The City of Cyan was as fantastical as the fairy's racial capital, L'Arc En Ciel, the City of Rainbows. It was a city of triangles and hanging gardens. A vast inverted pyramid built of a semi-translucent cyan material rose out of the center of the triangular delta. The wide delta itself was entirely under cultivation beneath the looming structure.
The City of Cyan was both built atop that enormous improbable structure, and within it. The center was a pyramidal hollow, with another pyramid in a more traditional orientation, that was supported only by its points, suspended within it. That inner pyramid functioned as the city's palace and administrative headquarters.
It wasn't a racial capital, but it could be considered the magician's capital. Witches whisked in and out of it, riding on their brooms and giant leaves, while wizards floated in and out on carpets or clouds, or with their long robes fluttering around their ankles as they levitated. Bird folk and bird halves like gryphons and sittamin, such as Song Solvin flitted in and out.
The sea beyond the delta was stained a pale blue-green as near to cyan as anything. The water didn't darken to a more ordinary oceanic blue until out near the horizon.
Danika gazed at the streets on the upper surface of the city, and asked, "Aren't there an awful lot of dwarves here?"
ShinZing zipped closer and she pointed to the area in question before he agreed, "More than I remember. Maybe they're enchanters? It'll be really handy when I have access to my old skills again and I can see all of that information."
"You can see their paths without that," she pointed out dryly.
"One at a time," he complained.
Danika grinned at him and said, "Alright, let's grab a cage for these beetles somewhere. The travelling merchant would probably be fastest?"
ShinZing nodded in agreement, and she zipped toward the city at her top speed. He streaked after her, leaving behind an entwined trail of quickly fading sparkle from their wings.
--
The traveling merchant greeted them with an appearance of surprise and commented, "It's good to see you again ZipZing!"
Danika felt a little guilty because she hadn't been frequenting him lately, both because they had their second guild NPC, Keeper Kin, assigned to maintaining a guild inventory of small consumables, and because she was trying to be more careful with her coin and frequent less expensive stationary player and NPC shops and stalls.
The traveling merchant turned to ShinZing and added conversationally, "And ShinZing too, you've been playing for longer than usual today haven't you? Don't forget to rest when you need to."
Danika turned to look at ShinZing with an expression of concern, and he said quickly, "I had the whole evening free."
"Had…" Danika repeated. She didn't want to nag him about resting, but she didn't want to be keeping him awake when he needed to rest either.
He got closer to her and laid his hand against her shoulder, and she could feel his warmth, even though it was simulated by the VR system. "I'll come up to bed after we complete the familiar bonding," he promised, as though he could read her mind.
"Right, okay," she agreed and turned back to the merchant. "We need a cage that can hold about 25 jewel scarab beetles."
"A small enchanted version or an ordinary large cage?" the merchant asked cheerfully.
"An ordinary one should be fine I think," she replied quickly.
"Thirty coin for a wickerwork cage, three hundred for a wire cage," he told her.
Danika turned to ShinZing again and he offered, "I think wickerwork would be alright. We aren't keeping them long term, right?"
"Right," she agreed.
--
The merchant quickly produced the cage from his pack. Anyone who wasn't familiar with game inventory systems might have found the way he pulled something larger than the pack out of the pack to be illogical, but Danika and Shinichi were so accustomed to it that they didn't notice.
ZipZing paid the merchant without having to barter items to cover the price, for once, and Shinichi grinned. He laughed when she dropped her pebble out of its harness onto the ground, and lifted the cage with her dragon strength, despite it looking like a dozen of her would fit inside it. She shuffled her hind foot around until she felt the pebble, and said the entrance word, "Dragonheart."
She and the cage vanished, and Shinichi told the traveling merchant, "Thanks!"
He scooped up the stone space and looked around. Normally they would lay it on a rooftop to stay undisturbed, but here, it seemed like everyone was flying. He zipped over and dropped it into a large flower pot instead, and then followed her into it.
The familiar bonding didn't take them long, although ZipZing wound up drawing most of the magic circle that he used to cast the spell on her. Shinichi logged off afterward, as he'd promised, but she stayed in the VR-medi pod a little longer.
--
Danika exited her garden and scooped up the little pebble that contained it. Then she zipped back over to where the travelling merchant still stood and asked for directions to the witch.
"There are many witches here," the merchant replied with amusement.
Danika checked her guild quest, but it simply said "The Witch" and the quest compass was not going to be a quick method to locate her in a vast three dimensional structure like the inverted pyramid of the City of Cyan.
The travelling merchant took pity on her, and actually took the initiative to suggest, "But I can give you directions to the two that I know of who are currently seeking jewel scarabs if you like?"
"Please," she requested with relief.
A few moments later, she thanked him and zipped away. Even with the travelling merchant's careful directions, the interior of the pyramid felt like a labyrinth. There were a number of dwarves walking briskly through the interior corridors too.
Suddenly Danika spotted a familiar dwarf, and zipped forward. "Smith!" she called out as she reached a conversational distance.
The dwarf looked around and finally caught sight of her. "Zip Zing!" the character known in the forums as the First Dwarven Smith replied cheerfully.
"Why are there so many dwarves here?" Danika asked with unrestrained curiosity. "What are you all working on?"
Smith replied cheerfully and succinctly, "Airships."
"You've already figured out how to dragon proof one?" Danika asked with a gasp of surprise.
The dwarf grimaced and admitted, "No. And we've tried some pretty wild ideas. But this expansion just screams with the potential for it. We've got new energy sources, new enchantment possibilities and new, stronger and lighter, materials to build with. Unfortunately no stealth or invisibility skill or effect we've been able to invoke so far does the trick."
"Actually, I've been thinking about how Kit describes the weird phasing skill a celestial dragon uses to move at higher elevations," Danika replied. "She said it feels like the air thickens, so I've been wondering if they are actually feeling the movement instead of…" her voice trailed off suddenly. The dwarf was giving her a really strange look and holding up a hand.
Smith suddenly pulled a strange looking object out, and fiddled with it for a moment. The noise of the passers by faded out. "You've talked directly with a celestial dragon?" Smith demanded sharply. "Wait, isn't Kit the name of one of your guildmates?"
"Er, kind of, and yes, she is," Danika admitted nervously.