Even after she finished with building the bath house, Lori's Ice Boat continued to make the trip to the other demesne and back. Beasts and seels had to be hunted for food, after all, and the nearly week-long stay in the shelter while the dragon passed had depleted much of the comfortable margin that they'd managed to build up over the spring.

Thus, hunting was redoubled, as the still abundant numbers of beasts and fursh were slowly rendered into food. The hunters stayed in four day shifts before coming back to rest for a day—or at least, do a different sort of work while they spent meal times with their families, which Rian said was important—and then went back to River's Fork to hunt again. They brought back reports on the demesne's condition from Yllian, which were told to Riz or… uh… Kolinh, which eventually made its way to Lori, updates on River's Fork's inventory that went to Shanalorre for collating, and supplies of fruit that went to her demesne's food storage.

The construction of the baths has also seemed to have given River's Fork some initiative. Shanalorre reported they've increased their soap production, using the rendered seel and beast fat. They didn't have an experienced chandler among there number though, and so the soap they produced was runny and carried a strong smell from the fats used, but given the sweatiness that they were using the soap on, the smell probably isn't too much of an issue.

She still had Yllian arrange for the necessary supplies to be sent to Lori's demesne so that they'd make the soap themselves. According to Shanalorre and… ah, what was his name… oh yes, Kolinh, the chandler's was only limited by a lack of molds and materials when it came to making soap. Increasing production to also meet the needs to River's Fork presented no great difficulty, especially since he'd taken on an apprentice to assist him, or so Lori had been told.

Lori had her own work to do, making beads in her shed. They were becoming increasingly necessary, given the number of rudimentary bound tools they were using now. Lori had even made three new large beads, two to replace the ones that had been used during the dragon's passing and one extra in case it was needed.

It wasn't that their usage of the beads was coming close to equaling her production rate, but if Rian was successful in his mission they'd need more beads to trade with. At least, that was her optimistic hope. The alternative was Rian wasn't able to exchange the beads for anything, or even worse, the beads had been seized by Covehold Demesne's authorities without restitution. That would be the sort of insult she'd have to answer… eventually, once she'd grown her demesne to be a match for Covehold.

She hoped the worst didn't happen. Getting her demesne to a war footing would be quite annoying.

Still, the days passed quietly, and she had plenty of work to do in that time. So she didn't think about how long the Coldhold had been gone. She didn't need to remind herself that with the improved, more efficient driver bound tool propelling it—all the tubes and curves of the previous driver had been reducing its efficiency, as had been made clear when the bound tool driver had propelled the boat much faster with the same binding—they would be able to return much faster. She was too busy for such things!

All she had to do was wait. Only a couple more weeks and they'd be back, hopefully with the profits and the new recruits, who would no doubt bring their own problems, but those were matters for later. As long as she didn't start any more projects, she could just keep on making beads. When Rian came back, she'd have all new difficulties to deal with, so she might as well enjoy the relative rest she was having now.

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"There's a problem in River's Fork," Shanalorre said at their after-dinner briefing, a week after Lori had finished building the baths.

"Rainbows," Lori swore in deadpan tones, then sighed. "All right, who died and who did it?"

"No one died, Great Binder," Riz said.

"So the malcontents didn't kill the ones guarding the food stores, stole everything and ran off into the hills?" she said incredulously. Ever since she'd become responsible for River's Fork, that had been something she'd been waiting to hear had happened.

"Actually, those people had become much more well-behaved ever since you built the bath house," Shanalorre said. "I am not Lord Rian, so I would not care to speculate as to why, but perhaps he could provide an explanation when he returns. No, the problem is that replenishing the demesne's food supply has met with serious impediment."

What? "What?" Lori said.

"The hunting parties have recently been unable to hunt for beast meat, because beast meat has become scarce in the areas we've been hunting in," the younger Dungeon Binder said. "The access to seel meat has been unaffected, and it is likely we might have to switch to focusing on our efforts on them. If it becomes necessary to do so, I must request that Karina be given permission to assist in the endeavor. Her experience will allow us to increase the yields that will perhaps allow us to meet previous rates."

Lori took a moment to consider all that. For a moment, she wondered why Shanalorre was the one reporting this. Such a report was supposed to be Riz's purvey, as something that had been relayed by Lori's subjects, or—Lori checked her rock—Kolinh's purvey as someone who organized what work there was to be done. So why was Shanalorre the one reporting this?

She was about to open her mouth, the words "Binder Shanalorre, why are you the one reporting this?" ready to leave her mouth when she suddenly became more aware of the first word in that sentence. Ah. Right. Her incompetence at the role side, Shanalorre was technically still the Dungeon Binder of River's Fork, at least until Lori finally got around to claiming the core, and if nothing else she has been earnest in trying to fulfill the responsibilities of the role. Given that this was a matter that was an issue for River's Fork alone, as well as pertinent to the agreement they ha made when Shanalorre had subordinated herself to Lori…

"Do we know why beast meat has become so scare in our hunting area?" Lori asked.

"Hunter Ralii believes that the dragon's passing displaced one of the larger local beasts. They've found very large tracks in the areas they've been hunting in, as well as damage to trees and Iridescence that indicates a beast of great size," Shanalorre reported. "It was a direct sighting that led them to conclude its presence has been what has been scaring away the local beasts. Hunter Ralii estimates that it was ten to twelve paces in length and somewhere between three and four paces tall at the hips, bulkier and longer than a koncallos. Not the sort of thing we should be trying to poke to death with spears. Hunter Ralii believes it has established a den nearby, likely after its previous den was destroyed by the dragon's passing. Though he did not risk getting close, he believes that the beast might be suffering from burns received during that period, which is what is making the local beasts vacate the area. The injury is no doubt making the beast more aggressive than normal."

Reflexively, Lori glanced up at the ceiling as she tried to imagine a beast that tall. Given the usual posture of beasts, that was probably not even the highest point of its body, merely the highest point that was consistently that high without being affected by changes in balance. While she wasn't some sort of enthusiast or vitalogist, she had some common knowledge of the large kinds of beasts, the ones commonly used in plays to put the characters in peril when they wander out of a demesne, like koncallosi and rahimics. A koncallos, if she remembered correctly—and it wasn't someone's name, so she did—was about that height, and was considered one of the largest land predators alive, hunting chasmoses and thaggomses and… uh, what else… did it hunt rahimics? Well, whatever else was out there in the wilds outside of demesne.

"Can the hunters deal with it?" she asked.

"Only if they were insane and suicidal, Great Binder," Kolinh said. "A koncallos is the sort of beast that militia are sent to deal with when it got close to farmlands, and we have either heavy ballistae or wizard support to deal with it, usually both."

Lori tilted her head. "How would you have dealt with a koncallos, then?"

"A pit," Kolinh said immediately, "with a Horotract to be sure. Make the pit, then have them put a reductive vista on it so it doesn't look like a pit, then bait it with blood and meat. Have riders on lakimays bait it to the pit, then when it's in position invert the vista so the pit is too deep for it to get out of. Have the Whisperers finish it off."

Lori nodded slowly. "I see. We have almost none of those things, though I can stand in the place of a Whisperer." She'd started as one, after all. "Could we sustain the demesne on seel meat, or move our hunting to other areas?" There was the shore on the other side of the other river, after all, as well as simply the other side of the river itself.

"Only if we increased the number of people we dedicate to seeling," Kolinh said. "Moving to another area would be possible, but only to the other side of the river. We've changed to that, but the beasts there are reportedly more wary. Ralii suspects that they're smelling the koncallos-like beast and think it's nearby. Their increased caution is making it more difficult for our hunters. They'll likely settle down in a few days, but…"

"A few days will mean having to switch to stricter rationing, put us dangerously close to no margin for error at all if we continue at the current rate of consumption, or have to retain all of River's Fork's fruit harvests to feed itself, even accounting for us theoretically managing to seel at the rate we've been able to so far," Shanalorre interrupted.

She didn't like the implication of that. "What would happen if we waited the week, perhaps week and a half, that it would take for Rian to make it back?" she said, the 'make this his problem' unsaid but obvious.

The three she was speaking to obviously heard the addendum. While Riz had a moment of looking mildly guilty, Kolinh had a seemed to be seriously considering the option, as did Shanalorre.

It was the latter who answered the question, shaking her head. "River's Fork would have to live exclusively on the stockpiled food supplies, which would no longer be enough to last the demesne until the projected harvest date of the demesne's crops," Shanalorre said, looking down at her tablet to check her numbers. "Once those are exhausted, we would have to actively provide them with supplies from Lorian's reserves, which will monopolize the time of either the Lori's Ice Boat or the Coldhold, which will likely curtail our activities on the opposite shore of the river. A construction of a new boat might be needed to be able to return to mitigate this. If Lord Rian has managed to recruit a Deadspeaker capable of fusing materials, they should be able to assist in that, but given previous priorities, it would be more efficient to have then assisting in increasing grain production."

Lori considered that. on the one hand, each item started at distasteful and escalated from there. On the other hand… "If we deal with the koncallos-like beast now, would the beasts settle down enough for us to continue hunting?"

"No, Great Binder, it would take a few days for its scent to dissipate," Kolinh said. "However, we'd at least have its meat to add to our stores, and since its presence has made smaller beasts vacate the area, we can probably take our time with butchering and dressing it's meat."

She nodded solemnly. "And how do you plan to kill it so we can reach that point?"

"We… would need your assistance, Great Binder," Kolinh said, sounding both reluctant and embarrassed.

"Couldn't we just build a ballista to shoot it with?" Lori said, allowing herself to hope.

"They are not simple to make, Great Binder. And even if we could, we'd need to transport it to where the beast is, which we would still need to find."

Lori sighed. Well, it wasn't like she had never killed beasts before. In fact, she'd killed quite a lot of them when they had been traversing overland from Covehold. She'd just… well, never seriously imagined herself having to kill a beast the size of a koncallos. Oh, she'd imagined a long time ago when she'd been young and silly, killing a koncallos while riding atop a charging lakimay after watching one too many adventurous plays or reading about it in a book, but in real life…?

"How would you suggest we deal with this beast without a Horotract to assist us?" Lori asked.