Chương 147: Chapter 158 — Cutting Lumber

Mark woke up before the sun and headed to the two stands of trees where his traps were. As he passed the orchard, he looked it over. He was excited for this, as he knew well-tended things grew faster than normal in the System. Between Fiona and him, they would need to make sure they checked and took care of them daily to ensure their quick growth. It was too early now, so he would check them on the way back.

He first checked the closer stand of trees, and one trap had no activity, but in the other he caught another hare. He then continued to the next stand of trees, and the first three had nothing, but the fourth held another hare. So at least they would have some supplemental meat today. On his way back he saw Fiona at the orchard. Mark said, "Good morning. You're up early like me." Fiona said, "I seem to wake just as the sun peeks over the hills; it's like my body has an internal clock."

Mark said, "I was thinking we should take turns tending to the trees to make sure they grow quickly." Fiona said, "Those were my thoughts too. Speaking of turns, I was thinking I should cook today so that we get a fair split in cooking. We should talk to Malcolm about it when he is up. We could rotate days unless someone really wants to cook." Mark said, "One of the first people I met was a cook; in fact, he cooked that food I shared yesterday.

He is also the same one that made my cookbook and gave me all the spices and food supplies, which I have not even unpacked and looked at yet." They started heading back to camp, so Mark handed over the two hares he got today and then went to go wash his hands and get a drink from the stream. While he was at it he moved his horse to a new spot for feeding and got it some water.

They would need to add feed and water troughs to the list, along with a barn or stable and a fenced field so the horse would not have to stay tied up all the time. Fiona had just finished breakfast when Malcolm crawled out of his tent. He had worked pretty long on those trees last night so Mark was not surprised he slept in. The smell of the food most likely woke him up. The three ate breakfast, and when they were done, they started to talk over today's plans.

Malcolm said, "I was thinking for today that I would continue the log-cutting project. We have a number of things to make but not enough materials to build them with. I was thinking of getting ten to fifteen trees down and dragging them over closer, and then we could come up with a plan to cut them into useful materials." Fiona said, "When I first got here, I was in the marsh and found a number of new and useful materials, and I wanted to go explore some and find out what we have available to us."

Mark said, "Fiona, speaking of new items, I have a lesson that I could not complete before I came here, and I need to identify three more useful herbs. The original count needed was fifteen, but I could not find that many back in Wayrest, where I was working on it." Fiona said, "I could help you right now if you want." Mark said, "Fiona, I would love that.

Malcolm, I would also like, after I finish the lesson, to come and join you looking for wood, as there are lots of things I am wanting to build, and we really need wood to do that." With the planning done, Malcolm saddled up the horse and gathered up the woodcutting gear and headed south toward the stand of wood, following the drag marks he had left yesterday. Mark and Fiona then started going through the herbs that she had.

There were many of them that Mark had previously identified, but there were almost a dozen new ones. Fiona went through each one, describing the plant, what environments it could be found in, and the uses for the leaves, seeds, and roots if they had any specific items she was aware of. When they finished going over the herbs, Mark completed his lesson and looked at the skill he had acquired.

[Skill Acquired] Herb Identification Level 1 Identify a variety of common herbs by sight Recognize basic medicinal and culinary uses of common herbs Reduce mistakes when collecting useful plants in the wild Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ◈ ◈ ◈ He really had meant to finish this lesson and pick up another one in Beaver Crossing, but he just could not find the herbs, so he was happy to be done.

Mark looked at the other two lessons he had; both of them would be easy to finish this week. He still had Tool Handling, which he just needed to do basic maintenance on five different tools, and then he had all the requirements for Shelter Building, which he figured he was working on today in a way by gathering trees, some of which he would use to build the shelters he needed. He then brought up his school interface and picked the next lesson he wanted from the list.

[Lesson Generated] Foraging Level 1 Requirements Gather 15 useful natural resources suitable for food (0/15) Collect 5 different types of edible wild foods (0/5) Successfully prepare one gathered food for safe consumption ◈ ◈ ◈ That lesson looked like it could be fun to complete, and the requirements would not be too bad. Once Fiona finished exploring the marsh, she would probably have a list of edible plants worth gathering regularly. Between the two of them, finishing the lesson shouldn't take long.

Mark finally closed his school interface and his lessons and followed the drag marks toward the stand of trees. Mark made it to the stand of trees just in time to watch a tree fall and hit the ground with a thud. It was interesting to watch; he could see a few hares that were startled dart off into the grass away from the tree that just fell. Depending on their food needs, he could add more traps around here also. Once the tree was down, he pulled out his axe and went over and started chopping limbs off.

Surprisingly enough, he had never done this before; he had never gone after larger trees or standing lumber, but their needs here would require more trees and straighter trees than the dead lumber Mark used to gather. Mark and Malcolm worked for the next couple hours downing tree after tree. Each time they would get one with all the limbs off, they would drag it out of the stand of trees and just drop it in the grass of the plains around it and head back for the next.

Mark was surprised at how well his horse was taking to this kind of labor. They had their tenth tree down when they heard an unexpected sound. They both stopped and looked around. Just outside the stand of trees stood a man holding the reins of his horse. When the man realized he was no longer in danger of being hit by a tree, he tied up his horse and walked over to them.

"Hello, how are you doing? My name is Callum. It looks like you guys are cutting some trees. The ones out in the grass look like good choices. Do you guys need a hand?" Mark took off his gloves and reached out and shook the man's hand.

"Hello, my name is Mark, and this is Malcolm. Glad to see someone else has found us. If you're serious about helping, we would love the help." The three of them spent another hour cutting wood together. Mark noticed that Callum was good at this, and he had his own axe, and it looked like pretty decent quality too. It was a little after noon when Malcolm called a break, and Mark pulled out three canteens and three trail rations that Dale had given him and passed them around.

Sitting down on a log, he opened his rations and started eating them. Callum said, "So what did you have in mind with all this lumber? Were you going to start an outpost where the logs are stacked?" Malcolm said, "We actually started an outpost yesterday a little northeast of here. If you have the Guild Map, you could see it labeled on it. If you don't have guild access, we can get that for you, and then you could see the map." Malcolm went on to share the guild and its mapping function.

Mark had to chuckle; Malcolm had become a champion of the guild when he had learned about its mapping. If that feature went away, he bet it would make the man cry. They had finally gotten all the trees down that they had come for, and Malcolm went out and started tying up the trees to drag off. Callum watched for a few minutes, then he pulled out a long stretch of rope out of his own inventory and started to follow suit.

When they had them all tied up, they headed toward the outpost, and Mark stayed and started hauling out some of the bigger limbs that they could tie into bundles and haul back later. It took another hour to get the last of the logs, and this time Mark followed them back to the outpost. When they got there, he could see Fiona cooking up some food. When she turned to look in their direction, she stopped, and when she saw Callum, she said hello and introduced herself.

While eating their late lunch they got to know each other. Callum, as it turned out, had the Carpenter class. He talked a little about where he came from and the things he enjoyed doing. One of those things was building. He asked a number of questions of the others. Mark talked about his Frontier Steward class, which caused many questions as they had never heard about it, and he had to explain some of the things he had done and his class requirements to upgrade.

Fiona then talked about her Herbalist class and how she had helped a lot in her village with herbal medicines and food preservation and gathering. She especially liked the areas like the marsh west of them because of all the interesting plants and animals that lived in it. Malcolm talked about his Quartermaster class and how he had been in charge of logistics for a series of three villages, and he was an expert with trade and making sure that people had what they needed.

Fiona said, "Now that we have gotten to know each other, we would love for you to settle down here with us if you did not have somewhere else you needed to go."