Weekly Digest 20 - (#60 - #62) (Patreon)

Priorities in Construction

The next day, Lori began excavating the mushroom farm.

She seemed to be doing a lot of excavating lately. Which, in hindsight, should have been obvious– most dungeon's, with rare exceptions like Treeshade Demesne and Skykeep Demesne, were underground– but she hadn't realized she'd be doing all the actual digging. Shouldn't she have minions and underlings doing this for her, sworn vassals who bowed to her will and used their Whispering to– oh.

Rainbows.

Had her ancient predecessors, the ones so far back in time their biographies hadn't survived and they were only known by fragmented stories that were as much inaccurate misconceptions about magic and stupid wish fulfillment, have to do this too? Had they needed to dig out all the dirt because they hadn't yet gotten any of the other magics to work, and couldn't afford to have another wizard anywhere near them?

Why had they not had the decency to write down something to warn future generations seeking the might and power of a Dungeon Binder that starting your own Dungeon was all drudgery and construction work? That was really inconsiderate of them! How dare they inconvenience her so!

She grumbled about incomplete historical records as she walked around to the cliff face, passing the bone pit, the pile of rocks over her frozen corpses, and the new hillock where she'd frozen and buried the shell and bones of her islandshell for some nebulous future use. Lori turned, looking around. With a lot of the trees cut down and no longer obscuring lines of sight, she realized what had once been an out of the way corner of the woods wasn't really all that far from everyone.

Well, at least it wouldn't be a long walk of all the people who would need to tend the mushrooms they wanted to grow. And it was close enough to her own dungeon that she could connect to it in an emergency.

Excavating was easy in this instance. It was just a simple cave, so she only had to soften the rock and have it pull itself out, though she had to use the crumbling outside into a single piece first.

It was a quick and lazy build, by her new standard. No attempts at structural integrity beyond a vague curved to the tunnel going inward three paces before she opened it up to a low, cramped seeming space that made her vaguely nostalgic for her old, one room dungeon. It was never noisy and exactly as she liked it, and she didn't have lightwisps shining at all hours, since the only light she needed was her core…

The intended mushroom farm was bigger than that single room, of course. She had, unfortunately, needed to personally inspect just how many rotting pieces of wood had edible fungus growing on them to get a sense of how much space they'd need, which had taken half the morning. She was mildly annoyed to see some of them were being grown on the rook planks themselves, in the shadowed side away from the sun. Rian better set them straight on how that was notstructurally sound, like she'd told him too, before he went back to whatever thing he was doing at the carpenter's shed next to the sawpits.

He better not get a splinter stuck in him and get infected. She wasn't sure they still had any antiseptics left, unless someone finally managed to get the right dustlife cultured so they could ferment alcohol. If he inconvenienced her by falling sick and not being able to deal with people for her, she'd demote him back to probationary lord and promote a child in his place!

Grumbling to herself, Lori finished pulling out the last of the rock. It was a long room, five paces by ten, and she'd put a single pillar in the middle for safety's sake, but it was cold and, with the binding's she'd put in, hopefully damp enough to grow fungus. Dark and damp was always a safe bet with fungus, though not always. She'd made sure that the entrance was always angled towards the sun, so that there'd be indirect illumination in the cave, but that as it.

She left a pile of rock next to the entrance for sealing it in the event of a dragon and dragged the rest down next to the river, where she stood for a moment, contemplating the flowing body of water before her. Then she turned and regarded the small settlement behind her.

Actually, with the roofed houses in place, it could actually be called a small village now, with its population of over a two hundred people (Rian probably had the exact number somewhere). The main road of packed earth she'd taken a moment to compress firmly first thing that morning, the houses on either side, the large building that was the dining hall upslope at the end of the road, and the row of houses going up behind it after the road took a detour to continue on. Already a few seemed near completion, and she could almost understand the envy some people had been having. The houses did look fairly nice, with a tall, townhouse look she recalled from some of the older neighborhoods back in Taniar Demesne, the ones preserved for their 'architecture' and 'atmosphere' and used as tourist bait.

Come to think of it, those houses also had stone, Whisper-worked walls…

Shaking her head lest she fall into a contemplation of urban architectural history, she turned back toward the water. with the way the community curved, it would be most efficient if she made an aqueduct that brought water to the top of the current arrangement of living communities, near the houses currently being constructed, and then have it all flow down from there to the rest. Efficient, but…

Lori glanced at the pile of excavated rock near her dungeon.

…but probably not very doable or very secure. The base would need to be wide for stability, and would in totality result in her using up more rock than all building projects to date combined. One the other hand, a series of low, staggered aqueducts would require very little stone, but she would need to for more bindings of waterwisps, since each new aqueduct would need water to be brought up to the top of it.

The simplest way of doing it was to simply cut a canal running alongside the main road and bind waterwisps to make the water go up against the orientation of weight… but no, that was just asking for people to throw things into the water, or even to piss in it. because of course people would do that. They wouldn't be able to help themselves. So that option was completely ruled out. Even if they covered the water and made it a pipe, it was just asking for a seel to swim into the tube and get stuck.

Lori knew what she wanted to do, for all she had complained when Rian had first proposed it. Built correctly, it was a smart, elegant solution, which would require little energy investment beyond occasional maintenance once she had it set up, and which she'd thought of all by herself!

It wasn't what she needed to now, which was the doable, present solution that was would need a lot of upkeep and could easily be interfered with but was better than literally nothing, and which they needed now for water and to keep the latrines from being so smelly.

When she'd been growing up, she'd heard her mothers complaining over breakfast and dinner about this and that public works projects, spearheaded by the command of the Dungeon Binder or this or that district lord or lady, and how they projects were always insufficient to solve the problems they claimed to be solving, as if someone had made off with half the budget to go gambling or something. A nigh-impossibility, since Taniar Demesne relied on having the most secure finance and banking facilities in the known world, where every bead of money was accounted for, so the project's budget must have been underfunded right from conception.

Looking at the solution she would out of necessity have to implement, Lori could already hear her mothers talking about it over breakfast, shaking their heads and complaining about the inadequacy of government infrastructure projects.

Still, she assured herself it would only be a temporary solution. Once she had expanded the Lori's Demesne and gotten more raw material, she'd build the aqueduct she actually wanted to build and they could finally do away with this awkward, multi-leveled thing.

She nodded to herself, and began feeling for the earthwisps in the river, feeling for the bedrock so she could build on it…

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"Oh no. I know that look," Rian said as she sat down.

"What look?" she said irritably.

He pointed. "That look, the one you have on your face? The one of restrained self-loathing that says you had to compromise your morals and you hate yourself for it. What happened?"

She glared at him. "I do not have a look of self-loathing on my face."

"No, I'm pretty sure that's self-loathing, possibility disgust. Maybe disappointment, though that might be pushing it," Rian said thoughtfully. "What did you do, and do I need to worry about it?"

"Nothing," she snapped. "I've been working, like I've been doing every day since we settled here. Did you talk to those people about caring for their roofs?"

"Yes, they're been told how that’s bad for their roof," Rian said. "In their defense, they hadn't checked, and were quick to clean it off when it was pointed out."

"Good," Lori said, nodding sharply. Absently, she began to set up her game board.

"So, what did you do?" Rian asked.

She glared at him and flicked one of the stones, bouncing it off his forehead.

"Ow," Rian said flatly. "The violence inherent in the system returns. Fine. Don't tell me. Uh, it doesn't involve you finally snapping and killing someone, does it?"

She glared at him. "No, I didn't kill anyone," she said curtly. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, we're in the middle of nowhere," Rian said brightly. "I was told that's where people become inclined to snap and murder people they don't like."

Lori rolled her eyes. "This isn't the middle of nowhere," she said. "This is my demesne. There are laws."

Rian opened his mouth, paused, closed it, opened it again, and stared at her.

"What?" she asked.

"You still think of this place as Lori's Demesne, don't you?" he said in the tones of someone coming to some great revelation.

Of course. That's what it was. "Don't be silly," she said, waving a hand as if wiping away his foolishness. "You chose a name, so it's your fault this place is called Lorian now. Besides, a name is mostly pointless. The only other people who know this place exists and need to refer to it by a name are those in River's Fork."

"Shana's Demesne," Rian said.

"Shanalorre's Demesne," Lori corrected with a nod. "Yes, exactly." He was smiling. Why was he smiling? "Is the food ready yet?"

He glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen. "In a little bit, I think." He turned back to her as she finished setting the board, reaching across the table for the stone she'd thrown at him. "Not that I don't enjoy playing with you, but we really need a new game."

"I like this one," she said, making her move.

"Let me guess: you were never any good at chatrang and lima, and pincer is a too simple for you," he said, waiting her to finish.

"I'm just fine at chatrang and lima," she said loftily, refusing to admit she'd almost never won at either. "I am simply unable to find a player at my level."

"Because that would involve talking to people and asking them to play."

"Exactly."

Rian nodded as she finished, reaching over to make his move. "Well, I've only ever seen it played. I don't really know the rules myself. If I get a board and pieces made, can you teach me?"

She restrained the urge to smile in eager, predatory anticipation. "I suppose," she said aloofly. "It's not like we have anything else to do. Really, what other way do we have of passing time?"

"More work?" Rian suggested.

She twitched. "Let's teach you chatrang," she said. "Once you have a board."

"I'll see what I can do," he said, glancing back to the kitchen. Apparently it wasn't ready yet, since he turned back to the game. "By the way, I saw the aqueduct. Looking good. I like the arches, for letting people walk under it, very nice. Though maybe we should find some colorful rocks, this place is looking a little monochromatic in regard to building materials. Do you mind if we put benches under it? Seems like a good place to sit in the heat of the day."

Lori twitched, and tried to concentrate on her game.

"There it is again!" Rian said. "There's that look!"

"You're imagining things," Lori said flatly.

"But–"

"Shut up and play the game, Rian."

Stupid, inelegant, shoddy aqueduct.

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The Map

Lori tried to make the best of things while she built the shoddy, stupid, inelegant, awkward aqueduct that future generations will probably hate or use for tourism purposes, and will be equally inconvenient in either case. It was simply enough, in regards to construction. The stone pillar in the river was anchored to the bedrock, and had a hollow tube where waterwisps drew water up to the aqueduct, with bars made of stone to keep at least seels from getting in. Once drawn to the top, the water flowed down a wide, deep stone channel. Half the water fell into a stone basin people could collect water from, situated next to the still-occupied shelters. The rest when up another pipe in another stone pillar, and would flow along another channel to its destination, next to the outside dining hall.

Building it, contrary to her expectations, had been the easy part. After all these months, using magic to make structures from earthwisps was literally routine. It was the water flow that was giving her problems. Without any sort of accurately calibrated measuring equipment, she could only make rough estimates, but it was clear that the further down the chain of aqueducts and basins she went, the longer it took for the basin to fill. The day after she finished the rainbowed aqueduct, she had to do a lot of climbing back and forth from the river to the topmost basin to compare the rates the basins filled as she adjusted the bindings on the waterwisps.

Weren't Binders supposed to be able to see and perceive all that happened in their demesne? Why couldn't she do that? Actually, now that she thought about it, how was that supposed to work, anyway?

She still wasn't completely satisfied with the flow rates she managed to get, but the last basin, the one near the homes still being finished– she had to admit, the former residents of River's Fork worked very quickly– at least filled at a rate that was reasonable. The flow was constant, since it was the best way to keep the water fresh, meaning she had to rig up a means of letting the excess flow out without having the ground turn to mud.

And so she had to make a poor mockery of her elegant, top-flowing aqueduct idea and make a series of drainage channels. The ones above the fields with all the wild vegetables and crops they planted she directed to a cistern for irrigation. Lori put in a big sign warning that the water was dirty and should be for irrigating only, not drinking, but it would not surprise her if people didn't bother to read it. She warned the doctors– well, she had Rian warn the doctors– to be ready for a sudden rush of indigestion and other digestives problems from people being stupid enough to drink tainted water.

The ones from the basins lower than the fields, she just made a straight channel back into the water, with a sign warning the water had been used and was not for drinking. Perhaps in future they could put a water wheel on it, once they had enough leeway to build other things.

"I hate water," Lori groaned as she lay with her face on the table, her hat next to her. She'd remembered to bring it with her this time, and it had been a big help with the sun so hot. "I never want to have to work with it again."

"Do you want me to get your pillow or something?" Rian said. "I've always thought that lying on that must be uncomfortable."

It would not be the first uncomfortable thing she'd had to make do with. Lori considered letting him go up into her room to get her pillow.

"I'm fine," she said instead.

"You know, every time you do this, you end up with the wood grain stamped onto your face," Rian said conversationally.

For a moment, Lori lay still. Then she blearily raised up her head and felt at her face.

"It's on the end of your nose too," Rian said with a bright, helpful smile that was probably mocking her on the inside.

Lori glared at him, pulled her hat, laid it down in front of her, and put her face down again.

"Good idea," Rian said. "I could use a break from playing against you."

"You're not getting a break," Lori said. "I'm merely taking this time to refine my strategy."

"Take all the time you need," Rian said. "Actually, that's something I wanted to talk to you about. When was the last time you had a rest?"

For a moment, she just lay there. Then she reluctantly turned her head so she can aim one eye at him. "I take a rest every night Rian," she said blandly. "It's called 'sleeping'. Everyone does it."

"Hmm…" Rian 'hmm'-ed. "Lori, I think you need a day off."

She wasn't going to be allowed to just wallow in her tiredness the way she wanted, was she? Sighing tiredly, she raised her head, laying her elbows on the table to support herself. "A day off what?"

"A day off work," Rian said. "I think tomorrow you should stay in bed, sleep until noon, and when you finally do come down you need to just eat and then do absolutely nothing else but resting. Or at least, do literally anything but productive work."

"That sounds like an unproductive waste of time," she said. "I still need to finish the next level of the Dungeon, get a water reservoir up and running, begin excavating for an in-Dungeon farm… besides, my bed is not nearly comfortable enough to make sleeping until noon enjoyable."

"Well, all right, if you can't sleep until noon, than do something different again," he said. "Go seeling with the children, climb the hill– actually, have even climbed the hill on top of the Dungeon?– or just walk around and see the place. Anything but work. You need the variety. It'll be good for you."

"I can't afford to rest," Lori said. "There's too much work to be done."

"Lori, you're the Dungeon Binder," Rian said. "If ANYONE needs to rest when they're feeling tired, it's you. No one wants you to get sick, after all." He gestured vaguely around them. "It's not like anyone can say you don't work, so rest when you need to. A little rest won't have the demesne collapsing into chaos and murder, and if there's a dragon tomorrow… well, the dragon would have shown up whether you planned to work or not."

Lori allowed herself to entertain the thought. Just… not working tomorrow. Sleeping until noon, as she had resolved to do all those months ago.

"There's too much to do," she repeated.

Rian gave her a flat look. "Okay, how about this," he said. "The scouts finally finished transcribing the map of the demesne onto something bigger. Why don't you take the map and take a walk around the demesne to check it for accuracy before we make it official? After all, you'll probably want to check the map is correct and they didn't decide to hide a vein of iron ore so they can stake a claim on it later. It's work, but it'll be slow and not too intensive. Just you walking around with a map checking that everything is where it's supposed to be. You can even take the boat and see if the land on the other side of the river is accurate."

Lori frowned. "We have a map?"

"We have the best map currently possible," Rian said. "Some of the people who used to be in the militia were scouts, and learned how to draw good maps. I asked around, found out who made the best maps, and sent them to survey the demesne on both sides of the river. I mentioned it during the community meeting. Weren't you– no, of course you weren't."

"If you were telling other people and not just me specifically, it couldn't have been that important," Lori said. "If it were actually important, I'd have been the first to be told."

"I want to say the world doesn't revolve around you," Rian said, "except you're Binder, so it kind of does…"

Lori smiled. "Obviously," she preened. Then she frowned. "Why didn't you inform me there was a map sooner?"

"Because I literally just found out today," Rian said with a shrug. "This was the first opportunity I had to tell you. I'd have told you sooner, but you were acting depressed and moping on the table, so I had to make sure you hadn't worked yourself until you got sick first. Anyway, with the map done, it's only a matter of time before someone asks to scouts to show them their draft copies, and then we'll have people asking about owning land again. I told them to keep the map secret, but…" he shrugged. "Well, I'm resigned to it getting out eventually. After all, we have so little entertainment this will actually be something people will talk about, for lack of anything else."

He reached down beside him and brought out a large roll of thin leather. It had the look of seel leather, since it didn't have any of beast leather's distinctive bumps.

"Your Bindership, I bring you one map of your demesne," Rian said, putting the roll in front of her. It had been secured with a long leather thong. "Lori's Map, since I knew you were going to call it that anyway."

He was learning.

"Also, I think it's best you keep this, since I still sleep in the shelter," Rian said. "I don't think anyone would actually steal it, but I'd rather not leave it lying around."

She picked up the roll, hefting it. "Have you seen it?"

He nodded. "Cassan was willing to let us use some of his ink, and they used that to draw it, at least when it came to the major physical features they probably wouldn't need to alter, though the scouts drafted it in charcoal first, with his help. Elceena made Cassan bring a lot of ink with him before leaving Covehold. I suppose she was really looking forward to being a Binder."

Lori frowned. "Who?"

She watched as Rian's head dropped to the table like a toy cut from its string, no doubt imprinting the food grain to his forehead as he let out a groan. "The female corpse you have on ice," he said, still face down.

Lori blinked. "Oh. Was that her name?"

"Yes."

Well, she was dead, so no point remembering it. "Well, if it needs to be done… I suppose I can check its accuracy tomorrow."

"Do you want me to find someone to accompany you?" Rian said. "I think we found all the beast eggs that were in the demesne, but better to be sure, and there still might be an abomination or something hiding in the underbrush. Or even just bugs. Bug stingers are nasty. "

Lori considered that. "Very well," she said. "Not Landoor."

"You remember his name?" Rian looked surprised.

"He was too stupid to forget," Lori said. She put aside the map and began setting the sunk board on the table. "Is dinner ready yet?"

Rian was looking at the board and sighing. "Don't you want to refine your strategy a little more?"

"Go get dinner, Rian," she said.

"I really need to get you a different game," Rian muttered as he stood up. "Or a toy of some kind…"

He was muttering to himself as he joined the line for food– Rian never stood long, sine everyone knew who he was and who he was getting food for, but he always insisted in getting in line for some reason– as Lori finished setting up the board, idly looking forward to unrolling the map and seeing it herself once she was back in her room.

Rian came back with the food and let her choose which one she wanted as he considered the board, where she had already made her move. "By the way," he said, "I saw the aqueducts. They looked great."

"I suppose," Lori muttered, filling herself with stew so she wouldn't have to be filled with resentment at such a terrible design.

"I know you'll be busy resting and confirming the map tomorrow," Rian said, taking the stones form a bowl and making his move, "but what are your plans to finish it?"

She glanced at him, frowning. "What do you mean? It IS finished."

"Oh. I thought you were going to find a use for that spent water beyond just draining it away," Rian said. "Like a communal laundry area."

Lori paused. "What?"

"A communal laundry area," Rian repeated, putting down the last stone into a bowl. "You know, to take advantage of all that water that might not be drinkable but is still pretty clean. Don't you have people taking laundry into the women's baths to clean them?"

"I have my own bathroom," Lori said.

"Ah. Silly me, I should have realized you'd do that to minimize your contact with people."

"Yes, you should have," Lori said.

Rian sighed. "I'm probably a terrible person for suggesting this immediately after I just told you to take a rest, but would you consider having all that water drain into a cistern for people to specifically wash their clothes? Otherwise I can already see people washing at the basins, and while they'll clear up because of the constant flow, it'll make them undrinkable while it's happening."

"I suppose that would be as good a use for the water as anything else," Lori considered. "A dedicated wash area for clothes and…"

They both glanced down at their stew bowls.

"You know, we never really ask if–" Rian began.

"Don't. Let's not think about it while we're eating," Lori commanded.

Rian nodded.

They ate and tried not to think about it.

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The Laundry Area

Lori had decided to take her lord's advice. Both pieces of it, really, but one after the other. First, she'd build a dedicated laundry area that would use the runoff water, since she could always build something for a water wheel later. Then, tomorrow, she'd go check the accuracy of the new map, which was now securely locked in her room.

So, after a good, hearty breakfast– actual amount of beast or seel heart in the stew unknown– she'd grabbed her stone-shaping tool, bound some of the stone next to the Dungeon's entrance to follow her, and gone off towards the end of the runoff channel to start building a laundry area.

The first thing she had to do was build a whole new runoff aqueduct a little bit further downriver and redirect the runoff to pass through that instead. Now that it would be an area that people were meant to occupy, there were new design considerations. The old runoff was too close to the claypit. While she could have built the laundry area on the side away from the claypit, that was the sunny side, and if she had to be outside to do her laundry, she'd want to be under some shade. Short of trying to move a tree, the best she could provide was the shade of the aqueduct itself.

So, she moved the aqueduct a little further down to people could sit under it for shade, then used the stone to start building a cistern to hold the runoff. It was a long, wide trough of stone that would fill from the runoff, and when it was overfull the water would then fall into one last runoff channel to take it to the river.

Lori found herself nodding in satisfaction as she finished it. Then she stood there awkwardly, staring at it. She imagined herself doing her laundry here.

No, it wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all. She used more of the stone to pave the area around the cistern for about a pace, cutting little lines so that the water would drain away and keep from being slippery, using the edge of her stone tool to put in a slightly rough texture on the rock to give people traction.

She looked down at the ground. She looked at the cistern. She knelt down and imagined herself doing her laundry. She mimed taking imaginary clothes and laying them down on the ground, then hitting them with an imaginary rock…

Lori didn't even finish miming before the texture she'd cut into the stone started making her shins hurt. Grimacing, she stood, softened the stone, and smoothed it out. She knelt down again. Better, but now people were more likely to slip, which could lead to injury, which would lead to lowered productivity…

She eyed the cistern. From where she was kneeling, it was too high and too far away…

Lori cut down the cistern's size to be only a third as tall so it would be more accessible to people kneeling on the ground, then changed the design to make it deliberately overflow down to lower basins deep enough to soak a lot of clothes at the same time.  From there, the water would finally fall down to a stone gutter that would catch the water and direct it to the river. That way, it was convenient for both people who were kneeling and needed to water to soak clothes and those standing with a bucket of some sort. On consideration, there needed to be more than one cistern, which people could kneel around and get water from while they beat their clothes clean. They'd have to bring their own rocks, but that was their problem.

Maybe she should have just taken the map and gone for a walk after all, this was starting to get irritating.

Using the stone she'd removed by cutting the cistern's size, she built another one, with basins beneath it, paving the area around that as well so people wouldn't have to kneel in mud. She looked around with a frown. Actually, she'd need to pave the whole area, not just the area directly around the cistern, or else the place would still get muddy and inconvenient. While it wasn't her convenience that would be affected, she was disinclined to make a place that would potentially make it easier to track mud into her Dungeon. They had people whose job was to clean the floors now, but the quality of the brooms they could make from twigs and a ropeweed cords wasn't the best, so any mess could be prevented was best prevented.

She twitched. That last thought sounded far too much like one of her mothers scolding her after she'd come back home during a rainy day.

Lori walked up to the cistern and mimed filling a bucket full of water. No, that wouldn't do, now it was too low…

She decided to put a high-sided round under the flow of water from the aqueduct, sized for people just filling up buckets, that would than overflow down to the low cistern for people kneeling and doing laundry. That way, there was a convenient source of water at all heights. She narrowed the cistern too, allowing her to make it longer, making more room for people to do laundry…

Maybe she shouldmove a tree there, it was getting really hot.

No, that can be something for other people to do later. She'd put up some pillars, they could put some kind of roof covering on it.

She finished moving earthwisps and inspected her handiwork. The low cisterns came to just under her knees, which was just accessible enough for someone kneeling down. The low basins were halfway down from the ground, just high enough to be reachable without bending, and the gutter that caught the water to channel it back to the river was below that, a hands-width off the ground.

It all seemed right. She'd use it to do her laundry. All nice and convenient, with a lot of running water…

Not that she would, she had her own bathroom and water source for that. And in her room she didn’t do it while drying out in the sun.

She shrugged and decided it was a job done, and went off to have lunch.

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"I saw the laundry area," Rian said as he came with their lunch. "It looked nice."

"It's going to need a roof," Lori said, picking one of the bowls. She'd already finished her move.

"I'll tell people to be ready to make it," Rian said, delaying his inevitable defeat by having a spoonful of food first and swallowing. "Still, it looks really good."

"Hmm…" Lori 'hmm'-ed as she ate thoughtfully.

"Is something wrong?" Rian asked as he made his move.

"No, nothing's wrong," Lori said.

"Hmm…" Rian said, finishing his move. "Well, could something be better, then?"

Lori blinked. "Be better?"

"Yeah. Something might not be wrong, but it could be better," Rian said. "Like, this stew isn't wrong, but it would be better if there were fewer pieces of blue gourd–"

"Eat your food and be thankful you have any, Lord 'do I deserve the food I'm eating'," Lori said, rolling her eyes.

"Aw, you remember that conversation," Rian said. "Why do you have to bring it up in the context of blue gourd?" But he did eat the blue gourd.

Lori made her move as he made faces, trying to force the gourd through his mouth. Useless thespian.

"So," he said as she dropped stones into the boards bowls. "What's not wrong but could be better? I assume it's the laundry, but it's never safe to assume anything with you."

Lori gave him a level look, then grunted. "I finished the laundry area but I don't know how useable it is. It looks useable, but…"

"It… looks very useable," Rian said.

"And you can tell from your extensive laundry experience, I'm sure."

"Ow," Rian said, miming grabbing something stabbing him in the chest. "Harsh. True, but harsh. Well, if you want to know, ask someone. Someone besides me I mean, despite my extensive laundry experience."

She gave him a level look.

"Yes, that would involve talking to a human being besides me, but do you really want myextensive experience on the subject?"

Lori grunted, looking down at her bowl and taking another spoonful to eat.

"Wow, we're only discussing talking to another human being and you're already acting like you're talking to someone other than me," Rian said. "And Karina, I suppose. Maybe you can ask her? She's probably helped her mother with the laundry, right? I mean, I'm guessing, but it's even odds she's helped with laundry before."

Lori paused, tilting her head thoughtfully. Then she shook her head.

"Okay, not Karina," Rian said. "Who else do you know by name? And who can apparently do laundry, so they can give an assessment of the usability of the laundry area?"

Lori blinked and stared at him. Then she tilted her head.

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It was not the first time Lori had debated ignoring her lord's advice.

Some had been easy to ignore, like his occasional suggestions she indulge in his weird voting fetish, or that she try and remember people's names.

Then there was times like now, where he had given her a usable, serviceable course of action… but she really didn’t want to do it because it was distasteful. On the other hand, the alternative was having something mildly annoy her about the laundry area, but not knowing what. And that would be with her forever every time she saw it, reminding her that she didn't do it right…

So, unfortunately, there was only one thing to do. At least knowing the name would finally be good for something.

As Rian took their bowls back to the kitchen to be washed– to hopefully be washed, and oooh, was that what the area needed, an area for them to wash the dishes?– Lori put away her board by the simple expedient of sinking it into a hollow in the floor under the table, instead of taking back up to her room. If she spent the time to do that, they might be gone and she'd have to look for them, and this was bad enough as it was without her having to waste more time too. She stood up and rounded the table they'd been sitting at, towards the table next to them, the table situated behind Rian. The others at the table saw her coming, of course, and eyed her warily. All but the ones she was there for. Theywere busy watching Rian's backside. By the time they noticed her, she was sitting across from them in the spot where no one ever sat, because it would have blocked their view, and so people had apparently learned to stop sitting there.

For a moment, there was a twinge of uncertainty and annoyance as she tried to remember how her parents had kept telling her she should talk to strangers, how she should be respectful and polite and– but then she remembered she was Binder now, so she didn't have to follow stupid rules made for lesser people.

"You two," she said curtly, making the three of them who'd been staring at her lord jerk in surprise. She ignored the third. Lori wasn't sure she knew how to do laundry. "Yes, you two," she repeated as their gazes fell on her, their eyes going wide. "Umu and Mikon. You two."

"Y-your Bindership!" Umu managed to get out a little before Mikon did, so their words weren't completely synchronized, resulting in an annoying dissonance. "W-what can we do f-for you"/"W-what do you n-need?" Yes, very annoyingly dissonant.

"The two of you know how to wash laundry, correct?" she said, though she was fairly confident they did, and was rewarded with jerky nods. "Excellent. The two of you, come with me."

Amber gold and bright green eyes somehow became even wider. "Y-your Bindership?" Mikon repeated.

"I didn't do anything wrong!" Umu cried. "She did it! She did it, whatever it was!"

Whatever speech and thought impediment they were experiencing, it wasn't enough for Mikon to miss the fact she was being covered in colors as she managed to direct a glare towards the blonde next to her. "Why you–"

Lori gave both of them a withering look, already regretting this. "I didn't say you did anything wrong, I said you two are to come with me." When it looked like they were going to stay where they were, she snapped out, "Now!"

They both jumped, and then got tangled between the bench and the table causing people to slide loudly as they pulled themselves out and got to their feet. People were staring now, but Lori ignored them as she pointed towards the Dungeon's entrance. "Follow me," she said.

Some people– like that really short, really stern teacher she'd once had who could silence a room with sheer sarcastic corrosion even before she resorted to airwisp amplification– could probably have walked on, confidently secure in the certainty that they'd have done what she said with no other prompting. Lori really wanted to be that sort of person… but unfortunately, she wasn't confident these two were smart enough to know they should do that, and so she had to look over her shoulder every so often to make sure that they were, in fact, following her, relying on her sense of the demesne's wisps and the voids people produced to make sure no one ran into her.

It was only when they were all three out of the Dungeon and walking that she finally stopped looking back at them, content to rely on the sense of the void they made to tell her if they tried to run away.

"Y-your Bindership? W-where are we going?" Umu asked.

Lori glanced over her shoulder at the blonde. "We," she said, pointing towards the laundry area, "are going there. I need your…" She almost said opinion, but then remembered they weren't her parents or anyone that mattered. "… assessment of its usability."