Rian was the first out of the bathhouse, wearing a new set of clothes and holding a bundle of cloth that looked distinctly like a used set under one arm, the pack that he'd given Lori before he'd left over his shoulder. He headed to his house, putting the clothes and the pack on the table, sighing in relief. He looked around, seeming to note how clean everything was, sighed in what seemed to be relief, turned and then recoiled.

Lori blinked at him. "What?" she said.

"You were there?" he exclaimed, voice slightly high-pitched as if he just seen her drawing blood.

Yes…? Obviously. "Yes, obviously," she said. Lori had most definitely not been loitering around the bath.

Rian stared at her. "Did you follow me?"

Of course she had. How else had she gotten here? "Of course I did," Lori said. "How else would I have gotten here? I saw you were done, so now we can talk."

"We still need to unpack the Coldhold," Rian said. "Is this urgent?" He frowned. "Wait, did someone get murdered while we were gone? Is that it?"

"No, of course not. Don't be silly," Lori said. "If someone had gotten murdered, I'd be in my room with all the food as I waited for the murderer to die."

Rian opened his mouth, paused, looked thoughtful, then opened his mouth again. "All the food?" he said.

"How else is the murderer going to die?"

"So, your plan for if a murder happens was to literally starve everyone else to death?" Rian said, sounding very much like her mothers.

"What else can I do? It's not like I can find out who did it," Lori pointed out reasonably.

Rian stared at her. "Because finding out would require talking to people, which you don't want to do, and you don't trust anyone else to find out for you because they might be the murderer?"

Lori nodded. "Exactly."

"What, even Riz?"

"Especially not Erzebed, if the person murdered was Umu."

Rian sighed. For some reason, he started smiling a small, pained smile. "Yup, I'm definitely back." The smile widened slightly. "So, did you miss me?"

"Yes, your competence was definitely missed." It had been, after all. "Now, I need you to get to work."

Rian sighed again. "Can I have the day off to recover from the trip?" he asked.

"No," Lori said. "You can do that some other time." Tomorrow was going to be a rest day, after all.

"Ah, nothing like coming home to make you wish you were somewhere else wishing you were home." Rian had a look of resignation on his face, despite the fact he was still smiling a little. "All right, what do you need me to do?"

"I had Erzebed go out and hunt some beasts to roast," Lori said. "She can handle the food. I need you to organize the celebration of the safe arrival of the Covehold expedition."

Rian blinked. Slowly. It was just fast enough to not simply be him closing his eyes for a moment. "You… want me to organize the celebration for our safe arrival…"

"Yes," Lori said. "Upon consideration, Erzebed isn't very good at it, so it will have to be you. You have until the hunting party comes back with meat to properly organize it, otherwise it will likely start regardless, and then it will be a chaotic mess."

Rian looked towards the ceiling. "All right. Can I unpack the boat while I think it over?"

She gave him an unamused look. "Rian, I am not letting you procrastinate to solve the problem."

"I'm not procrastinating! I need to think about it, and I might as well be productive while I'm doing it."

Lori stared at him, then nodded. "Fine. Yes, be productive." She tried to think of anything else she needed to inform him about. There were several, but getting to them now would take too long. "Actually, did you bring back anything?" Her eyes narrowed. "How much did it cost? Are there any beads left?"

"Yes, we have beads left," Rian said. "And yes, I got you new boots, new underwear and new socks. I hope you appreciate how embarrassing it was for me to buy women's underwear for you."

"I appreciate it," Lori acknowledged.

"I'll organize what I found into a report and get it to you," Rian said. "But tomorrow."

"Yes, yes," Lori said, "but what did you bring back?"

Rian grinned. "I got you a nice book I'm sure you'll like."

She gave him an unamused look. "Rian, you had better not have wasted our beads on lewd illustrations."

"Wha… NO! I got you a little almanac that was being published locally. It has notes on local species, edible foods, things like that, but the reason I got it for you is because there's a section on magic that the Dungeon Binders and wizards around Covehold and the demesnes around have been finding useful. I skimmed it, and a lot of them seemed very useful and fun to use. There were also some illustrations and things I didn't understand which I'm hoping you did, since it seemed to be a description of how to actually make the magic in question. To be honest, I have no idea what any of it means, since it's all in weird notations, but I figure you'd know. I even got it packaged in glass to bring it to you so that it wouldn't get iridiated and damaged, which was expensive… but you wanted glass too, right?"

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"Those were probably flow diagrams," Lori said, but her eyes were wide with excitement. If it was public knowledge, there was probably nothing truly amazing in the almanac, since anyone who had managed to innovate something like that would keep it to themselves, but if they were useful… besides, she'd been starved of reading material that wasn't something Rian had written even before she'd founded her demesne! At this point she'd have read anything, even those obviously made up stories included in lewd illustrations!

Well, only one or two, they were boring and repetitive and she'd never seen the point of them, but they'd be words in a narrative order and she was desperate.

"I'll give it to you later, it's buried under all the medicines and medical supplies and seed crops," Rian said. "Don't give me that look, I need to supervise unloading a boat while trying to plan a celebration. I'm already doing a lot."

Lori huffed. "Fine. Be quick."

"Yes, your Bindership," he said cheerfully. It was that obfuscating cheer that she suspected was occasionally false.

Lori nodded, hesitated, then turned to go. "Well, welcome back," she said, dismissing him with a wave.

"Hey, Lori?"

She stopped and looked back towards Rian. "Yes?"

"I missed you too."

She frowned at him. "Too?"

For some reason, Rian rolled his eyes. "Well, I have things to do and you're distracting me."

"You're the one who called me back!"

"Yes, yes, this is my fault, I'm aware."

Lori nodded curtly, turning and leaving the house. She turned and headed for the bone pit to get some teeth. Rian was back, and she had to finish making lima pieces so she could utterly defeat him with her new game board…

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Rian went straight to the Coldhold, only barely slowed down from waving at everyone he passed and saying a few words to them. By the end of it, there was a small group of men with him, who followed him to the boat as Lori sat on the seat she'd made next to the addition at her Dungeon's entrance. He slowed down a little when he saw Umu on the dock. Lori couldn't hear what they said, since she was minding her own business and extracting the enamel from the teeth and separating it from the bone, but they talked briefly, and there was a lot of nodding on both sides. Then Rian waved at Umu for some reason, even though he was standing right in front of her, and stepped around her, moving hurriedly towards the boat. Lori got the sense that the men around him were amused. That sense was greatly helped by the big smiles and audible laughter as Umu walked away, heading hurriedly back to Lori's Dungeon.

"Umu," she said as the woman was about to pass her.

The weaver jerked to a stop. "Yes, your Bindership?" she said.

"I assume you kept anyone from trying to get on board the boat."

"Yes, your Bindership."

Lori nodded. "Good work. I assume you'll be returning to the table now that Rian is back?"

The weaver's face reddened some more. "Yes, your Bindership," she said almost defiantly.

Another nod. "Well, I'll tell you the same thing I told the other two." Though, come to think of it, she hadn't really told Mikon, had she? She'd have to remedy that, that woman was the most actually capable of flirting of the three, and therefore was the one most likely to be distracting. "Whatever you have in mind, don't let it get in the way of Rian's duties, understood? Your desires are far less important than the continued survival of the demesne. Am I clear?"

A stiff nod. "Yes, your Bindership."

Lori nodded. "Good luck, then." She dismissed the woman with a wave as she continued.

Umu stood there for a moment before wandering off. Lori wasn't sure if she was weaving or helping with the threshing or something else. Well, not her problem.

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The hunting party came back before sunset, with their own handcart of meat that, given it had been out in the open air and was probably full of dustlife, would probably all be roasted, lest it go bad. The cookfire and bonfires were already lit and ready, and some tables and benches had been carried out of the dining halls. The lightwisps she'd bound to the corners of homes were just starting to become visible, and the Coldhold had been unpacked, the contents stored in one of the alcoves of the second level. Lori had needed to raise a wall in front of it to close it off so that things wouldn't be 'misplaced'. Rian had actually asked her to do it, a notable departure from his usual almost naively trusting nature.

"I'm not taking any chances," Rian said with overblown grimness as she built the wall with stone, building a little doorway that she would block off with a boulder, mostly because it would keep her from forgetting where it was. "The boys and I sailed a long way over dillian-infested waters to get those things, I'm not letting any of it get lost." The shudder that came next seemed more genuine. "One followed us around for a day and kept bumping into the hull. At that point we pushed the ship as fast as it would go".

That… actually did seem fairly terrifying. Lori remembered seeing dillians sunning themselves on the surface of the ocean on the crossing, and they had looked intimidating from the safety of the large, fast-moving boat. She didn't' want to think of what it would have been like to encounter them on the much smaller Coldhold.

Riz had gone with the hunting party, which explained why she hadn't immediately presented herself to Lori asking if her tenure as temporary assistant was over. Because when the hunting party arrived and Riz saw the Coldhold being unloaded, she immediately sought out Lori.

"Great Binder!" she declared, skidding to a stop in front of Lori.

"Don't run down the stairs, it's dangerous," Lori said reflexively.

"Great Binder, you said this was a temporary position. Rian's back, so that means I'm done, right?"

"Not yet," Lori said, pausing in her construction. "You're not done until you report everything that's happened to Rian and inform him of everything he's missed."

"But then I'm finished, right?"

"Yes, yes, then you're done."

Riz sighed happily, then turned with a bright smile towards Rian, who'd been standing nearby and completely ignored. She opened her mouth.

"Later," Lori interrupted. "Rian is busy."

"EH?-! But… But…"

"You're still working for me Erzebed," Lori said. "Go and make sure dinner gets done."

"Come on," Rian said. "We can help make sure all the plates are ready and you can start telling me what I missed, how about that?"

Riz blinked, looking torn, but sighed and started to smile. "Sure."

Lori rolled her eyes. "Don't waste time flirting," she said, going back to finishing the wall.

"I wasn't flirting!"

Lori gave Rian a flat look. "I wasn't talking to you."

"I'm pretty sure she wasn't flirting either."

Her look didn't change, but she glanced at her temporary-and-soon-to-cease-to-be assistant. Then she shook her head. "Just get to work, you two. I don't want a repetition of the No-Plate Crisis of Eventually."

"Yes, your Bindership!" Rian said brightly. "Go up without me Riz, I'll catch up."

Riz nodded, turned and headed up.

There was silence for a moment.

"So… you're avoiding the issue?" Lori said as she finished building the wall, and started to make a boulder to block the hole with.

"I'm… procrastinating?" Rian said, looking embarrassed.

"That turned out terribly last time. Find a different solution."

A sigh. "Yes, your Bindership."

"And don't let this interfere with your duties, understood?"

"Very clearly, your Bindership."

Lori nodded. "If you need advice on how to prevent it from interfering with your duties, ask Riz. She managed to get her duties done while being constantly flirted at."

"I'll remember—wait, what?"

"What I said. Now stop procrastinating and get to work, or the dinner celebrating your arrival will turn out terribly. Go, get moving."

"What happened while I was gone?" Rian said, sounding incredulous, but he did as he was ordered, muttering to himself.

Lori hummed to herself as she finished the boulder, securing the spoils from Covehold. Then she went upstairs to clean her stone plate in preparation for the meat to come.