6 Why did her parents name her that?

The forest is big, bigger than Algiore and its beach combined. There are paths crisscrossing all over the forest, and there are several little brooks that run down into small ponds and then continue on their way. There's one particularly big pond with a small island in the middle – glowing white glowers grow on it, visibly shining in the dimly lit forest. It's one of Madeline's favorite things about the forest, she decides, hanging by the pond just watching the flowers at distance.

She sees a warrior swimming over the water to the island to pick the flowers once – a red haired woman with a staff on her back. Madeline can't help but marvel the woman's fortitude, to go swimming with leather clothing and all. She certainly wouldn't have dared to try, even if the distance isn't great.

The forest is full of warriors. Lot of them are fighting the spiders, though there are few who are climbing up the trees to collect things from the tree branches – nuts, she thinks, or maybe fruits. Some of them are hard at task trying to destroy spider's nests, but no matter how hard they try, there seems to be no end to them. There seems to be an endless amount of spiders too.

Not one of them is like the spider following her, though. It's different, she doesn't even need to see another spider up close to do a comparison. All the other spiders are stuck to their trees, never moving far from them, and they move in certain ways, never varying from them. The spider following Madeline is far more varied and as they walk about the forest together, it grows more…

Individual. Yes, that's the word. It's an individual. Unique.

It's also increasingly curious and soon no longer just trails after her, but pushes ahead, investigating the bushes and rocks and patches of moss, even digging by a tree root for some smaller critter it saw. It never strays far, though, always returning to her side and snarling at her if she stopped for too long.

"I guess you're curious about the world too?" Madeline asks, amused, and crouches down beside the spider, poking a finger over the prickly hair on top of its many eyed head. "The world is not going anywhere, little one. We can take our time and really look around, you know."

The spider gnashes it's mandibles at her and snarls before suddenly freezing where it stands, as if to listen. A moment later it twits loose from her hold and dashes through nearby bushes, leaving her to follow it.

The spider leads her to a small clearing that bears the signs of battle there – fallen spider fangs and bits of spider silk sit on the ground here and there, surrounding a…

"Oh dear," Madeline says and then quickly picks up the spider that had been making for the body lying on the forest floor. The spider snarls furiously and tries to squirm free, but Madeline holds on, wrapping her arms around it to keep it from escaping.

There's a dead warrior lying there – a vaguely familiar one. She has long red hair and pale skin. It's that warrior that visited the store once, Madeline realizes. It had been just a while before she'd left the shop – the woman had bought some Life and Spirit Potions, and had been one of the few people who hadn't asked for a free gift.

The warrior is dead now, though, and her staff lays broken at her side. While the spider in Madeline's arms snarls and tries to attack the body, Madeline hesitates over her.

She could resurrect the woman with a Revive Potion… if she wanted to.

There are lot of warriors she doesn't think she'd like to help. The ones she's seen being rude to villagers or other people who are stuck in loops and can't help but repeat themselves, she doesn't think she'd want to help those sorts of warriors at all. Or the people who came to her store asking for free things. However… this woman had just bought things from her – she'd been short about it, yes, but she hadn't been any ruder than anyone else. Less so, certainly, than lot of other warriors.

And surely Madeline can't judge all of the warriors the same even if some of them were rude. The warriors are more varied than that anyway. Surely there are… nice ones.

"Shush," Madeline says to the snarling spider in her lap as she crouches down beside the dead warrior. "Shush little one, it's alright."

It snarls at her but settles begrudgingly, biting gloomily at her shirtsleeve. With an amused shake of her head, Madeline opens the transfer screen. She considers the revive potions for a moment, tempted to select the lowest quality one just in case the warrior turns out rude after all… but in the end she selects the Blessed Revive Potion. She'd given the spider her best quality potion, and unless proven otherwise the warrior didn't deserve any less.

It's easier making the warrior drink the potion than it had been to feed it to the spider – but the effect is more or less the same. The female warrior's body jerks with and then she makes a confused little flailing motion, sitting up suddenly, her pale blue eyes opening wide with shock.

"Wait, what?" she asks, blinking and turns to Madeline. "What?" she asks again, a little incredulously and pats at her chest. "I'm at full health!"

"I uh… yes. You should be, I think," Madeline says to her, awkward as she watches how the woman pats at herself, looking for injuries maybe. She'd doing quite a bit of self groping, the warrior. "You - you were dead and I had a revive, so…"

"I'm at full health?" the red haired warrior says and looks at her. "What the hell did you give me – don't revives just… revive you? How am I at full health?"

"It was… a high grade potion?" Madeline offers, frowning a little. Maybe she should've used the lowest grade after all. "Shouldn't I have?" she asks uncertainly.

"Lady," the woman says, incredulous. "I'm level four and you used, what, one of the best Revives on me? What the hell? I mean, hey, thanks, it's appreciated. But aren't those things ridiculously expensive?"

"I guess they are," Madeline admits awkwardly. "I happened to have one at hand, so…"

"Geez. You must be like level hundred or something, to have a high Revive like that just at hand," the warrior says and stands up. "Thanks, though. I would've lost a level without you."

"You're welcome, then," Madeline says and stands up as well. The spider snarls resentfully in her arms and she pets it distractedly. "What happened, though?" she asks, looking around. "I didn't think the spiders were this dangerous around here."

"They aren't really. I just bit off more than I could chew," the warrior sighs and picks up the broken pieces off her staff. "I thought it was a good place to do some levelling, but then my staff went kaput on me. Beginner gear, you know, what can you do?" she says fatalistically, and shrugs her shoulders. Then she looks at Madeline. "You look just like the potion seller at Algiore. That a custom skin?"

"Huh?" Madeline asks, startled.

"It's pretty cool," the woman nods, approving. "Must've cost a fortune."

Madeline, having no notion about what she's talking about or how to even begin to respond to it, just shrugs. "I guess. Uh. Are you alright now?" she asks, a bit helplessly.

"Yeah. I'll go find the travelling merchant, see if he'll sell me a staff – I won't aggro any more mobs here. Already got killed once," she says and sighs. "I should've gone for a DPS class after all. Ah well, too late now."

"Right," Madeline says, increasingly awkward and uneasy with the conversation. There are lot of words the woman is saying that she doesn't understand at all. "Well… I hope you'll do better in future?" she says.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," she says, waving a hand. Then she hesitates. "Uh… should I pay you back for the revive?" she then asks. "I don't really have that much but still – it must've been expensive."

"No, no, it's alright. Really," Madeline says hurriedly. "Please don't worry about it. I was the one who decided to use it – you have no obligation to pay me back."

"Well… if you're sure," the warrior says, little awkward and relieved both. "Thanks again, then. Really, I appreciate it."

"It's no problem," Madeline says.

The warrior nods and then turns to leave before stopping. "Hey, what's your name?" she asks. "I'm PhoenixOnFire,"

"Madeline," she answers and then bites her lip, not sure if she made a mistake or not. She's not entirely sure if people knew her name before – if she even had a name before she left the shop.

"Cool. You must've started really early to get such a name." PhoenixOnFire says. "Well, thanks, Madeline. Maybe I'll see you sometime. And that's a sweet pet, by the way," she says and, with a wave of her hand, she dashes off.

Madeline stares after the warrior, a little stunned by her sudden departure. The spider snarls softly against her arm and she looks down at it. Then she looks back to where PhoenixOnFire ran off. After a moment, she sighs. "Warriors," she says. "Always in a hurry."

Still. Her first real interaction with a warrior outside her store – and it had gone rather splendidly. Now, if only she could figure out what most of the things PhoenixOnFire had said were, she'd be off to a rather good start.

"Shall we see what else we can see around here?" Madeline asks the spider, who snarls at her and then squirms around in her arms. Moment later it crawls up her chest and to sit on her shoulder, settling firmly there with all eight legs gripping tight. Madeline tilts her head to look at it, and it flashes its mandibles at her.

"Well then," she says and pets the creature. "Let's go exploring, see what mischief we can get into."