While Lori did not develop a rhythm, since with every explosion she made slight adjustments to the configuration of the ice, stone and temperature, trying to create better rocks with each explosion of steam, she did become better at dealing with the aftermath. Earthwisps reinforcing the stone structure of everything she didn't want to explode, which was everything else in the third level; gathering all the steam and condensing it back to water and then ice so she could prepare of the next attempt; using a binding to use a large mass as a sort of shovel to push all the rocks she had exploded in the depression off to one side; and resetting for the next attempt.

The next attempt was always different, since she was never satisfied. She changed the shape of the ice that she would convert into steam, to see if it would exert force better. She altered the shape of the stone she softened and poured over the ice, to see if it would fracture better. Whether she should use thin or thick layers, slabs or rows, just a single layer of ice under rock or multiples…

By the time Rian came to retrieve her for lunch as she was setting up for another attempt, the third level was… messy. While the area of floor that she was methodically blasting apart was relatively neat, the same could not be said for the rest. Rocks with sharp and angular shapes and edges littered the whole level seemingly at random, with a few smaller pieces having somehow reached all the way to the far wall.

"You know, I think this is the most cluttered and disorganized I've ever seen one of your projects," Rian said, looking around and moving carefully as he nudged and kicked rocks out of his way. "Do you want me to have some people come down here to gather all the rocks and put them all in one place?"

Lori hesitated, looking around. It… was looking cluttered. "Yes, it is looking cluttered," she agreed. "Very well, arrange it after lunch. I'll delineate an area for them to dump all the rocks into."

Rian nodded. "You will, of course, not be doing any exploding while they're down here, will you? People are much easier to break into little pieces than rocks."

"Yes, I am familiar with the damaging effects of explosions on the human body," Lori said tersely. She began making her way up the stairs. She was getting really tired of those stairs. Maybe she should try and build some kind of pulley lift system so she wouldn't actually have to climb… ?

Her lord hesitated. "Uh, how do you know?" Rian asked, looking disturbed. "Have you actually—?"

"No, of course not!" Lori snapped. "There was a demonstration at school. They used a fresh corpse operated by a Deadspeaker, and the professor showed us the effects for our benefit. Afterwards, the Deadspeakers went to observe how to make repairs on a damaged corpus and we Whisperers learned about explosions. How do you know the effects of an explosion?"

"I used to work at a lumber yard with its own sawmill for cutting the wood down to size," Rian shrugged. "We had lots of sawdust, and were always being told horror stories about old fires that lumberyard workers apparently pass around as a morbid form of teaching fresh meat."

"Ah," Lori nodded, trying to ignore the burning in her legs from having climbed up and down all morning because it had been too dangerous to stay on the third level during explosions. "We had those in carpentry workshops too. There's always a candle or a lamp and a windy day—"

"—or some first day Whisperer student who tries to use wind to sweep up instead of a broom—"

Lori made a face. "Ugh, I hate that story. I wasn't even allowed to have a cool breeze on my face because of it. That was actually a specific clause in my employment contracts!"

"Speaking of which, you know those kinds of explosions happen with flour too, right?" Rian said.

Blink. "They do?"

"Apparently, it's even worse than sawdust explosions. Uh, the miller actually asked me if anything can be done in the gristmill alcove to block off the wind from the air circulation? If nothing else, we need to block it otherwise we'd lose a lot of flour to being blown away. He was fine up to now, but earlier today the wind suddenly started blowing into the alcove for some reason, and he had to suspend the day's milling because of it."

Lori sighed. "I'll fix it after I mark off a place for the rocks," she said as they finally reached the dining hall. "Get people started on that after lunch." Now that she wasn't setting off explosions any more, it occurred to her she should probably see how much rock she'd managed to break apart, so as to get some kind of idea of her rate of production, and compare how much more stone she had to make.

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said. "Do you also want me to assign a group to you to take care of clearing the rocks after every explosion so that you can do it more efficiently? I can ask Riz to be in charge of them so you don't need to remember anyone else's names."

"That's your job," Lori said as they both sat down at the usual table. Usually, she'd have gone up to her room to wash her hands… but at that moment, she couldn't stand the thought of climbing another flight of stairs. She'd just have to be careful not to touch her food. Riz was already there, and she leaned against Rian with a sigh, not even glancing Lori's way as she sat with her hands under her armpits. Was it that cold? Lori braced herself and deactivated the firewisps around her, but while it was a little cool, it wasn't cold…

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"I could do it if you want," Rian said, "they don't really need me to supervise getting the winter crop ready, but given this is just picking rocks off the ground, I figured you didn't need me specifically. Between the minor changes to the Coldhold to make it easier to handle for long periods of time, keeping people from brawling, getting winter clothes made for everyone—"

"Fine, fine, Erzebed can be in charge of the rock collectors," Lori sighed. Winter clothes. Yes, the children would need winter clothes, wouldn't they?

Next to Rian, Riz blinked and straightened up slightly. "Wait, I'm doing what?"

Rian suddenly looked very awkward. "Uh, yes… Riz, could I, um, ask you for a small favor…? Please?"

Riz sighed. "What do you need me to do?"

As Rian explained, Lori wondered if she could overcome her reluctance to go upstairs to get her almanac while she waited for lunch to be ready. It wasn't that far up… no, no, no stairs right now. She'd just stay here and sit. It would be more comfortable if she had something to lean back against so she could really relax, but at least she was off her feet now…

"All right, I can do that. Just picking up rocks, I can find some crawlers to help with that," Riz said, looking relieved.

"If any decisions have to be made, her Bindership will probably be making them," Rian assured her.

Riz nodded, then sighed and reluctantly got up. "I'll see who's up to a little rock hauling. Just hauling right, no need to actually break the things?"

"Her Bindership has already done all the breaking needed. You all just need to gather them up and put them where she says. You, uh, might need to do it every day from now on, since we'll need a lot of rocks for the Dungeon farm."

"But we won't need to break it apart ourselves, right?" Riz said.

Rian glanced at Lori, who waved a dismissal. "Just clean up," she said. "And only do so when I tell you to."

"She's not kidding," Rian said. "She's been making explosions all day."

Riz nodded. "What can we requisition?"

"I'd suggest one of the carts," Rian said, "but use your own judgement. Who knows, maybe everyone you find will be a masochist who likes picking up rocks one at a time in their bare hands and walking back and forth for each one." Lori twitched as her legs started to ache just thinking of it.

"I'll ask Raradina if she's free, then," Riz said.

Rian blinked, and Lori found herself doing the same. "Wait, there's actually someone in the demesne who fits that description?" her lord said, sounding incredulous.

Riz coughed, looking aside. "I said nothing of the sort. To imply such about anyone would be wrong. And very silly."

Rian looked up at the ceiling. "Fine, fine. I'm hardly in any position to judge the sorts of things people might be into in their private time."

"As a lord, you actually are," Lori pointed out.

"I meant morally."

Lori rolled her eyes. Silly thing to worry about. "Do you have any updates for me?"

"Well, we've finally installed Mikon's filter cloth onto the Coldhold's evaporator and have been testing it on the greenish salt," Rian said. "We dumped a little of it in water as a test, got it all dissolved, then ran it through again, and the cloth managed to catch all the green stuff. Though at that point it was starting to turn a little grayish-brown, so it was probably dead. Definitely something that had been floating in deep water. I'm having all the salt run through the evaporator again, and when it's done we can send the Coldhold out to collect more salt. Soon we'll have salt for food, industrial needs and for trade. Also, just in case you forgot, the monthly ice block to River's Fork is due in the next shift change."

Lori nodded. "Noted," she said. It had been written on her list of reminders, but given how there was really no pressing need to keep track of what day it was, she was glad of the reminder. She hadn't missed a scheduled exchange yet, though she had more than once made the ice in the time between the two batches of miners being ferried to the other demesne.

"Also, I think the seels are getting ready to migrate away," Rian said. "Karina told me there are fewer seels this week compared to last week, and more and more are swimming downriver. On that note…"

Lori sighed. "What now, Rian?"

"I was wondering if you'd consider heating a portion of the river near the seels as a sort of experiment," Rian said. "About whether or not that can entice them to stay. We've got a lot of meat stored up now, but if and when we lose the seels we'll finally need to start digging into our cold storage reserves, since that's probably about the time trying to hunt for beasts will become harder, assuming they don't migrate away as well. Besides, knowing if we can get a few to stay would be good to know, and would get us just that little bit more meat, furs and skins that we might need."

"Rian, that's not how rivers work," Lori said, annoyed. "Water flows downriver. Any water I heat wouldn't stay where it was, requiring me to heat all water that passed through." True, she could set up a binding of firewisps that cycled and moved heat only in a given area, so that water warmed when passing through its boundaries and grew cold again when it had passed, letting the overall heat remain the same while at the same place...

Rian shrugged. "It was just a thought. Well, it's probably best if people start staying away from the river unless they absolutely have to. It's getting so cold that even a person who can swim might not be able to save themselves."

"Don't talk about yourself in the third person Rian, it's an irritating affectation."

Whatever response Rian might have given was interrupted as Mikon and Umu finally arrived with lunch. Rian looked like he had to physically stop himself from taking some sort of action to help as the two women put the five bowls and cups of water in front of him—Mikon took the opportunity to snare a quick peck on the cheek—since he seemed to realize anything he did would only disrupt what they two were already doing. "Thank you Umu, Mikon," Rian said as Lori took one of the five bowls and cups and started eating.

The others quickly took their own bowls—Rian somehow managed to choose last, which was probably intentional on his part—and started eating as Lori let her mind wander, trying to think of arrangements of stone and ice she hadn't tried yet that would result in rocks the size she wanted. Maybe Riz and her rock gatherers would finish quickly enough she'd have time to try again…

In the meantime, she'd have to do something else. Something that, hopefully, wouldn't require her to climb any more stairs until it was time to go to sleep for the day…