It had been two whole weeks since I arrived in this world, and I'd been keeping myself busy. Partially to keep my mind off my situation, and also to keep myself alive. In that time, I had worked more on my abode. My cabin was now a fully fledged cottage, complete with a fledgling underground base hidden beneath, containing all of my more valuable finds whilst mining.

Of those finds were some Crystal Hearts, as well as some tungsten and some rounds for my pistol. Heck, I'd even found a grappling hook and a load of gems, ranging from amethysts and topazes to rubies and diamonds. I'd gotten enough tungsten to make a new axe and pickaxe, though not enough for armor, unfortunately, but I let that slide.

And, with all the training I'd been doing helping me fight off the hordes of the night, I didn't worry too much about my armor. That, and with the regeneration and potions I'd amassed, made me feel pretty secure.

Sure, I knew I wouldn't be able to handle some of the tougher monsters from any of the games, like Trolls or Werewolves or the Eater of Worlds, but I still felt confident enough to handle the typical nightly hordes.

There was one thing that got me curious, however. My hair was white, exactly like Geralt and Ciri's. In the games, they said that they had white hair because they underwent different, more intense mutations. Was my hair white because I had the blood of Heroes and Terrarians in me? I didn't know, but if that was the case, it made me wonder why my emotions weren't dulled or even muted.

Still, I'd decided a while back to just not worry about it too much. I mean, having glowing, cat-like eyes added to my already rare green eyes was always a plus. Always did take a bit of pride in my uniquely colored eyes.

Currently, I was doing some training, practicing my magic just outside my house. Specifically, my Will magic. It was a bit harder than the Signs, especially when it came to the more advanced spells, like Time Control and Blades, which I still hadn't gotten under control, but it was easily my most powerful, as it didn't draw on my mana or body at all. Instead, it drew on my will alone, and a little understanding of basic physics.

With a grunt, I thrust my palm out, sending a wave of concussive force towards a boulder that made a significant dent in it. Wiping some sweat from my brow, I looked over the various dents, cracks, and the like on the boulder, as well as the few divots of ruined grass and dirt.

Thrusting my other palm out and summoning my Will again resulted in another onrush of force that swiftly added another spider-webbing of cracks across the boulder, until, with an earthly groan, it crumbled. Sighing, I wiped some more sweat from my brow, then put my hands on my hips and looked over the area.

"I'll have to get another boulder for practice soon," I noted, trying to get my breathing under control. Letting out a final breath after doing so, I walked to my front door, stopping briefly to idly admire the various growing flowers in my garden. Gently taking one of them in my hands, I smiled. The Celandine were growing faster than I expected them to, considering how I'd planted them with my new physics bending abilities. Only had a few more ingredients before I could make Swallow potions. Looking to the Blinkroots and Dayblooms, I could see that they were growing nicely as well, so that was a few dozen other possible potions I could make. Looking back to my home, I smiled as I took in it's appearance.

It was the same kinda home I'd adored when I was a kid, and still loved to this day; namely, a Hobbit-styled house. A mass of dirt and grass covered the top of it, making it look just like I'd simply made a home from a small hill. The real kicker was that it also functioned like a bunker, being made out of tin plating and wooden beams, as I had found an overabundance of tin whilst mining.

The front windows were round portholes made of stained glass, which themselves were made from topaz and the few emeralds I'd managed to find. Looking them over with a small smile, I found myself glad that the crafting menu in this new reality of mine allowed me such freedom. In Terraria, you had to have specific materials to make specific styles for your home. In this world, I didn't have that restriction, being allowed to choose from a range of styles with just one material. As such, the tin plates had engravings on them, ones I didn't even have to actually engrave. I never would have thought I'd get to live out my boyhood dream of living in a Hobbit hole, much less of the very kind I'd made, but boy was I glad I could.

Chuckling to myself, I shook my head and walked towards the Victorian-styled, circular steel door and wiped my shoes of mud on the doormat before stepping into my cottage. Flipping the lights on illuminated my semi-modest home's interior, and made me glad I'd scored so big by finding wires and the likes in my mine. Keeping my smile, I walked through the circular hall, drinking in the details of the home I'd made with the appreciation of a builder.

Banners, paintings, and shelves lined the tin plated walls, different rooms interspersed between them. I passed a few rooms, ranging from my kitchen, dining room, and pantry to my lounge, bathroom and study, before approaching the hidden button in one of the walls and pressing it.

Doing so lowered the secret door, allowing me access to the central stairwell of the house, which led down to my basement and bunker. After letting the door close behind me, I walked down the stairs and into the bunker proper, my boots tapping rhythmically against the wood that made up each step.

After reaching the bottom, I turned on the lights and made my way towards my storeroom. "Time to see how my stores are faring..." I mumbled to myself, passing my bedroom, armory, work room and mine entrance on the way. Reaching the aforementioned storeroom and flipping the lever to open the door, I watched as the tin plating receded into the wall, then stepped into the vast space of the room.

The chests were all labeled to distinguish what went where, and were further organized into sections based on category. Metals were one section, which was divided into smaller sections based on the type of metal and if it had been refined or not yet.

And the metals section was where I wanted to check first. Stopping in front of it, I opened up the chest for iron and looked inside. "Hmmm, gonna need some more iron soon..." I noted, before continuing my inventory check.

After all was said and done, I walked out of the storeroom. "Well, looks like I'm going out on another trip," I told myself, stretching and groaning in pleasure as I felt a few satisfying pops in reaction. Pulling my cell phone out of my quick bar, I decided on checking the time. "Nearly afternoon. Plenty of time to pack food and everything else." Scrolling to the 'Notes' app and opening it, I went about adding everything I needed for this trip on it. 'Not a bad idea to try and get some silver, gold, or platinum during this trip. Some more Crystal Hearts would be good too...Maybe I'll try that other cavern I found.' I hummed, then added those items to the list as well. "There, all set," I finished. After dismissing my phone back into my inventory, I went about prepping for my big trip.

This was gonna be a long one.

Vinyl was having unusually bad luck tonight. It was strange, as most times she got lucky when she came to Las Pegasus, but she'd been at the bar for two hours now, and not once had she nagged a stallion. All of the ones she'd tried to woo she either scared off on accident, or were simply not her type, being far too prissy or slutty.

The mare groaned as she laid her head on the table, glass of cider already halfway empty. "Whyyyyy..." She moaned. The barkeep paid her no mind as she continued on. "...I figured there'd be loads of tourists and hot stallions," She sighed, resting her face on her hoof. "But most of these guys are just...ugh." She slumped, the beats of the music doing less for her than it usually did. "Why aren't there any good stallions here?" She whined.

An unearthly roar followed, which was soon accompanied by screams.

"What the buck is that thing?!" cried a stallion as he galloped away for dear life.

Vinyl's head snapped to the sounds, and her eyes widened at the sight before her. A massive, bloodshot eyeball had crashed through the hotel, it's huge, central heterochromatic blue and green pupil staring blankly and eerily at the gathered equines like the eye of one of the newly dead. It was easily as big as a small shack, but creepier than any haunted version she'd seen in horror flicks. Numerous other eyeballs were around it, and whilst they were smaller, they made up for it by being faster, quickly chasing after the crowd.

Vinyl sat stock still, unmoving and stiff as a piece of petrified wood as other ponies ran for their lives. The giant eye turned it's gaze to her, and her pupils shrank. Even as it floated over to her, she didn't move. Couldn't, move. Her body wouldn't respond. She was frozen, shaking like a leaf as it drew nearer and nearer.

That was when a loud bang rang out, and the eye gained a bloody hole, jerking back in surprise. When it and Vinyl turned their gazes to the source, they saw a strange biped there.

"Mind letting the tiny horse have her drink, jackass?" it asked in a deep voice.

Determined to find some silver and gold for my gear, I had traveled farther from home than I originally intended to. The fact that I'd barely found enough to fill my quota didn't help either. I'd followed this shaft for, according to my phone, over 800 miles now, and it had branched off so many times I would've been worried about getting back home. Thankfully, I had the 'Teleport Home' option on my phone, though, so that wasn't an issue.

Still, it had been a few weeks now, and I'd only found enough silver for one Witcher sword, instead of the buttloads I'd been hoping for. And I'd found shit for dicks when it came to gold, so, you know, that was grand. Still barely any iron, as well.

I sighed, leaning back against the shaft wall and letting myself slump to the floor, pickaxe held loosely in my hand. "Why does the universe hate me so much..." I groaned, then looked up to the rocky ceiling. "Knowing my luck, I might just run into another orgy of monsters and get nothing to show for it." I sighed deeply, sinking deeper into the floor.

Just then, a message appeared in the corner of my vision.

You feel an evil presence watching you...

I stopped cold at that, body locking up. That was the message that appeared when the first boss, The Eye of Cthulu was about to come! Shit! "Inventory!" I nearly yelled, and looked through what I had. I grit my teeth. I wasn't too sure that just sixty rounds of ammunition would work on a boss with over two thousand health, much less if he was in Expert Mode, which meant he'd have over three thousand. Not to mention the fact he summoned smaller Eyes throughout the fight, which would drain my reserves even more. I tightened my grip on my pickaxe. But if it meant getting the next level of loot, like Demonite Ore or Crimtane Ore, then...

With a deep sigh of frustration, I pulled myself up. "Well, at the very least I'll finally see what's beyond my house," I reasoned, rolling my shoulders. "Always did kinda enjoy seeing new places. Might as well start exploring this new world for real." With that, I turned my gaze up to the ceiling again, and hefted my pickaxe. "Hopefully I have enough rope to get up..."

So, I began my climb. Part of the way up, as I was digging my way through more stone, the last message appeared, forming a cold pit in my stomach.

The Eye of Cthulu has awoken!

Despite me quickening my pace, it took a good twenty minutes, which admittedly was insane when you considered the depth my phone put me at, but I soon reached the surface. When I did, I saw it was clearly night, and monsters were gathering. Ignoring them for the time being, I scanned about for the Eye.

Seeing nothing in the sky, I took my phone out and opened the 'Monster Tracker' app. Unsurprisingly, it directed me to the sky. Looking up, I couldn't help my mouth gaping open as I beheld a literal floating city. Just...floating there, in the sky, giving a huge 'fuck you!' to all the science and physics I'd once known. You'd think I'd have gotten at least a little used to things here after living in this world for a few weeks, but this shit? I don't think I was ever gonna get over this.

A drawn out moan from my right brought me back to Earth, and I shook my head. Looking to the zombie, I raised my hand and, drawing from my Will, shot a fireball at it, burning it alive. Looking back up to the floating city and it's bright lights, I sighed. "Suppose I shouldn't be surprised, this world does have Terraria elements, and Terraria did have floating islands," I mused. Shaking my head again, I called out, "Inventory," and put the stone and dirt from my climb up here into my quickbar. "Gonna have to nerdpole up there, since I can't fly yet." Willing the stone into my hands, I jumped, then placed it below me. I stumbled a bit after landing, then soon righted myself. I looked down at my feet and the stone beneath me. "This is gonna take some getting used to..." I sighed, before repeating the process again and again, over and over.

After reaching a respectable height and still having not reached the city, I looked down, and promptly gulped. "Note to self; don't look down, don't freak out, and don't fall off."

That, was a mighty task in more ways than one.

To my mild surprise but great relief, I eventually reached the bottom of the cloud layer the city was on, and, taking out my pickaxe, I broke through the layer. Despite the gravity of the situation, I still hesitated for a moment when reaching for the cloud, but soon grabbed on and climbed up and out of the hole I'd made.

After doing so, I pulled out my phone again and checked the 'Monster Tracker' app again. The Eye was finally closing in, specifically on something the app's map labeled, 'Las Pegasus Resort Hotel'. Who the fuck would actually give a resort a name that was a horse pun on Las Vegas? That's just stupid.

Looking back up, my eyes widened as I saw the vast array of colorful ponies in front of me, and all over the city.

What. The. Fuck.

There were hundreds, no, thousands of them, colorful as hell with so many different mane and tail styles and the biggest eyes I'd seen on any animal. And a lot of them were staring at me.

Shaking my head, I decided to push away the thoughts of how insane this was and save them for later. Raising a hand, I gave a light wave and a small smile. "I come in peace?"

"It's a monster! Ruuuun!" cried a stallion, before they all screamed and ran off.

"...They can talk, and the first thing they say to me is, 'It's a monster'?" I clenched my fists and gnashed my teeth. I could feel rage building, but quickly squashed it down and shook my head. "Forget it, Durin. You're not here for them, anyway." I told myself.

Looking to the apparent resort in the distance, I started to sprint towards it. I could think about why they could talk and more later. Right now, I had a boss to kill.

I ran as fast as I could, heading straight for the hotel my app had indicated. As I did, I tried my best to ignore the frightened screams of the Skittles-colored miniature horses around me. It was unnerving in a lot of ways, but what mattered right now was survival. Mine...and theirs.

I didn't like the idea of others dying, after all, even if they were assholes.

As I reached the courtyard in front of the hotel, I heard hundreds of screams and stampeding hooves, before said stampede barreled through the front doors and out into the night. The Eye was here already. Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself further, running into the now open doors and inside the hotel.

Despite the lavish interior, I paid it little mind and honed in on where the screams and running ponies were coming from. Hanging a right and pushing past dozens more frightened ponies, I soon came to a dance floor, where lo and behold, The Eye of Cthulu was, approaching a petrified, alabaster mare.

I pulled my Hero's Pistol out, aimed, and pulled the trigger. As the Eye jerked back from the bullet that had lodged a hole in it and turned to me, I decided to try my hand at a one liner.

"Mind letting the tiny horse have her drink, jackass?" I asked, raising the gun up.

As soon as I did, I heard a chirp, and a new line of text appeared in my vision as music suddenly started to play.

Now beginning your adventure with "Eden Undone."

'Was that... My phone?' I wondered, pausing at that.

"Woah shit!" I cried, narrowly dodging a rush from the Eye. Three smaller eyes - Servants, I recalled - zoomed towards me, and, taking a quick breath, I aimed, and fired three shots.

Seeing those three eyes drop into piles of bloody coins and ocular-flesh, I willed my Hero Sword into my other hand and turned to face the bigger Eye again. My nose twitched, and I looked back briefly to see the white mare had apparently peed herself. I growled. "What the fuck are you doing?! Move!"

Startled, she blinked and shook her head, falling off the stool she'd been on. My ears were the next thing to twitch, and, following my training, I back-stepped and followed up with an upwards slash and a shot into the side of the massive Eye which had tried to rush me again, knocking it back.

I didn't hear hoofsteps. She hadn't moved. "Move!! Do you want to die?!" I cried, then grunted as I had to cut into the Eye of Cthulu again when it came for another rush at me, making it back off for a bit.

I saw two eyes heading for her, answering my question as to why she hadn't moved. I grit my teeth, then shook my head and took aim with my Pistol. Fifty five shots left. I squeezed the trigger twice. Fifty three.

Suddenly, something slammed into me, knocking me flat on my back and knocking the wind out of me. Nothing felt broken, but I could feel blood dripping from my nose. Looking up, the Eye was glaring down at me. I grit my teeth, pushed myself up to my knees, and looked to the mare that was still staring at me. Sucking in a breath, I yelled as loud as I could, "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE DIPSHIT!!!"

That seemed to finally get her to scramble up and away, galloping off and out of the battlefield that was once a dance floor. I managed a small smile at that, only to cry out in pain as I felt multiple teeth plunge into my right arm. "FUCK!" I cursed. Lifting my gun with my left, I pointed it point blank at the smaller Eye and blew it to pieces.

Looking up, I saw two more coming my way, and that last one's teeth were still lodged in my arm, and my goal was watching me from afar.

I grit my teeth harder, so hard I swore I heard them creaking like overworked support beams, and pushed myself to my feet. "...Me and my fucking sense of justice." I swore. Raising my gun again, I blew the two approaching eyes into red paste, then willed my Hero Sword back into my Inventory, and one of the three Healing Potions I had on me into my right hand. "Haven't tried 'em yet, but no time like the present!" Popping the cork with a thumb, I chugged the whole thing. Soon after I groaned as I felt my flesh swiftly pushing the teeth out, then yelped as I had to jump to the side as the Eye of Cthulu charged me again.

I landed hard on my still sore shoulder, suppressing a cry of pain at the impact, but managing to roll over and onto my feet as the Eye turned around to face me and spat out three more of it's Servants from it's back.

Seeing this, I gained an idea.

I flicked my gun to the side - which opened the chamber - tilted it, and emptied the bullets, before reloading as fast as I could. The process took less than a second, thanks to training and having used guns before. Then, I banished the empty bottle to my Inventory and brought my Hero Sword back out. Flourishing it, I got into a stance and took a breath as the Servants and the Eye came after me. "Okay..." I breathed. "Just focus..." I did just that, focusing and closing my eyes, relying on my Witcher senses to tell where the enemy was. When they were close enough, I shot my eyes open and charged headlong into the fray like a true Whittlesey.

As the first Servant came up, I jumped, landed on it, aimed down, jumped off and then shot it to pieces, repeating this with each Servant, using them like stepping stones to their leader. When I jumped off the final Servant, I took aim at the Eye and fired. It jerked back from the bullet that had lodged itself inside itself, but I raised my sword high and landed on it all the same, my blade now sunken deep into it's fresh wound.

In response to this, it thrashed about, zipping through the air in random directions before heading towards a wall to smash me. To counteract this, I twisted my weapon, and it veered up, shooting towards the ceiling. I held on as tight as I could, then, as quick as I could, I pulled my sword out, and thrust it back in.

The Eye, finally, roared at this, and split, revealing it's hidden maw. It suddenly turned around and started to dash in zigzags, nearly throwing me off a good number of times. I looked ahead, and saw a wall coming up. "I...don't...think so!" I roared, yanking down with all my strength.

A sickening, fleshy tearing sound was all I heard as I slid off, blade cutting into it along the way and slicing it in half. "Oh shiii-!" I shouted as the ground came rushing up to meet me.

Slamming into the flashing tiles of the dance floor, I let out a weak groan. 'Theeeere's the broken bones.' The wet, meaty thuds of the Eye slammed down around me, along with dozens of other items. Among them was, to my surprise, both Crimtane and Demonite Ore, five Lesser Healing Potions, and a Treasure Bag, all of which was swiftly absorbed into my Inventory. The music on my phone stopped too, and I got a final message in my vision.

The Eye of Cthulu has been defeated!

I groaned deeply, burying my face in the broken, flickering tiles. "I get the feeling things are only gonna get worse from here..." Groaning again, I painfully pushed myself up to my knees, banished my pistol, willed one of the healing potions I'd gotten into my hand, and chugged it down. "Ghk..." I stifled a cry of pain as the potion did it's work, mending my broken bones. They were still sore though, and I could tell that it hadn't fixed all of my ribs.

Sighing at this, I slowly and painfully pulled myself to my feet. I looked up at the ceiling, then around at the ruins of the dance floor, and chuckled. "Hope this doesn't piss those horses off." My sensitive ears picked up the sounds of wingbeats, and I looked to a hole in the wall. Dozens of what I could only assume were pegasi in armor were there, spears and even bows in their hooves...somehow.

"Halt, monster!" called one of them.

"That's a hard no," I grumbled. An arrow lodged itself near my foot. "Yipe!"

"Consider that a warning! Come peacefully and you won't be harmed!"

I looked at the arrow briefly, then looked to the the guard. "Yeah, how about, fuck you?!" With a hearty flipping of the bird, I took out my Cell Phone, and pressed on the Teleport Home button.

As I appeared back on top of my bed at home, I could only groan and spread out. "Fuuuuck..." I stored my stuff away in my Inventory, not even wanting to bother with my new loot. There was a lot to process. I let a hand fall down over my face. "...Fucking, what the hell..." I cursed, frowning deeply. "First the fucking Eye of Cthulu decides to appear - in a damned floating cloud city - then it turns out that city is full of fucking ponies, which means that bitch wasn't pulling my leg off for once, and now," I let my hand drop, clenching my fists. "Now I'm probably fucking wanted!"

I relaxed a bit, placing one hand over my still sore ribs. I could feel it slowly healing, but it was gonna be sore for a bit still. I looked up at the ceiling, trying to stop what was coming next.

It didn't work, so I covered my face again as the tears came.

"I just fucking want to go home...Why do I have to go through this sh-shit...?"

There was...a lot, to process.

Hello, my dear readers. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was...well, not the easiest thing for me to write. Not in the 'it's personal' way, but more in the way that I just wasn't sure if I'd written it right, so it's gone under a few rewrites already. Hell, originally I was gonna start the whole thing off with him going a little crazy with his new magic. That would've been way too out of character for him, so I scrapped that start.

Not to mention it all feels a bit fast to me on the latter bits.

But to continue this tangent, I imagine some of you found Durin's statement of 800 miles to be over-the-top, yes? Well, that bit was made after heavy consideration of the official map of Equestria, as well as research into the alarmingly large amount of cities and locations Equestria alone has that either; A) Aren't shown on the map itself or B) Are oddly close, and this has brought me to the conclusion that Equestria's official map isn't too accurate, at least when it comes to distance. So, I decided that Durin's home in White Tail is, despite what the map suggests, at least 800 miles from Las Pegasus. Also, I am aware that the eye of Cthulu does not spawn if all players are underground 81 seconds after the first message, but, I decided to say that the ponies sorta count as players in this case.

I am also aware that the Eye spawns 4-5 Servants upon transforming, but I figured Durin's final move there kinda just finished it too quickly for that to happen.

As for why this wasn't as dragged out a fight as it could have been (considering most players take a little longer to kill it when they're starting out) that has to do with Durin's armor set bonus. Terraria, you see, has bonuses when you wear a full set of armor. Durin's Eagle School Set gives him +10% damage to all monsters, and +5% weapon damage and speed.

Now, adding that on top of the fact his Hero Pistol has the Rapid Mod, as in, it fires faster, and his Hero Sword has the Legendary Mod, well, he had just a bit of an edge.

Ya know, oddly enough, now that I look back on all that research, it was rather fun to do. Which is odd, considering how aggravated I was while doing it. Must be my inner scholar, I guess.

Oh, and sorry this didn't come out as quick as you all would have liked or as I said it would, things just...happened. Family stuff and all. I honestly don't feel comfortable saying much more, so...yeah. Sorry.

Anyways, I really do hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Thanks so much for reading!

-Timeless Celestial