There were a few other quests, mostly deliveries and the like, but Darius recommended they hold off until they knew what the local rules were. Though delivering eight logs certainly sounded easy, sometimes towns had rules on exactly who could cut down trees where. Besides, hauling eight heavy logs back to the citystone was exhausting. Especially since none of them had specialized in their Strength score.

“Where to next?” Ruth asked, smiling brightly. She leaned forward, eyes twinkling. “Oh! Can we look at that place?” She pointed at a blacksmith. “They might have magic items! I can learn more runes!”

“I dunno, I don't have a better idea.” Josh glanced at Mary. “You?”

She twirled one of her guns. “I'd like another shooter,” she said. “Get some options, really go to town.”

“As eager as I am to give you more destructive potential,” Darius said dryly, “I suspect we should start with the mayor. If we are going to put down roots here, it would be good to know where to start.”

Josh shrugged his large shoulders. “Sure.” He looked around. “And where's that supposed to be, then?”

The town hall wasn't all that far from the citystone, as he should have expected. There were no guards at the door, but there was a secretary. It took a few minutes of arguing to get past him.

The mayor was much more accommodating. Honestly, considering the size of the town, Josh was surprised how easy it was to see her and how accommodating proved to be. She was a young woman, about their age, but she stood with a straight back and regal poise. She didn't wear a mask, so he knew she was a [Level 20 Attacker]. There was a nice compound bow in the corner, and a few swords on the wall behind her. He wondered if she was an Archer or a Swordswoman.

“We did already know about Monterey,” she said, once they explained the situation. She looked stern, but composed. This was the face of a woman who had weathered tragedies. “A few of the survivors came our way. Apparently one of their scavengers found a natural treasure of the Air affinity, and failed to secure it properly.” She inclined her head. “I'm sure you understand.”

Josh grimaced. “Yeah, muck happens, we get it. Still, not exactly a laugh.”

Darius adjusted his glasses. “Have your reclaimers retrieved the natural treasure?”

The mayor shook her head. “No. The monsters are high thirties. No one wants to go in there until at least level 40.” She raised an eyebrow at them. More specifically, she looked at their masks. “You're not level 40, are you?”

“We're not planning on clearing out the town.” Josh sidestepped the question about their level. It was pretty rude to ask that, anyway. He crossed his arms over his chest. “We were hoping to get some monster parts, though. Knock out a few birds, kite them from the flock.”

“Is that so?” She thought for a moment. “Are you looking for experience, or upgrade materials?”

Creating true magic items was impossible after the Fall, without Enchanters and similar classes. It was, however, possible to affix monster parts to something, which was sometimes almost as good. Arrows made with Air-affinity feathers flew faster and farther, for example.

Josh shrugged. “Upgrade materials, for now. Experience is always good, though.”

The mayor sat down at her small desk, nodding. “Of course. And you said you wanted land in the city?” She pulled out a paper and started writing quickly. “Now, we're short-staffed because of the reset. We lost some good people, and everyone else is still under-leveled for the area. I'm willing to make some accommodations.”

“You want to give us some poor mucker's house?” Josh asked with a raised eyebrow.

The mayor shook her head. “All the houses are claimed.” She gave a bitter smile. “We keep our wills updated out here, and next-of-kin are well documented. No, those are all spoken for, but I do have a few small walls set up, just waiting for someone to come in and exploit them.” She handed Josh the paper she had been writing on. “I can give one to your team without trouble.”

Josh took the paper, and Darius took it from him before he could do much more than glance at it. His eyes narrowed. “This... is a rather large plot of land. It seems generous to just give it away to the first people who wander by.”

The mayor gave him a thin smile. “It's uncleared land. We have the wall up, and there weren't any monsters in there when we checked two weeks ago. If you wait much longer, the Jungle will eat the wall. This is not a gift. At best, I'm giving you a job.” She gestured to the door. “Show that to my secretary, and we'll have a guard direct you to your new property. I wish you the best of luck.”

Their new walled circle of land was almost a mile outside the main town wall. It was one of the furthest circles, though a few others were well within sight. It was at least a couple acres, though Josh didn't have enough experience to be sure.

It was also, as the mayor had promised, completely uncleared.

The palisade surrounding the land was a good twenty feet tall, thick wooden logs plunged into the earth. The trees inside towered over them, looking as if the youngest was a hundred years old. There were scraggly pines, towering oaks, majestic redwoods, and a dozen other species that Josh couldn't name. Underneath it all, the ground was choked with so much undergrowth it didn't look like you could clear it with a flamethrower.

While they called it the Jungle, the truth was more complicated. All plant life was corrupted, growing fast and feasting on blood. Strengthened by the strange magic that had spilled out of the Tower, biomes and basic habitability zones had been completely upended. Redwoods could grow on the equator, chimpanzees could survive in the Arctic. Seeing a random collection of trees from all sorts of environments mixed together like this wasn't particularly surprising.

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“All right,” Josh said, clapping his hands together. He tried not to wince at the feel of his missing fingers. “Do we have enough oil?”

Darius gave him a withering look. “I do not think that setting a large fire inside our wooden palisade would be wise.”

Mary shrugged. “It's the Jungle. You've seen burns before. They never spread far.”

“Be that as it may,” Darius said, after visibly composing himself. “We do not, in fact, have enough oil. We do not have any oil, nor funds with which to purchase it.”

Josh grimaced. “Old-fashioned way it is, then.” He pulled his hatchet off his thigh. He kept it strapped there tightly, where it wouldn't bounce when he moved.

Ruth blinked, looked down at his belt, and frowned. “Have you had that this entire time?”

“Uh, yeah?” He flipped the small ax end over end and caught it again. “Most reclaimers do.”

Mary and Darius pulled out their own hatchets, giving Ruth odd looks.

She turned red. “S-so maybe I miss some things! I've been a little busy these past few days!” She pulled out a small notebook. “I've been writing down runes!”

Josh, figuring that this was going to take a while, started chopping at a nearby tree. He picked a rather small one that he was pretty sure wasn't secretly a monster. It didn't attack him when he chopped into it, so it was probably just a normal tree instead of a mobile evil tree. The motion was awkward, as he wasn't used to the missing fingers, but not as bad as he had expected it to be. The mayor had pointed them to a Mender who had helped get rid of the last of the pain and soreness.

“Why'd you even need to write down runes?” Mary asked Ruth. “Thought you got blueprints and all that muck.”

“I do, but it takes a bit to get them right enough that I get the blueprint. Besides, I still have to take notes and come up with possible rune-chains!”

Darius was just about to start on his own tree nearby, but stopped and looked up. “Rune-chains? I assume that is something more complicated than simply inscribing a single rune on an object?”

Josh could hear the smile in Ruth's voice. He didn't look at her, focused on chopping down his tree. If he was right...

“Yep! Not counting the connection runes, I only have four element runes and four others. I know there are more, though, and I'm looking forward to discovering them! But if I connect them into chains, I can already do some cool things with them!” A pause. “Probably.”

Josh slammed the final blow home with a satisfyingly solid sound. The tree toppled over, leaves rustling until the entire thing slammed into the ground with the crunch of breaking branches. It was a good start to clearing out the area.

His prize, however, was better.

NEW TECHNIQUE LEARNED: Chop Tree (rank 1). An improved technique for chopping down trees and other large, solid objects. Cost: 8 stamina (variable by equipment). Requires: Ax (variable).

Mary realized something was up with him immediately. “Oi! You look too happy! What happened?”

“Oh, nothing much.” He threw the screen at all three of them. “I just think this is going to be easier than expected.” He turned to a new tree, raised his ax again, and activated [Chop Tree]. His arms swung forward almost of their own volition, chopping deep into the trunk. It wasn't a supernaturally strong blow—not yet. At first rank, it wouldn't be any better than if he just chopped the tree normally. But it would be more consistent, and it would improve with time. Eventually, he'd be able to chop down a tree with one swing of the technique.

“Cheater,” Mary muttered. Since she was an [Attacker], she had no chance of earning such an ability. If combat classes could learn this sort of thing, the world would be a very different place.

Ruth perked up. “Ooh! Do you think I'll get something like that?”

Josh shrugged. “I guess it depends on if I got it because I'm a Woodcrafter, or a Crafter.” He smiled and handed her the ax. “One way to find out, yeah?”

Ruth did, in fact, earn the [Chop Tree] technique. It just took roughly eight times as long.

Josh nodded as Ruth collapsed, panting, over her last felled tree. “Yeah, that's about what I expected. Think it's like when an Archer tries to learn a Rogue technique. You can do it, but it takes forever.”

Ruth groaned. The air was still filled with the steady sounds of axes chopping wood, as Mary and Darius continued. They had just paced themselves better. “I'm going to be useless here, aren't I?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

She pouted. “Hey!”

Josh grinned. “Telling it like it is, love.” He reached down to grab his hatchet, but hesitated. His hand was aching, especially the stumps of his fingers. He had enough stamina to keep going, he just didn't want to use his hand. He hadn't tried this, but...

He walked over to the nearest tree. It was a young tree, hardly even taller than he was. In the Jungle, that meant it was only a few days old. Most of the trees were pretty young, actually. He suspected that the town had burned the Jungle as much as they could right before the reset. He placed his hand on the trunk and concentrated on his [Chop Tree] technique.

[Error: Conditions not met.]

As expected. He wasn't holding an ax, or even anything that might do the job. He was curious what would happen if he tried with a sword. He'd get to that later. Instead, he concentrated on his technique again.

Then he tried to activate it at the same time as his [Hands-Free Crafting] spell.

A loud chop rang out, louder than what Mary and Darius were managing. Josh grinned as he saw the large divot appear in the trunk of the tree, exactly as if he had swung an ax into it. With his high Perception and Sensitivity scores, [Chop Tree] and [Hands-Free Crafting] took one point of stamina and mana, respectively. He was surprised the base cost for [Hands-Free Crafting] was so low in this case, though. His guess was that it cost more when replacing more complex tools.

Now that he thought about it, the stamina cost for [Chop Tree] was also pretty low. Even ignoring his high Perception bringing it down to the minimum, 8 was cheap for such an effective technique. A Swordsman's basic [Slash Attack] was 10. Maybe because it was so specific? You could use [Slash Attack] on anything, but [Chop Tree] would only work on trees and tree-like things.

Still, the low cost had its advantages. He touched the tree again—he still hadn't retrieved his hatchet—and concentrated. Not just on [Chop Tree] and [Hands-Free Crafting], but on his Strength score. With a Strength of 5, that meant he could overcharge a technique to put 5 extra points of stamina into it. Of course, with a Constitution of 5, he only had 5 points of stamina total. His high Perception brought the cost of [Chop Tree] down to 1, so that meant he had 4 extra stamina points to put into it. He did so.

The energy left him in a rush, making him suddenly feel as though he had run a marathon. Zeroing out stamina was always exhausting. It was even worse for mana.

It certainly had an effect on the tree, though.

His invisible ax strike sunk twice as deep as before, lining up perfectly with the previous one and biting deep into the hardwood. The tree creaked and groaned, and with little more than a hard shove, Josh was able to topple it over. It crashed to the ground, its branches crunching.

“All right!” he said, grinning. “Let's see how many trees we can clear before night!”