She'd just pulled the partially-filled syringe—it contained only a small amount of blood, only a cubedrop—from her arm when she heard Rian let out a high-pitched scream of alarm.
Startled, Lori whirled, only to find her lord staring at her in horror, a finger pointing at her. No not, at her. At the syringe in her hands.
"Did you just inject yourself?-!" he cried shrilly.
Lori would have described Rian in many ways. Until now, 'shrill' had never been one of them.
"I...
2021-08-22 17:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The Holiday Is Over, Back To Work
Lori didn't recognize who won at wrestling, but they were tall, big and heavy, which sounded about right for winning wrestling.
With the day so late, dinner preparations immediately followed. Lori decapitated the seels, and people set out to skin, gut and drain them. She had to help with that, as the blood had either frozen or congealed from being in blocks of ice while the wrestling competition ran its course, but once s...
2021-08-22 07:59:59 +0000 UTC
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On the Madness Of Mountains, Part 6
Kim could vaguely see what the other two were doing through the pieces of himself he'd given them.
They were being terrifying.
He was pretty sure it wasn't intentional on Tammy's part, but he wasn't too certain when it came to Sanny.
It was hard to see, given they'd both decided to mount him on their wrists like some sort of smartwatch, but Sanny had apparently decided to fight a biblical p...
2021-08-22 00:01:01 +0000 UTC
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"Did your parents really give you advice for getting women to go to bed with you?" Rian asked later when they were alone.
"I was being facetious," Lori said as she carefully held the box of glassware on her lap. It was padded, but there was no sense taking chances. "None of the advice they gave me would have worked for you." She paused, considered her words, then amended them. "Little of the advice they gave me would have worked for you. I doubt you would look attractively arousing in a...
2021-08-19 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Before her injury, Lori would have gone back to digging out the niches and alcoves of the second level, which were only partially done. It wasn't strictly necessary—people had slept on the floor before, and since they'd have their belongings with them, they could just lay out their bedrolls on the ground—but it would be more space efficient, getting sleeping people off walking and standing areas.
Now that had to be put on hold. Priorities had changed.
Her demesne needed metal....
2021-08-17 17:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Lori didn't recognize who won at wrestling, but they were tall, big and heavy, which sounded about right for winning wrestling.
With the day so late, dinner preparations immediately followed. Lori decapitated the seels, and people set out to skin, gut and drain them. She had to help with that, as the blood had either frozen or congealed from being in blocks of ice while the wrestling competition ran its course, but once she was told it needed to be done to improve the flavor, she resign...
2021-08-15 17:00:04 +0000 UTC
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On the Madness Of Mountains, Part 5
They found Sanny hiding in an overgrown vacant lot. The lot had been fenced off with barbed wire, but this was the Philippines. Very people took that as an actual deterrent. Most barbed wire fences had a hole politely left open with wire pulling the barbed wire back as a courtesy to other trespassers.
Kim wondered what the people sitting in their cars who saw them go in thought about it as he,...
2021-08-15 00:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Holiday Logistics
Some people would have thought that the Dungeon Binder going off to clean the latrines while her lord stayed behind and awarded prizes was backward. These didn't realize that awarding prizes meant talking and, judging by the way Rian had done things, touching people. Which was not to say the task wasn't odious. It was extremely odious. It was the baseline by which odious was measured. It was still far better than the alternative.
<...
2021-08-14 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
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So, for the two or so people who come here for Nightmaerangers... There's a chance there's no update this week, as my sleeping habits have caught up with me and are kicking my ass. Sorry.
Also, announcing in advance, there will be no updates on the last week of September and half the following week of October, to prevent burnout. The rest of those months will have regular updates.
EDIT: Okay, looks like I'll make it after all. That's a relief.
2021-08-13 09:20:19 +0000 UTC
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Lori was honestly surprised that Riz won the quarterstaff competition. Not that she didn't deserve it, the woman had been good at switching from spear-like jabs to swings—she'd picked a good stick for how she wanted to fight—but there'd been another competitor who'd been much more skillful and had only been defeated before he hadn't paid attention to his footing and ended up out of bounds. Lori joined in the accolades, clapping her hands politely as Rian awarded Riz the bowl overflowing w...
2021-08-12 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
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The board game competitions had proceeded at their own pace while people had been eating in the morning. The players had gotten together, played their games, and crushed each other in pursuit of supremacy and victory, and Rian had given them their prize for winning. Simple, straightforward, and only those who wanted to watch or had any interest had spectated.
For some reason, Rian chose not to follow this simple and easy to understand format.
"Welcome to the first Lorian holiday g...
2021-08-10 17:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Some people would have thought that the Dungeon Binder going off to clean the latrines while her lord stayed behind and awarded prizes was backward. These didn't realize that awarding prizes meant talking and, judging by the way Rian had done things, touching people. Which was not to say the task wasn't odious. It was extremely odious. It was the baseline by which odious was measured. It was still far better than the alternative.
Especially since she had a volunteer to do the m...
2021-08-08 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
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On the Madness Of Mountains, Part 4
So… apparently, his new gang had forgotten to give themselves a name.
They were now trying to rectify that.
"The Othersiders?"
"No references to that series, it'll probably jinx us with grimderp."
"I have to ask," Kim said. "What series are you talking about?"
"It's this story on the internet about the cycle of bullying," Sanny said. "It's strangely popular."
"Is tha...
2021-08-08 00:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Something To Do Tomorrow
By the time Rian finally woke up, still surrounded by his three minders, the air was filled with the smell of seel meat sizzling from its own fat as she sun gently began to dip to the horizon, the first of the moons beginning to tint the demesne with its colors. Pans had been placed under the meat to catch the fat dripping down, for frying mushrooms, vegetables, and the more dry beast meat. They'd cut out a lot of the fat for the chandl...
2021-08-07 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Rian left after finishing his food. He was followed, of course, but they'd finished their food as well, so that was fine.
Lori ate her fill, then stopped so she wouldn't get a headache from all the fat. After washing her plate, ignoring people looking at her strangely as she did so, she decided to go up to her room for something sweet to chase all the meat with.
She came back down with the bag she usually used to carry lengths of firewood tied over her shoulder instead of at her h...
2021-08-05 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
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HI everyone! It's August, and I would like to thank everyone who has been supporting me all this time. I know I can't offer as much as other Creators, but I'm thankfu land grateful for everyone who decided they liked what they saw and decided I was worth reading.
Demesne is, according to my master copy, over 220K words long, and is somewhere between halfway and 2/3rds done. The first major arc, anyway. There's still a lot of story to tell in the setting, more c...
2021-08-05 16:15:36 +0000 UTC
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Come the morning, Lori found out what her lord had deemed an appropriate semi-violent outlets for people's energy.
"Tournaments?" Lori said. She was sitting at her usual table out of habit, with Rian across from her. His side of the table was more crowded than usual this morning, but Lori ignored that. There were fewer people about, as many seemed to be sleeping in, and those present seemed to be waiting for something.
"Technically, a tournament is more organized," Rian said brigh...
2021-08-03 17:01:02 +0000 UTC
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By the time Rian finally woke up, still surrounded by his three minders, the air was filled with the smell of seel meat sizzling from its own fat as the sun gently began to dip to the horizon, the first of the moons beginning to tint the demesne with its colors. Pans had been placed under the meat to catch the fat dripping down, for frying mushrooms, vegetables, and the more dry beast meat. They'd cut out a lot of the fat for the chandlers, but some had deliberately been left to flavor the me...
2021-08-01 17:01:02 +0000 UTC
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On the Madness Of Mountains, Part 3
"Let him finish his introduction first," Sanny said, then frowned. "Wait, let me finish my introduction first. I still haven't said my favorite ice-cream."
"Which is?" Tammy prompted.
"Mocha fudge," Sanny said.
Kim gave her a skeptical look and he wasn't the only one.
"I've never heard of that flavor," Katherine said, actually looking interested.
Sanny sighed. "They dis...
2021-08-01 00:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Holiday Morning
"Good morning everyone, and I hope you enjoy today's holiday!" Rian called after getting everyone's attention. "We're here to celebrate our Binder not dying from infection." There was a cheer at that. Rian could make anything sound like something to cheer for, it seemed. "We'd have done it yesterday when we arrived, but we didn't think people would appreciate starting the party in the middle of the night. Besides, we're not allowed to play music...
2021-07-31 17:11:00 +0000 UTC
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After lunch, the general excitement of everyone at not having to work quieted. Some went back to the river for another dip, but many followed her previous example and took a nap. Some sat in the shadows of the aqueducts or outside the bath houses, talking, sewing, using knives to whittle at small pieces of wood, and in one instance weaving a hat out of some long strips of soft river grasses. Many curled up in the unoccupied benches and tables in the Dungeon, and she found that the finished ni...
2021-07-29 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
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The cold room was made colder after Lori dragged water up from the river, took out all the impurities she could, and solidified the water into ice. The Dungeon actually had two cold rooms: one where they put the food that would be used for cooking, and another, larger room that was slowly being filled up with meat for winter reserves. She'd have thought the amount of food in the latter was too much until Rian pointed out that they needed to feed over two hundred people for more than a hundred...
2021-07-27 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Erzebed, Riz to most, washed her face to get the sweat off as she and the rest of the crew of former militia—in their hearts, though,, they were always militia—putting up the roofs and other fittings on what would be their new homes took a break for the midday meal. These would be the second new homes that year, though the first that they would actually be building. With the trees near their building site cut down long ago for the nearby sawpit, the sun shone down hot on them, and it made...
2021-07-26 03:17:33 +0000 UTC
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"Good morning everyone, and I hope you enjoy today's holiday!" Rian called after getting everyone's attention. "We're here to celebrate our Binder not dying from infection." There was a cheer at that. Rian could make anything sound like something to cheer for, it seemed. "We'd have done it yesterday when we arrived, but we didn't think people would appreciate starting the party in the middle of the night. Besides, we're not allowed to play music after sundown, and who wants a party without mu...
2021-07-25 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
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On the Madness Of Mountains, Part 2
Meeting everyone was brief.
"Everyone," Kim said as he led the three to the living room, "this is… everyone else."
"Good one, babe," Katherine said, giving him a small thumbs up. It was part mocking, mostly affectionate.
"Hello, sir. It's nice to meet you," Tammy said as she shook hands with Kim's father after putting down her plastic grocery bags on the coffee table. A lone bottle of sod...
2021-07-25 00:00:02 +0000 UTC
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The Proposal
It was only in the morning that Lori realized she should have taken steps to protect against Rian while she was unconscious… but immediately dismissed the thought. He was completely blind to those two, and now the third one, staring at his posterior for months. He either preferred men as the rumors said, or his libido was completely non-functional.
Speaking of her lord, she looked at him in bemusement as he lay face-down on the other wooden...
2021-07-24 17:01:01 +0000 UTC
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The next morning, Lori gave her lord an unamused, intent look. She had come down from her room to have breakfast to find something so odd she hadn't been able to ignore it: several people peeling, cutting and mashing fruit into bowls before adding the resulting mash into one of the large stone-and-metal-reinforced pots that they used to make stew, all while breakfast was seemingly in progress. Weren't people supposed to be eating to prepare for the day's work, like she was about to?
"Wh...
2021-07-22 17:01:02 +0000 UTC
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They arrived home after nightfall.
As Lori had feared, drafting four copies of the agreement had been time consuming and painful. It had gone faster after the first one had been finished and she could just copy that, but remembering all the details had been difficult. So she'd just written down the details she remembered—the ones that favored her—Shanalorre had interjected with the details she remembered, and when it was all written down, both of them had been satisfied wit...
2021-07-20 17:00:05 +0000 UTC
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It was only in the morning that Lori realized she should have taken steps to protect against Rian while she was unconscious… but immediately dismissed the thought. He was completely blind to those two, and now the third one, staring at his posterior for months. He either preferred men as the rumors said, or his libido was completely non-functional.
Speaking of her lord, she looked at him in bemusement as he lay face-down on the other wooden bed, one leg twitching. Why…?
Shakin...
2021-07-18 17:00:03 +0000 UTC
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On the Madness Of Mountains, Part 1
The first thing Kim Bunhong did when he woke up was make sure his room was the right dimensions.
The pink sand, tetrahedrons, cubes, octahedrons, heptahedrons, nonahedrons, Klein bottles, rings, and more common shapeless rocks on the floor and his bedspread weren't really that important. Those were easy to clean up after he'd reverted his body to being meaty instead of rocky. But if he left hi...
2021-07-18 00:01:01 +0000 UTC
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