Weekly Digest 43 - (#138 - #140) (Patreon)

Needing More Light And Heat

Lori eventually remembered she had to make a storage room for the grain that would be harvested. It didn't need to be a cold room, but it had to be some distance from the mushroom farm to prevent growths, and relatively dry. The latter, she could do with a binding, and with properly made containers, they'd be able to keep out bugs and the small beasts that Riz said were showing up more and more. Some of the children had taken to hunting the things with clubs and sticks, though they had to be careful since even small beasts could be ferocious when cornered. Thankfully, none of these small beasts seemed to be the sort that spat venom, and they made for surprisingly good eating, even if there was only enough meat on their bones to feed one person, maybe two if they ate lightly.

Lori had also started finding a small, plucked and gutted beast at her door in the morning in place of a small seel, presumably because it was getting harder to find small seels. They were presumably fresh, since they only showed up after she went into her room to wash up before dinner. She quickly froze them in ice that she started keeping nearby for just that purpose.

The smaller beasts were roasted separately, cut up, and added on top of a bowl of stew as a sort of accompaniment, since simply stewing them made them too dry and tough. Cooked right, however, they tasted delicious, and the stew was a good sauce to dip them in. If nothing else, it was a good supplement to their food supplies, thought Lori hoped they didn't get much bigger. She didn't feel comfortable walking around outside her Dungeon if there were large beasts walking around inside.

"The hunters have caught few and are trying to raise them for eggs," Riz reported. "Should I tell them to stop?"

Lori hummed thoughtfully. "How are they keeping the beasts confined?"

"They have a rope tied around the beasts' neck," Riz said. "Well, not really a rope, it's braided leather. They also clipped the beasts' claws so they couldn't use them to cut their way out, and they were planning to build a pen when I talked to them. They've only got three for now, but that might change soon."

"Tell them those beasts are their responsibility," Lori said. "If the things become more trouble than they're worth or grow taller than waist high, kill them for meat." At the moment, the small beasts barely reached up to an adult's knees. Bigger than that was bigger than anything Lori wanted to be alive in her general vicinity.

Riz nodded. "I'll tell them. If it helps, they're not sure they can do it on a first attempt, but figure getting eggs will be worth it."

Lori nodded. "Good. How are the jars for the harvest?"

"They've been made, and are waiting," Riz said. "We have fourteen jars with lids ready, but I'm having more made. Better too many than not enough, and we can always find a use for jars." She frowned. "Actually, my worry right now is keeping people from taking them to use for something else."

"If that's the case, increase the production of jars," Lori said. "Have the potter inform you of when the kiln will need to be fired and I'll find time for it."

"Yes, Great Binder," Riz said. "I think that's everything for now."

Wordlessly, Mikon pushed three bowls of food in front of them. Lori reached over and picked the one with a piece of roasted beast thigh on top. Riz glanced at Mikon, and looked like she was about to say something when she shook her head and got a bowl for herself, leaving the last for the weaver. Lori almost rolled her eyes. Despite her claims of not encouraging the other woman, Riz seemed to have no trouble with taking advantage of Mikon's willingness to do things without being asked. At least Lori had thanked her for sewing Lori's sock. Mikon had done good work on the sock, and had even reinforced a patch on the other sock that had, in hindsight, seemed a bit thin.

They ate as Lori moved the sunk board into place between her and the weaver, who made the first move. There was a relaxed silence, relatively, as they enjoyed the meal and the game. Riz had visibly relaxed after she finished reporting to Lori, and was focusing completely on her food. Though Lori noticed she hadn't put any more distance between her and Mikon than had been there before, unlike when Mikon had actually kissed her.

When they finished the game—Mikon lost, but only by one stone this time, very close—the weaver looked at Lori intently, then nudged Riz with her elbow.

Riz glanced sideways and sighed. "Mikon has something she'd like to ask you, Great Binder."

Next to her, the pink-haired weaver smiled.

Lori hummed in consideration, then turned to face Mikon directly. "Yes?"

"Could we play chatrang later tonight, your Bindership?" she said. "I've been learning how to play from Riz, and I think I'm ready now."

Lori hummed again, then turned to face her temporary Rian. "You've been teaching her?"

Riz shrugged. "I know how to play, I just don't have a taste for it. Needs too much thinking and planning. I prefer pincer."

Lori kept her opinion about adults who preferred to play pincer to herself. "Has she been losing?"

"Nothing but. But she knows the rules and she no longer mixes up the Deadspeaker and the Whisperer."

That got Mikon an incredulous look. "How do you confuse the Deadspeaker and the Whisperer?"

"Well, they do things within three squares," Mikon said. "But I know them now. I don't make mistakes about the moves anymore. "

Lori considered. "All right, we'll play later." Well, she supposed if she was going to play chatrang, it might as well be with a complete beginner.

She was also mildly surprised that Riz was still teaching Mikon how to play, given how she'd had to admit that the weaver was, in fact, flirting with her. Or perhaps she just didn't realize it was part of the flirting? Or was she just trying to deliberately ignore it—as opposed to Rian only accidentally ignoring it out of obliviousness—in an attempt to make Mikon lose interest, and perhaps take advantage of her attention with free favors? Rian at least made a point of asking you all not to do things for him he could do himself. She was fairly sure the way Riz had begun taking the fact Mikon was bringing her food for granted counted as encouragement.

Well, not that Lori cared, as long as it didn't interfere with her temporary Rian's duties.

And she supposed this was a good opportunity to use the game board Rian had asked to be made for her. It was a very nice board, in terms of craftsmanship. She knew enough about the difficulties of using heat in carpentry to appreciate the skill and technique that had gone into the seemingly simple board and the storage box for the pieces. Her demesne's carpenters were very skilled.

But then, she supposed they'd have to be to make Rian's ice boat idea a reality.

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After lunch, Lori went to the hunter's shed to see the captured beasts for herself. They were tied by their necks to a wooden pole that had been buried in the ground and seemed secure enough, but it still made her uneasy. Especially since she knew the children came by here to have the seels they caught gutted and skinned, when they still managed to catch one.

The little beasts were a dark blue, or possibly green, with streaks of bright orange plumage around their neck and shoulders. They had red faces and a crest of on their heads that faded to a sort of magenta partway up. Their tails were relatively short but thick and heavy, and covered with a thick brush of dark feathers. As she'd been told, the long curving blades on their feet and foreclaws had been clipped, and it looked like the remaining edges had been dulled in some way. That seemed both needful and terrifyingly dangerous to actually do.

Lori had to resist the urge to kill them on sight. Months of having to be watchful for their large, predatory ilk had given her a healthy ingrained reaction to things of their general shape. The abrupt movements, the way they'd suddenly just stand still for seemingly no reason, the way they looked at you like they wanted to strip the flesh off your legs by jumping on you…

…and the things were staring at her. Lori back away, keeping them in her sight, not trusting the braided leather cords around their necks to keep them bound. They still had their teeth, didn't they? What was keeping them from chewing through the leather? It was just made of dried skin after all, it was practically made of food…

She lost sight of them, and Lori let out a sigh of relief. Yes, those things seemed… not nearlysecure enough. If people insisted on keeping those tings alive and not killing them for roasted tail meat, she'd have to talk to her temporary Rian about making sure they were put somewhere reallysecure, like a pit in the ground. She was even willing to dig the pit herself.

Lori went back to the demesne to continue excavating the third level. She almost had enough to make the alterations to the front entryway of the Dungeon, but she wanted some more, just in case there was an emergency or if she needed more stone than she had estimated. The latter was very likely, projects alwaysneeded more resources than they initially seemed to.

She had added a good amount to the stockpile by later afternoon, at which point she decided to stop early. For a moment, she just stood there, looking around her demesne. The houses, the buildings, the fields, the aqueducts bringing water down to the laundry area—she had altered them so that they drew their water from the water hub, with its distilled water, though the old arches remained since people had set up several benches in their shadow, and there was no harm leaving them up—the smoke coming up from the building that had been the old dining hall, the line into the Um…

It was all very dark, she realized. All the houses were dark, and the lights came from the doors of the old shelter, the Um, the bath houses, the dining hall and the entrance to the Dungeon. Already, bonfires were being prepared in front of the baths, amidst the benches, sitting rocks and… huh, there was a table there now, of a different style from the one in the dining hall. Where would they put that if it rained? Really, had they thought that one through?

Still, Lori had to admit it was a bit too dark, especially between the houses. It was probably hard to navigate between, when people had to go back to their homes at night after dinner. Candles were limited, since they were a far lower priority than soap, and people couldn't just leave fires burning in their house despite them being made of stone…

Actually, she hadn't really put any chimneys in the houses when she'd built them, had she? She'd put one in the shelter and one in the hospital, but not in the houses. She should… probably fix that before winter. At least she had a lot of stone to do it with now.

Well, she had time to fix one of those, at least. Sighing, Lori reached out, binding what few lightwisps were still in the sky and gathered them into her hands, imbuing them to glow. Their glow created more lightwisps, which she bound and gathered too, adding to the binding in her hands.

Lori walked towards the houses, and began binding lightwisps to the corners of the stone structures. It was another thing she'd have to remember to maintain, at least until she got more wire made, but lit streets was a mark of civilization. And her demesne was going to be civilized, no matter how long it took.

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Chatrang And A Petition

"Erzebed, announce to everyone that I will be adding chimneys and fireplaces to everyone's houses in preparation for winter," Lori said as she set up the chatrang board for her game with Mikon.

"You will?" Riz exclaimed, clearly surprised.

"Of course I will. Why wouldn't I?"

"You didn't before?"

Lori raised an eyebrow at her. "Was it needed before?"

"It would have been nice," Mikon muttered into her bowl.

"It would be nice to have Rian back, but we have to make do given the circumstances," Lori said. "They were needed then, but they will be needed soon. Hence, I'm making them. Tell everyone that I will be adding chimneys to the houses in order of those closest to the Dungeon, moving away from the main road, to the wall opposite the front door. It is recommend they move anything they don't want disturbed away from that end and have someone waiting in the house to move anything else that needs to be moved. I'll start after lunch tomorrow so they have time to prepare. And anyone who complains will have to build their own chimney."

"I… will tell them, Great Binder," Riz said.

"Good. Now, after breakfast tomorrow, take me to your house."

Riz blinked. "Great Binder?"

"You're my temporary Rian right now, you get to have your chimney put in first. Rian's house already has one."

Riz continued to stare at her as Lori finished setting up the board. She considered the pieces. One set was made of pale wood, the other was heat-blackened wood. She turned around the board so that the black pieces were in front of Mikon. "You take the first move, Mikon," Lori said. After all, the woman was a beginner, and she did lose their last game, even if that game wasn't chatrang.

Chatrang, in her opinion, was a stupid game whose players had an overinflated sense of how smart one had to be to be good at it. She was always getting told that you had to think twenty moves ahead, which was something only a Mentalist was reasonably capable of. Still, if Mikon, a complete and utter beginner, wanted to play it, then who was Lori to deny her the feeling of losing at the game?

Lori kept her hands to bowl of food as Mikon looked over the pieces. Eight militia, two lords (or two ladies, or a lord and a lady, depending on preference), four wizards, a Binder, and a core. Victory was achieved by killing the enemy binder and getting your own Binder or one of your wizards to the enemy core. There was a version children played where you won by simply getting any piece to the core, but that was for children for a reason. For one, it was even more unrealistic that most stories about complete nobodies getting their hands on a buried core and somehow becoming a Dungeon Binder despite not being a wizard. At least those stories acknowledged that getting to a dungeon's core was meaningless if its binder was still alive.

Lori had once wondered why there was only one of every kind of wizard but two lords. Now she understood.

Mikon began by moving her Horotract piece, moving it over and past the first line of militia. Besides the Binder, all other pieces couldn't move past another piece blocking them. Most people usually moved one of the militia. Lori definitely did, preferring to keep her pieces close to her Binder and core, and it was supposed to be an aggressive opening. Personally, Lori thought if one wanted to be aggressive, moving the militia blocking the way of your Mentalist (even though a real Mentalist would just go over them) so they could attack head on was a better option. You'd lose your Mentalist immediately, but that was what your Deadspeaker was for…

Lori moved a militia forward so she could get her Whisperer in front of her core sooner. A defensive Whisperer was simple and vulnerable to attack by a Mentalist or a Binder moving like a Mentalist, but it let her protect her core while freeing up her Binder to attack…

She and Mikon played three games of chatrang that night, and thankfully the weaver didn't confuse the Whisperer and the Deadspeaker. Riz stayed for all three games, sitting next to her student and watching and visibly resisting the urge to point at what piece Mikon should move. Thankfully, she didn't actually interfere, but she clearly wanted to, especially when Mikon left her pieces open to attack.

Lori won all the three games she played with Mikon that night, but each one was closer than she'd have liked. Each game also took far longer than a sunk game, and by the end of it Lori was sleepy and very much wanted to go to bed. Still, as she put the pieces back in the box and carried the game board and box back to her room while a sleepy Mikon begged an exasperated Riz for help to get back to her house, Lori had to admit that winning at a different game was just as enjoyable as winning at sunk.

She was climbing up to her room, her board game in her hands, when she paused as a thought occurred to her. She turned around and headed for the front of the Dungeon, and then had to take a moment as she realized that she had to open the door. Huh. She'd never seen the door closed before…

Lori shook her head and opened the door, looking out. The bindings of lightwisps she'd put earlier illuminated the night, and the main street, the fronts of the houses, and some of the alleys between houses were now lit, if dimly. So she didn't need to bind the lightwisps in her eyes to see Mikon and Riz walking together, the former walking with almost but not quite exaggerated sleepiness, holding the latter's hand as if she needed to be guided. Either her temporary Rian wasn't as resistant to the idea of having Mikon's attention as she acted, or she wasn't very experienced at flirting. All of Lori's flirting experience was theoretical from watching her mothers flirting with each other regardless of whether she was present, but it didn't seem like Riz had even that much.

Actually, from what Lori could recall, Riz hadn't ever flirted with Rian the way Mikon had. No physical actions to draw his attention, like breathing in to emphasize her chest, no pressing against him suggestively…

Lori clearly needed to sleep, she was thinking at stupid things. Yawning, she pulled the door closed again and headed up to her room to sleep.

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Riz didn't stand up to make a loud announcement like Rian would have. Instead, she arrived late to breakfast.

"It's done, Great Binder," Riz said as she finally sat down for breakfast. Lori and Mikon had already started with their food, and their first game of sunk had finished, with the second being set up. "People will be expecting you after lunch."

Lori blinked. "They will?" she said. "How? You haven't told them yet."

"I told some people, and told them to tell other people," Riz said. "I started with my mother so that she could get the house ready, then moved on to the families who lived closest to the Dungeon." She sighed. "I'll… have to double check to make sure people got the message after I take you to our house, to make sure that people are ready for you, but they should know, so they only have themselves to blame for not listening to what they're told."

Lori nodded. On the one hand, she could recognize how her temporary Rian was making any difficulties someone else's fault for not listening to what they were told. On the other hand… Lori could respect that. "Excellent reasoning and priorities. I'll have to see how long it takes me to finish adding the a chimney to a house, but hopefully I will be finished within a week."

She probably wouldn't be finished within a week.

"So, we'll probably get chimney in a few days," Mikon muttered.

"If you're cold, you could sleep in Rian's house," Lori said as she reached out to make her move, scooping up stones and beginning to drop them spinwise. "You're helping take care of it after all, and it's not like he's using it right now. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you got his fireplace a little dirty."

Mikon sighed. "It's just not the same. Besides, I wouldn't feel safe sleeping alone."

"A pity," Lori said blandly. "Perhaps you'll get lucky and someone will offer to let you sleep with your head on their lap."

The weaver paused a moment, giving Lori a look, but dropped the subject, making her move on the board.

Lori turned back to Riz. "You'll be coming with me as I make the chimneys."

Riz paused in her eating. "I will?"

"Of course. I need someone to make sure people don’t bother me with inanities and demands they have no right to make," Lori said.

"Ah. Of course. I forgot. Very well, Great Binder," Riz said, nodding in understanding.

"Good. Anything I should know about?"

Riz hesitated. "I… have a petition being raised to you that I doubt you will like."

"It's not for land again, is it?" Lori said with a scowl.

"Uh… technically?" Riz said. "People are asking for houses."

"People already have houses," Lori pointed out.

"Not… everyone..." Riz said. "Every family has a house. However, the unmarried people and the three married couples who don't have children or extended family are still living in the shelter. Ever since you made a house for Rian, they've been… petitioning to have their own as well."

Lori raised an eyebrow. "Has the shelter become more cramped somehow since every family in the demesne moved out? Do we have a Horotract in our midst making mischief?" There had better not be…

"Not that I know of, Great Binder," Riz said. "But some people feel that if Rian has a house to himself, then they should get one too."

Lori gave her a blank look. "They may have a house if they can build it themselves," Lori said.

For some reason, Mikon and Riz glanced at each other. "That's it?"

"And the moment they decide to build it, they have to move out of the shelter."

Riz and Mikon both nodded. "Ah."

"And if I don't like where they put their house or anything else about it, I'll demolish it."

Riz nodded again. "Ah. I will tell them that, Great Binder."

"If they persist, add that they have to buy the land before they will be allowed to build their house."

"I think all the rest before that will be enough to discourage them, Great Binder," Riz said, a small smirk on her lips.

Lori tilted her head, considering. "Alternately, a minimum of six people can petition for a house as a group, on the understanding they will have to live together in that house."

Riz tilted her head. "Can I wait until next week to tell them that, Great Binder?"

"Take as long as you see fit," Lori agreed.

Mikon chuckled quietly. "You're getting better at this, Riz," she said. "That sounds like something Rian would have said."

Lori would have to agree. Despite how coddling Rian could be, he could be surprisingly vindictive sometimes. "Don't worry," Lori assured her. "While your competence has increased, this is still a temporary position."

Riz sighed in relief. "Thank you, Great Binder!"

The three of them focused on their breakfasts, and Lori and Mikon continued their game as around the, the sounds of another morning in progress rang around them.

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Riz's Chimney

After breakfast and another quick game of sunk with Mikon, Lori set off towards the housing at the top of the rise where the people who were previously from River's Fork lived, Riz in tow. In front of them, a mass of stone from the pile of excavated rock flowed, the binding of earthwisps Lori was actively controlling making it all move like a viscous, fluid mass. At this point, she didn't even have to think of it beyond whether she would hit anything in front of her as they headed for her temporary Rian's house to put in their first chimney.

Around them people were out and about, doing laundry, irrigating the crops, emptying the latrines, going outside of the demesne into the Iridescence to hunt some beasts for food or towards the river for seels, gathering wood, going across the river on Lori's Boat to harvest ropeweed and firewood, turning over the stems breaking down in the retting tank, spinning fibers into thread on distaffs in the shade of the aqueducts and generally being productive. One of the first generation houses Lori had built was having its roof worked on, some people carefully rooming the roofing planks, while others cut assembled a beam outside. A few went against the trend and were standing in line at the Um without shame, but that wasn't Lori's problem, distasteful as it was. And perhaps they had already finished their work for the day and had free time, in which case Lori reluctantly had to applaud their efficiency. Hopefully, some of the people whose homes she could visit after lunch to put in their chimney were preparing, otherwise she was inclined to just skip them.

"This way, Great Binder," Riz said, leading her towards one of the segments about a third of the way along the row of houses. "Everything should be moved away from the back wall by now, and if it isn't I can move it for you. I should let you know, we have a loft above the back wall. Um, if that will affect your building plans?"

"It shouldn't," Lori said. "I'll be knocking a hole in the back for the chimney, so unless there's anything behind your house, there should be no problems."

Riz nodded, hastily moving forward to open the door for Lori. She stepped inside, leaving the pile of rock outside. The house inside was familiar in a general way, since she had built it. Six paces long and over four paces wide, with high walls to allow for a high ceiling, there was a wooden platform at the back on which various bedrolls, pillows blankets, and a few other things had been stored, leave most of the floor clear. There was no kitchen or food preparation area, since everyone ate at the dining halls, and along the walls there were beds that could fold down, similar to what Rian had had installed in the Coldhold. The beds were high enough they could either be used as tables or, more likely, so that someone else sleeping beneath them could sit up without hitting their head. Possibly both.

There were bags along one wall similar to what Lori had used to carry her own belongings when she had been traveling, and from the slightly disturbed way they were arranged, they were probably usually along the back wall, which was currently blank save for a bed folded against the wall.

Riz glanced at her, the cause of her concern clear, but Lori waved her off. From that she could see, while the bed was slightly secured to the wall—she vaguely remembered softening the stone so the wood recessed into the wall—but from what she could see a chimney was unlikely to cause affect the stability of the bed. It would probably be too hot to sleep in comfortably with a fire in the chimney, though.

As Riz watched, Lori began her work, touching the wall were her hands curled in such a way the actual point of contact with the stone were her fingernails. She didn't really need to anymore—as a Dungeon Binder, the entire demesne acted as her body, letting her lay claim to all the wisps within it not within a living body—but she liked to keep in practice, in case she was forced to have to leave to do business in River's Fork or something. She took a deep breath, her lungs filling with and her being with magic, a familiar sensation from before she had become a Dungeon Binder. Then she channeled that magic through her bones and the earthwisps there, up her arms and then out through her nails into the stone they were touching. She bound the earthwisps at the point of contact, imbuing them with magic. Lori reinforced the stone, strengthening it so it could more capable of supporting its own weight.

Then she made a hole in the middle of the back wall under the folded bed. The stone flowed like a viscous liquid, leaving an opening about a pace wide and three-fourths of a pace high in the middle. Carefully, Lori shaped the upper part of the hole into an arch so that it could support the weight of the rest of the wall. It probably wasn't necessary, since even without the reinforcement from the binding the wall was thick and strong, but she liked a stable structure.

Humming as she fell into the familiar mindset of working, Lori knelt down in front of the hole and used the excess mass of stone to create a surface for the fireplace, making sure to recess in a little below the floor level of the house and dishing the surface slightly to create a lower point. She made sure the stone there was solid, with no bubbles of air so that nothing would explode if heated. Once she was satisfied with the surface, Lori pushed herself up to her feet. For a moment, she wished she knew enough Horotracting to allow her to walk through the hole in the wall to the other side, or perhaps Mentalism so she could just lift herself over the building for the same result.

Unfortunately, both still evaded her despite the fact that being a Dungeon Binder should have given her access to all forms of magic. Her attempts to teach herself at night were… completely unsuccessful. She had done her best, performing basic breathing exercise to fill herself with magic and try make herself aware of the vistas, thoughts and life that the other forms of magic manipulated, but she still only managed to perceive wisps.

Lori put that out of her mind as she walked down the length of the row of houses so she could go around the end of it and gain access to the back, bringing the stone rolling along with her. There, she found the hole she had made and the little surface where the fire would burn while the fireplace was in use. Humming, Lori pulled stone from the pile with her and began building the back of the fireplace.

She enclosed the back of the fireplace with stone, making sure the stone had no bubbles of air, then built the chimney vent upwards, a simple half circle curve that fused directly to the wall. At the peak of the wall, she gave it a sharp, right angle turn to one side, and then opened a vent on the underside of the horizontal tube. She figured that would allow the smoke to vent out without any risk of water or snow getting in, though it probably wouldn't stop bugs.

Still, that wasn't her problem.

It was only as Lori finished that Riz was standing nearby, apparently having continued watching to see if Lori needed anything. Well, might as well have her be useful. "Erzebed, get some firewood, will you? We need to test the chimney."

"Yes, Great Binder!"

Riz went to the storage shed Lori had recently made to do just that, while Lori considered bringing the excess stone back down before shaking her head and deciding to just leave the stone there for when she had to do the rest of the houses. Though she did move it to one side so that it wasn't completely blocking the way. She walked back around to the front of the row of houses to wait for Riz for come back with the wood, though she had to peak through the windows until she saw the fireplace since she hadn't really been paying attention to which house they'd entered.

Riz came back with a small armful of wood, which was a bit too much in Lori's opinion. "That's a bit too much," Lori commented. "We only need to see if the smoke goes up properly."

"We can use the rest tonight," Riz said cheerfully.

Lori tilted her head. "It's not that cold."

"You can never be too warm," Riz declared, still cheerful.

Lori shook her head, then shrugged. "Well, put the wood in the fireplace, let's see how well it works."

Riz nodded happily, and led the way to the new fireplace, kneeling down in front of it and putting in some of the smaller piece of wood, stacking the rest next to the fireplace. Then Riz reached towards her belt, and Lori instinctively stepped back as Riz drew a belt knife and a small piece of rock—

"Erzebed, I'm a Dungeon Binder, I can start the fire myself," Lori said blandly.

Riz paused. "Ah right, of course Great Binder," she said, sounding slightly embarrassed at having forgotten. She got back to her feet, stepping to one as if afraid of being set on fire herself.

Lori rolled her eyes, then reached out through her core and bound the firewisps in the wood. There were always firewisps in everything, though there tended to be perceivably more in objects that were hotter than the Whisperer's body. The wood was just hot enough from contact with Riz and from their brief exposure to sunlight for Lori to bind the firewisps in the wood, then gathered them together to one spot on the surface of one of the smaller pieces of wood in the pile, at the bottom, and imbued them to do the simplest thing one could do with firewisps, which was to make something hotter.

At first, there was no change. That was perfectly understandable. Wood could take a surprising amount of heat without really showing any sign of it, but eventually, a stream of smoke began to rise, and then the point where Lori had gathered the firewisps burst into flame as enough of it reached the wood's ignition temperature. After that it was just a matter of maintaining the heat and making sure the flame had air, but they quickly had a small fire, the flames full of firewisps and generating lightwisps in all directions.

Lori hummed thoughtfully as the fire burned. "Does it seemed like the smoke is all going up the chimney?" she asked her temporary Rian.

Riz, who had been pacing back and forth in front of the fire, as well as moving in front and behind Lori, waved a hand negligently. "If you don't start coughing immediately, then it's a good chimney," she said. "What's more important is how well it warms the room."

Lori raised an eyebrow. "It's a fire, of course it'll warm the room."

"Yes, but it's a question of how much of the room it warms," Riz said absently. She gestured. "How widely the heat spreads."

"I'll take your word for it," Lori said. "Well, come on."

Riz blinked. "Great Binder?"

"It not yet lunch, but you need to make sure that people have cleared the wall of their house I'll be working on," Lori said. "And that they cleared the rightwall. I wouldn't put it past these idiots to try to get me to put the chimney in some other wall for their own inane reasons."

"Ah…" Riz made a face. "Yes, I understand, Great Binder."

"I'll also need you with me when I'm making the chimney," Lori continued.

Riz opened her mouth. Paused. Visibly changed what she was about to say. "To keep people from talking to you, Great Binder?"

"Yes," Lori said, filling the word with all the loathing at the thought she could muster.

Riz nodded. "Ah. I see, Great Binder."

"I doubt it, but you don't have to as long as you do it," Lori said. "I'll be in the third level excavating more stone. Come get me for lunch after you make sure people who need to be ready are ready."

She went off to dig more stone.

Behind her, she just barely heard Riz sigh. "Do this, we won't tell you why, just do it," she heard her temporary Rian muttered. "I'm supposed to be an officer right now, why do I still feel like a glitter crawler?"