Guardians of Terraria II: The World of Calamity

Episode 18.3 - There Are Some Who Call Him...

She almost stumbled as she came to the edge of another cliff. She braced herself for attack, but then tried to relax herself. The Emerald Crawler must've fallen down this hole.

Then she tensed again as she heard the crawler chittering again, and the cavern below lit up.

Something was shooting orange bolts of energy – she couldn't see what, but they weren't being fired at her. Instead, the bolts were striking into the Emerald Crawler, the creature soon dying with a screech as it lost all its health. At that same time, the cave was plunged back into darkness.

Then a shadowed form leapt up from the hole.

"Aagh!" Robyn cried, jabbing out her sword.

"Ow! Robyn! It's me!"

Standing in the light of her shining aura was a girl with long blonde hair.

"Meg?"

She grunted, rubbing her shoulder. "Next time you might want to see what you're actually fighting before you–"

She was interrupted by Robyn hugging her tightly, but she let go just as quickly.

"Sorry, I'm just... I thought I was all alone down here..."

"I wouldn't get so worked up about being alone," Meg said. "The only person you can truly trust is yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"Ehh... let's just say I'm a teensy bit pissed off at Sid for... you know... unleashing those freaks into our world!"

Robyn shrunk back a bit at her outburst. "Okay. Well... we should still try to find them. I mean, you're here. Sid and William must be somewhere too!"

"I'm gonna give him such a big slap!" Meg shouted. "If I still had my Inferno Fork, I'd set his pants on fire!"

"Really?"

Meg didn't answer. "Let's just keep on exploring. I found a wooden underground cabin shortly after waking up. That's how I was able to craft this staff." She held it out. The handle was made from some sort of dull beige metal, with a topaz studded into its tip.

"I didn't find much," Robyn said, rubbing her arms, suddenly feeling very cold. The Shine Potion's effects seemed to be wearing off.

Meg held out a torch and placed it on the ground.

The light was at first blinding, like a flashbang, but its yellow glow quickly brought warmth to how Robyn felt. She closed her eyes, basking in its light. Being able to see was a luxury she would never take for granted again after being trapped in the unknown darkness.

"I guess that means you don't have a bow or anything," Meg said as she placed down more objects – a workbench, furnace, and an anvil. "Gear up."

Robyn wasted no time in smelting up all of the ore she'd gotten from her earlier bomb-blasting. Lead was the ore she'd gotten the most amount of, and was the only that she had enough of to make a bow. It only dealt 9 damage, but it was better than nothing.

"Looks like we can both defend ourselves now," she said.

"Goo-ohhHH! Behind you!"

Robyn spun around just in time to spot a skeleton dressed in blue robes and wearing a brown wizard's hat had appeared. It cast forth a purple energy ball, which hit Robyn in the stomach. Meg ran forward and blasted at the mage with her Topaz Staff, but it disappeared.

Robyn spotted it reappearing on a ledge near the ceiling, so she aimed her bow up and started firing. She saw the skeleton had a name – Tim – but also had a fair amount of health, at 400.

Meg kept on firing magical energy at Tim, but the magic bolts moved slow enough that Tim was able to either teleport out of the way or directly block the shots with a magic ball of his own.

"Come down here so I can shoot you!" Meg shouted, waving her staff threateningly.

Tim did, teleporting right in front of her and shooting a purple shot at point-blank range. But she just switched to her own copper shortsword and lashed out, causing the magic blast to dissipate, and kept on stabbing Tim in the skull. Tim teleported again, this time next to Robyn, but she had him covered with arrows from her bow.

Before too long Tim was defeated, his skeleton body falling apart into bones that disappeared. All that remained was his wizard hat and a wooden staff with a purple orb on the end.

Meg stepped over and picked up both items. "Don't mind if I do." She lifted up the wizard hat and onto her head. "How do I look?"

A bit stupid, honestly, Robyn thought, but she didn't want to insult her only ally. "Fine."

"Just fine? You sure?"

"Well... okay, maybe it does make you look a little stupid."

"I know, right? I can't wait until we can get some much cooler-looking armour again! Where's my spectre armour when I need it?"

Meg then twirled the staff and fired it at the wall. It shot a purple energy beam, reminding Robyn of the Shadowbeam Staff Meg had once shown her, except instead of bouncing off the wall it instead split off into multiple short beams at the point of impact.

"Woah!" Meg exclaimed. "I was a bit put off when it said this Plasma Rod only does 8 damage, but that... looks powerful!"

***

The two of them continued to mine through the caverns. They soon decided to camp out in another underground house, this one containing a pair of Hermes Boots that Robyn equipped. Meg had gotten a Cloud in a Bottle from the first cabin she'd found, enabling her to double-jump through the caverns and around enemies.

They'd found a few veins of another type of ore named platinum, and from the looks of things it could be crafted into a bow much better than the Lead Bow that Robyn had initially crafted, so she crafted it.

Meg made an Emerald Robe using emeralds from the Emerald Crawler and silk, woven from cobwebs using a loom that had been inside the second house. Lastly, Robyn threw together the leftover lead and tin they'd both mined to craft a mismatched suit of armour for herself. Meg also had enough amethyst to make an Amethyst Hook, while Robyn crafted a plain old Grappling Hook for herself out of lead.

"The next thing we should do is find a way back to the surface," Meg said. "Best I figure, William and Sid might make their way up there too, and it'll be easier to find them if they do."

"But what about Yharim and his army?" Robyn asked.

"We'll just have to risk it. If they seem to be everywhere, we can just keep hiding underground."

On the way up they passed through a cave made out of navy granite, which contained some stony enemies that kept on clenching themselves up to become invulnerable for a few seconds. Beyond that was a large underground lake with some glowing blue jellyfish swimming about inside. Robyn built a bridge across using stone blocks, while Meg fired at the jellyfish to keep them away. One somehow managed to wash itself ashore on the other side, which Meg blasted to pieces with her Plasma Rod. She'd discovered that if the beam hit an enemy the beam didn't split, instead dealing direct damage but also inflicting shadowflame on them which ate away at their health.

"It dropped some Mana Jelly," Meg said once she'd disintegrated the jellyfish and picked up its drops. "Looks to be a little handy."

"Gonna need to use anything we can find," Robyn muttered.

On the other side she dug into the stone wall, but once it came apart she found there was another cavern on the other side.

"Woah."

"Woah what?" Meg asked, stepping past her. But once she laid her gaze on what was beyond, she too had a look that said 'Woah.'

Vote. I mean, woah!