Infinite Farmer: A Plants vs Dungeon

The next morning, Tulland woke up to very unhappy muscles. Each and every one of them screamed to let him know how much they disapproved of his activities the day before. Some of them favored cramping while others were content to settle for a dull, uncomfortable burn, but every single one of them was discontent in their own individual way.

It doesn’t even make sense. I could have recovered from a lost limb by now. Why should I be sore?

I’m not sure. The best theories I ever heard on the matter was that your mind won’t give up the belief that you should be sore from certain levels of exertion, and makes the pain real to you as a way of arguing the point.

How can you not know this? It’s a System thing, right?

No. It’s a human thing. And even The Infinite is likely far from understanding every aspect of your people.

Tulland spent several long, painful minutes stretching out the worst of his psychosomatic pain and getting ready for his day before turning to his cooking area to prepare breakfast. He decided to assume both he and Necia would want double portions that morning, not just to make up for their activity the day before but also to reward themselves for surviving it.

He was just about done cooking when the next system notification rolled in.

<+

Splicing Complete! (Chimera Sleeve)

The splice you have just completed is a cooperative effort across three of your experiment chambers. Combining the progenitor of all of your briars with the carnivorous, animal-hybrid Lunger Briars and the hardier, more battle-competent Clubber Vines has created something new, a more autonomous botanical force that seeks out its own prey, that fights using its own set of instincts, and that has more options than any previous vine about how it pursues those goals.

Unlike your other plants, the Chimera Sleeve is considered alive even after being picked, and can be replanted if it avoids destructive levels of damage during its time away from the soil.

+>

“Oh. Huh.” Tulland took the seed to his garden right away and used his thumb to push it deep into the loose soil. His intuition didn’t have any special insight on how to optimize the soil for it, outside of the fact that a little of the leftover porridge wouldn’t hurt. “This is going to be good, I think.”

“That new seed? What does The Infinite say it is?”

“It wasn’t very exact. It’s a new briar. More… self-driven, or something? I’m going to grow it as fast as possible.”

Usually, Tulland was pumping as many plants as he could get his Primal Growth skill to cover, broadcast-style. It was a more efficient use of his magic power, and the sum of what every plant got was much higher than what he could give to an individual plant by itself. But whatever the little Chimera Sleeve seed was, it was making his senses go crazy. Mostly it just felt hungry. Magically so. He couldn't do a lot for the seed besides feeding it all the mystic power he owned. It took it. Even after letting himself recharge over the rest of his breakfast and his morning quiet time with Necia, he still didn’t have enough to quite top it out, although it was close.

That’s exciting though, right? It bodes well that it’s eating so much power. Tulland was almost cheerful as he walked towards his morning beating with Brist. He might not be able to do very much to the boxer still, but having a new kind of vine growing and promising all sorts of farm value points and new tricks up his sleeve, he was hopeful that might change.

“Hi.” Brist stood up as Tulland approached his spot in the empty space outside of town. “Ready?”

“Sure.”

Tulland guessed that Brist was going to attack immediately after he said “sure,” that he’d burst up from the ground swinging. He was wrong. Brist actually started attacking before he was done saying that single word. By the time Tulland reacted at all, the man had crossed half the distance between them and there was no time left to even think about getting out of the way.

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Looks like it’s new plan time.

This is stupid.

Quiet.

As Brist’s big fist came up toward’s Tulland’s head, his forehead dropped to meet it. He flexed his knees, putting as much weight downward as he could. He expected this might ruin whatever angle Brist was trying, but that it would make the blow hurt more. Tulland wouldn’t have even tried it if Brist had been wearing his spiked metal plates, even though the man claimed it didn’t make a big difference for fights at this level.

It did hurt more. A lot more. Tulland was immediately reeling from the hit, barely holding on to his consciousness as he staggered back from the punch and fully aware there was nothing he could do to stop the followup. The only thing that saved him from it was that the second punch didn’t actually exist. Instead, he looked up to see Brist grinning at him like an idiot. ȒÀ₦óꞖЁ𝐒

“That, kid, was the wrongest way to do that and maybe the only way it could have possibly worked. You aren’t supposed to stop the other guy’s fist with your face, you know? It’s sort of the opposite of what this whole thing is about.”

“But I kept my feet,” Tulland countered.

“That you did. You had to get lower than the force, or at least add some slack to increase the reaction time. There are better ways to do it than what you did. I take it you weren’t much for sports, before you got your class?”

“Not much. I fished with my uncle.”

“Well, no problem. That’s the kind of thing we can beat into you. Ready?”

“Ready.”

The rest of the day was instructional, in a way that justified the word. Brist would hit him and there would be nothing that Tulland could do about it, and then the man would explain how he had done it. Then he’d pound Tulland until he could sometimes dodge the punch when he knew it was coming, then threw it again in a different way he didn’t know how to deal with.

Once Tulland could dodge five or so different kinds of punches pretty consistently, or at least keep them from blasting him off of his feet, the boxer started chaining them together into combinations, letting Tulland learn how to dodge them in sequence. As much as Brist said his strength score wasn’t that high, he consistently hit Tulland in ways that hurt like hell, and the pain alone was enough of a motivator to keep him learning at a pace faster than he thought he could.

Back home, his tutor had once told him the way to get better at stones was to play with people who were better than he was at it. Tulland had played his tutor many times, and there was no question but that the old man was much better at it than he was. Still, Tulland had never gotten that much better, and had doubted the old man’s philosophy on improvement. Here, with Brist, he was finding that he probably just sucked at stones.

“You learn fast,” Brist commented after one semi-successful bout from Tulland’s end.

“Doesn’t seem that way.” Tulland hadn’t quite been able to get up from the last hit. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. Sometimes a punch would catch him in the chin in a way he couldn’t come back from quickly, and though Brist had made him fight through that several times, this time he had let him collapse to recover. “Seems like we just had to stop to make sure my regeneration puts my brain back together for the fifth time today.”

“That’s how it goes. You don’t have any of your little tricks right now, and I know the things those vines can do. But you’ve been getting better all day.”

“Guys like you would still beat me to death.”

“If you were stupid enough to fight him. Listen to me here. The point is not to beat a guy like me at my own game. That’s not possible. The point is to keep a guy like me from playing my own game long enough for you to play yours. You don’t let me do the things you want, and you surprise me with your tricks. That’s how a guy like you wins. I’ve seen that before, and it was a pain in the ass.”

“Didn’t kill you, though.”

The big man winced.

“No. But it killed a division of our army, keeping me tied up. I burned down half a castle. Made sure people thought that was a bad idea in the future.”

The rest of the day was more of the same, punctuated by a few breaks for Tulland to run back and dump his magic stocks into his plants. Eventually, Brist had been able to convince him not to waste magic enhancing his plants for combat. His theory, which was proving true, was that it was better for Tulland to be more handicapped. The bigger the difference between them was, the faster he learned.

“Better day?” Necia snuggled in as they sat in the dark, mostly empty house. “You seem less tired.”

“I’m less frustrated. I learned more, I think.” Tulland twisted his neck, letting the joints pop. “I don’t know that my body is any better. Worse, probably. But the pain doesn’t feel as bad when it’s for something.”

“I know what you mean. Halfway through the day, the blocking started to click in a way it hadn’t before. These people are better than my teachers back on my world were. They teach in a different way. I’m actually getting better, for once. It’s like it’s making all that time I spent on my home world matter, finally.”

Tulland drained the last of his food from his bowl and grimaced at it.

“I know I shouldn’t be bellyaching, but this food is terrible.” Tulland glared at his cup of nearly tasteless mush. No matter how they cooked it now, whatever combination they chose, it all tasted like mashed paper after a while. “Somehow it tasted better when we were still climbing floors.”@@novelbin@@

“It was a smaller part of your day,” Necia said. “Don’t worry, we’ll be climbing soon enough. For now, just let your farm grow. Learn whatever you can.”

Tulland nodded, put his dish to the side, and then laid back and let the sleep creep in. It was an easy thing to do. But even now, he could tell that most of the important things he’d accomplish in this stretch of safe zone were already done. He’d have to repeat them and reinforce what he had done, sure, but it would all be the same. He resolved to make it count, fully prepared to let some days blur together in pursuit of the strength they’d need.