Chapter 3：Harmony

A leaf flew toward him and he reminded her, "no hoverboards active in the store."

According to the ID she used to buy restricted items, her name was Harmony, and Jade supposed that in some odd dichotic way, her appearance was harmonious. Tufts of silver hair escaped tight braids, and her retro-reflective riding gear was a colorful patchwork of old-fashioned hand sewn artistry.

Jade caught at the leaf, but missed, and he had to stoop behind the counter to collect it before tossing it into the trash can below the counter.

Harmony stepped off the board, bounced it up with her toe and tucked it under her arm while she called back cheerily, "sorry Jade!"

Anyone glancing at her would have taken her athletic shape in the colorful gear immediately for that of a teenager. Only when she approached closely and lifted her goggles to reveal the network of crow's feet around her eyes was her real age hinted at. She quickly gathered up her usual choices of sweets and junk foods and piled them onto his counter.

Jade always speculated that her flesh was crafted from preservatives. While he was ringing up her purchases (because his boss believed in old fashioned human supervised transactions), Jade's quest list flashed for attention. He glanced at it and saw 'invite a friend to an activity' highlighted.

Harmony asked, "how are things? You were gone yesterday and Emily is missing today?"

Jade blinked at her. Another person who'd noticed that he'd been gone looked back at him with curious eyes. He said uncomfortably, "um, I'm fine. She's out sick."

"Oh, that's too bad," Harmony commented without any particular weight to her words.

Jade handed her her receipt and said, "um?"

Harmony lifted an eyebrow at him as she reached for her goggles.

Jade glanced again at his quest list and asked awkwardly, "do you play 'Living Jade Empire'?"

Harmony slid her eye protection into place and answered cheerfully, "oh not in ages, I've been playing the 'Living Centauri Colony' for the last couple of years. Why?"

Jade said uncertainly, "um, the moon expansion is opening up soon."

"Oh, sounds interesting!" Harmony exclaimed. "Maybe I'll try logging in again."

Jade somehow scraped up the courage to say quickly, "I'm building a ship for it. I'm a dwarf there." His voice trailed off as he finished, "my name there is Hisui."

Harmony stopped at the door and looked back at him. "Jade is always jade?" she said laughingly. "Sure Jade, I'll send you a friend request." She flipped her board through the open door and bounced onto it.

Jade nodded and smiled in relief as his quest chimed in completion. Apparently the system counted Harmony as his friend.

"Watch for it!" Harmony called out as she kicked the start and whisked off before the door thumped closed.

Jade's smile widened into a real grin.

--

Jade wasn't really surprised when his mother called right after his shift ended. She'd probably be clingy for days after hearing that he'd been hit by a bus.

Last time it had been drowning while on vacation. The system had taken three days to replace his body that time, and he still wasn't really sure what had happened in the ocean. One minute he'd been following along the sunken snorkel tour plaques through the coral bed, and the next he'd been back in the system. The system hadn't had any cameras there in the ocean to show him what had happened either.

He walked to the bus stop, and a new quest popped up. Jade eyed it and rolled his eyes. It said, 'navigate the bus system safely home.'

At home, Jade was inundated with a string of small quests as the system helpfully lined up all the little chores that needed to be accomplished before his class in the morning.

The system apparently wasn't satisfied with the job he did on his homework, because it refused to reward him for accomplishing it. Jade felt that it was good enough though, since that subquest wasn't replaced by one to redo it. He estimated that he'd probably get about 70% when it was graded.

He hummed cheerfully as he did his washing, paid his bills, and prepared his clothes. When he said aloud, "I should probably get a few more clothes soon," the system helpfully added a subquest.

The new quest was a bit more specific than Jade had been, and listed each article of clothing that he needed and described the goal as stylish. Jade raised an eyebrow at the screen, but didn't bother arguing with the air. There was no timer counting down, so he ignored it.

--

When he finished his household chores, Jade logged into the game and pulled up his quest list. The reason for his certainty that the system and the game were directly related somehow was that the interface was exactly the same.

He flexed his gloved fingers and got to work on modifying the airship that he planned to turn into a spaceship as soon as the expansion arrived. His dwarven hands deftly removed the tiny gears from the mechanism, and he took them to his forge and rebuilt their enchantments with practiced ease. Here in "Living Jade Empire" his coordination never failed him, and he reassembled the mechanism quickly and accurately.

When he finished, Jade patted the side of the pudgy little airship fondly. Even though he suspected that his time in the game detracted from accomplishing the main quest that always loomed in the system, he loved his time here. He looked out the smithy's doorway across the desert sands where the sun shimmered in sparkling perfect waves.

The smithy was built into the mountain side, and the interior was comfortably cool except when the big forge was running.

A friend request arrived, and Jade stared at it for a moment before hitting accept. Almost as soon as he accepted, a snow cat from the high mountains bounded into his smithy carrying a note in it's jaws. Jade took the note casually, and the cat departed with a whisper of icy breeze.

The note said only, "it's me!"

Jade laughed.