Demesne

Unfortunately, the problem with the world turning sideways is you still had to deal with it.

Keeping a grip on her darkwisps while continuing to work on her demesne was a challenge—and an irritating inconvenience—but nothing she couldn't do! It forced her to work slowly and carefully, but putting care in your work was a good thing! Haste was wasteful, after all!

…

Why hadn't her school taught her how to work on two bindings at once? It was clearly an important skill that she needed to learn, but her school had conspicuously not included this very important skill in their curricu—

Despite how good it felt, Lori had to stop muttering colorfully about her school under her breath, as conceiving of sufficiently colorful language with which to paint them was one flow of thought too many, and her grip on the binding of darkwisps nearly slipped as the dragon kept trying to override her claim.

Stubbornly, Lori continued working. Carefully, she modified the binding of firewisps she'd placed above the pool of boiling water in the entryway of her dungeon. The air getting drawn into her dungeon being hot was no longer a concern. Well, it was now much less of a concern compared to the air in her dungeon getting too cold. While the solidified air would not have much as mass and capacity to sap heat compared to water, it was likely going to add up, especially since there wouldn't be a lot in the way of heat sources in her dungeon to counter the cold. At least, no heat sources that weren't dangerous for her to remove the bindings of firewisps that kept their heat contained. And that heat source—the water evaporator and condenser for making sure the water was clean and drinkable—wasn't properly positioned to take advantage of the heat in any case.

She supposed the water in the reservoir would act to stabilize the temperature, but as with the evaporator and condenser it wasn't well-positioned to do so. Theoretically, people could shelter in the third level, as she had bindings in place to maintain the temperature so that it remained in within the range that was optimal for growing their crops, but the dungeon farm wasn't designed for actually housing and sustaining people. She could only imagine the disaster what would happen if her idiots tried—

Lori barely managed to reassert her claim as the dragon took advantage of her momentary distraction to begin binding the darkwisp barrier to its will. Argh! Don't get distracted, don't get distracted! Don't let the dragon claim the most important defense against it doing horrible things to her demesne! She returned towards dividing her attention only between two things. Darkwisps and firewisps, darkwisps and firewisps…

…

She was an idiot.

Lori anchored the binding of darkwisps to the binding of firewisps she was trying to work on, and detached the firewisps from the waterwisps of the moat. Ah, much better! Now she technically only had one binding to pay attention to! Carefully, she reformed the binding of firewisps to alter the temperature of what passed through it to what she hoped was a comfortable temperature. It was difficult, since what most people considered comfortable was just slightly below human body temperature, and that was hard to assess without being physically at the location to feel the air. Still, as long it was well above freezing, it should not be much of a problem.

Once the adjustments were finished, Lori anchored the firewisps to the stone of the entryway again before detaching it from the darkwisps. While she'd been working, fog seemed to have entered the entryway, which rose and swirled as it made contact with the boiling and forcibly liquefied water, then sank as it passed through the diagonally-slanted firewisps that deleted the heat and caused it to cool, only to rise again as it made contact with the boiling water.

Sank…

Oh.

Sighing, Lori started anchoring airwisps to the darkwisp binding. Unfortunately, doing so gave the turbulent air currents and fog something to push against, and Lori had to anchor the darkwisps to the entryway for some stability. She was tempted to sigh, even as she endured another attempt by the dragon to override her claim on the ablative barrier. Right, right. Given that the river wasn't freezing over, and that the solidied air was becoming air directly instead of transitioning to a liquid state, it was likely exhalation that was hailing down on her demesne.

It was a dangerous vapor, as sufficient concentrations of it were harmful. While the air intake vent for her dungeon was well above the ground, the fact that so much was falling down on her demesne likely meant there was a higher than normal concentration of it present. As a precaution, she set some airwisps—anchored onto the stone of the entryway, which was being reinforced by earthwisps and imbued directly by her core—to forcefully blow the air along the bottom half of the entryway, outward. This had the added benefit of blowing out the little voids of solidified air that had bounced and fallen into the entryway, which would definitely be releasing most-likely-exhalation where it was most likely to be pulled into her demesne, as well as blowing out the fog.

More and more fog was filling the air, rising up from the river on the bubbles being released by the sublimating voids in her awareness. The bits of solidified air— a part of her noted they technically counted as a form of dragon scales—falling into the river's waters were bubbling away, but didn't seem to be causing an appreciable change in the river's temperature. There was just far too much water. The river was flowing as well, meaning that no part of it was allowed to sit and grow cold. Still, she would have to keep an eye on it. Even this indirect method of cooling could have a cumulative effect if it persisted for long enough, and if it started icing over…

Well, she'd deal with that when it became an issue she needed to deal with. At the moment, there was a far more pressing matter!

How was she supposed to get any sleep when she had to keep the dragon from claiming her darkwisps?-!

"Um, Great Binder?"

Lori blinked, and it took her a few moments to recall where she was, and another moment to not forget to actively maintain her claim on the darkwisps of her demesne. "What is it, Erzebed?"

The pink-haired woman, standing just beyond the open door of Lori's alcove, pointed down the mine tunnel, deeper into the shelter. "There's fog coming out of the air vents. Is that something we should be worried about?"

Fo—oh. "Fo—oh. Yes, that's perfectly normal, Erzebed." Lori said, then paused, frowning. "Though I suppose I should do something about it. The wood hasn't been treated to take that much damp. We wouldn't want mold where we store our food." Lori got to her feet, keeping her hold on the darkwisps. The dragon was still trying to claim it, its attempts almost rhythmic. "Go over there and tell me if the fog stops."

She went back to the contact point, and out of habit checked the wispbeads. Still a considerable amount. No need to replace them any time soon, then. Lori touched the metal contact point leading to the airwisp binding that took care of their ventilation, tentatively reaching through it. Having an actual object in front of her to touch helped her stay focused as she reached through the metal with her right hand and made contact with the binding.

Still keeping part of her attention of maintaining her claim on her demesne's darkwisps, she carefully deactivated the binding, preventing air and fog from being drawn through their ventilation. The mine's areas were large enough that they could survive some time without active ventilati—

"Great Binder, the fog's stopped coming out!" Riz called out, her voice echoing through the mine tunnel.

…

"Noted. Tell me immediately if there's any change."

Carefully, Lori began gathering waterwisps out of the air and fog, which was made simpler by the binding being deactivated. The waterwisps could remain anchored to the airwisps without issue, and she didn't have to worry about forming the waterwisps into a coherent binding. Lori slowly continued to build up the waterwisps, thought mostly because she couldn't rush due to needing to split her attention.

Once she had enough waterwisps, Lori formed them into a binding that would prevent other waterwisps—and thus any form of water—from passing through the binding. Once that was done, she began to carefully—and blindly—move the waterwisps towards where she thought the stone grate above the outermost door of the shelter was. It took some doing and constantly trying to claim any wisps that her binding made contact with, which meant she couldn't be rushed. Eventually, however, she was able to make out a regular series of straight arrangements of earthwisps—the stone grate above the door—and then carefully anchored the waterwisps into place, spreading the binding across the grate and anchoring it securely. With that in place, Lori was able to slowly put the airwisp binding back into place, and checked all the bindings protecting the shelter. Airwisps, lightningwisps, earthwisps, darkwisps… she nodded in satisfaction at finding them all active.

"Erzebed, is fog still coming out of the ventilation?" she called out.

There was a momentary pause. "No fog, Great Binder!" came the reply,

Lori nodded, even thought Riz couldn't see her. "Inform me if the shelter starts becoming cold," she ordered. "I'll be in my alcove checking up on m—Lorian Demesne. Inform me if there's anything else." She paused, then amended, "Anything you or Yllian can't solve yourselves."

"Yes, Great Binder!"

Sitting in her sleeping niche again and resisting the urge to lie down—it would make her sleepy, and she couldn't risk falling asleep—Lori went back to keeping the darkwisps away from the dragon. She had to find a way to prevent the dragon from subverting their defenses that didn't actively require her direct supervision!

Ugh, think, think! How could she keep the dragon from claiming her darkwisps when she wasn't maintaining her hold on them? If the dragon were another wizard, Lori would hit them in the face with her staff to break their concentration and make them let go, but… well, historically a Dungeon Binder provoking a dragon has never ended well. The most common words to describe it were 'crater where the demesne's dungeon once stood', though the exact methods varied. The prior incarnation of Endless Caverns Demesne had its dungeon and core destroyed with a vista so twisted Horotracts claimed it had torn holes in the face of existence, and had resulted in a perfect sphere where stone and all other solid matter had just vanished.

She didn't want that to happen to her dungeon.

Well, she couldn't hit the dragon, and it wasn't like she could just move the binding where the dragon cou—

…

Slowly, Lori examined what her connection to her core was letting her perceive. The void that was the dragon, moving slowly over her demesne. Her binding of darkwisps that the dragon repeatedly tried to claim. The way the two were pressing against each other, the immaterial dragon that had somehow pushed the equally immaterial darkness ahead of it…

…

Face flat, Lori drew down the darkwisps, pulling the binding away from the dragon and leaving a gap between the two. The dragon immediately began claiming the airwisps, waterwisps, firewisps, and lightwisps beneath it, forming them in… in…

…

Oh.

Oh…

That was… it was… wait, why did it…? How did…?

Lori shook her head, distracting herself from what rainbows the dragon was doing with Whispering, observing instead how far it could manage to claim wisps. The range seemed to be… not very far from the void that was its… body? Its body. She couldn't really judge distances too well, as there were no points of reference she could use, but its reach seemed very short. If her binding hadn't almost literally been rubbing against it…

Warily, Lori loosened her focus and will on the binding of darkwisps, ready to take hold of it immediately if she felt the dragon trying to claim it. As she watched, the dragon started releasing the ill-bound wisps—she couldn't find it in herself to call those bizarrely formed things bindings—that fell to strike her barrier of darkwisps. Some simply bounced off, not reacting, but others started expending imbuement into the darkwisps, and the binding did the same to prevent the ill-bound wisps from penetrating. All along her binding, she felt other such reactions.

Many of them were from something she couldn't perceive, though Lori could guess what was happening. The dragon was using insane thoughts, rampant life and twisted vistas and trying to reach down through her darkwisps. Although given the ill-bound wisps, perhaps they were simply being released to drop down into her demesne…

…

Well, her problem was solved, so Lori could move on to other things!

"Erzebed," she said as she claimed one of the ill-bound wisps falling towards her demense, easily overriding the dragon's previous claim and binding the thing to her will, "find Yllian and tell him I need paper, a working pen, and something to write on top of."

Not waiting for a reply, she began to study the dragon's creation, trying to work out what it could do and how…