Demesne 192 - Fortunately, No One Asphyxiated (Patreon)

Rian was far too useful. Lori hoped other demesnes only had lords less than a tenth as useful as Rian, because if they were even half as useful, killing their binders would be far too difficult when she finally had to.

Once he had finally managed to get warm in the dungeon—after she'd agreed to raise the heat some more—and put on his winter robe and fur wraps properly, Rian got to work, sending people down to the third level to get firewood.

"All the shovels are in the tool shed," he explained as he laid out the firewood on the table. They were all about a pace long or longer, slim and rounded, with no sharp edges. "So we need new ones. Tunneling through the snow instead of clearing or melting it was a good idea, but from here we have more people we need to get to."

Lori looked down at the firewood. "And this is for…?"

"Shovels," Rian said. "Shovel handles, specifically. You'd have to make it with stone, but we're in a hurry, and it's not like we're going to keep them for long. It's a bit too cold to be digging with our bare hands, and we don't really have any better shaped tools. Also, I'm fairly certain the carpenters will murder us for using their tools improperly."

Lori nodded. "They would." Most important rule in any profession, neveruse someone else's tools without permission. "And I'd let them."

Rian gave her an indecipherable look. "Anyway…" he continued. "We need tools, and then we can split up into teams. First you tunnel us close to the houses close by. Once we're there, you open a hole outside, and the shovel team will dig through the snow to all the houses close by, while you and I tunnel up to the houses on the rise. The old houses are pretty close together with little alleys between them, so they don't really need to dig that far, but it would be time consuming for you to do it, so we'll just throw people at the problem. They should be able to get to all the houses and the hospital. The houses on the rise are farther away, but their doors all face the same way in a line, so once we actually get up there, it'll be easier to dig them out. Once they're out, they can help get food ready and dig out the rest."

Lori frowned, pursing her lips. "How will the diggers deal with the snow that they'll displace without me?"

"Ideally, they should pile the snow up to either side to make walls," Rian said, "but if the snow gets too high for that and they actually have to start digging tunnels themselves, we can throw the snow into the cookpots and dump them in the baths. The baths' drains should take care of it, if they haven't frozen shut." He frowned. "Wait, no, not the cookpots. Too heavy when full, too small, the kitchen staff will murder us and you'll let them. A blanket or maybe a bedroll. We can lay it out on the ground and people can drag it by the corners to the baths." He glanced at her. "Uh, they haven't, right? Would you know?"

Lori frowned, checking on the demesne's water systems. The water hub had run dry, since the storm had probably dumped enough snow into the river to freeze the non-moving parts of it, and the water around the hub was sedentary enough to be vulnerable. The reservoir  in the dungeon was still full though, and not quite up to capacity. The pipes through the bedrock were all clear, however, and they were already well-imbued from this morning. The minor alteration to the waterwisp bindings that pushed the water through the pipes towards the waste water cistern to keep water from freezing despite how cold it got would consume the imbuement faster, but that was a minor problem overall.

"The pipes will function as intended," she said as she added more imbuement to the firewisps that heated the water in the baths, also altering the binding there. That was the most logical place to dump the water. "I'm altering the basins in the baths to produce more heat to melt the snow. Keep people from sticking their limbs into the water until I change them back." The firewisps were bound to waterwisps, so only the water should grow warm, but that would still be dangerous for her idiots. "And there's no need to waste a perfectly good blanket. We should still have some tent canvas somewhere, perhaps in someone's pack in the shelter. Use those instead."

Rian nodded, looking relieved. The idiot had been planning to have them use his blanket, hadn't he? Despite the fact that he seemed to be the person most sensitive to the cold. Idiot. A most useful idiot, but still an idiot. "Right, better idea. That will keep everyone working and out of mischief." He sighed. "I suppose we'll have to push the marriages back a little. Good thing the flour keeps well." He made a face. "We might have to use that flour to make some quick bread. Easier and faster to make than our normal food, and we'll need it since no one's eaten yet."

"Do it. That's what emergency supplies are meant for."

They both went to work, Lori heading down to the third level to get stone for the shovels, and Rian to get everyone organized and in a state to work. Fortunately, the Dungeon's latrines were clean, and while they didn't have ready food, they had drinkable water. That would have to be enough for now.

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The stone shovel heads weren't her best work, needing to be actively reinforced by a binding of earthwisps to not break from their own weight, but it was enough. Rian had advised that they be flat and wide, almost like tablets, tapering down to narrow edges to since it was just as important to cut through the snow as to dig it out. The shape of it had compelled her to go and get her stone-shaping tool, which was a shaft with a flat board at the end. The tool was added to their list of assets.

Rian had informed the idiots they had on hand of the plan while Lori opened up the Dungeon's emergency baths so it was ready to use, directing the drainage of the baths towards the Dungeon's farm's cistern. She also adjusted the basins in the emergency baths to reduce the amount of water in them, creating an artificial scarcity that would hopefully discourage people from being wasteful with it. Ugh, would she need to create a distillation facility to recover that water and put it back in the reservoir. She might have to, when they had more people, if only to make the water last longer…

Once someone managed to retrieve some tent canvas from the shelter—apparently people had been using them as a simple partition, providing the illusion of rooms and privacy—everyone was ready to start digging. In addition to shovels and her stone-shaping tool, others were carrying some of the planks Rian used to write notes on. The flat boards weren't much, but Rian had said they needed every tool they could get, especially once they had more people to help dig. Lori had also laid down a binding to circulate air into the snow tunnels, pulling it in from the passageway to the dungeon. Some people had been left there to keep clear the passageway and the gap over the tunnel clear so they wouldn't run out of air.

They started in the middle of the tunnel to Rian's house. Orienting herself using the bindings of lightwisps on the outsides of the corners of the houses, Lori began to bind and move the snow towards her destination, leading the way at her slow walking pace. The snow just opened up in front of her, flowing up to make walls. Since she wasn't bothering to make the ice perfectly transparent, it was streaked and full of bubbles, but it was enough to occasionally allow them glimpses at the storm outside.

Through the ice, the sounds of the storm were muted, but it clearly still raged. The tunnels behind them were already being covered over in snow, and she could feel that the snow ahead of her was now about the height of her sternum, though it was a bit hard to judge accurately given the amount of waterwisps in the air. As she walked, she tried to keep an eye on which way the wind was blowing. Fortunately the direction seemed to be consistent.

Soon enough, tunnel ahead exposed the corner all of a house. "We're here," she said, turning the tunnel. A little walking soon had them at the house's front door.

As Rian knocked on the door to let the people inside know they had arrive, Lori walked a little farther, eventually coming to the gap between the house and the one next to it. As planned, she proceeded to open a hole in the tunnel into the little alley, careful not to turn the snow into ice as she pulled back the tunnel wall. Immediately there was a howling wind and a moderately cool wind on her face. Others without such bindings raised hands to their faces, but grimly stepped out into the snow, tools in hand. Armed with the heavy stone shovels, her stone-shaping tool and Rian's planks, they quickly began dig through the snow as the door of the house behind them finally opened.

"L-lord Rian?" she heard someone say as she continued tunneling to the front door of the next house.

"Good morning," she heard Rian say. "Sorry to get you out of bed like this, but because of the storm we're moving everyone to the dungeon. Have everyone get their blankets, bedrolls and pillows and head down to the second level, all right? Just do those, don't bother with anything else for now. You can get anything else you need later once everyone's settled in."

"Y-yes, Lord Rian! Thank you, thank you!"

"Don't thank me, Her Bindership did all the hard work. Oh, and can we borrow your house? We've got people digging to get to the other houses, but they need someplace to warm up."

"Y-yes, of course, Lord Rian! A-as soon as I get everyone to the Dungeon. I'll come and help too."

A laugh. "Get warmed up first and use the latrine. And maybe get something to drink. You'll need it."

Another laugh in return. "Yes, Lord Rian!"

Lori rolled her eyes as she reached the door of the next house. Reaching up, she thumped her fist on the door. "Open up!" she ordered.

She waited impatiently, tapping her foot and considering knocking again before the door finally opened, and a man in a winter robe peeked out. "Y-your Bindership?" he said.

"Is anyone in there dead?" she demanded.

"N-no, your Bindership! No one's dead."

Lori nodded curtly. "Good. Put out the fire so it doesn't burn the house down, take all your sleeping things and get to the Dungeon where it's warm. Do it fast."

She glanced towards where Rian was, but people seemed to be taking their sweet time leaving the first house, so she couldn't put the binding in it yet. Honestly, didn't they realize they needed to hurry? Shaking her head, Lori turned and continued tunneling. Only one house more, then she could start going up the rise toward the houses there.

Hopefully by the time she finished someone would have started cooking breakfast in the kitchen!

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Once they got to the houses on the rise, the experienced northerners were able to take charge of digging everyone else out. Fortunately, no one had asphyxiated.

"The gaps in the roof are designed to let enough air into the house in case of exactly this sort of situation," Rian explained to her later as they sat at their table. To one side, Umu was wrapped around his arm, while on the other, Riz merely leaned against him, while Mikon leaned against her. All four seemed to be enjoying each other's warmth. Around them, the dining hall was loud with its usual sounds of life, with perhaps overtones of relief. "Sure, it would be blocked off if the house was completely buried, that takes a lot of snow, and until then there's some leeway. If need be, people could climb up and move the planks on the ceiling. They're made so people could pop them out on the inside in exactly this sort of situation."

"Ah. How convenient," Lori said.

"Not convenient. Exactly what it was designed for," Rian corrected. He had a cup in front of him and was drinking small sips every so often, a familiar placebo for curbing one's hunger. Lori had been doing the same thing. While her lord seemed to be concentrating exclusively on their conversation, Lori kept glancing towards the kitchen were food was hurriedly being cooked. She could distinctly smell bread cooking in their new ovens. The emergency food was being cooked far too slowly! "Though if the snow had piled up higher than the houses, then we'd probably have had cases of people asphyxiating."

"Most people would have risked opening a window and poking the broom out until they hit wind or daylight," Riz said, Mikon wrapped around her arm as if mirroring Rian. "We've had worse up north."

"Good to know," Rian said, nodding to her. He turned back to Lori. "Still, as the government, we should probably prepare to do something about this now that it's already happened, maybe have a stash of shovels and carts here in the Dungeon. And maybe make an official plan for what to do in the event of a storm, the way we do for if a dragon arrives. Or in the event of a storm and a dragon arriving at the same time."

Even Lori shuddered at that idea. "After breakfast," she said.

"Don't you mean lunch?"

"No one's eaten yet, this meal is breakfast."

Rian tilted his head slightly and nodded, conceding the point. "I suppose… well, at least we're in a good position. The baths are still useable, at least, and we have water."

"Only what's in the reservoir," Lori corrected. "The intake from the river is frozen."

"Ah. Well, fortunately, there's a lot of frozen water falling from the sky right now that's easy to pick up and move. Would there be any problems with dumping it straight into the reservoir?"

Lori grimaced. She really didn’t want to just have people going back and forth to the Dungeon's reservoir, and she liked the idea of people throwing things into it even less, snow or otherwise. "I'll build an intake they can dump the snow into," she said reluctantly. It only needed to be a temporary thing, something like the evaporator on the Coldholdto keep solids from getting into the reservoir. She could connect it to the pipe from the water hub shed, and place it at the entryway so the snow wouldn't have to be dragged into the Dungeon… "After breakfast."

She wasn't going to be able to expand her demesne at all today, was she?