Ten of the villagers were interested in praying at the shrine and receiving Ruyo's magic blessing right away. The monks led a little ceremony that called on "Ruyo, the Lady of Waters" to bring safety to the village.

Ruyo was perplexed by the townfolk's desire to get magic that they'd have trouble using at all, considering the anti-magic field. Keeper Matthias pointed out that it would work when they were around the shrine, adding to its mystery. Supposedly each of the supplicants she'd just blessed would continue praying each day for a week, and at least once a week for a month. That would greatly repay the small cost of performing the ritual. Better yet, many of the monks would begin a daily devotion for her sake. It was a major boon... and a reminder that they expected her to kill a god with it.

She had one of her new outfits professionally dyed in the same fine sky blue as the altar-cloth. She worried that people would read too much into the color or any other symbolism she spread. But it ought to be safe enough to draw the connection between herself and the water element by color.

Safety, she thought, as she headed back east. The monks barely talked about craft or fortune as aspects of what I do. They're directing prayers toward what they want me to be for them.

#

At home, Ruyo had much work to do. The monks had told her everything they knew about the ruin that lay mostly undisturbed near here, and wanted her to search it for clues toward defeating their vile prisoner. Ruyo expected that the place might have spare parts useful for her shrine.

The guard trio were plugging away at their printing project and a more solidly built cabin. Ruyo made metal, wood and cloth for those. Soon they had four low walls and some temporary sheeting that made for a decent pavilion and sleeping area.

Then there was the idea of cooking pots! Every family wanted one; she should be selling those. So she experimented with making particular shapes out of iron instead of just ingots, but with so little focus on the project she couldn't do anything more complex than a bowl.

The monk living at the Wellspring pointed out that Ruyo hadn't done much to translate the ancient text in her own basement, and offered to go down there and look again based on his own studies. Ruyo had, in fact, found a few moments to ask for what translation guides there were in Averell and Brotherhood.

So, armed with pages of notes, she opened the door to the basement, and froze. "Nusina's the one who can ferry people up and down." Ruyo had teasingly called her The Droplet of Terror in this role, and still thought the ride was frightening.

The monk looked down at the multi-story drop from the upper cave to the crystal room. "Can you do it, though?"

Ruyo shuddered. "I don't trust my life or anyone else's to it yet. There are so many other spells to master, I... I can't do this one."

The Brotherhood man patted her shoulder. "It's all right. Let's focus on what you need the most for your expedition."

Ruyo nodded and paced in her cave, playing with her elemental-making spells. She most needed two specific things: protection while exploring, and a disposable sort of elemental that could be given to soldiers. Simply training them in more magic probably wouldn't do it. Making even basic elementals was tricky even for a professional like the man in Sor's Hill. Even Ruyo still had trouble making the spiky ice elementals -- Glittering Foebound Quills, Nusina had insisted -- outside of this cave.

She conjured a large square of cloth, spread it on the stone floor, and sat. "All right, then. By the divine power of Ruyo, my butt shall remain here until I have an idea."

The monk snorted. "Shall I leave you to that?"

She nodded. "Rescue me if I haven't got anything in an hour."

She set to work, meditating on her power again. There was a definite influx today. She couldn't measure it numerically like Nusina, but it was obvious she had more prayers coming in. Some official followers would be one-time buyers who'd only signed up for the magic, but the monks at least had motivation to really wish her success. Ruyo tried locating the beautiful Brotherhood shrine and found she could target it with spells just like this place. She summoned a yard of cloth to there to see what reaction it would get.

What little she knew of enchantment theory, she'd learned from Averell's trainers. Magic items could be either a single spell held ready to release once, or an ongoing effect like a stone-eating chisel. She needed one-shot items linked to the summoning and control of a Quill-class elemental.

She cast the Quill spell, summoning one of the spiky things, and studied how she'd done it. Now she sort of needed to leave the spell unfinished. She conjured up a small piece of wood and was pleasantly surprised it was just what she was hoping for. Instead of a big board she'd made a smooth rod with a dent in the middle. She called out, "Has anybody got paint?"

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

They didn't. And her original plan to snap a stick to set off a spell seemed useful, but not quite right for this one. Some frustrating experimentation later, she tried turning it into some pseudo-alchemy: a bottle of water containing what would become an ice elemental. She needed a cork, though, and had to make that herself. It was a somewhat new material for her. So that was three spells to make one bottled enchantment: one each for the cork, glass and elemental, plus effort to delay the summoning.

She stretched and showed off her work to the campers. "Somebody try throwing this, then controlling the ice beast."

The girl Lisette threw it at a tree, and the glass thunked off it and landed intact. Ruyo said, "Oh, come on. I need lower quality?"

"Here, let me," said Khulis. He picked it up and smashed it on the trunk. Drops of water splattered and congealed into a single glowing point, then clung to the tree as a spiky mass of ice.

Ruyo said, "Good, now try having it -- eep!"

The elemental attacked Khulis with shards of flung ice. He leaped back. "How!?"

Elly leaped toward it, saying, "Like this!" She held out her hands, and got struck in the leg with a sharp dart. Her sister threw herself in the path of a second one.

Ruyo cursed and reached out to take control. It didn't feel quite like hers, but it still bent to her command. She spread her fingers and its icy body crumbled to nothing. "Whew. I'm sorry. Are you all right?"

Both of the sisters were hurt: Elly jabbed with a sharp chunk, Lisette bruised by flying hail. "I want to be armed when I fight one," Lisette groused.

"Here; lay down. I need healing practice anyway." Ruyo tended to Elly's leg, where the embedded dart was already melting. Ruyo didn't know how to do anything complex for injuries. But she had some notion of cleansing the wound, pushing out traces of dirt or something that shouldn't be there, and aiding the clotting process. For Lisette she couldn't do anything since the skin wasn't broken, but she'd be fine. She gave Elly a bandage and apologized again.

The Brotherhood monk was thoughtful. "Improving your combat ability is useful, but you're going to need something different eventually. Not just a direct attack."

Ruyo nodded. Simply hitting the monks' prisoner with spells and blades hadn't worked so far. Short of becoming a war goddess she doubted she'd ever have the power to solve such a problem through raw violence.

The sisters insisted on doing battle ("for justice", Elly said) with another ice elemental, using weapons and improvised shields. Ruyo had her guards trying to control the little monster to no avail. The monk was able to steer it somewhat with his greater magic experience. When the sisters slew their prey, Hastro said, "So you've got a nasty surprise you can throw at someone, but it's less useful than an alchemical firebomb."

"Can't help you with fire," Ruyo said.

Elly commented, "It might not hurt as bad as a little thrown explosion, but can you imagine chucking a dozen into a bandit camp? They'd be panicked!"

Apparently they couldn't be controlled by the average soldier. So the idea of throwing them was good, to cause distraction and minor wounds in enemy ranks. She had a product that could work alongside whatever other weapons and tricks Averell had.

Lisette said, "What I don't understand is why you can't make a big, scary elemental."

"Also you should make one big cork and cut it instead of doing one spell per bottle," Elly suggested.

Ruyo shrugged. "Good idea about the corks." Making a few large objects seemed easier than many small ones. "Making better critters hasn't been my focus. Do I have volunteers for fighting another?"

This time she made the bottle thinner, flimsier. The uncontrolled elemental lashed out at everyone in sight until they beat it down with a minor injury to Hastro. Ruyo found it disturbing that its default action was violence. On her next attempt she tried to tone it down and the result was an ice elemental that just sat there passively. "Good that they're not automatically made to fight, I suppose." The monk had an easier time steering this one to make it attack.

"Anybody want to take the horse and make a messenger run to Averell?" Ruyo said, writing up notes for the leadership.

The monk said, "You really ought to start using code."

"Last time I saw a coded message... ah, the scholar looking at it laughed and broke it easily."

"I know a better way, that the Council will already know." He took her aside and explained the concept. Not simply shifting each letter of the message by a certain amount through the alphabet, but assigning each letter to a season in sequence. All of the Spring letters would be shifted by a certain amount, all of the Summer ones by a different amount, and so on. "It can be done with a different number of 'seasons' as well, and a single word can express the set of numbers needed. Practically unbreakable."

Ruyo raised one eyebrow. There was probably extensive contact between Brotherhood and Averell about sensitive matters.

After writing up a much shorter message that could be transcribed into that mind-bending riddle form, she went outside and found the men working with their printing gadget. "Success!" one of them said, and showed off their work. After much tinkering and cursing, they'd made a set of lead blocks they could line up, coat with ink, and squash onto paper to stamp a line of text repeatedly. "And next we'll have more lines at once. Can you do more lead for us to melt down? And better paper?"

"Let's see." She was pleased to find her paper-making had improved along with cloth, giving her some decently sized sheets of it for the crew to work with. More metal for them, too. The effort wore her out less than she was used to.

Lisette and Elly wanted to carry the letter east. Ruyo said, "No, it's dangerous enough for you here."

"But we've never been there!" Elly said. "This is the farthest we've been from home."

The third of the former bandits was named Nodens, and Ruyo didn't know him as well as the others. He said, "I could go along."

Ruyo snuck a glance at the monk, who'd been keeping an eye on the other men. He nodded in approval.

All seemed to be in order. Ruyo sent the girls off on foot with their escort, the message, food, and several of the sample elementals.