Demesne

The game was childishly simple, once explained. The players picked up stones and dropped them one at a time into each bowl spinwise, with added rules about if they could keep doing so or had to stop, and whether they could claim stones on the paired bowl opposite. Each player owned one of the bowls on the ends of the board, and whoever had the most stones in their bowl when all the other bowls were empty won. A simple, childish game, which probably appealed to a certain kind of possessively avaricious person or young children proud of being able to count.

"One more game," Lori declared.

"You haven't even counted your stones yet," Rian said.

"43, I lose," Lori said, not needing to check. Besides, her pile was obviously smaller than his. "I want a rematch!"

For some reason, Rian rolled his eyes. "Can't remember names to save your life, but you can keep track of how many stones you have…" he muttered.

"Of course," she said. "It's how you win, after all." She stopped waiting for him and just started putting the stones back into the smaller bowls.

"I pre-emptively surrender," Rian said, holding up his hands. "It's late and I have work tomorrow. I need to sleep."

She glared at him. "It's not that late," she said.

"Lori, both your eyelids are drooping," he said. "Everyone else packed up to leave nine games ago." Directly behind him, Umu, Mikon and Riz were asleep at their table.

"Just one last game," she declared.

"We already had it and I already surrendered." He gave her a look. "Don't you have Dungeon-building to do tomorrow? You know, that thing you've been wanting to get back to, digging holes in the ground?"

Lori thought about having to sleep on her barely cushioned bed and groaned. "Just one more?"

"Go to sleep, Lori," he said. "We can play again tomorrow." He pushed the board and stones towards her. "Here. You keep it. Maybe asking other people to play with you will get you to talk to them."

He stood up stiffly and gave a yawn that had to be purely for effect. He couldn't really be that tired, could he? Still, she supposed she was a little tired. Probably best to sleep.

Lori stood up and almost fell over as she realized her posterior had grown a little numb. Had she been sitting that long? Carefully, she picked up the game board—it was strangely heavy—and was about to head to her rooms when she realized the three were still sleeping at their table,

Lori glared at them, then rolled her eyes and put down the game board, the stones rattling at little. She walked towards the three and, reluctantly, began to shake them awake, starting with the one in the middle, Mikon.

"Tah," she called. "Tah, wake up."

The other woman groaned, her pink hair over her face for a moment, before she jerked upright and looked around blearily. "Wh-what…?"

"Dinner's over," Lori said blandly. "Go back to wherever you live and sleep there."

The woman froze as she heard Lori's voice, looking up to meet her eyes as she did so.

Lori pointed towards the Dungeon's entrance. "Go. The food is gone, so if you would please leave…"

She started shaking the other two as the pink-haired woman tried to get to her feet and nearly fell over before she realized she was hemmed in from both sides. From the way she was moving, parts of her had probably gone numb

"Get up you two, it's late," Lori kept chiding them. "Rian already went to sleep. Don't you have some kind of work to do in the morning?"

She stepped back as the three started to groan themselves properly awake. Absently, she checked the bound lightwisps stuck to the ceiling and various corners of what she was now resigned to being the demesne's new main dining hall. They were always there now, at all hours of night and day, and the front entrance was now always open. It was only her rooms that sealed off now. Her Dungeon had become a public space. Really, the only reason she was rousing these three was she didn't want them waking in the middle of the night and making enough noise to bother her.

Lori's steps were evening out as her numb posterior managed to revive, and she picked up the game board with all the stones on it, careful not to have them fall, since that would be very inconvenient to pick up. The little bag was missing from Rian's side of the table, so she had nowhere else to put the little things. She wanted it complete for her future games.

She yawned as she moved aside the stone blocking the way to her rooms, and she was so sleepy she was four paces away before she realized she hadn't put it back and had to turn around to do it.

Putting the game board on her table—which was NOT a sacrificial altar!—carefully, she took off her coat, put it over her laundry on the bed, dimmed the lightwisps she had illuminating her room, and tried to go to sleep before her laundry cushion started feeling hard.

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Rian jerked in surprise as she lay the game board down between them the next morning.

"Another game," she said, sitting across from him.

"You're really bored with work, aren't you?" he said blandly.

"If you don't make a move, I will," she said.

He held up three fingers. "Three games," he said firmly. "One now, one over breakfast, one after we finish eating. Then you put the board away and get back to work. Deal?"

"You're just afraid of losing," Lori said.

Rian rolled his eyes. "We'll play another three at lunch and how many more you want after dinner until I need to go to sleep." He reached into a bowl, picked up all the stones, and started dropping one each into the bowls spinwise. "But later, all right? We still have to work."

Lori didn't pout. After all, she was a grown woman, an adult and a Dungeon Binder, who definitely didn't pout for any reason. "Fine," she said, watching him put down stones, counting the stones and bowls for when it was her turn. "What did you say this game was called again? Sunk?"

"Hmm," Rian 'hmm'-ed as he finished his move. "Your turn."

She lost again, but she'd got 46 stones that time, which was getting closer and closer. Lori eagerly reset the board as Rian went to get their breakfast, and she'd already planned out her opening move when he came back, giving him a smug look as she took two turns that ended with her taking the contents of one of his bowls.

"You realize that's the most predictable opening move ever, right?" Rian said, putting both bowls down. She picked one.

"Well, it obviously works," she said, starting on her breakfast as she watched him intently.

"Only for this version of the rules," Rian said as gathered the stones of one bowl in one hand and began dropping them while eating with the other. "There's a version that uses half as many stones, for example, preventing the possibility of a tie, though to be honest the only real difference there is the stone distribution. There's also the version of the rules where both players take their turns at the same time."

"How do you take turns at the same time?" Lori had to ask. "It's taking turns."

"I didn't make the rules," Rian shrugged. "I'm pretty sure there are more, but those are the ones I know. Your turn."

Lori looked down, and realized Rian had finished. Stuffing one last spoonful into her mouth, she grabbed the stones in one bowl…

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Rian staunchly refused to play after the third game, even making an almost unseemly retreat out of the Dungeon to underline his refusal, and Lori had no choice but to put away the board and get back to work. She could have asked someone else to play—several people had watched their game, and seemed to have taken note when Rian had explained the rules—but she wasn't so desperate for a challenger she'd actually start talking to random people.

Still, if Rian insisted on this 'only three games' nonsense, she might have to…

Well, he had a point, she supposed. She did need to get back to excavating. She took the game board with her to the excavation site that would be the next level of the Dungeon, setting it next to a pillar she'd already finished as she took up her weighted line and stone leveling tool and began drawing out the softened stone.

The excavation was almost complete. Soon she'd have excavated an area that, combined with the space already present above, would be able to house everyone in the demesne with a reasonable amount of space, and that would be from the floor area alone. She had other plans too, of creating segregated niches to allow people to organize by family, of sleeping alcoves along the walls so that the floor would be clear… she might even be able to put in storage for people to bring their belongings without having to crowd everything, so they'd be less likely to lose anything useful when a dragon came. Maybe she'd put in tables so people wouldn't be so crowded eating above… maybe put bowls on the tables so they could play sunk if they brought their own stones… or a grid so they could play lima or pincer...

Lori paused and shook her head. Why was she thinking about that? She hadn't played either of those games in years since she started learning magic and didn't have as much time to devote to non-essential activities. She focused back on excavation.

The pile of excavated rock had greatly decreased since she'd used it to build with recently, but that morning's work was going towards rebuilding the pile. Up the incline, she saw men piling cured boards next to the stone walls she'd raised, while other men were huddled in the secondary dining hall, discussing something. That was probably them planning how best to raise the roofs on the new homes. Lori put the matter out of her mind as she went back into her Dungeon to get back to excavating.

She did take a break from her excavating to switch to putting in a ventilation tube for air, since it had been getting annoyingly hot and still down where she was working. The ventilation tube let her bind airwisps to circulate the air properly, giving her a nice breeze as she worked, and bringing in the smells of cooking from the kitchen, as well as a few sounds of activity.

Lori had actually been able to tell it was coming on lunch time when the sounds of people coming in and talking had started to increase. She looked at the pile of stone she'd been building up—she'd been making pillars to support the ceiling and keep it from collapsing—and decided to leave it there until after lunch. The game board was still where she'd left, and she carefully picked it up to carry it upstairs.

Rian found her counting the stones, dividing them into two piles. "Don't tell me you managed to play someone to a draw? Did you actually talk to someone?"

"Of course not," Lori said, setting one pile of stones aside. "Show me how the version with only half the stones is played."

"I've created an abomination," Rian muttered. "I regret showing you this game."

She rolled her eyes at his dramatics. Why did her lord have to be such a useless thespian? "Too late now," she said. "Show me."

"Definitely an abomination," Rian muttered. "I should have just made a pincer board. Only really bored people play pincer." Sighing, he began putting down the stones.

He won the first game, of course. Which was to be expected, Lori was still learning the rules, so it didn't count!