Cavinator1
Terrarian
Hello Terraria fans! I've been playing Terraria for many years (since before 1.2) but this is my first time posting on these forums, because I wanted to share the Terraria fan-fiction story that I've been working on.
The synopsis of my story is as follows:
William, Robyn and Sid wake up in a strange grassy forest, made completely from pixels and blocks, with no memory of their past or knowledge of the world they have been thrust into. The world plays like a game, the nights bring zombies and flying demon eyes, the lands are being corrupted by living flesh, and the old man standing in front of a mysterious dungeon seems to be under some sort of curse.
The three of them will need to learn how to work together, build up a village for the astray citizens that keep showing up on their doorstep, and gear up in order to take on the challenges of the world and become the Guardians of Terraria.
If you're interested in reading a story that follows a group of characters through the progression of the game all while tying in with the official Terraria lore, you've come to the right place! I've also created a picture for each chapter by taking in-game screenshots.
I've included the first two episodes (which consist of seven chapters in total) in the spoilers below. The full story can be read on Wattpad here.
The synopsis of my story is as follows:
William, Robyn and Sid wake up in a strange grassy forest, made completely from pixels and blocks, with no memory of their past or knowledge of the world they have been thrust into. The world plays like a game, the nights bring zombies and flying demon eyes, the lands are being corrupted by living flesh, and the old man standing in front of a mysterious dungeon seems to be under some sort of curse.
The three of them will need to learn how to work together, build up a village for the astray citizens that keep showing up on their doorstep, and gear up in order to take on the challenges of the world and become the Guardians of Terraria.
If you're interested in reading a story that follows a group of characters through the progression of the game all while tying in with the official Terraria lore, you've come to the right place! I've also created a picture for each chapter by taking in-game screenshots.
I've included the first two episodes (which consist of seven chapters in total) in the spoilers below. The full story can be read on Wattpad here.
William awoke to sun shining down from a blue sky.
The feeling of grass at his fingertips.
A light breeze brushing across his hair.
The sight of trees, tall and thin, with leafy branches and canopies.
When he sat up, he saw the grass around him was completely flat and uniform. Some blades poked up, which waved slightly in the breeze. Some distance away the grass rose up suddenly about maybe half a metre, like a step on a staircase.
He peered closely at one of the trees – it looked like a tree, but at the same time it looked like no tree he had ever seen. It appeared to be composed of lots of multicoloured squares arranged in a grid, reminding him of some sort of old-time video game.
What were those squares called again? Pixels?
William couldn’t be sure what was going on – he didn’t know much, but he was sure the real world didn’t look like this. The world he remembered in his head was one of curves and variety. The real world had buildings and cars and people. Not like these trees, which all looked simplified and the same.
What the real world also didn’t have was giant green bouncing blobs.
His eyes widened as the blob continued to bounce towards him. It hopped maybe once every four seconds, the pixels that made it up vibrating and wobbling in increasing frequency before hopping again, as though it was readying internal hopping muscles.
He was wondering how such a… strange organism, like a pile of slime from some science class, could exist, much less jump around like that, when he realised it had gotten within hopping distance of landing on him.
He was too slow to react. The blob landed squishily against his body, causing him to involuntarily stumble backwards. A stab of pain shot through him, feeling like someone had pinched his arm.
“Ow!” he yelled, taking some steps backwards. He stared directly at the blob. Impossibly, some words appeared above it – ‘Green Slime: 28/28’.
What is this? Words don’t normally appear over things when you look at them.
The blob – the Green Slime – took another leap towards him, but William had moved far enough backwards that it landed just short of him. He was shocked at how high it could jump.
What do I do?
He ducked as the Slime jumped, but to his relief it sailed over his head, landing behind him. So he broke into a run, trying to get as far as he could from the Bouncing Blob of Doom. When he snuck a look behind him he could see he not only seemed to be outrunning it, but it seemed to have lost track of him and was hopping in a completely different direction.
Whew. At least it doesn’t have a death wish for me.
He suddenly ran into something else that felt just as squishy as the Green Slime and got knocked backwards, more pain flashing through his body.
Another slime – this one was blue. And rather fittingly it was labelled with ‘Blue Slime: 50/50’ as he looked at it.
What do the numbers mean? he wondered just as the Blue Slime launched itself at him, again slamming into him with its sludgy exterior. He was again knocked backwards, the very collision repelling him with force. More pain.
The world’s been infested with slimes! HELP!
That was when he got what he wished for.
“Yaaarrgh!” he heard someone yell. From his right.
He glanced just in time to see two people – people! – running towards him. Like everything else in this strange place their appearance looked oversimplified and pixelated, but the sight of living, breathing, and talking people did wonders for the worries rising inside him. The person in the lead was male and dark-skinned, with a mop of strangely pale-green hair. He wore a long brown coat over a blue shirt, gray pants and black boots. The other was female, her skin a light brown, her hair a dark brown ponytail. She wore a pink shirt with an orange heart on it and light blue pants.
The guy was holding out what looked like a pointy orange sword as he charged at the Blue Slime. He thrust out the sword and it made contact. An orange number 5 popped out of the slime and hovered in mid-air for a second before fading into nothingness. As it did, the numbers on the Blue Slime’s label changed to ‘45/50’. A green bar, about 9/10-th’s full, also appeared above it.
The guy’s attack did not stop for a moment. He kept stabbing at the Blue Slime, and more orange numbers spurted out. 5’s and 4’s, once a flashing number 10 appeared. With each attack the numbers decreased by whatever number popped out, and when they reached 0, the Blue Slime disintegrated in a slimy explosion with a squelchy noise. Some objects that resembled pixelated orange coins spurted out alongside a blue ball, which flew into the guy’s body and vanished.
“Are you alright, dude?” he asked.
William snapped out of his amazement long enough to answer. “Yeah.”
As he looked at the guy he saw he also had a label. ‘Sid: 100/100’.
“Did you just wake up too?” the guy – Sid – asked. “You looked like you had no idea how to fight back.”
“I don’t,” William said. “I mean, where did you get that… sword?”
“I had one when I woke up,” Sid said. “And so did Robyn.” He gestured to the girl, who held out a sword of her own. Upon looking at her, William saw she indeed had the label ‘Robyn: 100/100’.
William held out his hand too, and was shocked to find an orange sword just like theirs was also in his hand. When he stared at it, a blue box filled with lines of text popped up.
“Quick Copper Shortsword,” William read out loud. “Five melee damage. Four percent critical strike chance. Very fast speed. Weak knockback. Plus ten percent speed.”
Sid looked confused, then peered at his own sword.
“Oh, wow, I had no idea that happened,” he said.
The girl – Robyn – peered at hers too. “The sword’s not the only thing I have,” she said. “I have a Light Copper Pickaxe and a Massive Copper Axe.”
Sid held out a tool that looked like the sort of thing a miner might use.
“My Copper Pickaxe is unhappy,” he groaned. “That’s sad.”
William found himself holding out his own Copper Pickaxe and then his Copper Axe as well. He wasn’t really sure how he was switching the items in his hand, especially since whenever he switched from one to the next, the previous one would just seemingly vanish into nothingness until he wanted to hold it again.
“So your name is William?” Sid asked.
“Yes,” he said. It suddenly struck him that even though he could remember his name was William, he couldn’t remember anything else about himself.
Who was he in the real world he could remember? He could remember people, adults, kids, teenagers, elderly… but nothing about anyone in particular. Who were his parents? His friends? Was he married? Did he have kids? Siblings?
“You can probably tell from looking directly at me, but I’m Sid,” he said.
“I’m Robyn,” she said.
William nodded again, but wasn’t sure what else to say.
That was when he spotted a fourth person standing some distance away. He seemed to have white skin, wore a pale green shirt and blue jeans.
“There’s someone else over there,” William said, pointing.
Sid pivoted on his feet.
“Oh, great! The more, the merrier!”
William followed Sid and Robyn as they all walked over to the person. He was standing at the edge of a cliff that overlooked a large valley filled with grass, trees, rocks, lakes, and winding rivers. Snowy hills rose up in the distance, their presence hiding whatever could lie beyond it.
If not for the strangeness of this world, William would have almost found the view beautiful.
“Hello?” Sid called.
The person stayed where he was.
Sid stepped right up to him and tapped on his shoulder, and that caused him to turn around. He had brown eyes, and his light brown hair hung over the front of his face.
“Greetings, Sid. Is there something I can help you with?” he asked.
The feeling of grass at his fingertips.
A light breeze brushing across his hair.
The sight of trees, tall and thin, with leafy branches and canopies.
When he sat up, he saw the grass around him was completely flat and uniform. Some blades poked up, which waved slightly in the breeze. Some distance away the grass rose up suddenly about maybe half a metre, like a step on a staircase.
He peered closely at one of the trees – it looked like a tree, but at the same time it looked like no tree he had ever seen. It appeared to be composed of lots of multicoloured squares arranged in a grid, reminding him of some sort of old-time video game.
What were those squares called again? Pixels?
William couldn’t be sure what was going on – he didn’t know much, but he was sure the real world didn’t look like this. The world he remembered in his head was one of curves and variety. The real world had buildings and cars and people. Not like these trees, which all looked simplified and the same.
What the real world also didn’t have was giant green bouncing blobs.
His eyes widened as the blob continued to bounce towards him. It hopped maybe once every four seconds, the pixels that made it up vibrating and wobbling in increasing frequency before hopping again, as though it was readying internal hopping muscles.
He was wondering how such a… strange organism, like a pile of slime from some science class, could exist, much less jump around like that, when he realised it had gotten within hopping distance of landing on him.
He was too slow to react. The blob landed squishily against his body, causing him to involuntarily stumble backwards. A stab of pain shot through him, feeling like someone had pinched his arm.
“Ow!” he yelled, taking some steps backwards. He stared directly at the blob. Impossibly, some words appeared above it – ‘Green Slime: 28/28’.
What is this? Words don’t normally appear over things when you look at them.
The blob – the Green Slime – took another leap towards him, but William had moved far enough backwards that it landed just short of him. He was shocked at how high it could jump.
What do I do?
He ducked as the Slime jumped, but to his relief it sailed over his head, landing behind him. So he broke into a run, trying to get as far as he could from the Bouncing Blob of Doom. When he snuck a look behind him he could see he not only seemed to be outrunning it, but it seemed to have lost track of him and was hopping in a completely different direction.
Whew. At least it doesn’t have a death wish for me.
He suddenly ran into something else that felt just as squishy as the Green Slime and got knocked backwards, more pain flashing through his body.
Another slime – this one was blue. And rather fittingly it was labelled with ‘Blue Slime: 50/50’ as he looked at it.
What do the numbers mean? he wondered just as the Blue Slime launched itself at him, again slamming into him with its sludgy exterior. He was again knocked backwards, the very collision repelling him with force. More pain.
The world’s been infested with slimes! HELP!
That was when he got what he wished for.
“Yaaarrgh!” he heard someone yell. From his right.
He glanced just in time to see two people – people! – running towards him. Like everything else in this strange place their appearance looked oversimplified and pixelated, but the sight of living, breathing, and talking people did wonders for the worries rising inside him. The person in the lead was male and dark-skinned, with a mop of strangely pale-green hair. He wore a long brown coat over a blue shirt, gray pants and black boots. The other was female, her skin a light brown, her hair a dark brown ponytail. She wore a pink shirt with an orange heart on it and light blue pants.
The guy was holding out what looked like a pointy orange sword as he charged at the Blue Slime. He thrust out the sword and it made contact. An orange number 5 popped out of the slime and hovered in mid-air for a second before fading into nothingness. As it did, the numbers on the Blue Slime’s label changed to ‘45/50’. A green bar, about 9/10-th’s full, also appeared above it.
The guy’s attack did not stop for a moment. He kept stabbing at the Blue Slime, and more orange numbers spurted out. 5’s and 4’s, once a flashing number 10 appeared. With each attack the numbers decreased by whatever number popped out, and when they reached 0, the Blue Slime disintegrated in a slimy explosion with a squelchy noise. Some objects that resembled pixelated orange coins spurted out alongside a blue ball, which flew into the guy’s body and vanished.
“Are you alright, dude?” he asked.
William snapped out of his amazement long enough to answer. “Yeah.”
As he looked at the guy he saw he also had a label. ‘Sid: 100/100’.
“Did you just wake up too?” the guy – Sid – asked. “You looked like you had no idea how to fight back.”
“I don’t,” William said. “I mean, where did you get that… sword?”
“I had one when I woke up,” Sid said. “And so did Robyn.” He gestured to the girl, who held out a sword of her own. Upon looking at her, William saw she indeed had the label ‘Robyn: 100/100’.
William held out his hand too, and was shocked to find an orange sword just like theirs was also in his hand. When he stared at it, a blue box filled with lines of text popped up.
“Quick Copper Shortsword,” William read out loud. “Five melee damage. Four percent critical strike chance. Very fast speed. Weak knockback. Plus ten percent speed.”
Sid looked confused, then peered at his own sword.
“Oh, wow, I had no idea that happened,” he said.
The girl – Robyn – peered at hers too. “The sword’s not the only thing I have,” she said. “I have a Light Copper Pickaxe and a Massive Copper Axe.”
Sid held out a tool that looked like the sort of thing a miner might use.
“My Copper Pickaxe is unhappy,” he groaned. “That’s sad.”
William found himself holding out his own Copper Pickaxe and then his Copper Axe as well. He wasn’t really sure how he was switching the items in his hand, especially since whenever he switched from one to the next, the previous one would just seemingly vanish into nothingness until he wanted to hold it again.
“So your name is William?” Sid asked.
“Yes,” he said. It suddenly struck him that even though he could remember his name was William, he couldn’t remember anything else about himself.
Who was he in the real world he could remember? He could remember people, adults, kids, teenagers, elderly… but nothing about anyone in particular. Who were his parents? His friends? Was he married? Did he have kids? Siblings?
“You can probably tell from looking directly at me, but I’m Sid,” he said.
“I’m Robyn,” she said.
William nodded again, but wasn’t sure what else to say.
That was when he spotted a fourth person standing some distance away. He seemed to have white skin, wore a pale green shirt and blue jeans.
“There’s someone else over there,” William said, pointing.
Sid pivoted on his feet.
“Oh, great! The more, the merrier!”
William followed Sid and Robyn as they all walked over to the person. He was standing at the edge of a cliff that overlooked a large valley filled with grass, trees, rocks, lakes, and winding rivers. Snowy hills rose up in the distance, their presence hiding whatever could lie beyond it.
If not for the strangeness of this world, William would have almost found the view beautiful.
“Hello?” Sid called.
The person stayed where he was.
Sid stepped right up to him and tapped on his shoulder, and that caused him to turn around. He had brown eyes, and his light brown hair hung over the front of his face.
“Greetings, Sid. Is there something I can help you with?” he asked.
William took in the strange man’s appearance once again. His label read ‘Andrew: 250/250’. He had gathered that the numbers seemed to be some sort of rating. When Sid had hit the Blue Slime with his sword, it caused the first number to decrease, and when it had hit zero, the slime had died. So the numbers were some sort of life counter, the first number being how much life they had at the moment. The second number was probably the maximum life amount.
But what struck William as odd right away aside from Andrew’s strange response was how much life he had. 250. That was way more than Sid and Robyn, who each had 100.
William at first had no idea how much he had, but when he thought about looking at his life, suddenly he could see it superimposed in a corner of his vision. He had 90/100 life, which was visualised as a set of five beating hearts. He assumed he had only 90/100 due to getting hit by the slimes earlier, right as he saw the counter tick up to 91/100.
So I guess life slowly comes back after awhile. That’s good to know.
“Uhh…” Sid said, “I don’t know what we need help with. What do you think? Andrew?”
“I am here to give you advice on what to do next,” Andrew said. “It is recommended that you talk with me anytime you get stuck.”
“Okay…” Sid said. “What advice do you have?”
“You can use your pickaxe to dig through dirt, and your axe to chop down trees. Just keep hitting them with your tools until they break!”
His language felt strange to William. Andrew didn’t seem like an ordinary person. He was talking as though he was some sort of teacher or instructor.
“Oh. Sounds good, mate. I’ll go try that out.”
Sid held out his pickaxe and began bringing it down into the grass. With the first swipe a square of grassy cover was broken apart, revealing dirt beneath. With two more swipes the dirt beneath was freed, rushing into Sid’s body and leaving a square-shaped hole in the ground. The dirt block then appeared in Sid’s hand – he must’ve picked it up – and he placed it on the ground next to the hole, creating a brown cube sticking out of the grass.
“Huh,” he said.
Robyn tried her axe on one of the nearby trees. It took much longer for anything to happen with the trees than Sid with the dirt block, but before too long the entire tree disintegrated into objects that appeared to be a boatload of wooden planks along with a few acorns. All of these items rushed into Robyn’s body and disappeared.
He turned back to Andrew. “Who are you?”
Andrew stared at William for a moment before speaking.
“I am the Guide.”
Sid stepped back over to the Guide.
“What now?” he asked.
“You can access the crafting menu with your mind,” Andrew said. “When you have enough wood, create a workbench. This will allow you to create more complicated things, as long as you are standing close to it.”
Robyn stepped over to them.
“What do you mean, with your mind? I’m confused.”
While Andrew kept talking, William stepped over to a different tree and chopped it down himself. He felt a rush, like wind, as the wood and acorns all rushed into his body – 47 wood to be exact, and 4 acorns.
It seemed like items that were found in the world could be automatically picked up just by standing near them, and then stored in his… body. And, from the feel of things, without any hindrance of weight or having to carry everything around in his arms. William had no idea how that worked. It seemed to violate all known laws of physics.
When he held the wood in his hand he found he could place it on the ground in a similar way to how Sid had placed the dirt block, which formed a cube of wood.
He tried using his mind to navigate to the ‘crafting menu’, as Andrew had put it, and to his shock it appeared, superimposed over his vision. He first saw where all the wood and acorns were stored – it was a grid of 50 squares, 10 across, 5 down. Named the ‘inventory’, it contained his copper shortsword, pickaxe, and axe in the first three slots in the top row, and then the wood and acorns in the fourth and fifth slots. There were also four slots that were for coins and four more for ammo, and one which had a picture of a trash can on it.
From there he found the crafting menu. It seemed to display a list of items which could be ‘crafted’, and the ingredients each needed. The first was that two wooden platforms could be crafted using a single plank of wood. The second was the workbench, which needed ten wood.
He thought of crafting one, which deducted the amount of wood in his inventory from 46 to 36, and a workbench appeared in the sixth slot of his inventory.
He held it and placed it down on the grass in front of him.
Checking the crafting menu again, he found there was now a much larger list of items that he could craft. Most of them needed wood, including things like wooden furniture, fences, signs, and doors, but what caught his eye was the wooden sword down the bottom, which listed that it dealt 7 melee damage – two more than the copper shortsword.
He wasn’t sure why a sword made out of wood would deal more damage than a sword made from metal, but he crafted one and held it in his hand, then gave it a swing. It curved through the air with a whoosh of wind.
“Oh wow, William’s figuring stuff out quick!” Sid said, stepping over to him.
“I made a wooden sword,” William said. “It deals more damage than our copper swords.”
“Huh. Really?” After some time Sid had crafted a sword for himself.
“Awesome!” he said, then pivoted on his feet. “Hey, Andrew! What should we do next?”
“Once you have a wooden sword, you might try to gather some gel from the slimes. Combine wood and gel to make a torch!”
“Ohh! So that’s what gel must be for then!” Five seconds later Sid was holding a stick with a burning flame on the end.
“This is making me feel like I’m in some medieval adventure movie,” he said.
“Anything else?” William asked the Guide.
“You can build a shelter by placing wood or other blocks in the world,” he said. “Don't forget to create and place walls.”
“A shelter?” Sid murmured. “Why would we need one of those?”
“In… case more slimes start attacking us?” William suggested.
Both of Sid’s shoulders bobbed upwards by one pixel each – a shrug. “Honestly, they’re not that hard to kill. And we’ve got better swords now!”
“Might still not hurt to make one,” William said. “Just in case.”
“Alright. You can do that. I might have a quick look around.”
“Alright.”
After Sid left, William got to work. He chopped down more trees and started placing wood, first starting with walls, and then the ceiling, basically making a big wooden box in the forest.
He noticed some oddities as he built – he could place blocks much further away than his arm could reach. If he held a block of wood and swung it in his hand, it would place itself against whatever block he was looking at, as long as he was standing up to five blocks away from it or so. He also discovered that blocks didn’t fall if no other block was connected to them, which he found especially strange. Gravity didn’t seem to affect everything in this world.
“Weird,” he said.
For finishing touches to the house, he added a door and moved the workbench inside. He lastly crafted four wooden chairs and set them around the workbench. One for him, Robyn, Sid, and Andrew.
Though in honesty, he still wasn’t sure what to make of Andrew. The Guide didn’t seem to have any tools of his own, and didn’t try to or offer to help with construction.
Robyn mostly stood guard, attacking any slimes that got too close to where William was building. She chopped down a few trees herself and helped with some of the walls, but didn’t do or say much else.
William himself wasn’t too sure what to say either, internal thoughts still dwelling on big questions. Like, how? And why? How were they here in this world, and why were they? These were questions he had no answer for, and he had no real way of knowing how he could find answers to them.
It was shortly after the shelter was complete that William noticed the sun had been moving across the sky all day, and was already beginning to set, which felt strange, since it didn’t feel like a full day had passed. He wondered if days went faster in this strange world.
He took a look at the shelter from a distance. It wasn’t anything special, just a wooden block in the forest. He felt like the next thing he should do was make it look nicer, things like adding a sloped roof, or maybe some more rooms or storeys first. But for now, this would keep the slimes out. He hoped.
Sid got back shortly after.
“Have you seen the sun is setting?” he asked.
He hadn’t. William took a look at the sky, and noticed he seemed to be correct. He’d been so focussed on fighting off slimes and building that he hadn’t even noticed how fast the sun had been moving – he could have sworn it had been much higher in the sky, and in the other direction, when he’d first looked. Were days that much shorter?
“I figured once it got dark,” Sid said, “I wouldn’t be able to see, and I’d get lost.” He took a look at the shelter William had spent the day creating. “Looks good, dude.”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t really find anything out there except some more slimes.”
William nodded. “Well, let’s go inside.”
He supposed that spending time just now building up the shelter had been a good thing. If more slimes came for them at night, they wouldn’t be able to see them that well.
Or what if… there are worse things than slimes? What kind of monsters of the darkness came out in this world? Vampires? Ghosts? Boogeymen?
Robyn and Andrew the Guide were already sitting on two of the chairs inside the house. Sid sat next to Andrew first, so William took the remaining empty seat next to Robyn.
As the sun lowered itself below the horizon, the outside world became too dark to see, almost a black void, as though the inside of the house, lit by torches Sid had placed, was the only thing in the world.
“You should stay indoors at night,” Andrew said. “It is very dangerous to be wandering around in the dark.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Sid said.
Right as he said that William heard a rotting, ragged growl.
But what struck William as odd right away aside from Andrew’s strange response was how much life he had. 250. That was way more than Sid and Robyn, who each had 100.
William at first had no idea how much he had, but when he thought about looking at his life, suddenly he could see it superimposed in a corner of his vision. He had 90/100 life, which was visualised as a set of five beating hearts. He assumed he had only 90/100 due to getting hit by the slimes earlier, right as he saw the counter tick up to 91/100.
So I guess life slowly comes back after awhile. That’s good to know.
“Uhh…” Sid said, “I don’t know what we need help with. What do you think? Andrew?”
“I am here to give you advice on what to do next,” Andrew said. “It is recommended that you talk with me anytime you get stuck.”
“Okay…” Sid said. “What advice do you have?”
“You can use your pickaxe to dig through dirt, and your axe to chop down trees. Just keep hitting them with your tools until they break!”
His language felt strange to William. Andrew didn’t seem like an ordinary person. He was talking as though he was some sort of teacher or instructor.
“Oh. Sounds good, mate. I’ll go try that out.”
Sid held out his pickaxe and began bringing it down into the grass. With the first swipe a square of grassy cover was broken apart, revealing dirt beneath. With two more swipes the dirt beneath was freed, rushing into Sid’s body and leaving a square-shaped hole in the ground. The dirt block then appeared in Sid’s hand – he must’ve picked it up – and he placed it on the ground next to the hole, creating a brown cube sticking out of the grass.
“Huh,” he said.
Robyn tried her axe on one of the nearby trees. It took much longer for anything to happen with the trees than Sid with the dirt block, but before too long the entire tree disintegrated into objects that appeared to be a boatload of wooden planks along with a few acorns. All of these items rushed into Robyn’s body and disappeared.
He turned back to Andrew. “Who are you?”
Andrew stared at William for a moment before speaking.
“I am the Guide.”
Sid stepped back over to the Guide.
“What now?” he asked.
“You can access the crafting menu with your mind,” Andrew said. “When you have enough wood, create a workbench. This will allow you to create more complicated things, as long as you are standing close to it.”
Robyn stepped over to them.
“What do you mean, with your mind? I’m confused.”
While Andrew kept talking, William stepped over to a different tree and chopped it down himself. He felt a rush, like wind, as the wood and acorns all rushed into his body – 47 wood to be exact, and 4 acorns.
It seemed like items that were found in the world could be automatically picked up just by standing near them, and then stored in his… body. And, from the feel of things, without any hindrance of weight or having to carry everything around in his arms. William had no idea how that worked. It seemed to violate all known laws of physics.
When he held the wood in his hand he found he could place it on the ground in a similar way to how Sid had placed the dirt block, which formed a cube of wood.
He tried using his mind to navigate to the ‘crafting menu’, as Andrew had put it, and to his shock it appeared, superimposed over his vision. He first saw where all the wood and acorns were stored – it was a grid of 50 squares, 10 across, 5 down. Named the ‘inventory’, it contained his copper shortsword, pickaxe, and axe in the first three slots in the top row, and then the wood and acorns in the fourth and fifth slots. There were also four slots that were for coins and four more for ammo, and one which had a picture of a trash can on it.
From there he found the crafting menu. It seemed to display a list of items which could be ‘crafted’, and the ingredients each needed. The first was that two wooden platforms could be crafted using a single plank of wood. The second was the workbench, which needed ten wood.
He thought of crafting one, which deducted the amount of wood in his inventory from 46 to 36, and a workbench appeared in the sixth slot of his inventory.
He held it and placed it down on the grass in front of him.
Checking the crafting menu again, he found there was now a much larger list of items that he could craft. Most of them needed wood, including things like wooden furniture, fences, signs, and doors, but what caught his eye was the wooden sword down the bottom, which listed that it dealt 7 melee damage – two more than the copper shortsword.
He wasn’t sure why a sword made out of wood would deal more damage than a sword made from metal, but he crafted one and held it in his hand, then gave it a swing. It curved through the air with a whoosh of wind.
“Oh wow, William’s figuring stuff out quick!” Sid said, stepping over to him.
“I made a wooden sword,” William said. “It deals more damage than our copper swords.”
“Huh. Really?” After some time Sid had crafted a sword for himself.
“Awesome!” he said, then pivoted on his feet. “Hey, Andrew! What should we do next?”
“Once you have a wooden sword, you might try to gather some gel from the slimes. Combine wood and gel to make a torch!”
“Ohh! So that’s what gel must be for then!” Five seconds later Sid was holding a stick with a burning flame on the end.
“This is making me feel like I’m in some medieval adventure movie,” he said.
“Anything else?” William asked the Guide.
“You can build a shelter by placing wood or other blocks in the world,” he said. “Don't forget to create and place walls.”
“A shelter?” Sid murmured. “Why would we need one of those?”
“In… case more slimes start attacking us?” William suggested.
Both of Sid’s shoulders bobbed upwards by one pixel each – a shrug. “Honestly, they’re not that hard to kill. And we’ve got better swords now!”
“Might still not hurt to make one,” William said. “Just in case.”
“Alright. You can do that. I might have a quick look around.”
“Alright.”
After Sid left, William got to work. He chopped down more trees and started placing wood, first starting with walls, and then the ceiling, basically making a big wooden box in the forest.
He noticed some oddities as he built – he could place blocks much further away than his arm could reach. If he held a block of wood and swung it in his hand, it would place itself against whatever block he was looking at, as long as he was standing up to five blocks away from it or so. He also discovered that blocks didn’t fall if no other block was connected to them, which he found especially strange. Gravity didn’t seem to affect everything in this world.
“Weird,” he said.
For finishing touches to the house, he added a door and moved the workbench inside. He lastly crafted four wooden chairs and set them around the workbench. One for him, Robyn, Sid, and Andrew.
Though in honesty, he still wasn’t sure what to make of Andrew. The Guide didn’t seem to have any tools of his own, and didn’t try to or offer to help with construction.
Robyn mostly stood guard, attacking any slimes that got too close to where William was building. She chopped down a few trees herself and helped with some of the walls, but didn’t do or say much else.
William himself wasn’t too sure what to say either, internal thoughts still dwelling on big questions. Like, how? And why? How were they here in this world, and why were they? These were questions he had no answer for, and he had no real way of knowing how he could find answers to them.
It was shortly after the shelter was complete that William noticed the sun had been moving across the sky all day, and was already beginning to set, which felt strange, since it didn’t feel like a full day had passed. He wondered if days went faster in this strange world.
He took a look at the shelter from a distance. It wasn’t anything special, just a wooden block in the forest. He felt like the next thing he should do was make it look nicer, things like adding a sloped roof, or maybe some more rooms or storeys first. But for now, this would keep the slimes out. He hoped.
Sid got back shortly after.
“Have you seen the sun is setting?” he asked.
He hadn’t. William took a look at the sky, and noticed he seemed to be correct. He’d been so focussed on fighting off slimes and building that he hadn’t even noticed how fast the sun had been moving – he could have sworn it had been much higher in the sky, and in the other direction, when he’d first looked. Were days that much shorter?
“I figured once it got dark,” Sid said, “I wouldn’t be able to see, and I’d get lost.” He took a look at the shelter William had spent the day creating. “Looks good, dude.”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t really find anything out there except some more slimes.”
William nodded. “Well, let’s go inside.”
He supposed that spending time just now building up the shelter had been a good thing. If more slimes came for them at night, they wouldn’t be able to see them that well.
Or what if… there are worse things than slimes? What kind of monsters of the darkness came out in this world? Vampires? Ghosts? Boogeymen?
Robyn and Andrew the Guide were already sitting on two of the chairs inside the house. Sid sat next to Andrew first, so William took the remaining empty seat next to Robyn.
As the sun lowered itself below the horizon, the outside world became too dark to see, almost a black void, as though the inside of the house, lit by torches Sid had placed, was the only thing in the world.
“You should stay indoors at night,” Andrew said. “It is very dangerous to be wandering around in the dark.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Sid said.
Right as he said that William heard a rotting, ragged growl.
William’s first reaction to the sound was to tense up.
“What was that?” he cried.
Andrew got up from his chair. “How about I go check?”
He was almost to the door when Robyn shouted, “Wait, NO!”
The Guide opened the door.
And that was when several putrid, stinking zombies spilled inside.
They all had rotting, pale green skin and were dressed in ragged brown clothing, all smelling like rotten meat and vegetables ground up and left outside for a few months. One had black hair, another had no hair, leaving its brain exposed. The third appeared to have a Blue Slime encasing its entire head, giving it the out-of-place appearance of an alien in a spacesuit.
They lashed out at the Guide, landing several blows that all dealt around 20 damage each. He was knocked backwards but still had over 180 life left, and began walking to the other side of the room.
Sid was the first to lash out with his wooden sword, his blade lashing across all three zombies at once. Robyn and then lastly William joined the attack. William noticed the zombies had around 80 or 90 max life, which was higher than the slimes, and almost as much as him and Robyn and Sid. But they dealt more damage than their swords did – the slime zombie landed a hit on him that brought him from 100 life down to 73.
He grit his teeth. If we get to 0 life, we’re going to die. That was something he hadn’t really thought about before – what happens in this world if they die? He knew how it worked in the real world – actually, nobody really knew for sure. Many religions believed in heaven or some sort of afterlife.
But this world had wildly different rules. Maybe dying wasn’t the end.
Could it mean going back to the real world? he thought with hope. But that thought was superseded by a more distressing one.
Or what if we… really die. For real.
Whatever was the case, he was not keen on finding out.
A few more zombies managed to get into the shelter with the door still open, including one that looked female. Then one stepped in holding a long, bloody claw. It lashed at Robyn, dealing 34 damage.
She cried out in pain and stumbled backwards. William saw why – she’d taken a lot of damage, and was only at 15 life. Another blow would kill her.
“No!” he cried, and leapt at the zombie with the claw, hitting it backwards. The zombie tried to swipe at him but that was when something shot into its face, dealing 7 damage.
It was an arrow.
William risked a glance backwards to see Andrew the Guide was holding a bow in his hand, and was notching another arrow, which shot forward and into the zombie’s face. It erupted into a mess of bloody chunks and body parts with a rasping roar. Several copper and some silver coins popped out and rushed into William’s inventory.
He, Sid and the Guide’s arrows continued peppering the zombies. Sid managed to get the door shut, and then they finished off the remaining undead.
He and Sid collapsed into a sitting position against the wall, panting. Sid was left with 43 life, and William himself only had 28.
“May I suggest crafting a campfire?” Andrew said. “It boosts life regeneration.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Sid muttered. William figured he was mad at the Guide for letting the zombies in, though a few seconds later he had crafted a campfire and placed it down in front of him. A warm, orangey glow began emanating from its roaring flames.
William briefly worried that the campfire could burn their house down, but then again if Andrew knew that, he wouldn’t have suggested crafting one.
Then again, he was stupid enough to open the door and let the zombies in.
Thankfully the shelter did not catch fire as their life slowly regenerated. However, the zombies hadn’t let up on their assault on their shelter. William began to hear the door rattling and thumping, accompanied by groans and growls from the zombies.
“How do you get arrows?” Robyn asked. “I made a bow out of wood earlier, but… there wasn’t any arrows in it.”
“You can make arrows out of stone and wood,” Andrew said.
“And where would we find stone?”
“Sometimes you can find stone on the surface, but given our current situation, you might want to try digging underground.”
Robyn shakily got to her feet and began bringing her pickaxe into the grass floor. Her work was slow, but she soon began digging a hole in the floor, heading underground to find stone.
William thought about helping her, but his mind was more preoccupied with the zombies still banging on their door.
“Do you think they’ll be able to break in?” he asked.
“Don’t worry,” the Guide said. “We are perfectly safe in here.”
Sid stood up, casting a wary eye at the door. It was still pounding violently.
“There must be like seven zombies out there,” he said. “That door’s not going to stand a chance!”
Before Andrew or William could say anything, he had charged outside with a loud “YAAARRRGGHHH!”
For a horrible moment William worried Sid was going to get instantly ripped to pieces by all the grasping hands of the zombies, but he somehow managed to swipe them all aside. Not only that, but as he ran further outside the zombies all turned away from the door to amble after him, leaving the shelter alone.
William ran to the doorframe. One of the zombies was holding a torch, so he could see Sid combatting the horde with his sword. Zombie after zombie got destroyed with his swipes. For a second it looked like he was making headway, until something moving so fast that William barely saw it swooped through the air and knocked Sid on the head.
“Ow! What was that?”
Another one swooped, and this time William saw what it was – a giant flying eyeball. It was grotesque, trails of blood flinging off its retina as it flew. Sid must’ve spotted it too, as he tried to jump to avoid it.
And he did. He soared at least twice his own body height into the air.
“Holy cow!” he cried. “Did you see how high I just jumped?”
He was interrupted by another eyeball grazing his arm.
William ran forward, first cutting through the remaining zombies, including the one with the torch. Thankfully it dropped all 12 of its torches, which he snatched up, though doing so immediately plunged them into darkness. He quickly swapped to one and planted it on the ground, again lighting up the ground around them. Just as he did, an eyeball swooped down from the sky, which he managed to hit away like a baseball. It flew back up and out of the torchlight, seemingly vanishing.
Another flew downwards – this one coloured strangely purple. He missed it, the eyeball grazing his stomach and dealing 29 damage. He did get to see the eyeball’s label – ‘Demon Eye: 112/120’.
“We’re getting swarmed!” Sid cried.
“Head back inside!” William shouted.
Unfortunately, another group of zombies blocked their path. Some Demon Eyes swooped over their heads and towards Sid and William, which they continued to hit away, but they just kept coming back.
That was when more arrows began pouring out from the house, battering the zombies. Most took multiple hits to die, but when the wave fell, William spotted Robyn standing in the doorway.
“Hurry!” she called, firing more arrows, this time at the incoming Demon Eyes.
Sid and William rushed forward, ducking the swooping Demon Eyes, and through the doorway. Robyn slammed it shut.
“Let’s not go back out there again,” William grumbled.
Sid moaned. “Thanks for the save, Robyn.”
She held up her wooden bow and twirled it in her hands. “You’re welcome.”
***
Some time later the sun began rising. William risked a peek outside and spotted the Demon Eyes all flying away, to who knew where, and the zombies also beginning to amble away, disappearing in the shade of the forest.
“I congratulate you,” Andrew said. “You survived your first night.”
“No thanks to you,” Sid said. “You opened the door to let that first wave of zomberts in.”
Andrew seemed to shrug.
“The first night may be over,” William said. “But now what?”
“What was that?” he cried.
Andrew got up from his chair. “How about I go check?”
He was almost to the door when Robyn shouted, “Wait, NO!”
The Guide opened the door.
And that was when several putrid, stinking zombies spilled inside.
They all had rotting, pale green skin and were dressed in ragged brown clothing, all smelling like rotten meat and vegetables ground up and left outside for a few months. One had black hair, another had no hair, leaving its brain exposed. The third appeared to have a Blue Slime encasing its entire head, giving it the out-of-place appearance of an alien in a spacesuit.
They lashed out at the Guide, landing several blows that all dealt around 20 damage each. He was knocked backwards but still had over 180 life left, and began walking to the other side of the room.
Sid was the first to lash out with his wooden sword, his blade lashing across all three zombies at once. Robyn and then lastly William joined the attack. William noticed the zombies had around 80 or 90 max life, which was higher than the slimes, and almost as much as him and Robyn and Sid. But they dealt more damage than their swords did – the slime zombie landed a hit on him that brought him from 100 life down to 73.
He grit his teeth. If we get to 0 life, we’re going to die. That was something he hadn’t really thought about before – what happens in this world if they die? He knew how it worked in the real world – actually, nobody really knew for sure. Many religions believed in heaven or some sort of afterlife.
But this world had wildly different rules. Maybe dying wasn’t the end.
Could it mean going back to the real world? he thought with hope. But that thought was superseded by a more distressing one.
Or what if we… really die. For real.
Whatever was the case, he was not keen on finding out.
A few more zombies managed to get into the shelter with the door still open, including one that looked female. Then one stepped in holding a long, bloody claw. It lashed at Robyn, dealing 34 damage.
She cried out in pain and stumbled backwards. William saw why – she’d taken a lot of damage, and was only at 15 life. Another blow would kill her.
“No!” he cried, and leapt at the zombie with the claw, hitting it backwards. The zombie tried to swipe at him but that was when something shot into its face, dealing 7 damage.
It was an arrow.
William risked a glance backwards to see Andrew the Guide was holding a bow in his hand, and was notching another arrow, which shot forward and into the zombie’s face. It erupted into a mess of bloody chunks and body parts with a rasping roar. Several copper and some silver coins popped out and rushed into William’s inventory.
He, Sid and the Guide’s arrows continued peppering the zombies. Sid managed to get the door shut, and then they finished off the remaining undead.
He and Sid collapsed into a sitting position against the wall, panting. Sid was left with 43 life, and William himself only had 28.
“May I suggest crafting a campfire?” Andrew said. “It boosts life regeneration.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Sid muttered. William figured he was mad at the Guide for letting the zombies in, though a few seconds later he had crafted a campfire and placed it down in front of him. A warm, orangey glow began emanating from its roaring flames.
William briefly worried that the campfire could burn their house down, but then again if Andrew knew that, he wouldn’t have suggested crafting one.
Then again, he was stupid enough to open the door and let the zombies in.
Thankfully the shelter did not catch fire as their life slowly regenerated. However, the zombies hadn’t let up on their assault on their shelter. William began to hear the door rattling and thumping, accompanied by groans and growls from the zombies.
“How do you get arrows?” Robyn asked. “I made a bow out of wood earlier, but… there wasn’t any arrows in it.”
“You can make arrows out of stone and wood,” Andrew said.
“And where would we find stone?”
“Sometimes you can find stone on the surface, but given our current situation, you might want to try digging underground.”
Robyn shakily got to her feet and began bringing her pickaxe into the grass floor. Her work was slow, but she soon began digging a hole in the floor, heading underground to find stone.
William thought about helping her, but his mind was more preoccupied with the zombies still banging on their door.
“Do you think they’ll be able to break in?” he asked.
“Don’t worry,” the Guide said. “We are perfectly safe in here.”
Sid stood up, casting a wary eye at the door. It was still pounding violently.
“There must be like seven zombies out there,” he said. “That door’s not going to stand a chance!”
Before Andrew or William could say anything, he had charged outside with a loud “YAAARRRGGHHH!”
For a horrible moment William worried Sid was going to get instantly ripped to pieces by all the grasping hands of the zombies, but he somehow managed to swipe them all aside. Not only that, but as he ran further outside the zombies all turned away from the door to amble after him, leaving the shelter alone.
William ran to the doorframe. One of the zombies was holding a torch, so he could see Sid combatting the horde with his sword. Zombie after zombie got destroyed with his swipes. For a second it looked like he was making headway, until something moving so fast that William barely saw it swooped through the air and knocked Sid on the head.
“Ow! What was that?”
Another one swooped, and this time William saw what it was – a giant flying eyeball. It was grotesque, trails of blood flinging off its retina as it flew. Sid must’ve spotted it too, as he tried to jump to avoid it.
And he did. He soared at least twice his own body height into the air.
“Holy cow!” he cried. “Did you see how high I just jumped?”
He was interrupted by another eyeball grazing his arm.
William ran forward, first cutting through the remaining zombies, including the one with the torch. Thankfully it dropped all 12 of its torches, which he snatched up, though doing so immediately plunged them into darkness. He quickly swapped to one and planted it on the ground, again lighting up the ground around them. Just as he did, an eyeball swooped down from the sky, which he managed to hit away like a baseball. It flew back up and out of the torchlight, seemingly vanishing.
Another flew downwards – this one coloured strangely purple. He missed it, the eyeball grazing his stomach and dealing 29 damage. He did get to see the eyeball’s label – ‘Demon Eye: 112/120’.
“We’re getting swarmed!” Sid cried.
“Head back inside!” William shouted.
Unfortunately, another group of zombies blocked their path. Some Demon Eyes swooped over their heads and towards Sid and William, which they continued to hit away, but they just kept coming back.
That was when more arrows began pouring out from the house, battering the zombies. Most took multiple hits to die, but when the wave fell, William spotted Robyn standing in the doorway.
“Hurry!” she called, firing more arrows, this time at the incoming Demon Eyes.
Sid and William rushed forward, ducking the swooping Demon Eyes, and through the doorway. Robyn slammed it shut.
“Let’s not go back out there again,” William grumbled.
Sid moaned. “Thanks for the save, Robyn.”
She held up her wooden bow and twirled it in her hands. “You’re welcome.”
***
Some time later the sun began rising. William risked a peek outside and spotted the Demon Eyes all flying away, to who knew where, and the zombies also beginning to amble away, disappearing in the shade of the forest.
“I congratulate you,” Andrew said. “You survived your first night.”
“No thanks to you,” Sid said. “You opened the door to let that first wave of zomberts in.”
Andrew seemed to shrug.
“The first night may be over,” William said. “But now what?”
“We need to make the shelter better,” William said. “So no more zombies or eyeballs can get to us.”
“Perhaps. But I think we should explore the world and see what we can find,” Sid said. “There must be more than trees. I mean, those zombies and eyes must come from somewhere, right? If we find out where they’re coming from, we could put a stop to them.”
“You have a point. But,” William shook his head, “What we need to do is play it safe. You can’t just go rushing into danger. You almost got yourself killed last night when you rushed outside. I’m sure the door would’ve held. The Guide said so.”
“The same Guide that voluntarily opened the door to let the freaking zombies in!” Sid said, his voice rising. “He might be full of information, but he’s not one of us. He’s not human like you and me.”
Not human? “What do you mean? Andrew looks pretty human to me!”
“What I mean is…” Sid sighed. “Never mind. Look, he’s got info, but he’s dumb. You, me and Robyn… we’ve got each other. As long as we stick together, we can survive anything the world throws at us!”
William sighed. “Okay. I’m staying here, though.”
Sid shrugged. “Your loss.” He began walking away. “I’ll be back.”
William watched him go and sighed. He’d better not get himself killed. He turned back to the house and headed back inside.
Robyn’s mining tunnel had gotten even deeper since the previous night. It went deep into the earth, a natural staircase carved out from mining the square blocks, every step of the way lit by torches. At that moment William could see her heading up the stairs towards him, some sort of orange stone was in her hand.
“I found copper ore!” she announced, smiling. She looked around the house. “Where’s Sid?”
“He’s… gone off exploring,” William said.
She nodded, not appearing to care as much about Sid’s safety as William, then turned to the Guide. “Andrew, what can you do with… copper ore?”
“Now that you have some ore,” the Guide said, “You will need to turn it into a bar in order to make items with it. This requires a furnace!”
“A furnace?” Robyn narrowed her eyes. “How do you make that?”
“You can create a furnace out of torches, wood, and stone. Make sure you are standing near a workbench.”
Robyn stepped over to the workbench and crafted a furnace. She set it up against the wall next to the mineshaft entrance. A wave of heat rushed out from the furnace.
“It’s getting a little hot in here, with the furnace and campfire and everything…” William said, trying to pick at his pixelated clothes. It didn’t seem to be possible to actually pull at your clothes in this world.
“Maybe you can make a new room and move the furnace in there?” Robyn asked. “You said you were planning on expanding the house.”
“That’s a good idea. I might do that. Make like a forge. Could make it out of stone blocks too, so it fits.”
She nodded. “Okay. I’ll turn the copper ore into bars.”
She stood near the furnace, and a few seconds later she was waving six copper bars around the room.
“Okay, Andrew… can you tell me what you can make with these?”
She gave the bars to the Guide.
“Oh, wow. He’s displaying a list of everything you can make with copper bars,” she said.
“Yes,” the Guide said. “That is one of my functions.”
Functions? What a strange word. William was once again reminded of how Sid had said the Guide was not human.
Maybe he’s right.
“Looks like you can make Copper Pickaxes and Axes,” she said. “Though we’ve already got those. Not sure why you’d want to make more of them.”
“Unless they wear out or something,” William said, glancing at the pickaxe in his hand. It didn’t seem to be showing any signs of wear and tear… yet.
“You can also make armour,” Robyn continued, “And a watch… ooh, a bow… and an Amethyst Staff…” She paused. “Huh. Apparently there’s two different types of swords. The shortswords we started with, and there’s a broadsword that you can make. Which does more damage than our wooden swords.”
“Huh,” William said. “Then what’s the point of the shortswords?”
Robyn shrugged as she took the copper bars away from the Guide. “Well, I’ve only got six bars. Enough to make a copper broadsword, but not much else.”
“Even if you had more, you can’t actually make most things with metal bars yet,” Andrew said. “You will need an anvil.”
“An anvil?” Robyn muttered.
“You mean like the things that always slam people on the head in old cartoons?” William asked.
Andrew did not seem to understand his comparison. Instead, he just said, “You will need iron bars in order to craft an anvil. Or you can purchase one from a merchant.”
A merchant? William wasn’t sure where they would find a merchant in this world. The world that seemed to be empty of life except for themselves. There were no other people or buildings anywhere else, at least not that he had seen. Just the Zombies, Slimes and those flying eyeballs.
Then again, we’ve barely moved far from where I woke up.
Maybe Sid is onto something with his exploring idea. There could be a town. Somewhere out there. Where we might be able to purchase an anvil.
Robyn held up her pickaxe.
“Well, I guess iron is the thing that I’m going to go find next,” she said, then headed back underground.
William went digging with her for awhile, turning up lots of dirt and stone, but no more ores. At around midday he headed back up to the surface in order to expand on the house while Robyn kept digging.
He decided to focus on defence first, marking out a perimeter around the house using wooden planks, making sure to leave plenty of space for expansions. He then began erecting a wooden wall eight blocks tall on the perimeter, reinforcing it with stone. He crafted grey bricks out of stone at the furnace, thinking they’d probably be stronger than stone. They also looked nicer than the rough stone blocks.
While he was building the sun began to set, and Sid returned at around the same time. He looked different somehow – at first William thought he was wearing a hat on his head, then realised it was actually a nest with a bird in it, resting on his head.
What happened to him? Did that fall out of a tree?
“Heyyo, Willy!” Sid called.
William sighed. Inwardly he still felt a bit annoyed at Sid for almost getting them killed last night.
“I found loads of loot!” he went on. “Like, you see this finch on my head? I found a magic wand thingy that summons it! It attacks slimes and other bad guys, protecting me from danger!”
“Where did you find it?” William asked.
“In a giant tree,” Sid said. “There was a way down to a basement in the tree that contained a chest.”
A basement? A chest? “And… you thought taking everything there was the best thing to do?” William asked. “Did it look like someone lives there? What if that bird belongs to someone?”
Sid shrugged. “Well, nobody seemed to be home or around, not for a long time due to all the moss growing everywhere, so I thought, finders-keepers. Look, if it does turn out someone was there, I’ll give it back. But that wasn’t the only thing!” He took out a long, curved item and threw it up at William. He wasn’t prepared for it, so the item actually ended up grazing his arm for 8 damage, almost knocking him off the wall. The item spun through the air as it returned to Sid’s hand.
“Sorry,” Sid said. “But it’s a boomerang! Found that in a chest in a random cave. Almost certain nobody lived there. But look, now I can attack enemies from a distance like Robyn can, but without having to use up arrows! The boomerang and finch always come back!”
William groaned and rubbed where the boomerang had struck him.
“Did you at least find any iron?” he asked.
“Nope. Is there a way into the fort? That wall looks too tall to jump over. Good work on it Will – gotta keep those zombies out. Though… heheh… it’s also keeping me out.”
William shook his head. “No. Go work on your own instead of running around looking for treasure like a pirate.”
Sid’s face fell. He frowned. “Alright.” He headed off, in the direction of the setting sun.
“Perhaps. But I think we should explore the world and see what we can find,” Sid said. “There must be more than trees. I mean, those zombies and eyes must come from somewhere, right? If we find out where they’re coming from, we could put a stop to them.”
“You have a point. But,” William shook his head, “What we need to do is play it safe. You can’t just go rushing into danger. You almost got yourself killed last night when you rushed outside. I’m sure the door would’ve held. The Guide said so.”
“The same Guide that voluntarily opened the door to let the freaking zombies in!” Sid said, his voice rising. “He might be full of information, but he’s not one of us. He’s not human like you and me.”
Not human? “What do you mean? Andrew looks pretty human to me!”
“What I mean is…” Sid sighed. “Never mind. Look, he’s got info, but he’s dumb. You, me and Robyn… we’ve got each other. As long as we stick together, we can survive anything the world throws at us!”
William sighed. “Okay. I’m staying here, though.”
Sid shrugged. “Your loss.” He began walking away. “I’ll be back.”
William watched him go and sighed. He’d better not get himself killed. He turned back to the house and headed back inside.
Robyn’s mining tunnel had gotten even deeper since the previous night. It went deep into the earth, a natural staircase carved out from mining the square blocks, every step of the way lit by torches. At that moment William could see her heading up the stairs towards him, some sort of orange stone was in her hand.
“I found copper ore!” she announced, smiling. She looked around the house. “Where’s Sid?”
“He’s… gone off exploring,” William said.
She nodded, not appearing to care as much about Sid’s safety as William, then turned to the Guide. “Andrew, what can you do with… copper ore?”
“Now that you have some ore,” the Guide said, “You will need to turn it into a bar in order to make items with it. This requires a furnace!”
“A furnace?” Robyn narrowed her eyes. “How do you make that?”
“You can create a furnace out of torches, wood, and stone. Make sure you are standing near a workbench.”
Robyn stepped over to the workbench and crafted a furnace. She set it up against the wall next to the mineshaft entrance. A wave of heat rushed out from the furnace.
“It’s getting a little hot in here, with the furnace and campfire and everything…” William said, trying to pick at his pixelated clothes. It didn’t seem to be possible to actually pull at your clothes in this world.
“Maybe you can make a new room and move the furnace in there?” Robyn asked. “You said you were planning on expanding the house.”
“That’s a good idea. I might do that. Make like a forge. Could make it out of stone blocks too, so it fits.”
She nodded. “Okay. I’ll turn the copper ore into bars.”
She stood near the furnace, and a few seconds later she was waving six copper bars around the room.
“Okay, Andrew… can you tell me what you can make with these?”
She gave the bars to the Guide.
“Oh, wow. He’s displaying a list of everything you can make with copper bars,” she said.
“Yes,” the Guide said. “That is one of my functions.”
Functions? What a strange word. William was once again reminded of how Sid had said the Guide was not human.
Maybe he’s right.
“Looks like you can make Copper Pickaxes and Axes,” she said. “Though we’ve already got those. Not sure why you’d want to make more of them.”
“Unless they wear out or something,” William said, glancing at the pickaxe in his hand. It didn’t seem to be showing any signs of wear and tear… yet.
“You can also make armour,” Robyn continued, “And a watch… ooh, a bow… and an Amethyst Staff…” She paused. “Huh. Apparently there’s two different types of swords. The shortswords we started with, and there’s a broadsword that you can make. Which does more damage than our wooden swords.”
“Huh,” William said. “Then what’s the point of the shortswords?”
Robyn shrugged as she took the copper bars away from the Guide. “Well, I’ve only got six bars. Enough to make a copper broadsword, but not much else.”
“Even if you had more, you can’t actually make most things with metal bars yet,” Andrew said. “You will need an anvil.”
“An anvil?” Robyn muttered.
“You mean like the things that always slam people on the head in old cartoons?” William asked.
Andrew did not seem to understand his comparison. Instead, he just said, “You will need iron bars in order to craft an anvil. Or you can purchase one from a merchant.”
A merchant? William wasn’t sure where they would find a merchant in this world. The world that seemed to be empty of life except for themselves. There were no other people or buildings anywhere else, at least not that he had seen. Just the Zombies, Slimes and those flying eyeballs.
Then again, we’ve barely moved far from where I woke up.
Maybe Sid is onto something with his exploring idea. There could be a town. Somewhere out there. Where we might be able to purchase an anvil.
Robyn held up her pickaxe.
“Well, I guess iron is the thing that I’m going to go find next,” she said, then headed back underground.
William went digging with her for awhile, turning up lots of dirt and stone, but no more ores. At around midday he headed back up to the surface in order to expand on the house while Robyn kept digging.
He decided to focus on defence first, marking out a perimeter around the house using wooden planks, making sure to leave plenty of space for expansions. He then began erecting a wooden wall eight blocks tall on the perimeter, reinforcing it with stone. He crafted grey bricks out of stone at the furnace, thinking they’d probably be stronger than stone. They also looked nicer than the rough stone blocks.
While he was building the sun began to set, and Sid returned at around the same time. He looked different somehow – at first William thought he was wearing a hat on his head, then realised it was actually a nest with a bird in it, resting on his head.
What happened to him? Did that fall out of a tree?
“Heyyo, Willy!” Sid called.
William sighed. Inwardly he still felt a bit annoyed at Sid for almost getting them killed last night.
“I found loads of loot!” he went on. “Like, you see this finch on my head? I found a magic wand thingy that summons it! It attacks slimes and other bad guys, protecting me from danger!”
“Where did you find it?” William asked.
“In a giant tree,” Sid said. “There was a way down to a basement in the tree that contained a chest.”
A basement? A chest? “And… you thought taking everything there was the best thing to do?” William asked. “Did it look like someone lives there? What if that bird belongs to someone?”
Sid shrugged. “Well, nobody seemed to be home or around, not for a long time due to all the moss growing everywhere, so I thought, finders-keepers. Look, if it does turn out someone was there, I’ll give it back. But that wasn’t the only thing!” He took out a long, curved item and threw it up at William. He wasn’t prepared for it, so the item actually ended up grazing his arm for 8 damage, almost knocking him off the wall. The item spun through the air as it returned to Sid’s hand.
“Sorry,” Sid said. “But it’s a boomerang! Found that in a chest in a random cave. Almost certain nobody lived there. But look, now I can attack enemies from a distance like Robyn can, but without having to use up arrows! The boomerang and finch always come back!”
William groaned and rubbed where the boomerang had struck him.
“Did you at least find any iron?” he asked.
“Nope. Is there a way into the fort? That wall looks too tall to jump over. Good work on it Will – gotta keep those zombies out. Though… heheh… it’s also keeping me out.”
William shook his head. “No. Go work on your own instead of running around looking for treasure like a pirate.”
Sid’s face fell. He frowned. “Alright.” He headed off, in the direction of the setting sun.
William was standing outside within the walls when Robyn returned.
“Find anything?” he asked.
“A bit more copper, but no iron.” She looked around the tall walls that surrounded them.
“The walls will keep the zombies out,” William explained.
At that moment he spotted a Demon Eye flying down towards them – he had placed torches all along the top of the wall, so he spotted it long before it reached them – and at that same moment an arrow from Robyn shot into it, knocking it off-course.
“Have you seen Sid?” Robyn asked.
William hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “But… he left.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why would he do that? He’ll get killed out there.”
William shrugged. He’d been mad at Sid gallivanting on his own quest and stealing things from chests, but truthfully he was already regretting sending him away like that – he hadn’t considered what Robyn would think. And now he wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell her he had been the one to tell him to leave.
He jumped up some wooden platforms built into the side of the wall and peered over the edge. There was no sign of Sid.
He and Robyn headed back underground, digging separate tunnels, though William wasn’t working long before he heard Robyn call, “I found a cave!”
He headed straight for her and stepped into the cavern. The walls were built from a mix of dirt and stone, along with some veins of red clay in the ceiling. Some ancient-looking ceramic pots were scattered throughout the cavern, which dropped various items when smashed including torches, some rope, and one contained a Lesser Healing Potion.
They shuffled through the cave, Robyn placing torches. A Red Slime tried to jump upon them from a crevice in the ceiling, but William fell upon it with his sword, Robyn shooting it with arrows, and it quickly split into gel. They soon came across a small pond, and William spotted a large vein of white ore on the other side.
“Could that be iron?” he muttered.
He pulled out some wooden platforms and built a bridge to the other side. Robyn pulled out her pickaxe and dug away at the ore.
“It’s not iron,” she said. “It’s silver.”
“Silver?” William repeated.
“At least there’s a lot of it.”
They mined up the whole vein, and were about to return to the surface to show it to the Guide when William spotted something through the crevice that the Red Slime had fallen from.
“It’s some planks of wood,” he said.
“Down here?” Robyn muttered.
William was just as confused. Planks were a man-made material, which could only mean one thing…
He felt the rope that had come into his inventory from the pots they’d smashed, and tried throwing it up at the crevice, but that just caused it to come out as an item on the ground. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to do.
Robyn involuntarily picked it up, and she must’ve thought he’d thrown it on purpose, for she said, “Good idea.”
She placed one of the ropes on the ground, then another on top, and kept placing them, going upwards, eventually looking like a fireman’s pole stuck up in the middle of the cave. When she grabbed onto the rope, a strange wooden tool with wheeled spokes appeared in her hand, latching onto the rope.
“Okay…” she murmured, then she began rising up into the air, the tool carrying her upwards along the rope. With her other hand, she kept placing more rope, going further upwards and into the crevice.
William grabbed the rope himself. The way this rope stood freely without needing something to latch onto was definitely something that wouldn’t make sense in the real world, but it had already been well-established that this world had different laws of physics.
When he got to the top, he was faced with what appeared to be a wooden house. Definitely man-made, but abandoned, from the looks of the chunks torn out of the walls, floor and ceiling, and the cobwebs growing all throughout it. Robyn stepped forward, swiping the webs aside with her sword. The cobwebs turned into items that rushed into her inventory.
“I hope there aren’t spiders here,” William muttered.
“Me too,” she said. “They give me the creeps.”
“Same.”
She smiled slightly. “At least I’m not alone in that.”
He found himself smiling back. “Yeah.”
The house had a set of steps made from wooden platforms that led up to a second level. On that second level were two things that ended up interesting both William and Robyn.
The first was the golden treasure chest sitting in the corner of the room.
The second was the painting, which resembled a vase of sunflowers. The painting triggered some sort of… memory, in William. No, not a memory, something in the general knowledge of the real world he had in his mind.
“That’s Sunflowers,” he said, pointing. “A painting by Vincent Van Gogh.”
The look that flashed across Robyn’s eyes told William she was coming to the same realisation. “Oh my god, you’re right. What’s it doing in this place?”
William wasn’t sure.
She bent down at the chest. Her touching it caused it to automatically open.
“Huh. This chest has an inventory,” she said.
“What’s inside it?” William asked. He remembered Sid had mentioned finding a few chests in seemingly abandoned locations.
Was this a regular thing in this world? Finding treasure chests in random, abandoned locations, ripe for the taking?
The more time William spent in this world, the more it seemed that was the case.
“A Precise Band of Regeneration,” Robyn said, pulling it out. It was a red bracelet with a heart design on its side. She tried sliding it onto her wrist, and it slid up and around her upper arm.
“There’s also some arrows,” she continued, “Some more healing potions, some… recall potions, and quite a lot of silver coins.”
Looking around the house again, William said, “I wonder who built this house?”
“Whoever did, I don’t think they’ve been here in… perhaps years,” Robyn said. “Do you think this means… we can take everything in here?”
“I think you might be right,” he mused, thinking once again about Sid.
As well as everything in the chest, they also took the Sunflowers painting. The item was indeed labelled ‘Sunflowers’, though its painter was listed as ‘W. Garner.’ William had no idea who that was.
Upon returning to the surface it was dawn, and William decided to start expanding on the house itself. The first new room he built adjacent to the existing shelter, out of grey brick, and he placed the furnace inside as well as the gold chest from the underground house.
He then built two more rooms, creating a second storey and adding a staircase in the first room. He put the sunflowers painting in one of the new rooms and a table and chair facing it. He wasn’t yet sure what to do with the other room, but his thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone knocking at the front door.
Andrew seemed unwilling to answer, just sitting in the first room like always, so William opened the door, thinking it was probably Sid.
It wasn’t. It was a man with a long grey beard, a brown coat, and beret.
“Sword beats paper! Get one today!” he said.
William stared at him.
“Who are you?” he asked. All he could discern was that the man’s label read ‘Gilbert: 250/250’. The same amount of life as Andrew the Guide. Still, that told him nothing about who this man was.
“You want apples? You want carrots? You want pineapples? We got torches!”
William shook his head. “That’s not answering my question.”
“Check out my dirt blocks; they are extra dirty.”
He groaned. He turned to the only other person in the room and yelled, “Andrew!! What is this man doing here?”
“That, my friend, is the Merchant,” Andrew said.
The merchant? William felt like Andrew had mentioned a merchant at some point.
“There are a number of different citizens that can move into our town,” Andrew said. “They can be attracted here through a variety of different means. For example, I believe Gilbert here arrived because you have gathered plenty of money.”
William himself didn’t have a lot of money, only a few silver coins. Though he remembered Robyn had said there’d been quite a lot of silver coins in the chest they’d found underground. Had that been enough for Gilbert to arrive here?
“In addition,” the Guide continued, “Each citizen needs a room to live in, which needs to contain a chair, table and light source. If there are spare rooms and the requirements for a citizen to arrive are satisfied, they will move straight in.”
William looked back to Gilbert, who had already moved through the doorframe and seemed to be staring at the wall. He realised that when he’d made the room with the Sunflowers painting in it, he had put a chair and table in, and some torches as well. That counted as a room, so that combined with Robyn’s money meant Gilbert arrived.
This world is strange, he thought. Real life certainly didn’t work like this – random people didn’t show up invading your house if you built an extra room.
“Well,” William said, “If he’s a Merchant, what does he… do?”
“The sun is high, but my prices are not!” Gilbert said cheerfully.
William held out his hand, and suddenly his inventory popped up. This time in addition there was a list of items that the Merchant was selling.
He quickly skimmed them. Some he had seen before, like a copper pickaxe and axe, torches, arrows and rope, but a few he hadn’t, like the mining helmet, piggy bank, and –
“An anvil!” William exclaimed. He ran over to Robyn’s mining tunnel and yelled down it, “Robyn! This guy’s selling an anvil!”
She quickly ran back upstairs and checked the Merchant herself.
“It costs fifty silver,” she said. “I’ve got sixty-five silver right now. Should we get it?”
“I don’t see why not,” William said.
Robyn bought it, and set it down in the forge room next to the furnace.
“We’ve got nine silver bars. That’s enough to make either a broadsword or a bow.” She clicked her tongue, thinking for a moment. “I’ll make you a sword.”
“Okay,” William said. “Then let’s go back underground and get some more silver for a bow for you.”
Before they did leave, he headed to the room he had left empty and set up a table and chair for the next citizen.
Robyn and William dug deeper, eventually uncovering another cave. This one was bigger, comprising of a network of tunnels that wound in numerous directions. Some more slimes – these ones colored red and yellow – attacked them, as well as some small, flying cave bats, but they fought past all of them with little trouble. William felt like he was getting good with the sword, especially since his new silver broadsword dealt so much more damage than the wooden one.
The ores they mined consisted of a fair amount of copper and even some iron, as well as some green-speckled rocks that yielded emeralds.
The highlight, however, was undoubtedly the life crystal.
It was a red, heart-shaped crystal that hovered in mid-air just above the rocky ground. William smashed it with his pickaxe, and the life crystal rushed into his inventory.
“What does it do?” Robyn asked.
“It reads, ‘Permanently increases maximum life by 20’,” William replied.
“Ooh! That sounds useful.”
William smiled. He held it out. “You can have it.”
She looked surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah. I got the new sword.” He threw it on the ground. “You can have this.”
“Thank you,” she said as she picked it up.
There was a ‘ding’ noise as she held it in her hand and swung it in the air. A green number 20 rose up from Robyn, and her label changed to ‘Robyn: 120/120’.
“Awesome.”
Deeper into the cave, they came to a deep hole. Nothing but darkness could be seen beneath, but on the other side the tunnel continued onwards.
And William could spot some shining yellow ore on the other side.
There was no question what that was.
“Gold!” he exclaimed, placing down platforms to build a path across.
He was not expecting to get hit while halfway across and fall off, into the dark chasm.
“Find anything?” he asked.
“A bit more copper, but no iron.” She looked around the tall walls that surrounded them.
“The walls will keep the zombies out,” William explained.
At that moment he spotted a Demon Eye flying down towards them – he had placed torches all along the top of the wall, so he spotted it long before it reached them – and at that same moment an arrow from Robyn shot into it, knocking it off-course.
“Have you seen Sid?” Robyn asked.
William hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “But… he left.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why would he do that? He’ll get killed out there.”
William shrugged. He’d been mad at Sid gallivanting on his own quest and stealing things from chests, but truthfully he was already regretting sending him away like that – he hadn’t considered what Robyn would think. And now he wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell her he had been the one to tell him to leave.
He jumped up some wooden platforms built into the side of the wall and peered over the edge. There was no sign of Sid.
He and Robyn headed back underground, digging separate tunnels, though William wasn’t working long before he heard Robyn call, “I found a cave!”
He headed straight for her and stepped into the cavern. The walls were built from a mix of dirt and stone, along with some veins of red clay in the ceiling. Some ancient-looking ceramic pots were scattered throughout the cavern, which dropped various items when smashed including torches, some rope, and one contained a Lesser Healing Potion.
They shuffled through the cave, Robyn placing torches. A Red Slime tried to jump upon them from a crevice in the ceiling, but William fell upon it with his sword, Robyn shooting it with arrows, and it quickly split into gel. They soon came across a small pond, and William spotted a large vein of white ore on the other side.
“Could that be iron?” he muttered.
He pulled out some wooden platforms and built a bridge to the other side. Robyn pulled out her pickaxe and dug away at the ore.
“It’s not iron,” she said. “It’s silver.”
“Silver?” William repeated.
“At least there’s a lot of it.”
They mined up the whole vein, and were about to return to the surface to show it to the Guide when William spotted something through the crevice that the Red Slime had fallen from.
“It’s some planks of wood,” he said.
“Down here?” Robyn muttered.
William was just as confused. Planks were a man-made material, which could only mean one thing…
He felt the rope that had come into his inventory from the pots they’d smashed, and tried throwing it up at the crevice, but that just caused it to come out as an item on the ground. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to do.
Robyn involuntarily picked it up, and she must’ve thought he’d thrown it on purpose, for she said, “Good idea.”
She placed one of the ropes on the ground, then another on top, and kept placing them, going upwards, eventually looking like a fireman’s pole stuck up in the middle of the cave. When she grabbed onto the rope, a strange wooden tool with wheeled spokes appeared in her hand, latching onto the rope.
“Okay…” she murmured, then she began rising up into the air, the tool carrying her upwards along the rope. With her other hand, she kept placing more rope, going further upwards and into the crevice.
William grabbed the rope himself. The way this rope stood freely without needing something to latch onto was definitely something that wouldn’t make sense in the real world, but it had already been well-established that this world had different laws of physics.
When he got to the top, he was faced with what appeared to be a wooden house. Definitely man-made, but abandoned, from the looks of the chunks torn out of the walls, floor and ceiling, and the cobwebs growing all throughout it. Robyn stepped forward, swiping the webs aside with her sword. The cobwebs turned into items that rushed into her inventory.
“I hope there aren’t spiders here,” William muttered.
“Me too,” she said. “They give me the creeps.”
“Same.”
She smiled slightly. “At least I’m not alone in that.”
He found himself smiling back. “Yeah.”
The house had a set of steps made from wooden platforms that led up to a second level. On that second level were two things that ended up interesting both William and Robyn.
The first was the golden treasure chest sitting in the corner of the room.
The second was the painting, which resembled a vase of sunflowers. The painting triggered some sort of… memory, in William. No, not a memory, something in the general knowledge of the real world he had in his mind.
“That’s Sunflowers,” he said, pointing. “A painting by Vincent Van Gogh.”
The look that flashed across Robyn’s eyes told William she was coming to the same realisation. “Oh my god, you’re right. What’s it doing in this place?”
William wasn’t sure.
She bent down at the chest. Her touching it caused it to automatically open.
“Huh. This chest has an inventory,” she said.
“What’s inside it?” William asked. He remembered Sid had mentioned finding a few chests in seemingly abandoned locations.
Was this a regular thing in this world? Finding treasure chests in random, abandoned locations, ripe for the taking?
The more time William spent in this world, the more it seemed that was the case.
“A Precise Band of Regeneration,” Robyn said, pulling it out. It was a red bracelet with a heart design on its side. She tried sliding it onto her wrist, and it slid up and around her upper arm.
“There’s also some arrows,” she continued, “Some more healing potions, some… recall potions, and quite a lot of silver coins.”
Looking around the house again, William said, “I wonder who built this house?”
“Whoever did, I don’t think they’ve been here in… perhaps years,” Robyn said. “Do you think this means… we can take everything in here?”
“I think you might be right,” he mused, thinking once again about Sid.
As well as everything in the chest, they also took the Sunflowers painting. The item was indeed labelled ‘Sunflowers’, though its painter was listed as ‘W. Garner.’ William had no idea who that was.
Upon returning to the surface it was dawn, and William decided to start expanding on the house itself. The first new room he built adjacent to the existing shelter, out of grey brick, and he placed the furnace inside as well as the gold chest from the underground house.
He then built two more rooms, creating a second storey and adding a staircase in the first room. He put the sunflowers painting in one of the new rooms and a table and chair facing it. He wasn’t yet sure what to do with the other room, but his thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone knocking at the front door.
Andrew seemed unwilling to answer, just sitting in the first room like always, so William opened the door, thinking it was probably Sid.
It wasn’t. It was a man with a long grey beard, a brown coat, and beret.
“Sword beats paper! Get one today!” he said.
William stared at him.
“Who are you?” he asked. All he could discern was that the man’s label read ‘Gilbert: 250/250’. The same amount of life as Andrew the Guide. Still, that told him nothing about who this man was.
“You want apples? You want carrots? You want pineapples? We got torches!”
William shook his head. “That’s not answering my question.”
“Check out my dirt blocks; they are extra dirty.”
He groaned. He turned to the only other person in the room and yelled, “Andrew!! What is this man doing here?”
“That, my friend, is the Merchant,” Andrew said.
The merchant? William felt like Andrew had mentioned a merchant at some point.
“There are a number of different citizens that can move into our town,” Andrew said. “They can be attracted here through a variety of different means. For example, I believe Gilbert here arrived because you have gathered plenty of money.”
William himself didn’t have a lot of money, only a few silver coins. Though he remembered Robyn had said there’d been quite a lot of silver coins in the chest they’d found underground. Had that been enough for Gilbert to arrive here?
“In addition,” the Guide continued, “Each citizen needs a room to live in, which needs to contain a chair, table and light source. If there are spare rooms and the requirements for a citizen to arrive are satisfied, they will move straight in.”
William looked back to Gilbert, who had already moved through the doorframe and seemed to be staring at the wall. He realised that when he’d made the room with the Sunflowers painting in it, he had put a chair and table in, and some torches as well. That counted as a room, so that combined with Robyn’s money meant Gilbert arrived.
This world is strange, he thought. Real life certainly didn’t work like this – random people didn’t show up invading your house if you built an extra room.
“Well,” William said, “If he’s a Merchant, what does he… do?”
“The sun is high, but my prices are not!” Gilbert said cheerfully.
William held out his hand, and suddenly his inventory popped up. This time in addition there was a list of items that the Merchant was selling.
He quickly skimmed them. Some he had seen before, like a copper pickaxe and axe, torches, arrows and rope, but a few he hadn’t, like the mining helmet, piggy bank, and –
“An anvil!” William exclaimed. He ran over to Robyn’s mining tunnel and yelled down it, “Robyn! This guy’s selling an anvil!”
She quickly ran back upstairs and checked the Merchant herself.
“It costs fifty silver,” she said. “I’ve got sixty-five silver right now. Should we get it?”
“I don’t see why not,” William said.
Robyn bought it, and set it down in the forge room next to the furnace.
“We’ve got nine silver bars. That’s enough to make either a broadsword or a bow.” She clicked her tongue, thinking for a moment. “I’ll make you a sword.”
“Okay,” William said. “Then let’s go back underground and get some more silver for a bow for you.”
Before they did leave, he headed to the room he had left empty and set up a table and chair for the next citizen.
Robyn and William dug deeper, eventually uncovering another cave. This one was bigger, comprising of a network of tunnels that wound in numerous directions. Some more slimes – these ones colored red and yellow – attacked them, as well as some small, flying cave bats, but they fought past all of them with little trouble. William felt like he was getting good with the sword, especially since his new silver broadsword dealt so much more damage than the wooden one.
The ores they mined consisted of a fair amount of copper and even some iron, as well as some green-speckled rocks that yielded emeralds.
The highlight, however, was undoubtedly the life crystal.
It was a red, heart-shaped crystal that hovered in mid-air just above the rocky ground. William smashed it with his pickaxe, and the life crystal rushed into his inventory.
“What does it do?” Robyn asked.
“It reads, ‘Permanently increases maximum life by 20’,” William replied.
“Ooh! That sounds useful.”
William smiled. He held it out. “You can have it.”
She looked surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah. I got the new sword.” He threw it on the ground. “You can have this.”
“Thank you,” she said as she picked it up.
There was a ‘ding’ noise as she held it in her hand and swung it in the air. A green number 20 rose up from Robyn, and her label changed to ‘Robyn: 120/120’.
“Awesome.”
Deeper into the cave, they came to a deep hole. Nothing but darkness could be seen beneath, but on the other side the tunnel continued onwards.
And William could spot some shining yellow ore on the other side.
There was no question what that was.
“Gold!” he exclaimed, placing down platforms to build a path across.
He was not expecting to get hit while halfway across and fall off, into the dark chasm.
He landed hard, losing half his life. It was pitch-black down here – the only light came from where he’d fallen from above. He heard a growling sound – the same as a zombie.
Oh no! There’s zombies down here!
He desperately put down a torch so he could see. He spotted something shooting through the air and jumped to the side just in the nick of time.
Then the object’s thrower stepped into the light.
Not a zombie. It was a skeleton, wearing nothing but a faded golden chestplate. Its eyes shone red in the light, and it opened its mouth and roared.
It then made a throwing motion with its arm, and another projectile – a sharpened bone – shot forward.
William dodged again, and swiped out with his silver broadsword, dealing 7 damage to the bag of bones. Much less than what the sword was listed as dealing – 11 – he presumed the chestplate blocked some of the damage.
The skeleton’s bones rattled as the sword struck it, and it yelled out again and tried to run forward, but William hit it again, stopping its charge. However, on its next charge it slammed into him.
He took 44 damage, leaving him on just 8 life. This was the lowest he’d ever been. Pain shot through his entire body, his arms and legs, reminding him that he was in mortal danger.
But he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get out of this one. The skeleton moved fast, was bulkier than him, and even if he tried to run it would just throw another bone at him to end his life.
He was doomed.
He spotted Robyn above, but he knew there was little even she could do. The skeleton had too much life remaining – 106.
“Drink a potion!” she cried.
Of course! They’d found some Lesser Healing Potions in the chest earlier!
He swigged it, surprised at how fast it was – simply holding the potion and putting it to its mouth caused it to disappear. He felt a bitter-tasting liquid fill his mouth, and his life was somewhat restored, up to 58. He’d be able to take another hit.
The skeleton didn’t stop its attacks for a moment, of course, but he felt a bit more confident. He attacked again, swiping at the skeleton over and over. Arrows from Robyn above also rained down, many planting themselves into the skeleton’s skull. Each blow knocked it back a few steps. It was slow going, but he quickly found a good timing in his swipes to keep the skeleton away.
That was when another mob hit him from the side. It was a black-colored slime, so dark that it was almost invisible against the grey stone.
He grit his teeth, his arms rushing with adrenaline. Somehow he knew he was going to stand no chance against both of these foes at once.
“Try the Recall Potion!” Robyn yelled from above.
That had been the other type of potion they’d found, but somehow in that moment William couldn’t remember what they did. But he trusted her. He held up one of the cyan-coloured potions and drunk it.
There was a bright blue flash of light and a sound like some sort of electronic machine charging up. Next thing he knew, he found he was lying on his back in the forest. At the exact same spot where he’d first appeared.
Robyn appeared next to him in a similar blaze of blue particles. She’d also drunk a potion.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He groaned.
***
The walk back home was painful and arduous – he was only left on 25 life. He tried drinking another potion but found he couldn’t for some reason. Its icon was crossed out in his inventory, but he was too mad at himself and that fact to wonder why.
He should have known that trying to mine underground would be just as dangerous, if not more, than trying to explore the surface.
He got back to the shelter just as the sun dropped below the horizon, and sat down in a chair opposite the Guide.
“Fat lot of help you were down there,” he grumbled.
It was then that he noticed who was sitting next to the Guide. Another new citizen – this one was female, wearing a white shirt and a hat with a red plus over a blonde ponytail. A Nurse, obviously. He could guess what she did, but he didn’t feel like using her services. He wanted to remember this pain, so he would know to never step outside the safety of their home again.
***
Next morning William didn’t want to head underground again.
Robyn tried to convince him to go, but he was hearing none of it. She just nodded and went down by herself.
He paced around the outside of the shelter for most of the morning. He didn’t even feel like expanding on the house, and it was because of one question on his mind.
What was the point?
There seemed to be nothing in this world except for monsters trying to kill them all.
In the real world, William was sure he’d never been as close to death as he had been yesterday. He’d never had to fight zombies or have lethal bone projectiles get thrown at him.
But that had all happened to him in the days since he and the others had woken up in this world.
And he suspected it would continue to happen.
Until they all died.
That was when someone wearing a fur coat and a helmet that looked like it had belonged to a Viking landed in front of him.
It was Sid.
“I’m back, Willy!”
He groaned. “Can you not call me Willy?”
“Sure thing, Willy.”
William groaned again. “How did you jump over the wall?” he demanded.
Sid patted a bottle filled with icy snowflakes that was strapped to his waist. “This bad boy is the Armoured Blizzard in a Bottle. It lets me double-jump, just like in a video game! Watch!” He jumped up, then impossibly jumped again while still in mid-air, a spray of fine white snow shooting out from his feet. He easily soared higher than the wall that William had worked so hard to build.
“I went to those snowy mountains on the other side of the valley,” he continued. “Spent the first night there freezing in an icy cave, no thanks to you. But I survived, dug deep, mined some gold, killed some Flinxes, and I made this!”
He held out a staff with a curved end that was coated with a poof of light purple fur. The fur glowed, and suddenly one – no, two – creatures appeared beside him. They looked like big balls of light purple fur with legs and noses.
“Thanks to my new fur coat,” he boasted, patting his attire, “I can summon two creatures! I outnumber you now! And I say that means I’m in charge!”
William shook his head. “I built everything in this shelter. That means it’s mine.”
“Just because you made it doesn’t mean it’s always going to be yours,” Sid said, his eyebrows furrowing. “Especially if someone stronger than you comes to take it away!”
He pointed his staff, and the two purple furballs charged at Sid. Each time they rammed into him he took 8 damage. He tried to hit them away, but they just kept coming back. He tried to rush for Sid, but a quick glance told him that he definitely didn’t stand a chance – according to his label Sid had 200 life now. That meant he’d found five life crystals! How had he found so many when he and Robyn had only found a single one?
He grit his teeth and sliced at Sid, but to his dismay his weapon only did 5 damage. He was armoured.
In response Sid held an icy boomerang and threw it forward. It slashed across his face, dealing 17 damage.
“Do you surrender?” Sid asked as the boomerang returned to his hand.
“Guys! Stop!”
William craned his neck and spotted Robyn running towards them.
“Why are you attacking him, Sid?” she asked.
“He refused to let me into the fort when I last came,” Sid said. “So I’m letting myself in by force!”
To emphasise his point Sid threw his boomerang at William again. His life dropped to 24.
“You can’t kill each other over something like this!” Robyn screamed. “We’re the only three real people we’ve seen in this world!”
“I’m sure he’ll just come back to life if he dies,” Sid said. “That’s how videogames work.”
Another boomerang strike. His life was now at 9. One more hit would kill him.
“A videogame?” Robyn asked inquisitively. “What makes you think this is one? I mean, I don’t know much, but I do know there’s no such thing as fully transporting yourself inside one!”
“Perhaps, but I can’t think of any other reason,” Sid said. He took a glance at William, seemingly sizing up how much life he had left.
“Don’t do it, Sid,” Robyn pleaded. There looked to be tears in her eyes, little blue pixels forming in their brownness.
“I’ll prove it,” Sid said, then threw the boomerang one last time.
In response William drunk another Lesser Healing Potion.
His life shot up to 59, allowing him to survive the blow that would have killed him.
“That’s enough, Sid,” William said. “We don’t know what happens when we die in this world, yes. But at the same time, we don’t know the answer to that question in the real world, either. What makes you think you have the right to take someone’s life just to answer the question? The question that you could be very wrong about?”
“You don’t want to be a murderer, Sid,” Robyn said. “Do you want that on your conscience?”
Sid looked between them, seeming to consider.
“Fine,” he sighed.
William exhaled. He looked up at the sky, which had darkened due to the setting sun.
It was at that moment that he had a chilling feeling, as though an evil presence was watching him.
Oh no! There’s zombies down here!
He desperately put down a torch so he could see. He spotted something shooting through the air and jumped to the side just in the nick of time.
Then the object’s thrower stepped into the light.
Not a zombie. It was a skeleton, wearing nothing but a faded golden chestplate. Its eyes shone red in the light, and it opened its mouth and roared.
It then made a throwing motion with its arm, and another projectile – a sharpened bone – shot forward.
William dodged again, and swiped out with his silver broadsword, dealing 7 damage to the bag of bones. Much less than what the sword was listed as dealing – 11 – he presumed the chestplate blocked some of the damage.
The skeleton’s bones rattled as the sword struck it, and it yelled out again and tried to run forward, but William hit it again, stopping its charge. However, on its next charge it slammed into him.
He took 44 damage, leaving him on just 8 life. This was the lowest he’d ever been. Pain shot through his entire body, his arms and legs, reminding him that he was in mortal danger.
But he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get out of this one. The skeleton moved fast, was bulkier than him, and even if he tried to run it would just throw another bone at him to end his life.
He was doomed.
He spotted Robyn above, but he knew there was little even she could do. The skeleton had too much life remaining – 106.
“Drink a potion!” she cried.
Of course! They’d found some Lesser Healing Potions in the chest earlier!
He swigged it, surprised at how fast it was – simply holding the potion and putting it to its mouth caused it to disappear. He felt a bitter-tasting liquid fill his mouth, and his life was somewhat restored, up to 58. He’d be able to take another hit.
The skeleton didn’t stop its attacks for a moment, of course, but he felt a bit more confident. He attacked again, swiping at the skeleton over and over. Arrows from Robyn above also rained down, many planting themselves into the skeleton’s skull. Each blow knocked it back a few steps. It was slow going, but he quickly found a good timing in his swipes to keep the skeleton away.
That was when another mob hit him from the side. It was a black-colored slime, so dark that it was almost invisible against the grey stone.
He grit his teeth, his arms rushing with adrenaline. Somehow he knew he was going to stand no chance against both of these foes at once.
“Try the Recall Potion!” Robyn yelled from above.
That had been the other type of potion they’d found, but somehow in that moment William couldn’t remember what they did. But he trusted her. He held up one of the cyan-coloured potions and drunk it.
There was a bright blue flash of light and a sound like some sort of electronic machine charging up. Next thing he knew, he found he was lying on his back in the forest. At the exact same spot where he’d first appeared.
Robyn appeared next to him in a similar blaze of blue particles. She’d also drunk a potion.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He groaned.
***
The walk back home was painful and arduous – he was only left on 25 life. He tried drinking another potion but found he couldn’t for some reason. Its icon was crossed out in his inventory, but he was too mad at himself and that fact to wonder why.
He should have known that trying to mine underground would be just as dangerous, if not more, than trying to explore the surface.
He got back to the shelter just as the sun dropped below the horizon, and sat down in a chair opposite the Guide.
“Fat lot of help you were down there,” he grumbled.
It was then that he noticed who was sitting next to the Guide. Another new citizen – this one was female, wearing a white shirt and a hat with a red plus over a blonde ponytail. A Nurse, obviously. He could guess what she did, but he didn’t feel like using her services. He wanted to remember this pain, so he would know to never step outside the safety of their home again.
***
Next morning William didn’t want to head underground again.
Robyn tried to convince him to go, but he was hearing none of it. She just nodded and went down by herself.
He paced around the outside of the shelter for most of the morning. He didn’t even feel like expanding on the house, and it was because of one question on his mind.
What was the point?
There seemed to be nothing in this world except for monsters trying to kill them all.
In the real world, William was sure he’d never been as close to death as he had been yesterday. He’d never had to fight zombies or have lethal bone projectiles get thrown at him.
But that had all happened to him in the days since he and the others had woken up in this world.
And he suspected it would continue to happen.
Until they all died.
That was when someone wearing a fur coat and a helmet that looked like it had belonged to a Viking landed in front of him.
It was Sid.
“I’m back, Willy!”
He groaned. “Can you not call me Willy?”
“Sure thing, Willy.”
William groaned again. “How did you jump over the wall?” he demanded.
Sid patted a bottle filled with icy snowflakes that was strapped to his waist. “This bad boy is the Armoured Blizzard in a Bottle. It lets me double-jump, just like in a video game! Watch!” He jumped up, then impossibly jumped again while still in mid-air, a spray of fine white snow shooting out from his feet. He easily soared higher than the wall that William had worked so hard to build.
“I went to those snowy mountains on the other side of the valley,” he continued. “Spent the first night there freezing in an icy cave, no thanks to you. But I survived, dug deep, mined some gold, killed some Flinxes, and I made this!”
He held out a staff with a curved end that was coated with a poof of light purple fur. The fur glowed, and suddenly one – no, two – creatures appeared beside him. They looked like big balls of light purple fur with legs and noses.
“Thanks to my new fur coat,” he boasted, patting his attire, “I can summon two creatures! I outnumber you now! And I say that means I’m in charge!”
William shook his head. “I built everything in this shelter. That means it’s mine.”
“Just because you made it doesn’t mean it’s always going to be yours,” Sid said, his eyebrows furrowing. “Especially if someone stronger than you comes to take it away!”
He pointed his staff, and the two purple furballs charged at Sid. Each time they rammed into him he took 8 damage. He tried to hit them away, but they just kept coming back. He tried to rush for Sid, but a quick glance told him that he definitely didn’t stand a chance – according to his label Sid had 200 life now. That meant he’d found five life crystals! How had he found so many when he and Robyn had only found a single one?
He grit his teeth and sliced at Sid, but to his dismay his weapon only did 5 damage. He was armoured.
In response Sid held an icy boomerang and threw it forward. It slashed across his face, dealing 17 damage.
“Do you surrender?” Sid asked as the boomerang returned to his hand.
“Guys! Stop!”
William craned his neck and spotted Robyn running towards them.
“Why are you attacking him, Sid?” she asked.
“He refused to let me into the fort when I last came,” Sid said. “So I’m letting myself in by force!”
To emphasise his point Sid threw his boomerang at William again. His life dropped to 24.
“You can’t kill each other over something like this!” Robyn screamed. “We’re the only three real people we’ve seen in this world!”
“I’m sure he’ll just come back to life if he dies,” Sid said. “That’s how videogames work.”
Another boomerang strike. His life was now at 9. One more hit would kill him.
“A videogame?” Robyn asked inquisitively. “What makes you think this is one? I mean, I don’t know much, but I do know there’s no such thing as fully transporting yourself inside one!”
“Perhaps, but I can’t think of any other reason,” Sid said. He took a glance at William, seemingly sizing up how much life he had left.
“Don’t do it, Sid,” Robyn pleaded. There looked to be tears in her eyes, little blue pixels forming in their brownness.
“I’ll prove it,” Sid said, then threw the boomerang one last time.
In response William drunk another Lesser Healing Potion.
His life shot up to 59, allowing him to survive the blow that would have killed him.
“That’s enough, Sid,” William said. “We don’t know what happens when we die in this world, yes. But at the same time, we don’t know the answer to that question in the real world, either. What makes you think you have the right to take someone’s life just to answer the question? The question that you could be very wrong about?”
“You don’t want to be a murderer, Sid,” Robyn said. “Do you want that on your conscience?”
Sid looked between them, seeming to consider.
“Fine,” he sighed.
William exhaled. He looked up at the sky, which had darkened due to the setting sun.
It was at that moment that he had a chilling feeling, as though an evil presence was watching him.
Still looking at the sky, he spotted a large, shadowy form passing in front of the moon.
“What was that?” Robyn asked.
So William hadn’t just imagined it.
“Look, there it is!” Sid said, pointing.
William spun around and spotted it again for a brief moment before it dipped down into the trees. It looked to be round and bulbous, like a Demon Eye.
But there was no way it could appear that big without being close enough to be visible in the torchlight.
That meant… it was really big.
That was when it crashed through his wall.
Bricks and planks flew everywhere as an immense, bulging eyeball shot forward. Its iris was a deep blue, its pupil a dark mauve. Bulging veins of blood ran across its sides towards its back, where like the smaller Demon Eyes they were used to seeing, patches of blood flung off from its retina.
A label popped up on it. ‘Eye of Cthulhu: 3640/3640’
It had over three thousand life.
They were doomed.
The Eye slammed into William and then Sid behind him, knocking both of them over like bowling pins. William took 29 damage, leaving him with 17 life.
“William, use the Nurse!” Robyn cried, getting out her bow. He noticed she’d upgraded it to an iron one. “I’ll go fight that thing!”
He ran inside. Since it was night-time, all of the citizens had gone to sit or stand in their respective rooms. He ran past Gilbert the Merchant and into the Nurse’s room.
Looking at her label, he saw her name was Emily. “Can you heal me?” he asked.
She cocked her head, then splayed out both arms. “Dear friends, we are gathered here today to bid farewell…” she dropped her arms. “Oh, you’ll be fine.”
He smiled. “Okay, then fix me up!” He thrust out his hand, expecting it to open up her shopping interface like with the Merchant. He saw one option – that getting healed would cost 80 copper.
He did it, and felt all the pain in his wounded body instantly subside.
“I managed to sew your face back on,” the Nurse said. “Be more careful next time.”
Sarcastic sense of humour. Nice.
“Thank you,” he said, before dashing outside.
He saw Robyn was running along the wall, shooting arrows at the Eye. They appeared to have been tipped with flames, lighting up the sky and setting the Eye on fire. Tiny little number 1’s constantly emanated from it as the fire burnt it, but overall it was barely making a scratch. The Eye still had over 3000 life.
Sid was throwing his Ice Boomerang at the Eye, and his purple fluff-ball-summons were chasing the Eye along the ground, jumping at it, but for the most part the Eye was flying too high for them to reach.
William looked down at his own Silver Broadsword and realised he was going to have the same problem. He didn’t have a ranged weapon of his own for the Eye.
“William!” Sid called.
He spun to him just in time to see his icy boomerang flying towards him. But it wasn’t spinning – it had just been dropped in item form.
Sid was giving him his boomerang.
William snatched it up. “Thanks!” he yelled.
“No problem! Just help us take it down!”
William took a quick look at the Ice Boomerang’s label – it dealt a whopping 16 melee damage. Way more than his Silver Broadsword.
He threw the boomerang at the eye. It struck it in the cornea and spun back into his hand, and he threw it again.
Sid ran for the Eye and drew a sword of his own. He jumped up, and using his double-jump he was able to slice into the Eye’s side.
“Attack me, monster!” he shouted.
He got his wish – the Eye charged for him, but that proved to be a mistake. On the Eye’s part. Once the Eye got close enough to the ground the two purple summons jumped up and bit at it with their… noses? Beaks? Whatever they did, they dealt a decent amount of damage to the Eye, more orange numbers than William could count flashing up.
The Eye flew back up and began shooting smaller eyes from its iris. One flew towards William – he had a split second to notice its label – ‘Servant of Cthulhu: 12/12’. A throw of his boomerang hit it out of the sky.
The Eye made another charge, this time at Robyn. To his horror, she wasn’t able to get out of the way in time, and got knocked off the wall, landing on the outside.
“Robyn!” William cried. He ran for the wall, bringing his copper pickaxe through the wood layer, then the stone layer. On the other side he saw Robyn was trying to place torches to light up the area while dodging the miniature Servants of Cthulhu.
William ran towards her and began slashing the Servants out of the air with his broadsword.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said as she continued to shoot arrows into the Eye. William turned to throw his boomerang in the same direction, noting that it was about to get put down to 2400 life.
But that was when the Eye stopped suddenly and began spinning around in mid-air. With an ear-splitting roar, the iris and pupil were shed from its face, revealing an open maw lined with razor-sharp teeth. Four or five Servants flew from its mouth as it transformed, which barrelled towards William and Robyn.
“Eeeek!” Robyn screamed.
William sliced the Servants out of the air. One managed to hit him, dealing 24 damage, but that same one also dropped a red heart upon being sliced in half. The heart flew into William like an item, but instead of being added to his inventory it healed him for 20 life.
Uh… thanks?
The Eye pointed itself at them and charged forward, roaring again as it did so. William and Robyn jumped out of the way and ran back towards Sid.
“It’s got some sort of second phase!” Sid cried. “Be careful!”
Right as he said that the Eye suddenly shot forward much faster than it had before, additionally roaring at a much higher pitch. It slammed through William and Robyn, damaging them by about a third of their life.
The three of them continued to keep fighting the Eye in the night. William and Robyn had to use the Nurse twice each during the fight due to the Eye’s frantic dashes hitting them too many times, while Sid, who had more life, tried his best to keep the Eye focussed on him. The Eye was soon almost continuously dashing frantically, moving so fast Robyn could barely hit it with her bow, and it didn’t help when Sid’s summons got distracted by a random zombie that had wandered over to where they were fighting.
This was the longest fight William had ever been in, and he’d even stopped looking at how much life it was on, his mind on two things only – throw his boomerang at it and make sure it didn’t crash into him.
But before too long, the Eye exploded into blood and slabs of retinal substance, Sid having dealt the killing blow with another double-jump-assisted sword strike. It additionally dropped a load of healing hearts, some sort of red-and-black item, and what looked like a shield but with its open mouth plastered onto the front. All the items rushed into Sid’s inventory, as he had been closest.
William exhaled. He had never been in a fight that had boosted his adrenaline so much, not even when he’d encountered that skeleton in the underground. He was shocked they had all survived. The Eye had been the most powerful foe they had fought so far, coming from basically out of nowhere with little warning.
But they had done it.
They had defeated the Eye.
***
“You should have the Shield of Cthulhu, William,” Sid said once they’d regrouped inside.
William stared at him. “Why?”
“Because I think you’ll need it the most,” he said, handing it to him. “You went into this battle with just a sword and no life crystals to your name. If you’re going to be living out your knight-in-shining-armour fantasies, you’re gonna need a shield.”
William chuckled. “Thanks.”
He held it up and inspected it. It read that it could be used to dash into an enemy, which dealt 30 damage. On first trying it he crashed straight into the opposite wall of the room – he’d grossly underestimated how far the shield would let him dash. The impact didn’t hurt like it would in the real world – only getting hit by an enemy seemed to hurt in this world.
If I’d had this when facing that skeleton, I might not have needed to drink a Recall Potion! he thought with a smile.
Sid chuckled and stood up from his seat. “I might as well depart for greater adventures,” he said. “You can keep the boomerang too – you used it very well.”
William stared at him for a moment before shaking his head.
“I’d like you to stay, Sid. After we took down the Eye, I… had an epiphany. It’s that… we’re never going to be safe anywhere. The Eye tore through the wall like it was nothing. And I feel like… we’re only at the beginning. Stronger beings will come after us.
“The only way we were able to take down the Eye was because the three of us all worked together.” William gestured to Sid and Robyn, then looked directly into Sid’s brown eyes. “You were right, Sid. Holing up in the fort until the end of time isn’t the way to go. We will have to go into the great big world out there, in order to become stronger, so we can defeat anything else that comes after us.”
Sid smiled and extended his hand.
“Stronger forever?”
William took it. “Stronger forever.”
That's the end of that chapter. Since you read all the way to the end, you must be enjoying my story, which I am happy about!
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“What was that?” Robyn asked.
So William hadn’t just imagined it.
“Look, there it is!” Sid said, pointing.
William spun around and spotted it again for a brief moment before it dipped down into the trees. It looked to be round and bulbous, like a Demon Eye.
But there was no way it could appear that big without being close enough to be visible in the torchlight.
That meant… it was really big.
That was when it crashed through his wall.
Bricks and planks flew everywhere as an immense, bulging eyeball shot forward. Its iris was a deep blue, its pupil a dark mauve. Bulging veins of blood ran across its sides towards its back, where like the smaller Demon Eyes they were used to seeing, patches of blood flung off from its retina.
A label popped up on it. ‘Eye of Cthulhu: 3640/3640’
It had over three thousand life.
They were doomed.
The Eye slammed into William and then Sid behind him, knocking both of them over like bowling pins. William took 29 damage, leaving him with 17 life.
“William, use the Nurse!” Robyn cried, getting out her bow. He noticed she’d upgraded it to an iron one. “I’ll go fight that thing!”
He ran inside. Since it was night-time, all of the citizens had gone to sit or stand in their respective rooms. He ran past Gilbert the Merchant and into the Nurse’s room.
Looking at her label, he saw her name was Emily. “Can you heal me?” he asked.
She cocked her head, then splayed out both arms. “Dear friends, we are gathered here today to bid farewell…” she dropped her arms. “Oh, you’ll be fine.”
He smiled. “Okay, then fix me up!” He thrust out his hand, expecting it to open up her shopping interface like with the Merchant. He saw one option – that getting healed would cost 80 copper.
He did it, and felt all the pain in his wounded body instantly subside.
“I managed to sew your face back on,” the Nurse said. “Be more careful next time.”
Sarcastic sense of humour. Nice.
“Thank you,” he said, before dashing outside.
He saw Robyn was running along the wall, shooting arrows at the Eye. They appeared to have been tipped with flames, lighting up the sky and setting the Eye on fire. Tiny little number 1’s constantly emanated from it as the fire burnt it, but overall it was barely making a scratch. The Eye still had over 3000 life.
Sid was throwing his Ice Boomerang at the Eye, and his purple fluff-ball-summons were chasing the Eye along the ground, jumping at it, but for the most part the Eye was flying too high for them to reach.
William looked down at his own Silver Broadsword and realised he was going to have the same problem. He didn’t have a ranged weapon of his own for the Eye.
“William!” Sid called.
He spun to him just in time to see his icy boomerang flying towards him. But it wasn’t spinning – it had just been dropped in item form.
Sid was giving him his boomerang.
William snatched it up. “Thanks!” he yelled.
“No problem! Just help us take it down!”
William took a quick look at the Ice Boomerang’s label – it dealt a whopping 16 melee damage. Way more than his Silver Broadsword.
He threw the boomerang at the eye. It struck it in the cornea and spun back into his hand, and he threw it again.
Sid ran for the Eye and drew a sword of his own. He jumped up, and using his double-jump he was able to slice into the Eye’s side.
“Attack me, monster!” he shouted.
He got his wish – the Eye charged for him, but that proved to be a mistake. On the Eye’s part. Once the Eye got close enough to the ground the two purple summons jumped up and bit at it with their… noses? Beaks? Whatever they did, they dealt a decent amount of damage to the Eye, more orange numbers than William could count flashing up.
The Eye flew back up and began shooting smaller eyes from its iris. One flew towards William – he had a split second to notice its label – ‘Servant of Cthulhu: 12/12’. A throw of his boomerang hit it out of the sky.
The Eye made another charge, this time at Robyn. To his horror, she wasn’t able to get out of the way in time, and got knocked off the wall, landing on the outside.
“Robyn!” William cried. He ran for the wall, bringing his copper pickaxe through the wood layer, then the stone layer. On the other side he saw Robyn was trying to place torches to light up the area while dodging the miniature Servants of Cthulhu.
William ran towards her and began slashing the Servants out of the air with his broadsword.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said as she continued to shoot arrows into the Eye. William turned to throw his boomerang in the same direction, noting that it was about to get put down to 2400 life.
But that was when the Eye stopped suddenly and began spinning around in mid-air. With an ear-splitting roar, the iris and pupil were shed from its face, revealing an open maw lined with razor-sharp teeth. Four or five Servants flew from its mouth as it transformed, which barrelled towards William and Robyn.
“Eeeek!” Robyn screamed.
William sliced the Servants out of the air. One managed to hit him, dealing 24 damage, but that same one also dropped a red heart upon being sliced in half. The heart flew into William like an item, but instead of being added to his inventory it healed him for 20 life.
Uh… thanks?
The Eye pointed itself at them and charged forward, roaring again as it did so. William and Robyn jumped out of the way and ran back towards Sid.
“It’s got some sort of second phase!” Sid cried. “Be careful!”
Right as he said that the Eye suddenly shot forward much faster than it had before, additionally roaring at a much higher pitch. It slammed through William and Robyn, damaging them by about a third of their life.
The three of them continued to keep fighting the Eye in the night. William and Robyn had to use the Nurse twice each during the fight due to the Eye’s frantic dashes hitting them too many times, while Sid, who had more life, tried his best to keep the Eye focussed on him. The Eye was soon almost continuously dashing frantically, moving so fast Robyn could barely hit it with her bow, and it didn’t help when Sid’s summons got distracted by a random zombie that had wandered over to where they were fighting.
This was the longest fight William had ever been in, and he’d even stopped looking at how much life it was on, his mind on two things only – throw his boomerang at it and make sure it didn’t crash into him.
But before too long, the Eye exploded into blood and slabs of retinal substance, Sid having dealt the killing blow with another double-jump-assisted sword strike. It additionally dropped a load of healing hearts, some sort of red-and-black item, and what looked like a shield but with its open mouth plastered onto the front. All the items rushed into Sid’s inventory, as he had been closest.
William exhaled. He had never been in a fight that had boosted his adrenaline so much, not even when he’d encountered that skeleton in the underground. He was shocked they had all survived. The Eye had been the most powerful foe they had fought so far, coming from basically out of nowhere with little warning.
But they had done it.
They had defeated the Eye.
***
“You should have the Shield of Cthulhu, William,” Sid said once they’d regrouped inside.
William stared at him. “Why?”
“Because I think you’ll need it the most,” he said, handing it to him. “You went into this battle with just a sword and no life crystals to your name. If you’re going to be living out your knight-in-shining-armour fantasies, you’re gonna need a shield.”
William chuckled. “Thanks.”
He held it up and inspected it. It read that it could be used to dash into an enemy, which dealt 30 damage. On first trying it he crashed straight into the opposite wall of the room – he’d grossly underestimated how far the shield would let him dash. The impact didn’t hurt like it would in the real world – only getting hit by an enemy seemed to hurt in this world.
If I’d had this when facing that skeleton, I might not have needed to drink a Recall Potion! he thought with a smile.
Sid chuckled and stood up from his seat. “I might as well depart for greater adventures,” he said. “You can keep the boomerang too – you used it very well.”
William stared at him for a moment before shaking his head.
“I’d like you to stay, Sid. After we took down the Eye, I… had an epiphany. It’s that… we’re never going to be safe anywhere. The Eye tore through the wall like it was nothing. And I feel like… we’re only at the beginning. Stronger beings will come after us.
“The only way we were able to take down the Eye was because the three of us all worked together.” William gestured to Sid and Robyn, then looked directly into Sid’s brown eyes. “You were right, Sid. Holing up in the fort until the end of time isn’t the way to go. We will have to go into the great big world out there, in order to become stronger, so we can defeat anything else that comes after us.”
Sid smiled and extended his hand.
“Stronger forever?”
William took it. “Stronger forever.”
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