"What buff can you give that lasts an entire day?" ShinZing asked. "The longest unsustained duration I've ever heard of is the vitality boost that reduces poison damage, and that's still only six bells?"

Ryullusion chuckled and replied, "Melodious figured out which skill we should be using, by going to the library, of all places. We asked the Traveling Merchant who could teach us, and learned the 'Heart's Song' from a little bird that will only sing for a future princess. But it doesn't exactly last an entire day, it reduces the effects of gravity on the target's hair and lasts until 'the stroke of midnight'. But we tested it, and if you're never logged in during a midnight within the game, the effect will never end."

"Are you a princess now?" Nao1 asked with suspicion.

MatchlessMinion shook his head, and pointed out, "I'm positive most of the people they buffed weren't princesses."

Danika blinked and gazed at Ryullusion doubtfully. The bard's dark hair did seem rather buoyant, his eyes sparkled, his skin was soft, and his lips were glossy. She felt a little embarrassed that she had only noticed that his elf was especially "attractive" today, rather than analyzing what was different. Her wings sparkled pinkly.

ShinZing eyed her sparkles thoughtfully and then ran a finger up the back of her ear. ZipZing's pink sparkles went scarlet and she turned to look at him. His eyes crinkled with amusement.

"Did you return the kid to her tower safely?" ShinZing leaned over the edge and asked Ryullusion dryly.

Ryullusion grinned up at his son and replied, "We returned the bird to its garden, despite the girl's insistence that we should let her keep it." He blithely ignored the circle of curious young faces and asked, "Shouldn't we do the quest we have even if it'll be awhile before players seek us out? To keep our reputation with NPCs up?"

Danika turned back and gazed at the elf in surprise, while ShinZing nodded in agreement. She hadn't realized that Ryuske had become so familiar with the game mechanics.

"We'll get plenty of bardic missions for awhile," SilentSky predicted suddenly. "Maybe even more assassination and acquisition missions too."

MatchlessMinion brightened and said, "I didn't think of it that way. We might!"

"More assassination missions?" Danika asked worriedly.

The little chinchillamin pointed up at her and asked, "What did you expect with two assassins in the guild and the only qualifier being that at least two members can complete the mission oh Notorious Captain ZipZing?"

Danika ignored the Notorious Captain address, since her title actually was Captain now that the guild owned three titles. She pointed at ShinZing, whose title was Conductor, and protested, "Only one assassin now that ShinZing is magic path based?"

Shinichi silently pointed at Nao1. Danika turned back to look at her and sighed. Nao1 had been on an unspecialized combat path for so long that she'd stopped paying attention.

Nao1 shrugged and said, "I'm a mercenary, not an assassin. But yeah, I can usually take the same missions as Sky."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Shrubbery giggled, and when Danika looked at her she grinned. "Sea Song Tione is a great bard isn't he? We really are a notorious sort of guild aren't we!"

MatchlessMinion matched Shrubbery's grin with his own and the two of them beamed up at her.

Saaki said hopefully, "Maybe we'll even get missions to burn things down, since people think we were responsible for what the Alchemist did to that guild?"

Danika looked at the little flame haired genie with amused despair while Nao1 agreed enthusiastically, "I could probably take those missions too!"

"I can light fires too," ShinZing agreed cheerfully.

His wings sparkled brightly with his enthusiasm, and Danika suddenly realized that his choice of a pixie let the game show his emotions too. It made them equals, as long as she was in the VR-medi pod and he was using his full motion console.

"Why are we setting things on fire?" Silvam asked with interest. The busty elf had apparently logged off from beside the guild tree like everyone else, as she walked around it to join the others.

"We are not setting anything on fire," Danika said firmly.

"Unless someone pays us to," MatchlessMinion added cheerily.

Danika looked over the members of Endless Song from her perch beside ShinZing. Hikaru led the fireflies from Shrubbery's garden over to circle the guild hall tree in a swirl of tiny lights that made her notice the darkening sky. Only Kit, Logical Heart, and the three quartet members were missing.

Shrubbery, who had given in to MatchlessMinion and accepted the other guild title only after Edwardian had persuaded her that it was the most cost effective, was right. Endless Song really could be considered worthy of their 'notorious' description, but their cheerful faces made Danika happy with the way things had turned out.

"Do you think our guild hall is big enough for our NPCs to move into?" Edwardian asked speculatively, with his eyes on ZipZing and ShinZing, whose small forms made the entry behind them look large. "As soon as our tree is big enough for our NPCs to use, we should let the rental at the inn go."

Danika turned and looked at the room behind her. "Song Solvin is as big as a fairy, and Keeper Kin is even bigger, even though he's not as tall. I think the rooms need to be twice this big."

Saaki agreed, "I can get into the hall right now, but it's still a really tight fit, and I'm barely bigger than Song."

--

Magna Silvam answered Danika's question about pets on their way to the farming community where Endless Song's next guild mission started. "No, pets and the Assistant Dragons don't use the same AI base. But they do share some libraries, since both are supposed to be able to adapt to their master, and we didn't see any point in having multiple nearly identical sets of interpretive routines. Familiars and other bonded NPCs use them too."

Nao1 said thoughtfully, "It would actually be kind of cool if you could buy the game pets access to messaging, and they could eventually learn to act like assistants? Or maybe just the familiars, since those are usually supposed to be more intelligent? I mean, I can just imagine a witch's cat nagging about ongoing quest deadlines and stuff."

Shrubbery added, "It would be really cool if my tree could message me about the plants it's maintaining for me."

"If pets could do it, Hikaru could have just messaged me that my garden needed watered," Danika agreed.

Silvam laughed merrily and said, "It wouldn't be too difficult to add, but I am not going to stay up all night and add that to tomorrow's update!"

"Yeah, you and ZipZing should definitely take time off, neither of you have had any time to play lately," MatchlessMinion agreed.

"I'm scheduled to work tomorrow," Danika informed them, "but I only work two days before I get my usual weekend off."

--

They completed their guild mission, a seemingly mundane transport request to deliver 10,000 fresh strawberries to one of the Dwarven Kingdoms Kings, and chiseled another notorious mark into the reputation of Endless Song.

The strawberries were too delicate to be piled into a single container like her embroidered pouch, and had to be transported in five hundred special spacially enchanted fruit containers.

Danika was still muttering about it when she and Shinichi cuddled into bed that night. "We could have teleported all the containers past them, between Saaki, Shrubbery, and I."

"It's their fault for not telling us that their capital city was under siege," Shinichi replied a little smugly.

"We didn't get paid enough for ending a siege," she complained.

"I doubt it's over, but it won't be as effective until they can rebuild their siege towers," he said a little regretfully.

"I bet they just come back with cannons or artillery then, since the money grubbing steampunk update goes live tomorrow," Danika said sleepily.

Shinichi cuddled her closer, and suggested, "Let's have fun with it. I bet our guild can figure out some way to keep an airship from being destroyed by dragons?"

Danika's dreams were plagued by clockwork dragon ships.