Demesne 334 - Testing For The Trap (Patreon)

Lori was surprised to find there were not as many people as usual in the dining hall at lunch. The children were there, hair wet from either bath or a quick dip in the river, but many tables seemed depleted, leaving mostly women present. Even Riz was absent, with only Umu and Mikon sitting across from Lori. Mikon didn't seem worried, so nothing bad had probably happened to her temporary-Rian, but it was curious.

"Where's Erzebed?" she asked Mikon.

"She's helping with butchering the seels, your Bindership" Mikon said. "The ice you trapped them in is melting, so before they break out, Riz and the others are going to get them cleaned and gutted. Because of the smells, everyone's skipping lunch so their stomachs are empty. They'll eat after they finish and bathe."

Ah. She supposed she had taken a lot of seels out of the river, which would need a lot of people to process. "I see. Inform Erzebed that I need to speak to her at her earliest convenience," Lori said. Then she paused. "No, I will clarify that I need to speak to her after she's done eating," she amended.

"I'll tell her, your Bindership."

She nodded, and went back to her food. It had just the right amount of salt.

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"Great Binder? You wished to speak to me?"

Lori looked up from the almanac at the knock on the door. She'd been reading the bestiary entries, mostly to have something to do, and had been amused to find that the beasts they called chokers were also in the bestiary… as 'chokers'. "Enter, it's open." Riz opened the door, stepping in carefully and closing the door behind her. Her temporary-Rian was looking recently bathed, though she still had a sweat beading on her brow. All in all, she looked as refreshed at to be expected given how hot it was outside. "Erzebed. We have a hunter who actually saw the beast that's driving others beasts away from the area around River's Fork, correct?"

Riz nodded. "Yes, Great Binder. Ralii was the one who saw it."

"You know I won't know who that is," Lori said. "Is he in the demesne right now or is he one of those who went to River's Fork earlier?"

"He's in River's Fork right now, Great Binder. What do you need him for?"

"There are illustrations of beasts in this almanac. I need him to point out if the beast he saw is any of the ones here."

Her temporary-Rian blinked. "I'll tell him when he gets back, Great Binder."

Lori nodded. "Tell me how the butchering went. Were you able to process all of the seels?"

"Yes, Great Binder. We managed to butcher all thirty-one seels, and they're all in the cold rooms now. The furs are going to be cured once the other hunters get back."

Lori frowned. "Why do they need to get back?"

"The hunters are the ones who run the tannery, Great Binder. They're usually not all out hunting at once, but since they were sent to River's Fork to add to the foodstores—"

"I understand. Can you tell me how much food we have, or do I need to ask Shanalorre that?"

"The Lady Binder would be able to tell you the exact amount, but from what I saw, the cold rooms were full. Completely full. We had to bring in some benches so that the meat wouldn’t just be on the floor when we filled up the some of the walkways between shelves. It's not going to stay that was for all that long, at the rate we eat, but the cold rooms are the most full that they've ever been."

Lori tilted her head, then nodded as she finally closed the almanac in her hands, sliding the book under her pillow. "Tell…" she reached into her pocket and drew out a rock, checking the name on it, "Kolinh that he's to prioritize meat that's been in the cold rooms longer for sending to River's Fork. Tomorrow, send Karina with some volunteers to seel in River's Fork, while the rest of the hunters scout to find the beast so I can trap and kill it." She began to put on her boots.

"I'll tell him, Great Binder. Uh, do you need me for anything else?"

Lori waved a hand dismissively. "No, you may go."

From the sound of it, she had more work to do this afternoon. So much still-warm, fresh meat in their cold rooms meant she should check the bindings of firewisps that delete heat could handle the load. She might need to make solidified and liquefied air to help with the heat. And she just knew that people had placed obstructions that blocked the airways that kept temperatures even all across the cold rooms.

Her boots in place, Lori went to deal with this.

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She checked over the cold rooms, temporarily anchoring bindings of airwisps and firewisps in places to compensate for the pathways blocked by cooling seel meat. The meat was cooling, but she could feel little concentrations of firewisps deep in the meat. She claimed those firewisps, forming them into a binding that deleted heat so that they'd cool from the inside.

It probably wasn't necessary, but between the sheer amount of still-warm meat that had been placed in the cold rooms, the number of people who'd been in and out of the rooms, and the how the doors had no doubt been left open, a lot of heat had entered the room where they kept their food. Best to mitigate that heat so that dustlife didn’t start growing on their food and making them sick.

Riz found her in her Dungeon's baths at about late afternoon as she was making ice for River's Fork's food storage. She was needing to use water from the reservoir, so that it wouldn't be caustic and potentially damage or poison the food it was meant to cool. It was a bit early in the week, but she might as well, and it would keep the meat that would be transported there from getting too hot. "Great Binder?"

"What is it, Erzebed?"

"Kolinh is here with the chokers you asked for."

Lori blinked in confusion before she recalled what she had ordered earlier this morning. "He didn't bring them inside my Dungeon, did he?" she said.

"They're outside, Great Binder," Riz assured her.

She nodded, relieved. "I'll be right out, I just need to set these aside in the cold room for tomorrow."

Riz glanced at the blocks of ice. "Do you need help with that, Great Binder?"

"I can handle it. Tell him to take the chokers to the dock, I'll experiment on them there."

"Do you want me there too, Great Binder?"

Lori considered that, then nodded. "Yes, that might be needed. Are the chokers injured?"

"Probably a little bruised, and their jaws have been tied shut, but they're all there."

"Good. I'll be out shortly."

Lori slid the block of ice she'd made in the baths towards the nearest cold room, the binding on waterwisps on it keeping it solid, and not taking in heat from its surroundings. It didn't need the cold, but it was a good place to keep the ice for the evening.

Once she'd anchored the block to the floor so that it wouldn't move, she went out to see the chokers. The sun was low in the sky, but she could still see it above the trees, so she still had perhaps an hour of natural light to work with. Not that she couldn't make her own light, but that would mean being somewhere she could anchor the bindings, and she didn't want to do this inside her Dungeon.

Outside, she found Riz, and… uh—she reached into her belt pouch and checked the rock—Kolinh were waiting for her, as were a few men. The chokers were there, as promised. Each choker had been tied to stripped branches, hanging by their limbs and tail, which had been bound to the branch with ropeweed cords. Their heads were similarly tied to the branch by the cord muzzling them, holding them in place.

For a moment, Lori considered how they were secured. She'd thought they'd only have a leash around their necks, but this was much more secure.

"How dangerous would it be to tie one of them by their neck to the post at the end of the dock?" Lori asked. "I need to test how my trap affects their ability to move."

Kolinh and the men made reluctant faces, eyeing the chokers. "We should be able to do it, Great Binder," he said, in the tones of a man who would rather not.

Lori had no sympathy. If she might have to try and kill one of those typhon beasts by herself, he could put up with a little inconvenience. "Do it, then. In the meantime, lay one of the chokers at the foot of the stairs on the other side of the wall. Erzebed, warn off people so that they don't get close."

She received different variants of "Yes, Great Binder" as Kolinh and the men with him got to work.

Unfortunately, they couldn't just lay down one of the restrained chokers on the ground. When they did, it started flopping around like a landed seel, the branch it was on rattling loudly, and the men picked it up before it could potentially escape. In the end, Lori softened the ground—it was mostly packed dirt at this point, and she might as well solidify it properly—so they could stick one end of the branch into it to hold the branch upright, the beast hanging upside-down to try to disorient it.

Once it was secured, Lori drew some lightningwisps from her body. The tip of the smallest finger of her left hand became numb and unresponsive for a moment, before feeling returned as the lightningwisps moved back to that part of her body. The lightningwisps she drew out were formed into a simple binding that that sent weak, invisible lightning flowing back and forth though the air between her hands. With every passage, lightningwisps were left in the lightning's wake, which she claimed and added to the binding, making more and more lightningwisps until she had enough for what she needed.

The choker was struggling on its stick as it tried to turn its head the right way around. Lori ignored it as she formed the lightningwisps into a binding. What she made was the modification of the binding that kept bugs out of her dungeon, the one she had used to try and protect her Dungeon and the dragon shelter she'd been in from dragonborn abominations.

She'd tested this binding before, on chokers, bugs and seels. While she knew it would kill those things, it didn't do so immediately. The larger the creature was, the longer it took, though it served wonderfully as a deterrent from the pain it inflicted. Since only bug-sized abominations would have managed to enter through the air vents, the binding had been calibrated to bring quick death to anything of that size.

Since the possible typhon beast was much, much larger, she needed to refamiliarize herself with how she needed to calibrate the binding. Lori anchored the binding around the choker on the branch, extending the binding upward so that some parts of the bindings passed through the beast. Since she'd already claimed those wisps, she could perceive them even though the wisps were technically inside a living creature, which lets her continue to form the binding.

"Erzebed, I need a rock," she said. "Something the size of my palm."

Thankfully, Riz didn't ask any strange questions, instead quickly heading towards the nearby river bank and coming up with a damp rock. Lori accepted the rock, claiming and binding the earthwisps and making the rocks soften so she could stretch it out into a ring that she slipped over the top of the branch before tightening and solidifying the rock. She then anchored the binding of lightningwisps to that rock, giving the binding of lightningwisps a conical shape.

Lori began imbuing the still deactivated binding as she calibrated it so that the lightningwisps would create lightning that was on par with what she would use if she were trying to kill something with lightning. This would normally be far too powerful, since such powerful lightning would expend a great amount of imbuement for a two to three heartbeats—which would be far too much and very inefficient for their defenses—but as a trap which she would heavily imbue…

Well, they wouldbe trying to kill a very large beast.

She imbued the binding and kept imbuing it as she nodded to be man who'd been holding on to the top of the branch. "Let go and step back," she ordered. "No, well back. This far back. Erzebed, keep people away." Lori turned and began to walk towards the laundry area, moving to stand behind one of the few remaining stone walls from the renovations she had made during the winter. She didn’t want the glare that would result from the lightning blazing in her eyes.

The fact that she'd hidden behind a wall seemed to inspire something, because people moved to stand well-back.

Lori gave the struggling choker tied to the stick one last look before she stepped back and activated the binding of lightningwisps.

There was a flash of light that briefly painted the ground on either side of the stone wall Lori was standing behind white and a simultaneous explosion that sounded very much like thunder. As her ears rang, she noted that the binding of lightningwisps she had dissolved, all its imbuement consumed, and that firewisps had radiated out of where the binding had been. As she quickly began claiming the loose lightningwisps in the air, forming them back into a binding, Lori carefully leaned around the stone wall.

The stick to which the choker had been secured had been shattered, and a shorter, blackened, smoking stump rose up from the ground where it had been. A crumpled, blackened, smoking heap that had formerly been a choker was next to it, very much dead.

Through the ringing in her ears, she could hear very loud swearing and cry that sounded like something was choking.

Lori stared at the result of her little experiment.

She would definitelyhave to alter the calibration for her final trap. The binding consumed its imbuement far too fast. The lightning would have to be weaker and over a longer period, unless she wanted her trap to explode. And given her trap would need to be at least twelve paces in diameter, and almost certainly far larger to fit all of the beast she meant to trap, and no doubt many trees as well. She couldn't have all of that explode, especially since she'd need to be in line of sight to be able to trigger the trap.

Well, she had two more chokers. She was certain she could narrow it down to something more reasonable.