Weekly Digest 18 - (#54 - #56) (Patreon)

Work and Play

The game was childishly simple, once explained. The players picked up stones and dropped them one at a time into each bowl spinwise, with added rules about if they could keep doing so or had to stop, and whether they could claims stones on the paired bowl opposite. Each player owned one of the bowls on the ends of the board, and whoever had the most stones in their bowl when all the other bowls were empty won. A simple, childish game, which probably appealed to a certain kind of possessively avaricious person or young children proud of being able to count.

"One more game," Lori declared.

"You haven't even counted your stones yet," Rian said.

"43, I lose," Lori said, not needing to check. Besides, her pile was obviously smaller than his. "I want a rematch!"

For some reason, Rian rolled his eyes. "Can't remember names to save your life, but you can keep track of how many stones you have…" he muttered.

"Of course," she said. "It's how you win, after all." She stopped waiting for him and just started putting the stones back into the smaller bowls.

"I pre-emptively surrender," Rian said, holding up his hands. "It's late and I have work tomorrow. I need to sleep."

She glared at him. "It's not that late," she said.

"Lori, both your eyes are drooping," he said. "Everyone else packed up to leave nine games ago." Directly behind him, Umu, Mikon and Riz were asleep at their table.

"Just one last game," she declared.

"We already had it and I already surrendered." He gave her a look. "Don't you have Dungeon-building to do tomorrow? You know, that thing you've been wanting to get back to, digging holes in the ground?"

Lori thought about having to sleep on her barely cushioned bed and groaned. "Just one more?"

"Go to sleep, Lori," he said. "We can play again tomorrow." He pushed the board and stones towards her. "Here. You keep it. Maybe asking other people to play with you will get you to talk to them."

He stood up stiffly and gave a yawn that had to be purely for effect. He couldn't really be that tired, could he? Still, she supposed she was a little tired. Probably best to sleep.

Lori stood up and almost fell over as she realized her posterior had grown a little numb.  Had she been sitting that long? Carefully, she picked up the game board– it was strangely heavy– and was about to head to her rooms when she realized the three were still sleeping at their table,

Lori glared at them, then rolled her eyes and put down the game board, the stones rattling at little. She walked towards the three and, reluctantly, began to shake them awake, starting with the one in the middle, Mikon.

"Tah," she called. "Tah, wake up."

The other woman groaned, her pink hair over her face for a moment, before she jerked upright and looked around blearily. "Wh-what…?"

"Dinner's over," Lori said blandly. "Go back to wherever you live and sleep there."

The woman froze as she heard Lori's voice, looking up to meet her eyes as she did so.

Lori pointed towards the Dungeon's entrance. "Go. The food is gone, so if you would please leave…"

She started shaking the other two as the pink-haired woman tried to get to her feet and nearly fell over before she realized she was hemmed in from both sides. From the way she was moving, parts of her had probably gone numb

"Get up you two, it's late," Lori kept chiding them. "Rian already went to sleep. Don't you have some kind of work to do in the morning?"

She stepped back as the three started to groan themselves properly awake. Absently, she checked the bound lightwisps stuck to the ceiling and various corners of what she was now resigned to being the demesne's new main dining hall. They were always there now, at all hours of light and day, and the front entrance was now always open. It was only her rooms that sealed off now. Her Dungeon had become a public space. Really, the only reason she was rousing these three was she didn't want them waking in the middle of the night and making enough noise to bother her.

Lori's steps were evening out as her numb posterior managed to revive, and she carefully picked up the game board with all the stones on it, carefully not to have them fall, since that would be very inconvenient to pick up. The little bag was missing from Rian's side of the table, so she had nowhere else to put the little things. She wanted it complete for her future games.

She yawned as she moved aside the stone blocking the way to her rooms, and she was so sleepy she was four paces away before she realized she hadn't put it back.

Putting the game board on her table– which was NOT a sacrificial altar!– carefully, she took off her coat, put it over her laundry on the bed, dimmed the lightwisps she had illuminating her room, and tried to go to sleep before her laundry cushion started feeling hard

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Rian jerked in surprise as she lay the game board down between them the next morning.

"Another game," she said, sitting across from him.

"You're really bored with work, aren't you?" he said blandly.

"If you don't make a move, I will," she said.

He held up three fingers. "Three games," he said firmly. "One now, one over breakfast, one after we finish eating. Then you put the board away and get back to work. Deal?"

"You're just afraid of losing," Lori said.

Rian rolled his eyes. "We'll play another three at lunch and how many more you want after dinner until I need to go to sleep." He reached into a bowl, picked up all the stones, and started dropping one each into the bowl's spinwise. "But later, all right? We still have to work."

Lori didn't pout. After all, she was a grown woman, an adult and a Dungeon Binder, who definitely didn't pout for any reason. "Fine," she said, watching him put down stones, counting the stones and bowls for when it was her turn. "What did you say this game was called again? Sunk?"

"Hmm," Rian 'hmm'-ed as he finished his move. "Your turn."

She lost again, but she 46 stones that time, which was getting closer and closer. Lori eagerly reset the board as Rian went to get their breakfast, and she'd already planned out her opening move when he came back, giving him a smug look as she took two turns that ended with her taking the contents of one of his bowls.

"You realize that's the most predictable opening move ever, right?" Rian said, putting both bowls down. She picked one.

"Well, it obviously works," she said, starting on her breakfast as she watched him intently.

"Only for this version of the rules," Rian said as gathered the stones of one bowl in one hand and began dropping them while eating with the other. "There's a version that uses half as many stones, for example, preventing the possibility of a tie, though to be honest the only real difference there is the stone distribution. There's also the version of the rules where both players take their turns at the same time."

"How do you take turns at the same time?" Lori had to ask. "It's taking turns."

"I didn't make the rules," Rian shrugged. "I'm pretty sure there are more, but those are the ones I know. Your turn."

Lori looked down, and realized Rian had finished. Stuffing one last spoonful into her mouth, she grabbed the stones in one bowl…

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Rian staunchly refused to play after the third game, even making an almost unseemly retreat out of the Dungeon to underline his refusal, and Lori had no choice but to put away the board and get back to work. She could have asked someone else to play– several people had watched their game, and seemed to have taken note when Rian had explained the rules– but she wasn't so desperate for a challenger she'd actually start talking to random people.

Still, if Rian insisted on this 'only three games' nonsense, she might have to…

Well, he had a point, she supposed. She did need to get back to excavating. She took the game board with her to the excavation site that would be the next level of the Dungeon, setting it next to a pillar she'd already finished as she took up her weighed line and stone leveling tool and began drawing out the softened stone.

The excavation was almost complete. Soon she'd have excavated an area that, combined with the space already present above, would be able to house everyone in the demesne with a reasonable amount of space, and that would be from the floor area alone. She had over plans too, of creating segregated niches to allow people to organize by family, of sleeping alcoves along the walls so that the floor would be clear… she might even be able to put in storage for people to bring their belongings without having to crowd everything, so they'd be less likely to lose anything useful when a dragon came. Maybe she'd put in tables so people wouldn't be so crowded eating above… maybe put bowls on the tables so they could play sunk if they brought their own stones… or a grid so they could play lima or pincer...

Lori paused and shook her head. Why was she thinking about that? She hadn't played either of those games in years since she started learning magic and didn't have as much time to devote to non-essential activities. She focused back on excavation.

The pile of excavated rock had greatly decreased since she'd used it to build with recently, but that morning's work was going towards rebuilding the pile. Up the incline, she saw men piling cured boards next to the stone walls she'd raised, while other men were huddled in the secondary dining hall, discussing something. That was probably them planning how best to raise the roofs on the new homes. Lori put the matter out of her mind as she went back into her Dungeon to get back to excavating.

She did take a break from her excavating to switch to putting in a ventilation tube for air, since it had been getting annoyingly hot and still down where she was working. The ventilation tube let her bind airwisps to circulate the air properly, giving her a nice breeze as she worked, and bringing in the smells of cooking from the kitchen, as well as a few sounds of activity.

Lori had actually been able to tell it was coming on lunch time when the sounds of people coming in and talking had started to increase. She looked at the pile of stone she'd been building up– she'd been making pillars to support the ceiling and keep it from collapsing– and decided to leave it here until after lunch. The game board was still where she'd left, and she carefully picked it up to carry it upstairs.

Rian found her counting the stones, dividing them into two piles. "Don't tell me you managed to play someone to a draw? Did you actually talk to someone?"

"Of course not," Lori said, setting one pile of stones aside. "Show me how the version with only half the stones is played."

"I've created an abomination," Rian muttered. "I regret showing you this game."

She rolled her eyes at his dramatics. Why did her lord have to be such a useless thespian? "Too late now," she said. "Show me."

"Definitely an abomination," Rian muttered. "I should have just made a pincer board. Only really bored people play pincer." Sighing, he began putting down the stones.

He won the first game, of course. Which was to be expected, Lori was still learning the rules, so it didn't count!

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Adequate Ventilation

It wasn't long before more game boards started appearing on the other tables, cut from scraps of plank. With the building being done on the new houses, there were apparently a lot of scraps to work with. Some were copies of the sunk board, but most were the familiar grids of chatrang, lima, pincer, and even Iskadaliya's Conquest, or simply conquest. The pieces were simple, made of circular bits of wood cut from branches and either marked or lightly burned dark to show opposing sides. Apparently no one had either the skill or time to make the more familiarly shaped pieces Lori was used to seeing.

Soon, she and Rian weren't the only ones playing over breakfast and lunch, and the dining hall was soon filled with half-finished games as people left their games in progress to go do… whatever they were supposed to be doing. Soon it seemed like half the tables had a board of some kind, and people started crowding around certain tables to watch games, eating standing up and forming crowded knots. There was no betting, but only because no one had any beads to bet with. It was not surprised to see a small fruits changing hands after a game chatrang or lima was resolved, and someone had started a list on the wall, counting some of the more prolific players' wins and losses, and at what games.

Lori would have told them to be quiet so she could go to sleep peacefully, but more often than not she was there as well, sitting at her table challenging Rian to games of sunk. For some reason, he seemed to grow progressively more bored with each game, even though he still won more than her. Lori put that down to his no doubt years of experience playing this game back when he was a child noble.

She'd managed to finish excavating the new level of the Dungeon by them. It had more than twice the floor area of the current dining hall level, meaning they had room for everyone in the event of a dragon and more besides.

"Huh," Rian said once he'd gone down to see the level when it was finished. "Well, this is nice. Plenty of room for everyone, and we won't need to crowd."

"It's not really finished yet," she said as she bound lightwisps produced by the lightwisps she'd already bound to more thoroughly illuminate the space. "I still need to put in ventilation, latrines, and places to wash and bathe, even if only for a few days. And I was thinking of putting in a second stairway to the dining hall level, to help with circulation."

"Good plan," Rian said. "And while it's not being used for that, we can put some of the mushroom crops down here where they won't be disturbed."

"No," she said firmly, shaking her head at his ignorance. "It's not safe to just have a mushroom farm connected to normal living quarters. The spores make people sick. Any mushroom crops will need to be in a completely different self-contained area, or else the spores will cause lung infections."

"Huh," Rian said, looking surprised. "I didn't know that. How do youknow that?"

"I worked at a mushroom farm, obviously," she said. It had been a terrible job.

"Ah, that makes sense," Rian said. "I suppose we'll have to convert one of the shelters for when the familiar move out, then."

"Not just the shelter," Lori said. "We do need one in the Dungeon, so that we have spore stock if the other one altered into some sort of abomination or destroyed. It just can't be took close or sharing the air with the living quarters. Especially not my living quarters."

"So, what, you're building a third level?" Rian said.

"That was never in question," Lori said. "We need to centralize production facilities like ropemaking and such. I want you to see about having the ropers and weavers set up their machinery here, so that we don't have to move them in the event of a dragon. Anything else we can reasonably move here while still allowing it to be useable as an emergency shelter, at least until I can make a third level and make this level into a permanent production level."

Rian nodded. "Makes sense, I suppose. And it would be much cooler to work in here than outside, provided you set more active air circulation. Though that means we'll need to put someone in charge of maintaining order in the work area. At the very least, someone needs to be in charge of making sure the floors get swept and everyone at least keeps their things in their areas. "

"And make sure the non-kitchen areas of the dining hall is kept clean," Lori said.

"The women who cook are already doing that," Rian said.

"Well, they shouldn't have to," Lori said. "Find someone who's not working and put them to work. Given how late people are staying in the dining hall now because of their games, we need someone who makes sure they go back home to sleep."

"Fine, I'll find a bouncer for our dining hall," Rian said. "You know… when you first decided to come here and start your own demesne…"

"Yes?"

"Did you even think it would feel so much like managing a tavern? We have to worry about food, cleaning, a bouncer…"

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Getting adequate ventilation for the new level was harder than she thought it would be. All the air came through the dining hall, which got all its air from the front entrance and the ventilation holes that she would seal up in the event of a dragon. Adequately ventilating the second level mean either increasing the amount of air passing through the dining hall or creating a new vent to bring air directly into the second level, which meant another place she'd have to seal up in the event of a dragon.

In the end, she went with the first option, opening that second stairway down to the new level and binding airwisps to draw air down one stairway and have air be expelled out the other, creating a constantly moving current of air. It made both levels very windy as a result, and she had to adjust the binding to keep dust from being drawn in through the ventilation holes near the kitchen and getting dirt on the food. It also made the dungeon a bit too cold at night, requiring her to add a binding of firewisps over the vents to heat the air up to a comfortable temperature. Still, she was glad she managed to make an elegant solution.

"Those stairs are a menace," Rian said as soon as she showed him. "I mean, the stairs are breezy enough to potentially push you over. That's just asking for trouble."

Lori created large ventilation slits parallel to the stairs to draw in and expel air, allowing air to circulate without making the stairs themselves too windy to traverse safely. She also added a small ventilation hole to the hallway lead to her rooms, to keep the air fresh.

With that done, she began sectioned off the second level. Walls were raised between support pillars near the wall, creating small rooms that she estimated were large enough for at least one family, to discourage people just setting their things down at any open space and blocking the way. Lori drew out stone to form niches in the wall that resembled the sleeping niches in the huts in River's Fork, to serve as added sleeping space in addition to laying on the floor. She also raised stone benches along the walls to either side, to serve as seating or another place for people to sleep.

"Those look really uncomfortable," Rian said when he said as he was calling her to dinner. "Wouldn't it be better to make the benches from wood? I mean, you can still raise the legs out of stone, and we'll just have our people lay planks over them. They'd be softer light, and at less risk of collapse. That would be much less work on your part."

At which point she put him in charge of organizing the workers who'd be putting down the wooden fittings to make the benches and sleeping niches after she raised up the stone supports to lay them on.

"Speaking of which," she said over dinner, "I thought you were building a boat to go to Covehold Demesne for supplies? What happened to that?"

"It's a reduced priority," Rian said, reaching to the game board and starting his turn. "With all the wood we need right now for planks, it's a bit wasteful to make a boat by hollowing out a whole tree, especially since we need every bit of wood we can get. Besides, no one has time for it. Everyone, especially the new people, are very motivated to have adequate preparations for the next dragon."

Lori nodded in approval.

"By the way, I won't be able to play with you tomorrow night."

Lori froze. "What," she said flatly.

Rian leaned forward and hissed a barely audible, "I have to fold my laundry."

Lori continued to star flatly at him, unamused.

"Don't look at me like that," he said. "I really do need to do it, or else it'll drive me insane. Look, how about I arrange for someone to play with you in my place?"

She kept giving him a flat stare, then let out a huff. "Fine," she said reluctantly. "As long as I don't have to talk to them, and they understand I get the first turn."

"Conversation will be purely optional on your part," Rian assured her.

Lori grunted. "They'd better know the rules at least. I'm not explaining it to them."

"I'll be sure to find someone who fits your very special needs," Rian said. He finished his move, adding stones to his bowl. "Your turn."

Lori was already regretting this.

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The next day, Lori continued on with the development of the second level, dragging in excavated stone and using that to raise walls along the edges of the room to partition them into alcoves. It was tempting to also raise the stone supports for the benches and eventual sleeping bunks, but that would be too consuming. For that day, she focused on the larger-scale works. The walls were simple and could be done quickly, and so she did.

When dinner arrived, Rian quickly came with food, walking away as soon as she picked a bowl. She watched him go, annoyed and resolved to chase him down if the replacement he'd chosen was insufficient.

"Wiz Lori?" a child's voice said. "Lord Rian says you need someone to play with?"

She turned. It was the brat.

Lori hadn't actual seen her in a long time. It had mostly been in passing or at a distance, since she ate with people who Lori presumed was her family. The girl had filled out in the past few month, though she was no longer plump. Instead, she seemed to have acquired solid, lean muscles, and her skin had taken on a dark, tanned shade. With her sun bleached orange hair, she looked like a piece of kindling someone had lit on fire. She was holding a bowl full of stew for herself.

"Do you know how to play sunk?" Lori asked, getting right to her purpose, her stew half-eaten next to her..

The brat nodded. "I watched you and Lord Rian play," she said. "And Lord Rian made sure to tell me the rules."

Lori gestured across from her. "Show me then," she said, taking another spoonful of dinner as she waited for the brat to round the table. She watched as the brat put the stones into the bowls—Rian had apparently taught her the 49-stone version, since that was the one they'd been playing lately– then waited for Lori expectantly when she finished.

"You move first Karina, I'm still eating," she said, waving a negligent hand.

The brat immediately reached into a bowl, taking all the stone and dropping them all turnwise around the board.

"You realize that's the most predictable opening move of all, right?" Lori said as the brat finished her turn, setting aside her spoon and reaching for one of the bowls to make her move…

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House Envy

Lolilyuri studiously ignored Rian as she considered her next move, the game before her taking up all her attention. This time she would be victorious!

"So, has she won against you yet?" Rian asked her opponent.

The brat shook her head, eating lunch from her bowl. She sat patiently as Lori studied the board, considering every possibility.

Finally, Rian sighed. "Lori, it's sunk, not chatrang. You literally have only one bowl left. Just make your move so you can call the game? Karina has work she needs to get back to."

Lori kept ignoring him. If he didn't want to play with her, then fine.

However, she graciously played her last move, taking the remaining stone and dropped it into her bowl at the end of the board.

"Congratulations Karina, you've won," Rian said.

"Thank you for the fun game, Wiz Lori," the brat said, giving her the same victorious smile she had before. Did she have to be so smug about it?

"Another game," Lori demanded.

"Lori, she needs to go to work," Rian said. The brat nodded. "And you need to finish eating, and then go to work." He pointed at her bowl, still half-full.

"Fine." Lori did not pout, sullenly or otherwise. She began to eat her food like a mature, responsible adult should to keep their strength up. "Off with you then."

"Thank you, Wiz Lori. See you later," the brat said with a bow, turning to go back to killing and letting them eat every seel in the river.

Rian began resetting the board. "I'll play one game with you, if you want," he said.

"Oh, are you finally playing with me now?" she said.

"I told you, I had something to take care of," he said. "Also, we might have a problem."

She paused in her eating. "Might have a problem?" she repeated. That was new.

"It's definitely problematic, but I'm not sure it counts as an outright problem just yet," he said. "If it's the latter, it needs to be dealt with, and if it's the former, I'd rather keep it from becoming the latter. Less trouble that way."

"I'll be the judge of that." Lori said, looking down at her stew, deciding it was a bit too cold, and binding the firewisps in it to start increasing its temperature slowly. "What's the problematic?"

"All right, you know the new houses?"

"The ones I made, yes. I know them, shocking as it may be," she said flatly.

"You're really that mad at me for missing one round of games?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. What about the houses?"

"All right… so, we told the militia people that the new houses are for them, they just have to finish the roof," Rian began.

"How is that a problem?"

"That's not the problem, this is just context," Rian said. "So, since they're building the houses for themselves, they decided they could do better than just putting on roofs. So they decided to give each house a loft space and a roof deck."

Lori considered that and nodded approvingly. "An excellent idea. Good use of space. I wish I'd thought of it."

"You and everyone else who already had a house," Rian said. "Some of the ones who already have houses are growing resentful that they don't have a loft and roof deck balcony, just four walls and a roof. I know there's been at least one fight about it, and I've had some people come to me asking to be moved to the new houses when they're finished, because the houses are nicer and they have 'seniority'. They didn't seem to like the answer I gave them. They might eventually try talking to you about it, when they work up the nerve."

"Ah," Lori said, seeing what was so problematic about the situation. "Yes, it would be a problem if I had people trying to talk to me."

"…" Rian '…'-ed. "Sure. Also, this might give rise to feelings of inequality, leading to unrest."

"Why?" Lori said. "Inequality is a given."

"Yes, but no one likes when it's pointed out, especially if they're on the lesser half of the inequality in one way or another," Rian said.

Lori supposed he had a point there. She certainly hadn't liked being regarded as merely being equal to others. It was why she'd bound a Dungeon, after all. "Well, this is a 'dealing with people' problem, so you go solve it so I don't have to level all the houses and make everyone equal by having them live in the shelters again."

"You won't like how I want to solve it," Rian said.

"Undoubtedly. It has to do with dealing with people, after all," Lori said. She checked her bowl. Just the right level of warmth. "But it will be you doing it, not me, so I don't care." She took a spoonful and ate.

Rian nodded. "You want to make the first move or should I?"

Her hand instantly snapped up to take all the stones in a bowl and began dropping them spinwise.

Rian smiled and nodded.

It wasn't until much later that she realized he'd never told her how he wanted to solve the problem. By then, it was too late.

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When the brat came to Lori as the dining hall was filling up for dinner– she'd already given the big seel the girl had left her to the kitchen to be added to breakfast tomorrow– Lori started setting the sunk board, half-resigned to hearing that Rian still needed to do his laundry.

"Wiz Lori, I'm supposed to ask you about what's being done about uppity new comers who think they're better than those who settled here first and sweated to build Lorian to what it is now," the brat said.

Lori blinked. "What?"

"I'm supposed to ask you about what's being done about uppity new comers who think they're better than those who settled here first and sweated to build Lorian to what it is now," the brat dutifully repeated.

"Why are you supposed to ask me?" Lori asked.

"Someone asked me to," the brat said. "I was going to go back to work after our game, but these people stopped me and told me I had to tell you that." She paused thoughtfully. "They said a bunch more things they wanted me to tell you, but I can't remember them, they were all too complicated, and I was in a hurry to get back to work."

"I see," Lori said. "Can you see these people now?"

The brat looked around carefully at the other tables. "Yes," she said.

Lori nodded. "Play with me while we wait for Rian," she said, setting the board.

They were halfway through the game– at least, around half of the stones had been claimed by one or the other– when Rian finally came. He looked at the brat and gave her a smile.  "Hey, Karina," he said. "Playing with Lori again?"

The brat nodded. "We were waiting for you," she said.

"Oh?" he said. "What for?"

"Karina," Lori said, "could you go and take Rian to all the people who told you to ask me about uppity newcomers?"

Seemingly between one blink and the next, Rian's pleasant smile was gone replaced by a narrow-eyed, sharp look. "Oh?" he said, and for once Lori felt she understood her lord perfectly: he was very annoyed.

"Apparently there are cowards who lack the courage to approach me themselves," Lori said. "Please explain to them, and any who might be listening, that trying to get children to do their work for them is… ill-advised. The children are much too busy contributing to my demesne to waste time on such nonsense. If the children felt as they do, they would likely approach me themselves."

The brat frowned. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No Karina, you did nothing wrong," Rian was quick to reassure her. "Some people are just too lazy to do their own work, and tried to get you to do it for them when you already had something else you had to do. Why don't we do as Lori asks and you take me to these people so I can talk to them? Please?"

The brat nodded amiably, though she still looked confused. As she led Rian away, Lori looked at their half-completed game.

She'd forgotten whose turn it was.

Grimacing in annoyance, she reset the board, putting the stones back into the starting position.

As she was finishing putting the stones back into position, there was a change of tone in the buzz of conversation. A touch of curiosity entered the sound, slowly turning into confusion. The buzz became a murmur as people eased off on what they were saying to watch curiously. They never quite stopped talking, but there was a reduction as people watched rather than speak.

Lori glanced up. Rian was talking to a man and a woman, the brat at his side. They had stood from their table, and seemed to be protesting, and Rian was just talking over them, as lords do, no doubt– well, hopefully– putting the fools in their place. Some other people were throwing dissatisfied looks at Rian's back, no doubt people he'd already talked to.

Eventually the two sat down, looking sullen and Rian moved away for a few paces before kneeling down to speak to the brat, who nodded. Rian nodded back, and the brat walked towards who Lori presumed was her family, who'd been looking towards her curiously.

Rian stood and looked around, seeing he had everyone's attention. "All right," he said in a loud, carrying voice, helped some by the acoustics of the dining hall. "I know we've had some changes over the last month or so, and it's about time we addressed them. So tomorrow, after breakfast, we're holding another community meeting, right here in the dining hall. That way we can resolve this matter before someone does something stupid." He paused. "Even more stupid, I mean. From where I'm standing, it's stupid already. So, tonight, we're all going to have dinner, have our friendly games, then go home and get a good night's sleep, so we're all fresh and ready for tomorrow. I'll hear your grievances out then, in public and in front of everyone, and settle this matter once and for all."

He paused, looking around them room. Lori did so as well. Many people looked surprised, as if knocked out of a happy, carefree complacency by something they didn't even know was the matter. Others looked resigned, as if something they'd been expecting had finally happened. A few… a few looked strangely, viciously eager, as if they were getting something they wanted.

Surprisingly, the brat raised a hand, then waved it around to get attention.

"Yes, Karina?" Rian asked.

The brat stood, as if to be seen. "Lord Rian, do we have to go too?" the brat asked, gesturing at herself, a bunch of younger children around her, and somehow including all the other children in the dining hall in the gesture.

Before Rian could respond, Lori cut in. "Yes," she said, her word magnified by airwisps to be heard by everyone.

The brat nodded and sat down.

"Well," Rian said, clapping his hands together as if in emphasis. "You heard Binder Lori. Everyone be here after breakfast so we can talk out any problems we're having like mature, reasonable adults."

"And if you can't, you can go live in River's Fork," Lori added. "Be someone else's problem." Everyone heard that too.

"Well, that's all for tonight, everyone," Rian said hastily. "Let's all have our dinner in peace and think of what we're going to say tomorrow. No swearing, there will be children present. Anyone who violates that rule gets automatic latrine duty for a blue month."

With that, Rian turned and headed for the food line, and only had to wait a moment for the first of the food to be presented to him. He came back holding the two bowls, putting them down on the table for Lori to choose.

"A community meeting?" she said with distaste.

Rian shrugged, taking the other bowl for himself. "We had to do it again sometime."

Lori thought the exact opposite, but it wasn't her problem. Instead, she reached towards a bowl full of stones and started her turn. "Well, have fun," Lori said dismissively.

"Why do you say it like that?" Rian said.

"I'm obviously not going," Lori said. "I have better things to do, like make a mushroom farm or build an aqueduct."

"If you're not there, I'm going to have people solve this by holding a vote," Rian said languidly. "Possibly several. There's no way of knowing how many things we need to make a decision on."

Lori stared at him, aghast.

"So, should I expect you there?" Rian said brightly.

"You and your bizarre fetish," Lori said. "Fine, I'll be there. Ugh."

Rian nodded serenely. "So… I know why you'll be there," he said. "Going to stop me from going against the natural order of might making right… but why did you say the children had to be there? I'd have thought one more group of people whose opinions you don't care about wouldn't matter."

"They've been working hard almost every day for months to provide us with food," Lori said. "That deserves to be recognized."

"We've all been working hard," Rian pointed out.

"Yes," Lori agreed. "We've all been working. That includes the children. They have as much right to have their complaints be ignored as anyone else."

"Do you haveto put it that way?" Rian sighed, even as he chuckled despite himself.