Goblin war-horns bellowed from the east.
Though I hadn't realized it, I now had five Life Crystals: Three from before Rose came, one from Alabaster, and one from Minaria. Unwittingly, I had triggered my own misfortune.
Once again, they came upon my village, kicking down doors and setting rooftops ablaze. Once again, they dragged the villagers from their homes. And this time, I didn't have Rose to help me.
And yet, did they know that they faced only one defender? Though their ranks seemed infinite, this was not as devastating as the first attack, and-though I was struck down again and again- they eventually drew back. As for the casualties...
"Caitlin," said Faye urgently as the nurse fumbled with Reginald's bandages. We were in the arms dealer's house; Reginald was sitting on his toilet with the lid down. "You must tend to yourself first."
Caitlin's face was growing pale, her movements becoming sluggish; but still, she swabbed Reginald's wounds and covered them with ointment. "It's fine, baby," the arms dealer assured her; his eyes still looked strong. "You gotta rest, too. You look in worse shape than me."
The nurse shook her head. "No," she croaked as she pressed an ice pack to Ovbere's shoulder. "I... have to keep going." Her uniform was ripped in multiple places, and her body was heavily bruised, but she kept working.
In Reginald's bathtub lay Ahirom, covered in horrific burns, one arm coated with his blood. "I'm sorry," I whispered helplessly. "This... They came for me."
Feebly, Ahriom curled his bloody fingers around my wrist. tugging me toward him. "Corundia stands no chance," he croaked. "The goblin nations... have declared war on us..."
His eyes closed. With a soft, despairing cry, Caitlin sank back against the wall, shaking her head. "Caitlin!" gasped Reginald, reaching out to the nurse. "Are you all right?"
Faye and I stared as Caitlin lay down on the cold floor, her movements weakening. "I... I just need to rest," she whispered, closing her eyes. "Only just... but could never..."
I felt a cold chill. Behind Faye stood the ghost-figure, watching sorrowfully as Reginald sank to his knees before Caitlin. "Come back!" I shouted at the ghost-figure as he started to walk away. "Don't leave them to die! "
By night, both Caitlin and Ahirom had passed away. As with the others, their ashes were poured into the underground river beneath the grass-cave. And we all stood in silence.
In Alabaster, I discovered veins of platinum. Taking the ore back to Corundia, I crafted a platinum pickaxe—one that, hopefully, I wouldn't misplace.
"That should be able to mine out meteorite," Bradley told me when I showed my new pickaxe to him. "Meteorite will help. Just remember that the meteorite is still very hot."
With Corundia now visible to the goblin nations, completing the floating island became my top priority. Though the books told me of the Sky Islands suspended on beds of clouds, I had yet to see them for myself.
Wood, fire, gems and glass; with Bradley's help, I crafted sapphire gemspark blocks and placed them on my floating island, casing them with platinum bricks.
But this was where I faced a conundrum. There were only four rooms on the island, but seven villagers: Bradley, Frederick, Ovbere, Reginald, Faye, Fantasy, and Guido. How would they all fit?
Actually, one of the rooms would have been a bathroom, but Reginald immediately claimed it as his room. "You never know when you've gotta go," he rattled off before slamming the door shut. We tried not to mention Caitlin around him.
Eventually, Ovbere decided to move in with Guido at the snow-tower, while Bradley and Faye volunteered to stay on the ground. This left Frederick and Fantasy to move into the island.
There was just one problem: With so little human prescence, the zombies began to roam the village freely again, just as they had after the first goblin attack. After a while, Frederick and Ovbere returned to the village.
By day, I explored the tunnels. By night, I studied the books, determined to learn more about Terraria and its perils. "When dawn approaches, Skeletron unleashes the full might of his power so that he can flee before the morning sun touches him," read one passage. Perhaps I'd been lucky.
In the caverns, I came upon a chain-knife, but found that the blade was far duller than my sword. Disappointed, I stored it away—just in case I ever might need it.
My dreams were confusing and distorted. Sometimes I would check my chests to find them all empty. Other times, the world would look flat and blocky. Flowers would vanish into pink glowing light; the ground under my feet would become thick and muddy before turning to sand.
I had a series of dreams about my sister. Frosti's two-room cabin had expanded into six underground apartments since I'd last seen it. The ghost-figure wasn't there this time; instead, I saw the man in purple armor offering his advice.
"Blood moons? No, I haven't found any Life Crystals yet," said my sister, lying on the floor and staring up at the ceiling. "Really, I have no clue what I'm supposed to do. Everywhere I go, I end up dying."
The man in purple armor leaned against the wall and sighed. "You need better armor, Fro," he said, looking at a red brick in his hand. "Preferably gold, but silver will do."
Frosti rolled her eyes and sat up. "Yeah, I've looked everywhere," she muttered, staring at a clump of snow in her hand. "I barely found enough iron for this stupid bucket." She tapped the bucket on her head.
He gave her a look. "You have to go underground, you dork. Deeper than before. Down to the cavern layer."
Disgust flashed on her face. "Down there? Are you out of your mind, Peggy?" my sister snapped. "I won't last a minute down there."
She rubbed her eyes and yawned; Frosti didn't look well-rested, I suddenly noticed. "I need a proper bed," she muttered. "Can't sleep on a hard wood floor anymore."
The man nodded. "Well, to build a bed, you'll need cobwebs," he said, grinning. "And cobwebs can usually be found underground, in the cavern layer."
Sighing, she got up, hefting her pickaxe over one shoulder. "I don't think I'm strong enough, though?" said my sister pointedly, glancing back to the man. "Everything tries to kill me down there."
"Well, to get stronger, you'll need Life Crystals," replied the man with growing exasperation. "To get Life Crystals, you'll need to... you know... go underground. To the cavern layer."
Out in the desert, I came upon a pyramid- or rather, a pit in the sand where a great pyramid lay buried under the desert. The top blocks had been torn out, exposing a dark room with sloping sandstone walls. "Rose," I swore under my breath. The treasure rooms were empty.
I continued to the meteor's crater. The desert had many steep hills and valleys; I bridged over the steepest drops with cactus for now.
Once again, the meteor heads emerged from the shadows, glowing with a fire from beyond the sky. With pickaxe in hand, I hacked away at the glowing brown mineral, gathering the fallen chunks in a cactus sack. The air reeked of blood and metal, reminiscient of blood moons.
It took three trips to fully mine out the meteorite; by the time I was done, the meteor heads were gone. Storing the meteor chunks away, I headed to the Crimson's edge, staring out over the bloody landscape.
I wouldn't let the Crimson terrify me anymore. This was my world.
Face monsters lumbered over the blood-speckled sand as crimeras circled me overhead. I swung my blade, slicing into their blood-swollen flesh. The sky was covered by a rust-colored haze, darkening the sun.
Thick, bulbous cacti dotted the crimson desert, covered with clumps of bone-white spines. When I cut one down, watery red trickles ran down my axe blade as the cactus chunks shrank back to normal, regaining their green hue, bushy spines shriveling back to slender needles.
On the far side of a red lake, I saw a formation of exposed crimstone, glistening red like oozing flesh with white tips. It was like a swollen boil on the land, surrounded by a rash of crimson grass.
Growling crimeras descended upon me. Running forward, I leapt into the bloody water, the face monsters blundering after me with their stretched, gaping mouths.
I was halfway across when a spider with short, hairy legs and bloated blood-sacs hopped down from the crimstone formation, skittering along the lake's bottom. Panic set in. Thrashing in the water, I slashed at the blood-crawler frantically as the face monsters advanced from behind.
A plume of horror and nausea rose within me as the blood-crawler's mandibles scraped at my chainmail, its bristled legs clamping aorund me. Frantically, I hit its multi-eyed head repatedly with my sword's pommel until it released me.
As the blood-crawler's body sank to the bottom, I crawled up onto the shore, shuddering. Staring up at the crimstone formation, I saw the mouth of a spacious cavern, stalactites and stalagmites hidden on the edges like the teeth of a waiting predator.
Inside, I could see, a trail of torches illuminated a crimstone passage that led down into the bloody earth, walls of dark red and congealed black. The Crimson's bloody scent billowed up from the tunnel in overwhelming waves, fresh mingled with stagnant, my head throbbing.
The torches... Rose must have placed them. This headache was familiar; it was like the mysterious chill I'd felt just before the goblin attack, but more subtle. Whatever Rose had done back then, the explanation lay below.
Though my heart was pounding furiously, I entered the crimstone cave and descended the long tunnel, tendril-wrapped stone formations like bone and sinew. The tunnel wove back and forth; I passes many pulsing slabs of flesh like altars.
Then, the floor dropped away sharply, and the tunnel opened into the roof of a massive cavern.
How can I describe its size? It was monstrously huge; my tower and the houses up to Faye's could have fit in here. It was far larger than any csvern I'd ever seen, a gaping cavity in the earth that dwarfed the chasms of the corruption.
The bloody stench was overwhelming, nauseating. I could see more blood-crawlers skittering on the walls, more growling drifting about the cavern. I could feel a sinister prescence from the depths...
As if it, too, could sense me, the entire cavern shuddered. Clicking, turning, blood-crawlers and crimeras swarmed me with ravenous eyes.
I turned to flee, but the crimstone was slick under my boots. My footing slipped, and, I tumbled down from the precipice to the jagged floor.
I hit the floor with an burst of agony, bone separating from bone, flesh crushed beneath flesh. I saw crimson waterfalls and altars of flesh, jars of congealed blood, ventricles branching off from the cave in every direction.
Thump. Thump. Thump-thump-thump. I could feel the ominous throb of alien heartbeats, echoing from the numerous passageways. One after another, the denziens of the Crimson dropped to the floor around me.
A few feet away stood a golden chest. Gasping, I raised a bloody glove toward the chest, tried to crawl toward it; but pain shot from my legs to my ribcage, and I collapsed to the ground, my sight blurring.
Overhead, the ghost-figure descended upon me. "I warned you," he chided as I sank into unconsciousness. "I warned you...!"
Chills penetrated my bones like cold steel needles where my bones had broken-a lingering reminder of my body's fragility. My throat was parched, my head heavy.
Faye wasn't perfect. Reviving me had taken a toll on her. It took a day for both of us to recuperate.
When ready, I descended into the tunnel under the wellspring hill. The caves were spacious, but barren. Skeletons, bats, wriggling slimes; all swarmed me and fell at my feet.
From the remains of animated skeletons, I extracted a sword of solid bone. Though heavier than the platinum sword, it was considerably sharper.
I soon came upon another mushroom cavern. I stood above an old cabin overlooking a lake with glowing blue banks, mud woven with mushroom grass, tall tree-like stalks looming high into the air.
The cabin was ruined. Its walls were smashed in, the door almost off its hinges. Inside, a chandelier lay shattered on the floor next to a chest with the lid torn off.
Something was wrong. The wreckage looked too recent, too new. Holding up a torch, I stared around the cabin. On the walls, there was a large square gap in the dust.
In the center of the room, I saw a gold-plated chest-but it was empty. On the floor, I found a fence-post with a short length of rope tied around it.
I stared around the cabin. Alfred's words echoed in my ears: "Do you really want to be left with a scarred, empty world? To have nothing left to search for but empty chests?"
Just how much of Corundia had Rose explored? There were countless wonders in my chests, wonders pillaged from places I'd never seen. How many treasures had she taken? And was there anything left for me to find?