Weekly Digest 140 - (#440 - #442)

Familiar Ceiling

Lori woke up staring at an unfamiliar ceil—no, wait, she recognized that ceiling. That was her ceiling. There was that list of random names that she kept never getting around to removing. What was she doing here? The last thing she remembered was being in River's Fork and writing…

Writing…

Oh.

She shifted her body, and found it not aching. Instead, the surface beneath her flexed and deformed in a familiar, comfortable manner. Lori had been sleeping on her own bed, rather than a on a pile of straw on top of stone, which had been comfortable enough the first night had become progressively less so in the succeeding days.

Despite that, the rest of her was uncomfortable. The clothes she was wearing felt strangely too warm, despite her being in her demesne where everything should have been a comfortable temperature. Her hair felt too hot, and she felt an itch somewhere private. Her feet felt warm—not comfortably warm, simply warm—and her toes felt confined for some reason. Why had she gone to bed still wearing her boots and socks? There was also an unpleasant smell coming from somewhere, and… why did she have a strong sense that someone had pissed in the water reservoir?

The explanation for all but the last was soon obvious as she sat up and ran her hand through her hair, feeling dried sweat and oil and the warm feeling not changing at all. she raised and arm and lowered her head, then recoiled as the smell intensified slightly. Yes, she clearly hadn't bathed in far too long. But why…?

Vague memory slowly unfolded at the attempt to recall, and Lori looked around her room—her room back in her demesne—frantically looking for papers. There were none in sight, but she did see her pack on her stone table across the room. Throwing her legs over the side of her bed, she reached down to pull on her boots for remembering she was already wearing them—along with other disgusting articles of clothing—before standing up and rushing to her pack. Undoing the pack's flap and pulling open the drawstrings, she searched it for her notes, pulling out the clean clothes inside and carelessly tossing them down next to the almanac on the table.

Her notes! Her notes! Where were her notes! She searched through her pack frantically, but there was nothing in her pack but clothes, her towel, and her little bag of soap! Emptying the pack uncovered nothing else, and with her pack being inconclusive, she searched around the room frantically as she tried to find the sheaf of loose papers that she'd written her observations of the ill-bound wisps, wisplings and other strange bindings that the dragon had formed while it has slowly passed through her demesne. No! Where was it?-! Surely she remembered to include it when she'd been filling her pack! She'd worked on those notes for days, of course she'd—

Wait.

She hadn't been the one to pack her effects, had she?

Rian had said he'd take care of it.

“Rian…!” she growled, turning and stomping towards her door. While she still had collection of wisplings, deactivated bindings, ill-bound wisps, and what she was reasonably certain were insane thoughts, twisted vistas and rampant life—containers of darkwisps she’d set up at the borders of her demesne were occasionally getting their imbuement depleted by something—that she could study, her notes contained her observations and flow diagrams of several samples that had already dissolved, been predated upon by other wisplings, or were otherwise no longer with the ones she’d contained. That made her notes on them absolutely essential, as she couldn’t be expected to remember everything that she’d observed. If something happened to those notes she’d… she’d… well, she’d do something very violent and cathartic to Rian, that’s what she’d do!

Normally, she would have immediately stomped out of her room and screamed for Rian to present himself and explain where her notes were, but… well, with the notes not in her pack, and faced with having to step out in public for any further information as to where they are, she could no longer stop thinking about her current state. She stank, she itched, her hair felt like some kind of dragonborn abomination had taken up residence in her scalp, and despite being in her demesne her clothes felt like they contained their own heat that radiated into her skin.

She needed a bath.

Lori grabbed the clean clothes she’d pulled from her pack as well as her soap and her scrubbing rock, and took them with her to her private bath so she could do just that.

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It took some time for Lori to be clean to her satisfaction. More than a week of not bathing—no doubt closer to a week and a half, as she’d stopped keeping track of time at some point, focused only on getting the morning imbuing done as quickly as possible so she could get it out of the way and back to her notes before she’d lost track of her observations—had left a much thicker layer of grime on her skin that needed to be removed. As she couldn’t use her scrubbing rock on all places that needed cleaning, she’d needed to exfoliate it with her hands, and occasionally her nails.

The water trailing across her floor and into the drainage hole in one corner—covered by a wooden grate after one too many instances of her dropping her soap and the thing sliding into the hole—had been a disturbing shade of dark gray, even accounting for the soap, and had made her shiver at the thought of it on her body. And given the circumstances, it was no doubt on her bedroll as well. She would need to wash it as soon as possible. It would have happened that very day if she didn’t so urgently need to get her hands on Rian and those notes and… and…

…and the fact she had the aftermath of the dragon’s passing to deal with.

…

But after she found out where her notes were! Now that there were important things she had to do that she couldn’t just do quickly between waking up and having breakfast—ugh, had she actually thought it was a good idea to get to work first thing in the morning immediately after waking up?—she of course wouldn’t just be tempted to sit around and continue adding to her notes while her samples persisted… even though a casual count through her awareness of the wisps in her demesne showed her she’d lost some more samples while she was asleep, and the rest needed to be imbued again…

…

No, she wasn’t going to be distracted!

After a much longer than usual bath, Lori was feeling comfortable and refreshed again, and the temperatures around her had returned to normal levels. She’d left the clothes she’d been wearing—socks, loin cloth, chest wrap, trousers and shirt—to soak in a hastily made basin while she couldn’t deal with them yet, while she put on fresher clothes and slipped on her reed tsinelas. Taking one last deep breath and enjoying the feeling of being properly clean again, Lori opened her door—ugh, she’d left it unlocked while she’d slept—with the intention of seeking out Rian.

She found a pair of bedrolls laid out on the floor of the the passageway outside of her room, and stared down at Riz and Mikon. The latter was sitting with her back against the wall opposite Lori's door and her legs stretched out, while the former was lying down with her head on the weaver’s lap. Both had looked up at Lori when she’d opened the door, looking surprised. A moment later, Riz pulled away her hand from where it had been cupping the weaver's posterior. Another moment, and she was scrambling to her feet, tugging her shirt straight before standing straight and resolutely staring straight ahead. "Uh, Great Binder! You're awake! We were just, ah, I was guarding your door to make sure no one disturbed your rest and, ah, Mikon was keeping me company!"

Lori gave them both a flat look, then deliberately sniffed the air. Thanks to her recent bath, the overwhelming smell wasn’t—

She paused, reached out to claim some airwisps, and made a binding across her doorway that kept the air from her room from passing through it.

That done, Lori once more deliberately sniffed the air. Thanks to her recent bath and the binding keeping the air in her room from passing through the open door, she was able to smell the passageway clearly. Finding the air clear, she directed her gaze at Riz. "Erzebed, where is Rian?" she demanded.

"He's still in River's Fork, Great Binder," Riz said, still staring straight ahead.

Colors. "Colors!" Lori swore, making Riz jump in surprise. "When will he be back?"

"Uh… that depends, Great Binder."

Her eyes narrowed. "On what?"

"On… uh, on whether you're just going to go back to your room, stop bathing, and just write," Riz said, then swallowed, "or if you're going to, ah, start putting the demesne back together now that the dragon is gone."

Mikon let out a quiet gasp as Lori met Riz's eyes, deliberately stepping into the non-officer's line of sight and leaning in. "What did you say?"

"I'm, ah, just repeating what Rian said, Great Binder," Riz said, staring straight ahead and somehow managing to give the impression she was looking past Lori despite the fact that Lori's face was probably most of what she could see. "After all, the dragon is gone, so we should focus on getting things back to normal, putting the bound tools back in the baths, getting the sawmill working, planting a last autumn crop that we can harvest before planting some winter grain, all those things, r-right?"

Despite herself,  Lori tilted her head. "Did Rian also tell you that last?"

"N-no, Great Binder. Just remembering what happened last year."

Lori hummed, glancing down at Mikon, who was staring up at Riz. "Tell me, Erzebed. Do you enjoy your position of being a Perpetual Non-Officer?"

Riz blinked at the sudden question, and she forgot herself enough to focus on Lori. "Your Bindership?"

"Because for a someone who espouses their desire to never be an officer, you are certainly acting like one. Have you tired of your hard-earned position? Do you wish to be promoted? "

The woman leaned back slightly as if she wanted to recoil. However, she took a deep breath and said, "That depends. How's the pay? How much do I make per week? Is there an officer's bar where I can get free booze?"

Lori's head titled back the other way. "So if you had those things, you'd agree to be an officer?"

"No, but I want to be sure what I'm turning down."

Huh. Lori could actually respect that last.

"We can revisit the subject once I establish taxes to pay you with," Lori said, waving a hand dismissively.

"Aren't you the one making beads? Can't you just make as many as you want?"

Lori twitched, repressing a shudder at the horrific idea. That way lay uncontrolled hyper-inflation, even for a fiat commodity currency like beads! And that was just the reasonable problems that would be caused.

Then she shook her head, brushing aside the distraction. So, Rian wasn't here, but in River's Fork. Her notes had better be there as well, or she might start kicking him and not stop until her feet hurt too much to keep doing it! And then she'd have Shana heal and get back to it! "What time is it?" Lori asked.

"Uh, it's about midmorning, Great Binder. Maybe a bit later, there aren't any windows here, and it's hard to tell with the dragon blocking the sun. I had them set aside some fruits for you to eat so you wouldn't have to be hungry while waiting for—"

"What was that last?" Lori interrupted.

Riz blinked. "Uh, fruit?"

"No, before that!"

"The dragon blocking the sun?"

"Yes, that! How can that be? The dragon is gone." She certainly couldn't feel it anymore.

"Ah… I think you should see what it's like outside, Great Binder. I'm not sure how to describe it beyond 'the dragon is blocking the sun'."

Lori stared at her, then pointed looked down at the bedroll laid out on the passage.

"Ah… let me get that out of your way, Great Binder."

As Mikon stood up so that Riz could remove the bedroll—which turned out to be two bedroll and a pair of blankets—Lori let out a frustrated sigh. A part of her was tempted to just take one of their boats, go back to River's Fork, take her notes back—they had to be still there—from Rian, and lock herself up in her room to continue making her observations. The rest of her knew it was time to set aside such self-indulgence for the moment. Things needed to go back to how they were, which meant bringing her demesne back from dragon readiness—the latrines must be utterly full, as she guiltily recalled that she hadn't desiccated the waste to add more, ah, 'storage' space—and back to its day-to-day state.

It was what a Dungeon Binder did, after all.

But once all this was over, she was going straight back to making more observations and writing more notes while her samples lasted!

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Back To A Working State

As Lori made her way down the steps leading from her rooms—which she had remembered to lock behind her—she did her best to ignore the whispered exchanged happening behind her. Mikon and Riz weren't being as quiet as the thought, and the walls bounced their words just enough to be audible.

"—way you stood your ground against Binder Lori was so brave…" Mikon said in a low, husky voice.

"…it wasn’t, my mouth just spoke before my thoughts got to it…"

"…seeing you do that had my bell shaking…"

"…it was stupid, I shouldn't have—shaking…?"

"…when we can use the house again, I am getting you on that bed and ringing your bell all night…"

"…a-all night?"

Thankfully, they reached the bottom of the stairs before Lori had to hear any more nauseatingly mother-like whispers.

The dining hall was filled with people, though it was clearly not a meal time. tables and benches had been moved at the far end of the dining hall, where children were playing some loud game that involved much running around, standing still, holding their arms out and yelling a lot. It made her shudder, bringing back horrid childhood memories of her mothers taking away her books and telling her to go 'play with the other children' and other terrible things.

"U-uh, I'll go get the fruits, Great Binder," Riz said. "Why don't you sit and wait for me?"

Ah, right. Lori had been about to go outside and see how exactly the dragon was blocking the sun and what the rest of the situation was—the door of her Dungeon as open, so it was probably wasn't too urgent—but as soon as Riz mentioned the fruit, her stomach reminded her it was empty and that she couldn't remember the last time she had eaten. "Thank you," she said absently, turning to head towards her table.

Her chair was just as she left it, pushed neatly against the table and out of the way, and when she pulled it out it was as solid as ever. As Lori sat down and leaned back, she let out a sigh. Ah, she'd missed this! Even though the past several days were a bit hazy—at the moment, her clearest recollections were sitting with her eyes closed, observing the ill-bound wisps and bindings the dragon had made, and collecting and examining samples whose creation she hadn't been able to observe directly, and then writing down notes about it—but she distinctly remembered thinking several times that she wished she had her chair so she could lean back while she wrote.

She would have reshaped the back of the sleeping niche, but it would have taken up time and concentration she needed to observe. So many bindings, so many strange arrangements of wisps… far too many had been completely indecipherable, at least in the brief time  she'd given herself to look them over, so she had claimed them and gathered them up to examine later. A few, however—no, no, that can wait later! Best to make sure she remembered her notes correctly!

Lori blinked as Mikon sat down on the bench opposite her, the weaver giving her a smile but saying nothing. She considered ignoring the woman, but… "If you do any of that bell ringing in my Dungeon, there will be consequences."

"I know, your Bindership," Mikon said, smiling brightly. "Only when we're back in the house."

"Good."

"Though I might see if I can take her to the Um."

"I don't need the details."

"Can we play later?"

Lori paused. "What?"

"We haven't played sunk in a long time. Can we play later at dinner, if you're not busy?" Mikon looked at her earnestly. "Please?"

Huh. When was the last time she'd played sunk? If she couldn't remember, Lori supposed it had been a while. "I'll consider it."

Mikon smiled brightly for some reason.

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After eating the fruits that Riz brought back—there were nice and cool, their outsides wet with condensation—Lori sent her out to find—she reached down to check to rocks on her belt pouch, only to realize she'd forgotten to put on her belt pouch—Lori had her wait while she went upstairs to get her belt pouch.

Once Lori got her belt pouch and checking the rocks until she had to right name, she sent Riz off to retrieve Kolinh, Taeclas and Lidzuga. She took the time to reconnect the pipes from the water hub shed to her Dungeon's reservoir while she waited, though she did not reactivate the shed just yet. The reservoir's water level was down to half, and the waste water cistern in the third level was quite full, as were the latrines.

It occurred to her that she might need to rework her Dungeon's latrines, which had mostly been untouched all this time. She had once considered anchoring bindings to immediately desiccate the waste in the latrines, but had dismissed the idea at the time since she hadn't wanted to use her then-limited wire supply on something so… seemingly frivolous. However, it was clear that the latrines had suffered from her lack of attention for an extended period of time. They were so full that if they'd been opened for cleaning they'd have spilled out onto the floor.

Before she could get started on that, Riz arrived with the people Lori had called, and she gestured for the four of them to sit on the opposite side of the table. Mikon, who'd just sat quietly while Lori had eaten, slid aside to make room for them and took her leave, kissing Riz on the cheek as she went.

"All right," Lori said. "I will be dealing with the matter of the latrines after this. First off, Taeclas, Lidzuga, have you tested the river water for harmful dustlife?"

The two blinked, exchanging looks in a way that made it clear they hadn't.

"One of you see to that immediately so that I can reconnect the reservoir to the river. What is the state of the demesne outside of my dungeon besides covered with ice and solidified air'? Are there any dragonborn abominations that need to be dealt with?" Lori directed that question at Riz and Kolinh.

"We've encountered abominations, Great Binder," Kolinh reported, "however, most of them have been small things, mostly bugs and chokers or beasts of similar size. Most of them are part plant, or have had pieces of their bodies replaced or fused to wood. So far, we haven't encountered anything bigger, so we've been able to put down any that we've run into. Most of our efforts have been clearing what Rian called dragonfrost. It's dangerous to walk on without snow pads because it's thick and slippery. We're working on clearing the main paths, but we still haven't had time to check the demesne's buildings."

Lori nodded. "How many of the abominations you've encountered are undead?"

"A fair few, but it doesn't really change how we deal with them. It's also hard to tell them apart from the ones that are still alive until we're already dismembered them. "

She frowned at that. Well, that probably meant that Kolinh and the former militia in the demesne could handle all the abominations as long as they remained small. "What becomes of the… dragonfrost? What becomes of the dragonfrost after it's been cleared?"

"We've been dumping it into the river," Kolinh said. Huh. Well, she supposed that was one way to get rid of it instead of just letting it pile up.

Lori nodded slowly. "Very well. Continue as you have been as to disposing of the dragonfrost. Has there been any notable damage?"

"The waste water cistern for watering the fields is cracked, Great Binder. The water in it froze, cracking the stone."

"That should be simple to fix," Lori mused.  “What about the sawmill?”

“There’s no obvious damage that we could see, Great Binder, but a more thorough inspection might be needed. At the very least, we should pour water on the roof to see if it leaks now. "

Lori nodded again. "Very well. I'll do something about the dragonfrost around the village this afternoon. For the moment, withdraw those dealing with abominations and have them assist in cleaning out the latrines. When I finish with the dragonfrost, you should be able to deploy more people to deal with them." A part of her wanted to stick the dragonfrost into their coldrooms—no sense in wasting good solidified air—but given it was mixed in with ice, she'd have to pick through it. "After this meeting, go and check the nearest latrines outside my Dungeon. If there are any abominations hiding in them, deal with them and restore the latrines to a useable state so people have somewhere to go while I'm dealing with the latrines here in my Dungeon. Once the latrines have been cleared, check to make sure there aren't any abominations in the baths so I can reconnect the water pipes and people can use them again. The old baths, the ones near the Dungeon. The new ones can wait until later. After that, resume clearing the area around the village, and then move on to inspecting each building. I don't expect you to finish today, but get as much done as you can."

Kolinh nodded. "Understood, Great Binder."

"Taeclas, Lidzuga, I want an assessment done on every individual in this demesne. Check if anyone has developed an illness from being in my Dungeon for an extended period of time, and deal with it as needed. Be as quick as you can while still being thorough. Start with the children, then continue with the ones cooking in the kitchen."

The two nodded. "Yes, your Bindership," they both said, though Lidzuga was a bit unused to saying it compared to Taeclas.

"Erzebed, what was the situation in River's Fork when we left?"

"Rian and Yllian were clearing out the dragonfrost around the outside of the dragon shelter, and we sent more people to help them this morning," Riz reported. "There are a lot of dragonborn abominations, and Rian said they're bigger there, but Binder Shanalorre has been working on dealing with them."

Lori blinked. What? How? "What? How?" She'd ordered Shanalorre not to learn any further Deadspeaking!

"She's claiming any meanings in her demesne that's an abomination and taming the life into her meaning," Taeclas explained quickly. "Rian suggested it. That way, she undoes the meaning and uses up the imbuement in the life, so if there are any predatory lifelings they'll have less to subsist on."

Oh. That was… quite ingenious, actually. "How successful has she been?"

"I saw a lot of abominations that weren't moving on my way back, Great Binder, but what Binder Shanalorre is doing isn't killing all of them," Riz reported. "It doesn't do anything to the abominations that don't need magic to stay alive, or at least won't die right away without it. The ones I saw were beasts mashed together, and…" She made a disgusted face. "Well, it's going to die. Guts aren't supposed to be on the outside."

The description wasn't very vivid, but it was enough to make Lori not desire further clarification. "Is there any reason to believe that the dragon shelter is in danger from abominations?"

Riz shook her head. "The three still alive that I saw can be dealt with by the people there, and Binder Shanalorre said there were no other large beasts or abominations near the dome. At least, there weren't any last night. I'm not sure about now. She's still asleep."

"She stayed up late into the night, dealing with all the abominations that she could," Taeclas said, looking disapproving for some reason. "Your Bindership, you need to tell her to take better care of herself. Staying up that late isn't healthy, especially for someone her age."

Lori opened her mouth to reply, then paused. While she didn't particularly care whether Shanalorre died—it would actually be convenient for her, since she would then be able to claim River's Fork's core—the other Dungeon Binder's healing meaning was useful, and she was useful for taking care of the children. "I'll inform her she's more useful if she remains in a healthy state."

Taeclas stared at her, a strange expression on her face.

She didn't seem to have any more questions, so Lori turned back to the others. "Was there anything else?"

"Um, Great Binder?" Riz said. "What about Rian?"

Lori twitched. "Rian can stay where he is and make himself useful. If I need him, I'll send for him."

"Don't you need him for, uh, 'dealing with people' matters?"

Lori gave her a blank look. "Why would I need to deal with people? I'll be restoring the demesne back to a working state, and then I'll be  going to do the same for River's Fork."

"Ah."

"Besides, why would you need Rian? I'm given to understand you already have plans with Mikon tonight."

Riz's face reddened as everyone turned to stare at her. Taeclas gave her a grin and a nudge with her elbow.

"If that is all, you're dismissed. Get to work."

Lori waited just enough for them to mention any other matters before standing up and walking towards the latrines. Time to get to work.

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How To Get Rid Of Dragonfrost, Prototype

Lori had to work slowly and carefully as she desiccated the waste in the latrines. After all, she didn't want the waste to explode from a steam or vapor explosion. That would have been extremely unpleasant for everyone involved, herself included, as the smell would likely have remained for a long time afterwards. As a result, she worked carefully, first extracting what loose water she could—well, 'water'—and slowly converting it to vapor so it would escape out of the latrine.

…

It was then Lori realized that there wasn't anywhere for the vapor to escape from except out the seat. It… had never really been necessary. The previous times she'd had to desiccate her Dungeon's latrine waste, there wasn't early so much waste, as she had done so gradually over a period of time, not all at once. Well, she'd been thinking of improving the dungeon's latrines anyway. Clearly, she had to make a gas escape vent for the latrines. While such a vent would be a dangerous point of entry for dragonborn abominations, she'd just have to remember to close them just like anything else.

Forming a pipe through the stone was simple enough, and she simply let it open up to the outside of her Dungeon. She made sure the opening wasn't out in her entryway, but outside of it, in the space between her entryway and the water hub shed. Once the pipe was in place and the vapor she'd already converted had escaped, Lori proceeded to turn the rest of the loose 'water' into vapor.

Once all of that 'water' was removed, she was finally able to proceed with desiccating the waste. The waste was naturally inclined to be warm, so she simply bound those firewisps and formed them into a binding to begin gradually heating the waste. As the binding generated more and more firewisps, she claimed those and formed a binding around the latrine's waste receptacle to contain the heat, both because one just didn't let one's Dungeon get too hot or too cold, and because keeping the heat contained meant all the water and the waste got hot faster.

Then she claimed some of the waterwisps, and made a binding that would gently draw waterwisps in the receptable towards where the gas escape vent was. That way both the liquid and gaseous water would slowly begin moving in that direction as the waste got hotter and more and more water turned to vapor.

That done—and making sure that the latrines remained shut so that no one would try to add anymore waste and burn themselves—Lori moved out of her demesne to deal with the escaping gas from the latrine.

From the entryway, everything looked dark and overcast, but when Lori stepped out of the threshold and looked up, she saw what Riz meant about the dragon blocking the sun. For a moment, she just looked up and stared. She had never seen the main body of the dragon, as she had sealed off River's Fork's dragon shelter well before it had arrived, and looking up at the sky obscured by the long threads streaming from horizon to horizon, she was unsure if that was what the main body also looked like.

How long had those things been up there? How much longer would they be there? How far did they extend? Would they be spaced wider apart as the dragon moved further away and the long threads reached their end? She couldn't feel them, not the wat she could feel an oncoming dragon. There were no pulsing waves that pushed at the wisps in her body or in her demesne coming from them, and the ones that she had felt emanating from the dragon were long gone. So what were these things? And what damage would they cause if they fell out of the sky onto her demesnes?

…

She'll probably find out when they actually fall.

Still, the overcast they caused did present a problem. It was approaching noon—despite everything, the sun was still visible behind the threads—but the light outside was very dim. Granted, it was probably much cooler than it had been all summer—she was feeing comfortably cool rather than comfortably warm, and while that wasn't much of a temperature range it was notable to her—but that wasn't as important. Fortunately, the lightwisps she's anchored to the outside of several buildings were still imbued and active because the buildings were being reinforced by earthwisps bindings that were connected together through the bedrock and was being imbued directly by her core, so the areas around the building was well-lit, but she'd need to provide more light in the areas beyond those so that people would be able to work properly.

It was another thing she had to add to the list of things she needed to do to get her demesne back to a working state.

But first, the latrines.

As expected, the output end of the gas escape she'd made was already giving the area around it the distinct smell of human waste, even if most of what was coming out was water vapor. Lori took a moment to rebuild the output vent so that it released higher up, which seemed to lessen the smell. It also let her make sure that there was a lot of stone between the pipe and the surface so that there was less risk of the pipe being exposed from external damage to the stone and an abomination getting in. Granted, there as little chance of that anyway, since the stone was reinforced by earthwisps, but she had to account for such possibilities.

She checked the latrine through her connections with the demesne's wisps. The water inside was getting hot and escaping from the waste as the vapor that had already escaped was drawn up out through the vent, lowering the humidity of the air inside, letting more vapor be drawn out from the waste. That seemed to be well in hand, so she felt safe in moving on to other matters.

Taking a moment to check the containers of darkwisps that she'd established around the borders of her demesne—and telling herself this would be the last time she'd check today—Lori moved on to consider what else she had to fix.

Her gaze fell on a pile of dragonfrost on the inside of the flood walls, and it took her a moment to realize it was the pottery kiln. That meant the pile next to it was the shed where the pottery-to-be was allowed to dry before being fired. But wait… wasn't there a claypit?

Lori checked her awareness of the demesnes' wisps. Ah, yes, the claypit was there… but it was currently full of waterwisps and voids. The pit must have been filled over the week that the dragon had been passing, and the mass of frozen air and water was sufficiently insulated to not melt and sublimate yet… not that anything seemed to be growing warm anytime soon. The ground, the trees, the buildings… all were covered with the dragonfrost, and while she wasn't sure how thick the dragonfrost had originally been… because she hadn't been paying attention at the time…

Given how the claypit was completely filled, there was a lot of dragonfrost, which would be impractical to try and dig out. Given that, clearing the claypit would be a good test for methods she could use to clear the dragonfrost from the rest of her demesne.

First she made sure to set a binding of airwisps in place to draw away air upwards, since if she managed to sublimate the solidified air, than she would be releasing a large amount of exhalation in the air. While it was unlikely to cause asphyxiation out in the open like this, best not to risk it.

The simplest way to induce the solidified air to sublimate would simply be to increase its temperature so that it would simply turn become gaseous again, but there were two problems with that. The first was that if she turned all the solidified air back into… well, air, at the same time, the technical term for it would be an 'explosion'. And while she liked explosions, setting them off on the roofs of her demesne's houses, on their fields, and on every single tree and yustri of bareground would be very irresponsible. Probably enjoyable, no doubt… but also definitely irresponsible. And if she did it, then she'd have people continuing to stay in her Dungeon as their roof was repaired.

…

So she could probably set off the ones on the roof of Rian's house, since that was stone so she could repair it quickly…

…

Ahem. The second reason was that the dragonfrost was so cold they didn't have firewisps she could perceive to claim and bind, meaning any firewisps she would use on them needed to be claimed and bound some distance away. Now that she was looking, there were actually very little in the way of extant firewisps in her demesne that wasn't centered around the voids of wisps her that were her idiots.  Not to say there wasn't any, but they were near small voids that were probably beasts or bugs that had probably huddled together for warmth. There were very few of those. Had many been killed by asphyxiation or cold?

…

Oh, she'd forgotten to make arrangements for the chokers they were trying to domesticate again, hadn't she?

…

Well, too late to do anything about it. Right now she had to work out ways to deal with dragonfrost.

All things considered, there was a way for her to generate heat in the vicinity of the solidified air. all she had to do was claim the waterwisps of the ice and frost around them and solidify it completely, rendering it far colder. Doing so would generate firewisps as heat was ejected from the water, and she would be able to claim those as the basis of a binding to start generating heat. Once she had firewisps generating heat, all she needed to do was raise the temperature around the dragonfrost to be higher than the temperature at which exhalation solidified. That wouldn't even require her to melt the ice, as the air would sublimate well before it grew that warm.

It all sounded perfectly sensible in theory, so now she simply had to put it into practice.

She took a moment to check on her Dungeon's latrines. The heat was building, and more and more water was turning to vapor and escaping out of the gas escape vent. The desiccation was proceeding nicely, then. If the waste wasn't completely desiccated by lunch time, then—

Lori paused, and looked at the latrines again, and at the very hot water vapor escaping from the vent she had recently made. She looked towards the claypit.

Hmm…

––––––––––––––––––

Lori watched—from a distance and some elevation—as the dragonfrost in the claypit slowly melted away. She had anchored warm water vapor over the claypit, the firewisps set to maintain the vapor's warm temperature, and the waterwisps keeping the vapor together, preventing it from condensing into liquid, and not allowing other waterwisps to escape from the binding.

It was actually quite soothing to watch. The warm vapor heated the dragonfrost, and the firewisps ensured that the vapor never grew cold even as the air grew warmer and warmer. At first this had resulted in the topmost solidified air sublimating, but in the process the air actually drew in heat from the air and ice around it, causing the ice to grow colder. Once there was no more solidified air on the top-most layer, the ice actually insulated the lower layers of solidified air from the warmth.

At least, until Lori had forcibly converted the top layer of ice into water.

On contact with the now-liquid water, the solidified air immediately sublimated, bubbling up through the water and once more cooling it as the air drew in heat. However, the resulting water vapor rose up and encountered the binding that prevented the vapor from escaping and increased its temperature substantially. As this vapor wasn't bound to remain vaporous, it quickly condensed back into water, joining the puddle below, now much warmer and beginning to thaw the ice and the continue to cause the solidified air to sublimate.

It was a nicely perpetuating cycle. As more and more water became vapor, the air in the claypit became both saturated and very warm. Once saturation was reached, it actually started to rain under the binding, warm water condensing from vapor and drizzling down to join the slowly growing pool that caused more and more ice to melt and solidified air to sublimate.

Now, all she needed to do was find a way to scale this to cover large swathes of her demesne…