Weekly Digest 127 - (#401 - #403) (Patreon)

Dedicated Expansion

“Ugh, I’ve forgotten how painful using pens could be,” Rian sighed at dinner, his right hand opening and closing as if he was trying to loosen up muscles.

Lori and—she checked the rocks in her pouch, pulling out the right one on the second try—Taeclas both winced, their own hands clenching and sympathy. “I don’t miss that part of school,” the Deadspeaker muttered.

“At least you could heal,” Lori muttered back.

“Only afterwards,” Taeclas countered.

Lori grunted in non-committal acknowledgement, turning her attention back to her lord as Taeclas started muttering about Mentalists. Ugh, the Mentalists. Either they didn’t have to write anything down because they could just remember everything, or their pens moved without a hand on them, writing in the grip of thought force. “Was your grip too hard? We didn’t make so many notes that you’d have trouble dictating it into the notebook.”

“I know that,” Rian said from the other side of Riz, sounding almost offended. “No, it hurts because I wanted to get it all written down before dinner so that I wouldn’t have to keep doing it after.”

Mikon made a sound clucking sound as she shook her head. “Give me your hand,” she said.

Rian complied, his forearm pressing against the non-officer’s torso as Mikon pulled his arm towards her and started massaging his extremity. “Oh, that’s actually helping, thanks! Uh, although we’re imposing on Riz…”

“I don’t mind,” Riz said with a smirk as she crossed her arms, pushing his arm up a little higher. On Rian’s other side, Umu was giving the two an annoyed look as she clutched at Rian’s arm tighter.

“Erzebed, restrain yourself and keep your flirting acceptable for children,” Lori said, making the woman wince and uncross her arms. “Rian, we have that final alloy we’ll be making after breakfast. Once it’s finished, remain to take note of the results of the wire drawing.”

“Yes, your Bindership,” Rian said. “Uh, about how many times you expanded the demesne yesterday and the day before…?”

“Really? You’re still asking?

“Yes, I’m still asking! My data is incomplete!”

The rest of breakfast was uneventful save for the fact Mikon wouldn’t let go of Rian’s hand, insisting she needed to continue massaging it. This led to Umu and Riz insisting they needed to feed him, to their strange enjoyment, the amusement of the other tables, and her lord’s indulgent resignation.

Riz was less amused at realizing she also needed to feed Mikon, as she had both hands occupied. Despite being disgruntled, the non-officer simply sighed and did so. The weaver seemed to enjoy the experience far more than Rian did.

It said something about Rian’s eating habits that even will all this, he still managed to finish eating at the same time as Lori.

As Taeclas took a moment to talk to Mikon after she finally let Rian go, Lori headed to her room to retrieve the previous day’s samples so they could b drawn into wire. “Rian, get your slate.”

“Yes, your Bindership! Don’t start without me!”

The actual making of the dual-wisp alloy went without incident. After all the samples they had made yesterday, today’s melt was almost rote. The metal shavings and white Iridescence were heated, Lori claimed, bound and anchored lightwisps and airwisps together—it had seemed the optimal combination—and then she simply waited for the metal to become molten so it could be poured.

“Well, it’s still completely transparent…” Rian said as the cooled block was retrieved from the bucket of water. “And bigger than it should be too. So… I suppose this counts as a success?”

“We'll still need to have the smiths test its properties,” Lori said. She looked toward the smiths attending them. “Remove a small portion now for testing and drawing. See how fine a wire you can draw from them. As to the rest of the samples…" Lori considered then shrugged. “Fold them up into as small a block as you can, storing them as they currently are is a bit inconvenient. Rian—”

“I know, I know, oversee the wire drawing and take notes.”

Lori nodded, and left them to it. She had a demesne to expand, after all.

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Lori spent the following week expanding the demesne, sitting in her room and laying back in her recess in the wall she quickly regained her efficiency and proficiency from last winter. Once she started doing so, the activity became much less mentally taxing, and she no longer ended with day feeling like a headache was threatening to erupt. Make multiple ‘shells’ of bindings around her demesne, link them all together to imbue them all at once, disconnect the outermost shell and use that to expand the demesne outwards…

It wasn’t all sitting around, of course. As she had learned during the winter, she could only stay in one position, comfortable and cushioned as it was, for so long, and she was spending far more time expanding her demesne now. Lori found herself leaving her wall recess, wearing the tsinelas that Rian had promised her—the footwear was quite comfortable once she got used to the feeling of dried reeds on her bare feet—and pacing back and forth to get blood flowing back into her legs and alleviate the restless energy that filled her as she did. The activity actually helped her concentration, as it gave her body something to do, keeping her mind from becoming distracted. Well, more distracted, anyway.

As the week progressed, Lori found herself spending less and less time in her little wall recess, if only to be able to recline in different positions. She even found that she could read a little when she was just imbuing the shells of bindings around her demesne, although the subject couldn’t be very intensive. That meant she was limited to browsing the almanac, since the primers were all more complicated and more frustrating, which tended to pull her attention back to what she was reading. Probably for the best. She was finding the primers on Deadspeaking, Mentalism and Horotracting were annoyingly unhelpful. Try as she might to follow the preliminary perception exercises written in the introductory chapters, she still couldn’t perceive the life, vertices or thoughts that they said she should be able to after doing them!

As she expanded the demesne, managing to slightly increase the number of times she could expand the demesne in a day, the work being done continued.

“The waterwheel and saw are finally working,” Rian announced triumphantly, as if he actually had anything to do with it. Actually, considering how he liked to involve himself in all of the work that was occurring, he probably had been. “We can finally split and cut the logs that we cut down when we cleared the area around the sawmill, so the sawyers are hard at work cutting the logs into planks for the sawmills roof and walls.” He paused. “Well, they’re trying. The rollers are being a bit awkward right now, but no one’s lost any fingers yet.”

He glanced sideways at—Lori had checked her rock—Taeclas. “Uh, can you reattach fingers? I don’t think Shana—”

“Shanalorre,” Lori corrected, cheerfully accompanied by said Dungeon Binder’s little cousin declaring, “Shashalorre!”

“—Shanalorre can do dismembered… members.”

“I can’t,” Shanalorre confirmed.

“Uh… I can and I can’t…” Taeclas said hesitantly. “I mean… I did it once, managed to keep someone’s fingers alive, but someone with actual medical experience and better at fleshcrafting did the actual reattachment. I theoretically know how to do it, but that was on a dead hand and a beast tail.”

“Ah… well, I’ll ask Lidz next time I see him, but if we had an emergency, would you be willing to try in any case?”

Taeclas winced but nodded. “Don’t worry, I will. It’s just… well, blood is icky. It’s wet and it stains and it gets everywhere…”

“I’m sure everyone would much rather not lose a finger than having to ask you to put one back on,” Rian said. “Just keeping the finger alive should be well enough. Our doctors have experience surgically reattaching fingers, so between you all people should be fine.”

“Oh, thank the Binder!”

“What for? I didn’t do anything.”

Taeclas blushed as Rian started chuckling. “Uh, just… uh…”

“Yes?” Lori said, keeping her gaze on the Deadspeaker.

“…I’m sorry for swearing in front of the children.”

“Don’t worry, we already know how to glittering swear!” someone from the table behind Lori said.

“…psst, Tae,” Rian hissed theatrically. “This is where you stop talking, eat, and wait for her to stop staring at you like that.”

The mine in River’s Fork was also progressing well. The water that had filled the bottom of the mine—before they’d put in the door and channels that diverted the rainwater away from the mine—had been emptied out the hard way, a bucket at a time. It had left a thick sludge, the result of the bathwater draining down into the flooding when the dragon shelter had been use earlier that season, which they’d scraped out with shovel. The rest that couldn’t be scraped was dried by setting a fire to dry everything out.

“After that, we aired it out to get rid of the smoke and smell, and when the smell wouldn’t go away, we asked Lidz if he could do something, and when he couldn’t we set another fire and tried to at least make the place smell like smoke,” Rian reported at the end of the week. “Thankfully the smoke had cleared by the time I left, so our men didn’t have to find someplace else to sleep for the night. Tomorrow, they’ll start proper mining operations, since all that clearing finally let us find the copper seam.”

“I see. And that boat you were pulling behind you?”

“That’s the second that Lidz finished, the one with the higher sides. He’s already working on the third one, the version that has a low centerline with compartments we can fill with weights.”

“Making the boat weigh more seems counterproductive to having it float,” Lori said flatly.

“It’s all a matter of where the weight is positioned. I had Lidz put the compartments at the lowest point of the boat so that the center of the boat is being pulled down by the weights. With the other parts of the boat being buoyed up by the water, the boat is less likely to roll, so it doesn’t need to be stabilized by outriggers. Or at least, that’s my hope.”

“You hope?”

Rian shrugged. “Look, it’s like trying to float a wooden cup. It’s far more stable if you put a weight in it to keep the bottom from rising and remain the lost point.”

“…why would you float a drinking cup?” Lori couldn’t help asking.

“…there’s very little to do around here that’s not work or…” Rian glanced over her shoulder, “… board games. You do things when you’re bored.” He shrugged. “Look, if it doesn’t work, we can just take out the rocks and add outriggers like the others.”

Lori grunted noncommittally. “Fine. We’ll wait on the results of Lori’s Boat Four, and use the Lori’s Boat Three as a test for the prototype of the next steam jet driver bound tool.”

“Come on, can’t we change the names? Just slapping numbers on them is boring!”

“Why are you complaining, Rian? You like watching numbers get bigger.”

“That has nothing to do with this! This doesn’t count!”

By the end of the week of dedicated expansion, according to Rian’s measurements, the demesne had grown a total of slightly less than 170 paces in diameter. In only ten days, she had managed to expand to almost a third of what she had managed to achieve over the winter.  In another week, her demesne would be five taums wide, increasing the area of her demesne by…!

…

Uh…

…

Well, she’d have Rian do the math since she’d forgotten the formulas for it, but it was no doubt a significant amount!

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The Prototype Sliding Switch

“With another week of similar growth, the surface area of the demesne will increase by almost half of it original size,” Rian practically cheered after he did some calculations on his slate, muttering to himself the whole time. “At this rate, we might even be the size of Covehold Demesne in a year or two!”

“Unlikely,” Lori said flatly. “It’s clear the summer heat is some kind of factor, so growth will be slowed over winter. And your estimate is assuming that I do nothing but expand the demesne. Did you forget I need to make a new steam jet driver today?”

“Ah… right…” Rian laughed, sounding embarrassed. “Sorry, I forgot.”

“This obsession of yours with numbers going up is very concerning, Rian.”

“I do not have an obsession! It’s not the numbers that matter, it’s what they represent!”

“Rian, cease pouting, it makes you look like a child.”

As much as she thought Rian’s fixation on numbers was silly, she had to admit that his calculation helped put the expansion of her demesne into perspective. Still, the week she’d spent expanding her demesne was only possible because there was nothing she had to do personally. Even so, part of her mind had been waiting for the announcement from Shanalorre, informing Lori that a large number of people were entering the boundaries of River’s Fork Demesne…

Rian shook his head. “Fine, fine… so, about the steam jet driver. Are you going to…?” He hesitated, glancing sideways towards Shanalorre and…—Lori checked the rocks in her belt pouch—Taeclas. “Actually, how secret is this? Besides, you know, all the smiths knowing about it.”

Lori also turned to look towards the two, considering. Shanalorre stared back impassively, while Taeclas seemed wary. She tried to consider the situation from their perspective. Technically, they already knew of the existence of the alloys—she and Rian had discussed it at the table—but the had been no mention as to what exactly those alloys were. All either knew would be that they had spent a day on experimental metallurgy.

On the other hand, both already knew that she could produce bound tools in some way…

“Binder Shanalorre,” Lori said, “Wizard Taeclas. You are both aware of the fact that I have been producing bound tools.”

“Yes, Great Binder.”

“Good morning, Binder Lori! Yes, and I’ve been wanting to talk to you about those… but I’ll ask later.”

Lori nodded curtly. “The fact that I am producing bound tools is a secret that is to be kept to my demesnes. Under no circumstances are you to reveal it to anyone else without my explicit order to do so. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Great Binder,” Shanalorre said promptly, and Lori nodded in satisfaction.

“… why are you keeping the fact that you can make bound tools a secret?” Taeclas asked.

Lori stared at her. “Does that really have to be explained?”

“Uh, yes? I mean, you can make wispbeads and bound tools. You’re already selling wispbeads to Covehold. If they find out you have bound tools too people would be screaming at you to take their beads or whatever else you wanted as payment.”

“Because having the ability to make my own bound tools is an advantage I have over all other demesnes on this continent,” Lori said. “While Covehold Demesne, and possibly some of the others as well, have bound tools, they cannot make more, save for if they have the necessary components or finished tools brought over from the old continent. If people from outside of my demesne realized I had the capability, every Dungeon Binder and wizard who can make a demesne will want to know how I do so to have that advantage themselves. This will no doubt result in them coming after my demesne to try and find out the secrets of doing so. Other demesnes would attack us to try and force me to I would need to worry about spies breaking into my room looking for hypothetical notes as to how it is done—as if I would simply write it down—or women coming to seduce me to somehow convince me to reveal my methodology.”

“…why women?” Rian asked.

“It’s always women in plays and novels for some reason.”

“Ah, of course, of course. Silly of me for asking.”

“…I… don’t think anyone would do that? They’d probably just try to buy bound tools from you,” Taeclas said hesitantly.

“It’s what I would do in their place,” Lori said.

“Ah, I see,” Shanalorre said, nodding.

As Taeclas stared at her, Lori met her gaze. “So. You will notreveal the fact that I am capable of making bound tools to anyone, unless I have explicitly given you permission to. Is that clear?”

The Deadspeaker hesitated, glancing at Rian.

Rian shrugged. “Think about it this way. Who can you tell? Why would you tell them?”

Taeclas blinked and titled her head thoughtfully. Then she nodded. “Yes, Great Binder. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

Lori nodded, satisfied.

“And goes for all of you listening in too!” Rian suddenly cried, raising his voice to be heard. “Understood?”

Various staggered and renditions of, “Yes, Lord Rian!” sounded out from the tables around them, including high-pitched ones from behind Lori.

“Don’t promise to me, promise her Bindership. She’s the one who’s going to be annoyed at you and make your lives terrible over this, after all.”

Another staggered chorus followed, this time a rendition of, “Yes, your Bindership.”

Lori nodded again. “Very well. Now, with that out of the way, what were you saying, Rian?”

“Are you planning to add a prototype dial or slider to the new bound tool?”

“Eventually. At the moment, we need to design a physical mechanism for it.”

“And by ‘we’, you mean the smiths and carpenters.”

Lori shrugged. “I leave such matters to those with the expertise.”

“Should I get them after breakfast, then?”

Lori considered it. “Yes, but we should begin testing its efficacy with something besides a driver bound tool. A wisplight will do. Once the prototype has proven effective, then it would be a simple matter to integrate it into a driver.”

Rian nodded. “What sort of mechanism do you have in mind, then? A dial, a slider or a lever?”

“Whichever is easy to build, and least likely to break.”

“So… no specific preference between the three, then?”

Lori rolled her eyes. “No, so you can put whatever idea you no doubt have into action.”

“Well, if you give permission like that…”

“Just get me a usable mechanism that I can test on a wisplight. You may satisfy all your concerns about people accidentally bumping into the mechanism of whatever else as long as you bring me that.”

“I’ll get the smiths and carpenters and Taeclas on it after breakfast, your Bindership.”

“Wait, I will?”

Rian looked towards the Deadspeaker. “Well, your part can wait until after lunch, we’ll probably need some wood fused together.”

“Oh, I can do that! Though, you know, what you just talked about doesn’t seem worth all swearing me to secrecy and being worried about women coming to seduce her Bindership.”

“Her Bindership has her reasons, I’m sure.”

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It took two days of work, but eventually the redsmiths and carpenters and Rian were able to put together a mechanism utilizing the darkwisp-anchored white Iridescence alloy.

Lori spent the mornings during that time testing the alloy to better familiarize herself with how it’s magic-impeding properties worked. The smiths had drawn a portion of the samples out into wires to test their ductility—where it was revealed that that airwisp and waterwisp alloys could be drawn into finer wires than the other samples, with the airwisps able to be drawn much finer than the waterwisps—so she had a length of darkwisp alloy wire to experiment with, even after she gave a ten yustri length of it to Rian for the mechanism being made.

She had begun by testing how much wire was needed for the resistance in the wire to lower to a level where enough magic could pass through and imbue the binding such that it was usable for the purpose it was intended for. In this case of her test, she’d taken one of the wisplights she had made and tied the darkwisp alloy wires she was testing around the bead receptacle. She then touched the alloy wire with a bead, moving it back and forth and using the wisplight’s brightness to assess how much of the imbuement from the bead was reaching the biding of lightwisps anchored to the bound tool’s core.

It took several tests and cutting wires of different lengths before she was forced to reach a conclusion: it didn’t matter how long the wire was. Touching the bead to the middle of the alloy wire—with the bead not connected to another wire to make the contact point more precise—caused the wisplight to glow at the same intensity whether the alloy wire was five yustri or ten yustri long.

Which made no sense!Surely there was more darkwisps alloyed to the longer length than the shorter one? And yet, no matter how she tried to change the results, it remained consistent.

On the one hand, this was convenient, as it meant that any length of allowed wire would do, although longer lengths of course would allow for more find control. On the other hand… it made no sense! The longer wire should offer more resistance because there was more alloyed copper for the magic to pass through! But that wasn’t what happened!

…

She wondered if it was results like this that had led to the empiricists wiping out the thought experimentists. This was surely a test that needed empirical results, as a thought experiment would have been incorrect.

In the afternoon, she worked on expanding the demesne, writing down the results of her morning's experimentation onto a bone tablet for Rian to transcribe into his notebook later as she imbued the shells of bindings. She wasn't able to expand as many times as in a usual day, but that was to be expected.

At the end of those two days, Rian presented the finished mechanism to her at dinner. It was a wooden tube that appeared to be four yustri thick, just the right size to be gripped comfortably. From one end, a pair of copper wires stuck out, while on the other end was a rounded knob. On opposite sides of the tube were long, groove-like holes that showed that the tube had been hollowed out and had another tube inside it. A peg that passed through the inner tube helped it slide back and forth along the groove while keeping it from slipping out or rotating.

"How does it work?" she asked, turning the mechanism over in her hands.

"It's basically a sliding switch," Rian said. "There are two wires in there running in parallel, and piece of springy alloy to provide tension. As you pull out the knob—" Lori gripped the knob an did so, and it slid out with some resistance, "—the pure copper contact slides along the dark alloy wire, until it reaches the pure copper wire welded to the end of it. When fully pushed in, the wires are not in contact. Pulling it out a little puts the copper in contact with the alloy, and pulling it out fully the contacts are copper to pure unalloyed copper. The wood is there as a hard casing so it can be used in day to day work on a boat."

Lori considered that exposition, pulling the knob in and out of the tube. "And if someone accidentally struck the slider, pushing it in deactivates the bound tool," she surmised.

"Yup," he chirped. "I'll admit, this was design with a boat driver in mind, but it should be usable for wisplights and… well, whatever else it could be used for. Unfortunately, at the moment we couldn't give that slider a way to activate a second bound tool so the driver can go in reverse, so if you're going to put a reverse setting on this one, it will need a second switch."

Lori frowned, but she supposed that was to be expected. "Something to consider. At worst, Lori's Boat Three simply won't have the capability for the driver to go in reverse. I'll test this mechanism tonight and inform you if it can be used for a driver bound tool tomorrow."

Rian twitched for some reason. "I'll have the carpenters make some oars for the boat to help it maneuver. I've also taken the liberty of having the carpenters put together the usual driver fittings, so when you're ready, all you'll need is a bone tube."

Ah. Well, that was convenient. "Is there anything else?" Lori asked as she set the sliding switch mechanism to one side.

"Well," Rian began as Deadspeaker whatshernane—Lori glanced at the headcloth she was wearing, which had 'Taeclas' embroidered onto it—and her wife sat down on the next to Umu, "they've started to get some good ore from the copper mine, and I've been having them start using the mine tailings to build up more farming terraces, or at least reinforce the ones already there…"

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Prototype And Storage

Lori stayed up a bit later that night that she usually did, testing the mechanism as she said she would. She connected the wire from the mechanism to the wisplight she'd used for the previous darkwisp alloy testing and wrapped another wire around the copper rod, the other end of which she held down onto one of the flattened copper samples to use as an impromptu bead receptacle.

When she carefully touched the flattened copper sample—from the stamped letter, it was the firewisp alloy—she wasn't able to make contact with the binding of lightwisps anchored to the bound tool's core until she pulled out the knob from the slider slightly so that the copper made contact with the darkwisp alloy. That confirmed she had an uninterrupted connection.

Placing a bead on the improvised bead receptacle—and testing the connection again is case she'd dislodged it—she carefully began to pull the knob to move the slider switch. As she drew out the knob, a glow began to radiate from the wisplight.

She checked the sliding mechanism in various positions, such as at one quarter, half, and three-quarters draw, comparing the light coming from the wisplight with what she remembered from yesterday, when she tested the alloy wires at the same point. As far as she could recall—and her recall was excellent on this point, as it wasn't a name or a face—the intensity of the light was the same as with the allow wires she had tested.

Experimentally, she altered the binding of lightwisps, increasing the light's brightness and by extension increasing the amount of imbuement the binding was consuming. Then she slowly began to push in the sliding switch, keeping an eye on the wisplight.

Not directly, of course. The light was very bright.

As the switch was pushed in, the light was visibly dimming. At the halfway point—at least, Lori thought it was the halfway point—the light was almost the same intensity as it had original been.

Which made no sense! That implied that the alloy was restricting a percentage of the imbuement—and also implied that the binding was drawing the imbuement from the bead towards it, which was not something Lori had ever considered—and given how that percentage seemed to be directly proportional to how much of the wire the imbuement had to pass through—regardless of the length of the wire—which meant… which meant…

…

No, no, Lori was in no mood to consider the implications of this, or try to decipher the principles involved beyond the ones she had already noted. She was just going to do what any scholar would and write it down to leave for someone else to study in the future. What mattered was the results were repeatable and consistent, and that meant she could use it in her bound tools.

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The next day, making a steam jet driver was relatively quick and straightforward, thanks to Rian already having the wooden fittings made. All she had to make was the bone tube, and only a single bound tool core neded to be embedded into it, which made the matter of wiring much simpler. She nearly made the mistake of forming the usual binding she used for her steam jet drivers before she remembered this was meant to be a prototype, and reformed the binding accordingly. Not one that provide three times the thrust, though that was certainly the goal. Merely twice would suffice in this instance. She could just alter it later, once they had tested the prototype.

Once that was done, the bone tube was mounted onto the shaft that had been prepared, the wire from the bound tool core passing through a groove that Lori partly filled with softened stone before another piece of wood covered it. Once, that had been secured in place by wedges, but now Taeclas—as was written on the headcloth she wore, and when had she started wearing that?—used Deadspeaking to fuse the wood together. From that point, the carpenters and smiths could handle the matter of mounting the sliding switch and securing the wires and bead receptacle, as well as mounting the bound tool to the back of Lori's Boat Three.

After that, Lori had a very productive day expanding the demesne.

The next day, she spent the morning testing Lori's Boat Three. Well, Rian tested it, on the sound grounds that as part of those who designed the sliding switch mechanism he didn't need to be taught how to use it, and that it wasn't risking his life because he could swim, strange and unnatural as that was. Lori stood on the docks and took note of how the boat handled, her connection to her core allowing her to perceive how much imbuement was reaching the binding that propelled the boat. Nearby, some of the men who operated the Coldhold rode on Lori's Boat and Lori's Boat Two, ready to assist in case it was necessary, since they are among the few adults that Rian had managed to teach how to swim.

Much of the testing had the boat moving at speed, and Lori had to admit that it accelerated much more smoothly than the other two boats. That was no doubt a result of having more than simply three increments of speed to the boat's steam jet driver. Lori was willing to admit that while the boats were comfortable enough to ride when they were at speed, changing speeds and especially accelerating was quite jarring and uncomfortable until the boat stabilized at its new speed.

The difference wasn't enough to make Lori want to shift the older boats over to the new switch mechanism. As Rian had pointed out, the switch currently couldn’t be used to also activate the binding that propelled the boat in reverse, something that was a necessity for maneuvering the larger boats such as Lori's Ice Boatand the Coldhold. At the moment, the boats at their current configuration were still well suited for the demesne's needs, and were heavily used because of it. However, once winter arrived and the boats could no longer be used, Lori could probably find the time for the disassembly and reconstruction needed to make them in line with the newest prototype.

The next day, the demesne had another harvest as both the crops growing in the dungeon farm and the next outer ring of the crops in the fields reached maturity. Lori wasn't really needed for it, as they already had already established all the infrastructure needed for processing the vigas. So despite the excitement going on, she was already planning to spend another full day in her room expanding her demesne.

"We don't have enough space to store the vigas," Rian told her at breakfast.

What? "What?"

Rian actually looked embarrassed as he continued. "It's… well, this is my fault. I probably should have told you sooner. Look, you've probably noticed how are fields are bigger than they were last year, right? Um, did you notice? It's a bit hard to tell with you sometimes."

"Yes, Rian, I noticed. I assume this has something to do with how we don't have enough storage space?"

Rian nodded. "It's like this. We had more than enough space to store last year's harvest. However, the thing is that we also harvested a winter crop this spring, which not only refilled the stores we'd expended over the winter but gave us a surplus. One that we've been enjoying up to now, just to be clear, but the fact of the matter is that even with us having to send over supplies to River's Fork, we haven't had to worry about food much, since we had the tuber plots in the dungeon farm and all. And then Taeclas and Lidzuga joined us, and suddenly we've been growing our crops much faster. Storage space that had been used to store vigas is now full of tubers, other root vegetables, and some of the micans and golden buds since they last very well without really needing to be frozen, at least for a few weeks. And because imbuing meanings is easier in River's Fork, they've actually been sending us grain now, although we're still sending them meat and vegetables."

"So… we have too much food."

"Only a crazy person will say that's a problem. No, we don't have enough food storage. Gunvi has been making as many pots as he and his apprentices can, and the carpenters have been making barrels, so we have plenty of storage vessels, but space…" he shrugged. "Well, theoretically we can store them in the side tunnels of the third level, but with the temperature and humidity there, that would make the food go bad quickly. And while there's the alcoves in the second level—"

"I see," Lori said.

Rian nodded. "I'm sorry for disturbing your day, but… well, it's my fault, I should have made you aware of the potential problem sooner."

She sighed, but it was mostly for the fact that her plans for that day had to be discarded. “Next time, give be at least two days warning,” she said sternly. “Well, there’s no helping it. I’ll excavate a new mass storage space for the grain and likely anything else that comes up in future. How many people are still living in the old shelter?” She vaguely recalled some people still living there…

“Not as many as it used to be. About… twenty people or so? It’s some of the the newlyweds and unmarried young men who chose to move out of their families’ homes to give their siblings room. They decided they liked living in the shelter for the moment and withdrew their petition requesting to live in the new row.”

Lori nodded. “Until I finished excavating the new grain store, we will be storing the grain in the old shelter. Have all the current residents move to the Um with everything they need for the next…” she paused thoughtfully for a moment, “two to three days. Until further notice, the Um will not be available for use.”

Next to Rian, Riz sighed in relief for some reason.

“Ah…” Rian said slowly. “Well… I suppose it IS an emergency…and it should only be until you excavate the necessary storage. And everyone will be busy and tired from the harvest, so it probably won’t be needed… so why am I afraid people won’t see it that way…?”

“I’ll also need people to keep the entrance of my dungeon clear,” Lori said. “I’ll be moving large quantities of stone, so I can have people being in the way.”

“I can find someone to assist you to get people out of your way and keep the path clear? While I agree with you that moving stone and people is probably a dangerous combination, at the very least we’ll need people to be able to go in and out so that the kitchen volunteers can cook lunch and dinner for everyone.”

Lori frown, but eventually had to grunt in assent. A part of her wondered in she should make a second entrance to her dungeon, but there was really no need during normal, day-to-day business. Usually she didn't have to worry about people getting the way of her way when she was moving excavated stone because she only moved realtively small amounts. However, since she now needed to excavate a large space for storage, and needed to do so quickly…

A part of her wondered if maybe she should have had Rian recruit a Horotract while he was in Covehold Demesne. That part was set upon by the rest of her, tried for high treason, pronounced guilty, and sentenced to death by immolation, where its screams for mercy were ignored as all other parts of Lori watched, smiling in grim satisfaction. "Fine. Have everyone focus on harvesting the fields outside, to minimize the number of people who need to go in and out of the dungeon."

Rian nodded, then sighed. "I don't suppose you can put some kind of shade or something over the fields?" he said hopefully.

"There's nothing to anchor darkwisps to," Lori said dismissively.

Her lord tilted his head. "Don't you have a binding to keep bugs away from the crops? Doesn't that go around and over the fields?"

Yes? "Yes?" She didn't see what he was getting at. "I don't see what you're getting at."

"Can't you anchor the darkwisps to that?" he said, holding one hand palm-down over his plate, and laying his other hand atop it in an attempt at an illustrative demonstration. "And if that's too low, maybe pad it out with airwisps to maybe make a breeze around the crops before you put the darkwisps on top of it?" He removed the hand underneath and laid it atop the other hand. Across from her, Taeclas—why was she wearing that headcloth so early? She hadn't needed to keep her hair out of her face before…—looked sideways at Rian, a thankful look on her face.

Lori opened her mouth to reply, then paused, tilting her head contemplatively. That… might actually work. The binding of darkwisps that she'd placed over the sawmill—whose roof was halfway done and the gristmill and drop hammer were being installed—was something she'd actively maintain when she'd worked there as there was no place she could anchor the binding. However, the binding of that kept bugs away from the crops was anchored to the ground, and since the binding was made from lightningwisps, it wasn't affected by the wind as airwisps would be. Well, with not the way the binding was formed, anyway.

"That would actually be viable," Lori admitted reluctantly. "Yes, I believe I'll form that after breakfast. And after the harvest, it will allow Taeclas and Shanalorre to imbue the fields all day because heat won't be a problem anymore." She nodded in satisfaction.

Why was Taeclas looking at Rian like that?