A whole new world

[aestrix]

There is a forest that likes to pretend that it's ordinary. It isn't, it's quite bizarre. Every night, in fact, zombies and other horrible monsters swarm this place, looking for people to kill. Not that they've found anyone, the forest itself is quite empty of residents. But they search anyway, during the night, shambling and groaning and occasionally leaving body parts lying around. Those disappear pretty quickly, but it still happens. Then the day comes, and they depart to who knows where, swearing (if mindless monsters could think, or in fact swear to anything in particular) that they'l be back the next night. Repeat ad nauseum.

It's currently in the day portion of this cycle of directionless attempts at violence. Maybe this day will be different from all of the others.

But then, probably not, it's a very boring island without anyone here.

Comments

[greatestgift]

Sable declines to argue. She runs, ducks into a cave, scoops the entire contents of the chest into her pack, and 'listens' for Gus with groundsense.

[aestrix]

He declines to leave a certain radius of his designated home. "I hope a scrawny kid like you isn't all that's standing between us and Cthulu's Eye," he calls, aggrieved.

[greatestgift]

Nope. Not arguing with the horrible mindless person-things.

She experiments to find his radius and spends the afternoon building herself another house well outside of this area, then goes ore-hunting.

[aestrix]

Ores! Goodness, so many ores. Copper and iron and two ores she's not able to identify on her own.

(Gus eventually gives up and goes back to his house.)

[greatestgift]

She ventures over to ask Dylan about the strange ores.

[aestrix]

"Tungsten is a hard metal that is an improvement over iron in most cases. Platinum is very rare and is one of the strongest ordinary metals, a set of armor made out of it would protect someone very well," is his ruling.

[greatestgift]

"Seriously? This world is crazy," says Sable. "Platinum isn't stronger than iron. And what's an 'ordinary' metal? Are there extraordinary ones?"

[aestrix]

"Hellstone can be found in the Underworld, and requires at least a Nightmare Pickaxe, Deathbringer Pickaxe, or better to be mined."

[greatestgift]

"...Who names these pickaxes? What are they made of?"

[aestrix]

"A Nightmare Pickaxe is better than either a gold or a platinum pickaxe, and is made out of twelve demonite bars and six shadow scales." Pause. "A Deathbringer Pickaxe is better than either a gold or a platinum pickaxe, and is made out of twelve crimtane bars and six tissue samples."

[greatestgift]

"What's demonite? What's crimtane?"

[aestrix]

"Demonite can be found extremely rarely in very small veins underground, but it is most commonly acquired upon killing the Eater Of Worlds or the Eye of Cthulhu. Crimtane can be found extremely rarely in very small veins underground, but it is most commonly acquired upon killing the Brain Of Cthulhu or the Eye of Cthulhu."

[greatestgift]

"...What are all these eyes and brains doing?"

[aestrix]

"If you combine lenses at a demon altar, you might be able to find a way to summon a powerful monster. You will want to wait until night before using it, though." Pause. "Your current equipment simply won't do. You need to make better armor."

[greatestgift]

"Out of what? Platinum?"

[aestrix]

"You should focus on gathering more heart crystals to increase your maximum life."

[greatestgift]

"...What's a heart crystal," she sighs.

[aestrix]

"Underground are crystal hearts that can be used to increase your max life. You can smash them with a pickaxe."

[greatestgift]

"Great. Okay. Fine."

She goes back to her ore hunt. Ore hunt, ore hunt, ore hunt. It's usually pretty difficult to sense things through a thick layer of stone or dirt, but everything here is so regular that the ores shine like beacons.

She neglects to get inside before dark.

[aestrix]

Ore! Wonderful, wonderful ore -

And then there are zombies.

[greatestgift]

Blowing up zombies is painful but, frankly, kind of fun. Sable could use some fun right now. She clears a path back to the surface and heads for her new house, exploding zombies and smacking eyeballs along the way.

[aestrix]

Halfway to her house, something bright and somewhat colorful plummets from the sky, going very fast.

It nails a zombie, right in the head. Appropriately, the zombie explodes.

[greatestgift]

...

The fallen object doesn't feel... monstery. She crouches down and peers at it where it sits in the grass.

[aestrix]

It is a tiny stylized star! It glows brightly, at first seeming white, but the light it gives off shifts colors; pale blue, pink, yellow, some kind of purple, and others. The little star gives off little sparklies that fade away quickly enough. It's kind of cute, actually. Sparkly, sparkly, sparkly.

[greatestgift]

She prods it. It doesn't do her any obvious harm.

She picks it up and sticks it in her pocket and kills all the zombies that have approached while she was screwing around with sparkly things.