Demesne 322 - Stepping Outside Again (Patreon)

Lori didn't unseal the mine immediately, even though she could feel the dragon moving away. First, she checked on her demesne through her connection to her core, and was able to ascertain that while it was still raining, no solids of potentially caustic metals were falling any longer, and the falling rain wasn't filled with firewisps anymore. There were also no mobile voids of wisps that might denote living dragonborn abominations, though that didn't bar the possibility of undead dragonborn abominations. Still, there also didn't seem to be any of those either.

She hoped that the same was true of the demesne outside the mine, but with no ability to perceive outside, there was no way of knowing for sure. Still, she couldn't just keep people inside. Even with the sink, they had been depleting their drinkable water. She'd had to desiccate the latrines of all that post-water several times. If the dragon had stayed for longer, she might have been forced to try to recover that was for more drinking, which… well, she was glad she didn't have to. While it was technically no different from her drawing moisture out of the air to drink back when they had first journeyed from Covehold Demesne to where her demesne was now, and she knew that the distillation process would remove all substances besides water… well, she was glad she didn't have to continue trying to build a water-recovery latrine.

Of course, opening the mine again wasn't something she could just do. Plans had to be outlined so she wouldn't get killed. Preparations had to be made so she wouldn't get killed. People had to be organized to set out, and people had to be assigned to protect the ones remaining in the shelter. Only the former had to do with her not getting killed, but the latter would make sure no one went through her things while she was outside investigating what had happened to her second demesne.

Normally, Rian would be the one arranging these things, but he wasn't here. She did, however, have a temporary-Rian, as well as a lord who, while not Rian, was at least capable.

"The dragon has passed," Lori told Riz and Yllian after lunch. Technically, it was the second meal since waking up, as they weren't sure what the time of day was. Even with Yllian having people maintain a distinct schedule of waking up, having three meals and sleeping, that still didn't mean that they'd been managing to properly approximate the cycle of one day. Even Lori thought that seven days had passed because she'd had a hearty sleep seven times. Given how long she'd slept, it might have been closer to eight or nine days. "I need you two to start organizing people to venture and see if everything is clear. Once we've confirmed that there's nothing waiting out there to kill us, we can refill our reserves of water once I've checked its drinkable."

Yllian frowned. "Why do you think the water will be a problem, Great Binder?"

"I suspect that the dragon was making it rain dragonscales of caustic metal," Lori said. "If you don't know, caustic metals react to water and explode." Not exactly, but that was what they'd understand. "The ashes that result can dissolve into the water, which you don't want to be drinking. The river water is probably full of the stuff, so I might have to build something to distill water for people until the river is clear."

"Ah. Yes, that would be helpful, Great Binder," Yllian said. "I'll start getting people organized to go out. I'll need a few moments, perhaps an hour to make sure everyone knows what needs to be done."

Lori nodded. "Good. Inform me when everyone's ready so I can open the mine. I need to try to inform Rian to do the same."

Now, she just had to hope he was paying attention.

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Lori and Rian had worked out two signals between the two of them. The first, Rian placing the stone with a binding of lightwisps she had given him on it on top of a shelf with its own binding, was his means of informing her that the Dungeon was to be sealed. The second signal, one that she would send him, was meant to tell him to organize the militia to prepare go out as she opened the mine. His reply—putting the stone back on the shelf—would tell her his preparations were done, and that she was to start deactivating her demesne's active defenses to start letting people out.

More importantly, it meant that Rian had better be getting a boat ready to pick her up and bring her home.

She signaled him now, making the lightwisps on Rian's stone blink. Deactivate the binding, wait for a count of three, activate it again, wait for another count of three, deactivate again and continue the repetition. Then, to ensure he got the message, she began to do the same with the lights of her Dungeon's dining hall. Deactivate, activate, deactivate, activate, deactivate, activate… Lori patiently did this for ten repetitions. Even if Rian was asleep at the moment, someone would go to wake him, and if he managed to miss the signs, there would be people to tell him.

In the meantime, Lori deactivated the active defenses. She reconfigured the binding of lightningwisps guarding the entryway of her Dungeon back into a binding to repel bugs, and dissolved the dome of darkwisps, letting the light of the sky shine down on her demesne again. The stone she had displaced to make the moat in her entryway, she slowly moved back, though she kept the stone barrier under the overhead balcony in place for the moment. Just because she couldn't feel anything roaming her demesne didn't mean there weren't any.

As the moat water being displaced by the returning stone began to rise, Lori double checked that the binding of waterwisps at the floodwall to pump water from the lowest point behind the wall to the river, and found it functioning as intended.

Once the water was gone, Lori restored the entryway floor as best as she could without actually being there to see it. She'd have to do it properly when she got back home. The final wall of displaced stone, she left in place for until Rian signaled back that they were ready.

"Great Binder? Lord Yllian says they're ready."

Lori opened her eyes at Riz's words. Her temporary-Rian was standing there with her spear, looking content to wait indefinitely. Unfolding her legs beneath her, Lori got up from her niche and walked over to the receptacles imbuing their active defenses. She carefully touched the contact wire were it sank into the wall, and deactivated the binding of lightningwisps keeping abominations out of the air vent intake. The darkwisps in front of the mine entrance were also deactivated and dissolved.

Straightening up, Lori grabbed her staff so she wouldn't have to bend down again and used it to contact the stone she had raised to keep the doors from opening. The stone sank down, actually leaving a little depression on the ground as she displaced the material sideways to the wall. "All right," she said, "Open the doors. But don't put the stones and bars into my alcove yet! I'm still using it."

The mine tunnel outside her alcove were full of men who had the look of both northerners—at least, north of Taniar Demesne, the place she grew up—and former militia. Pale skin that easily flushed red with exertion, hair in mostly pale shades of color, general physical fitness, and an air of casual, almost bored readiness. They moved with quickly and competently to pick up and move the rather heavy rocks out of the way of the door. The wooden beams were lifted from where they rested to bar the door shut, and the door was opened.

Nothing was waiting for them beyond the door but more stone, more beams, and another door, which was a good sign.

The manual labor was repeated twice more, and then the outermost door was being opened.

"Great Binder, why are you gripping the back of my shirt so firmly?" Riz asked.

"Don't be distracted," Lori said firmly as she stood behind her temporary-Rian.

"Great Binder, if you're going to use me as a shield, then just stay behind me. I'll protect you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Now, continue protecting me."

"If you keep holding my shirt like that, I won't be able to use my spear properly, and won't be able to protect you as well."

Coincidentally and completely by chance, Lori's hand, which had been pushing on Riz's back so that the two of them wouldn't be crowded so close, fell down to grip her staff. Lightningwisps were making the quartz in her staff vibrate, and she had a few lengths of firewood in a bag at her side, convenient mediums for carrying and throwing firewisps. Whisperers throwing lengths of wood with a binding of firewisps on it was the truth to the popular theater trope of hurling fireballs, since in theater productions they couldn't use actual wood and had to use brightly painted balls of fabric and ribbon streamers instead.

The binding of lightwisps still anchored to the staff had been dimmed since it was close to most peoples' eye-levels, but she was ready to brighten it as soon as it was needed.

Nothing leapt at the foremost militia when the doors opened, which was a good sign. Actually, a wave of damp coolness washed over them as rain fell outside. The skies were dark, and it was hard to see. Lori couldn't tell if it was early morning, late afternoon, or midday with really thick cloud cover.

She stared out at the rain as people grumbled but began to ready themselves to step out into it. "Everyone, back inside," she said.

There was a moment's pause in the grumbling.

"Great Binder?" Riz asked.

"It's too dark to see anything, it's raining so people are going to get sick, and we're on a rocky hill that's been blasted apart for most of a week," Lori said. "Which means the grounds is probably littered with rumble and slippery besides. Everyone back inside, we'll check things when there's more light to see by. Yllian, have some of the empty water barrels brought out to catch the rain. It should be clean enough, and if it's not, I can do things to it." There was enough flat ground in front of the mine entrance, though as she had said it as strew with rumble, mostly rocks that had been blasted apart. "Close and bar the doors again when you're done."

"Wouldn't be the first time we've drunk rainwater, Great Binder," Yllian said. "All right, you all heard the Great Binder. Everyone back inside. No one's to go into that and break their neck 'til it's brighter out. You three, get some barrels out here. Make sure the only thing dripping on them is rain. The water dripping down from higher up might be tainted with something."

Despite the order, no one really went back inside, though Lori decided to retreat back to her alcove. The militia stayed crowded around the mine entrance, watching the rain as three barrels were carried out and positioned so they wouldn't roll down the slope. A Lori waited for them to come back in so they'd close all the doors again, she checked back on her demesne.

Ah, there, Rian had put the stone on the shelf.

She reached through the core and began to lower the final stone barrier separating her Dungeon from outside as the doors of the mine were closed again.