Attack of the Goblin Army

by Winter Morgan

  As Miles crafted the door, he asked, “What did that blood zombie drop? I placed it in my inventory, but I wasn’t sure what it was.”

  “That was a money trough. I’m glad you have it in a safe place,” Matthew commended him.

  “Thanks,” Miles finished the door and placed it in the entrance. “Now we should be safe.”

  “Yes, we have to wait out the blood moon. It’s pretty intense.”

  Miles blushed as he asked Matthew, “Do you think I’m an okay fighter? I mean, I’ve always dreamt of being an explorer, but after battling the slimes and the zombies, I wonder if I have the skills to become a warrior.”

  “Anybody can become a warrior. It just takes practice. Also, you need better weapons. If you’d like, I can teach you how to make wooden armor, a bow, and a sword.”

  Miles pulled the wood from his inventory. “Yes, please teach me how to make them.”

  Matthew gave Miles detailed instructions on how to craft the weapons. When they were finished, Miles asked, “Who was the Master that old man was talking about?”

  “The old man,” Matthew sighed, “he was talking about Skeletron.”

  “Who’s Skeletron?” Miles eyes widened.

  A loud thump boomed through the world, and Miles was visibly shaken. Matthew looked over at him, “I’m glad you have your new sword and armor. Carry it with you. We need to inspect the world. There is trouble brewing outside and we must stop it.”

  Miles was conflicted. He was excited to use his new sword, but he was also exhausted from the last two battles. Matthew opened the wooden door, and Miles followed him out.

  “I don’t see anything,” Matthew said as he walked slowly around the house. “We have to venture further from home.”

  “Really?” Miles’s voice cracked.

  “I thought you wanted to become a warrior? If you do, you must be able to battle anything that comes your way, even things you’d never expect.”

  “Like that?” Miles shrieked.

  Two large eyes, which appeared to be plucked from an unknown source, floated through the sky and flew straight at Miles. He sprinted toward the house and hid behind a wall.

  “Use your bow,” Matthew called out to Miles.

  Miles pulled the bow from his inventory and aimed at the flying pair of eyes. He fumbled with the bow and the arrow missed its target.

  “Try again,” Matthew said. “They’re demon eyes. You can destroy them. You have powerful weapons now.”

  Miles aimed at the eyes that floated toward him—one arrow struck an eye. “Bull’s-eye!” Miles called out.

  “Don’t get too confident. You still have one more eye to destroy,” Matthew warned.

  Miles focused on the single eye and aimed, “Gotcha!” The eye was destroyed. Miles was confident he could be a strong warrior, he decided, as he walked back to the house with Matthew.

  “You did a good job today,” Matthew smiled.

  “I’m going to be the best warrior in Terraria,” Miles gloated.

  “You have natural skill, but that attitude will definitely hold you back,” Matthew told him.

  They closed the door to the house, and once safely inside, Miles overwhelmed Matthew with a slew of questions about Skeletron.

  “I’ll tell you about Skeletron, but I also want you to know there are many other powerful enemies to battle in this world.”

  “Which is the most powerful one?” asked Miles.

  Matthew paused. “Um. I guess it’s the Wall of Flesh. If you don’t battle that enemy you can’t move onto the next level.”

  “The next level? I want to be on the next level now. Forget Skeletron, I want to battle the Wall of Flesh tomorrow. I think I’m okay skipping the lesser enemies.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. You have to build your skills. I think if we help you get the right tools, you might be able to battle Skeletron.”

  “What tools?” Miles questioned impatiently. “Let’s craft them now!”

  “Well, you can find the lucky horseshoe, which is very helpful, but you must travel to the Floating Island to obtain it.”

  “The Floating Island? I’m going there tomorrow,” Miles announced.

  “You have to defeat Skeletron before you can get there.”

  “I guess tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”

  “You can only battle Skeletron at night.”

  Miles said, “And once I do, I’ll head straight to the Floating Island.”

  Matthew didn’t tell Miles that getting to the Floating Island wasn’t that easy. Instead he informed Miles of all the weapons he might need to become a stronger fighter. “You must acquire a demon bow or demonite,” he told Miles.

  “How do I get that?”

  “You need to build up your skills by exploring this world and the Corruption.”

  Miles had so many questions. He knew that he had much to learn, but he was confident he’d learn it quickly. Miles felt that with Matthew leading the way, he’d definitely be a legendary warrior.

  “I am going to be the best warrior and explorer. You will be so proud to be my guide,” Miles exclaimed. “And tomorrow I’m going to destroy Skeletron.”

  Matthew smiled, but the mood changed when a message appeared. It read: A horrible presence is watching you.

  Chapter 4:

  THE EYE OF CTHULHU

  “What does this message mean?” Miles’s voice shook.

  “I knew this would happen.” Matthew paced the length of the small house.

  “You knew what would happen?” Miles was annoyed. He wanted answers and didn’t like it when Matthew was nervous. He could tell the message disturbed Matthew. He was pacing the room and mumbling to himself.

  “It’s the Eye of Cthulhu,” Matthew explained.

  “Is it like the demon eyes?” asked Miles.

  There was no time to answer his question. “It’s here!” Matthew hollered,

  A large eye, similar to the demon eyes, but bigger and more bloodied, floated next to Miles. He panicked. “Matthew, how do I destroy this?”

  The eye stared at Miles. He didn’t wait for Matthew’s response; he grabbed his wooden sword and slammed it at the eye. But the eye floated away, and Miles raced toward it, clutching his wooden sword. He swung at the eye again, but missed. The eye flew higher and Miles couldn’t reach it. The eye came toward him with great speed, and Miles felt the energy drain from his body as he slowly faded from the world.

  “Miles!” Matthew cried, but Miles didn’t respond. He was destroyed. A gravestone appeared.

  Miles respawned in the house. He looked around for Matthew. Calling out his name, Miles panicked that Matthew was gone. He sprinted out of the house to look for his friend, but he was nowhere in sight.

  “Matthew?” Miles hollered through the blood red night.

  Silence.

  “Matthew, where are you?” he called out.

  Miles thought he spotted a zombie in the distance and his heart raced. He grabbed his wooden sword and lunged at the undead beast, but he heard the zombie call out, “Stop!”

  It was a familiar voice. It was Matthew. “Miles, did you think I was someone else?” He stared at Miles holding the sword.

  “I’m so glad to find you. I thought you were a zombie.” He smiled. “Let’s go home.”

  As they walked home, Miles’s attention shifted toward his upcoming battle with Skeletron. “After being defeated by the Eye of Cthulhu I want to prepare myself to battle Skeletron. Can we work on that now?”

  “You almost have the resources. However, even if you had an inventory full of demonite, you still couldn’t craft any weapons to defeat Skeletron.”

  “Why?” Miles was irritated.

  “You need to meet the merchant to purchase an anvil,” explained Matthew.

  “I want to see the merchant now, I have a lot of coins from all of those battles. How do we it?”

  “I’ll show you. But I worry that your biggest downfall is that you lack patience. I don’t want
you to rush anything. It won’t get you anywhere. And perhaps,” Matthew paused and then spit out, “it might destroy you again.”

  “Nonsense,” Miles retorted. “The next time I have to battle the Eye of Cthulhu, I will have better weapons and I’ll be better prepared. I follow the rules, right? I’m just eager to battle. I want to see the world. You can’t truly say that’s a weakness.”

  Matthew smiled, “I like the way you think.” He explained how Miles could summon the merchant.

  However, fate intervened and before Matthew could instruct Miles on summoning a merchant, another message appeared. This message wasn’t quite as ominous as the last one. It read: The merchant wants to move in.

  Miles was excited to get a note from the merchant, but he sighed, “Can he live here, or do I have to build another house?”

  Matthew nodded. “Yes, you do.”

  “But that will take up time and I want to battle Skeletron.”

  A stream of light peeked through the window. Matthew walked over. “The blood moon is over.”

  “That’s good news,” Miles replied as he searched through his inventory. “But the bad news is there’s no wood left in my inventory.”

  Miles and Matthew set out to the forest to gather more wood to craft the house for the merchant. Miles found a section of land filled with large trees.

  “This looks like a great place to gather wood,” Miles said as he banged his pickaxe into the tall tree. When he finished the homes, he alerted the merchant that his house was ready.

  A man with a white beard wearing a cap arrived. “What a lovely job you did with this house. My name is John. I’m your merchant.”

  Miles didn’t even look up, because he was too busy counting his coins in his inventory. “I think I have enough to purchase an anvil and a hammer.”

  “Okay,” John took out the tools, and Miles handed him the coins. “My first sales and I have a new home. Today is going to be a good day.”

  Miles walked over to Matthew and asked him how he could use the anvil.

  “I will teach you how to craft weapons,” Matthew said and smiled.

  Miles smiled, too. “Thanks.”

  Matthew looked up at the sky. “Night is approaching. We have to get ready for your battle. Skeletron only spawns at night.”

  As the sky grew dark, Miles’s confidence seemed to vanish. In a matter of minutes, he would face one of his toughest enemies. He didn’t want to admit that he was worried and wasn’t up to the task.

  “Are you ready?” Matthew asked.

  Miles nodded.

  “Let’s go see the Old Man.”

  Chapter 5

  SKELETRON

  “I see the old man,” Miles said as they approached the dungeon.

  “Once you defeat Skeletron, you’ll have unlimited access to the dungeon. This is very important because you will be highly rewarded once he’s gone.”

  “What can I find in the dungeon?” Miles asked. He was excited to explore it.

  “There are golden chests and a variety of useful mechanisms, and it’s there you will find the key to the Floating Island,” Matthew explained. “But there are also many traps and you must be very careful when you’re in the dungeon.”

  Miles was so preoccupied with getting into the dungeon and what he’d discover, that he wasn’t paying attention to the Old Man, who was slowly transforming into Skeletron in front of his eyes once Miles had uttered the words “curse.” An enormous skeleton head floated above him. Its bony hands were separated from the head. They floated next to Miles and slashed at him. Miles jumped back. He swung his sword at one skeleton hand, but it ripped through his own arm, and he started to bleed.

  The mammoth skeleton head floated toward Miles and the skeleton hand slashed him again.

  “You must destroy the hands,” Matthew ordered. “It will make Skeletron extremely vulnerable.”

  Miles leapt at the hands. But he was destroyed by the head.

  Miles respawned in his bed and waited for Matthew.

  “I lost,” he said, trying to hold back the tears. Being defeated twice was slowly gnawing at his self-confidence.

  “There will be other battles,” explained Matthew, “and you can try to defeat him again.”

  “Can I go back and fight him now?” asked Miles.

  “No, tomorrow night.”

  “But I don’t want to wait,” Miles protested.

  “Miles, it wasn’t your lack of skills that failed you, but it was your arsenal of weapons. You don’t have strong enough weapons. Without powerful weapons, you will never win.”

  “But you helped me craft the wooden weapons,” said Miles.

  “Yes, those are good, but we need better weapons. If we go mining, you can mine for gold and make gold weapons and armor,” said Matthew.

  “Would those weapons help me battle Skeletron or the Eye of Cthulhu?”

  “I’m sure once you have the right weapons, you will defeat both of them.”

  The sun was beginning to come up and Miles wanted to go mining. The duo set out for a cavern. Matthew led Miles into the cavern’s entrance and pointed to a spot. “This is a good place to begin mining.”

  With his pickaxe in his hand, Miles mined for a while. He was beginning to believe there was nothing in the ground until he spotted ore.

  “I think I see ore!” Miles cried out.

  “That’s gold ore,” Matthew confirmed as they inspected the ground. The yellow glistened as Miles filled his inventory with the valuable ore.

  His inventory was now brimming. Discovering the ore made him feel much better. He was very sad that he lost to both the Eye of Cthulhu and Skeletron, but was glad to unearth treasures. He didn’t want to stop.

  “You have enough ore,” Matthew explained. “Let’s go back and craft weapons. It will help you defeat Skeletron. We need to do this before it gets dark.”

  The two went to the house and Matthew gave Miles detailed instructions on how to craft gold weapons and armor. Miles was proud of his work, but despite holding a new gold sword and outfitted in shiny gold armor, Miles was still nervous when the sun began to set. He was worried about his battle with Skeletron.

  “It’s time to go,” Matthew informed Miles.

  Miles left the house as the sun set, and shook as he walked toward the entrance to the dungeon.

  “I see the Old Man,” Miles’s voice cracked.

  “You can do it. I believe in you.” Matthew smiled.

  Miles walked toward the Old Man and took a deep breath as he spoke the word, “Curse.”

  The Old Man was transformed into Skeletron and Miles remembered Matthew’s advice that he should strike the hands to make Skeletron vulnerable. One by one he used his sword to weaken the hands, but they weren’t destroyed. He gasped in horror as Skeletron’s head began to spin. The bony head spun fast and Miles knew this might be the end. He clutched his gold sword and hit the spinning head, shocked when his sword pierced the hard skull and Skeletron began losing energy. The weakened hands floated toward him and he pounded against them until they were erased from the sky.

  Now that the hands were gone, Miles could concentrate on annihilating the large skeleton head that floated in front of him. It began to spin again, and Miles took a deep breath and swung at the head until it was destroyed.

  Chapter 6:

  IN THE DUNGEON

  “You did it!” Matthew cheered. “That is not an easy task. Maybe you will be a noted warrior.”

  Miles was shaken from the battle and Matthew’s kind words hadn’t really settled in, as he took another deep breath. He finally let out a large sigh and said, “Thanks. That was tougher than I ever imagined.”

  Matthew stood by the entrance to the dungeon and peeked in. “You can enter the dungeon.”

  “Can you come with me?”

  “No, I can’t. You’ll have to go alone,” Matthew told him.

  “But it’s too dangerous to be out here on your own. It’s the middle of the night. You can
be attacked by zombies.” Miles worried Matthew would be hurt.

  “I’ll head back to the house. You go explore the dungeon. You worked hard for this and you deserve to explore it and reap the rewards.”

  As Miles entered the dungeon into a landscape of blue brick, he found himself on a path in a vast labyrinth. As he navigated his way through the tricky terrain, he realized how much he missed having Matthew by his side.

  Miles’s heart started to race as he walked down the labyrinth and couldn’t find an exit. He turned left, but it led him to a patterned brick wall. Miles wasn’t sure how to get out of this life-sized puzzle, and he continued down another path, but was also met by another brick wall. As he tried various routes through the labyrinth, Miles tripped on a wire, unleashing a sea of poison darts in his direction.

  “Watch out!” a voice called out.

  Miles ducked and missed the arrows. “Who’s there?”

  A woman with red hair slowly walked by him. “Move away from there, I was standing there five seconds ago,” she ordered him as she looked at the ground.

  “Are you looking for something?” asked Miles.

  “Yes.” She spotted something on the ground and picked it up. “I found them. My glasses. I can’t see without them. It’s totally annoying.”

  “Oh,” Miles said. “Well, I’m glad you found them.”

  The woman put her glasses on and looked at Miles. “I’m Shelly. You’re …?”

  “Miles.”

  “You beat Skeletron. You must be a skilled fighter.”

  “I guess so,” he said, “but I’m having trouble finding my way out of this labyrinth. Can you help me?”

  “I can try, but I don’t know if I can help. I do know that I can help you fill up your inventory with many resources. Do you need wires? I mean, everyone needs wires. You can never have too many. I know these sorts of things because I’m a mechanic.”

  “I might need wires,” Miles said as he scanned his inventory for his coins.

  “Where do you live? Do you have a house?” asked Shelly.

  “Yes. Do you have a house?”

  “No, I don’t. Would you—”