Ruyo wasn't urgently needed anywhere right now. The LTS facility began its slow charging process again. Ruyo found time to lead a worship session at her own church, then to take Miras aside.

She looked him over, saying, "What can I do for you specifically, with the healing and shaping power I've got? I'm no sculptor."

Miras conjured a hovering mirror of water to examine himself. "I'm pleased that I can do this sort of thing. You've done a lot for me already, Lady."

"You're not telling me you're fully satisfied like this, are you?"

"Oh, heavens no. I'm just trying to avoid ending up as part man, part boar or mole, and part fish."

Ruyo laughed. "A legitimate worry."

They talked it over, and Ruyo went to work. They let a few healers attend, magic-focused and not. (Though at this point any medic in Starshore who wanted basic water-shaping could have it just from using the temple.)

The priest lay down, and with Nusina's guidance they stretched a water elemental out to briefly occupy his body. With its magical influence on his flesh, she worked carefully on his arms first, feeling out how she could smooth the leathery skin along each. She moved on to his hands, which had been twisted and hardened like claws or cloven hooves. Ruyo frowned at these, rubbing each one and coaxing it like clay into a more natural human shape. "Seems easier than working on an unmodified human body."

Nusina commented, "It's that business of the ceilings and hats again. He's already been changed in a way that made him more susceptible to spirits."

Miras was trying not to watch, having said he was squeamish. "It runs in my family, supposedly. Always suspected of wicked witchcraft, though I don't know of relatives who've been physically changed like me."

The man's hands shimmered. It was delicate work and she had limited experience, but the natural shape was reasserting itself. She began to feel growing resistance to the work. "I think your body's too worn out from this to do more today. But you look better."

Miras made himself look. His arms were more normal looking and his hands still looked subtly clawed and inhuman, but he flexed his fingers with more dexterity than he'd had in a while. "Almost proper fingernails again, too. Thank you, Lady!"

"We can try another session tomorrow. I have things to do in town."

#

Miras wasn't the only one asking for medical help. Once news of the little miracle spread, there were patients wanting more healing than Ruyo knew how to do. Ruyo suspected some of the doctors had sent them as a reminder that she shouldn't try to make them obsolete. "No chance of that," Ruyo muttered.

Nusina said, "Do what you can for practice."

Ruyo begged the petitioners' pardon, saying her skills were still very limited in this area and that their own healers were superior. But she did remove a few scars and manage to regrow someone's toe. She tried restoring one man's hair but couldn't solve that one yet.

And then an adventurous young man asked if he could get the same kind of strange webbed hands she had. "Why?" she asked.

"It's a mark of an up-and-coming wizard. I don't know if you remember me, but I've been around long enough that you personally gave me the fourth level. Thank you! I have a much better job now, and I'm studying the other elements including Lady Elinor's power."

Ruyo supposed there was nothing wrong with the free advertising. "If I do that, can you promise to devote a little time to helping other students master the basics?"

"I do that already."

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So Ruyo worked on him, giving him the same alteration she'd been doing to herself. Strange to see the effect on someone else. He flexed his grey, slick hands and said, "They'll probably help me swim, too."

"I would think so." Ruyo stretched. That was her limit for the moment; she'd put this guy at the end of today's queue.

Nusina found Ruyo a little later, taking notes in her temple room. "The Inheritors request that you work with them on the spirit-binding project. They're going to try a fire one."

"To do what? If it's for medical reasons they're better off continuing to do water elementals."

"Something about enhancing the heat output or focus of their spells."

Ruyo frowned, thinking about the theory. "But we figured out that a bound spirit reduces your mana capacity."

"Apparently it can be done as a tradeoff, spell endurance versus force."

Ruyo and Nusina raced off across the harbor to go visit the research team, talking magic theory along the way.

#

Ruyo visited Elly's upgraded temple in the mines. Earth mages had done most of the work, slicing up parts of the walls to expand the little room she'd first been given. Elly bowed theatrically and said, "The Goddess of Water is always welcome here."

Ruyo stepped over the threshold of a three-room cavern. The decorated altar room remained, but it now also had a meeting room full of chairs and a table, and a little apartment for Elly herself. The altar room had kept the painted depictions of Elly's heroism, but those sections of wall that weren't already decorated had been cut away to create a bigger space with a bowl-like depression of tiered steps or seats in the center. "Why the shape?" asked Ruyo.

"Imitating the design of the core temple room in Averell. The Witch Hunters' idea, but I kind of like that one." The guards were waiting outside. Elly shut her eyes and turned slowly around. "I don't get a strong sense of purpose to it like you were saying it should have. The locals are still doing this to humor me and see how I repay it."

"And so far that's meant basic night magic?"

"That and the dreaming. If I bless you -- well, not you personally -- that night you're guaranteed pleasant dreams. Nice, I'm sure, but it's not on the level of giving away real, valuable things like you do."

Ruyo listened to a comment from Nusina, who was talking with some miners half a mile off. "Nusina says, this might be time to add some permanent enchantment to the shrine. For practice if nothing else. You could start with the protective kind that helps keep anybody from breaking into Wellspring."

"We're in a mine."

"But someone could still break the altar. That hurts."

"I need something practical to show off, though." Elly paced. "Lighting, maybe. What could I do that's more practical? For spells so far I have my unusual light, the dream blessing, and this shadow stuff." She conjured one of her little dark mists.

Ruyo's blue-tinged spell and one of Elly's violet ones were the only light. Ruyo said, "A continuous shared dream, something like what the Shroud once did?"

"Nice, though the city warned me not to invite people to live here full time. I want something more tangible for now."

Ruyo frowned and thought. "So you've got darkness, dreams, dark fog, light that shines oddly on stone... You know how in a dream you might float around oddly? What if you developed some magic that made people or objects lighter? That would tie in with you wanting to fly someday, and make your bounding around more impressive and safer."

Elly looked intrigued. "I don't just want powers to make myself mightier though. It should be something I can give away that directly helps people and makes them want to offer prayers."

Ruyo talked about learning to think of her distinct powers as parts of a whole. "Set it up so that you can grant it as part of your blessings. A power that makes your worshiper able to get lighter, or lighten, say, a heavy wagon. That's got real practical use. It might be dinky at first but proving the concept would make people want more."

"Hmm! That'd be fun and useful. I get the sense that my entire field of magic is in flux, so this might become a regular part of it. Now how the heck do I proclaim that this is one of my powers? How did you ever start doing the food-generation spell?"

Ruyo called Nusina to her side, and she summoned the Witch Hunter guards, asking if they'd prayed here yet.

"Not today," said their captain. "What are you hoping to do?"

Elly told them, "Learning a practical new power that should also make me more popular."

"What is it?"

"You'll see." Elly refused to say or in any way ask their permission for the choice. After a moment the guards relented, offered up prayers at the altar, and got shooed off again. Elly quietly said, "I'm starting to sense what you mean about the flavor of the prayers. These guys are real tired of babysitting."

Ruyo snorted. "So you're going to fly to the moon to get away from them?"

"Ha. Sounds like we've got nearly a month before that. This team has already asked to be relieved of duty."

Together, Elly, Ruyo and Nusina worked on a meditation exercise to help Elly see what directions and intentions came naturally to her. "I think this floaty magic idea works," the Night God said. "But I'm having trouble with enchanting the shrine to do anything."

Nusina urged, "Do something simple to start. Lighting."

The cave rumbled worryingly. Its walls began to glow in faint purple. "That should do it," Elly said.

"A good start, and not a big drain."