"Are you going to be ok staying up tonight?" Shrubbery asked again. "You're on the ship, so won't you just appear on the ship if you log out to sleep and log back in in the morning?"

"Maybe, but it would be horrible to find out that I reappear in the middle of the ocean instead. I'll be ok," Danika said reassuringly. "The traveling merchant said that we shouldn't annoy the black turtle."

"What does that mean? And how did the merchant get to the island?" MatchlessMinion asked with a frown.

Danika shrugged and replied, "I don't know, but I suspect we'll find out. Maybe he travels like a messenger animal? Or maybe there's a portal in that town?"

--

The storms found them midmorning, and soon they were only making progress by zigzagging into the wind again. It began to snow after a while, but at least it was no longer freezing sleet, and instead was actual white flakes of snow.

Danika caught a flake in her claws, from where she perched on MatchlessMinion's warm head again wrapped in the silk cloth. She tucked it into the open spot in her main storage ring beside the two pouches. It glittered in her inventory screen without melting while she watched it for a minute.

The winds dropped and so did the temperature as they moved north. Eventually the air became still, and the cold became so piercing that only MatchlessMinion's health wasn't slowly dropping. Danika shared out the last of her candy, but worried that soon they would need to use the health potions.

The ship kept moving north slowly, apparently powered by an alternate use of the spell that had thrown up the defensive water wall. Danika was a little surprised that the captain hadn't insisted on turning back, but the big surprise occurred a while later, when they reached a strange line in the water that turned out to be ice.

The elves launched the little ship up onto the ice with their water wall. It tilted dangerously as they hopped out onto the wet ice and affixed what looked like a large pontoon to the upper side, then pushed the ship over onto it, and affixed a duplicate contraption on the other side. The pontoons were inflated, and a moment later they all climbed back aboard their small ship, and the entire vessel began skating across the bumpy ice.

A breeze picked up awhile later, and the exhausted elven spell casters who'd been propelling the little ship with their water spells were tucked into the little ship's galley to huddle beside its stove and rest, while the rest of the crew raised the sails once more. They made good progress across the ice until they spotted the dolphin.

It was frozen half in and half out of the ice, and its head was bloody, as though it had bashed its way upward into the air. The elves dropped their sails and the ship slid to a halt a little way beyond where they'd seen it. Without even a moment of discussion, three of the elves leaped onto the ice and ran back toward the dolphin.

The captain spoke to the three players for a moment, but his words were too complex for Danika's skill. The parrot repeated and shrubbery translated: "Dolphins are a sailor's luck, they aid us whenever they can, and we should do the same. We will not continue on until we have done all we can."

"Ok," Danika replied, and the captain smiled at them.

A moment later Danika removed her silk cover and zipped after the elven sailors. They already had the dolphin free of the ice, but it seemed either dead or unconscious, and they were struggling to lift it out of the water. Danika cast her featherweight spell, which had leveled up enough to reduce its weight to ⅓ and the elves staggered and then lifted it free.

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Danika cautioned, "It will only last 3 minutes." Her skill only translated 3 and minutes, but that seemed to be enough as one of the elves nodded to her and the three raced toward the ship with surprising speed and balance across the ice. The sight reminded Danika of SaltySiamese's claim that elves were cat-like. She shivered.

MatchlessMinion had followed ZipZing off of the ship and was carrying the silk handkerchief. They met up a few meters from the ship and Danika landed on his head without asking, and snatched the cloth when he held it up to her and rolled herself back into it. He made no complaint, and simply followed the elves back onto the ship.

Danika looked at the dolphin where the elves huddled around it, wrapping it in their own blankets, and wondered if she should be using her restore prayer on it. It was emitting pained noises and clicks now. Shrubbery said suddenly, "It's not an animal, I can't understand what it's saying."

Danika frowned and used her menu lens to examine the dolphin. Its label was NPC yellow and read: "Sea Song Tione" She tapped to read the rest, and saw that its accumulated level was 63. Its description read: "This young dolphin is already an accomplished bard. He has had an unusually solitary childhood without a family pod, since he's a rare first generation dolphin, with a Nadia mother and a Human father."

Danika instructed MatchlessMinion, "Put me where I can touch the dolphin." He squeezed in between two of the elves and set her down beside the dolphin. Danika reached out and placed her clawed hand against his fin and used her restore prayer. 24 Karma vanished from her character sheet and the dolphin's wounds vanished and it blinked at her and then began to whistle.

Aishin's little bat appeared suddenly and delivered a message: "What are you doing? Your health keeps dropping, Shrubbery's too. Have you used all the things I gave you?"

Danika gazed at the message and then admitted in her reply: "I haven't opened your bag, I was assuming you left me something valuable in case I couldn't pay Logical Heart in time. It's the cold." Her little default bird glanced around and streaked off like it never intended to return.

His bat was back a moment later: "I forgot that was due, were you unable to pay it? Is that why you can't warm up inside your garden space?"

Danika blinked and realized that Aishin was right, the stone room would have been very useful. She scribbled another quick reply just as the dolphin's strange little song ended: "I haven't picked it up yet." Her bird vanished with the message almost as quickly as it appeared.

Sea Song Tione said, in the common tongue with a strange tapping beneath his words, "Thank you for saving me!" The elves appeared to be able to understand his words as though he were speaking in elvish, and spoke to him quickly. The dolphin continued, "My mother instructed me to flee south when the Turtle became angry, bared his fangs, and called the ice early." He added guiltily, "But I thought that she was being too fussy because the ocean has never frozen in the summer even when his temple is covered in ice, and I ignored her for too long and the ice caught me."

"The turtle bared its fangs?" MatchlessMinion asked doubtfully.

"Yes," Sea Song Tione replied, "people say the Turtle is angry because someone has been inciting the goblins into an unnecessary war."

Shrubbery, who had come up behind them whispered, "I think he's talking about the God of War who is represented as a half turtle half snake in 'Living Jade Empire'."

Danika gulped and asked the dolphin, "Is he a black turtle?"

Sea Song Tione rolled his eyes at her and replied, "Of course." He looked past her and exclaimed, "Assassin!"

Everyone turned and Danika yelled, "Stop! Don't attack him!" Aishin crouched on the deck barely a meter from her and blocked two attacks from the elves without striking back at them. Danika whirled back to the dolphin and begged, "Tell the elves to stop!"

The dolphin reacted surprisingly quickly, and said, "Please stop, the little fairy dragon seems to know him."

The elves hesitated, and Shrubbery stepped between them and Aishin nervously, and held her hands up while Aishin said weakly, "I need a potion from the bag ZipZing."

Danika shucked her covering and zipped over to him while tapping her storage ring. She pulled out the pouch the bag was in and shivered as she fumbled with opening it. She dropped his bag in front of him a moment later while MatchlessMinion exclaimed questioningly, "What got you?! You've barely got any health left? Is it close?"

Aishin pulled a potion out of the bag and drank before replying wryly, "I got me. It's the price for teleporting to a target wearing my mark." He looked at MatchlessMinion and added, "You don't have much room to talk, your health is dropping too now, and the girls are below half."

He held out a handful of potions. One of the elves reached around Shrubbery and snatched one up. He drank quickly but didn't empty it, and passed it to the elf beside him. Aishin withdrew the potions and glared at the elf.

Danika asked quickly as she shivered, "Their health is dropping now too isn't it?"

MatchlessMinion snatched her up and covered her with the silk handkerchief again. Aishin looked at them and then nodded. After a moment he held out all but three of the potions, and said, "They can have these if you guys can travel inside the stone." He asked her scoldingly as he watched her shiver again, "Why are you still using VR ZipZing? Even if your character is freezing, you don't have to freeze!"

Danika blinked at him and then laughed. All the elves stared at her. "I never thought about it," she admitted.

It took some discussion, but the young dolphin bard helped convince the elves once Aishin explained what he wanted them to do. Shortly they were all crowded into Aishin's stone room while they talked, even the dolphin. A few minutes later the captain and two of his elves, wearing the coats of the rest over their own returned to the ship and sailed north. The poor half frozen parrot was left behind in the stone room with everyone else.