Above a massive expanse of sand and chasms, the heat of the setting sun is slowly being dispersed by what wind there is in this place. Turning what was once a scorching desert into a chilly but beautiful atmosphere. What would have been beautiful, anyways. With a massive web of wooden scaffolds stretching between great stone pillars, lit with what seems like thousands of torches & campfires. With around a hundred figures darting between the wide wooden platforms like buzzing insects.
They easily cross the gaps that would be hundreds of meters apart, both across and above each platform using hooks, wings, or simply leaping across. The equally massive pillars rising from the sand below to the sky above, holding the entire scaffold together. Their numbers seemingly reaching from horizon to horizon and easily stretching to the clouds, putting even the tallest buildings to shame. Small shacks of grey brick scattered in equal distances from each other litter the spaces in between the scaffolds; holding a campfire on their roof, 2 lanterns on opposite walls, and banners of different designs hanging on the bottom of the brick cottage.
The lanterns, instead of giving illumination, actually hold different objects. In one, a red crystal in the shape of a heart, and the other, a bottle with a glowing star inside, seemingly invigorating the people nearby. One man, his armor made of a strange material that seems to constantly be on fire, stops flying and goes inside the shack. His fiery wings furling as he walks to one of the two chests inside, opening it to retrieve 2 bundle of potions. Putting away the 2 bags in his satchel before closing the chest, he turns as someone else enters the cottage. She wore purple robes with silver trims and pauldrons, a sash around her waist for tightening the robe to her slim figure. The robe's hood being pulled back to reveal her face. A woman in her young adulthood with silky silver hair dropping down the sides of her head, the hair so immaculately clean that they seem like polished fabric. She stared at him with dim purple eyes, surely an effect of her equipment, before going to the side and sitting on a chair next to the wall.
"Rough day?" the man asked as he decided to stay for a while longer
"I'm the one supposed to say that, how can you handle the heat out there in that armor?" she looked at him once more as she takes out a bottled water from her own satchel before opening it. Her forehead damp with sweat.
"The armor helps, actually. Resists the desert heat just fine" he shrugs before continuing "Maybe you can get some charms from back home, we finished setting up the pylons so you can go back there and here quickly"
"No no, can't do that" waving her other hand dismissively, she continued "I already have 2 charms for my magic. I'm not spending another 20 gold for comfort when other charms can easily save my life"
Chuckling, he turns to the door "Suit yourself, I have to go play messenger. The recovery potions are in the left chest and the support potions are in the right"
She nods at him, letting him know she understood before he leaves the brick shack. Moving a few steps away from it before unfurling his wings and flying off, weaving between thick wooden platforms and other people. The woman on the other hand sighs and pulls up her hood, mumbling to herself.
"I never got his name..."
Among the others moving to complete tasks and preparations, on the very top layer of scaffolding platforms, almost reaching the cloud layer. Another man was sitting at the edge of the wooden platform, simply watching the sun fall under the horizon as the early night gets colder and the wind becomes more pronounced. His own armor seemingly unbefitting for someone of his deeds, looking more akin to a demon of the underworld. A crimson padding that looks like exposed flesh, with ash-colored bone plating covering his feet, knees, hands, shoulders, and chest. The skull of the ram mask covering his entire head, the flesh-like padding covering the rest underneath that skull. All made with Bloodstone Cores, it had helped him take down the massive beast that lived in the sulphurous seas. A fading legend, that old fishron was. Yet it threatened humanity's survival by bringing acidic rain beyond shores.
Only to realise The Old Duke wasn't the cause of the rain that brought death from above, but simply lived within them like those who lived inside the sulphurous seas. Regardless, the armor served him well when the rain of acid came, surviving even it's largest inhabitant.
He heard the flapping of wings and a constant artificial hum that hung in the air, prompting to stand up and turn his back to the setting sun. Watching as two people reach the platform he's on, a knight of flaming armor and a technologically advanced figure. With 6 jet boosters on their back and a smooth domed helmet over their head, it was as if they're from the far future. Speaking through the small mouthpiece just below the smooth teal dome, they hefted up in both of their hands two exotic swords with blades of differing colors. The weapons nearly as big as they are long, they extended the two weapons to the hero like they weighed nothing.
"The enchantments are applied and the smiths were finished with it. But they said they had to threaten the goblin tinkerer with exile if he did anything funny when he did the finishing touches" Revealing themselves to be a woman, despite the broad armor. Her voice coming out filtered through the mouthpiece.
Taking the two blades, he nodded at their exotic looks and great size in satisfaction.
"The Ark of the Elements... They did well making the upgrade, what quality did the tinkerer give it when he mended it?" He examined the two handles of each blade, and putting the 2 swords together with their straight edges back to back made them look like scissors even. The design was peculiar to say the least.
"He said that that it's fit to be wielded by a god"
"Godly, huh... A masterpiece then"
She chuckled at the comment "With the materials we basically handed to them on a silver platter, it should be. I'd rather not face those vortex bugs again, eugh..."
Finally, he turns his head to the winged knight. Acknowledging him while he puts the 2 blades behind his back.
"What about those potions?" He asked
"I gathered as much of the support potions I can from all the checkpoints, hero" The knight then opens his satchel and pulls out multiple potions, giving one each to the hero. Pulling out more than what seemed possible from the measly space of the leather satchel.
"Flasks of crumbling, holy flame, and ichor. Potions of ironskin, soaring, tesla, and others too. As much as I can find"
The hero slowly takes them one by one, putting them inside his own sachel. This one a little more worn than the others.
"Uh… Are you sure you do not need more? You will be the one fighting the tyrant's champion head on, sir"
And he gets a scoff in return. The hero waving his hand as if to dismiss the notion.
"My main job is to learn everything we need to know about how that thing moves and what it does. You all know what i'm capable of by now, if something bad happens we won't have a permanent casualty"
Then his face darkens.
"I'm more worried about what will happen to it once it eats my corpse. But I suppose that would be a form of reconnaissance too"
Looking at the now quiet knight, no doubt thinking about the upcoming battle, he grins.
"Still, it'd be embarassing to lose right when it shows up. I'll dash away immediately once it appears and give that champion a taste for steel"
"Yes sir!"
"Now go to your designated position, you've already done me the favor I asked for you"
And with a final bow, the knight in fire spreads his wings and flies off between the hundreds of wooden platforms.
Watching him fly off, he turns to his right. And as if expected, 4 new people land on the wooden platform he's on. Each in a similar Bloodstone armor as his own but with varying weapons at their persons.
One of them speaks to him, another man's voice, wearing the skull of a wyvern with only 2 small horns that barely curve upwards behind them.
"So it's ready"
"Yeah, I won't fight barehanded you know?" The hero responds.
This time another voice sounds out from the group, someone wearing a skull whose jaws are wide open. Serving more of a hood than anything as 2 piercing red eyes look at him from the shadows casted by the makeshift-looking hood. A woman's voice this time.
"How are we sure that all this work into this arena will pay off? What if it doesn't work? we'll have to go on the offensive than just luring them into favorable terrain"
Before he can answer, however. The man beside her answered instead, towering a half a feet over her and wearing a skull of an imp for his armor's helmet. It's lower jaw missing and one of it's horns shattered.
"Still having doubts? We've already seen him do so many impossible things. We barely fought back that grotesque eye away back then, while we watched corruption at our doorstep come closer everyday. Luring one of the Tyrant's greatest champions by only using old voodoo to provoke the it isn't that far fetched"
Then he turned to the hero. Continuing to talk.
"Speaking of which, why did we bring the others into this? We've been fighting well on our own so far. They could die"
"So could you, yet you're all stubborn as goblins" The hero replies with a smirk, although the ram mask hides his expression. But the humor in his voice is conveyed well enough that the others chuckled.
"That is fair" the man with the imp helmet even laughed.
Then the hero turned his head to the general direction where various people are starting to settle, all of them being next to one of the pillars or the brick shelters.
"Still, if we want the rest of the kingdoms to gather their courage and rise up for our cause. We need to placate those who are willing to step forward, so the others can also take the step forward"
His face hardens as he talks.
"The Light of the Jungle Tyrant will fall, we'll end his reign and usher in a new era"
Falling silent as the others also quietly think about their own convictions. Before the last person, a woman wearing a skull with pointed horns , a missing lower jaw, and a gaping hole in it's face where it's eyes should be. Yet the darkness beneath the helm fail to show it's owner's face as she speaks.
"Down with the Tyrant, down with the witch of brimstone and the feathered dragon, down with the machine and the nameless serpent…"
Then the others finish with her.
"…Down with the age of Calamity, paid by our lives. Let Terraria rise from the ashes of our sacrifice…"
Falling silent as the hero stares back at them and speaks.
"We will begin"
He reaches into his worn sachel and pulls out a thick blue worm, slowly wriggling in his hand. Raising it as the others reach into their own bags.
Each of them pulling out potions of different kinds. The man with the imp helm speaking with a tone that can make a brick wall jealous.
"Performance pots only, no flasks, no debuffs. At least until the champion's weakness is revealed"
They all nod at him and he nods in turn, before they open and start drinking the different colored solutions of their potions.
The hero pinching one end of the worm and hanging it in the air. Talking to it as much as he talks to himself. A faint metallic sheen reflecting off on it's skin from the growing artificial light of the closest campfires.
"Come kill us then, we're waiting for you. And when you eat us, we'll be sure to make you choke on your last meal today"
Dropping the worm on the wooden platform and stomping it, crushing the artificial worm with his foot and activating the magic he wove into it.
Stepping back and pausing, before slowly wiping his foot on the floor to his side.
"Eugh…"
Looking up, he sees the others giving him dubious looks. Which is impressive, given their faces are all covered behind their helmets.
The woman with the cyclopean skull speaking up as she holds her flamethrower up, having seemingly pulled it from her comparatively small bag.
"Seriously?" She asked him while maintaining her dubious stance.
"What?" He shrugged at her in turn.
"It's not as if he'll hear it. Doesn't hurt to have fun every once in a while"
Reaching in his sachel, he pulls out a long vial of yellow liquid.
"Besides, I'm hyping us up. Everyone's been wanting to kill the tyrant's champions for their atrocities for some time"
Opening it and downing the vial under his mask. He puts the empty glass back in his sachel only to pull out a different potion.
He was about to make another witty remark before the other man in the wyvern helm interrupts him.
"Look alive! It's coming!" Holding out a large celestial axe, one blade more massive than the other and a red sash wrapped around it's wooden handle. Shocking the others.
"The legion of Celestia? You used your stardust fragments on that?" the other woman questioned, who now holds a massive wooden staff by her side. The dark wood spiralling around a big magenta diamond at the end, with a curved thin projection of the same gradient hovering in front of the staff like the blade of an axe and 4 smaller disjointed projections on the opposite side.
"It looks like you're about to swing it yourself instead of having something else fight for you…"
But their surprised chatter drifts in the background as the hero looks around their environment.
The sun had been setting a while ago now, everything had grown darker with only hundreds of small dots of light in the distance, like stars of a night sky. The source of these stars being hundreds of campfires, lamps, and even other people.
But now, the sky had grown subtly brighter… More blue, even, as a slow haze begins to descend upon them. The sky above rumbling like thunder.
'He's quick, isn't he?' Drinking another potion, it creates a massive ring of fire around him. Quickening the pace which he drank his potions while looking up at the distant sky ahead.
The others slowly stop talking as they also turn to the same direction, their gaze drifting from simply looking at the rumbling sky into a small bundle of cracks that just seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
Suspended in the air, the cracks slowly crawled across different directions as if a massive weight is being pressed against a glass pane.
The sky rumbles like thunder once more, reverberating through the air. And with it, the growing web of cracks spread faster. Some connecting to others in specific places.
Frowning, the hero tries to decipher the pattern as he finishes his last potion. Returning the empty glass back into his sachel.
The woman with the flamethrower eventually speaks up in apprehension, breaking the tense silence.
"Are you sure that the reports say that the Devourer doesn't use space to attack? I can't help but feel like we should move"
But before anyone else could speak or move…
The sky shattered, the web of cracks falling away to reveal a massive hole in space. The edges continuing to crumble away in uneven intervals, opening more space even as the initial hole was opened.
The sound of the shattered space reverberating throughout the dim night. The hero and his cohort immediately moving and spreading out, no words exchanged between them.
The hero himself moving to the center of the wide platform, the 2 women moving off to his flanks and the other 2 men staying behind him.
The one with the wyvern mask swings the axe that he has in the air. Bringing to life copies of the same axe, flying off the weapon he's holding and moving to hover next to him with each swing.
The imp masked man puts his foot back and lifts a dark blue javelin over his head with one hand. Twice the size of the man, the weapon seemingly blends in the surrounding dim blue night if not for the brightly colored tip of it's blade.
The hero himself unsheathing the twin blades he has as he stares up at the massive hole in the sky, his deep frown of concentration hidden behind his mask as he tries to peer through the black space behind the hole.
Then a deep voice carries itself through the opening as 4 bright eyes peers back at the tiny insects beneath the entrance from the empty darkness of the portal. Their pure teal radiance slowly illuminating the rest of it's armored head as it's voice manages to worm it's way into the ears of every single human in the region, making their bodies tremble from the sound.
"You… You are no god, YET I WILL FEAST ON YOUR ESSENCE REGARDLESS!"