Improved defenses needed more stone than they had right then, but Lori was at least able to rebuild the kitchen exhaust vents and build the 'water valve', as Rian put it. There was no need to make the water at the end of the pipe boil, not when it wasn't needed right then, but all the air bubbling out certainly made it look like it was boiling.

Naturally, the first thing they had to do was to have someone check the water every day because people would throw things in it, even when told not to. Especially when told not to.

She also asked the carpenters—well, told Rian to ask the carpenters—to start making a door for the dungeon proper. In hindsight, Lori really should have done that a long time ago. It was her Dungeon, the center of her power, not some kind of cave open to the world where people can take shelter (except, all right, it kind of was…), and really, just having the door open like that was uncivilized.

Obviously, it would be open during the day, since people would be using the Dungeon, but at night… well, it would still need to be a little open to permit fresh air to come in so she didn't suffocate in her sleep. Or any of the people still living in the second level, really. Those who had relatively undamaged houses moved out right away, but there were a few whose roofs had a large hole in it, and there was no reason to make them move to the shelter with the unmarried, family-less people…

Well, they should still have a door to close!

After the buildings were cleared of abominations, the work on repairs could finally begin. Unlike the last time, they had a ready supply of cured wood, which Lori had to make sheds for again to keep off any rain or spores. The carpenters worked quickly despite their talk of needing a rotating saw thanks to the ready supply on hand. It helped that the damage was less intense this time, with only a few individual panels needed replacement rather than the whole roof.

It reminded Lori she still had that black… material… that one of the roofs had been turned into in the dragon scale vault somewhere.

Once Lori was certain the water could be left alone to purify itself, she was finally able to concentrate on important matters.

"We're going to River's Fork tomorrow to claim its core and see if we can salvage anything," Lori told Rian over dinner the day after the buildings had been cleared.

Rian sighed, actually putting down the spoon he'd been raising to his mouth. Always with the dramatic effects, Rian. "Couldn't you have told me this over lunch? Now I have to stay up getting people together to come with us…"

"I can go, Rian," Riz said immediately.

"There, you have someone you can delegate to so she can do it for you," Lori pointed out, making Riz blink. She gave the other two women at the table a flat look. "Anyone else want to volunteer to face potential danger while not knowing how to use a spear?"

Umu and Mikon both shook their heads, though the latter was looking sideways at Rian in concern. Or possibly Riz, they were both to her left after all.

Very sensible.

"Very sensible," Lori nodded in approval. "Just three other people should do, none of them Landoor. With the ice boat gone, we won't be able to bring as many people, so keep it those who don't weigh a lot."

"Is this your way of telling Riz you're making her a lady?" Rian said. "Just start giving her work to do?"

There was a slight pause in the conversation in the tables around them as all three women on the opposite side of the table straightened, thought likely for different reasons.

"Of course not," Lori said. "Why would you think I'd consider making her a lady?"

"You know her name, can match her name to her face, and can actually talk to her," Rian said promptly. Mikon actually nodded at that.

"By that standard, Karina has a higher chance of being a lady," Lori said.

"That's not a 'no'."

"I'm not considering appointing anyone a lady," Lori said, no matter how correct they were being. "I'd simply rather the one who will likely be steering the boat not be sleep deprived."

"Ah, you're thinking of the safety of all who are going to be traveling with you," Rian said, nodding. It was a mocking nod, she could tell. "How very kind of you. Well, she has a point Riz. If you want to come, can you handle rounding out the security while I take care of the supplies, and bringing our smallest wheelbarrow?"

Lori frowned. "Why would we need a wheelbarrow?"

"Aren't we going to scavenger for metal tools and things? We'll need some way of bringing anything we find back on the boat, unless you want to try carrying it all by hand," Rian said innocently.

Lori frowned. The wheelbarrow would be a tight fit with six people on the boat, especially since it would need to be upside down. "There won't be much room for it anyway if we have a wheelbarrow aboard. Leave it, I'll build something if moving is needed."

Rian hesitated, then sighed. "How are we going to move the corpses?"

Lori blinked. "What corpses?"

"The corpses we'll be likely to find when we go there," Rian said quietly. "How are we going to cremate them properly if we don't move them all to one spot?"

Around them, dinner continued unabated, but a small demesne of uncomfortable silence settled over the table. The three other women looked away or stared down intently at their food, Riz actually leaning away from Rian a little and up against Mikon.

Was that what Rian was worried about? Funerary rights? "Do we need to? After a week, the abominations would surely have eaten them, and the beasts scavenged the rest," Lori frowned. "Is that what you want the wheelbarrow for?"

"The people there need a decent cremation," Rian said. "We're the only ones alive to give it to them."

"Given it's been a week, I find it unlikely there'll anything left to burn. Besides, they're not our responsibility."

"Fourteen of those people were," Rian shot back quietly. "So yes, we do have a responsibility."

Oh, right. The miners.

…

"Fine, we'll cremate the miners," Lori said. "But that's it. Claiming the core comes first."

Rian nodded curtly, then paused. At the same time a thought occurred to Lori.

Slowly they both turned and looked towards the table that Lori's Boat was still resting on.

"You'll also need to get some people to put that back in the water," Lori said.

"Can't be me, I'm already gathering volunteers," Riz said quickly.

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Lori wasn't sure when it happened, but Lori's Boat was in the water the next morning. The water jet's blood hadn't been imbued either—it had slipped her mind over the past week—so she had to make the binding again. She drew some blood in her room and added it to water so she didn't have to bring her syringe along or have to put up with Rian's irrational reactions to her syringe. With the way the new water jet was installed on the tiller, she couldn't just touch an imbedded wire to imbue it. And this way she could sit more comfortably.

They didn't bring a wheelbarrow, thankfully, so there was plenty of room for everyone and the supplies, with room to spare for anything they scavenged. In addition to Riz, there were three others accompanying them. They thoughtfully didn't bother to introduce themselves, since Lori didn't care and couldn't be bothered to remember.

The journey downriver was taken a bit more slowly than usual, as they had to watch for any unexpected changes to the river caused by the dragon like blockages, new rocks under the water, or hidden undead that had lasted longer than the dillians. Along the way, they dislodged some corpses of beasts, seels and formerly undead dillians that had gotten lodge on banks or rocks, so that they wouldn't fester there.

Lori shivered as they passed the edge of the demesne, and now her only connection to the binding of the water jet was her blood. She lay back and closed her eyes, pulling her hat over her face to block out the bright, hot sun, the drawstring pulled tight to keep it from being blown off. After a dragon passed, the sky was always too clear.

Methodically, she reached through to her blood and continued to imbue the binding. She breathed in, falling into the familiar rhythm of taking in magic, even though the power she was using to imbue was coming from the core. It was long-practiced habit after all, and it was comforting.

Occasionally, she cut off from imbuing the jet and switched her attention to the other bindings in her demesne. The lights in the various buildings and over the pots of seedlings, the ventilation for both the Dungeon and the Um, the water purifier and the various bindings that circulated the water in the various baths, the coverings of ice over the reservoir, the corpses she was storing…

One by one, she repeated her daily check of the demesne's bindings and imbued them, making sure they were all in working order.

The journey was mostly silent, save for the occasional call from Riz or one of her friends who were keeping an eye out, calling out possible obstructions in front of them. In the colored woods and riverbanks around them, the subdued roar of the water jet pushing them forward, the sounds of bugs, beasts, probably abominations and the winds in the trees dominated. Rian, who'd normally be singing softly or at least humming to himself, was quiet, and what conversation the other four people had was left low and murmuring, an almost indistinct blur that Lori didn't care enough to try and hear.

In the quiet, Lori tried to get her thoughts in order. The core… yes, the core. The logical place for it was under or inside the big tree in the middle of River's Fork's dome, if only because it was the only Deadspeaking-made structure that might have been big enough to hide it in. Unless the first Binder of River's Fork was much, much, much better than her, he had likely also been limited to only his Deadspeaking, so he couldn't have hidden the core behind solid seemless rock or a within a vista that could have made any access opening to it too small for a person to traverse.

The question was whether the core was at the top or the bottom… not, it couldn't be at the top, that would have involved growing that absurd tree first, then establishing the demesne. It would have taken too long with a single person's limited magic, unless he'd wasted a lot of beads to give himself the magic to do it

Which, given the man who thought it was funny to call something 'hairy blueballs', was within the realm of possibility.

Rainbows. Colors and rainbows. Colors, rainbows and endless glittering dust in the wind…

Lori was trying to remember the curvature of the Iridescence on the edges of River's Fork's demesne when Rian's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Um, hey Lori?"

"What?" she said irritably, her eyes still closed as she leaned back, trying to recall. Come on, remember, remember…

"In the stories, when a Dungeon Binder dies, the demesne vanishes and Iridescence starts growing back, right? That's a real thing and not one of your 'that's not how Dungeon's work' complaints?"

Lori sighed. "Yes Rian, the Iridescence grows back." Really, why was he bothering her with childish questions?

"And there'd be Iridescence all over after a week without their Dungeon Binder, right?"

"Right again Rian," Lori said, trying to be patient. He was probably just bored from having no one to talk to.

"… would you start taking a hint and open your eyes please your Bindership?"

What?

"What?" Lori said, blinking as she took her hat off her face and opened her eyes…

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"Greetings, Binder Lolilyuri. You are extremely late, but given the previous circumstances, I suppose it cannot be helped. Did you bring this month's ice?"

Lori stared. She couldn't help it. She'd been staring as soon as they'd reached the clear, uncolored edge of River's Fork Demesne. "You're alive…"

"Yes, I am. Happily, you will not be claiming my core this day," Binder Shanalorre said.

"You're alive."

"Yes, I believe we've established that," Shanalorre said patiently.

"You're alive."

Shanalorre paused. "Binder Lolilyuri?"

"You're alive."

"I think you broke her," Rian said. "Can she sit down for a bit to recover?"