[Relaxation, Cooperation]

  After arriving at the store, I stood in the spot where I’d portaled to and took the glowing drawing from the cardboard and put it in the leather it fit perfectly. Then I portaled to the second floor tower library and took the other glowing picture out of the cardboard and into my new leather wallet.

  Then I portalled back to the store. From now on I’ll put unactivated drawings in the wallets and ask Opal to activate them and I already have a third jump location ready for the wallet. While I was up in town square Mossbeard had completed four copies of the clinic drawing, I slipped one into my wallet and asked Opal to complete and activate the drawing.

  Then I jumped to the clinic, there was only one applicant still standing waiting by the door where Lottie and Ronja were conducting interviews. I jumped to Juliet's World and authored my magic to one hundred percent, if I could grow Draco’s magic, maybe I can do the same for myself. I told myself I wasn’t going to worry about evil mages coming for me to make them more powerful. But telling yourself something and actually believing it, they can be two very different things.

  I jumped back to the clinic. The hallway was empty so I walked down the hall, I could hear three distant voices, so they were conducting the last interview. I walked back to the front room to give them some privacy. I was wondering what to do while I waited when it came to me. I have to have a difficult talk with Lu in a completely private space.

  So I authored a new world, rich with vegetation. At the top of a grass covered hill overlooking the surrounding forest, was a natural hot spring. Next to the hot spring was an elegant table set for two, there was a bottle of champagne and beer chilling on ice. In Lu’s place there was a plate with her favorite meal, covered by a silver dome. When Lu removes the dome her meal will be just the temperature that she likes. A similar plate sits in front of my place. The candles on the table will light when we arrive and burn out when we leave. As will the fire in the fireplace. Three half moons will float across the sky. Yes we had to have a difficult conversation in private but who said we couldn’t do it in style.

  I hear a door click open and a young woman walks out, so I move down the hall to the interview room. Lottie and Ronja had papers spread all over the desk in front of them.

  “So ladies, how did it go, it certainly looks like you have quite a few to choose from?”

  “Yes Rose, so many, but we cut quite a few right away with the strength test, see those two buckets filled with stones. We used them. A nurse has to be able to lift a patient onto a bed pan, turn an unconscious patient onto their sides. Help them out of bed into a chair or wheeled chair, sometimes shouldering all of their weight. About a quarter of the applicants couldn’t lift the buckets.”

  “So were all the gnome girls ruled out then?”

  “No only one out of the eight, and she came very close to doing it but just couldn’t quite make it. But you’ll be happy to hear she is our new manager, and as such will also get some medical training. So that she knows the types of cases that the doctor needs to be interrupted for, like heart attacks or strokes or traumatic injuries. Two of the gnome girls were ruled out; however they fainted at the sight of blood. So five gnomes are still in the running as well as eleven humans and fey.”

  “That sounds great, so you still need to cut the list in half right?”

  “Yes but we’re doing just as you suggested. All sixteen girls will be here tomorrow, to help get the clinic ready to open the day after tomorrow. But we are only cutting the list to twelve tomorrow. Ronja wants a week of classroom and lab work to make sure we have the very best eight apprentices. After the week the four who get cut will be paid, the best of the four will be told privately they are an alternate if any of the original eight decide to drop out or we have to cut them, then the alternate would get the apprenticeship.”

  “Wow, I'm glad I didn’t apply, I’m sure I couldn’t have lifted those buckets of stone, but it all sounds extremely well thought out. I wanted to let you know that the portal is installed.” I showed them my wallet, and told them that the leathersmith was delivering more the next day, as soon as I could I’d get them wallets of their own. Ronja has been using our own internal transport network, we are working on making a public network, so that sick or injured people can be portaled in. We’ll use portal muffins tomorrow to have the furniture magically created in the tower, then the apprentices can set up the classrooms, bedrooms and lab, with the furniture of your choice. I recommend using our sideboards for the free food and dressers for the free laundry and repair. It also works for sheets, any kind of fabric.”

  “Thank you Rose, when we started this clinic I really didn’t envision anything so grand. I was just hoping to help people as payback for the magic here that saved my son's life. Now between you and Ronja we have a small hospital.”

  “Well Mossbeard deserves the credit, I’d never seen someone so close to death before. So I never knew how much a place like this would mean to anyone in that situation.”

  Then I jumped back to the tower, I wanted to pick something up, then jumped to the bakery so I could pick up Lu. I came into the pub via the backdoor and watched as Lu started clearing out the stragglers. Suddenly a young gnome woman stood before me, hands on her hips.

  “I’m sorry Miss, but we are closed for the day, you’ll have to be coming back tomorrow if you wanna more soup and ale, now be off with ye.”

  “I’m not a customer, I’m here to pick up my girlfriend Lu, I’m Rose.”

  “Tis nice to meet ye Rose, my ma says you are the best human she’s ever met, me name is Whizzie, I’m Mossbeard’s sister.”

  “It’s nice to meet you Whizzie. Did you start today?”

  “Yes and I have to get back to work, but I hope I see ye here again soon.”

  With that she started clearing the dirty dishes off the tables and Lu came over and gave me a kiss.

  “I’m all set to go Rose, whenever you are.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  With that I jumped us to the hilltop, it was twilight and the three moons glowed in the sky. I hadn’t named the planet yet, so I decided to go with Hilltop.

  “How about a nice soak in the hot springs before your favorite meal, I have champagne for me and beer for you.”

  “You certainly know how to spoil a girl.”

  The water was so hot I had to enter inch by inch, Lu always the brave one walked right in and sat down.

  “I know you have something serious you need to discuss, and if you really want me to enjoy this bath and meal, we’ll talk about it now. So that I’m not imagining something even worse than what you are about to tell me.”

  “Okay, and you're right, it’d be on my mind the whole time and I wouldn’t enjoy myself either. Today I jumped Draco to Juliet’s World and we tried an experiment.”

  “I thought you only liked girls, now you’re cheating on me with a male dragon, for shame Rose.”

  “Stop teasing me Lu, this is serious.”

  “I know, and that’s why I was teasing you. No matter what you tell me, we’ll face it together, like we have with every other thing in our lives.”

  “Oh Lu, I’ll just spit it out, I made Draco five percent stronger.”

  “But isn’t that a good thing Rose?”

  “Yes it’s good for Draco but it’s bad for me because if anyone else finds out about it, they might want me to do the same for them over and over again and if they were evil, that would be a terrible thing.”

  “Oh, I see, but you haven’t even tried to make Draco more powerful a second time have you?”

  “Mm-mm, you're right I don’t know if I can make him more powerful.”

  “Go on.”

  “What?”

  “Go on and check, either way we’ll deal with it, but you’ll be distracted if you don’t know so please go and check, Draco won’t mind. It’ll either work and he gets stronger or it won’t and you both can stop worrying about it. I’ll just sit here and soak and sip my beer until you get back.”

  “Lu, you are so smart, I’ll have to start reading mysteries, they must make you smarter. I love you.”

  I kissed her goodbye. I authored myself dry and clothed and jumped right outside Draco’s lair. Where I was almost run over by a hurtling gurney pushed by Groucho, Opal was kneeling on the gurney and had a huge smile on her face Mossbeard was standing on the gurney like a California surfing dude, from that movie with the cool guy from Bill and Ted.

  I knocked on the door and Draco invited me in. I explained why I was there and Lu’s great deduction. We were worried about something that might not even be a problem. I jumped him and I to another hill on Hilltop, not the one that Lu and I were enjoying our alone time on and authored him one hundred percent magic full.

  “Gods, Rose my magical power went up another ten percent, I’m up fifteen percent.”

  I authored him full again and he went up another five percent, to one hundred and twenty percent. Then again to one hundred and twenty five. But that was it, I tried five more times and that was the end result.

  “Alright Rose it’s not as bad as I feared, but it’s still something you don’t want anyone besides us four to know. Now get back to your girl and tomorrow we’ll make some more magical fields together. Thank you Rose, I actually feel great, like I was only one hundred years old again."

  I jumped back to Lu. She looked pleasantly relaxed so I joined her and explained that it seems that I can’t make Draco more than twenty five percent stronger.

  “I’ll ask Sparky to try the same experiment tomorrow, see if twenty five is a hard limit on everyone or only dragons. Draco’s still worried about it and I promised that just us four will know about it. But there was one more serious thing I want to talk to you about.”

  “Alright, and don’t worry your secret is safe with me.”

  “I know Lu, I never had a doubt. So the other thing I wanted to talk to you about was remember that wand that gives limited Bibliomancer powers to a person. Well I want to use it on you.”

  “Why Rose, you can always jump me anytime we go anywhere.”

  “Well I’ve really been worried since that fight the other day, what if they all jumped you, what if they had weapons, what if Dogberry hadn’t been there to toss him from the city. He could have hid and attacked you on your way home.”

  “I’m sorry, you’ve been worried, and if it will put your mind at ease, then I’m all for it. But talk to Sparky first, make sure my being a werewolf wouldn’t waste a charge.”

  Then we put all serious talk aside and really enjoyed the rest of our alone time, a couple of times.