Infinite Farmer: A Plants vs Dungeon

Tulland and Necia ate a long, silent breakfast together. It was almost the end of it before Tulland could bring himself to speak.

“What if they send more?” Tulland asked.

“Does your System think they will?” Necia set down her bowl. “It’d have some insight into it. He was there for the founding of that Church. I presume it’s kept an eye on things since.”

“I can check.”

Likely not. Now that they’ve made a token effort with a force much larger than the simple people of your island could have imagined mustering themselves, the Church will say there is nothing they can do. It will be honest, just as it always would have been, but this time the honesty will hide their lies.

What about the threat of… well, you? Presumably people will still think you are out there somewhere. You sort of are.

They will wave leaves and chant rituals. They will claim to be resealing me, then claim a limited victory, saying they have driven me away.

And people will believe it?

For that island, it will be true in function. You would find that Ouros from now on has a much stronger cleric in residence than it ever did before, someone much more sensitive to my movements and much more capable of stopping them before they advance. Or you would if you ever returned there, that is.

No…. Tulland?

The System had, for a moment, given Tulland the feeling it gave when it was about to run from a conversation.

Yes?

I don’t know if this will ring true, but I never would have done this if I knew how it would feel to see those fools wander into this floor, not knowing what they had got into. It isn’t just that, either. I wouldn’t have done this if I had known what you were.

And what’s that?

A friend. Not to me, I know. I understand why. There’s no way to neutralize the enmity you must have for me, but I’ve seen you be a friend to others. I know what you could have been on your old world, even without a class, if you just had enough time. If I had taken the time to understand that, this never would have happened.

Tulland was stuck. He couldn’t respond. There was no response to he could think of that would make this better, or even that could make it worse.

I’m sorry. That’s all.

“Tulland? You don’t look great. You didn’t look great before, but…”

“Sorry. Just something the System said.”

“That guy? I don’t even understand why you are dealing with it anymore. I really don’t. I know I say it a lot.”

“In a way…” Tulland sighed and moved to what amounted to their kitchen to wash out his bowl. “In a way, it’s my oldest friend. My only enemy and my oldest friend. It’s confusing. I admit it’s confusing. It’s just how it is. Sometimes I think you just have to believe someone might be sorry.”

“How can you know, though? How can you really know? Answer that for me.”

“I said might.” Tulland shook his head. “I mean you have to believe someone might be sorry. You never know, not until they betray you again or never do. But if you don’t think they might…”

“They don’t get a chance? I don’t see the problem with that,” Necia said.

“No. I mean you don’t get a chance. To offer that. To be stronger than they were. To let them betray you again, but it doesn’t matter this time because you are too strong to hurt. Or to let them get better. It’s you doing it, you know? Because you got better.”

Necia put down her bowl and rubbed her eyes.

“And you think that’s you?”

“I think I want it to be. I doubt I’m who I want to be yet, you know? But if the system ever decides to cash in on what I am, I want to be able to say no.”

“I don’t want to be negative about this. I really don’t. But you do understand that this involves you going up against what amounts to picking a fistfight against a god and winning?”

“I do.” Tulland finished cleaning Necia and his bowl, shook the water out, and then set them upside down to dry. “And I’m aware the odds aren’t great, but I’m going to give it a try.”

—

The next day, everyone seemed antsy. Tulland found himself hurrying through his morning bath and meal, just in case the look of unsettled impatience on the face of everyone he saw was an indication of when he could expect the next floor’s activity to hit. The people of the safe zone had clearly been shaken by the cleric group’s defeat, and counterintuitively seemed ready to move forward because of it.

Do you see it too?

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I do. Warriors are often that way. When they are unsettled, they look for something to do. Something they understand to replace the bits and pieces of things they don’t.

The farm was doing well, and although the slow-growing Dark Steel Cedars he had created were still not ready, they were beginning to gain some momentum, growing faster and faster as they got larger and larger. He had no hopes of making anything useful of them at their current size, but taking as a given that he’d survive the next floor they would probably be ready for him when he got back.

It was no surprise, then, when between one blink and the next his early afternoon laziness was suddenly shifted to a view of a large stone castle in the distance, with the remaining troops of the safe zone mingling about, trying to get their bearings.

“Thought so.” White looked up towards Potter, grim. “It’s finally happening.”

“What?” Tulland looked from face to face, noting that Potter and the few military-minded planner types he kept around him seemed to all be in a kid of pessimistic agreement. “What’s happening?”

“Rebalance.” Potter shook his head. “How many archers do they have, Licht?”

“More than us. Far more, and that’s just what I can see right now. They have long-range bows, so they won’t be much of an issue from up close. From a distance, behind fortifications, they’ll be real trouble.”

“Ah.” Necia nodded. “Tulland, we’ve always been melee heavy, as a group. That’s been fine, so far. We were in situations where that helped us.”

“Here, there’s just me, Potter, and a few others who can fight at range.” Licht took imaginary aim at the walls. “We can take down some of the archers, but not as quick as they take us down, which means their melee troops will be at an advantage. At several, really. Morale. Lack of distraction.”

“Softened up.” White shook his head. “The Infinite is making a real effort at reducing our numbers here.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it?” Tulland asked.

“Not if I’m reading this summary correctly. The plan seems to be to force us to accept big losses to defeat their excursion forces. If we don’t do that well enough, the final siege will bring even more losses before we breach the wall. Either way brings heavy losses.”

“Nothing we can do? No planning?” Tulland looked at Potter hard, hoping to find a spark of optimism within the darkness on his face. There was none that he could see. “We just have to be okay with losing most of us to this level?”

“That appears to be the plan, son.” White looked sad, more than anything. “The fact that it hasn’t happened yet has mostly been a function of you and what you can do. It tends to be unexpected enough that The Infinite can’t adjust for it and still claim to be fair. But unless you can open up your seed bag and find a way to get rid of that castle and give us an approach to it at the same time, I don’t see much hope.”

Tulland looked down at his seed bag. It could do a lot of things, but making a castle disappear wasn’t one of them. Necia gently guided him off to the side and took his hands in hers.

“I’ll be fine. I’m basically an archer’s worst nightmare.” Necia reached her hand up to Tulland’s cheek and let it rest there. “And so long as you stay behind me, you will too. A little selfishness is okay here, Tulland. Earned, even. We’ll survive this.”

“I believe you.” He did. If Necia thought she could block for both of them, he was willing to accept that as fact. “It’s just that I should be able to do more.”

“Tulland, this isn’t a two-day dungeon. You can’t get stronger here by growing things. You’ll have your plants, but they won’t be much good outside of melee. Besides doing your best, there just isn’t a way for you to farm your way out of it. You can only carry so much into battle yourself. There’s only so much load you should be expected to carry alone.”

It was meant to be reassuring, Tulland could tell. It wasn’t. He knew on some level that none of these people were his responsibility. He even knew that most of him felt that he was theirs, that it was their job to protect the kid in the group.

He couldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t actually accept that. The idea that Necia and the others wanted to protect him was very nice, very kind, and absolutely the last thing he wanted. The saving grace was that in all that reassurance was an idea of sorts, something that created a twinge in his head that he tried to follow for a while.

Necia had said there was only so much he could carry into battle himself. She hadn’t meant plants, but these days it was impossible for him to ignore the implications of plants on anything at all. For a few moments, he considered the feasibility of arming everyone with Clubber Vines, which he could just about grow enough of in time. It wouldn’t work. The fighters here had their own styles, all of which worked well, none of which would be helped that much by an unempowered vine even if he could make them automatic somehow, and almost all of which would actually be hurt by the interference.

The Chimera vines were a different story, but there just weren’t enough of them. Which left Tulland with nothing but food, caltrops, and weak bombs.

Wait, though. System, tell me if you can answer this question.

I’ll try.

It seems to me that the way Acheflowers get stronger is through concentration, right? The fog they put out get thicker, basically?

That shouldn’t be any confusion about that by now. You’ve seen the Acheflowers explode enough. Do they change as you empower them?

Yes. They get harder to see through. More yellow.

There you have it, then. I can’t answer that question, for the record. It’s simply that you know the answer already.

Tulland nodded and regripped Necia’s hands.

“I’m going to do something dumb.”

“How dumb?”

“It might get us all killed.”

“Fantastic. I’ll go get Potter. You get started.”