"William?" Sid's voice. A strange feeling of deja vu. "William?!"
He groaned, opening his eyes and coming face-to-face with the wulfrum goggles Sid wore.
"You got knocked out after it hit you then," he was saying. "Good thing its health was low. My minions were able to finish it off." He stretched out a gloved hand.
William took it and allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He could see parts of the Hive Mind were still strewn about, purple gore everywhere that was gradually fading out of existence.
That had been an intense battle, and not just due to the Hive Mind itself. Those visions it had made him see... what were they?
He'd seen one while having that picnic with Robyn, but had dismissed it long ago, wondering if it had just been his imagination, wishing so much that he could find a way back to real life.
But what the Hive Mind had shown him... its tendrils making contact with him had opened up parts of his mind he'd never known were there.
A life he'd had.
A young daughter.
A... wife.
I'm married? he exclaimed to himself internally.
It seemed impossible... but perfectly reasonable.
He could remember the real world. So could Sid and Robyn. But he had never been able to remember anything about his life.
About who he was.
Or who he had.
As friends.
Or family.
He shook the thoughts from his head, trying to focus on Sid and the world at hand.
"Did it drop anything?" he asked.
"This sword for you. It's named the Perfect Dark." He held up a large sword with a dark indigo blade.
It reminded William of the Night's Edge he'd once crafted. A sword that had served him well, before being crafted into the True Night's Edge, then the Terra Blade, and then the Zenith that Lord Yharim had stolen.
"Thank you," William said, taking the blade.
"It also dropped some Demonite Bars and Rotten Matter," Sid added. "I checked the Recipe Browsing Tablet, and there is one summon weapon. The Dank Staff, which is just the coolest name ever. Still really low summon damage, but it must be good. Unfortunately it said it could only be crafted at a Demon Altar."
"A Demon Altar?" William repeated. "Do we need to go all the way to the Underworld to find one of those?"
"I don't think so. The tablet was kind enough to show me a picture of one, and I think I remember seeing one down one of the chasms we covered up."
"Okay, let's go."
***
Robyn stood, panting, staring at the carnaged remains of the Perforator Hive and the last worm it had unleashed.
She watched as Meg and the citizens sifted through the drops, but she herself was too stiff to move. That rogue had unleashed the hive upon them.
Was this person just going to keep trying to hunt them? Attacking them and unleashing hideous creatures for them to fight?
She had a painful flashback to when she'd been cursed by the Lunatic Cultist. At first her memories of being cursed had been a jumble, but they'd slowly put themselves back together, and she'd become aware, one by one, of the horrible deeds she'd done while under those effects. Unleashing bloody monsters from the lake during a Blood Moon, then a fish-dragon from the ocean during a storm. And the Golfer and the Mechanic, two citizens, had both died by her hands.
And now that rogue, whoever he was, would never stop coming after them.
Whoever she was, actually. Robyn had heard the rogue's voice. It sounded more female than male. Though that wasn't exactly a real hint at who she was.
She watched as a stream of blood began pouring from the sky, at first afraid something was attacking them, but then realised it was just Meg, casting a strange-looking magical weapon in the sky. Then she saw Amidias making his way towards her.
"I don't know if you've noticed Robyn, but the ground seems to be glittering with a cyan light."
Robyn glanced around, trying to see what she was talking about, then began to see he was indeed right. It was in patches, some of the red Crimson grass appearing to emanate said light. The sun was lowering, the light level dropping, but the luminous patches remained.
She begun to step towards the closest patch, getting out her pickaxe. She dug, then hit some sort of glowing, sky-blue ore just a few blocks beneath. She tried to mine into it, but it wouldn't break. Her pickaxe was still the default copper – if she had to guess, she'd need something stronger to mine into it.
After searching her inventory and finding some bombs, she dropped one into the hole and stepped back. There was a bang, and to her satisfaction she saw the explosive was strong enough to break the ore blocks into items. Picking it up, she saw it was named Aerialite Ore.
***
The next day Robyn and Meg were up on a floating island.
Figuring out how to craft this new ore into usable weapons and armour had actually been a lot more difficult than Robyn had anticipated. Not only had they required a special crafting station named the sky mill instead of an anvil, but they had also been required to dig into the cloud of the floating island they had come across as well as all the sunplate blocks from the house on top of the island. It was a good thing that Amidias had had a special item named the Recipe Browsing Tablet in his shop, otherwise Robyn was sure they never would have figured this out.
"It's a shame William isn't here," Meg said. "He would have appreciated this sword." She swung the Starfury that had been inside the island house's chest, causing a star to shoot down from the sky and strike into a flying Harpy.
Robyn said nothing, not wanting to get too caught up in worrying about him again. She worked the sky mill, weaving Aerialite, cloud blocks, and some feathers together into two sets of armour. Sky-blue in colour with streaks of gold. The headpieces she crafted both had a mask connected to a hat and, upon putting hers on, she felt the chilling breeze of the high skies get softened up into a warmer temperature.
The weapons she crafted were a new bow for herself named the Galeforce, and a spell tome for Meg named the Tradewinds. Both weapons fired feather-like projectiles that dealt quite high damage at a fast pace.
As the two of them jumped towards the rope they had placed to climb up to this island, Robyn felt herself suddenly falling much faster than she was used to, causing her to miss the rope and plummet straight down to the ground with a scream and wild, flailing arms and legs. Yet upon landing she took zero damage, only feeling a cushioned, feathery feeling in her boots.
"Okay..." she mumbled, going back to read the label on her armour. Its set bonus said something about it disabling fall damage, which had saved her, but also causing her to fall faster in general.
"Ahoy, matey!" Red Beard called, coming towards her. "Me was peekin' around the place wit' me spyglass, and I spotted a village north o' here."
A village? "Okay. Great," she replied.
It can't be our village. But maybe someone there can help us.
They still hadn't reached the edge of the Crimson biome – it seemed to be endlessly expansive. Robyn worried this whole world had been covered by Crimson, the only uninfected places being underground and on the floating island. And as they travelled north and the village began to come into view, Robyn did not feel encouraged. It looked just as abandoned and empty as the rest of the world.
"There might be some items here we may find useful," Meg said. "I'll search the buildings with Roxanne and Faye. The rest of you, keep watch with Robyn."
"You got it!" Bart exclaimed proudly.
There was quite a large number of buildings overall. They seemed to be built in a vaguely Chinese or Japanese-style design, made from wood and stone, but those blocks had been infected, turned into dead-looking grey wood and red stone.
Robyn slung out her grappling hook to climb onto one of the buildings' roofs to get a better look around, laying her eyes on the large hill that rose up in one direction.
Which she realised wasn't covered with red Crimson grass.
Instead, the grass was purple.
The purpleness didn't look any less deathly than the Crimson, giving the trees an equally dead or infected look. The purple grass actually seemed to be going down the hill, into the village, basically dividing it in half. One side purple, the other Crimson.
I've never seen anything like this purple grass before, she thought. Another new property of this world?
She turned her gaze back to the hill again, this time taking a step back when she spotted two armoured figures standing near the top. One wore beige armour with a large seashell for a helmet, while the other was dressed in some sort of steampunk outfit, complete with a hat and goggles. More of Yharim's assassins after them?
"We've got inbound!" she shouted, starting to run towards the hill, bow in hand. Her Hermes Boots propelled her across the house roofs, allowing her to make long jumps between the buildings like a masked vigilante late at night. She crossed over to the purple side of the village, where the buildings had been corrupted with a darker, indigo hue.
The two figures had reached the bottom of the hill. One had drawn a large, purple blade while the other seemed to be casting some sort of staff that was summoning small spikey balls that flew around him.
Her heart skipped a beat and she briefly slowed her stride. A warrior and a summoner. Could it be –
"William?!" she shouted.
The warrior looked up just as she reached a house at the edge of the village, her feet skidding to a stop at the end of the roof.
The warrior threw his blade side and pulled his seashell helmet open. That wavy light brown hair –
It was him.
***
William gazed up at her as she pulled back her hood, her brown ponytail spilling out. She was clothed in some sort of sky-blue armour with pale gold trimming. She jumped down, landing on the purple grass in front of the village, and ran towards him at Hermes Boot speed. Before he knew it her body had thrown itself against his, her arms clinging tightly around his armour.
"I thought I'd never see you again..." he heard her whimper.
He closed his arms around her in return. The Hive Mind's visions were still fresh in his mind, but he decided in that moment they weren't worth working himself up over.
Who cared about real life when he had something real right here?
Right?
Are you sure about that? a little voice said inside of him.
Shut up, he thought right back, wanting to savour this moment.
Their long-awaited reunion.
After a hopeless, seemingly endless adventure in an unfamiliar world.
Where he hadn't even been sure if she had even survived, or had even ended up on the same world.
He heard the sound of someone landing, and saw another person dressed in the same type of armour as Robyn. She took off her hat, and William saw it was –
"Meg!" Sid shouted. He stretched his arms out to the side. "Want in on the hugging reunion action?"
"No thanks."
"Ahoy!" a loud voice shouted.
More figures were coming out from behind one of the buildings.
Citizens. Red Beard the Pirate, Roxanne the Stylist, Bart the Angler, and Faye the Princess.
"It's us!" Bart yelled.
William let go of Robyn to address them, though Robyn stayed clinging to his side. There was one citizen among them that he didn't recognise.
"You must be William and Sid?" the fish-man asked. "It is a pleasure for me to meet you, and for your friends to reunite with you. I am Amidias the Sea King."
"Whassup!" Sid exclaimed, running forward with a hand held out for a handshake. Amidias looked confused for a moment, before reaching forward to shake it.
That was when one of the houses exploded, obsidian-purple stone and lavender wood being flung in all directions. Something seemed to be bubbling outwards.
Something large and indigo.
Taking a squashed, rounded shape.
William watched as it heaved to its full height, his eyes reading over its label.
The Ebonian Slime God.
The Slime God's boss music is among my favourites, it's so epic and dramatic! Do you have a favourite Calamity music track? Vote and then comment if you please!