A dragonfly buzzed past her face, and Danika blinked and shivered. The shiver alerted her and she flicked up her character sheet. Her health and energy were both low, although not currently dropping, so after a moment she followed Aishin's example and logged out so that ZipZing could rest safely.

Danika stared at the warning label in front of her nose and tried to calculate how long it would be until her kitten and dragon sticker arrived. About four days, she decided as she unhooked the VR-medi pod connections.

She pulled herself over the edge and dropped to the floor. Her little apartment was quiet. Outside a few lazy clouds drifted high in an afternoon sky. Her stomach grumbled, and she laughed.

--

A few hours later Danika was buried in the forums, reading about the adventures posted by "The First Dwarven Smith". According to him (or her) there were still only two dwarven players in the game so far. She'd been led to their recent adventures by posts about the two kingdom war going on along the edge of the dwarven mountain range.

The thing that had surprised her most was that the war Aishin had spoken of was practically on the other side of the "Living Jade Empire". He really had traveled quite far and many strange coincidences must have occurred for Justin to have been hired to destroy him, at the same time that he'd met ZipZing on the mountain.

The dwarven mountains bordered the great desert that lay at the edge of the southwestern portion of the map. and Oliva, where Justin's tower was, turned out to be sort of midway between the center and the bulk of the dragon mountains in the east. That vast range stuck out a curving tail which divided the elven territories in the northeast from the human territory in the center of the empire.

The north was crowned by an icy ocean that spread down the northwest edge to meet the desert. The south held volcanoes that gave way in the southeast to tractless jungle.

Players reported that all the border territories were untraversable, and that you'd soon find yourself heading back toward the center. Danika decided that the map edges likely worked in the same fashion that the fog beyond the rim of the beginner's vale had.

Danika had her phone propped up beside her screen as she read. It displayed the first layer of the "Living Jade Empire" interface with her short friend list, empty message queue, quest status, and current time. Her ongoing quests were only "Growth Phase" and "Moonflower Seeds".

A friend online notification chimed quietly. Danika blinked and glanced at the time. It hadn't quite been six hours yet, but she shut everything down and hurried back into the VR-medi pod to meet Aishin.

--

She waited impatiently for the game to complete the connection before she finally returned to the swamp. A rotting smell wafted into her face on the warm damp air, and with it came an invitation to join Aishin's party. She cast her invisibility first, having learned from her earlier mistake. Behind her Aishen called out, "ZipZing!?"

Danika turned toward him, to see that he had a frog in one hand and a small knife in the other. With surprising speed he deftly sliced the frog open, shook it briefly, and then tossed it aside. Half a dozen split frogs already bobbed around him like horrible peas in a sludgy soup. He glanced around and then spotted another frog. He pounced toward it like a cat and repeated the strange performance.

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Danika quickly tapped accept on the party invitation and Aishin exclaimed, "Finally! Hold on ZipZing, I'll definitely find you now!"

A moment later, his menus popped up faintly in front of him, and then he turned toward her. He moved accurately in her direction, lifted his sword again, and sliced forward as Danika hovered in a state of wordless shock.

Aishin bent forward and lifted a frog that had been unseen beneath her, pulled it open and shook it. His face was expressionless, but his voice was worried as he called out again, "Drat, where are you ZipZing?"

She found her voice and replied quickly, "I'm right here."

He spun in place. "I don't see you," he protested.

Her spell timed out and she explained as she appeared in front of him, "I have 5 seconds of invisibility."

Aishin snatched her out of the air and held her in front of his face before asking rapidly, "Why didn't you tell me that before? Why didn't you answer earlier? I was so worried when it said you came online but you wouldn't answer! At first I thought you must have gone on without me earlier, but the friend list still gave your location as 'the frog swamp' and I couldn't see your exact location until you finally joined the party!"

Danika blinked and said, "I just got here, and I accepted your party invite right away."

Aishin refuted her claim, "It said you arrived several minutes ago."

Danika shook her head and told him, "I didn't actually, because it took a long time to complete the connection."

He flicked a string of exasperated emotes at her, making his expression scrunch repeatedly.

Danika giggled.

Aishin looked around again and laughed ruefully. "Poor frogs," he said, "I should have sent the party invite before we left the flower field."

Danika followed his gaze and then asked incredulously, "Were you cutting open frogs looking for me?"

"Yeah," he admitted.

Danika snickered and after a moment Aishin laughed. In a moment they were both laughing.

She suggested with a giggle, "At least we can collect some frogs teeth?"

His startled reaction only made her laugh harder. "Seriously?" he questioned.

"Yes!" Danika wheezed.

After the laughter died down Aishin said, "Ok, frogs teeth." He placed her on his shoulder, picked up the last frog he'd discarded, and examined it. After a moment he snickered and told her, "You weren't joking, it really has got little teeth."

Danika grinned at him and admitted, "I thought the toad was joking about frogs teeth too, until the traveling merchant told me that they're valuable local resources."

Aishin carefully collected all of the small conical teeth from each of the slain frogs, and then gave her half of them.

Danika protested, "I didn't kill any of them."

Aishin corrected her, "You killed that fat one there, that isn't split open and just has a hole in it. Besides," he added, "they were all killed on your behalf so you might as well have some benefit."

Danika giggled.

Aishin protested, "I know, but it seemed so reasonable, since it said you were here somewhere but you wouldn't or couldn't answer. I wasted a lot of energy on speed though, so now we'll have to wait awhile for my energy to replenish a bit."

Danika tapped her storage ring and pulled out her food storage pouch. All that was left were the two apples, she hesitated a moment and then pulled out the bright red one Justin had given her. "Here," she said, "but be careful, it might be poisoned after all."

Aishin turned his head and took the apple, then flicked a raised eyebrow at her. He opened his menu back up before taking a bite. Even from his shoulder Danika still couldn't see the content of his screens.

After a moment he said, "Wow! Where did you get this? It's not poisoned, it's at least a third level restoration." He held the apple back up to her, despite the bite taken from it, and said, "You should keep the rest, it probably has two more restores in it before it becomes a plain apple again."

Danika put the apple away before answering a little nervously, "The wizard who almost killed us threw it at me."

Aishin misunderstood and said, "Oh. I couldn't see anything outside my original perspective while I was stoned."

Danika opened her mouth to explain, but then caught sight of the enormous rotting turtle corpse that still bobbed against the edge of the lily covered water just beyond where Aishin stood. "Ew," she said instead.

Aishin turned to follow her gaze and laughed again. "Actually," he said, "I was thinking I should remove the shell, and pole it like a raft the rest of the way across the swamp."

Danika shuddered. "You can't smell it," she stated flatly.

Aishin gave her a quick grin and agreed, "I can't, which I take it, is the advantage of not having VR. I can imagine how it must smell after floating dead for a full day and night."