It wasn’t like the briars had caught on fire or anything like that. They didn’t suddenly sprout swords out of their stems, explode, or seep acid. From what Tulland could see, they mainly just got tighter. At any given time, the Forest Duke was whipping around so hard that only some of the total length of any given briar was in contact with it.

But now they are faster and a little stronger, so they can keep up.

The vines cinched down hard, especially the well-fed, over-leveled one. The elk monster fought hard, and managed to snap one of the briars through sheer force of muscle, then spread its front legs apart and ripped another in two with some difficulty. But in the split second it took to do that, the other briars got even better grips, digging their thorns in deeper and deeper into the Forest Duke’s muscle.

And during the same time, the Ironbranch club was heading towards its head. The monster had just about got its teeth around the best of Tulland’s briars, something that would end the advantage Tulland had if it managed to close its jaws on the vine.

But before it could do that, the stick struck it just above its ruined eye, knocking it hard and immediately ruining its plan to free itself from the aggressive briar. Before it could recover, Tulland caught the monster again with his return swing, hitting it square in what amounted to its right cheek. It shocked Tulland that he had managed to knock the Forest Duke around at all, since the elk had effortlessly brushed off everything he had thrown at it earlier. The vines were to blame for that, he thought. They were seriously limiting its ability to step in any direction or to move its head, which meant it had no way of dissipating each blow’s force.

Even more shocking, the hits seemed to be doing something. Tulland was absolutely sure that his Farmer’s Tool wouldn’t be doing anything at all here. In its trident form, it looked like it should. It was sharp, light, and durable. But even though it was a System-thing, it wasn’t a class-made thing. It was specifically designed to be used for farming, not fighting, and the monsters were almost, but not quite, entirely ignoring any damage the tool should have done.

The stick and the briars were different. They were suffused with his class, and Tulland got the impression that Dungeon Systems like The Infinite’s had a much harder time maintaining a veneer of fairness when they told people that they couldn’t use things their class had created. The whole meeting he had just watched spoke to that. The Dungeon System had to compensate him pretty extensively just to make that look half-fair. He wasn’t sure how it would justify telling him that already aggressive plants couldn’t be used aggressively, especially when doing so would be a death sentence for Tulland.

All that together meant his new stick was working pretty well. He was getting some good thwacks in, even drawing blood in a few places where it had made especially sharp contact with the hide. Even better, it had so far been enough to keep the Forest Duke from going after the briars themselves, which meant they were worming farther and farther past its defenses.

All of which was great and gave Tulland an advantage he was very happy to live with, right up until it didn’t. Snorting in rage and rolling its single angry eye around, the Forest Duke suddenly strained upwards with its neck so hard that Tulland thought it would pull something. It did, although not in a way he wanted. The strong briar was wrapped so tight into its flesh by then that there just wasn’t enough slack for it to keep up, and the sound of overstretching in its fibers lasted just a moment before it snapped entirely.

Oh, no. Tulland immediately leveled the stick, aiming the pointy, jagged part almost perfectly forward. I better make this shot count. I don’t think I’m getting any more.

Tulland dumped whatever tiny amount of magic he had regenerated into another enhancement of the briars, stepped forward hard, and lunged out with his makeshift spear as hard and fast as he could. He was aiming at the Forest Duke’s throat, which was still exposed as its head remained high with the momentum released from the snapping vine. It would take the monster a moment to lower its head again, which was hopefully all Tulland needed to land one good shot.

The spear cooperated perfectly, flowing forward straight and true towards the elk’s larynx. Tulland put every ounce of weight he had into the blow, knowing that if he missed, he would end up topping forward into the Forest Duke’s horns.

But he didn’t miss. With a squelch, the spear made contact.

The elk lowered its head and regarded Tulland with a cool rage, then shook its head slightly as it usually did before it huffed. This time nothing came out. The Forest Duke glanced down and widened its eyes as Tulland looked forward and saw that the impossible had happened. The stick was a good two inches into the monster’s throat, which was now pouring out blood like a bucket with a hole in it.

Tulland knew a chance when he saw one. He pressed forward hard on the stick, following the monster as it tried to back up off of it. The combination of Tulland’s forward motion and the briar shackles hobbling the Forest Duke’s movement speed was just enough for the stick to stay in place, And, as it turned out, a stick through one’s throat was a very effective way to be forced to go where the stick-holder wanted. As Tulland backed the monster up, he cranked the stick hard to his own right, which forced the Forest Duke to turn away from its straight, safe path back to safety. Instead, it ran right into the thick briar wall to the side of the farm’s entrance hallway.

Mostly, the wall was just conventional briars. There were a few by-blow children of his cultivated vines mixed in there, but only weak ones which didn’t stand much of a chance of holding the Forest Duke for long. It didn’t matter much. Even brittle, weak briars had thorns and were able to tangle up living things. The briar patch was more than happy to crack, break, and rebound around the floor’s boss as it retreated step by step.

With the elk sinking deeper in to the briars, Tulland began to crank on the stick higher, using it as a lever of sorts, one that used the monster’s pain as a fulcrum. It had to sink lower. There was just no way for it to keep from more serious damage except moving in the direction Tulland commanded. Soon, it was on its knees. Tulland was about to press his advantage when the stick finally broke off inside its neck.

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But it was enough.

The Forest Duke was now having incredible trouble just getting up. Tulland’s briars were working on it hard, and the passive, uncultivated briars all around it were offering them cover. Tulland took a few moments to go get the broken but still active Lunger Briar vines from the hallway, ones the Forest Duke had evaded or partially broken but hadn’t quite killed. He picked them up barehanded and chucked them near the monster, where they happily completed the last few inches of travel and added to the bindings.

After that, it was pretty much over. Tulland was a mess, still bleeding from twenty gashes he hadn’t noticed much during the fight, and still operating on barely patched bones that creaked and jolted him with pain every time he moved. But the Forest Duke was even worse. It was slowly being consumed by the briars, which were more than happy to dig their thorns deeper and deeper into its flesh.

Tulland limped over and looked down at the animal in pity. It really was a beautiful thing, ignoring the fact that it was a merciless instrument of murder that activated at the mere sight of a target. He grabbed what was left of his stick, oriented it downwards, and used his full weight to end things with several more lunges.

Once the animal stopped moving for good, Tulland grabbed one of its hooves and hauled it away from the briar wall, getting it to a neutral part of his farm before separating it from the few briars that still had enough life left in them to move. He would use the monster corpse later, if he could.

I’ll also review all these notifications I’m getting. Sometime. Right now, I’m pretty tired.

Tulland managed to get a drink of water from his makeshift well that was really just a deep pit in the ground before his eyes started to droop. A few seconds later, he was asleep.

—

This is an odd dream, boy.

Tulland was on a boat, alone, in the middle of the sea, far enough out that Ouros looked like a dot of earth in the distance. He was, in the setting of the dream, very small. Much too small to pilot a boat of this type, too weak to work any of the instruments, and too short to reach several of them. And even if all that wasn’t true, he didn’t even understand most of what was happening.

For all practical purposes, the dream should have been a nightmare. Instead, Tulland was excited.

“Why’s that?” Tulland asked.

Because you should have suspected you were going to die. And while you are naive, I do not believe you have ever been truly dim. Why aren’t you frightened in this memory?

“It’s not a secret. I can tell you, but you have to answer something for me first. Why are you even here?”

Because you allowed me to be. I have no way of breaking past the cordon The Infinite has set around your mind and soul otherwise.

“I didn’t allow you,” Tulland protested.

You must have.

As the Tulland of his own memories dipped a hand in the surprisingly warm water, the Tulland of the present puzzled over the System’s presence. He supposed he had been pretty proud of his kill. It was possible he had absentmindedly flipped the switch that let the System in to gloat about it just before he went to sleep.

“Fine. I’ll believe that for now.” Tulland watched through his past’s eyes as he looked over the side of the water, a nine or ten-year-old face reflecting back at him. He looked curious and impatient all at once. “The answer to your question is that I wasn’t in any real danger when this happened. Watch.”

The System managed to hold its tongue a few seconds, just long enough for the surface of the water to roil, break, and reveal Tulland uncle’s face.

“What did I say, Tulland? Get the net. I need you to have it ready.”

Young Tulland rocketed back as he realized his own lapse, then reached for his uncle’s wood-and-rope net, holding it over the side of the boat and letting the business end dip below the water-line. His uncle hefted a big armful of something into it, then steadied the net with his hand as he bellied over the bow and out of the water entirely.

“These should do it. There were some big ones down there, after all.” His uncle brought the net over to his feet and started pulling large, round shellfish out of it. The bigger ones were about eight inches across. “There are those that tell you not to eat these shellers in the warm months, you know.”

“Why?” young Tulland asked.

“Sea worms. Small ones. Parasites. They’ll make you sick in a way only a weak poison can cure, since that’s what it takes to kill them.”

“Oh.” Tulland looked at the shellfish doubtfully. “Shouldn’t we not take them, then?”

“No, boy. Remember why we came here in the first place. The fish.”

Tulland nodded. Earlier in the day, his uncle had caught a spiny, ugly-looking fish that he claimed was poisonous to eat, but kept anyway. Now, it was swimming unhappily in a big, covered tank of water.

“We cook the shellers together with that fish, Tulland, and the poison leaches out of the flesh from the fish. Just enough to kill the worms, you see. And then we wait until the heat cooks the poison off. The heat won’t kill the worms alone. And the poison isn’t enough by itself. But together, we get a chowder.”

Tulland lifted the lid from the fish-storage and regarded the spiky, terrible-looking fish with a new respect. “Did you figure that out by yourself, uncle?”

“Oh, no. Of course not. There are too many steps.” His uncle pointed at the fish, then the shells, then the ocean. “You have to know that spine-fish is poisonous, but that the broth it’s cooked in can be heated safe with enough time. You have to know the shellers are down by the coral, which must have been quite the discovery when they first found them.”

“Why would they have even swum down that deep?”

“Probably a dare.” His uncle laughed and pulled the oars to a rowing position. “Lots of stuff gets learned though foolish dares, Tulland. More than you’d think. But once you have the shellers, you learn they make you sick. Then someone else learns they only make you sick sometimes. And then someone else figures out it’s because of the worms.”

“And that’s it?”

“That and a bunch of steps I left out. This kind of knowledge is built over generations, Tulland. But eventually, you have it and then you have that much more food. And the island can take care of that many more people.”

Tulland started putting the shellers into a bag. That was his job, his uncle had said. The ones from this newest haul joined the rest of the shllers in a big canvas bag, which Tulland tied shut and put in the storage with the rest of the fish.

“What if you wanted to know sooner? To figure it out yourself?” Tulland asked.

“Hmm. A good question.” His uncle considered it. “You’d probably have to be hungry.”

“Hungry?”

“Starving. A famine, where you can only see faint glimmers of hope. Willing to do anything and try anything. Survival is a powerful motivator, Tulland.”

He is not wrong.

Quiet. I’m listening to this.

Tulland’s uncle splashed some fresh water from a bucket on his face, then got to rowing.

“A powerful enough motivator to make for a lot of progress in a short amount of time. I just pray that you’ll never have to know something like that firsthand.”