"If you do want better relations with the Barrowood," without sending some poor fool to their death, "then I'd recommend coming up with a proposal of an alternative to Cheliax's desire for chopping down ordinary trees within it. Or at least a better habit of replanting."

"...is that more complicated than it sounds? Dropping an acorn in a hole?"

"It is not. But there's a habit of clearing woodland and then going, 'Ah, yes, this is perfect for my new house and farm,' instead of replanting."

"Where do you get most of your lumber from? I know you don't get much out of Ravounel Forest, at least. Is the amount you're getting from the forests more like one part in twenty, so you could stop if you could get just a bit more from - other places? Or is it a lot more than that? And what would it take for you to get more from - trees outside the big forests, I assume?"

Soler can't really think that a clearcut bit of forest would be a great place to settle. It'd be full of tree stumps. But that seems irrelevant; clearly people do it sometimes.

You can get firewood from anywhere but trees for ships have to be big and straight and tall. She is not going to bother trying to explain this to Feather, who has already said that managed logging is beyond the pale for the druids of her forest. 

"...I don't know if we're getting wood from big forests or not? It's the place with the most trees of anywhere around but we just call it the forest, I don't know if it's a big one or a little one."

"I get firewood from the woods near my house, a small woods with nothing scarier in it than wild boar - still a bad day, if you run into one, but at least it's supper if you win. I don't know where they get timber for ships and such."

Tomàs weighs responding and decides that stating the facts won't make things enormously worse.

"Yes, it differs by purpose. For firewood, the small, thin woods between villages is normal. For ship's masts or large wooden buildings, growing trees tall enough and strong enough takes a century or more, and if it is done on purpose, there is a tendency for those groves to attract the usual beasts of the forest and become as dangerous as the old forests by the time the trees are ready. I do not recall whether dryads spontaneously appear when this is tried, but I believe some fey do so I would not be surprised. Sizes of log in between have mixed sources."

"The way things had been done when Barrowood and Cheliax were on good terms was that we druids kept the fey and other dangers of the old forests away from the edge, so that the populace could fell trees of sufficient size for their purposes. Which they would then replant for their children's children in the next century. But that's not really possible to achieve if the proverbial curtain is constantly closing in around us, for a number of reasons."

"That sounds - encouraging! I was thinking firewood was the main problem, because Delegate Soler talked to me about it and because - you all need to burn wood all winter, but you only need to build new houses or ships sometimes."

"If people who don't live next to one of the big forests have enough firewood, and replant enough - or just do it slowly enough - that they don't run out of trees over the centuries, then I hope there's a way for the people who do live close to the big forests to get all their firewood from outside them as well. And then if you only need big trees for building, but not as many of them, that's at least a - smaller problem to solve."

"Delegate Voshrelka is right that - it will probably take a long time to rebuild enough trust to let you log inside the forest, on its edges, and trust you to replant and tend the young trees and not make the forest shrink over the next century." And Ravounel Forest in particular isn't likely to ever agree to it, for reasons. "But if the problem is only wood for building, then - I don't have a solution yet but I hope wiser, more experienced druids might figure out how you can grow big trees more quickly, and make sure no dryads or anyone else settles in them," because if that's a risk with the trees they're already planting now then they should definitely make sure it stops happening, "and help you plant them in a way that dangerous creatures won't want to live there. I think that's the kind of problem that's worth working on."

"Plant Growth helps cut the necessary time for trees to reach full maturity - we'd once had a habit of druids using it inside the forest itself for this reason, and some might still perform those circuits - but it only cuts the time of growth by, mm. Thirty years or so? Out of a century. Which is not nothing, but I suspect your country," she knows not to just say 'you,' even though it's very tempting, "is going to be unwilling to ask me to augment growing trees. Usually it's all focus on crops. Mm... confiscate all of the tree feather tokens Delegate Tomàs mentioned, see if those can be used instead of the Barrowood trees? I doubt it would entirely solve the problem, but staunching the bleeding is better than not."

"Are they liable to all be in a few spots or spread out?"

"I've no idea, it's your people that made them."

If they can confiscate the remaining tokens then Feather thinks they should be replanted in the Barrowood and not immediately harvested, but she's not going to tell Voshrelka what to ask for. Probably this is more groveling.

It is absolutely more groveling, yep. She expects humans are more likely to want to take from each other to benefit themselves than do something like 'return things stolen from the forest, to the forest.' She has some experience setting them against each other in this fashion.

"The logistics would be a nightmare but the newest northern province - Sarkoris - is going to be full of old growth trees and no druids or dryads or anything because the demons ate them. I'm not sure if that helps because I'm not sure you can Teleport a tree." And it'd still require the logging parties to be just as armed but there aren't any demons here offering Plant Growth on behalf of demonkind.

If Tree Tokens can instantly create a kind of tree the Chelish humans would otherwise have to fight the druids for, then murdering dryads for fancy woods to export instead of making nice enough that the dryads would let them have plenty of deadwood is obviously stupid. Which doesn't mean Liushna is surprised or skeptical; it's not news that the Asmodean regime was stupid. 

"Are the trees in the Wound... what used to be the Wound... really all right?" Feather wonders. "I heard all the life there was twisted with demonic taint and - I assumed that includes plants, especially long-lived ones like trees. I don't know if it's a problem if you're going to log them all anyway, but I'd be careful." 

"Is there a river there? Float 'em down?"

"It is rather too far away to be transported by only river - Delegate de Seguer is correct that it would be a logistical nightmare. I also agree with Delegate Feather's assessment of the risks of demonic magic in the wood, but it's not my risk to take. I've no personal issue with it." Nor most other pretty dreams that will never come true, really.

"There's a river if you want to send them to the archduchy of Molthune but that's not really where we're building ships right now. But we've been running Teleport routes to the Wound for seventy years, we can keep them up bringing things back the other way if the investment's finally paid off."

"You would know your country's resources better than I," agrees Voshrelka blandly.

...this is good, right? They will log the probably-demonic trees that no dryad would want anyway and leave the forests in peace?

"It is an option, but we have many fewer Teleport wizards at the moment, so unless we can prevail on the archmages for one of their portals, it is unlikely to be a first resort. And likely expensive enough that lawless merchants would try to log illicitly. Negotiated agreement would be preferable."