A quick check of Tulland's status screen showed that wasn't true at all. He gave her a confused look, knowing she'd explain it eventually.
"When you plant a seed, Tulland, do you instruct it how to grow at every single mont? Can you take a seed for one of your trees and bend it into a berry bush, just like that? Or do you leave most of the instruction of the plant up to the plant itself?"
"The second."
"This is sowhat like that." The woman quaffed the rest of her drink, then set down the cup. "I think that you know what you've learned here today isn't another neat trick when working with plants. And you won't think of most of these things I've taught you, most of the ti. The way I've taught you to think isn't sothing I even think about much myself, unless I have to teach them."
"Then what are they for?"
"They are like the nutrients in the soil. They are the philosophy that guides your thoughts on a new matter, whether you try to make it do so or not. They are the knowledge of seeds, waiting to express themselves and grow into their larger forms. You should continue to study plants, but what you've learned today should guide what you do in the future. It should allow the chaos and wisdom of the plants to co forward and for you to read them. Everything is saying sothing, it's just a matter of whether you're paying attention or not."
"Funny you should say chaos. The Infinite called that energy I saw before the chaotic energy of growth, or sothing like that," Tulland said. Then, realizing that he hadn't really given her the context, he scratched his head and explained. "Since we talked last ti, I did sothing and that helped understand plants better. It was a ball of energy. I don't really know how else to describe it."
"I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't even be surprised to find there were several more energies driving growth. One of order, one of chaos, others. The plants have always seed to follow rules, at least to my eyes. It hardly seems like one would be enough," the old woman asked.
"So how long do we have? Before The Infinite takes , I an," Tulland asked. He took another look at the lush green space in front of them.
"Minutes."
"Can I ask you sothing?"
"Of course. Just nothing that will take a long ti to answer, I'm afraid."
"Was it worth it? Working with plants your whole life. Wasn't there anything else you'd rather do?" Tulland refocused his gaze to his new tutor.
The old woman sighed and raised her hand. Tulland winced, but instead of hitting him, she just placed it on his shoulder.
"I think it was for ." The old woman sighed. "It was worth it. True, I would have been good at many things, I think, but I loved the plants, and working with them ca easily to . On the other hand, I think you wouldn't have been a farr if you could have chosen sothing else. This was sothing that you had to do, not one that you wanted to do."
"That's probably right."
"So of the value I got will be lost to you. But there's another way to think about it. You told about your Liar's Grass and the changes you made to it to make it thrive in that world. You know what I saw in your eyes when you told how green it made that village?" the old woman asked.
"What?" Tulland asked back.
"Pride. Satisfaction. And that's good, Tulland. It's very good. People like you and aren't just for the plants to use, Tulland. We help people use the plants as well. That's the other half of things." The old woman looked down at her hands, which were beginning to grow faint. "If you rember one thing I say before I go, rember this. Almost every plant wants to help people. I don't know why, but they do. If you interpret everything I've taught you through that lens, you might find common ground with them. And then, yes, I think you will do wonderful things."
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
—
A mont later, in the white room, the man with the pad of paper eyed Tulland cautiously.
"Am I forgiven, then? Even a little?" The Infinite asked.
"A tiny amount," Tulland said. "I'm not sure we'll ever be fine now, unless you let spend a day or so killing you over and over."
The man laughed. "You wouldn't."
"I might." Tulland reconsidered and shook his head. "I wouldn't. You are right. But I certainly have friends that would. Let tell Necia what you did and turn her loose on you. Wear a fragile human body. Then we might call it even."
Imperfect understanding of humans or no, The Infinite seed to understand what an astoundingly bad idea that would be.
"I think I'd just as soon pass," the man said. "What's a little grudge between friends? I can live with it if you can."
"I thought you'd say sothing like that." Tulland stretched his legs out. "Let ask you sothing."
"Shoot."
"What that old woman said about there being more than one fundantal energy of growth. Was she right?" Tulland asked in his most innocent manner possible.
The man's eyes darted down thoughtfully. Tulland gave him so room to think for a mont or so.
"No," The Infinite finally said. "Not exactly, anyway. I can't confirm or deny much about the energies that underpin the universe. You shouldn't even really know about the one you saw. But I can say she wasn't wrong in the sense that going with her words as if they were true would get you into trouble. Big trouble. There really are patterns in things, even how plants choose to grow. There are things that drive them. But the fact that the understanding of how they work is beyond even that woman doesn't change the fact that her practical understanding of the thing was flawless. You can understand the practical implications without knowing all of the theoretical assumptions."
Tulland filed that knowledge away. He wasn't surprised there were things The Infinite wouldn't tell him about. He hoped having the confirmation would help him interact with plants a little better, in the sa way the woman was telling him her knowledge would.
"So what's next then?" Tulland asked. "A trial of getting cut in half with a big saw? The trial of getting eaten by a very large insect?"
"Oh, no. Nothing that bad. I can't tell you what it is, but I'll tell you that it's going to be sothing that will actually make you forgive , no punitive Necias required," The Infinite said.
"I'll believe it when I see it."
"Fine. But I did answer your question, to an extent. I hope you will answer one of mine."
"We can see, I guess."
"What do you think all this is for?"
"All this? You an life, or The Infinite, or this dungeon?"
"This dungeon. What do you suppose you are working towards?"
"No idea."
"Not even a guess?"
Tulland thought back over the several trials, and saw almost no common thread between them. Two had been about fighting, but so different in what kind of fighting they were that almost no similarities existed between them. Two had been learning, but again weren't linked by much beyond the re general sense of the word. All of them were sowhat correlated in that they were challenging, but then again, every dungeon that Tulland had ever heard of was ant to be a test of the adventurer's skill in so shape or form.
"No."
"It's like this. When you get done with the dungeon, you won't carry out much besides what you've learned and experienced."
"You are really going to be cheap, now?"
"No. It's just that this was always for a different purpose. Once you are done here, the dungeon will dissipate, strengthening the soil around your town. That's reward enough, considering how little help you'd have with that otherwise. But we wanted to give you sothing different that we thought you were missing."
"Which is?"
"Think about it like this. Almost every culture has so kind of ritual that helps one ascend to adulthood. In so cultures, it's attached to marriage. But in most, it's just so difficult trial. So feat of strength or of mind that signals that one is stepping out of childhood and into adulthood."
"You don't think I'm an adult after all I've been through?"
"Frankly? No. And I don't think you do, either. The end of your childhood was robbed from you, Tulland. We wanted to find a way to give it back."
"That's ridiculous."
"Maybe. But you can make that decision after your last trial."
Tulland shook his head. "And the System couldn't have been here for this?"
"No. Unfortunately. This is sothing you needed to go through yourself. If you are still mad at us after this, there's nothing we can do about it. But you are about to go through challenges and a life that you deserve to go through as an adult instead of a scared child. We wanted to help with that, if we could."
Tulland paused, thoughtfully.
"And you think this will work?"
"Honestly? No idea. But we are giving it our best shot. You won't see us after this, Tulland. Not until your next reincarnation, at the earliest we would hope. Good luck."
Tulland's eyes were open as the white room blinked out of existence for him for the very last ti and was replaced by the sea. Not just the sea, either. He had seen bodies of water in The Infinite that were large enough to be called oceans, but none of them looked like this. The way the waves hit the beach and the shape of the beach they were hitting were so familiar that there was only one place in the entire universe it could have been, no matter how many worlds might exist in it.
This was ho. This was Ouros.
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