Chapter 57: Bee-maginative Tactics
After making a campfire site and confirming all the defenses were in place, Belissar returned to the Apiary to retrieve his woodcutting tools, then walked down to the Orchard. He went ahead and created a wood tree resource node. A spot on the ground began to glow. The light then rose into the air and began to take shape. Suddenly, a fully grown poplar tree had appeared in front of Belissar. It was relatively short, only a bit higher than himself, and just thick enough to be useful. At this point, he had expected such a feat from the Tower, so he immediately got to work without much thought.
He stepped forward and reached out for the tree, which was glowing slightly like the other resource node plants, signifying it was ready for harvesting. Belissar wondered if it might...somehow pop out of the ground but the tree didn’t respond to his touch. It seemed the Tower wouldn’t cheat to that extent. Belissar shrugged and hefted his axe to do things the normal way.
The tree grew a bit brighter as he swung the axe towards it. Belissar blinked as he felt mana flash and then his axe cut much deeper into the tree than he had anticipated. He moved to the other side to continue his work, but he barely needed to bother. It took all of three swings for the tree to fall.
Unfortunately for him, fall was all it did. The tree still remained in a solid piece, with the branches and all still attached, and the wood still wet as far as he could tell. It seemed the Tower’s assistance was limited to the felling only. Belissar sighed, and then got to work. He guessed he would be making a simple log house. He might need a few more wood nodes in that case. Well, he’d probably need them anyways, but he’d see how quickly he could process each tree before deciding.
Belissar continued to work until it was time for the next purification. He wiped the sweat off his brow and then turned to Niobee.
“Hey Niobee, can you let the Flower Meadow queens know it’s just about time? I’m going to go get the fire started, and then we’ll begin.”
“Ok!”
As Niobee flew off, Belissar returned to the Apiary. He grabbed his firebow and some of the drier firewood. He found the Apiary soldier bees and asked them to come with him. They gathered their torches and carried them after him by their ropes.
It didn’t take long for him to arrive at the end of the Orchard and soon had a fire going there. The Apiary soldiers took up positions by the fire and handed Belissar the torch.