Infinite Farmer: A Plants vs Dungeon

The lid of the splicer flew open as Tulland dumped the seed out into his hand, grinning ear to ear. Even while he knew he should, he found it hard to care about the fact he had just taken a giant risk to develop a yet-useless plant. But this just felt right, somehow.

He rushed over to his farm and planted the seed immediately, clearing some nearly useless bushes out of the way to give it room. The seed itself didn’t seem to want anything particular beyond moist, nutritious soil, which he had tons of.

“How do you get so excited about plants?” Necia propped herself up on her elbow and watched as Tulland took his hoe to the soil. “I mean I get they help you survive, but even so.”

“I don’t know. Honestly, back home, I wouldn’t have cared. Not a bit. But here, somehow, it’s more important,” Tulland said.

“It’s the class.” Ley sat up, rubbing his eyes. “You’re a Farmer. That goes further than skin deep, you know. I wasn’t born absolutely loving learning little details about people’s tactical implications. It was a hobby at best. And now, after a lifetime in the class out there and months of reinforcing it in here, I can’t even see someone’s shoes without understanding what kind of traction they give. It’s insidious.”

“I still don’t get how that’s okay. It feels like mind control.”

“It’s… I mean, it’s boring. It’s just that you are getting soaked in the essence of being a Farmer at all times, and that has the same effect any new experience would. I think whatever authority in charge of every System just decided it would be weirder if that didn’t make a difference.”

“Well, I’m in it now anyway. It’s not like hating farming will help me any.”

“What about your plans for the day? Just more farming?”

“What is this?”

“Grains and fruit. We have more rations than we’re going to need for the time being. I figured you two might be able to buy something with if. And this one is for Licht, and this is for White. I figured both of them have been close enough to allies that some extra can’t hurt.”

“You know this is an uncountably valuable wealth, right?” Ley bounced the bag on his hand. “I could buy anything with this.”

“Good. Then do. Remember that I need fertilizer, if you can find it. Otherwise, just keep in White’s line-of-sight and have fun.”

Once they were gone, Tulland threw some random combinations of things into his splicer, hoping to get lucky. If nothing else, he had so many possible combinations to get through that he needed to keep the Splicer cooking at all times to even have a chance of maxing out its potential.

The only real hangup was a general shortage of interesting fertilizers, but even that was something Tulland had some ideas about. Today felt like a small-amounts-of-blood from his finger day, and after a quick cut he had a Lunger Briar, a Giant’s Hair, and an Acheflower going.

After that, he was back to work on the seeds. Four hours passed with him grinding the ever-loving hell out of the seeds, boring two holes in each broken pit half and tossing them into a pile. Like all things, it was something that practice made him better at. He slowly gained speed boring the holes, and after his previous shift doing just that, he had a pretty sizeable pile ready to go.

After getting some leather twine made by cutting strips from a Wolfwood tree, he bound what he had together, then got back to work.

“Still at it? Is that all you are doing?” Necia asked after what felt like hours had passed.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

“It’s all I can do. Besides growing the farm. I’m up to over a thousand farm points now, which seems like progress,” Tulland said.

“Then good. I’m going to bed. If it’s okay, I’ll show you what I bought tomorrow. I’m just much sleepier than I thought I’d be.”

“No worries. I have work to keep me company.” Tulland yawned. “What I wouldn’t give for a real tool for this.”

“Actually, I can help with that.” Ley appeared at the door holding a long, sharpened metal spike. “One of the guys who used to live here had a nasty, nasty class. White got this off him somehow, and was willing to trade it for some of your grains. Enjoy.”

Most of the time, Tulland wasn’t able to even pick up other people’s weapons. The exception had been the dagger Necia had traded him for his first ever Wolfwood fur bag, which the Dungeon System considered to be enough of a tool that it didn’t stop him from using it. To his very great surprise, the Dungeon System gave him the same benefit of the doubt with the long, handle-less metal spike he got from Ley, allowing him to handle it at least long enough to dig a hole, sink in a big rock, then wedge the spike on top of it pointing upwards. When he took a seed to it in that position, it bored a hole in less than a quarter of the time.

“This is amazing, Ley. Thank you,” Tulland said.

“No problem. I got some good stuff for my class as well. And Licht bought out every animal bone in the place. It’s a good day to be your friend.

Five more hours came and went before Tulland finally had enough seeds, and could finally stop spending the majority of his magic on just growing fruits to steal pits from. Throwing the rest of his stock of mystical power into several Clubber Vine seedlings that were just breaking the soil, he rubbed his tired eyes, decided that it wasn’t really worth it to keep pretending he was going to get a good night’s sleep that day, and started working on his armor in earnest.

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It was going to look stupid. That was the first thing he had realized when he thought about ways he could up his armor game. The pits looked just like fruit pits normally did. They’d never be beautiful. But they were as hard as rocks and legitimately hard for even Necia to break. By the time he finished the project, he had figured out how to use a rock and the spike to split them himself, but it was a near thing.

They also didn’t weigh much. Even stringing dozens of them together with leather strips left him with a light object, one that wouldn’t encumber him much. The leather also made the entire apparatus pretty flexible, something like wooden chain mail that didn’t hinder his movement much.

Where his old armor set had been almost solid wood and had long since stopped giving anything but a token defense against attacks, he had high hopes that this set would do much better while still letting him move around faster. The Dungeon System appeared to agree.

Two of the skill levels went to produce armament, just as he had expected they would. He was pleased to see that one of them went to Market Wagon, and had some ideas about testing the absolute limits of that he would let wait until morning.

The stat points from his level ups went into his force, as was becoming habit for Tulland. He glanced at his new armor, almost resisting the siren’s call of trying it out. He didn’t make it. This was the kind of thing he just wasn’t adult enough to say no to.

A few minutes later, he was out in the yard, waving his pitchfork around like an idiot.

You seem to be enjoying yourself. It’s better?

Much better. I can move. I hadn’t even realized how bad the old armor was. I can move in this.

It looks terrible. Unbelievably so.

Yes it does. But my uncle once told me not to care about that kind of thing, and I’m beginning to think he was right.

“That is, by a wide margin, the ugliest armor I’ve ever seen. It must be good,” Licht said when he popped out of a nearby shadow.

Tulland didn’t even flinch. “Licht! Yes. It’s very good. At least by my standards. I can’t wear what most people could.”

“I figured it was something like that. I’m pretty good at having my finger on the pulse around here if you haven’t noticed. Tulland wearing terrible armor all the time was a hard thing to miss.”

“Figures. Are you coming around for any reason in particular?”

“To thank you for the food, actually. In a substantial way, if you’ll let me.”

Tulland stowed his pitchfork and moved towards the fence.

“What kind of help are we talking about?”

“Information, mostly. First, some stuff I suspect you’d want details on. White is about to go challenge the ninth floor. That’s an individual level, and those are usually pretty short. He should be back by the time you get back from your next floor, if I’ve got the timing worked out. You’ll be safe until he leaves for the tenth, but…”

“But then I’ll be in trouble. With Halter.

“That’s right. Now, you already know you want to get as strong as possible. I’m here to tell you that this probably won’t be enough.”

Tulland had that same feeling, but had just about argued himself out of it by them.

“Really? Because I beat him once.”

“So I’ve heard. But he’s had plenty of time to prepare since then. And if I don’t miss my guess, he’s been having lucky breaks on his floors so far. He’s talented. Talented people don’t stay down for long.”

“Comforting.”

“Sure. But here’s my thought, and I’ve thought about this a lot the last few days. Have you considered tackling the eighth floor early?”

“I thought I’d be better off doing that once I used up my ten days.”

“And that’s probably true. But with that rogue on your tail, you might not have the luxury.” Licht looked around, spotting someone walking in the distance. “Your call, but it’s your best bet, at least to my best guess.”

“Thanks, Licht.”

Licht also tossed over a small bag. “No problem. And this is for you. I don’t know how it was on your world, but bones on my world were sometimes ground up for fertilizer. I don’t know if these are any good, but I couldn’t use them. I figured you might find some good in them.”

“Thanks, Licht. I appreciate it.”

As Licht walked away, all the fatigue of day finally hit Tulland in a way he couldn’t ignore. On his way in, he took a look at his new tree, which said that it was just fine with being given some powdered bone to grow with, and then went to bed.