“Do you want tomato on your sandwich?” Avery’s mother asks the hungry invader.

“Yes please.”

“Would you like pepper?”

“Yes please.”

“Do you want another slice of cheese?”

“Yes please.”

“How about some bacon?”

“Yes please.”

“Lettuce on top?”

"Yes please.”

“Did you want an egg on top?”

“Yes please.”

“Avery, who did you bring into this kitchen?”

“I don’t even know,” the necromancer disavows, “those two just started tagging along at the end.”

“Hey, I would take umbrage to that designation,” interjects the healer, “as I was specifically called over in order to-”

Avery clamps her hands over the invader’s mouth.

“Alright, you are a reasonable guest who has absolutely no problems whatsoever, and who is going to just quietly eat the food being made for you, correct?”

“Mmph.”

“You are perfectly capable of shaking your head.”

“Mmhm.”

“Good.”

“So Avery, what is it you don’t want the guest to talk about,” asks the mother, placing a large bacon, lettuce, tomato, egg sandwich in front of the hungriest one, and withholding the more plain sandwich from her daughter.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Hefting his pick, Ham headed up toward the newly opened doorway, not questioning the turn of events in the slightest. This would be the last room to check out, which meant he could start looting. At the very least, any hostile undead were locked securely in their coffins.

Much like the other end rooms, this chamber was relatively small. About eight meters wide, and six meters deep, it was the only part of the mausoleum so far to not have an extremely obvious coffin. Or, four extremely obvious coffins. Instead, it only had a single stone statue in the center.

It was a sort of square frustum starting from the ground, with a hole in the center, about forty-five millimeters wide and nine millimeters across, to some unknowable depth. Near the top of the frustum, with one foot on the flat plane itself, a figure of a person pulling a sword was carved from the same type of stone.

From what Ham could tell, the sword looked real.

That made this place the place to start looting. Clambering up onto the pedestal holding the sword aloft, he pokes at the blade with his non-pick holding hand. Oddly, he doesn’t feel anything. Holding up his finger to his face, he sees that he has in fact cut himself down to the bone. While he can’t do anything about the blood getting everywhere, he can fix the injury by running his dark energy through himself again.

Attempt two, Ham tries touching the handle. Immediately, he feels weaker just by being in contact with the object. Despite doing his absolute best to never learn anything in the temple, Ham remembers that magical interactions have a debilitating effect when put in close proximity to each other. As such, that meant that this sword was both magical, and a power of Light.

Two could play at that game.

If this sword was going to be a wellspring of raw light, Ham would be a fountain of darkness. Rather than let the negative energy flow through him normally, as he normally did, Ham shut down every metaphysical exit point of his body. The space around him dulls, and a damp heaviness fills the tomb. Releasing his grip, a wave a black energy erupts from Ham, filling a moderate amount of area around him with the deathly energy.

He may have overestimated the forces he had at his disposal.

It was enough for the sword itself to respond though. Countering the burst of darkness, the sword glows. Then, it glows brighter. As Ham steps back from the continuously growing light, the intensity of the blade increases to the point that it becomes a pillar of incredible eye pain. All around him, the stone of the wall starts to flake as the scouring light burns away the layers of every surface exposed to it.

Belatedly, Ham realizes that includes him, and starts channelling his own darkness to counter the flesh-melting.

Unfortunately, that appeared to set the sword off even harder, and with a flash the top of the mausoleum ceases to exist, allowing a towering beam of light to burst forth into the sky. At this point, Ham is committed to his course of action though, so he just draws out more darkness, far more targeted than the indiscriminate light, and heals through the damage. Stepping back toward the sword, Ham drops his pick as he makes his way back up to the platform as the statue, room, and block are slowly ground away. He was going to get that cash money.

Gripping the hilt with both hands, above and below the hands of the statue, Ham gives up on healing himself for the moment, and takes a gamble. Channeling all his darkness into the sword itself, he attempts to suppress the blade’s magic, much like how its mere contact with his skin is enough to suppress his own strength.

For a moment, it seems to work, as the beam flickers.

Then, the sword bursts with a physical blast of light, much like Ham’s far more paltry blast of darkness, throwing him backward out of the room.