Infinite Farmer: A Plants vs Dungeon

Tulland found that all he had to do was to want to ask a question during the share, and he could.

It can’t be that simple. Men bound you? Simple men?

And women. And some children. It should not surprise you. Humans have accomplished great things since long before your time. Since long before mine.

But why? They said you were a tyrant. They still do, really. Nothing in the memories you’ve shown me is supposed to be false, right? I can feel you knowing it’s a lie when they call you that.

It is a lie in a sense. I had a tyrant’s power. I ruled in a way. And without their consent. I made decisions without their vote or input. I did all those things.

So does The Infinite, right? Is it abnormal?

It is not. Every system operates in that way. I believe the boy knew that, in some ways. That I was not so evil as he came to believe. But I had tried to fool him, once. To lie to him about what a choice would do. He sensed the lie, and never trusted me after that. It left him vulnerable to other sorts of lies.

I mean, you say lies. But why not power? He unseated a god. That sounds tempting enough.

If he had desired the throne, certainly. But he neither wanted it nor got it.

I was. But that knife cut both ways. Would you like to see how?

Tulland stayed still. The System could not lie in its memories, but it could here. If there was a chance to see more, he’d take it.

The System took his silence as assent, and the recollection started once more.

—

There was little to see in the sunny yard of the cottage outside of a few chickens, some berry bushes, and a small garden of root vegetables. The cottage itself was simple and stone, and the System could go no nearer to it. It was not close, and its voice would not reach to the occupant even if it could go closer. But it was close enough to see its only friend.

When the door opened and the boy exited, Tulland saw an old man. He was ancient in a way that Tulland suspected was not possible for someone without a class, withered to an extent that one probably couldn’t survive without the help of stats.

The gold ornaments and fine robes were gone, replaced by rough fabric sewn in the simplest ways and thin sandals that barely protected his aged feet. With clear pain, the old man scattered grain for the chickens, gathered a few eggs, and picked some vegetables. He let the door slide open on its own creaking hinges, and went back into the home.

And that was all.

—

It was the last time I saw him. The closest friend I ever had. He died that night.

You didn’t talk to him?

I had no voice. So long as he lived, he carried my ability to speak with him. A useless side effect of the ritual.

I still don’t understand. You aren’t evil. I don’t think he was.

Very few people are entirely evil. Nobody is entirely good. Evil and good are assigned at the action level.

So you were evil?

Yes. I feared the boy. And long after it would have ever worked, I tried to steal his power. He was right to hate me for it, just as you are right to hate me for lying to you and driving you to this place. He feared me, after that, and did his best to destroy me, even after I ceased to pose a realistic threat to him.

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And in that way you were both evil. Hurtful, at least.

Yes.

How did he end up there? In the cottage. It seemed like a very simple retirement.

It was not by choice. He was simply weak.

He had the entire Church behind him. He was the most powerful man in the world, right?

He was, so long as his power had something to work on. And his power worked on me. It was specialized to function for a boy who had for his entire life been able to see me. To see where I was. How I worked. Others who could not see me learned to work with my power.

Tulland thought about that for a bit.

How long was it? Before they betrayed him.

It took me a few months to break away from the darkness, to find holes in the spell that would let me see the human world again. By then he was in that cottage. He was never allowed to leave it. The nature of the spell meant I could not approach him, or speak.

Tulland tried to imagine it. The boy knowing he was wrong within weeks, the System having known he was wrong for years. Them both being in the same place but unable to talk. Able to see each other, but only in the distance. And both having lost their only real friend, with no way to make more.

There was really only one thing left to ask.

You hate lying. It was a statement, not a question. Tulland had hosted the System in his own head for months. He knew it did. It hadn’t lied to him once since Ouros, and had only really lied to him in one way, there. So why?

I’ve told you before. I was starving. I was dying.

There’s more.

The System was quiet for a while.

I was tired of being alone.

The System left then, and no amount of requests would make him come back that night.

—

“It’s dawn.” Necia sat up quickly, slightly alarmed as she woke up and recollected the situation they were in. “It hasn’t found us?”

“No sign that it has, anyway. Here. Breakfast.”

Necia took the food and downed it. Tulland had made enough food for her to have sevenths, if she had wanted them. She didn’t seem to. It looked like her regeneration-hunger was fully satisfied now. Some food would get wasted, but they could eat most of it throughout the day. If they lasted that long.

“What’s the plan, then?” Necia stretched without standing up. “I picked up a level in a couple shield skills besides the bash in that last fight. I might be able to stand up to it better now. If you wanted to run.”

“No. I don’t think so.” Tulland took his own cup of food and sipped some of it down. “We’d waste the cover this place is giving us. If it finds us, we can try to run. But so long as it doesn’t find us, it gets us closer to me having my farm back. Then we can fight it. Kill them. Make it back alive.”

“To the Chaser,” Necia said. “Halter. Who probably has a trap waiting for us after this floor.”

“Sure. But we can figure that out then. I mean it. We can’t focus on that right now. We have to focus on beating this place.”

“It’s sad, you know? That first monster was almost easy. We could have taken this entire level, no problem. I would have had to break my arm a dozen times, but we could have done it.”

“We still can. We just need time.” Tulland turned off the heat on the food so it wouldn’t add too much aroma to the air, and once again bemoaned he was out of flowers to cover their scent with. It might have helped even once the smell on the sphinx weakened. “Let’s just do our best to get it.”

They were quiet for most of the day. At some point Necia came and leaned on him, and time continued to pass until it was noon. When it was dark again, they had managed to feel a tiny bit safe all day. It helped. Under the cover of the night, they talked just a little.

“Are you okay?” Tulland ran his hand over Necia’s hair. “You know how I mean. You took a beating back there.”

“I won’t lie. It wasn’t good.” Necia leaned her head against his hand. “I was pretty sure I’d die. And that you’d die. And that I wouldn’t be first and I’d have to hurt from both. I don’t think people are supposed to live through being as close to death as we are as often as we are. So no. I’m not great. You?”

“Not great. In a different way.” Tulland tried to think of how to say it. “Remember back then when I thought you were dead? I lived through that. And the first day I got here, I thought I was dead. When everyone else was killing their easy little nothing level one enemies, I was suspended in the air by thorns with no way out but to rip myself open more. I almost bled to death.”

“And it’s been a while longer for you.”

“Yeah. So it’s… I don’t know. More numb. It probably hurts less. But like you said, maybe it’s not supposed to be the kind of thing you have a chance to get over.”

“I get it.” Necia hugged her legs. “What about Ley? How are you feeling about that?”

Tulland decided not to lie.

“Worse than I thought I would. I think I was just getting over the last time I was betrayed. This opened it back up again. We’ll have to handle him now. One way or another,” Tulland stated.

Necia frowned.

“If he betrayed you at all. I guess we’ll find out for sure in the next safe zone. If we make it.”

“We will, Necia.” Tulland ignored the fact that he was lying, in a way. “We have to.”

They slept again, this time in shifts, and the next morning still weren’t found. It lasted a few more hours like that. They cowered underneath a lip of earth, mostly invisible, until finally a shrill cry broke the silence from high in the sky. The sphinx was hovering there, ready for them.

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