Chapter 23: Food
Once Tulland had the area planted with as many briar seeds as he could manage, he sat back, tried to let his regeneration do its job, and ate. When he was ready, he used Enhance Plant over every planting in the farm, thankful that he had preloaded these seeds with power before he had left the first floor. Then he sat back and let himself recharge and repeated the process, driving the growth of the briars a bit each time.
His farmer’s intuition was telling him that he was going about this all wrong. The swamp had been too wet to try and farm in, which he had known just from looking at it. This place, his skill said, was too dry. Even if the briars got going, they wouldn’t thrive here. He’d grow low-level plants at best, if they survived at all.
But it’s my only choice right now. I have to get something going. I can’t just burn out all the resources I brought with me without any way to replace them. And I need somewhere to fall back on.
The hours wound on as the briars got taller and taller, however slowly. At some point, they reached a height of about a foot, which was about a half or a third of what Tulland needed them to be to feel confident they’d do anything for him. If he could just get a few more hours, he would probably get there, even if the bar for getting there was just having enough visual cover that he was truly difficult to see from the outside.
It was not meant to be. Tulland had just bottomed out his magical powers when he heard the noise in the distance. It wasn’t a snuffling or growling, which would have almost been more comforting. Instead, it was a scraping noise, like a knife being drawn across a whetstone. That scraping was layered over a soft thumping that occurred just before every rasp. For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine what it could be.
And then, as it rounded the corner, Tulland was well and truly frightened, shocked beyond anything he had expected or any level that his frazzled nerves could tolerate. In front of him, bloodied and barely keeping their feet, was what looked for all the world like a human person, clad in partial plate armor and propping themselves up on a broadsword.
“Oh. Hello,” the woman rasped. “Could you watch me for a bit while I heal up? I’m afraid I’m going to become unconscious for a bit.”
And then she did, clattering to the ground like a bag of scrap iron. Tulland had just enough presence of mind to command his little vines to stop eating the woman and drag her inside before he let himself react to the shock and the adrenaline of the surprise.
An hour went by as Tulland sat facing the nearly-dead woman, petrified. She wasn’t necessarily an enemy in the same way the monsters around him were. She might even be a friend. This might even be great, he thought.