Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Y'know, it's funny, I clearly had some form of life before waking up in this place. I've still got zero recollection of it whatsoever, but people don't just pop into existence whole cloth, y'know? And if that doesn't sell you, I've got real proof too... but I'll get to that later.

The first thing I did when I woke up here was... okay, the actual first thing I did was groan in agony for a half hour or so. I don't think I've ever been an early bird, though like I said, I don't remember anything before that day, so for all I know I was out of bed with the sun.

But the first important thing I did was see a guy walking around and ask him what the hell.

"I just got here too," he said with a shrug. "But I know things. For example, I know we're gonna need shelter."

Made sense to me. I didn't know anything about this place yet, but everyone needs shelter, right? I had a pickaxe on me for some reason, so I tunneled down a bit to dig a nice underground house... realized I couldn't make much out of dirt and had to come back up.

"You should be able to make a workbench out of wood. These trees look like a nice sturdy material. Don't worry about deforestation; they have acorns you can replant."

I did also have a regular axe, so sure. I chopped a few trees down, replanted their acorns, went back into the hole, made a bench, a door, a table, and two chairs... really really quickly. I didn't remember much explicitly, but apparently this was something I knew how to do.

While I was down here, I covered up the rough dirt floors and walls with some wood to make them look nicer, and then faltered. Just chucking wood on the ground and setting it ablaze didn't seem like the safest way to produce light or heat... I climbed back up out of the hole — to see the guy fighting off a blue blob of slime! He was shooting at it with a bow and arrow, but didn't seem to be making much headway against its squishy body — so I took my axe, charged at it, and chopped it clean in two.

The blobby monster shuddered and collapsed into a puddle of... well, it was already a puddle, but now it wasn't moving anymore.

The guy inspected the monster's... flesh? I guess? "Hm. This stuff looks like it'll burn clean, and for a good long while, too." He picked up a fallen branch, stuck some blue goop on it, and in a blink, he had a torch set ablaze. It didn't seem to be emitting any smoke at all, as far as I could see or smell.

"That's... curiously convenient," I muttered.

"A lot of things in this world are," the guy said.

"Such as you," I replied, trying not to sound accusatory. "You know so much, but you said you just got here."

"I did just get here, yes," he answered with a grin. It seemed clear what he wanted me inferring from that. "The house you built is nice. You're gonna want to build more like it; other people are gonna show up, and they'll all need their own spaces."

"... I'm gonna have to sleep eventually," I pointed out.

"That you are," he acknowledged. "There should be spiderwebs in deep caves, if you go looking; you can weave that silk into cloth to make proper bedding out of. That axe isn't really a weapon, but if you make a wooden sword, you should be able to defend yourself against anything you meet in the forest. ... during daylight."

I grimaced. "It's gonna get bad at night, isn't it?"

He nodded solemnly. "I can back you up during the day, but... I'm not a fighter. And right now, neither are you. We'll want to get back here before nightfall."

I groaned. "Figures. Well, how much spiderweb are we gonna need to collect here?"

"Depends how many blankets you want on your bed."

"Ah. So a lot, then. Better get started." ... It belatedly occurred to me that I had forgotten something important. "You have a name, guy?"

"Harley Tanner. Though a lot of people just call me 'the Guide'."

I looked around the forest, confused. "A lot of...?"

"They're not here yet, ya silly," he said, gently bonking me on the head. "Well. Most of the people likely to come here didn't know me personally anyway. But there are a few exceptions. You'll know 'em when they get here."

I rolled my eyes and stretched out my arms. "All right, all right. Let's go get that web, then."

"Well hold on, do I get to know your name?" Harley teased.

I couldn't help but let out a small laugh. I'd completely forgotten he'd want my name too. "Astra."

Chapter Text

Gathering up the necessary cobwebs took way longer than Harley had made it sound. First, of course, I made some torches out of branches and slime like he'd said, and a wooden sword. Then we set out.

First cave we found didn't have any cobwebs. Harley shrugged, figuring it didn't go deep enough. Fine, we'd killed some slimes while we were traveling, so we got more gel and... coins, for some reason?

"It seems best for you to hold on to most of what we're likely to find," Harley had said, but I insisted on at least splitting the money. I had no idea why we'd need money, but if anything ever came up, I didn't want him left high and dry.

Second cave went deeper, for sure, but that presented its own problem. There were random pots lying around on the way in, which Harley told me to loot for their treasure — arrows I handed to him, shurikens ("Do I look like a ninja‽" "Not yet, no."), random bottles of colorful liquid ("Those are potions, Astra, you drink them. These red ones heal your wounds, this green one can help you run faster —" "I get it, I get it, let's go over them when we get back home."), little glowing sticks ("Those will be useful wherever torches don't work.")

and most importantly, at least in this particular moment, a bunch of ropes.

With all the sudden drop-offs this second cave had, those ropes were the only way we'd be getting much of anywhere in it. Carefully, we descended into the depths...

... and still no cobwebs. I dug some shiny rocks out of the walls ("That's ore, Astra, I'll help you build a furnace to smelt it when we get back."), picked up more potions and some bombs from the random pots lying around, and got some stuff from...

"... a treasure chest‽ Like in stories??"

"We're not the first people to live in this world, you know," Harley said. "They used these for storage."

At the rate I was accumulating miscellaneous crap, I was gonna need a metric buttload of storage myself, so I dug up the entire chest and moved on —

"Look out!" Harley suddenly tackled me! A moment too late, I realized I had stepped on something that made a click noise —

a big-ass boulder fell from somewhere and landed with a WHAM!! right where I'd been standing just a second ago, and rolled down further into the depths.

"... Ow." It seemed a bit silly to be complaining about a little bruise from Harley when that boulder would have flattened me like a pancake, but pain is pain. "... thanks. I gotta keep my eye out for that shit, huh?"

"Yes. Yes you should." Harley stood back up and helped me to my feet. I brushed myself off as he walked over to the thing I stepped on. "You should dig up this pressure plate, just in case." So I did, and went deeper into the cave...

... following the boulder to the deepest pit where it had come to rest, and still no cobwebs. "What the hell..."

"I was sure we'd have found some by now," Harley grumbled. "It's not like they're rare! Not like a Magic Mirror! Real useful tool, that, one look in it'll pop you straight back home. Course, that's dependent on us being able to build our home, which means finding some dang cobwebs!" He turned and kicked the wall in annoyance.

Meanwhile, I was more sighing in exasperation. "I don't want to be stuck out here when the sun sets... Any chance of an alternate solution?"

"Well, if we seriously manage to run out of daylight, you can always furnish a house with a chair instead of a bed," Harley said. "Not nearly as comfy, obviously, but still beats sleeping on the floor. Still good enough to live in."

I grimaced at the thought of sleeping in a chair. "All right, but let's call that a last resort. You said one of these potions will pull us back to where I woke up?" I added, rifling through my bag.

Harley nodded. "The blue one with the hourglass-shaped bottle. It'll pull you to wherever you last woke up, so you'll have better control of that once you're able to build a proper bed."

"Right." I grabbed two and handed one to Harley. "Let's head home and try exploring in a different direction next." I chugged the bottle and in a flash of light we were both back at our hole in the ground.

I lowered some ropes into the hole to make the climb easier, dropped down, plonked down the chest, dropped all the miscellaneous loot into it... decided to take a break from exploring and build a second house, in case anyone showed up while we looked for the next cave.

I furnished it much the same as the first one, since none of what I had seemed immediately useful for crafting any kind of new furniture. ... Oh, right, ores. "Hey, Harley!" I called up, heading back to the first house. "What was that you said about a furnace?"

Harley dropped down and grabbed some stone from the chest. "Yeah, you'll need one to smelt ore into bars. You'll need this stone, plus some wood and a few torches." He handed the stone to me; I still had wood and torches on hand, so I followed his instructions and soon had a roaring flame. Then Harley showed me how to smelt the ore, but I didn't have all that much at this point, so I couldn't do anything interesting with it.

"Not yet you can't. Once you get a good amount of iron or lead, you can make an anvil with it, and that lets you make some really good stuff. Better tools, prettier lights, fancier furniture... chains alone are an intermediate step in a good dozen products."

"Sounds useful." I paused just a moment, faltering. "... Damn it, that means I have to get exploring again." I glanced outside at the sun. "... guess I'd better get to work on that while I've still got daylight. Interior design can wait."

But before I could leave, a third person suddenly dropped into the hole. "Well, well! When they told me this place was a hole in the ground, I assumed they were speaking metaphorically!"

Chapter Text

The guy had a thick white beard and carried a pack full of... well, I had no idea, but there was a lot of it. How he got that down the hole without falling, I'm not entirely sure.

"Marcus!" Harley exclaimed. "It's been a long time!"

"You know this guy?"

"We've run into each other from time to time," Marcus said. "I heard someone was setting up a new outpost, but I must say, I expected it to be more... well, more."

"Underground seemed safer," I grumbled defensively. "There's plenty of room to dig out and expand, and only one easily-defended way for slimes to barge in on us."

"Slimes, and the undead!" Marcus declared with a disconcerting cheer for someone talking about

"The undead‽" I exclaimed. "What‽‽‽‽" ("Oh, that's a lot of interrobangs." Harley muttered.)

"She doesn't know about the dead rising at night?" Marcus asked. "And you call yourself a Guide."

"It's the first day, give us a break," Harley said. "I did tell her she needed to take shelter before nightfall. We were preparing fine."

"You coulda been more specific! I had a completely different idea of what would happen at night!" I scrambled to check over the shelter walls and make absolutely sure no zombies would be breaking in.

"What... were you imagining?" Harley asked, sounding more curious than anything.

"I dunno — the slimes would grow eyeballs and teeth or something? You just implied things got bad, you didn't specify anything about it! Do zombies know how to open doors?"

"Not really," Harley said. "They can kick a door open, when the moon shines like blood, but they're not even very good at that." He walked up and set a torch on the wall next to the door, carefully positioned so that it'd wedge it shut if someone tried opening it inwards. "This is enough to stop them. Turns out having one's brains literally rotted out by years in the grave isn't conducive to one's problem-solving skills."

I sighed, calming down a bit. "So I don't suddenly need to build crenellated towers for defense."

Harley laughed. "I mean, you could if you wanted to. Wouldn't hurt, especially if you made a bow to use. But no, you don't need to."

"Okay... Then I guess we'd better go get looking for those cobwebs."

"Buy something before you go!" Marcus said. "I've got good stuff!"

I looked through his wares and... well, I hadn't collected that many coins, but I picked up a bug net and a piggy bank, set the piggy bank down next to the furnace, and dropped my remaining money into it. Marcus also had a mining helmet that struck me as extremely useful, but was sadly too expensive for now.

"No rush! I'll be here while you go earn yourself some gold. And find those webs you want so badly, too!"

And so Harley and I set out once more, this time in the opposite direction, while Marcus stayed in the little underground hut to... settle in, I guess.

It wasn't long before we ran across... a big lake, completely blocking the way forward.

"Wasn't planning on going for a swim today," I quipped, and took a deep breath and jumped right in.

"Hey — !" Harley shouted, and that was all I heard before the water completely overtook me.

...

I had been expecting to float, but within seconds I had sunk to the bottom.

It was pitch black.

...

Despite my shock, I had enough presence of mind — after a few seconds, anyway — to pull out a glowstick and look around.

The first thing I saw was that the lake wall was too steep for me to climb back up.

The second thing I saw was a chest, mostly blue with a few splotches of color.

The greedy part of me wanted to see what was inside.

The terrified panic part of me wanted to get the hell out of this water already.

Speaking of chests, mine was starting to burn. In the lung area. Because I couldn't breathe what with all the water.

The terrified panic increased.

A rope descended. Harley, apparently, had some idea of what to do — I grabbed the rope and hauled ass up to the surface.

The moment I got above the water, Harley grabbed me and pulled me to shore.

I just sorta laid there on the dirt for a moment, gasping. After a few minutes I felt a strong warmth. I sat up and looked over — it looked like Harley had set up a campfire. I scooched myself closer to the comforting flames.

"... Apparently I can't swim! I thought I could! ... That was the worst hour of my life!"

"You were down there for thirty seconds."

"Yeah, and that thirty seconds was the worst hour of my life!"

Harley just laughed. "Fair enough."

After a few more minutes of recovering by the fire, I decided it was time to continue. "Okay. Can't swim. How do I cross a lake, then?"

"Wood platforms are the simplest way," Harley said. "Just build a bridge right across. That's how I got out away from shore before dropping that rope."

"Right. Of course. Build a bridge." I felt rather silly that I'd nearly drowned just because it hadn't occurred to me to build a bridge. "... what's a good way to navigate under the water?"

"Gills potions," Harley responded instantly. "Flippers. Certain hollow reeds you can breathe through. Or in a pinch, you can lower ropes from above before jumping in. Among many other options. Why, did you see something?"

"Yeah. A chest." I frowned. "Underwater. Who put that there?"

"It probably wasn't completely submerged when it was abandoned," Harley pointed out. "But it would've definitely been close to water, so it very likely has some of that swimming gear."

"... Okay, I was worried I was just being greedy, but now I definitely want that. I'd like to avoid drowning in future." I stood up and took a deep breath. "Let's do this."

With Harley's support on the dock, I dove into the lake again, one rope tied firmly around my waist. With my pick, I pried the chest off the floor and tied the other rope around it, all in less than ten seconds. I gave the ropes a tug and Harley hauled me back up.

"... gah that was still unpleasant." I flopped down next to the campfire to dry off again while Harley hauled up the chest. "Even knowing I had an exit strategy..."

"Yeah," Harley said, looking distant as he set the chest down by the fire. "A near-death experience can stick with you like that."

... I might have less than half a day's worth of memories to work with, but I'm not stupid. I could tell he was speaking from experience there. But it didn't seem prudent to press him on it, so I didn't. We just sat there warming back up.

Chapter Text

We dug through the chest to find one of those breathing reeds Harley had mentioned, along with a miscellaneous collection of other stuff that seemed probably useful. But we decided to leave that all there for now and grab it on the way back.

So we finished the bridge across the lake, which took less time than I thought it would, and proceeded to explore the land on the other side. The first cave was obviously not going deep enough, so we just skipped it entirely, but the next one...

... by this point we'd reached a much colder area, with snow as far as the eye could see. Except at the border back to the more temperate region. Which was trippy to look at.

We trudged through that with surprisingly little difficulty until we reached a big cold cave. This was also not particularly difficult to traverse, until —

"HOLY GODDAMN HELL THIS WATER IS SO COLD"

... I'm not sure what I had expected from taking a brief exploratory look through the water in a tundra, but the cold hadn't bothered me up until that point, so it managed to come as a complete shock to me.

There wasn't anything under it anyway. So after warming up back by another campfire, we moved on. And after breaking through a few very thin walls to reveal more cave...

we finally found some damn webs.

"That took so much longer than it needed to," Harley lamented with audible distress while I used a stick to gather up the webs.

"It really did," I grumbled. "... is this enough, you think? There's more cave if it isn't; I gotta imagine that there'll be more webs in the same cave."

He examined the webs and his face immediately fell. "... not quite. Just barely not quite."

"Well, then we shouldn't be here much longer," I said brightly.

"True," he said with a sigh.

"... not having fun?" I asked as I continued further into the cave.

"... I did volunteer to back you up on this, remember," he said. "But... my job is meant to be more informational than fieldwork. And, well, we were both expecting this first expedition to be much shorter than it's been."

"We were, weren't we." I allowed myself a little grumble of annoyance. "Your job, though. As a 'Guide', I imagine?"

"Mm-hmm. My job is to meet up with any would-be adventurers showing up in our land and... guide them in the right direction." He looked a bit distantly reminiscent as he said that. "Being a backup fighter serves that purpose right now, but, well, I'm eager for the moment staying home serves better."

"Aw, I'm meant to explore by myself with nobody to keep me company?"

"Sorry, Astra," Harley said with an apologetic smile. "I'm just not suited to it. But you won't necessarily be by yourself. You might find an animal companion or two. Another adventurer might show up. You might be able to talk one of the other less adventure-minded townsfolk into joining you occasionally. But... adventuring is very much your thing right now."

"Of course it is." I was about to complain about that a little more when I spotted a glint of light in the distance. Thinking I was about to dig up some more ore, I approached it, and... it wasn't ore.

It was some kind of crystal, deep red in color, and shaped just like a cartoon heart symbol.

... I've never seen a cartoon in my life, that I can remember. How am I making these comparisons...? "So what's this one?"

"Ah, that crystal can increase your vitality. You'll want to use your hammer to knock this down."

I pulled out the hammer I woke up with for some reason, and with a few quick smacks, the crystal was mine. I immediately grasped it in my hands, and —

— I'm not sure exactly what happened next, but then it was gone and I could feel how much stronger I was. "Oh, I like these. I want more of these."

"Just be careful with them." Harley shivered slightly, and I got the impression it wasn't from the cold. "Evil has its eyes out for anyone who looks like they're building up enough strength to threaten it."

"You couldn't have mentioned that before I used it?"

"One is fine! One isn't enough to get attention. Two will start drawing in some things that are a bit worse than a regular night. Like the Blood Moon."

I frowned. "You mentioned the moon shining red...?"

"Yeah. The Blood Moon isn't just an astronomical event. It's evil acting upon the world."

"Is evil just, like, a cosmic force, or is there a person behind all this?"

Harley looked hesitant for a moment, but spoke up just before I decided to snap at him — "Moon Lord. He's sealed now, but he's always watching. ... There's more cobwebs, just up there."

I gathered those up, confirmed that they'd be enough for "more beds than people who are likely to move in in one night, for sure!", and began the trek home. We got back to the water chest, picked it up, and popped a pair of recall potions to speed up the rest of the journey.