“Tulland!” Necia screamed as the bolt curved upward. Tulland had known that hunter-class arrows could do that. Their arrows could change directions midair and make life unpleasant for their prey. He also knew that there was only so much resistance frail flesh could put up against that kind of sharp, fast-moving pressure. Tulland just hadn’t expected to ever be on the prey’s side of the experience. Before he could blink, the bolt flew the final few inches and hit its mark.

Necia shoved the gasping Tulland behind her as she shifted to her battle-form, destroying the top of the door as she rose to her full, strong, vitality-and-strength class glory. Her sword was out in a flash of light, leveled in the direction of the bolt as she advanced forward.

Dying on the floor, Tulland was surprised how little the bolt hurt. He supposed getting hit in the heart might come with that kind of mercy, a sort of painless shock to ease one’s passing. There was less blood than he might have thought too. And also just less everything, somehow, almost like he hadn’t been shot at all.

“Oh, calm your idiot hindquarters down. It was a warning shot.” Licht walked out of the darkness, dodging to the side of Necia’s reflexive sword-thrust with a light agility beyond anything Tulland had seen from anyone but the evil rogue-class that had attacked him and Necia. “New people.”

At a gesture from Licht, both Necia’s and Tulland’s eyes rose to the frame of the door, where the crossbow bolt had thudded into wood instead of Tulland’s chest.

“But he gasped like he got hit!” Necia turned to Tulland, who was sitting up. “You gasped!”

“Your little boyfriend is probably just a bit easier to startle than you’d expect. Although I can’t blame him too much. I did put a lot of speed on that one.” The man glanced at his crossbow with affection before crossing over to where Tulland had fallen to retrieve his arrow. “And of course my arrowhead shattered. Great. Just my luck.”

“Just out of curiosity, why did you call me her boyfriend?” Tulland sat up and started brushing the dust off his clothes, trying to look as dignified as he could under the circumstances. “Not that I’m not, just wondering if any particular sign gave it away.”

“You are asking for the clearest indication? It was probably when she tried to pin me to the studs of my own house for so much as scratching you. It would have worked, too, if she were a little faster. You’re a scary one, girl.”

The man looked down as his own stomach made an almost furious groaning sound.

“Now could you please, please go bother someone else? I’m not much of a teacher, I don’t like either of you, and I’m short on time before I burn enough energy that I can’t hunt anymore. I’m not in the business of picking up strays, and I’d appreciate it very much if you’d just be on your little, pathetic, time-wasting ways.”

Tulland nodded, trying not to look amused at what was about to happen as he reached into his pack, grabbed a bag of rice-like grains about as big as the man’s upper arm and opened it. Not even an annoyed, hurried archer could miss seeing exactly what they were.

“Oh. Huh. Well, that changes things.” The man tossed his crossbow over his shoulder, where it hit the wall and clattered into the dirt. “Would you like a chair, sir? Ma’am? Let me know if there are other honorifics I should use. I’d be glad to use them. Or do whatever else you might want.”

Necia looked down at the man with a sort of unimpressed semi-disgust.

“That was a quick change,” she said.

“I’m a quick type of guy. Now, first things first, where’d you get that? Because there’s not any grain at all outside of system purchases to be had in this blasted place, and you sure as hell don’t have enough excess experience to buy all that from The Infinite.”

Tulland quirked an eyebrow as he brought out his Farmer’s Tool, let it grow into a full pitchfork, and gestured at his clothes. He watched as the lights of understanding slowly came on in Licht’s eyes, and then as the man mouthed a single, magic word.

Farmer.

“Your majesty.” Licht bowed. “I am but your humble servant.”

“Shush.” Tulland said, accepting a chair from Licht and pushing it towards Necia, who was just now shrinking down to her usual size. “She’s the majesty, anyway. Can you cook?”

The man eyed the grains greedily. “Well enough. Not that I need to be that much of a cook to just boil grains.”

Tulland had never seen a person’s soul shatter and reform before, but he was pretty sure he watched it happen as he pulled a variety of vegetables, fruits, and grains from his bag and laid them on the room’s one crude table.

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“I would die for you,” Licht prayed. “And will probably have to if anyone sees all that. Close the door, would you? I’d like to at least eat before the starving animals in this zone rip you apart.”

—

“So to be clear, you can make an infinite amount of this stuff? Just for free?” Licht asked for what was like the fifth time after everyone made their introductions.

“Well, not infinite. But I think I can make enough such that we don’t starve. More, if I had time to get the seed stock I need to make this work.”

“Well, don’t do that. At least not yet.” Licht paused to load his mouth with a stupidly large amount of food, chewed, and swallowed. Tulland truly didn’t know where he was putting all of it, but as the man wasn’t being at all stingy with information, he was free to eat his fill. “So let’s recap, shall we? Necia, you’ve been taking notes, right?”

“Yes. So far, we’ve figured out there’s about fifty people in this town, most of whom won’t be useful to us outside of being generically able to bring back monster parts and flesh to use as fertilizer. And pretty much everyone is dangerous,” Necia said.

“Anyone with a knife. Or who can fight at a distance. Really, the only people you should be trying to tangle with are slow, weak blunt weapon users, and there aren’t many of those around here.”

“Great. And you only have information on the next two floors.”

“Right. Because I haven’t beaten the seventh yet. You should be able to stick together at least until then. I partied up for the sixth, as much as I wish I hadn’t. There’s no way to know whether you’ll be allowed to party up on a particular floor unless the Dungeon System tells you, and I haven’t had the excess funds to buy information. Which is another thing I should tell you, to buy another spoonful of this… what did you call this?”

“Food.”

“Ah, sure.” He took another spoonful of the food, savored it, then swallowed. “Everything is for sale in this place. Which means you can’t afford to give anything away for free. I’m talking really anything. Information. Food. Encouraging pats on the back. It all has a value. And as rich as you are in some ways, not everyone has trouble getting food. You need to conserve resources until you can get a price for them.”

“Which sort of brings us to our next point.” Tulland stood and stretched. “You need to finish that food and start showing us around town. Because we need to find a way to get a farm started as soon as possible, and that’s not going to be a secret very long unless we find a way to hide it. Barring you have some trick that we don’t know about, that is.”

“Hm. You plan on sharing all that food you grow with me? If I could find a way?” Licht asked. Tulland nodded. It was a small concession to make, in the grand scheme of things. Especially since Licht already knew Tulland could grow food. “Then yeah, I think I can help you. I’ll show you around town first, then we can get to it.”

Licht lifted his bowl up to his lips and drained the rest of the contents in a long, almost continuous swallow that would have disgusted Tulland if it wasn’t for the sheer, impressive desperation that was probably necessary to do something like that in the first place.

“Come on. I’ll lead you to your palace.”

The town itself wasn’t huge, nor was it so very stocked with amenities that it took a long time to tour for other reasons. Licht took them on a quick lap, pointing out what he thought were the must-know facts about it.

“That’s the tavern, such as it is. For whatever reason, The Infinite gives items that produce alcohol at a discounted experience cost. Most people leave them here until they get to level ten, for anyone to use. Not cheap, exactly, but it’s worth it from time to time.”

“Even when you are capped?” Tulland raised his eyebrows. A permanent loss of strength didn’t sound worth it for a mug of beer.

“Capped? Experience spent on stuff with the Dungeon System subtracts from caps. Which is information I should be charging you for.” Licht dismissed the thought with a wave over his shoulder. “Grow me a carrot or something later. Now, this house? It’s Onslo’s. Big bruiser you saw running a stand earlier. And the house by his, that was vacant until a few days ago when some creepy little guy took it. New arrival. Didn’t talk to anyone. Gives me the willies.”

Tulland stopped in his tracks, as did Necia. It took Licht’s archer’s awareness less than a second to notice.

“You know him, I see. Which one of you did he try to hunt?” Licht asked.

“Both of us. Different times. He’s here now?” Tulland asked.

“No, thank the system. In the sixth. And that’s a long one. You’ll be in the sixth yourself before he comes back. And that’s instanced, you won’t see him.”

“Ah. Good, then.”

“If you play it right, you might never see him. Schedules are pretty predictable, as things go around here. Everyone gets ten days to stay in the safe zone and they generally use up as many of those days as they can. You might need to buy information on each level to know how long he’ll be gone, but having someone keep an eye out for you on when he leaves for each floor should be cheap.” Licht marched them through the town, stopping finally in front of a broken down structure. It was huge, by the standards of the town, probably bigger than Tulland’s uncle’s house and workshop put together. It had a roof, kind of, or at least the wooden structure on which a roof would normally be built.

“Congratulations.” Licht smiled. “Your new home.”

“This is a mess.” Necia picked a piece of shattered fence off the ground and chucked it against the side of the house, reducing the rotted wood to splinters. “If it wasn’t stone, it would have collapsed by now.”

“Sure. But it’s enclosed. And it’s big, They say the guy that built it had a problem. Could you fit your entire farm in here?”

“Probably.” Tulland eyeballed the building. “Definitely. But wouldn’t people know it was here?”

“Eventually, yeah. But if you put it out in the open, someone’s gonna find it. This safe zone isn’t an infinite space. Eventually, someone’s going to do their training in the direction of your farm, and you’ll be lost. And this is up to you, but there’s an option you don’t know about yet. Step through the door.”

Tulland shook his head at all of the delays Licht’s natural showmanship was causing, but he had no reason to distrust the hunter. So far, the man had been exactly what Tulland and Necia needed. With Necia staying behind in case things went wrong, he stepped through the door.