"Old friend? You just ate me…" ShinZing complained.

Danika offered, "If you get me out of your trap, I'll heal you?"

"All out of slippery oil?" Arthur asked in a sarcastic wheeze. "It's just a snatchy sundew."

Danika focused her attention back onto the sticky thing that had grabbed her, and saw that the tentacle was actually some kind of leaf on a plant that looked like a giant flower. It would have been pretty if it didn't seem as though it were intent on eating her.

"Your trap is a giant carnivorous plant?" she asked a little incredulously.

ShinZing zipped up and cut the many sticky tendriled grasping appendage from the main plant, and ZipZing dropped to the forest floor, but the leafy tentacle didn't release her. "Should we try burning it?" he asked.

Arthur let out a pained wheeze that might have been laughter, or might have been his last breath, and Danika rolled toward him, sticky binding and all. She laid her little clawed hand against his cold bumpy skin and used her restore prayer. The power of the Jade Emperor, that the Traveling Merchant had become, traded a shockingly large amount of Karma for the grouchy toad's return to health.

"You've grown," she complained accusingly. His accumulated level had increased since they'd last met, making the healing skill more expensive.

"Nonsense. I haven't gained an ounce," the toad replied dryly, in his usual tone of voice a moment later. He looked at the fairy dragon, who lay at his feet like a princess wrapped in a carpet, and a smug expression spread across his countenance.

Danika eyed him warily. She wouldn't put it past him to snap her up, despite his bad experience. She struggled to roll away from him, and then used her random teleport again, but the skill took the wrapping with her, as though it were clothing. It had also only moved her a couple of meters away from the toad.

Arthur only said mildly, "That was quite effective, but a witch could do as much with a much smaller investment."

"Witches can heal?" ShinZing asked with interest.

"A witch apparently developed that golden apple that the wizard from my beginner's vale gave me," Danika reminded him, when Arthur only chuckled. "He said his wife grew it when I met him outside the vale."

She wondered if she really should try burning the piece of snatchy sundew that gripped her. Her plant identification skill didn't suggest anything about how to get out of its grasp. It did say that the plant ate insects, which made her nervous, since anything that could dissolve the sturdy beetles they'd been collecting could probably dissolve fairy dragons.

"Hey, release her now!" ShinZing demanded of Arthur.

"Only a witch can do that now that you've lopped it off," the toad replied smugly. "Will you choose your path today pixie?"

Danika considered what she knew of witch skills. Like all magic paths, they had access to the basic cantrips, but she thought that a witch's first skill was usually their familiar bonding, which didn't seem at all helpful. They had a telekinesis skill that worked on plant matter which could eventually let them fly at high levels, but she didn't think it was strong enough at the beginning to let ShinZing pull the plant free if she couldn't just break free with her dragon's strength. Of her own skills, invigorated bloom might have saved her if she'd used it before the leafy tentacle had been lopped from the plant, if it was actually the flower it appeared to be.

"Sure," ShinZing agreed.

"Hey!" Danika protested, but a sudden breeze blew through the clearing, and ShinZing's eyes glowed green for a moment. "Did you really choose your path just now because Arthur used me as bait?" she asked with shock.

"You're already losing health," he pointed out.

"You'll want to use influence," Arthur instructed ShinZing.

ShinZing stared at the nearly invisible space that his menu screens occupied for a long minute. Then he nodded, waved his hand, and pointed at ZipZing and said sternly, "Release!"

Danika stared at him in amazement as the sticky tendrils actually loosened. She didn't waste time though, and began pulling the piece of plant free of her skin as she asked incredulously, "Seriously? One of the three beginner witch skills lets you command plants?"

"Influence can affect anything," Arthur corrected.

"Sort of," ShinZing agreed. "The skill says that it only affects things capable of reason, the shorter the instruction, the more likely it will succeed. Anything with willpower can resist."

"Plants aren't usually very willful," Arthur added dryly. "And you'll probably want to wash that off, since it looks like your skin is still dissolving."

"Will it even dissolve in water? And can a piece of a plant reason?" Danika asked suspiciously. "How were you getting it off of the beetles you were capturing? And why are you helping this witch?"

"I'm always helpful," Arthur protested with mock sincerity. He gazed at her for another long moment, and then sighed and shook his head. "You did save me, I suppose." He looked upward and nodded once.

Danika frowned at him, and then gasped when a bucket of saltwater suddenly seemed to have upended over her head.

The toad chuckled, and then vanished.

"Arthur!" Danika protested, certain that he was still there, just hidden from sight.

The toad didn't answer, but after a moment ShinZing asked, "Did you mark him?"

"No," she admitted reluctantly.

"Become my familiar," he suggested.

"So you can have all your skills back?" she asked wryly.

"That too," he agreed, and dismissed his menus.

"Hey," she asked suspiciously, "did you just try to use your influence on me?"

"Yes," ShinZing agreed, and flashed her a quick grin, as he flew over and set fire to the wilting tendril covered leafy tentacle.

"Ew," Danika complained, and fanned the smoke away from her face as she launched herself back into the air beside him. The main body of the snatchy sundew seemed to withdraw from the smoke that came from it's lost appendage, so perhaps it did have some reasoning ability. "It smells like really bitter burnt sugar."

"Another reason not to get another VR system," Shinichi replied blithely. "Should we log out for the night?"

"I thought you were going to make me your familiar," she countered. "We have all the supplies anyway, and my garden is plenty big enough for you to make the circle around me." ShinZing had such a surprised expression, that she added laughingly, "And no, your skill didn't work on me!"

"Okay," he agreed quickly, "but what about all of the beetles?"

Danika hesitated, and then suggested, "Quick trip to the City of Cyan? I'm sure we can buy a cage there, and turn in the first set of wings to see if they are sufficiently large before we spend a lot in healing."

"Um," he replied as though considering a quandary.

"If you need to sleep, we can do it tomorrow," Danika suggested.

"No, let's go ahead," he said quickly. "I should have considered becoming a witch before."

"Why?" she asked curiously.

"Imagine what I can do with just the starter skills combined with all the assassin's skills you learned from Aishin," he told her happily.

Danika grinned and asked wryly, "Witchy assassinations?"

"Actually, doesn't that sound pretty traditional, storywise?" he asked. "The cow, your dog, or someone's sister died!" he exclaimed suddenly. "It must have been that witch!"

Danika giggled.