Chapter 2.1: A Scout's Trial

After I replied to Luna, I face the dark hallway and continued treading through the dark cave alone. Not leaving a trail of torches this time to save up my remaining light sources.

It was quiet, it was creepy, not even anything I can see in just six feet in front of me. This could cause someone to become claustrophobic in a flash.

"You can't rule the world if you don't become one with the world." I nervously said so out of spite.

I kept walking through the dark path carefully hoping there's a gold chest or ore veins to encounter in the way.

And in the spur of the moment, something showed up,

*Swoosh~

Except that something narrowly missed my head.

*Chaak

I just realized that I stepped on a pressure plate and a poisoned arrow flew by my face on the sideline of the path I'm facing towards.

"Hooh~ kay.."

I looked at the direction of where it fired at and all I can see is pitch black. The dart trap is not even visible with the distance of the torch not shedding light to it and I already feel like panicking.

I immediately removed the pressure plate.

Had I not been careful and I could've taken an arrow to the head. I would've died on the spot.

It truly speaks how dangerous Terraria really is.

With just a dart trap and pressure plate alone I already feel threatened. It's not going well.

I did not bother taking out the dart trap because it's out of visibility so I continued carefully treading along.

"Oohh~ huhuhuh.. this sucks."

This cave is naturally testing me even when I'm unprepared and inexperienced, I'm at the end of my rope. It should at least given me something to fight.

*Splat *splat *splat *splat

Of course, the cave responds. I heard wet splatter noises closing in towards me.

I'm guessing those are the colored underground slimes.

I threw a few torches up ahead to give out some light on this already dark underground and in the way I see 3 red slimes and 2 yellow slimes.

The blue and green slimes on the surface are much weaker compared to these colored gelatins so they should fare not dying quick.

And so I rushed to engage. One red slime jumped forward while I dashed towards it.

I readied my copper shortsword, prepared to slice it in midair.

But immediately I got hit from the side by a yellow slime. I got hit with 45 damage taken.

"Half of my fucking health bar!! I haven't even touched you!"

They're even playing teamwork against me.

Come to think of it, I haven't checked my damage output. I just swing my sword to these slimes and never put my attention to calculating the damage I've done to them.

I took a peek at the information of the shortsword I was holding:

===

Deadly Copper Shortsword

6 melee damage

4% critical strike chance

Very fast speed

Weak knockback

Material

+20% damage

+8% speed

===

[6 melee damage]

While I was occupied by the interface, 3 slimes lunges themselves at me and I jumped back to evade them.

"You little creatures are getting feisty with me now, huh. Well, here goes nothing!" I charged at one of the slimes desperately.

By chance, one red slime jumped high and hit my blade. In that moment I saw 3 flying above the slime's top.

I only inflicted a mere 3 damage to a red slime and it was the critical hit. It must be at a staggering high endurance for a colored slime. I can't even see its health bar.

And once again I got hit with 39 damage, I'm on my last 11 life points to death. My last heart.

"I can't play around with you little creatures any longer."

I need to at least hone my swordsmanship to defend my blind spots and hold them back.

"Bring it!"

Two slimes jumped high up and I rushed forward. One yellow slime, on alert, leaped forward for a tackle and I swung my shortsword sideways, shoving it out of the way in the process.

And before I knew it, I got myself surrounded.

A red and yellow slimes blocking the path, a yellow slime that I shoved aside and the remaining two on the rear. This situation is making my heart race, with my health being on its last hit.

Will I make it through?

A splashing sound of leap comes from behind and I take action by slashing it off-course.

Another one lunges at me from the front, I stepped back and slash my weapon upwards in front of me.

Two more was coming up from the side and one from the back, I performed a circular motion and sliced them up knocking the slimes back to their positions.

One slime was under in front of me and attacked, I gasped for air then narrowly dodged it.

'Shit. I can't do this forever. I need to breathe.'

The slimes continued on being on the offensive and I kept backing off.

One red slime was approaching me from high up and I ducked, skipping past me to the unlit oblivion corner of the cave.

The rest of the slimes relentlessly draw themselves to me. I just sliced them back whenever one of them was really close and shove them off of me.

I continued slashing the slime and I feel like my hands are being at ease in this tense situation. I wondered why.

Perhaps I'm starting to get comfortable of using the shortsword. It's finally getting smooth and into the rhythm.

Before I knew it, I got tackled from behind.

It was the red slime that skipped past me towards the darkness.

"Shit.."

I lost control of my body and my consciousness forcefully fades away slowly.

I'm dying.

***

When Luna received the reply from Elma, she was about to write a response but then retracted it and closed off the interface.

"I guess he is like a hard bastard. He's not dying easily." Luna stated, being indifferent to her tone.

"You think so? What if he's not?" Aimee says showing signs of concern.

"Oh don't worry now. It's him we're talking about, you saw him how he fend off those jello and carry his own weight so he's fine. He might be back before we knew it." Jenny interjected while hugging Aimee.

The two boys, hearing Jenny, were getting stiff and are thinking on their own volition.

Next moment, Ando asked the guide.

"Oh yeah. Can you tell us what change did you make to this world, Mr. Guide."

"Hmm, well there are many things to list here. Ehh.. we made the changes pretty similar to the overhaul mod, except it has the reality vibes, more grittier and chilling effects. Overall, everything here is the change. You'll have to check them yourself if you're just curious."

"I only do with the vanilla so I don't do mods and I have no idea what you're talking about but.. I guess that can't be helped. Oh! And what about the difficulty?"

"Well when we made all the changes, we were thinking about how to gauge the damage outputs and apply it to all of the mobs. And with the world clock differed to the initial game, we had to change our approach by putting its highest difficulty in as the standard setting."

"T-the highest difficulty?"

"Yep. The damage take would be equivalent to the Master Mode For The Worthy."

Ando's face went pale and is in disbelief hearing the guide's nonchalant statement.

Andrew the 'Guide' continued on.

"Also, we changed the AI behavior in all of the bosses to make them more challenging and engaging, so you might have to rethink about how to approach those bosses. Plus they might have self awareness now since it was that independent AI that made them so I don't know much about their changes."

He just had to add more bad news to the poor lad.

Ando, who was sweating profusely, and Loki, that listened to the whole discussion, are both lost in thought. Luna swooped in the conversation and asked.

"Can you provide us with something or anything?"

"I can't. With the restrictions limiting our movement, I can only give out information that could alleviate players in precarious situations."

"Keh! You're useless like I remembered."

With that last line, the air was in gloom and they all took their time to think for themselves.

Unable to take the ominous air, Loki took his chance and talked to Andrew.

"If we're playing on the highest difficulty, you don't happen to remove the respawn feature, did you?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that."

"Wha--"

"As I said before, we had to take a stance to be more engaging when creating this game so we thought that we'll put in more punishment if there were streaks of death.."

"You don't mean--" Loki said so worryingly.

"Ahh, but the mobs we put in seemed punishable enough so we held back. Instead, we exchanged it to when a dead physical body was dissipated completely, you'll get revived either sooner or later."

"Oh, thank goodness." Loki sighed in relief.

"Is that so." Remarked by an unknown voice.

That unknown voice sounded faint and hollow. The ominous voice continues.

"If that's the case, I can still get revived after they took their time grieving my body?"

The hollow voice came from above and everyone looked up.

It was a figure of white mist flying in the air. It was unidentifiable but they knew it has self awareness.

That unknown figure happens to be a victim of a deadly encounter.

***

When my consciousness forcefully faded, I was feeling frustrated knowing that I died.

Not to that letting my guard down or to that random slime that tackled me from out of nowhere but to the fact that I was getting comfortable with my swordplay.

Thus I was killed by the distraction of my own improvement.

So I was in total shock when I opened my eyes and looked at the aftermath. I saw my physical body lying on the ground.

"What the f-- ehh!! Is that my body?!! ... White skin.. Ack!! I'M A GHOST!!"

I thought back before I became in this form.

I got tackled from behind while I was distracted to my sword and the slimes. The slime that skipped by me was the last thing on my mind and I let my guard down.

And I got separated to my physical body due to dying.

I looked back at the battlefield and saw the slimes closing in on my dead body.

"Oi, what are you doing now?"

The slimes went on top of my dead body and curled up, getting comfortable in their positions and drip their gels into my body afterwards.

On my standpoint, it seems like they are sabotaging my corpse.

"Wow, are you trying to grief me now?!" I muttered while being irritated.

There's no point watching them sabotaging my body. I might puke if I see the end result of this.

"Wait.. if I'm separated to my physical form, surely I can phase through the walls now."

I slowly came close to the wall and tried to touch it. My hand went through the wall, not getting it in contact.

Since I'm floating and in astral form, I fly directly up until I got to the surface.

"Oh wow. It's so dark outside."

I looked around and see it in the distance, I saw the wooden cabin being surrounded by zombies.

"Of course our base would be flooded with these disgusting freaks."

Without wasting time, I phased through inside the house and see the folks listening to the talking guide.

"..Seemed punishable enough so we held back. Instead, we exchanged it to when a dead physical body was dissipated completely, you'll get revived either sooner or later."

So they were actually willing to go that far just for thrills. Death in Terraria was an inevitability so of course they had to hold back.

The nicest news for me to hear is that we can still get spawned back. After all, becoming a ghost character in Terraria is a sign of a permanent death so I'm glad that it is not the case.

"Is that so?" I deliberately summed up all my thoughts into that phrase.

The folks heard my voice and frantically looked up.

I didn't know they can hear me. Let's see if they really can.

"If that's the case, I can still get revived after they took their time grieving my body?"

After I got killed, I had to see the lamest situation I've ever been, sabotaging my corpse.

When the guide saw me, he states,

"Yes. Is it the slimes that are griefing you?"

"Yeah. Those slimes are pouring acids all over my-- oh! I'm back!"

While I was talking to the guide, in mid sentence I got my physical body back.

"Phew. I was worried for a while there."

Like I said before, the others were looking at me but with their minds blown away when they see me.

In a state of shock, Jenny had to ask me.

"Elma, was that you?! You died down there?!"

"What do you even mean by that? There's no way I could survive down there for long. I couldn't go deep enough with those cretins getting in the way!"

"Eh? Cretins?"

"Nevermind. To keep things short, I couldn't last down there for too long so this'll take time. I mean, did you even see the red text."

"Huh? What red text?"

"Look at the bottom left."

Hearing my notion, she saw the red text of notification noting;

[El Magnifico's flailing about was finally stopped by Red Slime.]

'Flailing about'

Such an oddly specific term to relay.

I continued.

"Anyways, there's a lot of zombies running around the base. So noisy too."

The zombies outside have been banging on the door and groaning loudly outside for a while already.

"So I'mma me go clear 'em out."

Luna interjected.

"What?! Are you crazy?! You gonna fight those freaks with that getup?!"

"Well, yeah I am. I was getting comfortable with the sword and I don't want to lose my touch. I was already developing my battle sense anyway."

After a short comment, I walked towards the door.

"Hey, you're not gonna go through that door! You might slip them in here!

"Oh, right. They might slip past. Then I'll get to the roof."

As I walked past her, I heard her say something.

"He is so dead."

I, of course, ignored her and ran up the stairs to go through the secret exit me and Loki made; the blocked-up chimney.

With a rope attached at the top, I went up and starts breaking the wood blocking the way, get myself out of the cabin and sealed it again with another wood.

I then proceeded to lure the zombie away from the door.

"Hey dipshits! Your lucky meal is over here!"

The zombies heard my call and looks over to my direction. I jumped down immediately to attract some more.

"Come on you dirty shitheads, I'm waiting for you!!"

Then all of the zombies slowly coming on my way. I lure them into an open field far off away from the base.

I take up a position when we're far enough and threw some torches around for lightings.

"You dirty meatbags are looking really disgusting. Time for the zombie onslaught."

***

Meanwhile inside the base.

Jenny started to talk.

"Ahh, finally some peace and quiet. I can't stand hearing those groans anymore."

"Yeah. The screeching noises are also gone." Luna added.

"See. We did a pretty good job adding those sound effects." Andrew chimed in.

"Are you serious?" Luna just bursts out from out of the blue. "Just from their appearance alone seemed frightening already. Adding those sound queues just make them more terrifying, enough to give you nightmares about them."

"I know right! Yahh, it's nice hearing compliments from someone." Says Andrew in a brightful manner.

"Ugh, whatever. I'm heading upstairs to get some sleep." Luna replied in disdain and takes the stairs towards the vacant room.

"Yeah. I just want this night to be over so heading to sleep too. G'night." Jenny comments snobbingly while going to the other vacant room.

"I'll also head up for the night. Good night everyone." Aimee solemnly said, leaving the three guys and entered another vacant room.

"Okay, so that leaves the three of us here. What now?" Ando muttered.

"I don't know. Just slept the night away, I guess." Loki answered.

The boys muttered to themselves as they were left out in an awkward position.

***

"Time for the zombie onslaught."

I said so with my copper shortsword on the ready.

One zombie rushes in flailing its arms around at me. It's not too fast or slow, a somewhat formidable assaulting moves.

And I've been strafing the gross mob around, I ducked and evade its attacks first before I fought back.

Let's first try doing the hit-and-run strategy.

"Feisty little bugger!"

I slash my sword while the zombie swing an arm, hitting the arm in the process while it slowly taking in the damage.

"Over here!"

I took a step back everytime I successfully gave it a hit.

And this process repeats until this one zombie was finally taken down by accumulated damage.

"Die, you creep!"

The strategy worked.

My first dangerous mob takedown was an unarmed zombie. At first they were not that much big of a deal when first encountering them.

But they are a foe not to be underestimated when they are filled with numbers.

And now, 43 more zombies to go. There is still more to kill and it's a horde of the same disgusting mobs.

"I had all the time in the world to develop my skills. Let's roll!"

We're doing this until daybreak arrives.