Infinite Farmer

Every time Brist used his arm, Tulland could see the spikes digging a little deeper into his shoulder. That was a limited blessing. Some plants and weapons had a sort of magical intent imprinted on them. Swords were for hurting things, and if they were built by someone with a class, they even knew it to some extent. When you hit someone with a blacksmith's sword and a sword-wielding skill, it did more damage to their overall health than the wound you were creating implied. Beasts had the same kind of effect in their fangs and claws. But plants and their seeds had none of that advantage. The Silver Star was simply a very, very sharp piece of metal.

It still did something. Though it wasn't doing much to Brist's overall health, it was still wreaking havoc on the inside of his shoulder joint, leaving damage his regeneration would have to heal. Brist seemed to know this, but it took him precious seconds to finally block enough of Tulland's attacks to make room for him to move backwards, make some space, and yank the star out of his joint.

Tulland had been waiting for that. Juicing up one of his Acidbulbs with as much power as it would hold, Tulland launched it at the exact spot the star had been. The big man moved to dodge the bulb, but not before Tulland could send it a mental command to burst, spraying a six-inch-wide circle of the boxer's body with acid, the wound included.

That was a little trick Necia had helped him figure out, one particular boring evening in this place. The acid didn't do that much damage, especially when landing on thick hide or well-sealed armor. Where Tulland had used it best in the past was either as a quick distraction or exploding it inside the body of the thing he was attacking. Those worked, but the new function they had figured out was much, much better.

Acid, it turned out, was very good at cancelling regeneration. They weren't sure how far that effect stretched, but most of the cuts Necia had opened up on her own hand hadn't healed at all as long as the acid was on them. She figured it was probably because she was still technically taking damage. And however little damage the acid did, it did so across a large surface, spreading out as a liquid and sticking to almost anything it touched.

Tulland could only hope enough of it would get into Brist's wound to keep his shoulder from coming fully back online. He didn't have time to stop. Brist was more than content to jab a farmer to death with just his left arm, and even though his right shoulder wasn't healed yet, the removal of the Silver Star meant he at least wasn't fully hindered anymore.

Over the next few moments, Tulland let himself be pushed on the back foot as Brist pushed forward with jabs, eating a couple on the chin as he desperately dodged the rest. He waited until Brist pulled back for a big, hard hit before springing the next surprise on him.

Tulland appreciated those little obsolescence warnings. The Infinite seemed to have a pretty liberal take on information-sharing, and the flat-out confirmation that a particular plant was lagging behind his own needs as opposed to simply being misused was helpful.

Lately, though, he had been considering the idea that some of the plants still might be useful even while generally sucking, or even because of it. One interesting thing about the Giant's Hair vines, for instance, was that these vines didn't count against very much when placed in one of the combat-plant compartments in his Market Wagon skill. Each vine sucked, but he could carry a couple dozen of them at this point.

And, more to the point, he could eject them all at once. Brist's eyes went wide as over twenty of the vines were dumped into his personal space, then went invisible as the vines scrambled all over his body, looking for footholds from which to constrict.

Tulland started stabbing through the vines at the same time Brist forced one of his arms clear and started breaking through. Between the two of them, the vines were dying pretty quickly. That was fine. Tulland figured that if he killed one of the vines with each stab, that still meant almost a dozen full-force hits on Brist in the process.

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That wasn't it either. Summoning all the Clubber Vines he could, Tulland took advantage of the blinded boxer's inability to dodge and deposited them on the Giant's Hair vines left around his head and neck. The constrictors were more than happy to wrap around the bottom of the melee combat variants, giving them an anchor from which to hit. Suddenly, Brist was taking big meaty hits that sounded painful even through the padding the constrictor vines provided.

A muffled roar sounded as the man glowed a bit, then started moving his left much faster than before, clearing the remaining vines in record time. Tulland wasn't sure he had seen that technique before, and could only be glad that the boxer was using it on the vines and not him. A second or so later, Brist was clear of the vines, bleeding from several places and bruised in others but mostly combat-ready. With the last, waning bits of the skill he had activated, he moved forward on Tulland with pure, burning malice in his eyes. Discover more stories at My Virtual Library Empire

Tulland tried to dodge. It turned out that wasn't possible. These new punches were more than twice as fast as the old ones had been, and just as hard. The only real chance he had to survive them was by weathering them. He lowered his head, took as many on his forehead as he could, and managed to just barely stay awake until the light faded from Brist's fist.

"You don't look good, kid," Brist taunted.

"Neither do you," Tulland shot back.

It was true. Both of them were dripping blood and covered with bruises. Tulland hadn't been able to escape damage entirely, even with all his tricks. Brist had been fighting the whole time, and this last exchange had been messy. He was bloody and slowed, but he was also completely free of vines now. If Tulland could do more damage, he could put the boxer in a bad spot. It was just a question of whether that was possible, considering Brist was still much faster than he was.

"Giving up now?" Brist asked.

"I was thinking about that," Tulland answered. "And you know why I'm not going to do it?"

"Why?"

"Because I haven't tried hitting you in the back of the legs yet."

"Well, of course not." Brist flicked a jab out that Tulland barely dodged. With the fight still on, attacking while talking was still on the table as far as Brist was concerned. "How would you even get back there?"

"Not me, sadly. Sorry. I had to test these."

"What?"

The boxer's feet were suddenly pulled out from under him as a brand-new vine variant snuck up behind him, wrapped around his ankles, and yanked. He caught himself on his arms and flipped over, raising one of his forearms over his face to protect himself from the pitchfork as Tulland stabbed downward. Brist kicked his feet wildly, trying to dislodge the vines. That was a bigger mistake than he could have possibly anticipated.

The vines suddenly puffed up, expanding like blowfish until they were two huge, hollow tubes which immediately sprang over his legs. It wasn't a command Tulland could have given before messing around with the vines in a show-me-what-you-can-do mindset using Necia as a mock bait.

"What in the fires of the mountain deeps, kid!" The boxer scraped wildly at his own legs, failing to claw through enough of the vines to dislodge them. Tulland dropped twenty or so Acidbulbs on him in the meantime. "Stop that!"

"Give up."

"No!"

Tulland planted the Clubber Vines he had left in the dirt near Brist, then started stabbing with his pitchfork. For all the man's incredible qualities, he wasn't much of a fighter if he couldn't stand up. Even a belt dagger might have let him cut through the vines, but with just his bare hands to work with, Brist's legs were fully encased in the chimera sleeves. In the end, it was the surprises inside that case that finally made him give up.

"It's like fire!" Brist closed his eyes and bellowed, then opened them again to look Tulland in the eye. "Fine. You win. One round."

"Yeah, sorry about that. It's some kind of pain-inducing poison. All my early vines had it, this one brought it back. It's like a combination of everything I've made before."

The vines retracted from the man's legs and, at Tulland's command, slithered back to him. He had no easy solution for the literal vat of acid he had poured on Brist, but rolling around in the loose dust seemed to get the worst of it off the boxer. His legs were just going to have to hurt for a while, it seemed, since every inch of the inside of the Chimera Sleeve briars was covered in thorns. There was no healing that until after the acid wore off, his body expelled the poison from the vines, and then got to work closing the puncture wounds once and for all.

"Sorry about that. It seemed like the thing to do at the time," Tulland said when he imagined the damage he had inflicted.

"Don't apologize, kid. That was exactly the kind of thing you should have done." Brist lowered his brow. "Of course, it wouldn't have worked if I had worn my fists."

"Maybe not, but I had another two of those things. I can carry four. I might have tied up your arms too."

"Really?" Brist sat in the dirt. "Maybe then. I'll tell you one thing. Anybody you face outside of this kind of scenario who doesn't know about those things is in for a bad surprise. They work completely automatically?"

"Yes. Although it seems random whether they club, constrict, or do that sleeve thing you saw. I can order them to do one or the other, but it takes attention."

"Still, kid, that's trouble. That's like what a tamer can do. They set beasts on you to keep you busy, then plink at you with little bows. I've fought that sort before. It wasn't fun."

Tulland sat down. "So what now?"

"What do you mean, what now? You give your old friend Brist a bunch of food for being a stand-up guy, then you go work on your farm for the next few days. Trust me. There's nothing else I can teach you before we start getting into hurting each other, unless you swear off using your plants, and even then, you need some time to let the lessons you've learned sink in."

"Are you sure?"

"Kid, I'm covered in acid and have needle holes all through my legs. I'm sure. Now go. Get stronger. I'm expecting big things from you in the battle."