POV: 'OmegaShayn'

The trip there was a breeze, and rather boring in my opinion.

At first, we couldn't tell what the object in the distance was, it was just a blurred mass against the sky. But as we got closer, it became much easier to see. Six colossal pillars of stone rose from the ground, each connected to two others by gigantic stone walls, forming a stone fortress easily the size of a small town. Rising from the center of said fortress was a tower much bigger than the rest, twice the width and maybe three times as tall, reaching up towards the sky. It took us half the day to reach it, yet we could see it from miles away. Ironically, compared to the epic proportions of the rest of it, the entrance was... Plain. It was a single wooden door with a sign above it that read "Front Entrance". I expected it would be harder to get through, but we opened the door, no problem, and walked right in. The inside was massive, with thousands of trees and dirt mounds scattered across it. There was a clear path through all of it, leading to the large central tower, a single house at its base, and a small farm set off to the side of its entrance. Vic went to check out the farm, and the skeleton girl and I went to check the house. It's not like we were raiding it or anything, just looking around.

The house was simple, stone walls and a wood roof with a door in the front. The door didn't seem to be attached to the walls or anything though, it looked like it was sticking out a little. I knocked and waited for a response. There was a loud crash from inside the house, and a few seconds later, the door flew open - outwards. It slammed against me, and threw me off to the side, as someone burst out of the house shouting, "Zombies!" Judging from his voice, it sounded like a guy. From head to toe, he was covered in a metal suit armor, somewhat resembling a knight. He wore a cylindrical helmet with a 'T' shaped hole in the front. It was extremely dark inside it, with nothing visible but two dim green lights that I assumed were eyes. The eyes slowly turned towards me, and he suddenly jumped back in surprise. I slowly stood up again, saying, "If this is how you people are always going to react, I'm just going to stop knocking." He seemed to panic, and apologized profusely, before introducing himself.

"Hello there! My name's Silos, it's a pleasure to meet you!" he said. "Yeah um, I'm Shayn, it was a pleasure to meet your door." I said, a little sarcastically. He rolled his eyes, then gestured to the empty fortress and said, "Greetings, and welcome to Fort Suel! I started building it as soon as we arrived. Impressive, right?" His face seemed to glow as he asked that, but I didn't get a chance to answer. An arrow scraped along the top of his helmet leaving a small scratch where it hit, before embedding itself in the ground off to the side. I immediately looked to the skeleton girl, but she was empty handed. Silos' eyes vanished, as he groaned and mumbled something about a lack of torches and holes before running into the central tower. Another arrow flew at us from somewhere on the tower, probably from a window, though I couldn't tell where exactly on the tower it came from. It hit the ground a few feet from either the skeleton girl or I. More arrows starting coming, getting closer to us with each one, so I pulled out my shield and held it up towards the tower.

As soon as I did though, the arrows stopped coming, and when I peeked out over the shield, I saw a skeleton falling from a short distance up the tower. It hit the ground and flashed red, but quickly got up again, drawing its bow and taking aim at me. Before I could react, an arrow flew past me, though it wasn't from the skeleton. The arrow tore into the skeleton's skull, embedding in its forehead. The skeleton flashed red again before falling over and disappearing in a puff of smoke, only leaving behind a single bone. This time I was certain it was the skeleton girl, and a quick look behind me verified that. I was surprised though, she was a skeleton not that long ago, yet she killed another one without a problem. She didn't seem the least bit bothered by it, in fact she seemed to be smiling. She quickly picked up the bone and ran away somewhere with it.

I was going to follow her, but Silos came out of the tower, waving and calling me over. He was peeking out from behind a door, occasionally taking a glance back inside the tower. When I got close, he started quietly talking. "So, I may have a bit of a problem… You see, I have my storage room much higher in the tower and… Well, take a look." he said as he opened the door a bit wider allowing me to see inside. I couldn't see the whole inside, because the only source of light in the room was the light coming in from the door, but the area that I could see was already huge. The only portion of the room that I could see was crawling with hundreds of monsters, with the floor barely visible between the many bodies shifting about the room. A chill went down my spine as the unnatural number of moving limbs reminded me of those nightmarish creatures from my dream, and I took a quick step back. "...And that's just this floor," Silos said, "currently my chests are on floor 85..." I gasped, too loud it seems, because every visible head in the tower's room immediately turned in my direction, and I imagine there were thousands more that weren't visible. Silos immediately spun around the door and shut it, forcing his body against it to keep it closed. There were several loud bangs against the door before it went quiet again. He sighed and said, "You have no idea how quickly I had to run to fill that gap in the wall upstairs..."

He slowly got up and without another word, walked away towards his house. Not having much else to do, I went to look for Vic. Considering that the ground here wasn't flat, it was scattered with little hills and trees, finding him was probably going to be difficult. I spent two hours or more looking around for him, finally finding him at Silos' house, leaning against its open door. He was talking to someone inside, most likely Silos. As soon as he saw me, he waved me over, and started talking when I got to him. "I'm sure you're already aware of this guy's situation in the tower up there." he said, and I nodded. He then gestured to Silos, who was casually sitting on some kind of stair-block, and continued speaking. "Sil' over here has basically agreed to help supply our little quest, if we help him clear out that tower. What do you say to that?" he asked. Unfortunately, I was aware of the situation in the tower. The image of so many monsters flashed through my head... I shuddered, and immediately shook my head 'no'. Vic visibly flinched, and scratched the back of his head before pulling me to the side, out of view of the doorway.

"Look, okay, Shayn? I need to explain a little something to you. This Herobrine guy we're after? He's not going down easily. You've already seen him right, some kind of nightmarish demon? Do you think we're going to kill that with just an archer you picked up, yourself and I? We don't even have a place to stay the night! This guy has a fortress man, a fortress he made by himself in two days, and he's willing to help us out for just clearing a little tower." He then glanced at the tower and gave a funny look, then said, "Okay, maybe it's a big tower, but it's still our best shot at this. But I'm really going to need you on this one, because I can't do this alone." His face had an almost pleading expression. I sighed, and said, "Alright fine, but if I lose my only life because of this, I'm gonna find a way to haunt your ass until this is over." He gave me a wide smile, saying 'You won't regret it,' or something along those lines. He popped back into the doorway, telling Silos that we'd be clearing out the tower. I listened in on the conversation for a while. Silos apparently wasn't a very good fighter, but he's a great miner, and builder obviously. He'd set up a place for us to live, and gather resources for us to use as we worked our way through the tower. I wasn't exactly happy with this, but I figured that it was better than nothing, and I could get some live practice in monster fighting.

We spent the last of our daylight clearing an area to build a house. We made it close to the tower, that way we'd have quick access to it whenever we decided to go in. Our house had five rooms: three bedrooms - one for each of our members, a large storage room packed with chests, and a crafting room with a crafting table and a few furnaces. It had two floors, the first containing the crafting and storage room, with a staircase in the crafting room leading to the second floor, which had all the bedrooms. I wanted to get really decorative, but unfortunately the house wasn't big enough to fit even a quarter of what I wanted to. I was still pretty happy with how it looked in the end. Vic sought out the skeleton girl and brought her to the house, showing her around it while I lit up the area outside the house. It was officially night at this point, so I was about ready to head for bed. We'd be starting on that first room in the tower tomorrow. I noticed that, apart from our house, nothing in the entire fortress was lit up. It's no wonder the tower was filled to the brim with monsters. I made sure to add torches to my mental supply list of what to bring tomorrow while I went inside. Saying a quick 'goodnight' to the other two people, even though only one of them probably understood it, I flopped into bed exhausted. I did have to carry someone for half the day after all, and built at least 75% of this house myself. Before I even knew it, I was fast asleep.

I was caught off guard by the stifling heat, but it didn't faze me at all. I once again was on the wooden platform surrounded by darkness and heat. I looked around for the monster I had last seen here, but was surprised to find that it wasn't here. Even more surprising was what I did find instead. Sitting in a chair across the room was a man, who looked almost completely normal. He had blue jeans and a cyan shirt, flesh that wasn't burned to all hell, and short brown hair. The only thing strange about him, besides his presence here, were his eyes. They were pure white, faintly glowing the same color. He wasn't paying attention to me, but was instead looking at a picture he held in his hands. He then looked up, noticed I was here, then put the picture away saying, "Sorry, I thought you'd take a little longer getting here." He then snapped his fingers, and another chair appeared a short distance across from him. "Come, sit down, if you stand this whole time again, you'll be tired in the morning." he said, gesturing to the chair. I gladly did so, as my legs were feeling a little sore. He smiled and asked, "How was the gift?" pointing to the amulet around my neck. I shook my head and said flatly, "I'm not sure I like it." Everything went silent, and he seemed shocked. He then sighed, scratching his head.

"I thought guys liked mob talker... Would you rather it did something else?" he asked, and I immediately nodded. He rolled his eyes and held his hand out, so I took the amulet off and placed it in his open hand. He flipped it around a few times, looking at all the markings covering it. His eyes briefly glowed a little brighter, and all the glowing marks floated off the amulet. They twisted and swirled around him, slowly unwinding and connecting to each other, until there were three large glowing rings slowly spinning around him. He looked up at me and seemed to notice the look of awe on my face. "A very long time ago, in a place far away from here, I used to be really good with magic. More specifically, imbuing objects with magic." he said, gently tapping one of the rings. The ring seemed to ripple in response, and unfolded into a straight line, with one end attached to the tip of his finger. He then started drawing new markings on the amulet with his finger, slowly using up the line as he did so. "This is the only time I'm redoing this for you, okay? You're getting a gift from the enemy, you don't get to be picky about it." he said. When the first set of markings were complete, he tapped the next ring and started drawing again. "This amulet was a symbol of the monster armies that once rose up to defeat me, and they left me one to look at for the time I'd been defeated. They've disbanded already, but many still know what it means, so there's a chance that if you show one this amulet, it'll leave you alone. So long as you didn't try to attack it already, of course." Eventually, he finished and handed it back to me. "If you end up killing them anyways, you can make use of this." he said.

"Moving on, I've been watching you from here, as well as a few other interesting groups... I noticed you've decided that I'm the one responsible for this whole thing, so you going to try to kill me, right?" he asked. I wasn't actually sure, so I asked, "You're Herobrine, right?" and he smiled wide. "You really don't know what I look like? Yes, I am Herobrine, as well as the monster you saw the other night, we are one in the same. You asked me last time, and I already told you, I am Herobrine." I nodded, saying, "Then yeah, we're planning on killing you." His smile grew wider as he said, "That's too bad, because I'm not the one who brought you here. I would never attempt something this big on my own. But I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity anyway, now that you're all here. From this point on, I'm going to give you players hell." He slowly leaned back in his chair, looking like he was waiting for something. Five minutes passed in silence. "And you're telling me this… Why?" I asked. He quickly sat back up again, and resumed talking. "Thank you, finally. First of all, I've had all these big plans and nobody to tell them to for forever now, it's boring. Most of the monsters here are dumber than slimes, especially the slimes, so it's no use talking to them. Second, I'm making an exception for you. While I will not grant you immunity to my wrath upon this world, I still owe your sister a great deal. So, to repay some of my debt to her, I shall... Assist your survival... While I search for her."

"Which brings me to my next point." he said, "I noticed that you've decided to take on that idiot's tower. First off, I commend you for your bravery. Second, that is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard of, and I've had to deal with people that thought they could fight off fire by setting themselves on fire. There are enough monsters in there to destroy a kingdom, and they're all crowded into enclosed spaces. You won't be able to do that with just the little group you have. Lucky for you, one of the monsters loyal to me happens to be in that area. I'll send them over in the morning to assist you all. It's best you meet them outside the walls of that cobblestone mess, you don't want them to run into one of your friends first. I can try to make them look human, to blend in better, but you're going to ha-" he cut himself off as his eyes flashed a few times. He sighed, and said, "Time flies." before everything started to go dark.

I woke up slowly, feeling sore. When I opened my eyes and looked around, I noticed I was on the floor beside my bed. 'Must've rolled out of bed again...' I thought, still partially asleep. I sat up slowly, stretching to find out where I was sore, exactly. I was about to get up, when I noticed something on my bed. To be more specific, someONE on my bed. "Really? Again?" I complained. The skeleton girl was once again on my bed, sound asleep. Why she was, I don't know, I built a room for her already. But I had other things to be doing right now, I didn't want to be late. I quickly packed up the equipment I'd need later on for the tower, set it in a chest by the door to the house, and headed outside the entrance of the fort. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting a long shadow of the fort across the plains. I waited a while, enjoying the view. 'I could get used to this...' I thought to myself. I sat down to wait, leaning against the wall. About an hour passed before anything happened. I heard someone approaching, and turned to greet them. "Jesus Christ it took long enou-" I started. I was cut off by an ear-splitting shriek. I jumped back, and finally realized what I was looking at. Standing in front of me was a person, or at least something in the shape of one. It was almost entirely pitch black, and was disappearing and reappearing, being there one moment and vanishing for a split second before appearing again, like a flickering light. It had blood red eyes, and a large holographic red warning sign hovering in front of its face. It shrieked again, before lunging towards me, wrapping both hands around my neck and squeezing hard. There was a sharp pain in my throat as it tried to strangle me. I tried to pry its hands off and kick it away, but it had a very tight grip on me. My lungs started to burn and the corners of my vision were going black the longer it held me there. I frantically kicked and swung at it, eventually knocking it back. I got up as quickly as my body would allow, drawing my sword with some difficulty.

The creature had fallen over on to its back, but didn't bother to get back up. Instead it just raised its head to look at me, then crawled across the ground on all fours at an insane speed. I panicked and swung at it wildly. As soon as it reached me it jumped on to its feet and tackled me, simultaneously getting impaled by the blade. It didn't react at all to being stabbed, grabbing me by the arm and hair, and forcing me to the ground. It held me there and looked me dead in the eyes. "Let me out." it said, it's voice sounding distorted, and filled with static. Before I could even process what it said, it pulled its arm back, and slammed its fist into me. I expected an impact, but instead its hand went straight through my body, as its arm phased through me. I felt a slight tug inside of me, and everything went cold. I couldn't move my body at all, and suddenly spikes of pain shot through my body, over and over again. Then the thing suddenly let out a blood curdling and constant scream, as it flickered much more rapidly before. The light from its eyes and the symbol floating in front of it slowly died down until they were gone, and the creature disappeared completely, leaving behind an echo of its scream. I managed to sit up despite every part of my body telling me to stop moving. I hoped that the large sword in its chest killed it.

It was another hour before the person I was supposed to meet finally arrived, by then I had recovered and managed to pull myself together again. I could hear them before I could see them. It started as a quiet whisper, carried by the wind. It evolved into a melodious tune playing out over the grassland. It was soft and somewhat calming. When the person finally came into view, I was caught off guard by her appearance. She had long bright green hair and dark blue eyes. She wore a plain white t-shirt and blue jeans, a black pair of shoes, and had a large pair of headphones resting on her neck. I was expecting some monster loosely in the shape of a human, and instead I got... Someone normal. "Hey, what's up?" she asked casually with a short wave. It took a moment to get over my surprise, but i managed to say 'Hello'. She took a look at the walls of the fort, giving a low whistle. "Wish I wasn't here to help you all," she said, "I'd love to get my hands on this place." She then turned her head to look at me. "What kind of monster are you, exactly?" I asked, trying to figure out what she meant. She turned back towards the wall. "You know, it's kinda rude to ask what monster I am, especially before you've even asked my name. My name is Spark, and I'm a creeper, though I like to think I'm a human sometimes." she said.

She suddenly gasped and froze in place. "Waitwaitwaitwaaaiiiit! You're Sean right?! The guy I'm supposed to be meeting?!" she asked, sounding panicked. She relaxed when I told her yes. "Crap, I can't believe I almost told that to a complete stranger." she said, sighing. She leaned against the wall, watching me. A few minutes passed in silence. "Geez you're lame. Can we just go inside already? You're really boring, and I want to get this over with already." she said. I led the way to the entrance and we both entered. Neither of us were prepared for what was waiting on the other side of the wall.