Jacik: "Mystery."
Jace: "Aww, you-
Rrr... hmm.. aaa... Dammit, I'm out.
Castle."

Jason: "Le... Leee...."
Frederic: "Left?"
Jason: "Aww come on, I can do better than that!
Hrmmm... Leather!"

Karina: "Errands!"
Frederic: "Oh you monster.
Leon, Gram, I leave this to you. Avenge me.
Revenge."
Leon: "Gentlemen."

Jacik: "Hmm. Py... thon. Python."
Jason: "Oh, Onset!"

Karina: "Eternity~!"
Leon: "Uhhh Tyrant."

Jacik: "Errand."
Jason: "Oh come on."
Jacik: "Haha, fine. Eradicate."
Jason: "Tender."

Karina: "Error."
Leon: "Orb."
Jacik: "ARGH! Well, so much for me.
Assassin."
Jason: "Interplay."

Karina: "Hm. Ay...
....hm? Hm...
Oh darn it. That's surprisingly hard.
Induction."
Leon: "Once."
Jason: "Ceremony."
Leon: "Nymph."
Jason: "Pharmacy."
Leon: "Cycle."
Jason: "Less."

Leon: "....heck."
Jason: "YEAH!"

The three jays cheer as Leon bows out in defeat.
Leon: "That was pretty fun. Though there's a lot of words that are just dead ends. Rules still need tweaking."


~~~


You think you're getting close. The road is approaching a forest, and ends pretty abruptly there. Looks like there's a path that leads up into it for who knows how far, but there's too little space and too rough of a path for the wagon to keep going. The trees on the edge are all pretty straight and very tall and thick. You don't know much about lumber, but you can imagine these being the kind of wood that goes into building ships. Masts, keels, or anything else that needs a big solid single piece. Buildings too.
The three Jay's talk to the driver while you four unload and scan the woods.
Frederic: "Should be a fairly normal forest, so nothing major to worry about. I doubt anything will have the stones to mess with a group this big anyway. Wonder if we'll get to see those wind squirrels."
Karina: "I hope so. They sound fun."

The Jays come back, with the wagon driver tending to his horse.
Jacik: "He'll be waiting here for us for 3 days. Really only expecting it to take 2, but a bit of safety room for our ride back never hurts. Ready to hoof it?"

You hoof it!

~~~

The group has spent the last few hours trekking through the woods along a rough trail, marked by stakes and signs on trees. Every so often you find a wide patch of trees that are young and short compared to the surrounding ones, almost always along the path or very close by to it. The group has to stop several times to rest, mostly for Leon and Karina's benefits. Both ended up sweaty and panting quickly, while you and Frederic are having much less trouble. You note that Frederic is doing best of all, barely winded despite having by far the largest pack. He almost looks like he'd tip over from the weight, but he manages it just fine.
Thankfully, no animals on the walk up aside from a deer and a few rabbits, all of which bolt the moment they realize you're there.

Suddenly, Jace stops and points out a tree.
Jace: "Ooh, wait. Here, these."
The other Jays stop and look at them too. To your eyes, they're no different than the others. A bit thicker maybe?
Jacik: "Yup, that's the stuff. Alright, get to work."
The two quickly shuck off their bags and start opening them up, laying out tools and materials.

Jacik: "Here's our destination, bus pines. Finest wood on the continent, outside of the domains at least. We'll be staking the place out, counting up the trees, marking em as ours, checking for disease, checking for pests, etc etc.
Pretty much everything to guarantee that some loggers can come through later and collect these with no fuss. Find somewhere comfy to keep watch, this is the real work. We'll be at it until the sun sets, then we'll settle down to camp.
Oh yeah, those squirrel monsters're probably gonna be bouncin' around in these trees, so keep an eye out for those. They mostly live around the bus pines."

Frederic: "Alright. Gram, shout if anything big comes out. Leon has enough firepower, but a bear could probably suck it up long enough to reach you if it was angry."
Jason: "Ah, just a sec, we'll come with. We need to mark out the outside of this patch of pines first thing anyway."
You load up your gun with your preferred load, then reholster it and follow along with Jason, while Frederic goes the other way with Jace, and Karina and Leon stay there by the path.

The Jay takes his time, stopping every dozen trees to tie a long white cloth strip around it, before continuing on. After about 5 minutes, Frederic and Jace appear from around the other side of the trees, and you all meet up in the center.
Jason: "Alright, good large patch this time, nice. You guys can find spots to keep watch at right?"
Frederic: "Yeah, we've got it from here."
The Jays head back towards the entrance, while you and Fred split up and take positions at about a third of the way around the patch each.

Time passes slowly, as could be expected of watching a forest. Things are at least very peaceful; nothing but bird chirps, the rustle of leaves and branches, and sun shining through the canopy to keep you company. The surveyors are moving through the patch slowly, and for a bit you have one nearby as he checks trees. It's somewhat fascinating to watch, measuring the tree, checking it over for blemishes, sometimes smearing some paste from a tin onto spots on the tree, and a lot of writing things down. Then, on to the next tree.
You do hear some rapid chittering noises every now and then from higher in the trees further in, but nothing ever comes down or causes problems. Guess those are the squirrels.

And like that, the day passes, and before you know it the sun is setting. The surveyors come to let you know they're done for the day, and everyone heads back to the trail to set up camp. When you get there, Jason is working on starting a campfire, while the other Jays are working on tents for them.

Karina: "Bweh. Gram, did you see anything interesting?"

Karina: "Bweeeeh. There's nothing here. I didn't even see the squirrel monsters!"
Jace: "They're probably hiding from us. Those aren't a joke, girly. They might be squirrels, but they're still monsters."
Leon: "I'd never heard of squirrel monsters before this. I thought monsters were supposed to be, like, unique species with fantastic powers."

Frederic: "They exist. They're sort of just regular animals with a weak core. Technically monsters, but closer to plain old animals with a bonus.
The kind of monsters you're thinking of are the ones with bigger, stronger cores and magic-infused bodies.
Only ever seen one of those once, stuff like that isn't frequent in Belus thankfully. That was a rough hunt."

Jason: "There we go."
Jason has got the fire to take and now sits tending it into a proper campfire, feeding in wood every so often. A few rocks near the side make an impromptu stove, with a cast iron skillet on top. The Jays get to work, with Jacik dropping some butter which melts in moments followed by a half dozen thick slices of meat. Jace is slicing apart some potatoes and other root vegetables into another skillet on the side, not yet on the heat.

Jacik: "You guys want some too? We brought plenty to share."

Karina: "Please."
Leon: "Oh man that smells good, I'll have some."
Frederic: "I'm fine."

Frederic reaches into his pack and pulls out some hard tack and jerky, and starts in on that while the rest of you salivate over the smell of cooking meat.
While the Jays prepare the meal, you make sure to peel your eyes away and keep a look out. Frederic seems to have the same idea, though he seems fairly casual about it. Well, while the food cooks you keep an eye on the darkening forest around you, and thankfully nothing shows up. Guess the light and noise is keeping anything away, cause the smell certainly isn't.

After a few minutes it's ready, and tin plates of small steaks and grilled potatoes and veggies and passed around. Digging in, it's good! Simple but appealing, the vegetables and potatoes got cooked with the meat's juices and it definitely added an extra layer to the flavor, but there's something there you haven't tasted before too.
Karina: "Humm... this tastes familiar... is this, peppers?"
Jacik: "Wow, you know your stuff young lady! Dried peppers from Kharest, I buy a batch from traders and grind em down to a seasoning myself. Costs a bit, but last a while and adds a great kick to food."

The chatter continues for a while as everyone digs into their food. Karina even cajoles Frederic into trying the food your clients made for you.

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