Infinite Farmer: A Plants vs Dungeon

“How wrong? Long term debuff?” Necia put her hand on Tulland’s arm, as if gripping it would tell her what she needed to know about Tulland’s overall condition. “A curse?”

“You could say that.” Tulland opened his farm screen and winced as it confirmed what he had seen. “You know how I need a farm to survive?”

“Yes.” Necia looked worried now.

“Well, I don’t have one right now.”

System, how is this possible?

It’s simple, isn’t it? You are tethered to the strength of your home farm for the first forty-eight hours after you enter a new zone. That’s usually a great strength. But not today. Someone has destroyed your farm.

Or just be incredibly angry at you.

Yes, but even so, the privacy and security enhancements I bought should have kept everyone out. Unless The Infinite was wrong about “impenetrable to entrance or inspection,” nobody should have been able to get in.

Almost nobody.

What do you mean?

Think, boy. Dammit. You of all people shouldn’t be this naive.

The truth of it hit Tulland suddenly, making him feel sicker and weaker than the loss of his farm had.

“Tulland? You look terrible. What happened?”

“It’s Ley. Ley Raditz. He betrayed us.” Tulland almost threw up just thinking about it. “Burned my farm.”

“Not Ley. No way.” Necia shook her head. “He’s been reliable, Tulland.”

“Up until now. Maybe Halter caught him and forced him. Maybe he got paid off. I don’t know. But who else could get into the house? Who else could know what burning my farm would do to me?” Tulland asked.

“I mean… yes, nobody else should have been able to. But The Infinite is a big place, right? There might have been a way. You could try asking.”

“Who?”

“The Infinite,” Necia said. “There have legends of adventurers making appeals to The Infinite and being heard.”

“You think it would answer?”

“If you put it the right way, probably.”

Tulland focused for a bit, sending his thoughts towards the greater Dungeon System. It didn’t take it long to respond.

“The Infinite is confirming nobody got in there. Or threw anything in there that could do this,” Tulland said after reading the notification.

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“Then how would this even happen?”

“Because it’s only confirming that for anyone I didn’t give permission to enter. And that’s you and Ley.”

“And you know it’s not me.” Necia nodded. “Because I’m with you.”

“No. Necia, I know it wasn’t you for other reasons. But we can’t talk about this any longer.” Tulland looked at his farm and dumped every bit of magic he had into making it grow. It wouldn’t be enough, but it would give it a head start. “We need to leave. Now.”

“Why?”

“You read the notification. When any sphinx born, they get information on where they should look first from the last sphinx. There’s one headed right at us, right now. And we can’t let it catch us.”

“We took the last one out.”

“Necia… I don’t think you understand. Everything I do runs off the strength of my farm. All my plants get most of their power from other plants. Without it, they are defanged.”

“And your weapon?”

“It’s supposed to be about how good the ingredients that went into it were. But at least some amount of that calculation seems to come from the farm, too. My regeneration is tied to the farm. Everything, Necia. Everything I can do is weak now.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“No. But it’s true. Listen. We have to get moving. Unless you think you can take one on your own, that is.”

Necia flexed her healed arm, which had just finished knitting while they talked. “But once your garden grows, we can fight?”

“It’s not that simple.” Tulland looked to the farm, where several briars were already big enough to be pushing points to his overall farm value. “I’m still zero. Which means The Infinite meant it when it said I would be tethered to the last farm’s value for 48 hours. I’m stuck.”

“For two days?”

“It looks like that.”

“Then yes. We need to get out of here.” Necia strapped her shield back on. “Let’s go.”

—

“We’re in trouble,” Tulland concluded.

It had taken the sphinx less than five minutes to find them. In that time, they had covered miles and miles of territory, miles that Tulland had hoped were enough to get them temporarily away.

“They can track.” Necia ran beside Tulland, huffing under the weight of her armor. “By smell, or something. Maybe they can see our footprints.”

“So we can’t get away.”

“Not in the normal way, no.” Necia suddenly turned and squared up. “Here it comes. Get behind me.”

“But…”

“Just get behind me, Tulland.” Necia growled. “Don’t distract me. Just do what I say.”

Tulland hated it, but he did what she was telling him to. The sphinx dropped from the sky with all its terrible weight, impacting with just as much power as it had before. This time, knowing it was coming, Tulland couldn’t help but hear the bones crack behind the metallic impact. Necia’s arm had broken again.

He jumped around her, attacking the downed Sphinx with everything he had. It did less than nothing. Necia grit her teeth and recovered much faster than before, clunking up to Tulland, pushing him out of the way, then hitting the sphinx with her broadsword. After a few swipes, it became evident just how much Tulland’s missing damage mattered. It was already starting to block Necia’s attacks and entirely ignoring Tulland’s. It wasn’t going down in just a few seconds.

“Tulland, I can’t. It’s going to recover.”

“I know. I can…” Tulland reached into his space and pulled out several Giant’s Hair vines, letting them wind around the sphinx while it was still recovering from the effect of Necia’s stun. “I can hold him for a bit. We need to run, though. Right away.”

“I could try to fight.”

“Without the ability to lift your shield? Necia, we have to go. Maybe we can take it down over time. But I can’t let you die for nothing. We need to run.”

“Fine.” Necia cradled her right arm as well as she could with her sword arm and trotted alongside Tulland, wincing with ever step. “But where, Tulland? It’s not like there’s much cover here.”

What trees there were in the area weren’t thick enough to bother something like the sphinx, and there weren’t any bits of terrain he could see that looked like they’d have caves or holes to hide in. Necia’s concerns were valid.

“We still have to run.” Tulland pointed at the stream. “Let’s run through that, first. Get distance before it recovers and breaks the vines. Maybe the stream will mask our scent.”

A minute or two later, they were miles away. But that didn’t matter when it caught up.

“Doesn’t look like it had any trouble.”

“No.” Tulland put his hand on Necia’s elbow and dragged her forward. “Almost healed?”

“Almost. I can take another hit. If I have to.” She looked behind her back and immediately spun. “Looks like I have to.”

The sphinx was smarter this time. On the first few swoops, it pulled away before making contact. Necia was smart enough not to burn her skill on the feints, and the sphinx was too heavy to make them less subtle. Eventually, it came down to the same monster-on-shield impact it had before. Tulland led the way as they ran again. And again. And again.

“The blocking skill. It’s leveled twice.” Necia grunted in pain. “Twice.”

“Is your arm doing any better?”

“No. It’s not like that. It doesn’t make me any better at blocking. But they’ll be…” Necia stuttered and Tulland gripped her arm as she almost tripped. “They’ll be stunned longer. Do you have food?”

“Not cooked.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll eat anything right now. Regeneration burns a lot of calories.”

Tulland glanced behind them, where the sphinx was trying to recover from its latest stun. “How long can you keep this up? I don’t see how it’s limited.”

“It shouldn’t be. If I can keep eating, and keep running, and they don’t learn to do anything new, we can keep going.”

“What about killing one? You might level,” Tulland offered.

“I won’t. I’m nowhere close. I can feel that much. But I might be able to kill one. It’s going to take a lot of tries, but if I hit them once every time, it’s possible.”

“Then let’s do that. We might get a longer break that way, right? Give your regeneration a better chance.”

“Okay. Just… make sure I only hit them once. I’m pretty angry at these things. I might get carried away.”

The next few times Necia knocked the senses temporarily out of one of the animals, she took her swipe, and Tulland didn’t even need to pull her away. The animals did heal between bouts, but only slowly. After several bouts, she finally managed to take a wing off one.

And that ended up being the mistake that almost took them down. What neither they nor the sphinx had really thought of was how much faster they were on the ground than hefting their barely air-worthy bodies through the wind. And they hadn’t considered what a big difference getting to Necia a minute or so earlier would make.

But this time, with the sphinx sprinting towards them with only one wing, Necia began to panic.

“Behind me.”

“But I can…”

“Behind me now.” Necia squeezed every word through her closed teeth as she forced her broken arm up. “I’ll take care of this.”