Weekly Digest 29 - (#87 - #89) (Patreon)

Rian and Lori Experiment With Each Other

She'd just pulled the partially-filled syringe—it contained only a small amount of blood, only a cubedrop—from her arm when she heard Rian let out a high-pitched scream of alarm.

Startled, Lori whirled, only to find her lord staring at her in horror, a finger pointing at her. No not, at her. At the syringe in her hands.

"Did you just inject yourself?-!" he cried shrilly.

Lori would have described Rian in many ways. Until now, 'shrill' had never been one of them.

"I did not inject myself," she corrected. "I drew blood." She watched, bemused, as Rian had a full-body shiver. "How did you think I was going to get the blood for this experiment?"

"I don't know!" Rian exclaimed, still sounding a little shrill. "I thought you were going to… prick your finger or cut this bit!" He tapped the flesh juncture between his thumb and forefinger. "Not stab yourself with a needle! Doesn't that hurt?"

"As you said, I stabbed myself with a needle," Lori said. "Of course it hurts." She took the small bottle of disinfectant from her personal supply, and used the brush that came with it to lightly daub it over her wound to prevent infection. Once was too much already. "Now, stop being squeamish. It wasn't like I took the blood from you." Lori was treated to another full-body shiver.

She sighed. "Oh, just grab that plank and start writing."

Rian shook his head, but picked up the plank and the burned sick. "Right. What's this experiment going to be about?" he said, hand and branch poised to take notes. "What is our premise, what is the intended result?"

Lori nodded. "This is not a true experiment, as we will not be comparing two groups against each other. Properly, this a proof of concept test. My education says it is possible, but given how many things people have said about being a Dungeon Binder has been… incomplete, best I make sure before we build any long-term plans around the idea." She held up the syringe. "This is my blood. It naturally contains a mix of waterwisps, airwisps, darkwisps and negligible amounts of earthwisps and firewisps." That last was purely academic, as they were so miniscule as to be of no use.

"To clarify," Rian asked. "Is that because it's your blood, or would blood from anyone also contain the same amount of… wisps?"

"Anyone's blood would contain the same," Lori confirmed. "However, as a Whisperer and now Dungeon Binder, I am able to utilize my blood in ways others cannot."

Rian tilted his head, and his eyes widened. "It's a part of your body," he said.

Huh. Lori was surprised he came to that conclusion so quickly. "It is," she said. "Today's test will be to verify whether I can bind, and more importantly imbueusing only my blood at a distance. And due to my connection to the demesne as a Dungeon Binder, it would not be a valid test unless the blood was outside the area of influence of my demesne."

Rian was nodding over and over as he carefully wrote on the plank, using gentle movements so as not to break the burned writing tip. "Yes, yes, I think I see… If this works… yes I can see how this fixes some of our problems… I have some ideas, but I'll wait until after you finish to bring them up, in case this doesn’t work."

Lori raised an eyebrow. Well, given his recent performance, she supposed they might be worth hearing out. It wouldn't be the first time. "All right, grab the spear. We need to step out of the demesne for a moment, and I need you to watch my back."

Rian nodded, carefully putting down the plank and grabbing his spear. After carefully scanning the area for beasts—the lack of colors on the undergrowth and ground made this easy, as their iridiated bodies stood out from all the muteness—the two of them carefully stepped out of the demesne's borders. Lori was careful not to shiver as she passed through, lest she drop the glass bowl and the syringe she was holding.

"No beasts and nothing in the water," Rian noted. "Since this experiment is using blood, I assume you're going to use water for this?"

"Correct," Lori confirmed. Both their heads were looking around for beasts, or at least movement that could be beasts, so she couldn't expect him to see her nod. "I need to get it some distance from the edge of my demesne, to me sure there's no residual connection to the core." Checking the water and concentrating on her sense of wisps, she bent down and carefully scooped up some water in the glass bowl with one hand, being very careful not to have it slip from her fingers. "I have the water. Note, for reference, that I was careful not to touch the water in the bowl with my bare skin. This was to prevent the possibility of binding the water by accident. The container is glass, a substance that does not act as a conduit of magic."

"I think I remember something about that," Rian said. "Is that why we use it for beads? Since it can't be altered by a Whisperer, so it can't be counterfeited that way?"

Lori gave him a puzzled look. "Beads aren't made of glass," she said. "They're made of solidified magic."

Rian blinked. "Really?"

"Yes," Lori said. "Otherwise they'd be completely useless for providing fuel to bound tools."

"Huh," Rian said. "I might need to ask you to look at my beads for me, otherwise I might have been robbed."

Lori waved a dismissive hand. "If you came to that conclusion from a cursory examination then yes, beads have a superficial resemblance to glass. No one would use glass to make counterfeit beads, however. Too expensive." Really, he should know this.

Moving carefully, Lori lay the glass bowl full of water on the pedestal-like finger of stone she'd raised outside of her demesne. It trembled slightly on the slightly uneven surface until Lori set it right.

"Take notes. I am now adding my fresh blood," she said. "The syringe used is made of brass, and was previously sterilized by boiling to exclude dustlife. The blood is unbound and unimbued, and no intention is made to bind or imbue it or through it."

So saying, she carefully pushed on the syringe's plunger, adding half of the blood contained within to the bowl of water. The water immediately darkened, the seemingly crimson bead spreading and staining the slightly murky water a dark brown.

Carefully, Lori stood just inside her demesne, staring at the little bowl of dirty water, so like the one she had used to claim her demesne those months ago. "Beginning experiment," Lori said for the benefit of Rian's notes. "Attempting to claim, bind and imbue without contact, outside my demesne."

Lori took a deep breath to steady herself, and reached inside, to her connection to her Dungeon's core, her link to her demesne and its wisps. She pulled that seemingly-endless magic into herself as if she stood outside of her demesne, her always-hidden strength whenever she went to River's Fork, the source of endless power she used to imbue the water jets of Lori's Boat to allow them to make the journey at speed. If she'd had to breath in all that power, she'd have needed to practically pant the whole way.

She took that magic and imbued it with her will, channeled it through her blood. Then she channeled it outward.

For the second time in a year, the magic seemed to leap through the air, crossing the distance and reached out to the wisps that had been part of her, in the blood that had spread through the bowl of water. It wasn't quick. It wasn't efficient.  It was was nothing like reaching through her connection through the core of through a wire, but it went. She felt the wisps that had come from her body fall under her control, and it was a relief as they responded to her claim.

"Contact and claim, successful," she said absently. "Binding established. Beginning imbuement."

She channeled magic through her wisps, to the matter they had been joined to. The transfer was still a struggle, but the thread she had established in the initial claim seemed to act as a channel, letting her push the energy towards the binding. It was a narrow channel, and tight, but power flowed, reaching its destination—

Was it her imagination, or did the thread thicken ever so slightly?

Lori focused, continuing to imbue. It didseem to get progressively easier as she continued to push, and soon it was almost as easy as doing it through a wire, in the same way as walking up a slight incline is almost as easy as walking on level ground.

"Lori?" Rian said.

Lori blinked, shook her head. "Imbuement successful," she said. "I have successfully managed to claim, bind and imbue at a distance through my blood. The first test is finished and successful."

"Congratulations!" Rian said. He had a bright smile on his face. "First test implies a second test, though."

Lori nodded. "The second test is an extension of the first. Having managed to claim, bind and imbue the waterwisps in my blood, can I now use them to claim the waterwisps and water in which they are dissolved?"

"Let's find out!" Rian said, looking genuinely excited. "If you can, this means you can at least imbue the waterjet no matter how far away it is, right?"

Lori shook her head. "Right now, it means that I can claim and imbue from a distance of three paces away," she said, which was the approximate distance to the bowl of water outside her demesne. "There is marked difficulty in imbuing at a distance compared to imbuing by touch, imbuing by wire, and imbuing as a Dungeon Binder. We shall have to test is distance is a fact in the difficulty. "

Rian was nodding as she spoke, only to stop. "Wait… imbuing as a Dungeon Binder? What does that mean?"

"It means I can imbue any binding within my demesne," Lori said. Really, wasn't that clear?

"No matter where you are? No matter how far?" Rian asked.

"Yes, of course," Lori said. "The core is connected to me, and functions as my connection to the demesne. I am always connected. In practice, the entire demesne is my body, and as such, I am connected to every wisp in it."

Rian was giving her a narrow-eyed look. "So… when all the hot water, running water and lights failed when we were in River's Fork the first time… "

"Moving on!" Lori said loudly. "Second test! To ascertain the efficacy of claiming other waterwisps through the connection to the waterwisps in my blood!"

She ignored the blank-faced stare Rian was directing as her as she began the second test. Lori was glad to find it wasn't any different from claiming water normally. Her claim spread from her initial point of contact, spreading from waterwisps she'd claimed, expanding outward in all directions until it stopped at the limits of the glass. She could even claim upwards slightly, binding the vapors of water that made the air so humid and thick around the river. The difficulty in imbuing remained, though. She could only directly imbue some of the wisps in the water, and she suspected those where the ones that had come from her blood. So, in a way, the propagation of imbuement remained the same, originating at her point of contact. A pity. If she could simultaneously imbue ALL the waterwisps she had claimed…

Still, her overall bottleneck seemed to be the overall volume of waterwisps from her body compared to the waterwisps from the river. So it was likely that she would be able to increase her ability to imbue if she used more blood.

"Second test, successful," Lori proclaimed. "All the water has been claimed, bound and imbued. Make a note for future experiment: see if overall imbuement capability could be increased by using more blood."

"Noted," Rian said. "Question: is there any reason why this couldn't be done using spit, sweat, or latrine water?"

Lori stopped and paused to think about it. "I would say that such fluids might not have as much affinity with my body as blood…" Lori said slowly, thoughtfully, "but… it's all fluids that contain water, is it not? I chose to use blood because it's the example and material we learn of when using this at school, and even then, we are cautioned to only use this with blood and waterwisps. The other wisps are too intrinsically connected to essential bodily functions to be spared, normally."

"Normally?" Rian prompted.

"The firewisps in your body are bound to its warmth," Lori said. "Reducing or increasing that warmth is extremely dangerous. On the other hand, the body can spare blood, taken sparingly and given time to recover. Of course, a dying man with nothing to lose might not care."

Unless, of course, they were a Dungeon Binder. But she wasn't saying that. She's said too much already today.

"Ah, one of those 'taking you with me' things," Rian said, nodding. "Hmm. If something didn't have enough affinity, what would that look like?"

Lori shrugged. "It would be like binding wisps normally, requiring contact to claim and imbue."

"So… something to test, then?" Rian asked.

Lori nodded. "Something to test," she agreed. "Though in practice, if the volume test proves fruitful, then any future uses will be conducted with blood. Spit and sweat will be unlikely to be available in sufficient volume immediately, and as to the last… " She gave him a flat looks. "You might have to touch it."

Rian twitched. "Piss or blood…" he muttered. "How can I ever choose…?"

"I've chosen, and I choose blood," Lori said. "Much more dignified."

"When you put it that way…" Rian muttered. "So, what else? Distance test, to see if it affects your ability to do wizardly things to it?"

"Longevity test as well," Lori said.

"You'll have to explain that one," Rian said.

"Affinity begins to be lost once removed from the body," Lori explained. "That is part of the difficulty in using spittle. To amass sufficient amounts, it will have to be stored and added to. While that is happening, it could be losing affinity."

"Could?" Rian said, latching on to the word. "You're not sure?"

"I was able to attain affinity using my childhood teeth, which had fallen from my mouth years ago," Lori explained. "However, this was after a long period of channeling magic through it, essentially renewing my affinity. Affinity can be lost, and I'm not sure how long it takes for it to reach the level of being able to imbue at a distance."

Rian tilted his head. "So, wait… you say the demesne is, magically speaking, equivalent to your body when it comes to 'contact' for doing magic, right?"

"Yes…?" Lori said, wondering where he was going with this.

"Does that mean that, if we take a rock that had been in the demesne after years and years of it being your demesne, and took it outside, it can act as a conduit for you? After all, wouldn't it be 'part of your body'?"

Lori blinked, her eyes going wide as she realized what Rian as saying. At the same time, she remembered some mentions of certain feats in the bibliographies she'd read…

"If… if that were possible…" she said, thinking of the possibilities… "No, no, even if it were possible, it would need extensive time to reach the sort of affinity your describe. Though… "

Dark rooms. Why did demesnes have rooms where no light was to ever enter, sealed and untouched for years…?

"I think that might be beyond the scope of these tests for now," she said faintly.

"I suppose you're right," Rian conceded. "Though if we kept a sample of water in your demesne and just let it sit there for years and years, seal it so it doesn't evaporate… "

They both turned to look at the bowl filled with blood.

"Something we could come back to…" Lori said, still sounding faint. "In time. We have more pressing, immediate needs."

"Agreed," Rian said. "So, next test?"

Lori shook her head, trying to bring herself to the here and now. "Right. Right. Next test. Now, we test what effect an active binding will have on both the rate of imbuement and the affinity…"

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Tests, Tanks and… Taxes?

Active binding test: successful.

Change of active binding test: successful.

They had time for one last test before they had to go back for dinner: the longevity test.

Lori was unsure how long she could maintain a connection to the waterwisps from her blood. While it was certainly useful to imbue at a distance outside her demesne, there would be far less practical use—which was not no practical use—if the affinity and connection faded away too quickly. So the final test they were conducting was a test of how long her connection to her blood would last.

This was to be the most expensive test, and therefore Lori had to take special care in the preparation. She dragged earth and stone from her demesne and formed a hut outside the border, which she hoped would be sufficient proof against inquisitive beasts. Inside, she put in two glass bowls of water. One contained the water and blood with which she had been experimenting with, the other contained fresh water and the remaining blood in her syringe. The latter was imbued and left to stand while the former was left as it was. Then the protective hut was sealed to prevent entry.

Then they went home.

Lori's Boat wallowed slightly from all the ropeweed they were carrying, but it wasn't anything the vessel couldn't handle as Lori imbued the waterjet and set it for speed, while Rian handled the tiller. Rian had carefully laid the planks with all the notes on top of the pile of ropeweed and he kept glancing at it worriedly, as if afraid it would fall off and get smudged.

"So…" Rian said eventually as they managed to build up speed, heading upriver back to the Dungeon an d the settlement around it. "What does this mean? The results of the tests, the experiment… where are you going with this?"

"Depending on the results on the experiment we left behind, I will hopefully be able to imbue my own bindings at distance to some degree," Lori said, one hand on the wire leading to the jets out of habit. She had the idea of thought of using blood and wire to expand the area of contact she could effectively have at a distance, but she'd had no wire to attempt it. Best to remember for later. "How long the connection over distance exists and what factors affect it is the question, as is whether the connection is substantially affected by entry into another's demesne. If I maintain my connection even within another's demesne, I might have a semi-viable means of providing the air circulation for the mining proposal. Otherwise it would have required regular maintenance and my going there to imbue it manually. However, I will need your assistance."

"What do you need?" Rian said immediately.

"I need you to find me someone in our demesne capable of designing mechanical systems and understands their construction," Lori said. "Preferably one who understands how to build things using our limited resources. I can envision how to create a binding the can be used to power a mechanism. However, I will need someone with actual experience building such things to ensure it will not break."

Rian frowned, tilting his head. "So… you want to build an air pump?" he said. "Why not just make a… binding? A binding that lets you make air flow and power it with your blood?"

"In case of failure," Lori said. "A mechanical system would be operated manually in the event that a binding runs out of imbuement. A system reliant on a binding means I'll be bothered every time something happens to it."

"Well, when you put it that way…" Rian said.

"Besides, I know blood and waterwisps works, and works at usable levels," Lori said. "I'll need to experiment with working with airwisps, since I'm not sure how efficacious using blood as a conduit to air is."

"Work with what you know," Rian said, nodding. "Well, I don't really know the subject well enough to argue, so I'll trust you know what you're talking about." He tilted his head as he considered something. "Shana said that they had a backup plan in mind for the air circulation. Maybe you can find out what it is and integrate it into whatever you're thinking of building? Maybe they're just reluctant to use it because it would be too labor intensive. If you can provide an alternate means of powering it, that's our commitment fulfilled, right?"

"Something to consider," Lori thoughtfully agreed. "I'll have to see what we have to work with in regards to the minds established air circulation implements."

"I wish I can tell you, but I forgot to look at the specifics," Rian said. "Though it looked like they had a system of wooden air ducts in place. Probably made by their old binder. I forget the specific dimensions. Sorry."

She waved it away. "We have time. Ensure the safety and structural integrity of the mine will come first. But this is all moot if we have no workers."

"Yeah, about that," Rian sighed. "Lori, I think we might have a problem finding volunteers. Everyone working together worked fine when all the work could be directly be said to benefit everyone in the demesne in some way, but we're sending out people to work somewhere else. Even if they're getting fed and housed, that's not directly beneficial to the demesne, and it's taking people who could have helped improve the demesne directly."

"We'd have metal," Lori pointed out.

"Yes, but that would, at best, be owned by the demesne as a whole or you specifically," Rian said. "Even if we gave them direct equal shares of the metal, what would they do with it? They'd still need to give it to one of the smiths to turn it into something useful, and that means the smith has to be compensated for his work too somehow. I know you've worked before. How would you feel about being asked to work a difficult job in exchange for a place to sleep and eat to keep doing the job, while… while your parents get to reap the benefits of the payment?"

"That's called childhood, but I see what you mean," Lori said. "Some kind of specific gain needs to be presented as compensation, but…"

"But we have nothing to offer," Rian sighed. "Even if we paid them in beads, they'd have nowhere to spend it, making it useless and the same as not paying them. And instituting some sort of placeholder for beads to act as money will seriously mess up the social dynamics we have right now, not to mention get people to start thinking in terms of money again, which will get ugly."

"Couldn't we just establish it as an extension of work to support the demesne?" Lori said. "The demesne benefits."

"How?" Rian said. "Working in the mine doesn't benefit them. The demesne getting metal doesn't benefit them unless that metal is clearly used as a net benefit to everyone in the demesne. Even then, human nature will incline them to want it to be a benefit for them specifically."

"They ARE benefiting," Lori said. "They get to stay in an improved demesne—"

She stopped. She tilted her head thoughtfully.

"Lori?" Rian said. "This sudden and abrupt silence is ominous. Talk to me, please."

"Every single person in my demesne save one has not yet paid their taxes," Lori mused.

Rian made a strangled sound.

Lori leaned back and began to think.

"Lori? Your Bindership?"

"Hush," she said absently. "I'm thinking…"

What sounded like a whimper came from Rian.

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Lori was still thinking about it when they got back to the Dungeon and she unloaded her box of glassware and other tools, leaving Rian to handle all the ropeweed he'd bought. In her mind, she could still feel the first bowl of blood of water, the feeling of the imbued binding not dissimilar to the bindings all around her that she had set all over her demesne. It even felt like her distant demesne when she was in River's Fork, if at a much smaller scale.

Of the other bowl, lightly imbued, the feeling was much more faint. Some kind correlation to the amount of imbuement to the affinity, or to the distance? Truthfully, this was a test to see how long she could leave her blood untouched before she could no longer use it. The next test, which she'd conduct tomorrow, would be keeping up an active binding at a distance. After that would be the final test: whether she could maintain the bind and imbue, at a distance, within someone else's demesne.

She was hopeful of that last, since she had learned to Whisper within someone else's demesne, but she wanted to be sure. Truly, the final test would be if she could maintain control while her wisps were in the demesne of someone who was actually capable of Whispering. Hopefully the usual claim principles would still hold then…

After storing her remaining glassware in her room and cleaning her syringe of blood, Lori took a quick bath. The experiments had been hot and humid, and while she had been tempted to set up some bindings for a cool breeze, she had not wanted to worry about possible distraction. Well, it was time to change these clothes anyway…

After getting dressed, Lori came down to dinner a bit later than she usually was. The meal was in progress as people conversed, played games, sighed about the day's work, and occasionally actually ate.

Rian was already there with two bowls waiting for her. He seemed to have also taken a bath, given how wet his hair looked. One could not tell by his clothes, which looked exactly the same as what he'd been wearing before, and it was only when she drew close did she note it seemed to be cleaner and less sweaty.

He was also engaged in conversation with Mikon, who was apparently offering to make him a new shirt in restitution for something. Lori didn't really pay attention as she met Rian's eyes and took one of the bowls for herself, beginning to eat.

The subject did remind her though…

"Rian," she said, causing the pink-haired woman to abruptly cut of what she was saying. "The weavers. Have they managed to move into the second level."

"They finished this morning," Rian said, glancing at the now studiously silent Mikon. "So did the ropers. I'm a little worried about putting them in together, though. It seems to me that putting to groups who use the same raw material is just asking for them to start pettily stealing from each other."

"That would be against my laws," Lori said. Mikon and Umu both studiously ate their food.

"Yes, but that sort of thing has never stopped people before," Rian said.

"Yes, well, please let them know I will not tolerate such things in my Dungeon," Lori said. "Are they still arguing about who gets priority when it comes to ropeweed?"

"I made sure to divide the ropeweed we cut evenly, if that's what you're asking," Rian said.

"It wasn't. I asked if they are still arguing about the matter," Lori said blandly.

"I was able to get them to agree to settle the matter by having one group get their ropeweed from upriver and the other from downriver," Rian said. "Though to that end, I think we need another bit of infrastructure."

Lori sighed. "What now?"

"We need a retting tank," Rian said, and Mikon and Umu both turned to stare at him.

Lori turned the unfamiliar term over in her head. "Does that have to do with your proposal yesterday?"

"No, this is something else," Rian said. "Basically, both the weavers and ropers need more ropeweed fiber. But to get it, they need to rett the stalks to get at the fibers. Well, rett them faster. They've been making do with large water-filled vessels from Gunvi and letting them dry in the sun, but the latter takes a while and the former only lets them rett a small amount of ropeweed. So in the interest of future productivity, I'd like to ask you to consider making them a retting tank. It will increase the amount of fibers that can be retted, meaning there won't be as much fighting between the ropers and weavers, and it will let us begin spinning more thread, and therefore weave more cloth."

Lori stared at him. "How long have you known this was an issue?" she asked.

"Since we got here and I had a talk with Master Arak and Missus Taji about the ropeweed supply," he said.

"And why should I?" Lori asked. She knew Rian always had good reason, she just wanted to know what it was.

"Retting more ropeweed means more fibers. More fibers mean more fabric and ropes. More fabric means we can repair our clothes, make new ones, and possibly even have sails for the boat to Covehold in case other means of propulsion fail," Rian said. "More ropes means… well, increased productivity all around. Literally any industry or process can find a use for rope to make things do better or go faster. "

She nodded. "All right. Find out what the dimensions need to be, and where best to put it. I'll find time." She bent down to eat.

Rian nodded as well, then made a strangely childish sound of surprise as Umu and Mikon wrapped their arms around him from either side, nearly upsetting his bowl.

"Thank you, Lord Rian!" Umu cried, laying her head on his shoulder.

"N-no, I didn't do anything," Rian protested. "Besides, Binder Lori's the one who's going to do all the work! You should thank her!"

The two women glanced at Lori, who gave them a blank look in turn.

Mikon unwrapped one hand around Rian and performed a seated bow, her head dipping low, and mouthed, "Thank you, your Bindership," at Lori. Lori responded with a nod. Umu smiled and mirrored the bow, but didn't say anothing. Lori reciprocated and went back to eating. On the other side of Mikon from Rian, Riz continued her meal, studiously avoiding her gaze.

Rian looked between her, the blonde, the pinkhead, and Lori. "Did I miss something?" he said, sounding confused.

"If you did, you obviously wouldn't know," Lori said.

Rian gave her the look the comment merited, then cleared his through awkwardly. "Um, Umu, Mikon, I need to eat…?"

Umu sighed, but reluctantly let Rian go, though she sat much closer to him now. Mikon extricated herself with no such theatrics except a smile, then turned to her other side and began to engage Riz in conversation by asking her how work was progressing.

Rian began eating while his hands were free. "No board?" he asked. "I'd have thought you'd want to continue with routine."

"Not tonight," Lori said, and left it at that.

Her meal passed pleasantly uninterrupted, and she was able to just sit and listen to the sounds that had become routine in her demesne. Of people—her people—safe, happy, well fed, and looking forward to a night's rest after a productive day's work.

Lori finished her food, thoroughly cleaning her bowl.

Perhaps it was time to remind them they should be grateful for such things.

"Rian," she said, finally coming to the end of her wire of thought. "I need you to make some announcements."

"I'm listening," he said.

"First, clarify that the deadline for volunteers to come forward is the morning after tomorrow, as we will be departing for River's Fork before noon. No children are eligible to volunteer," she began, causing Rian to nod. "Those who are essential workers are also ineligible. These include primary food providers, the kitchen volunteers, the sawyers, those who have been butchering and preparing the meat that is being brought in, the doctors and medics, those who are the sole practitioners of their trade, and taxpayers."

"Taxpayers? Really?" Rian said.

"I don't want to lose my taxpayer," Lori said blandly.

Rian rolled his eyes.

"Secondly, inform everyone that those who volunteer are eligible for payment, should they wish for it," Lori continued.

On either side of Rian, heads perked up.

"However, as they are now being paid, they and their families will now be required to pay rent on their homes, pay for the food they are eating, the use of the baths, will need to buy soap for themselves, and finally pay their residency taxes." Lori tilted their head. "And there will be other fees, once I think of them."

For some reason, Rian started laughing. He tried to stifle it with a hand, but was unsuccessful.

Lori waited with amused patience.

"R-right," he choked. "Got it. Anything else?"

"Should there be no volunteers on the morning in question, conscription will be practiced," Lori said. "However, I am not unmerciful. Those who are conscripted will be able to avail for the option of being paid."

Rian started snickering again.

"I am going back to my room to make design drafts," Lori said. "Please inform everyone before I leave the room."

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said.

"And Rian?" She gave her lord a bland stare. "Make sure to convey my words EXACTLY before adding your own post-announcement embellishments."

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian repeated.

Lori nodded and got up to go to her room as Rian stood up and called people's attention for an announcement.

"Taxes," she heard Rian say behind her.

The horrified silence was absolute.

"Good. Now that I have your full attention…"

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Successful Test

Lori actually spent some time at her table, working on making bearings of an even size. She'd long since made a bearing mold using her beads as a template, carefully filling in and smoothing out the denomination markings until she had smooth spheres. A pity she hadn't unlocked the abilities of a Horotract yet. Having an exact sense of physical dimensions would have been so useful…

Also the ability to alter the flow of time, the expansion of space, and the direction of down, but really, after all the building she'd been doing, she found she wantedthat sense of exact physical dimension more than those other, admittedly useful, things. Never having to stop and measure anything again! Not needing to kneel down and mess around with water to find out whether a floor was level or a wall was straight! Such power!

She'd be assured of making much more perfectly round bearings then!

As Rian had said, it would be easy to just bind some airwisps to propel air, just like she had done for the air circulation systems in her demesne. The problem was imbuing it. Optimally, she wanted to only have to return to River's Fork once a month until  winter came, to deliver the promised ice, but she didn't think she could imbue a binding to last that long. For one thing, she would need to imbue it constantly for an unfeasibly long time. Days, literally. That would be too inefficient in the long run.

While mechanically impelling air to move had its own inefficiencies, like friction heat, wear and stress on the material, she was reasonably certain that it would last long enough for her to look it over for maintenance when she came with the ice, especially if she made it from repairable materials. She'd have to experiment whether stone or bone would be better. At worse, she might have to ask to melt down the ruined air pump for building material.

One thing was certain though. Whatever she built would need wooden components, such as fan blades and a shaft. And unfortunately, she had never been good at woodworking. She could intellectually understand the purposes of hammers, saws and chisels, but she her experience with shaping wood was acting as a water cutter to cut several planks into shape at once. And even then, someone else physically moved the wood into her stream for the actual cutting.

She made several small stone models on her table, trying to make a design that pleased her sense of aesthetics, and then other designs for if there were area restrictions. A simple water wheel connected to a fan seemed simplest, bit it would probably needs some kind of gear system to rotate the fan quickly enough for the sort of air flow that would be needed, meaning it would need to be either a large or long wheel so that it would have sufficient torque…

She fell asleep at her table, and in the morning it was slightly disconcerting to have to wonder whether that had been more or less uncomfortable than actually sleeping on her bed.

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"Congratulations," Rian said with dry amusement as she sat down for breakfast, this time with her board. "People are now actively talking about volunteering to go mining. The threat of your bringing back fees and taxes worked. Though now it's probably going to be harder to institute some sort of money system when we finally get too big to ensure no one is getting taken advantage of. But that's a 'Some Other Day' problem."

Lori nodded as she put the stones in the bowls. "Do you think we'll have enough volunteers to properly mine?"

"The minimum number of people needed to mine is one," Rian said. "More just makes it easier, safer and quicker. But Riz put me in touch of some of the men who'd worked the mine when they first opened it, and they seemed willing. We might actually get more miners after the deadline. I'm told the houses will be finally finished within a week, save for proper waterproofing, but everyone's roofs have that problem. The trees with the right kind of sap—"

"Resin," Lori corrected.

Rian blinked. "Isn't that the same thing?"

"All resins are a sap, but not all saps are a resin," Lori said, remembering getting the same explanation once. "Only certain tall, straight trees produce resin that can be used for woodworking. Give orders that these trees are not to be cut down and see if we can start cultivating them. at the very least, start planting whatever they use as seed in cleared areas we're not using."

"Ah, more work to do when the current work is done," Rian nodded. "Probably still preferable to paying taxes, though not as preferable as getting paid and not paying taxes."

"Also, I need a carpenter," Lori said.

"We have several," Rian said. "What do you need them to build?"

"A fan for moving air," Lori said. "Possibly a water wheel. And gears."

"I'll ask if anyone can do it," Rian said. "It would help if you had a design they can refer to."

Lori nodded. Yes, no carpenter liked having to envision what you wanted in their head. They wanted plans, at least a sketch and rudimentary directions. "I should have something tomorrow evening or the day after, when I've inspected what's left of River's Fork's air circulation equipment. In the meantime, I'll build something temporary for them."

A binding of airwisps for moving air might not last long, but it would at least last for long enough.

Lori reached into a bowl in her board and made her first move as Umu sat down next to Rian with a yawn.

"Good morning, Lord Rian," she greeted. "I'll have your laundry ready after breakfast."

"You don't have to," Rian said, looking pained for some reason.

"Nonsense, Lord Rian," she said. "I've already done it. It would be a waste to leave the work unfinished." She glanced at the board in the middle of the table. "Isn't it your move?"

Loir made her impatience clear as Rian sighed and reached into a bowl to take his turn.

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After breakfast and three close games—ARGH!—Rian promised to get back to her with details for the retting tank and if anyone could build what she wanted, while Lori went to consider her next step.

There was, admittedly, a lot she could do. Build the new bath house, for instance. Get started on the isolated debauchery area that Rian had been so delicately suggesting. Dig up a new water reservoir. Check up on her experiment. Wait for someone to die so she could lay claim to their bedroll and FINALLY have a comfortable place to sleep.

Most of those would take time, however, and would be interrupted by tomorrow—and she'd have to prepare her experiment equipment to bring with her tomorrow, wouldn't she? Her syringe, at least, and a container of some kind. Just stone, maybe since she wasn't willing to leave one of her glassware behind. It might be considered an added variable, but at the moment she didn't care. Besides, if it worked, than she'd just make sure anything she did in the future included stone she'd shaped.

She went back to digging more sleeping niches on the second level. It was a different experience with the ropers and weavers there. While their equipment was there—she recognized the looms from a play she'd seen, and the tool whose exact name she didn't know from one time she'd applied for work at a ropewalk—only some of the weavers seemed to be actively using them, Mikon among them. Many seemed to be using turning bundles of twisted fibers into cord. Strangely, both the weavers and the ropers—she could tell the ropers because they were all male, and three were children—seemed to be using similar tools for the process, with minor differences attributable to aesthetics.

The digging occupied her until lunch, giving her a nice pile of stone to work with. Out of boredown, she'd tested if they could pass lightningwisps, but sadly there didn't seem to be any metal ores in her Dungeon. Not where she'd been digging, anyway.

At lunch, Rian had finally given her the details needed for a retting tank. It turned out it didn't need to be very deep, but it did need to be stagnant and able to submerge a lot of ropeweed stalks so they could decay and release the fibers that were used from making thread.

"Apparently the water left after that happenes is good for plants," Rian said. "Just don't drink it or get it on your wounds."

"Noted," Lori said blandly, considering the layout of the settlement currently. From the sound of it, it would probably be a good idea to keep the resulting water away from their drinking water in case of seepage.

There was just enough space between the sawpit and the fields to put in the requested retting tank so the used water could be directed towards the fields. Speaking of which, she supposed the fields were looking good. Not all the crops were the same height, since some had been planted as seeds, others had been uprooted from River's Fork and transplanted, and a few had been wild vegetables replanted, but there was clear organization, if nothing else.

There also didn't seem to be anyone working there beyond a few who were watering the plants using clay pot filled with water. Did crops really need so little upkeep, or was everyone just lazy?

Sighing, she inspected the space. Bedrock wasn't too deep down, so she could anchor the retting tank, and it should be too hard to make some sort of pluggable drain so the water could be released down to the fields. She'd have to build some kind of storage cistern though. Maybe just extend the current irrigation water cistern? Or would mixing the retting water and relatively clean water be bad? She'd have to get Rian to ask…

The specifications she got wasn't much of a tank, in her opinion, more like a shallow wading pool, but apparently it was what was needed since their demesne had no naturally stagnant bodies of water. Moving the dirt out of the way—using compacted dirt for this was probably not structurally sound in the long run—to reveal the bedrock, Lori began transferring and shaping excavated rocks to make the pool. It wasn't very deep—only about up to her knees—but it was fairly sizable so it could hold a lot of water and therefore ropeweed.

Lori wasn't sure she understood the processes involved, but then again, she'd never worked in this industry. The retting pool was finished well before dinner, a seamless, stone basin that would apparently be manually filled with water. The runoff water for irrigation was close enough that people could make their own arrangements for filling the tank. Lori had at least made sure the stone surfaced had a rough pattern to help with traction and footing, so that there'd be no accidents from people sleeping on smooth, wet stone.

After that, she had a restful afternoon sitting near the curing sheds, drying the cut timbers. Just her, sitting there maintaining and adjusting her binding so that the wood would cure evenly, doing familiar work.

Then, as the sun dipped low and Lori estimated its angle to be the same as when she and Rian had left the samples outside of her demesne, she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on finding her link to her blood outside of her demesne. It was a struggle for a moment, trying to reach for wisps of her body but outside herself and her demesne, trying to remember how to make the connection again, but…

There! Two mostly contiguous groups of mostly waterwisps. While one was much more… tenuous?... than the other, both were in her awareness despite the overall distance from herself—and now she realized perhaps that didn't matter, because there were both very close to her demesne's edge, after all. Still, it was a good sign. While the one she'd been experimenting with for longer was easier to perceive, likely a result of greater affinity from use and greater imbuement, the sample that had simply been imbued was still there as well.

Cautiously, Lori reached for the latter sample, and met the same narrow sensation that she had felt at first as she tried to re-establish her claim and imbue it. Beyond that, however, there was no difficulty repeating her first test of the day before, and soon she was actively imbuing the waterwisps, their presence seeming to grow stronger in her awareness.

She opened her mouth to announce the results—and then snapped her teeth shut in frustration as she realized Rian wasn't around to take notes. Sighing, she reached down, compacted some of the dirt underneath her into a compressed block, and began writing the results on that. She'd add it to the rest of the notes alter.

It wasn't over yet. Each successful test led into another thing she had to test. But at least this was a good progression, and what she'd discovered already boded well for the third incarnation of the water jet and the eventual Covehold mission.

Pushing herself to her feet, passing the men who were putting away their tools and equipment—some bowed to her, and she nodded back in acknowledgement—Lori headed for dinner, already thinking of making stone bowls and stone tubes she could bind airwisps to…