"You think he was telling the truth?"

"Not on my life. Spaz, hold still, would you-I thought I spotted some ore but I can't tell with you waving the torch around like that."

"I'm not waving, I swear!"

"Well you're not the one using it to see."

"Well if you're so good at it you take the torch, I'll mine."

Spaz huffed, holding his torch out, which his brother took after a moment of glaring, passing Spaz his copper pickaxe. After spending what had remained of the previous day scouting east for easy supplies, they'd made a campfire, a furnace, and an anvil from a near-surface iron vein, and settled in for the night. As early the next morning as their bodies had allowed, they'd explored one of the possible cave entrances to the west, finding a surprisingly lucrative tunnel network leading into a cave or two. It had been some time since they'd disappeared beneath the surface, but they'd already found a respectable amount of ore, as well as three Life Crystals they'd split and other supplies along the way. Other than the slight disturbance caused by bats and the occasional slime, the day was overall going much better than the previous-and their newly-forged copper armor certainly helped.

On their expedition, they hadn't spoken much. The two had conversed amongst themselves about what Keeper might have meant, but hadn't come to any solid conclusions. And when they'd asked Keeper upon returning why it had to specifically be them bringing balance, Keeper had simply grunted in response, and hadn't spoken a word since his partial explanation.

Spaz picked up easily where Ret had left off mining towards the potential cave he'd seen. "Anyway, why would he lie to us?"

Ret gave a noncommittal gesture with one hand. "He probably did it to us in the first place. He's attempting to scare us into free labor, or using us for something, we cannot be sure..."

"Ret...Are you sure he's really suspicious, or are you just mad that he kind of tried to strangle you?"

"What?" Ret paused, hand reaching up to his much-abused neck, where there were now bruises from Keeper's sudden assault the previous day. "Are you saying that that alone doesn't make him suspicious? He could be waiting to kill us."

"Then why didn't he try to last night?"

"He didn't because I was watching him all night."

Spaz nearly dropped his pick. "Wait, are you serious?" He shook his head, groaning, "Reeeeet, that was dumb, no wonder you're so snappy today. At least we could've slept in shifts."

"He would've known. The man didn't close his eyes once."

Spaz harrumphed. Their conversation was briefly halted by Spaz finally breaking into the cave, and the two moved forward, Spaz switching to his copper broadsword (and quickly killing a wayward bat), Ret carrying the torch behind. Ret pointed out an underground cabin nearby, and Spaz was the one to move forward, Ret watching his back as he stuck the torch to the wall, opened the chest, and rifled through it.

"Hey! Hey, finally!" Spaz yelled, pulling out a round object and holding it up triumphantly for Ret to see.

Ret examined it, tilting his head before giving a half-smile of approval, "Magic Mirror. Very useful. Now we just need another one..."

"You take it. I've got some recalls. Also a ton of iron in here."

They moved on, taking the chest as a trophy. Sadly, that and a smaller iron vein were the only things around, and Spaz began mining downwards once more.

"But about what he said..." Spaz finally continued, once he was back in the rhythm of mining, "The whole 'slaves to moon person scourge of the earth' thing. Does that ring any bells for you?"

Ret considered, "...I...I'm not sure."

"Well the Moon Lord sounds like a name I've heard of, and I dunno where I heard it, so if that means anything, there you go."

"...I feel the same. Still, that is insufficient evidence."

"I know, but it's all we have to go on. Do you have any other ideas?" The face Spaz saw Ret pull as he looked over his shoulder told him the answer. "You're supposed to be the logic guy. Don't make me do this kinda thing."

"...you're right," grumbled Ret, "I suppose we must do as he says for now. Though I don't trust him."

"Me neither." Spaz's usual energetic air dropped, and his eye narrowed. "Not after yesterday. He makes a bad move, we both nail him together."

Ret gave an eerie smile of his own in silent agreement. He seemed to be thinking about something. "...Though we should make a detour once we are better equipped to visit the Crimson."

"Why?"

"That...That could be our ticket to the upper hand..." There was something odd in Ret's eye, something greedy and malicious.

Spaz had no time to consider, as his pickaxe suddenly met air, sending Spaz off balance with a yell. The hole he'd made wasn't big enough to fall into, but Ret still leapt forward to pull him back from the edge, and the two had to catch their breath. Ret silently moved forward to shine his torch, but the hole was too small to see much other than a small glint on a new type of cave wall.

The two looked at each other and nodded. Ret stepped back, rifling through his inventory as Spaz opened up the hole he'd made further, eye bright at the prospect of more loot. Once the hole was sufficient for them to slip in and out easily, Ret moved to the edge to lower some rope to the cave's floor, and they both quickly slipped down, landing like experts. Ret pulled out his torch again the second he was on the ground, waving it around to find they were surrounded by walls of bright grayish-white. A small pool of water sat to their left, and something was moaning and rattling from the darkness to the right.

"...Marble," Ret said with distaste, fastening his torch to the wall and switching to his once-more-usable bow. Spaz smiled viciously and pulled out his sword. Ret noticed Spaz's eagerness and tapped him on the shoulder. "Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but we're rather ill-equipped. We should-"

An angry crunching joined the rattling from the darkness, and Ret's sentence abruptly cut off. Spaz frowned and turned his head...only to see something he should've expected.

His brother had been turned to stone.

"Oh great."

The Medusa and the Hoplite who'd been lurking in the shadows abruptly flew forward, the Hoplite immediately attacking the frozen Ret while the Medusa attempted to get a clear shot to give Spaz the same fate. Spaz ducked away, swinging with a yell before running forward to try and take them down, his plan to simply fight until Ret was free. The Hoplite was barely moved by the swing of Spaz's sword, its armor blocking out almost any damage, while the Medusa kept trying to grab him from behind and turn him around for a clear line of sight. He whooped as he swung the sword around backwards towards Medusa's head, jumping away from both of them and briefly wishing he had some sort of middle-ground range attack to help him. Maybe later.

Ret broke out from the Medusa's curse, grunting in pain and stumbling a step before whipping out his bow and shooting the Medusa back as Spaz switched focus to the Hoplite.

"It's too dangerous to go down any further," Ret called over his shoulder, "Get ready to bail."

Spaz, reluctantly, had to agree-they didn't even know what these enemies could do to them. A final slash at the Hoplite's throat, and Spaz feinted to one side, then ducked away to the other, running back and trading his weapon for the star-shaped bottle of Recall Potion. Ret had managed to back up while firing at the Medusa, and Spaz could see the glint of the torch's light off the glass of his new Magic Mirror.

They didn't even need to count out loud. Spaz guzzled the potion and Ret activated the mirror at the same time, and both vanished in a cloud of blue.

Spaz opened his eye only when the blue light had faded, blinking several times in confusion as he looked around. As he had yesterday, the two had appeared a few yards to the right of the house's front door, near the cozy, crackling fire they'd thrown together with some torches that hadn't gone out since. But this was different than yesterday, in that...

"It's night," Spaz pointed out, quite unnecessarily, "...We were underground that long?"

Ret didn't even bother to answer the question, quickly ducking into the dimly-lit house with Spaz close behind. Spaz slammed the door behind him, leaning his back against it as only a second later a zombie started pounding at it.

"That. That could've been really bad."

Ret grunted in acknowledgement, before looking around the small room. "...Where is Keeper?" His voice was full of barely-contained malice.

"Huh? He isn't here?" Spaz looked around, then turned and looked through the holes in the door, smacking it with his hand a few times. "Hey! Zombie! Get out of there, I'm not lookin' for your ugly mug. Don't you give me that face!" He hissed like an angry cat in response to the ensuing zombie groan, opening the door just enough to swing his sword at the zombie's arm and loudly shooing it. It didn't shoo, and so Spaz continued slashing at it until it fell into body parts that somewhat blocked the door from opening that way. Grimacing, he shut the door and continued staring out. "...I don't see him out there."

"Great." Ret began pacing about the room, appearing as if he hadn't even seen the brief squabble between his little brother and the undead. "He abandoned us. He's leaving us to die."

"I dunno what he's doing, but we've gotta figure out what we're doing." Slam, slam, slam, groan. "I think there are more of them tonight."

Ret pondered for a moment, before running to the anvil they'd set at the far side of the room next to the furnace. Spaz quickly followed, fishing in his inventory.

"Iron?"

"Anything you have. Did we get any silver?"

"Yeah, a little bit. Please make me a sword? Pleeease?"

"Armor first."

"Fiiiiiine."

And Ret set to work, Spaz helping as much as he could. They'd mostly found iron and copper in their exploits, with only a small vein or two of silver. It wasn't long before both of them were wearing iron. Ret also silently passed Spaz a silver broadsword, causing the younger brother to bounce up and down looking like a child on Christmas morning.

"I say we try to take out some of the night creatures," Ret stated, finally, "They may be stronger, we're going to need to be careful'

Spaz remembered his chagrin at lacking range during the earlier fight. "...You think we can grab some stars?"

"Of course."

"But you haven't slept..."

Ret grimaced, "True, but I'd rather not have him return while we are sleeping."

"Aw, come on, you're being..." Spaz started to protest, but trailed off. "Actually, you're probably right."

Ret nodded, "Of course I am. Tomorrow we can improve the house. Get out a chest."

Spaz set down the gold chest from the house, and the two deposited everything they didn't need. They moved to the door, Spaz in the lead with his new sword and Ret behind with a lot of flaming arrows he'd made at his disposal.

Spaz let out a roaring battle cry, practically kicked the door off its hinges, and plunged his sword straight into a very surprised zombie who'd been trying to get in.

Tonight was going to be fun.

-:-:-

The whole thing was a blur, and significantly less fun than expected. Even in iron, the night creatures hit hard. And the two saw creatures out there which shouldn't be there at all-Antlions all the way from the desert, all varieties of Demon Eyes, The Groom and Bride themselves, and at one point a skeleton casting spells everywhere, who had nearly ended their journey right there. The battle was a success despite the injuries, though, with many fallen stars, lenses, coins, and other forms of loot collected.

But as they were attempting to survive the last hour before sunrise, after finally dispatching the caster, Spaz couldn't help but notice Ret's aim was getting more and more off. He seemed weaker on his feet, like he was going to fall over any second, and despite Ret insisting he was fine when asked, Spaz made an executive decision and dragged Ret back into the house, boarding up the door. Ret did not protest or say a word, simply collapsing on the floor. And to be honest, Spaz felt like doing the same. Even he realized they'd gotten in over their heads and were badly hurt, and now he was worried about his brother's health.

Spaz forced a healing potion down Ret's throat before going to drop his stuff in their chest. Keeper or not, Spaz couldn't stay on his feet any longer. And judging by the fact that Ret was out cold by the time Spaz had dropped off his stuff, even while sick from the potion, Ret had probably been even weaker.

But Spaz still thought the night had been awesome. He felt stronger than he ever had since waking up here.

Screw Keeper. We're stronger. We're gonna show him. See how he likes it.

Without even stopping to take a potion or remove his armor, and with zombies still pounding on the doors as the sun began to barely peek over the horizon, Spaz sank to the floor and was unconscious within seconds.