Demesne EX SS 31 – Cooperative Practice (Patreon)

There wasn't much for Lidzuga and Kutago to move into their new house. Unlike Tae and Rybelle—very nice women, and it was a treat to hear Tae expound on the care of plants—the two siblings didn't have much to their name. All that was in their packs fit into one of the wooden niches built into the wall of their new house. The niche was apparently used for sleeping, but they were sleeping on the floor for the foreseeable future. Lidzuga wanted to check the niches for any growths like mold or mushrooms, so that they wouldn't breathe in anything that would make them sick.

It was only a sensible precaution. The houses—all of which were entirely Deadspoken with what Lidzuga estimated was an outrageous amount of imbuement— that they'd been shown had obviously not been very well maintained because no one had been living in them anymore, and they hadn't had a Deadspeaker to do any maintenance on them. Lord Yllian had been very upfront about the fact they had been more or less abandoned except for the ones that had been used for storage.

"What about Binder Shanalorre?" Kutago had asked when it was explained to them. "Rian said she was capable of Deadspeaking? Why didn't she do anything?" Lidzuga had winced at the implicit accusation in her tone.

Yllian had looked reluctant and vaguely sad at the question. "Ah, I see Lord Rian didn't tell you. You can speak to the Lady Binder herself, she intends to speak to you before she leaves this afternoon."

The man had left, leaving them with questions and work to get done as they'd cleaned up the house with the brooms they'd been given. The floor had been dusty, and the wood under the windows and around the door was stained dark from water trickling in. The latter wasn't something Deadspeaking could clean, but Lidzuga had been able to gently scrap the stains off with his belt knife. It was a poor planer, but he'd been able to make the wood a bit easier to scrape by claiming the life and taming a meaning in place to separate a thin layer of the wood.

They were just finishing cleaning up when there was a knock on their new door. The two siblings glanced at each other. "Come in?" Lidzuga said as Kuw stepped back, holding the broom tightly. It made him want to sigh. He loved his sister and was glad she was always looking out for him, but sometimes she acted to belligerent and paranoid.

The door opened, and the little girl who'd been sitting next to their new Dungeon Binder stepped inside. She was no longer carrying the bound tool that moved air, and so sweat beaded on her brow, which she idly wiped off her with her hand. Her pale skin and the tint of her hair implied her northern origins—well, north in the old continent, at any rate—and he'd wondered what her connection to the Binder Lori was. Behind her, Lidzuga saw some of them people who'd been walking around with spears. For people implied to be on-duty militia, they'd all been fairly relaxed and had spoken casually, but now they looked alert as they peered into the house, eyeing him and his sister. He bristled slightly, though a part of him wondered if they were being watched because of the bad impression on Lori…

"Good afternoon, Deadspeaker Lidzuga, Mistress Kutago," the little girl said, her tone almost comically formal. He found himself smothering the smile that wanted to spread across his face. "We have not been formally introduced. An unfortunate oversight on Lord Rian's part, but I gather his priorities changed once the Great Binder started becoming upset." Yes, definitely northern, that was their way of addressing their Dungeon Binders. "My name is Shanalorre. I used to be the Dungeon Binder of River's Fork Demesne. As you are now the resident Deadspeaker of River's Fork, I felt it best that we confer as to how we should best cooperate for the sake of the demesne."

Lidzuga stared at her, and he could see Kuw doing the same.

The little girl—Shanalorre, allegedly—glanced between the two of them and turned towards one of the militiawomen outside. "Ninang Mekari, could you please confirm this to be the case?"

Ninang Mekari leaned her head into the door. "It's true, new blood," she confirmed. "Be nice to the Lady Binder, and you're going to fit in just fine."

Shanalorre nodded. "I apologize for the lack of warning, but Lord Rian has a tendency towards the theatrical, and no doubt intended the revelation of my identity to be a minor dramatic reveal."

That… well, Lidzuga had only known Rian for a little over a week, but…

"That explains a lot," Kuw said in a voice that wasn't quite low enough. Shaking her head, his sister directed a warning look at him for some reason, before bowing towards Shanalorre. "Welcome to our house, your Bindership. Sorry for the state it's in. We just moved in."

"Understandable," Shanalorre said. "We have some furniture still in storage. I'll have Lord Yllian make them available to you once we finish our conversation. I apologize for the state they are likely to be in. And there is no need to refer to me by that title. I am merely the Lady Binder, subordinate to Binder Lolilyuri."

In Lidzuga's mind, that wasn't much of an improvement. Still, he made sure to remember it. He'd already made a bad impression on one Dungeon Binder, he didn't want to repeat himself. In hindsight… ugh, what had he been thinking, just asking about it like that? That was like telling the workshop master how much you expected to be paid before you'd proven you were worth hiring! Rian had even warned him they needed to present his request carefully!

No, no, focus on the Dungeon Binder in front of you! "W-what can I do for you, Lady Binder?" he asked, finally remembering to sheath his belt knife and put it away. "You said you wanted to confer?"

Shanalorre nodded. "Yes. Though perhaps we could have this discussion in my office? I would be much more comfortable conducted on proper seats."

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Binder Shanalorre's office turned out to be one of the wooden houses. It was far better maintained, and was clearly some kind of administration building once Lidzuga saw that the piles of thin wooden boards had writing on them. Out of the corner of his eye, Kutago make a face at the outright crude writing implements.

"I apologize for the state of the room," Shanalorre said, sitting on a tall stool behind the table. Behind her, one of the strangely shaped wispligghts—argh, he hadn’t been able to ask about them—has sitting on another tall stool, blowing air towards Shanalorre from behind. By some trick of positioning, the air seemed to follow the room’s curved wall and blew past Lidzuga and Kutago as well. It was only a mild breeze, but with the heat it felt refreshing, even if it did smell slightly of rotten fruit for some reason. "What little paper and ink we have has had to be kept dearly, as we had no other replacements. Our papermaker Uncle Vasi was among our first casualties last year."

"We completely understand, Lady Binder," Lidzuga said, even as he kept glancing at his sister. Fortunately, it seemed she wasn't going to make any unfortunate comments.

“Has Lord Rian informed you as to what matters in the demesne require your specific intervention?”

What sort of child used words like ‘specific intervention’? Certainly she was a Dungeon Binder, but… “No, Lady Binder,” he said. “Though he did make some comments that I’ll be asked to assist in farming and general woodworking.” All those houses…

Shanalorre nodded. “River’s Fork is where we grow the fruit that is used to supplement both our own diet as well as that of Lorian Demesne, the demesne upriver that Binder Lolilyuri had established. We are able to do so because we have in our care several fruit trees that have had a meaning applied to them that accelerates the growth of its fruits such that we are able to harvest every few days, depending on the fruit in question.”

Lidzuga frowned thoughtfully, immediately trying to draft a flow diagram of what sort of meaning would be needed for such a thing. Fruits didn’t just grow, after all. The plant would need to bud flowers, the flowers would need to be pollinated, and the fruit tree in question would need a steady supply of the nutrients to be found in the plant. Those would need to be absorbed by the root system, and to reach the fruit at an accelerated pace the nutrients would need to be transferred rapidly from the roots to the extremity of the tree the fruits were…

It was a complicated meaning, if only because of the implied timescale involved. The tree would either be running so hot converting sunlight, air and water into mass that its leaves risked exploding into steam, or… well, if the sap was moving so rapidly to convey nutrients up from the roots anyway, it might well be altered to take in heat and sink it into the ground, or to other leaves meant specifically for releasing that heat… Perhaps the leaves were made to grow notably large to facilitate the release… The tree probably had greatly increased water requirements as a result, just to act to cool it…

No, wait, most of the population of the demesne seemed to be of northerners. The meaning was probably a northern one, meant to take advantage of the low temperatures.

There were too many processes occurring all at once. It must take so much imbuement…

“We have those well in hand, so you need not worry about them at the moment,” Shanalorre continued, and Lidzuga winced as his analysis was rendered unnecessary. “However, they are relevant to our discussion.”

“How so?” Lidzuga asked.

“Were you informed that I am a savant?”

Ah. That… explained some things. Not why she was the Dungeon Binder, even if she was subordinate to Binder Lori, but… “No, Lady Binder.”

Shanalorre nodded. “While I can only perform the one meaning, to do so I must claim and imbue, and I am still connected to this demesne’s core. From listening to Binder Lolilyuri discussing bindings, it is possible to ‘deactivate’ one to cease function while also conserving imbuement. Does the same apply to meanings?”

Again, Lidzuga had to wonder: what sort of child talked like that? Even among families raised in the Mysteries, where children were taught how to read and write early and heavily encouraged to read, no one talked like… like… that! Children affected those speech patterns when they were playing ‘scholars and lectures’, about how delicious their mother’s cookies were and how they were the best cookies of all, not in normal conversation!

“Yes,” Lidzuga said calmly. “The same applies.”

Shanalorre nodded. “If you are willing, Deadspeaker Lidzuga, I would like us to practice a maneuver that Lord Rian proposed: to have you form—no, pardon me, I mean ‘tame’—tame a meaning of life, then leave it deactivated, after which I will attempt to override your claim and imbue the meaning in question. As the Dungeon Binder of this demesne, I will be able to override your claim, and once I turn away my attention, you should be able to override my claim provided I do not oppose it.”

“That… sounds like a reasonable thing to try, Lady Binder,” Lidzuga said.

“Uh,” Kutago said. “If that’s what you’re going to be doing, what about me?”

“Ah, Mistress Kutago. Lord Yllian should be arriving soon. He can take you to where our surplus furniture is stored and help arrange for any help you need to move it to your residence. I believe we have several stools and at least one table available for you to use.”

Kutago considered that. “Does the demesne have any scrap cloth?”

“Several,” Shanalorre said promptly. “What do you need them for?”

“I thought I’d get a start on establishing a paper workshop,” Kutago said.

“Paper would be greatly appreciated. Wood is heavy. Shall we begin practicing, Deadspeaker Lidzuga?”

“Um… with what, Lady Binder?”

In reply, the Lady Binder stood up and grabbed her stood and a rectangular plank of wood that had been on the table in front of her. Walking around the table, she placed the stool down and lay the plank on the seat. ”This plank,” Shanalorre said, face perfectly smooth. “it should enough to practice with, and is easily replace should I do something wrong.”

“Ah… that sounds like a good idea, Lady Binder. Though… why did you bring your stool forward?”

“The imbuement that shall be invested into the plank shouldn’t go to waste, so perhaps it can be used to assist in fusing the plank to the stool as a backrest.”

Kutago started coughing.

The plank was, indeed, just long enough to be shaped and made into a backrest for a tall stool.