Demesne 48 - The Next Level (Patreon)

Lori began constructing the next area of her Dungeon.

Technically, she'd already started by putting together a plan of what she intended to build rather than just digging out space and hoping for the best, so that there would be less risk of the ceiling collapsing, as well as refining her first floor so more of the actual structure bore the weight instead of relying on reinforcement by earthwisps, but now she was getting started on the actual digging.

The hallways she'd been expanding that lead to the reservoir-turned-dark room before it had collapsed– she hadn't been in it, but had seen it happen– was fixed now, the ceiling arched instead of flat to keep it from happening again. She still glanced up warily as she passed it. People were still eating behind her as she made measurements with a length of knotted rope, measuring out paces and feet, marking them on the ground with black charcoal. The wall next to her intended stairs, meant to be a reference held the many, many, many sketches and diagrams of arches, pillars, and how levels were to be positioned. Thankfully, the children had stopped drawing on it, adding their own little additions like stick figure people, castles, trees and little houses.

After marking off the area, she bound the earthwisps inside her lines and made the stone soften, her handy stone-smoother and leveler tool in hand as she made the stone flow out, revealing a square depression that was… well, unevenly deep, but she'd expected that. She'd had a visual reference for the length and width, but not for the depth of the stone to be bound. Still, it wasn't meant to be perfect right away. Marking off a line, she bound and softened again, pulling up stone from a slightly smaller plot. Bit by bit, she made stairs that descended downwards.

She'd originally been thinking of just cutting a ramp down and adding stairs to it later, until Rian had pointed out she'd need to make stairs anyway if she wanted to get out from the bottom of the ramp at the end of the day. So, slow, painstaking stairs it was.

Lori began to dig into the stone that made up the wall so she could continue her stairs, making sure the ceiling was a load-bearing arc to distribute the weight down, and using her stone-smoother tool to square off the corners between floor and wall when they were too obviously off for her satisfaction. The next level was intended to be larger and able to comfortably hold more people when a dragon came. Comfortable, in this instance, meant they wouldn't have to sleep on the floor. Personally, Lori wasn't sure about Rian's suggestion to make sleeping nook, since it would still be stone they'd be lying down on, and not matter high off the ground it was, sleeping on stone was still uncomfortable, but she supposed it did beat sleeping on the floor where people might step on you.

Every so often, she had to stop digging to drag out the stone she'd excavated outside, piling it for later materials. The settlement outside was boisterous with the sound of all her new dependents finally all putting up roofs on the houses she'd made seemingly so long ago; cutting trees to clear land according to the plan she, Rian and the farmers had worked out; carrying those cut trees to the saw pit, cries of pain as they tried to tend to sweetbugs they'd found nesting within the demesne, and others sounds of demesne life.

The relative silence except for the sounds of food being prepared and lunch being cooked as she entered her Dungeon again to get back to work was wonderful.

Lori double checked how deep the bottom of the stairs was– six paces– before finally moving horizontally and beginning to excavate. She kept an eye on the lines of cleavage, the layering, and the composition, in case there were any spots where the sudden release in pressure would cause the stone to shift and potentially collapse. However, instead of making a large open space with random pillars of stone, they were placed in a deliberate grid pattern, with supporting arcs in between to bear the weight of the ceiling.

She'd excavated a decently-sized room, with a ceiling higher than she could reach even if she jumped, by the time Rian called her up for lunch.

"So, how's the new dragon-survival shelter?" Rian asked as they sat down and he brought her lunch.

She stared down at lunch, poking it with the wooden spoon. After months of use, the wooden spoon was decently smoothed out. "What is this?"

"What's what?" Rian said innocently.

She held up her bowl. "This," she said, pointing her bowl at his face. "These… bits."

"Oh, that," Rian said. "Shelled and crushed ropeweed seeds."

Lori put the bowl down, looking at it skeptically. "Ropeweed seeds?"

"As a general rule, the seeds of most plants are edible and nutritious, and the ones that are poisonous are surprisingly rare and usually obvious because you want to spit them out," Rian said placidly. "Grains are seeds, after all."

"You want me to eat ropeweed seeds," Lori said uncertainly.

"It's food," Rian said. "Besides, we're trying to see if they'll make for good bread."

Lori blinked and looked down at the crushed seeds mixed in with the stew in her bowl.

"Ropeweed grows everywhere along the river, so I've been having the clearing parties gather them up and bring the fibers for rope and weaving, and the seeds for food and replanting," Rian said. "I don't know how well they store, but we can eat it before the stuff we know will store for longer, so we don't feel tempted to keep getting from winter stores. Though once the Dungeon's expanded I'd like to see if we can grow it in here. It's a relatively prolific plant, so hopefully it won't be too hard to grow underground. "

Warily, Lori took a spoonful and chewed. Well, at least it changed the flavor of the stew enough to be different.

"How is it?" Rian asked.

Lori just grunted, proceeding with eating.

"So, while you're here and can't get away," Rian said brightly, "you should know we had a few altercations. There were… well, I'm pretty sure there were fights, but everyone around swore that there was no fighting and people were just 'arguing enthusiastically'. " He sighed. "So I'm pretty sure I'm being given the officer treatment."

"Officer treatment?" Lori asked.

"Kept in the dark and told plausible stories," Rian said, "so that I don't press any further, and so the men can deal with the problem among themselves. You really need to raise a new lord from among the Golden Sweetwood people. This is the sort of thing that damages your authority."

Lori paused. "How?" she asked intently.

"It sets a precedent of non-interference on your part," Rian said. "Which isn't bad, if it means you don't manage and control every part of your people's lives, but it also means a culture of 'anything is okay as long as the lord and Binder doesn't hear about it' can set in."

Lori pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Do you know what they were supposedly arguing about?"

"Shana and whether Grem is right," Rian said. "No one's actively wishing she were dead, but they either blame Lasponin for setting her up or Grem for screwing up killing her. They didn't say as much, but I could read the mood."

"Does anyone think I should have killed Binder Shanalorre and taken the demesne regardless?" Lori asked.

"If they did, they survived," Rian said, "so no one probably outright said so. And if anyone thought it, they're keeping it to themselves. Though a few seem to think the new level of the Dungeon is to make space for the people of River's Fork when the next dragon happens."

"That's absurd," Lori said. "That's… absurd! Why would I care about what happens to people River's Fork? They're not my responsibility."

"Because you're friends with Shana?" Rian said.

"Binder Shanalorre," Lori corrected. "And don't you be absurd too. We're not friends. We're simply two Binders who've decided not to directly kill each other and just wait for the other to die to claim their core."

"In a lot of places, that's considered very friendly, between two Binders," Rian said.

"Well, we're not in those places, are we?" Lori said. "We're in the middle of nowhere."

"I remember someone saying something about being in the middle of nowhere increasing people's inclination to murder other people they didn't like," Rian said. "Who said that, I wonder…?"

"Rian, shut up and eat."

––––––––––––––––––

Construction continued after lunch, expanding the new space and reinforcing the ceiling with pillars. On looking back, the pillars weren't perfectly aligned, but they were close enough for the ceiling to hopefully not collapse. More and more stone was excavated out, and rolled along outside to be piled up next to the Dungeon's entrance again. It was quickly becoming a large pile.

Lori had to bind more lightwisps outside and bring them in with her to illuminate the new level as she continued to build it. It was much slower than her original construction of her Dungeon, since she had to stop and specifically shape the supporting pillars and arches, but that was better than having the stone collapse on her. After all, she'd have to pass through here a lot in order to build all that her Dungeon needed. Best she make it safe for herself.

By the time Rian came down to get her at about mid-afternoon, she had a little chamber about ten paces long and five wide, though all the sides but the one that had stairs up were a bit rough since she still intended to keep expanding, and so there was no need for her to smooth or flatten them.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, his voice echoing slightly in the enclosed space as Lori looked up from pilling the soft, excavated stone into the middle of the hollowed out room. "Lost track of the sun. It's time."

"I'll be right there," Lori said absently as she rolled all the stone she'd excavated together. It made for a sizable clump. She was really glad she had Whispering to do this. She didn't want to think about how arduous digging up a Dungeon would have been if she'd been a Deadspeaker.

"It's looking pretty good down here," Rian said with a nod as he looked around the excavated room, and at the thick pillars supporting the ceiling. "Definitely a lot more space than we had last time. Though now we're going to have to block this place off, or else people will start sneaking in here while you're out to get into all sorts of trouble."

Lori blinked, then sighed as she realized her lord was right. She looked at the last load of excavated stone. "I suppose I can use this to block off the stairs," she said.

"That will probably keep people out," Rian nodded. "By the way, the stonemasons want to talk to you about the big pile of rock you've been leaving outside."

"What about it?" Lori said.

"They want to know if they can cut it up for building material," Rian said. "With you busy building the Dungeon, and the houses so far not nearly enough for all our needs, they want to see about building their own."

Lori sighed, but it wasn't a bad suggestion. "I'll review their proposal first," she said. "I want to know where they plan to build. I might need to wait until we can clear more land for it."

"I'll tell them," Rian said.

Making the stone flow, Lori headed for the stairs, Rian falling in beside her as the excavated rock followed after then, and Lori used it to seal off the stairs she'd just made to keep people out of her new construction. "What was it again? Wood curing?"

"Yeah," Rian said as they climbed the stairs. "The curing sheds are full again, so they need you to cure the wood so they can use them soon…"