Weekly Digest 30 - (#90 - #92) (Patreon)

Privacy, Privies, and Winter Worries

"So, good news, we have volunteers," Rian said as he sat down opposite her for dinner. "They'll be ready to go with us tomorrow. Though it took some negotiating, since they don't want to be away from their families until winter. How do you feel about different batches of volunteers, each batch doing week-long shifts? We only have ten people in the first batch, but since it looks like the houses will be done soon, we can expect more people in subsequent batches."

Lori considered that thoughtfully. "So, I have to keep going back there every week?" she said blandly.

"Haven't you learned enough from your tests to build something so that you don't need to?" Rian said as Umu casually sat down next to him, massaging her fingers tiredly.

Lori brightened at that reminder. Yes, he was right, wasn't he? She'd have to go this time to convey people, see what she had to work with in regards to an air circulation system, and set up her final test, but after that would be her last time once she'd put some sort of air circulation device in. She'd be able to modify the water jet with her blood so that Rian didn't need her to keep it imbued, and from then on he or someone else could do it, even the ice delivery! "Yes, I suppose you have a point," she murmured. A thought occurred to her. "When the houses are complete… will we be able to move everyone else to only one shelter?"

"I was sort of hoping we could still use both so that people would have more space to themselves," Rian said as Riz sat down on his other side, smelling of sun, sweat and sawdust.

"Answer me Rian," Lori said sternly. "Will the remaining people be able to fit in a single shelter?"

Rian sighed as Mikon sat down next to Umu, also massaging her fingers. "I suppose they can. It'll even be a little roomier… but I still think people would like it more if they had more space."

"Inform people that as soon as people have moved out, the second shelter will be converted to private rooms," Lori said.

"Oh. Well, that's nice—"

"For the purposes of private intimacy. Inform the carpenters that I will need doors. Many, many doors. Unless people are fine with others being able to look in…?"

Rian stared at her. So did the three women. Then they glanced at Rian.

"What?" she said. "This will solve the issue you brought up, won't it? Inform people this will commence as soon as the second shelter is no longer occupied. The sooner the houses are done, the sooner I can get to the modifications. Perhaps that will encourage them to work faster. People will have to bring their own bedroll, but perhaps we can see about laying out some planks to keep them off the cold floor." She paused a moment. "Children will, of course, be strictly forbidden entry. For ANY reason."

"I want to say that should be obvious from what you're describing, but I can already hear the mothers saying 'Go get your uncle', or aunt or brother or whoever," Rian sighed. Umu, Mikon and Riz all nodded.

Yes, that's exactly the kind of thoughtlessly traumatizing things mothers would do, in addition to not locking doors, not having younger siblings until years later, and giving unasked for advice about how to get girls to sleep with you.

"Assign someone to guard the door," Lori said. "Perhaps one of the medics, in case someone hurts themselves."

"I… want to say that's unlikely, but yeah, people are likely to end up hurting themselves from overexcitement." The three stared at him again. So did Lori, for that matter.

"How could you possibly know that?" Lori said.

"It's an energetic physical activity," Rian said blandly. "That's really all the prerequisite you need for someone to get hurt by accident."

"I defer to your no doubt superior understanding of the subject," Lori replied in the same tone. "Going back to the previous topic, after the houses are finished, we must begin preparations for winter."

Rian frowned. "In what way?" he said.

"Have you considered how the cold and snow are going to affect latrine use and maintenance?" Lori said.

"WAIT!" Rian said. "I can vaguely see what you're getting at, but can we NOT discuss latrine-related stuff while we're about to get ready to eat? Pick something else. Pick ANYTHING else, please, I beg you! We can talk about it on the way to River's Fork tomorrow."

Lori frowned, about to reprimand him for such silly behavior… and then remembered they were going to eat stew.

"All right," she said, making Rian and the three sitting next to him sigh. "When the houses are finished, you'll be able to begin work on the boat we will bring to Covehold, correct?"

"Hopefully," Rian said, sighing. "But as things stand, I'm not very optimistic. Any boat we build before winter would be relatively small, maybe just a bigger barge with outriggers. We wouldn't be able to bring a lot of cargo, just the seel skins. In hindsight, I'm not sure we're be able to sell those for as much as we'd want." He gave her a sideways look. "Really, off the top of my head, the dragonscales are the best thing we have to trade, and given that other demesne might have had a lot of those drop on them too, I'm still skeptical about it being worth the trip. But we NEED medicines, tools, and materials…"

"Then don’t expect much," Lori said. "The boat will be untested, the route will be untested, the crew manning the boat will be untested. Don't think of this as primarily a trading mission. This is an attempt to see if we can even reach Covehold. If that is successful, we can take the opportunity to find out what goods are in demand and available, and then come back with them after winter, preferably in a better boat."

Rian frowned. "We'll still need medicine, though," he said. "Especially nine months from now, at the latest."

Lori blinked. "What happens nine months from now?"

"Well Lori, when a man and a woman love each other very much…"

"Oh, that," Lori interrupted. Right. She'd forgotten.

"Yes, that," Rian said, not seeming to notice the intent stares coming from either side of him. "Traditionally the way to increase your demesne's population. We might need to make more houses again."

"Not before we've prepared the ones we have for winter," Lori said. "They have roofs and doors right now, but no windows and the walls are all bare stone."

"Yes, whose idea was that?" Rian said blandly.

Lori ignored that. "At the very least, some or of fireplace will need to be added in, or a central hearth," she said. "Otherwise I'll have to heat and light everything. Food's ready."

Rian blinked. "What?"

Lori pointed. "The food's ready. Go get some."

"Oh! Right, right," he said, getting ready to stand up, before pausing. "Uh, Umu, Riz, could one of you move a little?"

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By the time Rian came back with the food, Lori had come back from her room with her sunk board.

"Ah, I thought something was missing," Rian sad when he saw it, putting down two bowls. She picked one and pulled it towards herself, then reached over and made her first move, dropping stones into shallow bowls on the game board. The others all sat back down, though not in the same places as before.

As Rian made his own move, Lori said, "About winter preparation, how ready are we?"

"We're… progressing…" Rian said slowly. "But to be honest, I'm worried we won't be able to stockpile enough food stores before the seels migrate away."

Lori blinked. "Why would the seels go anywhere?" She made her next move.

"For the same reason as the beasts," Rian said. "Winter is coming and they're be more comfortable somewhere warm. So they'll swim off and go live somewhere else."

Lori stared. "They do that?"

"Didn't you learn ever learn about this?" Rian sighed, reaching over to do his turn.

"No, we learned Whispering at school, why would we need to learn what beasts and fursh do in winter?" Lori said. "Maybe Deadspeakers would know, but I doubt it."

"Right, well, lack of knowledge on the subject on your part or not, I'm worried about it happening before we have enough to last us the winter, plus some buffer in case of emergency," Rian said. "The children can't catch the biggest seels—though Karina keeps trying— and those are the ones worth catching for how useful they are."

"So, you want people to start helping the children catch seels when the houses are done?" Lori said, making her next move.

"That too," Rian said, "but actually, I was thinking we catch a bunch of seels and keep them penned up so we'd have live meat in the winter. Why kill it and worry about storing it in the cold room when it'll stay fresh by keeping it alive?"

"You want to domesticate wild seels?" Lori said.

"Domesticate implies we actually know what we're doing," Rian said. "No, I was thinking we get a few of the biggest ones, gather up together, you raise big pillars of rock they can't pass through around them, then just leave them to feed themselves, then come winter we make sure they don't starve to death until we're ready to eat them."

"Why don't I just raise bars across the whole river then, and trap them here?" Lori said dryly.

Rian paused. He tilted his head thoughtfully.

His silence went on for some time.

"Lord Rian?" Umu said, glancing at him.

"Hmm?" he said, glancing at her.

"It's your move, and her Bindership is waiting for you to say something."

"Whu…? Oh, right!" He reached over, picked up the stones from a bowl, and began dropping them one at a time as he progressed. "So, you raising bars to block them from going down the river sounds very tempting, but wouldn't they just go around it by wiggling on land?"

"Killing them now and storing their meat seems less insane," Lori said, voice flat. She made her move.

Rian shrugged. "It was just an idea. I agree having people concentrate on hunting the big ones and storing their meat now is the most sensible course of action. Maybe we can try it next year, when we have more people."

"Hmm…" Lori said. "Well, I'll leave it to you to tell the children that you're devaluing the worth of their contribution to the demesne."

"I'm… what?" Rian said, blinking in confusion.

"Well, if you're going to ask people to start hunting seels—I assume with catching the large ones in mind?—that that would naturally make the children's efforts after that point near-worthless," Lori said. "After all, it's not like they can learn to hunt beasts instead."

"I'm… sure they'll understand?" Rian said.

"They'll probably get all the cleaning and latrine duties forced on them afterwards," Lori continued. "After all, it's not like they can do anything else."

"Are you… trying to make me feel guilty about putting other people on seeling duty so we'll have enough food for winter?" Rian said.

"Of course not. Why would you think a silly thing like that?"

"The way you were speaking before?" Rian said.

Mikon coughed delicately. "Ah, Lord Rian?" Rian glanced at her as Lori had another spoonful of stew. "With the new retting tank that her Bindership made now available for use, we would very much appreciate it if people could be assigned to cutting, gathering and retting more ropeweed. It would give us more material to spin and weave with, which would allow us to provide everyone with more blankets for winter, and perhaps new other things as well? I'm sure the children can do that…?"

"It would go faster if we had other people to spin thread for us as well, Lord Rian," Umu said. "Then we could concentrate on weaving… all… day…" Umu had the look of someone hearing what she was saying and regretting it.

Rian glanced at Lori. "Does that sound like a good idea?"

"Why are you asking me?" Lori said. "How would I know?"

"Well, you might have some strong opinion you wanted to express," Rian said.

Lori shrugged. "I never worked in textiles. There's no work there for Whisperers. They mostly employ Mentalists and Horotracts."

Rian blinked in surprise. "Really? Why?"

Lori shrugged. "Fast reflexes for working the looms, fitting more workers into a workshop and dragging out the day so they need only pay workers for a day's work after making them work a day and a quarter."

"That sounds unethical," Rian said disapprovingly. "And illegal." From the faces Umu and Mikon were making, they probably agreed.

Lori shrugged. "Those were only rumors I heard. As I said, I never worked in textiles."

Rian sighed. "Well, we have time. I'll… talk to the children. Who knows, they might be agreeable."

Lori shrugged. "Your move."

As Rian did just that, reaching for one of the bowls, Mikon watched him intently. Finally, she said, "Lord Rian… how do you play this game?"

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The First Miners

The next day, Lori woke up and resigned herself to needing to leave her demesne. Again.

She promised herself this would the la—second to last time she'd ever need to leave her demesne ever again, ever, for any reason! And this time she'd keep that promise!

But for now, she had commitments to fulfill, things to do, people to meet, things to build…

Sighing, she pushed herself out of bed.

Her boots were still holding out. The sole was getting more worn, but at least the uppers hadn't cracked or separated. That was good. Rian had said he'd had someone look her shoes over, but she had no idea what she'd do once they needed replacing.

Her socks though…

She frowned down at her increasingly thin socks. There was another hole she'd just noticed, one she'd have to sew… or ask Rian to. She had to admit his sewing, when it came to socks, was better than hers.

She wondered how much socks cost in Covehold. Surely they wouldn't be too expensive, right? Or did anyone ine her demesne know how to make socks?

Actually, how didyou make socks…?

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Lori felt her whole body go tense in annoyance as she looked upon the volunteers to go mine in River's Fork. There were eleven of them, most of them young men who were making a lot of noise as they talked to each other. A few she actually recognized, and one of them she could actually name.

She grabbed Rian by the shoulder, dragged her surprised lord a little way off, and hissed, "What is he doing here?"

"Uh, you'll have to be a little more specific," Rian said. "There are seven people there that could apply to."

"Him! The idiot! Landoor!"

"Oh," Rian said, nodding. "Well, I think he wants to mine because he thinks it will let him find a core buried in—"

That was as far as he got before the aggrieved scream of "THAT'S NOT HOW DUNGEON'S WORK!" ripped itself from Lori's snarling lips.

"Ow. Too loud," Rian said, sticking a finger in his ear and wiggling it around as if to clean it. "I know that, and you know that, and now I'm pretty sure most people know that, even if they don't know what part specifically, but you know how he is. He still half-thinks he's your heir from—please don't yell again, I don't deserve it!"

Lori managed to grit her teeth back against the next exclamation that wanted out. "Who's in charge here?"

"Um, you?"

Lori rolled her eyes. "I meant among the miners."

"There's no one really in charge, though Karina probably comes closest. They really respect her."

Lori sighed. "I said miners, not minors!" She pointed for emphasis.

"Oh… OH!" Ugh, why did Rian have to pick this morning to be useless? Did he not get any sleep again? "No one's in charge, really. I mean, they all showed up because they could be spared for a week."

Lori sighed. "Find the most responsible one and put him in charge to make sure they don't do anything stupid. We'll do two trips so the boat isn't dangerously full."

"Ah. Well, it's been a while since we've gone really fast. Though if I start screaming, stop the boat immediately, I'll mean the tiller finally broke off."

She gave him a piercing look. "Is that likely to happen?"

"We're going fast on what was originally a barge meant to be pulled along the water by people," Rian said. "I'm surprised things haven't broken yet."

Lori gave that some thought. "I'll grab some bones so we can repair any leaks."

"I'm… not sure how they'll take that, but yeah, a few might be good."

"We'll be able to talk about the latrine situation on the way."

"Oh, right, I forgot about that…"

Lori sighed. "Well, I'll go get the bones, you make sure they have their bedroll, blanket and clothes for the week. We should be ready to go when I get back."

They were not ready to go by the time she got back.

It turned out some of them had assumed that they would be brought to River's Fork in the morning and brought back to her demesne at night. As a result they wasted time waiting for people to come back with the necessary implements.

The delay didn't put Lori in a good mood, but they were able to set off with the half that had managed to get everything ready first. This time Lori made it VERY clear that they would be coming back for the next batch, and they had better be ready by then.

The ride passed in uncomfortable… well, not silence, there was the usual screaming by people not yet used to Lori's Boat's speed in the water. Lori knew better than to tell them to shut up. They seemed to insist on screaming for longer when she did that that's what it felt like, anyway.

They passed the compacted stone dome Lori had put the bowls with her blood inside. Already, a thin, glittering layer of Iridescence was covering the surface of it, and Lori knew an equally thin layer would have appeared on the space inside, on everything but the glassware she had put her bloody water in. She'd come back to get them on the way back. The stone bowls she'd made the day before, as well as the case with her syringe and other things, lay in the pack at her side. Next to it was the hollow stone cone of the funnel she had made.

Thankfully, Rian's prediction about the tiller breaking didn't come to pass, and they arrived at River's Fork well before noon, despite the distance. From their previous trips, as well as Rian's conversations with the former militiamen who'd made the journey on foot, they estimated that the path along the river between the two demesne was around forty taums, though given all the curves and bends, a straight-line between the edges of their respective demesne was probably closer to thirty-five taums, perhaps even just thirty.

Lori intended to have her demesne expand to cover every one of those taums.

For now, however, it was a wild frontier covered in tainted colors, which they were thankfully able to just move quickly through. They didn't even need to stop to splash themselves with water to wash off any iridiation.

People were clearly waiting for them when River's Fork came into sight. Lori adjusted the speed of the water jets, slowing them down to a relative crawl and letting their own momentum beach them. there was a harsh skidding as the flat bottom of the former barge dragged across the mud and river stones, but she had long since cleared this beach of anything that could damage her boat.

"We're here everyone," Rian said in the overly cheerful tone of his he used when he wanted to improve people's spirits. "Everybody off!"

He stood up, stepped over the side of the boat, and then reached back to help the nearest person follow after him. Despite it being a simple boxy that barely moved now that it was partially beached, for some reason people seemed very reluctant to get off, and it took some coaxing on Rian's part to get them to step down and from the boat and began unloading their bedrolls, blankets and clothes.

Binder Shanalorre was among those waiting for them, looking unassuming in a plain, undyed dress. Lord whatever-his-name was standing next to her on one side, with Shanalorre's aunt—Lori remembered that much, though the name currently escaped her—on the other. There was no distinctly arrayed militia with them, though there was a small crowd behind her.

Lori gave the other Dungeon Binder a nod from where she sat, impatiently waiting for the boat to finish unloading so they could get the next group and be back before sundown.

After a while, Binder Shanalorre seemed to sighed, then gestured to her lord, indicating Rian. They spoke briefly before Shanalorre walked towards Lori.

"Binder Lolilyuri," she said.

"Binder Shanalorre," Lori replied in acknowledgement, not getting up from where she was sitting, putting herself under the other Binder's eye height.

"I expected to hear back from you sooner," Shanalorre said.

"We set no definite time-frame as to the start of this cooperation, only a tentative endpoint," Lori said. "Besides, it took time to gather volunteers. Incidentally, we will be returning next week to take this batch back with us and bring in another batch."

Shanalorre frowned. "That wasn't part of the agreement."

"Which is why I am informing you now rather than just coming back next week," Lori said. "Apparently, no one wanted to be separated from their families for longer than that. In future, we might be able to leave them here for longer than a week, but for now, that is what we have to work with."

"I… see," Shanalorre said. "Very well then. Those conditions are acceptable provided the transition occurs smoothly."

"I can't promise that," Lori said. "The second batch will likely be as ignorant as this batch currently is, and will need to be informed of proper procedure. The third batch as well, if members of the first batch decline to volunteer again."

"If we need to educate a new workforce every week repeatedly, the mine will never be efficient," Shanalorre said.

"Perhaps you would rather our people supplement your workforce in other areas while you train a dedicated mining group of your own people?" Lori said blandly.

For a moment, Shanalorre frowned, her eyes growing unfocused. Then she shook her head. "I will need to ask for greater continuity in the work force in future and shifts to be at least a minimum of two weeks."

"They are a volunteer force," Lori said. "Unless you can incentivize them by offering them payment, they are unlikely to change their mind and agree to those conditions."

Shanalorre blinked. "Wait, you're not paying them?"

Lori tilted her head. "Say, rather, that I'm not taxing them or instituting new fees that will require them to part with any payment they receive." She tilted her head the other way. "If you cannot incentivize them with payment, then I suggest you make the food you feed them something besides stewed meat with assorted other things. I believe you have sufficient variety in food resources to allow you to accomplish this without significantly altering the amount of food you would have fed them anyway?"

Shanalorre seemed to consider that. "I… see. I will confer with our quartermasters and assess your suggestion. Now, where is our ice?"

"I will bring it with the second batch," Lori said. She glanced toward Rian, who was speaking to Shanalorre's lord. "If you will have my people directed to their quarters and towards whatever safety training they will receive before mining, my lord and I will retrieve the rest."

"One taum cube of the ice now, the other two when you get back," Shanalorre said insistently.

Lori considered that. Then she sighed. "Fine," she said, getting up and slinging her pack over her shoulder. Its contents were a reassuring weight as she started to breathe in magic, holding her staff with the wire pressing against her palms as she dipped one end into the waters of the river.

She had to do the block by stages, dragging pieces of ice onto the shore and stacking them up to about the right dimensions, then using water to progressively fill in the cracks until the whole thing was solid. Lori made sure there weren't any bubbles inside as she filled in and froze, lightly imbued bindings of waterwisps keeping it solid and cold.

She used a marked notch on her staff to ensure the dimensions were all one pace—she even generously added two fingers width on top to make up for any unevenness from the ground—before she nodded and turned to Shanalorre. "One cube pace of ice, as agreed," Lori said.

Shanalorre nodded, took out a knotted cord from her pocket, and began measuring.

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"Is it just me," Rian said loudly from the tiller, "or are we going faster than normal?"

"I have other things I need to do," she told him, "so we need to hurry. Now, on the subject of latrines."

"Yes…?"

"They need to be prepared for winter," she said. "For one thing, we need to keep the contents away from snowmelt, or it will contaminate the snow and ground around it. While it's unlike to spread into the river, if the ground freezes, it will certainly affect the immediate area."

Rian blinked, then groaned. "I miss city plumbing," he sighed.

Lori nodded sympathetically.

"So, what are you thinking?" he said. "Build a secondary roof over all the latrines to keep snow off them?"

"That or pave the ground around them with stone, and institute mandatory snow removal around them," Lori said.

"We'd have to anyway, so that people can get to them," Rian said. "Actually, all of that will need a whole new bunch of shovels specifically for shoveling snow." He titled his head. "Covered walkways between the houses and the latrines? And the Dungeon, dining hall and baths too, I suppose."

"That will need more roofs," Lori pointed out.

"Maybe you can sink all the houses underground and open tunnels between them…?" Rian said.

"Now you're just being silly," she said. "Focus on the latrines."

He sighed. "Yeah… right, winter latrines… you might have to use magic to keep them warm, otherwise the waste is going to freeze over and we won't be able to clean the things… actually, where would we even put the waste? And pushing the dung barrows through the snow is going to be a nightmare for whoever ends up doing it… "

"We can assign larger groups of people to it," Lori said. "After all, by that time we'll have a lot of tree cutters, sawyers and other people not doing much work since it's too cold, right?"

"Throw people at the problem and just brute force it?" Rian said. "People to keep shoveling the snow, people to clean the latrines… the waste will still be a problem. You might need to dig new pits just before winter for us to dump the waste into during, since it doesn't become fertilizer in the cold."

Lori blinked. "It doesn't?"

"It doesn't," Rian confirmed. "Same reason why meat doesn't go bad when on ice. Too cold for rot to set in. Actually, it probably won't even smell. During winter, anyway, We'll know spring is here by all the stink it makes. Hopefully we survive that long."

For a moment, the two sat in silence.

"Wait…" Rian suddenly said. "Why are we worrying about this?"

Lori gave him a look. "Because I deals with the survival of the demesne?"

Rian waved a hand in negation. "No, I mean, why are we bothering to think up solutions to this? We have people from the north, who've probably lived with snow their whole lives. Let's just ask them how to handle this situation! No, better! We ask them to deal with it! No need for the two of us to get creative!"

Lori blinked, then brightened as she realized what her lord meant. "That could work…!"

"And if it doesn't, because we don't like their solution," Rian said, "then we actually bother with thinking of something."

Lori tilted her head, but had to accept that addendum. "Find someone to ask," she said. "I'd rather not have to build anything when winter actually starts."

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said. "Maybe I can ask Riz…?"

"No," Lori said flatly. "First, because you might do it during meals, and we'll be eating. Secondly, find someone who actually knows how to construct the measures, not just someone who might only have used them."

"Good point," Rian agreed. "Someone else then…"

Lori rolled her eyes as Lori's Boat continued to speed back to the demesne for the second batch of workers.

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The Mine

They arrived back in River's Fork a little after noon. From the looks of it, lunch was over. Fortunately, Rian had prepared for this and had had some of breakfast saved for the second batch to eat, in case they missed lunch at either demesne.

Someone in River's Fork appeared at to be as forward-thinking, for they were greeted with warm bread and other foods as well. Lori noted, however, that the number of foods was equal in number only to the second batch of miners, and did not include any portions for her and Rian. At least they had something to eat. Lori had even, against her better judgment, generous and gave Rian one of the pink ladies she had brought along as a snack. Let that remind him of what he'd been missing when he'd foolishly given away many of the fruits she'd given him as tha—restitution for the use of this bed roll!

After a brief break to eat—Rian saying something about needing to design the boat to Covehold to be stable enough to eat in properly—Lori started making the other four cubes of ice that was part of their agreement with River's Fork, since their blacksmiths had confirmed that the ore sample they'd brought back had, in fact, contained copper, bonded to iron.

It took a while, but Binder Shanalorre had provided some boards to lay the ice during construction so that it would be level, which at least helped with the getting it to the proper dimensions. Lori had even put a binding on the cubes with enough imbuement that the ice should reasonably reach whatever they were using for a coldroom long before it started to melt.

After that, Lori asked to be shown the air circulation arrangements for the mine. Which involved actually seeing the mine itself.

"Why does this need air circulation?" Lori said, sending light through the cave-like entrance on the side of the hill with the binding of lightwisps at the end of her staff. Unlike her dungeon, the entrance was supported by wooden beams, which seemed a bit unnecessary, since… "It's barely bigger than two of your houses put together."

That might have been a bit of an exaggeration. At a pace and a half wide, two paces tall and… well, she wasn't a Horotract. Deep enough that her light was just a bit too dim to each the end of the excavated mine? Call it maybe twelve to sixteen paces. Lori wasn't sure how much ore they managed to extract from this, but it was probably not equal to all the excavated space.

"Part of the air circulation is to keep it from growing too hot," Shanalorre said. "And while it doesn't seem that deep, I am told its deep enough that a group of people will quickly find themselves lightheaded, especially if they're doing demanding physical work."

Lori grunted. Well, she supposed it was a reasonable precaution to take.

She looked at the air circulation system they already had in place. It seemed to consist of tubes of either sealskin or canvas that hung from one of the upper corners of the mine. They hung limp now, but it was easy to imagine them bloated and filled with air. At intervals, usually where one tube connected to the next, the wooden tube used as a connector had a hole on the side to release air.

Lori could see it working. After all, in principle it wasn't that different from the air circulation arrangement of the second level of her demesne.

It was also immediately obvious why they'd asked for her help in providing air to circulate to this system.

"These are what you were going to use to as a backup system?"  Lori said blandly, starring at pair of large bellows that had been secured to some sort of wooden frame just outside of the mines. Leather hoses connected the nozzles of the bellows to the long hose of tubing already in the mine. She'd seen then coming in and had hoped they were for use in something else, but alas, that hope was Iridiated and left to go mad.

"These were the bellows used for smelting the metal we managed to unearth," Shanalorre confirmed. "With men constantly pumping, we believed at it would provide some air circulation, provided we closed all the vent holes in the tubing system so air would only escape from the end of the tube, forcing the old air out of the mine. We acknowledge it's insufficient for our needs. We were going to build a much large one as soon as the wood had cured."

"Speaking as a man just looking at this thing," Rian said. "I wouldn't want to place my safety on this. I don't even think it's sturdy enough to take the constant pounding you're implying it'll have to take for ventilation to happen! If I had to rely on this, I wouldn't go into that mine."

"What happened to the original ventilation equipment?" Lori said. "You implied that it was destroyed when the dragon passed, but was there anything left of it? Perhaps it could still be salvaged or repaired?"

"A dragonscale fell on it," Lord Yllian said blandly. "The metal itself is useable but completely beyond our ability to repair. And besides…" He looked sideways at Shanalorre for a moment.

"Tell them, Lord Yllian," she said, looking aside.

The man sighed. "It was powered with beast's legs mounted to a frame that Binder Koschay had made undead to keep turning the handle of the device. Otherwise we'd have needed at least two people working together to get the thing turning."

Rian titled his head as if trying to imagine the mechanism, looking slightly disturbed. "Legs? Like, just pieces of beasts cut off and nailed to a frame?"

"Of course not," Shanalorre said, and there were a note of pride in her voice. "My father was a learned and experienced Deadspeaker. He found a way to fuse a beast's hips to wood, and from there the leg operated as if it were still whole."

Rian twitched. "Well, I'm sure it worked…?" he said hesitantly, glancing at Lord Yllian.

"It worked very well, yes," the other man said.

"If you can disconnect these things, I can install a temporary replacement that will last until the next day or so while I get to work on building a more permanent solution," Lori said. "I assume you'll want to do the removal yourself to preserve materials?"

Shanalorre nodded and gestured to her lord, who gestured. Some men who had been loitering nearby approached, and he bgean directing them to disassemble the bellows and frame. "What else do you need?"

"I might need help with carpentry and carrying when I come back," Lori said. She looked at wha the men were doing and frowned. "Disassemble the frame, but keep it nearby. It might be suitable for the solution I have in mind. For now, I will install a temporary measure as soon as it is disassembled."

They all looked at the stone funnel cone Lori had had carried from Lori's Boat.

"So, just to be clear, are you really just going to stick that on one end…?"

"It will draw in air from the wide end and force it out the other side," Lori said. "As a result, air will move."

Shanlorre gave it a skeptical look. "How do we activate it?"

"Youdon't," Lori said. "I do. Once it's activated, it will continue circulating air until it runs out of imbuement."

"That seems… wasteful," Shanalorre said.

"Hence why it will only last two days, at most," Lori said. "It will continue on through the night, not stopping, circulating air until the airwisps run out."

"Is there no way to make it last longer?" Shanalorre said.

Lori shrugged. "I can reduce the intake rate," she said. "That would extend its duration by another day. But once it's activated, it's activated. There's not deactivating it unless myself or someone else capable of Whispering overrides my claim and binds it to stop."

"So it will run through the night, while the mine is empty and it isn't needed…" Shanalorre said.

"It's meant as a temporary measure until I can build something more permanent," Lori said. "You're welcome to do it yourself. Or simply using the bellows is an option. I suggest you decide, as I do not wish to linger, and I intend to leave as soon as I install this and activate it."

Shanalorre let out a breath that sounded impatient. "Fine. I suppose we have no alternative."

It wasn't that simple, of course. The frame that had held the bellows were repurposed to hold the funnel stable—they simply lay it on the beams so that the wide end served as a base— while Lori altered the narrow and a leather tube was affixed to it. Lori made the stone bulge slightly so that the tube wouldn't just be tugged off. Then, once it was secure, Lori activate it.

It was mildly anticlimactic.

The airwisps she had bound to the interior of the funnel and imbued when she had made the funnel yesterday, a distinct layer that took up the entire interior of the funnel, began to draw in air, similar to the ventilation systems she had in her Dungeon. They watched the leather tub that had been secured to one end of the funnel suddenly bloat like a fat slug, and from the inside of the mine they heard the sound of rushing air.

"All right," Lori said. She picked up a rock off the ground and bound the lightwisps she'd had on the end of her staff to it. "Rian, take this and go in there to the end. I will begin reducing the output, and you yell if you can no longer feel sufficient movement from the end of the tubes. Hopefully that will allow this to last longer."

Rian sighed. "You know, when I agreed to this, I could have sworn you said I only had to deal with people…" he said, but he went into the mine anyway.

It took far long than Lori thought it would, since the sound of the air actually managed to muffle Rian's words, and Shanalorre had to condescend to having the pair who dismantled the bellows to go into the mine and stand at intervals so they could relay Rian's words. Eventually, however, they were able to find a level of output that allowed the binding on the funnel to be active for the next four day, perhaps five.

"I hope that's enough," Rian said as Lori took a moment to deactivate the binding and imbue a little more into it. "It's a bit windy, but people should still be able to breathe even with some kind of open flame burning."

Lori blinked. "Why would there be an open flame burning?" Lori said.

"They'll need light for when they're digging," Rian said, "And it's not like they have any other way to make it, right?"

Lori considered that. "The binding will last for four days, but no longer," she said as she bound it to a slightly higher level of output. "Hopefully by then I'll be back with a replacement for this." She glanced at Shanalorre. "I might need the assistance of your carpenters to fit it into place."

"I will notify them," Shanalorre said. "I suppose you're leaving now?"

Lori shook her head, reaching into her pack and pulling out a stone bowl. "Not quite," she said, taking her waterskin and pouring some of it into a bowl. "May I ask you to put this somewhere it won't be disturbed? It's for a test I'm conducting. It will help in determining the efficacy of the device I will be constructing to replace this." She gestured towards the dormant funnel.

"I… suppose I can find a place for it," Shanalorre said hesitantly.

"Excellent," Lori said, reaching into her pack and drawing her syringe case. "If you will wait one moment…"

She had boiled clean it before they left and kept the container sealed. The container itself she had blasted with steam. Hopefully that would be enough.

She pulled one arm out of her coat and concentrated on her body, feeling for waterwisps…

"Lori? What are you— NOT AGAIN!" Rian cried shrilly as she jabbed herself in the crook of her elbow and began to draw blood.

"Eeeeh!" Surprisingly, Binder Shanalorre cried out as well, running to hide behind a surprised Lord Yllian and hiding her face. Lori and the lord exchanged a brief look.

"Rian, please act like an adult," Lori said as she withdrew the needle from her arm, wincing as pain bloomed. She had jerked involuntarily at the cries, and now the site of the extraction throbbed.

"Doesn't that hurt?" Rian exclaimed.

"Of course it hurt. It hurts more when someone surprises me and makes me tense," Lori snapped as she pressed on the plunger of the syringe, sending all the blood down into the bowl of water.

There was an 'eep' as Shanalorre, who had started to peek around her lord, hurriedly hid her face behind him again as she quickly breathed in and out.

Lori cleaned the syringe with the last of the water before putting it back in its case, her mind already claiming and imbuing the waterwisps from the blood in the water as she did so. Well, that was already partially a success. She could, in fact, claim and maintain a connection even within another's demesne. Next would come seeing if the connection held when she left the demesne, and again when she re-entered her own…

"Shall I heal you, Binder Lolilyuri?" Binder Shanalorre's voice said, her face now composed again. "While your wound is again self-inflicted, it could still become infected, and antiseptic is a scarce resource until we have managed to cultivate enough sweetbugs and honey."

Lori glanced down at her arm. "If you do not mind, Binder Shanalorre."

Shanalorre nodded, and reached out to touch her arm. Lori wondered why the small Deadspeaker wasn't doing this through her link with the demesne. Perhaps she hadn't worked out how? Or was this just more familiar an therefore reassuring for her.

Fingers touched her skin, and Lori felt the familiar… dissonance of Deadspeaking being used on her. It was always so strange, being touched by a magic she couldn't counter or affect. She felt the wisps in her seemingly ripple slightly, as if sand moved by the waves, but every sense she possessed told her there had been no wave.

She thought that would have changed since she became Binder, that she'd at least feel somethingnew, but she supposed she was still to unfamiliar with Deadspeaking to perceive what was being done to her.

She wondered if it was equally unnerving to Shanalorre, the feeling of Lori performing Whispering in the child Binder's demesne? The demesne was an extension of their bodies, after all, so…

Lori shook her head to clear the thought away as the stinging pain and pulsing throb receded, and she watched the small puncture would close. "Done," Shanalorre informed her, before turning to look at the now dark-tinged stone bowl with morbid fascination. "May I ask what that was in aid of?"

"A test of an idea I have been experimenting with," Lori said.

"This isn't some strange, subtle attempt to wrest my demesne away from me by making me touch your blood, is it?" Shanalorre said blandly. "I think I remember that from some story…"

Lori barely managed to keep herself from screaming. "That's not how dungeons work," she managed to say in a normal tone. "No, this is merely a test of basic principles over time. I merely need it somewhere it will not be disturbed to minimize the possibility of bad results."

"Will an empty house do?" Shanalorre said.

"That will be suitable, provided it is covered," Lori said, taking out a second stone bowl from her pack. She hadn't had time to modify it to fit as a lid, but they were roughly the same dimensions, so it should work as a cover. Carefully, she placed it over the bowl.

"Could you find a piece of wood to use as a tray, Lord Yllian?" Shanalorre said, still looking at the bowl skeptically. "To make it easier to move?"

As the bemused older lord turned and had someone do just that, Lori finished putting everything back in her pack. "I believe it is time to go," Lori said, looking up at the sun, which indicated it was about mid-afternoon. "I hope you can begin soon, Binder Shanalorre. I will return within four days with a replacement air circulator."

"I look forward to it, Binder Lolilyuri," Shanalorre said.

Lori nodded, shouldered her pack, grabbed her staff, and gestured for Rian to follow her as she began heading back for Lori's Boat.

"Uh, your Bindership?" Rian called out to her. "Shouldn't you activate this air thing again before we leave?"