Guardians of Terraria II: The World of Calamity

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

Darkness.

Nothing but featureless black.

Robyn was on her knees, her hands feeling stone and dirt in front of her, not trusting the cave to not throw her in a sudden drop into a pit of skeletons or otherwise to her death.

She felt pain all through her body, but it was purely psychological. Her body shook in fear, not just from the sheer thought of some horrible unseen creature leaping out to kill her, but from what had led to her being here.

The attack of Yharim's forces. Escaping on the Red Pearl. Sinking into the sand.

Then waking up in a random underground cave all alone.

No weapons, no armour, nothing in her inventory except for some copper tools. No light, no warmth, just darkness and dingy cold caverns.

Her hands felt something cool and hard but smooth. The round shape of a pot. She stabbed at the pot with the useless copper shortsword she'd been reduced to using, a satisfying shattering sound ringing in her ears. There was a very brief flash of light signifying the presence of the silver coins that popped out, but it was gone in an instant as the coins rushed into her inventory.

"No," she whimpered, starved of the sight of anything other than black. She grabbed one of the coins out of her inventory and flung it into the air. It again shined slightly as it sailed forward, only a few stone blocks being lit up in front of her for that split-second before the coin tumbled to the ground and lay still.

She shuffled forward, finding a few more pots. None of them contained what she desperately needed – some torches. She got some arrows and bombs and a Lesser Healing Potion. Then one dropped a Shine Potion.

This'll have to do. She drunk it, and her entire body started to glow, an aura lighting up in a radius of about two blocks around her. She wouldn't need to throw any more coins, but it still wasn't much. She could navigate through the underground, but enemies could still jump out at her.

She explored, coming across a few Cave Bats and a Skeleton that she was able to kill, and also finding a few veins of ore. Knowing the Shine Potion would only keep her glowing for a few minutes, she decided to use some bombs to blow up the ore in order to get the minerals quickly.

Tungsten Ore, she read after blowing up a vein of greenish-silver ore. The second vein she blew up was lead, then tin. She knew those metals from her innate real-life knowledge, but had never seen them before in this world, only metals like copper, iron or silver. It was just another thing to add to her unease.

Being stranded in the dark, in unfamiliar and potentially dangerous surroundings, with nothing but a flimsy copper shortsword to defend herself with.

And alone.

So alone.

She soon came to a steep ledge. She placed some rope, lowering it down into the deep before sliding down it. On the floor below she saw what looked like an outcrop made from green emeralds.

She held out her pickaxe to mine it, but it suddenly lifted itself up on legs and started running away from her.

She caught a glimpse of a label – 'Emerald Crawler: 210/210' – as the enemy ran into the darkness ahead. But then it came charging back out. She managed to stab her copper shortsword into it, the creature making a chittering noise from the attack, but that didn't stop it from barrelling through her, knocking her aside for 39 damage.

She got to her feet and ran forward, still holding her sword out. She had no ranged weapon – no bow to go with the arrows she'd scavenged. And no furnace to smelt her ore, or even any wood to make a workbench. Her sword, as weak and short as it was, was her only defence.