Danika was expecting the message from Shinichi the morning that Underneath left on their tour, she was not expecting the three messages from SaltySiamese. There was also one from MatchlessMinion, and another from Shrubbery.

The most predictable message from SaltySiamese was a long exclamation over her druid transformation and Danika responded by offering to teach her the skills she'd need.

The next message read: "We found sand cats! But Quin is a horrible translator! He said that they told us that the only one that could transform was their tribe's grandma! But we followed her into the city and she's totally a little girl! But, maybe cats are just really hard to understand, because Shrubbery joined us there and says that the cat said that the world is going to end soon, unless the king of cats is restored?"

Her last message said: "Cats are so sly! She could talk the whole time!"

MatchlessMinion had sent: "It turns out the cat who can shift into an intermediate catgirl form is actually not a half, or cursed or anything. She's a thousand years old. Can you cheat and find out what the other ways a player can gain a cat form besides a were curse are? Druids can't be the only ones right? This is getting kind of old."

Danika suspected that even though MatchlessMinion seemed to enjoy tormenting his sister, he was actually sympathising with her after yet another disappointment.

Shrubbery's message read: "Is the new guild quest related to the snow leopard cub?"

Danika swiped over to the guild quests. One was a delivery mission, which they seemed to get quite a few of, and the other said: "Find an unfathered cat with a god's own luck, for this elder's last challenge. If the cat passes the challenge, it may inherit this elder's ultimate move."

With what they knew about the King of Cats, that could apply to the snow leopard, if he counted as a cat in leopard form, and it didn't mean housecat. But it occurred to Danika that the unfathered description might also apply to her, or any player when transformed into a cat. Unfathered sounded like it could apply to any cat who wasn't born as a cat.

As for the god's own luck, presumably the King of Cats had that even if his status was unclear, but, ZipZing had the strong luck skill and still wore the armband of the Dragon. It might even apply to any particularly lucky cat, since presumably the legends of a cat's luck and many lives were included in their racial make-up. It wasn't exactly clear.

It was an unusual quest, and Danika was pretty curious about it. She quickly messaged Shrubbery her thoughts on it, and told MatchlessMinion that she would try to find out all of the possible ways for his sister to gain a cat form. Then she stuffed the last of her breakfast into her mouth and pulled herself into the VR-medi pod to start her shift.

At the morning meeting Devon Yu reminded them sternly that as the launch date for the expansion approached, it was important to not only be careful about double checking things, but to have their assistants add anything that they were uncertain of to the queue for someone else to look over as well. The mild lecture made Danika curious about what might have come to his attention, but he didn't give them a specific example.

On her first break she didn't log out, she summoned an instance of the traveling merchant and asked him about ways a player might obtain a cat form or cat-like features. She'd asked her celestial assistant dragon before, but it had only given her a short list of curses, enchantments, and races that already existed within the empire.

The were-animal curses and the conditional curses could only be cast by a few of the more powerful NPCs in the game so far. Justin was probably the player closest to learning such a curse, and there didn't seem to be any way for ZipZing to speed up the process, since the merchant said that he already had the necessary materials, just not enough skill. The merchant didn't seem to have all of the restrictions against talking about other players that her assistant did.

Only a genius level enchanter like Logical Heart could craft an enchanted item that would allow transformation, so there were a limited number of them available in the game yet. But since some already existed and more than one player already had the ability to craft them, Danika had immediately messaged MatchlessMinion about the existence of such items when her assistant had told her about them. He had replied that his sister already possessed an enchanted tiara that would give her character cat ears that matched her hair.

Danika was kind of surprised that SaltySiamese didn't wear them all the time, but when she'd asked, Salty had said, "It looks ridiculous, it just adds cat ears, and doesn't hide your ears, and my elven ears are so long that they stick out of my hair."

The merchant also suggested something else her assistant hadn't, "Cats are known to serve as guardians occasionally, and like foxes can serve in shrines, places of knowledge, and even some of the great houses. One of the gods or guardians might grant a form for taking up service. The white tiger grants his priests the skills to assume any form, but he also directly grants his guards a feline form and the ability to call the individual feature related to the skill they wish to use, like their eyes for example."

"Could an elven archer become one of the White Tiger's guards?" Danika questioned hopefully.

"The adventurer would need to become involved in a situation where the Tiger's guards were active," the merchant replied seriously. "So far your friend SaltySiamese has come close to such encounters three different times in the dwarven kingdoms, but each time has changed her course to avoid the conflicts."

Danika blinked at him, and the merchant waited patiently while she thought. That was another advantage to summoning him from her work avatar, he didn't decide that he had spent too long in one place as quickly. It had never occurred to her that the game had already been trying to grant SaltySiamese's wish, but that her friend had been evading the encounters. When she thought about it, an awful lot of the elf's quests did seem to lead her back into the dwarven kingdoms despite the legendary animosity between the two races.

Danika asked the merchant one last thing, "Is what the sand cat told SaltySiamese about how the world will end if the King of Cats isn't restored true?"

"Don't worry, if the original King does not resume his position, another will take his place when the world is threatened," the merchant assured her. "The King of Cats isn't like other gods, and the title can be transferred."