"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.

He took this as a 'go ahead', and punched at it only a few times before it broke. Instantly, a Silverfish sprang into existence, chasing after Axel. I glanced down at the floor pattern in horror. "WAIT! They're monst-"

I wasn't able to finish my warning before Petra's sword came down on the small monster, killing it immediately. But as soon as she touched it...the rest of the monster egg blocks broke, unleashing a horde of Silverfish out to get us.

"Ack!" Lukas yelped in shock, quickly swapping out his bow for his iron sword.

"That was just mean. I hate freakin' obvious traps like that." Olivia snapped. She had gotten on top of two blocks, and was slaying the little monsters from above.

I cursed inwardly as I swung my sword at the Silverfish. They were easy enough to kill, but there were SO MANY of them! Olivia was right; it had been a ridiculously obvious trap, and yet we had still fallen for it. Every 'chiseled stone' block in the floor pattern had been a monster egg, and I hated myself for overlooking that possibility.

In just a few moments, the Silverfish were gone, either killed or despawned into other stone blocks. "Man, nothing's ever easy in these places, is it?" Petra said with a slight smile. I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, that's one way to put it."

"Whoa, guys look!" Axel exclaimed. I glanced over at where he was crouching, and noticed that several chests had been hidden under where the monster egg blocks had been.

"Score!" I shouted, leaning down to open one of the chests. The rest of the Order did the same.

"Hey, look at this!" Petra said excitedly, holding up a small golden figurine. "A Totem of Undying. Nice." Lukas commented, holding several Spectral Arrows.

"What've you got, Jesse?" Olivia asked me. I looked through the contents of the chest I had chosen. "Just some random cool stuff. A few good potion ingredients. A couple iron ingots, a handful of emeralds. Oooh, there's some Ender Pearls too. And...wait, what's that?" I dug past the other stuff, noticing a strange shimmering thing hidden near the bottom.

"What?" Lukas asked. I lifted the item I had found: a shining red sword with a black handle. Well, it appeared to be red, but shimmered orange, black, and then purple depending on how the light hit it.

"Holy Notch. What is that thing?" Axel wondered aloud. "It's a sword. Duh." Petra replied.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Yeah, no kidding, genius. Any idiot could see that it's a sword, and probably enchanted with something weird. But why is it...red? How?"

"Beats me. I seem to have a habit of finding really weird stuff in temples." I shrugged, putting it in my inventory. "Too bad Ivor isn't around to answer stuff like this."

"Yeah." Lukas sighed ruefully. He closed the chest he had opened, and a loud CLICK resounded through the room. Petra swore under her breath. "Shit. What's gonna come after us now?"

"I don't-AAAAH!" Olivia exclaimed, her words cutting off into a shriek. She was pointing frantically at something behind me, and I quickly turned to see that one of the humanoid statues had begun to move.

"Ah crap. Of COURSE there's spooky animated statues guarding the treasure. OF. COURSE." I snapped, quickly drawing my usual diamond sword. The rest of the statues were moving now, lumbering towards us with heavy but swift steps.

"There's too many!" Lukas cried. He was right. There was around a dozen of the mysterious statues, more than twice our number.

"Just do the best you can!" I shouted back. Two of the terracotta 'golems' came for me, and I readied my sword. The first one swung its arm towards me, but I ducked it and jabbed it in the side. It flashed red and paused for a second, giving me time to slash at the second one. I pivoted and jabbed the first one twice, then knocked the second to the floor and finished it off with a well-placed stab.

There was a loud BOOM, and I looked up at how my friends were doing against the animated statues. Axel had apparently thrown a block of TNT, which had killed the three figures he had been up against. Lukas and Petra were fighting back-to-back against four of them, and appeared to be winning. Olivia, however, was on her own against two, and I rushed over to help.

"Hey, Jesse! You should try that weird sword on one of these things!" Petra suggested.

"Sure, why the hell not." I switched out my diamond sword for the mysterious red one, then prepared to attack one of the statues. It turned to face me, as if sensing my motives.

I was not prepared for what happened next. I did expect something strange to happen when I used the sword, but this caught me off-guard nonetheless.

I swung the weapon at the animated figure, striking it across the chest. There was a strange whoosh sound; the statue froze in place, turned into an unfamiliar dusty-red substance, and crumbled into a small pile on the floor.

"WHOA! Did you guys SEE that?!" I shouted. Based on the wide-eyed stares I was getting, they had. Having dispatched of the rest of the statues, the rest of the Order stood around me, examining the sword.

"I'm kinda afraid to be touching it." I admitted. Olivia nodded. "That was weird. Downright impossible, even."

"Let's get out of here, before something else happens." Petra decided.

"Agreed." We managed to get back up the parkour-stairway, and left the temple without looking back. I was still thinking about the sword; where it had come from, what it was made of, and how it could destroy enemies so effortlessly. Olivia also looked deep in thought, but she didn't say anything else about it.

We had just entered the gates of Beacontown when Petra spoke up again. "Y'know, it's been awhile since we found anything truly bizarre in a temple. Do you think there could be anything else back there? Some other hidden thing, like how the Sky City portal was in the attic of that jungle temple? I'm just wondering, seeing about that crazy sword and all."

"I dunno. I guess it's possible, though I didn't see anything like that while we were in there." Lukas commented.

"Maybe we should go back there some time and check it out." Axel suggested as we stepped into our headquarters. I just shrugged. "Sure, worth a shot. Not tonight, though."

"Yeah." Olivia's reply ended in a yawn. "I'm really tired, and that place was a little farther away than I would've liked."

"It was worth it, though!" Petra grinned, and Lukas and Axel both agreed.

"Right. Well, let's rest up, and we can see where the day takes us tomorrow." I told them.

I went to my room, sorting my new treasures into a few chests. I took off my armor and laid on my bed, still thinking about the adventures of this evening. The sword. The weird animated statues. The sword. My thoughts continued in that loop, until I fell asleep.

---

"Jesse. Jesse! Wake up, notchdammit!"

I sat upright, smacking my forehead against Petra's. She reeled back, and I rubbed my head. "Jeez Petra, there are better ways to wake someone up."

"Well, shaking you usually works, so shut up." She snapped in response. I looked down, noticing that she was holding an arrow and a slightly crumpled piece of paper.

"What's that?" I asked. Petra handed it to me, her brow creasing into a frown. "I went outside this morning, and this arrow shot past my face and hit the door. It almost killed me, but this was attached to it."

I also felt my face fall into a confused expression as I read the note. "What the..."

Jesse- meet us at the temple this evening. Come alone. Bring the sword. Tell no one, and if you fail to show up, we WILL find you.

I set the paper down and looked back at Petra, who seemed just as confused as I felt. "What the hell does THAT mean?!"