Weekly Digest 118 - (#377 - #379) (Patreon)

A Room For Honey

Taeclas spent the rest of the afternoon in the dungeon farm ensuring that all their new seedlings and other plants had been properly moved to farming plots, even taking wooden scraps from the carpenters to build a small fence around the plots to discourage people from walking through them.

Lori, meanwhile, inspected the side tunnels she'd made looking for one that was convenient for her purposes. Thankfully, most were empty and none smelled of either piss or waste, although she found that someone had been using rocks and dirt to make their own tuber planters. Surprisingly, there wasn't as much of a mess as she thought there would be given that the rocks were a loose barrier. The improvised planter was small and the tuber plants in it stunted and wilting because they didn't have enough light despite being positioned as close to the mouth of the side tunnel as possible.

…

After the brat and Taeclas had moved the stunted tubers from the improvised planter to the plot with the seedlings—there was plenty of room left in the farm plots—Lori set about turning the end of one of the side tunnels into a warm environment suitable for the sweetgrass. She excavated stone from the floor to make a plant box for the sweetgrass. Bindings of lightwisps were anchored to the walls to shine light down on the empty planter box. She'd wire them later, but for now it would be enough for her to work.

Construction halted for lunch, and Lori found herself pleasantly surprised as when she saw that instead of flat little disks of bread Rian and Riz came back carrying round buns of leavened bread. The sound of conversation in the dining hall became loud and excited, and for once she could understand why. The flatbread they'd had was tasty, but only in comparison to nothaving flatbread. Having leavened bread…

For once, Lori bit into her bread first, savoring the airy texture, the warmth, and the hint of salt as she chewed—

She chewed and swallowed. "Rian, what are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" her lord said.

Lori rolled her eyes. "It looks like you're hollowing out your bread."

"Now that would be very silly of me. No, I'm packing in the insides of my bread to make more room. Completely different thing. My way doesn’t waste any of the bread."

All right, she'd concede that. "Well, why are you—" Lori broke off as Rian took a meaty, tubery spoonful of stew and began stuffing the bead. "Ah. That's why." She watched Rian as he continued stuffing his bread with stew, and he wasn't the only one. "No, no, this explains nothing. Rian, whyare you stuffing your bread with stew?"

"Because this way, when I bite into it each mouthful will have a perfectly blend of sauce-soaked bread and stew," Rian said cheerfully. "Admittedly, this first attempt is probably going to have some defects that I'll need to correct in future versions, but testing will still be delicious." He poured in a spoonful of only the sauce the stew had.

"Well, be sure to eat it all. If it falls off your bread, I expect you to put it in your mouth and eat it anyway."

"Yes, your Bindership." Rian began eating his stew-filled roll.

"Shasha, can you make me one of those?" Shanalorre's cousin said from the other side of the other Dungeon Binder.

"Of course, Yoshka. Give me your bread."

Lori glanced at her roll—no, no, she wasn't going to do something so silly. She ate as she always had, consuming her stew with a spoon and dipping in piece of bread for variety, then wiping her bowl with the last of the bread to clean it.

Once lunch was finished, Lori went back to work. Excavating stone from the floor of the dungeon farm—it would be the start of a new farm plot—she used the stone to raise up a wall to block off the planter for the sweetgrass. With string, weight and stone-levelling tool in hand, Lori made the wall tolerably plumb, leaving a door-sized opening to be filled in with a door later. The resulting room wasn't very big—it was a four-pace length of excavated corridor, with a third of that consisting of the empty planter—but it should be large enough to grow the sweetgrass.

"Ah, it's a bit too shallow, L—I mean, your Bindership," Taeclas said, visibly reminding herself to not use Lori's name at the last moment. "I'm keeping Honey in a pot right now, but sweetgrass is… well, a grass. It needs room to spread its roots, especially if we're going to be growing more sweetgrass than just Honey."

"I see," Lori said, looking down at the planter she'd made. "How deep?"

"Oh, a pace would be best, but half a pace will do as well. Although it will need drainage so that the roots don't rot."

… well, it was still summer. The sweetgrass could wait a day. Thankfully they still had farm plot-to-be full of rocks.

Once Lori had excavated the plot to a pace and a half, she made a small drainage cistern off to the side to give water somewhere to go, surrounding the latter with a knee-high wall to keep people from accidentally falling in. Then it became a high wall so that people wouldn't accidentally trip on it. And then she widened it because in the event a child fell in head-first, they'd be stuck in the position and potentially drown…

In the end, it was a larger cistern with a high wall around it, giving it a strong resemblance to a well, but at least it was… well, far less likely someone could fall in and drown while unnoticed.

"Rian," she told him when he sat down at the table, his hair damp from the baths, "I need people to put some of the drainage rocks in the plot I made for Taeclas' sweetgrass."

"Oh, you made a special plot for Honey? That was nice of you!"

Of course he knew what the plant was called. Though to be fair, even she was unlikely to think the sweetgrass looked like anyone else…

"Focus, Rian," Lori said flatly.

"Right, drainage stones to be moved into the plot."

"Large stones, smaller stones, and then a pace of dirt on top. Then have the carpenters make a door for the doorway I made."

"You made Honey her own room?"

"The sweetgrass needs warmer conditions, so it's best to separate it from the other crops."

"Ah. Would a normal door from the carpenters suffice, or do you want Tae to try at her hand at making the door?"

Lori waved a hand dismissively. "Whichever is faster."

"Are you sure? A simple project like this would be a good time to assess Taeclas' skill in woodworking, as well as how well she works with the carpenters."

Lori considered that. "Fine. Have Taeclas assist with building the door and learn whatever thing you feel needs to be learned from it."

Rian nodded as Umu arrived, stepping over the bench to sit next to Rian. She leaned against him, and without looking away from Lori he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze in acknowledgement. "So, I'm up to date on what happened in the demesnes while I was gone. Except for the typhon beast and the disruption to hunting that it caused, everything seems to have gone well, so there isn't really anything to worry about. Well, there's our effect on the local seel population, but that's sort of inevitable. In lieu of the lack of problems, I've had the carpenters start measuring everyone's windows in preparation for putting paper on them."

"Start with Shanalorre's residence," Lori said. "The rest may be at your own discretion." With paper-covered windows, people could open the shutters on their homes to let in light without inviting in bugs. While it would be little advantage in the summer, when people would likely prefer to let in cooler outside air even at the cost of letting in some bugs, come the next season and the winter it would be more useful.

Another nod. "Hopefully the bugs won't chew on the paper too quickly," he said as Mikon and Riz arrived, sitting on his other side from Umu. “Now, setting aside the issue of the Typhon Beast, are we still continuing the construction of the sawmill?”

Lori nodded. “Yes. With you present, we can at least begin the installation of the waterwheel and saw.” The carpenters and smiths had been making those over the past month, along with all the fittings needed to mount them. “What is the status of those parts?”

“The smiths managed to finish giving the saw wheel teeth and sharpening them, so there’s that. The carpenters have already test fit the water wheel, and have been working on the axles and gears needed for it. They're not done with all the fittings yet, since they haven't been rushing it like they did the waterwheel we built for River's Fork last year, but we can get started on the foundations for the mill. And by 'we', I really do mean 'we'. We can have people dig up the foundations and you can just set the stone in place when it's deep enough, maybe excavate the river a little so that there's room for the waterwheel.”

"Did you think I wasn't doing anything the whole month you were gone? I've already done the river excavation."

"Ah, of course. I apologize for presuming otherwise. I'll have people start digging. The carpenters should be mostly done with window frames by the time the excavation is finished and you've put in the foundations, and we can use the dirt for Honey's farm plot."

"Be sure to tell them to clean after themselves if they track dirt into my Dungeon."

"I'm sure the people in charge of cleaning will be more than willing do that themselves, but I'll be sure to tell them."

"Hello, Riz! Hello, Mikon! Hello, Umu! Hello, Rian! And can you please tell her Bindership that I said hello and that Honey is really grateful for the special room her Bindership is making?"

Rian smiled at Lori. "Tae says hello and that Honey is really grateful for the special room you're making for her."

"Noted," Lori said flatly as her new Deadspeaker and her wife sat down next to Umu, the latter giving the weaver her own more subdued greeting. "Taeclas, exempting the sweetgrass, have you finished with tending to the crops that you transferred to the dungeon farm?"

"Oh, I can talk to you now! Hello, Binder Lori! Your demesne is wonderful! The baths are so nice! Ah, I've finished transferring them all, and now I just have to tend them to be sure they're settling in properly. But don't worry, I just need to visit them every morning, I can get to work on the crops in the fields outside. However, Shana—"

"Shanalorre."

"Oh, right. Shanalorre suggested we practice working together first, holding a wire between us and then I use it to claim all the separate crops and tame their life into meanings, and then she uses the wire to imbue them, and then I activate the meanings. If we practice doing that for a little bit, we'll be able to do things faster. Shanalorre said she'd never used imbued magic through a wire before, so she probably needs some practice on that at least."

Lori frowned. On the one hand, she didn't want Shanalorre to become more capable of Deadspeaking. On the other hand, simply learning how to imbue things through metal wasn't really dangerous to Lori. Still, she'd have to prevent Shanalorre from learning anything else. The other Dungeon Binder was as Lori wanted her: useful, capable, and of little threat. Allowing her to learn to do anything beyond that was giving the Dungeon Binder the means to challenge Lori, and she couldn't have that.

"As long as she practices imbuement only," Lori said.

"Of course," Taeclas agreed. "It's far too dangerous for her to try anything else… well, besides the one meaning she knows, but according to her that doesn't work on plants, only people and maybe beasts and fursh. And given how much Rian says needs to be done, I don't really have time to try to teach her. It's not like I have any primers."

"Oh—"

Lori kicked Rian. Fortunately, her aim was true, and her foot connected with him instead of either of the women next to him.

Her lord stared at her, but didn't continue whatever he was going to say.

"Eh? What was that Rian?" Taeclas said, turning towards him.

"Nothing, I just accidentally hit my own knee with my boot heel."

"Oh, I hate it when that happens. If there's any more pain, just massage it and it should be fine by tomorrow. Ah, if we had ice I'd recommend putting some on it…"

"I can scrape off some frost from the walls of the cold room."

"There's a cold room?-!"

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Tales Of Adventures In Mercantilism

"So… about you kicking me yesterday? What was that about? You usually have a good reason for committing violence on anyone's person, and I feel I deserve to know what it was in this instance as the person in question."

It was the following day, and they were in the alcove on the second level that Rian slept in when there was a dragon passing overhead. Once more, Lori considered setting aside a space to act as her office, and once more violently rejected the idea. If she had a room for talking to people, people would go to that room to talk to her. Usually she had these talks at her dining table after breakfast, but Rian had begged for this to take place in the second floor where it was slightly cooler. He was supposedto be telling her as to how the trading trip to Covehold had gone, but for some reason he had begun with this.

Still, she decided to humor him. "You are not to inform Taeclas and—" she reached into her pouch, picking at the rocks there, "—Kolinh—"

Lori paused, then sighed and took out all of the rocks in her belt pouch, glaring at them.

"Maybe you can make the name rocks for Taeclas and Lidzuga out of bone instead of rock?" Rian suggested. "Or shapes. Theirs can be triangular, Kolinh's could be rectangular. since he substituted for me?"

Lori sighed. "Remind me to do that at the end of this discussion. As I was saying, you are not to inform Taeclas and Lidzuga that I am in possession of Deadspeaking primers, or any sort of primers at all."

"Yes, I understood that, subtle as it was. Why though?"

"Because I said so."

"Also understood, but why are you saying so? If I don't know that, I might follow the letter of your order and you know how this goes in plays and novels."

Lori glared at him. "Shanalorre is not to be trained further in Deadspeaking. She's useful the way she is. I will not have her being taught enough to become a threat to me."

"Ah. Um, shouldn't this be something you need to tell the people actually capable of teaching her?"

"I will be dealing with the matter directly. However, you asked."

"So you kicked me because you didn't want Tae to know you had primers… because you didn't want her to start teaching Shanalorre…" Rian frowned, then sighed. "All right, two issues. First, the lack of primers is unlikely to really stop her—or Lidzuga—if they really want to teach Shanalorre about Deadspeaking. Secondly… could find some other signal to tell me to stop talking that doesn't involve kicking me? You're the Dungeon Binder, can't you just blast air into my forehead or something?"

"As I said, I intend to deal with the matter directly."

"So… you're saying the kick to my leg was completely pointless in the long run because you'd have told them anyway?"

"Rian, cease digressing, you said you would give me a report about the trading trip."

Her lord sighed, but opened the leather folder that he gotten from his house after breakfast. "Just please consider the alternative to kicking me… All right. you don’t care about the actual physical trip as long as we reached our destination and back safely, you care about the profits, right?"

"Of course."

"Right…" He opened the folder and drew out some papers. "These are the terms we agreed on, but there are several points that the merchant house would like to renegotiate next time, with your authorization. The first point is that they ask the beads be sold by weight instead of per bead."

Lori raised an eyebrow. "By weight?"

Rian nodded. "They say it's 'a more reasonable measure', but I think it's because it make it easier to round the price up and down on their part, letting them shave the price a little at the edges. For the record, I was able to get a measure of the average weight of the large wispbeads you made, but there's a very small chance that the scales or weights had short weight. It's unlikely, since I chose the merchant house partially due to their reputation for honesty, but I thought you'd want independent confirmation and a basis to calculate our own price."

"What was the other reason you chose their merchant house?"

"Convenience," Rian said promptly. "They were the only ones willing to come to our boat to pick up our goods instead of requiring we bring our goods to them. Given the amount and weight of our goods, I thought it best to minimize the chance that we'd be robbed on the way to the merchant's."

Lori nodded slowly. Yes, she hadn't considered how they'd transport their goods on arrival, had she? The boat hadn't even had a hand cart on it. "I see. Continue, then."

"Right. I would recommend agreeing to selling the wispbeads by weight—again, once you've ascertained the weight of the beads to your own satisfaction—but only if the overall order of beads is above a certain threshold… say, five sengrains. If the amount of beads is over five sengrains, then the price is calculated by weight. But if it's less than that, the price is per bead. The contracts allows for renegotiating the price of the beads, something I secured because I wasn't sure you would be satisfied with the price I managed to get."

Lori frowned. "What price did you get for them?"

Rian told her.

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After Lori stopped starring at the wall, contemplating the interplay of supply, demand, bead consumption, and bead renewal going on in Covehold, they continued the discussion. Despite herself, she couldn't really find all that much fault in Rian's reasoning for the price he'd established. While the people of the demesne could ignore the restriction the demesne of Covehold had placed on the swallowing and use of beads in bound tools, completely using up the supply of small and small-mid denomination beads would for all practical purposes force people to redesignate larger-denomination beads, effectively leading to…

No, they were continuing the discussion!

In addition to requiring a minimum number of beads before the price was calculated by weight, Rian had suggested that they renegotiate the price of individual beads to 11 bead-tani to give the merchant house incentive to order the minimum amount of beads for the by-weight price, which they'd calculate so that the average price per bead was in the vicinity of 10 bead-tani.

"As you lord trying to help you maximize profit for the benefit of the demesne, I'd suggest that arrangement," he said. "As the one who handles 'dealing with people' matters for you, I'd advise against it. A venture like this relies on trust and good will between ourselves and the merchant house we've partnered with. The fewer complications we impose on them, the fewer complications they'll put us through in return. Complications are more costly for us since we won't know about them until we get to Covehold, and given some might require your input, that could be weeks lost going back and forth on the Coldhold. It migh even be so complicated you yourself might be forced to leave the demesne to resolve it. You hate leaving for River's Fork enough as it is, imagine having to leave for Covehold. In the long term, it's in our mutual interest to make the exchange as straightforward as possible."

"Hmm…" Lori 'hmm…'-ed. On the one hand, not trying to go for maximum profit grated on her soul. On the other, she was well aware of how the petty contract clauses that companies, merchants, houses and factors liked to impose on each other could act as an impediment to profit…

…

Well, she already had her monopoly. All that was needed to make a profit was time. And since her demesne's economy was all but completely isolated from Covehold Demesne and the other demesnes around it, they wouldn’t be affected by price fluctuations in the other demesne unless they deliberately involved themselves in the demesne’s economy, that is, bought something. All she had to do was sit back, not have to leave her demesne, and simply wait for the beads to roll in—

“Rian,” Lori said sharply, “where are my beads?”

“In my house,” Rian said promptly. “You were passed out the day before and busy yesterday, so I didn’t have the opportunity to give them to you. Don’t worry, the receipt for them is here—” he handed her a sheet from the folder, “—less the beads we had to spend on expenses while we were in Covehold.”

Lori took the sheet of paper, glancing over it. “And all these expenses are…?”

“First, let me begin by saying I trusted the preserved food we made ourselves to be safe to eat for a long time…”

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Once Lori had finished giving him flat, unamused looks and Rian had managed to justify their expenses to her satisfaction—even she had to admit the desire to eat fresh bread and something other than stew was a reasonable one—as well as agreeing that it any raw meat they purchased in Covehold might be questionable, she had him bring down the chest of beads. It was, as he said, a very nice chest, and the knot he'd described was still in place.

"Have the smiths make a proper lock for this," she said as she cut the knot she recognized the style. It was a stylized knot that merchants used when they didn't have any other way to secure something available. While it was complicated looking, it wasn't that hard to do. Its advantage was that it was difficult to knot manually, especially with the ends of the cord snipped off, so it had to be cut off. Not impossible to counterfeit, but a reasonable protection and guarantee that whatever was sealed was unopened, especially if the merchant house used a distinctive cord. "It needs to be more secure."

"What are you going to use it for?" Rian asked as she opened the chest.

"Where else are we going to keep the beads you'll be bringing home on the next trading trip?" Lori said absently as she stared at the wooden trays filled with double-large beads…

…

...

…she'd never seen beads in denominations this high…so many beads…

…

…

…she could buy so many books with these many beads…! With just onebead!

…

…

The lid of the chest slammed shut, and Lori winced. She hadn't thought she'd closed it that forcefully.

"As your lord, I need to remind you that you tried lying down on beads before, and you said it was like sleeping on lumpy rocks. I doubt that's going to change just because the beads you've planning to use have denomination markings."

"The reminder is noted."

"They also make for terrible pillow stuffing, in case you forgot."

"Again, noted."

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More Tales Adventures In Mercantilism

They moved on to the rest of the list.

The merchant house asking for regular shipments was… to be expected, even if Lori didn't like it. As to more regular deliveries… well, Rian had promised another delivery before winter, so they would do that, though she wasn't sending her lord right away. She needed him in her demesne, after all, and there wasn't anyone she could send in this place.

"I think we can do with fewer shipments a year if we're carrying a lot of beads," Rian said, "though that will depend on the rate that the wispbeads are being sold. The problem will actually spending our earnings."

"You didn't seem to have any problem doing so," Lori said flatly.

"Yes, but food expenses aren't even an appreciable fraction of our profits," Rian said. "My concern is that we'll start pulling a noticeable amount of large-denomination beads from circulation if we don't start spending our profits in some way." He made a strange, twisted half-smile expression. "Unless we start spending those beads, I'm worried Covehold Demesne might regard our actions as a form of economic sabotage. I don't think we want to have that as a complication in our dealings."

Lori shrugged. "Then we'll simply have to see if we can find a bank of some sort. Why are you making that face?"

"I'm crying and screaming on the inside. It would have been very nice to know I had permission to put all those beads in a bank." He sighed heavily. "Well, moving on. Yes, a bank would help. I'd worry less about being robbed, for one thing. Well, I'd worry less about losing anything if we get robbed. Alright, that removes the issue of needing to spend our earnings, although on a philosophical level I feel the profits should be spent on something instead of hoarded, but let's set that aside for now. How many beads do you feel comfortable promising per shipment and how often? At the moment, we have the minimum commitment of two more deliveries of at least a hundred beads before winter. I didn't commit to more because I didn't know how often you wanted it to happen and how many beads you wanted to make for the shipment. Though as the person who had to negotiate their sale, I don't think it's a good idea to sell that many again. It's fine in this instance, but repeating it on our next trading trip will probably cause an oversupply, so I suggest a smaller amount. Maybe just something between two hundred and… well, far less than eleven thousand.”

"Let's send a thousand on the next trip for now," Lori said. "I'm sure that the merchant house will have a plea for how many the next one will be, which I will consider. As to the second shipment before winter that you committed us to… We'll see when a good time will be. There's still much that needs to be done here."

Rian grunted. "Well, that's true… but that being the case, I can't continue being the only person you trust to lead a trading trip to Covehold Demesne. Not if it means work comes to a near-standstill here. If nothing else, the trading trip is the most risky thing we can do. An unexpected dragon, bad weather, overly aggressive dillians…" He shrugged. "You need other lords or ladies. Whatever capacity you want me to fulfill, you need people to take over the positions I'll be leaving vacant as a result."

"We did that. Shanalorre, Erzebed and—" Lori reached into her belt pouch.

"Kolinh. The name you're looking for is 'Kolinh', let's skip the part where you get the rocks mixed up."

"—Kolinh acted in your place when you were gone."

"If that were true, you'd have started building the sawmill already," he pointed out. "Kolinh would be the one planning, organizing and actually in charge of building the sawmill even with me here anyway. All I'd be doing is being an intermediary between him and you. There's no reason why you can't send someone else to lead the trading expeditions." He paused. "Well, there's one reason, but all I'd need to do is to go with them on the first trip to introduce them to our contacts and teach them what they're supposed to do."

"We are straying off the topic. The next shipment will be either when the sawmill is finished, after the next dragon, or next season after the harvest."

"First harvest of second harvest? We're trying for a double harvest now that we have Deadspeakers to try and accelerate growth, right? Speaking of which, have you come up with terms for Lidzuga's probation yet?"

"I am considering, but this matter has priority."

"So you haven't even started yet. Well, I hear from Yllian that he has Lidzuga checking over the dome, especially the damaged tree you wrapped in stone to hold it up. After that, Yllian intends for him to do maintenance on everyone's houses, especially the ones built into the central tree. Best he's not idle while you're, ah, considering."

Lori nodded approvingly. "Goood. Have Yllian record how long it takes for him to do what, and how much whatever he worked on has improved, if any." She frowned. "Tomorrow, have the wooden boat—"

"Lori's Boat?"

"Yes, that one. Have the carpenters examine it and make a list of any defects they can observe, then sent down to River's Fork for Lidzuga to do maintenance on. When he is finished, have the carpenters examine it again and note how many things have been corrected."

"Do you mind if we have him add some wood onto it to make the side a bit higher?"

"Later. We need to establish a baseline for comparison first."

Rian hummed thoughtfully. "While we're on the subject… what do you think of making the requirements for the time off Lidzuga I asking for goal-based. You're glaring, but at least hear me out. You want him to contribute, all right. You think he needs to contribute above normal to deserve his time off to do research, I don't disagree. But rather than requiring him to do the same things Taeclas is doing but in less time or with more results, give him projects that he has to complete in addition to his normal contributions to get the time off he wants."

"And you have projects in mind, of course," Lori said dryly.

Rian shrugged shameless. "Have him make copies of Lori's Boat. If nothing else, we need boats to go between the demesnes, or even just across the river. With the Deadspeakers now here to do maintenance on Lori's Boat, we can afford to put it back into regular use since it can be repaired now. We can replace the hull of Lori's Ice Boat with a wooden hull and get rid of the ice. That's one less thing for you to maintain. Or better yet, we can have him make an improved design for a small boat."

"That will require raw material," Lori pointed out.

"He's in River's Fork. Remember, in addition to the fruit trees, they also have some trees that grow branches, which they cut and dry to use for firewood. We should have some being stored up in the curing sheds for you to dry. That's all the raw material he needs, provided the trees and kept healthy."

"Hmm…" Lori 'hmm'-ed. "Send the boat. I'll consider your suggestion."

"Of course… and speaking of boats, there's the last matter proposed during the negotiations with the Emborin and Sons merchant house. This is the one that most requires your input and decision-making. The merchant house suggested that we utilize the profits from our bead sales to commission a ship on the scale of the Coldhold in Covehold Demesne."

Lori blinked. "What?"

"That… might have been partially my fault. I kept saying that one of the reasons we couldn't make regular deliveries was because of the limitations of the Coldhold, and one of them suggestion commissioning such a boat in Covehold."

Lori frowned. "What limitations?"

"Lori, its hull is made of ice."

"Yes. It was your idea to make it so."

"I'm not denying that. It was the best material for a hull we had at the time, except for the bones and shell of that undead islandshell, and you didn't want to use that."

Lori shrugged.

"Exactly. The problem is that the density of ice is barely lower than water, and since the hull needs to be thick so it doesn't crack… well, that's a lot of mass. Your drivers have a lot of thrust, but they have to push a lot of ice through the water. A boat made of wood would be lighter, and as a result ride higher in the water, which means less resistance."

She considered that. Well, all that was true. Certainly the driver would be more effective if it had less mass to push around.

"And while we can theoretically do it ourselves now, we only have two Deadspeakers, one of whom is slow at woodworking. Covehold has far more woodowrkers, far more Deadspeakers, and access to more and bigger bound tools. They'd get it done faster and better. At least, that's the reasoning. I'm fairly certain that the merchant house partially suggested this so they'd be able to pay us in goods and services instead of beads, but that doesn’t mean it's not a good idea if we want to have a better boat made in less time than building it ourselves."

"Is it really necessary?" Lori said.

"At this point… not really. The Coldhold is sufficient for our needs for now. At most, having a purely wooden boat means we can stop worrying about you forgetting to imbue the hull, and you don't have to imbue the hull anymore. With Lidz and Tae with us now, we can start making out own wooden ship. It will take plenty of time, and will probably be a large project, but we can finally do it. If we want to get it done in a reasonable time frame, we'll need to build such a ship in River's Fork."

She frowned. "Why there?"

"Because Lidzuga is there and it's Shana…lorre's demesne. Lidzuga will need to fuse the wood together to make a solid hull, and to do that quickly, Shanalorre will need to imbue his meanings so he doesn't need to waste time doing it himself. And that's just fusing the hull together. Our carpenters will also need to do the cutting and shaping of the rest of the ship so that it's structurally sound and has internal supports, and it will probably be easier to fuse wood together if they already fit together. They also have the riverside open areas best-suited for actually building the ship, since… well, we still have them here, but they wouldn't be as conveniently close."

"Can't we just give the Coldhold a fused wooden hull?"

Rian titled his head thoughtfully. "Hmm… it's a thought, but it would certainly require completely rebuilding the ship. Remove the ice, replacing all of it with wooden planks, fuse the planks together to make it waterproof, probably add in more reinforcement to keep the water from pushing in the planks… we could probably do it, but it would mean not having the use of the Coldhold for that time. That means no ship to use to gather salt. At the end, it will probably take as much time as just building a new ship, and at the end of it, we'd still have only one ship. If we're going to be investing all that time and effort anyway…" He shrugged.

"…" Lori '…'-ed. "Get an estimate of what it would take to build a ship of the same size or larger than the Coldhold. I'll make a decision then. Is there anything else?"

Rian shook his head. "No, that's it." He drew one last sheet of paper from his folder, and placed the former on top of the latter. "Here's the full list of our purchases. Once you've looked it over, can I release the cloudbloom so people can start sewing new trousers for everyone?"

Lori took the folder and sheet. "I need new trousers too."

“I’ll find someone who can do it. Do you want them to measure you, or would you rather give us your most comfortable pair so we can copy the dimensions of that?”

Lori perused the list. Some, she expected. Others, Rian clearly picked on his own initiative, like the writing slates, which he said for when they started lessons for the children. A few, however…

“Rian, why is a sack of fruit-flavored sweets on this list?”

“It’s for the children, your Bindership,” he said promptly. “I was hoping to give it to them on the next holiday, but the heat and humidity seems to be making it melt, so I need to hand it out soon. Do you want to test a few to make sure it’s safe to serve to the children?”

…

“Make sure Shanalorre is nearby in case it’s gone off,” Lori said. She had to make sure it was fit to consume, after all, especially if it was going to the children. Very important responsibility, that.

After going over the list, Lori tucked it back into the folder. She’d give it back to Rian so he’d have somewhere to keep papers on his next trading trip. “I think we’re done here. You can start distributing the cloudbloom, papers, pensinks, and slates, and I’ll have my most comfortable trousers ready.”

“They’ll be laundered, right?”

She gave him a flat look.

“Because I don’t think you really want people to know what you smell like down the—”

“Yes, Rian, the trousers will be laundered. Make sure they come back to me in the same condition!”

“Of course, your Bindership. Oh, and your Bindership?"

"What now, Rian? I thought we were done."

"You told me to remind you to give your name rocks distinct shapes so you mix them up less?"

Oh, right. "Thank you for the reminder."

They parted ways, Rian off to fulfill her orders, and Lori off to directly deal with the matter of ensuring that Binder Shanalorre would not be taught enough to be a threat to her.

Following the rock with the binding of lightwisps she had given the other Dungeon Binder, Lori found her at the hospital, sitting at a stool and balancing a plank on her lap as she read another plank. The only others nearby were tow of either the doctors or medics, sitting at a table and facing each other over a game board with cups of water in hand, fanning themselves with… well, fan that seemed to have been made from beast feathers.

The latter two looked up ass he came in, but she waved for them to sit down as she headed towards Shanalorre. The latter glanced up and began setting her planks aside, rising smoothly to her feet as Lori reached her. “Great Binder.”

Lori nodded. “Binder Shanalorre. Have you begun practicing imbuing through a wire with Deadspeaker Taeclas yet?”

“Not yet, Great Binder. The extension wire has only just been finished. We have arrangements to begin practicing after lunch in the dungeon farm.”

“I have orders for you, then. Except for imbuing through a wire, you are forbidden from learning any other aspect of Deadspeaking from Taeclas or—” Lori reached into her belt ouch and pulled out her recently reshaped rocks, “—Lidzuga. Is that understood?”

Shanalorre stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, Great Binder. I am not to learn any Deadspeaking from our new arrivals.”

“Or anyone else.”

“Or anyone else. Understood, Great Binder. May I inquire as to why?”

For a moment, Lori regarded her. “You’re useful the way you are. There’s no need to change that.”

“I see… thank you for satisfying my curiosity, Great Binder.”

The two exchanged nods, and Lori left to see to other matters. She headed for a river, hoping she’d find a par of nice rocks quickly…