There was, really, not much adjustment needed for the integration of Shanalorre and the new residents into her demesne, beyond Shanalorre stationing herself at the hospital while she recovered from her blood loss. The militia who had accompanied her had been integrated into the workforce, assisting with the logging, sawing, farming, the rising need to keep chokers out of their farms while fences were being raised, and the clearing operations to prepare for expanding the agricultural fields. Since there were only a handful of them, it wasn't particularly significant assistance, but at least they were properly earning their keep now!

Rian in particular seemed happier as he set Yllian to compiling and keeping track of the resources the demesne had at hand. Lori was surprised to learn—though she probably shouldn't have been, given Rian's obsession with numbers going up and down—that her lord had taken it upon himself to keep track of the amount of meat, vigas, vigas ground into flour, tubers, planks, bundles of firewood, buckets of coal, logs growing mushrooms in the mushroom farm, amount of mushrooms harvested per log, salt, distilled gold water, soap, chiyudrops of honey, furs, skins, hides…

She stopped listening well before he finished he completely enumerating the list, but it was lengthy. Rian had been having some people keep track of each thing and report to him how much of each had been used or produced at the end of the day. He compiled that together in his house every night, keeping track of it all on a plank. Every week, he recalculated how much the demesne had made or used of each resource, which he apparently used to project how long the resource would last…

"That does not have to recalculated every week!" Lori declared when he had told her what he was having Yllian do, horrified at the repeated calculations that would require.

"I beg to differ," Rian said. "Depending on the time of year, we would be using more of, say, coal and wood, or producing more soap and hides. With this I'll know what we need a ready supply of at what time of year and when we're likely to have a surplus of something so we know when we have to allocate labor to what. It'll basically be our demesne's own little almanac." He actually seemed proud of it.

"Which you have now delegated to…" Lori checked the rock she'd taken to carrying around with the name inscribed on it. Much less likely to break than a stone tablet, "…Yllian." She glanced at her new lord, whose sooty hands and too-tired state on arriving had prompted her to ask Rian what he'd been making the man do.

"Only putting together the numbers. I do the final calculations and records myself, so it all fits onto the plank."

A thought occurred to Lori. "If you're recording these in planks, where are you keeping them?"

"Under the bed, where else? Uh, while we're on the subject, can I start storing them in the vault? It's getting hard to clean under the bed because of the planks."

Lori sighed. "Is it really necessary, Rian?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Rian said, shrugging his shoulders. "This is a long term project whose benefits likely won't be obvious for a few years. But currently, it's letting me keep track of our food supplies, better predict how long they'll last, and let me plan for the trip to Covehold."

Ugh, fine. That was just barely beneficial enough to allow him to do it for now. "Ugh, fine. That's just barely beneficial enough for me to allow this for now."

"May I assist in that as well, Lord Rian?" Shanalorre said from where she was sitting. "I know my numbers. I can help Lord Yllian."

Rian stared at the other Dungeon Binder, then turned to Lori. "Can she? It'll give her something to do when there's no one to heal, which is most of the time."

Lori hesitated, glancing at sideways at Shanalorre. The girl stared back at her blankly. "Fine. She can assist you while she continues to recover her blood." Ever since she had surrendered to Lori, the other Dungeon Binder had been having her meals supplemented with beast liver and marrow, the traditional remedy for blood loss. Well, the one they had available. They could have filled her veins with the blood of others, but no one knew what flavor her blood was, and the few people with smooth thin blood couldn't give her too much since they had to work as well. Still, Shanalorre was in no danger, merely lethargic as she slowly recovered.

Work also began on the new houses, both for the petitioners and those who would be moved from River's Fork. While she wanted to just continue to extend the original row of houses, latrines had been set up at the end, and she didn't want to move those. Actually, the area might actually need a few more for convenience. There had actually been a small line when she had been there looking for a building site.

After examining the area available, she decided to put the new houses opposite the old row, just past the basin that was filled with drinking water by the aqueduct. The ground was stable enough for her needs despite the rain, the undergrowth keeping the dirt together, though she'd need secure the slope against collapse too. The site was well away from the direction their farmlands were going to expand while still being close enough to be convenient.

The first thing she needed to do was to move the stone there to build up a foundation. She still had a large amount in the stockpile, but given they hadn't had a dragon in some time, she opted to keep them in place to protect her Dungeon. While she had Rian dig up the site to get the soil out of the way—they could move the soil down to the Dungeon farm to expand the plots—she worked on excavating more stone.

The third level wasn't even a tenth of their above-ground farmland and barely a third the size of the second level, and while she had stopped excavation because of other matters, it was far from completed. Lori spent a relaxing few days expanding the third level, furthering the expansion tunnels and knocking down the walls between them to make pillars with arching supports to hold up the ceiling. She intended the third level to be a massive and able to provide food for at least the town around her Dungeon, but that would be a work of months, possibly years.

For now, expansion was limited by the fact she was the only one capable of excavating, and the fact the stone had to go through the rest of her dungeon to be removed. Still, it was a useful ready source of building material, and there were always more things that needed to be built. After excavating out the expansion tunnels and a few plots on the ground to be filled with rocks and dirt to farm in for a few days while she waited for the dirt to be removed from her chosen building site, Lori estimated she had enough stone to start construction.

It was almost familiar, moving stone from the pile she'd been making near the building site and laying out a foundation. She measured out the same dimensions she'd used for the row of houses, this time remembering to add a little more to account for the walls between buildings. Once the initial foundation was in place, she drew out lines to denote the individual houses and began making the floors level. She was building eight homes to start with, though she intended to be able to continue extending this row for the foreseeable future, or at least until the row became unreasonably long.

Wearing her hat and rain coat, she worked through the weather. In a way, the water was actually useful for letting her know whether her work was level or not, since it would pool in any depressions and any significant bumps would stand out, assisted by the stone masons. Unfortunately, it meant her socks getting wet in her boots as water seeped in from some seam. That was something she hadn't missed, but unfortunately she had to live with it. Rian insisted that Shanalorre heal her at the end of the day to make sure she didn't get sick—well, stay sick, anyway, since her nose sometimes dripped—and Lori really couldn't find it in her to object.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

In fact, Shanalorre was very busy before and after dinner as people asked her to heal them. Lori eventually had to impose that she only heal people after they'd been examined by a doctor or medic and the person was confirmed to be actually sick of something

"Thank you, Binder Lolilyuri," Shanalorre said as people reluctantly walked away, and no longer crowded Lori's table.

Lori waved a hand dismissively. "Be sure to inform the doctors what I said. They should be examining people already, but you are not to heal anyone unless they have been examined."

"Does that apply to the infants as well, Binder Lolilyuri?"

Lori considered that. "Fine, you can deal with the children immediately. Make sure anyone claiming to be sick stay away from them."

"Of course, Binder Lolilyuri."

Lori waited, but Shanalorre didn't seem to have anything more to say, so she shrugged and turned to Rian, who was as usual looking back and forth between the two of them. "Rian, what do you have?"

"The new pit traps are working," Rian said, smiling as he reported the good news while Riz and Umu went to get the food with Yllian. "Not getting us as much meat as bringing down one of the big plodders, but it's meat. And Aska got lucky and found a clutch of choker eggs. The hunters want to try raising some again, this time from the beginning."

"Again? After what happened last time?"

"They say trying to grow chokers from the egg is mostly safer, since they can train the things not to attack, and they can clip and dull their claws and teeth from birth," Rian said. "And this time they'll be able to make a proper coop for them to stay in."

Lori grunted. "Speaking of chokers, how is the fence coming along?"

"Slowly," Rian said. "But the rain is actually helping, making it easier to stick branches into the ground. It will still take weeks to complete though. On a related note, I think we should use some of our stockpiled hides to make new shoes. Despite repairs some people's shoes are starting to wear out, and some of the children's don't fit them anymore. We can't afford stepping on something and injuring themselves. With Binder Shanalorre here it probably won't result in a fatal infection, but better to prevent it in the first place."

"Authorize it," Lori nodded. "I'll leave deciding the order of priority to you. What else?"

"While you're building, I ask that you consider building another bath, especially since we'll be taking in more people from River's Fork. Possibly with its own laundry area attached, what with the laundry area unusable right now."

Lori scowled, reminded she had to do her own laundry. "I'd have thought the rains would have helped with the laundry."

"Just getting clothes wet doesn't count as washing it. The rains are making it difficult because more clothes need to dry in front of the fireplaces. Actually, someone suggested that we set up drying lines for clothes in the third level. Not washing, just string up some poles next to the plots of vigas there and have the clothes drip on them. The stalks don't need much light, and if we place the drying lines right they shouldn't be in danger of people stepping on them."

Lori raised an eyebrow at the actually good idea. "That's actually a good idea. See to it, but priority is on not ruining our crops. And it will be drying only. There will be no laundry done in the third level. I will go there myself to check the temperature and humidity and adjust it accordingly, and I had best like what I see."

"I'll tell them, your Bindership. Now, on to the next matter, I've taken the liberty of asking the carpenters to start building some new beds for the shelter that we can move to the new houses once the latter are ready. We don't want people sleeping on the floor after all."

Lori frowned. "Have they already begun work on the beds?"

"Uh, they were starting to work on two earlier. Should I tell them to stop?"

Lori considered it, then grunted. "How big are the beds?"

"Wide," Rian said as Riz and Umu arrived, putting the bowls of soup, plate of bread and cups of water on the table. "You know, for the family to sleep in. If they need more beds, we can add it in later, but I figured one per family would be enough to start."

"Continue those beds, but don't make any more for the moment," Lori said as she reached for a bowl and a cup, then helped herself to a disk of bread. "We will discuss why later in your house."

"What, not here? Are we keeping secrets from our loyal subjects?"

"Yes," Lori said bluntly as she dipped her bread into her soup and took a bite.

––––––––––––––––––

"You… want me to find the four families with the worst houses in the demesne?" Rian said, looking confused at the request as he sat at the foot of his bed. "Ones who don't live in the row of houses you made."

"Rian, why are you repeating what I'm saying?" Lori said as she kept out of the way of Umu and Mikon hanging clothes to dry in front of the fire.

"To make sure I heard it right and understand what you said. I've got the first, not sure about the second. Why the worst houses? Do you mean the ones in most disrepair?"

"No, I mean the ones who are most uncomfortable living in their house."

"That would be the big families with more members than they can really fit in," Rian said promptly. "Unfortunately, when you made the original generation of homes, you didn't really account for how many people would be living in them. A few had older sons and unmarried uncles moves into the shelter, and it's actually a bunch of them who lodged a petition to make a sort of bachelor's house. But some couldn't do that because they wanted to stay together."

Lori nodded. "They will do. While the dimensions of the row houses aren't much bigger than the original houses, they have more overhead space, and with some creativity can more comfortably fit more people. I intend to move the families you choose into the new houses."

At the fireplace, Mikon glanced towards Lori.

"That… would be nice for them, but… why?"

"I have no intention of giving the malcontents we'll be bringing here new, comfortable houses to live in," Lori said flatly. "They abandoned my demesne, and the only reason they're coming back is to prevent starvation in the area they infested, which has now become my responsibility."

"Ah, petty revenge," Rian nodded. "Why didn't you say so? I'll see who I can find. It will take some days, however, since I don't think you want this to spread, or everyone will want to argue they should get the slot?"

Lori nodded. "That's fine, as long as it's ready when the structures are to be roofed and made habitable, yes, what do you want Mikon?"

The weaver, who'd stopped hanging up the laundry to stare at Lori, jumped slightly at being acknowledged. She hesitated a moment, then took a deep breath. "Um, your Bindership, may I nominate my family?" she said timidly. "I have an uncle, two aunts, and seven cousins. All my cousins are women, so Aunt Kasco wouldn't let them move back to the shelter to make space. If… if you would consider…"

Lori stared at her, then shrugged. "Fine. I make no promises they'll be more comfortable, but they should be able to try."

Mikon bowed low towards her. "Thank you, your Bindership."

"Does this count as nepotism or compassion…?" Rian muttered to himself, rubbing his chin.

Lori turned back towards Rian. "This is also why I want you to delay building the beds until you've picked who the families are. They might have their own beds already, or will have beds built into the wall. Also, I want the malcontents to be forced to sleep on the floor for a while."

"Understood, your Bindership, though I should point out they'll have their children with them, and it's a bit cruel to punish the children for what is likely their parent's doing."

Ah. Right. She'd forgotten. "Fine, have the carpenters make six wide beds. They can all share and be uncomfortable in close quarters together." The children will probably be light enough to sleep on top of their parents, right?

"I'll inform them tomorrow, your Bindership."

"Have one of the beds moved in here when it's finished and get rid of this one. Move it to the shelter, or maybe the hospital. You four can't possibly be comfortable sleeping on a bed that narrow."

Rian blinked, and in the light of the glowing rock she'd given him that he'd placed next to him on the bed, Lori saw his face redden. He started to speak but Riz, who'd been sitting at the other end of the bed, suddenly lunged towards him over the bedrolls and blankets and slapped a hand over his mouth. "Rian, please thank the Great Binder for her thoughtfulness and generosity," Riz said into Rian's ear.

"Yes, Rian, please tell her Bindership how thankful we are and how we will greatly appreciate the space to actually lie down instead of being on our sides all night," Mikon added, already bowing to Lori again.

"Rian, please tell her Bindership how grateful we are and would of course not even think of refusing her gift," Umu said, also bowing to Lori, a damp shirt that she had been about to hang in her hands.

Rian looked between the three of them, Riz's hand still over his mouth. Then his visibly sighed and tapped the northerner woman lightly on the forearm. She released him. "What they said. Thank you for the thoughtful gesture, your Bindership. Though for the record, I did offer to sleep on the floor so you three would have more room."

"Rian, even I can tell that would defeat the point," Lori said.

"I…" Rian swallowed. "Is that all, your Bindership?"

Lori waved in dismissal. "Yes, yes, that's all. I'll leave you four to your business."

She stepped out into the night, adjusting her hat against the wind and rain as she followed the lightwisps illuminating the outside of people's houses back to her nice, warm, dry dungeon.