Demesne

According to Riz—who had survived staying behind—Lori's binding had caused the abomination to run away—because the binding had exploded violently against the abomination's chest—which was fortunate because the binding had also half-blinded the not-an-officer. That is, she'd managed to close one eye when she'd seen the binding start to crackle and glow, and had saved the vision in one of her eyeballs. Rian had closed both eyes, giving him the vision to grab her hand and pull her to safety.

Rian had looked relieved when Riz had returned unharmed, and while he hadn't fussed and molested her the way Mikon would have, he had hovered conspicuously near her, doing a circuit around her to check for wounds before letting out a relieved sigh. Lori had been vaguely surprised, since given Rian's tendencies she'd have expected some sort of dramatic proclamation. Instead, all he'd said was "I'm glad you're safe. Next time let's remember to bring backup," and had resumed acting as he'd usually have.

A group had tracked the abomination through the dragonfrost while Lori had sat at the dining pavilion waiting for her hearing to come back—it wasn't urgent enough that she'd risk letting whatever-his-name-was being the one to heal her—and found it dead not far away, its chest wounded and its syrupy blood on fire. However, the injury was too small to have been the actual cause of death. Rian and what-his-name—Lori had sighed and checked her rock—Lidzuga had discussed it while they had waited for the area around the fields to be checked for any more abominations, just in case.

"I think her binding might have stopped its heart when it hit," Rian suggested. "I'm pretty sure what she used were lightningwisps and not firewisps, since I got sparked when I grabbed her to run."

"Hmm… yes, that would do it," Lidzuga had agreed. "From the damage, if the binding hit on the chest, the lightning could have passed through the heart before grounding. If it had hit anywhere else, things might not have been so lucky."

"What about the head?"

"Well, yes, if it's the head, but you can say that about anything that hits the head. Uh, is it really all right if I don't heal her?"

"Yes, it's fine. Shanalorre can take care of anything when we get back home. Uh, sorry your house isn't ready to clean yet."

"So am I…"

The rest of the day had Lori under heavy guard as she finished anchoring the mist in place around the fields and stands of trees to start melting away the dragonfrost. Riz and some of the local men followed her, all wielding spears and acting as a screen between her and the woods beyond River's Fork's agricultural areas. Lori might have worked a bit hurriedly as well, but that was only because it was getting dark earlier than usual because of the overcast!

Eventually, she completed her circuit and pulled the binding close to the ground by the anchor points, anchoring the mists to the parts of the dragonfrost that she could and leaving a thick mist that rose up to mid-calf enshrouding the ground. The magic she had imbued into the binding would let the mist last overnight, and while it wasn't as hot as the vapor she'd used back home, the mass, contact against the dragonfrost where it was anchored, and the binding of firewisps that would keep all the mist from growing too cold would eventually be enough to sublimate the solidified air and melt the ice.

Lori had then gone straight home, a relieved Rian in tow, her notes safely tucked into Riz's pack where they were pressed between two bone tablets.

"I'm glad you didn't die," Lori heard Rian say to Riz, the two of them sitting behind her at the stem jet driver. Lori did her best to ignore them.

"Oh, now you're paying me attention?"

"Yes, I know, but we were both still working earlier. Besides, I know you can take care of yourself better than I can. But I'm glad you're safe and didn't have to fight that thing by yourself."

"I'm glad I didn't have to fight that thing by myself too…"

The two shared a laugh for some reason, while Lori had rolled her eyes and enjoyed sitting on her wonderfully comfortable chair. Ah, backrests! They were as luxurious as socks. No wonder Dungeon Binders always had thrones. She wondered how comfortable their chairs were? When she had finally established sufficient infrastructure for her demesne and she could spend most of her days sitting around, she was going to have the carpenters build her the most comfortable chair ever made…

Lori let these thoughts distract her from the urge to open up Riz's pack and review her notes. There was just enough spray that she decided not to risk her notes getting wet. Riz and Rian had degenerated to what sounded like cuddling quietly, so as long as she didn't turn around and see what the two of them were doing, Lori shouldn't get nauseous.

Out of habit, she watched the shore for the typhon beast. If it had died, the beast probably wouldn't have fallen somewhere she'd see, but she could hope…

It was fairly dark by the time they returned to Lori's demesne, even if it wasn't all that late. Still, Lori had needed to anchor lightwisps to the tops of the poles lining Lori's Shed Boat to help with visibility, as well as letting them maintain contact with the other boat that was accompanying them. The men who'd been mining in River's Fork when the dragon had arrived seemed relieved to be heading back home after their extended stay, even after being told that their families were fine. Why did they need to see for themselves? It was the truth, and if Rian wanted to lie to them, he would no doubt do a much better job of doing so.

"Oh, right," Rian said while Lori was letting out a sigh of relief to finally be back home after crossing the border into her demesne, "now that you're back, your Bindership, I have to ask: what are these things for?"

Darkness was already beginning to set in, and Rian was pointing at a blacker than black patch of the shore, so it took Lori a moment to realize what he was inquiring about.

She fixed Rian a flat look. "Sample containment."

"Sample containment?"

"Sample containment."

It had been an idea that came to her… well, she had lost track of time by then, but sometime after the dragon had entered her demesne. Study as she would, write as quickly as she could, Lori had not yet managed to learn how to use Mentalism, and thus no matter what she thought and observed, she would have great difficulty remembering it all save by writing it down. The problem was there was so much to remember! The dragon had formed many, many things, and she hadn't had time to observe and study them all in the moment! It had been frustrating, but she had needed to prioritize what she was observing, since she only had one mind to study with. It wasn't like she could use Mentalism to schism her mind so she could think several different flows of thought at once, after all.

However, even limiting herself simply to bindings and ill-bound wisps that seemed complete and made sense, there were still too many bindings worth studying! Lori had needed a way to preserve bindings for later study. At first, she had tried to claim the bindings and ill-bound wisps, but that had quickly proven unfeasible and counterproductive as it had diverted her attention from her actively studying interesting bindings.

Sample containment had been her answer. All the bindings—as well as the ill-bound wisps, meanings, rampant life, vistas, twisted vistas, thought force formations, and insane thoughts—would land on her barrier of darkwisps and be blocked off from passing through. Depending on what manner of working they were, the working might try to penetrate the darkwisps, which expended the imbuement of the working and the darkwisps' ablative barrier. Previously, she had made her barrier of darkwisps to encompass all the open air of her demesne, meaning that she hadn't been able to perceive how that dragon's workings had interacted with the binding, only that it had… which on consideration had been a terribly shortsighted mistake.

However, due to the fact that the dragon being inside the boundaries of her demesne had forced her to modify the shape of her darkwisp binding, she'd finally been able to observe the interaction of the dragon's various workings and her barrier. And she had noticed that most workings—not all but most—tended to have a generally downward trajectory, as well as have some interaction with gravity. Some workings bounced off her barrier, some didn't. Bindings with an airwisp and waterwisp component tended to be at the mercy of air currents, vistas and twisted vistas tended to just stop and rest on the surface of the barrier, but most tended to go down. And since the darkwisp barrier wasn't physical, workings tended to slide down smoothly along its borders… if the shape was right.

So Lori had, as one of her last clear recollections—and already things had been a bit blurry from what was presumably a lack of sleep—had reshaped her barrier into a cone and funneled workings towards the edges of her demesne, into the sample containment 'trenches' composed purely of darkwisps. The sample containment was inside her demesne, meaning she could observe and examine them, or at least the ones composed of or incorporating wisps. As long as she remembered to keep the bindings and the containement imbued, then the samples should last… well, indefinitely.

Not all of them had. Some had been wisplings that the dragon had formed—birthed?—that had devoured each other for their imbuement, something that she had observed previously the first time that a dragon had passed over her demesne, back when her defenses hadn't been so prepared and thorough. She had tried to imbue the wisplings to try and prevent this behavior, but she'd been… well, very sleepy at the time, and she'd been observing another binding, so…

It had probably been bad scholarship on her part.

The past few days, she'd simply been maintaining the bindings and ill-bound wisps in her sample containment, doing her best to get a sense of how many remained, as well as identify and isolate promising samples for immediate study when she had time. Lori had tried taking notes, but given how she had… um… anyway, to make sure she remembered to sleep, she'd only taken notes at the dining hall, with the night shift stationed near the door under orders to inform her when a certain amount of time had passed on the water clock.

Suppressing the temptation to continue taking notes in her room had been difficult, but she had managed it by reminding herself the headache from trying to do whispering on an hour's sleep would be agonizing.

Unfortunately, it had become clear that there were slightly fewer of her samples every day, and while she'd been able to identify and isolate a number of the predatory wisplings, it was clear she hadn't caught all of them. That wasn't getting into the possibility that some of her samples were being devoured by predatory lifelings—distinct from undead and abominations—thought-shades, or twisted vistas, which she really couldn't rule out.

Rian stared at her for a moment. "On a scale of 'humorous play vignette shenanigans' to 'everyone dies horribly without even realizing they're dying', how dangerous are these samples you're containing?"

"They're not dangerous as long as no one touches them."

"Somehow I doubt the bugs and beasts are going to be smart enough to not go inside your darkwisps."

Ugh, she hated it when he had a point.

Lori spent time until they got back to her Dungeon integrating lightningwisps to her darkwisp sample containment binding to kill anything trying to get into it that could. Tonight… tonight she could review and organize the notes she had made in preparation for when all this cleaning would finally be over and she could start properly experimenting with the bindings she noted down under controlled conditions.

Tomorrow… well, there was still more work to do.

Hopefully her samples would continue to survive until then.