"She can go out anytime she wants, even with the… whatever it is limitations on their relations.h.i.+p, right?" Mei demanded.

"Of course," Ryuske a.s.sured her with amus.e.m.e.nt. "She won't be held captive."

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--

Mei thought that Danika would like the public walking path along the ca.n.a.l that ran behind the building. She suspected that her cousin would patronize the tea shop several blocks away that also opened up on the path, when she could be bothered to go out.

When they reached the bridge that led into the center of the city, Mei blinked in surprise at the outline of a familiar tall building beyond the small park tucked into the curve of the exit ramp. She grinned and wondered if Danika realized that she'd be within walking or, in her case, rolling distance of her father's office.

Mei glanced at Ryuske, who didn't look at all fatigued by the distance they'd already come, and thought that it was a bit of a pity that s.h.i.+nichi wasn't his blood relative. She wasn't about to admit it to her cousin, but she'd researched the family histories of both men before meeting them. Kobayas.h.i.+ Ryuske hadn't had a good relations.h.i.+p with his immediate family in his youth, but they were pretty people with money, lifetime marriages, and no records of violence.

s.h.i.+nichi had been orphaned as the last of his line, but that was only because his grandparents on both sides had single child families in their later years, and both of his parents had died relatively young. Mei wondered if any of his distant cousins had tried to contact him after his rise to fame, because if you went a few generations back, the Aichi family was quite extensive.

When they returned, they found Danika and s.h.i.+nichi playing 'Living Jade Empire' on their phones.

"Seriously?" Mei asked.

"Salty didn't wait," Danika replied cryptically.

"She agreed to move in this weekend if I can find time to help arrange it," s.h.i.+nichi added without looking up.

"You don't play?" Ryuske asked Mei with interest.

"I have an account," Mei admitted grudgingly, "but it's not really my type of game."

"There are some guns now," Danika pointed out without looking up.

"Let me know when you can leave the planet," Mei replied dryly.

--

Danika edged ZipZing carefully forward and activated her binding string skill on the thread.

Just when they'd formed a reasonable sounding plan, if you a.s.sumed that moving in with your boyfriend of only a few months could be considered reasonable, Salty had messaged. She'd decided that she didn't need Endless Song's members to start climbing the Jade Path using the method Danika had outlined, and she had talked Justin into climbing with her.

It had actually worked out even better than Danika had imagined, since with Justin's help, Salty didn't have to s.h.i.+ft into a cat form and be lifted from step to step. The pair simply climbed under the effect of featherweight spells. They had already climbed what Danika considered to be the toughest part, the beginning, with the tiniest pieces of Jade set the farthest apart.

It was only when they'd risen high enough to attract the interest of dragons that they'd run into real trouble. They were being followed upward by an increasingly large crowd of other players, so they couldn't just stop and wait for backup from their guildmates. They needed a.s.sistance from someone who could get as high as they were without using the steps.

The first thing Danika had asked after logging in was: "Why didn't you just have a genie transport people to you in an enchanted s.p.a.ce?"

Salty had replied dryly: "Not everyone has the same toys as you. That was the first thing we thought of too, but you wouldn't believe how expensive those lamps from the desert have gotten!"

The dragon who hovered nearby watched ZipZing with interest. It hadn't actually attacked or anything, so Justin hadn't dared provoke it with attacks of his own to drive it off. It had just seen the arrows that trailed strings as an interesting new game.

Each time the elven archer shot the next platform and started to climb, the dragon plucked the string, which was plenty of force to dislodge a mere 10 kilograms of suction. Danika was tying the tail end of the string to the platform more securely than SaltySiamese or Justin the Grey could, so that as long as the climbers could keep hold, they could get back to the current step.

SaltySiamese shot the string to the next platform up, and Danika and s.h.i.+nichi zipped upward along it, using their hands to pull themselves upward in addition to their wings. They were lighter and faster than the wizard and the archer, and they had already reached the next platform when the dragon reached for the string.

Since pixies were air elementals, s.h.i.+nZing was lighter than ZipZing, which meant that as they climbed higher, s.h.i.+nZing would gain the advantage. But he didn't have binding string yet, because they hadn't had much time to begin imparting ZipZing's skills to him.

Danika activated ZipZing's dazzling, and breathed a sigh of relief as the dragon blinked and hovered for a moment in a distracted fas.h.i.+on. She activated her binding string again and tied the arrow firmly to the platform. That wouldn't prevent the dragon from snapping the thread, but it wouldn't just be able to pop it free like Salty had described.

A moment later she dove off the platform and landed on SaltySiamese's head. She cast her invisibility on the elf, and then let herself fall farther and repeated it with the wizard.

"What are you doing?" SaltySiamese demanded.

"Making you look less interesting?" Danika replied quickly.

"Dragons can see magic, just like elves," Justin pointed out dryly. "That's where they get the skill from."

"Oh," Danika replied with disappointment. It had seemed like a useful idea.

An arrow from below narrowly missed her a moment later, and Danika jumped. "Why are other people shooting at us!?" she exclaimed.

s.h.i.+nichi shot her a look, and Mei asked with interest, "Really? Can you shoot back?"

Justin said grouchily, "Now that everyone can see a working method to climb this, they know that if they can knock us off, they have a shot at being first."

"I can shoot back," Danika replied to Mei.

s.h.i.+nichi grinned and Danika sent a wind blade with a stack of cantrips on it zinging downward. It exploded on contact into a shower of light and sparks. The archer who'd shot at her screamed as the bow in his hands separated into two halves, as though he'd taken a mortal blow himself. The mage below him fell off the string a moment later, leaving a thin trail of smoke in the air.

"That was more effective than I expected," Danika commented as SaltySiamese reappeared on the next piece of Jade.