The following weeks passed in a blur. I continued to explore the underground caverns, gathering ore and treasures. I managed to collect two more Life Crystals as well. There was some rock-climbing equipment in one chest, which I held onto.
I finally managed to climbed the east hill, the hill where I accidentally destroyed the wellspring. The top was very steep, back then; I lowered myself down dlowly with ropes.
On the hill's east face, I came upon another cave with another wellspring, crystal clear water streaming down the vines and down the sloping tunnel.
I've mentioned the grass-tunnels between my tower and the east hill before. At some point, I connected them into a single tunnel. I discovered that if someone was in this grass tunnel, I could hear them clearly from my basement.
How many tunnels were there, again? I dug a large network of tunnels below my house in search of ore, leading in countless directions; I can't recall the full layout anymore, but certainly, there were far more tunnels than there needed to be. Many of them served as shortcuts into the caverns.
In the woodland between the grass-cave and the west hill, I dug out a large deposit of clay. I accidentally dug straight down into the tunnels under the west hill. This was an as-of-yet unexplored part of the tunnels, if I recall correctly, and it led into a large grass-cave with tiny streams of water that trickled down through the floor into an undergorund river.
This new grass- cave happened to be directly under the first grass-cave, the one next to my tower. To avoid confusion, I shall refer to the new grass-cave as the underground river cave, and to the first one simply as "the grass-cave."
I started gathering the stars which fell to earth at night. Because the stars seemed to disintegrate with the mists at dawn, I usually kept them in my chest. I put one star in a bottle so that I could observe it closely.
Unfortunately, I was unable to remove the star from the bottle afterwards, and Alfred refused when I offered to sell the star-in-a-bottle to him. "What am I supposed to do with this?" I demanded.
The old man rolled his eyes, as if the answer was obvious. "Figure it out yourself."
On a whim, I decided to hang the bottle from the ceiling like a lantern. The effect was delightful- the lantern effectively lit up the entire room-so I bottled up more stars and replaced all the torches in my tower with the makeshift lanterns.
One morning, while returning from the tundra, I found myself in an unfamiliar forest. There was no sign of the west hill, or the lakes beyond. Confused, I began to explore.
"Hey, you lost?" called a voice.
I turned to see Kyle strolling through the grass. "What're you doing out here?" I asked, frowning.
"Just taking a walk," he said casually. "And you?"
Something was wrong; his voice sounded off, and his posture was unusually relaxed. "So... just how many entrances does the grass-cave have?" I asked.
"Eh? What grass-cave?" he said, glancing around. "Pretty sure there's no grass-caves in the tundra. Why?"
I stared at him. Something was very amiss... then suddenly, I understood. "You're not Kyle!"
"Well, I certainly hope not," said the guide, chuckling. "Pretty sure my name's been Luke since I was born. I'm the guide assigned to Alabaster."
As it turned out, I'd somehow wandered into another world! This information left me flabbergasted. "You probably wound up on this world through the mists of dawn," said Luke thoughtfully.
"The what?"
Another chuckle. "See, there's a mist that drifts through Terraria between all the worlds, sometimes touching them, sometimes even bridging them," he told me. "Usually, the mist only reaches a world's surface around dawn, when humans travel; and at dusk, when monsters travel."
I had to wait until dawn the next morning to get homel. Since I was stuck here, I agreed to build a house for Luke on Alabaster. This was a very simple house, mind you, just a plain wood shack with some basic amenities. I built it near the edge of the tundra.
Just as on Corundia, zombies pounded on the front door, all through the night. I was still very tired when I returned to Corundia the next morning.
This was also around the time that I first started building my floating island. It wasn't originally meant to be a floating island, mind you. It was meant to be a lookout post, just an extremely tall stack of dirt on top of my tower. The lookout post was also made of dirt, perhaps the size of Alfred's little island.
Out of curiosity, I knocked out the bottom of the stack. To my amazement, the dirt did not collapse, but instead remained suspended in midair. The implications were thrilling: perhaps someday, I could build a floating city! Or would that be too much?
The view from the island was beautiful; I could see the desert to the east and the tundra to the west. I tore down the dirt stack below the lookout post, but left a long length rope so that I could expand my floating island in the future.
By the time I saw my first blood moon, I was wearing a full set of lead chainmail, and had enough lead left over to upgrade the basement door.
I was working on my tower's fourth floor at the time, using red bricks made from baked clay. Unlike the floors below it, this floor had two ladders. The idea was to store my chests on this floor.
Overhead, the rising moon took on a dark shade of crimson. I felt a chill; I turned around. Several pairs of purple bunny ears and red eyes stared back at me.
Screeching, the corrupted bunnies sprang at me, their tiny jaws clamping down on my arm. Their teeth were just sharp enough to poke through the armor's links, scratching me; they moved swiftly, but I managed to behead the little terrors.
I heard footsteps outside, saw the floating eyes above. The zombies were coming. "Gee, they're more restless than usual tonight," commented Caitlin as I came rushing downstairs.
She was right- I hadn't heard this many zombies at my door in a while. ""You can tell a Blood Moon is out when the sky turns red," said Kyle grimly, staring out the window. "There is something about it that causes monsters to swarm.""
Kicking the door open, I hacked my way through the crowd of growling zombies, their claws battering at my armor, collapsing in piles of half-rotting body parts. And still they kept coming.
Shouts rose from Alfred's house above me. I raced up the staircase to discover the door wide open. No less than five zombies were inside, with Alfred trapped against the back wall, staring at them with some rmixture of shock and indignance. In his hand
The zombies turned to face me as I entered. Yelling, I ran forward, slashing at them furiously. Were they stronger? Or were there just more of them?
When they were finally down, I looked over Alfred. He was in pretty bad shape: he had scratches on his temple and shoulders, and there were bite marks along his arm. "About time you got here, boy," he snapped at me. "They had me pinned down like a rabbit in a cage!"
I was growing tired, and the night had just begun. Why did he open the door for them? "You're welcome," I muttered under my breath. I looked around for some cloth to bandage "I'll get you to Caitlin. Let's go."
I heard more shouts from the tower. The front door opened as Kyle and Caitlin fled outside, followed by eight or nine zombies, all growling and hungry. Behind them, the back door was wide open.
I was livid. Had they all lost their minds? I felt the zombies pounding at my armor with their superhuman strength. Even with my upgraded defenses, I was still out of breath when I was done with them.
I stared down at Caitlin, who was bandaging Alfred's arm. "What is wrong with you?" I shouted at Caitlin. "Why would you open the door?!"
All three of them flinched; they were understandably shocked. This was the first time I'd lost my temper in front of them. "I didn't let them in!" cried the nurse. "They came through on their own!"
If I'd been more awake, I'd probably have considered this more carefully. "Zombies can't open doors," I told her fiercely. "We're in the middle of the wilderness. You can't just expect visitors at any time of the night-"
"Scheil, leave her alone," said Kyle sharply, grabbing my shoulder. "It's not her fault they got inside." I stared at him, then looked at Caitlin, who looked like she was on the verge of tears... to this day, I don't know what came over me.
More zombies coming. I piled stone in front of the back door and stood guard at the front door, slashing the zombies as they came. It was another sleepless night; my fingers were numb with cold.
The next morning, I surveyed the damage to the village.
On top of Alfred's cabin was a layer of grass-bound dirt with several tree saplings protruding from its surface. I tore down the back wall and fitted it with a back door, so that if need be, he could escape his cabin even if enemies were at the back door.
I extended wooden planks from my tower's east side, so that if I should find myself trapped, I could escape to the roof.. This was not as easy as it sounded. I'd seen how the zombies sprang and leapt. I couldn't make the platforms too low, or they would be able to climb after me.
"Yeah, I suppose you saved me, kid," conceded Alfred, looking over the changes to his cabin. His arm was still heavily bandaged, and there was dried blood encrusted on his beard. "You're still no match for Cthulhu's Eye, though."
I hadn't gotten any sleep in the last 24 hours. And in my mind, it was Caitlin's fault for letting in the zombies, for endangering everyone. She simply had to go. On top of the east hill- the hill with the wellsprings- I built a cabin for Caitlin using the branch wand.
"Now, where'd you get that?" said Kyle, amused. He was pointing at the branch-shaped wand in my hand. "I found it in a giant tree," I said slowly, handing it to him.
He held it up to the light, and his eyes widened. "A Living Tree," he whispered, almost reverently, with a faint hint of suspicion. "But this came from a dryad's home. And none of the Living Trees on Corundia have dryads..."
This was the first time I heard of dryads. Eager to learn more, I told Kyle about the grass cave's connection to other worlds. "The mists of dawn," murmured Kyle. "Then you found this in Alabaster?"
I blinked. Come to think of it, the world where I found the tree might not have been Alabaster at all. "I'm not sure," I admitted as he handed it back to me. "Then you know what this is?"
"It's a living wood wand," said Kyle, still staring at the branch. "It absorbs lumber and transforms it into living wood. It's one of the three wands that dryads craft. They also create leaf wands and dirt rods."
Living wood, I realized, was the smooth, seamless wood that the giant tree had been made of. "Will the dryad be angry that I took it?"
He shook his head. "Dryads make leaf wands and living wood wands specifically as gifts for humans; they already have those powers naturally. Dirt rods, well, they're slightly more reluctant to part with." He patted my shoulder. "You were probably meant to have it."
Kyle watched as I finished Caitlin's cabin. This one was designed differently from the other buildings; the walls themselves were sealed for Caitlin's safety. Instead, the only entrance was through the basement.
"So what happened last night?" I asked finally.
He sighed. "It really wasn't Caitlin who opened the door," said the guide grimly. "That's just the power of the blood moon."
This is what Kyle explained to me, that morning: When the moon turns red, the earth is blocking the sun's light from the moon, allowing the dark forces sealed inside the moom to touch the earth.
"What you must understand is that the blood moon stirs impulses inside the monsters," he said firmly. "This triggers normally defunct parts of their brains- including the part which pertains to mechanical tasks, such as opening doors."
Well, I didn't know how to feel, after hearing that. Should I forgive Caitlin? Should I let her stay in the tower? In the end, I finished the house. I figured that Caitlin would be safer on top of the hill. I had yet to see a zombie climb a rope, after all.
Now came the hard part: getting Caitlin to actually move into the cabin. The basement door was actually above the tunnel, in the passage's ceiling, since the tunnel was diagonal. The idea was that the zombies would be unable to reach the door, even if they found their way into the tunnel.
I had to pile dirt behind her as she moved up the tunnel; she kept looking back at me, frowning, though she never asked what I was doing. After a while, I managed to get her up to the doorway. She hopped up to the front door and went inside, still looking very confused.
"You, stay here," I told her.
"Are you kidding me? It's too dark here," protested the nurse. "And my flag is-"
I ignored her, which was probably a mistake. It never occured to me that she might not realize I wanted her to move into the hilltop cabin. Nor did iit occur to me to move the flag she set up in my tower earlier.
No matter. Caitlin would be safe here. That was one less villager I would have to worry about. Just to be safe, I took out the furniture in my tower's first floor. I wouldn't need it anyway.
I was feeling a bit worn out, so I snuck out through the grass-cave. No mist this time; I emerged on the hill overlooking the lakes. I needed to familiarize myself iwth Corundia, especially if I was going to drift into other worlds in the future.
Wandering through the tundra, I came across a snow-cave. It took me a moment to realize it was the cave where I took shelter after Jack's death; but hadn't that also been the morning that I found the living wood wand? Perhaps there were other bridges between the worlds, other than just the grass-cave.
It had occured to me that the wood in the tundra was different from normal wood; darker, finer, perhaps sturdier. I spent the afternoon converting the cave into a cabin made from compact snow bricks and boreal wood. The wood's sturdiness allowed for more ornately carved funiture.
Satisfied, I hung a torch on the wall- and almost at once, I heard someone knocking on the front door. Zombies, I thought. Sword ready, I answered the front door.
It was Caitlin. "What're you doing here?" I demanded.
"I want to live here, of course," she told me, striding inside. Before I could stop her, she hung her flag on the wall.
Furious, I snatched down the flag from the wall. "You can't live here!" This was supposed to be my retreat house, somwhere I could escape from the others, somewhere that I could find some peace and quiet.
"Well, you kinda kicked me out of the tower, and I need somewhere to live," replied Caitlin gaily, taking her flag back and hanging it up again. "What was I supposed to do, sit and wait in that lonely cabin of yours?" She laughed, as if the very idea of her living in the hilltop cabin was ridiculous.
I continued to argue with her until night fell, but she wouldn't listen. Worn down, I trudged back home through the snow, warding off zombies with my sword.
"If you want someone to move to another house, you have to move their flag," Kyle told me when I talked to him the next morning. "It's a formality in Terraria. Otherwise, we assume you're just taking us to somewhere safe until we can go back home."
I massaged my forehead. "Alfred moved without me asking him to."
"That's because you removed the furniture from his room in the tower," said the guide. He was extremely serious. "That's symbolic of evicting someone from their home."
Irritated, I tore down Kyle's flag from the wall. Amused, the guide followed me up the hill, where I hung his flag up in the hilltop cabin. "This housing is suitable," he said to me cheerfully. "It's quite a walk from the tower, though. You might want to think about that."