The next morning looks just like the day before. So gloomy you would think all you had taken was a nap. You sit down in the grass, waiting for Anna to wake up beside you. As you wait, your eyes search the forest for any fellow soldiers, from your side. Who knows, they could be spying the place out by now. At the very least, you hope your side is following your trail, carefully picking apart the clues you likely left behind.
"They're not coming for you... by the way." Herobrine speaks up from his tent. His back leans against the tent post old in up the front part.
"Wh... excuse me, who are you talking to? Me?"
"Your side. They aren't coming to rescue you." He sais bluntly.
You scoff, rolling your eyes away from him. "Oh, yeah.. sure. Says the man keeping you here in the first place."
"You act like you don't know what I am talking about." There is a stern-ness in the man's solid expression as he stared my way. You are just a foot soldier, correct?"
"Pfff! Not just a foot soldier! I-"
"-Come with me." He instructs. Then he steps out from the protection of his tent, and so did I. "There is another reason I chose to take this route on foot, instead of simply teleport wherever I please.." He speaks as you walked side by side through the rain towards the largest tent. You ask nothing in the silence, and of course, he stays silent as well. Once we enter the large, center tent, you immediately noticed a freshly dug hole in the center of the ground.
"..What is this..?" You ask quietly. For some reason the sight of the gaping hole into darkness drained the strength from your voice.
"...My grave." The man said hollowly, and you went pale. "Heh, so gullible.." What was probably supposed to be a joke was said so dryly you aren't even sure if it really was that. "No, it isn't my grave..but I sure thought it was going to be... Follow me." With that, the man stepped up to the large hole and jumps right in. You halt right at its edge. Exactly how far down does that thing go, and what is at the bottom? Is there even a bottom?! "Just jump already!" Herobrine's voice from down below calls to you. You hold your breath, clamp your eyes shut, and prepare for a harsh landing. You jump. Before you can hit anything, a strong force all around you catches you from plummeting too far. When you look down, you can just barely see the man's eyes, and hand stretching out to you. As you slowly hover down to the cold, wet stone floor, you rub your eyes, urging them to adjust to the darkness as quickly as possible. Once both your feet are on the floor, Herobrine lites his hand on fire as if it is a torch.
"Ugh, smells like my great aunt, Margret's, basement down here." You complain, waving a hand in front of your face. It doesn't help.
"Oddly speciffic." The man comments. Turning around about 90% Herobrine seems to suddenly realize where he is, and begins walking forward through one of the three naturally carved tubes in the earth's crust...also known as a cave.
You refuse to follow just yet. "Wait!" He turns around. "What about that boarder you said would shock me if I passed it? Wouldn't I get electrocuted if I go too far?.."
"...As long as you stay with me, you'll be fine." ....Assuring.. for sure... Well, you don't really have any other choice. You just hope whatever he shows you isn't /really/ his dead body or something! The whole thought of him being dead this whole time is actually quite disturbing the more you think about it.. You follow Herobrine silently, waiting for him to show you whatever he has in mind. "You noticed the forest up there, correct?" He suddenly asked, looking up briefly to the roof of the cave. I nodded a little to myself. "Well, centuries prior, I remember a time when the land above here was nothing but blood and ash.. Fun fact. I wasn't always on the side of the monsters...
I can still remember it all, plain as day. The sun was scorching hot. Fire had already driven the last bits of green away, leaving nothing but the dead bodies of the fallen as cover. It was a time of great war upon the planet. What had started with a few disputes between creatures quickly evolved into an all-out war between monsters and humem..
I, was on the side of the humen, my kin, my brothers... I watched them /all/ die in that unforgettable battle, which, in the end, amounted to nothing. We were all foot soldiers, just like you, having been practically raised together, inseparable... or so I thought. That battle, though, proved such a fool I was for believing we would actually win. When the forest was burnt down to nothing, and all the creepers had been used up, it was just me, wounded, in the middle of an ashy wasteland.
I called...and no one came. I sent fire signals for help, threw rocks with messages on them, even found a messenger bird and sent it away with a call for rescue, whatever I could use at the time!... But, not a single person showed up.. And when the sun finally settled, I cowered and hid as the monsters re-emerged from the darkness to finish off whoever was remaining. Another day came and went as I waited, but no one came. By day I would bake in the sun and by night I would fend for myself, waiting for my people to return, and save me... but they never did... I just..wasn't important enough to save: merely a foot soldier." You can see he has finished his story, leaving a long pause to give you time to respond.
Finally, you do respond. "You know.. you telling me your sad back story isn't going to make me forget literally everything you've done."
"Heh, why would it?"
"Sooo, what about that battle has to do with this cave?" You ask.
"After realizing nobody was coming after me, I hid away in one of the caves not occupied at the time, slowly venturing deeper and deeper...until I found this." Yet again, you stop yourself before another hole, however, this time there is a rickety old ladder going all the way down past the nothingness. "Care to explore?" Not really giving you a chance to answer 'no,' you are lifted by the invisible force the man's hand projects as he himself rises a few inches off of the ground. You fight back the urge to scream as the two of you plummet into the darkness, not knowing where the floor might be. When light finally returns, you think you have fallen into another world.
Delicate purple gems litter the cave walls, which look much rougher and grainy than the usual stone. Beneath, on the cave floor, is some weird blackish, mossy sludge, with a few light blueish grey plants poking out of it. The gems glow a little, and easily reflect the light from the fire in Herobrine's hand all around the cave.
"What is this place?" You ask, amused, but also internally terrified. You have never seen a place like it, or even heard of a place like it! A plant off in the distance makes an odd, eerie noise in response to your voice, doing a little shake as if communicating. The other plants like it begin making those same noises back and forth, and you begin to feel a little uncomfortable as the invisible force places you down beside one of the trembling plants.
"I.. honestly... have no idea." Herobrine responds. "All I know is that it beckoned me in further, until I could not resist any longer."
"Resist..? Resist what?"
"Going deeper. Duh." The tall man looks down at you judgingly. "And, in here, I found my real home." He continues, as if you are supposed to understand what he means by all this!
"...Home? This place?!" You almost laugh as you look around the cave.
Herobrine doesn't appear he was joking that time around, though. "Of course. Here, I found out my whole life had been leading me to this very place. I was given the gift of flight, strength, fire, durability, and much more by the ancient ones!"
"Wait, who?!"
"Then as the years went on, I returned to the upper world, finding it had changed so much in the past 100 years."
"Wait, what?!"
"And from then on, I just began building up an army of monsters, who no longer saw me as a human."
"Huh, how?!"
"Would you please just let me finish?!..... Anyhow, with the last of the ancient ones gone, the only way I can recharge is by going down here for a visit. Hence the reason we're traveling along this pass on foot. I am physically incapable of teleporting in the negative zone, so I can't just teleport in and out of here as I please."
"Why are you telling me all of this? You KNOW I am not on your side, right?!" You begin to mentally break away, really wanting to stomp on one of plants dancing by your feet.
"Well, you are going to be on my side soon enough, remember?" He reminds you. Of course.. how could you forget?
"Surely there has to be a better reason than that, though?" You ask.
"What? You don't feel it?"
"Feel what?" You huff.
"The energy." Hero gestures around the room.
"Herobrine," you sigh, holding a hand over your forehead in annoyance. "I don't have powers like yo- Wait, are you saying I have powers?!" You begin to look down at your own hands.
"Of course not! Just, when I brought Sandrah down here, she told me she could feel it too... I was hoping that perhaps there was a way to give her powers from this place as well.."
"...Aaand, again, what does this have to do with me?"
"I'll be honest, (Y/n), I have no idea... Guess I was just hoping you would have one."
".....What's wrong with you?" You ask all of a sudden, looking closely at the looser joints and less tense Nether king.
"What?" Herobrine looks down at himself in confusion.
"You just said, 'I'll be honest,' what the heck?! You're acting completely different than before!"
"What?! No I'm not!" To "prove" this, Herobrine stands taller and straighter, like he usually does.
"Okay, whatever.. You still seem kinda strange.... Whatever. Can I leave now? I need to make sure Anna is alright."
"Wiat. I want to see how the ancient ones' golems react to you." Following that, Herobrine turns around and whistles loudly into a smaller passageway. There is no response, but the man still waits silently. Then, you hear a distant
thump, thump, thump
The sounds draw nearer, making the plants dance again around your feet. You begin to step away, slowly, as the sound only grows more and more terrifying. The deep moans of something long undead, probably resurrected hundreds of times by this point. A mushy, sloshy sound joins the landing feet as they make their way closer, and closer, and closer. Then, you finally see it. A long, dark mossy covered arm, dripping in oozing black yuck! Two plants, looking like hornss, nearly scrape against the scieling as the large head turns the corner. A gaping, black mouth drips dark blue muck, and no eyes are seem except for the sunken in eye-sockets of something that no longer remains.
The creature growls lowly, some blue goop bubbling up out of its mouth with every small sound. Drapes of moss are dragged behind the creature like long forgotten chains as the monster steps fully into the small cave pocket you are also in. In its chest, which looks like yet another mouth, bearing teeth that act like prison bars, work as such by keeping inside of it a few little balls of glowing blue... things? You have no idea what they could be, but they appear to have already given up trying to escape the literal belly of the beast.
"Hey, big guy, mind helping me out here with something?" Herobrine speaks up finally. Slowly, the head of the great beast is turned towards the man, then it just stays facing him, awkwardly. "(Y/n), why don't you say something to him?" Herobrine asked through the corner of his mouth. You are a little too life conscious to do anything like that. It obviously doesn't have any eyes, so it's next best sense it probably hearing, right?! "(Y/n). I am not giving you an option." You hear the man growl.
Still hesitant, you say, "hello," as you get ready to defend yourself. Good thing you did. The beast's head snaps toward you, horns atop its head shaking wildly, and immediately it pounces for you. Already partially prepared, you dodge the first blow and prepare to do the same for the second, but Herobrine sticks out his arm at once, stopping the creature in its tracks.
"Interesting~" He appears amused. He then moves it back to where it had been standing before charging, then looks at you with somewhat of a wide grin you can't tell is fake or not. "It didn't attack Sandrah when she came down here.. I wonder what makes you any different." By the look in his face, you can tell he already has a hunch. "Pretend to enjoy my company, and maybe it won't attack you."
You roll your eyes. "Really? That is the best idea you got?" You hear a growl in response, and he creature takes a step forward.
With a wide grin on his face, obviously fake now, Herobrine continues. "He can hear the tone in your voice. I suggest you watch how you speak carefully... I may not stop him like I did last time.." Of course it all lead to this, another threat! Knowing he isn't just bluffing here, you play along. At least the sooner you prove something, the sooner you can get this experiment of his over with.
You mimic his fake smile, more as a way to mock him any way you can. "Oh, my apologies, your majesty." You continue with a fake curtsey. Herobrine picks up on your mockery the moment he sees it.
"No, my apologies, madam, I didn't mean to step on your toes.." He finishes it off, diving a little into a growl. The monster picks up on the tone and turns growls again as it takes another two steps forward.
"It appears," you pick it up with the over-the-top smiling and fake happiness in your voice, "that the tone you use also affects the beast." A small glimmer of a real, boastful smile appears in your eyes as you look directly at Herobrine.
"I noticed that." Obvious sarcasm.
"So, are we done with the experiment then? You seem to have your answers now." You say.
"Perhaps, but I wonder what he would do if he heard you attacking me, even if you do sound friendly." Herobrine proposes.
"An excuse to punch you. Count me in!" You nearly laugh. With a fast swing you send your fist straight into Herobrine's gut, which makes him stagger back some. The beast appears confused more than anything, so you continue with a kick to his knee.
"Ow!" Herobrine pulls himself further away from you. Smiling again, "I can tell you are enjoying this part.
"Oh, absolutely!" You smile for real, spinning around into a back-leg-spin-kick to Herobrine's ribs.
"Agh!" The man shouts as he grasps his side. The gig is up! Pounding feet coming your way, the creature begins swinging it's arms again blindly at you. You yelp and dodge the swipes from the beast. As promised, Herobrine isn't as quick to "rescue" you this time. But, after a few good dodges on your part, the Nether King steps in to break up the fight. "Alright alright, ladies, you're both- /one/ of you is beautiful." He breaks in jokingly as he holds you two away from one another with some invisible force, referring to the monster when he said who was 'beautiful.' Honestly, probably the best joke he ever said, and also likely the last as well. "Ahem... anyways, (Y/n), I believe I have gathered enough from this golem now, so we can leave now."
"Yes, let us leave, good sir." You say, FuNniLY.
"No more of that." And, as quickly as you had fallen down that deep hole, you are back at the top of it. Soon after, you are back on your feet and leading the way out of the deep caverns with anxiety driving every step. You have probably been gone for so long how. What if Anna thinks you got hurt, and begins to worry for you?
"You care about the child that much?" The man behind and to the side of you questions.
"Uhh, yeah! She's my niece!"
"...Huh." He continues to be silent. "And that means her feelings matter to you?"
"Yep! Don't want her any more traumatized than she probably already is!"
"Well... she did call my name several times and threaten you would defeat me if I remember back."
"So..?"
"So, she kind of deserves it." You stop, swatting him in the chest as he attempts to pass you.
"Listen, bucko, but you can't just think that way and expect to get away with it. Just because you have pOWeRs, doesn't mean you can attack whoever OfFeNdS your name, especially a child! That in itself is extremely childish of you, so just learn to suck it up and be a man!" By the end you are standing direcrly in front of Herobrine and poking him to emphasize what you had to say. You can see the clear confusion in the man's eyes, as he begins to look offended but then mentally pushes that back as your words reverberate in his head.
"Pfff! 'be a man!' What kind of advice is that?!" Pushing past you, Herobrine chuckles at your little speech. "Hahaha! 'Be a man!' What a joke! Anyways, get used to the others here at the camp, and this cave, because now I can teleport!"
"And you're wrong, by the way!" You interrupt the man from vanishing that instant. He stands there a ways ahead of you, listening. "You said no one will come for me. Well, I know that's a lie! Because unlike you, I actually have a family who cares about me!" Oh, wait...
Herobrine turns halfway to you, slowly. "Would you like for me to, fix, that..?" He said, lifting his blazing fist. You knew you should have kept your mouth shut about that!
"I mean- no no!"
"Good. The exit is right ahead... Don't get lost."
Poof!
Herobrine vanishes in a bright white light, and, you are left alone in the darkness. Slowly, you continue to walk forwards, arms stretched out before you. You can't see a thing, but, slowly, you stumble through the caverns, hoping you don't make a wrong turn.