By the time that Jeb finished working through the Druidic Brewing Quests, he had been in the Circle of the Fields for a few months. The solstice was just a few days away, and he exited the Brewery to find the halls crowded with Druids rushing in every direction. Despite how hectic the motion was, Jeb saw how well every member of the Enclave managed to avoid collisions. Watching people carry barrels in front of their eyes at a full tilt dancing around each other, Jeb was reminded of nothing so much as a well choreographed dance routine.

The Radius suddenly appeared in front of him.

“Jeb, I would love to discuss whatever it is that you need, but the next few days are going to be incredibly hectic for the Circle. I would appreciate if you did not distract my Druids until the solstice. We will need everyone fully focused on the upcoming festivities.”

“I can do that,” Jeb agreed, getting ready to return to his bunk with every intention of sitting at the small desk they had allotted him until the solstice was over. Even though his interactions with the Archdruid were not acrimonious at all, he was uncomfortable with how much personal attention the man gave him, especially when he had realized that most of the Druids below Ninth Tier had never even spoken to him in a one on one conversation.

As he turned to leave, however, the Radius frowned and spoke up, “Are you not going to ask what the Enclave is busy preparing?”

Jeb shrugged.

“I assumed that you would have mentioned your reasons if you had wanted me to know. The fact that you did not made me think that it was some Druidic secret that you were keeping away from me because I am a Republican.”

“It isn’t that at all. Truthfully, we would be grateful for your help if you would be willing to aid preparations.”

“I would be happy to!” Jeb’s smile dimmed, “Why didn’t you just ask me to help, though?”

“The other Radii told me that in their interactions with you, you would volunteer for anything when given even the slightest provocation. I expected you to offer to help when I mentioned that the Circle is in an uproar right now.”

“Oh,” Jeb replied, “I would have volunteered, but that behavior has been trained out of me since I started working on Druidic Brewing. Colton and others were kind enough to explain why my help, well intentioned as it may have been, still caused their Brews to fail. Druidic Magic truly seems far easier to disrupt than other Schools. Is that something inherent to the art, are the Brewers in your Circle simply untrained in maintaining their Workings or-”

The Radius cut him off, “I would be happy to discuss that question, and any others you might have,” she gave him a look, “again, after the solstice. I had not considered the fact that my Brewers would be adverse to unrequested help.”

She shook her head.

“I am getting distracted. If you are willing to aid us, Alex will start coordinating tasks.”

“Understood,” Jeb said, and changed directions to start walking towards the coordinator.

“Have you finished your task?” the man asked without looking up from his book.

As Jeb watched, lines of text formed themselves on the open page, rearranging and revising as the man vaguely watched. He seemed far more concerned with the slow but steady advancing inkblot from the bottom corner of the page. Finally realizing that Jeb was not whoever he had assumed, Alex looked up.

“You are the Republican.”

His voice was completely flat. It wasn’t quite the emotionless response of the Enchantments Jeb had made to mimic human voices, but it was the closest he had seen from a living, breathing person. Jeb watched the Druid, making sure that he was, in fact, breathing.

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Apparently disconcerted by Jeb’s intense gaze on his chest, Alex spoke again, “We most need someone with your skills,” he flipped through the pages of the book, and lines of bright yellow text blazed on each page as he passed them by.

Finally, Alex stopped flipping through the pages, “You know how to perform basic woodworking, correct?”

Jeb nodded. He was rapidly growing to understand that Alex was not someone Jeb could chat with, at least until the solstice was over. Alex scrawled a note on a small slip of paper that appeared underneath his pen as he began to write. Handing it over to Jeb, he turned back to his book.

Jeb took the note, seeing that there was already a queue forming behind him. Moving out of the way, he read it. Thankfully, it gave him directions to the woodworking shop. Other than that, though, Jeb could not make sense of the note. There were random letters and numbers interspersed, seemingly at random.

Jeb started to walk towards the wood shop, but seeing the pace that everyone else had set, quickly transitioned into a jog. A few minutes later, he found himself greeted by the smell of woodworking. He knocked on the door, and a small woman opened it. She held out her hand for the note, and as soon as Jeb gave it to her, she closed the door in his face.

Jeb paused, unsure what he should do.

A few moments later, she opened the door again.

“Sorry, I had not realized that I was being sent a new woodworker.”

She looked at his fine robes.

“Are you going to be comfortable doing the basic work we need?”

Jeb nodded. “These are the only clothes that I have, honestly. If I could, I would not wear something this ornate for woodworking.”

That had clearly been the right response, because she seemed far more comfortable with his presence. Holding out a hand, she introduced herself to Jeb, and the two walked inside. She led Jeb to a lathe and told him what he needed to cut.

He nodded and took the first piece of wood from the pile. Looking at the wood and running his fingers over it, Jeb quickly found the grain structure and located the few knots that the board had. It would be easy enough to spin, and so he attached it to the lathe and started it spinning. Reaching down, Jeb picked up a roughing tool.

Jeb tried to use the tool they had provided, but found it slightly duller than he would have liked. Rather than waste time trying to find a grinder to sharpen it, he coated his finger in razor edged metal and began carving the wood. Slowly but surely, he turned the hard edges of the planed wood into the smooth cylinder that Sarah had tasked him with making. When he finished the first table leg, he turned to find Sarah watching him.

She gestured at him to hand the leg over, and Jeb did so. She inspected it, running her hands up and down its length to test for any places he had forgotten to sand it down or otherwise finish the work. Jeb was hardly surprised when she handed it back with a nod. He was, however, more than a little surprised when she began to speak.

“I was wondering what you were going to do with the dull cutter,” she nodded in the direction of the discarded tool. “How a Woodworker reacts to being given subpar tools tells me a lot about the way they will work in my shop.”

Jeb grimaced.

“Did I do something wrong”

She laughed, and a few of the other lathe workers turned at the sound.

“No, that was a perfectly valid solution to the issue. Is there a reason that you crafted your tool over your hand, rather than make a more standard tool?”

“Not really, I just felt more comfortable shaping the wood by hand.”

Their conversation was interrupted by muffled cursing from the other end of the workshop. Sarah walked over, and Jeb heard her join in the profanity.

“What’s wrong?” Jeb asked, walking over himself.

“The Circle of the Trees gave us wet wood,” a burly man spat.

“Why is that an issue?” Jeb asked, more than a little confused.

The man and Sarah both turned to Jeb, staring at him with expressions mirroring Jeb’s own confusion.

“Given that you were so proficient with the lathe, I would have assumed you knew why Woodworking wet wood rarely works,” Sarah said slowly, as though she was explaining something to a child.

“Right?” Jeb’s confusion wasn’t abating. Rather than go through the song and dance of trying to make their knowledge known to each other, Jeb just snapped his fingers, pulling the water out of the log in front of him. It swirled up his arm, seeming to have a life of its own, even to Jeb.

“What did you just do?” Sarah demanded.

“The thing that makes wet wood bad for working is the water trapped in the wood’s cells. I just pulled the water out of them?”

“Change of plans,” Sarah said, pushing Jeb out the door that the burly man had entered through, “you are far more useful to us drying out wood.”

Jeb looked at the massive pile of trunks in front of him. Thankfully, someone had already gone through and stripped them of their branches and leaves. He had no doubts that they, too, would be put to a use somewhere. Shaking his head to clear the distracting thought away, Jeb spent a few moments drawing up a Glyph to pull water out of the trees. A part of him thought back to his first Harvest as a Classholder.

Even after all the power I’ve gained, I’m still most useful as a dryer, he wryly thought to himself.