When Lori came down for breakfast the next day, there was an undercurrent of eagerness in the air. Usually, most people focused on their food or conversations, but this morning, even without paying attention, she could tell that many people were glancing towards her.
"People are certainly… eager this morning," Lori commented to Rian as she reached her table. To her surprise, there was already food waiting for her, despite the kitchen seemingly still in the midst of preparations. One bowl was filled with grilled seel and beast meat that had been cut thinly, the fat on them still sizzling. The other bowl had what looked like vegetables and roots fried in fat. They look nice and soft and edible.
"Apparently, people want you to get an early start on the day," Rian said, looking torn between amusement and embarrassment. "You, uh, probably don't have to worry about this one."
Lori looked down at the food suspiciously. Well, they had clearly been grilled and fried, and none looked spat on…
Sighing, she sat down and start cutting up the food. Rian let out a sigh.
"Hold out your hand," Lori said.
Rian blinked but did so. Lori starts putting small pieces of meat and vegetables on it.
"Ah, hot, hot!" he exclaimed, blowing on his hand. "Oh, come on, Lori!"
"Taste it first," she said.
Rian rolled his eyes, but after giving the food one last blow, popped them into his mouth and started chewing. He swallowed. "There. No weird taste or anything. Happy now? And I'm glad I washed my hands before coming here…" he muttered.
Lori peered at him, then started eating.
It was delicious, if a bit oily. She ate slowly so she didn't get a headache.
"So…" Rian said as she ate, "and I'm only asking because a lot of people asked me to ask you… when do you think you'll get done with the… um…"
"I will finish when I finish," Lori said. She tilted her head thoughtfully. "I might need to quarry more materials from the second level. Perhaps a hallway leading towards the third level, if the stone we have left isn't enough." Between the aqueducts and basins, the houses, the retting tank, the laundry area and the latrines, she'd actually managed to use a lot of the stone, she realized.
"I have been asked to ask if making the walls out of wood would help get it done faster," Rian said.
Lori rolled her eyes as Umu and Mikon sat down on either side of Rian. "Tell them they're grown men and women, and they have other things to do," she said. "Like hunting for food. Or cutting trees. Or weaving. Or spinning. With all the people now available since the houses are finished, you can take some across the river and clear a space there, get a second saw pit started, cut more ropeweed…"
"I notice all of your suggestions are of very physically demanding work of the sort to keep people occupied," Rian said.
"Do we have any other sort around here?" Lori said. "It's not like we have much in the way of book keeping."
"Actually, I have people keeping track of the wood, food, skins and furs coming in and being used," Rian surprised her. "And I asked Mikon to keep track of how much fabric has been woven. It's mostly so we can estimate how much material we're using and need in future, and so that we can be able to predict when we'll likely to run out of something but I figure it's best to not let people get into the habit of thinking they can just help themselves to materials because no one is counting." Behind his back, Umu glared at Mikon. The latter, for some reason, didn't look very triumphant.
Lori frowned. "What are they using for recording?"
"Burnt stick and offcuts of wood," Rian said. "I take the total every day, and they wipe it all down. Not very secure, but it's the habits being formed, not the results. It encourages people to ask first and have a good reason for needing it. Thankfully, no one had to be told… much."
Lori nodded.
"The carpenters have already stacked doors outside the shelter," Rian continued. "With hinges attached. You just need to mount them and they're ready to use and I just heard what I just said."
"What interesting choice of words," Lori said blandly.
"I'm pretty sure there was no good way to phrase that," Rian said. "And if there was, it's too early in the morning for me to think of it."
Lori rolled her eyes. "Are we sure the shelter is now empty? No stragglers, no one hid anything in a hole they gouged out?"
"I checked yesterday before going to sleep," Rian said. "They only thing left are the lights you made and the wooden slides someone carved out to slip over them to dim them when people are going to sleep."
Ah. Well, at least they'd made their own solution.
"There's lots of writing on the walls, casual graffiti, lines marking areas and such," Rian continued, "but it looks like it did the day you rebuilt it."
Lori nodded, thinking as she ate. Altering the shelter would be relative simple. She'd simply have to drag in stone to make internal walls. It would actually be more structurally stable by the time she finished, since the internal walls would be able to bear the load of the stone ceiling. The first step would probably be measuring out the total length of the shelter and then deciding to divide it into rooms.
"Tell the carpenters to stop making any new doors for the moment," Lori said absently. "We don’t want a surplus of doors."
"I'll tell them, but I'm sure a use for any extra doors can be found," Rian said. "Like giving me something to knock on to get your attention in your room. Or maybe we can use them in the third bath house. Or in some storage room…"
Lori rolled her eyes. "Well, at least tell them not to give me thirty doors or something. I doubt the shelter can fit that many rooms." Yes, definitely measurements. The shelter was only wide enough for a row of rooms maybe just long enough for someone to roll out their bedroll on, and a connecting hallway so people don't step out into the outdoors. And a hallway leading to a single entrance will let them restrict who goes in or out, and most especially keep children out, parents telling them to go in and get people be colored. There would need to be light and air circulation as well…
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After she finished her breakfast, Lori headed for the now-empty shelter, her staff in hand. She'd come back for her stone-leveling tool later.
The shelter had changed since she'd last been inside, For one thing, the stairs leading down now had wooden steps, their surface left a bit rough instead of rubbed smooth so that people wouldn't slip. They'd been put on top of the original stone steps she'd hardened, and she had to admit they felt more secure under her feet.
Past the door, the shelter was empty. There were marks on the floor and walls: scratches, scuff marks, a simplistic map of the demesne drawn with a shard of broken pottery, and lines on the floor and partway up the walls that was probably some sort of boundary demarcation. Someone was clearly trying to claim land, if only in their own minds.
Should she clean that?
Lori considered it.
No, she didn't care.
The shelter was five paces wide and thirty long, though the fact that the roof was an arching curve meant there was more floor space than head space. Still, there was certainly enough room for a hallway and rooms. And a tall person would even be able to lie down in the room with some space to spare, provided they were careful of the arc of the other wall. If each room was two paces wide… no, wait, remember the thickness of the walls… all right, two paces wide in total, accounting for walls… So, they'd have room for fifteen rooms—no, wait, fourteen rooms, since there's need to be space in front of the door for whoever would be watching the door for children and keeping track of those making use of the facilities so that their names would be up for cleaning the places…
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Lori did some quick numbers, then softened part of the floor so she could start making marks, drawing lines on the stone to denote rooms, doors and the hallway with her staff. She'd have to close the small windows along one wall, as well as completely close up the fireplaces…
After retracing the lines on the floor to include the intended widths of the walls, Lori nodded to herself in satisfaction, and headed out to get the stone she'd need as well as see about the doors that had been made. She'd seen them on her way in, and they'd irritated her, since she'd have to find a way to fit the doors into the doorways, forcing the dimensions on her—
She stepped outside and blinked at the crowd. Many of the carpenters had their toolboxes in hand, looking eager, and while others were just standing there with an air of eager but undirected helpfulness. In front of them was Rian.
"—sure Binder Lori will tell us if she needs any sort of assistance," he was in the middle of saying. "But in the meantime, there's still lots of things that need to be done and—" He must have noticed he'd lost their attention and they were now looking at her, because he cut off and turned around, looking embarrassed and exasperated.
Lori sighed. "Rian, a word inside? Also, tell everyone if they have nothing better to do, go and help the children hunt seels or cut ropeweed." She turned and went back inside the shelter.
"You heard her, everyone!" she heard Rian. "Go do something else! We'll call you if you're needed! Come on, you all know this is the exact sort of silliness that will make her not build this and turn the shelter into something boring like a storehouse!"
Hmm, yes, she did need to do that, didn't she? At the very least, they needed better storerooms than they did now, better protected against dragons…
She stepped out again. "Rian, tell everyone if they want to be useful to move all the cured wood to the second level so that if there's a dragon tomorrow we'll have something to repair with."
"You heard her!" Rian said. "Get all the cured wood to the Dungeon's second level. Put it in the middle of the room, not in any of the alcoves, those are for people. Come on people, you wanted something to do, there it is!"
Eventually, Rian stepped into the shelter as Lori heard the people outside dispersing. She was leaning against the wall that held the door, as the curve of the other walls made doing that difficult, and she didn't want to compromise the integrity of the structure by pulling stone from the walls to make a seat. "Thank you for that," Rian said with a sigh that was almost a groan. "It was all I could do to keep people from going inside and 'helping'. Or offering to help. I know you hate that."
"People must really want to get this building made," Lori commented dryly. "They're actually willing to help build it this time instead of waiting."
"I think they think if they help, it'll be finished by tonight," Rian said, looking torn between embarrassment and amusement. "I'm almost tempted to ask you to delay so they'd calm down, but you have too much to do already… "
Lori was very tempted to do just that herself.
"I'll go get the stone," she said tiredly. "You go ask the carpenters to stop making more doors until after I'm done. And bring those doors in here."
"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said. "Permission to recruit other people to help me do it?"
"As long as they know not to irritate me," Lori allowed. Those doors had looked heavy.
They split up to get to work.
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The pre-made doors were looking like a bad idea.
Given the measurements she had made for the length of the rooms and the corridor they would all connect to, the doors that had already been made where just short enough to not hit the curve of the opposite wall, but it was a near thing. She told Rian to have the carpenters cut off the corner so that it wouldn’t end up actually brushing the walls when they inevitably swelled with moisture.
Still, the work was relatively simple and easy. After removing the windows and fireplaces along one wall so that there were no gaps in the structure and completing the curve of the arc, she dragged in the stone to raise the wall that would act to separate the rooms from the corridor outside, with Rian and a volunteered Riz holding the doors up so she could make gaps in the stone. It wasn't properly mounting them, but it let her get the wall up without having to worry about structural integrity.
Once that was done, Rian had the carpenters come in to measure for the rest of the doors while Lori then started raising the walls between rooms, starting from the end furthest from the door. From the sounds when Lori stopped for dinner, the carpenters were putting a lot of effort into the job, working even through dinner. She wondered if someone had brought meals for them, or if they'd just eaten really quickly. They were still at it when she went up to go to sleep.
It took three days of work, all in all. During those three days, her breakfast was already waiting for her when she came down, meat grilled and fried things. It added another temptation to slow the work down, but she ignored it, since the aggravation of people constantly coming up to their table and asking—at least they knew to ask Rian instead of her—when the renovations would be finished were sufficient to make her want to get it over with quickly.
She finally ran out of stone and had to go down to the second level, picked an alcove that pointed away from the river, and started excavating at a slight downward incline so she could have more building materials at hand. Lori kept it simple, a tunnel with a curving ceiling to take the weight of the stone above, and when she'd excavated to a depth just a little over the total thickness of the walls she needed to build, she stopped and told people—well, had Rian tell people—not to throw any water down there, because it would not drain out and would flood.
By the afternoon for the third day, however, the walls were done. Each room was lit by lightwisps bound to a small hole at the top of the wall between room and corridor so that the light would illuminate both, as well as act as a small vent that would let airwisps constantly pull air from the corridor into the room. Some of the sound would leak out, but given what the place would be used for, it would at best act as a warning that the room was occupied. In the bottom corner of the corridor, she'd built a low stone tube with openings where airwisps would draw in air from the front of the shelter near the entrance, keeping the structure and rooms properly ventilated now that all the windows had been covered up.
The rest of the day was taken up by softening the stone so that the carpenters could fit in the doors—and the locks—in place and putting planks over the doors so that Lori could fill in that gap with stone. She will admit, it was helpful to have someone else—Rian, because he was taller than Riz—hold her stone-leveling tool up to serve as a backboard while she just applied softened stone to it like mortar, letting her flatten the stone easily.
By the end of the day, it was finished. The shelter whistled slightly with the sound of air coming from the vents as the corridor and rooms were lit up. The floors were still bare stone, but anything else was up to the carpenters, who'd gone back to start making low wooden beds.
"People are already asking to use it," Rian sighed as Lori did a final inspection, making sure the doors swung freely, air was properly circulating, and the light was adequate. "We literally have people lined up outside holding bedrolls and pillows."
"Have there been any fights yet?" Lori asked.
"There might be soon," Rian said with a sigh.
Lori shook her head. "Do you have one of the medics ready to sit in front and manage this place yet?"
"Not yet. They're all… sort of willing, but… well, some of them want to use this place too," Rian said. His persistent state of low embarrassment since the start of the renovations peaked slightly.
"Well, you'll have to manage it until you can start assigning other people to do it properly."
"Me?!" Huh. Rian sounded shrill, and there was not a syringe in sight.
"Consider it incentive to resolve the matter quickly," Lori said blandly. "It's not that hard. Just sit in front, assign people to rooms and make sure they don't stay there the whole night. I'll even build you a water clock to keep track of time." She paused. "Tomorrow. I'll still need to calibrate it, after all…"
"Maybe we can let anarchy reign?" Rian said desperately. "Just for tonight? So that when we lay out rules for how things should be done tomorrow, people will see it as an improvement?"
"Making people suffer to make any alternative seem palatable? How cruel of you, Rian."
"Didn't you deactivate all the lights, water and hot water in the demesne once?"
"Of course not. They just ran out in my absence. Which is perfectly natural."
Rian rolled his eyes. "You realize the two of us being in here so long is going to get people thinking we're testing the facilities, right?"
"We are testing it," Lori said, swinging a door open into the hall and shutting it behind her to demonstrate, then using the simple wooden key—basically a flat, thin piece of wood that could lift the simple latch that locked the door from the other side by passing it through the gap between door and frame—to open the door.
"Not the kind of testing people will be thinking of," Rian said, looking aside and blushing.
Lori stopped, and directed a glare towards him. "Go out there and correct them," she said. "Now."
"Historically, that's never helped these kinds of rumors," Rian said, still looking aside.
"Then inform them that anyone mentioning that nonsense within my hearing will be my signal to level this entire building, now or in the future."
"That will work better. I'll go tell them."
When Lori finally stepped out, her inspection done, people studiously avoided her gaze. She nodded, satisfied, then turned and softened the stone above the door and began writing with her staff.
When she was finished, the stone had a simple sign on it that read 'Um'. Lori turned as people gaze at the sign curiously. "The Um is now available for use," she said. "No children are allowed inside the Um for ANY reason. No, not even just telling someone to come out. ANY reason."
She turned and headed for dinner.
"Have fun," she heard Rian say, much too cheerfully, before his footsteps fell into step behind her.
"The 'Um'?" he said incredulously.
"Well, what would you have called it?" Lori said.
"Well, I'd have called it the… um…"
"Exactly," Lori said, letting herself smile. "Best to use the first thing that comes to mind."
Behind them, the first yelling—someone had apparently cut in line—started.