fragments of the elder blade

The air on the fifth floor was different. Thicker, somehow. The reek of damp stone and mold was overlaid with a metallic tang, like blood mixed with old iron. Baylan, his back aching from the relentless descent, tightened his grip on his worn leather-wrapped sword handle. Fifth floor. Rumours whispered of tougher creatures, crueler traps. He was ready. Or so he thought.

He stepped into a wider chamber, the cavern opening up like a gaping maw. The walls were slick with moisture, reflecting the flickering light of the luminescent moss clinging to the ceiling. He scanned the space, sword held ready, eyes darting across shadows that danced and shifted but revealed nothing. Too quiet. Dungeon floors were never this quiet.

Then, it erupted.

Not with a roar, but with a sickening thwack and the rasp of thick ropes whipping through the air. Before Baylan could even register the movement, weighted nets dropped from hidden alcoves in the ceiling, entangling him in their sticky, tarred embrace. He roared, a sound of frustrated fury, and hacked at the ropes with his axe. But even as he severed strands, more ropes snaked around his legs, tripping him. He crashed to the damp stone floor, nets clinging to him like tenacious vines.

"Well, well, well," a gruff voice drawled from the shadows. "Look what the cat dragged in. A lone wolf straying too far."

Figures emerged, stepping out of hidden niches and corners, their armor glinting faintly in the dim light. Kordan Mercenaries. Brutal, efficient, and known for their love of coin and cruelty in equal measure. Baylan cursed under his breath, recognizing their emblem – a black scorpion on their breastplates. He'd heard tales of their operations in these dungeons, preying on unwary adventurers. He'd been foolish to think with all that had happened in the outside world he could avoid these money hungry hyenas.

They advanced, their movements practiced and coordinated. One mercenary, burlier than the rest, approached him with a smirk. He was missing an ear, and a jagged scar bisected his shaved head. "Looks like you got yourself in a bit of a tangle, dungeon delver," he sneered, kicking Baylan in the ribs, making him grunt. "Don't worry, we'll untangle you. Just, uh… in our own way."

Steel chains materialized, cold and heavy, clinking ominously in the quiet chamber. They moved with practiced ease, wrapping them around Baylan's wrists, his ankles, cinching them tight. He struggled, rage surging through him, but the combined weight of the nets and the mercenaries' strength held him down. His axe was wrenched from his grasp and tossed aside.

"Up you go," Scarface grunted, hauling him to his feet, chains biting into his flesh. "The boss wants a word with you. Seems you've been poking your nose where it doesn't belong."

Baylan was dragged forward, stumbling and straining against the chains. They marched him deeper into the chamber, towards a narrow passage he hadn't noticed before, hidden behind a cleverly disguised illusion of solid rock. The mercenaries shoved and jostled him, their rough hands and taunts adding insult to injury. He tasted blood where his lip had split against the stone floor.

This was it, he realized, a cold pit forming in his stomach. He'd heard rumours of the Kordan leader, a ruthless brute named Vorgath who delighted in breaking adventurers before selling them off or… worse. His blood ran cold. He had to escape. But chained, disarmed, surrounded… hope seemed a distant flicker.

As they approached the hidden passage, the air around them shifted. It grew colder, not with the damp chill of the dungeon, but with a profound, unnatural cold that seeped into bone and marrow. The mercenaries paused, even their hardened faces showing a flicker of unease. The luminescent moss flickered and dimmed, casting the chamber into deeper shadow.

A low hum resonated through the stone, vibrating in Baylan's teeth, a sound older than the dungeon itself, older perhaps than time. The very air seemed to crackle with an unseen energy. Then, in the passage ahead, the stone ripple. Not crumble or break, but ripple, like the surface of water disturbed by a thrown stone.

A tear opened in reality itself. It wasn't a portal in the traditional sense, not a swirling vortex of colours. Instead, it was a clean, vertical line, shimmering with an impossible light, as if the fabric of existence had been sliced open. Through the tear, not darkness, but nothingness was visible. A void, yet somehow pregnant with… potential.

The Kordan mercenaries stammered, weapons raised but trembling hands betraying their fear. Scarface swore under his breath, but no one dared to move. Baylan, despite his fear, felt a bizarre sense of anticipation, a primal instinct recognizing something ancient and powerful.

From the rift, not a figure emerged, but an presence. It was formless, yet undeniably there. He felt it as much as saw it, a weight, a pressure, a knowing that settled upon him, filling him with an understanding that transcended language. It was ancient, primordial, something from the raw, unshaped chaos before the world was even born.

And then, from the void, something was offered. Not with hands, for the being had none apparent, but it was presented, thrust forward through the tear in reality. It was a blade.

Not forged, but grown. It was obsidian black, impossibly sharp edges shimmering with an inner light. Runes, not carved, but etched into the very substance of the metal, pulsed with a faint, ethereal blue. The hilt was wrapped in what looked like petrified wood, cool and smooth to the touch. It radiated power, a silent, humming energy that resonated deep within Baylan's soul.

The tear in reality shimmered again, and a voice echoed, not in their ears, but in their minds, a resonant, archaic tone that seemed to shake the very foundation of the dungeon.

"For the worthy. For the path ahead. The Elder Blade."

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the tear vanished. The humming faded. The unnatural cold receded. The luminescent moss flickered brighter, chasing away the deeper shadows. The chamber was quiet again, save for the ragged breaths of the mercenaries and the frantic thumping of Baylan's own heart.

In his shackled hands, impossibly, impossibly, rested the Elder Blade. It was warm to the touchZ, a comforting heat that spread through his chained limbs, chasing away the cold and the fear. The weight of it was perfect, balanced, as if it had been made for his grip alone.

The Kordan mercenaries were still frozen, staring wide-eyed at the spot where the rift had been. Scarface was the first to break the silence, his voice a hoarse whisper. "What… what in the abyss was that?"

Baylan looked down at the blade in his hands. Elder Blade. He didn't understand what it was, or why hehad been chosen to receive it. But as he felt its power thrumming in his veins, as he saw the fear in the eyes of his captors, a flicker of something that wasn't just hope, but something akin to triumphant certainty ignited within him.

He was still chained. He was still outnumbered. But now… now he had a blade. And something told him, deep within the ancient resonance of the Elder Blade, that these chains were about to become very, very brittle.