Weekly Digest 139 - (#437 - #439)

Fallen Abominations

Just before we crossed the border out of the demesne, we saw a very strange sight.

Well, strange even for post-dragon conditions. We'd seen unfortunate seels that had lengths of driftwood and still-growing branches fused to their bodies, keeping them afloat but putting them at the mercy of the river's current. There had been a huge boulder of what seemed to be solidified air just resting on the riverbank, standing just out of the water, which had been very disappointing because it wasn't metal or something that they could use. They had seen the corpse of a dragoborn abomination that had been a leaper and a waddler somehow fused together, which seemed to have died because the two heads had tried to eat each other. There had been a lot of bugs that seemed to have various small plants growing on their backs, and unfortunate ones who'd become part fruit, mostly happyfruit. Nearly all of them were dead, devoured by other bugs as the alterations done to them had made them too awkward to be able to fight back or run away. No wonder Kolinh hadn't been too worried.  

This was none of that, which made it strange in comparison.

We all stared at the large mass of blackness just at the edge of the demesne, right on the line where the browns, greens and grays of plants, dirt and rocks was covered by the glittering, multi-colored growths of Iridescence. It was a familiar blackness, but… well, I couldn't think of any reason it should be here. It was also large, about five paces high and ten or fifteen paces across as best as I could estimate, but I couldn't tell how deep it was because it disappeared into the trees. There was one on either bank of the river, putting me in mind of some kind of wall around the demesne. For all I knew, it was, but if so it wasn't meant to keep out anything solid.

"What's that for?" Lidz asked, looking curiously at darkwisps among the trees.

"I have no idea," I said. "Lori didn't do that when the previous dragons happened. We can ask her when we meet her."

"It reminds me of the binding on the Coldhold's cargo boxes…"

"Probably not the same purpose, they're on the inside of the demesne," I pointed out, "so she can't be keeping Iridescence out."

I realized what I'd just said as we crossed the border of the demesne, and turned to look back at the darkwisps.

…

"Daising, how dangerous are insane thoughts if there's immediate help from medics and Deadspeakers nearby?" I asked.

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We didn't run into any insane thoughts, twisted vistas, ill-bound wisps or rampant life as we sailed along the river, which was actually to be expected. Except for twisted vistas—which apparently could float atop water because it was a defined boundary, as I had learned from our then-new settlers from River's Fork last year—the others tended to fall below the waterline unless they were physically unable to due to being too buoyant for one reason or another. 

Thankfully, there weren't any twisted vistas in our path, though we did see one resting on top of a tree. At least, I was reasonably sure that's what it was and not some sort of ill-bound wisps twisting the light. I know what light passing through a vista looks like!

The weather was very still, but that was all right because the air was still relatively cool even without wind. Personally, I felt the overcast was a nice contrast to the persistently hot and sweaty sunlight that we'd been enduring all season, though I had thought that the others wouldn't share the feeling. Surprisingly, however, everyone was in a good mood despite the gloomy weather and constant reminders of the dragon still far up in the sky.

"Oh, this?" one of the militia with us, Bearded Vov, said. "This is a fine summer day back in Lomabuyar Demesne. Lord Rian, even if it's a still a bit warm. But it's a lot cooler than what we've been having, so it's still an improvement."

Well, I couldn't deny that. 

So we all enjoyed the far cooler weather—even if we'd already lit the wisplights we'd brought along just to be sure that we had visibility—as we moved downriver as quickly as safely possible while still watching out for twisted vistas. On either side, we'd occasionally see more dragonborn abominations. There were waddlers that had ropeweed growing on seemingly random places on their bodies, making them look like they had hair. There were fewer dragonborn bugs in sight, but what we could see were eaten or mostly wood, and the few that were moving had cracked carapaces and empty torsos. Their limbs moved awkwardly, so they were probably missing pieces of muscle, or whatever bugs used for muscles.

We'd also seen a beast that looked like a chasmos but had two long horns running down its jaw with what seemed like several flowering bushes growing from its back. It seemed unperturbed by the additions to its anatomy, though it was a question how long that would last. It was also eating from an offshoot of a bush on its back that was too close to its mouth, which was probably some kind of cannibalism. Lidzuga looked in physical pain from not being able to draw it. Hopefully we'd be able to find it again in the coming week. It's certainly interesting.

It was a little after we crossed the border into the boundaries of River's Fork that we started seeing signs of Shana's handiwork. Dead undead abominations that were a mix of plant and something else, with the plant aspects much more clearly dominant. By their placement, some branches had clearly acted as limbs, and so must have needed some kind of Deadspeaking that Shana had disrupted with her forced 'healing'. Even at a casual glance, there were far more of such abominations here then there had been in Lorian Demesne, likely a result of the defenses Lori had in place. Well, while Shana didn't have defenses, she did have offences. Some of the fallen abominations were large enough that I doubted Kolinh would have only made mention of needing axes.

We all stared at what looked like a tangle of trees that had fused together, its general shape making it look like some kind of squid—as opposed to a grasper, whose head was more bulbous and its body less linear. From the furrows on the riverbank, and the way the roots on the end of some its 'tentacles' was covered in mud, it had dragged itself out of the river. It would definitely need more than just axes to deal with an abomination like that.

…

When we got back home, I was going to get Lori some roast tail meat even if I had to set up and cook everything myself. We did not thank her enough for keeping us safe. And I was also going to give Shana my share of any fruit we had for a week. She'd more than earned it if she spared us from having to deal with something like that.

The sight of the fallen abominations didn’t exactly dampen everyone's good mood, but it did make people more watchful. I trusted them to it as I kept guiding us downriver. Despite the angle of the sun—as much of it as I could make out from behind the tentacles high in the sky—it seemed closer to sunset than noon, and I was worried about us heading back. We might have to spend the night here in River's Fork, which might prove to be a bit cramped…

When we reached the center of the demesne, the dome looked relatively whole and undamaged, if covered in several spots with  dragonfrost. I couldn't tell if the dome was dead or still alive, since the leaves were still hanging on and many of them were already a bit withered from the summer. There were also dragonborn abominations there, fallen over and unmoving, although there were two—no, wait, make that three—that were still alive and mobile, though the way they moved indicated that it wouldn't be for much longer.

One was a leaper—or at least something leaper-shaped, since it was smaller than the leapers I remembered being terrified would jump out of the grass and eat me—that looked to have mushrooms growing in random places, which wasn't a good sign for its general health. Either it had been physically fused with the mushrooms, or it had an extensive and most likely lethal fungal infestation over significant parts of its body, which given where some of the mushrooms were growing, involved its internal organs and its brain.

Another looked to be at least three waddlers whose torsos had fused together. Their legs were more or less pointed down, although two didn't seem to be touching the ground properly, and not all of its upper limbs had ended up on the outside. There were long, curving claws sticking out from the shoulder region of one of the heads, and from the way there were flicking back and forth, there was most likely a whole hand's anatomy in the flesh beneath, which implied the whole limb must be in there as well. That implied not everything on the insides of the waddler mass belonged there.

The last of the still-moving abominations—for a given value of ‘still-moving’—was… well, I couldn’t be sure what it used to be, because the most concise way of describing it was ’its insides were on the outside’. It looked like a bag of wet meat, every part twitching and throbbing. I saw hearts, lungs and tubes that must have been intestines, and the multiplicity of these organs meant it must have been more than one beast or seel that had been… inverted for lack of a more concise term. There was no sign of claws, fur or feathers, and no bones were exposed. Neither were there skull or brains, which might have been a mercy, but given the whole, it was more an easily missed detail. Thick, golden fluid bled from where the delicate flesh of the organs had abraded on the ground, and it was already attracting bugs that… well, those organs weren’t going to survive out here anyway, so it probably didn’t matter if they were sterile.

Most of us were staring at that last with various expressions of discomfort, disgust, distaste and nausea. Lidz had turned away, one hand over his mouth and breathing deeply.

“Well,” I said brightly, “I don’t think that last is going to be moving from there, so why don’t we save it for last?” I was not going to say ‘it’s not going to give us trouble. That’s just asking for trouble.

We had to move a dead seel that had gotten lodged onto the dock, slugs seemingly used in patches on its fur, before we could dock the boats. The carcass was pushed out of the way with spears since no one wanted to risk touching it and no one wanted to get into the water that the thing was lying in. Once the dock space was free, we all cautiously went ashore, keeping an eye out for the waddler lump and the infested leaper, the militia fanning out in case they suddenly rushed us or there was some kind of abomination that Shana had missed in her purge. Thankfully, it seemed out little Dungeon Binder had been thorough while we had been sailing downstream, and nothing living or dead came towards us desiring to consume out flesh, or at least chew on it thoroughly.

The dragonfrost was thin enough along the shore that we didn't have much difficulty kicking it out of the way or waking over it, though the two shovels we'd brought along still saw use. Once we managed to get under the dome, the ground was mostly clear, with only a few isolated piles here and there that had fallen from above. We moved cautiously towards the dragon shelter, Wet volunteering to take the lead in case of insane thoughts. The man actually seemed eager to run into one. A rope was tied around his waist so we could pull him back towards us in case he actually did run into such a thing, while the rest of us were watchful for twisted vistas and ill-bound wisps. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any on our way from the docks to the hill where the shelter was housed, but there were several unmoving abominations our way. Large bugs, chokers, seels… all of them were in one way or another fused with some sort of plant or piece of wood or fruit. The latter had already begun to smell as other bugs swarmed them, exposing their fruit pulp to the air.

Once we were out the other side of the dome, we needed to shovel more, kicking the dragonfrost out of our way as best as we could while keeping an eye out for the two still living abominations. They were a fair distance from us, with the closest being the inverted organs, and that was staying in place. We managed to clear the path up to the mine, climbing carefully so we didn't slip.

The entrance to the mine that contained the dragon shelter had a stone wall raised in front of it, blocking the doorway that would entry into the mine and its from encrusted with more dragonfrost. It wasn’t a very thick wall, merely the length of my palm—I didn’t have anything to measure with, so I worked with what I had—and didn't go up very high, leaving the upper stri—sorry, upper ten yustri— or so of the copper-sheathed wooden door of the mine visible, as well as the air intake slits.

…

Sighing, I stepped forward, and carefully knocked on the exposed copper as loudly as I could. The metal as cold,  and it felt like my flesh tried to stick to it with every impact. “Lori! It’s us! We’re here to retrieve you!” Admittedly, the knocking wasn’t very loud since the wood beneath the copper was thick, but I was hoping my voice got carried inside. I could hear the sound of the ventilation binding still drawing in air. "Can you let us in, please? It's safe to come out!"

…

The militia around had started taking defensive formations, two watching the stone of the hill above me as I knocked on the door again. Ugh, my knuckles…!

…

Eventually, the stone wall began to sink into the ground, the stone displacing to one side to become part of the stone of the hill as the dragonfrost broke off, piling up in front of the door.

Oh good, Lori was awake. I really hoped she hadn't been taking a nap that she'd been woken up from. That would put her in a terrible mood.

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Just Mostly Irresponsible

As it turned out, Lori hadn't been napping.

It had been so much worse!

When the door into the dragon shelter opened, we were met by Riz and her friends—all militiawomen—who had accompanied Lori to River's Fork. Lori had never commented on the fact that it was mostly women protecting her, although there was a very real possibility that she had literally never noticed. Sometimes I wondered what she'd make of all these decisions that other people made for her. It probably fell into the category of things she didn't care about, but she'd probably prefer to know there was a decision that she didn't care about before it had been made.

Should I tell her? Probably.

…

Oh, well.

"Hello, everyone," I greeted. "Your relief is here. Any problems?"

"The Great Binder stopped bathing a week ago," Riz said.

That was immediately alarming. Lori wasn't obsessed with cleanliness, but it was clearly near and dear in her affections, right up there with naming things after herself in the possessive form. For as long as I'd known her, she'd always bathed daily, even if it was just a wash with water. Not bathing was literally unheard of for her. The closest had been when she'd been unconscious for an extended period of time when she'd injured herself trying to ride a rock and gotten infected.

"Everyone inside," I said, gesturing for everyone to get inside. "Let Yllian they can get started emptying the latrines and getting more water for everyone so people can stay here while we make sure the dome is clear. Go with them in case there are abominations or beasts that Shana…lorre missed. Lidz, go and check on everyone, in case anyone' sick and Shanalorre didn't notice." I turned back to Riz, leading her to one of the smaller alcoves next to the mine door to give everyone room to go in and out of the mine. "Besides not bathing, what has she been eating? Is she feverish?"

"She eats if I keep reminding her," Riz said with a sigh, leaning against the stone wall and closing her eyes. She looked… well, she looked like she needed sleep and rest and to be away from Lori. "At least she goes to the latrines by herself, but I need to remind her to come out, and I don't think she's been sleeping well."

Oh no. "Has she been carrying the almanac everywhere?"  I asked.

Riz's eyes fluttered open, and she gave me a confused look. "Almanac…? No, I don't think she's been reading anything. She's been writing a lot, though. Ink all over her fingers and her trousers."

…

Ah. This was going to require very careful handling…

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The door leading into Lori's alcove wasn't locked. There wasn't any stone jutting up from the floor to keep it shut, and the latch hadn't even been thrown. It was like Lori had just walked straight back into the alcove after she'd lowered the stone wall in front of the dragon shelter's doors.

Actually, I didn't even know if she'd even stepped out at all. She could have done it from the alcove for all I know. Either way, the lack of effort to try and secure the door was another worrying symptom. Lori was terribly paranoid—terrible as in 'not good at it'—but she always remembered to take her basic security measures, such as locking her door to prevent people from getting at her. Her door was always locked.

And she always took a bath every day.

Raisin a hand, I knocked loudly on the door. "Your Bindership!" I called out. "We're here to take you home! Are you packed?"

I waited, but there was no answer.

I knocked again. "Your Bindership, I think someone pissed in the water reservoir! There's yellow bubbles in it! And there's something floating in it too!"

I waited again. If she didn't respond to this—

"What?-!"

A sigh of relief escaped me, even though the words weren't as violently outraged as they should have been. It was more like a 'what was that, I didn't hear you properly?' 'what?-!' rather than an indignant 'those fools finally did what I had always feared they would do!' 'what?-!'

"I said I think someone pissed in the water reservoir!" I called through the door, aware that Riz and those close enough to hear were staring at me.

The growl that came through the door sounded… well, very human, but clearly a lot of effort, frustration, and rage was going into it to make it sound as beastlike as possible. The growling broke down into mutters of colorful language, as well as some insults that sounded distinctly of Taniar Demesne-origin, such as 'asking for idea loans without sense collateral', 'suffering from sense inflation', and 'overdrawn from their sanity account'.

The mutters were broken up by more annoyed growls, but those seemed directed at something else. There was a cry of frustration. There was the sound of bare feet stomping on stone, which Lori was probably going to regret in a little bit. I waited some more, even as I knew I'd probably just made a terrible mistake. Lori as she normally was would probably understand. She'd be very annoyed at me, and I might be looking at some shin kicks in my future, but she'd have understood.

After all, a Dungeon Binder had responsibilities.

I wasn't sure this non-bathing Lori who didn't remember to lock her door would agree.

Some more time passed as frantic movement and more grumbling came through the door, which sounded like Lori was cleaning up her alcove. It was clear she had made some kind of mess in there, and just as clear that she hadn't realized she'd been so messy. That was good, it meant that the her desire to be organized and neat was making itself known. There was a loud sound as Lori latched the door, and another sound of frustration as she realized she'd just latched the door instead of unlatching it. There was another sound as she finally unlatched the door with far too much force, and pulled the door open.

I blinked at the very bright light that shone in my eyes, instinctively shutting my eyes and raising a hand to shade them… and then the smell hit me. It smelled… well, it smelled like someone hadn't taken a bath in over a week and a half had been staying in an enclosed room, which they had been sweating in. It was thick and acidic, and I felt like my eyes should be watering. I heard Riz step back as the smell reached her, though thankfully she didn't do anything as overdramatic as gag or exclaim.

If the smell was bad, Lori herself looked worse. The fingertips of her right hand were dark with ink—a part of me winced thinking of how much ink that could be—and the front of her trousers were stained with more. There were more stains on the hem on her shirt, as if she'd been wiping the tip of her pen on it, and the lower two button were undone. The armpits of the shirt had very pronounced sweat stains, and there were oil stains on the sleeves, probably from where she had been wiping her face. Lori's hair was matted with more oil and so thick it looked like the whole mass had fused together into a helmet. Her eyes were half-lidded and were visibly drooping from tiredness, and seemed to be staying open from raw willpower and also rage from the thought that someone had finally defiled the water supply.

It would be funny if this wasn't a woman who could sink me into the ground and had already shown a marked preference for painfully mutilating kicks to the side of the knee. Getting your knees kicked in the wrong way was agonizing.

“Who did it?” Lori hissed though gritted teeth.

“No one, I just needed you to get up and open the door so we can talk,” I said. “The dragon’s gone now, so there’s work to be done.”

Lori stared at me for a moment, visibly working to comprehend what I’d just said, and I took a moment to look over her shoulder and into the alcove. While the smell was… intense, it seemed to be primarily emanating from Lori rather than coming from the room itself, which was… well, not as neat as her own room back in Lorian, but in reasonable shape given the sounds I’d heard before the door opened. Her bedroll and pillow had been pushed to one end of the sleeping niche, and the parts I could see didn’t seem to have ink stains. In contrast, the flattened-looking pile of straw spread out across the rest of the niche had plenty of dark spots, but they seemed to be concentrated on the point furthest from the sleeping paraphernalia. There was also a dark splotch where it looked like Lori had spilled ink, but it looked smaller than it should have been, and seemed looked old and dry. Perhaps she’d spilled ink and used Whispering to gather it back together into the bottle?

There was a frustrated, if inarticulate, sound from Lori as she understood she’d been tricked. However, instead of glaring angrily at me, using Whispering on my person and the environment around me, or just kicking me, she just made a growling sound before turning away and picking up an untidy sheaf of papers and a bone tablet that had been put on top of the wooden container enclosing the wispbeads powering the ventilation and other defensive measures. “I was in the middle of something important! I need to get all this noted down before—rainbows! I’ve lost track of where it went!” That finally got her to look at me, glaring angrily, even as one hand started feeling around for something next to her, patting at the straw.

She’d just left the door open and walked away. Carefully, I stepped into the room and made a show of closing the door and latching it. “The dragon’s gone, and two demesnes need their Dungeon Binder back. While I’m sure whatever you’re doing must be pretty interesting, it’s time to get to work, your Bindership.”

For a moment, Lori stared at me. With her oily face, tired eyes, unkempt hair, sweat-stained clothes and random ink stains, she didn't look like the reliable, ever-present wizard she usually did. Her face wasn’t set in a small frown as she thought of how to solve whatever problem, real or imagined, she’d taken offense at for being present in her demesne. She just looked… she looked like she was tired, needed sleep, and wanted to punch me in the face for pulling her away from whatever had been happily distracting her for days and out into cruel reality.

Her fingers were still holding the papers in her hand gently, though how much of that was tiredness, I didn’t know. Lori looked down at the sheaf, her eyelids drooping, and with the exaggeratedly careful movements of someone really, really tired because they’ve been awake for possibly more than twenty hours, she aligned the edges, making the papers into a neat stack. Once that was done, she deliberately laid it down on the straw as far away from her as her arms could manage before looking around her. “Where’s the pen?” she asked, her voice confused.

I silently pointed at the pen—just lying on its side, not even capped to keep out dust and protect the nib—next to where she’d picked up the papers.

“Where?” she demanded.

Silently, I stopped pointing and just picked up the pen, wiggling it at her.

“Oh, right, that’s where I put it,” she said before letting out a yawn and rubbing at her eyes. Finally, she said, “So no one’s actually pissed in the water?”

Closing my own eyes, I let out a long, relieved breath. “Not that I know of. You'd know better than me, since you've probably had to refill it everyday. I went straight to you since Riz told me you’ve been acting weird. Have you really not had a bath yet?”

She looked away, her expression a mix of childishly sulky and guilty. “I was busy.”

I nodded. “We’re ready to take you back home,” I said. “Do you want to go, or will we be staying a bit?”

Lori blinked at me. “Home… right, the dragon’s… I can go back home…” She looked vaguely at nothing for a few moments, then abruptly nodded. “Home. Let’s go. I’ll just… pack.”

Her pack was lying with the top open, and the clothes inside still looked neatly folded. Had she really not changed her clothes at all? "Why don't you let me take care of it?" I said. "Riz can lead you to the boat and get you settled in so you can nap on the way home."

Lori swayed for a moment. "All right… yes, you do that…"

I looked over my shoulder, where Riz was looking very concerned. "Riz, could you take her Bindership to one of the boats? You and your squad go with her and have Clowee bring you back." I paused.

"Understood," she said, looking relieved. "What about you?"

"I'll stay and talk to Yllian about what Lori's hasn't been dealing with," I said. "Any suggestions?"

"She hasn't really just been staying in her room," Riz said softly. "The Great Binder just… hasn't been taking care of herself. When she wakes up, she goes around, does things, then goes back to her room and…" She nodded at the sheets of paper. "She made sure there was water in the reservoir."

I sighed in relief. Well, at least she hadn't gone completely irresponsible. Just mostly. And she'd been neglecting herself in favor of her Dungeon Binder things?

That… actually, that was very Lori-like.

Shana must never know. This would just encourage her to take even less care of herself!

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Still Being Fulfilled

Distressingly, it looked like Lori's pack was mostly untouched. Her clothes were still in there, slightly rumpled, and the almanac had been tossed into it as well. I made sure to wrap the book properly so it wouldn't curl before I put it back into her pack, and made sure that her soap—which was absolutely dry—was securely in its little leather pouch. It rolled up her bedroll properly, stuffing her pillow inside, and was glad to see that a casual checked revealed no ink stains. It wasn't as fluffy as it used to be, but there was no need to replace the stuffing yet.

The bedroll still stank though, so apparently she had still been sleeping on it. Just not as much sleep as she should have.

Lori was sitting on the boat, and was moving around like she was trying to find a comfortable position. She took her pack and placed it behind her as a cushion, muttering about needing her chair. I made a note about having the boat she used for making beads be designated for use on her personal trips as well.

She seemed to find a comfortable enough position, since she settled down and closed her eyes, letting everyone else finally started boarding the Lori's Boat (Unnumbered But Technically One). Not that the anyone seemed eager to sit next to her as it became clear she seemed to have fallen asleep, or was at least dozing. Riz and the other militiawomen had probably gotten more than their fill of her smell, and everyone else was keeping their distance. Unfortunately,  Lori was sitting in the back, so poor Clowee had to sit next to her to operate the boat.

I'm sorry, Clowee! Hopefully the wind when the boat got moving will blow the smell away from you!

“Here,” Riz said, handing me her pack, with its bedroll and blanket tied to the outside. They were made of hard-wearing canvas, looked like they’d been used for years, and were good for years more. “You didn’t bring anything, so use this. I’ll sleep on your stuff when I get home. There’s soap and a towel in there too.”

“You don’t—actually, yes, thank you,” I said. This little overnight stay hadn’t been planned, but since we were taking Lori away, I had decided to stay so that it was clear we weren't just abandoning them to deal with the aftermath of the dragon by themselves. I wasn't Lori, but I was here, showing that Lori’s responsibilities to take care of the demesne were still being fulfilled. Besides, I needed to talk to Yllian anyway. “I’ll try not to use up everything.”

Riz nodded and gave me a quick kiss, to immediate snickering and commentary from the other militia around us. “Any orders you want me to carry back?” she said.

“Tell Kolinh to send people here tomorrow, this time packed to stay if necessary,” I said. “Though don't wait for her to wake up before sending anyone. She'll probably be sleeping in late, and will most likely miss breakfast. Lori should be rested enough to start making more decisions by the time she wakes, so she can get started on dealing with putting the demesne back together now that the dragon is gone.”

“And if she isn’t?”

I considered that. “Then tell Kolinh to have someone come get me and I’ll see if I can talk some sense into her again. Hopefully when she wakes up she'll be back to her usual responsible, hardworking megalomaniac self. If she's back to normal, getting me can wait until Lori's done fixing things back home and heading over to fix things here.” It shouldn’t be necessary, since Lori had already been reminded of things she had to do, but…

Well, maybe whatever she was writing is still really interesting.

I headed back to the mind with Riz’s pack and a spear, the boats staying to make sure I wasn’t caught by the two still-mobile abominations before leaving themselves. There was work to be done.

Yllian had come out and was looking around at the landscape, the sky, and the dragonfrost on nearly everything, which people were already shoveling out of the way to avoid the inevitable slipping hazards. He nodded to me as I came close. "Will she be all right?"

"As soon as she gets more sleep and a bath," I said. "From what I can tell, it seems to have been a loss of self-control. I couldn't tell you what she was indulging in, but she wrote a lot of notes about it, and it seemed like Whispering. Not much she can do around here anyway. Most of this stuff—" I kicked at the dragon frost, "—isn't water."

"I know. I hate it when it snows air. It kills people when it sink down to the shelters and no one catches it."

"Good thing this shelter is up a hill, isn't it?" I said. "I’ll put this inside and come back out to help you clear a path so we can start emptying the latrines and getting more drinking water. Uh, but let's not do the last two in that order."

For some reason, Yllian burst out laughing.

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Between the weak sunlight outside and how late it was in the day, there wasn't much time to work outside, especially with two abominations nearby. With what little light remained, we focused on clearing dragonfrost from around the door. Some used the spearshafts to try and scrape off dragonfrost from the stone about the entrance so it wouldn't fall down, while the rest of us used shovels to loosen the dragonfrost and toss it downhill. We were just able to clear a path down to the river, and refilled two of the water barrels before it was too dark to try and fill more, even with the good wisplights from Covehold.

Afterwards, I waited my turn to use the baths, such as it was. It turned out that the room Lori had excavated for use as a bathing area had become drinking water storage… and most of the 'drinking water' was in the form of large blocks of bound ice, because of course it was. Hence, the water reservoir room had become the bathing area, complete with a stone that was filled by pulling off a piece of wood that was the stopper on a pipe leading from the reservoir Lori had filled. At the far end of the room from the reservoir was a recess on the floor that all the water flowed down to, which had a bound tool at one end that seemed to draw in the water into a pipe built into stone wall. Impurities in the water were expelled into a bucket from an outlet of the pipe and the now-clean water was sent back to the reservoir so people could bathe into it again.

At least we weren't drinking it.

After taking a bath, I joined Yllian for dinner. It was slightly awkward, since there wasn't as much space to eat as the dining pavilion, so I was eating with Yllian's wife and stepson, Aryss and Ayban. While we’d done so before, and I was one good terms with all three, there was something about being the lone stranger in the community that made me feel like there was someone staring at my back.

There probably was. People had settled down and were behaving, but this was still the demesne whose people had put themselves in a near-famine situation from stealing and hoarding their own food. Lori was never going to let them forget it, and neither was I, though I reserved my reminders for the people who were actually guilty of theft and hoarding. And if that meant reminding them they punched like an empty reed basket, so be it.

I informed Yllian of my observations of what abominations we probably had to deal with, doing my best to keep the language mild enough so that no one was turned off dinner. "Though I think Shanalorre is working on dealing with them. The undead and rampant life, at least. Everything else…" I sighed. "Well, Lori will probably have to deal with the Whispering things, but I have no idea how we'd deal with  twisted vistas and insane thoughts beyond marking them to avoid. Ugh, she's going to hate walking around the woods… How did you deal with those two in the militia?"

"Mentalists and Horotracts," he said as if it was obvious… which, yes, it was. "They'd identify both, then claim and unmake them."

I groaned. "And we have neither… I'll have to ask Lori if I can recruit at least one of either next time. This is starting to become untenable. Well, more untenable than it used to be."

"I think we're doing rather well as things are," Yllian commented. "If the demesne were more densely populated, then we'd need to hurry to be rid of all traces of a dragon's presence, but as it is we can just let the things sit and fade away on their own since we don't really go that far beyond the immediate dome."

"Even though the wisps that might start a forest fire?" I said.

Yllian shrugged. "If a fire hasn’t started yet since the dragon left, then there's probably nothing that can start a fire, in which case they can also be allowed to fade on their own."

"You have a point about the wisps, but Lori is going to hate it. You know how she can be. Things need to be done, done, done."

"I'm sure she'll cope. As it is, the biggest threat left would be the abominations, and you said that the Gr—Binder Shanalorre is dealing with the matter from where she is."

"She's not getting all of them," I pointed out. "The living ones that aren't really going to be bothered by losing the rampant life that was one them will still be a problem. But I suppose it does cut down on the number of abominations we'll have to deal with to a more reasonable amount."

"You're not coming," Yllian said mildly. "Something like that is far too dangerous to include someone as inexperienced as you, Rian."

"Normally I'd insist on coming along anyway to learn but many of the things I saw were disgusting, so just this once I'll stay put. How are we for food?"

"We were able to gather everything, and the Great Binder caught three seels before we had to close the dragon shelter, so we're well-stocked. However, I'm worried about how the fruit trees managed to survive this. The cold no doubt killed all their leaves, and several might have been tricked into thinking that winter came early. We might have problems with the trees next year."

"Let's worry about that next year, we have more than enough problems today as it is," I said.

"Our future selves are going to hate us," Yllian observed.

We both sighed.

"I suppose I might as well enjoy just having this problems to deal with. When the Golden Sweetwood Company gets here again, everything's going to get so much worse."

Yllian looked at me curiously. "Having more settlers, skilled labor, new equipment, and wizards is things getting worse?"

"You won't be the one trying to keep Lori from doing something unreasonable and paranoid," I said. "At best, she'll insist all other wizards confine themselves here to River's Fork and take away all the bound tools she made so that the Whisperers can't examine or modify them."

"Oh no. What a hardship, to have all the wizards staying in this demesne," Yllian said flatly. "However shall we cope?"

"Hey, I want us to have wizards too, you know! It's just she's worried that they'll obey the Golden Sweetwood Company over her, and she doesn't like having challengers to her authority." And she's worried they'll try to kill her to take her demesne, or set up rival demesnes, the thought of which she can't stand… "If she could be absolutely sure the company wouldn't try to place itself as a rival authority… well, she'd still be worried, but not as much as she is now."

Yllian hummed, sounding commiserating. "Well, better you than me," he said.

"Your non-vote of non-confidence warms my heart."

––––––––––––––––––

I slept in Lori's alcove that night. Lit by the glowing rock Lori had given me what seemed like a long time ago, the little room still stank a little, even after a day of being aired—or at least, having the door open so that the ventilation could force the smell out—but it had a door that locked. While some people punched like an empty reed basket, they might feel confident if I slept in the same room as them, and at the moment it wasn't safe to move back under the dome. The dragonfrost was still sublimating, and we didn't want anyone asphyxiating in their sleep.

Lying back on the sleeping niche, the bedroll on top of the pile of straw—I'm made sure to turn it over and check for still-wet ink, just in case—the smell was bearable, but it wasn't going to fade into the background any time soon. Riz hadn't bought a pillow, but that was what the pack was for. The sound of the air moving through the ventilation was a low, constant breath. It had been a long day, but hopefully their Dungeon Binder would soon be back in working order.

…

The spaces on either side of me felt too cold and empty. Did that mean I missed Umu, Mikon and Riz, or was I just feeling lonely? Or was I just trying to tell myself I did love them so I wouldn't feel guilty about enjoying their company? Someone who did love them probably wouldn't need to actually think about that, right?

I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, and when I did, I dreamed of rain.