Demesne 241 - Bug Repellent (Patreon)

Almanac in hand, Lori carefully followed the flow diagram for the binding to repel bugs from an area. She made it small for now, since it was just a test binding in her room, making a binding about the size of a door. After all, that was how big the binding needed to be for the water hub shed.

According to the flow diagram notes, the lightningwisps would charge the air in such a way as to irritate the delicate sensory organs of bugs, discouraging them from passing through the binding, while at the same time causing no harm to people beyond a slight tingling sensation of the hairs. At least, if she followed the flow diagram properly… and if the person who'd written the flow diagram was writing it down properly. Granted, the diagram looked right, but it would be best if it were tested, just in case.

Warily, she imbued the binding. There were no sparks of light, no crackling in the air, no peals of thunder. The ignorant always assumed lightningwisps looked like… well, lightning. In truth, lightning was too impractical for most of the uses one usually wanted lightningwisps for, unless you wanted to kill someone, make something explode, or… well, pretty much those two things.

This binding's output was well below what was needed to harm, much less kill, but Lori was careful nonetheless as she warily passed her hand through where the binding was. Because of the way the binding was put together—lightningwisps and airwisps andchored and chained together—the imbued lightningwisps went around her body instead of passing through, which was what kept it from being instantly fatal, or at least extremely painful.

The other lightningwisps emanating from the binding, not imbued but simply free in the environment, did pass through her, but there was no tingle as the binding said there would be. Lori frowned, wondering if she'd done something wrong. She should have been feeling something at the concentration of lightningwisps in the air. A small spark, or at least the sensation of her hairs straightening, but there was nothing. Why…?

Oh. She could have realized. It was like the way the firewisps around her changed without her direct control, modulating the temperature around her so she wasn't too cold or too warm. The lightningwisps seemed to do that same, such that she couldn't actually experience the usual indicators of their presence.

Colors.

That meant she'd need outside input to inform her how well the binding was working.

"Rian," Lori said at dinner as they waited for the food to be ready, "where's Landoor?"

Rian raised an eyebrow, narrowing his eyes slightly. Next to him, Umu moved away a little. "That depends. What do you want him for?"

"I just need him to test the binding I made to keep bugs out."

"And you need Landoor for that, because…?"

"I need to see if it's harmful to humans."

"Pleasedon't use our people to do that," Rian sighed as Shanalorre turned, staring at Lori. "Really, no one in our demesne has done anything deserving of being a subject for destructive human testing. As your lord in charge of dealing with people, it's literally my job to tell you to not do this!"

"Well, I still need to test the binding," Lori said, ignoring the stare, "to make sure it's tuned to repel bugs but not kill humans."

"Just test it on bugs! If it doesn't kill them, it probably won't kill a human."

"I would, if I could catch a bug to test it on," Lori said. She… actually hadn't thought of doing it that way, but she supposed she could do it that way as well.

"Is it really important to test it?" Rian asked, sounding exasperated. "Can't you just set it up and leave it, then then come back in a week to see if bugs got in?"

"I need to test the binding's safety and effectiveness now, before all the bugs start breeding in earnest so I know it's safe to put the binding around other locations. If I wait, there will already be bugs inside whatever I put the binding around."

"Oh, come on, you barely notice the bugs in the Dungeon. And the all the food is well sealed, so that's not an issue."

Lori blinked. "There are bugs in my Dungeon?"

Rian raised an eyebrow. "For several weeks, the front door of your Dungeon was a boulder with a gap around the edges to keep you from asphyxiating, and even now, we leave the door open during the day. Why are you surprised there are bugs in the Dungeon?"

Lori stared at him in horror. The reservoir… the reservoir was just there, at the end of a sealed hallway… a seal that had gaps to let air in…

"Is my Dungeon infested?" Lori said, voice faint.

"It has a far less than normal amount of bugs," Rian said. "They're not getting into the vigas, the flour, or the meat, because the cold rooms are freezing. Mostly they've just been buzzing around, staying warm. The regular latrine cleanings and sweepings mean they have nothing to eat if the stay here, and the farmers worked to keep them from eating the vigas while it was growing. So relax, your Dungeon isn't horribly infested by bugs. It just has a few here and there." Rian hummed. "Though if we start growing fruit trees, that might change. More palces to hide, softer things to eat, harder to keep bugs off because fruit trees are taller…"

Lori twitched.

Rian sighed. "Look, if it's really important to you, I'll test the binding for you. Even if you made a mistake, as long as it's not instantly lethal, Binder Shanalorre can most likely fix me. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully." He glanced sideways at the visiting Dungeon Binder. "Uh, that is, if you're willing?"

"Of course," Binder Shanalorre said. "I'm perfectly willing to assist in ensuring no one comes to lasting harm."

"You sound increasingly less hopeful," Lori said.

"I'm just remembering that you asked for Landoor to test this, meaning it's potential lethal."

"Potentially harmful, not lethal. The lightningwisps are not set to be powerful enough to be lethal."

"Then why are you testing it?"

"To make sure it's functioning as intended."

"How diligent of you," Rian sighed. "Well, come on, let's get this over with before Mikon and Riz get here with the food."

Lori blinked. "Now?"

"Yeah. This shouldn't take long, right? I mean, you just need to know if it'll be harmful if someone passes through it. Just make one, I'll walk through it a few times, and if I end up on the ground shaking in pain and agony Binder Shanalorre can put me back together so I can have dinner and sleep it off." Rian stood up, stepping over his bench and looking at Lori expectantly.

…

Well, she hadn't expected to test this at the dinner table, but it wasn't really a complicated test. Lori stood as well, binding darkwisps from under her clothes. It flowed out from around her like her soul leaving her body as she anchored the darkwisps to the ground and used it to define the area she'd be putting the bug repellent binding on.

People sitting at the other tables watch curiously as she raised the door-shaped patch of darkness, then anchored the binding of lightningwisps and airwisps to it, drawing some of the lightningwisps from her body, her finger growing numb for a moment as she drew the lightningwisps from it to make the binding.

"All right, it's done," Lori said, the feeling returning to her finger as she finished. "The binding is set, so just walk through it to see if it will harm you."

"Right…" Rian said. "So, just to be clear, this is supposed to be safe for people and you're just being sure, right?"

"Yes, of course," Lori said. "If I wanted to harm someone with lightningwisps, I'd just do everything my teachers told me never to do with lightningwisps."

"Was one of them 'don't work with lightningwisps when you're taking a bath'?"

"…yes."

"I'm fairly certain the only one that would harm would be you. So, uh… please don't do it? For all our sakes?"

Lori didn’t deign to answer. "Rian, just get on with it."

"Right, right…" Rian muttered, looking at the doorway-shaped square of darkness. He took a deep breath and stepped through.

Then he frowned, turned around, and stepped back.

"That… feels strange," Rian declared, rolling his shoulders strangely. "But I don't actually feel like I've been harmed. Are you sure this thing is working right?" He stepped through again, still frowning. "This feel very anticlimactic, really. Why did you think this could possibly harm someone? Wait, did you at least try it yourself before looking for other people to do this?"

"Of course I did," Lori said. "However, I couldn't tell if it was harmful or not because the lightningwisps changed when they touched me. I wouldn't have even felt them if I hadn't known they were there. hence why I needed to test it on someone else." She tilted her head. "I suppose this means the binding is safe to put in front of the door of my Dungeon to keep bugs out, then."

"Do you think you can put it on the fields to keep the bugs off?" Rian said thoughtfully. "It would mean far less worrying about whether bugs are eating the crops."

Lori shrugged. "I don't see why not. Though I'll have to test it to see if it has any adverse affects on plants." Hopefully it wouldn't. Any excess lightningwisps should just be pulled down to the ground.

"We can find some poor, blameless stalk of vigas just minding its own business for you to test on," Rian said, stepping through the binding one more time. "Anyone else want to try this before Binder Lori puts it on the front door?"

––––––––––––––––––

It was raining the next day as Lori put the binding across the entrance of her Dungeon. The location was close enough that with a little creativity she was able to connect the bug repellent binding to the lightwisps that illuminated the inside of her dungeon, allowing the binding to be imbued directly by her core with no intervention on her part.

People were wary as they crossed the threshold of the binding into her dungeon, but other than a shudder or patting at the hairs on their arms, the binding truly had no effect on people, and it wasn't long before people were passing through the binding without hesitation. Well, except for the children, who kept walking back and forth through the binding and giggling at the way it made their hair tingle.

Her inspection of the charcoal burning site had already been postponed because of the rain. Despite the temperature immediately around her body adjusting to her comfort while she was in her demesne, walking through mud and rain would still have been a miserable experience. In addition, the cleaning of the aqueduct had to be postponed because it was too dangerous to work on, so reactivating it was put aside for the moment.

Once the binding in front of her Dungeon's entrance was finished, she went to install the binding in the water hub shed. The rain dripped down from the brim of her hat as she stood outside the door of the shed, placing the binding on the four walls of the shed, as well as on the ceiling and atop the boiling water. then she slowly pulled the bindings towards the entrance.

No bugs were dislodged by the bindings, but did that mean none managed to get in through her seal on the door or the binding wasn't enough to irritate them into motion? She supposed she'd have to check in a week or so. Securing the binding behind the doorway on the inside of the shed, Lori closed the door again, this time only making the stone extrude enough to prevent the door from opening.

Once that was done, Lori moved on. She placed the same binding on the entrances of the shelter, the Um, and the baths. If there were any bugs trapped within… well, people could deal with the things on their own. However, she repeated the procedure she had done at the water hub shed  when she came to the mushroom farm, this time focusing on her awareness of the demesne's wisps to look for small, mobile voids. This finally allowed her to find a few, distributed among several static mostly-voids—there were spots of darkwisps, lightningwisps, airwisps and waterwisps—that were probably the frames holding up the logs on which the mushrooms were grown.

As the bug repellent binding became active, Lori was glad to see the voids immediately move. She kept the door of the mushroom farm open as she pulled the bindings from the walls, herding the bugs in the farm towards the opening. The bugs flew or skittered past, and she lost track of them in the rain as she pulled the bindings towards the door and collapsed them into a smaller, properly fitted size for the entrance, anchoring the binding in place.

Idly, Lori wondered if the outdoor mushroom farm was being built yet and made a note to herself to have Rian show her where it was. Had it even been started yet or were they waiting for her to assign a specific plot of land first? Uh, she should probably assign the land herself.

With the binding over the mushroom farm's entrance in place, Lori headed back towards her dungeon. As she began to pass Rian's house again, she paused, then shrugged. All the shutters were closed against the rain, but through her awareness of wisps she could feel no people inside it. There were a few small voids though, probably bugs that had gotten under the door or in through the chimney. As the rain fell, Lori began placing bindings on the walls, floor and ceilings…