Chương 182: Chapter 181 [Cultivate]

Terry arrived just as Mike was pushing back his chair to leave, spotting Apollo before he'd even reached the table properly.

"Well, would you look at that," he said, pausing mid-stride.

"Heard the rumours, didn't quite believe them."

"He's called Apollo," Luka said, the pride still not fully worn off after an entire evening of introductions.

"Suits him." Terry leaned in for a brief look, then straightened, clearly remembering why he'd come over in the first place.

"Actually, good timing catching you all here. Got some news."

"Good news?" Mike asked, settling back down rather than leaving after all.

"Very good news. Jenny's cracked it."

"She's the young lass helping you out in the fields, right? Also, cracked what?" Leo asked.

"Yeah, that's her. She's got this new spell. Unlocked it earlier today — she's been chasing it for weeks, ever since she started properly getting stuck into the farming side of things." Terry's grin was hard to miss.

"She said it's called Cultivate. Lets her grow things that shouldn't be able to grow here at all."

"Like what?" Rika asked, sitting forward.

"Cocoa. Coffee. Tea. Spices we haven't seen since we got dropped in this world." Terry shook his head slightly, still clearly getting used to saying it out loud himself.

"Not straight off, mind. She reckons she needs something reasonably similar to work from first, plus whatever she can dig up on the actual plant from the library. Can't leap from a turnip to a cocoa pod. Has to work her way there through things that are closer to it first."

"So it's a process," Sam said.

"Exactly that. But she's already got her first one incubating. Reckons she's found a way to coax chilli peppers out of the tomato plants — something about them being close enough botanically to make the jump. Says her UI's got a whole tab dedicated to it now, tells her exactly how long it'll take before it's ready." Leo let out a short laugh.

"Reminds me of Warframe. Having to wait two days for a part to finish crafting."

"No idea what Warframe is, but yeah, pretty much," Terry said.

"Except if it works, we're not just getting more varied food. We'll have trade goods that people round here don't have. Some of these things might exist on this planet already, but from warmer climates. That means ships and weeks of travel. High costs to obtain." He leaned forward, a conspiratorial grin on his face.

"It means we could be looking at the start of our very own trade empire here on the border." Mike let out a short laugh of his own.

"Great minds, apparently. That's more or less what I was just saying to this lot, before you walked in."

"About what?" Terry asked.

"Sam's stone. Turns out it might be some kind of portal." Mike glanced over at Sam.

"Go on, tell him — you did a better job explaining it to me than I could manage secondhand." Sam filled Terry in on the portals and watched as his face lit up with excitement. Lauren leaned forward, elbows on the table.

"That also means we could actually get proper ale going eventually. Beer too, if she manages hops or something close enough to it."

"I don't see why not. Should be able to get hold of any info we need, right?" Mike asked.

"Books in the library cover brewing, and between that and how fast we all pick things up now, yeah. We could manage it." Lauren's grin widened.

"Wouldn't need to be huge. Nobody's expecting one of the big industrial setups from back home. Something small to start — enough to keep the pub stocked, maybe supply the villages too, once we're properly up and running." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"Might be worth asking Marcel if he wants in," Torren said.

"He's our brewer in Stonehall. He'd learn a fair bit from whatever process you're planning on using. Modern methods, proper equipment. Could be good for both sides."

"I like that," Lauren said. Mike was nodding along, already turning it over.

"I'll have a word with Gary, see what we'd actually need to get something like that built. If we've got the resources already, we make a start soon as we can. If we don't, that's exactly the kind of thing we can ask Stonehall and the others to trade for. I'll speak to Merin about it. It's going to take a bit of planning to get things like jewellery out of our hands and into the hands of those with pockets deep enough to fund what we need."

"Good place to start," Lauren said.

"If it goes well, we can look at building out other things we're missing after." Mike sat back.

"Honestly, if this all comes together — the trade, the brewing, whatever Jenny manages to grow on top of it — I could see this town actually growing properly. Might end up needing to bring people in from the villages eventually. More hands than we've got."

"There's the portals. Maybe," Sam said.

"If it works the way I think it will, that solves the getting-here problem outright. People could work here during the day, step back home in the evening. No travel time at all." Mike looked at him for a moment, then smiled.

"Sounds like a plan," he said. Mike and Terry didn't linger much longer after that — Mike with a hand on Terry's shoulder already talking through numbers as they made their way toward the door, the pair of them still deep in conversation by the time they disappeared out into the evening. Lauren watched them go, then turned back to the table.

"Right, since I've got you all here," she said.

"Been meaning to say — I'm finally ready for that DnD session."

"Wait, seriously?" Parmo sat up properly.

"Seriously. Been a mad few weeks, what with the harvest coming in and helping Mike sort out half the town's problems on top of my actual job. Hadn't had a spare hour to put it together properly until the last couple of days." She shrugged.

"But it's more or less done now. If you're all free tomorrow, I say we finally get started."

"Oh, we're free," Leo said immediately.

"I can't wait. It'll be fun showing these two idiots how good DnD actually is."

"I can't wait to sit around for hours playing group make believe..." moaned Phil.

"You'll love it," Lauren said, grinning. Back at the flat, Apollo had already been tucked into his bed and gone quiet, small chest rising and falling in the low light. The table had been dragged into the middle of the room, the two sofas and the armchair pulled round it in a rough circle, and Sam sat at the head of it with a small stack of battered secondhand books in front of him.

"Right," he said, tapping the top one.

"Quick rundown before tomorrow, since only me and Leo have played before."

"I know a fair bit," Luka added.

"Never actually played, though. Always wanted to." Phil and Parmo exchanged a look that said neither of them had ever cared much either way.

"It's basically make-believe with maths," Sam said.

"You build a character, decide what they're good at, and then react to whatever situation the DM throws at you. Dice decide how well you do things that aren't guaranteed to work."

"I know you're trying to make it sound good, but make-believe with maths ain't it, chief," Phil said. Sam ignored Phil and picked up the top book, flipping it open to a well-worn page.

"Got these from the charity shop — DM guide, monster manual, character book. Checked with Lauren beforehand that it's the right edition and that she's happy for everyone to build their own characters rather than her doing it for us."

"Saves her a job," Luka said.

"Exactly what she said. Means we can get stuck in faster tomorrow instead of spending the whole session on paperwork." Sam looked round the table.

"So. Anyone got any idea what they actually want to play yet?" The answering silence, followed almost immediately by everyone talking at once, suggested the evening was going to run a lot longer than anyone had planned.

"Hang on," Torren said, once the noise had settled enough for him to get a word in.

"I can't read any of this. None of us can." Rika nodded beside him. Shai's tail gave a slow sway.

"Oh yeah, that's a fair point. I didn't think that far ahead," Sam admitted.

"We'll help," Leo said.

"Once everyone else has done theirs, me and Sam can go through it with you three properly. Read out what everything means, and you write it down yourselves, in your own language. Use everyone else's sheets as a guide for where things go."

"That works," Torren said.

"And same deal if we need anything out of the books during the game," Sam added.

"Just flag it and one of us will talk you through it. Not exactly hard to manage."

"Appreciate it," Shai said. Rika was already leaning over to inspect the character sheet nearest to her, tail flicking with interest despite understanding none of it yet.

"So what happens if I want to play something that shoots fire out of its hands?"

"Then you have a few different options. I'll run through the races and classes available in a second." Rika grinned.

"Awesome."