William wished he'd never discovered the Underworld.

After all they'd been through, he'd finally begun feeling like they were at the end of all the hardship they'd had to go through. All of the bosses they'd slain, all of the places they'd explored. There was little else in the world that they hadn't been to, and it seemed like they were as strong as they could get using all that they had found.

He felt like they were at the peak of what was possible in this world.

But the Underworld had opened up a new can of worms.

He knew, was almost certain, that whatever lay in the Underworld was meant to be their final challenge. He was sure of it. Sid had said that this world was meant to be a videogame. While William didn't completely think this world was a videogame, based on the nature of the citizens and what had gone on throughout the history of this world, there was no denying that certain aspects of the world felt like they'd been meticulously designed and set out in some sort of progression path. By the people who had made this videogame.

Surviving on the surface had been the first challenge. Then mining underground had come next, then facing the Crimson, then the Dungeon and the Jungle.

If there was any place meant to be the endgame of this videogame, it would be... down there.

But he didn't want to deal with it.

He wanted to enjoy the peace they had earnt for themselves. They had grown strong enough to live safely in this world, and could protect their homes and the citizens from anything that raised its head.

Except, perhaps, the Underworld.

William decided not to tell anyone about discovering the Underworld. But word began to get out around the citizens – Tony the Arms Dealer began talking about hearing about "some kind of doll that looks like Andrew the Guide being found in the Underworld." And of course Andrew himself knew about the Underworld, telling William that it was "made of a material called Hellstone."

It soon transpired that Sid had discovered the Underworld himself not long after William had. He'd blown out a tunnel straight downwards from a spot near the Forest village using bombs, not intending to stop until he reached the "invisible floor" of the world. And of course he'd found the Underworld, and being nowhere near as fazed by it as William had, he'd gone straight off to explore it. And he'd returned with a lot of Hellstone.

"Look at my new impy boys!" Sid exclaimed, waving around a red staff with a glowing orange design on the end. He'd used his Flinx Staff against every boss they'd encountered up to that point, but had now already abandoned his new Hornet Staff for the Imp Staff.

"Cool," William said.

"No, it's hot. Very hot," he joked. "But I feel like you'll find Hellstone even more useful than I have, William."

"Me? Why?"

"According to the Guide, it can be crafted into Molten Armour, and its bonuses specifically benefit melee damage! And also there's a new sword – a Fiery Greatsword, which deals 40 damage! I suspect that's more than anything you have right now!"

It was.

"And what's more," Sid added, "The greatsword can be combined with three other swords to get... an even better sword!"

"Really?"

"Really. I even crafted everything for you already!" Sid began throwing items at William. Fiery Greatsword, Molten Armour, a Sunfury – an upgrade to his Blue Moon – and a Flamarang, which seemed to be a boomerang coated with Hellstone and set on fire.

William looked down at the items in his inventory, and reluctantly equipped the new weapons in his hotbar, and put on the armour. His defence total went from 27 to 33. As he walked he noticed he began leaving fiery trails everywhere, though these particles seemed to be purely visual, not actually setting anything on fire. He hoped.

"Let's get the four other swords from storage and go put them together," Sid said.

The four other swords turned out to be the Blade of Grass, the Blood Butcherer, and the Muramasa, which William already had on him. They could only be crafted together at one of the weird unbreakable red eyeball thingies they'd found back in the Crimson, which apparently were named Crimson Altars. Upon forging the swords together, they turned into an iridescent purple blade named the Night's Edge. By default it did 42 damage, but William's Molten Armour boosted it to 50.

This sure felt like a final sword, if there ever was going to be one. A culmination of the swords William had crafted or obtained throughout his journey.

He felt like there had to be something to fight in the Underworld – there had to be. It was what the design of the videogame seemed to be leading up to. The Crimson, Jungle and Dungeon had all had bosses associated with them.

But one thing that all those bosses had in common was that they hadn't had to fight them until they found them.

The same is probably the case for the Underworld, William thought to himself. And even if we do fight it... that ought to be the end of everything. Right? One, last final challenge.

But he was nervous.

He knew they could survive and live perfectly well without beating up whatever it was that was in the Underworld.

But somehow he suspected Sid would want to fight it.

That was how Sid worked.

He unwaveringly and fearlessly took on anything that threw itself at him.

So why couldn't William feel the same way?

In this new armour, with this new sword, he should feel more confident. But he didn't.

"The other thing I figured out is that... well, remember the Shadow Keys we found in the Dungeon?" Sid asked, snapping William out of his daze.

"Yeah?" William asked.

"Turns out there are Shadow Chests in the Underworld that they unlock," he said. "I only found two. One had the Sunfury I gave you, and the other had this."

He held out an item that looked like a big red rose.

"It's a magic weapon," Sid said. "Keep this between you and me, but..." he hesitated, "I'm going to give this to Meg at the party."

William somehow wasn't surprised. Sid couldn't seem to keep his eyes off of her ever since she'd been rescued from the bee hive.

"Wait, what party?"

Sid cocked his head. "Have you been living under a block? This new citizen arrived recently – Star the Party Girl. She sells a cactusload of items for throwing parties, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to celebrate!"

"Celebrate?"

"You know, celebrate all the victories we've had, and the towns you've built, and all the people we've brought together. It's going to be in two nights' time, in the Jungle village. I've been working with the Party Girl and the Mechanic and a few other citizens on getting it set up. It's going to be glorious!"

William nodded, but still felt nervous. "Sid, have you ever... wondered how we are meant to escape from this world?"

He looked at him oddly. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know... at the beginning we woke up in the forest with nothing in our hands but those copper shortswords and tools. We all know this game isn't... our true lives, because we can remember... a world where everything isn't square. Where everything isn't made of pixels, or trying to kill us. All along I've been going along with you to get stronger, so we can avoid dying. But..."

"But what?"

"But it bothers me that I can't remember who I was in the real world. Or why we're in this world in the first place. How did we get here?"

"You know, the same thing could be said about the real world too," Sid said.

William shrugged. "I guess you're not wrong there. But still... I can't help but keep wondering if there is a way to answer those questions. Because we know there is another world we truly came from. A real one. And this world... it's artificially constructed and designed." He clicked his tongue. "It's not real."

Sid didn't seem to know what to say for a moment.

"Well," he finally said, "If there is a way to escape, it will be through playing this game to the end. And don't you worry, you've got me on your side."

William chuckled. "Thanks."

***

Upon returning to the Forest village they found Andrew the Guide groaning on the grass.

His life was at 156 out of 250.

"Andrew?" William asked, kneeling down beside him. "Are you okay?"

Suddenly a big red number 39 rose out of him.

"Andrew! What's hurting you?"

"Find... Tony," the Guide got out in-between ragged breaths.

"Don't know what good Tony will do ya," Sid said. "But luckily the Nurse should be around here somewhere." He ran off. "Emily! The Guide's dying!"

William got to his feet and ran for the Forest Pylon. He teleported to the Desert Village, where sure enough he found Tony, practising firing a quad-barrelled shotgun at what looked like a stuffed target dummy resting on a block of sandstone. The gun blasted four bullets at once, but they were wildly inaccurate.

"Tony?" William called. "Andrew the Guide was asking for you."

Tony looked at William in consternation, then glanced at his target dummy.

It was when William took another glance at the target dummy that he realised it wasn't a target dummy. It looked to be a doll that resembled –

"The Guide?" William stepped over and picked up the doll. In his inventory it read 'Guide Voodoo Doll', with the tooltip 'You are a terrible person.'

"Sid brought that thing back from the Underworld," Tony said. "He wasn't really sure what to do with it, so I just took it. Figured it would be good for target practise."

William stared at the doll in horror.

"Well, whatever this thing is, shooting it was hurting the Guide," he said. "We found him lying hurt in the Forest village."

"Oh. Um..." the Arms Dealer held his shotgun upwards. "Well, I guess sometimes life gives you bullets, then."

William shook his head, then used the Desert Pylon to head back to the Forest village.

He found the Guide seemed to be okay, being healed up by Emily's syringes. He had a grim look on his face, which did not seem to be improving even as Emily healed him.

William couldn't help but wonder why this sort of item existed in the world.

What purpose did it have?