They didn't find anyone who knew of any rumors of hooded bandits nearby, but one elderly woman (who was very informative about how and where to watch for wild Amaranth and how to gather its seeds most efficiently) nodded at the question of large toothed cats and told them, "The snow leopards that live high in the dwarven mountains have long fangs. My grandfather had a short white sabre that he said was crafted from a mountain guardian cat's tooth."
Kit brought out the map again and asked doubtfully, "If the monkeys are in the hills nearby, but the cats are high in the mountains, isn't that too big of an area to search with too little detail?"
Danika shrugged and suggested, "We could try locating the monkeys first, and see if we run into any hooded people to the northwest of them, if we consider the cat face as the west?"
Kit hesitated and then said, "I can only play for another half an hour today."
Danika asked, "Can you play at about the same time tomorrow?"
Kit nodded and said, "Yeah, I play at the same time every day right now. I get two hours every morning."
Danika blinked. "It's evening for me right now, so I should go to bed soon, but I can play about the same time tomorrow too," she told Kit.
"Ok," Kit said more cheerfully. "Then let's see if we can stumble over some monkeys in the hills before I have to go."
"Ok!" Danika agreed.
--
Half an hour later it was unlikely that they would literally stumble over anything, as they were both flying low over the forested hills. They'd decided that it would be a much quicker way to search for the monkeys, since they could both fly if Kit transformed.
Kit's 'Territorial Vision' skill let her point out the territories of a wide variety of animals and birds as they traveled. They'd spotted two different kinds of animals that Danika would have identified as llamas, but her animal identification skill gave them different names. The two skills seemed to compliment each other, so Danika also targeted Kit with her 'Impartation' skill whenever she used her 'Identify Animal'.
When Danika asked more about Kit's 'Transformation' skill, Kit told her that she could stay transformed for one bell per skill level each day. That was much longer than any of the spells Danika knew yet. Kit could currently transform for longer than she had time to play each day, but each transformation reduced the limit by one bell, even if she only transformed for a moment.
Kit suddenly dropped to the forest floor and Danika turned back and followed her down. "Did you spot one?" Danika asked, while craning her head around to search the trees nearby.
"No, it's time for me to go, so I figured I'd use up the rest of my transformations for today so that you'd get more chances to learn it," Kit answered. "Ready?"
"Yeah! And thank you!" Danika replied quickly and concentrated on Kit.
Kit changed rapidly back to her human form, then touched her belt and shifted into a large grey squirrel and back, and a large silvery fish and back. Then she said, "This is the last form I have yet, and the first one I learned." She shifted once more, and her last form was a housecat with sleek black fur that matched her human hair.
Danika asked abruptly, "Hey! When you turned into a cat the first time did you…" She tried again, "Do you have any sub paths?"
Kit, still in her cat form, replied curiously, "No? Why?"
Danika blinked at her. "You can still talk normally?"
"Yeah, it's a little weird isn't it? You'd think I'd chirp or meow or whatever in other forms, but that would make the game really complicated." Kit returned to her human form and said quickly, "I have to go. Thanks for your help today! Really glad to have met you!"
"You too!" Danika agreed as Kit vanished. "I wonder if that apple was really cursed after all." She pulled out her pebble and looked at it thoughtfully. "I hope planting that tree works out ok."
A moment later someone threw something at ZipZing and her evasion triggered. Danika looked up after she recovered her balance to see a little brown monkey with long fur grinning down at her from the branches above. Danika rolled her eyes and asked, "So now you show up?"
Aishin's little bat swooped down with a message, which Danika snatched and read quickly: "Are you in a safe place?"
She frowned and eyed the little monkey warily. She zipped around another tree, dropped her little pebble on the far side and entered her garden. She sent back: "I am for now."
Aishin himself appeared beside her almost as soon as her little bird vanished. "Hi," he said with a quick grin.
Danika asked worriedly, "Your health?"
"It's fine, I'll heal up before I have time to play more anyway," Aishin replied comfortingly. He flashed another grin at her and said with amusement, "Although I'm pretty sure this isn't what this movement skill was intended for. What's outside? Will I be able to log off safely without making you carry your stone around all day tomorrow?"
"It should be ok, we're in a forest and a monkey threw something at me, but I don't think it should count as combat?" Danika replied.
She looked at him thoughtfully, and after a moment Aishin asked, "What are you thinking?"
Her wings sparkled pink and he flashed another grin at her as she replied, "Lots of things. Why did you teleport to me? Did you run away from something?"
Aishin laughed. He was obviously using his headset with his phone again as his expression didn't match the rich sound of his laughter. He reached out and pinched her little dragon cheeks and asked teasingly, "Maybe I'm practicing for when I'll need to see you every day?"
"Oh my god, he's flirting again!" Someone exclaimed faintly in the background.
A deeper voice replied calmly, from closer to Aishin's headset, "Your jealousy will make him think you want to be more than friends if you keep it up."
Danika giggled.
Aishin flashed a dark scowl and said, "Maybe I need to give in and buy a better headset for the game, you can hear them can't you?"
"Yeah," she agreed, and then asked, "but doesn't that mean the set you're using is already pretty high quality for it to pick up so much?"
Aishin flicked a series of emotes that made his expression scrunch from embarrassed to angry to innocent and replied, "It's good for what I usually use it for."
"It's ok, unless you mind that I can hear them," Danika said comfortingly.
"It's a good thing his girlfriend can't see that goofy expression and smell his socks," the first voice commented.
"She can hear you," Aishin said dryly, "and your socks are worse."
"Oh. Hello dragon girl," the deeper voice said.
Danika replied questioningly, "Hi?"
"But they can't hear you ZipZing," Aishin said and flashed another grin. "She said hi." He looked around her little garden space and said, "I'm jealous of your room."
"I know, Logical Heart made it really amazing didn't he? But he said the illusion is set in his own pond so that the diamond is safe. What was someone like that even doing in the market?" Danika questioned.
Aishin shrugged and questioned, "Someone like that? We're all just people. If you got a palace in the game would you hide inside it and never leave?"
"No," Danika admitted.
"So what's this Kit Tay you've added to the party like?" Aishin asked curiously.
"She's a druid!" Danika replied with sudden excitement. "She can shapeshift into any animal she has a tooth, claw, scale, or hair from woven into her belt. It's so cool!"
Aishin snickered and asked, "But what's the person like?"
"Kiss your dragon and log out, the car is going to be here in a minute," advised the first voice faintly.
Danika rolled her eyes and replied quickly, "I don't know yet. She seems nice enough, gets nervous easily, cried easily, but was mostly cheerful?"
"A very emotional person or a very young person?" Aishin asked after a moment of thought.
Danika hesitated and then shrugged.
Aishin flashed a smile and said, "So what I actually came to you for was to give you what I've collected already." He opened a pouch and pulled several containers larger than it was out of it. "I've already gotten the diamond dust, the perfect sea shells, and a hundred year old ring, I didn't get your message about wanting two sets of materials before I got that one, so we'll need another.
"I only have one snowflake too," Danika replied. "But it's ok, there's no time limit?"
Aishin gave her another quick grin and said, "The car's here now, see you." He poked her garden's center stone and said "exit", and Danika followed him out just in time to see him vanish.
After a moment she scooped up her pebble and logged off for the night early again.