William took in the strange man's appearance once again. His label read 'Andrew: 250/250'. He had gathered that the numbers seemed to be some sort of rating. When Sid had hit the Blue Slime with his sword, it caused the first number to decrease, and when it had hit zero, the slime had died. So the numbers were some sort of life counter, the first number being how much life they had at the moment. The second number was probably the maximum life amount.

But what struck William as odd right away aside from Andrew's strange response was how much life he had. 250. That was way more than Sid and Robyn, who each had 100.

William at first had no idea how much he had, but when he thought about looking at his life, suddenly he could see it superimposed in a corner of his vision. He had 90/100 life, which was visualised as a set of five beating hearts. He assumed he had only 90/100 due to getting hit by the slimes earlier, right as he saw the counter tick up to 91/100.

So I guess life slowly comes back after awhile. That's good to know.

"Uhh..." Sid said, "I don't know what we need help with. What do you think? Andrew?"

"I am here to give you advice on what to do next," Andrew said. "It is recommended that you talk with me anytime you get stuck."

"Okay..." Sid said. "What advice do you have?"

"You can use your pickaxe to dig through dirt, and your axe to chop down trees. Just keep hitting them with your tools until they break!"

His language felt strange to William. Andrew didn't seem like an ordinary person. He was talking as though he was some sort of teacher or instructor.

"Oh. Sounds good, mate. I'll go try that out."

Sid held out his pickaxe and began bringing it down into the grass. With the first swipe a square of grassy cover was broken apart, revealing dirt beneath. With two more swipes the dirt beneath was freed, rushing into Sid's body and leaving a square-shaped hole in the ground. The dirt block then appeared in Sid's hand – he must've picked it up – and he placed it on the ground next to the hole, creating a brown cube sticking out of the grass.

"Huh," he said.

Robyn tried her axe on one of the nearby trees. It took much longer for anything to happen with the trees than Sid with the dirt block, but before too long the entire tree disintegrated into objects that appeared to be a boatload of wooden planks along with a few acorns. All of these items rushed into Robyn's body and disappeared.

He turned back to Andrew. "Who are you?"

Andrew stared at William for a moment before speaking.

"I am the Guide."

Sid stepped back over to the Guide.

"What now?" he asked.

"You can access the crafting menu with your mind," Andrew said. "When you have enough wood, create a workbench. This will allow you to create more complicated things, as long as you are standing close to it."

Robyn stepped over to them.

"What do you mean, with your mind? I'm confused."

While Andrew kept talking, William stepped over to a different tree and chopped it down himself. He felt a rush, like wind, as the wood and acorns all rushed into his body – 47 wood to be exact, and 4 acorns.

It seemed like items that were found in the world could be automatically picked up just by standing near them, and then stored in his... body. And, from the feel of things, without any hindrance of weight or having to carry everything around in his arms. William had no idea how that worked. It seemed to violate all known laws of physics.

When he held the wood in his hand he found he could place it on the ground in a similar way to how Sid had placed the dirt block, which formed a cube of wood.

He tried using his mind to navigate to the 'crafting menu', as Andrew had put it, and to his shock it appeared, superimposed over his vision. He first saw where all the wood and acorns were stored – it was a grid of 50 squares, 10 across, 5 down. Named the 'inventory', it contained his copper shortsword, pickaxe, and axe in the first three slots in the top row, and then the wood and acorns in the fourth and fifth slots. There were also four slots that were for coins and four more for ammo, and one which had a picture of a trash can on it.

From there he found the crafting menu. It seemed to display a list of items which could be 'crafted', and the ingredients each needed. The first was that two wooden platforms could be crafted using a single plank of wood. The second was the workbench, which needed ten wood.

He thought of crafting one, which deducted the amount of wood in his inventory from 46 to 36, and a workbench appeared in the sixth slot of his inventory.

He held it and placed it down on the grass in front of him.

Checking the crafting menu again, he found there was now a much larger list of items that he could craft. Most of them needed wood, including things like wooden furniture, fences, signs, and doors, but what caught his eye was the wooden sword down the bottom, which listed that it dealt 7 melee damage – two more than the copper shortsword.

He wasn't sure why a sword made out of wood would deal more damage than a sword made from metal, but he crafted one and held it in his hand, then gave it a swing. It curved through the air with a whoosh of wind.

"Oh wow, William's figuring stuff out quick!" Sid said, stepping over to him.

"I made a wooden sword," William said. "It deals more damage than our copper swords."

"Huh. Really?" After some time Sid had crafted a sword for himself.

"Awesome!" he said, then pivoted on his feet. "Hey, Andrew! What should we do next?"

"Once you have a wooden sword, you might try to gather some gel from the slimes. Combine wood and gel to make a torch!"

"Ohh! So that's what gel must be for then!" Five seconds later Sid was holding a stick with a burning flame on the end.

"This is making me feel like I'm in some medieval adventure movie," he said.

"Anything else?" William asked the Guide.

"You can build a shelter by placing wood or other blocks in the world," he said. "Don't forget to create and place walls."

"A shelter?" Sid murmured. "Why would we need one of those?"

"In... case more slimes start attacking us?" William suggested.

Both of Sid's shoulders bobbed upwards by one pixel each – a shrug. "Honestly, they're not that hard to kill. And we've got better swords now!"

"Might still not hurt to make one," William said. "Just in case."

"Alright. You can do that. I might have a quick look around."

"Alright."

After Sid left, William got to work. He chopped down more trees and started placing wood, first starting with walls, and then the ceiling, basically making a big wooden box in the forest.

He noticed some oddities as he built – he could place blocks much further away than his arm could reach. If he held a block of wood and swung it in his hand, it would place itself against whatever block he was looking at, as long as he was standing up to five blocks away from it or so. He also discovered that blocks didn't fall if no other block was connected to them, which he found especially strange. Gravity didn't seem to affect everything in this world.

"Weird," he said.

For finishing touches to the house, he added a door and moved the workbench inside. He lastly crafted four wooden chairs and set them around the workbench. One for him, Robyn, Sid, and Andrew.

Though in honesty, he still wasn't sure what to make of Andrew. The Guide didn't seem to have any tools of his own, and didn't try to or offer to help with construction.

Robyn mostly stood guard, attacking any slimes that got too close to where William was building. She chopped down a few trees herself and helped with some of the walls, but didn't do or say much else.

William himself wasn't too sure what to say either, internal thoughts still dwelling on big questions. Like, how? And why? How were they here in this world, and why were they? These were questions he had no answer for, and he had no real way of knowing how he could find answers to them.

It was shortly after the shelter was complete that William noticed the sun had been moving across the sky all day, and was already beginning to set, which felt strange, since it didn't feel like a full day had passed. He wondered if days went faster in this strange world.

He took a look at the shelter from a distance. It wasn't anything special, just a wooden block in the forest. He felt like the next thing he should do was make it look nicer, things like adding a sloped roof, or maybe some more rooms or storeys first. But for now, this would keep the slimes out. He hoped.

Sid got back shortly after.

"Have you seen the sun is setting?" he asked.

He hadn't. William took a look at the sky, and noticed he seemed to be correct. He'd been so focussed on fighting off slimes and building that he hadn't even noticed how fast the sun had been moving – he could have sworn it had been much higher in the sky, and in the other direction, when he'd first looked. Were days that much shorter?

"I figured once it got dark," Sid said, "I wouldn't be able to see, and I'd get lost." He took a look at the shelter William had spent the day creating. "Looks good, dude."

"Thanks."

"I didn't really find anything out there except some more slimes."

William nodded. "Well, let's go inside."

He supposed that spending time just now building up the shelter had been a good thing. If more slimes came for them at night, they wouldn't be able to see them that well.

Or what if... there are worse things than slimes? What kind of monsters of the darkness came out in this world? Vampires? Ghosts? Boogeymen?

Robyn and Andrew the Guide were already sitting on two of the chairs inside the house. Sid sat next to Andrew first, so William took the remaining empty seat next to Robyn.

As the sun lowered itself below the horizon, the outside world became too dark to see, almost a black void, as though the inside of the house, lit by torches Sid had placed, was the only thing in the world.

"You should stay indoors at night," Andrew said. "It is very dangerous to be wandering around in the dark."

"Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing," Sid said.

Right as he said that William heard a rotting, ragged growl.