The next day, Lori began excavating the mushroom farm.

She seemed to be doing a lot of excavating lately. Which, in hindsight, should have been obvious—most Dungeons, with rare exceptions like Treeshade Demesne and Skykeep Demesne, were underground—but she hadn't realized she'd be doing all the actual digging. Shouldn't she have minions and underlings doing this for her, sworn vassals who bowed to her will and used their Whispering to—oh.

Rainbows.

Had her ancient predecessors, the ones so far back in time their biographies hadn't survived and they were only known by fragmented stories that were as much inaccurate misconceptions about magic and stupid wish fulfillment, have to do this too? Had they needed to dig out all the dirt because they hadn't yet gotten any of the other magics to work, and couldn't afford to have another wizard anywhere near them?

Why had they not had the decency to write down something to warn future generations seeking the might and power of a Dungeon Binder that starting your own Dungeon was all drudgery and construction work? That was really inconsiderate of them! How dare they inconvenience her so!

She grumbled about incomplete historical records as she walked around the cliff face, passing the bone pit, the pile of rocks over her frozen corpses, and the new hillock where she'd frozen and buried the shell and bones of her islandshell for some nebulous future use. Lori turned, looking around. With a lot of the trees cut down and no longer obscuring lines of sight, she realized what had once been an out of the way corner of the woods wasn't really all that far from everyone.

Well, at least it wouldn't be a long walk for all the people who would need to tend the mushrooms they wanted to grow. And it was close enough to her own dungeon that she could connect to it in an emergency.

Excavating was easy in this instance. It was just a simple cave, so she only had to soften the rock and have it pull itself out, though she had to fuse the crumbling outside into a single solid surface first.

It was a quick and lazy build, by her new standard. No attempts at structural integrity beyond a vague curve to the tunnel going inward three paces before she opened it up to a low, cramped-seeming space that made her vaguely nostalgic for her old, one room dungeon. It was never noisy and exactly as she liked it, and she didn't have lightwisps shining at all hours, since the only light she needed was her core…

The intended mushroom farm was bigger than that single room, of course. She had, unfortunately, needed to personally inspect just how many rotting pieces of wood had edible fungus growing on them to get a sense of how much space they'd need, which had taken half the morning. She was mildly annoyed to see some of them were being grown on the roof planks themselves, in the shadowed side away from the sun. Rian better set them straight on how that was not structurally sound, like she'd told him too, before he went back to whatever thing he was doing at the carpenter's shed next to the sawpits.

He better not get a splinter stuck in him and get infected. She wasn't sure they still had any antiseptics left, unless someone finally managed to get the right dustlife cultured so they could ferment alcohol. If he inconvenienced her by falling sick and not being able to deal with people for her, she'd demote him back to probationary lord and promote a child in his place!

Grumbling to herself, Lori finished pulling out the last of the rock. It was a long room, five paces by ten, and she'd put a single pillar in the middle for safety's sake, but it was cold and, with the binding's she'd put in, hopefully damp enough to grow fungus. Dark and damp was usually a safe bet with fungus, though not always. She'd made sure that the entrance was angled towards the sun, so that there'd be indirect illumination in the cave, but that was it.

She left a pile of rock next to the entrance for sealing it in the event of a dragon and dragged the rest down next to the river, where she stood for a moment, contemplating the flowing body of water before her. Then she turned and regarded the small settlement behind her.

Actually, with the roofed houses in place, it could actually be called a small village now, with its population of over two hundred people (Rian probably had the exact number somewhere). The main road of packed earth she'd taken a moment to compress firmly first thing that morning, the houses on either side, the large building that was the dining hall, situated upslope at the end of the road, and the row of houses going up behind it after the road took a detour to continue on. Already a few seemed near completion, and she could almost understand the envy some people had been having. The houses did look fairly nice, with a tall, townhouse look she recalled from some of the older neighborhoods back in Taniar Demesne, the ones preserved for their 'architecture' and 'atmosphere' and used as tourist bait.

Come to think of it, those houses also had stone, Whisper-worked walls…

Shaking her head lest she fall into a contemplation of urban architectural history, she turned back toward the water. With the way the community curved, it would be most efficient if she made an aqueduct that brought water to the top of the current arrangement of living communities, near the houses currently being constructed, and then have it all flow down from there to the rest. Efficient, but…

Lori glanced at the pile of excavated rock near her dungeon.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

…but probably not very doable or very secure. The base would need to be wide for stability, and would in totality result in her using up more rock than all building projects to date combined. On the other hand, a series of low, staggered aqueducts would require very little stone, but she would need more bindings of waterwisps, since each new aqueduct would need water to be brought up to the top of it.

The simplest way of doing it was to simply cut a canal running alongside the main road and bind waterwisps to make the water go up against the orientation of weight… but no, that was just asking for people to throw things into the water, or even to piss in it. Because of course people would do that. They wouldn't be able to help themselves. So that option was completely ruled out. Even if they covered the water and made it a pipe, it was just asking for a seel to swim into the tube and get stuck.

Lori knew what she wanted to do, for all she had complained when Rian had first proposed it. Built correctly, it was a smart, elegant solution, which would require little energy investment beyond occasional maintenance once she had it set up, and which she'd thought of all by herself!

It wasn't what she needed now, which was the doable, present solution that would need a lot of upkeep and could easily be interfered with but was better than literally nothing, and which they needed now for water and to keep the latrines from being so smelly.

When she'd been growing up, she'd heard her mothers complaining over breakfast and dinner about this and that public works projects, spearheaded by the command of the Dungeon Binder or this or that district lord or lady, and how the projects were always insufficient to solve the problems they claimed to be solving, as if someone had made off with half the budget to go gambling or something. A nigh-impossibility, since Taniar Demesne relied on having the most secure finance and banking facilities in the known world, where every bead of money was accounted for, so the project's budget must have been underfunded right from conception.

Looking at the solution she would out of necessity have to implement, Lori could already hear her mothers talking about it over breakfast, shaking their heads and complaining about the inadequacy of government infrastructure projects.

Still, she assured herself it would only be a temporary solution. Once she had expanded the Lori's Demesne and gotten more raw material, she'd build the aqueduct she actually wanted to build and they could finally do away with this awkward, multi-leveled thing.

She nodded to herself, and began feeling for the earthwisps in the river, feeling for the bedrock so she could build on it…

––––––––––––––––––

"Oh no. I know that look," Rian said as she sat down.

"What look?" she said irritably.

He pointed. "That look, the one you have on your face? The one of restrained self-loathing that says you had to compromise your morals and you hate yourself for it. What happened?"

She glared at him. "I do not have a look of self-loathing on my face."

"No, I'm pretty sure that's self-loathing, possibly disgust. Maybe disappointment, though that might be pushing it," Rian said thoughtfully. "What did you do, and do I need to worry about it?"

"Nothing," she snapped. "I've been working, like I've been doing every day since we settled here. Did you talk to those people about caring for their roofs?"

"Yes, they've been told how that’s bad for their roof," Rian said. "In their defense, they hadn't checked, and were quick to clean it off when it was pointed out."

"Good," Lori said, nodding sharply. Absently, she began to set up her game board.

"So, what did you do?" Rian asked.

She glared at him and flicked one of the stones, bouncing it off his forehead.

"Ow," Rian said flatly. "The violence inherent in the system returns. Fine. Don't tell me. Uh, it doesn't involve you finally snapping and killing someone, does it?"

She glared at him. "No, I didn't kill anyone," she said curtly. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, we're in the middle of nowhere," Rian said brightly. "I was told that's where people become inclined to snap and murder people they don't like."

Lori rolled her eyes. "This isn't the middle of nowhere," she said. "This is my demesne. There are laws."

Rian opened his mouth, paused, closed it, opened it again, and stared at her.

"What?" she asked.

"You still think of this place as Lori's Demesne, don't you?" he said in the tones of someone coming to some great revelation.

Of course. That's what it was. "Don't be silly," she said, waving a hand as if wiping away his foolishness. "You chose a name, so it's your fault this place is called Lorian now. Besides, a name is mostly pointless. The only other people who know this place exists and need to refer to it by a name are those in River's Fork."

"Shana's Demesne," Rian said.

"Shanalorre's Demesne," Lori corrected with a nod. "Yes, exactly." He was smiling. Why was he smiling? "Is the food ready yet?"

He glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen. "In a little bit, I think." He turned back to her as she finished setting the board, reaching across the table for the stone she'd thrown at him. "Not that I don't enjoy playing with you, but we really need a new game."

"I like this one," she said, making her move.

"Let me guess: you were never any good at chatrang and lima, and pincer is a too simple for you," he said, waiting her to finish.

"I'm just fine at chatrang and lima," she said loftily, refusing to admit she'd almost never won at either. "I am simply unable to find a player at my level."

"Because that would involve talking to people and asking them to play."

"Exactly."

Rian nodded as she finished, reaching over to make his move. "Well, I've only ever seen it played. I don't really know the rules myself. If I get a board and pieces made, can you teach me?"

She restrained the urge to smile in eager, predatory anticipation. "I suppose," she said aloofly. "It's not like we have anything else to do. Really, what other way do we have of passing time?"

"More work?" Rian suggested.

She twitched. "Let's teach you chatrang," she said. "Once you have a board."

"I'll see what I can do," he said, glancing back to the kitchen. Apparently it wasn't ready yet, since he turned back to the game. "By the way, I saw the aqueduct. Looking good. I like the arches for letting people walk under it, very nice. Though maybe we should find some colorful rocks, this place is looking a little monochromatic in regard to building materials. Do you mind if we put benches under it? Seems like a good place to sit in the heat of the day."

Lori twitched, and tried to concentrate on her game.

"There it is again!" Rian said. "There's that look!"

"You're imagining things," Lori said flatly.

"But–"

"Shut up and play the game, Rian."

Stupid, inelegant, shoddy aqueduct.