One Moo'r Plow

Morning could not come quickly enough. By the time dawn’s first rays broke the horizon, I was wide awake. Breakfast already in my belly and mind filled with unreasonable excitement, I was already outside to greet the sun.

Most of the wagon had stayed loaded throughout the night with only the essentials being taken inside before I collapsed. Half-way through my stride I froze and realized a new, massive issue.

I had no hats.

This small, inconsequential detail bothered me. Before, I had always worn hats. Caps covered my head at all times, shielded my eyes from the sun and kept the dirt from my brow. Here, I had nothing. I was bare. Exposed. Just as suddenly as the problem had lept upon me, it resided into a malicious giggle beneath the surface.

I would have to rectify this.

But for now, I had fence-posts to pound and a pasture to outline.

A full armload of stakes for Garek proved to cover quite a distance. One of the many things I appreciated about my new body was the large amount it could carry with ease. Although hat-less, I didn’t mind. The morning was cool and cloudy, which I preferred. With warhammer in hand and a trail of fenceposts laid out before me, I set to work.

Hold post straight. Whack post. Replace post because it hit a rock and splintered from the force of whack. Consider toning down whacks.

The early morning passed fairly methodically, a simple and repetitive task laid out before me. But it took amazingly little time, and soon I had a fairly large pasture staked out.

Ishila skipped down the road just in time to help me pull the wire. With a much smaller hammer, leverage and specific fence clips, we had multiple rows of wire pulled and the gate mounted before noon.

“And now, we need to fill it.” I sighed. “A shed first, or cows?”

“Cows.” She answered almost immediately. “You already have a forest around you as a windbreak. What you don’t have are the actual animals. An empty shed produces no product.”

“Smart.” I remarked. “Good business sense.”

“Thanks,” She grinned. “Got it from Ma’.”

“Well then,” I groaned and stretched to work the stiff muscles in my back. “Do you know anyone who would sell us cows?’

‘Welllll,” Ishila bit her lip and frowned. There was a pensive expression on her face as she chewed over her thoughts before speaking.

“I doooo know a fellow. Several, actually. See, we have a few options.”

I nodded along as she talked, interested in where this was going. We leaned against the newly erected fence-posts and watched Gol as it sniffed around the wrong side of the fence.

“See, if we go regular cows, we need to get a bull, manage pastures, rotate and all that other stuff because they only provide milk when with calf.”

“Yes,” I nodded. “I had accounted for this.”

“Orrrrrrr.” She paused again. “You could not.”

“Explain.”

“My da’ knows a fellow who modifies animals. Gets em system-touched. One of his applications was farm animals. He breeds a type of cow that never stops havin milk, see?”

I blinked and processed this information.

“And why is this cow not a common sight on every farm, then?’

“Well, on account of them being system-touched and with the modifications, they’re now very big and very mean. Like, first-birth momma cow and you just took away her calf mean, xcept it’s all the time.”

Oh. I could see how that would quickly dissuade anyone with any sort of interest. But I was not just anyone, to pat my own proverbial back and hang medals in my own praise.

“So, where can we acquire some of these?”

Anything she was about to say further was cut off as Ishila’s face lit up and she began to violently wave past me. My eyes followed hers and caught the huntress’s form just as she seemed to materialize. An active camouflage skill?

Le’rish carried a bundle of hides upon her shoulder, which she deposited down and then sat upon. With nary a word, the bronzed woman pulled a pipe from her robes, deposited some clear goo inside, and then lit it with a tap.

“Ishila.” She nodded in greeting between puffs. “Bull.”

“An excellent morning to you as well.” I nodded and glanced at the roll of hides she had brought. “That was quick.”

“Mmmm.” She nodded non-committaly. “For you, perhaps.”

“A job done is a job done.” I shrugged. “Our paces may differ, but it is done the same.”

I glanced at her pipe and the clear mist it produced. Her face formed a grimace as she sucked the vapor in and held her breath, then blew it back out.

“Crystal slime glaze.” She offered for my curiosity. “Regenerates tissue.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” I shook my head politely. “Would be fortunate if I never needed any, I suppose.”

“Mmm.” She agreed with another puff. “Was once an adventurer. Like you. Like Ishila wants to be.”

“A monster?” I wagered, the context guiding me to guess the place of her debilitation.

“Worse. A mislabeled potion. Instead of a fleshknitter potion I drank a Firebreather’s Draught. Without any flame resistance.”

The very image of that made me grimace, and my expression stirred amusement from her. The first I had seen on her face. She waved off any further questions and just puffed away.

“Any good hunting recently?” Ishila asked, and anyone who looked at her could tell she brimmed with curiosity. The orc girl did her best to stay calm, but everything about her gave her excitement away.

The huntress snorted and shook her head.

“Too good.” She continued after a moment. “Everything’s scared. Spooked. Easy to flush out. Too easy. Monster’s moving in off the Tip. I kill a bunch, rest don't care. Being chased down, I think.”

“The riders who came here a few days ago mentioned an Apex on the peak.”

Le’rish stopped for a moment, then slowly put away her pipe.

‘Explains things. Was gonna go up there myself today and look. Won’t anymore. Too dangerous.” She paused and glanced up at me. “Thanks.”

‘For what?” I asked. “I’m more than happy to take the compliment, though.”

“Information.” She didn’t elaborate further, and I did conclude she found value in me just passing along what Raffnyk had said.

“An Apex.” Ishila grimaced. “Ma’s gonna be gettin her weapons out again.”

Le’rish snorted again and shook her head.

“Your parents should be staying home and tending to their farm, and their girl. Their slaying days are over.”

“I know, but who wants to tell them? Who can tell them?”

“The grave will, and then they’ll listen.”

The conversation drifted into silence, spirits visibly dampened.

“Him.” Le’rish broke the silence and pointed at Gol. My eyes followed as I searched for anything of interest on the lazy brute. I found nothing. But they mystery of what gender the beast was had finally been laid to rest.

“What about Gol?” I asked.

“I want to hunt him.” The huntress stated, blunt as can be. “I’ll give you all these hides for free in exchange.”

There was a very, very brief moment in which I considered that. But that moment passed and I shook my head. Gol, useless as he was, was mine. He was a drain on resources that provided exceedingly little in return, but he was still a companion. If my world had been dictated by cold, psychopathic rationality of benefits versus cost, I might have taken the offer, but it was not.

“No.” I simply rebutted, and with a shrug, she dropped the topic.

“Suit yourself. But I would pay well for the opportunity. Not many of his kind on the Peak anymore.”

It was around then that I noticed it was noon, and with no other reasonable course of action, I invited the huntress to join us for lunch. To my surprise, she actually accepted instead of slipping off back into the woods. Guess nobody liked to stalk through the trees on an empty stomach.

A modest meal shared amongst three people and one whining Gol it was, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Hunger made for a good cook.

"So, what plans do you have for today?" Ishila pried, trying her best to stay collected and not seem too excited. Le'rish shrugged in return and flicked her tail at Gol as he tried to beg scraps from her.

"No plans. Not going up the peak now. Hunted enough for a bit. Nothing interesting to hunt either."

"If you are free," I ventured cautiously, just finishing the remnants of my broth. "Perhaps you would not be against helping Ishila with a task for me?"

I swear the orc girl perked up faster than if I had offered her a bag of gold for free. Le'rish considered for a bit, then shrugged.

"As thanks for warning about the Apex. Sure."

I had just passed on the information, but who was I to reject a gift?

“Ishila here knows the location of a farmer willing to sell me cows. A bit stronger and sturdier than usual, or so she says. It would save us quite a bit of time if you could go with her and drive them back here. I’ll send you gold to make the purchase immediately.”

Le’rish nodded as Ishila nodded excitedly behind her back.

“I know who you speak of. Have dealt with him before. Can do this.”

And with that, they were gone moments later. Ishila waved back, and then they rounded the bend and vanished from sight. With them gone, for now, I sighed and returned to my work. Much as I wanted to go and pore over my new plants, the fields called to be cleared. And my work mattered more than my curiosity. That was the justification I fed myself as I hauled yet another boulder from the ground and tossed it toward the pile I had gathered.

And so my afternoon dragged on. I cleared stumps, hacked apart roots, and yanked trees right out of the ground. With the monotony only broken by short breaks to drink water from the now-clear stream, my mind wandered.

I was becoming used to this world. Getting used to this body. And it felt comfortable. No longer did I awkwardly stumble around, about to trip over my own feet every few steps. Most of the time. The fact that everything and everyone had classes, skills, and levels was not an insane concept anymore, but an everyday thing. Perhaps it was because I had been able to detach from reality back home that I so easily accepted this now.

I still knew little of the local pantheon, what gods were who and what people worshipped. Nor was I in any hurry to entangle myself in that. But I had deduced that most people viewed the system as a tool of the Gods Above, and I had no evidence to suggest otherwise.

The Garek who inhabited this body before had been a man of incredible violence. The Garek that inhabited it now would be a man of incredible farming. The joys of rampant capitalism, I thought to myself. I was ready to introduce them to the world.

But all of this was just an attempt to keep myself occupied, and soon I was bored beyond belief. My mind strayed again and again to my monstrous plants. And after some time, I simply gave up and decided to come back tomorrow.

I had already worked a decent day’s stretch, and now it was time to slake my thirst for knowledge. Gol followed me towards where the plants had been moved, and then sat back, wary. There was no small amount of satisfaction on my face as I examined the biter pods. There were pieces of small insects scattered about where they were planted. In the single day I had been absent, these plants had grown the most.

Weeds, Ishila had called them. And they seemed to grow as such. But insects were not all. What seemed like rodent pieces lay devoured around the stalks. As I squatted on my haunches, something rustled beneath another plant. A squirrel staggered about beneath the fat leaves of a puffer plant, dazed and with spores all over its fur. It had made it only several steps before the vines bent and the biter pods snapped down.

It was gone before I could blink, and any desire to help the little creature was washed away with fascination as to how these plants worked together.

The wide, fat puffer plants lay dormant on the ground, while the biters were too slow to actually catch animals. By luck, we had planted them close together, and now they worked in tandem. The biters dropped blood near the puffer plants, and I could not yet tell if they fed off the liquid.

Everything and everyone steered clear of the armored ballbomb. There was nothing that went near them. Ishila had warned me of how volatile these were, and each of them was planted separately. Something that had already been useful. Whatever had disturbed this one plant was gone, obliterated by the power of incredible violence. The metallic bulbs that had grown on its outside shell were gone, instead embedded into the rock that surrounded it.

The plant had burst its growths off like high-force projectiles, and whatever had disturbed it was now a smear across the soil. Now it was slowly regrowing, more bulbs sprouting in the bare spots on its carapace. These, I was not eager to disturb, but excited for the applications. Could they be harvested and turned into grenades somehow? The thought both mortified and amused me that I was essentially growing my own grenades.

The small, sickly tree-like growth was the slowest to grow. Small corpses decorated its branches, and a stench of gloom and rot emanated from it. There was an uneasy feeling in my gut as I observed this one in particular, but curiosity outweighed any dread I could sum up. Uneasiness curdled within my gut the longer I stared at it. It was wrong, on some level.

There was a series of vines that dangled grape-like fruits from their stem. There seemed nothing special about these plants, save that the small buds of fruit seemed colorless. Out of curiosity, I snatched up a piece of insect remains from the biter pods and tossed it near the plant. With excruciating slowness, the stalk sunk down until the fruit touched the piece of carapace I’d just tossed there. It vanished into the plant on touch, and color spread through it.

Huh.

With a sigh, I heaved myself up and strode over to the crop’s edge where we had transplanted the pepper-like plants. To some satisfaction of mine, they had not leaked their acidic fluid into the soil and turned everything into a slurry. Instead, it glimmered within cupped leaves, a sweet scent that filled the air. These leaves were unfurled now, large and filled with a shallow pool of acid. As I watched, an insect buzzed by, only to turn around and land on the pepper-like top. A stream of acid squirted from the surface on contact, and I watched in morbid fascination as it ate through the insect’s body.

There were more, of course. A singular large plant that resembled the early stages of flytrap lay open in the sun, only I could see a tongue that tasted the air and heard rattles within. Another was a single flower perched atop a stiff, narrow stalk that seemed to radiate a golden light.

Any further discovery was interrupted as I saw a man walk up the road from the direction of Hullbretch. Even from a distance, he moved quickly despite taking only what I could see were normal human-sized steps. He appeared smartly dressed, with clothes of good make, a large book in hand, and an air of assurance around himself.

An unexpected guest, perhaps. I did not know where he was headed. Up the mountain, perhaps? Should I warn him of the Apex? As it turns out I needn’t have worried as to his destination. The man strode right up to me and sniffed as if he was not a small, skinny thing of a human in front of an eight-foot-tall minotaur.

“I am in search of one mister Garek, owner of this property.” He sniffed. “If you would be so kind as to call him, for I have matters that do not concern the hired help.”

A moment passed. Then another as I stood without deigning to reply. Until finally he attempted to break the awkwardness and glanced at papers he carried.

“This is the home of one mister Garek, is it not?”

“Indeed.”

The man looked around and adjusted his glasses.

“Then, where is the man? I haven’t all day. Time is Money, after all.”

“He stands before you.” I replied, my tone curt. So far, I counted myself lucky to have escaped those who would belittle me for my race and appearance, but I could not evade them forever.

“I say; my word.” He grimaced and adjusted his glasses. “First that orc and elf interbreeders, and now the bulls? Who next, the goblins?”

“I do not like your tone,” I warned ever so politely. I was not a man to anger easily, but in some magical way, this person knew exactly which buttons to press.

“Then it is with great pleasure that I inform you that I care little for what you think.” He sniffed again. “I am in the employ of Baron Ironmoor, and am here in regards to the sale of this land to…you, apparently.”

“You have my attention on that matter. State your business.”

“You see, Garek, here in these lands, we do not believe that the debt incurred by one should be excused with them shuffling off this mortal coil. As you will be pleased to know, the previous owner of this splendid farm incurred a significant sum which is owed to the good baron, and I am here to collect.”

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