The True Endgame

Once the group has brought everything that Tabitha needs to the felled tree, the small engineer gets to work constructing new and improved tools for them to use.

The first axe is finished before long and gets put to immediate use.

While most axes would have a wooden shaft and a metal head, this one is different. It has a metal shaft and a wooden head, but the head itself is made out of a tree harder than most metals when used properly.

Fenrir swings the new axe into the trunk of one of the nearby steel oak trees, and he swings again, and again, and again. While the blade is severely dulled and showing signs of cracking by the time that he’s done swinging, it’s still usable for at least a few more swings which is all that it would take to bring the tree down.

He makes sure that everybody is clear from where the tree might fall, swings one final time, and the tree falls to the ground.

“I don’t think this axe has got much life left in it,” Fenrir says, noticing all the cracks appearing in the head of it, “but one axe per tree is better than three per tree.”

“Especially when I can make probably fifty or so axes per tree!” Tabitha says, her hands on her hips with pride in her work shining through her voice.

“I guess the real grind starts now then. We’ve fixed our tools problem, so we can – wait, we’ve got metals up at the mountain, but how are we going to actually use it? We need to melt it first, right?”

“Don’t you worry about that. Me and Red have got a plan all figured out.”

“Just don’t accidentally catch the forest on fire.”

“That won’t be up to us,” Tabitha says, looking at Azalabulia.

Fenrir knows what her plan is now.

He’s worried.

The next couple of hours are spent doing everybody’s favorite MMO-related task: farming. Not farming food, of course, but farming for materials.

Tabitha makes axes, and then those axes get used by the others to chop down more trees. Tabitha eventually gets into the groove of things to the point where she’s pumping out a new axe just in time for whenever one of the previous ones breaks.

She even develops a new technique after a dozen axes that allows her to strengthen the axe heads with metal. Lining the bottoms and tops with metal allows the blades to retain their durability for a bit longer than before. Though, the metal does nothing to prevent the blade from dulling.

Fenrir feels an unfamiliar sensation as do the rest of them: the feeling of learning a skill. Several of them completely forgot that skills are even a thing in this game since it’s all hidden. But, as they chop trees, they find themselves growing stronger and able to chop through wood more easily. Even the durability of their axes seems to slowly increase the more trees they chop down. The task becomes less tiring as well.

While farming, especially when it comes to such a monotonous task such as chopping trees, would usually be boring to people, they find encouragement in seeing their ability to chop wood noticeably increasing. It also helps that they never really farm. The closest thing to farming that any of them have done lately is fishing while sailing onboard The Shoebill. Actually being on land and doing something productive is, even if monotonous and not really all that exciting, is fun.

Until they do it for a couple more hours.

No matter how many trees they seem to chop down, Tabitha tells them that they’re going to need even more if they truly want to build their own city. She looks like she has no problem and isn’t slowing down the slightest. In fact, she’s making more axes than they can go through at this point! She switches it up to make some pickaxes after every axe just because she already has a pile of unused axes next to her.

All of the broken axes are sitting in their own pile. They may be cracked and broken, but the metal and wood used to make them can still be salvaged and used for something else later on. As the group has learned ever since bringing Tabitha onto it, she’s very resourceful and never lets anything go to waste. If something can still be used, she will use it. Even if it can’t be used, she’ll probably still try to use it.

Sweating and breathing heavily, Fenrir takes a break by sitting on top of the tree that Tabitha is chopping up.

“So… how are we going to get all of this back there again?” Fenrir asks her.

“I’m still thinkin’ about that. I could just chop up all the trees, and then we carry the logs back,” Tabitha proposes.

Fenrir looks around. There are dozens of trees lying around and each tree could probably produce enough logs to take dozens upon dozens of trips back to The Shoebilland where they want to build the city.

“It would take like, two days straight of walking back and forth doing that,” he says.

“You got somewhere to be or somethin’?”

“I mean, I do have kind of a life now, as shocking as it feels to say that.”

“It really is pretty shockin’.”

“Oi, you’re not supposed to agree with me.”

“Oi, don’t you steal my thing. Only I get to say ‘oi.’ Ya got that, you dog punk?”

“Oi, since when do you have a monopoly over the word ‘oi?’”

“Oi oi, don’t make me smack you with my hammer.”

“Oi oi oi, what’s wrong, you don’t have a valid reason so you have to threaten me with violence? That just proves you don’t have a good defense.”

Tabitha takes her hammer off of her back.

“Alright, maybe your hammer does make a pretty strong defense,” Fenrir admits.

“The best defense is a good offense.”

“You’re not wrong. Every fight I’ve been in has just been me trying to go on the attack the whole time.”

“Gotta kill them before they kill you.”

“Right. Anyways, log transporting. Can’t we just… invent the wheel? You know, make some wagons?”

“Hmm. It wouldn’t be hard for me to whip up some quick wagons for transportin’, but we don’t exactly have anythin’ to pull them.”

“Rock and Shogun probably wouldn’t mind, but they’d probably have to work together just for one wagon.”

“Actually… I’ve got an idea, dog boy.”

Another hour later, and with the help of everybody there, three wagons have been constructed with each one capable of transporting far more material than they would be able to by hand.

Also, they have all been designed in a way so that there is a handlebar sticking out in front of them for the group to walk behind and push on.

“Seriously?” Fenrir asks.

Three groups have been made for the wagons. Fenrir, Shogun, and Rock are all at one wagon. Rock and Shogun are holding the handlebar in their mouths, and this requires Fenrir to bend over in an uncomfortable position to properly hold and push on the handle. Oleander, Corwin, and Azalabulia make up the second group. Even when they’re all pushing together, they’re barely able to move the wagon. They will likely be the last group to reach their destination.

Then there is Tabitha and Cassiel making up the final group for the third wagon. Tabitha alone has the strength to push it back to The Shoebill, but she wants Cassiel’s help to make it even faster. There’s also the fact that she won’t let a single member of the group get away with not helping.

“Now it’ll just take half a day to take all the logs back!” Tabitha says. “Better than two days, ain’t it?”

Fenrir gulps and bites his tongue. He really does not want to deal with being in this uncomfortable position for half a day’s worth of time, but he can’t think of a better solution.

They’re going to need to get some work animals.

He just hopes that back pain isn’t realistically portrayed in this game, and that he won’t inevitably develop back issues later on in life. Then again, he doesn’t even know if avatars can age, nor does he believe that he’d still be playing this game long enough into the future that his character would age to that point.

“Wanna race?” Tabitha asks the other two groups.

Corwin, Oleander, and Azalabulia look the most miserable out of them all. Cassiel just looks worried because she has no idea how fast Tabitha plans on going, and Fenrir is the only one out of his group who isn’t wagging his tail.

Rock and Shogun want to race.

“Oi, dog boy, perk up! Ya think this is bad, just wait until we’ve got to haul the rocks and metals! That’ll be even heavier, and it’ll be a longer trip,” Tabitha tells Fenrir.

“I’m going to go and get attached to a bunch more rocks and hope they turn into horses before that happens,” Fenrir says and gets his ankle nipped at by Rock.

Rock will be the only sentient rock around here!