two kinds of mysterious floating rock

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick is minding his own business, collecting floatgrass and onions from a random island a fair bit south of the equator and wondering when it'll rain again, when someone rather rudely appears directly above him.

Comments

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"You guess correctly. Those wings look incredibly useful, how did you get them?"

[greatestgift]

"I killed a lot of horrifying monsters. Terraria is full of horrifying monsters, but for some reason they all emit useful artifacts when they die."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"That is... Strange. As far as I know Cloudbank's horrifying monsters don't emit useful artifacts, except insofar as they are useful artifacts. Meat, bone, that kind of thing. And I wouldn't describe the place as full of them."

[greatestgift]

"Terraria is a very strange place," she says. "I was trying to get home from there, but it seems like there was something wrong with my transportation method, because this sure doesn't look like home."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick nods. "Going somewhere specific is tricky, probably doubly so if you're crossing worlds to do it. It sounds like the next obvious steps are either try to fix whatever's wrong with your transportation method, or try to find a new place to call home."

[greatestgift]

"I'd like to go home, but I'd also like to avoid landing somewhere worse than 'midair above a floating island' next time. So it'll depend on how much I like this place and how well I think I can fix my mistakes, I guess."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Yeah, appearing forty klicks above or below here... Probably would have killed you. Maybe not if you have more stuff like those wings. Say, are those technology, or magic? The line can be pretty blurry sometimes."

[greatestgift]

"They're... Terrarian. I think of them as magic, anyway. I have the materials to make more sets, but only a limited amount... on the other hand, this seems like it might be the sort of world where wings are in high demand. And in theory it should be easier to go back and forth between here and Terraria than to go somewhere completely else, if I put together the right setup, but I'm not sure how much I trust that theory at the moment."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"If you could sell wings like that on any kind of scale, you would become very rich very quickly. I'd buy one myself, it looks a lot more reliable than my glider. Why spiderwebs, though? I could help you look at the theory if you have notes on it - I like theory."

[greatestgift]

"The spiderwebs are... sort of stylistic. There are other styles available. I just think these are prettiest."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"As long as they don't come with actual spiders."

[greatestgift]

"Certified spider-free."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Grand. Spiders are potentially messy and like to eat things that ought not to be eaten. I'm rather proud of my very-nearly-pest-free airship, you know."

[greatestgift]

"That seems like a good thing to be proud of!"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"It really is. A tengram of prevention's worth a kilo of cure, and all that."

[greatestgift]

"Definitely."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Well, if you don't want to decide whether to stay here or try for home or go back to Terraria right away, my offer to review the theory of your transport magic or whatever will continue to be offered. Once I finish collecting the plants I need for today, at least."

[greatestgift]

"I can try to get it all written down in a mostly organized way. There aren't really any other people in Terraria, so I haven't had to explain it to anyone before."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"No people there? At all? Not just - living space is sparse and far away and it's hard to go from place to place so you don't see your friends very often, but no people at all?"

[greatestgift]

"No people there at all. Well. Some people have been there, I think. But that part is creepy and hard to explain. Would you like the creepy difficult explanation?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I am in favor of explanations in full generality. If you don't mind. If it's too creepy and strange and difficult we can stop halfway through."

[greatestgift]

"Well, okay," she says. "So the first thing is that in Terraria there are these... creepy mindless person-things. They look like people, but they don't eat or drink, and they can only say an exact set of sentences - like 'Welcome to Terraria' or 'My name is Dylan' or 'Greetings, Sable. Is there something I can help you with?', and they don't pick which sentences to say very sensibly, as far as I can tell they just don't have minds. If they die a new one shows up looking just like them and saying all the same things but introducing itself by a different name. And Terraria is divided up into a lot of square areas all the same size each with an island in the middle, and the creepy mindless person-things on my island call me Sable, but some of the other islands have their own sets of creepy mindless person-things that call me Miguel or Florence or Wei or Priya, and as far as I can tell what happened is somebody came to that island and then died there and now the creepy mindless person-things are stuck using their name for everybody."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Well, they certainly sound creepy and mindless. I object to calling them person-things unless they've displayed any particularly personish characteristics. Do they tell stories, have preferences, do they get magic? And how is the place divided up, exactly? The islands would try to drift into other squares eventually, right?"

[greatestgift]

"The islands stay put, even the floating ones. The main island in every square is on land, surrounded by water."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"So solid ground in Terraria is actually habitable. Good to know."