The Farm, the Farm, started on a normal afternoon.

  Potatoes.

  Corn.

  Carrots.

  Onions.

  These were the seed packets that Tiller had to work with, each bearing twenty seeds. The Earth sigil made moving vast quantities of earth, shaping it, shifting it, a task of moments. That first day he exhausted the rest of the power of the Earth sigil in levelling more hillocks and using the earth to expand the size of the island further. In doing so he gained an area the size of a couple of tennis courts.

  The Shovel sigil was more effective than he could have imagined. It had clearly performed a miracle when he’d used it to kill Ripper, so he had expectations. He just could never have predicted it would simplify the next task so easily. Earth parted like foam beneath the blade; he found his body nearly inexhaustible when he wielded the shovel, preparing the soil and producing rows of long furrows with ease. He could acknowledge that other tools and sigils would be far more efficient at parts of the task, rakes, hoes, but for now at least the shovel was shockingly effective.

  As he dug he felt eyes on him. Reacting with sudden fear he looked around. This was a reality where raptors and ogres were actual threats, and brief but terrible panic seized his veins. What he saw instead were two furry ears protruding from a tiny furry head, peeking from the vegetation. He breathed a sigh of relief. In a world with such terrible things, being watched by a small wild animal couldn’t trigger him. He smiled at the creature, “Cute little thing, aren’t you,” then returned to finish his task.

  Potatoes were a twenty-day crop. Corn the same. Maeve and Pod assured him that these were high value, being excellent food sources and indulgent pleasures as well. Carrots and onions were promised, by the packaging, to be ready in ten days. He realized he did not have enough seeds to fill all of the new land he had created and berated himself for wasting the time. If he had planted first then crops could have been growing while he expanded the island for future planting. He found he needed to calm himself. He was desperately eager to return to his family. For all of the time distortion the Shopkeeper had promised him, Tiller was drawn like a magnet to return to his wife and children. Every error was a delay on that path and he found it nearly unbearable.

  Crop growing in this world seemed to be a parody of the task in his world. Earth was to be prepared, seeds planted, watering was required each day. Maeve and Pod acknowledged that weeds and pests were a concern. But to produce harvestable potatoes and corn in twenty days was something Tiller could hardly imagine.

  The watering was an onerous task. Pod and Maeve had a single watering can, leprechaun-sized edition, and it took him until nightfall to trapse back and forth to water the rows of planted seeds.

  That second day ended with Tiller collapsing onto the pile of blankets. He barely had time to miss his family, to worry for them. Sleep washed over him like a tidal wave.

  “Love, come on love, wake up there.”

  Tiller was roused by a small but strong hand shaking his shoulder. His body was stiff from sleeping on the ground, his skin prickling with the cold. Confusion swept him at first.

  Why was there grass under his hand? Why did the comforter feel so coarse? Why was Maeve affecting an accent?

  His lids parted and he stared at the kindly blue face looking down at him. Maeve started slightly in response to his sudden panic, but reality found its way back to his mind. With it came something almost like despair, the memory and realization of where he was and the scale of the task before him.

  Maeve said, “It’s a long time to be up, love. You had a long day yesterday, so I let you sleep on, but there’s work to be done still, and I’ve no doubt you’d be upset with me and yourself if I left you slumbering on.”

  He rose to a half-sitting position, cursing a world without coffee.

  Maeve said, “I’ve a little surprise for you, love.”

  She held out a folded square bundle of something like leather. Tiller accepted the bundle, his mind still disoriented from sleep. The leather was bumped and ridged beneath his fingers and at first he didn’t recognize it for what it was.

  With a start he blurted, “Holy fucking shit, is this Ripper’s skin?”

  Unperturbed, Maeve smiled proudly, “That it is, love. Probably be too hot for working in, but at least you’ll have the option. I had some scraps of cloth I was able to line it with, make it a little less sticky.”

  Tiller unfolded the clothes. A jacket, pants and boots. In the cool air of the morning they felt good as he put them on. It was a comfort to reduce his nakedness. He tried not to think too hard of the source of the material. He was surprised at the quality of the work. Maeve had a sigil for crafting clothes, but even at that, he had expected something more homemade looking. The garments were, in fact, perfect. They didn’t flare with style, but their construction was perfect. His hands ran over the keratinized bumps and ridges. Yes, she was right: as the day warmed they would be too hot to work in, but he didn’t feel naked anymore and the tough hide felt like it would protect him.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Munching on a cold potato cake, Tiller rose and walked to his growing plot.

  “Fucking hell, this is so bizarre,” he muttered as he stared at the rows he had planted the day before.

  All the rows were uniformly adorned with little sprouting leaves. It was so uniform that it seemed unbelievable. In one night it seemed every seed had germinated and grown the exact same amount, breaking through the soil. He looked at a tiny potato plant, two leaves beaded with orbs of dew. He shook his head. After all the strangeness he had seen, this weirdly systemized growth of plants shouldn’t have struck him as so deeply odd.

  His eye caught a space in the rows of leaves near his feet where no little plant had emerged. “The hell is wrong with that one? Dud seed?”

  Maeve said, “Dud? No, love, you must have missed it with the can. Plants need water every day; you get no growth at all without it.”

  He scanned the rows and his eye caught a vacant space where three corn plants should have grown. “I must have been tireder than I thought if I missed a patch that big…”

  Maeve clucked her tongue, “No, love, that was the pipkin, most likely. Look, there’s a hole where the seedling came up.”

  “Pipkin?”

  “Dirty little bugger. We’ve just the one. Spent forever trying to catch it or kill it, but the blighters are fast and clever. Don’t worry about it too much, it’s just the cost of doing business.”

  Tiller was outraged, “The cost of doing business? You’re talking about a pest? It ate three of my plants… Maeve, I planted eighty seeds and it ate three in one night?”

  Maeve said, “Don’t worry so, love. They were only little. They’ll be bigger tomorrow and one will probably give it its fill.”

  Tiller shook his head, eyes wide and brow furrowed, “I can expect to lose plants every day to this pipkin? If it takes twenty days for them to grow then I’ll lose nineteen more plants?”

  Maeve said, “You’ll waste more time than it’s worth trying to catch the nasty little thing.”

  Tiller was dazed. “If it eats three seedlings the first day, and a plant a day every other day… Maeve, that’s a quarter of the output!”

  Maeve said, “Might as well be upset with the sun for not rising sooner. There’s nothing to be done for it.”

  Tiller was absolutely not so certain that nothing could be done. He contained his displeasure at the event and went about the task of watering. He was trying to get a sense of how he could scale his tasks. Watering the (almost) eighty plants took an hour with the little can. Just like that, the rest of the day was his. If he could water eighty plants in an hour, and was content to water all day if he had enough plants, then he could support the growth of a thousand plants. He didn’t nearly have enough ground to plant that many and he doubted even a farm of that scale would see him earning the ten million gold before he died of old age, but it was part of the calculus and the plan he was forming.

  He spent the rest of the day working with Earth and Shovel sigils to move earth and prepare more ground. He found he couldn’t affect the earth beneath any of the trees. He tried to use the edge of his shovel to cut them, but it had no effect. Pod laughed cruelly at his effort, explaining that a tree could only be harvested with an axe, though weapons or certain magics could destroy them.

  Talk of harvesting trees set him to thinking about his lack of shelter, his lack of a bed. He knew, if his plan was to work, that he would need to reinvest whatever he earned from his first harvest, and probably many harvests thereafter. He was left to wonder how much an axe would cost and if it would be worth it.

  He moved his bedding to the field that night in the hopes that his presence would dissuade the pipkin from returning, or at the very least, afford him the chance to interrupt its predations or even capture the thing.

  The sound of rooting and munching roused him in the greyest light of early morning. He rolled over with a start and found himself face to face with a new little beast. The little beast was at least as startled as he was.

  The pipkin was the size of a housecat. It had a body shape and face that weren’t altogether unlike a cat as well. The ears were huge and tufted, the eyes disproportionately large. As it turned to dash away from him, he saw that its tail looked more like the root of a small tree than anything else.

  Under other conditions it would have been adorable. But it stood between him and his family, and he could let nothing do that.

  He scrambled to his feet, snatching his shovel and giving chase. The little beast scurried away, bounding across the open field towards the trees and bushes he had yet to clear.

  He was gaining on it. He hadn’t expected that. He’d thought through this before sleeping, imagined the scenarios, and where Maeve and Pod had failed, he possessed a sigil of a predator that he hoped would help him rid their little island of the pest.

  His booted feet slammed into the earth, biting and gripping with each hurried stride. He should have practiced the sigil the night before, but again exhaustion had overtaken him. He’d seen how Ripper had gone airborne. He’d learned to use two of his sigils already. It was simply a matter of trying. So he tried.

  The Leap sigil glowed on his wrist and he was thrust into the air by the power of his legs. It was startling, exhilarating. He crossed a space of twenty feet, soaring like a bird for a few moments. Most importantly, it had worked. He raised the shovel, the Shovel sigil activating, the edge of the blade gleaming with a sudden edge, and he brought it down.

  It was perfect. The arc of his leap, the swing of his improvised weapon. The pipkin would bother him no more. He didn’t feel good about it, but it was a grim necessity.

  Then the ground around the pipkin exploded. Like a snake from a can, blades of grass and tendrils of vines erupted from the bare earth like shot from a gun. It startled him, making him blink, the shocking appearance of the vegetation consuming the pipkin, the swing of his blade smashing plant and leaf, but losing the little bastard.

  Tiller stumbled to his knees, casting about in panic and fury. He just glimpsed the little twisted root tail of the pipkin disappearing into the long grass beyond.

  “The fuck was that?”

  He looked down at the screen of vegetation that had just appeared. A defense mechanism it seemed.

  His eyes traveled back to where the creature had disappeared.

  Grimly, he called into the long grass, “You won this round. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.