Empires SMP Halloween prompt oneshots

Day 3 - Stranger in an Alley

           The Grimlands were an acquired taste, some might say. The dark and twisted city atop an otherwise pleasant hill was mostly avoided by passers-by. Its thick stone walls seemed to keep normality out and chaos within, because more often than not, the citizens of the Grimlands had a penchant for mischievous pranks, chaotic tinkering, and explosions of both the deliberate and accidental sort.

           But despite the town's grim exterior countenance, when you got to know it and its citizens, they were usually quite friendly and wholesome. One of these people was Count fWhip of the Grimlands, the very emperor of the walled city. He was wearing his copper goggles and using his welder on a very strange nether portal. It should have been an ordinary portal with an obsidian brick wall. And it was, but the portal also had a dark tendril wrapped around it.

           The Grimlands liked their deepslate redstone, as the plains that they occupied was rich in that particular ore. However, whenever it was mined up, the citizens would notice that they would find odd spikes sticking out of the ground made of an unfamiliar material that seemed an awful lot like their beloved deepslate redstone. fWhip loved the spikes and called them redstone corruption, and he liked to run tests on them, like he was doing to the one wrapped around his nether portal.

           His current test showed that the redstone corruption seemed to like the fire from the welder he was using on it. fWhip wondered if it was just him, or if it looked like the tendril was growing. Maybe because of the fire. And maybe that was why it was attacking the portal; it wanted to get to the fiery nether. fWhip was about to impulsively run off and grab a bucket of lava to pour on it to see what happened when he sensed a presence behind him.

           The count turned but he saw no one. But he could've sworn that there was someone right there a moment ago. Confused, he went back to running off and getting lava when he heard a guttural laugh coming from somewhere around him. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and fWhip cautiously stepped backward. Just then, there was a flicker in the air in front of him and for a split second, he saw a dark figure with blood red eyes grinning manically at him, and then it was gone.

           fWhip jumped back, heart pounding. He didn't know what to make of the demonic apparition, but he got a strong feeling that it was dangerous and he should stay away from it. Which was odd, considering the count's usual reaction to dangerous things was to get closer to it. fWhip ran off, but not to get lava this time. He was just trying to get away from that thing, whatever it was.

            But the thing wouldn't let him get away. "Hello, there!" fWhip almost screamed as the demonic figure materialized in front of him, stretching a sharply-clawed hand toward the count. fWhip turned and ran in the opposite direction. He was frightened and not afraid to admit it. The creature laughed menacingly; distorted by an accent that sounded an awful lot like the one belonging to an elf friend of fWhip's, and gave chase.

           The count, with his familiarity of the town he had grown up in, ducked into a side alley to try and lose his pursuer. The Grimlands' streets where thin and winding, and very confusing even to those who had lived in the city for years. Whoever had planned them out seemed to have done so with no rhyme or reason; if the streets had even been planned out in the first place.

           Streets sproutes from other streets, alleys branched out of other alleys; from a bird's eye view, the road layout would have probably looked like a bizarre tree made out of crisscrossed branches and no trunk in sight. fWhip raced down one alley, up another, veered into side streets, ran across main roads, until he was out of breath and fairly certain that he'd lost the creature. It wad a good thing too; he'd just ran into a back alley with a dead end.

           Then a haunting laugh made fWhips hairs prickle and he slowly turned around to see the dark figure standing there, blocking off the exit. fWhip, internally screaming, backed away, even though he knew there was nowhere to go. Soon enough, he was flat against the wall with the stranger grinning evilly and slowly approaching him.

           fWhip fearfully glanced around, but there was no use. The shadows from the tall Grimlands towers around the alley seemed to envelop the two in perpetual darknesd that strangely illuminated the stranger's evil red eyes. The alley walls seemed to press in; making the narrow side street even narrower. fWhip breathed slowly in fear; wondering each time if that breath would be his last.

          The demonic figure laughed again and came forward; his dark silhouette framed by the singular beam of light that came from the entrance of the alley. "Thank you for drawing me here," He said, and his grin seemed to stretch even wider. fWhip panicked; he realized that his messing around with the redstone corruption mixed with the magic of nether portals might've summoned the creature.

           So it was his fault that the thing was here. It was his fault that his unaware citizens might get attacked by a demonic spirit. It was his own fault that he was trapped and cornered in a dark alley by a menacingly grinning stranger.