Journey to the Moon Lord

by Reddiviz

After the Cult of the Moon Lord built an impenetrable dungeon to work out their plans, Terraria grew desperate, but luckily, an individual who seemed to know too much volunteered to help, guiding the brand new Terrarians to eventually kill the Moon Lord.

3. Chapter 1 - Pre-boss

Strategist's POV

I... I...

...

...Where am I?

All I see is... Nothing... I can't see anything... It's like I'm in complete darkness.

I don't even know who I am, I tried searching for memories but it's like I just started existing now.

There is something about me that I am absolutely certain about despite not knowing who I am, it's a goal or objective of sorts:

Complete the journey.

Despite my certainty in this objective, I have no idea what this means, why is the one thing I know about myself so vague?

Another thing that puzzles me is how I know all of this, despite seeming to only exist for a few minutes, I have a lot more knowledge than a baby, why do I even know what a baby is? I have never seen one!

This line of thought ended when I was suddenly able to feel my body, I forgot I was even supposed to have one, it feels like I'm lying on grass, but I'm not able to move yet.

For a few moments, nothing happens, until suddenly I feel pain go from my head to the rest of my body, and after the pain ends, I am able to move.

I open my eyes, the first thing I see is the sky, I look around me, it appears I am on a grassy field.

There are 3 other people beside me, they look confused, trying to get up like me, are they in the same situation as me?

To my right is a large bulky man, with dark hair and orange eyes, he's wearing a plain black T-shirt, jean pants, and black shoes.

To my left, there is a woman, with blonde hair in a ponytail and magenta eyes, she's wearing a black shirt with a plain blue star on it, baggy jeans, and sports shoes.

To the blonde's left, there is a short slim woman, with short black hair and cyan eyes, wearing a slightly oversized white T-shirt with a light-blue heart on it, black sweatpants, and grey sneakers, she also had big round glasses with a yellow frame.

As I was analyzing the last girl, I realize she was looking directly at me, it appears we were all analyzing one another.

But before any of us could get up, we hear something walking towards us, it was a man, with a faded-out green shirt, blue pants, brown shoes, and ginger hair.

Before any of us could say anything, he starts talking to us.

"Greetings, my name is Andrew Ferlock, but you may simply call me the guide." He said, with a confident smile on his face "Now, would you be so kind as to tell me your names?"

This would have been an easy question had he asked anyone else, but since I don't know anything about myself, this was not a question I could answer, and judging from the silence, the other ones did not have a name as well.

"Hm? No names? Well then, I'll give you names myself." He said, walking towards the bulky guy.

"Your name shall be Melwyn." He says as he helps the now-named Melwyn get up.

He then walks over to me "Your name shall be Ryan." He says as he grabs my hand and helps me get up.

He walks toward the blond girl "Yours will be Magnolia." He says, helping her stand up

Then finally, he goes to the girl with glasses "And you will be called, hmm, Ashley." He says, helping her get up, Ashley smiles, seemingly happy about her name.

The guide walks back to where he was when he found us, then looks at us before saying "Alright, now that we got that sorted, I think you guys should me tell what your special abilities are, if you have any."

I look at him with a confused face, special abilities? What is he talking about? I look at the others, yep, they are just as confused as me.

The guide's confident smile shrinks a bit, seeming slightly less confident "Features that differ you from normal people?"

"We... we are different from others?" I say, how strange, I haven't said anything until now.

The guide looks puzzled "Do you even know what this place is called?" We shake our heads, no I have no idea where I am.

"Hm, well then, stay here, learn more about each other, I'll be back soon." he says with a concerned face before walking just far enough to the point where we can't hear him.

"So... Just to be sure, no one here knows what is happening right?" Magnolia says, we shake our heads "Yeah, I figured so." she says.

"He said something about special abilities, do you guys know what that could mean?" Ashley says quietly.

"What if it's the objective thing? It's the only thing I know about myself and it doesn't seem normal." says Melwyn.

"So you have that thing too... It is a weird thing, but it doesn't seem like an ability to me." Says the blonde.

"Are our objectives different?" I ask, Magnolia looks at me and says "I don't know, what's your objective?" My objective reverberates in my head again, complete the journey.

"It is quite vague, I don't really know what it means yet, but it is something like 'complete the journey' it's still a mystery to me." I say "Huh, that is vague." Magnolia says, a bit surprised, but the other two seem even more surprised by this.

"That is so much tamer than mine!" Ashley says, this puzzles me, are our objectives really that different? "Mine is... um... please don't judge me, but it is to 'control the mightiest army the lands have ever seen.'"

What.

Is she serious? Is this a joke? How is this short little girl supposed to control an entire army? much less the mightiest one!

"Seems we both have absurd objectives, mine is to 'wield the most powerful weapon of all' no idea where I'd get that" said Melwyn.

He too? Why is my objective so vague and theirs so violent? Who, if anyone, orchestrated this?

"Huh, guess I'll consider myself lucky, my objective isn't as violent as those and is also way less vague, though I'd say it's weirder and I don't even know where I would start with it." Says Magnolia

"Well, what is it?" I ask.

"Uh, well... it is to 'master magic to its fullest potential'" she answers.

"MAGIC?!" I say in unison with the other two.

"Magic can't exist! It's just a fantasy thing! from myths!" I yell.

"I thought that too, but I figured that since I was in such a weird situation, it had to be true." She replied.

"Well, but... I... It..." I'm speechless, I still think magic shouldn't exist, but the little evidence we have points in the other direction.

I then hear the guide walking towards us, diverting our attention "Well, I think I figured it out." The guide says.

A few moments earlier:

Guide's POV

...They shake their heads, proving that they didn't know anything about the world they were born in.

"Hm, well then, stay here, learn more about each other, I'll be back soon." I say, I walk until I'm at a distance where they can not hear me.

"Miss Terraria." I say.

"Yes, I know, I was watching." says the goddess, using the wind to imitate speech.

"Of course you were, now, did you not give them common knowledge?" I asked "Yes, of course I did, the same common knowledge I gave to every single creature I made."

"The very same?" I asked.

"The very same." She said.

I thought about it for a moment, and then it clicked "Miss Terraria, do you know the legends of the first humans?"

"Why yes, you humans have countless, a lot of them are fabricated though." she recounts "Yes, there is one of them that I am sure is real though." I retort.

"A tale that tells of the first humans that were born unto the world, confused about the mysterious, unexplainable parts of it, but being able to understand it with the guidance of the goddess." I say, it is a very well-preserved tale.

"Yes, that tale is true, however, the reason I had to teach them was because as I introduced more creatures to the world, more magic started filling the air, allowing magical phenomenons to happen, since they were introduced almost at the same time as environmental magic, they couldn't have known it through my common knowledge." She answered.

"Well, you see, you probably haven't changed common knowledge since then, every creature you created after humans weren't as smart as them, the creatures just did things from instinct."

"What? No! There are plenty of intelligent creatures created after the humans!"

"Well yes, there were intelligent creatures, but they were all magical distortions of humans, you didn't directly create them." I only heard silence after that, could only assume it was shock.

"I-I see, I will be more careful next time." she sighs "I am such an irresponsible goddess..."

"Don't worry." I say to her "I can still teach them the specifics of the lands, grasping the concept of magic isn't hard, I managed to understand worse after all, they will be fine."

"Alright." She says.

"Now my goddess, you'll have to tell me what kind of abilities you gave them, as they didn't come here knowing them." I requested.

"Well, the most important thing I gave them is a pocket dimension that they can access at all times, one specifically made for items, tools, and objects, though they may be able to carry a critter if it is small enough, there should be some basic copper tools in there for them too." Says the goddess, copper? Of all materials, she chose copper? what a cheapskate.

"I see, that is very useful, what are the other ones?" I ask.

"This other one ties in with the pocket dimension, it is the ability to place objects directly from the pocket dimension, allowing them to build a lot faster than the average human." Fascinating, this should allow me to have a complete house before it even starts to become late. "I didn't make this one myself though, there might be a few things I don't know about it." The goddess adds.

"I also gave them something I can only describe as a visualization ability, it allows them to see their 'status' in numbers, like their health and mana. Another ability they have allows them to perfectly remember their surroundings, well actually, not perfectly, they won't be able to tell things like texture in perfect detail, more so, it'll allow them to remember where things are, a mental map of sorts." These abilities are really useful, I am lucky to be able to use such superhumans.

"There are also some other simpler abilities, like superior regeneration, better reflexes, endless stamina and energy, and high flexibility and speed." The goddess said.

"Thank you, miss Terraria, I can figure out the rest from here." I say.

"Very well then, I'll leave you to it." After she says this, the winds calm down, meaning she doesn't intend to say anything anymore.

I walk towards the Terrarians, assuring them: "Well, I think I figured it out."

Ryan's POV

"Now, I have figured out what your abilities are, and will tell you how to use them." The guide says.

"How did you discover our abilities?" I ask.

"I cannot tell you now, but I will tell you later." He replies.

I stay quiet.

"First things first, the first ability I want you guys to try out is a pocket dimension storage ability, it will allow you to store a large number of objects in a pocket dimension of your own, since 'pocket dimension' is a bit of a mouthful, I will refer to it as an 'inventory.'"

We look at him with very confused faces.

"Are you sure that's... possible?" I ask.

"I am certain." The guide replies

"And how are we supposed to access this 'inventory'? it sounds complicated." Says Melwyn.

"It's easier to grasp when you actually do it, now, try doing the motion of grabbing a tool in the air while imagining that you are actually picking one up." As the guide finishes saying that, we immediately try to do what he said.

I try to imagine a pickaxe in front of me, I then try to pick up this imaginary pickaxe, but nothing happens, I try to imagine the pickaxe moving with my hand as if I picked it up, but it's very clearly still imaginary, I try doing the same but with my eyes closed, still nothing.

I look at the others, they're struggling to have anything happen, like me.

"Hm, my apologies, this method clearly isn't working." the guide says, clearing his throat "Perhaps the more straightforward option would be better, try to imagine taking a pickaxe from another dimension."

I don't even know where to start with this, yes, it sounds simpler, but not easier to do!

But before I even try to do anything, I hear a sudden gasp "I DID IT!" Magnolia loudly exclaims, I look at her, and she is holding a pickaxe that appeared to be made of copper, it seems she has succeeded.

"I think I saw the inside of the inventory, it was just void, but there were 2 other tools in it." She says.

She put her other hand out in front of her "there's a sword..." She says, as a short copper sword suddenly appears in her free hand "...and an axe." A copper axe appears in front of her, she manages to catch it before it fell to the ground.

"Seems you got the hang of it." Says the guide, he seems proud of her "Now try to put it back in your inventory."

Magnolia looks at her tools for a moment, and then the tools suddenly disappear.

"Now that you guys have seen it in action, it should be easier to pull off." The guide explains.

Alright, here goes nothing. I imagine the blank void, like she said, with the copper tools she held inside it, for some reason, the tools seemed more realistic, I must be looking at my actual inventory.

Then it sort of fell into place for me, I pull out the pickaxe as if it was natural, I don't even have to imagine the pick disappearing from my inventory or anything, how weird.

It seems Ashley and Melwyn have figured it out too.

"Good, now let's move on to the next ability, it's related to the one you just learned, so we won't need any weird tricks to figure it out." The guide says as he moves towards some trees in the field.

He signals us to follow him, and we do, he stops when we get close to the trees "Now, get your axes out and cut one tree each."

I switched out the pick I was holding for the axe and walked towards the closest tree, I thought there would be some kind of method for cutting trees, but just swinging at the base seemed to work well enough and the guide wasn't complaining or anything.

When I finished cutting the tree, it fell opposite to where I was and broke into dozens of pieces when it reached the ground, this doesn't feel right.

"Great, now pick up the wood and put it in your inventory." I did just that, the other ones did too.

"Now come closer to me, we will test out a 'placement' ability, try building a simple wooden pillar." He requests.

Normally I'd ask how to do that, but just by instinct, I begin building the pillar he requested, seems like just looking at the inventory unlocked the rest of my abilities.

Also, for some reason the wood I just placed looks as if it had been processed, I look at my inventory, and the wood there has been processed too, is this part of the ability? And while I made the pillar by placing the pieces of wood on top of each other, the finished product looked like it was cut from one big log. Yeah, this has to be part of my ability.

Suddenly I hear something banging on the pillars that we built, it seems like the guide is kicking them to check their stability.

"Hmm, this is good, alright, you can take the wood back now, I will now teach you how to make a workbench, it will allow you to make some more stuff." The guide says as he sits down on the ground, signaling us to do the same.

"First, you make a thick rectangular tabletop..." I take out wood from my inventory, I didn't even need to cut it or anything, it already came out with the shape I wanted "...Then put four legs at the bottom, remember that the workbench should be on the same level as your waist..." I place the four legs as he said, just like with the pillars, it all looked like it was carved from the same piece "...and finally, connect the legs to themselves near the middle." I do just that, and now I have a finished workbench, this didn't take long at all, only a few seconds at most.

"You now have a workbench, you can craft lots of different things with it, but for now, you don't need to craft anything, instead, I will be sending you guys out on different 'missions' to gather materials and loot." He says.

Well, this escalated quickly.

He walks over to Melwyn "You will be headed towards the east of here, you will find a desert there, be sure to gather as much material as you can there, but don't go beyond the desert or delve too deep underground alright?"

Melwyn nods "Ok, but I don't know where east is."

Guide points to where I presume is east, Melwyn nods again and starts walking in that direction, but not before grabbing the workbench that he just made.

The guide then walks towards me "You will go towards the west, there is a tundra there, you might think the snow and ice there has little use, but they are way more useful than you think." I nod and go grab my workbench, but I decide to wait for the guide to finish giving his tasks so I can ask him a few questions.

He then goes over to Magnolia "You will go to a cave in that mountain over there, mostly to get ore, be sure to collect some stone too, but be wary of traps, the caverns have plenty of them, just have to look out for pressure plates on the ground." Magnolia doesn't even respond to him, she just grabs her workbench and heads toward the mountain he was pointing at.

He then finally went over to Ashley, who was excitedly waiting for a mission "You will stay here and collect some more wood to build a house." He says, Ashley doesn't seem too happy about this "What? But why? Why do the others get to explore while I have to stay here and do something that I don't even know how to do?!"

"Don't worry Ashley, I'm sure building is just as fun as exploring, here, why don't you cut some trees in that forest over there? And look out for the bigger trees." The guide says, winking at her, Ashley looks at him a bit confused for a moment, then realizes that he is letting her explore the forest "Oh! Alright then, I'll get as much wood as I can get!" She says as she grabs her workbench like everyone else, then quickly scurries towards the forest.

It seems the guide is done, so I go over to him to ask some questions "Hey, guide, I have a few questions, like, how did I... uh... start existing? I seem to have started existing as of today and I know a lot more than I should."

"Are you kidding? You know this world as much as an alien." The guide says jokingly.

"Yeah, but-"

"Don't worry, I will explain everything after your little mission, now go."

I hesitantly walk to the opposite of where Melwyn went, at least I'll have my answers later.

Ashley's POV

I can't believe I'm going on an adventure! Well, at least this is close to one, I think.

The forest scenery is very pretty, and the birds chirping and leaves rustling make for a very relaxing ambiance, I wonder if can live here...

I find another particularly tall tree and get ready to chop it, I feel kinda bad for chopping it, it lived for so long and got so tall... But no matter! it's just a tree after all.

The tree fell down like every other one, breaking into dozens of pieces when it reached the ground, I wonder why trees do this here, they look pretty wonky too.

As I explore further into the forest, I find an absolutely gigantic tree! Taller than any other! And way thicker too, it looked closer to the trees I thought should exist, bet this tree will give me a ton I wood if I cut it down (sorry tree).

I try chopping it with my axe, but I don't get much progress, maybe using a pickaxe is better?

I switch to my pickaxe, and it does indeed work, I 'dig' into the big tree a bit more, when suddenly I dig into a hole in the tree, it turns out the tree is hollow on the inside, how exciting!

I dig out an entrance large enough for me to get in, and as the sunlight started to light up the inside of the tree I see that there is a hole in it that leads even further into the tree, I look through the hole, and see more and more platforms with holes in them, like the one I'm standing on right now, it seems like the next platform has a pot in it too.

Filled with curiosity, I carefully jump to the next platform, then, I decide to inspect the pot, I grab it by the rim, and as soon as I lift it, it breaks under its own weight, shattering into multiple pieces, I really hope this place is abandoned.

Inside the pot, there were a few sticks with weird goop on the end of them, I wonder what it does, and decide to scrape the end with the goop on the wall, and to my surprise, it lit on fire!

I realize it's a torch, this will help me see the rest of this weird tree, I put the unlit torches in my inventory, and start going further into the hollow tree.

And then I find something very unexpected, a door! It looked 'natural' as if the tree had grown an entire door by itself, I open it, and behind it was an entire room with a chair, a chest, and a weird loom with vines.

I placed my torch on the wall to inspect this place, there was nothing much to look at when it came to the furniture, except that it all looked like it was grown naturally, very weird.

The chest is what I'm most excited about, was there some kind of magic object inside it? I had to find out!

I opened the chest, and inside it was an assortment of different items, there was some rope, a few empty bottles, a vial of vibrant green liquid, and 2 bags full of weird herbs.

But most importantly there's what I could only assume is a staff, with a fake bird (I think it's a finch?) at the end.

I swing the staff, but nothing happens.

I touch the fake bird in the staff, feels real (except that it isn't warm) but nothing happens.

I think about it for a bit, maybe if I concentrate?

I hold the staff and point it to the wall, close my eyes, and concentrate on... something... I don't even know what I was concentrating on, but it was working, because I suddenly heard a weird noise and when I opened my eyes, there was a bird where I was pointing at!

I put out my index finger for it, and it actually flew to it! It's soooooo cute!

Chirping* (Hello madam, thank you for 'summoning' me)

"Wait- I CAN UNDERSTAND YOU!"

More chirping* (Seems so, I've heard about this)

"Wait, really?"

Continuous chirping* (Yes, I believe that this type of summoning allows the summoner to understand its minions no matter what)

"Oh, so you're my minion? And what do you mean 'heard' didn't I just create you?"

Loud chirping* (Well I- MASTER LOOK OUT!)

Alerted, I quickly look behind me and see a very short man with a pointy hat lunge itself at me! I jump out of the way and manage to dodge its attack.

Alerted chirping* (A gnome has snuck up on us! Quickly master! You must escape!)

"But what about you?"

Serious chirping* (I'll be fine, trust me!)

I hesitate just enough to watch the gnome lunge at the finch, I almost couldn't watch, but I saw that the gnome simply fazed through the finch. He really will be fine.

I stop wasting time and dash towards the door, I look upwards to see the rows and rows of platforms, and immediately jump to the one above me, climbing my way back to the surface.

When I finally reach the surface, I run out of the tree and look back to see if my bird friend will return.

Not long after I stop running, I see my bird friend fly out of the hole in the platform and land in front of me.

"Did you get them?"

Exhausted chirping* (No, and the gnome will most likely run after us, but don't worry, the problem will fix itself)

I look at him confused by what he means, but then hear growling from the inside of the tree, the gnome jumps out of it and locks eyes with me, but before he can even reach the grass, he petrifies into a statue in an instant.

"Wh-What happened?"

Calm chirping* (The gnome has been petrified due to the sunlight, he is only a statue now)

"Did he not know he would turn into a statue under the sun?"

Calm chirping* (Seems so, he probably never left the underground in his life, and therefore didn't know he would be petrified)

"I see, also, can you explain that 'heard' thing now please?"

Explanatory chirping* (Why of course Master, you see, the staff you used to summon me didn't summon a whole new creature, it brought one back from the dead instead)

"I see, is that why you know so much?"

Chirping* (Indeed, my species of finch has gone extinct long ago, but there were rumors of finches who were brought back to the living world as minions to people, a finch who'd been supposedly summoned by a beast-tamer told me all about this.)

"Interesting, also, why did the gnome just faze through you? Are you a ghost?"

Chirping* (My life is bound to yours, but yours is not bound to mine, no creature can hurt me as a summon, but if you die, I do too, also you should pick up the petrified gnome, I've heard they bring luck)

"What? Are you sure? Won't he come back when it's dark or something?"

Chirping* (No, he will stay petrified forever, it's a good trophy I'd say)

"Oh, alright." I go pick up the gnome, it feels weird to hold it, probably safer in my inventory anyway.

Curious chirping* (Say, do you have an abode to stay in? The forest may be dangerous if you stay for too long)

"Actually, I don't, I was collecting materials to build one, I think I have enough now tho, so we should head back."

Chirping* (Very well, may I make a nest in your head too? it will make guarding you easier)

I giggle at his request "Sure!"

I walk my way back to the guide, talking with the finch while he looked out for materials to make his nest, he explained a bit more about the ghost world, and I explained my very short backstory, a very pleasant walk.

Oddly enough I didn't get lost, in fact, I remembered the way where I came from perfectly, must be another ability.

As I exited the forest, I see the guide looking at the horizon, I run towards him, yelling "Hey guide! I'm back!" To get his attention.

He looks back at me and says "Ah Ashley, you're back, took you long enough, and judging by the extinct finch in your head you must have found a living tree."

"Living tree? Oh! Yes, I did... I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"Don't worry, you're not, I actually sent you into the forest so you'd find it."

"Oh, phew, so I have to build a house now?"

"Sort of, it will be more of a workshop."

"But, I don't know what to do first."

"Here's a suggestion, make a rectangular base first, you can expand from there if needed."

"Alright."

I line out a big rectangle, then start replacing the dirt floor with wood.

"Is this good?" I ask.

"Yes, this is wonderful, very spacious."

"Thank you."

I finish making the wooden floor, took a bit, dirt is surprisingly hard to dig out.

"You should build the walls now, build out how high you want it to be first then fill the rest in."

I nod.

I make a wood 'pillar', about 5 feet taller than me "Hey guide! Is this good?"

"Maybe a little taller, like 2 'blocks' taller."

I nod again.

I place the 2 blocks like he said, and start making the rest of the walls, surprisingly, it doesn't take long at all, then I realize we don't have windows.

"Uh, guide? What about windows?"

"Hm? Oh, don't worry, we will have windows when Melwyn comes back, we can just use torches for light now."

Alright, gotta make the ceiling now, I start placing wood from wall to wall, and when I'm just about to finish, I realize that I didn't make any supports to hold the ceiling, and yet, the ceiling didn't fall to the ground.

So I did a little test, I placed two blocks on top of each other and broke the bottom one, and the block of wood stayed up in the air as if nothing changed! I tried pushing it, but it didn't move, like it was still stuck to the ground.

"Uh, guide?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I broke gravity."

He looked at me with an intrigued face, which quickly changed into one of surprise when he saw the floating block of wood.

"Huh, she really did not know much about the ability."

"Who?"

"I'll tell you later, this is probably part of your placement ability, just keep on building."

Being able to defy reality is just an ability? Well, I guess I already broke it with the pocket dimension thing, but this feels like it's a bit too much.

I should just resume to building now, I take back the floating block and finish making the ceiling, and now I'm in total darkness.

I take out a torch and light it up to see, I look around and jump in surprise when I see the guide right behind me.

"You should put some torches on the walls." He says

"O-Oh, alright." I walk around the inside of the building, placing torches periodically.

"Won't the torches burn the house down?" I ask.

"Only if you place them wrong."

"Am I placing them right?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it."

I do the full perimeter, and then the guide signals me to follow him, he leads me to the middle of one of the walls.

"We're gonna need a door now, place down your workbench." I do as the guide says, place my workbench right in front of me and then look at the guide waiting for instructions.

He looks at me for a second "Oh right, to make a door just make a flat surface that is about 1 and a half inches thick, 6 ft tall and 4 ft long, I'll show you how to make hinges when you finish making the-"

"Already did." I interrupt with a smirk.

"Oh, damn, alright here I'll show you how to make hinges."

He proceeds to explain in excruciating detail how to make the door hinges, which are weirdly enough made of wood, he said it's strong enough tho.

"Alright, now make a hole here to place the door."

I take out my pickaxe and make a hole with the exact proportions of the door, then proceed to install the door on the hole.

"Good, now put the workbench in this spot."

"Why?"

"This is a workshop, we'll have a bunch of workstations to use, it's a good thing you made this so spacious."

"But we only have a workbench now, when will we have more?"

"When the others arrive."

Suddenly, I hear the door open behind me.

"Speaking of which."

I turn around to see Melwyn behind the door.

"You guys have made quite the progress." Melwyn says.

Earlier near the desert...

Melwyn's POV

This is a strange situation, it's also the first situation I've ever been in.

The only thing I can do right now is accept the weird things that have been happening lately, I don't want to focus on the technical parts of this world too much.

Another slime jumps towards me, I stab it with my copper shortsword, stopping it midair, and I continue to stab it until it dies.

The guide didn't warn me about these, maybe because they're weak? Doesn't matter, these things have been trying to digest me alive the moment I got out of my group's line of sight, but I haven't been worrying about it that much, they're pretty easy to deal with, I can keep going.

And this sword... Just looking at it I can tell it's trash, even a wooden sword would be stronger, and yet... I feel a sort of weird connection to it, a gut feeling that tells me this sword is important somehow, I should probably keep it, but I will still make a wooden sword.

So I put my workbench on the ground and do just that, the sword is still made of wood of course, but better than the copper one.

I pick up my workbench and look towards the horizon, I can already see the desert from here.

I very quickly head to the desert, as soon as I step on the sand, I feel extreme heat go over my body, it is a desert of course, but I feel like I should've felt this much heat earlier.

The guide said to gather as much material as I can here, I imagine sand is one of them, so I dig out a large hole and collect as much sand as I could.

There are also some cacti nearby, I'll chop some of them too.

I walk through the desert, chopping any cactus I see along the way, and suddenly I find an oasis, a lake in the middle of the desert, surrounded by palm trees.

Drinking some water seems like a good idea, so I go to the lake and take a sip, but it doesn't seem to do anything, I don't feel quenched, not because the water isn't 'working', but because I wasn't thirsty in the first place, even though I walked for several minutes without breaks, I don't feel tired or hungry or anything, must be an ability.

This also means the oasis is useless to me, so I just continue my exploration, and I don't have to look far, because as soon as I step out of the oasis, I see a small triangular rock in the distance, it looked too perfect to be natural, I had to look at it.

When I arrive there, it indeed seems to be manmade, with bricks stacked on top of each other to form a pyramid, although it looked small, I dug the sand around it, and the pyramid kept going, it was buried.

I dig more and eventually find the entrance, I enter the pyramid and feel the cooler interior, it was refreshing.

The entrance had a few pots, but not anything else, and I couldn't move further into the pyramid since it was too dark to see.

With nothing else to do, I look into the pots, with the little light from outside I could somewhat tell what was inside them, it seemed to be sticks with something at end, I couldn't tell what it was, so I grabbed one and went into the sunlight to see what it was, turns out they were wooden sticks with slime gel at the end, I didn't understand why at first, until the slime started glowing red from the heat, I pull the stick back into the dark before anything could happen.

Gel must be really susceptible to temperature changes, this gave me an idea, I put the stick into the sun again, and waited until it catched on fire, it seems like it was actually a torch.

With my new source of light, I cautiously move further into the pyramid, and at one point find a room filled to the brim with sacks of coins, along with fancy pots, and a singular golden chest in the middle.

I immediately pick up as many coins as I could, and accidentally break a pot while doing so, and I just accidentally touched it, the pot was just so fragile it fell apart in a single touch.

Inside the pot were... more coins, which seemed to be the case with every other pot, so I broke every single one of them, they didn't seem important anyway.

Then, at last, the golden chest, I check around it to see if there were any traps, seemed good, so I opened it.

Inside the chest, there were 10 dark grey balls, which I presume are bombs, there were also 9 bars of light gray metal, it was almost white and very shiny, might be silver, I also found a single round glass bottle with orange liquid in it.

There was one more item in the chest, a very interesting one, it was a bottle, and inside it, is what appeared to be a small sandstorm.

The bottle didn't have a lid or anything, it was wide open, so I tried 'spilling' the sandstorm inside to see what would happen.

Nothing, the sandstorm was still trapped in the bottle.

I tried shaking the bottle while it was upside down.

Still nothing.

I tried hitting it on the bottom.

I thought nothing would happen, but something did happen, the bottle started spewing sand with so much force it sent me flying into the ceiling while spinning rapidly.

I hit my head on the ceiling and fell to my back on the floor.

Ow.

I looked at the bottle, which was still in my hand, I was holding it with a strong grip and didn't let go at any moment for some reason.

I guess raiding ancient ruins will give me magic artifacts, I should remember that.

I decided to put the bottle in my belt, using some clever tying with ropes, it was upside down, so I could hit it at any moment for a sudden boost into the air, I could use it as a midair jump of sorts.

I went to leave the pyramid, I shouldn't explore further as the guide said to not go too deep underground, and I'm sure I'm already pretty deep underground.

As I was leaving, I heard a weird noise coming from behind me, it sounded like a bug, even though most bugs don't make any noise, this was the only thing I could associate it with, and when I looked behind me, it was indeed a bug.

It was a gigantic antlion, which was running straight at me.

With some quick thinking, I use my bottled sandstorm to jump towards the way out.

There was still a lot of walking I had to do to leave the pyramid, I'll have to make a run for it.

I abused the hell out of the bottle, the boost it gave was faster than my running, I also noticed I couldn't use it twice midair, it's like it recharged its power when I reached solid ground, weird logic but I'll just have to roll with it.

When I reached the pyramid entrance (or in my case, the exit) I quickly looked behind me, the antlion was still chasing me, I need to do something quickly.

The placement ability! I quickly took some sand I collected and dumped it all near the entrance, I could hear the antlion slam itself at the sand wall to no avail, I think it eventually gave up and ran back into the pyramid.

At least it's over now, and I got some powerful loot out of it too, I'll collect some more sand too since I used a bunch of it to block the pyramid entrance.

Well I did that, and now that got everything I needed, I should head back to the guide now.

But it seems the problems haven't ended here, the vultures, whom I assumed would just leave me alone, decided to stop waiting for me to die, and just kill me themselves.

They were a pain in the ass, there were a bunch of them targeting me and I couldn't do anything against them without getting hurt myself.

Eventually, I just had enough, I was gonna make a new weapon to destroy these things, and I was gonna make them suffer for trying to kill me.

So what about a sword made of cacti? With a lot of reach so I can safely destroy these things?

I placed my crafting table and made a bigass cactus sword, well, it was too thick to be considered a sword, it was more of a club, but it doesn't matter.

It annihilated the vultures, I killed about 4 of them, and the rest of them fled from the scene.

After that, it didn't take much time to come back to the grasslands, I could return to the guide peacefully now, and faster too, this sandstorm in a bottle is really useful.

When I arrived at the place the guide was at, I saw a weird big wooden box, did the guide make this?

I opened the door to this weird building and saw Ashley and the guide inside it.

"You guys have made quite the progress." I announce.

"Oh! Hey Melwyn! You look... Uh... Did you get into a fight?" Ashley asks me.

"Yes, with vultures."

"Vultures?"

"Heh, the vulture near here are quite aggressive, they started killing their prey themselves recently." the guide intercepts.

"Ah... Right..."

"Anyway, Melwyn, show me what you got from the desert." the guide says.

"Alright, first off, I got a lot of sand." I say as I dump a bunch of sand on the ground.

"Good, well be able to make glass with this, although we don't have a furnace yet, we'll have to wait for Magnolia."

"I also got some cactus." I say as I dump some cacti onto the pile of sand in front of me.

"Good, cactus is a good potion ingredient, it makes good armor too."

"Wait what? Cactus armor? That sounds very uncomfortable." Ashley says.

"The spikes are on the outside, so it'll only hurt enemies, and it's really good at doing that, you'd be surprised at how many things just wildly charge at people without caring about the spikes."

"I got some weird items from a chest in a pyramid too, as well as the chest itself." I say as I place the golden chest in front of me.

"Good, collecting chests can help save resources, it's convenient too."

"Is that chest made of gold? It looks so cool! I wish I took the chest from the big tree..." Ashley says.

"Don't worry, we can go grab that chest later if you want, but for now, Melwyn, what did you find in that chest?"

"Well, I found a lot of different things, first, is 10 of what I presume to be bombs, second, 9 bars of what I think is silver, third, a bottle of unidentified orange liquid, fourth, a-"

"Sandstorm in a bottle, I noticed you strapped one to your belt, very valuable item you have there, you even figured out its main use!" The guide says.

"So that's what's on his belt, how valuable is it?" Ashley asks.

"All 'boosts' in a bottle are rare items for adventurers to have, in adventurer guilds, they are regarded as a top tier item that only the high-tier adventurers have, the sandstorm in a bottle is the most valuable of them all, rare and powerful, mostly only found by archeologists actively searching for it, and when they do, they just put it in a museum, the wealthy might buy one as an antique, either way, they end up not being used at all, so finding one was a huge struck of luck Melwyn, how did you find that pyramid?"

"I just found the tip of one in the desert, and then dug around it until I saw the entrance, then I looted it." I answered.

"How humorous! Archeologists spend their entire lives looking for them, and you just find one in the opening! Amusing." the guide adds.

"Right, but what about the other items I found?" I ask.

"Those grey balls are indeed bombs, the bars seem to be of silver too, and the bottle of 'unidentified' liquid is actually a potion, a archery potion to be exact, it enhances capabilities related to archery."

"Oh! I think I got a potion from the tree chest too!" Ashley says as she pulls out a vial with green liquid inside it.

"Ah, that is a swiftness potion, it enhances speed." The guide says.

"Oh and I got these bags with weird plants in them too, no idea what they're for." Ashley says while pulling out a small bag, she pulls out a purple plant from the bag.

"Herb bags! Great, these will help with making potions. But we're getting off track, we should set up an area for chests, let's put some platforms on that wall to hold any chests we find while adventuring." The guide says while walking towards to one of the walls.

We set up two rows of platforms on the wall, apparently, our placement ability can defy gravity as long as it was originally placed on something stable, so we didn't have to worry about supports at all.

After setting up the platforms, we put the gold chest on the bottom row, it was kind of pointless making all of this just to put one chest in it, but the guide said that it would quickly fill up as we ventured out in the wild.

As soon as we finished this 'chest area' we heard someone knocking on the door, Ashley went greet whoever it was, and she was met with Ryan, who was holding a giant grey cannon with a glass compartment at the top, the compartment seems to be filled with... snow of all things.

"Hey Ashley, is the guide here?" Said Ryan.

Earlier near the tundra...

Ryan's POV

I've been walking for a while, but I don't feel any differences in temperature, even though I'm supposedly walking towards a snowy tundra.

I did find some other things though, for example, blobs of sludge that jump at prey to eat them alive, they are very simple creatures, their detection skills must be subpar, because they jump at anything that makes noise, this seems to include me, they've been annoying, but they're easy to deal with.

On my path to the tundra, I come across a lake, its water surface is very reflective.

As I look at my reflection, I realize I haven't taken a good look at myself.

I seem to have black hair, my eyes have a vibrant mint green color, I'm wearing an open brown coat with a white shirt underneath, dark grey pants and black shoes.

Why do my eyes have this color, it feels unnatural, everyone else back there had weirdly vibrant eyes too, except the guide, he was normal.

While thinking about this, I look at the horizon, and see a bit of white in the distance, it wasn't a particularly low cloud either, it appeared to be snow.

My assumptions were confirmed correct as I approached it, seems it is the tundra the guide was talking about.

I reach the 'border' of the tundra, there is a clear distinction between the snow and the grass, with no in-between.

Even though I am one step away from the snow, I don't feel any cold at all, infact, I feel warm, the entire trip to here has had this temperature.

I take one step into the snow, and immediately feel my temperature drop, I flinch for a moment, but I ignore it and continue exploring the tundra.

The guide said that snow and ice are useful, so I should probably gather a good amount of it.

There's plent of snow on the surface, so I dig out about 10 cubic meters worth of snow.

I've yet to find ice, but I should be able to find some soon enough, most likely in a lake around here.

After some walking I find a cave on the side of a mountain, I don't want to go too deep into it, but maybe I could find something useful there.

I walk through the cave, it gets darker at every step, until at one point, it gets too dark to see, so I turn around to head back, but then I notice some pots nearby, I was too focused on what was in front of me to notice them.

I take a look into one of them, there are a few coin inside, I look at the next one, and find blue sticks with what appeared to be frozen goop at their tip, that... escalated...

I try multiple things with these sticks, but nothing happens, until at one point, when I scraped the 'tip' of one of them with another, the stick erupted into a blue flame.

It was a torch! Although a blue one, which somehow was ignited with ice, the flame is also cold, interesting...

This will serve as a lightsource for now, I continue my journey through the cave, at one point, I find a spot in the cave that is made of ice.

Good, I'll collect a good amount of ice and see what I can do with it.

The first thought is to melt it into water, but currently the fire i have isn't helpful in that regard.

I'm pretty deep underground right now, the guide instructed Melwyn not to go too deep underground, but he didn't say that to me, even then, I should probably not go too deep too.

Suddenly, I find something of a shack, which is weird, considering we are deep underground in a snow biome, it is also abandoned and had multiple holes in it.

I decide to look inside it, in it, I find some furniture made of some type of dark wood, including a piano, I try to press one of the keys in it, but they are frozen solid.

There is also a statue, one of a gigantic bee in terrific detail, I'll grab this for myself.

Among the furniture, there is a light blue chest, the lid appears to be frozen shut, but with some effort, I manage to open it.

Inside the chest were several objects, including a handful of arrows, a triangle shaped bottle with red-orange liquid inside it, a lot of silver coins, a fancy light blue mirror, and an object that instantly caught my attention, a grey cannon with a glass compartment on top of it.

It's unusual to say the least, but I'm interested in what it can do.

Suddenly I hear something approaching the shack, it was the sound of... Rattling?

I quickly look behind me, and see a skeleton in viking clothing nearing the abandoned shack, it did not look friendly at all.

I bolt towards the entrance and slam the door shut, making sure to barricade it with wood, the skeleton starts violently banging at the door.

How will I get out of this now? The only thing I have is this useless shoddy copper sword, and I don't think it'll do anything to bones.

I look back at the cannon, maybe it could help, I grab the cannon, aswell as everything else in the icy chest, the chest itself too for good measure.

I inspect the grey cannon for any hints on what it might do, luckily, there's a print below the handle.

It says 'Snowball Cannon'

Did I seriously just grab a toy?!

Maybe I can just wait this out? The skeleton can't bang at the door forever.

I wait for a bit, and the skeleton does indeed stop, I even hear him leave!

I look out through one of the holes in the wall, the skeleton is leaving! Wait, no... it stopped, it's looking back at me.

The skeleton suddenly bolts towards the door and starts hitting it even harder than before.

This thing really wants to kill me.

What do I do now? The only thing I have is this damn toy, perhaps I could use the snowballs to temporarily blind him?

Might aswell test it out.

I load snow into the glass compartment using the placement ability, this thing can hold a lot more snow than I thought.

I aim at the wall and pull the trigger, a perfect snowball comes out of the cannon and crashes at the wall at impressive speeds, this thing seems a bit too powerful for a toy...

It's still just snow though, all I can do is distract that thing and make a run for it.

Thinking quickly, I make a hole through one of the shacks walls and jump out of it aiming my cannon at the skeleton, before it can react, I unload as many snowballs at it as I can.

To my surprise, the snowballs were a lot more effective than I thought, the skeleton couldn't move foward, infact, it looked like he was taking damage!

I continue to spew snow at it, its arm gets blown off, then part of its ribcage, then its head, after that, the skeleton stops moving and crumbles to the ground.

I'm still surprised the cannon can do this much damage, it's just snow after all.

Wait a minute, didn't the guide say...

"You might think the snow and ice there has little use, but they are more useful than you think."

It's like he read my mind, through the future even.

Now that I'm safe, I can take a close look at the chest loot.

First, the triangle shaped bottle, it doesn't say what the liquid is anywhere, and I'm not gonna try it out, I found coins here too, they say '1 silver' which seems about right, there was this fancy mirror too, seems like it's just that, a mirror, and lastly I got... Arrows...

Damn it, I could've just made a bow and used these.

Doesn't matter, I should just head back now, though I'll get a bit more snow and ice first.

I finally leave that cave, spent more time in there than I thought, I should hurry back... Home? The guide did say Ashley was going to make a house.

I hurry to where I came from, the slimes are even easier to deal with now that I have a snowball cannon.

I finally arrive at the place, there does seem to be a house there, but it certainly does not look like one.

There's a door in the 'house', so I knock on it.

I'm greeted by the short dark-haired girl, Ashley.

"Hey Ashley, is the guide here?"

"Oh! Hey Ryan! Yes the guide is right there!" She says.

I enter this weird building and close the door behind me, this place is... Spacious, I guess.

"I see your have found a snowball cannon, quite a useful weapon." The guide says.

"Yeah, I didn't even think it was a weapon, but it turns out things are a bit more powerful than you expect." I say.

"Getting one of those means you found a chest, what else did you find there?" Says the guide.

"Here are the things I got: a few arrows, about 50 silver coins, a triangle shaped bottle with red-orange liquid-"

"That is a dangersense potion, it allows you to sense objects that could hurt you." The guide interrupts.

"Ah... Right, anyways, lastly I found this fancy mirror, kind of looks like it's made of ice."

"An ice mirror! That's great news! Magic mirrors are very useful!" Says the guide.

"Wait, that mirror is magical!?" Ashley asks.

"It is? What does it do?" I ask.

"Alright, let me explain, that mirror you're holding is a magic mirror, if you gaze upon it, you will teleport to where you subconsciously consider home." He explains.

"So if I look into this mirror, I'll teleport here?" I ask.

"Well, I wouldn't say so, the only thing this building has going for it is that it has a roof, this is supposed to be more of a 'base of operations' anyway, I recommend you guys make your own houses." He explains.

"Don't you need a house too guide?" Asks Ashley.

"Ah, right, I forgot about myself, don't worry, I'm not picky, a simple house with a table, chair and bed is enough for me."

"How are we going to make a bed? We don't really have anything soft for one." Says Melwyn.

"To make a bed, we need silk, to make silk, we need cobwebs." The guide says.

"And how are we gonna get that?" Melwyn asks.

Loud door slam*

"GUYS YOU WON'T BELIEVE THE AMOUNT OF STUFF THAT CAVE HAD, THERE WAS A GIANT SPIDER NEST WITH GIANT SPIDERS AND I GOT SO MUCH COBWEB THERE!" Magnolia exclaims, surprising everyone in the room and nearly killing me with a heart attack.

"It seems we already got it." The guide says.

Earlier near a cave...

Magnolia's POV

I'm very excited to see what this cave has to offer, from the guide's description it seemed like a boring place to be, but I feel like there's something more there.

The mountain the guide talked about isn't far, in fact, I already reached it, and I'm right outside the cave.

So far nothing too interesting, just a cave covered by vines.

I walk into the cave, and already at the entrance I find something interesting, a chest sitting in the middle of nowhere in a cave.

Without thinking twice, I open the chest, and it isn't a trap!

In said chest, there were a few things, rope, a few empty bottles, some sticks covered in goop, and most excitingly of all, a magic wand!

I could tell it was magic, there was a deep feeling inside me telling me it was magic, and turned out true!

When I swung the stick, sparks came out of it! Sparks that could light things on fire! This is already so exciting! What more could it do!

Turned out not much, actually, it couldn't do anything else, no matter how much I swung or even concentrated on some arbitrary thing, all that would come out of it where sparks.

Still though, there has to be more magic stuff! I could find another wand or even learn a spell or something! It was magic!

One thing I learned about magic is that I seem to have a limit on how much I can use it, when I used the wand, something inside me diminished, it would replenish with time, and it would do so faster if I rested, but if I emptied out this thing inside me, it would replenish very slowly.

I also seem to be able to see how much of it I have in numbers, it's easier to see if I close my eyes, but if I focus on it I can see it with my eyes open too.

Seems i have 20 of it, using the wand takes out 2, which means I can use my wand 10 times in a row before emptying out completely, also, when I look at this meter, for some reason I feel like I know the name of it, it's called 'mana'.

It looks like I can visualize my health too! I have 100 of it, a lot more than my mana, I think that's good.

I should go further into the cave now instead of thinking about this in one place.

Not much further I find another chest.

Inside there were some similar items, rope, goopy sticks, empty bottles, a vial with green-ish yellow liquid, and a device that seemed to track how many enemies are around me, I know that because that's what it said on the screen, 3 enemies nearby.

The wording is a little weird but I assume it's just hostile creatures, since I saw exactly 3 of those living balls of goop outside.

I empty out the chest and continue my journey through the cave, and you wouldn't believe it, but just 10 steps further I find another chest.

Who's leaving these here anyway?

Doesn't matter, in this chest there was wood, a few flasks with red liquid that smelled really sweet, a bunch of arrows, 5 bars of unidentified metal and, weirdly enough, 2 pairs of aglets.

It took me a moment to understand what they were, but I realized they were the caps that you put in end of shoelaces, neat, my shoes didn't actually have them, so now I'm putting fancy golden aglets on my shoes (at least they looked golden, they weighted a lot less than gold).

Finally, after 3 chests of loot, I can actually explore the cave!

Small problem: it's a cave, it's dark, I can't see crap.

Good thing I have a solution! A magic wand! The sparks this thing releases is enough for me to see what's ahead.

I walk for a bit until I walk into something that instantly shattered upon contact with my foot, the sound startled me so much that I accidentally cast a spark at whatever shattered, it was a vase, which had those sticks with goop for some reason, the spark went directly into one of the sticks, which immediately caught on fire.

At least I can see better now, in fact, the fire of this thing burned bright and was lasting very long, it almost looked like a... Wait no! It IS a torch!

Finally I don't have to swing my arm anymore!

I grab the torch and collect the rest that didn't catch fire, then I continue my journey, at one point, the cave stops from being made of dirt and grass and starts being made of stone, like I imagine a cave would be.

Speaking of stone, the guide told me to mine some, so I should probably do that.

I end up collecting about 12 cubic feet of stone, then as I explore further, I find something shiny.

It's ore! I mine the entire vein, seems like it's the same metal as the bars I found earlier.

I venture deeper into the cave, mining any ore I find, found some lighter metal, very shiny.

Suddenly, I hear chirping from deeper in the cave, and out of it comes out a blue bat, which lunges at me and manages to hit my shoulder.

I thought maybe it hit me by mistake, but when I looked back at it, it tried lunging at me again!

Luckily, I manage to dodge it's attack, I begin casting sparks at it until it dies, which it does.

Note to self: bats are hostile.

Further into the cave I end up finding a shack, yes, a shack, deep inside a cave.

I run towards it in excitement, without noticing, I step on a pressure plate and hear a click coming from behind me.

Luckily, the way towards the shack had a downwards inclination, which the trap clearly did not account for, since I saw a dart fly over me, mere inches away from my head.

The guide warned me about these, and I ended up forgetting about them entirely.

I'll remove the pressure plate, and the dart trap itself just to be safe.

Well, now it's shack time!

I enter the shack through a hole on its ceiling, there was a ton of web there and the place looked abandoned, which makes sense, living underground like this probably isn't the best idea.

I explore it a bit, there wasn't much, just some abandoned furniture and strange statues of birds, but there was a really eye catching golden chest hidden in the basement (if you could even call it a basement).

I wasted no time, opened it to see what was inside.

The loot inside was a lot better than the wooden chests, there were 10 whole bars of gold, 2 spade shaped bottles with purple liquid inside, a spiky bottle with yellow-ish green liquid, a few unlit torches (I finally know what they are!), and a single gold coin.

But there was another very interesting item inside, a bracelet with a heart in it, I put it on, and instantly felt my wound from earlier getting better, mind you, my regeneration already felt faster than normal, must've been another ability, but this just put it in overcharge!

In a few minutes, my wound was already healed, and while I waited for that, I took another look at the shack, turns out there was an entire bookshelf that I missed.

Most books in it were just random, boring stories, but one specific book caught my attention, a book titled: 'Spells for everyday life', which wasn't a title for a story, it was an actual spellbook that had spells in it for me to do!

I stole it of course, well I didn't steal it, I just took it, no one owned it anyway, at least currently, chances are whoever owned it is dead now.

I also took the chest there, because it was made of gold, who wouldn't take it?

As I left the shack, I heard some strange sounds coming from the cave walls, it was muffled, but it sounded like... Spiders? If that makes sense?

I was too curious, I began digging towards the sound, and came across what could only be a spider nest.

There were webs everywhere, and not only that, but the webs themselves were strong, like, I needed to use my axe to cut through it, it was quality silk, I'm gonna take all of it.

That is, if the spider nest was empty, because guess what, there were spiders in it, and GIGANTIC spiders to make it worse.

Seriously, they were bigger than me! But luckily I had a magic wand! I cast as many sparks as I could at it, I eventually ran out of mana, but the spider was already on fire, it was running around not knowing what to do, and I used that opportunity to get as much web as I could, eventually the spider stopped being on fire, and its spider family came to kill me too, I was fast enough to escape, exited from the hole I came from and sealed it with stone.

Now it's time to leave, I confidently walked through the way I came from, only to fall into a hole I didn't see and go 30 feet into the darkness.

Luckily there was water at the bottom, however I did not know that and ended breathing in water without knowing, I manage to 'swim' towards land, and exited the pond coughing water, I took out a new torch since the old one was now soaked and lit it with my wand, which thankfully still works.

I look around, this was mostly just a hole with water at the bottom, but there was one thing that was very unexpected, in front of me, there was a giant red crystal in the shape of a heart, the light from my torch reflected beautifully off of it, it felt special.

I walked towards it and picked it up, I don't know what to do with it, but it certainly has a use.

Now to leave this hole, what could I do... Oh wait, I could use the rope!

I make a coil of rope, and throw it towards the entrance of the hole, manage to hit right where I wanted.

Now with the rope set up, I can climb out, as soon as I'm out of the hole, I cover it so I don't fall again.

Now I can actually leave, I walk out more cautiously as to not fall into a hole again and relax back to normal when I reach more familiar grounds.

I recount the things I got, a single trip to the cave gave me a lot of stuff.

I wonder where they're gonna put all of this...

I reach the exit of the cave, and look at the wooden chests that I looted earlier, since we need something to put all this loot in, taking these chests might be a good idea.

So I do that, and run to where I came from, I spent a lot of time in that cave, and there's already a house near where we met, or at least I think it is.

I can hear a conversation from inside, it's the others!

I get excited and quickly open the door.

"GUYS YOU WON'T BELIEVE THE AMOUNT OF STUFF THAT CAVE HAD, THERE WAS A GIANT SPIDER NEST WITH GIANT SPIDERS AND I GOT SO MUCH COBWEB THERE!" Everyone seems very surprised by my sudden appearance, and Ryan almost fell over.

"Seems we already got it." The guide says.

"What?" I say.

"We were talking about how we are going to make a bed, and it seems you found an essential component." He responds.

"Oh, beds? With the cobweb? I had something a bit different in mind, but I'll take it." I say.

"Well, since we're on the topic of making a bed, let's start with that, gather around everyone." The guide says as he moves towards a workbench.

"To make a bed, we need silk, to make silk, we need to use the cobweb you found at a loom, to make a loom, we need a sawmill, to make a sawmill, we'll need to tinker with iron, and for that, we'll need a furnace and an anvil." The guide guide explains.

"So, the first step is to make a furnace and an anvil?" Ryan asks.

"Correct." The guide confirms.

"We need stone for the furnace, Magnolia." The guide commands.

"Right away." I respond.

I go over to the workbench, and the guide explains how to make a furnace, by the end of his explanation, I had already made an entire furnace.

"Great, now we need to make an anvil, the placement ability should make this really easy."

"How so?" I ask.

"We're just going to need to make a few iron bars, then you just need to use your placement ability to place the iron into the shape of an anvil." The guide explains.

"Oh! I actually found a few bars of metal in a chest, is it iron?" I show him the few metal bars I got.

"Yes, actually, and it's enough too." He says.

He then starts explaining core characteristics of an anvil, with his very, very detailed explanation I manage to make an anvil.

I think it's also worth noting that everyone was watching attentively as I made everything, it was kind of funny.

"Now that that's done, we will make a sawmill, it will be easier if everyone helps in it." The guide says.

The guide then separates a core component for each of us to make, then explains how to make each, the sawmill sounds pretty complicated, but the components themselves sound simple enough.

In less than 2 minutes, we had an entire working sawmill.

"Great, a sawmill is already useful in and of itself, we still need a loom however."

The guide then explained to us how to make a loom, all it required was wood, but it was still somewhat complicated.

We managed to make the loom, exactly as the guide told.

"Now, we just have to make silk, just put the cobweb into it and start the process."

With that, we made silk until the guide told us it was enough, which honestly wasn't much, thought we'd need more.

"Good, now we can finally make a bed."

The guide explained to us how to make one, and we made the bed together, a single, nice comfy bed.

"Nicely done, I'd say this is the one most important thing to make a home, a place to sleep, now that you know how to make a bed, you should make your own houses, I don't think living in the workshop would be very pleasant, now go." The guide commands and we follow, everyone starts leaving the workshop, including me-

"Except you Magnolia."

"Huh?" I say, did I do something?

"You still haven't told me what you found on that cave." Oh.

"Ah, right, I found a lot of chests there, I'll tell the least interesting loot first." I look over my items in the inventory.

"I found a few metal bars, along with raw ore, I know now they're iron, but I also found a shinier ore too, do you know what it is?" I show him the shiny metal.

"Ah, that is silver, very useful, Melwyn found some bars of silver too." He says.

"Oh right, by the way, what was that bottle in his belt? It looked like there was a sandstorm in it."

"You can catch up with him later, just explain what you found."

"Right, I found torches, empty glass bottles, rope, oh! I found bars of gold there!" I show him the gold.

"Oh my, pure gold, this is great news, there's plenty you can do with these."

"I think I also found potions, like this one." I show him the vial with green-yellow liquid.

"That is a ironskin potion, as the names suggests, it makes your skin as hard as iron." The guide says.

"So they are potions... What about these red ones?" I show him the flasks of red liquid.

"Those are health potions, they will near instantly heal a wound, but they might not be strong enough." He says.

"So I can just drink a buncha these if I'm in trouble?"

"Not exactly, they have a sort of timer, if you drink one you won't be able to drink another for about 60 seconds."

"Why not?"

"They just won't work, you'll be wasting potions."

"Alright, I also found this spiky potion." I show him the potion with spikes.

"A thorns potions, any enemies that try to hurt you will take the exact amount of damage they dealt, won't stop them from hurting you though, and it won't work if its a projectile."

"Huh, neat, I found these 2 purple potions." I show him the purple spade shaped potion.

"OH! Magnolia this is great news!"

"Huh?"

"These are gravitation potions, they allow you to reverse your own gravity."

"Wait, what?"

"It's a bit hard to wrap your head around it, basically it allows you to fly by enabling you to flip your own gravity, this will enable even more valuable loot."

"Oh, I see." Seeing the guide this excited is a bit weird, he never acted like this until now.

"I'm outta potions to show, so I'll move on to more special loot."

"Oh?"

"Starting from least to most interesting, the first thing is... Oh, aglets, right, that's not very special."

"Aglets are still useful, they make you faster, slightly."

"Really? I thought they were just fancy, alright, next is this radar, it shows how many 'enemies' there are near me, sounds weird but I think it's true."

"Yes, it showcases how many hostile creatures there are around you, I don't think I need to explain why it's useful."

"Next up is this band I'm wearing, it boosts my regeneration."

"A band of regeneration, it boosts your natural regeneration, since your regeneration is already way higher than normal, its usefulness has increased tenfold."

"How convenient, oh! And best for last, A MAGIC WAND!" I show off my magic wand.

The guide giggles "Never saw someone so excited about a wand of sparking."

"Wait what? That's what it's called?"

"Yes, and it's also considered the worst magic tool too, all it does is cast sparks, even just casting spells yourself is considered to be better."

"Oh, I see." I can't believe I got so worked up over this... "Wait, spells? OH RIGHT." I take out the spellbook.

"Guess what guide? I got just the thing to cast spells myself!" I show off the spellbook.

"'Spells for everyday life' oh my, that actually is a good starting point for a mage like you."

"Mage like me?"

"Yes, I knew from the start you were going to be one, that star on your shirt made it way too obvious."

"Oh, what does this star mean?"

"It's the same color as a mana crystal, made from fallen stars, which are literally concentrated magic."

Mana crystal, that reminds me...

"I also got this from that cave." I pull out the heart-shaped crystal "Any idea what it does."

"Oh, oh my, a life crystal, I knew it..."

"Uh, what?"

"Oh right, I should explain it, that is a life crystal, whoever uses it gets tougher, as in harder to kill, they are highly sought after and hard to find nowadays, since people have already collected most of them, not knowing how they were created in the first place."

"So I'm very lucky?"

"Sort of, it means I made the right choice."

"Choice?"

"I should explain everything to everyone else later, have you shown me everything?"

"Uh, yeah I believe I did?"

"Good, you can go on and build your own house now, I'll gather everyone up later, also, be sure to give that life crystal to Melwyn, to use it you just have to break it." As the guide says these last few things, I leave the workshop area to build my own house.

Guide's POV

Everything is going exactly as I wanted to, the Terrarians have not only collected the materials I wanted, but also collected some valuable loot too, things are going faster than I expected, and it's great.

It was already past mid-day, thankfully I packed some food, so I didn't get hungry at all, and the Terrarians? They didn't even notice it was way past lunch time, they can live without food or water, I bet they don't even need to sleep.

12 minutes have passed since I talked with Magnolia, and already she had finished her house, it wasn't a very good looking house, but it seemed to have everything a house needs, everyone else finished earlier, Ashley and Melwyn even began to put up some windows in the workshop, and I didn't even teach them how to make glass! They just figured it out on their own, wonderful.

As they were putting up the windows I heard someone approaching.

I look towards whoever it was, I was expecting one of the Terrarians, but instead I saw a complete stranger.

The stranger in question was some old man with a long white beard and brown coat.

"Hello there, I see you're trying to build a little dwelling around here, seems a bit crazy to me but you don't mind me staying for... Erm, well, a few days? Maybe a bit more?" He says.

"You want to stay here, why are you here in the first place old man?"

"Well, you see, I was traveling to Trapston to set up a new store, but the carriage I was traveling with was suddenly attacked by ninjas, which were subsequently attacked by a giant slime with a crown, it sounds a bit far-fetched but trust me it happened!"

"Right, and ninjas are still a thing?" I know myself a few ninja clans still exist, but common folk should have no idea of their existence.

"I thought that too! I luckily managed to escape and now I'm here, though it seems I'm now in unexplored danger-lands, which is why I think it's a bit crazy you're actually trying to live here."

"Alright, I believe in your story, may I know your name?"

"Howard Gier, I'm a merchant."

"I see, my name is Andrew Ferlock, but people have been calling me 'the guide' you may call me that as well of you want."

"Heh, alright 'guide', so where will I-"

"Hold on old man, if you want to stay here you just have to prove yourself useful in some way."

"Ah, I see, well I still have my wares, so I can provide them- I mean a discount for them if you let me stay."

What a greedy man.

"And what do you have for sale?"

"Many things, I was going to set up a store in a adventurer's guild, so I have things that are useful for them, b-but they can be useful to anyone of course!"

I sigh "You're in luck, that's exactly the kind of things I'm looking for."

"Hooray! So where will I stay?"

"Well, pick a spot."

"Oh really? Well that shack over there looks fine to me!" He points towards Ashley's house.

"Oh no, that's not what I mean, pick a spot where you want your new house to be."

"What? You'll build me a house? But that'll take forever! But if I were to take a spot, it would be over there." He points over at a spot with a lot of space.

"Alright then, now just sit back and relax old man, Ryan!" I shout at Ryan to get his attention, and he walks over to me.

"Yes guide?" Ryan says.

"This old man over here wants to stay for a bit, why don't you build a house for him, simple as can be, with a table, chair, bed and a light."

"Ok, where should I build that?"

"Over there." I point towards the spot that the merchant wants.

Ryan nods and runs over to the spot.

"He won't actually build a house all by himself will he?" The merchant asks.

As soon as the merchant says that, Ryan starts building the house, in less than 3 minutes, the house was finished, and the old had his mouth wide open during the entire process.

Ryan then approaches me "Almost finished, just have to go make the bed at the workshop." He says as he walk to said place.

"Wait Ryan." I interrupt him "I just realized I need a house for myself too, make an extra bed and build another house right beside the one you're building, an exact replica too." Ryan nods.

"These guys... Aren't normal are they? Where did find them? Did you make them?!" The old man says.

"I made a deal with someone, and now I got these guys, I want to... rid the lands of a few problems it has."

"I-I see, I think I'll... I think I'll stay here for longer."

"Hmph, I don't blame you."

Ryan comes back from the workshop and finishes the house by placing the bed in it, then he builds and exact replica even faster than before.

The merchant is still looking at the house, he seems to be lost in thought.

"Old man? Wake up, your house is finished, you can enter it now."

"Ah! Oh, right, I'll go see the house." He hurries over to his house.

Well, that's settled, by now, everything seems just about finished, and it's almost dark too, I should probably call everyone up now.

Ashley conveniently passes near me "Ashley."

"Oh! Uh, yes guide?"

"Gather everyone up to meet at the workshop, I have some explaining to do."

"Right away!" She says as she runs towards Melwyn's house.

Now I wait in the workshop.

And I don't need to wait long, it's just 4 people after all, they came over pretty quickly.

"Sit down, this might take a while."

...

"There aren't any chairs." Melwyn points out.

"Oh, well make some if you want, I just want to get this over wi-"

I'm suddenly interrupted by a loud thud, turns Ashley already made something to sit on, and it wasn't just a few chairs, it was a whole damn sofa.

It's their first day existing and they're already figuring out how to make high quality furniture on their own.

"Oh! I also made you an armchair mr. guide!" Ashley says as she puts an armchair beside me.

"Right, thank you Ashley, now can you settle down and be quiet please, this is important." Ashley nods and sits one the sofa, where everyone else also is.

"Okay now." I sit on the armchair Ashley made, I'll admit it's very comfortable "Let's clear up a few things first, you might have realized you don't seem quite human, because you are not, you are something different, a Terrarian."

Before they can say a word, I raise my finger "You will ask questions later, I'll explain everything, I promise, let me talk first."

"You probably do not even know what the name means, well, let me give you a bit of history, this planet, is alive, and is also a goddess, a goddess called Terraria, she created most creatures that walk in her... lands, it's weird to say we walk in her, even though it's true, so we say it's her lands instead, now, this goddess was actually pretty incompetent, and had a massive problem with power creep, she eventually made a creature too powerful for her to control, and said creature started to want to rule over Terraria, both the goddess and everything living in her, they went on a big war and Terraria managed to win, but had massive casualties, Terraria's dryads all died attacking the big bad, but the big bad's goons were still up and kicking, she needed a way to stop it all, and she thought the best way to do that was to seal all that in one fell rushed swoop, which not only sealed all the danger that was killing her, but also her own power, and now she can only create weak life."

There was an awkward moment of silence after that, which I put in to let them soak in all that information.

Not long after I begin talking again "Now, a few months ago, a cult that worships the big bad, I'll call the big bad 'The Moon Lord' from now on, has made a big dungeon, which can hide anything that happened inside it from the goddess, naturally, she grew desperate, those cultists are planning something, and she doesn't know what it is, and didn't have enough power to stop it, luckily, I stepped in, and suggested she made creatures with great potential to grow, and I would guide them to abolish the dungeon and what they're doing, then she made you guys."

That last bit of information made them surprised, they probably didn't expect to be so tied in to all this.

"So, we're here to abolish the dungeon cult?" Ryan asks.

"More or less."

"Are you sure we're able to do that?" Ashley asks.

"Not right now, it's why I suggested the goddess to make you guys have potential to grow, you will become more powerful over time, and will be able to abolish the cult with ease."

"And what about our 'objectives'? I don't see where they tie in into all of this." Melwyn asks.

"Ah right, I haven't asked you guys what your objectives are, may you please tell your objectives to me? starting with Melwyn."

"Mine is to 'Wield the most powerful weapon of all'" Melwyn says, the he looks at Ryan, waiting for him to say his.

"And mine is to 'Complete the journey' vague, I know." Ryan says, looking towards Magnolia.

"To 'Master magic to it's fullest potential'" Magnolia says, gesturing to Ashley for her to go next.

"To 'Control the mightiest army the lands have ever seen'" Ashley says nervously.

"...I-I see, Ms. Terraria might have gone a bit overboard with these, my idea was just to have you guys have something to focus on so you didn't live without meaning after you 'did your job', but clearly she took it differently, she even missed the point entirely with yours, Ryan."

"Oh, so my objective is just to do what I'm supposed to do?" Ryan asks.

"Yes, seems so." I answer.

"What about that thing with the life crystal? You said something about making the right choice." Magnolia asks.

"Oh, I see, we're talking about that now." I say.

"Life crystal? What is she talking about?" Ryan asks.

"I suppose we need to settle that first, Magnolia did you give the life crystal to Melwyn already?"

"Oh I uh, I forgot to." She says.

"Then give it to him."

"Here you go big guy." Magnolia says as she hands him the crystal.

"...what am I supposed to do with it?" Melwyn asks while contemplating the crystal.

"You use it, to do so, you just have to break it while holding it." I say.

I expected him to hit the life crystal on a wall or on the floor or something, instead, he crushes the crystal with his hands.

The crystal shatters into a million pieces, but before said pieces could go anywhere, they stop midair and start glowing brightly, seemingly turning into pure light, said light floats towards Melwyn and enters his body.

Everyone was so mesmerized by what happened it took them a few seconds to realize it had already ended.

"Do... do you feel any different?" Ashley asks, breaking the silence.

Melwyn taps his chest for a moment, then finally answers:

"No."

"Huh? Really?" Ashley asks again.

"The effects might not be noticable at first, after all it's just one life crystal, but it did do something, it made you tougher, 'increased your health' per say, it also increased your lifespan, hence it's highly sought after." I clarify.

"Oh that reminds me! I think we can see how much 'health' we have, when I close my eyes, I can see both how much health and mana I have." Magnolia exclaims.

Everyone closes their eyes to test this out, they seem surprised by the fact that's it's true.

"Ah right, I should've told you guys, it is one of your abilities." I say.

"100 health and 20 mana... What does 'mana' mean?" Ryan asks.

"It's fuel for magic, it got used up when I used my magic wand." Magnolia responds.

"You said you have 100 health Ryan." Melwyn says.

"Yes, is yours different? That life crystal must have changed it right?" Ryan responds.

"Seems so, I have 120."

"So a single life crystal equals to 20 health, guide, how rare are these crystals?" Ryan asks.

"Well... If you were in the common lands they would be incredibly rare, but around here you could probably find a few in a single trip to the caverns." I explain.

"Why is it different here?" Ashley asks.

"Well, I chose a spot that is very dangerous compared to other places, especially the underground, basically, the continent we're in has a big spot in the middle that is considered incredibly dangerous compared to everywhere else, as such, it is barely explored, every attempt to do so has so far failed, and attempts to live here did not have different outcomes."

"Why did you choose this spot then?" Ryan asks.

"Because I understand it, I know where danger is and I know how to avoid them, others do not, and with your incredibly powerful abilities? Staying here won't be hard."

"Is that why there was an abandoned shack in the underground? Because someone tried to live there?" Magnolia asks.

"You found an underground shack too?" Says Ryan.

"Yes, people tried living underground instead of in the surface, they thought that the night was more dangerous than the underground, not many have went underground and come back to tell the tale, so they didn't have information on it being more dangerous."

"I see." Ryan says.

There was an awkward moment of silence after that, seems no one had anything to say.

"Welp, looks like this is all, you can go back to whatever you were doing now, though it is almost night, so I want you all back here when it's dark, I'm gonna be testing you." I say as I stand up from the armchair, everyone else was leaving to do something else, but that was also interrupted when we heard someone screaming outside the workshop.

"HEEEEEEELP!!! SLIMES!!!" A female voice screamed.

The terrarians immediately ran out of the workshop to see who it was, and I followed soon after.

We found out who it was, it was a dark skinned woman with red hair and, strangely enough, fox ears and tail, she was being chased by a huge pack of slimes.

She noticed our presence and ran towards us screaming "HELP MEEE!!" I signaled her to go towards me and told the terrarians to ready their weapons.

The fox woman jumped at me, making me fall with her on top, as soon as that happened, the terrarians started attacking the slimes.

"Thank you so much! I ran for so long! I wouldn't be able to keep going!" The woman said, exhausted.

"Right, no problem, can you get off me now though?" I said.

"Oh! Sorry, I didn't notice." She said as she got up.

"I'm sorry for asking for more buuuut could I please stay just for tonight? Actually, maybe more, I got separated from my brother a while ago and I really need to find him, but I have no idea where he is, is it too much to ask to help me look for him too?" The woman said.

"...it is a lot to ask, but luckily we're the kind of people to accept that kind of thing, may I know your name first?" I say.

"Oh right, my bad! My name is Hayley, Hayley Bian, I'm a zoologist! Nice to meet you!"

"I'm Andrew Ferlock, but the adventurers who just took care of the slimes back there call me by guide."

"Wait, they already took care of them?!" She looks behind herself and lo and behold, the slimes were already taken care of, the terrarians just collecting their gel.

"Yeah, they're special, now, I'd like to know what you have to offer to us, you're already demanding a lot anyway." I say.

"O-Oh, right, so me and my brother co-own a zoo, and so I have some stuff useful for zookeeping and general pet care, but I do have some stuff useful for things around here too! And I have a stable back where I live, I could bring some horses from there later..."

"Hmph, that is enough, we'll let you stay for as long as you like."

"Yay! Um, where are the houses though?" She asks.

"It may not look like it, but those cubes of wood over there are houses, with everything you need, however they are already taken, but don't worry one of the adventurers here can build you a house."

"Build!? That'll take too long! It's almost, like, night and all!"

"Have some trust in them, Rya- no, Ashley! Come over here, I need you to do something!" I call out, Ashley quickly walks over to me.

"Yes guide?"

"Make a house for ms. Bian over here, over there by the other houses would be best."

Ashley nods and runs over to the houses, the zoologist following her, she quickly makes the house, which is also the same size as the others, not sure about the furniture though.

After all that whole fiasco, I sat in my new armchair and waited for it to be nighttime.

I sat there contemplating what I'll do in the future, and before I knew it, it was already nighttime, it was dark outside, but the terrarians had put some torches outside beforehand in order to see when it eventually became dark.

The terrarians one by one sat in the couch like earlier, waiting for me to say something.

"So... What kind of test are we going through?" Ryan asks.

"Isn't it obvious? I asked you to come over here when it gets dark, I want you guys to go outside and face the dangers of the night, to see if you can handle things like that for now."

"What if we can't?" Ashley asks.

"Don't worry, I trust you guys will be fine, you got each other's backs after all, but before you go, there's a few things I wanna change, first, Magnolia, can you give me your wand for a second?"

Magnolia walks up to me and hands me her wand.

"Great, now Ryan, give me some ice and a torch."

Ryan goes to me and gives me some ice as well as a (pre-lit) torch, luckily the inventory freezes items in time, so the ice didn't melt.

I put the ice over the torch, forcing the ice into the flame, the ice seems to be melting, but I know better, the flame slowly turns blue, and wood stick starts to turn a light blue as well, when the process ended, I had a lit ice torch in one hand, and nothing in the other.

Everyone looked astonished at the result, except Ryan, who was only a bit surprised.

"So that's how they're made." He said.

"Figured you'd found some there, but it's still good know how they're made, but anyway, here's why I made this in the first place."

I took the wand of sparking and put the 'shooting' part on the icy flame, the end of the wand got brighter and brighter with blue, when it couldn't get any brighter, I took the wand out of the flame and gave the torch to Ryan.

"Now this, this is a wand of frosting, a slightly more powerful version of the wand of sparking." I say as I swing the wand, casting a blue cold spark.

I hand the wand to Magnolia, and she excitedly snatched the wand out of my hands.

"One more thing, Melwyn, remember that cactus armor I talked about?" I say.

"We're gonna be making that?" He asks.

"Yes, now come over here, it's pretty simple." I say as I walk over to the workbench.

Melwyns positions himself in front of the workbench, waiting for my instructions.

I start explaining how to make the armor pieces one by one, from helmet to breastplate to leggings.

As I ended my explanation, the cactus armor was done, the full set sitting on the workbench.

"How do I put it on without... pricking myself?" Melwyn asks.

"Well, normally people just put it on very carefully, but you could try putting it on with the placement ability."

Melwyn decides to test my theory and puts the armor into his inventory, then he puts his hands into his legs and suddenly, cactus armor appeared in his legs, it was a perfect fit.

He proceeded to put the rest of his armor on, by the end of it, he looked completely different, only resemblance being his high stature.

"Well now, I believe we are done here, now go, face the night and survive, this should be easy with the things you all have."

The terrarians quickly left the workshop, and I watched them from right outside my own house.

The goddess also decided to start talking to me.

"I didn't like the things you said about me." Terraria said.

"Oh boohoo, I said the truth to them, c'mon even you should agree that you weren't good in the head back then."

"Yeah I know, but still, you could've said some nicer things."

"Quit talking about reputation, you're a goddess, what they think of you is not important."

"Yeah, right, I totally believe you."

Seemingly out of nowhere, zombies and demon eyes quickly appeared and surrounded the terrarians, but they retaliated.

Melwyn stood his ground, his cactus sword was great at keeping the enemies at bay, and he kept his cool at all times...

Or just until he was hit.

Just as I expected, a demon eye hit him and was damaged by the thorns, this one hit however, seemed to anger Melwyn greatly, as he went berserk and furiously attacked the demon eye until it died, then he proceeded to attack the rest of the enemies with the same rage.

"What the hell..." I say in astonishment.

"Oh, Melwyn, yeah I made them kill enemies a certain way, Melwyn's is Rage, I realized doing this might've been a bad idea later..."

Looking at Ryan he didn't have the same problem, he had the opposite, he killed the zombies with terrifying efficiency, he'd step on their corpses like they're nothing, I mean, I know they're just undead but even then you at least have a bit of resentment over the people these zombies once were.

"Ryan's is..."

"Ryan's cold-blood, It's not so bad right?"

Looking to Magnolia she- oh no she's even worse, she's setting zombies ablaze left and right without a care in world, and when she's out of mana she stabs the zombies in the eye and wriggles her wand around in their heads like she's torturing it, and she looks like she's enjoying it way too much.

"W-What- WHAT THE HELL IS HERS?"

"It's... um, cruelty." The goddess says quietly.

"YOU PURPOSELY MADE A PERSON WHO KILLS HER ENEMIES WITH CRUELTY?"

"I know it sounds bad but, uhm, I mean... Ashley doesn't have a specific way of killing, I made her friendlier than the others, that's good right?"

I look over to Ashley, she's managing to dodge the attacks, but she's not managing to kill any zombies very well, since her finch does all the attacking.

"She seems better, if only she could actually attack though."

At one point, Ashley seems to get overwhelmed and runs to my direction.

"Oh Ashley you-" I try to talk to her, but she just enters the zoologist's house in a hurry.

I enter her house and shut the door behind me, inside it was a confused zoologist and a Ashley in fetal position, her finch trying to confort her.

I sigh "Ashley, you do realize you broke into the zoologist's house right?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry, I didn't realize, I just ran towards the nearest house to get away from the zombies."

"Sorry to barge in but, why were outside at night? It's dangerous, especially here." Says the zoologist.

"Well, the guide wanted to test if we could survive the night with our weapons, I think I failed..." Ashley explains.

"Actually, I think I have something to help with that." The zoologist pulls out a leather whip "Beast tamers use these as a supplementary weapons along their beasts, the sound of whip crack also warns their beasts who to target, also, your finch is a summon right? I don't recognize its species, and there's no way a finch could simply fight a zombie like that."

"Oh, yeah he's a summon, thanks." Ashley says as she's handed the whip.

"It's the least I could do from you letting me stay here, actually, you built this house for me, you deserve it."

Ashley's face is brightened by a wide smile "Thank you again, I really appreciate it!" Ashley runs outside full of excitement, ready to kick some undead ass.

I follow her outside and close the door behind me, Ashley got too excited and forgot to close it.

"See, I told you she's friendlier, she thanked that lycanthrope twice!" The goddess says.

"Yeah, yeah, she's friend-" I cut myself off as I see Ashley fighting, not only is she kicking ass, but it looks like she's not even taking it seriously, she's hopping around, grabbing the zombie's heads with her whip and chucking it at demon eyes, heck, she's laughing while she does it.

"What did you do Terra."

"I- I- this shouldn't be happening, I made her kind, I made her friendly, I made her playfu-" the goddess cuts herself off.

"You..."

"I... Oh no... I made her way of killing be playful."

---

Writer's notes

WOW finally! I finished this! The first real Chapter is finished! This took so long, especially because I decided to make this chapter 24 times bigger than the last, I mean, it was just a prologue, but even then I thought chapters wouldn't be this big, but here we are, all because I decided to name this chapter 'pre-boss'

Fun fact:

You might have realized both Melwyn and Magnolia have their name starting with Mel and Mag respectively, that being short for melee and mage/magic, respectively.

Ryan's supposed to start with ran for ranged, but I didn't like any name like that, so I named him Ryan instead, I mean it's still pretty close right?

As for Ashley, yeah there were barely any names starting with Sum, and I didn't like any of the names that did (no offense to any summers out there) so I just named her something I found cute instead, which was Ashley!