Weekly Digest 36 (#113 - #117) (Patreon)

Just Barely Not A Dragon Shelter Party

When Lori woke up from a dreamless sleep, she discovered that in her bed she had not been turned into a dragonborn bug abomination.

Instinctively, she checked the dome above and sighed as she found it still holding. Unfortunately, the dragon was also still there. She could feel its oppressive presence over the demesne, a pressure on all her wisps like a strong wind, even though the air itself seemed dead and still as a hot summer.

…

Lori turned to go back to sleep, as no one had woken her up, so it wasn't her shift yet. Best get as much rest as she could.

…

She got up and went to her private bath to relieve herself. Then she went back to bed, curling up on her nice, soft bedroll and closing her eyes.

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Sometime later, Lori woke up to someone knocking on her door.

This was concerning, because she didn't have a door, just a hallway she sealed with magic, and she'd definitely remembered to seal it the night—day?—before…

Groaning, Lori sat up, somehow feeling more tired and sleepy than when she'd last woken up despite probably having slept for long, got up, and stumbled out to her hallway to see what was going on. She found the way, as intended, still barred with stone growing from the walls, and through what gaps they were, she saw Rian standing there… holding his writing plank of wood against a gap in the stone and knocking on it with his knuckles.

"Oh good, you're up," he said with annoying early morning cheerfulness. How did someone who was so difficult to wake up manage to be such a morning person? "Breakfast is ready, the baths need more water, and the air slits are slightly clogged but air's still getting in, so no rush."

Lori nodded tiredly. "Did anyone die?"

"No, everyone managed to stay safe and—oh, you're probably not talking about the militia. No, no one killed someone in the night either," Rian assured her. "No one's been reported as sick with anything either, which is good. And most people got a good night's sleep. Come on down to eat, we can talk about it at the table."

Lori nodded, grumbling. "I'll just take a bath," she told him.

She headed for her room, undressed, and went to her private bath to do just that.

…

Then she had to connect the pipes leading to her bath to the reservoir and check all the pipes for voids of wisps before finally managing to take a bath.

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Unable to see the sun and moons, time maintained only by the brat during the designated 'day' and whoever Rian had to replace her at night—whom Lori suspected wasn’t' as diligent at it as the brat was—life took on a strange monotony. Lori took to brightening the lightwisps at the start of her shift and added a few firewisps to them to simulate sunlight. At the end of her shift, she removed the radiant heat and dimmed the light in the dining hall, and even further in the second level, while making the lightwisps change between red, blue, and pale white to simulate the moons. It was something they did in the dragon shelters when people had to stay there for more than a day, and it was only now, that Lori realized how important they were, marking the cycles of day and night so people knew when to sleep, lest the unchanging walls drive them to be constantly awake.

Despite this, there was an increasing restlessness during the 'daytime' hours, when Lori was active and when most people were awake, save for the night shift who would deal with cooking and guarding the air slits. After weeks and weeks of work for nearly everyone, every day, this sudden lack of things to do, while welcome initially welcome, emphasized there was little else to do but work.

Some people had things to keep themselves busy. Besides the carpenters and weavers, whose work areas were already moved to the Dungeon, the farmers worked to keep their uprooted crops alive and watered and well using what little dirt they had, and rian ahd given them permission to get the soil from the pots of fruit seedlings provided they kept the seedlings alive too. The hunters and tanner checked that the skins, hides and furs they had brought in were curing properly, and an alcove needed to be cleared to give them a temporary place to work, since the skins had to be spread out. The sweetbugkeepers had brought their large, boxy hives into the Dungeon covered in old tent cloth to keep the things from getting loose, and checked hourly to make sure it was still secured. Even one of the immature workers getting out would be disruptive, never mind one of the mature ones, big enough to fit in Lori's fist. The chandler was also finding time to do some work, even if it was just taking the rendered fat from the kitchen and letting it settle and congeal.

Most of the rest had no seels to kill, no hidden food to gather, no ropeweed to cut, no trees to fell, no Um to use…

"Maybe you should let them play music and start dancing?" Rian suggested brightly one dinner between shift changes. With Riz, Umu and Mikon beside him being completely ignored, things almost seemed normal. "It'll let them burn off energy, give them something to concentrate on, we have the space for it—"

"No!" Lori declared as she made her move, taking the stones from a bowl and beginning her turn. "That's practically a party! It'll be loud! Annoying! I won't be able to sleep!"

"If we hold it during the day shift, you wouldn't need to sleep," Rian pointed out. "Actually, you're not supposed to sleep, that's my time to sleep. So it will actually help!" He sounded so proud, as if he'd actually thought of a good idea she'd approve of.

"No," she said flatly as she finished her turn as Umu began peering at the bowls, obviously counting.

"It's the same principle as the competitions," Rian pressed. "People need something to do, and unless you're going to give them digging tools to expand the Dungeon…" He blinked suddenly. "Wait, are you actuallythinking of giving them digging tools to expand the Dungeon?"

"Please don't," Umu said to no one in particular.

"It's better than the alternative," Lori said flatly.

As the days passed, however, Lori was reminded of Rian's insidiousness. A day later, she woke up to find someone had moved around the tables in the front half of the dining area. The tales had been pushed to the edges, except for the side where the militia were stationed in front of the air slits. In the cleared area people were dancing as people clapped and sang, feet pounding on the floor in an almost synchronized fashion as people did the steps together to the beat of the song. There was no music, but from how noisy it was one could be forgiven for thinking there was.

Only the table with Lori's Boat remained where it had been, serving as some sort of bizarre, off-center centerpiece to it all.

Lori felt her eyebrow twitching as she came down, finally realizing what the loud noise that had woken her up had been. She'd have shouted for Rian, but he was standing in front of her stairway.

"No music!" he said defensively as soon as he saw her. "They're just dancing and singing, but there's no music!"

"I was sleeping," she said grimly.

"It's about an hour past the start of your shift," Rian said, "so you actually slept longer than before. But don't worry, I'll still start my shift at the same time later tonight."

Lolilyuri was silent for a long time, just glaring at him. Finally she ground out, "Breakfast had better be ready."

"At the usual place, your Bindership," Rian said.

The dancing was actually quite tolerable without the music, but she wasn't going to admit that. Still, it kept people occupied, and for some reason less people were using the bathroom and latrines. Still, it meant less people were working on spinning thread or making the waterwheel. She was initially surprised to find Umu and Mikon working on the spinning wheel, but after some thought, it made sense. After all, Rian was asleep (in her hallway still, and why didn’t' he at least try to get an alcove, there were some still free that people weren't crowding anymore because they were dancing), and if they couldn't try for him…

Or maybe they just didn't know how to dance. Lori didn't, after all.

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Six days after the dragon had arrived, with the water at less than half their reserve, the demesne several new game boards richer, and several days of musicless dancing, Lori woke up to finally feel the dragon starting to move away from the demesne. As it did, howling winds and pouring rain—which might not even have been water, but some other liquid, given dragons—could be heard through the air slits. It seemed to keep the dragonborn abominations away from the slits though. There were also sounds of things dropping. It might have been anything from normal hail to dragon scales.

Lori supposed they'd find out when the dragon had finally passed and the abominations and wisplings had finally settled down enough to open the Dungeon safely.

"I suppose that now is a good a time as any for planning what we should do once it's left completely," Rian said tiredly over breakfast. He winced a little at the echoing dance steps and Lori took a moment's malicious glee at seeing him so obviously annoyed by his own idea. "What should our priorities be?"

"Going to River's Fork to claim its core if it's still there," Lori said immediately.

"And… checking to see if our miners are all right, right?" Rian ventured.

"No, they're probably horribly dead," Lori said bluntly. "Shanalorre's a healing savant, she'd be completely ignorant of how to do anything that would even vaguely protect them from a dragon. Only the extremely lucky are probably still alive, and if the ferocity of the dragonborn abominations here is any indication, those still alive will have probably been swarmed and eaten."

Rian winced, and even the women next to him were looking uncomfortable. "Maybe people were able to get to the mine and barricade it," Rian said. "It's a possibility, right?"

"I wouldn't bet on it," Lori said. "No, they're probably all dead, best we just pick up the pieces while we still can." She titled her head. "Speaking of pieces if we're lucky we'd be able to recover at least some of their grain. That should make a wonderful seed crop, with some left over for bread…"

It was a cheerful thought. Bread would have been nice. Surely with this many people, someone would know how to make bread, right?

Rian was taking deep breaths with his head bowed. "Well," he said, voice shaking slightly. "Beyond that, what else do we need to do?"

"Send out armed people to find abominations and kill them," Lori listed out. "Mark out any new plants on suspicion of being abominations and set them on fire. Mark out moving plants as abominations and set them on fire. Make sure the water is drinkable. See if the cured wood I buried can be retrieved. Repair all the roofs. Hope there are still seels and beasts left to hunt."

"We might actually have to use the dragon scales right away to make nails," Rian mused. "They’ll be there already, and with nails it will be easier to repair the roofs."

"That will mean heavy lifting to move the dragon scales and getting the smiths ready and able to start forging," Lori said thoughtfully. "No more dancing tomorrow, people need to be well rested for all the work that needs to be done."

"I'll tell them," Rian said. "People have probably tired themselves out by now anyway."

"Do it before you go to sleep, I'd rather have a peaceful day today."

Rian rolled his eyes, and then yawned. "Yes, your Bindership, I'll do more work so I'm good and sleepy."

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They cautiously opened the Dungeon again two days later, a day after the dragon had finally left the area of the demesne, just to give the abominations time to spread out and hopefully start dying. It was in the middle of Lori's 'day' shift, and she'd finally been able to release the dome of darkwisps from above them, as well as retrieving her staff from the core.

There were rows of militia in front of her, all with spears pointed towards where the entrance would be as she bound the earthwisps that made up the front of the dungeon. Lori had checked to make sure there were no voids of wisps that might have been a living thing or any mobile wisplings before she parted the stone. There was no change in smell or temperature, since all their air had been coming from outside in any case, but the sound of falling rain—and it wasrain rather than acid, or golden abomination blood or liquefied air (oh, liquefied air! She was so stupid she should have thought of that sooner…)—increased in volume.

Everyone stared at the darkness beyond, the rain blocking out even the faintest tint of colored moonlight..

Lori took one look, and then closed the Dungeon again, rebuilding the air slits back into place. "I'm going to wake up Rian and then going to sleep," she declared in general. "Night shift is his job. Someone wake me up when the sun rises again."

Grumbling, Lori went upstairs to do just that.

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A Mess To Deal With, Again

The next day, once Rian had rested to correct for the night shift and Lori had gotten back the sleep that had been interrupted, they prepared to move out in force out of the Dungeon. The former militia who had volunteered—Riz among them—were armed with spears, and there were a substantial number of volunteers as well, armed with the tooth spearheads. Others carried clubs and axes, in case of beasts too small or too close to use the spears on.

This time, Lori remembered to check for undead, concentrations of wisps that moved without being wisplings or any other influence, and found a disturbing number of them. Since the dome had been up, they probably didn't need to worry about thought-shades and twisted vistas. Even if they had, the wait had most likely drained them of any magic imbued by the dragon. So, only abominations to worry about, and hopefully the dome would be able to cut keep any of them from being plants.

Distressingly, there seemed to be a lot more of the abominations wandering around, and large ones at that considering the voids they generated. It might have been several smaller abominations huddled together, but that was deeply concerning in its own way. They were not physically equipped for large swarms of small abominations.

While some of the militia stayed behind at the dungeon, guarding the now-open entrance—Lori made a note to have a permanent door put on it before winter, to keep the heat in—the rest moved out in a large, almost comical group bristling with sharp, pointy ends. Rian, as was predictable, was near the front, carrying both a spear and his sword. He spoke with an air of quiet competence that seemed to endear him more to the former militia than any overt friendliness or casualness had before, assigning work to people and then leaving them to it. Lori didn't know how he picked the people he spoke to, but then, that's why she had Rian to do these sorts of things.

Lori, unfortunately, stood near the from, just behind Rian, so she could see in case she had to use Whispering to deal with… well, literally anything. She had her staff in one hand, a fresh coal in the coalcharm for easy access to a firewisp, her hip bag of firewood, and Riz next to her. The woman had been told she had one job: keep Lori alive. It was assumed every was to help with that, but it felt better to have someone specifically in charge of hit. Near Lori, four burly men carried a half-finished door between them. Their job was to hold the door and give her a place to stand where she could see over the group if she needed to use Whispering in a direction besides the one she was on. Riz was to make sure she didn't fall and break her neck if it came to that.

At a casual glance, the demesne was looking much to be in much better repair than the first time it had endured a dragon. Most of the roofs still seemed to be intact, with only a plank or two broken. Some even had large rocks or dragon scales resting on them, with the roof only slightly collapsed beneath them. At least one roof had a hole in it, but all in all, the houses had faired very well. The backs of the bathhouses were exposed and missing their roofs, but that was to be expected since she had made them from ice and hadn't bothered to keep them imbued. The aqueducts were also still, and the shelters and baths were dark. What looked like a dragon scale had fallen on the clay pit, crushing the kiln and the little shack the potter used to dry the shaped clay before loading them into the kiln.

Between some of the houses, things moved. They were long, dark and thicker than barrels, looking like wet seels. Instead of fur, they glistened strangely, as if covered in oil. There were also strange creatures with rough, cracked-looking pale skin with dark spots that dragged themselves around on flippers that ended with short, almost stubby claws. Their long, triangular jaws were filled with wicked curving teeth, and the danger they represented was not detracted from at all by the fact many of them had their stomachs torn open and their innards trailing out, releasing a vile scent and probably all sorts of noxious dustlife. She'd have to burn those, or at least boil them very, very thoroughly.

"Are those slugs?" someone exclaimed.

"Good eating on those," someone else commented.

Lori tried to keep her stomach from roiling at the thought.

"Save your appetite until we see what color its blood is," one of the older militiamen snapped.

"Ignore the slugs," Lori said, "it's the undead things we have to worry about."

"Dillians," Rian supplied.

She paused. "I thought those were bigger and dark blue? Bigger than a full-grown seal. These are barely longer than my leg, and a third of that is tail."

"Those are shallow water dillians. They eat smaller prey, so they're smaller," Rian shrugged.

Lori stared at him for a moment. "Regardless, they're undead and their guts are spilling out everywhere. If we're close enough to smell the rot, we're close enough to get sick, so stay away. But they're not our biggest problem."

"They're not?" someone in the crowd asked nervously.

"Something out here ate a lot of the bug abominations," Rian said, raising his voice to carry. "It wasn't the dillians, they're not agile enough. It's not the slugs, because no matter how big they are a bug is still faster than a slug. So what ate them?"

Even the abominations at the bottom of the moat in front of the Dungeon's entrance had been eaten when they'd come out. Lori became very aware of the feeling of voids of wisps in her demesne. While her dome had kept out most of the dragon's hostile magic, the abominations it spawned were alive and solid enough—or in the undead's case, just solid—to be able to push through. And in her head, she could feel a lot of large voids moving around, many of them with what felt like far too many limbs…

"So everyone, keep an eye out!" Rian continued. "We're not going to get them all today. Our task is to assess and clear what we can of the town, then let Binder Lori get more water for the Dungeon so we don't die of thirst." There was a beat. "We'll kill them all tomorrow, after we've had a good night's sleep."

Predictable.

Still, people laughed, even the militia this time.

They didn't range far. There was no need to, when a good number of their problems could be solved by just going back inside the Dungeon and waiting. Still, they needed water for that, and to replenish the water safely, Lori needed to see the water to make sure nothing was going in with it that should be, like strangely colored fluids, beast blood, and such. They moved close enough to the nearest houses for Lori to raise earthen walls to keep the dillians and oversized slugs back, allowing her to define a safe.

A few people wanted to go to the Um and clear it out of any possible abominations, but both Lori and Rian stepped on that idea hard. The Um had too many rooms and a narrow corridor. If there WAS an abomination there, then the new design was practically a deathtrap guaranteeing that anyone in front would die. Horribly injured at best. And there WAS something in there according to Lori's awareness. Several somethings, in fact. Lori threw in a burning length of wood and sealed off the Um with another earthen wall, making sure it was airtight. Why fight when you could asphyxiate?

She did the same with the shelter and the baths, sealing off the openings with earth and, once she remembered the river was an option, ice heavily imbued to stay solid for a day. Then it was the burning wood and sealing it all up. The chittering, scrambling and strange animal cries coming from inside once the smoke spread sent a chill up her spine, and Lori and everyone else hurriedly moved away, ignoring what shadows of movement were visible through the smoke-shrouded ice.

The clay pit was pronounced cleared, and several men proceeded to carefully drag the dragon scales to one side. It probably crushed what little dried clay pottery was left, but it was no loss. The clay could be shaped again.

There was a scream as a dillian suddenly burst out of one of the water basins in the laundry area, clumsily launching itself at the nearest person. Fortunately, it missed, seemingly not used to launching itself like that, and several spears were stabbed into it to keep it in one place long enough for Lori to sink it into the ground and trap it. She raised a wall to block off the laundry area and set the water in the basins to boil. The water would still need to be replaced, but it made her feel better.

With that warning, however, she had to check the river, and found it also full of disgusting dead but moving dillians. In the water, they moved with terrifying agility, and after more several instances of the things launching themselves out of the water, Lori had to raise another low wall and rethink their water replenishing strategy.

Drinking the water as it was clearly wasn't doable, and waiting for the river to flow enough to send the tainted water downstream was equally impossible. She'd have to distill the water…

Lori sighed and got to work putting together a distillery.

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She managed to get the distillery running before dinner.

"Not a perfect solution, but we're getting clean water that dead things haven't been swimming in and spilling their dead guts everywhere," Lori commented over dinner. The build had been simple enough, a long stone trough that was filled with water, enclosed in earthwisp reinforced stone to keep it from being an explosive pressure vessel, where water was forcefully heated into steam by water- and firewisps, with the steam being pulled into another tank to condense, before the condensed water was boiled again and finally added to the Dungeon's reservoir. It was tuning the various bindings to prevent the tank from exploding that had been problematic, but she had managed it.

"It buys us time," Rian agreed with a nod, blowing on the stew he'd scooped up on his spoon. "How long do you think before the dillians are properly dead and you can just force the dirty water downsteam?"

"I can force the water downstream now, it's how many undead are still in the water upstream that worries me," Lori said. "I'll see about distilling more water tomorrow." She ate her stew, not worried about heat. Her firewisps took care of it.

Rian finished chewing his mouthful and swallowed. "Please be careful so you don't explode yourself."

Lori rolled her eyes. "I'll be careful. It's basically just a kettle, after all."

"Have you ever had boiling water splashed on you? It's not fun. Please be careful," Rian insisted.

She'd have rolled her eyes again, but that would have been repetitive. "Shouldn't you be worrying about exterminating the abominations?"

"My job is worrying about you, remember? Everything else is basically something I do while I'm doing that."

"That's not why I made you lord and you know it…"

The Dungeon's dining halls echoed with dinner and, thankfully, no dancing as everyone relaxed and got used to a proper cycle of day and night again. The brat no longer had to call out the eighths of the day. The entrance had been sealed shut again and air slits had been put back in, and a guard was kept, but this was mostly in case something managed to fall down from the top of the hill and land in front of the Dungeon, or something pulled itself out of the water. After all, there were still abominations out there, even if they were all bigger than the air slits now.

Tomorrow… tomorrow the serious, bloody work of clearing out their demesne would start. But that night, they had water, they had food, they had a safe place to sleep, and Lori wasn't brutally exhausted from having to stay up for most of the days the dragon had lingered over her demesne.

Tonight, they were safe.

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Improving Defensive Measures

They didn't find whatever had eaten the bug abominations. Rian suspected that perhaps they had killed or eaten each other, while the dillians had swallowed the evidence. Certainly at least one of the dead things with a still-intact stomach was full of bug parts. Despite being awkwardly shaped to move on land, even worse than the seels, the undead dillians were aggressive as the islandshell had been, and unlike the islandshell could right themselves when turned on their backs.

Clearing out all the buildings took the better part of two days. The militia and Rian had to handle it all themselves most of the time, save for the occasional pit-making and wall raising, because Lori was busy keeping her population from drinking corpse-tainted water. While most Deadspeakers took the time to time to maintain their undead so that they weren't rotting and spreading disease, Lori doubted that dragon was as responsible. The distillation wasn't producing enough water quickly enough when merely left alone, so Lori had to actively control the bindings boiling the water to steam and condensing it into pure, if vile-tasting, water without any of the lingering rot from the dillians. Lori could have turned the reservoir into a well, since it already reached well below the water level… but in all honesty she didn't know how to do that, and it seemed unlikely to happen on its own, since she had left it untouched for months and water hadn't filled it at all. So forcefully purifying river water with heat—several times—was the best she could do.

Once the buildings were cleared, along with the hill over the Dungeon, they were finally able to allow people to come out and start rebuilding, with firm admonitions not to drink or bathe in the water yet, and to stay out of the woods. Groups of militia and volunteers went into the woods, patrolling to, if not exterminate everything there, then to at least keep them out of the town. People gathered the fallen dragon scales, clearing them out of the way so work could begin.

Thankfully, her gambit with sinking the curing sheds worked. When she shifted the ground to open a tunnel down into them to check, the wood was still intact and dry, with no rot or fungus growing on them. Getting them out was a bit harder, since while she'd been able to sink the sheds, raising them back up whole was harder. However, the sheds had only been packed dirt, so it was easier to write the sheds off and just lift up the wood. She could always build new curing sheds later, and they needed to get to work on repairing the roofs as soon as possible.

There had been several injuries, but they had honey from the hives the sweetbugkeepers hadn't managed to bring into the Dungeon. The hives outside had mostly survived damage, though their bugs had seemingly all been eaten, and one of the hives had been opened by a slug and the contents—bugwax, honey and hive binder—all consumed. Still, some of the hives still had their hive binders, and the sweetbugkeepers were hopeful they could rebuild.

The honey was used to treat what wounds they could, which were mostly work injuries and burns from being splashed by slugs full of sticky, boiling abomination blood. The facial burns were the worst: the patients kept trying to lick off the honey, never mind it as the only thing keeping them from getting infected.

The carpenters worked day and night, repairing the roofs that had broken and replacing planks. They didn't need to, but at night it seemed they were putting the finishing touches on their waterwheel for the workshop on the second level, since they were rigging it to be able to power more than just a lathe.

"I have a petition from the carpenters asking for a saw they can attach to the waterwheel," Rian said as they both sat down waiting for the kitchen to be ready for dinner. He looked tired from a day of patrolling in the woods. "And a recommendation from myself that you allow a wheel and a saw for the sawyers as well. One that's much bigger, of course, since they'll be cutting up tree trunks into planks instead of just planks into something else."

"Oh?" Lori said, raising an eyebrow at him. She had finally finished getting the water hub working again, adding a binding of firewisps into the receptacle tank to boil the water while another binding of waterwisps kept the water from turning into steam. It was water hotter than water actually physically should be capable of, and if she removed the binding it would explode—literally— into steam in an instant, but it gave her a way to kill any rot in the water while keeping it liquid, which made it much more efficient to move. It required a step to cool it, since adding more-than-boiling water to the reservoir and baths was a terrible idea, but fortunately cooling was simple since Lori had been reminded of liquefied air. "Did they find so many iron dragon scales?"

"A lot," Rian confirmed. "Most of it is iron, but we also have copper, gold, tin, a blue one that I think is salt that we should give some of to the tanners, and a disturbing one I'm pretty sure is bone." Lori raised an eyebrow at that. Bone wasn’t unheard of as a dragon scale, but it was certainly a little strange. "I think it's gotten to the point it's more practical to use it rather than stockpile it for emergencies. Given the wear and tear on our tools, it's about time we started making replacements for them, especially the saws, and come next year, we're going to need proper harvesting tools for what our farmers make. Enough of the vigas crop survived that even with what we'll be setting aside as seed we'll be able to eat some, so that would be a good mid-winter reserve."

"I'll have to set up a more permanent smithy for the smiths, then," Lori mused. "They can't be downstairs, it will be too hot and noisy for everyone else, but it should be someplace I can seal off in the event of a dragon…"

"Why not just have them right outside the Dungeon?" Rian said. "I mean, that's the obvious solution. You'd have to redesign the front anyway."

Lori blinked. "Why would I need to do that?"

"Because keeping the air slits maintained during a dragon required your personal attention," Rian pointed out. "You could do it during the day, but unless you're willing to trust another Whisperer to be in your demesne—yes, that's what I thought." He nodded as Lori made a face. He drew out his plank and began to draw. "If we design a sort of kill room in the front of the dungeon to help keep abominations out while making sure killing them doesn't interfere with our access to air…"

Lori tilted her head, frowning. "What sort of floor plan is that?"

"It's a side view, that line there is the floor, that's the entrance to the Dungeon."

"Oh. Well, make that clear!"

"Right, it's my fault, right… all right, so the problem with the previous two air slits has been that they've been at ground level. You putting a pit in front of them drastically reduced the number of things trying to get in. So we do that, but better, and permanently. We put a… um, call it an entryway room into the dungeon." He drew, adding a measure to the side of one line to show how tall it was.

"You want me to make the entrance taller?"

"Well, we've found height works at keeping things away from the air slits. So, the fresh air comes in up here, and the entrance is down here, and during normal times both are open and let air in. But when a dragon happens, you seal up the door and raise a low wall here to keep casual stragglers out, and turn here into a pit for if they decide to come over the wall. With this opening, we'll get a lot of air coming in, and it'll enter the dungeon from up here. This overhang acts as a roof to keep rain off AND things that climb down from getting at the air slits, which you can make into actual air shafts, and if we make the pit like this," Rian turned the plank and started drawing on another part as Lori tried to keep up with his descriptions, "then abominations will have a way out and so they don't just die there and start rotting and tainting our air."

Lori frowned down at the drawing, which showed a tall chamber that according to the scribbled dimension was at least seven or eight paces tall, and practically level with her bedroom, with a large air shaft placed above a thick door that sealed the dungeon at ground level. It… made a kind of sense, she supposed. Get the air from high up, where abominations can't seem to reach, and it would be more defensible, allow through a greater volume of air, and require less direct maintenance on her part. . He hadn't accounted for things like wisplings, thought-shades or twisted vistas, but if she filled the intermediate space with darkwisps and wired the binding to her core, it would be able to keep them out…

"Or if things get bigger or can climb somehow," Rian continued as the dining hall filled up with more people, turning over his plank and starting a third drawing, "then we could make it a double sealed design. See, a door here to close off the dungeon, then a defensible position for people, and then a door to the outside proper, with a side passage and stairs that leads over the room and in front of the air shaft so that if something tries to climb up here, we can put people in front of it—"

"If can't stick out that far," Lori protested over the rising sound of the dinner conversation. "Abominations aren't the only threat during a dragon, there's also the actual dragon. We need a mass of stone between it and us, to protect us from dragon scales falling out of the sky at the very least. It's dropped at least one immature island shell at us, and if that had landed on this," she tapped the drawing, "there's a good chance your overhand would collapse. It would need to be recessed deeper into the dungeon, which would mean either extensively redesigning the interior or adding more stone to the outside, which means I have to get that stone from somewhere. Either way, the kitchens will have to be reorganized, because they were placed near the entrance so they could vent out smoke while cooking. And they can't vent our near where we get out air, because then the smoke would be pulled back in again."

"What if outgoing air comes out of a different place than incoming air?" Rian suggested.

Lori rolled her eyes. "What deep insight into the blindingly obvious. Rian, having a second outlet for air to come out from, while convenient, means another point we have to guard against something trying to get in."

"Not if it's underwater," Rian said, and Lori actually to pause as she parsed the bizarre statement.

"The outlet for smoke and other used up air only needs to go out, not it," Rian said, starting yet another drawing, only to realize there was no place left to draw. He pulled the plank under the table and moved a little, and when it came up one side was smeared and reasonable usable again.

"Did you wipe that plank on your shirt?" Lori said.

Rian rolled his eyes. "Don't be silly. It was on my pants. Now look," he started drawing again, "if you use a binding to force air out under pressure, you can vent it out through an underwater pipe. If it's vertical like this and you can use… something, pressure or waterwisps or whatever, to keep air out, then you don't need a lot of force to expel the air, and the water will keep most things out."

Lori nodded thoughtfully. "And if it doesn't even need to be at the river," she mused. "It can be to a pool outside the dungeon's entrance. If I make the water boil, nothing—" she paused, then amended that statement, "—few things will be inclined to dive into boiling water, and since the air is all moving outward, the heat won't matter."

"Now, there's an idea," Rian said thoughtfully, tilting his head. "What if you put a pool of boiling water in front of the dungeon's entrance to discourage abominations. Though I'm not sure how that will discourage the ones whose blood is already boiling, though."

"The dead ones will also be unlike to be discouraged," Lori agreed. "But it will likely keep away almost nearly all living abominations."

"So, seal off the entrance, put in a pool of boiling water, and three, four paces above that, we have our air shaft," Rian mused.

"No, we need the mass of stone to protect any structures from falling dragon scales, remember? Here, give me that stick… So instead we make an entry tunnel into the dungeon with a door three paces in that we can seal and block off. And between the entrance and the door, we have the pool of boiling water. Instead of a wide of a space, the ceiling slants up like this, and we have the air slits up there, pulling in air. We can't have the outlet in the boiling pool, since that would cause the air to cycle back in, but just outside—"

There was a thump that made both of them glance up in surprise as Riz and Umu each put two bowls of food down on the table, followed by Mikon putting down one bowl, one of the new glazed pottery pitchers that sounded like it was full of water, and five wooden cups stacked on a plate on top of the pitcher, all very carefully balanced. As Mikon removed the plate and began to set down the cups, filling them with water, Riz and Umu pushed all five bowls together in the middle of the table, each with a spoon sticking out, slightly nudging the plank Lori was still drawing on.

"Dinner," Riz said to no one in particular, not even looking at Rian as she said it. "You seemed distracted, Lord Rian, so we got it for you."

Umu, meanwhile, was looking down. Lori thought it was very blatant and even lewd that she was staring at his crotch so intently, until the blonde weaver said, "Rian, what happened to your trousers? Is that soot? Why do you have so much soot on your lap?"

Rian suddenly looked very guilty as he inched forward on the bench to futilely hide the stained lap of his trousers.

Umu sighed as she sat down next to him. "Really Rian, please take better care of your clothes. Stains like that are very hard to wash off, I'll need to use soap, and I only get as much as anyone else."

"…sorry…" Rian said in a small voice, looking away guiltily.

Umu sighed again. "Well, there's nothing to be done about it now. But be more mindful in the future, all right?"

"…yes…"

"What was that?" Umu said, raising her voice slightly.

"…Yes, Umu…" Rian said, louder and even more sheepishly.

Umu nodded, then patiently folded her hands on the table as if she was waiting for something, staring past Lori intently.

Mikon was sitting on Rian's other side, with Riz next to her. They also sat patiently, staring at something behind Lori. Lori turned to look, but there didn't seem to be anything there, just the brat and her family enjoying their own dinner…

Rian coughed. "Uh, Lori, are you going to pick a bowl any time soon?"

Lori blinked, then looked down. Five bowls, all seemingly identical. Five cups of water too…

Oh!

"You didn't have to—" Lori found herself starting to say.

"Your Rian wasn't doing it, so as your temporary Rian, it was my duty to do so, Great Binder," Riz said. "They helped. Can we eat now?"

Hesitantly, reached over and picked the one nearest to Rian, sliding it around the rest of the bowl and towards herself. After a moment, she did the same with the wooden cup of water too.

The other three women quickly helped themselves to a cup and a bowl each, leaving Rian to stare at the bowl left in front of him and slightly to the left. He and Lori exchanged bemused looks across the table

"Eat up, Rian, it'll get cold," Mikon said with a smile as she started eating.

––––––––––––––––––

You're Alive?

Improved defenses needed more stone than they had right then, but Lori was at least able to rebuild the kitchen exhaust vents and build the 'water valve', as Rian put it. There was no need to make the water at the end of the pipe boil, not when it wasn't needed right them, but all the air building out certainly made it look like it was boiling.

Naturally, the first thing they had to do was to have someone check the water every day because people would throw things in it, even when told not to. Especially when told not to.

She also asked the carpenters—well, told Rian to ask the carpenters—to start making a door for the dungeon proper. In hindsight, Lori really should have done that a long time ago. It was her Dungeon, the center of her power, not some kind of cave open to the world where people can take shelter (except, all right, it kind of was…), and really, just having the door open like that was uncivilized.

Obviously, it would be open during the day, since people would be using the Dungeon, but at night… well, it would still need to be a little open to permit fresh air to come in so she didn't suffocate in her sleep. Or any of the people still living in the second level, really. Those who had relatively undamaged houses moved out right away, but there were a few, whose roofs had a large hole in it, and there was no reason to make them move to the shelter with the unmarried, family-less people…

Well, they should still have a door to close!

After the buildings were cleared of abominations, the work on repairs could finally begin. Unlike the last time, they had a ready supply of cured wood, which Lori had to make sheds for again to keep off any rain or spores. The carpenters worked quickly despite their talk of needing a rotating saw thanks to the ready supply of wood. It helped that the damage was less intense this time, with only a few individual panels needs replacement rather than the whole roof.

Lori still had that black… material… that one of the roofs had been turned into in the dragon scale vault somewhere.

Once Lori was certain the water could be left alone to purify itself, she was finally able to concentrate on important matters.

"We're going to River's Fork tomorrow to claim its core and see if we can salvage anything," Lori told Rian over dinner the day after the buildings had been cleared.

Rian sighed, actually putting down the spoon he'd been raising to his mouth. Always with the dramatic effects, Rian. "Couldn't you have told me this over lunch? Now I have to stay up getting people together to come with us…"

"I can go, Rian," Riz said immediately.

"There, you have someone you can delegate to so she can do it for you," Lori pointed out, making Riz blink. She gave the other two women at the table a flat look. "Anyone else want to volunteer to face potential danger while not knowing how to use a spear?"

Umu and Mikon both shook their heads, though the latter was looking sideways at Rian in concern. Or possibly Riz, they were both to her left after all.

Very sensible.

"Very sensible," Lori nodded in approval. "Just three other people should do, none of them Landoor. With the ice boat gone, we won't be able to bring as many people, so keep it those who don't weigh a lot."

"Is this your way of telling Riz you're making her a lady?" Rian said. "Just start giving her work to do?"

There was a slight pause in the conversation in the tables around them as all three women on the opposite side of the table straightened, thought likely for different reasons.

"Of course not," Lori said. "Why would you think I'd consider making her a lady?"

"You know her name, can match her name to her face, and can actually talk to her," Rian said promptly. Mikon actually nodded at that.

"By that standard, Karina has a higher chance of being a lady," Lori said.

"That's not a 'no'."

"I'm not considering appointing anyone a lady," Lori said, no matter how correct they were being. "I'd simply rather the one who will likely be steering the boat not be sleep deprived."

"Ah, you're thinking of the safety of all who are going to be traveling with you," Rian said, nodding. It was a mocking nod, she could tell. "How very kind of you. Well, she has a point Riz. If you want to come, can you handle rounding out the security while I take care of the supplies, and bringing our smallest wheelbarrow?"

Lori frowned. "Why would we need a wheelbarrow?"

"Aren't we going to scavenger for metal tools and things? We'll need some way of bringing anything we find back on the boat, unless you want to try carrying it all by hand," Rian said innocently.

Lori frowned. The wheelbarrow would be a tight fit with six people on the boat, especially since it would need to be upside down. "There won't be much room for it anyway if we have a wheelbarrow aboard. Leave it, I'll build something if moving is needed."

Rian hesitated, then sighed. "How are we going to move the corpses?"

Lori blinked. "What corpses?"

"The corpses we'll be likely to find when we go there," Rian said quietly. "How are we going to cremate them properly if we don't move them all to one spot?"

Around them, dinner continued unabated, but a small demesne of uncomfortable silence settled over the table. The three other women looked away or stared down intently at their food, Riz actually leaning away from Rian a little and up against Mikon.

Was thatwhat Rian was worried about? Funerary rights? "Do we need to? After a week, the abominations would surely have eaten them, and the beasts scavenged the rest," Lori frowned. "Is that what you want the wheelbarrow for?"

"The people there need a decent cremation," Rian said. "We're the only ones alive to give it to them."

"Given it's been a week, I find it unlikely there'll anything left to burn. Besides, they're not our responsibility."

"Fourteen of those people were," Rian shot back quietly. "So yes, we do have a responsibility."

Oh, right. The miners.

…

"Fine, we'll cremate the miners," Lori said. "But that's it. Claiming the core comes first."

Rian nodded curtly, then paused. At the same time a thought occurred to Lori.

Slowly they both turned and looked towards the table that Lori's Boat was still resting on.

"You'll also need to get someone to put that back in the water," Lori said.

"Can't be me, I'm already gathering volunteers," Riz said quickly.

––––––––––––––––––

Lori wasn't sure when it happened, but Lori's Boat was in the water the next morning. The water jet's blood hadn't been imbued either—it had slipped her mind over the past week—so she had to make the binding again. She drew some blood in her room and added it to water so she didn't have to bring her syringe along or have to put up with Rian's irrational reactions to her syringe. With the way the new water jet was installed on the tiller, she couldn't just touch an imbedded wire to imbue it. And this way she could sit more comfortably.

They didn't bring a wheelbarrow, thankfully, so there was plenty of room for everyone and the supplies, with room to spare for anything the scavenged. In addition to Riz, there were three others accompanying them. They thoughtfully didn't bother to introduce themselves, since Lori didn't care and couldn't be bothered to remember.

The journey downriver was taken a bit more slowly than usual, as they had to watch for any unexpected changes to the river caused by the dragon, like blockages, new rocks under the water, or hidden undead that had lasted longer than the dillians. Along the way, they dislodged some corpses of beasts, seels and formerly undead dillians that had gotten lodge on banks or rocks, so that they wouldn't fester there.

Lori shivered as they passed the edge of the demesne, and now her only connection to the binding of the water jet was her blood. She lay back and closed her eyes, pulling her hat over her face to block out the bright, hot sun, the drawstring pulled tight to keep it from being blown off. After a dragon passed, the sky was always too clear.

Methodically, she reached through to her blood and continued to imbue the binding. She breathed in, falling into the familiar rhythm of taking in magic, even though the power she was using to imbue was coming from the core. It was long-practiced habit after all, and it was comforting.

Occasionally, she cut off from imbuing the jet and switched her attention to the other bindings in her demesne. The lights in the various buildings and over the pots of seedlings, the ventilation for both the Dungeon and the Um, the water purifier and the various bindings that circulated the water in the various baths, the coverings of ice over the reservoir, the corpses she was storing…

One by one, she began her daily check of the demesne's bindings and imbued them, making sure they were all in working order.

The journey was mostly silent, save for the occasional call from Riz or one of her friends who were keeping an eye out, calling out possible obstructions in front of them. In the colored woods and riverbanks around them, the subdued roar of the water jet pushing them forward, the sounds of bugs, beasts, probably abominations and the winds in the trees dominated. Rian, who'd normally be singing softly or at least humming to himself, was quiet, and what conversation the other four people had was left low and quiet, and almost indistinct blur that Lori didn't care enough to try and hear.

In the quiet, Lori tried to get her thoughts in order. The core… yes, the core. The logical place for it was under or inside the big tree in the middle of River's Fork's dome, if only because it was the only Deadspeaking-made structure that might have been big enough to hide. Unless the first Binder of River's Fork was much, much, much better than her, he was likely also limited to only his Deadspeaking, so he couldn't have hidden the core behind solid seemless rock or a within a vista that could have made everyone opening to it too small for a person to traverse.

The question was whether the core was at the top or the bottom… not, it couldn't be at the top, that would have involved growing that absurd tree first, then establishing the demesne. It would have taken too long with a single person's limited magic, unless he'd wasted a lot of beads to give himself the magic to do it

Which, given the man who thought it was funny to call something 'hairy blueballs', was within the realm of possibility.

Rainbows. Colors and rainbows. Colors, rainbows and endless glittering dust in the wind…

Lori was trying to remember the curvature of the Iridescence on the edges of River's Fork's demesne when Rian's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Um, hey Lori?"

"What?" she said irritably, her eyes still closed as she leaned back, trying to recall. Come on, remember, remember…

"In the stories, when a Dungeon Binder dies, the demesne vanishes and Iridescence starts growing back, right? That's a real thing and not one of your 'that's not how Dungeon's work' complaints?"

Lori sighed. "Yes Rian, the Iridescence grows back." Really, why was he bothering her with childish questions?

"And there'd be Iridescence all over after a week without their Dungeon Binder, right?"

"Right again Rian," Lori said, trying to be patient. He was probably just bored from having no one to talk to.

"… would you start taking a hint and open your eyes please your Bindership?"

What?

"What?" Lori said, blinking as she took her hat off her face and opened her eyes…

––––––––––––––––––

"Greetings, Binder Lolilyuri. You are extremely late, but given the previous circumstances, I suppose it cannot be helped. Did you bring this month's ice?"

Lori stared. She couldn't help it. She'd been staring as soon as they'd reached the clear, uncolored edge of River's Fork Demesne. "You're alive…"

"Yes, I am. Happily, you will not be claiming my core this day," Binder Shanalorre said.

"You're alive."

"Yes, I believe we've established that," Shanalorre said patiently.

"You're alive."

Shanalorre paused. "Binder Lolilyuri?"

"You're alive."

"I think you broke her," Rian said. "Can she sit down for a bit to recover?"

––––––––––––––––––

No One Died

After Lori had sat down for a little while to recover from her completely understandable and appropriate surprise, and then resigned herself to not getting River's Fork's core this time, things had to be arranged. Their people, whose tenure at River's Fork had become almost double what they had expected, were all taken to be taken home by Rian, the most qualified at controlling Lori's Boatat high speed, while Riz and the others stayed with Lori to free up room on the boat and to watch her back.

The buildings of Deadspoken wood had faired surprisingly well under the dragon's onslaught, though there were more holes in the branches of the dome. The dome was no longer perfectly dome-like, but had random branches growing out of it now, reaching up into the sun and providing more complete shade. Left unchecked, the town might need to start burning lights during the day just to be able to function in their own homes.

Shanalorre's office was one of the places that had managed to survive relatively intact and undamaged, though there were signs someone was sleeping there. Had Shanalorre's house been damaged, or was it simply too difficult to keep making the trek up to… whatever level of the central tree she apparently lived in?

"Have you recovered, Binder Lolilyuri?" Shanalorre asked rhetorically from behind her desk, that lord of hers next to her. his name was just on the tip of Lori's tongue…

"Quite, Binder Shanalorre," Lori said. Riz stood at her side, once more doing duty as her temporary Rian while her lord was occupied. The woman wore a face of professional calm, and hope she was truly as ready to protect Lori as she had claimed when she had, predictably, volunteered herself for the position when Rian had asked. "Though in light of your survival, it seems there are matters to discuss."

"I would offer my condolences that you are not in a position to claim my demesne's core, but they'd be insincere," Shanalorre said. "There is little reason to live, but what little that is there is sufficient for now."

"May I ask how you and the people of your demesne managed to survive?" Lori asked. "Clearly it is possible, even with your limited resources, and I wonder if a similar measure could be implemented in my demesne."

"It wasn't anything complicated," Shanalorre said. "I had my people move supplies to the mine and we all barricaded ourselves there. We would not have dared do such a thing if it weren't for the air circulation device you provided, which managed to survive and operate for long enough that we did not fear for lack of air in the mine. Thanks to the device, as well as the weeks of work by the miners you provided, we were able to excavate fairly deeply, so there was room for everyone."

"Everyone?" Lori repeated, raising an eyebrow. "Even the criminals?"

"Everyone," Shanalorre said with finality. Her impassive expression shaded towards grim. "I chose not to kill them, and they will not be killed."

"It seems a waste of resources, keeping them alive."

"Your opinion is noted. However, you lost your chance to execute Grem when you remanded him to my judgement and custody. Besides, if is my decision and my demesne's resources. Until you can complete your portion of our agreement, they are provided with work so they can remain productive."

Lori nodded to acknowledge the point. Much as the thought of such wastefulness grated on her, it wasn't she who was losing anything from this. "On to the next matter, then. What restitution do you require for housing and feeding our people over the length of their unexpected stay?"

"There's no need for that. While they were not mining, they assisted with preparations for the dragon and have since been helping us rebuild," Shanalorre said. "I am willing to see it as falling under the same provisions as providing labor for mining, and had them fed and housed as such, once the resources became available again. Except for the matter of this month's ice, I see no need to negotiate anything beyond the continued fulfillment of our agreement."

Lori nodded slowly, considering. "The matter of this month's ice?" she repeated.

"Unfortunately, our meat stores was one of the casualties of the dragon," Shanalorre explained. "The door to the smoke house was forced open by a beast or abomination, and they consumed what we'd left behind. In addition, the cold storage room we'd been maintaining since you have begun providing our demesne with ice had the ice melt and the meat went bad in the interim. We now need to replenish our stores, and in addition to the ice for this month, would like to request half of next month's ice in advance."

Lori considered that. "I'm willing to double this month's ice to serve as interest for the delay," she said. "With the understanding this doesn't set any sort of precedent."

"That… would be very helpful, thank you."

"How is your water situation?"

"We've managed to sink a well low enough water is filling it, and we've been boiling it to prevent any diseases. However, we shouldn't need to for much longer. The river is almost clear."

Lori frowned. "It is?"

A nod. "Yes. While I only know healing, any living thing is a viable recipient for healing. I've learned how to tell if there's anything living in the water."

Oh! Lori hadn't realized that. Yes, that made sense. A savant might only be able to heal, but with the awareness a demesne granted…

"We have wounded. Would you have time to handle them according to our agreement?"

Shanalorre nodded. "Everyone that could be healed here has been healed already."

"I'll arrange for them to be brought, then."

The waterwheel had thankfully not been damaged, merely lightly nibbled on by bug abominations, and had stopped working when the imbuement had run out. Lori supposed that River's Fork had been very, very lucky there. She didn't have her syringe with her and was reluctant to borrow one, so she supposed she'd have to use some of the bloody water in the water jet to imbue the waterwheel when Rian came back for them.

After that, Shanalorre excused herself do deal with matters since her demesne was also still rebuilding, and Lori stepped out to wait for Rian to come back.

She and Riz walked through the disheveled, what little sunlight coming down filtered through the thick leaves far above. As with the last time a dragon had struck this place, there were holes in the dome, allowing for the occasion a lone shaft of sunlight to shine through, but this time the holes were clearly smaller and half-obscured by growth. Lori kept a warry eye out for anyone colorbrained enough to attack her, and she was glad to see Riz was following her example, looking around as well.

"They're actually surviving," Riz murmured to herself. She probably wasn't talking to Lori, since she'd know better by now.

Still, Lori acknowledged the inherent fact in her statement. These people were surviving, that much was obvious. Quite comfortably, almost, barring dragons. Their small numbers was almost an advantage, since they'd been able to hide in the mine.

"You're free to leave and come live back here, if you want," Lori said.

"No, I don't think I will, Great Binder," Riz said. "I'll admit, I enjoy having hot baths, and we didn't have those even back when Binder Koshay was in charge."

Lori considered that and shrugged, then went to the river to make ice, with interest.

––––––––––––––––––

It took three trips for Rian to bring them all back home. Lori spent that time imbuing the water jet so when she removed the blood to put it in the waterwheel, they'd still have enough imbued in it to make it back home.

When they finally made it back to Lori's Demesne around midafternoon, there was a celebratory air in the town that she hadn't expected.

"Well, it's to be expected, right?" Rian said when she'd inquired. "After all, people expected the miners to be dead from the dragon. To find out they actually survived… why wouldn't people think that was something worth celebrating?"

Lori stared at him, then sighed. "Well, I suppose it means more people to do work," she said. "We'll need a new ice boat for the next batch who are going tomorrow—if you can find anyone still willing to go—and I'll have some blood ready for you to add to the waterwheel there, just in case. I suppose people will be trying to roast beast or seels for dinner?"

"Probably beasts, it's a bit dark to go after seel," Rian commented. He shaded his eyes. "Looks like we've got people coming back with some now. I'll just go and make the celebration official in your name, shall I?"

"No. Music," Lori emphasized.

"I think they've gotten used to dancing accompanied only with singing," Rian said with a bright, innocent smile.

"You realize I know you're mocking me, right?"

"I would of course not argue with you, your Bindership."

"Is that an admission of guilt?"

"It's an admission of not arguing."

Lori rolled her eyes. Well, let him have his sick fun. Given his complete and utter obliviousness to the blatantly obvious and his bizarre and unnatural lack of enjoyment at constantly being able to win at a board game, it was probably his only source of entertainment. "Get to work, Rian."

"Yes, your Bindership."

––––––––––––––––––

As the afternoon wore on, the celebratory air increased. Lori sighed as she saw work getting neglected in favor of dragging out tables and benches again, lighting up cooking fires to cook the cuts of meat from the beast that was being slaughtered, and people dancing to clapping and singing and hands being drummed on the tabletops, which were rhythmic but she was hesitant to call music, so she let it pass.

Lori found herself sitting at her usual table in an almost empty dining hall. The few other people in it were taking advantage of the clear light to play board games, and they mostly crowded around the tables near the entrance. In front of her was her square stone plate, which was loaded with roasted beast—tail and thigh meat, for preference, and sizzling with fat—mushrooms fried in collected beast fat, and sliced vegetables cooked in same. There were some micans, golden buds and pink ladies to one side, trapped inside a cube of bound ice so they'd stay nice and cool for her dessert.

She was popping a mushroom into her mouth and chewing slowly, enjoying the taste and texture when Rian sat down opposite her. She glanced at him, but he only gave her a tired smile before starting on his own food.

For a moment, they ate in silence.

"I'd have thought you'd be out there," she commented, waving vaguely in the direction of the Dungeon's entrance.

"I wouldn't add anything to their enjoyment," Rian said. "This is about the fact people we thought were dead, aren't. About us managing to survive the dragon in general and without any casualties specifically. Telling them how to enjoy themselves—like saying they can't play music—would just take the fun out of it. Besides, I thought I keep you company and watch to tell you no one's sneaking up behind your back."

Lori paused ever so slightly. "You realize I can feel people coming up behind me, don't you? It's something Binders can do."

"Sounds like a lot of concentrating," Rian said. "Isn't my way easier?"

Well, Lori supposed she had to give him that. So she made a sound of acknowledgement and continued eating, even as she started counting in her heartbeats.

She'd reached 372 when Umu casually put a plate of roasted meats, vegetables and fungus down on the table and sat down next to Rian. The latter turned to stare at her. She nodded casually at him. "Rian," she said, and began to eat.

About 22 heartbeats later, Mikon and Riz also put down plates on Rian's other side, sitting down together and prompting another stare from him. They didn't even say anything, just nodded at him and then turned to their meals.

After a moment, Lori frowned. "Wait," she said, making everyone paused. She looked towards Riz. "If you're here, who's at the Um?"

"It's not my shift tonight, Great Binder," the northerner woman explained.

Lori tilted her head. "All right, fair enough." She went back to her meal.

Rian looked around one last time, shrugged, and decided to follow their example.

Dinner was spent in quiet appreciation of food as the sounds of clapping, singing and dancing came from outside the Dungeon. And the food was delicious. When her plate was empty, Lori altered the binding on the block of ice, letting the fruits rise up the surface. She took the cold fruits off the now empty block of ice and hesitated. Then she deliberately put them in the center of the table, got a pink lady, and started to eat.

Hesitantly, hands reached for the fruit in the center and joined her.

Well, it wasn't like she could finish all the fruit she still had upstairs by herself.