Lolilyuri studiously ignored Rian as she considered her next move, the game before her taking up all her attention. This time she would be victorious!

"So, has she won against you yet?" Rian asked her opponent.

The brat shook her head, eating lunch from her bowl. She sat patiently as Lori studied the board, considering every possibility.

Finally, Rian sighed. "Lori, it's sunk, not chatrang. You literally have only one bowl left. Just make your move so you can call the game? Karina has work she needs to get back to."

Lori kept ignoring him. If he didn't want to play with her, then fine.

However, she graciously played her last move, taking the remaining stone and dropped it into her bowl at the end of the board.

"Congratulations Karina, you've won," Rian said.

"Thank you for the fun game, Wiz Lori," the brat said, giving her the same victorious smile she had before. Did she have to be so smug about it?

"Another game," Lori demanded.

"Lori, she needs to go to work," Rian said. The brat nodded. "And you need to finish eating, and then go to work." He pointed at her bowl, still half-full.

"Fine." Lori did not pout, sullenly or otherwise. She began to eat her food like a mature, responsible adult should to keep their strength up. "Off with you then."

"Thank you, Wiz Lori. See you later," the brat said with a bow, turning to go back to killing and letting them eat every seel in the river.

Rian began resetting the board. "I'll play one game with you, if you want," he said.

"Oh, are you finally playing with me now?" she said.

"I told you, I had something to take care of," he said. "Also, we might have a problem."

She paused in her eating. "Might have a problem?" she repeated. That was new.

"It's definitely problematic, but I'm not sure it counts as an outright problem just yet," he said. "If it's the latter, it needs to be dealt with, and if it's the former, I'd rather keep it from becoming the latter. Less trouble that way."

"I'll be the judge of that." Lori said, looking down at her stew, deciding it was a bit too cold, and binding the firewisps in it to start increasing its temperature slowly. "What's the problematic?"

"All right, you know the new houses?"

"The ones I made, yes. I know them, shocking as it may be," she said flatly.

"You're really that mad at me for missing one round of games?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. What about the houses?"

"All right… so, we told the militia people that the new houses are for them, they just have to finish the roof," Rian began.

"How is that a problem?"

"That's not the problem, this is just context," Rian said. "So, since they're building the houses for themselves, they decided they could do better than just putting on roofs. So they decided to give each house a loft space and a roof deck."

Lori considered that and nodded approvingly. "An excellent idea. Good use of space. I wish I'd thought of it."

"You and everyone else who already had a house," Rian said. "Some of the ones who already have houses are growing resentful that they don't have a loft and roof deck balcony, just four walls and a roof. I know there's been at least one fight about it, and I've had some people come to me asking to be moved to the new houses when they're finished, because the houses are nicer and they have 'seniority'. They didn't seem to like the answer I gave them. They might eventually try talking to you about it, when they work up the nerve."

"Ah," Lori said, seeing what was so problematic about the situation. "Yes, it would be a problem if I had people trying to talk to me."

"…" Rian '…'-ed. "Sure. Also, this might give rise to feelings of inequality, leading to unrest."

"As I told you they would," Lori pointed out. "Inequality is a given."

"Yes, but no one likes when it's pointed out, especially if they're on the lesser half of the inequality in one way or another," Rian said.

Lori supposed he had a point there. She certainly hadn't liked being regarded as merely being equal to others. It was why she'd bound a Dungeon, after all. "Well, this is a 'dealing with people' problem, so you go solve it so I don't have to level all the houses and make everyone equal by having them live in the shelters again."

"You won't like how I want to solve it," Rian said.

"Undoubtedly. It has to do with dealing with people, after all," Lori said. She checked her bowl. Just the right level of warmth. "But it will be you doing it, not me, so I don't care." She took a spoonful and ate.

Rian nodded. "You want to make the first move or should I?"

Her hand instantly snapped up to take all the stones in a bowl and began dropping them spinwise.

Rian smiled and nodded.

It wasn't until much later that she realized he'd never told her how he wanted to solve the problem. By then, it was too late.

––––––––––––––––––

When the brat came to Lori as the dining hall was filling up for dinner—she'd already given the big seel the girl had left her to the kitchen to be added to breakfast tomorrow— Lori started setting the sunk board, half-resigned to hearing that Rian still needed to do his laundry.

"Wiz Lori, I'm supposed to ask you about what's being done about uppity new comers who think they're better than those who settled here first and sweated to build Lorian to what it is now," the brat said.

Lori blinked. "What?"

"I'm supposed to ask you about what's being done about uppity new comers who think they're better than those who settled here first and sweated to build Lorian to what it is now," the brat dutifully repeated.

"Why are you supposed to ask me?" Lori asked.

"Someone asked me to," the brat said. "I was going to go back to work after our game, but these people stopped me and told me I had to tell you that." She paused thoughtfully. "They said a bunch more things they wanted me to tell you, but I can't remember them, they were all too complicated, and I was in a hurry to get back to work."

"I see," Lori said. "Can you see these people now?"

The brat looked around carefully at the other tables. "Yes," she said.

Lori nodded. "Play with me while we wait for Rian," she said, setting the board.

They were halfway through the game—at least, around half of the stones had been claimed by one or the other—when Rian finally came. He looked at the brat and gave her a smile. "Hey, Karina," he said. "Playing with Lori again?"

The brat nodded. "We were waiting for you," she said.

"Oh?" he said. "What for?"

"Karina," Lori said, "could you go and take Rian to all the people who told you to ask me about uppity newcomers?"

Seemingly between one blink and the next, Rian's pleasant smile was gone replaced by a narrow-eyed, sharp look. "Oh?" he said, and for once Lori felt she understood her lord perfectly: he was very annoyed.

"Apparently there are cowards who lack the courage to approach me themselves," Lori said. "Please explain to them, and any who might be listening, that trying to get children to do their work for them is… ill-advised. The children are much too busy contributing to my demesne to waste time on such nonsense. If the children felt as they do, they would likely approach me themselves."

The brat frowned. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No Karina, you did nothing wrong," Rian was quick to reassure her. "Some people are just too lazy to do their own work, and tried to get you to do it for them when you already had something else you had to do. Why don't we do as Lori asks and you take me to these people so I can talk to them? Please?"

The brat nodded amiably, though she still looked confused. As she led Rian away, Lori looked at their half-completed game.

She'd forgotten whose turn it was.

Grimacing in annoyance, she reset the board, putting the stones back into the starting position.

As she was finishing putting the stones back into position, there was a change of tone in the buzz of conversation. A touch of curiosity entered the sound, slowly turning into confusion. The buzz became a murmur as people eased off on what they were saying to watch curiously. They never quite stopped talking, but there was a reduction as people watched rather than speak.

Lori glanced up. Rian was talking to a man and a woman, the brat at his side. They had stood from their table, and seemed to be protesting, and Rian was just talking over them, as lords do, no doubt—well, hopefully—putting the fools in their place. Some other people were throwing dissatisfied looks at Rian's back, no doubt people he'd already talked to.

Eventually the two sat down, looking sullen and Rian moved away for a few paces before kneeling down to speak to the brat, who nodded. Rian nodded back, and the brat walked towards who Lori presumed was her family, who'd been looking towards her curiously.

Rian stood and looked around, seeing he had everyone's attention. "All right," he said in a loud, carrying voice, helped some by the acoustics of the dining hall. "I know we've had some changes over the last month or so, and it's about time we addressed them. So tomorrow, after breakfast, we're holding another community meeting, right here in the dining hall. That way we can resolve this matter before someone does something stupid." He paused. "Even more stupid, I mean. From where I'm standing, it's stupid already. So, tonight, we're all going to have dinner, have our friendly games, then go home and get a good night's sleep, so we're all fresh and ready for tomorrow. I'll hear your grievances out then, in public and in front of everyone, and settle this matter once and for all."

He paused, looking around them room. Lori did so as well. Many people looked surprised, as if knocked out of a happy, carefree complacency by something they didn't even know was the matter. Others looked resigned, as if something they'd been expecting had finally happened. A few… a few looked strangely, viciously eager, as if they were getting something they wanted.

Surprisingly, the brat raised a hand, then waved it around to get attention.

"Yes, Karina?" Rian asked.

The brat stood, as if to be seen. "Lord Rian, do we have to go too?" the brat asked, gesturing at herself, a bunch of younger children around her, and somehow including all the other children in the dining hall in the gesture.

Before Rian could respond, Lori cut in. "Yes," she said, her word magnified by airwisps to be heard by everyone.

The brat nodded and sat down.

"Well," Rian said, clapping his hands together as if in emphasis. "You heard Binder Lori. Everyone be here after breakfast so we can talk out any problems we're having like mature, reasonable adults."

"And if you can't, you can go live in River's Fork," Lori added. "Be someone else's problem." Everyone heard that too.

"Well, that's all for tonight, everyone," Rian said hastily. "Let's all have our dinner in peace and think of what we're going to say tomorrow. No swearing, there will be children present. Anyone who violates that rule gets automatic latrine duty for a blue month."

With that, Rian turned and headed for the food line, and only had to wait a moment for the first of the food to be presented to him. He came back holding the two bowls, putting them down on the table for Lori to choose.

"A community meeting?" she said with distaste.

Rian shrugged, taking the other bowl for himself. "We had to do it again sometime."

Lori thought the exact opposite, but it wasn't her problem. Instead, she reached towards a bowl full of stones and started her turn. "Well, have fun," Lori said dismissively.

"Why do you say it like that?" Rian said.

"I'm obviously not going," Lori said. "I have better things to do, like make a mushroom farm or build an aqueduct."

"If you're not there, I'm going to have people solve this by holding a vote," Rian said languidly. "Possibly several. There's no way of knowing how many things we need to make a decision on."

Lori stared at him, aghast.

"So, should I expect you there?" Rian said brightly.

"You and your bizarre fetish," Lori said. "Fine, I'll be there. Ugh."

Rian nodded serenely. "So… I know why you'll be there," he said. "Going to stop me from going against the natural order of might making right… but why did you say the children had to be there? I'd have thought one more group of people whose opinions you don't care about wouldn't matter."

"They've been working hard almost every day for months to provide us with food," Lori said. "That deserves to be recognized."

"We've all been working hard," Rian pointed out.

"Yes," Lori agreed. "We've all been working. That includes the children. They have as much right to have their complaints be ignored as anyone else."

"Do you have to put it that way?" Rian sighed, even as he chuckled despite himself.