The ice actually didn't break. With the binding in place, it was hard as stone, and seemingly as difficult to damage, especially with the binding reinforcing its physical properties beyond what it was normally capable of naturally. Still, for her own peace of mind, she built stone pillars at the corners of the reservoir pool to hold the ceiling up, and repaired the gouge in the process. The material seemed to be holding, at least. The reservoir and basins had been filled after the sluices had been fitted in, so the bath house had been softly opened for use.

"Yes, it worked, you were right," she told Rian as she and Mikon set up the board for their game. "Wipe that smug look off your face. It will still need to be constantly imbued with magic so it doesn't melt or collapse."

"Well, obviously," Rian said, nodding. "So it's not exactly something that can be used for everything. But is it working right now?"

"Yes," she said, with a sigh. "I still have to make the… suction tube, for lack of a better term. Did you manage to get the roller form lathed?"

In answer, Rian put a cylinder of wood on the table. It was about as thick as one of their wooden cups, but three times as long, and not hollow. "This what you needed?"

Lori nodded. Now she'd have something to make a mold for the stone rollers to go under the suction tube. "What about the lever?"

"They'll need to see what they're working with, and for that you need at least a semi-complete suction tube," Rian said. "It might have to be bigger than what I drew to overcome the force of the suction. The tube will be drawing in a lot of water and air, after all, so it'll be exerting a lot of force."

"In the meantime, find people who can be assigned to maintain the third bath house," Lori said. "At the very least, someone to be in charge of operating the sluices, cleaning the baths so that no pools of stagnant water are left at the end of the day, and to operate the suction tube once I've finished it."

"I've already asked around, they'll get started tomorrow," Rian said. "Also, I have a plank you can use to partition the suction tube, but I left it next to the door to your room because it was pretty big. You might need to trim it yourself or something. "

Lori nodded as Mikon made her opening move. "How is progress on your ice boat?"

"Ah, about that," Rian said hesitantly. "Since the roof worked, I have an idea for a proof-of-concept test we can do that will also help us get a bigger boat for getting the next batch of miners to River's Fork in one trip. But I want to get the design and the dimensions finished first before showing you anything final."

Lori reached to make her own move. "What's the concept, then?"

"We replicate the dimensions of the boat—"

"Lori's Boat."

Rian sighed for some reason as Riz, sitting next to Mikon, made a small cough. "Yes, the only boat we currently own. We replicate it at double its current dimensions. Double the length, width and height will be big enough to carry all the people who have volunteered in one trip. The hull will need to be much thicker, of course, for structural integrity, and reinforcement, but beyond that, something of those dimensions should be stable and a good test to see if the ice will hold. And if we weight the keel with rocks—"

"The what?" Lori interrupted.

"The keel. It's the line in the center that runs along the bottom of the boat," Rian explained. "You put extra weight there to keep the things from rolling over. We can't put one on… on Lori's Boat, but we can put one on the ice boat when we build it so that it will be more stable and not tilt from side to side as much." He paused. "I'll admit, I'm sort of afraid it will still start dipping too low if too many people are on one side, so I'm trying to figure out how to put an outrigger on it."

"And you intend for all that to be made with ice?" Lori said blandly.

"No, of course not, that would be insane," Rian said. "It'll need wooden internal supports for added strength. Ideally, the whole thing would be made of wood, with the ice serving as a coating of waterproofing and added displacement for it to float better, since we don't have enough resources to properly waterproof a conventionally made boat."

"Food," Lori said.

Rian blinked in confusion. "I don't think we can use food as waterproofing."

Lori sighed. "Get our food, Rian"

"Oh! Right, right, food, getting it, getting it…"

––––––––––––––––––

Lori left Rian to building his boat while she worked on the mechanism that could be manually operated to fill the reservoir with water. Adding a protrusion to the end of the pipe leading to the river was simple enough, and beveling it so the suction tube would fit over it needed only a little work. She used all the stone that she had on hand from making the ceiling out of ice to make a wide groove with high sides to keep the suction tube from moving to either side, with a lip at the end of the slot to keep the tube from falling into the reservoir. She also added a slight curve to the end of the suction tube so that the water would go straight into the reservoir. Stone rollers, made in a mold of ice, using the wooden roller as a basis to make the mold, were put under the suction tube so it could be moved easily.

When she tested it, she found that while the binding of airwisps was sufficient for the task of drawing up water, once the water reached the suction tube, the tube would get pushed out of the lip by the water. It took her several very messy, very wet tries to realize that once the water reached the tube, the airwisps had no more air to drawn on, meaning there was no more force being exerted to keep it adhered to the pipe. She had to spend some time figuring out how to add a binding of waterwisps to draw the water once it reached the tube. Thankfully, the fact that there was a divider in the tube helped give her more area to place a binding, so she was able to put a binding of airwisps in one half and a binding of waterwisps in the other.

The result was the water being drawn up from the river far slower than if she had put a dedicated binding of waterwisps in the pipe, but that was fine. There was no hurry to fill up the reservoir, after all.

The end of the first month of their agreement with River's Fork came and went, and she had to be there to provide the ice that had been agreed upon, and to check on the state of the water wheel and fan. It was tempting to add more blood, in case time was degrading her connection, but there was currently no need as she didn't feel any added difficulty in imbuing, and if it was possible for the connection to degrade over time, it was best she had a baseline measurement.

After that came general demesne work. Heating the kiln to begin the glaze firing, building some more packed earth curing sheds for lumber, curing lumber, maintaining all the bindings running her demesne, and converting the plumbing in the old bath houses to be more like the new one, meaning she had to dig reservoirs for them, and build their own suction tubes. She also roofed the reservoir area with ice, purely so that the water level would always be visible so people would know when it was time to renew it. Fortunately, since they were closer to the river, that was less of a problem, though she had to get Rian to find more people to handle refilling the reservoir on top of maintaining the bath houses.

Hmm… actually, had someone been maintaining the bath houses already? Eh, Rian would deal with it.

The waste water for all three she decided to bring to the cistern for water to be used on their fields, though that cistern needed some expansion. Two days later, when it turned out that was far more water than their field—which had gotten bigger since she'd last noticed, more trees at the edges cut down, leaving their original stand of crops looking like a small lost patch of greenery—could currently use, she just gave up, created a lower cistern the water could overflow into, and made a binding that turned the water that overflowed into that cistern into steam. It left behind detritus from the water that had been evaporated, but that was something that could be dealt with later. Much later. And since it had essentially been boiled and didn't reek like waste, it was fairly safe to leave alone.

"That somehow feels wasteful," Rian said later that night.

Lori stared at him. "How is that wasteful?" she said.

"Well, if the water is vaporized, the steam is clean, right?" Rian said. "Can't you gather all that steam and add it to the reservoir again? It's not like the irrigation water needs it, it's already overflow water. "

Lori tilted her head thoughtfully.

The next day, she converted the overflow tank into a sealed tank, with a small access door for when the particulates gathering in the bottom of the tank would need to be shoveled out. The steam from all the water being boiled off into vapor was channeled back into the third bath house reservoir and condensed as hot water to help feed it. Lori diverted the waste water used in the laundry area to the irrigation cistern as well. Not all of the water ended up being evaporated and reused, since the field did still need to be watered, but that wasn't the point. It allowed them to minimize the possibility of tainting their own water, since it was hard for taint to survive being boiled into steam.

With the new bath houses established, thankfully people no longer needed to bathe in the laundry area, for which she was grateful. That practice had always been nerve-wracking for her to hear about. All it needed were a few insistent idiots to make trouble…

Also, since she finally had time, she told the carpenters to start work on a waterwheel-powered lathe that would fit into the second level, and she would provide the water power to turn it.

"That's made them happy," Rian said during dinner, their food between them. "They're really getting into designing and building it. They should be finished by tomorrow. The day after at the latest. Though the blacksmiths have been quietly… not complaining, but more like asking for as much as support as the carpenters."

Lori nodded as she finished chewing her food, her game with Mikon put on hold for the moment. The woman was talking quietly with Riz about something, and the way the two were speaking in low tones, the two were clearly gossiping. Umu, on the other side of Rian, struggled to hear them, looking left out. "I'll find a suitably protected spot. It just can't be in the second level since it would make ventilation troublesome."

"I think they understand that," Rian said as he diligently tried to ignore the two women next to him, leaning forward towards her to try and put himself slightly out of hearing range, "but they'll need a permanent smithy soon. The saws are going to need sharpening or even replacement eventually, everyone's going to need more tools made of more than just wood and rocks, and they'll need a better-prepared place to work to do that. And…"

The two women to his left let out shocked gossip gasps as Umu literally leaned over his back to listen in.

"And the hunter and tanners—the ones treating our skins and leather, anyway— would like to ask for a better building than a shack to store and smoke our supply of skins, furs and hides," Rian sighed.

Lori blinked. "There's a shack?" she said as she took another spoonful. The meat had been fried, from the taste of it, and the stew tasted of stewed mushrooms more than meat stock or vegetables.

"Yes, they built it themselves once the children started catching seels and beasts started getting skinned," Rian said. "They really need salt. They've been making due with seel and beast brains, but that's not a lot. Most they've been drying and stretching, but I'm told that's not the best way to cure an animal hide."

Lori swallowed, sighed. "I'll… see to it. Have you finished the boat prototype?"

"I've worked out the dimensions. I just… need your help?" Rian gave her a sheepish smile as he tried to ignore how Umu was now leaning sideways on his back. "The best way to shape ice to make a mold and fill it with water so you don't need to try shaping it manually."

"So… you want me to make the mold AND use it to make ice," Lori said blandly.

"In my defense, we've both always known that you'd have to do everything related to working with ice," Rian pointed out. "And this is basically a test to make sure that the shape of the ice is stable. Or at least, stable enough to use as a boat. It'll let me figure out how much to weigh the keel too."

"Hmm…" Lori tilted her head and made a show of resting her elbow on the table and her cheek on the back of her hand.

Silence broken only by gossiping stretched on.

"All right, I have to ask," Rian said. "What are the three of you talking about?"

Umu looked down as if only just realizing she was leaning on Rian and blushed as Mikon and Riz started. "Ah, sorry, Lord Rian," she said.

"Umu, you've been washing my laundry and just used me as an arm rest," Rian tiredly. He gave her an equally tired smile. "I think we're beyond the point of formality. Just call me Rian, all right?"

Umu made a sound as if someone had gotten trapped in her throat.

"Now, what have you three been talking about interesting enough to warrant using my back as an arm rest?" he asked again.

Riz looked panicked but Mikon smoothly leaned around her so Rian could see her. "Riz was merely telling me who has been using the Um, Lord Rian," she said. "Some of the people going in together…" She coughed. "Was I not supposed to ask her, your lordship?"

"Please drop the 'lordship' Mikon," Rian said. "It's not like her Bindership insists I get any respect, and I wouldn't know what to do with it if I got any." Really, his shows of false modesty bordered on the satirical and delusional sometimes. "Just Rian is fine. You too, Riz. I mean, we're eating at the same food at the same table, rank clearly isn't much of a separator… except for her Bindership of course." He glanced sideways as if just remembering she was there. "Though please don't gossip about that in future? People have little privacy to preserve as it is. Let's let them have their dignity, please."

"Yes, Lord Rian," Riz said meekly.

"One would think people are forfeiting their dignity already, using that place," Lori commented.

"It is as dignified or not as everyone treats it as," Rian said insistently. "It can be crude and sordid, or it can be dignified and intimate and private. And I for one am not going to demean the people going there. I might be one of them someday." He didn't notice the three women next to him stiffen. "Probably not any day soon, but someday, once I'm the last man in the demesne and someone has to settle for having no standards…"

Lori couldn't help it. She laughed.

"Yes, yes, laugh at my pain," he sighed dramatically. "So, are you going to help me with the boat prototype or not?"

Lori rolled her eyes. "Fine," she said. "Tomorrow, and only briefly. I have all those workshops to build. At least tell me your proposed prototype has dimensions?"

"Yes, I measured it out," he said. "Not as flat as your boat, since a weighted keel works better if it's lower than everything else."

Lori nodded. "Good then. It shouldn't take all morning to make, hopefully." She had another spoonful of stew, chewed, swallowed. "Anything else?"

Rian leaned back thoughtfully. "No, I think that's everything immediate for now. I'll let you and Mikon play your game. You seem to enjoy playing against her more than against me."

"You're clearly bored when you play," Lori said. "It's annoying, especially when you still beat me."

Rain shrugged shamelessly. "Sorry?"

"You will be. One day, I will defeat you utterly," Lori declared.

"I'm… not really sure how I'm supposed to respond to that, so I'll just eat," Rian said, suiting actions to words.

Lori nodded sharply as she and Mikon began to set up their game, the weaver looking pleasantly eager to play even as Riz seemed regretful for the end of their conversation.

"So," Rian asked the northerner woman, "who have been going into the Um together?"