"G'morning, bud. You doin' okay down there?"
A curious voice was the first thing Red remembered hearing when he woke up – or perhaps more appropriately, was what woke him up. It was bright, and he was laying on his back on something flat and uncomfortable. Slowly he managed to open his eyes, shielding them from the sun as best he could.
"Oh yeah, it's bright out, innit? Nice morning. Hold on, I'll get that,"
Suddenly Red was drowned in shade, and he found it possible to open his eyes wholly. As he sat up, Red saw a man standing tall, shielding him from the sun's harsh light. He couldn't make out any of the details; the sun behind the man rendered him nothing but a tall mass of blackness.
"Eyes open? Good, quick riser. Love it! Feelin' about ready to stand up? Here, I'll lend ya a hand." He stooped slightly even as his mouth continued running, stretching his arm and proffering his right hand.
"Who're you?" Red managed to slur out as he groggily reached out and took the man's hand.
"Good first question! I'm the Guide. C'mon, up ya come," he said easily, hauling Red to his feet.
"Guide? Guide of what?"
"You, I'm presuming. You are the only one around, after all." He took a step back, clapped his hands together and straightened his posture before continuing. "So! We got a lot to get through today. Hope you slept well. Sure looked like you did,"
"You were watching me sleep?" Red paused in rubbing his eyes to look at him. He didn't know what to think at this point. The guy was strange, if nothing else, but if he had any malign intentions he'd probably already had ample opportunity to act on them.
"Yeah, only for a minute or two. Only just got here, didn't have much more of a chance."
Or maybe not.
"Only just got here? Where from?"
He shrugged idly. "Couldn't tell ya, to be honest. Doesn't really matter, does it? Matters that I'm here. C'mon, let's -"
"No, wait, come on." Red interrupted him, still rubbing at his eyes and slurring his words slightly – he'd only just woken up, after all. "I woke up in the dirt wherever the hell - if you're the guide here, I want some answers first."
"Hell, that's fine too! Fire away, and I'll answer ya as best I can. Wanna make those questions quick though, sun's burning away. We don't want to be out and about at night," He rubbed his hands together, a genuine smile on his face. Red wasn't entirely sure what he was smiling about, but at least he'd agreed.
Red took a moment to look at his strange company a little closer, now that his vision was a mite clearer. His first impression was of a man with a pleasant demeanour; the Guide wore a simple olive-coloured flannel shirt and pants of the same material but a navy blue colour, and a small pouch strung onto his belt. A great head of blonde hair spiked up above his clearly relaxed face. Bright blue eyes looked back at his assessor almost as inquisitively as he was being gazed at himself. Nothing about his appearance spoke to any possibility of duplicity, but Red couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to him than his meagre appearance.
"Okay. Where am I?" He turned his eyes to the lush greenery surrounding him as he asked that, the first and most obvious question.
"Ah, they always ask that. This is Terraria, my friend! A lovely little island where magic permeates the very air. Life's pretty easy around here, for as long as the sun's up above your head. You got that, and you're golden," The Guide explained, beaming smile never leaving his face.
"Right... Okay, why am I here? And why are you here?"
"Don't know and to help you out, in that order. That is why I'm called the Guide, after all."
"But why? Help with what?"" Red insisted. He didn't know where he was, or why he was there – He needed answers before he did anything.
"Tell you what – let's focus on the what and the where questions first. Why's got a long, complicated answer behind it, and I'd like to tell it tomorrow when we're not going to die," His smile faded slightly, but still didn't leave his face entirely.
"Why are we going to die tomorrow?" Red asked, blatantly disregarding his company's attempt at directing the conversation.
"Alright, I'll answer that one on a technicality. We're going to die in the night without shelter, more specifically. The monsters come out at night, y'know. Like I said, it's only sunshine and roses for as long as the sun's up." He stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth idly. Red almost would've guessed he was bored, if not for the benign smile on his face and the patient tone in his voice.
"Monsters? How do you mean? What are you talking about?" Red asked, panic filtering in to his voice. He couldn't remember much of anything before waking up, but was sure somehow that monsters weren't part of his previous existence.
"Wicked things, my man. Fiends that crawl up out of the woodwork in the night and look for blood. Terrifying things! But only at night, like I said. They run away from the sun – too bright out, y'see, 'specially on a lovely morning like this one."
"I – I don't know anything about dealing with monsters, I -"
"And that's why I'm here. I'm the Guide!" He cut Red off before he could panic more completely. "I'll tell ya everything you need to know to live here. You ask, I answer as best I can. I've got the know-how, you've got the to-do - we'll make quite a pair, trust me."
They both stopped talking for a time, simply staring at each other instead. Red was doing his best to simultaneously hold back a panic attack and figure out where he was, who the man was, what his angle was, what he wanted – the man, the Guide, responded to Red's probing gaze easily with a relaxed smile, still rocking back and forth with his hands firmly ensconced in his pockets.
"Alright, then, so... what do I start with?" Red finally asked, trying to keep his voice level.
He positively beamed at the question. "Now we're talkin'! Alright, we'll start with some wood. Here, I've got an axe somewhere..."
"You've got what?" Red's eyes narrowed in suspicion as he took a step back. This stranger didn't seem quite all there to him, and an axe was the last thing he wanted to be added to the situation.
"An axe. For cutting wood, you know? Somewhere..."
Red looked on cautiously. This Guide was rifling around on his own person, as though he expected to pull an entire axe out of his pocket or something.
"Ah, got it!" The Guide exclaimed, and to Red's astonishment did exactly that. One moment he was making slightly discomforting gestures around his waist, then the next he was hefting a single-headed axe half as tall as he was in his hand.
With an easy motion the Guide flipped the axe around and proffered it to Red, handle first. A bemused smile accompanied the offering, as Red stood firmly where he was and looked uncertainly at him.
"What do you want me to do with that, exactly?" Red asked, severely off-balance and at a loss for anything else to say.
"Well, it's an axe. You chop things with it," he grinned, and flipped it back around in his hands to hold it up by its middle. "It's not too hard - grab it by the handle, sharp end goes in the thing you want cut down. Here, I'll even show you,"
He took a step back from Red to give himself room, then brought the axe around and behind him. Red took a further step back, still not entirely trusting the stranger who declared himself his 'Guide'.
"Hold it like this, then swing it around, ideally at a tree or something. That's pretty much it - I mean, there's some subtle nuances to the majestic art of logging but you pick those up over time," His benign smile widened as he stepped forward and again offered the axe to Red, haft first. This time Red reached out slowly and took it, accepting it gingerly and testing its weight.
"It'd be good for self defence too I imagine, right?" he said idly, tapping his finger on the flat of the axe-head. It was a light brown in colour, most likely copper. Another even more idle part of his mind wondered how he knew or remembered that.
"Eh," the Guide's unexpected noise of indifference brought his attention away from the tool. "It'll do in a pinch, I guess, but there's better things out there. That's not what we'll focus on though, we should be alright during the day and we need some wood to get a shelter going. Pick a tree and hopefully we'll get this done before night-time, huh?"
"So I'll be cutting down a house's worth of wood and putting it together in the same day?" Red didn't bother to hide his scepticism as he moved slowly towards the nearest tree he saw.
"I'll damn well hope so, or we're both monster chow," the Guide's mouth stretched into an easygoing smile that was far removed from the less-pleasant words that it expelled, but he seemed not to notice. "It's not too hard, just sweaty and time-consuming. Hence, we start now, hopefully we'll be done before the sun goes down."
"You've got another axe lying around, then?" Red asked, now sizing his chosen tree up and swinging his axe experimentally.
"Nah, just the one." the Guide replied easily.
Red looked back disbelievingly. "What? So I'll be doing it all myself?"
"Course not! It's like I said - me with the know-how, you with the to-do. You get the wood down, I'll show you how we fashion it into something workable."
"Sounds to me like you get the easy end of the bargain," Red glared at his companion uncharitably.
"Yeah, well, they call me the Guide and not the Logger," he grinned. "And they say knowledge is the heaviest burden anyway."
"No way," Red snapped, completely unimpressed by his fellow's brevity of wit. He let the head of the axe fall and thump against the grass, leaning over and supporting himself on its base. "I'm not doing anything if you're not going to at least help me. How do I know this isn't some kind of sham for cheap labour or something? What do you get out of this? How do I know you're on the level with me?"
"Well, you'll know it pretty hard when the sun goes down, I'll say that for ya right now," his expression became slightly more serious, but the good nature didn't leave his face entirely. "What reason have I got to lie to you? I'm here doin' my job. And if this was some kind of scam or something, I reckon I'd lure you in with somethin' that'd secure more than only a single day's work, don't you reckon? I said I'll sort you out with what's going on once we've got a half decent shelter."
Red didn't budge, and the Guide sighed and ran a hand through his spiky hair.
"Listen, man. I get that it's not really the way you want to wake up, lyin' in the dirt and then gettin' bossed around by some guy you only just met. But trust me, eh? Work with me a bit. I know what's going on around here, and believe me, I'm firmly on your side."
Red still didn't move, but the Guide held his full attention. He continued speaking, fully aware of that and intent on taking advantage of it.
"Just stick with it, and trust me, you'll go far. Might not necessarily be easy, but you'll be alive, and if you're worth your salt you'll get there and from there, I'm presuming back wherever you came from. I'll do my best to help you, alright? That's my job - my contract to you, huh?" The easy smile returned as he held a hand to his chest and then stretched it out towards his charge. He let it drop without waiting for a response, then turned to look at the tree Red had approached. "It's easy, this, but the problem - I'm awful with an axe, and I will find a way to bungle it. So - you bring the wood down, and I'll help you cobble it into something we can stay safe in."
Red stayed silent and looked down to the ground. His brows were still furrowed but his expression had softened somewhat.
"What's your name, bud? Do you remember? I should've asked earlier, sorry..." The Guide asked quietly.
"It's Red," he replied, still looking down.
"Red. Right. Well, at least you've still got that, huh? My name's Dustin, and it's a genuine pleasure to meet ya, I assure you." Red looked up at his newly named acquaintance as the man continued. "Like I said, I'll do my best to help you out here, but there's only so much I can do. If it helps you trust me, I can tell you straight up I do have an ulterior motive - what's good for you is good for me, here. That's all it is. Seeing you through the next couple of days safe and healthy is my number one priority, man."
"Why?" Red asked shortly.
"I would like to tell you once we have a nice, safe, solid place for me to tell you in - it'll take more than a few minutes to tell. Only got so many hours in a day, and like I said, this place is far from friendly when night falls. It's better for both of us that we get some trees down and get a nice place to sleep up first."
Red stayed silent for a moment, then hefted the axe again and turned back to the tree. "Alright. Fine. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now, I suppose."
"That's the spirit! Worst case scenario, it's a day lost to chopping wood, right?" He grinned again and clapped his hands together. "Tell you what, I'll even see if I can sort out something to eat. If you'll start knockin' 'em down, I'll be back with you in a moment."