She took turns stirring a pot and cutting up vegetables along with hoarded salt beef. She and the men talked about campfires on the trail, the misery of muddy boots and rain, and field medicine. What actual fighting they'd done was sometimes alongside Khyber, in the north, against their aggressive nomadic neighbors. Sometimes against rival mercenary bands supported by Khyber or its dominated city-states. And occasionally against the gator-men, which was a very different sort of battle; those tribes didn't talk or use more than pointy sticks, but were strong and savage and sometimes wielded magic.

Ruyo didn't think the second level of spellcraft would get these people the power to repel rain in a practical way (she imagined them holding their arms skyward until they ached) nor keep their boots clean, but she was at least contributing something practical.

In the morning she conjured up breakfast. "Still basic," she mumbled while chewing the vaguely onion-tasting loaf. But she'd keep practicing, and apply that to the enchantment. The sticks were a product that could really get regular prayers flowing. Maybe she could do an orange flavor.

The troops marched in and prayed, again in the form of formally asking her to help keep them fed and safe at war. She could do one of those at least. With that new round of energy she gave them all the second tier of magic. She felt a little more anchored, sturdy, from the fact that more and more people had made contact with her and offered at least a little support.

When they'd gone, Ruyo checked in with her followers. The guardsmen were letting Lisette fool with their experimental printing press, Elly was doing target practice with a crossbow, and the monk was speaking with Pir and scribbling notes. Pir floated beside him, in a campfire. The monk told Ruyo, "We've been passing the spirit around. May I take him west?"

She stepped closer to the fire, but Pir pulled away. Ruyo stepped back. "I'm not going to hurt you, little guy. But I get the message." She shook her head and addressed the monk. "I think I need him in the east, to show him to Virid the elementalist. And as bait."

"Bait?" His eyebrows rose. "Oh. I see."

She nodded. "I hope you're sending notes home though."

"I plan to leave this morning to deliver them. This spirit is slow-witted but I've learned a few words, I think."

"Anything important?"

"The key was the music box. A mana-powered machine more complex than any I've seen before -- may I borrow it?"

"I think the sisters have first claim, but ask them."

"Well." He adjusted his robe. "Pir definitely likes music. Between using the box and trying to sing, badly, I coaxed him to use words like Start, Together, High and their opposites. I pieced together that Pir's function is to heal by music."

"Literally?"

"My guess is no, he simply lived in the hospital garden to calm and entertain visitors. Why a fire elemental for that job, I don't know."

She imagined a fire creature wanting to be friendly and helpful despite being made out of raw magical destruction. "Was he ever smarter?"

"Pir does say he's broken or incomplete. We're lucky to get this much out of him."

"And I'm very lucky to have had Nusina as a tutor."

#

Baris the hunter and his fiancee Cydi arrived at noon. Both were dressed in their finest clothes, Cydi in a noble gown from Averell. Ruyo took a while to understand why they were coming here together.

Baris waved as they approached. "Is today a good time?"

"To be married? Certainly!"

Really, Ruyo felt more nervous than either of her guests looked. She was still no priestess, no bearer of superhuman wisdom or authority. Just someone who could hand out power and favors. She led them into her cavern shrine and made its mystic lights as bright as she could.

With the sisters and the guards and the delayed monk watching, the wedding went on. Ruyo did the best she could with some words in the Church's style, blessing the couple. Short, simple, encouraging. It seemed to be good enough!

The happy pair kissed, and everyone applauded. It was their ceremony, not hers, and she hoped that whatever power their love created stayed with them.

Understandably, the two of them started to head for home. "I'll give a gift when I can do more than a block of metal!" Ruyo said.

Cydi laughed and looked back over one shoulder. "Some cloth would be fine when you get the chance. Not now, though."

When they were gone, Ruyo realized they hadn't done a typical prayer to her, but that was fine.

#

The monk had collected his personal notes and a copy of the expedition notes to take home. "Or I can just send them with our next courier. We should be getting a food delivery soon from home."

"You might be more useful here than there," Ruyo said. What with soldiers coming and going, she didn't want this place to be a de facto Averell military camp.

He nodded. "At least for symbolic value. Besides that, I ask again: could you let me see the hidden basement and its writing?"

Ruyo shivered. She trusted him almost completely with the irreplaceable equipment, but not herself. "I still haven't mastered the up-and-down carrying method Nusina likes."

"Then what about several strong men and a rope? Backed by your magic to catch me if need be?"

"Sir, it's still dangerous without a proper ladder."

He stamped the cave floor. "Dangerous! Ma'am, you know the danger that certain threats pose. I'm willing to put faith in the muscle of your followers to do this simple thing."

She had no good reason to object. So she gathered the three guardsmen and set them up with a long rope tied around the monk's waist and shoulders. At the top end the men helped secure it, aided by a wooden beam wedged in the stairwell. Ruyo found she couldn't do much to hold him up by magically held water, not at the range she'd need, so she helped pull instead.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The monk made it safely down, and waved. Now he was free to study the old writing at last with the latest notes.

He was down there long enough that everyone else grew bored and wandered off. Ruyo left the upper door open as she went back to her enchantment work.

The monk called out to be rescued. Ruyo yelled for the men to come back, then asked him, "Anything interesting?"

"Yes, but I should say in private."

One harrowing rope trip later, he was safely back up. "You really could do with a ladder," he said, looking shaken by a near-miss when a knot slipped.

"I'm sorry. I just haven't gone there much."

The others reluctantly cleared out, grumbling about not getting to hear the results. Once they were gone, Ruyo shut the cave's outer door and went back to the shrine. "Well?"

"You mentioned having claimed the shrine in two steps: the initial ritual, and then activating the broken machinery."

"Before the 'I claim this' ritual, I had to learn the right words including Nusina's name. She made sure I pronounced it right."

He nodded. "And what about the second step?"

"We were flailing around trying to work that part without knowing exactly how. I wonder if the slush creature down there was something like Pir, a specialized low-level servant."

"Maybe. What I read down there is still beyond my knowledge, but I'm fairly sure the shrine could be turned off again. There are certain controls marked with something like 'Emergency Stop'.

"Could you do it?"

"I couldn't, and neither could a random intruder. It's not just a push-button like that music player you found. Probably it would take a very skilled mage, or your sort of energy, or lost tools. I believe you'd mentioned there were once specialized repairmen for these things."

She thought about the runic markings she'd poked at without much understanding, on her first day. Most likely they'd worked for her because she already had authority over the shrine, and a first trickle of divine power. "What would that do to me?"

He looked more directly at her. "I think it would shut off your access to this power source. In your case it would be very inconvenient, but you have smaller backups and might be able to survive with them, now. It's one reason my people put extra effort into the shrine at Brotherhood. But if you had only one working shrine... Do you see what this means?"

She glanced back toward the cave entrance, fearful of intruders. "Very interesting to your order, huh?"

"Oh yes."

"We can't be sure there's only one shrine left for your 'friend', but that's worth trying. So then we need the right location" -- she meant the intact shrine of "Zovvah" that they surmised still existed on the equator -- "and the right tools to shut it down."

"And if we can't find the tools, our best candidate to try this plan is you."

#

The next morning a Brotherhood rider arrived with gossip, good cheese to supplement the monotonous magic rations, and a cake from Elly and Lisette's parents. Ruyo traded some iron and cloth. The resident monk passed along his vital information in code, back to his superiors. The courier was off westward again as soon as he and his horse had rested.

Ruyo's camp guards seemed to be getting along. Lisette especially with the men and their printing press... Ruyo smiled and let them be.

Elly found her in the cave. The cloaked girl looked nervous. "Miss Ruyo, what's the plan now?"

Ruyo was working on that stick enchantment, trying to increase the output. A pile of rolls sat on the table. "Averell has been asking for more, but they haven't gotten back to me about what I need to know. It's time for me to press them on what they've found."

Elly asked to join her at the table, and Ruyo nodded. Elly nibbled on a roll. "I was thinking about that. You can't go alone, not if you're bringing Pir. So who will it be?"

"I take it you're volunteering?"

"We still haven't gotten to see the city! I'm recovered and Lisette will be fine."

Ruyo called in the guardsmen and explained her plan to head east again. "Do any of you want to make a quick trip somewhere before I go? I have research and practice to do here that can keep me busy for a day or two, but I've got villains to hunt."

Everybody conferred about how to keep the place guarded. They settled on having the men visit Sor's Hill and a nearby minor village to shop, carouse and maybe recruit a friend of Khulis, then head back. Then, Ruyo and the sisters would head east.

It felt good to have a little time at her new home. The steady tap-tap of the monk with an ordinary chisel and magic wasn't a threat, only a sound of progress as he slowly carved more living space from the hill. Meanwhile she tended to the others' projects as well as she could, stockpiling raw materials and learning everything she could by hands-on work. There was a way to shape the boards she created to give them what carpenters called a dovetail joint, possible to stack and connect without nails. Where the men had left off with their frequent rebuilding, they had a canopied smithing and printing station sharing a wall with a mostly-complete cabin, with several crude shelters scattered around. If they were going to build homes and businesses as honest men, it was a good start.

Ruyo recalled the Church's emphasis on diligence as a virtue. She kept up her own work almost all day as her mana and fatigue allowed. She could only hope her allies were doing their job of investigation, too.

When the guardsmen got back one evening, drunk, Ruyo saw an opportunity. She grabbed Khulis by the hand and said, "Let me try sobering you up."

"Wha?" He was the worst off of them.

"Here. Hold still."

She tried to sense the "poison" of too much beer in him, but couldn't seem to make it go away. Maybe if he were bleeding she could do it, but that wasn't an experiment they'd volunteer for. She shrugged and left them to sleep it off.

Back in her cave she tried something different, filling a jug with water and dirt and then separating the two. Easy enough, mainly a matter of controlling the water to lift it out. In two rounds of magic siphoning she made the supply look clean enough to drink. One of her teachers had explained a trick of "killing uncleanness" but she wasn't sure she'd mastered it. She needed her friend back, damn it!

She sighed. "Tomorrow morning."

#

As was her habit now, she left a small gift at the shrine in Brotherhood. Paper today, and an attempt at summoning one of the enchanted sticks to that location. It could be important to find out if she could send enchanted items that way and not just materials.

It was time to go. She called for the sisters, who seemed as eager about going to the city as they'd been about exploring an ancient deadly ruin. "We need to get moving." It wasn't like they even had many belongings.

Hastro, of the three guardsmen, was the first to mostly recover from the night before. "So you're off?" he said, sitting in the shade of the workshop.

"I am. If you're staying for now, is there anything you need?"

"Books. None of us has ever been much of a reader, but it can get dull here. And we need something to copy if we get this glorified berry-press working."

"What about our monk friend's collection?"

"Boring."

Ruyo laughed. "I'll see what I can do."

She left behind the men, guardian elementals in her strengthened shrine, and the beginnings of a decent camp. She took little more than her horse and armor, a crossbow, and camping gear. What more did she need these days, when valuables and food and a spare blanket were a spell away? (Animal fodder -- that was yet another spell to figure out!) The sisters walked except when Ruyo let them take turns on the mare. Both of them were geared up with what armor and weapons they had. The fire spirit floated beside one sister and then the other as they shared the burden of powering him.

"You look like you're planning to fight something," she said, looking the two over.

"No more than you, ma'am," said Lisette. "Considering that you don't need as much."

True; she was coming to the city wary this time. "With luck, I'll know where to go next, and I'll be ready."

#

The village of Sor's Hill wasn't anything special to Ruyo these days, but it was a new sight for the girls. Their mere presence was entertainment that competed with Ruyo's latest magic show and a public sparring match with the local irrigation man. She handed out basic magic to a few people and the second level to one of her group from last time. Then Ruyo checked in with her priest Miras, who had just gotten back to town from somewhere in the north. She expected the tusked man to talk about having only a few people praying, and the need for more magic, more gifts. She could deal with all that.

Instead, the priest took her aside, looking shaken. "Ma'am, there's been an uprising in your name. Slaves from Averell. And they'd like to speak with you as soon as possible. I imagine the city authorities would, too."