However, the king was trapped underneath Martin`s head until the dragon corpse sparkled and disappeared. Meanwhile the trapped king shouted and harangued his group, and many of them moved quickly to steal as much gold as they could from Martin`s lair. Once a rider had a full sack tied to his saddle, he galloped at top speed back to the walls, and safety. The plundering went on like this for twenty minutes. Unlike other attacks on the dragon, no one was foolish enough to be around when Martin reincarnated.

　　Which he did, thirty minutes after his death in battle.

　　"Mutherfucker! Godsdamnit! It just never stops hurting!" Shouted Martin as soon as he reappeared. "I seriously did not know that your domain would be such a pit of pain and torture, Fred! Fuuuuuuucckkk!!!"

　　He`d reappeared right next to his horde, which was in his new lair. "And where the fuck is my gooooold!!??!??!" Martin wriggled his head like a snake as he said the last word, winding up to another gigantic tantrum.

　　Fred looked, and while Martin`s total gold pile seemed a bit less, he really couldn`t see what Martin was fussing about. "They took it all, Fred! Fuck! They took so much! Those worthless mutherfucking thieves!" Martin then belied his statement by crawling into and under his (still quite substantial) horde. Gold coins showered everywhere as Martin thrashed about. It looked to Fred like part of Martin wanted to hide under the gold, and the other part wanted to punish the gold for leaving him.

　　Fred decided to leave Martin to it, but (as usual in these situations) he replaced Martin`s losses with new showers of gold. He looked across the battlefield that had just seen so much action. Huge swathes of the turf had been torn up by the horses` hooves, and Martin`s last landing had left a big indention. All the dead had been cleaned up, and all the humans (wounded or not) had gone back to town. No humans were on the Town Wall; Fred assumed that everyone who had been hurt by Martin`s breath attack had died or gone to get treated.

　　Looking into the healing temple, he saw chaos. The wounded from the attack on the dragon crowded in with the sickest of the pilgrims. It was standing room only in there, but most of the people couldn`t even stand. Priestess Sharfroen and her team stepped carefully, trying to keep order, but the king`s knights especially seemed mean and angry with the pilgrims. One knight even punched a sick old man square in the face. Priestess Sharfroen herself slapped the knight and ejected him from the temple. "Wow, she looks pissed," thought Fred.

　　Fred noticed that people sort of spilled out of the healing temple into the ramp. These people couldn`t go down closer to the tree, since the fairies would attack them. But they didn`t really want to hang out near the Mummy and Jinpa rooms, since fighters were often battling those creatures. So they hung out on the ramp, enjoying the healing magic that was still potent there. "I wonder if I need to expand the healing temple?" thought Fred. He decided to ask Jim about it.

　　Fred realized that it had been an extra stressful day so far, and he deserved a Shelley break. He went down to Shelley`s lair, and got as close as he could, and enjoyed the quiet and comfort. After about an hour of this, his mind started to wander, thinking about the rooms he`d made for the kids, the bathing room and the little garden with the potatoes and onions. He wasn`t eager to get rid of those rooms, but he chafed at their disuse.

　　Unlike with the kids, he didn`t think a bathing cave was something the adults really needed, but he did think bathing was a good thing (humans could always use a bath or ten, according to Kumbanaka and Martin). So then he started thinking about an outdoor bathing area, with big water pools. He thought about how winter was coming on, and that made him think that he could heat up the rocks and make it a hot bath.

　　And if he put the baths near where the old kids` bathing room was, it would still be covered by the tree`s magic, so it would be a healing bath, sure. That was enough to tip Fred into action. He "got up", and looked carefully at the bathing room. The water came in, flowed into the big basin, and drained to the surface, in a tiny depression bounded by two trees. Today, that depression was a bit swampy/wet, not a pool, or a bog, just a distinctly damp area, that would have been filled with more insects, except for the recent cool days.

　　 Now that the walls were up, those two trees were between the two walls. That made Fred think about whether his outdoor pools should be inside the Inner Wall or outside. The Inner Wall was really there to protect his domain entrances, a fallback in the most dire circumstances. But it was closest to the tree. After a bit of thinking, he decided to put the pools outside of the Inner Wall. No sense in making the pools too hard to get to.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it`s taken without the author`s consent. Report it.

　　Decisions made, Fred started by making the pools themselves. He made a set of four, in a flower-petal configuration, under the shadow of the Inner Wall (but outside it). Each pool was eight spans wide, oval, and about a span deep. The pools were stepped, so none were the same height, and so water could flow easily between them. Fred made them all rock, and made sure to give them the impermeable trait as he changed them.

　　This was done very easily, so now Fred just had to do the plumbing. It would have been easy just to connect the drain of the kid`s bathing room to the top of the outdoor pools. But Fred knew it would be best if he filled in the room. The kids weren`t coming back, and while that made Fred sad, he accepted it.

　　So he widened the drain from the kid`s room, and piped that drain to the highest pool. The water started flowing, and while the kid`s pool was draining visibly quickly, the outdoor pools were bigger, so that would take some time. Fred watched the pool drain for about half an hour, before the kid`s room was completely drained. At that point, he filled that room in completely, almost instantly, and then turned to making sure the water inflow would travel to the outdoor pools.

　　Once water was flowing constantly to the pools, Fred looked at the garden. It seemed like a shame to simply close up the room with all the onions and potatoes still inside. So on a whim, he moved the veggies outside, to a patch of ground just inside the Inner Wall. He wasn`t trying to make anything of it, or call attention to the plants. He just didn`t want them to be smothered. That done, he did fill in the old garden room, and the kid-sized tunnels, and now all that was left was Shelley`s den.

　　His pool work was done, though it would probably take another day or two for the pools to all fill completely. And erasing those rooms had (predictably) made him a bit sad. So for the rest of the day, he hid out with Shelley, thinking about as little as possible.

　　Hello, Fred. How are you?

　　"I`m okay. Today was a& day."

　　Can you tell me about it?

　　"Sure. Lesse. Some pilgrims are healed, and they left."

　　Good! The pattern is set. Pilgrims can come and go, and not be too much of a bother for your town.

　　"There`s some bother for sure right now. I saw a knight punch a pilgrim, and the priestess slapped the knight, and nobody`s happy there."

　　Oh my.

　　"And Kumbanaka`s plan is still working. So he dies every day, and some king gets one of his tokens. He says it`s a good thing; he`s learning something."

　　Well, I`m glad for him. If he gets tired of it, you and he could remove the tokens, and perhaps change his lair to protect him better?

　　"That`s not a bad idea, but he hasn`t said anything yet. Anyway, Martin had another big fight with a king, and Martin died, and he killed a lot of humans, and they got away with a bunch of his gold. All of it, to hear him whine about it. But he used his poison gas on a bunch of people who were just watching. From the wall. And he did it just to piss me off."

　　We knew he would do something like that.

　　"Yeah, you totally predicted it."

　　What will you do?

　　"I`m not ready to kick him out. That sounds like too much hassle. And he wasn`t breaking any of my rules, technically&"

　　We discussed this. We talked about how Martin would skirt the rules and make you blame yourself. Don`t accept the blame. He knew full well what he was doing, and he didn`t have to.

　　"Yeah. Yeah, you`re right. But I don`t think I can give him a time-out, or a spanking. I don`t have any tools to change what he does."

　　You need to trust your magic for this, Fred. Your magic is shaping Martin every day, no matter what he thinks. Speak your mind to him, but trust that your magic won`t let him get out of control.

　　"Okay. And I was bored so I made some pools for the humans."

　　Oh yes, I see. Very nice. And I notice that you finally removed some of the rooms you built for the children.

　　"Well they`re gone now, aren`t they?" Fred said, feeling his ennui surge back into him.

　　They`ve moved forward, and so have you. I`m proud of you. Things don`t always stay the same, even if we wish it. It`s good to embrace reality, and you have. These new baths cannot be anything but a bonus for you and the humans.

　　"I guess. What`s been happening out there?"

　　With your peers? More bombs from the demons, but none of your peers have been seriously hurt. In general, the Earth Spirits are all well and getting more powerful. No existing Earth Spirit is failing to help humans get stronger. No other Spirit has managed to create the healing nexus that you have.

　　"Mebbe not for long, though. Priestess Sharfroen is really mad. Kumbanaka told me. She`s fed up with the crazy fighters and the kings, and a prince even groped her. And now we`ve got those papers with her face on them. I hope she doesn`t leave."

　　Good grief. Yes, I hope so too.

　　"Oh, Kumbanaka was talking about a kingdom around here. Called Hoffendog or something."

　　Hoffendaugn.

　　"Yeah, that place. He says it`s all big and corrupt, and he thinks the demons have taken over there. Or mebbe he said that it would be easy for them. And he talked to somebody who said those papers about the priestess are all over the place there."

　　It is a messy place, that`s true. Thank you, Fred. See if Kumbanaka can find out more. I`ve got to go now.

　　"Okay, good night."