Herobrine's fortress was utterly imposing. The whole of it looked less like a castle, and more like an intricate Gothic cathedral, were cathedrals to have lava pouring around everywhere. It was made of dark bricks, sharp fences, eerily glowing stalactites and stalagmites of some naturally golden mineral poking from places, and entire hallways of the purest, whitest quartz - and to boot, all of it was located in Hell itself.
Not that the place's sole prisoner cared for architecture.
He paced his cell, occasionally rummaging through the bag slung across his shoulder, constantly speaking to himself as he strode.
"It's been exactly, what... five days? Yes -" here he checked some odd system he'd put together in the corner, made mostly of two empty potion bottles and a handful of soul sand he had found in the corner of his cell "- Five. He should be here by now, to taunt me."
"Silent treatment, perhaps? Maybe he wants me to go insane?"
The man bent over with laughter. "Pffahaha! Who am I kidding? He's not smart enough for those kinds of tactics! No, he's gone and forgotten me, is all."
"Which of course, means, I can put together..."
He sat down, and began to look through his bag quickly, occasionally taking things out.
"Potion of harming - potion of poison - empty bottle - empty bottle - potion of fire resistance - flint and steel - empty bottle - redstone - gunpowder."
The man grinned, then cracked his knuckles. "Oh boy. This is going to be loud."
He laid out the system with the practiced air of someone who had no specific idea what they were doing, but generally knew how to make things happen.
Steve put together the redstone and gunpowder first, shaking the mixture in one of the three empty bottles until it was a dusty brown throughout, then carefully laid out a line of the substance from the door to a clean cell corner.
Having done that, he carefully poured the potion of fire resistance onto the bars in the cell, making sure some of it touched the line of gunpowder and redstone.
The next part was going to need to be done fast. He uncorked both the potion of harming and poison, then held the bottles together and mixed them vigorously. Sure enough, the liquids began to boil. He didn't have much time.
He placed both bottles down near the bars, letting them leak out, then retreated hastily to the corner where the dust trail had been set and let a single spark from the flint and steel catch the mixture alight.
He cleared his throat and began to speak again, pretending he was telling his sister how the system worked.
"Gunpowder's flammable, redstone burns in a controlled manner. By the time they get there, the harming and poison potions will have reacted with each other to form a rather volatile gas."
"The gas still needs flame, though, and that's where the potion of fire resistance comes in. Remember, that stuff works by being so damn reactive to fire that the flames burn out before they can actually get to whatever they'd normally be burning."
Steve grinned as the burning part of the redstone and gunpowder crept closer to the puddle of fire resistance potion.
"I bet you can figure out what fire and volatile gas makes on your own," he added, clapping his hands over his ears.
The explosion was absolutely deafening, even with his ears stopped up as much as they possibly could be. It physically shook the ground beneath him, and a wave of shock from the explosion slammed him into the wall as the bars simply ceased to exist and turned into little more than fuel.
He groaned, tugging at one of his earlobes. "Ah, crap. Think I busted an eardrum. Maybe both."
The man rummaged through his bag again, picked out a large bottle half full of reddish-pink liquid, and took a small sip.
Steve winced as the potion took effect, making both his ears pop as if he had just climbed to a great height.
He stood up, brushing the brick dust of his clothes, and then laughed brightly.
"Hahaha! Oh man, imagine the Netherlord's face when he sees this mess! Of course, I'll have found a way to beat him by then, I'm sure."
Pinching his nose to keep himself from inhaling the remaining fumes, he rushed through the scorched opening and out into the hallways of the fortress.
A zombie pigman swung its golden sword at Steve as he poked his head around a corner, and he ducked.
"Whup! No you don't." He aimed a kick at the walking corpse's shin, knocking it over onto its face.
The mob's weapon clattered across the ground, and he scrambled aside quickly to pick it up. The blade was heavy in his hand, and not very sharp, but it definitely worked well enough to decapitate the pigman though sheer force.
"Cavalry sword, probably," he muttered. "Although what these guys rode is beyond me, these things are weighted perfectly for the separation of limbs and other, similar vital things from someone's torso at sufficient speeds."
He grinned again. "I love it."
The former prisoner paused and looked out a window, eyes flicking quickly across the landscape as if scanning. He then turned back to the hallway and waited, arms crossed and sword loosely in hand, tapping his right foot.
"Those guards are going to come from somewhere," he muttered.
As if by magic - or, more likely, high alert - a swarm of pigmen turned one of the corners and pointed at him with grunts and glares.
Steve raised an eyebrow, then reached into his bag and took out a small vial of light blue liquid. He took a step back, eyes darting from guard to guard, and bit down on the cork, pulling it out with his teeth.
The guards were moving towards him unusually slowly. Mind you, zombies of any kind were not particularly fast, so that was part of it - the other part was that the blue potion had taken effect and the man was now as swift as a skeleton's shot.
He held the sword out perfectly parallel to the, right arm crossing his torso, then charged at the guards.
One of them made a futile stab at him, and he swung the gold blade in a wide arc, slamming the enemies back against walls with the force of the blow. Steve didn't stop to finish them this time, as he had somewhere to be going.
That somewhere was down the hall, hopefully to the place where he could do the most damage to Herobrine and his army. After all, the guards running at him had to be coming from some integral part of the fortress.
At the very end of the hall, however, was an open bridge. Several strange things that looked a bit like jellyfish with facial patterns were busy breaking apart the way to the other side with explosions.
He didn't slow down in the slightest, instead picking up speed and launching himself across the gap, skidding to a stop on the other side as the potion wore off just in time.
His pursuers hopefully shaken off, Steve looked around the new hallway. As he'd predicted, there was a rather intricate-looking door off to one side that could only be Herobrine's throne room, or at least something similar.
He pushed the door open softly and poked his head in.
As it turned out, the area where the Netherlord spent most of his time appeared to be a sort of library or office. There were bookshelves on the walls, their tomes and pages scattered across the room. There was also a dark oak desk of some sort facing out towards the Nether, and this is what Steve headed towards.
On the desk was a diamond helmet glittering with some kind of enchantment, which the man immediately picked up and fitted to his head, pulling it slightly over his eyes so that the glow from the helm might make him look a bit like the Netherlord.
He then rummaged through the desk drawers, reading over Herobrine's notes, or whatever the papers everywhere were.
Most of the things were rather cohesive, saying one thing and then contradicting themselves almost immediately and it was immediately clear to Steve that the Netherlord was in some kind of confused state when the papers had been written.
"There's a weakness here somewhere," he muttered, then returned to the desk and opened a new drawer.
Atop the pile of papers was a single loose leaf that looked like it'd been torn out of a book. There were words on the paper, of course, but what was particularly interesting was the fact that the words "DO NOT READ THESE" had been scrawled across the aforementioned page in large, shaky handwriting.
Steve smiled at the paper in his hand, shaking his head slowly. "Bingo."
He dug into the pile of papers and pulled out the bottom page, then blinked and stared at the paper for what felt like an exceedingly long time.
The contents of the paper weren't too interesting; it appeared to be a drawing of the desk in front of him with an arrow pointing towards one of the knobs. Below that, though, the word "Herobrine" was written several times in what was undeniably Steve's own handwriting.
"I don't remember writing this," he muttered, this time in an even lower and quieter tone. "I definitely did not write this," he added.
He cautiously twisted the desk knob indicated on the drawing, and jumped back as something fell to the floor from the underside of the desk with a loud THUMP.
It was a thick but small book with a leather cover, with a piece of loose paper that didn't look like part of the book stuck to the front of it. Before he could read it, however, someone burst through the door.
Steve hastily shoved the tome in his bag, then pulled the helmet down slightly on his face and hefted the sword in his hand as a pigman came through the door.
"Sir!"
The helmet ruse had worked, because it was clear that the zombie thought he was actually Herobrine. Now he just had to remember how the Netherlord acted...
Steve drew himself up, standing as straight as he could, then glared at the monster. "The hell do you want?" he snapped, crossing his arms.
The zombie pigman flinched. "Sir, one of the prisoner's cells exploded - probably a Ghast - and it's activated the emergency defense mechanism."
He tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. "Remind me what this is again?"
Its eyes darted back and forth. "Uh, the Wither. The Wither's got loose."
He made a sound that hopefully resembled an annoyed grumble. "I'll take care of it. Get me something to fly on."
The pigman sounded shocked. "You're going ghast-riding? But sir, you can fly on your own."
Steve flipped the cavalry sword in his hand, catching it effortlessly, then pointed it at the pigman. "Implying I don't have a plan in place? Unwise." He then swung the sword back down the hallway. "Get me a suitable ride, and do it quickly before I decide you're expendable."
The monster turned and ran immediately, and Steve sat down in the chair and sighed.
"Right, Herobrine can fly. Forgot about that minor detail. Now let's see what I have that can mimic this..."
((Steve. No. Stop.
((Alternate humorous titles for last chapter:
((and screw this patch of plants in particular/a better roundhouse than chuck norris could ever hope to dream of
((Please review if you enjoyed!