Lori was surprised at how day to day life seemed to remain largely the same, even when it finally started snowing.

Oh, there were changes. Their meals became more of a soup than a stew, becoming a bit more watery but warmer, and the addition of the salt was obvious. There also seemed to be a bit less meat and a bit more tubers, which wasn't an unpleasant change in Lori's opinion, and hers was the only opinion that mattered. She supposed it was in response to the cold, a more warming dish that was just as or even more filling than before, with their bowls now usually filled to the brim.

The children spent more time in the second level, helping with the spinning, tending the planter boxes full of tubers or playing games in the third level when they thought they could get away with it, despite them clearly being audible. The seels had also disappeared from the river, having migrated away as Rian had predicted, with the few that had remained being quickly caught, skinned, gutted and butchered into food. Smoke rose from all chimneys seemingly constantly, and all the houses now had shutters that were secured and shut, probably rendering them very dark…

Beyond that, however, people still worked as hard as ever. Lori had thought it was only people in the city who were up and about in winter because of all the sources of heating and the inexorable needs of finances and industry leading to year-round work, and that a small place like this in the middle of nowhere would be idle and lazy as people slept or played in the snow, waiting for winter to end. Apparently not. There was firewood to be gathered and cured, ropeweed to go in the retting tank and removed when they were done, latrines to be emptied out, soap to be made, the fields tended and patrolled to make sure the chokers didn't dig up the seed crop and eat them. She'd have thought that with the cold the chokers would… well, die or something. Surely beasts weren't meant to survive in this sort of weather? It was barely fit for humans! Supposedly the chokers would be less of a problem when enough snow had fallen that the little beasts wouldn't be able to dig through it to reach the planted seeds.

At least she assumed so, as Lori didn't really feel it. Even when it actually started to snow, indicating that the temperature was definitely cold enough to turn water into ice, all she felt was a moderate cool, as if it were a pleasant night. The only indicator of the cold for her was the cloud formed by her breath as the moisture in it condensed. But Rian said it was 'cold enough to keep the Coldhold from melting', while shuddering almost comically until the heat in her Dungeon finally managed to warm him, and as the one in charge of telling her how cold it was, he would know.

Lori received a lot of sideways looks from when she walked around to cure the wood in only her usual clothes, though she wore her raincoat to keep the snow off lest it melt and get her clothes wet, as well as her hat to keep the snow out of her hair. If anything, she found conditions to be more irritatingly wet than cold. She left slush in her wake as snow she stepped on warmed, and if she stood still long enough she could find herself in a puddle of mud. It was extremely unpleasant, and the only way to counter it was actively controlling the firewisps around her to not impart heat into her environment, which needed her concentration, or willing the firewisps to deactivate, which left her suddenly freezing. Lori got very good at moving quickly, stepping carefully, and only standing where there was solid footing.

She had more work to do. The smithing area needed to be enclosed, bindings of lightwisps placed so the smiths could see what they were doing, airwisps to circulate the air to keep it from being too hot or letting suffocating air linger, and the outflow of the furnace needed to be siphoned out and vented elsewhere. Lori ended up combining the outflow of the smith's furnace and the kitchen and venting it out through the small water reservoir in the water hub shed. She added more lightwisps to her Dungeon's entryway so it wouldn't be so dark, and bound firewisps to start warming the air passing through there so that it would be a comfortable temperature once it entered her Dungeon.

Lori also assisted the potter in firing an array of strange pots, which she later learned was for heating water inside people's homes. Now that it was winter, it seemed people wanted to drink their water warm, and they had apparently managed to find a weed that grew quickly enough that people had kept a small pot of it in their home for the purpose of adding the leaves to boiling water to make a sort of tea, as well as using other leaves they had found, gathered and dried over the warmer months. So far, no one seemed to have gotten sick, delirious, or poisoned from all this, and some had actually been mentioned in the almanac as being suitable for exactly that purpose, though Lori didn't think that would last. Sooner or later someone was going to find a weird leaf…

What people were wearing also changed. First children, then some women who Lori had thought had simply gotten fat but in hindsight had probably been pregnant, began wearing what Lori assumed were the 'winter robes', long-sleeved, encompassing robes that were worm over regular clothes, and held closed in front with a belt, sash or ties of some sort, finally explaining where all the fabric she'd seen being woven for months had gone. They seemed padded with some sort of stuffing, mostly likely consisting of the down fibers and feathers from beasts that had been collected thus far, making the winter robes thicker and likely more insulating. The sleeves were sometimes wrapped closed by cord or cloths along the forearms, just below the elbow, though that seemed to be a matter of preference. Most walked with their hands folded in front of them, stuck into the opposite sleeve, especially the children. There were also hoods made from furs, or on occasion furry hats with flaps that came down the back and sides, and might as well have been hoods in practice.

Even Lori received such a winter robe, given to her by way of Rian… and notably after everyone else in the demesne was already wearing one, which was… annoying but logical. When she finally opened it up and examined it, she found it to be a largely square garment, as if someone had taken a large padded square, folded two of the edges together to meet in the middle, stitched along one end so it wouldn't fall off your shoulders, and added sleeves. There was a wide sash included, which was apparently meant to hold the robe shut. It was long enough to be comfortably used as a blanket, which was apparently exactly what it was used for at night. She had to admire the ingenuity of the garment, intended to keep one warm at all hours of the day. Together with her blanket, it made for a comfortably cozy cover, even if the firewisps around her rendered it largely irrelevant. Still, there was a difference between comfortably cool and comfortably warm, and with her winter robe and blanket, at night she was the latter.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Though she had to wonder how people kept warm while their winter robes were being washed… not that they seemed to be doing much laundry anymore, since the laundry area was always empty…

"…"

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"Umu," she said flatly, staring the blonde weaver straight in the eye over her bowl of soup, "answer me: are people doing their laundry in the bath house?"

Instead of being nervous, Umu just looked awkward. It might have had something to do with the fact that Rian had both arms wrapped around her waist and was pressing up against her back, which was an awkward pose when they were sitting next to each other, forcing Umu to lean forward slightly with her elbows on the table. While most people opened their winter robe or even took them off in the dungeon, Rian not only kept wearing his at all times, but often supplemented it with his blanket. "Uh, yes, your Bindership," she said, blushing.

Lori nodded. "And has it made the bath house more crowded, and harder to take a bath in?"

"Uh, a little," Umu admitted. On Rian's other side, Riz was partaking of her soup with great enjoyment, glad to finally be able to eat, as Rian had only just let go of her. For someone who had seemed so uncomfortable for weeks when the three had started becoming openly physically affectionate with him, he seemed to have shed all such inhibitions once he realized that such affection was very warm. Literally. "The laundry area is just… well, too cold to use right now, so we've all been washing clothes in the morning and just bathe at night, uh, your Bindership."

"How do you dry the clothes?" Lori asked intently.

Umu glanced over her shoulder at Rian, who simply had his eyes closed. Then, almost reluctantly, she looked towards her fellow weaver, looking at her pleadingly.

Mikon smiled at her, then reached out towards Rian and nudged. "Rian, your food is getting cold," she said. "Let Umu talk to her Bindership and eat so you can get to work."

"Awwww…" Rian sighed, but reluctantly let go of Umu. He looked at his bowl, then at his hands, and Lori literally saw the moment when he wondered whether he could stick his hands into his bowl…

"If you stick your hands in the bowl, you'll need to wash them." Evidently, Mikon had seen the same thing. "They'll just be cold again."

Rian sighed again. "So cold," he pouted, but began to eat, blowing on his spoon before swallowing, though he soon stopped with that, sipping the warm food straight.

Umu sighed in relief and sat up straight. She still looked embarrassed as she answered, "We hang them in front of the fireplace at home, your Bindership," she said. "Some we hang in front of the windows to block out the cold and the occasional draft when we're sleeping."

Lori considered that. "Not the second level?"

Umu shook her head. "Too windy, your Bindership. While it's warm now, if we put up washing lines, it would block the air and clothes would likely fall off, so we'd need to wash them again, and the wetness on the clothes will cool the breeze."

Lori sighed and made a note to enclose and heat the laundry area. Or at least enclose it and leave people to handle the heating themselves. "Noted, Umu. Rian, why didn't you bring this to my attention?"

Rian gulped down his current mouthful of soup. "Because I don't do my own laundry and didn't know?" he said. "I've never seen anyone doing laundry in the men's bath beyond a stained shirt, and usually only when it's a stubborn stain they know their wife will be annoyed about."

Lori pursed her lips, but nodded, accepting the reasoning. She glanced sideways at Riz, but dismissed her. While she assisted Rian, it wasn't in an official capacity that Lori recognized, and as she recalled the woman didn't have the sort of initiative to report such a thing. That glance shifted to Mikon, at the end of the line opposite her… but telling Lori such things wasn't the woman's job, was it?

There was something disconcerting about finding out something by herself when she should have reasonably have heard it from other sources first, only those sources had good reason not to inform her until she brought it up. Perhaps this was something that Rian would have found out later that day and informed her about?

"I'll see what I can do about making the laundry area usable again, given current conditions," Lori said, "though given those same conditions, it will probably still be necessary for the laundry to be dried in your homes. Rian, remind me when we—" Lori shuddered "—get back from River's Fork."

"Yes, your Bindership," Rian said. He had a towel over his shoulders, which had been wrapped around his neck and mouth in place of a scarf. To be fair, he wasn't the only one who did that, and not just with towels. Lori actually felt sympathy for the person she'd seen with what was clearly a sock wrapped around their mouth.

Lori didn't want to leave her demesne. She very, very much didn't want to. In her demesne she controlled all the wisps, she had her awareness of them. Outside of her demesne, the only benefit she had from her connection with her Dungeon core was that it afforded her boundless magic without having to draw it in with her breath. Which… admittedly, was still a significant advantage… but it wasn't an overwhelming advantage.

Still, she had no choice. Part of the deal with River's Fork was dividing the mined copper between them, and… well, River's Fork hardly had the resources to extract the metal from the ore. Not in any sensible timeframe, anyway. Trying to transport their share of the metal in the form the raw ore was nonviable, even with the Coldhold. So the ore needed to be smelted and refined, and one of the terms of her contract with Binder Shanalorre was that she would assist in doing so by providing the heat. It was either that or load the ore into the Coldhold, and not only would that be inefficient, they would also need to hope that the unrefined metal in the ore had been properly divided evenly.

True, Rian had asked some of the miners to keep track of how much ore had been extracted so they had their own count, but the numbers were inconsistent and often didn't agree, which Rian said probably owed to the miners being busy with… well, mining. Still, putting the miners' counts together gave them an average of seven thousand sengrains of raw ore. Which was… not inconsiderable, but not nearly as much as the total amount of metal they had collected in dragon scales. However, the miners were all certain that this was a rich vein, and with more men and better equipment far more could be extracted…

Lori sighed and focused on eat her breakfast, hoping this wouldn't take long but already not very confident. Hopefully she'd at least get some bread out of this.