"What do you mean, we need more houses?" Lori asked.

"We, pronoun, meaning the speaker and at least one other person," Rian said. "Need, verb, to require something as essential or important. More, determiner, meaning an additional amount of something. Houses, noun, plural form, a building for human habitation, typically with a roof and at least three walls."

Lori stared at him for a long moment. "Was that supposed to be a joke?"

"I was breaking down the sentence into individual words in case it was a specific part you were having trouble with," Rian said.

"Are you mocking me?"

"Lori, if I were mocking you, I'd point at you and laugh," Rian said. "You are, however, a unique existence and I sometimes have to genuinely stop and wonder if you do, in fact, understand what I'm saying."

"That still sounds like you're mocking me," Lori accused.

"I told you 'we need more houses'. It was a simple declarative statement with little possible ambiguity, and you don't seem to understand," Rian said with a shrug.

"I understand the sentence, I don't understand what you mean by it," Lori said. "We have a lot of houses, people just haven't finished building them yet."

"Oh, we're done with those," Rian said. "The last one was roofed while you've been digging your Dungeon. All the houses you put up are roofed now. But we need more houses, because our population grew."

Lori scowled. "Can't people stay in the shelters?"

"It's drafty, it's crowded, the floors are cold, and they can't decorate," Rian said. "Also, we need those houses to head off civil unrest. The reason the work has gone so much faster now than it was before was because of the former militia people in the Golden Sweetwood company doing the work, but the original housing list was made to prioritize people with large families and those with family members in essential jobs, like the children, sawyers, carpenters, and the cooks. They're happy, because they have their own house now, but the people who actually built those houses want their own houses, or else they'll feel cheated. So, we need more houses, or else there'll be fighting in the street, general unrest and bad feelings all around." He paused, then added, "Which will be bad for overall productivity and really bad in the long run. So, we need more houses, and we need them now. The militiamen are willing to keep building, so long as they know they'll get their own place soon, but I think it's only fair we bump them up to 'essential workers' and have the next batch of houses they make be their own."

"So why don't they?" Lori said. Why did she have to deal with this over breakfast?

"Because you raised the walls of the last batch, which meant most of the work was putting in the roof, doors and internal furnishings," Rian said. "If you do it again, the work gets done a lot faster, and there'll be less to bother you with. Also, it will seem like you're treating everyone equally, since you have everyone living in stone-walled houses, which are more secure and less likely to burn than wooden ones. And they took the brunt of the dragon very well."

Lori scowled. This sounded suspiciously like a 'fairness' thing. The world was fundamentally unfair– everyone said so– so why did people insist on 'fairness'?

"Look, just look over the proposal I made first," Rian said, picking up a tray-sized plank of wood. It had become a familiar sight, with Rian washing it off and writing on it every day when he needed to show her something, like lists or just notes. "I've already marked out the area to be cleared so they can build the houses there, and I've got the new housing list drawn up. I just need your approval for the site. You don't need to start building today, since they still need to clear the trees."

Reluctantly, Lori held out her hand, and Rian handed her the plank. It was heavier than she'd thought, but Rian didn't let go of it until she was holding it with both hands.

The sketch on it was simple but seemed to be to scale, and had even helpfully marked the sawpits, the current farm fields, the projected farm fields, and where she'd stashed the corpse of the baby islandshell. The leather parts hadn't been recoverable, but the bones and shell would still be useful… once she thought of a use for it.

She looked over it critically. "Why am I looking at a long box?"

"I figured it would be more efficient to make the houses a single long building that share walls," Rian said. "Makes building it simple. Admittedly, it cuts down on the number of walls that can have windows, but this way you have less building to do, and it'll be easier for them to put on a roof."

She looked at another drawing. "And the reason the walls will be five paces high?"

"It'll give people the option to put in a loft or attic, or even a second floor, if they feel like it," Rian said. "More space."

"I can already hear the people who have houses now complaining their house isn't as nice," Lori said. She gave him a look. "You handle those."

"Yes, your Bindership," he said.

"I suppose we'll have to find a new use for the shelters after this," Lori mused.

"Actually, I have an idea for that," Rian said. "We'll just make it storage and housing for people without families. Bachelor quarters, sort of thing. Just put in internal walls so we'll all have our own room. We can turn the other into storage, or for growing mushrooms or whatever."

"Hmm…" Lori 'hmm'-ed. She pointed at another square near the new houses. "What's this?"

"The proposed site for the new bathhouse," Rian said. "That way it's convenient, and we won't have so many people crowding around the current bathhouses. By the way, people are also requesting we build a shaded roof between the two old bathhouses, so they'd have a better place to relax."

"Why do you keep bringing me so many requests?" Lori sighed. She still hadn't finished her breakfast.

"Well, you've made it perfectly clear that you want to be the absolute authority, so people are complying with that by not making any decisions without bringing it by you," Rian said. "And since you literally won't talk to anyone but me unless you have to, they pass it to me, and it gets passed to you. And this is just the stuff I don't dismiss out of hand for being silly or self-serving."

"Like what?" Lori asked.

"People want to know if they can own land."

"They're still on that?" Lori scowled.

"They never stopped, they just know better to than to bring it up to your face," Rian said.

"We don't even have money," Lori said. "We don't even have a barter economy! What would they possible need discrete ownership of land for?"

"Bragging rights? Status symbol? Wish fulfillment?" Rian suggested.

"Tell the next person who asks that I'll be awarding them the location of the latrines and they'll be personally responsible for maintaining them," Lori said.

"I know you mean that as some kind of ironic punishment, but I can already see them trying to charge people wood or fruit or rope or sexual services for the use of the latrine," Rian said.

Lori grimaced. "It's too glittering early in the morning for this," she muttered.

"Hey, you asked," Rian said. "Have more faith that I know what you'll think is silly and pointless."

"Noted," Lori sighed. She looked at the map. "Inform me when the land is cleared and I'll inspect it before commencing building. And add spots for latrines and people assigned to maintaining them."

"Got it," Rian said, nodding.

Grumbling, Lori went back to her breakfast. When, exactly, could she stop building things and just bask in her power?

––––––––––––––––––

The excavation work continued. It soon became rote. Soften stone, draw it out, form a pillar with arcs to support the ceiling, drag the stone outside. Repeat again and again until lunch. Repeat until mid-afternoon, then do something else. Curing wood. Making ice. Checking on all the wisps she'd bound to make sure their output wasn't too hot or too bright. Making stone axe heads to spare their metal ones from wear and tear. Wonder how she was doing more work for less pay as a Dungeon Binder than she had been as a student.

Occasionally she had to stop and make sure her floor was properly level, which involved making a grid of channels, filling them with water, then molding the stone to match that. It was tedious work, but the perfectionist in her made her do it. And honestly, it felt much nicer to walk across.

When enough land had been cleared, she'd taken a break from excavation to inspect it with Rian. It was on the other side of the dining hall, which was finally being used for its intended purpose again, though the number of tables and benches was less because the carpenters were busy with other things, and could only make one set at a time. The rest were still in the Dungeon, and Lori was resigned to them being here permanently. At least she didn't have to walk far for meals now, and the food stores for dragons and winter was building up nicely, mostly with smoked meat and edible seeds like ropeweed, though there were some cut that had been sealed in ice. For something nice in the middle of winter, she'd been told.

There was some variance of elevation at the proposed building site, but nothing that wasn't fixable, especially with earthwisps, but definitely something she'd need to adjust for, given Rian's suggestion of how she should build this. Honestly, it wasn't bad, now that she'd thought out it. A simple build, and with all the wood they had now, she could use planks to brace the tops of doorways and windows.

"Why do the houses need to face that way though?" she asked as she examined the stripped branches that had been thrust into the ground to mark the boundaries of the proposed build. "It doesn't line up with the grid established by the other houses."

"The sun angles down from that side when it it's climbing and setting," Rian said. "Might change as the year progresses, but it's there now. This way the light will naturally angle into people's houses in the middle of the day. It'll let anyone doing indoor work like spinning, weaving or making rope have a decent amount of light. We still don't have that many candles, mostly an emergency stash for the next dragon if you're too busy to make light, since what fat and oil we're getting is being used for soap, cooking and lubricant. A few people have been trying to catch sweetbugs that were born inside the demesne, so they can harvest bugswax, but that won't really be viable as a source for some time. Plus we'll either need to ready a space for them in the Dungeon in case of dragon or have some in the Dungeon itself, and without flowering plants, they won't have much reason to build their hive."

Lori sighed. Still more work to do. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to another line of sticks.

"Road," Rian said. "At least, the planned road. We're planning to mark out a course that connects through the road we currently have that runs in front of the houses and past the dining hall towards the Dungeon. We're, uh, hoping you'll find it in you to compact it down, so that there won't be any slipping accidents when people bring up the materials for the roofs later."

Lori looked between the road and the site of the new houses. "They seem to be rather far apart," she pointed out.

"Planning for the future," Rian said. "We'll eventually want a wide road, and it would be nice if it didn’t come up right to people's doorsteps. And the four paces of space gives people a nice garden plot to grow vegetables or something. Once we figure out how best to grow vegetables, anyway. "

"And all the stumps?" she said, eyeing the many fresh tree stumps all around.

"Well, if you're going to be moving the earth anyway…" Rian said, looking aside.

She gave him a level look. "I'll soften the ground, but you have to arrange for them to be dragged out of here," she said sternly.

"That's fair," Rian said meekly. "And we'd have more usable firewood than if you just made them explode."

She kept staring at him, but nodded. "Anything else?"

"Well, we have a lot of felled trees now, and they need curing to be useable… "

Lori rolled her eyes. Of course. They probably had more logs stacked than the sawpits could handle right then. "Fine. I'll go and see about curing the logs."

"Also, people are asking for someplace they can put all the wood with mushrooms they've managed to cultivate, so the spores won't spread on the new wood on the houses and what furniture we have…"

Yes, she was definitely doing more work now than when she'd been merely a student. Almost, she wished one of the two wizards who come with them hadn't died so she'd have someone to push some of this magic work onto.

Almost.