Weekly Digest 31 - (#93 - #95) (Patreon)

Subcontracting To Experts

At about mid-morning at a demesne some call Lorian, the day after its numbers had been temporarily reduced, a scream of frustration rose over the land. It was a scream of anger and rage, of a desire to impart endless suffering, of someone badly in need of new socks. Truthfully, it wasn't that loud, and barely registered with most people close enough to hear it.

Lori might have felt like punctuating that scream with some sort of explosion, but between several emphatic lessons about how random, unprepared explosions were A BAD IDEA, and any 'safe' explosion likely to not be as cathartic as wanted, she settled for letting out another scream. And then a third.

Afterwards, she had to sit and drink water to ease her throat, because screaming into the air with the force of all your hate and anger at an uncooperative world, while slightly relieving, hurts. She glared at the object of her ire.

It was, quite literally, a pile of rocks. Oh, it had been shaped by her Whispering and whatever tools she'd been able to find—a branch, a bone, a conveniently-sized jar used for rations that she'd have to bring back to the kitchen so it didn't get lost, another rock with a flat plane from being hewn by her water cutter—but it was still clearly a pile of rocks.

The idea was simple enough: a water-powered mechanism that would use water with her blood mixed in as a source of physical movement. With her blood, she could keep the water imbued from a distance almost indefinitely, or until doing so finally allowed her to learn the theretofore unknown limitations of how long doing this lasted. The waterwisps would be bound to move, in the process moving the paddles of a water wheel, which would be transferred to a propeller fan, which would be placed so as to blow large volumes of air into River's Fork's extant mine ventilation arrangement.

Yesterday, she had given Rian the sketch for such a fan for the carpenters to build, now with measurements. Some of the measurements were general rather than specific, like the thickness and length of the axle the fan blades would be mounted to, and she had informed Rian he was to make clear that she was to be informed if the carpenters needed anything done to make construction of the piece faster. Hopefully someone was working on it at that very moment.

She, for her part, had been trying to build a model for how it was all supposed to work. While she had made sketches on flat sheets of rock, in the style of the diagrams she had seen while working in carpentry workshops and smithies—she was certain what she had made, while probably not industry standard, was probably good enough to understand, since that was the purpose of the format—finding the one that actually worked was essential, as she would need to build it onsite at River's Fork.

The simplest way to build it, which she had already tried, was to build a water wheel, then attach the propeller fan directly to the axle. The small model made of stone had immediately shown problems that her more promising initial models of stone and bone had not. A wheel that spun quickly enough to turn the propeller at sufficient speed to create enough air movement was… well, was unlikely to be driven by the water she would be using, or at least unlikely to be driven with enough torque to turn the fan. It was obviously some sort of gears or ropes would need to be involved to make the fan turn at an adequate rate.

She had tried to make small mockups using the materials at hand but…

Well, she'd started screaming.

It wasn't long before Rian stepped into the clearing next to the bone pit, looking in bemusement at her stone water troughs, stone axles (not perfectly round since she'd had to roll them out by hand, with a wooden stick or two inside to keep them from breaking), stone wheels with stone paddles to catch the flowing water in the stone troughs, and a few attempts at stone gears. "Not going well?" he said.

"How nice to know your eyes and ears are perfectly functional," Lori said, glaring at her last attempt at a gear, which had cracked in half. Either it had been too thin or there had been an unfortunate seam. Just as well. The protruding pegs to catch the other gear Lori had made weren't straight or even anyway, and the stone beg it had been mounted with wasn't centered, which had probably contributed to it breaking.

"Ah," Rian nodded. "I'll just go tell everyone you're all right and need a bit more extra isolation than normal, than come back to help you. Incidentally, the carpenters want a permanent, roofed workshop so they can stop worrying about the lathe and other tools. They figured you asking them to build something was as good a time as any to bring it up. "

Lori sighed. "Fine, fine. They'll have to put on their own roof, and I won't be able to start on it until I finish this."

"I think they understand that. I'll tell them you'll get to it…eventually," Rian nodded. He turned to go.

"Rian."

He stopped, and looked back.

She was still staring in annoyance at her pile of stone scrap. "Inform the carpenters and smiths I need to speak to people who can make gears and know the construction of water wheels. And I might need axles. Also inform the ropers and… whoever we have making leather that I might need something to act as drive belts to transfer power to a water wheel."

"Really?" Rian said, surprised. "That's a lot of people. You sure you want to deal with that many?"

"There are things I can't build," Lori said, then added, "Not yet, at least. And I will admit making things perfectly round is difficult. Best to have people with the right tools making them." Her experience with wheels aside, trying to make proper stone gears would require her to make the tools for it first. Best to check if someone else had those tools already."

"And the ventilation equipment will be one of them?" Rian asked.

"And the ventilation equipment will be one of them," Lori confirmed. "Inform them I will meet with them after lunch."

"That soon?" Rian said. "Well, I suppose this is a rush job. If you don't finish this soon, you'll have to go back to River's Fork and lose a day filling that thing you build with more magic."

Lori grimaced at the reminder. "Yes, unfortunately."

Rian nodded. "All right, I'll find the right people," he said.

Lori gave a sharp nod, still staring at the broken gears.

Eventually, she sighed, got up, and went to her room. She had copies to make.

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Lolilyuri was not nervous. She was merely annoyed at the prospect of having to talk to people.

Rian had been as good as his word, and had gathered together a list of people, all already seated at one of the now-vacant tables after she came down to retrieve the stone tablets she had prepared over the rest of the morning.

There were a lot of them. Some she recognized vaguely from back when she'd been responsible for replacing the broken wheels on the water wagons. They'd been there to fit them into the axles. Not carpenters, what was the term… cartwrights.

Rian intercepted her before she reached the table and wordlessly handed her his writing plank. She glanced at it, wondering what he wanted, then blinked. There was a sketch of a rough square, with eight circles each on the long side. Each circle had a name and profession written next to it. A little off to the side, there was a flattened shape labeled 'Dungeon entrance'. She glanced towards the actual entrance, then towards the table of waiting people. There were four people on each side of the table. She even recognized one of them: Tackir, still covered with some specks of sawdust he hadn't been able to brush off. One of the circles was named 'Tackir – Carpenter'…

She glanced up, but Rian was already walking towards the table ahead of her. Frowning, she glanced down at the stone tablets she was carrying. She'd only made six…

Well, she supposed some people would have to share.

She walked to the table carefully, despite binding the earthwisps in the tablet to strengthen them against breaking. She wasn't sure they'd be proof against hitting the ground. It was still stone, after all. The people at her destination watched her approach, some hesitantly getting to their feet, which prompted overs to do the same. As Lori's hands were too full to wave at them to sit down, she just sighed internally as she headed for the head of the table that faced the Dungeon's entrance. A bench had been dragged there from one of the nearby tables, making an unfortunate right-angled shape that jutted out on one side.

Lori sat at the impromptu head of the table after laying down her burden, holding up Rian's wooden blank so she could see it at all times. "Sit, all of you," she sat, and they all sat, some after making nervous bows. Rian was putting wooden cups full of what appeared to be water next to people, starting with Lori. Why? Just… why? "I have had Lord Rian gather you all here because I need something built that I lack the experience and tools to build myself, and he has assessed that you possess the skills needed to do so." She pushed the stack of stone tablets with the copies of her design diagram forward. "Unfortunately, I was not told how many would be here, so there isn't enough for everyone. Make do."

The rust-haired man to her right, who according to Rian's plank was a blacksmith named 'Wyte', gingerly pulled the stone tablets towards him, took one and passed it down, keeping the last one for himself. Soon they had been passed around and Rian had finished giving everyone water, moving to stand beside her.

There was a brief silence as the assembled artisans perused her diagram.

"Um, your Bindership?" Tackir finally said, glancing at her in some confusion, "what exactly are we looking at? Just to be sure? Because it looks a fan and a water wheel in a trough. Though I guess this is that fan we've been working on…"

"Essentially correct," Lori said, nodding. "This is a waterwheel that is meant to directly power a fan. Its purpose is for air circulation. The waterwheel is in a trough since magic will be used to move the water."

"The place it's going to be used is far from the river," Rian said from next to her, "and setting up a system to bring water up isn't practical. So Binder Lori made a design where a small amount of water can be used to keep turning the wheel indefinitely." He was looking at the tablet laid out in front of Wyte, and could apparently decipher it well enough even at the angle he was viewing it at.

There were some sounds of understanding at the explanation as people looked at the diagram in that light.

"If that's the case, wouldn’t it be better if the wheel were bigger?" Lori checked Rian's plank. If the labeling was correct, the one who had spoken was a carpenter named Sani, an extremely tall man with sun-darkened skin and blond hair that. "According to this, the waterwheel is only a pace across. Wouldn't it be more efficient for it to be double that, your Bindership?"

"While it would," Rian said, "The parts would need to be transported on the boat, and the parts themselves need to be finished within three days. They also need to be relatively simple, since the people putting them together on the site will most likely not be carpenters. Or even have more experience than 'don't hit thumb with hammer'."

"You really shouldn't try to build something like this by yourself lord Rian," someone else said. According to the plank he was 'Sani – Carpenter'.

"I maintain that picking whichever end of a hammer to use to hit something is a matter of taste," Rian said with exaggerated loftiness. "But it's a practical matter. When the parts are all loaded onto the boat, there won't be any room for anyone else. Surely you don't expect Binder Lori to put these up herself?"

"Wouldn't be surprised," one of the men muttered, still looking thoughtfully down at the tablet he was sharing with the man next to him. He was noted on the plank as 'Jeordoj – Blacksmith'. "Her Bindership's built most of everything else…"

"Probably about time for us manly men to start helping her then," Rian said cheerfully. "The equipment here is important. Without it, the people who volunteered to go mine at River's Fork would be doing so in dangerous conditions, at risk of their air going bad. When we complete this and bring it there, they can rest at ease and not worry about that. "

The men all looked down at the designs as Lori wondered if she really needed to be there, and if perhaps she should have just handed the designs over to Rian and have him tell them to build it.

"It's simple enough, broken down like this," Sani the carpenter said. "We need to build the waterwheel, gears to get the fan up to speed, and the frame to hold all this."

"Don't bother with the frame," Lori interjected. "I'll build that with stone onsite."

"Perhaps we can test it by installing it into a stone frame here before we transport it," Rian said. "After all, we'd need to test it anyway."

"That will mean two days to build the components, and another day to see if it all fits together," Lori said.

"Two days?" Tackir exclaimed.

"I know it's not a lot of time," Rian said apologetically. "So we'll have to keep everything simple. No curves, just sticking planks to a central shaft. Her Bindership has already stated her willingness to watercut any parts that need it. "

One of them men listed as a cartwright—Kerz Cartwright—stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Well, watercutting timbers to be the right size for the lathe will be faster than waiting for the sawyers to cut it down to size. Though we'll have to set up a proper watercutting tank for it…"

"Easily done," Lori said dismissively. It was just a pool to catch the water to keep if from damaging anything else, after all.

The talk quickly became technical as the men started discussing how to build the water wheel, the need for bearings for it, and how to best build it quickly.

It was… comfortingly familiar, in a way. While some of the places she'd worked at had her staying in place to cut wood or metal, once or twice she had been employed in a workshop that had gotten an emergency order, and the Master Carpenter had called them all in so that work allocations could be discussed and reshuffled. Lori hadn't participated much, beyond acknowledging whether or not she could accommodate a particular altered workload, but she had fond memories of those meetings. Mostly because they involved her getting paid to sit down and do nothing but listen, and then later got a small bonus because of the emergency work…

She'd have to give people a bonus for this emergency work, wouldn't she? Lori signed in resignation, then leaned forward and listened to the plans being made.

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Lori Does Carpentry

The planning meeting didn't finish until mid-afternoon. The smiths had bowed out of any actual building, as everyone silently agreed this wasn't important enough to use their precious metal on, but had remained in an advisory capacity, being familiar with mechanical systems and their construction. It was only when they finally had a plan for something that the woodworkers felt they could build did they adjourn to begin building.

In general, the carpenters didn't have their own specific work area, instead setting up their equipment next to where the work was, which in this case was close to the long row of houses getting roofed. Many looked quite finished to Lori, though the wood looked pale and a little rough around the edges.

The lathe the carpenters had built was smaller than the ones she was used to seeing in her workplaces. Instead of being powered by a bound tool or a steam driver, it was connected to a treadle which turned a large wheel. It was also smaller, and was made completely of wood. It had wooden screws to secure parts so they wouldn't move and wooden wing nuts to tighten them, all almost comically oversized. It was also mounted on wheels so it could be easily stored in one of the storage sheds that had grown around the sawpit.

"When I build a permanent carpentry workshop building," Lori commented when she saw the lathe, "we'll need to build a bigger one of those and see if we can connect it to another waterwheel. A bigger one, since we won't have any size or time limitations."

The carpenters all perked up at this announcement, looking hopeful. "That would be wonderful, your Bindership," one of them said. Which one, which one… Onezto? Possibly. He wasn't Tackir, and he wasn't Sani…

"Well, let's get this built for her Bindership first," Tackir said matter-of-factly. "We'll get the wooden parts ready your Bindership."

Lori waved him away absently as she dragged the stone the stone she'd be using to build the watercutting tank to an empty, level spot. It wouldn't be permanent—she'd dismantle it when she was done—but right now it was needful so she could do this safely. The watercutting tank was a pool of water that served two purposes: it was a source of water to cut with, and it acted as a backstop for the cutting stream so it wouldn't go through walls or the ground or anything like that.

The water in the tank didn't have to be deep, just deep in the area beneath the cutting stream. That was simply enough to. Lori just made a simple depression in the middle of the stone cistern she had made, where the water would be deeper and able to blunt the force of the stream. Then she simply filled it with water, which was also quite simple, since the basin of the aqueduct was nearby.

Normally, a Whisperer hired to do watercutting would have a steel nozzle on the end of a hose for her to use, with water coming through that hose from a tank (which had also been her job to fill). The nozzle would have been stationary, and she'd have used a metal conducting wire that ran through the hose to control the waterwisps so that they came out in a powerful, coherent stream. The work would have needed to be done slowly, in controlled bursts, with the nozzle being moved carefully along guiderails that was thankfully someone else's job to control.

They didn't have all that, so Lori had improvised. A raised platform of stone half a pace above the tank, with wood reinforcement inside since they had the wood anyway, that supported a stone reservoir with one very, very narrow hole. The idea was that Lori would fill the tank with water, use gravity to make the water go straight down in a line, and from there they'd have a reliable straight cut that would only need topping up of the water in the tank. They'd mixed in some fine clay from the claypit into the water as an abrasive, since they didn't have the sort of abrasive they used in the shop. Lori felt they didn't need it, since she could now put substantially more power into her water jet, but fine.

Lori wished she could skip all this, but without something to guide her, she wouldn't be able to properly align her water stream to cut straight, and she definitely wouldn't be able to hold the stream properly stationary. She'd learned that a long time ago. People made tools for a reason, and those reasons were precision, accuracy, and repeatability. This way she'd be able to make a cut that was straight and consistent.

The first test… sprayed. So did the second test. And a few more after that.  It stopped spraying as Lori finally made a pointed stone nozzle to keep the water from being inclined to go sideways.

She supposed the nozzle being pointed had a use after all.

While she'd been doing that, the carpenters had been devising rollers, shaved out on the lathe. They didn't intend to cut any complicated shapes out of the wood—the wooden gears were being made by hand, and indeed, had already been finished by the person doing them, someone whose name she didn't know—so just having rollers to move things under the stream would be sufficient to their needs.

Lori tested the new nozzle, with its now non-spraying stream, by passing a branch through it. Besides a quick jerk under her hand, there was no resistance, and the cut was smooth. Wet, but smooth.

Unfortunately, that was all the time they had for that day. They had spent a lot of time at the dining hall planning the design of the wheel, how to property counterweight it, the bearings to be used, whether stone bearings could take the weight…

It had almost been like one of her old jobs, except she wasn't being paid because she was the boss, but she had to make sure everyone had what they needed, and compensate them for pulling them out of their duties…

At least Lori had little she needed to clean up. The pile of unused rock was left there in case she had to add anything the next day and she didn't feel like needing to drag up any more. She'd also idly noted a spot where she could put up the carpentry workshop building.

Still, she felt unsatisfied as the sun fell towards the horizon and she headed for her room to clean up.

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"This is taking too long," Lori declared as she sat at her table.

"It's the first day," Rian said, letting out a sigh as he took his own seat. She… wasn't quite sure what he'd been doing while she'd been building the improvised cutting rig, but it had involved holding one of the tablets that had been softened a little so the workmen could make sketches on it with their thumbnails and talking to people. "Of course it looks like it's taking too long, it's mostly been setting up and getting ready to do actual building. Besides, they only had… what, half the day to work on it, and half of that was spent drawing and planning. As projects go, I think we're making good time."

Lori frowned. It sounded like an excuse. Though, given the time… "Fine," she grumbled. "But I expect more progress tomorrow."

"You'll probably get it," Rian said as Riz came up behind him and tiredly sat down next to him, carefully keeping her head down, avoiding Lori's gaze. "Shaping the beam for the axle seems to be the most time-consuming part. I don't know if you saw, but they've already managed to build most of the wheel, they just need to mount it to the axle. And since you asked for it earlier, the fan's already almost done, they just need to mount that to an axle too."

Lori sighed again, remembering she still had to make ball bearings for those. "Don't forget to talk to the chandler so we can get some fat for lubricant," she reminded him.

"Might be easier if you just catch a seel yourself," he suggested. "We'd get more fat that way."

That prompted another sigh. "You would think we'd have all that we'd need already."

"Technically we do," Rian said. "It's just that it's all already been allocated for something else, like soap. So we need to get a bit more of it so we don't interfere with what little industry we have."

She sighed again. "Fine, I'll catch a seel."

"Our food stores thank you," Rain said cheerfully. "Are you all right? You've been sighing a lot. Maybe you need more sleep."

Her back pre-emptively protested. "I'm fine," she said. "Just tired."

"Hence why I suggested more sleep."

"I sleep just fine, it's the day that's been tiring," Lori retorted.

"Then may I recommend you go straight upstairs after eating and have some of that fruit you've been hording?" Rian suggested. "Might as well eat it, or else it'll go bad, cold room or no."

Lori brightened at the reminder of her loot. "I think I will," she agreed. "Where's the food?"

"They were just finishing it up when I came in," Rian said. He looked displeased for some reason. "Someone found more gourd."

"If you don't think you deserve the food, you don't deserve to complain about what's in it," Lori said flatly.

It was Rian's turn to sigh as Riz gave him a curious look. "I suppose. Really looking forward to next year when we have more variety in the food. We should have our own flour by then, right?"

"We can hope," Lori said, thinking of the little bag of grain in her room. If she got really bored or desperate, maybe she'd find out how you turned it into flour this winter…

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After a dinner of no particular note, Lori headed up to her room.

First, she got some golden buds from her cold room, and spent a pleasant little while going through three, enjoying the simultaneously sweet and sharp taste of the bright yellow fruit.

Then she got to work.

She took the mold she had made for making stone ball bearings and began using it for just that, dropping the finished stone ball into the bowls of her sunk board, since it was convenient. It was boring, repetitive, needful work, and not for the first time she chided herself for not having done this earlier on some of the nights she'd had nothing to do, so she would have a ready supply of bearings. But then, it wasn't like she was being paid to do this. Quite the opposite, actually…

It was while she was doing this that the thought occurred to her that perhaps the people formerly from River's Fork had a spare bedroll or two. After all, they'd lost a lot of people when the dragon came, right? Surely that meant there were bedrolls not being used? Or whatever it was they used for sleeping on. Surely they didn't sleep right on the ground…

She had to redo a few bearings as she got distracted by wondering how she was supposed to acquire one of those bedrolls for her own use. Maybe two so she'd have something to use for padding on a chair or couch…

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The next morning, after breakfast, it was back to the where the carpenters had set up. While Lori would have loved to get started right away so it would all be done by midday, leaving her with more time for something else, unfortunately there were safety checks to do, cleaning of the nozzle, testing if it cut properly on expendable pieces of wood that would probably be used for firewood, and making a new nozzle once she realized the force of the water was wearing out the less durable stone.

As this was happening, the carpenters had rigged up more rollers to either side of where the stream would cut, so that there would be no bend in the wood to affect the cut. Thankfully, she didn't have to worry about the actual maneuvering of the wood through the cutting stream, beyond keeping watch for anyone whose hand was getting too close…

"Maybe you can have light or darkness as a stand-in for where the stream would be?" Rian suggested, "and maybe use light to color the stream when you're actually cutting, so people get a better sense of where it is?"

Lori spend a rather enjoyable few moments working out how to bind lightwisps to the stream of waterwisps so the stream would glow a bright, noticeable color to discourage people from losing extremities to it.

When they finally did get around to cutting the wood into beams, it was using a glowing stream of water that was far too coherent and narrow to be natural. Lori stayed out of it, keeping her attention on reinforcing the stone nozzle, pressurizing the stream, keeping it coherent while at the same time trying not to affect it such that it remained straight, coloring the stream with lightwisps, and constantly drawing water from the tank back up to the reservoir behind the nozzle so that the stream was constant. It was a constant expenditure of power she wouldn't have been able to afford before she had become a Dungeon Binder, at least not without consuming a wisp bead.

As the large bits of dead tree were passed through the stream, however, and came out the other end wet but neatly cut all the way through in a fraction of the time it would have taken the sawpit to do it, she couldn't help the feeling of silent satisfaction at a job well done washing over her.

It was a satisfaction that was a bit hard to maintain over the multiple passes needed to cut the wood down to the side and shape they wanted, but that was the nature of work.

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Craftsmanship and Cleanliness

The parts came together over the course of the next two days, and no one lost any fingers or larger extremities.

Once all the pieces had been cut, Lori had switched from operating the water cutter to helping the blacksmiths set up an impromptu forge for making nails once it became clear joinery would be insufficient to the task of affixing all the pieces together. They could have used the nails that… someone… had brought with them, but… well, those seemed too good for this project. Those nails were high-strength steel! Best that they keep that for their own use. Lori had retrieved some iron from one of the dragon scales in her stores for the purpose. At least, she assumed it was iron. It was starting to rust a little, after all.

With the impromptu forging area and herself providing heat, the smiths were able to start making nails. It was loud, ringing work, and it involved her walking from anvil to anvil putting on bindings of firewisps to heat the metal to the point it became malleable and then taking off the binding once it had been shaped and could be cooled. She also had to make adjustments to ensure the metal wasn't too hard or too soft. Fortunately, Lori had experience there, though it hadn't involved making nails specifically. Still, she had some experience in annealing and hardening metals, and with the constant heat and some extra malleability afforded by a concurrent binding of earthwisps, they were able to produce a lot of nails before lunch that day.

Afterwards, Lori had to reconfigure the stone she'd used to build the water cutting tank to act as a steam box so they could bend wood into a frame for the fan. The frame could be used to anchor a leather hood so the air could be funneled into the ventilation system. She had less experience with this, since most workshops that hired Whisperers didn't need them for their steam box. Indeed, if it weren't for the time constraints, the carpenters could have simply build a wooden steam box to prepare wood for bending. However, that would have taken time, time which would divert from the parts they needed, so after Rian relayed the problem to her, she set about building a stone box hey could seal with a lid. After that, all she needed was water to turn into steam for the box.

It was a busy two days that left her little room to bring down her sunk board to get Rian to play. She just finished eating, took a not-quite-a-nap until the dining hall was quiet—which meant everyone had gone back to work—then went back up to the work site. The water wheel was assembled, first with joinery, then with the nails she had helped make. The water wheel was attached to the axle using multiple spokes, which had been lathed to make room for ball bearing for when it was mounted.

More stone had to be dragged to the site so they could test-mount the waterwheel and axle, and to ensure that the ball bearing were not simply crushed by the weight. Then they mounted a counterbalance on the end of the axle so that the wheel wouldn't wobble…

The most difficult and tedious part was carving holes along one rim of the water wheel and inserting square pegs into it to act as teeth. The teeth would turn the gear attached to the fan so it would spin quickly enough for what they needed. It was relatively quick work using the steel chisels that the carpenters had, but there were a lot of them all along the wheel…

"I saw the parts," Rian began as she sat down at their table at the end of the second day, face and hair still a little wet from the quick wash she'd had to get the sweat off her. She could have dried herself with waterwisps, but Lori enjoyed the cool feeling of the water drying on her skin. "I think we'll be able to test putting them together tomorrow."

"We can hope," Lori said absently, her mind still in the memory of the carpenters quickly and systematically making square hole after square hole. A sort of cylinder with protruding teeth to catch those pegs had already been made for the fan's own axle. It had been interesting, watching the smiths and carpenters take so many measurements of the circumference of the wheel at various distances from the axle, and watching them calculate the exact number and distance between the pegs to be mounted. "Otherwise all that work would have been a waste."

"Not waste, I think," Rian said. "Just… a foundation. I mean, the wheel works, the fan should work, so getting the two of them to spin together is the last hurdle. At worst, tomorrow they have to remake the gear for the fan, to make sure it meshes with the wheel properly, or they'd have to make more gears because the fan isn't spinning quickly enough."

Lori grimaced. "More time lost," she said.

"Hey, at worst you go back to River's Fork and spend a day basically sitting around and doing nothing but putting magic on the rock you have there already so we have more time to work," Rian said with a shrug. "That's hardly work. That's practically a break."

Lori scowled. He had a point, but she didn't like it. "I'd rather not leave home." Her test with the bowl she'd left in River's Fork had been a success, as she'd maintained the connected even after exiting that demesne and returning to her own. Even now, she was still connected to it. It proved that after setting up this equipment, she wouldn't have to leave again to imbue it.

Rian opened his mouth, then paused. "Well… our carpenters are good," he said, sounding awkward. "Maybe you won't have to."

Lori ignored that for the shallow platitude it was. "Remind me to make a permanent structure for the smiths as well once this is finished."

"Will that be before or after you build the third bathouse?" Rian asked dryly.

"After," Lori said.

"Oh good," Rian said. "I didn't want to bring it up, but the baths have been pretty full lately. I'm worried people haven't been able to bathe properly. In fact, at night, the laundry area becomes an outdoor bath for people in a hurry and don't mind the cold."

Lori frowned. "What?"

"Don't worry, no one's been doing anything they're not supposed to," Rian said. "I asked Riz to keep an eye on things. It's cold after all, no one wants to hang around outside and longer than they need to."

"Not that," she said. "People have been bathing outside at night? Don't they know they'll get sick in the cold?"

"That's why they hurry," Rian said.

Lori sighed, stood up, and left the table, muttering to herself.

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By the time she got back from binding firewisps into the water that fed into the laundry area so that it was as warm as the water in the bathouses, raising up a wall of darkwisps around it to give people privacy, and putting some lightwisps on the other side of the wall so people wouldn't be blind, Lori found Rian with the usual women seated on either side of him trying to get his attention in conversation. There were two bowls of stew in front of him, both untouched while he awkwardly tried to respond while having his attention pulled towards two different conversations on either side of him.

They quieted as she approached and sat down on her side of the table, grabbing one of the bowls in front of Rian.

"You," she said, pointing at the sole male at the table, "should have told me about the bath situation sooner. I thought our current capacity could handle it? Isn't that why we installed the showers?"

"We could," Rian said, "but people needed to stay up late just to be able to use the baths. We sort of devised a schedule of shifts where some people ate, some people took baths, and then they switched out. When you built the laundry area, the women claimed it for their own so they and the children could have more space for bathing."

"I'm pretty sure I made a law against that," Lori said.

"You meant people getting intimate with each other when you wrote that law, not bathing," Rian retorted. "Besides, it isn't much different from how we all bathed on the way here. And anyone who tries anything stupid would have had an angry mob on them."

"You still should have told me," Lori said sternly. "Any health benefit from being clean was endangered by being exposed to the cold. I'm surprised the medics did not tell you that themselves."

"It didn't seem like something you'd care about fixing," Rian said. "Apparently I was wrong. And to be fair, most of the medics are from a very cold northern climate. This is probably perfect outdoor bathing weather to them, all things considered." To his left, Riz nodded in agreement. "See?"

Lori glared at him. "Anything else you haven't told me?"

"Well, people have been asking about land still."

"Ask them how they plan to pay taxes on it. If they give a suitable reply, I'll consider it," Lori said. "Provided they understand that means they'll need to use that land to pay for everything they currently don't have to pay for." She ate another spoonful. "What else? Any health issues?"

"Does people complaining about the smell of the dung carts count? They're asking for the carts not to use the main road when bringing the waste to be composted."

"They're all free to make such a barrow-only road themselves, with my blessing," Lori said. "Until then, the carts go where they can be pushed."

"Cleaning the latrines is hard enough as it is," Umu muttered. "People have no right to complain!" She glared at Mikon and Riz, as if daring them to gainsay her.

"Um, yeah… well, that's pretty much it, off the top of my head," Rian said. "Can I eat now?"

"Are you sure you deserve to eat that?" she said blandly.

"I'm earning it on credit."

"Doesn't that usually accrue interest you also have to pay?"

"Is this your way of punishing me by not letting me eat? I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything to deserve it…"

"I just asked if you think you deserve it," Lori said, taking a spoonful from her bowl.

Rian stared at his bowl for a very long time before he started eating again.

"You," Lori said, pointing, and the three women on either side of Rian froze. "Riz. You're making sure nothing happens in the laundry area while people bathe, correct?"

"Y-yes, Great Binder?" Riz said, eyes darting sideways to the other two women on the bench pleadingly.

"Good. Do that from now on until I can get the third bath house up. I've put some lights so people can see and a wall of darkness for privacy. The darkness won't stop anyone passing through, just looking. I trust you can take it from there? I see you've managed to have a bath already."

Riz nodded jerkily. "Yes, Great Binder."

"Good," Lori said, looking back down towards her food. "Be sure to warn everyone I've made the water warm."

Riz blinked. "I'll be sure to tell them, Great Binder."

Mikon, sitting next to the other woman, patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll keep you company so you don't have to do it alone." This was followed by an encouraging smile.

Lori blinked, and the joined the other women at the table at staring at the pink-haired weaver.

"What?" she said, very carefully not facing Lori when she did so.

"What are you up to?" Riz asked suspiciously.

"I can't be nice?" Mikon said, pouting with clearly-false hurt. "Would you really rather stand around out there alone?"

Riz looked like she was seriously contemplating it.

"I'll keep you company too," Rian offered. "It's the least I can do after asking you to do it."

Riz blinked, brightening. "Well, I wouldn't say no to that, Lord Rian."

"Good," Mikon said, seemingly satisfied, "I'm sure the three of us will be able to while away the time."

Lori shook her head and went back to eating as Umu quickly proclaimed to keep Riz company as well, ignoring the conversation that followed. Nothing that had to do with her. She ate quietly, trying to remember the number of people who'd been working on the water wheel, fan, axles and gears…