Weekly Digest 143 - (#449 - #451) (Patreon)

Officially A Best Friend

"Rian!"

Thankfully, Umu had the presence of mind to go around Lori to reach the man in question, and thus there was no danger to Lori's notes. Nauseatingly affectionate sounds ensued behind her as she passed an amused-looking Mikon, who gave Lori a bow in greeting. Lori nodded to her in return, not slowing down as she headed towards her room.

"Welcome back, Rian," Lori heard Mikon say behind her. "We missed you."

"Oh, now you 'miss' him? You and Riz seemed to be having a lot of fun when you kicked me out of the house."

"You were welcome to stay, Umu. It's your house too."

Thankfully, Lori didn't hear the rest of that as she entered her Dungeon. The dining hall was full, and dinner seemed to be only just beginning—the line for food was still long, and not many people were eating yet—and her reminded her that while technically delicious and sweet, all she'd had for lunch had been fruit. The temptation to immediately peruse her notes was met with the immediate counterpoint that she didn't want to do so hungry, and so it wasn't too difficult to pull herself away to go back downstairs.

Her table was currently full, as whatever-his-name-was—Lori checked the rocks in her belt pouch—Lidzuga was sitting on one end with his sister, who seemed to be borrowing Shanalorre's bench to be able to sit at the end of the table. Lori had contemplated having the woman go away—she wasn't a wife after all, unless she and her brother were from one of those demesnes—that first meal she'd had on coming back, but there wasn't really a point to it, and even with Rian back the other side would only be at capacity. Given how closely Umu and Riz or Mikon tended to sit next to him…

Lori settled into her chair, closing her eyes and sighing in relief.

"So…" Rian said across from her, "are you going to manage the self-control to keep from losing yourself in your notes again, or am I going to have to do something potentially dangerous to my person."

"Shouldn't you be insisting on getting the food yourself?" Lori said, not opening her eyes.

"… I'll do it tomorrow, it's been a long couple of days. Well?"

"You realize I'm the Dungeon Binder and answer to no one, don't you?"

"You answer to no one but yourself," Rian said, in the tones of a correction. "How do you feel about the demesne's most useful and productive worker indulging themselves when there's work to be done and everyone needs to help get the demesne back to normal."

Lori opened one eye just enough to give him a glare. Well, half a glare, since she was only using a single eye. Rian just gave her one of his cheerful—and annoying—smiles. "I am perfectly capable for exercising self-control, Rian."

Rian hummed noncommittally.  "…so, do you want me to hold on to your notes until all the cleanup is finished on—?"

"I can handle my own notes, Rian."

"Of course, of course, I never doubted that. Can you stop handling them, though?"

Lori opened both eyes to glare at him, even as a part of her grudgingly admitted that was a legitimate question. "Rian."

"Yes, your Bindership?"

"Drop the subject. Now."

He sighed, shrugging. "Yes, your Bindership. How's your soap supply, by the way?"

The strange, unrelated question made Lori blink in confusion. "My soap. It's fine. Why do you ask?"

"Ah, I was concerned you'd run out during your bath before coming down, since you finished so quickly. My mistake."

What was he talking about? She hadn't taken a bath before she'd come dow—

…

Oh.

…

Ugh, she hated it when he had a point.

––––––––––––––––––

The next morning, though it almost physically pained her to do so, Lori gave Rian her notes, still pressed between the two bone tablets. She'd have to send River's Fork some replacements for them, as they would be staying in place for some time.

For all his comments about not being able to control herself, Rian looked no better himself that morning as he accepted the pressed notes. He was also walking strangely, and sat down gingerly when he got to the bench. At least his hair was wet, meaning he had bathed. "I'll give this back to you when you ask for it," he said.

"Give it back to me when all the cleaning is done and the demesnes are back to normal," Lori ordered.

"Are you sure? What if you insist on having me give it to you?"

"Then I expect you to disobey me until the demesnes are back to normal."

"Huh. That's new. Usually you expect absolute obedience."

"Yes, which you will do by disobeying my orders to give me the notes before that point."

"Fine, but if you get mad at me, I'm going to remind you this was all your idea." Rian looked down at the pressed sheets. "Anything interesting in here I can look forward to you implementing?"

Lori considered. While she didn't remember every detail, some impressions of why she had noted something down remained. "Better ways to use lightningwisps, mostly."

"I'm hoping that’s just what sticks out in your mind and that you have some kind of way make boats fly or something."

"Why would I make a boat fly?"

"Because it would cut down on the travel time to Covehold if we can just go straight there? I mean, it's not like we'll be passing through the air of any demesnes. And if there are any, wouldn't it be a good idea to know about them? Actually, what about that last demesne we passed last year? Shouldn't we see if they're still around, if only so we know if we'll have to deal with them in the near future?"

"The one that was weeks away and  was practically still in sight of Covehold Demesne?"

"All right, probably not them. But maybe someone built a demesne a little past them? We should probably check, just in case."

"Wouldn't it be simpler to find out the distribution of known demesnes when you next go to Covehold?"

"…yes, that's probably simpler than sending someone to try and make it back the way we came."

"Good morning Rian! Good morning, anyone else listening!"

"Mornin', Taeclas," Rian said, helpfully giving Lori her name as the Deadspeaker and her wife arrived, sitting down at one of the bench. "How did you sleep?"

"Great! We slept all night," Taeclas said cheerfully. "Rian, can we borrow your house? Just for a little bit after breakfast? Please?"

"… Tae, I like you, but I don't feel comfortable doing that."

"But our house is still full of bugs! Come on, please? I'll be your best friend?"

Rian looked like he was seriously considering the offer. "Does that mean Rybelle won't be your best friend anymore?"

Taeclas stared at him, eyes flicking to her wife, who looked amused. "You'll be one of my best friends!" the Deadspeaker hastily amended.

"But not your best friend? Sorry then, if I'm going to let anyone do unspeakable things in my house, they'd have to be my best friend, you know?"

"Eh…" Taeclas sighed. "That's… fair…" She sounded like she was going to cry, for some reason.

Rian sighed. "Your Bindership, can we prioritize getting Tae's house cleaned today? You know, to help improve the moral of our resident Deadspeaker?"

Taeclas immediately went from tearful to hopeful as she turned towards Lori, a pleading look on her face.

"Clean your own house," Lori said.

"Does that mean they can borrow the brooms after breakfast?"

Lori rolled her eyes. "It's a 'dealing with people' matter, deal with it."

"Yay! Rian, you're officially a best friend!"

Rian held out his hand to the Deadspeaker. "Well in that case, can you check if I bruised or strained anything?"

Taeclas cheerfully reached for this hand, then paused.

"I washed my hands," Rian said flatly. "See, this is why I won't let you use my house."

"All right, fair enough…"

––––––––––––––––––

Clearing both demesnes took almost the rest of the week. The bugs were surprisingly tenacious, and houses were cleared and cleaned slowly. While everyone was willing to clean their homes, we only had a limited number of brooms long enough to reach the ceilings, where various strands, nests and bug corpses were. Rian had to set up a schedule as to who got to clean their houses, while the rest checked over the outsides of all the buildings, especially the roofs.

Unsurprisingly, there was damage. Paper window screens had to be repaired—the Taeclas' strange principle objections aside—or replaced, some of the roof planks had swelled and become loose from water damage, a couple of the showers outside of the baths had their doors come off…

Most of the crops left outside had died, including the patch of tubers that Shanalorre was growing behind her house. It wasn't a great loss, as the tubers were still edible once dug out of the ground—because the ground had been frozen, and had still been very cold by the time Karina and Shanalorre had gone to check the tubers—but it boded badly for the rest of the plants around the demesne.

"Oh, a lot of the trees will probably live through this," Taeclas said, looking quite disappointed as she said it, after she'd been asked to investigate the matter. When she'd been stubborn at 'looking after the well-being of stupid trees', Rian had simply called her 'cheater', she had groaned, sighed, and sullenly done as she'd been told. "The dragon was only here for short time compared to winter, so they didn't bury everything. While many trees did lose branches, and a lot of leaves were frozen, it's unlikely to have killed the whole tree. Smaller shrubs and grasses that were buried are more likely to have died, but that's normal for many of them in the winter." She shrugged. "It's not the first time that a dragon has brought an unseasonable or extreme degree of cold to a demesne, but I don't have the literature memorized. And for all he's part of the Mysteries, I doubt Lidz does either."

"But we're not looking at total plant death across the whole demesne?" Rian said.

"Only in the short term, although the timing for it is terrible. The fall is coming up, so plants should be in the dying phase of their yearly cycle, but because it's triggered early, because of the relatively mild weather they might be fooled into thinking it's spring, which would mean any fresh shoots die during the winter."

That had nothing to do with her, as none of that required Whispering. Lori, for her parts, focused on removing dragonfrost from areas they needed, such as the charcoal-burner's clearing, the outdoor mushroom farm, the part of the shore where the children usually hunted seels—although there seemed to be far fewer seels than usual, and Rian suspected they had been tricked into migrating early because of the dragonfrost—various roofs, the few parts of the opposite shore that they needed such as the curing and smoking shed, and the sawmill.

Every other day, she'd go to River's Fork to assist in the cleanup there. Lori had been forced to place a binding to repel bugs around each house after they had been cleaned to prevent bugs from simply returning to settle inside them, something she had to imbue every time she went back. Fortunately, the bugs slowly started dispersing as the days went on, and at the end of the week Lori was able to just let the bindings dissipate.  

Shanalorre had also warned them that there were still a numbers of possible abominations in the demesne not far from the dome, but save for the one that Lori had seen, no one saw any further sign of them. Which was slightly disappointing, because she had developed a better and more stable version of the lightning-ball binding. As the first iteration had not been immediately fatal—and had suffered from having the binding consuming all the imbuement at once again, resulting in an admittedly nice explosion—she had modified the binding to exude 'spikes' on lightningwisps so that on contact, there would be more than one channel for the lightning to flow through, resulting in the lighting actually passing through a beast's body instead of simply unleashing so much lightning the air itself exploded from the heat.

Lori hadn't been able to properly test the binding due to a lack of living samples to try them on, and given the differences in scale while the bindings had killed the bugs in the air she had launched them at, it wasn't a properly conclusive test since a bug was a far cry from a beast or beast-based abomination. And while she would have wanted to try using the binding on dragonborn abominations, it was a stupid idea to actively go seek them out to do so, although she had ordered she be informed if any came in sight of the central dome.

While puzzling and mildly curious, in the end the absence of the abominations wasn't really anything important. At the very least, it meant that Lori wouldn't need to set up a defense perimeter of lightningwisps to keep them away from the central dome and its fields. With the ground finally thawing, the houses now cleared, and Lidzuga and his sister residing in River's Fork once more, that demesne was finally back to normal and Lori could go back home.

––––––––––––––––––

"Great Binder," Shanalorre said from behind Lori.

Lori blinked in surprised, turning away from the game of sunk she was playing with Mikon. "What is it?" she asked.

"I believe I have identified a beast within the confines of River's Fork demesne," Shanalorre said. "It is difficult to estimate size without a better reference, since I am being forced to use random passing bugs and leaves, but I am also certain of my identification."

"Of what?" Lori said, glancing towards the gameboard, where Mikon was finally making a move, carefully dropping one stone onto each bowl in order. She could already see she was going to win this one, and from the annoyed look on the weaver's face, they did as well.

"Of the typhon beast. It is within the confines of River's Fork demesne."

Lori slowly turned to face Shanalorre, the game no longer important. "What."

"The typhon beast," the other Dungeon Binder repeated. "I cannot be absolutely certain, but based on what I have identified of its relative size, girth, and distinctive features that I remember from my own sightings of it, I believe that it has entered the boundaries of River's Fork Demesne. And it does not seem inclined to leave."

––––––––––––––––––

Rainbows With All The Colors

"Are you sure it's the typhon beast?" Lori said.

"Absolutely sure? No," Shanalorre said. "However, it alive and by comparison is larger than anything that is not a tree, so either way I believe it is worthy of attention."

"Uh…" Mikon 'uh'-ed. Lori turned an annoyed look at her. "Should I get Rian, your Bindership? This sounds like something he needs to hear."

Lori considered it and nodded. "Go get him, if you please."

Mikon nodded, and for some reason exchanged a glance with Shanalorre before getting up and doing as ordered. Lori would have wanted to press Shanalorre further, but it was best if they didn't have to repeat the same exposition at Rian, so despite her inclination, she waited, turning towards the sunk board to consider her next turn. With Shannalorre watching intently, she reached out and made her move, then sat back to wait.

Mikon soon returned with Rian, with Umu and Riz in tow for some reason. "Your Bindership," Rian said, "Mikon said you needed me?"

"Shanalorre said the typhon beast might have some how made its way into the boundaries of River's Fork Demesne," Lori summarized as Mikon glanced at Shanalorre, who nodded before the weaver sat back to study the sunk board.

"Ah. Well, that's terrible." Rian frowned. "But if it is the typon beast, how is it inside? Shouldn't it have been deterred from entering the demesne at all?"

"It is not currently certain it is the typhon beast," Shanalorre said. "It is just as likely to be some sort of very large dragonborn abomination, and those have never seemed to experience pain from being within the confines of a demesne, nor have shown any wounds from irridiation that have been reported. It possible that the meaning which fleshcrafts their bodies into abominations repairs such damage, and the interval isn't long enough for any further irradiation to set in to such an extent."

"That's not any better," Rian sighed as he sat down on the bench opposite Lori, next to Mikon. "Actually, knowing our luck, it’s a dragonborn abomination made from the typhon beast."

"That is not beyond possibility," Shanalorre said. "In fact, it is quite likely. If this is the typon beast, it was likely affected by the dragon with some sort of rampant life, or perhaps it encountered an insane thought that lead to it entering the demesne. Regardless, a very large living creature is currently within the confines of the demesnes boundaries."

"How is it we are only learning of this now?" Lori asked.

"I had been prioritizing using my awareness to examine the area near the central dome for abominations, Great Binder. However, recently I noticed that both abominations and beasts seemed to be moving away from the dome, and I expanded my attention to see if this was part of a trend or an isolated case. It was only just now that I identified the presence of the large beast or abomination," the other Dungeon Binder said.

Rian glanced towards Lori for some reason, then turned back to Shanalorre. "How far is it from the center of the demesne? Are they currently in any danger?"

Shanalorre shook her head. "Not at the moment. In fact, the presence is currently static and unmoving, but alive. I suspect it is currently asleep. There is also the expanse of the river between the creature and the dome."

"Then I think we should table this discussion for the moment," Rian said. "We need sleep, and probably confirmation that this is some the typhon beast. For all we know, it’s a chasmos or a hadon or some other large herbivore. Tomorrow we can send some of the hunters on one of the boats, and they can confirm whatever this thing is. Does that sound good to you, your Bindership?"

Lori nodded readily. After all, the danger was technically in another demesne that she couldn't affect at the moment. "Agreed. We will send the hunters and continue discussion when we have more concrete information. I will be going to River's Fork tomorrow in any case. They can accompany me."

"May I request that I accompany you as well, Great Binder?" Shanalorre asked. "From what I have gathered, it is safe return the children back to their parents, and I will be better able to direct the hunters as to roughly where the beast is located from within the demesne."

Tilting her her head thoughtfully, Lori considered the suggestion, than nodded. "Very well."

"And if it is the typhon beast, let's remember to bring the arrow this time," Rian said.

Lori twitched, and gave her lord a flat look. "Noted."

She won the game, of course.

––––––––––––––––––

"It's definitely the beast, your Bindership," the hunter reported to Lori, Rian and Yllian at mid-afternoon the next day. Lidzuga—Lori had checked for his name earlier—was also present in an advisory capacity. "I'd know those spines anywhere. We were lucky it was resting when we saw it, but it started moving when the wind shifted. Msut have caught our scent."

"Rainbows," Lori said flatly.

The hunter who had spoken, as well as the other two hunters that had gone across the river with him, all nodded in agreement. "Rainbows with all the colors growing deep into the skin, your Bindership."

Silently, Rian slid the bone-tipped arrow along the table and in front of her. Not looking down, Lori moved her hand along its length until she was touching the head, where a binding of lightningwisps was anchored. The binding was heavily imbued. Very heavily imbued. She began imbuing it with more magic.

"In what state did you find it?" Lori asked. She dared not hope, but… "Was it injured? Weighed down because it had a tree growing on its back?"

"Nothing like that, your Bindership. At worse, it had bark and maybe some lengths of branches fused onto parts of its skin, but it didn't seem weighed down or anything."

"Not even a little unbalanced? Tiling slightly to one side, perhaps?"

"Not even a little, your Bindership."

"So there are parts of it that are going to feel spears even less?" Rian said.

"I'm afraid so, Lord Rian."

He sighed, bowing his head as he closed his eyes. "Well… at least Shana…lorre can track it, so we know where it is now." He paused, then turned to the Dungeon Binder in question. "We do, right?"

"Yes, Lord Rian. Its size is distinctive. And at the moment, it appears to be moving closer to our location," Shanalorre said. "Either it is following the trail the hunters left behind, simply seeking the river for water, or is being drawn to the smell of people."

Lori frowned. "The river is in the way, so it shouldn't matter, but the fact that the typhon beast—"

"Typhon abomination," Rian corrected.

She gave him a flat look. He shrugged as Lidzuga nodded.

"The fact the typhon abomination," she continued, her face still flat, "is now within the confines of the demesne only reaffirms that we need to kill it, as it is still driving beasts away from this area. While it is not a physical danger—" Lori frowned. "Why are you raising your hand?"

"Uh, pardon, your Bindership, but that's not true. The abomination not being a danger, I mean. It can easily cross the river and make its way here to where everyone live."

Lori blinked. "But it's water. Beasts don't cross water. even a simple water break can keep them out, as long as the water is moving."

"That's outside the demesne, your Bindership. Inside, beasts don't have to worry about how much it hurts when their colors wash away."

For a moment, Lori was quiet.

"Rainbows. Wait, but it still needs a way to cross all that water. It's not a fursh, surely it can't swim. It's not unnatural like Rian."

"Hey! First off, swimming isn't unnatural," Rian said. Of course he'd say that. "Secondly, it doesn’t need to swim, it just needs to float from one side of the river to the other, and that's easy. Leaves float. Corpses float. If it has enough branches and things on it, it will be able to float just fine. After that, all it needs to do is move its tail and it will probably get to this side soon enough, unless we get very lucky and it gets swept downriver."

"I do not believe we will be that lucky, Lord Rian," Shanalorre said. "It is difficult to properly assess with Deadpseaking, but based upon where lowest slugs, squids and graspers are, and where the top of the water seems to be, there might be points in the river that the typhon abomination can simply walk across. Provided it raises its head high for air."

There was another moment of silence. No one said rainbows, but it was probably only a matter of time.

"Well," Rian said before anyone else had the opportunity to swear. "I suppose things could be better, but at least it's happening now and not, say, last year."

"And how is it any better now?" Lori asked.

"We have more boats now," Rian said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Lidzuga. "While the Coldhold is still buried under the water—" He paused. "Uh, you did remember to maintain it, didn't you?"

"Of course I did, Rian, what kind of fool do you take me for?" She had been VERY lucky the ice had been heavily imbued, since by the time she had remembered the binding had been almost depleted.

"Right, right, silly me for asking… well, even without the Coldhold right now, we have enough boats to be able to move over a lot of people."

"I am not bringing people to my demesne and having them live in my dungeon. There dragon shelter is still perfectly serviceable."

"…what about the children?"

"They are of course coming with us when we go back tonight."

"I will leave them in your care, Great Binder," Shanalorre said. "I believe it would be best if I remained here, as I can keep track of the typhon abomination's location without needing to endanger anyone. Given the circumstances, that should provide more than enough time to get everyone into the dragon shelter."

"They're going into the dragon shelter tonight regardless," Lori said. "Tomorrow, we are killing this abomination."

"Um… by 'we' do you mean we spear poke it to death, or by 'we' do you mean you throw a binding at it to make it explode?" Rian said. "Please say it's the second one. "

Lori rolled her eyes. "Yes, I will be using a binding on it to kill it. Possibly several."

Rian sighed, looking relieved. So did Yllian. "So… what will we be doing?" Rian asked.

"Delaying it should I miss so I can try again."

Rian nodded. Yllian just looked resigned. "Right, of course. Um… could you not miss? Please?"

"I don't intend to," Lori said, turning towards the hunters. "If the typhon abomination is heading towards here, where is it most likely to pass through?"

––––––––––––––––––

That night, after dinner, Lori sat at her stone table—she should probably get around to having the carpenters fashion a wooden tabletop for her at the very least, even if she was still going to support it with stone legs—starring at the blank surface of a bone tablet a stylus in one hand.

The temptation to turn her attention to the samples she had gathered was strong, but she resisted. Instead, she began to make a flow diagram detailing her latest lightning-ball binding. Lightningwisps, contained within a shell of airwisps and more lightningwisps, with spikes of lightningwisps to allow for the conduction of lightning so that it would pass through the body of the target rather than the lightning getting stuck and expending all of the binding's imbuement at once to explode the air…

She remembered always disliking having to plot a flow diagram when she had needed to do it in school. Now she found herself putting an inordinate amount of care into the illustration, because it was actually important, and the binding was going to be a bit to complicated to keep it completely in her head. Ugh, why hadn't they ever told her how actually useful this would be? If they had, she might have actually put more effort into it for her classes!

Stylus in hand, Lori began plotting out more variations on the lightningball binding, the stone-headed arrow with it's heavily imbued lightningwisps on the table in front of her.

After all, at range, blowing something with airwisps was unreliable. A rock, however, always behave predictably when you threw it, as long as you actually knew how to throw.

––––––––––––––––––

Premeditated Death

It wasn't often that Lori participated in premediated death. Most of the times that she had killed beasts with her water cutter had been in the moment, when she had seen a beast too close to the their traveling caravan and had taken action, or that time she'd decapitated seels to prepare them for butchering, before she'd just left that for other people to do. The last time had been when she had tested her lightningwisp bindings on those chokers.

Killing the typhon abomination would be nothing like that, she knew. The chokers were tested under controlled, almost ideal conditions within her demesne, and she'd had time to place and anchor the bindings as she wanted. As killing the typhon beast would be occurring in River's Fork, she would need to plan her binding well ahead of time, or she'd have to kill Shanalorre so Lori could take River's Fork's now-unclaimed demesne and kill the typhon abomination that way.

…

No, no, Shanalorre was still too useful as a healer. Killing her to kill the typhon abomination was a poor exchange.

So, Lori needed a thorough plan. A binding that she could adapt to, or would be useful in,  wherever terrain was between the typhon abomination and the central dome so that she could activate the binding when the abomination stepped into it, without having to rely on some sort of bait to do so. A binding that wouldn't explode violently, or at least not explode violently unless she wanted it to, though as she had seen an explosion wasn't really all that reliable at causing instantaneous death. An explosion needed solid fragments to propel violently into a body to be more effective, or so she had read in one of her novels. One that she could set up relatively quickly, or better yet form completely somewhere else and then simply anchor in place at the chosen location.

Once, when she had first learned of the typhon beast, she had thought to form several bindings of lightningwisps on the ground and anchor all of them to a higher point so that it would form a sort of cone. When activated, lightning would have emanated from the ground and then up to the upper anchor point, travelling back and forth between the two points and passing through the typhon abomination as it stood between those points.

There had always been difficulties with that plan. As the typhon abomination had originally been outside of the demesne, any binding she had prepared and anchored into place would have eventually been consumed by the Iridescence, degrading its effectiveness the longer the binding went unused. Lori would have also needed to find some way to create that high point she would have anchored to,  which would have involved ladders and trying to find somewhere she could wrap that anchor around. There would always have been the danger that the typhon beast would have appeared while she was still preparing the bindings, which… well, it would have been unpleasant. With the typhon abomination now within the boundaries of River's Fork demesne, there was no longer any danger of her bindings being consumed by the Iridescence, and Shannalorre would be able to keep track of where the abomination was.

Now she just had to settle on the best binding to kill it with.

Some kind of watercutter was out. In addition to the range being so short, such a binding would need a ready supply of water, and the kind of laminar flow required for cutting through flesh would require her active control. An airwisp-based binding wouldn't be able to do much on its own. Theoretically she'd be able to asphyxiate the typhon abomination with one, but that would require somehow anchoring the binding around the abomination's head, which… wouldn't be possible. Her best offensive and murderous choices were still lightningwisps and firewisps.

Firewisps were… simple. Originally, she had thought that she needed a way to set the typhon abomination on fire, but her recent experience with trying to set fire to a corpse had shown her how actually difficult that was. However, one didn't actually didn't need to set a body on fire to make that body incapable of staying alive. When she had gone to school, Lori had been warned about how dangerous it was for a body part to intersect a binding of firewisps that altered temperature, because the body's internal temperature needed to remain at as specific range or else organs would start to degrade and cease functioning.

Thus, a simple means of killing the typhon abomination would simply to place an extensive binding of firewisps that would alter the temperature of anything that passed through it. Warmer or colder, it didn't matter as long as the temperature of the affected body diverged significantly enough from standard body temperature for a sufficient length of time. The problem was the immediate discomfort this caused would quickly motivate the abomination to vacate the area, which… well, would actually be useful, as the binding could be used to act as a deterrent to keep the typhonbeast from a certain area.

Actually, on consideration, Lori could probably add something like that to the outside of her demesne when a dragon passed. Perhaps it would help reduce the numbers of dragonborn abominations even further as they were deterred from entering her demesne.

It would also be useful, she supposed, as a means of diverting or directing the typhon abomination. However as a means of doing lethal damage to it, it was far too slow if the firewisps only heated or cooled the body by a small amount that was theoretically lethal but not immediately fatal. And if she set the firewisps to instantly increase the temperature to, say, ten times the boiling point of water or the temperature where a corpse would finally ignite and start burning, that would probably be fatal, but it would also make the area in which the binding was placed so hot that the abomination would avoid it unless she also made another binding of firewisps to contain the heat to a given volume. If she used such a binding, she would need to activate it when the typhon abomination entered it.

With their current circumstances, it wouldn't be all that difficult. She could set the bindings in place, connect them together with lightwisps, and when Shanalorre informed her that the typhon abomination had entered the volume of the binding, Lori could activate the binding at some distance using the channel of lightwisps. Relatively simple, nicely fatal, and save for putting the bindings in place, she didn't actually have to be anywhere near the typhon abomination.

Unfortunately, there were good reasons to not use firewisp bindings. For one thing, 'hot enough for a corpse to catch fire' is also 'hot enough for trees to catch fire' unless she was very careful to avoid having her binding intersect with trees, and with the dragonfrost all having melted or sublimated away naturally, there was nothing left to prevent those fires from spreading. While she could do so by immediately reforming her firewisps to destroy heat rather than create it, that wouldn't do anything if the fire managed to spread beyond the areas that her binding was placed in.

The second reason to not use firewisps was because forming, placing and anchoring the bindings into place would be very labor and time intensive. Even if she made the firewisp bindings somewhere else beforehand—which she would need to do anyway, because she would need a lot of firewisps—anchoring all those bindings in place would be time-consuming, especially if she was actively trying to avoid a forest fire. While she'd be willing to do so—trees were a useful resource, no matter what that crazy Deadspeaker who named plants said—she probably wouldn't have that time, depending on how quickly the typhon abomination was moving. It was not beyond possibility that when she returned to River's Fork the next day the abomination could already be on the shores of the river opposite the central dome.

Lightningwisps… were also a fire risk, but a slightly more manageable one. Lightning wouldn't heat up large volumes of air for extended periods of time for one thing, and while lightning strikes would still cause what it hit to catch flame, they would be relatively isolated spots, with the heat quickly dispersing to the surrounding mass. It would still be a fire hazard, but given the nature of lightning it would need to be active for less time than a firewisp binding to kill the abomination. However, it had the advantage of being far less time-intensive to make than the firewisp bindings, especially if she applied the principles she had learned through her lightning balls.

Using lightning also had the advantage of being more likely to hold the abomination in place as the thoughts passing through its nerves were disrupted, and with her lightning balls she would no longer need a high anchor point to cover a wide enough area for lightning to intersect the abomination's body. The principle was so simple, in hindsight. Lightning flowed along paths that lightningwisps already occupied, so simply contain the lightning within a shell of lightningwisps and airwisps to contain the lightning until it struck the target.

If she made the containment portion of the binding larger... say, large enough for the abomination to be inside…

Of course, she had to do a few tests to make sure her binding did as she wanted. It wouldn't do to just have it explode, after all.

––––––––––––––––––

"Uh, your Bindership? Your Bindership?"

Rian's voice was slightly raised, as if he felt he needed to be heard over something loud. Either that or he was still a bit deaf from the explosion that had occurred earlier. "What is it, Rian?" Lori said, turning towards him. He was a dark shape against darkness until Lori deactivated the lightwisp bindings over her eyes that had been limiting the amount of light reaching her eyes.

"Should we be worried about that?" he said, pointing at the binding she was maintaining above the middle of the river.

Lori rolled her eyes. "No, of course not. Why would you think it as something to be concerned about?"

"Well, people usually find a ball of blinding light that seems to be shooting out lightning worrying," Rian said, "myself among them." The binding Lori had made over the river shot out a stream of lightning that curved down to touch the surface of the river, and Rian flinched despite the lack of thunder.

She rolled her eyes. "Will that be all, Rian?"

"Yeah, that's it. I'll tell everyone you're just having fun, and there's nothing to worry about."

"I am not simply having fun. This is work. Research. Needful preparation."

"Noted, your Bindership. I'll tell everyone you're enjoying your work, then."

Rolling her eyes gain, she turned back towards her binding, activating the lightwisps over her eyes again to block out the brightness emanating from the binding. While her connection to her core made her capable of being aware of all the wisps in her demesne, some things she needed to been seen with her own eyes. The binding was a more advanced iteration of the same one she had tried to use against the abomination they had encountered in River's Fork. A binding of lightningwisps surrounded by airwisps to keep it centered, then a shell of lightningwisps and airwisps to keep the lightning contained. This binding, however, was three paces in diameter. Lori had made the binding intentionally oversized so she could see it better from a distance.

In the center of the binding, lighting shone, burning as it made the very air into fire. Not literally fire, of course, though from the firewisps generated one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Even though the binding of lightwisps over her eyes, Lori couldn't make out much in the way of detail. It was lightning that lashed out in all directions until the bolts struck the shell of lightning- and airwisps, stopping the bolts from progressing further. She had been adjusting it to try and increase the number of bolts that were emanating from the center of the binding, but the number of bolts actually seemed to be decreasing…

Ah, right, the concentrations of lightningwisps in the air around the shell had increased due to the bolts coming from the center. If she remembered correctly, sparks moved from places of high concentration to low concentration—not unlike heat, really—so if she wanted more bolts…

Working with lightningwisps like this wasn't something she had a lot of experience with compared to her experience with waterwisps and firewisps. She had a lot of experience with the latter two from using it in either in her day to day life or her professional life when she had been employed in workshops. Perhaps if she'd gotten her metal-welding certification… well, too late for that.

Her use of lightningwisps, had mostly been restricted to classroom exercises, where she had formed bindings to empirically demonstrate principles or as practical exams of her comprehension and understanding. Which wasn't to say she was incapable or unskilled with lightningwisps, but rather its idiosyncratic properties didn't come as readily to mind to her because she had mostly used it in controlled classroom conditions and with educational bindings. However, if this lightningball binding was effective, that might be changing in the future.

Humming to herself, Lori claimed some of the loose lightningwisps and began to form them into a spike between the lightningwisps in the center of the binding and shell, giving the wisps in the spike directionality to move the loose lightningwisps back to the center of the binding. The spike began to 'pull' loose lightinngwisps from around the lightning- and airwisp shell and along the spike's length. As loose lightningwisps were drawn back to the center, bolts immediately began to fly in all directions again, filling the whole three pace diameter with glowing white bolts, the air with the smell of lightning-struck air, and her ears with the sound of buzzing so constant it was nearly a hum sometimes.

Lori nodded in satisfaction. Yes, that seemed to fix the problem of the bolts occurring less as time went on, though to make it more effective she should probably give the shell some directionality as well…

She had today to perfect this binding. Tomorrow… tomorrow she was going to use it to kill that spiky-backed thing scaring beasts away from her second demesne so they could finally go back to hunting again!