"Um, why do you keep looking at me like that?" s.h.i.+nichi asked after a bit. "What did I say?"

"You keep going on about how amazing my cooking is, when I know it's pretty ordinary," she told him.

"I like it," he protested, "and you cooked it from scratch! And you didn't even use a recipe! How is that not amazing?"

"Oh," she replied. "You don't cook at all?"

"I can make things that come with directions," he told her seriously, "and follow simple recipes, but usually it's too much time and bother."

"How can you stay in such good shape if you eat out all the time, and you eat as much as you have today?" Danika asked curiously.

He grimaced at her and replied, "We only get vegetables for snacks, and I'll probably have to run longer for a few days, because I don't usually eat as many calories as we did today, but the pastries I brought were the only 'bad' things."

"Oh," she said again.

--

After s.h.i.+nichi was gone, Danika cleaned up and then sent one of the new photos on her phone to her grandparents. One of her relatively local cousins had sent a late reply to the message she'd sent to her family group too, and she also wanted a photo of the new boyfriend. On a mischievous whim, Danika sent her a publicity photo of Aichi s.h.i.+nichi off of the web instead instead of a copy of the one she'd sent to her grandparents.

When she pulled herself over the edge of the VR-medi pod, it felt like a lot of work. Danika hadn't really realized how tiring the day had been until then. Going out with s.h.i.+nichi again had been pretty fun though.

When she logged in, he was online and waiting for her. "Are you home already?" she asked doubtfully.

Ais.h.i.+n flashed her a grin and told her, "Nope, still in transit. But easy enough to log in and work on some Meditation Enhancement."

"Yeah, that's the only downside to working in VR, I can't keep the game running on the side. I think my skill leveling has slowed down a bit," she told him.

"Ah. That never occurred to me, I just figured you'd finally reached the threshold where leveling seems to slow down as you got most of your skills leveled up more," he replied after a moment.

"Not really, I have half again as many different skills as you do and my highest is only at 12," she explained.

"You should teach me more of yours," he suggested with a wink.

"Then let's try my light cantrip," she replied seriously. "I want to see if a higher level skill is quicker to pa.s.s on."

"Sure," he agreed. "That's a pretty useful one too." He learned it before he had to go sleep, so Danika suspected that her guess was correct.

Afterward she met up with Kit, Shrubbery and MatchlessMinion for Kit's hour of play. They gathered a few more essence items from animals for ZipZing and checked to see if there were any differences between being in a party vs. just playing together as guildmates by doing a quick quest that was offered. There didn't seem to be any obvious difference.

When her own sleep notification went off Danika summoned the Sandman with her breath and had him replay the beginning of Endless Song. There was no real reason for it, and the scene was just as simple as she'd remembered it, but it was somehow a fitting end to the day.

--

The meeting that began her work day didn't run over its scheduled hour for the first time in over a week, and then Danika met with Devon Yu and Lin Hao as promised. She was a little nervous, but both men were relaxed and cheerful.

Lin Hao had her explain her addendum to PC reincarnations. She'd had time to organize the thoughts a bit more in her head so she explained more clearly, "If player characters could also carry part of their character data forward when reincarnating, it would give more incentive to people to try reincarnating instead of reviving. Perhaps they could choose 1 skill per lifetime that they'd lived to carry forward, or an affinity to all of their previous skills that would cut the skill leveling time in half?"

"Would that be enough to tempt you into reincarnating instead of reviving next time your character dies?" Devon questioned.

"I don't know," she admitted. "It would be hard to give up the Karma I spent on my fairy dragon form and have to start over as a human."

Devon frowned and pointed out, "You already get a decent amount of Karma when you reincarnate that's based on how long you played."

"But what if you're unlucky and haven't played long?" she asked. "It just kind of feels like you'd lose everything you invested in your character. I almost died even in the beginner's vale. Which reminds me, we started a guild, and the upgrade costs seem suspiciously cheap, which made me wonder if there's truth to the rumor that they're calculated partly on the guild leader's reincarnation count?"

"They are calculated off of an average of all the t.i.tled members and only revives are penalized," Lin Hao spoke up. "It was supposed to be a subtle way of encouraging reincarnations but hasn't seemed effective."

"Why aren't all guilds run by low level characters who've never died then?" Danika questioned.

"The formula isn't that simple, the higher the levels you've acquired in all your skills in all your lifetimes the less it costs, the more times you've revived, the more it costs," Devon explained.

"You…" Danika began, and then realized how bossy her sentence was going to sound.

"Just say it," Devon instructed with amus.e.m.e.nt.

Lin Hao was looking at a screen he'd called up and interrupted, "Wow, your guild might have the cheapest upgrades of any guild in the game right now." He looked at Devon and added, "Her ZipZing has never revived yet."

"How? Is it that luck skill you stuck on her?" Devon asked. "If it is, that's way too powerful."

Lin Hao swiped over to something else and he shook his head and said, "The only time it triggered and possibly saved her life was during the Christmas quest." He frowned and added, "And it hasn't triggered at all lately." Something else occurred to him and he asked Danika, "Did you offend that snow leopard cub you rescued?"

"Uh… not especially lately I think? I've been keeping him set as my messenger aside from one day? How does that affect my Strong Luck?" she replied with a series of questions.

Devon Yu gazed at him curiously too and Lin Hao said obscurely, "Well… I figured out where the guardian got the cub."