At first, Danika couldn't find it. The dust was clearing quickly, and there was no sign of any large creature, just a small landslide where a small tree that had been growing from the face of a nearly vertical slope seemed to have fallen, along with a section of loose earth and stone.
The movement of a flower attracted her gaze first. Despite the wintery weather in her area, within the game it was early summer. The flower wiggled again. It was growing in a clump of soil that had fallen free of the tree's roots, and lay nearly upright.
A moment later a small pink foot emerged from beneath the flower. With a grunting noise, a small pink snout followed, and then the whole clod trembled and shook as it was heaved upward by the back of a very small pig. The flower fell sideways and lay flattened against the ground as the pig's sides heaved.
Danika blinked as she realized that it wasn't its sides, it was its wings. The little pig shook its iridescent wings out and then, with a deep buzzing sound like the biggest bee in the world, launched itself upward.
"Holy, flying pig," she said aloud with amazement.
The pig startled, and tilted itself into a turn that let it see her. She had forgotten to renew her invisibility when the spell wore off during her search. It turned away and she remembered to fling a mark at it just in time, because it buzzed away with startling speed.
It didn't get far though, because it collided with a squirrel that launched itself through the space between two trees, just in time to hit the pig zipping between them. The two small animals hit the ground and bounced. Danika winced in sympathy. Both animals staggered to their feet a moment later.
Seeing that the pig seemed to think that she was chasing it, Danika turned and zipped back to Kit and Jade, where she told them about the little flying pig at the same time as she messaged Shrubbery and asked her to log back in.
"A flying pig usually has negative luck," Jade commented. "It's impressive that it's old enough to fly."
"That's true! How old do you think it is?" Kit asked excitedly.
"No idea. Oh, you could see it in your book, if it's the oldest one now?" Danika replied hopefully.
"Nope, it disintegrated when I entered the Jade Palace that first time," Kit reminded her.
"Oh, right," Danika agreed.
Jade informed them, "Only enchanted items crafted by the emperor, or held by a resident, can enter the Jade Palace."
Danika nodded, and then remembered that Jade couldn't necessarily see anything that didn't send text, skill, or targeting information to the mobile version, and said, "Yeah, we know that now."
"Let's catch up to it quickly!" Kit exclaimed. "The trail of destruction we've been following might be evidence of its bad luck? Maybe we can help keep it alive?"
--
The little flying pig seemed to have terrible luck. They were following it until Shrubbery could log in and try to talk to it. During that time, three trees fell when it was passing, lightning struck out of the clear blue sky and narrowly missed it, and an angry swarm of bees chased it for about six kilometers after it landed to rest for a moment on the hollow tree that held their hive. Once it stopped for a drink of water from a little stream, and what looked like a full size barracuda tried to snap it up.
In a way, Danika thought that its luck was also incredible though, because it somehow escaped each dangerous encounter without serious injury.
When Shrubbery finally returned, she began with an apology, but Danika quickly shushed her, and turned her attention to the little pig. "Oh, that's cute?" Shrubbery commented uncertainly.
Danika quickly explained the brief and sad history of flying pigs in 'Living Jade Empire' to her. "This one seems to have horrible luck, but I'm not sure that it doesn't actually have amazing luck, because it's lived through everything so far!"
Shrubbery pointed questioningly at the gleam of gold that glinted among the roots of the latest victim of the little pig's luck, and suggested, "Plus there's the way that a new treasure is getting revealed with each incident?"
Danika turned and zipped back about 40 meters to the spot where the little pig had narrowly avoided being impaled by a falling rock, and examined it doubtfully. To her amazement, Shrubbery was correct. The rock spear had actually been coated in a dull dry mud or clay, but the surface was flaking off and the hard core beneath it was a deep purple looking crystal. She wasn't sure what it was, but she stuffed the whole thing into her tail ring before returning.
Shrubbery had already approached the pig, which darted away from the tall dryad as though it had just spotted a tiger. "It's too bad that I can only understand full blooded animals," she said regretfully. "But I haven't heard it say anything so far anyway."
"Jade," Danika asked suddenly, "can you speak pig to it? I mean, we can use real skills without having the game skill, and as far as I can tell the traveling merchant and the emperor can speak to anyone."
"I do not change what I am saying, the data the player receives is changed, and every resident can understand what they should be able to understand," Jade replied after a moment. "I could speak to a pig if it were in my game."
"I've noticed that before," Shrubbery volunteered. "I can always understand what the traveling merchant is saying to characters that don't speak common, and so can they, even though they can't understand me."
Danika sighed and said, "I guess language is interpreted on a different layer, the way he can paint, without being able to figure out what's in a painting by looking at it."
Shrubbery and Kit both looked confused, but Jade agreed, "Yes, it is similar, except I can understand most languages. If the pig spoke, I might be able to understand it."
"Maybe we could attract it with food," Kit suggested. "I feel like we're just adding to its problems by chasing it. I thought we could help it, but all of the accidents so far have been so sudden that there hasn't been much of a chance."
"Any player afflicted with this kind of luck would probably just quit the game," Danika said sympathetically.
"I think there are people who could have fun with it, especially if they noticed the treasures," Shrubbery pointed out.
--
Danika tried invisibly leaving various foods along the little pig's path, but while it managed to get a few mouthfuls, something or another would invariably interrupt it, or steal the food, or something.
After awhile she asked curiously, "Jade, are we still headed toward the place where the roots of the world touch the sky?"
"Pretty much," Jade agreed. "But we are not following the most efficient route."