(Bi)Weekly Digest 33 - (#102 - #106) (Patreon)

Thank You

"—and the Um will be closed every fifth day for cleaning," Rian said cheerfully. "Let's all follow these rules so that we do not have any more unfortunate accidents, shall we?"

Rian was being very parental again. Lori was just glad that this time it wasn't at her. No, this time the air of 'I'm not angry, I'm disappointed, you were idiots, you know you were idiots, I know you were idiots, but I'm not going to call you that and somehow that makes it worse' he had wrapped around him was instead directed at the adults at breakfast, some of whom were clearly bruised from the early morning scuffle that had woken nearly everyone else up. Not Lori, of course, since she'd been in her room, but everyone else, certainly. By the time she'd come downstairs, Rian had been partway through detailing the rules they'd hashed out over last night's dinner over the use of the Um.

She still had to make some water clocks. While making vessels was simple enough, calibrating the hole so that it would take the right amount of time for all the water to be expended was… well, it would be time consuming, if only because she'd need to watch the waterclock to make sure it did last about that long. Making a sun clock was easy enough, and they even had a compass to help them point it precisely north, but it would be unhelpful in the enclosed confines of the Um.

Fortunately, Rian met her with good news once he was done announcing the rules.

"So, I spoke with Gunvi," he said, "and he told me he has experience making water clocks. They're not as precise as properly calibrated sand clocks or mechanical ones, but he says he can make one that will measure out about an hour easily enough, and we can calibrate it by the sun. He has enough pieces to be fired too, so he's asking for help with that."

"Tell him I'll be there at the usual time," Lori said, sitting down and accepting one of the two bowls Rian offered. She liked the potter. He kept to himself, was able to get all his materials himself, and only needed help every few weeks when it came time to fire all his pottery in one large batch, since firewisps did it much more efficiently and evenly than setting things on fire. Slowly but surely, the demesne's supply of simple pottery plates was growing, even though they were currently being used since they were mostly eating stew, and bowls were better for that.

"Got it," Rian said. "By the way, there's a change to the plans I want to propose."

Lori raised an eyebrow. "Go on…"

"I want to put one of the former militia there with the medics to keep an eye on the place," Rian said. "I just realized that some people might be… not exactly forced, but also not completely sure they want to go there. I want someone other than the medics there to tell them that they can't come in if that's the case."

"I'll do it, Lord Rian," Riz said immediately. "I know the type… 'you'll like it once you've tried it', 'I'll show you how it's done', 'you promised you'd do it, so come on and do it', 'you'll want to once it starts to feel good'…" Her face was scowling instead of intent on Rian's reaction.

"Yes, exactly," Rian agreed, nodding. "I don't think we've got anyone here thatbad… but people not listening would be enough, even without malicious intent. I just want someone there who can deal with it without risking our medics. But are you sure you want to do this, Riz?"

"Yes, Lord Rian," the woman said with a firm nod. "In fact, I can think of a few other friends who might be willing to take shifts with me on it. They'dknow the type too. "

Rian opened his mouth, then paused. "I'll have to meet them before I agree to it. It's a fine line between someone reluctant and doesn't want to go, and someone reluctant because they're nervous and working up the nerve for it even though they do want it, so whoever else willing to volunteer will need to be able to tell."

Lori gave him a bland look. "And how, may I ask, would you know the difference?"

Rian coughed, looking aside. "All right, good point, but I'm pretty sure it's there!"

"A conclusion drawn from your copious experience at this sort of thing, no doubt?" Lori said, smirking.

"All right, all my knowledge is theoretical," Rian admitted, blushing. "But I refuse to believe you're any better!"

Lori shrugged. "I'm not the one making statements about how people think. But go ahead, this seems a needful measure."

Rian coughed again, but nodded. "Well, I'll still need to meet them. The Um is supposed to be where people can… relax… and if they're met by someone at the door who puts them off by being too… intense… well, it'll need to be someone understanding and a good judge of character, is what I mean."

"Of course, Lord Rian," Riz said. "I'll talk to my friends and see who's willing and can meet your needs."

"Don't take too much time with this, Rian," Lori said. "You need to get started on the boat. At the very least, draw designs I can test on a small scale so we know it will float.

"Of course it'll float, it's ice!" Rian exclaimed.

For some reason, Riz raised an eyebrow. "Boats made of ice?" she said, sounding… tired?

Rian nodded enthusiastically.

"Lord Rian… those things melt," she said gently. "And I doubt the Great Binder wants to be stuck in one keeping it solid all the time. You need to weight the keel so it doesn't just roll over, and that will only last until the ice around the weights melt and the whole thing capsizes… believe me, we have a lot of young, stupid whisperers filling the rivers with little ice boats and trying to make a big one for some reason or other. They always melt."

"But this time it won't melt," Rian said. "Binder Lori was able to think of something."

"If it's blood, so does every young Whisperer with time on their hands," Riz sighed, making Rian stare at her as Lori suddenly straightened. "Everyone tries blood sooner or later. It's in all the stories, after all."

Wait, what? But she… she thought… in school, they said… she was told it didn't…

"I hear they're not supposed to do that, since it's dangerous for some reason, but you know how young fools who've heard too many stories are," Riz shrugged. "But, I maybe it could be different, if it's the Great Binder doing it…" By her tone, she was clearly just trying to placate Rian.

"Uh… well, we still need to try!" Rian said, though he looked like someone had taken the steam from his driver. "After all, how else are we supposed to build a boat?"

"I'm sure you'd know best, my lord," Riz said, with the sort of smile you give to children who say that they'll become a Dungeon Binder someday. It was a look Lori was very familiar with.

"No, I don't, that's why we have to actually try the idea first before we can really say either way," Rian said. "At worst, ice will still work as floatation elements. They still float, after a—"

"Rian!" Lori interrupted. "Eat already!"

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It was time to start digging again.

Between the aqueducts and basins, the row of houses, the retting tank, the laundry area, the paving, the latrines and the Um, they'd finally managed to use up all the stone Lori had excavated in digging up the second level, save for the reserve pile to armor the dungeon with should a dragon arrive. Since she still needed to build a third bath house to relieve their still-overburdened hygiene facilities, it was time to dig again.

She started by expanding their food storage areas.

Lori had blocked off the hallway that had led to the original reservoir, in case a dragon arrived before she could dig a new one. Now she partially opened it again, and began to dig side corridors. After all, it was best that the food be kept in the same level was the kitchen, to make food preparation easy. The long-term food storage cold room there was nearing capacity. Soon they'd have to either start eating it or seal it off completely until the food had to be eaten. Either way, they needed more storage space.

Coincidentally, they also needed more building material. So it all evened out!

By the lunch, she'd managed to excavate a large amount of stone for any further building projects as well as made a new storage space. While it was small—not even a twentieth the size of the second level—it was more space for food, and as soon as the carpenters could build a door for it, she'd be able to make it into another cold room for more food.

And when it was eventually filled, there was still the wall across the hall to excavate.

Hopefully this would be enough to build the third bath house. The location had been long chosen already, a spot near the saw pits so that those working there, as well as cutting down trees, would be able have close access to it, with expended water to flow down and irrigate their crops, which were turning out well. It was also being made with an eye towards the future, since she planned any future homes to be built in the same area…

But that was a later consideration. For now, she had to work as a pottery kiln.

Not immediately, of course.

First she checked the pieces that Gumvi had already finished and had dried for any lingering moisture. After all, they were kept near the laundry area, there was a possibility of some kind of misting that added moisture to the claw. After checking, he and his assistants would load it into the kiln, carefully laying them out on the few racks there.

The last piece to go into the kiln were the sand clocks, which she had to carefully dry by drawing out the waterwisps from them while taking care to keep from ripping apart the clay. A small spout was sticking out of the side near the bottom, and both she and Gumvi had check it to make sure it wasn't blocked before putting it in the kiln.

Afterwards, they had sealed the kiln with mud packed and shaped by earthwisps, then lit the fire beneath it to start gradually increasing the temperature and adding ash to the inside of the kiln. Once it grew hot enough, Lori bound the firewisps so that they would continue to slowly increase the temperature while the potter carefully checked the color of the glowing pottery through a small hole. When he gave her the signal, Lori stopped increasing the temperature and instead bound the firewisps to maintain the heat while the hole was closed to prevent contamination and further temperature changes. The same was done for the hole where the wood was inserted.

By the time they'd closed the hole and bound the firewisps to maintain the temperature, it was already dark. At that point, they could leave the kiln to go eat, and Lori's part was mostly done, with the firewisps imbued with enough magic to last them until the middle of the night, with a little binding of lightwisps to warm when the biding faded away. The potter and his assistants would take turns watching the kiln, and once they saw that the lightwisp was gone, would start adding wood to it so it would cool down slowly and evenly. Then there'd be a few days while they waited for the kiln to cool down completely, painted it with ash, and then fired it again one more time to let the glaze set.

But for that night, Lori's part was done.

She headed into the Dungeon, where dinner was in full swing, and headed straight to her room to bathe. Her skin felt sticky with oils, sweat and ash, and it was probably time to change her clothes. She'd have to do laundry that week again as well…

When she came down a little later in fresh clothes, feeling much cooler and cleaner, Rian was standing at the base of the stairs leading to her room. She was, of course, immediately suspicious that something had gone wrong.

"What happened?" she demanded.

"Why do you think anything happened?" he asked with a smile.

"You're here instead of at the table," Lori pointed out.

Rian shrugged as if to acknowledge the point, but he didn't stop smiling. "There's something you need to see,"

Lori let out a loud huff of exhalation. "Who died and who was found near the body?"

That maid Rian blink, his now obviously-fake smile slipping a little. "W-what?"

"I suppose it was inevitable that people would finally start murdering each other," she said. "It was probably jealousy, someone saw someone else going into the Um with a third person and became irrational with emotion—"

"No one died!" Rian interrupted. "Nothing bad happened and I'm not trying to show you a corpse that we're trying to keep secret to keep people from panicking. AND no one's anything was stolen… that I know of. No, I just need to show you something."

"Rian, if it's something in your trousers, I am kicking it," Lori said blandly.

"Well, it's not something in my trousers," he said, sounding exasperated. "Will you just come so I can show you? I promise it's a good thing! Please?"

Lori sighed. "This better be worth delaying dinner."

Rian, color him, just smiled.

He led her down to the second level as she focused on her sense of the wisps around her, feeling for voids sneaking up behind her. to her surprise, There were many people in the second level, just standing there as if waiting. Was this a trap? Some kind of ambush. Rainbows. She still hadn't found a second lord, and now she'd have to replace Rian once he made his treachery clear.

She pushed through the way that thought made her heart clench as she kept her face smooth to keep from betraying her realization, getting ready to soften the ground to sink everyone into it…

However, they were all just standing there, their hands clasped in front of them. None seemed to be carrying weapons, and she ignored the way her heart clenched further as she recognized many of the people there. She could almost, almost think of their names…

"Tah dah!" Rian said, gesturing towards something standing on the floor between them and the waiting people. "What do you think?"

Lori blinked and focused a little lower. It was… a bed?

"Is that a bed?" she asked, confused.

"It's a bed," Rian confirmed.

And indeed, it looked bedlike, with four legs raising it just high enough to sit on comfortably. However, instead of a normal bed, with several planks laid out to form a flat surface, there was instead a rectangle of wood around an empty space. Across that empty space were cords. They went back and forth, up and down, and even diagonally in bother directions, coming in and out of a series of holes that had been drilled into the wooden frame. The cords wove together, creating a series of octagonal holes between them. there was even a short and decoratively useless headboard at one end.

"Go ahead," Rian said as she stared, "touch it. It's really springy." He bent down to demonstrate, pushing down on the weave with his hand. The whole weave flexed slightly at his touch but seemed remarkably taut. Hesitantly, Lori did the same. The cord felt rough but strong under her hand as she pushed.

"Interesting," Lori said, keeping a part of her attention on feeling for voids of wisps. Still no one coming up her hind her, though there was some people at the stairs they'd gone down. Archers? "But what's the point?"

"Well, it's yours," Rian said. "Your new bed."

What.

"What?" she said.

"It's your new bed," Rian repeated, suddenly grinning. "The weave is muchsofter than wood, so even without a bedroll, you can lie down on this and relax without getting a sore back. After all, we can't have our Dungeon Binder coming down with back ache. It took a lot of people to spin the ropeweed for this until we could make cord, then I had to weave it all like this because this isn't just something the weavers could put together. Their weaving is completely different. It took me weeks, and my fingers hated me, but you needed a new bed. Everyone here helped make it." He gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry I didn't realize how uncomfortable you were sooner."

Lori could only stare, first at him, than at the strange woven bed, then back at him again, then finally at all the people standing opposite them, on the other side of the bed. She could recognize some of the weavers—Mikon and Umu were there, looking at her instead of Rian—many of the carpenters—Deil and Tackir where both there, looking expectant instead of nervous—there ropers, and a few other people…

She didn't need a new bed, what she had was fine. Yes, this was nice, but completely unnecessary…

All she could do, however, was push down on the woven cords making up its surface again, noting how much give it had despite being so firm, so not like the wooden planks under the completely ineffectual layer of laundry and raincoat…

Lori opened her mouth—

"Also, we have a bedroll for you," Rian said brightly, and her head turned to look up at him so fast she swore she heard something in her neck 'snap'. "It took a while because Umu and Mikon had to weave the fabric for it, then had to sew it together by hand, but it's new and no one died on it."

The two in question stepped forward, holding something large between them, and laid it out on the bed. It was… a bedroll, in the same way her staff was a twig. The large rectangle of fabric was thick. Extremely so. This wasn't a bedroll that had been worn down by months of travel and made to be compact as well as barely functional. It was practically a pillow, it was so thick. The fabric was the same pale brown color of the fabric she'd seen being woven of the looms, and it had been sewn together with tight, precise stitching. A lot of work and effort had gone into this…

She thought back to Umu and Mikon massaging their fingers at dinner.

"You… made this?" she said before she could stop herself.

Umu seemed hesitant, but Mikon nodded. "Yes, your Bindership," she said. "When Lord Rian explained you didn't have a bedroll…" The pink-haired woman shook her head. "Well, you deserved something better to sleep on than a hard bed, after all you’ve done for us. This was the best we could make, with what we have."

"The hunters have been separating all the down they could gather from the beasts we've been eating, and we've put them all into this," Rian said. "So until it goes flat, you official have the softest bed in the demesne. You don't even need a pillow, you can just double it up under your head."

A bedroll. They made her a bedroll. A bedroll…

Her eyes welled, and it was all she could do to keep the tears from flowing down her face as she turned them into cold vapor.

"Thank you," she said, keeping her head bowed and glancing away so that the vapor wasn't obvious. "Thank you for…" she swallowed.

Rian loudly clapped his hands together. "Well, come on men, let's bring her Bindership's new bed up to her room, she won't be able to carry it there herself. Step back please, your Bindership, let us handle this while you open the door."

Open the door. Open the door to her room, yes…

It took remembering the fact that all of her laundry was spread out on her bed to dispel the strange fugue from her mind and make her rush ahead of them to her room, leaving the door open behind her for them to bring her bed up. By the time they arrived, she was able to bundle up all her laundry into her rain coat, which had been stashed in her bathroom.

The old, hard wooden bed was removed, and the new bed, with its strange woven surface, was put in its place, the old one carried out. Umu and Mikon put the new bedroll—her new bedroll—on top, as well as a folded sheet.

"It's a spare blanket," Umu said, not meeting her eyes and almost seeming to speak to no one in particular. "For when winter comes, or you need to launder yours…"

Lori nodded. "Thank you."

The blonde twitched and stepped out after with everyone else, leaving Lori alone in her room with her new bed.

Slowly, hesitantly. she sat down, sighing almost comically as her posterior sank into the thick bedroll, at the feeling of the weave flexing beneath her…

She was still sitting when Rian stuck his head back in through the doorway. "Are you coming down any time soon? Because dinner is going to get cold."

Lori blinked through her tears. At some point she'd stopped turning them to vapor. "Yes, yes, I'm coming down," she said, glancing at him. He nodded and stepped out, his footsteps walking down the hallway, and she was finally able to wipe her face.

She got to her feet and paused. Then she turned and opened her private cold room, pulling out one of the sacks of fruit she still had left. It was cold as ice under her hand, and her clothes got wet as she lifted into her arms.

Closing the cold room behind her, she headed down for dinner.

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Obvious, Insight and Brilliance

Lori didn't want to get out of bed. She really, really didn't want to get out of bed. Her bedroll was thick and soft and warm, and despite what the fabric looked like, it was so very smooth and comfortable and she didn't want to leave. She just wanted to lie down and make up for all those months she'd been sleeping on her laundry on top of a plank of wood…

Groaning, she sat up, then almost groaned again at the lack of stiffness on her back. It felt sogood… her bed actually flexed under her, and it was all she could do not to bounce on it. She didn't want to risk damaging the cords that wove together to form her bed. It was too nice to risk!

No, she had to get up, there was work to do… laying down the foundation of the bath house, the glaze firing of the pottery in a few days, she had to stop and imbue the water wheel in River's Fork—

She stopped her stream of thoughts to check on that in panic, sighing in relief to find it still imbued. Ah, but there was so little. She'd need to do that today…

The panic had woken her up enough that she finally stood, stripping down and going to her bath room for a quick rinse of her face and the rest of her. Her coat and laundry were still there, and she hastily checked the former for cracks and drying, sighing in relief when she found no new ones. She'd have to do laundry soon…

Dressed, refreshed, purged and hungry, Lori headed downstairs to eat.

Midway down the stairs, she turned around to get her sunk board, and then went downstairs to eat.

"Good morning, Lori," Rian greeted her cheerfully as he pushed two bowls towards her. She picked one. "How'd you sleep?"

"Wonderfully," she said as she put the board on the table and started putting the stones in the bowls. Mikon reached over to help her, doing their respective sides. "And you?"

Rian shrugged. "Same as usual. All right, less need to pretend I don't hear things happening in the middle of the night thanks to the Um, but beyond that, it's all the same." A strange look came over his face. "Are we really going to keep calling it that?"

"It seems to work fine," Lori said. "Unless you can manage to call it anything else?"

"I will admit, I cannot," Rian nodded in acknowledgement. "But it seems to be working anyway. Still some teething troubles, complaints other people take too long, but right now everyone is being very understanding." He snickered. "And people keep going straight for the bath house, and then to the laundry afterwards to wash bedrolls."

"Has it significantly impacted productivity?" Lori asked as she made her first move, then started to eat.

Rian wiggled his hand back and forth. "Eh, it evens out. Only so many people at a time can go there and wait for someone to get done so they can get a room, and we have more people working now thanks to the houses being done. And after a certain point, standing around outside holding a bedroll starts being embarrassing." He titled his head. "Actually, we're cutting a lot more trees than we were before. We need all the wood, especially for warming the houses come winter."

Lori gave him a look.

"Don't glare at me like that, it's the truth and nothing to do with the quality of the houses," Rian said. "Stone might be strong and, in your case, quick to build with, but they get cold and stay cold. Unless you want to use magic to heat up every house for the whole winter, we'll need lot of fire wood. There's also building material for furniture, tools…" he shrugged. "The work never ends, and we always need more of everything. No one's needed to ask to get their metal yet, but it's probably only a matter of time."

Lori sighed. "I'll have to make storage for that, then," she said. "Not just huts, we'll need something that can protect it against dragons…"

"I thought we're storing it all here?"

Lori waved a hand, then reached for the sunk board to make her next move as Mikon finished. "That's an emergency stockpile for if a dragon's arrival manages to destroy all the wood we have outside, but we can't keep everything in here. We still need room for people and other facilities. No, better if I make larger store room near the sawpit." She hummed thoughtfully. "Actually, I should do just that. It will give me more stone for making the baths."

"Well, be careful," Rian said. "Make sure it doesn't flood."

Lori paused. She sighed. "Maybe I'll just build the storage room into the hill…" Rainbows. And it had been such a good idea too…

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Good idea or not, she had to start on the third bath house. The site chosen was near the long row of houses, on a plot of land that had long been cleared by all the tree cutting. The stumps still had to be pulled out, but with earthwisps to soften the ground and lots of manpower to push and pull the stumps out of the way, it was quickly cleared in two days, the hard roots cut up into small pieces by her water jets once it was ascertained they were too hard to risk their saws on, ready to become firewood once it had dried in the sun enough. After that, she was able to use earthwisps to clear aside the dirt on her chosen site to reveal the bedrock. Always best to build on the bedrock, or else your building might slip. True, a lot of the bedrock had been broken apart by roots, but it was a trifling matter to fuse it all together so it could act as a solid foundation.

Technically, it was two bathhouses, built in the same long, half-cylinder style as the original shelters and the bath houses they had now, but instead of being separate, they were connected in the middle, with the curving roofs meeting at a thick stone wall to bear the weight and transfer it to the ground. Like the other bath houses, it would need the water to be constantly flowing, which… all right, that might actually become problematic. While it wasn't that far from the river, it was uphill, even if the slope was fairly mild. The first bath houses used underground tubes formed into the bedrock to act as pipes to bring in water, and the runoff was filtered through the ground…

(Actually, she might have to change that. It might be affecting the clay pit, since they were close together…)

Instead of long troughs of water high along the walls that fed down to basins inside individual alcoves, there would be two long basins filled with water in each section, to be used with wooden dippers, which thanks to the carpenters' lathe was much easier to make now. People would sit or stand on either side, getting water from the central basin to wash themselves. She hoped this open design would keep people from using the space for things besides bathing.

That took up about four days of work, one of which was spent excavating more stone, since she'd run out again. Fortunately, she was able to use the dirt at the site and compress it to make it part of the roof, so that helped.

By the end of it, it was still completely unusable.

"Still needs water, huh?" Rian said as they ate.

"And a place for the water to drain to," Lori sighed as Mikon made her move. The weaver was getting better at this. Lori was still winning, but the score was getting closer each time

"Can't we just fill the basins with water in the morning and just refill them when it's needed? I mean, that would use up less water."

Lori glared at him. "That just means that I'll need to personally come in to refill the water every time it runs low." She reached over and picked up the stones in one of the bowls, beginning her turn.

"Not necessarily…" Rian said thoughtfully. "All right, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming you use a binding similar to the one on the water jet to draw the water we use in the baths, right?"

"Basically the same," Lori confirmed as she continued to drop stones.

"So, the binding doesn't need to be on the whole pipe, right? After all, the water coming in will push the rest of the water after it."

"Yes Rian, that's how hydraulics works," Lori said blandly. No more moves. Mikon's turn again.

"I wish I had something to draw with…" Rian sighed, then held up his hands. "All right! What if you make some kind of tube mounted on a pivot or something. Stone, wood, bone, whatever. And in that tube you put in the water jet binding. When we need water, someone, anyone, puts one end of the tube into the river, it pulls water up and that water goes all the way to the bathhouse to fill the basins. When it's full, they take the tube out, and the basins stop filling. That way, you just need to keep the tube imbued like anything else, and someone else can take care of moving it around to fill the basins." Rian's hand finally stopped making gestures that he seemed to think would help illustrate what he was describing, but just looked random to Lori.

She stared at him as the simplicity of it set in. "That's… that's…"

"Brilliant?" Rian said smugly.

"Obvious!" Lori exclaimed, making her lord sigh and slump. "I should have thought of that!" Why hadn't she thought of that?

"I'll still take credit for coming up with an obvious idea you didn’t," Rian said.

"Yes, yes, you're insightful," she said, waving him off. It might not work very well with the system of basins and aqueducts she had, since that needed the water to be constantly flowing at all points for it to be pure, but if she could refit the old bath houses to this…

"Actually, it wouldn't even need to be manually operated," Rian mused. "With the right arrangement of weights, floats, swing arms and ropes, you could do it so that once the level of the water of the basin dropped below a certain point, the tube would swing into place automatically until it was full…"

…

Her lord was brilliant.

Not that she'd tell him out loud.

"That sounds… complicated," Lori said instead.

"Well, it's not something we have to come up with ourselves," Rian said. "We have carpenters, smiths, militia engineers… lots of people whose work has them try and solve puzzles like this." He shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised if some of the children can think of a simple way to do it, once you explain it to them. Children are smart like that. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if things like this are used in some specialized processes in industries that you never got to work at because the role needed dedicated training."

"It's a distinct possibility," Lori agreed. Then she sighed. "But that still leaves getting the water up there... I suppose I'll have to make a new pipe after all."

"Eh, you can do it," Rian said. "You've done it before. Or would you rather be stuck bringing people back and forth between here and River's Fork?"

Ah, contrast. "I suppose you have a point," she admitted. "I'll have to make a pipe, then a mechanism for the water like you described…" She might have to make a dedicated building next to the river for it, or at least a shed. She could even envision the mechanism, a tube that can be lowered into the water to fill a basin that fed the pipes. Or, even simpler, just the basin, with a sluice that controlled water going into it to be drawn into the pipes… firewisps could be used to keep any remaining water from going bad or stagnant… Or maybe…

"Lori, eat. Your food's getting cold, and Mikon's waiting for you to make a move," Rian sighed.

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Making Better Plumbing

Lori decided to finish the third bath house first before she went about altering the plumbing in the other two already in use.

Making the pipe from the river to the third bath house that would supply the bath water took some time. Fortunately, the area was far enough from the Dungeon that she didn't have to worry about this affecting excavation that would happen in the immediate future. It still took a day, most of it spent excavating the pipe itself. She spent most of that time with her eyes closed, making the pipe with her senses, compressing the sides for strength and doing her best to round it out.

One end was directly behind the bath houses, covered by some stone so that nothing would fall in after she was finished making it. The other end came out near the Dungeon's entrance. While it would have been much shorter to just have the pipe lead towards the closest point of the river, that was slightly downstream of the bath houses and all the other water-using facilities, and she didn't want to risk drawing in water that had already been used.

If she was building as she had been when they had just established her demesne, she'd have just opened the pipe into the river, bound some waterwisps to pull water from it and considered the work done.

However, the demesne was growing, and needed better foundations to stand on.

"So you're building a…" Rian tilted his head. "What, exactly?"

"A centralizing location for drawing all the water the demesne will need," Lori said as she ate her dinner. "This way, it's easier to keep track of where our water is coming from, and to keep it free from impurities. I don't want to make the mistake of getting water from somewhere only for people to start getting sick because it's downriver of our wastewater. After I finish with the third bath house, I will alter the pipes of the other two bath houses to draw water from the same location. "

"All right, that makes sense…" Rian said slowly. "I would think that that best place to put that is the most upriver point of the demesne, but I suppose that's too far away to be practical right now. "

"Perhaps in future," Lori agreed. "But I will need assistance." She reached down beside her and picked up a stone tablet, placing it on the table between her and Rian. She had planned this conversation, and it was important enough that she'd forgone playing sunk with Mikon.

Rian leaned over and studied it. "What exactly am I looking at?"

"My initial thought on how to implement your idea for using wisps bound to movable pipes," Lori said. She pointed. "This pipe is filled with a binding that will draw water from the river, and can be lifted from the water to keep it from doing so. when lowered, it fills this basin, which also has a binding, and that binding will take the water to the third bath house and into a reservoir, from which the basins in the bath house can be fed. This way, someone can be in charge of filling the reservoir without my having to be involved."

Rian was already shaking his head. "Won't work," he said. "With a setup like that, there's nothing to stop anyone from just leaving the pipe in the water and walking away. Sure, it can act as a way to break the flow, but with a river nearby, there's no incentive for people to not simply leave the water flowing. And the switch is to too far away from the bath house. How will they know the reservoir they want to fill is full and stop it?" He must have seen the annoyed look on her face. "The design is effective, but the logistics make it a bit impractical in application."

Lori scowled, but it was easy to see what he meant. Her nice, comfy bed seemed to have blinded her to the base idiotic behaviors of people.

"What about…" Rian said slowly, "instead of pushing water up the tube, you pull it?" He made a sucking noise.

Lori blinked as the idea presented itself. "Yes! If one end of the tube was in water, we could use a binding of airwisps to draw it up," she said. "And if that binding were something that can be removed from the end point, than it would be far easier to know when to uncouple it since the reservoir is full."

Rian was nodding. "And if the tube with the sucking binding was on a weighed arm or something, then it could be designed to uncouple itself from the pipe unless actively moved towards it, so that it will stop if left alone." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Actually, it would be easy to get something like that to move automatically when the reservoir is low…"

"One thing at a time," Lori said firmly. "Water first so people can take baths."

"Right, right. Water first, figuring out how to make work do itself later," Rian agreed. He frowned. "Wait. If it's going to be some kind of tube where air keeps getting sucked through, you need some way to keep people's hands from being sucked into it." He curled one hand as if holding a cup, then slapped his other hand over it. "This is an easy way to get painfully stuck."

Lori made a nauseated expression as she imagined what he was implying. "Good point. Perhaps some sort of grate or cage to prevent hands from going on top of it."

"Maybe some kind of ball around it?" Rian suggested. "Or put it in some kind of sheath that keeps people from being able to put their hand somewhere dangerous. Like… argh, I really should something to draw!"

Lori turned over her stone tablet, slightly softening the still-flat stone on the other side. "Use this."

Rian blinked at it, but once Lori scored a line using her fingernail he understood.

"Right," he said, beginning to draw. "All right, let's say you put the suction binding in a tube…"

"Lord Rian," Mikon interrupted. Rian blinked and looked at the weaver in surprise. So did Lori, for that matter. The pink-haired weaver as sitting on the outside tonight, with Riz between her and Rian. "While I realize this is very important, perhaps you should finish your food first?"

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Rian ate under Umu's almost-parental gaze. As her Lord was too busy eating quickly to speak, Lori decided to go back to her dinner as well. That was the only reason. Mikon's occasional sideways glances at her didn't factor into it at all!

After they finished eating, Rian picked up from where he left off, narrating as he drew with the nail of his forefinger. "Right, so the tub with the suction binding should be wide. Wider than a hand or a head, because you just know some idiot will try to stick his head in. A wooden panel down the middle so that even if someone did try to reach in, they don't block the whole tube and get stuck. You also need these protrusions so they don't accidentally get pushed against a wall and get stuck because of suction."

Lori nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I see what you mean. But how to you propose for it to work?"

"Well, the mouth of the pipe where the water will be coming from needs to be smaller than the mouth of the suction tube," Rian said, beginning another sketch. "And the pipe needs to be beveled, like this, so that the two halves can form a seal even without being perfectly fitted together. This also keeps the tube from getting stuck. You just need to pull it sideways to break the seal so the suction isn't keeping the tube stuck to the pipe."

Lori nodded. "Yes, I can see how this could work… I might even be able to build it myself, though I'll need wood to act as reinforcement and for the central partition." She frowned. "This might be better if it was on some sort of roller, so it can only be move back and forth."

Rian tilted his head, looked at the sketch. "You've right. If it was on some sort of recessed groove with rollers beneath it, and something or maybe stone walls to keep it on track… they push it towards the pipe, the beveled lip acts as a decent seal, the binding sucks up the water, and then to shut it off we have… " he drew, "some kind of lever here to push the suction tube away from the lip and some sort of block that acts to keep them separate, so that the suction can't pull it back towards the pipe unless they want it to."

Lori looked down at it contemplatively. If she hadn't been narrated at, the resulting drawing would have made no sense to her. "It might work," she allowed. "And if it doesn't, we can still use the baths by using waterwisps to push the water up the pipe." She hummed thoughtfully. "I can finish the reservoir and fuse the basins into one to simplifying things. That means making the reservoir bigger, since it needs to have enough to fill both basins twice over…"

"Is the reservoir covered?" Rian asked. "To keep dust and flying bugs out?"

Lori scowled. "It will be now," she said, then sighed. "I'll need more stone…"

"Not necessarily," Rian said thoughtfully. "There's something I think you can try. Something you can use besides stone. Or at least, something to use until you can get enough stone."

She frowned at him. "What?"

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The next day, Lori build the water shed, for lack of a better term. She raised a stone wall out of the river's bedrock to isolate an area, then raised pillars of stone to act to bar entry to any seels that might be curious. It had yet to happen—they usually didn't loiter at the area of the river directly fronting the town—but better to be safe. In this mildly segregated portion, she opened up the end of the pipe, with a binding that circulated the water in the vicinity of the opening to discourage small animals and plants from making a home there.

That done, Lori fused the basins running down the center of each side into one so that each bath had a long basin of water running down the middle. The basins touched the back wall of the bath house, which had a small opening though which water could splash down into the basin to fill it. The opening was meant to be closed by a simple wooden sluice, which one of the carpenters was asked to fit in so that it would both move smoothly and be reasonably water tight.

The carpenter who did so was neither Tackir or Deil, but he looked vaguely familiar, so Lori gave him a nod of acknowledgement before going back to work.

That done, she expanded the water reservoir for the baths. The problem of stone for the reservoir was solved by sinking it into the ground, letting her use the displaced bedrock for more building material. When the reservoir was filled, a binding would draw water up a small to a smaller basin directly behind the sluices. If the sluices were closed, the basin would overflow back into the reservoir, meaning no water was wasted and the water was kept moving to prevent it from going stagnant.

After that Lori decided to try Rian's suggestion out of morbid curiosity.

She build low stone walls using the bedrock stone as an extension of the bath house's basis structure to start with, but they only came up to about her waist. Then she bound waterwisps at the river end of the pipe and began to draw water to the reservoir. She actually had to wait a bit before the water reached her, but when it did she had to make another binding to curve it down into the reservoir instead of continuing forward and blasting the opposite wall. The reservoir filled very quickly, and soon she had a lot of water to do as had Rian suggested.

First, she made sure the water in the reservoir was free of impurities, which meant all the earthwisps were pushed together into a small rock that she threw over her shoulder, and all the airwisps were all pulled out so that there would be no air dissolved into the water. Then she carefully bound the water, and compressed its substance together to form ice. There was a sudden wave of warmth as all the heat was pushed out of the water as it solidified, parts of it bulging upwards as it expanded in the confines of the reservoir. The ice was completely clear, with no bubbles to mar its transparency.

Carefully, reshaping the ice so that it flowed while at the same time making sure it remained a solid, Lori began making a high, arching roof over the reservoir, using it the way she had used stone. The ice needed to be bound to stay ice and heavily imbued to last a long time, but those of those things were utter simple now compared to imbuing the water wheel in another demesne.

She had to admit, when she was done, the effect of being under a glass-clear roof was quite striking.

Then she went to find a big stick to hit it with and test to see if it broke.

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Waterworks and Ice… Actually Works?

The ice actually didn't break. With the binding in place, it was hard as stone, and seemingly as difficult to damage, especially with the binding reinforcing its physical properties beyond what it was normally capable of naturally. Still, for her own peace of mind, she built stone pillars at the corners of the reservoir pool to hold the ceiling up, and repaired the gouge in the process. The material seemed to be holding, at least. The reservoir and basins had been filled after the sluices had been fitted in, so the bath house had been softly opened for use.

"Yes, it worked, you were right," she told Rian as she and Mikon set up the board for their game. "Wipe that smug look off your face. It will still need to be constantly imbued with magic so it doesn't melt or collapse."

"Well, obviously," Rian said, nodding. "So it's not exactly something that can be used for everything. But is it working right now?"

"Yes," she said, with a sigh. "I still have to make the… suction tube, for lack of a better term. Did you manage to get the roller form lathed?"

In answer, Rian put a cylinder of wood on the table. It was able as thick as one of their wooden cups, but three times as long, and not hollow. "This what you needed?"

Lori nodded. Now she'd have something to make a mold for the stone rollers to go under the suction tube. "What about the lever?"

"They'll need to see what they're working with, and for that you need at least a semi-complete suction tube," Rian said. "It might have to be bigger than what I drew to overcome the force of the suction. The tube will be drawing in a lot of water and air, after all, so it'll be exerting a lot of force."

"In the meantime, find people who can be assigned to maintain the third bath house," Lori said. "At the very least, someone to be in charge of operating the sluices, cleaning the baths so that no pools of stagnant water, and to operate the suction tube once I've finished it."

"I've already asked around, they'll get started tomorrow," Rian said. "Also, I have a plank you can use to partition the suction tube, but I left it next to the door to your room because it was pretty big. You might need to trim it yourself or something. "

Lori nodded as Mikon made her opening move. "How is progress on your ice boat?"

"Ah, about that," Rian said hesitantly. "Since the roof worked, I have an idea for a proof-of-concept test we can do that will also help us get a bigger boat for getting the next batch of miners to River's fork in one trip. But it want to get the design and the dimensions finished first before showing you anything final."

Lori reached to make her own move. "What's the concept, then?"

"We replicate the dimensions of the boat—"

"Lori's Boat."

Rian sighed for some reason as Riz, sitting next to Mikon, made a small cough. "Yes, the only boat we currently own. We replicate it at double its current dimensions. Double the length, width and height will be big enough to carry all the people who have volunteered in one trip. The hull will need to be much thicker, of course, for structural integrity, and reinforcement, but beyond that, something of those dimensions should be stable and a good test to see if the ice will hold. And if we weight the keel with rocks—"

"The what?" Lori interrupted.

"The keel. It's the line in the center that runs along the bottom of the boat," Rian explained. "You put extra weight there to keep the things from rolling over. We can't put one on… on Lori's Boat, but we can put one on the ice boat when we build it so that it will be more stable and not tilt from side to side as much." He paused. "I'll admit, I'm sort of afraid it will still start dipping too low if too many people are on one side, so I'm trying to figure out how to put an outrigger on it."

"And you intend for all that to be made of with ice?" Lori said blandly.

"No, of course not, that would be insane," Rian said. "It'll need wooden internal supports for added strength. Ideally, the whole thing would be made of wood, with the ice serving as a coating of waterproofing and added displacement for it to float batter, since we don't have enough resources to properly waterproof a conventionally made boat."

"Food," Lori said.

Rian blinked in confusion. "I don't think we can use food as waterproofing."

Lori sighed. "Get our food, Rian"

"Oh! Right, right, food, getting it, getting it…"

––––––––––––––––––

Lori left Rain to building his boat while she worked on the mechanism that could be manually operated to fill the reservoir with water. Adding a protrusion to the end of the pipe leading to the river was simple enough, and beveling it so the suction tube would fit over it needed only a little work. She used all the stone that she had one had from making the ceiling out of ice to make a wide groove with high sides to keep the suction tube from moving to either side, with a lip at the end of the slot to keep the tube from falling into the reservoir. She also added a slight curve to the end of the suction tube so that the water would go straight into the reservoir. Stone rollers, made in a mold of ice, using the wooden roller as a basis to make the mold, were put under the suction tube so it could be moved easily.

When she tested it, she found what while the binding of airwisps was sufficient for the task of drawing up water, once the water reached the suction tube, the tube would get pushed out of the lip by the water. it took her several very messy, very wet tried to realize that once the water reached the tube, the airwisps had no more air to drawn on, meaning there was no more force being exerted to keep it adhered to the pipe. She had to spend some time figuring out how to add a binding of waterwisps to draw the water once it reached the tube. Thankfully, the fact that there was a divider in the tube, so she was able to put a binding of airwisps in one half and a binding of waterwisps in the other.

The result was the water being drawn up from the river far slower than if she had put a dedicated binding of waterwisps in the pipe, but that was fine. There was no hurry to fill up the reservoir, after all.

The end first month of their agreement with River's Fork came and went, and she had to be there to provide the ice that had been agreed upon, and to check on the state of the water wheel and fan. It was tempting to add more blood, in case time was degrading her connection, but there was currently no need as she didn't feelany added difficulty in imbuing, and if it was possible for the connection to degrade over time, it was best she had a baseline measurement.

After that came general demesne work. Heating the kiln to begin the glaze firing, building some packed earth curing sheds for lumber, curing lumber, maintaining all the bindings running her demesne, and converting the plumbing in the old bath houses to be more like the new one, meaning she had to dig reservoirs for them, and build their own suction tubes. She also roofed the reservoir area with ice, purely so that the water level would always be visible to people would know when it was time to renew it. Fortunately, since they were closer to the river, that was less of a problem, though she had to get Rian to find more people to handle refilling the reservoir on top of maintaining the bath houses.

Hmm… actually, had someone been maintaining the bath houses already? Eh, Rian would deal with it.

The waste water for all three she decided to bring to the cistern for water to be used on their fields, though that cistern needed some expansion. Two days later, when it turned out that was far more water than their field—which had gotten bigger since she'd last noticed, more trees at the edges cut down, leaving their current stand of crops looking like a small lost patch of greenery—could currently use, she just gave up, created a lower cistern the water could overflow into, and made a binding that turned the water that overflowed into that cistern into steam. It left behind detritus from the water that had been evaporated, but that was something that could be deal with later. Much later. And since it had essentially been boiled and didn't reek like waste, it was fairly safe to leave alone.

"That somehow feels wasteful," Rian said later that night.

Lori stared at him. "How is that wasteful?" she said.

"Well, if the water is vaporized, the water steam is clean, right?" Rian said. "Can't you gather all that steam and add it to the reservoir again? It's not like the irrigation water needs it, it's already overflow water. "

Lori tilted her head thoughtfully..

The next day, she converted the overflow tank a sealed tank, with a small access door for when the particulates gathering in the bottom of the tank would need to be shoveled out. The steam from all the water being boiled off into vapor was channeled back into the third bath house reservoir and condensed as hot water to help feed it, Lori diverted the waste water used in the laundry area to the irrigation cistern as well. Not all of the water ended up being evaporated and reused, since the field did still need to be watered, but that wasn't the point. It allowed them to minimize the possibility of taint their own water, since it was hard for taint survive being boiled into steam.

With the new bath houses established, thankfully no longer needed to bathe in the laundry area, for which she was grateful. That practice had always been nerve-wracking for her to hear about. All it needed were a few insistent idiots to make trouble…

Also, since she finally had time, she told the carpenters to start work on a waterwheel-powered lathe that would fit in to the second level, and she would provide the water power to turn it.

"That's made them happy," Rian said during dinner, their food between them. "They're really getting into designing and building it. They should be finished by tomorrow. The day after at the latest. Though the blacksmiths have been quietly… not complaining, but more like asking for as much as support as the carpenters."

Lori nodded as she finished chewing her food, her game with Mikon put on hold for the moment. The woman was talking quietly with Riz about something, and the way the two were speaking in low tones, the two were clearly gossiping. Umu, on the other side of Rian, struggled to hear them, looking left out. "I'll find a suitably protected spot. It just can't be in the second level since it would make ventilation troublesome."

"I think they understand that," Rian said as he diligently tried to ignore the two women next to him, leaning forward towards her to try and put himself slightly out of hearing range, "but they'll need a permanent smithy soon. The saws are going to need sharpening or even replacement eventually, everyone's going to need more tools made of more than just wood and rocks, and they'll need a better-prepared place to work to do that. And…"

The two women to his left let out shocked gossip gasps as Umu literally leaned over his back to listen in.

"And the hunter and tanners—the ones treating our skins and leather, anyway— would like to ask for a better building than a shack to store and smoke our supply of skins, furs and hides," Rian sighed.

Lori blinked. "There's a shack?" she said as she took another spoonful. The meat had been fried, from the taste of it, and the stew tasted of stewed mushrooms more than meat stock or vegetables.

"Yes, they built it themselves once the children started catching seels and beasts started getting skinned," Rian said. "They really need salt. They've been making due with seel and beast brains, but that's not a lot. Most they've been drying and stretching, but I'm told that's not the best way to cure an animal hide."

Lori swallowed, sighed. "I'll… see to it. Have you finished the boat prototype?"

"I've worked out the dimensions. I just… need your help?" Rian gave her a sheepish smile as he tried to ignore how Umu was now leaning sideways on his back. "The best way to shape ice to make a mold and fill it with water so you don't need to try shaping it manually."

"So… you want me to make the mold AND use it to make ice," Lori said blandly.

"In my defense, we've both always known that you've have to do everything related to working with ice," Rian pointed out. "And this is basically a test to make sure that the shape of the ice is stable. Or at least, stable enough to use as a boat. It'll let me figure out how much to weigh the keel too."

"Hmm…" Lori tilted her head and made a show of resting her elbow on the table and her cheek on the back of her hand.

Silence broken only by gossiping stretched on.

"All right, I have to ask," Rian said. "What are the three of you talking about?"

Umu looked down as if only just realizing she was leaning on Rian and blushed as Mikon and Riz started. "Ah, sorry, Lord Rian," she said.

"Umu, you've been washing my laundry and just used me as an arm rest," Rian tiredly. He gave her an equally tired smile. "I think we're beyond the point of formality. Just call me Rian, all right?"

Umu made a sound as if someone had gotten trapped in her throat.

"Now, what have you three been talking about interesting enough to warrant using my back as an arm rest?" he asked again.

Riz looked panicked but Mikon smoothly leaned around her so Rian could see her. "Riz was merely telling me who has been using the Um, Lord Rian," she said. "Some of the people going in together…" She coughed. "Was I not supposed to ask her, your lordship?"

"Please drop the 'lordship' Mikon," Rian said. "It's not like her Bindership insists I get any respect, and I wouldn't know what to do with it if I got any." Really, his shows of false modesty bordered on the satirical and delusional sometimes. "Just Rian is fine. You too, Riz. I mean, we're eating at the same food at the same table, rank clearly isn't much of a separator… except for her Bindership of course." He glanced sideways as if just remembering she was there. "Though please don't gossip about that in future? People have little privacy to preserve as it is. Let's let them have their dignity, please."

"Yes, Lord Rian," Riz said meekly.

"One would think people are forfeiting their dignity already, using that place," Lori commented.

"It is as dignified or not as everyone treats it as," Rian said insistently. "It can be crude and sordid, or it can be dignified and intimate and private. And I for one am not going to demean the people going there. I might be one of them someday." He didn't notice the three women next to him stiffen. "Probably not any day soon, but someday, once I'm the last man in the demesne and someone has to settle for having no standards…"

Lori couldn't help it. She laughed.

"Yes, yes, laugh at my pain," he sighed dramatically. "So, are you going to help me with the boat prototype or not?"

Lori rolled her eyes. "Fine," she said. "Tomorrow, and only briefly. I have all those workshops to build. At least tell me your proposed prototype has dimensions?"

"Yes, I measured it out," he said. "Not as flat as your boat, since a weighted keel works better if it's lower than everything else."

Lori nodded. "Good then. It shouldn't take all morning to make, hopefully." She had another spoonful of stew, chewed, swallowed. "Anything else?"

Rian leaned back thoughtfully. "No, I think that's everything immediate for now. I'll let you and Mikon play your game. You seem to enjoy playing against her more than against me."

"You're clearly bored when you play," Lori said. "It's annoying, especially when you still beat me."

Rain shrugged shamelessly. "Sorry?"

"You will me. One day, I will defeat you utterly," Lori declared.

"I'm… not really sure how I'm supposed to respond to that, so I'll just eat," Rian said, suiting actions to words.

Lori nodded sharply as she and Mikon began to set up their game, the weaver looking pleasantly eager to play even as Riz seemed regretful for the end of their conversation.

"So," Rian asked northerner woman, "who have been going into the Um together?"

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The Ice Boat Prototype

Building the ice boat prototype did not, in fact, take all morning.

They needed a place they could use to assemble the ice and form the boat, and for ease Lori opted to use the area directly in front of the dungeon. It was in front of the river anyway, it was relatively flat, and it needed to be compacted anyway.

"Your units of measurement are atrocious," Lori said, as she peered down at the piece of wood Rian had handed her with a sketch and large scrawled dimensions on it. The drawing was clearly not to scale. "Why are you using stri? No one uses stri, it's just something that pads out the scale between a pace and yustri. "

"It exists, I'm going to use it," Rian said.

"So do measuring things in half-paces," Lori said, shaking her head. "Well, come on. This is your idea, you help me measure out the mold." She glared again at the numbers. "And turn this into paces, will you?"

Rian sighed, but took back the wood, drew out a burnt wooden stick from somewhere—he kept that in a pocket? Poor Umu— and began to convert the measurements while muttering to himself.

Once that was done, they began to measure out the dimensions for what was essentially an oversized block of ice. Lori had considered making a hole and pouring water into that, but that was stupid. That was the sort of method you would use for mass producing a specific shape. As this was only a prototype, they could afford to form it by hand. The lines they were measuring on the ground were so they'd have an easy reference for the dimensions. Once the lines were in place, Lori depressed the ground and compacted the material so that the lines would remain clear, especially the lengthwise center line.

"We'll need clear ice," Rian said as she gathered water from the river, waterwisps giving the fluid unnatural cohesion and viscosity. "It's the most structurally sound, since it won't have bubbles weakening it, and we'll need a benchmark test to see how well it holds without reinforcement."

"Do you actually know what you're doing?" Lori asked dryly even as she began binding the airwisps out of the water. This was unusual enough from her usual work that some people, especially the people waiting in line at the Um—thankfully only three pairs or so, instead of the comically long lines when it had been first established.

"A little? I mean, it makes sense that impurities would weaken a substance," Rian said. "And, well… air means bubbles in ice, which means gaps, like rotten wood. And rotten wood is weaker than whole wood. So the logic follows."

"And your idea to put wooden planks in the ice? How are those not impurities?"

Because the wood itself will also be structurally intact," Rian said. "The wood will act as structurally reinforcement against lateral stresses, something to keep the ice together instead of just snapping. Its bone inside muscle or… ah, fibers inside baked bricks. Even if something managed to crack the ice, the wood beneath should help it keep its shape. I'm not sure if we can build it to be self-repairing, I don't know enough about magic, but pouring water over the crack so it will freeze solid to repair the damage is a nice image."

Lori considered that. The binding for such a self-repair function… no, it would be unfeasible. The water being added to the cracks would need to be claimed somehow, or else it would never properly solidify into ice. Though perhaps she could do a test to detect gaps in the bound wisps…

"Magic doesn't work that way," she said instead. Then she began making ice. "Do not touch the ice unless I tell you to, or your flesh will freeze to it and probably become frostbitten."

Rian whistled, raising his eyebrows. "It's that cold?"

Height wasn't a problem, since they could just trim it down. So she made the whole thing out of a whole block of ice, three paces wide, five paces long and nearly two paces high. It was solid and completely clear with a bluish tinge, the only thing keeping it from slipping along the hardpacked ground the little bumps of packed earth sticking out at the edges to keep it hemmed in, and how it had frozen onto the ground it was on.

It stayed clear, if blue, as she kept it bound, not really acting like ice. Ice, unbound ice, interacted with the firewisps in the world, drawing them in and leaving the area around it cold as a result. Ice created by taking waterwisps to solidify water did not. While it was technically cold, it did not spread that cold into the world. With the binding removed carefully, it remained solid, but now exchange of heat could happen, and the surface began to frost over as stray waterwisps in the air settled and solidified because of the cold.

"I can feelthat," Rian said, sounding astonished. "That's cold."

"Still thinking you can build a boat out of this?" Lori said dryly.

"If we can keep it solid, we can keep it solid in the presence of heat," Rian said. "That means that cold will be survivable."

"We?" Lori said pointedly.

"Sorry, I mean you, most powerful, intelligent and hardworking Binder."

Rian needed new words of flattery.

The center of the ice—the keel, as Rian kept referring to it—was supposed to come to a point and be three-quarters of a pace higher—or as the case would be once it was turned around and in the water, lower—than the sides of the boat. Lori used a stone knife blade pulled from the ground, firewisps, a length of cord and Rian to score lines from the keel to the side of the boat, then made the ice part along those parameters, making what was essentially a squat triangle on top of a block. Another pass, and there was a gradual slope on one end that would be the front. Even to her inexperienced eye, it was something barely boat-shaped.

"Okay…" Rian said when that was done. "That looks good. Now how do we flip it…?"

"It's supposed to float, isn't it?" Lori said as she directed her awareness away from where they were.

"It should—oh, that was a rhetorical question," Rian said, stepping back from the crude ice boat as if afraid of getting wet. The water that had risen up from the river enfolded the block of ice as Lori bound it once more to solidity so that it would stop drawing in heat again. For a moment, it stayed stuck on the ground until Lori tweaked the binding a little, and a thin layer of ice turned back to water, which immediately turned to slush again but it released the block.

The block of ice meant to be a boat heaved, rising in the malformed, rounded water Lori had surrounded it with, slowly rising but not bobbing to the 'surface'. Ah, right. Cohesion and viscosity combined into powerful surface tension.

"Let's take this to the river, shall we?" Lori said as if she'd always meant to do that.

They nearly lost the boat. Lori barely remembered to raise stone bars in its path from the river bed when the current took it, and she and Rian both winced hard at the sound of impact.

"Please don't be broken, please don't be broken, please don't be broken," Rian said repeatedly as Lori pulled the boat back towards them using the stone bars to push it into place.

"It's fine," she said. Well, she assumed. It was… really hard to tell for sure since it was completely transparentsIt was still whole, and her binding had been keeping it solid. "It's fine. And it's floating."

It was… technically. A long strip of transparent, glass-like ice bobbed out of the water in a line, with an unnaturally sharp edge. Water lapped over it, not freezing because of her binding.

"That does not look sufficiently buoyant for our needs," Lori said flatly.

"That's because we need to do phase two first," Rian said. "Hollowing it out." A beat. "Well, turning it over and THEN hollowing it out." Another beat. "Um, can you turn it over and put it back where we started? Please? Your most patient and scholarly bindership?"

That was not what she meant about new flattery, but she'd take what she could get.

The boat—well, block of ice, it wasn't a boat yet—was turned the right way up and brought back to shore, where it was rested on some stone she raised out of the ground to keep it in place and even. Then Rian—using the cord, his writing plank as a relative straight edge and Lori's stone knife—began to score lines along the relatively flat top of the boat, defining a space where the ice needed to be removed. The space ended well back from the angled front—"Let's not risk poking a hole in it just yet"— but did encompass most of the boat.

He then scored a line on the side showing how deep the ice to be removed should be.

"Um, will that be a problem?" he asked as if finally realizing how much of the ice needed to be removed. "Can I help with anything?"

"Yes," Lori said as she made a block of stone rise up out of the gorund next to her so she'd had somewhere to stand on that would let her see all the scored lines. "Watch the level."

Hollowing out ice was nothing like working with stone. For one thing, water, unlike stone, will settle down to a perfectly flat, even level. That meant she didn't need to smooth anything out when she hit bottom, just turn it back to ice again.

She was in the middle of making section of ice in the middle of the block turn into water and move over the side and onto the ground when Rian suddenly started laughing.

"What?" she asked. She wasn't wondering whether it was a joke at her expense. Not at all.

"R-remember when we first started talking about making a boat and sending it to Covehold?" he said, still snickering.

"Yes, this plan has been greatly delayed, hasn't it?" she said.

Rian ignored that. "Remember my first idea for making a boat?"

His first idea? Yes, he'd had an idea. What had it been…

"You wanted to hollow out a tree…?" she said, the bizarre detail coming to mind.

Rian started chuckling again. "I mean, it's not a tree, but…" He gestured at the block of ice. That she was hollowing out.

Lori rolled her eyes and continued following the scored lines as her only lord snickered to himself

She really needed to find someone to appoint as another one. He might be losing his sanity.

––––––––––––––––––

Lori managed to finish hollowing out the ice a little past mid-morning. By then it actually looked like a boat.

"It actually looks like a boat now," she said as she looked over the hollowed out piece of ice now actually riding above the water.

"A barge, anyway," Rian said.

"A barge is clearly a sort of boat."

Rian didn't press the issue. He was giving the new boat a look of… dissatisfaction. "You know, I just realized this might be ill-advised," he said.

"Really? Making a boat out of ice is ill-advised?" Her sarcasm should been a thick sludge that covered the ground.

"We should have put some wooden boards on it," Rian said. "Otherwise we'd slip trying to get on and off. If we plan to use it as a boat, we need to test what happens when we use it as a boat. That means getting on it." He frowned. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You truly want to go through with this?" she said.

"It's the best we can do, unless you want to try building a boat out of stone," he said softly. "So far, nothing has come up to say this is a completely bad idea. A risky idea? Sure. Very risky. The boat we use will need to be built with care and planning and you'll have to keep it full of magic constantly over a long distance so it doesn't fail, but that just makes it difficult and desperate, not actually bad. We need a boat, and ice is a material we can use thanks to you. Even if the boats we used aren't made completely of only ice, ice will definitely be a component. It lets us seal gaps in the wood that we have no other way of waterproofing, at the very least."

Rian gestured at the ice boat. "Look at it. It's stupid, it looks cold, but it works. It's clearly floating, after all. If the carpenters build a wooden box to those dimensions, and then we put it inside this, we'd had a functional boat for as long as the ice lasted! And if you do the blood thing, it'll last for as long as you want it to last. I mean, we'd have to be careful of it bumping into things hard, but that would be true of any boat we make!"

"We've been beaching Lori's Boat," Lori pointed out.

"Yes, and you have no idea how terrifying I find that, which is why I'm trying to find a way for us to make out own boat," Rian said.

For a moment, Lori stood in silence, staring at the boat.

"We need to do this, Lori," Rian said quietly. "We can only put it off for so long. One way or another, we need to go back." A beat. "After all, it's part of your agreement with River's Fork."

Lori twitched. That last comment stung, colors consume him.

She took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh.

"Fine," she said. It wasn't a tired word. It wasn't particularly resigned. Just… said. "Fine. But we do one last thing first."

"Which is?"

"We need to test to see what happens to bound ice outside of the demesne for several days," Lori said.

Rian winced. "Ah… good point. Yes, let's definitely do that first. Thinking about it, I really want to know if Iridescence can grow on this… "

They both looked at the boat, made of solidified water.

"Yes, let's definitely test that," Rian repeated vehemently.

Slowly, Lori nodded, still looking down at the ice boat. "I'll get some stone. If I put a thin layer on the bottom, that should give you some footing, right?"

Rian blinked at the abrupt change in subject. "Uh, maybe. Yes, it should as long as it's rough enough, it think," Rian said. "And thick. Wouldn't want it to crack under me, after all."

Lori nodded, still thoughtful. "Let's get some stone, then…"