Elly's sister Lisette stepped out from the cave. She began speaking, but then spotted Elly and rushed over to her. "You're hurt! No, this is --"

Before Lisette could panic, Ruyo told her, "She's alive. In fact, could you help bring her inside? I want Baris, Hastro and Khulis with me too."

The Averell nobleman looked puzzled. He took out a lens of the type used by mages to analyze magic more clearly, and peered through it like a monocle. "I believe the Council needs an update directly from you. What should I tell them?"

"Anything you like," Ruyo said, impatient now. She coaxed her inner circle into the cave, also including the Brotherhood monk who'd been here the longest -- a man named Lobb with magic of his own. They shut the cave's modestly enchanted door behind them.

Here was the Wellspring itself, Ruyo's first and most advanced shrine. A relic of the Lost World. Its main purpose had been to preserve a fragment of the dead Goddess of Water and choose an heir for it. The cave was a tunnel leading to a room with an ancient mural of waves and ships. Side passages opened onto two new rooms. A hidden rear staircase led down to the place's old "theotech" machinery. The whole place rippled with dim blue-tinged light, and had a perpetually fresh and clean smell.

Nusina floated near Elly. "I'm detecting a little fuzzy interference from her being here. So are you going to explain it all?"

Ruyo sat on one of the chairs and benches that had accumulated here. She waved the others over, then spoke. "Thank you, everyone. The world is better off for what we've done together. Does anyone know the significance of the treasure we stole back from the Khyberians?"

The monk answered. "The Steadfast Church's teachings sometimes use the metaphor of Night's Glittering Fastness, or of the night and stars. It's always stood out to me as odd given the more earthy, rocky theme of the Church itself. But really, it's not just a symbol of divine unity, it's a physical object kept by the Council."

Ruyo nodded. "I don't think I'm the direct cause of this, but Khyber somehow learned about the Shroud and began threatening Averell with invasion if they didn't hand it over. The artifact had been known only to the nobles of the Council and to a few trusted people in the allied city-states."

"And to a few people in Brotherhood," the monk put in.

"The Shroud had magic powers. The first was what you saw: a form of limited teleportation that let it carry people inside it. The enemy general was using that for ambushes. The second power was a miniature world inside that thing. One that could be shaped by your thoughts."

Hastro's eyes widened. "My old boss had heard a rumor about that! When we attacked you, way back when, he thought you had a treasure that let you commune with the gods or something."

"I didn't have it, but he was half right. The Shroud let you explore ideas by imagination. I'm told that the Council used it to play out different laws and policies, and that it made them better rulers." She cracked her knuckles. "I wasn't able to do that, but I used it for a dream-fight against the general."

"You killed him in a dream?"

"Oh yeah. Vast power to reshape reality, and the dummy was trying to kill me with a sword. I can brag about that part later. Like I told you earlier, I snuck into the Shroud, and after the fight I got out, grabbed the thing, and ran like hell."

Lisette said, "What does that have to do with Elly? What's wrong with her?"

Ruyo looked at Nusina, floating above the unconscious girl. This was the tough part.

Lisette blinked. "You used the past tense when talking about the powers."

"Yeah. The reason the enemy wanted it so badly was, they'd started to realize it had a third feature."

Lisette frowned, thinking, then stared at Elly. "Oh my god."

Hastro figured it out too. "That fancy towel was part of a god?!"

Ruyo spared them the details for now. "The Night God. The guardian spirit in there spoke to me, and offered me the power of that element. I said I'd let another candidate take its test. Elly passed."

"Then a god-piece can look like just about anything. An old shrine, a tapestry, who knows. I wasn't stupid to try touching that music player platform we found."

Lisette sat there dumbfounded. Hastro put an arm over her shoulder and said, "Your sister did good. She gets to pass out magic or blast nightmares or whatever a Night God does."

Nusina joined in to comfort her. "She's in good hands. She knows about the job from working with us, and she's already had practice with multiple magic elements. Not even Ruyo can say that."

That would always be a weakness for Ruyo: she'd had no magic before getting this job and now could never learn a different element, short of absorbing another god-fragment. Good mortal wizards knew several of the four standard elements.

Khulis had been quiet so far. "You had a treasure that could turn someone into a god and you'd agreed to fetch it for Averell. But instead you gave the power to Elly and handed them... what exactly? What magic has that cool rug still got?"

"It's still pretty," said Ruyo.

Nusina bobbed. "And that's why we came here first. We did not backstab them, though. We were given a strong hint that picking a new Night God ourselves, would stop the Council from having a civil war over who got the job."

Lisette said, "And instead, everyone wants to fight over my sister?"

"No. What's done is done. It's in the city-states' interest to help her and make her their best friend, like they've been doing for me."

The monk said, "I take it that she needs a shrine? I'd like to speak with you privately about the details of that."

Brotherhood's problem made the monks very interested in the weaknesses of gods. Elly had started down her path by covertly figuring out why.

Ruyo nodded. "Of course. So, I request that you all do what you can to help Elly grow, but I can't directly contribute to that. In fact, it might be a good idea to bring her to Brotherhood."

Khulis laughed. "Before Averell puts two and two together, you mean."

"I wouldn't put it that way."

The monk said, "We'll leave at dawn, then. You brought wounded people to attend to, and we can help them first."

Lisette still looked stunned, watching her sister resting in a deep sleep on the floor. "Elly... why didn't you tell me you were after this?"

Nusina asked, "Would you have stopped her?"

"She wanted to keep going on adventures. I wanted to be sensible and stay here. Was I stupid for not throwing myself into a war?"

Nobody had a good answer for her. Hastro held onto her until she was ready to leave and get some rest herself. The others dispersed, each lost in thought.

The monk remained. Ruyo had expected him to be upset at having yet more gods around, but there was hope in his expression that made him look younger. "It's another clue to what must be done," he said.

Nusina said, "Before Elly collapsed, she said that the Night God fragment had told her a few secrets. One of those was the location of a Light God shrine."

"Where?!"

"She didn't say. All the more reason to wake her up."

Ruyo said, "Also, she said I have 'a palace or something on the moon'."

The monk looked completely thrown off. "How, what?"

"I have some ideas about that. But the top priority is getting Elly awake and beginning to develop her powers. That and keeping the authorities from throttling either of us."