Weekly Digest 100 - (#317 - #319) (Patreon)

To Not Shirk Responsibilities

"Tah," Karina greeted her with a wide, welcoming smile as she arrived at the alcove. "Did you talk to Lord Rian?"

She returned Karina's greeting with a nod. "Yes. It was difficult, but I was able to convince him to rest. Ateh Mikon and Ateh Umu were very helpful in getting him to agree. I should have more than two hours to sleep, by the water clock Lord Rian had filled, but knowing him, I probably have a little more than that."

"Do you want me to wake you?"

"No, let Lord Rian have his little lapse. At the latest, I should wake up for dinner, at which point we will speak, and he will go to sleep properly."

Karina nodded. "We washed Yoshka's hands and face and had her gargle to clean her mouth."

"Thank you. I apologize for asking you to stay up, but it's necessary."

"Don't worry," Karina said. "I know you wouldn't ask me to do this if it wasn't important. Now lie down and go to sleep so you can get as much rest as you can."

Sleeping in one of the alcove's stone niches was a new experience for her, since in her previous times sleeping in the dungeon, she'd had a bed. While the bed in her house had been moved into the dungeon, like most of the beds that had been brought in, it had been moved down into the third level and stored in one of the many excavation tunnels that Binder Lolilyuri had left unfinished.

Her bedroll provided cushioning against the hard stone, though it was noticeably harder than the wooden beds she had slept on previously. Shana didn't complain, though she folded the blanket on top of the bed roll so it would provide Yoshka with additional cushioning. Her cousin lay down next to her with sullen reluctance, but she knew the younger girl would soon be asleep. Yoshka fell asleep quite easily.

Lying on her back, her pillow cushioning her head, Shana helped her cousin to find a comfortable position. Though she closed her eyes, she waited until Yoshak's breathing had become even before she relaxed her own hold on wakefulness. The tiredness of the early morning's waking that she had been holding at bay came rushing forward, and her consciousness was subsumed by darkness as her arms weakly tightened her hold on Yoshka.

She fell asleep.

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Karina woke her up just before dinner as everyone was moving upstairs for the day's dinner. Even with the rather extended day, they were maintaining the day's usual schedule, and that included dinner.

When she had attained full wakefulness, the first thing Shana heard was the distant, fading sounds of music. She discerned the whistles of flutes and pipes, the twanging of strings, and reverberations of things hitting other things as drums even as they began to cut off and fade away. She could feel the radiance of the lights on the ceiling outside the alcove, and they made her wince involuntarily as she opened her eyes.

Karina's smiling face leaning over her was the first thing she saw, her bright orange hair in sharp contrast to the muted and slightly smeared colors of the stone top of the niche. "Tah!" she greeted cheerfully. "Did you have a good rest?"

"I did," Shana said. "Be careful, you might hit your head on the stone."

"Don't worry, I'll be—" she cut off as she straightened up and the back of her head struck the top of the niche with a resounding impact. "Ow!"

Shana sighed. "Come here, I'll make the pain go…"

Karina meekly knelt down next to her so their heads were on the same level, and Shana raised one of her hands from holding Yoshka and gently placed it on top of Karina's head.

Between one breath and the next, Shana became aware of the life in Karina's body. Even now, she could not truly distinguish between the life beyond 'alive', 'inert' and 'disordered', and could not see how she could even begin making any changes to the life to do… well, anything. She simply did, doing one thing without really know what it was specifically.

Shana did it now, drawing magic from her distant, buried core and letting it flow down the life in her arm and into the life in Karina's body, claiming and taming the disordered-looking life at the back of Karina's head. She hesitated then tamed allthe life in Karina's head to be safe, in case her friend had given herself a brain injury.

And with the imbuement of magic, Shana… healed her.

It was an inadequate way of referring to the process. As a savant, the meaning that Shana did was instinctive, and even with her near-nonexistent understanding of what she did, she could tell that the meaning affected several things seemingly near-instantaneously in all of tamed life, and all the life in the back of Shana's head went from 'disordered' to 'alive'. This included life that she hadn't tamed in her initial claim. Hopefully this meant that Karina would not develop mental difficulties in future. "There. Is that better?"

"Yes! It doesn't hurt anymore! Thanks, Shana!" Karina tried to stand up again, even as Shana kept her hand on her friend's head, and so it was the back of Shana's hand that struck the stone edge of the alcove instead of Karina's head again. "Ah! Sorry!"

"It's all right, Karina," Shana said, shaking her he and to try and diffuse the sting. "I'll just heal it as well. Can you tell me what happened while I was asleep as I take care of waking Yoshka?" She sat up carefully so that she wouldn't repeat Karina's mistake, even though there was enough headroom.

She listened as Karina described organizing some of the older children to go downstairs and tend to the plots of the dungeon farm while she sat Yoshka upright, gently rocking her sideways. Waking Yoshka abruptly made her very distressed, so she had to be woken up slowly. There was a dull impact and barely cut off colorful language as Ateh Kayas struck her head on the top of the niche she'd been sleeping in. Her bright pink hair disheveled, the weaver cradled her head as she sat in her niche while Karina described how she had taken the older children to take baths after working, so all the older children had gotten washed up and gotten the runoff-water smell from them.

"After dinner, I'll take everyone else to the baths to wash up so they can go to sleep refreshed," Shana said.

"I'll help," Karina instantly replied.

"There's no need, Karina. You've been up longer than me, you need your rest."

"I'm not that tired. Besides, I still need to get my brothers and sisters to take a bath too."

She was clearly lying, but Shana let it go. She wasn't going to disrespect her friend's offer, and besides, the other girl had managed to get some sleep earlier. Even if Shana had needed to wave off flying bugs to keep them making a den in Karina's mouth and possibly eating her tongue. "Very well. Thank you."

It was slightly hypocritical, given her discussions with Lord Rian, but she could do nothing but acknowledge the state of affairs.

When Yoshka started making incoherent mewling sounds, Shana knew she was… well, 'awake' was probably an overstatement… 'not-asleep' enough to stand and walk in an only slightly-uncoordinated fashion. With a practiced movement, Shana picked up Yoshka and hefted her up so that her head and arms were settled on Shana's shoulder as she slid one arm under her cousin's hips to support her with the ease and grace of practice. Yoshka's arms moved, wrapping around Shana out of formed habit to secure herself.

Carrying her cousin, Shana walked towards Ateh Kayas. "Would you like me to heal you?" she offered.

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It was strange to sit at Binder Lolilyuri's bench and table without her. However, she needed to speak to Lord Rian, and there wasn't room for him to join her at her table. They were already full of children, and the addition of Yrria and Tena pushed the table to the limits of its capacity.

Shana made a point of avoiding sitting in the middle of the bench, were Binder Lolilyuri sat. Instead, she sat at her usual location to the left of it. Usually, this meant that she would be speaking to Lord Rian at an angle, since he sat opposite Binder Lolilyuri, but today he'd moved sideways to face her. The man looked like he had to force his eyes open, and while Ateh Mikon and Ateh Umu sat close to him on either side as usual, today it seemed to be to keep him upright.

The resemblance to Yoshka, sitting on the bench next to her and asleep with her head rest on her folded arms on the table, was very strong.

"Should you be eating in your state, Lord Rian?" she asked, concerned.

"No, which is why I won't be," he said. He was looking at her with only one eye. The other was shut as if already sleeping, and the eyelid of the open one was fluttering as if threatening to fall as well. "I hope you don't think me rude if I try to keep this quick? Otherwise I might fall asleep on you." One hand reached up to rub at his closed eye as he visibly forced it to open.

"You need not make such excuses with me, Lord Rian," Shana said. "Very well. Let us converse quickly. I can get food for myself and Yoshka when we finish."

Rian nodded, and he sat there still for a moment with his eyes closed before he forced them open again. "Uh, sorry… All right, so, the sounds haven’t gone away all day. They've been getting louder and louder though, and the consensus is they're explosions. We don't know what's exploding, but if it's exploding, then those are our crops probably ruined…"

Shana frowned, her thoughts turning to the exposed crops of her demesne. "That is worrisome for the state of things later…" she said. "Have there been any sigh of dragonborn abominations of any sort?"

"None yet," Rian said, sounding relieved. "Hopefully this means there aren't any or Lori's lightningwisp killing thing is working. Though since we haven't smelled any burning lightning smells yet, it might be the former. Beyond that, nothing to report Lady Binder."

Shana nodded. "A state of affairs that will hopefully continue. Very well, Lord Rian. I will keep watch for the rest of the night, with your permission."

"You've got it, for whatever good it does…" Rian's voice cut off as he raised a hand to his mouth, sparing the world the sight of it wide open as he yawned hugely. "Sorry. Uh, let's see, what else…? Uh, Cassan is keeping an eye on the clock for me, but he'll need to rest soon too. Kolinh's cycled out early, right now Kovla's in charge of the volunteers, and Yhohim after him in a couple more hours. They're in charge of defense, but if anything non-urgent comes up, they'll know to come to you."

"I understand, Lord Rian. Hopefully it will not be necessary to wake you."

"You presume I'll wake up." He paused. "That sounds morbid." He rubbed his eyes again. "Uh, I think that's it?"

It probably wasn't. "That should be it, Lord Rian," Shana agreed. She'll need to find out the state of the latrines, the rate of water use, and any disciplinary matters, if only so she could report it to Lord Rian for him to decide when he woke up. "Rest well."

Rian nodded. "I'll just… sleep here…" he said, folding his arms on the table top and getting ready to lay down his head.

"Oh no," Ateh Mikon said gently but firmly. "You're going to downstairs. The bedroll's laid out, and if you fall asleep, we might not be able to wake you up to get you to move." She kissed his cheek. "Now, please get up. Unlike Yoshka, you're too heavy to carry."

Lord Rian sighed, but pushed himself to his feet, swaying with his eyes closed. The two weavers next to him helped him up, pushing back the bench instead of stepping over it. He sighed again and forced his eyes open. "I'll go splash water on my face first before trying to go down the stairs," he said, turning towards the baths in the back of the dining hall.

Ateh Mikon and Ateh Umu went with him, helping him navigate between the other tables of the dining hall.

Over at the kitchen, they started serving food.

Shana swung her legs over the bench, turning to Karina who was sitting at the bench behind her. "Come on Karina, let's take everyone to get their food."

She still had this responsibility, after all. Binder Lolilyuri never shirked her responsibilities, so she couldn't either.

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Sleeping And Waking

Dinner was without incident, especially after Yoshka fully woke up to eat. Yrria and Tena finally relaxed during the meal, apparently taking comfort in the familiarity of the food. After dinner, she, Karina, Ateh Koyan and Ateh Kayas took the younger ones to the baths.

The dungeon's bath was much smaller than the bath houses outside the people regularly used. Most of the time it was unused since Binder Lolilyuri had made it clear it was for emergencies only, and people had more convenient and comfortable facilities at their disposal. Now, however, everyone was staying inside the Dungeon due to the dragon—

…

…

Shana found herself blinking, coming back to her senses as the disruptive emotions receded, and found Yoshka grinning up at her, her cousin's hand mashing her cheek in circles. "Please stop that, Yoshka."

Yoshka giggled, but put her hand down.

Everyone was staying inside, so using these baths were the only option available to them to use. The bath's capacity was much smaller than the others outside, so Shana and the children under her care all had to wait as others who had entered the baths before them finished. Fortunately, the arrangement of the dungeon's baths discouraged lingering. Shana had never used the baths beyond washing her hands before dinner until now.

Unlike the demesne's other baths, it had no anteroom for people to get undressed and put away their clothes. There was only a pair of blocking walls that kept people from seeing inside, in keeping from Binder Lolilyuri's views on propriety. Since the arrangement seemed to keep out most drafts, no one really complained despite how cramped the entrance to the baths could be when many people were trying to get in and out.

As they waited, other children joined their group, all carrying their bath buckets were towels and a change of clothes. With Binder Lolilyuri's bath houses, everyone had gotten into the habit of washing off after a sweaty day, and everyone clearly intended that today would be no different.

Normally, clothes would be worn for as long as people could stand them in the summer—and in other season, really—but at Lord Rian's urging, people had taken to changing out their clothes when possible, so as to give soiled clothes time to be given a shallow washing in water to get some of the sweat off. Normally, clothes were washed in soap, but with the summer's heat and everyone sweating so much, it was done in this way to ration out their soap supplies.

Shana herself carried her bucket with her soap, toweling, and a set of shallow-washed clothes. Later, when she had time, she intended to take the set she was wearing and wash them as well to get the smell off so that they would be reasonably wearable

Eventually, it was their turn.

Fortunately, most knew how to bathe themselves, and for those young enough to need help, Shana, Karina, the two Ateh, or one of the older children were there to help. Most of what Shana and the others had to do was remind everyone not to use too much water of make a mess by splashing it everywhere on the floor. Some also needed help washing their hair, since the younger ones couldn't put soap on their head and close their eyes at the same time. With everyone having been restricted to the dungeon though, there were fewer instances of mud and small pebbles falling out of someone's hair during washing.

Then everyone had to be toweled and dried, which required a lot of reminding because there were those who would have been perfectly fine with walking out of the baths still dripping wet to try to keep cool in the summer heat.

"No," Shana said resolutely as she picked up the dripping wet Febe by her underarms and carried her back to be toweled off by Ateh Kayas. "If you go out there dripping, you'll leave water all over the ground, and people could slip and hurt themselves, you especially. The mess will also make it more difficult for the uncles and aunties who clean the floors of the dining hall. Do you want to give people more work to do?"

"But it's hot…!" Febe whined.

"No it won't be," Shana said patiently. "We're sleep in the dungeon tonight, remember? It won't be hot."

"Oh! Yay!"

Shana placed the girl in front of Ateh Kayas and her toweling, who made the younger girl giggle with pokes at her ticklish spots as she was dried. Shana was glad the two women were learning to be more patient with the children. They had been a bit overwhelmed when they had first started living with her to help tend the children, but in the past months the two had gotten better at it.

Once everyone was done, Shana led her charges down to her alcove, where all the game boards and few carved toys were set aside to one corner so that everyone could start laying down their bedrolls together. The bedrolls were layered for added padding, and some blankets were put on top of them, since blankets were easier to wash than bedrolls. Then it was the usual confused tangle as everyone tried to get a comfortable spot without anyone's feet in their face.

Shana laid out her and Yoshka's bedroll next to where Yrria and Tena lay on the edge of the sleep tangle and sat down on it to keep them company.

Yoshka sat down next to her without a pout. "I'm not sleepy," she insisted. "I just slept!"

"I know, Yoshka," Shana said as she sat back. "I'll just make sure that Yrria and Tena can sleep well, and then the I'll be going up. You can play upstairs while you're waiting for me if you want." She reached up and grabbed their pillow, then set it down next to her.

"I'm not going to sleep," Yoshka insisted, but she lay down and put her head on the pillow. "I'm just lying down."

Shana nodded, one hand drooping down so two of her fingers could gently stroke Yoshka's hair. "You're just lying down."

Yrria and Tena took a while to fall asleep. The two of them were uncomfortable in their new surroundings, and the constant, unchanging light of the Dungeon was probably brighter than they were used to. The other children were sleeping with an arm over their eyes or simply with their back to the opening of the alcove, clearly used to the Dungeon and Binder Lolilyuri's occasional bouts of thoughtlessness on the matter.

The second level of the Dungeon suddenly plunged into darkness, making Yrria and Tena cry out and Shana glanced out of the alcove in surprise. Ah. It looked like Binder Lolilyuri had either remembered or had been reminded. She reached into her belt pouch and drew out the rock that emitted light that she had been given, setting it down on the ground next to her. The two young girls shuffled closer to her, their hands grasping. Shana reached down and took their hands in hers.

"Don't worry," she said as gently as she could manage. Beyond the alcove, a dim light returned, weak like the light of a single moon. "I'm here. You're safe."

"I want to go home," Tena said plaintively. "I want my inay and itay."

…

…

…

…

…

Shana blinked, coming back to her senses as the disruptive emotions receded. "You'll go home," she said gently. "You'll see them again. After this is all over, you can go back home."

Eventually, the two fell asleep, the long day and the relative gloom of the second level lulling them unconscious. Shana carefully let go of their hands, adjusting their blanket so they wouldn't get too cold. With the added light of her glowing rock, she checked over the other children. Most were asleep, and those that weren't were slowly getting there. The Yoshka's snoring quieted as Shana adjusted her cousin's her head, even though she knew her cousin wouldn't be loud enough to wake anyone.

Picking up her glowing rock, she placed it on the bench next to Ateh Kayas. "Here. Use this if you're going to be spinning."

Ateh Kayas smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Lady Binder," she said. "I'll watch over them. You can go take care of things."

Shana nodded. "Thank you. I'm sorry you have to stay up like this."

"I know how the children need to be watched, Lady Binder," Ateh Kayas said as she flicked her wrist to get her spindle turning. "Go. I'll be fine here."

She nodded again and left.

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The first matter Shana checked on was whether Lord Rian was in fact sleeping as he'd said he would be.

Lord Rian's alcove was the one in the far corner of the second level, next to the sealed off alcove where Binder Lolilyuri stored things she worked on that she didn't feel like keeping in her room above the dining hall. The alcoves around them hadn't been properly claimed by families, and were mostly used for storage for things like jars of vigas, or the room where flour was milled.

Unlike everyone else, there was a bed in the alcove, a large and wide one meant for several people at once. Currently, it's only occupant was sleeping Lord Rian, with Ateh Umu cuddled against him on one side and Ateh Mikon on the other. Lord Rian's leg was twitching slightly, but was being held down by Ateh Mikon's, meaning all it could do was jerk up slightly.

The next thing she did was check with the medics and doctors if there were any injuries. While there were probably no serious hurts or possible infections since no one had been referred to her, there might be more minor things that weren't considered worth interrupting her. Upstairs, the dining hall was still as brightly lit as usual, with some people sitting at the table to play board games. The baths were still in use, not everyone having managed to take a bath yet.

There was still a congregation of people near the entrance of the Dungeon. In addition to the on-duty volunteers and the currently off-duty volunteers keeping them company, a space had been cleared and several bed rolls had been laid out on the floor, with several people sleeping on them. More volunteers, those too tired to stay awake but wanting to be nearby in case they were needed.

At a nearby table, aunt Medic Parndal was keeping an eye one a pottery waterclock that was dripping water down into a bucket. A small handful of stones was piled next to the water clock, and a line of three stones stood in front of her, likely a counter of some sort.

Shana decided to go there first. "Medic Parndal," she greeted as she drew close to the table.

The woman looked blinked sleepily as she looked up, a few strands of her pale blue hair having escaped from bun. "Oh, Shasha…" she said blearily, before she shook her head, rubbing her eyes. "I mean, Lady Binder. W-what can I do for you?" She was clearly repressing the urge to yawn.

"I'm inquiring as to injuries," Shana said. "Are there any injuries I should know about."

"Oh, nothing to worry about, Lady Binder," aunt Medic Parndal said, standing up and stretching. Her movements weren't particularly tired, so perhaps she'd been simply bored and lulled by inactivity. "Only some aching fingers. No one dropped anything on themselves, no one got cut on anything."

That was a good to hear. It didn't mean no one would be injured from this point on—one of the stairs was near the baths, and she could imagine a chain of events involving someone dripping on the ground and someone slipping and falling down the stairs—but at least nothing of the sort had happened yet. Such would help with morale, she supposed. "Thank you. Would you like me to relieve you for the moment, or find you a replacement?"

"Oh, I don't need replacing yet, Sha—Lady Binder," aunt Medic Parndal said. "But if you're offering, I'll be glad for a chance to stretch my legs a little and get the blood flowing."

Shana nodded. "Does this mean three hours have passed, or that we are on our third hour?" she said, gesturing to the stones.

"Three hours passed," aunt Medic Parndal confirmed. "We think sundown was an hour ago, before we had dinner, but we're not very sure."

Shana nodded. "Very well. Take a moment to stretch, and if you could, please call Sargent Kovla for me so I can speak to him?"

She settled down on the bench, checking the level of the water and drawing the ladle from the bucket in preparation for refilling it.

Hopefully, it would be a long, boring night.

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Illumination and Water Reclamation

Once the mine was sealed, Lori would have liked to just seal off her alcove and sleep. They were secure behind her defenses, the lightningwisps should be sufficient to keep bugs or bug-like abominations out, they had air, and the mine and its intakes was sufficiently elevated that most deadly gasses that dragons would likely to produce—egg gas came to mind—would likely pass them by.

Unfortunately, besides someone trying to kill her, there were also other things she needed to do.

Unlike her Dungeon, she hadn't dug a large reservoir for the shelter as she had at home, partly because she hadn't wanted to ruin any buried copper ore, and partly because she hadn't wanted to invest the time away from her Dungeon. However, Rian and…uh… what was his—ah, Yllian! Rian and Yllian had made sure that the shelter had enough water for fifty people for a week. With the demesne's children in Lori's Demesne, there were less people than that—

Lori paused in her flow of thought, then sighed and sat up. "Erzebed," she called.

Riz stuck her head around the stone wall to look into the alcove. "Yes, Great Binder?"

"Is everyone accounted for?"

"Yes, Great Binder. Lord Yllian had everyone counted, then checked twice. Everyone that should be here is. I counted myself, as they were coming in, there are as many as there should be."

Lori nodded. "Good."

With the demesne's children in Lori's Demesne, there were less people than that amount needed to sustain, so they should be fine… as long as drinking and eating was allthey used that water for. And it likely wouldn't be. At the very least, they'd need to wash the utensils and cooking implements, because if anyone got sick…

In hindsight, perhaps Lori should have arrange some kind of signal with Shanalorre that would inform the other Dungeon Binder when someone in the shelter needed healing. Though even if anyone did get sick, it was unlikely to be serious enough that the ailment would kill them before the dragon finally left. They had never really managed to implement the idea of having Shanalorre heal anyone in a designated area because people had managed to avoid serious injury so far, and the Coldhold or Lori's Ice Boat had been in the other demesne often enough that if anyone was that seriously injured they could simply be brought to Shanalorre, or if they couldn't be moved Shanalorre could be brought to them.

Hopefully this state of affairs would hold, but if anyone did get sick, it would most likely be food poisoning or bowel disease, which would go through their water very quickly. Hence it was better to prevent it from happening at all with a little washing. She was fairly sure that soap was one of the emergency supplies in storage—

"Erzebed, do we have any soap?"

"It was stored near the water, Great Binder, as well as some clean sand for helping scour bowls and utensils," Riz said promptly.

They had soap for washing, and they had water. While that might be enough… she wasn't going to underestimate how wasteful people could be.

Grunting in annoyance, Lori got to her feet. "Come with me," she said, picking up her staff, "and have Deil and Tackir go back to watching this alcove." She glanced at the two receptacles, looking thought openings in the panels securing the beads letting her see their size. Both were still in place, and still looked the same size at the moment, the bead imbuing their active defenses not yet visibly getting smaller. A Horotract would have been able to tell, but she certainly couldn't. not yet, anyway. It should be fine for the next hour or so.

They walked back to the shelter area, the binding of lightwisps on her staff lighting their way. The shelter area hadn't been built the same as her Dungeon's second level. She'd had less space to work with, a reduced ability to do that work, and fraying patience while she had done so. As such, instead of alcoves, she'd simply made a large rectangular room with latrines next to the ramp that led up to it and the food preparation area. As shelters went, it was rather bare, without benches and tables to eat on, but—

"Did they remember to bring in the bowls and utensils?"

"Yes, Great Binder, they remembered to do that. We won't have to try eating with our hands."

—they'd have bowls and utensils, at least.

And if Lori managed to build what she had in mind before any water was wasted, they'd have the water to wash all that without significantly impacting their water reserves.

First things first, however: the main shelter area was too dark. She couldn't work in such conditions.

Lori held out her hand, slowly moving it back and forth through the air as she claimed lightwisps being given off by her staff and the two wisplights, anchoring them to her skin and imbuing them using Magic she'd drawn from her core. Once she felt it was sufficiently imbued, she anchored the binding to the butt of her staff so she could anchor the binding of lightwisps to the ceiling and activate it.

There rose a susurrus of low voices at the sudden radiance. The brighter light made it easy for Lori to claim more lightwisps from the air to bind and imbue. The next light she placed on the ceiling over the kitchen area, where food was in the middle of cooking, the pieces of meat being stirred to brown them, filling the air with a delicious smell.

It also reminded her that she needed to deal with the water issue, so she anchored the last binding of lightwisps onto the ceiling of the unoccupied corner furthest from the ramp up to the shelter area. The stone there was bare, with no shades of green or blue to indicate the presence of copper ore. Lori touched the stone, fingers curled so she was making contact with her fingernails as she channeled her magic outward through her bones and to her fingernails to claim and bind the stone.

She had to work quickly and efficiently, since she didn't have much time to build this. It needed to be done before they finished cooking lunch at the very least, because she was not working while other people ate! Lori softened the stone and slowly, carefully drew mass out from the stone wall. As stone moved laterally towards her, she hollowed out the wall above the thick shelf she was drawing out, creating a deeper niche.

Without any tools or her connection to her core, she had to use her bare hands, which made shaping a waist-high sink a bit difficult. While the stone was softened like wet clay, it still had the mass and density of stone, and so it was heavy in her hands as she gathered excess stone into a ball that she—and thankfully, Riz—had to pick up with their bare hands to place on the floor. They had to do this several times to be able to excavate enough stone, resulting in a sufficiently deep recessed sink wide enough for two people to use side by side.

Lori took a hand full of the stone she'd excavated and removed and formed it into a palm-sized blob, then used that to smooth out the surfaces and edges of the sink so that there wouldn't be any sharp edges that might cut fingers. As she made a hole at the end of the sink—the end not face a wall—for water to drain through, the resulting roughness of the whole thing made her perfectionist soul ache. However, she couldn't spend much more time on the matter, since she could see that the kitchen seemed to be close to finishing cooking.

"Erzebed, do you happen to know if we have any buckets that didn't get used to as planters for crops?" Lori ask as she took some stone she'd set aside and began forming it into a crude tube.

"I know we have some for carrying water from the barrels, Great Binder. Do you want me to get you one?"

"No, you stay with me. But I need one of those clean buckets with some water in it—it doesn’t need to be full—and one of the buckets being used for planters. Have someone get them for me. Put the crops in another bucket and have them bring the bucket to me. There's always at least one that hasn't been filled as much as the others." She could build a crude container later, but she needed something to catch debris in the meantime.

Lori continued working on the tube as Riz waved to Yllian and the two spoke for a moment. The pipe was… well, unsightly and heavy. However, it didn't need to be all that good looking. She made a hole in the tube at a third of the way of its length, then began to fuse the tube horizontally to the hole in the sink. She fuse the stone carefully, since it would need to support its own wait for the moment. She might come back to put stone supports on it, but she'd have to do that well after lunch.

She was tempted to put a bend in the tube, but that might weaken the tube too much. So instead she stuck her finger into the hole on the tube—she had oriented the hole so that it was on the bottom—and softened the stone slightly so she could form a groove to help guide debris where she wanted it to go.

"Uh, Great Binder? I have the buckets."

Lori turned towards the voice, then forced her knees to straightened with a wince. "Ah, good. Give them here." Riz handed her the buckets, and she cringed at the feeling of mud and dirt on the rope of one of the buckets. Well, she hadasked for one of the dirty buckets.

She took the dirty bucket and positioned it under the hole on the tube. Then she dipped one hand into the bucket of water—as requested, it had only a little water in it—and claimed the waterwisps around her handing, binding and imbuing it to unnaturally viscosity. When she drew out her hand, it was covered with a slime-like layer of water. She used her other hand to scrape the water together into a glob in her hands, then knelt down and carefully raised the glob up into the hole in the tube.

Lori anchored some of the water and waterwisps to the stone. Drawing her belt knife with her free hand, she laid her finger on the blade and used it to act as a channel to the waterwisps so she could remove her other hand. Then she had the water change into vapor.

The blade went cold under her finger as the waterwisp drew heat from the air around it to change state. She pulled back her blade, putting it back in its sheath as she took the blob in her other hand and raised it to the end of the tube, anchoring the water wisps to the stone opening there. She took her stuck her finger into the binding of waterwisps, making the whole thing spread to fill the entire tube, anchoring it to the tube's opening. She then divided it into four distinct bindings: one at the opening at the drain hole of the sink all the way to before the hole in the tube, one over the hole in the tube, one extending through the rest of the tube, and the last at the opening at the end of the tube.

She rubbed her hands together now that she didn't have water on them—grimacing at the feeling of grit from handling the dirty bucket—and used the friction of the movement to create firewisps, which she claimed and bound. She added the binding of firewisps to the binding of waterwisps.

With all the pieces done, she was finally able to properly form the binding to distill water so they could reuse the dirty wash water.

While all the wisps were interconnected, that was mostly so she only had to imbue one thing. Each binding was simple in purpose. The first binding of waterwisps in the tube, positioned between the tube's hole and the sink, would move any water from the sink down the tube. This was mostly so that there would be no backflow, especially from the second binding over the hole, which would have any water change state to vapor, leaving any debris such as dirt, oil and soap behind. Any debris left in the tube would hopefully be pushed by the water propelled by the first binding so that it would fall out the hole.

The gritty bucket was placed under the hole to catch debris, which they'd just get rid off by dumping it into one of the latrines to be cleaned out after the dragon left.

The third binding of water wisps would continue drawing the vapor down the tube, where it would reach the last binding of waterwisps, which would condense the vapor back to water and let it drip down to the clean bucket she'd asked Riz for. The firewisps would act to transfer the heat needed for the water to change state, as well as to keep the tube from getting so cold ice formed in the tube. She'd check later if she needed to modify it to add heat, but for now it was probably all that the system needed for a rough equilibrium.

Lori tested the new sink by washing her hands and letting the water flow down the sink. The water flowed down into the hole, meaning she'd made the sink properly and there were no spots lower than the drain.

She sighed as the condensed water flowed out of the tube and onto the floor, because she was still holding the bucket to pour water into the sink.

"Erzebed…"

"I'll have someone get another bucket, Great Binder."

"You do that," Lori said as she grabbed her staff to start gathering the water on the floor into a viscous blob. Water was a limited resource to them, after all.