Weekly Digest 10 - (#30 - #32)

This Place Isn't Civilized

It was very tempting to boldly say 'No', throw him into the water, then turn around to go back to her demesne.

But if what he was saying is true…

"How did no one rob you blind in Covehold?" Rian said.

Lori blinked at him. "What?"

He gestured vaguely in the general direction of her face. "You practically have 'greedy mark, please swindle' written on your forehead." The lord glanced at the other three men leveling spears at Grem. "It's not just me, right? You can see it too, right?"

Landoor looked confused, but the other two avoided Rian's gaze.

"See, they think so too," Rian said. "You're a disturbingly easy mark, Lori. Or is this just because demesne expansions are involved?"

"Additions," Lori pedanted. "Expansions involve increasing the size of the current demesne by way of outward growth."

"… noted," Rian said dryly.

"And incidentally, I have never been swindled," Lori said. "I'd never give anyone my beads for any reason."

"I feel I should have seen that coming," Rian said, nodding. He took, a breath, sighed. "So, I can almost guess, but I have to ask: what are we going to do now? Because knowing you, either we throw Grem into the water, go back home, and start massacring the new arrivals 'just in case'–"

"Wait, what?" Landoor said, shocked.

Lori glared at him "What do you take me for?"

Rian winced. "I… sorry, that was wrong of me. I shouldn't have–"

"We wouldn't just 'go back home and start massacring', we'd kill them in their sleep," Lori said. "Much safer, and they're less likely to fight back."

Grem looked up, aghast.

"I'm fairly certain she's not actually planning to do it," Rian told him. "She's just saying how she would if she did… even as I say it I realize that's probably not comforting. But, getting back to the point… what now? Do we go back or do we keep going? Because either way, we have to pick what we're doing for the night."

She supposed he was right. Lori had to make a decision.

She stared towards the demesne. The other claimed demesne, standing in the middle of nowhere.

"We go in," Lori said. She turned intense eyes down at Grem. "You had better be telling the truth."

The man kept his head bowed.

Rian sighed quietly. "Well, I suppose it's safer to camp in there than out here, no matter what we do. And we have Grem with us, so any people in there will probably not attack us on sight." He paused. "Unless someone got here first and they're the one who claimed the demesne after killing everyone inside."

Grem's head snapped up again, and even Lori gave him an incredulous look.

"What?" he said. "It's a possibility. After Grem and his people left, some other wizard and their settlers came along, claimed the place and killed everyone."

"Why would anyone do that, Lord Rian?" Landoor said, aghast.

"No idea, but it would certainly explain why they didn't send anyone to go after Grem's group and tell them it's safe to come back," Rian said. "Unless there's some sort of politics involved, and the people here didn't actually want you back or weren't waiting to for you to come back to them, in which case…" He looked down towards Grem. "Well, it's only a thought. I'm sure your friends aren't dead, Grem."

Grem didn't seem comforted by that statement.

"In the meantime, you're to disarm," Rian said. "Because right now, you're all sort of suspicious. We'd have to be a special sort of idiot not to think so. So until we can straighten this all out properly, please take off your belt and give it to me. I'll give it back when I've gotten the sword off."

––––––––––––––––––

They pulled up the anchor and let themselves drift into the demesne, using oars to conserve strength. Once on the other side of the boundary, Lori took a deep breath, claiming the air. It felt… normal, the way she'd gotten used to doing it ever since her school days. It was the familiar sensation of doing Whispering in a demesne.

Lori had to conclude she'd become spoiled, and preferred the sensation of Whispering in her demesne.

After moving some distance from the edge in case a hungry beast decided to endure the pain for a chance to get at them, they beached the barge on the bank opposite from where Grem said the settlement of River's Fork had made their Dungeon. The men helped pull the barge out of the water and started to unload as Lori bound lightwisps against the fading daylight. While it wasn't that dark over the river – the storm moon and the red moon were out and giving plenty of light, albeit tinged pink– they were in the shadow of the woods, which cut down on the amount of illumination that came to them.

A fire was made using the firewood they'd packed along, adding to the lightwisps Lori could bind. It was a slow process, since she had to be careful and breathe now, but this was how she'd been doing it for years. It was just falling back on it.

Breath, she missed her demesne.

With the light in place, they were able to unpack and lay out sleeping rolls. Lori twitched at seeing that. If there was one thing she regretted, it was not buying a sleeping roll before she got on the ship to this continent. All these months, she'd been sleeping on the ground on top of her rain coat. The only reason she had a blanket and pillow was because she'd taken it from a dead woman's stuff.

"I'm sleeping on the barge tonight," she told Rian.

He nodded. "Yeah, I figured you would," he said. "Do try to save us if you hear us screaming for help."

Lori shrugged. She was a heavy sleeper. "I'll try."

He sighed. "I suppose that's the most I can ask for." He then held up his spear. "I don't suppose you can magic a light around this?"

She stared at him blankly. "Why?"

He shrugged. "What can I say, you've spoiled me. I want to take a bath and I don't want to do it in the dark."

Rolling her eyes, she breathed in, stared at the fire, and began gathering lightwisps in front of her eye, imbuing them so that they'd glow brighter as she felt for a rock on the ground, and then physically bound them to that. "Here," she said handing him the rock that seemed to possess a bright, fiery glow. "Be quick, that won't last very long."

"Thanks!" Rian said cheerfully, taking the rock. "Come on boys, Grem, let's spare Binder Lori the sight of us so she can eat in peace."

They didn't go very far, just to the other side of the barge to undress and splash into the river, but it was far enough that Lori managed to feel she was private. She breathed a sigh of relief as she sat down with her back to a tree, opened a jar of rations, filled a bowl, and began to eat. As she did, she considered the possibilities before her.

The demesne had been claimed. That fact was incontrovertible. Grem had claimed he hadn't known it would be, but hadn't been that surprised to see that it was, either. In that, his actions were more trustworthy than his statements. He had expected the demesne to be claimed. But he also wanted them here, to... what? Rescue wounded? With the demesne up, surely they could just come back, even if they had begged to be part of Lori's demesne. Yet instead, he was actively encouraging Lori to take the demesne for herself, asserting that the current claimant would be untrained.

Some sort of savant? That was really the only way anyone could 'suddenly' turn out to be a wizard. Lori wasn't a savant herself, but she'd read up on them. Unlike initiates, who had to be identified through standardized breath tests and subsequently trained, savants manifested some sort of instinctive use of magical ability. It wasn't anything special, just a knack to do one thing with magic, maybe two if they were lucky. Sparks of light, making ice, healing cuts… small, weak manifestations that could be accomplished with small magic, equal to a breath or two. They still needed to be trained and taught anyway, they just ended up being easier to find.

So, assuming that Grem wasn't completely deceiving them, only intermittently… a savant. A savant of unknown magic was controlling this demesne. Lori could almost see it. At its heart, claiming a demesne relied on the most basic of principles: taking in magic, and releasing it to bind something to your will. Using it to create a core required a certain level of advanced expertise to know the right technique. But claiming an established dungeon was much simpler, since the infrastructure had already been put in place, and all a wizard really had to do was to make it theirs by the most simple act of magic. Someone could– and it pained her to admit it– potentially get lucky just by doing magic around the core, or in contact with the core for long enough.

An inexperienced Binder, as she had found, really had only one advantage: endless magic to draw upon without having to breathe it in. They didn't learn to use magic instantly. They'd still need to be taught. A savant with a demesne… was still just a savant. They'd know only one, maybe two things.

Lori had actually gone to school. She had actually been recognized as a qualified Whisperer. In the olden days, she'd be considered a journeyer, meant to hone her understanding of Whispering, but certainly not an apprentice anymore. She could learn for herself, instead of simply being taught.

Against a savant, even a savant who knew how to make undead, or to send out piercing light, or could trap her in time, or create a twister… she could defend herself against them. And from there she could attack.

She could… kill.

And there was nothing to stop her.

Lori realized she was staring at her bowl, at the meat lying in the broth. In the slightly pink light cast by the red moon, the meat looked bloody.

Well, this was in the middle of nowhere. It was only a matter of time before someone realized that and started murdering people they didn't like.

Lori decided she didn't like whoever had claimed this demesne instead of her.

By the time Lori was finished eating, the men had finished with their wash, wearing new clothes while they hung their used ones to dry on cords of rope, made from ropeweed. When they eventually got around to some money-based economy, some brat was going to be… well, at least securely employed as a roper.

"Anything try to eat you?" she asked.

"The usual. Just stay out of the grass so the slugs can't suck your blood," Rian shrugged. He somehow looked cleaner than any of the others. "Did you leave us something to eat?"

She rolled her eyes and handed him a bowl of hot stew. "Keep them away," she said, "I'm taking a bath."

She supposed she'd been spoiled regarding that too.

"Got it," he said. "Uh, you might want to bathe slightly upriver of where we were, just in case."

She gave him a quizzical look.

He shrugged. "Look, nature called. We waited until after taking a bath, at least. We'll all probably take care of the, uh, other matter later."

Lori's face twisted in disgust. "Well… at least I don't have to dig a latrine," she muttered. "We have a shovel. Make sure they bury it."

"Yes, Binder," he said, looking mildly embarrassed.

Why did she think leaving her demesne was a good idea again? Ah, right, someone said there was an unclaimed demesne. Next time, she was going to stay home… and have Rian check the place first to see if it was worth leaving.

Shaking her head ruefully and muttering to herself, she picked up her staff and went to have a bath.

––––––––––––––––––

River's Fork Demesne

She slept on the barge, anchored securely out in the middle of the river. With all the supplies removed, there was plenty of room for her to stretch out. She had her rain coat to lie down on, her old pillow, her blanket, and her hat to put over her head so bugs wouldn't lay eggs in her ears, not that there were any bugs in the demesne yet. As sleeping arrangements go, it wasn't bad. When they had been originally travelling, she usually slept under a water wagon in case it rained, but that changed after she became the group's only Whisperer and was able to lay claim to whatshername's tent.

She wondered what had happened to that tent. Ah, well…

Lori thought it would be like sleeping on a ship, but it was actually more stable than that. It moved when she shifted, true, but as long as she kept to the relative center of the barge it wasn't so bad, and it would quickly right itself when she stopped moving. The rocking motion of the barge going up and down on the water was actually pretty relaxing. It reminded her of her childhood when one of her mothers would sway her to sleep…

This was much better than Grem's situation. He had to sleep with his hands tied behind his back, which were in turn tied to a tree. Rian had used their shovel to dig a hole under the man's sleeping roll so he could lie down while still having his hands behind his back, but Lori had to wonder how her first lord knew to do that. Did he have much experience with having men sleep with their hands tied? She supposed it was the sort of things lords where taught before they decide to run away from home and pretend to not be lords.

With the sounds of not-so-distant bugs, the splashing of the river against the hull, and rocking to lull her, Lori went to sleep.

––––––––––––––––––

She woke up to water dripping on her forehead. Her hand came up blearily, the water that had pooled on the various contours of her face dripping off as she moved, and she looked around in confusion.

Rian's face and one arm peeked out from over the side of the barge, grinning as the arm dripped water from the fingertips onto Lori's face. "Done with your beauty sleep?" he asked. "Because I don't think you want to miss breakfast, and we sort of need to pack."

Lori blinked at him, then abruptly sat up. "How did you…" She paused. Sitting up, she saw she was still in the middle of the river. Rian's naked upper body– the state of nudity of his lower body indeterminate right then– hung from the side of the barge, which was at least thirty or forty paces from shore. She glanced at the water suspiciously while the water had been clear yesterday, her current angle didn't let her see very deep. "Is the river shallow here or something?"

Rian blinked at her. "I swam," he said as if it was obvious.

Lori gave him a confused look. "What, like a seel?"

"It's not that hard," Rian said. "The human body is basically a bag of dirty water."

The confused look intensified as Lori looked at her arm. Yes, they'd taught her that the body was mostly water in school, but… She felt the waterwisps in her blood and veins and pores and...

She blinked as she suddenly became aware of her body, at all the water and waterwisps in her skin, in her flesh, inside her bones… all just lying there. She felt it in her stomach and her gut and her lived and in her nose and ears and… how had she never connected waterwisps and her bladder? It should have been so obvious! It was as if all her life she'd been staring at the dust moving in the wind and finally focused on the dust inert on the ground.

"Lori? Demesne to Lori, you still with us?" she heard, and suddenly realized Rian was having his hand in front of her face.

She shook her head rapidly to clear it. "I'm fine," she said, as she finally understood how she channeled from her blood to her fingertips even if they weren't sweaty. They'd never really explained that in school, only that magic worked like that. "That doesn't explain how you can swim."

"Since it's mostly water, the body is naturally buoyant, since most of it is basically neutrally buoyant in the first place," Rian said, looking amused. Lori twitched on the inside. "So after that it's a matter of kicking in the water enough to keep your head above it. Hanging from a boat helps."

She looked at him, then at the water again, but the ripples still prevented her from seeing the bottom. "Rainbows," she declared. "It can't be that easy, or else everybody could do it."

Rian tilted his head. "Lori, can you… not swim?" he said.

"Seels swim. Squids and graspers and dillians swim," Lori said. "People don't swim."

Rian chuckled. Idiot. "Okay, fine, don't believe me. Breakfast is ready though, so you better come ashore, and you should have enough time to get washed up while we pack up the boat. I'll save you some of the coals for your staff."

Lori nodded. "I'll be right there," she said.

"Do you want me to pull you ashore?" Rian said, grinning. "So you don't have to mess around with the oars?"

Lori shook her head. "If you're here, it's obviously shallow enough to use the pole," she said.

"Yeah… good luck with that," Rian said, chuckling. Lori watched in horror as he let go of the boat, not even keeping a hand on it as his entire body slipped under water.

"Rian!" she cried, diving for the side, her knees extremelyannoyed with her as she bumped into the wood hard and she almost toppled over herself as she peared through the water, hoping he was still near enough to reach, taking in deep breaths as she channeled through the waterwisps in her blood–

Something broke through the surface three paces away, flinging up a spray of water as it began moving towards shore moving towards shore. It slammed back into the water, only for something else to rise up and spray water everywhere, the water behind it starting to churn

Lori stared at the churning water as it moved steadily for the shore, before Rian suddenly rose out of the river, completely naked and dripping and moving towards a cloth weighed down on a rock…

"Colors of death," she muttered, actually impressed despite herself. "He actually swam." Not like a seel or an island shell, but it was definitely self-propulsion through the water without sinking. She hadn't known that was physically possible.

Shaking her head in honest wonder at learning something new, Lori pulled up the anchor, then unhooked the pole secured to one side of the barge, holding it securely as she tried to reach bottom so she could push herself along.

After a while of flailing at the water and not feeling ground, Lori pulled up the pole and stuck in her staff, breathing in a circular, rhythmic way to build up magic as she bound the waterwisps to push her boat towards shore…

––––––––––––––––––

After generously not punching the smirk off Rian's face, and accepting the bowl of stew, Lori quickly ate. Inured to gender-segregated public nudity or not, it was too bright out in the day, not to mention the lack of privacy-screening cover, for her to be comfortable bathing in public, no matter how briefly. She'd settled for taking off her shirt and her chest wrapping and splashing water on her face, torso and hands and calling it a wash. Hopefully she'd have time to do the rest later.

By the time she'd gotten dried and dressed, the barge was ready to be pushed off again. Grem's hand had been untied, but his sword hadn't been returned to him.

"You shouldn't need it after all," Rian said with bright cheer that managed to be almost sincere even though everyone except possibly Landoor– and yes, Lori wasn't getting that idiot's name out of her head– knew it wasn't, and as the spears he and everyone else were carrying called out the lie with brilliant pillars of light. "After all, you'll be among friends, right?"

"You are a hard man, Lord Rian," Grem said, though he seemed to find the situation amusing in a dark and morbid way.

"Just Rian, Grem. We're both lords, after all. Onward, to adventure or whatever!" he declared as he took his place at the rudder and dramatically pointed forward while Lori reactivated the water jet. The imbuement had lessened during the night, consumed to keep the wisps bound, but it was a minute loss all things considered. She'd have to spend some time imbuing it again before they went back home, but she would have needed to do that anyway.

She paused as she realized what she'd just thought.

Home.

Lori's Demesne was home now, wasn't it?

Her heart felt strangely light as the water jet rose to life once more, and Lori's Boat began to move forward once more, slowly accelerating over the water as the river moved between two rising hills.

They found the settlement of River's Fork demesne soon after. It was sort of obvious.

Rian threw the anchor over the side to at least slow them down as Lori shut down the water jet, starring at the tangle of trees that was apparently River's Fork Demesne. It stood on the base of a thickly wooden hill, at the triangle of land between the aforementioned fork, confluence where the river they were on and another river met, forming an even wider river that cut through rocky hills. The settlement looked like someone had taken a dozens of different trees, planted them in a wide circle large enough to cover the area between Lori's Demesne's dining hall and the Dungeon's entrance, and started growing and pruning and melding their branches together to create a large, dome-like canopy, all centered around a lone, massive tree that towered high above all those around it.

The central tree's trunk seemed ten, maybe twelve paces in diameter, and all around it's trunk the living wood had been carved into steps leading to platforms that housed small houses. Other buildings had been raised at groundlevel. Some were around the bases of the circle of trees, while other had been raised in the shadow of the dome, little mushroom-shaped buildings seemingly shaped whole from a single piece of wood. Others had been hung from the living, wooden dome, like fruits on the branch, some with slender stilts of wood bearing their weight, but many just hanging from the thick, weaving branches. The buildings reminded Lori of their barge. The mushroom-like building extended outward, towards the rising hill behind the dome where they dotted the ground that had been cleared of trees, replaced with unnaturally regular fields of high grass in the making.

"Someone was taking cues from Treeshade Demesne," Lori noted. "A pity about all the dragon damage."

A third of the trees on one side of the living dome had been shattered, trunks in pieces, and only their meltding and connections with the drunks around them was keeping them up. One of the shattered trees seemed to have been partially turned to some kind of pale stone, and was so heavy it had pulled itself down so its shattered trunk to rest on its shattered stump, making the whole dome lopsided. The dome had holes torn through it, broken banches exposed like wounds, and several large stones nestled incongruously atop the surprisingly sturdy branches. Other stone lay conspicuously underneath the holes in the dome, and a couple had flattened mushroom houses. The remains of fallen hanging building lay scattered about, still being cleared up, and Lori spotted telltale clearings where others had probably fallen but seemed to have been burned in lieu of clearing them. Despite all this, there were people walking between many of the surviving standing structures, while smoke rose from a few of the surviving buildings.

It was all very concerning. There didn't seem to be anything like a proper dungeon or shelter in sight.

"Look, we've got a welcoming committee," Rian said, pointing.

Indeed, they'd been spotted, and people who'd been walking started running. Lori could vaguely hear the distant sounds of people calling to each other, and there was a lot of pointing.

"That's a lot of people walking around," Lori said tranquilly. "Especially since they're supposed to be too wounded to travel."

"Perhaps there have been developments," Grem said, staring straight ahead.

"They seemed friendly," Rian said, still sounding jovial. "I think we'll be fine."

Lori snorted. "Somehow, I don't think they're going to offer to share their lunch with us," she said. "Landoor, give me your spear."

The confused idiot blinked, but obediently did as ordered. Lori reluctantly handed him her staff, which he nearly dropped. "Careful! If that falls into the water, you better jump in after it to get it back to me. You hold that and– no, not like that, you're holding it upside down! The end with the coal charm is the top! Yes, like that." Lori sighed, already regretting this. "Right. Landoor, from now on, you don't talk. Just keep your mouth shut and stand between Grem and Rian. You got that? Just nod."

Landoor nodded, still looking confused, but at least he was holding her staff the right way around. If he lost any of the accessories…

"Rian, you do the talking," Lori instructed as she took off her hat and her rain coat. Hopefully no one on the shore would remember she'd been wearing them. "If anyone asks, Landoor is our Binder."

Landoor's eyes went wide, and he opened his mouth.

"No talking," she snapped. "You job is to stand and hold the staff and look impressive. Can you do that?"

Landoor nodded. Strangely, he suddenly seemed excited, looking eager and, ugh, fondling her staff, stop doing that, you'll knock the quartz off!

Behind him, the other two exchange looks, then nodded at Lori. She nodded back, not exactly sure what she was nodding about, but apparently they weren't too concerned about Landoor.

"A hard man and a hard woman," Grem said, as if commenting on the weather.

"You swore to be of my demesne now, remember?" Lori said.

"I will not hurt my friends, Great Binder," Grem said. "I want to save them."

"I don't care about your friends enough to bother hurting them if they're not in my way to the core," Lori said. "So make sure they're not."

"Yes, Great Binder," Grem said.

They let the current carry them to the shore, towards the group of people congregating to meet them.

One of them would be the new Dungeon Binder. Now Lori had to figure out who it was.

––––––––––––––––––

The Doctor of the Demesne

Rian was the first out of the boat and over the side, pulling it up onto the shore to beach it properly so it wouldn't drift away. Grem scrambled down to help as Lori and everyone else tried to keep from falling over. Some people in the crowd helped, pulling them up, and one grabbed the anchor and stuck its hooks onto the ground. She heard greetings in the thick, northern accent, on the theme of 'Grem, you're back!' and 'You're still alive!'.

"Everyone!" Grem cried with a big smile on his face as Lori tried to get back on her feet, opening his arms wide in greeting. "I've come back! Rejoice! We have found a new demesne not far from here, and a new Great Binder! We are here to bring everyone back with us so they can all be safe!"

Lori had never been one for public events, but didn't rejoicing usually sound louder?

As Lori straightened, gripping her spear– how was she supposed to hold this? Should she hold it like she did her staff? Would that look suspiciously? Would that point her out as the actual Binder?– she saw people shuffling awkwardly and looking at each other, as if daring someone else to say something first "Grem!" someone said from the crowd, stepping forward. A man stepped forward from the crowd, his pale hair unevenly trimmed, as if he'd had to cut it himself, or at least had a barber who'd had no idea what they were doing, but he had a welcoming smile on his face. "You're safe! Thank the alknowledge for that! We were just about to send someone to go looking for you!"

"Lasponin!" Grem cried, opening his arms wide, and he and other man– probably this 'Lasponin' person, but for all she knew that was some kind of informal greeting from their demesne– engaged in some sort of fierce, nearly martial hugging ritual or greeting with a lot of laughing and slapping each other on the back. "You're alive! And everyone else is still alive too! This trip has been worth it already!"

Lasponin smiled at Grem, then turned that smile towards Rian and everyone else. It was a curious, pleasant smile, not exactly welcoming but merely waiting to see if a welcome was appropriate. "And who are all these fine people?"

Grem laughed and pulled Rian into a one-armed hug that looked a lot like a choke hold. "This fine fellow is Rian, the lord of the demesne that we found upriver!"

"Help…" Rian said, making exaggerated choking sounds. "Save me… I can't breathe… losing consciousness…!"

Laughing, Grem released him, and Rian took big, heaving breaths, theatrically bending over with his hands on his knees. He feebly waved a hand in greeting. "Ah… hello everyone. Uh, we come in peace?"

Grem let out a laugh. "Hah! He doesn't seem like much, but he was very kind. Greeted us with bowls of stew and chairs when we arrived at their demesne, and not a word about visitors' tax!"

"Not that we're implying you should reciprocate," Rian said, finally straightening and offering one of his charming smiles. "Though not having to pay visitors tax would be nice, as we're flat broke. Besides, we just had breakfast. Oh, where are our manners?" He turned and started pointing. "Um, that's Lori, don't worry about the glare, she's always like that." Glare? What glare? She wasn't glaring, her face was tranquil and blank! "The skinny one is Deil, and next to him is Tackir. And may I present his Bindership, Binder Landoor. He, uh, doesn't talk much. Not really any good at public speaking. Or any sort of speaking at all, he's awkward when he talks to people. But he's a nice guy, and even came all the way out here so we'd be able to bring the wounded back with us faster."

Lori kept herself from nodding in approval. Good, an excuse for the idiot not to talk. And he looked like he even understood it, since he was keeping his mouth shut… and for some reason was raising his nose even higher in the air, like he was trying to see people through his nostrils. Ugh, was this behavior based on some stupid story he liked?

As intended, everyone focused their gaze at Landoor, looking nervous. Really, that 'looking through your nose at them' wasn't doing you any favors, you idiot. Lasponin gave the idiot a nervous glance, glanced at Grem (who nodded encouragingly), and sketched a bow, "Um, welcome to our humble settlement, Great Binder," Lasponin said nervously. "We are honored by your visit. If it pleases you, we can speak about this further in my office?"

Landoor imperiously acknowledged with a nod, then seemed to just ignore the man, staring at Rian. Rian in turn gave Lasponin an apologetic smile. "Like I said, not good with talking. But he takes care of us and he works hard doing it, so we like him anyway." He turned to Landoor and bowed. "Your Bindership, perhaps you should stay by the boat, rest your legs, while we go and talk to Lord Lasponin here, find out the state of the wounded for you?"

Landoor nodded, vaguely waving a hand in a stupid-looking way as if trying to convey meaning without talking, then sitting down. Argh, don't just put the staff on your knees, you idiot! You'll chip the quartz!

"Great!" Rian said cheerfully. "Lori, you come with me, in case I need a runner. Deil, Tackir, stay with his Bindership will you, you know how he gets lonely."

The two nodded. Lori did as well. Her lord was showing his capability to think and adapt, and she approved, especially the excuses he made to explain away Landoor's muteness. Good thinking, that. She might even tell him so, if she felt like it. Giving the idiot one last glare that promised unpleasantness of a vague and unspecified variety if he did anything to her staff, she scrambled down from the boat, careful not to impale herself on her spear.

"Oh, you can leave that Lori," Rian said, gesturing at the weapon. "We’re through the Iridescence, so we don't need to watch for beasts anymore, now that we're safe in civilization."

She gave him a flat look, but hefted the spear back onto the boat. Well, it wasn't like she knew how to use one of those things properly anyway. That done, she followed after him, standing behind him like she'd used to follow her mother when they'd gone to market.

Lasponin had been speaking quietly to some of the men while Grem waited politely at a distance where he probably couldn't hear what was being said. Did they distrust him now? They should, he was full of lies. Lies and pretty promises. Eventually the man waved to them, and Grem followed him confidently, Rian and Lori trailing after. Lori tried to concentrate and sense and voids of wisps behind her, before she remembered she couldn't do that, as this wasn't her demesne.

Yet.

Still, she did glance back, and sure enough four people just happened to casually be walking in their direction, with some more around the boat even as the rest slowly dispersed. Lori quickly turned back as if she hadn’t noticed them and quickened her pace to catch up to Rian.

Lasponin's office turned out to be a house on the trunk of the main tree inside the dome, situated off the ground. They had to climb stairs composed of thick branches sticking from the main trunk, sticking out and flattened like steps for a pace before eventually splitting and beginning to grow like proper branches. Lori paused, taking in the blatant disregard for sustainability even as Rian and Grem both followed the pale-haired man up the stairs like they'd seen it all before. Already little sprouts of new grow was sticking out of the steps. Shaking her head, she followed them inside.

The floor was made of smooth, living bark, and the walls were made of living wood as well. There were round, knot-like holes of windows that were shaded leafy canopies layered like shingles that were clearly growing unnaturally. It went deeper into the main tree than it seemed from outside, forming an entry room that seemed like a general use space, while a curtain door showed more rooms had been carved into the tree. Sleeping quarters and food storage? That seemed the most likely.

The outer room the entered had simple wooden furniture. Not living wood, but simple benches and a low table held together by joinery and carpentry skill, not unlike the furniture they had in Lori's Demesne. Lasponin offered them the benches first, as a good host, and waited for Rian and Grem to sit down first. Lori sat down in another, smaller bench. It was a bit low for her, and she had to place her legs awkwardly. But it was a chair.

Finally, the pale-haired man sat down. "I'm sorry I can't offer you anything to drink," he said. "But we had to reserve our alcohol stores for medical purposes."

"Sure," Grem said with a wink. "'Medical' purposes. Right."

"I'm serious," Lasponin said as Lori looked around, noting the design of the place. It smelled… wooden. Parts of the floor's living wood was getting trampled and torn, obviously too delicate for dedicated foot traffic. "We had to use them to keep infection out of wounds. With the demesne down, the air was full of dustlife again."

Rian frowned. "Sorry, my medical terminology is… well, practically non-existent, but dustlife… you mean those small things, eats flesh, makes things smell bad, causes disease, invisible to the naked eye?"

"Yes, but that's a common misconception," the man said. "They're not invisible, just too small to see. They're visible through a parvusight of sufficient enhancement, and some Whisperers can see them too, with the correct binding on their eyes."

"Ah, thank you for clarifying," Rian said, nodding as if he actually knew what any of that meant. He probably did. Her useful lord was full of surprises like that. "Wasn't sure if I was thinking of the right thing, since I'd only read about it in passing in a book once." Rian, what sort of bizarre books do you read? "But given your familiarity, can I assume you're a doctor?"

"Yes, I am," Lasponin said. "I'm the senior-most of the doctors in River's Fork."

Rian nodded. "We came here to help transport the wounded to our demesne because we didn't know about… well, this," he said, waving at everything. "But since we're not on any sort of time limit anymore, there's no longer any rush. What can we do to helpful?" His face was earnest and sincere and all that heroic rainbow.

"Are you serious?" the doctor said.

"No, I'm Rian," was the quick reply.

Lori snorted as Grem let out a chuckle. "See?" he said, thumping Rian on the back, making the smaller man wince. "A good man, this one."

"We brought some boxes of preserved meat in the boat," Rian said. "It's not much, but it should keep you fed for a while until more people can get back on their feet and hunt, or whatever you did for your food before all this."

"That's… very generous of you," Lasponin said.

"Nonsense," Rian said, waving away the words. "We're neighbors, right? It's only civilized we help each other. We're the only ones out here, after all. Who else can we turn to?"

Lasponin frowned. "Is your Binder aware of this generosity?"

"My Binder has entrusted me to handle all negotiations and dealings with other people," Rian said guilelessly as Lori tried to stare a hole into the side of his head. Sadly, no piercing light came from her eyes. Stop just giving things away and find out who the new Binder was! "Has yours done the same?"

The doctor frowned. "What?"

"Well, you're negotiating with us," Rian said. "So while I can assume that you've officially been entrusted to do so, I'd better check, just in case. I don't want to be wrong and have your Binder mad at me for not going through proper channels or anything like that."

"I could ask you the same," the doctor said. "How do I know that your Binder truly has entrusted you to negotiate on their behalf, Lord Rian?"

Rian gestured, and for a moment, Lori's heart jumped as he seemed to be pointing right at her, before she realized the boat with Landoor and the other two was somewhere behind her. "We can ask them, if you like. In fact, we can have it written down. It'll be on a stone tablet though, we're kind of low on paper right now."

"I… no, that won't be necessary," the doctor said.

"If it'll be a problem, this doesn't have to be anything official," Rian said with a friendly smile. "Just some people talking amongst ourselves in maybes and possibilities. In my experience, Binders are seldom unhappy about a problem being already solved by the time they find out about it."

"Ha! Koshay liked solving problems," Grem said. "Why do you think we have all these trees like this? He made it to keep the rain off while we built."

"It seems… kind of inefficient," Rian said.

"Well, he liked solving problems. He just wasn't very good at it," Grem said.

A pained look came over Lasponin's face.

"Ah. Sorry, I…" Grem trailed off.

"Yes… sometimes I do too," the doctor said.

There was a heavy silence.

"Um… should I come back at a better time?" Rian said, looking between the two of them.

The pale-haired man shook his head as if to clear it. "No, no, now's as good a time as any," he said. "I don't claim to speak for our Binder, but I'll bring your proposals to them and they can decide."

Rian nodded. "Sure, that works for me," he said. "Now, Grem wasn't very specific, but there was mention of broken bones. Our boat isn't very big, so we can't take many, but how many of those whose families had to leave them behind are fit to travel even a little? No offense doctor, but I'm sure they'd much rather spend their recovery time with their families, if at all possible."

"Well, I'm glad to say that it's all of them," Lasponin said. "Our Binder was able to heal them soon after they claimed the demesne."

Deadspeaker. Likely a savant. Likely a healing savant.

She could take them.