At least Kurt's life still had some consistency. His morning workout and update from Betsy.

More swings of his sword, more barrages of crescent wave slashes. He managed to include some of his illusion techniques as well. And started to give off impressions of dozens of slashes at a time.

Holding on to that feeling when Ishtar had pressed his chest, he started trying to circulate the new power flow, but it wasn't working as well as he hoped. He was still missing something he thought.

"Sara has started talking about purchasing or building a loom and trying to create some fabrics ourselves. I'm not opposed to the idea."

"Yeah, we should be able to recreate a larger loom ourselves as well."

"I agree, but I don't know if we have enough materials to warrant anything large right now, the rams will be raised or some cotton would have been grown before we got ahead of ourselves."

"What about dyes though," said Kurt. Switching to another form. "We should be able to develop some here, can't we buy some?"

"I think we need to do more research before we put too much effort or money into the project, buying a look is one thing, making a whole factory of them is another."

"Well, that's sort of what you do."

"Thank you, sir."

"There is one thing though."

"Yeah," said Betsy.

"It is about creating farm land."

"I'm afraid I'm not a farmer, I can't really help much with that."

"No," said Kurt, "I was hoping you could give some realistic proposals with money sharing for them. How will it help grow our population?"

"You want to convince them they will be better off with us. That should be easy, we have more than enough land, and some distinct advantages here. Any farmers would most likely be doubling their current size if not more, and have a significantly better margin. And we don't have the same sort of taxes…yet."

"They are my parents, I'm a little worried about leaving them alone now."

"I see," said Betsy, "I can prepare something."

"Can you, ummm, present it to them?"

"Me? Why not yourself?"

"I think they will take it more professionally from you. That I'm not just saying it because it's them, that we actually do need this. I don't think they want a handout."

"I understand, hardworking people tend to think anything given to them has a price to come later. And they are not always wrong. I can prepare something, but I won't be begging them."

"That's actually perfect. Give it to them as straight as possible, I don't know how I would do that. Also, Sara's parents would probably like something similar."

"Sara tells me they are very receptive to the idea, the larger pastures they can instantly see the value for livestock, and access to clean water. But I wouldn't want to show preferential treatment."

Hopefully, that would handle the problems mostly. Kurt hoped they would turn around a bit. It is not that they exactly said no. But it would be a big change, and they couldn't delay their own travels forever.

Kurt stopped his training. He liked doing both at the same time to ensure he could keep his mind focused on his surroundings. And smiled at Betsy.

"So now it's your turn," said Kurt

"My turn? I don't follow."

"You have to practice your powers, Betsy."

Betsy had recently been made a guardian. Because of her position, she did not want to be the defense looking woman she appeared to be. Not that she didn't already have a way of intimidating people.

"I told you I wasn't going to be fighting."

"That's fine," said Kurt, "we can learn how to run away today."

"Run away," said Betsy.

"I'm not the best with golems, but generally I think you should be able to send out one quickly and dash in the other direction. I'm not asking for a hundred reps like me. A dozen doesn't seem crazy to me."

"It's weird though," said Betsy.

"That's why you need the practice."

"So there are like two of them," said Betsy.

"That's fine."

"I can't do them both at the same time."

"Listen, the first time I did this I ended up getting myself soaking wet. The more you do it the more control you'll get."

"Okay," Betsy put down her notebook and took a focused stance. A large firebird materialized in front of her. It attempted to flap and fly a few times, but it was having trouble staying stable.

"Like I don't know when to flap, I don't have wings," Betsy was moving around awkwardly, slightly mimicking the bird's action, which was extremely awkward.

"You remind me of Sara's first few times."

"What?" And the firebird dematerialized once she lost concentration.

"I think you're overthinking it," said Kurt.

"See," he took out an illusion of himself, "when I have complete control over the illusion, I have to split that focus, I feel that the powers actually help with that process of dual focus. But it is difficult, I still can't completely move them independently, my arms might move together, I might take the same step." The illusion disappeared. "But if I just make it move over there, I mostly just focus on what I want it to do." An illusion came out and ran jumped off the edge of the pillar with a joyful face, arms and legs wide. And Betsy snorted a laugh at the sight of the illusion gleefully committing suicide.

"So what you're saying is you lose complete control but it is a lot easier for it to perform."

"Yeah so for today we just want the firebird to fly out straight in front of you, this would allow you to turn around and run. So focus on just that."

Betsy tried again, and the bird shot forward in front of her. "Ohh wow, that is a lot easier. I don't even have to think about flapping the wings, that's the hard part."

Kurt noticed something though, the Bud had stopped and hovered. Instead of disappearing after the flight.

"Can you call it back?"

"Umm one second," the bird came back, and Betsy's eyes widened and she ducked under the bird, "I forgot to tell it to stop and panicked."

"It's fine, lesson learned. I didn't think it would stay there."

"Yeah, it's so big too," she concentrated and it seemed to grow.

"Yeah you should be able to make it smaller I would think."

She struggled a bit but eventually the firebird started to shrink in size and became the size of a small robin, which could fit in the palm of your hand. "It's kind of cute at this size."

"Maybe you should think of just holding out for a time at this size, that should help a bit with control. But what about the other one?"

Betsy conjured a different flame golem, you would want to call it a snake, and it would look like one from a distance. But it was more like a swirling tube of fire.

"This one is actually a bit easier to move around because it doesn't fly. The problem is the size."

The giant flaming swirling snake tube of fire seemed to slither or just spread in the direction it moved.

"That's awesome."

"I guess."

"Have you tried standing it up?"

"Standing it up?"

"Yeah virtually."

The swirling flames started to rise up, and it stood even taller and the top of it began to widen and the bottom narrowed into a vortex. And it swirled around faster and faster. It was a full fire tornado and started to rage.

"Ohh my gods," Betsy made a sudden movement backwards and the tornado disappeared.

"Yeah that makes sense it's not a snake, that's why it doesn't have a head formation. You've been thinking of it all wrong. But that feels like enough for today, unless you have anything else you want to discuss. But get used to pulling them out for these meetings going forward.

Betsy looked a bit annoyed about the prospect. She wasn't the action type.

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