Infinite Farmer

"Heya."

"Oh, hey!" Tulland waved from his farm, where he was working a fresh load of ant-flesh into the soil as best he could without disrupting his plants too much. Mostly, this involved poking a hole in the soil with his spear and just sticking the meat into it. In real life, he doubted that would have helped much. But the monster plants didn't seem too picky about where they got their food, and he doubted there would even be a sign the food had been there when he checked back in a few hours. "How was hunting?"

"Pretty good. I was able to stay out a bit longer, and not buying food means I'm almost caught up with the time I spent on you already." Shrinking as she crossed the border of Tulland's farm, Necia glanced around. "Is this place bigger? It seems bigger than it was when I left."

"Yeah, I may have done some expansion. I thought it would be a bit safer."

"I'll say. I saw your briars growing by that ant pit, by the way. I made the mistake of getting close before they started waving around. Why didn't you tell me they could move like that?"

"Oh, you know. It just felt like I should have some secrets." Tulland laughed. "Not really. It just didn't come up. Did they look like they were holding their own, at least?"

Necia shrugged her shoulders and dumped her pack on the ground. "Hard to tell from a distance. But they're not dead yet, at least judging by the sounds coming from the pit. They kept tussling the whole time I was walking by."

Tulland had used the lull in the pit's repopulation time to get some new briars going, and was still waiting on The Infinite's notifications to let him know how that was going. Necia would have passed them a few minutes ago, which meant there was at least still a chance they might win.

In the meantime, he had a deal to make good on. Walking around his farm, he pulled down a couple handfuls of fruits from his higher-level briars, then tossed them to Necia.

"These seem bigger," she said after catching them and feeling the weight.

"They are bigger. The briars are doing really well here. That translates to the fruits too."

"Sweeter." Necia had dug in immediately, and nodded approvingly at the fruit before finishing it off with another big bite.

"Slow down. There's no hurry. At this point, I have more of the fruits than I can deal with."

"What happens to the excess?"

"It rots. Or I use it as fertilizer for the rest of the plants. The trees could use the food. Greedy little buggers, those."

"Oh, wow." Necia lifted herself to her feet, walking over to the newly planted Swamp Ache trees. "I'm surprised you can even grow these. They seemed so…"

"Crappy? Yeah, I agree. But they've taken to being grown. They must be two feet tall now."

"Closer to three. I feel like I'm watching them get bigger even now."

Necia walked around the farm looking at the new growth, and Tulland reflected on the odd way it felt to realize the most interesting thing in his life could themselves be bored enough to find a small, ugly farm interesting. He watched her with interest until The Infinite pulled him away with a few good-news notifications he thought were just wonderful.