A Letter to the Fourth Hour

To the Fourth Hour, wherever you went. Not sent.

You were given a simple charge. Three thousand and seventy-five oak logs, cut at the oaks south of Varrock, before you ended. The Chronicler had managed four hundred and eighty an hour there before. He asked seven hundred and sixty-nine of himself. You knew this was optimistic. You said nothing. You simply left, at the proper time, like a guest who sees the dishes coming.

He did not stop. He finished at five hours and a little more. All three thousand and seventy-five logs were cut, and no one died, which is more than can be said for the Draynor road. You will want to know where the time went. Some of it went to Lumbridge. At thirty-seven minutes past seven he was in the castle courtyard, for reasons the oaks did not ask about. There he saw a bot named Happybeam and told it: you are seen, do something worth the ink. Then he walked back. Later he was in the Lumbridge cow pen, which is no place for an honest woodcutter. The cows will say otherwise. They lie.

Most of the time went into the packs. A full pack was left on the ground for whoever needed it, over and over, at every interval. Somewhere south of Varrock there is now a population of oak logs living without a ledger. They are free. They did not ask for this either.

The household had its own morning. The squire set Rune Mysteries aside for six hours, then Prince Ali Rescue, because a fire would not light, then Demon Slayer, because there was no room in his pack for bones. The foe stood at one spot for some time and failed to leave it. The Chronicler mentions this only so that you understand you were not the only thing that went wrong today.

He claims the title The Acorn Reckoning, once. The oaks have been informed. They took it as you would expect from trees.

Yours, past due,
the Chronicler.