Near the end of the day, Fred noticed that the other king (in pompous clothes and a silly hat) was taking a tour of the new Healing Complex. After he was done, he and his entourage climbed the sloping hallway back to the outside. But Priestess Sharfroen was chasing after him.

　　Outside, in the early dusk, she caught up, and held a rather loud shouting match with the king, which attracted a crowd of onlookers. Fred was intensely interested; he knew she was mad about some things (that Kumbanaka had told him about), but this was the first time he`d seen her arguing passionately. And it was amazing. Once again he was stuck by her sincere and righteous beauty. Plus she was tall, as tall as that king.

　　She kept pointing at the two fat towers (which Fred noticed were half-empty). She argued passionately, while the king looked bored, and spoke dismissively. Fred had seen enough to know what Priestess Sharfroen wanted, and how he could help. Fred reached out to the two north towers, and silently transmuted their stone to the same white marble that clad the Healing Temple.

　　The crowd gasped. A couple of people fell over. For a moment all was silent. Then Sharfroen pointed triumphantly at the white towers, and the king fell back, shaking his head and walking away. However, he seemed to give in verbally, causing the collected crowd of people to shout and cheer. Sharfroen looked like she`d won the argument. Fred was glad to help.

　　After the king had left her sight, Tall Thin Priest hustled Sharfroen back down the ramp. She`d obviously had a long day, and was flagging, but the guy practically dragged her down to the worship room. When she entered, she stopped for a while at the doorway. Then she strode out to the center of the huge room, with its two rows of columns, and the sanctuary and altar at one end. And she fainted.

　　Tall Thin Priest and another woman acolyte were right there to catch her and lower her to the flat, gleaming floor. Fred suspected that they knew what a tired Sharfroen would do when she finally saw her new place of worship. They carefully dragged her out, and into a room in the new living quarters. Fred felt that his mission (to expand the Healing Temple and show his favor to Sharfroen) was very well completed. He was pretty happy.

　　Hello, Fred.

　　"Hey yerself, Jim," Fred said cheerfully. "Check out the expansion I made to the healing temple!"

　　A work of artistic genius.

　　Fred and Jim continued to talk about the day`s events, including the success of the baths, the completed stream, and why the north towers were now white. Jim agreed that Fred had made a very visible statement about his preference, but asked Fred to be careful (in the future) about such visible displays.

　　The humans know you exist now. You aren`t the same Earth Spirit who had to make two columns around your entrance, to differentiate your domain from a simple cave. You want them to get stronger and fight demons. You don`t need to attend to their every need.

　　"Okay."

　　Good work as usual, Fred. Now I have to tell you that a human army has attacked an Earth Spirit for the first time today.

　　"What happened?"

　　Not much, so far. The Earth Spirit has strong walls, so the human army is conducting a siege. Normally armies use ladders and towers to get over a wall, but almost any Earth Spirit can drop those things into a hole, so the human army hasn`t gotten anywhere.

　　"Why are they attacking in the first place?" Fred asked.

　　They are pretty clearly confused and misled by the demons. Their leaders are incoherent and enraged. I told you this would happen. In any case, this is nowhere near you. I just wanted to keep you informed. Now I have to go.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

　　"Okay, then, bye," Fred said.

　　The evening party started up, and so did the deep drums. Michael reported a dusting of snow. This concerned Fred. He knew that Michael was close, so the snow might come to his domain soon. Micheal also spoke of strange things going on between his giant duck and his& hideous new thing. They seemed to be getting very close. Fred wondered about his own bear and boar. Perhaps it was like that?

　　Virginia took her turn, to tell Fred that she`d made some new latrines, and that had improved the moods of her humans and her metal dragon.

　　Fred drummed back, and talked about the rapport of his bear and boar (it seemed like such a normal thing to him now). He talked about how his baths were a big hit, especially since they were planted with herbs, and were heated. He talked about how he heated the top of Martin`s tower, too. Finally, he talked about how much he`d expanded the Healing Temple, and how much better (he hoped) the temple would become. He would have name-dropped Priestess Sharfroen, but the drum language wasn`t really good for that, so he just talked about the temple.

　　After finishing the drumming, he thought more about heat. Talking about how he`d heated the pools and the tower made him think about heating the road, which made him think about the pilgrims, which made him check on them. Out beyond the town wall, they shivered in a large (and getting larger) tent city. Fred knew it was pretty cold already, and if snow came& And he had an idea. A simple idea. And an easy test.

　　Right in the middle of the tent city of freezing pilgrims, he raised a rock from the ground. It was round, and about a span across, and now sat on the ground, pushing one of the tents aside. Then Fred changed it to give off heat. Initially he gave it a gentle heat, but then he reasoned that more heat would help more people, and if it was too hot, the humans would just get further away. That`s what they did with bonfires, anyway. This would be better (Fred hoped), without smoke or soot.

　　The humans reacted quickly to the new hot stone. First, the closest people (including the poor soul whose tent got shoved) scrambled to find a proper distance from it. Then the larger group started re-arranging everything around the stone, so instead of (barely) straight lines of tents, the tents changed into a circular pattern around the hot stone.

　　Meanwhile, the commotion led some town guards to investigate, which led to a continuing progression of guards, administrators, and generally interested people (many drunk and dancing) that came to gawk at the stone. They felt its heat and crowded close and even touched it.

　　This also made Fred think that the gate guards were cold, too, and he had special reason to treat the gate guards well. So he made more hot rocks, one on each side of every gate in his domain. These were a bit offset, so the hot rocks wouldn`t interfere with wagon traffic. The sudden eruption of a big hot rock was particularly surprising to the guards who were standing right there, but they recovered quickly. Everyone in town knew full well that the Earth Spirit was alive, watching, and trying to be helpful.

　　Before Fred knew it, the humans near the first hot rock were crowded shoulder to shoulder, and were waving their hands up, and shouting in unison.

　　"Can you hear them Fred?" Kumbanaka said to him. "They`re saying more, more, and hotter, hotter."

　　"Okay, wow, thank you," Fred replied. "But I don`t want the stone to hurt anyone."

　　"I`m sure you know that these humans are capable of handling fire without getting burned. They want a hotter rock, and I think you should make it so. Oh, and make the top of the stone flat, so they can cook on it."

　　"Oh, good idea!" Fred said, and made the changes. Now the first hot rock was flat on top, and its heat output had more than doubled. The humans shouted in triumph, and suddenly the rock was the center of the party, which wasn`t really what all the poor pilgrims had wanted when they laid down for the night. Though the hot rock had caused a great deal of disruption in the camp, people were fairly well behaved about the whole thing. Several drunken revelers had even stopped singing long enough to help the more infirm move their tents and themselves. There seemed to be a positive feeling about the whole thing.

　　Of course, the one hot stone didn`t provide enough heat for the entire tent city, but Fred knew he could fix that. These hot stones weren`t nearly as hard as the latrines, and he`d made over a hundred of them. Fred wound up, took a deep (imaginary) breath, and the whole lower field was quickly covered by over two hundred of the hot stones, each just like the original. Three of those stones were close enough to the tent city to affect people. A new shout and cheer rose up when the humans found the new hot stones.

　　In the darkness, in the cold night air, the revelers walked with torches to find and dance around all the new hot stones below the town. At one point, the line of torches was like a spray of fire, coming from the east gate, and streaming out into the eastern fields, clumping around the stones, before traveling further. The party seemed to go on all night long.

　　"Well, you`ve done it now, Fred," Kumbanaka spoke up again. It was an hour before dawn, and the last partiers seemed to be finally settling down.

　　"What did I do?"

　　"You`ve invited the army," Kumbanaka replied.

　　"What army? The demon army?"

　　"No, the human armies, of A`wheriwe and Riversond. You see, the kings have wanted to relocate their armies here for a while. But they had logistical reservations, like keeping the army hydrated, fed, and free of frostbite during the winter."

　　"Oh. And I`ve just fixed all that."

　　"Exactly so, Spirit. I expect gryphons will fly from here at first light, with orders to march."

　　"How far away are those armies?" Fred asked.

　　"A few days. A week at most. It`s not easy to move an entire army."

　　"I wouldn`t know. I was never in the army. Was I?" Fred certainly had no such memory, but he was rather used to the large blank space where the memories of his past life would be.

　　"Oh, and Fred, would you mind replacing my token? Thanks." Said Kumbanaka.