Quest: 1.10 (Week 2- Early Phase (pt.2))

--- Jon ---

--- Afternoon ---

(Well… I guess since Miss Edna owns her own potion shop, she’d have written the most about that. So maybe I should look for some plants I know? See if any of them are useful for anything.)

He flipped through the book until he came across a picture of a familiar orange plant on the edge of the forest and a riverbed.

(That’s, what was it... Jewelweed!)

If he was remembering right was a plant fairly common in northern America, that grew in shady spaces with lots of water such as on the edges of swamps and lakes. (In fact, thinking about it, I’m pretty sure there’s a patch of it growing just behind the lake storage cabin.)

The reason he remembered it so well was because Miss Edna had used it to help with his rash after he’d tripped and fallen into a patch of poison ivy as kid.

In fact, reading through the page he discovered Miss Edna had written out how to use a few common plants and water to create a salve that brought out Jewelweed’s healing properties to deal with most skin-deep poisons and venoms.

Taking out a pen and paper he wrote the steps down with the intent to memorize it, after all it never failed that every year at least a dozen campers would end up walking through poison ivy or annoying some bee into stinging them.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Scene Consequences

-Thanks to reading Miss Edna’s book Potions gains 4XP.

--Potions skill is now rank E- (Lv. 4 (0/10))

--Jon learned a new recipe: [Anti-Toxin Salve]

--- Night ---

(With this many people to feed, Ying and Miss Edna are going to have their hands full. And while I’m sure Jill and Andy could use a hand; they’ve been doing this long enough that between them I doubt they’ll have a problem.) And as for the quartermaster… (there’s no way in hell I’m going anywhere with him by myself.)

After all, he still terrified Jon on a fundamental level.

Shaking his head clear, he turned towards the mess hall and moved to intercept Miss Edna and Ying. “Hey, you two think you’ll need any help with dinner?”

Miss Edna gave him a smile. “With this many kids we could always use a helping hand.”

While Ying didn’t look as happy to see him as Miss Edna was, at the very least she didn’t put up a protest. (Which is better than nothing I guess…)

“So, we’re making the usual stuff, right?” He asked as he followed the pair into the kitchen.

“Normally we would, but since this is the first campfire of the season, I wanted to go a bit bigger this time.” Miss Edna told them.

“How much bigger?” Ying asked as they walked between the tables and towards the kitchen.

“Well I was thinking we could do a good old-fashioned barbecue: hot dogs, burgers, potato salad, the whole nine yards.” Miss Edna explained.

“Ooh, that sounds like a doozy of a meal.” He admitted as he rushed ahead to hold the door open.

While he’d helped with breakfast a few times when he’d gotten up before the counselors, it didn’t change the fact that that still sounded like a fair amount of food and it would take them a while to cook all of it.

As he followed them into the kitchen, he couldn’t help but do a double take as he caught sight of the already burning barbecue seated in the middle of the kitchen. “Um, shouldn’t we do the, uh, actual barbecuing outside?”

“With all of those little terrors?” Miss Edna asked him skeptically. “Fuck no. It may’ve been before your time but the last time we tried that we ended up setting half the camp on fire had three different lawsuits on our hands.”

“That… sounds serious.” Ying pointed out.

“Oh, it was nothing.” Miss Edna assured them. “Quartermaster Rogers had a nice talk with their lawyers and made it all go away.”

“What kind of talk?” He felt the need to ask with a bit of panic.

Miss Edna shrugged. “I don’t know, lawyer stuff?”

(I… I don’t think breaking kneecaps counts as ‘lawyer stuff’…)

A quick glance towards Ying, showed she was of a similar school of thought.

“Still, enough of that we’ve-”

The kitchen doors slammed open, and given their previous topic of discussion, Jon felt no shame jumping half a foot in the air at the sight of quartermaster rogers in the doorway with an axe in hand.

“Oh, Rogers did you need something?” Miss Edna asked, completely unruffled by the axe-wielding man’s appearance.

“I could use some help with the wood by the forest.” The quartermaster answered, “Figured one of the kids could help me.”

He knew neither he nor Ying, wanted to be alone with the quartermaster, in the woods, at night, while the man had an axe.

That said, based on the way the quartermaster was staring at him, he was pretty sure this had something to do with the whole not-worth-it blackmail/extortion thing from last week.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Interrupt Consequences

Interrupt Tutorial

Interrupt Tutorial

-Interrupts are basically consequences of choices that the players have made (or not made as the case may be) that have come back to bite you. Because the previous scene is only half-finished players only get half rewards for it. (In this case discovering the [Cooking] skill, and nothing else.)

-In this case the Quartermaster blackmailed Jon into helping him a week ago, since we haven’t done that yet, he’s dragging us away to help him now.

(Note: This would’ve occurred regardless of what event we chose tonight. That said, since this is a multi-scene event, the campfire event will continue after the next scene. Though consequences of this scene may carry over.)

-Discovered [Cooking] skill at rank E. (Lv. 5)

-Time with Ying and Miss Edna cut short.

---

“Alright, I guess I’ll do it.” He finally conceded.

“Oh, would you dear?” Miss Edna gave him another smile.

“Yeah, it’s… not a problem.” He told her what he was pretty sure was a lie, as he futilely hoped Ying had a secret desire to be a lumberjack. Though given her sympathetic -though thankful- grimace, he very much doubted that.

So, with a sigh he turned back to the quartermaster and asked. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a clearing just past the tree line.” Rogers answered, before waving for him to follow. “I’ve already got an axe waiting on you so come on.”

With a sigh and a nod, he gave Miss Edna and Ying one last wave good-bye before following the quartermaster out of the mess hall.

“You should grab a lantern, it’ll come in handy.” Rogers told him, gesturing to a stack of old oil lanterns sitting outside of the storage shed.

He glanced towards the sun. “We’ve still got a good hour or two until last light.”

The quartermaster gave him a snort of amusement. “And the forest gets dark before last light.”

Seeing no reason to put up a bigger fight over it, he walked up to the lanterns and looked them over, checking to see which one wouldn’t give him tetanus.

“Black one burns brighter. Red one burns longer.” The quartermaster informed him.

Equipment Choice:

Which lantern should we take?

[] -Take the black lantern.

[] -Take the red lantern.

[] -On second thought, don’t take a lantern.

(Each of these has an advantage and disadvantage.)

“Whatever suits you.” The quartermaster shrugged, before leading out to the woods.

It wasn’t long before he was led into a clearing with a fairly large pile of wood sitting next to a stump with a medium sized axe plunged into it.

“Alright, so what exactly am I supposed to do here?” He asked, already figuring the quartermaster was going to give him the harder job.

Rogers leaned against a nearby tree before taking a drink of his flask. “You’ve been here long enough that I know you know how to chop wood, kid.”

He couldn’t help but glare at the older man. “And what exactly are you going to be doing while I’m doing your job?”

Rogers gave another snort of amusement, before picking up a second axe. “Making it so you kids can do this next week too. Trees need time to dry out before you burn them, so get chopping.”

“Isn’t that dangerous to do at night?” He asked, as the quartermaster grabbed his lantern, earning another snort of amusement from the man as he walked into the dark of the woods.

“The fun things always are.”

“How is cutting a tree down ‘fun’?” He wondered aloud.

After a minute without response, he shook his head and turned back to the pile of logs and the axe sticking out of the tree stump.

(I wonder how much trouble I’d get in if I just ditched the quartermaster and went back to the camp?)

It was an idle thought, one he knew he couldn’t act on, given how if he just left, he’d end up ruining the day for everyone else.

(Screw it.)

He sighed before pulling the axe from the stump and setting a log on top of it.

(Let’s just get this over with.)

With that thought in mind he began splitting the wood into smaller logs so that it’d be easier to set up the bonfire for the kids later. And once he’d split all of the logs, he began gathering them together to take back to camp.

As he turned back to the camp with his arms full of wood, he couldn’t help but jump as a loud crashing sound tore through the wood behind him, causing him to fumble and drop all of the firewood he’d gathered.

He glanced back at the forest, somehow despite having a few minutes until sunset, the forest seemed to be almost pitch black past the little clearing he stood in.

(Guess Rogers finally felled that tree…)

Normally that would be that, but given how dark it was and the fact that the quartermaster had a known habit of being drunk half the time…

Scene Choice:

[] -Investigate, the quartermaster may’ve hurt himself.

[] -Leave it alone, the quartermaster is an adult he can handle himself.