Infinite Farmer-Chapter 150: New Place

“Where did he go?” Necia screamed, looking around. “Where the fuck did he go?”

“There’s no time!” Licht leveled his crossbow, taking his last, best bone from his pouch and transforming it to a bolt. “Tulland can’t have died. But if we are going to find him, we need to fight. Block for me, Necia. I can’t miss.”

Necia nodded, her jaw set in rage and frustration. As the dirt warrior lunged at both of them again, its claws blazing just as bright as they had before Tulland had interrupted it the first time, she stood in between it and the remaining fighters, using the last dregs of her strength to hold up her shield. She had no illusions of actually blocking the attack well. There was too little left in her body for that. Instead, she was just hoping she’d survive it. Even the odds of that didn’t look good.

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Just as her shield got into position, she felt herself pushed off to the side. She snarled in anger as she saw Licht’s bolt pass overhead, only to be deflected by the monster again to explode uselessly off to the side. She felt the last of her strength eke out, bitter with the realization that they were doomed.

Then, she heard a familiar voice and saw the only face she wanted to see in the world.

“Don’t scowl.” Tulland grinned. “I got this.”

The dirt warrior reset after deflecting the bolt and came forward again. Necia watched as Tulland almost casually slapped the side of its head with his shovel, sending it staggering to the side like it had clubbed by a giant. He spun in place, smacking it again and driving it to the dirt, where it laid for a moment stunned.

Tulland crouched closer to Necia. “Hey, sorry, I had to go for a few days. Desynced and all that. Do you trust me?”

The suddenness of the question seemed to throw Necia off.

“What?”

“Do you trust me? Because…” Tulland voice dropped low. “Things are about to get pretty weird.”

“By normal standards, or yours?”

“By anybody’s anywhere.”

Necia rolled her eyes. It was about all she could move at that point.

“Then sure. Might as well.” She laid back. “Let’s see this weird.”

The Dirt Champion had struggled back to its feet now, just in time to meet the other warriors who had crept forward to take advantage of it lying prone for a moment. It tilted back its head and screamed, blowing all of them back. Then it started to glow. Its entire body was alight like a star. It dashed towards them, too fast to stop.

“Move!” Licht yelled. “It’s a suicide move! Get on your feet!”

It was much too late. By the time Necia had struggled up to one arm and Tulland had leveled his weapon, the beast was on them. It didn’t strike. It exploded in a blast of magical energy so strong that nobody at that level could have survived it. Even Tulland’s vines were nothing before it. When the light cleared, there was nothing there but scorched dust and the smell of char.

“Bloody gods of the underworld. What in the hell was that?” Licht stumbled up to where Tulland and Necia were. “It got them?”

Brist stepped forward. “There’s no one besides us for miles. It’s just us. They didn’t make it.”

“Dammit. Dammit. You Infinite bastard. That was fair? That was adhering to your little balance?”

Licht spit.

“I guess that’s upper floors for you. I’m sorry, Tulland. I’m sorry, Necia.” He pulled a conventional bolt from his pack and notched it, then went around looking for any chunks of bone. “I promise you two that we’ll give them hell.”

—

“That was your plan?” The older, darker skinned woman slapped the prime on the back of his head. “To blow them up?”

“They aren’t actually blown up. You know that. You must.” The prime rubbed the back of his head. It hurt, in the ways that were possible for him. “They are just elsewhere.”

“It’s not their safety. It’s your addiction to pageantry. You could have given that boy every single thing you gave him without a single moment’s debate with us. You absolutely could have given it up without making him and that poor System debate you for an afternoon to get it. Why are you doing this?”

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“Because I had to make sure he wanted it. He had to hear alternatives that sounded good and turn them down. Not just Tulland. The System too. Where I’m sending them isn’t a nice, gentle place. It’s a world starving for safety. In some ways, it's worse than here. They couldn’t just have chosen it. To be fair, they had to demand it.”

“Where are you sending them, anyway? Some war-torn place? He’d do well there, at this point.”

“Oh, he’d do fine anywhere, I suspect. But no, the world that called out for someone like him isn’t dying of war. It’s ill. Sick in ways that will require fighting to cure, but so much more than that besides. I’m worried he won’t be able to handle it.”

“Will that girl be there?”

“Yes.”

“Then he will handle it. If it can be handled at all, he’ll handle it to keep her safe.” The old woman smiled kindly at the scorched bit of earth where the boy had last been. “I very much like that about him.”

“I do too, for the record.”

The old woman sat down in the chair next to the prime, sighing as the pressure came off her old joints.

“So what now? There must be more changes than those that affect that boy and girl. Even if they are the only ones you care about to call up on your screen.”

“Oh, there will be plenty. A full dossier of the last several floors will be sent to every world with a warrior in the mix right away. They’ll know what having a crafter on hand did, like what they could get if they had a few farmers and smiths in the mix when their warriors went through. We’ve always allowed groups, but few worlds have ever taken advantage of it. None have put resources behind farmers, metalworkers, and the like.”

“They can’t all be irrational.”

“They weren’t. There was just no proof of the concept, before. Now there will be. The worlds that don’t get word will see the advantages through their system reports eventually, as the crafters from the worlds that intermix with their warriors. It will be common enough knowledge, soon.”

“How soon?”

“A few hundred years, at most. Almost no time at all.”

“You are smiling.” The old woman patted his leg. “I barely see you do that, anymore.”

“That’s because I’m sitting on limitless treasure. Enough advancement to push forward every world forever, and I’ve had to portion it out with an eyedropper. That is finally coming to an end, I think.”

“A good enough thing to smile about, I suppose. Congratulations. We all thought you were crazy, you know.”

“I know. Don’t worry about it. It was all worth it after all.”

—

Tulland woke up with grass in his mouth and a breeze on his skin. With sudden horror, he realized that the breeze was on all of his skin, save one small patch where his handmade pouch sat, loaded with seeds as it always was. He spat out the grass and patted his body with his hands, confirming what he already knew was true.

Yup. Naked except for a pouch, gloves, and my Farmer’s Tool. What possible reason could there be for that?

Some technicality, likely. And that it’s funny.

To you, maybe. Necia is going to… Oh, gods. Necia.

Half curious and half horrified, Tulland sat up and looked for his dungeon girlfriend, who for the first time was going to be just a normal, battle-ready girlfriend. He found her sitting on the ground, her legs tucked up against her chest and held tightly in place with her arms. It was great, embarrassing, and terrible all at once.

“Grow plants. Make me clothes. Now,” Necia said. “I mean it, Tulland.”

“But…”

“No buts. Or butts. Not like this. Get me my damn cloths in the next fifteen minutes or I’ll leave you.”

“I hate to point this out, but it would be pretty embarrassing to leave right now.”

“Try me.” There was ice in her voice. “Just try me, Lowstreet. See what I would and wouldn’t do.”

“Fine, fine. Now turn around.”

“I have to?”

“If you want shoddy vine clothing, then yes.”

Tulland planted all of his seeds. He was guessing that his talents treated an entire world as one big floor, and if so, he’d only benefit from getting a working farm as quick as possible. The soil was rich and black here, and he had high hopes for it. After his first casting of Primal Growth, he realized the soil was fully prepared to outdo it. His vines almost shot from the ground, and the trees were saplings in minutes.

“Are you fine waiting a few more minutes? If I get another half hour, I might be able to do fur instead of vines.”

“Really?”

“Really. Something’s up with the dirt here. I don’t know what.” Tulland reached down and grabbed one of the few grasses he had brought with him that still put out enough points to be worth having on hand. It crumbled in his hand, having shot up and then almost burned itself to death, drying out and then falling apart like a dead plant that had spent weeks in the hot sun. “I’ll figure it out later. For now, these trees are going to be grown in no time at all.”

“Do that then. As quickly as you can.”

An hour later, they both not only had clothes in the form of simple robes, but also food. The Infinite had been kind enough to send their cooking supplies with them, safe in Necia’s pack. They cooked it as Tulland slowly let Necia in on the story of what had happened. She was shocked for minutes to find they weren’t just on a new floor, but eventually accepted that they were actually out of The Infinite. She called it another weird Tulland thing, which seemed to help her accept it.

“What am I going to do for weapons?” Necia asked, chomping down on grain and what vegetables Tulland had chosen to mix in with the food. “For a shield. For a sword. For armor.”

“I’ll grow you some. It won’t take long, I promise.”

“What, out of wood?”

“Hey, don’t dismiss it. I grow pretty good wood these days.”

“Then grow some. How long should I expect?”

“To grow it? Tomorrow morning. To shape it into something you can wear? No idea. Probably longer.”

“What about you? What will you wear?”

“I got to keep the gloves. As for the rest, I’ll probably get another set of cedar armor. The Chimera Sleeves still work, too. If nothing else, I could wear those.”

After they ate, Tulland went and cut a few mats to sleep on from the regrown Wolfwood bark. It was cold enough out that it would have made the old him shiver. To the new him, it was just about right.

“So.” Necia reached over and gripped Tulland’s hand. “How do you think we will do here? In this new place you found for us. What’s our job?”

“No idea. Just that I’m suited for it. Or as suited as anyone else is, I guess.”

“And do you think we will do well?”

Tulland looked up at the stars. Somehow, he knew they were real.

“Yes. I think we will do very well indeed.”