It was with a happy heart that Lori watched Lori's Boat, full of… well, full of part of the next batch over miners who'd be mining in River's Fork for the week moving downriver. The rest were still packing, doing last-minute laundry, or were making themselves useful by watching the children and making sure they didn't get hurt or anything. They'd be ready to go once Rian came back.

The new mounting for the water jet had been finished yesterday, and had undergone testing in the water. The swinging arm was able to smoothly lift the water jet to essentially deactivate it. The bone tube she had made was now encased in a hollowed out log for protection, structural integrity, more secure mounting, and to keep the binding from damaging the tube by trying to siphon off the waterwisps absorbed into its structure.

Rian had wanted to somehow combine the water jet and the tiller so that turning would have the full power of the water jet's thrust behind it, but they had not had the time to properly build the sort of mounting such an idea would require in the time they'd had. Still, it seemed a promising idea for the ship they would eventually come to build. The sudden panicked look that had flooded across Rian's face when she'd reminded him to compensate the carpenters for the extra work had also been entertaining.

The water jet didn't feel separate yet, not like the water in the trough of the water wheel, since it was still in her demesne. That would only happen when the boat actually left her demesne's confines. But she'd done the experiment to see if the connection would still occur if the binding and bloody water were in the process of leaving her demesne, and so she wasn't worried. As to the water in the trough… well, she'd managed to imbue it at a distance, and it wasn't any more distracting than doing so for any of the other bindings currently active in her demesne. Even the sense of strain at having to imbue into something separate from herself, not touching, was easy to get used to.

She was also finding herself inspired. What other things could she do with this new method? New to her, at least. After all, this method and its derivatives had been something she had been strongly cautioned not to use when she'd merely been a Whisperer. Blood was an extremely minor loss to pay for extracting useable internal waterwisps, after all. And yes, internal darkwisps was no loss at all, since there was no consequence to losing some inhabiting her stomach, lungs and her body's few other internal cavities. Loss of lightwisps would lead to blindness, and while that was relatively benign, the fact one had to use one's EYE to claim and bind lightwisps meant one risked rather more physical blindness since you'd have objects near your eye. Not to mention an instinctive desire to see would make one pull the lightwisps back in place anyway. But losing firewisps meant loss of body heat, which WAS deadly. Lightningwisps would lead to dangerous numbness and potential loss of function of bodily organs. Removing airwisps would lead to collapsed lungs as the lungs were never truly empty of air. And earthwisps were channeled through teeth and bone, not something she wished to lose. Nails, despite being used to channel them, had very little actual affinity for earthwisps, and were much more ephemeral than blood, as body parts went.

However, now that she was a Dungeon Binder, the loss of any of those internal wisps, with the exception of bone (and only until she learned the Deadspeaking needed to safely extract parts of and regenerate her bones), was much less fraught. She's used her body's lightningwisps to defend herself, after all, and the resulting numbness had been a momentary thing with the power of the core renewing her. Lori didn't dare experiment with firewisps, but lightning- and lightwisps seemed safe enough for now.

That was more than enough.

And there were other experiments she needed to try. Previously, she had wondered if she could keep a binding constantly imbued by connecting it to her core by a length of wire. Now, however, that idea had taken on a new logical conclusion she would need to test…

As soon as Rian got back with the boat.

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The second level was growing lively. In one alcove, tucked into the corner where it would be out of the way in the event of sudden evacuation, sat the stone pots containing seeds that Rian had wanted to try growing underground, the lightwisps above them shining bright in imitation of sunlight, lacking only heat. The soil in the pots, a mixture of dirt, rotting leaves and some wood chips, was moist, the water smelling slightly of the retting tanks. Among the alcoves they had claimed, several women were weaving with impressively quick and skillful movements, the array of strands in front of them slowly turning into a light off-brown fabric of some kind. Umu and Mikon, with no Rian to distract them, were weaving skillfully, hands moving with practiced ease on their frames. In one corner, several women and a few children were taking ropeweed fibers and spinning them into thread using… sticks? It looked like sticks, anyway. Different kinds of sticks, certainly. Three were using a small devices with a wheel on it. It didn't look like the spinning wheels she'd seen in theaters, but that's what it probably was.

She was amused to note some children were playing lima with their feet, entrapped pieces being left where they were due to the difficulty of picking them up with their toes.

The ropers had claimed a literal corner since they apparently needed room for making rope. Like textiles, ropemaking wasn't an industry Lori was familiar with. The few listings for it she remembered had been looking for Deadspeakers. Seeing how the ropes were made, Lori could guess that the Deadspeakers were for fusing the fibers together to prevent unravelling. Like the weavers, they too had more people, mostly young boys, who were spinning fibers together.

Lori made a note to make the… spinners? To make the spinners into one group, irrespective of whether their finished product was to be used by weavers or ropers. She'd have to have Rian check, but this was starting to seem like a petty rivalry in progress.

The carpenters had occupied alcoves in the middle of the room, and while their area was the most messy—there was sawdust everywhere—the work there was clearly organized and neat. The wheels on the lathe had been removed in favor of permanently securing it to the ground, and additional reinforcing had been added to be able to support a large stone flywheel, both done with her assistance. If she understood correctly, it was currently at work to make the pieces for a second, larger lathe. Some were making small wheels, probably for spinning thread. Those not engaged in that, she was amused to note, were making doors and wooden locks.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Thankfully, no one was complaining about the noise all this was producing.

This sudden influx of people was why she was adjusting the bindings on the airwisps that functioned as ventilation for the level. While the bindings were doing their job in making sure the air was kept fresh, the pressure caused by all the air coming in through one end of the level and all going out the other end create something of a constant breeze. While the ropers didn't mind—they said it was refreshing—the breeze tended to send unattended raw ropeweed fibers flying. That had just barely been an issue, and had resulted in the older women chiding the younger to secure their raw materials better. With the addition of the carpenters, however… While she'd never seen one herself, she'd heard about sawdust explosions. Also, she didn't want any of the stuff to get into the kitchen and the food, or worse, into her room.

Fortunately, it didn't take long. Lori merely had to reduce the intensity that the air was being draw in. She also stole an idea from River's Fork and made stone tubes imbedded into the ceiling that both pulled in and drew out air, reducing the tendency for all the air to move in a single direction and therefore create a constant breeze. This made the currents of air in the second level completely random and unpredictable, but it kept the sawdust from spreading, and that was what counted.

By the time she was done, Rian had come back with the first batch of returning miners.

She watched from beside the dungeon's entrance, shaking her head as Lori's Boat approached the beach where it usually landed. Lori made a note about building a proper dock as the new pivoting mount lifted the water jet into the air. The outflow end sputtered, spitting out water, until it was empty of all but the water that was part of the binding of waterwisps embedded into the bone. Even so, Lori knew, occasionally a few drops of water, drawn from the vapor in the air and condensed by the binding, would be spat out the end at great speed.

There was a crowd gathered at the water's edge, and for some reason many people were cheering and crying as part of the first group of miners came down. Really, they'd only been gone a week, why were people making such a big deal about it? There was work not being done.

Still, she better make sure.

Sighing, and adjusting her hat, she headed down for the beach, planning to talk to Rian. Fortunately, he managed to see her coming, getting off the boat and stepping to the side so that she wouldn't need to try pushing through the crowd, though he had to splash through water to do it.

"You're getting careless with your clothes now that you have someone else laundering them for you," she said as she drew close.

That got a wince, and he looked at his trousers, soaked almost to the knee, a guilty expression on his face. "Yeah, that's a bad habit I'm getting into," he sighed. "I'll have to apologize."

"You could offer to return the favor," Lori said blandly. "I'm sure she'd greatly appreciate you washing her underwear."

"Only if she wants them ruined," Rian said. "I don't know how to do laundry."

Lori had a reply ready, but stopped herself. No, poking at him at his inability to recognize when a woman was lewdly flirting with him would have to wait. She had duties. "Was anyone injured in River's Fork?"

Rian shook his head. "I had Pellee keeping an eye on everyone. The closest thing to a serious injury was someone tripping and bruising their knee, and apparently Binder Shana—"

"Shanalorre," Lori corrected.

"Why I can I call you Lori but I can't call her Shana?" Rian said, giving her a look that implied she was being strange. "That sounds really backward."

"I have people call me Lori because I know most people mispronounce my full name atrociously, and I'd rather not have reason to cringe every time my name is called. I'd rather you not make the mistake of getting into the habit of referring to her disrespectfully. She might take offense and have you killed."

"… fine, sure, let's go with that," Rian eventually sighed. "But picking up from where I left off, she was there and she healed him. I'm told they also got pretty good food with lots of bread to help keep their energy up for mining, so at the moment we don't have to worry about our people being worked to death with insufficient nutrition. I'm pretty sure a bunch smuggled some bread in their packs, though I'm not sure they'd be worth eating, buried in sweaty clothes."

"Tell them to bake it again," she said. "It should be enough to purge anything clinging to it, though I doubt it will make it more edible." She frowned thoughtfully. "Do you think the generally favorable conditions will make them willing to do two-week shifts? Because if we have to face this sort of pointless drop in productivity every week…"

"They just missed their family, and their family missed them," Rian said. "After all, they haven't seen each other in a week. It's understandable."

"I disagree," Lori said. She hadn't seen her parents in months and knew she wouldn't react like this if they just happened to show up. Quite the opposite. "Load up the boat and come back quickly. I have a test I need to do."

Rian's eyes widened eagerly. "Oh, sounds fun. Same place as last time?"

Lori nodded.

"I'll try to get back by lunch or so, then," he said.

Nod again. Then she remembered what she'd been about to say. "If you truly feel guilty about taking advantage of someone washing your clothes, perhaps you could learn to wash your own clothes. I did, after all."

He blinked in confusion for a moment at the sudden shift in conversation before seeming to recall. "So, are you offering to teach me?"

"No," she said bluntly. "However, we have a laundry area full of women you can ask. Why don't you start there?"

He looked at the indicated place warily. Sure enough there were people there doing laundry, and someone was stringing up a new drying line. They were running out of places to hang those up. She might have to make more. "I wouldn't want to bother anyone…"

"As opposed to bothering someone by having them wash your clothes for you?"

He considered that, then sighed. "You're right, I suppose."

Of course she was.

"Of course I am," she said. "Now get moving, we still have that experiment to do."

It took much more time than she would have liked to get people dispersed and the remainder of the next batch of miners loaded onto Lori's Boat—by which she meant it took time at all—but soon she was watching her boat moving downstream again, loaded with more workers clutching packs of spare clothes and bedrolls.

She wondered if they would be able to wash their clothes, or would just need to wear them out over the week?

Perhaps she should have Rian bring it up with Shanalorre…

Shrugging, she went to gather the things she needed for her experiment.