She had expected that the enormous snow leopard that seemed like a mountain guardian would meet them at the edge of the snow, but the landscape beyond the snowline looked empty and desolate.

The snow leopard cub seemed to have reached familiar territory though, and he sniffed the air before darting past ZipZing. His paws barely made any impression in the snow as he ran upward, and his striking white fur and dark spots blended into the snowy landscape.

Danika zipped after him quickly, afraid to lose sight of him. She wasn't sure what would happen when they found his mother, since they'd never actually received a quest, but she was quite startled when the big saber toothed snow leopard bounded down from a ledge and roared.

The big cat bared her fangs at the cub, who slid to a halt in front of his mother and emitted his own squeaky growling meow. She reached out with one of her enormous paws and smacked him hard. He tumbled back but then leapt to his feet and spoke again.

Danika hovered nervously, afraid to interfere, but wondering if she ought to. The mountain guardian looked up and narrowed her eyes at ZipZing's sparkly little form. Danika gulped.

"Thank you for bringing this one home," the enormous snow leopard stated politely.

Danika blinked in surprise. "It wasn't just me, my whole party helped," she replied quickly.

The cub growled something to his mother who said, "This child says that you healed him well, and that your companion carried him through the sky back to the mountain."

Danika nodded, and the cub meowed his rasping meow again. His mother laughed silently in the way of cats and said, "He also complains that your companion tried to feed him spoiled milk and that you insulted him greatly more than once."

Danika shrugged and didn't reply. The cub wasn't lying, even if the milk had seemed fine to her, and she hadn't been trying to insult him.

The mountain guardian tilted her head down and said softly, "This one is very important to me. His absence from the memories of my days was a great loss," Her expression changed and she muttered, "even though the greatest loss is the mate who has never been present in any of my memories of days."

Danika blinked and asked, "What? What happened to your mate?"

The mountain guardian snarled and Danika flinched. "He was killed by a human years ago!" the big cat roared.

"What do you mean he was never in your memories?" Danika questioned. She wondered if magic could remove memories.

The enormous snow leopard shook her head and snapped, "I do not know. This is my history, and yet he is not in any of the 2,420 memories of my days, he was our clan's greatest loss, and yet what proof is there?" She snarled again.

Danika stared at the snow leopard with wide eyes. Her Animal Identification said that the enormous cat was over a hundred years old, but she was saying that she could recall 605 days at 4 game days per day. A little less than two years. She looked at the cub, who was definitely less than a year old, and asked, "How many of your memories of days has your cub been in?"

The mountain guardian shook her head again and replied, "124 days, and then he was gone for 14 days." She looked at the cub and huffed a breath. "But you have brought him back, and all is well now."

Danika pulled up her menus and swiped over to the bug report section, and then hesitated. "How many days ago did you first see a player?" she asked curiously.

"A being who plays with the world?" the mountain guardian questioned in return. "The first Celestial Servant came to the mountain 1,932 days ago."

Danika's eyes widened again. The traveling merchant always understood what the term player referred to, and so had the NPCs in the beginner's vale. "What about the first human?" she asked.

The snow leopard growled, "Can you not recall the day you and your party members trespa.s.sed upon my territory little dragon?"

"Of course I can," Danika replied dryly. "But how can your mate have been killed by humans if you'd never seen one before then?"

"There is a conflict between my memories and what I know to be true," the mountain guardian admitted. The cub commented in his squeaky growling meow. She eyed him uncertainly and asked, "Are you a visitor to our world?"

Danika waved her little clawed hands without speaking for a moment and then replied, "I guess I am." She eyed the bug report screen that still lay open before her. After a moment she closed it and asked, "Do you have some task for me?"

The mountain guardian's eyes glittered with amus.e.m.e.nt as she replied, "I am bound to this mountain top to prevent your kind from reaching the place it guards. Please depart peacefully, it would pain me to kill the rescuer of my child."

Danika hesitated. She was incredibly curious, but mostly about how the enormous snow leopard's AI worked, that it could question the disparity between its own back story and its recorded memories. She wanted to make it talk more. "Um," she asked instead, "the NPC human who had your cub claimed that it could end the war between the Dwarven kingdoms, do you know how?"

"How to end the war?" the mountain guardian asked.

Danika nodded, but added, "Or why they thought the cub could have ended it?"

The mountain guardian went silent for a long time. After a bit she even stopped breathing. Danika brought up the bug report screen again just before she spoke at last. "Perhaps they thought that my child could become the guardian of one of the kingdoms, but becoming a guardian does not work that way," the snow leopard stated.

More large cats appeared at the top of the ledge that the mountain guardian had jumped down from. The snow leopard cub growled something, and his mother reached out and cuffed him and growled back. Her growl was fierce enough to make Danika tremble, but the cub just flicked his ears and turned his back on her. "Please depart peacefully," the guardian instructed Danika again.

Danika frowned, and protested a little petulantly, "But I wanted to ask more things."

The guardian bared her long teeth, and asked, "Why should I spend time teaching a little half dragon visitor about the ways of the world?"

Danika almost replied, 'because I helped save your cub', but came up with another answer, "Because I could tell you about the world I live in when I'm not here, that this world was based on."

"Do you think you're a G.o.d, to speak of the beginnings of the world?" the mountain guardian sneered.

"No, maybe, I'm not sure," Danika replied quickly. "Um, I hope I'm not as petty as most of the G.o.ds in our legends?"

The mountain guardian gazed at her with wide eyes and asked incredulously, "You're not sure?"

"I can revive like a G.o.d," Danika argued.

Ais.h.i.+n's little bat arrived with a message: " ;) I was very careful. Not one of them caught up to you did they? Have you delivered the cub safely?"

The mountain guardian declared, "That is an interesting point. Very well. If you wish to speak with me you may come to the edge of the snowline once a month, and we will talk more, if you depart now."

Danika replied simply, "Ok!" She turned to depart and the cub growled something.

Danika glanced back at him, and his mother stated, "He wishes to offer himself as a messenger to your party, like that little bat, and see more of the world."

Danika turned back and stared. "I didn't think that messenger animals were," she waved her little clawed hands, "um, I thought they were just an image?"

"Indeed, they are an image that can see and be seen, not a true body," the guardian agreed.

"Uh, sure, that would be cool," Danika replied directly to the cub.

A second cub seemed to bound away from the spot that he sat and pounced incredibly high into the air, vanis.h.i.+ng just before it hit her. Danika opened her messenger screen and saw that the cub was already set as her messenger. After a moment she nodded and zipped silently back down the mountain.

She kept her menus open and followed Ais.h.i.+n's compa.s.s.