Brenda is going to make her way out of the tower and go to the temple of Desna. Ember and Seelah and Wenduag can come too if they want.

She sticks a hand in her pocket on the way.

How are you doing? I ended up with more magic than I could hold onto and threw some around; I hope it didn't come as too much of a shock.

It was certainly interesting. I think I have more ways to write in myself than I did before, and if I'm right about how to interpret them, they have something to do with arcane magic? I might want you to press spell scrolls against my pages if you happen to find any.

Leaving that aside, though, how are you doing? Is everything all right? Or should I not ask until you have time to sit down and talk about it?

That's really cool and I will definitely put a spell scroll on your pages.

I'm fine I think? Nothing bad happened, it was just kind of a lot. Short version is, I fixed the broken Wardstone. Long version is--a couple different things. The less complicated one is that the lilitu who'd been attacking the Wardstone swore she'd be my servant if I didn't kill her, and I said I just wanted her to stop doing evil and that if she made me regret sparing her I'd hunt her down and kill her. So now I need to scry her every some amount of time, and kill her if she's still arranging demonic invasions of cities or something. 

Oh, that sounds pretty intense! I'm glad you're okay. I can help remind you to check up on her if you want. (And maybe help by storing or copying spell scrolls for you, if I'm right about how these new powers work...)

Thanks. It would be really cool if you could copy scrolls. I can copy clothes with Dressing Room and that's pretty neat. (TODO: see if I can sell jewelry)

The other big thing that happened was 

So this might not be a secret or it might be a secret that I should tell everybody or it might be a secret that should stay secret. I trust you to keep my secrets but on the off chance you decide it ought to be public and I decide it ought to be secret I don't want it to cause problems between us and I feel like there's something I should say now to mitigate that risk but I don't know what. So, uh, warning: potential drama ahead?

I trust you to make good decisions about what should and shouldn't be secret, and I might disagree with you if I think you're wrong but I won't try to make anything public behind your back and I won't be mad at you for doing your best in a complicated situation. Is there something else you're worried about?

That pretty much covers it. Thanks.

So there are these artifacts called Wardstones that form a barrier around the rift the demons are invading through, and everyone talks about them like they're basically big chunks of machinery. But when I went to repair the damaged one in this city--it turns out the Wardstones are being maintained from inside by an army of angels. They all agreed to it, even knowing they wouldn't be able to leave, but some of them were in so much pain from the poison in the Wardstone and from all the last hundred years of attacks that they wanted to stop even if the only way they could stop was by dying. I was able to heal enough of them that some were willing to keep fighting and the rest could sleep but none of them can go home unless I someone closes the rift. I told them I would try--I figure with Anything You Can Do and Battle Maiden I have as good a chance as anyone of learning what needs to be done and doing it--but it might be impossible or I might fail even if it isn't. Or I might succeed but only after another hundred years and by then they might not be able to be okay again.

Oh, wow! Those poor angels. I'm glad you managed to help them and I'm glad you're trying to fix the problem so they can go home. I hope you can learn how to close the rift soon enough for the angels to be okay.

So the secret is that the angels are in there? That makes sense. What are your thoughts on why it might be secret and what might make a good reason to tell people or not tell people?

I think it might be secret because I talked to a bunch of important people in town about strategies for fixing the Wardstone and none of them mentioned the angels or said anything that suggested knowing about them even in hindsight. I think it potentially should be secret because if the demons found out they might be able to attack them more effectively, and because it might cause problems along the lines of idealistic people (potentially people who don't believe me when I say the angels consented) trying to free them, and because if it is a secret there might be other good reasons for that I don't know about. And then the reason to tell people is because I might need a lot of help to close the rift, but there are a lot of other good reasons to do that.

That makes sense. So it sounds like you should probably keep it secret, at least for now, except from people you especially trust who you think would do better if they knew?

Yeah, that seems like the way to go.

Also it seems like maybe most of the emergencies are done with for today, which would be really nice. I can start doing things like find a wizard to make friends with, and actually do any of the ideas I had for making money. Oh, I don't think I said--I found out I can make extra clothes with Dressing Room and take them off and give them to people! Which is both potentially a way to make money and very convenient for everyone else because it's very cold here. Do you happen to know if the clothes will disappear the next morning or if I can only have X amount of clothes existing at once or anything like that?

Clothes made with Dressing Room and given away exist just as much as clothes made with normal clothes-making processes! They won't disappear or anything like that.

Awesome! That's going to be extremely useful, especially if it works for jewelry and armor and wristwatches and things. 

It should work for all of those!

Fantastic! I'm going to go look into options for turning clothes into food via money and then chase the last few demons out of town but then we can hang out and chat and read magic books together some more. I'd say "unless the next plot event happens before I get the chance" but Time Enough For Love will guarantee I get to hang out with you sometime soon even if it does!

Time Enough For Love is pretty great. ♡ See you later!

See you!

And now she can also spend the rest of the walk talking to the various humanoids who are going to the same place!

"So how is everyone doing? Do you think they're going to try to move the Wardstone back where it used to be?"

"Most likely, although that's probably going to be a few days since its previous locale is in even worse condition than the garrison. As for my condition, I'm doing fine; while my clothes certainly have seen better days, I'm resistant enough to acid that between that and Jhoran's protection from fire it wasn't so bad."

"I'm doing better than fine. Ever since that light there... I feel stronger than ever."

"Yeah! It feels like I can use a lot more spells now before I run out."

"I'm glad to hear it! Oh, and Ramien, I found out earlier I can conjure clothes, do you want a duplicate of what you're wearing minus the acid burns when we get to the temple? I was already planning to leave them a bunch of warm clothes for anyone whose stuff got destroyed, if they want that."

"If it's meaningfully limited, I have other clothes, but if not I would appreciate it and there are almost certainly people sheltering at the temple who would as well. We managed to stop most of the arson and looting before it got too far, but there are still some people who are now without a lot of their things."

"The only cost is a few seconds of time per outfit. I'm hoping the temples will be a good coordination point for tracking what there's a need for and getting it handed out. Also I might sell jewelry later but for that I should find someone with a storefront."

"Oh, it can do metals as well as textiles? I'm not enough of a magical expert to know if conjured materials are usable in for spell components, but if they are and you can produce it we would almost certainly be willing to purchase silver from you. We sell holy water at cost, but with the price of importing silver what it is here it's not possible to make nearly as much as people would want for protection from demons."

"I'm happy to give you a bit to try with, and if it works I don't think there's any reason I couldn't undercut your existing supplier. Seelah, does the temple of Iomedae do the same things, should I be repeating everything there to make sure everyone has access to coats and boots and maybe-holy-water?"