Kat had finished with the digging and was sprinting back to start tossing logs. About five minutes had passed since the start of the round and March was just starting on chopping up what she'd thrown, and it was a large amount. However, the big holdup would be just how scattered everything was. Kat wasn't feeling great about the fact she was just starting to throw now, but she was almost certain the she'd make up for the time lost.
Nabras was still moving his sets of three and doing quite well. He had a nice pile on either side of his stump. It was way less then March, but it was something. Mauve had moved up to start throwing her logs the rest of the way quite some time ago, but she was only through about half of her pile, which, now Kat was looking again, was probably only about a two third's the size of March's AND she was just now starting on them.
Asteodia looked rather casual, despite the fact her movements were swift. She had worked out a great system while Kat was digging through the dirt. Asteodia would grab the second log in a pile, then kick the bottom one down the ramp she'd made. Once it left her foot, she'd drop the next one, and keep repeating until the entire stack was done. It was a swift method that did have a bit of a delay built into it while the logs started to move, but it was efficient, and her logs were all ending up in a nice line right behind her stump.
Kat could see that Asteodia had actually chopped some of her logs up already. It seemed that Asteodia was sending down just a few logs at a time and then chopping them up. This way, she didn't have a long line of logs that was costing her time just to grab… even if she was losing time in the running. Still, she had a nice pile of halves going already. They weren't in quarters yet, but Kat was sure that would be dealt with in time.
So Kat got started on the log throws while thinking of ways to further optimise things. Her throws were… mostly accurate. The large target she'd made for herself certainly helped with things, and she got better over time. Of course, logs weren't all that aerodynamic so quite a few were near misses… but the size of the hole compensated for that as Kat dialled her aim in.
*Right. So this part is pretty good. Asteodia and March have started chopping but I'm not too worried about my progress just yet. Nabras… he's going to fall behind, I think. Actually he's almost certainly behind ALREADY. He doesn't have that many more logs than I do and I took a massive break to dig that hole so I think he's out of the race. Mauve… she's probably going to have the best axe technique so perhaps she'll make up some time there.
Is there anything I can do to improve MY axe technique though? It's going to be a pain to chop things into quarters… which I guess is sort of the point. Is there any way I can work around that though? Like… would cutting them into halves one way then halves again another speed things up?
Probably? Thyme didn't say anything about the shape, just that the pieces have to be equal so if I made a line of halves then sliced them all down the centre that could work… except my axe isn't large enough. March's IS though. Perhaps that's the real benefit of having just a large axe? It lets her cut more than one log at a time. I'm not sure you could keep them in even halves, even with all the logs being the same… not if you were keeping your stump mostly intact. So that's not going to work out. Any other wise ideas?*
Kat looked over her competitors looking for any neat ideas to steal but nobody seemed to be doing anything particularly crazy just yet. Well, Asteodia's ramp was an amazing idea, but Kat didn't feel like it was much better then her hole considering she could throw the logs far enough. Other than that though, nobody was doing anything that stood out to Kat, especially when it came to optimising the chopping part.
Kat ended up spending two and a half minutes throwing logs… roughly. She'd waited for the clock at the back to show that seven and a half minutes had elapsed so it was close enough. The hole was getting decently filled as well. So she sprinted back down and got to work chopping. With the first log, she took a bit of extra time to make sure that the cut was good. Then she started speeding up. Third, fourth, fifth log. The wood would split pretty much right down the middle and the two sides would fly off to the left and right.
*Damn maybe I should build a little wall close to the stump to catch those and then cut them into four in like, two motions. Wait… do I even need a wall?* Kat moved her free hand off to the side and leaned over so that the wood should hit that hand once the log was cut. Kat then moved her tail off to the opposite side and sliced down. The would split, hit her tail and hand. Kat tried, and failed to manoeuvre them into a good spot… but she could correct that with practice. A few moments of messing around to get the log halves in a good spot then cut sliced them both and they vanished.
*What?* Kat looked around confused, she knew she was wasting time but she needed to find out what had just happened. If they vanished because she'd cut them wrong or something she needed to know. Kat couldn't see anything as she looked left or right so she turned to check how much time she'd used… when she saw four small pieces of wood directly behind her, if a ways back, just in front of the clock. *Wait… ARE THOSE THE WOOD PILES! Thyme you misleading little shit!*
Kat quickly got to work slicing the halves nearby in a few quick motions before she started to move the logs from the hole to within grabbing range of the stump. With no need to leave space around it for the halves, she could just reach over and grab each new log after the previous one vanished into thin air. Part of her wanted to go attacking the other players wood stockpiles… but not only was that rude, Kat was confident in her new method. Plus, she knew she could check out the other piles to see how close she was to winning once more time had passed.
While Kat was chopping quickly, the others were making progress. Nabras had finally started chopping up his logs, and he was using the method Kat had discarded. He'd built up little walls around his stump allowing him to collect the halves and stop them rolling too far away. Sadly for him, he hadn't quite optimised it to Kat's level, instead chopping the logs into halves for later rather than clearing it all at once. March was getting through her logs… but if Kat was watching she would be concerned for the splinters.
March was good at regulating her power most of the time… but the weight of the axe was causing her a bit of trouble. Instead of neatly splitting the logs March was closer to smashing them into halves. This sent a lot of splinters flying. Even if her technique was fast, the excess wood she was losing might mean her portions were too lopsided and wouldn't pass muster. Still, she had the most halves around her by far, so perhaps it wouldn't matter.
Mauve was just starting to work on her logs. She'd piled them up behind her for easy reach. Just by turning around and grabbing she could get a hold on a log without too many issues. It was a decent system, but would it be enough?
Asteodia though… she was looking at Kat. Being the closest to Kat, or at least, the one of two that was actually paying attention to her competitors… could see that Kat's logs were vanishing. She'd seen Kat's frantic glances around, and Kat had seemingly not noticed that attention. Asteodia could now see the slowly growing pile of quarters in the background and was wondering how she could make use of that information.
Nothing had come to her just yet. Unlike Kat she didn't have a tail to make use of. She DID however have a second axe. Asteodia wasn't sure what she could use it for. It was a bit too small to dig into the ground beside the stump and use as a backstop. Part of her wanted to put in the stump… but that might be too much damage. Asteodia decided she'd need to think on this.
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This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺