Demesne

Lori was honestly surprised that Riz won the quarterstaff competition. Not that she didn't deserve it, the woman had been good at switching from spear-like jabs to swings—she'd picked a good stick for how she wanted to fight—but there'd been another competitor who'd been much more skillful and had only been defeated because he hadn't paid attention to his footing and ended up out of bounds. Lori joined in the accolades, clapping her hands politely as Rian awarded Riz the bowl overflowing with prizes people had donated for the winner of the competition. Some helpful person had even added a sack to gather the things that kept falling off the bowl. They were simple things—the candle, more fruits, tubers, a hunk of greenish raw bugwax, obviously from one of the bugwranglers trying to start domesticating some of the wild bugs around—but quantity and rarity have a quality all its own.

The next was the sword competition—also using sticks—that used the same rules, with the addition that strikes to the arm or leg were worth half or a whole point at the discretion of the referee. Some of those who'd competed at the quarterstaff competition joined this one as well, their staffs—or someone's staff, at least—clearly cut down between the two competitions to act as makeshift swords. Some wooden swords were longer or shorter than others, and there were fewer participants this time. Most clearly former militia, though she recognized two of the sawyers, one of the blacksmiths, and Deil among those.

Several people were looking towards Rian expectantly as he finalized the brackets assigning who would be fighting who. They all seemed to be expecting him to do something.

"Aren't you going to join in too, Lord Rian?" Mikon asked, handing Lori her plate of meats and other foods. She had been the one tending to the firepit near where Rian had wanted Lori to sit, and while she didn't have to cook much—most people didn't seem to be eating. Their loss—what she was cooking was delicious.

"Hmm?" Rian 'hmm'-ed, looking up from his plank where he'd been sketching out the brackets. "Join what, Mikon?"

"The sword competition," Mikon said. "Don't you know the sword too? You practice with it every morning." He did? Lori supposed that was before she woke up.

"Not really," Rian said absently. "I mean, I can use it, but I'm not very good at it."

"Mah? But you move so well when you practice, Lord Rian!" Mikon said, looking surprised and disappointed.

"I did say I could use it," Rian said. "I'm just not very good with a sword. I'd probably just end up embarrassing myself. Done!"

That last was said with cheer, and Rian stood up, scrambling on top of the pile of excavated rock. "All right!" he called out. "The competitors in the preliminaries are…!" He began calling out names in pairs again, and the people in question stepped into the area.

Lori wasn't as familiar with sword fighting as she was with staffs. She hadn't had time to learn. Had she wanted to, because of all the stories, historical and fictional, of Dungeon Binders and even ordinary wizards wielding swords with integrated bound tools that allowed for things like water-powered cutting edges, constant healing, and blades that changed shape? Of course. But she had needed to be practical at the time. A staff was what she had, not a sword, and so she had prioritized.

Still, despite her relative ignorance, she could appreciate the showing of the people participating. By which she meant they moved very nicely while they were trying to hit each other. Footwork was important, after all.

Someone won. It wasn't Deil, but a surprisingly small man who had moved smoothly during his bouts, deflecting with minimal effort and then quickly getting into his opponent's guard to strike repeatedly. He seemed to struggle to hold up the bowl, but his family was there to help him hold it, what seemed to be siblings, in-laws, and many children holding the bowl to bring back to their house.

After that, there was a break and instead of the wrestling competition, there was the footrace. It was the strangest, most convoluted footrace Lori had ever heard of, and judging from the strange looks other people had made as Rian explained the running conditions, she hadn't been the only one. She supposed it was a good way to make a race exciting when they didn't have a very long stretch of open ground that would still be interesting for the people spectating, but… no, it was still weird. However, that very weirdness seemed to make it exciting for the children involved, and their eagerness seemed infectious.

"The race is from here," Rian pointed at the square were people had been competing, "up to where the new houses are being built," he pointed, "then the table" there was a table just barely visible from where Lori sat, " and back down again. The first pair to run between these two benches that mark the starting and finish line will be declared the winner. The course has been marked by benches and you cannot run unless you have your partner and your hairy blueball! Everyone understand?"

There were some bemused looks, but the men and children representing their families—every family was competing because this was meant to be 'for fun' and needed no special training, just running—all shouted their understanding.

"Great!" Rian said. "Will the children please come forward to collect a spoon and a hairy blueball from Umu?"

The children crowded around the blonde, who handed out the implements and fruits and Rian demonstrated how to they should hold the spoon and balance the fruit on the bowl of the spoon. A lot of time was consumed as the children all amused themselves.

"All right!" Rian called as the men representing their families stood at the starting area, the children carried on their backs—most of them were young girls or otherwise the smallest child in the family—while said children each trying to balance a hairy blueball on a spoon. "On your marks! Get set! Run!"

The men all broke into a run, and nearly all the children dropped their hairy blueball.

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Lori was not familiar with the family who won the footrace, which wasn't surprising. She hadn't really gotten to know anyone. She'd been too busy trying to pull water out of the air at night, keeping the wheels of all the wagons rounded, killing any beasts that got too close, and putting one foot in front of the other because she had to walk. but they seemed happy so she supposed good for them.

For such a race with such a short distance to run, it had been very loud and taken an inordinately long time. Part of the rules had been the adult couldn't run unless they had their child relative on their back, and the child relative had to be the one to go down to get the hairy blueball back if they dropped it. Needless to say, there was a lot of climbing down, picking up the fruit and putting it back on their spoon, then climbing back on the adult's back only to have to reverse the process again because the fruit fell off. There was a lot of backtracking when they progressed enough that they reached the slope, because even if hairy blueballs were not ideally shaped for rolling, they rolled down a long way after getting dropped.

It was all very loud and the children had a lot of fun, which given their lack of involvement in the previous two competitions might have been why Rian had insisted on the format.

The wrestling competition was the last one as the sun crossed the border to past mid-afternoon. Lori had long since gotten full, but could already see herself—and everyone else—getting hungry for dinner. Rian didn't even seem to notice as she wandered off in the middle of him setting down the rules for the competition.

"—punching, kicking, biting, eye-gouging or pulling," he was saying as she headed towards where the seels were. "To win you need to push your opponent out of the marked area or get them down on the ground and keeping them from standing for a count of five—"

The rest faded away as Lori adjusted her hat. She might even catch some seels for tomorrow morning, put a little extra meat in their stores for winter.

She was almost at her destination when she realized she wasn't alone.

As Lori reached the still uncut trees that separated where the children liked to seel from the rest of their established areas, she checked her connection with the core, looking for voids that might be people… well. She was glad to find there were significantly fewer people using the woods to be private—there were some couples, and a void that seemed much too large and oddly shaped to be just two people—but was surprised to find there was also a void trailing behind her. It was, however, a small void.

When she turned to look, she found the brat trailing several paces behind her. "Are you following me?" Lori asked.

The brat nodded. "Yes, Wiz Lori," she said.

"Why?" Lori asked flatly.

"To see if you're going seeling," the brat said simply.

"What if I am?" Lori said.

"Then you shouldn't go seeling alone," the brat said, sounding mildly disapproving. "It's not safe. You might fall into the water and hit your head and drown."

Lori gave her a long bland stare. Then she shrugged. "Fine," she said, turning around and resuming her leisurely walk. After several steps she stopped and looked over her shoulder. "You might as well walk next to me, it's creepy having you follow me like that."

As the brat rushed forward, Lori resumed walking again, the brat settling at her side. "I'm glad you didn't die, Wiz Lori," the brat said as they walked.

"I'm glad I didn't die too," Lori agreed. "Thank you for all the seels and fruits, Karina."

The brat smiled happily. "You're welcome!" she said. "I'm glad you like them."

Lori didn't actually eat the seel herself much anymore—she usually left it with the people at the tanning shed to skin and butcher for cold storage—but the fruits she kept. After all, it's not like they could store them for long without spoiling, even in her cold room.

Idly, she reached into the bag she was carrying and seeled out a pink lady by touch. "Want one?" she said, offering it to the brat.

The brat smiled. "Thank you!" she said, accepting the pink fruit and biting into it.

Humming to herself, Lori pulled out another fruit and did the same.

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They came back with six seels trapped in ice, the biggest haul so far. Most probably wouldn't be eaten today, but with the animals on ice, they'd keep until tomorrow, when people would be working again and someone could properly skin and butcher the fursh for cold storage. The brat kept miming stabbing them with a spear and holding out her hands as if measuring the seels, muttering about needing a longer stick.

Lori left them frozen just outside the cleared space since the area in front of the Dungeon was still occupied by wrestling. The current competitors were rolling around on the ground, trying to keep their chest or back pinned down or be rolled out of bounds.

"You're back? You came back?" Rian said, looking surprised as Lori just slipped back onto the bench. "You actually came back?"

Lori shrugged. "I left my plate," she said. Indeed, it was still right where she left it, covered in congealed oil since she'd been too full to get up and wash it. She'd have to melt the oil a little before adding wood ash to it so they would properly mix. "Besides, it's not like we have a library I can go to instead." She offered him a pink lady.

For a moment, Rian stared at it, as if not knowing what it was. He took it gingerly. "Do I peel this, or…?"

Lori rolled her eyes. Who peeled a pink lady? "Just bite into it," she said, grabbing one for herself and demonstrating.

Rian did as instructed. His eyes grew wide. "Suddenly, I'm regretting my generosity," he muttered.

"Ah," Lori said blandly. "Much is explained. Only a fool who has never tasted pink lady would so callously give them away."

"Do you know how to grow its seeds?" Rian asked, staring at the dark red stone his bite had revealed.

"I'm sure you'll be motivated to find out for yourself," Lori said.

"Yay, more work," Rian said. He took another bite, chewing slowly. "Fine, it'll be worth it. Inside the dungeon to start with? So it's safe from being dug up?"

"You take care of it," Lori said. "I'm providing the light already."

"Tomorrow," Rian said.

"Tomorrow," Lori nodded.

They watched the wrestling, and all Lori could think of was someone would have to launder those clothes, which were getting so stained from the dirt the two were rolling around in…