I remember racing back to the patio workshop and checking my chests to find my money missing. "Rose," I hissed, gripping my sword tightly.

"What?" replied Rose's voice. I blinked as the green crystal light reappeared by my head. "By the way, if you ever, ah... drop by the desert... watch out for the meteors!"

I was not in the mood to hear her innocent, cheery voice. "Where are you? What's going on?" I shouted at the light, more afraid than angry.

"Hang... hang on!" said Rose, sounding out of breath. "I'll be... right back. Just... just gotta- ow!"

Huh? I heard hissing, crackling sounds, faint at first, then quickly growing louder, coming closer. I heard the whine of magic bolts, bursting on the ground. "Rose? What's going on?" I demanded. "Hey! Answer!"

She gave a high shriek, and the light suddenly vanished. Stunned, I sank to the floor. Rose was dead?

"What's all the fuss, now?" asked Marco as I dropped down to the third floor. Next to him, Morthal was staring at me.

"I'm not sure," I told him worriedly, fetching a pair of winged boots. "Faye said it wasn't Corruption, but..." I stared into the weapon chest. Shuriken, boomerang, or blowpipe?

At that moment, we heard a distant hunting horn, bellowing from across the hills. Morthal dropped his mug with a gasp, and Marco's face went as white as his lightest paints. "What was that?" I asked them, frowning.

Slowly, Marco looked at me. "A goblin army is approaching from the east," he croaked.

I didn't know why Faye looked devastated. I didn't expect anything to happen. "You and Kyle have the easternmost houses, and the goblins are coming from the west," I told the dryad finally. "You'll be safe there."

If the goblins were coming from the west, the ideal position to hold them off was at the west hill, the one overlooking the lakes. At least, that was the plan.

From the top of the west hill, I listened to the horns echoing across the lakes, watching the horizon. "We ought to have a proper arena for invasions," called a voice from behind me.

I whirled around to see Rose trotting up the hill jauntily, looking perfectly healthy. "Rose?" I gasped. She was alive? But how? "But you... that scream-"

"I told you!" she chimed. "We live. We die. We come back. We die again, and come back again. That's how it works in Terraria."

As she spoke, she tossed me my own money pouch. The moment I caught it, I knew it was too light; the gold coins were gone.

With increasing frustration, I looked her in the eye, trying not to scream at her. "Kyle said you were nothing but trouble. And I didn't listen, but-"

At that moment, the goblin horn filled the air once again, heavy and proclamatory. Heart pounding, I turned to stare at the rumbling crowd in the distance, clad in gray rags and crude chainmail.

A goblin army had arrived.

One after another, the goblins came marching up toward the hill with startling speed, grunting and stamping their feet, surrounding us in seconds. They leapt at us with delighted screeches, shoving us back and forth.

Heavy blows to my shoulder, to my thigh, to my joints and back. My blade seemed to barely scratch their hides, but their fists made me stagger; and for each one I managed to cut down, two more appeared.

My armor couldn't completely deflect their blows. In the chaos, I managed to drink down a red potion before spiked fists smashed into me from behind.

More slashing. More whirling. Too quickly, whatever strength that the potion gave me was worn away. But the moment I raised another red potion to my lips, a wave of nausea came over me.

I doubled over, fists and arrows and dark fire striking me from every direction. Every part of my body hurt, both sharp pain and dull, throbbing and burning. And then-

I didn't black out this time.

I fell back, out from my body; that's what it felt like. Horrified, I saw my body shredded to bits by the goblins. I stared as my armor and sword hit the ground and disintegrated, the hordes shouting and cheering.

And yet- If I was dead, why was I still in such agony? Why could I still feel the hilt of my sword, if the fingers that gripped it so tightly were gone, if my sword had fallen apart?

Overhead, I noticed a white blur descending upon me. As it drew closer, I recognized the familiar ghostly figure. He dove toward me, taking me by the wrist...

My surroundings blurred, shifted; I caught a glimpse of Faye, and the pain began to subside. Suddenly, the ghostly figure was gone- and I was in the grass-cave again, gasping and shivering.

"Hurry, boy," shouted Alfred from the stairs under his house, gripping the rails tightly. "Don't let the little terrors get inside the village!"

The realization struck me like a hammer. Gasping, I pressed my hand to my cheek, running my fingers along my blade. I had seen my own body torn apart, my armor and sword turned to dust; but no, my body was whole, raw but alive. How?

What was I?

Scrambling to my feet, I rushed out the west entrance to rejoin the battle. Goblins came marching out from the mines, climbing up the clay-tunnels from the underground river cavern. My blade could only keep them back so far.

Violet fireballs and arrows flew from overhead. Alarmed, I glanced up to see more goblins atop the grass-cave hill, robed mages and archers with green bandanas, warriors and peons leaping down toward me. How? How had they gotten past us?

I heard a scream, and glanced back as Rose crumpled to the ground, a pile of bloody robes, more goblin cheers. "Rose!" I shouted, rushing forward.

A cold gust of wind swept past me as the ghostly figure leapt toward Rose's body, drawing out a white blur that I only caught a glimpse of before the goblins rounded upon me.

Forced back by sheer numbers, I was driven back into the grass-cave, toward the village. I tried to hold them back, tried to fight for every inch. Then came more shrieks from beyond my tower, and my heart sank.

It was too late. The goblins had already broken through the hedges and into the village, smashing down doors, dragging villagers from their homes, setting rooftops ablaze.

In the grass-cave, the ghost figure reappeared, standing above an unconscious-but-alive Rose. "Wait!" I shouted at him. "Who are you?"

Goblins behind me, goblins ahead of me; I was trapped between the grass-cave and my tower, pressed up against the hedges. Silently, the ghost looked at me, and vanished.

Fireballs and arrows flew from my tower, from the burning rooftops and the bridges. "Damn you!" shouted Alfred, his wrists bound as a goblin shoved him toward the stairs. "Red One's wrath upon you all!"

Panicking, I scrambled up the stairs as the goblin put his boot on the old man's back. "You freaks! You think that any you matter?" spat the merchant as three warriors surrounded him, fists raised.

With a furious cry, I cut down the goblin on top of Alfred, severing his bonds. "Run!" I urged him as the other goblins rounded upon me.

But as the warriors bludgeoned me with their fists, I saw a mage appear out of the corner of my eye. The old man's eyes widened as a dark fireball flew from the robed goblin's hands, blasting him off his feet.

"No!"

This was the end, I thought numbly as the goblin hordes drove me back, down the bridges, back to my tower. Briefly, I saw Rose skipping out the grass-cave's west exit, jets of light flying from her staff.

From the tower, I had a clear view of my ravaged village, the hedge-walls pitted and broken, burning timbers collapsing.

At the base of the tower, goblin peons shoved Dante and Marco from their homes, gathering them outside the condo. Behind them, a goblin archer was eagerly examining one of Dante's firearms, one with a stock shaped like a tiny shark.

I scrambled down the tower; but before I had made it halfway down,rr the goblin opened fire with a wild grin, an uproar of deafening bullets that shredded the two villagers apart before my eyes. I screamed.

Goblins poured out from the grass-tunnels under Ahirom's house, up from the tunnels in my basement, from the wellspring hill. Though growing weak again, I stumbled toward the dye tradef's house.

Standing in the doorway, Ahirom watched the goblins swarkingvaround him indignantly. "Outlandish," he scolded them, holding up a fistful of torn silk. "Wretched, wretched barbarians! Begone!"

Somehow, I managed to take down the goblins around him before they could fill him with arrows. Ahirom spun to face me with eyes like fire. "Scheil!" he hissed, shaking the shredded silk at me. "Don't let them get away with this!"

As Ahirom fled toward the tower, I heard Faye scream from her hut. Past the ruined gallows, the dryad was surrounded by goblins, all punching and kicking her ruthlessly, sap trickling down her skin like blood.

One after another, I somehow managed to cut then down, before sinking to my knees next to Faye. "This can't be real," I moaned weakly, staring as the gallows collapsed on top of Ahirom's house. "After all I've worked for... all I've fought to build..."

"Scheil!" shouted Kyle as the goblins marched him down the hill, forcing to his knees. I stared at him blankly, unable to believe what I was seeing. Then, scrambling up onto Faye's house, I hurried toward him, but the other goblins were behind me, dragging me back, pulling me down. "Kyle!" I shouted.

He looked back at me sadly. "I'm sorry I couldn't last very long," said the guide, shaking his head as archers aimed at his head. "Don't forget what I've told you! Don't live recklessly like Rose, plunging into hell without a second thought Take your time, smell the flowers... And you've got it made!"

Once again, just inches too late. Once again, dragged down by the swarm. My blood went cold as the arrows sank into the guide's back, and Kyle collapsed to the ground, dead.

Thr goblins converged on me now, firing from every bridge, every rooftop, every nook and cranny of the village. I tried to fight them, tried to fend then off, but I was no match for them, just one sword against a dozen war-forged faces.

Spiked balls smashed into my skull with blinding pain, and I sank to my knees again, my vision swimming. It's over, I though silently. Corundia was over. My village was gone. Whatever friends I'd made, gone. Any dreams of power or glory... gone.

I shuddered as I suddenly felt the ghostly figure's hand on my shoulder, dragging me from another corpse, back to the grass-cave. Wait, I wanted to scream at him. But my body was trapped in that split second of agony before death.

He didn't come when Jack died, didn't come for Alfred or Kyle or the others. Only for me... and for Rose. Why? Why would he save us, and not them?

The pain vanished, my body somehow reforming itself, my skull intact. Like some wretched dog, I crawled out from the grass-cave to be killed again and again, never granted the peace of death.

It was sunset when the last goblin fell, a moonless night. On top of the tower, Ahirom, Faye, and I stared into the bonfire, the bodies of the fallen laying nearby.

Down in the first floor, Caitlin was tending to Morthal. Old grudges had to be put aside. I'd called Caitlin back to take care of the other villagers. Faye and Ahirom had survived with minor injuries. Morthal wasn't so lucky.

The village was in ruins. Smashed doors and broken timbers, tattered hedges and wrecked bridges. Faye and Ahirom, the two lone survivors, had both seen their homes reduced to ash. Had my tower not been built from a tiny grass-cave, all those months ago, it too would have collapsed.

An exhausted Caitlin came up the rope ladder. Though she had been spared from the goblins, she shared our despair in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she told us sadly, lowering her head. "He's gone."

Dante, Marco, Morthal, Alfred, and Kyle. I stared into the fire, ashamed and disgusted. How? How had it all fallen apart so quickly? "You weren't ready for this," murmured Faye, resting a hand on my shoulder. "You should not have had to deal with them so soon..."

I closed my eyes. "Why? Why did they come...?"

Faye looked sorrowfully at Kyle's face, cupping the slain guide's chin gently. "The light of Life Crystals casts a glint across worlds," she said finally. "If one had just five crystals, resonating with their soul... That would be enough to draw attention from the goblin worlds."

I stared at her, confused. "But I've only found three Life Crystsls," I said faintly. "What does this mean?"

The dryad looked at me silently, deeply, unnervingly-as if telling me that I already knew the answer. Slowly, I took a step back-then turned and dropped down the rope ladder. Yes... I knew who had brought the goblins to Corundia...

I found her on top of the grass-cave hill, between the trees that Alfred used to walk. "This is your fault," I accused Rose, pointing at her. "You drew them here! They're dead because of you. And here we're still standing somehow, but they never got more than a single chance!"

Rose tilted her head slightly. "Me? I didn't ask the goblins to come," she said innocently. "All I did was smash a dead god's heart!" She laughed softly at her own joke-a joke I wouldn't understand for some time. "And if that should light a beacon that faraway worlds can see, I can hardly help it, can I?"

I stared at Rose, but all I could think of how she skipped out the grass-cave to meet fresh goblin reinforcements, leaving the village unprotected. "Go," I said hoarsely, raising my sword. "Leave Corundia, and never come back."

"After all I've done for you?" she replied with a jauntiness that didn't match her words. "After all the treasures I've excavated, treasures you most certainly would never find?"

She'd treated me like a kid. A kid who didn't quite understand how to survive. That's what it'd felt like. "I didn't ask for your help!" I snapped angrily, my blood throbbing. "I didn't ask you to put up fences and rope everywhere, to take my savings-"

She nodded. "Very well," said Rose coolly, stepping away with a taunting smile. "Well, if you insist on having such ugly, boring houses and keeping such dull chumps alive, I suppose you're incurable."

Furious, I lunged at her; but immediately, she leapt over the hill's edge, swiftly opening her umbrella and floating down to the ground. "Give my love to the spectres, okay?" she called back with a giggle, before skipping over the hills and out of sight.