A night went by with the councilmen and councilwoman going hungry. Neither of them had found any food growing, nor were they adept hunters or monster slayers. Theo had attempted to catch a fish with a long stick he’d found, but he proved entirely awful at the whole thing. He had found that the rules of a ranking was that any belongings tied to the town economy had to remain within the town limits during the ranking while all of the people had to leave them. That meant any food or furniture belonging to any villager with funds gained from working for said village, bought from another villager who crafted it within said village or anything like that. Needless to say, Wen’s horrible alcoholic beverages and the subpar ingredients she cooked with, were all bought with the Barge’s middling income.

  When asked what would happen if anyone actually brought something out with them, both locals shrugged. The stories were plenty and varied. Lightning bolts were a particularly recurring phenomena but turning to solid ice was also a possibility. Whether any of those stories were true or not, they couldn’t say, but something sinister would definitely happen to those breaking the world’s rules.

  That particular sentence caused Theo’s veins to twist and curl. The very magic he was using was supposedly the world’s own language. Who decided whether he was breaking the rules or not? Was it Arcana? In that case, he’d be safe, he figured. But what if it wasn’t? Supposedly, Arcana had been absent from this world for a long time. What if the world itself was sentient somehow? What if it was deciding these matters for itself? What if it was coming for him next?

  Needless to say, Theo didn’t sleep much that night, but hunger wasn’t the only reason. Still, Arcana wouldn’t have sent him there just to die from using the gift she had given him, right? That thought was the only thing that lullabied him to sleep under the stars.

  Come morning, Wen had already risen and was walking through the flatlands for a morning hike around the town limits. Willam was nowhere to be seen. Theo looked around, wincing as the morning sun cresting the barely sloping hills of the horizon stabbed his eyes with blades of sharp light.

  He sat up and felt a slight tickling sensation on his neck. He reached to remove the blades of grass he figured were loosely attached to him, but instead a slight splat sounded as he accidentally crushed a spider. In a sudden panicked rush he got onto both of his feet and stepped away from his previous resting place, his entire body shaking violently as he brushed his neck, shoulders, back, arm, neck again, then forearm and repeated that exact order thrice more in hopes of removing any and all exterior lifeforms from his body.

  He spun around, spun again, stopped and jumped on a single leg thrice, spun around the other direction while still on that leg as he did this. What caused him to stop was the sudden presence of someone he’d never laid eyes on before. She had flaming red hair that was licked with a golden sheen. Her eyes were sapphirically blue, though both her sclera were bloodshot and red, the colour a bad match against her hair. Her sunkissed skin showed signs of being outdoors more than indoors and had a deep tan. On her hips were several axes, at least four that Theo could see, with various degrees of degradation on their blades and handles. A much larger axe was hanging behind her back, its thick, sharp and pristine blade looming over her shoulder threateningly.

  “H-hello,” Theo said, planting his second foot back onto the ground. He had all but forgotten about the potential bugs crawling around on him.

  “Hi there,” she smiled, showing teeth as white as snow and a slight dimple on the right side of her lips. “Is this Sigil Lake?” she then asked.

  Theo looked around confusedly. “Yes?”

  “Great! I’m Julie. Julie Woodrow. I was ordered here yesterday.”

  Theo hadn’t expected anyone to come by so soon. That would explain the redness of her eyes, though. Had she really trekked her the entire night? And what was with all the axes? He’d ordered two axes and a saw, not four axes and a war axe, if that was what the big one was. He didn’t see a saw, either. Was she compensating for not bringing one? Was that allowed?

  “Julie!” he exclaimed, remembering her. She was by far the most experienced forester of the three hired. She was also the first human trafficking victim of his. “Great to have you so quickly! I’m Theo, the, uh… One of the founding councilmembers, I guess.”

  “Awesome,” she beamed, flashing more of her whites. Theo wasn’t sure if it was the morning sun, her well-groomed hair or the way the blue of her eyes contrasted with both aforementioned phenomena, but she was truly a breathtaking sight. Her body was ladened with fur-lined leather which left her densely muscular arms bare. “This is Havoc, the Woodslayer,” she then said, raising her strong right arm and extending her thumb behind her.

  Theo leaned to the side to look behind her. She wasn’t supposed to bring anyone, was she? Only the builders came as a set. He didn’t see anyone. With a remarkably gentle laugh when compared to her somewhat wide-shouldered physique, she grabbed her war axe just below the blade and expertly pulled it from her back.

  The large double-sided axe blade reflected every ounce of the piercing morning sunlight, revealing its beautiful, glassy sheen. The metal of its blade was darker than steel with a slight red hue. Its handle was well-oiled and obviously taken care of with great attention. It looked smooth to the touch.

  “That’s Havoc?” Theo asked as she presented it to him.

  “Havoc, the Woodslayer,” she corrected with a grin. “She’s a menace to all things wood, so you better not go stiff on me!”

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  Theo instinctively looked down, then back up to meet her laughing form.

  “Not what I meant, but the same thing goes for that.”

  There were no responses coming to Theo’s assistance. He just stared at the woman with wide eyes. Then another saviour came to his rescue.

  “Oh. Hello,” said Willam as he approached from the forest behind Theo. Theo swung around and greeted his saviour with as much enthusiasm as was healthy to show without seeming too much. It was a delicate balance. He hoped he pulled it off. “Who’s this-,” he started to ask, then laid eyes on the striking woman. “- perfect replication of the woman of my dreams…” he said as his mind took a hike somewhere far, far away. Its return was questionable.

  Surprisingly, the statuesque red-haired woman’s cheeks grew flushed and her eyes couldn’t keep themselves pointing in a single direction, flickering left and right. She eyed the amazingly lanky man with a tight-lipped smile. “Hello,” she said, the final vowel lingering awkwardly. “I’m Julie.”

  “Oh, the woodcutter!” Willam guffawed. “Hi, Willam, I’m Julie. Pretty to meet us,” he fumbled. She laughed.

  “Very nice to meet you too,” she smiled. His eyes grew wide as her lustrous teeth shone in his direction and her empty hand reached towards him to greet him.

  He took it, holding his breath as his own hand reached out. He breathed an oddly comfortable breath as their skin touched. “Ah…”

  Theo was actively blocking the entire event out of his mind, careful to not accidentally remember any of this awkward third-wheeling later. A gentle hum of a familiar, yet unplaceable song strummed through his head and he tried to remember the lyrics. As Willam was introduced to Havoc, the Woodslayer, both Willam and Julie wielded full smiles as they bantered and blushed in random intervals.

  Wen, bless her timely arrival, joined the group moments later and was also introduced to both the new woodcutter and the one who would wield it. While the conversation was quickly moved to Wen, Julie and Havoc, the Woodslayer, Willam stood gazing warmly at the newcomer whilst Theo was starting to focus back into the conversation now that the awkwardness was mostly over with.

  Julie had been rather close already when her application was accepted, as she had long ago left the bustling streets of Ercheat to find her own pace and work. She was the child of her mentor and teacher, Master Woodsmith Woodrow, as Theo had suspected, and her story was one of freeing herself from her family business to carve her own path. She expected she would one day return to her family and their woody business, but not before she had made a reputation for herself without their influence.

  What Theo hadn’t noticed, likely due to her massive war axe, was the long saw protruding from a backpack behind her. She had indeed brought two iron axes and a saw as ordered, but she also had her own stuff she brought along, even excluding Havoc, the Woodslayer. All-in-all, she had seven axes, four of iron quality which included the extra ordered ones, and three steel axes. She also had some woodcarving tools like chisels and smaller knives as well as small hammers, files and even oils to protect the wood itself.

  She graciously gave even her spare axes and tools to the town’s stores despite that being well outside of the original order, though she said she had no need for most of it right now anyway. Following in her grandfather’s footsteps rather than her own father’s, Julie had explicitly applied to only towns with the ‘Fresh start’ label and had already made the decision to share her tools. She’d never let anyone else use Havoc, the Woodslayer, however. It also turned out Havoc, the Woodslayer wasn’t a war axe after all. It was just a huge woodchopping axe. A twin-bladed woodcutting axe.

  Before Theo knew it, Julie was already hard at work at showing off her axe-handling skills. She had barely been gone a minute before the first tree fell towards the open-spaced land outside the forest where Theo and the rest of the council stood. It fell just short of where they were standing.

  “That was incredibly fast,” Wen commented from behind Theo after having used him as a shield without him noticing.

  Julie and Havoc, the Woodslayer then sauntered out of the forest with grins on their faces before Havoc, the Woodslayer started tearing into the slain tree once more, this time quickly dismembering its stiff corpse. One by one the branches fell to the green ground where pools of shaken leaves were scattered by the violent carnage. Soon enough the tree was a tree no more, its body now turned to nothing but a gently narrowing pole.

  “No, that was fast,” Theo commented with a light grip of Wen’s hand on his shoulder as her face was peeking up behind it. He felt her warmth radiating to the skin of his neck, which he had to admit was rather comfortable. Her calm breath tickled the bottom of his hairline and brushed against his neck below his ear.

  “She’s amazing,” Wen then whispered into the closest ear. The ex-hostess then gently pushed herself away and stepped up beside the man with reddish cheeks.

  “How many more will come?” the Woodslayer’s wielder asked with a knowing grin. She was just showing them some of her capabilities, and she already knew they’d be pretty impressed.

  “Two more foresters to get a working lumber-production going and two builders to draw from it. Other than that, three food gatherers to keep us all fed. Me and Theo will help anyone in any way we can whilst the lovedove over here sets up his farm that way,” Wen answered, pointing in the direction of the branches protruding from the grassy fields over yonder. Willam seemed unfazed by the new nickname, much as he seemed by anything not Julie Woodrow.

  “Sounds good enough. The forest here isn’t too large, so have you thought about replanting as we go?”

  “We should definitely do that,” Theo agreed. “But if there’s any squirrels in there, don’t hesitate to bring their homes down.”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  Wen and Julie both asked simultaneously as they faced Theo.

  “I mean, they can find new homes, right? Or be hunted down! That’s a great idea. Do squirrels taste nice?”

  “A bit too nutty for my taste,” Julie probably joked along. There was no way those monsters would taste like nuts, right? “But in that case, we should leave behind some healthy and mature trees at set intervals for natural reseeding purposes, as well as replanting some of our own. These are mostly greenhead trees, which are fine, but I’d rather we start planting some harder and more pliable wood types for future building and crafting. I expect everyone wants some furniture and the like. I’d suggest something like quillwood for hardness and bendytrees for rigidity with tensile strength. Neither are the best, but they grow quickly and are a very good fit for this kind of climate and soil type.”

  Theo and Wen gawked at each other as Julie went on and on about how to build the best town they could.

  “Are you writing this down?” Wen asked.

  “With what?” Theo asked even as he tried to ignore her in favour of listening to the woodcutter.

  “There’s got to be note-taking somewhere in that system of yours, right?”

  “Shh, I’m trying to learn how to wood,” Theo argued, whispering a shout to Wen.

  The poll on Ch. 15 (I think) seems to point to you guys wanting faster skill gains. This really wasn't the plan, but I'm hoping it works out! It won't be decided until a few more chapters I think, so there's still time.