Rowan had to wait for the shipment to come in if he wanted to plant the necessary tomatoes. He supposed he could plant the corn while he waited. By the time that crop finished growing, Zillia should be back with the tomato seeds.

Rowan hauled the withered plants away and tilled the ground to reset the farm. Up to now he had been dumping the dead plants just outside the farmland. Scrumble came around to watch.

“Well, look who’s alive.”

“No thanks to you. They said Zillia brought me back. Where were you?”

“I have a life outside of you,” said the goblin. He watched as Rowan piled the dead plants. He offered a suggestion. "Would you like me to craft you a composting box?"

Rowan said yes and asked for more details of how that worked. He knew about composting in his human land, but he was sure things would be different here.

"Put any plant material in there, whether it's dead plants, old food, stuff like that. After a while you'll get compost you can use as fertilizer. Add it to the soil to help your plants grow quickly and healthy.”

“And that’s it? No surprises?”

Scrumble had a glint in his eye, “There are always surprises.”

Rowan sighed, accepting that the goblin wasn’t going to be forthcoming. He had collected plenty of wood on his walks back and forth from the stream, so he gave some to goblin and gave the go ahead to make a composting box.

Rowan headed to the stream for water, knowing that if he defeated a few more enemies it might be enough to tip him over to level 3. It was fairly peaceful though.

On the other side of the stream he saw a slime. That was a start. He crossed the stream and attacked the thing. It still took two slashes to take down, but this time little 3’s appeared instead of 2’s. That was one extra XP, so he needed 10 more. He looked around. Just a little further he saw some kind of wooden building. He approached it with cautious curiosity. As he went on he saw the land turn swampy. He didn't want to progress much further. He was stepping into unfamiliar territory, and didn’t know how powerful the creatures here might be.

He saw a decrepit old shack, slanted to one side, barely keeping itself above the swamp. Nobody seemed to be around. It would be very strange if someone was using this rundown place.

Rowan turned around to head back to the more familiar side of the stream. When he looked around he saw a large mushroom hopping along, following him. It was orange with red spots and about two feet tall. It seemed to headbutt him with its cap.

The Red Mushroom attacks 3 damage

The mushroom dealt damage, but not a scary amount. Rowan slashed the thing a couple times, enduring another hit.

Rowan attacks 3 damage The Red Mushroom attacks 3 damage Rowan attacks 3 damage The Red Mushroom emits poisonous spores Rowan is poisoned (common) Rowan attacks 3 damage, The Red Mushroom is defeated Received Mushroom Goo Received +3 XP XP to Next Level 7

Unfortunately, the mushroom also let out a horrible smelling spray of spores that Rowan failed to avoid. He became poisoned. At least a third hit was enough to take down the mushroom and he collected some mushroom goo and XP. But now there was a new problem.

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Rowan staggered back home to his farm, health dwindling. He could barely see when he stumbled onto the lot and collapsed. He looked up and saw Zillia’s horse approaching. What was she going to think with him passing out again so soon?

Status Common Poison HP 1/12

Zillia saw him in his poisoned state, “Hey, wake up. You’re not dead yet,” she said roughly.

Rowan blinked and looked up. His status was still poisoned. He still had one health left. For some reason the poison wasn’t finishing him off.

“Mushrooms huh? Venturing out a little further I see. Don’t worry. Common poison can’t take you out completely. It’ll just bring you down to one. Drink some water. Hold on a second.”

Zillia fumbled through her pouch and produced a little green medicine bottle. Rowan drank some water, then was fed the antidote.

“You’re lucky it was just common poison. I had an antidote for you this time. You gotta start making your own if you want to safely explore that swamp land.”

Rowan coughed, and felt himself beginning to return to normal.

“Feeling better?”

Rowan nodded.

“Good,” Zillia thumped him on the head, “What were you thinking? Why are you wandering around places you don’t belong?”

To be fair, Rowan didn’t feel like he belonged anywhere near here. But he couldn’t explain why he kept venturing out. He felt safe, until he didn’t. He knew he was supposed to be cautious, but sometimes it seemed more important to avoid getting bored.

Rowan chowed down on a couple pieces of corn. He could simply babysit his farm until everything grew. But deep down he felt the need to explore. He couldn’t sit there staring at 10 square of land with little corn chutes. He needed to run around. Now that he learned there was such a thing as levels, he wanted to rise through them. He wanted to feel free and grow stronger. He couldn’t explain all that though. He didn’t think they were very good reasons for getting nearly killed.

“Well, you got your tomato seeds now.”

Rowan received his reward for completing his first order. He got tomato seeds, 5 gold, and a crop catalog. Most of the pages were empty, but Rowan flipped to the first page where there were two entries filled in.

Corn Restores 5 Health Rarity Common Seed collection Trivial Growth Rate Very fast Enemy Attraction 1/10

Tomato ??? Rarity Common Seed collection 5 to 1 Growth Rate ??? Enemy Attraction ???

Rowan noticed that both crops were common and grew very fast. He acknowledged this meant he would likely be dealing with slower crops in the future. He also noticed the section on seed collection. While collecting corn seeds was trivial, it seemed Tomato seeds were more valuable. He asked Zillia for clarification on this.

“You’re going to have to manage your crops and decide how many of them you convert into seeds for the next batch. Corn seeds are easy to collect off the crop upon harvest. But tomato seeds have to be collected by sacrificing a tomato. You can collect 5 seeds from one tomato, but you won’t be able to use the tomato for anything else. Make sure you always have some seeds left, because it’ll be very inconvenient to gain access to a crop if you lose all your seeds.”

Then Rowan asked about the enemy attraction rate.

“You’ve been fighting a lot of bugs, haven’t you? There’s a reason so few farmers make it out here. There are dangers to building a farm. The more crops you plant, the more and more enemies will be attracted. Higher value crops will draw in more dangerous monsters, so be wary.”

Rowan harvested the plants that had grown, and reset the land to plant the tomatoes. The next order called for 4 tomatoes, so he planted all 5 of his seeds, knowing that he would set the fifth aside for more seeds. Then he filled the rest of his farm by planting corn.

Throughout this whole process he kept needing to see Scrumble about making new tools. He constantly was having to go along the path to collect wood.

Rowan was settling into a pretty decent rhythm at this point. He’d plant new crops, go to the creek for water, collect wood on the way, shoo crows, kill bugs, craft tools, and eventually harvest plants. This was the cycle he had to rinse and repeat. It was a grind. But Rowan learned that if he deviated from this loop of work, he was punished severely. He had to be content to do repetitive tasks for a while, even if he got bored. That was the price of safety. And yet the instinct to explore still nagged at the back of his head.