Over the next few days, Lori had to work to restore what she could of her demesne back to how it was before the dragon's passing.

She started with recovering the Coldhold from where it had been encased. It took up most of the afternoon of the day she arrived, since she had to move the stone container with the boat close to the dock before carefully raising up it up, and then opening the block slowly so that the Coldhold would float in the water. At that point, Rian and several other men waiting nearby on Lori's Boat pulled themselves aboard to keep the larger boat from drifting downriver and maneuver it properly into the dock.

The next day, Lori worked on restoring her Dungeon's—and by extension the town's—water supply as the Coldhold was checked over and Rian delivered the wispbeads, Shanalorre and children to River's Fork. This was more complicated than the distillation bindings she'd made for River's Fork. Her demesne had far greater water requirements, and they would need to distill far more water than a bucket at a time. However, the distillation process required turning water to vapor, and if a large enough amount of water changed state like that, the technical term for it was 'an explosion'. Therefore, she'd need to take care with the bindings she made.

First, Lori reinforced the stone pipe that drew water from the river and filled the water hub shed with a binding of earthwisps. Then she altered the binding that drew water from the river and propelled it up a pipe to turn water into vapor and added a binding to condense the vapor back into water so that it would fall into the water hub shed's receptacle. When all three bindings were active, it created the appearance that the pipe was working normally, simply drawing up water from the river.

Lori then began working on trying to increase the pipe's flow rate to something approaching what was normal for it, slowly increasing the rate the bindings of waterwisps turned the river water into vapor and condensed it again. She made sure the whole length of stone pipe was reinforced, lest it suddenly explode from the pressure the vapor was exerting on it, even adding more stone to the pipe to make it thicker and thus increasing the total reinforcement provided by the binding of earthwisps. Because of the way the bindings were arranged, with the directionality in the binding that turned water to vapor preventing that vapor from flowing back out to the river, most of the pressure was trying to escape out the end with the binding that condensed vapor to water.

In the end, she was able to attain a flow rate that she was satisfied with, and the resulting water was sufficiently distilled. Still, Lori decided to pile on more stone around the stone intake pipe to reduce the likelihood of catastrophic rupture, even if the pipe and the store around it would be reinforced by earthwisps. Best to prevent any potential accidents.

It was only at the last moment, before she was going to start all the bindings that would begin the process of sending distilled water from the water hub shed to her dungeon's reservoir that she thought to check the water remaining in the shed's receptacle. She immediately spat out the caustic tasting water.

Cleaning out the water hub shed of caustic water so that it wouldn't infect her reservoir took a while. Still, it was a good test of the distiller as she made it provide her with distilled water for cleaning out the surfaces of the water hub shed of caustic residue. Only once she was sure that no more caustic residue remained did she reconnect the pipe between the waterhub shed and the reservoir, and then the pipes between the reservoir and everywhere else.

Lori was about reactivate the binding that would bring water from the water hub shed to the reservoir when a thought occurred to her.

She closed up the water hub shed, making sure the binding of lightningwisps that kept out bugs was in place before she made her way to her Dungeon and towards the reservoir at the back, following the pipe in the stone she'd made a long time ago. The door that blocked the way to it was closed and still secured by the raised stone on the floor that kept looked in place. Lori intercepted the pipe towards the reservoir, pinching it shut and diverting it up towards her as she knelt down and made a bowl-like depression on the floor.

Reaching through her connection to the water hub shed, she briefly activated the binding that sent water through the pipe to the dungeon's reservoir. Lori followed the water through her awareness, deactivating the binding as the water reached her diversion and flowed up to the depression she had made.

Warily, she dipped on finger into the water that filled the depression and tasted it, then sighed in relief as it tasted like the reservoir water normally did, with no bitter aftertaste. Then promptly spat it out, as it was still water she'd found on the floor.

She gathered the water into a ball of ice, repaired the depression in the ground and reconnected the pipe, then activated the bindings in the water hub shed. Her dungeon's baths were nearby, so she just threw the ball of ice into the basin of water there—fortunately, it was the women's turn to bathe—before she headed back to the reservoir to check the water flow.

Even though there was now a waist-high wall around the wide, circular pit of the reservoir, Lori could never stop feeling worried that someone would somehow manage to urinate into their water. Or worse. She knew at this point it was an irrational fear—there was the railing, and a door that stayed locked nearly all the time—but why take the chance with the water she was going to be drinking?

The bindings of lightwisps she'd anchored at intervals down the sides of the reservoir had run out of imbuement and dissipated since she had last been there, so she claimed and bound more lightwisps so she could see down into the water. The reservoir was somewhere between half and a third full, which was vaguely concerning. Should she make the reservoir deeper? Actually… how full had the reservoir been when she'd left?

…

Uh, she hadn't checked, had she?

…

Well, uh… something to remember for next time…

Still, the flow of the water seemed to be equal to what it usually was. She could risk reconnecting her demesne's bath houses to the reservoir… once she remade and anchored the necessary bindings to the bath houses' components and remade the ice ceilings of the back of the structures.

She really needed to get around to the putting stone roofs on the back of the bath houses, but for now building it from ice was quicker, even if that ice was slightly caustic. Perhaps she'd use the stone she'd excavate from making the reservoir deeper.

––––––––––––––––––

Once the supply of water to the reservoir was secured, which included the spigots for the drinking water, building the ice roofs followed. Having even one of the bath houses allowed her to tell people to stop taking baths in her dungeon. Once all of the bath houses had been repaired, Lori double-checked the draw on the reservoir, and was glad to see that the water level seemed to be increasing slowly now.

The waste water of the baths was sent to a cistern near the agricultural fields for irrigation, and when that was near full the excess water was sent into a distiller and sent back to the baths. Well, it did once she reformed those bindings, which had run out of imbuement and dissolved. The cistern water was caustic, but it didn't seem to be causing any adverse effects on their crops, so there seemed no need to distill that. The laundry area also didn't need distilled water. The caustic water from the river did well enough for washing clothes.

Once her demesne had water again, she had time to rebuild the Lori's Ice Boat. This wasn't the first time she'd had to rebuild the boat after having to dismantle it so that it could be stored in her dungeon. The carpenters had checked over the components and had found no rot, so the frame had been reassembled. Lori had then rebuilt a hull of ice around the frame, with a drop of her blood mixed into the water so that she could imbue it beyond her demesne.

When they had begun making bound tools like wisplights and drivers for the boats, Rian had wanted her to make the hull a bound tool so that she wouldn't need to maintain it.

"If it's a bound tool, all we need to do to maintain the hull is to put a bead on it," he'd said as they'd eaten dinner. "That's one less thing you need to pay attention to, and Clowee can just add it to the maintenance she already does to the boat."

"You realize that if the imbuement on the hull runs out, the ice will become so cold not only will it freeze the river water, but anyone who touches it will likely immediately develop frostbite, if not immediately freeze to the ice," Lori had countered.

"So? The same thing will happen if you ever forget to imbue it. At least this way they'll have a way to imbue it again and make the freezing stop."

"And if it gets stolen?"

"As opposed to the bound tool steam jet driver you just mounted on it getting stolen? Where are they going to take it? River's Fork? Besides, if you're worried about it getting stolen, just put your blood on it and make your hypothetical thieves regret it. All we need to do is restrict access to wispbeads and make the intake too small to fit enough for a potential thief to reach Covehold."

Lori had grunted. "Fine, I'll consider it."

She'd become slightly more amenable to the idea when Rian had reported that the steam jet driver bound tool on Lori's Ice Boat consumed most of a bead just getting between her demesne and River's Fork, and needed part of a second to be able to make its way back. It had certainly helped put the amount of imbuement she'd been putting into the binding of the boat's steam jet driver into context.

Now, as she shaped the hull and added her blood, she also finally mounted the sealed copper container filled with white Iridescence to the hull, near where the tiller with the steam jet driver bound tool would also be mounted. The container had been ready for some time, and had sat on her desk for a time when she could get around to it, which was now. The sealed copper container was connected by a wire to a bone tube which had a wooden stopper on it, which had been sized to hold a maximum of two beads when sealed. She secured the bone tube by fusing a bone protrusion to its side and wrapping that protrusion around the wooden frame of the boat before covering both wood and bone with ice, leaving the tube to protrude in front of the boat's driver.

She'd still be imbuing the boat through her blood, but as Rian had requested, this allowed for a degree of leeway when it came to safety. The test she had done with a block of ice of the same volume as Lori's Ice Boat had showed that a wispbead with an average diameter of twenty-five chiyustri—the largest of the standard sizes of beads, as opposed to the far, far larger non-standard wispbeads she had made to imbued River's Fork's defenses—imbued the binding of waterwisps that kept the ice solidified for approximately three quarters of a full day, as well as she could judge. She'd been asleep during the end of the first time she'd run the test, and while she'd managed to be awake when the bead was completely consumed the next two time, it had been hard to judge exact times.

Still, a close-enough estimate sufficed for her purposes. Anyone who stole the boat would need a lot of beads to get it to Covehold—or anywhere else for that matter—and since the only ones she gave wispbeads to were Rian and Yllian… Well, their problem. Even if some thief in River's Fork stole beads from the wisplights and possibly the distillation pillar, she could just destroy the boat before they got very far. Still, she didn't like how doing this gave people the illusion that trying to steal the boat to try to go somewhere was an option.

The thought of it had her still scowling in annoyance at dinner, though the scowl was mitigated as she sat down on her new chair and allowed herself to rest her weight on the backrest. Ah, so wonderful! It was high enough she was even able to rest her head on it, and everything had been shaved smooth and painted with oil. She had worked in enough carpentry workshops to be able to appreciate all the work that had gone into the seemingly simple piece of furniture.

"Long day?" Rian said, sitting across from her at the table. His hair was damp in a way that said he'd had a bath rather than just being so sweaty even his hair was inundated. The bench was empty on either side of him. As summer had progressed, the three women had been spending longer in the bath.

"I still think this makes it more likely the boat gets stolen," Lori muttered, closing her eyes with a sigh. Oh, yes… no more having to put up with a bench!

"Oh, you put on the hull maintenance bound tool? That's great!"

She grunted. "I'm still imbuing it. It's more efficient and still haven't had time to make new beads." She'd need to do one tomorrow, rebuilding her bead-making shed and spending the day making beads.

"Of course, Great Binder. Still, a little redundancy never hurt."

Lori shrugged, opening her eyes. "I'm surprised you didn't ask for the same of the Coldhold."

"Given how big it is, we'd need one of the really big beads for it," Rian said. "No, trying to do the same with it probably isn't viable. We'd be better served trying to find a way for the carpenters to build a waterproof boat hull. If the dragon had left any sort of scale that wouldn't explode, we might have been able to do it with sheet metal, but…" He shrugged.

"Depending on the beneficence of dragons is naïve foolishness."

"I know, but a man can hope."

Lori rolled her eyes. "How was the test trip to the ocean?" she asked.

Rian grinned. "The new steam driver bound tool on the Coldhold works great. Forward, reverse, low speed, top speed… and with it replacing the big block underneath, it's not as crowded down below. Though we had to venture out a little farther from shore than usual to collect salt. I didn't want to accidentally have whatever caustic substance the dragon dropped on us mixed in with the salt."

She frowned as Lori realized what he meant. "Were you able to ensure that the salt is untainted?"

"Reasonably sure. I brought along some rendered seel fat and mixed it in among the salt we extracted. It didn't turn into soap, so there probably wasn't enough of the caustic substance in it to be significant."

Lori blinked. "Oh. Yes, that would work, wouldn't it?" Caustic ash and oil reacted to make soap, so whatever caustic substance in the water probably would as well. The bitter taste in the river water had been growing weaker over the past week, but it still hadn't fully gone yet, so she was still distilling their water.

"Yup. We're going to make two more trips to get both demesnes full of what salt they need before heading for Covehold, but we're on schedule to leave by the end of a week at the latest."

A smile started to curl Lori's lips in eagerness. Soon, soon, Rian and the Coldhold would be on its way, ready to sell the beads she'd been amalgamating all spring. If he could find just one buyer… her monopoly would begin.

She chose to focus on that and not that fact Rian would be gone for a least a month, leaving less competent people to deal with matters so she wouldn't have to.