Having narrowly escaped Necia’s playful wrath by promising he’d be responsible for making sure the bedding got dry, thus holding up his side of the communal clothes washing, Tulland moved on to tell White what was going on. White didn’t approve or disapprove, but instead just seemed to note the change in schedule as a neutral. Given the situation, that struck Tulland as just about right.
By the time he got home, he found that Necia had shot ahead of him on the drying-things-out front, building a good-sized fire in the yard and using some cast-off dead briars Tulland had around to string them up between the house and the fence. Over the heat, the bedding dried out quick, they just had to watch to make sure they didn’t actually burn.
After that, they ate a very large meal heavy on the few new vegetables and grains Tulland’s customers had brought in, then went to bed. Any jokes about anything more than sleep turned out to be just that when Necia fell asleep within just a few minutes of laying down, proceeding to snore peacefully loud enough that the stone walls were vibrating with the echoes.
It’s funny how much that doesn’t bother me. If it was my uncle or one of my friends from back home, I’d hate it.
That reaction is what I’ve mentioned before. The laughter. The genuine enjoyment. The trust. It’s priceless here. Whatever you do, Tulland, do not let that girl get away from you unnecessarily. Keep her with everything you have.
These, Tulland decided, were the easy times to just trust the System. When it was just right.
—
“The ninth floor. Filled with plants, they say.”
“Oof. That class is really getting to you.” Necia stood by Tulland’s side, half-laughing. “Your eyes are downright scary when you talk about getting new green things for your garden.”
“I need them to survive,” Tulland protested.“We both know that’s not the only thing. You look like I probably do when I think about shields.” Necia’s eyes flashed with gear-lust. “I do like new shields. And breastplates. And grieves, for that matter.”
“I can tell. So do you feel good about this, still? We could rest longer.”
“We could, but we shouldn’t. What we know of this floor says that it’s a good match for you. After that it’s a bit variable, but… honestly, Tulland, things are closing in on us. We need to get better, fast. I’m…”
“Scared.” Tulland finished the sentence for her. “Me too. It’s Okay.”
Necia took Tulland’s hand, then leaned forward into a step towards the gate.
“Let’s do it then. Together. It will be fun. Probably.” Necia more or less dragged him towards the entrance. “Either way, I need to get moving. I’ll get too antsy to be useful, otherwise.”
“Same.” Tulland squeezed her hand. “Let’s go.”
They stepped through the door together. In the next instant, they found themselves in a place that was lush, green, and entirely more overgrown than anything Tulland had ever seen on his home planet or in The Infinite.
It’s beautiful.
“Tulland, don’t drool,” Necia warned.
“Was I?”
“Almost. I just wanted to head it off at the pass.” Necia looked around. “Do you think this will help?”
Tulland glanced down at the level description and almost started crying. It was that good.
Ninth Floor (Reflex Jungle) The Reflex Jungle is entirely a test of your ability to traverse treacherous, tricky floors. There are no beasts here, and no threats that do not have roots in one way or another. That is not to say this place is safe, of course. It is as deadly as any floor you are likely to have faced thus far. Each plant holds a secret here. Some are food. Some are very hard to kill. But many of them, enough that they will seem to be all of them by the end, are hiding lethal things. Some bite. Some cut. Some have venom, or even poisons and the means to make you ingest them. Insight and reaction time are absolutely vital here. What you can’t avoid through wisdom, you must avoid through a developed sense of when to duck, dash, or otherwise get away. Very few of the plants here yield experience when killed. The objective is rather to get through a gauntlet of botanical terrors quite unlike anything you’ve ever seen before as quickly as possible, reaching the exit gate in as little time as you can manage. Be wise. Speed is to your benefit, here, but only up to the point where it kills you. Objectives: Exit the floor as quickly as possible. |
“Oh, yes. I think this will do just fine,” Tulland said.
“This is terrible for me.” Necia lifted her shield. “My reflexes are actually terrible, believe it or not. I can block a lot, but I’ve seen your weird flowers in action. Any sudden clouds of things are going to hurt me.”
“If they get to you, which they won’t.” Tulland lifted his hands into the air and actually cheered, ignoring the weird look he got from Necia. “Because you, Necia, are a great tank who has no job at all to do today. You get to just lean back and let me handle it.”
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“Oh?” Necia lifted an eyebrow. “How so?”
“Because long ago, you made the horrible mistake of becoming involved with a dungeon farmer.” Tulland shook her arm a bit, trying to get her as excited as he was. “Don’t you see? This is the best chance I’ll ever get to make that seem like a good idea.”
—
A few hours later, Tulland’s Farmer class was blazing a trail forward faster than either of them had ever expected it could. The Infinite had not overstated how many threats there were in the dungeon, but they were blasting past all of them.
A surprising number of plants just exploded. Some of them exploded into acid, while others blew up into pollen, just like his Acheflowers did. Some of them just exploded, making loud noises that seemed designed to get them to stumble into other threats.
Some plants were deceptively sharp, with leaves like miniature, razor-sharp swords. Some dropped heavy things when they walked under them. One memorable plant uprooted itself and ran at them, snapping a faux-mouth filled with bizarre botanical teeth at them as they did.
And none of them were a threat. Not a single one. Because even the moving threats were nothing when you knew they were coming, and there wasn’t a single threat in this forest he couldn’t see from a half-mile off like it was lit up in bright, beautiful lights. He knew what every plant was about the moment he took a look at it. They either steered clear, bashed through, or slashed little screaming jaw-plants as the moment called for. None of it was any real trouble.
Which meant they were clearing territory like nobody’s business.
“What if we are going in the wrong direction?” Tulland asked, a bit late given that they had already been making good progress for the past two hours.
“Most of the time? Still fine. If it’s an infinite level, there will be multiple exits, mostly evenly spaced. If it’s limited, we either would have hit a wall by now or would be nearly to where I’d expect to see a gate. Either way, we should be close.”
Necia was right, as usual. Just as her studies in her home world had told her, they found the arch about ten minutes after that.
“It’s the last floor before the tenth right? It has to have been designed to take days.”
“Tulland, it should have taken days. We should have stopped and cautiously prodded anything with so much as a single bit of stem or bark before moving past it, and still would have been ambushed or burned or intoxicated dozens of times. This should have been hard, Tulland. Really, really hard.”
“Still. What happens if we leave right now? It’s only been an afternoon.”
“We both get rewards that make us very happy, and we do a little dance all the way home. Tulland, The Infinite might be a lot of things, but it’s not a cheat. It plays by its own rules and adheres to the spirit of them as best it can. We are going to get paid out for this, Tulland. We are going to get paid out for this better than you’ll believe.”
“So every second counts then, right? Let’s go.” Tulland stepped towards the gate with a giddy Necia in tow, then stopped in his tracks as he realized something. “Actually, damn. Damn. Never mind.”
“What?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Necia, but I need you to go on without me.”
“Wait, what? Why?”
“Because I just thought about it, and I’m guessing the best thing The Infinite might give me is probably things like levels, or enhancements for my equipment. Or maybe it does one better than that and gives me fertilizers that might let me develop new plants.”
“Which would be great for you, right?”
“Yes, normally. But look around you. What’s going to get me the most new plants? Doing this level as quickly as possible, or as slow as I can?”
Necia’s mouth moved into an ohhh shape of recognition.
“I could still stay,” Necia said. “To keep you safe.”
“Normally, I’d say that was right. But here… Necia, who has been keeping who safe?”
“That’s reasonable. But what if you find something you can’t cut? Or that needs a tank?”
“Then I’ll run away. But you can’t give up most of your rewards just to make sure I get a tiny bit more of mine. Think about it. How many plants did we see? If I get even a single seed from each, it’s going to be huge.”
“How huge?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. Half again as strong as I am now? Two times? Three times?”
Necia thought about this for a moment. “Okay, then. I’d like to draw out this argument or say goodbye, but….”
“Rewards are a-wasting. Go home. Stay near White, Ley, and Licht, if you can.”
“Got it.” Necia leaned down her massive battle-form and kissed Tulland’s head. “Don’t get distracted. Remember, you are on a clock.”
“I have days!”
“That doesn’t make me feel better. You need to be home on time. Spend every second you can here, then we’ll take on the next floor together.”
She slipped through the arch then, undoubtedly getting insane riches in the process. Tulland took a deep breath and turned to face back into the jungle. In just that one direction, he knew he’d find four kinds of neat explosions, several weird but potentially high-value trees, and an ambulatory gremlin-plant he couldn’t say he came even close to understanding. And that would just be the start.
—
Days later, Tulland had over fifty new plants. Every time he had planned on deciding that was a good enough number, he had found just one or two more, proving that the jungle was not yet entirely tapped. Worse, the longer he stayed, the less important each second became.
It’s really like that? After a few days, hours are only worth as much as seconds were before?
It’s too complex to explain in detail, but I want you to imagine that there are five or ten tiers one can complete this dungeon at. One is a loser tier. People in it either got lost or injured, and get a consolation prize. It’s tiny, hardly worth having at all.
Sad. I’m there?
No. You are a tier or two up from that, at least. Your time is still respectable compared to what someone like White would get. But when you said goodbye to Necia, every second was a chance you moved down from the top tier, where the rewards would have been unbelievable.
You make me worried I made a mistake choosing the plants.
There’s no way to know, but I don’t believe you did. At least not necessarily. That’s not the point. The decision you made is the decision you made. But now, this late into the game, it hardly matters if you slip a tier. Even a few more plants would make it worth it.
Unless I look for days more, move to a loser tier, and don’t find anything else at all.
You already know how I feel about that kind of risk.
Yes, I do.
Time passed and the search continued. When it finally came to the point where Tulland needed to leave, he had over seventy new plants either in the form of cuttings or seeds, so many that he didn’t believe he could fit anymore in his bag without causing an explosion he really didn’t want to deal with in that moment.
Stepping through the arch, Tulland felt several notifications become available, but wasn’t able to read them. If the scene in front of him meant what he thought it meant, he had lost track of time.
“There he is!” Necia almost screamed. White was standing next to the portal, actively pulling away from it through clear, unmistakable agony as The Infinite reeled him in. “Tulland, you idiot! Get over here!”
Tulland ran towards the gate, which was blessedly close. It was so close, in fact, that Halter didn’t have time to get to them when he appeared through the trees outside of town, saw White powerless to help the weaker adventurers, and charged towards them. He was only halfway to them when Tulland stepped into the arch, chasing Necia and White as they disappeared a split second before his own transport.
The last thing he saw was the rogue skidding to a stop, wearing an expression completely devoid of the rage Tulland expected. Rather than anger, he found that Halter’s face had nothing in it but glee, as if something had gone suddenly right for him in just the way he had hoped.
Terrified, Tulland skidded through the arch and into another new world.
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