The Butcher of Gadobhra

Chapter 153: No plan survives contact with the enemy.

It was an odd war. Trees don't fight and charge around a battlefield. When they go to war, they slowly put pressure on another tree, stealing its water and sun, entangling limbs, pushing until a trunk breaks and then uprooting the loser and pushing past them. A normal human might walk through a forest and not notice they were in the middle of a battle.

To a lumberjack, the trees seem angry and 'accidents' happen when you try to fell a tree bent on murdering its neighbor. Deadwood falls to crush your skull. A vertical split creates a 'barber chair, the snap of the tree followed by the snap of human bones. Worst of all are the windowmakers: trees twisted by wind and battle, with no straight grain to their wood. They can split and twist when killed, turning and falling in any direction. And 'any direction' seems to randomly hit a lot of lumberjacks when the woods are angry.

When the treants come out to fight, that's when things get serious. An angry treant doesn't attack alone, but with the rest of the woods as its foot soldiers. Trees move quicker when a treant is around, and their animated limbs strike hard. A treant can pick two or three trees to move with it, and they become nearly as deadly as the treants themselves.

The oaks had other soldiers: the squirrels. Treeties had been made with many of the tribes. Those who fought with the oaks prospered with good homes and plenty of nuts. Those who didn't found their home trees uprooted and their stashes looted. Any resistance from other tribes came to an end with the appearance of Razortooth Fluffytail. This terror in squirrel form demanded and received their obedience and dissenters were eaten and forgotten.

The oaks felt that victory over the Ironwoods was only a season or two away. They had been lucky when the old city had returned. The Ironwoods were not prepared for the sudden pressure of thousands of other trees pressing up against their glade. They formed a defensive ring lead by their treants and kept out all other trees.

The underground springs had also shifted with the movement of the land. More water poured up, and the woods were blocking the normal drainage. No tree can last long if their roots begin to rot. What had been a slightly soggy meadow turned into a bog. Then the Rustblight appeared. The dark red lichen would appear in patches on trunks or limbs, slowly spreading and sapping the life from the trees.

Seeing this, the treants of the oaks worked hard to dam up the streams that drained the glade. Slowly the Ironwood began to lose the war. Another season or two would see the oaks victorious.

That victory was in danger now of slipping from their grasp. The Ironwoods had somehow recruited the enemy to their cause. Why the assassins spurned the offer of magical nuts was unknown, but after seemingly joining the war on the side of the oaks, they quickly changed allegiance to the Ironwoods.

And now they brought war to the oaks. The oakwood treants were called to aid the woods, the legion of squirrels was mobilized with promises of increased nuts for the winter, and Razortooth Fluffytail raced through the trees, eager to shed the blood of his foes.

"This would be quicker if I could just burn the limbs off. Better yet, it would be quicker if you did it."

Suzette was hacking at a large oak tree with both hands on an adze, lopping off the limb and stripping the bark. She was covered in sawdust, sweat, and squirrel bites

Ozzy watched her as she worked. She looked good even in the basic burlap worker's clothing and her hair in a ponytail. "If I did it for you, how are you supposed to get the STR experience to raise your stats? Tell you what though, do a good job on the trees and we'll swing by the corral tonight for some calf wrestling. I know that you love...Ouch! Dammit, that hurt!"

Ozzy's foot had suddenly burst into flame. The odd part was that while it burned, it was cold as hell too, and his fire resistance wasn't doing a thing to negate the sting. "How in hell did you do that?" Suzette just smiled at him and went back to stripping bark.

Two long-eared adventurers came loping up, having heard the Butcher's distress. Charlene and Dot were patrolling the area looking for the rabid squirrels that were being sent after the workers. They were nearly impossible to see before they dove out of the underbrush at you. "Squirrel problems?" Ozzy shook his head, "Naw, my boot just burst into flame for no reason at all. Sorry about that." Just as he was saying that though, two large-toothed rodents jumped out of a bush and raced for Suzette's ankles.

With a delighted yell the two Bunny Girls charged them, moving quicker than the squirrels who found themselves ambushed. Charlene brought her wooden cudgel down on the head of one squirrel, stunning it with the first blow and then killing it with her follow up. Dot leaped on the other squirrels back, stabbing down with both short swords into its back. Suzette whirled at the sounds of rodent death screams, then disgustedly went back to stripping bark.

The two ran off looking for more squirrels to squish, having a great time racking up the kills and experience. Ozzy had noticed a change in the three women. The first day they had showed up in Sedgewick they had been casual players trying to get the hang of the system and dying a lot because of it. But they'd pushed hard, made some friends in town, and been the first to conquer the Bunny Barrow. They were having a great time now, and were logging in to visit or go adventuring nearly every day. Ozzy was happy to see that type of player. They knew how to have fun.

Libby was having fun watching Jon cut down yet another oak tree. Her wood sprite was stripped to the waist and showing off his deep brown skin and hard muscles. Libby was supposed to be on squirrel watch, but was having more fun watching Jon. They had cleared the oaks halfway up the creak that now burbled freely down from the Glade of the Ironwoods. Cham and Jon had worked to unblock the dams the first day. The oaks around them had groaned in protest and many squirrels had tried to stop them. The squirrels had lost and the streams were running free, draining some of the excess water from the glade. The next step was to clear enough oaks to make a safe path up to the Glade.

Once there was a road, they could begin the chore of clearing the glade of the dead trees, and taking the metal from the ground. All six lumberjacks from Sedgewick were hard at work clearing the trees. Jon and Cham cut them down as fast as the other four put together. Their longer time in Sedgewick, and dedication to after hour hunting was showing.

Cham finished his current tree, lopped off the limbs, and watched it get dragged away by two workers taking it down to be de-barked and cut into beams. There were a good two dozen workers using adze to strip the bark and smooth the trunks into beams. The carpenters or lumberjacks could do it much faster, but the plan was to have all the workers earn the experience and increase their STR. At five STR a worker could lift a huge amount. This helped with all the work, and gave them extra Health and Stamina.

The attack was sudden. Thornbranch had come from farther north in the woods. Seeing the attack on his lesser brothers, the 0ak treant sent squirrels to alert the others and bring them down to this spot along the small stream. The lumberjacks had been felling oaks for hours, falling into an unthinking rhythm. The treants moved slowly into position, aided by their stealth skill: Can't see the trees for the forest. Each treant brought with them 2-3 of the normal trees that would fight with them.

Thaddeus was a level 3 Lumberjack who had been leveling steadily since being brought in recently when Billy requested more workers. He had only fought one treant before, a small level 3 Named boss. He and two other lumberjacks had taken down Stoutbranch easily, gaining two CSP each. The treant standing twenty feet away from him was much stronger. Blackbriar was a level 7 Elite Boss. He could have killed Thaddeus easily. But he had trees that could do that, so he animated the two oaks nearest Thaddeus. As Thad swung his ax, the trees swung back. He was hit hard and knocked to the ground. The next thing he knew he was being walked over by an oak, the roots digging into him until he died.

It was his first death as a worker in GENESIS ENGINE. He created a room called 'Dead in Sedgewick'. The room would be full by the end of the day.

Jon saw Thaddeus die, and yelled out "Treant!". At the same time Libby grabbed him by his pants and pulled him out of the way of an oak branch that swept through where his head had been. The two of them moved backwards twenty feet to put some distance between them and the trees. From there he could what looked like have a dozen treants moving forward. Most were simply animated oaks, but he didn't know that. "Back it off! Back it off! We have multiple treants coming this way."

Blackbriar saw the yelling human, and recognized the green hair and brown skin of one of the traitors working for the Ironwoods. It sent three trees heading for Jon, following up to keep them in his range.

Xan was another of the new lumberjacks. He'd heard Jon's warning, and dodged a branch, he ran quickly, getting away. He turned just as Honeypot, another treant, threw something at him. The treant's aim was dead on, and Xan was unlucky enough to be hit with a beehive in the face. The enraged insects set about making sure no part of him was unstung. He fell to the ground fifty feet away, his swollen body covered in honey. The remaining bees went to find something else to sting.

Ozzy and Suzette became aware that something bad was happening when they heard the screams. A half dozen workers came running, some covered in bee stings. Jon and Cham were swinging wide, trying to draw what they finally realized was two treants and six oaks. Blackbriar and Honeypot motivated their oak warriors to keep chasing the two tree sprites

Ozzy saw a third treant, Snagglebough, coming towards him. Snaggle was old and cantankerous, and as a Level 9 Elite, quite dangerous. But he sucked at convincing the trees to work with him and was attacking without support. He wasn't afraid of humans, his weapons were the wood of his limbs, and they hadn't failed him yet. What he didn't expect was that someone else nearby also liked to use wood as a weapon.

Ozzy picked up the log Suzette had been working on, and heaved it end over end high into the air. Tree don't dodge. The caber hit Snagglebough dead on, cracking his trunk and snapping off some branches. He was furious, but relatively unharmed. Treants were very resistant to blunt damage. Ozzy simply picked up another log and threw it. Then another. If there was something he didn't lack, it was heavy cabers. Snagglebough could barely recover from one attack before the next hit him, and they were starting to take their toll.

"There is no way I am letting you steal all the experience." Suzette was frankly very glad that she could get rid of the adze.and kill something. She had been itching to use her Wildmage spells, and lighting Ozzy's foot on fire didn't count. Frostfire roared around the wounded treant. Against Ozzy the damage had been ice cold, bypassing his fire resistance. Against the treant the magic spell was pure fire. It might have blue flames, but they burned and blackened, several small branches catching on fire. Panicked, Snagglebough turned to retreat. But a burning treant is a hard target to miss. Suzette had a huge range with her staff and put Solar Arrows into the fleeing tree until it died.

"Nice effect. That was the one you used on me?" Ozzy hadn't seen all of her spells yet. She was tightlipped about her magic. Suzette smiled and tossed out another spell. "Yep, Frostfire can do Cold or Fire damage, whatever hurts most."

"Good. I think we'll need a lot of fire today. I see more of those trees lumbering this way." He and Suzette fell back through the meadow of tree stumps, gathering up the workers, most of whom weren't going to be able to do much to the treants. Being level 3 in adze didn't help much fighting a tree that did ten times your damage. Luckily there was a horde of squirrels on the way to keep them busy.

Blackbriar realized that Jon and Cham were trying to lead them away, and turned back towards the other workers. The oaks surround the two treants in a circle, not giving the lumber jacks an opening. They started to head towards the human village. Root and branch would end the threat of Sedgewick. From the woods came Peachthorn, BurnedBeard, and Winterhusk. Each of them brought their animated oaks with them. The long grass vibrated with the passage of hundreds of squirrels guarding their flanks.

Sedgewick had attacked the oaks, now the oaks would return the favor.

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