Weekly Digest 73- (#224 - #226) (Patreon)

One More Day

It soon became clear that trying to build a flood barrier in front of the passageway into her Dungeon would not be practical. The entrance, while wide enough to deal with the daily traffic of everyone in her demesne walking through it every day, would be hard pressed to continue to function if there was a three pace high barrier in the way. The only way to navigate such a thing would be to build in ramps—which would be unreasonably steep or unreasonably long—or some kind of stairs. The length of such stairs would make them as problematic as the ramps, while creating a wall and then adding stairs to the faces of each side would drastically limit the traffic in the passageway. That wasn't even getting into how dangerous such stairs would be in the snow, or how the snow melter would be in the way.

Another option that she considered was clearing the whole area in front of her Dungeon of snow, and then building the flood barrier outside the passage. While that would still have the problem of also obstructing entry in and out of her Dungeon, she'd have more space to build a solution, such as different stairs for those coming in and going out. The problem was a flood barrier that took up that much space would be right in front of the other structures in front of her Dungeon's, creating a narrow avenue of traffic that was sure to limit access to them…

…

Lori wished she didn't have to be the one to do this. She wished that there was someone she could just order to construct such a thing, to have to deal with all the considerations and needing to second guess and having to consider and reconsider options. Someone she could just leave this to while she did something else.

But there was no one. She was the only wizard her demesne had, and it was too dangerous to allow anyone more experienced than Shanalorre into her demesne…

…

For a moment, Lori just stood there, leaning against the stone wall of the passage to her Dungeon, ignoring everyone passing by as they ignored her in turn. Next to her was the pile of stone she'd been using to start building the flood barrier, which she'd torn down when people had started crowding around he as they had tried to go in and out of her Dungeon. Then she took a deep breath, turned, and got back to work.

She reached out and claimed all the waterwisps in the snow outside of the entrance to her Dungeon. After all, she'd need a clear space to work…

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Lori was sitting in quiet frustration at her usual table, glaring at the tabletop as she waited for lunch, when Rian sat down opposite her.

"All right, we should be good for bread for dinner, and a little less bread in all subsequent meals, with slightly more tubers and water," he said.

Lori looked up. "What?" she asked tiredly. Most of the morning had been a waste, from her perspective. She hadn't really managed to build anything, and all she'd done was clear some snow that would likely start being replaced that evening.

Rian sighed. "The flour is being milled, so we'll have bread for dinner. We'll smaller servings of bread in subsequent meals that will have less meat and a little bit more water in the soup to draw out the meat we have. We're also increasing the amount of tubers a little bit because we can afford to. That should let us have meals with a little less meat that are just as filling."

Oh, right, the food thing.

"As long as we have enough to eat," Lori said, once more wishing her bench had a back so she could lean on it and get comfortable. Instead she went back to resting her elbows on the table and closed her eyes again.

"Um, are you all right? You seem tired."

"I'm fine," Lori said, not opening her eyes.

For a moment, there was only the usual din of the dining hall.

"You know, if you're tired, maybe you should just rest this afternoon?" Rian suggested. "Take a nap instead of expanding the demesne to—"

He cut off as Lori let out a groan of frustration. Yes, she had to expand the demesne this afternoon, didn't she? She'd forgotten about that! She'd been thinking of going back to work this afternoon for the flood barriers, but…

Her forehead met the tabletop, and she just leaned on it as she shook in frustration.

"Lori," Rian said, and she opened one eye to glare at him, "you're making me worried. What's the matter?"

"Nothing is the matter," she snapped. "I just have a flood barrier I need to build that I haven't managed to start yet, and which I won't be able to start today since I have to expand my demesne this afternoon, so everything I did this morning has just been a waste of time!"

Rian nodded, even as Umu—when had she gotten there?—leaned away and tried not to be noticed. "If it's so important, why not skip the expansion for today and get to work then?"

"Because I need to expand the demesne," Lori said. "It's not like I can leave that to anyone else!"

"Then why don't you do that and leave building the flood barrier to someone else?" Rian said.

Oh, how she wished. "Oh, how I wish." Her tone was bitter.

"All right then, it's settled. You take care of expanding the demesne, and I'll see about getting a start on the flood barrier," Rian said.

Lori stared at him. "What?"

"I don't think we'll actually be able to build much, but I can have the stonemasons and anyone else who feels they can help survey the area that needs to be protected from flood and we can at least submit a proposal to you," he said. "We can do that this afternoon while you're expanding and tomorrow you can decide if what we come up with is feasible or to your taste. Tomorrow we might be able to dig out the dirt and clear it to the bedrock for you too, depending on how hard the ground is. Would be faster if we could melt the ground a little, but we can light some fires for that… well, it will depend on what you want us to do."

Lori continued to stare at him.

"What?"

"Can you actually do all that?" she said.

"I don't know," Rian said. "I'll have to ask. Maybe people will have experience at this, or at least have some ideas. Maybe they'll be completely ignorant and the best we can do is grab shovels and keep the area clear for you so you don't have to waste your time keeping the snow off where you're working. All I know is we have a lot more men and woman with no work they really need to do, and our Dungeon Binder looks like she's about to cry from how tired she is."

"I am notabout to cry!" she snapped.

"Noted. Are you tired though?"

Loir did not dignify that with a response, sitting straighter on her bench. Ugh, she wished she had a backrest!

"I've been keeping track," Rian said quietly. It was just quiet enough that people in other tables probably couldn't hear, but she had to lean forward to make it out. "There's maybe four days I can maybe say you didn't work all day this winter: the three days Shana was here, and that one day you had me play chatrang with you. No holidays either, so you didn't even have any excuses to stop for a day. Of course you're tired."

"I'm fine," Lori said irritably.

Rian nodded. "You're fine, yes. But you're also tired. So why don't you rest? Just this afternoon. After lunch, go up to your room, lie down and take a nap. I'll call you for dinner, or have some food set aside for you when you wake up. You can go back to working tomorrow, and maybe we'll have gotten something done that can help you by then."

The suggestion was tempting… so, so tempting…

"Fine, do this survey you want to do," Lori said brusquely. "We'll discuss it tomorrow. But I'm not resting. I have a demesne to expand while I can."

Rian sighed, but nodded. "Then if you'll excuse me, your Bindership, I have people I need to talk to." He rose and left, walking quickly. Lori didn't bother to see where he went. Instead, she just leaned her elbows onto the table again, rested her head in her hands, and closed her eyes. The food wasn't ready yet, so she had a few moments to rest…

Lori didn't fall asleep at the table, though it did take her a few moments to open her eyes when Mikon hesitantly said, "Your Bindership? The food is ready?"

She blearily opened one eye, then straightened and grabbed one of the bowls of food. No bread yet. It still wasn't ready. Lori ate quickly and methodically, waiting for Rian to come back.

He didn't.

When she finally finished the contents of her bowl—it didn't take long, with no Rian distracting her with his reports—Lori stood up, looking around. She saw Rian standing several tables away, seemingly talking to someone there. He didn't look up as she turned away and headed for her room.

It was routine by then. Laying out her bedroll into the corner next to her bed where she could sit upright, then getting into position, closing her eyes, and creating the binding that she'd use to expand her demesne. Ignoring how heavy she felt, she leaned back and began expanding her demesne…

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Lori jerked awake. What…?

There was another knock on her door and she tried to sit up, only to find she was already sitting up and her neck was annoyed with her because her head had been lolling to one side. Wincing, she blearily stumbled over her bed, her bedroll sliding out from under her, and made for her door. Her feet shuffled unsteadily on the cold floor as she rubbed her eyes of sleep sand.

She unlatched her door as she muttered darkly about going back to sealing off the passage to her room, then tiredly opened the door. "Who died?" she muttered in annoyance at, of course, Rian.

He smiled for some reason. "Oh good, you managed to get some rest," he said with annoying cheerfulness. "It's dinner time. though if you want I can bring the food up to you and you can have it as a middle of the night snack?"

Lori stared at him. Then she groaned as she remembered.

"This is probably a very good indicator you need a lot more rest," Rian said, still annoyingly cheerful. "Why don't you sleep tomorrow, too? We have enough wood that if we set some bonfire fires in the right spots, we can dig up the ground to get at the bedrock and get it ready for you to build. If we mix the soil with some of the desiccated latrine waste, we should be able to make more tuber planters, since we'd need you for setting up the plots in the Dungeon farm."

She'd fallen asleep! Exactly what she'd said she wouldn't do! Had she even—yes, she remembered expanding the demesne once, and… Lori checked. There was a binding around her demesne, filled with some imbuement. She must have fallen asleep while imbuing it…

"This doesn'tmean I'm tired," Lori snapped.

"It does, actually," Rian said, still annoyingly cheerful. "Fortunately, it's easy to fix. You just have to spend tomorrow resting."

"I don't need to rest!"

"It does, actually. That's what being tired means. Look, you've made me go to sleep plenty of times when I've been tired. Now it's your turn to rest. For the good of the demesne."

Lori gave him a flat look that was immediately ruined when the urge to yawn filled her. She managed to keep her teeth clenched together and her lips shut, but there was nothing to be done about the obvious deep breath.

Rian, color him, didn't say anything, just looked at her cheerfully.

"I don't need to rest," Lori said again once she was sure another yawn wasn't going to happen in the middle of her words.

"Everyone needs to rest eventually," Rian said. "Now is the absolute best time for it."

"How is thisthe best time?"

"There isn't a dragon coming after us, everything is running smoothly, and we have a lot of people with not much to do and plenty of energy they need to use. We can help you. Please, let us help you."

"I don't need help. It's just a simple building project. I was merely overwhelmed and frustrated this morning, so I wasn't able to make much progress on it, but I'm fine now. I can get started on it tomorrow."

With each word, the annoying cheerfulness on Rian's face became visibly strained. "Well, at least rest one more day! Just do nothing but eat and play board games with Mikon or something! One more day, that's all I ask! Just one day where you don't go out to the edge or expand the demesne before you start building things to keep floods out. Please, just one day!"

Lori stepped back as Rian leaned towards her. He paused, then deliberately took two steps back, his hands that had been wringing the air as his fingers kept flexing open and closed both moving to his back as he started leaning on the wall. "Please," he repeated, sounding more calm. "Just… rest one more day. That's all I ask. One day where you rest and relax and do nothing but eat and play games. Please?"

Her eyelids wanted to droop, but Lori stoically forced them open, and disguised the yawn that wanted to come out of her by taking a deep, deliberate breath as if she was trying to calm herself. "Fine," she said, a strange relief filling her as she waved a hand dismissively. "Fine, I'll 'rest'. Though I still think it's a waste of time."

Rian blinked "Really? You'll really rest?"

"I said I would, didn't I?" she snapped.

"You'll stay in the Dungeon all day? No expanding?"

"Yes, yes, fine!" The thought of not having to leave her demesne to brave the cold to make beads, of not having to claim the earth and sky and then wrestle it with her will alone to push beyond her demesne's borders… something in her back seemed to come loose at the very thought of it. "I'll rest tomorrow, all right?"

Rian sighed, sounding relieved. "All right… okay, then. Thank you."

"Why are you thanking me? It's just resting. It's not as if I'll be doing something difficult."

"Well, that's true," Rian said, sighing again. "So… will you be having dinner, then?"

"Of course I'll be having dinner. Why wouldn't I be having dinner?" She stomped past him, heading down to the dining hall.

Then she stomped back, because she wasn't wearing only her shoes, and stomping in her socks had hurt.

The honey bread was delicious.

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Lori's Rest Day

Lori almostforgot that she agreed to rest today.

Almost.

She remembered partway through imbuing the bindings on the list she maintained, and for a moment felt both relieved and guilty. Relieved, treacherously relieved, that she had agreed not to work today, and irrationally guilty that what she was doing was 'not resting'. Ridiculous. This was necessary maintenance, and besides, what could Rian do to her exactly? Make her rest for another day?

…

Anyway!

After completing the list, Lori took a quick bath to refresh herself—she needed to cut her hair, it was starting to get long again—and got dressed before heading downstairs for breakfast. Once she reached the level of the dining hall, she paused, frowning slightly.

There was something different about the room. For one thing, there was something… energeticabout the buzz of conversation that she heard. The subdued and relaxed air of the past few months had been replaced by something that sounded more active, something that reminded her of the seasons when everyone was going out and actually doing a lot of work…

And then the smell hit her, and she took a deep breath, letting it out as a happy sigh.

The smell of freshly made flatbread filled the air, and it was almost like eating the bread itself, except somehow worse, because it didn't sooth the sudden pang of her stomach, didn't quench the need in her suddenly salivating mouth. What had been subtle suggestion in the air the night before had strengthened into a rich fragrance that filled her with need…

Shuddering, Lori took another deep breath to calm herself—which was almost for nothing as another lungful of somehow warm bready aroma filled her—then headed for her table like usual.

Partway there, she paused. Then she turned around and headed back to her room to retrieve her long-neglected sunk board.

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"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Lori muttered as she waited for Mikon to finish her turn. The weaver was happily dropping little stones into the bowls of the sunk bored, all but ignoring Riz next to her, who looked amused.

"And Ican't believe I have to practically beg you to rest, but that happened too," Rian said dryly. "What kind of person actually has to be made to rest?"

"You," Lori said. It was her turn, so she reached into a bowl and picked up the stones there, then began dropping them one at a time into subsequent bowls.

"Me?-!" Rian said, looking indignant.

"Oh, you don't recall trying to go hunting for beast meat while you were practically asleep on your feet? You must have been more tired than I thought," Lori said pointedly.

"That happened once!"

"And yet I've had to order you to rest… I think three more times since then?"

"While working for you, so whose fault was that?"

Lori didn't dignify that silliness with a reply as she finished her turn. After a good night's sleep, she felt perfectly fine, but she had agreed, so now she just had to endure it. One should only break one's agreement's when it was of great advantage, allow one to net a greater profit, and when she could—and this was very important—kill all witnesses who would spread word of the betrayal and render the method far more difficult to use in future. While she was losing some time, she had to reluctantly agree that the loss wasn't so great that she'd wouldn't be able to finish building a flood barrier before the thaw set in if she started building tomorrow. Or the next day. Or even the day after that…

No, no, don't fall into the trap! There was work to be done! She could rest later, if she felt like it!

Rian took her silence as an opportunity to change the subject. "So, we surveyed the area yesterday, and everyone thinks a flood barrier is doable, though the clay pit is unfortunately going to be flooded. However, Gunvi says that that should be much of a problem once we drain the water. Though next year we should probablybe more prepared so our claypit doesn't flood." Rian took his plank and set it down on the table between them.

Lori turned to look. There was a not-all-that-crude drawing of the part of the riverbank front the dungeon. The dock and the water hub shed was easily recognizable, and using that was reference she was able to identify the claypit. The kiln and small hut where the potter worked and held the pieces as they dried before firing weren't depicted, but those didn't matter. Lori swiftly identified the other buildings on the plank. "What are these lines?" she said, pointing to some lines with numbers next to them.

"Measurements. That's not to scale, but it was what I could prepare to show you. This line here…" Rian pointed at a line that seemed to parallel the river, "is the length of where we think we should build the flood barrier. It can be part of the cliff wall that faces the river, but if we need to make it shorter because of materials, we can make it part of the outside of the Dungeon's defensive face here." He tapped what she recognized to be the thick stone protective layer to one side of the passageway into the dungeon. "Two straight walls here and here—" he pointed to a line that ran between the laundry area and the shelter, "—should be sufficient to protect the front of the dungeon from flooding."

On the map, two lines met at a right angle where Rian ah been gesturing. The shorter line went from next to the shelter, where it was implied to fuse with the rising ground behind the structure, and straight towards the river. The other linemore or less paralleled the river, moving from the hill inside which her Dungeon was located and moving to intersect with the first line. It was a simple shape, and one Lori had considered herself, before she had momentarily set it aside to think of raising a barrier into her Dungeon first to give her time to think, which had led to her getting frustrated…

She shook her head. "There's still the area near the tannery, where the children go seeling," Lori said mildly. Mikon had finished her turn, so Lori reached for another bowl filled with stones.

"I remember. One thing at a time. This is closer and on assessment, there's actually something we can do for you that you'd otherwise have trouble with."

"Oh?" To say that one syllable was laden with skepticism was to call Rian's Rian-ness mere idiosyncrasies.

"We can dig," Rian said. "The soil's been packed by foot traffic and you occasionally rolling flowing stone over it, but it's still good soil. Granted, it's cold and a little frozen right now, but nothing a little fire can't fix… hopefully." He shrugged. "We can use the soil to make more tuber planters."

"I could just warm the ground, if it's been frozen."

"After you rest, please. You said you'd rest."

Lori rolled her eyes as Mikon began her turn. Where were Riz and Umu? Wasn't the food ready yet?

"Even if we don't managed to dig out the soil, we can mark out where the flood barrier will be for you so you can put them up later. Though I have reason to think that the regular flooding isn't as high as all that."

Lori straightened. "Oh? How do you know this?"

"The cliff face," Rian said. "Especially the part closest to the river. The discoloration as well as the shape of the stone because of erosion gives us some indicator of what the highest point the river can reach is. The highest point that regularly gets flooded isn't that high. It's below the snow line right now."

"Given how high the snow is, that is not as encouraging as you might think," Lori said flatly.

"I know. But after we found it and took some measurements, we're fairly certain that even if it floods, it should only come up to about the door of the shelter and the Um… Which I realize isn't exactly good, but at least means it won't hit the lowest of the houses, so that's fewer people who have to take shelter in your Dungeon when it happens. Isn't that good news?"

All right, it was a little…

"Even if you identified the correct discoloration, it's best not to rely on that," Lori said dismissively as she began her turn. There were fewer bowls full of stones now…

"Oh, agreed. Still, it's a good, hopeful sign. With any luck, all either building will need is a knee-high wall to keep water out. "

"You realize a knee-high wall for those buildings is a chest-high wall for the Dungeon's own entrance, right?"

Rian sighed. "I'm aware, but as your lord in charge of dealing with people, I have to see the bright side so I can tell people about it and keep their morale up. Have you considered just closing that door and making a new entrance that's higher up that flooding can't reach? Even if it's just temporarily for the thaw?"

"I'd have to make a new defensive passageway to protect against dragonborn abominations all over again."

"I… was going to argue that you don't need to build one, but we can't really tell when a dragon will pass over us, can we?" Rian sighed. "And given the time frames we've had between you warning of dragons and dragons arriving…" He didn't complete the thought as he started muttering to himself, then shook her head. "Well, not something I can do anything about except suggest it to you, so I'll stick with getting some work done on the flood barrier."

It sounded needless to Lori. What did it matter if they dug up the soil? "It sounds needless to me. Why does it matter if you dig up the soil?" She finished her turn and leaned back.

"If we leave the soil in place and just pile rocks on top of it—or in your case move and solidify stone on top—then it becomes a weak point that can be eroded by moving floodwater," Rian said. "That will leave a void under the flood barrier, making it vulnerable to collapsing and breaking."

"Colors," Lori muttered with snarl, closing her eyes. Argh, how had she forgotten about that? Now that Rian said it, how had she not remembered that flowing water would have a destructive effect? It was basically the same principle as her water cutter binding at a lower hydraulic pressure.

"Technically we can mitigate it by just packing down the soil very tightly, but it's not guaranteed to stay in place, and with it frozen the way it is now, it's as hard to pack down as it is to dig up because there's ice mixed in among the dirt. If both are going to be equally hard to do, best to dig it up and use the soil somewhere else."

"I'll warm the soil," Lori said.

"You're supposed to be resting. No working!"

"It's magic, not working. I don't even have to actually move."

"Thinking really hard and bending reality to change to your will isn't resting, it's work! It's like trying to do accounting. Just because you don't move doesn't mean you're not making yourself tired. Just rest. I told you, we can just light some fires or something."

Lori winced at the comparison, remembering her tired her mother always looked after she came home from a day working at the Banking Authority. "Then I'll rest tomorrow to make up for it."

"Lori, I know this kind of bargaining when I see it." What bargaining? "First you'll ask to warm the ground, then it'll be setting up bindings to keep everyone warm because why not you're already there, and before mid-morning you've managed to get yourself in the middle of doing some kind of work that no one else can do and your day of rest has been stabbed in the chest, bled to death, skinned, gutted, butchered for parts and its tail meat is being roasted to be eaten by some hard-working Dungeon Binder who likes tail meat."

Lori stared at him. Even Mikon turned to look at him, a strange expression on her face.

"All right, I admit that last sentence got away from me, but you know what I mean!"

Disturbingly, she did. "Disturbingly, I do."

"So, you can understand why I can't let you do that," Rian said. "Look, back in the old days when you were employed at workshops and such, was there anyone who ever demanded you work longer than what you were scheduled for because 'the work isn't finished', but they didn't pay you anything more for going over time? Threatened not to pay you at all if you left when it was agreed you could leave?"

Lori's teeth clench at remembered anger and rage and barely restrained urges for violence. "Yes," she said.

"If you had your own business, would you be that kind of employer?"

The young student who had been pushed beyond what she had agreed to and not compensated felt offended at the suggestion. "Of course not," Lori said.

"Then why are you insisting on having a worker who is obviously overworked, insufficiently compensated, and in need of time off to rest keep on working?" Rian said, pointing at her.

Lori stared at her lord.

…

Ugh, she hated it when he had a point.

Before she could respond however, someone placed a plate of bread on the table, filling Lori's nose with the wonderful scent and drawing her attention entirely. Bowls of soup followed. Wasn't the amount of meat in them supposed to be reduced? They looked like they still had the same amount… or did it just seem that way because of the sliced tubers?

Wordlessly, Lori took a bowl of soup and one of the flat circles of bread and began to eat as Rian thanked Riz and Umu for bringing the food.

There was no honey, but the bread was warm and soft and delicious…

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Sewing and Board Games

Resting, Lori soon found, was boring.

How was that actually possible? She'd used to love her rest days, the times when she'd been too sick to go to school or work but not sick enough to need to be taken to a Deadspeaker or doctor! Just staying at home alone, the window open and a binding in place to keep air circulating, like back on her bed with a nice book and—

Oh.

Rainbows.

To be fair, it wasn't like she was bereft of books. There was the almanac up in her room, after all. While it was a nice book however, and very informative, there wasn't much of a plot. Or characters. Or much excitement, unless you counted the passages with warnings about how it would cause explosions or make poisons or to check the structural integrity of materials first in case of collapse.

Should she find the lack of such warnings in the entries devoted to Mentalism concerning? The only thing like a warning the Mentalism sections had was 'beware endless recursion loops'. She had no idea what that meant.

Rian had left after breakfast, heading out of her Dungeon. A number of people had gone with him, including Riz. From the distant sounds and the feeling of voids in her awareness when she concentrated, he was probably organizing the effort to dig up the soil along the river bank.

Umu had left as well, but to Lori's surprise the blonde weaver had come back carrying a sack full of clothes, and had started sewing after pointedly putting a roll of thread and a needle next to Mikon. The other weaver had taken the items with a smile and had begun sewing a shirt with a hole in the shoulder seam while waiting for Lori to finish with her move on the sunk board.

With nothing else to do, Lori had wordlessly cleaned up the board after that game finished and taken it back upstairs to her room. She had come back down with her other game board to find Umu and Mikon still at the table, the latter just finishing with the shirt. After cutting off the thread with her belt knife, Mikon had grabbed another garment to sew—a mitten—while Lori had sat back down opposite her and wordlessly begun setting up the board for lima instead of chatrang.

It had been some time since she'd last played lima. Not because she actively derided it the way she did pincer, but because she preferred the relatively faster pace of chatrang. One could attack at any time in chatrang as long as you had an opposing piece in range. She remembered games were pieces were lost at every turn until the board was wiped clear.

Lima was different. It wasn't about attacking pieces, it was about entrapping them and controlling areas of the board. As a game wore on, it took longer and longer to be able to set up such traps, especially if you were playing on one of the larger boards. Lori considered herself good enough at the game, but she was willing to admit the slower pace didn't provide her with as much enjoyment. Still, once she got into the game, she liked it well enough, as long as she managed to win.

There wasn't really much else to do, really. She could go back to her room and sleep or read the almanac again, but neither really appealed right then, and unlike some people, she didn't consider just sitting around naked in the baths an enjoyable waste of time. She could have gone down to the alcove where the large broken bead was kept and done more experiments, but without Rian to take notes and occasionally say something actually useful…

Playing board games it was, then.

…

Lori really wished her bench had a back rest.

Mikon brightened when she saw the lima configuration of the board, even as her fingers continued her sewing. Lori made the first move, playing as black, setting down a stone halfway between the center and the edge of the board. Supposedly, the board was the world, and the stones represented Dungeon Cores or demesnes, showing how the world was civilized.

One place at a time.

The pink-haired weaver responded almost immediately, putting down her own stone on the other side of the board, but closer to a corner. She didn't even stop sewing, pushing the needle with one hand for the time it took to put the stone down before seamlessly going back to using both hands. Silently, Lori responded.

Ah, this was nice. With the meals finished, the dining hall was quiet, with only the sound of those cleaning up, low conversation and other games being played to interrupt. From the second level, Lori could hear the sounds of the children playing. Or possibly getting into a violent brawl. It was hard to tell.

Lori had expected the two weavers to start talking to each other as they sewed, and was surprised they didn't. Instead, Umu seemed intent on her sewing, fingers moving with deft practice and familiarity, and while Mikon had her attention split between her work and the game, her fingers moved no less deftly. The way they moved was familiar to Lori. She'd seen it in the craftsmen she'd once worked with and for, the ones who'd been good at their work and had been doing it for so long that every movement was like breathing for them. It reminded her of some of her teachers in school, who could make a binding while in the middle of lecturing without missing a beat, binding airwisps while speaking without even a pause for breath. Even now, she'd have been hard-pressed to do the same outside of her demesne.

The relative silence continued as the two women worked and the game progressed. Lori soon found herself trying to entrap Mikon's pieces, only to have the woman seemingly abandon them and start putting pieces down on another part of the board. What followed was… familiar to Lori. Her mothers always told her she concentrated on trapping her opponent's stones too much, but it was the way she liked to play.

Partway through the game, Lori had left to go upstairs and returned with some of her own clothes that needed sewing. One of were her trousers had a worn hem on one leg near the heels from where it sometimes rubbed across the ground, and another pair had unfortunately worn areas high in the inseam where the fabric rubbed together when she walked. Other than that, the trousers were still good. The cloudbloom fabric was tough and hard wearing—except, it seemed, when it was the hem scrapping across the ground at every step or between her legs—so unless there were any unfortunate tearing accidents, they should still last her another year or two, enough time to find a way to buy new ones.

Her hands were not so quick, confident or skilled as the two women sitting across from her, but Lori knew how to sew her own clothes. Er, that is, knew how to sew to repair her clothes. She had material to patch if with, from a roll of fabric that used to be the leg of another pair of trousers she had outgrown years ago she had brought with her for this purpose—the other leg was her cleaning rag—and so she got to work, keeping an eye on the board.

It probably wasn't Rian's notion of getting some rest, but she had to find time to do these repairs, and unfortunately trying to do it while she expanded the demesne hadn't worked, even when she was only imbuing.

The game, already slow because her lima board was a so large, slowed even further as she took more time studying the board so she could sew. A part of her couldn't help but feel envious at how quickly the other two were getting through their own pile.

When the smell of bread started to fill the dining hall and people began coming back inside in anticipation of lunch, Lori decided to end the game, signaling by putting down a piece to one side of the board. Mikon did the same, and they momentarily put down their sewing to tally up the board. Lori had thought she was sufficiently ahead, but after she counted the spaces she controlled and the number of Mikon's stones she had trapped, it came out the weaver was head by five stones. Even though Lori had been half-expecting to lose—after all, she could only win or lose in this game, even odds of either result—she still glared at the board in annoyance.

Well, clearly Mikon would be better than her at this, after all she'd see the other woman playing lima with her feet while weaving, so obviously she had a marginal advantage over Lori. And it had been some time since Lori had played this, after all, so it was to be expected she was a little out of practice! After a few games, she would be able to continue her streak of beating Mikon when they played.

Setting aside the board for the moment, Lori picked up the clothes she'd managed to sew—the trousers had been repaired, even if she'd needed to fold up the hem slightly into a thick roll that had been hard to sew into—and took them back to her room, rolling them up and setting them aside in their niche. When she came back down, the dining hall was full of the smell of sweat, humidity, wood smoke and people.

At the table, Riz and Rian both were both very aromatic, such that Umu actually put some distance between her and the lord. The towel that for the past few months had been wrapped around the lower part of Rian's head was on his shoulders, and it looked like it had been used for its intended purpose of wiping himself off.

"You seem like you've been busy," Lori noted dryly as she sat back down on her bench.

"Well, there's a lot of soil to dig up," Rian said. "Before you start building the flood barrier, you might have to dig up more farm plots in the Dungeon Farm. Even if we're just going to use the dirt for tuber planters, we need somewhere to put it all so it's out of the way."

"There's that much soil?" she said.

"There's enough," Rian said. "Even after we had to make a detour because we hit clay. I had them cover it up and pack down the dirt on top of it as best as we could. I'm not sure how good clay is for farming, but we need it for pottery, so might as well keep it from being washed away in the flood. It's actually not that bad. Means there's overall less flood barrier to build." He sighed, then glanced at the game board, then at Lori. "So, how was your day? Restful so far, I hope?"

"I played lima and did some sewing," Lori said challengingly. "Probably more sewing in the afternoon."

"Well, I hope you're having fun."

Lori shrugged. "It's been some time since I've played lima. I am out of practice."

"Is that Lori-speak for 'lost the game'?"

"I am out of practice!"

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After lunch—where the bread was delicious, especially when dipped into the soup—Lori went to the hospital to borrow scissors to cut her hair, which had grown long enough to fall down her neck. It was becoming annoying, having hair tickle her cheeks when she lay down. So, time to cut it again.

The hospital was warm and bright, bindings of lightwisps illuminating the interior as a fire burned in the fireplace. The doctor whose face she recognized—not that she knew their name—didn't even bother to ask why she was here. They just went retrieved their medical bag, opened it, drew out scissors from inside and handed them to Lori.

"Thank you," she said, because she hadn't been inconvenienced or had to say anything else, which was something to be thankful for.

She stepped outside and after making sure Landoor wasn't around to try and gather up her hair—she didn't know what he thought he could do with it, but it probably had to do with some story that he thought was how reality worked—Lori reached back to grip the excess hair in her fist and started to cut with the scissors

Soon, dark purple hair began to fall.

Really, she didn't know why other people wasted so much time sitting still and having someone else do this. It was so easy to cut your hair yourself.

Once the hair on the back of her head had been shorted, she cut off the excess on the side, making sure to get at the hairs behind her ears. The last thing she cut were the ones that fell down her face. That was the most time consuming since she had to ruffle her hair several times to get it to fall so she could identify which ones to cut. Eventually, however, she managed to get rid off all the hair long enough to fall over her eyes.

Nodding in satisfaction, Lori headed back to the hospital to return the scissors.

There was still plenty of day left. Maybe she'd do her laundry…