Danika thought, with wry amusement, that one of the things they had in common was that this apparently gave them each one person on their friend list. She didn't tell Aishin that though, she didn't know him well enough yet.

She looked around the little meadow sadly, nothing was left of the moonflowers but drifting ash, stirring in the breeze. After a moment she activated her wings and lifted herself out of her new friend's hands.

Aishin watched her for a moment, and then the faint glowing traces of his menu screens appeared. He grumbled, "Ugh, it looks like my pouches disintegrated under that meteor shower, and all I have left is what's in my storage bands."

Reminded of storage pouches, Danika landed cautiously in the center of the meadow. The ground was cooling quickly, and not uncomfortably warm, so she pulled out the moonflower seed pouch, and withdrew a pod, before storing them safely again.

Aishin stared at her and said "Wow!" He asked quickly, "How do you have such a high quality storage ring when you're still just a novice?"

Danika looked back at him and protested, "It only has three storage spaces."

"But that was a pouch of holding you just used wasn't it?" Aishin questioned.

Danika nodded.

Aishin laughed and shook his head. "You don't want to know how much the stackable inventory spaces cost when you're trying to get the enchantment."

Danika protested, "The pouch I bought from the traveling merchant only cost 200 coins."

Aishin nodded and agreed, "Yeah, I bought that one while in the beginner's vale too, it's more expensive later. But it's got a normal space enchantment, it won't hold other items with inventory spaces."

Danika shrugged and said, "The smith gave it to me, he said I was too small for a normal pack."

"Oh, that's true," Aishin agreed, "and the pack had 20 spaces. I guess you just got special starter equipment suited to your character, but don't sell that ring, you won't be able to replace it for ages."

"Ok," Danika agreed easily.

She carefully cracked the seed pod. The moon had set and dawn was starting to lighten the sky, but the seeds still glowed softly. She planted them about a meter from each other and cast her plant growth on each one. Little vines sprouted and curled out quickly.

When the spell finished, they still looked lonely, with their ⅔ grown vines tangling through the ashes, but it seemed like the most she could do.

Aishin commented quietly, "Don't worry it'll regenerate, it's just a game."

Danika turned to look at him. He was dressed in snug dark clothes with his face covered. He rummaged through the bloody mess on the ground and started pulling out blades. Small ones that went into pockets, and larger knives that went into his inventory.

The last thing he picked up, was a long thin katana and its sheath was still intact. He shook it and the ashes and other materials slid off it like Danika had slipped from the grasping aspens after using the witch's oil.

Danika assumed the pose and brought up the lens and looked at him again. Above his label was a green PVP flag, which could mean either that he had PVP turned on, or that he'd fought someone with the flag recently. Yellow meant you'd attacked someone who didn't have PVP turned on, and it stuck for 3 days. Red meant you'd killed someone who didn't have PVP turned on, or attacked someone less than half your level, and showed for a week. Anyone could attack a red marked player without triggering a PVP flag on themselves.

His label itself was the white of a friend instead of the usual NPC yellow, or player blue, and read simply, "Aishin". When she tapped it, his description read:

A Human and a Master Assassin

Karma: 3

Reincarnations: 23

Accumulated Level: 175

Aishin watched her observing him and commented lightly, "You have a pretty high level for an ordinary novice, can't decide what you want to be?"

Danika shrugged and answered camly, "I don't intend to choose a path, I want to be free to learn whatever I want to."

His brows drew down into a frown and he asked, "Doesn't that mean you can only learn from a few NPCs that can teach skills like the sages?"

She regarded him with raised eyebrows and said, "I have a skill that lets me learn a new skill by observing it. Although I was warned that at low levels it might take a thousand repetitions, I've been really lucky, I've already learned two skills from the first demonstration."

"In the vale right? All the mentors have a sage's teaching skill. Which one taught the skill that lets you learn by observing?" Aishin asked curiously.

"The smith," Danika answered readily, and added, "and then when I left the vale, the traveling merchant taught me a skill that should let me teach skills to others."

"You're a freaking sage," Aishin said with shock.

Danika laughed and activated her wings. She flew toward the edge of the meadow while asking lightly, "A baby sage? It still says I'm a novice and I haven't even finished my growth phase."

"We should go down the other side of the mountain," Aishin told her. "That's the direction they went."

Danika looked back at him and said dryly, "But I need to take these seeds back to the witch." She took a deep breath before asking cautiously, "What did you do to them?"

Aishin shrugged and replied matter of factly, "I carried out a contract on their guild."

After a long moment, Danika asked, "Is it a small guild?"

"Only about 50 members, but only about 10 of them were any trouble, the rest were all below Master," Aishin answered calmly.

"You killed them all?" Danika verified.

"Yeah," he replied simply.

"No wonder they're mad," she muttered.

Aishin laughed and said, "No, that's not why they're hunting me. It's because their guild leader had just been slain by a boss, and didn't have enough Karma to resurrect. Like that's my fault."