Now, she had to turn her attention to the ruins. She began riding south for a few hours to get a feel for the fastest route from home.

This was wild, hilly, rocky ground unfit for farming. Not much fit for travel either, she grumbled to herself, as she let her horse pick her way along the slopes. After an hour, though, she spotted a relatively flat track southward where the annoying brambles had been mostly swept aside and there were hoofprints. Ah, this was a game trail. "Let the animals find the best place for a road," Baris had once mentioned.

She noticed something odd sticking out of the grass, and stopped to kick dirt aside. "Metal." She scraped away more earth with her knife. She'd found the top of an old rusty box. Gleefully thinking of buried treasure, she tried to dig it up, but it was securely rooted. She'd have to come back for it.

Reluctantly she rode on a little farther, and smiled. Here was the creek that the Brotherhood men had mentioned... probably. From here it ought to be possible to use the rest of their directions. Their description had run from their town, to a little quarry settlement, to the creek and beyond. Might be worth going to the quarry to say hello, later. For now she turned back.

And soon, into the path of a bear. It froze, and her horse shied sideways.

It was right in her way, blocking the game trail. She raised one hand and concentrated, summoning a momentary waterfall from her fingers. It fell to the ground and swirled, freezing into a Quill. Under her control the elemental scooted along the ground, keeping between Ruyo and the bear. She coaxed her horse to move up in the general direction she needed to go, at an angle. The bear snarled and took a step closer. The mare panicked and dashed, forcing Ruyo to hang on. They were headed right for a thicket.

She tried to get control again but the horse had enough sense to turn aside. They both turned to see what the bear was doing. It had bitten into the ice creature and was pawing curiously at the chunks.

Ruyo got them facing the right away and stared the bear down. She conjured another Quill and made it scuttle somewhere out of the way, drawing the beast's attention. The bear huffed and lumbered after it. At the limit of Ruyo's control range she mentally let go, and it continued scuttling in the same general direction. The bear pursued and "killed" it. While it was busy doing that, Ruyo got her horse to finally head uphill in the right direction, slipping past the threat.

After a few minutes of paranoia she calmed down again. Her Quills would probably melt in minutes if unattended, but could it be that the fire ones were eternal, given some last command and left to wreak havoc ages later? The cult leader had been using a staff to control several of them. It wasn't a divine-only spell or an unstoppably powerful one. On her way back she kept conjuring more elementals, testing her limits and trying not to spook her horse.

#

She got back home after dark and busied herself tending to her mount. Her followers had gotten their hands on some carrots from a passing trader, and according to Khulis the man had thought at first that he was being robbed.

"There's an opportunity to build a rest stop here, if we can make a spare shelter."

"Need more wood and nails."

"Yeah, yeah." Ruyo stretched and summoned more material to work with. "When the messenger party gets back, I'm heading for the ruins. I think I know the way now."

Hastro said, "Do you think maybe there's another magic god place down there? There's probably more than one, right?"

The monk winced but said nothing. Ruyo answered, "It's possible. What Nusina remembered is that it's probably either a hospital or a, a 'power plant' that makes energy. I want somebody with a spare backpack, torches and so on. Oh, and a shovel; I found some kind of metal box on the way."

The men looked interested in that! Khulis said, "By the way, the trader also brought you this."

He had carried along a newly made leather breastplate from Brotherhood, stiff but sturdy and still smelling of hide. Ruyo tried it on over her blue tunic. A little uncomfortable but she'd be glad to have it in a fight. The gloves that came with it looked the same. "Why, I look almost like a credible explorer now."

#

The travelers got back early, because the city had sent a dozen more people seeking magic. Elly bounded ahead of the group and told Ruyo, "They're soldiers. What's going on?"

"They want a well-equipped army."

"Nodens practically marched us back here when we met up with them. We didn't get to go to the city!"

"Sorry. You're welcome to go after I deal with this group and explore the ruins."

"You mean after we explore them."

By now the others had caught up. The Averell group, eleven men and one woman, all had a military bearing despite the lack of uniforms. Their leader called out, "Hail, Lady of Waters. You can guess why we're here."

"Welcome." She let the group approach to normal speaking range. "I can get you started right away, but it'll take hours before I can do the second level. Did my message get passed along?"

"I sent a runner with that and the bottles."

The guard Nodens looked ticked, because he'd been meaning to sell some cloth for money. Ruyo still wasn't paying the group much, and it might be a problem soon.

The soldiers entered the cave and prayed. Their devotion felt to Ruyo like sheer duty, a desire to do what must be done and to be strong enough to succeed. Right away she was able to empower each of them, taking their hands and granting them the basics. "And now we wait."

"So you can't advance the 'initiation' without a delay? How long will the third level take?"

Ruyo said, "I haven't managed to teach a third level yet. I've barely reached it myself. Would you gentlemen mind giving us a fighting lesson while you're here?"

That got her followers interested. Everyone but the monk wanted to try sparring, learning a few moves. They eventually coaxed him to join in.

These were members of a mercenary company called the Pillars, closely affiliated with Averell and the other allied cities. They were actually paid to train and fight most of the time instead of being rich landowners. Real noble families like Vissio and Anemos still held commands and in some cases, the right to conscript people from surrounding villages, so there was some friction.

Khulis, though, got some negative attention. "What's a Khyberian doing here?" asked one hothead.

Ruyo said, "He's loyal to me. I'm also working with Marcellus of Anemos. I notice he's got the hair and eyes of a northerner too."

That settled the argument down, but it still simmered with suspicious glances and cheap hits in the training.

When Ruyo was starting on the second wave of initiation, carving deeper the channels of magic within each of her new followers, one of the soldiers startled. "Wait, I know that man." He pointed at Nodens. "He's a wanted criminal!"

The ex-bandit stood, his hand on the hilt of a knife. "I'm a follower of the Lady of Waters."

Hastro and with a little hesitation, Khulis stood too. "We all are. Including you, now. Lay off."

"He doesn't deny it."

Ruyo spoke directly to the officer. "I personally killed a gang leader from your city and several of his men. I need these good, honest men working with me for important Council business. Understand?"

The leader was stone-faced. "I'll have to report this of course."

"Fine. Shall we get on with the magic?"

Two of the troops did well enough with the training that, far from relying on Ruyo's raw infusion of power, they began innovating right away. They were able to master the Waterball class elemental and fling it unnaturally far, carrying a rock to fall on foes from above and behind. Ruyo hadn't thought of throwing the things away like that. Now that she saw it, though, it could be a way to launch other objects like bottles...

#

The group returned east, their mission done. Which left Ruyo with the need to get moving. She gathered everyone around a campfire and said, "Who wants to go poke dangerous ancient secrets? I want at least two people staying here."

Elly waved one hand. "We missed the last trip!"

"Your family sent you here to guard a cave that probably isn't in danger, not to throw yourself into some uncharted labyrinth."

"But we don't have any mysterious ruins in Brotherhood!"

The monk interrupted. "You should be grateful for peace."

"Yes," Ruyo said, faltering. "I don't know what's down there, but it's no place for people wanting to play hero."

Elly looked up into her eyes from across the fire. "How about if I don't just want to play?"

Beside her, her sister Lisette nodded. "We know it's dangerous, ma'am. But big things are happening, and you're involved. Do you want us to sit around when we could be saving your life from a monster?"

Nodens the wanted man said, "I'm okay with sitting this one out, and threatening anybody that tries to make me abandon my post to get arrested." He groused, "Though I do want to go shopping."

The monk said, "I can stay as well. I promised to keep an eye on the girls while they're here, but it's up to you if you want to bring them elsewhere."

"Try and stop us from coming!" said Elly.

Hastro said, "I want in. We do get a share of any loot, right?"

"Of course. Partial share for Nodens, too." She also nodded toward the monk and said, "We'll take notes that ought to be somewhere between interesting and crucial."

"I'll go," said Khulis. "Though maybe hanging back with a spare pack for you to carry things."

Ruyo weighed the danger. "All right," she finally said. "Me, Khulis, Hastro, Elly, Lisette. First thing tomorrow morning, we move."

#

Between various acts of smithing, carving and shopping, the five of them were decently equipped. Everybody had a good knife and there were several spears to go around. Lisette had her wooden sword and Elly had gotten a good bow somewhere. The men had made crude shortswords they were inordinately proud of, along with a shovel and hatchet. Ruyo brought a crossbow borrowed from the mercenaries, along with a simple hammer. For defense they had a couple of homemade wooden shields and not much else but Ruyo's leather, cloth caps all around, and some bits of iron they'd managed to strap on. Ruyo had given everybody one of the throwable bottles, too.

Elly said, "We're gonna walk in there and have it be deserted."

Lisette answered, "I'll bet you my share of the treasure you're wrong."

"No way."

Ruyo only snorted.

The trip south took most of the day, though the way was easier now that it'd been scouted. They reached that buried box and excitedly got to digging.

"No latch?" asked Hastro.

"Farther down," Khulis said, using his knife to chisel at some dirt clumps.

It was rusted to death and anchored deeply. When they managed to clear more of it, there were signs of a thick pole that had rotted away beside it. The box's front eventually gave way to their banging, revealing a cabinet just sitting there.

Ruyo used a light spell. "What have we got? Poke it with a stick first."

Elly did. "There's an inner layer, and... wires?"

"Don't touch that!" Lisette scolded her. "Remember the story about the lightning demon?"

Ruyo nudged them aside and felt around with her gloved hands. "There's a particular kind of wire I'm interested in that Nusina said is especially dangerous for you guys to touch. What's this about a demon?"

Lisette said, "Lightning that jumped out at somebody who messed with old metal wires like these. It happened a few villages away."

"Oh! Oh, okay." Ruyo explained what Nusina had taught her about power plants, handling lightning as an alternative to mana.