Chapter 15: 15: Into the Darkness

Learning the innkeeper's special skill threatened to give Danika a headache. The slime heart coins of the Jade Empire were actually the simplest of the currencies that the innkeeper showed Danika.

Their value could be roughly calculated by their cylindrical volume or their weight, and they tended to have fairly regular proportions. A level one slime heart was the base unit known simply as a coin. But a level two slime heart was worth approximately 8 coins, and a level 3 worth approximately 26 coins. Theoretically a standard weight level 100 slime's heart would be worth roughly 982 thousand coins.

The shells of the sea folk were worse, they were valued by a baffling combination of size, color, sheen, shape and condition.

The ingot currency of the dwarves seemed easier to understand than the slime hearts, until they got into the alloys.

The innkeeper showed her several other even more obscure and thankfully rarely seen currencies. Then she helpfully recommended that Danika spend or exchange the rarer currencies with the traveling merchant, who always gave a fair value, if she ever acquired them.

When Danika finally learned the skill, she felt like a child who'd been required to learn to do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and then handed a calculator… She wanted to cry and ask why the innkeeper couldn't have magically transferred her skill to Danika the way the wizard had.

"The Search for Knowledge" was complete and her Karma points increased again. Danika had intended to leave the vale before stopping for the night, but she felt very tired out by all the math and types of currency. She logged out.

--

Despite the late hour, Danika decided to watch an episode of a light hearted series that she enjoyed when she needed a break. The simplistic plot felt like pure relaxation after her game session. Her dreams afterward repeated fragments of the episode displayed in the Sandman's three dimensional golden sands.

When she woke up, she wondered if you could request current episodes of things in your dreams in "Living Jade Empire". So far she hadn't fallen asleep again while connected to the game.

Her day passed normally apart from the grey curtains of rain that drizzled intermittently outside her window. She felt completely subdued when she logged in to the game and discovered that it was raining in the beginner's vale as well.

The traveling merchant was, very conveniently, waiting for her in the village square. He was twirling the stem of a colorful umbrella in his hands. He called out, "ZipZing, how wonderful to see you again. Have you accomplished everything you want to here?"

Danika nodded.

The merchant winked at her and asked, "Don't like rain?"

"Not really," she admitted.

"Look up," he suggested.

Danika looked up, expecting to see more grey clouds, and saw a thousand rainbows instead. She gasped, and the merchant chuckled. High above, the flowers in the tree that glowed at night were glowing already. As the rain misted down each one cast a rainbow halo around itself.

He waited silently while she gazed upward for awhile. Finally he spoke again, "You're soaking wet you know. Can I sell you anything to aid you in your adventures before you leave the vale? An umbrella perhaps? No, I think you'd be cuter with an eternal leaf. I think I have a few small ones."

Danika surveyed the contents of her inventory while asking, "An eternal leaf?" She had the salt bag with the 3rd level coin worth about 26 coins and the remainder of the spool of thread, the slime skin, and the wizard's yellow apple left.

The merchant explained, "An eternal leaf is a leaf that remains alive through a type of stasis enchantment."

Danika told him, "I think maybe I ought to get more food instead, can you suggest anything particularly small and dense?"

He winked at her and suggested, "How about normal food in a pouch of holding?"

Danika blinked and asked doubtfully, "How expensive would that be? And would I be able to store such a thing within my storage ring?"

"Certainly, and quite expensive for a novice I suppose," he answered her questions in reverse order. "About 200 coins for the pouch, and perhaps another 12 to fill it with food."

"I have 26 coins worth, and I'm out of slimes to hunt," Danika responded dryly.

The merchant grinned at her and asked questioningly, "Oh, did you harvest them all and spend the loot on something else?"

"All?" Danika repeated.

"There is usually an entire flock in residence here in the vale. I saw the one that you wounded with something pointy just the other evening," he informed her with amusement.

"But the quest said to defeat THE slime at the bottom of the vale," Danika protested a bit querulously.

The merchant spread his hands in a helpless gesture and explained, "There's not really room for more than one to come out at a time there, and the great tree shades the upper slopes too much for them. Each one only spends a few bells a day out in the open anyway."

Danika thought hard about just ignoring the information and leaving the vale with what she was currently carrying. She was in more of a mood to explore new places than to fight. But in the end, she decided to spend the rest of the damp, but rainbowclad day, hunting slimes to gain more inventory space.

The merchant made it a little easier by offering to buy the raw slime skins for 5 coins each, as long as they weren't damaged too much. Danika sold him the skin from her ring storage and bought rock salt and cheese with the proceeds.

Danika struggled to cram the apple into the old salt sack with the rest so that everything would fit into her inventory, and realized that she really did need to buy that pouch. In the end she cast featherweight on the new salt sack and flew as fast as possible with it clutched in her claws.

The weeds she'd planted before were still struggling to grow along the rocks but enough patches had developed that a slime was able to squeeze out into the usual sunning spot. It didn't stay long, it seemed to be checking to see if there was any sun. It, or another, appeared again a couple of minutes later.

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Danka devised a new battle tactic: she used her new wind slash to cut a little hole into the slime, threw a chunk of rock salt into the hole, and used more slashes to push the salt into the center of the slime. The first time she got lucky with her throw, but in the following battles if she missed with the salt, she just threw another piece as quickly as she could. She was a little afraid of getting sucked in again if she got too close.

Danika used up the last of the cheese she'd gotten to replenish her energy right before the 8th battle. To her surprise, her wind slash leveled up on her third strike during that last battle. Her flight skill still hadn't leveled, and she flew practically all the time.

It took 8 slimes to gain enough coin, because two of them were level 2 instead of 3. She was pretty sure that one of the slimes she defeated was the one she'd stabbed with the sharp stick. It had a scar at about the right place, and the merchant gave her a reduced price for that skin.

Danika made her purchases and sorted her inventory: she had a new pouch with 10 inventory slots full of bread, cheese, candy made from berries and nuts, and the apple. The old salt sack held the partial spool of thread and a few leftover coins. The new salt sack held just 3 more pieces of rock salt, and could be discarded if needed.

When she was finished she followed the traveling merchant through the stone gap and up to the standing ring. Before he opened it, he turned back to her and said, "Although you've never asked, I think this will aid you in the future." He reached out and tapped her nose lightly, and the soft distant chime of a skill acquired rang out once more.

Danika felt like an idiot for never asking what skills the merchant could teach, and she realized belatedly that he hadn't come up on her "Search for Knowledge" because he wasn't technically a resident of the village or the vale. Her wings sparkled like a small embarrassed firework as she mumbled, "Thank you," and wondered what she'd just learned.

The merchant opened the portal for her on the darkest night Danika had yet seen in the vale. The clouds still lingered, and the flowers shown dimly as though they were low on energy. And as she readied herself to set off into the world of "Living Jade Empire" her character sheet read:

--

ZipZing, a Fairy Dragon and a Novice.

Karma: 26

Reincarnations: 0

Accumulated Level: 20

--

Skills:

Flight, natural: 1

Breath, exhaust: 2

Dazzling: 1

Light, cantrip: 2

Featherweight, spell: 1

Plant Growth, spell: 1

Restore, prayer: 1

Binding String: 1

Wind Slash, attack: 2

Stealth: 1

Evasion: 1

Identify Animal: 1

Identify Plant: 1

Appraisal, currency: 1

Assimilation: 2

Impartation: 1

--

The traveling merchant said gently, "Enjoy your first adventures as a dragon's child, until we meet again ZipZing."

Danika took a deep breath, glanced back at the faded flowers growing high above, and then stepped through the portal into darkness. Literal darkness. There was absolutely nothing visible. She spun, and there was more nothing behind her. She spoke, and her voice didn't come out.

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