"We'll have to go to the spot at the edge of the demesne where it happened," Rian said thoughtfully after she finished relating matters to him. "If nothing else, if this somehow deformed the terrain, it might be a good idea to see how."

"Unlikely," Lori said. "The wisps weren't anchored to anything except to hold them in place, otherwise I would be distending the ground at the borders of the demesne at every expansion."

"I should probably go check, just in case," Rian insisted. "Dismissing something and not going to check it out is also a form of plot-contrivance that leads to horrible consequences."

Lori rolled her eyes. All right, even if she hated the obvious utter stupidity of that particular plot contrivance herself… Ugh. "Fine. We'll go check it out as soon as it's feasible."

"Absolutely not!" Rian said. "'We' are not going anywhere! I'm checking it out, you stay here in case it's something horrible and deadly!"

"Rian, it wasn't Deadspeaking, you're unlikely to find some twisted abomination that cannot survive without magic."

"And that's exactly the sort of dismissive attitude that gets the annoying scholar or lord or so-called expert killed early in the story as comeuppance for their arrogance," he pointed out. "No, no, we don't send the vitally irreplaceable person into this strange, potentially dangerous situation. You've injured yourself and gotten assaulted going to the latrine, let's not add a third thing. I'll go, you can lead me from here."

"And how am I supposed to lead you from here?" Lori snapped irritably. While he made several good points, especially about her safety… Ugh. She hated it when Rian was right.

"You can track me with my glow rock, so when I'm close, just put some kind of glowing signal over where I'm supposed to go," Rian said. "It'll be another thing we'll have to remember to do once the storm is over. I'll have to remember to write it down. Now, about your new expansion technique…"

"It's not a new technique. Using it resulted in an unforeseen effect. I have no idea what the result was, but it clearly wasn't expansion," Lori said.

"Not necessarily," Rian said. "You said yourself that having the big binding made putting magic into everything easier, and it was faster and less tiring than what you had to do before. If nothing else, integrating it into at least the preparatory step of your expansion procedure will save you on time, effort and literal headaches."

Obviously. "Obviously," Lori said. "That much is blatantly obvious. I was already planning to do that." Really, her biggest regret was the utter waste of imbuement that would result from it. If she should lose her control of the wisps after expansion as she had done previously, all that imbuement would once more go to waste. "I'll have to experiment on how quickly I can bind everything again after the expansion stage to keep the imbuement from dissipating…" If she worked quickly and systematically—and if her head didn't hurt too much when she did it—she should be able to claim a significant portion of the wisps into a binding again before the imbuement substantially dissipated.

"If there's any imbuement to dissipate," Rian pointed out.

Lori paused, frowning. Ugh! "You're right," she hissed in frustration. "It was right in front of my face! I even did a standard expansion before the phenomenon and saw it happen." There had been no leftover imbued wisps when she had bound the Iridescence as everything came together. "Stupid! I could have realized how unnecessary this was earlier!"

Rian's voice was annoyingly reasonable. "Well, like you said, a better preparatory step that doesn't wear you out is already a significant improvement, and it means you still don't have to worry about a post-expansion clean and reset stage. That's all improvement as far as I can understand."

Lori grimaced but had to reluctantly agree. "Yes, yes, I suppose. Still, I was hoping that the procedure would allow me to immediately reset to the pre-expansion phase with already imbued wisps so I could perform multiple expansions per day."

Rian tilted his head thoughtfully. "Maybe you still can?"

"Oh, undoubtedly," Lori said. "With the improved preparatory phase I might be able to perform two, perhaps three expansions a day." She allowed herself a chuckle. "That would triple your precious numbers."

"Why stop at three?" Rian said, still sounding more thoughtful than excited, the fingers of one hand moving, either counting something or drawing a sketch only he could see.

Lori considered the question. Actually… "I could perhaps experiment to see how far I can push it," Lori said, voice becoming equally thoughtful. "With sufficient practice and habit, I could become faster at the preparatory stage." She'd never seemed to get better at it with the method she'd previously used, but with what she had done to set up the binding today… well, such a simple, rote procedure's only possible problems was her mind wandering from boredom. She could easily start increasing the relative area she claimed as she spiraled around her demesne, over time. In a few months, she might even be able to claim the entire border of her demesne in one move out of sheer habit… "I'd need a brief rest after every expansion before setting it up again, but since the new method isn't as strenuous… "

"What if you ready several preparatory stages at once?" Rian said.

Lori blinked, staring at her lord. "What?"

"You said the big binding for the preparation stage is like a shell around the demesne, right?" he said. "What if after you set it up, you put up another shell just inside it instead of waiting until after you've expanded to make a new one? Several separate, already prepared stages that you can use immediately after your first expansion of the day. Well, after you let your head rest, anyway. Expand the demesne, rest for a bit, grab the next prepared shell and expand again. Or is there some reason why that won't work?"

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Lori paused, thinking about. Multiple prepared bindings, all layered one within another… "I see no reason why not," she said mused. "As long as each successive layer isn't anchored or bound to the next..." She could already see it. Multiple nested layers of bindings… Ah, and running though all of them, a single point of connection that she could easily dissolve, but while it was in place, she could imbue all the layers simultaneous!

Actually… if the layers would need to be connected to be imbued…

"I might not even need multiple bindings…" Lori mused to herself

Rian blinked. "You don't?"

Lori nodded slowly, still thoughtful. "Another possibility is I simply create one binding that I divide into multiple layers…" It was… theoretically possible, though already her mind cringed at trying to conceptualize how she would do it. Impulsively, she claimed some airwisps, and then formed them into a ball around some other airwisps that she didn't claim. Then she tried to separate the ball into two layers, but forming the proper mental image was difficult…

Rian was completely unaware about any of this. "Like a spiral!" he said. "Instead of making ends meet into a sphere, you make one end go under the other and loop it around as many times as you need! Then you break it up and fuse pieces together to form layers!"

Lori paused, blinking as the description translated itself into her mind. A spiral… "Yes, I suppose that's one way to do it," she said thoughtfully. She'd been thinking in terms of height, length and width, but Rian rendering it in terms of a spiral let her let her simplify the concepts involved. "A spiral with height, length and width…"

"Like a slug shell," Rian suggested.

Oh. That was an easy image to remember. While not perfect spheres, the image of the spiraling shell some kinds of slugs had was far simpler to visualize!

"I shall have to test the idea," Lori said, mostly to remind herself. "While theoretically possible, it might be difficult to actually form the binding in the shape in question. While time consuming, forming individual shells is simpler and does not require esoteric visualizations." And given how her mind already flinched from expected pain from just thinking of how to form a binding in a massive spiraling shell…

"Hmm… very true, very true," Rian mused. "Actually, this is a multi-step process, right? Then it's probably best to keep the steps as simple as possible. The fewer details to worry about going wrong, the better."

Oh. Yes, he was correct. Even though a waterjet cutter was capable of complex shapes and cuts, most of the time the cuts done were straight lines, or at best circles that could be achieved by slowly and carefully spinning a piece of wood on a secured axis point. Complex curves were the domain of hand saws, and were slow, taxing work.

Lori glanced up and through her awareness of wisps, she saw her shell around her demesne, slightly distended and with holes in it. "Of course, these improvements rely on the fact that the preparatory binding can be used for the expansion process."

"Easy enough to test, right?" Rian said. "Just get rid of the binding and expand as you normally would."

"Yes," Lori agreed, then sat back, making herself comfortable. "Easy enough to test…"

"Wait, you're doing it now?"

"Quiet."

"Shutting up, your Bindership."

Leaning back and closing her eyes, Lori took control of the massive binding once more…

…

The result was almost anticlimactic. After making the binding expand beyond the borders of the demesne to claim the wisps immediately adjacent to them, she dissolved the massive binding, bracing herself for the sudden voracious increase in the rate that imbuement was being devoured by the Iridescence. Once she was actively controlling all the imbued wisps with her will alone, she simply expanded as she normally did, binding the glittering rainbows beyond the edge of her demesne to her will.

And that was that. Her dimensions of her demesne expanded, and now that she was properly paying attention, she saw how none of the imbued wisps remained from her expansion. A part of her felt strange, expecting the usual headache and tiredness, but there was none of the extreme mental fatigue she had come to expect after the process. Far from it, in fact…

Lori opened her eyes. "The expansion was successful," she told her lord succinctly.

Rian nodded and—where had he gotten that wooden tablet? Oh, it was the one on her table with his 'encouraging numbers' on it—wrote something on the tablet he held with his charred wooden stick. "Wonderful," he said. "Do you feel like you're capable of performing the steps again? Preparation binding, imbuement, expansion? I wouldn't suggest doing it right this second, but if you had a short rest, do you think you could do it again today?"

Lori considered the question. She felt a minor throb in her head, but beyond that… "I might need a nap," she assessed, "but that was because I had pushed myself earlier to counter the phenomenon, and I've just finished claiming. With a nap, I'm certain I can do it again at least once more today."

Rian nodded, writing this down. "If you had a binding for another expansion you'd prepared earlier, do you think you'd need the nap?"

Lori titled her head. "A nap would be nice, but I think I can manage another expansion at this moment, provided the binding had already been imbued," she mused.

More writing. "How about I set the water clock for an hour and you take a nap. Once you're done, I'll time how long it takes you from the start of preparation until you finish expansion. We can work out an improved schedule for you then."

Lori's head throbbed. "Make it an hour and a half," she said.

After all, she'd already expanded he demesne twice today, even if the first instance had been negligible. A third instance could wait.

Rian nodded. "Do you want anything for your head? I can probably get you a spoonful of honey, tell them it's for emergency medical reasons."

The thought of the thick, green, sweet syrup was terribly tempting… "Just get me something to drink," Lori said as she arranged her bedding bad pillow for a nap. "And be sure to wake up on time."

Later that day, the third expansion of her demesne was, if anything, even more anti-climactic. There were no more unplanned surprises, no supreme efforts of will or quick reactions. To an outside observer, she simply lay back with her eyes closed as Rian watched the both her and the water clocks. A close observer would have seen her head moving side to side in small motions, seen her eyes tracking beneath her eyelids.

After a little over an hour and a half, just as dinner was being served, Lori opened her eyes. "Done," she said. "Expansion complete."

Rian hummed. "You said making the preparatory binding took you an hour this morning, not counting fully imbuing it. Do you think you managed it faster this time?"

"I do not know," Lori said thoughtfully.

"Hmm… We might need to time that as a separate step," Rian said. "It seems like it's the step in the process that will take up the most time."

"I'll be able to shorten it," Lori said, waving a hand dismissively.

"Hm… well, if you say so. How are you feeling? Tired? Headache? Need more sleep? Spoon of honey?"

The honey was tempting…

"I'm well," Lori said as she pushed herself up from her reclining position, moving her back to to bring feeling back to the parts that had gone a little numb.

Rian rolled his eyes. "Are you at least feeling better than how you usually would after the old expansion process?"

Well, that was easy to answer. "Far better," she admitted.

Nod, note. "All right, excellent! You did it twice and it didn't exhaust you. A success by any standard. You'd never have even tried doing it twice in one day with the old one."

"We still need to see how much the demesne expanded," she pointed out.

"Until this storm blows over, I don't think we should worry about those numbers too much," Rian said, though he looked frustrated as he said it. "Better to think about the results we can measure, for now."

She supposed he was right. "I suppose you're right," she allowed. "Now help me up, I'm hungry."