Infinite Farmer

It seemed to. Tulland's farmer sense started tingling in the back part of his head, telling him the plant was changing. It got greener, and while it didn't get thicker, it did seem denser somehow, like it was growing in weight instead of in length or width. The strength of the vine was radiating off of it, and it felt entirely unlike any plant Tulland had ever dealt with before. It was filling up his farmer sense, the least defined of his ways of observing the world. And it was doing it so powerfully he could barely breathe in its presence.

He wasn't the only one who noticed the change. The Forest Duke bellowed as its head was suddenly jerked downward, then managed to force it back up to glare at Tulland through it's one good eye. As terrifying as that was, there was something different about the encounter now. The Forest Duke was strong, but the vine was at least as powerful, at least from its superior positioning on the duke's body. Even when the elk finally lowered its head to take a bite, it couldn't get through the vine in one go or even make much progress at all.

Tulland started clubbing as hard as he could with the Ironbranch club, now able to land any of his shots at will. Individually, none of them were much, maybe making the duke care about half as much as a boxer getting hit with a jab would.

But hits like that add up. I have to make them count.

As the Forest Duke continued to try and dislodge the overpowered vine, Tulland readied himself and gave all of his strength to his next strike.

As the stick swished through the air, Tulland felt almost out of control of his weapon, like he had put so much weight into the hit that he was going to tumble over after it once it landed. High vitality or not, the Forest Duke was going to feel this one. And then, like it had been waiting for this level of danger the entire time, the Forest Duke exploded with light.

What is that? Tulland activated his connection to the System as fast as he could, so quickly that the stick was still in motion as he did. His blow impacted before the System could answer. But it was almost like he hit the light instead of the animal. The stick slid off to the side as Tulland really did stumble after it. The Forest Duke swung it's head to the side, pulling the ultra-briar as it clipped Tulland's side and sent him tumbling into his own briar wall, which luckily was thick enough with his own creations that it didn't hurt him much.

An overdrive skill, or something like it. He's stronger now. A skill like that is meant to even the playing field, but it doesn't last forever. Survive long enough, and the day is yours.

Every vine on the wall jumped out at the Forest Duke as it followed after Tulland, making the animal hesitate just long enough for Tulland to stuff the end of the sapling into its face. The combined delay of both was enough for him to skirt around back towards the entrance of the enclosure. The duke followed, now encumbered with another five or six vines that had got a good enough grip to be dragged along for the ride.

They made much less of a difference now. The mega-briar was still doing good work, but it was far from the near-even match it had enjoyed before. The addition of the new vines tipped the scales only slightly back in the right direction. Tulland hugged the wall as he backed up, watching a few remnant vines find purchase on the animal as he did, but there was almost no marginal effect per plant. He wasn't going to get through this with just vines. They weren't enough, and the elk was moving too fast.

Forget caution, I guess. I just have to last a little, right?

Tulland decided to go crazy. He jumped in with the sapling, cracking the Forest Duke across the forehead with it and taking a deep stab in his arm from one of the antler-points as he did. It hurt deep, not just in his muscles and bone but throughout his entire body. Five minutes ago, the pain alone would have set him running for his life. He couldn't afford that now. More importantly, he was going to see this through to the end, no matter what.

The Forest Duke was able to move its head fast enough that Tulland couldn't dodge its antlers when it struck, but it was slowed just enough that each hit wasn't quite fatal. At the same time, the Forest Duke couldn't move out of the way of any particular strike from Tulland's Ironbranch club. It was a battle of attrition now, something that was barely sustainable on either of their ends.

The Forest Duke had enough of the tit-for-tat after a few seconds, and glowed even brighter, swinging its head in an uppercut motion at Tulland. There was no mystery what would happen if that strike connected, given how very bright the antlers was were. He jumped backwards with all his might, bringing the club down as hard as he could as he did. If he wasn't going to be quite fast enough with his stat-based movement, he could at least make it more complex for his enemy.

The elk somehow managed to speed up even more, tilting its head to put the longest of its antler-points on a collision course with Tulland's neck. Before it could actually finish the hit, the stick struck just above its ruined eye. Tulland was shocked he made contact, but even more shocked when the contact actually did something. The animal's head was stopped flat, then even pushed downward a bit. It was impossible, given Tulland's strength. He would have loved to have thought he had done it himself, but he just wasn't strong enough.

It's the briar. It's still helping.

The ultra-powered briar was still working in the background. Between that and the hit from the stick, it seemed just enough to nullify the elk's big strike. And that was when the corner was turned. That one ultra-bright strike seemed to be almost the last of the power the Forest Duke was getting from its berserk skill, and the antlers dimmed almost immediately. The briar, ragged and ripped, was still hanging on and squeezed. The Forest Duke whined, as if it couldn't believe that its opponent would still be standing after all that.

Tulland lunged forward. He kept piling on the strikes, shocked he could still move as the blood from his wounds soaked his clothes.

Even more shocking, the hits seemed to be doing something. Tulland was absolutely sure that his Farmer's Tool wouldn't be doing anything at all here. But the stick and the briars were different. They were suffused with his class, and Tulland got the impression that Dungeon Systems like The Infinite's had nothing better than a fuzzy idea of what to do with things like a farmer's class grown products. Luckily, it seemed to err on a sort of well-why-not liberalism that made everything possible.

All of which was great and gave Tulland an advantage he was very happy to live with, right up until it didn't. Snorting in rage and rolling its single angry eye around, the Forest Duke suddenly strained upwards with its neck so hard that Tulland thought it would pull something. It did, although not in a way he wanted. The strong briar was wrapped so tight into its flesh by then that there just wasn't enough slack for it to keep up, and the sound of overstretching in its fibers lasted just a moment before it snapped entirely.

Oh, no. Tulland immediately leveled the stick, aiming the pointy, jagged part almost perfectly forward. I better make this shot count. I don't think I'm getting any more.

Tulland dumped whatever tiny amount of magic he had regenerated into another enhancement of the briars, stepped forward hard, and lunged out with his makeshift spear as hard and fast as he could. He was aiming at the Forest Duke's throat, which was still exposed as its head remained high with the momentum released from the snapping vine. It would take the monster a moment to lower its head again, which was hopefully all Tulland needed to land one good shot.

The spear cooperated perfectly, flowing forward straight and true towards the elk's larynx. Tulland put every ounce of weight he had into the blow, knowing that if he missed, he would end up topping forward into the Forest Duke's horns.

But he didn't miss. With a squelch, the spear made contact.

The elk lowered its head and regarded Tulland with a cool rage, then shook its head slightly as it usually did before it huffed. This time nothing came out. The Forest Duke glanced down and widened its eyes as Tulland looked forward and saw that the impossible had happened. The stick was a good two inches into the monster's throat, which was now pouring out blood like a bucket with a hole in it.

Tulland knew a chance when he saw one. He pressed forward hard on the stick, following the monster as it tried to back up off of it. The combination of Tulland's forward motion and the briar shackles hobbling the Forest Duke's movement speed was just enough for the stick to stay in place, And, as it turned out, a stick through one's throat was a very effective way to be forced to go where the stick-holder wanted. As Tulland backed the monster up, he cranked the stick hard to his own right, which forced the Forest Duke to turn away from its straight, safe path back to safety. Instead, it ran right into the thick briar wall to the side of the farm's entrance hallway.

Mostly, the wall was just conventional briars. There were a few by-blow children of his cultivated vines mixed in there, but only weak ones which didn't stand much of a chance of holding the Forest Duke for long. It didn't matter much. Even brittle, weak briars had thorns and were able to tangle up living things. The briar patch was more than happy to crack, break, and rebound around the floor's boss as it retreated step by step.

With the elk sinking deeper in to the briars, Tulland began to crank on the stick higher, using it as a lever of sorts, one that used the monster's pain as a fulcrum. It had to sink lower. There was just no way for it to keep from more serious damage except moving in the direction Tulland commanded. Soon, it was on its knees. Tulland was about to press his advantage when the stick finally broke off inside its neck.

But it was enough.

The Forest Duke was now having incredible trouble just getting up. Tulland's briars were working on it hard, and the passive, uncultivated briars all around it were offering them cover. Tulland took a few moments to go get the broken but still active Lunger Briar vines from the hallway, ones the Forest Duke had evaded or partially broken but hadn't quite killed. He picked them up barehanded and chucked them near the monster, where they happily completed the last few inches of travel and added to the bindings.

And then it was over. With a final enraged huff, the forest duke lost the last bits of glow from its emergency power skill, and collapsed.

Tulland was a mess, still bleeding from twenty gashes he hadn't noticed much during the fight, and still operating on barely patched bones that creaked and jolted him with pain every time he moved. The forest duke was slowly being consumed by the briars, which were more than happy to dig their thorns deeper and deeper into its flesh.

Tulland limped over and looked down at the animal in pity. It really was a beautiful thing, outside of the part where it wanted him dead. Tulland grabbed one of its hooves and hauled it away from the briar wall, getting it to a neutral part of his farm before separating it from the few briars that still had enough life left in them to move. He would use the monster corpse later, if he could.

I'll also review all these notifications I'm getting. Sometime. Right now, I'm pretty tired.

Tulland managed to get a drink of water from his makeshift well that was really just a deep pit in the ground before his eyes started to droop. A few seconds later, he was asleep.

And then he was somewhere else.