They moved on to the rest of the list.

The merchant house asking for regular shipments was… to be expected, even if Lori didn't like it. As to more regular deliveries… well, Rian had promised another delivery before winter, so they would do that, though she wasn't sending her lord right away. She needed him in her demesne, after all, and there wasn't anyone she could send in his place.

"I think we can do with fewer shipments a year if we're carrying a lot of beads," Rian said, "though that will depend on the rate that the wispbeads are being sold. The problem will actually be spending our earnings."

"You didn't seem to have any problem doing so," Lori said flatly.

"Yes, but food expenses aren't even an appreciable fraction of our profits," Rian said. "My concern is that we'll start pulling a noticeable amount of large-denomination beads from circulation if we don't start spending our profits in some way." He made a strange, twisted half-smile expression. "Unless we start spending those beads, I'm worried Covehold Demesne might regard our actions as a form of economic sabotage. I don't think we want to have that as a complication in our dealings."

Lori shrugged. "Then we'll simply have to see if we can find a bank of some sort. Why are you making that face?"

"I'm crying and screaming on the inside. It would have been very nice to know I had permission to put all those beads in a bank." He sighed heavily. "Well, moving on. Yes, a bank would help. I'd worry less about being robbed, for one thing. Well, I'd worry less about losing anything if we get robbed. Alright, that removes the issue of needing to spend our earnings, although on a philosophical level I feel the profits should be spent on something instead of hoarded, but let's set that aside for now. How many beads do you feel comfortable promising per shipment and how often? At the moment, we have the minimum commitment of one more delivery of at least a hundred beads before winter. I didn't commit to more because I didn't know how often you wanted it to happen and how many beads you wanted to make for the shipment. Though as the person who had to negotiate their sale, I don't think it's a good idea to sell that many again. It's fine in this instance, but repeating it on our next trading trip will probably cause an oversupply, so I suggest a smaller amount. Maybe just something between two hundred and… well, far less than eleven thousand."

"Let's send a thousand on the next trip for now," Lori said. "I'm sure that the merchant house will have a plea for how many the next one will be, which I will consider. As to the second shipment before winter that you committed us to… We'll see when a good time will be. There's still much that needs to be done here."

Rian grunted. "Well, that's true… but that being the case, I can't continue being the only person you trust to lead a trading trip to Covehold Demesne. Not if it means work comes to a near-standstill here. If nothing else, the trading trip is the most risky thing we can do. An unexpected dragon, bad weather, overly aggressive dillians…" He shrugged. "You need other lords or ladies. Whatever capacity you want me to fulfill, you need people to take over the positions I'll be leaving vacant as a result."

"We did that. Shanalorre, Erzebed and—" Lori reached into her belt pouch.

"Kolinh. The name you're looking for is 'Kolinh', let's skip the part where you get the rocks mixed up."

"—Kolinh acted in your place when you were gone."

"If that were true, you'd have started building the sawmill already," he pointed out. "Kolinh would be the one planning, organizing and actually in charge of building the sawmill even with me here anyway. All I'd be doing is being an intermediary between him and you. There's no reason why you can't send someone else to lead the trading expeditions." He paused. "Well, there's one reason, but all I'd need to do is to go with them on the first trip to introduce them to our contacts and teach them what they're supposed to do."

"We are straying off the topic. The next shipment will be either when the sawmill is finished, after the next dragon, or next season after the harvest."

"First harvest or second harvest? We're trying for a double harvest now that we have Deadspeakers to try and accelerate growth, right? Speaking of which, have you come up with terms for Lidzuga's probation yet?"

"I am considering, but this matter has priority."

"So you haven't even started yet. Well, I hear from Yllian that he has Lidzuga checking over the dome, especially the damaged tree you wrapped in stone to hold it up. After that, Yllian intends for him to do maintenance on everyone's houses, especially the ones built into the central tree. Best he's not idle while you're, ah, considering."

Lori nodded approvingly. "Good. Have Yllian record how long it takes for him to do what, and how much whatever he worked on has improved, if any." She frowned. "Tomorrow, have the wooden boat—"

"Lori's Boat?"

"Yes, that one. Have the carpenters examine it and make a list of any defects they can observe, then sent down to River's Fork for Lidzuga to do maintenance on. When he is finished, have the carpenters examine it again and note how many things have been corrected."

"Do you mind if we have him add some wood onto it to make the side a bit higher?"

"Later. We need to establish a baseline for comparison first."

Rian hummed thoughtfully. "While we're on the subject… what do you think of making the requirements for the time off Lidzuga I asking for goal-based. You're glaring, but at least hear me out. You want him to contribute, all right. You think he needs to contribute above normal to deserve his time off to do research, I don't disagree. But rather than requiring him to do the same things Taeclas is doing but in less time or with more results, give him projects that he has to complete in addition to his normal contributions to get the time off he wants."

"And you have projects in mind, of course," Lori said dryly.

Rian shrugged shameless. "Have him make copies of Lori's Boat. If nothing else, we need boats to go between the demesnes, or even just across the river. With the Deadspeakers now here to do maintenance on Lori's Boat, we can afford to put it back into regular use since it can be repaired now. We can replace the hull of Lori's Ice Boat with a wooden hull and get rid of the ice. That's one less thing for you to maintain. Or better yet, we can have him make an improved design for a small boat."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"That will require raw material," Lori pointed out.

"He's in River's Fork. Remember, in addition to the fruit trees, they also have some trees that grow branches, which they cut and dry to use for firewood. We should have some being stored up in the curing sheds for you to dry. That's all the raw material he needs, provided the trees are kept healthy."

"Hmm…" Lori 'hmm'-ed. "Send the boat. I'll consider your suggestion."

"Of course… and speaking of boats, there's the last matter proposed during the negotiations with the Emborin and Sons merchant house. This is the one that most requires your input and decision-making. The merchant house suggested that we utilize the profits from our bead sales to commission a ship on the scale of the Coldhold in Covehold Demesne."

Lori blinked. "What?"

"That… might have been partially my fault. I kept saying that one of the reasons we couldn't make regular deliveries was because of the limitations of the Coldhold, and one of them suggestion commissioning such a boat in Covehold."

Lori frowned. "What limitations?"

"Lori, its hull is made of ice."

"Yes. It was your idea to make it so."

"I'm not denying that. It was the best material for a hull we had at the time, except for the bones and shell of that undead islandshell, and you didn't want to use that."

Lori shrugged.

"Exactly. The problem is that the density of ice is barely lower than water, and since the hull needs to be thick so it doesn't crack… well, that's a lot of mass. Your drivers have a lot of thrust, but they have to push a lot of ice through the water. A boat made of wood would be lighter, and as a result ride higher in the water, which means less resistance."

She considered that. Well, all that was true. Certainly the driver would be more effective if it had less mass to push around.

"And while we can theoretically do it ourselves now, we only have two Deadspeakers, one of whom is slow at woodworking. Covehold has far more woodworkers, far more Deadspeakers, and access to more and bigger bound tools. They'd get it done faster and better. At least, that's the reasoning. I'm fairly certain that the merchant house partially suggested this so they'd be able to pay us in goods and services instead of beads, but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea if we want to have a better boat made in less time than building it ourselves."

"Is it really necessary?" Lori said.

"At this point… not really. The Coldhold is sufficient for our needs for now. At most, having a purely wooden boat means we can stop worrying about you forgetting to imbue the hull, and you don't have to imbue the hull anymore. With Lidz and Tae with us now, we can start making our own wooden ship. It will take plenty of time, and will probably be a large project, but we can finally do it. If we want to get it done in a reasonable time frame, we'll need to build such a ship in River's Fork."

She frowned. "Why there?"

"Because Lidzuga is there and it's Shana…lorre's demesne. Lidzuga will need to fuse the wood together to make a solid hull, and to do that quickly, Shanalorre will need to imbue his meanings so he doesn't need to waste time doing it himself. And that's just fusing the hull together. Our carpenters will also need to do the cutting and shaping of the rest of the ship so that it's structurally sound and has internal supports, and it will probably be easier to fuse wood together if they already fit together. They also have the riverside open areas best-suited for actually building the ship, since… well, we still have them here, but they wouldn't be as conveniently close."

"Can't we just give the Coldhold a fused wooden hull?"

Rian titled his head thoughtfully. "Hmm… it's a thought, but it would certainly require completely rebuilding the ship. Remove the ice, replacing all of it with wooden planks, fuse the planks together to make it waterproof, probably add in more reinforcement to keep the water from pushing in the planks… we could probably do it, but it would mean not having the use of the Coldhold for that time. That means no ship to use to gather salt. At the end, it will probably take as much time as just building a new ship, and at the end of it, we'd still have only one ship. If we're going to be investing all that time and effort anyway…" He shrugged.

"…" Lori '…'-ed. "Get an estimate of what it would take to build a ship of the same size or larger than the Coldhold. I'll make a decision then. Is there anything else?"

Rian shook his head. "No, that's it." He drew one last sheet of paper from his folder, and placed the former on top of the latter. "Here's the full list of our purchases. Once you've looked it over, can I release the cloudbloom so people can start sewing new trousers for everyone?"

Lori took the folder and sheet. "I need new trousers too."

"I'll find someone who can do it. Do you want them to measure you, or would you rather give us your most comfortable pair so we can copy the dimensions of that?"

Lori perused the list. Some, she expected. Others, Rian clearly picked on his own initiative, like the writing slates, which he said were for when they started lessons for the children. A few, however…

"Rian, why is a sack of fruit-flavored sweets on this list?"

"It's for the children, your Bindership," he said promptly. "I was hoping to give it to them on the next holiday, but the heat and humidity seems to be making it melt, so I need to hand it out soon. Do you want to test a few to make sure it's safe to serve to the children?"

…

"Make sure Shanalorre is nearby in case it's gone off," Lori said. She had to make sure it was fit to consume, after all, especially if it was going to the children. Very important responsibility, that.

After going over the list, Lori tucked it back into the folder. She'd give it back to Rian so he'd have somewhere to keep papers on his next trading trip. "I think we're done here. You can start distributing the cloudbloom, papers, pens, inks, and slates, and I'll have my most comfortable trousers ready."

"They'll be laundered, right?"

She gave him a flat look.

"Because I don't think you really want people to know what you smell like down the—"

"Yes, Rian, the trousers will be laundered. Make sure they come back to me in the same condition!"

"Of course, your Bindership. Oh, and your Bindership?"

"What now, Rian? I thought we were done."

"You told me to remind you to give your name rocks distinct shapes so you mix them up less?"

Oh, right. "Thank you for the reminder."

They parted ways, Rian off to fulfill her orders, and Lori off to directly deal with the matter of ensuring that Binder Shanalorre would not be taught enough to be a threat to her.

Following the rock with the binding of lightwisps she had given the other Dungeon Binder, Lori found her at the hospital, sitting at a stool and balancing a plank on her lap as she read another plank. The only others nearby were two of either the doctors or medics, sitting at a table and facing each other over a game board with cups of water in hand, fanning themselves with… well, fans that seemed to have been made from beast feathers.

The latter two looked up as she came in, but she waved for them to sit down as she headed towards Shanalorre. The latter glanced up and began setting her planks aside, rising smoothly to her feet as Lori reached her. "Great Binder."

Lori nodded. "Binder Shanalorre. Have you begun practicing imbuing through a wire with Deadspeaker Taeclas yet?"

"Not yet, Great Binder. The extension wire has only just been finished. We have arrangements to begin practicing after lunch in the dungeon farm."

"I have orders for you, then. Except for imbuing through a wire, you are forbidden from learning any other aspect of Deadspeaking from Taeclas or—" Lori reached into her belt ouch and pulled out her recently reshaped rocks, "—Lidzuga. Is that understood?"

Shanalorre stared at her for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, Great Binder. I am not to learn any Deadspeaking from our new arrivals."

"Or anyone else."

"Or anyone else. Understood, Great Binder. May I inquire as to why?"

For a moment, Lori regarded her. "You're useful the way you are. There's no need to change that."

"I see… thank you for satisfying my curiosity, Great Binder."

The two exchanged nods, and Lori left to see to other matters. She headed for a river, hoping she'd find a par of nice rocks quickly…