Weekly Digest 6 (#18-#20) (Patreon)

After The Dragon

Lori didn't feel it when the dragon finally went away, since she had been distracted during the period it had likely happened to note its passing. She had been too full of sheer outrage at the complete and utter nonsensical ignorance of story Rian insisted on continuing to tell her.

"– so he couldn't just make trees spring from nowhere, especially outside his demesne!" Lori finished her latest diatribe of the story's utter stupidity. "Even with the dungeon's core providing power, he'd need seeds for the trees, and he'd need to touch them since outside of his demesne he'll be operating the same as any other wizard, which he wouldn’t be, but we've already talked about that, and…" She cut off, her throat sore, and she reached for the water skin for another drink. It was empty, but Lori still put it to her mouth anyway and tried to suck in what little moisture she could still feel inside.

Annoyed, she willed water to her, turning a part of their reservoir to vapor and drawing that vapor to her before making it condense again in her mouth since her hands were too dirty for her to catch the water in them. It was slow, as she could only gulp small condensed mouthfuls of at a time, and has in the middle of such a belabored mouthful when she realized she could just wash her hands, then drink, and did so. The water had that annoying taste of rainwater that hadn't touched the ground yet, but it was filling and sated her thirst.

When she'd drunk enough to feel her throat had been soothed, she opened her mouth to continue haranguing Rian for his terrible, utterly stupid story… and realized he was asleep, sitting back against the stone, head drooping forward in a way that was probably going to be very painful for his neck when he woke up.

"Well… then I win," Lori said, nodding in satisfaction, voice hoarse.

She didn't remember what happened after that.

Lori woke with her head drooping down, a pain in her neck. Groaning, she rubbed at her nape, and nearly fell over as her numb posterior made its numbness known, barely catching herself from smacking into the cold stones of her cave. The air smiled of woodsmoke.

"Good morning, Wiz Lori," a familiar voice said.

Lori opened her eyes. The brat was looking down at her, holding a bowl of stew.

"Lord Rian says to ask you to open the door as soon as you wake up," the brat said. "Because the air's smoky from cooking, and people are coughing. He said to say please. So, please."

Lori looked at her blearily. Then she shook her head as last night's– yesterday's?– events came rushing back. She glanced toward the air hole. It was filled with… bits. Dead bits, of things she couldn't recognize. There was fur like a seel but in strange colors like beast's feathers, there were shells like bugs that had the texture of bark, there was a circular, toothy maw like a slug… it was all mixed in with thick, syrupy liquids that might have been bright but had now dried into dark, resin-like sludge.

And beyond that, there was bright sunlight. It wasn't directly visible, because at some point Lori had made a pair of sharp angles in the air hole to block things flung in by the wind, and then she'd had to close and open the air hole a few times due to things climbing inside, but she could see a reflection of radiance on the stone, bright enough to still illuminate indirectly her through the narrow opening.

Cautiously, Lori felt the wisps in her demesne. They still wavered strangely to the dragon's pounding presence, but only weakly, and getting subtly weaker and weaker as it drifted away. She felt for voids in the wisps, ones that moved. She didn't want to open the Dungeon only to find a dragonborn abomination right next to the entrance that would slaughter them all.

Fortunately, there wasn't, though there were some voids moving around in the area of the village. They were far from the cave mouth though, and were large and slow-moving, so she felt they shouldn't be too much of a problem. So she– very cautiously– poked some more airholes in the stone. More light filtered in, brightening the area around Lori, though some of the holes she made were still covered by something being on top of them. From how Lori mostly felt waterwisps and earthwisps, it was some kind of corpse, or maybe a tree. Still, it was unmoving, so it was probably dead, and it hadn't started rotting yet…

"Lord Rian said to open the door," the brat said, when she saw that was the extent of what Lori was doing.

"Tell him there are beasts out there that we have to deal with first," she said. "Not until I've eaten, at least. And there might be more elsewhere in the demesne."

Thankfully, the brat didn't argue. "I'll tell him," the brat said. She held out the bowl of stew. "This is for you."

Lori took it, and the brat hurried off, presumably to talk to Rian. Lori licked her lips at the stew eagerly. It was a bit cool, but she was able to stimulate the firewisps in it to get it nicely hot again. As she was about to start eating…

"Wait… that brat didn't give me a spoon!"

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By the time someone got back to her, Lori had managed to find several dragonborn abominations in her demesne, purely by looking for moving voids where there were no wisps that responded to her, at least above ground. There were too many seels and other things in the water for her to be able to tell if something there was an abomination or not. She started around the area of the village, moving outward. There were actually very few, and one was in the middle of dying when Lori found it, its wisps being claimed by her demesne as its life slipped away.

Others were more mobile, and Lori sensed them roaming through the woods surrounding the village, the prairies on the other side of the river, and a few seemed to be flying in the sky. There was one that Lori had to assume was some sort of mobile– or at least unusually active– plant, given how it seemed rooted to the ground while its upper body moved with energetic, boneless motions. Others seemed like… well, beasts, though given they were likely altered by the dragon she was sure there was something unusual about them.

Those were just the normal things she found. She found other things as well.

There was a mobile cluster of bound wisps that was mostly made up of light- and airwisps, though lightningwisps and some firewisps were part of it as well. It seemed to move by itself, as if some other Whisperer had bound it and simply let it loose. Every few moments, Lori felt a strange emptiness in the air as if some other Whisperer was gently trying to claim wisps she'd bound, and they would slip out of her binding and into theirs', only there were no wisps involved…

When she realized what was happening, her eyes snapped open in shock, eyes staring at the stone as if her gaze could penetrate it and the distance in the deep woods where the strange cluster of bound wisps lay. The cluster that was taking in magic by itself.

Lori realized she had been perceiving a wispling. A self-sustaining, autonomous conglomeration of wisps, as defined by her text books back in school. Were she seeing it with her own eyes, it would likely be some sort of glowing ball of light. They were mentioned as a byproduct of dragons, and ancient Dungeon Binders had studied them and other things dragons had left behind to create… well, in this case, their own wisplings.

Once she realized what it was and what it was doing, she screwed her eyes shut and searched out more. She felt them, a cluster of lightning- and firewisps, earth- and lightningwisps, water- and lightning- and earthwisps… there were many of them in her demesne, all strangely mobile. Not all were taking in magic by themselves. Some seemed to be heavily imbued, and were slowly running out of magic as the binding on them and the wisps themselves consumed it. Others, she was shocked to sense, were devouring other mobile clusters, and adding their stockpile of magic to itself. One was seemingly latched on to another, seeming to use the latter cluster to take in magic for it, like a parasite…

Jars! She needed glass jars to hold them all and keep them from running off so she could study them! Argh! They were all under her bed…!

"Hey," Rian said, breaking through her reverie. "Sorry I wasn't back sooner. Brought you a spoon."

"Glass," she told him.

"Sorry, no glass spoons, just wooden ones," he said. "And we're going to need someplace to wash them soon, or else we'll all start getting food poisoning…"

"No, I need glass!" Lori said.

"Um, we have wooden cups?" Rian ventured.

"No, it has to be glass!"

"Are you being extra-entitled or are we simply not having the same conversation? Because you're usually more understandable than this."

"I need glass!" Lori said. "I don't have enough sample containers! There are wisplings out there, Rian!"

"Right, not having the same conversation," Rian said with a sigh. "Lori, shut up and eat."

Lori blinked at the order. "Rian, I need–"

"Binder Lori," Rian interrupted. "You haven't had anything to eat for at least a full day, maybe even two. We've all been cramped in this dungeon for that long. Even if we can't all go out of the cave because you say there are dangerous beasts around, that means we need to get started on making this Dungeon livable until we can. The lavatory is already full and dangerously close to overflowing, the water reservoir has gone down at least four paces, we need a place to wash dishes or else we're going to be having our next meal literally on top of our old one, and everyone needs a bath. Otherwise, people are going to get sick, and in these cramped conditions, that's going to lead to a very quick and nasty epidemic. Even if it's just going to be food poisoning, it's going to get all of use since we can't wash or get clean. So, I'm sure these wisplings are interesting and probably really cool and magical and will make you stronger somehow, but right now, people need you to eat, get off your ass, and start building them a place to wash and a new place to shit and piss. Then you and I and a bunch of the others who are strong enough will need to get armed and go out there to deal with these beasts so everyone else can leave the dungeon and get back to their lives."

Rian squatted down and picked up Lori's stew, which had grown cold again, and stuck the spoon in it. "I know you're an arrogant, self-centered, egotistical megalomaniac, but you're our responsible, hardworking megalomaniac. So start eating while I come back with water so we can get to work. Once we don't have to worry about everyone coming down with food poisoning or sitting on their own feces, then I'll help you catch these wispling things, all right? "

For a moment, Lori stared at him. With his oily face, tired eyes, unkempt hair, sweat-stained clothes and random soot stains, Rian didn't look like the almost heroic figure he usually did. His face wasn't set in an encouraging smile or a kindly look. He just looked… he looked like he was tired, done with the world, and the next person to annoy him would get punched in the face.

Wordless, Lori took the stew, stirred the spoon a little to see that, yes, it had grown completely cold, and started getting it hot again with the few firewisps still in it. She put a spoonful in her mouth, and considered. It needed a touch more heat.

Finally, she said, "At least tell me no one's pissed in the water yet."

For a long moment, Rian stared at her. Then he closed his eyes and let out a long breath. When he opened them again, there was a little smile on his mouth. It actually looked real. "Yes, no one's pissed in the water. Though if someone drops the rope with the bucket on the end of it into the water, I don't know what we'll do." His eyes flicked down to her bowl. "If you're still hungry, you can have seconds. There's plenty for everyone."

"That would be nice, thank you," Lori said evenly.

As Rian took the water skin and walked away, Lori considered the voids of wisps in the rest of the cave. All were mostly staying still. There wasn't even the low murmur of conversation. Just the tired stillness of people conserving their strength, because there was no food to fill them today. There were small piles of ashes were wood had burned, and a few puddles of wax from seel-tallow candles. There was no breakfast cooking fire, only a pot with some cold liquids and non-earth solids in the bottom, and some cooling ashes under it. Just barely enough for another bowl. Maybe two.

Rian had lied to her. There wasn't plenty for everyone. They had plenty of food, but none of it was getting cooked. Because the latrine was full and a little hunger was easier to deal with.

Sighing, she got to her feet, wincing at the sudden numbness in her posterior, the assorted aches in other places, and the full feeling that said she would be needing the lavatory herself soon.

There was the sound of small feet, and the brat came back, holding a full water skin, the outside of it a little wet. "Lord Rian said to give this to you," the brat said. She looked at the empty bowl in Lori's hands. "Do you want more?"

Lori held out the bowl. "Please."

The brat took it and walked dutifully off as Lori drank from the skin. After all, she wasn't some kind of strange person who felt guilty about getting more to eat.

When the brat came back with a bowl of stone-cold stew, Lori reheated it, and continued eating. She needed her strength, after all. She needed to get everything done fast so she could find those wisplings. If she could capture them, study them, find out how they were self-sustaining…

Lori swallowed one last spoonful and stopped. "Well, I'm full," she said.

The brat frowned disapproving at the still half-filled bowl. "You shouldn’t waste food," she said, sounding much more intent than any other time she'd ever chided Lori before. "It's wrong to waste food."

Lori shrugged, holding the bowl out to her. "You can have it then," she said. "Stay here and keep an eye out through the airholes, will you? I want to know if any beasts or anything else strange comes close. "

The brat blinked, but took the bowl, staring at the food. There was a rumbling sound.

Lori knelt down to pick up her staff, then went off into the cave to unclog the lavatory if possible and make a new one if not.

Behind her, she felt the void of wisps that was the brat start to eat.

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A Mess To Deal With

The overfull lavatory had been deal with. Pressure differential had been involved. It had taken a while since something had gotten into the stone pipes she'd made for the lavatory, but had died inside because… well, the situation was inimical to life. It took some concentrating since she had to try to place the positioning of everything blind with only her awareness of wisps to sense it. Fortunately, she'd recently gotten a lot of practice in doing just that, so she managed to unclog the pipe and empty the seat.

There was probably some sort of smell left, but Lori just bound airwisps to the entrance of the lavatory to keep the bad smells in and out of the rest of the cave. Use at your own risk.

She, of course, went first, blasting the place with boiling water congealed out of the air to clean it. They were trying to stay clean, after all.

That done, and with a long line of people eager to take her place, she went to check on the water reservoir, and was glad to see– once she'd made some light, because the reservoir was very, very dark and deep– that there was nothing floating at the bottom, so no one had been throwing things in it either. As impromptu water reservoirs went, it had done well. She'd have to work on a system to keep the water from getting stale and better placement to prevent contamination, though…

The wash area for dishes was next. She made sure to make it far from the reservoir, with runoffs in the stone to prevent dirty water from eventually flowing to their drinking water. She added a basic stone cistern. People would have to fill it manually, but it wasn't like they had anything else to do, and she was fairly sure they had more than one bucket. They could make a bucket relay.

Lori frowned, then went back to the reservoir, judged the depth compared to the amount of water, then shrugged and starting making stone piping in the walls, using a pressure differential to initially pull the water up from the reservoir and have it come out in a hole in the wall about the cistern. She couldn't keep it perpetually running, but it would be convenient for refilling the water in future. She also added a hole for water to drain out through connected to the drain for her private bath, with waterwisps to pull it out and take it into the fields outside. It would make things outside muddy, but it wasn't like there was anyone walking on it now.

Someone was setting up a fire now, and things were being cut to go into the stew pot. After binding some airwsips to circulate air from the air holes in front so people didn't asphyxiate to death, Lori took a moment to look around. Her cave, despite having a hundred people in it, wasn’t' actually all that full. Most were clustered together, so there was actually a lot of room to move. What was taking up space was the random piles of things people had carried in with them. clothes, tools, random worthless junk, that sort of thing. It was all a tripping hazard, since more of the place was still dark, and the air holes she made, while bright in their immediate vicinity, didn't provide a lot of illumination. Since she didn't need to keep her attention focused outside, she started binding lightwisps to illuminate things.

That seemed like the signal for more people to get up and start moving. The line to the lavatory grew, and she checked on it to make sure it wasn't full again. Fortunately, people stayed out of her way.

She found Rian checking on their sick people. In the light, his disheveled tiredness had become a worn, rugged determination of one who wasn't giving up in the face of adversity, which some people probably found inspiring. She had to wonder if Rian had ever worked at a theater. He just managed to be so heroic all the time. And not even all the same kind of heroic. It was one of the things that annoyed her about him.

He heard her coming, nodding to her and finishing what he was saying to the sick person– an older woman who looked just barely not too old to go on something as dangerous and strenuous as setting a new continent– before getting to his feet and facing her. "Hey," he began, "look, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for earlier. I was tired, but that was no excuse, I shouldn't have said what I did and–"

"Have you eaten?" Lori said, interrupting whatever pointless thing he was rambling about.

Rian blinked at being cut off. "Er, not yet."

"Used the lavatory?"

"While everyone was asleep," Rian said, looking more confused.

"Cleaned your sword?"

"Mostly…?"

"Well, eat something and then find some big, strong men to handle the machetes and axes," Lori said. "We're going on a beast hunt, and you and they are coming with me."

"…" Rian '…'-ed. "…Maybe spears would be safer? You know, since the action will be a long way away on the other end?"

"Do we have any spears?" Lori asked. "I thought we've just been using sharpened sticks for beast baiting."

"Why risk good spearheads when you can use sharpened sticks?" Rian said.

"Then why aren't they in my treasure room?" Lori said

"Since when did you have a treasure room?"

"Since my bedroom was converted into one."

"Okay, first off, it's not your treasure room."

"It's my room, and it's full of valuable metal wealth, which is treasure, so it's my treasure room."

"…I'm going to leave that one alone then," Rian said. "And it's not there because the people were worried for their families and wanted a weapon on hand in case something got in."

"If something got in, I'd be dead," Lori said.

"Which is when you'd really want something to defend your family with, don't you think?"

Lori couldn't argue against that logic.

"Gather them up," Lori said. "You have an hour. Then we're going to clear out the areas near the settlement so everyone can stop messing up my nice Dungeon."

"The food's not ready yet. They just started cooking," Rian protested.

Lori rolled her eyes. All these excuses… "Fine, two hours then. And get everyone ready to sleep here, since I don't think we'll be able to clear enough before sundown. I'll see about making someplace people can wash."

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She had to turn her dark room into a bath, since her private bathroom would clearly not be able to accommodate everyone. It was a simple bath, as things went. A long trough to be filled with warm water, some holes in the ground for the water to drain to the outside (and get the ground even more muddy), and a stern admonition not to waste water. She didn't have the space to put in individual alcoves as she had in the baths outside (she thought they were still standing, but she'd dropped the darkness around them a few times, so for all she knew something had happened to it), and anyway, at this point everyone had bathed in the open air, washing off a day's Iridescence with only a line of carts to separate the women from the men, that a little public bathing wasn't a problem as long as it was sex segregated. That's not even taking whatever different nudity taboos people had brought from their original demesne.

It took up a lot of time and water, washing everyone and the plates and utensils too, and she was pretty sure most had brought in their clothes to at least beat a little of the dirt out of them, but at least concerns of people getting sick from unsanitary conditions were pushed back.

Lori wasn't there for that, as she, Rian, and a group of volunteers, many of who she recognized from those who'd helped dig the original little cave for the core. Wooden branches that the children had donated from their stockpiles of backup seeling rods, which some had brought with them from for reasons that had probably made sense to them and which they were feeling smug about now, and with Lori's stockpiles of beast teeth had been combined to make spears with earthwisp-molded spearheads and, at Rian's suggestion, crossguards so that whatever they faced couldn't just keep impaling themselves on the spears to eventually get close enough to rip someone to shreds. These and the shorter hand tools like axes and machetes were enough to make the volunteers, seven of them in total, feel secure enough to go out of the cave with Lori and Rian and face whatever dragonborn abominations may be out there.

There would have been nine, but Lori had taken one look at Umu and Mikon's complete ignorance in handling spears and told them their participation was barred.

This time Lori had gotten her knife and tied it around her forearm for easy access, since it had a spring that kept the blade in place unless pulled out properly. She'd brought it for exactly that safety feature. She also made sure her the coalcharm on her staff, as well as the ones she'd retrieved from her pack, had live coals in them. Her hat and raincoat had been left behind, and she carried a quiver-like pouch with lengths of cured wood in it at her side. The pieces of quartz in her staff buzzed.

Rian had belted on his sword, which he had managed to clean by laboriously scraping off the gunk that had dried on it. The bodily fluids of whatever he'd killed with it seemed to have more in common with tree sap than blood, including how hard it was to remove. Still, the spear in his hands seemed to be the weapon he planned to use, perhaps a sign of solidarity, or possibly because he realized you can't really use a sword against a beast.

"Everyone ready?" Rian said, looking over the volunteers as Lori made sure her boots were on properly. "Lanwei, you get enough sleep? Feeling up to this? Malia, is there someone watching Karina? Yes? Okay then. How about you Pellee, Markes, you feel up to this?"

"Can't hide in a cave forever, Lord Rian," one of the men said, gripping his spear nervously.

"Dungeon," Lori corrected absently.

There was a sudden silence.

"Binder Lori would like us to remember this is a Dungeon, not a cave," Rian said, with easy humor. "Caves don't usually have working bathrooms."

This got a nervous, sycophantic laugh, and Lori wished she had her hat so she could roll her eyes out of view. But no, it was in her room so it wouldn't get in her way. Instead she stood and stomped her boots into place, then nodded in satisfaction at their fit. They were relatively new, and had taken the beating of getting here fairly well, but she REALLY hoped someone here knew how to make new shoes.

"All right everyone, let's get ready," Rian said. "Ralii, Armis, you're up front on either side, hopefully whatever's out there are beast-like enough you can recognize any tracks they make. Missus Malia, you watch our rear, make sure nothing sneaks up on us. Rafel, keep an eye up, just in case something's in the trees or in the sky, we don't know what we're dealing with. Everyone else, keep an eye out everywhere else. Binder Lori should be able to tell if there's anything nearby, but let's make it easy on her, she can't keep track of everything at once."

Then he looked at her and smiled, indicating she was to lead. Well, fine.

She'd already checked. There were no voids of wisps directly in front of the cave, so whatever was blocking the light from reaching her new air holes was undoubtedly dead. The nearest mobile void was on the other side of the sawpits, and its view of them would be blocked. Still, Lori was careful as she willed the stones to move aside and flow to make a hallway through the thick bulwark of stone, choosing a spot where there was light. She was about to move forward and step out when she remembered.

"Rian, up front," she said. "See there's nothing that will kill me right away."

Rian nodded, and lowered the spear, holding it level with the point in front of him using both hands. Creeping past her, he approached the opening, then pressed himself to the wall on one side, and quickly darted his head out. He just as quickly pulled it back in again.

"Well?" Lori asked. "What did you see?"

"Moved too fast, didn't see anything," Rian said, smiling sheepishly. There were chuckles from the volunteers. Lori made to kick him in the shin. "Wait, hang on, I'll try that again."

Cautiously, he stuck his head out slower. His head stayed there as he looked back and forth.

"Well?" Lori said.

"It… could be worse?" he said hesitantly. "I think you can fix most of it. Lots of rocks everywhere though…"

"And the thing in front of the Dungeon?" Lori pressed.

Rian moved a little father forward, looking out to the side. "Well, it's big and I think it's dead," Rian said. "Doesn't seem to be breathing, or at least I can't see it from here. It's really big though. Bigger than your old bedroom. Or your new bedroom. Hang on, I'll just–"

Lori felt water- and earthwisps move just as the shadows in front of the air holes changed, and something slammed into the edge of the opening in the stone with an explosion of dust and a crack of shattering rock.

With a surprised cry, Rian just barely managed to keep from having his head crushed, falling back on his posterior as a dark, pointy wedge the size of a barrel snapped at where he'd been. Lori and the volunteers darted back, some dropping their spears in surprise as the dark wedge drew back, then slammed into the opening again. More stone shattered and Lori saw with horror that the opening was getting wider as a deep screech like two stones grinding together echoed through the cave.

His spear was still in his hands. With a cry, Rian rose to his feet, using the surge to drive the spear at the dark wedge that Lori realized was the tip of an enormous, scissor-like mouth.

The beast-tooth point struck the mouth and promptly shattered.

Rian darted back with great alacrity, staring at the broken spearhead. "Well, shit."

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Detritus To Clean

Throwing lightning is more complicated than simply imbuing lightningwisps, willing them to go in a direction and expecting results. Doing it like that is the common beginner mistake, since it just means a lot of lightning goes everywhere. Despite the popular image of lightning coming down from the sky, or the standard theater depiction of just gesturing at a foe and expecting lightning to leap from one's hands to strike them down, this is an incredibly inefficient and dangerous method. For one thing, throwing lightning from bare hands means using one's your own internal lightningwisps, which will leave one's arm dangerously numb and likely in danger of organ failure as the lightningwisps needed by the body to function are depleted.

The best way to use lightningwisps was with touch, or with a conductive wire. Barring that, if one really needed to throw lightning, then do it the way nature does it: send a stream of lightningwisps to prepare a path, carried forth on a current of airwisps, and THEN throw lightning. It's slow to do and loses accuracy over distance, but it's much more controllable than just throwing it out like a rock.

Lolilyuri knew all this, so as soon as Rian got out of the way, she drew the lightningwisps from one of the quartz in her staff, prepared a path for the lightning to go and, because she learned to do this in school, bound airwisps to her ears to keep from being deafened before unleashing lightning imbued with power from her core. It struck the wedge-like mouth, and there was a smell of strange gases and sizzling water.

She was rewarded by the wedge drawing back and slamming into the opening again. More rock crumbled as whatever it was kept trying to get in.

"I thought you said it was dead?!" she demanded.

"You said it was dead first, I just said it wasn't breathing!" Rian said, picking up one of the dropped spears. "What now?"

Lori moved the earth.

The stone she'd piled in the ground of the cave to act as a bulwark heaved, surging forward to physically repulse whatever was trying to batter its way in. There was a tremendous crash as whatever was out there was pushed away from the Dungeon. The ground shuddered as it rolled, then shuddered again at the sounds of limbs being flailed against the ground. Whatever it was, it was trying to get back to its feet.

Still, while it was unsettled, Lori took the opportunity to see just what it was that was attacking them, stepping up to here Rian had crouched and sticking her head out the entrance.

In the empty space in front of the Dungeon's entrance, lying on its back and struggling to right itself, was a small islandshell. Its pale underbelly gleamed in the afternoon sun, looking like thick leather plates as its fins tried to gain any sort of purchase, its movements making it slide downslope ever so slightly. Its shell alone seemed to be more than four taums long, maybe five, and its eyes were bigger than Lori's head. Or at least the sockets of where its eyes should be. The eye facing her was gone, leaving a gaping hole in its skull that let Lori see cavities and internal features and what looked like slugs eating its flesh.

Someone let out a long whistle next to Lori. "Whoa," Rian said. "That's big. Smaller than I thought they would be, though."

"That's because it's likely an infant," Lori said. "It can't be more than a year out of the egg. Look, it hasn't grown any shell spines yet."

"These things get bigger?" Rian exclaimed.

"Of course," Lori said. "It's why they're called islandshells. From a distance they look like islands. I suppose it became some sort of undead because of the dragon."

They watched as it kept struggling to get back upright.

"I guess the dragon must have picked it up from the ocean and carried it along… somehow?" Rian said, sounding skeptical.

Lori shrugged. "It's been known to happen. I've read of dragons dropping all sorts of things on land. Dilians, graspers, giant graspers, adult islandshells, all kinds of fursh… there have been ships as big as the Armada's dockships too. One got dropped in the middle of the Shining Desert. Still had people in it. They died before one of their wizards could manage to build a Dungeon."

"I should be surprised you know all these depressing things, but I'm not," Rian said. "It somehow seems exactly like you. Are you going to put it on ice? Because you still haven’t–"

"No, I'm not putting it on ice," Lori said regretfully. Then she winced. "Ugh, I need to make sure those two are still frozen. If they're walking around…"

"That would be creepy. I liked Ahnree," Rian said. "Elceena was a bit hard to deal with though."

Lori frowned at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Ahnree and Elceena?" Rian said. "The two people whose corpses you have buried in ice?"

Oh. Just names. Lori didn't bother paying attention. "Get the pieces of your spear and the volunteers together while I deal with this," she said.

Rian looked at the islandshell, then at her. "May I ask how? Because that thing is huge, still moving and already dead. How are you going to kill it properly?"

"Bloodthirsty today, aren't you?" Lori said. "I just have to keep it on its back until it stopsmoving. Then we can harvest it for the leather, the shell and the bones. That's already one house, easy." She stepped out towards the undead islandshell,

Rian's hand at her shoulder stopped her, and she turned to him in annoyance.

"You already missed one dead thing," Rian said. "What if there are two?"

Lori stared at him. "Good point. Other people should go first."

"Can we not phrase it that way?" Rian said. "I mean, it's true, but phrasing…"

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Once Rian's spear was repaired, Lori had raised up the islandshell on pillars of rock so that there would not be enough leverage for it to flip itself over, and Rian had given their volunteers some motivating, heroic drivel to dull their self-preservation instincts, they and the volunteers crept out of the Dungeon, and Lori had pulled some stone from the bulwark to form a boulder and rolled it in front of the entryway. That way, if all of them died, at least those in the cave could push it out of the way. Lori stood in the center of their formation, drying and compacting the ground so it wouldn't slow them down as she kept track of the things she could sense. Rian stood at the forefront, spear in hand, head swiveling side to side and occasionally up and down, as if he expected bugs to suddenly descend on them or for things to pop up out of the ground.

All this attentiveness meant they didn't miss the state of the settlement as they checked all the nearby buildings for things hiding in them, living or dead. Rocks, fallen trees, puzzle-like pieces of wood that had come apart in the dragon's passing, branches and a few whole trees, their trunks shattered stumps, were strewn about randomly. One of the shelters had collapsed, its roof caved in, and reeds were growing out of the opening. Everyone stayed well away from it, as even at a distance they could see the leaves were moving strangely even without any wind, and it was, by Lori's reckoning, definitely alive. The other shelter still stood, but Lori could feel it was full of water, and from the sounds coming from it, seels and other things had gotten in. The baths were similarly flooded, and Lori felt some kind of waterwisplings inside of it, feeding on each other like starving bugs slowly picking off the weakest among them. The dining hall's roof had fallen in, shattering the tables and benches that had been too heavy to move, and for some reason trees were growing from it, as well as the small dirt mount that was the dining hall's cold room. Ralii and Armis, the two with experience with hunting beasts in the wild (as opposed to being baited from a tower) grimly pointed at tracks. Many were the familiar three-towed footprints of beasts, though some, the hunters said, seemed too deep for their size, and were surrounded by strange drag marks.

To everyone's bemusement, the field where they'd been digging latrines was full of young saplings, growing so thickly together there was almost no space between them, their roots almost seeming to meld into a single whole. A tall, thick-trunked tree was growing from each latrine hole, rising high into the sky.

Nearly all of the houses had lost their wooden roofs, the wood ripped from thier mountings on the walls, and a few of the houses had collapsed, their mix of compressed dirt and stone strewn about. Lori had to stare at the only one with a roof remaining. The wood seemed to have been turned to a dark stone. She could feel the earthwisps in it, with only a few patches of wood left.

"Is that coal?" someone asked.

Rian poked it with the tip of his spear. "No soft enough," he said. "It's definitely not wood, though."

"It's known to happen," Lori said. "Dragon claws leave patches where matter is somehow altered. Turning trees to stone, buildings to glass, that sort of thing. If we're lucky, we'll find some patches of ground turned into metal. Those are rare, though, or so I've heard. The rocks are more likely to be metal."

"Claws?" Rian said.

"The slow lightning," Lori elaborated.

Everyone looked around at all the rocks strewn about. Many were clearly regular rocks, but a few definitely looked different. The blacksmith with them, something Smith, who Lori only remembered because he was huge and had his profession as a second name, was eyeing a large reddish brown rock nearby.

"Right," Rian said. "Beast hunt now, rock hunt later. Lori, you said there was one nearby?"

Lori pointed with her staff. "Near the sawpit," she said. "It didn't seem to be moving much, but it was big."

"Then we go to the sawpit," Rian said. "And hopefully it'll as easy as that one." He pointed at the undead islandshell, still struggling to right itself.

"You didn't do a single useful thing," Lori said flatly.

"Exactly," Rian said. "Easy, and with no danger to it at all."

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"Okay, that just looks pathetic," Rian commented.

Two of the curing sheds had collapsed, but a lot of the wood still seemed to be there, just buried under the debris. The sides of the sawpit had fallen in a little, but that was a minor problem. There wasn't much you could do to really hurt a hole in the ground.

The abomination near it looked like some mad Deadspeaker had taken two beasts of roughly the same size and sloppily fused their bodies together, then called it a day. Or had possibly been eaten. These were beasts, after all. No matter their size, the colors of their feathers, the two-legged, long-tailed terrors were perfectly capable of tearing someone apart with their foreclaws and their teeth.

This abomination walked on three muscular limbs instead of two, with a fourth limb sticking upward from between its two tails and occasionally kicking as if trying to launch itself to a sudden blinding burst of speed. And it needed the third limb, since its body was so big it seemed obese, with two distinctly different color patterns wrapped around it, contrasting so sharply there seemed to be seams along its sides. It was also lopsided, and had a tendency to list to the left, since there was more weight on that side of its body. Its tails swung, trying to stabilize it, but kept hitting each other and unbalancing it even more. It often stumbled forward, and had to catch itself on its foreclaws. Unlike the legs, all four were in front and seemed fully functional and sharp.

It had a single head, but was supported by two necks that met at the base of the lopsided skull and again at shoulders. It only had two eyes, one of the side of its head, and one on the top of its head. Both of its toothy jaws seemed capable of biting though, even if one of them was turned sideways and flapping vertically. The colorful frill around its neck was twisted around, and made it look like it had an askew collar. With the way it was stumbling and the piteous, confused cries coming from both mouths, it seemed like a drunkard trying to make sense of where it was. the abomination seemed to be ignoring the sounds made by the undead islandshell entirely, and Lori wondered if it's hearing had been adversely affected. But no, they probably weren't that lucky.

"I feel like we're putting it out of its misery," Rian said quietly as they tried to stay behind it so as not to be seen. "How is this dangerous?"

"It might look pathetic, but it still has claws and teeth, and now it has double the dietary needs," Lori pointed out.

"I suppose," Rian said. "Still, it seems kind of sad. It was just minding its own business, and then a dragon happens, and now it's deformed and we're here to kill it just because it's near where we live."

"It’s a large predator that's not writhing in agony from being inside a demesne," Lori pointed out. "If we don't kill it, it might spawn, and then this demesne will start filling with beasts out to kill and eat us."

Rian hefted his spear. "Well, let's kill it and hope the meat isn't poisonous or anything. After you, Binder Lori."