Contrary to her expectation, the three women didn't try to get Rian alone in his house so they could have their way with him, though they probably wanted to. Instead, what happened was that other people started coming over to Rian's house to talk and relax, in the same way they sat around in front of the baths or lingered in the dining halls. She suspected Riz had something to do with that. Her temporary Rian knew a lot of people. The front of Rian's house gained some benches and convenient rocks to sit on. Lori would have found this extremely disruptive and annoying, but Rian was a twisted, twisted person, and thus he was soon coming to breakfast as well-rested and cheerful as usual.

She vaguely wondered if he'd taken up Mikon's offer to lie down with his head on her lap. Probably not.

Lori, for her part, just gave him a rock with lightwisps bound to it. It was another thing she would have to remember to imbue, and was added to the list on her wall. Her wire was still being made, but when it was finished, she resolved to try and wire as many bindings as possible directly to her core so that they would be self-sustaining. She also put in the shelves into the walls of Rian's house like she said she would, so that Rian wouldn't have to put his things on the table or under the bed where they'd get dusty.

The large water jet for the ice boat had been hollowed out from wooden blocks, which when put together created the hollow tubes that the water jet needed to direct water. The blocks all had slots that allowed them to be locked in placed by sliding in a specially shaped length of wood, which could be locked in place with a wooden peg. Put together, the whole water jet block was about a pace and a half long and half that wide. It was heavy enough that Rian thought it would suffice in place of putting weight on the keel to help keep the boat level. It also needed reinforcing beams underneath to support its weight, which were still not finished.

The smiths finished drawing wire and the container for her blood from the gold Lori provided them. She now had… well, a very, very long length of wire of the smallest diameter the smiths had on their draw plate. It was thicker than a hair, but not by much, and very flexible besides. She had to wrap the whole thing around a branch, and even as tightly wrapped as possible, it was still a fairly sizable roll slightly smaller than a head.

While the support beams were being completed, Lori worked on preparing the water jet. She lined the tubes with stone to waterproof the block, and prevent leakage as much as possible. Then she prepared the central block. Or rather, had the central block prepared. One of the carpenters took a chisel to it to make a space for her little gold container where it could easily be accessed, and she placed it into the recess with wire leading from it to the inside tube of the central block, sealing the recess with stone. She'd put her blood in it later.

She had the water jets blocks put together so she could test how well the central block slid, and how well it worked with a binding of waterwisps inside it. Or at least how well water flowed through it, especially the holding loop. It seemed to be working…

When the support beams were finished, Lori was there to watch as the blocks for the water jet was installed. A holding box was built to hold the blocks and Lori sealed all the gaps with bone to waterproof it.

"I think we might have to open it up and shave a little off the central block once it's been in the water for a while," Rian commented as she was sealing it all up. "Wood expands when it gets wet, right?"

"Let's see if we can solve that before we move on to shaving," Lori said. "Otherwise there's no going back."

"True…" Rian said. "Are you going to line the tubes through the ice with anything or are you just going to leave them as ice?"

"Probably best to line them, in case something gets drawn in through the waterjet."

"What about where the water goes in?"

"Lined, but there's no reason to make them as long as you designed. After all, why get water from the front of the boat when you can just draw in the water from slightly in front of the water jet? After all, the propulsion come from the water going out, not getting pulled in."

"Oh, right… I guess I was just thinking in straight lines. We'll know for sure how well this works when we test this in the water."

"I heard the rudder's pivot broke."

"It turns out it was a bit too small for the whole rudder assembly, so it's being remade thicker. Hopefully that will be enough, since if it breaks while we're out there, it will be really hard to fix. I'm thinking of asking two of the carpenters to come along for repairs."

"What's your plan for repairing the boat if the ice breaks?"

"Hope it doesn't happen?"

She gave him a flat look.

Rian shrugged. "Well, you said I'm not allowed to recruit anyone, especially wizards…"

Lori couldn't fault his reasoning.

––––––––––––––––––

With the block of the water jet in place, Lori bound ice into a hull again once the rudder was repaired, this time with a thicker, more robust pivot, so they can test how well it worked. The intakes for the water jet as well as the reverse thrust outlet were positioned between two planks, the ice reinforced with a thick bone tube, just in case.

"I really wish we had a better way to steer," Rian sighed, holding the tiller as the ice boat bobbed and swayed in the water. Every so often it would jerk as it reached the end of the rope that tied it to the shore and rebound back until the current pushed them back again.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"As the one in charge of having this boat built, isn't that on you?" Lori said absently as she bound water to flow into the water jet so she would have enough water to bind for the water jet binding. "Can you move the central block to align with the loop?"

"Setting the waterjet on neutral," Rian said, sliding the central block using a lever. "It wasn't like I didn't try, it's just that we didn't have enough materials for what I wanted to do. Trying to control it with a wheel would have taken a thicker rope than we had the materials to make, given we need rope for other things. So we're going to control it with the tiller and just someone at the top deck to call directions. That's part of what we have to test now. If you'd be the one to give directions, since you tell me what to do anyway…"

Lori looked up towards the highest point of the ice boat, which didn't look all that safe. "No," she said bluntly.

Rian followed her gaze. "Fair enough, I suppose. All right, not from there, but we still need to test steering. Is the water jet ready?"

Lori finished binding the water in the three tubes in the block. The water started flowing, looping around in the circular tubes as intended. She nodded. "All right, it's ready. Try the thrust." She had made the thrust fairly powerful, since the ice boat was so big. She doubted the small amount of thrust that Lori's Boat could manage would be enough to move this much mass.

"Setting the water jet to one-third thrust," Rian said, moving the lever. The boat began to move forward, if slowly, but they were pointed at the shore, and Rian hastily moved the lever again. "Setting the water jet back to neutral!"

"Are you going to do that every time?"

"Do what?"

"Announce it whenever you do something with the water jet?"

"Isn't that what they do on boats to acknowledge that you heard the captain's orders?"

"So it's not just you being theatrical?"

Rian had the gall to look affronted. "I'm never theatrical!"

Lori gave him a flat look and decided to just drop the subject. "Are we going to test this with the boat tied up?"

"No, your Bindership," Rian said cheerfully. He called out to those on the bank. "Untie the rope!"

"Yes, Lord Rian!" someone answered.

The rope was untied, and the boat began to drift free on the river's current.

"Well, let's go," Rian said. "Tell me which way to go so we don't hit anything, your Bindership!"

Lori sighed and moved as far forward on the boat as she could until she could see ahead. The boat was already moving as Rian called out, "Setting the water jet to reverse!" The boat slowly began to move away from shore as Rian moved the tiller all the way to one side. The boat began to turn.

Well, she supposed it was a little useful…

Lori frowned, as she looked forward, then turned back to Rian. "Rian, why are we going upriver?"

"I figured it would be best if we find out if this can go against the river's current, otherwise getting home is going to be very problematic." They became parallel to the shore and Rian hastily straightened the tiller, then moved the lever. "Setting the water jet to one-third thrust!"

Lori frowned, but she couldn't fault that reasoning. She shrugged and looked ahead. "A bit to the right. We're still close to the shore."

"Yes, captain! Turning right!"

Lori blinked. "Captain?"

"The one who gives orders on a ship is always the captain," Rian said cheerfully.

Lori frowned. "I'm the Dungeon Binder. That surpasses any other rank."

"Traditionally, a captain on his own ship is considered above a Dungeon Binder who's a passenger."

Lori stared at him. "You're making that up," she accused.

"Would I lie to you?" Rian said, smiling brightly.

Ugh, she hated it when he smiled like that. It was only now that she realized it was completely unreadable. "More to the right, unless you want to test how well this thing does at hitting seels."

"Yes, captain! More to the right!"

Slowly, the boat moved upriver.

––––––––––––––––––

"Well, I think that went well," Rian said later at dinner, his bright, unreadable smile still in place as they waited for the food to be ready. "Though we might need to have two people handling the tiller at a time. It gets really tiring after a while."

"Your problem," Lori said, setting up her sunk board. Her mood felt lighter today. "You'll be bringing a lot of people, might as well make them useful."

Rian nodded. "Yeah, I suppose. Now we just have to figure out storage and sleeping arrangements. Even if it's a lot bigger than the boat we're using to carry miners, it's still pretty cramped for ten to twelve people to live in for I don't know how many weeks."

"Your problem," Lori repeated. "Unless you think you can assign someone to go in your stead now?"

Rian sighed. "No, I have to go. We'll need the medicines when the babies start getting born."

Lori blinked. "What?"

"Well, Lori, when a man and a woman love each other very much, they go to the Um…"

"We have pregnancies?" Lori interrupted, still surprised.

"Why wouldn't we? People literally have nothing else fun to do."

"I would have thought people would know better than to get pregnant in our situation!"

Rian stared at her blandly. "Clearly you were wrong," he said. "What did you think we needed the medicines for, cuts and scrapes? Shana—"

"Binder Shanalorre," Lori corrected.

Rian sighed and looked up at the ceiling for a moment. Eventually he looked back down. "Binder Shanalorre can handle those, but childbirth is… more delicate, or so I'm told. Women can die in childbirth very easily, you know."

"Yes, it comes up a lot in plays and novels as to why the main character is an only child with no mother."

"There you go, then. Unless we get the medicines the doctors and medics say we need, either a lot of children of the next generation are going to have that backstory, or a lot of men are going to be less their wives and a hypothetical child. But that won't be until the second trip, once we find out how much things cost, what sells and whether we have any of it…"

Rian glanced up as Riz arrived at the table, nodding towards her, who nodded back. "Enjoyed your break from being temporary Rian?" he asked. "And I hate I managed to say that seriously, ugh."

"It was a good rest," Riz said. "But I'm getting used to doing as the Great Binder needs. Though I might need to start a still, with all the favors I've been asking."

"We don't have enough food to use for that," Lori said.

"I know, Great Binder," Riz sighed as she sat down. "Something for the future, just like with everything else."

Umu and Mikon arrived shortly thereafter. The blonde instantly went to sit in the open spot next to Rian, not seeming to notice how the other weaver deliberately stayed back to let her. Riz glanced at the other pink-haired woman for a moment, then to Lori's… well, not surprise, but it definitely merited a raised eyebrow, shuffled a little to the side to make room between her and Rian. "You probably want to be close to play with the Great Binder," Riz muttered.

Mikon smiled brightly. "Thank you, Riz. That's very thoughtful of you." She leaned forward and—

All right, Lori was surprised as Mikon gave Riz a quick, almost thoughtless peck on the cheek. Certainly Riz was surprised, eyes going wide as she put a hand on the cheek in question, as if protecting it from another approach. Umu and Rian were both staring with identical raised eyebrows.

Ignoring all this, Mikon sat down on the space next to Rian, a cheerful, unreadable smile on her face.