Demesne 137 - It's Just Not The Same (Patreon)

Lori woke with the satisfaction of knowing all her laundry was done, her clothes all washed and folded away save for the sock that had a hole in it and its pair. People said it didn't matter, but socks came in pairs, and the rainbowed pairs mattered!

"Do you know how to sew a sock?" Lori asked over breakfast as they ate, finishing her move on the sunk board.

For some reason, Riz glanced sideways at Mikon. "Do you mean making a whole sock or just fixing holes?" her temporary Rian said.

"The first, but if you can do the second that would be nice too," Lori said.

Mikon turned to look directly at Riz. "Unfortunately, knitting a sock isn't that easy," she said. "You can make it out of fabric too, but it doesn't fit as well, and isn't as comfortable."

"What she said," Riz said without preamble. She frowned and sighed. "Rian used to sew the holes in your socks, didn't he?"

"One of his duties, yes," Loi nodded.

Riz made a face that even Lori had no trouble interpreting, clearly trying to think of a way to get out of it.

Mikon rolled her eyes. "If you can't do it, I could do it for you—"

"Please?" Riz said, not even giving her time to finish her sentence.

"Fine, fine," Mikon said. "If her Bindership trusts me with her socks?"

Lori pulled the socks out of the inside pocket of her coat. The leather raincoat would need to be treated soon, and she'd need have Riz get the materials she'd need for it. "Here," she said, putting them down on the table.

"Both socks have holes?" Mikon said, picking them up and inspecting them. Lori had of course washed them first.

"One of them does," Lori said. "The other is just so they stay together."

Mikon at least had the sense to not to try and give the other sock back. "I'll check them both, just in case. The other one might be wearing out too."

Lori nodded. "That would be appreciated." She went back to eating as she waited for Mikon to set aside the socks and make her move.

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The days wore on, and Lori got used to dealing with the demesne through her temporary Rian. So far, nothing had caught fire, there had been no violent altercations that Lori noticed, no one had died or gotten severely injured enough to need to go down to River's Fork to ask Binder Shanalorre there for healing, and every few days the Um was closed down so that the people who'd used it that week assisted in cleaning it and airing out the rooms, lest it start to smell. Lori didn't know how thorough the cleaning was, but since it was the people who were going to use the rooms who would be cleaning them, she supposed it was fairly self-regulating. If they didn't like how the rooms smelled, this was their chance to do something about it. If they did a poor job, they had only themselves to blame, and others would probably be willing to help them in the blaming.

She managed to finish the storage shed for the logs that would be curing over time, and once the wood they were using to grow the mushrooms were moved into the caves, she was able to use lightningwisps on them to increase the potential harvest. It was a skill she was still developing, since she had never worked in a mushroom farm before, but thankfully the ones in charge of the cave knew how to explain the procedure to a Whisperer, and were experienced enough to be able to judge if she was producing the proper output simply from the way the lightningwisps raised the hair on their arms. It was always good to be working with people who knew what they were doing.

After the construction, she had to make a grinding wheel. Or at least, a stone wheel that could be used for grinding. The actual construction of the fittings to make it a wheel instead of a wheel-shaped rock would be up to someone else. Fortunately, they were next to a river, so there was some of the right kind of rock to be found… eventually. The rock she was excavating in the cate was too solid and uniform to be a proper grind stone, but she found some near where the seels were hunted that was the right kind, and she had to carefully shape it into a wheel-like shape and knock a hole through the middle. After that it was up to… she wasn't sure if the smiths or the carpenters did the next steps. No, wait, they had people with stonemason skills to get it properly round and centered, right…?

Well, it was out of her hands, she'd already done most of the needed work on the rock itself. Someone else could worry about turning it into an actual tool for sharpening cutting implements. Lori went back to excavating what she intended to be the third level of her Dungeon. Mostly she was trying to get enough stone to make the alterations to the entryway of the dungeon that would let them continue to breathe when a dragon came by without having to worry about abominations clogging the vents their air was entering through.

She intended the new level to be their in-Dungeon farm. Some place they could continue to grow food all year round, in controlled conditions and protected from dragons, voracious bugs and possibly sieges from invading rival demesne. Lori had even worked in some. Not in the Dungeon of Taniar Demesne itself, but in some of the commercial farms in the city. Mostly she had maintained the bindings of lightwisps to mimic sunlight, humidity, temperature and air circulation, since the spaces were completely enclosed.

It had been one of the few jobs she'd taken on where she'd worked with other students who weren't Whisperers. Horotracts had maintained the vista to allow the expanded space to allow for growing a large field's worth of food in a three by three pace room inside a warehouse, and the alterations of gravity that allowed them to plant on the walls and ceiling as well, as well as the flow compression to allow for harvesting in less time. Deadspeakers had carefully accelerated the growth of the grains, monitored their condition and watched for disease, while more trained professionals had tended to increasing the yield.

She hadn't liked working in the commercial city farms. Even the ones who were supposedly accredited and inspected liked to cheat them by using creative record keeping to make them unofficially work more hours thanks to the Horotracts maintaining the vista.

Now that she was a Dungeon Binder, she'd be able to leverage her experience to try and build her own. She still couldn't use Horotracting or Deadspeaking, but for getting a farm started, Whispering would be more than enough.

Lori looked down at the bare, cold stone floor of the third level, which looked like it could grow nothing but moss, and only if there happened to be a flood.

Well, Whispering and lots and lots of dirt and soil. That would need to be carried manually, or on carts. Trying to move dirt with Whispering tended to leave you with rock.

She'd have to speak to her temporary Rian about this, have her inform the farmers so they could prepare to do their part.

…

Or wait until she got her actual Rian back and have him do it, he could probably do it better. Riz was becoming competent, but Lori didn't feel all that confident about having the woman take on a large project on her own.

Until then, Lori continued her excavation. There would always be a use for more space in a Dungeon. At the very least, all the industries in the level above—the carpenters, the ropers, the weavers and spinners—could be relocated down so that the second level could be dedicated to being an emergency shelter and public space. Or she could dedicate an area of the third level to more extensive cold food storage. She was running out of space in the first level for expanding the cold storage, unless she began to dig down as she did with the mushroom farm.

Which wasn't a bad idea, actually. After all, there was nothing underneath the cold rooms, and even if she kept to the same dimensions, she'd still be able to double their storage capacity…

Still, despite the familiar work she was doing, it just wasn't the same…

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"Great Binder? It's time for dinner."

Lori looked up from where she was… well, basically staring at the walls to get them to become fluid and viscous as she bound them with earthwisps. Thankfully, Riz had only needed to be told to go look for Lori once. She'd made good progress on the third level-to-be, and already had a decent-sized space cleared. Unlike the second level, she was excavating more space between floor and ceiling. When she finally managed to managed to learn how to make vistas with Horotracting, the dimensions wouldn't really matter, since she'd be able to just change them, but for now, she wanted there to be enough space for full-grown crops while still having enough of a gap to bind light sources and room for air to circulate. As a result, the ceiling was five paces up, and the pillars and arches had to be thicker to carry the load properly. Or at least give her piece of mind as the person building them.

At least she was getting a lot of stone out of it.

"Understood," Lori said. She sighed, rotating her neck. She'd been looking everywhere but straight ahead all day, and her neck muscles ached as a result. "Any problems?"

Riz paused, clearly thinking. That… wasn't a good sign. It meant there might be something, but she hadn't thought of it until asked. "I… don't think so?"

Lori gave her a piercing look. "Anything that might become problems?"

"I'm… trying to keep them from doing so?"

Lori let her look go on a little longer, than grunted. "Well, I'll leave you to deal with it." She glanced at the stone she'd excavated since the last she'd gone up, and decided to leave it for tomorrow. "Come on, let's eat."

The two of them walked up the stairs to the second level, which was mostly empty, the tools all put away. The only ones there were a pair of carpenters, who were talking about something in their alcove. From the gestures, they were talking about technique. Probably involving chisels. Lori ignored them, and after a glance they ignored her.

Mikon was carrying three bowls to the table by the time the two of them got there. "Ah, there you are," the weaver said, smiling cheerfully. "Sit, eat, I'll go get the water."

Lori slid easily into her bench and looked between the bowls before picking one as Riz walked around the table to her side, watching after Mikon as she moved away. She began to eat as Riz sat down and slowly pulled one of the bowls towards her.

The two ate in silence.

"You realize she's flirting with you, right?" Lori said, not looking up from her bowl. "It's hardly subtle. In fact, she's being much more blatant with you than she was with Rian."

Riz's voice stuttered slightly as she said, "I-I… she…I-it's not like I'm encouraging her!"

Lori hummed thoughtfully. "Good, you know. I've already seen it happen the first time, involving much of the same people. It was funny then, to an extent, especially with Rian's obliviousness. Seeing it happen again is just repetitive, annoying and hardly as entertaining. Just don't let this interfere with your duties."

She settled down to enjoy her meal as Riz stared at her.