Welcome to the Jungle
This chapter is my longest yet by quite a bit. Enjoy!
"So… is she the Queen of the Slimes?" Cyrus and Visca were in the sickroom, sitting next to the unconscious slime girl they had recently found after defeating the Queen Slime.
"Yes. She was my, ah… what's the word? Senpai, upperclassman? Something to that effect. She took me under her wing and helped me figure out the whole ruling the slimes thing."
"You remember what it was like in your previous form?"
"Sort of? The memories came rushing back once I saw her. Everything else… is kind of fuzzy."
"That's really unfortunate. It must be horrible not being able to remember so much."
"I've got the broad strokes, and I'm not sure I need much more. I jumped around and didn't do much more, you know? Maybe it got overwritten with human things- how to walk, language, proper manners, and all that."
Before Cyrus could respond, the other slime girl in the room began to stir in her sleep, her outspread wings gently twitching as her eyes opened. "Hello." She had a gentle voice that seemed almost supernaturally melodic. "Could you tell me where I am?"
"You're in… a village that hasn't been named quite yet. You thirsty?" Cyrus gave her a glass of water, which she hastily drank.
"Thank you." She turned to look at Visca, and her eyes lit up. "Visca dear, is that you? It's been so long!" Shifting from the bed, she went to embrace Visca, first with her arms and then her wings, which wrapped around Visca as well.
Visca flushed, but didn't make any real effort to get out of the hug. "How are you feeling, Regina? It can be a little strange adapting to your human form for the first time."
"Oh, I'm doing well. I'm glad to see that you've got a new friend here! You were always so shy when you first became King." Visca flushed even more, turning a rich purple shade that practically made her match with Regina.
"You're exaggerating a little, aren't you?"
"Not at all. So who's your friend here, Mr Tall, Dark, and Handsome?"
"That's Cyrus, and he's taken, you know."
"Ohhh, so he's your-"
"No! Of course not!"
"Now you're just hurting the poor man's feelings…"
Regina's most notable feature, on par with the overall… sliminess, was the pair of angelic wings on her back. There was a majesty to them, simultaneously muscular and graceful, the way they contrasted against the purple-pink shade of her hair, the way she gently shook the ice and snow melt off of them-
Damn it, why did Cyrus only start realizing these girls were incredibly pretty once he was in a relationship? Sure, he could recognize a beautiful girl when he saw one, but it was like his senses were kicked into overdrive once he started fooling around with Medulla and Annelida. Actually, thinking about it, that made some sense, but it didn't make Cyrus feel any better.
Regina got along with Bea swimmingly, possibly due to their shared status as Queens, but mostly due to fact that both of them had real, genuine wings. Sure, they didn't fly exactly the same, as Regina's wings were birdlike in contrast to the bee wings on Bea's back, but they were certainly fond of flying around, coming up with elaborate tricks and playing games of tag in the winter sky.
Now that winter had come in earnest, nobody really felt like doing much other than staying inside, with flying being Bea and Regina's notable exception. Cyrus would occasionally put his productive energies to work and build something, but that had an overarching goal of eventually leading to more cozy space to hide from the winter air in.
Harold was telling them about a holiday called Christmas, which Cyrus remembered, if vaguely. While the date itself wouldn't be for quite a while they decided to start prepping for the whole celebration, and everyone was in a festive mood preparing for the gifts and merrymaking. Cyrus was sent out to go get a pine tree to serve as a central decoration.
Finding an appropriate tree was very easy, all he needed to do was use the teleporter to get to the snow biome, and then search around a bit to find one that was big enough and looked good enough to match everyone's standards. Felling it was easy as well, he had an axe that could cut through the wood as if it wasn't there, and the pine tree fell with a tremendous crash.
The problems started with Cyrus trying to move it. Cyrus could move himself or a few passengers with his mirror, but he couldn't move anything too big- like, say, an entire tree. So Cyrus began to painstakingly haul the tree back home as the sun set far too fast for his liking. He had actually gotten most of the way home before he noticed something was amiss, as the ground began to tremble, as if something was moving around deep below.
Cyrus had learned the cues by now, and drew his bow and retreated from the tree towards the clearing he had faced so many deadly foes in before. No reason to see the Christmas tree get damaged by whatever horrifying monstrosity he fought tonight. Cyrus could get damaged, but not that tree.
The rumbling only grew stronger as Cyrus waited, and he looked around in every direction to find nothing at all. Of course, the way the earth was shaking, he'd think that the enemy was coming from…
Oh, he was a just an idiot. Cyrus tensed his body and prepared to leap as the vibrations grew and grew, until it felt like his teeth were shaking themselves out of his skull. He leapt into the air and used his jetpack to fly as high up as he could as a gnashing metal mouth rose from the ground where he was standing.
His first thought was over sized pipe, but it was something more like a tremendous metallic worm, and it rose from the ground with no end in sight as Cyrus veered to the side with his jetpack. He landed on the ground and skidded away from the monstrous creature. It truly was massive, towering far above the trees as of its dozens of red lights shone in the cold air.
It turned to charge him once more and Cyrus fired his bow, sending a barrage of arrows down upon the metallic worm, which let out a metallic shriek as it dove towards him, strange metal mandibles whirring as it dove towards him.
The arrows certainly proved effective, but that proved to be a very bad thing when they started knocking the lights that dotted the creature's side out of their sockets, revealing small drones that soared through the air and shot lasers at Cyrus, which grew harder to avoid as Cyrus did more and more damage to the machine.
The lasers couldn't punch through his coat of armor, but the drones seemed to have a supernatural ability to find even the smallest chinks and seams, and the lasers cut thin lines in his skin that drew blood. Just like the other mechanical bosses, this massive worm had adapted to his strategies quickly, and it tried to trap him while he was on the ground while forming circles or long cylinders that hemmed him in and let the drones hit him with easy shots.
At the very least, it was almost impossible for Cyrus to miss with his bow, and he barely even needed to aim to do massive damage to the creature. It was certainly suffering under his barrage, with dozens of empty sockets where drones once were, although the drones had made their mark on Cyrus as well- he was exhausted by now, his strength sapped by dozens of small cuts.
Finally, the beast collapsed in on itself, although Cyrus had to run to the side to avoid getting crushed by the falling segments of metal. Near the head of the creature, he found a young woman with hair like silver, which fell down in a curtain to her hips- hips that transformed into a long, tail-like structure, composed of dozens of metallic segments.
For a moment, Cyrus considered going back for the tree, but this girl didn't look to easy to carry, and he could see blood leaking from the chinks in his armor. Carefully, he picked the girl's upper body up and pulled out the magic mirror, which fortunately teleported him inside instead of sending him tumbling into the snow.
A few of the girls were waiting for him, and Annelida's reaction was the most enthusiastic: "Wow! She's like me!"
Cyrus was shaking on his feet now, and he felt Cthylla at his side, keeping him from falling over. Looking around, he saw Francisca. "Hey, could you handle the tree? I left it out near the field, but I'm in no state to go back and grab it."
She gave a nod and started towards the door. "Hey, just grab a coat first!" She took the coat in her hands, without donning it, and started towards the door. "Wear the coat!"
After a hefty bandaging and a stern warning from Abigail, Cyrus was mostly fine, but decided to take a little break and not go out picking fights, at least for a few days. It appeared that all three of the mechanical bosses had dropped a strange sort of essence, and with a bit of work they could be used to help forge a pickaxe from the strange metal that composed the original bodies of the bosses, and it seemed to be better than his old one. He also managed to make a truly massive greatsword called Excalibur from the material, although he didn't need any of the bosses' essence to do, which was fine with Cyrus. There was something… deeply unsettling about all three of them.
Cyrus figured this meant that this new worm girl was the last of the mechanical bosses- sure, he didn't have much evidence to back it up other than the pickaxe, and he wondered if there was a mechanical brain or bee flying around somewhere, waiting to ruin his day. He decided to see if Andi had any relevant advice in these trying times.
"So, was that the last big enemy I have to fight, or is that too much to hope for?"
"No way in hell, man. You've got quite a few more to go. The next one… is in the jungle, I think. Before you go picking fights, I'm pretty sure there's a strong ore in the jungle that you can mine now with your fancy new pickaxe."
"Do you have any idea what this new enemy will be like? Is it going to jump me?"
"Hopefully, you're not stupid enough to provoke it. This one will only fight you if you start it."
"So what summons it?"
"Touching a plant."
"But… you do realize that a jungle is all plants, right?"
"And?"
"You're not being very helpful right now."
"And you were expecting me to be super helpful? Want me to chase you around like a lovesick puppy while I'm at it?"
Cyrus did have to admit that going to the balmy jungle would be a nice change of pace from the freezing cold of home, and he managed to get Bea to come along, hoping that she would have a better knowledge of jungle plants than him.
Getting to the jungle was a bit of pain, as the jetpack Cyrus had grown so fond of really couldn't do long range and would start to overheat, leading to a few embarrassing falls that Bea had to save him from, and the jetpack made carrying him an inconvenience as well.
Just before they were due to land in the jungle, there was an ear-piercing roar from directly behind them, and both Cyrus and Bea lunged to the side as a massive creature flew between them, something like a cross between a snake and a dragon. It was long and sinewy, covered in blindingly white scales broken up by a ridge of green on its back. It wheeled through the air, turning for another charge an revealing a mouth full of razor sharp teeth that would certainly hurt Cyrus and would definitely shred the currently unarmored Bea.
Cyrus would have to strike first before Bea got hurt, so he drew Excalibur and flew to meet the wyvern, and just before it was about to take a massive bite out of his torso, Cyrus flew just a little higher with his jet pack, and the moment his feet hit the creature's back he started running down its length, striking down with his sword and leaving a long gash that went down most of the creature's length before he had to leap off.
The creature shrieked and turned in the air in an attempt to catch him, but Cyrus was ready to meet it, and he managed to pull himself out of the way by hooking onto the wyvern itself, although Cyrus had to unhook himself rather quickly so the creature didn't just kill him through whiplash by snapping its tail.
Excalibur was definitely unwieldy, especially when he was fumbling in the air, but Cyrus didn't like the idea of filling the air with holy arrows when he and Bea were flying around. Speaking of, Bea was circling them at range to avoid the wild wyvern.
The creature flew by again, and Cyrus managed to dig the sword into the creature's flank again, and it shrieked in fury before beginning to fall towards the jungle. Feeling his jetpack running hot against his back, Cyrus decided to follow and see if the creature dropped anything interesting.
The wyvern had crashed in a particularly dense thicket in the jungle, and Cyrus felt some relief that his bad luck didn't cause the creature to crash into the particular plant Andi warned him about. There was a strange sort of glowing thing hanging above the creature's dead body, and Cyrus managed to bottle the glowing light blue substance.
It seemed like the beast had crashed near an entrance to the underground jungle, so Cyrus and Bea descended into the depths of the jungle. It had been quite a while since Cyrus had been to the jungle, before defeating the Wall of Flesh, before loosing Garrett, and it felt different. The air had a strange smell to it, an earthy scent with undertones of something rotting- although he supposed that death and decay were as much a part of the jungle as the verdant greens and terrifying wildlife.
The creatures of the jungle had only grown more horrible in his absence: the hornets were bigger, massive spiders crawled through the tunnels and caves, the water teemed with massive predatory fish, and the turtles launched themselves at Cyrus like cannonballs, and they had to stop frequently to recuperate from vicious attacks from the wildlife.
During one of those breaks, Cyrus found a strange plant growing on the ground, which had a single heart shaped fruit, and Cyrus reached out to pluck the gleaming golden fruit before he could stop himself. The moment he plucked it, he froze, expecting some horrific monstrosity to pop out from behind a corner of the thin tunnels.
"What's the matter, Cyrus? You're bee-ing awfully paranoid."
"Andi warned me that one of the plants in the jungle would summon a powerful monster, but here I am, plucking fruit at random just because they look appetizing."
"I think I'll be able to tell which plant it is Cyrus. I'm a lot more in tune with the jungle than you are. For now, let's split that fruit of yours. It really does look good."
"Wait, how do we know it's not poisonous?"
"Bee senses, Cyrus."
Shrugging, Cyrus pulled out a knife and cut the fruit down the middle, leaving one half for himself and passing the other to Bea, golden juice running down their hands. Bea gave a satsified "Mmmm" and Cyrus had to agree: for just a simple fruit, it tasted incredible, and he literally felt healthier after he was finished eating. Unfortunately, neither of them had thought to bring napkins, so their hands were sticky for the rest of the trip (not helped by them finding and splitting more of the golden fruit). At least Bea could keep the bees away.
Eventually, their path was blocked by a wall of… something strange. It was metallic and reflected light the same way his armor did, but it looked almost plantlike, like thick green vines or roots overlapping each other. An experimental kick revealed that yes, the wall was made out of an extremely hard material, like ore, although it was a bright green color.
Fortunately, his new pickaxe cut through it easily enough, and Cyrus made sure to collect every chunk he could. This stuff was very tough, and he had a feeling that it would make good armor. Once he knew what to look for it was fairly common, although sometimes he had to excavate a lot of mud to get to it.
It certainly wasn't the worst way to spend a day, and by the time Cyrus and Bea returned home, they had gorged themselves on the strange golden fruit until they couldn't eat anymore of the fruit, and even brought a little extra home. Bea was determined to bake something from them, although even knowing how good of a cook she was, Cyrus wasn't sure she could improve on perfection.
It turned out that she could improve on perfection, or at least she was good enough of a chef to keep the fruit perfect even while in pie form.
Soon enough, demands were being made to gather more of this fruit for their eventual Christmas celebration, and Cyrus couldn't help but agree, even if he wanted to take a break before going back to the jungle (Cyrus remembered the heat but not the humidity! The relatively warmth of the jungle was less nice when accompanied by the sticky feeling that came from sweating while it was too humid).
Sadly, Cyrus was the last person to finish his pie, although not for lack of trying. Cthylla and Annelida were both trying to spoon feed him at the same time, and while Cyrus certainly wasn't complaining, all the posturing and arguing meant that he was barely eating any pie, although having both of them scooting close to feed him made it worth it.
"Cyrus, you've got a little something on your cheek, let me get it for you…"
Part of the reason why everyone tolerated Harold the Merchant was because he had an amazing ability to get his hands on the simple necessities that you never realize you'd miss, until you were say, dumped in the middle of the wilderness in a strange and hostile land. Cyrus wasn't sure what his life was like before he found himself here, but sometimes he'd stop and think that something was missing.
Cyrus realized that he hadn't had a haircut in months at least when it started getting caught in the space between his helmet and the gorget, the part of his chestplate which protected his throat. Cyrus had actually lost chunks of his hair to the giant mechanical worm, or more specifically, he lost it them to the lasers fired by its swarms of drones. The way it was looking, it was going to take longer than usual for the newest girl to wake up, so Cyrus decided to visit Roxanne and see if he could get his hair managed.
Roxanne had turned a corner of her room into a miniature beauty salon, and Cyrus was ushered over just a few seconds after he knocked. "I've been waiting for you to come over and get that mess cleaned up!" She certainly took better care of her appearance than Cyrus did- her dark red hair gleamed in the light, and Cyrus could barely remember how she looked when they first rescued her from the spider's nest she was trapped in.
Before Roxanne could start fighting the hot mess that was his hair, they saw someone in the mirror, standing at the door. "What are you doing here, Francisca?"
"I came to check on Cyrus, and to inquire about learning how to style hair." She gestured to her hair, and Cyrus did have to admit it didn't look quite as pristine as did when she first took human form.
"Well now's not exactly the best time to start teaching, but I do have some mannequins to help keep my skills sharp. You can try to follow along, if you'd like."
Cyrus decided to never let Francisca cut his hair considering how badly she mauled the mannequin. Fortunately, Roxanne had stopped her from using her chainsaw attachment (Cyrus was convinced she had some sort of fascination with it, considering how often she whipped it out to 'solve' any problem), but strange laser cutter Francisca used wasn't much better, given the singe marks that covered the wooden head of the mannequin.
"That girl…. Sometimes I wonder how she dresses herself in the morning."
"With clothes, presumably."
"Oh, shut up, Cyrus."
"Should I pay you? I mean I think I've got some coins on me…"
"You saved my life, the least I can do is give you a haircut. Now come on, let's check on our newest guest."
"You never really seemed interested in seeing the girls when they woke up before though…"
Roxanne flushed, although she wasn't quite as red as her hair. "I've just got to ask her about her hair care routine!"
"Well it's not like she'll remember how her hair got that way, will she? Plus, you've already got the best hair in the entire village, no competition."
…. And now her face matched her hair.
They rushed over in time to see their newest guest's eyes slide open, revealing irises the color of rubies as the metallic segments composing her body lit up the same shade of red.
"Hello there, what's your name? I'm Cyrus, and the girl to my left is Roxanne."
"My name… is Ditra. It's a pleasure to meet you both." Before they could continue exchanging pleasantries, Ditra's stomach growled fiercely and she flushed. "Could you get me some food? Moving all this," she gestured towards her long metallic tail "takes a lot of energy."
It seemed like Ditra shared more than just a similar body structure with Annelida, as they both had truly tremendous appetites. After she had eaten her fill, she managed to scoot off the bed without damaging anything (Cyrus wondered if he would have to rebuild the houses with stronger floors. He swore he could hear them creaking under the girl, not that he would ever say that to her face.) and Cyrus showed her around town.
Eventually, they bumped into Annelida just as they finished their little tour, and Cyrus genuinely wasn't sure how the two would react to each other. Cthylla and the Twins were fine with each other, and it was the same with Lacrima and Francisca, but that didn't really prove anything.
"So you're finally up! I'm Annelida and I assume you know Cyrus' name by now."
"I'm Ditra."
"Uhh… you feel like saying anything else?"
"Not really."
Annelida's brows furrowed. "Well okay then. Are you done showing her around, Cyrus?"
Cyrus nodded, and Annelida clamped onto his arm. "Then come relax with us for a while, Cyrus! You still need to recover, after all!"
Annelida started dragging him (presumably) in the direction of Cthylla and Medulla, and Cyrus certainly wasn't going to complain.
Ditra looked on and gave a smile. "Interesting."
Eventually, Cyrus decided to go back to the jungle with the intent to fight whatever creature dwelled within its depths. Of course, everyone was a little uncomfortable with him going off to pick another fight, but Cyrus figured he had to do it eventually. He wasn't a very egotistical person, but Cyrus had a feeling that in some way, fighting to rid the world of evil was his destiny, in a grand sense.
Of course, that didn't mean he was going alone, and of all people it was Visca who decided to come along. Just before they could head out on what would be a very long trip on foot (his poor jetpack could barely carry Cyrus and his armor, much less a second person), Medulla ran up to them with something in her arms, although Cyrus couldn't make out what exactly it was under the canvas wrapping.
"I've got something for you, Cyrus."
"Well, what is it?" Medulla pulled away the canvas to reveal a beautiful pair of wings, a beautiful shade of blue white that Cyrus recognized as being the same color as that feather he had found in the ice biome a while back. He wasn't sure where an entire wing's worth of extra feathers came from, but it was clear that these wings were a labor of love.
"Thank you." Cyrus leaned forward and caught Medulla's lips in a kiss.
"Hey, don't we have a trip to go on, Cyrus?" Visca was crossing her arms and looked rather irate. Cyrus nodded.
"So… how do I use these? I mean they're certainly nice, but I can't just slide them on like a jetpack…"
"Turn around, would you?" Cyrus did, and after a few moments of shuffling behind him, he felt something click onto his back, between his shoulders. Suddenly, he could feel the wings- the air in his feathers (That was certainly a sentence) and they seemed to be getting bigger, growing until they went from being small enough to hold in one's arms to large enough that the tips of the wings nearly touched the ground.
"That feels so weird!" Looking back, he could see a massive pair of icy wings on his back, sending strange patterns onto the ground as the sunlight refracted through the translucent feathers. Despite the fact that the wings were made of ice, he could feel them just like he felt his own arm, although it took him a bit of stretching to get used to them. Unsurprisingly, having a new pair of limbs threw him off a little.
"These wings should mean you can carry a person around like Bea. Should save you some time."
Nodding, Cyrus went to Visca and managed to find a way to grip her that wouldn't get anyone upset at him. Looking at Visca, Cyrus couldn't help but notice that she looked a little uncomfortable with the whole thing. "Are you okay? We don't have to fly if you don't want too, you know?"
"No no no, I'm fine. Just make sure not to crash."
Nodding, Cyrus bent his knees and jumped before flapping as hard as he could, sending both of them soaring into the air.
"EEEEEEEEK!"
The trip to the jungle was quick, and soon they were descending into the depths of the underground jungle. The wildlife proved as vicious as always, although Cyrus managed to salvage some mostly intact shells from the turtles that roamed the jungle.
Admittedly, it was a little frustrating to just wonder throughout the jungle with no idea of what they were searching for, other than the vague description of "weird plant", especially considering how the jungle was already full of weird plants even before, including ones that wanted to kill you.
Visca certainly wasn't too happy with the situation either, and all the humidity was proving unfortunate for the slime girl, as all the water was literally making her less viscous, and Cyrus was worried he'd have to carry her home in a bucket.
Cyrus first noticed something was off when he saw the faint pink light out of the corner of his eye, and when he turned he saw a strange pink bulb that gently pulsated as it glowed. Cyrus somehow knew this was his plant, and this strange bulb would summon something terrible. After making sure that there was a clear path to a large cavern nearby, Cyrus carefully pulled out his pickaxe and swung.
The bulb practically disintegrated on contact, and there was a horrible shrieking sound that send a shiver down his spine. Cyrus and Visca broke into a sprint as the ground shook and chunks of mud fell of the walls.
The enemy this time was a monstrous plant, easily several times bigger than Cyrus, the majority of its body being a massive pink bulb that looked quite like the bulb Cyrus crushed earlier. Cyrus caught a whiff of it and his knees nearly buckled as he retched. It smelled strongly of death, like a monstrous carrion flower, and it was already being surrounded by great clouds of mosquitoes and gnats as it let out an unearthly roar and started… growing towards him, almost? It moved by pulling itself with massive vines that clamped onto everything in sight.
Cyrus pulled out his stormbow and thanked his unbelievable luck that he was fighting the creature in a cavern with a ridiculously high ceiling. As arrows started to pelt the creature, it shrieked and began to spray giant seeds into the air, and both Cyrus and Visca dodged out of the way.
The plant certainly wasn't the fastest monster Cyrus had ever faced, but he certainly didn't want to get close, both because of the smell and the enemy's massive bulk. His arrows had a gigantic target, but the more damage he did, the more enraged the plant got (if plants could get angry?), and now it also launched great balls of thorns in addition to the bullet-like seeds.
Obviously, plants don't bleed, but a foul sap flowed from the dozens of cuts and scratches caused by Cyrus' arrows as he strafed around its attacks. The petals grew more and more threadbare as his arrows landed, and eventually with a terrible shriek they were torn to ribbons as it revealed a monstrous mouth lined with razor thin teeth like structures. Dozens of vines sprouted form the creature's sides, surrounding it with a terrible halo of tentacles and gnashing mouths.
Suddenly, the monster was moving a lot faster, and Cyrus was finding it harder and harder to avoid the creature, which struck with all the speed and strength of a wild animal despite being an overgrown plant. Fortunately, his arrows proved as reliable as usual, and they made quick work of most of the tentacles.
No more seeds or thorn balls now, although now the creature was just trying to crush him. As Cyrus ran to the side to avoid being splattered against a wall, he couldn't quite avoid one of the few tentacles still left alive, and it clamped onto his leg with a tremendous force. Before he could shake it off or pull out a close range weapon to deal with the thing, he heard a hissing sound and felt a terrible burning sensation on his leg, as whatever acid the plant secreted melted through his armor like nothing.
Cyrus slashed with Excalibur, cutting himself free, and leapt backwards only to feel his injured leg collapse under his weight. Looking down, he saw massive acid burns on his leg that almost certainly ruined his ability to walk. With an awkward sort of push up motion, he managed to lift himself up and then used his wings to escape the terrible maw of his foe.
Fighting from the air wasn't too bad of an idea, and he continued to fire arrows from the air, flying to avoid the massive hooks the creature used to navigate and the sprays of foul spores it spewed from its mouth. He was unfortunate enough to take a breath of the things, and the fierce coughing certainly didn't help his aim, or the terrible shooting pains in his lungs.
He was getting exhausted now, his breath coming in pants, and having to rely solely on giant wings to move himself around didn't help. The plant only grew wilder as the fight continued, and just before his arrows managed to do the creature in, it finally out sped him and took a tremendous bite of his uninjured leg, and Cyrus realized with horror he could no longer feel his leg below the knee.
Finally, the thing crumpled in on itself as they crashed to the jungle floor together, revealing, as usual, a girl. Her most notable feature was vibrant green hair, although Cyrus was too dizzy and addled by the previous battle to notice anything else. He collapsed onto the ground and heard someone calling for him…
The last thing he remembered was someone crying onto his chest and then the familiar sound of someone using the magic mirror to teleport home.
Dramatis Personae:
Cyrus: the player character, harem protagonist
Cthylla: ex-Eye of Cthulhu, in relationship with Cyrus
Annelida: ex-Eater of Worlds, in relationship with Cyrus
Medulla: ex-Brain of Cthulhu, in relationship with Cyrus
Visca: still insists on being called King of the Slimes
Bea: ex-Queen Bee
Lacrima: ex-Skeleton, clothier replacement
Andrea/Andi: ex-Wall of Flesh
Asta: ex-Spazmatism
Tina: ex-Retinazer
Francisca: ex-Skeleton Prime
Regina: ex-Queen Slime
Ditra- ex-Destroyer
?: ex-Plantera
Nissa: the Dryad
Veronica: the Zoologist
Meredith: the Mechanic
Abigail: the Nurse
Judith: the Steampunker
Roxanne: the Stylist
Naming convention today is fairly obvious. Regina as in queen, Ditra was intended to be a shortening of Perditor, Latin for destroyer, but it also just sounds similar. Only after coming up with the name do I realize that it sounds like the name of a medicine. Chapter title inspiration is pretty obvious.
I tried to give some oomph to the wings- they're certainly more impressive than a jetpack, ya know?
The lack of comments makes me a little sad (I am just leaving y'all speechless every update?) but I really appreciate all the favorites and follows. I checked recently and sorting by favorites my little fic has reached the first page! That's incredible, even if Terraria isn't exactly the biggest of fandoms.
If you couldn't tell, I'm planning for a Christmas installment, complete with the Frost Moon bosses. I was planning a Halloween installment, but that didn't pan out, but hopefully things turn out well for Christmas.
If you have any suggestions, be sure to comment! Seeing comments really brightens up my day! I also really want some feedback. I'm worried if I've got like, a proper ratio of harem stuff to action/adventuring, ya know?
Also, of all the Terraria NPCs, Stylist is best girl fite me