Data Dragon Danika

"We do need to earn a lot more coin if we're going to buy buildings in the capital," Shrubbery agreed after a moment.

"We're going to buy buildings?" Aishin questioned.

MatchlessMinion informed him, "We decided where the guild hall is going to be when ZipZing got back."

Aishin turned back to her and raised an eyebrow. Danika explained nervously about the new plan to buy one of the buildings beside Shrubbery's garden and take it down.

"Our next upgrades should be a guild savings and a treasurer title," MatchlessMinion announced. "That way we can access the coin earned by the guild from our quests and earn interest on it."

Danika gazed at the little Chinchillamin in surprise. She wasn't the only one either, only Shrubbery didn't look surprised.

"I had some time to waste so I've been reading about which upgrades guilds have found to be most useful," he said a bit defensively.

"Are you going to be the treasurer then?" Danika asked.

MatchlessMinion shook his head and turned to point at Edwardian. Edwardian blinked and raised a hand to point at himself after a moment. "Me?" he questioned.

"You have the least revives of us all after ZipZing," MatchlessMinion explained.

Danika asked uncertainly, "Did I remember to tell you about the formulas?"

"You found out what the formulas for guild costs actually are?" Aishin asked.

Danika looked at him unhappily. "Yeah," she admitted.

"I was just going by how cheap our upgrades are compared to the guilds who've posted theirs," MatchlessMinion explained.

"What's wrong with the formulas?" Aishin asked quietly.

"You'll be the worst person to hold a title," Danika complained. She briefly described the cost calculations.

"It's ok," he said with amusement.

--

The members of Endless Song divided into three parties to complete the three quests the guild currently had waiting. None of them were from players this time, so they didn't have to try to coordinate with anyone else.

Before she logged out for the night, Danika set the treasury and the treasurer as the next guild upgrades. She also visited their current guild hall at the inn and instructed Song Solvin to give preference to quests that provided more coin for now.

She wasn't certain that she'd be able to sleep again so soon, but after eating a late meal she went right to sleep. All her tight focus and tension over the last few days had dissolved.

--

At the meeting of the sixth the next morning Danika discovered that her quest had had a lot more influence than she'd ever imagined. All of the repeatable quests were being reworked a third time.

Devon Yu explained, "I told everyone to do their best to break your quest yesterday, and the results were truly shocking. Not only did no one manage it, including myself, but the experience each person reported was completely different. Takahashi came closest, since he was able to target the desert that you'd always left for the system to fill in, which the rest of us didn't know. But it simply returned him to the shore clutching his unused token with a few traces of golden sand, as though he'd fallen asleep and dreamed it all."

"Ariana and Takahashi were able to explain the changes you'd made after they'd considered the quest finished, when we broke it down afterward," he continued. "And the way you minimized the framework while keeping important details was truly excellent. It also showed us that most of us hadn't truly understood the quest framework's potential."

"Only Paul," he gestured and Paul waved back with a cheerful grin, "also trusted the system enough to let it freely control the details of his quest that way."

Paul protested, "But I've also been simplifying and streamlining a lot, now that we have a better example."

Someone else spoke up a bit defensively, "She helped design the new framework system, so of course she'd have a better understanding of how to use it."

Ariana pointed at Danika and declared, "This newbie has gotten pretty lucky with her first designs, but she's had a few failures too." She winked at Danika while other people were nodding. "You know what this means right?"

Everyone looked at Ariana questioningly, except Devon Yu who had what Danika would almost call an evil smile lurking at the corners of his mouth.

Ariana told Danika smugly, "Now we can start giving you the difficult stuff to fix!" People chuckled and Danika smiled nervously.

Devon clapped his hands, calling their attention back to him and announced, "Next week we'll start rewriting the expansion." There were more laughs and a few groans. "And we've got a release date now, we have three weeks to finish everything up! I'll have the changes to the revive and reincarnation system and their tie ins with the guild structures ready for you on Monday, so I'm hoping that you can work in elements to quietly highlight those too. I'm sure that it's going to be amazing."

After the meeting ended, Danika hung around until most people had left and then said, "Um, the most surprising thing was how fast you released it, and how you made the hidden update public?"

Ariana hadn't left yet and she walked over and patted Danika's shoulder. "It must have worked out though? You seem more relaxed today?"

Danika thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "Yeah, she didn't choose to preserve the memory that I expected, but it was good. Thank you."

"I knew that you'd built it to create a memorial," Devon said gently. "That's why my first test of it was to destroy a memory."

Danika was startled, but his expression didn't change. After a moment she asked, "What did your character forget?"

"The face of an acquaintance, since I figured that would be a fairly standard request," Devon replied calmly. "Guess how it went?"

"NPC or Player?" Danika questioned.

"Oh? That makes a difference? Player." He replied promptly.

"It unfriended them too," Danika suggested.

Ariana chuckled and told Danika slyly, "He didn't guess that a sweet girl would add consequences like that."

Devon just grinned.

"It wasn't meant as consequences," Danika replied uncertainly, "it's just the logical conclusion if you give yourself amnesia about someone?"

They both laughed at her, and then they put her to work. Although despite Ariana's warning of "difficult stuff" ahead, she was just working on the usual small jobs in the queue.

Danika finished her work that evening in a cheerful mood. She messaged Aishin hopefully, but he replied that he was busy. Her disappointment made her feel like she must be very childish, when she'd just been the one unavailable for days.

It was a nice spring day outside, so she went to the park for awhile. Working in the VR-medi pod long term isolated her more from the current time and season than she'd expected. Especially since it wasn't like she'd gotten out much on a daily basis before.