Demesne 254 - Further Adjustments (Patreon)

"I thought of a way to deal with the problem of moisture getting in through the door when it's open," Rian said before breakfast the next day.

"Oh?" Lori said idly as she waited for Umu and Mikon to arrive with the food. Off to the side, Shanalorre listened curiously.

Rian nodded enthusiastically. "Instead of putting the door on the same wall as the air intake, why not put it opposite the air intake. That way, the intake is always pushing air, and when the door is open any air will be pushed out instead of being pulled in. That way you don't need to do anything strange to the door either. Well, except treating it against humidity."

"Hmm…" she nodded disinterestedly.

"And as to the issue of the air being too hot for people, why not separate the source of heat from the air intake?" Rian continued. "Or at least, have an intake that only circulates air, and another intake that actually generates hot air. That way, the air pressure can keep out humidity while the door is open and people are bringing things in or taking them out, but the shed won't be so hot as to be harmful to people. We can make some kind of hatch to go over the hot intake that can be opened and closed from outside before people go in." He smiled, looking proud of himself.

"Very good thinking, Rian," Lori said. "That is almost exactly like the idea I had yesterday when I was putting the overhangs on the intake hole to keep rainwater out. Well done."

Her lord blinked. "Oh."

She nodded.

"Well, that's good, then! Uh, so I should probably go back to the carpenters and tell them not to put a hole in the door, then?"

"Yes, you should get to that after breakfast. While you're there you can also ask about the progress on your bed."

"So, the water in the river is getting lower!" Rian said loudly. "We should be able to go down to River's Fork soon!"

"You don't have to yell it out, Rian," Lori said. "I'm right in front of you."

"Ah, sorry."

At that moment, Umu, Mikon, and—Lori checked the rock she was carrying—Yllian arrived with the food. The latter was carrying food for himself and Shanalorre, who accepted her bowl and bread with a soft, "Thank you, Uncle Yllian." Lori took one of the five bowls the weavers put down on the table, nodding her head in acknowledgement as she started to eat.

Uncharacteristically, Rian focused on his food instead of reporting to her. Lori was content to let him.

She made a note to go back to the dehydrator shed and put in a second intake vent for warm air before she anchored the bindings of airwisps that would help circulate the air inside the shed. After all, she had only said it was almost exactly like her idea. That had been a good suggestion on Rian's part…

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After making a second hole like Rian had suggested and anchoring a binding of only airwisps and waterwisps on it draw air into the dehydration shed. The other hole would be drawing in the actual hot air, which would be blocked off with a panel of some sort. Reluctantly, she deactivated the firewisps around her so she could assess how hot to resulting stream of air was. She had to add a binding of airwisps after the two intakes to combine the two streams of air together, but once that was done, the resulting stream of hot air was as hot as the original binding.

Combined with the binding of airwisps to softly distribute air within the shed, Lori felt that the shed was ready to, if not actually start dehydrating whatever needed to be dehydrated, then at least be tested to see if it worked. Well, as soon as the doors were in place. Though if it was just a test, all she needed to do was seal the doorway. So she didn't even need to wait for the door to test it.

…

Did she have anything to test it with?

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She found Rian by the simply expedient of using her awareness of the wisps in her demesne to find the rock with the binding of lightwisps she'd given him. He carried the rock with him in his belt pouch all the time for some reason. She supposed it was useful when he was going inside buildings like the storage shed and the mushroom farm, but it wasn't like he went into those places every day…

Lori realized she didn't really know if her lord did that. For all she knew, he inspected every structure in the demesne every day, which… would actually explain what he did for most of the day, actually. Probably not every day, since he… probably had other things to do…

…

Well, he was easy to find because he had the rock with the binding of lightwisps on it, so Lori was able to go to where he was helping dig tree stumps out of the ground where they had cut down trees the season before. Lori was amused to see that despite the rare bright sun shining down—though she could see thick, dark clouds on the horizon that threatened rain later—that had many of the other men working with him removing their shirts from the heat, Rian both still had his shirt on, and seemed to be shivering. Did he actually feel cold?

"Rian!" Lori called, and he looked up from where he'd been digging in the ground. Realizing who was calling for him, he handed his shovel to another man, who took his place in digging out the stump, and headed towards her.

"Yes, your Bindership?" he said, wiping sweat from his brow.

"I need to test the dehydrator shed. What food do we have to test it with?"

Rian blinked, clearly adjusting the flow of his thoughts, but after a moment's consideration, he said, "Mushrooms. Right now, we're storing them in the cold room to keep them fresh since we can't really sun-dry them. Actually, they'd just harvested some when we went to inspect the mushroom farm. We can ask them for some and try it in the dehydrator shed."

Lori nodded. "Good. Go get some mushrooms to dry while I make sure the dehydrator is ready."

"Ah, do we have anywhere to put things to dry on?"

She blinked at him. "There's plenty of floor."

"You want to put food on the floor? I mean, it might work for vigas, but mushrooms don't have skins to peel off, so…"

…

"Do you want me to get one or two of the benches or something so we've got someplace to put the mushrooms on that's off the ground?"

"Yes, you should probably go do that."

Rian nodded. "One bench should be fine, since this is only a test. We can't use too many mushrooms, after all. Maybe just a plate's worth. Or at least, it will all fit in a plate. Will the airflow be mild enough to not send mushrooms flying?"

"I'll adjust it to make sure," Lori said as they both started walking to go about their tasks.

"Did you remember to put the binding to keep bugs out on the dehydrator shed?"

Lori blinked, turning to look at him. "What?"

"The binding to keep out bugs. I mean, it's a nice, warm place where we'll be leaving food unattended for long periods of time."

…

Ugh, she hated it when he had a point.

"I'll put it on the all the openings," she sighed. The two intake vents and the exhaust vent… the door when it had one…

"We'll need to have some kind of shelves made for it when it's ready," Rian said. "Not just a table. That way we can dry more things at the same time."

Lori frowned at the thought. "I'll need to adjust the how the airwisps circulate the air inside if we do…"

"Well, that's for after the test. Right now, we're just going to see if it works, right?"

"Yes… right now, it's just a test." A thought occurred to her. "Do you know how long it takes to dry mushrooms?"

"The farmers will probably know," Rian said. "Hopefully they'll say the shed will be comparable or faster. Actually, it should be faster, it won't be dependent on daylight to dry the mushrooms. We can just leave them in there all day and night, and it won't be interrupted by clouds or rain…"

"Obviously, Rian. That's the whole point of the exercise. Are you done saying the blatantly obvious like a theater narrator?"

"In defense of theater narrators, it's not always obvious. Sometimes they're introducing the state of the setting at the beginning of the story."

Lori snorted. "It's bad writing! A competently written narrative would show it from the interaction between the characters rather than just having some non-character say it out loud."

"Yeah, you have a point there," Rian nodded. "But some things have to be said, such as a character being rich or handsome or beautiful or skilled, because the limits of the production can't afford the costumes or actors good-looking enough to be noticeably handsome, or actually be skilled enough at something to be able to fake it on stage. So really, it's not on the writing competence, it's on the resources of those interpreting the script."

"All right, perhaps there's some allowance for that. But that doesn't excuse the narration of character interactions!"

"Well, bad writing exists. It might not even be because of the writer's skill. They might just not have enough time, or have requirements they can't write around, like one of the actor's parts being expanded for some reason or another…"

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A small amount of mushrooms were chosen and placed on a plate. Some of the smaller ones were kept whole, while some larger pieces were cut to expose more surface area.

While that was being prepared, Lori anchored the bindings to keep out bugs over the openings of the dehydration shed. Fortunately, none had made their way inside, but it had been a good reminder.

Instead of using a bench, Lori just used some stone to make a small pillar to keep the plate off the floor. After all, there was no need to occupy a good bench. After adjusting the airwisps so the wind they generated didn't blow the mushrooms off the plate, Lori activated the bindings—all of them—and sealed the doorway, leaving only a small opening for the exhaust vent.

"The farmers said that it would usually take a week of continuous sunlight for mushrooms to dry completely," Rian said as she finished closing up the shed. She could hear a strange almost-whistling as the hot air blew out of the narrow exhaust vent. "But we should probably check up on it every day. Need to take notes on every stage of the experiment, after all."

Lori frowned at him. "Test," she corrected.

"No, it's an experiment," he retorted. "Normal drying under sunlit conditions is the control, so testing the effects of using the dehydrator shed in place of sunlight has a changed variable. That makes it a proper experiment."

Lori blinked. He was right. "Colors," she swore. "Are you taking notes?"

"I don't have my plank on me, but—" he looked up. Some clouds had moved across the sky, making it lightly overcast, although on examination, it would likely keep getting darker until it rained again. "Well, we can record the relative time of the start of the experiment so we can note how long the test sample was in the dehydrator. Will that be enough for now?"

"It had better," she sighed. "Remember next time."

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian chirped.

She waved a hand dismissively. "Get back to what you were doing. I have go and convert one of the wood storage sheds into a dehydrator."

"Yes, your Bindership."

She turned to walk away.

"Uh, your Bindership?"

Lori glanced back at him. "What?"

"Do you know if that binding to repel bugs works on chokers and small beasts too?" Rian said. He was looking at the dehydrator shed.

"Not that I am aware…" Lori said warily. "Why do you ask?"

"Well…" Rian pointed. "Aren't those vents kind of low and big enough for chokers to climb into?"