Weekly Digest 128 - (#404 - #406) (Patreon)

Resuming Excavation

As much as Lori wanted to only excavate for half the day and spend the rest of the day continuing to expand her demesne, since the harvest was occurring now and they needed the space to store their grains, she didn't have the option of doing that. She would need to excavate as quickly as possible, and without any horotracting, all of the stone for the room would have to be removed.

Technically, they didn't need much storage space to store the harvest, but they'd have another harvest in a couple more weeks, and again in a few weeks after that. At least, that was the hope. So she needed to make storage space not just for this harvest, but for subsequent harvests and any other food harvested from the dungeon farm and what little more they had above ground.

However, she had to do something first.

After breakfast, she hurried outside, already claiming and binding the airwisps about their fields. She had already deactivated the binding that caused wind to blow over the village outside her village—it would be a hindrance in the harvest, and could potentially scatter the grain they were trying to gather—after she had spoken to Rian, so by the time she actually went out, along with the first of those going out to start preparing to harvest, the fields were quite hot.

Quickly, she added the airwisps to the binding of lightningwisps around the fields as Rian had suggested, forming them to so that they created a thick layer atop the original binding. She imbued the original binding as she did so, because it never hurt to keep the bindings imbued. As she had deactivated the binding that blew wind across the village outside of her Dungeon, the airwisps that she included into the binding of lightningswisps couldn't really be used to move air, or at least not as a strong wind.

She formed the airwisps to gently draw air upwards through their binding. It was necessary, as she couldn't just attach wisps that did nothing or were deactivated to a binding. It was why the wisplights she had made that also moved air had both bindings anchored to the core but were technically separate bindings. A binding with wisps that weren't doing anything in the binding couldn't be activated. As long as she kept the intensity low, the imbuement consumption should be reasonably low, and the resulting air movement wouldn't affect the crops they were harvesting.

The added airwisps raised the upper boundary of the binding, and so Lori went to get some darkwisps to add to it. The nearest convenient source was the old mushroom farm cave, since the inside of her mouth and under her clothes wouldn't have enough darkwisps. The door into the mushroom farm was closed, and there was no latch since it was possible someone might become trapped inside if there was. Instead, a foot-sized rock—which was tied to the door with a crude ropeweed cord, no doubt to keep it from getting lost—was holding the door shut, easy enough for anyone—perhaps a child—to push open if they happened to be trapped inside.

There were gaps between the planks of the door, the openings too narrow for most bugs to fit through, and letting Lori see a narrow line of the darkness inside the cave. Claiming and binding the darkwisps in the cave, she imbued binding as she made the darkwisps flow out through the slits in the door. The binding seeped out, looking like a mist that reflected no light, darker than the blackness behind her eyelids. Anchored the biding to her fingernails for convenience, she turned and started walking back to the fields.

Ignoring all the people looking behind her, Lori added the binding of darkwisps to the already established binding of lightningwisps to repel bugs—with added functionally useless but working air circulator—and slowly began to spread the darkwisps over the binding of airwisps. Without the airwisps the upper boundary of the binding would have been tool low, and as the darkwisps were completely opaque to light, the fields would likely have been too dark. With the added wisps raising the boundary of the binding, more light came in through the edges, increasing the visibility.

She was a quarter of the way to finishing spreading the darkwisps when Lori recalled that they would only be harvesting the crops at the edges of the fields, and so she didn't really have to spread the darkwisps over the entire field.

…

Thankfully it didn't take her until mid-morning to finish putting the darkwisps in place, although she did have to walk around the perimeter of the fields, which was uncomfortably bumpy through the tsinelas she was wearing instead of her boots. Once she'd finished arranging the darkwisps in a wide border around the edges of the field and assessed that she didn't need to add any lightwisps to let people see while they worked, she headed back towards her dungeon to start excavating.

The second level of her dungeon was a tall, long, spacious chamber—if one didn't count the regularly spaced stone pillars with supporting arches to keep the ceiling from collapsing—with all the walls lined with alcoves where families could stay when a dragon passed, except for where there were stairs leading up to the first level and down to the dungeon farm. Some of them were constantly occupied—the three alcoves the weavers kept their looms and spinning wheels and other equipment Lori wasn't familiar with, the alcove occupied by the ropers, the two alcoves the carpenters had kept their tools, her own alcove for research on white Iridescence that don't involve metallurgy, the alcove where the flour was milled—but there were still many, many alcoves, far more than there were families in her demesne.

Her new grain storage chamber would by necessity need to be adjacent to the second level, as the conditions there were cooler, less humid and less it was likely for water to spill on the floor compared to the third level. The second level was also a good compromise, as the grain coming from the fields outside and the dungeon farm would need to be carried there, making either trip equally miserable.

The second level had two stairs leading down to it from the dining hall, and Lori wanted to start excavating her new storage through the alcove nearest to the near stairs, since those were the ones nearest the entrance of her dungeon. Unfortunately, the first alcove on the wall opposite the stairs down to the third level—the near wall would have led to excavating under the dining hall, which Lori didn't even consider because she did not want to have to deal with those structural considerations—already contained the gristmill. While the mill powered by the water wheel was already in place and ready, until the sawmill was a little bit more complete it was best not to use it.

The next two immediate alcoves contained… well, some grain storage. It wasn't all their grain, but rather an emergency supply for when the people of the demesne had to take shelter from dragons, and thus was kept as full to capacity as possible, the grain being rotated according to… well, whatever schedule Rian and the people he'd set to the matter had devised. As it wasn't something she could move herself…

Lori had to settle for excavating the fourth alcove down from the stairs leading up to the dining hall, removing the planks that served as both benches and crude bunks, lifting them up herself and getting them out of her way since there wasn't anyone but children and some of the women who'd recently given birth at the second level. She could tell because they had infants with them that they were feeding, which she wasn't about to interfere with.

That done, Lori claimed and bound the earthwisps comprising the stone niches on all three walls of the alcove, softening the stone carefully before pushing the stone on the side of the alcove to thicken the wall. It probably wasn't necessary, but the entrance into the new storage space didn't need to be that wide. The niches on the back were collapsed as she began her excavation. She'd smooth it out later. The second level was several paces underground beneath, among other things, Rian's house and their fields of outside crops. It had been the only option, and she hadn’t wanted to excavate closer to the river, and building the second level under the river… no. Extending the second level in this direction would present no issue.

The spot for the entrance to the second level’s extension and storage space chosen, Lori began excavating.

––––––––––––––––––

By the time lunch was usually served—or at least, what would normally have been lunch—arrived, Lori had managed to excavate a decently long tunnel from the original alcove. Actually removing the stone from the tunnel was the easy part, as it was more difficult to move the softened stone up the stairs to the level of the dining hall so she could get it outside the dungeon and add the stone to the stone stockpile. The more stone she excavated, the more difficult moving the stone was, as she had to worry about how its weight was distributed while she moved it up the stairs, across the admittedly short length of the dining hall she had to drag the stone through, out the front door and entryway and finally left the stone at the stockpile.

The stone walls that she left behind she made sure to seal shut so there were no fissures or breaks, lest the ground water enter the storage room and start flooding her dungeon. She had not yet had to worry about that despite all the excavating she'd been ding, and she wasn't going to let it start now! As she excavated, she anchored a line of lightwisps to the ceiling, connecting it to the lightwisps she already had in place on the ceiling of the second level. As the lightwisps were connected by wire to her core, this meant she didn't have to worry about maintaining them, so she could just focus on excavating.

By the end of the day, the tunnel she’d excavated was three paces wide and eight paces deep. While a respectable space, the arching nature of the tunnel meant they wouldn’t be able to fill the whole space with jars and barrels, at least until she’d shaved more stone off the walls so that the arch the supported the ceiling was a bit higher. It had been a lot of stone, restoring her stockpile after it had been depleted by building the foundation and river-side walls of the sawmill.

A part of her was annoyed that Rian had told her about the need for storage now, rather than, say, around the time she was building the sawmill's foundation. She'd had to excavate the third level to get the stone for the sawmill, and it had been hard to get the stone up two flights of stairs!

The next day, the work continued. She began excavating tunnels at a right angle to her first tunnel, excavating in the direction away from the dining hall. Lori started by excavating just behind the remaining alcoves, and being careful to keep from getting too close and compromising the alcove's walls. Excavated for three or four paces, she then began to excavate another right angled tunnel that ran parallel to the first. Once the second tunnel was also excavated to three or four paces deep, Lori then carefully removed stone from the wall separating the two tunnels, digging through like she was making another tunnel. The resulting opening resulted in the three tunnels combining to become a room large room with a stone support pillar in the middle of it, the curving tunnel ceiling becoming supporting arches.

With a reasonably large room in place, Lori took the time to even out the floor. It was of course for a perfectly practical reason! If the floor was too uneven, their jars and barrels wouldn't be able to stand properly, making them susceptible to tipping over, which would be a hazard!

Using her stone shaping tool—which she noticed was coming a little loose, the plank wobbling slightly on the stave—she softened the stone floor and leveled it by the simple expedient of dragging the edge of the plank across the softened stone of the floor. The result was… tolerable. It was far better than how uneven it had been from her excavating—try as she might, she could not claim in a flat plane, and could barely do a straight line—but not perfectlyflat. Well, the floor was flat enough now, so she'd leave it at that. The last thing she did was extending the line of lightwisps so that it went around the room, ensuring there were no dark spots.

The rest of the first tunnel remained, a two pace-deep alcove that she could continue excavating if she needed to expand the storage room or needed more raw material. Both were likely, and soon.

Satisfied with a job well done, Lori let out a sigh of relief, and turned to go to the carpenters to see if she could have her stone-shaping tool fixed.

…

After finding the carpenters' alcoves empty, no doubt because they were assisting in the harvest, Lori decided to just head to her room to rest.

––––––––––––––––––

Building Another Wood Shed

"You can start moving grain into the new storage room," Lori told Rian at dinner, which was admittedly later than usual. As with the previous harvest, people had worked for as long as there was sun in the sky to work by.

"Just me? Did I do something to annoy you to have to do all that heavy lifting my myself? More so than usual, I mean?" Rian said.

Lori rolled her eyes. "If you don't think you can do it all by yourself, you can ask people for help. I'm sure Umu would be more than willing to volunteer."

"Don't pressure Umu to carry heavy things," Rian said as Umu looked up in panic. "If you're finished, I suppose we can get to work on harvesting the crops in the dungeon farm."

"Don't fill up the area between the entrance to the new storage room and the little alcove opposite the entrance. I need a path free to continue excavating the storage room if it needs to be expanded further or if I need more raw material."

"You're planning to expand it further?" Rian said, surprised.

"Of course. Once we organize the crops to be easier for Shanalorre and—" Lori turned to glance at the forehead of whatshername, but there was no helpful headcloth there. Sighing, she reached into the her pouch and felt around to check the rocks there. "—Taeclas to Deadspeak and accelerate the growth of, we will require far more space to fit all the crops at the same time. Hopefully we will be able to manage more harvests before summer is over."

"Um…" Taeclas said, looking between Rian and Lori.

"What is it, Tae?" Rian asked.

"Um, I think I've thought of a way that we could harvest faster," Taeclas said, and Lori immediately focused on her.

"How?" Lori asked.

"Good morning, your Bindership!"

"…" Lori '…'-ed. "It's evening."

"Ah, sorry, force of habit. Good evening, your Bindership!"

Lori reminded herself the woman was slightly insane and named plants as if they were children. "The harvest?"

"Ah, right. So, I've been studying our crops and experimenting on a few stalks that I've been growing separately, trying to figure out a way to integrate the meaning we're using on the fruit trees onto the crops. Some parts don't really work, and a few things I had to simplify, but I think I've finally managed to adapt the meaning! Given how old the crops are now, I think if I tame the new meaning onto the crops, it will only take them three days to mature enough to be harvested."

Lori blinked. "Three days?" she demanded, and realized she'd said that at the same time as Rian.

Taeclas nodded excitedly. "Yes, but that's only because the crops are already very matured, and it's accounting for the time it will take me and Shana…lorre to tame, imbue and activate everything. If we're growing fresh crops, like the ones we're growing in the dungeon farm, I'll be able to remove a few days off the growing time. However, it will take assistance from her Bindership."

"How so?" Rian asked.

"Well, it's a meaning derived from studying the trees in River's Fork and those notes, so they'll cause the plants to run a little hot."

Ah. "Ah. And they'll need to be cooled down, I suppose."

Taeclas nodded. "Probably not the ones in the dungeon farm, but any crops in the fields outside will need the additional cooling."

Lori nodded slowly. "When can you begin implementing these meanings?"

At this, Taeclas looked thoughtful. "Um, it might be a while. I want Lidz to peer-review it in case there's anything I missed before I put it into place on something other than the test stalks I've been keeping."

Lori nodded. "That's probably wise. Rian can give you some paper to put the notes down and perhaps the tentative flow diagram as well so you can relay the information more concisely."

"Uh, out of curiosity, how does this new meaning compare to the meaning you've been using on the crops before?" Rian asked.

Taeclas opened her mouth, then paused, looking thoughtful. Her wife reached over and pushed her jaw closed, her teeth clicking as they came together. "Ah. thank you, moonlight. Well, the meanings I've been using so far are the basic meanings I was taught in school, the one everyone uses in city farms. I've been using it because it's the simplest and quickest to apply, but with this new meaning…"

"Ah." Rian nodded. "Not that I'm doubting the effectiveness of your meaning once you've had Lidz review it, but perhaps you need to practice applying—"

"Taming," Lori corrected.

Rian stopped speaking, turning to stare at her for some reason as Taeclas started giggling. Lori met his gaze impassively.

"Perhaps you need to practice taming," he eventually said, "your new meaning onto the crops first. While I don't doubt the meaning itself will make the crops grow faster, you might also lose that time actually applying the meaning."

"That’s… uh, probably a good idea," Taeclas admitted, stifling her laughter. "You're right, getting used to taming with the new meaning is probably going to slow things down until I'm used to it."

Rian nodded. "I'll ask Clowee to take you to River's Fork on one of the boats tomorrow so you can exchange notes with Lidz. Will you need to stay overnight?"

"No!" Taeclas exclaimed, then looked embarrassed. "Ah, sorry. No, I won't need to stay. It shouldn’t take long for me to show him the meaning and exchange notes, although he might need to sleep on it. So… tomorrow and the day after?"

Rian nodded solemnly. "All right, that makes sense."

"When the dungeon farm has been harvested, set aside one plot for crops that you're testing your new meaning on," Lori said. "Rian, give Taeclas more paper. She'll probably want to keep notes about the growth rates and other details."

"Oh, yes! I should probably do that…" Taeclas said thoughtfully.

Lori twitched.

––––––––––––––––––

The next day, Lori had to go out and work. As much as she wanted to go back to her room and get back to expanding her demesne, the harvest was an opportunity. A new wood curing and storage shed for the products of the sawmill had been part of the things she'd needed to build, and now was the best time to do it. She had plenty of stone from the recent excavation, and with nearly everyone working on the harvest—a few were stilling working in the fields, but most were inside the dungeon, working on harvesting the dungeon farm—there were no idiots around to put themselves in danger when she moved stone from her stockpile to the sawmill.

True, she had yet to have any accidents, but that was because she was careful!

As she was working outside, Lori put on her hat and rain coat. While she didn't have to worry about feeling too hot, her skin starting to peel from the exposure to the sunlight was another a matter, and that same sunlight shining on her eyes made it hard to see sometimes. Hence the coat and hat, a necessity for her when she was working outside. They were torturously uncomfortable to wear outside of her demesne, but without them it would be much worse.

With her stone-shaping tool in hand—Taeclas had been able to fuse the wood together, and Rian had pulled the cord that had been keeping the stave and plank together taut—a cord with a knot at every pace in her pocket, and a large mass of stone she had to carefully roll towards the sawmill, Lori began building the two sheds.

Most of the sawmill had been covered, with the thinly-cut planks covering two-thirds of the building's sloping roof. There was a small pile of sawdust just inside the sawmill's walls—well, the frames of the walls, which was mostly there to hold the roof up at the moment—waiting to be added to the latrines to blot and soak up anything that needed soaking, a byproduct of all the sawing being done for the roof.

The location of the new shed had been planned beforehand, and was on the downriver side of the sawmill-in-progress, further from the river so that it wasn't at risk of eventually having the ground under it eroded, and at a slight angle to the sawmill door that faced in that direction. The intention was that the shed would be positioned such that it was easy to carry wood to it from the sawmill, as well as carry wood out.

The site itself was marked with lines of stones and stray branches on the ground, with relatively straight branches thrust into the soil to mark the corners. The marks were fresh, put in place that morning by… actually, Lori had no idea who Rian had told to do this. for all she knew, he might have done it himself. She really wouldn’t have been surprised if that was the case. Still, the lines were straight and the angles right, and that was all she needed. The dimensions were bigger than the sheds near the sawpits at four paces wide and eight deep.

Lori carefully claimed and compacted the dirt within the boundaries of the lines—and only that—to a depth of one pace, and watched as the ground sank slightly as a result, the little voids caused by the dirt being separate particles instead of one contiguous substance filling in as she fused the dirt to the bedrock below. She then traced the remaining outline with a binding of earthwisps, deactivating the binding since she didn’t really need it to do anything but be a marker as she rolled the softened stone into the depression and poured in the foundation. The stone fused to the packed dirt, anchoring it to the bedrock by proxy. It wasn’t perfect—she’d have preferred the soil be dug up so that it could be used in the dungeon farm—but it was a solid enough foundation.

That done, she began to raise the wall of the shed, moving the softened stone along one of the long sides of the foundation. Fusing the stone and foundation together, she began shaping a pace-high wall atop one of the long sides of the rectangle, making it ten yustri thick.

She was not calling it one stri. No one except Rian used stri to measure anything, but fortunately she'd managed to correct him in time before it became a habit.

She managed to repress her natural inclination to make the wall as plumb as possible. It was an internal load-bearing wall, she didn't need the wall to be properly vertical. Lori kept telling herself that, and while she never started believing it, the reminders were enough to keep her from pausing in her work to try and plumb the wall when she noticed it was wider at the bottom than at the top. As long as the top was one st—ten yustri thick, it was fine. It didn't bother her, it didn't grate at her soul—

…

At great personal expense and agony, Lori finished the low walls of the shed done by late morning, though she'd had to get two more batches of stone from the stockpile. Both were relatively straight and a pace high, just about level with her waist. With those in place, she could start building the ceiling.

She claimed and bound the earthwisps of the foundation and the walls she had made, forming them into a binding that reinforced the stone in case she needed it, then deactivated the binding. It allowed her to distinguish between the stone she was using as building material and the stone she shouldn't alter.

Then she took the stone she had left from the third batch and piled it up at the far end of the shed-to-be, away from the sawmill. It wasn't enough for what she was planning to do, so she went back to the stockpile—now only slightly smaller from all the stone she'd being using—and got another batch of stone, glancing towards the fields as she did so. The work there seemed done, and there seemed to be a few people there, probably to keep chokers and other small beasts away from the crops. The binding she'd placed to keep out bugs didn't work on beasts.

Rolling the large mass across the ground and back to the new shed in progress, Lori added the stone to the pile already there, making a pile that extended from wall to wall and rose up more than three paces and was far thicker.

Nodding to herself, Lori carefully softened the stone and started excavating it like she was digging through the stone of her dungeon, pulling out stone and leaving behind a high, arching ceiling. The stone that she removed, she drew out to extend the shape of the pseudo-tunnel that was forming the roof of the shed.

Slowly, the shed progressed—

"Lori, lunch time!"

—would progress after lunch.

––––––––––––––––––

Post-Shed And Harvest Exhaustion

Building the new wood storage shed took two days, coinciding with the end of most of the work on the harvest. It was so hot that the sheaves of grain left out in the sun dried in a day, ready to be winnowed. The carpenters had made some kind of strange… big comb…thing… to make the winnowing easier, consisting of a wooden beam with teeth-like wooden spikes. The crops were… well, 'combed' through the teeth, and the vigas would be stripped off the sheaves the by motion, where it would fall into a hopper. The threshing comb was long enough that three or four people could use it as the same time to thresh the grain.

At the end of those two days, the dining hall was unusually quiet, the air filled with the exhaustion of a demesne, and also the smell of their collective sweat. Even the children seemed fatigued as they spoke quietly and, in the case of Shanalorre's cousin, just napped.

Actually, Lori couldn’t be sure if Shanalorre's cousin was a part of the exhaustion, she tended to nap a lot.

In many of the other tables, there were people sitting with backwards on the benches, using the edges of the tables as improvised backrests, or straddling the bench and leaning on each other back to back. The only reason Lori herself wasn't sitting that way was because she had her chain, which she leaned into happily.

As a result, the predictable was occurring in front of Lori. Umu and Riz were leaning against Rian, though not in the usual way. They were both turned to the side, their backs pressing against his shoulders. Mikon, for her part, was leaning back against Riz’s chest, who didn't seem to mind. All three women were sitting with their eyes half-lidded, else Lori would have thought they were asleep.

In contrast to everyone else on that side of the table, Taeclas—who was helpfully wearing her headcloth, though it was soaked with sweat—was sitting comfortably and facing Lori, having no doubt rid herself of her pains with Deadspeaking, and seemed to be the most energetic person at the table. That said, the Deadspeaker still looked tired, her shoulder slumped slightly as her wife used her as a backrest. The only one sitting as she usually did was Shanalorre, and even she was sitting with her eyes closed, as if it was too tiring to see anything.

"Harvest?" Lori asked, too tired to actually meet Rian's gaze. That was fine, as his gaze was focused down on the table, his elbows resting on it as his hand supported his forehead.

"Done," he more sighed than said.

"Stored?"

"Yup"

"Injuries?"

"Healed"

"Yield?"

"… lots."

Lori nodded, or at least dipped her chin down and up a little. Should she be concerned that Rian hadn't managed to remember one of his numbers? "Good. Anything else?"

"… can't remember. Too tired."

Lori nodded in understanding. While her tsinelas were comfortable enough, she'd been walking back and forth in them for the past few days between getting stone from the stockpile—which had resulted in her becoming irrationally fearful of accidentally running the stone over her toes at some point—so her feet ached. And while she hadn't actually physically carried anything, continually directing all those earthwisps, with only brief respites when she had to walk to the stone stockpile for more raw material…Well, her brain probably didn't actually ache—she remembered reading somewhere that the organ was physically incapable of feeling pain—but the contents of her head felt like she'd been studying constantly with no reading breaks, naps or snacks.

Why was she this tired? She'd worked on construction projects for far longer the year before, and she hadn't been this tired… had she? She knew that she'd certainly spent more time on the row of houses when the people from River's Fork had arrived, and she couldn't remember feeling like this after only two days of work. Four if she counted excavating the grain storage space on the second level. Was she… was she…

Was she getting old? Was this what the infirmities old age felt like? She couldn't be getting old she was only twenty-four!

No, wait, it had been a year…

She was only twenty-five! She can't be feeling this terrible yet! Also, she was a Dungeon Binder! She was supposed to have Deadspeaking to alleviate things like this!

…

Lori let out a sigh, letting the rant slip away. To be more serious though, why was she so tired? The four days of work utilizing Whispering she had done, while strenuous, should not have taken such a toll on her. To hurt this much, she would need to have done constant Whispering for far longer, which she hadn't. Quite the opposite, in fact. She'd stayed in her room and not worked. Lori hadn't done anything except sit around in her room and… expand her demesne…

…

Ah, that's why her head ached. She'd been Whispering practically all day for a week and a half. Yes, that would do it.

She knew she wasn't getting old! Twenty-five was still young! Plenty of time for her to learn Deadpseaking so she'd live forever, unlike all those other Dungeon Binders who let themselves go and die after only a hundred years!

…

"Tell everyone to rest tomorrow," Lori said. "No working. Stay in the dungeon or bath. Sleep as late as they want."

"… sorry, what? I think I might have hallucinated from exhaustion, it almost seemed like you said—"

"Tell everyone to rest tomorrow. No working. Stay in the dungeon or bath. Sleep as late as they want," she repeated.

"…yes, that's what I thought you said. Now, it's not like I wouldn't be really happy about it, but did you remember to drink water while you were working? You're not dehydrated and hallucinating, are you?"

Lori would have kicked him, except she was comfortable at the moment and her feet hurt already. “I am notdehydrated.”

“Everyone is always dehydrated,” Taeclas said.

Shanalorre rose smoothly to her feet. “I shall go fetch water.”

Rian frowned. “Actually… did anyone remember to fill the water jars after breakfast? I think everyone was too busy with the harvest to remember.”

“Karina and I did,” Shanalorre said. “As to dinner, I believe everyone will need to have fruit, which Karina and I also took the liberty of putting out to warm. I will see if they are ready to be eaten.”

Lori paused, then took a deep breath. Ah. That hadn’t been exhaustion in the air, merely the lack of smells of anything cooking. That, more than anything, emphasized just how tiredeveryone was, herself included. Her stomach was telling her it was hungry, but the rest of her… well, she almost felt too tired to eat.

Almost.

Lori shook her head, and noted there was no worsening of how she felt. "Don't change the subject, and don't make me repeat myself so many times again. Tell everyone to rest tomorrow. No working. Stay in the dungeon or bath. Sleep as late as they want."

"First, let me take a moment to admire the fact you repeated yourself word for word instead of paraphrasing. Most people would rephrase to try to convey the message."

"Most people are idiots," she pointed out. "I said everything I needed to say the first time. Why change it?"

Rian nodded, careful to stay in place so as not to jostle Umu and Riz. "Why, indeed." He raised his voice slightly. "You here that, everyone? No working tomorrow, you can just stay in bed and sleep as much as you want! Binder's orders!"

A tired cheer that seemed to end in relieved sighs rose in the dining hall, and while it wasn't very loud,

"We'll have a holinight like the last one the day after, and then it's back to work after that," Lori said.

"Holinight?"

"Of course. It's not happening during the day, after all. Really Rian, that should be obvious."

"Right, right, of course," he said, gracefully accepting he was wrong. "So, to be clear… we all rest passed out on our beds tomorrow, eating optional, and then a less 'dead-to-the-world' rest day after that followed by a holinight."

"Yes."

Rian nodded. "Have I mentioned you're the best Dungeon Binder in the world lately."

"No, not lately."

"You're the best Dungeon Binder in the world," he said.

"Without peer or equal," Shanalorre agreed as she arrived carrying a jar of water, and a stack of cups, startling Rian.

Lori nodded, accepting her due. "I know."

"Ah, Shana—"

"Shanalorre," Lori corrected.

"—I wasn't… I didn't mean…"

"I am not offended, Lord Rian," Shanalorre said. "Binder Lolilyuri far outstrips my capabilities by any measure. She is obviously a superior Dungeon Binder."

Rian, why are you covering your face with your hands?

Dinner, once Rian could finally convince Umu and Riz to allow him to stand up to get it, was light and just barely filling. It consisted mainly of fruits, as apparently even the people who usually cooked meals for everyone had been too tired or too occupied to do so. No one complained however. The tart sweetness of the fruits—Lori had a golden bud and two pink ladies—was intense after the day's work and Lori enjoyed every bite.

Even while everyone eating, the dining hall remained subdued, but everything seemed more relaxed than before. Many didn't stay, simply collecting their fruits and leaving immediately. Lori supposed they wanted to go straight to the baths to cool of and get the smell of sweat off themselves, or perhaps just go straight home to sleep and leave bathing for tomorrow. For once, Lori couldn't really find it in her to be too disgusted at the latter.

That didn’t mean she was going to be disgusting like them, though. She had a private bath and she was going to use it.

And then she was bathed and putting her bed roll onto her bed, and it as all so comfortable as the darkness behind her eyes took her into…