Weekly Digest 79- (#242 - #244) (Patreon)

Cold Room Improvements

The river continued to rise, becoming more turbulent as it did, rising a third of the way up the flood barrier. This probably wasn't solely because of the rain, since the river had been low when they'd arrived the year before, and it had still been raining then.

Rian and Lord whatever-his-name-was checked the river every morning, debating whether it was safe enough to take Shanalorre back to River's Fork before reluctantly admitting it was still too dangerous. However, enough time had passed that the beasts had managed to find something to eat, and so a volunteer accompanied by the hunters again dried to reach the other demesne overland. Lori had personally had given them up for dead.

Well, less mouths to feed, and since there were other hunters who knew how to cure hides, skins and furs, it wasn't a total loss to her demesne, though it would slow the tannery down a little.

Lori began expanding their cold rooms upwards. She carefully excavated stone from their ceilings, using that to make a support pillar in the center of the room to help support the weight of the stone. The room might be small enough that she could just keep digging upward, but she wanted to me sure the ceiling wouldn't collapse under the weight of the stone above. Still, a single support pillar would do. With that in place, she excavated upward, doubling the height of the cold room.

She had to be careful to work around the empty wooden shelves filling the cold room, at least until she gave up and found Rian to tell him to get her people to move all the shelves to on side so she could excavate the room properly.

"So, you want the carpenters to put on a wooden floor above this?" Rian said once the shelves had all been moved to one side.

"Yes. I'll take care of building the stairs. Make sure to tell them that the floor needs to be able to support more shelves."

"May I ask why you didn't just make a second level out of stone?"

"Air needs to pass through the floor so that cold air can circulate and make the cold room cold. Also, this was faster."

"Faster for you maybe, but it'll take some time for the carpenters to build a second floor," Rian said, looking up where the ceiling was partially excavated. "Especially if it's supposed to be able to hold up shelves of meat. Can't you just dig shelves out of the wall?"

"I could, and intend to do that once the floor is in place, but that would be a waste of space. At least have them build some shelves for the middle of the room, around the support pillar."

Rian sighed. "Well, we'll have time. Once you finish digging we can move the shelves back in place and use it as we have been while we build the next floor and shelves. I'll go and have people move the shelves in the other empty cold rooms for you. Call me when you're done so we can put the shelves back."

Lori nodded absently, getting back to work excavation the ceiling. She had to be careful so that stone wouldn't fall down and damage the shelves, so she had to move the stone over the shelves first—

Rian came back into the cold room. "Lori, did you add these lights after you started working in the cold room?"

Lori gave him a strange look. "Of course. Why would I work in the dark?"

Rian nodded. "That's what I thought. Could you come and put some lights in the other cold rooms so we don't have to work in the dark while we're moving around heavy furniture?"

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After putting in lights in the cold rooms and connecting them to her Dungeon's lightwisp binding, Lori finally finished excavating the first cold room. She used the excavated stone to add some stairs just to the right of the door, so that the carpenters would know how high the floor needed to be. That way they wouldn't just build at random, and it was convenient for storing meat on both floors.

She spent the next two days working on the empty cold rooms, excavating the ceilings and putting stairs to the side of the door. Only the cold room that still had food in it was left untouched for now, but she'd already given orders that, once she'd filled the expanded cold room with solidified air, that all new food be put in those and the remaining cold room be allowed to empty so she could expand it. The carpenters had begun measuring the first cold room for the floor, which would mean they'd need wood for beams and floor planks, which she'd need to cure once it as cut… ah, and she'd need to make more solidified air for all the cold rooms once they started filling up…

"Binder Lori, can we have a holiday?" Rian asked brightly at dinner that night. Next to him, Riz perked up with interest.

Lori blinked, disturbed out of her musings. "What?"

"A holiday," Rian repeated, still smiling. "We probably should have had one sooner, but now's a good time as ever. None of the buildings are in need or urgent repair and I'm told the crops are doing well and just need to grow. Now is the best time for a holiday."

Lori gave him a flat look. "We've just spent the past two days excavating our very empty cold rooms."

"The one cold room that still has food in it is still mostly full," Rian said. "Come on, the food won't last forever even if it's frozen. We managed to survive the winter, no one died of anything, and all the births turned out well. If that's not a reason to have a holiday and celebrate, what is?"

"There's work to be done," Lori pointed out.

"Yes, but it's all work we can still put off for a day, as opposed to being very urgent and immediate because survival is at stake. All the urgent work has already been done. Come on, please? We haven't had one this winter yet. Consider this an 'end of winter' holiday." Next to him, Riz nodded enthusiastically, looking at Lori with pleading eyes. Lori ignored her

"I'm fairly certain winter ended when the river melted," she pointed out. "Besides, it's still raining outside. We can hardly hold a holiday out in the rain."

"As it happens, we have a nice, spacious floor that everyone in the demesne can fit in with plenty of space to spare—"

"We are nothaving a dragon shelter party!" Lori snapped.

"It's not a dragon shelter party if there's no dragon to shelter from," Rian said brightly. "And I'll have everyone stop making music by sundown."

"I'm not having people light fires down there to roast meat! That will fill my Dungeon with smoke! It will stain the ceilings with soot!"

"And people will suffocate," Rian said.

"If they light a fire in my Dungeon, and stain my ceilings, I'll let them!"

"I see… yes, that’s a valid objection, I guess."

What?

"If only we had someone who could create a heat source intense enough to cook meat that doesn't produce smoke…" Rian said with a wide smile. "Then we could have a holiday indoors complete with roast meat…"

Lori gave him an unamused looked.

"Come on… we can open up more of the honey and make honey bread… or hey, we could try cooking the meat with a sweet honey glaze, maybe? Plants will be flowering soon, so the sweetbugs can go out and collect more of the sweet green stuff…"

"That sounds absolutely disgusting," Lori said.

"All right, admittedly we might be lacking a few ingredients to make the glaze properly, but we have honey, we have salt, a little jar of vinegar, some vauang, we have all those other spices we've been growing in the Dungeon farm, why not give it a try? Someone must know how to make a good honey glaze from those things."

Oh, right. They did have spices now, didn't they? "Do we even have enough of those?" Lori asked.

"We have enough to give our holiday food a little kick," Rian smile became a grin. It showed teeth and everything.

Lori twitched. "Fine," she conceded, and ignored the cheers that came from all the other tables around them. "However! Before you can have a holiday, you need to go out and see if you can hunt more beast meat to start replenishing our stores. If you bring in some new meat, you can use an equal amount of the frozen, stored meat for holiday food the day after."

"Aw, you're just worried we'll all starve to death, aren't you?"

"No, I'm worried I'll starve to death if you manage to use up all the food in storage."

"Well, nice to know you don't see us as emergency food."

Lori made a face at the terrible joke, as did Riz. "Rian, don't be disgusting. This is a civilized demesne, not the Armada."

"I'm fairly certain the Armada doesn't actually eat their dead, just use them as fertilizer."

"You're the one talking about people as emergency food," Lori pointed out.

"Yes, I regretted it as soon as I said it. Please still let us have a holiday?"

"For your tastelessness, you are only allowed to use half as much frozen meat for all the fresh meat you bring back."

Rian sighed, but nodded. "Understood, your Bindership. Bring back twice as much meat."

Lori nodded sharply. Emergency food… really, sometimes he just wasn't funny.

"You're really going to have a holiday?"

Lori turned towards Shanalorre sitting with her on the bench. The other Dungeon Binder politely stayed quiet whenever she spoke to Rian about the demesne's matters, but she supposed they were done speaking now. "Yes," Lori said. "I'm told its occasionally necessary for people to rest. Personally, I don't see how it counts as rest when they seem to be even louder and rowdier than they usually are."

"What do you do on holidays?" Shanalorre asked, wide-eyed and curious.

Lori shrug. "Eat roasted meat instead of stewed meat… or soup, in this case. Make a lot of noise. Sing loudly. A few people dance. People play boards games, and sometimes do so in tournament format. The children play games all day. "

"Please don't make our holidays sound boring and no fun, your Bindership," Rian said. He looked sideways at both Shanalorre and Lord whatever-his-name-was. "It's not as boring as she makes it sound, I promise."

Shanalorre nodded. "Then I'll look forward to it, Lord Rian, provided we're still here when it occurs."

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Half a week after they left, the militia that Shanalorre had sent to River's Fork with a message and the hunters who had accompanied them returned, still alive, looking worn but relatively uninjured. The party that had gone out to hunt beasts to replenish their cold room encountered them making their way back, the hunt was put on hold as they escorted the group back to the demesne.

"They managed to make it to River's Fork, where some people had apparently managed to convince themselves that we've taken their people hostage, and the remaining militia should arm up to try and get them back," Rian explained to Lori. "When our people and Shanalorre's volunteer showed up, those same people accused them of more of the same and that our message that everyone was all right and would be returning once the river had settle enough to make travel safe was a trick while we murdered their Dungeon Binder."

"Idiots," Lori said. If she wanted Shanalorre dead, she'd have been dead already. There'd be no need for messages or anything like that.

"From the sound of it, either Shanalorre or Yllian foresaw the possibility of this happening and prepared confirmation codes with the militia that remained behind before they left," Rian said. "Thankfully, it was just a few people just making trouble everyone was too tired to bother listening to them. They’ve been busy making their own flood barrier with rocks and baked mud, and making sure it didn't leak, tending their own vigas fields, and doing their own spring work. Though Shanalorre's aunt sent them some fruit to bring back here."

Lori frowned. "Fruit? Why?"

"Probably because it was the only well-preserved, portable food they could give our hunters, and maybe as thanks for taking care of their Dungeon Binder?" Rian shrugged. "Maybe they're just being kind to travelers."

"The first one sounds more likely."

Rian shrugged again, then grinned. "Well, in any case, the fruits should be a good addition for trying to make that honey glaze sauce!"

"Why are you so focused on that honey glaze sauce?"

"Because plain roasted meat is getting just a little repetitive, all right! This will be great for morale!"

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Cold Room And Holiday Preparation

In preparation for new food that would be stored in the cold rooms, Lori had been making more solidified and liquefied air.

Normally, making solidified air was quick, something she usually did every few days to replenish their cold rooms. She'd go into their cold rooms and check how many blocks of solidified air they still had, and they the walls and floor was kept free of ice condensing out of the air. When the number of blocks was sufficiently depleted, she made more.

She was vaguely aware of how much food they had because of this, but it wasn't something she really thought about. The meat was just… there, pale and frost-covered chunks on the shelves or hanging from the hooks built into some of the shelves. As long as there was stuff in the cold rooms, there was food, so she didn't need to worry, even as she had to stop putting blocks of solidified air in some of the cold rooms because they were empty…

Over the months, she had refined her methodology. Nowadays she used a large block of ice that had been carefully solidified to be cold enough to form flakes of solidified exhalation without also condensing inhalation into blue liquefied air, which she would usually set up in the cold room that most needed replenishment. The block would have a hole at the top that led down into a hollow space within the block where the air would liquefy and solidify. When it was time to make solidified air, Lori would deactivate the bindings that kept the ice solidified except for a thin layer over the outside faces of the block. This meant that while the ice would begin to exchange temperature, it would only do so within the hollow inside it.

Lori would then use airwisps to push air through the opening of the block and into the hollow within, where the temperature would begin to solidify the air, as well as some water vapor. Flakes of solidified air would start to gather at the bottom of the hollow, which she'd tamp down and compress with a tool to force it into a convenient block. Excess air that wouldn't solidify would leak out of another hole in the side, to help lower the temperature of the cold room. Every so often she'd have to poke that outlet hole with a stick as flakes of solidified air and normal water ice formed around it from the cold.

The blocks of solidified air would be placed high up on a shelf, atop a tray of bone that she had made to for the purpose of catching any water ice that remained when the solidified air was gone. Lori was carefully whenever she handled the solidified air. Under normal circumstances, contact with it was dangerous to human flesh, and even with the firewisps around her altering temperature so that she was always comfortable, she did not want to test the substance's effects on her. Her touching it would also be wasteful, as the firewisps would add heat and cause the block to sublimate back into air.

With the expansion of the cold rooms, however, Lori decided she needed a bit more cooling to bring the expanded room down to a temperature that could safely preserve food and keep it from harboring dustlife. While they still had one functioning cold room, she wanted the expanded cold room ready to accept new meat.

The day after she agreed to let Rian have his holiday once he met her conditions, she set up for mass production of solidified air in one of the expanded cold rooms, telling everyone to not disturb her. Instead of just a single hollow block of ice, she set up several, with the blocks of ice solidified completely, making them as cold as possible. This caused liquefied air to form, but that was intentional. The liquefied air that would normally have been bothersome for her—there was a reason her blocks of ice was prepared to be just above the temperature that inhalation liquefied—dripped out of a spout she had placed on the sides of the blocks and into a long open trough made of bound ice. The cold room she was in quickly became very cold, such that mist wafted from the floor, and even she had to actively bind the firewisps around herself to stay comfortably warm.

As both solidified and liquefied air started to form, Lori went over to her Dungeon's reservoir—making sure to seal the entrance to the cold room she was using to prevent accidents—and drew out a mass of water that she also solidified into a block of ice about half a pace wide on each face. Then she simply move the block into the cold room she wanted to cool and released the bindings on it. As the block of ice started to exchange heat with its surroundings again, frost that could be congealing water vapor or more solidified air forming on its surface, Lori bound the air in the room to circulate so that the block of ice would begin cooling the now-warm cold room.

When that was done, she sealed the door of the cold room with stone to prevent people from getting in and potentially hurting themselves, and placed a stone bar across the doorway to make it obvious.

The amount of both solidified and liquefied air slowly increased. Once there was enough blue liquefied air in the spill trough, Lori carefully scooped it up into the small jars usually filled with travel ration stew. She held the jars with tongs she borrowed from the blacksmiths because she couldn't let the liquefied air make contact with the firewisps around her body, lest the liquid start turning back into vapor from the added heat. While the substance was a bit too dangerous to use for regularly cooling the cold rooms with the resources and materials she currently had at her disposal, it would suffice for helping cooling the now-warm cold rooms in preparation for long-term storage as long as she sealed up the rooms so that no one could get inside and into trouble while that was happening.

It was a simple matter to reshape the block of ice Lori had put in the cold room to have a hollow space inside and carefully pour the jars of blue liquid into it. The blue liquid lay there, more mist wafting up around it. Then she went back to the room where she was making liquefied and solidified air and continued the process over. Solidified air was tamped down into blocks, liquefied air was moved to the cold room to replenish add to the hollow in the ice block. The flakes of solidified air that formed in the bottom of the basin, under the layer of blue liquefied air, she left in place.

The next day, after a day of the room cooling with liquefied air, Lori carefully moved all the blocks of solidified air she had made into the cold room, which was now freezing and ready to store food. Most of the blue liquid from the day before had evaporated back into gas, and she carefully evaporated away what was left. With the cold room once more properly a cold room, it was now ready to be used, though she'd have to remove the block of water ice eventually. It took up a lot of space on the floor and blocked some shelves, but for now it was useful for keeping the room cool.

Once the expanded cold room was properly cooled down, Lori had Rian tell people to move all the food and any remaining blocks of solidified air into the expanded cold room so she could start expanding the only cold room that hadn't been expanded yet.

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The day after the hunting party found the group coming back to the demesne from River's Fork, enough fresh meat had finally been brought in to comply with the conditions Lori had set for the holiday.

"So we can have a holiday tomorrow?" Rian said, leaning forward excitedly during lunch.

Lori rolled her eyes. "Yes, you can have a holiday tomorrow."

"And you'll provide the heat so we can roast in the dungeon?"

Sigh. "Fine, fine, I'll put some firewisps near the wall. You be the one to tell people not to stick their hands into them unless they want to cook those hands."

"Yes, your Bindership."

"Remember, no music after sun down."

"Of course, your Bindership. You'll be joining us and enjoying the holiday too, right?"

"I'll be there and eating the food," Lori said. "If you try to get me to dance, I will kick you."

Rian nodded. "That's fair. Tell me what you think of the glaze we've come up with, will you?"

"I'll try one sample. Don't give me more unless I ask for it."

"Right. Understood. Hope you like it, then. We're tried the recipe on a small pieces as a test, and it's turned out good, but if it's successful, we might be able to have our first traditional winter holiday recipe."

Lori frowned. "First traditional winter holiday recipe?"

"Well, we start having the recipe during enough holidays, it'll become a tradition," Rian said brightly. "I love roasted meat, but a little variety would be nice."

Lori sighed again, wondering what was taking the food so long.

She listened distractedly as Rian reported the status of the demesne. The binding of waterwisps to pump water from behind their side of the flood barrier towards the river was keeping up with the sporadic downpours of rain, which came down every other day or so, but had clearly been increasing in frequency as time went on. The trees were starting to sprout buds and leaves again, and stalks of ropeweed were starting to grow along the parts of the riverbanks not currently under water. More seels had been spotted, but not yet in the numbers they had been at originally.

"I suspected these are just the early arrivals," Rian said. "The rest will probably all arrive by the time the river settles down. We should wait until the seels give birth before we let people start seeling them, though. Make sure the next generation at least has a chance to exist before we start eating them. And if we wait, they'll be bigger and have more meat on their bones."

"I wouldn't know," Lori shrugged. "Do what you think best… without it involving voting of any sort whatsoever!" she added hastily.

"So we can't have people vote on which honey glaze variant is best?" Rian said.

"No. You try all of them and decide for yourself, then make that decision known and stand by it."

"I'm kind of hoping to get a little rest too, you know…"

"No voting."

Rian sighed. "Fine… ah, by the way, I've noticed slugs crawling along the outside slope of the flood barrier. You might want to check the pipes leading into the river for them every so often. I don't think that was a problem previously, but I think this is their breeding season, so there might be more of them to get stuck in the pipes."

Lori frowned, closing her eyes to focus on her awareness of her demesne's wisps and concentrated on the intake from the river to the water hub shed. She winced at the voids she felt. "Noted. I'll look into it."

Rian nodded. "All right, I'll stop bothering you, you look like you're dangerously close to completely ignoring what I say. I'll tell you the rest later."

Lori waved her hand dismissively, focused on her food, her mouth chewing though the admittedly excellent and delicious bread like an undead set on a task.

"You don't approve of the holiday?"

It took a moment for the voice to register, and another moment as she started to ignore it only to finally recognize the voice—or at least, the direction the voice was coming from. Lori turned to glance at Shanalorre, who was looking at her solemnly, a towel wrapped around her pale hair. "I think it's unnecessary," Lori said after she finally managed to swallow the mouthful she was on. "There's still work to be done to get the demesne properly civilized, and none of it gets done while we're wasting time having a holiday. However, Rian insists they're necessary for morale, and one should listen to an advisor when they speak about their area of expertise."

Shanalorre blinked. "What is Lord Rian's area of expertise?"

"Manipulating people to do what he says," Lori said.

Shanalorre's head snapped to look at Rian, clearly alarmed.

"Please don't make me sound like some kind of evil, treacherous villain, your Bindership," Rian sighed. "My job is to speak to the people of the demesne, organize them if they need it, find out what they need, resolve disputes, bring their concerns to Binder Lori's attention, and see to the well-being of the people of the demesne. In short, I do a lot of talking to people so that Binder Lori doesn't have to, allowing her to concentrate on other matters. She just likes to reductively summarize that as 'manipulating people'. It's technically correct, but makes me look really bad."

"Yes, manipulating people, that's what I said." Really, why did Rian have to repeat what she said but with more words?

For some reason, Rian slumped down and let out a groan. Umu, Mikon and Riz all reach out to pat him reassuringly.

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Binder V Binder

On the day of the holiday, Lori woke up to the sound of a louder than usual din coming from outside of her room, immediately reminding her of the planned occasion. Sighing, she considered just staying in bed, imbuing bindings and expanding the demesne. It would keep her away from all her loud, annoying idiots and spare her poor ears from the noise that would probably be echoing across her Dungeon from having everyone holding a holiday in it.

Her stomach disabused her of that notion, however. Once she finished going down her list of bindings, Lori had a quick wash—reminding herself to change the bone filter in the water hub shed and find a way to keep slugs clear of the intake—put on some fresh clothes, and headed downstairs. It was louder in the dining hall, and even with a casual glance, it was clear many tables and benches had been moved aside to make a space. No one was dancing, and there were no terrible attempts at music yet, but Lori knew it was only a matter of time. Most of the tables already had game boards laid out on them, with people of all ages already playing.

Along the walls were little blocks of darkness, where she had anchored darkwisps and firewisps the night before. People had set up rocks and tripods around the blocks, placing wide pans and preparing grills made of peeled branches over them. A few were glancing towards her and back at the blocks, some putting their hands close but not quite into the bindings of darkwisps. She wouldn't have put it past a few to actually put their hands inside despite what she had told Rian to tell them, though. Some of the tables and benches near them had what looked like wooden plates and bowls full of meat, many of which were still covered in frost from the cold room.

The smell of bread in the air was tinged with sweetness, making Lori's mouth water at the thought of honey bread as she sat down on a bench that had been placed near the stairway up to her room. She sighed in relief as she leaned back on the wall behind her, letting her put her weight on it and slouch a little. Eyes closed, she just enjoyed the feeling of being able to lean back on something while sitting.

The bench she was sitting on shifted, and there was a dull thud as something was set down to her left. Opening her eyes, Lori saw Rian sitting down on the bench with her, a plate of honey bread between them, along with a cup of water. "Good morning, your Bindership," he said cheerfully, sliding the plate a little closer towards her.

Lori grunted, reaching for the honey bread. She closed her eyes again as she bit. Ah, warm, sweet, soft, sticky…

"That's all that the kitchen's preparing for breakfast, by the way," Rian said. "If you want to eat anything more, we kind of need heat for roasting…?"

"Yes, yes…" Lori said, waving a hand dismissively before bringing it to her mouth to lick the honey on her fingertips. "Tell them to get back from the bindings before I activate them. I'm going to assume there's no water or anything dropped into the binding that could explode."

Rian nodded and rose, stepping forward a little and raising his hands to call people's attention. "All right, everyone, get back from the black things her Bindership made. If anyone dropped something into them, now is a good time to say so before it explodes!" People backed away from the bindings as ordered, and if they had dropped in anything, they weren't saying so. The buzz in the air took on a tone of excitement and expectation as Rian looked at Lori and nodded. "They're all clear, your Bindership."

With a thought, Lori activated all the bindings she'd made and placed the night before, and she heard the exclamations as those closest to the bindings felt the heat wash over them. She'd done her best to replicate the heat of a cook fire with Rian's assistance, with firewisps emanating heat from within the darkwisps that marked the boundary of the binding. Most of the heat had been set to radiate upwards, towards any food that needed to be cooked, while a small amount of heat bloomed outward to inform people of the presence of the binding.

"All right!" Rian said loudly as it became obvious that the bindings had been activated and people began milling around them. "The very belated winter holiday has officially begun! I hope everyone enjoys themselves, and please remember that the lima tournament will be starting soon!"

There were some sporadic cheers at the announcement as Rian moved back towards her bench and sat back down with a relieved sigh.

"Lima tournament?" Lori asked as the first, rhythmic sounds that probably tried to be music began to rise.

"We have lima this morning, chatrang this afternoon, and pincer for the children at about midday," Rian said. "Prizes are hard, since we don't really have much of anything we can hand out as a treat, so unfortunately all the winners get today are bragging rights and the titles of 'winner of the winter holiday board game tournament' in their game. Hopefully next year we'll have something better. Maybe we could buy fruits from River's Fork in advance and make the winners a little fruit pastry next time. "

Lori grunted, reaching for another stick of honey bread.

"Fine, fine, I'll go and leave you alone," he said with a smile as he stood up. "Want me to get you some more honey bread? I'll be back later to bring you a plate of good cuts and tail meat once the meat is ready."

Lori took the last stick of honey bread and nudged the now-empty plate towards him.

"Right, more bread it is," Rian said, picking up the plate. He turned and seemed to vanish into the crowd.

She focused on eating the remaining bread slowly, trying to make it last as Lori savored the taste, the flavor, the sweetness and the feel of the bread in her mouth, but all too soon she was swallowing the last bite, and there was nothing but an aftertaste in her mouth and sticky fingers.

Lori was about to start licking her fingers again to get the taste and stickiness off of them when her bench creaked again. She glanced sideways to find Shanalorre had sat down on the bench with her, seated at her customary distance of a pace away. Lord whatever-his-name was some distance away on another bench, his gaze intent on the two of them.

"Good morning, Binder Lolilyuri," Shanalorre greeted.

Lori nonchalantly lowered her fingers from her mouth. "Good morning, Binder Shanalorre," she answered as she picked up the cup of water and subtly dipped her fingers in, rubbing her fingertips together to get the stickiness off. "I apologize if the holiday isn't enjoyable just yet. We've only just begun to cook the meat."

"I accept your apology, and look forward to the meat," Shanalorre said. "I've quite enjoyed the food you've provided me during my visits to your demesne, and I'm sure your holiday fare will be no different." She paused a moment, before adding, "What do you usually do during these holidays?"

Lori shrugged. "Eat my fill of food. Sit around all day. Remind myself that I agreed to let people play music during the day to keep myself from making them stop. Wait for the day to end so I can go to sleep."

Shanalorre blinked. "That's… it?"

"That’s it," Lori confirmed.

"Don't you do anything to enjoy yourself?"

"That is what I do to enjoy myself." Was that not clear? "Was that not clear?"

Shanalorre gained a strange expression on her face. "But… why not go dancing? Singing? Spend time with your friends? Play games?"

Lori twitched with every mentioned suggestion, but she maintained her patience. "I do not find dancing or singing enjoyable. I have no friends, and even if I did, I would not find spending time with them enjoyable. As to playing games…" Lori looked around, then shrugged. "Those I would normally play chatrang or lima with are usually to occupied enjoying themselves during holidays." Mikon would most likely be busy flirting with Rian or Riz, and the brat would be off doing brat things. Rian… he'd probably be busy making sure things ran smoothly, and likely frustrating Mikon, Riz and Umu as he made flirting with him difficult.

"Oh. I see…" Binder Shanalorre trailed off. "Well, if you have no one to play with, I could play with you."

Lori glanced at her, then shrugged. "If that's what you want. I suppose we can play a game or two." She frowned at a realization, then looked around. "Where's your guide?"

"She's eating with her family right now," Shanalore said. "We will be meeting later, and she offered to show me what was fun to do during a holiday. Until then, I'm free to play with you."

"Ah. I see." Lori glanced at her for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, I'll get my game board, then. Do you have a preferred game you wish to play?"

Shanalorre shook her head. "We can play whatever you want," she said.

When she went up to her room to get her game board, which had been lying on her table for weeks, Lori was very tempted to just get back in bed and sleep. After all, she had no work to do today, and sleep was the best form of rest, after all. Still, she picked up her game board and the box that contained all the game pieces, laying the second atop the first and carrying the board with both hands as she returned to the bench.

The board was big enough to rest between them on the bench. Lori sat with her back to the wall, her head turned as she started putting the chatrang pieces on the board. Shanalorre, in contrast, straddled the bench, her legs on either side of the plank as she leaned forward, her hands on her knees.

“Which side do you want to play?” Lori offered.

“Can I play white?” Shanalorre asked.

“Are you sure? If you play as black, you get the first turn.”

Shanalorre shook her head. “White, if you please.”

Lori shrugged. “Very well, then,” she said, reaching down to move one of her militia. “Your turn.”

Shanalorre picked up her Horotract and moved it over the line of militia in front of it. Ah. Well, at least she knew what the pieces did properly.

Lori hummed thoughtfully. “Where did you learn how to play?” she asked as she moved another militia to open a path for her Whisperer.

Shanalorre moved one of her militia as well. "I… learned from my mother," she said, her voice trailing off, as she stared blankly at nothing. The younger Binder twitched, and her left arm rose and slapped herself on the cheek. She blinked, then shook her head.

“Ah. I see.” Lori moved her Whisperer. “Do you play much?”

Shanalorre paused, then shook her head. “No. I simply know how to play. You will be my first opponent.”

Lori couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. Had Shanalorre simply watched her mother play? Lori herself had learned over a game when she had asked one of her mothers to teach her while they had been taking shelter during a dragon’s passing. It had been her first loss among many, a memory that made Lori twitch still, indistinct as it was from time and age.

When Rian returned, he was carrying another plate of honey bread, a pitcher of water, a cup and a wooden stool. Humming, he placed the stool down, then placed the plate, the pitcher and the cup on top of the seat. “The meat’s cooking, and the first batch should be done soon,” he said cheerfully. “Do you have a preferred cut, Great Binder?”

Shanalorre glanced towards him, then towards Lori. Lori waved her hand dismissively. “Something soft and tasty?” the younger Dungeon Binder asked. “Please?”

“Got it,” Rian said. “How about you, your Bindership? Need anything else?”

Lori waved her hand again, focusing on the game board as she tapped her Whisperer, then took one of Shanalorre's militia within the piece's range out of play…