Chapter 25: Emotions
The next morning, the vines were doing just fine. Part of this was because the branches Tulland was trying to sleep on were far from comfortable, which meant multiple opportunities to empty his sleep-refilled magical power on his brand-new farm. He had put down every available seed he could the night before, and about ten of the vines had gotten tall enough and strong enough to push out fruits. He ripped one of the fruits from the tree and gave it a cautious bite. It wouldn’t do to give these second floor fruits to Necia if they turned out to be poisonous in some way or another.
They tasted fine. If anything, they were a little bit sweeter and meatier than the fruits he had grown before. Which was good news, really. In a world where this was all he had to eat, any small improvement was a huge deal. A sudden rustle from the trees behind him meant it was time to share that big deal with others as well.
“I hardly believed you.” Necia looked around at the farm, then stepped forward to one of the other fruits. “May I?”
“Sure. Help yourself to as many as you want. Only…”
“Save the seeds. Of course. Got it.” Necia reached out to the plant and put her hand around the fruit, nicking her finger on one of the thorns in the process. “Damn. That hurts.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot they could do that. They can’t get me anymore. Benefit of the class,” Tulland said.
“Lucky you. That really hurts. More than it should.”
“It’s venomous. But it should stop in just a bit. Try the fruit. I’m afraid I might not have an unbiased opinion of how good these are anymore, but aren’t they a bit better?”
Necia bit into the plant, showing none of the careful restraint that Tulland had. He decided that made sense, as her vitality and overall level had to be a lot higher than his magic power was. Maybe, just maybe, if he had a poisonous plant, he might have been able to juice it up enough to take her down if she voluntarily ate it. She would still have plenty of time to fight him while it did though, and now that she was back to fighting size, it was easy to imagine how very few blows it would take from her sword to convince him he had made a mistake.