"Rian, I believe Shanalorre has informed you of her findings and conclusions."

Rian sighed. Now that Lori was actually looking, he did seem tired. He also wasn't smiling or any form of cheerful, whether genuine or annoying. In fact he… actually, he reminded her of herself after a long day working one of her more unpleasant jobs. "As I told Shana," he directed a flat look towards the other Dungeon Binder, "I'm fine. I appreciate the concern, but this is nothing I can't deal with."

"So, you don't think that you need more time to rest and recover, need shorter shifts at River's Fork, and are jealous of the fact I won't need to go there any time in the immediate future?"

Rian's expression changed, and it wasn't to form a smile. "I'm fine," he insisted, even as Riz, Mikon and Umu all gave him concerned looks.

Lori stared at him, then nodded. "Well, if you say so."

Across the table, Umu, Mikon and Riz all turned to frown at her. Rian simply nodded tiredly, letting out a sigh and slumping slightly. Given he'd already been a little slumped, it was more of a forward slouch. Next to her, she heard Shanalorre sigh for some reason.

"If you are fine as you say, then you will be able to assist me with my upcoming experiments."

Rian's head rose up. "Experiments?"

Lori nodded. "I will need someone to take notes for me. My previous experiments while utilizing a replacement note taker were unsatisfactory." She sighed, remembering the experience. "I had to repeat myself constantly, and he wrote very slowly."

"Ah, yes, that. Yllian told me about that." Rian chuckled quietly, a small smile on his face. "Are we doing it this afternoon?"

"No, I still have wood to cure. We will proceed tomorrow. When did you think I intended to perform my experiments?"

Rian frowned again. "Can you wait a few days? I have to be back in River's Fork by then."

"This takes precedence. The Coldhold will go without you. Find someone capable and put them in charge in your stead."

"If I could do that, I'd have already done it. Most capable people are already in charge of something else, and those who aren't are working on something that needs their specific skill set. And you promised Riz you wouldn't make her an officer ever again." Rian sighed. "Is this some kind of ploy to make me stay and rest?"

Lori gave him a flat look. Then she turned towards Mikon. "Has he been sleeping well at night?"

"Yes, your Bindership," the pink-haired weaver said immediately.

"A full night's sleep? He doesn't get up and stay awake restlessly in the middle of the night?"

"Despite our best efforts, no."

For some reason, the other tables sounded amused as Rian raised a hand over his eyes.

Lori nodded, turning back to Rian, who was looking at her from between two fingers. "It doesn't seem like you need any rest. However, just to be sure, I'm sure these three will be more than willing to make sure you're well rested for tomorrow."

"Of course, Great Binder."

"You can rely on us, your Bindership."

"We'll make sure he sleeps well, your Bindership!"

Rian sighed. "I'd accuse you of mothering me, except my mother would never do anything like this."

Lori couldn't help the twist of envy that coiled her insides. "How fortunate for you. Every time I so much as mentioned someone I talked to, my mothers would start telling me to get to know them better, that I should become friends with them, asking me if they were nice, when would I meet them again, how I should ask them to have lunch with me, advising me on how I could lure them into my bed…" Lori shuddered. "They were the ones who kept telling me I should study and learn, then they'd spend so much time telling me to waste my time doing pointless things…" She shook her head.

"That… listening to you talk about that is causing me almost literal pain," Rian said.

Lori waved a hand dismissively, though she was heartened by Rian's sympathy of her suffering. "Well, it doesn't matter. They were wrong anyway. Because I didn't waste any of my time on any of that nonsense, I'm a Dungeon Binder now. So clearly they were wrong."

"I… can't refute that, since you are, in fact, a Dungeon Binder now, and also just as clearly never listened to any of their advice. Even though it might have helped, since you'd have more experience remembering names…"

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Lori rolled her eyes. What did names matter? If a name was important, she'd remember it. Or at least remember to write it down. "If a name was important, I'd remember it. Or at least remember to write it down." Wait, did that mean the names on her ceiling were important? "But we are getting off-topic. Tonight, have a good night's rest so that you can take good notes tomorrow. I'll take the notes with me to the curing shed this afternoon to read over them, and give them to you after dinner."

Rian looked amused. "You want to give me interesting reading material… just before you want me to get a good night's rest? You… remember what reading is like, don't you?"

"I'm sure that these three will find a way to keep you from rereading everything more than once."

"What exactly do you think they're going to do?"

"It would not be appropriate to say in front of a child."

Rian rolled his eyes. "In that case, may I say you have a very dirty mind, your Bindership."

"I blame my mothers. I would elaborate, but I don't want to, and there's a child present."

"Almost literal pain…"

"Food."

Rian paused. "What?"

Lori pointed towards the kitchen. "Food. Get some."

Rian opened his mouth. Rian closed his mouth. "Right, right. Getting food, your Bindership." He got up, Umu getting up with him as the two went to get lunch.

When he'd left, Lori finally let herself sigh in relief. Good, it seemed like she wouldn't need to declare a holiday after all as she had originally thought she would need to. Rian had regained some of his cheerfulness when she'd mentioned notes and experiments. Hopefully, that would be enough to deal with the problem.

And if not… well, then she might have to declare a holiday after all. She needed her note taker!

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During lunch, Lori observed Rian, which admittedly amounted to her staring straight ahead as she ate instead of sitting with her eyes on her food. Fortunately, he noticed nothing amiss as he reported on the day's matters, and probably thought she was simply being attentive as she usually was.

"The crops are doing well, and we've been managing to keep the chokers away from them," he said, now actually smiling at little as he reported. How had she missed that he hadn't been smiling earlier? It wasn't like trying to remember facial features, after all! "Fortunately, no one's really gotten hurt from doing that, and we've added a little choker meat to our food, though it's not really a lot compared to other beasts. A choker barely feeds three people, four if they don't mind the meal's a little lean. However, we have a decent surplus stored up, so that's not a problem."

"I'm concerned they'll try to dig up our tubers when they are nearly grown," Shanalorre said. "Thankfully, at the moment they seem to hold no interest. There had been no choker-related injuries brought to my attention so far."

"The mushroom farm, thankfully, hasn't been molested by them," Rian continued, "but that's more of a supplement to our food rather than a staple. Our production hasn't yet reached the point we can live off the stuff if need be. The local varieties are delicious and gives the stew more flavor, but they're not as nutritious as the strains that have been made specifically to sustain populations." He sighed. "We… might have to send some to River's Fork so they'll stop complaining about the food being so bland. On the subject of food, however, I think we should exchange some of our stored meat with some of River's Fork's fruits. While we didn't have any such problems from our diet last year, best to broaden our range of foods in any case."

"Do it," Lori said instantly. Her mouth was already watering at the thought of pink ladies, micans, hairy blueballs and golden buds.

After lunch, Lori took a detour to her room to find the stone tablets that had the notes she needed. There… were a lot of stone tablets that had to be sorted through to find the tablets she was looking for. Had she really made these many tablets over the past year? She was pretty sure she'd given some to Rian, so why was there so many here in her room?

Thankfully, she found the notes she needed all grouped together, so she was able to remove them and put them on her plank to carry. The tablets wobbled slightly, some of the displaced stone from creating the inscriptions creating bumps that meant the tablets didn't lie flat on top of each other. Lifting them carefully, she watched her footing as she took the notes to her seat at the curing shed.

Her detour had taken her a bit longer than she had thought it would, so she hastily activated the bindings of the curing shed and checked the conditions inside. Ugh, she might have to stay here a little longer than usual, just to be sure the wood buried in the middle of the stacks were properly cured.

It started raining as she finally sat down, and she scowled up at the sky, only to hastily stop because it let raindrops fall on her face. Adjusting her hat and making sure her rain coat was closed, she carefully picked up one of the stone tablets—binding the waterwisps off the tablet and her fingers so nothing would be slippery—and held it up to read.

These weren't the original notes, of course. Rian had written those on his plank in black char, the writing oversized because of the size of his writing implement. Despite this, his notes managed to be decently readable, and his own thoughts that he wrote on the side of the margins were isolated from what she had dictated to him. When she'd transcribed them to stone, she'd done so with smaller, clearer writing, and had set his own contributions off to one side, since they were usually relevant.

That meant each stone tablet had maybe two planks worth of notes on it, but given each was a direct transcription, the notes, findings, and conclusion weren't organized very well. She'd probably have to take a day to organize everything into something properly concise, but today wasn't that day.

It was another thing on the list of things she'd 'do when she had time'.

Most of the notes, as was proper, were records of their experimental procedures. It was very tempting to just skip over this and look at the conclusions, but that was poor scholarship. Besides, some of the experiments she had genuinely forgotten about, so she needed to read them to put the results and conclusions into context.

The pile of notes grew smaller as she stacked the tablets she'd read on her other side so they wouldn't get mixed up. One of the notes nearly fell when it slipped from her wet hands, but fortunately it landed on her lap, which absorbed the blow enough that it didn't visibly crack. She still claimed and bound the earthwisps on it to reinforce its structure, since it seemed like it had caused internal cracks, and she didn't want to have to recreate the notes another time.

…perhaps she should try using bone for these notes? Even with the bones regularly being used for glue and fertilizer, they always had a surplus of the stuff, and it was far lighter and more durable than rock.