Chapter 87: Laundry_Infinite Farmer: A Plants vs Dungeon LitRPG

“Could anybody?” Tulland began the process of putting on his armor. He couldn’t be too careful. “I wouldn’t want to give away my schedule.”

“If they were looking for it and standing right in your front yard, sure. Otherwise, they’d have to be a Sentry or tracking class. You should be safe,” White said.

“Except from you.”

“Except from me. Although if I turn on you, you’d know pretty fast. You might give me or Halter individually trouble. You certainly wouldn’t do much to both of us at the same time.”

“For what it’s worth, you don’t strike me as the type,” Tulland said, unsure of how else to respond to what White had just said. “So what can I do for you, White? More food? I recently got a bathtub, and I could spend some time outside if you wanted to give it a try.”

“No, it’s not that. I just got a sense you were back in town, and wanted to make sure you had made it in unscathed. Is your heavily armored friend back yet?”

“Not quite yet. And that might get complex. Did you know The Infinite is sending people back to random places now when it returns them from a level? I’m worried for her if she gets back after Halter does.”

“He won’t do anything until after I’m gone. And I won’t be leaving for the tenth until after he’s in the ninth. But after that, you’ll have problems. Real problems. And I won’t be able to help. How’s your progression coming along?”

“Not terrible. I’m making progress. If I get lucky, I can make a lot more.”

“You’ll have to.” White looked him up and down. “I can tell about how much trouble a person would be for me to fight. And as of the last time I saw Halter, you were both about even.”

Tulland raised his eyebrows. “That doesn’t sound that bad to me.”

“No? Then remember that my class is basically built to hunt people like Halter. And if I don’t miss my guess, that he’s had you on his mind for a while.”

“You seem to know a lot,” Tulland commented.

White nodded.

“I looked into it. And as I said, you should be safe right up until I leave for the tenth.”

“So ten days?”

“Something like that. I have a few bonuses that might let me stretch it out a couple days, if I use them up.” White raised a hand as Tulland started to object to him using those resources on someone else. “It’s not like that. I get experience for guarding people. You are that for me, right now. If you stay safe, everyone wins.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. I’ll come find you and your friend before I go, and escort you on your way to the ninth. But after that…”

“We’re on our own.”

“That’s the size of it.”

Tulland stuck out his hand and White shook it. Something occurred to him then, and White seemed to see it on his face.

“Yes, I agree.” White nodded. “It doesn’t make sense that I’m helping you.”

“Then why are you?”

White sighed and leaned on the fence. “Because, and correct me if I’m wrong, you can’t be much more than fifteen or sixteen years old.”

“Sure. But that’s not that much younger than you,” Tulland said.

White laughed.

“Is that what you think? Tulland, I’m more than seventy years old.”

“No.” Tulland looked him up and down. Even with a class, he just didn’t look to be anywhere near that age. “Not possible.”

“I’m surprised you don’t know this. Tulland, everyone is young, in this place. Most of the people you’ve been talking to and dealing with are much older than they appear. I might be wrong, but I’d imagine Halter was a very sick old man before he came here. And that Ley was in his thirties or forties.”

“How would you know that?” Tulland asked.

White shrugged.

“The same way I know you are a teenager. But to answer your question from before, I don’t care if old men die here pursuing glory. It’s their business, and in that sense they aren’t even a bit different than me. I felt myself slipping away, and knew I wanted something different from seeing where that road ended. To feel what it was like to stand up without my joints making noises for once. I’d imagine most others are the same.”

“And me?”

“You didn’t choose this.” White held up his hand. “I just know. I can see it on you. I’m trying to do well. Halter’s trying to have a sick kind of fun. The drunks killing themselves at the bar are just… gone. Waiting to die. Even that girl you run around with is a young hero type, looking for glory.”

“And me?” Tulland repeated. “What’s different about me?”

“You are still looking for a way out. And even though I know that’s impossible…” White shook his head. “I hope you find it. At any rate, I’ll help you to survive as long as I can. And after that, I’ll wish you the best.”

—

It took three more long days for Necia to clear her dungeon. By then, Tulland had optimized every bit of the garden he could. He had seen Halter around, here and there, and knew that he had seen Tulland too. But given the fact that he hadn’t done anything about it, it seemed that White’s potential vengeful rage was enough of a deterrent to keep the rogue at bay.

When Necia sauntered in that day safe and sound, he wasn’t surprised. He was even less surprised when she saw the bathtub, kicked him out, and spent the better part of an hour enjoying the new amenities.

“You have no idea how much I needed that.” Necia wrung water out of her hair as walked out of the house. “I had no idea. I feel like an entirely new person.”

“You look like one.” Tulland couldn’t quite place what was going on with Necia’s body, at the moment. She was the same size and general shape, but even in her normal-sized-girl mode, she looked sturdier somehow. Like she’d be harder to move. “Are you… thicker?”

Necia stared at Tulland for a second and gave him a mini-heart attack before she broke out into a smile. “If I didn’t know what you meant, I’d probably be angry at that question. No, I am not physically thicker. Yes, I am more substantial. It’s a skill called, and I am not kidding about this, Brick. It essentially adjusts my center of gravity to be much nearer to my feet without causing balance issues.”

“And this… helps? With what you do?”

“More than you could possibly imagine. I had to give up some levels for it. What about you? I can’t help but notice you have some new vines in there. The metal ones are… weird.”

“Yeah. I got the idea of feeding some of my plants with some of my other plants, based of what one of my skills was telling me might work. Those are the result.”

Tulland had picked up a lot of new seeds, bones, and chunks of animal carried to him from various biomes, as well as a ton of trash plants that turned out to be counterproductive to the current shape of his farm. The new seeds had yet to bear fruit in a points sense, although a few of them seemed to make honest-to-god edible food. The fertilizers were either generic enough that they didn’t matter much or hadn’t turned out any special combinations in the splicer as of yet.

But there were a few exceptions to the rule. The first was that the excess of bones that had come in were of a type Ley claimed wouldn’t be very good for Licht’s class, and could be ground up into some of the nutrients the soil needed. And the iron deficiency was solved by an odd class called a bombardier who claimed that rust powder was vital to some of his explosions, especially the hotter, longer burning kinds.

The second exception was a single nondescript seed that had yielded a small mint-looking plant. It claimed to have some soothing medicinal properties, even though Tulland had yet to see a difference when he put them on the cuts and scrapes he picked up working on the farm. It seemed useless for now, but was also the only plant he had seen with that specific definition. But if he could develop what might someday be a source of weak potions or something, he’d do anything.

And a weird twinge from Tulland’s now-combined farmer’s intuition skill pointed at one of the undeveloped, plain Hades Briars as a target for a piece of shell some warrior claimed was simply “tough.” The resulting splice had kicked out one new, reasonably interesting plant that had a single, relatively interesting use he hadn’t expected.

Fence Poles (Subjugated, Cultivated, 25/25)

A descendant of the Hades Briar, the Fence Poles are, while in the soil, very rigid and tough. While they can be broken, cut, or burned, any of those methods would require a relatively large amount of work compared to destroying most of your other plants.

When Fence Poles are broken, the internal tension and general hardness of their structure means that they shatter rather than crumple, leaving sharp, generally upwards-facing spikes

When pulled out of the ground, the Fence Posts lose most of their rigidity, resembling a Hades Briar in structure. They also lack any offensive capability whatsoever.

As a new creation, the Fence Posts grant you a decent chunk of experience, lessened only by their medium-at-best quality relative to your other plants.

Despite the system description’s general lack of enthusiasm for the poles, Tulland got a good two hundred farm points out of the twenty-five of them he had planted around the border of his farm. More than that, he had taken pains to make sure that the pants directly around and behind the Fence Posts were as offensively oriented as they could be, figuring that if the posts stopped anything for even a few seconds, it would give the Clubber Vines and Giant’s Hairs a chance to do their thing.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“It’s good. Trust me.” Tulland pulled Necia into a hug, something he was fully aware she was letting happen. He couldn’t have forced it. “The score on the farm has never been higher. I picked up a level from that, and a level for my farming passive. I’m getting pretty strong now, Necia.”

“Relative to when we met, or relative to other people?” Necia asked.

“Honestly? I’m not sure. But I hope it’s the latter. I really do,” Tulland said.

“So what can I do? I want to help. And it’s not like this safe zone makes much difference to me. I only get stronger in dungeons.”

“You still need to rest.” Tulland decided not to share where that wisdom came from. “Or you’ll make mistakes.”

“Sure. But I also need to not die, Tulland. It’s not just you that the psychopath is after, remember? He’ll kill me just as soon as you. Making you stronger makes me stronger, at least for that purpose.”

“Huh.” Tulland considered that. They both were in an odd spot, schedule-wise. Tulland had days to go before he absolutely had to be in the next dungeon, and Necia had days more than that. But this wasn’t a problem that stalling alone could solve. By just waiting for the next dungeon as long as possible, they wouldn’t be likely to dodge the rogue entirely. Eventually, they’d have to show themselves in a world that lacked White’s protection. “Honestly, I’ve been thinking about this as a thing where we needed to hide out as long as possible. But that’s the wrong move, isn’t it? If anything, we need to pack in more dungeons. You need to level. I need to level and to find new plants.”

“There is a way to do that, you know. We’d be out of sight for a while, and we’d still have to time ourselves to when White leaves. But if we did it just right, we’d have two dungeons under our belt instead of one.”

“And if we did it wrong?”

“We’d either end up one dungeon stronger instead of two, so right where we would have been otherwise. Or we’d die trying. Either way, we wouldn’t be in a much different position relative to Halter.”

“Fine. If my boyfriend wants to give up his rest for some dungeon fighting, I’ll take it,” Necia said. “How much time do you need?”

“Not much. I’d really like to eat a lot of food and get at least one night’s sleep.”

“About that. I had an idea.”

“And that is?” Necia’s eyes grew both playful and a little tiny bit wary.

“If I tell you what our plan is, would you rinse out our bedrolls in the bathtub? I figure if you do, we can probably get them dry by tonight. And I haven’t slept in clean bedding in a long, long time.”

“Oh, Tulland.” Necia moved a little closer and gave him a peck on the lips. “Laundry? You have such romantic ideas sometimes.”