Danika turned to face the toad. Arthur sat smugly beneath a now familiar berry bush. The healing berries on this bush were larger, and her plant identification skill told her that they would heal almost 25% more than the ones they'd let the scarabs eat. They were probably at nearly their maximum potential. She couldn't decide whether or not the bush had been there before and she'd overlooked it, or if it has been added.
"I assume that you're here to fulfill the request," the toad prompted.
ShinZing zipped closer and agreed cheerfully, "Yes."
Danika eyed his proximity to the toad warily, but she supposed that he could always cut his way free again if Arthur snapped him up.
"Why haven't you added ZipZing to the association?" ShinZing asked. "She's a familiar now too."
"What do you know about it?" Arthur huffed. "Go on in and make your delivery!"
"Alright," ShinZing agreed without pressing the question.
"You were a familiar for about a year in game time before you were added," Danika reminded Shinichi as the wooden door swung open invitingly.
The Witch stood over three bubbling cauldrons. Each one was as large as her enormous wicker hat full of flowers, and filled more than half way with some sort of bubbling gloppy substance. It looked sticky and was a sort of mucky and inedible looking color.
"Ah, Endless Song, good good. I've got everything ready, just pour the wings into here, gold, silver, and copper," she instructed while gesturing to each cauldron in turn.
"What is that smell?" Quicksilver asked, while waving a hand in front of her face.
"Complaints like that make me glad I'm not using VR, even if it was pretty fun to try," MatchlessMinion declared.
"Right?" ShinZing agreed promptly. "Although it has other benefits."
Danika shrugged. The pots had a strong odor, but it wasn't particularly unpleasant to her, just sharp. It seemed like a waste to pour the carefully harvested shiny assortment of wings into the mucky substance, but she pulled out the bag full of gold wings and tilted it over the first cauldron.
The Witch chuckled, and told Quicksilver, "I could tell you that it's a deadly poison, or that it's a substance worth more than its own weight in gold, or that it's just boiled scraps and waste products. But for now, I'll just ask that you not disturb the balance of the water within this room little assassin."
The little nadia backed away, while pinching her own nose and asked nasally, "Which is it then?"
"All three," Arthur told her right before she bumped into his nose.
Quicksilver froze in place, but Danika didn't have any attention to spare the nadia, she was staring at the cauldron. At first the pretty wings had simply sunk into the murky substance, but by the time the last few fluttered out of the bag in her hand, the color of that substance had turned to pure gold. If she didn't know better, she'd have said she was looking into a pot of liquid gold.
"Cool," ShinZing commented as he hovered beside her. "Can I pour the next one?"
Danika handed the bag over, while MatchlessMinion bounced up and down and complained, "I can't see more than a glimpse!"
Danika zipped over and cast her featherweight spell on him, and his bounces suddenly gained a great deal of height.
"Woah, nice!" he exclaimed. "I should ask Logical Heart to put this spell into an enchanted item for me!"
The Witch's hat bobbed dangerously as she raised the brim enough to gaze at the chinchillamin warningly, and cautioned him, "Don't go knocking into anything."
"I won't," MatchlessMinion assured her.
Danika wanted to caution him against imposing on Logical Heart too, but she couldn't think of a good way to phrase it, and she was distracted by watching the next cauldron's contents turn to shining silver.
Quicksilver gazed into the steam rising from the pots and said, "Shiny. What are you going to do with it?"
MatchlessMinion stopped bouncing for a moment and turned to look at her. "You can see from there?" he asked incredulously.
The Witch chuckled again, and said, "Those of water who learn such skills can see things reflected in mist, like those of flame can look through a fire," she tilted her hat back and added while looking at ShinZing, "or a witch can see within a heart."
ShinZing looked back at her with interest, but he didn't ask anything, so after a moment Danika asked, "Do you want to pour the copper wings?"
"I want to!" MatchlessMinion answered first.
The Witch gestured at a broom that was leaning against the crowded shelves beside her, and told him firmly, "Stand on that then."
The broom whisked over and hovered in front of the cauldron, and the chinchillamin neatly hopped up onto it, displaying the coordination he'd used to descend the Jade Path. Danika didn't argue, she simply passed him the last bag of wings.
The bright copper pieces fluttered into the muck, shining like new pennies, and vanished into the depths. Like the cauldrons before it, by the time the last wings fell, the substance had turned to the same shining copper color.
The Witch reached behind her and picked up a basket of vials, and poured it into the first cauldron. She had a basket of vials ready for each pot, and Danika was not surprised when the substance seemed to withdraw into the bottom of the pots, leaving behind clean dry vials full of the substance that they had just sunk into.
"I guess I'll hop off and tell the dwarves that their enamel is ready," Arthur announced grumpily from the doorway.
"Yes," the Witch agreed. Her hat turned in ZipZing's direction and she waved her hand. A basket of coin zipped over to Danika like a little flying saucer, and the Witch said kindly, "Endless Song performed this task quickly and well, I'll refer a few seekers to you later as the opportunity arises."
"Thank you," Danika replied politely as she caught the little basket and the contents vanished into the guild funds.
--
As they left the City of Cyan, MatchlessMinion said, "I feel like I just watched a magic show."
"Didn't we?" Danika asked laughingly.
"We did," Quicksilver replied as she skated along the smooth cyan street.
"Yeah, but I mean, there's magic everywhere. Just look at this place," he waved his little arms expansively. The enormous inverted pyramid really was a good example of improbable magical sights. "And really, she just changed the color of some paint, but it still seemed really cool somehow!" he exclaimed.
"Do you think I've inadvertently chosen a performer's path after all?" ShinZing asked suddenly.
They all turned to look at his small sparkling winged form, and then MatchlessMinion replied, "I take it back, this path really does suit you."
Shinichi's full motion console mirrored his grimace perfectly on his character's face as he muttered, "Thanks."
Danika used the most recent transformation she'd managed to weave into the belt of moonlight beneath her stone's harness, and transformed into a pixie before she zipped over and hugged ShinZing. His eyes widened as he returned her hug.
"Jade said that the purpose of the game is to make people happy and expand their capabilities, is it annoying you instead?" she asked with concern.
ShinZing was warmer than she felt, even in the same shape, and his voice was warm too as he told her, "Not when you put it that way. Arthur is probably right, it's ridiculous how many of us feel unhappy with so much of our so-called real lives."
"Um, okay?" she replied doubtfully.
"Yeah," MatchlessMinion agreed more firmly. "I was really unhappy about moving away, but there are actually a lot of good things about it. And this game really does totally spy on us all the time, and try to make us happier, or maybe it tries to show us how to make ourselves happier."
Danika was really curious about what MatchlessMinion had experienced that made him say that, but ShinZing responded first. "Thanks, I'll let it take a shot at teaching me what it thinks I should know then." His embrace tightened again and his voice hummed against her ear as he added, "It's done pretty well at introducing me to people it thinks I'd like to know."