It rained just long enough to be wet and annoying, but not long enough to justify not working.

Lori was reminded of the year before, when they'd just arrived at the location they had settled, and it had rained as they had worked. At the time, they had been glad for the rain, which had washed the Iridescence off them and kept beasts in whatever dens they hid in, letting the settlers work on the Dungeon and the water break around them to keep beasts away at night or when it wasn't raining.

Now though, the rain was just irritating.

It was more so under the scraggly, half-grown dome over River's Fork. The branches and leaves above seemed to concentrate the rain, in some spots causing a steady trickle of water. Even wearing her hat and rain coat, the random streams of water were distracting. The fact the sun came out and shone down after the rain was added insult to injury, since the dome also blocked enough of the sunlight that the mud was unable to dry.

Thankfully, River's Fork's dining hall was covered.

While the ground was just bare dirt and therefore a bit soggy, it wasn't completely wet mud, and already people were sweeping out fallen leaves and other detritus from the area using brooms with heads made from bundles of vigas stems. The roof of the dining hall at least looked mostly structurally intact, though Lori noticed Shanalorre was pointing out spots of the structure to some people. Ah, right. Now that they were in River's Fork, Shanalorre could use her connection to the core to find locations infected by mold or voids in wood where it was rotten.

Lori checked her rock. Yllian was directing people to move various benches and tables out of some houses where they had apparently been stored for the winter, and which were also being inspected for damage or mold. A few people tried to just sit around or not properly carry their end of a table, and was immediately spotted by the lord and chastised to work properly. Lori supposed he was capable, after all. Once all the tables and benches were brought out, they were given brooms—the demesne seemed to have a lot of brooms—and told to help sweep. Soon the swept area had extended around the dining hall.

Before she'd begun with the cooking facilities Lori had, upon Rian's suggestion, made a few tools that were essentially rocks wrapped around one end of a long branch, with the end opposite the branch flattened into an even, broad striking surface. Those tools were now being used to pound down the dirt floor of the dining hall, flattening and compacting it to make it less likely to turn into mud in subsequent rains. This was what the people who'd tried to sit down and not work one too many times had found themselves being assigned, on the sound logic that since they were so well-rested, they had a surplus of imbuement for picking up the heavy tool and pounding it down on the ground to flatten it.

Rian was directing people to bring rocks to her to use for building the cooking facilities. The dining hall used to have one, but now there was only a bare space, with only a few black traces of soot and ash to hint it had ever been there. Lori suspected it had been gutted for parts for the flood barrier.

"How much stone do you need?" Rian asked as buckets of the loose rocks that had been removed from the dining hall's floor and two carts worth of tailings from the mine—ones without any signs of blue or green ore—were dumped where she had indicated.

"I'll tell you when to stop," Lori said. "Dump the next batch over there, I'll be working on this pile." She pointed at a spot two paces away.

Rian nodded, exchanged nods with Riz who was standing with Lori, and went to supervise getting more rocks for her. The other volunteers were nearby, sweeping or pounding the ground, but Riz was specifically watching Lori, and conspicuously the only one not doing any sort of work. A few were actually directing looks at her about that, but Lori was not going to have her protector occupied by anything else.

The pile of rocks from the two carts, several buckets, and one litter was sizable, and while it wouldn't be enough for any serious building, it would do for a foundation. After all, she couldn't build straight on the mud. That would just be asking for trouble.

Out of habit, she tried to claim the pile of rocks through her core, but this wasn't her demesne. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice the little moment of inattention as she raised up her staff and put the metal-capped butt on top of the pile of rocks. One fingernail rested on the wire that ran the length of her staff as she drew power from her core and made it flow outwards, passing it through her bones and out through her nails, channeled the magic through the metal of the wire and through that claimed the earthwisps in the pile.

An outside observer would have said that the rock her staff rested on began to distort like hot wax, flowing downwards as it touched more and more of the rocks beneath it. Lori was patient, however, as she methodically claimed the earthwisps in the rocks. Slowly, she made the stone flow as she altered their shape, and began laying out a foundation on top of the wet ground. Unlike in her own demesne, she couldn't just fuse the stone to the bedrock to stabilize the foundation.

The second batch of stone was placed where she had indicated, but the third she had dumped onto the foundation she was building to add mass to it. She had to move her staff so she could claim the waterwisps in the mud beneath the stone and draw the water out of the mud, allowing the dirt to compact properly. Once that was done, she claimed the dirt and stone and anchored them together, creating a foundation that ran deep enough it should remain stable through the subsequent rains.

That done, she took a moment to plan out the shape of what she was going to build, using her staff and Whispering to draw some lines on the foundation she had made. Since she didn't have the convenience of her core to make Whispering easier, she'd need to be methodical and plan the steps she would do. She'd already had a general idea of how she'd build this—all they really needed was a stove that could fit one of the old stone cooking pots on—but now that she could see what she had to work with, she could better visualize what she was trying to build.

The foundation Lori had built was three paces long and four paces wide, which probably seemed excessive. However, she wasn't just building a cooking surface, but also a roof to keep rain and other things off the food. She could probably set it up under the roof of the dining hall, but that would take up space for people, and she didn't know if there was already enough space for all the people of the demesne. Besides, if she set it up under the dining hall's roof, it would be in the way of the inspection and repairs of the structure, which would cause and delay and she'd have to be away from her demesne for even longer!

No, no, best she build this and have one less thing to do!

As a Whisperer, the best kind of roof covering she could make was what she'd already been doing, arching half-cylinder stone roofs whose own shape supported its weight. That required a wide structure if one wanted to be able to stand in it however, and since she didn't have the option of digging down to get more head-height that way—too much mud and probably roots—she had to make the arch wide to give it more height.

However, that was for later. For now, she had to make a stove that could support the stone pot they had brought. With the copper pots that had made during the winter, the stone pots hadn't really been needed anymore and had been relegated to storing unmilled vigas grain because they had been convenient containers. Bringing the pot had been Rian's suggestion, since it was big enough to cook just enough food for everyone in River's Fork—especially when the children were moved to her demesne—making cooking communal meals easier. And it wasn't likely they really needed it. Lori could have made one in River's Fork when she arrived, but that would have taken more time, and they'd already had one on hand, so why bother?

Lori marked out a circle on the stone, using a cord and the markings on her staff to measure it out. That would be the size of the actual fire pit, where the fuel would be and where the pot would sit on top off. The dimension had been based on the size of the pot they had, so that it would both sit securely and be adequately supported. To that circle, Lori drew two parallel lines some distance apart representing where the firewood would be inserted from. She then added a large square that encompassed the other markings, to demarcate the overall dimensions of the firepit.

Once she was satisfied, she got to work. She had Riz help her move some of the rocks from the pile to the foundation, and when the next load of rocks arrived, she had them dump two of the buckets of rocks on the lines she had drawn, and then had them start dumping subsequent loads on the edge of the stone foundation.

For a moment, she debated trying to keep working with her staff, or perhaps her wand—she'd brought it along, but had left it in the Coldhold—but eventually had to admit that doing so would be inefficient. Sighing, she knelt down—wincing as her knees came to rest on the hard stone foundation—and put her hands on the stone piled on her lines, curling her fingers so that it was her fingernails making contact instead of her fingertips. Belatedly, she wished she hadn't trimmed her fingernails a few days ago, but what was done was done.

Claiming earthwisps like this always seemed faster than using her staff. There was none of the detachment of working through metal as she felt the stone under her hands being bound to her will. It was just so undignified, kneeling like a child playing in the mud and rolling balls of it around. Still, it couldn't be helped. It would be awkward, simply in a different way, to remain standing and try to build this by holding her staff in her hands and poking at the rocks on the ground until they changed shape. Faced with these two options, she chose the one that let her get work done faster.

Still, Lori couldn't help feeling childish as she grabbed rocks with her hands and added it to the softened stone she had claimed and bound, then shaped and placed on the ground according to the lines she had made. She used her belt knife both as a leveling tool and a conduit to conduct magic as she methodically began raising up stone walls along the lines she had made. Admittedly, shaping the stone both by hand and using Whispering was faster than simply Whispering alone, and once she got used to working with her hands like this again, she was able to work fairly quickly. It helped that she could solidify the rock again once she was satisfied with it

She soon managed to fall into a rhythm that almost let her forget the ache of her knees as she knelt, raising up the shape of a stone cylinder along the lines she had down on the foundation. It wasn't a complete circle, since it needed a way to add in more firewood while something was cooking, but close enough. It got faster once she realized she could soften large stones taken from the nearby pile and roll them out into cylinders, then place the solidified rolls upright along the lines.

Once she realized she could do that, then she just had to make a lot of stone rolls to place all along the lines she had made, fusing them in place on the foundation to make walls. They weren't complete walls, since that would be too time consuming, but simply a form that she would then fill with rocks to fill in the spaces, softening some to fill in the gaps in the walls of the forms as necessary.

"Rian," she called once she had finished putting rolls along the outline of the stove.

"Yes, your Bindership?" Rian said promptly, a cheerful smile on his face. It was one of his fake smiles, since the rest of his face looked tired. He was also sweaty, and from the shovel he was holding, he'd probably also been helping load the carts with stone to bring her. Idiot.

"I need branches," Lori said. She made a circle with her thumb and first finger. "About this thick or thicker, and at least a pace long, relatively straight, no protruding branches."

Rian nodded at the specific dimensions. "How many?"

Lori looked towards the outer outline of the stove she was making. "Enough to make a pace-long wall," she said.

"Ah, of course," he said. "Do they need to be dry? Peeled of bark? From a specific tree?"

That last was probably just him being facetious. Lori waved a hand dismissively. "No, my previous specifications are enough. I just need it as a support for the stove." It would certainly be faster than trying to make a small arching passage to the firebox of the stove.

"I'll ask Yllian, maybe they have some in their firewood stores that haven't been cut down to size yet," Rian said. "But can it wait until after lunch?"

Lori blinked, then looked up. Through the dome, what was visible of the sky was unhelpfully overcast. "It's lunch?" she said.

"About to be," Rian said. "They've been cooking up lunch for the demesne in the pot—" he nodded in a direction, and following his gaze across the dining hall, Lori saw the large stone pot over a fire, being held up by a triangular arrangement of large stones, "—and I've had some of the men cooking our own lunch from our supplies."

Lori considered it, then nodded. "Fine, after lunch will do." Her mouth was dry, she realized. Ugh, how long had it been since she'd had water? "Riz, with me. Rian, find me some water."

She still had a lot of work to do today, but hopefully she could get it done quickly. The faster she got this done, the sooner she'd be back home.

First, however, she was going to the latrine, and this time she had no intention of being attacked afterwards.