Once a second bucket was placed to catch water, it was time to eat.

Lori made a little seat of stone extrude from the wall a little bit away from the sink and sat down, one hand on the tube to continue imbuing the binding. The binding was relatively simple, so she'd be able to form another one if it ran out of imbuement and dissolved, but she'd rather she didn't have to. She'd have to alter one of the wisplights to provide imbuement for the binding, maybe keep it from dissolving when the imbuement ran out.

Riz came back with two bowls of stew. Lori took one and started eating quickly, filling her empty stomach. With all the work she'd been doing, she'd been able to distract herself, but now that she had food in front of her, her hunger wouldn't be ignored anymore. She ate, the familiar taste of beast meat, fat, some sort of leaf that… well, hadn't poisoned anyone yet, what tasted like faint traces of mican, and meat broth.

…

It could use salt.

She ate the food nonetheless, because she was hungry and it was the only food available.

When she was done, she left the bowl and utensil on the sink. As much as she'd like to consider the thing done, she knew that they couldn't wash dishes very efficiently at a bucket of water at a time. She'd have to make come kind of cistern to catch the water with. Something they could scoop the water up from using the buckets.

Well, she'd already eaten.

She took a moment to check on the state of her demesne. The dome of darkwisps was losing imbuement as it resisted the magic being thrown at it, only to be replenished by the connection to her core. Though from what she could perceive, very little abrasion seemed to be happening. Oh, there was some, but it seemed to be very light contact on relatively small areas of the dome.

Actually, most of what was entering her demesne was…

Was that rain?

Yes, that was rain, if a very warm rain from the amount of firewisps among the waterwisps. And… there was something else falling with the rain. It was hard to judge dimensions, since the things were falling through her demesne quickly, but at a casual comparison, they were bigger than the drops of water, and smaller than a person. Smaller than a child.

And each and every single one was full of firewisps. Firewisps far hotter than the firewisps on the raindrops, firewisps that got hotter and hotter as they fell. Any raindrops they made contact with in mid-air seemed to change state into steam, but some of the smaller drops simply seemed to vanish as the firewisps simply got hotter and hotter.

There was a sudden burst of firewisps, and Lori saw what had once been one falling solid became several…

Wait. Were they… exploding?

The bursts of heat…

Oh.

Well, that explained the sound she could hear through the air vent. The dragon was raining explosions over them.

No, wait, whatever it was dropping were solid objects, so technically it was hail. The dragon was hailing exploding dragon scales on them.

…

Their crops would be ruined, wouldn't they?

…

Lori let out a sigh as she opened her eyes. One thing at a time. They'd worry about it when the dragon finally left and they could go back outside.

For now, she just had to make a water cistern before people finished lunch.

––––––––––––––––––

As she was in a rush, she made the cistern the fastest, simplest way: she excavated the floor.

She used some of the displaced stone to make a little pillar that supported the sink's tube and doubled as a wall so that the debris that dropped out of the water when it changed state wouldn't fall into the cleaned water. The rest of the stone, she made a little wall around the cistern to keep people from kicking things in it or stepping in it. With the little walls, cistern was wide enough to allow someone to scoop water out of it using a bucket.

"All right, it's done," Lori sighed. "Erzebed, give me the water." No one was bothering her, but Lori could see the stacks of dishes building up over at the kitchen area.

Riz handed her the bucket of dirty water from the bottom of the mine. It was dark and murky, but it wasn't particularly rank. Even if it was, distillation should be able to separate the water from everything. Still, she poured the dirty water into the sink slowly, watching the water that came out of the tube and into another bucket so she could see it clearer. Lori let out a sigh of relief as the water came out clear, the dissolved minerals and things falling out of the hole in the tube and into the gritty catch bucket underneath, which already had some dark particulates in it.

Lori nodded in satisfaction. "All right. It finally works. Have someone get more water from the mine and tell them to pour it—slowly—down into the sink to clean it. Theoretically, the water that comes out should be clean enough to drink, but… don't."

"Don't drink the sink water," Riz said. "Understood, Great Binder. Um… how do you feel, Great Binder?"

She blinked at the strange question. "What?"

"How do you feel? You've been up all day, and it's probably been most of a day already. Do you need to rest?"

She frowned. "I'm fine. I can rest after dinner. "

Riz hesitated. "Uh, with all due respect, Great Binder… do you need to? Everything seems to be working well, and… well, nothing seems to be trying to get inside. Shouldn't you conserve your strength in case there's an emergency only you can do something about?"

Lori considered that. "Rian told you to say that, didn't he?"

"Yes, Great Binder," Riz said promptly.

…

Ugh. She hated it when he had a point.

For a moment, Lori considered continuing on. After all, she was the Dungeon Binder. Rian was subservient to her, he didn't give her orders. Except now that she thought of it… she was tired. It had been a long day, and even though she wasn't struggling to keep her eyes open, they felt like they'd be quite comfortable being closed.

A part of her felt like there were still things she needed to do. Surely she needed to make sure that the sink wouldn't run out of imbuement and dissolve…

…

Lori shook her head. If it dissolved, it dissolved, but she'd heavily imbued it, so it shouldn't. "Tell them to use the sink for cleaning and use water only from the cistern." Perhaps she should make something to let them recover water from— "Tell them not to overuse it and use only small amounts of water at a time or else it will be overwhelmed and get clogged." A lie, but the sort of thing that people who don't know how her binding worked would think was reasonable. "I'm going to sleep. Don't let anyone near me and only wake me up in an emergency that Yllian can't deal with, or if someone kills someone else."

Riz nodded. "Yes, Great Binder."

Lori grabbed her staff, making her way back to her alcove. As she walked across the length of the shelter area, she saw some people had started unrolling their bedrolls on the ground, though it looked like a one and a half-pace wide walkway was being left clear for people to walk down. People spoke quietly, heads close together, and it was nothing like the low murmur Lori was familiar with when people were talking in her Dungeon.

It was an annoying reminder this place wasn't her home, even if it was technically hers.

Lori walked to her alcove, where Deil and Tackir were still linger in the mine tunnel outside, leaning on either side of the binding of lightwisps she'd anchored to the wall.

She paused as she passed them. "Have you two eaten?"

"Yes, your Bindership," one of them said. She knew their names, she didn't know whose name was what! "Riz had some food sent for us."

Lori grunted. "Good." She headed into her alcove.

Her rain coat and pack were still on the niche in the alcove. She leaned her staff against the stone wall and checked the wispbeads in the panels. The bead supporting the active defenses was now noticeably smaller than the one imbuing the air vent, though not by much. Lori had to stare to be able to say that the former was just a little bit smaller than the latter, as if someone had shaved a thin layer like the skin of a pink lady off the bead. That boded well for the wispbead's capacity in the long term. It probably wouldn't be completely consumed while she was sleeping.

"Erzebed," she called out.

"Er, she went off to talk to Lord Yllian, your Bindership," Deil or Tackir said. "She said she'd be quick."

Lori sighed, then gestured towards them. "Come here then, you two. Someone needs to know before I go to sleep. Tell Riz when she gets back."

The two carpenters walked to her, and she pointed at the bead imbuing their second defenses. "You two see that bead?"

They both nodded.

"Whenever you're here, check on it but don't touch it. It's on a contact." They were both carpenters, so if they ever worked with a bound tool like a water cutter or a driver saw, they'd know what that meant. "If you ever see it the size of two fists or smaller, run for me immediately. It's what's imbuing what's keeping us alive. If it runs out, we die. Understood?"

The two of them stared at the bead.

"I said, understood?" Lori repeated, annoyed.

"Yes, your Bindership!" they both said loudly.

Lori nodded. "Good. If anyone tries to touch it for any reason—actually, any of the beads in this alcove—if it looks like anyone who's thinking of it gets within two paces of this bead or the one next to it, don't bother being nice. Drag them away and beat them unconscious if you have to. I'd rather not die because an idiot meddled with something I built, and I doubt you do either."

"See? Now aren't you glad we didn't sit on it?" one said to the other.

"I never said anything about sitting on it, I just said it was too short for a proper seat!"

"Don't ever try to sit on it. We'll die, and in the time before we do, I'll personal set the person who does it on fire."

"Yes, your Bindership!"

"Understood your Bindership!"

Lori nodded. "Good. Tell Riz when she gets back. I'm going to sleep so I'm rested for any emergencies that come up." She waved a hand dismissively. "As you were, then."

The two went back to their wall, staring at the panels surrounding the bead.

"Maybe we should make a bench to go over that…" Deil or Tackir said, just loudly enough Lori heard them as she straightened out her coat on the stone of the niche. "More secure than those panels."

"It's pretty secure. Lord Rian told me those things should be able to take a kick without coming off," Tackir or Deil said as she did her best to fluff up her pack with the clothes inside it. "But you're right, it needs something better. Maybe some kind of chest, with posts securing it into the ground and wall."

"I'll consider it," Lori said as she sat on the stone niche and took off her boots and socks. Laying down, she winced at the familiar but unwelcome feeling of stone through thin leather. Outside, through the doors and the vent, she could hear the rumbling sound the dragon was making. "Could you keep it down? If you want to talk, move further down the tunnel."

"Sorry, your Binderhip!"

"We'll do that, your Bindership!"

She closed her eyes as they moved away, their already low voices growing more quiet until there was only the sounds of the dragon's rumbling. How many explosions were going off that she was hearing it as a continuous rumble? Still, the sound wasn't so loud, and it was actually quite comforting to listen to if she didn't think of the source.

…

Lori sighed, sat up, pulled her boots over her bare feet to keep them somewhat clean against the cold and gritty stone, got up, and walked to her staff. The glowing binding of lightwisps she'd anchored to it went dark as she deactivate the binding, then leaned her staff back against the wall. She glanced at the binding of lightwisps anchored to the wall and with a grumble she walked towards it, altering the binding to give it directionality so that the light was directed down into the mine tunnel instead of just letting the light go everywhere.

With a satisfied jerking nod of her head, she went back to her niche, took off her boots, and lay down, closing her eyes with a satisfied sigh. With the darkness behind her eyes not being driven back by light on her eyelids, she was ready to sleep.

…

"Uh, Great Binder...?"

Lori's eyes snapped open in annoyance as she turned her head at an already-wincing Riz, standing at the entrance of her alcove. "What?-!" she demanded.

"Um… Rian told me to remind you before you went to sleep that you…" her temporary-Rian faltered slightly in the face of her unamused face, but swallowed and continued, "that you should dim the lights in the second level when you went to sleep so that it wouldn't be so bright for peop—children also trying to sleep."

Lori gave her a flat look at the blatant correction. "Fine. Now leave me alone."

"Yes, Great Binder! Sleep well, Great Binder!" The tail ends of the platitudes were barely audible as Riz very quickly made herself scarce.

Lori grit her teeth and wanted to drop her head down on her pack in frustration, but remembered just in time it wasn't all that thick. Instead, she closed her eyes, ignored the urge to pettily go straight to sleep, and reached through her connection to her core to the lightwisps in her Dungeon, took a moment to identify the ones that illuminated her second level, and deactivated them.

She nodded curtly to herself, kept her eyes closed, and went back to trying to sleep.

…

Then she sighed, opened her eyes—a useless gesture, since she was going to be closing them again, but they made her feel like wasn't trying to sleep—then closed them again to help her concentrate as she began altering the bindings to provide a dimmer illumination so people wouldn't walk into any of the pillars or step on someone.

Finally, she closed her eyes again and tried to go to sleep once more.

…

Her last distinct thought was that perhaps she should sleep further from the door so she wouldn't be the first to die if something did manage to get through the shelter's defenses…