Tomorrow morning

“Tomorrow, early morning. Debbie has a couple good candidates in mind, and will be dropping by to pick me up.” Ringo takes a breath, “I'll mail you an anti-aging ring. You have a while before it matters.”

“And what's she getting out of it?” You wonder aloud.

“She gets to be a founding member of this cycles’ iteration,” he chuckles, “I'm sponsoring, obviously.”

You frown, “Iteration of what?”

“David's Mighty Men of Valor,” the dragon in your hand chuckles, “David didn't need any help from me, but Eleazar, Josheb, and Shammah took turns under my tutelage. We use a different name each time, but it's the same concept. One rich guy covering the living expenses and gear of a small number of heroes who then go forth and do good deeds. In eras where I have money to burn, I sponsor.”

“So you have openings?” You consider… you've seen his account total.

“You need to finish college,” the ring actually shrugs on your finger, “focus on your studies. Among other things, your now-inherent power does better the more you know about biology, aerodynamics, physics, and so on.” He takes a breath, “I've arranged your scholarship: Tuition, books, food, and general educational supplies are covered for up to six years provided you remain enrolled here. The RV is yours, free and clear: The ‘battery’ will cover the lights, microwave, fridge, stove, heating, cooling, and water cycling for about three weeks on a full charge… or it will handle about three days of road time, or three hours of flight time. Charging instructions are in the glove box, you can fill the ‘battery’ up in about an hour: You pretty much just need to find a place to park, and to get the tires and brake pads changed periodically.” He pauses, “Registration, too, obviously.”

“What's the battery made of?” You wonder.

“Synthetic sapphires, secured in various places around the rig,” he answers. “Diamonds would work better by weight and volume, but the prices are outrageous, and the weight and volume are pretty low with either. When the diamond is only about ten percent more efficient for storage and I can get a hundred times the sapphire for the same cost, well….”

“Nevermind,” you interrupt, “So… for me: Study up, exercise, be a hero. For the other powers I want, I can just look up the appropriate piece of jewelry in the manual in the glove box and practice with that until I have it down cold.”

“Do keep the gems charged. It's good exercise, and each has some defensive self-trigger condition for use of that charge. There's purging instructions as well if anyone else's energy ends up in there… “ he considers, “...and of course, each one is fully usable as-is if you find yourself needing a power from the catalog only occasionally.”

You wander over to the glove box and pull out a lockable diary; a metallic cover. You feel a slight tingle when you touch it, quite familiar, and it opens for you… there's a large sapphire affixed on the inside cover.

“That tingle is technically a curse. Anyone other than you trying to get it open is in for a bad day,” Ringo volunteers.

You nod and go through the first page… an introduction that's basically what your mentor has gone over so far, encouragement to stay on the straight and narrow… you turn the page: A table of contents. Charging and purging first. Then the RV… that's several pages. Teleportation: Beacon adjustment, teleporting, and… you frown, “Why is scrying categorized with teleportation?”

“Because they work crazily well together,” the ring answers, “It takes a while to connect to the location, but once you do you can drop a temporary beacon and go there.”

You remember something about that… “A couple hours to anywhere on Earth.”

“Yeah. Congratulations, you can too,” you can almost hear the grin, “with some study.”

You nod and keep going: Healing has Injuries, Disease, Poison, Regrowth… Resurrection? “You can raise the dead?”

“Yes, but there are very real drawbacks,” he replies. “Read that one very carefully before using it.”

Blasting has electricity, light, lightning, cold, and fire. Illusion has Invisibility, decoys, projection. “No disguise?”

“With the completely customizable shell, you don't need it.”

“Fair point…” Space has antigravity, vacuum support, radiation shielding, Telekinesis….

You realize that at some point you must have fallen asleep while reading, as you wake up in bed, for once. The dragon ring gone.