"Come on man, back into it!" Dustin refused to give Red an inch, his overbearing voice tearing through any attempt at a moment of peace. "Like this!"
With another exaggerated motion he drew the tiny sword behind him and thrust it forward to strike an imaginary enemy - imaginary, primarily because his trainee was no longer there. Red fell backward and leaned down against the makeshift house's walls, sweating and panting from exhaustion. The copper sword (more like a knife, he had snapped to Dustin) clattered to the ground almost as weakly as its wielder.
Dustin halted in his motions, looking over at his charge with narrowed eyes. "You're not gonna get anything done from down there."
"Yeah, good," Red seethed, pressing himself harder against the dirt as if in defiance. "I need a moment, I've been on my feet all day! Haven't gotten a minute of rest for hours,"
"Hey, you need to be good with a weapon if you want to get anywhere around here. You could probably eke out survival from the dirt if you're hard enough, but that's tough, and if you want to achieve anything more than hiding in a pitch-black log house you're gonna need to be guttin' things." Dustin relaxed slightly despite his words and let the sword in his hand lower.
Red wasn't quite sure why, but that thought unsettled him. As sure as he'd been earlier that monsters were never part of his life, he was even more sure that killing was a process he'd never been through.
"Alright, just, ah... cop a quick break, I guess. Suppose we've still got some time, but we need to get a light goin' soon..." Dustin looked up at the sky distractedly. It was well past noon, but the sun was not near ready to set.
"How come I need to learn a sword so fast if I'm going to be spending the night in a house? Isn't it safe in there?" Red huffed as he regained his breath.
"Huh? Oh, nah, it's good. Safe as houses in there, heh." The familiar grin returned with a vengeance. "We need a light in there, though. A good one that won't burn out in the night, or worse, burn the place down. You aren't gonna scab that off the ground - you're gonna have to take it off of something else, and that's what the sword's for. Lends some persuasion powers to you when you ask,"
"I don't think I want to have to fight anyone -"
"You won't be fighting anyone," Dustin cut him off. "Not under ideal circumstances, anyway. They'd probably mop the floor with you at this point, you know. And even then, if you can work together why waste effort on stabbing each other, huh? No, at this point you'll be after less of 'someone' and more of 'somethings'. Most of them aren't even technically alive, anyway."
"What are they, then?" Red's curiousity burned despite his reluctance on the topic.
"Well, they're... things. Like I say. Anything from the slimes you've seen around to the walkin', stalkin' -"
"Slimes? I haven't seen anything like that," Dustin was cut off as Red spoke up.
"Haven't you?" Dustin said in a surprised tone. "Huh. Well, you'll know 'em when you see 'em. They're big blobs of... well, slime. Hence the name. Tons of colours - green, blue, red, yellow, black, pink. In a rough order of toughness, that is. Green ones are generally pretty stupid, passive unless provoked. Pick on the green or blue ones as you see 'em, avoid the rest unless you're feeling cocky or you've decided you've had enough of life."
"Right," Red seemed a smidge more confident. "So why do I want to... uh, pick on them?"
"Like I said, valuable things they've got. Slime gel's combustible, but doesn't burn out real quick - easy, controllable light source, for example. There's all kinds of good things out there, and so you beat up whatever has 'em and take 'em yourself. Don't worry, there'll pretty much always be more. Terraria's a relatively small place, but there's always more."
"So are there any of these things would I have to watch out for?" Red asked.
"Up here, and in the daylight, pretty much only blue slimes will actually properly have a go at you, but they're slow and you'd be quick enough on your feet to get around or away if you don't feel up to the fight. In the night time, or down underground, whoo boy. Whole other story there."
Red's interest was solely on Dustin now, as he seemed intent on giving up the goods he'd been refusing to say earlier.
"I reckon it's a whole other story for a whole other time, though. A whole other time when -"
"Hey, no, wait," Red interjected again. "If we've got the shelter, we're safe right? That's what you said. So we've got time for you to give me those 'whys of Terraria' you were saying about earlier. I need something to go on here, I've got nothing so far except what you're telling me."
"Not quite, bud. We do still need something else, which is why I'm bringin' you up to speed with the sword. You need to go out, smite one of those slimes and bring some of it back." Red's face fell, but Dustin continued regardless. "It's for a good reason, don't worry. I was sayin' earlier about slime gel being combustible, but controllable? - Yeah, we need a light source in the shelter or we're gonna have no end of trouble from the things that creep in the night. Hard to see in the dark for us, you know? And they hate the light as much as we hate the dark. Shouldn't have to go far, and it's an easy mark - just find one of the green ones, stick your sword in it a few times, and come back with some gel in your pouch."
"Can't you do that if you're this good with a sword?" Red's tone was a mix between pleading and accusing.
"I'm good at teaching with a sword," Dustin corrected him with a small smile. "Hell, I'm good at teaching with just about anything. Actually doing with the same anything? You'd do better to count on one of the rabbits around here. Nope - you fetch it, I show you how to work it."
"If it's that easy though, you could do it, right?"
"You wish, man. Me too, sometimes." He gave a sad shake of his head. "Bring us back a bit of a slime, and I'll hook you up with some learnings, eh? Think of this as a learning experience, anyhoo - you're gonna need to be stickin' things that will actually fight back sooner or later, so you may as well get some practice in with crap that's easy to boss around."
"Right," Red muttered under his breath. "Don't think so."
"Come on man, it's easy peasy. Just get your sword out, walk up to one, and stab it like I showed - hey look, there's one now!" Dustin pointed excitedly off to Red's left, and he clambered up, swinging his head around to look.
The slime sat at the edge of the clearing, quivering slowly. Even Red had to admit, it didn't look very exciting. It was just a great lump of green... slime. Red eyed it cautiously, his eyes flicking down to see where his sword was. An idle part of his mind wondered where it had come from - there was no great trail of goop preceding it, like he would expect of a snail - how did he even remember what a snail was?
"Don't be scared," Dustin's voice almost made him jump. His Guide had retreated to the other end of the clearing, but judging by his face it was not an action of fear. "Really, all it can do is jump around. Grab your sword up, wait for it to jump, then shank it when it lands. It'll take some time before it can jump again, so that's your chance."
"W-what's it doing now, then?" Red asked as he reached down slowly for his sword, still keeping his eyes firmly on the slime. It was quivering much faster, and almost hunkering itself down to the ground.
Just as Red's fingers closed around the sword, the slime made its dramatic movement, leaping with enough force to reach as high as his head. Red fell backward with a yell, swinging the sword in front of him wildly.
To his surprise, the slime did not appear to be aiming for him with its leap - as he stepped back and took stock of Dustin's position, he noted it didn't seem to be aiming itself at him either. It landed several feet away from its initial position and settled there again, simply sitting as a great lump of green goop on the ground. The only thing in its path he could see was the opposite end of the clearing.
"It's jumping," Dustin commented helpfully. "They do that every so often. Like I said, the green ones aren't really capable of doing anything except that. It probably doesn't even know we're here."
"So it's not going to try and kill me?" Red asked as he edged toward it carefully.
"Well, it's not going to try. If you shove your face in it though, it'll probably hurt a bit." Dustin grinned behind him. "Try the sword instead. Stick the sword in it and see how you go."
"I should wait for it to jump again, you said...?"
"Mmm-hm."
"Will it even turn around?" Red stopped several paces away from the slime, which had again started rapidly quivering, readying itself to jump.
"Doubt it. Like I said, they're not self-aware. To any degree. At all. They don't even realize when they're being stabbed."
Again the thing leapt, and again its trajectory planted it several feet away from either possible targets. Spotting his window of opportunity and emboldened by the Guide's words, he dove forward and jammed the sword into the closest available part of the slime.
The sword pierced it as though piercing a bubble, and the response was immediate. What he could only call the slime's 'skin' ruptured, and it fell inanimate, nothing more than a green pile of goop slowly seeping into the ground.
Red still held his sword where the slime had been only seconds ago, breathing heavily and slightly confused.
"That's it! Well done. Easy peasy, didn't I tell you?" The Guide put on a warm smile and clapped his hands as he ambled slowly to Red's side.
"Yeah," he agreed dazedly. "What just happened?"
"Well, you broke it. That's what you were aiming to do, right?"
"I guess..."
"Then job well done!" He clapped again, grin widening. "And there's the gel, like I was talking about. Grab a stick or something and just dip it in. You can gather the rest up and drop it in your pouch, it shouldn't stick to it. Or your hands either, if you're worried about that."
Dustin looked up at the sun's position. The sun was going down now, but it wouldn't be true night-time yet for at least several hours.
"You sure you don't want to go out and grab up some more, or something? Still got an hour or two to burn, bud."
"No way - uh, no, sorry. No thanks. I think this will do for one day," Red said quietly, dipping a long-ish stick into the slime's remains. "Let's just get this light going."
"...You're the boss," Dustin agreed after a moment.