Infinite Farmer

"They didn't use the trick ropes," Tulland moaned as he watched the traveling carnival do its best job. The carnival that made the circuit between Tulland's island, the mainland, and every other island on the way had missed the last year, victim of storms that had kept the entire island on half-rations of anything but fish for months. That meant that eight-year-old Tulland was, for the first time, finding himself a critic of what once had been a non-stop parade of wonders rolling past his young eyes. "Did they forget how?"

"Of course not, Tulland." His uncle had patted his shoulder. "You don't like what they are doing now?"

"It's fine." The carnival man was vaulting obstacles on the floor, sliding in the dirt under various large animals, and telling jokes. It wasn't like it wasn't fun. But it also wasn't flying. The trick rope act took the man into the sky, and it was that part of the show that had stuck in Tulland's mind for the last few years. "I like it. I just want the flying."

"Hmm," his uncle said. "Well, I'm sure it will be here. And it might turn out even better than you think. For now, can you guess what he's going to try and jump next?"

The game of guessing what the man would or wouldn't do as the next step in the performance held Tulland's attention just long enough for something he really found interesting on its own to start happening. A man was in the support poles of the tent, near the top of the structure and throwing down clubs to the performer. As they came down from the sky, the man was catching them and effortlessly adding them one by one to a complex juggling pattern, putting the clubs up into the air, passing them around his back, and flipping them over his shoulder in a whirlwind of colorful motion.

Tulland's breath was caught in his throat as the man, who was visibly at his limits, was thrown just one more club by the man on the roof. Throwing all his clubs high, he got hands on the new item, only to let every single club he had been keeping aloft fall clattering to the ground, juggled no longer.

Tulland didn't care because it wasn't a mistake. He gasped as he looked back up from the clubs to find the man was gone, then followed his uncle's finger to find him once more. He was in the air, flying around the tent, drawing cheers from every soul in his presence. The last club was the trick rope, hooked to whatever manner of ropes, pulleys, and gears behind the scenes that made it do what it did.

"What did I say?" Tulland's uncle laughed and clapped him on the back. "What do you think? Better, right?"

Tulland couldn't argue. He was ready for the rope trick. He had been all year. But he wasn't and couldn't be ready for being surprised, and that had stripped off every bit of jaded mental preparedness he thought he had.

"Every year I think I'm going to know what's coming next, and every year they change it." His uncle's eyes sparkled as he watched the man flip through the air and catch another rope that had just appeared from nowhere. "That's why it's worth the money, boy. It's the showmanship."

—

"It's been more than two hours." Tulland dumped another full tank of magical power into the farm, watching as his plants got that much taller. It just hadn't been enough time since he got here for the actual points-value of the farm to matter, but he was too much a farmer these days to leave a plant less healthy than it could be. "How much longer, do you think?"

Impossible to say. I'd say it might want to catch you off guard, but it's hard to see how that might happen unless you were to go to sleep. Otherwise, it's likely something you should count in your favor. More rest is generally considered good.

I don't know about that. With my stats, at this point I could go without sleep for days. My regeneration brings me back up to healthy in minutes, not hours. What do I need with rest?

Ahh. The classic question. It was once that this was the first lesson I made sure I taught.

Tulland resisted the reflex to roll his eyes. The System was going into a monologue. He fought off the reflex to stop it, mostly because there simply wasn't anything better to do.

Do you recall that man? At the makeshift bar in the safe zone?

I do. The one who was drunk and tired.

Whether he's killed by a beast or another adventurer, his cause of death will not be that thing. Do you know what it will be?

Tulland sighed. It was a tutor-riddle. He knew the answer to that kind of thing in his sleep.

The drink. The alcohol will have ruined him.

Wrong.

Wrong?

Wrong. Things like alcohol, Tulland, are symptoms. Every once in a while, a person just has too few defenses against the drink that their physical makeup is to blame, but as a usual thing, it's something else. A troubled marriage. The loss of a child. A failure to find success in some other aspect of life, regardless of the effort spent.

My uncle thought drunks were just men who refused to respect limits.

And by the time your uncle noticed they were drunk, that was true. What he didn't see was a man who started his life as strong as anyone, and then failed to care for himself as he should have. Failed to take steps to prevent the creeping weakness until it was a thing your uncle could see as he passed the destroyed man in the street.

I have no way to know if that's how it works, but even if it does, what does it mean for here?

It means you need to take steps to keep your mind in the battle. Even now, as you are doing well, one moment of carelessness or boredom could mean your death. Your body requires rest, yes, but so does your mind. You require entertainment and relationships, which, very frankly, you get from the same source. A lucky coincidence.

Necia?

I have known men who would have paid every bit of experience they had ever accumulated to have a relationship like that. Unfortunately for them, it was never the kind of thing that could be bought. Just found by luck, as you have.

That was much more value than Tulland had ever expected to hear the System assign to human relationships. On Ouros, it had dismissed most of Tulland's friendships with a disdainful laugh. There wasn't much time to consider what had changed, though, not with a new description choosing that moment to drop.