Chapter 9
Steve slowly woke up to the warmth of sunlight hitting his face. He breathed a sigh of relief; it had all just been a dream. Glancing to he right then his left, yep this was his room, but something was off. A shadow was being cast from the end of the bed and there was a significant weight from there as well.
"Ah!" Steve jumped as his eyes found the source; White-eyes stared down at him from the demon sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed. Steve curled up away from the demi-god fearing the worst, but with a closer look Steve saw the gentle rise and fall of the demi-gods chest. He had fallen asleep with his eyes open. Steve shivered at the thought, though he felt the demi-god was capable of much stranger. Carefully getting out of the bed as not to disturb the demi-god, he gathered his things planning to change somewhere else. He and Herobrine had been getting along better then the miner had thought; he didn't want to push his luck first thing in the morning, last thing he needed was a cranky demi-god.
It was like tiptoeing through a creepers nest; Steve cursed at every sound as he gathered his things. Slowly he opened the door and snuck out then slowly pushed it closed. 'Don't slam, don't slam, don't slam' he dared not let his thoughts out of his head.
Thud
'Damn it' Steve sighed making his way from his room and into the extra room he was letting the demi-god use. The miner quickly got changed and walked out into the kitchen with the intent of making him self something to eat. Steve looked into the chest at the different foods, trying to think of what would like but came up with a blank. In the few days he had lived with Herobrine he had been spoiled with the demi-god's cooking. Sighing he grabbed a bit of bread and nibbled on it slowly; he wasn't about to wake Herobrine just to ask him to make breakfast.
As he ate Steve recalled the nightmare he had that night, shriveling at the thought. Those things, there wasn't anything normal about them.
'They are what broke me' those where Herobrine's words from his dream. What were they? He hoped that it was all simply something his mind had made up; but with Herobrine both in his dream and at the end of his bed made that highly unlikely.
If one of those things could cripple a demi-god, he didn't want to think what it could do to a human. If something like that attacked a village no one would stand a chance. It had to have a weakness, all things did even Herobrine. Maybe he needed to do a little of research himself, instead of letting the gods do all of the work.
Putting what was left of the bread away, Steve headed to the door and left the house.
The village library was small, but well stalked with all different kinds books on every subject anyone could think of. Everything but what Steve was looking for. He had found books on Endermen, Zombies, Skeletons, and every other mob under the moon but the ones he had seen in his dream. He had even asked the young historian Skyler if she had ever heard of such thing; after her asking so many the miner's head started spin, it turned out that not even she heard anything of the beasts.
'Maybe the weaknesses of the original mobs will still work for the those creatures' Steve wondered daring not to utter anything out load. He flipped through a few more books, he picked up the ones that seemed to have the most information and left.
Heading back down the street he smiled despite his concern that was until he bumped into someone rather hard. The books toppled for his hands and Steve quickly started to gather them back up again; as he reached for the last another hand picked it up.
"Doing some light reading Steve?" it was Ridan. The slayer picked up the book and flipped through some of the pages, then offered a hand to Steve. Haling the miner to his feet, Ridan handed the book back to Steve with a smile, which the miner gladly excepted, taking the book.
"Thanks Ridan." Steve placed the books into his inventory so that he wouldn't drop them again. "And I been trying to identify the mobs that attacked Hero, but I haven't had much luck. These books where the best I could find." He sighed and shook his head. "The local historian didn't even know."
"Why are you asking historians and reading. books about mobs?" Ridan crossed his arms over his chest "Pro Mob Slayer standing right in front of you! Ask me anything, I know about every mob on the face of Minecraftia!"
Steve sighed shaking his head. "Sure why not." He placed a hand to his head as he tried to recall what one of the monsters from the dream looked like. He recalled one of them being a bloated zombie with spikes coming from its body. "You'll probably think this is crazy but" he paused for a second. "Have you ever seen or heard of in your travels of a zombie with its upper body bloated with fluid muscle mass that had like spikes coming out of it."
Steve looked at the Slayer surprised when he didn't start out right laughing, but seemed to be really thinking about it. "That almost sounds like that one Zombie I ran into in this one underground cave." The Slayer placed a hand to his chin in thought.
"What really?" Steve's mouth was about to drop open but he stopped it, wishing for the Slayer to explain.
"Yeah. A while ago I was doing some training in this tunnel," Ridan started to explain, "then I heard this sound. I went to check it out and seen a zombie fitting that description hanging around a caved in part of the tunnel. I managed to kill the thing, but it really put up a fight. It's claws cut through a few pieces of my diamond stuff easily." The Slayer rubbed the back of his neck, "strange thing was that all the fluid in its body seemed to be a strong acid. Your bro's lucky to be alive if one of those attacked him."
A shiver went down Steve's spine as he listened to the story. "Was there anything else in that tunnel?"
"Yeah" Ridan nodded, "there were Withers and Wither Skeletons down there, it was weird 'cause they really only hang around in the Nether. I took out the Skeletons and a few of the Withers over a few days but who knows what was past that cave in. I only lasted so long because of my skill with a bow, if I had of gone closer range to that monster I don't think I would have made it out."
Steve nodded taking in all this information. So Herobrine must have been around the same tunnel that Ridan was, maybe on the other side of the cave in. But why? Steve would have to wait for the demi-god to answer that question. Looking back up at Ridan Steve smiled. "Thanks for the info Ridan. I'm sure my brother will be very grateful for your help" The miner thanked the slayer almost choking on his words when he brought up 'Hero'.
"No problem Steve!" Ridan waved as the miner turned and started heading home. "Anymore questions just come ask me!" Steve gave a haft-hearted wave as he ran; he needed to get home. He hoped the demi-god was awake so he could answer Steve's questions.
Getting to his door, Steve turned the nob and came face to face with a man he had never seen standing in his house, cradling a still sleeping Herobrine in his arms. The man was tall and had a broad chest that was covered by a brown t-shirt; he was completely bald but had full beard around his mouth. His dark eyes seemed to shine as the look of surprise fell into more of an embarrassed smile.
"Oh! You must be Steve," the man said with an embarrassed chuckle. Steve simply nodded as he walked into the house and closed the door behind him. "Nice to meet you. I'm Notch! Herobrine's brother."
Steve wasn't sure what happened next, for when he heard that name his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell to the floor.
"Wow Hero, your right." Notch chuckled again adjusting his brother so that his head was resting against his shoulder. "Humans are fragile."
A/n: sorry is this isn't as long as some of my other chapters, theirs a bit of a storm here and right now I'm not sure is I'm going to work. I have no clue what's going on with this Chapter, it's telling me it's uploaded but also that no one can see it. I uploaded this when I woke up this morning. Saturday 9th February 2013. proofread by AngelWingz66