Night fell as he watched the groundhogs sleeping. A pair of wicked looking lizards showed up, each as long as the bear, with hissing forked tongues and long sharp claws. They were obviously a pair, and they claimed a lair together. Fred tried to figure out what they needed, imagining them inside, and saw that they wanted a couple of low walls in their lair. He had no idea why that pleased them, but they turned green right away, so, fine, good enough.

Then came the batman. Or man-bat. Or something. It was man-sized, black, furred, bipedal, and had huge leathery wings. It walked in the front slowly and carefully, as if it would run out again at the slightest sound. It didn't even turn red right away. Instead it poked its head into the wolf's lair, and quickly ducked out again. The wolf didn't stir. Neither did the lizards or the bear, when the man-bat investigated them. Finally the bat-thing found an empty lair, and crouched in the center, twitching and looking about with wide, intelligent-looking eyes. It was yellow now, but not very, shading into orange. It looked supremeamly uncomfortable, and Fred dutifully set out to figure out what it wanted.

He did the imagining thing. And saw he had work to do. The creature needed a very tall lair, something perhaps ten spans high, and it wanted a small nest/hole at the very top. It wanted lots of room to swoop around and fall upon its prey. It also wanted another nest/hole, on the opposite wall and slightly lower than the top one. Perhaps room for a girlfriend to come visit, Fred wondered.

Fred knew that he couldn't have this tall lair sticking all the way out of the ground, and that gave him an idea. At the end of his main hallway, where he had the most room above him, he began to excavate the lair he needed. But, he excavated down as well as up. The entrance wouldn't be at the bottom of the lair, but a few spans up. To get into the room itself, humans would have to jump down, and climb back up to get out. Then he had a fun thought, and started to make spikes on the floor of the lair, making it dangerous for any human who wanted to jump from the entrance.

Okay. We need to talk about a few things.

"I'm trying to make a lair, here." Fred finished making floor spikes, then went back up to finish the two sleeping nooks he knew were needed.

You're supposed to make a domain that can challenge humans, train them to be better and stronger. You don't want them to die in stupid or needlessly cruel ways. You also don't need to do your creatures' jobs for them. They are perfectly dangerous and capable by themselves.

"Okay, so the spikes are too much, then?"

Why don't you just leave a few? Just a few will still be scary, but not so deadly. Also, we need to address the ceiling.

"What's wrong with the ceiling?" Fred knew he'd gotten close to the surface above, but now as he looked more closely, he realized that the ceiling as a whole was looking rather weak and unsupported. He realised that he needed it to be more dome-shaped, but that that wasn't going to work; there wasn't any room to go up.

We can fix it. I just have to teach you something new.

"Okaaaay."

Come down to the bear room.

Fred did so.

Look close here. You see the rock and the dirt are right next to each other here? "Yes."

I want you to turn it all into rock. You can turn dirt into rock. You simply have to think about compressing the dirt, while also thinking about how rock feels to you. Try it?

Fred tried it. It was weird, which by this time was nothing new. He could feel the rock and the dirt as though he was holding both in his hands. He could feel the strength within the rock, how it was all one unified piece, while dirt, even when compressed together, was still a bunch of unconnected granules. He assumed the rock became so unified with great pressure and time, and couldn't imagine providing those things to the dirt.

"They're two different things. I can't turn dirt into rock."

Yes you can. You're overthinking it. Just will it to be, and it happens. Your magic works. Trust it.

Fred shrugged, and willed the dirt to turn into rock, and it… just… did. It shrank a bit as it did so, and the color changed. But what was once packed dirt was now stone. Hard stone. Fred refused to lock up about it. He knew he'd just done something that quite simply should not ever

have happened, but he shoved that feeling aside and went back to transforming dirt into stone. He didn't stop until the whole wall and floor of the bear lair was stone. The bear looked up, interested in what was going on, but perfectly placid and accepting of it.

That's it. You've got the hang of it. Now, to make your other lair safe, you should make its whole ceiling into stone. If you want to, you can make the walls and floors stone, too. There are some creatures, and some humans, that can dig. You don't want to make it easy for them.

Fred went back to the new tall lair, and got to work robotically transmuting the dirt ceiling into stone. Inside, he was screaming. More than moving and copying plants, much more than bewitching animals, this was making his head spin. Things don't change. You can't make one thing into another just by thinking about it. I mean, where does it stop? Could he change water into wine? Lead into gold? Air into… something solid?

"Stop. Stop." He waited to get his thoughts in order. "Can I change lead into gold?" Yes. It's magic. Is that so surprising?

"Yes. Yes it is. I don't remember much of my old life, but I do remember that lead into gold was a big deal. Like, mythical."

That was your old life. You're an Earth Spirit, and you can do things you couldn't.

"But… Aren't you worried about the economy? What if I make lots and lots of gold for the humans, so they all have so much it gets worthless?"

Well, I suppose you could do that. Or many other harmful things, if you really wanted to. If you want to attract a dragon, you WILL have to make piles of gold for it. But the humans need lots of things besides gold. Wrecking their economy isn't high on the danger list for them right now. They just need a place to train, which you're giving them. Look at the new creature.

Fred hadn't paid any attention, but the bat-thing had moved into its new lair, and was happily green, hiding in the upper nook.

You did that. You're a natural. You're a great Earth Spirit. I know Aeru gave you amazing powers, but you're doing the right things with them.

Fred decided to go lay down with the groundhogs again. He stayed there for the rest of the night.

In the morning, men came.