There were, as expected, people waiting for them at the docks.

Lori didn't know why people did it. It had only been four days! Surely not seeing someone for that long was no cause for this kind of commotion. And all the hugging! Yes, she understood that it was nice to be held, she'd enjoyed receiving hugs from her mothers provided they were brief, but they did it for far too long with a lot of pointless swaying back and forth, and people held on far too tight, such that it looked uncomfortable.

She wasn't even going to get started on all the kissing.

"Rian!"

Umu met Rian at the docks, wrapping her arms around in him a tight hug. Her lord had almost been surprised, but his arms had come up to return the hug, even if he looked a bit embarrassed at doing so in public. Next to him, Riz was giving Umu a flat look that the blonde weaver ignored, sparing the militiawoman only the briefest of glares before turning her attention back to Rian. Kissing then commenced, and Lori had already resolved she wasn't going to get started on that. Though it looked very awkward and—no, she wasn't getting started on that!

Sitting on one of the benches at the top of the Coldhold while she waited for enough people to get done so she could finally pass through, Lori took a moment to appreciate just doing nothing. She wasn't claiming anything, not binding anything, not imbuing anything… she was just sitting there. After the previous days of repetitive stone excavation, and the journey spent discussing matters with Rian—matters she hadn't been able to discuss with him during meals because she hadn't wanted her new idiots and the malcontents among them to hear—the rest was a nice break. Not far from her, two children sat huddled together on one of the other benches, clutching their own packs and glancing at her nervously, when they weren't looking out over the town around her Dungeon.

Riz was letting out a huff and in the middle of shrugging when—

"Erzebed!"

The militiawoman stumbled in surprise as she suddenly found herself being wrapped in her own embrace courtesy of Mikon, who had come up behind Umu but hadn't been noticed because… well, she hadn't gone for Rian first. Riz swayed, momentarily losing her balance, and her hands came up to grab Mikon to stay upright. Thus, she was unprepared—though she really should have been, Lori thought—when Mikon punctuated her greeting with a kiss on the cheek. Then another. And another. And—

"S-stop that!" Riz stammered, drawing back slightly as Mikon started moving down from her cheek to the side of her neck. "W-what are you doing?"

"What?" Mikon said, fluttering her eyelashes in theatric innocence that no one believed. "You were missed too, Erzebed." She sighed. "We only had two blankets, and Umu didn't want to sleep close together, so it was so cold…" She lay her head on Riz's shoulder. "I'm looking forward to sleeping with you next to me tonight. It will be so warm…"

"Oh. So you only want me for my body heat," Riz said, sounding irritable.

Mikon smiled at Riz before giving her another quick kiss on the cheek again. "Not just that," she said cheerfully. "Besides, I'm waiting my turn to welcome Rian back, and didn't want you to feel unappreciated." One hand rose to stroke Riz's cheek, making the woman redden with further irritation. "Welcome home, Erzebed," Mikon said in a softer voice. She said something else in a softer tone that Lori didn't catch, not that she was eavesdropping or anything.

Whatever was said made Riz let out a huff—it was too fast to be a sigh—and pat Mikon on the shoulder. "Well, I'm back. Can you let me go now?"

In response, Mikon kissed her cheek again. "Is Umu done yet?"

"Umu, hurry up and let Mikon have a turn already!"

Some of the other people on the docks laughed for some reason as Lori started tapping her foot. While she was thankful for the rest, other parts of her were feeling restless. Well, let them. She was resting! When everyone had settled down and she'd be able to pass through, then she'd have to inspect that the Dungeon farm was the right temperature and humidity, check the far corners of her unfinished excavation to see if people were being unsanitary, see if she had to cure more wood… Lori sat back and enjoyed the brief respite.

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After Mikon finally got her turn at Rian and enough people had vacated the dock, Lori was finally able to disembark, her tightly bound bedroll and pack in hand. They'd left right after breakfast once Rian had finished relaying instructions to Yllian—Lori checked her rock just to be sure—and the two new children whose parents were sending to the relative safety of her primary demesne had finally stopped crying and clinging to their mother's skirts,, so despite the overcast sky, it was probably only late morning.

To her surprise, Shanalorre was there seemingly waiting for her. Her hair was dry, which meant she hadn't just gotten out of the baths, though the skirt she was wearing was wrinkled in a way that suggested she'd girded it recently.

"Great Binder," she greeted Lori, bowing in acknowledgement.

"Binder Shanalorre," Lori nodded back.

"I see that more children have joined us," the other Dungeon Binder said, nodding towards were Rian was gently trying to get the two children on their feet. "With your permission, I shall take charge of these two and get them settled in my house."

Lori nodded in assent, then paused. She eyed Shanalorre. "How did you know about the children?"

"When you all left my former demesne this morning, I noticed that you had more passengers than you left with. Given how much smaller they were in comparison to everyone else, I deduced they were children."

Ah. Yes, Shanalorre had her own awareness from her connection to River's Fork's core, didn't she? "Very well, then. I'll leave this to you, Binder Shanalorre. We shall speak at dinner. You will join me."

The other Dungeon Binder nodded, then headed for the Coldhold, where the two children were looking nervously at the walkways to the boat's outriggers. "Nera," she called out. "Ardlia. Welcome to Lorian."

"S-shana!" one of the two children exclaimed, sounding relieved.

"Let me help you with that, it's easier to get off the boat when you're not carrying anything… "

Lori left her to it. She headed back to her room to put to down her things, then have a proper bath. After four days of excavating underground, sweating because trying to control the temperature with more than just anchoring strategically placed airwisps to blow air on her took up too much time to do, her bath practically called to her. Her clothes were so permeated she'd have to give them a preliminary soak and wash, lest they ferment in her laundry pile.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

As she headed for the stairs leading up to her room, she noticed something hanging next to the door. It was a small seel, impaled though the neck by a hook carved from a branch. The branch was hanging from a little hole in the stone next to her door.

Huh. It looked like the brat was seeling again. She was improving as well since the seel's tail, with its fan-like webbed fin at the end, was trailing down to the floor. Thankfully, it wasn't dripping.

Shaking her head, Lori hurried past it so that she could take her things to her room. The seel was far too big for her to carry just then, and she didn't want whatever fluids were on the seel to get on her bedroll. Upstairs, Lori put down her things on the wonderfully elastic weave of her bad, then went back down to get the seel. It might be a bit too late to add it to lunch, but it would be more meat for dinner.

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Lori didn't speak to Shanalorre at lunch. The latter sat at the table with the other children from River's Fork, as well as some of the other children, seemingly welcoming the two new children to their number. The normal murmur of the dining hall was punctuated by the happy, high-pitched commotion coming from that table, almost but not quite grating on Lori's ears. Normally, she'd be speaking with Rian about demesne matters to distract her, but they'd already discussed everything relevant on the boat ride home. Rian was also rather distracted, since Umu and Mikon were both making up for lost time. Riz had let the pink-haired weaver sit next to him to avoid Mikon's attentions, and was focusing on her food as the other two paid more attention to Rian than eating.

…

They should probably make Riz's position as some sort of militia leader official at some point. Despite her protestations about not being an officer, she was the one who spent the most time organizing people to do militia-like things. Even though all their 'militia' were volunteers, Riz was always present and willing, even if it was because of Rian. She'd have to discuss this with Rian later. It sounded like a 'dealing with people' matter.

The rest of the day went as Lori had foreseen. She checked the Dungeon farm's humidity, light and temperature, making a few adjustments to equalize and disparity, and altering the airflow caused by some airwisps. Inspected the unfinished expansion tunnels to see if there had been any more storage accidents with dried waste, or if someone had started using them as latrines. Thankfully, the former hadn't repeated and the latter didn't seem to have happened, but Lori made a note to see about putting a latrine near the stairs up to the second level. She'd have to make bindings to ensure that the waste was desiccated on the spot so that emptying out wouldn't involve dragging waste through the rest of her Dungeon…

A check of the curing shed showed a lot of the wood had already been used. However, this meant that the remaining houses were almost done, with only a single house left to finish, and to her eye it would be done some time tomorrow. She supposed this meant they needed to announce the housing assignments soon so that the families who would be moving into them could make the arrangements for the internal additions to fit them. A second raised floor or loft would probably be enough, though they need more wood for that.

Once those inspections were done, she took a moment to make adjustments to the water jet drivers of Lori's Boat and Lori's Ice Boat, converting them into steam drivers. The former has a relatively simple mechanism, simply a bone tube at the end of a piece of wood that was raised out of the water when not in use or the boat was being allowed to drift. Making the alteration that would add heat to the water so that converting the propelling liquid into steam without encasing the tube in ice was simple enough, and on the test run, the boat actually seemed to accelerate faster.

The latter was a bit harder, since she couldn't add the alterations to the where the water was accelerated by the binding. In the end, she attached the binding of firewisps and waterwisps near the output of the driver, well past the moving block that accelerated the water. When tested, the increased acceleration wasn't as noticeable as with Lori's Boat, but Lori's Ice Boat had far more mass to move. Lori decided to do more tests on it tomorrow if she had time.

At dinner, Shanalorre sat with Lori as she had been instructed. Lori looked in askance at Shanalorre's cousin sitting next to her, but thankfully the young girl didn't make a nuisance of herself. Instead, she seemed to be eagerly looking forward to the food, looking out towards the kitchen expectantly. Well, as long as the girl behaved…

"Report," Lori said as they waited for the food to arrive.

"A third of the children have bath buckets," Shanalorre began. "I have made arrangements, but the woodworkers couldn't make enough quickly. Between roofing the remaining houses, and the construction of the water barrels for River's Fork, the buckets were not a top priority. I decided not to press on the matter, and have utilized the available buckets to best effect. One bucket contains everyone's soap, and the other buckets hold clothes and towels. I am told more buckets will be available in the next few days. "

Ah, right. She should have realized. Yes, the new barrels—made using River's Fork's supply of copper for the barrel hoops—were to supply them with water in the dragon shelter, and as such were being prioritized. "The delay is acceptable. What else?"

"The shoes are being made, but it is also slow. The cobbler isn't used to making new shoes, and we have no cordwainer, but he is the only one with the tools and experience to do so. Some of the adults with leather tools volunteered to help in stitching the shoes together. Thanks to them, about half of the children have shoes, and I am told the rest will have their shoes finished tomorrow or the day after. Unfortunately, they are not waterproof, so the shoes have been made slightly overlarge to allow for growth and shrinkage. The weavers were all kind enough to sew some foot wraps to help cushion feet within the shoes in lieu of proper socks."

Ah. She hadn't considered the matter of socks. "Good," she acknowledged. "The matter of proper socks will have to be dealt with, but at the moment I gather we do not have sufficient materials?" As she recalled, all the fabric the weavers had made over the last year had been used to give everyone winter robes.

Shanalorre nodded. "The ropeweed is still growing. However, I believe River's Fork should still have a plentiful supply of the plant, especially up along the other river. I believe it will be in our interest to begin collection of the plant there as soon as possible."

Lori considered that. "Good idea. We shall discuss it with Rian when he returns. What of the tubers I assigned you?"

"We have begun trying to plant behind our house," Shanalorre said, "however, we were only able to use sticks and branches collected from the woods due to the proper tools being needed elsewhere, and it was what Karina was familiar with. I was able to secure a shovel for myself, but the size was awkward for me, and I am doubtful as to how helpful it was. Still, we managed to begin a small patch. With Karina's help, and the authorization Lord Rian arranged, we were able to acquire some tubers for planting. It was decided it would be best to start with a small batch to see if we could grow it in the conditions available to use before planting more, so as not to risk wasting the tubers. Karina was of great assistance in this."

Lori nodded. "I see. Do you think this is the best way to conduct this assignment I gave you?"

"Yes," Shanalorre said. "While Karina was confident the tubers would grow, I wasn't certain, and I decided it would be more prudent to test the growing conditions before risking more supplies in potentially unfavorable ground. Once we have confirmed growth, we will begin planting more tubers."

Lori regarded her a moment before nodding. It was a cautious approach, but she was clearly prioritizing conserving resources. Lori could respect that. "Very well. In that case, prepare other sites for planting in the meantime."

"Yes, Great Binder. On the topic of food, however, I have been asked to bring a matter to your attention."

Lori almost groaned. Instead, she just hung her head in exasperation. Ah, she should have realized her idiots would try to use Shanalorre to try and bring up the matter of land again. "What is it now?"

"Karina would like to volunteer to join you when you return to Rivers Fork," Shanalorre said, and Lori's head snapped up. "She wishes to assist the demesne with its food difficulties by hunting seels for them to augment their food supply."

…

What.