Weekly Digest 134 - (#422 - #424) (Patreon)

The Year's Second Dragon

Over the next week, Lori once more fell into a routine. Two days of expanding the demesne, a day to do other work, then back to expanding the demesne. She'd also conceived of the idea of forming bindings of firewisps on the borders of her demesne to help continue encouraging Iridescence growth overnight, as well as binding large amounts of darkwisps that the night brought to give the Iridescence wisps to consume.

That latter seemed to help increase the growth rate somewhat, if only by providing more Iridescence to claim exactly at the edges of her demesne. She supposed if she looked at Rian's numbers, she'd probably be able to see for sure how much it helped increase the growth rate, but as she had no 'numbers going up' fetish or any no need to justify herself, the fact that the growth rate had increased was sufficient for her.

Really, it was irritating that she'd only thought to start expanding the demesne so late into the season. So much potential growth that she had allowed to pass her by… so much suffering in the heat… Perhaps next year, the demesne would be functioning so smoothly that she could devote summer to expanding the demesne. Although really, there was no reason why she couldn't do it on any day of the year…

On the days she wasn't expanding the demesne, Lori performed maintenance on the bindings she had placed around the demesne. She checked the water hub shed, making sure there was nothing dead floating in the water, and was glad to see there were no bugs or slugs. She also checked water reservoir in her dungeon, glad to see that the water was clear, and that the unseen light she'd placed beneath the surface of the water—which she'd deactivated before going to check—seemed to be preventing growths from taking hold within the walls of the reservoir.

The chamber where the water was distilled and further cleansed by unseen light had to be deactivated and opened to shovel out the residue that had accumulated since Lori had. She took the opportunity to enlarge the chamber slightly, since getting the shovel she had to reach the back of the chamber so the residue could be scraped out was a bit awkward. It was only when she was finished and was cleaning out the insides of the enlarged chamber with water… that she realized could have just used water to get the stubborn residue out.

…

Anyway…

The overflow evaporation chambers next to the bathwater cisterns near their fields also needed to be deactivated, opened and cleaned out, the residue added to their compost pit. That chamber was much fuller because of the amount of bathing everyone was doing, even with how much they were watering the fields to keep the crops from drying out. 

Perhaps she should make another outlet for the water, since their fields had grown larger… but not right now!

Beyond maintenance, she used one of the days to finally get around to another experiment she hadn't been able to get around to.

Lori looked at the molten, brightly glowing stone inside the large crucible of bound ice. The stone—she didn't know exactly what sort of stone it was, and she didn't care—had been molten for some time, and she finally deactivated the binding of firewisps within the material. Carefully, she added the shards of white Iridescence with a wooden spoon, dropping it into the molten stone.

"I can't see if it's dissolving. The molten rock is too bright," Rian said as he tried to peer through the clear substance of the bound ice. 

"I told you that you wouldn't see anything," Lori sighed. "Look away before you harm your eyes."

"Yes, your Bindership… ugh, I need a dark corner… can you see anything, though?"

Lori bound the lightwisps in her left eye before closing her eyelids so she couldn't be disoriented by her vision changing, and began forming the binding she needed. When she opened her eyes again, her right eye saw the normal colors of the smithy, while her left eye saw only gloom through which she was barely able to see the outlines of shapes. When she looked at the molten stone, the glow coming from it had been greatly reduced, and she could make out the detail of the liquid's surface… including how the samples of white Iridescence she'd poured on the stone were floating on molten surface. "The samples are floating on the surface."

Rian sighed. "That's… basically failure right there, isn't it? The white Iridescence has always basically dissolved instantly in anything that… well, that it can dissolve into."

"We still haven't tested how it dissolves in oil," Lori pointed out.

"Do you want me to finally arrange that?"

Lori waved her hand dismissively. "It's not urgent. I really don't see the point of such a thing."

"It might make the oil burn hotter or brighter?"

She paused, considering that. "Is that really something we need right now? We're using the oil for soap, aren't we?"

"Soap and lubricant for the sawmill, water wheels, lathes and anything else that needs to spin non-stop."

Well, she had phrased that as a question. "Is it really a good idea to use oil that burns hotter or brighter for that?"

"Yes, it sounds like a disaster waiting to happen… it could result in an oil that lubricates better?"

"If you're that insistent, I'll give you some samples and you can test it yourself. Hand me my wand."

"Here."

Lori accepted the rod of anatass, and used it to stir the molten stone. Perhaps it only needed some agitation to begin dissolving the samples of white Iridescence. She didn't actually believe it, but it was a possibility. Pulling out her wand after stirring, she tapped the wand against the stone floor to dislodge the slag on the wand. Wait, did it count as slag if it wasn't impurities from smelting?

When the molten rock had cooled, it was immediately obvious the attempt was a failure. A sample of white iridescence was sticking out from the top of the molten rock, its sharp angles a contrast to the more rounded stone beneath it. It obviously hadn't dissolved.

"Well, there goes my dreams of transparent rock windows for everyone in the demesne," Rian said mournfully.

"It was never likely, Rian. If it was that easy to acquire transparent building material, we'd be using lightwisp-alloy stone instead of glass."

"Given how the metal alloys are just as easy to make and yet don't seem to be in use, I doubt that."

Well, she supposed he had a point there. 

She cleaned up after the failed experiment, giving the smiths the smithy back.

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At the end of the week, Lori was just finishing dinner when her head snapped up, tilting her head as she felt the wave of magic that seemed to push on every wisp in her demesne. Sitting on the short bench next to her Shanalorre did the same, as did—Lori glanced at her head cloth—Taeclas across from them. A moment later, as the feeling came again, the three of them turned to look in the same direction.

Sitting next to Taeclas, her wife immediately paled.

Calmly, Lori reached for her cup and took a drink of water. "Rian, there's a dragon coming. See to it everyone takes appropriate action. I will be packing, and then I will go outside to sink the Coldhold into the river."

Rian sighed. "And here I was hoping all my work was done for the night. I'll have the men strip everything they can from the ship."

Lori reached out through her connection through her core and increased the output of the lightwisps anchored to the outsides of the houses to provide greater visibility as she went upstairs to pack up her bedroll, pillow, and other things. This time she was bringing the almanac so she had something to read!

With her packing done, she went outside. There were still people removing things from the Coldhold, so Lori turned her attention to the smithy, and used stone from the stockpile to close up the area. Once that was done, Lori redistributed the rest of the stone to reinforce the entryway and front of her dungeon, then added all the additional stone to the binding of earthwisps that reinforced the stone of the hill above her dungeon, as well as all the stone structures in her demesne.  When she'd come back from the first dragon of the year, she had simply never deactivated, so she didn't have to reform the binding now. She did have to add the new wood storage shed outside of the sawmill, as that was the newest stone building in the demesne. 

By the time she finished, the Coldhold was finally empty, everything that could be better utilized in the dungeon during the dragon’s passing removed. Besides the Coldhold, there was only one other boat at the docks. Lori looked about in confusion. While the other wooden boats had probably been carried into her dungeon, Lori's Ice Boat was also gone. Has they actually dragged it into the dungeon rather than wait for her to liquefy the ice and dismantle the wooden frame?

Well, Lori supposed they were in a hurry. She was blinking tiredly as she proceeded to use the stone set aside for the purpose to surround the Coldhold in a box of stone and sank it into the river to protect it from damage from the dragon’s passing. It had been a long day of expanding the demesne, and she had been looking forward to getting to sleep. 

That done, she went up to her room to fetch her things. The entryway to her dungeon was full of people rushing in and out, their arms full of pack, bundles of clothes, bedrolls, blankets and other things, but they made way for her as she strode in. She gathered her pack, bedroll, pillow, and the sack of emergency beads, and was about to step out when she remembered to grab her almanac. Lori carefully folded a shirt around the book before putting it into her pack and grabbing her staff.

She found Rian waiting for her at the dock, already seated at the tiller of the boat with a basket full of straw waiting next to him. Riz and Mikon were with him, the latter fussing over the former and looking worried. Riz seemed awkward as she spoke to the weaver, while off to the side four of her Riz's friends were already seated on Lori's Boat and smirking.

"Bring the good wisplights with you," Rian said as he gestured at the straw-filled basket, seemingly ignoring how Mikon was trying to stuff a towel into the back of Riz's shirt. "You'll need these more than we will."

Lori hesitated, then nodded. "Fine. Put them on the boat."

"I took the liberty of sending all the boats we have to get the children out of River's fork and back here," Rian continued as she started putting her own effects into the boat. "Told them not to wait for you and just get the children here." He paused. "I also told them to bring Lidzuga and his sister here."

She nodded. "Good. I'd rather not have to worry about him trying to take advantage of any distraction to kill me." Reading while trying to stay aware of what was happening around her defeated the point of reading. “Why are you including his sister, though?”

He sighed for some reason. “Because he’s unlikely to come along without her, it’s a dealing with people thing.” Ah. No wonder he sighed. That sounded quite unreasonable. He looked up at the sky above. The stars twinkled above them, and all four moons were out in their various phases. "Any idea how long before the dragon arrives?"

Lori shook her head. "It's still seems to be distant. Not for some time yet, I think."

Rian nodded. "If there's time, I'll have everyone try to uproot what we can of the crops and transferring them to the dungeon farm."

"Use your discretion. You're good at that. I'll provide you with some light. Signal me when I should seal off the dungeon." Lori carefully stepped down into Lori's Boat, seating and carefully balancing her staff and pack on her lap.

"Be careful, all right," Rian said as Riz finally disengaged from Mikon and hopped down to take her position next to the boat's steam jet driver bound tool. "Try to get some sleep before the dragon arrives."

Lori felt another pulse as all the wisps in her demesne and in her body moved as if struck by an invisible wave, weak as it was. It felt no stranger than when she'd started feeling the dragon's approach at dinner. "I think that won't be a problem."

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Time Until The Dragon Arrives

Lori hadn't realized how uncomfortable all their other boats were.

Sitting at the bottom of Lori's Boat, her back against the back of the boat, Lori was already missing her chair on Lori's Shed Boat. Her legs couldn't seem to find a comfortable position… or at least a position as comfortable as sitting upright. How had she used to think this was an acceptable means of travel?

To keep her mind off the discomfort, she focused on continuing the preparations to proof her demesne against the incoming dragon. Gathering all the darkwisps in the air above her demesne, she formed them into a single massive binding that would act as an ablative barrier against the magic that would arrive with the dragon. Lori kept that binding carefully deactivated as she anchored it to the stone on the inside of the entryway of her dungeon, a spot that wasn't part of the binding that reinforced the earthwisps of the structure. A bit of gold wire jutted out there, and once the binding made contact with it, magic directly from her dungeon's core began to imbue the darkwisps. That done, she claimed lightwisps from around the bindings that illuminated her demesne, forming them into a binding that she anchored to a convenient elevated structure: the stone aqueduct. It was high enough that light from the binding would reach the fields without being in anyone's eyes. At least, that was the intention.

After that, Lori systematically began sealing shut the various water pipes that lead in an out of her dungeon to prevent entry by any dragonborn abominations small enough to take advantage of the openings, and made sure that the binding of waterwisps and firewisps in the water around the air outlet vent was well-imbued to keep it hotter than boiling so that nothing could crawl in through there. Once that was checked, Lori moved on to activating the baths in the dungeon.

…

Examining her dungeon's baths through her awareness of her demesne's wisps, she couldn't help but notice it was actually very small, in comparison to the baths that people used on a regular basis. Should she…? No, no, don't think of that now. She reached out and checked that the pipe for the waste water that went down to the dungeon's farm's waste water cistern, then connected the pipe that drew water from the reservoir. Once they installed one of the bound tools that drew water—technically air and water—they'd be able to fill the bath's basin—

Lori's eyes snapped open as the air around her went from being comfortable to comfortably warm but with a cooling breeze. As temperature transitions from leaving her demesne went, it was one of the better ones. The lightwisps anchored to the panels of bone at the front and sides—that was a recent addition—of the boat illuminated the area ahead and around them, though the latter was only for a pace or two. Beyond that, all that was visible of the water were where the waves reflected the moonlight and wisplight, which wasn't often. Past the water, the shoreline was much more visibly, glittering in the colors of the moonlight.

…

Would it be too much to hope this that this dragon's passing would result in the death of the typhon beast nesting outside of her second demesne? Probably. Logically, it should die in the chaos that would ensue, but Lori was certain she wasn't anywhere near that fortunate.

…

Actually, why had Rian never reported finding dead beasts after a dragon's passing? For that matter, how did beasts actually manage to survive a dragon's passing? It was something she'd never considered before now, but…

…

Well, not important. Even if the passing of dragons was somehow not fatal to beasts, bugs, slugs, squid, fursh and whatever else she couldn't recall immediately, she knew for a fact that dragons caused damage to her demesne's infrastructure.

Some time after they'd left the boundaries of her demesne, they passed the boats that Rian had sent ahead to River’s Fork. They were full of children, many of them crying. On two of the boats—Lori’s Ice Boat and Lori’s Boat Two—Lori saw women with their hair in familiar shades of pink that made them instantly identifiable as Mikon’s cousins, who had children clinging to them.  Another boat had two adults—besides the one operating the steam jet driver bound tool—whom Lori presumed were Lidzuga and his sibling. One of them was holding a rock that emitted light, which a certainly a good indicator in that direction.

And then the boats had passed into the night, and there was nothing ahead of them but darkness.

When they neared River’s Fork, Lori saw it was bustling with activity. While there were still people carrying items from houses to the mine, a few people were already in the process of trying to transplant the crops in the fields and terraces. There were lights moving about, some of them wisplights, but some of them seemed to be torches.

"Erzebed, start putting beads into the wisplights," Lori said as they approached the dome, "get them distributed, and make sure they don't bring those torches into the dragon shelter!"

"Yes, Great Binder," Riz said as she caught the bag of wispbeads that Lori had tossed her. She began digging into the straw-filled basket, pulling out four of the wisplights that Rian had brought from Covehold Demesne. Lori, for her part, activated the deactivated binding of lightwisps that she'd anchored to her staff, providing herself with light as the boat carefully moved alongside the dock. She carefully climbed out of the boat, her pack slung over her shoulder and staff in hand. The ferry pilot handed Lori her bedroll—her pillow was tucked in the middle of the bundle—and there was a moment where Lori worried her bedroll would fall into the water, but eventually she was able to get a grip on everything and scurried towards solid ground.

Making way towards the dragon shelter was a bit difficult, as it was uphill, and Lori had to watch her step. Riz and followed after Lori, her own pack over her shoulder. Fortunately, the mine entrance was clear when they reached it, and no idiots seemed to have tried to get into the alcove just inside the entrance. At Lori's direction, Riz unlatched and opened the door to the alcove, and they stepped into the small room. Lori was finally able to put down her bedroll in the sleeping niche, while Riz just dropped hers next to the door. Taking the binding of lightwisps on her staff, Lori anchored it to the wall, and started gathering more lightwisps to making another binding. "Find me a rock," Lori ordered. "You're going to need light."

Lori spent the next few moments making light to see by, anchoring lightwisps in intervals along the mineshaft so that each one was just in sight of the next, and then anchoring another binding of lightwisps to the stone next to the mine entrance. She could gather darkwisps later. She had all night, after all.

That done, she checked the size of the bead that was imbuing the mine’s ventilation—it was about head-sized—then the other large wispbeads they had at hand to replace it. Once Lori was satisfied, she and Riz went around the demesne, collecting the bound tools she'd set in place so that they wouldn't get damaged by the dragon. The one at the baths was simple enough to remove, but the ones that cooled the fruit trees required more height for her to reach. Fortunately, Riz remembered the trestles that whatsisname used to build the boats were, and she was able to retrieve one, which was just enough for Lori to reach up too where the bound tool cores were secured and remove them. She wasn't going to just leave them outside, and they'd be useful for making sure she didn't have to imbue every little thing in the dragon shelter. Or at least not have to reform every binding when they ran out of imbuement.

She was on her way back to the dragon shelter with the bound tool cores when Yllian found her.

"Great Binder," he greeted. "Getting everyone to the dragon shelter is in progress. We're just moving all the fruits that were supposed to be delivered to Lorian Demesne the next time the Coldhold arrived into the shelter."

Lori nodded. "We have some time until the dragon arrives. Once everyone has been settled into the shelter, set some people to work replacing the drinking water, filling the water reservoir, and emptying the shelter's latrines."

"The latrines are clean, at least. Do we have your permission to try to get as many of the crops into the dragon shelter?"

"Only after those are done. If necessary, we have seed grain in our dungeon farm." She was about to dismiss Yllian when she paused. "Don't have them track latrine waste in the mine."

Yllian nodded solemnly. "Yes, Great Binder."

Lori settled in her alcove just past the mine entrance, and checked on her connection to her demesne. Rian had not yet given the signal, so she did one last check around her demesne. There were still voids of wisps in the fields where their crops were, so presumably they were still moving as much of the crops inside as they could…

Ah, right! Lori sealed off the cave with their initial mushroom farm, leaving only a small hole near the top to let air in. Small dragonborn abominations would be able to enter through it, which was why Lori altered the binding to keep out bugs to lethal levels. The mushroom farm out in the woods will no doubt be destroyed, so they needed this farm as a seed crop.

For a moment she regarded their new sawmill, made primarily of wood. While the metal fittings that could be removed probably had been, there was nothing she could do to confer added protection to the building. If she had already managed to learn Mentalism, she could surround it in a shell of thought force, but she hasn't, so she couldn't. Still, she was hopeful. Their roofs hadn't taken much damage during the last dragon, so one can hope it happened again… although knowing her luck, this would be the dragon that set her demesne on fire.

…

Lori would have to keep an eye on her demesne's temperature and be ready to mitigate the effects of her demesne being set on fire. She'd need to form airwisps into a binding that would draw air from somewhere it would still be breathable and funnel it into her dungeon… after she figured out how to keep herself alive. It might be necessary to kill everyone in the shelter so she could have all the air to herself…

…

Well, she'd deal with it if it happened.

Opening her eyes, Lori stood up from where she'd been sitting and set about working on the dragon shelter's own defenses. The lightningwisp binding, to violently discourage anything trying to crawl into the slits on the shelter’s entrance to draw in air. Earthwisp reinforcement, to make the stone around the entrance hardier against impacts and large falling objects. She supposed if she got far enough away from the light she could start gathering darkwisps for the ablative barrier. Since it was night, she might even be able to gather enough to enshroud the whole hill.

Actually…

Taking one of the bound tool cores she’d taken from the cooling poles for the fruit trees, Lori proceeded to add it to the end of the contact wire that would imbue the darkwisp and lightningwisp bindings. The last time, those two bindings had needed to be constantly imbued, and would have dissolved had the bead run out unless Lori had been there to keep the bindings imbued. With this core, at the very least it would be possible to replace the bead without her, since the binding wouldn’t dissolve form a lack of imbuement. True, the idea was for those bindings to never lose imbuement, but in the very likely scenario someone was careless—someone other than Lori, of course, because she was always very careful!—there would still be a chance of recovery.

Theoretically, at least.

“Uh, Great Binder, are you going to be done any time soon?” Yllian asked. “People need to get through.” 

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The Possibility Of Invisible Dragons

Eventually, all the preparations were finished. Everyone was inside the dragon shelter, the box-like planter was crammed full of uprooted crops and dirt—and Lori had needed to make two more—the necessary bindings had been formed and anchored, and the multiple doors that secured the dragon shelter had been shut. Lori had even had the time to carefully raise a stone barrier outside of the dragon shelter’s entrance using the mining tailings, an added layer of protection against a large dragonborn abomination or the possibility of something large and heavy hitting the doors and battering them open.

Then all there was left to do was wait.

Lori had ordered Riz to go to sleep, and told Riz to have one of her friends do the same. Then she had unfurled her bedroll, locked the door to her alcove, and done the same, waiting for the dragon's arrival. The Dungeon Binder had fallen asleep feeling the emanations coming from the distant but approaching dragon, hoping she was correct in her estimation.

When she had awoken, it had been of her own volition rather than someone banging on the door to wake her up. Sitting up and wincing at how uncomfortable the stone niche she'd slept in was—she already missed her bed—Lori took a moment judge what she could feel of the dragon's approach. The waves had grown stronger as she'd slept, but not by much. How slowly was it moving?

She checked her awareness of her demesne's wisps next, and found that Rian had not yet given the signal for her to seal the demesne. Either he had been supremely negligent, or he had spoken to Shanalorre—or one of the two Deadspeakers there at the moment—and had come to the same conclusion she had: that it would be some time before the dragon arrived, and that they had time. Her lord was many things—strangely oblivious, not as funny as he thought he was, overly theatrical—but if he was negligent she’d have probably already set him on fire.

Sitting up and pulling on her socks and boots—as comfortable as they were, she wasn’t going to be wearing tsinelas in a situation she might have to run—Lori grabbed her staff and slid back the latch on the door of the alcove, carefully pulling it open. No one was sleeping on the other side, but that was because Riz and her friends were already up, their bedrolls and packs set neatly to one side. They all turned to look at her as she stepped out, but she ignored them as she began lowering the stone barrier outside of the shelter’s entrance.

“Uh, Great Binder? Is that safe?” Riz said.

“The dragon isn’t here yet,” Lori replied absently as she softened the stone barrier and let it collapse into a pile. Easier than trying to pull all the stone neatly into the ground or making it swing out of the way. “So yes, it’s safe to open the door. Best empty out the latrine and get water while we can. Help me get this door open.”

Which meant Riz and her friend’s lifted the wooden beams that kept the doors into the dragon shelter secured. Three layers of doors were unlocked, the finally one letting in a burst of warm air—ARGH, she had to add a firewisp binding to the ventilation, or else she’ll bake!

That aside, there was nothing unusual about the view Lori saw when the doors opened. There were the trees on the other side of the river that rose up higher than the hill they were currently in and on—and for the first time she wondered what had been done to clear the slopes of the hill of trees so thoroughly, then looked towards the dome and wondered why she’d bothered asking—and beyond that was the blue sky and clouds.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the direction the dragon was coming from. Lori had to step out of the dragon shelter—deactivating the binding of lightningwisps before doing so, just in case—and walked until she was facing the direction she could feel the dragon coming from, the sun shining on her right side as she faced an empty-looking sky. Well, empty of dragons. The clouds appeared to be perfectly normal clouds, the sky was perfectly normal sky. They didn’t give her the sense of a yawning void, or something that was staring at her. There was no unnatural lightning or sounds that acted incorrectly. There was simply perfectly normal sky.

…

That was actually far more disturbing. Was it an invisible dragon? Invisibility technically wasn't hard, after all. There was a binding of lightwisps that had light flow around you. After all, if light didn't reflect off you, you couldn't be seen. The problem was the binding only worked for light coming in one directions, and there were a multitude of directions to choose from. So the binding only really worked if you were standing on the end of a long hallway, with people only glancing as they passed by the opposite end, and it helped if you were standing somewhere dark.

It wouldn't surprise her if a dragon could somehow render itself invisible, though. Dragons did strange things like that, and if a Dungeon Binder was very, very lucky, they'd be able to figure out how. There were stories and hearsay about the Dungeon Binders of some demesne being able to alter materials into dragon scale.

Lori claimed and bound lightwisps, anchoring them to her thumbnail and forefingernail—claiming through her skin was so much more convenient than using her eyes—and forming them into complementary bindings that acted like a spyglass. It took some adjustment—it always did—as she didn't have some sort of straight edge to draw out the edges of the bindings, and when she was finished the edges of the image produced were blurry—it always was—but she was used to that. Her thumb and forefinger extended at right angles to each other, she held her hand close to her face and closed one eye as she looked through the binding.

The image in the center was greatly magnified, letting her see the tops of distant trees closer to the horizon. Lori turned slowly so she could actually see what she was looking at as she scanned for signs of dragons. The wind moving the wrong way, eyes, things floating upwards, beasts whose forms were mashed together like clay, unnatural colors in the sky…

Scan as she might however—which admittedly wasn't for very long, because she got impatient—there were no signs of a dragon. Well, no obvious signs. Was it still over the horizon? It wasn't unlikely—such had happened before—but usually it was possible to see something once a night had passed. She checked for clouds, seeing if then distorted, where she was looking, but the heat meant there were no clouds to see…

Lori lowered her hands in disgust, absently deactivating the binding on her fingertips. "Erzebed, have someone go get Yllian," she ordered over the sounds of bugsong and seels making their usual loud, obnoxious sounds.

"Yes, Great Binder?" a voice behind her said.

Lori turned to look, and saw Yllian patiently standing there. She gave Riz an approving nod. "Good work on the promptness, Erzebed. Yllian, tell everyone that the dragon will be some time yet. Tonight, possibly even tomorrow. All equipment is to remain in the dragon shelter, but while we can, we'll be eating in the dining hall and be outside so we don't have to use the ventilation. Have the latrines cleaned out and the drinking water replaced. After breakfast, I'll be catching some seels. Get them butchered and ready for storage as soon as possible. Don't track blood or waste in the shelter."

"Understood, Great Binder."

Lori nodded, and turned to add some firewisps for deleting heat to the airwisp binding of the ventilation.

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Breakfast was a bit late that morning, as people had slept in late from last night's rush, and the benches and table had to be carried out and set back in place in the dining hall. The breakfast stew was River's Fork's usual strange blend of meat, small cubes of tubers, root vegetables, leaves and sweet fruits. Not exactly objectionable, but she preferred the way stew was cooked in her demesne.

After the meal, men and women went off to do as Lori had ordered Yllian to have them do, as well as other work to keep them occupied and out of trouble. Water went in, latrine waste went out. Fruits that were ripening that day were picked and added to the food stores. Small things that had been forgotten in homes were retrieved. And Lori had gone seeling.

The brat had tried to teach her how to seel properly once, the year before. The methods had involved a sharpened stick, a rather uncomfortable wait standing on sun-heated rocks, and trying to manually adjust for refraction as she tried to track and anticipate the fast, darting forms under the water. She… well, she hadn't really taken well to the brat's methods. Only natural, of course. The brat had said it had taken several days of constant practice, and Lori had only had the morning to learn. Still, she'd learned to seel in her own way, and it was effective enough.

Of course, that had been inside of her demesne, where she had been able to control all the unclaimed wisps simply by willing it, but the principles were sound.

“Don’t make any noise or sudden movements,” Lori ordered Riz. “Just… stand there unless I’m attacked. Keep an eye on that part of the sky—” she pointed in the direction where she could still feel the dragon approaching, "—and warn me if you see anything that might be the dragon approaching, no matter how small or far away."

“Don’t do anything different from what we always do. Understood, Great Binder.”

Lori paused in the act of sticking the metal-capped butt end of her staff into the water, turning to give the woman a flat look. “Leave the attempts at being funny to your man or else I’ll make you an officer.”

The woman flinched. “Yes, Great Binder. Sorry, Great Binder.”

With the end-cap of her staff in the river, Lori reach through the wire connected to it to start claiming the waterwisps of the river. It… had been a while since she’d had to claim moving water, and it took a few frustrating moments for her to remember to anchor the waterwisps to the riverbed so it wouldn’t flow away. Still, there was something… soothing about just standing there at the edge of the water and holding her staff as she slowly claimed more and more waterwisps, compensating for how the river's current tried to push what she'd claimed further on.

Well, it would be soothing if the sun wasn't getting progressively hotter and the air more humid. As it was, the soothing parts of the experience were quickly grown over by the agonizing discomfort. The airwisps and firewisps—and now there were waterwisps as well to try to mitigate the humidity—anchored to the bone clips on the brim of her hat did their best to keep her cool, but the relief was limited  to her face, and maybe the sides of her head. The rest of her body felt like it was boiling. She was so covered in sweat one would think she'd fallen into the river, although it wasn't anywhere near as coo—

Lori blinked and stared down at the river. She reached up and took of her hat.  "Erzebed, hold this."

Riz dutifully took hold of the hat.

Making sure to keep a grip on her staff and the waterwisps she was claiming through it, Lori took two steps into the river and fell face-first into the water.

If she was going to be wet anyway, it might as well feel good!