"I spy, with my little eye... I guess it's the King Slime's estranged wife?"

"The sovereign of all that jiggles," Sid said.

William chuckled. "I'm going in."

He leapt up and began throwing glowing purple knives at the Queen Slime. The Shadowflame Knives, which he'd obtained from a Goblin Summoner in a recent Goblin Invasion, had quickly become one of his new favourite weapons. Like Meg's Magic Dagger he could throw as many as he needed without ever running out. He could see the appeal of specialising in long-range weapons like Meg's magic weapons or Sid's summons.

Speaking of which, Sid's army of spiders quickly scampered forward and leapt onto the Queen Slime's bulbous pink body. She contracted inwards, then quickly expanded outwards, both launching the spiders away and also throwing out several gelatinous purple spheres in all directions, which began bouncing all about the Hallowed plain. Sid landed nearby and began opening fire with his Onyx Blaster – a new weapon he'd crafted using a Shotgun that he'd bought from the Arms Dealer, some Souls of Night, and Dark Shards from Blood Mummies in the Crimson Desert. It fired a spread of bullets accompanied by a projectile of dark energy.

Meg had figured out how to brew Lifeforce Potions, which the three of them were now using. She'd used a Sitting Duck's Fishing Pole, purchased from a Travelling Merchant, to catch some Prismites from the Hallow. Her recent weapon upgrade was another spell tome, an orange one with yellow markings on it, named the Golden Shower. She held it out and brought forth a stream of yellow liquid to splash the defence-reducing ichor on Queen Slime, though her majesty leapt upward, and would have slammed down on top of Meg if she hadn't Rod-of-Discorded out of the way.

"I still can't get over how much that spell makes it look like you're peeing," Sid said.

"Focus, dumb nuts," Meg said. "How would you like it if I made fun of your weapons? Like, say... how's your girlfriend the Queen Spider going?"

"Yo, she's not my girlfriend, we're in a professional business relationship. I summon her, she makes babies, the babies kill my enemies, and that means I don't die so I can summon her again. Circle of life, Meg."

"Focus, guys," William said. "This member of royalty started with 28,000 life – over double the Wall of Flesh's. Our first big test of life after the Guardian's defeat."

Fighting a boss of this calibre hadn't been something he had been expecting on this rainy morning. They'd first realised something dangerous was around when Star the Party Girl reported her house in the recently-established Hallowed Village had gotten crashed in. There'd been a fair amount of demand among the citizens to live in the Hallow despite the dangers the Dryad had pointed out, but it had turned out most of the surface Hallow creatures were relatively peaceful and only attacked if attacked first. So William had built a new village there, the Wizard, Party Girl and Tavernkeep moving in.

When William and the others had arrived to investigate the Wizard said he sensed the presence heading towards the snow biome, so they'd followed. And here they were.

"Whoops!" William dodged and weaved around the projectiles that the Crystal Slimes were shooting. The Queen Slime was practically summoning an army of slimes to add to her firepower, and they were quickly becoming overwhelming. He dropped down and brought his Cutlass into a group of her subjects. Who was he to talk about focus?

"Down to 20,000 life!" William announced after taking a glance at the queen's label. He pelted her with some more Shadowflame Knives. They damaged her, then rebounded off and landed on some of her other minions.

"Hahahahahaha!" Sid cackled as he ran around firing his Onyx Blaster – he'd been having way too much fun with it lately especially since his Minishark had become too weak against most of the enemies they faced these days. He jumped up and over the Queen's silver crown, doing a corkscrew-twirl in mid-air, all as he fired at her. Unfortunately, he misjudged how far his Frostspark Boots could carry him and fell right onto her slimy body, taking 110 damage, then 110 more damage as he bounced off of her a second time.

"Ow!"

Seeing his moment of weakness, the Queen Slime shifted and leapt upwards and slammed down.

"Get out of there!" William shouted, but Sid was way ahead of him. In a flash of particles he was gone, his Magic Mirror having teleported him away safely.

Until Sid healed up and returned that just left the two of them, and things didn't seem to be getting any easier. The Queen Slime accelerated her attacks, more and more purple gel bouncing all over the place. Fortunately, he didn't take long – William soon spotted him racing across the blue Hallowed grass in the distance towards them.

"I'm back! Let's finish this queen!"

That was when she sprouted wings and lifted off.

"Oh, come on! Why don't we have wings?"

The Queen Slime flew over their heads and expended bouncy gel from both above and below her body.

"Stop complaining and start attacking!" Meg shouted.

"My spiders can't get at her up there!"

"Then get them to concentrate on her minions!"

The fight eventually took them into the nearby snow biome, the rainy downpour transforming into an intense blizzard. The air around them became dark and hard to see through, and William began finding it hard to tell the bouncy gel apart from the snowflakes.

Fortunately, at this point nearly all of the Queen Slime's life had been expended, and she soon was defeated, dissolving in a strangely humorous farting noise, like the sound of an inflated balloon being let off.

The three of them landed amongst her remains.

"What did she drop... A Hook of Dissonance..." Meg murmured.

"Gelatinous Pillion..." William said.

"Ooh, a Blade Staff," Sid said. "New summon weapons are always nice. And Sparkle Slime Balloons." He held them up and peered closely. "'Filled with Party Girl bathwater'."

"What? That is even more disgusting than your spiders!" Meg exclaimed.

"What are you talking about? This is the best stuff!"

Meg just groaned. "Can you stop being such a careless maniac? You're always too caught up in battle that you never think. You almost got killed by her!"

"Key word – almost. I didn't now, did I?"

William sighed. He'd been noticing especially more recently that Sid and Meg didn't seem to get along, and he worried that it would lead to one of them getting killed.

Or worse.

That was when he heard the sound of a laser being fired. At first he thought it was in his head, nightmares of the Wall of Flesh and what came after often coming into his thoughts. But it turned out to be coming from something in the blizzard, a piercing ice-cold beam shooting out of the snowy fog.

Meg saw it coming and casually stepped aside. Sid didn't and got pierced by it, leading to him getting frozen solid in a block of ice.

She peered close at him and said, "Told you so. If you'd been paying attention to your surroundings, you could have avoided that!"

Again William sighed. "Can you two stop arguing long enough so we can take down this thing?"

He turned as a tall, icy monster lumbered out from the fog. An Ice Golem, with cold, unblinking eyes and constructed from so much hardened ice that global warming would probably have a hard time melting it.

William ran forward and brought his Cutlass through the golem's kneecaps. It tried to fire a laser down at him but he was too quick. He ran around it, slashing it with blow after blow, both from his sword and his Titanium Armour's shards. Meg attacked from afar using her Crystal Storm and a bit of ichor from her Golden Shower to lower its defence. Its defeat was quick, leaving two items in its wake – a Frost Core and Ice Feather.

About that same moment Sid thawed out.

"What did I miss?" he asked.

Meg turned and gave him a sincere smile.

"Nothing much, you were frozen in fear."