MCSM: Shattered Souls [COMPLETED]

1- In Which I Get A Very Weird Sword

"Hi-yah! Take THAT, monsters!"

"Axel, be careful. Don't set off any possible traps while you're flinging monsters around."

"I know, I know. I swear you tell me that every time we go raiding."

I put my diamond sword in my inventory, having dispatched of the various mobs. "For the last time, Axel. We are not raiding, we're not stealing, we're not doing anything wrong. The stuff in these temples doesn't belong to anyone. It's up for grabs."

The rest of the Order and I were just inside the entrance to a temple located deep in an extreme hills biome. It had been 'guarded' by a horde of monsters, but we had dispatched of those rather quickly.

"It's no fun when you say it like that." Axel protested, sounding like he was only half-kidding.

"Oh come on, 'King of Boomtown'. Let's just go get our treasure, and you can pretend that we stole it." Olivia told him, grinning.

I laughed, shaking my head slightly, then stepped farther into the main entry room of the temple. Petra and Lukas were already there, standing side-by-side and muttering to each other, presumably about how slow the rest of us are.

"Let's go, you guys. Time to see what this temple has to offer us." Petra called, waving her hand in a 'hurry up' motion. I looked around, in awe of the cavern that had been hollowed out of the mountain. It was in a sort of dome shape, with flickering sea lanterns located near the top.

"Oi, doofus. Look where you're going." I heard Olivia say to Axel, who had also been staring up at the ceiling. I looked over and noticed that he had almost fallen into a square opening in the floor.

"Yikes, that wouldn't've been pleasant." Lukas commented, leaning down to investigate the gap. It was very dark, with only a faint glimmer of light shining up from the bottom far below. There appeared to be steps leading down into the darkness, but they were spaced oddly, just far enough apart that we would have to jump to get to the next one.

"Looks we have to parkour our way down. In the dark. Great." Petra said.

"Oh, relax. It's fine." I reassured her, then jumped down to the first step, then the next. Lukas followed me, then Olivia, then Axel and Petra. We eventually made it to the bottom, the light growing brighter as we got further down.

"Now this is cool." Petra commented as we surveyed the lower chamber. It wasn't as tall as the upper room, but was overall wider and decorated with mysterious statues made of glazed terracotta.

I wandered over to one side of the room, where six blocks appeared to be missing from the floor in a strange pattern. There also seemed to be more of the odd statues on this side, which made me wonder what they were for.

Olivia had noticed the missing blocks as well, and stood next to me. "Almost seems like a puzzle, huh?"

I nodded. "Exactly what I was thinking."

"What do you think these are for?" Lukas asked, walking in a circle around one of the statues. Petra jabbed one with her sword. "They kinda look humanoid. Weird."

"Just ignore them and they probably won't do anything. In the meantime, are there any, I dunno, blocks that seem out of place? There might be a puzzle-thing on the floor, and I want to know if it does anything." I said, scrutinizing the room. The walls were just rough stone, but the floor was a pattern of prismarine bricks and chiseled stone bricks. Aside from the strange, human-like statues, there were a few odd blocks that seemed to be placed randomly around the room.

"D'you think anything bad will happen if I break one of these?" Axel asked, gesturing to one of said randomly placed stone blocks. "Hard to tell. Places like this can be weird sometimes." I pointed out.