The next day, the opposite wall went up. It was slightly faster since it was just slightly shorter than the first wall, since she'd need to make the side passage towards the smithy and stairs to the… all right, it was basically a balcony. Since the opening of it didn't lead directly to her Dungeon, it was currently a bit useless, but once a dragon arrived and she made some reconfigurations…

Well, hopefully it would work.

Admittedly, having two freestanding walls on either side of her Dungeon's entrance did look a little strange. Thankfully, it didn't change the amount of air being pulled into her Dungeon, though she had to move the kitchen's exhaust outflow vent, since when she was finished, the current vent would be inside her Dungeon's air circulation, which defeated the purpose of having an outflow vent.

Building the balcony was a bit nerve-wracking. For one thing, she had to build it over the current entrance of the Dungeon, so this time she was very definite about there being no entry allowed in and out of her Dungeon while she was building. At first, she was concerned about supporting the balcony properly since, now that she looked at it, she wouldn't be able to make supportive arches since the side passage meant there was a gap in the wall. She had to move the balcony two paces further down so that she had solid wall on their side to make supportive arches to bear the load of the balcony's floor. After that, building the stairs to reach it was simple, though she had to remove a portion of wall she'd build already.

The day after that was the harvest.

There was an excitement in the air when she came down for breakfast. People seemed to be up much earlier than usual, and she'd almost have thought today had been declared a holiday…

"No, I haven't declared today a holiday, Great Binder," Riz said. In comparison to everyone else, she looked tired, as if she'd gotten up earlier and hadn't wanted to. Mikon was off getting food for them. "Rian said not to have that until after the harvest was brought in and stored."

He had? Oh right, Lori vaguely remembered telling him to tell Riz that…

She sat down heavily, her mood heavier than it had been when she woke up. "What do I need to do?"

Riz frowned, tilting her head to think about it. "I… honestly can't think of what might need your help, Great Binder. Maybe the drying, but—" Riz suddenly groaned. "Glittering rainbows… the chokers. The colors-tainted chokers… I just realized. Great Binder, we will need your help. Normally, we'd leave in the vigas in the fields to dry in the sun, but with the chokers, and how it's getting colder… We'll need your help to dry them. I'm not sure, I'll have to talk to the farmers first, but it looks likely."

"So thoughtful of you to give me time to prepare," Lori said blandly.

"Ah, we don't need you now, Great Binder," Riz said. "That step happens after we actually harvest the stalks. You'll have time. Some of the vigas lodged, so we'll have to do those by hand… we'll have to stick all the stems in the storage shed so they'll dry without getting eaten by chokers or bugs… " She exhaled heavily and stood up. "Excuse me Great Binder, I need to find a farmer and talk to them… hopefully the winter crop will do better."

Lori blinked in surprise. "Winter crop? We're planting in winter? I thought it was too cold for that?"

"It's… I'll explain later, Great Binder," Riz said, sounding exasperated. "Why don't you ask Mikon, she should know." She walked away, muttering to herself.

Lori stared after her, then shook her head, sighing. Rian would have done it sooner…

She sat back waiting. Eventually, Mikon appeared, carrying the bowls of food. She put down the bowls, looking around. "Riz?" she called, even if the woman in question was clearly not around. She didn't look towards Lori.

Sighing again, Lori reached for one of the bowls. Without looking at her, Mikon moved it away from her hand.

Lori stared, then frowned and reached for another bowl.

Mikon moved that away too.

Lori's frown deepened. "Mikon…" she ground out.

"Oh, your Bindership! Do you know where Riz went off to?" Mikon said, finally looking at her with a cheerful, unreadable, and now very annoying smile.

"She went to talk to some farmers," Lori said flatly. "She also said you could explain to me why we'd plant crops in winter. I thought it snowed in winter. Don't the crops get buried?"

"Yes, but that doesn't really hurt it," Mikon said. "They just grow slowly under the snow until spring. And it makes them less likely to get eaten by bugs, beasts and slugs."

"How informative. Can I eat now?"

"Of course, your Bindership. The kitchen is over there."

Lori gave her a look that said she was not amused.

Mikon smiled, then pushed all three bowls closer to her. Lori reached for one, and it wasn't moved away from her. She still pulled it close before eating.

The weaver looked around one more time and sighed, finally deciding to sit down. She pulled one of the other bowls toward her, took hold of the spoon and paused.

Lori let her take a moment to take in the frozen bowl of stew that had been perfectly warm when it had been grabbed.

They sat like that for a moment, Lori eating her nice, warm stew.

"I'm… sorry for teasing you, your Bindership?" Mikon said hesitantly. "Please forgive me?"

Lori kept eating for a few moments more, then let the firewisps spread back across the weaver's stew, bringing it up to as hot as her own meal.

Mikon sighed in relief, but stirred her stew for a moment and tentatively tested it before she started eating.

Lori, for her part, had always wanted to do that. Well, something like that. If she was being honest, what she'd always actually wanted was to make someone explode or at least set them on fire and hear their screams of pain as they burned to death… but now that she actually had the personal power to actually do it, that seemed… excessive. Besides, Mikon was… she was… well, not as annoying as other people.

And more importantly, Lori was able to beat her at board games. That merited keeping her around.

––––––––––––––––––

Lori had never seen a harvest before. She had grown up in the central city of Taniar Demesne, right outside the Dungeon. While there had been work available to a student Whisperer in one of the city's many farms, the work had been imbuing and maintaining bindings that allowed for farming indoors, not actually picking the food off the plants. She actually didn't know who picked the food. For all she knew, it was done by some specially modified undead with multiple arms, or some sort of mechanism powered by bound tools.

In her demesne, right after breakfast, it was done by a lot of people.

It wasn't everyone. The doctors and medics weren't involved beyond a few of them standing nearby in case of injuries. The kitchen staff weren't there, busy washing the detritus of breakfast and preparing for lunch. There were also those going outside the demesne to hunt beast, or catching seels at the river. And Lori, of course. After all, she was the Dungeon Binder. She didn't have to do anything she didn't want to.

Also, she didn't know how to do it.

But most everyone else—the smiths, the carpenters, the loggers and sawyers and those who usually crossed the river to cut ropeweed—were at the fields behind the houses. The planted fields had grown slowly over the year, planted with wild vegetables they'd found and tubers and other plants and, eventually, grain. The grain had been partially-grown plants from River's Fork that had survived the first dragon that had passed over it, and had been transported by the people who'd left that demesne and finally found their way to her own. There had been a lot of those plants, and while they had lost some when the second dragon of that year had passed over her demesne, it hadn't been a significant fraction.

Now, all those plants had matured enough to be harvested. They were low, thick-stemmed plants, visually significantly different from the crops Lori had seen in her student days, but that didn't really mean much. Deadspeaking could be used to cause significant physical changes to organisms while they remained, technically speaking, the same plant. And she'd already seen that the late Binder Koshay had been quite ready, willing, able and experienced in using Deadspeaking to alter plants.

Given these had initially been planted when he'd still been alive, she would not be surprised if he had Deadspoken these plants. It probably explained how they had been so hardy and survived such harsh treatment. If the seeds from this plant were planted, the resulting plant was unlikely to have the same appearance as its parent unless Binder Koshay had been very thorough in his Deadspeaking, but something like that took several successive generations of testing to ensure that the changes had stuck.

Lori stood next to the third bath house as she watched people getting to work. Some people were using strangely-curved blades to cut bundles of grain near the base, but most were using more familiar belt knives to cut much smaller groupings of grain. The harvesters were moving in a way that seemed practiced. The stems were cut and then left behind, and other people would follow after to gather them into larger bundles, securing them what seemed to be cords made from ropeweed.

She frowned as she saw children among those working in the fields, but they mostly seemed to be among those gathering or tying up the bundles. Those few she saw among those cutting were among the older ones, who even she was willing to admit were not quite children anymore. At the very least, none of them seemed to be complaining. On the contrary, they were among the most enthusiastic workers. The few whose expressions she could see worked with an almost exaggeratedly intent expression, taking the work before them very seriously. The brat was one of those, and she was also one who was using one of those curiously curved, hook-like blades.

Lori found it… something—she didn't know if it was ironic or not—that the brat had not been allowed to use a knife to gut seels but had been given a substantially bigger blade for harvesting.

The rate of the work was surprisingly intense. She'd have thought that people would move at the same pace they'd moved when she'd seen them cutting and gathering ropeweed, a methodical pace that had seemed like they were working fairly hard to her.

The pace she saw now made that seem almost relaxed. People moved like they intended to harvest the whole field that day, or possibly even before lunch. The field wasn't very big—it had been originally the area that they had cut the trees from when they'd been making planks for the roofs of houses, benches and dining tables—but it was still substantial, and since it had been planted, the field had grown from more trees being cut down, with only isolated happyfruit trees that hadn't been cut down because of their fruit.

Honestly, it was tiring to simply look at, and Lori was just sitting and watching them go about it. And that was just their original field. It would probably be even more tiring to look at in the future, since they had more cleared land now.

Still, it was a satisfying sight. And if all went well, she might finally get some more bread in the near future.

Hmm, bread…

Lori sat back on the stone block she'd raised up and watched, already thinking happy thoughts of basic baked foods.