Demesne 136 - Even When He's Not Around (Patreon)

Lori was able to quickly finish excavating the mushroom farm's expansion after lunch. It wasn't all that difficult, after all. It was basically just moving rock, and making pillars and arches so that the ceiling wouldn't collapse. She even had Riz jump up and down on the first level to prove it wouldn't collapse.

"I can't do it myself," Lori said at the look she got. "If it collapsed and something happened to me, who'd repair it? What if I died and the demesne disappeared?"

"Tell me that first, Great Binder," Riz said. "This is clearly a job I should delegate to someone else. After all, if anything happened to me, you'd have to talk to people."

Lori conceded that was a good point.

"A good point," she nodded. "You're right, we'll do that next time. All right, you may go."

The look on Riz's face said she was still annoyed and planned to at least pass that annoyance on to someone else as she left to inform the mushroom farmers they could start moving the things to the new level. Lori made sure to double check the floor below. She bound some lightwisps to provide some dim light in the new level, just enough to let people navigate and had enough time to drag the excavated stone up to near the sawpit. She'd use lightningwisps on the spores once they'd been moved in, and hopefully they'd have a decent crop when winter came.

Then it was late afternoon and it was time to get ready for dinner. Lori had a quick wash, then took a moment to separate the clothes she still needed to launder.

She was running out of soap. She made a note to remind her temporary Rian to get her some more.

Washed and cool again, Lori was about to head down to the dining hall when she paused, remembering. Then she turned and picked up the long wooden sunk board and the sack of stones to play it with and headed downstairs. There were few people yet in the dining hall, though the smells of dinner were starting to emanate from the kitchen. Lori lay down the board on the table with practiced, familiar movements, putting the right number of stones into each bowl.

She thought about folding her arms and taking a nap, but the wait wouldn't be that long, so she took the time to double check on the bindings she was maintaining. Waterwisps to move water from the river, firewisps to heat the water to bathing temperature and for the distillers cleaning the water from the river in case there was still a corpse rotting somewhere and tainting it, airwisps to circulate the air through the Dungeon, lightwisps in the first and second level of the Dungeon as well as the shelter—or possibly just he dormitory now—as well as the Um and the baths. She'd stopped using earthwisps to reinforce stone structures in favor of making them self-reinforcing, so there were none of those to maintain, and she had no lightningwisp bindings at all. The material storage vaults acted as her darkroom for now, which didn't need any actively bound darkwisps…

Lori would have to make some solidified air again soon, the ones in the cold room were almost depleted.

Which reminded her, she had to check on the pink ladies there so they didn't freeze completely. Rian had made a mistake when trying to grow them, so they'd just been buried in the ground not growing…

The dining hall began to fill up with the murmur of conversation as Lori stared down at the game board in front of her, fingers suddenly listless. Then she sighed and finished putting the stones in the bowls.

Riz came to the table, looking tired and sat down heavily on the bench. "Please tell me again that this is a temporary position," she said, her voice more sigh than anything else. "Please, I need I hear it."

Lori raised an eyebrow from the lack of a title, but said, "This is a temporary position, you will only be here until Rian comes back from Covehold."

What came out next was a relieved sigh. "Really?"

Lori gave her a flat stare. "It's a bit late to be doubting my word, don't you think?"

There was a wince. "Ah, good point, Great Binder."

For a moment, they just sat there. Lori drummed her fingers on the table as she waited for the kitchen to start handing out the food. "Anything to report?" she prompted.

Riz jerked up right on her bench. "The farmers are saying it's time to harvest soon, Great Binder. Not this week, but maybe next week. Uh, the smiths say they still need that grindstone."

"Noted. I'll get to it either tomorrow or the day after. Though perhaps they can use the stone wheel on the carpenter's water wheel for the grindstone."

"I'll tell them that, Great Binder," Riz said. "I've had Clowee bringing people to the other side of the river to gather the ropeweed there, and Mikon says there should be time to rett a lot of it in the tank before winter. Apparently, retting isn't as effective in the cold."

Lori waved a hand. "If need be, I can make a heated tank for the winter. Are they leaving seeds behind so the ropeweed can grow back?"

Riz was silent. "I'll find out, Great Binder," she sighed. "And tell them to do it if they're not."

Lori nodded. "Good. Now that I think of it, perhaps there still food we can gather on the other side."

"I'm already having people on it, Great Binder," Riz said. "Though there might not be much. It's well after season, and the bugs will likely have eaten them already."

Lori nodded. "How is our food supply?"

"We're still bringing in seel and beast meat, but it's only a matter of time before that stops as they migrate or get harder to find. Some people are… ah, trying the local bugs to see if any are good to eat."

"And are they?"

"Only if we get really desperate. Though some people actually like eating larvae, even if it tastes like mud."

"One less mouth to feed, then," Lori said blandly. "Hopefully it doesn't come to that, thought it would be nice if we found something like chlyp."

Riz nodded. "Yes, chlyp would be nice. Though making a hatchery for them would be… complicated."

"Just in case, find someone who knows how to raise chlyp and learn what is needed," Lori ordered.

"Yes, Great Binder."

For a moment, Lori tilted her head and considered here. "Good. You have returned to being competent, Erzebed. Keep it up."

"Er, thank you, Great Binder."

Lori glanced up towards the kitchen. "The food is ready."

Riz blinked. "Uh, what?"

Lori pointed. "Food. Get it."

"Oh. Oh! Yes, Great Binder." Still, Riz looked around a moment, clearly looking for Mikon. Not seeing the weaver, she sighed and stood up, heading for the kitchen.

Lori wondered herself where Mikon was. They were supposed to play a game, weren't they?

When Riz came back, however, she was carrying three bowls rather than two. Lori chose to refrain from commenting as she picked one of the bowls and pulled it towards herself. Stirring with her spoon, she began to eat, filling her stomach after a hard day's work and wishing they had some spices to add flavor. Or just salt. Salt would have been nice. Riz, for her part, looked around one last time before shrugging and taking a bowl herself.

The two were already eating when Mikon finally arrived, carrying a tray in her hands, on which was a wooden box. "Hello Riz," she said cheerfully, completely ignoring Lori beyond a brief glance at the sunk board. "I have that thing you asked me to get from the carpenters, since they finally finished with it."

Riz stared blankly at her for a moment. "Oh, yes, yes, the uh…thing I asked you to get."

Mikon nodded. "Shall I present it to her Bindership now?"

Riz looked towards Lori, who wore a blank face. "Fine," Lori said, waving a negligent hand in assent.

The weaver put down the tray on the table. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a game board. The surface had a dark gloss as if burned, with recessed lines of paler wood. On one side was a grid of fifteen by fifteen squares, the size of a standard lima board. There were other boards, of course. Children and beginners liked to play on a thirteen or nine square grid, since it needed fewer pieces and the game went faster. Seventeen by seventeen square grids were used by people who wanted to show off how good they were. There were also nineteen by nineteen square boards, though in her experience those were usually used by old people who had a lot of time on their hands or young masochists.

The box was made of a similar wood, its surface also darkened. Lori peered into it as Mikon removed the lid on the box. It was made with interlocking wooden panels that would probably come apart if it was hit too hard, and divided into two halves. One side was large and empty. In the other were round wooden playing pieces, on ground dark, the other pale. Lori picked up one piece. Inscribed on it was a simple carving depicting a chatrang Horotract piece, an hourglass inside a cube.

"Rian said you'd have to make the lima pieces yourself, because there were too many pieces to ask the carpenter to make them," Mikon said. "At least, that's what the carpenters told me. But there's a complete set of chatrang pieces. Two sets of a Binder, a core, a lord and lady, a Whisperer, Deadspeaker, Mentalist, Horotract and eight militia."

Lori sighed. "That man… Even when he's not around, he finds a way to make work for me to do." She glanced at the empty space in the box. It might probably be big enough to fit in all the pieces one would need to play on a fifteen by fifteen board, as long as Lori didn't make them too thick.

Well, she'd need to make all the pieces if she intended to beat Rian when he got back.

Sighing, Lori pushed the new game board and the box aside for now and went back to her dinner. Mikon sat down next to Riz, looking pleasantly surprised there'd been a bowl waiting for her as Lori moved the sunk board to the middle of the table. The weaver had lost last time, Lori remembered that much, so the first move was hers. Mikon glanced at the board thoughtfully as she ate her first spoonful, before reaching over and making her move. Then she stared at Lori intently.

Lori studied the board, eating as she did so, and made her own move before finally fixing her gaze on the weaver. "What?"

"Could we try playing chatrang after this game?" Mikon said.

Lori raised an eyebrow. "Do you even know how to play?"

"A little? I've watched people play it before…"

"So you don't actually know how to play."

"…no…" Mikon said with an easy smile and a shrug.

A thought occurred to Lori, and she frowned. "Did Rian put you up to this?"

Mikon shook her head. "No, your Bindership. I just thought you'd like someone to practice against before Rian got back."

Loi considered that. "Learn how to play and we'll see," Lori said. "For now, it's your turn."

Mikon nodded, eating a little as she looked at the board and then made her moved, scooping up the stones from one of the bowls on the game board and dropping them spinwise one at a time into the other bowls. She finished her moved, before nodding in satisfaction. Then she turned and looked imploringly at Riz.

Riz, who had been minding her own business, took a while to realize she was being stared at. She paused and glanced sideways at the other woman. "What?"

"Riz, can you teach me how to play chatrang?" Mikon said.

Lori had to wonder if Mikon actually wanted to learn how to play or she was just reusing the same method of flirting she'd used on Rian. But then, the woman did seem to actually enjoy their games… and Lori was sure the other woman wasn't doing it to flirt with her.

Mostly sure.

Fairly sure.

Reasonably sure.

…

Lori decided that it wasn't her problem.

Continuing to eat her dinner, Lori made her move, falling to the familiar rhythm of eating and playing as Mikon tried to convince Riz to teach her how to play chatrang.

Sadly, Lori had to retire after the one game. She still had laundry to do, after all.