Demesne 335 - Further Testing for the Trap (Patreon)

Lori had to change the binding of lightningwisps so that all the imbuement wasn’t consumed almost instantly. Hindsight, she should have realized putting that element directly from the offensive lightning binding would have resulted in something like that. Usually, the imbuement was consumed in getting the lightning to traverse the air between herself and the target she was aiming at, but since the binding she had made would have the lightning travelling along the lines of anchored lightningwisps instead of through the air between loose lightningwisps…

Well, if nothing else, she knew about this binding now, so if she even needed a sudden violent explosion and she had no water nearby to turn into steam, she’d know what to do.

As the blackened, still smoking corpse of the first choker was removed by…. someone… Lori began rebuilding her binding with the lightning she claimed in the air after the explosion. She started with the binding for killing dragonborn abominations, calibrating the lightningwisps to produce lightning of the intensity that according to the flow diagram for the bug repellant binding was the minimum for being instantly legal to most bugs, then increased it even further to that she remembered reading in a novel was lethal to people… and doubled thatjust to be sure so that it would be lethal to beasts. She then limited the output of the binding so that the lightning produced wouldn’t exceed this intensity.

To try to be more efficient, Lori began going over the reworked binding, designating along which flows of lightningwisps lightning would manifest along as she imbued the binding. There was no need for the lightning to actually touch the ground and then sharply arc, for example. That, however, lead to making more flows of lightningwisps for the lightning to follow, which took some more time.

When she tested the binding, there was a crackling sound in the air, and brilliant white arcs of lightning appeared, producing lightwisps, firewisps and morelightningwisps as they formed glowing lines on the ground between the points were she had anchored the binding. Lori flinched, looking away so she wasn’t looking directly at the lightning, which was quite bright. Already, it’s distinctive smell was rising in the air. Keeping the binding imbued, she moved the anchor point in the middle of the binding and moved it upwards. The binding changed from a brightly flickering into a cone as one point began to rise up out of the ground

Satisfied, Lori anchored the point back on the ground and claimed the earthwisps in the middle of the binding to soften the dirt. “All right,” she ordered, “stick the chokers branch into the ground like the other one.” Lori looked around, but the stone ring on the first branch seemed to have gone flying. She sighed. “Erzebed, find me another rock!”

The men carrying the branch that the second choker was secured to between them didn’t comply right away. Instead, both were looking at Riz, making strange wide-eyed faces that she didn’t know how to interpret. Riz also hadn’t immediately gone to the river to get her a new rock.

“Uh, Great Binder, is this really necessary?” Riz said, sounding strangely reluctant to speak.

“Yes Erzebed, I need the rock to properly anchor the binding,” Lori said. “Get me one.”

“I meant doing… whatever it was you did to that choker,” Riz said. “It just…” Riz’s hands made expanding movements in lieu of actually speaking.

“‘Exploded’, Erzebed, the word you’re looking for is ‘exploded’,” Lori informed her. “No, that wasn’t ideal. I was trying to kill it, not explode it. Even if it still died anyway, that wasn’t how I wanted it to die.”

“It… wasn’t?”

“No. I was trying to kill it while leaving its body intact. I’m not sure how much of was left could be recovered for meat. Hopefully, the next one would be recoverable, once I have a rock,” Lori said pointedly.

That finally motivated Riz to move. She shrugged a the two men and headed for the river to get another rock.

Lori directed her gaze at the two in question, who still hadn’t moved. “Stick the branch into the ground,” she said, pointing at the spot she’d softened. “I don’t have all day. I want to get this done before dinner. Come on, stop delaying, move!”

The two men moved reluctantly, which was partly understandable because the choker on the branch between them grew agitated as it was carried closer to where the previous choker had been unfortunately exploded. Nearby, the charred stump of the previous bench was still sticking out of the ground, blackened but no longer smoking. She’d have to remove that later, but right now conducting this experiment was more important.

Experiment… colors, she hadn’t been taking notes, had she? Ugh… well, too late now. If she slowed down to get a tablet and start on the documentation… no, dinner was more important.

Kolinh and the men who’d been with him came up from the dock, and from the sounds they’d managed to secure the choker to the post as she’d asked. Some of the men had bleeding injuries on their arms, including Kolinh.

“The choker has been secured, Great Binder,” Kolinh reported, glancing at the two men sinking one end of the branch into the softened ground. “With your permission, I’ll lead the injured to the Lady Binder to get healed. Beast wounds get infected very easily.”

Lori nodded. “Go, deal with it. We can’t afford for anyone to get sick. You two, sink that deeper. You’ll feel it when it hits the—there, good, you’ve reached it. Now hold the branch stead so I can secure it in place!”

She hardened the earthwisps to hold the branch in place and upright as Riz finally returned with another rock. The two men stepped back hastily as Lori took the rock, claiming and softening the earthwisps on it so she could make another ring of stone on the upper end of the branch, the anchored flows of lightningwisps to it from the binding she had laid down previously. As she worked, people began to move away from the beast, probably worried about another explosion. There shouldn’t be this time, however. The previous explosion had been from the intense heat created by the lightningwisps inside the beast, turning the water in its body into steam, and possibly igniting the very air. She wasn’t sure about that last, it had happened to fast for her to perceive.

Once she was satisfied at how the flows the lightningwisps defined, Lori turned and headed back to the stone wall. Other people were standing well back. While she didn’t expect it to explode again, she didn’t want to deal with the light burning her eyes.

Keeping the binding imbued, she activated it.

The lack of an immediate explosion was a promising sigh. Instead, there was a bright light coming from around the around the stone wall. Lori tentatively looked around her obstruction with narrowed eyes, wishing she had some to to—

Oh.

Claiming some of the lightwisps in the air, Lori created a binding to lower the intensity of the light passing through it, anchoring the binding to her eyes. She leaned back around the pillar, then calibrated the binding again until she could see the lines of lighting arching up from the ground to the ring of stone and back down again, passing through the beast in between. The beast was thrashing in its bonds, and there was the smell of burning feathers as some of its plumage started to char, but there were no open flames yet.

Lori observed the beast’s darkened outline through the binding, but it didn’t seem to be dying yet. That wouldn’t do.

She incrementally increased the intensity of the lightning by half.

The beast began to thrash more violently, but thankfully the cords holding it in place remained strong… although the rather distressing smell of burning reed told her that the cords were getting da—

And then she became aware of the wisps inside the beast. The firewisps in its muscles, the waterwisps in its blood, the earthwisps in its bones, teeth and claws, the darkwisps in its internal spaces. Lori deactivated the binding of lightningwisps, as well as the binding of lightwisps over her eyes as she carefully stepped closer to the now-dead beast. It was still twitching slightly, but Lori could see that was just random lightingwisps. Despite the smell, relatively few of its feathers had actually been burned, although most seemed to be smoking at the edges.

As Lori got closer however, another smell hit her, and she nearly gagged. It seemed that the beast had lost control of it’s sphincter, and now waste was dribbling from its cloaca, and she hated the fact she managed to remember what that part was called. They could still recover its meat, right? The waste was outside, after all, and they were going to wash off that part anyway.

“Erzebed, can the beast meat still be recovered?” Lori asked.

There was no immediate reply. She blinked, looked around for her temporary Rian, who was staring at the dead beast. “Erzebed? Are you listening?”

Riz gave a start, turning towards her. “S-sorry, Great Binder! What did you say?”

Lori held back a sigh. “I asked if the meat from that is recoverable,” she said, gesturing at the second dead choker.

Her temporary-Rian’s gaze followed the gesture, and she shuddered slightly. “I… think it’s still edible? But we’d need to cook it right away, and a choker isn’t much meat…”

“Have them cook it separately from the stew and give it to Binder Shanalorre for her table, then,” Lori said. The children would appreciate a little extra meat.  “If you get it to them now, it should be ready with the rest of dinner.” Hopefully.

Riz nodded weakly. “Uh… Onda, Enso, could the two of you take care of… that?” she said, waving at the choker still mostly secured to the branch. Parts of the branch had been blackened and charred, and a few spots were glowing like embers and smoking, but the branch hadn’t actually caught fire.

The two men who’d been carrying the choker approached it warily, making faces at the smell.

“Grasp the branch securely, and I’ll soften the rock so you can put it out,” Lori said. “Move quickly, I have one more experiment to do.”

Unfortunately, the choker that had been tied at the dock didn’t start making its distinctive choking sounds that had garnered its kind their particular name, but Riz and the two looked in its direction anyway. All three shuddered for some reason.

The two quickly grasped the branch, and Lori softened the stone beneath it, allowing them to pull up the length of wood to carry the choker on. The tall flopped loose, dragging along the ground since the cord securing it seemed to have burned off, but as the choker was dead that was no great problem.

"Come back for the other choker, I should be done with it soon," Lori said.

The three looked in the direction of the docks. While the wall was blocking their view, they could hear the agitated choking sounds the small beast was making.

As the two men carried the dead choker off, Lori headed towards the dock, collecting the binding of lightningwisps from where she'd anchored it. The calibration seemed workable, but death still hadn't been instantaneous. She should double it and see if the choker died faster. The typhon beast was far, far larger than the choker, but hopefully this much lightning would at least neutralize it's limbs so that it would stay still to be struck by more lightning. It was a factor that wasn't obvious with the two bound chokers, which was why she'd had one unbound and simply tied to the post on the dock.

Taking the binding of lightningwisps, she climbed the stairs over the floodwall—careful to step around the malodorous area where the second beast had voided itself—until she could see the other choker. It was tied to the end of the dock as she'd instructed, a cord stretching from the post to a sort of harness that had been tied under its arms and around its chest. Its jaws were muzzled with more cord, as were its forelimbs. Despite this, it seemed to be trying to twist itself to reach towards the harness securing it in place, contorting its body to try to reach the cords with its forelimbs and jaws, despite the latter being muzzled.

Lori began anchoring the lightningwisps on the stone dock, covering the extent of the area the choker seemed able to reach from the end of its cord leash, and then a little more just to be safe. There was no raised point she could anchor the lightningwisps to, so she had to maintain the highest point herself. It was an added effort, but since she would be continuing to imbue the binding as well as making adjustments if necessary. She made sure to have the flows of lightningwisps avoid the wooden post they used to secure their boats. It wouldn't do to have it damaged.

Once the binding was in place and imbued, Lori activate the binding of lightwisps still anchored to her eyes, darkening her vision.

Then she activate the binding of lightningwisps.

The last choker died much faster than the second.

It still happened a bit too slowly though. She'd have to increase the intensity even more when she finally used this trap on the typhon beast.

Well, at least it was done now. Lori turned to head to the dining hall for dinner, leaving the smoking choker corpse behind on the dock.