After dismissing the merchant Danika sent a message to Lin Hao that said: "My friend told me that a thousand year old sand cat told her party that the world is going to end soon unless the King of Cats is restored, and our guild has a quest that might relate to him that says to find an unfathered cat with a god's own luck to complete an elder's challenge. The traveling merchant says not to worry, that the title will be transferred if the world is threatened. Can the world actually end?"

Before she logged out for the night, many hours later, Lin Hao replied: "The sand cats live in the desert, so it was probably referring to the upcoming expansion, since some of the underlying theme was included in the system update. Theoretically I suppose that a god level quest could bring about the end of the Empire, but since all of the gods are designed to maintain it, something would have to have gone horribly wrong. Even Devon has never asked me if the game could end itself before. But don't worry, I'm pretty sure that it's just dramatic phrasing."

Since both the traveling merchant and Lin Hao had told her not to worry about the world ending, Danika decided that it was probably just a quest hook for SaltySiamese. When she logged into the game as ZipZing after completing her evening routine of exercise and such, she contacted SaltySiamese first.

She had thought about it in the back of her mind all day while working on the expansion, and she had decided to say most of what she wanted to, without worrying about her friend leaking game details. They met in Shrubbery's garden, and Danika announced, "According to what I could find out, you've avoided the battles in the dwarven kingdoms that might have let you become one of the White Tiger's guards, and Justin is probably already the player closest to being able to create a were curse."

"What? I've never heard anything about the Tiger's guards!" SaltySiamese protested.

"The guardians of the west?" Danika questioned.

"Oh, those? But I thought that they were naturally big cats?" SaltySiamese questioned. "And I've never had any hint in any of my quests that I might be able to join them!"

"I guess the quests that might recruit you to a god's service are set up so that you don't know about it unless you're at the right place at the right time, because I'd never noticed anything about the game trying to lead me into becoming a priest of balance, but people looking over the Christmas event quests said that it was," Danika replied a bit helplessly.

"I don't really want to serve a god anyway," SaltySiamese replied quickly.

Danika suggested, "Actually, I think that you should join us in doing the week-long quest we just got this morning in our guild. It may be related to the snow leopard that used to be the King of Cats. I think that we've both been given leads to him, you through the sand cats and us through our guild quest. It's not a guarantee or anything, but if a god can grant you cat transformations, the King of Cats seems like a logical choice?"

"I guess I wouldn't mind serving the King of Cats," SaltySiamese said thoughtfully.

Danika didn't think that she'd want to serve him, because he was capricious and demanding in her experience, but she didn't say anything.

Magna Silvam silently joined them in the garden while they waited for Shrubbery and Kit. Danika zipped over to her and poked her when she didn't respond. "Are you really here?" she asked.

"Not yet, but take me along?" Silvam replied a bit flatly after a while.

SaltySiamese said, "Oh, she's playing on her phone! What's it like having a healer in your group? Cool right? Our guild only has a few, but they're surprisingly helpful."

"Are they?" Danika asked a little blankly.

"Yeah, is she not any good? She's pretty high level though," SaltySiamese circled Silvam's motionless form.

Danika gazed at her, and then decided to just avoid the subject of Lin Hao's identity and position in the company she worked for, and replied simply, "No idea, she just joined, and hasn't really done anything yet."

Shrubbery arrived a few minutes later and Danika asked, "How's your energy? When Kit arrives can you have your tree send us to the mountain where the snow leopard guardian lives?"

"I can," Shrubbery agreed cheerfully.

When Kit arrived, she looked around and then grinned at them and exclaimed, "Girls night!"

Danika shot a glance at Magna Silvam but didn't argue. Kit was growing ever rounder, and Danika asked instead, "Does your character's pregnancy interfere with its mobility?"

"Nope," Kit replied cheerfully. "It's totally unrealistic. It's only a visual display. I half expect to log in one day and find myself slender again with a stork carrying a baby in a blanket chasing after me."

Danika giggled and agreed, "That would be a story book way wouldn't it?"

Shrubbery laughed and argued, "Wouldn't that mean that people might find babies in random cabbages too?"

Silvam suddenly became active again and said, "That can only happen in a legendary quest, it won't happen normally. But don't be nervous about it Kit Tay, even in full VR, births in the game are simple and quick. It won't happen while you're offline, and both parents get a notification of the due date a week before it happens in real time, so you can plan ahead."

"Wow, I bet every mother who plays this wishes she could carry that system out into the real world," Shrubbery said dryly.

"Ooh, I'm going to schedule time off then," Kit said excitedly. "And I'm going to put off some other things and use part of my savings on a long VR session once a month at one of the new VR Cubbies."

"Why?" SaltySiamese asked curiously as they took turns entering ZipZing's garden.

Danika missed Kit's answer, but Silvam asked Kit warily after they both entered, "How did you know that?"

"The merchant told me," Kit explained calmly. "I was worried about not being able to care for the baby when I'm not online."

"It's just like a pet at first isn't it?" Danika asked. "And linked to your online status?"

"It can be linked to either parent, so people usually leave them with the NPC parent," Silvam replied, "but there's a 'not as secret as I thought' age compression, where the child will grow faster while you're together, to make people feel more connected, since a month in the game passes for each week, and people felt disoriented when they logged in to find their child noticeably older."

"You know an awful lot about having babies in the game," SaltySiamese commented suspiciously.

"I'm a Jade Hand, and we are often called upon for births," Silvam replied blithely.

Shrubbery popped in and announced, "We're here."