There are plenty of whitemages and most of them are not doing so hot at any given time. This takes a while.

"All you want is the writ of auspice?" asks Tse Witwex. "What work are you planning to do?"

    "Probably helping move heavy things, to start; once she has some money for supplies she'll start making things to sell."

Tse Witwex writes that Deskyl is authorized to use her magic to move things. She hands the writ through the gate. "When you want to start making things please come back for another."

"Yes Ma'am."

"The timing of magic use varies by appointment. Is there a particular time it would be convenient for you to come back?"

"We don't know yet, Ma'am. What time would be good for you?"

She has a schedule in her pocket and consults it. "You'll be able to see white, blue, green, and red used if you come in two days at noon and wait a few hours."

"Yes Ma'am, we'll be here."

"Thank you very much."

Deskyl curls up at the base of the wall just out of sight of the gate for a nap, and after a couple hours they head back to the city to try again at the most promising of the employers from the day before.

She can, with the writ, get a job hauling cargo off boats. Some of the workers who get sent home for the day in the face of her considerable productivity look pissed off.

Annoyed workers aren't her problem.

DZ doesn't have the best grasp of the local economy, but she's been paying enough attention to prices to make a reasonable guess of what a dockworker might be paid, and see to it that Deskyl isn't underpaid too dramatically. It remains to be seen whether half a day's work is enough for a meal and a room, though.

One meal and a mediocre room, yes.

DZ spends the next day looking for better-paying work while Deskyl unloads ships.

She could take on contracts to convey the cargo to its destination in town, or attempt to sign on with the local law enforcement, or transport passengers the way people with carts do.

Maybe not law enforcement; is it clear which of the other two pays better?

Passengers pays more but involves more facetime with customers.

DZ can handle that part, it should be fine.

Deskyl does a few hours' work at the docks the next morning, and collects her pay before heading back to the Temple-Guild.

It is where she left it. The guards greet her by name.

DZ returns the greeting, and Deskyl settles in to meditate again.

    "How are the whitemages doing?"

"One's fallen sick again, so I don't think Xaari Deskyl's had any effect on how dwindled they are," says a guard. "But they don't have whatever they had yesterday, at least."

"Yes sir. She doesn't particularly like healing, but she's willing to do it every week or two until she figures out something better for them."

"That's real good," says the other guard. "The whitemages like healing fine, just they keep getting sick, see."

She nods. "She doesn't think she's going to be able to reverse dwindling right away in any of the mages, but she expects to be able to help in other ways - she might be able to stop them from dwindling if she's there when they use their magic, or change the details of how they're dwindled or how they'll dwindle in the future. Learning any of those will help her learn to reverse it; do you know what would be best for her to focus on?"

"Redmages, probably," says the first guard.

"Oh, hey, yeah," agrees the second. "They only dwindle when they first touch somebody, not later."