Weekly Digest 21 - (#63 - #65) (Patreon)

The Laundry Area, Revised

"This is a laundry area?" Mikon said, looking around and seeming nervous and a bit confused. Her pink hair whipped about in the wind, longer than Lolilyuri thought was sensible, but then not everyone was as reasonable and intelligent as she was. And as soon as she could borrow some scissors again, her hair will reflect her reason and intelligence.

"That is the intention," Lori said. "As among those intended to use it, I need your assessment as it whether it can be used conveniently as is."

Umu straightened at this, her chest protruding even more against her blouse and showing the lines of her wrappings. Her face was set in an indignant expression for some reason. "What, did you just assume we're laundresses even though you don't know us?" she said. Mikon kicked her in the ankle. "Er, your Bindership?"

"No, I know you're laundresses because you keep stealing Rian laundry to wash it," Lori said.

They started in surprise, suddenly looking fearful. Why… oh, they must think she intended to flog them for theft.

"We put it back!" Umu said, confirming her suspicions.

"She did it! It was her idea!" Mikon cried, hiding behind the smaller blonde.

"Why, you treacherous–!"

"Yes, yes, which is why you're not being flogged for theft," Lori said, and the two of them relax slightly. "But that's irrelevant to this discussion." She pointed. "The laundry facilities. What is your assessment? Pretend you're going to use it to wash stolen clothes."

Hesitantly, they looked at what she had made. The water catch, the cisterns, the basins…They walked around them, put their hands on surfaces, watched the way the water was flowing to subsequently lower levels…

"If you say there's nothing wrong, I will be ignoring any future complaints," Lori said. "This is your only chance to point out anything you see as problematic." She wouldn't, but this would prompt them to actually say something if there was anything wrong. She was inclined to think there would be.

"Uh, your Bindership," Mikon said, "how did you expect this place to be used?"

Lori frowned. Shouldn't that be obvious?

"You kneel here to soak the clothes in those basins for scrubbing," she said. "And you can fill up buckets there."

"So… we're supposed to kneel?" Umu said, frowning. "Well, I suppose we can have a table here in the middle later…"

"Why would you want a table?" Lori said.

"Um, so we don't need to kneel while scrubbing, your Bindership," Mikon said. "It's easier if we stand. Hurts less."

Lori twitched as she remembered her most recent day of kneeling in her bathroom with her laundry. "I see," she said, keeping her face neutral. She glanced towards the pile of rock she'd left off to the side as excess building material and imbued the earthwisps in it through her core, binding them to move.

"You mean like—what are the two of you doing there?" she demanded irritably once she looked back at the two woman and saw there were now standing next to the pottery kiln. "Get back over here!"

She built a stone table not unlike the one in her room, and which she had to repeatedly stress to the two idiots with her was not a sacrificial altar. The drainage was strictly for water and not blood!

"I'm not going to sacrifice you," she said in exasperation. "So come here already! Is this table high enough or do you need it higher? Wider? Come on, be useful!"

The two reluctantly stepped closer to the table. "Um, a bit higher, maybe?" Mikon said, laying her hand on its surface briefly, flinching back as if she expected it to burn her. "We'd still have to bend to reach it properly otherwise."

Impassively, Lori raised up the level of the tabletop to about belly height.

"That's… better, I think, you're Bindership," Umu said.

Lori looked at the table, then at the two women. "All right. You two stay there while I do this."

"Um, we really need to go back to our looms…" Mikon said, stepping backwards, back towards the kiln and the other houses.

"Stay," Lori ordered, then got to work.

The second cistern was dismantled for raw materials, the water that had filled it flowing out over the ground before she caught it with waterwisps and remembered to sculpt away the second outlet on the aqueduct above. That done, she raised the level of the remaining cistern again, and gave it extended sides to make it into a table with water in the middle. She added a raised lip to try and keep the water from going over the side, and had the water drain down one end and towards the river.

"That… looks more convenient, your Bindership," Mikon ventured, stepping towards the table and putting her hands on it. she mimed some motions with her hands. "Yes, I can see myself washing here, no problem. Though we'd need somewhere to put the clothes we're not wash and the ones that are done. At the very least, someplace convenient to put the laundry on until it's time to wash it?"

"Maybe a bench?" Umu suggested. "A stone bench people can put things on?"

Lori looked to where she was pointing, at the space off to the side of the washing table/cistern, behind where someone doing laundry would be. It all sudden fell into place in her head. A long table with a cistern of wash water in the middle, the cisterns lightly higher than the level of the table. A drainage gutter between the cistern on the tabletop to channel waste water away. People either side dipping clothes into the water, then scrubbing them on the tabletop, with a lip to prevent the water overflowing and getting their socks wet…

"Er, your Bindership?" Mikon said, pulling Lori out of her thoughts.

"What?" she said.

Mikon jerked back, but seemed to rally. "Er, if it's not too much trouble, perhaps you can turn the table into a washboard as well? To, ah, help with laundry?"

A what?

"A what?" she asked, confused.

"A washboard, your Bindership," Mikon repeated, as if that would help. "It's… for washing clothes."

"Yes, so I gathered from the blatantly obvious name," Lori said. "What is it that I can make the table one and how can it help with the laundry?"

"It’s a wooden board with ridges on it, your Bindership," Umu said. "It helps with scrubbing. You rub it back and forth on the ridges, and it helps get dirt out."

Lori frowned. "Show me."

"Um, I can run back home and get ours…?" Mikon offered.

Lori have her a long look. "Come back quickly," she said.

Mikon ran, hiking up her skirts to do so.

"You," Lori said, pointing at Umu as she stared after the other young woman. She jumped and turned to face Lori. "What else does a laundry area need?"

"Uh…" the blonde said, looking around frantically. "Washing lines! Where are the washing lines?"

What?

"What?" Lori said.

"The washing lines, where you hang clothes on lines to dry in the sun," Umu said, giving Lori a strange look.

Ah. So that's how other people dried their clothes. She just used waterwisps to draw the water out of them.

"I'll have Rian handle that, that's going to need line," Lori said, dismissive. She looked around. She might as well build the bench…

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By the time Mikon returned, there was a stone bench on either side of the long washing table/cistern.

"I'm sorry it took so long your Bindership," Mikon said hurriedly, "I had to tell my mother you called for me. Here's the washboard, your Bindership!"

Lori accepted the proffered piece of wood. It was surprisingly small, only a little bigger than the plank of wood Rian used to write things on. It had a simple frame, with the majority of it consisting of lengths of wood packed together to as to present their edges, forming a wavy, bumpy surface not unlike those wooden shutters they'd had back in the apartment she'd shared with her mothers.

"And… this helps with washing, how?" she asked.

Mikon hesitantly reached for the board, and Lori gave it to her. "You run the clothes across it like this, your Bindership," she said, miming passing something over the bumpy surface, "and that helps get dirt and stains off easier."

"Why not just beat it with a rock?" Lori asked.

"Rocks are heavy," Umu said. "Washing is tiring enough as it is without using rocks too."

Lori twitched slightly at that. "Ah. Of course." She looked at the washboard, then at the table, contemplating how to… "All right," she said, handing the washboard back to Mikon. "You're dismissed. I have work to do." She put them out of her mind as she grabbed some stone and began to shape it into a long, narrow stone slab.

It took some working, but she was eventually able to cut more or less regular wavy teeth into the stone, forming a kind of comb. Carefully, she softened just the top surface of the tabletop around the cistern and swept the teeth of the comb across it. When she was done, there was a pattern of raised lines on the tabletop, the points carefully dulled and curved to prevent injury and breakage.

Lori nodded in satisfaction. Now, she just had to do all the tabletop surfaces… and build a second wash table/cistern… and more benches… and pack down the ground to keep it from being muddy and prevent undergrowth…

She really should have just grabbed the map and verified its accuracy.

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She lay face-down on the table and groaned.

"I thought that may be the case," Rian said, "so I came prepared!"

She heard a bowl being set down in front of her, and reluctantly raised her head. Then she blinked and stared.

"A little tax payer was kind enough to help me get some happy fruit," Rian said, sounding smug and self-satisfied for some reason. "I peeled, mashed it, then put it in a bowl and put that bowl in the cold room for storing meat."

"So… you made frozen happyfruit mush," Lori said blandly.

"Cold food is sweeter than warm food, everyone knows that," Rian said. He pushed the bowl towards her. "Come on. You've had a busy day. Indulge yourself. Have the sweet stuff before dinner." He theatrically leaned closer. "It's not like your parents are around to tell you that you can't."

That was an excellent point. Lori straightened up on her bench, grabbing the bowl and spoon that had been stuck to it, and after poking and mixing around the cold mush took a tentative bite.

She let out a moan.

"I'll take that to mean you like it," Rian said, leaning back with a sigh. "So, saw the laundry area again. It's completely different from what it looked like before lunch. Did you really rebuild the thing in one afternoon?"

"There were usability issues. I fixed them," Lori said, taking another spoonful and chewing with enjoyment before swallowing. "Make a note. In addition to a roof for shade, it's also going to need washing lines for drying the clothes in the sun."

"I think we can get some poles cut for that," Rian said, nodding. "Though it would help if you used magic to put them in rock to make them secure. I'll schedule it and tell you when."

Lori gave him a level look, not breaking her gaze as she had another spoonful of delicious, cold happyfruit mush.

"I mean, I'll get people ready and talk to you to find a time that's convenient for you," Rian amended. "Sorry, slip of the tongue."

Lori nodded sharply. "Which won't be tomorrow," she said. "I'll be verifying the map tomorrow."

"Do you want me to tell off some people to accompany you?" Rian said. "It's never a good idea to be wandering into the woods alone, in case you get injured."

Lori scowled, but couldn't deny the logic. "Fine. But make sure they know I don't want to talk to them."

"I'm sure Deil and Tackir already know that," Rian said.

Lori titled her head then nodded in approval. "They'll do," she said. "But no Landoor!"

"Your contempt is noted," Rian said. "I'll go get dinner, you finish dessert before it gets warm."

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She forwent playing sunk with Rian after dinner, opting to retire early. Her lord had looked relieved, no doubt because he realized that today was the day she would defeat him three games in a row and wanted to delay his utter humiliation at her hands.

In her room she entered her private bath, and picked a wall. Then she pulled stone from the outermost layer of the wall and formed a table surface at about belly height, just the ideal elevation so she couldn't have the bend down. Taking the toothy stone comb she'd brought to her room, she softened the table surface and began to sweep a long pattern of raised lines on it…

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Lori Gets Ready To Explore

Lori hummed to herself as she laid out the map on the table while waiting for Rian to come back with breakfast. She had to admit, whoever had made this map had done good work. She recognized the bends in the river from the times she'd and Rian had needed to go to River's Fork, and could even point to the spot where the children liked to go seeling. With the map in front of her, she was able to put context to what she was feeling.

As she looked at the map, she let herself become aware of the earthwisps that made up her demesne. Looking at the map, she was able to context to some of those sensations. Or maybe those sensations put context to the map? In any case, it was interesting, feeling both the size of the hill her Dungeon was under and seeing its extent on the map to give her a better idea of how big it was. She'd never really explored it, just gone around to one side or another. According to the map, it was a part of a chain of hills going up and down away from the river at an angle, though the river had worn away at the end where her Dungeon was now. The other side of the river was much flatter, though a note had been added that it still had some hills, merely of lower elevation.

The area was so thickly forested the scouts had marked out where the trees weren't, which mainly consisted of the area they were settling, and a few large patches with rocks that were probably from when the dragon had passed overhead. The scouts couldn't tell what the dragon scales were made of, though apparently one of the samples they'd brought back had been identified as some kind of copper. At the very least, she had to mark those and bring them back with her, since they were too big to carry. The scouts had come back with some of the smaller bits they'd encountered, which was now in the metal vault. If they could bring those back, they might have enough of a surplus buffer that they could risk using metal. A circular saw they could attach to a water wheel would be nice…

Might as well ask for a complete education in Deadspeaking while she was at it, if she was wishing for things.

She blinked as someone placed two bowls on the map, and looked up to glare at Rian. "That's rude, you know," she said.

"Well, you kept ignoring me, and I didn't wat the food to get cold," Rian shrugged. "That would be wasteful."

"Are you sure you're not a parent?" Lori said. "You keep talking like one."

"I think that's called 'adult responsibility'," Rian said. "And I feel old just thinking about it. And no, I'm not a parent. It's not like I have a willful child who makes me worried all the time who I have to take care of or anything."

Lori nodded. "Good. Otherwise you wouldn't have as much time working for me."

"Yes. Yes, that definitely would be the case," Rian said blandly, taking the bowl she didn’t choose. He looked down at bowl and frowned. "You know, I just realized, do we actually have any plates? When we have more food than just 'stuff to throw in the stew', will we have any plates to eat them out of?"

"That’s what you're thinking about?" Lori said, giving her lord a confused look.

"I'm pretty sure it's part of my lordly duties to try and avert the No-Plate Crisis of Eventually," Rian said. "It could be terrible for our morale, having no plates when we finally have something else to eat."

Lori rolled her eyes. Useless thespian. "Are you done?"

He paused a moment, looking like he was actuallythinking about it. "Yes, I think that's all I can squeeze out of that joke," Rian said. "Did you want something? Because usually I'm the one telling you things at breakfast."

"I'm simply reiterating that I will be out confirming the map today," Lori said. "So unless you have something urgent you need to tell me that developed in the hours I've been sleeping…?"

"No, nothing urgent," Rian said. "Go, enjoy your day off work. Though don't leave right away, I have a few things for you."

"It's not 'something to consider' is it?" she asked warily.

"No, I figured you'd want a water skin in case you got thirsty," Rian said.

"You realize I can just pull water out of the air right?"

He gave her a level look. "Go ahead. Drink that water when you have an alternative. I dare you."

She met his gaze, but nodded in admission. "A water skin would be convenient," she said.

"I'm also having the kitchen fill up some ration jars for you so you don't have to come back for lunch if you don’t' want to," he said. "Just heat it up and eat it out there. You wouldn't be able to go as far if you had to come back for lunch, then go out again. Are you planning to take the boat–"

"Lori's Boat," she corrected.

Rian sighed for some reason. "– that, to go upriver or the other side, or will you just be walking?"

She shrugged. "I hadn't thought about it. I was just going to go and get those dragon scales."

Rian looked at the map, tilting his head sideways to read the notations. It was so nice to be able to read small print written in ink instead of charcoal. "Well, be careful. We don't know the terrain there. I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt trying to drag those things back home."

"You realize I'm a Dungeon Binder, right?" Lori said.

"Yes, but what does that have to do with not wanting people to get hurt?"

Lori opened her mouth, paused, closed her mouth, opened it again… then just decided to give up and eat her breakfast.

"Don't forget to bring your hat," Rian said. "I know we have a lot of trees, but you'd be surprised how much sunlight can get through tree cover."

"I worked outside yesterday Rian, I think I know better than to not have my hat," Lori said, making a note to go back up to her room and get it.

Rian nodded. "Don't forget to bring your knife too."

"Why would I need my knife?" she said, beginning to get exasperated.

"In case there's an emergency," he said.

"What sort of emergency could there be I couldn't solve with magic?" Lori demanded.

"What if you get a thorn from a plant embedded in your skin and need to cut it out?" Rian suggested.

"Then I will stay away from thorny plants!" Lori huffed, making a note to dig up her knife when she went up to get her hat.

"What if one of the people of the people accompanying you gets a thorn embedded in their skin?" he said.

"Then they can use their own knife!"

"You'd trust them to bring a knife?"

Lori hesitated. "Fine!" she snapped. "But tell them they can't bring along any knives!"

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said brightly.

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After breakfast, she went upstairs for her knife, hat, and her bag of lengths of firewood, just in case. She also brought along her case containing her metal utensils, which she hadn't had to use in a while because of the dining hall's spoons. Rian would probably have spoons to go with the ration jars too, but just in case…

Afterwards, she went downstairs to find Rian with two familiar young men. Lori didn't like Deil and Tackir, any more than she liked Rian. But they had shown themselves tolerable by being smarter than Landoor—or at least not as stupid—they've adequately obeyed orders before, they knew better than to talk to her directly unless she talked to them first, and they didn't seem to be eager to be somewhere else, unlike those two yesterday, which was already vastly less irritating.

They were also carrying a bag containing carefully sealed ration jars with their lunch, as well as some hairy blueballs and happyfruit for snacking on if they got hungry before them. Rian handed her a water skin filled with water and suggested she put a little ice in it to help cool her down if she became hot.

"You have your hat, good," Rian said, nodding as she secured the water skin by to her belt opposite the firewood. "Are your shoes comfortable? Do you want a towel to wipe away your sweat with? Are you sure it's a good idea to have this walk while wearing that coat? Won't you get hot?"

"I'm fine, Rian," she snapped. "Stop being so smothering, you're sounding like my parents again!"

"I'm just worried, that's all," Rian said. "If anything happened to you, we'd have to go beg Shanalorre to be our Binder."

"Well, stop worry, because nothing is going to happen to me," she huffed. "I'll be fine. It's my own demesne, why wouldn't I be fine?" She held out her raincoat to him, which he took as she wrapped her arms in darkwisps to keep them from burning without her coat's sleeves to cover them. "I expect you to return that to me at dinner."

Holding the map in her hands, she looked over Deil and Tackir. They carried their own waterskins, and Deil had the bag with their lunch, while Tackir had the snacking fruits and their own waterskins. She nodded in satisfaction, then fixed Rian a pointed look as she carefully folded her rain coat over his arm. "Now. I'm going. Unless you have something else to say, like a sudden emergency you became aware of in the last ten heatbeats…?"

"No, nothing's come up," Rian said. "Be careful you three. Remember to watch your step, especially when you're going up slopes, slipping and falling is the easier way to get hurt when you're walking through the woods. You two make sure she doesn't get hurt, or else we're all doomed, all right?"

"Don't worry Lord Rian, you can rely on us," Deil said determinedly. "We'll make sure nothing happens to her Bindership." Tackir nodded in agreement.

"It's the woods, Rian. It's not like we're going out in to the Iridescence where the beasts are," Lori said, rolling her eyes. "We'll walk, we'll find some rocks, we'll check the map a few times, we'll come back. It's supposed to be restful, not exciting."

"Don't stay out too late, and turn back before it gets dark," Rian said. "Magic lights or no, it's dangerous to walk in the woods when it's hard to see where you're going. And remember to watch your step–"

"We're going!" Lori said, turning and facing away from her lord, who seemed to be losing his mind. "Come on you two, we'll climb up the rise to the new houses and then start heading for the edge. The first dragonscale should be up there." She took a step forward, then paused. She turned to them and pointed. "You two walk in front of me."

The two looked bemused, but did as she said, beginning to climb up to the new houses where the work on the various roofs, balconies and second floors seemed to be progressing well.

"I'll see you when you get back," Rian said, stating the obvious. "Be careful! Don't forget to drink water so you don't–!"

"Rian, get back to work!"

The man had the gall to roll his eyes, but started walking himself, thankfully not towards Lori, even as he kept glancing at her as she followed after the other two, her feet sure on the compacted dirt and molded stone of the road as she regarded the map and their first destination, the dragon scale that the copper sample had supposedly come from…

She stumbled a little when the road leveled out as it reached the new houses, but that was all right. Stumbling was not tripping, and she was perfectly fine!

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Lori The Explorer

Lori walked into the unknown, armed with nothing but her map, her wits and her will, boldly going where no one had gone before, exploring the furthest reaches of the unknown!

"Put your clothes on properly and go do something productive," she said sternly to the two who been in the midst of… well. "And if I catch you two doing this again, I'm flogging you both. And take a bath!" At least they hadn't been completely naked, merely strategically moved aside certain… well.

As the young man and young woman frantically pulled their clothes into place, stumbling to leave—"Go that way, I'd rather not stumble over you again on the way back!"—Lori sighed. Twenty steps. They'd barely taken twenty steps into the woods from the cleared area where the houses where being roofed—she could still hear all the carpentry work happening behind them— before walking in on that deplorable sight, the two up against a tree and… well.

"This idea is rapidly losing its appeal," Lori muttered, then shook her head.

As she checked her map, since the surprise had mildly disoriented her, she heard her two guards talking. "I didn't know those two were getting together."

"Should we tell their parents when we get back?"

"What, and get mixed up in their nonsense? No, no, too much trouble. Her Bindership will know what to do."

"Her Bindership is likely to do nothing."

"Well, that's probably the thing to do."

"All right," Lori said, interrupting whatever nonsense the two were talking about. "This way! Follow me." She took two steps and stopped. "You two walk ahead to clear the way."

They looked at each other for some reason, but just said, "Yes, your Bindership," And began walking in the direction she indicated.

"No, a little bit more to the left…. There, that's the way," she said as she double checked the map, and proceeded to follow after them.

Rian was right, she was annoyed to find. Despite the trees, sunlight streamed through enough that she did need her hat to keep the heat off her head. After many months, the trees were alive with the sounds of songbugs, the snaps of more predatory bugs eating songbugs, and the buzzing as bugs flew through the air, eating leaves and going from flower to flower. There was the occasional rustle of leaves as small, verminous beasts barely the size of her hand darted through the undergrowth, no doubt hatched from eggs the foraging groups missed and now watched. Still, over the months, life had managed to return, insidiously sneaking its way into her demesne. Hopefully the coming winter and Rian's prediction that beasts wouldn't be able to survive the cold would take care of them. They'd managed to find plenty of eggs by the large, predatory ones that made for good eating, but they'd eaten those, those ones not far enough along to have developed. The rest they destroyed so there wouldn't be any large, predatory beasts in her woods.

Her footsteps paused as she realized they hadn't managed to do that on the other side of the river, and made a note to have Rian tell a hunting party to go there and clear them out before they became a problem. Well, at least they had a lot of former militia to take care of it now. And she'd be able to kill some too, behind a nice, thick wall of other people between the beasts and her…

Lori had the two stop a few times so she could check her map. A normal person might have gotten lost, but she was a Dungeon Binder. With the direction of the sun, she was able to get her bearings, and her awareness of the position of the core, the position of the river, and her wisps located in the aqueducts, the shelters, the bathhouses and the Dungeon gave her waypoints to orient herself again, if at a distant remove. Still, it was enough to be able to roughly ascertain where they were on the map. They were nearing the dragon scale, at least, and were only a little bit off-course, which she corrected for as she set off again, the two in front of her so she could keep an eye on them.

When she surmised she was near, she reluctantly said, "Be on the lookout, you two. We're looking for large rocks in a clearing with a shattered tree."

The two started in surprise at her voice, one nearly tripping over a fallen branch as they turned to stare at her. "Er, could you say that again, your Bindership?" Deil said.

Lori sighed, and repeated herself. "It's a dragon scale," she said. "Copper at least, maybe something else."

"Er, we don't have to carry it, do we, your Bindership?" Tackir asked nervously. "Just the two of us?"

She waved away his worries. "No, I'll be moving it. Just help my keep an eye out for it, and any other weird rocks you might find." She thought for a moment. "And if you see a hairy blueball tree or a happyfruit tree, remember where it is so people can come back to it later,"

"Yes, your Bindership," they chorused, sounding relieved.

While people had probably come this way before several times, it had likely been with the intention of looking for easily gathered mushrooms, wild vegetables, tubers, and other food, not useful rocks. Even during the clean up after the dragon's passing, they'd only really gathered the fallen, valuable minerals that had fallen near the village, so it didn't surprise her that there were still more somewhere in the woods. Possible a few had even been found by one person or another, and had been kept quiet or hidden with the intention of coming back for it later or something, when they had finally had money in their economy and one could actually make a tangible profit from it.

It was Deil who found it, pointing towards the break in the tree cover the clearing caused. A tree had been shattered midway up the trunk, by lightning or some other phenomenon the dragon had been flinging at random, and had fallen over while still connected to the tree as if hinged. While the fallen top half was dead, the bottom half seemed to still be growing, with young supple branches bearing richly colored leaves sprouting from its bark and growing upwards towards the clear sky.

Lori frowned and checked her map. Ah, now she knew where they were. They'd gone a little bit too far to the right be her reckoning, and had missed their intended destination, though in hindsight the map had been accurate enough. This clearing with its broken tree had been marked on the map, at least, so she knew where they were. Well, she'd have wanted to come here anyway. It had also been marked with dragon scales, though there had been no indication of what kind. Just a vague note written on the side of the edges of the leather about the rock being 'mixed'.

As promised, there were a lot of large rocks, which despite the months were still clearly out of place in the clearing. They were the wrong colors and had strangely curved shapes, like they had been liquid droplets that solidified in midair, but of enormous size. Definitely dragon scales of some sort.

"Sit," she ordered absently. "I have work to do. Don't get in my way. "

As they sat down on the edge of the rocky clearing—which wasn't all that big to begin with—Lori began examining the rocks. Copper was easy enough to identify by color even if some of was coated blue, and iron only a little bit harder. Many of the stones were the latter. At the very least, she was able to confirm they were all metal, since both lightningwisps and magic passed through them easily, though the smiths might be able to tell for sure what kind.

There was even a small, head-sized chunk of gold—it felt lighter than it should, so it was either hollow or wrapped around something else, but it was definitely gold and not pyrite, from the heat test she did—which was something she could add to her stores. She'd have a nice stock to draw wire from when winter came.

One of the chunks that had originally been dark on the outside and brighter where she'd scratched it had even turned blue when she'd heated it to test what it was, and she'd immediately darted back and equalized the heat back down as best as she could when she saw. Fortunately, a little color change was all it did. Anatass was a dangerous metal to heat. Supposedly it had to be small amounts to ignite, but she wasn't taking chances!

After that, she stopped test heating the bright metals in case they were anything else could catch fire. Instead, she went around, identifying all the pieces using lightningwisps. It occurred to her she'd never gotten around to Rian's suggestion of using the ores they'd collected to look for metal underground, but they'd been so busy… Even the smiths has been too busy repairing what metal they had to try and smelt the ores they'd gathered. She'd have to order them to set aside time for it. Or, well, she'd have Rian order them to do it.

She shook her head. This was supposed to be a restful walk collecting big hunks of mineral wealth and confirming the map. Why was she thinking about work?

The bound the earthwisps in the clearing and had them start contorting the ground to push the dragon scales together, so they'd all make one large chunk, and used the dirt under her control to push a few of the relatively smaller ones on top of the relatively large ones. Once that was done, she covered them with dirt and compressed the dirt to hold it all in place.

Nodding in satisfaction to herself, she climbed on top of the resulting compressed dirt boulder—it was far wider than it was tall, for stability and because not all of the dragon scales could be put on top of each other— and sat down with her legs crossed, then opened the map on the surface in front of her. She hummed to herself, them bound of the earth under the broken tree and imbued it. She didn't make it do anything, she just wanted to mark where the tree was in her mind.

"All right you two, follow me," Lori said. "I want to get to the next spot, then we can have lunch there." Using the bound wiss at the tree, the core, and the other places in the demesne to triangulate again, she picked a direction and bound the earthwisps directly under her boulder.

The ground began to flow, and her boulder slowly began to pick up speed.

"Um, your Bindership, are you sure that's safe?" Deil said.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Lori said, just as her boulder passed over something that wasn’t earth she could bind and lurched sideways as a result. She was thrown off-balance to the side and instinctively tried to catch herself, but the boulder was too small and curved, and her hands came down too low to right herself.

Lori didn't even have time to cry out as she fell over the side of her boulder, skidding down on her side and slamming shoulder-first onto the ground, which was hard and messy with undergrowth. The boulder kept moving under its own momentum before coming to a halt.

"Ow," Lori groaned in pain. She grit her teeth and clenched her eyes as her arm and elbow screamed at having to be the first to land to protect her head, her shoulder protested loudly against this mistreatment, her side complained that it had not liked the experienced of hitting and sliding against rock and the bag of firewood she'd had at her side, and her legs gave the postscript that they hadn't liked getting dragged along behind the rest either, even if they had weighed the least and fallen the most gently. The rest of her just wanted to lay there until all the very vocal parts of her shut up about how they'd suffered.

"Your Bindership!" someone cried. "Are you hurt?"

"Of course I'm hurt, I fell," she wanted to say sarcastically. Instead, all that left her lips was another pained groan.

Why did this hurt so much? She'd fallen before, when she had been younger, and it hadn't been this debilitating. Gingerly, she tried to stand, and her limbs responded, even as the parts of her that had hit things redoubled their complaining. She vaguely heard someone swear, and it wasn't her.

Belatedly, she thought to check if she'd broken any bones, but a quick sense of all the earthwisps in her body told her they were all whole as they were meant to be. No, the pain was all in her skin and muscles and… why was her arm sticky? Wincing, she tried to get another look at the arm she'd fallen on and some red, and suddenly the pricking pains she felt along there made more sense. She'd fallen on something sharp, likely rocks, and cut herself.

Oh. Well, that was bad. She almost wished for the broken bone. Lori was almost certain she could mend that with wisps alone…

This however… an open, bleeding wound, right onto undergrowth… cauterize? No, that would be agonizing. Pull out all the lightningwisps in her arm and then cauterize? No, that was probably bad…

"Deil?" she said, voice shaking only slightly. "Tackir?"

"I'm here, your Bindership," she heard one of them say. "Tackir ran to get help like Lord Rian told us to if anything happened. Don't move, you might have broken something. Er, if that's all right with you, your Bindership. Please don't get mad at me."

"Nothing's broken Deil," she said. "Deil, I want you to pick me up and run me to the doctors. Now. I need to get this wound cleaned before it gets infected." It probably already was—she'd fallen on rotting undergrowth, after all—but she had to try.

She felt someone kneel next to her, tentatively try to pick her up, then pull back as she hissed. Why had she let Rian talk her into taking off her coat? It might have helped… "Pick me up," she ordered. "Don't be squeamish. I won't get angry."

"Um, I don't think I'm strong enough, your Bindership," he said, sounding upset. "I might drop you. Please don't be mad, your Bindership!"

She closed her eyes. He looked strong, but maybe that was just looks after all. "Then help me up," she said. "We'll start walking. Leave the food." She raised up the arm that didn't hurt.

This time there were no excuses. She felt two rough hands grab her hand and pull her up like was a sack on the ground, but to his credit, he immediately slung her arm over his shoulder. She got her feet under her, and though one side ached, the other didn't and she was tentatively able to put weight on that as Deil waited for her to get on her feet.

"All right," she said, wincing at the pain on her sides. She pointed with her bleeding arm, towards the core and her dungeon. "That way!"

She took a step forward. The side of her half ached like it had been struck painfully, but that was all. The leg moved as it should. Really, if the rest of her didn't ache, she wouldn't need help…

And then the bag of firewood at her side slammed onto her leg and she winced, hissing painfully. "Wait!"

He sat her down on the conglomeration of dragon scales as she used her uninjured hand to undo the buckle of her firewood bag, reluctantly letting it drop to the ground. She'd have to send someone to get it later…

Lori sighed, and resolved never to take a day to relax again, if things like this were what happened. Next time she needed rest, she'd lock herself in her room and just go to sleep, uncomfortable bed or no.

One foot after painful foot in front of the other, they headed back to her nice, safe Dungeon.