughed, even though she felt a little disappointed that she wouldn't get to play with him for awhile. She quickly replied: "I haven't changed my mind! I have a snowflake, and I was thinking I'd try growing the plants it needs fresh leaves from? I got my stone today, so I'm going to try to send yours back to you with this message." She poked around for a bit before discovering that she simply needed to be holding the dark stone to be able to drop it into the message screen where it became an icon. This time when she sent the message a notification popped up asking if she were willing to pay the three Karma the transfer required. Danika accepted and the little gray bird flitted off cheerfully with a normal looking message.

Danika set her own little green grey pebble down and then laughed. She didn't know the entrance word. She tried, "greenheart", "pebbleheart", "greengreypebbble" and several other things before messaging Logical Heart: "What's the entrance word, and is there anything else I need to know?"

The little gray bird flitted off once again without any sign of complaint, and returned a few minutes later with: "Oh. The instructions are inside it. Dragonheart."

Danika grinned and laid her little clawed hand against her pebble and whispered "dragonheart".

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