Nymphlopedia
Entry 32: Quicksand Nymphs
"WHOO HOOO!" Sonata pumped a fist up as she rode along a sand slide. Sliding on her ass. No, it didn't hurt.
She looked over at one of many slides, held up by stone and mud, that ran parallel to hers. Tania and Vince - in that order from front to back - were on the back of their Basilisk mount, which was doing all the work with them. Tania also had a pair of goggles on. Goggles, by the way, definitely count as violating Rule #1.
Sonata noticed their ride and turned to them. "Aw, why are you on a mount? It's more fun to experience this firsthand and side on your ass!"
Tania gave her a look of sheer disbelief. "This isn't about fun, Sonata!"
Columns of sliding quicksand errupted in front of them, which they barely dodged.
"We're being attacked!"
Tania and Vince just lept off while more bits of the slide errupted in to columns. Sonata, having a lot of dodging practice (no, the Quicksand Nymphs did not have bad aim), managed to move left and right around them. When they started rising walls that went the whole length, she just had her wings grow out from her back and leap over them.
Eventually her slide took a hard turn to the left, with another rising wall making her leap in the first place, not leaving her with as much flight time. That left her flying through the muddy catacombs. Well, she could just find a-
A whole freaking arm of quicksand emerged and grabbed her.
"Oh." Sonata said.
A dark gold Nymph landed right behind her, stuck her hand out, and blasted quicksand generated from the hand to the back of her head.
"Ah, hey, ow! That really hurt!" Sonata managed to dig her arm out and rub the hit spot. "Jeez, what do you want?"
"Why the heaven are you working for the Last Dryad?" She asked, while other Quicksand Nymphs began to slide their way over and crawl up the arm-pillar made.
"One, you actually say 'why the heaven' instead of 'why the hell,' I thought that was just in comedies, that's funny. Two, because some evil spooky moon people want to bring Cthluhu back from the dead. They've tried bringing his body parts together, they've tried bringing robots of those body parts together, and now they're just planning to go all-out and steal something from a locked temple and remake him atom-by-atom or something. Or whatever he has in the place of atoms."
"No, Cthulhu's atoms are 'normal,'" explained Tania as she and Vince managed to fly their way over to the scene, "it's that his molecular composure is seven point four five dimensions. That explains his-"
"Three, motherfucker, if anything, Tania's working for me."
By then Vince and Tania were right next to Sonata. And Sonata had dug herself out. She brandished her True Night's Edge as a warning to the Quicksand Nymphs.
"Do you want me to slap her for saying that?" Asked Vince. "I will do that. It kind of turns me on, even."
"No," replied Tania, "both because I want to resolve tensions with the Nymphs peacefully, and because she's right."
"HA HA HA! Yeah, you admit it!" Sonata cheered.
The one Nymph managed to shift around the hardened quicksand (so just mud? Vince and Sonata both wondered that) so that all three of them slipped. She chuckled. "Well, you sound like a fun bunch."
"Don't ever trip me again." Sonata said. "You know that from where I am, I can slice your toes off, right?"
"Sonata!" Tania told her. "Non-violent!"
"...Fine."
Tania stood up and clasped her hands together. "If there is anything we can-"
That particular Quicksand Nymph disappeared under the arm. But her voice was still heard below them:
"I'll think about it."
Quicksand Nymphs.
The rivers of shifting lands will often lead right in to the mouths of these Nymphs for those caught in them.
Preferred Environment: Quicksand Pits/Trails.
Environment Threat Level: Dangerous.
Environment Stats: Very Dry. Warm on the Surface, Cold Underground. Moderate-Mundane. Rare. A series of rivers of quicksand that can easily ensnare passerbys.
Other Names: Shifting Nymphs, "Slidey Nymphs."
Affinity: Wind.
Color: Dark Gold.
Traditional Costume Weapon: Anklets made of rings of quicksand, allows them to shift around "loose soil" easily and sink in to the ground. Powerful ones can also control quicksand itself.
Vince's Comment: Another hopeless one for a hapless adventurer to fight. Unless you like being burried up to your neck.
Sonata's Comment: A lot of people on DeviantART seem to have a fetish for these Nymphs. Eh, whatever. I like how they can make colossal waterslides, but out of sand, that's pretty neat. Their living arrangements though... really hard to navigate. I got lost on my way to a Quicksand Satyr's bedroom for making love, and lemme tell you, I do not get lost easily! ...Yeah, yeah, I'm aware of the irony with my alter ego and all.
Tania's Comment: Quicksand Nymphs.
Nymphae Syrtes.
This Variant of Nymph is accustomed to fast travel without teleporting. (Do not mistake this to mean that they do not teleport, they do engage in brewing Teleportation and Recall Potions like any other.) Their crossing roads of quicksand are a huge convenience to themselves and any Nymphs of neighboring biomes, free and efficient forms of travel from one location to another, with only some automated spells cast in certain places to have the sand rise back up. Cascade Nymphs have similar structures, which are also... cleaner, due to working with water rather than mud.
...
Alright, I'll say it.
I personally think the first humans who came up with freeways stumbled upon Quicksand Nymphs and got the idea from them. I'm not accusing them of stealing! Just...
Closing AN:
Come to think of it, I'm kind of surprised that Terraria has no quicksand in it. I love quicksand related-stuff. So I thought, why not make a whole "biome" of it, with its own Nymph variant? I mean fuck it, Granite and Marble are considered their own (mini-)biomes in the game. Speaking of which, Granite Nymphs are coming soon, Marble Nymphs... are going to be one of the last ones.
...My love for quicksand is not in the way Sonata said with the DeviantARTists, just making it clear. If you were expecting to see Tania/Sonata/etc sinking in quicksand, I'm sorry. This should be obvious by this point in the story but I'm not really a fan of fetishizing people in peril in general, it's just not my sort of thing. I like fetishizing people in power and confidence.
FUCK I forgot to actually put this particular joke near the end of Entry 31. And it's a joke that actually involves Terraria mechanics! (You could probably guess what it is.) Well, I have a little sheet of "things to note/remember/ideas for the last stretch of Nymphs" so I could get to that. Another thing I forgot, going to Entry 26 and noting that that marked the point where I finally got a story of mine to dethrone Housestuck Hurrcain Crconikals in being the longest by chapter count. Hallelujah, fuck that abomination. Maybe this will even kill two birds with one stone and dethrone HHC for being the longest by word count. It certainly will if I keep writing bloated ANs with stupid shit in them.
Speaking of ANs bloated with stupid shit: "Fan I fucking loathe The Big Bang Theory and seeing Bazinga Man like that makes me want to shit in your soda he is an unfunny abomination that makes the glorious sex god Hank Rutherford Hill cry will you change your avatar or at least give this a cover image before the Sheldon Grinning picture makes my ass bleed it's also kind of giving the wrong idea of what kind of story this is, the look on his face says 'degenerate' but this is actually one of the most wholesome polygamy-orgy stories about Terraria I've ever read since everything is with consenting adults being friends." I agree with everything in that sentence (I liked Big Bang at first but towards the end yeah... I'm really just ironically "memeing" it), yeah, but the thing is I'm on this dumb thing where I switch around my avatars for every failed Binding of Isaac run, and right now I'm on a bit of a roll with winning, since I'm waiting for The Update to get to the harder characters and hope that they'll be less-hard. (Also, the Seeing Double Challenge. That's complete bullshit. And this is coming from someone who likes "Lost" and beat Hot Potato on his first try.) So all I'm doing are Daily Runs and I've had phenominal luck with them so far.
Don't worry though. Eventually there's gonna be a really bad Lilith run (Lilith annoys me I hate her so I singled her out specifically) with nothing but gimmicky novelty items and Chapter 2 will all be Flooded Caves. And then, you will see Kamina there. He's not perfect (he once tried to sell out his teammates for boobs I mean) but he's an improvement over Mr. Bazinga.
But yeah I really should come up with a nice cover art.