Twilight's exploration of the cave system was going pretty well. Aside from the constant monsters and fatal traps, Twilight was able to get a lot of ores, including a new ore called tungsten. She also managed to find a crystalline heart, which she used somehow when she put raised it up to look at it. Apparently, with the hearts, Twilight would now have more "HP." Twilight wasn't sure what HP was, but decided it was useful because it didn't seem to kill her.

Twilight was also able to find some sort of building jutting out from a wall. Inside, she found a lot of cobwebs and broken pieces of furniture. What immediately drew her attention was the golden chest in the center of the building. Twilight almost didn't look in the chest for fear of angering the owners. A quick look at the cobwebs convinced her the owners were long gone and to at least take a peek. Inside the chest, Twilight could see a number of bottles and some coins, as well as a strange hoofheld mirror. Twilight took everything in the chest and started investigating the mirror.

Maybe holding it up will do something? It seemed to work for some other things. With that in mind, Twilight held up the mirror. Instantly, she could hear magical sparkly sounds and was teleported back to her shelter.

Twilight really wanted to see how the mirror worked, but she was interrupted by Guide appearing in front of her. Then she took a second to realize that wasn't guide. She noticed a message in her eyes which apparently confirmed her suspicions, stating that, "Fodder 1 has joined the game."

"Alrighty, then!" the creature exclaimed." Now to find the Brain of Cthulhu and totally whup it's ass! Now which way-" The being turned around and stopped speaking when it saw Twilight.

They both stared at each other, neither of them moving, for quite a while before Twilight dared speaking to it. "Um, hi?"

"Greetings, alien space-horse!" The being made an exaggerated bow as it spoke. "My name's Fodder 1, of Super NOOB World! And you are?"

Twilight took a moment to respond. She never heard of "fodder" or "noob" before, but she decided staying silent wouldn't help her. "Uh, I'm Twilight. Of... Equestria?"

"Ah, well, fancy meeting you here! I hope we might be able to get along quite well for the few days I'm going to be here. Hmm..." The being stepped toward Twilight. "You look like a newbie. I assume you died a whole bunch of times to slimes as you tried to figure your way out of sucking badly?"

Twilight stared blankly at the creature, a male named "Fodder 1." He was wearing sunglasses for some reason, and had brown clothing with red pants. He also had what looked like a black shield with a skull on it which unnerved Twilight slightly. His boots looked bright yellow and had miniature wings. But what drew her attention the most were the giant icy wings folded over his back.

Twilight realized she was staring when she realized he asked her a question. "I'm sorry, what was your question?"

"Ah, nevermind that. You look like you've never seen a player before. I also assume you've never heard of a noob?"

"No, I can't say that I have." A part of Twilight was really eager to hear everything this "player" wanted to say. But she realized he might not be willing to share anything if she was too eager.

"Well, a noob is someone who totally sucks at doing stuff." The being smiled slightly before continuing in a slightly deeper voice. "I used to be a noob like you; then I took awesomeness to the knee."

Twilight didn't like Fodder's use of "who" in an incorrect manner, and also didn't understand what it meant to "take awesomeness to the knee." He actually reminded her somewhat of Pinkie, just because he seemed to not make that much sense.

"Anyway," Fodder said, not allowing Twilight to respond, "I need to go do some stuff involving giant floating monster brains that teleport behind you. Wanna watch?"

Twilight wasn't sure if Fodder would stay a while, so she decided following him would be the best way to learn more from him. "Sure, I guess."

"Wonderful! Well, follow me, young player." They exited the shelter and Fodder looked back at it. "Now, to start your training, I'm going to tell you that you need more houses."

And so Fodder led Twilight through the land, teaching her about various things. She finally knew what HP was, and decided it really would be useful. She also learned she needed to collect stars which fell from the sky to increase her magic potential. And, in order to get wings like Fodder's, she would need to kill some wyverns up in space. She was partially against the idea of seeking out monsters just to kill them, but Fodder assured her that they wanted to kill her and couldn't be convinced otherwise, so it was perfectly fine to do the same to them. Twilight didn't really agree with this logic.

At one point, Fodder led her through some snowy hills, and then immediately into a desert that was somehow nearby. It didn't make sense that a desert would be right next to snow, but it also didn't make sense that you could go through certain platforms or hold things up to activate them.

As soon as they entered the jungle, Fodder stopped. "Well, this isn't where we want to go. Twilight, do you have some sort of mirror?"

"You mean this?" Twilight took out the mirror and was immediately teleported back to the shelter. A few seconds later, Fodder appeared right next to her.

"Okay, so we know the Crimson isn't that way. That means it must be this way!" The creature pointed towards the opposite direction.

"But how do we know it could only be in one of two places? We could go over there." Twilight pointed towards the mountains in the distance.

"That's silly. The world of Terraria is only semi-two-dimensional. Those mountains are just to decorate the background.

That didn't make a lot of sense, either. Twilight noticed a lot of things didn't make sense in this world. She knew of the concept of two dimensions, but wasn't sure how that could have a modifier. "What does "semi" mean? In this context, at least."

Just as they entered another snow biome, Fodder responded. When I say semi, I mean it isn't perfectly two-dimensional. You have the foreground, the thing we're standing on. There's also the background, where we put walls. Some objects, like torches, don't really take up any space in any layer, but still need something real to anchor to. Some monsters also exist on layers other than the two described, and can use that to their advantage. And, of course, there's the actual background with the decorative scenes. Oh, I would also like to point out that we have arrived."

And they did, indeed, arrive. To where, Twilight wasn't sure. Every level of this place just felt absolutely wrong to her. From the area itself, which seemed to be coated with blood, while the trees seemed to be dripping flesh. To the overwhelming smell of rotting flesh which would have made Twilight vomit if she had eaten something earlier. To the ground beneath her, which was writhing and pulsating strangely. She could also barely feel it trying to spread up her hooves, so she started trotting in place to stop it from doing so. She decided she didn't want to stay here for much longer, and turned towards Fodder. "This place is really unnerving me. Do we have to stay here?"

Fodder smiled. "Why, of course! We haven't even seen the Brain of Cthulhu yet!

"Who's Cthulhu?" Twilight asked.

"Some eldritch god of the sea or whatever. He doesn't actually exist in this world, although there do exist some things based off of him, like the Brain. Excuse me."

Blood curdling screams were heard, prompting Twilight to look at where they were coming from. Coming towards them both was a strange, apelike monster with a giant face and gaping maw. Surrounding them were flying critters of various sizes with large spike-filled mouths. Twilight was pretty sure they would be very dangerous.

...until Fodder pulled out a giant green sword and swung it at all of them, shooting glowing sword projectiles at all of them, killing them instantly.

"They may seem easy right now," he told her, "but that's because I've done a lot of adventuring and got a lot of cool stuff. You, on the other hand, might want to watch out for them." With that said, they continued on, towards a large, red, stoney hill.

"But of course, they aren't the main attraction of this world. Inside this hill is a tunnel that leads to a large chamber, wherein resides strange, beating hearts that, when broken, summon the Brain of Cthulhu. Pretty cool, right?"

"But why would you want to seek out these monsters? They sound really dangerous."

Fodder chuckled. "Why, loot, of course! You don't think I got this awesome gear from hiding in a cave all day, do you?"

With that said, Fodder jumped down into the cave, with Twilight following suit.

It seemed even the stone in this place wasn't safe from... whatever this stuff is.

They traveled down a winding tunnel full of the monsters from before as well as strange spider things. All of which stood no chance against what Fodder called the Terra Blade. Eventually, they reached an enormous cavity, where Twilight could see more tunnels down below.

"Okay, how about you stay here." Fodder's wings unfurled, and Fodder got out a golden machine of some sort, which started spinning rapidly. "I'll be back in a few." And he leaped off the platform, shouting "Leroy Jenkins" for some reason.

Nothing really happened for a few seconds, but then Twilight got a sudden chill in her spine. She also noticed a message saying "A chill goes down your spine." Twilight thanked the message for stating the obvious. Suddenly, She heard screams echo around her, with the appropriate message. Twilight was starting to get second thoughts about following Fodder this far, but stayed out of sheer curiosity.

Twilight spotted Fodder racing out of the hole, monstrous roars filling her ears. Another message appeared, stating that the Brain of Cthulhu had awoken. A few seconds later, a giant floating brain appeared in the center of the cavity, giant eyes whirling around it. The brain didn't seem to notice Twilight, as it was completely focused on Fodder. A few of the eyes noticed Twilight and flew towards her, but were beaten back when she smacked them.

Fodder didn't seem afraid of it at all, and was, in fact, shouting with joy as he twirled around the giant brain, shooting it and its eyes with what looked like a shark with a metal thing sticking out of it. She also could have sworn she saw him hitting it with a yo-yo and, at one point, actual stars.

Halfway through the battle, a gap opened in the brain revealing a heart with an eye on it. Twilight was glad she hadn't eaten anything. It occurred to her she didn't feel hungry at all, even after all that time.

Twilight heard Fodder shout at her. "Hey! This thing's almost dead! Want to do the honors?" He wasn't attacking it anymore and was dodging it whenever it teleported behind him.

Twilight didn't like the idea at all, and was about to say so when Fodder interrupted, saying "Too late!" He started flying toward Twilight, the brain following him. At that point, the brain seemed to notice Twilight, and screeched at her. With the sudden responsibility of killing a giant floating brain, Twilight panicked slightly. She started to back away as fast as she could, swinging her sword at it. She was prepared to die at this point.

But she was still alive.That was when she realized she had managed to land the killing blow on the brain, and it exploded into giant chunks of brain goop, some of the red ore she saw earlier, and a lot of coins and red potions.

Fodder was next to her in an instant, congratulating her. "Well done, young player!" He said as he patted her on the back. "You have taken your first steps into awesomeness! How does it feel to have beaten your first boss?"

Twilight didn't respond, instead looking at the remains of the giant brain. She had defeated her first boss. She didn't know it what a boss was, but was able to deduce that a boss was a particularly large monster. Fodder saw that she wasn't going to respond, so he instead continued talking. "Of course, you only had the killing blow, so it wasn't as satisfying as being the one to fight it the whole way through, but you ARE new to this, so maybe this will allow you to gain some confidence at being awesome in this world? I don't know."

Fodder looked at his arm and at a non-existent watch. "Well, I'm done here. Good luck on your own!" And with that, Fodder disappeared with the appropriate message greeting Twilight. It was at that moment Twilight realized he had left, and she was alone again. Seeing the items hadn't been picked up, Twilight wondered if maybe he forgot them or just didn't need them. She went over to pick them up and started to get her mirror out to return home.

Of course something had to knock her into the chasm. Fortunately for Twilight, however, she was able to teleport back to the shelter before dying and didn't experience any effects of still falling.

Remembering Fodder's insistence to make more houses, Twilight decided it would be a good idea. Putting her items in a chest, Twilight set out to get some more wood.

Ponyville

The inhabitants of Ponyville were out and about, doing whatever they set out to do. A few of them were interested about why the slimes and zombie had appeared above where Twilight disappeared, but most just shrugged it off.

Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream was heard. Looking up at where it originated from, the inhabitants were shocked to see a giant floating brain with large eyes floating around it. Seeing all the potential targets, the eyes rushed in, causing chaos in the streets as the ponies attempted to run away. The brain itself seemed content to float around, teleporting occasionally as it let its eyes do all the work.

Today was a change from the usual peace in the town. Today was when the onslaught of terror began.

Author's Note

Shameless self-insert! Also, cliffhanger! Yay!

Edit: improved description of bloody area.