Demesne

"I said 'after you'," Rian said.

"And I'm not falling for it, stay in front of me," Lori said flatly.

"The way you're gripping the back of my shirt so firmly is concerning, though," Rian said.

"Don't get distracted in front of the beast, that's how people die."

"That's what I'm worried about!"

It would have been trivial for Lori to kill the beast right then and there. She was very experienced at it after all, between the long overland journey, often through high grass that beasts just loved hiding in before launching an ambush, to their little beast baiting that got them meat, skins and useful bones.

But while it wouldn't be difficult to drag the beast to the cave– the two hunters with them assured her that the individual beasts the abomination was made of were ones they'd eaten before, to no ill effect– it would probably be unsanitary to kill it near the sawpits, not to mention the smell of its entrails and such might draw the other abominations in the demesne to the area, and to the dungeon by extension.

So at the very least, they had to lure it away from the sawpit so that they'd have one less thing to clean up after killing it. Lori and Rian kept an eye on it while the volunteers led by the two hunters Ralii and Armis (names Lori was already beginning to forget) went in the direction they intended to lure it. As far as Lori could tell there was nothing alive that way but trees, but there might be something dead that wasn't moving but could. They had spears, they could handle any moving dead things just fine.

When the volunteers came back and waved that they'd found nothing, only then did Lori make her move. She willed the ground under the abomination's feet to soften, becoming like wet mud, then soaked clay, until its feet started sinking down into it.

The abomination noticed, of course, and distractedly started pulling out its feet, but after a while it seemed to resign itself and just let itself sink. Lori made it lower slowly, shaping the ground so it wouldn't completely enclose the feet even as it sank lower and lower. Lori tensed as the abominating adjusted its feet once more, stepping to the side, but she managed to make the ground in that direction part so that the abomination didn't rise out of the trap. Finally, as the thing settled its feet once more, Lori had the parted ground rush in, trapping its three legs up to the first reversed knee and compacting the stone solid.

The result was immediate. The beast gave two high warbling cries, one from each mouth, then cut off as its rotund torso heaved. Evidently there was something wrong with its lungs. It thrashed, trying to free itself, but Lori was reinforcing the stone, which held firm. The ground began to flow, and the abomination started sliding away from the sawpit and the settlement. The volunteers hastily moved out of the way of its long tail and reaching neck. The frill around the abomination of combined beasts neck flared wide, and the sideways jaw opened wide, only for it to start choking, and a thick mucus began to dribble down from the corner of the mouth and towards the ground.

"I think it spits poison or something," Rian said. "Just a guess."

"Noted," Lori said.

"Can you please stop using me as a human shield now?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Now, continue protecting me."

The volunteers fell in with them, and Rian reminded them to keep watch, especially upward, as Lori continued sliding the abomination away. They didn't go far. The woods and canopy of leaves around the settlement were still thick, even after the dragon's passing– in fact, Lori got the distinct impression some leaves were comically bigger than they should be– and with the low sun, it was soon dark under the trees. She spent the time gathering water vapor from the air, gathering it as mist around her hand.

When they had walked far enough, she gathered the vapor into water, and used a narrow, pressurized stream to cut off its head.

Thankfully, the abomination died as it should with its head severed from both necks. The hunters began draining it of blood while the others went back to the sawpit to get something to carry it back to the Dungeon with. Lori found a place to sit with a tree at her back as she watched them efficiently go about turning the beast from a corpse to food and useable materials, keeping watch for any approaching voids of wisps as she helped move the blood along. Now that it was dead, the wisps in its body were hers to claim just like any other. They handled the head carefully, as it was dripping something besides blood that Lori assumed must have been the venom it had been trying to spit. There shouldn't be much of a problem– Rian claimed that venoms tended to not be poisonous when ingested, something the hunters among the volunteers confirmed– but since this was meant to be topical venom instead of one injected into the blood, they treated it carefully anyway. Someone put the head in a bag of beast skin so they could get the jaws and teeth later.

The torso was opened to remove the offal and other objectionable parts being spilled out onto the ground. From experience, Lori had long since readied bound airwisps to keep the smell away from her. After they removed the organs, she helped in cleaning blood from the insides by condensing water from vapor to wash it out. It was a routine she and… well, probably one of these two at some point, but also some of the other people versed in dressing wild meat had become familiar with.

It was getting dark enough for her to feel the need to bind the few lightwisps left when they finally finished dressing the beast. They had to remove a lot of parts that just seemed wrong, like muscles that seemed to have fused with bone or had somehow become bone, but most of it was in the torso, and everyone agreed the meat there was often too dry, so it wasn't much of a loss.

They loaded the now-dressed abomination– no point wasting meat, and both hunters had examined the parts they were bringing along scrupulously, and intended to check it with those volunteering to cook as well– on some boards they'd taken from one of the surviving curing sheds. The light was fading, and what Lori had bound didn't seem enough, so she drew firewisps from a coalcharm and used it to light one of the lengths of firewood she was carrying. It caught, and she was able to bind the lightwisps it produced to add to their light.

Directionless, radiant light glowed around them, lighting their way back to the Dungeon. The islandshell was still struggling, but it seemed to be weakening. It wasn't really alive, given that Lori could see its open brain being eaten by slugs and small bugs, and undead, like wisps, would eventually run out of the magic imbued into it. She didn't know what sort of commands had been given to this islandshell to make it act like it did, but whatever it was, it was consuming the magic imbued into it by the dragon to accomplish it. She figured it would be properly dead by morning if they just left it alone. The next day at the latest. While they wouldn't eat the meat for… well, probably a whole host of reasons, starting with some of the flesh probably having decayed, and not even getting into what Deadspeaking does to dead flesh, the bones, shell and thick skin would still be very helpful, once it was safe to harvest it.

They made their way back, and nothing came at them, living or dead. At the Dungeon's entrance, Lori gave the volunteers the still-burning torch she was holding for light and gestured for them to go in as she repaired the shattered rocks and other damage caused by the islandshell trying to get at them.

"Come on," she told Rian. "We need to go check on my corpses."

"It's very disturbing when you put it that way. You realize that, right?" Rian said. "I mean, most people don't have a corpse stash lying around."

"It's not just lying around," Lori said as she pulled the lightwisps around them and moved them above and behind her head for the best illumation. "They're safely frozen and buried. Hopefully the ice lasted."

"If we find either of them walking around, I'm going to scream and run away," Rian warned. "Just letting you know in advance."

"Noted," Lori said. "Come on, this way."

The ground seemed undisturbed, if muddy, and a little moving of earthwisps showed that the corpses were still there, though with much less ice and more mud around them. It was simple to rip the water out of the mud and solidify them back to ice. Lori had to carefully redirect the heat this expelled into the ground, but she was soon finished ensuring her corpses were preserved.

"I suppose I should have asked sooner," Rian said as Lori finished burying them again, this time compressing the dirt above them to keep anything from digging them up, something she should have done before, "but is there something special about their corpses in particular? Not to be callous, but a lot of people, may they rest in peace, died on our way here, but those two are the only ones you're being careful about preserving. Why?"

"Does it matter?" Lori said.

"We literally have no other form of entertainment out here besides… well. And you've already shown you hate my stories," Rian said. "So either you try and teach me something, or I try telling you a new story and see how well you like it."

"Will it be as stupid as the previous one?" Lori said.

"Only you will be able to tell me," Rian said. "So, why them?"

Lori sighed, but she supposed it wasn't exactly a secret. There were even stories about it, although they didn't seem to be coming to mind for him. "The corpses of wizards can be revived as undead capable of using magic," Lori said. "Not intelligently, and not independently– they're dead, after all– but a Binder using them can create an undead capable of enacting simple bindings. If I'd had Elceena's undead, I'd have likely been able to get more sleep against the dragon and left constantly imbuing the darkwisps to her."

"Huh…" Rian said, sounding strangely thoughtful. "So they're like… music boxes? Wind them up with magic, and they’ll do this one thing, so you can leave them alone and do something else?"

That… wasn't a bad analogy. "Essentially. The stories vary," Lori said.

Rian nodded. "Of course they do. Why wouldn't they? Vary how?"

"Some depict them as simple, like music boxes," Lori said. "Others speak of small forces of dead wizards being led by Binders to battle, and routing numerically superior forces of living wizards."

"Huh. Well, I'm just some guy, not a wizard like you, so I don't have any experience with using magic," Rian said. "But if common people can make mistaken assumptions about magic in their stories, why not wizards?"

Lori gave him a withering look. "Because we actually know what we're talking about?"

"And how many wizards know about what Dungeon Binding is like?" Rian said. "Before they become one, that is."

Lori opened her mouth… and paused, mouth open.

"Because it seems to me that a Dungeon Binder would have a vested interested in telling outright lies about what they can do so people will overestimate them and leave them alone," Rian continued. "After all, a lot of people would love for them to die so their position will be open for the taking. Why not cut down the numbers by telling grandiose stories about how invincible they are to make people think twice about trying to attack them?"

Lori stared at him… and eventually remembered to shut her mouth.

"Just a thought," Rian said with a grin. "It's not like I went to wizard school and know what I'm talking about–"

"Oh, shut up," Lori snapped. "You make an excellent point, now stop being all humble and smug about it. Perhaps it's a deliberately untrue story, perhaps something that's learned with experience and finesse. Either way, I'll find out once I…" Lori cut off angrily.

"Go back to the continent and spend more years learning to Deadspeak?" Rian said. "And… what's the other two? Horotract and Mentalist?"

Lori closed her eyes. She REALLY wanted to tear at her hair and scream in frustration.

To her surprise, a hand patted her shoulder. Her head snapped up, glaring at a suddenly-closer Rian. "Don't worry," he said. "You'll work it out. You're the smartest, most stubborn person I currently know. If anyone can work out how to do three other kinds of magic from the ground up without so much as a beginner's guide, it's you." He smiled at her, the bright, encouraging, stupidly heroic smile that made him look like some sort of portrait of some great hero, encouraging men to their deaths for his glory. Inspiring them to die for his cause despite the forces arrayed before them. "I'll bet you'll be doing more than Whispering inside a year."

"And if I don't?" Lori said, feeling a strange weight settling on her shoulders, a familiar, painful weight full of her mothers' smiles and encouragement.

"Then I'm probably off by a year," Rian said. "But you'll be able to do it Lori. Because you're too much of a raging egomaniac to leave the subject alone."

He smiled a bright, heroically encouraging smile. Forward, stupid minions, die in the jaws of death for my historic glory!

Lori really wanted to punch those teeth in. They were very annoying.

Instead, she glared at his hand, and he pulled it back easily.

"Come on," she said. "Let's hope no one's used the water reservoir as a lavatory."