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Demesne 485 - Live-To-Dead Testing
🕑 Added 2025-05-04 16:00:10 +0000 UTCLori carefully angled the bone tablet in her hands, moving it so that the aiming binding she had anchored to it was pointed right at the seel below her, then activated the unseen piercing light binding to double check. With the lightning ball binding deactivated there was no lightning to unleash, and through her connection to the demesne’s wisps she could tell that the second line of light also struck the seel.
“You know, the rope is supposed to be a precaution, not encourage you to get as close to the edge as possible,” Rian said. She could feel him holding the rope wrapped around her torso that was secured to a nearby tree. Well, to be more accurate it was tied to two nearby trees, because Rian said that meant the only direction she could possibly fall was away from the cliff. Despite that, he was still perfectly ready to pull her back if she stumbled.
“Well, I need to lean out to be in the best position to strike the seel,” she said.
“I’m not questioning the need, I’m lamenting the fact it’s even necessary,” Rian said. “I’m also lamenting the fact that I can’t be down there to see what happens to the seel, but someone needs to be here to make sure that you don’t decide it’s a good idea to undo the ropes so you can lean further forward.”
“Well, you’ll be in a position to,” Lori said once she was satisfied that she could hold the tablet steady for long enough. “I’ll need you to keep the idiots away from the seel so they don’t get struck by lightning somehow.”
“Can’t you just yell at them? I’m fairly certain your voice coming out of the air threatening death by lightning at anyone who gets too close to the seel would be enough to keep anyone away from it.”
For a moment, Lori considered the scenario. It did hold a certain appeal… no, no, if she did that she’d have an idiot do exactly the opposite just because they weren’t properly paying attention. “Go down there and do as I said, Rian. That’s an order.”
“I respectfully refuse. I am not going to leave you alone up here all but dangling off a cliff. That would be very dangerous and irresponsible. You might find a way to hurt yourself again.”
She turned around to give him a glare. “Why do you always say that?”
“Because among all the Dungeon Binders I know, all of their life-threatening injuries have been self-inflicted. Clearly there’s a pattern of things to watch out for, and I wouldn’t be doing my duty as a lord if I wasn’t doing so.” He frowned. “It’s actually very concerning. Would you two please take better care of yourselves?”
“I do take care of myself!”
“If I hadn’t brought the rope, would you still have thought to dangle yourself over the cliff’s edge like this?”
“… no, of course not.”
Rian didn’t reply, while Lori double-checked that her two piercing lights bindings were sufficiently parallel and still able to point at the seal. This was a trying task that of course required all of her concentration, so no attention could be spared looking anywhere else.
“I’m still not leaving you alone,” Rian finally said.
Lori sighed, then claimed the airwisps around her head and formed them into a binding. “Erzebed!” she called, and the binding of airwisps drastically increased the volume of her voice. She saw the people walking below flinch and look up. “Erzebed! Come here to the top of the hill immediately! And if she’s inside of the Dungeon and can’t hear me, someone get her!”
That done, she let the binding disperse. She watched for a moment as people below looked up and started milling around while Rian got as close to the edge as he dared—which was still about a step and a half behind her—and did the same, holding on to one of the ropes tying her to a tree. They waited.
Lori was tapping her foot impatiently—what was taking the woman so long?—when Rian pointed. “There she is,” he said.
She saw a flash of dark pink hair exit Rian’s house, and frowned. “Why is she in your house in the middle of the day?” she asked as the hair that was most likely Riz started running towards the bottom of the hill where it was a smooth incline instead of a rocky wall.
“I don’t kn—oh, Mikon was with her,” he said as another head of brighter pink hair exited the house, moving at a more sedate pace. “Well, that could have any number of innocent explanations. Mikon could have been sweeping and needed help moving the bed, for instance.”
“Rian, if that was the case, she would stay inside the house and continue to sweep instead of immediately leaving and… yes, she’s entering the baths.”
“Perhaps she’s just finished sweeping?”
“Rian, I have two mothers, even I know what those two were most likely doing. Why are you making excuses when you literally live with them and presumably know what they do?”
“It’s rude to assume that just because they’re in our house together in the middle of the day. There are lots of perfectly innocent explanations for it. I’ll be honest, I’m not very big on sweeping the floor. If there aren’t literal piles of dirt, I mostly see it as clean and get on with my day, but I know women who aren’t my sister tend to not agree with my assessment as to what counts as a clean floor. I know Riz isn’t all that concerned about sweeping the floor either. The floor might have just needed a lot of sweeping.”
“And the baths?”
“Cleaning is hot work, she might want to cool off.”
Lori rolled her eyes, even though he couldn’t see. “Rian, I’ve swept my own floor, I know it’s not that hard.”
“Have you ever swept under the bed?”
“Why would I need to do that? It’s under the bed and out of sight.”
“…Lori, that just means there’s a big pile of dust under your bed that gets spread all over your floor at the slightest breeze.”
“But I can’t see it, so I doesn’t matter.”
“That’s how you sweep when you’re trying to keep your parents from nagging you to clean your room, not when you’re a responsible adult!”
“As an adult, I don’t need to sweep my floors if I don’t want to, and I don’t want to sweep under the bed!”
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Lori thought it was completely uncalled for that Rian told Riz that she was to keep Lori from untying herself and falling off the cliff. Even if she couldn’t remember any recent injuries that couldn’t be categorized as self-inflicted, that didn’t mean that Lori would just jump off a cliff as soon as he was gone! There was also some brief motherliness between the two that she averted her eyes from lest she become nauseous, and then Rian was hurrying downhill, his rock with the lightwisps anchored to it letting Lori keep track of his progress.
…
Had he been moving that slow earlier? Shouldn’t he be moving faster because it was downhill? Lori activated the lightning ball binding as she waited, allowing it to begin to fill with lightning as she watched below for Rian. Behind her, Riz stood patiently, and Lori could feel the grip the not-an-officer had on the rope around her waist. Without any of the woman’s friends nearby, there was no chattering, simply a silence occasionally broken by the wind.
After what seemed like far too long, Rian finally reached the seel down below. After walking a circle around it twice, he stepped back some distance and waved to Lori.
It occurred to Lori they’d never arranged any sort of signal for when she should begin her test, but now seemed as good a time as any. Carefully holding the bone tablet and being very aware of the lightning ball, Lori aimed the aiming piercing light at the seel and took a moment to adjust it to be as centered as possible… and then she had to wait until it stopped moving… and wait again… and again…
Then she activated the unseen piercing light binding, creating a path of lightningwisps in the air. There was a flash of light and a crack of sound as lightning traversed the air, and Lori felt the rope tying her to one of the trees move as Riz jumped in surprise, but fortunately the retired militiawoman didn’t pull on her, else Lori didn’t know what would happen with the lightning. It might have damaged one of her buildings!
After counting to two, Lori deactivated the unseen piercing light, and a moment later the lightning ceased. Blinking her eyes to clear it of spots, she leaned forward as far as the rope would let her. Was the seel smoking, or was that just simply dust? She claimed the airwisps in around her head again, reforming the binding she’d used earlier. “Rian!” she called out, her amplified voice echoing through the air again. “Is it dead?”
She watched as Rian approached the seel, kneeling down and prodding at it with his hand, only to immediately pull the hand back. He made some sort of gesture with his hands, waving them both side to side.
Well, that was unhelpful.
“If it’s dead, take three steps toward your house, if it’s still alive walk towards the laundry area!”
She watched as Rian walked.
“All ri—” Lori paused and deactivated the binding around her head. “All right, we’re done. Untie me, Erzebed.”
“As soon as you walk away from the cliff, Great Binder.”
Completely uncalled for.
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Once she got back down to ground level—and surely much faster than Rian, what had taken him so long—she checked on the seel herself. Yes, it was most definitely dead—she could claim the wisps in its body and everything, something she belatedly realized she could have just done from the top of the hill to check if it was dead or alive—and smelled distinctly of burned fur and burnt meat. In short, it was a very successful test, and confirmed that her lightning binding was sufficiently lethal.
With the seel dead—and her no longer needing to confirm death—people began to butcher it enthusiastically. There was burnt fur and other damage on its hide, but it was only a small swath so the seel was being skinned—presumably by the demesne’s hunters who were also tanners—to turn the rest of it into fur, or possibly leather. She wasn’t sure, she’d never worked in a tannery and didn’t actually know what the difference in treatment was.
All she needed to do now was to get her stock back and she could properly arrange her jig as she wanted. Then she would be ready for any attempts on her life, or any need to invade and conquer an enemy demesne. She had all she needed!
“I told them to save the skull for you,” Rian said as he moved to stand next to her. He exchanged nods with Riz, who sighed in relief and turned to leave. Lori let her, especially since she seemed to be heading for the baths.
She turned to frown at him. “Why?”
“What, you want to wait until someone dies before you put a solid object around the ball of lightning filled with lightning that we’re now very sure will kill people?” he said as he met her gaze. “Besides, what if you accidentally touch it? I know if something is hot enough even you can get burned, and that’s in here.” His gesture seemed to encompass the whole demesne. “Maybe getting hit by lightning in your own demesne won’t kill you… somehow… but if you have an accident out there…”
Lori stared at him… and sighed. Well, she had been constantly worrying about what would happen if someone accidentally touched the lightning ball. It was why she’d removed the binding from the jig before she’d given the latter to Taeclas. “No need to wait for it,” she said. “I’ll just make something with bone.” Although it would be difficult to make a sufficiently spherical shape to put the binding it…
Hmm… actually, was the binding being round actually needed? After all, it was the flow of the binding itself that mattered, having it be spherical was her simply imitating the original ill-bound wisp made by the dragon. If she elongated it… well, it wouldn’t take up so much of her view when she aimed her jig!
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prentice barry
//Yes, it was most definitely dead—she could claim the wisps in its body and everything, something she belatedly realized she could have just from the top of the hill to check if it was dead or alive// Yes, it was most definitely dead—she could claim the wisps in its body and everything, something she belatedly realized she could have just *done* from the top of the hill to check if it was dead or alive
