When Quicksilver logged on a few minutes later, Danika raised her eyebrows at MatchlessMinion who told her, "She plays on a schedule."
Danika frowned at that, but only said, "Let's go to Tianxia and I'll take a look at everything you've been describing."
"Sure," he agreed promptly. "But you're buying my return trip Captain! I'm just going to ride along in here."
He stuck his tongue out at her in a cheeky fashion, so she zipped over and ruffled his furry head with her little claws before she agreed, "Sure."
--
ZipZing had never used the new portal at Endless Song's plot in the city of sand, so she had to fly from the city portals. She used the opportunity to fly up and get an aerial view.
Tianxia kept developing, and the wide square with the fountain, where the Traveling Merchant stood chatting with his customers, was bustling. There was quite a bit of aerial traffic here too. Not as much as the City of Cyan, but she could spot genies riding their winds, gryphons carrying cargo, and a mix of flying races, such as herself.
The wide shallow bowl, that had been glass domed the last time she'd visited, had truly been transformed by the addition of the wide flat platform. With the outer ring that surrounded it like a pudgy wall, it turned into a giant crystalline looking target symbol. From above you could no longer tell that it was built into a depression, although it definitely wasn't taller than the buildings around it.
It was also entirely surrounded by the city now. The streets that stretched into the desert had grown into more than outlines and sand.
Danika landed at the portal, which looked like it was framed in diamond, and hoped that it was just cleverly cut glass. She added it to her known portal list before notifying MatchlessMinion that they'd arrived.
The chinchillamin bounced across the open space to where some kids were laughing and running up and down the stairs. When she followed him over, she discovered that they weren't running down though, they were sliding.
"You have to try this!" he insisted. "Don't fly!"
"Okay?" she replied uncertainly and landed beside the children.
A little girl turned and asked her, "Is this your first time?"
"Yeah," Danika admitted.
The child turned and shouted, "Everybody let the flying lizard have a turn!"
Danika eyed her suspiciously and asked, "Are you a friend of Arthur?"
"I don't think I know anyone with that name," she replied doubtfully.
"I know Arthur!" one of the other children volunteered. "He's a mouse! A smaller one than Match," he clarified while pointing at the chinchillamin.
"Cool," Danika replied and stepped into the slide.
She almost screamed when she shot away from them like she'd been fired from a gun, but held onto what fragments of dignity she could. The "slide" had looked like a smooth chute that ran along the banister of the stairway, but it was under some kind of spacial enchantment.
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ZipZing was whisked into a transparent tunnel that showed an empty stage for a moment and then shot her around a wide loop with sky above the transparent glass, and a wide corridor lined with little shop fronts below. There were people there, but she didn't have time to focus on them, because a moment later she popped out of the tunnel onto a short chute that neatly deposited her at the bottom of the stairs.
After a moment she activated her wings and got out of the way. As soon as she was clear, MatchlessMinion popped out and exclaimed, "Cool right!?"
Danika didn't answer right away and one of the kids asked in a worried tone, "Do you feel sick? If you do, you should log out in case you actually sick up. That happened to Micah once."
"I'm fine!" she assured them quickly. "I'm just not sure… I think there should be a notice posted beside it for VR users?" she suggested to MatchlessMinion.
"Why?" he asked blythely. "It's just a game, and you don't see notices beside dangerous creatures anywhere."
--
After her exciting descent to the ground, Danika was less surprised when Quicksilver skated up to her after they entered the outer ring. A shallow channel of water ran along each edge of the corridor, and Danika blinked in surprise when she realized that there was a second corridor under the floor that was full of water.
The little nadia didn't ask why she was staring at the floor, she explained enthusiastically, "There are access pools at each compass point and quarter! And we made it so that the private viewing booths in the main arena can have water, fire, or earth for any element dependant viewers!"
"Main arena?" Danika asked.
"It's the only one for now, and she means the viewing area for the stage," MatchlessMinion clarified.
Danika got a full tour of the changes, although there weren't any more obvious structural modifications. After a bit, she told Quicksilver hesitantly, "By the way, I hope you're having fun with this? I don't want you to feel like you have a second job."
"Don't worry," Quicksilver instructed her. "This is actually really fun to work on."
--
When ShinZing logged on, he took the time to look around before they took the jewel scarab wings to the Witch, who was still in the City of Cyan.
"The changes to the stage layout are really nice," he said approvingly on the way from the portal into the heart of the inverse pyramid.
"I couldn't really tell what was different there, but I think the most impressive part is that it's only been a couple of days," Danika replied seriously.
"My sister got us the structural changes," MatchlessMinion explained. "It wasn't that hard since it's all glass, they just melted it and added on as they moved it around. And LogicalHeart only had to do the tunnel enchantment and the portal. We hired NPCs to do the elemental fields for the private rooms and the sea water in the tunnel."
"I really thought that the whole place was going to be way too fragile after I understood how it was constructed," Quicksilver told them. "But there was already a foundation enchantment in place to reinforce the structure. It had to be temporarily deactivated before they could get the old glass to melt! Wouldn't that be amazing to have in the real world!?"
"I know, right?" Matchless Minion agreed.
"I don't know how our Heart can make a permanent enchantment that is that powerful though! I thought they all had to burn gemstones and had a finite lifespan?" Quicksilver exclaimed as she neatly dodged a dwarf who was muttering while walking with his face half covered by a long scroll covered in diagrams.
Danika glanced at her when she referred to Logical Heart as 'our Heart', but Quicksilver didn't seem at all self conscious about her phrasing. She also seemed much more gregarious than Danika's first impression of her. Or perhaps it was just that she no longer seemed to be carefully evaluating everything she said, and their responses to it.
"It's probably powered by another imitation Philosopher's Stone," Danika explained. "Logical Heart is really good with power sources."
"It's hard to believe he's happy just working as a programmer in real life," MatchlessMinion said with a shake of his head, like a little old man.
They arrived at the strangely-out-of-place plain wooden door of the Witch's abode a moment later, so Danika wasn't too surprised when Arthur spoke. The Witch's Toad said dourly from behind them, "I think it's harder to believe just how many of you adventurers claim to be unhappy in your so called 'real' lives."