Chapter 52: Farmland
Since Iris had previously traded three light blue crystals for 2,400 points but only used 2,250 to purchase three items from the shop, she now had 10,150 points. Potato, carrot, and onion seeds cost ten points each while spinach and sweet pea seeds cost twenty points each.
Iris's quest only required her to plant one-hundred seeds, but she had enough to buy more than one-thousand of the ten point seeds. Iris felt that it would be much better to buy as many seeds as possible and plant them all. Extra food could easily be sold at market, which would then allow her to purchase more seeds next time.
It was quite likely that one package of seeds would end up with a decent harvest. For example, a packet of potatoes wouldn't just give a single potato but could result in as much as several dozen. Since this was the case, Iris felt it best to consider which ones would be the most useful.
Storage wise, potatoes were the best option with onions being a close second. Cooking wise, everything but spinach and onions would prove to be game changers. Onions were great for flavor, but weren't something you wanted to use a ton of every meal and could not be a side dish by themselves. Spinach could be eaten without cooking while fresh, but would be relegated to mostly soups after drying.
Thus, Iris bought 250 potato seeds, 250 sweet pea seeds, 200 carrot seeds, 150 onion seeds, and 150 spinach seeds. With her purchases finalized, Iris stuffed the seeds into her bag and left the house with her mates.
Caspian carried Iris to the cave system entrance and then put her on Ember's back after he transformed. Iris felt uneasy on his back and began to panic as he set off. Iris wasn't necessarily so afraid of heights that she would refuse Ember's help, but the fear of plummeting to her death if she fell off was still very real.
Thankfully, Ember was very slow and careful with Iris. He carefully adjusted as necessary to prevent Iris from falling off and didn't complain as she tightly wrapped her arms around his neck. Well, Ember couldn't speak in his beast form and he was too big for Iris to fully wrap her arms around, but still.
Ember flew above the forest until he reached the area above the river then followed it in the opposite direction of Blue Lake City. The forest was quite large, but it still did not take long while flying to reach the other side of the forest.
Soon Iris saw a large plains like area of land with sparsely growing bushes and larger plants. While it would be a shame to uproot the bushes, this was the most suitable location for planting. If she went too far from the artic wolf tribe it would be difficult to make regular trips over after all. Iris loudly exclaimed to Ember
"Here is fine. It'll take a bit of work, but we can go get the others now."
Ember swiftly turned around to go fetch back the others. When Caspian and Basil saw Ember reemerge, they began to chase behind him as Ember led them to the clearing. Ember had to fly much slower in order for Basil and Caspian to keep up. This meant that it was already high sun by the time they arrived.
Ember carefully landed when they arrived and Caspian removed Iris from his back. Iris blushed as she noticed his nudity. Once on her feet she pulled out skirts for all of them and waited for them to get dressed.
Iris pointed to the bushes and larger plants nearby as she explained
"We will have to remove those in order to transform the land to be suitable for planting. I think digging up the land for about two-hundred paces both length and width ways should be sufficient enough space.
Perhaps if you all take different jobs, the work can be finished faster. Why don't we have Caspian and Basil start with digging a trench about a hands depth deep starting along the river and make a square like this around the land. I'll let you know when you've gone far enough in on direction.
Ember, you should start by pulling up all the bushes I pointed out. Then, you can set the field on fire to burn away any plants. That'll be good for preventing weeds to some extent as well as fertilizing the field with the ashes."
The three males immediately got to work on their tasks. As Caspian was very efficient at digging in his wolf form, Iris led Basil to the other side to start a separate trench. The two could then meet their trenches in the middle after digging them long enough.
After a large square of field was outlined by the trench, it was time to set fire to the field. The water flowing through the trench served as a way to prevent the fire from spreading too far, but Iris also suggested
"Caspian, you should use ice to put out fires if they spread past the trench line. The fires inside the field area should otherwise be left to burn until they naturally go out. As ice melts from water and a large enough amount of water will put out a fire, this should be an effective countermeasure."
Ember felt this was unecessary caution. Ember was a level five beast, after all, and he had excellent control over his fire. He carefully spread fire along the field and let it steadily spread and burn. Very rarely the fire would crackle and spit flames across the trench to the otherside and Ember would stomp it out or Caspian would immediately ice the area.
Iris flinched in pain on Ember's behalf every time she saw him stomping out a fire. Since males never wore shoes, Iris could only imagine the pain she'd feel if she did the same. Still, Iris was happy to see things were progressing smoothly.
When the fire burned down, Basil and Caspian immediately got to work overturning the soil and digging the rest of the trenches that would line the field rows.
Ember was standing around unsure of how to help. His bird claws were not as suitable to digging up soil, even if he could roughly carve out stone. Iris pursed her lips as she took in Ember's uncertain expression. She then grabbed his hand as she offered
"We can go collect long grasses, wood, and vines from the forest. We do still need to make a fence and scarecrow."
Ember nodded, feeling grateful that Iris was depending on him too. Ember carefully cut the long grass and vines as they came across them and Iris put them in her bag. However, when it was time to collect wood, they had an issue.
Ember could easily knock the trees down, but when it came to carving out planks or rods, it was impossible. Iris was flexible enough that she could use either to make a fence, but it didn't matter. Ember simply didn't have any skill at carving. Thus, Iris just had Ember knock down trees and remove their leafy branches so they could bring the trunks back to the others.
As Iris looked down at the Golden rose crystal necklace she was still wearing, she began to wonder where it came from. If Ember was so bad at craftmanship then it was highly unlikely that he had made it, but he was the one who gifted it to her. Iris soon felt as if she was dying of curiosity as she broached the subject
"Hey, Ember. Where did you pick up this necklace? You don't seem capable of carving such a delicate shape as this rose from a crystal when even planks prove difficult."
Iris flinched at her poor wording, but Ember didn't look mad. Rather, Ember looked very sad as memories of the past seemed to swirl around in his eyes. He sighed as he explained
"When I was young, my mother died and, with her, her mates including my father. The rose was carved by one of my father beasts as a gift to her. Since most of my siblings died growing up during the cold season, I ended up with it.
The tribe witch doctor had taken us in, but witch doctors are rarely strong enough to hunt sufficient prey by themselves to feed so many cubs. I was just one of the lucky ones."
Iris was shocked to hear such a sad thing from the strong and overly passive Ember. She quietly apologized
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked....."
Ember gave her a small smile as he replied
"Don't worry about it, love. That was the past, I'm over it now."
Before long, Ember was carrying a comically large stack of tree trunks in his arms as they headed back to the field. Iris was pleasantly surprised to see that Caspian and Basil worked well together and already had most of the work finished.
Ember set down the logs and went off to collect more while Iris remained with the others. Caspian came walking over to Iris and Iris explained
"These are for the fence. Ember isn't good at crafting things. I just need them carved into planks and then the top half should be carved into a pointed shape. If we dig out another trench along the outside of the field we can push the planks in and then fill it back in with soil. We'll need to leave a gap for us to enter from, but, otherwise, it'll make a sufficient fence.
I also brought vines and long grass. If I use some animal skin, sinew, grass I can make a sort of scarecrow. I'd like it if you could make me some buttons from stones. They'll need to be thin and round with four holes to thread sinew through.
After the scarecrow is done, I'll attatch it to a plank with vines and then it'll be placed in the field similarly to how the fence planks are put in. I might need more than one scarecrow for this size field, though. Hmmm.... Maybe four would suffice?"
Caspian listened intently to Iris. As he considered her words, he decided to call Basil over. Basil was a beastman and had excellent hearing so he had heard everything and easily understood when Caspian offered
"I'll finish the field and work on the fence. Show Basil how to do the scarecrows and he can help you make them."
With that, everyone quickly got to work. Basil easily caught onto how to make the scarecrows as he watched Iris work. Luckily, Basil was quite talented at sewing and carving the stone buttons and planks. His thread was in neat lines and tightly pulled. His buttons were perfectly thin and rounded allowing eyes for the scarecrow to be easily made.
As a fishbone needle is too thick, the sinew had to be hand threaded through the button holes. This too, Basil easily did, with his excellent beast sight, he even had an easier time than Iris. With Basil's help, they easily finished before Caspian even finished the fence.
"Alright, well, there will only be sunlight for so many more hours. We should work on planting the seeds while we can. Since Ember and Caspian are still hard at work, we will start with just the two of us.
We should organize the planting so that alike plants are in the same area and can easily be differentiated between one another."
Iris quickly pulled out all of the potato seeds first. The shop had packaged them in animal hide that was seen up with the words 'potato seeds' sewn into one side. Iris had to admire the system's commitment to making things look like they fit into the beast world.
Basil went to one end of the field and carefully planted potato seeds as Iris had instructed while Iris planted sweet peas on the other side. Iris felt it best to have sweet peas on a far side so it would be easy to remember to build trellises for them later on.
Iris also made a mental note to attatch the empty seed containers to wooden poles and place them in the appropriate rows later on. It would be the first thing she'd ask Caspian to attend to once he finished with the fence.
When Ember finished collecting logs, he joined Caspian by putting the prepared planks in the ground. He may be unable to carve the planks from logs, but he could easily bury planks in the pre-dug trenches and push soil in to bury the planks.
This made the fence building go much faster and allowed the two to help with the planting when it was about half finished. Caspian quickly got to work making poles and pushing them into the soil as Iris directed. Ember helped Basil with the planting as directed.
As the poles with seed type specifications took little time to finish, they were soon all four planting seeds. This sped the who process up and allowed them to finish by sunset. Still, the plants would need watered before Iris would be satisfied. Thus she asked
"Caspian, can you handle the watering? Don't use too much water or you'll drown the seeds. Just use enough to make the ground damp. I hate to make you do all the work, but it's already getting late and we should really sort out dinner."
Caspian easily agreed, used to working alone to finish harder tasks while Iris made dinner. Basil placed Iris on Ember's back and they headed home. When they returned, Ember would go out to hunt while Basil entertained Iris. Then Basil and Iris would cook dinner while Ember kept guard. This would prove to be their new normal for their everyday routine.
Basil and Caspian we're happy to help with hunting, but Ember felt it was best for him to do so most of the time. He simply was not as suited to other tasks as well as the others, but he still wanted to contribute in the ways he could.
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AutumnPlunkett
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