They all took their hands off of their sword-hilts, in some cases literally. Though the mood was still tense, everyone gathered to hear Ruyo openly tell the story of how she killed the Southern Tiger, ambitious general of Khyber.

She provided a few blessings while she was at it. For anyone who'd prayed at one of her shrines even once, she could permanently grant a "channel" to learn the beginner level of water magic in mere minutes. For those who'd continued praying, she could eventually deepen and extend that channel to a second, third and fourth level. It didn't interfere with any magic the target already had, and it provided the ability to learn air and earth spells as well, with much more effort.

Anemos said, "What does the magic of Night do?"

"We're going to find out soon. My experience in the Shroud probably wasn't a real guide."

#

The city group left at last, taking along the prisoner. The group of guards who'd been stationed at Wellspring remained there, officially to wait for Ruyo to recover a little more prayer energy and improve the channel for them. Nusina suspected it was a move to make Averell's presence at Wellspring a permanent one, something they'd been edging toward for months. Ruyo wasn't in a great position to defy that right now, especially with the war not quite over.

Baris said, "I want to go home and check on the place. It's been too long."

"Of course. Thank you again. And the sword... do you want to hang onto it?"

He looked uneasy. "I would clean it off first."

"I want to wait until the monks help figure out if the blood empowers it somehow. There is... a reason it might help."

"You keep it, then."

Ruyo hugged him. "You're always welcome here. And when I'm a little more recovered I owe you more wood and cloth and whatever else you like."

She thanked everyone else and told them to take a break. "You earned it."

#

The next few days were peaceful at last. Ruyo's mana supply recovered with the prayers of her followers at Wellspring, in the towns and cities, and in a forward military base. The energy let her give away more magic so that everyone in camp had at least the third tier of it now, sometimes the fourth.

Nusina had established her own, unofficial rating system. Most of humanity had no magic. Level one was trivial, like making bits of water hover. Two began to be useful, like creating light and water. Three: floating briefly on phantom waves, conjuring basic elementals (themselves a new invention) and cleansing wounds. Many people earned a good living combining magic like this with a mundane craft like smithing. The fourth tier let people do all of the above with less effort, plus tricks like breathing water and conjuring fog.

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Ruyo was rated a five on this scale, equivalent to a high-ranked professional -- but in only one element, and lacking decades of practice and study. The seventh level was the absolute peak of any known living wizard, specifically a reclusive westlander known as the Tree of Hours. Ruyo also had powers that went at right angles to this system: the magic-granting, object creation, and the beginnings of shapeshifting. So she was far from unstoppable but had been shaping her powers to make people not want to stop her.

She conjured up supplies from raw magic energy. Wooden boards of indeterminate species, bolts of canvas, iron and lead ingots, and a few glass panes. These kept her followers busy making simple furniture and tools and housing. Lobb the monk used his earth-based magic to continue shaping foundations and low walls for others to build upon, also giving lessons to anyone interested in slowly learning to copy his spells. He had only a few enthusiastic takers like Roland the former slave. Ruyo was also still producing a monotonous supply of enchanted sticks that she handed over to couriers from Averell, to give to the army. Each stick would summon a few man-days of fresh bread when broken, simplifying a whole unit's food supply.

There was a project to build a printing press, currently in a state where it could produce crude documents for the Averell government's bureaucracy. The Church had funded this to get copies of scripture, eventually, but for now the ex-bandits had a few of the former slaves using the thing for simple work.

While doing some tricky conjuration to make boards in a particular shape, Ruyo got a message from Tulia, her priestess in the city. "Whatever you did, the nobles are still in shock. They haven't had me arrested at least. I want to visit this hospital ruin you've been talking about; can you take me there? It'll give me new material to preach about."

Ruyo wrote back, "Come on over. I'm busy with something that requires me to stay at Wellspring for the moment, but I can get someone else to lead you there. The ruin is unlocked now."

The next day, a message lay on the floor when Ruyo walked into her shrine. She grabbed it and called for Nusina. "Elly's awake!"

Nusina spun happily around Ruyo, then read the letter too. "Great! Should we visit her? The monks must be studying her every hair for clues."

"Not right now; I'm just glad she's okay. Now that we've heard, I owe the village of Frostcrag a visit. We could combine that with escorting Tulia."

She began to muster supplies for a short trip southward. Before she could go, a man named Nodens stopped her. He was one of the former bandit trio, and Ruyo didn't know him very well since he preferred to hang around Wellspring. "Me and the others have been thinking about our pay. The others fought with you and got some loot, but now we're back to being handed some raw iron and told to live on that and bread."

Ruyo pointed to a trade wagon rolling in from the west. "They'll buy it."

"Can't you learn to make gold, though?"

"It's been a low priority. We're better off with me making useful things. I'm starting to do leather now."

Nodens said, "You'd rather have leather than be rich?"

"If I were a merchant I might go with gold-making as a magic power. Maybe. Where's the fun in that? But piling up coins isn't my job anymore. Every object I make is making the world a little richer. You can get rich if you take my raw stuff and learn to make more things with it, like what the others are doing at the blacksmith shop."

"Eh, I'm not really a craftsman. Not my natural line of work. I want to drink and gamble and look tough when somebody needs shaking down."

Ruyo shrugged. "We could use a tavern. Start off with some beer and dice in a shack, and see how that goes. I'll help with the materials."

"Can you make beer, then?"

She grinned. "I'll try, but Nusina warned it'll probably be terrible without a lot of samples to learn from."