They were back in town by evening after a hard march. A hero's welcome greeted them at the Stag and Nanny, with drinks all around.

"And then while it was bleeding," said one of the men, "The merchant gal here ripped its soul out!"

"Is that so," said the Brotherhood monk, who wasn't drinking.

Nusina said, silent as usual, "How much should we tell him?"

Ruyo answered by the same silent speech. "He's suspicious already. I think it's time to reveal all but the main shrine."

"It would help keep his people from jumping to the wrong conclusion. This is a mythos moment for you, Ruyo. Tell the audience."

While the militia regaled everyone with the story, Ruyo conjured another water elemental. This orb she configured slightly differently. Still basically useless but pretty, glowing softly and showing a wavy line within its hovering body. All eyes started to turn toward her, especially the monk's.

Ruyo said, "The hunting party paved the way. These men risked their lives and shed blood to take on a monster that they already knew could kill people." She played with the ball in her hands. "What I did was sense the insane, broken spirit that'd taken your neighbor's body, and laid it to rest. With its host already wounded and harried by the hunters, I was able to persuade it to give up."

The Brotherhood man said, "Not many people can fight a spirit directly, ma'am. Those like me train to end them. If you did the same without proper practice, then I have to wonder if you're merely its next victim."

Ruyo smiled. "Do you see me growing claws and tearing the room up, like the last two victims? It's done. It's not just ended, it got to rest. There's a legacy of the past sleeping beneath our feet, and apparently parts of it are starting to wake at last. When some of it is in pain, we can ease it. Do you know, I got to communicate a little with that spirit? What hurt it so much was the thought of its world, the Lost World, being gone, broken, empty. I promised to help rebuild."

"But... but you can't just remake what's dead and gone!" he said.

"Me? Not by myself." She held out her elemental orb as though offering it to the crowd. "But I command a little of the Lost World's power, now, and I tell you that not all spirits want to hurt people. Meet Nusina."

The true water spirit appeared above the orb, shining down on the assembled villagers and skeptical monk. She made her voice ripple and echo. "I am Nusina, servant of Ruyo, who is now the Goddess of Water. She is no invincible overlord. Only a wielder of an ancient power and... friend of a spirit who remembers a little of the ancient era's glory. Already she has helped to defeat monsters, smite the wicked, and uncover forgotten magic. If you honor her with a shrine and prayers --"

"Praying to her?" said a stunned villager.

Another said, "I heard she tended to the wounded people and they're recovering. Not just healing-mage stuff either."

The monk said, "I wonder... Miss Ruyo, speak for yourself. Do you claim to be a literal goddess?"

"I am," she said, seizing the moment. "Not a powerful one yet. But with your support I can bring you wealth, magic, and greater safety. All I need from you is a shrine and a little honest devotion. Call it an investment."

The room went quiet. Then someone said, "How fancy a shrine are we talking, here?"

#

The next day, back home in the cave, Ruyo began fabricating boards. Nusina flitted around, saying, "Your influence has increased, milady! We're making progress. What are you doing?"

"Bed." Ruyo laid out some wood and stretched her hands to pull lengths of rope into existence like taffy. She panted, saying, "That's enough raw magic for the moment."

"There's so much to do! And did you see how they reacted to that little elemental you made? I think that's enough symbolism to begin trying pendants and the like."

"Bed!" Ruyo said, and grinned at the spirit. "Come on; I've been living in a cave or on the road. Some honest carpentry to get me a comfortable piece of furniture is my number one priority right now."

"And then what?"

Ruyo fetched her tools and started hammering together parts. "Getting to teach magic. If I haven't told you already, you helped put on a great show back there -- and probably saved that guy's life."

Nusina swirled happily. "I'm finally starting to do my proper job again."

While Ruyo worked, she said, "If I understand right, the idea of handing out magic will work best if I know a little theory myself, and then more-or-less pour power into people?"

"Not quite. That implies you'd lose power by giving others access to magic. This is more like... waking them up to seeing it. They'll have general magic power but it'll be flavored based on yours."

"Do I qualify for any earth spells? Normally people aren't limited to just one element."

"I think you're permanently limited to water, in terms of raw elemental alignment. Sorry; the divine connection is a little limiting. Your followers will probably have access to everything except maybe fire."

"I've already got the Flotsam power, though."

"Yes. Water is your element, but it isn't the only thing you can do. Let me try assessing you." Nusina floated around Ruyo, watching her grunt and curse while she got a basic wooden bedframe into shape. "I notice you didn't just tell the people to make you a bed."

Ruyo laughed. "I've done a little carpentry before. It feels good to do hands-on work after the spirit stuff."

"Well. I'm sensing you're not aligned toward doing raw abstract sorcery. At least for now. But you're able to do more immediately practical things. You're more interested in support, healing, and creation than in blowing things up. You've also had some exposure to spirits, and to transformation."

"The way that the victims got turned into monsters?"

"Yes. Think back to what you sensed from that poor man."

Ruyo squirmed uncomfortably. "The spirit had sort of twisted him based on how its own magic worked. I don't know how, though."

"Yes. You've at least seen an example of that effect, so it's something you might start developing. In a nicer way of course. So, besides whatever you're doing with that rope, you should decide how to apply the new power you'll be getting."

"I'm just tying it, see?" Ruyo was filling out the bedframe with lengthwise and crosswise rope netting. "Must seem awfully primitive to you."

"It is, but I can't tell you how to build the vast factories of my time. Only what bits and pieces I remember."

"Like what?"

"For instance, it helps to have something called an 'assembly line' where people or machines stand in a row, doing specialized steps one at a time. Like making a hundred beds in a day by having one person just do the ropes like that, over and over."

"Sounds boring."

"But effective. And it made wondrous things cheap enough for almost everyone."

Ruyo looked up from her work. "I need to get some magic theory instruction. Then oversee finishing the Vissio shrine and dance naked on it or something, right?"

"That part is optional, milady. It would certainly affect your mythos."

"Well, let's go to Averell and lay low, getting some training. And then besides passing magic along, how about trying to upgrade you?"

"Me?"

"You've earned it. If you could appear or talk more easily and not be stuck to me, you could start teaching people on your own or while I'm asleep. That'd also help you protect me and the shrine."

"We could do that. Thank you!"

"Hey, you deserve a share of all the praise I'm supposedly going to get showered with."

#

Ruyo puttered around the cave for a while, alternating between muscle and magic. She covered the all-important bed with a layer of sticks that turned out much less comfortable than she'd planned. In between fooling with that, she worked with Nusina to focus on "flowing" some of the power she'd absorbed from the earth spirit into Nusina herself.

The watery guardian floated, spinning her eyes around. "That feels strange!"

"You're looking a little greener than usual. You all right?"

"Really? Let me see." Ruyo created a hovering bit of water for Nusina to see her reflection in. "I am! It's that earth-aspected energy. I'm not sure how to feel about this."

"We can put you on an all-water diet. Are you any stronger now?"

Nusina flicked back and forth in midair as though in a swordfight, darting forward and sidestepping phantom foes. "Let me test something." She opened the cave's rear wall and disappeared downstairs.

Ruyo shrugged and tried again to make a bigger sheet of cloth in one spell.

Nusina returned and said, "It works! I have more raw power now. Come and see."

Downstairs, the spirit flowed to the bottom of the shaft. She returned hefting a massive ball of water. Ruyo startled and hopped back. Nusina sounded strained. "Here; hop in!"

"And drop to the bottom in that?! You can barely lift a chunk of bread."

"I'm stronger now, we're in the shrine, and it'll be a slow drop. Trust me."

"Did you actually try this out with anything first?"

"Yes, yes. Let's go!"

Reluctantly, Ruyo pushed her way into the ball of water, holding her breath. She shut her eyes. The ground dropped away and she barely avoided screaming. There was an impact that made her stagger, but she stood now on the metal floor, soaked and shivering.

"That was a little harder than I expected," Nusina admitted. "But hey, you're in one piece!"

Ruyo looked far up at the rear entrance. "I think you need more practice. Can you do that anywhere?"

"Not yet. This is my limit within the heart of your power."

Ruyo looked through the broken doorway down here, to the crystal room. "Now that we're here, can we do anything about that leak? I don't want to attract more trouble."

"That's part of what I was thinking."

At the bottom, in a room next to the vertical shaft, was a room of ancient machinery dominated by by a big silver-like crystal. Unfortunately, its top half had been sheared off long ago and now lay mostly in one separate piece on the floor. This innermost room was round, covered in ancient inscriptions, and had a few runes glowing where Ruyo had activated them as part of claiming the place. "Any danger of my turning all this off by accident?"

"Ha! Not now."

"Then here's a test for you. Can you go all the way back up, and fetch pen and paper in a waterproof tube without ruining them? I'd like to write down these markings to show to the Averell wizards."

"Hmm... I'm afraid I'd get everything wet. You could create paper down here."

"I'm tapped out for now."

Nusina swirled. "Since you insist, you did say I need more practice at this lifting trick."

So Ruyo had to let Nusina lift her all the way back up the shaft inside a blob of water, even though it was terrifying and it felt like the spirit nearly dropped her. Ruyo hurried through stuffing her writing materials into her clothes so she could get this part over with. Nusina lowered her again and made a ding like a bell. "That's kind of fun," Nusina said.

"Says the one who only goes splash if she falls a long way."

"By the way, I see you holding your breath. We need to get you to breathe water soon. Never know when you'll need that."

Ruyo copied down the ancient writing as well as she could, walking around the crystal room to look. "Do you remember any of it? Are there any obvious labels for what does what?"

"Oh yes." The spirit gave her a tour. "I admit I don't remember the full workings if I ever knew them, but this lever here is obviously a 'Release', and that's what the letters here mean. And this bit says 'Danger' -- yes the part you're about to touch! And over here is a number which... I can't read it but it was a big number."

Ruyo took notes as Nusina explained the workings. The crystal room and shaft had very little physical machinery in terms of the cranes and water-wheels she would've expected from a complex device. She said so. Nusina claimed there were much more subtle kinds of machine.

Ruyo said, "I still need that theory class, but I think I get some of what this place is doing. Energy somehow comes from prayers, similar to normal mana. This crystal is supposed to collect it, and the vertical shaft kind of bounces it back and forth for storage."

"That's right. Open that panel. Er... make a flat bit of ice and twist it in each hole."

Ruyo discovered how to remove bits of spiral-grooved metal from the wall. "Oh! Screws. I've seen one carpenter who likes them but they're hard to make."

Nusina watched Ruyo toying with a screw in her hands, and said, "We've fallen that far."

"We'll fix it," Ruyo said, and got back to work.

The panel came off and exposed tubes hidden behind the wall. Each was a shimmering gold-green pipe with an attachment point for some ancient tool. Nusina explained, "These are what I meant by 'power conduits'. You can touch them, but they'll probably kill anybody but you that doesn't wear gloves."

Ruyo gingerly poked one; it was cool and faintly yielding to the touch. "I've never even seen this material before."

"Your modern ruin-divers might find bits and pieces. And probably get poisoned by them if they don't know what they're doing. No need to step back like that, milady; it's perfectly safe for you."

She made herself touch the pipes again. "So where is the leak? We sensed a couple of places outside that seemed to have some mana floating around." Ruyo turned, trying to orient herself to where the hunting party had been the other day.

Nusina said, "I've been scanning while we talked. I can patch up a bit of the shaft's walls, but the main problem is... well, besides the power crystal being sheared in half, it's the conduits. We don't have the material to fix those."

"Can we fix the crystal itself?"

Nusina said, "Not today, but there's hope. If we can get some people to lift it into place, you might be able to re-fuse the halves just by magic. This part is more about muscle than special tools."

"Can't easily rig up a pulley here though. I'll have to think about it. And that means bringing people we trust."

Nusina startled, perking up into a thin shape. "Someone's here!"

"Hello?" Baris called out from high above.

Ruyo said, "Whew. Can you greet him for me?"

"Of course."

"I'm here to make my donation," Baris said a minute later, looking down from the upper platform.

Ruyo waved up at him. "Thank you. Do you want to see the mysteries of the shrine?"

He did, and he didn't take the ride down any better than Ruyo had.

He recovered quickly though, and let Ruyo flick the water off of him. She said, "That still is safer than riding ice down."

They showed him the inner shrine, but he couldn't make much of it, scratching his head. "First ancient ruin I've seen. This all looks very fancy. Is godhood just a matter of putting together the right machines, then?"

Nusina found it easy to stay visible in the shrine, now. "There's more to it."

"Such as?"

"Worship, of course. And the legitimacy of being a god."

"That sounds like talking in circles. Ruyo's a god because she's a god. How many were there, way back when?"

"That I don't know," Nusina said. "Several."

Ruyo wondered if there really was more to the "legitimacy". She didn't feel compelled to be morally good or even to adore the concept of water. "Am I really just a wizard with a complicated power source?"

Nusina answered aloud, making Ruyo realize she'd "said" the question. "You're more than that, and you'll become more still. You'll understand in time."