"If Cthulhu's Brain really is behind the Crimson, there might be no way you can win," Nissa the Dryad said. "It could anticipate your every move and react accordingly, with the very biome under its command."

"But we got so far into it!" Sid said. "We blew up three of the hearts down there before the Brain even showed up!"

"The Brain might have anticipated you'd show up and lured you into a false sense of security."

"We fought a few enemies on the way, but they were almost always alone or in small numbers, and were pretty easy to take down," William said. "So I think you might be right there."

"You're lucky you were able to escape," the Dryad said.

"You were the one to send us down there in the first place!" Sid exclaimed.

"I was, but I would have thought you would be more careful after what I had told you. Instead, you fell right into the Brain's trap and almost died."

"What a scam," Sid groaned, leaning back in his chair such that his head hung backwards.

William eyed him but kept on speaking to Nissa. "Do you think it will come after us? Like what the Eye did?"

"I doubt the Brain would leave its home," the Dryad said. "But it could send other beings."

"Well, we know we can't take on the Brain," Sid said. "But now that we know what we're up against, we can try again!"

"I advise against that course of action at the moment."

"Nissa is right," William said. "There's probably other ways we can get stronger first. Finding more Life Crystals might be a good start. So would upgrading our armour and maybe our weapons too."

Sid stared at him, but nodded.

"Okay. Let's do this."

***

During their travels to the Crimson, not one, not two, but three new citizens had arrived, taking up residence on the second and third levels that William had built on top of the ground floor of the base. Andrew the Guide brought them all out and introduced them to William, Sid and Robyn.

The first was Luigi the Painter, who was a young man wearing white overalls and a red cap, and always carried a paintbrush and bucket wherever he went. The second was Akbar the Dye Trader, who wore colourful, flowing robes and had a purple afro.

The third, and most well-received (by mostly Sid), was Tony the Arms Dealer. He was dark-skinned, with a mop of black hair, wore a grey leather jacket and blue jeans, and had a Flintlock Pistol strapped to his hip.

"As you can probably tell, I sell guns and bullets," he said, lovingly caressing his pistol and blowing on the end of it. "Might I ask, what class of weaponry do you each specialise in?"

"Class?" Sid asked. "What do you mean?"

"You might have noticed each weapon falls into one of four types," Andrew the Guide said. "Melee, ranged, magic, and summoning. It's often a good idea to specialise in one type of class, since many types of armour and accessories are designed with a certain class in mind, and hence benefit people who do so."

William realised that among the three of them, they kind of had chosen their own classes without ever really meaning to. William had mostly used melee weapons like swords, spears, and his boomerang, because of his desire to protect his friends at close range. Robyn used bows, keeping her distance in a quiet, reserved way. Sid had his Flinx summons in battle, but intent on dealing as much damage as possible, he also used other weapons like boomerangs and now guns to supplement his summons.

"I'm melee," William said.

"I use bows and arrows," Robyn said.

"Bows and arrows?" Tony stood up. "They're wildly outdated." He stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. William found himself tensing at the gesture. "If you want to try out any of my guns and bullets, I'll offer you them on the house." He smiled.

Robyn shook her head and tried to shrug off his hand, but his grip was firm.

William wasn't having it anymore. He didn't like the Arms Dealer invading her personal space. "Hands off," he said, batting Tony's arm away. "If she doesn't want your free stuff, she doesn't want it."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"I'll take your free bullets," Sid said, holding out his own gun, the Undertaker.

"Hey, this ain't a movie, pal. Ammo is extra."

Sid raised an eyebrow, then sighed.

"Well, what guns do you sell, dude?" He stepped forward, and stuck out an arm to bring up the Arms Dealer's shop interface.

After looking through it for about thirty seconds, Tony smiled. "I see you're eyeballin' the Minishark... You really don't want to know how it was made."

"Forty-four gold?!" Sid exclaimed. "That's outrageous!"

"The best guns fetch the best prices."

"You mean the highest prices," Sid quipped.

"Yes. See? Best prices. For me, that is."

"I hate to interrupt," Akbar the Dye Trader spoke up. "But upon arriving to your settlement I could not help but notice how overcrowded it is."

William turned to him. "Is that a problem?"

"Indeed it is! When I'm not doing business, I'd much rather be alone, yes? I hate feeling crammed in!"

"I'm with Akbar," Luigi the Painter said. "I doubt I'll like all these people makin' noise when I'm painting. Plus, the Forest is boring! It's just green and brown! Where's the variety?"

"The Forest does not inspire me either," Akbar added. "Don't like, don't like."

"Well, we set up our base in the Forest because this was where we first... appeared," William said. "I mean, if you don't like it here, you are welcome to take your business someplace else."

Neither Akbar nor Luigi looked very happy with him.

***

William and Sid spent most of the next few days underground, hunting for Life Crystals. They found enough to raise everyone up to 240 life each, though William felt they'd still need way more before they'd have a chance against the Brain of Cthulhu.

They also found William a pair of Flurry Boots in the underground snow biome, which allowed him to run at a very fast speed similar to Sid and his Hermes Boots.

On the third day after losing to the Brain, the Dryad came to William with a status update on the Crimson.

"I have been observing the red grass slowly spreading through neighbouring forests," she said.

"The Crimson spreads?" William exclaimed.

"It seems so. It doesn't seem to be capable of spreading through the Desert, so at least it can't spread directly to your base. But given time, it will go around the Desert and reach your base."

"How much time?"

"It's spread is slow, so I'd say at least a hundred days."

That's a relief to know, at least. They weren't in any urgent danger from the Crimson, but it would come for them eventually.

"There are ways that you can slow it down, or even halt the spread altogether," the Dryad continued. "Using Purification Powder you can purify Crimson-infected blocks. In addition, sunflowers can be planted on grass, and the Crimson will be unable to spread through the grass it is planted on."

"We could... at least contain the Crimson in that way, then," William said, though he wasn't sure if he, Sid and Robyn would be able to do this undertaking. They were all busy doing other various tasks in order to become strong enough to defeat the Brain of Cthulhu.

"Nissa," he asked, "Do you think you can plant a perimeter of sunflowers around the Crimson? To stop it from growing too much bigger?"

"I can provide the sunflower seeds, but I will need assistance in planting," she said. "Either from yourself, or Robyn or Sid." She put a finger to her chin. "Or perhaps you can look for one or two volunteers among the other citizens."

That was an idea, one that William hadn't thought of.

"I'll ask around."

"Good," the Dryad said. Right as William turned to head off, she called, "One other thing, William."

William turned back to face her.

"There has still been talk among many of the citizens that this area is becoming too dense, in population. I dislike the feeling. Plus, I wish Tony would stop flirting with me. Doesn't he realise I'm 500 years old?"

It seemed Luigi and Akbar weren't the only ones with complaints about all the citizens being crammed into this one small fort. It also seemed that Tony the Arms Dealer was trying to hit on every female in the fort, not just Robyn.

"I'm working on that," William said, though in truth he hadn't worked on the crowding problem much at all, with all the time he and Sid had been spending underground.

***

"So who do you think would be up for the sunflower-planting task?" William asked.

The Guide clicked his tongue. "Well, if nobody else is willing, I will do what needs to be done."

William truthfully hadn't been expecting that Andrew himself would be willing to put himself in the potentially dangerous chore of planting sunflowers to contain the Crimson.

"Aside from the Dryad, I can't say many of the other citizens are very... nature-oriented, though..."

"Oh, hey, Andrew!"

It was Hayley the Zoologist entering the room. She stepped up to them and smiled. "What are you two talking about?"

"Planting a perimeter of sunflowers around the borders of the Crimson to stop it from spreading," William said.

"The Crimson? Yech!" Hayley stuck out her tongue, her eyebrows furrowing, "Still, I'd rather, like, not have the homes of all my squirrel and bunny friends be invaded by the mindless Crimson! Can I, like, get in on helping?"

William smiled. "Of course. So far it's just you, Andrew and –"

"Hey, that'll be no problem! The two of us will be able to get all those sunflowers down!" Hayley said cheerfully, prancing over to Andrew and putting her arm around him. He smiled but looked a little taken aback by her cheerfulness.

"Three of us, Nissa the Dryad will be there too," Andrew said.

"Right. Yes," the Zoologist said. "But see? We'll be the dream team!"

"Good to hear," William said.

He began leading them back to the Dryad. In the next room he found Sid approaching Tony the Arms Dealer.

"Make it quick, Sid. I've got a date with Emily in one hour."

"Woah," Sid exclaimed. "You're dating Emily? The Nurse? You don't waste any time, dude!"

"Yeah, yeah, now show me the coin, and I'll show you my musket balls."

"Dude, I don't want to see your – wait, what's that?" Sid looked confused. "A Forest Pylon?"

Tony shrugged. "It's not a gun or a bullet but it's in my shop."

"A Pylon is something you can place down," Andrew explained. "It functions as a waypoint, meaning you can teleport from one Pylon to any other Pylon."

"Oh! Sweet! They're a bit pricey though... and I'm saving for a Minishark!"

Tony smiled. "I look forward to taking your money."

"Of course you are," Sid muttered, then stormed off.

"I should point out a few more things about Pylons before you get too excited," the Guide added. "Pylons only work if there are at least two or more citizens living nearby."

"Really?" William murmured. "Anything else?"

"You can only buy and place one of each type," Andrew said.

"One of each type? What types are there?"

"There is one for each type of biome, and they are sold only when a citizen is happy enough in that biome."

William looked to the Arms Dealer. If he had to guess, he was feeling pretty happy about going on a date with Emily the Nurse, and also probably due to Sid promising to buy the Minishark from him one day.

"So, there's a Forest Pylon," William said, "I presume there's also, like, a Snow Pylon, and a Desert Pylon...?"

Andrew smiled. "You catch on quick, William."

***

William stood out the front of the base.

At first he'd tried to keep it neat and nice-looking, building the wall around the outside and then building the blocks of rooms inside. But now looking at it... it looked exactly what the citizens thought of it. A cramped set of apartments.

He'd built the wall, constraining the floor space the base could take up, long before he'd known so many citizens would move in to inhabit the base, so he'd had no idea he'd ever need to plan ahead for their arrival.

It probably is about time we expand on this at last, though, William thought to himself. They'd spent the last week or so on basically nothing but mining and exploring. He hadn't spent much time building at all lately, only haphazardly throwing together extra rooms on top of the existing structure whenever the rooms all became occupied by citizens. Lately it felt like citizens were arriving faster than he could build new rooms. He hadn't been able to put any time or effort into anything.

He truthfully missed building.

He supposed he could understand why Robyn kept to herself fishing. It was a peaceful pastime. Just like building.

But the Pylons that Andrew had told him about had given him an idea.

An idea that would not only solve the overcrowding problems, but it would also enable them to quickly travel between all the different biomes in the world.

And best of all, he felt it would finally be an excuse to relax from all the stress and high-adrenaline adventure they'd been on.