Separated

Chapter 49: The Tomb of the Templars


The stairwell led the pair of heroes deeper and deeper into dim torchlight and stuffy air. Honeydew had long since grown used to such conditions, having spent the years of his youth in his underground home of Khaz Modan. The Dwarf carefully watched his step as he continued the long climb down into the depths of the Antioch family tomb, careful not to slip up on the thin coating of dust and sand that blanketed the stairway. One foot in the wrong spot would result in a long (and not to mention painful) tumble down an eternity-long flight of stone stairs. The torches continued to march in pairs along the walls, guiding both Xephos and Honeydew into the black unknown that lay in wait before them.

The rumbling echo of the mausoleum doors shutting above them had long since and died out, leaving the pair's footsteps to reverberate instead. Honeydew watched as the walls around him changed from sandstone bricks to solid sandstone. More strange runes and hieroglyphics were painted around the black silhouettes of Templar soldiers, lined up tall and proud as they steeled themselves for the battlefield. Further down the stairs, the fading symbols framed a group of Templar knights slewing a dragon and standing atop the corpse triumphantly. Eventually, the stairs came to an end when the chipping paintings became even more damaged by time. Here, the stalwart silhouettes of the powerful Templar soldiers had diminished to peeling black marks and obscurities.

Honeydew stepped off the final stair and planted his feet on solid sandstone before taking a good look around. Webley had not lied about this place being a labyrinth; immediately the pair was greeted with a three-way crossroads, more flickering torches ready to guide them in whichever direction they pleased. The Dwarf could only imagine how large the underground maze actually was. His moment of observation was interrupted when Xephos started chuckling at something again. The Spaceman had been so quiet since they had entered the tomb, Honeydew had almost forgotten that he was there.

"What's so funny?" Honeydew asked, turning to see Xephos snickering into his fist. The madman paused to briefly recompose himself before he replied.

"I'm just imagining what I'd look like without a head."

"What?"

"That's right! I'm the head of the board and I'm bored of my head!" Xephos then retuned to laughing at himself as Honeydew just frowned and sighed.

"Oh boy..." The Dwarf said under his breath. He then returned to figuring out the best strategy to quickly and efficiently conquer the maze before them. "Hmm...You once said something about following the left wall in mazes, right? Let's try that."

Xephos was still too busy laughing at the mental image of himself running around like a decapitated chicken to give a proper response. Honeydew sighed again and turned to follow the corridor to their left, trusting his comrade to keep up. The sandstone corridor continued on for a while, the walls once again decorated with many runes and hieroglyphics of the far-off past. These symbols had followed him almost the entirety of his journey: the buried building a ways off from Barbeque Bay, Lehparsi's Tomb, the railway in the Deepcore, and even some larger engravings in the wall of Swampy's Oasis. Honeydew wouldn't be surprised if Xephos had encountered similar markings during his trip to Skyhold. His mind began to wander has he and the Spaceman walked along, wondering what all these symbols could possibly mean. Were they associated with the Templars, or were they some sort of magical protection rune? It could even be both for all he knew. Whatever they were, however, Honeydew knew not to dwell on such a mystery for too long. Their meaning had been lost over the years, so trying to fruitlessly decipher them would only cause unneeded stress and annoyance.

Still, despite telling himself not to focus on the runes so much, Honeydew inevitably became distracted and stopped paying attention to where his feet were going. A small, sudden snapping sound brought the Dwarf back to reality. Before he could ask himself what the strange sound could have possibly been, a massive double-bladed axe swung down from its hiding spot along the ceiling, heading straight for Honeydew's head. He yelped in surprise before his quick reflexes allowed him to duck and take cover before the axe could come into direct contact with his face. It swung hard back up into the ceiling and imbedded itself there. Some loose chucks of sandstone rained down from the newly-formed crack as the foundations moaned and resettled from the trap's unexpected impact.

"What the shit was that?! They have traps here?!" Honeydew yelled, reaching protectively for his neck. Xephos, having thankfully been clear of the axe's range, was staring up at the damaged ceiling with an intrigued expression on his otherwise calm features.

"Wow. You almost lost your head." He remarked. More quietly, he muttered: "Lucky bastard."

"I've quite noticed, thank you very much!" Honeydew sassed back. He too turned to examine the axe stuck in the ceiling. "...Something doesn't seem right here. The axe looks old enough, but I find it odd how its mechanics still work after a million fucking years of accumulating dust."

Noticing something odd along the ground near his feet, the Dwarf knelt down to take a closer look. It took him a moment, but he eventually found a hairline-thin piece of wire that was nearly impossible to see in the torchlight. It ran perpendicular to the corridor and channeled through two miniscule holes in the wall, and it was severed at the halfway point between them. It the line of wire was still whole and taut, it would have hung just above the ground by approximately an inch.

"Aha! A tripwire!" He exclaimed. He suddenly paused, his brow furrowing as he brought the broken wire up for closer examination. "And it looks relatively new compared to everything else here. Don't tell me we have someone running around and resetting the traps!"

"We have someone around here resetting the traps." Xephos replied. He wore a cheeky grin as Honeydew looked up with a glare.

"Oh shut up. C'mon, let's get going, and watch where you step. If Verigan put all that effort into hiding a magic map that leads to here, then there's something fucking here. My best guess is the main burial chamber."

With that, the two continued further into the maze. Honeydew kept a watchful eye out for any more potential traps, yet that didn't stop them from accidently triggering a few more as the followed the left wall. Xephos once mindlessly stepped on a secret pressure plate that caused the floor to fall away into a pit of spikes. The only reason he didn't end up riddled with holes was because he was still coherent enough to grip the side as he fell. Another time a second tripwire sent a sharpened spear flying their way, which once again almost took off Honeydew's head.

"Fuck!" The Dwarf shouted, adjusting his helmet atop his head again. "We better be close to the burial chamber. Otherwise I don't think our luck will last much longer."

Thankfully, the maze's traps from that point on were few and far between, and by now the pair could recognize them much more easily. Honeydew began to wonder who exactly was refitting all the traps around here. A normal zombie or skeleton would be too stupid to do it, and they would most likely end up on the receiving end of the traps sooner or later. One of Israphel's higher-ranking lackeys could have done it as some sort of insurance policy, but even then he doubted their intelligence with tripwires and mechanics. Whoever it was, someone was definitely after them.

The two found out soon enough. After turning a corner that led into a new hallway, Honeydew stopped and reached out an arm to halt Xephos as well. Somewhere up ahead he overheard the sound of someone working. Their saboteur was somewhere nearby! Xephos seemed to realize this too, and another sadistic smirk clawed its way onto his face as he reached for his weapon. Moving as stealthily as he could, Honeydew continued down the corridor, following after the strange creaking-cranking noise of ancient, faulty mechanics. His ears led him to another corner, where he stopped to crane his neck around the wall and sneak a peak at the strange worker.

He'd never expected to see a familiar orange beard poking out from black, robotic armor again.

"You!" He shouted, not caring if he blew his cover. The Honeydew clone jumped and looked up from tweaking the cogs of another spear catapult. The pair of Honeydews locked eyes for half a second before the clone turned and bolted down another corridor, abandoning its current project. Instantly the real Honeydew launched himself from his hiding place and took off after it, deciding not to question how it had gotten all the way out here just yet. His mentally-unwell associate followed close behind, his diamond sword already raised above his head.

"Get back here you good-for-nothing copy!" Honeydew shouted. His clone retaliated with something in Dwarvish that instantly boiled the original's blood. "Don't you dare talk about my mother like that!"

The clone, despite its clunky armor weighing it down, kept ahead fairly well. Honeydew was always a few good strides behind, but the occasional unexpected turn set him back a few steps momentarily. The chase continued through the empty hallways before the clone swung around another left turn, which its two pursuers copied a few seconds after. Honeydew was suddenly aware that the hallway was suddenly wide and large pillars were supporting a roof far above their heads.

Honeydew's evil copy had led them straight to the main burial chamber. Whether it was on purpose or not, Honeydew was currently unsure. Here, the room was vaguely shaped like a keyhole. The widened hall continued to stretch forward before it ended in a rotunda. Resting equidistance between each pair of pillars sat a sealed stone sarcophagus on a slightly raised platform. Pillar, sarcophagus, pillar, sarcophagus; the pattern repeated and lapped around the entirety of the chamber. Up ahead, within the rotunda, some stairs led up to another, higher raised platform, but Honeydew had no time to worry about that at the moment. He had just grown aware of the piles and piles of explosives bordering every wall.

As it ran, the clone reached for something on its belt. As it moved to do so, Honeydew realized that the device was a detonator. In a sudden burst of adrenaline, the Dwarf sprinted forward and tackled his clone just as it removed the detonator from its belt and prepared to push the button. Both Honeydews collided and tumbled forward as the detonator went flying, skidding further towards the center of the rotunda. For a brief moment, both dwarves looked up at the detonator, glanced at each other, and then scrambled for the trigger. They reached it at the same time, but their grabby hands only succeeded in knocking it further forward. Honeydew was just about to get his hands on it when a sucker punch to the jaw knocked him away. As the real dwarf lay dazed, his clone set out to grab the detonator and bring the whole tomb crashing down on them all when something grabbed its shoulder and yanked it back. Xephos had finally caught up to the two Honeydews, and the murderous glint in his eyes showed that he was ready for blood again. He flipped the clone onto its back and raised his sword again.

"Blood can undo what blood has done!"

The distraction provided enough time for Honeydew to recover from the earlier blow and run for the detonator nearby. He picked it up off the ground, careful not to accidently press the trigger.

"Aha!" He shouted victoriously, but his success was short-lived. It slipped out of his hands when the form of Xephos suddenly and unexpectedly collided with him. The detonator went flying again, and Honeydew's clone (now possessing a bleeding shoulder) went running after it. Xephos was the first to get up, abandon his sword, and tackle the clone a second time, but this time the trigger didn't slip from its grasp. The clone and the madman were now tossing and turning along the dusty crypt floor, though the Spaceman was much more interested in trying to strangle his adversary than getting his hands on the detonator. The clone reached up and was about to press down the trigger button again when suddenly a crossbow bolt pierced through the back of its hand, knocking the device away. It cried out and cursed angrily before it shoved Xephos off of itself. Meanwhile, the real Honeydew dropped his crossbow back on top of his unzipped bag and raced for the detonator. He wrapped his hands around the device again, but knew his clone was just behind him. Suddenly, he had an idea.

"Xeph! Head's up!" Deciding to trust the homicidally insane madman with an explosive device rather than his pyromaniac of a clone, Honeydew reeled back his arm and chucked the detonator over his clone's head and towards the Spaceman, who managed to catch it successfully. As the clone turned its head to follow the trigger with its eyes, the Dwarf pulled his diamond pickaxe from his belt and seized the evil copy in front of him. In a swift, adrenaline-backed motion, he whirled the clone back around to face him before he sent the end of his pickaxe straight into its head. The clone had no time to react as the diamond pick pierced his helmet and smashed its way through its skull. Honeydew removed his bloodied weapon and watch his clone fall to the floor, lifeless. He let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank Notch that fiasco's over and done with." He muttered. He approached Xephos, who was looking the detonator over curiously, and snatched it away from him. He then proceeded to drop it onto the ground and smash it under his heavy iron boot. "There. That should do it."

Honeydew took a brief moment to ponder how on Minecraftia had his clone managed to get all the way from The Sentinels to the Antioch Family Tomb. Since both the tomb and The Sentinels had a network of interconnecting tunnels and passageways, it was plausible that his clone had stumbled its way out of The Sentinels into an underground cavern that just so happened to connect to the tomb later on. That, or it had somehow managed to brave the heat and find its way here from a surface-level exit closer to the tomb altogether. Either way, both of the clones that Xephos had created during his little "Mad Scientist" game were dead, and that was a major load off the Dwarf's mind.

"So, is everyone buried here related to KP in some way?" Honeydew asked, taking another look at the numerous sarcophagi that surrounded them. He frowned at his own question, remembering the image of Peculier falling into his bubbling, radioactive grave. He didn't deserve a death like that. He deserved to be buried here, with the bodies of his ancestors, or at the very least given a proper grave. But sadly, that would never happen now; his body was lost and unsalvageable, and there was no sense fretting about it when everyone in Minecraftia was mere hours away from total annihilation.

Xephos didn't reply to his question, instead moving to reclaim his sword and sheath it again. Honeydew scanned the rotunda again and saw the stairs he had barely noticed upon entry. They led up to some sort of large plaque mounted on the wall, overlooking the multiple graves. Since it was risen a considerable distance over the sarcophagi, it was bound to be important. Perhaps it was just what they were looking for!

Not wasting any more time, Honeydew hurried up the sandstone stairs to read what the plaque had to say. Some words were faded, but everything could still be read clear enough. The plaque read out as follows:

The Antioch Family Curse

Pleasure and woe both come with thy name;

Notch grants a power of internal light, but a scourge of external darkness.

Responsibility is forced upon those born Antioch;

Darkness falls, the light drives it out, the balance forever maintained.

Only with the tradition early forged

may Antioch blood forever continue to drive out the darkness.

Darkness is endless, so responsibility never ends.

Such is The Antioch Family Curse.

Honeydew read the cryptic message over three more times, but each time it only succeeded in making him more confused. This didn't help them at all! It was apparent enough that Antiochs were a long line of peacekeepers fighting against evil, so this plaque had done nothing but restate old information. One line, however, caught the Dwarf's attention specifically. "Only with the tradition early forged." Was that it? Was that what they needed to defeat Israphel? If so, what tradition was the message even talking about?

It was all so infuriating. Honeydew turned and sulked back down the stairs where Xephos was waiting. This whole trip was a waste of precious time. Israphel was an hour or two away from world domination, and they were still powerless to stop him, let alone find him. The Dwarf looked over towards his associate, who was staring back at him expectantly.

"Nothing. Bloody nothing!" He shouted, throwing his arms up momentarily. Honeydew's brow furrowed again as he tried to think. There had to be something here. There had to be! Verigan wouldn't lead them around half of Minecraftia just for a wild goose chase. Think, think, think!

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Honeydew saw something flying rapidly in their direction. Before he could process what was going on, it struck the ground between the two heroes and caused a large cloud of lime green gas to envelope them entirely. Honeydew started hacking as soon as the strange substance entered his lungs, and his hands quickly flew up to shield his mouth and nose. He heard Xephos coughing beside him, and suddenly the Dwarf found his eyelids beginning to grow heavy. He mentally cursed as the Spaceman began to stumble and lose his footing next to him. Xephos managed another weak laugh, apparently finding their current situation funny, before his knees buckled and he fell flat on his stomach. The man was unconscious before he even hit the ground.

Honeydew coughed again and suddenly found himself on his knees. He tried to stand, but his head was spinning too fast for him to maintain any balance. Shit. Shit. He fell forward as the strange cloud began to disperse, allowing the Dwarf to get a brief look at his assailants. Through blurry vision, Honeydew managed to make out the large, grotesque shape of Creeper_Boss, a small battalion of zombies, and a pale figure that waved his hand and dismissed a glowing green spell from his palm. As much as he tried to resist, Honeydew eventually blacked out. The last thing he saw was the murky image of Israphel as he and his giant pet creeper began to approach.