The conversation in the noble estate's garden had gone well. Once Ruyo and Nusina were alone, Nusina got excited. "There's an ancient word that applies here... 'Jackpot'."

"What's that mean?"

"Something about good luck. You've got a chance to get a lot more popular."

"And useful, I hope."

"Oh yes! But it won't have to be just magic this time. So, books among your people are made one at a time by hand, right?"

"Yes...?"

Nusina explained the old-technology idea she'd recalled while talking about books with the noblemens' staff. Instead of hiring scribes, a simple machine would do their work faster, without a single spell. "Though some enchanted bits would help with the ink."

Ruyo wasn't sure it would be practical, but if it worked she could see the profit opportunity. "It sounds like you don't know the exact details though; we would need to experiment. There's time to have the Vissios do some shopping before I go tomorrow."

Nusina's eyes glowed brighter. "Um, milady, silent speech please. I think the cook was trying to tell us something."

Ruyo smacked her forehead. "Yeah, I'll have to leave tomorrow afternoon," she said aloud. But quietly she said, "Really, tonight in the dead of night. While nobody is following us."

#

She was able to get ahold of Tulia that afternoon. "As promised," Ruyo said, and performed the ritual that gave the new priestess direct access to magic.

Tulia smiled and tried the water-working power out. "Thank you! I figure you'll find a way to grant something more advanced, too?"

"Probably." Ruyo stretched. "So I'll be permanently handing out a magic talent to more people. I'm glad to finally have a power that justifies the shrines a little. How are things with Quintus?"

Tulia lowered her voice. "I think he hasn't blabbed much about you, but some of the other scholars tried to get him drunk last night and I barely talked him out of it. The nobles seem more eager to get your help than they let on."

All the more reason to slip out and prepare. By the time anyone came knocking, she wanted to negotiate from a strong position.

#

She woke up late at night, with Nusina poking her. She grunted and rolled over. "Yeah."

Here was a chance to end her trip to the city early, and hopefully hide her shrine's location a little longer from the eyes of the powerful.

Stealth wasn't her forte, but she had Nusina to scout ahead invisibly. Ruyo left the same way she'd escaped from the kidnappers' home, by using icy footholds to get over the garden wall. She hit the ground outside and grunted, noisier than she'd meant to.

"Here!" said Nusina, near an alley. Ruyo hurried to follow. A city guard with a torch walked by and missed her.

By silent speech and casual strolling, Ruyo headed for the gates.

Ruyo was the first to spot a suspicious man in dark clothes waiting by another alley, and the fact that there wasn't a good way past him. Nusina signaled, Ruyo nodded, and the spirit flew over the lurker's head and knocked a barrel around. The man turned long enough for Ruyo to creep past him.

The city gates were closed for the night but one of the smaller pedestrian doors stood open. A sleepy guard was playing with a deck of cards, but looked up and noticed her. "Evening, ma'am."

"Evening."

She started to walk on by, but he grabbed her arm. "Any problems?"

"Just getting on the road early," she said, trying to look calm.

"All right. Safe travels."

Ruyo had a long walk ahead.

#

Hours into it, she was in danger of falling asleep. "There's a story of an evil wizard," she said with a yawn. "He put his soul into a stone, so that he couldn't die, but then he had to hide the stone. He buried it in a chest on an island somewhere."

"And a hero found it?" Nusina guessed.

"Of course. What can we do better, so that I'm not paranoid about being found? Running away like this won't work for much longer. Not with travel on the road picking up with the spring thaw, and people getting curious."

"Did you ask the Vissios about land ownership?"

"I did, in a roundabout way. Averell only lays claim to the city and a few miles out. So technically our place is unclaimed."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Good news."

"The bad news is that land works the same for us as for anybody else: you rule only as far as your spear can reach."

"There used to be more civilized arrangements," Nusina said.

"Backed by really fancy spears, I bet."

"Who's paying Baris to watch the roads, then?"

"His own hunting, and a bit of supply from both Sor's Hill and Brotherhood."

She hiked on, napped under a tree with Nusina guarding her, and pushed wearily onward. "Next priority needs to be better defense of our secret lair. I assume we've got a little more power to work with now."

"We do, especially if you continue getting prayers at Averell and the Sor's Hill people follow through."

Ruyo had reluctantly passed the village by to make better time. Long practice on the road kept her awake, and her friend helped. Ruyo said, "I'm thinking simple hiding won't work. The door and the elementals are a start. But is there a way to make the murals sturdier, or wall them off completely?"

Nusina hummed. "One option is to collapse the cave entrance. That way you have a backup shrine but nobody can reach it. Of course, then nobody can pray there, and it'll go inactive over time if it's not used. A second choice is, pump more energy into guardian Quills, and wall off the murals. Or... expand the tunnels to have more elaborate carvings and decorations that count as part of the shrine. That way even a tomb robber won't wreck the whole thing unless he's both patient and actively trying to ruin it."

A while later, Ruyo said, "What about openness as a strategy? Hire guards, help settle some farmers nearby. Get a community that will keep an eye on the place and has a reason to make sure it stays intact."

"A bold choice. It'll take time, though, that we might not have. Also I don't like the idea of having to pay people just to guard it. If any money changes hands, people ought to be paying you to visit the shrine and see a ruin of the Lost World."

It took Ruyo an hour's forced march before she spoke much more. "I have something. I'm going to need Quintus, more prayer energy, and a lot of effort."

Nusina boggled as Ruyo explained what she had in mind long-term. "It could work," she said.

Ruyo had suggested turning the place into a maze of magical traps and monsters, then charging admission.

#

Ruyo reached her cave well after sunrise. She threw her brand-new feather pillow onto the bedframe of bare ropes, sticks and cloth scraps that she'd built, and fell asleep.

Sometime much later, she woke up sore and groggy. She opened one eye and said, "Did anything explode?"

"Not yet, milady."

"First priority..." She rolled out of bed and crashed to the stone floor, surrounded by loose sticks. "First priority is to upgrade that Flotsam power. Set it up, please."

"All right." Nusina was infuriatingly cheery. She hadn't worn her feet out.

She sat on the cave floor and cleared her mind. Nusina zipped around her, creating a swirl of water. Portions of it gleamed like pearls and moonlight. The light showed her a reflection of her own few spells and powers, intuitive enough that she could tell which was which, though not how she knew. Touching them felt like the texture of wet stone.

Nusina arranged for Ruyo to grow some of her power into an enhanced spell, stretching the "muscle" she'd already been using to make things.

Ruyo felt more awake suddenly, though she sensed it'd pass. "First test," she said, and focused. Between her hands a line of light grew, unfolding slowly into a rippling piece of off-white canvas cloth. It grew more difficult to stretch the potential object into reality. Finally the spell popped, and the real thing fell into her hands. The sheet was just about large enough to be a simple blanket.

"How is the texture?"

Ruyo rubbed it and some threads visibly slipped. She frowned. "Low quality; I do need non-magical practice. But it has immediate practical uses."

She made a second one, slightly bigger, and replaced the sticks with the sheets. She pulled her battered but well-made old blanket over herself and was instantly asleep again.

#

This time when she woke, Nusina wasn't there. Ruyo woke up feeling better. With a little sewing she could make a proper mattress, stuff it with grass maybe.

"You seem overly interested in the bed," Nusina said, floating up from the hidden room. Ruyo was still fiddling with the frame.

"It's something I can control."

Nusina said, "I suppose I can understand. There's only so much I can do to restore the shrine without specialized technology and magic. I'm detecting a few prayers coming in from Averell, so that's working."

"Who?"

"I can't tell at your current power level."

"Is anybody there ticked that we ran off?"

"Almost certainly. Furniture aside, time is running out before we're located by one means or another."

Ruyo conjured a biscuit to gnaw on. It was still pretty bad despite her recent cooking lesson; that was another thing to work on. "Let's get to work."

Ruyo's product quality and variety were still shoddy. But she could do more quantity now, and it was hard to mess up raw metal. She made a chunk of lead (copper was still out of reach) and gouged a letter T into it. "Like this?"

Nusina said, "I wish I knew the details! I think it's supposed to be carved outward, not in. And then you dip a row of the letters in ink."

Baris' fiancee, Cydi, arrived while Ruyo was experimenting. "Hello?" she said, rapping on the door.

Ruyo invited her in. "Hello! I was wondering when you or Baris would stop by. Can you sew?"

Cydi had come prepared to help Ruyo out in several ways, so she had a whole bag of assorted tools including a needle and thread. Ruyo made her some cloth to keep in return for sewing a crude mattress-bag they could stuff. While they did that, and Cydi showed her how to do stitching, Ruyo talked about her latest trip. "I'd like to hire you and Baris to fetch me some workmen with a taste for adventure."

"Fighting more horrible beasts?"

"Lifting a heavy thing for me, down in the basement. Want to see a Lost World ruin?"

Ruyo stayed up in the cave while Nusina took her down to the crystal room and explained the idea of repairing it. To Ruyo's surprise the woman came back up and told Nusina, "Do it again!" She returned from a second up-and-down ride and came upstairs, wobbly and soaked. "Ha, I'd like to see the menfolk's reaction to that."

Nusina dried her off. "I'm glad someone appreciates it."

Ruyo said, "She also has an idea involving book-making, but we need someone who can pour hot lead into molds. I haven't got the precision to make the shapes I need. You don't happen to have a smith in your magic bag, do you?"

"No, but I can find you one."

"Oh! Magic. I can finally teach you, if you'd like. It will only be a first step but you can improve from there."

"Does this teaching take long?"

"Minutes!"

Cydi prayed at the mural, and Ruyo repaid her. The lady seemed thrilled even with the slight power she'd received. "This will be fun to surprise Baris with!"

"Send him over once you've had your fun, and I'll do the same for him. Also, improving people's powers to something more useful is on my to-do list."

"I look forward to it. Let me finish that sewing and I'll head out."

Ruyo smiled. "Miss Cydi? You seem more enthused than I'd thought about all of this."

"Dear, I came out here to the woods to be with Baris. I expected it would be dull but satisfying. And now, it won't be dull."