Chuck had a relaxing time on their fishing trip but in the back of his mind he was still nervous about R2. He hoped everything was going according to plan. After Bright had went over all of R2’s abilities and he had seen R2 in action, Chuck had come up with the plan. It would probably be several days yet before they heard anything. Chuck had explained things so the broken garage door and missing robot wasn’t a shock to everyone. In the meantime Raz and Maz had told him he needed to start getting ready for the annual migration.
Chuck had no idea what they were talking about. Tess didn’t seem to know much about it either, being from the capital. They explained that once a year some of the flying insects from deep in the howling wood migrated to a different forest and then came back the following year. The path of the migration took them over the city so the residents had to hole up for a week until they passed. This meant closing the wooden shutters on all the windows and bolting the doors. If you had to go out, you needed to be vigilant of the sky.
Most residents stocked up enough supplies to last the week so they didn’t have to go outside. The hunters on the other hand took the opportunity to kill as many as they could. Chuck was intrigued but decided they better start stocking up on supplies as well. Raz and Maz took on the challenge of buying the supplies they would need. Chuck wouldn’t mind doing some hunting himself but needed to be careful about it.
From talking to his hunter friends, he knew there were several insects that lived deep in the forest that he hadn’t seen on their expedition to the ruins. In his world Chuck was aware of butterflies that migrated but it sounded like here there were a large variety of giant winged bugs that traveled. Many of them being dangerous.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Tess helped him fix the garage doors and made sure all the window shutters were in good shape. According to Raz the migration should start in the next week or two. There wasn’t an exact time for it to start but they knew the general timeframe. When the first bugs started flying over it would be time to head indoors. Chuck wasn’t too worried, as long as there wasn’t another stampede of giant spiders.
Chuck wasn’t all that confident he could hit flying targets without his shotgun. There hadn’t been any updates from the alchemy guild on that project so it would be a while yet. He hoped R2 made it back to Axtol before the migration started. If they had to go out, he would be a good guard.
If they were going to be stuck inside for a while, he decided to prioritize the music devices for Tess and Maz. That should keep them entertained. He idly wondered if they had anything like board games in this world. He made a trip to the guild to acquire them and see if there was anything else he needed to know about the migration.
He had ordered the devices while the girls recorded the last batch of songs so they should be ready by now. Chuck saw Nox and went over to ask about the devices. He was in luck and they were ready to go. It seemed like the guild members would be staying and working at the guild during the migration. Nox wasn’t able to tell him more than he already knew. Bright had settled in and was busily working away on various projects. It didn’t seem like he was done translating the parchment yet but that was to be expected.
Chuck headed home with the music devices to surprise the girls. Raz probably wouldn’t be happy since he wasn’t a fan of the music. Chuck had stopped to buy him some of his favorite meat skewers to ease the pain. Raz could always move into the spare room if it got too much for him. Chuck couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces.