Thimblepot's Conundrum

Danika looked around quickly, but the King of Cats was gone. The pig's path looked nothing like the cold star studded sand that she'd traveled through. Lush foliage surrounded them, fruits dangled temptingly, and a small stream bounced merrily along. The only similarity was the trail of old blood that followed the stream.

The little pig turned away from her as though she were the least of it's problems. It spun in circles for a moment as though it were looking for something. It flinched and froze when Hikaru popped into existence, reminding Danika that she could now access her inventories and her stone space.

Danika flinched when a tiger suddenly pounced out of the foliage, as though taking advantage of the pig's distraction. The tiger didn't get a clean hit in though, and the pig escaped. A few feathers fluttered in the air as the little pig streaked away. Fresh blood brightened the old trail.

"Dragonheart," Danika said quickly as the tiger turned toward ZipZing. She reappeared inside her garden and darted toward ShinZing's berry bushes, gathering up as many as she could fit into free spaces in her tail ring. Then she activated the viewing mode for the center stone. It didn't run all the time because it burned gemstones, but it felt incredibly useful as she watched the tiger stalk away.

Just in case, she cast her invisibility spell before exiting her garden again. She quickly deactivated the enchantment and gathered up her pebble, seating it into its harness, before zipping toward her mark on the pig at top speed. The pig seemed resigned when it saw her again, and didn't turn down the berry she offered.

By this time Danika had used all of the analyzing skills that she had on the little flying pig. She knew what most of its skills were, and which type of pig and hummingbird it was a mix of. But she still wasn't sure how or why it had found its way into the root of the world tree. Unlike her firefly, it didn't seem to be able to understand the common tongue, even though it seemed to have a human or fairy style of name.

"You know Thimblepot," she told the pig conversationally as she attempted to use her impartation skill to convey the language, "I keep wondering if you really found this place by instinct like Kit suggested. Or maybe you visited a shrine and got a quest?"

She kept after it, and talked to both pig and her firefly about random things in the common tongue, in-between short-lived battles with all kinds of predators.

After a while, she decided that the pig's path was designed to show it how amazing it was currently. Certainly no ordinary ground based pig could have survived all of the attacks that the little pig did. And no tiny hummingbird could have eaten the amazing variety of food that the path dangled temptingly before it at every turn.

When she voiced this theory, the pig just gave her a look and turned its back on her. "So you can understand me now?" she asked hopefully.

A very ordinary looking house cat replied from where it had appeared beside the stream, "I listen, you hear."

Danika turned and examined the cat carefully. It didn't appear to be the King of Cats, because the game identified it as Thimblepot's Conundrum. It's description said only, "Ask yourself, and this one will answer."

She turned back to the little flying pig named Thimblepot, and told it, "I think this is the guardian of your path, since it's named Thimblepot's Conundrum, and it's description says that it will answer what you ask yourself."

"Why does everyone and everything in the world have it in for me?" the little pig asked plaintively. "I've asked myself that about a million times since I was hatched."

"Valuable, Lucky, Incorrect," the cat replied.

The pig turned to ZipZing as though it expected her to translate. "Um, I guess maybe you're the most valuable pig in the world? You have amazingly, uh, strong luck? And um, not everyone and everything?"

Thimblepot looked indescribably depressed, but the pig didn't say anything else, so after a moment Danika asked the cat, "Why are you a cat instead of a pig or a bird?"

The cat did not deign to reply.

Hikaru spoke up with a blink, and said, "You didn't ask yourself."

"Woah!?" Danika exclaimed with shock. "That's the first time you've ever answered me aloud!"

"Unimportant," the cat scolded.

Danika eyed the cat with suspicion, while Hikaru replied calmly, "The guardian is just letting you hear me."

"Hurry up and convince pig," the cat demanded impatiently.

"Hey, it's up to the pig what it wants to do," Danika objected. "I think that being a flying pig is better than a pig that's going to become bacon, or a bird that has to eat it's own bodyweight every day, but it must have its own reasons for taking this path."

"I want to change my luck," the pig explained sadly. "I do not want to be hated anymore. Even becoming bacon is okay."

"Um…" Danika began uncertainly.

The pig looked at her sadly.

"ZipZing also has Great Luck," Hikaru commiserated. "It can be quite troublesome, and the great bard has written many songs about her painful adventures."

"No one has written songs about me," Thimblepot insisted.

"But isn't your strong luck what's kept you alive?" Danika questioned. "Do you want a bard to write songs about you? Our guild has a lot of bards, and I'm sure that if I introduced you to Sea Song Tione he'd love to sing about your adventures. He even has a song that will let you understand each other without learning more languages."

"No, if I visit, his house will burn down or break or…" the little flying pig protested.

"He doesn't have a house, because he's a dolphin and the oceans he lives in are too big for your luck to destroy, even if it's really bad," Danika replied quickly.

Hikaru added, "Guild Hall repairs itself when I eat some."

Danika blinked and looked at her firefly. She felt like tasting the guild hall tree was behavior that should be scolded, but she didn't want to discourage the pig. "Er, yeah, the guild hall is enchanted to repair itself from all kinds of damage, plus, I have Strong Luck and haven't had any trouble around our buildings."

The pig looked at her doubtfully.

Danika struggled with how to ask the cat a question by asking herself. After a moment she decided that the best she could do was just to speak her question aloud. "Would changing the balance of a characters race actually change its luck? Or will this path let you change something like your luck without changing your race?"

The 'Path of Blood' that she'd imagined would only have affected a character by half a race, but she wasn't sure that there was currently any other way to remove a skill from a character, and it sort of sounded reasonable.

The pig glanced between her and the cat with alarm. "I don't know what part of me my luck comes from," it admitted worriedly.

The cat seemed to smile and said rather smuggly, "Give up wings and feet, much less luck."

"Hey, did you," Danika began, and then corrected herself. "I mean, I keep asking myself if the King hasn't figured out how to obtain another avatar."

The cat looked away from her without replying.

"Yes," Lin Hao murmured from beside her.