A/N: You smell nice, is that a new foot?
:D
Cold air rushed past Duke as he fell from his makeshift tower, a snowballs essence planted firmly on his face blinding him. The rushing wind whistled in his ears and chilled his face as he continued his fall, but he wasn't panicking.
Wow, why do snowballs feel so nice?
He wondered as he understood what had happened, but didn't feel the need to react. He was relaxed now, a cold presence on his face, the cool wind rushing past him as he freefell to the ground. He was tempted to stay like this, to just be chill, but his instincts told him he didn't have much longer before he turned into a red splat on the ground.
Wakey time.
He shot his arm up in the direction of his tower and launched a metal grappling hook from it, having crafted it from the hook he found in a skeletons corpse and mixing it with chains. The hook shot through the air and latched onto the building, Duke not even stopping before he was yanked to the hook itself.
He smirked, and right before he hit the wall he released the hook and shot it further up, now wiping the snow off his face with his left hand.
How fast can I go up?
He asked himself this as he was pulled again to his mobility tool, then releasing it and shooting it higher once more. As he repeated this process, the ground below him shrunk as the clouds seemed to grow closer, as well did the tip of the tower and the top of the mountain.
In his offhand, he scourged through his inventory as he crafted the one thing he deemed most important.
Another snowball.
On the mountain top, Andrew hunched over as tears barely escaped his eyes, laughing in between breaths as he replayed the scene of sniping his friend with a well aimed snowball in his head.
Was it wrong to catch his friend off guard like that? Maybe.
Did he feel bad about it? Not in the slightest.
Andrew was now kneeling on the ground with his arms on his sides as he attempted to calm himself down, not noticing the small group of penguins waddling their way up to his position, having taken an interest to his boisterous laughter.
"Haha, oh, my lungs, heheheh.."
He made his way onto one knee with chortles before he heard one of them squawk, his laughter dying almost immediately as he turned to face them.
"P-Penguins?"
He stared wildly at the creatures before him, his eyes wide with shock as they stared back at him, though they more with a clueless stare than what calculated in his head.
He then grew a wide grin as he jumped to his feet, now giddy over realizing that they were but a few feet from him.
"They're even cuter this close!"
He crouched to the ground and reached his hand out, he now holding a bass in it while luring the tundra's birds to him with sounds a feline may take interest in. He grew even more grateful over fishing with Milton, as he likely would've never had such a perfect opportunity to see this species so close.
"Pspspspsps."
They huddled closer together as they shuffled towards his hand, he producing a couple more fish to lock their curiosity in. It wasn't known to them, but he had already nearly learned everything of their species simply from how they chirped at each other and stayed grouped.
"You guys are absolutely adorable, aren't you? Yes you are! You're WAY better than that sentient plant back who knows where! Aren't you? Aren't you?!"
They happily munched on the bass he threw out as he cooed them all, his mind practically full of every piece of information there was to know about these creatures.
But why are you guys here? Gentoo Penguins should be found in ice free surfaces, or at least around shorelines where food should be better found. Maybe they couldn't find any here, which would explain why they're eating so many fish..
He pondered this a little longer, but eventually lost himself to the beautiful animals enjoying their meals, even laughing when some would steal from others. Then one penguin turned and walked to him, he giving it his attention.
"Hey bud. You still hungry?" He tossed it a bass as it caught it from the air, scarfing it down faster than he had seen the others do.
Then, it's color changed.
From the usual black color on its back, a darker shade of blue took over as it directed itself over to his side, Andrew's eyes widening as he grew an even larger grin upon realizing what this meant.
"I CAN HAVE PENGUINS?!" He exclaimed as the penguin began spinning in circles as it chirped with joy. The others seemed to notice, their hues slightly changing as well, though not fully tamed as they retained most of their black tone and continued chirping amongst themselves.
"HHHRAGHH!"
A yell behind him alerted all in the vicinity, before the gruesome sound of flesh and bone crushing under unsurmountable power filled their ears, silence and shock replacing the ancient joy they once knew.
CCRRUNNCHH
"..eh.."
Andrew stared, horrified beyond belief at the sight before him.
His once merry crew of penguins were now bathed in the blood of their fellow brother, it's entire upper torso having been blow off in a sudden explosion of blood and guts. Andrew felt his heart freeze, and Duke landed behind him.
"Woah, are those penguins?"
Andrew seemed to ignore him as he slowly approached the crumbling corpse of what once was his pet, it slowly fading into particles of smoke, as did everything else that died in this damned world.
The other penguins snapped from their stupor, the blood of their ally having faded off them, though they now held savage rage in place of their previous elation.
And they directed it to Duke.
Who crouched in the snow, packing more snowballs before he looked up at them.
"Oh, uh, hey Andrew? I think you're friends aren't feeling too good.." He said, the mob now closing the distance between them, while Andrew remained near the corpse.
"Oi, Andrew? I really don't feel like the faces they're making at me! Are they growling?!" Andrew still didn't reply, and Duke was forced to hear the birds shriek in a mix between mourning and ever growing rage over their fallen brother.
"How hard did that snowball hit you? You unconscious or something?" Duke yelled, not knowing his snowball had struck the wrong target before one of the penguins lunged at him with it's beak primed for attack.
When Andrew turned to speak, he immediately noticed a horrific change in the penguins. Their beautiful colors had morphed into a hate filled shade of red, with blood oozing and dripping from unseen protrusions in their bodies as spiked teeth replaced their once seemingly empty beaks. He was momentarily too shocked to help before he whipped out his bow and took aim, going straight for the one closest to Duke.
But he hesitated, and it bit Duke's arm.
"AH, LITTLE SHIT!" He screamed, slamming it down with enough force to create cracks in the ground, the once vicious bird now exploding into more guts and gore, the others seeing this as an invitation to swarm him.
"SORRY ANDREW!" Duke yelled as he readied his sword, doing his best to ignore the bite wound on his arm as he crouched slightly to jump at the next victim.
Andrew shoved his bow away and charged straight forward, running through the horrid crowd and tackling Duke with all his might, launching them both over the mountain side before the penguins could reach them.
Free falling again, Duke now had someone to scream at this time.
"WHAT WAS THAT FOR YA-"
BAM
"YOU KILLED KENNY YOU BASTARD!" Andrew screamed, the wind stealing the tears forming in his eyes as he stared at Duke with nothing but rage.
"WHO THE HELL IS KENNY?!" He replied, rubbing his cheek from the sudden punch.
"THE PENGUIN YOU BRUTALLY MURDERED!" Andrew yelled, now trying to fight Duke again even as they fell.
"WHEN DID YOU NAME A PENGUIN?" Duke snapped back, fighting off Andrew's attempts at dominance and managing to whip out his grappling hook.
In his rage, Andrew smacked the hook so that it shot to the air and hit nothing as he continued to assault him, though neither of them realized the dimming light and dropping temperatures as they continued their free fall.
"LET GO YOU IDIOT!" Duke screamed, now trying to free his hands from Andrew to control their landing.
"WHY DID YOU KILL KENN-"
SPLASH
blubblubblubblub
Andrew was dazed, his vision blurry and movements slowed. What happened? He couldn't see Duke, or much of anything for that matter. Everything was spinning and his body stung with fresh pain, cold water surrounding him and making it harder to hold his breath. An underground lake? He tried to surface, but without a ground to jump from he continued sinking further down while everything continued to darken. He was going too deep.
My oxygen, I can't hold it for much longer..
He looked down to find anything, but much to the horror in his heart was met with the dismay of a dark abyss below him. The water was beginning to crush him, his oxygen nearly depleted as his movements slowed and his vision darkened.
"..drew!.."
He heard something, a muffled voice.
Then a splash.
He looked up to the distant surface as his vision darkened, his limbs growing lifeless as Duke's form swam towards him. It's cold..
Duke grabbed him around the waist and aimed up with his grappling hook, shooting it out of the water and latching onto a ledge just outside the surface. With a tug, it shot them through the water and into the air.
Normally he would've had no issue with landing, but with carrying another body and barely making it out of a frozen river his sense of balance was beyond stable. Loosing himself in the air, he moved to where he would land on his back to prevent Andrew from shattering his skull, and with a loud thud he landed on the cold hard ice blocks beneath him.
He groaned, feeling the jagged steps of the ground uncomfortably prod at his back through his armor. He knew he'd be bruised, but the main issue was the extra weight on his stomach.
"Damn dude, you ain't as light as you think.."
He threw Andrew to the side where he landed on his back, both men now facing the sky. Well, more like massive ice stalactites hanging from the roof of a high hanging ceiling that shone from light entering in through a small hole in the roof.
Turning around himself, he marveled at the expansive cavern he had found himself in, ceilings so high that even he didn't think he could build to its stature, and shelves of ice jutting out of the walls like platforms he himself would place when mining, only that these were of a much greater size and beauty.
The water they crawled from shone and sparkled as it reflected the sunshine that managed to enter the same way they did, it's recent disturbance from their fall having calmed and now moving at a slow pace. What he thought was a small pool turned out to be a much greater body of water, much like a lake he'd find from above. Most of his shivering was gone now, but he felt an immersing need to dive in the sight before him and to enjoy the richness of the pure lake.
Then he remembered his friend nearly drowned.
"ANDREW, SHIT!"
Turning back to his friends body, he charged over Andrew where he then punched him in the gut with enough force to shatter the ice beneath them both.
"ACK- COUGH-"
"WAKE UP BUD, A LITTLE WATER NEVER HURT ANYBODY!"
With the punch, Andrew hunched forward in agony as his ribs were crushed under the power of his friends friendly fist, a horrible coughing sound from him with a crunch every time he moved. Turning on his side, he coughed blood and water from his lungs as Duke watched with wide eyes.
"YOU'RE ALIVE! THANK GOODNESS, I DIDN'T WANT ANOTHER GUIDE I JUST GOT USED TO YOU!"
"you- COUGH- asshol- HACK-COUGH-"
Duke leaned to his friends agonized form, generating a health potion in his hand, giving it to him.
"I LOVE YOU TOO BUDDY! NOW DRINK!"
Andrew nearly crushed the glass under his vice grip as he downed the magical substance, Duke just watching like an excited pup. His wounds, which were mostly shattered ribs, immediately began to heal as his coughing had gotten under control.
"You-cough- you suck.. but thank you.." Andrew wheezed out. He flopped to the ground with his arms spread, feeling the warmth spread through his body as the potion made its magic work.
"Man, you really almost died there!" Duke said, walking to his friend to lie down next to him.
"Yeah, I did-" Andrew paused, remembering why they fell.
"This place is massive, maybe we can mine here-" He was cut short with an arrow to the gut.
"HUK- cough- Andrew what the hell?!" He yelled, clutching the stem of the arrow while fixing his glare at Andrews ready form, bow and arrow in hand and knocked for another shot.
"You killed Kenny." Andrew seethed out.
"Andrew, you SHOT ME over a PENGUIN!" Duke yelled, blood now spilling slowly from the wound in his gut.
"YOU'LL LIVE, HE DIDN'T!" Andrew screamed back, releasing the arrow from its hold.
The arrow narrowly skimmed past Duke as he jumped to the side, coming up on a roll as the projectile lodged itself into the cliffside, cracking the surrounding ice.
"Andrew relax!" He yelled.
Andrew readied another arrow until a crack was heard, and both men lowered their weapons and looked at the wall with an arrow in it. It was cracking, the fractures spreading from the epicenter and across the wall as ice fell from the roof.
More rumbling followed as more ice fell, Duke backing up from the wall and towards Andrew.
"Andrew?"
"Run."
They both broke out into a sprint as the ground began to tremble, when suddenly powerful shockwaves tore through the roof and floor and caused icicles to fall from above.
The pair just ran.
They had no clue of where they were running, but it had gotten darker as their only light source was fading in the distance while they drew deeper into the earth. Duke pulled a torch out while Andrew held close right behind him, the ground falling from their sprinting steps as the rumbling turned into an all out earthquake.
From above, chunks of ice once held in place for an unprecedented amount of time and snow that moved with the wind shifted and crumbled under the dysfunction of its environment, it all coming to a sudden collapse from their place in the roof and onto the ground below. Behind the men, massive shatters and tears in the ground shook the earth they knew it as displacement took its course, the walls like massive titans falling from their ancient homes as their world Rumbled.
"WHAT THE HELL KINDA ARROW WERE YOU TRYNA HIT ME WITH?!" Duke screamed, still leaping across small spaces and sliding through openings.
"IT MIGHT'VE BEEN A FLAME ARROW!" He replied, ducking under a falling ice shelf from above.
Before they could yell any further, the energy that shattered the ice around them shot ahead to the low hanging roof above, destroying its structural integrity and laying waste to the floor below with chunks of frost and ice. Before he could stop, Duke slid through the ice and fell on his back, the shifting shelf tilting him downward into the encompassing dark beneath him.
"ANDREW STOP RUNNING!" He warned. But it was too late, for friends form cut through the air above at an unrestricted velocity that launched him from the ice. Andrew released a yell as his descent began, but not before Duke threw himself from his ledge to catch his friend.
Behind him, the shelf was crushed under a massive wave of frost and ice raging with unapologetic force, the cave finally shutting out all light as the two plunged in darkness.
Duke found himself in a dark free fall, following the screams of his friend to catch him before they both met a gruesome end. He rummaged through his inventory, and found himself a fresh stick of dynamite he had "borrowed" from his good friend Dolbere.
Heh, I wonder if he's found out yet.
Little does he know, he has.
He struck the stick against his skin and the fuse was lit, and now he could see just a few meters ahead of him, and that was all he needed.
Andrew stopped his screaming as he saw the light, turning his head to find Duke diving toward him not unlike an arrow released from its tense hold on a bowstring.
"DUKE WAI-"
BAM
He tackled his friend with an arm around his back and threw his feet below him. The fuse on the stick nearly reached its end, and Andrew saw this.
"DUKE LET GO OF THE STICK!" He yelled, now trying to push it out of his grasp.
But Duke just tucked it into his chest, not allowing his friend to take the prized possession. "NOT YET! JUST A LITTLE LONGER!c
"WHAT?!"
Now seeing they almost reaching the ground in moments, Duke jammed the stick into the wall on their side before its explosion and stuck his feet out to the ground beneath.
"TRUST ME! I CAN LAND THIS!" Duke shouted, before a loud boom was heard above them.
The stick had exploded, and now more ruined blocks of ice were falling down behind them. Andrew paled until Duke landed on the ice, which happened to shatter immediately.
WHA-
Duke fell straight through the false ice blocks as Andrew clutched closer to him, they both having no time to consider their surprise before they heard and felt another splash, this time though Duke made sure Andrew was gripped on and shot out the water with his grappling hook.
Until they were struck midair by an oversized ball of snow.
Both men were hurled across the cave and hit the ground, sliding until Duke rolled into a crouch and stopped them both.
Rising from his position, Duke dropped Andrew from his shoulder and onto the floor.
"Andrew stay here." Andrew simply grunted in acknowledgement, face still on the ground.
He pulled a torch from his inventory and saw he was in an area similar to what he and his friend were just in, though slightly smaller. His torch shone only enough for him to see across the scape in front of him, small pools of water edged into the ground covered with ice that looked to be a more gray than blue. He noticed it was the same ice he and Andrew had just crashed through, but his attention was drawn when he heard a splash from one of the pools. This one, it being furthest away, had a rather small hole in the center of the ice covering, but standing in front of the pool was what confused him more.
With an oddly large nosed and strangely human feet, a large snowball that easily reached up to Duke's lower abdomen dripped water from its amazingly still poofy fur. He noticed no eyes, ears, or really any other facial structure, but he still called out to it.
"Oi, what are you supposed to be?"
It said nothing, but instead slowly started it's walk towards him.
"I didn't ask for a hug-wait." It stopped, and he leaned closer and squinted his eyes.
With a childish gasp and one hand to his cheek, Duke lit up and nearly jumped.
"YOU'RE SO FLUFFY!"
If one paid attention, they would notice the creature take a step back and slightly nervous.
"C'MERE BUD LEMME CUDDLE YOUR FACE OFF!" Duke yelled.
He placed his torch onto the somehow not melting ice and charged for the snowball, its form now clearly taking steps back as he neared.
Andrew managed to look up in time, a sadistic grin on his face.
And an arrow struck the snowball in its massively oversized nose, Duke stopping on one foot with wide eyes and a horrified expression.
The snowball was launched across the cavern and slid across the floor on its back, a smear of blood and bits of its intestines trailing behind as sickening crunches echoed throughout the cave.
It came to an abrupt stop as it got its feet under itself, though when standing up, it very obviously had no strength.
The arrow penetrated straight through its nose and jutted out its back, with what looked like shards of bones on the arrowhead as blood spilled from both holes.
It was shaking slightly, puffs of air coming from its nostrils as its blood trailed down its chest and pooled onto the ground beneath. Its fur, what once was a beautiful white that glistened in Dukes torch light, was a sad crimson and a horrid dishevelment of its own organs spewed about on itself.
It's legs gave out, and it fell face first onto the ground, the arrow being shoved deeper in with a small crunch. Then it disappeared into a puff of smoke, along with the arrow.
"I think we're even!" Andrew cheered from behind, he putting his bow away as he made his way over to Duke.
Duke turned his head to Andrew, but instead of a hate filled glare he stuck his tongue out at him.
"Pfft, cheer up big baby, it dropped something for you." Andrew said, directing his attention to where the creature died.
"Oh loot!" Duke cheered.
"Also, that was a Snow Flinx." Andrew told him. "Found in the underground tundra, it's a small enemy that is very susceptible to being knocked large distances, as it has little control over keeping itself on the ground, likely due to a lack of limbs. However, if you let it tag you and it had a running start, it would've likely crushed your arm. It's small but powerful legs allow it to catapult itself towards enemy's at incredible speeds, making it a rather formidable foe to those unprepared."
"Hey Andrew why did it drop its fur?"
"..."
Duke turned to him, holding the fur but meeting a blank expression.
"What?"
"Just give it to me, I'll tell you later."
"Aww, fine."
Andrew packed the fur away as Duke stood, having picked up a few coins from the Snow Flinx and putting them away as well. Andrew looked around and pulled out his map, marking their location and the new terrain around them as Duke sorted his bearings, counting his remaining torches and supplies when he noticed a shine in the distance.
Turning to it, the small glimpse was barely visible through the heavy lack of light, though he could still tell it was deeper within the cavern.
"Hey Andrew, you ready?" He asked.
Andrew set himself straight and looked at his friend, a small grin on his face.
"You already found something you want to check out?"
Duke nodded.
"After you!"
Somewhere
There was a rumble.
In a land not so far from the home of the explorers, the smell of unforgivable sin penetrated the air.
A horrid land where the skies are red and the rain is acidic blood, where the ground lives and moves to pull you into its hellish underground hive mind, lives the Crimson.
A place where even the beasts that live here fear, the Crimson lived.
It moved.
It thought.
It was hungry.
And so it prepared an errand runner.
A simple fish net.
Scaping the land were monsters whose jaws unhinged and dragged along the floor, their features morphed and horribly deformed, but all red.
Creatures flew above their grounds in search of live prey, their mandibles jutting from the mouths chittering and drooling with hunger.
And these creatures, as grotesque, as horrible as they were, still hid from the mouths of the Crimson.
Giant openings that protruded from the ground led into the belly of hell.
And the rumble from before, which all above the underground felt, led to a roar.
The Crimson was preparing.
It needed a Terrarian.
A/N:
Hi.
So this chapter is a bit shorter than usual, I apologize, B U T, how you all doin?
I am back with waning writers block so hopefully these chapters start comin out a bit more often :D
Nanomemes: Thanks again for the review! No lore for this chapter, but a slight introduction to something I've been planning for a while!
Thanks again everyone who is still reading, and for all the reviews.
Stay tuned!
