Krafft's Notes on Anomalies

"The lumber camp is almost here, and we can still ride horses on the way here." The old butler rode a manor draft horse ahead, looking back at the team from time to time.

The result of multitasking was being slapped on the forehead by a low birch branch. His face was covered with an ownerless spider web dripping with dew, and it also carried two withered leaves.

"Hey!" He lowered his head, shook off the water droplets that had not yet soaked into his clothes, and lifted away the cobwebs. "Normally, there are not many people riding horses, so there is no one to clean up these things. Be careful to bump your head in the back!"

"Pong!"

As soon as he finished speaking, there was a buzzing sound of hitting the metal shell in the team, followed by the sound of branches breaking and leaves falling, and they were soon trampled by horse hooves. I don't know whose helmet directly broke the crossbar blocking the road.

Just as Martin was about to give a warning, a handful of leaves slapped his helmet, causing water droplets to drop on his face.

It’s really not a good idea to enter on horseback for the sake of speed. This road is probably a trail that loggers have walked all year round. The part that is higher than an adult’s head is still in a wild state.

Compared with the relatively "clean" forests in the north, the forests of Westminster show the same complicated and detailed style as the local nobles and buildings, filling the spaces between trees with a large number of shrubs, tall grass, and horizontal branches. Compared with their hanging rattan curtains, this clear path is more like a slender undersea tunnel passing through the sea of ​​leaves.

Theoretically, their path should be along the river, but they could only occasionally see the dark water under the shadow of the trees that blocked the sky in sparse places, slowly drifting with fallen leaves and driftwood with branches removed.

Based on this vegetation density, further into the forest area there are no paths at all. It is a daydream to ride a horse deep into the forest, and there is no place for people to show off their riding skills. At most, they can lead a few load-bearing horses to accompany them, carrying equipment, tents and other heavy objects.

After a journey where they had to keep their heads down, they came to a clearing cut out by the river beach. A few wooden houses and simple fences are all the facilities in this logging camp in the forest.

There were piles of tree trunks that had just been cut down and those that had been basically processed in the fence. The branches were shortened and piled up, and they were placed next to the house.

Hearing the sound of horse hooves, a few people who were pruning and peeling tree trunks and preparing to go into the water raised their heads. They were surprised to see a large group of riders filing out of the forest. The small venue was crowded with people and horses.

One of them, who looked older, came up to the butler. He hesitated to speak when he saw the exaggerated formation. After thinking about it, he realized that he shouldn't be carrying the ax in his hand. He quickly put it down while holding down the young woodcutter who was looking curiously.

"Sean, these are... the knights from the city." The butler dismounted, climbed over the fence, and called the other party's name familiarly, "Don't be nervous, I'm not here to come to you. I just answer the questions truthfully."

Kraft tied up the horse and followed the lumberyard. He happened to hear this conversation and felt that there was some subtle sense of déjà vu emerging, as if he had seen it in some literary and artistic works.

"Have you seen any stranger activities in the woods?" Today, Martin's clothes did not show the attitude of "don't be nervous" and "just ask". The full armor on his body brought a great sense of oppression, more like I came here to find someone to do something about it.

In fact, they did have this consideration. In the worst case scenario, they thought about being attacked just like Diego when they entered the forest, just in time to teach these pagans what professionalism meant.

He even guessed that there were pagan outposts in the lumberyard, and wanted to see if he could deceive one or two of them.

But for now, it's business as usual in the forest along the way. Martin glanced at the few people who were bewildered with tools and found no unusual movements. They seemed to be just a group of ordinary loggers.

"I haven't seen it before. Few people in the town come here. We are the only ones who go in." Sean gave a negative answer after only thinking about it for a moment. "What's more, the forest is so big, it's hard to meet anyone." .”

"What about the traces of people passing by? Overwhelming grass, shrubs, remnants of camping." Looking back and forth on several people, Martin hoped that someone could give him some clues, or that they could be clues themselves.

This is not the grove outside the city where Diego died, but the real forest, where the pagans may not even need to hide. If you don't have a direction and search aimlessly, let alone more than 30 people, even 300 people will have no effect.

However, the lumberjacks' faces were filled with confusion and fear of violence, and no one could answer his question. Finally, the older Sean stood up and explained tentatively: "We are just a group of tree cutters, not hunters. We don't understand these things..."

"What about other abnormal things? For example, mushrooms that grow particularly vigorously."

They probably hadn't seen it before. They just kept shaking their heads and passively responded to one unclear question after another.

Kraft listened to several rounds of sterile conversations, walked away with no interest, and took Coop to wander around the lumberyard the size of his yard.

The conditions here are indeed primitive. When clearing the site, they did not dig out the tree stumps on the ground, leaving them in place and becoming natural benches or part of the fence. As for the trees themselves, they may have become part of the wooden house.

Except for a small area where dried fruits are spread out, the rest of the area is basically filled with piles of wood to be processed.

The trees that Kraft knew and were famous for were birches, pine trees, and the like. Most of them were calf-thick, with a layer of green bark, moss that grew in the damp environment under the trees, and small branches that had not been completely pruned.

Judging from the process, it should be that the residual branches are first cut off with a small axe, put into a more regular pile next to it, then peeled and trimmed, and pushed into the river for rafting.

"The quality of this wood is quite good." Kraft patted the burred wood through his gloves. With such abundant resources, the construction project here must be much more convenient, "But these are all Is it a small tree?"

"All forests within the territory and all animals and output in the forest belong to the Duke." The manor steward also came to the wood pile, selected the needed ones and marked them, "However, the Duke is very generous and allows the use to be no more than Trees a hand wide and thicker still remain important properties in Westminsterburg.”

"Okay." Kraft understood. It turned out that this was not the duke's property. From the current perspective, it was indeed generous. After all, many North Kingdom versions of Grandet were required to pay taxes even when they went into the forest to collect firewood.

He walked towards the river and kicked a cylindrical object at his feet. The thing rolled out a few steps and got stuck on a stone on the river beach. It turned out to be a small piece of cut jujube wood. The side looked like it had good wood. It was a material that could be used to make the wooden structure of a crossbow machine. It was somehow abandoned on the ground. .

There are still many such abandoned pieces of wood on the ground, discarded randomly everywhere.

"Huh?" Out of curiosity - more out of boredom, Kraft kicked a piece into the air, stood upright on the ground with his feet, and discovered the reason why they were not used.

A light brown spot spreads from the heart of the tree, breaking off the layers of growth rings, occupying almost a quarter of the cross-section.

The wood in the stain is obviously different from other parts. It is softer and cannot bear stress. It seems that some kind of disease has spread from the heart of the tree and eaten away at the inside. Perhaps the loggers thought it was just a small piece of the problem at first, but when they cut off section after section, they discovered that not a single part of the entire log survived.

Kraft knelt down and observed carefully, and found that the light brown color came from the mixture of white and the texture of the wood fiber itself, creating such a color.

Scattered on the ground were several types of wood sections from different trees, all of which were unusable due to such defects and had to be cut into pieces and discarded.

“Where did all this wood come from?”

"Ah? These are useless pieces of wood. Don't look at their special color. They are actually very loose and useless..." Sean, who was dealing with Martin's various questions, felt that he had been pardoned and finally knew something. .

"No, I asked where it came from!"

Startled by the suddenly raised voice, Sean short-circuited for a few seconds and replied in a low voice, "Chopped in the woods."

Seeing that Kraft's expression was getting worse, he quickly tried to remember, "The manor wants better wood. We went deeper to look for it. We didn't pick it privately."

"Take us there and see."

"But it's quite far away, so we can only walk there."

"Then get ready to go." Kraft took an ax and chopped it down at the upright wooden section. The continuous color-changing strips on the profile ran from the beginning to the end, with fine wire mesh interspersed among them. "I promise you, The rewards will be great.”

I saw a Chinese-style Cthulhu short story called "The Mirage" on the Cthulhu Mythos forum. I felt that it imitated the style of "Bahu's Herd" and "Black Tai Sui" by oobmab boss, which is quite good (* σ`)σ