Weekly Digest 138 - (#434 - #436)

Very Commendable Watchfulness

It was time to step out of the safety of the dungeon. We didn't want to, but sometimes adults had to be responsible and do things like that, otherwise the alternative was having the children do it, and Lori would kill us all if that happened.

As I vividly remembered the incident with the islandshell, we had been making preparations in the three days before Lori had finally opened the defenses. Large shields were made from planks, leather and ropes, with Tae and Lidz contributing to fuse the pieces of wood together, with Shana providing the imbuement. There wasn't enough time to make a shield for everyone, and even if we did, that wasn't how they were used. According to the militiamen—and they would know—you didn't just brandish the shield in front of you like it was an impenetrable wall. That kind of passivity got you killed. Instead, several people with shields would act together to raise a mobile wall, using shield and spear to herd beasts towards the center of a formation of militia. When the beasts were impaled up to the crossguards of the spears, the shield bearers would get in close to the beast's side to keep the beasts from being able to turn around and pull themselves off the spears while everyone else used their spear to keep the beast in place and stabbing it to death.

A part of me wished it was Riz giving me this expository explanation rather than Kolinh. I missed her, but did that mean I felt anything for her? Besides lust, that is. I can pretty conclusively declare that one of the things I feel for her is lust, which inexplicably seems to be mutual. But did that mean that I—

No, no, not the time to think about myself. I had lord things to do.

All that meant my sword was as useless as usual, but I belted it on in any case because it knew how to use it, and it was a sharp, pointy object that extended my reach. Still, even though I would be joining the militia and carrying a spear, everyone understood I was to stay at the middle and act as another pair of eyes instead of actually putting myself forward and trying to do anything Kolinh didn't explicitly tell me to do. I was fine with that, and made sure to tell Kolinh how deliriously happy about that state of affairs. I've never been in the militia, so it was only sensible I leave how to do things to him, and listen very carefully if he told me it couldn't be done.

The plan was to make sure the space in front of the dungeon's entryway was clear, then check the docks and river to see if we could send a boat downstream to get Lori. After that, we would move through the houses for anything lurking between them, and then finally the perimeter of the village. The interiors of the houses, the shelter, and the Um would be left for last, once we had Lori with us to keep us from having to look for trouble in confined spaces.

We were all hoping it would be unnecessary and that there were no dragonborn abominations like last time, but it was probably a futile hope.

When we finally left the wonderful, safe, strong, peaceful, secure, warm embrace of the dungeon, it was as a group of twenty, with all but Lidzuga and myself having militia experience. Most were armed with spears, but two people were carrying shovels, as well as some rope and packs full of carpentry offcuts. Lidz was armed with a length of wood that he'd appropriated to use as a staff. It should have occurred to me sooner, but the staffs used by Deadspeakers didn't need wire. After all, they could claim the full length of a wooden staff, so they don't need the metal as channels to conduct magic. Lidz's staff had been curled into a large hook at one end, like the kind beastherders were depicted with. Kolinh had advised it, as a means for pulling the injured and fallen out of danger while healing them, which… made a morbid, Lori-like sense.

It was a bristling wall of spearpoints that exited the dungeon's entryway into the overcast light while we waited for the ones that remained in the dungeon to barricade the table behind us. Once the hole in the stone barrier was secured, we slowly stepped out of the entryway, Lidz and I taking the rear. A cold, unceasing breeze was blowing around our feet and out towards the opening of the entryway, and from the way that was the only air moving, it had to be Lori's work. The two with the bags of wooden offcuts threw some at the icicles dripping down from the edge of the entryway's opening, knocking them down so we didn't have to worry about them falling on us. The shattered strangely as they hit the ground, though I couldn't quite put my finger on why…

Everyone was stepping carefully, and it was quickly apparent the caution was warranted. The layer covering the ground beyond the entryway was not actually snow, but what felt like several layers of frost that had grown on top of each other. The outer walls of the stone buildings in my sight were the same, as well as the outside walls of the entryway. There was something off about the frost. Even in the overcast, they didn't seem to reflect light properly, and it wasn't the only one who noticed. Others were eyeing the apparent frost warily. While some spots seemed solid and already packed down, most were very delicate, collapsing easily when spearbutts were pressed down into it.

The two with the shovels got to work, handing me their packs while they started using the shovels to clear ground of accumulated frost. They tore up the cold covering, and while some movements of their tool scooped up powdery frost, sometimes they picked up chunks of ice. All the ice was so cold that despite being exposed to the air, what was being shoveled up was dry, with vapor emanating from—

I frowned, then carefully knelt down, tentatively touching some of the ice on the ground. It was painfully cold to the touch after a few moments, and when I pulled back my hand, there was some frost sticking to my skin. I blew on the frost, and while some melted into water, a few endured on, not melting and being very painful. I quickly lowered used my shirt to pull the fragment off, wincing at the feeling of the ice tearing off my skin, and watched as the fragment of ice seemed to stick to the threads of my clothes.

"Everyone, don't touch the snow with your bare hands," I called out. "Not all of it is frozen water. Some of it seems to be solidified air, and that stuff is even colder and will stick to your skin. It's not immediately dangerous, but it will freeze the skin it's on solid if you don't get it off, so be careful." People glanced down nervously at that, and indeed, there were some chunks sticking to the sides of people's boots. One unfortunate person apparently had a piece sticking to his sole, and he was trying to scrape it off like mud. I look towards Kolinh. “It shouldn’t be any problem to shovel. Just don’t touch it with bare skin or drop water on it and we should be fine.”

He nodded. “You all heard Lord Rian. You two, get on shovels and start clearing our way. Skinny Vov, take the wood and start checking for vistas towards the dock. The rest of you, keep a look out.”

Huh. That’s what the wood is for? I handed Skinny Vov—not to be confused with young Vov, Tall Vov, Beard Vov, Handsome Vov and Quiet Vov—the bag, and he began to carefully throw the offcuts of wood at chest-level towards the stairs over the flood wall that led to the docks, checking for vistas. The distortions in space, time and gravity could be observed if you we’re looking closely, but it was easier to find a vista when you saw something pass through it. Seeing things like deviations in the arching path of the passing object—for sharp turns that didn’t affect’s its momentum, accelerated or decelerated, or things curving upwards instead of downward in their parabolic arc—helped make it easier to find vistas.

Skinny Vov threw each piece of wood at intervals, his eyes carefully judging the object’s flight and curve. Lori’s darkwisp barrier was supposed to keep such vistas—and other things—from being able to reach down to ground level, but it probably didn’t hurt to be cautious. Fortunately, all the wood arced as they were supposed to, meaning there were and twisting surprises in our path. I was intimately familiar with the dangers of maliciously designed vistas. Most people thought that vistas were limited to the boundaries of rooms. Most people were wrong. Most people also didn't stop to think what would happen to them if they stepped edgewise through a vista that was two inches wide on the outside and a pace across on the inside.

It was called edgewise for a reason.

Fortunately, the shovel-wielders started flinging the frost and solidified air towards the direction we were planning to go, and while that would have made it harder to see larger vistas, it helped find small, narrow ones that were more dangerous to walk into. Narrow vistas that were bigger on the inside would show as little cuts in the air where the spray of the shovels seemingly vanishes too quickly. Of course, this wasn't really snow underfoot, so it didn't spray nearly as well, but it covered a wider area than the wooden offcuts.

While I had confidence that Lori's measures protected us from some things… she'd been a bit unreliable over the past week, absentminded and not sticking to a proper schedule. She was a woman who loved her routine, even if she didn't really have a lot of it given the irregularity of the work she had to do, so at the very least she should have used mealtimes as cues of when to dim the lights. That fact that she didn't… well, it was concerning. That had better be a really interesting almanac. And if it was, when could I borrow it?-!

As we waited for the shovels to clear a path and everyone else started tamping down on the frost in an attempt to powder it and probably make it easier to pass by later. I'll have to tell them not to pour water on it. Honestly, I wasn't sure if  it would cause the water to freeze, making the ground harder, or it would cause the solidified air to sublimate and bubble through the water, causing fog. While neither was actively dangerous to us, it would be very inconvenient.

We carefully made our way to the docks as I looked around, both to keep an eye out for dragonborn abominations and see if there was anything else we had to deal with. It was hard to make details at any distance because of the overcast and how the dragonfrost—and I'm calling it that for the sake of convenience as I'm running out of ways to differentiate between the water frost and the solidified air frost—made everything so monochromatic, but the sawmill seemed undamaged. It was just as covered as the stone buildings, but given the composition of the dragon frost, hopefully there wasn't much water damage. Actually, given the all the dragonfrost around us, I'm glad it was still overcast. If the sky had been clear, we would likely be having problems with snow blindness.

I glanced up to the sky to see how thick the cloud cover was and stared.

High, high above us, the sun was obscured by hundreds—possibly thousands, even tens of thousands—of what looked like black threads or cords stretched from horizon to horizon. They were high enough they were behind the clouds, each thread seemingly slightly thinner than the cords the ropers spun from threads, their edges fuzzy for some reason. That mean they were probably bigger around the bath houses were long, so numerous that they put our demesne in their shade. It reminded me of hair dragging across a bed, all the threads mostly parallel and aligned in the same direction, but rippling back and forth as they did so. Sunlight shone through the gaps between the threads, creating the overcast light around us instead of simply gloom. There was something about the way the threads were moving…

"Lidz," I said, not looking down, "can you still feel the dragon?"

In my peripheral vision, I saw Lidzuga look towards me. "I can, but it's still moving away from—blissful ignorance!"

Ah, he'd seen it.

"Can you point towards where you think the dragon is right now?" I asked Lidzuga, glancing down towards him.

He tore his eyes away from the sky, shaking his head as other people turned towards us in curiosity and looking up to see the sky. "The dragon is in that direction, and still moving away…" he said faintly, his eyes peaking upward again.

I looked towards where he was pointing, then moved my gaze upwards towards the threads—the tentacles—stretched out across the sky. One end was streaming from the direction Lidzuga had indicated, vanishing over the horizon. Turning in the opposite direction, I saw the tentacles also vanishing beyond sight.

Forcing myself to look down, I clapped my hands to get everyone's attention and they jerked their gazes towards me. "All right everyone, back to work," I said. "Lidzuga says the dragon is moving away and Binder Lori thinks we're safe, so unless it starts snowing unseasonably, all that up there isn't anything for us to worry about. Let's get to the river and make this all Binder Lori's problem, shall we?"

That got them moving again. Militia well knew the importance of making something someone else's problem. The shovels started moving again, clearing the way towards the dock.

And if people occasionally kept looking up, that was perfectly all right.  There might be flying dragonborn abominations, after all.

Everyone was very watchful for those. Very commendable watchfulness all around!

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Creatively Applied Deadspeaking

To my surprise and relief, the river was still flowing, even if there was slowly melting dragonfrost on the stone docks. As I watched, a piece of dragonfrost broke off and fell into the river, which started to bubble and spew up fog before the current washed it under the docks. The docks were cleared of dragonfrost, the waters around it bubbling with mist as ice and solidified air were disposed of. That was on thing off the list. We should be able to send a boat to retrieve Lori now, although that would have to wait until we'd cleared the rest of the village

Part of me wanted to bring up the idea of giving the settlement outside of the dungeon an official name, while at the same time wanting to avoid the obvious designation Lori was going to slap on the place.

With the docks cleared, we could move on to checking the village. Given Lori's precautions as I understood them, the dragon was unlikely to have been able to create dragonborn abominations in the village directly. Anything that came into the demesne would need to be dropped by the dragon—which is why we had supply of planks for repairing roofs—or wander in from the edge of the demesne two and a half taums away. Unfortunately, any such abominations have had four days to travel from the edge of the demesne, so they could be anywhere at this point.

Before we did so, however, Kolinh had some people go back to the dungeon to collect our snow pads.

…

I am so glad Kolinh's a capable man.

"We'll need to change our plans, Rian," Kolinh said, interrupting my 'ugh, why didn't I think of that' self-flagellation. "We don't have enough snow pads for everyone, so the scouting party will have to be smaller. That means you stay here."

"Understood," I said immediately. "I'll get to work on getting one of our boats into the water and having someone retrieve Lori." Just for a moment, there was a brief moment of surprise on Kolinh's face as I immediately agreed to a sensible idea. What sort of idiots did you have to work with back where you came from that this always comes as a surprise to you? "Lidz, you stay here and hope you're not needed for anything. If something does happen, concentrate on keeping anyone injured alive so that we can get Shanalorre to heal them."

The Deadspeaker didn’t sigh in relief, but he gave that impression as he nodded a bit too quickly. Well, it was to be expected. This wasn't the sort of thing he'd been recruited for, after all. I'll have to make it up to him—and Tae as well, I suppose—later. "I can do that."

Wearing the snow pads, which seemed to work quite well on the dragonfrost—the pads stuck in some places, but since everyone was already stepping carefully, it wasn't an issue—Kolinh and a much smaller group of militia started moving to check between the houses. I tore my gaze away from them and turned towards the ones who'd remained. Work to do, as always. "All right. You four, keep an eye out in case something manages to get past Kolinh's squad. Remember to keep an eye up on the cliff. The rest of you, we're bringing one of the boats to the dock and back into the water. Lidz, we'll need you to check the boat for damage just in case, and you'll be coming with us to River's Fork. No one there should need healing, since Shana has been reporting no one's hurt, but there might be structural damage that you'll need to deal with. In which case, have a signal for when you need her to imbue something."

Lidz nodded.

There was an awkward moment.

"I meant right now Lidz, we'll be going as soon as the boat's in the water," I said.  

"Oh! Right, right, I'll get to it now then!"

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What followed involved a lot of straining and carrying. From unfortunate necessity, the boats had to be stored in the third level, in one of the side tunnels Lori had made for the incomplete excavation. As the boats were not small things, and the wood they were made of was hardly light at the thicknesses they consisted of, carrying them between the planters, up the flights of stairs, and then out of the dungeon proper was painful. My fingers burned from where they had to grip the edges of Lori's Boat, as we finally set it on trestles in the cleared space outside of the entryway.

Yes, my arms and legs hurt too, but not as much as one would think. Only idiots or people carrying things with really awkward handholds carried anything with their arms bent. If you were carrying something efficiently, most of the strain was on your fingers, or wherever it was that you were hoisting your load. And unfortunately, we couldn't carry the boat on our shoulders until after we were out of the dungeon

While Lidz and three of the carpenters— Yonas, Onezto and Sani—checked over the boat, I took a moment to check the river. Warily, I stuck in the smallest finger of my left hand and shuddered as water lapped over it. The river was freezing cold, the coldest it had been all summer. Given that solidified air had been falling on it for more than a week… well, that was probably about right. Warily, I lick my wet finger. It didn't taste violently different, so it was probably drinkable, but I spat out the water anyway. We'd boil it later and check for residue, but hopefully the dragon hadn't added anything inconvenient to our drinking water.

When the inspection of the boat finished and it was declared undamaged from its storage, I was back to carrying it, this time to the dock so we could set it into the water. Installing the outrigger followed. While Lori and many others had learned how to properly balance on the boats, and we could probably stop using outriggers soon… I was fairly certain we never would, because Lori had been born an old woman at heart, and she how she's used to doing it is probably going to be how we did it until the end of time.

…

That was probably something I was going to need to talk to Lori about, because at the moment some of our boats were as wide as they were long. Purely with an eye to storing them, they could stand to be narrower.

Once we'd confirmed that that Lori's Boat wasn't taking on water, I went back into the dungeon, retrieved one of the steam jet drivers and mounted it onto the rear of the boat. After we'd gotten Tae to the demesne and Lidz started building us new boats, we'd made changes to Lori's Boat. The fittings we'd put in by essentially clamping them to the boat's side, such as the mount for the driver, could finally be attached more securely and permanently since we had Tae to fuse and slowly reshape the wood for us. One of the changes we’d made was that the mountings for the drivers were altered so that we could easily remove the bound tools in the event of the dragon and allow us to be able to mount any of the bound tool drivers Lori had made. That last was more of a side effect of making the same mounts for the boats we'd had at the time than something we'd deliberately set out to do, but it was convenient in this instance since it meant we didn't need to look for any specific driver to mount onto the boat.

Taking a bead from the supply that Lori had left for me—we were running low after a week, since Lori hadn’t really expected us to need to use any bound tools besides the ones in the baths—I tested the driver, and nodded in satisfaction as the boat moved forward, straining at the rope securing it to the dock before I deactivated the bound tool. “All right, we’re ready to go,” I announced. "Get another boat out here!"

I’d fiercely debated whether I should go myself to pick up Lori, or send someone else to do it. There were good reasons for both. On the one hand, our demesne was still in a state of post-dragon emergency, and any number of things could go wrong, which as their lord I needed to take care of on Lori’s behalf. On the other hand, Lori would probably appreciate seeing a friendly face, and I can talk to Yllian and inspect the demesne to find out what needs to be done to get everything back in order.

Back to the first hand though, Shana had said there were mobile meanings outside of the dragon shelter, which meant anything from undead, seals fused together, too-mobile plants, or simply clouds of disease, though I hope Shana would have said anything if that last was the case. One way or another, they had to be dealt with, and the most efficient way of doing something to them was having Shana do something.

…

It would have been really helpful if Lori hadn't ordered Shana to stop learning Deadspeaking, but maybe…

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"No, I do not know how to deactivate a meaning," Shana said.

We were seated my alcove, Shana, Tae and Lidzuga spread out on the three benches so that we could all see each other. that meant I had no way of missing the looks the two Deadspeakers exchanged. For the moment, I ignored their byplay, even if I mostly agreed with them.

"Well, that removes the easy way of dealing with those things," I sighed. Shana had at least been able to confirm that the mobile meanings she had perceived were in fact not clouds of dustlife and disease, as they were maintaining their relative positions in relation to each other, something that she said meant physical bodies. While she hadn't been able to verify whether the mobile meanings were made of wood or flesh or bone, she had been able to further identify that the mobile meanings were comprised of combinations of vital and inert life—'living' and 'dead'—which meant some of those meanings were definitely some form of undead.

"I could—" Taeclas began.

"Well!" I interrupted. "If you can't deactivate them, can you use your healing meaning on them?"

Shana gave me a confused look. "I… suppose I can do so, although it would only have an effect on the meanings that are both vital and correspond to flesh."

"But you can use your meaning on anything with life, right?" I said. "This table, for example. I mean, if you claimed and imbued it, you can use your meaning on it?" Off to the side, Lidz and Tae's eyebrows rose as they listened.

"Yes, but it would do nothing. The wood of the table is neither vital nor flesh, so it would just be a waste of imbu—ah."

It's so nice to work with people who have enough self-awareness to draw the correct conclusion from a leading question. Even nicer when they didn't give you a dirty look right afterwards.

Shana's head titled thoughtfully, then she nodded. "Yes, I suppose that would be one way to deal with these mobile meanings without violating the Great Binder's stated orders." Her face was completely blank as she stared pointedly at Tae. "Either the imbuement is consumed completely, or significant parts of the meanings are tamed into something that causes the rest of the meaning to be inoperable."

"It's not right!" Surprisingly, it was Lidz who spoke. "There's being willfully ignorant because you're small-minded and then there's this! You could be learning so much, improving your knowledge base, growing—!"

"Binder Lolilyuri does not wish me to do any of those things, and I will obey her orders," Shana said with a decent facsimile of Lori-like finality. "Please cease these attempts to have me commit treasonous acts."

Both Tae and Lidz had the same expression of confused discomfort as an uncomfortable silence fell. Well, silent in the alcove, the second level was being its usual noisy self.

"So, how imbuement-intensive is your meaning?" I asked brightly.

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Lori Retrieval Operations, Start!

Shana was willing to try to use her meaning in ways it probably wasn't meant for to get rid of potential threats in River's Fork.

Actually, I had no idea if her meaning actually is meant for just healing. Both Lidz and Tae had allowed themselves to be healed by it to try to analyze and perhaps replicate the meaning, but they both said that the meaning was a complicated thing, and that Shana applied and activated the meaning very quickly, such that they couldn't really identify more than a few parts at a time.  Shana's attempts to tame the life into the meaning slower resulted in her failing to do so, as slowing down to that degree forced her to leave the state of instinctive application that allowed her to tame the meaning. According to Tae, Lidz and Lori, this wasn't unusual for savants, who usually deciphered and flow diagramed their own instinctive binding, meaning, formation or vista many years after they'd started learning, once they had managed to learn the complexities of their particular branch of magic.

Despite this, we'd learned a few things about Shana's meaning. It only worked on living flesh, it worked equally effectively on broken bones, torn or bruised flesh, illnesses caused by infection—Tae suspected it worked on poisons as well, but we hadn't been eager to test that—while not actually removing the cause of the illness, and the meaning required a notably large amount of imbuement. The latter wasn't a problem for Shana, as she was a Dungeon Binder, but Tae and Lidz both agreed that anyone else trying to use the meaning would need either a bead or a significant amount of time breathing in and accumulating magic.

Shana had identified a significant number of mobile meanings in her—in River's Fork Demesne, so much so that she claimed to lose track when trying to count them all. Only a small fraction of them was in the vicinity of the dome and dragon shelter, however, and it was agreed that she'd focus on expending the imbuement on those. More concerning was her report there seemed to be some in the river at various depths, which implied that some seels had probably become dragonborn abominations as well, and that there were meanings larger than a house. Fortunately, the latter were immobile, and Shana believed they happened to be rooted trees with perhaps other things unfortunately mixed in.

"It might be advisable to retain some of those dragonborn abominations as a source of wood or some other resources, depending on what the component parts of are included in their structure," Shana mused.

She sounded so much like Lori that I shuddered from the top of my skull to the bottom of my spine. I had to remind myself there were worst people to act like than Lori, there were worst people to act like than Lori, there were worst people to act like than Lori…

Nevermind the fact most such people were actively murderers, nonconists, and providers of unfair wages, there were still worse people to act like than Lori. And I supposed that Shana had a point about the resources.

Shana didn't actually need all that much effort to disrupt the rampant life walking around her demesne. All she needed to do was claim each one, her precedence as the demesne's Dungeon Binder—well, the one connected to the dungeon's core, at any rate—allowing her to override the dragon's lingering claim on the life, and then use her one meaning on them, forcibly disrupting the meaning the life had been previously been tamed into. That was usually enough to cause them to stop moving, and if it wasn't a second application at Shana's meaning usually sufficed.

"It's probably not necessary," Lidz commented. "If those were undead, then all they would be doing is having the joints of their extremities moving according to the last instructions left into the undead's life-emulated thoughtways."

"I have no idea what that last thing you said was," I said. "Some kind of special meaning in the brain?"

Lidz made a circling gesture with his hand. "Yes and no," he said. "It's been long confirmed that Deadspeaking has some overlap with Mentalism when it comes to the meanings for creating undead through deadcrafting, just as Mentalism has some overlap with Whispering when it comes to lightningwisps. Any brain matter of sufficient mass can be induced to produce thoughts that can in effect control the meaning itself, which is how undead can follow sufficiently detailed simple instructions."

"Sufficiently detailed simple instructions sounds like an oxymoron," I commented.

"Not at all. You see, since undead can't think you need to specify every little thing they—"

"As fascinating as this discussion of aspects of Deadspeaking that I am not versed in and am forbidden from learning is, I need to ask you all to either cease this conversation or continue in a different location," Shana interrupted, her eyes closed as she continued concentrating on something only she cold perceive. "Hearing you is very distracting."

"Sorry, Shana. I'll let you get back to work."

She nodded, eyes still closed. "I shall report to you when I have cleared the river and the environs immediately around the dome and the dragon shelter."

"Please focus on the river," I said. "I'm planning to go get Lori as soon as possible, so as soon as you confirm the river is relatively safe, we're going. You should hopefully have time to focus on the environs while we're on our way there."

Another nod, eyes still closed.

"Thank you, then!" I said cheerfully. "Shall I tell Yoshka she can nap on you?"

Another nod, this time accompanied by a small, un-Lori-like smile on her face.

Personally, I didn’t see how having her cousin near her would be less distracting than the interrupted exposition Lidz had been giving me, but it obviously made her happy, and so it was the least that I owed the little girl who'd had to grow up into an old (Lori) woman far too fast.

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With one boat ready and my needing to talk to Shana about the state of things in River's Fork so I knew what to expect, I had set some people to shoveling the space outside of the entryway clear of dragonfrost while the second boat was being carried up. Just the ground, since at the moment there didn't seem to be any reason to try and scrape the stuff off the walls, and I didn't want us releasing the air that had been solidified.

When I stepped back outside after leaving Shana, most of the space had been cleared, though there was a lot of disturbed earth where the dragonfrost had stuck to the ground. The dragonfrost itself had been piled up in the corner of the flood wall under the water hub shed, a bare corner that we really didn't use for anything except as a good spot out of the wind to roast meat during holidays. It was a good enough place for it, I suppose.

The sun was nearing its peak when Kolinh and the ones with him came back, their snowpads making them look awkward as they walked towards us. It would have been funny, but a syrupy gold substance was smeared on the ends of some of their spears, the disturbingly sweet-smelling substance that dragonborn abominations had for blood.

I left fitting the second driver to the carpenters as I headed to meet with Kolinh, my gaze going to the stained spearheads and then down to the people holding them. Thankfully, no one seemed to be bleeding, and they were coming back with the same number of people they'd left with. "So, what's out there?" I asked Kolinh as he finished taking off his snow pads.

"Plant abominations," he said. "Plant-beasts. Plant-bugs. Undead plant-beasts. Perhaps undead plant-bugs as well, it's hard to tell with bugs. We'll need axes to properly put them down. Probably longer hafts on the axes if the carpenters have the wood for it, but if not we can make do."

"Not fire?" I asked, then immediately answered myself. "No, that's a stupid idea. Being on fire wouldn't stop the things from moving, and they'd take time to burn."

"Fire is for later, when we've chopped their limbs off and have them in a pile," Kolinh confirmed.

"Can they fit through the dungeon's air vents?" I asked. "Do we need to worry about the things getting inside?"

Kolinh let out a sigh. "No, thank the Great Binder."

"Can't be, Lori doesn't know Deadspeaking and Shana only knows the one thing."

That got me an eye roll. "You know what I mean."

"In my defense, Lori would have said it if she were here," I pointed out.

Kolinh gave a sideways nod, acknowledging that. "They shouldn't be a problem. The wood bits stuck on them keep that ones that have wings from flying, and they're all too fat to fit in any case. We'll just have to keep them from getting in the front door."

I nodded. :"Do you think you'd be able to deal with anything bigger, like a leaper or a waddler?"

He hesitated. "Normally, I would say that we have enough people, but I don't like our chances of doing it while wearing snow pads."

"Then for now, we step back and focus on clearing the ground of the dragonfrost, since that seems to be the bigger limitation that the actual abominations themselves."

"Dragonfrost?"

I shrugged. "We had to call it something.  Unless there's already a name for this stuff that I'm not aware of?"

Kolinh nodded. "Dragonfrost it is. Once it's clear, we'll have somewhere safe to fall back to and deal with anything large with more bodies and spears."

"Which will probably have to wait until tomorrow," I said. "I'll be heading out to get Lori after lunch, so rest up and work on clearing off the frost until we come back. You can get started on the laundry area and around the baths. Hopefully we'll be back later today, but at worst it will be a few days."

Kolinh nodded, even if he looked a little reluctant. As a seasoned militia leader, even if it was as an engineer, he was probably a much better choice to lead Lori retrieval than me. However, it would be best if I were present to pick her up if Lori was being… strange, since it was my job to talk to her on behalf of everyone else. And if anything happened to all of us, I wanted someone to keep Shana from trying to be Dungeon Binder of two demesnes and be able to help Taeclas run Lorian.

Was this thinking morbid? Cynical? Fatalist? Of course! As I lord, I work for the government, after all!

––––––––––––––––––

Lunch was eaten quickly so that we could go on Lori retrieval as soon as possible. Lori would have been very annoyed at seeing how little lingering there was at the docks, how short the goodbyes were, and how quickly we were able to get underway. It was to be expected, since most of those people sitting in the two boats now heading downriver had militia experience. Only Lidz, Clowee, and myself didn't have any, and I'd made my farewells to Mikon and Umu quick.

There were fourteen people divided between two boats, which left plenty of room to spare in case we had to bring more than just Lori back with us. Everyone was alert and watchful, since there might be dragonborn abominations in the water, twisted vistas just hanging in the air, and insane thoughts acting as either invisible solid obstacles in midair or… actually, I don't know what exactly the effects of insane thoughts were beyond that. I've been told repeatedly that Mentalism couldn't affect other people's minds, but if that was the case, why were the so-called insane thoughts released by dragons such a threat?

…

Well, I had someone here who could provide exposition, so…

"Hey, Lidz," I said as I steered us downriver, Clowee having volunteered to operate the other boats, "why are insane thoughts from dragons so dangerous? It's never really been clear to me. I mean, Mentalism can't affect other people except with physical force, right?"

Wait… why is everyone who hear me looking uncomfortable?

"Mentalism normally can't affect other people, yes," Lidzuga said, and yes, he also looked uncomfortable.

"'Normally' you say?"

"Yes. The Mentalism of dragons is not normal and have been known to inject incorrect information into the natural thought-meridians carried along the body's nerves. These disruptions vary, but are not limited to causing abnormal heartbeat, abnormal breathing, sensory hallucinations, irrational induced emotions such as fears, thoughts directing voluntary movements being redirected to other parts of the body, and in some extreme cases insane thoughts could cause temporary mental illnesses such as schismatic personalities, difficulty determining reality, delusions… the list goes on."

"Oh. That's… absolutely horrifying. I'm actually regretting asking."

"It's not as bad as it sounds," Lidz hastily assured me. "All the effects are temporary, so once the imbuement runs out you should be fine… as long as it's not something that affects your heartbeat, breathing, other bodily functions…"

"Lidz, I already regret asking, please stop making it worse."

"Sorry."

We headed downriver in uncomfortable silence.

"Really, only dragons can do this? Dungeon Binders and Mentalists haven't been able to figure out how to replicate it?"

"Oh, they have, but it's usually using a combination of Deadspeaking, Whispering and Mentalism in conjunction, not simply pure Mentalism the way dragons do…"

"I genuinely can't decide if that's bad or even worse…"

"It's not so bad," one of the militia with us, Tlevin—who for some reason was called 'Wet' by his friends—said with a happy, reminiscent smile. This immediately caused nearly everyone else on the boat to groan and had those sitting next to him elbow him or smack him on the head, whichever was more feasible, giving him annoyed looks for some reason.

"No one wants to hear from you, Wet!" someone said.

Tlevin just shrugged, smiling.

I probably shouldn't ask. I'll probably regret it.

…

I asked. "What do you mean?"

"Well—"

"I'll tell it, Wet." Surprisingly it was Daising, one of the medics we were bringing along, who spoke. She turned towards me. "This fool walked into an insane thought that gave him a sensory hallucination centered on his pelvic region."

…

"Ah. And that's why people call him 'Wet', I take it."

"You're telling it wrong, Dai!"

"Lord Rian understands what happened. No further explanation is needed," the medic said, giving Wet an irritated glare.

"You didn't mention that it happened seven times!"

Seven….?-!

"Really, seven?" I found myself asking.

"Seven!" the man said proudly.

…

I think understand why people are annoyed at him now.