Danika logged in to find ZipZing mostly healed and the environment around the tree that she was hiding in quieter than it had been. She had just started to relax when the nearest leaves reached for her.

"One of my traps just triggered!" someone shouted.

Danika used her wind slash on the leaves, cast her invisibility and fled through the gap. "There's a spell being cast there!" someone else shouted below her.

A quick glance showed that the last speaker was, of course, another elf. As part of their dragon heritage, elves had innate magic that let them see magic as if they were constantly casting detect magic. At the moment that seemed really unfair and Danika tried to simply log out again.

The system notification informing her that she was currently in combat was pierced by a real magic missile that not only sent her spinning, but was every bit as painful as the boiling water from the fox's geyser. She landed hard on the stones of an elegant elven pathway.

Danika rolled quickly to her feet, but was immediately wrapped in dozens of threads and securely tied. She followed the threads with her eyes and saw that a cute girl with wings like hers, but much larger, held a spindle, and that the threads were actually a single thread binding her with something similar to her own Binding String skill.

"I caught it!" the girl squealed triumphantly.

"Why are you doing this?" Danika asked sharply. "What did I ever do to you?!"

An elf walked up behind her and pushed her over onto her back with his foot. Danika glared up at him and wished that she did know an area attack spell. The elf sneered. "Don't pretend you're innocent! You tricked our Callie into thinking you were a dangerous escaped pet and got her marked with a red PVP flag!" he declared angrily.

Danika gazed at him disbelievingly and then swiveled her head to see the fairy girl and another human player. None of these people were the elven archer woman who'd originally shot her. "You're all insane!" Danika accused.

"Don't insult my guild family like that you stinking novice," said a woman's voice. Danika whipped her head back around to see that it was the elven archer. Other elves were starting to take notice of the commotion and gathering around. The elven members of the little guild spoke quickly to them in elvish.

Danika's new skill only gave her a few words of it all, "pet, fairy, and lie." She quickly spoke up, "Help! Please help me!" But she couldn't access her menus and try to use elven speech with her claws bound, and the elven bystanders ignored her.

The little guild waited until they dispersed before addressing Danika again. Callie, the archer who'd shot her said, "Begging won't do you any good, I'm already marked for a week anyway, so there's nothing left to stop me from killing you and you don't even have enough Karma left to revive! Idiot!"

The little fairy girl questioned, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"This is not a good idea!" Danika declared. She used her dragon strength and prayed for luck as she strained against the threads.

Several of the threads snapped just as the archer snapped at the fairy, "It deserves it! It was probably hired by our enemies!" Danika had to assume that the archer wasn't using voice to communicate if she couldn't tell ZipZing was a girl.

"Gee, why would people like you have enemies?" Danika asked with saccharine sweetness. She cast her light cantrip with her spark layered into it and sent the particles at each of them, targeting their eyes.

Danika didn't wait to see if it had been successful, she launched herself into the air and flew like a drunken bumble bee for the portal that had brought her to this accursed city. She smashed into the shimmering surface, slapped the system notification, and tumbled out of the air onto the portal dais in the human capital.

She lay there for a dazed second, and then whipped the embroidered pouch out of her inventory and stuffed a small radish into her jaws like the apple of a roast pig. She pulled out two more, and stowed the rest and then launched herself into the air again with a radish in either clawed hand. She dove into the streets of the city blindly, while chewing as quickly as she could.

--

When she finally landed on a decorative cornice attached to a tall building some distance from the market, she was shivering again despite the radishes. She pulled up her menus and saw that her health was still slowly decreasing. Despite feeling ice cold, she guessed that she was probably still taking burn damage from the magic missile.

For a moment she debated between trying to find a priest in time, using her own restore prayer, or risking the yellow apple from the beginner's vale. She shivered again, tapped her inventory ring and pulled out the other pouch. She withdrew the apple, and glanced at her health and energy bars again.

Danika bit the yellow apple and the strange chime that she'd only heard once before at her hatching rang out softly in the distance. It was immediately followed by half a dozen of the usual skill chimes. She glanced at her health and energy bars, which had almost instantly filled, and raised her paw to swipe over to her skills. She froze.

Danika stared at her paw, which was definitely not her usual clawed hand. It was covered in silky fur, that was tabby striped in the colors of her own human hair. The stripes varied from the color of the lightest strands in the sun, to the color of the darkest strands when damp. She already knew what she was going to see when she turned to look back across her own body, the wizard had warned her that it was the worst that could happen.

She was a housecat. Her wings were gone. She crouched lower on the narrow cornice. After a long moment she reminded herself that at least she was a healthy housecat, and the elves probably wouldn't recognize her if they managed to follow her this far. She raised her paw again and swiped over to her skill list.

The way of the Cat (subpath), had been added right below her accumulated level.