Namu sat in the dark outside Dahlia’s stall. He’d put in enough of his required rooting time to be functional, and the excitement that bristled across his bark and sent the smell of strawberries into the air more than made up for the rest of it. It had been another week since Dahlia had laid the egg, and in that time, Namu had dutifully tended to both the MaGriffs, the garden, and had even raced Mangrove the day before. They’d got a respectable fifth place. The XP he’d gained, along with the rest of his efforts, had finally leveled up the ranch and got him two new skill points.

  He’d put off assigning the points until he’d seen the chick, just in case its stats swayed him on what to build next. Besides, the excitement of a new MaGriff ensured he couldn’t think about what to pick.

  A pale light filtered through the seams of the stable doors. Dawn had arrived. To be honest, Namu didn’t know when the egg would hatch, just that it was due to hatch today, the same day of the week Dahlia started brooding it. For all he knew, he would sit and stare at Dahlia’s stall all day. Not that he had much else that he needed or wanted to do. He’d already figured out the rules for ranch collaboration. Two was it, more or less. Only one contract per type of help could be made at one time. So, technically, ranches could have separate contracts for jockeys, breeding, gardening, and such, but they couldn’t have multiple contracts with different ranches that all covered the same thing. Other than that, he’d found nothing of interest.

  Normally, his mind flitted and refused to settle, yet when he finally latched on to something, he couldn’t let go until some goal had been reached. In this case, until the egg hatched. His friends had accepted his obsession and left the ranch, promising to bring him something nice to drink when they returned.

  Namu watched as the pale light grew stronger. The calm patience of the Plantfolk, which usually avoided him, descended like a curtain. Time blurred together. Sounds grew distant. He almost didn’t hear the peep.

  It was muffled and high-pitched. If it hadn’t pinged something in the ember of excitement smoldering in his mind, he wouldn’t have noticed at all, but he knew what that sound was.

  A chick.

  His awareness snapped back into the present. Namu jumped to his feet and peered over the stall door. Dahlia had scooted off the egg, her neck craned to look at it. The egg wiggled. Another peep came out, and Dahlia peeped in response.

  Namu opened the stall door and crouched in front of the increasingly wiggly egg. Only after did he consider the possibility that Dahlia wouldn’t appreciate the intrusion. He tensed and looked at the broody MaGriff. Dahlia had her eyes locked on the egg. Namu happily followed suit. A delicate splintering sound came from the egg as a small crack appeared on the top. The scent of strawberries thickened around Namu and mingled with the musk of birds and hay. With his focus at a pinpoint once more, all else faded as he watched the new MaGriff fight its way out of its shell. The crack widened as the chick pushed and twisted until, with a final shove, a wet MaGriff chick small enough for Namu to scoop up in his arms stretched out in front of him. Wet, pale pink down covered the chick, whose large head dwarfed its body. He resisted the urge to touch it, just barely. The info sheet had been clear that the brooding hens needed to be the ones to care for the chicks.

  Dahlia did so, fluffing her feathers as she settled over the chick and using her feet and beak to shove the pieces of eggshell out of the way. The chick disappeared from sight. It had looked a lot different from its parents.

  A stat screen popped up in Namu’s face, but before he read it, another, flashing, screen popped up over it.

  A flush of pride spread through Namu. Nothing he’d read had mentioned such an achievement, which meant either he’d overlooked it, or he’d just found a hidden one. The boost seemed powerful, but he wasn’t sure how powerful, so he exited the achievement alert and scanned his new MaGriff’s stats.

  From what Namu remembered of Mangrove and Dahlia’s base stats, these were definitely better. Not astronomically so, but there wouldn’t be a challenge if someone could rocket to the top with a second-generation MaGriff. It also gave him hope he’d catch up quickly after missing an entire week of breeding and racing.

  Now that his new MaGriff had entered the world, the next steps lined up. After two weeks, the hatchling would become a juvenile, then he’d have thirty days to train it in special, open areas outside of the ranch.

  A quick check of his ranch UI showed two new tabs—”Achievements” and “Training Areas”. Namu flicked the “Achievements” tab without hesitation, but it only showed the one he’d unlocked. No hints then. That was fine. Secret achievements were the best.

  The other tab proved more interesting.

  Each entry had a small picture by it, showing the described terrain. It all looked idyllic, but it raised even more questions. The three available areas specified juveniles only, which implied there were training areas for adults, and the emphasis on “free” told Namu others would not be. The descriptions also implied that each area specialized in certain stats. Or at least trained some stats more than others.

  Namu had gone through what he thought were nearly all the info screens, and none of them had mentioned separate training areas, only that juvenile MaGriffs took a month to hit adulthood, and they couldn’t be raced until then. Like with other achievements, that told Namu there were hidden info screens, unlocked only as you unlocked what went with it. He tensed as he did a mental search for training areas. Sure enough, a screen he’d never seen before popped up. He closed it with a sigh. Later.

  *****

  Later drew out for days. Mira had given him the okay to use both skill points for whatever he wanted, with the promise of growing his debt toward her in more gambling games. Namu had happily chosen the short log jump blueprint. The second skill point took him longer.

  Under the basic 3x2 garden bed blueprint he already had were options for a 6x4 garden bed, a small pond, and wooden fence. He dismissed the fence easily. It sounded more decorative than useful. He’d been wanting to add more types of ingredients for feed. Technically, he could build more 3x2 plots, get new seeds, and use the point on a fish pond. But the pond took up a lot more space than the 6x4 plot, and it made less food per pound. He’d also seen bulk discounts for seeds in the store. That settled it. MaGriffs at a lot, and he saw plenty of garden beds in his future.

  Unlocking the nodes unlocked new ones underneath, including a more economical way of adding protein to MaGriff feed—insect hives. But that was a decision for another time. With the blueprints obtained, he, Cyrille, and even Mira worked to get the wood and soil for the new additions.

  Two weeks went by in a haze of cards, construction, and ranch work. The little chick, whom Mira had named Bubblegum for her vibrant pink feathers, had grown steadily taller, mostly in leg length. Namu had checked on her that morning. She was still not a juvenile. Instead, a timer had appeared on her stats page. She had a couple of hours, and since there was a timer, there probably wasn’t an achievement for watching her change growth stages. That suited Namu. He’d uprooted with an itchy amount of energy in his limbs, and he looked forward to using it on harvesting the feed crops. In the future, he planned to tear down the smaller plots and replace them with larger ones. But for now, they remained useful.

  The original 3x2 garden beds still held wheatgrass. Beside those, he and Cyrille had built three 6x4 beds. One held more wheatgrass, as it was the cheapest. Plus, the excess could easily be sold on the market. The other two garden beds had daisies. The flowers, with their long, thin stalks and scruffy-looking flowers, looked more like weeds than something you’d find in landscaping, but they made a nice match for the swaying blades of wheatgrass.

  Regardless of how it looked, Namu harvested it all the same. The flowers first, then the growing amount of wheatgrass. His work got him two piles of feedstuffs, which he sorted through for seeds. He’d gone through all the flowers and half the wheatgrass when something odd caught his eye. A single cluster of wheatgrass seeds stood out. The effect was subtle, only a few shades lighter than the rest, yet as Namu peered closer, he realized it glowed with a pale inner light. He carefully pinched the cluster from the stalk.

  Namu laughed, the scent of strawberry and honeysuckle floating around him. So, there were breeding mechanics to plants as well as the MaGriffs. By extension, that meant the insects and fish were the same. That was amazing. Alone, his new strain’s little boost wasn’t much, but he’d bet more money he didn’t have that strains could mutate, and you could mix strains, creating a nigh-endless combination of traits. His new hidden achievement would undoubtedly give him an edge in that regard.

  He named the strain a very creative “High Yield +5%” then checked, and found, that a “Plant Strains” tab had appeared listing his new strain. As more traits unlocked and mixed, he’d have to get creative with naming, but for now, he didn’t need to waste time coming up with better names. Maybe he’d just get Cyrill to name them. Although then he might end up with things he couldn’t pronounce.

  With that out of the way, Namu turned to re-planting. The new strain went first. He’d got forty-three seeds. It wasn’t enough for a big plot, so he planted a small one and kept six seeds back. He’d have to make sure to put them in a special spot so they didn’t end up as feed.

  The rest of the garden beds got regular wheatgrass and flower seeds. It took him close to two-and-a-half hours to finish the work and take the new feedstuffs to the stable.

  A screen popped up as soon as he walked over the stable’s threshold.

  The screen sat right in front of his nose. The armful of plants had already obscured his vision. With the silver screen covering what little he had left, Namu couldn’t see where he was stepping. He shifted the bundles in his arms, trying to get a hand up to exit the offensive screen. The screen, of course, stuck to his face.

  “Oh, come on.”

  Namu threaded a hand up through the stalks. Half of them promptly fell onto the stable floor. Namu tossed the rest with a growl and slapped the screen away.

  Three MaGriff heads poked over two stall doors. He’d let them into the turnouts that morning, but the sound of food hitting the ground was apparently a large draw.

  Namu glanced at Dahlia’s stall, where both Dahlia and Bubblegum cocked their heads at him. The bright pink MaGriff was now as tall as her mother, but much like a yearling horse, she had none of the bulk. All of her features were thin and elongated, and as she stretched her neck out, she looked almost snake-like. He laughed at the thought. All three MaGriffs squawked in surprise.

  He continued to chuckle as he gathered up the scattered bundles. “Sorry, guys. No more food yet, although it looks like you’re going to need a stall of your own soon, Bubblegum.”

  Bubblegum trilled at her name, her neck nearly straight as she reached toward Namu.

  “Yeah, okay. You’re cute.”

  He dropped the plants once more and rubbed his hand down her beak. She cooed at his touch. Cyrille had worked with her since the day after she hatched, and Namu had been there nearly every time, although more of a learner than anything else. They’d gone through de-sensitizing her to touch, being led in a halter, and basic commands. Now that she wasn’t a baby, Namu was sure her training would get a lot more complicated, but he had faith in his friend’s abilities. Cyrille had worked with high-value horses in his youth until a jealous rival framed him for a famous stud’s death.

  The third time around, Namu got the unprocessed feed into the storeroom, which left him with plenty of time before his friends returned.

  Namu settled outside to decide on a training area for Bubblegum. His position also gave him a good view of his ranch. It hadn’t changed much. It had been less than a month since he and his friends bought it, after all, but it still felt more and more like his new home. His life in Myth and Magic hadn’t been awful. He’d started as all Plantfolk did, fruiting from his mother as a baby very similar to a human newborn. His parents had been Ancients. As Plantfolk aged over hundreds of years, they became increasingly less humanoid and more like their Seed Ancestry, which in Namu’s case was a Willow. When he was born, his parents were already so aged that they spent most of their time as a tree, and even in what remained of their mobile form, had lost most of their dexterity, and so, he had gone to a foster mother. She’d been a Palm Plantfolk, a rare subspecies known for their energy and love of play. Namu’s parents grew to blame her for his rather…un-Plantfolk like interests. Namu couldn’t deny her influence, but he thanked her for it. She taught him it was fine to be different. That life, long or short, should be lived as happily as one could manage. The path he’d chosen had stuck him firmly outside the bulk of Plantfolk culture.

  Others of his race weren’t mean to him. They simply didn’t understand him or his lack of desire to conform. He accepted the lack of connection at a young age and left his Grove to explore the world as soon as he could care for himself. He’d gone with his foster mother’s blessing. She, too, had left to seek adventure, and Namu hadn’t heard from her since. He hoped she was just too busy to find him, even if his gut told him otherwise.

  A melancholy scent of rotten fruit caught Namu’s attention. He shook his head to dislodge the memories. Wherever his foster mother was, being sad wouldn’t honor her. In Myth and Magic, he’d sought happiness. Here, in Apex Ranch, he was sure he’d found it. The newly sown garden beds spoke of hard work and new beginnings, the racetrack of excitement he’d chased all his life, the sprint hill and jumps to the bond he’d forged with Mira and Cyrille, and the stable of the glue that kept his dreams alive.

  His melancholy melted away in the sun as it soaked into his back. His life may not have taken a typical Plantfolk’s route, but at this moment, all he wanted was to feel the sun and the soil. He stood and stretched his arms to the sky. They shifted into branches as his legs formed a trunk and pushed roots into his new home.