Apparitions – Prologue: Vertical Escape
The surface was a thing of the past.
After weeks of maintaining the walls of Fort Bringher, the Ghasts had nearly shredded our defenses. Zombies flooded in through the holes in the walls that creepers pried open, skeletons pierced many of our finest men with their arrows, and all that remained was blood… oh, Alf Almighty, there was blood. The cries of my people wounded me deeply. I was less than half a man that night, hardly a fraction. My heart went out to those whose stopped beating. My very foundation was decaying, letting me slip slowly into the sands of apathy. Fort Bringher was almost completely set ablaze by then, and for what? No reason, as far as I was concerned. At the time, the attacks seemed completely random. We weren't prepared in the slightest for an ambush on such a grand scale. For a moment, I was frozen. Stuck in my own thoughts, I fell oblivious to foes abroad. Whether I lived or died in those seconds, I was unaware. All senses were gone as I recalled the strange feelings I and my fellow inhabitants shared in more recent times. Eerie notions beamed across the land, as if the sun itself were telling us a cryptic tale of death and dismay. The days following never felt the same, even if none of us really understood the feeling or got the message. We all knew something bad was going to happen; subconsciously, in the backs of our minds. No one had the nerve to bring it up though.
A part of me truly hoped I died right then, but the remaining majority of me highly doubted that.
Slimes seeped up through the ground from depths unknown. No cave systems were excavated at any depth beneath the stronghold based on my knowledge. Apparently, slimes loosen and break down soil and rock they pass through. Some sort of acidic property in their body, I imagined. Either way, I found myself half-sliding, half-sinking through a slime's tunnel into a dimly lit corridor. It stretched miles in two directions, as far as the keenest eyes could see. The doors to several branch hallways could be seen near-by. I was sure I was in the main corridor due to the difference in size of the side-tunnels. This main hall would eventually have to lead me to something. Something that could potentially solve the puzzle of me not knowing where the hell I'd ended up or what exactly all these well-made passages were used for. I began to slowly pace in a circle, trying to decide on which direction I should go. I decided on what I suspected to be North and, looking back, I made the wrong decision.
A feeling of absolute darkness covered me despite the faint redstone torches lining each wall. An internal fear engulfed me, induced only by my own thoughts. I had to dig. Fast, or else I would be dead. I felt a chill chasing me, and no matter which path I fled down, it only grew stronger. My attempts to run somehow seemed heroic. At least I felt heroic, like I was in a story, running around in an elaborate labyrinth, vanquishing mighty foes, protecting my people from all things harmful. But when reality hit, I realized none of it was true. I was running from this feeling, not towards it to put a stop to it. My people were dead and even though I didn't intend to end up underground, I felt as if I had abandoned my own fortress. Panic soon followed and I resorted to the only thing I knew how to do. I dug.
Digging straight down, despite the golden rule never to do it, was the fastest way out. By my last estimate, I was as much as forty meters below the surface and that was nearly an hour ago. At least it felt like an hour. How was I supposed to know? I was in a dark hole, trudging my way down meter after meter with a half broken pickaxe and a stick that used to be attached to a shovel head. No torches, no watches, no armor, nothing. My resources were limited to what was within my immediate area. Plain and simple, I was screwed. I had no companions, no food, and no time left to worry about what would happen to me down there. The air I breathed got colder and colder, thinner and thinner, more dirty and dusty. I had managed to prevent the dark, chilling feelings from grabbing at my spine for the time being, but what I found myself doing now was even worse.
I found a cave; a large, seemingly empty cave. I dropped about three meters onto the gravel floor and realized immediately something wasn't right. The loose ground beneath me started to shift, sinking in a pool of lava. I'd never seen gravel behave that way on top of lava. It seemed odd that the gravel only melted away in the bubbling mixture of magma after I stepped on it. It was as if the gravel and lava themselves were forced to act that way. I never believed in magic, though. That was alright, because magic wasn't entirely the cause of it. I had other things to worry about now than just magic. As I rounded the corner, the fading light of the lava allowed me a glimpse of the few meters in front of me. If the lava didn't kill me, a heart attack surely could.
A strange apparition stood before me; a pale blue-gray mist in the loose shape of a human. Something put me under the impression that the shape wasn't based entirely off of a human, and a little chime in my ear told me that I wasn't safe.