Ruyo sent a runner to the quarry village of Frostcrag, and got a dozen visitors the next day to bless and load down with gifts. Ruyo, though, was mainly occupied with a project that Nusina had requested as enchantment practice.

Next to the Wellspring shrine and within its influence, Ruyo created a small pond. This was a few feet deep and lined with magically worked stone, enchanted to stay clean. Above it, up on the hillside, she and her team built a slide. The sloped tube was constantly slick with a trickle of water, and dropped alarmingly from a high vantage point into the pond.

Ruyo was the first to try it out, partly for fear of maiming anybody else. She climbed the little stairway, sat down on the pipe, and let the current rush her away down the track. Faster and faster she sailed, until she crashed down into the pond, creating a tremendous splash. She crashed into the far end and bounced, landing bruised and dazed on the grass beyond it.

Nusina floated closer. "Er, sorry, milady. We may need to make the pool bigger."

Ruyo picked herself up off the soggy ground and cleaned the mud and leaves off her. "I want to go again!"

#

Ruyo got a report that the mining village she'd help rescue in the north had built a shrine and sent for her. So she rode her phantom waves in that direction for days, delivering her blessing to that place too and putting in a word for Elly. So far, Elly had no way to travel faster than a horse, so she was at a disadvantage in the race for shrines. But she'd get there eventually.

Back at Wellspring Ruyo found Elly had gone off to Brotherhood to accept a second-level temple there, much like Ruyo's own. Notably it was her second temple of that quality and Elly had gotten the chance to have the first one built more to her liking. The next day a message said she was coming back already and had mastered granting the second magic tier. Elly was pleased, if not so happy to have a new squad of handlers following her around. She liked the improved waterslide.

At last, having spent the month in training and the steady work of expansion and blessings, the two gods headed back east. It was time.

Ruyo's parents were already waiting underwater at the Lunar Transport Station, where they were hoping to see Ruyo off "for a very short trip".

Elly arrived in the next batch of people ferried down to the station by Magus. Elly had been handing out a few second-level initiations to the Inheritors to keep them happy, but wanted to conserve her strength now. "So are we good to enter the transport beam, look around, and come back before it fades? And when we inevitably miss it somehow, will you fire it up again next month?"

Ruyo said, "We're supplied with food and water if that happens."

The man of the Inheritors who'd made himself the main expert here said, "We don't know what to expect on the far side. You'll need to use your own judgment about how to set up any controls you find. If we're very lucky you'll find some button that hooks the two stations up easily and you can come right back. Failing that, like Lady Elinor says, please hurry back into the beam or you're on your own for a while."

They reviewed some information about how the controls worked and what she might be able to do on the far side. With them was not just Nusina but Hyde, the mute spirit who belonged here. He might have some insight.

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Ruyo hefted a backpack full of tools she'd insisted on bringing, and a spear she barely knew how to use. Nusina had gotten a conical straw hat somewhere. Elly had her own sack of supplies and was better armed with her bow and a borrowed sword.

"Do you really need all that?" asked Ruyo's mother, and hugged her.

"Hopefully not. If I'm not back immediately, don't panic."

"We'll pray for you," her father said, and patted her shoulder.

Ruyo stepped up onto the dais, where her boots rang on the metal. The moon! Anything might be there, any relic of the Lost World. And she had reason to think that the treasures of the old gods might be waiting, too. If nothing else, the view from up there must be spectacular.

"All set." Ruyo waved to her followers, her family, the people expecting her to improve the whole world. "I'm certain that the gods are watching over you."

Elly bowed and said to everyone, "We'll come back with another story to tell."

The two gods, with Nusina and Hyde, floated in a beam of light that grew brighter and brighter.

#

Ruyo felt herself being flung out of reality, existing nowhere, hearing not even her own breathing. But that long moment faded and she crashed back down onto metal. She grunted. Had it failed?

Elly helped her up. They both flailed because they were under some kind of gravity enchantment like Elly's recent experiments. The ground barely seemed to hold them, giving their movements a strange floating quality.

The two of them stood in a dark space with a blinking red light shining on them. The air smelled of dust and sulfur. Ruyo's eyes widened. This was somewhere new, all right! She and Elly conjured some lights and Nusina flared brighter. They all gasped.

The platform itself was much larger and had skid marks. Heaped around them were skeletons, as though a whole crowd had died trying to get out. Several bony arms were outstretched. Just off the big metal disc, near the gods' feet, lay a chunk of the test box from last month. This round room of machinery looked much like the other station but had a pair of metal tracks laid on the floor, leading from the center into a wide, dark tunnel. Signs and posters marked the walls, written in the old language. Ruyo stepped off the platform and shuddered, avoiding the bones as she went to try reading them.

Elly whispered, "Over there!"

In the shadowed hallway, a humanoid shape darted out of sight. Ruyo called out but got no answer.

Elly swore quietly. "I have too many questions already."

Nusina said, "Should I follow?"

"Not yet. Look around." Ruyo crouched and said a brief benediction for the many dead here, for whatever that was worth.

Elly was antsy. "We don't have time."

Ruyo stood again. "It's part of the job, Elly. Now what have we got?"

Nusina reported, "Seems like human-breathable air. Some automated system is still getting power, but only just. Leave a note, quick."

Ruyo set down her pack and pulled out paper and quill. She wrote their few findings and put the message onto the platform, gambling that so small an object would make it back intact. She noted with amusement that her clothes and other belongings had arrived safely.

In private, Nusina and the gods had agreed that camping here was the preferred plan. There was no way they'd visit for a few minutes, find no immediate danger, and then wait another month to learn more!

Ruyo scribbled more details while Nusina and Elly called out observations. The station had control panels they recognized but they were inactive, not responding to Ruyo telling them to "unseal". A seating area lined one side of the room. It was all enclosed, with a disappointing lack of windows. In fact they didn't really even know it was the moon, though the presumably-magical difference in gravity suggested it wasn't part of normal reality.

Nusina called out a warning. Ruyo felt it an instant later: a growing hum on the platform and the beginning of a light flare. Ruyo put the note down and hopped to safety, sailing clear over the skeletons and catching herself against a wall. A sign right in front of her had a char mark obscuring all but a picture of the ocean base in better condition.

The transport platform flashed and hummed, then slept again. The note was gone.

Ruyo walked back to the control panel, examined a few lights that had briefly activated on it, then looked around. "Well, it's decided. I wonder if we have temples here already."

Elly said, "We've got a base to explore and maybe even people to meet. Let's get started."

Ruyo, Elly, and the pair of spirits set off into the ancient moon base, carrying the light of their reviving world with them.

~ End of Arc 6 ~