The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“Are you sure this will work?” the refugee from Harvana asked, looking at the handcart in confusion. Vanders looked at him, the starving man standing there with his shirt off in the late-day sun, his ribs quite visible under his skin. Still, he hadn’t hesitated to volunteer to do some work, especially when it was hinted that there would be food as a reward when it was all finished.

The Grand Provider had wanted to use people from inside the city to help with this experiment, but Larek had suggested otherwise.

“Those people out there have nothing to do, no jobs to help them feel like they are part of something bigger. They’re starving and don’t know what they can do to prevent themselves from dying, so they need a reason to keep going. They need a purpose, and doing this will give them that purpose. They won’t be a burden anymore, won’t be simply mouths to feed; instead, they will be an integral part of this city you have and will have an important role to play. At the end, food is a resource that can be provided if we work hard enough; hope, on the other hand, is a precious commodity that cannot be bought, only earned. Let’s let them earn that hope, Vanders.”

It had been a profound statement and Vanders hadn’t necessarily believed it at first, but when he was tasked to find volunteers among the refugees, he had been overwhelmed by the response. They’d had to turn away thousands of people who wanted to help, half of them in no shape to walk more than a few hundred feet before falling down from the weakness brought on by starvation, though the ones they did accept were hardly any better. He hadn’t realized how bad the situation was inside the camps outside the walls, having not wanted to see how horrible the conditions were, so it was an eye-opening experience.

It also brought out a lot of anger. Not toward the refugees, but toward himself, the other Providers, and especially the Supreme Provider – all of whom had done nothing to change what was happening, despite it being obvious. I should have worked harder to convince Borex…

As much as he was struggling with his own guilt, he pushed it aside as what he was doing would hopefully change things for the better. After only a few hours, Larek had emerged from his room in the Provider’s Palace and brought with him the stacks of the steel plates that had been brought to him earlier. Fendra scoffed at the powerful man’s assertion that they all now had Fusions on them, as anything but the weakest or most basic of Fusions took many hours to complete, but she took one look at them and immediately shut up from the shock that passed through her entire body.

Which was a first, since the woman liked to hear herself talk.

After that was when the plans were quickly made for implementing the testing and production of food, with Vanders and a few others tasked with finding volunteers, while still other Providers sought out handcarts and a few other needed items. Once the wooden handcarts were acquired, 30 of them in total, one of the steel plates that Larek had added Fusions to was attached to its front, positioned in a particular way so that a specific side was facing forward.

There were other Fusions as well, which were attached to a simple wooden plank that sat perpendicularly on top of a 6-foot-tall wooden pole. It looked strangely simple for what Larek promised it would do, but it was a bit beyond his expertise, so Vanders just followed instructions.

“I have no idea,” Vanders admitted to the refugee, whose name he remembered was Malik. “That’s why we have you all here to help test these things, and eventually to be in charge of it all if—when—it works.”

“In… charge? What about the Providers?”

What about the Providers, indeed.

“We’ll… have other duties, I’m told. Anyway, shall we get started?”

Looking back at Larek, who was adjusting one of the steel plates on one of the handcarts before stepping back with a nod, he knew that now was as good of a time to begin as any. Addressing Malik, but speaking up so that the entire group of 30 refugees lined up along the empty field could hear him, he said, “Lean forward and touch the plate, willing it to activate! Once it becomes active, slowly pushed the handcart forward until you reach the end of the row and then touch the plate again to deactivate it!”  At least, that was what Larek had told him to say, so he could only assume that this was correct.

The refugees leaned forward and touched the steel plates, not all at once but in a staggered procession, and almost immediately there was something to see. In front of the handcarts, the field was quickly torn up in a 3-foot-wide swath, though it wasn’t simply toss everywhere. Instead, it was almost as if someone had taken a large whisk to a mixing bowl and stirred up its contents, before leaving a line in the middle; in other words, a large chunk of dirt was practically lifted up and mixed together before leaving a furrow down the middle with small mounds on either side of it.

The soil that was churned up was also a deeper brown than the almost bleached and dry dirt on the surface, and although he wasn’t a farmer in any shape or form, Vanders could tell that the soil looked much better suited for growing crops. After an initial round of surprised exclamations coming from the refugees, they began to move forward, the ground in front of them being churned up and readied for planting.

“A little slower there! Keep it straight! You’re drifting into the other rows!” Vanders heard shouted from the few actual Farmers that had joined the volunteers, who were overseeing the operations with more detail than Vanders or any of the other Providers could. While this method of plowing the field was a bit strange, they seemed to have taken to it much faster than the Grand Provider expected.

There were a few mistakes where one of the refugees pushing the cart accidentally slipped on the softer, plowed soil, causing the cart he was pushing to veer to the side when he fell, but the dirt destruction on another row was quickly smoothed out and corrected a few seconds later. Otherwise, it seemed as though it was all working as Larek had intended, though he couldn’t help but think that it might be better to pull the whole contraption rather than push it through the already-plowed field, which seemed a bit too soft for the wheels to move through easily.

I’ll have to ask Larek if that is possible.

“Huh. I guess pulling the Furrow Field Fusions would probably be better,” Larek said next to Vanders, and the Grand Provider started in surprise. Did he just read my mind? “If they are able to pull those carts, perhaps strapping it to them with a harness of some kind, then that might work.”

Vanders was happy to hear that, and he noted that one of the refugee Farmers had also heard it and nodded along with Larek’s words. Even if the Grand Provider didn’t do anything, he was sure that the change would take place at some point.

“Planters! You’re up!”

Dozens more volunteers stepped up, half of them with a full satchel of seeds slung around their bodies, while the others had a wooden and iron hoe in their hands. The ones holding the seeds immediately started dropping seeds inside the furrows, spacing small piles of them around 2 feet apart from each other, before moving on. Behind them, the ones with the hoes used their tools to cover the seeds with dirt piled up next to the furrow, covering it completely and smoothing out the entire plot with quick movements. While many of them had never done anything like this, the method was easy enough to understand, and easy to execute.

Once the planters were at least 200 feet down the rows, Larek nodded in his direction.

“Growers! Step forward!”

This time, only 5 volunteers moved forward, nervously holding the 6-foot-tall poles upright next to them. Vanders had them spread out until they were quite a bit apart from each other, before advancing until they were a few dozen feet down the field.

This is it. The other contraption to plow the field was impressive enough, but ultimately unnecessary if enough people were set to working on it. This, however, is the important one.

“Alright, now, on the count of three, I want you to reach up and touch the steel plate on the top of your poles, willing them to activate. At that point, pause for a little bit before walking forward; we’re not sure how fast you need to walk, but start following the others ahead of you at a very slow pace at first. We may need to either speed up or slow down depending on growth rate.”

That’s if it even works, of course. Vanders was hoping that it would, but he still didn’t even understand how such a thing was possible.

“1… 2… 3!”

While the volunteers didn’t all touch them at the same time, it was close enough. While there wasn’t an obvious growth immediately, a thick mist spread out from the top of each pole, reaching around three dozen feet away, as it dampened the soil and turning it even darker in color. After a few seconds, Vanders thought there might be flooding, but that was until he saw green sprouts appear wherever the watery mist landed, shooting up with visible growth.

Of course, he’d seen the same thing happen with the Naturalists and Aquamancers that had been growing food out here before this, but this was all being done by normal people. With the help of a Fusion, of all things, but there were absolutely no other Mages involved.

The green stalks, clumped together because of the multiple seeds that had been placed inside the furrow, shot up quickly, and within 10 seconds they were already nearly as tall as he was.

“Forward!” one of the Farmers nearby shouted, and the volunteers started to walk slowly ahead. “Faster!” The refugees sped up their pace, and as the plants at the edge of the field started to ripen from green to gold, he saw the beginnings of a wheat crop that had been plowed, planted, and grown in minutes– and it wasn’t even done yet. Unlike the Mages growing the food over the last few weeks, the Fusions didn’t have to rest and regenerate their Mana, as they could continue working for as long as they were needed.

It was, for lack of a better word, unbelievable.

“The arrogant bastard actually did it, didn’t he?” Vanders heard muttered from behind him, and he couldn’t help but smile at Fendra’s words. Yes; yes, he did.

“It looks like this first section here is a bit overripe, as it was grown for too long,” one of the Farmers said as he started pointing out the wheat nearest the edge of the field. As the ones with the growing Fusions kept moving, Vanders could see that the initial growth of the wheat crops were a different color than the ones further along, though he probably wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out.

“Are they bad, then?”

The Farmer shook his head. “Shouldn’t be. Not as great of a quality, most likely, but still edible. You can see that the ones further ahead are near perfect as the speed of their advance is much better, though there are a few patches where they aren’t completely ripe where they may have walked a little too quickly,” he noted, and the Grand Provider saw what he was talking about with the few spots of green throughout all the golden wheat stalks. “A little practice and working on the timing is all it’ll need to smooth that out, however. Whoever made these things is a genius and a literal lifesaver.”

Vanders couldn’t help but agree.

“Harvesters! It’s your turn!” he shouted, and even more refugee volunteers strode forward, their excited murmuring rumbling across the field. He couldn’t blame them, because they were just about to harvest the first crop of the new Fusion-created wheat, and many more people would be fed over the coming days. With how quickly the food was being grown, the only holdup was how fast it could be planted and then harvested, which was why there were hundreds of volunteers for this portion of the plan.

He wasn’t sure all that needed to be done, because he hadn’t been intimately involved in the process, but he knew that the wheat had to be cut and then processed into grains, which would then need to be milled into flour before it was usable for consumption. Fortunately, they had all of those processes already in place, as they had been doing it before this, though with how much they would have to process they needed a lot more hands.

Which was why Larek’s idea to use the refugees had ultimately been a good one. They had thousands of people who had nothing to do, and this would give them exactly what the needed in order to not only survive, but to have something that they hadn’t had before.

Hope.

“It looks like it works as I had hoped,” the powerful voice of the Fusionist suddenly said next to him, and Vanders jerked in surprise. How does he move so quickly? “I’ll leave you all to organize all of this, because it’s not really my specialty,” Larek continued, waving toward the harvesting refugees, who were placing all of the cut wheat stalks on large wagons that had to be pulled by hand. Any beasts of burden that hadn’t been eaten yet were used to cart the heavier wagons filled with monster corpses out from the Apertures.

“You’re not going to watch the other crops?”

Larek shook his head. “No, I’m sure you’ve got it well in hand. Actually, from what I’ve heard from the Farmers, it looks like they have it handled pretty well. They will probably have to experiment with growing times for all the other crops, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out.”

“What are you going to do, instead?” Fendra asked from behind him.

“Step two to my plan for feeding everyone, of course,” the Fusionist said matter-of-factly. “This is a great start, but monster meat is apparently an important staple to the people’s diet; without any livestock, that makes sense.”

“Which is what the Providers have been doing,” Fendra said with irritation in her voice.

“And you’ve been doing a fantastic job of it, but it really shouldn’t be all that you do.  Like I said before, all the Mages and Martials should be focusing on external threats, just like you used to do, and you can’t do that while half or more of you are constantly venturing out and hunting for food. We have people here that can easily do that, instead, so that you can start closing nearby Apertures – and perhaps even expanding your influence and making the Kingdom safer for everyone.”

“You make it sound as if such a thing were easy,” Fendra spat, and Vanders turned around to see her crossing her arms while staring up at the taller man.  “Do you have any idea what you’re even saying? Sure, we might be able to close a few nearby Apertures to keep them a bit safer, but there are Apertures that have grown too powerful to fight against – and that’s not even counting the Five Calamities.”

“That may be, but you’ve got to start somewhere, correct? Besides, before I leave, I’m going to see if I can’t make it a little easier for you; first, though, let’s arm the population with powerful weapons so they can go hunting,” Larek said, before turning away and walking back toward the city.

Uh….

“What did he just say? What powerful weapons does he mean?” Fendra said with exasperation, watching the Fusionist walk away.

“I have no idea, but I’m looking forward to finding out.”

With another look at the fields and the harvesting going on, he nodded at the Farmers who all had smiles on their faces as they shouted orders. When they barely even acknowledged his nod, he turned away, following Larek in case the powerful man needed some other supplies to make these so-called “powerful weapons” of his.

Whatever they are, they can’t be more impressive than being able to grow an entire field of crops in a matter of minutes.