[Cass]
The hunger didn't wait for plans. It clawed at bellies, made tempers short, turned whispers sharp. The Warbles still trusted him — but trust burned calories too.
Cass studied the [System Quest options] again. Subterranean Farming. Beast Domestication. Excavation.
Excavation was too slow. Beasts meant risking more deaths. That left farming — in a cavern where no surface plant had ever survived.
Rilka led him to the faint airflow she'd marked days ago. The cavern here had a jagged ceiling, stone cracked wide enough for fine soil to trickle through. Damp patches glistened on the floor, faintly warm.
"Smells different," Rilka said, chalk smeared on her cheek. "Like dirt. Not just stone."
Cass crouched, scooping a handful. It crumbled in his palm, richer than the rock dust they lived on. Soil. Thin, but real.
The elder arrived, leaning on his staff. "Soil is a gift. But what will you plant? Down here, light is not for leaves."
Cass looked at the faint shimmer of Glowshrooms along the wall. "Then we cheat."
[System Alert]
Experimental Project Unlocked: Subterranean Farming
Requirements: fertile soil (secured), water (Rootwater supply), light source (fungus/lantern).
Optional Bonus: Alchemical catalyst to accelerate growth.
Risk: Crop failure, spore contamination.
Eshna frowned as Cass set soil and pods before her. "You want me to grow food out of moss and fungus? I'm a healer, not a farmer."
"You're both now," Cass said. "Healers keep people alive. So do farmers. This is the same fight."
Reluctantly, she began mixing sap into the soil, adding powdered herbs. The smell was acrid, but something faintly green rose from it.
Days turned into back-breaking work. Children carried water skins. Scouts hauled soil from cracks. Rilka charted light flows from fungus clusters, carving patterns to redirect glow onto the planted mounds.
The first shoots appeared — pale, trembling stalks, more ghost than plant. But edible. Barely.
The Warbles cheered anyway.
[System Notification]
Experimental Farming Success (Minor).
Crop: Palegrain (nutritional value: low, sustainable yield).
Settlement Status: Food supply extended by 6 days.
[Cass]
The cheer faded into murmurs as people realized six days wasn't a harvest — it was a reprieve. Not enough.
Cass stood before the ward that night, hands raw from carrying soil himself.
"If I can bend stone to give food," he whispered, "then I can bend it to give more. I'll tear the mountain apart if I have to."
The ward pulsed faint silver, steady, but offered no answers.
[Forum - Global Noise]
[FarmerJay]: "Food collapse on my server. Guilds fighting over scraps."
[IronFist88]: "Told you turtling underground is suicide. Nobody grows crops there."
[Nocti]: "Then how is infection slowing in shard 6 if nobody's alive there? Someone's surviving."
[Skeptik]: "Coincidence. Devs adjust numbers. Don't myth-chase."
[BloodPrinceTV]: "Stream tomorrow - arena food shortage meta. Don't miss it."
[Cass]
On the third night, he woke to footsteps. Rilka was asleep, slate clutched in her arms, but her chalk lines glowed faintly on the stone.
They weren't just maps. They pulsed like veins.
Cass touched one. The glow shivered beneath his palm. Not chalk. Something else awakening through her.
He pulled back quickly. She was still a child. But Propervy Bastion might have just found its first true Cartographer.
And if the world thought the Ghost Lord was dead, hidden under stone? Good.
Let them forget. He would build here in silence, in the dark, until the day the mountain itself could not hold him anymore.
Propervy Bastion
Status: Isolated
Food: 6 days (Critical but extended)
Morale: Fragile (Hopeful)
Directive: Expand Subterranean Farming or risk starvation event.