Adventurers of Caves and Skies

by Old Style

Because of an ancient God's meddling with the fabric of space, the worlds of Minecraft and Terraria have become connected through portals, causing creatures to tumble into realities not meant for them. With monstrosities and mythical powers going out of control, it is up to the greatest adventurers to team up and use the new resources at their disposal to defeat the Dark Gods!

2. Chapter 2

MEETINGS FOR THE FUTURE

It was early afternoon as Alex, now wearing her own set of enchanted diamond armor, travelled with her similarly armored horse Olebard along the gravel path connecting her house to the Village, as today she had to go to the largest settlement in the continent to discuss a few things, from the various villager trade rotations and requests from the townsfolk for materials, to the usual requests for materials acquired from hostile mobs and the usual giving of carved pumpkins to make iron, snow, copper and even furnace golems.

While Alex was angry at Steve's absence that morning, these kinds of afternoons were a very different story. She had always been a social butterfly and could keep a conversation going by expertly balancing small talk and the actual topics at hand, while Steve's more direct approach and taciturn behavior made it very hard for him to keep conversations going and unintentionally made come off as rude, unless the topic at hand was within his interests and the person speaking with him knew about his difficulty having conversations with others.

Thus it came as no surprise that Alex was the one who always did the talking while dealing with the villagers, while Steve would give one or two insights if the topic at hand required them, and that would only happen should the Masters want his presence at a council meeting…which hasn't been requested for six years straight, only requiring his writings on various issues which the man would prepare beforehand. Alex wasn't exactly happy at the Masters' dismissal of Steve, who did (and still does) most of the heavy lifting when it came to the planning of the Village itself, its defenses and mine layouts.

But her companion didn't care much and seemed much happier this way, so Alex begrudgingly dropped the issue.

As Olebard continued galloping along the winding gravel path, the forest around her was rather active as herds of sheep munched on grass and lone rabbits darted from tree to tree in search of food. Alex also passed by a bee hive a few ways to her right, the yellow block's inhabitants hovering around nearby flowers as per their routine.

But the woman knew that there were dangers lurking around the forests, whether it was day or night.

Seeing something strange ahead of her, the woman suddenly changed direction before a creature with a stony head and four stubby legs jumped out of the gravel and snapped its large jaws shut in the place she and her horse were just a second ago. After realizing that it didn't have its target in its jaws the mob dug back into the gravel, leaving no trace of itself aside from a few small particles.

"Another Chomper? This is the third time today, if the number of hostile mobs has actually gotten higher I guess we'll have to bring up the Extermination argument a few months earlier...or weeks, if the situation reveals itself to be that bad…" Alex mused to herself as she calmed Olebard down "That would put Steve in a good mood...if only he didn't set out into the mines out of the blue like always! Now how in the Nether am I going to find him?"

The woman growled in anger at her companion and his tendency to go off on his own. She decided she would settle these personal matters after finishing her business at the Village.

Alex then saw some more particles of the gravel she was rapidly approaching to be looking strange, which made her narrowly dodge the block, and as she thought another Chomper jumped out of the ground with its large jaws snapping. But now the woman had enough.

She quickly twisted her body as she took her enchanted bow "Wind Striker" and fired a flaming arrow at the mob, which struck true as it set the short being on fire, and then a second one to finish it off. The slain Chomper exploded in a cloud of ash and experience points as it dropped a single block of mossy cobblestone, which Alex directed Olebard to quickly take before continuing her travel.

After about five more minutes of travelling the forest began getting less thick at an unnatural rate and Alex began to see the Village's outer perimeter, which was divided into three areas, each of which served a purpose in case of a mob invasion.

The first one was made of various rows of sweet berry bushes and cobwebs with the intent to deal chip damage and slow down incoming mobs; after that the second area was a perimeter of oak fences and fence gates with some tiny structures made of oak planks and dispensers on their front, which were manned by copper golems with the task to continuously press buttons to fire salvo after salvo of arrows on approaching mobs.

This area also housed right behind it various hastily made trade stalls, manned by novice villagers along with some nitwits bumbling around, though there were also wandering traders perusing these temporary markets, before setting off into the unknown with their llama steeds, and metallic golems patrolling the area in case there were any threats to their pacifistic charges.

Behind the niche market, which was at a safe distance of course, there was the third area of defense, which consisted of a moat about ten blocks wide and three blocks away from ground level that surrounded the entire settlement and the ramparts of the Village's massive stone brick walls, which had even more arrow dispensers. The woman felt a sense of pride upon looking at the banners and stair blocks, as those were her ideas of making the walls feel prettier.

Alex and Olebard walked on the seemingly normal bridge made out of stone bricks with hidden pistons and redstone to operate them, while ignoring to the best of their abilities the scaly silhouettes and snapping sounds of the alligators swimming below. These mobs were extremely dangerous due to their powerful attacks, high health, natural armor, great speed on any terrain and unprovoked hostility to any mob they came across, which made them very useful in the moat where other hostile mobs either fell or were pushed into it.

The fact the alligators of the moat reproduced without outside interference was an added bonus.

Her steed let out a nervous sound and Alex grimaced at the sight of large reptiles as she thought 'Oh, how I remember baiting you lot with meat and leashes to make an actually good defense for the Village. Those were the worst days of my life…but it seems all that suffering was worth it'

As she looked at the massive walls and admittedly intricate defense systems, Alex couldn't help but marvel at the sheer amount of progress they had made in just five years, from the time she and Steve were two semi-competent teenagers at best to the point where they could reasonably call themselves seasoned adventurers.

Twelve years ago this very area was still wild and three villages sat at its edges, which were the first ones Steve and Alex found as they began their journey in this world; it all started simply, with the two adventurers trading and helping the three villages as they themselves were getting started with their base of operation, which was relatively far from these settlements; but it didn't affect the then youths that much because each village had something they specialized themselves in, as the southern village had plenty of farms with diverse yields, the eastern village had many animal husbandries along with skilled leatherworkers and fletchers, and the western village had a working mineshaft which provided great amounts of ores daily.

Steve and Alex however found out quickly that these villages didn't like each other, as they began to be criticized for trading with the others for resources only they had plenty of access to, but they were never chastised for coming at the other villages' defenses; thus Alex and Steve, with the help of those villagers who wanted to stop hostilities, worked to settle disputes and old grudges between the three villages and make their people understand that only together they could survive against the endless hordes of hostile night mobs and Illagers, who back then weren't much of an issue.

The idea to physically unify the three villages into a single large settlement came later, first as Steve's pipe dream and then as an actual request of the Composite Council, an amalgamation of the leadership of the three villages; the sheer amount of work took several weeks to plan out between the layout of the structures and the materials required to build them, and the actual took three years to complete, though the time was greatly shortened with the combined help of everyone and the generous donations of stonemasons and toolsmiths; the role of leadership of the Village was then taken by the successor of the Composite Council, the Master Council which was formed by the oldest and greatest villagers who had become masters of their professions.

Now arrived at one of the walls' entrances, Alex made her steed stand on top of the stone pressure plates, which opened the iron doors in front of her. Once inside the admittedly small room, with various iron golems standing by and armorer villagers tending to them, the woman dismounted from her horse and was quickly approached by the armorer villager she knew was the leader of the southern section of the wall.

"Ah, hello Hero Alex! We're overjoyed at your visit to the Village, and since the council is expecting you in about twenty minutes, please help yourself with our garrison's nourishments" he said with a smile on his face and Alex replied happily "Oh, that's no problem, I got my own source of foods! I'm sure the guards need it more than me" while mentally beaming at the title given to her and Steve by the villagers.

It all started when the two were sixteen years old, who by that point had just finished ideologically unifying the three villages of this area and starting to physically connect them; the two young adventurers had just repelled the largest Illager attack they fought just far. Despite their broken items and the fact they were at death's doorstep, the united villagers felt invigorated by this act of heroism and started calling Steve and Alex Heroes from then on.

He bowed to the woman and said "I see, I see Hero Alex, you've already done so much for us. But before I let you go to your duties, I should notify you that Hero Steve had arrived at the Village through the eastern section of the wall an hour ago, and was asking around if you had arrived in the Village yet. He seemed quite troubled"

"Oh sure I got that, no big deal- wait what?" Alex interrupted herself as her happy expression turned to a blank one as soon as she heard that Steve abandoned his usual spelunking expeditions and went to the Village, then she shook her head and asked "Hold on, where is he now? And what is troubling him so much?"

The armorer had a pensive expression as he answered "Well, last time the guards of the eastern wall saw Hero Steve, he was around the eastern historic district presumably waiting for you. As for why he's so troubled…the guards had no idea and he hasn't told them"

'It may be related to the mines' Alex thought as she said "I'll be leaving Olebard to you, I'm going to see what's wrong with Steve. Please send a message to the Master Council that I'm in the Village but may arrive late"

"Will do, Hero Alex" the armorer village said with a bow as the woman exited the checkpoint and walked at a brisk pace towards the historic eastern district.

Back when the Village was still in its planning phase, Steve and the master cartographer of that time decided to divide the new settlement into various types of districts to better organize the production and defenses of what later became the largest settlement of the continent.

Defensive Districts were line around the walls and consisted of stocky buildings made of cobblestone and iron bars to better resist explosions, and were guarded by iron and furnace golems to stop anything that managed to breach the walls; Commercial Districts are found after the inner defense perimeter and is where the actual trading happens, which sees items and villagers coming from all corners of the continent; Production Districts are found in the center of the Village and not only provide every single resource one can imagine, but also serves the purpose of training novices into any profession they want.

Historic Districts were a bit different from the others, as there are only four in number and correspond to the original locations of the three villages and the first Council Building. While they do technically perform the tasks of all types of districts at the same time, their value is mostly symbolic.

Alex already knew where Steve was, and once she arrived at the eastern historic district her hunch was correct as she entered the windowless house-library hybrid of an old master cartographer. The woman found her fully armored companion seated at a table while talking to Philean, an old friend of theirs who recorded the maps and discoveries Steve and Alex would make during their many travels and one of the only villagers the former could talk to without any issue.

The inside of the building was a mess, the right side completely covered in bookshelves, with a cartography table in the upper right corner, and every other available wall plastered with glow items frames containing all sorts of maps the two of them accumulated throughout their twelve years of adventuring.

As soon as they heard the door open, Steve and Philean turned their heads towards the entrance and saw Alex who said "Well, I didn't think you'd cut your spelunking trip to indulge in pleasantries"

Steve quickly rose from the improvised chair and explained himself with a slightly embarrassed tone "Now, I was going to tell you everything first, but weren't in the Village yet and I didn't want to go the house with the risk of creating confusion between us, so I went to Philean to tell him the situation while waiting for you"

Alex nodded and said in an annoyed tone "Good thinking on your part, running around like two injured chickens will do us no good. Speaking of which, I think it's high time we discuss your habits these past few weeks. I understand that our situation is static and it's making you uncomfortable, but you can't keep disappearing in the mines for hours on end! From now on, we'll stick together no matter what, as it should be"

"Right…I'm sorry for my behavior these past weeks. I actually have something as an apology, which is also part of what I wanted to talk to you about" Steve said with his head down, looking both guilty and embarrassed as he rummaged through his inventory. Alex expected this, since it was always habit of his to pair an apology with a present, but what she didn't expect was the object that Steve handed to her.

It looked like a golden helmet with a white bulb in front of it, and while giving it to her Steve said with a small smile "A strange skeleton with a pickaxe dropped it while I was in an undiscovered mineshaft. It can generate light when worn, so it should be useful for you in the dark"

Alex pouted at her companion's remark on her fear of darkness as she put the strange helmet on, and let out a "Wow!" as a beam of light shot out of the bulb. Steve put a hand in front of his face and the old villager turned away from the strong light as Alex said, looking flabbergasted as well "But…how can this be? So far we've never encountered a normal piece of equipment capable of doing anything like this"

"And such an item doesn't exist in our world, at least not currently" Philean spoke up with a wizened voice "The mineshaft Steve had discovered was a small outer part of the mining systems of Dark Rock Village, a once prosperous settlement located in the far east which specialized in coal mining, but was destroyed by a large Illager raids twenty years ago. And the old reports some wandering traders have managed to scavenge from its ruins throughout the years have never once mentioned skeletons abandoning thor bows in favor of pickaxes, of all tools"

Alex sort of recognized that name. The two first discovered what was left of Dark Rock Village many years ago, and left it immediately as there wasn't anything of value in those ruins, no villagers wanted to resettle in that place, and because they had more important things to worry about during those times. The only other rare times they heard that name were from wandering traders and they said few things, but what was certain to the woman was that tales of strange hostile mobs definitely weren't among those.

"Besides…that's not the only thing I found" Steve said with a troubled look as he took a strange chunk of raw meat from his inventory, which made Alex slightly recoil as she asked "From your reaction, I guess what dropped this isn't really appetizing…"

Steve started explaining his encounter as Alex took the item and immediately dropped it with a gurgle as soon as she read its name "The hostile mob that dropped it was unlike anything we've ever seen, it was brown in color and had a long limbless body, but the worst thing was how it was capable of burrowing under the ground like a Chomper and had an eyeless head full of teeth, reminding me of that of a Barnacle"

"Great, as if we didn't have to deal with enough giant insects…" Alex said with a disgusted expression, while Steve said "We'll have to report all of this to the Master Council. If there's more of these mobs the entire continent's mine system and the villagers working there could be at risk"

"Before coming to find you I was just headed there, let's go" Alex said and Steve got up as Philean bid them farewell.

X X X

After a while Jake had returned to his home and main base of operation of his adopted parents, the Bastion.

The building itself was neither flashy nor too complex, but it stood fast for three years as it resisted treacherous weather conditions, hordes of all kinds of violent monsters and Jake's untiring efforts to give it "more personality", at least according to him.

The Bastion is a building lined up with wooden planks and walls made of red bricks, with some small portions of it being of see-through glass; the building is made of a ground floor, three upper floors and a basement, but talking about its more literal sizes is a tricky thing as this building was, in a way, constructed over the three years in which Jake and Lucia started their adventure, between upgrading their storage/crafting room depending on the resources the youths would gather, building new rooms for whatever new guests joined their rag-tag group of survivors and the measurements errors either Jake or (more rarely) Lucia would make during planning or construction.

This building is technically rectangular in shape, its upper and lower sides being twenty blocks long and its lateral ones being twelve blocks long, while in terms of height it is twentyfive blocks tall; there are however some irregularities, for example a five block section of the ground floor's upper right side extended to a length of five blocks due to Jake wanting to make the storage and crafting room bigger in case they had the need of more chests or new crafting stations; another irregularity was the upper-left angle of the first floor, which extended to six blocks on both sides due to a request of Robyn the Zoologist to have a better view of the outside.

Another one still was a six block section of the third floor's lower left side extended to seven blocks upwards, a change made by Lucia surprisingly along with Jake's support; that was the room they had built for Stoney Dirt, the Pirate Captain who decided to join forces with the residents of Bastion after the two young adventurers managed to defeat his crew…however the mage didn't like the new resident at all, so while Jake distracted Faye and Andrew with one of his usual antics Lucia "renovated" the initial look of Dirt's room in a way that according to her would be uncomfortable to stay in, but the Pirate ended up actually liking the way his room looked now.

The only other structure present in the area was a wide well made of grey bricks, lined up with torches and having a very long rope hanging from the ceiling. That was the Hellevator, a simple structure that made travelling to Hell much easier and faster that was also used to access the Caverns, and by extension the mines.

"Home sweet home, seems like everyone's busy" Jake muttered to himself as he walked towards the entrance, made by two martian doors surrounded by two lines of meteorite bricks, and guarded by an orange slime with simple facial features and armed with copper helmet and shortsword. He was Stryker the Squire Slime, one of the first residents of the Bastion and the result of the then thirteen year old boy wanting to arm a green slime to 'have a proper challenger', much to Lucia's chagrin.

Jake waved a hand to the self-proclaimed "Gatekeeper of the Realm", which was returned by an enthusiastic wave of his weapon, but just as he was about to reach the doors, he heard a sudden gust of air coming from the Hellevator and knew immediately who it was.

"Oh Lucia, you're back! So how did it go, found anything interesting while in the mines? You won't believe how lame my luck was today" the boy shouted as he turned and walked towards his best friend, then stopped as he looked at her shrouded form, who just now planted her feet on the ground to rest. Even with that ghostly hood completely covering her features Jake knew the girl was shaken, but he wasn't really worried about her. If Lucia was hurt she'd waste no time telling him whether or not she was out of breath.

'And besides, she's plenty strong now. What could have possibly spooked her that much while not leaving even a scratch on her?' the boy thought as he approached the girl, who regained her breath and rose to meet her eyes with his.

Lucia took a few deep breaths, an exercise Andrew taught her during the first weeks of their adventure to calm herself down, and then she spoke "Yes Andrew, I believe I found what Faye warned us about this morning, but I'm still confused at what happened in there…"

As it became a sort of tradition between the two youths the moment their armor sets started completely obscuring their faces, the girl took off her hood, revealing a round face with fair skin, black eyes and a bob of white hair. Jake did the same, taking off his insectoid helmet to reveal a skull made of obsidian with its sockets full of glowing lava and a burning red flower on its left side.

"Oops, let me also take this off" the boy said as Lucia suppressed a giggled as the boy absolutely refused to set the accessory to invisible, claiming that it made him look 'extra cool', then he took off the Molten Skull Rose to reveal a youthful face with light tan skin, brown eyes and a mop of chestnut hair.

She then cocked her head as she asked her friend "...But, what did you find exactly in the Dungeon, anything useful or something amiss?" to which the boy replied with an annoyed tone "Oh, I found a whole lot of nothing! No new enemies, no weird terrain, no feeling of something ancient and awesome watching me. Just same old"

'Of course you would be disappointed over not getting attacked by an unknown eldritch horror' Lucia thought with both exasperation and amusement at Jake's remark and said "Well that's alright, I'll just report my findings to Faye and Andrew and see what they say. I'm sure that in the following days things will become more hectic"

"Cool, I feel this is gonna be an awesome week!" Jake shouted and Lucia giggled as the two made their way inside the Bastion, Stryker waving at the two adventurers again who returned the simple greeting.

Once they opened the door, they were greeted by the ecstatic town husky named Comet, who immediately pounced on Jake with an affectionate headbutt as he barked happily. The boy returned the gesture by enthusiastically petting the dog and his friend joined suit, taking in the animal's thick and fluffy fur.

At the other end of the hallway, there were two women conversing with one another. The one on the right, who was currently petting the town orange tabby named Caramel, currently sitting on a honey dresser on the left, was a cheerful yet composed young girl with clear blue eyes, long pink hair, a silvery tiara on her head, a pink blouse and an elegant pink dress; the one on the left was a more mature woman with ancient brown eyes, long green hair tied in a ponytail, a red flower on her head and a modest dark green dress made of living leaves.

"And the heroes return, triumphant and unscathed! Tell me, what outlandish things have you seen in your travels?" Liselotte the Princess asked with a happy and curious tone as she inched closer to the two youths, giving Comet a few more pets, to which Jake answered "Pretty much nothing on my end, but Lucia has encountered something that apparently wasn't in our world before"

"I see, the lunar cultists haven't made their move yet, even though it has been days since the Golem's defeat…I suppose my hunch is true after all, something else must have come up for them to postpone their ritual…something ever more alien than the Moon Lord and greater than the Old One's Army" Faye narrowed her eyes in thought as she muttered to herself. The animals around her noticed her change of mood, Comet going to another room on the left and Caramel deciding to curl up on the sweet dresser.

Lucia stood silent, not wanting to interrupt the Dryad's musing, but Jake had another idea as he opened his mouth to speak but was immediately interrupted by two hands softly yet firmly planting themselves on his shoulders. Liselotte was behind him and she said with a hint of seriousness "Now, now, Jake. I know the burden of your missions and that there's so much of the world you want to know, but manners must always take precedence over everything else, especially with your parents"

The boy promptly shut up while Lucia fawned over the Princess as she thought 'Even though she's as old as us, her presence has a completely different weight to it!'

Meanwhile Faye looked like she was in deep concentration, with her eyes closed and her head slightly bowed, and seeing her state Liselotte whispered to the two adventurers "Seems like the Dryad is deep in thought. We should go to the meeting room while Faye communes with Terraria. Andrew has summoned everyone there, so whatever is going on must be serious"

Careful to not make a sound, the trio slowly walked past the Dryad and made their way out of the hallway and to the meeting room, which was on the right.

X X X

It didn't take long for Steve and Alex to make their way to the Council Building, as the villagers and golems which usually occupied the busy streets of the commercial and production districts made way for their heroes however they could.

It was almost mid-afternoon when the two adventurers arrived in front of the massive building made of cobblestone along with some windows on the central part of the walls, edges made of stone bricks and flights of stair blocks along the roof in a standard village pattern. The structure was solid yet stylish, about twenty blocks tall and fortyfive long, with two large entrances on the front and back and two smaller ones on the sides, however it also had a rectangular underground area thirty blocks deep and twentysix long.

flaking the double iron doors there were two furnace golems, the strongest constructs the villagers were capable of creating by putting three iron blocks in the usual pattern, a blast furnace in the center and topping all of it with a carved pumpkin. Furnace golems are slightly larger than iron golems, have metallic dark grey arms and "helmet" along with a blast furnace in their chest ready to spew flames at any and all interlopers.

Right now these brutal sentinels were dormant, as indicated by the flames of their eyes and chest glowing softly like a fireplace, and as soon as they saw the two village heroes walking towards the entrance they too made way.

Steve and Alex pushed the stone buttons on their respective sides and entered the Council Building, and after three blocks of stone the fortified aesthetic gave way to a warmer one, with birch wood planks as floor and walls and birch longs as pillars. While planning the building at first Steve wasn't going to approve the master villagers' request of not making the interior the same as the exterior due to safety reasons, but after some prodding from Alex he relented.

They opened the double birch doors and entered into the spacey and rather luxurious interior swarming with villagers and golems running in all direction and with all kinds of tasks; there was a long hall in front of the two adventurers and on either side there were stairs leading to the attic, where many kinds of rare and exotic resources are stored, and to the basement, whose first level was a massive golem creation facility and whose second level was a huge library.

Careful not to bump into anyone and quickly exchanging greetings, Steve and Alex moved deeper into the hall until they reached another double birch door flanked by four iron golems, from which no villagers or golems either entered or exited.

They went through the doors and went down a long cobblestone staircase with cobblestone walls and two lines of torches on either side, then they finally arrived at a single oak door flanked by two furnace golems. This was the oldest part of the Council Building, built by Steve when he was sixteen years old in an effort to elude the Illager raids who at the time were devastating, and those Furnace Golems were the very first ones of their kind made by the adventurers and were veterans of a dozen battles against nearly any kind of foe the world could throw at them, now forever guarding the leadership of the greatest villager settlement on the continent.

They entered into a cubic room of about twenty blocks in length and seven blocks in height, made of birch wooden planks with birch log pillars on the diagonal sides and illuminated by a circle of glowstone blocks on the ceiling with a small X in the center made of five blocks.

In the middle of the room stood thirteen makeshift wooden altars, each one occupied by an old master villager who represents a specific profession in order to ensure no group of villagers is overrepresented or underrepresented…aside from nitwits. Philean was among them, and by the looks of his face he must have arrived shortly before the adventurers using the secret entrance at the room's opposite side.

"You've come Hero Alex, and your presence here is unexpected yet welcomed all the same, Hero Steve. There are a few minutes until the start of the meeting, but since we're all here I suppose we can start" the Master Weaponsmith, seated at the center, said with a calm smile.

Steve wanted to immediately present the issue, but Alex gave him that told him to wait and see if the Master Council was aware of it themselves, so for the moment he relented.

"Then I'd like to kick off with a request!" the Master Farmer, seated at his right, said with a cheerful voice. Unlike most of the members of the Master Council she was quite young with green eyes, simple brown robes and a large straw hat on her head which swayed from side to side with each of her movements.

Knowing about Steve's lack of patience, she addressed her close friend instead "Alex, you know of the disputes between the Village and the people of Quiet Rest Village, about us stealing the latter's business of taking care of wandering traders and golem patrols, right? Well, yours truly and the Master Toolsmith managed to defuse the situation and entered a partnership with them! We have to deliver them about ten stacks of bread and carrots every two months to support their business and in exchange they'll let us take full advantage of their precious ender pearls. I'm sure I don't need to tell you just how famous Quiet Rest is-"

"Please sweety, get to the point. There are many others in this meeting who have important requests, besides the Heroes look rather nervous today, especially Hero Steve" the Master Toolsmith, who stood beside her, said in a calm and gentle voice. He was considerably older than the other members of the Master Council with lively grey eyes and a thick black apron over his brown robes, containing all sorts of metallic bits and tools.

Seeing so many eyes on her, the Master Farmer grinned in embarrassment as she scratched the back of her head and said "Oh! Well, usually we would handle this ourselves with our iron golems, but a few incidents at the mines required the presence of thirty more iron golems, and with the current security protocols and all of our golem squads already sent away around the continent, I ask that you two please accompany the villager convoy set to depart in two days to Quiet Rest. Of course the pay for this job is five stacks of emeralds to each of you!"

Steve raised an eyebrow as he thought 'Thirty iron golems sent to the mines for a few incidents? Normally a single iron golem can deal with a dozen hostile mobs with little to no problem, and while the Master Farmer can be an airhead if some miners got killed or zombified she would have definitely told us. Nothing serious has happened yet, but she must feel the need to keep detail at a minimum, which may mean that those strange hostile mobs may have made an appearance'

From the corner of his eye he gave Alex a worried look '...Hopefully it's just an unexpected Creeper migration. Alex already doesn't like cramped spaces and large insects, fighting the worms up close may give her a heart attack'

"Now I'd like to speak, my request is quite urgent as all members of this council surely know" the Master Toolsmith said and everyone nodded, which the old man took as a sign to continue "As my younger colleague told you, we are experiencing various issues in the mines pertaining to strange hostile mobs our mining teams have reported. Fortunately no villagers have lost their lives in these encounters, but with such sudden hostile forces near our borders, we have found it appropriate to send a force of thirty iron golems to the outer underground perimeter. We of the Master Council and the people of the mining community would feel safer if you went there to investigate"

"Of course sir, Steve has already encountered two kinds of strange hostile mobs this morning, when he was exploring a small part of the outskirts of the mining system of " Alex said with a nod and the man began explaining his experiences in the mines nearby.

As soon as he finished his report the Master Cleric gasped in horror, then he said in a half whisper "So not only have the hostile mobs grown in number, but they've already spread in such a large area…this must be the work of the Usurper, no doubt about that! I must contact the upper echelons of Glowing Spires Village and have the necessary precautions taken care of!"

The Master Cleric was named Daervil and he was a wizened man with pale skin and a gold-rimmed purple robe over his brown one, not to mention the oldest among the council members and even the entire Village. Nearly everyone thought of him as a bit of an oddball, Steve included.

But with the appearance of those strange hostile mobs (and possibly others if his hunch was correct) the man thought 'Even if there's no tangible proof to his tall tales of creators and usurpers watching from the Nether, and especially of the so-called Command Block…everything about this situation is out of the ordinary. Until we actually learn what's going on we can't rule any possibility…no matter how nonsensical they may be'

Meanwhile the Master Weaponsmith stroked his long nose with his eyes closed in thought, then he opened them and said "Then it's decided, Hero Steve and Hero Alex will depart to the mines immediately to properly understand these new threats and their origin if possible. The Heroes will also be accompanied by the equerries of the Master Cleric and Master Butcher for research purposes, along with an entourage of four iron golems and two melon golems for the two villagers' protection of course"

"Wait, what, why?" both of the adventurers asked at the same time and the Master Butcher, considerably younger than the other council members, said with an awkward smile "Well, there's a chance these new mobs will drop delicious foods and since Daervil is already going to send his own in the mines, I thought 'Why not send my own too?' especially since he could use some more outdoor experience!"

"This isn't one of your stupid games, Boeghell! See to it that your equerry doesn't interfere in this important mission, and if you pull one of these stunts again I will mete out appropriate consequences for disrupting the Creator's fight against evil" Daervil said with a venomous tone and the Master Butcher fearfully took one step back.

Steve let out an annoyed sigh and Alex chuckled at Boeghell's request, then she said "Well, since we're venturing into the unknown, I guess we'll need all the eyes we can get"

X X X

At the ground floor of the Bastion, Andrew's room had always been used as a sort of meeting room, from the times there was only himself and the two youths to the present time, when each occasion Jake and Lucia had to go on an expedition saw at least half a dozen people in the room.

Today especially saw the Guide's room densely packed as chairs of all kinds had to be brought from all over the building to give everyone a chance to sit, but the town angora bunny Muffin wasn't fazed in the slightest as she sat at the center of the table, sleeping without a care in the world. The last one to arrive in the room abuzz with chatter was the Dryad herself, wearing an especially serious expression.

The century-old being didn't even wait to sit down before beginning her speech, her voice resolute and unwavering "Residents of the Bastion and survivors of the Disaster, today we're gathered for an event the likes of which have very seldom occurred in our world. This early morning I began feeling strange sensations across the world, which I could only very vaguely recognize as either the coming of the Moon Lord or the coming of something akin to the Old One's Army. Thus Andrew and I have dispatched Jake and Lucia to scout ahead in the Dungeon and Caverns respectively…but nothing came of it"

"However, between late morning and early afternoon these sensations I've been having became more clear, meaning that this phenomenon must have stabilized itself over time. I can tell you that this isn't a one-off situation like with the Tavernkeep and the Old One's Army…but something far more expansive and insidious as the energies of Terraria are cradling themselves around strange beings which are certainly not native to our world"

Faye then looked at the mage girl and asked "Lucia, if you may tell everyone about the monsters you've encountered while you were in the Cavern and Underground layers?" to which she nodded and placed the strange drops on the table while she told everyone about her experience this morning and everything she could glean about the monsters she encountered.

The people had differing reactions to her recounting of events.

Robyn wagged as her tail as she took out a stack of paper and began furiously scribbling notes and tracing artwork for the monsters Lucia encountered, occasionally stopping the young girl to ask for more details; Guido the Painter occasionally leaned in to have a look at the werefox's work, muttering to himself all the while.

Gilbert the Merchant stroked his long white beard and said in a pensive tone "Hmm, they don't seem to drop that many coins, I hope at least their drops will be lucrative…" to which Fantasy the Party Girl replied with a slightly annoyed tone "Oh come on, can you not think of money ALL the time? These so-called stalkers may actually be pretty useful to make new fireworks"

As soon as he heard the young woman's idea, Darur the Demolitionist leaned forward and said "Yeah, having a natural source of gunpowder would be really handy…I won't have to go back to the caverns every time I need to make a new batch of explosives" to which Kayla the Nurse angrily replied "You still need to be more careful with your normal explosives first, and if your experiments with those monsters results in others being injured you're going to pay for both treatments"

The dwarf got somewhat angry at that remark and said "Oh come on now, I know I do a lot of experiments with explosives, but I am careful!"

As soon as he said that Kayla, Ronald and Tax Collector, Tallulah the Stylist and Lucia silently stared at him for a few seconds, causing him to relent somewhat.

Terrance the Arms Dealer meanwhile leaned back into his chair as he said nonchalantly "Well, having natural gunpowder is fine, but these new enemies don't seem to be that dangerous than what we were already dealing with. I think we're blowing this situation way out of proportion"

"Yeah, if these are the minions of some new bad guy I think we got this in the bag from the get-go. I mean, recolored zombies and smaller spiders that aren't even hostile? Dungeon enemies from before we defeated Plantera were more dangerous than those!" Jake agreed with the dark-skinned man "Although those skeletons with shields and glaives are pretty tricky…but learning patterns is something me and Lucia are used to so it doesn't really matter in the end"

"Right, let's hope you don't have to eat your own words soon…" Andrew said with an annoyed tone, but Lucia agreed with her friend as her stomach fluttered while she thought 'Even if he can be foolish at times…I really like his optimism'

Seemingly in support of her thoughts, Greum the Wizard said "I'd say you aren't putting enough stock in these younglings, while Jake is completely inept in the art of magic, the young lady right beside him is already catching on to the intricacies of the arcane arts!" to which Lucia's expression became a humble grin.

The young girl's thoughts were further echoed by Stoney Dirt who said "YAR! He's right you know? These landlubbers dismantled me crew as easily as hoisting one's sails, if they think they can handle the coming storms then they can, simple as that" while Liselotte nodded enthusiastically.

Timmy the Angler also agreed as he pumped his fist in the air and said "Oh yeah! That'll also mean there will be tons of new fishes to capture, I'm counting on you!" to which Lucia and Jake nodded, the former definitely more enthusiastically than the latter, as the boy disliked fishing with a passion.

Faye hummed to herself and said "Having a positive outlook on the situation is a good thing, but without any specific information on the threats we'll be about to face it won't help us that much. Thus I've decided to establish two teams made by three people each, along with Jake and Lucia, to go explore the surrounding area of the Bastion in order to see if there have been any changes in Terraria's ecology so far. This search will last until late evening and we'll repeat them in different areas every day"

She then addressed the two youths as she said "You two can go now and begin exploring, the rest will catch up to you soon enough"

"Yes madam" Lucia said with a bow as she stood up while Jake said "Alright, let's do this!" and the two adventurers quickly put their head gear back on and walked out of the meeting room.

X X X

Steve wasn't a believer in any supernatural myth, as in his mind if something didn't have tangible proof of its existence then it should be discarded as falsehood.

But as he rode along with Alex a row of minecarts travelling on glowing activator rails, the man almost felt like praising the Creator Himself for the fact that two masters' equerries would be travelling separately along with their escorts. Steve was obviously glad to completely orient his inventory towards combat and to have the support of golems, but they all moved too slow for his taste, especially in case of a situation as dire as this one.

Meanwhile Alex was enjoying the speedy minecart trip, letting the wind go through her flat blocky hair, but she quickly noticed her friend's glum mood and said "Come on Steve, everything will be fine, it's not like we're going to fight a thousand hostile mobs!"

The man tried to smile for his companion's sake, but his tone was grim as he said "Seems like we're geared up just for that though…I just hope the mines aren't as chaotic as I fear"

Alex maintained her spirits high in spite of Steve's pessimism, but she had to agree with him on their gear. The two of them were more armed than ever before as Steve had about two flints and steel along with six stacks of TNT while the woman had stacks of tipped arrows of harming and poison along with three stacks of firework rockets, divided according to their explosive power, for her enchanted crossbow called "Rainbow Flare"; furthermore both of them had a stack of golden apples, a stack of break and steaks, about four stacks of cobblestone, two stacks of obsidian…and most importantly two totems of undying each.

These strange artifacts date back to the glory days of villagers, but after the Mournful War these totems disappeared from the wider world, ostensibly hoarded by the Illagers who still had the knowledge to manufacture them. As they assailed and destroyed their woodland mansions one by one, the two adventurers gained a sizable amount of these artifacts and their power was so great that they decided to store them in the Village's Council Building and use them only when absolutely necessary.

Alex's expression saddened as she held up one of the strange idols in her hands, cradling it softly as she said "These bring back a lot of memories, yeah? I wonder if we had them when we-" but Steve interrupted her as he said "I already made up a few scenarios for that. We would have lost to the enderlings no matter what, we just didn't have the resources to outlast the hostile mob hordes and our gear was not strong enough either"

"If only we knew what we were getting into much sooner" Alex growled in defeat and Steve simply sighed.

It was supposed to be a simple exploration of the End, thus the two adventurers decided to bring only the bare necessities as they thought that they could simply establish a small hidden foothold and exit the dimension, only to return at a later time with all the resources needed to siege the End and slay its ruler, the fabled Ender Dragon.

In the end the two adventurers were mercilessly killed by the near endless enderling hordes and they neither set foot on the End's mainland nor catch so much as a glimpse of the Ender Dragon.

"Well, no use thinking about it now, we're about to enter the mines" Steve said and Alex turned around in surprise as she saw the rapidly approaching mouth of stone at the foot of the small mountain named by the locals Hopeful Peak.

"Oh! Now the fun part begins!" the woman said in excitement as the light of midday was snuffed by the cave's interior and replaced with the lights of multiple torches and lanterns on the walls and ceiling respectively. The winding paths of the cave system combined with the great speed of the glowing activator rails made the row of minecarts sway to all sides, Alex saying "Weee!" every time the swaying was especially strong; Steve didn't find much enjoyment in this and also remembered many years ago when he was scared that these many movements could cause the minecarts to derail, but watching his companion have so much fun was a delight on its own.

Before either of them knew it the ride was over as the row of minecarts abruptly stopped at two vertical stone blocks, signaling the arrival at one of the many underground stations of the Village's expansive mining system. As one would know by looking at the signs on all sides of one of the four oak plank blocks, "held up" by five fences coming from the ceiling, this particular station was called Light's Edge which was the mining sector furthest from the Village.

The two adventurers dismounted from their minecarts as few villagers went to greet them and put stacks of coal and other raw ores in the chests inside some minecarts, then they hurriedly went into the minecarts and made the transportation row get out of the place at full speed.

"Warm welcome…looks like the equerries haven't arrived yet" Alex muttered as the two adventurers looked around the near-deserted minecart station, populated only by a few passing iron golems and about five villagers who had presumably locked themselves in their small guard stations. She took the time to load Rainbow Flare with a firework rocket, making it a deadly weapon especially in closed spaces and tightly packed mobs.

'I really don't like this…' Steve thought as the promised number of iron golems definitely wasn't here, and his mind tried to find a reason for it '...Maybe they were divided by station? But then their number would have been woefully inadequate in that case. Perhaps they were already ordered to go deeper into Light's Edge? Could be the case, but then the situation should be much dire than what the Master Farmer made it out to be. The Master Council doesn't send more than two dozen golems into the dark for any reason, they just don't operate this way-'

His train of thought was interrupted as Alex placed a hand on his shoulder and shook it as she said "Hey, there they come!" then she gestured to a point in the distance, to the station's rightmost side.

Steve looked at where the woman pointed and saw a long row of minecarts rolling into view, its passengers being six golems and two villagers; while iron golems were the most common type of animated construct employed by the villagers, melon golems were actually pretty rare due to their construction method, as one first has to remove the carved pumpkin from a functional snow golem and place a carved melon instead, causing them to become much more useful as the melon seeds that they shoot cause both damage and knockback.

The group dismounted from the vehicles and the one with purple robes waved at the two adventurers as soon as she saw them.

Steve and Alex ran towards their escorts as the man thought 'Of course, they used the private railing system, built entirely by the villagers about three years ago if I remember well, and used only by high-ranking personnel on official business due to how quick it was compared to the standard one'

"Oh, hello Heroes! I'm sorry we are late, but there was a commotion with the Master Butcher's equerry and we lost some time ironing out the mission's details" the cleric's voice was tinged with annoyance, while the butcher snorted loudly with his nose and said with an even more annoyed tone "Whatever, let's get this over with soon. I'll have business with the Master Butcher once we're done here"

'This is going to be a long expedition, isn't it?' Steve thought annoyed and while Alex was trying to remain positive, she was also thinking the same thing.

And so the group set off into the deserted tunnels of Light's Edge, the orderly and well-lit environment actually feeling creepier to the adventurers and their followers without the hustle and bustle normally associated with working mineshafts, especially those of mining villages.

The group adopted a standard formation, two iron golems on the front and two on the back with the same going for the melon golems, while the two villagers stood in between and the adventurers in the front. Steve and Alex stood close to each other's side, one holding a shield to block incoming attacks and the other holding a crossbow loaded with a firework rocket to quickly destroy groups of hostile mobs.

At first nothing in particular happened, as the group didn't really find anything within the well-lit tunnels, aside from some iron golems patrolling set areas and a few bats which were there to begin with. Things kept changing for the worse as the group went deeper into Light's Edge, finding even fewer iron golems (with various degrees of damage) and small groups of hostile mobs like zombies and skeletons along with the occasional creepers and spiders, sometimes serving as jockeys.

These small groups were dealt with very easily by the group, but as the group approached the farthest parts of Light's Edge, the true scope of the issue began to make itself clear.

They were at an intersection now, the two melon golems successfully keeping at bay two creepers coming from the western tunnel while the iron golems absolutely destroyed large hordes of zombies, with a few supporting skeletons, coming from the two eastern tunnels; meanwhile Alex fired a rocket at a crowd of about six skeleton miners and it exploded in a colorful sphere, dealing considerable damage and momentarily breaking their cohesion, which was the signal Steve was waiting for to go there and slash them into particles.

The skeleton miners were heavily hurt and set ablaze by the man's slashes, the damage sustained by them being too much which caused them to fall down in clouds of ash and experience points along with their exotic drops, which Steve automatically took.

"Another group of skeleton miners, and I see some normal skeletons in there too!" Alex said as she quickly loaded another firework rocket into Rainbow Flare, to which Steve replied as he ran to her side "This group is larger than the last one, we'll engage in ranged combat first and then I'll go and finish the rest"

Alex nodded as Steve placed himself in front of her with his shield, while she positioned herself in a way that would protect her from incoming attacks and allow her to counterattack.

The woman fired the first rocket just as the horde of skeletons came into view, then she loaded and fired the second just as the horde began splitting itself between melee and ranged positions. Steve immediately ran to deal with the skeleton miners, each falling to a single slash, and positioned his shield just in time to block a volley of arrows as Alex ran towards the man as she fired the third rocket, completely killing the remaining hostile mobs which exploded in a gust of white smoke and colorful particles.

"These are mine, you've already had enough" Alex said as she ran to pick up the skeletons' drops and experience points. After doing so she and Steve looked behind them to see how the others were faring, and after seeing that the creepers were taken care of and the zombie hordes were dwindling fast they decided to look at the drops.

In total, the skeleton miners had dropped a type of chestplate called a mining shirt, a raw steak and seven round black items called bombs. Alex studied them while remaining silent, then she said "...Ok, now I have even more questions"

"This isn't as weird as you think, bombs and equipment specialized in mining seem like common things for something that lives underground" Steve said as he gave Alex the mining shirt and took four bombs for himself "These mobs may also have more drops, like zombies"

"Even if they were to drop bones I doubt they would make for good bonemeal" Alex said as she absentmindedly took the chestplate "I mean, these mobs looked even more decayed than zombies!"

"Well, this steak looks good either way, I bet it would be delicious if cooked" Steve said as he quickly grabbed the piece of meat before the woman could snatch it from him, which caused her to sigh and say "Well, at least you're not drooling for freaking worm meat-"

She was interrupted by a sudden chorus of ethereal voices, which caused them to rise up in alarm and run to the eastern tunnel closest to them. Just as they feared, four wraiths were floating closer to the intersection, as the frigid blue flames generating in their wake illuminated the darkness and their ghastly groans echoed from afar.

The butcher screamed in fear as the cleric glared at the hostile mobs while saying "What? There shouldn't be any undead this powerful near the Village, and especially not in such numbers! Heroes, slay these abominations at once!"

"I'll block any flaming projectiles coming our way, you and the melon golems should have enough firepower to hold them at bay" Steve said to Alex, knowing that wraiths teleport out of the way of melee attacks. The woman loaded and fired a firework rocket at the approaching group of ethereal mobs, the explosion damaging them but not considerably.

The wraiths however wouldn't simply stand idly while getting shot with explosives, and fired four small blue fireballs at the rangers. Steve ran ahead with his shield raised, eliciting a horrified gasp from the butcher, and upon intercepting them he immediately leapt back as the blocks he stood on were set ablaze by unnaturally cold fire, eliciting a sigh of relief from the butcher.

He immediately threw himself to the side as Alex fired another firework rocket at the group of wraiths, bringing them closer to true death. The melon golems also fired seeds at them, but at that distance their attacks didn't do much to the ethereal mobs.

Steve nimbly intercepted another volley of soulfire balls, before he heard a horrified scream of the butcher followed by a bunch of squelching sounds. Steve knew what that meant but he still thought in confusion 'Slimes, here? Must be another new mob?'

Exchanging nods, Alex fired a final firework rocket at the group of wraith, obliterating them in a colorful explosion, and Steve ran back to find two iron golems fighting three slimes…except they looked all kinds of wrong, from their bright yellow color to their facelessness to the fact they didn't split after death.

Steve made a sign at the iron golems and he killed the last slime in three hits, dissipating it in a cloud of ash as it dropped experience points and three gel. 'Is this some kind of slimeball?' Steve thought as he looked intently at the small gelatinous chunk, which was blue for some reason.

"Everything done on my end! Is everyone okay?" Alex asked as she reunited with the rest of the group, to which Steve answered "Yeah, the equerries aren't harmed and the iron golems have suffered negligible damage"

The man then turned towards the rest of the group as he said "Alright, this many hostile mobs running around the mineshafts means that there has been a breach, possibly multiple ones, and my theory is that those skeleton miners are behind it. But in order to verify the true scope of the issue, we must go all the way to the end of Light's Edge and check every single Outpost, as well as eliminate any hostile mob we come across"

With that, the group marched deeper into the mines, and the butcher seethed as he would definitely find work elsewhere after this expedition was done.

X X X

Under the resplendent midday sun, Jake and Lucia exited the Bastion and immediately broke into a sprint, leaving behind a trail of arcane smoke as their magical shoes allowed the youths to run super fast. The boy had Spectre Boots and the girl had Terraspark Boots.

They started with patrolling the perimeter around their base of operation, since they knew every tree, hill and tunnel of the area like the palms of their hands by this point, however they ended up finding nothing truly of note.

Jake began fiddling idly with one of the many emergency torches scattered around the perimeter when he suddenly had an idea "Say Lucia, why don't we go exploring some of the parts we haven't gotten to yet, like south west around all of those hills? I think there could be something there"

"R-right! That could be a good idea! Let's do that!" the girl half-shouted, immediately flexing her ghostly wings as her face reddened in embarrassment. Mostly because she was supposed to be the brain of the group, and having her meatheaded friend come up with an admittedly sound idea before her was always a source of awkwardness for the young girl.

But a smaller, yet not any less important part of her felt embarrassed for another reason. Despite having gotten a lot stronger and braver since she started her journey as an adventurer (or hero as Liselotte put it)...Lucia still felt so inadequate.

Sure, she and Jake braved all kinds of terrible terrain, built up great structures like the Walls of Purity and vanquished dreadful monsters, but Lucia never felt she had achieved anything noteworthy as Terraria remained a mysterious land mostly barren of any structure or human civilization, furthermore it was as if she and Jake never did anything on their own, always with someone holding their hand and telling them what to do and not do with no chance of independence-

"Hey Lucia, you alright? You're spacing out again" Jake said as he lightly tapped Lucia on the shoulder, which caused her to return to her senses and say "Yes, let's go there"

The two youths took flight as they were headed to an unknown location, quickly rising upwards before having to glide and land to propel themselves in the air once more. Exploration wasn't exactly the main concern of the Guide or the Dryad, unless it was to discover quicker routes to the various biomes or finding resource deposits, and since Jake and Lucia mainly occupied themselves with gathering resources and training for the next boss fight, the land and skies of Terraria remained mostly unexplored.

As the two youths zigzagged towards southwest, the environment became more sloped as great hills and cave openings partly blocked by long vines made themselves more frequent while trees crowded around openings between the larger landmarks.

"Huh, this is pretty far from the road we use to go to the Corruption…" Jake hummed as he and Lucia landed on one of the taller hills, overlooking the landscape before them. In the distance the boy managed to make out the shapes of a few flying islands and said "Hey Lucia, check it out! There are floating islands around here too! I wonder if there's a second Celestial Plateau in Terraria…"

The young girl however didn't answer, her eyes glued to the massive wall barely visible in the far distance. "...I hope these anomalies won't give the Corruption any more power…" she muttered to herself, but the boy heard her and replied "Those creepy places? Don't worry, we walled those dumps last year before defeating the Wall of Flesh. There's no way they're going to breach the walls, otherwise Faye would've warned us about it"

He then playfully patted his friend on the back and flashed her a smile as he said "Besides, we have to search around for more of those strange creatures, right? Let's tackle one problem at a time!"

Lucia smiled back at him as she nodded, then they jumped down the hill to continue their search. It didn't take long at all to find what they were looking for.

"Woah, this is actually pretty easy" Jake said as the two landed at the base of the hill and immediately saw some unfamiliar yet normal creatures, those being five white sheep absentmindedly chewing on grass, two sheep with black skin and beige wool sleeping on the ground, and lastly a white sheep slightly larger than the rest with a pair large brown horns guarding the herd.

"Right, let's explore more-" Lucia said as a purple slime, previously hiding between mossy boulders, jumped from the side and quickly bounced towards the horned sheep, which was thrown back with a pained bleat. Despite the brutal hit the head of the herd recovered quickly and angrily charged the monster, throwing it back quite a bit and making its dense gelatinous body wobble.

"Oooh, now this is getting interesting, Go sheep go!" Jake shouted from the side with an excited tone while Lucia marveled at the horned sheep's strength, for purple slimes weren't exactly weak monsters. However the gelatinous monster recovered quickly and jumped into the animal, brutally crushing it as blood, viscera and body chunks lay scattered around.

The rest of the herd immediately stopped whatever they were doing and ran away in horror as the young girl withdrew her Razorblade Typhoon and conjured one bladed circle which blew the purple slime up. Jake at the remains of the horned sheep with sadness as he said "Man, guess these creatures don't really measure up to Terraria's monsters"

"It's for the best, we already have enough to worry about" Lucia said as she collected the purple slime's drops "Now let's go, I have a feeling there may be more strange creatures lurking around this area"

As the two took flight once more Jake asked "Say, since we've never been here before, how should we call this area? I was thinking about the Secluded Hills, what about you?" to which Lucia answered "Hmm…how about the Green Hills Maze, since their layout resembles one when viewed from above?"

Jake pondered on his friend's suggestion as they started gliding over the tightly packed trees, then he said "Alright, that's actually a good name, it's settled then!"

The youths resumed their walk through the winding paths, chopping down trees when they obstructed the path and marveling at the sight of new creatures, such as a herd of white chickens with some having brilliant amber feathers; at the head of the flock there was a slightly larger and more fancy-looking chicken, with feathers of different colors ranging from golden on their heads, jade around their bodies and purple on their tails.

"Jake, I think we should catch them and bring them back to Faye and Andrew for research purposes" Lucia said and Jake replied "Roger that!" as they flew in with their golden bug nets and caught all of the eleven chickens, the flock consisting of seven white ones, three amber ones and a fancy one.

Then they also encountered a herd of cows and bulls lounging around in a more open area of the Green Hills Maze, though the strong gaze of the bulls made the two youths stop observing them and leave.

They even found what seemed like a variant of the Dark Crawler, only this one was even smaller (around the size of a bunny) and bright green in color. The two adventurers would usually find them crawling around the crowns of trees, either alone or in groups of two or three, and weren't hostile at all as they wouldn't attack on sight and the projectiles of the Razorblade Typhoon.

"The fact my weapon's incantations don't home in on them must mean that they're completely harmless" Lucia mused as she put her magic book back in her robe, while Jake asked "So that means they count as critters?"

"Well, probably-" the young girl was saying, but Jake already flew up the tree with his trusty golden bug net and swung it at the green spider, successfully catching it.

"Oh, guess they actually do…" Lucia said as Jake proudly showed her the caught green spider, holding it like a plushie. The creature itself didn't seem at all troubled by this turn of events and stood still, even as Jake put it back into his inventory.

But not all the encounters were peaceful, as every once in a while from the hills above monstrous chickens would jump down to attack the two adventurers. They were noticeably larger than normal chickens and possessed sharper claws and a long green reptilian tail, but all the same they posed no real threat to the youths, as the mutated animals would be annihilated almost instantly the moment Lucia or Jake whipped out her Razorblade Typhoon or his Influx Waver respectively.

"What do you think we should call these ones, Lucia?" Jake asked as he pocketed the drops of three slain hostile chickens, being three raw chickens, four feathers and one lizard tail, along with 45 copper coins each. Lucia looked at their drops, then she said "How about Cockatrice? In ancient stories that's the name given to chickens with reptilian characteristics"

"Sounds cool enough, alright!" Jake said and the two continued their trek through the area.

Eventually they arrived at some sort of clearing, where the trees were far less in number and farther from each other, but before Jake and Lucia could enter they had to overcome another obstacle.

"Are those…wolves? I thought they could only be found in the Tundra biome!" Lucia incredulously and Jake replied "Maybe those are from another world, like the other creatures we've seen so far? Time to find out!" and walked towards the pack at a brisk pace, with a panicking Lucia trailing behind him.

The wolves in question were nine in number with whitish-grey fur and weren't really doing much, aside from tending to the three pups in the pack, eating meat from hunted prey or simply resting. They also didn't mind when Jake got close to them, and one even seemed to enjoy the boy's naked hand as he removed his gauntlet and gently patted it.

"They're…docile?" Lucia said in half-disbelief, as the wolves the two had encountered so far were bloodthirsty, and Jake replied "Maybe these ones aren't dangerous? They sure are fluffy though! You should try- eh, actually…never mind"

He relented the moment he saw his friend trembling slightly, remembering her first interaction with a wolf during a night in the Tundra biome, as the beast jumped towards the girl at high speeds with its jaws fully outstretched.

Lucia then shook herself and said "At any rate…we should proceed forward and explore the clearing, then I think we can go back to the Bastion"

The two adventurers got up and walked towards the clearing as Jake waved at the pack of wolves, but then they immediately turned around as the beasts started growling aggressively. "Are we under attack-" Lucia asked frantically as she took out her Razorblade Typhoon, but Jake immediately stopped her with an arm as he rested his other hand on the Influx Waver's hilt and said "Wait, they're not growling at us!"

The six adults immediately rose up and started growling at everything around them, then they all snapped into attention as a large creature barreled down the right hill and brutally tackled the nearest wolf, scratching and tearing at pushing madly.

It was a wolf with the same fur as the others, but it was twice the size of those wolves and had red eyes, long bones jutting out of its body and sharp claws and fangs.

The five other wolves threw themselves at the mutated beast in a savage fight, while the three pups scurried away to a safer place. It lasted for two agonizing minutes, but once the monstrous wolf was finally killed three normal wolves were dead as well.

"Damn, that was intense! What do you think-" Jake was about to ask and Lucia, her face pale as death, interrupted him by answering "It's already beginning. Faye and Andrew mentioned that the Wall of Flesh was created as a guardian of Terraria to seal powerful spirits and energies, and that with its destruction all of that would return being rampant across the world. What I think is happening is that these energies find it very easy to dwell within these new creatures, changing them in various ways"

"But to confirm my theory we have to ask Faye, Andrew and possibly Greum too" Lucia concluded and Jake gave a last look at the recovering wolves before saying "Well, then let's go to this clearing and then return to the Bastion"

The two adventurers walked forward and saw many kinds of the animals they had already encountered thus far, from a large pack of brown-furred wolves chasing sheep and chickens of various colors, small flocks of cockatrices harassing lone pigs and cows cowering behind bulls as they repelled belligerent boars.

As soon as they entered the clearing they heard a loud growl from their left and turned to see a herd of ten boars charging straight at them. And from the hill on their left they saw another monstrous wolf jumping down at them with its maw completely outstretched.

Without a moment of hesitation, Jake whipped out his Chain Gun and fired at the horde of hostile creatures, reducing them into bloody chunks extremely quickly as the machine of war let out a loud roar. Lucia then moved in to take their drops, each boar dropping 30 copper coins and four raw porkchops, while the dire wolf (as the young girl decided to call them, due to their appearance) dropping 15 silver coins.

"I think we've seen enough, Jake. Let's return to the Bastion" Lucia said and Jake replied "Roger, maybe the others have also found some other stuff"

Thus the two adventurers took flight, as the sky was tinged orange by the early sunset.

X X X

The group had arrived to yet another Outpost, a spacious type of area with a variety of purposes such as keeping watch on the hostile mobs beyond the Village's confines, the starting place of sorties into uncharted underground territories and occasionally as an additional storage for mined ores.

This one, just like the previous ones they encountered, was in complete disarray as the two-layered obsidian wall supposed to keep hostile mobs out was breached by hordes of hostile mobs. Only this time the situation was much worse than before.

"Damn it, another breach! Alex, take care of the mobs in the back, I'll hold off those in the front. If the situation doesn't stabilize we'll have to resort to our TNT trap!" Steve said as he blocked the attacks of two skeleton miners and responded with a few slashes of his own, and while the two hostile mobs fell down as they dissipated into clouds of ash, their experience points flowing into the man's body, he was hit by a few rotten flesh projectiles thrown by a small group of lobber zombies in the distance…which were immediately blown up by a firework rocket.

Meanwhile the six golems fought back against a large tide of zombies and skeletons, the iron ones holding smashing against the horde of undead while melon ones targeting the skeleton wolves first, to make sure their bow-wielding owners wouldn't receive any buffs.

Lastly the butcher and the cleric were huddled behind an outcropping of stone, the former curled in a terrified ball while the latter occasionally poked her head out of the hiding spot to see how the battle was going.

"T-this is the third breach we've encountered so far, a-and we're n-not even half-way t-through Light's Edge. H-how is this going to g-go for?!" the butcher ranted to himself and the cleric looked back at the traumatized villager in pity as she thought 'The fight against evil isn't made for everyone, though I wonder if the Master Butcher will receive pushback for his actions? Probably not, the council members can do as they please, with no checks or balances to their power…'

The fight lasted for several minutes, until the death groan of an iron golem could be heard. The cleric watched in horror as one of their stalwart defenders, created through holy rituals empowered by deep laws of this world passed down among generations of villagers since time immemorial, fell down as its crack-riddled body lost mass and exploded in a cloud of white smoke.

The other iron golems were also in bad conditions, but thanks to their tireless efforts the undead tide was fully stopped and the two Heroes were finishing to clear up the more dangerous mobs.

Steve madly hacked through a group of cave spiders as the golden apple he ate beforehand empowered his body and allowed him to bear the poison without trouble, meanwhile Alex loaded another of her most powerful firework rocket into Rainbow Flare and shot into a crowd of three wraiths and five skeleton vanguards, and since the explosive flew past the shields and detonated into the wraiths, all hostile mobs were obliterated in a grand colorful explosion.

"Now it's our chance, while there are no more enemies mucking the path!" Steve shouted as he and Alex ran towards the sizable hole in the wall and started placing obsidian blocks to patch it up, a task they managed to finish in a few seconds.

The adventurers then turned to the rest of the group while munching on some steak, Alex consoling the trembling butcher while Steve went towards the cleric and asked "So we found out why there are so few iron golems in Light's Edge tunnels, this many hostile mobs are too much even for them. We are still good enough on health and supplies, how about the rest of you?"

She was silent for a moment before answering "...One of the iron golems has fallen in battle, and though the others hold strong for now, they will fall if confronted by a large number of hostile mobs…furthermore we are reaching our limit in this dreadful situation."

The man briefly pondered on what to do, for he already had a clear course of action and Alex put it into words "You and the escort should retreat from Light's Edge and alert the Master Council on the terrible situation here in the mines. These hostile mobs simply wandered into the mines and there was no cohesion, but if this was a precise and targeted attack the entirety of Light's Edge would be overrun by now"

"We're also lucky no powerful hostile mobs have shown up thus far, or we wouldn't have any golems with us by now" Steve added "Relate to the Master Council the following orders: they are to send to Light's Edge an armada of sixty iron golems, ten furnace golems and twenty melon golems to clean up any hostile mobs that could still be around, along with four builder crews to repair any damages accompanied by a standard escort for each of them. While you leave the mines, we'll go to one of the two main outposts to more accurately monitor the situation, then we'll also return on the surface"

Alex and the two villagers nodded in approval and the cleric said "Then this is goodbye for now. May the Creator bless you in your holy mission" as her and the rest of the escort made their leave.

Now alone, the two adventurers made their way through the mines, their steps more cautious now that they didn't have the support of golems to take on multiple hordes of hostile mobs at once.

As they went through tunnels and rooms, clearing smaller or more isolated ones of hostile mobs and avoiding those where they weren't sure if they could clear the hostile mobs within quick enough, Steve and Alex came to a grim conclusion.

"There's so many hostile mobs, it's almost no different from an abandoned mineshaft…" the woman mused in a worried tone and the man replied "Patrols in the mines will have to be increased in frequency then, between the increased mob activity and these new ones thrown into the mix"

"Besides, this problem will most likely affect our own mines too" Alex whined and Steve nodded as he said "Exactly, besides we also have to study the frequency of those worms, where will they spawn and their overall behavior" to which the woman scowled while saying "Don't remind me of them, I can feel my skin crawling just thinking about those new mobs…"

The two carefully exited another tunnel and hid behind a wall of stone, Alex barely peeking from the corner with her spyglass to see just what hostile mobs were there. Her expression became panicked as the woman spotted a huge breach, about thirteen blocks in width, and as for the mobs there were no less than thirty cave spiders and three giant cave spiders, the latter mobs being essentially larger teal-colored cave spiders which were much tougher all around and not only capable of spawning more normal cave spiders, but also able to fire large webs from their abdomen, which upon landing deal damage and slow down those inside them.

"We have to kill all of these hostile mobs right now, or the armada's efforts to retake Light's Edge will be slowed down and we cannot afford that" the woman said as she immediately returned to their hiding spot "Steve, ready the TNT trap. There are thirty cave spiders and three giant ones, with their speed and numerical advantage we can't take them all on in the open, the only choice is to force them into a chokehold"

The man nodded as he ran back into the tunnel to set the explosives and Alex didn't waste any time loading one of her strongest firework rockets into Rainbow Flare and firing it into the edges of the spider horde. The small explosion managed to kill five cave spiders, but it also alerted the arachnid horde of her presence and a chorus of countless legs soon commenced.

Alex loaded another firework rocket and fired it into the densely packed horde, killing seven more cave spiders and bringing the first giant cave spider in range, but she almost cursed as she saw fifteen more cave spiders entering through the breach, with another giant one trailing behind them.

"Steve, make the trap longer, there's more cave spiders now!" the woman shouted as she fired another rocket into the approaching horde, managing to kill eleven cave spiders due to how close they were to each other, however this also brought the giant cave spiders into web bomb range and she ran as fast as she could, barely avoiding the falling sticky explosives.

Fortunately Steve had already finished preparing the TNT trap and almost blocked the passage with cobblestone, leaving a two-block hole for her to pass through. Once Alex reached the cobblestone wall and came on the other side, he placed another cobblestone block allowing one hole through which they could see the horde getting closer.

The tunnel leading to the breached Main Outpost was six blocks wide, which meant that the four giant cave spiders and the horde of small ones could pass unhindered. The two adventurers waited for a few seconds as the giant cave spiders uselessly fired their web bombs at the cobblestone stone wall and the smaller ones raced for the open hole.

"Now!" Steve shouted as a cave spider got very close to the wall and he placed the last cobblestone block, then the man took a flint and steel and primed a TNT under the recently-mined cobblestone floor. The two adventurers ran away as fast as possible from the tunnel, Alex knowing full well that Steve placed a full stack of TNT under it.

Five agonizing seconds later, a cacophonous series of explosions rocked the left tunnels of Light's Edge, obliterating any surrounding structure as well as the horde of cave spiders, their white smoke and sea of experience points being the only proof of their existence.

Alex looked at the sheer destruction caused by her companion, and turned to him with an annoyed expression as she asked "This much TNT? How are you going to explain all of this to the Master Council?" to which Steve replied with an equally annoyed tone "These are the consequences of understaffing mining patrols, lack of defenses among the mines, undisclosed details regarding the situation at hand and sending unprepared equerries into overrun mines. The past years were peaceful enough to ignore these issues, but between the rapidly increasing mob population and new ones coming from who-knows-where they cannot be ignored anymore"

As the two walked down the chasm to collect the experience points and then leave, Alex couldn't help but agree with Steve.

X X X

NEW BESTIARY ENTRIES!

Sheep: These fluffy white animals mostly spend their days munching on grass, their wool can also be sheared and tinted in many ways!

Inky Sheep: A strange sheep with black skin and black patches on its wool, may be the result of a prankster's boredom.

Horned Sheep: Sick of being attacked by wolves, some sheep have grown large horns and their rams are dangerous as they are relentless.

Chicken: Though this flightless bird appears goofy, they elegantly fall from high places. Remember to cook before eating!

Amber Chicken: The brilliant plumage of this particular breed of chicken indicates higher rank among the flock.

Fancy Chicken: Despite still being flightless, these majestic birds sport fantastic colors and more elongated features.

Cockatrice: A chicken being influenced by the wild energies of Terraria, as well as its species' more sinister side. Once cooked, their meat and tails are very delicious!

Cow: Great and peaceful source of meat, leather and milk, which is said to heal any kind of ailments!

Bull: These muscular, horned bovines will charge at anything they perceive to be a threat to themselves or the herd.

Pig: Pink and fat animals which have been breeded and eaten since time immemorial.

Boar: A wild pig that has grown in size and strength thanks in part to the wild energies of Terraria. Sporting thick fur and stout tusks, it charges into everything with reckless abandon.

Pale Wolf: A wild canine usually found in taigas, it's not hostile unless harmed and can be tamed with bones into a forever faithful companion.

Woods Wolf: The most common wolf variant, found in the forest biome. They tend to crowd around trees and sleep on each other.

Dire Wolf: Its more predatory and aggressive nature has been brought to the surface by the wild energies of Terraria, which have also caused its body to painfully mutate. They are solitary and never stop hunting.

Green Crawler: They have eight legs and eight eyes, but the wild energies of Terraria have somehow made them smaller and docile, making them use their ways to cocoon and feast on smaller beasts and insects.

---

Kept you waiting, huh? Yeah, at first this chapter was supposed to be much shorter and essential boil down to "characters meet up to discuss new appearances" and some exposition dumps about the Village, the Bastion, the NPCs and how they organized themselves up to that point...but I thought that making you all wait more than half a year for that would be pretty bad, so I decided to put some actions scenes, and interactions and new entries.

With my thesis coming up I don't know if I'll be able to post the third chapter next week, but I really hope to because I have a proper writing sxhedule and everything!

Before leaving though, I'd like to put the main characters' weapons, enchantments and accessories to not cause any more confusion.

Steve: Diamond armor enchanted with Protection IV and Unbreaking III; diamond sword named Tie Breaker enchanted with Sharpness V, Sweeping Edge III and Unbreaking III.

Alex: Diamond armor enchanted with Protection IV and Unbreaking III; bow named Wind Striker enchanted with Power V, Unbreaking III, Flame I and Infinity I; crossbow named Rainbow Flare enchanted with Unbreaking III.

Jake: Accessories are Ankh Shield, Avenger Emblem, Destroyer Emblem, Celestial Shell, Spectre Boots and Molten Skull Rose.

Lucia: Accessories are Ankh Shield, Celestial Emblem, Celestial Shell, Terraspark Boots, Celestial Cuffs and Mana Cloak.

With all of that out of the way, see you next time!