Demesne 310 - Sealing The Dungeon (Patreon)

Each of the mine's doors were finally closed, wooden bars slid into place onto brackets to keep them from opening, blocks of stone stacked against the doors for emphasis, and stone pulled from the ground acting as backstops to secure the doors from swinging open at all. The stone around the first door had been reinforced with a binding of earthwisps for a pace in all directions. The reinforcement wasn't as extensive as the one in her own demesne, but she didn't have a core to keep it imbued here.

The multiple layers of barriers seemed to give the militia who had moved the prepared blocks of stone in place peace of mind. No doubt they thought the barriers would be more than sufficient to keep dragon born abominations away from them.

In Lori's experience, this was foolishness as long as the dungeon—or in this instance, the dragon shelter—needed air vents to draw in fresh air to keep people from asphyxiating. The openings could be entered by small dragon born abominations, which had been the bane of her defenses.

At least, they hadbeen the bane of her defenses. Hopefully, her newest addition to her defenses would allow her to stop worrying about them.

Deil and Tackir settled second enormous wispbead into place atop one of the two receptacles set in the third alcove, touching the metal contact point on the bottom.

"All right," Lori said, nodding in satisfaction that she didn't have to be the one to move the wispbead this time. "That's enough for now, you two. I'll take it from here, and then we should be safe until the dragon finally passes." She paused. "Well, at least until the water runs out."

"We have plenty of water, Great Binder," Riz assured her. "Rian's been making sure to keep having barrels built and shipped here. The water we have should last us a week, and Lord Yllian has someone watching to make sure the water is being rationed properly."

Lori nodded absently. "Tell them as soon as I finish here, I'll come over to provide heat to cook by." She paused. "They did remember to bring the cooking things, didn't they?"

"Yes, Great Binder. Right now the ingredients are being prepared for dinner, and water being pulled up from deeper in the mine for washing. Though Lord Yllian is asking what we do with the wash water?"

"I'll get to that after I'm done here," Lori said, kneeling down next to the newly-placed bead to touch the metal contact point of the third receptacle next to it. Through it, she could feel the bindings of earthwisps, darkwisps and lightningwisps being imbued by the second bead. "Keep an eye out for interruptions."

The darkwisps were as well as they could be, and the earthwisps were continuing to reinforce the rock, so she focused on the lightningwisps, finally activating the binding. The lightningwisps began to consume the magic she had imbued into them, and though she heard nothing, Lori imagined the sound of sparks crackling in the air as the activated binding made subtle lightning flow all through the air in the area that the lightningwisps covered. She sniffed at one of the vents from which the air drawn in, but there was no smell of burning wood, so she'd positioned the binding properly and the first door wasn't currently on fire.

Nodding to herself, she let the wire go, eyeing the large bead that was imbuing all the bindings. With the number of other bindings it was supporting, as well as the larger scale of those bindings compared to the ventilation bound tool, she had no doubt that the second bead would run be consumed at a far greater rate than the first one. It was why there were so many spare beads in the alcove. With the bead in place, she took the other wooden panels for the receptacles and slid them into place around and on top of the second bead. The panels were far more for this receptacle, because if it was removed from the metal contact for any reason, all the bindings it was imbuing would dissolve. Given that it was imbuing their primary defenses…

Yes, they wouldn't want that bead to move out of place.

Lori grabbed her staff, imbuing the binding of lightwisps on it. "All right," she said. "Come on, let's see about getting ourselves some lunch."

Riz nodded. "Uh, do you want me to have Deil or Tackir to come here and watch to make sure no one touches your things, Great Binder?"

…

"Yes, get them both. I'll wait here."

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Once the two carpenters arrived and had been told of the importance of not letting anyone touch Lori's things, the importance of immediately getting her if they smell smoke, and the importance of screaming loudly if a dragon born abomination suddenly appeared, Lori went with Riz towards the main area of the shelter. Located next to the food storage, it was where the population of the demesne was intended to reside for the duration of the dragon's passing.

Lori was reminded how much this wasn't her Dungeon as she saw how dark the shelter was. The only light was coming from two of the three wisplights in the demesne, which had been placed in the middle of the space of the shelter to illuminate the space. Everyone was sitting along the walls of the shelter, probably both to keep people behaved and so that no one was blocking the light. The third wisplight was off to one corner of the shelter, illuminating the small food preparation area, next to where someone was cutting up ingredients for what was probably lunch.

The relative darkness meant that when she entered, the binding of lightwisps on her staff immediately made the room brighter and drew everyone's attention to her. She ignored the murmur of the conversation around her as she walked directly towards the vicinity of the third light. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone stand and start walking purposefully towards her, but a woman next to him grabbed the back of his shirt and several nearby men grabbed his arms, one of them slapping a hand over his mouth.

The people working on what was presumably their next meal were cutting up hard-looking meat—probably fresh from the cold box of the food storage and still partly frozen—pealing tubers and cracking grains of vigas glanced up at her. She kept her eyes on the knives they held until Riz interposed herself in front of Lori.

Satisfied, the Dungeon Binder knelt down in front of the stone stove. Lori held her staff on the crook of one elbow as she rubbed her palms together, moving briskly until the heat of friction arose. Quickly, she claimed and bound the firewisps that resulted, then held up one hand towards the light anchored to her staff, claiming and binding lightwisps in the air. Lori formed the firewisps and lightwisps together into a single binding as she imbued it, drawing on her connection from her core for the magic.

Once she felt the binding was sufficiently imbued to last long enough to cook something, Lori reached inside the stove and anchored the binding to the bottom of the firebox. Drawing back her hand, she reached down to her belt knife and drew out the blade. With one finger touching the blade, she reached back inside and tapped the tip of the knife until she felt the binding. She activated the binding, then quickly drew back her hand as a bright red light and heat began to emanate from the firebox.

"That should be enough to cook with," Lori said as she sheathed her belt knife. Well, tried to. She got it on the fourth try. "Treat it like a real fire and don't stick your hand inside. if it runs out before you finish cooking, tell—" Lori resisted the urge to reach into her belt pouch and feel around for a rock, "—Yllian or Riz, and they'll bring it to my attention." Had Yllian factored the cooking water into the drinking water ration?

…

Lori decided to just assume he had, and hoped they didn't run out of water as a result.

She vaguely heard their words of acknowledgement as she looked around, trying to remember what she had to do next. Oh, right, the wash water. Yes, that was a problem, wasn't it? They might not have enough water to use on washing—and bathing too—but they did have some water flooding the deeper part of the mine that… well, was probably relatively clean. At the moment, anyway. It certainly wouldn't stay that way if that was where they would throw away their wash water.

Which meant Lori had between now and until the kitchen finished cooking to make something to deal with the issue.

Did they even have anything to draw that water with? Didn't they just use all the buckets to plant the crops they'd taken from the fields?

…

Sighing, Lori absently checked her own demesne, and if Rian had—

She stopped. There it was. The binding of lightwisps on that was anchored to the rock she'd given Rian had been place atop another binding of lightwisps on a little stone shelf next to the door of her Dungeon. It was signal to seal up her dungeon and activate its defenses.

Lori straightened up, grabbing her staff. "Erzebed, with me." She began hurrying back towards the alcove where she had left her things, her temporary-Rian following after her.

She found Deil and Tackir leaning against the wall opposite where the buckets of uprooted crops was… probably because she and Riz had taken the light with them when they had left. Ah… well, at least they were positioned to intercept anyone heading towards her things, though they were unlikely to smell burning wood or hear any dragon born abominations coming unless they were noisy.

Yes… she might have to anchor down more lightwisps when she was done.

Claiming some lightwisps from the air around the illumination on her staff, she anchored it to the wall opposite her alcove before she went over to her niche—he pack was still in place—and lay down. "Don't let anyone disturb me," Lori told Riz. "Same conditions as before. If that idiot doctor comes here—" distantly, she heard what sounded like a heated exchange, though because of the echoes in the tunnel she couldn't tell if it was coming closer or not, "—feel free to use violence to keep him away."

Riz smirked. "Yes, Great Binder."

With one last nod, Lori closed her eyes and reached through her connection to her demesne's core, through the core's connection to the wisps of her demesne. She altered the binding of lightwisps the rock was resting, activating and deactivating it to make it pulse, letting Rian know she'd received the signal. The voids of wisps near the binding moved, and eventually one reached out and removed the rock—Rian, presumably, unless he'd assigned someone to do it. They knew she would be making alterations now.

The first thing she did was look for Lori's Ice Boat. She found it on the riverbank a little ways down from the laundry area, surrounded by voids of wisps that were most likely people. Lori reached out and found the binding of waterwisps that kept the boat's hull solid, and almost dissolved the binding before realizing that would mean the hull simply became ice. Ice that was the coldest it was possible for ice to be. That… wouldn't be safe to handle.

She searched and found some firewisps in the air, claiming that and binding it. Lori  made the binding radiate heat as she moved it down towards the boat, claiming the other firewisps in the air that resulted and integrating them to the binding. As the firewisps reached the boat, she integrated them to the binding of waterwisps.

Then she slowly altered the binding on the hull make it change state from ice to water.

The ice tried to draw in heat from its surroundings, which the firewisps provided, otherwise the air would have become dangerously cold, cold enough to liquefy air. From the way the voids of wisps recoiled from the boat, the air still grew chill enough to be startling. Soon however, all of the hull had been reduced to water. There was just enough water on the wooden frame and planks of the boat for her to be able to distinguish it as the voids of wisps all surrounded the remains of the boat again and, after a few moment, raise up the boat and start carrying it towards her Dungeon.

Lori claimed, bound and anchored lightwisps to the ground to draw a trail towards her Dungeon before she began moving the bindings of darkwisps she had made before leaving her demesne. Because she had claimed them while it had still been dark, the darkwisps covered most of her demesne, with only the areas around her Dungeon where she had lighwisps anchored to buildings, the uppermost reaches of the demesne's sphere where there had been stronger concentrations of lightwisps, and along the river where she had moved the darkwisps so they could navigate being exceptions. Lori formed the darkwisps into a proper dome over her demesne, obscuring the light from the sun.

She claimed the darkwisps that appeared beneath the dome, binding them with the dome above and making sure the darkwisps were in contact with the same contact point as the binding of lightningwisps across the entryway at the entrance of her Dungeon. The wire imbued the darkwisps directly from her Dungeon's core, sustaining it continuously. Now no matter what magic the dragon would throw down at her demesne, the darkwisps would act as an ablative layer, consuming imbuement to blunt and resist whatever wisps, thoughts, vistas or life was thrown at it. And since the dome was wired directly to her core, it would have all the imbuement it could possibly need.

The dome meant that, at best, all she would need to worry about as sources of damage to her demesne's infrastructure would be physical objects such as dragon scales and other objects falling from the sky, fierce winds, and violent dragon born abominations. While damaging, the scale of the damage would be far smaller than whatever the dragon could cause directly. Lori waited for the voids of wisps carrying the frame that had been Lori's Ice Boat to get inside her Dungeon, double checking that all the pipes and entrances were sealed.

Finally, the voids of wisps entered her Dungeon, and there was a change in the distribution of airwisps that she recognized as the front door being shut. This was confirmed when the binding of lightwisps on the rock she'd given Rian was again placed on the little shelf, even though they'd only discussed that doing so was the signal for sealing her Dungeon. Lori made the binding of lightwisps on the shelf flicker again in confirmation. She would need to talk to her lord about this later. Using the signal like this hadn't been in their discussions!

With Her Dungeon finally sealed, she began to make the final alteration for its defenses. The stone floor in the middle of her Dungeon's entryway began to sink. Some of the stone was displaced to further seal off the door of the dungeon from the entryway, leaving the only balcony-like stone platform three paces above the door open to the entryway. Behind the balcony, in the stone above the door, vents drew in fresh are for the Dungeon.

The sinking pit made a shear wall under the balcony, even as a gentle slope formed on the end towards the entrance of the entryway. Once the pit had sunk deeply enough, Lori opened a pipe from the water hub shed that she had sealed earlier, and the pit began to fill with water. When the water reached a sufficient depth, she sealed off the pipe again, then configured the binding of lightningwisps, anchoring it to the stone on either side and the water underneath. Finally, Lori altered the binding of lightning wisps from one that merely irritated and repelled bugs to one that produced circulating currents of lightning in the air meant to kill anything that passed through it… just like the binding she had placed on the vent grates at the entrance of the mine.

If this didn't keep bugs out… well, then she'd have to see what else she could come up with. Hopefully, Rian and the militia would be able to repel whatever did come through.

Lori sighed in relief as she opened her eyes and sat up with a wince at the hard stone beneath her. It was finally done. Both her Dungeon and this mine had been secured against dragons to the best of her ability.

Now all she had to worry about was someone in the shelter with her trying to kill her.