Life in Terraria was good.
Sure, there were REASONS for why it was good, but to Maxwell, Darthaven's local Guide, none of the reasons mattered. To him, life was just great, absolutely spiffy, completely amazing in every way. He could get whatever he wanted at a whim from Dart, who somehow returned every few hours with extra goodies for everyone in the town. There was no longer any danger of being sacrificed to large, demonic monsters like the previous Guide had been, thankfully.
Of course, the only thing that made this particular day extra-nice was that today was the day when Dart had returned home and wearily informed Emerenta, the local Dryad, that the Corruption had been completely cleansed.
This, naturally, made everyone rather happy, except for Porcini the Truffle, who complained that Dart had accidently converted some of his mushrooms into jungle. Naturally, no one really cared about that. Except for Porcini, but that was to be expected.
Andr, Dart's sister, had Candy the Party Girl put on a huge day-party the moment the news began to spread. Everyone was invited, of course; Except for Porcini, because Dart seemed to have an irrational fear people would eat him.
There really were quite of irrational things going on that day. But that was alright with Maxwell; to him, it spoke that they could now AFFORD to be irrational. No more grueling training regimens, no more relentless patrols to defend against the creatures of the night, no more random invasions by goblins, pirates, or aliens, no more tactics, no more trap-laying, no more worrying, and most importantly, no more stress.
Maxwell was a big believer in no stress.
And now there was none.
Which begged the ultimate question, of course; the one everyone pondered; when you have achieved everything there was to achieve, done all that could be done, what did you do?
That question scared some, fascinated others. To Maxwell, of course, he didn't really care. What would be, would be, and it was pointless to worry about it.
Maxwell, you see, was a big believer in not worrying about it.
Darthaven was a paradise of a town, inhabited by every occupation of people. It might have been strange, should an outsider come in and see the variety of people from all time periods and of all stations living together, acting as friends. But to them, it was just a way of life.
Of course, no one ever voiced this opinion.
It was pointless to ruminate that anyone from the outside might ever come.
It was pointless, because the everyone knew that the rest of the world was mostly-pretty much-very dead.
That thought depressed Maxwell, so he locked it in his special, mental "Quarantine-of-things-that-make-me-feel-anything-but-happy" drawer.
He had excellent coping skills, Andr always said.
Maybe she was being sarcastic, but it didn't matter. Even if she was, that was her buisness, and if she saw fit to share her buisness with him, then that was a gift. And gifts made him happy.
Quite a lot of things made him happy. He could never remember what the things that made him otherwise were, because they were locked in a special, mental drawer.
Yes, life was just great. Absolutely spiffy, great in every way.
And so, Maxwell went, whistling, on his way to do nothing in particular, feeling good about life.
Down below his feet, almost a mile underground, two people sat with a very different attitude then Maxwell's.
The boy on the right, Dart, cradled a stardust dragon's head, with its four long segments coiled behind him. His four stardust cells whirled around the stardust-dyed halo nestled above his helmet. He wore stardust armor, and there was the Legendary blade Meowmere leaning on his chair, ready to be used at a moments notice. His wings shone in the darkness behind him, blue and transparent.
On the table across from him sat a girl wearing a shirt that reflected the twilight, with living-ocean-blue jeans and twilight-dyed frostspark boots on her feet. She wore a nebula dyed worm scarf around her neck, and a likewise dyed obsidian rose woven into her hair. Andr's wings stretched out behind her, feathered energy of the sun focused into the twilight's beauty. She toyed with a small triangular prism of crystal, the Demonic weapon known as the Last Prism. She pored over a small map on the table, twisting around halfway so she could see it as she sat on the table.
"This has me stumped." She admitted.
"Which part?" Dart asked. The stardust dragon's head in his lap growled in appreciation as he scratched its chin.
"All of it." Andr said. "There's literally nothing on this map that could be construed as any kind of hidden laboratory, or where those cultists could have come from. It's like they just appeared."
"Perhaps it was the aliens."
She laughed, a tinkling sound of crystalline beauty. "Don't be stupid, the aliens wouldn't take any human life forms anywhere. They seemed bent on killing everything, at least."
"Maybe not." Said Dart. "By my calculations, with their technology, if they had wanted to kill everything, they would have just used their lasers and ignit the atmosphere, incinerating all life on the planet."
"Or not." Andr countered. "Maybe it was just humans."
"Maybe." He replied. "But we'll never know, given they're dead."
"Hmm."
There was a long and obstinate silence.
Dart sighed. "This is getting us nowhere. How they got here doesn't matter; what matters is they got here, and they summoned the Moon Lord, so we killed them. End of line."
Andr looked worried. "But were they here for us?" At Dart's incredulous look, she elaborated.
"They didn't attack us on sight, just when we screwed up their ritual. And the power was going into the tablet. Maybe they were trying to imprison him."
Dart snorted. "And bunnies can fly." His stardust dragon slipped stealthily off his lap, doing elaborate loops in the air behind him.
"Could they have come from the Otherworld?" Andr asked, referring to the planet that orbited Terraria as its moon.
Dart shrugged. "Dunno. Could be any number of things. Maybe we orbit around them, and we think they orbit around us. Who knows?"
Andr slapped him gently with one of her wings, and he frowned at her.
She sighed. "What do we do now? We've conquered this land. It's ours, in blood and name. We've shaped every foot, cleansed it of mankind's mistakes. What is there for us now?"
To that, Dart had no answer.
And so, they sat in silence, even as the sun set on the partying townsfolk a mile above.
Hey everyone! Didn't expect to find me here, did you? Huh? Huh?!
Anyways, so, this is my brand new fanfiction that explores (I think) a very interesting question; What do you do when you've achieved everything that there is to achieve? What do you do when you've finished everything?
Not sure where I'm going with this story, but if you like it, rest assured; I'm DEFINITELY writing more chapters.
Please review, whether you liked or didn't like, so I know what to improve and expand upon. Tell me if you find any errors!
Thanks for reading!
-dart0808
A.K.A. Dart.