Weekly Digest 34 - (#107 - #109) (Patreon)

Prepare As You Did The Last Time

The ice boat was… successful. For a given value of success, at any rate. It floated and, despite appearances, it wasn't actually that cold to the touch, and it didn't make your skin adhere to it on contact like some really cold ice did. It didbecome extremely slippery, almost frictionless, when wet, hence why it needed a layer of something to let people maintain their footing.

They didn't keep it as a block of ice, of course. Some things had to be added. Struts of bone protruding down to act as stabilizers so it went straight. A mount for a tiller, one bigger and more robust than the one Lori's Boat had that could be lifted out of the water. A plank had been inserted into the ice to have something to properly secure the tiller to, and more hand been put along the top and sides to protect the ice from damage and to give people something to step on for traction.

They tested the second boat, which Rian had facetiously named 'Lori's Ice Boat', several times, using both weights—blocks of stone—and volunteers and then going up and down the river with it a few times, testing the balance and stability. The added weight to the keel seemed to help with the latter, though by observation, the weight needed to be greater and located lower to truly be effective. Still, it allowed them to over twenty people at a time, not counting Rian, who operated the tiller. That already made it useful for cutting the number of trips down to River's Fork in half.

And Lori did test to see how Iridescence affected the ice boat. Or at least, how Iridescence affected the primary material of the ice boat. She left a block of ice—all dissolved air and as many impurities as she could manipulate removed from it—with a binding to keep it solid for an extended period of time outside at the border of her demesne. Since she wasn't doing anything beyond leaving it there, she had left a corner of the block partially inside so she could keep imbuing it as needed. There was a piece of rock, bone, and an offcut of wood sticking out of the sides as well to use as points of comparison, and because those were the most likely materials they would be using in boat building.

Days later, she was examining that block. While the wood, bone and rock had grown at very unnerving growth of Iridescence, glittering in poisonous colors, the ice was… mostly clear. The top part had a light dusting of iridescence growth, but that looked to be bits that had fallen from trees and was just continuing to crystalize on its own, or possibly around dust particles. It wasn't growing on the ice so much as on top of it. There also wasn't any of the sense of thickness that needed to be imbued out on the waterwisps on her binding, confirming there was no penetrative growth.

Lori carefully picked up the sides and winced as her hand slipped on the smooth surface, bringing her fingers up to brush on the Iridescence crystals growing on the non-ice parts. She drew her hand back instantly, but the damage was done: small, fine bits of color were not sticking on her skin, and while she couldn't feel the sensation of the Iridescence slowly trapping her body's wisps, she could recall it fairly clearly from long days when they'd only been allowed to try and wash themselves off twice a day. Fortunately, she only had to step back into the demesne to clear that feeling away.

"The ice seems normal," she said for Rian to record. "And intact. No Iridescence penetration. Only the non-water solids seem to have been iridiated."

"Really makes you wonder why humans and animals get iridiated," Rian mused as he wrote. "After all, isn't meat technically 'mostly dirty water'? Even dead meat seems to ooze a lot."

"That sort of experimentation was deemed unethical, cruel, dangerous, unsafe and pointless a long time ago," Lori as she once more carefully examined the chunk of ice and material. "Mostly because no matter how Deadspoken the animals and people were to include increasing amounts of water in their bodies, they were still iridiated, and the research was considered a dead end."

"…of course it is," Rian sighed. "So no one ever found out 'why'?"

"Focus on our own results, Rian," she said. "Ice seems to be viable for long-term use outside of the demesne. Stone and bone, the same." Lori tapped her lips thoughtfully. "Wood might be problematic."

"Only if it's exposed to air," Rian said. "If it's in the ice and the ice isn't melting, it's not going to absorb water, and shouldn't rot because there's no air."

"An excellent point," Lori agreed.

"So will you authorize building the ice boat now? Even if we finish it in a week, which I doubt, we don't know how long we'll need to travel to get to Covehold and back, and I'd rather not travel in winter."

"Yes, yes, I suppose," Lori said. With a touch, the block of ice melted into water, washing out the Iridescence on the samples that had been embedded into it. Lori collected the bone. It was a resource, after all. "Do you have design drafts for one ready?"

"I have drawings, but I'll need them to be looked at by people who actually know how to build things to be sure," Rian said. "And, uh, you'll need to be there too, since you're the only one who can make ice."

"Give me a final design, one we can build," Lori said. "Now come on, I still have more work to do."

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Lori's Ice Boat did, indeed, manage to get all the miners to River's Fork and back in only one trip, though unlike Lori's Boat, they couldn't beach it because it was deemed too potentially dangerous to the structure, even with planks of wood added the outside as protection and more added inside the ice as reinforcement. Between that and more stone in the keel, it rode lower in the water, but was much more stable. However, it's large size and relatively meant that the water jet attached to it couldn't accelerate it to go as fast, since its greater mass meant it would be more difficult to stop.

But it worked.

"It's getting people really excited," Rian reported over dinner the night of the miner shift change. "There's talk we'll be building the boat soon, and people are already talking about what they want brought back from Covehold."

Lori snorted as Umu made her move. "We don't even have a boat yet."

Rian shrugged. "They're excited. Besides, having them think about what the demesne needs is good for us. It means we don't need to compile the list ourselves, and this way, we have more people doing the thinking, so they're more likely to think of something that we might overlook."

"One wonders how they expect us to have the beads for such things," Lori said. While she didn't intend to buy anything, since the first trip would be for dropping off the exiles and researching market prices and what sold well, she did want Rian to look into the price of raw glass.

"Let them dream," Rian said. "It's good to have goals. It'll encourage people to find and produce trade goods to sell."

"Ten percent tax if sold," Lori said immediately.

"I'll let them know," was the dry reply. "We'll need to keep meticulous records anyway… but that's for later, after we come back, possibly not until after winter. By the way, when you're done eating, I have that design draft you wanted. Want to look it over before I set up a meeting with everyone we'll need to help build it tomorrow?"

Lori held out her hand for it. Rian slid the plank in front of him around the end of the sunk board, and she examined it. Good, he'd used paces this time…

It was a long vessel, more than twice as long as Lori's Ice Boat by the scale, at about twelve paces long and almost half that high. The draft was a bit rough, but Rian had included what parts had to be ice, what parts were wood reinforcement and cladding, and what needed to be primarily wood internal structures. Lori frowned down at something along the bottom of the boat. Were those… pipes?

"We don't know how deep the river is, so it needs to be as shallow as possible while still being able to carry some cargo," Rian explained as she continued to look over the design while putting her recent knowledge of ice buoyancy to use to imagine what he meant. "As well as being able to carry at least eight people."

Lori blinked at that number. "Why eight people?" she asked.

"Three for our agreement with River's Fork, four to be able to overpower them, and at least one person to handle the tiller," Rian counted off. He frowned. "Maybe ten would be better, four doesn't sound like enough. That many people will need food, so that adds to the weight. We'll need to over-prepare with food, since we don't know how many days the trip will take, but once we know we can adjust the amount. Still, those eight-to-ten people will need sleeping quarters, a place to wash off Iridescence, a place to heat food, space to pack away things like changes of clothes, and cargo space for everything. That last is important, because it means everything will be a little cramped since space will be valuable. Even with things like beds that fold out of the walls at night so that people can put them away in the morning, we'll need even more careful planning and placement. And that kind of carpentry will likely be more time consuming."

Huh. Put that way, that did seem like a lot.

"I'm sure you and the carpenters can arrange this together," Lori said. "It seems a logical design, but I'm hardly familiar with ship-making beyond my recent experience with your idea. Though I see you designed this with outriggers."

"Best not to take chances," Rian said. "We know outriggers work and have good stability. They're also much easier to make than a weighted keel, and don't actively reduce buoyancy. It'll make boat wider, but from the look of it that's not a problem with the river so far, and according to people I've talked to, it doesn't narrow enough downstream to present an issue. "

"I see you've also decided not to make everything out of ice," Lori observed.

"The most important use of the ice is as a material that's both waterproof and buoyant," Rian said. "The reason we couldn't properly make a boat on this scale was a lack of materials to waterproof it. Ice solves that problem, but in retrospect, there's no reason to skimp out on at having a well-constructed wooden frame to act as both impact protection and to anchor all the internal structures. Besides, we can always add more ice on the outside for buoyancy, where it's less likely to be dead weight than internal structural ice."

"Then set up the meeting, let's see what the carpenters think." Lori pushed the plank back towards him. "This is your project, after all. Have you considered who will go on the boat once it's finished?"

"We'll… have to talk about that as well," Rian said, looking aside evasively.

Lori gave him a level look. "Fine," she said. "Inform the carpenters, smiths, and whoever else you think we'll need. And prepare as you did the last time." She tapped the plank significantly.

Rian chuckled at that. "Yes, your Bindership."

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When Lori woke up next, it was by snapping violently awake knowing a dragon was coming.

"Oh, rainbows."

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Yes, There Are Still Dragons

Lori changed quickly, pulling on her clothes and rushing down the stairs from her room, barely remembering the seal the way behind her. It was still dark outside the dungeon, and Lori wondered how long she'd managed to sleep… no, no time for that. She hurried towards the one shelter left, noting that the Um no longer had a line in front of it. Was anyone inside…?

Shaking her head, she reached out and altered the bindings on all her lightwisps, diminishing their glow and leaving only the light of the moons, partially obscured by clouds. She scanned the horizon—what she could see of it— trying to find…

She felt it again, that distant sense of a wave being pushed in front of something, and she turned towards it. The horizon was dark… too dark. It seemed a yawning void, deeper than and black she had ever seen…

Lori carefully bound the lightwisps in her eyes, slowly increasing the intensity of what passed through, and the night began to brighten. The clouds almost seemed to glow with colors of moonlight. But not that horizon. It remained dark and terrible and…

Lori felt a shiver run through her as the dark moved, and she was reminded of nothing so much as a hungry tongue licking lips.

She undid the binding on her eyes and ran for the shelter.

The shelter had a door, but it was more to keep the heat in than people out, so there was a latch on the outside as well. she fumbled with it for a moment before flipping it up and opening the door. The inside was dark, and she reached her hand out into the moonlight to catch some lightwisps to bind, slapping the binding on her forehead so that the glow would light her way.

Rian was sleeping closest to the door, on… what appeared to be her old bed. She recognized the marks on the headboard. Did that mean before she'd given up her bed, he'd been sleeping on the floor…? No, focus!

"Rian," she said, not bothering to lower her voice or whisper. "Rian, wake up!"

Rian groaned. "Go away," he… probably said. He seemed to be using only his throat to communicate, as if enunciating was too much effort.

"Rian, wake up, we have an emergency," she said sternly.

"Unless it's a dragon, go away."

"It's a dragon," Lori said.

Silence.

The silence continued as Rian sat up, one hand up to block out the light shining from her forehead to look him in the eye. "Really?" he said, actually enunciating this time.

"Yes." She let him have the time to embrace the implications.

Matter-of-factly, Rian turned, grabbed his pillow, pressed it against his face, and screamed.

He did this twice more as Lori began to get impatient.

"All right," he eventually said. "I'll get everyone inside, you… I think we don't have water?"

Lori nodded. "Get everything that can be moved to the Dungeon moved," she said. "And fix your bedroll."

"Really? My bedroll?"

"Do you want to sleep on rock after this? We have a little time."

"Getting my bedroll!"

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Lori claimed and imbued the darkwisps of the night sky of her demesne before she shined the lights again so people could navigate. She tore open the front of the Dungeon to let people get through easily, moving the stone aside so she could rebuild the bulwark later.

The old reservoir pit was still there, and Lori softened a thin layer of the exposed surface and drew up the stone to revel a new layer of it, to remove anything that had anything been growing down there. She bound firewisps to heat and sterilize its surfaces, just in case. There was no charred scent of anything getting cooked, so hopefully nothing had grown inside and fallen off when she drew out the stone. Still, perhaps…

No, no time to worry about that. Lori rushed to the river, binding the water to move back to the reservoir.

Around her, the demesne was waking up. Thankfully, no one panicked, not even the young children. One learned not to panic and just do what you were told when a dragon was coming. People were packing up their belongings and getting it ready to be brought to the Dungeon. An orderly line had formed as they waited for Lori to finish moving water to the reservoir.

With every passing moment, Lori could feel the dragon's coming. Every immaterial wave sent a shiver up her back despite her best efforts, made her hairs stand on end. The sky was an impenetrable black dome above, her claimed darkwisps forming a thick shroud, leaving her unable to tell the time.

With the reservoir filled and the way obstructed to keep people away from contaminating it, she allowed people into the Dungeon.

They hadn't practiced, hadn't drilled, and so many people simply set down their things in the dining hall like last time.

"No, not up here!" Lori yelled. "Downstairs, all that stuff goes downstairs! One alcove per family, keep all your things down there! Rian!" People winced as she used airwisps to let her voice be heard. She needed Rian to deal with this, she still needed to alter the altrines so that they'd have capacity and build some baths where there was still time and space…

"Your Bindership?"

She turned and saw… what was his name? Beard… ah, right, Deil! "What?" she demanded.

"Lord Rian sent me your Bindership, he's making sure all the blacksmithing tools don't get left behind," the carpenter said.

Lori grimaced but… "You've set up shop below, correct?" Lori said. At his nod, Lori pointed to the people who just dropped their things at the dining hall. "Get them down there and make sure they put their things in alcoves and not just on the ground. One alcove per family, we need to fit as many people down there as possible. Then stay up here and keep people from just setting up wherever and getting in my way."

The man nodded. "Yes, your Bindership," he said. He started chivying people. "You heard her Bindership! Downstairs, all of you, one alcove per family. Bring your things, the fool we eat up here and we can't do that if you leave them all over the tables! Move, move!"

Lori turned away, waiting impatiently for some children carrying bedrolls, pillows and blankets to make way so she could head towards the latrines. They'd been altered so that they could be cleaned manually, but from the smell, no one had cleaned them yet. The contents had festered, leaving a…. rich aroma. Face set, Lori formed the hole under the latrine into a pit three paces deep, displacing the stone to the side so it would rise somewhere else, which she set aside for later to reverse the alteration. She also set a binding of firewisps inside the receptacle to try and kill the smell and reduce the volume of what was left.

She left the latrines sizzling, a binding carrying the bad air outside while they still could. Right, now she needed to make a bath…

Waste water, she needed to deal with waste water… she'd been feeding her bath's waste water into the ground under the farm fields, but she wasn't sure that would work in this instance… well, no choice. She didn't have stone to spare, so she picked one of the back corners of the dining hall and began to excavate the ground to about a pace down, using the stone from that to raise walls and form a basin for water. This also meant she didn't have to worry about water spilling out everywhere. It was small, so people would have to bathe in shifts near constantly, but hopefully it would help people from getting sick. A wall divided the new bath into sides for men and women. And if she had to deal with peeking, she'd just toss them out into the dragon…

All right, that was water, baths and latrines… was there anything else…? Lori headed towards the front of the Dungeon, looking around. People were still coming inside, but there were still some milling about outside. She felt at her connection to the wisps, felt voids moving back and forth between buildings…

"Rian!" she called again, her voice amplified by airwisps and making some people standing near her jump.

A shadow outline near the second dining hall turned and headed towards her. She began moving towards him, not having time to wait, and they met halfway up the slope. "Yes?" he said with what seemed like strained patience.

"Do you have someone keeping track of all the people coming into the Dungeon?"

"I have Cassan and Doctor Ganan doing that, and they should have told off the other medics to check too," he said. "The new houses have been emptied and locked down and we're about finished with the old houses. Everyone in the shelter have moved their things down into the dungeon already and I've asked people to go around making sure no one left any fires burning. I'm having the tables and chairs from the second dining hall carried in too, but only after everyone else has gotten inside." He hesitated. "We also need help with the hunters and tanners. Our demesne's entire store of raw and curing skins are with them, and the brine pots too. The brine pots are important, because it took them weeks to gather them up from seel and beast brains…"

"Change priorities to the skins and brine, then," Lori said. "We can always make more tables." She felt the dragon, coming closer and closer. The air was still, without a breath of wind to it at all, but there was a smell in the air, like charred sweetness… "Put them in front of the metal vaults so no one has to navigate the stairs."

"That's where we put the blacksmith stuff, but I think there's still room," Rian nodded. "What about the wood curing sheds? Do we try to get some down to the Dungeon?"

"I'll handle that," Lori said. She hesitated, then raised up a hand, gathering lightwisps to make a binding. "Hold still."

"What are you—" Rian managed to get out before she reached up and slapped her hand on his head. He might had felt the air thicken strangely before she took her hand away. "Did you just put a light on my head?"

"Makes you easier to find," she said. Technically, it wasn't on his head, it was on the airwisps around his head, which she'd bound to stay near his vicinity. Hopefully it wouldn't come off, she'd bound the air around his temples and down his chin. "Get moving!"

Lori hiked up towards the curing sheds before pausing a moment. She reached upwards, towards the darkwisps she'd bound and willed them to part to the east.

No light. It was still night.

Binding the new darkwisps that had rushed in, she continued on her way.

The sawpits were clear, and the tool sheds were empty of anything but dust and small offcuts of wood. Thankfully, the curing sheds were in a line all the better for when she had to sit down and maintain her binding to dry the wood for use. For a moment, Lori stared at them, already reconsidering what she wanted to do… then shook her head. If they lost the wood, they lost the wood. This way, at least, they'd have a chance of keeping them.

The sheds were made of packed earth using her Whispering, the doors made of wood so that the humidity and heat could be controlled while curing. Nothing too hard to replace, given enough time. Out of habit, Lori knelt down, touching her fingers to the earth as she breathed in magic, passing it through her bones, through her nails and into the earth, even as she bound the earthwisp directly under the sheds. She began to displace the earth and stone sideways.

In front of her, the sheds and their stored wood began to sink into the ground. She did it carefully so that the sheds would stay level, even as she made a heap rise using the displaced earth, formed behind the sinking sheds. She sank them down, deeper and deeper, until they were a pace below the surface. The heap flowed forward, covering the trench the sheds has sunk into, and Lori used it to make where the sheds were.

The smell of burned sweetness had gotten stronger, making Lori feel strangely hungry as she moved on to the next thing she had to do, passing men and women carrying tables and chairs down from the second dining hall. She sealed the cave where they kept the mushrooms—they'd already been harvested, so only immature ones were growing, but it was full spore-laden wood, and it would have been annoying to replace—leaving only a small air hole the width of her finger. The bone pile was also sunk beneath the ground and covered. An experiment, she told herself, to see if it helped.

Rian found her as she was heading back towards the Dungeon, the light on top of his head letting him know he was coming. "There you are! We're moving the tables and benches from the second dining room, and we've already brought down the pots, bowls and utensils. Also, the curing sheds seem to have collapsed. Was that you?"

"I buried them," Lori said succinctly. "We can try to recover the wood later."

"Smart. You need to go to sleep."

Lori blinked at him. "What?"

"The dragon isn't here yet, so you need to sleep while you can," Rian said.

Lori hesitated, staring up at the dark sky, then towards the Dungeon.  A waved washed over her, seeming to emphasize the smell of charred sweetness. Reluctantly, she parted it in the direction of the dragon.

It had crept over the horizon, looking terribly close. The darkness deeper than black made patterns now, not by the light of the moons or lighting, but of deep gradients of nothingness, tracing flickering forks of branching lightning…

"Can you see it?" she said, and found her voice sounded small.

"I can see it," Rian said, and Lori realized he was staring up as well, his shoulders shaking. "Even though I'm pretty sure it should be physically impossible…"

As they watched, the multitudes of branches seemed to uncurl, reaching out in all directions…

Rian violently shook his head. "I'll keep an eye on it," he said, a quaver in his voice. "Go to sleep. I'll wake you up, just keep your door open."

"I don't think I'll be able to…" Lori said, swallowing. Why did she feel like it could see her even without eyes…

"Well, you have to try," Rian said, and his voice had a forced harshness in it. "You've done everything you can already. Until that gets here, you need to rest to protect us from it. So go and rest."

Lori closed her eyes—why was it burned into her eyelids, even though it hadn't been bright?—nodded sharply, and stumbled towards her room. Rest… she needed to rest…

She stumbled up her stairs, moving the stone out of the way and sat down on her nice, soft bed. Her hands shook as she took off her boots. The charred sweetness was weaker up in her room, for which she was glad as she lay back onto her pillow.

She could feel it out there, still coming…

Lori didn't know how, but she managed to fall asleep. Her dreams were filled with darkness that writhed…

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From The Core

Lori didn't dream. It seemed like she'd barely closed her eyes before Rian was gently shaking her awake, the light on top of his head shining down on her. "It's here," he said, even as he felt it, the wave-like feeling practically on top of them…

She sat up, and he handed Lori her boots, which she quickly put on. "Everyone inside?" she asked.

"Checked four times," Rian said. "We're all in here. The houses are all empty. Not just people, everything. I had people go back to sleep to cut back on trouble, but they might be waking up soon."

Lori nodded, got to her feet and grabbed her staff. The familiar feeling on the smooth wood with the length of wire running down it was reassuring. She felt more tired than when she'd laid down, but she supposed that was a sign that she'd actually fallen asleep, if she wanted to go back to bed. "Go ahead, there's something I need to do."

Rian nodded tiredly. "Got it. Be quick, all right? The Dungeon's still wide open, it's making everyone nervous."

As he left, Lori concentrated on a spot on the floor of her room, binding the earthwisps there. The ground sank, and she carefully stepped down, planning her feet on the floor the top of a pillar of stone. She tossed her staff down ahead of her, wincing at the clattering sound it made. Slowly, gently, keeping her hands on both side of the opening for stability, the stone sank further.

Beneath Lori's bedroom lay her Dungeon's core, glowing brightly, filled with wisps and magic. She ignored it, orienting herself. Where was…

She shook her head and picked up her staff, then bound the earthwisps directly under the core. A pillar of stone began to rise, reaching up beneath the core. She touched the core with the metal cap at the end of her staff, and carefully wedged it in place with the pillar, wrapping stone around the end of the pillar to hold it in place. The wire running along the staff's length felt… warm under her hands. Warm in a way only a wizard could know, warm like a bound teal with a wisp bead…

She really hoped this worked.

Then she went to the wall closest to the other end of the staff and bound the earthwisps there, making a small hole.

That done, she went back upstairs to her room, sealing the way behind her.

She hurried down the stairs, where the strange charred sweet smell still lingered, and slowed as she saw the dining hall. It was full of people holding spears. Not the stone and tooth-tipped spears she'd made before, but spears that gleamed with steel points. Many where holding them level to the ground, the point towards the entrance. Someone had also carried Lori's Boat inside and had laid it on top of a table. The other one… she checked. It was still in the water, probably too slippery to get a grip on. Well, she could always make a new one…

"Rian, why are people armed?" she asked flatly.

"In case of abominations," Rian said.

"It's not over the demesne yet," Lori said.

"Well, we can't know that, can we?" Rian shrugged.

An excellent point, which she would ignore. "Step back from the entrance," she said, her awareness reaching out and beginning to bind earthwisps in the stone. She began to seal off the dungeon, rebuilding the walls she had opened and adding in stone from the pile outside the entrance. She even drew stone from the area in front of the dungeon to add to the thickness, making a bulwark against eh dragon's rage. Then she carefully opened slits for air to come in and circulate, making sure they curved as they entered the Dungeon so that it would be more difficult for dragonborn abominations to come inside. She also remembered to seal off the kitchen's exhaust vents, closing them off completely. No point risking a point of entry.

People visibly relaxed as the Dungeon closed off, spears rising up. One of the spearwomen was Riz, Lori recognized.

"Rian, arrange for shifts to keep dragonborn abominations from getting into the Dungeon," Lori said as she began binding airwisps in the air slits, having them pull air in. Between that and the already existing ventilation of the dungeon, they shouldn't have trouble breathing. "As long as we need air, they have a way in. I need to prepare the defenses against the dragon—" She felt a wave, and it was right there. "It's here."

Lori closed her eyes, letting her consciousness out into the dome of darkwisps outside, the black of the night that she'd captured. Already, magic from the dragon was starting to wear it away. Distantly, there were sounds of people talking, but she tuned them out, focusing on what was important. She began imbuing the darkwisps even as she pulled them, presenting a dark dome almost the size of her whole demesne, claimed for this very purpose.

While she wouldn't be able to perceive as much of the dragon's manipulations early on, it would hopefully keep her demesne from being devastated by much more than falling rocks and strange substances. Ugh, she hoped it didn't start dumping acid or poison gas on them. It rarely happened, but the charred sweet smell… it seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it…

She stood there, imbuing the dark outside the Dungeon even as the dragon wore away at her dome. Thoughts and vistas tried to claw and twist, but they affected only empty air thanks to her dome. Lori pushed power into her darkness, kept on pushing despite the relentless forces upon it and bit by bit, she managed to fill it to give herself some time.

Lori opened her eyes, finally hearing what was going on around her. The shifts were being divided, and Rian was trying to figure out how to cook food with their limited air. Lori walked past a surprised Riz, heading towards the wall that hid her core. Where was the hole, where was the hole…

Ah, there it was. She put one finger next to it as she closed her eyes again, sending her awareness back to the darkwisps she'd bound above. She imbued even as she reshaped the darkwisps, pulling a tendril towards and into the Dungeon. Lori stood there, tapping her finger next to the hole to remind herself where it was as she her eyes hovered between closed and open, seeing though a wavering slit between her eyelids.  The pure black of the darkwisps—which still seemed far brighter than the dragon had been—streamed through some of the air slits, and she raised one hand lazily as if trying to wave the darkwisps into the hole.

She really hoped this worked.

"Uh, Binder Lori?" a voice tried to distract her, but she ignored it, focusing on what she was doing. "What's happening?"

"Quiet," she said, trying not to get distracted. The darkwisps streamed through the hole and into the core. She needed them to touch the metal on her staff… one would think it would work to touch the core itself, but no, apparently it didn't work that way…

There. Was that it? Needing to divide her attention so many ways made her wish she'd learned how to do Mentalism already. Well, at least she could stop tapping her finger… She kept imbuing the darkwisps above in the way she'd already become used to as a Dungeon Binder, as she tried to do it in a way she'd only done twice to see if it could actually work…

She hadn't had enough wire, after all.

The Dungeon Core contained power, all the magic that she had available to her as the Dungeon Binder. Just as the core of her self acted as the center of her body, where the magic she breathed in flowed only to course through her and out into the world, so did the Dungeon Core act as the center of the demesne, letting the magic it held flow through the wisps in its borders. She had learned to draw power from the core through her, and through the very demesne itself.

At its heart however, the core was magic. Solidified magic attuned to wisps, smooth as glass, hard and nigh unbreakable..

Just like a bead. One that didn't run out.

All she had to do was pull/push…

There!

Lori opened her eyes and sighed in relief as she felt power from the core filling the darkwisps as if she'd allowed another Whisperer to override her claim… only she still claimed and controlled it… No, no, no time to waste trying to describe new and strange feelings. She'd managed to finally use a wire with her core in one end and a binding shoved into the other to create a pseudo-bound tool that would never run out of magic! It something she'd been trying to build—and lazily (and now guiltily) putting off—since the first time she'd had to defend her demesne from a dragon. It had been a thought lurking in the back of her mind as she tried to get her hands on wire

It had been a way for her to sleep next time a dragon tried to ravage her demesne.

Her spine wanted to soften and her limbs to collapse like a piece of underwear with its tie strings cut, and for a moment she was tempted to let it…

No. There were still things to do. No one had eaten yet, and the water in the reservoir was inaccessible for drinking or washing. She had to fix that. It was good that his had worked, or else she'd have needed to try to attend to those things in bursts while keeping track of the darkwisps above…

The thickness of the wire seemed to be allowing a decent rate of draw from the core, despite it being untarnishing steel instead of gold. It was at least managing to maintain the level of imbuement on the darkwisps despite the dragon's depredations. She could fill imbue it faster… but she'd need to pay attention to it…

"Rian!" she called out.

"No need shout, I'm right here," he said from directly behind her.

She did notjump, no matter what anyone said. She came to attention and turned in a commanding fashion. "We'll need food and water. The pipes I once used probably aren't clean enough to use now, but I'll take care of that later. I need some people to get started on breakfast so we can all eat."

"That would be very nice, yes," Rian nodded. He nodded towards Riz, standing nearby. "Riz, stay with her Bindership and help her find people for what she needs, which in this case is starting breakfast, so after that go down and get the kitchen crew. I'll stay here and take charge of making sure nothing gets in through our airholes." He was wearing his sword, she realized. It was, she supposed, a mark of the seriousness of the situation.

"Yes, Lord Rian," she said, nodding sharply.

"I thought we'd talked about that?"

Lori resisted the urge to roll her eyes at this childishness as Riz looked like she was trying to keep from blushing. "Ah, sorry L– Rian."

"Find me those people," Lori said blandly.

"Yes, Great Binder!" she scuttled off, still carrying her spear

Lori turned to Rian. "Try not to get air slits clogged, we need them."

"No promises. It'll depend on how small and aggressive they are."

Outside the dungeon, there was a throaty sound like something was trying to breathe and not doing it very well. Then another. And another.

"I leave that to you," Lori said blandly. "Yell if you can't deal with it. Try to do it before they break in."

She headed for the reservoir at the back to get water as Riz headed down to the second level where people were staying.

Outside, the dragon remained silent even as she heard the strange cries getting too close to their air slits.