Chapter 56: 56: A Silver Ring

Aishin's departure seemed to give Inchy Antyr a bit of his courage back and he stood up and began dusting off his robes. Danika ignored him and surveyed the damage to the shop thoughtfully. Nothing was burned. It looked more like a small tornado had hit, although even then, the things in the corners were undisturbed.

"You owe me for the damage your party member caused with that wind bomb!" the enchanter declared a moment later.

Danika narrowed her eyes at him and snapped, "You mean you owe us for locking a sun powered person in your dark basement with only one small lamp."

Inchy Antyr looked at Shrubbery and asked, "What is your cat trying to say?"

Danika winced, she'd gotten so used to being able to talk to Shrubbery and the mice, and she couldn't message him the way she had messaged Aishin.

Shrubbery straightened her spine and said with surprising firmness, "My friend said that you mean that you owe us! The mice are gone for good, and you still left us locked in your basement. If you had answered my knocks, she wouldn't have had to call for help!"

Danika wondered suddenly if that was true. The contract said it was, but this was supposed to be a repeatable quest.

The enchanter blustered, "Open it up and risk letting those horrid mice into the rest of my place?! Never!"

Shrubbery lifted her chin and repeated, "The mice are gone. You owe us the cantrip ring you promised."

The enchanter demanded, "Where are the bodies then?"

Danika asked Shrubbery, "Should we just tell him I ate them all? Or should we try to explain?"

Shrubbery replied, "Just show him the contract."

"How?" Danika questioned. "It's just a menu item now?"

"Find it in your menus, open it, and click the scroll icon," Shrubbery instructed patiently. "Then it'll ask if you want to pay for a copy."

Danika swiped over to the screen that showed her two active contracts and tapped the little scroll icon in the bottom corner of the mouse contract. A system notification popped up asking if she wanted to spend 1 Karma on a physical copy. Danika winced and asked, "Can't we just tell him that I ate them all?"

Shrubbery raised her hands and dropped them in an exaggerated shrug. "My friend says to tell you that she ate them all," she told the enchanter sourly.

"Like I'll believe that!" Inchy Antyr snapped.

Danika sighed and reached to tap accept, but stopped when the enchanter bent and pulled a crystal ball out of the jumble of items that had been blown off of his counter, brushed it off, and activated it.

A clear image of the basement storage room appeared in the ball. He ran his fingers over it, shifting the view around, zooming in and out. His expression shifted from angry, to incredulous, to hopeful. Finally he asked Shrubbery, "Are you sure you don't want to sell her? She makes a great cat."

"She's not for sale!" Shrubbery exclaimed.

"Fine," Inchy Antyr replied grumpily. He rummaged in the drawers behind him and pulled out a gold ring, flipped it over and read the inscription on the inside and put it back. He opened the next drawer over and pulled out a silver ring, checked its inscription and then laid it on the counter. "There," he stated, "the incantation to activate it is 'figura'." He added sourly, "It won't mould the shape of anything solid, it's just a cantrip."

Danika suddenly told Shrubbery, "Tell him that his merchandise is good enough on its own and to stop telling people he has infinite stones instead of charged stones."

Shrubbery gazed down at her in surprise, but then shrugged, picked up the silver ring, and repeated that to the enchanter.

Inchy Antyr protested angrily, "I do have an infinite stone! I've never lied about any of my items!"

Danika gazed at the enchanter doubtfully. Shrubbery asked helpfully, "What does it produce?"

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The enchanter looked away from them and muttered, "Sand."

Shrubbery replied kindly, "I see, that must be very helpful for construction projects." The enchanter looked at her with a rather shocked expression that turned calculating after a moment.

Danika laughed her silent cat's laugh and pulled six frogs teeth out of her old salt sack. "These are to pay for examining the apple, which he didn't do very well, and the damage from Aishin's wind bomb or whatever it actually was," she instructed Shrubbery.

Shrubbery scooped up the little pile of teeth dubiously, laid them on the counter and said, "Even though you didn't examine the apple well, she is giving you these for the fee, and to cover the damages."

When the two girls exited the shop, the enchanter was examining the teeth critically with the lens he'd used when they first arrived. Shrubbery held out the silver ring to ZipZing when they stopped at the corner of the larger street.

Danika looked at it and said, "I feel kind of bad that I didn't ask for anything that you could use. Would it be useful to you?" She thought of the witch and the olives and added, "You can shape and move water or paste with it I think."

Shrubbery blinked and replied, "I guess that sounds useful, but I didn't really do much, and isn't this what you wanted?"

"You did plenty," Danika argued. "And I just need to see it being cast enough times to learn it, I don't actually need to use it myself."

Shrubbery gazed at ZipZing with wide eyes and asked, "You can learn spells from just having them cast in front of you?"

Danika nodded. "I have a skill that lets me, it usually takes a lot of repetition though," she clarified.

Shrubbery handed her the ring and said firmly, "That's amazing, but keep this until you learn it then, and if there's any charge left after, I'll take it."

"Ok, thanks," Danika replied as she stored the ring.

Shrubbery giggled suddenly and Danika looked up. "I think your friend likes a little more than the music," Shrubbery suggested a little slyly.

"What?" Danika asked blankly.

"Well he, or possibly she I suppose, also bought the voice mod as well as the avatar. They didn't do a really good job on it though, it's really flat and expressionless compared to the real singer talking. His real voice has more of a silvery ring to it don't you think?" Shrubbery blushed and raised her fingers to her cheeks as she added, "I'm embarrassed that I didn't realize it was just a purchased avatar until you said that I probably recognized it though."

"Oh," Danika replied thoughtfully. "His voice has a lot more inflection when he's not using just his phone though?"

"Well, it probably sounds better on a system with more processing power," Shrubbery agreed.

"What band is he from?" Danika asked curiously.

"Do you live under a rock?" Shrubbery questioned in a scandalized tone. She heaved a sigh and said without answering the question, "Sorry, I have to go again. I probably won't have time to play again until tomorrow."

"Ok," Danika replied quickly. "It was good to see you again. Thanks, and remind me to ask more about your guild next time?"

"Sure," Shrubbery replied, and logged off.

Before Danika followed Aishin and Shrubbery offline for the night, she submitted a bug report, although it was more of an inquiry, on the repeatability of the white mouse quest. She included the details of the contract that she'd created with the mice, in case there was some obvious flaw in it that she'd overlooked.

She held her paw over the submit for a long moment, and then went back to the message and added a suggestion: "Perhaps they could now search for the 'right' cheese instead of an infinite stone?" The alarm she'd set for an earlier bedtime popped up, and she tapped submit and logged out.

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