She gave and received what training she could, that night before bed. In the morning, Baris and Anemos headed out to the west to deal with Brotherhood on her behalf. Ruyo would have liked to handle the situation personally, and watched them go with some regret.

Nusina said, "Delegation. You can't be everywhere."

During a break, Ruyo rested in the cave. "You mentioned a memory of a 'power plant'. What's that? And there was a hospital near it."

"Call it a building for making lightning energy." Nusina described non-magical flameless lights and other barely-recalled wonders. "I don't know how to build one, but could drip out enough hints to sound mysterious and wise without admitting that."

"That sounds like a useful divine skill! Think you can remember where these places were, well enough to scavenge them?"

Nusina bubbled thoughtfully. "I haven't yet seen a good map. Maybe? It's a quest for later though."

Ruyo nodded. "How about if we use what spare power we have, to upgrade you again?"

"Maybe soon, but for now I'd be more comfortable with you having some direct offense or defense." She butted Ruyo.

The goddess sat and concentrated, picturing the reflections of her own magic like images in a waterfall all around her. Possibilities for new spells glinted like fish scales, abstract but giving her an intuitive sense for what they might do.

"You're improving at that," Nusina said.

Ruyo said, "I see a way to literally grow scales to deflect a blow. Or icy hide. Or fat, I think? Let's avoid that one."

"These are based on various sea creatures you know of, along with elementals. I want to show you the sea someday, to expand your horizons."

"I've been there."

"How about underwater?"

"That'd be new." She smiled. "Do any of these spells look sensible? I also see... I don't know what this pattern is."

Nusina examined the sparkles. "A form of magical mobility." She talked it over with Ruyo, who grew excited just hearing about it. They agreed to flow mana and prayer into it, as though spreading a new branch of a river delta. Ruyo could feel her power trickling slowly outward in new directions, strengthening her.

"So, how do I... whoa!" Just by thinking about it, her feet lifted a few inches off of the ground. She floated there as though swimming, and a spray of phantom water erupted from the stone beneath her to splash around her toes and fall back to vanish again. She leaned down to get a better look, lost her balance, and tumbled. Instead of crashing face-first to the hard floor, the magical buoyancy caught her and let her flip and roll back to her feet like a trained gymnast. The spell wore off and lowered her to the floor, wobbling.

"Ha!" she said. "That was fun. It doesn't feel like I can do that often, though."

"It should get easier with practice."

#

Some of her students were leaving, packing up two of the wagons. Nusina looked out at them from the cave and said, "Most did offer another prayer today, but I suspect tomorrow's will be their last."

"Three brief devotions may not be a fair price for what we're offering."

"Then you need a reason they should keep doing it."

Even considered purely as a transaction, she needed a continuous flow of support to remain more than a wizard relying on her own personal mana.

She worked to earn it that day, being friendly and making sure everybody there who wanted magic got it. Except for her guards, who'd only gotten the first level of initiation so far. She told them, "Give me a few more days, while we get the Brotherhood situation resolved. Have you decided where to go afterward?"

The Khyberian man who'd been helping with the cooking, waved toward the other two. "We've been thinking. If you're about to teach more and more people magic, then it's not going to be so valuable a skill, is it?"

"You could go west, then. I haven't been over there since all this started."

"True. But you're going to end up with a village of followers, aren't you? We've got the first building here." He looked back at the wobbly shack they'd been working on. "And we could build the first good one. Why not get in on claiming land here for ourselves? We could spend what you pay us on supplies, before iron loses all its value too. Start a resting spot for traders, find some women in Averell."

Nusina flipped around in midair. "That would be great!"

Ruyo said, "It might work out. Let's talk again once the expedition west gets back."

The men looked uneasy.

#

By night, her three teachers had declared they had other things to do back home, and would be leaving. It sounded like all but one of her students was going in the morning, too; the last was smitten with her and he wanted more lessons she was unqualified to give. That was a problem for tomorrow. Ruyo slept well on her continually tinkered-with bed.

She woke up with Nusina whispering in her mind. "Something's wrong!"

She tried to get the world to focus. "Now what?"

"It's gone very quiet. There's a faint haze in the air, and someone coming."

Ruyo summoned a third ice elemental to join the other two she usually kept on watch. "Time to reinforce the ceiling?"

A voice boomed from outside. "Ruyo the Witch? Come out and meet us."