World -1

 World -1

The past few days I had been excited for a new update for Terraria. Its been soooo long since the game got an update that a lot of fans just stopped playing. So the news of an update rekindled our love for the game. While most flooded the forums to give their ideas for the update, I decided to get myself reacquainted with the game. Its been so long since I played it that I wanted to be completely ready for the update. After a few minuets I fell in love with the game all over again. For me it was always about how simple it was. Its just you, a guide, and this grand world to explore. With all the dungeons, bosses and different things to collect I knew I’d have plenty to do until the update was released. I decided the best thing to do was to start a new world and build it from the ground up. After starting up a new character named “Panda” I was ready to start my new adventure.

Loading Up
Things went pretty smoothly for the first few hours. I was able to make a decent town and get most of the NPCs no problem. Most of the bosses were beaten and all I had left was to dig to hell and fight the Wall of Flesh. I was fairly well stocked and just as I was about to spawn him...the game crashed. If not for the fact that Terraria saves everything you do I would have been a lot more upset than I was. After restarting the game I noticed that the resolution had changed as well as the background. It looked the same as it usually did, but the trees were red instead of the usual green. I disregarded it as a glitch and proceeded to the character selection screen. Below my character “Panda”, there was another called Christopher. I could have sworn that Panda was the only character I had before the game restarted. The odd thing was that Christopher looked familiar to me. I decided to ignore him and move on with the game. When I reloaded the world I noticed text I'd never seen before it said “Loading World-1”. I assumed it was a joke and moved on with the game.

Upon starting up I immediately fell down to fell and summoned the Wall of Flesh. The fight was tough but I was waaay more prepared than I needed to be so he wasn't too bad. After beating him the usual message appeared telling me that I had unlocked hardmode. Underneath it was another message that read: “A horrible chill goes down your spine...”. After that the game crashed again and I decided to take a break. My computer took longer than usual to shut down but I was too tired to look into it. In hindsight I should have.

After Reboot
The next day when I started the game I was surprised to see that the background changed even more than before. The hills were black and the trees were a deeper red, a Blood Moon hung in the sky over the scene. An image flashed but I was unable to make it out. I decided to figure out what was going on so I quit the game and checked the game file. Admittedly, I had no idea what I was looking for so I gave up and restarted the game. When I go to the character select screen “Panda” was missing and only Christopher was there. After raging at my computer for a few seconds I made a new character and got over it. But when I moved to the next screen all that I could see was World -1. All my progress in the other world was gone. It was all gone, the bosses, the dungeons, the buildings, my loot; all of it! Then it hit me! Maybe the game just renamed the world World -1 as a part of the earlier prank. I decided to load it up and continue.

The world that loaded looked very similar to the background. The hills were black and all the trees,as well as the grass was red. The music was different too. It sounded like the pitch was lower and it seemed to just drone on in the background. As I walked through I found a small city. It was well built, nothing too amazing but decent enough. All of the NPCs were missing though. The thing that freaked me out more than anything was the lack of enemies, especially during a Blood Moon. I decided to find the corruption. Maybe if I could summon a boss the world would go back to normal. As I walked a message popped up stating: “Screams echo around you...”. It was odd since I hadn't broken a shadow orb yet. I ran back to city to arm myself and as I entered I saw a character I'd never seen before. He turned to me dropped something, and ran off in the other direction. I walked over to pick up what he dropped and equipped it. It was a weapon I'd never seen before. It looked like a spear made of black bones. When I attacked with it the eyes of the skulls on it glowed; this left an ominous red glow whenever I used it. As freaked out as I was I couldn't help but be excited. This was something completely different from anything I'd ever seen in Terraria. I took the spear with me and headed in the direction the character ran off to.

As I walked I noticed a shadowy glow coming from underground. My excitement got the better of me and I raced down the nearest cave and made my way toward the glow. The entire cave was filled with ore. I could see huge veins of iron, gold, cobalt, and adamantite; but I wanted to find the source of the glow. A few steps later, I saw it. A black crystal heart was sitting in a strange altar. Between the crystal heart and myself stood the figure from before. Upon closer inspection I could see that it was the Christopher character from the selection screen. His suit was torn and his eyes glowed red behind his shades. As I approached he said, “You might just be strong enough to free me from my curse...”. After that I heard an odd roar. I was then teleported back to the city. The roar was made again, this time sounding more like a scream. Even though this was going on all I could think about was Christopher. There was no spoken lines in this game. Only grunts and roars. I wanted to stop playing but the beast that I kept hearing had peaked my interest. I moved out of the city and toward the noise. The closer I got the less it sounded like a scream. When I arrived in a forest of dead trees one last prompt appeared saying: “Kudlak the Ravanger has awoken!”. Before I had time to react a huge beast at me. Its appearance was covered by the shadow so it was hard to make out. All I could do was swing blindly at it as it hoped around the screen. It seemed to be toying with me. After a few seconds it let out another shriek, put out its claws and slashed me. The damage number said 8666; I never stood a chance. After I died the monster just kept screaming. Getting louder and louder and louder. It slowly twisted its head to me its eyes piercing through me, as I moved to hit ESC my computer turned off.

Shocked and confused, I couldn't believe it. Once the start up was complete I check the games files and restarted it. But everything was gone. I had nothing. No characters and no world. Above all else, I had no proof. All I had was the error report from when the computer turned off. I hope that's enough.