Into the Pit: A LitRPG Adventure (Brad the Impaler Book 2), page 21
Tamara got off scot-free, of course. After all, it wasn’t her name on the lease. She’d caused a lot of problems in my life, starting with a simple tomato plant. But I couldn’t lay the problem with my wheat field at her feet.
Toward this back quarter of the field, subtly at first and then more prominent as I pushed forward, the stalks showed signs of destruction. One or two at a time, then I found entire swathes shriveled or stunted. Leaves that were normally broad and drooping, as thick as the best construction paper you could find, withered inward on themselves. The heads of wheat were spotted black. I swore I saw something green sliding between the kernels.
I stomped through the field, steering clear of the diseased corner. By the time I finished my walk-around, I determined that nearly a quarter of the field was infested.
There was no internet to consult. I couldn’t pop into my favorite search engine and find out how to manage the mess. No access to a helpful farmer who’d spent the past fifty years of his or her life working soil and now wanted to make YouTube videos to help others. My ally wouldn’t have answers. Sometimes, I swore, Kira didn’t know which end of the spit to turn. Slash wouldn’t care until it affected his diet.
Looking at the back side of the field, seeing the rot dominating it, and fearing it’d only move through the entire crop, I had one reasonable choice and one drastic one.
I couldn’t set fire to the crop. We were supposed to be heading into Olyndria. The crop was the only commodity we had. Selling as much wheat and as many loaves as possible was our way of keeping our gold free for larger purchases and contingencies. The choice wasn’t much of one.
So I decided to save what I could.
I thought I remembered hearing from a childhood friend that wheat had fibrous roots and was easy to pull out of the ground. Hank Tunkst was his name. He loved talking about his father’s farm, even back in middle school. Somehow, I’d retained a few of his stories from within the deep recesses of my mind. I set to work.
Low and behold, Hank had been right. The work went faster than I’d imagined. Still, by the time I’d pulled the last of the stalks, leaving a gaping area in the field, as depressing as it was worrisome, I’d lost too much time and crop.
Hands on my hips, I compared the fields, hoping the rot wouldn’t spread.
Field inspections would become a daily thing, apparently. This couldn’t happen again. How had it in the first place? I’d just checked the fields the other day.
At the back corner of the second field, everything looked fine on the surface. I sensed another issue. Yes, inspections would become as regular as breakfast, sleeping, and post-dinner shits.
I walked the second field, and it didn’t take long to see a problem. Loose balls of exposed roots underneath every stalk within eyesight. When my frustration reached its breaking point, I stopped and kneeled for a closer inspection. It was as if the ground itself had been eaten away. Down here, the soil smelled more strongly. I also noted a sickly sweet smell. I only realized after a moment that it came from the decaying wheat. We’d already lost a quarter of the other field and now, on my knees and looking up at the neighboring stalks, it looked like we would lose just as much in this field.
I grabbed a handful of soil in a fist and rubbed it through my fingers.
“Almost like it’s been tilled.” I threw the soil to the ground, stood, and brushed off my hands.
Underneath my red high-tops, dead wheat cracked and crunched with each step.
I walked for another thirty feet before the damaged crop ceased. This didn’t make sense. There wasn’t a sign that one of the irrigation trenches had broken, deviating the flow. We’d had rain, not too much, but enough. If it was a problem of irrigation, all the plants should have been equally affected. But they weren’t. The damage was constrained to the corners of each field.
I moved to the next row, and that was when I started seeing a possible pattern. A row later, I received my validation.
Squatting again, I confirmed my suspicions. “Son of a bitch.”
The exposed roots were just a distraction. Something had burrowed underneath the rows and around the roots.
I moved quicker now, scanning for more clues. I got my first one a few feet later when I noticed what looked like a narrow, curving trench looking like a tiny replica of a river cutting through the soil. The next clue didn’t take much longer to find.
Wind blew the leaves, allowing a shot of sunlight through. Something glinted, projecting an iridescent sheen. A few steps closer and the mystery was revealed.
Delicate, as thin as rice paper, and three feet long. Snake skin.
“Got you.” At least, I hoped I did.
22
22 - A Little More Mr. Nice Guy
Itraced the curve of the path cutting through the soil and around each stalk root in sight. It was as if the goddamn thing meant to kill my crop.
A big bastard, too.
I crept forward, constantly examining the soil and the trails left behind. At first, I thought this would be a simple task. The trail the snake had left was obvious and easy to track. The problem was, after only a few steps, I realized how futile the effort was because the snake had been far busier than I first suspected. Ruts crisscrossed each other, first at a few points, then becoming increasingly busy. I followed them closer to what I assumed was the nest. This thing had been here a while. How long? How had I not noticed its presence before? We’d been busy with the house and taking care of Fuji’s quest, but the snake’s presence had destroyed sixty or seventy stalks. I should have seen this. We hadn’t been ignoring the fields. They’d been tended to. It didn’t make sense. Unless all of this destruction was recent.
The wheat leaves cracked when I brushed against them. Underneath my feet, the ones that had fallen into the soil, the ones the snake had dragged small clumps of dirt across like some sadistic World War II Nazi stepping over battlefield corpses, crunched under my bonded sneakers. A few feet farther, the fallen leaves formed a layer, as if these stalks had rotted away long ago. The snake trails became so numerous it was impossible to distinguish one from another.
When the wheat rustled at a small breeze, I spun, lifting my homemade pitchfork, brandishing it like I would Venom Fang. There was nothing there, of course. Finding the culprit responsible for killing my crop, combined with our recent run-in with mama snake and her explosive offspring, in addition to the kobolds, had me paranoid.
Here I was, chasing a wheat-killing snake through my fields when I should have been trimming my door or securing the already cut shutters to the side of the house. A quick calculation of my destroyed crop made it even harder to ignore my paranoia. We wouldn’t starve. That wasn’t a problem. Thankfully, I’m conservative in crop and food management. Being someone who always planned for the worst-case scenario had its advantages.
Neither could I be lazy about this. Between whatever disease had rotted away a good chunk of the first field and the snake’s destruction of much of the second, I couldn’t allow this to get out of control. No surplus was eternal, and I wasn’t about to let a truant belly crawler put us in a bind a few weeks from now.
“Where are you?” I said as I scanned the ground, trying to decipher which of the trails was the main thoroughfare.
Behind me, the wheat softly whispered in the breeze. To my side and in front of me, it cracked and splintered anytime a strong wind blew.
I lowered myself into a crouch to see below the leaves and get a clear view of the soil. I figured that would help me locate the snake’s nest. What I saw was not what I expected.
Spread out in a triangular layout, three mounds rose from the soil in areas where the wheat had rotted and fallen to the ground, splayed out like a broken bamboo fan. Each was about three feet high. Hardly an expert on reptilian life, those mounds seemed bigger than they should have been. Dried skin lay in shreds around the peak and base of the mounds. This wasn’t a single snake I was dealing with. This was an entire community.
I carefully approached the first mound. Keeping my distance, I took in the crumbles of soil that had been ejected from the mound and were piled around the opening in a circular pattern. The opening was roughly four inches in diameter. This close, I noticed log-shaped feces. It was black, containing several lumps. I didn’t know how snakes shit, but if this didn’t belong to the snake, whatever had left it behind was most likely in the belly of whatever lived in these holes.
Carefully, I took another step forward, close enough to peer into the hole. I grimaced at the sight. Only a few inches below the surface, I saw the disturbing coil of a green-and-black snake that was far thicker than I wanted to encounter.
Snakes could feel vibrations, so sneaking up on it wasn’t possible. Its heart-shaped head was up, a red tongue flicking at the air as it smelled for me.
I nearly jumped when, from right behind me, Slash said, “What are you doing?”
When my heart slowed enough to respond, I told him.
He backed away. “Is that why everything is dead?”
“Yep. We’ve got to get rid of them.”
“We?” he said in a pitched voice. “I’m not a farmhand, Brad. I don’t deal with snakes.”
“Neither do I, but if we don’t, they’re going to ruin the rest of our crop.”
“Can’t we just burn them out?”
I turned away from the hole. The snake was as weary of me as I was of it, so I didn’t worry about turning my back to it for a second. “Do you seriously want to set fire to our entire field and possibly burn down our house?”
He tipped his head to the side and sat. His tiny body quaked. He didn’t look humored. “We have a football field of packed dirt between our house and the fields. We won’t set fire to the house. Stop being dramatic.”
“Doesn’t address the fact that we could accidentally burn down the rest of the field. Sorry buddy, there will be no fire.”
From the hole, came a long hiss.
I moved closer and leaned over the void. The smooth scales glinted as the snake adjusted its position. I couldn’t tell if it was trying to avoid detection or if it was preparing to defend its home.
“Well, do something,” Slash said so loudly that my pulse quickened at the thought of the snake jumping out of the hole in reaction.
I lifted the pitchfork, aiming the tongs at the hole. With my free hand, I waved Slash back. “Give me space.”
“Gladly.”
Unlike the mama camp invader and her babies, this snake seemed passive. As complex of a world as Darkworld was, that was hardly surprising. It was absolutely believable there would be diversity and even common life in this world. For all I knew, this thing was a refugee of a world that once included Sarpa Raja as the Snake of all Snakes. If Sarpa was as tyrannical toward its kind as it was to me, this small snake community might be nothing more than the helpless members seeking refuge somewhere far, far away from that experience.
Considering Fortune’s warnings about the Scalefolk and the power vacuum that might wreak havoc in their community, I could understand why these snakes would choose a peaceful existence. As long as it didn’t threaten me, I wouldn’t harm it. Though that might also be a problem, I thought. The snake wouldn’t understand why I was moving it from its home. From its perspective, I was the aggressor. I was smart enough to understand that, but that didn’t mean I put myself or Slash at risk in the name of doing a benevolent deed.
Watching the snake, I spoke over my shoulder, “Hey, little buddy?”
“Yes?” Slash said with a tiny yip. “Please don’t ask me to do something I don’t want to do.”
“Listen, this is going to be easy. You’re too late to create too many vibrations, so even if the snakes notice you, which probably won’t happen, they won’t see you as a threat. Plus, you’re much quicker than I am, so you can get back to the house a lot easier than I can.”
“And what am I supposed to do there? Get Kira?”
“No. Grab the burlap sack and bring it back to me, please.”
Slash whimpered. “You’re not going to kill them?”
“No. They haven’t done anything to us.”
Now he barked, and I could hear the frustration in it. “They destroyed our wheat, Brad.”
“If you look at it, you can see that they didn’t mean to. Their trails undercut the soil, which exposed the roots. It was an accident. That’s all. I’m not going to kill them for the sake of killing them. You know that about me.”
“But they could belong to that big one in the swamp,” he said. “Remember him?”
It was validating and oddly comforting to see my wee man thinking strategically. He rarely played the game like that, so I took encouragement from the fact that he now was. “I do, in fact.”
“Then kill it.”
I held my sigh. “Do you think it’s fair to make all snakes pay for the crimes of their kings? Please go get the sack. Drop it at my feet. I’ll take care of this.”
After a burst of rebellion, he took off. Before long, Slash was back with the sack. He dropped it close enough for me to grab it with the pitchfork, gave me a low growl, and then bounded away toward the house.
I picked up the sack in my left hand and managed the pitchfork with my right. Lowering the tongs toward the hole, I said, “I’m not here to hurt you.”
It hissed, flicking the air with its red tongue and pulling its head back along its coiled body.
“I promise,” I said, stressing the last word as if the terrified creature in the hole in the ground could understand me.
I used the pitchfork to knock around the sides of its hole. The ground easily gave way, chunks falling on the snake, which only resulted in it tightening its coil. Its tongue was now a constant blur of motion.
I grimaced in apology. “Truly sorry, man. I’m just trying to get a better hold on you.” The justification sounded ridiculous even to me.
Methodically, I continued to knock down the ring of sand, caving it in further while being careful to not collapse it on top of the snake. When it was big enough, I slid the pitchfork head into the hole, burying the tongs into the loose dirt underneath the snake. Slowly, ever so carefully, I lifted, constantly adjusting until I found the center balance. The snake felt heavier as I pulled it out of the hole. Keeping the burlap sack open as best I could, I inched my hand down the pitchfork haft, bringing its head and the snake closer. The son of a bitch had to be fifteen feet long. The longer I kept it exposed, the queasier I felt.
As I manipulated its body, the snake seemed to have given up on the fight. Its head swiveled in the air while it flicked its tongue to get a sense of what was happening. At least it didn’t fight or attempt to squirm off the pitchfork. That made me feel better about what I was doing to the poor beast who didn’t ask for any of this.
I lowered my arm with the sack, and gravity helped pull the mouth open, widening it and making the task of slipping the large snake into the sack much easier. The sorry creature slipped off the pitchfork, hissing from inside the sack.
I pulled the mouth closed and drew a deep breath. A snake wrangler, I was not. But the work got easier as I moved to the next two holes. They housed multiple snakes, but none longer than five feet. Still unnerving, but I preferred it far more than what I dealt with in the first hole.
The sack filled, I hefted the pitchfork over my shoulder and made my way by the campfire. My pooch and Kira sat, cooking breakfast and watching me with wary eyes. I lifted the sack of writhing bodies.
Slash stuck his tongue out. “That’s gross.”
“Maybe so, but they’re still alive. It’ll give them a life and us a chance to raise chickens. If we ever get to the damn city to buy some.”
That made Kira smile. “Such a humanitarian.”
“Let’s just say I’m not an asshole and call it that. I’m going to take them out to the wide field and drop them off. That’s the least I can do after making them homeless.”
The two tan dots above Slash’s eyes lowered as he scowled. “By yourself?”
I patted the sack, soliciting a soft round of hissing from inside. “Call it making amends. Plus, you’re handling breakfast, and I’m hungry. You don’t have to deal with the snakes, and I get to eat as soon as I’m back. We all win. I’ll see you soon.”
I wasn’t five feet away before Kira said, “Like I said, good humanitarian.”
“Let’s just hope it doesn’t get him killed one of these days,” Slash said loudly enough to make sure I heard his very pointed statement.
I knew where it was coming from. He cared about me, more than I cared about myself sometimes, if I was being honest. Part of me couldn’t help but recognize that he might be right. If I wasn’t careful, caring too much in Darkworld might put me, him, and Kira in a bad spot. Hopefully, I didn’t learn that lesson when it was a lesson learned far too late. For all our sakes.
23
23 - Wishing Well
We had planned to go to the city. Finally. Just like I’d planned on expanding the farm long ago. Just like I’d planned on adding fields and finishing the house long before I actually did. In our nearly two months in Darkworld, there were a lot of things I’d planned to accomplish, but few of which I’d had the time to finish. When we committed to going to Olyndria even before the dome of the sun rose above the western peaks, it didn’t shock me that even that plan was thwarted.
The going was slow. We’d never traveled this far along the road to the city. Every time we’d trekked out, we headed west, in the direction of Crimson City. That road, I was familiar with. This part was unfamiliar territory, so I wanted to approach it carefully. I think we were all frustrated with the pace, none more than Slash. After about three miles, he stopped whining about how much it “sucked” to have to walk so far, so slowly.
