Daring Do and the Legend of Herobrine

Daring occasionally lifted her torch high up in the air and turned around to check behind her, but she continued to see nothing as she went deeper into the tunnel. The tunnel was long. Very, very long. She had been trotting for at least fifteen minutes, until finally she heard the sound of water flowing down like a stream.

"The exit!" Daring yelled with excitement. The empty and quiet tunnel had made her quite nervous, and she would love to have been somewhere more open.

Sure enough, a dim light showed up at the far end of the tunnel. Excitedly, Daring picked up her pace and trotted towards the light. But as she got closer, anxiety slowly replaced her joy and questions began to arise. The light wasn't coming from the sun or the tomb; it was coming from another torch. And instead of the ordinary bright and warm, orange light, the torch was emitting a weak, crimson-red light.

"What is this?"

Daring walked up and took a closer look. The torch was placed against the upper part of the wall with its lit tip pointing up at the low ceiling. Instead of coal, the tip of the torch seemed to be covered in some kind of red powder, and the powder was glowing.

"But... I don't understand."

Daring started pacing around, quickly thinking about the abnormality. Why would there be just the one lone torch in the middle of the tunnel? Had somepony run out of wood and have to resort to this as a source of light? If so, then why was it left behind instead of being taken along? Unless...

Daring looked up. The block right above the torch was stone as well, but something was not quite right. Daring held the torch between her teeth and put her hoof on the stone. She immediately noticed that the texture of the stone was slightly different. Instead of the completely smooth surface of normal stone, the stone block in question looked like it had been artificially crafted using several stone blocks.

"This must be a door leading to the secret tomb. And the torch must be a switch!" Daring thought. She went closer to investigate the torch once more, but she couldn't find anything else unusual. She held out her hoof and placed it around the torch. She applied some force in all directions to see if the torch would move. However, it did not budge.

"Come on, you stupid... thing!" Daring said with frustration. She jiggled the torch around, adding more force each time. And suddenly, with a loud crack, she accidentally pulled the torch off the wall, completely.

"Oh sna...."

Daring immediately heard the sound of mechanics moving and took a few steps back. What she heard was moving directly above her head, and she thought, "This can't be good." She tensed up her muscles and was ready to run at any time.

However, the noises abruptly stopped. Everything became quiet, so quiet, that Daring could hear herself panting and the beating of her heart.

"Is it over?" Daring thought, as she walked back to where the strange stone was. She took a look around, but nothing had changed. It was still a boringly long tunnel leading into darkness.

However, before Daring could have a chance to catch her breath, she heard noise coming from behind her. She quickly turned around and was shocked by what she saw. The tunnel was getting brighter and the light was coming... towards her?

She rubbed her eyes and checked again. It was as she had thought. There was light at the end of the tunnel, and it was coming closer and closer. Daring began to feel heat coming from the same direction. It was as if somepony was holding a torch and running towards her. But as the light got closer, she realized that it wasn't coming from a torch.

The walls of the tunnels were disappearing. There was lava behind the stone, and it had started to flow into the tunnel. Daring could feel the heat of the lava, and if she didn't quickly find a way out of there, then she would be consumed by it too.

She quickly turned around and started to run, but she stopped almost immediately. The same thing was happening on the other side.

She was trapped in the middle of a tunnel with lava coming at her from both sides. Daring looked around her eagerly, looking for a way out. Then suddenly, her eyes caught on the strange block right above her.

"All right."

Daring grinded her teeth together tightly. She took out her pickaxe and immediately started waving it at the strange stone block. The block seemed quite strong, but a small crack had soon started to form on the surface.

"Come on... COME ON!!!"

Daring felt the temperature rising and her heart jumped. She waved the pickaxe even faster and finally, with a loud crack, the strange block broke and some red powder fell down. Daring held onto her hat and held her breath in case that the powder was poisonous. She took a look around and saw that it was a flat surface.

"YES!"

She took a step back from the hole and placed a block of wood right underneath it. Then she jumped onto the block. The heat was slowly becoming unbearable, but finally Daring jumped again and caught onto the edge of the flat surface. She climbed up and looked down seeing that the lava had just reached the wooden block, which she then saw immediately catch on fire and disappear.

"That was a close one."

Daring took off her hat and wiped the sweat off of her forehead. She had lost her torch during the whole mess, but luckily she still had some stone and wood. She quickly built a furnace and made more charcoal to make another torch. With her newly made torch, she flooded the room with light and took a look around.

"Whoa..." Daring could not believe what she saw. She saw the red powder all over the floor, forming a huge web. Daring took a step closer and noticed that all of the powder was made into lines connected to each other.

"Could it be?" Daring took out the strange red torch that she had broken off earlier and held the tip up close to a line of red powder. The powder immediately lit up as the torch approached it, and it transferred the light through the red powder next to it, lighting up a small portion of the huge web. She immediately heard the sound of mechanics from far away, noticing that it was the same sound that she had heard when the lava had started to fill up the tunnel.

"This must be the trigger to the trap," Daring thought.

She held up her normal torch and started to explore again. She saw streams of the red powder leading in the direction of the tunnel, and suddenly she noticed a single line of the red powder leading to the other side of the room.

"Ah hah!"

Daring quickly followed it. The line of red powder was different from the others. One end was connected to a huge mechanism, and the other end led off into the darkness.

Daring walked down the path of red powder. The trail was relatively difficult to track, since sometimes it disappeared into the wall or went below the ground. However, Daring still managed to stay on track. She finally reached the end of the cave and saw that the red line disappeared underneath a door made of wood.

Daring took a look around. This was the end of the cave, and there was no other place that she could go. She quietly walked up to the door and took a quick peek inside. It was a large, dark room. Daring raised her torch and allowed some light into the room; she saw that there was a dark tunnel on the other side of the room, opposite to where she was standing.

To her great surprise, as the light of the torch passed through the room, she saw a shadow moving and quickly disappearing into the darkness of the other tunnel. Even though it was just a glance, she noticed that it was the exact same creature that she had seen the earlier that day on the top of the tree.

This confirmed Daring's guess. Somepony was definitely following her, and he was clearly familiar with this place. The questions going through Daring's mind were: "Why would he do so? Was he guiding her to the treasure, or leading her into a trap? What did he want from her? Could he be the ghost of another adventurer, who came to lead her in order to finish the job that he hadn't been able to finish? Or could it be the guardian of the tomb, set out to murder everyone who dared to set their hooves in this sacred place?"