Demesne

Lori didn't feel it when the dragon finally went away, since she had been distracted during the period it had likely happened to note its passing. She had been too full of sheer outrage at the complete and utter nonsensical ignorance of story Rian insisted on continuing to tell her.

"– so he couldn't just make trees spring from nowhere, especially outside his demesne!" Lori finished her latest diatribe of the story's utter stupidity. "Even with the dungeon's core providing power, he'd need seeds for the trees, and he'd need to touch them since outside of his demesne he'll be operating the same as any other wizard, which he wouldn’t be, but we've already talked about that, and…" She cut off, her throat sore, and she reached for the water skin for another drink. It was empty, but Lori still put it to her mouth anyway and tried to suck in what little moisture she could still feel inside.

Annoyed, she willed water to her, turning a part of their reservoir to vapor and drawing that vapor to her before making it condense again in her mouth since her hands were too dirty for her to catch the water in them. It was slow, as she could only gulp small condensed mouthfuls at a time, and was in the middle of such a belabored mouthful when she realized she could just wash her hands, then drink, and did so. The water had that annoying taste of rainwater that hadn't touched the ground yet, but it was filling and sated her thirst.

When she'd drunk enough to feel her throat had been soothed, she opened her mouth to continue haranguing Rian for his terrible, utterly stupid story… and realized he was asleep, sitting back against the stone, head drooping forward in a way that was probably going to be very painful for his neck when he woke up.

"Well… then I win," Lori said, nodding in satisfaction, voice hoarse.

She didn't remember what happened after that.

Lori woke with her head drooping down, a pain in her neck. Groaning, she rubbed at her nape, and nearly fell over as her numb posterior made its numbness known, barely catching herself from smacking into the cold stones of her cave. The air smiled of woodsmoke.

"Good morning, Wiz Lori," a familiar voice said.

Lori opened her eyes. The brat was looking down at her, holding a bowl of stew.

"Lord Rian says to ask you to open the door as soon as you wake up," the brat said. "Because the air's smoky from cooking, and people are coughing. He said to say please. So, please."

Lori looked at her blearily. Then she shook her head as last night's– yesterday's?– events came rushing back. She glanced toward the air hole. It was filled with… bits. Dead bits, of things she couldn't recognize. There was fur like a seel but in strange colors like beast's feathers, there were shells like bugs that had the texture of bark, there was a circular, toothy maw like a slug… it was all mixed in with thick, syrupy liquids that might have been bright but had now dried into dark, resin-like sludge.

And beyond that, there was bright sunlight. It wasn't directly visible, because at some point Lori had made a pair of sharp angles in the air hole to block things flung in by the wind, and then she'd had to close and open the air hole a few times due to things climbing inside, but she could see a reflection of radiance on the stone, bright enough to still indirectly illuminate her through the narrow opening.

Cautiously, Lori felt the wisps in her demesne. They still wavered strangely to the dragon's pounding presence, but only weakly, and getting subtly weaker and weaker as it drifted away. She felt for voids in the wisps, ones that moved. She didn't want to open the Dungeon only to find a dragonborn abomination right next to the entrance that would slaughter them all.

Fortunately, there wasn't, though there were some voids moving around in the area of the village. They were far from the cave mouth though, and were large and slow-moving, so she felt they shouldn't be too much of a problem. So she– very cautiously– poked some more airholes in the stone. More light filtered in, brightening the area around Lori, though some of the holes she made were still covered by something being on top of them. From how Lori mostly felt waterwisps and earthwisps, it was some kind of corpse, or maybe a tree. Still, it was unmoving, so it was probably dead, and it hadn't started rotting yet…

"Lord Rian said to open the door," the brat said, when she saw that was the extent of what Lori was doing.

"Tell him there are beasts out there that we have to deal with first," she said. "Not until I've eaten, at least. And there might be more elsewhere in the demesne."

Thankfully, the brat didn't argue. "I'll tell him," the brat said. She held out the bowl of stew. "This is for you."

Lori took it, and the brat hurried off, presumably to talk to Rian. Lori licked her lips at the stew eagerly. It was a bit cool, but she was able to stimulate the firewisps in it to get it nicely hot again. As she was about to start eating…

"Wait… that brat didn't give me a spoon!"

––––––––––––––––––

By the time someone got back to her, Lori had managed to find several dragonborn abominations in her demesne, purely by looking for moving voids where there were no wisps that responded to her, at least above ground. There were too many seels and other things in the water for her to be able to tell if something there was an abomination or not. She started around the area of the village, moving outward. There were actually very few, and one was in the middle of dying when Lori found it, its wisps being claimed by her demesne as its life slipped away.

Others were more mobile, and Lori sensed them roaming through the woods surrounding the village, the prairies on the other side of the river, and a few seemed to be flying in the sky. There was one that Lori had to assume was some sort of mobile– or at least unusually active– plant, given how it seemed rooted to the ground while its upper body moved with energetic, boneless motions. Others seemed like… well, beasts, though given they were likely altered by the dragon she was sure there was something unusual about them.

Those were just the normal things she found. She found other things as well.

There was a mobile cluster of bound wisps that was mostly made up of light- and airwisps, though lightningwisps and some firewisps were part of it as well. It seemed to move by itself, as if some other Whisperer had bound it and simply let it loose. Every few moments, Lori felt a strange emptiness in the air as if some other Whisperer was gently trying to claim wisps she'd bound, and they would slip out of her binding and into theirs', only there were no wisps involved…

When she realized what was happening, her eyes snapped open in shock, eyes staring at the stone as if her gaze could penetrate it and the distance in the deep woods where the strange cluster of bound wisps lay. The cluster that was taking in magic by itself.

Lori realized she had been perceiving a wispling. A self-sustaining, autonomous conglomeration of wisps, as defined by her text books back in school. Were she seeing it with her own eyes, it would likely be some sort of glowing ball of light. They were mentioned as a byproduct of dragons, and ancient Dungeon Binders had studied them and other things dragons had left behind to create… well, in this case, their own wisplings.

Once she realized what it was and what it was doing, she screwed her eyes shut and searched out more. She felt them, a cluster of lightning- and firewisps, earth- and lightningwisps, water- and lightning- and earthwisps… there were many of them in her demesne, all strangely mobile. Not all were taking in magic by themselves. Some seemed to be heavily imbued, and were slowly running out of magic as the binding on them and the wisps themselves consumed it. Others, she was shocked to sense, were devouring other mobile clusters, and adding their stockpile of magic to itself. One was seemingly latched on to another, seeming to use the latter cluster to take in magic for it, like a parasite…

Jars! She needed glass jars to hold them all and keep them from running off so she could study them! Argh! They were all under her bed…!

"Hey," Rian said, breaking through her reverie. "Sorry I wasn't back sooner. Brought you a spoon."

"Glass," she told him.

"Sorry, no glass spoons, just wooden ones," he said. "And we're going to need someplace to wash them soon, or else we'll all start getting food poisoning…"

"No, I need glass!" Lori said.

"Um, we have wooden cups?" Rian ventured.

"No, it has to be glass!"

"Are you being extra-entitled or are we simply not having the same conversation? Because you're usually more understandable than this."

"I need glass!" Lori said. "I don't have enough sample containers! There are wisplings out there, Rian!"

"Right, not having the same conversation," Rian said with a sigh. "Lori, shut up and eat."

Lori blinked at the order. "Rian, I need–"

"Binder Lori," Rian interrupted. "You haven't had anything to eat for at least a full day, maybe even two. We've all been cramped in this dungeon for that long. Even if we can't all go out of the cave because you say there are dangerous beasts around, that means we need to get started on making this Dungeon livable until we can. The lavatory is already full and dangerously close to overflowing, the water reservoir has gone down at least four paces, we need a place to wash dishes or else we're going to be having our next meal literally on top of our old one, and everyone needs a bath. Otherwise, people are going to get sick, and in these cramped conditions, that's going to lead to a very quick and nasty epidemic. Even if it's just going to be food poisoning, it's going to get all of us since we can't wash or get clean. So, I'm sure these wisplings are interesting and probably really cool and magical and will make you stronger somehow, but right now, people need you to eat, get off your ass, and start building them a place to wash and a new place to shit and piss. Then you and I and a bunch of the others who are strong enough will need to get armed and go out there to deal with these beasts so everyone else can leave the dungeon and get back to their lives."

Rian squatted down and picked up Lori's stew, which had grown cold again, and stuck the spoon in it. "I know you're an arrogant, self-centered, egotistical megalomaniac, but you're our responsible, hardworking megalomaniac. So start eating while I come back with water so we can get to work. Once we don't have to worry about everyone coming down with food poisoning or sitting on their own feces, then I'll help you catch these wispling things, all right? "

For a moment, Lori stared at him. With his oily face, tired eyes, unkempt hair, sweat-stained clothes and random soot stains, Rian didn't look like the almost heroic figure he usually did. His face wasn't set in an encouraging smile or a kindly look. He just looked… he looked like he was tired, done with the world, and the next person to annoy him would get punched in the face.

Wordless, Lori took the stew, stirred the spoon a little to see that, yes, it had grown completely cold, and started getting it hot again with the few firewisps still in it. She put a spoonful in her mouth, and considered. It needed a touch more heat.

Finally, she said, "At least tell me no one's pissed in the water yet."

For a long moment, Rian stared at her. Then he closed his eyes and let out a long breath. When he opened them again, there was a little smile on his mouth. It actually looked real. "Yes, no one's pissed in the water. Though if someone drops the rope with the bucket on the end of it into the water, I don't know what we'll do." His eyes flicked down to her bowl. "If you're still hungry, you can have seconds. There's plenty for everyone."

"That would be nice, thank you," Lori said evenly.

As Rian took the water skin and walked away, Lori considered the voids of wisps in the rest of the cave. All were mostly staying still. There wasn't even the low murmur of conversation. Just the tired stillness of people conserving their strength, because there was no food to fill them today. There were small piles of ashes where wood had burned, and a few puddles of wax from seel-tallow candles. There was no breakfast cooking fire, only a pot with some cold liquids and non-earth solids in the bottom, and some cooling ashes under it. Just barely enough for another bowl. Maybe two.

Rian had lied to her. There wasn't plenty for everyone. They had plenty of food, but none of it was getting cooked. Because the latrine was full and a little hunger was easier to deal with.

Sighing, she got to her feet, wincing at the sudden numbness in her posterior, the assorted aches in other places, and the full feeling that said she would be needing the lavatory herself soon.

There was the sound of small feet, and the brat came back, holding a full water skin, the outside of it a little wet. "Lord Rian said to give this to you," the brat said. She looked at the empty bowl in Lori's hands. "Do you want more?"

Lori held out the bowl. "Please."

The brat took it and walked dutifully off as Lori drank from the skin. After all, she wasn't some kind of strange person who felt guilty about getting more to eat.

When the brat came back with a bowl of stone-cold stew, Lori reheated it, and continued eating. She needed her strength, after all. She needed to get everything done fast so she could find those wisplings. If she could capture them, study them, find out how they were self-sustaining…

Lori swallowed one last spoonful and stopped. "Well, I'm full," she said.

The brat frowned disapproving at the still half-filled bowl. "You shouldn’t waste food," she said, sounding much more intent than any other time she'd ever chided Lori before. "It's wrong to waste food."

Lori shrugged, holding the bowl out to her. "You can have it then," she said. "Stay here and keep an eye out through the airholes, will you? I want to know if any beasts or anything else strange comes close. "

The brat blinked, but took the bowl, staring at the food. There was a rumbling sound.

Lori knelt down to pick up her staff, then went off into the cave to unclog the lavatory if possible and make a new one if not.

Behind her, she felt the void of wisps that was the brat start to eat.