"Nobody can play as a full blooded dragon," Smith stated. Even though it wasn't said as a question, the first dwarven smith's eyes asked, 'but?'

"Not from character creation," Danika agreed, "but there's at least one person who played a fish and made it through the dragon gate at the top of one of the mountains in the west. And Kit, at the time, was a druid who succeeded in acquiring the shape from a scale."

"Was?" the dwarf questioned.

"She changed her path," Danika began.

"Who would change their path after gaining the ability to shift into a dragon!?" Smith interrupted in a scandalized tone.

"Well, she was kind of forced to change her path by circumstances," Danika explained without explaining that Kit had married the Jade Emperor, and her path had been automatically changed to Empress.

"The game probably decided that she was getting too powerful," the dwarven smith speculated.

Danika opened her mouth to refute that, but closed it again without saying anything, and shrugged. If Smith discovered that Kit could still use her druid shapeshifting skill, the dwarf would probably demand that she act as an experimental test subject, and the fact that Kit was the Jade Empress now was still a secret for the most part.

"Oh well," the dwarf said a bit regretfully. "Still, that bit about the air thickening is definitely something I've never heard before. It gives me a few more ideas to try. I don't suppose any of you dragon halfs with a draconic shape can use the phasing skill?"

"Not that I know of, but it's possible I guess? There are still halfs that have never occurred yet for most races, except maybe humans," Danika replied.

"True, and some of the most improbable are the most common," the half dragon, half gnome, dwarf agreed. Smith's grin was laced with irony.

"Are you going to try building a ship that's very small so it doesn't move as much air?" Danika asked. "That was what I was considering."

"Oh? If my ideas don't work I'll try that. Even if one of my ideas works, if this is the information that lets us get past the dragon flight barrier, I'll build you one too," Smith offered generously."

"Isn't that too much?" Danika protested guiltily.

The dwarf grinned at her and replied cheerfully, "Sounds like you expect it to work! Thanks ZipZing." The dwarven device was deactivated and returned to Smith's inventory, and the corridor became noisy again.

--

When Danika reached the first residence the merchant had directed her to, her guild quest pointer still indicated that her target was farther onward. Apparently the witch she was seeking was the one who lived the deepest within the inverted pyramid. She zipped onward without stopping to inquire about the possible opportunity to sell extra jewel scarab beetles, although she took note of the location.

Eventually she reached one of the balconies where the interior corridors looked out into the hollow pyramidal space at the center of the city. The outer city displayed hanging gardens of trailing plants here and there across its underside, while this space was filled with endless rising terraces, and the flat surface of the ceiling looked like nothing but open sky. The sky was an illusion of course, like the one in her own stone space, but the size of the enchantment was incredible.

Because the pyramidal palace was attached to the outer pyramid only by its points, it appeared to be floating above the terraces, and waterfalls danced down its surface and fell into carefully laid pools that then poured smaller falls down the terrace faces, into smaller pools below.

Danika didn't fly toward the palace, instead, she followed the last fragment of the merchant's directions, and her quest compass, down to where a strikingly ordinary looking doorway opened onto one of the more luxurious terrace gardens. In this city built of translucent cyan, the slightly battered wooden door with the open window in it looked more than a little strange, and oddly familiar.

Danika zipped up to the opening and peered into the dim room beyond it, while calling out, "Hello?"

A tall triangular mass of ribbons and flowers bobbed in response as Arthur announced dryly, "My student has finally arrived."

Danika wanted to argue that since her accumulated level (and thus her skills) exceeded the toad's now, that she no longer counted as his student, but she was too surprised to respond immediately.

The Witch smiled at ZipZing as her hat tilted far enough back to reveal her face and said cheerfully, "I see the little dragon who went so far to avoid becoming a familiar once, has become a familiar in the end."

"Yes, but it's completely different," Danika protested.

"Finally found someone that you're willing to devote your life to supporting?" the Witch asked knowingly.

A silent shower of crimson sparkles from ZipZing's wings answered her, as Danika blushed. After a moment she recovered enough to protest, "Shin… Zing supports me all the time too."

"As he should," Arthur said dourly. "Any master that doesn't take care of their familiar hardly deserves to have one."

The Witch nodded in agreement, making her enormous hat bobble dangerously. "Indeed, trust always goes both ways," she stated before asking curiously, "Has your guild already collected two thousand wings ZipZing?"

"No," Danika admitted. "We've only collected 25 beetles, but I wanted to show them to you, to see if they are suitable. I was thinking that we could heal them up and farm all of the wings from just these."

The Witch didn't appear offended or repulsed by the idea, she simply nodded, and cleared a space amid the clutter of the crowded room. Danika zipped over and landed in the center of the space and removed her pebble from its harness. A moment later she carried the cage full of shiny jewel scarab beetles out of her garden for the Witch to inspect.

The Witch examined each one carefully, and then nodded again. "These will do. I'll give you something to help your little witch heal them properly."

While the Witch looked for whatever she planned to gift to ShinZing, Danika asked curiously, "What are you going to do with so many wings?"

The Witch chuckled and replied, "Brew enamels."

"Enamels?" Danika asked blankly. She was pretty certain that insects were not involved in the manufacture of enamels in the real world, although she'd heard that some pretty strange things had gone into some of the world's historic oil paintings.

Arthur complained, "The dwarves are going crazy lately. They've developed a fad for making everything shiny! Hardly see one in proper beaten armor anymore."

Danika thought back to the appearance of the dwarves wandering the city. It wasn't uniform, but many of them had already begun incorporating steampunk themed decoration in their outfits. Even 'The First Dwarven Smith' had worn a shirt with a noticeable amount of copper embroidery that might have been patterned in gears.

The Witch chuckled and glanced at ZipZing slyly from under the brim of her hat as she held out a small pouch. "Nothing wrong with a bit of shine here and there," she said cheerfully. "Here, these will help you out."

Danika reached for the pouch and then hesitated. "How much will we owe you?" she asked warily.

The Witch laughed merrily, and her toad said smugly, "That's my student!"