When Shana left her office, she was immediately bodily assaulted.

  "Shasha!" her little cousin Yoshka cried happily.

  A smile curled on her lips as she hugged the younger girl. "Hello, Yoshka. Have you been well?"

  "Tota won't let me sleep as much as I want," Yoshka said with a pout, then reached up and mashed the palm of her hand against Shana's left cheek.

  While Shana understood why she would, it wasn't necessary in this instance. The Dungeon Binder gently pulled the hand from her face. "Thank you, Yoshka. Would you like to join me and Karina as we walk around?"

  Yoshka closed her eyes and nodded happily.

  "Yoshka?"

  "Hmm, Shasha?"

  "We're not going to lead you around while you walk with your eyes closed. I keep telling you, that's not what sleepwalking is."

  "Aww!"

  ––––––––––––––––––

  Now that her pack was stowed away, the first thing Shana did was to head to the baths to see how it was doing. While the Great Binder had removed the bound tool on the pipe that fed river water to the bath house, she had replaced it with a binding, so technically the baths still had hot water… it's just that the water never stopped coming out, even though the flow of water had been reduced.

  At a casual glance, the measure seemed to be working. The baths were much smaller than the ones in Lorian Demesne, although they shared the design of a long half-cylinder building, albeit with a wall down the middle to divide it in two. The basins on either side of the wall were filling with water, and the floors weren't flooding, so the drains seemed to be functioning. The wisplights that the Great Binder had originally provided for illumination had been removed, replaced by bindings of lightwisps, which seemed to suffice for now.

  Shana stuck her head in to check on the women's side of the bath, noting all the new faces present, who were filling the bath house almost to capacity. The water in the basin was also quite low, although that seemed to be from how all the visitors were pouring warm water on themselves every so often rather than actually washing. Or perhaps they were washing, but simply didn't have soap. A few of the women inside looked self-conscious when they saw her, getting to their feet and making to step out, but the rest were all deeply engrossed in conversation with the new arrivals whom they clearly knew and were catching up with. She left them be, even as women gazed curiously after her, wondering at the reaction.

  The pit where the waste water drained to also seemed to be doing well. The constant flow of water should have had it overflowing, even with people drawing water from it to irrigate the crops, but Binder Lolilyuri had placed some sort of binding at the edge pool that was turning water into cool mist or vapor. The cold, thick fog was flying upwards at an angle that had the clouds of vapor over their groves of fruit and firewood trees, where it either drifted upwards or condensed into something like rain.

  As expected of the Great Binder, she managed to find an advantage in what was originally a forced necessity. With the cloud's precipitation, less of their crops had to be manually irrigated, freeing people up to do other things! It also handily dealt with the problem of the trees becoming overheated from the meaning placed on them to accelerate their growth. Even if she were capable of Whispering, Shana doubted she'd have been able to come up with such an ingenious solution without it being pointed out to her.

  Food storage was the next thing Shana checked on, heading towards the mine—and dragon shelter—with Yoshka and Karina in tow.

  "Hi, Adgwyne! Hi, Yrria, Tena!" Karina called as they passed one of the trees that made up the dome over the village, where several children had climbed up and were picking fruits.

  "Hi, Karina! Hi, Shana!" Adgwyne called back, her hands full holding her skirt to act as an impromptu basket for hairy blueballs.

  "Tah!" a boy's voice—Vari, she recognized—called down. "Don't move!"

  "Sorry!" A hairy blueball was dropped into the waiting skirt.

  Shana waved to them in what she hopped was a properly Dungeon Binder-like manner, but didn't slow down. If they were still working on collecting fruits by the time she finished… well, she'd been planning spend time helping collect the ripe fruits anyway.

  Along the way, some people who noticed her coming turned and bowed to her, which Shana acknowledged with a brief nod but little else. Any new arrivals nearby simply looked curious and confused, and she heard people asking about who she was as they passed.

  The entrance of the mine was completely bereft of activity, which was a marked difference from the mining that had been going on for the past few months. There were obvious marks in the stone where the Great Binder had removed the wire and components of her bound tools, although the alloyed-copper plates on the doors remained, and the beams to seal the triple layer of doors were still in place. There was also a notable lack of wisplights, so Shana drew her glowing rock from her belt pouch. Thankfully, it wasn't red nor was it blinking in any of the codes written on the paper that Lord Rian had given her.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The mine was empty save for the two men guarding the food stores against people getting snacks, illuminated by a binding of lightwisps anchored to the ceiling of the tunnel. Mylls and Yvenne looked up as the light from her rock shone on them, then hastily got to their feet, the game of chatrang they'd been playing forgotten at their feet. "Great Binder," they both said, not quite at the same time. Their hands rose to salute, and as usual belatedly aborted the gesture when they recalled they weren't supposed to call her that anymore.

  "I mean—" "That is… !"

  It took them a moment to recall the right words.

  "Lady Binder," they both not quite chorused.

  "At ease," she said, turning her rock right side-up so the light shone upwards, providing illumination without blinding any of them. "I'm here to inspect the food storage conditions. Have the blocks of ice that the Great Binder sent been installed?"

  "Yes, ah, Lady Binder," Mylls said. He was a short man with the sort of stocky build that made it seem like he was smaller than he was because he'd been squashed down and outward. "The food's staying nice and cold. No one's going to be starving this time."

  Shana nodded. "Orders regarding food security remain unchanged," she said. "No one is allowed to take anything out but those on cooking duty. Has the Great Binder given any further orders beyond that?"

  The two shook their heads.

  "Then those remain your orders. When our new visitors inevitably find their way here, you are to stay at your posts. There should be some fruit coming in today. Do not let anyone not of this demesne bring food into storage, even if they're someone you know. That's how we start losing food again. Is that clear?"

  The two nodded seriously at the reminder of people hoarding food. ""Yes, Lady Binder.""

  "Is there still room for more meat?" Karina asked.

  Mylls and Yvenne turned their attention to the orange-haired girl, relaxing slightly as they recognized her. Everyone in the demesne knew Karina, and not just because there were so few people for her to know. It was hard to forget a young girl whose enthusiastic visits resulted in more meat. Yes, she could only catch young and adolescent seels, but she did it very well. "There's always room, Karina," Mylls said with a smile.

  "Are you going to be staying with us for a while?" Yvenne said. He was Yllian's stepson, and taller than his cousin Mylls.

  Karina nodded. "I'm going to catch lots and lots of meat!" she declared.

  That got big smiles from the two men. "Then we'll look forward to it. Mylls said. "I'll see if anyone will be free to try and help you bring back your catch."

  "Thank you!"

  After quickly checking if the dragon shelter latrines had been emptied and confirming that they were—many things could be done at the last moment when a dragon came, but emptying the latrines wasn't really one of them, not unless they wanted to risk people getting sick—Shana moved on. Though her connection with her core, she checked on people's locations. The collections of life that she recognized as Lord Rian and Lord Yllian were at the orchard and seemed to be in heated conversation with one of the men that they had initially met with when the visitors had first arrived. At least, it seemed that way given how some people around him were moving like they were agitated.

  Well, she needed to speak with Wizard Lidzuga in any case, and he was also there. From the way that he was touching one of the trees and had claimed the meaning on it, he was diagnosing the tree's health and possibly adjusting how the meaning on it was functioning.

  "Karina," she said turning her head sideways to glance at the girl, "I'll be speaking to people and will likely be busy all day. Perhaps you should go off on your own if you want to go seeling?"

  "It can wait," Karina said cheerfully. "I don't want you to have to work alone."

  That gave Shana's thoughts pause, though her steps didn't falter, and she turned to frown at her friend. "Karina… did you come her to keep watch on me?"

  "Yes," Karina said cheerfully. "And to make sure you don't get lonely. And to go seeling. And to play with Yoshka."

  "While I'm grateful for your company, I'm perfectly fine," Shana said with an exasperated sigh. "I do not need to be watched."

  "But Wiz Lori was talking about all those wizards who want to kill her, so they'll try to kill you too, right? And she told you to not get killed. Lord Rian and the Atehs aren't here right now, so I'll stay with you and you can hide behind me if you need to."

  That innocent statement, conveyed with such a kind and determined smile, made Shana's flow of thought slam into a wall.

  Don't hesitate to hide behind them and leave them to die to escape.

  No. No. No, no, no, no, no no no no no no NO…!

  …

  …

  …

  …

  …

  Shana found herself blinking, coming back to awareness even as the disruptive emotions continued to writhe in her chest as she felt a hand pressing against her left cheek. She realized she'd stopped walking, the hand that had held her glowing rock hanging slack and letting the light shine down on the ground as she'd stared sightlessly. Now that she was once more aware, Shana saw that Karina had leaned her seeling rod against the mine wall, picked up Yoshka under the shoulders and had lifted her so that the younger girl could mash her hand against Shana's face.

  While her cousin was smiling and giggling as she continued to mash, Karina was frowning at her in concern. "Shana? Are you all right? We didn't even mention… anything."

  Shana gently reached up and took Yoshka's hand off her face, lifting her cousin from Karina's hand and setting her back down on her feet. "Thank you, Yoshka. I'm fine now."

  Yoshka smiled up at her. "Yay! Shasha's back! I helped!"

  Shana forced herself to smile. "Yes, Yoshka. You helped." She straightened up, meeting Karina's gaze as the other girl turned back around, her seeling rod back in her hand. "Karina… while I appreciate the sentiment, I don't need to hide behind you."

  "But what if one of the wizards tries to hurt you?" Karina said. "I'm not going to let that happen! You're my friend."

  "I'm sure Lord Yllian will be there. I'll be perfectly safe."

  "Then it'll be fine if I'm in front of you, right? Besides, I need to keep sharp things away from you."

  —no, no, no, no, no—!

  Taking a deep breath, Shana resumed walking to lead the way. Briefly, she considered ordering Karina to not stand front of her, but—

  No.

  It was probably another way that she failed at being a Dungeon Binder. She couldn't bring herself to give her friend an order, even if it would be for her own good.

  Binder Lolilyuri wouldn't have even given the matter any thought.

  She would just have to keep Karina from stepping into the path of danger. That's what friends did, after all.