Demesne

Lori hadn't realized how uncomfortable all their other boats were.

Sitting on the bottom of Lori's Boat, her back against the back of the boat, Lori was already missing her chair on Lori's Shed Boat. Her legs couldn't seem to find a comfortable position… or at least a position as comfortable as sitting upright. How had she used to think this was an acceptable means of travel?

To keep her mind off the discomfort, she focused on continuing the preparations to proof her demesne against the incoming dragon. Gathering all the darkwisps in the air above her demesne, she formed them into a single massive binding that would act as an ablative barrier against the magic that would arrive with the dragon. Lori kept that binding carefully deactivated as she anchored it to the stone on the inside of the entryway of her dungeon, a spot that wasn't part of the binding that reinforced the earthwisps of the structure. A bit of gold wire jutted out there, and once the binding made contact with it, magic directly from her dungeon's core began to imbue the darkwisps. That done, she claimed lightwisps from around the bindings that illuminated her demesne, forming them into a binding that she anchored to a convenient elevated structure: the stone aqueduct. It was high enough that light from the binding would reach the fields without being in anyone's eyes. At least, that was the intention.

After that, Lori systematically began sealing shut the various water pipes that lead in and out of her dungeon to prevent entry by any dragonborn abominations small enough to take advantage of the openings, and made sure that the binding of waterwisps and firewisps in the water around the air outlet vent was well-imbued to keep it hotter than boiling so that nothing could crawl in through there. Once that was checked, Lori moved on to activating the baths in the dungeon.

…

Examining her dungeon's baths through her awareness of her demesne's wisps, she couldn't help but notice it was actually very small, in comparison to the baths that people used on a regular basis. Should she…? No, no, don't think of that now. She reached out and checked the pipe for the bath's waste water that went down to the dungeon's farm's waste water cistern, then connected the pipe that drew water from the reservoir to the bath. Once they installed one of the bound tools that drew water—technically air and water—they'd be able to fill the bath's basin—

Lori's eyes snapped open as the air around her went from being comfortable to comfortably warm but with a cooling breeze as they moved. As temperature transitions from leaving her demesne went, it was one of the better ones. The lightwisps anchored to the panels of bone at the front and sides—that was a recent addition—of the boat illuminated the area ahead and around them, though the latter was only for a pace or two. Beyond that, all that was visible of the water were where the waves reflected the moonlight and wisplight, which wasn't often. Past the water, the shoreline was much more visible, glittering in the colors of the moonlight.

…

Would it be too much to hope this that this dragon's passing would result in the death of the typhon beast nesting outside of her second demesne? Probably. Logically, it should die in the chaos that would ensue, but Lori was certain she wasn't anywhere near that fortunate.

…

Actually, why had Rian never reported finding dead beasts after a dragon's passing? For that matter, how did beasts actually manage to survive a dragon's passing? It was something she'd never considered before now, but…

…

Well, not important. Even if the passing of dragons was somehow not fatal to beasts, bugs, slugs, squid, fursh and whatever else she couldn't recall immediately, she knew for a fact that dragons caused damage to her demesne's infrastructure.

Some time after they'd left the boundaries of her demesne, they passed the boats that Rian had sent ahead to River's Fork. They were full of children, many of them crying. On two of the boats—Lori's Ice Boat and Lori's Boat Two—Lori saw women with their hair in familiar shades of pink that made them instantly identifiable as Mikon's cousins, who had children clinging to them. Another boat had two adults—besides the one operating the steam jet driver bound tool—whom Lori presumed were Lidzuga and his sibling. One of them was holding a rock that emitted light, which a certainly a good indicator in that direction.

And then the boats had passed into the night, and there was nothing ahead of them but darkness.

When they neared River's Fork, Lori saw it was bustling with activity. While there were still people carrying items from houses to the mine, a few people were already in the process of trying to transplant the crops in the fields and terraces. There were lights moving about, some of them wisplights, but a few of them seemed to be torches.

"Erzebed, start putting beads into the wisplights," Lori said as they approached the dome, "get them distributed, and make sure they don't bring those torches into the dragon shelter!"

"Yes, Great Binder," Riz said as she caught the bag of wispbeads that Lori had tossed her. She began digging into the straw-filled basket, pulling out four of the wisplights that Rian had brought from Covehold Demesne. Lori, for her part, activated the deactivated binding of lightwisps that she'd anchored to her staff, providing herself with light as the boat carefully moved alongside the dock. She carefully climbed out of the boat, her pack slung over her shoulder and staff in hand. The ferry pilot handed Lori her bedroll—her pillow was tucked in the middle of the bundle—and there was a moment where Lori worried her bedroll would fall into the water, but eventually she was able to get a grip on everything and scurried towards solid ground.

Making way towards the dragon shelter was a bit difficult, as it was uphill, and Lori had to watch her step as she carried her effects. Riz followed after Lori, her own pack over her shoulder. Fortunately, the mine entrance was clear when they reached it, and no idiots seemed to have tried to get into the alcove just inside the entrance. At Lori's direction, Riz unlatched and opened the door to the alcove, and they stepped into the small room. Lori was finally able to put down her bedroll in the sleeping niche, while Riz just dropped hers next to the door. Taking the binding of lightwisps on her staff, Lori anchored it to the wall, and started gathering more lightwisps to making another binding. "Find me a rock," Lori ordered. "You're going to need light."

Lori spent the next few moments making light to see by, anchoring lightwisps in intervals along the mineshaft so that each one was just in sight of the next, and then anchoring another binding of lightwisps to the stone outside next to the mine entrance. She could gather darkwisps later. She had all night, after all.

That done, she checked the size of the bead that was imbuing the mine's ventilation—it was still about head-sized—then the other large wispbeads they had at hand to replace it, which were far larger. Once Lori was satisfied, she and Riz went around the demesne, collecting the bound tools she'd set in place so that they wouldn't get damaged by the dragon. The one at the baths was simple enough to remove, but the ones that cooled the fruit trees required more height for her to reach. Fortunately, Riz remembered where the trestles that whatsisname used to build the boats were, and she was able to retrieve one, which was just enough for Lori to reach up to where the bound tool cores were secured and remove them. She wasn't going to just leave them outside, and they'd be useful for making sure she didn't have to imbue every little thing in the dragon shelter. Or at least not have to reform every binding when they ran out of imbuement.

She was on her way back to the dragon shelter with the bound tool cores when Yllian found her.

"Great Binder," he greeted. "Getting everyone to the dragon shelter is in progress. We're just moving all the fruits that were supposed to be delivered to Lorian Demesne the next time the Coldhold arrived into the shelter."

Lori nodded. "We have some time until the dragon arrives. Once everyone has been settled into the shelter, set some people to work replacing the drinking water, filling the water reservoir, and emptying the shelter's latrines."

"The latrines are clean, at least. Do we have your permission to try to get as many of the crops as possible into the dragon shelter?"

"Only after those are done. If necessary, we have seed grain in our dungeon farm." She was about to dismiss Yllian when she paused. "Don't have them track latrine waste in the mine."

Yllian nodded solemnly. "Yes, Great Binder."

Lori settled in her alcove just past the mine entrance, and checked on her connection to her demesne. Rian had not yet given the signal, so she did one last check around her demesne. There were still voids of wisps in the fields where their crops were, so presumably they were still moving as much of the crops inside as they could…

Ah, right! Lori sealed off the cave with their initial mushroom farm, leaving only a small hole near the top to let air in. Small dragonborn abominations would be able to enter through it, which was why Lori altered the binding to keep out bugs to lethal levels. The mushroom farm out in the woods will no doubt be destroyed, so they needed this farm as a seed crop.

For a moment she regarded their new sawmill, made primarily of wood. While the metal fittings that could be removed probably had been, there was nothing she could do to confer added protection to the building. If she had already managed to learn Mentalism, she could surround it in a shell of thought force, but she hasn't, so she couldn't. Still, she was hopeful. Their roofs hadn't taken much damage during the last dragon, so one can hope it happened again… although knowing her luck, this would be the dragon that set her demesne on fire.

…

Lori would have to keep an eye on her demesne's temperature and be ready to mitigate the effects of her demesne being set on fire. She'd need to form airwisps into a binding that would draw air from somewhere it would still be breathable and funnel it into her dungeon… after she figured out how to keep herself alive. It might be necessary to kill everyone in the shelter so she could have all the air to herself…

…

Well, she'd deal with it if it happened.

Opening her eyes, Lori stood up from where she'd been sitting and set about working on the dragon shelter's own defenses. The lightningwisp binding, to violently discourage anything trying to crawl into the slits on the shelter's entrance to draw in air. Earthwisp reinforcement, to make the stone around the entrance hardier against impacts and large falling objects. She supposed if she got far enough away from the light she could start gathering darkwisps for the ablative barrier. Since it was night, she might even be able to gather enough to enshroud the whole hill.

Actually…

Taking one of the bound tool cores she'd taken from the cooling poles for the fruit trees, Lori proceeded to add it to the end of the contact wire that would imbue the darkwisp and lightningwisp bindings. The last time, those two bindings had needed to be constantly imbued, and would have dissolved had the bead run out unless Lori had been there to keep the bindings imbued. With this core, at the very least it would be possible to replace the bead without her, since the binding wouldn't dissolve from a lack of imbuement. True, the idea was for those bindings to never lose imbuement, but in the very likely scenario someone was careless—someone other than Lori, of course, because she was always very careful!—there would still be a chance of recovery.

Theoretically, at least.

"Uh, Great Binder, are you going to be done any time soon?" Yllian asked. "People need to get through."