Chương 65: Fields of Gold

Finn woke for his third day in this strange new world. He left the a-frame he had been given and went to see what was for breakfast. Dale was up, and there were already people around the table. They had discussed last night that they would go down and find the wheat fields that the cook Dale had talked about. His parents really wanted skills that would benefit farming and figured that harvesting wheat would be just the way to influence it. They of course assumed that is what he wanted and are dragging him along.

What he wanted, though, was to fight; that was the dream of all kids when tossed into a video game world. But for today he would go along with his parents plans, as he had plenty of time to get other skills after his parents were satisfied. Mark had left before they all finished breakfast, so it looked like the group going would be him and his parents along with Dale and Tom. They left camp after breakfast. They followed the trail south out of camp.

He realized that while on the trail, they seemed to move faster than if they stepped off the trail, like it gave some magic speed bonus. The trail continued until it hit an abandoned village. After that, they continued south, but without the trail, it took them more time traveling. When they finally left the forest area, they stopped and looked and were amazed; there were fields of gold in all directions. As far as you could see was a rolling plain full of ripe wheat fields.

Not like fields at home where everything was in straight rows, but these were wild wheat as far as the eyes could see. Dale said.

"What do you think? Think this is enough wheat for you guys to get some farming/harvesting skills from?" Elias answered.

"When you said 'fields of wheat,' I was thinking like a small patch. This is enough wheat to feed hundreds if not thousands of people. We could not harvest it by hand in a month with us all working, this is just crazy." Mara also said.

"Yeah, we were thinking small field. This will be great. This place could support a city. Maybe one should be created down here." They move forward as a group to the edge of the field where Tom and Dale had harvested a little earlier. Elias said.

"To do this correctly, there are multiple stages we will need to do. To start with, it will be cutting it. We had Mark make us each a scythe last night for cutting. After that we will need to dry/cure it. We can either do that here and come back for it or take it back to the camp to do that step. After that, threshing, winnowing, and then cleaning the grain. Then lastly, grinding the grain. With as much as there is, I think we should just cut today.

And lay it out to dry here in the sun and then in a few days come back to do the other steps. They then spent the next couple hours cutting and laying out the wheat to dry. While they were working, Tom and Dale went to explore more of the area to see what was past the wheat fields. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. The family finished their job just about the same time that Tom and Dale returned.

Tom let the group know that they found rivers and streams throughout the fields of grain, and far off in the distance to the south, they could see a huge lake. Heading east, there were open grasslands. And past the lake, I could see something that could be a marsh. In their exploring, they found a few small hills, which allowed them to see farther than down on the flat ground. They could not see any people or other signs that people had been there either.

While they were harvesting the wheat, all three of the family members hit level 4. It was slow going as each patch of wheat they harvested gave less XP until near the end, they were getting almost nothing. Which made them realize doing a new action gave great xp rewards the first time but slowly trickled out the more they did. His dad Elias got level 4 and Crop Harvesting skill. His mom Mara got level 4 along with Grain Processing skill.

And he got level 4 and the skill Field Labor, which fit what he did but did not fit the skills he truly wanted. He would have to see if he could find somewhere to fight and change that skill trajectory. Now that they were done getting the skills they wanted and checking out the wheat fields, they then wanted to go by the Burrow Cluster that Mark had mentioned because Tom needed more Leather he was close to getting level 8 and wanted to get it today or tomorrow but needed a better supply of leather.

The group left heading northwest so as to run into the burrow cluster when they moved back into the zone where their outpost was. He was more excited about this part of their adventure. His parents loved the farm life; he wanted more adventure. And trapping and killing giant lizards for leather sounded more interesting to him. When they finally reached the burrow cluster, they could see where the name came from. There were thousands of burrows.

The area it covered was nothing compared to the wild wheat but was still pretty impressive. He was amazed at how many lizards there were. If he had a gun or a bow like Mark had the night he rescued them, it would be easy to get some. Mark had provided each of them with 4 traps that they could put out to trap with. As there are many lizards out there, they were bound to catch a few before they returned to camp. He volunteered to place the traps. So one at a time, they would hand him a trap, and he would place it.

They each had an anchor and were built for the size and strength of these large lizards. They had 25 traps total, so they started going around each of the huge mounds and adding the traps. They laid them out so that Tom could easily find them or whoever would collect them. It took them quite a while to place all the traps where they thought they would do the most good.

As they traveled back to the start of the line, they indeed caught 2 really big ones that Tom was excited about, as he had just the project he wanted to use them for tonight and should be able to level off it and see what class he would get. Tom let him do the killing and collecting so that he would get credit for it and also get credit for turning in the goods back at the outpost. With all of their tasks done for the day, they headed back to camp.

They first went directly east until they found the trail and then followed it to camp. As they came home, they came up with a list of things needed. More paths all the way to the wheat fields and paths to the burrow cluster. They have cut and are now drying the wheat. They will need somewhere for threshing wheat to separate grain from the stack. Then winnowing or cleaning the wheat and a way to mill it or grind it to flour.

The question was, do they do it all back in the forest, which is a lot of hauling, or do they build or make structures down south to do it? But I guess that means they needed to talk to Mark.