"Erzebed," Lori said at dinner, "I will be making improvements to my Dungeon's front entrance tomorrow. Inform everyone that after breakfast, no one is to pass through my Dungeon's entrance, as I will be building and do not intend to be inconvenienced."

Riz had the look of someone who wanted to groan and was trying very hard to hold it inside. "Tomorrow, Great Binder?"

"I just said that, didn't I?"

Riz looked around and sighed, but didn't argue. "Yes, Great Binder. I'll let people know…"

Mikon reached over to pat her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll help you. If we work together, we can get the word out quickly."

The temporary Rian sighed in relief. "Thanks," she said. "That would be a big help."

The hand on the shoulder gave a brief, comforting squeeze. "Don't worry about it," Mikon said, smiling gently. "Relax, finish your dinner. Why don't you take a bath, that way you can relax and tell the women there. I'll just finish my game with her Bindership. Unless there was anything else you needed to tell her Bindership, or something she needs you for?"

Riz glanced at Lori, who waved a negligent hand in dismissal. "I'll need you close by tomorrow to run errands or tell off people thinking they should be allowed to pass through, so make your arrangements." Lori tilted her head as a thought occurred to her. "Do you still manage the Um?"

"Only when I have nothing else to do," Riz said. "So, not tonight."

Lori nodded. "All right. Well, do as you've been told and finish your dinner. I have a game to win."

Riz glanced down at the board. It wasn't quite all of Lori's pieces surrounding Mikon's lone Binder and core—that was a product of satirical drawings and adults humiliating children—but Mikon was clearly going to lose soon. "Uh…"

"No hints," Lori said sharply.

Riz glanced at Mikon and gave a defeated shrug. "Good luck then," she said, giving the hand on her shoulder an awkward pat of consolation. She stood up, taking her bowl and eating quickly as she walked, moving to talk to various people.

Lori ate her dinner at a more leisurely pace as she waited for Mikon to admit defeat. To her credit and Lori's own enjoyment, Mikon kept at it, but it mainly resulted in Lori simply taking one of Mikon's pieces almost every turn until the weaver finally had to admit defeat.

"You seem to be progressing well with Erzebed," Lori said idly as the other woman symbolically handed her their core piece in surrender, her voice soft so as not to be heard among the other tables. "Try not to distract her too much. She's competent, but she's still not as good as Rian."

"She's trying," Mikon said mildly, voice equally soft.

"Yes, she is," Lori nodded. "And just barely succeeding. I wonder how much of that is because of you?"

A cheerful, unreadable smile answered her. "I'm just helping, your Bindership."

Ugh. She and Rian were made for each other. "Hmm…" Lori fixed Mikon with an intent gaze. "Do not try any of that with me, understood?"

The smile didn't waver at all. "I understand, your Bindership."

Lori gaze didn't waver. "I mean it. Whatever nonsense you get up to, keep me out of it, understood?"

The weaver blinked at the vehemence, then slowly nodded. "Understood, your Bindership."

Lori eyed her suspiciously, but nodded. "Good." She began to put away the board and its pieces.

Mikon continued to watch her. "Well… good night, your Bindership. Shall we play again tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Lori said absently, waving her off as she continued to put away the game board. She paused, staring down at the board, then up at Mikon suspiciously.

"I'm not flirting with you," she said hastily. "It's just… it's fun to play."

"You keep losing," Lori pointed out.

"Yes, that's frustrating…" Mikon sighed. "But until then, it's fun. If you must find an ulterior motive, Rian likes it when he sees you playing with me."

Lori sighed. "I will never understand that man."

"I'm sure the feeling is mutual, your Bindership."

––––––––––––––––––

The next day, after breakfast, Lori got to work. Fortunately, Riz and Mikon had managed to notify everyone as she had ordered, and after a rush to go out the door—or in the case of the weavers, ropers, carpenters and kitchen workers, go in—people avoided the entrance to her Dungeon, leaving only Lori and Riz, who was standing with the little wooden stool next to her, not that Lori felt like she'd need it.

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She and Rian had spoken about modifications that would allow fresh air to continue to circulate through her Dungeon even during a dragon while keeping dragonborn abominations out. It had been just after the last dragon had visited, and while not enough time had passed for another dragon to be due, it was enough time to start thinking of the next arrival.

Lori hoped it didn't come any time soon. She didn't want to think of what could happen to the Coldhold if it encountered a dragon out in the open. She didn't want to, but the thought stalked insidiously on the edges of her thoughts, like a beast waiting for fallen prey to bleed out.

…

Lori began to work.

Unfortunately, she couldn't just start excavating the stone above the door to raise the height of the ceiling there to make room for an air vent to let more air into her Dungeon. For one thing, it was dangerously close to her room and her bathroom. And she was fairly sure she had a pipe passing through there, so she would have to build outwards to construct the modifications she wanted. No, despite what she wanted, she would have to build outward from the current entrance of her Dungeon, which was why she'd been excavating so much stone from what would become the third level. Right now she didn't have nearly all the stone she needed, but she had enough for the basic structures, with the rest simply being protective mass against impacts from things falling from the sky.

Lori started by marking the ground with lines to map out what she wanted to build, using darkwisps for the purpose so that the lines wouldn't be disrupted. A hallway here, about as wide as the door they currently had so that they could reuse the door… no, wait, wider, that was better… a little side area here so she could build some stairs to reach the upper area with the opening where their air would be coming in through… the door would be reinstalled here, so the opening to let in fresh air would be above it, one level up… Walls along here, which would support a roof so that dragonborn abominations couldn't come down from the top of the cliff and climb into the air intake… and opening would be over here, no door, just an opening… stone would fill the hallway to either side so that there would be a bulwark between the Dungeon and the dragon…

The last line of darkwisps was laid out on the ground and she looked up to see the final dimensions she had come up with. The tube-like lines of darkness along the ground cast no shadows as she began to properly measure with her staff. All in all, the current front door would need to move three paces, though she could probably cut that down to two… ah, and if she moved the alcove with the stairs to the other side of the entryway… the intention had always been that the smithy would be inside the Dungeon, with an opening to vent out heat and smoke, so she could make a passageway towards the smithy past the stairs…

She finished adding in the new lines and releasing the darkwisps on the ones that were no longer relevant and looked at the arrangement she'd made again as Riz sat down on the wooden stool in the shadow of the Dungeon, looking bored. All in all, it would extend the entrance of her Dungeon out by about five, six paces, which would cut into the open area they had in front of the Dungeon. She could cut it short, but if she did, the pit meant to deal with dragonborn abominations might not be as effective at deterring the things. Such a small pit would hardly inconvenience a beast, much less an abomination. Still, there would still be plenty of room, so they wouldn't lose the open area entirely. And there was no reason why she couldn't extend the pit past the opening…

Lori paused and looked down, then groaned. If she did that, she'd be cutting through various pipes that carried water from the water hub shed to the baths. She'd have to sink to pipes down deeper, or at least divert them around where she planned to dig the pit…

She sighed. Well, one thing at a time. For now, she'd build the walls, just to start getting some work done. Fortunately, the thickness of the walls wouldn't matter because she wasn't going to have space on both side, so they could be as thick as she felt like making. Lori walked toward the pile of excavated stone and bound the earthwisps there, pulling a third of the current mass out of the pile. The stone flowed like a thick paste as her binding made the stone more viscous and fluid, and she pulled the stone towards the line she had marked out for a wall.

Lori soon lost herself in the familiar work of raising up a stone wall: clearing away the dirt, bonding it to the bedrock, making sure it rose up straight so all the weight was supported, and making sure the wall itself was properly vertical. She should probably make the ground stone too and not just packed dirt, so that it would be easier to make a defensive pit later, and so she could give it better drainage for when it started raining. Their experiences when they arrived showed them that this area experienced a lot of rain early in the year.

Lori had managed almost the whole length of wall when Riz approached her. "Er, Great Binder? Can we start letting people into the Dungeon now? It's coming on noon."

It was? Surely not, it wasn't that hot yet, and Lori had been standing out in the sun all morning. But when she looked, the sun was high up and the shadows were short. Huh… "Fine, let everyone in," she said. "I'll meet you at the table."

Riz nodded, walking quickly towards her Dungeon's door and swinging it open, gesturing for people to come in. Now that she was paying attention, Lori found she was a little sweaty. She should probably get her hat after lunch to protect her head from heatstroke…

Shaking her head, Lori stepped back and inspected her wall. It stretched out the whole length of the line she had made, and rose to about chest height. She might be able to get it up to six or seven paces high by this afternoon, though it would need more mass behind it. And she supposed it would be shadier when she worked on it after lunch…

For now though, it probably just looked like a strange wall in front of her Dungeon.

Lori stood there, examining her wall but mostly waiting for people to stop crowding around the front of her dungeon. She wondered if she should make it smoother, make it harder for abominations to climb… No, she could just coat it with wet ice when the time came, that should be enough…

"Great Binder?"

Lori glanced sideways at her temporary Rian, who was looking curiously at the wall. "What is it, Erzebed?"

"What exactly are you building? N-not that I'm questioning you, it's just I don't know what it is… "

Lori hummed. "Rian and I once discussed improvements that could be made to let the Dungeon better survive against dragons." She patted the wall. "This is one of them."

Riz frowned. "I… see?"

Lori sighed. "I'll explain it to you at dinner. Perhaps you'll be able to provide insight." She hadn't the last time, but then Rian had been distracting her, and it hadn't been her job to provide insight then.