Demesne

It was clear to Lori that the issue with the trees wasn't a Deadspeaking problem, but rather a cooling problem. After all, it didn't matter how much heat a process generated, what mattered was siphoning off that heat.

Really, if they had the infrastructure the best way to deal with this was to have misty sprays of water coming down on the leaves, which was cooling and irrigation put together. The lack of infrastructure meant that wasn't viable, but if Taeclas ever put the meaning on a fruit tree planted in her dungeon farm, Lori would be willing to invest in that infrastructure.

Here, she'd be investing in slightly less intensive infrastructure.

The firewood trees didn't have branches long and straight enough to be poles, but that was what having a Deadspeaker was for. She had Lidzuga putting together lengths of reasonably straight wood, each at least three paces long, while she gathered rocks with assistance from Riz and her friends, one being sent off to get some shovels.

A pile of rocks had been gathered not far from the bath house, which turned out to have been put together under Yllian's orders both as a stockpile in case she needed more raw material and as a means of keeping certain people occupied. Lori put it to the former use, taking rocks and softening them so she could shape them… after forcible cooling them by claiming and binding the firewisps inside them, since they were all hot from being out in the sun.

The softened stone was wrapped around one end of the lengths of wood and solidified to keep it in place. Lori did the same to the rest of the lengths that Lidzuga had fused together and straightened using Deadspeaking. There were seven poles, with one more in progress as Lori claimed and bound airwisps, anchoring them to the stone wrapped around the ends of the lengths wood. When each of the improvised poles had bindings anchored to them, it was time to test them so that she'd know how effective their dispersal was.

Of course, she wasn't going to just claim the earthwisps in the dirt and have them move aside to make a hole. That would ruin the soil! And given the fruit tree grove was where a lot of the demesne's latrine waste went to keep the trees nourished, she also didn't want to touch any of it. Fortunately, they had shovels. Two of Riz's friends put aside their spears and started to dig a hole for the improvised pole. When it was about knee deep, the pole was put in. The rest of the soil was packed into the hole to hold it in place, and some rocks stacked at the bottom for further stability.

With the pole now stable, Lori used her staff to reach up to imbue and activate the binding of airwisps.

Immediately, the leaves of the trees above began to rustle violently. Lori adjusted the intensity of the airwisps to keep the wind they were generating from being so violent as to damage the leaves. The wind spread outward in all directions and slightly upward, and after imbuing the binding so that it would last a few days, Lori stepped back to observe how far the wind spread. The air spread surprisingly far, judging from the moving leaves, which hopefully meant that the poles she had would be enough.

Reaching up with her staff to deactivate binding, Lori then had the pole pulled up from the ground so it could be repositioned. Walking around the fruit trees—and having to endure the smell of the latrine waste used to fertilize them on top of the heat—Lori identified the best places to install the poles, where they would be able to ventilate the most number of trees, with some degree of overlap. The trees on the outermost edges of the location would have the least cooling, but they'd still be cooled and that should be enough.

"Uh, your Bindership?" Lidzuga said as she reached up to deactivate the binding. "What's all this for?"

"You were both saying how the meanings were causing the leaves to grow too hot," Lori said. "When something gets too hot, you cool it. Since I can't just anchor firewisps to the tree and delete the heat, I'm increasing the airflow so that the heat being released by the leaves is drawn away faster."

Lidzuga stared up at the trees, which ruffled only slightly in the mostly-still air. "Ooooh…" he said, then groaned. "Ugh, my uncle is going to be insufferable if he ever finds out about this. He's a steam driver artisan, he always goes on about air-cooled steam drivers…"

"I wouldn't know, I've never worked with one," Lori said. "I'll finish this, you go help Taeclas adjust the meanings."

"Yes, your Bindership…"

The holes were dug up as Lori added airwisps from her lungs to the bindings on the poles, letting her imbue them at a distance. She made a note to add these to the list of bindings she had to keep imbued. Without any bound tool cores with her at the moment, all this would need to be manually imbued, but that was no problem. Besides, she didn't have any more bound tool cores ready anyway. She'd have to get the smiths to make her more.

Once the holes were finished—Rian had arrived at one point and had taken over getting the holes dug up—Lori was able to put the poles into place. Six of the poles were positioned so that they'd be able to blow air all the way to the edge of the trees, and the other two were placed near the middle of the trees to circulate air there. Instead of dirt, rocks were piled around the bottom of the poles, which Lori softened and reshaped into a solid base to more effectively hold the wooden poles in place.

With the binding on the poles containing airwisps from her lungs—it would be a while before she'd be able to do that again—Lori was able to activate the bindings and begin imbuing them at a distance. Wind began to blow through the leaves of the trees, causing the leaves and branches to sway gently.

"So… is this going to solve our fruit problem?" Rian asked as he leaned on a shovel.

"That is the intention," Lori said. "The Deadspeakers have been going on about the meanings making the leaves of the trees too hot, and causing harm to the trees. This will cool them. After all, the trees were able to last through the previous summer, so they can clearly function through a lesser heat."

"I suppose. Though will you be able to imbue these at a distance, or will you need to keep coming here every few days? I don't see a bead receptacle on those poles."

"They can be imbued," Lori said dismissively. "We can head back now. Find out if Taeclas still needs to stay overnight or if she's finished and coming with us."

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Taeclas had to stay, though she said she believed she'd be finished the next day. Lori left it up to Rian to remember to send a boat after her.

Before they left, Lidzuga showed them Lori's Boat, which he declared to be in good condition. Some parts were noticeably paler, and the boat looked as it had when she had first acquired it. Next to it was another boat that looked extremely similar. It had the same dimensions, at any rate, being the same length, width and height. The wooden panels looked a bit thicker, meaning it was no doubt heavier than Lori's Boat, but it was hardly intended to be carried around.

"Please don't name this one something like 'Lori's Second Boat' or something," Rian said as they examined the copied boat.

"Why would I call it that? The name is far too long," Lori said as she knocked on the wooden structure, and received a dull, heavy echo and aching knuckles in turn. The wood was very solid, and there didn't seem to be any hollows that could lead to structural weaknesses.

"Oh good…"

"'Lori's Boat Two' is far better."

"…" Rian '…'-ed. "…can't you try some other name?"

"Why? It's the perfect name."

"I don't know… variety? Constantly reusing the same name shows a lack of imagination!"

"It's a boat, Rian. There's no need to waste anymore more time on the name than what's necessary."

For some reason, Rian sighed. Riz patted him on the shoulder. "Have you tested this in the water yet, Lidz?" Rian asked, looking resigned for some reason.

"Yes, Lord Yllian and a few people were nice enough to help me get it in and out of the water to test how waterproof it was after I finished it," the Deadspeaker said. "I even tried getting on it. I understand what those outriggers are about now. As it is, it's a little unstable."

"That's because it's meant to be a barge for cargo, not people," Rian said. "Now you know why the next one has higher sides, right?"

"Yes, it's very easy to put too much weight on one side and accidentally have it dip too low and start taking in water," Lidzuga said. "It wouldn't take much to improve the design."

"That's what the modifications I want you to make are for," Rian said. "Which one are you working on next, by the way?"

Lidzuga gestured towards where a boxy wooden structure lay on the ground. It… well, it looked like several branches had been stuck together into a barely boat-like shape. The sides of the boat were noticeably higher than Lori's Boat or the copy.

"Ah, deciding to build the boat that addresses the obvious problem?" Rian said.

Lidzuga nodded. "Increasing the height of the boat's sides seems like the obvious solution to the risk of it sinking when one side gets low enough to start taking in water. Though…"

"It makes it harder to get in and out," Rian said, and Lidzuga nodded. "Well, when you build the other permutations I gave you, I'd like your assessment on which configuration to continue producing, and which would be a better structure to build on a larger scale."

Lori's Boat and Lori's Boat Two had to be left behind, as they didn't have the steam jet driver for the former, or a rope to tow either behind them. Rian said he'd bring both when he came to pick up Taeclas the next day so he could bring the boats back to Lori's demesne. Lori increased the priority of having more bound tool cores made, as the new boat would need its own driver.

On the way back upriver, Lori caught a glimpse of the Typhon Beast, ordering the boat stopped and handing Rian the arrow with the heavily imbued binding of lightningwisps. Unfortunately, by the time the arrow had been knocked onto the bowstring the beast had slipped back into the woods and even as Rian tried to aim at where its vague movements indicated its location, it managed to blend into the Iridescence. Lori couldn't even blame the missed opportunity on Rian taking too long to take hold of the arrow and aim: the typhon beast had already been turning away from the river when she'd spotted it, finished with drinking its fill of water.

"It's like it's taunting us," Rian said, sounding frustrated as he carefully released the tension on the bow and handed the arrow back to Lori. "Like it was waiting out there to give us a chance to see it, then runs of before we can shoot at it." He glanced at Lori. "Is there any chance it's some kind of dragon-born abomination? You know, altered to be smarter, and it's using its intelligence to mock us?"

Lori shook her head. "The blood of dragonborn abominations is distinctive. And even if it were an abomination, intelligence does not work that way. There are stories of beasts, and fursh acting in ways that have been attributed to increased malice and intelligence, but post-morten dissection and analysis found no notable alterations to their brains. It's just a stupid beast, and you're attributing properties to it out of frustration."

"I know that, and you know that, but does that thing know that?"

"Rian, stop being silly."

They continued back home.