Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Five hundred years ago, the clockwork governing the world goes haywire. 

Biological processes go out of tune, the animal kingdom shifts and mutates, the mechanism of day and night crumbles by its own design. Sorcerers get the brilliant idea to construct a wall to keep the worst parts of it at bay.

The first step of its construction was decades of arguments over what material it should be made out of, of course. Explorers of the jungle’s depths pointed towards Chlorophyte, for its amplifying properties. The idea was promising until it quickly became clear that getting the ore in large amounts would be nearly impossible due to the dangerous conditions of the underground cavern layer.

(A few years later, geologists would discover that Chlorophyte possessed the property of plants that allowed them to grow and self-replicate, making the need to gather more obsolete. By then, however, engineers would have already begun the process of the Wall’s construction. Such is the nature of history: accidental for the most part, and riddled with dramatic irony.)

The second most favourable proposal was Hellstone. This is for one reason alone, but one important enough to hold the most sway: it was found in the Underworld, where the Wall was being constructed.

The Wall is a joint effort between two civilizations, you see; both of which remain standing today, although their relationship has soured due to persistent warfare. The Goblin Empire of the current century is far ahead of any human land in terms of technology, but most of these developments (such as electricity and the engine) are recent. In the past, before their invasion and subsequent colonization of the human territories surrounding their archipelago, the Goblin Empire relied on human sorcery to accomplish what they now can using machines.

The Underworld, as an impartial territory that was largely becoming involved in Overworld politics for profit, was-

It’s at that exact moment that the building the Wall has managed to occupy the upper levels of starts to shake. 

The columns holding it up tremble under the impact of some explosion down below. Support beams groan in agony, golden vases clatter to the floor, ornately-patterned tapestries flutter with agitation in closed rooms. The Wall turns a massive, bloodshot eye away from the textbook it was poring over, and looks out of a window devoid of glass—as was the norm, for the Underworld—and catches the phosphorescent trails of blue magic dissipating into the air outside.

It takes a deep breath, and prays the source of its irritation outside would disappear in a similar fashion.

It doesn’t. If anything, it worsens.

“YOO-HOO!” a gravelly voice calls out from below, “LORD FLESHWALL! YOUR UNHOLY EMPERORSHIP!”

The Wall closes the book with aggression, and doesn’t even bother finding where it would fit in the bookcase alphabetically before shelving it. 

(An unprecedented and racy act of rebellion.)

The Wall then shifts its great mass to look out of the window.

(Hold on a minute.)

(What was next, civil insurrection?)

(It plucks it from the bookcase, and shelves it in its proper place.)

“DEAR DICTATOR! O HORRIBLE, MONSTROUS CREATURE OF THE NIGHT! YOUR MOST BELOVED COMPANION IS HERE TO SEE YOU!”

Lord of the Moon, it thought, could it not have ten minutes to itself without something coming to bother it?

The Wall then shifts its great mass to look out of the window.

Hundreds of feet below, the source of its annoyance stood emblazoned in brilliant blue robes. Tim was waving maniacally up at the window with one hand—the other was wrapped around the neck of an elegant glass wine bottle, which The Wall knew was most likely empty.

The Wall heaves a sigh before answering.

“Greetings, Tim.”

“ SALUTATIONS , fair maiden!” Tim replies with a wave that could only be described as ‘girlish’, “ ‘Oh, you- hic- poor thing! You must just be withering away in that tower o’ yours!”

The Wall’s eye narrows in vague annoyance.

“What on Terraria are you talking about?”

Far below, Tim gesticulates wildly, pressing a hand to its forehead with dramatic flair.

“Oh, it’s just not right! Not right! To keep such a lovely specimen, such as yourself, locked up in that awful tower!’

Ignore it, The Wall chided itself internally, ignore it and it’ll get bored and go away.

“BUT HAVE NO FEAR!”

It did not go away.

“I, TIM THE SORCER-KING, am here to free you from your confinement, o maiden!”

“Can you go be- OW- can you go- FOR THE LOVE OF TERRARIA, WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP THAT?!”

The Wall blinks away the remnants of blue magic out of its eye, and distantly wishes it had been designed with more arms.

“Tim,” The Wall says breathlessly, trying to muster up the most menacing undertone it could to its voice, “I am going to count down, starting from three. If you continue to exist in my line of sight by the time I reach zero, I will grind you into a fine powder, and spread your remnants on the wind.”

“What if I want you to grind me into a fine powder.”

“That’s ridiculous. No living creature would actively seek out - OW!”

Tim pointed the hand that did not currently have its phalanges curled around the neck of a bottle, and shot a glimmer of mana directly into The Wall’s pupil.

The integument constructing The Wall’s eye seethed with fury, but it took a cold, calculating look at the skeletal form of the wizard down below—and decided it had better things to do with its time than indulge a pathetic bonebag in a senseless duel.

“Forget it, Tim. I’m busy, and I don’t have the time to fool around.”

“Awww, g’mon, don’t be like that!”

The Wall shifts, uncoiling its massive length vertebra by colossal vertabra, and it begins the arduous process of slithering out the door.

And then it stops:

For it hears another bang, and the tower quivers again, making The Wall lurch back and forth. 

This time, however, something differs—it can feel the building catch alight near its base, singing its lower extremities and falling support timbers holding it up. Something akin to shock flutters in its core, and then panic begins to settle in.

Something isn’t right about the fire—that much The Wall is certain of. Everything in the Underworld was built to withstand the smolder of heat by necessity, including itself; whatever Tim had done to somehow ignite the building had to have been a monstrous piece of spellwork.

Obsidian crackles and melts around it as it scurries its corpulent body down the stairs, and it lets out a hiss as it gets caught in the shards of… something.

The unfamiliar feeling of dread begins to settle in as it realizes that it’s stuck. It was hard enough navigating the halls to get in, but trying to get out was an entirely different beast.

“TIM!” It bellows, “I’M NOT FUCKING AROUND! PUT OUT THIS FIRE AT ONCE!”

The Wall can hear it giggling from outside.

“OR WHAT?” Tim shouts, “YOU’LL EXTRICATE ME?!”

“THAT’S NOT EVEN THE RIGHT- OH, GO FUCK YOURSELF!”

With a massive shiver, The Wall manages to curl upwards, lifting the weakened building off of its foundations. As it writhed, it shattered parting walls, breaking the structure up into a dozen or so splintered pieces. It heaved, wincing in pain as its body touched the blue embers near the bottom, and with a colossal shrug of its forefront it uprooted the structure from its base completely and tossed it to the side.

The mountainous building slid down the incline in a landslide, bringing down soot and ash and dozens upon dozens of expensive jewels and fine pottery into a nearby lava pool. The Wall, shaking off the excess debris, watched beautiful woven carpets burn at its surface as it respirated.

Then, it turns its eyes back to Tim, unsure of what to make of the ordeal. It was out of breath for the first time since its creation; bested by something it towered hundreds of feet over.

The skeleton stands nonchalantly a hundred or so yards away, taking a swig from its liquor bottle.

There was no way, it thought. No way in Hell that magic that powerful had come from this…

This homeless reanimated wretch!

“Alright”, The Wall spits, after some time. “I suppose if you’re determined enough to knock down a building to speak to me, I’ll humour you for the moment. What the Hell do you want from me?”

Tim whistles, tipping its pointed hat.

“Do you know what they used to keep in towers, your majesty?” it rasps cryptically.

The Wall thinks for a moment.

“That is entirely dependent on what ‘they’ you are referring to. Certain civilizations built structures similar to pyramids, which they used as burial grounds for their rulers. The Dryads used them for storing treasure, while the Goblin Empire erects them to aid telecommunications.”

“Wrong!” Tim trills, “Oh, so, so wrong! Where’s your flair, your majesty? Your theatrical spice?”

There are no spices typically associated with thespians, The Wall wants to bite back with, but Tim cuts it off.

“No, no, no- you see, people keep damsels ‘nd princesses or whatever in towers. And they’re always guarded by a terrible monster at the bottom, or around the castle, that eats her would-be rescuers and prevents her from leaving… ‘cuz they usually want her to themselves.”

The Wall’s eyes narrow. Where was it going with this?

“… And?”

“Well. You’re in one hell of a tower down here in the Underworld, your majesty. So I just want to know-“ 

Tim’s eyes shone with an uncanny radiance, “are you the maiden, or the monster?”

The Wall stared down at it, contemplating what it had said.

“... What? That doesn’t even- what are you talking about?”

“SURPRISE, BITCH!”

With a dramatic wave of its arm, Tim summons a horde of snakes from somewhere in its draping sleeves.

Their glittering bodies slither in rivulets towards The Wall, reflecting the glow of magma off of their diamond backs. Tim actually stoops over when they begin to pour from its cloak in earnest, clearly unprepared for the torrent.

White-hot fury courses through The Wall’s veins.

“I don’t have time for this,” it hisses, at the end of its rope, and as the snakes inch closer to its underbelly it unleashes the Hungry to descend upon Tim in a carnivorous swarm.

As per usual, just before they hit their mark, Tim disappears in a burst of blue magic and before The Wall can even utter its curses it’s gone.

Instead, the Hungry feed upon the serpentine bodies its magic left behind, before they realize they’re tearing into thin air—

An illusion. 

Just an illusion.

The Wall sighs, trying to regain some semblance of composure.

It wasn’t sure why it expected anything else to come of the visit. It was always the same thing with Tim; the same cat-and-mouse game of Tim prodding The Wall for some kind of reaction, before The Wall inevitably snapped and drove it off with some show of power.

… But it had never seen magic that powerful from the wizard before.

A vague sense of unease swept over it.

‘Are you the maiden, or the monster?’

The Wall had never given any particular significance to Tim’s words before, but for some reason, this particular duel left it with a certain tension. 

The Wall gazes forlornly into the burning building sinking into the lava pools nearby. The textbooks it had been reading were floating on the surface, smoldering quietly. 

Perhaps it wasn’t worth contemplating.

It had other things to do anyways: meetings to attend, court hearings to adjudicate, legislation to draft. 

Tensions between the human and goblin empires were beginning to simmer, and maintaining diplomatic relations with both nations would require careful and strategic planning.

It began to slither away, feeling only slightly guilty on behalf of the ruined architecture.

It’s not like it was the only target the skeleton was known for picking fights with—it seemed to delight in pushing around the lesser ranks of the Chthonic bureaucracy, and from what news it overheard from the Overworld, its nasty habit of challenging unwitting opponents didn’t stop there. It’d pick a fight with anything that breathed.

So there was no significance to Tim’s duels with it. It had just learned a new spell that happened to be capable of harming it, that’s all—it was still nothing, compared to The Wall. 

What danger could Tim possibly pose anyways?

The night the Guide is baptized in fire and regains his demonic form, the moon goes dark.

The townspeople gather outside in the dead of night as the ensuing swath of monstrous creatures swarm the town, panicking at the celestial blackout.

Efforts to combat them are in vain. Nocturnal devils swarm them in droves that are too numerous to combat. People are slaughtered with tooth and claw and terrible, painful magic that made the skin blister and lungs burn. 

Monsters rip apart the pitifully-reinforced wooden shelters like matchbox cardboard, and many die to the unfamiliar hands of the new world–confused, disoriented, violent deaths.

Above them, on the cliffside, the Guide’s home burns brightly; it burns and burns and burns and burns and burns and burns.

Summer, beginning of May

Night of the Unicorn Attack

7 Days Post-Wall

The tavern was warm and waxen, and it was very, very busy.

The Tavernkeep polished a crystal decanter in his hand with a towel, cleaning the remnants of mead glued to its surface until the bottle was ice-bright and gleaming. He stared at the crowd that had gathered inside of the building.

Seems like everyone crawled out of the woodwork tonight, he thought, sweeping his gaze over the front house. People were passing around bottles of brandy and trading poker chips and bartering heatedly over who-knows-what, making merriment and swapping ties and dancing on tables like loons. Excalibur–his pride and joy, hanging neatly over the stone mantle–languished on a table, being traded for a deck of cards.

He spotted his regulars, of course: The Demolitionist with a jug of ale dancing with his belt around his head, the Nurse cheering him on with a mug of whiskey beside her… the Zoologist, wine-drunk and trying to crawl onto the same table, being aided by a laughing Party Girl. Oh, yes, that crowd was no cause for concern–not when they drained half his supply every night.

But tonight differed. He was seeing people he’d never even seen step foot into his tavern before.

The Tinkerer sat nervously in a far-off corner, blue fingers curled around a glass of pinot noir. Next to him, the Mechanic chattered, chipper and bird-like, as she sipped a small margarita given to her by the Party Girl. The Golfer stood in another corner away from the raucous party at the center of the tavern, sipping a daiquiri as he made idle conversation with the Painter.

Hell, even the Clothier was there–and he looked like he was one more drink away from being put on life support.

A tiny hand dropped a silver coin on the bartop.

“ ‘Scuse me. One beer please.”

The Tavernkeep stared down at the Angler.

Oh, lord. Perhaps no one was safe tonight.

“How does an apple cider sound?” he offered tentatively.

“Don’t patronize me!” the Angler yelled back, “I don’t want an apple cider! I want a real drink!”

“ No! For the last time, boy, you’re not getting any alcohol from me! How did you even get in here?! Shoo!”

The Angler made a face, retracting his coin.

“Fine! I’ll just get someone else to buy it for me, then!”

As the Angler skittered away, the Tavernkeep sighed, carding a hand through his greying hair.

He was certain the entire town hadn’t shown up just to party as per usual. After the unicorn attack earlier that day, it seemed as if everyone–weary and suddenly uncomfortable with the knowledge that monsters were now perfectly capable of invading town–had wandered in, following friends, hoping the yellow light and human noise radiating from inside would keep them away. 

(A secondary service of the tavern, he had realized after some years of bartending–a safe haven for the wicked, restless, and concerned; both literally and metaphorically.)

The Tavernkeep glanced at the clock hanging above the tavern door. It was nearly midnight.

It was then that the Arms Dealer decided to slink up to the front bar, an empty wooden mug in his good hand.

“Lord, can you believe that people have the nerve to drink on a night like this?”

The Tavernkeep raised a brow, setting the decanter down.

“By ‘people’, son, do you happen to mean you?”

The Arms Dealer flashed a degenerate grin.

“Whiskey sour. Make it snappy. I’ve had a fuckin’ day.”

The Tavernkeep grunted, but put up no fight. He reached beneath the counter for a bottle of whiskey and his lime juicer.

The Arms Dealer was the only one who elected to sit at the front bar, reluctant to join in on the merriment going on behind him. He and the Tavernkeep sat in a pensive silence as he worked on the drink.

The Tavernkeep pulled a sliced lemon from underneath the table, shoving it into a juicer.

The Arms Dealer sighed, putting his face on the side of the counter.

“Sooo, what’s the uh, the plan big guy?” he murmured, face-down.

He looked over the Arms Dealer, face-down, ragged and looking concussed. He was a sorry sight, and he could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“... You and Bazdin brought the designs we drew up last week?” he prompted tentatively.

The Arms Dealer gave a drunken thumbs-up.

“... I’m making this virgin. And you’re going to sober up, and then you’ll help the Demolitionist sober up, and then we’ll call the town meeting. Lord knows we need to hold one after that attack.”

The Arms Dealer peeled his face off of the table.

“Whaaat? I don’t need to sober up. I’m, perfectly fuckin’.... Dude, you literally can’t even tell that I’m drunk .”

“And antlions can fly.”

The Arms Dealer was quiet again for a moment, and the Tavernkeep strained the lemon juice and egg whites for his drink.

“... Big guy. You’ve been around the world. You ever seen something like that horse before?” 

He thought of himself and the Arms Dealer as birds of a feather: former mercenaries who’d elected to travel between different human encampments rather than stay in one place, unlike most of Terraria’s population. He’d always felt that they shared a sort of camaraderie—though he was a little older, a little wiser; less likely to jump into the fire. 

He sensed it was an honest question, so he answered it honestly. 

“No. That’s what’s concerning me.”

“Fuuuck,” the Arms Dealer slurred, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, that’s the answer I was expecting. Neither has Bazdin. Guess we’re really fucking in it now, huh?”

“Would appear so.”

The Arms Dealer curled his fists into balls, using them to prop himself up on the table with a sigh.

“I mean, fucking,” he continued, “First all of the Underworld bullshit, and then the eclipse, and now this shit. Really feels like the big guy upstairs is out to get us sometimes.”

“Mhm.”

Another uneasy silence passed between them as the Tavernkeep filled the Arms Dealer’s drink with ice.

“ ...You think uh… You think we’ll be able to repair the damage pretty quick, then?”

“Mhm.”

The Arms Dealer rested his face on a hand, staring at the Tavernkeep.

“...Shit, fuckin’ hope so. My door got ruined in the battle. Fucking… pissing me off.”

“...That’s unfortunate.”

The Arms Dealer bowed his head in defeat.

“I spent ten hours painting it. And Bazdin doesn’t even, like, fuckin’... care,” he slurred, “The only thing that motherfucker is good for is like… destroying shit. Destroying his house. Destroying his fuckin’ reputation… Destroying me… ”

The Tavernkeep stirred the concoction within his mixer, before giving it a violent shake.

“And I guess that’s like… what does that make me good for? Killing things?” the Arms Dealer asked.

The Tavernkeep didn’t have an answer for him.

Not while he was this inebriated, anyways.

The Arms Dealer looked up at him quizzically after some time elapsed.

“You uh, not fond of talkin’ to poor drunks, huh?”

“I have drunk people telling me their darkest secrets all of the time. Sorry you’ve got daddy issues, son, but you’re not gonna fix anything by drinking them away.”

The Arms Dealer’s face went scarlet.

“Lord of the fuckin’ moon, pal, I’m pouring my heart out over here. Just trying to make some conversation! Damn!” 

The Tavernkeep placed the virgin sour in front of the Arms Dealer, who–in spite of his mood–snatched it up and downed it almost immediately.

“ Whew, that’s the shit! You might not be much of a talker, but damn, you can make a mean cocktail.”

“I take pride in what I do,” The Tavernkeep replied evenly, “Now go get a coffee from the front and get one for- damn it, tell Bazdin to put my sword down! Get him too. We’ll meet downstairs.”

The Arms Dealer pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. I just got my arm detached and sewn back on today, and I might never be able to shoot again, but hey! There are bigger fuckin’ issues. Sure.”

“It’s because your arm got detached today that we need to talk about this, son,” the Tavernkeep said with a grimace, “Now get to it. We don’t have much time before everyone’s too piss-drunk to make rational decisions.”

The Arms Dealer put his hands up, ambling unsteadily in the direction of the coffee pot that was kept near the double Oaken doors near the front. The Tavernkeep wiped the countertop down before shuffling into the backroom.

A little while later, a (much more sober) Arms Dealer and Demolitionist slipped in through the back doors of the Tavern, papyrus notes in hand, joining the Tavernkeep in the wine cellar below.

“Did we draw any of this while we were sober, lad?” the Demolitionist asked as the three of them clustered around a small wooden table, still a little drunk, “I don’t remember any of this.”

Above them, a single lightbulb swung back and forth, casting long shadows on the racks behind them and bringing the green-stained glass bottles to uncanny, multicolored life.

 The Arms Dealer had unfurled a hand-painted map of the town, startlingly true-to-life, with a few key differences: around it, a wide moat had been crudely inked with massive spikes sticking out of it. 

On the inner side of the moat was drawn a wall ensconcing every part of town within a stone cloister; with watchtowers on the North, South, East and West corners housing gas-powered fire pits bright enough to serve as beacons from miles away.

“ Yes, you dolt,” the Arms Dealer refuted, “You probably don’t remember ‘cause you’re still fuckin’ drunk. We drew them up last week.”

“Well, excuse me for wanting to drink away my troubles and forget about reality the night after we all almost died. ”

“That doesn’t make you puking on my shoes any better. You know that doesn’t make you puking on my shoes any fuckin’ better, right?”

The Tavernkeep held up a hand.

“ Enough. I roped you two into this because I knew you were the only ones who’d know how… pressing, our situation has become. If you’re going to fight, I can propose the fortification plans myself, and see who’d be willing to give their aid.”

The Dwarf–all three feet of him–glared up at the silver-haired giant in front of him.

“And who the hell died and made you the boss of us?!”

The Arms Dealer rubbed a temple.

“Shut up, Bazdin. Just- shut up. He’s right. We can’t be fighting like this if we want to get anything done.”

Just then, the stairs leading from the backroom to the wine cellar creaked under gentle footfall, and a rapping on the stone walls of the cellar echoed down from the top.

“Yoo-hoo, gentlemen!” the Merchant called, gnarled hands wrapped around a brass hurricane lantern as he descended, “Friend Driscan! Andre and Bazdin! Wonderful to see you two.”

The Tavernkeep nodded in response.

“Walter.”

The Merchant hobbled down the steps, aided by the Arms Dealer over his last few steps.

“I hope I’m not too late for our meeting,” he said breathlessly, “ I’ve brought the contacts for my supply companies, and the catalogs and inventories they’ve so generously provided me. I’ll warn you gentlemen, though, with the Goblin Empire encroaching on our western front, it’s, ah… not much to write home about–most of the lumber and steel being milled in the Capitol are going directly to the infantries keeping them at bay.”

“That’s alright. We’ll take all we can get. Thank you for all of your help.”

The old man chuckled in response.

“Where there’s money to be made, you’ll find me. Besides, with the warrant out for my arrest in the Capitol… well, I’d like to avoid getting turned into slime food if I’m to stay here.”

The Merchant handed the Tavernkeep a rolled-up piece of parchment paper, which he promptly opened, setting down atop the fortification plan drafts.

“ Holy shit! 10,000 silver pieces for one ton? You weren’t kidding.”

“Them’s the markets these days,” the Merchant sighed defeatedly, “Iron sells for less, but shipping it’s more of a bitch, even to a coastal town like this. Trade vessels can only carry so much before the materials outweigh the buoyancy.”

The Arms Dealer fixed a questioning stare on the Tavernkeep.

“You sure we can drum up enough for steel walls, buddy?”

The Tavernkeep furrowed his brow.

“… Perhaps we’ll have a stroke of luck in the near future. But look,” his finger dropped from the price listings for steel to the price listings for demonite ore, “Demonite is only 300 copper pieces for the same amount.”

“Oh, no no no, ” the Demolitionist rebuked, “There’s no way in hell ye’re thinking of using demonite to reinforce our town.”

The Tavernkeep turned to the Merchant, a brilliant idea forming.

“It’s ludicrously cheap. We could buy enough to reinforce the town and then some with our own savings. Why is that?”

“It seems as if some of the towns bordering the corruptive wastes have recently seen the… well, spread of it.”

The Arms Dealer, the Demolitionist, and the Tavernkeep ogled the Merchant in utter perplexity.

“Spread? What exactly do you… mean by that?”

The Merchant’s head shook.

“Just what it sounds like. No other way to describe it, my friends–the wasteland seems to be encroaching on the territories surrounding it!” he said with a dark zeal, “First it’s just the flora growing in places where it hadn’t been able to before, and then, before you know it, entire towns have been turned into worm food. A terrible shame!”

“Holy shit…” the Arms Dealer murmured.

“That’s impossible,” the Tavernkeep refuted, “The corruption around that area hasn’t–it doesn’t really move. It’s been there, in the same territories, for hundreds of years. Why would it just now spread?”

“Who knows?” the Merchant shrugged, “But there appears to be an abundance of Demonite ore, as the worms tunnel through the dirt of the cleaner areas around it, and excrete… well, you know. Carnegie Steel is doing their best to remove it from these towns at the rate that it’s growing, but the problem is really only growing exponentially faster. A worthless investment, if you ask me.”

The Tavernkeep tapped on the desk in contemplation.

The Arms Dealer spoke up.

“Hey, now, you can’t possibly think… swapping out the steel for demonite is a good idea. Who fucking knows what’s inside of it? We could spread the Corruption just by shipping it here. Let’s just- use stone, or something.”

“From where, the mines?” the Tavernkeep refuted, “We don’t have the manpower for it–there’s only twenty-or-so of us in town, Andre. And half of us are too old or too weak to make the frequent trips necessary to excavate it. Carnegie’s the best option we’ve got.”

“So Steel it is then!” the Demolitionist refuted, “demonite’s just unusable ! Stronger than steel, maybe, but lord knows what’s inside of it! What if there are… worm eggs inside it, or something?!”

“We’ll see how much everyone is willing to pledge to our idea,” the Tavernkeep amended, “But, I’m warning you all now–demonite may be our best option if we want to make these fortification plans a reality–especially with the Hero busy warding off all of the monsters around town. We’re certainly not building it out of wood after what the horned horse did to our homes today.”

The Tavernkeep tucked the rolled-up parchment into his belt, and began to gather the rest of the papers they had collected between them. He turned to walk up the stairs.

“Alright, speak now or forever hold your peace, you lot,” he added, “We’ve got an entire town to sell on this. Any objections to our plan thus far?”

The Merchant turned to shuffle up the stairs behind him, waiting on the bottom step with.

“None from me! Any protection is better than none, am I right, boys? And any business is good business.” he quipped, turning to the Arms Dealer and the Demolitionist with a twinkle in his eyes. 

“Lighten up. We’re as good as dead anyways–what the hell are a few worms going to do that the monsters around here can’t already?” the Merchant added after seeing their sour expressions.

The Arms Dealer sent a fierce glare in his direction, and the Merchant laughed at the look on his face.

“Don’t be such a crank, Andre,” he said lowly, after the Tavernkeep was out of earshot, “Look, even if this town goes to smithereens because of this stupid plan, you, Bazdin and I can always skip town and head back to the war front. Lord knows I’m sick of this place.”

“Not everyone can do that here, worms-for-brains. ” he hissed.

The Merchant shrugged.

“Not everyone is my problem, sonny-boy! Look out for yourself,” he rebutted, “This place’s economy is a nightmare! I’m going back to civilization as soon as my bounty expires!” 

The Arms Dealer bristled in silence as the Merchant turned to make his slow ascent out of the cellar. When the Merchant was halfway up, he paused to turn back and look at him.

“Oh, and by the way–rent on your storage space is a month overdue. Make it snappy! I’ll have to sell your harpy wings if you keep paying it late.”

When the Merchant was fully gone, the Arms Dealer swallowed dryly, uncurling his fists.

“...The fuck is that guy’s problem?” he asked, fuming.

The Demolitionist sighed from next to him.

“Maybe he’s right, Andre.” he said tentatively, and Andre whipped his head around to face him disbelievingly.

 “We’ve been here for too long already. I’m itchin’ to get back out there again and make some real sales. We can’t keep living here. If someone tries to pay me with a line of trout again, I’m going to lose me shit.”

“I fuckin’ know that, damn! Get off my ass!” he bit back, “I’m just fucking saying maybe we shouldn’t leave the people that are here defenseless when we go. Least we could do is help everyone adjust to the… everything. Fuck!”

The Demolitionist raised his arms–a silent extension of mercy.

“Whatever you say, lad. Just don’t get used to it.”

The Demolitionist turns to look back at him one last time before he scuttles up the stairs, into the light.

In the darkness, the Arms Dealer let his resentment simmer beneath his tongue. 

A little while later, he crawls up to join them in the front bar.

“HEAR YE, HEAR YE!” The Tavernkeep shouted, banging two cast iron mugs together behind the counter.

A chorus of groans erupted from the crowd as several townsfolk covered their ears.

The clanging throughout the building, breaking heads and splitting eardrums left and right. The Merchant stood steadfast to his right, while the Demolitionist and the Arms Dealer pinned up the painting of the fortifications they had drafted atop the wine rack behind them where everyone could see it.

(“Hey!” the painter called out from somewhere within the crowd, “Is that my painting?! I’ve been looking for that!”)

A horde of confused townsfolk turned their heads to face the Tavernkeep. The interruption had disturbed the chaotic chatter that had been going on minutes prior, and the entire tavern stared ahead in silence.

They were drunk, yes; but not drunk enough to disrespect the bartender in his own tavern.

“Thank you, Walter,” the Tavernkeep murmured to the side, before turning to face the crowd, and unfurling the price sheets given to him by the Merchant.

“Everyone,” he began, “I’d like to address the monster attack in town earlier today.”

Immediately, the crowd’s faces fell. The mention of the hardships of the day prior during a time of merriment and escapism quickly soured the mood.

“I know you’re all on edge, after everything that’s happened… Rightfully so. As am I–first, the Hero’s battle with the monster in the underworld, and now this… It appears as if we’ve suffered an onslaught of invaders threatening the safety of this little haven we’ve built for ourselves, nestled away in these mountains.

“But as much as we’d all like to bury our heads in the sand–or in the kegs–and forget about everything until we wake up hungover tomorrow morning, there is one thing our resident underworld monster was right about, that I’m sure you can all feel: we are running out of time.”

The Tavernkeep swept his gaze across the front room–where there were once confused, dizzied faces caught in embarrassing acts in staring back at him, it seemed as if the mention of the times had sobered everyone up. The Zoologist and the Nurse had crawled down from the tables they were dancing on before, wiping the mascara from her eyes. The Dye Trader was shuffling back into his trousers as the Tavernkeep spoke up again.

“As the world becomes more dangerous, we cannot simply stand by and let it snuff us out–we must do something to protect ourselves!” he rallied.

Murmurs of agreement erupted from the crowd–and quiet as they might have been, the favourable reaction egged him on.

“Last week, when the Hero returned from their hellish journey through the underworld, Andre, Bazdin, Walter and I realized the gravity of our situation. We drafted a plan to fortify our town, and keep us safe.,” he continued, pointing to the watercolor depiction of their town hanging from the wine rack behind him.

“It is here in front of you. As you can see,” he explained, using a finger to circle around the town, “We believe the best way to keep monsters out is to keep us in. We’ve designed a spike trench, and a drawbridge that opens at dawn and closes at night, to serve as a rudimentary moat to keep these nighttime devils in their place–away from civilization. I know, from my years of experience, that most creatures of the night are not foolish enough to risk their lives trying to jump across and impale themselves on the spike pits below.

“If any of them somehow do, they’ll have another obstacle to contend with–the wall we’ll be constructing around our town. As you can see, according to the diagram, it’ll be three feet thick and tall enough to cover our highest buildings from arrow fire. There will be four watchtower-beacons, in case anyone happens to be stranded outside when the gates close. It should be visible from the peaks of the mountains surrounding us.

“But the four of us cannot embark on the journey of fortifying our town alone. I’m sure every one of us here is concerned with the safety of this town–because the safety of thy neighbor is the safety of oneself. We’ve been through so much over the course of these last three years: attacks from minor gods. Visits from Ostara. Hell, we’ve even had to free our neighbor from a curse that turned him into a skeletal demon in the night!”

The Clothier chuckled from somewhere in the crowd.

“Each time, we’ve banded together, and it was our unity and cooperative spirit that allowed us to pull through even stronger than before. Citizens–the hardships we are facing now might appear more grave, more dangerous than ever before–but we must realize that just as these hardships grow in gravity, so too do we in strength and number. Let us not go gently into this good night–all we ask is that each and every one of you lends a hand in the effort to fortify this town, and make it a safe haven once more.”

The Merchant pumped his fist up in the air.

“COME ON, NOW! WHO’S WITH US?!” he shouted.

… But he shouted alone.

The people, while slightly swayed, seemed hesitant to join him in admiration for the plan.

The Angler pushed his way up to the front of the crowd.

“What’s the catch?!” he countered, “And where’s allothis’ material coming from to make the walls, anyways?! You think we’re just made of money, or stone, or something?!”

The Tavernkeep grimaced.

“The catch is, young one… Andre, Bazdin, Walter, and I don’t have enough between us to fund the construction of the wall, nor do we have the manpower to build it ourselves. When we say we need help from everyone in town… we do mean everyone. This project is not going to work, unless we band together, and everyone goes all-in.”

Now that was when the discontent began. 

Around him, the tavern erupted into fervor. People–now well-past sober–were muttering into their neighbor’s ears, discussing the proposal. Words like outlandish and juvenile carried in the air from the house to behind the bar, and the Tavernkeep began to sweat.

Perhaps he had misjudged them–maybe the Angler was right, and the monster horse attack would sooner send its citizens running off to take shelter in the Capitol than stubbornly stay in town and help build up its defenses.

The Merchant, sensing the direction the Tavernkeep’s thoughts had gone towards, piped up again–seeming to brush off the earlier rejection from the crowd.

“OI! From one coward to many others, if any of you are thinking it’s a better idea to turn tail and flee to the Capitol, I’ll just stop you right there–you won’t find any place that’s any safer than here, my friends,” he advised, unrolling the scroll with the material prices from Carnegie Steel, pointing to the price of demonite.

“How many of you are familiar with the corruptive wastelands just east of here?” the Merchant inquired once he had their attention, “Show of hands!”

The crowd looked among themselves, confused as to where he was going with this. Nearly all of them raised their hands.

“Good. Then I wouldn’t be wrong in assuming that you all know what demonite is as well?” he prodded further.

A chorus of yes, of course, maybe s rang out from the house area.

“Look at the price charts and weep–demonite is more accessible and cheaper than ever.”

As the Merchant pointed to the price of demonite–listed at the very bottom–there were several audible gasps of outcry among the townspeople.

“400 copper?! Only 400…?”

“Why is steel so much more expensive nowadays…?”

“I didn’t even know Carnegie Steel sold demonite to begin with…?”

They were mortified.

“Oh, yes. It’s their hottest new material,” the Merchant enthused, “And you know why it’s so cheap now?”

He waited for a response from the crowd, but none came.

“Because the disease within the eastern wastelands is spreading. The reason Carnegie is offering this material specifically at such an alarmingly low price is because there’s an overabundance of it, to the east of here. The flora and fauna of the wastes are reaching far beyond their former territories, and that means the worms are too, turning grass to deathweed and iron to demonite! If you don’t believe me…”

The Merchant shuffled around the hidden pockets within his jacket, and unrolled a wax-sealed envelope with the signature pegasus symbol of the Carnegie corporation of the Capitol of Terraria. He held it up to the light before breaking the seal, and unfolding the letter inside.

“...Read this letter sent out by them to all merchants and suppliers, warning them of the growth, for yourselves.”

The Merchant handed the letter across the bar, into the greedy hands of the Angler, who read it with his eyeballs popping out of his skull. One by one, the townspeople passed it around among themselves, each exclaiming small gasps of shock and fury at the news it contained.

“I’m afraid it’s not any safer in the Capitol, either,” the Merchant continued his tirade, “as the goblin army encroaches on our shores, we’re being left with less and less people to defend our cities as they head off to the western front for war. Hell, this town might be the safest place on the map, statistically speaking! At least all we have to worry about are the monsters.”

“ Thank you, Walter,” the Tavernkeep cut him off, sensing rising panic among the crowd, “You’re right. This town might be the last damn place on the map where we’re free from plague or warfare.

“I am not rallying for your help, everyone,” he said desperately “I am begging. I see no other way we can continue living here.”

It was then that he did something truly shocking–

Tavernkeep; once-hero, slayer of monsters and teller of stories–legend of folklore bound in mortal flesh–got onto his knees, and bowed.

“Please,” he asked quietly. “We need your help. Not just for us… for us all.”

The image struck a chord of dread within the townspeople’s hearts. It was a humbling sight.

The Goblin Tinkerer, shockingly enough, was the one to break the silence.

“It could work with some cannons on top of the allure.”

Everyone turned to look at him in the corner. They parted like the red sea, allowing him to speak directly to the Tavernkeep, and his ears flushed blue at the sudden attention.

“Er, well, the walkways, atop the walls. That’s the formal term for them. Maybe some guns too… The idea seems entirely feasible… We, uh, set something similar up on our, um, battle posts, in the empire. The design is nearly one-to-one, actually, minus the beacons. It’s a great start, defensively-speaking. But we aren’t going to just want to be defensive, against these new monsters–we need to be offensive too.”

The Tavernkeep got up from his knees, dusting the legs of his pants off.

“That’s a great idea, Tinkerer.”

“Ooh, you’re so right!” the Mechanic added from the seat next to him, “Shoot, it looks pretty darn solid to me. Let me get up there and take a look at those plans.” she said, hopping out of her seat and skipping up to the bartop.

The Arms Dealer begrudgingly smoothed the parchment so she could take a clearer look, as the Tinkerer trailed timidly behind her.

“Three feet thick, huh…” she murmured.

“Just on the outer wall,” the Tavernkeep clarified, “The inner wall will be made up of wooden columns, to cut material costs down.”

She looked up at him.

“Well, the spike pit’s going to be a real bitch, but we can totally do that in like, a week. What material were you thinking for the spikes, Driscan?”

“Ah- well, we were just going to go with wood, unless there’s a… better option…?”

She shook her head.

“No, no! Wood is good. Wood is great! Metal would be way too difficult to carve into those spike shapes anyways, and we can use driftwood from the shore so it’s not so heavy to carry! The depth and width of the pits might be an issue, since the walls are going to have most of their mass lying on them, so we’ll need to make the part the walls are on slanted upwards to evenly distribute the weight…”

“Would we be able to support the weight of the watchtowers on wood?” the Tinkerer added, “Better if we use stone, or bricks.”

Then, he amended shyly, “Do the, material companies have… bricks?”

The Tavernkeep nodded.

“Well, yes, they do, but they’re not very structurally-”

“Bricks are bricks,” the Tinkerer cut him off, “Anything will do, so long as it’s not wood.”

“Oooh, that’s a great idea, Nort!” the Mechanic chirped, “So much easier to lay than stone! Much better shipping times too. Plus, if we use bricks, we might not even have to use demonite for the watchtowers–we could just replace that with brick too since they’re so high up…”

“What about ranged enemies?”

The Mechanic pointed a callused finger up to the diagram.

“These are, what, 15 or 20 feet up? By the law of gravitational acceleration, any projectiles should lose enough force at that point to not break through the walls.”

“Oh, you’re right. I’m being silly.”

She turned to the Tinkerer.

The Mechanic put her hand to the diagram enthusiastically, facing the crowd.

“Everyone!” she called out with a smile, “This plan has the engineers’ seals of approval! This is totally doable, and it shouldn’t even take more than a month or two. If we get labourers from Carnegie, it might take us even less time!”

Whispers of hope crept up from within the crowd like a forbidden word. 

Could it be?, they seemed to think, is certain doom… avoidable?

The Mechanic looked back to the Tinkerer.

“You said this diagram looks like the stuff you guys made on the goblin war front, right?”

The Tinkerer nodded.

“That’s correct,” he said, voice barely-audible, “But we were building out of wood, not stone. I can’t promise that the construction timeline will chart the same course depending on the materials we’ll be using.”

The Tavernkeep spoke up.

“We based our designs off of the Goblin Empire’s military forces. I happened to have diagrams from my time traveling the war front.”

The Mechanic turned to look at the Tavernkeep.

“What material were you thinking of using anyways, Driscan?”

The Tavernkeep swallowed.

“That’s… another issue. We haven’t decided, but we’re leaning strongly towards… demonite.”

Gasps erupted from the crowd. The Tavernkeep held a hand up, attempting to quell the derision and shock.

“Simmer down, everyone–we don’t know for sure yet. It depends on the budget we have and the amount of time each material takes to ship.” the Tavernkeep clarified, turning to the Merchant.

“So, er,” he asked, “What exactly… are the shipping times, for each material?”

The Merchant pulled out a leather-bound notebook from within his coat, flipping through the pages.

“... Six months for reinforced steel.” He uttered, after some time.

A crestfallen expression fell over the crowd.

“... Three months for copper. Eight for iron… And one for demonite. But, really, our only options are stone or steel. No other material strong enough to withstand monstrous blows like they are, good friends.”

An uneasy silence filled the room, from corner to corner.

The Tavernkeep swallowed.

“I’m sure you all understand that it would be… problematic, to wait that long for steel. We could, of course, harvest the stone from the mines around us instead, but that would most likely take even longer. The ports we have are our greatest ally. We’d have materials at our doorstep in mere days.”

The Merchant sighed as he looked upon the silent crowd, before cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling out,

“ALRIGHT! We know our reinforcement plan needs some workshopping, but who’s all with us?! This is a joint effort, or it’s not happening at all! ”

Over half the crowd raised their hands in response. 

Not bad, the Tavernkeep thought. He had been expecting more pushback.

“It won’t be free labour, mind you all,” The Tavernkeep amended, “Whoever helps won’t be paying me a single cent during its construction, and all of your tills will be wiped! The very least I could do, for your citizen’s aid.”

Free mead?!, he heard whispering from the crowd, screw our safety, i’ll help out for that alone!.

The amount of hands that shot up made the vote a majority.

“ALRIGHT, GOOD FRIENDS! Glad to see you’re all with us in fortifying our resplendent countryside town.  All in favour of waiting for steel , raise your hands! Don’t be shy, now– this is a democracy! Every opinion counts!” the Merchant continued, with showmanship.

One or two uneasy hands were raised, but quickly dropped, when they saw they were the dissenters.

The Merchant spoke up once more, for the last time.

“ALL IN FAVOUR OF DEMONITE!” he shouted.

This time, the vote was unanimous: every single one of the townsfolk raised their hands, with varying degrees of uneasiness, at the proposal.

The Tavernkeep swelled with pride… and relief.

He reached underneath the bar counter for a glass, before using an open bottle nearby to fill it up. 

When it was full and foaming with froth, he raised his glass, and cried out,

“THEN THE PLAN IS SETTLED- TO OUR SAFETY AND FUTURE!”

It seemed as if the vow of a feasible safety plan had unified everyone, lightening the mood. The crowd followed suit, cheering and whistling as they raised their own glasses.

“TO NOT LOSING A LIFE TODAY, NOR A SINGLE ONE, IN THE PAST TWO YEARS!”

Now to that, the crowd cheered louder. It was an accomplishment deserving celebration: even the largest townships weren’t able to say as much for their loss-to-life ratio.

“TO OUR CONTINUED HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY OUT HERE, SO FAR AWAY FROM THE CAPITOL!”

Once more, they cheered. A refrain of Hurrahs echoed across the walls of the tavern, surely being heard from across town.

“ONE MORE TIME, EVERYBODY–TO EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US! TO OUR RESILIENCE IN A VOLATILE WORLD! TO NOT JUST SURVIVING- BUT SHOWING THESE DAMNED MONSTERS WHAT WE'RE MADE OF!”

The crowd raised their glasses, and soon whooping and light and loud chatter filled the tavern again as the Tavernkeep, the Merchant, the Arms Dealer, and the Demolitionist rolled up their parchments and went to go store them in the backroom once more before grabbing their own drinks and joining the festivities.

They were the first words of encouragement many had heard in a very long time. The promise of safety bloomed like seeds in the wind–frail and dormant, but on the verge of wake. The townspeople allowed themselves the glimmer of hope at the mere prospect of them blooming.

From underneath a table, the Angler watches the adults talking in silence.

The Arms Dealer lies in bed awake that night and thinks about the past.

Anxious, young, flea-speckled little rat prince, a memory of a memory–his teacher, idol, mother says to him when she hands him his first gun:

“If you love something, baby, give it teeth.”

She handed him a black pistol, placing it into his hands. It was cold and smooth under his fingertips; except for the grip tape; that part, it dug into his palms if he held it too tight.

It was the perfect size for a child. She put all of her love into the weapon, he could feel it–she wanted him to protect himself. She wanted him to be safe. 

It had been a long time since he’d thought about her, but the memory exposed a tender nerve within him.

These were the things that she taught him,

Love was a weapon–it wasn’t real if it didn’t hurt somebody.

Summer

8 Days Post-Wall

The Guide idly gnawed on the cooked meat of a rabbit, skewered on one of his arrows.

It was early morning, and his life was falling apart.

Tea churned and bubbled in a tin pot over the fire.

(A tin pot. What kind of monster brews tea in a tin pot? )

The fire pit he had created was small and makeshift, kindled with debris from around his charred home–the structural integrity of which had been rapidly dwindling since the night of the fire. The stove, in all of its precious modern glory, had stopped working the night before due to part of his roof collapsing onto it; and so he had done what any reasonable person would do:

Create a fire pit in his kitchen over which to brew tea. Obviously.

The Hero was not the best architect, even the Guide could admit that.

To their credit, however, the Hero had done an excellent job of laying the foundations of his home.

 Even after the fire, the steel supports that had fastened it to the cliff had remained steadfast, so at least he wouldn’t be falling off of the cliffside any time soon. However, that didn’t stop the rest of his home from decaying: the roof above the living room had been grossly exposed to the elements and blackened with soot by the flames, leaving an iron-colored skeleton for the wind to whistle its mournful tune through.

That was all the damage he found upon his return from the Underworld, but over the next few days it continued to deteriorate: the shingles on his roof had fallen into his bathtub. His bedframe had broken in half, leaving him to sleep in a cocoon of silk throws on the floor. The heat’s expansion and shrinking of the wooden window frames had caused the glass to come loose and fall out. 

It was early morning, he was cooking an animal carcass over an open fire inside of his own home like a primitive, he hadn’t showered in days, there was a hole in his roof, and his life was falling apart…

He turned the arrowhead, flipping the sinewy flesh over so it could sear, surface-first on the other side. The fuschia cloak was pulled tight around him.

…But not his plan , he thought. 

Never his plan.

A knock at the door startled him, pulling him away from his musings and sending his heart into his throat.

Could it be?

He jumped to his feet, darting to the window beside the door. He cracked the blinds, looking for a familiar straw hat, and couldn’t name the emotion he felt at the lack of it.

He swung the door open.

“Oh. Angler. You’re here… early.”

The sun’s rays were just barely dusting the horizon, and the morning fog hadn’t cleared out yet. It made the Angler look ghostly.

The Angler tipped his hat.

“Howdy, business partner. In case you can’t remember… you owe me a hook!”

The Guide leaned out of the doorway, checking to see if there was anyone on the wooden steps outside of his home, before turning to face the Angler.

He looked a little tired, but there was an eager glint in his eyes and he was rocking back and forth on his feet. Over his shoulder was slung a cloth sack out of which the remains of his hook were being carried.

“You look quite chipper today, Angler. Excited to get your hook fixed, I presume?”

The Angler grinned sharply.

“We have a deal. Oh! And for payment…”

The Angler reached around into his cloth sack, before pulling out a brilliant red snapper by the hook it was on and holding it up to the light.

It was enormous, and looked fresh out of the water. The Guide’s mouth watered.

“Did you just… have that in there?” he asked.

“It’s my fishing sack.”

Alright, the Guide thought. That was gross. 

The Guide took the line out of the Angler’s hand anyways, before hanging it from a curing rack behind his front door.

But not gross enough to deny free food.

The Angler popped his head in through the doorway, and the Guide jumped.

“What’s in here?” he prodded.

The Guide panicked, maneuvering his cloak into the way to block his view.

“ Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing in here that would be of interest to you. Stay out here.”

the Angler blatantly ignored him, pushing the cloak out of the way with his hand.

“Why’s there a hole in your roof?” 

“… The building has been having some structural troubles as of late.”

The Angler raised a brow.

“ No duh. Was it ‘cause of the fire?”

The Guide pinched the bridge of his nose. Why was he even bothering to justify the state of his home in the first place? It was only the Angler.

“Yes, it was. The roof unfortunately collapsed last night. I’d ask the Hero to repair the damage, however…”

The Angler pinched his nose.

“Did your shower have some ‘structural troubles’ too?”

The Guide’s face dusted scarlet.

“I’ve been busy ,” he hissed, “Do you want your hook fixed or not?”

The Angler scampered away lightly.

“Come on then!” he yelled from the first step down, “We don’t got all day, and I’ve already held up my end of the deal! Let’s go!”

The Guide sighed. If he was being completely honest, he was regretting the promise he made to the Angler. He didn’t feel like going to the forges. He didn’t feel like leaving his home at all.

But he wasn’t one to break a pact—especially not one that he proposed to begin with.

He acquiesced. 

(Reluctantly.)

“Just let me grab my quiver first, Angler.”

“Are we there yet?”

The Guide trudged through foliage, using a knife to cut clearance through the growth. Behind him, the Angler pitter-pattered with comparative ease, stepping delicately over tree roots and trampling wildflowers underneath.

He sighed, carving away a tangled vine above him.

“No, Angler. I assure you, when we arrive, I’ll let you know.”

“The Hero always made it sound like it was right there.”

“Well, to them, I presume it is ‘right there’. They’ve got their lightning boots, remember? A mile’s journey is only footsteps away to them.”

The Guide tugged another vine out of the way, ripping it apart with a grunt.

Good grief, he thought to himself. Is the way to the forges already this overgrown? It could have only been a week since he’d used them.

Yet another sign of the world’s clockwork going out of tune, he surmised. The signs of the world changing were less subtle than he had predicted, and it filled him with discomfort… for some reason. He shoved the feeling down.

Only a matter of time until the Hero makes progress, he reassured himself. And then he could return to his rightful place as final judiciary of Hell, and put the surface world behind him for good.

“That’s not fair.” the Angler muttered from beside him. “I want a pair of lightning boots. Why don’t we all have them? How did they even make them anyways?”

Knowing you, the Guide thought, you’d just end up impaling yourself on something using them.

“Whenever you’re ready to embark on a quest through the jungle to gather the supplies to make them, feel free to inform me. I’ll give you the instructions to forge them.”

The Angler let out a fearful noise.

“I’m bold, not suicidal! You’re crazy.”

The Guide let out a chuckle of amusement.

“Good to see there’s some common sense floating around that skull of yours.”

“Yep. All certified brain matter, chief.”

“Could have fooled me–I thought it was empty… ow! ”

The Guide felt something sharp and rubbery hit him on the back of the head. He whipped his head around, making direct eye contact with the Angler, who quickly shoved a wooden slingshot back into his vest pocket. His grin was crooked, like he was desperately trying not to laugh.

“ Did you just– hit me with a slingshot? ”

“No.”

“Don’t lie! ”

“It wasn’t me, honest!”

“Where did you even get the ammunition from?!”

“I didn’t get no ammunition ‘cause I didn’t hit you with nothing.”

The Guide reached into his satchel, pulled out a pebble, and flung it at the Angler. It hit the boy square in the forehead.

“OW!” the boy yelped. (But he was still laughing, so the Guide knew it didn’t really hurt him.)

“Hey, you can’t do that!” he hooted, “I’m just a kid!”

“I could hear the echo of the pebble reverberating around your skull.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“...Have you ever been in a cave before, Angler?”

“Yeah.”

“You know when you shout into it, and your voice carries all the way down to the bottom?”

“Yeah!”

“There’s a feature specific to caves that allows your voice to echo like that. What do you think it means when it does that?”

“Uhh… Well, I guess, the cave length?”

The Guide sent him a sharp grin.

“That it’s empty.”

The Angler’s mouth dropped in disbelief as he realized what the Guide was implying.

“ You jerk! ”

The Angler pulled out his slingshot, firing another rubber pellet at the Guide. It hit him on the shoulder, smoothly rolling off of the silk fabric of his cloak.

Well. War was war. The Angler made his choice.

He bared his teeth, pulling the cloak up with his hands to form the illusion of dark wings.

“I’d be careful if I were you, Angler,” he hissed with mock derision, “Don’t you know I’m a demon from Hell?”

The Angler laughed in his face.

“Oooh, I’m so scared!”

The Guide sheathed his knife and started sprinting towards him.

The Angler screamed, running in the opposite direction.

“GET OVER HERE!” the Guide bellowed, “I’LL DRINK YOUR BLOOD AND EAT YOUR CHILDREN!”

The Angler shrieked with laughter, darting away somewhere in the underbrush.

The chase didn’t last long. The Guide quickly ran out of breath, giving up to return to cutting down vegetation along the path.

Perhaps the Angler’s antics would have irritated him, had it been a different day–had the boy posed any threat. But as it stood, with nothing else of immediate urgency to attend to, or any tasks to complete on his checklist, or any world-altering plans to ruminate on… he felt uncharacteristically jovial. Perhaps he even felt it was fun.

The quiet eventually stretched on for longer than he felt comfortable with, and he stopped to call out for the Angler.

“ANGLER?” he shouted, “ARE YOU OUT THERE?”

A few moments of silence passed with no response. A pang of nervousness shot through him.

Any amount of silence from the Angler usually meant nothing good. In the forest, animals were wilder, caverns deeper, monsters more frequently found thanks to the still air and shade–what if he had gotten lost and was stuck in a ditch somewhere? What if he’d been carried off by wolves? 

‘ Village boy mysteriously disappears when wandering the forest with local eldritch spawn. ’ That wasn’t a good look.

“ANGLER?” he called out again.

“I’M UP HERE!” came an excited reply a few seconds later, “DON’T THROW ANY MORE PEBBLES AT ME! I FOUND THE FORGE!”

The Guide cut through the last of the shrubbery, and emerged into the light on the other side.

The Angler was perched precariously atop a lichen-covered boulder, bent over the other side to observe the rocks below. Below him, a stream trickled between the cracks, murmuring quietly as it fed into the mouth of a well-lit cave.

The Guide stared at the opening.

“You want to build your forge here?”

The Guide turned to the Hero, raising a brow. They were too busy scrawling an image of the cave mouth onto a piece of parchment serving as their map to do the same.

“Yes!” they chirped, “It’s perfect! Not too far away from our house, kinda small, super close to the mines… I want it to be, uh, out of the way, y’know?”

“It’s a little…”

“A little what?”

The Guide stared into the darkness of the entrance. Around them, the wind whistled its haunting tune as it blew through the forest around them.

The cave itself was formed underneath an enormous escarpment that was at level-height with the trees around it. It was obvious that they were standing on a former riverbed, and that the cave itself was formed by the stream–thousands of years ago, perhaps, when it wasn’t a trickle, but a rapid. 

Although the vines that were growing to cover the rocks of the bed added a touch of green, it still painted an unsettling, brutalist picture.

“...Creepy.”

The Hero cackled, turning to face him. 

“You’re all about creepy! Besides, I’ll put some torches up. It’ll be cozy.”

“Some would say there isn’t much of a difference between a bed and a coffin.”

The Hero brushed him off, electing to hold up the map they’d been working on instead to the light.

The Guide’s eyes swept over it with admiration. He’d discovered the Hero was terrible with words and numbers early on, but they had a knack for the technical aspects of drawing, and an artistic flair that allowed them to transform the mundane into the exquisite, and the wretched into the divine. The map was monochrome, but rich with detail; upon it must have been every tree they had come across, every stream they’d dipped into the waters of, and every flower they had plucked from its dirt cradle.

Their shared base was at its center, with the path to the mines the only other real structure on it. Still, the Hero found ways to add elegance to an otherwise pedestrian scene: the mountain range and the dwelling tree Wyatt had found some days earlier were depicted in vivid wave patterns. They had even, somehow, managed to capture the softness of the snow on the mountain peaks.

“So what do you think?” they asked him.

He replied after some time.

“It’s beautiful. As your works always are.”

They beamed at him, glowing with pride.

“You flatter me, Wyatt.”

“Now if only that aesthetic sense transferred over into architecture.”

“When are you going to let that go?!” they whined.

“Wyatt?”

The Angler stared at him from atop the boulder.

“...Yes, Angler?”

“You’ve been staring forever. You gonna fix my hook anytime soon?!”

The Guide shot him a pointed look.

“I’ll fix it as soon as you get down from there and stop dancing atop it like a lunatic . You’re going to break an arm.”

The Angler blew a raspberry, but complied.

Before the seal on the world was broken, the area around the cave was always neatly-trimmed–within the past week, it had already become so overgrown that the flickering of torchlight was barely visible through the vines that draped over the entrance.

When he looked down, he discovered that the rock bed where he was standing was no longer stone, but a carpet of moss. When he looked up, he saw that the trees had grown far past the degree that should have been normal.

Beautiful, perhaps–but unsettling. It had appeared that the natural processes of the world were speeding up.

Another rubber pellet hit him in the forehead during his rumination.

“OW! Damn it , I told you to cut it out!”

“Angler, I need you to promise me something– do not try and forge anything yourself, whether I’m here or not.  And keep your face covered by the mask at all times. If any sparks get into your eye, you’ll go blind.”

The Angler did a mock salute. 

“Can I see your reel?” the Guide asked, pulling an iron welding mask over his head.

The Angler fished around inside of his bag for the broken mechanical part, before handing it to the Guide, who turned it over.

“... It appears as if the Unicorn broke open the shell, and scattered the washers inside. Did you happen to find any on the ground when you were picking the components up?”

The Angler shook his head furiously, but the movement was dampened by the weight of the mask.

“Not a problem. We can forge more–there’s more than enough material here.”

“Won’t the Hero be mad we took their supplies?”

It didn’t show, but the Guide’s lips turned up in amusement under his mask.

“They wouldn’t notice if you took the helmet from their head.”

The inside of the forges was bright with lamplight. The enormity of the open mouth of the cave was an illusion–it ended only a hundred feet or so towards the back, and the entire length of it was mottled with an array of torches, candles, and lanterns. The floors were blanketed with a soft, white sand–perfect for the creation of glass, which was in part why the Hero decided to build their furnace inside.

The main area of the forge consisted of multiple stone furnaces ensconced by the cave, surrounded by anvils. On the walls hung old, defunct swords the Hero had no use for–a few horribly disfigured copper shortswords from their earliest smelting days hung from a clothesline that was strung across the cavern, and a newly-abandoned Muramasa was left to idle on a wooden chest. Bookshelves storing texts on the methodology of swordsmithing lied gathering dust to the right. 

(A touch medieval, the Guide had thought upon their creation, but not unfitting for the weaponry the Hero was fond of.)

The Guide felt a twinge of unease at the Muramasa being abandoned atop the chest. The blue sabre had been their most prized possession–he couldn’t imagine a version of the Hero without it sheathed at their side.

He pushed it down.

The Guide walked over to the chest, shoving the sword aside and pulling out an ingot of silver metal. He held it up to the light for the Angler to see.

“What kind of metal do you think this is, Angler?”

“...Silver?”

“Close. It’s Tin. Silver’s too rare for us to use creating something like a fishing reel, but Tin is just as durable, and as beautiful… and, it doesn’t rust. It’ll be good for working along the seaside.”

“Huh. Well, whatever works, I guess. Doesn’t have to be fancy.”

The Guide tapped his head.

“Doesn’t have to, but why not?” the Guide hummed, “Besides, looking at the carvings on your pole, you know the merit in artistry better than most.”

The Angler was quiet for a moment. 

“... I guess that’s true.”

Inside of the furnace laid a bed of dark red coals–not freshly-lit, but not long-abandoned, either.

“How are you going to fix the reel, anyways? You’re not a fisherman.”

“I learned from a book I read. Anything you want to learn, you can find it in a book.”

“Okay, weenie.”

“It’s true. Perhaps you would know that… assuming you know how to read?”

“ Of course I know how to read! ” the Angler bristled.

The Guide raised a hand.

“I meant no offense,” he smoothed, “Not everyone does. You’re very lucky.”

He leafed around the papers inside of his satchel, before pulling out a mechanical diagram showing what looked like a pole with six or seven broad, concentric rings around it.

“If you can read, then can you decipher this?”

“… Mechanical… reel diagram. How-to… forge,” came the Angler’s reply, and then, predictably “..Centri, Sentry..”

The Guide was pleasantly surprised.

So, they even teach street urchins how to read now. He didn’t remember the overworld having a solid education system like the Underworld did–how far civilization has come.

“Not bad. The word you’re looking at is Centrifugal. ”

“That’s not even a real word.”

“It is as per the laws of physics. Centrifugal: Moving or tending to move around a center.”

“Like… Like a wheel and axle?”

“Yes. Good example.”

The Guide pointed to another word.

“ Coaxial. Any guesses?”

“Co… Axial… like, axel?”

“Exactly like.“

“So it has to do with axles?”

“Somewhat.”

“And ‘co’ means ‘with’, so, it would mean, two things that share the same axle?”

The Guide stared down at the Angler, who had his brows furrowed.

“How old did you say you were again, Angler?”

“Well… I’m turning ten next december..”

Well. The Guide knew two things.

1. The Angler was much smarter than most children his age.

1. He was a terrible liar.

“I must admit,” he spoke honestly, “I’m impressed. You’re more literate than half of the people that are twice your age.” 

“Why thank you, ” the boy replied, glowing with pride, “Of course I am. You gotta know how to talk if you wanna be a good businessman, after all.”

“Where did you learn to read, anyhow?” the Guide asked curiously.

“School. I was gonna learn more, ‘cause that’s how it is where I come from, but then I came here.”

An inexplicable urge surfaced within the Guide compelling him to prod further with, and how exactly did you come here?, but he suppressed it. It wasn’t his business, anyways.

The Guide pulled a few ingots from within the chest, before placing them onto an anvil beside the furnace. He then pulled a bucket of coal from beside it, heaving it up to the hearth, and dumping it into the embers.

“The coal itself is going to take a few minutes to catch alight. In the meantime, we’ll have to wait–once it’s a steady blaze, we can heat the tin up and start smelting you a new reel.”

“Oh. Well then what are we gonna do now?”

The Guide paused. 

To his surprise, he hadn’t actually thought that far.

“...Nothing. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“Can we tell stories?”

Oh, no, the Guide thought. This was treading into dangerously personal territory. 

The Guide could almost detect friendship in the Angler’s voice.

“So then that’s how I killed the king slime.”

“... Were the alpaca cannons really necessary, Angler?”

“Guide-y, the jewel in a king’s crown is not functional. But it is necessary. You know why?”

“Why?”

“‘Cause it proves a point .”

“Fair enough.”

The Angler proved to be a surprisingly competent assistant during the forging process. He spoke mostly about himself, and his questions were unintrusive; he stayed out of the smelting area as the Guide went about creating his new hook and reel; he was a chatterbox, but had the good sense to keep quiet and go do something else as the Guide made adjustments to the size and curvature of the parts.

It went smoothly, and was not at all what he expected from the Angler.

“Alright, Angler–here are your new components, as promised.”

The Angler’s eyes glowed as Guide handed them over. He looked up at the Guide, as if he were waiting for a split second for permission, before snatching them up.

“This is great!” he exclaimed, “These are prob’ly better than the parts on my old hook! You’ve outdone yourself, Wyatt.”

The Angler stuffed the parts into his knapsack with the speed of someone who genuinely thought they were about to be robbed.

“There’s one more thing. Consider it pro-bono work.”

The Guide kneeled down, holding out a newly-forged silver shortsword. The Angler looked at it quizzically.

It was an ugly thing, he would admit: it was knotted and grainy, but sharp enough, and the Guide had spent a good chunk of the Hero’s silver reserves creating it.

“A sword?”

“If the unicorn attack proved anything, it’s that your crossbow isn’t going to cut it anymore, Angler. If you don’t have a good short-range weapon, you’ll be turned into mincemeat.”

“A sword for me?! ” the boy said excitedly. A huge grin spread across his face.

“ Yes. Now don’t go swinging it around near me, damn! You’re meant to use it against monsters, not people.”

The Angler stilled, looking at the Guide with an unidentifiable expression.

“...What?”

“...Just… only monsters, not people?”

“That’s what I said. You’re welcome, by the way.”

The Angler smiled smugly, like he’d realized he was right in his head about something. He stuck his hand out.

“You’re starting to grow on me, mister fleshwall.”

The Guide reached out for his hand this time, and shook it.

(Not sticky–thank the Lord.)

“Flattering…” the Guide said frigidly, before softening it. “I suppose the feeling is mutual.”

Despite his best efforts, The Guide keeps having visitors. 

He’s sitting at his living room desk, idly turning the pages to a book he’d been trying to read, when someone drops in through the hole in his roof and lands with an enormous thud on the floor.

He yelps, dropping the book and scuttling up onto his chair in surprise, before realizing who it was.

“ Stars above, Dryad, must you always find the most terrifying possible way to make your entrance? I have a front door for a reason.”

The Dryad hopped onto his kitchen counter on all fours, nibbling on a hangnail. She stared at him with scrutiny.

“You are a sorry sight.” she said.

“Thanks.”

“I brought something for you.”

The Guide’s eye twitched. Not even a ‘hello’? 

Titania pulled something flimsy and delicate from the leather sachet that swung at her side, and tossed it at the Guide. He caught it in midair, revealing that it was a beautifully-decorated red envelope, trimmed with golden scrollwork.

Delivered from the Underworld–of course. Its demons were the only living creatures in the realm with such an eye for beauty, he thought to himself, and such beautiful attention to detail.

He turned it around, to his horror, revealed a ludicrous little drawing of a penis in blue glitter defacing the front. He frowned.

“The… skeleton wretch dropped it off for you.”

The Guide flipped it over in his hands, admiring the filigree.

“I had forgotten about this month’s court meeting… Why and how did Tim intercept this?”

“There was no interception. He handed it to me personally.”

Personally.

Tim had handed it to her personally.

Tim was on the surface world, he had access to the Court’s communications, and he was hounding him in his mortal form through the Dryad.

“What? ”

“He works for the Underworld court now.”

The Guide shot out of his chair with alarm.

“Excuse me, what?! Why?!”

“He seems to be doing very well there. It pains me to see.”

The Guide carded a hand through his hair. In spite of himself, his heart began pounding, and the blood began rushing to his head.

Had his court fallen to shambles in the year since he’d been gone? How could they possibly be letting someone so incompetent serve among their ranks?!

The Dryad tilted her head, watching him with a gesture that looked like a petty mockery of concern. It was genuine enough, for her.

“...He is only a lowly courier. You know how the court has been short of staff, now that the Lunar sect has stopped working with them. They needed bodies. I assume.”

The Guide pushed back his concern, peeling open the envelope.

“That’s no excuse for letting an idiot like Tim be anywhere near the court. The only reason why it’s allowed passage into the Underworld is because it can teleport and we literally cannot stop it!”

Titania studied him for a long time.

“…What?” the Guide asked tentatively, looking back at her, “…is there… something else?”

“…If I were you,” she finally parsed out, before closing her mouth again. “I would not underestimate it. Him.” she said cryptically, “I am busy. I must be going now.”

The Dryad leaped off of his counter, soaring through the air like a bird in flight, before clinging to one of his damaged rafters and beginning the spider-like ascent out of his home.

In spite of the anger-inducing revelation, he didn’t forget proper decorum.

“Thank you, Titania!” he called after her, out of politeness, “For dropping it off! I would have forgotten otherwise.”

She turned back around from where she stood on the roof, piercing him with her iron-hot gaze. He felt his stomach sink into the floor.

Oh no, he thought, was I not supposed to use her name? 

He thought he’d been given explicit permission to use it with her letter. Was it considered rude to use it? Was it rude to not use it?

Before his fear was able to fully glue him to the spot, the Dryad shocked him by giving him a soft smile. 

“You are welcome, Wyatt.”

Guidey,

Joyous greetings from this cycle’s end, dearest!

The end of the month is upon us, heralding yet another court gathering. Surely, the prospect hasn't slipped your mind during your ventures afar?

You might be curious about the arrival of this missive. Indeed, the seal it bears is one reserved for those within our courtly circles. If the news hasn't yet reached your ears through dear Titania, I've ascended from the role of court pest (though you would know that I was really more of your beloved jester, right?) to that of court courier —a thrilling upgrade, wouldn't you agree?  You did always advise me that instead of pestering you, I should find gainful employment. I’ve taken your words to heart.

Just checking in. Hopefully your court’s little passion project hasn’t died yet, but if the plants I found in your study were anything to go by, you can understand my lack of confidence in your nurturing capabilities. If you ever feel as if the responsibilities of being the Hero’s guide are too much for you to bear, feel free to call upon me–we can switch out for a day. Though I can’t guarantee the Hero will come back in one piece.

No doubt, the surface world keeps you exceedingly occupied, explaining your absence here. Down below, chaos seems to have taken a liking to the void you left. The Parliament is sorely in need of its steadfast leader to restore order.

Who knows? My work ethic has been growing recently. Perhaps if I work my way up the ranks, it’ll be me one day!

Cheerio.

Yours sincerely,

Tim

“Oh, shove it, you passive-aggressive piece of shit!”

Summer

10 Days Post-Wall

“Yet the story of Orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. So we follow them into the Underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back.”

― Meghan O'Rourke

The next time the Guide meets the Angler, it’s once again mostly by mistake.

When he awoke as the Emissary, he was blessed with the divine knowledge that part of his duties were to survey the new world. So on the tenth day of his awakening, he packed his quiver and his bow, his pens and his papers, his styluses and seismic equipment, and made his way down to the mines to take note of the new ores that were meant to be emerging.

Because if there was one thing he wasn’t going to do, it was sit idle. Not while the world was crumbling, and not while he risked exile from the only safe township in miles.

So with a torch in one hand and his research journal in the other, he set off in catabasis into its stygian depths.

However, it was a universal law that no expedition could go without problem, and there was no Lewis without a proverbial Clark–at least, that’s what the Angler had said.

“It’s true! You can’t go by yourself. It’s too dangerous! You need me to watch your back.”

And just as there was no journey without a complication, and no paper without a cut on your hand, and no shoe without a pebble inside; there was no universe in which the Guide would be able to shake the Angler off from joining in on an adventure.

“Angler, I’ve already told you, the mines are no place for a child,” he warned, “Even if you believe you are ready to face the creatures of the underground, you are not. Even the Hero had difficulty in Terraria’s underbelly when they first arrived.”

As per usual, his warning fell on deaf ears. The Angler heeled him anyway.

“But I’m way better with my sword now! I’ve been practicing all week,” the Angler chirped, “Plus, it’s dangerous for you too. There’s no telling what’s down there now that the world’s, like, changing and everything.”

The Guide turned to face him, kneeling in front of the boy.

“Angler,” he reasoned, staring intensely into his eyes.

“Y-Yeah?”

 “I beseech you to stay put. It’s because of the way that things are changing that I need you to stay out of here ,” he beseeched, “Terraria’s caves are notoriously more dangerous than the surface world, and I have no idea what might be in store down here. The only reason I’m doing this is because I have some…” 

The Guide struggled with how to phrase his ties to the Underworld Court.

“... I have some colleagues, who are in need of information about the state of things. Otherwise, I would never venture down here alone.”

A memory from the last time he had gone spelunking with the Hero and their gruesome encounter with Tim came to mind.

“Besides,” the Guide added, “Nothing good ever happens in caves anyways.”

The Angler stared at him with wide eyes.

“But, what about you? Who’s gonna protect you now that the Hero’s gone?”

The Guide paused.

Who will protect you now that the Hero’s gone?

Shit, he thought to himself, if only someone would tell me.

The Guide was surprised at the twinge of pain that the Angler had managed, however unintentionally, to evoke. 

He could have been angry.  Instead, he chose to forgive the boy, and smiled with a rare touch of good humour.

“I have no need for another pest.”

“ You jerk! Fine, I’ll just go have fun on the surface. Without you !”

The Guide did a mock wave as the boy scuttled towards the direction of daylight.

“Au revoir, Angler. Watch for the rotted vines! ”

“If you are going to follow me from a distance, boy, the least you could do is be subtle about it.”

From far behind, a young voice echoed, “ How did you know?! ”

Well, the Guide had reasoned to himself, if the Angler was going to follow him irrespective to his warnings, it was better that he follow in his line of sight than from a distance. Although he wasn’t keen on the idea of a child accompanying him into the mines, he knew how difficult the Angler could be to stop when he had set his mind on something.

And after all, he thought, it wouldn’t look good if the Angler was injured in the same mines the Guide  was exploring that day. 

And knowing the Angler, he would, indeed, get injured.

“Keep your sword drawn and your torch up, Angler. And stay quiet , so you can remain alert to any cave-dwellers.”

The Angler did a silent whooping motion, raising his fists into the air and jumping up and down like a victorious, mute chimp.

“YES! Promise I’ll be helpful! I won’t pull any pranks or get into your hair or nuffin’, Wyatt.”

“And stop your jumping! You’ll attract cave worms.”

The Angler saluted him.

“Aye-aye, captain! ” he whispered.

The Guide pinched his brow, already beginning to regret not sending him back.

As the two began their descent into the cave, the Guide began to flip through a worn leather journal. It was nondescript enough on the outside, and one could tell it had been well-used–the binding was nearly falling apart.

“What’s that book you’re looking through?” the Angler asked.

The Guide angled it so so that the Angler could see.

“This is a book of flora and fauna of the natural world. I began writing notes as a way to aid the Hero when facing monsters, but now that there are new species emerging I don’t know of, I figured it was time to add more.”

“ Wow! Did you draw these?”

The Guide chuckled.

“No. The Hero did.”

The Angler continued to sing praises to their artistic abilities. The Guide handed the book to him, and he eagerly flipped through the pages.

“It’s so good. They’re so, lifelike. She’s, he’s, um.. really talented.”

For some reason, this revelation impelled the Guide to smile.

“Why so surprised? They’re not all machismo and monster hunting, you know.” 

“... I dunno. Just never really talked to ‘em. They’re always walking around with that armor, and it’s kinda scary.”

Then, the Angler added quietly,

“And I thought they’d think I’m a nuisance anyways. They never even built me a house.”

The Guide paused, searching for the appropriate thing to say.

“... I don’t think they think that, Angler. They are a busy person. Especially now that things are so different.” he said, before adding, “ Besides, you never hang around town for long enough to warrant one. You’re always slinking around the coast. I’m sure they assumed you had somewhere to stay… You do have a roof over your head, don’t you?” 

“Yeah, of course I do!” the Angler snipped, “Just woulda’ been considerate is all.”

The Guide made a mental note. 

Get Hero to build home for Angler.

The Angler flipped to a page in the middle of the book–scrawled with writing, like every other page, with one key difference: the center of the page, where the illustration was meant to be, was empty. 

“Why’s this one missing?”

“That is the page for Nymphs. They’re found in the lower cavern levels, but they’re extremely rare–what makes them uniquely dangerous is that they take the form of what the beholder desires most in the world, so they usually take the form of beautiful women with long hair. They’re known for luring miners to their deaths.”

Perverted miners, the Guide thought, excluding the detail that they were almost always seen naked, but the point still stood.

“They pick up on the emotions of their targets,” the Guide continues, “the more desperate the beholder is for something, the easier it is for them to appear to them in that form.”

It apparently piqued the Angler’s interest.

“What happens if it meets two people?”

“From a distance, it is possible for a nymph to maintain the illusion for multiple people. However, they lack much magical capacity, so upon closer inspection they take the form of the beholder with the stronger emotions. That’s what they feed off of to keep their illusion going.”

“That’s so cool!” the Angler said excitedly, “There are so many monsters in here that I’ve never even heard of!” 

“It is difficult to spread information on the surface world,” the Guide said with no small amount of grievance, “the literacy rates are low, trade between cities is difficult due to monster attacks, and producing paper is expensive outside of urban areas… Would you like to hold onto that book? It would be useful, while I illuminate the way. You can go through the rest of it if you’d like.”

“Yes!”

So on their descent went. 

Aside from the constant stream of questions on part of the Angler, the journey was surprisingly pleasant. The Angler kept true to his word, and avoided any acts of mischief. He was insightful enough to ask intelligent questions about the underground, and acute enough to know when he could explore on his own and when to cling to the Guide and hide quietly under his cloak. 

The Angler may have been brash, temperamental, and rude; but the Guide was starting to reframe the boy’s behavior as he spent more time around him–what might have been viewed as rambunctiousness by the townsfolk disguised an eagerness to learn about the natural world; and the penchant for mischief, an unfulfilled desire to connect with peers his own age.

Besides, the Guide thought with a twinge of regret, it was gratifying to teach someone who was truly quick on the uptake. The Hero-

He would never regret teaching the Hero anything, but Lord of the Moon, trying to enlighten them of basic arithmetic was one of the most vexatious tasks he had ever embarked on. The Angler picked up on the fundamentals of calculus with ease.

They had stumbled upon one of the quieter, darker parts of the mines, where the echoes of dripping water reverberated from miles away, and the flicker of torchlight casted long and twisted shadows on the cavern walls. The Angler was quiet with unease as the Guide held the torch close to a vein of ore that he’d never seen before, making the shadows dance like contortionists.

Finally, the Angler whispered something that broke the silence.

“...What kind of ore is that?”

The metal gleamed incandescently in the torchlight, emitting a faint, turquoise glow. 

“No idea.” the Guide replied sharply, before fumbling around for the miniature chisel and hammer he kept in his satchel, “But the glow indicates that it’s rife with magical power. I’ll need to take a sample.”

The Guide used his tools to break off a small chunk of the material. The metal was exceedingly tough, and it was difficult to break off any more.

“ Turquoise metal… found in trace amounts in cavern layer… harder than Tungsten, left scratch marks on chisel… ” the Guide dictated to himself softly as he wrote in the book, before closing it and turning to the Angler, “Alright, I think we’ve gone far enough into this tunnel. Angler?”

The Angler was motionless and facing away from him, staring off into the darkness.

“Do you hear that?” he whispered quietly.

“... Hear what?”

The Angler was quiet for a moment, before turning back around.

“...Nothing. I dunno. I thought I heard something, but it’s gone now.”

The Guide raised a brow. 

If the Angler heard something, there was probably weight to it–he knew his vessel had already aged past the point of being able to hear the higher frequencies human children could pick up on.

“Are you sure? You need to tell me if you see or hear anything. Your senses are sharper than mine.”

“... I thought I heard someone calling us from further down in the cave.”

The Guide curled a protective arm around the Angler instinctively. 

Whatever it was that the Angler heard, it was probably nothing good. 

“Let’s go, Angler. Nothing good could result from us going any deeper.”

They walked away from the darker parts of the cave, and instead took a different route that would lead them into a mineshaft–a deeper part, but one that was better-lit. It was one Hero had carved out and explored it many times over, tracing desire paths into the limestone and lighting up sinkholes with torches along the way.

The atmosphere lightened immediately as a result of the change in environment. There were even cairns and trail markers painted on the wall, courtesy of the Hero. It made it feel more human, and less otherworldly, as Terraria’s caves often felt.

“What are those markings on the wall?” the Angler piped up–back to his usual, energetic self.

“Those are… Er…”

The Angler pointed up at a mural of charcoal paint on the wall that, while vaguely hieroglyphic in nature, resembled an abstract art piece moreso than meaningful directions. There was an arrow pointing to the right, labelled “left”, that had then clearly been written over with an arrow pointed to the left, labelled “up”. Circling them both was a massive ‘no entry’ sign, which, confusingly, had the letters ‘YES’ scrawled next to it. Among other things.

“The Hero put them there. For reasons. I assume.”

The Angler giggled.

“I thought they were supposed to be good at drawing!”

The Guide sighed.

“The illustrative and creative arts are really their forte. Directions and navigation… not as much.” he relinquished, “Come now,” he beckoned, “We need to go down further to reach the bottom of the cave before I can be satisfied with the information I’ve gathered.”

“Uh, is that, like, safe?”

The Guide paused to reflect.

Was it safe?

“We’ll be fine. The Hero has long-since walled off any unsafe parts of this mineshaft, and the torchlight should keep away any monsters.” the Guide asserted, before throwing a playful grin the Angler’s way.

“Besides, where’s this big, strong warrior so bent on using his new sword I met earlier?”

“ Right here, jerk! I dare any monsters to come near to me! ” The Angler challenged, unsheathing his sword from his back and doing a wild chopping motion, “I’ll slice ‘em into carpaccio!”

The Guide silently thanked the stars above that they hadn’t had to use it yet. 

Something about the lack of monsters they had encountered thus far was deeply unsettling to him- they had been exploring for almost two hours, but hadn’t seen a single other living creature aside from the regular cave insects and crustaceans that were non-volatile. 

The world was different now–-before the seal was broken, it was unusual to go more than thirty minutes without something going wrong. Two hours was unheard of, especially in these new conditions.

“We have a brave warrior in our midst, I see,” the Guide jested, in spite of his unease, “How is the blade holding up? Is it too heavy or too light for you?”

“S’perfect!” the Angler replied excitedly, “Nuffin’ wrong with it at all. Maybe, the handle is like, a little too heavy on the upswing, but that just means it’ll be the perfect weight for me in a year or two.”

Good insight , the Guide noted.

“If it is, we can shave some tin from the hilt.”

The Angler puffed up. 

“No need. Not all of us have frail, fragile little bookworm arms.”

The Guide raised a brow.

“These fragile little bookworm arms draw the arrows that have been keeping us safe.”

“Duly noted.” the Angler said, mocking his intonations. 

The Guide ignored it, favoring instead to continue walking at a brisk pace. 

The pitter-patter of child’s footsteps heeled him as he went.

“Sooo, Wyatt… why are you keeping note of all of this stuff anyways?” the Angler probed. “I mean, this is, kinda dangerous… to be doing it all for… the Hero.”

The Guide could pick up on the hesitation in the Angler’s voice. Although he was trying to phrase it as a casual question, the boy couldn’t hide the curiosity in his voice–and the trepidation.

He had the right to curiosity, he reasoned. 

The Angler was a newer addition to their rapidly-growing seaside town. He had washed ashore only a few months prior to the decimation of the Wall in battle, but that hadn’t stopped him from maneuvering his way into the town’s economy.

He was more social than many of the other townsfolk, but nowhere near their age, and the way he interacted with others could come across as both brusque and naïve. The older adults didn’t appreciate all of the pranks he pulled, and the younger ones–while friendlier–didn’t take kindly to being cheated out of their coin for fish.

As a result, the Guide had noticed that the only people who truly looked after him were the Nurse, and the Arms Dealer by proxy. It seemed as if no one else wanted to make the boy their problem.

For some reason, the thought evoked a twinge of an unfamiliar emotion within him.

His youth meant that the Angler had few real connections in town–and that made him less of a threat, should the Guide tell him anything incriminating.

The Guide stared at the Angler’s wide eyes, and detected no hostility.

If he was going to tell anybody anything, he reasoned, the Angler was his safest bet–he was harmless, and even if he shared the Guide’s secrets, who would listen to him?

So it was a completely logical and calculated move, when the Guide decided to finally let some of the knowledge that had weighed down upon him, separated him from his court, and suffocated him for the past year spill.

“I have to.” the Guide said after some time as they continued walking down the mineshaft. 

The Guide jumped down from a flowstone with some difficulty, before offering his hand to aid the Angler in making the same leap. He struggled to parse his new role in a way that the Angler would understand.

“Before the Hero and I fought in Hell, I was meant to serve as their Guide to the natural world. I was to teach them how to survive their first nights on Terraria. I showed them how to start a fire, cook food, and build their first house. Eventually, I was supposed to guide them towards… Killing the Wall of Flesh. Killing me. 

“It’s why I know more about the world than everyone else. While you with human souls must learn and process things on your own, I had that knowledge inborn within me. After we dueled, I was not expecting to come back. I was meant to respawn as the Wall and continue my affairs separate from everyone on the surface world. I thought my job was done, but it appears not. Adding onto the confusion, I have no knowledge of the new world–meaning I, too, must learn everything from scratch, as you do.”

Oddly enough, it felt good to tell someone that wasn’t Titania. There were things about his origins he couldn’t even tell the Hero. It felt like unclenching a muscle.

“Wow. So back then, it was just you two all by yourselves?”

“‘Back then’ makes it sound as if it was a much longer time than it was, Angler. We’ve only been here for a year and a half. The rest of you followed suit–many fleeing from the war front between the humans and the Goblin Empire.”

The Angler stared at him with quizzical eyes.

“You don’t think you’re human?”

The Guide shot an exasperated look his way.

“My vessel is, but you’ll be disappointed to find that I am not.”

The Angler was quiet for a long time. The boy’s silence pained him, for a reason unbeknownst to even the Guide.

The Guide felt compelled to speak up again.

“I know I’ve lost my temper a few times, but that  doesn’t mean I have any ill intentions, Angler. I want to see the Hero succeed as much as you all do. But I am only… I have my limits too.” 

He stopped in his tracks, and sent a modest glance the Angler’s way. 

“I would not go out of my way to harm anyone in town, and that includes you. You have my sworn word as bond.”

The boy’s brow was furrowed.

“Well, duh , I know that! If you wanted to kill anyone you’d have done it by now.”

The Guide threw his arms up in vindication.

“Thank you! ”

Finally, some sense in this town!

“Yeah! Everyone just thinks that ‘cause you’re weird!”

“Thank - they think I’m weird?”

The Angler threw his hands up too, emphatically protesting alongside the Guide.

“You’re harmless, Wyatt! You couldn’t hurt a bunny. And even if you wanted to, you suck at fighting anyways!”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say that-”

“The only reason everyone’s pickin’ on you is because you just sit around in your creepy old house all day reading your dull books so much that you’re scared of talking to people. I bet if you just talked it out with everyone, they’d leave you alone!”

The Guide’s eye twitched. 

His books weren’t dull .

“Well, I’m not scared , first of all–and even if I was, I have good reason to be. I manipulated the Hero. I had to, it’s what my responsibility as Guide- Emissary- entails.” the Guide said defensively–before realizing how asinine it was to be defensive towards a child –a creature incapable of even comprehending aggravating someone’s insecurities, and certainly not capable of doing it on purpose–and softening it.

 “But thank you. The gesture is… appreciated.”

The Angler ran ahead of him, bumping his shoulder playfully as he went.

“‘Sides! Maybe you’re not a real human, but I know a monster when I see one, and you’re not one of ‘em. Now c’mon! Let’s get a move-on, slowpoke!”

“Wyatt, why do we keep finding so many, uh… “

The Guide stared hard at the mangled corpse of a cochineal beetle they had found on the way.

It was the third one they’d seen so far–among the remnants of other slaughtered cave monsters–and it was putting him on edge.

But the markings on their soft underbellies were indistinguishable from the cuts one would receive from a sword, and the Guide knew the Hero went through these caverns often.

“Most likely the remains of the Hero’s last exploit. This way, Angler.”

Around hour three of exploring, the Guide and Angler had managed to reach the parts of the caverns where aquifers could be found. The torch trails the Hero had set up were starting to become more scattered, and the Guide began having to consult maps of the caves once more to navigate.

The easy conversation that had been passing between them had now tapered into a comfortable silence. They would walk for a length of time, the Guide would stop to make note of some new plant or mineral, and the Angler would ask a hundred questions about it that the Guide would answer with grace. In turn, the Guide would feed the boy’s natural curiosity about the world by explaining the natural formations of the cave around them.

It reminded the Guide of what had once passed between him and the Hero when they were on a particularly long journey. It was almost pleasant.

During the lapses in conversation, the Guide found himself wondering about the Angler. 

It was difficult not to. When he had first washed up on shore, it was the Nurse that found him–a fortunate twist of fate, considering he was barely conscious, and so dehydrated he was on the verge of death. When the boy had been nursed back to health, he had told the crowd of curious townspeople that he was perhaps the sole survivor of a luxurious ship sinking in the middle of the ocean thanks to sea monster attack. 

No one paid much attention—monster attacks at sea were frequent enough that tales of ships sinking and occasional tragedies were all too familiar. Once the boy regained the ability to walk and talk, the question of who would care for him resurfaced. Although the Nurse’s clinic was always open to him, the Guide noticed that, despite her kindness, the boy seemed uneasy in her presence and reluctant to linger too long.

While the other townsfolk were helpful at first, the novelty of having someone new in town quickly wore off, especially after discovering that this new person was a child, both physically incapable of assisting in town efforts, and mentally not quite mature enough yet to make important contributions during meetings. It seemed that in the maelstrom of recent events, the Angler had been mostly brushed off as another problem that the villagers weren’t at capacity to solve. 

It was unlike the Hero, the Guide mused, to not look out for the boy. They made it a point in the earlier months to personally welcome everyone who came to town. But he supposed now they were preoccupied day and night with keeping the new world monsters at bay–and in the chaos, they must have forgotten about the Angler too.

There was one thing the Guide was truly curious about, that he still didn’t understand. When he had been compelled to fix the Angler’s broken fishing pole, it was because of some deep and sudden impulse to soothe the Angler’s emotional reaction to it being broken–but he still couldn’t comprehend why the boy was willing to risk life and limb to save it in the first place.

It was beautiful, yes–undoubtedly he had spent months carving the intricate designs into the pole. But aside from its quality as a fishing device, it was nothing worth dying for. 

“Angler.”

His voice broke the quiet sound of their footsteps through puddles of water.

“Huh?”

“Why did you put your life on the line for that pole?”

The Angler didn’t answer him for a moment. They had switched positions–now that the path through the mines was more or less one straight line, the Guide had let the Angler take the lead, so he could run off and satisfy any flights of curiosity he had about the cave.

“... I didn’t put my life on the line. I knew I coulda killed that Unicorn if it was a normal horse. My shot was true.”

The Angler felt for the crossbow he kept slung over his back. He had been relying less on his crossbow recently, thanks to his new sword, but he still turned to the weapon for comfort.

“That fishing pole is,” the Angler parsed out in a strained voice, before stopping. He curled his fists into balls, and his shoulders bristled, and the Guide thought to himself, with no small amount of panic, oh no, he’s doing it again , “it’s the last- my parents, they-”

The Angler was getting choked up, and his puny child voice made the sight extra pathetic. It made the Guide so deeply uncomfortable that at that moment, he would have done anything to stop it.

The Angler struggled to find words, turning sharply away from the Guide, hiding his face. 

“Sorry,” the Guide blurted out, “I’m sorry I asked.”

“I didn’t want to let them die again.” the Angler interjected, staring up at the ceiling. His voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t want them to be lost at sea.”

The Guide bit his tongue.

The admission was so intimate and vulnerable that, for once, he didn’t know what to say. 

He knew, logically, that grief was a powerful emotion–one that he had little experience dealing with. Somehow, the argument that ‘They’re already dead’ didn’t seem like it would elicit an ideal response from the Angler. He didn’t even fully comprehend what the Angler meant by what he said.

“... They wouldn’t have wanted you to throw yourself into danger like that, I’m sure.”

The Angler sniffled.

“I know that.”

The Guide took a hesitant step closer, and when the Angler didn’t run away or swipe at him, he took a few more, until he was standing next to the boy. He paused for a second, testing the waters, before placing a gentle hand on his head.

The Angler didn’t move, only sniffling more.

“Things must be difficult for you now that you’re on your own out here. I’ll tell the Hero to build you a house closer to the center of town, Angler.”

“...Don’t touch me.”

The Guide took his hand off of the Angler’s head, and the boy wiped his tears away furiously.

“And my name is Grayson , not Angler .”

“Grayson. Right. I’ll tell them to build you a home.”

The Angler stalked ahead, hackles raised.

“Let’s go already. We’re never gonna reach the end of the cave.”

The Guide said nothing, following with uncertainty, before the Angler added, quietly:

“...Thank you.”

Eventually, they really did reach the deepest, darkest corners of the cave system, where there was a paucity of candlelight and the Guide relied on the lone torch to light their way. Of course, the Guide wouldn’t let the Angler accompany him anywhere truly dangerous, but this part of the cave did a good job at presenting the illusion of danger.

This deep down, the Guide became keenly aware of the fact that Terraria was an ecosystem, but it was also one living thing. When the torch almost blew out and the Guide had to relight it, the ensuing darkness was stygian, suffocating, and alive–and it wasn’t quiet. When the Guide and Angler paused to take it in, he could hear the sonorous echoes of small, blind creatures going through the motions of life from all directions. 

It was so dark he could feel it pressing in on him, breathing against him, and for a moment he let himself wonder if he stayed down here for long enough, if he would learn to live without eyes too.

Then the Angler tugged at his cloak, murmured a quiet I’m scared , and he ignited the flame once more.

Their last stop was a limestone overhang adorning a cavern of truly enormous proportions. A hundred feet below, he could hear the purr of deep water undulating in waves. Sitting atop it, one had the notion they were on a diving board.

The Guide had been here before, and he knew that the darkness disguised an escalier of flowstone leading down from the overhang, creating safe passage to the underwater basin that was cradled below. The rivers that flowed through the cave system drained here, which in turn, flowed somewhere neither god nor mortals could speculate the whereabouts of.

The Guide stared over the overhang into the waters below. It had a natural, entrancing quality to it.

“Are we near the Underworld?” the Angler asked quietly.

The Guide paused to reflect.

“Some might say so. There are legends from civilizations much older than ours that write about the river Styx, where lost souls must go to cross the boundary between the dead and the living.”

The Angler leaned precariously over the ledge they were on, and the Guide fought the urge to pull him back by the collar.

“...It’s huge.”

“You can’t even see that far, Ang- Grayson.”

“No, but I can feel it. This place is huge! Can you throw a glowstick down there?”

“We are better off conserving our light sources. We’ll only be down there for ten minutes at most- then we’ll need to turn around.”

The Angler blew a raspberry at him, but the Guide only rolled his eyes and reached into his satchel, searching for more gel to add to their torch.

Then, the Angler bristled, standing up–something seemed to have caught his attention.

The Guide stopped fumbling around for the gel.

“... What?” he asked gently.

“... I hear it again. Someone calling us.”

The hairs on the back of the Guide’s neck stood on end.

Lord of the Moon, why was this kid so damn creepy?

“If this is a practical joke, it’s going over my head, Angler. Now is not the time.”

The Angler turned to him, kneeling down over the ledge. His eyes were rounded in unease. 

“I’m not joking!” he insisted, “Just listen! Can’t you hear it too?”

The Guide moved closer to where the boy was on the edge of the overhand, peering into the darkness. He strained his ears to listen.

And he found that he agreed with the Angler–moments later, a soft, willowing cry for help floated up from below.

It sounded human, but something about it sent a pang of dread through him.

As he contemplated what to do, the Angler tugged on his pant leg.

“Wyatt, please! What if it’s Hero? They could be hurt down there! Throw a glowstick down so we can see already!”

And in spite of his apprehension, the Guide dug through his satchel, pulled one out, and threw it over the ledge anyways.

It plummeted like a firefly down below, dropping into the stygian depths of the water. Around the basin in spiraled, getting closer and closer to the center of the lake, before illuminating a human figure that was treading water at the center.

It almost made the Guide jump out of his skin.

“HERO!” he called, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” 

The Hero looked as if they were gasping for breath, barely staying afloat–their new armor was missing the helmet, and their unmistakable straw hat, and it was weighing them down like a pair of cement shoes.

“HELP! PLEASE!” they called, breathless and in between coughs, “HELP ME! I DON’T WANT TO DROWN!”

The Guide immediately rushed over to the flowstone path down, but the Angler beat him to the punch–the boy responded with lightning speed, and was quicker than even him.

“HELP ME! PLEASE, HELP!” the Hero continued to cry.

“Angler, wait! It’s too dangerous for you! Stay back! ” the Guide called after him.

“HELP ME, ANGLER, PLEASE! PLEASE, I DON’T WANT TO DROWN AGAIN!”

Angler. Drown again. 

The words set off alarm bells within the Guide’s head.

The Guide called the townsfolk by their titles because it was appropriate Chthonic decorum–a sign of basic respect in the Underworld.

The Hero would never do that–they had always elected to call everyone by their names. 

Whatever wretched creature was down there, it certainly wasn’t the Hero.

The Guide reached out to stop the Angler from descending any further, but the boy slipped through his grasp.

Damn it! Damn his sedentary lifestyle! The Angler was right, he did need to get out of the house more!

The Angler was breathless and hyperventilating before he reached anywhere near the bottom, but he continued his descent with the agility and speed of a spider monkey. 

“I’M COMING, MOM!” he screamed desperately into the darkness, and the Guide realized what painful illusion the boy was seeing.

“ANGLER, WAIT!” the Guide shouted after him, “STOP! THAT’S NOT YOUR MOTHER!”

The Angler either didn’t hear him, or he didn’t care in his desperation to stop the spectre of his dead mother from drowning again. 

The Guide cursed to himself, pulling out another glowstick and throwing it into the water as he crawled in after the boy. Now that the lake was better-illuminated, the Guide could see the mirage shimmer and fade as he drew closer, morphing from a crude apparition of the Hero into a phantasm of a plain-looking, middle-aged woman, struggling to breathe. 

The Angler sobbed, ripping off his shoes and crossbow as he prepared to dive into the water.

“Not again, not again, not again,” he chanted to himself amidst his tears, shedding his clothes.

The Guide slid down the flowstone canopies at the last second, catching up with the Angler and grabbing him by the arm. He jerked the boy back from the edge of the water violently, trying to hold onto him as he trashed around in his grip.

“ Angler ,” he parsed out, “That’s a nymph . We need to get out of here.” he hissed.

“You’re lying to me!” the Angler shouted, before biting him on the arm.

The Guide shouted an expletive, but he held steadfast–letting go of the Angler now was a terrible idea, and there was no way in Hell he was going to kill the nymph in its current form in front of the boy.

The nymph apparently understood that its prey understood, because it went hauntingly quiet, sitting still in the water. 

“Grayson,” it called, mimicking the Guide’s voice, “Me drown… No let me drown…”

The visage of the Hero floating in the center of the basin was haunting. Every detail was identical, but the body was green waterlogged, bloated with the noxious gasses of the recently-drowned.

The Guide’s heart beat like a trapped rabbit in his ribcage. He began to back away, holding the Angler in his arms, but the Angler turned to look back at the Nymph as she called his name.

His pained expression met its hollow eyes, and the illusion dissipated at once. 

The vision of the Angler’s mother grew ghastly tall as she emerged from the water on crane legs. Her fingers grew longer, and as she unfolded them from across her chest, she revealed that all ten of them might as well have been swords.

Swords–like the swords that the Guide had thought sliced all of the other monsters open!

The Angler screamed, and even the Guide felt his blood run cold.

The Guide hoisted the Angler onto his back, and began to sprint away, but before he could get far enough the nymph reached out a horrifyingly long hand and snagged the Angler’s vest on the edge of her thorny claw.

The Guide pulled the Angler, still screaming, away, but the nymph curled her claw to reel him in. She was strong enough to make the Guide lose ground, and he skidded along the flowstone as she dragged them both into the water.

“LET GO, YOU- BITCH!” he shouted, pulling the Angler back with all of his might. He felt the Angler clutch his arms tighter. They might as well have been playing a deadly game of tug-of-war, with the Angler as rope.

With a twist of her spider-like hand, the nymph knocked the Guide to the floor and sent the Angler flying into the water with a shriek. 

“ANGLER!”

Although the boy’s life vest kept him afloat, the current dragged him into a rock crag, and the resulting collision rendered him unconscious.

The nymph’s mouth unhinged like a snake, and it was to no small degree of horror that the Guide realized that it ran all the way down to her ribcage. 

Shit, shit, the Guide thought, watching her move through the water effortlessly towards the boy, what should he do?

The creature moved so quickly he had no time to think of a plan, so he decided to stop her the only way he knew how–he knocked an iron arrow, drew it, and let it take flight.

It landed square in her upper back, and the Guide could hear a sickening crunch resound through the air as it split a thoracic vertebrae in half.

She clamored in pain, and whipped her head around, turning to size the Guide up–but in the second it took for her to do that, he had already drawn another arrow and fired, this time landing it square in her eye socket.

The nymph stumbled, whinnying in the water, and another arrow was fired into her clavicle.

The Guide cursed himself. 

If that had landed in her neck as he intended, this would have been over with.

The nymph shook it off and circled the basin, sizing up her opponent–now that she had turned to him, she found it easier to dodge his volley of arrows. It appeared as if she had made the executive decision to take out the more dangerous half of her quarry out first.

The Guide shot one last arrow, this time landing it right atop the one he had already send into her eye socket, splitting it in two and lodging it deeper into her skull. The nymph howled a banshee screech, and she charged at him in fury.

He scrambled up the flowstone path, grabbing the torch with one hand, but she was too quick–drawing her arm up in a wide arc, she brought it down and sent a clawed finger right through his lower ribcage, shattering the bone and pinning him to the limestone floor. The Guide screamed through his teeth at the pain as the nymph towered over him.

She twisted her other claw, pinning him down by the torso, and he whimpered at the motion as her claw twisted inside of him. She unhinged her jaw, ready to devour him, and Inside, the Guide was horrified to find rows and rows of concentric, serrated teeth. Her esophagus looked like a military cemetery.

But it was just what he wanted–he threw the torch down her throat, and the nymph choked on the flame, warbling in agony. As her jaw closed and her grip loosened, the Guide took the opportunity to pull the hammer from his satchel, and use it to drive the arrows he fired into her skull into her brain with one final blow.

And that was the end of it.

The nymph’s eyes widened, and half of her face drooped as her body convulsed. And then she fell over on her arms, collapsing into the shallow end of the pool and sending monumental ripples into its deeper parts.

The Guide shuddered in relief, but he wasn’t taking any chances. On unsteady legs, he got up, pressed a hand to his stomach to keep his entrails in, and kicked the nymph’s skull in to ensure the job was finished.

Immediately after, he fell onto his knees, and his vision began to go dark. He made a noise of desperation as he opened his satchel with shaking hands, rummaging around for a healing potion.

Can’t die yet , his thoughts raced, need to find the Angler first .

His hands were shaking so badly that he could barely unzip the satchel. He was starting to lose feeling in his extremities–when he glanced down, the floor beneath him was bright red.

Whose blood was that?

His breathing grew rapid and shallow, and the world became dazy and dreamlike around him. Terrible shivers wracked his body, and when he reached out an arm to steady himself, he found it registered distantly as the arm that was propping him up, but he couldn’t remember who it belonged to.

Finally, when it was getting to the point where he was so disoriented that he almost forgot what he was looking for, he remembered he kept his healing potions in a side compartment for ease of access, ripped open the cork of one with his teeth, and downed its contents.

With a gasp, the Guide collapsed onto the floor, thanking whatever divine intervention made it so that he wasn’t a second too late. Feeling began to return to his extremities, and the shakes that were wracking his body gradually died down. The burning pain of his organs being exposed to the open air ebbed away, being replaced instead by the dull, throbbing sensation of a flesh wound.

Alright , he thought, that he could work with. 

He pushed himself up onto his knees, looking around the river basin. 

The Angler. Where was the Angler?

The Guide managed to, very slowly, wade over to the rock crag that the Angler had been dashed against. He found the boy, miraculously unharmed, aside from a bump on the head and a few scrapes.

Thank the stars.

He pulled out the last healing potion he had, cradling the boy’s head with one hand and putting the vial to his lips with the other, tilting his head up at an angle where he could swallow it.

The potion did its work–the Angler coughed, convulsed, and then began taking deeper breaths.

The Guide tapped his cheek with his hand, trying to wake the boy up.

“Angler,” he called, “Grayson, wake up. You have a head injury. Don’t fall asleep again!”

The Angler’s eyes fluttered open, and he stared up at the Guide in confusion. The Guide pulled out another glowstick, cracking it open and examining how the Angler’s pupils dilated.

Similar dilation, quick response… Most likely no serious brain damage. 

“Wyatt?” the Angler said weakly.

The Guide sighed with relief.

“Are you in any pain? Do you remember what happened?” he asked tentatively.

“... My head hurts. Where’s, where’d the nymph…?”

The Guide obscured the view of the nymph’s carcass with his cloak.

“She’s dead now. Sit up and drink this, if you can.”

The Guide propped the Angler up with his satchel, handing the boy another healing potion of a more diluted strength, and the Angler took small sips of it, holding onto the flask with small, unsteady hands.

“Do you think you can stand?” the Guide asked when he had finished.

The Angler made a nodding motion, before wincing and holding his head in his hand. The Guide pulled him up with his other hand, and dusted off his hair, placing his bucket hat back onto his head.

“Put your shoes on.” the Guide murmured, handing the Angler his boots. The boy complied silently.

Clearly, the Angler was in no state to travel–and there was no telling what kind of damage using another healing potion on the boy would set. He would need the Nurse’s expertise to know how to use another one. 

The Guide’s gaze shifted to the dark tunnels leading away from the river basin.

But they couldn’t afford to stay here any longer. 

He thought about slinging the boy over his back and carrying him up that way, but…

“Wyatt, I’m tired,” the Angler whined, “Can we just sit here for a minute?”

The Guide crouched in front of the Angler, pointing at him with a glowstick.

“Listen to me– do not fall asleep, alright? That nymph was the only thing keeping the rest of the cave monsters at bay. I know you’re in pain, but we need to get out of here. Do you think you can walk?”

The Angler took a few unsteady steps forward, drank the rest of the healing potion, and started walking next to the Guide, holding his hand to brace him. 

“Good. Let’s go.”

They went slowly at first, the Guide trying to accommodate the Angler’s fragile state, before going faster as the Angler recovered some strength.

The Guide pulled the Angler behind him, tugging on his wrist as the boy stumbled to keep up with his break-neck pace.

“Don’t stop,” The Guide muttered, moving faster, “And don’t look back, no matter what you hear calling for you. We must get out of this darkness.”

The Angler was quiet behind him all the way up to the surface.

During her tenure as the only medical professional in town, the Nurse had learned very quickly that–when living in what her father would affectionately call the boonies –there was never an unusual time for people to get hurt.

The reality of living in the Terrarian countryside was that one could count on a monster attack like one could count on the wind to blow, the rain to fall, or the sea to wage its ever-churning war against the sands of the beaches that cradled it. This far out, they happened like clockwork, and although their town had invented coping mechanisms of ingenious caliber, seeing someone stumble into her parlor during the small hours bleeding from ten different places wasn’t unusual.

(Actually, these days, it rang alarm bells if it didn’t happen–which her professors at the medical school she attended in the Capitol must have quantified as some form of work-related stockholm syndrome.)

It was why she kept her clinic open so late, and why she was never surprised when some poor unfortunate–usually staggering in, or Lord forbid, being carried in by another poor unfortunate–entered through her accordion doors.

She wouldn’t have done her job if she didn’t truly believe in the inherent righteousness of the medical arts. She was known for having a gentle touch–even when she was fighting death off with tooth and perfectly-manicured nail–and she really did care about the wellbeing of the people around her. It was why she could consistently be found, in the dead of night, behind her countertop, ready to jump into action to save the misfortunate, pitiful, blinded, bleeding, plain stupid, or otherwise broken souls that wandered into her parlor.

Would she be smoking while she was doing it? Yes. Was she usually found flipping through the only raunchy porno mag she was able to get her hands on this far out into the sticks? Absolutely, and you could thank the Merchant for that. Was she always drunk? Probably more than she should be while sewing people’s limbs back on.

But damn it, the people needed her, and she would go to hell and back for them in their time of need. It’s why she was behind the counter when she heard a knock on her door in the small hours of the morning.

A moment later, swinging open the door was the Guide, of all people, carrying the Angler on his back. The Angler was singing, very loudly, and very disorientedly; and the Guide was staring straight ahead with a grimace. They were both soaking wet, covered in mud, and-

“Oh my god, Wyatt!”

The Nurse leaped out of her chair, extinguishing her cigarette as she saw that the man was drenched in his own blood. 

“ONE-THOUSAND AND THIRTY-SIX BOTTLES OF MILK ON THE WALL, ONE-THOUSAND AND THIRTY-SIX BOTTLES OF MILK!” the Angler sang, before the Guide cut him off.

“We’re here, Angler, you can stop singing now.” he parsed out, with great difficulty.

“Oh, ok.” the boy replied quietly.

The Nurse jumped into action immediately, ripping open the drawers behind the counter and pulling out sutures, towels, and bandages at record speeds. 

Never let it be said that her reaction time was poor , she thought. Being on the front lines had taught her how to act first, and think later.

The Guide let the Angler down gently onto one of the wooden cots in the Nurse’s clinic, and the boy collapsed onto the canvas, exhausted.

The Guide unslung his bow and quiver, and turned to her.

“Pardon the intrusion,” The Guide began–and he really did begin to say something much more cultivated and polite, but before he could, he doubled over, ambled over to a trash can, and vomited.

The Nurse grimaced.

This was going to be a long night.

When he was done puking his guts out, he rested his cheek on the rim of the can, bracing himself with an arm over it, and pointing to the Angler with the other.

“The Angler–we were on our way back from the mines, but he got a head injury. I think it’s a concussion, but I’m not sure how serious it is. He kept falling asleep… so I made him walk, but he was stumbling, so I carried him here.”

“Why was he singing?” the Nurse asked confusedly.

The Guide shot an exasperated look at her.

“I made him sing to stop him from falling asleep, and to check whether he still had his mental faculties in order. He can still count. In order. From zero to one-thousand and thirty-six.”

“Alright… Er, why do you have a bite mark on your arm?”

“You don’t want to know.”

When he finished his sentence, Wyatt’s face scrunched up in the way that those who were about to puke again often did, and he buried his face in the can, beginning to dry heave. The Nurse’s brow furrowed as she steeled herself, deciding who to treat first.

While the amount of blood the Guide was losing was concerning, if he had made it this far he was probably fine, and the training she had received in the Capitol’s army had drilled one thing into her head repeatedly– infants and children first. 

She made her way over to the Angler with a rapid clack of her heels. The boy was lying supine on the cot, bruised, pale, and shivering.

The Nurse cradled his cheek in her hands, shaking him awake.

“Grayson, sit up! Do not sleep right now.”

The Angler complied, fluttering his eyes open with a small noise of complaint, and she turned his head over in her hands, pushing his hair to the side to try and find any bump marks.

When she combed through his hair, she found a truly massive bruise on his parietal lobe–itchy, bleeding, and tender-looking.

She pressed down onto the injury as gently as possible, feeling around for a split in the bone–one which was, thankfully, absent. The Angler whimpered.

“That hurts.”

“I know, baby,” she soothed, “I can give you something for the pain in a minute. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I fell into the water and hit a rock really hard.”

“On your head?”

The Angler motioned generally down.

Oof.

“Alright, I’m gonna check you for concussion, and then you gotta show me where it hurts so we can get you treated, okay?”

The Nurse shined a light into both of his eyes, and then moved a pen around back and forth from left to right to track his eye movements. 

Both pupils dilating normally, retained memory before the blackout, and capable of tracking objects with both eyes… The fact that the Angler went unconscious to begin with was concerning, but she had seen soldiers recover from much worse. 

“Is Wyatt gonna be okay?” 

The Angler asked.

“He’ll be fine,” she reassured, leaving out the probably ,  “Can you count backwards from ten?”

“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…”

The Angler was clearly exhausted, but he passed each test with ease. She knew he was bright for a child, and the fact that he could count and retained his emotional expression was a good sign. 

Still, she didn’t like that someone of his age potentially sustained a brain injury to begin with.

“Did Wyatt give you any healing potions?”

“Just one.”

“What grade?”

“Half strength. The weakest one you have.”

Good , she mused. Just enough to heal the crack that had probably formed on his skull, judging by the shape of the bruise, but not enough to push the limits of what the healing potion might do to his synapses.

The Nurse carefully peeled back his shirt, and discovered with dissatisfaction that the boy had further bruises along the left side of his body. She pressed down on his ribcage, and discovered what might be a cracked rib as he hissed in pain.

The Nurse hurried to her medicine cabinet, heels clicking with neurotic speed. She pulled out a vial of viscous, magenta liquid, a tin of medicine with a poppy flower embossed on the side, and some biscuits.

She clacked her way over back to the Angler, holding out a biscuit and a white pill from the tin.

“Are you nauseous at all? Can you eat?” she asked.

The Angler shook his head–slowly, to avoid wincing.

“This is pain medicine. Try and eat this biscuit before you swallow the pill or you’ll throw up. You have a cracked rib and a concussion, but you’ll be okay.”

The Angler nodded and started nibbling on the biscuit, and the Nurse gave him another before turning to the Guide…

Who was lying face-down on the floor next to the trash can, pale and frigid.

“AND YOU! YOU DON’T FALL ASLEEP, EITHER!”

“I’m just resting my eyes.” he moaned.

She made her way over, crouching next to him.

“Alright, get up! You’re not dying inside of my clinic.”

She grabbed him by the scruff of his cloak, pulling him upwards, and with the aid he managed to stand up, dizzied, but independently walking. She guided him, shoulder-to-shoulder, to another cot across the room, and cursed at the puddle of blood he had left behind.

How did he even manage to walk here? She thought to herself. Maybe he really wasn’t human after all. 

The Guide collapsed into the cot, and she placed a hand on his forehead, finding it concerningly cool.

“Alright, I’m going to have to take the cloak off. And the shirt needs to go too. I need to check you for injuries.”

The Emissary’s eyes shot open, unfocused.

“You can’t.. leave the cloak on?”

The Nurse raised a brow as she began unbuttoning his shirt.

“You’re bleeding out and that’s what you’re worried about?”

The Guide laughed weakly, and then winced.

“You’re right. That would be unreasonable. Let me help you.”

The Emissary peeled off his cloak, chucking it onto the ground, before lying back and letting the Nurse examine his torso.

She swallowed, unable to hide the perturbation on her face. The injuries he had sustained were bad–potentially on par with what the Arms Dealer had recovered from just a few days prior. The puncture wound on his lower stomach was undoubtedly the most serious, and most likely where the rivers of blood had been coming from, but he had other, jagged incisions along his shoulder and chest. 

“How good are you with pain, Wyatt?”

“Bad. Do you have morphine?”

“I just gave some to Grayson… are you going to be able to keep it down?”

The Emissary grit his teeth.

“Nurse Allison. I can’t… without something to numb the pain. Please .” 

The Nurse felt a twinge of sympathy for the man. 

She had never heard him beg before. He must have been in a lot of pain.

“Well, you’ll be needing a lot of it. You look like someone tried to peel you like an apple,” she started, before softening it with, “But it’s not as bad as it feels. These are all lacerations, which aren’t too deep, aside from this one.”

The Nurse pointed at the puncture wound.

“I can tell you used a healing potion, by the way.”

“Only to keep my innards in.”

“Well, good work,” she said, pulling the tin of morphine from the pocket of her physician’s coat,  “Seems like it did the job. You’re lucky whatever stabbed you went into your liver–and it’s the only organ that ‘cha don’t really have to worry about, ‘cause it regenerates itself anyways.”

The Guide opened an eye.

“Is that true?”

“Mhmm. When I was on the battlefield, if someone lost a liver for whatever reason, we’d take forty percent from someone else and implant it in the other guy.”

Wyatt was quiet for a moment, before smiling weakly.

“I didn’t know that. Your knowledge of the medical arts is very impressive.”

The compliment caught her by surprise. She appreciated it. In the heat of the moment, people rarely bothered to appreciate her work. 

She didn’t blame them–most of her patients were just glad to be alive. But the truth was that she had studied hard when she was in school, and even harder in medical school–she took pride in the fact that she graduated at the top of her class from the most prestigious institution on Terraria. 

She had a bright future.

(Had. Before the war.)

The Nurse chuckled chuckled lowly.

“Looks like I know something our resident wise guy doesn’t.”

“Indeed.” the Guide acquiesced. .

The Nurse handed him the tin.

“Take two of these. You’ll feel woozy in a few minutes, but there shouldn’t be any pain.”

The Emissary dry-swallowed three.

True to her word, he felt its effects almost immediately–a soporific haze blanketed over him, and for once, he was able to actually relax in front of another person. The alarm bells that usually rang in his head when his wounds were open in front of someone like this were quieted. The pain that had been an uproar now seemed dreamlike, distant. 

The puncture of the needle through his skin barely registered.

“...How much do I owe you?” he asked, after some time.

“That depends,” the Nurse hummed in reply, “How did this happen?”

The Guide was quiet for a moment, trying to piece what had said been asked through the euphoria and lethargy of the drug.

“I went exploring through the mines, and the Angler wanted to come with me. We ran into a monster in the subterranean levels.”

He felt the instinct within him to avoid letting her know too much, but the more the morphine began to kick in, the less he remembered his reasoning for doing so.

He felt a twinge of pain as the Nurse pulled the suture shut on the bottom half of his puncture wound, and he hissed.

“Sorry,” the Nurse said regretfully, “I’ll be as quick as possible. You’ll probably fall asleep once it kicks in.”

“No. Worries.” He said politely through the discomforting feeling of the needle piercing through his skin.

It didn’t hurt, but there was something uncanny about the feeling—he felt like someone’s broken ragdoll getting stitched back together.

“…What were you two doing exploring down there?” she prodded, “And what did you even run into? The mines have been safe for a pretty long time now.”

The Guide smacked his face with his hand, dragging it down with a groan.

“I’m a fool,” he confessed, “I shouldn’t have… even, entertained the notion of letting him come with me to begin with. We ran into a nymph around the bottom levels. She had swords for hands. I’m so stupid.”

The Nurse raised a brow.

“What?”

“Swords.”

“No, I got that—what’s a nymph?”

It was at this point that the Guide realized his head was spinning, not unlike how it did when he was about to be fantastically, stupidly drunk. For some reason, he found his mistake exceedingly funny, and by the time he was done giggling about it, he had already forgotten the question. The Nurse sighed, told him to stop moving around, and continued her handiwork.

“Alright, so what were you doing down there to begin with? I don’t know what you get up to in your free time, but from what I’ve heard from Hero and Nort, it’s not really exploring, sugar.”

“I needed to take note of the changes to the world, for my court,” the Guide said, “Or, blast it, something like that… I don’t even know, honestly. I don’t know why I came back to begin with. I shouldn’t be here. I should be back in Hell, where I belong.”

The Nurse couldn’t help but giggle. That was the first time she’d heard of someone telling themselves to go to hell.

“So it’s true, then? You really are a demon?” she asked.

The Emissary laughed quietly.

“Yes. Yes, I am—and I miss home! I miss my office, and my library, and the rest of my damn body… I’m so out of element here.”

The Nurse continued threading the needle through his skin in silence.

She knew the Underworld was a real place, thanks to the Hero’s journey through it—but she admitted that she was skeptical that the scrawny, unassuming man in front of her was, spiritually, a denizen of it.

Still, she had encountered stranger things in her time–and she wasn’t world-weary enough to not be curious about far-away lands.

“What’s it like down there?” she asked.

“It’s beautiful,” the Guide replied slowly, eyes closed and smiling,, “Treacherous, but beautiful. The fire and light is nothing to a demonic body. We evolved skin that allows us to swim in it, and wings to soar over the subterranean mountains beneath… I didn’t… even realize it was sweltering, until the Hero told me about the temperatures there… instead of crystalline blue oceans and grassland, we have volcanic glaciers embroidered with lava flows.”

The Nurse hummed.

“Sounds pretty scary, to a human like me.”

“Oh, yes,” the Guide agreed with good humour, “The demons there know nothing of human compassion. It is truly survival of the fittest. But their intellect, culture, and appreciation for beauty is unmatched. Did you know that it was a demon who founded the number system we use today on the surface world?”

“I didn’t. Always assumed it was a goblin, or something.”

“And the architecture… Oh, it’s nothing like what you’ll find on the surface,” he groaned, “Our civilization is so much older than yours. Every city has a history, a name—our buildings are centuries old, and every one of them resplendent, carved intricately from obsidian and glass. Our crown art is our tapestries—and we worship our weavers and architects are like gods, for they create the subjects of their work from fiber and glass, just as man was fabricated from the ether.”

The Nurse felt a pang of sympathy for the poor devil. He was very doped up, and clearly missed wherever he had come from very dearly.

She knew the feeling.

“...It sounds lovely. Do they all wear cloaks down there?”

“Yes–they signify the status of their wearer. The fashions of our empire would make the dye trader froth at the mouth.”

The Nurse found a laugh escaping her again.

“The cloak you wear is kinda beautiful.” She agreed, “Awfully menacing, but beautiful.”

Now that she looked at it more closely, even from where it was strewn haplessly on the floor, the Nurse could tell that it was truly a work of art—the red silk it was constructed from was of a finely-woven textile, brocaded with golden thread to depict a ghastly menagerie of rosettes in the shapes of eyes, mouths, and teeth. The inside was lined with a soft-looking magenta fabric, and the edges were adorned with aureate tassels. 

Whatever craftsman had made it did an excellent job at making it both elegant and intimidating.

Something about it, though, made her concerned.

She looked up at Wyatt’s face. His face was turned to the side, and his eyes were closed. He appeared to be sleeping.

It was a very different expression from the guarded one that he usually wore.

“Wyatt, if you’re gathering information about the new world… you’re, er, not planning on… betraying us in any way, are you?”

The question made him stir, and when he processed it fully, laugh.

“No, certainly not. I’m no monster—I’m a demon. Was , a demon… we’re the ones who created the Hero in the first place. We’re on the same side, in the grand scheme of things.”

Alright, that was cryptic, the Nurse thought. But it assuaged her fears of the Emissary enough to where she at least felt safe around him.

The Guide went quiet again, and she managed to finish her stitching in silence.

The morphine was, apparently, doing its work. The Emissary had dozed off by the time she had finished putting the sutures in place.

When she was done, she turned back around to the Angler, who was laying quietly on the cot across the room, watching her do her work. He blinked, trying desperately to stay awake.

“How do you feel, Grayson?” she asked tentatively.

The boy sat up at his name being called, and he wrapped the blanket around himself, walking over. He gazed hollowly at the Emissary, unconscious and bloodied on the cot.

“I’m fine… Just tired. Is Wyatt gonna be okay?”

The Nurse scratched the top of the boy’s head affectionately.

“He’ll be fine by tomorrow. You’re fine to nap now if you want, kiddo. Do you want a real bed? You can have mine for the night.”

The Angler shook his head.

“No thank you, Ms. Allison. I’ll just stay here.”

The Nurse frowned.

“You sure?”

The Angler nodded quietly.

“Well, alrighty then. I’ll bring you some blankets.”

The Nurse swiveled her chair around, turning to give the Emissary a clinical look-over once more.

With his shirt and cloak off like this, he looked like any other normal person, aside from the dark grey markings on his hands. The expression on his face as he slept was a serene one.

She glanced at it.

Maybe even a particularly handsome one, she thought bashfully.

It was difficult for her to believe that this was the monster who had knocked the living daylights out of the Hero a few days earlier in the underworld. Even more difficult for her to believe that he was truly malevolent, if the story about the nymph they had seen was true, and he had carried the Angler all the way here to get the boy help.

She thought about asking the Angler what had happened in more detail, but when she looked at how exhausted and frightened the boy appeared, she relented.

She could ask them tomorrow morning. What mattered tonight was that they were safe.

She swiveled her chair back around to the Angler, who was still sitting there with the cloth blanket wrapped around him.

The Nurse peeled off her jacket—thankfully, mostly clean—and wrapped it around the boy, before grabbing his face with both hands and pecking him on the forehead.

“You were very brave today, sweet boy. Go get some rest.”

Later that night, the Guide awakes in a cold sweat, an encroaching feeling of panic stirring him to rise.

Where was he? Was he dead? What had happened to the nymph?

He took a breath, pushing himself up by the arms, and winced as the sutures on his body jerk unsteadily with the flesh they were holding together. The sensation reminds him of where he was.

The morphine had definitely worn off , he thinks to himself.

He looked around the Nurse’s clinic, taking a moment to observe the details of the unfamiliar landscape. By now, it was closed and dark on the inside, with pale moonlight filtering in through the windows overlooking the veranda outside.

The luminescence made dust streams catch alight, illuminating the silver instruments of medicine the Nurse had strewn about the clinic, alien-looking in the moonlight. Near the backroom, there was a yellow lamp, long-dimmed and burning softly in the night.

It was a peaceful tableau, but he had overstayed his welcome.

He fumbled for his shirt and cloak on the cot, and realized there was a warm body curled up next to him. 

When he looked down, he saw the Angler lying shoulder-to-shoulder, cheek pressed against his arm.

For some reason, the Guide immediately breathed a sigh of relief. He was unharmed .

And then, he dreaded the thought of the others in town asking how the boy had gotten injured.

He swallowed, knowing the rumors that would serve as fuel to the fire. 

It was the Emissary! They would say, he really is the monster we think he is! 

Word would surely circle back around to the Hero, who really might decide it was the last straw.

As carefully and quietly as possible, he got up—a process dramatically slowed by his wounds—replacing his arm with a pillow so as to not wake the Angler.

The boy murmured in his sleep, holding onto his arm, and the Guide noticed drool that was rolling down his chin onto the pillow..

“How uncivilized…” he murmured, pulling out a strip of cloth from his pocket and wiping it away.

 “Stay sleeping, foolish boy.” he said gently.

He found his shirt on the floor, but when he held it up to the lamplight, he found it was damaged beyond repair.

He frowned. 

It had been sliced to ribbons, and what parts weren’t reduced to threads were stained with blood. 

It was a nice shirt, he thought regretfully. He had gone out of his way to order a collection of them in bulk from the dye trader, and it hadn’t been cheap.

He folded it neatly under his arm, before pulling his Emissarial cloak off of a chair it had been placed on, tying it around his neck, and slipping on his shoes.

He dug through his satchel, finding three gold coins he could use as payment for the Nurse’s services, and placed them on the front countertop next to the lamp, writing a quick thank you note. He then walked over to the Angler’s sleeping form, checking the boy over one last time for any injuries.

Seeing none, he was satisfied, and he tucked the Angler into the covers before slipping quietly out of the door.

Better to get out of here before the rest of the townsfolk wake up , he thought to himself. The moon was still out, but the first rays of dawn were beginning to stumble over the horizon, and everyone would undoubtedly be awake soon.

…To which end he promptly saw the Arms Dealer outside of the clinic, as soon as he had shut the damn door behind him.

The Guide jumped, and so did the Arms Dealer, whose eyes widened with alarm. Clearly, he wasn’t expecting to see him here either.

The Arms Dealer opened his mouth to say something, but gave him a lookover—bloody, shirtless, and covered in stitches—and raised an eyebrow instead.

“What happened to you?” he asked, in a rare state of good humour.

“SHUT UP!” the Guide yelled back, “JUST SHUT UP! SHUT THE HELL UP! I’VE HAD IT UP TO HERE! LEAVE ME ALONE!”

 The outburst was utterly unprompted. Perhaps even insane. And damn, did it feel good.

“OKAY, DAMN! Sorry! ”

The Arms Dealer put his arms up, backing away into the clinic as the Guide walked away in the opposite direction, fuming.

His thoughts raced.

All he wanted was to do one productive thing , he simmered. Of course something had to go wrong! Because it wasn’t a day on Terraria if something didn’t try and kill him, right?

It was barely past the first week after the dam had been broken, and the Guide had already had enough of the new world. If he’d known how much danger he was holding back as the Wall, he would have trained the Hero harder, gotten them through the milestones they were supposed to be hitting faster, and rushed them through killing the Moon Lord as quickly as possible so this bullshit could be over already.

He thought of the Angler lying next to him on the cot: bruised, battered, disheveled.

This would have never happened if he was in the Wall’s body, he lamented. Why the Hell couldn’t they have made his vessel as strong as the Hero’s?

He traced his newfound stitches, rivulets of trauma that made deltas with his flesh, all the way up to his collarbone.

The pain of the movement made him clench his teeth, but that just made him want to do it harder. It felt satisfying to hurt himself–to punish himself for his wasted efforts in protecting the things he was supposed to.

Why was he so weak?

If he wasn’t in a human body, he would have been able to protect the Angler from the Nymph’s lethal claws. He was sick of the endless cycle of pain and fear that being human entailed. 

Did mankind truly live like this? He thought listlessly. 

Ever since he had arrived with the Hero a year ago, it had just been one excruciating reminder of how incompetent he was after the other. He no longer had teeth to defend himself with, or eyes that could detect threats from miles away. He was constantly getting hurt, or sick; or the Hero was, and he’d have to look out for and take care of the both of them–and usually, it was to no avail, since they’d end up getting hurt anyways.

He was suffocated, amputated, mutilated ; but perhaps worst of all, he was foolish .

He stopped walking, finding himself long-past the edges of town.

More and more he felt as if he was making blind guesses in the dark for what they should be doing. His knowledge of the world before the seal was broken was already inadequate, but after, it was like every plan he had laid out had spiraled out of his own design.

He had no idea where to go from here, and if he was smarter, he’d have been able to better-prepare the Hero for the challenges of the new world; have guided them closer to victory. He would have known that bringing the Angler with him today was a terrible idea that would have only resulted in pain.

He cursed his own idiocy.

Nothing he had done was enough, and they were running out of time.

As he looked up at the moon, it ignited a level of hatred within him that he didn’t even know was possible. Fury of cosmic proportions seethed through him.

“FUCK YOU!” he screamed, unleashing the quietly-bubbling undercurrent of bitterness that had been brewing within him.

The moon–the wicked eye in the heavens that served as a reminder of who was really in control of the world–had no reply for him.

“ YOU ARE THE REASON WHY ALL OF US MUST SUFFER! I HAD ONE THANKLESS JOB TO DO, AND I DID IT RIGHT, AND MY REWARD IS THAT I HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN!? WHAT KIND OF SICK JOKE IS THIS?!”

His voice wavered. 

“ANSWER ME! WHAT THE HELL AM I STILL DOING HERE?!”

When he was done pouring his heart into the ether, he thought he would feel better, but the silence that answered was deafening. The moon said nothing– could say nothing. It only served as a witness to his anguish.

He put his head in his hands, lamenting.

What was he doing?  

He was making a fool of himself. He needed to sleep.

He then remembered the state of his house–crumbling–and his bed–broken.

(And covered in soot.)

“ FUCK! ”

The next morning, sun-warmed and dew-speckled in the way coastal towns only could be during the late summertime, a town meeting occurs.

They were held weekly now–always in the daytime–and had become a somber affair. Where the townspeople once used the events as an excuse to congregate, drink, and be merry; in the light of the Unicorn attack, they were hesitant to waste precious minutes with idle chatter.

As the townspeople congregated to the great oak tree in the center of town, they took their seats in the outdoor pews quietly. There were no complaints about the humidity, or the creaking of the wooden chairs, or the early hours of the anointed meeting time. There was no idle gossip shared between neighbors about who bought what from who, or who was too hungover to be there. 

It was quiet in town, and the Hero’s absence was deeply felt–so much so that it might as well have been its own presence.

In spite of this, the world did not cease to spin, and the meeting continued on out of necessity. And so the Tavernkeep found himself behind the wooden podium at the center of town, with a list of meeting points to go over in front of him, the Arms Dealer scrawling down talking points to his right, and the Demolitionist holding up a map of town to his right.

“... And as you can see, since we’ll be combining the design of the trenches with the spiked pit traps, we’ll need most of you digging–just to quell the most immediate danger of the monsters invading town. And the most capable of us will venture out into the forest to get lumber for the spikes at the bottom.”

The Merchant raised his hand after the Tavernkeep finished his spiel on the fortifications around town.

“And this will be going inside or outside of the wall around town?”

“Outside,” the Tavernkeep replied cooly, “If any of you have ever seen castles before, the idea of the moat is usually to trap the monsters before they reach the castle walls. Then the walls are to stop whatever ungodly beasts manage to get their way across. 

“The idea is that by digging these deep trenches around town, we’ll create a ‘moat’ completely ensconcing our town that invading monsters will fall into. We can’t risk routing any new sea monsters into town, so we’ll improvise with laying spike traps around the moat–any creature that falls in will be skewered on ten feet of wood. A classic of trench warfare which I can attest to from my time on the war front.

“Anyone who needs to pass into and out of the town will, for the time being, need to go through one specific bridge across these trenches.”

The Merchant, for once, had no time for tumid flattery. He cut to the chase, and that was rare.

“And how long will these trenches take to dig?”

The Arms Dealer spoke quietly into the Tavernkeep’s ear.

“Less than a week, if we hurry. Two if we idle.” the Tavernkeep echoed.

The promise of safety being delivered in such a short amount of time lifted spirits across the entire town. 

People sat straighter in their chairs. Villagers murmured excitedly between one another. The sun even dared a peek through the clouds.

Another villager raised their hand.

“Yes, Hiram?”

The Dye Trader stood up in front of the crowd, addressing the rest of the citizens.

“I have a suggestion for the reinforcements! We should also cover the spikes in gel, so that in case something truly despicable comes into town, we can light the trenches on fire.”

The Tavernkeep paused.

“Excellent idea. We have too much slime in stock anyways. Andre! Add that to the list of fortifications.”

“Already done,” the Arms Dealer muttered, scrawling it away into his notes.

The Tavernkeep struck the wooden gavel atop the podium, and faced the rest of the townspeople.

“Alright! That concludes the bulk of today’s meeting. We will need everyone who is willing and able-bodied to help with digging the trench around town to make things go as quickly as possible. Those of you who can contribute, meet Andre, Bazdin and I at the tavern after this meeting. Those who are too frail to do so–we’ll need your help to take inventory for this effort and keep watch around town!

“If you have any questions or talking points you would like to bring up with your fellow man, please raise them now!”

Instantly, a dozen enthusiastic hands shot up into the air. The Tavernkeep called on the Tinkerer first.

“Yes, Nort?”

The Tinkerer’s ears drooped with anxiety, and he elected to stay seated in his pew. His soft voice was barely a whisper on the wind.

“Er- I’m, uh, going to ask a completely hypothetical question, for the purposes, of science. As I’m sure you all understand, I’m a scientist, first and foremost, and sometimes the scientific process requires… one to embark on, er, strange and potentially socially unacceptable behaviors for-”

“Spit it out, son.”

The Tinkerer took a deep breath, mustering up all of his courage to propose the next question.

“If any monsters… fall into the spike pits… can I study their bodies… for science?”

The whole town went quiet.

“... Don’t see why not.” the Tavernkeep replied. 

The Arms Dealer spoke up from beside him.

“Might be a good thing,” he said gruffly, “Lord knows we could use any information about these new monsters. Anything to get an edge on ‘em. Hell, if Nort wasn’t gonna do it, I’d dissect ‘em myself.”

“Just be careful extracting the carcasses,” the Tavernkeep appended, “I know what you brainy types are like, and you’re not going to be performing any great feats of strength any time soon. If you need a carcass, you ask someone for help extricating it–preferably me. Got it?”

The Tinkerer nodded furiously, breathing a sigh of relief as he shriveled back into his chair.

Clearly, raising his voice had expended the energy he had for social interaction for the week. He deflated like a balloon.

The Zoologist raised her hand next.

“I just wanted to say I can volunteer with any scientific efforts underway, Nort,” she spoke kindly, “This is like, totally my arena. We’ve never dealt with like, anything as dangerous as what we’re seeing now, and I just, like–I did my PhD on this, and I can def use my knowledge to help, guy. And like, I totally want to do that.”

The Tinkerer glanced at her sheepishly, and hoped his gratitude was conveyed.

The Mechanic spoke up after the Zoologist with a polite raise of her hand.

“I have a question!”

“Yes?” the Tavernkeep replied.

“How are we going to go hunting? That was one of our primary food sources, and now we can’t even venture outside of the town square.”

Damn, the Tavernkeep thought, that was a good question.

The Arms Dealer spoke up.

“We’ll have to rely more on fishing now, right? We still have the nets the Angler set up a while ago that can be reeled in and cast out without getting too… close to shore. Little bugger’s the only one who knows how to operate ‘em, but…”

The Tavernkeep nodded.

“What Andre said. We’ll just have to double fishing efforts to keep us sustained. We can tend to the community garden in the meantime and work our way through our winter rations while we implement a system for gathering food.”

“Hope you like seafood,” the Merchant whispered sarcastically to the Dye Trader next to him.

The entire crowd shuddered at the thought.

A necessary evil.

One by one, questions were raised, answered, debated, and put to bed. The process didn’t take long–it seemed that the townsfolk were eager to channel their nervous energy into a project that would both unite them towards a common goal, and keep their seaside municipality safe.

One more villager raised a final question.

“Yes, William?”

The Golfer shifted his gaze uncomfortably between the Tavernkeep and the cliffside overlooking the sea as he spoke.

“What are we… going to do about… the Emissary?”

The collective gaze of the town shifted to the Guide’s cliffside home.

Charred and skeletal as it was, it was a grim reminder of what–who–had caused this mess.

The Tavernkeep looked to the Arms Dealer, and then to the Demolitionist, and grimaced.

The fact of the matter was, the Emissary’s presence in town–while for the most part unobtrusive since the night he did battle with the Hero–was unsettling. Few had been able to speak openly with Wyatt even before he revealed his demonic nature, and after his brazen display of power on the night he returned as the Emissary, no one could muster the courage to knock upon his door.

He was a recluse before, appeared to be actively keeping secrets from them about the new world now, and his presence above the town–a supernatural eye overlooking all of them from his chateau–was an unknown danger that the townspeople could not afford to gamble on right now. 

“I think we should just save us all the trouble of debating this and kill him.” the Arms Dealer spoke flatly.

“ Andre! ” the Nurse stood up from the first row of pews, reprimanding him.

“He’s right,” the Stylist spoke from beside the Nurse, “I mean, he’s just–he’s too dangerous to keep here in town. For crying out loud, he’s a monster! We don’t have to kill him, but…”

The Zoologist’s tail drooped as she heard her dear friend’s words.

“... I’m a monster too, for a week of every month…” she murmured.

The town dissolved into dissension about the Emissary problem.

The Golfer turned to the Stylist.

“I agree. He threatened to harm us the night he got back. He never breathed a word about what the world would turn into the entire two years we’ve been here. It’s clear that whatever knowledge he’s privy to, he doesn’t have our wellbeing in mind.”

“Yeah, dude!” the painter concurred, “Dude is real freaky. Who knows what he’ll do next? We need to keep our safety in mind.”

The Mechanic raised a tentative point.

“I agree, but… killing him is pretty extreme, guys, right? I mean, don’t you all remember last Ostara? We had drinks with the guy.”

“We had drinks with him,” the Golfer replied icily, “and he couldn’t be bothered to protect any of us from this nightmare.”

The dissension, once calm and controlled, quickly turned to discord.

“It’s not safe to have him anywhere near us! We need to run him out of town before he does anything worse!”

“Wait, he could have valuable knowledge- we need to pry that out of him before he leaves.”

“Good luck with that! He’s about as close-lipped as they get. How many of us actually liked the guy before he turned on us?”

“I can’t believe the Hero’s letting him stay after how he betrayed them…”

“The Hero? Letting him stay? The Hero’s off galavanting god knows where! They haven’t been back in town since they fought him! They probably don’t even know he’s here.”

The Nurse stood up, trying to put an end to the cacophony.

“Guys, come on! We’re getting hysterical!” she shouted desperately, “He’s not- I mean, he could be  dangerous, but he hasn’t done anything yet! ”

The Merchant turned to Andre. “If we need information from the guy, there’s always torture.” he added unhelpfully.

The Tavernkeep weighed the situation in his mind. 

On one hand–the Emissary had actively declared himself a threat as soon as he was pulled from the ground, and hadn’t said a word as the Guide to any of them about the harrowing ordeal the town would go through after the cosmic dam was broken.

On the other–he did know something about the new world, and that was better than the baseline of nothing everyone else did. And the townspeople were descending into chaos 

The Tavernkeep turned to the Merchant.

“We don’t need to resort to something so ghastly, Walter–leave what you learned on the war front on the war front. We’ll imprison him instead.”

“Not you too , Driscan!” the Nurse pleaded. 

She turned around, facing the rest of town.

“Guys, we can’t just lynch someone because of what they might do! This is a democratic nation! The guy was just in my office last week asking for supplies–he’s fine! He’s scared, even!” she shouted, before turning to the Tinkerer, “Nort, come on! Say something!”

Nort sank further into his pew, trying desperately not to get involved. The Nurse glared at him.

You coward!, she thought.

The Nurse’s words fell on deaf ears. The caterwaul of everyone bickering amongst themselves on what to do about the Emissary was too raucous, and the stinging betrayal that was making waves throughout the townsfolk as they realized everyone else felt he had betrayed them too was too great.

The Nurse glared angrily at the Arms Dealer, who looked away.

This is your fault , she mouthed, seething.

Just as the uproar reached a fever pitch, an iron bolt weaved through the crowd faster than the eye could see, lodging itself square in the middle of the wooden podium–splintering the wood with a thunderous crack, and leaving the poor fixture trembling in its wake.

The impact was loud enough to stun the crowd into silence. It was with no small amount of concern that they collectively realized, had it landed a square inch higher, it would have burrowed into the Tavernkeep’s sternum.

The Tavernkeep swallowed dryly, looking at the bolt.

“... Who goes there?”

He asked.

The crowd parted, two edges of a floundering multicolored sea. They revealed the Angler, holding a crossbow aimed at his head, stalking into the throng of people with a steely–if a bit unserious due to his age–glare.

“Grayson!” the Nurse exclaimed, “What are you doing?! You’re supposed to be in bed!”

The Angler paid her no heed as he inched closer, sizing up the adults around him. He pointed the crossbow around in wild directions to keep them from grabbing him by the scruff.

“Boy.” the Tavernkeep addressed him sternly as he finally reached the foot of the podium, “What are you doing? This is not the time to charades.”

The Angler turned back around to face the crowd, eyeing them through his viewfinder.

“This ain’t no charade, Grandpa !” he shouted, “ None of you are gonna lay a finger on my new minion!”

The Tavernkeep paused, raising a brow.

Minion?

“Boy, we don’t have time for this,” he said exasperatedly, “Put the weapon down! You’re going to hurt someone!”

The Angler whipped back around, pointing it back at the Tavernkeep.

“Are you serious?” the Tavernkeep asked, incensed, “Are you threatening me?”

The Nurse groaned, putting her face in her hands.

“ DEAD!” The Angler shouted back, “HANDS IN THE AIR, DRISCAN!”

“Damn it, you imp! This is an adult meeting! Go run off and… play swords, or something!”

Another crossbow bolt was fired, and this time, the Tavernkeep felt something burn atop his head as it impacted the great oak tree behind him. When he felt the top of it, he realized he was missing the few precious hairs that sprouted from the bald spot atop his head.

He put his hands up.

“Alright, you scallywags! I am a tax-paying citizen and I have the right to speak at town meetings and I am TIRED of being ignored! You will listen to me and you will listen to me ONCE! ”

The Arms Dealer sent a perplexed look to the Demolitionist.

Do we pay taxes? He mouthed.

Hell no! The Demolitionist mouthed back, We came here to avoid ‘em!

“I was just walkin’ on through the town, tryna’ check my nets to see if I caught anything, and I hear you all plotting to rob me of the only free source of labour I have in this town! You should be ashamed of yourselves. YOU! Stopping an honest businessman like ME from conducting my BUSINESS AFFAIRS!

“I mean, really people! Trying to KILL and or CAPTURE my ONLY UNPAID EMPLOYEE is just low! And all ‘cause I have a money-poly on the town’s fishing economy. If you wanted me to lower the price of fish, you could ‘o just said so!”

“Grayson,” the Nurse said, “What are you talking about? The Guide isn’t your… nevermind. Why are you out of bed? You’re concussed. ”

The Angler lowered the crossbow politely as he answered her.

“Sorry Nurse Allison. I just wanted some fresh air,” he excused himself bashfully, before turning to the rest of the townsfolk, “AS FOR THE LOT O’ YOU! NONE of you will so much as touch a hair on Wyatt’s head lest I COME FOR YOURS!!!”

The Golfer was having none of the boy’s show of temerity.

“Grayson, I know this might be hard for you to understand–but sometimes grown-ups have to do hard things to protect other grown-ups. We could- well… if he doesn’t leave, he could really hurt us.”

The Angler was absolutely resolute as he looked the Golfer in the eye.

“He won’t.” 

“And how do you know that?” the Stylist asked.

The Angler dropped the crossbow onto the ground, kicking it to the side, and ripped off his hat.

He pulled his hair up, revealing the gruesome bandage wrapped around his head. Scarlet blood had crusted beneath it, dyeing an enormous portion of it an alarming red.

(Worse than it looked–but it sent a message.)

The townsfolk prickled with alarm, staring in concern at his injury.

He stared back, unwavering, as he delivered the killing blow of his argument–the crux of which, he knew, would have them reconsider their collective intent to do harm upon the Guide.

“Last night, I almost died. Wyatt and I were exploring the mines, and a horrible monster called a Nymph attacked us. He risked his life to make sure I was okay, and he dragged me out into the surface, bleeding, because I led us into the monster’s den. He brought me to Nurse Allison’s all that way, just to make sure I wasn’t really hurt or nothing, even though his guts were pourin’ out.”

The townsfolk were stunned into silence.

The Angler took the opportunity to unsheathe the sword that Wyatt had forged for him, holding it up to the light.

“He even made this for me so I could protect myself. He was worried about me going into the fores. That’s just not something the monster you’re all saying he is would do.”

Glances were passed between the townspeople, as they wondered what they should do, or think–how they should adapt to this new information.

Were they wrong? Was the Emissary truly not the malevolent being they thought he had been?

The Stylist turned to the Nurse, tentatively posing a question.

“Is… is that true?”

The Nurse nodded.

“Yes, it is. I treated him myself , last night, as he puked all over my operating room. He saved Grayson’s life, and he had nothing to gain from it.”

(She elected to leave out whether the sword had been forged by the Guide as well–it seemed crude enough to have been so.)

The Angler addressed the bewildered crowd again, meeting their eyes one by one.

“As for withholding information–I dunno what any of you guys are talking about. He’s told me everything he could about the new world. I just had to go up and ask, is all.”

Murmurs began flooding through the crowd again as the townsfolk tried to reconcile their image of the demonic, otherworldly diplomat that they had pulled from the ground weeks prior, and the one that carried a dying boy up from the mines and into the Nurse’s clinic.

The Angler added one more thing as he picked his crossbow up from the ground, placing his fisherman’s cap back upon his head.

“I heard no one can hunt anymore ‘cause of the danger in the woods. That’s fine by me–business is business, after all. But if anything happens to Wyatt, I’ll be taking my nets down–that’ll take months for any of you bozos to set up by yourselves–and I won’t be selling nothin’ .”

With that, the Angler faced one last glare to an astonished crowd, and turned away, marching his little boots towards the sea.

Later that afternoon, the Guide awakens, blearily, after a slumber dotted with nightmares on a bed encrusted with soot.

He gets up, tries not to stretch to avoid aggravating his injuries–aggravates them regardless–and sits down to make tea over the fire when he spots something in front of his door from outside his (broken) window.

He raises a brow, debates on whether he should risk checking what it is, before swinging the door open and darting out to see what it is anyways. 

At his feet is a woven basket–a small, simple, and fibrous apparatus covered with a dusty picnic cloth. When he opens the cloth, he is met with a bountiful feast of a vividly colorful smorgasbord of jellies, jams, garish sweetmeats, and other confectionery delights. There is a note atop the lurid assortment, and he plucks it from its burial site within an open-topped ampoule of jam, wiping it off with his handkerchief.

In childish handwriting, it read:

On the back was a crude, and somewhat alarming illustration of the Guide carrying the Angler to town. Across the Angler’s eyes were ‘X’ marks, while the Guide was colored in red. 

(He assumed it was meant to be, as Grayson had often said, “Cool-Looking”.)

The Guide knew the story almost certainly included exaggerated elements, most likely about the Angler’s show of bravo in confronting the townsfolk. But the grain  of truth that the townsfolk were becoming agitated about his presence was almost certainly true, and it unsettled him.

If what the boy had said about defending him was true–he owed him one. A strange, warm feeling bubbled up, knowing that someone other than the Hero had bothered to defend him.

“How kind of him.” he said cooly.

He did not smile at the drawing. He did not.

Summer, beginning of May

12 Days Post-Wall

Just twelve days after the defeat of the Wall, the Dryad packs her bags for another expedition.

The Guide had always complained about her migrating in and out of town like a stray cat, but truth be told, she could hardly stand being in it for very long. Her civilization–all lush river valleys and fecund black soil–had long since dried up and died, and there was simply no other place for her on Terraria, so she flitted about from civilization to civilization, never content with being the daughter of any.

She belonged to no one and had nothing, and if she had emotions like humans do, she would say she liked it that way. 

Still, as the last Dryad on Terraria, she was intimately connected to its fragile, deadly ecosystem–and she could tell when it was hurting. A new biome had spawned, a thorn lodged into the surface of its immaterial heart–a blue stain more lethal than any other on the planet. 

So she packed her medical supplies, her instruments and weapons of magical destruction and measurement, her rations and raisins, her novelties and trinkets, and some tea she had stolen from the Guide–perhaps the only other conscious being on the planet she felt a connection to, aside from it –and set off on her next journey. 

She was prepared to walk to the ends of Terraria to find it, as she had done a thousand times prior.

To her horror, when she sets out, she finds she needed not travel far at all.

The Hallow was a ten minute walk from town.

Above her, the first leaves of autumn begin to fall.