Chapter 314: 48: Swallowed Sand

MatchlessMinion's messenger cat strolled up and its head turned toward the crane. The mobile version didn't show as much detail, so Danika could not see if there was any subtle interaction between them, but the crane went silent while she read the message.

He complained: "You left first, and without me! I know that I said that I was going to jump, but I was thinking about the way the revive costs affect the guild if I take a title, and had decided that I should ride back."

Danika replied quickly: "Do you have a thief skill that would let you extract a stone from a bird's gizzard without killing it?" Her message was again carried away by the snow leopard cub, who managed to convey amusement even in his simplified chibi form.

The grey cat returned a moment later: "Maybe? Tell all! And I'm assuming this ShinZing that just joined the guild is Aishin's new character?"

Danika summarized the situation, and again the snow leopard carried it away. She also asked Shinichi aloud, "Would it be okay to ask Saaki, I mean Akito, to log in and get my garden stone to carry MatchlessMinion down?" 

"He'd need someone in Shrubbery's garden to teleport to," Shinichi pointed out. "I already considered asking him to come carry me to you, but I don't think he can do it unless one of the trio logs in."

"Cats," the crane muttered and then it hollered, "Let me go you evil little dragon! You think I'm blind because you've tied me up and left me lying in the mud? I can see that you are obviously working for him! You bounty hunters are all the same whether you're wearing fur or not!"

Danika considered its words, and then asked curiously, "You're running from someone who can convince cats to pursue bounties?"  

"You really don't know?" the crane asked doubtfully. 

Danika selected the reply: "If you tell me, I might be able to help you?" 

At the same time, she told Shinichi, "I could teleport back to Shrubbery's tree and get my stone space, and then Saaki could rescue MatchlessMinion from the Jade Palace. But then I'd have to teleport back to the crane again and who knows what might happen in the meantime. What if it just coughs up the stone into the lake?"

"Even though it's pretty valuable, it's not that important, and maybe Logical Heart has a way to locate it," he suggested. "Or an elf could see it maybe, because it's enchanted?" 

"I guess that's true… Where did you start? The racial capital?" she questioned. 

"Not the capital. I'm not sure exactly yet, but definitely somewhere in the eastern mountains, like most pixies," he replied. 

Danika read the crane's story. Once it finally decided to talk, it said defensively, "It wasn't my fault, that story about a crane eating sand and turning it to gold is not true! That crazy guy forced me to eat so much sand, and then fed me such hard wheat! Have you ever tried to grind wheat with sand? I was so full and yet so hungry all the time..." 

Danika gazed at the offered list of responses doubtfully. 'You can turn sand into gold?', 'Are you certain that you're not the crazy one?', and 'Lots of things are ground with sand.'

The enchanted stone with its embedded diamonds would probably grind things pretty well. Maybe the crane had just grabbed it because it was tired of starving. After a moment she made her own reply, "How cruel. So you just stole the stone so that you won't ever starve like that again?" 

"What, no!" the crane protested. "I only took his stone so that he'll stop trying to make gold!"

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"How will stealing that stone stop anyone from trying to make gold?" she questioned. 

"What?" the crane asked blankly. Then it swiveled its head slowly, and muttered, "Isn't it obvious? Doesn't everyone know that?" 

Danika replied, "It isn't obvious to me. There's a lot that I'm curious about." 

"You're just trying to trick me," the crane accused. "And those cats will have reported our location by now. If you were willing to help me, you'd just let me go!"

She didn't argue that the messenger cats wouldn't be reporting on them, she just tried pointing out, "And if you'd just cough up the stone, you'd be free to go."

"So you can line your pockets by returning it to that devil?! Never!" screamed the crane. 

"Are you making any progress?" Shinichi asked. 

"Not really," Danika said with a sigh. "I'm kind of tempted to just cut it open. But it seems like it really is determined not to cough anything up, so it would probably be safe for me to leave it? It's your stone, so you should be the one to decide if it's worth the risk?"

He turned away from the screen and hugged her for a minute. "It's not actually mine anymore, Aishin is gone," he reminded her. "And like what you said before, if I can't trust your choices, I shouldn't be dating you?" 

Danika opened her mouth to object that it wasn't the same at all, but then she realized that most people would probably consider trusting him with her key to be a lot more risky than with a game item. "You didn't trust my choice to be indirect with those idiots earlier," she muttered instead. It wasn't fair, but his reaction had really shaken her.

He looked startled, though whether because of the way she'd just referred to them as idiots or because she'd complained that he hadn't trusted her, she couldn't tell. He hugged her a little tighter and agreed, "Yeah, sorry." He looked like he was going to say something else, but what he said was, "Lend me your phone and I'll ask Akito to log in?"

"Okay," she agreed, but she paused as she saw the crane struggling with the spider silk string that bound it. "I'm going to release it first."

Shinichi nodded.

Danika released the crane, which didn't hesitate to launch itself into the air and fly away. She sent a quick message to MatchlessMinion outlining the current plan, and then she handed Shinichi her phone.

The first number he tried didn't get an answer, the second was answered, but Danika stared as Shinichi said politely, "Hi Nana, it's Shinichi, just checking to see if Akito made it home? He didn't answer when I called." There was a pause and then he added, "No, I haven't yet. He wasn't home when I stopped there before heading over to my girlfriend's place. I will, thanks!"

He had barely ended the call when her phone rang and he smiled and answered it. Akito agreed to join them, in between making exclamations like 'I'm saving your dragon's number!' loud enough that Danika could hear them.

"He will," Shinichi announced, making Danika giggle.

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