Day 16 – The Farmer, The Fighter and the Adept
Cutter stood, hands on hips. His head roved over the farm. It was chaos, but it had been the product of Tiller’s frantic efforts to get things started. He shook his own head, doubting he’d have done any better.
Reader and Tiller stood behind him, holding cups of tea, both shaken from the previous night’s indulgences.
Cutter turned to them. “Right. So we need to get some of this stuff straight, I guess.”
Tiller sipped his tea. “How’s that?”
Cutter shrugged, “Well, three lads like us, with our own notions, this whole alliance can be the best decision we ever made or it can devolve into arguments and chaos before too long. We’ve got different notions about how all this is going to play out. I for example, think I’ve dreamt you two up. You, for example, are overly obsessed with growth. Ha, ’cause you’re a farmer. Growth? Get it? Anyway, yeah, it’s a good thing that you’re so driven by growth, but this is the long game we’re playing, pal. We need to be pacing ourselves for a marathon here.”
Tiller nodded. “I’ve been thinking on that. You’re right. Especially at the start when I had to do it all myself and I thought farm income would be literally the only way to make money. I might have been too focused… Don’t get me wrong, every plot that’s not growing something is money lost and time wasted. But I need to be more organized.”
Reader said, “We need a way to make decisions.”
They both turned to him. He shied back slightly from both of their focused attention. “I’m just saying… we all want the same thing, to make the money we need as fast as we can… But we’re going to have differences in how we think we should go about it… You’ll want to spend money on a sword so you can fight bigger monsters and make more money that way. What if you want to spend that money on a harvester or whatever. It’s going to be complicated because the longer we go at this the more money we’re going to hopefully have to argue over.”
Cutter said, “Gotta spend money to make money.”
Tiller snapped, “Gotta save money to have money. Especially thirty million.”
Cutter snorted. Reader spoke, “Actually, if I might, I do agree. Mostly.”
Cutter said, “With who?”
Reader smiled sheepishly, “With both of you, actually. But for now, Cutter’s right. Thirty million is a lot. It’s a crazy amount. I do believe in investing in crops, but over the scale of time that it’s going to take to generate thirty million coins, I think we’ll benefit the most from investing in infrastructure first. And finding ways to increase our band levels, get better sigils, that kind of thing. You could spend a few hundred coins on seeds and turn it into a few thousand, but you’ve only got so much ground right now. If composters can really make earth, then that’s more important. And if Cutter can earn more money straight away with a sword then that money will buy a lot more seeds than the farm can earn.”
Cutter smiled, “I like this guy.”
Tiller rolled his eyes. “If we’re right then he’s just another version of you. Hey, what do you want, Reader?”
Reader stammered, “To go home…”
Cutter said, “No! He means, what do you need resource-wise? I want gear, and Tiller wants farm shit. What do you need to do your thang?”
Reader shrugged. “Um… time mostly. Maybe some materials. I can get books in the library so I don’t need those. I guess a workspace might be nice, somewhere I could leave a project and not have it interfered with…”
Tiller rubbed his chin, “Like a workshop? Yeah, I really need to figure out a way to put a roof on something.”
Cutter held up his hands, “Hang on, let’s not lose the thread. Reader’s right, we need to agree about how we’re going to do things. So, are we equal partners or what?”
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Reader said nothing, waiting. Tiller seemed to have to drag himself to nod. “Yeah… I guess so…”
Cutter said, “Then that’s perfect. There’s three of us, and we can’t deadlock. We vote on big decisions.”
Reader nodded, quietly eager. Tiller nodded as well, but more reluctantly.
Cutter burst out laughing, “Shit! We could all see you don’t like giving up any control, but it’s another thing when you can hear the fucking narrator say it plain as day.”
Tiller stiffened, then sagged, smiling forlornly. “Yeah, okay. I guess that’s something I’ll be working on.”
Cutter said, “Right then. What’s the first order of business?”
Tiller said, “Well… I have some notes I’ve been making on what I need to do.”
He produced his notebook, and showed them the list.
Land
Labor
Pipkins
Market
Security
Transport
Cutter rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. This is good. I see where you’re going. Hmmm… I wonder…”
Cutter reached into his bag.
Reader said, “You know… I could imagine ways to make the transportation thing work… I’ve got a lot to figure out with weaving still, but I think I could imagine a way to make that a lot easier. Like a heck of a lot easier.”
Tiller said, “And as for exploring other markets, I was thinking maybe the roving fighter might be hardy enough to do some travelling, especially when Stone Robot can cover ground so fast.”
“AHA!” Cutter pulled his hand from the bag of holding, and produced an axe. “This was my first real weapon here. I should have sold it with the others but I could never bring myself to do it.”
Tiller’s eyes went wide. “Wow… do you think… Like, that’s a weapon, not a tool. Can fighting axes still be used to chop trees down and harvest the wood?”
Cutter shrugged, “Only one way to find out.”
He approached the nearest tree then stopped. “You know, on second thought, maybe you should do it. I’m a fighter. Maybe the class thing will mess it up. Things are really weird around here like that.”
Tiller agreed, “Okay, good point, give it here.”
Two minutes of hard thwacking later, the tree toppled and fell to one side, perfectly intact. Tiller said, “Well… damn. That’s brilliant.”
Reader murmured, “I’m not a builder… but I do have an engineer sigil. I bet I can make a roof better than you can.”
Cutter eyed him up. “With those arms?”
Reader paused. “Let me supervise then. Engineers don’t actually lay blocks on a building site. They plan and such.”
Cutter dragged the tree towards Tiller’s roofless mud house. Tiller lifted one end with a column of earth, and Reader stood over them, pointing. As Reader spoke the sigil on his wrist did indeed glow. He got Tiller to raise one wall of the house higher than the other so that the log would lie at an angle and water would run off more easily, rather than pooling and dropping down. When the task was finished the log was firmly in place, perfectly aligned.
Cutter shook his head, “Wow. That’s actually really good. Oh man, how nice would it be to have a roof.”
Tiller said, “You’ll still want something to seal the gaps. And it’s going to take a heck of a lot of work to roof the whole thing. Plus, it’s kind of a waste. If you had a sawmill or something you could slice that one into a bunch of planks and cover more area.” Even as he spoke, the sigil on his wrist glowed further.
Cutter said, “Well, I’d love to stay and play Bob the Builder, but I should probably go make some actual money.”
Cutter turned to leave, but Tiller called him. “Wait.”
Cutter stopped and looked back. Tiller said, “I was thinking about those mushrooms you had, from the first dungeon. They were amazing. Delicious and restorative. I bet they could be worth some money if I got them to grow here.”
Cutter said, “Well, I could draw you directions but… I don’t know if the place will repopulate with bad guys and, well, you’re not exactly a stone-cold killer.”
Tiller smiled, “Yes, but you’re forgetting, my assistant horticulturist is also a stone-classed assassin.”
They looked over to where Norris was haphazardly arranging a flower bed, humming to himself as he worked.
Cutter smirked, “Nice call. Are you paying him?”
Tiller shrugged, “It hasn’t come up yet. He’s useless around the farm, but he’s another fighter and well… I kinda like him. We’re going to need staff as the business grows.”
Cutter nodded, “Totally. And Norris would free me up from having to be full-time security. That reminds me of something else I wanted to bring up.”
Tiller stilled. “What’s that?”
Cutter grinned. “Salaries.”
