Weekly Digest 145 - (#455 - #457) (Patreon)

The Abomination

Once they arrived in the dome of River's Fork, work began quickly. Yllian had met them with a large group of able-bodied men that had been sent yesterday to prepare for today, as well as—Lori checked the rocks in her belt pouch—Lidzuga. Kolinh and Yllian briefly spoke with one another as the arrows and stones were removed from one of the boats, then spoke to Shanalorre. A boat was loaded with people before crossing the river to the opposite bank. Seemingly unarmed, not even carrying bow or spear, they slipped into the trees. Those would be the hunters and scouts, Lori recalled, who would ascertain the abomination's location and condition, and if necessary try to guide the abomination towards where it could be killed.

As much as Lori would have loved to stay at the dome on the other side of the river from the abomination, she had preparations to make. One that unfortunately required that she also cross to the other shore, although she was able to delay the matter until all the other militia had made the crossing before her to ensure that there was some preparation to keep her safe. On the other side, Lori was surprised to find the ground heavily worked. There were deep trenches just wide enough for a person to fit inside that seemed randomly situation, trees whose branches seemed to have woven and sometimes fused together into strange lattices of walls at just barely above head height, and large thickets of thorny brambles made from a mix of random branches and ropeweed. Distributed seemingly at random were small piles of branches covered with leaves, and interspersed among them were shallow pits that had been covered over by branches and leaves to hide them, the branches intended to break should the abomination's weight rest on them.

"Such a short fall seems pointless," Lori commented when the purpose of the holes had been explained to her. "The abomination could simply stand up from it."

"That would be the case it this were a little thing like a choker, or even just a leaper. Well, a small leaper. But you're forgetting how big this abomination is," Rian said. "To something of that size and weight, what would be a little fall to us would probably break its bones, since it weighs far more. Even if it doesn't break a leg, a sprained ankle that the abomination can't put weight on would hamper it greatly."

 The preparations were mostly concentrated on either side of a particular area that to Lori's unpracticed eye seemed to be a rather wide trail leading towards the river that the hunter had put forward as the abomination's most likely route. A so-called 'game trail', it was apparently a path that had likely been regularly trodden on by beasts before demesne had been founded. While there had far fewer beasts using the trail recently, it hadn't yet faded, and it was reportedly also the most convenient route for something the size of the abomination to pass through the trees towards the river. While she had been expecting some kind of preparations, she hadn't expected them to be able to accomplish this much in just one day.

Apparently beasts—and abominations, by extension—didn't like having to rub up against trees or walking through bushes and things unless they were marking their demesne, so the abomination would mostly likely walk the path of least resistance… especially if they tied ropes between trees to mildly discourage the abomination from walking between them. It wasn't certain the abomination would rather choose unobstructed and wide paths, but was supposedly very likely.

"The trenches are to give people something to try and dive into," Rian exposited quietly as Lori eyed one such trench running perpendicular to the game trail nearby. The dirt on either side was only loose earth that had been piled to either side, but ropes and a tangle of branches with large, visible wooden thorns had been placed atop it, partially covering the trench beneath. "By  the hunter's estimate, it's too narrow for the abomination to simply stick its head in and pull someone out, and the ropes and thorns are meant to deter it from trying. If the thing tries to reach in with its limbs—very unlikely—it should get stuck enough we can try to pike its sides. The rest are to try and discourage it from going certain ways in case it decides to chase someone. "

Lori looked at all the Deadspoken wooden shapes as she checked the rocks in her belt pouch. Lidzuga—with assistance from Shanalorre—had done a lot of work yesterday. Hopefully it all worked. The Deadspeaker was making a few more last moment barriers, a pair of militiamen following him in case Shanalorre announced the abomination's arrival. He was clearly not having to imbue the wood himself, as he simply touched the tree he was standing next to and the branches immediately began to move. The fact Shanalorre was looking straight at him was another clue.

Well, Lori had to make her own preparations.

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Lori barely managed to finish laying down the marked stone she was working on, expanding the binding anchored onto it into a sphere four paces wide just as she had done with the rest, when a high-pitched, piercing whistle filled the air. She glanced up as she took another one of the marked river stones from the bag over her shoulder. Thankfully the bag had gotten lighter as she had laid out the bag's contents.

"Great Binder, that means the abomination approaching," Riz said, holding a bow and three of the imbued arrows in one hand, said. The three other women with them were similarly armed.

"So I surmise, Erzebed," Lori said, letting the stone fall back into the bag as she began to stride towards the source of the sound. Only a quarter of them remained, the rest distributed along the game trail and a few open spaces that Lori thought it the abomination might step out of the trail… or step into it. "Can you see it?" She didn't want to look behind her and accidentally fall into one of the trenches and holes. In front of her, she could see other people reacting to the whistle. Pikes were being handed out, and the people wielding them were forming groups of at least three. Others were jumping down into trenches or climbing up trees, carrying ropes, bows and arrows, jars and…burning sticks? No, those were burning cords wrapped around short sticks.

"No Great Binder, but that doesn't mean we should wait until it is," Riz said. "Please Great Binder, we need to hurry."

Hurry? The only reason Lori wasn't running was because all the digging had left loose dirt everywhere and she was afraid of tripping!

Fortunately, the abomination had not yet appeared by the time they reached the banks of the river, where the various boats were and Shanalorre had finally stopped blowing on the whistle that someone had provided for her to signal with. Riz and the women with her immediately grabbed pikes that had been left behind and moved to place themselves between Lori and the woods. Rian took the bow and arrows from Riz and stepping to the side, possibly to get a better view of the abomination in case he needed to draw and loose. He shouldn't, because until Lori actually activated the binding anchored to the arrow it would do nothing, but he was clearly preparing himself. The three other militia who had stayed behind to guard Shanalorre spread out as well, also carrying bows, although their arrows had no bindings anchored to them.

The lines of lightwisps connecting the stones to Lori were strained to their utmost, but fortunately none seemed to have overextended themselves and snapped from distance. She gathered more lightwisps out of the air through her skin and added them to the lines anchored to her fingernail to give the binding some more slack as she finally turned around, looking among the trees for the abomination. Everyone seemed to be doing the same, trying to spot the approaching danger, pikes in hand and ready to lower to try to discourage the abomination from approaching.

"Shanalorre, where is the abomination?" Lori asked she took the rest of the arrows with binding anchored to them from the quiver hanging from her waist. As quickly as she could, she started claiming and binding more lightwisps, using them to make lines that connected the arrows to her fingernail.

Shanalorre pointed. "There," she said, her finger pointing steadily into the woods.

Lori tried to follow the indicated direction with her gaze, but she saw nothing beast or abomination-like. Rian actually bent down and put his head next to Shanalorre's hand so he could sight along the length of her finger, with had remained still and true. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see better, even if doing so didn't really help. While her vision had always been good—she'd gone to see an ocular Deadspeaker every year to keep her vision perfect, at least until she'd left Taniar Demesne—the irregular shapes of the trees, the distance, and the gloom caused by the dragon's tendrils blocking out the sky made it hard to see into the woods.

Claiming and binding more lightwisps, Lori formed them into complementary bindings to act as a spyglass as well as slightly intensify the light passing through them to mitigate the gloom, and anchored the bindings to her thumbnail and forefingernail. A quick adjustment to bring the image seen through the bindings in focus, and she was able to use it to start scanning the woods—

There!

With the binding, what had been dark, distant and obscured brightened, and she was finally able to see the typhon abomination. It was still a great distance away, but she could see it now, standing between distant trees.

Lori had seen the typhon beast before, though it had usually only been briefly as she passed it when travelling along the river. The beast had never lingered, always turning away soon after she'd spotted it as if aware she desired its quick death. She had gotten the sense of a thick body, a head that appeared almost grotesquely oversized in comparison to the rest of its body—at least compared to the leapers and chokers—and the rows of large, knife-like spines running down its back.

That had changed.

Within the boundaries of the demesne, the colors of the now-abomination's plumage were revealed to be shades of dark brown. Despite its size, most of its body would have blended with the gloom beneath the trees if it weren't for the binding that intensified light for Lori. She needed a second look to realize that the abomination had patches of bark instead of feathers in seemingly random places, as the colors of the two seemed to blend together in her eyes, and at a distance the different textures would likely have been indistinguishable.

Some features, Lori had expected. The abomination seemed to have a branch fused to the end of its tail, a few stubborn but dead leaves still hanging on as the many smaller branches made the appendage look like a broom. There were other, smaller branches apparently fused to its spines, as if the tree limbs had fallen on the abomination's back and had sunk into the flesh and bone. A branch had fused to the side of the left side of the abomination's head, running mostly parallel to its jaw, now covered in blood.

Lori also saw that the abomination was heavily injured. One of its forelimbs was hanging down instead of curled up close to its body, and she could see that everything from the elbow of that extremity downwards seemed be flopping bonelessly. One eye was also a bloody golden ruin, and the abomination kept turning its head to let its single eye cast its gaze forward. On a second glance, patches of the abomination's feathers were matted down and sticky with golden, syrupy blood. It was also moving slowly, and… was that a limp? Didn't the scouts say it had been relatively uninjured?

Perhaps this could be to their advantage? If it were injured, it should be easier to kill.

"Rian, can you make the target at this distance?" Lori said.

"I can barely see the target, so no," her lord said, looking at the other bowmen as Lori finished making lines of lightwisps to anchor the various arrows to her fingernails. "How about you three?"

"Still too far, Lord Rian, especially with the draw on these bows," one said. "If this was a clear field or the day was brighter, perhaps, but…"

Lori tuned out the rest, watching the abomination. She held up her left hand, the lines of lightwisps anchored to her nails stretching towards rocks she had laid out even if she couldn't see them, and selected the line connecting her to the binding nearest the abomination. She couldn't see the rock anymore, but remembered where it was. If the beast would just step over it…

As she watched, the abomination took a slow step forward.

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Lightning

When the typhon abomination moved, Lori expected the ground to shake and a vibration like a deep bass drum to spread with every footfall… which was silly, because such things were merely theater conventions meant to convey size and drama. That thought came later, and it took an embarrassingly long time to do so. So when the abomination stepped forward, Lori was momentarily confused as to why it was moving so quietly.

All around the prepared ground, the militia stood in their tranches and behind various thorny obstacles, even as the groups with pikes slowly turned to keep the points of their long weapon pointed towards the abomination. As the thing approached the first of the trees whose branches had been entangled together in a makeshift barrier, Lori was suddenly struck by how big the abomination was. She'd known that it was large—she'd read it in the almanac, after all— but she'd had to walk under many of the entangled branches when she'd been laying down the stones with her lightningball bindings on them. The branches had been well above her head.

For the typhon abomination, they were lower than its face. Four paces at the hip, Lori recalled. However, given how the beast elevated its head and upper boy, in practical terms it was far taller than that. Before the abomination would have struck the barrier, it turned to the side, avoiding the interwoven branches as Rian said it would, and causing it to set foot on the game trail . Although from the sigh of relief next to her, her lord hadn't been as confident it would do so as he had appeared. They watched at the abomination continued walking, now following the trail, its nostrils flaring. 

For all intents and purposes, the dragonborn moved in utter silence. That could simply be distance, as it was still well away from her—it was still well outside the ground they had prepared around the game trail, although the beast seemed to be on the trail itself—but if it had been behind Lori, she likely would have had no idea it was near until it was dangerously too late. It was unlikely to be far too late, since she was a Dungeon Binder, but… well, her next binding would have a high probability of being her last.

"Your Bindership, may I respectfully suggest you get into the boat with Shanalorre and move to the middle of the river while you wait for us to kill this thing?" Rian said. For some reason, he was speaking through tightly clenched teeth. "Please?"

"It's still far away, Rian. I have plenty of time to get in the boat if it comes close enough to be a danger."

"Your Bindership, you don't actually think it moves that slow when it's intending to take down prey, do you? Most predators that size move in absurdly fast bursts to surprise and take down its prey. If it wants to eat you, it will suddenly move faster than a leaper and bring its whole head down to bite you in one move."

Lori turned to stare at her lord. So did Shanalorre. She got the sense that Riz would have turned to stare if she hadn't been so professional. "Why do you know that?"

"I once knew a vitalogist who was very enthusiastic about all the ways beasts could kill each other and also us. And that was just from casual conversation and listening. Did you know most venoms are edible? They're intended to be injected into the bloodstream, so taking them orally, as long as you don't have a mouth sore or an ulcer, is actually no problem."

"Fascinating, and pointless. I do not believe this one has any venoms."

"I should hope not. If it had venoms, then its natural prey is something significantly bigger that it is. We'd have noticed an islandshell on land. Uh, is it standing on one of your traps now, your Bindership?"

Lori turned and the abomination had gotten closer and she hadn't heard a thing! After a brief moment of heart-clenching panic, she checked the state of the bindings anchored to her fingernails, then mentally set aside the ones that weren't lightning balls. She inspected each binding, but didn't feel any additional lightningwisps and firewisps within the volume of any of them, even as her eyes checked where her stones were. "No, it isn't," she said. Since she hadn't managed to lay out all of her stones, the bindings only covered two-thirds of the game trail within the prepared ground. However, since the abomination was following the trail, all she had to do was wait, and it would reach her bindings…

All it needed to do was continue on its way…

"Shanalorre, if Lori's not going out into the water—"

"I will stay," Shanalorre said.

"Shana, now is not the time!" Rian hissed. "You're not needed here, we can already see the thing, get out in the water so Yoshka doesn't have to risk losing another family member if that thing gets too close."

Lori heard wood scraping on rocks and water splashing, soon followed by the sound of one of their boats' steam jet drivers activating. She glanced towards Rian as he returned to stand beside her, an arrow nocked on his bow. "None of you loose until I tell you to," she said. "I need to activate the binding before you release it." She didn't know if she had enough lightwisps to still connect her to the arrows after they were loosed, so she wasn't going to take the chance.

"Understood, your Bindership," Rian said, and the other men with bows echoed him. They kept their bows down, not yet drawing.

The abomination was still walking, still following the path even as its nostrils were flaring and its head kept swinging from side to side. In one of the trenches that paralleled the game trail, the militia had to hold their pikes vertically, as they had no room to keep the weapons leveled at the abomination due to the walls of the trench being so narrow.

"It can smell us," Rian muttered. "It knows we're here, but it probably doesn't know what we are, and its kind probably hasn't learned how to react to people yet…"

"Rian, who are you expositing to?" Lori said, spyglass once more raised to her eye. Just a little bit more… it was almost at the first binding…

"Uh… myself, to be honest. Sorry."

Lori would have rolled her eyes if she wasn't using them for something more important. "Don't be so loud."

"Noted, your Bindership."

The abomination stepped over one of her stones—the very last one she had set down, in fact—entering the sphere of the lightning ball binding anchored to it.

Lori reached for the lightwisps anchored to her fingernail to activate the binding and activated it.

Even as lightwisps created a line of light between her fingernail and the lightning ball binding, she wondered if she had made a mistake. If she should have waited until the abomination had moved further forward, so that there would be a lightning ball binding behind it to keep it from being able to escape. If she should have waited until the abomination was blocked on either side by trees…

Then lightning bloomed like an exploding flower in the middle of the sphere of the binding, which lit up the darkened woods. The center of the lightning ball was a burning star casting all about it in stark radiance and dark shadows. Dancing arks of lightning caressed the abomination like a dragon trailing its claws over the land, to a sound like the world's largest bug beating its wings angrily. The very air reached such extremes of heat it burned, and Lori had to lower her hand and cease looking through her spyglass as the light was brightened greatly when it passed through the binding. She heard cries of surprise from the militia, but they were muted and brief, and all remained in their positions. It was hard to see because of both distance and brightness, but the abomination seemed to be smoking where it had been struck, the misty haze visible in the air as it partially reflecting the lightning's radiance.

"—please die, please die, please die, please die—" Rian was muttering repeatedly, one eye closed, the other almost closed so he could see through it as he watched the abomination not simply be struck by lightning but have lightning flowing through it near constantly. Even as the lightningwisps flowed, bringing with it bright and burning lightning and heat that expended the binding's imbuement, Lori was imbuing the binding, drawing magic from her core and channeling it through her body and into the lightwisps anchored to her fingernail, which then spread it through the rest of the lightningball—

The abomination began to topple, unbalanced as its stiff, unmoving legs made it unable to remain upright. As Lori watched, the abomination began to fall sideways atop one of the trenches that paralleled the game trail. The pikes poking out from the trench that had previously been upright due to lack of space to maneuver them were all pushed back by the abomination's bulk, snapping under its weight as the butts of the pikes lodged against the wall of the trench.

They all stared as the abomination twitched were it lay on the ground, a few small fires burning on its feathers, illuminated by the lightning of the binding next to it. When Lori deactivated the binding, the shape of the abomination was plunged into darkness, save for the small flickers of light from its burning feathers.

As Lori raised her spyglass binding up to her eye to assess the abomination's state, it seemed to stir, feebly trying to raise its head. Not dead yet, then. Still, it seemed to be having trouble moving, its tail and one of its legs twitching randomly as it tried to right itself atop the trench it had fallen on. Unfortunately, it was out of position for the lightning ball that had struck it previously, and even if Lori altered the binding's shape, there were militia in the trench that the abomination had fallen on who would be endangered lightning struck the typhon abomination in its current position.

There was movement to the side, and Lori saw people climbing from the far end of the trench, away from the abomination's head. They appeared covered in dirt, and Lori suspected that the dirt that had been piled up on the edges of the trench had fallen on them when the abomination had fallen. She counted four people exiting the trench and running towards the next closest trench, avoiding some thorned barriers. Behind them, the abomination was struggling to get to its feet, and it was clearly favoring the side it had fallen on. It tried to tuck in its legs beneath it despite the twitching, but even so, it didn't seem to have the strength left to push itself up.

Next to Lori, Rian sighed. "I'm going to try and get close enough to hit it, see if I can stick an arrow in its chest so that we can finish it off," he said. "Your Bindership, be ready to activate the binding on the arrow, please?" Without waiting for a reply, he began to move forward, an arrow nocked on his bowstring.

Lori frowned but nodded. "You three, go with him. If that thing stands, throw Rian into the nearest trench. If he misses, take your own shot."

"Yes, Great Binder," the three other bowmen said, following after Rian, their own arrows nocked but not drawn as Lori franticly claimed lightwisps so she could extend the connection between her and the arrows. She had to make the lines of lightwisps arc upwards so that their bodies wouldn't block the line, since Rian was the only one who was making an effort to hold his arrow so there was a clear path between her and the binding on it.

The abomination was still struggling to get to its feet when Rian finally stopped moving, standing behind a tree to keep it between him and the dragonborn. The twitching of the abomination's limbs had slowly ceased, and was finally managing to get its legs under it, though it was still having difficulty pushing itself up. Rian visibly checked how his arrow was nocked on his bow before raising it up and beginning to draw…

Then arrowhead fell off where it was resting just above the fist gripping the bowstave, and Rian had to hastily reset it, even as the abomination continued trying to stand…

"Oh, Great Binder," Riz said, sounding horrified.

"What, Erzebed?" Lori demanded.

For once, Riz didn't become flustered by her attention. "He doesn't know how use a bow!"

Lori blinked, and looked back toward Rian, pointing her spyglass binding towards him. "He seems to know what he's doing well enough." With the arrow now back in place, the way he was drawing back the bowstring looked very experienced, if a bit slow.

Riz had one hand over her face now. "Great Binder, his arm is shaking!"

"Is it not supposed to?"

"No, it's not. It means the bow's draw is heavier than he's used to."

"That's your bow though, Riz," one of the other militiawomen said. "I think his bow is still in the boat? Isn't that it there?"

"So it's not like he doesn't know how to use a bow, it's just he doesn't know how to use your bow," another militiawoman said.

Lori ignored them, still watching Rian intently. He was far enough away she was unlikely to hear him even if he yelled. He'd finally stopped drawing the bow, and now she could easily see what Riz meant about his arm shaking. It wasn't much, but the tremor was obvious…

Rian loosed. Lori activated the binding on his arrow.

There was a brief line of light as the lightwisps connecting her to the binding became active in the brief moment before the arrow struck the abomination in the cheek, where the abomination's feathers were thin. It struck, lodging into place, and the abomination flinched, its jaws parting before starting to twitch and shake. The fact that there was no immediate explosion was a good sign, as it meant she'd designed the binding properly. As with the lightningball binding, the bindings on the arrows were causing lightning to flow through the abomination's body, a gradual process that was still heavily damaging. Its whole body slumped down as it seemed to lose strength again.

Rian gestured at the other bowmen, who had all stayed well behind, pointing first at one then at the abomination, then at his chest—no, his heart—and his head. The bowman he pointed at nodded, bringing up his bow—from much further away than Rian—and slowly drawing it as Lori sorted through the lines of lightwisps she had anchored, finding the one that arced towards his arrow.

The arm he was using to draw the arrow, she noted, was moving smoothly and steadily and definitely not shaking.

He loosed, and Lori activated the binding. 

This time only the arcing line of light that appeared when she activated the binding allowed her to see where the arrow had stuck. It buried itself into the abomination's chest, sinking among the thick feathers there that insulated the torso. The abomination began to convulse, losing its balance once more and falling on its side as its legs kicked weakly. Rian took the opportunity hurry away from the dragonborn, moving much faster than when he had approached it as he joined the three bowmen where they were standing.

For several long moments, everyone remained where they were, watching the abomination warily as it convulsed. Lori kept imbuing the bindings on the two arrows lodged into its body, slowly increasing the power of the lightning being generated by the lightningwisps.

It was only when she felt her bindings surrounded by waterwisps and firewisps that she could claim that she finally activated them. Being able to affect the wisps in a body meant the body was no longer alive, as the soul that had been claiming those wisps was now absent. With a sigh, Lori deactivated all of the bindings anchored to her to prevent any accidents. "It's done," she told Riz. "Tell everyone to stand down, the abomination is dead."

"Are you sure, Great Binder?" The non-officer looked skeptical.

"I've deactivated the bindings that were killing it and it's still not moving," Lori said flatly. "That's dead enough for me."

The militiawoman still hesitated. "Perhaps we should check with Binder Shanalorre, just to be sure?"

Lori rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine. Are you sure you don't want to be an officer? You're acting very officious."

Riz shuddered.

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Anti-Climactic

It turned out that Shanalorre could not, in fact, confirm that the abomination was dead, at least not this soon.

"While the abomination might technically be dead, most of the life in its body is still alive," she explained once she had set foot on land once more and given a moment to think after the question had been posed to her.

"But it's dead?" Lori pressed.

"Its heart isn’t beating, its lungs aren't breathing, and many of the life in its head are inert," Shanalorre said. "That's reasonably dead, I believe, but most of the life in its body is still… 'alive', so to speak. Forgive me, Great Binder, but I do not know enough to say with more certainty."

They reverted to the second option by having… eh, Rit-something…? Lori checked one of her rocks to remind herself of his name, then they had Lidzuga check that the abomination was in fact dead. This involved the Deadspeaker poking it with a pike wooden pike and using that as a channel for Deadspeaking to ascertain that the abomination was, in fact, actually dead. Once it was confirmed, Lori—and everyone else, it seemed—let out a sigh of relief at not having to worry about the abomination recovering.

. Around them, the militia volunteers were hard at work filling in the pits and trenches. Lori had thought it would simply be simpler to just leave them be, but Riz had pointed out that they could become hazards or dens for beasts or abominations. Well, if they insisted on the work, then she'd let them, and they seemed to be doing it fairly fast in any case. Near the typhon beast, the hunters were discussing what parts could be harvested from the carcass. While the abomination looked mostly normal,  some parts of it had been fused to wood, and there might be internal alterations that weren't immediately obvious from the outside.Lori had already let it be known she claimed the bones, claws, teeth and spines.

"It feels a bit anti-climactic," Rian commented. "I mean, nothing went horribly wrong, no one was injured… I half-expected us to have to throw around the smokes pots to try and push it to move, use the ropes to try and hold it in place or make it fall down, run around trying to get away from it as it chased us… instead it just walked right on top of your trap, and we killed it."

"Yes, Rian, that's why we set the trap on a game trail the way the hunter recommended," Lori said. "To make it more likely it would do exactly that."

"I know, I know… I'm just surprised nothing unexpected happened, that's all. It didn't even get distracted and go after anyone…"

She rolled her eyes. "Perhaps we were simply too small to rouse its appetites. Rian, the plan was well-prepared, and well-enacted," Lori said. "Why did you think anything would go wrong."

He shrugged. "I'd rather consider how things could go wrong and not have them happen than not think about how they could go wrong and end up surprised and unprepared." He let out a sigh, then visibly straightened up with a smile. "Well, a least we know what we need to do next time this happens."

Lori started to nod before she realized what Rian had just said. "Next time?" she repeated sharply.

"Well, yeah," Rian said. "I mean, we managed to go a year before a typhon beast showed up, but it's probably only a matter of time before another one shows up." He tilted his head. "Actually, given how we didn't encounter one on our way here and no one warned us about them before we set out, they're probably relatively rare in this area, but probably not so rare that there's not enough to reproduce. Still, it's probably only a matter of time before another one appears in the vicinity of our demesnes eventually, though we probably won't know until the other beasts start vacating the area again."

"Another one."

Rian paused. "Are you all right? You're repeating parts of what I'm saying."

Lori just closed her eyes as she imagined dealing with another typhon beast sometime in the future.

…

Actually, now that they'd done it, it didn't feel as intimidating anymore.

"I'm well. Simply considering the logistics of how we would go about killing another typhon beast."

Her lord nodded. "Yes, it's probably going to be harder next time, since we'd need to do it outside of the demesne and won't have you or Shanalorre to use your Dungeon Binder abilities to help keep track of it, but I'm sure we'll be able to think of something."

…

Lori decided she didn't want to think of this at the moment. Her preparations had worked perfectly and the abomination was dead. Goals had been accomplished. "Well, we're done here. Does the demesne need anything else? Otherwise I am returning home."

"Could you make some bug-repellant bindings? Ralii—one of the hunters, for your information— inks the meat and blood can be salvaged, but because it's abomination blood… well, it's already attracting bugs. And maybe some blocks of ice to keep the meat fresh?"

She gave Rian a flat look, not having expected him to actually say anything, and looked longingly towards her boat, with its comfortable seat. Then she sighed. "Fine, fine. Go and get the stones I set down, I'll reuse the bindings on those…"

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By the time Lori had finished reforming the bindings on her river stones into bug repellant spheres and using them to lay out a corridor free of bugs from the abomination corpse to the river bank where the boats were, the additional stones for the boats that would be ferrying the meat over the river to the dome, the blocks and chunks of ice that that meat would be laid on to keep them fresh, as well as additional ice for the food storage in the mine, it was almost noon.

There was something mildly frustrating to realize that the preparations for killing the abomination, and the work she had done at the aftermath of doing so had both taken significantly more time than the actual time spent actually dealing with the abomination. Rian's comment about the incident feeling anti-climactic began to make more sense to her now. For all that slaying the abomination had progressed without incident, taken all together, it had been brief and barely notable. Which was good, because if events had been notable, that meant that things had not gone according to plan… probably in the ways that Rian had spoken off earlier.

Still, anti-climactic or not, it was over now. Lori sat back on her chair on Lori's Shed Boat, mindful to not close her eyes lest she fall asleep again. If she indulged, she might not be able to sleep properly that night, don't horrible things to her sleep cycle. Rian and Shanalorre were with her as Riz operated the driver and the non-officer's friend's accompanied them. The other two boats and their passengers had remained behind to finish undoing earthworks that had been made, as well as assist in the butchering and transport of the abomination.

The demesne would have no problem feeding them. They'd be getting new meat, after all.

Out of habit, Lori watched the shore, but she saw no typhon beasts.

When they arrived back home, it was at the tail end of lunch. Fortunately, there were still some stew left, although the bread had grown cold in the meantime.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to heat everyone's stew?" Rian asked as he laid down four bowls of stew on the table. "Please?"

"I am not an oven," Lori told him flatly.

"Technically, you'd be acting as a stove," he said brightly. "Perhaps a cookfire at the very least. An oven isn't really the best for heating stews. The heat needs to come from below, or else you'll end up with a thin layer of warn stew on the top while the rest stays stone cold." He put his hands together pleadingly. "Please?"

Lori rolled her eyes. "Fine—"

"Great, let me go get Brabli, Sintelerra, Navia and Raradina," he said quickly, turning and running off.

Lori stared after him, then turned to Riz. "What?"

"My friends who escorted you, Great Binder," Riz said. "They're eating cold stew as well, and I suppose that Rian thought if you were already willing to heat our food for us, then perhaps you would be willing to do the same for them."

"I am a Dungeon Binder, not a stove or a cookfire!"

Riz nodded. "Yes, Great Binder. Can we beg you to do so anyway? Please?"

Lori gave her a level look as Riz bowed her head in supplication. While she was annoyed at the… request… well, she supposed it was needlessly cruel to have those four have to eat their stew cold…

So when Rian arrived with four women holding bowls of cold stew, Lori simply rubbed her hands together to generate firewisps from the friction, anchored the firewisps to the waterwisps at the bottom of their bowls, and warmed the stew.

"Do not become used to this," Lori told Rian sternly. "This is an exceptional occasion. Is that understood?"

"Understood, Great Binder," Rian said as the four women walked away with their bowls of now-warm food. "You made an exception because we killed the typhon abomination today."

"Y-yes, that's exactly it," Lori said. "That's the reason."

"It's not that you felt sorry for the four of them being the only ones who'd have to eat cold food, it was merely an exception."

"Correct." Good, Rian understood.

With that, Lori focused on eating, and those with full bowls of stew followed her example.

For a moment, there was relative silence as she, Rian and Riz ate. Shanalorre had joined her cousin at the table behind Lori and thus was not part of the relative silence, and the children were always lively, though thankfully not loud.

"So…" the crazy woman—Taeclas, was thankfully wearing a head cloth, though she'd pulled it out of her belt pouch when Lori had sat down at the table—turned towards Rian,  "how did it go?"

"No one was hurt," Rian said. "The abomination's relatively whole, so the hunters are butchering it for meat. River's Fork has a whole lot of feathers and a large skin for leather, though her Bindership has claimed all the bones and things."

"What, really?" She looked at Lori, who ignored her query, too busy eating. "Why?"

"Raw material would be my guess. It's certainly not so she'll have a corpse to turn into an undead, since she's letting us cut it up for food. Bone is a pretty useful resource for her Bindership, and the abomination has some nice, thick ones."

Lori paused as she realized what Rian had just said, but eventually sighed and went back to eating. Well, even if she'd thought of it, she was still a long way from learning how to deadcraft undead. She already had one large creature she intended to make into an undead buried in ice, she didn't need another one.

"Speaking of which, though… your Bindership?"

She looked up at Rian's voice. "What?" she demanded at his wheedling tone.

"May I make a suggestion for transporting the bones from River's Fork to here?" he said.

"I'm not bringing the bones here," Lori said. "They'll be staying where they are. I'm tired of having to keep bringing bones when I want to use them for something. Those bones are going to be my stockpile there."

"Oh…"

Lori gave him a flat look. She shouldn't. She really shouldn't…"What strange idea did you have in mind?"

"Ah, was just thinking that instead of trying to transport the bones here on the boats that it would be faster to just fuse all the bones together into a boat and tow that upriver… but if the bones are going to stay in River's Fork I suppose that's not really necessary…" he sighed.

"Why would I want to make a boat out of bone? We have perfectly serviceable boats made out of wood."

"Oh, I was just thinking that a boat made of bone is one you'd be able to repair by yourself if it became damaged, so you might prefer your boat be made from it rather than wood?" He shrugged. "It was just a thought. Obviously something like it would have been more useful before we had Lidz and Tae to do Deadspeaking for the demesnes, but now…" He shrugged again.

Well… she couldn't deny that. Before the two Deadspeakers had joined them, a boat made out of bone would have been something she could build and maintain herself. the problem had been that they had never had that much bone on hand, and what they did have always had more urgent uses. The stockpile in the bone pit had grown plentiful enough for her to feel she could build a boat out of it.

Hmm… maybe she should try it? There was no reason that the abomination bones had to remain in their raw state, after all.

Something to think about.

"Ah, by the way your Bindership, what are your plans after lunch?" Rian asked.

Lori considered the question. Besides killing the abomination, she actually hadn't had anything actually planned for today. However, an answer readily came to mind. "Laundry," she said.

"Ah. Do you want me to get you some more soap?"

"That would be useful."

Rian nodded. "I'll get you some from the inventory, then."

Once Lori had finished her lunch—thankfully, Rian hadn't engaged her in further talk, letting her eat her food quickly—Lori went upstairs and began the malodorous task of washing the clothes she had worn for more than a week, as well as the rest of her garments. She had just finished drawing out basins and tubs from the walls of her private bath to let her clothes soak when there was a knock on her door. She hastily pulled on her discarded a shirt before heading to answer it, her wet, bare feet flapping on the hard stone floor of her room

As promised, Rian was there holding a block of the soap that the demesne's chandler made. "Here you go," he said, and she took a moment to claim the waterwisps on the surface of her hand so she could pull them off before accepting the soap. No need to get it wet just yet. "And this as well."

Lori almost reached for the second thing he was giving her with her free hand before she saw what it was and recoiled.

Her notes, still pressed between two tablets, wiggled in Rian's hands.

She glanced down at it, than back up to him, bewildered.

He shrugged. "I figure we're close enough to normal that you should have this back," he said. "I would have given it to you sooner, but Shanalorre found the abomination."

Lori stared down at it. hesitantly, she reached for the sheaf with her now dry hands. "Thank you," she found herself saying.

"You're welcome," he said. "If you don't show up for meals, I'll assume you got lost in your notes again and start hammering on your door until you answer."

She glanced at the notes again. "That… would probably be advisable."

Rian nodded. "Well, see you at dinner, Lori."

Nodding absently as he turned away, she shut her door behind him

For a moment, she just stood there, staring at the sheaf of notes.

Taking a deep breath, Lori turned around carefully placed the notes atop her table, then took her equipment box—full of glassware and small tools—and deliberately set it atop the sheaf. Then she turned around and went to her bathroom, pulling off her shirt as she went.

She had laundry to do.