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Demesne Weekly Digest 3 (#9-#11)
🕑 Added 2021-03-07 05:00:02 +0000 UTCNaming the Community With Malice Aforethought
Finally, the day of the community meeting was upon them. The sky was overcast, but not actually raining, though it threatened to, and the ground was muddy from the rain the day before. Only the paths Lori had made to allow her to get to places were hard-packed and dry.
The dining hall was packed that morning, with only the children on seeling duty and some older siblings tasked to make sure they didn't fall into the water and drown not in attendance. Everyone seemed to be much cleaner. Lori was pretty sure she wasn't the only one who used to soap to properly do laundry. She'd been making do with a rock to slam clothes on and hot water all this time. Others wouldn't even have the latter.
Most were also wearing slightly oversized clothes. It appeared people hadn't yet recovered from the privations of the trip from Covehold. Lolilyuri hoped they didn't blame her for that. It had been the dead Whisperer's idea they travel so far to avoid being surrounded by so many other burgeoning settlements, which had been what had caused them to travel the many weeks away from Covehold Demesne. Most of that time had been spent going in between and around all the seemingly randomly placed demesnes, lest they be shook down for 'visitor's taxes'. In hindsight, the fact that Covehold only accepted old-continent beads explained why all the demesne settlements near it were trying to extort the money from them.
Benches were arrayed in rows facing the kitchen, where those washing up after breakfast and preparing lunch were listening to proceedings. A table had been set up in front of everyone, and it was piled with various flats rocks, chunks of wood, scraps and peels of bark, and several wooden boards, all full of writing penned with charcoal.
Rian stood behind this table, smiling at the murmuring crowd and clapping his hands for attention. Eventually, the crowd grew quiet. "All right," he said. "Hello everyone, and welcome to our demesne's first community meeting. It's a historic day for us all, and as soon as someone remembers what date it is we'll be able to commemorate it."
Lori pulled her hat low over her face to hide her eye-roll as people laughed. She was having vivid flashbacks to that woman from her childhood who worked at the Dungeon worshipper temple and ran the temple's children's daycare.
Rian continued. "So, while we've all been living and working together, I thought we'd do some introductions, in case not everyone knows each other yet. I'm Rian, your temporary lord, as I'll be quitting soon, possibly later today–" there was another round of chuckles at that. Apparently no one believed it any more than Lori did. Rian simply looked befuddled, as if he'd missed something. "– um, and this is our Dungeon Binder, Whisperer Lori. Oh, wait, I suppose that's formally Binder Lori now." Lori nodded in approval at the acknowledgement of the formal term. "Well, she'll always be Whisperer Lori in our hearts, I'm sure!" The next laugh was merely polite.
Rian continued making more introductions. On the theoretical level, Lori understood what he was doing, though she wasn't sure if he did. Acknowledging other people gave them public recognition, pride and perceived value in the community, as well as gave them the illusion of a say in matters. She understood that. She'd read a book about it once, after all, before she'd violently disagreed with it. Why did people need to feel acknowledge and appreciated to do needful work? She did needful work all the time, and she didn't need acknowledgement and appreciation, only the sense of holding powers of life and death over the people around her.
Still, she allowed it. It cost her nothing but time after all, and it wasn't like there was a library nearby she could be reading at for better use of her time. So instead she balanced a thin stone tablet on her knees, actively structurally reinforced with earthwisps to keep it from breaking under its own weight, and sketched out the current layout of the settlement on its surface, using her finger to direct the wisps to make marks on the stone.
"– thank the woodcutting teams for all the work they've done–" Rian was saying.
Drawn like this, their settlement was a haphazard affair. The kitchen had originally been set up surrounded by tents, the water wagons that had been for cleaning Iridescence from people during overland the journey, the individual carts and family wagons the various men had taken turns pulling, and the various and sundry tents people had been sleeping in while the place for the core was being dug. Well, the tents were gone now, since most people had moved to the shelters she'd set up. She'd started putting up unroofed houses in their place, arranged along a sort of 'main street' that led from the now dining hall to her cave, because she wanted a clear path to food. There were the beginnings of side streets, as she planned to build outward from the main, get some proper urban planning down before some idiots started their own building with no regard for proper organization.
The shelters and baths were off to the side, and she wondered if she had the power to turn the structures the 1/8th circle or so it would take to make them align properly with the grid she was making…
"– doctors Ganan and Samoth for their tireless work in taking care of our sick and injured community members," Rian was still droning on.
The river was a vague, uncertain line that she had to redraw a few times because it seemed not to proper scale. Idly, she sketched out planned docks and perhaps a dike or something. She had a feeling they were still a bit too close to the river. What if it flooded, or inundated or whatever it was rivers did? And they'd still need someplace more convenient than the shore for seeling. Maybe a dock so they could use boats and nets. Slightly downriver, she sketched out places for a sawmill, a miller and a watchtower to let them keep an eye on the opposite shore…
"– and last but definitely not least– actually, they're pretty much the greatest ever– let's give a warm hand of applause for our kitchen volunteers, who've been making miracles keeping us fed with delicious food all these weeks," Rian said, and Lori looked up at the applause, which she belatedly joined. Well, she agreed with the sentiment. They were a meticulous lot, feeding every new possible foodstuff to a seel to see if it was poisonous or harmful before trying it themselves first. The fact the only influx of upset stomachs had come when they'd started having beast meat be a part of the community's regular diet was a testament to the care that had been put in.
The men and women in the kitchen probably waved. Lori didn't bother looking. Instead, she waited for Rian to get to the point.
"All right, with that out of the way, we can start," he said, settling onto his chair next to Lori and looking down at the table top, where he'd written things using a charred twig. "First order of business, our demesne, our new home sweet home, needs a name."
"It already has a name," Lori interjected next to him with an annoyed glare. Really, they'd agreed on this.
"Look, we can't call it 'Lori's'," Rian said, which was patently absurd.
"It's a perfectly serviceable and accurate name," Lori said, speaking only the absolute truth.
"It makes you sounds like an egomaniac," Rian said. "We have to put it to a vote."
"That's practically naming it by committee," Lori said. "And everyone knows demesnes named by a committee have the most boring names ever. You get places like 'The People's Free Democratic Councilar Demesne State'."
"She has a point," some sycophantic but intelligent person in the audience said.
"Let's call it 'Seel River'!" a young-sounding voice called unabashedly from the back. It was of course, ignored, as no one ever cared what children thought. Lori found it pettily satisfying to finally be on this side of the matter.
"One suggestion for 'Seel River'," Rian said, pointing at the crowd and seemingly making a note. Lori stared at him at this base treachery to all of adulthood. "Any other names?"
That opened the water break, and soon people were throwing names at Rian with reckless abandon, ignoring that the demesne already had a perfectly good and serviceable and perfect name. In addition to 'Seel River', there was also the usual generic garbage like 'Freedom', 'Opportunity', 'Fresh Start', 'New Beginnings', 'Riverside', 'Frontier's Edge', 'World's End' and such by people who thought they were being poetic and significant instead of pretentious and shallow. She didn't really pay attention, they were all pointlessly pretentious and not as good as 'Lori's', anyway. 'Lori's' was clearly the superior, more accurate name. Certainly much better than 'Wet Socks'. What idiot had thought anyone would want to live there?
Someone even argued that the settlement shouldn’t have a name, as names were a symbol of the Binderarchy which they were all leaving behind, and this would be a new world without the tyranny of binders, who were the cause of all evils, allowing people to truly be equal and build a paradise unlike anything ever seen before.
Fortunately, the people around that particular idiot were smarter than him and one of his burly neighbors shut him up by some sort of strange hold around his neck that eventually caused him to fall unconscious.
"When he wakes, someone inform him that if he oh-so-subtly starts espousing my murder again, he's spending two nights in the Iridescence," Lori said coolly. "I'll drag him out there myself."
"He didn't mean anything by it, your Bindership," someone said.
"He clearly did, otherwise he wouldn't have said it," Lori said. "This is his only warning. See that he gets it, will you."
Rainbows. Now she'll have to remember that idiot's name and face, just to be sure he never got behind her.
"I wouldn't go that far," Rian said placatingly. "But it is pretty rude for him to say all that after all the hard work Binder Lori has been putting in so that we'd all have someplace warm to sleep and plenty of cured wood to start building with. All we've got is each other, everyone."
There was a moment's pause as 'Each Other' was suggested as a name.
With that came the 'trying to be punny' names, like 'No One's Here', 'It's One Of Ours', 'No Solicitors', 'Hole In The Water', 'Solicitors Will Be Drowned', 'Not Dead Yet', 'Oh Good, We Can Stop', 'Vacancy', 'Last Chance To Stop' and other hilarities, all predicated on the notion of someone else someday encountering them and reading the demesne's name on its own from some sort of humorous sign. Lori had gone back to drawing on her stone tablet to keep from asphyxiating fools. Rian needed to start writing the names on the floor, as he'd run out of space on the table.
"Um, I think that's enough names," Rian said, sounding mildly frantic as Lori remembered to draw in the current woodworking areas and delineate them into a proper sawpit. She considered the river, wondering if they should prepare facilities for a sawmill… "Why don't we vote on–"
"No," Lori said, not looking up from her tablet as her voice carried. The crowd stilled.
"What?" Rian said, surprised.
"They're not voting to choose a name," Lori said. "You are. Pick a name, Rian."
"Wait, it's not fair that I pick the name," Rian said. "Everyone should have a say–"
"They did. They wasted it on nonsense like 'Wet Socks', 'No One's Here' and ranting about the Binderarchy," Lori said. There was some embarrassed shuffling. "All voting does is make it so no one's to blame for everyone's stupidity. So, you pick a name. That way, we can all blame you for it being stupid."
Rian frowned. "I don't–"
"Yeah, Lord Rian can pick!"
"Pick one, Lord Rian!"
"Lord Rian, pick 'World's End'!"
Lori's smile had a touch of malice. Change the name of Lori's Demesne, would he? "All in favor of having Rian pick?" she said loftily. "Raise your hand."
She didn't raise her hand, but enough people did that it was easy to tell it was more than half.
"It has been voted upon, as you wanted," Lori said. "Pick a name, Rian."
For some reason, people started to chant. "Pick a name! Pick a name! Pick a name!"
She supposed people have gotten really bored over having nothing to do for entertainment besides, abortively, each other.
"Um, well, then…" Rian said, looking flustered for the first time Lori had ever seen him. Ohoho! She tucked away this knowledge for future use. Rian didn't handle pressure from mobs well. He looked at the list on the floor in panic, and Lori could also see the moment when he decided they were all terrible names and he'd really been hoping for a vote to defray responsibility. She saw him close his eyes, point randomly, and look. "Wet Socks?"
"No," Lori said.
There was a murmur of non-affirmation from the crowd.
"Okay, strike that then…" he said. Close eyes, point. "Last Chance To Stop?"
The following murmur wasn't as opposed, but certainly wasn't affirmatory.
"Try again," Lori said.
"Look, can't we just vote on it, if everyone is–"
"We did vote, this is what we voted for," Lori said. "Now, pick a name."
Once more the chant rose. "Pick a name! Pick a name! Pick a name!"
Sighing, Rian closed his eyes, spun around– to laughter and cheers– and pointed down at the list. He frowned. "Lorian?"
Lori blinked, leaning forward to try and see what he was pointing at.
"Um, any objections to that name?" Rian said, as Lori finally got up to look at the list on the floor. It… did sort of look like that?
There was a more uncertain but ultimately apathetic murmur from the crowd.
"All right then…" Rian said, still sounding uncertain. "I guess our demesne is called Lorian now."
More murmurs, with less uncertainty and more apathy. It sounded like a shrug.
Rian looked at the name once more, then shrugged. "All right then. Let's continue the first Lorian community meeting."
Lolilyuri kept frowning at the name, but reluctantly sat herself again. It didn't matter. This place would always be 'Lori's Demesne' in her heart!
"Well then," Rian said, clearing his throat. "With that out of the way, let's discuss the material shortages… "
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Material Shortages of Lori's Demesne
Lolilyuri listened as Rian listed the things they were running low on, referring to the various random objects with writing on them piled on the table. His recitation was punctuated by people standing up and justifying why they needed them. Metal; copper, tin, iron, steel. People had brought the tools of their trades, but not all of them. Some had been too specialized and heavy, but now that they were planning to set up, they'd need them, and the smith needed metal to make those tools, as well as others. Cloth; for clothing, for utility, for raw materials. Medicines: the doctors were doing their best, but without some more medicines, they had people who were likely to undergo protracted suffering. The doctors also said they were materially unprepared for a likely sudden influx of childbirths in the future, making many people shuffle nervously.
She had to admit, some of the expansions for the demesne she wanted would involve considerable refined materials they just didn't have right then. She'd also need more glass if she wanted to figure out how to bind wisps to tools, since she'd lost some of her glassware when it had been pulled in to make the Dungeon's core. Just because she never studied it in school didn't mean she didn't know some of its principles. She should be able to work out the others. Until she figured out how to imbue magic from the core directly to a binding to make it run perpetually, bound tools would have to do aaannnnddddnow that she thought of it, there seemed like something in the basics of bound tools that would let her do that now that she thought of it…
Yes, she was going to need glass. And metal. And possibly a glassworker who could teach her how to make her own glass…
The meeting progressed, and at one point people transitioned from mentioning what they needed to what they wanted. Others wanted glass too for their windows, nevermind some didn't have roofs yet. Some of the farmers, having been able to judge the soil and climate, wanted certain crops to plant, since they felt it would work for their demesne. Someone suggested cloudbloom, so they could harvest their own cloth. Lori wondered if the one who made the suggestion actually knew how to do it. Others suggested sweetwood stalks, and Lori could already smell the distilled spirits that would make.
Rian seemed intent on just writing down this progressively longer wish list. He really was soft, wasn't he? It was when someone mentioned steamarms for hunting beasts that Lori decided to intervene.
"You realize we would have to pay for all this with money, right?" Lori said ruthlessly, making the buzz of excitement from the suggestion of hunting down beasts die down. "You know, money? Those round things they use at shops? Physical representations of wealth and power?"
There was a murmur of disappointed dreams slamming hard into terrible reality.
"For that matter, we just got here," Lori said. "Are you all so eager to go back the other way? Because someone is going to have to, to buy all this. Without me or any other wizard to keep them a little safe."
That caused more murmurs of concern. They'd traveled a long way. The last demesne settlement that they had passed had been seven days behind them before they'd found this spot and decided to finally stop moving, mostly because the rains had turned their progress to a muddy crawl. Covehold had been two months before that, as the blue moon turned.
"Someone needs to go," Rian said.
"They won't have money to buy any of this with, the journey both ways would kill them, and given the lack of roads getting here, how would they even find this place again?" Lori said.
"It's not that hard," Rian said. "Just go the way we've already gone, except backwards." He said it like it was so simple and obvious.
"Do you remember which way we've gone?" Lori asked.
Rian opened his mouth, then paused. Slowly, his mouth closed.
"That's what I thought," Lori said.
"Um…" someone in the crowd said. The two of them turned their attention to the raised hand rising up from the crowd.
"Yes?" Rian said. "Stand up so we can all see you, please."
A nervous young man about Lori's age– which meant he could have been anywhere from fifteen to forty– stood up, pushing back his shaggy pink hair from his face. "Um, my name is Cassan, your lordship, your Bindership," he said. "I joined this expedition in Covehold?"
"Yes, I know," Rian said, smiling pleasantly. This seemed to make the man even more nervous.
"Um, you see, I have some knowledge of astrology and I've been keeping charts…" he said, fumbling with a notebook he'd been holding, waving it around as if anyone knew what it contained or cared. "And based on my records, I believe we're no more than 75 taums away from Covehold Demesne. A hundred at the most. If… if you would like, I could provide you a heading to travel towards Covehold." Wait, really? What in rainbows was an astrologer of all people doing here?
"What is an astrologer doing here?" Lori demanded.
"I'm n-not really an astrologer, just an amateur," Cassan said nervously. Peering intently at him, Lori saw he was very thin and lacking muscle. In fact, he was noticeably slimmer than most of the men around him, including some whom she was inclined to call boys rather than men. "But I know the principles, and I have my own telescope and compass."
"Oh yes, that was yours, wasn't it?" Rian said. "Thanks for lending us that, it helped to know we weren't going towards Covehold."
"You couldn't navigate using the sun?" Lori muttered. "It goes the same way every day…"
"Well, this solves how we're getting back to Covehold, and back here after leaving Covehold," Rian said cheerfully.
"Again, I have to ask, what is an astrologer doing here?" Lori said. "I mean, look at you."
Cassan coughed. "In truth, I was hired as Whisperer Elceena's assistant, your Bindership," he said. "You see, she was actually–"
"Stop," Lori said, raising her hand. "Don't want to know, don't care." Ha! So she HAD been a noble.
"You should have that cough seen to, it might be something serious," Rian said, looking concerned.
"Why did she hire you?" Lori asked.
The man shuffled. "She wanted a secretary to dictate her memoirs to. She was convinced she would found a great demesne and wished to chronicle her rise to power." He sighed. "Then she died."
"So… she probably hasn't paid you, has she?" Lori said.
"No, Binder Lori," Cassan said, looking very tired and pitiful.
"Well, at least you're not dead," she said. "That already makes you better off than her." A beat. "You can sit down now." He sat.
Rian nodded. "With him leading us to Covehold and back, we'll be able to bring back the materials we need."
"Again, with what money?" Lori said. "It's not like everyone is suddenly just going to give you their life savings to go shopping with. Besides, things are expensive in Covehold! You all remember what it was like."
There were grim nods at that, as people probably remembered their own experiences with getting gouged for beads.
"Someone still needs to go," Rian said. "What we need is in Covehold. Maybe we can find a way to pay for it there too. After all, if there's so much money going around, then maybe we'll have a chance to get some for ourselves."
Lori sighed. "Well, then, who's going on this poverty mission? You?"
"Well… if no one else can go," Rian said, basically guarantying no one else could go.
"I volunteer to go with Lord Rian!" a feminine voice in the crowd cried.
"We won't go alone! I'll go with him!" another voice cried at the same time.
Lolilyuri sighed as the predictable reaction from Rian's admirers occurred. Umu and Mikon's family members looked tired, but did not object as the two young women volunteered to travel with a man.
"Um… anyone else?" Rian asked. "Any other volunteers to go?"
There was much shuffling and averted gazes.
"Bring the idiot along," Lori said.
"Um, you'll have to be more specific," Rian said.
"The delusional one who seems to think you can build a new world without Dungeon Binders," Lori said.
"That's abuse of power!" the semi-familiar voice of the idiot in question said.
"So you'll happily leave in protest, then?" Lori said.
"Um… well…"
"Great, be seeing you, so long and thanks for probably very little," Lori said.
"In that case, I demand my barrel back!"
"Rian, give the man back his booze barrel that you confiscated," Lori said.
"It's full of seel guts we were planning to use as fertilizer," Rian said.
"Then bring that long with you to sell, and he can have the barrel back afterwards," Lori said. "You probably can't sell it in Covehold, but maybe one of the other demesnes not as close to water will buy it for fertilizer."
"Oh, good idea," Rian said. "And if we increase our seeling, we might even be able to sell the skins and furs. It'll get us money, hopefully. Maybe it'll be enough money to buy everything we need. And if not, then I'm sure we'll find some other way to get the money."
"If you rob the bank, maybe," Lori said, then paused. "Areyou planning to rob the bank?"
"Of course not!" Rian said, looking offended. "I'm not a criminal!"
"Well, if you do, don't link yourself to us," Lori said. The crowd all nodded solemnly.
"I'm not robbing the bank!"
Lori resigned herself to disavowing Rian if he ended up robbing the bank.
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Beyond the material shortages, there were other matters.
"Here are the demesnes laws," Lori said, showing the reverse side of the tablet she'd been drawing on. "I've put in the basics by order of importance. More will be added as needed."
Rian took the stone tablet. "No murder, no stealing, no molesting children, no rape, no… loud music an hour after sundown?… no trespassing on other people's houses without invitation, no… public urination? All punishable by flogging, exile and execution… why does the loud music one call for immediate execution? That seems a bit much."
"The matter will be reexamined when we finally have music worth listening to," Lori said.
"Um.. we should vote on it….?" Rian said.
"No," Lori said. "If you have to vote on a law against murder and rape, I don't want you in my demesne. Get out."
There were a lot of nods at this.
"Still… public urination…" Rian said. "It's a bit…"
"Next matter!" Lori called. "Come on, let's get more things done before lunch!"
"Excuse me, Lord Rian," someone called from the crowd. A man Lori recognized as one of the men who owned the saws they used at the sawpit rose. "My name's Vargel. I'd like to ask about land. How are we dividing up the land?"
"Currently, we aren't." Lori said. "For one, we don't have the entire demesne mapped and measured yet. Secondly, priority is given to facilities for foods and, if this colorbrained scheme works, on any resource plants like cloudblooms or sweetwood. However, I promise a method for distributing land amongst everyone will be forthcoming. It'll come a week after I think up a way to charge taxes."
There were cries of protest.
"Look, I can already see you all wanting to claim huge swathes of MY demesne just so you can feel rich," Lori said. "Most of you don't even have wooden roofs yet, much less wooden beds, why are you bothering with land? This isn't the old continent. There's no point owning a lot of land because at the end of the day, it's you who'll have to work it. Or do you think you can pay people to do all the work on those lands for you?"
"Oh, so you can own land but we decent people can't?" someone hidden in the crowd snapped.
The crowd parted, and the one who'd spoken out found themselves revealed, a square-faced woman who had once been plump but had clearly lost a lot of weight recently, her dark green hair in a braid over one shoulder. She was clutching tightly to her skirts, and glancing around at her neighbors with the betrayed look of a coward who finds others won't hide them.
"I'm the Dungeon Binder," Lolilyuri said with the confidence of someone who could kill everyone around her. "I don't need to own the land. The land is already mine. I just let you all use it because I literally do not have the time or inclination to do everything that can and needs to be done with that land. When I say we're not distributing land yet, it's not because I care that some selfish colorbrained idiot is going to try to claim everything he sees. What do I care? It's not like he can keep the land from me. I can have the land itself kill him. No, this delay in distribution is purely for your own benefit."
"How?" the woman demanded belligerently.
"Because when idiots start fighting over it, I'll have to deal with you, and given how little I care, I might just exile everyone involved to the Iridescence," Lori said and she drew in a familiar breath of magic. Her staff stood in a hole in the ground she'd made. She gently tapped it, and her will traveled along the wire wrapping and into the ground below, into the willing, eager earthwisps.
The woman yelped as the packed earth under her seat trembled a moment, before she and her chair sank into the suddenly flowing, water-like dirt and stone. People around her yelped, stumbling back as she tried to grab onto them, grab onto the chairs around her. With another breath and binding of will, the area of liquid consistency spread, the chairs around her started to sink into the ground as well. She tried to claw at the dirt, but it parted as easily as wet clay and fine sand.
"Lori!" Rian exclaimed, standing and facing her so fast his seat fell back. "Stop it!"
Lori considered, then stood, taking her staff in hand. She walked towards the struggling woman, and the crowd parted before her. Dramatically, Lori raised her staff and slammed the butt into the ground as magic was carried through the wire and imbued into the earth.
The woman and all the chairs that had sunk in with her were suddenly expelled as the ground stopped having the pseudo-fluidity of water. The chairs clattered on the once-more hard-packed earth as the woman found herself on solid ground once more, her dress and limbs stained with dust and odd patches of hardened, cracking stone.
Stone flowed up from the ground and around the bottom of her staff, and when Lori raised it next, a stone spear was pulled out of the ground with it. She slammed the spearhead down, and the woman let out a cry as the tipped snapped off next to her head.
"So," Lori continued as if nothing dramatic had happened. "We're going to delay the distribution so that we can figure out a way to evenly allocate land for everyone that will result in the least need for me to deal with problems. That means mapping out the demesne, figuring out how much land we have to work with, cutting out the parts that will be held communally like the baths and water sources and where we'll be planting the wild vegetables we'll be cultivating for winter. Yes, it's pretty unsatisfactory. If I helps, I don't want things to be communally owned. I want you all to own your own land, farm your own crops or whatever, sell each other things and pay each other with money so I can tax you all. But we haven't even survived our first winter yet, much less managed our first harvest, and if each family tries to claim land and survive on their own without everyone else, you're all going to die because I'm going to strip the land bare for food to feed myself. So, why don't we hold off the talk about distributing land until we're actually in a position to grow, and people actually need the land to prosper as opposed to just wanting the land because they're greedy."
Lori didn't wait for an answer, turning away to go back to her seat next to Rian, who was watching her warily. She sat and he stepped away to check on the woman, who was pushing herself off the ground. He picked her up, picked up one of the fallen chairs and set it down behind her, then quickly began resetting all the other chairs.
Finally, as people stood around uncertainly– some had run out of the dining hall and were watching warily from outside– Rian turned, and only then resumed his seat.
"That was uncalled for," he said, not looking at her.
"I agree, she should have just kept her mouth shut," Lori said.
"I wasn't talking about Missus Naineb," Rian said, giving her a reproachful look.
"Well, I was," Lori said. "Any other things we need to talk about or can I go back to figuring out how to make lavatories?"
Rian pursed his lips disapprovingly. "This isn't over," he said, but her turned back to the crowd. "Does anyone else have anything to bring up?"
There was silence.
Finally, a hesitant hand was raised.
"Yes?" Rian said, nodding at the brave soul as Lori tried to get her heart rate under control.
"Um, Gunvi, your lordship, your Bindership," the man said. "I worked as a potter before coming here, and yesterday I was checking along the river and found clay…"
Slowly, as Gunvi the potter explained how he'd found clay and wanted to set up a claypit and kiln, as Lori let the adrenaline break down and she recovered from her rage-high, people began to cautiously sit back down on the chairs. When the potter finished his explanation and sat down, there was a pregnant pause as Lori and Rian looked at one another.
"What?" Lori said. "Man wants to set up a kiln and make pots, I have no objections. Less for me to need to make."
"Well, that's great then," Rian said, trying to sound cheerful. "Get started as soon as you can Gunvi. I look forward to seeing what you can make with clay. And if you need a bigger kiln, just let us know, I'm sure Binder Lori will be happy to help you make a bigger one. Who's next?"
The next hand rose with less hesitance. It was the younger of the settlement's two doctors. "Your lordship, your Bindership," he said. "The conditions of the shelters you made are no longer conducive to the health of the community's ill…"
As the young doctor requested a new building above ground be set up for those still ill, one with more air and warmth and less smoke, people slowly began to relax.
Lori, however, met the eyes of the woman with the braid… and smiled serenely when the woman flinched.
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We Left Living in a Society To Live Here
The community meeting progressed. As the morning wore on, people began to relax a little more as there were no other explosions of violence.
Still, there was some subtle movement to try and push through the subject of getting land. Someone proposed that they should, in fact, map out the area. Purely so people wouldn't get lost, of course. By their current reckoning, the area of the demesne was four taums in diameter, which everyone found impressive and just made Lori smug. She knew it was bigger than some of the settlements they'd encountered just outside of Covehold, many of which were barely a taum wide. Covehold itself had been 10 taums in diameter, with most of it already filling up with buildings. It likely could have been larger: from the placement of buildings in the center of the Demesne, Covehold's core was likely underground.
When they'd chosen their spot between the cliff and the river, there had been people who'd insisted Lori set up the core right then and there, but she'd refused, since a core out in the open, completely unprotected, was just asking for trouble. Besides, she'd needed time to synchronize with the area's wisps, or else the resulting Dungeon would have had a significantly smaller demesne…
She remembered the small, taum-wide settlements outside Covehold that had charged them outrageous 'visitors tax' just to sleep inside their borders for the night and smiled maliciously.
The one who was currently speaking– something about moving the beast-baiting tower to the river since beasts would be more vulnerable when they stopped for a drink– suddenly stopped speaking, looking at her fearfully. Lori smoothed her features, looking down at the stone tablet she'd been drawing on. The tablet had been added to, and she had some doodles for bound tools. They'd need wire and glass though, and she'd rather have raw material than try to break down the glassware she had…
At lunch, they decided to finish the meeting so that people could eat and get back to things they needed to do, like cut wood and put up roofs and try to figure out how to make hinges for doors with the materials and tools they had. There was some disarray as tables and chairs were put back in place, while Rian copied the notes he'd written on the tabletop to a plank of wood.
"Take all this to my cave," Lori said, gesturing at rocks and wood and bark and skins. "I'll transfer them to something smaller. Especially the list of things we needed."
"That will be helpful, thanks," Rian said, nodding. He continued writing the notes onto the plank. Shrugging, Lori went to get two bowls of whatever they were having for lunch. She supposed she should get him something to eat. And people liked Rian more than her, so they were probably less like to poison food they thought might go to him.
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Lunch was attained and eaten. Neither had been poisoned.
After lunch, she helped Rian and some people he'd asked for help carry all the various note… objects? Note objects to her cave, careful to not smudge the writing on whatever surface it had been written on. She saw people giving her table suspicious looks, and despite her iterating that it was, in fact, a table and not a sacrificial altar (why would she put a sacrificial altar in her bedroom? It would stink!), no one seemed to believe her. Idiots. She wasn't a Dungeon worshipper! What was the point of worshipping something you'd made? That she still needed to make, if you wanted to get technical. A Dungeon didn't normally consist of just a bedroom.
Everyone filed out of the room, even as they looked around curiously at everything. She shooed them out, walking out after them to get some rock from the pile next to the cave entrance. She'd have to make some tablets, and they'd need to be a little thick since she wouldn't be around to keep imbuing them…
Lori blinked as she stepped back into her cave. The chunk of rock flowing behind her thumped into the back of her legs, making her stumble and nearly fall. She stepped aside to avoid being trampled her by own rock. "I thought you'd already left," Lori said. She directed the flowing chunk of rock, it's layers and strata and materials flowing together as she made the earthwisps flow despite not being molten.
"We need to talk," Rian said, standing on the other side of her table.
"About what?" Lori asked, bending down to scoop up some stone. It was cold in her hands, as cold as you expected stone in the shadow of a cliff to be.
"About what you did back there," Rian said as Lori plopped the stone down on a sheet of seel skin she'd unrolled on the table.
"You'll have to be more specific, it's been a long morning," Lori said as she tore off a handful of rock and began spreading it on the sheet to make a flat tablet.
"I'm talking about how you used your magic on Missus Naineb," Rian said. He sounded heroically firm and determined, like an actor on stage trying to project to the back rows.
Lori's head finally snapped up to glare at him. "Oh, you mean when she challenged my authority and judgement and I put her in her place by reminding her I can kill her at any time and her opinion doesn't matter to me?" Lori said.
"You can't do that!" Rian said.
"I just did it this morning, so obviously I can," Lori said.
"Well, you shouldn't have!" Rian said. "It's wrong!"
"Are you saying I should have executed her?" Lori said. "That seems too much for a first verbal offense."
"No executing! I'm saying you shouldn't have done it at all!" Rian said.
Lori sighed. Well, she supposed she'd made him a lord for exactly his expertise in charming these simple fools, so she should probably listen to what he had to say. She willed it, and the boulder outside her cave flowed to block the entrance as the air started to vibrate to obfuscate the sounds exiting the gaps around it. "Well, what exactly do you think I should have done to the person who challenged my authority for the second time that day? Wait for it to happen a third time?"
"She didn't challenge you," Rian said.
"She challenged whether I had any authority to make the declarations I did," Lori said. "She did not recognize my power as the Dungeon Binder of this demesne. I corrected that."
"That was no reason to drown her!" Rian said.
Lori snorted. "It's stone and earth, Rian. Even when acting against its nature by being made to move like a fluid, the density of even packed earth is so much greater than the human body that she was always going to float. The only way she'd have died from that was if someone had held her head under the ground. It was an impressive and terrifying, but ultimately harmless spectacle to remind her who she was talking to."
"That still doesn't make it right!" Rian said. "People don't do that to each other!"
"People will do that to each other unless they're reminded there's a force that will stop them," Lori said. "We're in the middle of nowhere, Rian. It was only a matter of time before people realized that and started murdering people they didn't like."
"No, they wouldn't," Rian argued. "We live in a civilized society."
"'Lived', past tense," Lori corrected. "We left all that behind to come here. This isn't civilization. It's what comes before we have enough infrastructure and order to sustain a civilization."
"You can't just attack people because you don't like what they said! It doesn't matter who you are," Rian said. "There are rules, laws!"
"Yes, there are now. Because I told everyone what they were this morning," Lori said. "A society only stays civilized because it's backed by the power to punish those who breaks its rules. And I am that power." She looked at him intently. "Really Rian, think about this. Who can punish me for what I did? You? Them? If they kill me, the Dungeon stops functioning and the demesne stops protecting them from the Iridescence. If they hold me prisoner, I can kill them. If they beat me to try to stop me from Whispering, I can kill them. If they all come at me together armed, I can kill them. And if they actually succeed, and I die, so will they. So how can they punish me? Stop letting me have food? That works for about the time it takes for me to beat someone up and take their food away from them. Stop making furniture for me? I can take someone else's. It'll be as easy as taking a barrel."
Rian winced.
"This is what all civilizations are built on, Rian," Lori said. "It rests on acknowledging that the Dungeon Binder is the most powerful person in the demesne."
"Not all of them," Rian said.
"If you're talking about the Armada, then I will point out that a completely ocean-going society still needs Whisperers to desalinate fresh water in viable quantities, Deadspeakers to repair the wood of their ships, Horotracts to expand the ships' internal dimensions to allow them the space to farm, and Mentalists to… well, I'm not sure what Mentalists do in the Armada, but they probably do something," Lori said. "These would make them essential to the continuance of their civilization, making them Dungeon Binders in all but name. Unless you mean those stories of people altered to breath underwater, in which case I find it unlikely we can imitate their example, as such people…" Lori frowned, thought of some Deadspeakers she'd known in school, never mind historical examples, and amended herself. "Such people are unlikely to exist in enough numbers or be sexually compatible enough to produce a propagating society."
For a long moment, there was silence.
"You're smart. You're probably right," Rian said, sounding the more bitter than she had ever heard him be. The brat chiding Lori about bad girls not getting dessert had had more sharpness in her voice, though. "But that doesn't make what you did any less wrong."
Lori rolled her eyes. "If you find such things offensive to your sensibilities, then find a way to see that I don't have to do it again. You still have time before you quit being a lord, after all. These are the sorts of problems lords need to solve, aren't they? If you can find an intelligent solution, then I will implement it."
He gave her a look.
"What? I'd rather not have to do that every time," Lori said. "Violence begets more violence, so I'd rather the violence be rare and memorable. Is there anything else, or can I get to transcribing all these notes into something more permanent and portable?"
Rian let out a sigh "Yeah, that's it," he said. "I'll… let you get to work then."
"Thank you," she said. "If I don't come to dinner, please bring me something, I'll probably still be transcribing."
"Sure," he said, and she nodded, and willed. The bounder began to move out of the way, revealing the wan sunlight.
Just outside the cave, Rian paused and half-turned.
"You're wrong though," he said, speaking like he was some sort of main character dramatically getting the last word at the end of a chapter. "Her opinion did matter to you. Otherwise you wouldn't have gotten mad."
And then he left.
"Useless thespian," Lori muttered, shaking her head. She willed the boulder back in place.
Finally alone, she willed the lightwisps to glow brighter, giving her a clear, ambient light that came from no particular direction as she sat on the small pillar of stone jutting out from the floor she used as a stool. Her bed was still the only wooden furniture she had.
Taking a comforting, familiar breath and channeling the magic through her bones and out her fingernails, she imbued the now-hard stone on the seel skin to soften again so she could shape it into a flat tablet she could write on…
