Quin laughed and explained, "But Justin's spell began as soon as the frost vanished, since we were expecting it, and he took out almost all of the exposed goblins that we couldn't reach and set the whole fortress on fire. From the Karma distribution, I'd say the system thinks Justin nearly destroyed the fortress single-handedly."

Danika examined each of the others and they did seem to already have at least a hundred Karma more than before. In their party, only Ais.h.i.+n had gained that much during the event, and most of it had been from the goblins he'd killed before joining them in the north.

When Justin's priest friend met up with them, in his grey robes embroidered with stylized balance scales, Danika wondered if he were aware that the G.o.d of Balance and the G.o.d of War were the same deity. He had Justin and Ais.h.i.+n clasp hands and chanted a prayer over them that asked his G.o.d to level the balance between them. After it finished, Ais.h.i.+n began handing Justin large quant.i.ties of coin that Danika was fairly certain he hadn't had before.

Justin said stiffly, "It's not a big deal, you don't have to return it all."

Ais.h.i.+n said firmly, "I don't want to owe you anything."

Danika asked, "It balanced your coin too?"

The priest answered smugly, "It balances all of the status flags, health, energy, Karma and coin. People who try to cheat each other using it are always shocked, but the G.o.d of Balance always divides everything but items evenly."

Danika brought her lens back up, and saw that Justin's red PVP status had been reduced to orange and Ais.h.i.+n's had been raised to orange.

Each of Justin's party members joined hands (or in Ranma's case touched shoulders) and the priest repeated the prayer. When it finished, all of them had green PVP flags and equal amounts of Karma. Justin just laughed when they all insisted on following Ais.h.i.+n's example and redistributing their coin back to their original amounts.

Ais.h.i.+n's party was next but before they began, Sea Song Tione asked nervously, "Is it ok for me to remain in the party for this? I really didn't do much?"

Danika asked curiously, "Is the Karma useful to you? We couldn't have done the quest without you."

"I have no idea?" the dolphin replied doubtfully.

MatchlessMinion said, "We'll all have more than we started with, and I feel like something horrible might happen if we get greedy and leave the dolphin the G.o.ds sent with us out."

There was a brief silence as they all considered it and then unanimously agreed that Sea Song Tione should remain in the party. After a bit of shuffling they sat in a circle so that the tiny fairy dragon and the dolphin could join their claws and flippers with the hands of their party members.

Danika asked after the Balancing was completed, "Why did we split it by party instead of doing all of us at once?"

The priest shrugged and replied, "I can only target either two people or an entire party with it."

Ais.h.i.+n examined each of them and announced, "Sea Song Tione didn't get any Karma, nor a PVP flag."

The traveling merchant walked up to them and commented cheerfully, "Only adventurers such as yourselves have such attributes. You have done very well. Please allow me to offer all of the members of both parties a discount on one of your purchases this month?"

Quin's eyes lit up as he asked the traveling merchant eagerly, "How much would a dragon scale be with that discount?"

Danika gave the merchant a startled look and then asked the dolphin seriously, "Should we give you more coin to make it fair?"

"No need!" Sea Song Tione replied quickly.

Danika examined her own inventory and pulled out the old salt sack she stored her coin in. She poured it out and asked, "Who had so much saved up?"

Shrubbery raised her hand shyly. "I don't wear armor and I don't usually need to buy things like food, so I don't spend a lot."

After they sorted all but the coin the dolphin kept back out between them, Danika complained ruefully, "I probably owe you all a bit, since I didn't dare keep less than I owe to Logical Heart. I'm not sure what the contract would do."

Each of them a.s.sured her that it was fine, and Ais.h.i.+n looked around and said, "I know we're all tired, but I think we should travel a ways away from here before we log off."

Danika looked around the still smouldering ruins. Beyond the ring marked by where the palisade had stood, the plains were blooming in red and white flowers and warm summer breezes carried the occasional bright petal past the tall tree that rose behind them in lonely splendor. She nodded.

"Sea Song Tione will be trapped in the stone while we're sleeping won't he?" Shrubbery asked worriedly.

Danika looked at the band on her arm that she hadn't used yet. "Let's move away from here and call the Dragon to take him home?" she suggested.

"That seems like kind of a waste of an irreplaceable chance to call on a G.o.d for aid," Ais.h.i.+n pointed out.

"Too bad messenger animals can't carry items," Danika complained, "or we could just ask one to carry the stone to the Nadia city."

Everyone stared at her and behind her Quin asked, "Do you have someone on your friend list who's there? You can send items, it just costs Karma."

"No," she admitted.

Ranma offered cheerfully, "Just climb back into your stone and go sleep, it's already almost morning here anyway and I've got nothing I've got to do tomorrow. I'll carry you back to the river town and see if I can find a boat to carry you back to the coast and leave the stone on the sh.o.r.e?"

"Are you sure you don't mind?" Shrubbery asked shyly.

Ranma tossed his head and his mane fell rakishly across his grey forehead as he replied n.o.bly, "It would be an honor to a.s.sist a fair maiden and the party that actually solved the goblin quest."

Ais.h.i.+n yawned, and Danika couldn't stop herself from yawning too. Shrubbery giggled as MatchlessMinion yawned as well and told Ranma, "Then we'll gladly accept your kind offer."

--

Danika woke up when her alarm went off a few hours later, and almost closed her eyes again, but reminded herself that she still had an important ongoing quest to complete: her contract with the game studio.

For once she skipped her morning exercises, since she'd left herself as much time to sleep as possible, and ate cold fruit and crackers in front of her screen as she worked the next account through the frustrating quest it was trapped in. She logged in to the mobile version on her lunch break, to find ZipZing alone in the stone room except for Ais.h.i.+n's little bat.

His message read: "I dragged Sea Song Tione down to the water as he requested, and he told me to keep the blanket the elves gave him, and that he'll be waiting near the sh.o.r.e for you. Morning comes way too early sometimes. Take the stone with you if you go anywhere? If we all leave it, we'll never find it again."

Danika sent back: "It does. Ok, I'll go talk to him next."

She had ZipZing exit the stone room, and saw that the dark stone blended in with hundreds of others littering the beach. She pondered a moment and tried placing the stone into her inventory. It was almost a shock when it let her place it into her pouch. She actually pulled it back out and entered and exited again to make sure she had the right stone, but it was just that everyone else had already exited the stone.

ZipZing flew toward the water and Danika soon caught sight of a cheerful dolphin who leapt out of the water and a dialogue popped up: "ZipZing! I've been waiting!"