While Danika waited for Aishin she rather spitefully dribbled water from the squirrel's gem into the new rodent burrows. After awhile a plump shrew popped out of a nearby burrow and made sharp angry squeaking noises at her, so high pitched that they sounded almost bird-like.

Danika stuck her tongue out at it and tossed a colored light cantrip at it. The light particles bounced harmlessly off of the shrew, but it jumped in fright and dove into its burrow. Danika laughed and stowed the aqua gem. A few minutes later the shrew, or another like it popped up from a different burrow entrance.

Danika threw her light at it again. She knew that tormenting the shrew was childish and pointless, and that she didn't even have any proof that it had been the shrew who had eaten her seed radishes, but scaring it still felt a bit satisfying. After smiting the shrew several times with her colored lights, she even discovered that she could sort of link her color cantrip to the impact and transfer it to the shrew. It made it look like she was throwing paint balls at it, and she laughed.

Danika's childish revenge occupied her until Aishin finally arrived. It took him over an hour to make it to her, and he was somewhat tattered looking. "On the way back we are going a long way around the fairy dell," he announced firmly.

"Fairies did that to you?" Danika questioned with wide eyes. She remembered that Quin had mentioned being afraid of a pixie pod too.

Aishin shook his head. "It was their pets, or maybe they were livestock. An enormous flock of ducks," he sighed and added, "you can laugh."

Danika had been too amazed by the answer to laugh at first, but when he added that, she started to giggle.

Aishin flashed a smile at her. The shrew popped up again between them and Danika fired one last shot of light at it. She grinned toothily as it dove back into its burrow.

Aishin asked doubtfully, "Do you dislike rodents?"

Danika thought about it for a moment. "Not as long as they're not bothering me?" she answered.

"Oh," Aishin replied with relief.

"Why?" Danika asked.

Aishin winked. "Because the quest I have, that I thought you'd enjoy, is a bounty contract on some fairy mice. They've been causing trouble at a patisserie shop," he told her.

Danika asked doubtfully, "Are we going to kill them?"

"Nope, we're going to catch them and get paid twice, once for the bounty, and once when we sell them to the pet shop," Aishin replied with a quick grin.

--

Like when they'd traveled down the mountain side, they moved very swiftly across the countryside. Aishin ruthlessly cut down anything that targeted either of them.

Danika zipped along at her top speed, looking a bit like a small sparkly kite trailing along behind Aishin as he ran. The forests gave way to meadows that in turn gave way to woods. Her flight skill gained another level, and when the soft distant chime rang Aishin said, "Congrats!"

"You can hear that?" Danika asked with surprise. No one had seemed aware of it before.

"Only because we're in the same party and close to each other," Aishin explained.

"Oh, thanks!" Danika replied and her wings sparkled with sky blue tones.

When she saw that an elegant looking buck had decided that offense was the best defense, as the rest of his herd scattered behind him, she threw her own wind slash at his nose. As the deer startled away from them, unknowingly spared from his imminent demise, Aishin complimented her, "Nice attack."

"Thanks," she said again. "My friend was probably right though, I don't do very much damage."

"You said you can teach skills as well as learn them right?" Aishin questioned.

Danika nodded, and then realized that he couldn't see her as she flew along behind him. "Yes," she answered, "although I haven't tried it yet."

"After this fairy mice contract quest is completed tomorrow, let's try it," he suggested. "I'd like to learn that attack, and I'm sure I've got a few useful skills that you could use?"

"Ok," Danika agreed.

They tumbled rather abruptly out of the next patch of woods and over a low fence into a field. Aishin changed direction and vaulted over the next fence onto the small lane that ran between the field and its neighbors.

They traveled at more moderate speeds along the lanes and roads. Even slowing down to a walking pace as they passed through several villages and towns.

The traveling merchant was in the third village square that they visited. Danika paused and darted over to him.

"You're looking well ZipZing," the merchant greeted her with a smile.

"Thanks," Danika replied. A little guiltily she added, "Um, my friend met me, so I didn't use your scroll."

"That's great," the traveling merchant replied cheerfully. He didn't ask that she return it, and Danika breathed a sigh of relief.

She nodded and waved farewell as she caught up to Aishin.

--

They saw the merchant again on the outskirts of the next town, talking to another player. Danika came to a halt and stared. Aishin stopped and laughed at her puzzled expression. "Did they summon him?" Danika asked.

"Probably not," Aishin replied. "I think he visits every town and village in the game at least once a day, and he can be in more than one place at a time."

Danika frowned. "Don't tell me he's the only NPC merchant in this game?" she asked incredulously. That would be too incredibly lazy of the developers in a game that contained thousands of types of fairly realistic plants and animals in addition to their catalog of legendary and fantasy types.

Aishin laughed again. "Of course not, didn't you visit any shops before you left town?" he asked with amusement.

Danika replied, "Oliva didn't have any shops. Maybe it was too small?"

An expression of shock flashed a bit unnaturally across Aishin's face as he tapped an emote that Danika probably would also have chosen to display surprise, but that was a bit extreme when actually shown on a face. "You didn't start the game in some fairy dragon city somewhere?" he questioned.

"No, I kind of suspect there isn't such a thing," Danika replied. They resumed their progress and she continued. "My egg seemed to have appeared in a pixie nest, but was sold to a player. I was carried to Oliva before I hatched, and this wizard tried to bind me as his familiar. After I ran away, the witch in the town gave me that long moonflower quest."

There were more and more people as they drew closer to the human capital. Danika complained, "I wish I had an always on mode for my menu lens so that I could see with a glance which people are players."

Aishin smirked and told her, "It's one of my path skills. Analyze targets, at first level it can turn on and off the display of labels in normal view."

"Are you using it all the time?" Danika asked suspiciously.

"I'm using it now, but I usually turn it off when I'm in the market in the city because there's just too much," Aishin replied cheerfully.

Danika landed on his shoulder and gazed at him intently, to his amusement, the rest of the way to the capital. She was trying to activate her assimilation skill, but she wasn't very hopeful about it, since she couldn't see any evidence of his skill working.

When they reached the city Danika stopped watching Aishin, and she gazed around in amazement. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of people of various races crowding the human capital's broad streets. The buildings got taller the farther they progressed.

Aishin grinned at her. "This is just the outer city," he said, "wait until you see the market square. I don't know if it's a good thing that the teleport gates are near the market or not, but that way a lot of the market traffic never comes out here, they just portal in and out. Every large city has at least one portal, like the one you used to leave the beginner's vale." He flashed another grin. "The traveling merchant is almost always available in the market during the day," he added teasingly.