Richard was a Champion. Not of some sports event, or bar trivia night, but of a world. A world of Terraria. A land full of adventure… and horrifying creatures. Fear, anger, hatred, pain, suffering, all of these were his constant wasn't all bad, but it wasn't some easy fantasy world. It was unforgiving, and a harsh teacher…

He'd come close to death many times. Most of time due to the boss enemies, but sometimes it was from stupid, stupid mistakes, or those annoying minibosses. He learned though. He became the master of his world, at the peak of power… Yet he was still young. He was barely seventeen (Well, he wasn't exactly sure how old he was. He knew he should look older than he did, but time was difficult in Terraria… He'd been 17 for probably several years), and he'd fought creatures that would give the most hardened warriors nightmares.

Richard knew this well. They gave him nightmares.

He didn't need to sleep all that much. As a matter of fact, he didn't need it at all. Sure, his mind felt tired, but his body never did. He never reached a level of tiredness with his mind that was dangerous either.

He didn't need to eat or drink either, although needing to and wanting to were two different things. He was, in a sense, the perfect warrior. Never tiring, never needing nourishment… Yet he was exhausted. The constant wear and tear on his mind, the scars on his body… He was done. He'd defeated the Moon Lord. He just wanted to go home.

But Richard didn't get that.

He killed the Moon Lord, and nothing happened. The world stayed the same. It didn't get easier. It didn't calm down. He didn't get home. It had been several weeks, and there were no signs of change. Often, he'd go and sit at the snowy cliff overlooking the town he had built, watching it as the sun went down. He'd tried relaxing there, even going to a victory party… But he just couldn't be happy.

He wanted to go home, or to find something new.

So when, one fine evening, a portal opened up next to him showing a sun-dappled forest, he looked back at his town once. Nodding to himself, he steeled himself and jumped through the portal, off to somewhere new… Hopefully.

…

The Guide and the Merchant were sitting together in the town, sipping some warm drinks as the sun went down. They both simultaneously looked back, feeling something a bit off… And they spotted their savior, jumping through some sort of portal. The Merchant adjusted his hat slightly.

"Where's he going, you think?" The older man asked, staring at the point where the Champion had jumped through. The Guide simply smiled to himself.

"His journey here has reached its end. He'd expressed to me that he was unhappy, you know. This world is a living thing… It knows all that goes on here. It seems fitting, I suppose, that this world would give him an option to go somewhere else."

"Somewhere else?" The Merchant chuckled. "That boy wanted to go home, to be… Normal. I doubt wherever he's going will allow him to be that." The Guide shook his head.

"Certainly not. His path leads away from here, that's all I'm certain of." The guide said, his face briefly showing concern.

"You seem to care for the boy greatly." The Guide sighed.

"I was with him from the beginning. I guess it's natural. Just…" The Guide shook his head, a twinge of sadness and remorse on his face. "...He's gone through so much… You remember how he looked when he came up from the Underworld after he defeated my… other half?"

The Merchant shuddered.

"When he went down to that hell, he was confident, happy. Optimistic, even. When he came back…" The Merchant's eyes seemed far away. "...He was quiet. So, so quiet… And when he took off his helmet after taking a seat in Paddy's bar, well…" The Merchant trailed off once more. "His face was near expressionless, and his eyes here haunted. Terrified. The boy was quivering, and he just sat there for hours until the night came. After that day, he barely ever smiled…" The older man's face became rather thoughtful. "...Now that I think about it, every time after a big battle he'd get just a little quieter, a little less joyful. A piece of him falling away. And then..."

"And then I ripped so much away all at once." The Guide said quietly. The Merchant shook his head.

"Nonsense. That wasn't you… Just a curse, that's all…" The Guide sighed.

"I suppose. Wherever he's going, I hope it's better than here. That there's something more… And a new path for him to follow."

…

Richard opened his eyes with a groan, sitting up and blinking. He'd jumped into the portal and then… Passed out? Maybe he just wasn't built for interdimensional travel, or whatever this was.

His environment was, as he was shown, a forest. He brushed himself off with a sigh, making sure he had everything. He did, the weight of all the things in his 'inventory' negligible to him. Although one thing was odd… His Zenith was gone. It had been replaced by his Legendary Star Wrath, the massive sword that had been one of the things that the Moon Lord had when he died. Why the enemies Richard killed dropped loot, he didn't know, but he wasn't complaining.

Sighing, he pulled the massive sword from his inventory, inspecting it for any flaws. The sword itself was actually silver (He'd figured out how to do that a week earlier. How dyeing metals worked, he'd never know), but beyond that there was nothing noteworthy about it. Aside from the fact that it was massive. But the weight and length of the thing never bothered him, he could swing it around like it was some shortsword or broadsword.

Satisfied, he brought the sword up as though he was putting it into a scabbard on his back, the massive blade disappearing as he did so. Richard looked about, his cobalt blue eyes narrowed slightly. This world was different from Terraria… There was almost no ambient magic in the air at all (Luckily, Richard produced his mana internally, and didn't have to rely on mana from other sources), but there was something familiar that he could feel.

Evil.

While different in nature, and arguably weaker than the Crimson or Corruption, it still was an unwelcome surprise. It was also worrying to Richard that he could feel it all around him, yet there was no physical signs of it. So it was certainly different in that regard.

Speaking of all around him, he pulled out his cell phone briefly. Richard raised an eyebrow slightly at the display.

11:47 AM

Sunny (6 MPH N)

Third Quarter

100 Fishing Power

Fire Dust detected nearby!

Ursa Major

17 Enemies Nearby!

N/A: N/A

0 Damage Per Second

0 MPH

Coordinates UNAVAILABLE

Depth UNAVAILABLE

Fire dust, Ursa Major, and his kills missing? Odd. Richard had never heard of the term "fire dust". But Coordinates and Depth being unavailable? He'd never seen that before… Which must mean he truly was somewhere completely different from Terraria. Confusing his Cell Phone… That was impressive. But it was worrying. At least the other, more important parts of the phone's information was intact like enemy count.

Regardless, that didn't matter.

What mattered to Richard now was exploring. He had a whole new world to discover, to map out. It was an odd feeling, but one he enjoyed. Looking around himself, Richard simply shrugged and walked in a random direction, glancing behind himself briefly at the massive, glowing silver wings on his back. His wings… They were the things that kept him alive.

But now, in this new world… If there were other people, his wings would likely make him stand out. With a sigh, he made them vanish. He'd have to see whether they were a standout feature or not in this world. Continuing walking, he tilted his head slightly at a growl from his left, followed by heavy, rapidly approaching footsteps.

Looking to his left, he saw a large, black, and bearlike creature approaching him quickly. He narrowed its eyes at it as it roared and jumped at him.

Sighing, Richard drew his blade and cut the beast in half easily, noting that it left a black ichor on his blade as it fell in two halves. Looking back, he frowned slightly as the body of the bear began to dissolve (Being morbidly disappointed that it didn't explode into gibs), with black wisps of smoke curling into the sky.

There were a few howls, and without looking behind him he knew that there were some werewolflike creatures with the same black, white, and red color scheme as the bear. Richard smiled slightly. Fighting was good. Easy fights were even better. No thinking, just hack and slash.

Richard turned to face the pack of shadow creatures in a grandiose fashion, casually pulling the brim of his hat down low over his face and shouldering his blade. "Well, I guess I'm popular today… Just not with the right crowd…"

He took a stance, already knowing that his enemy counter was swelling.

20.

45.

90.

And then it kept going up…

"Very, very popular…" He raised his blade, and the battle began.

…

Qrow Branwen had seen a lot of things in his time. Seen a lot of people, a lot of short skirts, and a lot of Grimm. But this… Now this was new. He'd been flying in his bird form, looking to reach a nearby town, until he'd spotted one hell of a Grimm horde. Normally, they didn't swarm like this unless there was some sort of mass source of negativity.

But there wasn't a population in the middle of a fucking forest that could have a source of negativity that big. He swooped down into the trees near the center of the horde, his bird form going relatively unnoticed. And what he saw was something that could only be described as both terrifying and awesome.

Someone in a white coat with a bigass sword taking on the massive horde of Grimm. And he could hear laughing from them. Their massive sword cut through the Grimm like butter, with the person occasionally backhanding a random Grimm with enough force to shatter its bone mask and its head. Not one Grimm got past the reach of their sword unless they let it, occasionally using the blade as a pole vault to get to the bigger and badder enemies first.

Qrow watched with a dropped jaw (beak?) as the person casually caught the stinger of an elder Deathstalker and flipped the damn thing over, before ending it with a quick sword strike. He didn't have a scratch on him (It was a guy, the laughter and occasional shouted challenge making that clear), and he looked like he was having a blast.

That's all Qrow managed to see before the man in the white coat jumped into the air (Appearing to have a pair of wings), and massive beams of multicolored light appeared, before rapidly focusing as he spun about. The light blinded Qrow momentarily, and when he opened his eyes…

The Grimm were gone. Erased, a few scorch marks being all that remained of the bigger ones. Most of the forest was fine, though…

Qrow flitted down to the ground before changing to his human form, stumbling a bit before taking a sip from his flask. He saw a light glow flit down into the trees, before seeing the person land on the forest floor lightly, dappled by the sun, with his silver wings disappearing quickly.

Qrow wasn't exactly sure what to do. "Ah, damn it all…" He said to himself, taking a long draw from his flask and approaching the person and stopping at a safe distance. "Hey…"

AN: Well, hello! Welcome to the first chapter of Paths Less Traveled! I'll keep this short, but I just wanted to thank you for picking up this story. So, uh… Thanks! Please read, review, and all that fun stuff!