The river continued to rise, becoming more turbulent as it did, rising a third of the way up the flood barrier. This probably wasn't solely because of the rain, since the river had been low when they'd arrived the year before, and it had still been raining then.

Rian and Lord whatever-his-name-was checked the river every morning, debating whether it was safe enough to take Shanalorre back to River's Fork before reluctantly admitting it was still too dangerous. However, enough time had passed that the beasts had managed to find something to eat, and so a volunteer accompanied by the hunters again tried to reach the other demesne overland. Lori had personally had given them up for dead.

Well, less mouths to feed, and since there were other hunters who knew how to cure hides, skins and furs, it wasn't a total loss to her demesne, though it would slow the tannery down a little.

Lori began expanding their cold rooms upwards. She carefully excavated stone from their ceilings, using that to make a support pillar in the center of the room to help support the weight of the stone. The room might be small enough that she could just keep digging upward, but she wanted to be sure the ceiling wouldn't collapse under the weight of the stone above. Still, a single support pillar would do. With that in place, she excavated upward, doubling the height of the cold room.

She had to be careful to work around the empty wooden shelves filling the cold room, at least until she gave up and found Rian to tell him to get her people to move all the shelves to on side so she could excavate the room properly.

"So, you want the carpenters to put on a wooden floor above this?" Rian said once the shelves had all been moved to one side.

"Yes. I'll take care of building the stairs. Make sure to tell them that the floor needs to be able to support more shelves."

"May I ask why you didn't just make a second level out of stone?"

"Air needs to pass through the floor so that cold air can circulate and make the cold room cold. Also, this was faster."

"Faster for you maybe, but it'll take some time for the carpenters to build a second floor," Rian said, looking up where the ceiling was partially excavated. "Especially if it's supposed to be able to hold up shelves of meat. Can't you just dig shelves out of the wall?"

"I could, and intend to do that once the floor is in place, but that would be a waste of space. At least have them build some shelves for the middle of the room, around the support pillar."

Rian sighed. "Well, we'll have time. Once you finish digging we can move the shelves back in place and use it as we have been while we build the next floor and shelves. I'll go and have people move the shelves in the other empty cold rooms for you. Call me when you're done so we can put the shelves back."

Lori nodded absently, getting back to work excavation the ceiling. She had to be careful so that stone wouldn't fall down and damage the shelves, so she had to move the stone over the shelves first—

Rian came back into the cold room. "Lori, did you add these lights after you started working in the cold room?"

Lori gave him a strange look. "Of course. Why would I work in the dark?"

Rian nodded. "That's what I thought. Could you come and put some lights in the other cold rooms so we don't have to work in the dark while we're moving around heavy furniture?"

––––––––––––––––––

After putting in lights in the cold rooms and connecting them to her Dungeon's lightwisp binding, Lori finally finished excavating the first cold room. She used the excavated stone to add some stairs just to the right of the door, so that the carpenters would know how high the floor needed to be. That way they wouldn't just build at random, and it was convenient for storing meat on both floors.

She spent the next two days working on the empty cold rooms, excavating the ceilings and putting stairs to the side of the door. Only the cold room that still had food in it was left untouched for now, but she'd already given orders that, once she'd filled the expanded cold room with solidified air, that all new food be put in those and the remaining cold room be allowed to empty so she could expand it. The carpenters had begun measuring the first cold room for the floor, which would mean they'd need wood for beams and floor planks, which she'd need to cure once it was cut… ah, and she'd need to make more solidified air for all the cold rooms once they started filling up…

"Binder Lori, can we have a holiday?" Rian asked brightly at dinner that night. Next to him, Riz perked up with interest.

Lori blinked, disturbed out of her musings. "What?"

"A holiday," Rian repeated, still smiling. "We probably should have had one sooner, but now's a good time as ever. None of the buildings are in need or urgent repair and I'm told the crops are doing well and just need to grow. Now is the best time for a holiday."

Lori gave him a flat look. "We've just spent the past two days excavating our very empty cold rooms."

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"The one cold room that still has food in it is still mostly full," Rian said. "Come on, the food won't last forever even if it's frozen. We managed to survive the winter, no one died of anything, and all the births turned out well. If that's not a reason to have a holiday and celebrate, what is?"

"There's work to be done," Lori pointed out.

"Yes, but it's all work we can still put off for a day, as opposed to being very urgent and immediate because survival is at stake. All the urgent work has already been done. Come on, please? We haven't had one this winter yet. Consider this an 'end of winter' holiday." Next to him, Riz nodded enthusiastically, looking at Lori with pleading eyes. Lori ignored her

"I'm fairly certain winter ended when the river melted," she pointed out. "Besides, it's still raining outside. We can hardly hold a holiday out in the rain."

"As it happens, we have a nice, spacious floor that everyone in the demesne can fit in with plenty of space to spare—"

"We are not having a dragon shelter party!" Lori snapped.

"It's not a dragon shelter party if there's no dragon to shelter from," Rian said brightly. "And I'll have everyone stop making music by sundown."

"I'm not having people light fires down there to roast meat! That will fill my Dungeon with smoke! It will stain the ceilings with soot!"

"And people will suffocate," Rian said.

"If they light a fire in my Dungeon, and stain my ceilings, I'll let them!"

"I see… yes, that's a valid objection, I guess."

What?

"If only we had someone who could create a heat source intense enough to cook meat that doesn't produce smoke…" Rian said with a wide smile. "Then we could have a holiday indoors complete with roasted meat…"

Lori gave him an unamused looked.

"Come on… we can open up more of the honey and make honey bread… or hey, we could try cooking the meat with a sweet honey glaze, maybe? Plants will be flowering soon, so the sweetbugs can go out and collect more of the sweet green stuff…"

"That sounds absolutely disgusting," Lori said.

"All right, admittedly we might be lacking a few ingredients to make the glaze properly, but we have honey, we have salt, a little jar of vinegar, some vauang, we have all those other spices we've been growing in the Dungeon farm, why not give it a try? Someone must know how to make a good honey glaze from those things."

Oh, right. They did have spices now, didn't they? "Do we even have enough of those?" Lori asked.

"We have enough to give our holiday food a little kick," Rian smile became a grin. It showed teeth and everything.

Lori twitched. "Fine," she conceded, and ignored the cheers that came from all the other tables around them. "However! Before you can have a holiday, you need to go out and see if you can hunt more beast meat to start replenishing our stores. If you bring in some new meat, you can use an equal amount of the frozen, stored meat for holiday food the day after."

"Aw, you're just worried we'll all starve to death, aren't you?"

"No, I'm worried I'll starve to death if you manage to use up all the food in storage."

"Well, nice to know you don't see us as emergency food."

Lori made a face at the terrible joke, as did Riz. "Rian, don't be disgusting. This is a civilized demesne, not the Armada."

"I'm fairly certain the Armada doesn't actually eat their dead, just use them as fertilizer."

"You're the one talking about people as emergency food," Lori pointed out.

"Yes, I regretted it as soon as I said it. Please still let us have a holiday?"

"For your tastelessness, you are only allowed to use half as much frozen meat for all the fresh meat you bring back."

Rian sighed, but nodded. "Understood, your Bindership. Bring back twice as much meat."

Lori nodded sharply. Emergency food… really, sometimes he just wasn't funny.

"You're really going to have a holiday?"

Lori turned towards Shanalorre sitting with her on the bench. The other Dungeon Binder politely stayed quiet whenever she spoke to Rian about the demesne's matters, but she supposed they were done speaking now. "Yes," Lori said. "I'm told its occasionally necessary for people to rest. Personally, I don't see how it counts as rest when they seem to be even louder and rowdier than they usually are."

"What do you do on holidays?" Shanalorre asked, wide-eyed and curious.

Lori shrug. "Eat roasted meat instead of stewed meat… or soup, in this case. Make a lot of noise. Sing loudly. A few people dance. People play boards games, and sometimes do so in tournament format. The children play games all day. "

"Please don't make our holidays sound boring and no fun, your Bindership," Rian said. He looked sideways at both Shanalorre and Lord whatever-his-name-was. "It's not as boring as she makes it sound, I promise."

Shanalorre nodded. "Then I'll look forward to it, Lord Rian, provided we're still here when it occurs."

––––––––––––––––––

Half a week after they left, the militia that Shanalorre had sent to River's Fork with a message and the hunters who had accompanied them returned, still alive, looking worn but relatively uninjured. The party that had gone out to hunt beasts to replenish their cold room encountered them making their way back, the hunt was put on hold as they escorted the group back to the demesne.

"They managed to make it to River's Fork, where some people had apparently managed to convince themselves that we've taken their people hostage, and the remaining militia should arm up to try and get them back," Rian explained to Lori. "When our people and Shanalorre's volunteer showed up, those same people accused them of more of the same and that our message that everyone was all right and would be returning once the river had settle enough to make travel safe was a trick while we murdered their Dungeon Binder."

"Idiots," Lori said. If she wanted Shanalorre dead, she'd have been dead already. There'd be no need for messages or anything like that.

"From the sound of it, either Shanalorre or Yllian foresaw the possibility of this happening and prepared confirmation codes with the militia that remained behind before they left," Rian said. "Thankfully, it was just a few people making trouble. Everyone was too tired to bother listening to them. They've been busy making their own flood barrier with rocks and baked mud, and making sure it didn't leak, tending their own vigas fields, and doing their own spring work. Though Shanalorre's aunt sent them some fruit to bring back here."

Lori frowned. "Fruit? Why?"

"Probably because it was the only well-preserved, portable food they could give our hunters, and maybe as thanks for taking care of their Dungeon Binder?" Rian shrugged. "Maybe they're just being kind to travelers."

"The first one sounds more likely."

Rian shrugged again, then grinned. "Well, in any case, the fruits should be a good addition for trying to make that honey glaze sauce!"

"Why are you so focused on that honey glaze sauce?"

"Because plain roasted meat is getting just a little repetitive, all right! This will be great for morale!"