Foresight in Terraria
Permalink

Margaret wakes up, ready for a new day of work at the CDC.

Wait, this isn't her apartment. "What?!"

Total: 265
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

It totally isn’t her apartment! Her apartment is probably way less forested than this. 

Also her apartment probably doesn’t usually contain a faintly generic-looking man standing over her holding a small leather bag. 

“Welcome to Terraria!” the generic-looking man says. “I’m Eric, your Guide.”

Permalink

She's on her feet in moments in a rustle of aluminum, backing away from the man. "Did you just kidnap me?!"

Permalink

The man completely fails to react or respond to this question. It doesn't look like he even heard her. The bag is steady in his hand. "You should start by cutting down a tree so you can make a workbench."

Permalink

Once she's slightly more awake, she realizes her danger sense doesn't register Eric as hostile. She starts changing from pajamas to her full optimized work outfit. "Why do you want me to do that?" she asks. "Where are we? How did we get here?"

Permalink

"Many things can be made at a workbench," he says, then "Welcome to Terraria!" in the exact same tone of voice as before.

Permalink

. . . Margaret waves a hand in the dude's face.

Permalink

Nada.

"I'm Eric, your Guide," he informs her.

Permalink

He didn't even blink. Weird. Maybe he's a robot. She tries taking the bag he's holding, pulling it slowly but firmly away from him.

Permalink

He releases the bag immediately.

The bag, which is about the size of a coin purse, contains an immense quantity of Stuff. Contents include: two copper swords, a copper pickaxe, a copper axe, a wooden hammer, a wooden bow, an arrow, a crooked copper staff with a large amethyst set at the tip, a star-shaped blue crystal, a wooden staff with a thin film of green slime at its tip (which is politely not sliming anything near it), a torch, and a handful of miscellaneous potions.

The arrow and the torch feel somehow as if they contain more matter than they rightfully should.

Permalink

Ooh, space-warpy bag, nice. And lots of interesting stuff in it, though nothing with an obvious use right now. Margaret stashes the bag in a pocket where she can get at its contents without worrying if it clashes with anything. Then, if she continues not to be in any danger, she stands there for another half-hour, getting all her clothing and jewelry back to maximum effectiveness.

Permalink

Her danger sense abruptly notes something getting closer with malicious intent. It's a ball of translucent blue slime, hopping towards her at a rate of exactly one hop per second.

It hops on top of a nearby bunny, which violently explodes. Hop. Hop. Hop.

Permalink

Now she's airborne, higher than she's seen it go, tracking its movements a few seconds before it makes them and fishing in the bag for one of those swords.

Permalink

While she's rustling through the bag, her hand touches the blue crystal, which evaporates, leaving behind a feeling of potential in the back of her mind. Now that she has this potential, the staves politely make their abilities known.

The slimy staff will conjure up a little blob of slime which will follow her around and gnaw industriously at her enemies! The copper-and-amethyst staff will fire off a bolt of sizzling purple light which will do slightly more damage than a stardarter! The larger of the two swords is also right here, if she'd rather.

Permalink

The copper-and-amethyst staff is the wrong colors, but then, so is the sword. Also, ranged weapons are better than melee. She pulls out the staff and fires it at the slimeball, wondering how much ammo it has.

Permalink

Sizzle! The blob is knocked back and wobbles unsteadily, then continues hopping around beneath her.

The staff helpfully informs her that it can currently cast twelve times before needing to recharge over the course of a few seconds!

Permalink

Then she'll give the slime two more to the "face", and fly a bit higher to wait while it recharges. And she'll switch it to her left hand and draw the sword while she's up there; might as well learn how sharp it is on something that isn't a massive threat.

Permalink

Well, that particular blob has just exploded due to repeated zapping.

There's another one approaching, though! Hop hop hop.

Permalink

Then this one can get stabbed with the copper sword. (Why is it copper?)

Permalink

It's kind of a shitty sword. It takes five solid hits before the blob explodes.

"Copper and tin are the weakest of the base metals," Eric says happily. "Iron and lead are stronger, then silver and tungsten, then gold and platinum!"

Permalink

She's a researcher, not a smith, but she is pretty sure that isn't even slightly true. Or at least, that it wasn't true yesterday. This sword is definitely not living up to expectations, though. She checks herself over in starscape to make sure she didn't get any blob explosion on her.

Permalink

She got a little slime on her, but it evaporates almost immediately without intervention.

"Monsters will not spawn within a walled dwelling," Eric says. "A dwelling must contain a table, a chair, and a light source."

Permalink

That's weird if true, but weird would just make it fit in with everything else here. And the robot guy has been useful so far. Didn't he say something about chopping down a tree? If there are no more blobs nearby, she'll try attacking a nearby tree with the copper axe.

Permalink

Cracks spread through the wood with each swing, far more than one might expect from an axe made of copper. Before long, the trunk is cut through and the tree explodes into chunks of wood, which consolidate into each other, yielding a single block of wood clearly containing more material than it rightfully should.

Permalink

She jumps back in startlement from the explosion, then goes to investigate the block of wood. It's convenient that whatever weird magic was in the tree, or possibly in her axe, made it a cube, but she's not sure how to get access to all the material crammed in there. She tries picking it up, to see if it weighs as much as a single cube of wood or as much as a whole tree.

Permalink

It weighs about as much as a two-inch cube of wood should!

As soon as she picks it up, she is made aware that she could place a two-foot cube of wood anywhere contiguous to an existing surface! She could also make a workbench! Boundless possibilities are open to her, as long as they are one of those two things. 

Total: 265
Posts Per Page: