Weekly Digest 53 - (#168 - #170) (Patreon)

Tired Of Stairs

While Lori did not develop a rhythm, since with every explosion she made slight adjustments to the configuration of the ice, stone and temperature, trying to create better rocks with each explosion of steam, she did become better a dealing with the aftermath. Earthwisps reinforcing the stone structure of everything she didn't want to explode, which was everything else in the third level; gathering all the steam and condensing it back to water and then ice so she could prepare of the next attempt; using a binding to use a large mass as a sort of shovel to push all the rocks she had exploded in the depression off to one side; and resetting for the next.

The next attempt was always different, since she was never satisfied. She changed the shape of the ice that she would convert into steam, to see if it would exert force better. She altered the shape of the stone she softened and poured over the ice, to see if it would fracture better. Whether she should use thin or thick layers, slabs or rows, just a single layer of ice under rock or multiples…

By the time Rian came to retrieve her for lunch as she was setting up for another attempt, the third level was… messy. While the area of floor that she was methodically blasting apart was relatively neat, the same could not be said for the rest. Rocks with sharp and angular shapes and edges littered the who level seemingly at random, with a few smaller pieces having somehow reached all the way to the far wall.

"You know, I think this is the most cluttered and disorganized I've ever seen one of your projects," Rian said, looking around and moving carefully as he nudged and kicked rocks out of his way. "Do you want me to have some people come down here to gather all the rocks and put them all in one place?"

Lori hesitated, looking around. It… was looking cluttered. "Yes, it is looking cluttered," she agreed. "Very well, arrange it after lunch. I'll delineate an area for them to dump all the rocks into."

Rian nodded. "You will, of course, not be doing any exploding while they're down here, will you? People are much easier to break into little pieces than rocks."

"Yes, I am familiar with the damaging effects of explosions on the human body," Lori said tersely. She began making her way up the stairs. She was getting reallythose stairs. Maybe she should try and build some kind of pulley lift system so she wouldn't actually have to climb… ?

Her lord hesitated. "Uh, how do you know?" Rian asked, looking disturbed. "Have you actually—?"

"No, of course not!" Lori snapped. "There was a demonstration at school. They used a fresh corpse operated by a Deadspeaker, and the professor showed us the effects for our benefit. Afterwards, the Deadspeakers went to observe how to make repairs on a damaged corpus and we Whisperers learned about explosions. How do you know the effects of an explosion?"

"I used to work at a lumber yard with its own sawmill," Rian shrugged. "We had lots of sawdust, and were always being told horror stories about old fires that lumberyard workers apparently pass around as a morbid form of teaching fresh meat."

"Ah," Lori nodded, trying to ignore the burning in her legs from having climbed up and down all morning because it had been too dangerous to stay on the third level during explosions. "We had those in carpentry workshops too. There's always a candle or a lamp and a windy day—"

"—or some first day Whisperer student who tries to use wind to sweep up instead of a broom—"

Lori made a face. "Ugh, I hate that story. I wasn't even allowed to have a cool breeze on my face because of it. That was actually a specific clause in my employment contracts!"

"Speaking of which, you know those kinds of explosions happen with flour too, right?" Rian said.

Blink. "They do?"

"Apparently, it's even worse than sawdust explosions. Uh, the miller actually asked me if anything can be done in the gristmill alcove to block off the wind from the air circulation? If nothing else, we need to block it otherwise we'd lose a lot of flour to being blown away. He was fine up to now, but earlier today the wind suddenly started blowing into the alcove for some reason, and he had to suspend the day's milling because of it."

Lori sighed. "I'll fix it after I mark off a place for the rocks," she said as they finally reached the dining hall. "Get people started on that after lunch." Now that she wasn't setting off explosions any more, it occurred to her she should probably see how much rock she'd managed to break apart, so as to get some kind of idea of her rate of production, and compare how much more stone she had to make.

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said. "Do you also want me to assign a group to you to take care of clearing the rocks after every explosion so that you can do it more efficiently? I can ask Riz to be in charge of them so you don't need to remember anyone else's names."

"That's your job," Lori said as they both sat down at the usual table. Usually, she'd have gone up to her room to wash her hands… but at that moment, she couldn't stand the thought of climbing another flight of stairs. She'd just have to be careful not to touch her food. Riz was already there, and she leaned against Rian with a sigh, not even glancing Lori's way as she sat with her hands under her armpits. Was it that cold? Lori braced herself and deactivated the firewisps around her, but while it was a little cool, it wasn't cold…

"I could do it if you want," Rian said, "they don't really need me to supervise getting the winter crop ready, but given this is just picking rocks off the ground, I figured you didn't need me specifically. Between the minor changes to the Coldhold to make it easier to handle for long periods of time, keeping people from brawling, getting winter clothes made for everyone—"

"Fine, fine, Erzebed can be in charge of the rock collectors," Lori sighed. Winter clothes. Yes, the children would need winter clothes, wouldn't they?

Next to Rian, Riz blinked and straightened up slightly. "Wait, I'm doing what?"

Rian suddenly looked very awkward. "Uh, yes… Riz, could I, um, ask you for a small favor…? Please?"

Riz sighed. "What do you need me to do?"

As Rian explained, Lori wondered if she could overcome her reluctance to go up stairs to get her almanac while she waited for lunch to be ready. It wasn't that far up… no, no, no stairs right now. She'd just stay here and sit. It would be more comfortable if she had something to lean back against so she could really relax, but at least she was off her feet now…

"All right, I can do that. Just picking up rocks, I can find some crawlers to help with that," Riz said, looking relieved.

"If any decisions have to be made, her Bindership will probably be making them," Rian assured her.

Riz nodded, then sighed and reluctantly got up. "I'll see who's up to a little rock hauling. Just hauling right, no need to actually break the things?"

"Her Bindership has already done all the breaking needed. You all just need to gather them up and put them where she says. You, uh, might need to do it every day from now on, since we'll need a lot of rocks for the Dungeon farm."

"But we won't need to break it apart ourselves, right?" Riz said.

Rian glanced at Lori, who waved a dismissal. "Just clean up," she said. "And only do so when I tell you to."

"She's not kidding," Rian said. "She's been making explosions all day."

Riz nodded. "What can we requisition?"

"I'd suggest one of the carts," Rian said, "but use your own judgement. Who knows, maybe everyone you find will be a masochist whos like picking up rocks one at a time in their bare hands and walking back and forth for each one." Lori twitched as her legs started to ache just thinking of it.

"I'll ask Raradina if she's free, then," Riz said.

Rian blinked, and Lori found herself doing the same. "Wait, there's actually someone in the demesne who fits that description?" her lord said, sounding incredulous.

Riz coughed, looking aside. "I said nothing of the sort. To imply such about anyone would be wrong. And very silly."

Rian looked up at the ceiling. "Fine, fine. I'm hardly in any position to judge the sorts of things people might be into in their private time."

"As a lord, you actually are," Lori pointed out.

"I meant morally."

Lori rolled her eyes. Silly thing to worry about. "Do you have any updates for me?"

"Well, we've finally installed Mikon's filter cloth onto the Coldhold's evaporator and have been testing it on the greenish salt," Rian said. "We dumped a little of it in water as a test, got it all dissolved, then ran it through again, and the cloth managed to catch all the green stuff. Though at that point it was starting to turn a little grayish-brown, so it was probably dead. Definitely something that had been floating in deep water. I'm having all the salt run through the evaporator again, and when it's done we can send the Coldhold out to collect more salt. Soon we'll have salt for food, industrial needs and for trade. Also, just in case you forgot, the monthly ice block to River's Fork is due in the next shift change."

Lori nodded. "Noted," she said. It had been written on her list of reminders, but given how there was really no pressing need to keep track of whatday it was, she was glad of the reminder. She hadn't missed a schedule exchange yet, though she had more than once made the ice in the time between the two batches of miners being ferried to the other demesne.

"Also, I think the seels are getting ready to migrate away," Rian said. "Karina told me there are fewer seels this week compared to last week, and more and more are swimming downriver. On that note…"

Lori sighed. "What now, Rian?"

"I was wondering if you'd consider heating a portion of the river near the seels as a sort of experiment," Rian said. "About whether or not that can entice them to stay. We've got a lot of meat stored up now, but if and when we lose the seels we'll finally need to start digging into our cold storage reserves, since that's probably about the time trying to hunt for beasts will become harder, assuming they don't migrate away as well. Besides, knowing if we can get a few to stay would be good to know, and would get us just that little bit more meat, furs and skins that we might need."

"Rian, that's not how rivers work," Lori said, annoyed. "Water flows downriver. Any water I heat wouldn't stay where it was, requiring me to heat all water that passed through." True, she could set up a binding of firewisps that cycled and moved heat only in a given area, so that water warmed when passing through its boundaries ad grew cold again when it had passed, letting the overall heat remain the same while at the same place...

Rian shrugged. "It was just a thought. Well, it's probably best if people start staying away from the river unless they absolutely have to. It's getting so cold that even a person who can swim might not be able to save themselves."

"Don't talk about yourself in the third person Rian, it's an irritating affectation."

Whatever response Rian might have given was interrupted as Mikon and Umu finally arrived with lunch. Rian looked like he had to physically stop himself from taking some sort of action to help as the two women put the five bowls and cups of water in front of him—Mikon took the opportunity to snare a quick peck on the cheek—since he seemed to realize anything he did would only disrupt what they two were already doing. "Thank you Umu, Mikon," Rian said as Lori took one of the five bowls and cups and started eating.

The others quickly took their own bowls—Rian somehow managed to choose last, which was probably intentional on his part—and started eating as Lori let her mind wander, trying to think of arrangements of stone and ice she hadn't tried yet that would result in rocks the size she wanted. Maybe Riz and her rock gatherers would finish quickly enough she'd have time to try again…

In the meantime, she'd have to do something else. Something that, hopefully, wouldn't require her to climb any more stairs until it was time to go to sleep for the day…

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The Dungeon Farm

Lori soon developed a rhythm to breaking rocks. Taking a bit more time between explosions to allow Riz and the people with her—one of whom, to Lori's disgust, was Landoor and ARGH, why did she have to remember that idiot's name so clearly?—to gather the fragments and put them into a pile wasn't difficult, and with hands besides her own, she was soon able to come to a method of breaking apart stone into rocks that was faster, resulted in the size of rocks she wanted and, most importantly, still allowed her to use explosions.

First, the area she was using for explosions—three paces long and wide, and a pace deep—was cleared, all the rocks in and around it gathered in buckets or picked up by hand and put on the cart that thankfully hadn't been one previously used to move latrine waste. Once that was cleared, they went to pick up the rocks that had been launched some distance away while Lori reset for the next explosion.

A layer of ice was spread on the bottom of the explosion box. A layer of stone directly on top of the ice, on which Riz used a stone spear that Lori had made for the purpose of carving out lines on the softened stone, making a rough grid where each square was approximately the size of the rocks they wanted to produce. The woman used the crude tool with deft, experienced movements, as if essentially writing with a big stick was something she was used to, though her face occasionally had a vaguely amused, disbelieving look to it. The lines weren't perfect, as much as Lori would have wanted them to be, but they were relatively wide and fairly deep, even if they didn't reach down to the ice below. Quickness was more important.

Once the lines had been made, the binding softening the stone was removed, and Lori poured in more water, letting them fill in the cracks and form a layer over the stone before solidifying the water into ice. Then another layer of stone, Riz drawing lines on them, then more water, repeating the process until all the stones from the previous explosion had been gathered, which was usually enough to let Lori and Riz make three layers. In each layer of stone was a binding of firewisps, deactivated but imbued, to provide the heat for the reaction

Then everyone—and the cart—evacuated to the third level, at which point Lori activated the bound firewisps to heat the stone while binding the waterwisps to not change their state. Once she felt enough heat had been made, she altered the binding on the waterwisps, turning them all into steam.

At which point, there was a happy little explosion.

After that Lori condensed all the steam, gathered back all the firewisps and reduced them down to her body's temperature so that the level wasn't scalding hot, and the rocks were gathered while Lori repaired any unwanted damage—no matter how she reinforced the stone, there was always some—and reset for the next explosion.

Three paces by three paces was admittedly a small area, but Lori couldn't make the area wider without becoming nervous as to the number of support pillars she'd need to remove and increasing the risk of a collapse. It also let her control the size and location of the explosion, letting her keep the eruption manageable.

"Uh, Great Binder?" Riz asked tentatively after the first day.

"What, Erzebed?" Lori said, focusing on getting the ice back in place. Every few explosions she had to send for more water, since try as she might, she wasn't able to recover all the water after an explosion.

"Um, Great Binder, I'm not complaining, but can't you put up some walls so that the rocks don't fly so far?" Riz said. "We'd be done a lot faster if that was the case."

Lori gave her current temporary assistant a fat look. "Erzebed, do you know how explosions work?"

"They go 'bang' and things break?" Erzebed shrugged. "I never had much to do with militia alchemists except for buying their booze."

"That's a 'no'," Lori said. "Erzebed, you never want to put a wall around an explosion. All you will do is make a bigger explosion. One that could damage the pillars and make the ceiling come down. And you'd still have to get all the rocks that went far anyway."

"Oh," Riz said in a small voice.

"Not having a big explosion is also why we only blast this much at a time," Lori said. "If we were in the open air, then it would be safe to risk blasting long rows open. In here, however, the force of something that big could break the walls, cause the ceiling to collapse and make me have to excavate the whole level all over again."

"Understood, Great Binder," Riz said meekly as she hefted the stone spear. "I'll be quiet and work now."

All right, some of that might have been exaggerations, but not by much, and the risks and possibilities were real.

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The explosions eventually became part of her schedule, and after a point stopped being a daily occurrence. After all, she had other things to do, like curing the wood that was still being cut—though she could mostly just leave that alone since what was being cured was for firewood, so there was no need to worry about warping—assisting the smiths and the potter with providing heat to repair tools and fire the kiln—no reason to waste fuel that could be better used for heating in winter, and when she was providing heat the smiths didn't need to use flux, or so she was told—and preparing the third level for farming.

When she had initially conceived of 'farming' in her Dungeon, Lori had imagined the city farms she was so familiar with. Long rows of grain stalks, bound lightwisps in place of sunlight, all inside a vista for space… while she hadn't worked out Horotracting yet—she was working on it!—she was working towards the other two, and had thought that was when she could say that the third level had become a farm.

She hadn't been expecting stone boxes filled with mixed dirt and latrine waste.

But… well, as it was, it was far easier to set up than the vigas and other grains, which would need more drainage. Just a box filled with soil that the tubers could be buried in. The 'rows of hallways' arrangement she had made as a way of excavating the third level was easy to fill with planter boxes that the tubers and other small food-plants could be planted in. Rian had organized it, just as she had told him to, finding out the details and what was needed before finally telling her. Making the long rows of planter boxes had taken only two days, and with light watering, the boxes didn't even need any drainage built in save for a small hole in the side.

The planter boxes were all wide and low to the ground, rising only up to her knees, and would probably cause backache for anyone tending them… which was fine with Lori, since she wouldn't be doing it. They also had a smell, but fortunately it didn't spread far, and she was seldom close enough to smell it. And while she didn't exactly approve of finding many of the children in the third level tending to the planters, she had to admit that it was probably safer than them continuing to hunt the few remaining seels in the river, especially given how it was apparently getting colder and colder. And it wasn't exactly strenuous work…

Well, the children seemed enthusiastic about it in any case. The brat seemed to have taken charge, or as well as anyone could be said to be in charge of children. And they heeded her when Lori told the brat they needed to leave because she was going to blast, which would brutally and violently kill them all if they stayed, yes, all of them, no exceptions, no they couldn't stay and watch.

Slowly, the third level took shape. A drainage cistern was dug out to one side where all the water could drain to, and then the rocks Lori had blasted were laid out in plots, the largest ones at the bottom, then finer layers—the smallest ones had needed to be smashed with hammers—then the slabs, and finally half a pace of soil, ready to be planted. Each plot had to be planned out in advance, since they couldn't be expanded without one end they tried to expand basically collapsing and all the layers getting mixed together. That had been annoyingly difficult to salvage.

However, once plots had been laid out, the farmers finally had the time to start planting them with grain. Blasting was moved to a distant, isolated hallway so that the steam and debris wouldn't ruin the crops, and proving Lori right when one blasting managed to break down the wall between hallways, causing her to hurriedly condense all the steam that had leaked out past her condensation binding before they reached the crops.

The third level was slowly planted, one plot at a time. Most of the plots contained vigas, though others were planted with mais, glits, and the other things Rian had brought back from Covehold, which no one had been willing to risk outside where the chokers were. Every week, another plot was excavated, filled with rocks, set up and planted, so that all the plots eventually contained plants of different heights.

"This is going to take forever," Rian groaned one night during dinner, several weeks after Lori had started blasting stone into smaller rocks, Umu leaning against him and hugging his arm with her cheek against his shoulder. "I'm glad you didn't put some sort of mandated deadline for this."

Lori tilted her hear thoughtfully.

"Oh, PLEASE don't put a mandated deadline for this!" Rian protested. "You of all people should know how long it takes to set up each plot before it can be planted! Even if you make the third level as wide as all the aboveground fields we have put together, it'll take us four, maybe five times as long to plant. Up at ground level, we have soil already. Down there, even that has to be installed, and we're sort of running out. If we dig up all the soil available, it's going to bite us when it comes to future ropeweed production, as well as other plants that would have grown there naturally."

Lori huffed. They actually had a lot of rocks now, and all the plots were ready to be dug up, with two plots already filled with stone so they'd be somewhere convenient and out of the way. "So now the production bottle neck is soil?"

"Pretty much," Rian said, shrugging. "Right now, the only way to fix that is to start making a large compost pit and scouring the woods for leaves, branches and things to compost with the latrine stuff, but with how cold it's getting, any compost pit we put outside isn't going to start composting until spring."

"It's that cold already?" She'd mostly been staying in the Dungeon.

"I've been putting a little water in a bowl out on the entry way above the Dungeon," Rian said. "This morning, there was a little skim of ice in it."

Lori nodded. "Ah, definitely that cold already."

"Oh, yes. Why do you think all the children are in the third level, where it's nice and warm?"

Lori blinked at that. Huh. That… actually made sense. "Huh. That actually makes sense. Well… that aside, is there any other way to get the soil we need?"

"If we'd set up a big pile beforehand and it had already started composting, I think its own internal heat would have let it last through the winter, but even then, it wouldn't be ready for us to use until spring," Rian said. "The compost pile we already have is mostly depleted from all the other plots we've already set up, and it hasn't been replenished since most of the waste that would have gone into it instead when straight to the tuber planters. And since we're still making more tuber planters, that replenishing isn't likely to happen any time soon." Next to him, Umu made a face.

With a sigh, Lori ran a hand over her face, trying and failing to somehow squeeze out the frustration. "I thought I told you to organize this."

"This isorganized," Rian said dryly. "Right now, we can't do much more because of a lack of materials. If we'd been badly organized, we wouldn't be having this conversation until three weeks from now, when we'd overextended ourselves, and our above-ground farms were failing from not having enough soil and fertilizer." He sighed himself. "At best, we could set up a compost pit in the third level—"

"No," Lori snapped as Umu straightened, releasing her grip on Rian slightly.

"—and I figured you'd say that. I'm not fond of the idea either. It'll stink, bringing almost-fresh human waste through two floors of important things, especially the kitchen where our food is prepared, is practically asking to spread sickness around and it wouldn't be ready any sooner than spring in any case."  Rian shrugged. "At this point, I think its best we switch from trying to make more plots in the third level and focus on properly maintaining the ones already planted."

Lori frowned at him, but sighed. "Very well. Start setting up compost pits—wait. Couldn't we use the soil from digging up the compost pits?"

"Where do you think the soil from the last three plots came from?" Rian said dryly. "I'm having more pits dug, so we might be able to make some more, but as it is the holes need to be dug manually, and need to be filled in with compost before it starts getting really cold. We needed some place to dump latrine waste over the winter in any case." He shrugged. "The farmers tell me we could probably get the waste to compost a little over the winter if we keep it warm, but… how do you feel about sing magic to keep holes full of excrement warm and drained of melted snow?"

Lori made a face.

"Yes, that's that I thought."

"Um, Rian?" Umu said, looking nauseous. "I don't want to interrupt or tell anyone to do anything… but is there any way to stop talking about this when Riz and Mikon come back with the stew?"

Rian sighed. "Was really trying not to think about it, Umu." He reached across his chest to pat her arm awkwardly. "Sorry. Uh, anyway your Bindership, I'll have the holes dug, and you can decide whether you want to do any… maintenance on them. Shouldn't be too much of a problem. When we expand the fields we can just fill them up and plant over them."

"If we have enough soil," Lori noted blandly. She idly moved one of the pieces on the chatrang board in front of her, ready to be moved to whichever side Mikon decided to sit this time. It occurred to her she hadn't challenged Rian to a game yet. She should really get around to that… "All right. We will proceed with maintaining the plots starting tomorrow, though I expect the soil from the compost pits to be brought down to the third level. As to the last plots, see if they can be used to grow the happyfruit and hairy blueball seeds."

She was going to have fruit trees in her Dungeon and nothing was going to stop her!

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Winter Is Co—Oh Wait, It's Already Here

The coming of winter was somehow still a surprise.

Lolilyuri had simply woken up one morning thinking that everything seemed comfortably cool, and had gone about her morning ablutions, washing herself and changing her clothes—as a bit of an indulgence, she'd put on a pair of the new socks, chest wraps and loin cloth and oh they had felt so thick and fluffy!—only to come down to the dining table carrying the sunk board to find Rian sitting at the table wrapped up in his blanket.

"Rian" Lori sighed, "what are you doing?"

"Currently, freezing," Rian said. "All right, I admit, I'm not actuallyfreezing, but I AM cold."

Lori frowned. "Why?"

Rian stared at her, then blinked and… leaned down to lightly knock his head on the table. What? "Sorry, forgot you slept in the dungeon. I think we can officially say that it's winter." He jerked his head sideways in the general direction of her Dungeon's entrance. "You probably didn't notice, being in here and all, but shortly after dinner, it rained. And this morning, all that rain was frozen. Given the clear shift in weather, I think it's safe to say winter's here. We might start seeing snow in the coming week."

Lori nodded thoughtfully. "Very well. How long before the miners would have changed shifts?"

Rian made a face, and from the movements of his blanket he seemed to be counting on his fingers. "Maybe half a week? I sort of stopped really keeping track once I wasn't the one doing the ferrying anymore. I'll ask Clowee, but shouldn't be much more than that, probably less."

She hummed. "And the status of the Coldhold?" She checked and found it was currently outside of the demesne.

"Should be on its way back," Rian said. "Especially if they felt the cold earlier than us. We'll have to think of a faster way to load water into the evaporator than manually using buckets, it's inefficient."

Lori tried not to be impatient. Her lord was raising a good point after all, and she herself was still thinking… "You said you were going to bribe River's Fork with salt. How is that coming along?"

"Well enough. They haven't slapped any toll fees on us, and according to the miners it's been very welcome in the demesne. The bread's gotten tastier and they've been using all the rest to salt-cure the meat they have. There's also been the not-subtle indications that they want more. I think we should sell it to them, before they actually do decide to charge us a toll or a customs duty just to get more salt."

Lori nodded. "And how have we been doing, in terms of salt requirements?"

Rian shifted, trying to pull his blanket tighter around himself. "Saturated, mostly. Most of our food's frozen, which already works pretty well, but some of the recently acquired meat was salted at my request, mostly to see how well it turns out and how it affects the flavor of the meat. At the very least it's a good preservation method that doesn't need your support, and it will probably be our primary food supply on the Coldhold and any other ships that will be away from the demesne for a long time. More compact and we don't need to worry about Iridescence damage. Uh, the tanners have all they need and a decent surplus besides, so at this point most of it is surplus and can be sold, though we'll need dedicated storage for it if we're going to stockpile it here before taking it to Covehold. Someplace that doesn’t get wet. Though if we had a more efficient means of putting water through the evaporator, the Coldhold could leave here with an empty hold, sail straight to Covehold, and arrive there with hold full off salt that they just have to unload. It's practically money for no work whatsoever, so it's nearly all profit!"

By the end of the assessment, Rian was grinning widely, and it was the first time Lori could actually call his expression 'avaricious'. Well, she could understand. Given the logistics of his plan, it was money for practically nothing.

Lori nodded again. "Very well. With the coming of winter our mining agreement with River's Fork has reached its conclusion. This will be the last batch of miners. When the Coldhold comes back, and you've taken measures against the cold, take the Coldholdto River's Fork and make arrangements for transferring our share of the mined metal, unless we choose to renew the agreement come spring. While you're there, I also authorize you to arrange to purchase their surplus grain and any still edible fruits in exchange for our salt."

Rian… groaned.

"What was that?" Lori said, a bit surprised at her lord's reaction. Usually he capped his complaints off at a sigh.

Rian dutifully repeated the groan, though seemingly with a bit more emphasis. "Oh, don't worry, I'll do it. I just… well, need to see if the tanners have any furs for me to keep from freezing to death on the way there. They and the weavers have been preparing winter clothes for everyone, but… " Rian groaned again. "I now fully sympathize with your stance of never wanting to leave the demesne again. You're right, it's a terrible idea, let's not do it."

"So you finally understand. You're still going to River's Fork."

Rian groaned a third time as Mikon slipped onto the bench next to him, nodding to Lori and not speaking to her as Lori placed the board between them. The weaver seemed to be wearing two skirts, and there was a thick shawl around her shoulders, while a scarf was wrapped around the lower part of her face and neck. "Good morning, Rian," Mikon said a she unwrapped the scarf. "I'll bring you the winter robe Umu and I made for you once I finish the last of the sewing. I'm sorry it's taking so long, but you did say we make the children and the pregnant women our priority."

Lori blinked. "We have pregnant women?"

Rian gave her a disbelieving look. "What did you think people were doing in the Um?" he said. "Some didn't even wait that long, I'm pretty sure we have a few women who conceived on the way here, or at least when we'd already picked this area to set up the demesne." For some reason, Mikon sighed, looking… wistful? "And yes, we should have enough supplies to have a good chance of not losing anyone to childbirth. It would be far, far better if we had an experienced Deadspeaker, but I knew your views on such things and rigorously complied with them. If babies die, they die, not your problem."

Lori almost flinched at the words. Almost. Mikon was not as controlled with her expressions, and looked at Rian with shock on her face.

"Well, make sure they have sufficient firewood, or whatever else they need," Lori said, waving a hand dismissively. "And have the doctors and medics compile a list of things they'll need in the event of a birth that we can build or provide in the demesne. If there's something there I need to do, I'd rather know sooner than later."

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said dryly.

"Also, while you're in River's Fork, you are to prioritize continued access to Binder Shanalorre's healing over the grain and fruit," Lori said. "If necessary, narrow it down to healing for pregnant women and newborns."

Rian hesitated. "Respectfully speaking your Bindership, even if she agrees, that's going to be a logistical nightmare. The Coldhold will need far better internal heating if we want to keep those women, never mind babies, from getting sicker from the journey. And that's just if we we're bringing pregnant mothers over. Bringing a sick baby to River's Fork with the resources we have right now might as well be a death sentence. Even if we get them to River's Fork to be healed, given conditions it's very likely they'll just get sick again on the way back." Next to him, Mikon was nodding fervently.

"What do you suggest, then?"

Rian hesitated. "A simple solution comes to mind… but you're not going to like it. And will probably think it's some kind of disaster waiting to happen."

Lori raised an eyebrow. "Then why suggest it?"

"Because it's simple, viable, and you'd basically be the biggest obstruction to it getting done," Rian said simply. "You yourself personally."

Lori frowned. "What sort of insane solution have you come up with?"

"As I said, a simple one," Rian said. "If we need to have pregnant women and babies healed, then we invite Shana—"

"Binder Shanalorre," Lori corrected irritably. "Really Rian, stop making this mistake."

"She's not actually here to hear me say it, you know."

"It's a bad habit to get into!" Then she realized the rest of what he had been saying. "Wait, what do you mean 'invite'?-!"

Rian sighed. "Well, we invite Binder Shanalorre over to perform the healing here as needed in the event of pregnancy complications of a baby getting sick."

"Impossible," Lori said immediately. "She would never leave her demesne."

"We haven't asked her yet. There's a chance she'll say 'yes'," Rian shrugged.

"She'd never agree to something so personally dangerous."

"Uh, respectfully your Bindership, while many of the people who didn't like how you're running Lorian decided to leave for River's Fork, the people here don't actually have any animosity towards Binder Shanalorre. Closer to apathy, really. There's actually a lot of people here who know her and feel sorry for her, given all she's been through. She's actually far safer visiting here than you would be visiting River's Fork, and you already know not to walk around alone when you go there. Literally the only person who could have a reason to be a danger to her is you." Rian hesitated. "And possibly Landoor. He still thinks he's somehow your successor and will somehow gain magical ability if he claims a Dungeon's core. Or something. But if we take him to the other side of the river, he shouldn't be a problem. Well, unless the river freezes over and he tries walking on it."

Lori glared at him.

Rian shrugged. "As I said, it's simple, viable and you'd be the biggest obstruction to it. And remember, this is only in the event of complications during childbirth. There are other ways we can mitigate the risk for it. For example, we make arrangement with River's Fork to bring expecting mothers there when they're close to term. The trip is short, it's easier to keep the mother warm when she's not in labor, and there's no risk to them to go there because they're not you, and it's far easier and safer to make arrangements for the mother and child to stay there over the winter than it is to bring the child back. At that point, the relative logistics to keeping our own people fed and warmed for the duration is its own separate problem, but I'll leave it up to you to decide how the costs and difficulties to keep some of our people fed and warm in River's Fork while they wait for winter to be over, versus trying to convince Binder Shanalorre to just visit long enough to heal the baby and have a warm meal compare to each other."

Lori kept glaring at him. Her lord merely pulled his blanket tighter over himself.

Finally, Lori said, "If you somehow manage to convince Binder Shanalorre to agree to such a request, then you may inform her that I will guarantee her safety while she is in my demesne. I find it unlikely she will, but I suppose if someone can convince a child to leave the safety of her home it would be you."

"Please don't phrase it like that, you make me sound like a terrible person," Rian said blandly.

Mikon leaned against him, reaching across his back to give him a reassuring pat before giving his shoulder a squeeze.

Lori raised an eyebrow as Rian suddenly leaned into Mikon with a sigh, closing his eyes. "Ah… so warm…"

"R-rian?" Mikon stammered, surprised.

"Ahh, that's so nice…" The blanket wrapped around Rian shifted, and Lori saw his arm reach out and wrap around Mikon's waist, pulling the weaver to him. "So warm…!"

"Please don't do anything inappropriate at the table, I eat here," Lori said flatly.