Demesne

Now, Lori had most definitely not forgotten to keep the binding in the ice of the Coldhold imbued. Not at all! Not even a little! However, it was only prudent that she imbue it since she was riding the boat, and it was a chore that needed doing and why not now, and absolutely had nothing to do with the fact that the imbuement on the binding was low. Not at all! Because it wasn't!

That being said, Rian had told her that the Coldhold would be sent to gather salt tomorrow instead, so she should have plenty of time to imbue it further… not that she'd been negligent in doing so! It's just that more imbuement never hurt!

It gave Lori something to do instead of just sitting around and waiting to get to their destination. Well, that and trying to figure out the best arrangement for the lightning ball bindings she had anchored to her staff, the chained together bindings making a long trail that fluttered with the mildest breeze. The little sparks of lightning were even more insubstantial than the air, surpassed only by light and darkness itself. She'd made them in… well, a not very well-rested state of mind, although she knew that Rian's words about how she had simply made a lot of a binding that worked to solve a problem had been part of her flow of thought. There'd been also been something about balls of ice…?

Ah, she'd had the idea of anchoring the lightning balls to ice and throwing them… which in hindsight had been a terrible idea. Why had she thought that? Ah, right, she'd considered it a substitute for anchoring them to rocks and throwing them, which… was only slightly less bad. Sure, the binding could be kept deactivated when anchored to a rock, but it would need to be activated and allowed some time to create more lightning to be effective before throwing, which was… well, Rian would probably have motherly things to say about more self-inflicted injuries—

Seeing the darkwisp containment at the edge of her demesne was the only warning she had before she crossed over the border, the air suddenly becoming cold. A full-body shiver came over Lori at the abrupt change in temperature, and she pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them to try to keep warm. It took her some time to adjust. While it wasn't all that cold, the sudden shift made the autumn weather feel chillier than it actually was. Her cheeks seemed freezing to her hands, the wind felt like it was stabbing her all over, and the only part of her that were warm were her feet because of her fresh socks.

With a grimace, Lori rubbed her hands together to make firewisps, and instinctive reached to claim them through her core before she remembered she couldn't do that. Not here. It took her a moment to adjust, reaching out to the firewisps as she used to. She breathed in, falling to older habits, lungs drawing in air and magic at a steady, cyclical pace, even though she didn't really need it anymore because of her core. It was easier to do it than to not as she sent the magic out, passing it through the warmth in her body, aligning it before sending out to her hands towards the firewisps she'd made. Lori claimed and bound the wisps, binding them to her will before forming them into a simple binding that produced warmth. It was a familiar binding she'd made whenever it was cold back when she'd been a student, just a hair warmer than body temperature. With it as a start, she would anchor it to her extremities to keep out the cold and deactivate them when she was feeling too hot.

She missed her rain coat. While it wasn't exactly made for cold weather, the material did an adequate job of holding in her body heat and it was a comfortable garment.

In an effort to distract herself, she watched what Rian was doing. She knew that normally he'd be involved with the steering of the boat, perhaps actively handling the tiller, but ever since they'd left the dock he had been occupied by something else. Aside from a few cursory exchanges with the men handling the Coldhold, he'd been fiddling with a length of cord, tying it to her wand in various way with an air of random experimentation. "Rian, what are you doing?" she asked warily.

He didn't look up from the latest knot he was tying. Was that a piece of bone he was holding? "Trying to come up with a way to tie this cord so that you can carry your wand at your belt without looking silly if you have to draw it out, and that preferably lets you put it back in again."

"… weren't you the one who told me Dungeon Binders had minions to carry their things?" she pointed out.

"Yes, but I thought this would make you look more dramatic."

… of course he did. Useless thespian. Well, not that useless, but the other thing still counted.

Even as she watched, he tied the cord into another knot, making a small loop in the middle of the cord. He tugged at the ends of the cord, seemingly trying to get the loop to become smaller. Once he was satisfied, he took the wand—Lori twitched in instinctive desire to take her property back at seeing him handle her wand— and carefully slipped it through the loop. The blue metal rod slipped in easily, stopped only when it reached the wooden handle, with its strip of metal to act as a contact.

Rian slid the loop back and forth in a vaguely obscene way, before nodding in satisfaction. He stood up, one hand on a wooden pillar, and slipped the ends of the cords under his belt, hold it in place as if it was tied there before he looked up at her. "What do you think? Does that look comfortable to you?"

––––––––––––––––––

Her wand kept banging on her left leg as Lori carefully stepped off the Coldhold and onto River's Fork's dock, accepting her staff and lightning jig from Rian once she was on solid ground. It was midmorning, and Lori had adjusted to the outside-of-her-demesne temperatures so that the air only felt annoyingly cool, which she was managing to mitigate with firewisps and airwisps anchored in strategic places that blew warm air over her limbs. It also gave her what Rian termed a 'dramatic wind effect, like she was a very important main character walking dramatically into a scene' as the fabric of her clothes kept billowing outward.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

The area under the dome looked different than usual. For one thing, it was in the middle of being swept, the multitude of fallen leaves littering the ground in the process of being gathered into piles. What?

"Why are you sweeping?" Lori asked Shanalorre in bemusement as the other Dungeon Binder met her at the docks.

"It seemed necessary, Great Binder," Shanalorre said as she approached, before suddenly lowering herself to kneel.

The bemusement intensified. For some reason, Rian began examining the dome above intently. "Binder Shanalorre, why are you kneeling?" Lori asked as the brat walked by carrying a seel hanging from a stick over her shoulder, the seel's tail almost touching the ground as it dripped blood from a wound at its neck, seeling rod in the brat's other hand. The brat smiled and waved as she passed, but didn't slow as she went along her way.

"To acknowledge your rightful authority, Great Binder," Shanalorre said, her head bowed. "As I have recently established myself as the Dungeon Binder of this demesne to the new arrivals, I wish to make it clear that I continue to acknowledge you as the authority over me, and that my show of force was not meant to undermine your authority."

Rian let out several coughs. Thankfully he did so while facing away from her. Ugh, she should have remembered how susceptible he was to runny noses the year before. Was he getting sick already?

"Noted," Lori said. "Now get up, you look silly." She gestured towards a still coughing Rian. "And see to Rian. He seems to have caught something again."

Shanalorre sighed. "Lord Rian, what have you been doing? I just healed you yesterday. Take better care of your health."

"Y-yes, Binder Shanalorre," Rian said. "Ah, by the way, your first proposal has been approved, and the second two are pending. Her Bindership needs more information before she can decide."

The smaller Dungeon Binder gave a nod of acknowledgement. "What do you need, Great Binder?"

"For your second proposal, I want the survey by the Horotracts first so I know exactly how much space can be safely excavated," Lori said. "As to the rest of it, the request for a well is denied. The natural ground water will simply be too susceptible to unwanted additives for it to be safely feasible. Instead, we will be excavating a reservoir. This will also act as a means of quarrying raw materials for construction."

"Understood, Great Binder," Shanalorre said as the brat walked by coming the other way, waving at them again as she hefted her seeling rod on her shoulder.

"What if we hit copper while we're excavating?" Rian interjected as he stopped waving back. "This is still a copper mine after all, so it's not unlikely, and I'm not sure we really want that in our water."

"He's right, Great Binder," Lord Yllian said. "I've seen what happens when copper mine tailings get into drinking water. It's the sort of thing that makes you sick for life, rotting your mind from the inside."

"If we hit copper, then we'll deal with it then," Lori said. "In the event it happens, it may take several attempts at excavating reservoirs. At worse, in the event a dragon arrives and a suitable reservoir is not yet excavated, we can make the water safe by evaporating it before drinking." Very few impurities can't be dealt with by having the water it's in be evaporated. For those that manage to slip through… well, they had Deadspeakers. "Now, as to your third proposal… show me where they are."

"Very well, Great Binder," Shanalorre said. "This way, I have them marked out. With your permission, I will have Lord Yllian go to the edge and put the first plan into motion. With the houses cleaned, if we begin now we can hopefully get all the children situated in them by this afternoon."

"I'll have the Coldhold in position to get the children across the river so they don't have to risk fording it," Rian said. "Is that all right, your Bindership?"

Lori waved a hand dismissively. "As long as the wizards stay where they are."

Shanalorre gave her lord a nod. Yllian glanced towards Rian for a moment, then nodded back. "I'll see to it, Great Binder."

––––––––––––––––––

"This the first proposed site for the shelter," Shanalorre said as she presented a swept patch of ground to Lori, a rectangular space had been delineated by sticks stuck into the dirt. "It's the site closest to the center of the dome that does not require demolishing any of the currently occupied homes. This site was considered because it would allow the occupants to be as close to those already residing in the demesne as possible, and it would mean any newly installed latrines to accommodate them would be equally accessible to everyone else. It would also allow Yllian and myself to be close at hand to resolve any issues that arise."

Lori nodded to show she was listening. "And the other sites?"

Shanalorre pointed in the direction of the dragon shelter. "Another site has been marked out in a space on the side of the dome closest to the dragon shelter, to situate them as close as possible in the event of a dragon. This was in consideration of the fact that having a singular door for the shelter would limit the rate in which people would be able to evacuate, so placing them as close to their destination will hopefully mitigate this."

Lori considered that then shook her head. "No, we'll place the new houses there. Placing the shelter there will only be advantageous as long as it is being used to house people. We need to look further into the future."

"I see. Then I shall remove one of the proposed sites for consideration, as it was chosen because it would be situated close to the fields outside the dome. With your permission, I will mark those for future homes, to be allocated to those most likely to be working there."

"Although on that note, we'll need to run drills to see how long it takes people to completely evacuate the shelter," Rian said. "Then probably assume it will take triple the time of the drill because people will be trying to carry everything they have." He grimaced. "We might have to consider widening the passage from the entrance of the mine to the dragon shelter to accommodate having to pass more people through it in an emergency."

Of course they would have to do that. Ugh, more work for her to—

"With the Great Binder's permission, I will assign that to the new Whisperers," Shanalorre said, turning towards Lori.

…

"Do it," Lori said. There was a lightness in her chest as she realized she didn't have to do all the work they were discussing. "Have them supervised to ensure that any remaining copper is separated for later extraction and refinement."

"Noted, Great Binder," Shanallorre said as the brat walked past carrying another seel hanging from a stick over her shoulder, dripping blood onto the ground. "Shall we move on to the next site? We believe this would be the site most convenient for simply constructing the shelter, as it's out of the way and there's space nearby to pile the Great Binder's preferred construction materials…"