Dad and Tazo steered him away, leaving behind villagers who were now both upset and confused. Tazo hissed at him, "What was that for?!"

"It's like at Tukka's Hollow. The people need healing, and the tales can do that."

"Vonn is no prophet either."

"Only someone bearing supernatural knowledge from another world that includes the missing piece of all Draconist belief."

Dad wisely said, "We're not here for praying. We're backing Urika up in his plans."

Still, Kotta looked satisfied.

While Polestar worked with the locals to gather materials, Tazo sat on a log with Dad and shuddered. "I don't like to have Vonn's accident brought up."

Dad put an arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. "He's a special kid, like you. I don't know why he got picked to get those ideas he has, but he's my son and he's got plenty to do without getting dragged into some religious thing."

Tazo nodded, but she was hiding things from Dad too. She knew that Vonn didn't just "recall" another world, but actually was from there. Was any part of her original brother still alive? Yes, she could feel his presence in the way Vonn talked, his eagerness, even annoying things like his habit of jumping between projects. When he'd flown across the Little Star, that had been both versions of him at once, not one overwriting the other. But there definitely was a set of outsider ideas in his head, crazy assumptions she still struggled to follow.

"All shapers of metal, come!" called Urika. Tazo stood, accepting an ear-scratch from Dad, and went off to help.

Urika had taken over the village's forge. It was a pretty good one from Tazo's few chances to peek around in other towns; after all, this one was right here by a mine. Not up to Urika's standards, certainly not to whatever Vonn had in mind. The usual man in charge was another Kobold with deep green scales who seemed to be in awe of Tazo's boss.

Urika had gathered what little iron was available, and now he helped hammer it all into a long, thin bar. "Are we making a huge sword blade?" asked one of the assistants.

The local blacksmith said, "It is a weapon. Whether it works depends on how well the fox girl plays her part."

Tazo gulped as she stepped forward. Her role here wasn't the forging itself but the enchanting. "So what you need is a minimal spell, right?"

Urika nodded. "A conductor, as Vonn would put it. Begin while it's still hot."

Tazo had a challenge trying to prepare a spell while wearing her leather gloves. She'd been meaning to get a better wand than the one Vonn had made, which, bless him, didn't do much besides hold a gem and count as a proper tool for her "Wand Wielder" ability. She couldn't get the proper control through it. So she traced her gloved fingers directly along the metal rail that still glowed deep red.

The markings were rudimentary, just allowing life-aspected Mana to move along the material. It wasn't meant to inflict damage or fertilize crops, and was really kind of a waste in any other situation. She finished her drawing and watched her work stand out in a pale glow of curling, flowing marks. "I've never really thought about what one point of Mana looks like", she mused. It wasn't generally a clear ball or droplet, though she imagined it like rain dripping sideways along the warm iron.

Urika said, "Now, can anyone but her use it?"

One of the local magic experts gave it a try once the metal cooled, touching it with her bare hand. An unformed healing spell flowed into the iron but fizzled out. It took a few minutes of argument before she figured out the problem: "It needs to be held steady on the ground, similar to a geomancy device."

Down on the ground she crouched and tried again. Then she settled it more frimly on the dirt. Tazo thought she saw the pulse of magic moving onward. "Did it work?"

The Mage said, "It seems to. I'm using too much Mana though; by instinct I'm trying to cast a real spell. In a way we now need to teach people wrongly."

The next step, then, was for her and Tazo to gather dozens of townsfolk and explain how to cast the world's sloppiest healing spell. What it took was to shift a basic bit of Mana to something life-aligned, rather than a spell of force or the elements, and then push it into the long iron plate. Tazo commented, "For me this seems to drain two points of Mana a minute. But that's at my skill and stat level."

The students looked confused, and even the local professional took a moment to understand. Tazo blushed. The notion of measuring things was one that Vonn often talked about, and it just wasn't a common way of thinking. Sure you could have eight eggs or ten coins, and professional spellcasters counted their costs somewhat. But who measured "revolutions per minute" or the like? Even the notion of a minute was something she had to do by counting in her head, absent a gadget like that time-ticker Vonn had made for music or the fancy clock at Selen's place.

Urika said, "The question is what will be enough charge. This is not my field."

The local Mage said, "I can't be sure. I would run it high at first."

Two of the non-specialist villagers soon grasped the magic trick well enough to send a flow of Mana into the iron. One of these already had healing experience but the other was a complete newcomer to magic. As Master Ralator had taught her, everyone ought to use at least a little magic.

The next step in Urika's plan was to bring a mining party into the caves. The Miners had found a tunnel in the reshaped landscape near town, and saw telltale signs of iron. If not for the unholy murder beasts they'd be back in business.

The group planned to check out the mine in the morning. That meant Tazo had to stay in town, at the house of the head Mage. They sat around eating stale bread and roast squash.

The woman asked Tazo, "What was your Bard friend going on about?"

Tazo's ears drooped. "It's a long story. A few people we know have had, let's say, visions of another world. He's become convinced that they're the key to rewriting his entire religion."

Human faces were expressive even without the mobile ears. This one looked concerned. "That's a good way to make people angry."

"I know." Tazo played with the faintly glowing gem on her necklace. "My group needs the metal from your mines. We have a ridiculous number of projects to work on."

"Is it true you have a flying machine?"

"Yeah! Well, the best one got wrecked but we'll make another, and we still have a different type." She talked about the concept of the engine, and of those "railroad" things being used out where Mom used to live.

The Mage whistled. "So making metal rails like today's project could be practice for bigger things."

"Everything's practice for the next thing!"

They talked into the night about magic theory, enchanting, and the healer's art. Tazo's practice paid off; with a little more coaching she finally managed to do ice, an element she'd been struggling with. "That makes all but sound and darkness. I've been putting it off, but supposedly we could build rails like this to carry lightning energy, too. I wonder what we could do with that?"