He woke up with his back stiff and his throat dry, but he ate into his travel rations and drank his water skin down to half full. Then he began to scale the cliff.

  Eric had climbed trees his whole life, and a few small cliffs near his village, so he began one rock at a time hand over foot, and each groove cut his hands a little more. Though by the time he realized how bad it was getting he was too high, his only choice was to press on.

  It took several hours of carefully grabbing the ridged rocks and pulling himself up, and he nearly fell to his death several times. When he finally reached the cave his hands were sore with small cuts all over, and he laid on his back for several minutes heaping in great breaths trying to get enough air to recover. Pulling out his canteen he guzzled the rest of his water trying to wet his dry throat, leaving just a few swallows just in case. Finally he took in his surroundings.

  Eric was surrounded by stone spikes protruding both up from the floor of the cave and down from the stone ceiling. He carefully stepped around them, and after a few yards they were smaller and smaller until the floor was flat rock. The light from outside began to dim, but he could just make out the cave floor sloping down in front of him. What he didn’t realize was just how wet the cave floor was.

  He slipped down the slope which turned out to be incredibly steep and growing steeper. The slope turned into a narrow shoot. That he was sliding down. Finally the shoot opened up and he free fell for nearly a story before splashing into shallow water. He quickly held his pack above his head trying to keep his equipment dry.

  His head was throbbing and a line of pain ran down the side of his back merging with his hip. He fumbled in his pack for a moment. Something skittered in the dark cave around him. Digging through his pack in the dark was worse than the time he lost his mothers good needle in the hay loft. Finally his hand closed around the rough edge of his striker stone. Pulling it out he struck it against the sword at his hip.

  Sparks flew illuminating the immediate space around him, for only a second. He swore he could see eyes reflecting the light. He threw his pack around his shoulder, as he pulled out his oil soaked torch. Holding it next to his blade as he struck the stone. The torch caught sparks but didn’t light. He struck the blade again and he watched as the sparks sprayed leaving an after image of blue on the back of his eyelids. He almost didn’t notice the torch spark up a little flame, but he definitely noticed the roaring flame take off beside him.

  Orange light filled the cavern painting the stone walls in shades of pink in the firelight. That paired with the many small waterfalls all around, made the cave feel like it was breathing. As if he were in the belly of some ginormous beast. A small step pyramid sat in the center of the cavern, made of polished marble, that seemed to dance with color in the flickering torch light. It contained a sword stuck into the pedestal at the top, the hilt glinting gold.

  Hellbound blade?

  He began to walk toward the pyramid, but as he did dozens of small multicolored four legged creatures with slimy skin, webbed toes, and spikes along their backs began emerging from the pools of water all around him. Each one was no larger than half the size of the wolf that first attacked him on the road. The closest one opened its mouth to reveal hundreds of needle-like teeth.

  With no other option Eric throttled his fear. This was the moment of truth, he would either claim that sword, or he would die trying. The first creature lunged for him, but a swipe of his grandfather’s sword sliced open its belly and it fell to the wet stone bleeding. Another tried to bite at his ankle, but he spun his sword down severing its spine at the neck.

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  He stood there slashing his sword violently at anything that got too close. He had to constantly look in every direction so as not to be taken from behind, and he waved his torch frantically spooking them off whenever he got overwhelmed. It was after nearly an hour of constant fighting Eric stood there panting with a sword still on guard and a ring of gore and small corpses around him.

  After a few minutes he realized there weren’t any more monsters coming and he sheathed his sword. Cautiously he walked to the step pyramid, constantly glancing to either side in case of any more surprises. He stepped on the first step at the base expecting a trap, but nothing happened. It was just polished stone.

  So smooth his foot slipped off the edge of the wet step, falling forward and cracking his jaw on the third step up. He hit it so hard it felt like the step moved, something whooshed over head and he heard something clatter to the cave floor behind him.

  Still in too much pain to process the trap he just tripped. He let his body fall limp and he melted to the bottom of the steps. When his head finally stopped throbbing he fumbled around on the floor finding a dart about as long as his hand.

  Most likely poisoned.

  It was the third step up that triggered the dart, so maybe every three steps was trapped. Testing his hypothesis, safely, he crawled up the steps slowly carefully testing the first two steps. He avoided the third, testing the fourth. Nothing happened, same with the fifth, but the sixth shot a dart that barely wizzed over the top of his scalp.

  His working theory looking good he continued on still crawling low, it was slightly embarrassing, but effective. He avoided every third step all the way up. He counted twenty seven steps, but step twenty six broke the pattern. As soon as the step clicked he ducked and a dart thwacked into his backpack.

  He rolled on to the top platform throwing off his pack to see where the dart impacted. The dart seemed to hit his frying pan.

  Lucky break.

  When he finally reached the top of the pyramid, he saw the sword up close. The hilt was gold carved with what appeared to be two feathered serpents wrapping around the handle, mouths opened to hold the ball that was the pamal. Although he could only see the very base of the blade it did not appear to be made of metal. Instead it was solid black with small multi colored dots of light inside, like looking at a piece of the night sky. He reached out, touching his fingertips to the hilt.

  “Excuse me!” he heard the voice of an angry woman echoing around like wind whistling through the cave. “What makes you think you could just walk up and grab all up on my hilt, without even a simple hello?

  “Well I-“

  “No, don’t even try. I feel violated, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

  It took Eric entirely too long to understand that it was the sword talking to him and even longer for him to understand what in the hells she was talking about. Finally he just confessed. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me, I am Eric and I’m an adventurer, who came here to claim the sword of air, if I had realized you could talk I would have approached you very differently.”

  “Well… alright,” she said with a sigh. “I’m Stella The Master Sword of the plane of air, but I’m still not sure if you understand what that means.” She was calmer but her voice still sounded irritated.

  “That you’re an incredibly powerful hellbound weapon.”

  “Not just a hellbound. I was made from a shard of the hell of air, and forged with the essence of life. I am the ultimate weapon of wind.”

  “Neat, so could I, maybe, wield you?”

  “And why would I let you wield me?” She said indignantly.

  “Well, I just thought you probably don’t like being surrounded by earth and water. You know, being a sword of air and all.” Eric replied earnestly, trying not to sound mocking.

  “Hm, I suppose it would be nice to get some fresh air for a bit,” she said without a hint of irony in her voice. “But I am in charge, being the more experienced and most powerful.”

  Eric rolled his eyes dramatically before finally saying “fine” he also realized the sword couldn’t exactly fly off without him, could it?

  “Very well brave sir Eric I dub thee my wielder,” she proclaimed. Then added “until someone better comes along.”

  Eric was no longer listening; he was already grabbing her hilt with both hands and pulled the sword from the pedestal. Raising it above his head in triumph he cheered.

  “Uh I know this is a big moment for you but…” Stella interrupted his celebration. “Do you know how to get out of here?”