The early morning drinking session had produced different results depending on how you measured things. Certainly, in the short term the event was a complete success, and brushed aside the effects of the three long eared adventurers' and two lumberjacks' recent resurrections.The women enjoyed seeing the inside of the workers' home, and were astounded that it had all been built since the start of the game. From the outside it looked like a fortress, but the living areas and workshops on the inside were showing the effects of putting that many craftsmen in one spot. Especially when they needed little sleep and many kept working into the wee hours of the morning.Many of the workers had taken Ben and Suzette's advice on raising their skills and stats. Prodigy was very popular and many workers had picked up wood carving as a way to bring up their dexterity, or stone carving to increase their strength. The thousands of hours of work put into the building were turning it into a very comfortable place to live. The bar had received a huge amount of attention. While some of the workers still liked the social atmosphere of the tavern, and talking to players, many preferred their private watering hole. Jon, Cham, and many other workers had put in a lot of long hours working on the area of the catacombs that they had claimed.

The stone walls that had originally looked like they belonged in a dungeon had been cleaned and polished. Loose mortar had been repaired and uneven flagstones were replaced. Three tree-trunks had been stripped of bark, cut, and brought down to support the ceiling. Support beams were added running from the wooden pillars to the walls, further strengthening the roof and adding to the decor. Lanterns hung from the beams in several places. All of the wood was carved. No one style was used. Norse runes, woodland scenes, monster battles or intricate braids all found a home.And the bar served a second important function besides a place to relax. In case of some natural disaster, or huge monster rampage, the town needed a secure bunker. It only seemed sensible that this should be the bar. 'Disaster Drill' was a popular event on one night each week. The bar itself was made from one huge log. The gigantic chunk of oak had been squared off at waist level, and was three feet wide. Instead of adding shelves, they had hollowed out one side to form storage for mugs and glasses. The top had been sanded smooth and given many coats of oil to make it shine.

Getting the log moved down two levels through the stone corridors had been an engineering feat in and of itself. But having a couple dozen very strong workers to move the thing, and Jorges yelling at them the correct way to move it along on rollers had finally got the job done. Only two people had been crushed and killed getting it downstairs, which was well within the expected casualty rate.Around the walls hung trophies from bosses killed by the workers. They weren't dungeon bosses, mostly just Named and low Elites, but they had been won in hard fights by underpowered workers who were proud of their victories. A giant beaver's hide was on one wall, a mean looking beet was hanging from the rafters, the coat rack was made from a jackelope’s horns, and a stone fist three feet high was used to hold an assortment of alcohol bottles.

The bunny girls wanted to hear all the stories and Jon was happy to tell them all, in all of the exaggerated detail. This led to an accounting of the fight with the Angry Dire Squirrel. The boys encouraged them to bring in their trophy to add to the collection. The drinking had continued far past where they needed it to negate the de-buff from resurrecting. At some point, Jon and Libby disappeared to raise their spirits in a different way.

This inspired Dot to make some mental notes for a new book. "Tall Timber" would feature a lonely female engineer who started playing a new online game only to be abandoned by her party in the deep woods, and somehow trapped in the game. She becomes hopelessly lost until a friendly lumberjack offers to take her back to his rustic cottage. She goaded Cham until he gave them the story of how they ended up with bark and leaves growing on them. He refilled their flagons, and then leaned back in his chair.

"Come fair travelers and gather round. Hear the sad tale of two handsome lumberjacks who ventured into the darkest reaches of the dreaded Ironwood to pit their brawn against nature itself."

"And got their butts kicked."

'Twas early dawn when we left, walking quickly through the lands where our axes had beaten the forest into submission. Though meadows had been cleared of the woody warriors, the stubborn druid trees never admitted defeat. They constantly tried to reclaim the fields we had cleared. But so fell had our axes become that in but a day we could lay waste to dozens of the mighty forest fiends. On this day, having earned the gratitude of our Baron and Baroness, we set out to explore the far woods beyond where no worker had gone before.'

'The druid wood was a tangled thing in some parts. It was as if the mighty hand of the city has pushed the trees far back from its walls and then taken the land for its own. The trees pushed against the walls of Gadobhra, but the city merely laughed. Frustrated, the forest was becoming angry. '

'Any lumberjack can tell when a tree is angry. You have to be careful around them. Some just give up and fall over when you lay an axe to them. But the angry ones want to get revenge. Many a fine lad has died when the trunk splits and kicks them into the air with broken limbs, or twists as it falls, sending him running for safety where no safety can be found. Trees are evil and malicious, mark my words. '

'So it was with caution that we moved through the trunks that were too close to each other, tangled limbs blocking our path and reaching out to do us harm! After a time, it became so slow, that we climbed a tall oak to look out over the forest and find a clear path. We saw a curious sight. To the North was a cleared area of forest, a vast circular meadow with a small lake in the center. We were determined to seek out this oasis of clear land in the tangle mass of angry oaks. Ah, if only we had known what foul curse waited for us, (and were a little smarter,) we would have turned back at once!''We pushed forward, and noticed something curious: the trees themselves seemed to be pushing in the same direction. The tall oaks were marching almost trunk to trunk and leaning in the direction of the clearing. It became harder and harder to move between them.

'And then we noticed the squirrels. Dozens of them, cheeks full of acorns moving through the trees. Some stopped to chitter at us, upset with our presence. I casually picked up a large acorn and threw it at one. The squirrel dodged and raced away, and my hard-thrown projectile sailed far over the forest. For an instant there was silence, and then a path opened for us between two oaks. Curious about this, we picked up more acorns. Experimenting showed that hitting a squirrel was not a good outcome. The fuzzy-tailed rodents glared at us with red eyes and any path disappeared. It was the act of throwing acorns as far as we could towards the meadow that opened a path for us.''We progressed easily after that as the oaks cleared a path as we moved forward throwing acorns into the meadow. Finally, we came to the edge, and found that a war was going on. A slow war to be sure, but a war nevertheless. The meadow had defenders. Tall, straight trees with-dull silver bark. My Forest Lore is better than John's. While he could only identify the trees as a type of Hickory, I could see that they were a special type of tree.

Ironwood Hickory (tier 2, slow-growing, long-lived, hard bark and strong wood.)