The next morning, the group left their horses tied to a juniper tree beside their campsite, and headed down a slope that led around to a beach in front of the rocky cliff face. There they found the cave entrance, which was almost a perfect half-circle, in the middle of the sand-colored stone. Tess pulled out her daggers and held one in each hand, while Matt unsheathe is sword beside her, and Ayden hung back, as they walked closer.

Tess nodded to the cave. “There it is. We’ll just pop in, grab the key, and pop out,” Tess said jokingly.

Ayden chuckled. “Easy.”

Matt smirked. “Let’s hope not.”

Tess shot him a smile of agreement. “So, you’re going in there like that?”

“Like what?”

“All you’re wearing is basically wristbands and a vest,” she reminded him. “Do you consider your bare chest a weapon or something?”

He grinned. “In some circumstances. I don’t see you wearing any armor.”

She smirked. “What do you call bracers?”

“Hey guys, you might wanna pay attention to the rocks in front of you,” Ayden told them. “They’re kind of moving.”

Tess looked back at the cliff face to see two humanoid giants emerging from wide crevices in the wall on either side of the entrance. “Cool,” she said, though her eyes widened and she instantly felt a jolt of fear. This was it—their first actual monster encounter, though a goblin or two would have been a preferable place to start. These things were twice as tall and at least three times as wide as Matt.

She looked back at Ayden and he met her gaze, his eyes saying the same thing hers were: Oh gods, are we ready for this?

Yes, Tess thought firmly, now annoyed at herself for her reaction. She faced the monsters again and took a deep breath. They had spent years for this. They could do it. She pushed the fear back and let the excitement come forward because, in truth, she felt as much giddy anticipation as she did fear.

One of the monsters picked up a large rock from beside the cave entrance and threw it at her. She jumped out of the way and Ayden shot two lightning bolts from the palms of his hands, one right after the other, hitting each of the giants. The bolts created little holes in their chest and a small part of their sandstone bodies turned to black glass.

The giants stumbled back a step, but then moved forward again. Realizing that magic was the biggest threat, they went immediately for the mage.

Matt put a hand on Tess' arm to get her attention, then leaned close and glanced up at the top of the cliff. “Bigger they are, harder they fall,” he whispered.

“Good idea,” she told him, then looked at Ayden who was closest to the slope. “Ayd!” When he was able to spare a glance at her, she motioned with her eyes up the cliff.

He nodded, then started running up the slope, toward the top, occasionally turning back to shoot more lightning at the monsters that followed. But the plan wasn’t going to work because Ayden was too slow. The giants were catching up, swinging at him with stone clubs that seemed to be attached to their right hands.

Tess studied the monsters for a moment. “Is the rock basically armor or what?” she called to Ayden.

“Not... sure,” he called back breathlessly. “Rare. Don’t”—he ducked one of the clubs—“know... much.”

“We’ll just have to find out,” she said to herself as she put one of her daggers away and then ran at a giant. She jumped onto its back and climbed up its jagged sandstone body, using the protruding rocks as hand and footholds. It didn’t even seem to feel her as it continued after the mage. When she got up to its shoulders, she drove the ten-inch blade of her dagger into a crevice where the top of its neck met its head.

She had her answer as it gave a thunderous roar and tried to hit her. She pulled out the bloody dagger and moved to the side dodging the blow. She climbed a bit further until her arm was wrapped around the top of its head, then stabbed it in one of its black eyes. She took out her dagger—clear goo now mixed with blood on the blade—and quickly stood on its shoulders as it wobbled for a moment. She jumped off and landed lithely on the ground just seconds before the giant fell with a loud crash.

Meanwhile, Matt had thrust his sword into an opening at the back of the other giant’s leg, making the creature drop to its knees. Ayden focused more intently on the next spell and aimed his lightning bolt for its eyes. It moved and he missed, but his next bolt made it and the thing fell over, dead.

The group stood in silence, staring at the two lifeless monsters, with just the sound of the nearby ocean.

Suddenly, Tess laughed victoriously. “Awesome! We rock!”

Ayden smiled and headed toward her. “More than... the rocks,” he said, panting and laughing softly himself.

She grinned and slapped his hand when he got close enough. “First monsters?”

“Check,” he said, grinning back. They stood there for a moment while Ayden caught his breath. Finally, he held a hand out. “Let me see your dagger.”

She frowned. “Why?”

He shook his head. “I won’t hurt your baby,” he teased. “I just wanna check these things out.”

“We have a key to find,” Matt reminded him.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Ayden told him as Tess handed him her weapon, which was still covered in goo and blood.

Matt sighed, but let it go as he resheathed his sword and lit a cigarette.

Ayden crouched beside the giant he had killed, wedged the blade down into one of the crevices in its chest, and pulled back. He had to work at it for a minute, but finally he pried the chunk of rock loose. Red blood seeped out from underneath it. He poked and prodded for a moment, examining the hole. “It’s got skin under the rock. It’s like snakeskin,” he told the others, then moved up to the monster’s face and started prying off some of the rocks there.

Matt shook his head and blew out smoke in a bit of huffy laugh. “You’re scared of a harmless grasshopper, but you can dissect a monster no problem?”

“It’s different,” Tess said. “Come on, Ayd. Let’s go.”

Ayden, having removed the rocks from around one of the eyes, touched the pure black eyeball. “Yeah... coming,” he called back. He opened the thing’s mouth and looked inside for a moment before reluctantly standing up. He walked a few yards to the ocean and washed the blood off Tess' dagger before returning to her.

“Happy?” Tess asked lightly.

“It’s great to see one,” Ayden said excitedly. “I mean, there’s barely anything on those in any of the books I’ve read. I think these monsters are basically like lizards with rock armor. They have a lizard’s eyes, teeth, and skin.”

“Fascinating,” Matt said sarcastically. “Can we go now?” His tone was annoyed, but his eyes showed that he was also amused. When Ayden nodded, Matt flicked his cigarette toward the ocean, pulled out his sword, and led the way to the cave entrance.

They entered and walked down an unnaturally smooth and obviously man-made tunnel. Ayden took the lead and cast his light spell as they descended into darkness. The sandy floor sloped down, and after a while they came into a perfectly square room that was fifty feet across. Just like the tunnel, the floor was covered with sand and the walls were smooth stone. The room was completely empty, with just a doorway on the far side and eight slits on each of the side walls, placed five feet apart from one another.

“Arrow traps,” Ayden said, pointing to them. “Nice touch with the sand, can’t tell where the triggers are at all.”

“Yeah, cool,” Tess agreed as she returned her daggers to her boots. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

He caught her hand and stopped her. “You’re not used to sand.”

She nodded and let him cast his shield spell. A translucent blue light moved out from his hand and covered her whole body like a form-fitting bubble, then disappeared. But it happened so fast that all anyone watching would see was a slight flash of blue.

“Stand aside,” she told them when he was done. As they got out of her way, she backed up into the tunnel a bit, then ran back into the room. She did a round-off then went into several back-flips. She ended on the other side of the room with a twisting flip in the air and landed on her feet, facing the guys.

“You set off two,” Ayden said.

“Two less for you,” she called back, then smirked at Matt. “Impressed?”

“I’m rarely impressed.”

“After the rock giant and now this?”

He gave her a half-smile. “That was pretty good.”

“Pretty good?” She scoffed. “That was great.”

He chuckled. “Done showing off?”

She grinned. “For now.”

Ayden smiled at her, then turned to Matt and held out a hand. “I’ll go first and you can follow in my footsteps, but I’ll recast my shield on you, just in case.”

“I’ll be fine,” Matt told him. “Go.”

Tess rolled her eyes. “Good thing you aren’t macho or anything.”

“It’s not necessary,” he argued.

“Better safe than sorry,” Ayden said.

When Matt hesitated, Tess added, “Just let him touch you for a second, it won’t hurt.”

Matt sighed as he held out his arm and let Ayden grab his wrist for a few seconds to recast the shield. “I should go first if I have the shield,” Matt told him.

Ayden shook his head. “I can’t do two personal shields at the same time, but I can use a wall shield for me. When Tess triggered those two arrows, they only shot from one side. I’ll be fine.”

“I thought a wall shield doesn’t move with you.”

“It doesn’t,” Ayden agreed.

“Then you’d have to cast it as soon as you hear the arrow release,” Matt pointed out. “There’s no way you’re fast enough.”

Tess grinned from the other side of the room. “Wanna bet?”

Ayden gave her another smile, then grew serious and focused as he started walking slowly toward her. Matt shook his head as he followed, obviously not believing the mage could do it.

They made it past most of the slits without triggering any. It wasn’t until the last one that they heard the click of the trap, and then the whoosh of the shaft speeding through the air. Ayden raised his right hand quickly, and the arrow hit the shield that had materialized in front of his palm. Blue cracks, like breaking glass, appeared in midair and then vanished as the arrow dropped to the sandy floor.

“Told you,” Tess said proudly, high-fiving Ayden as soon as he reached her. “First trap?”

“Check,” Ayden said with a grin. “We’ll have to do the same on the way out; they probably have a reloading mechanism.”

She nodded.

Matt raised a brow at them.

“Shut up,” Tess said. “We’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

“For traps and monsters?”

She grinned. “For adventure.”

He smiled back. “How’d you get so fast?” he asked Ayden. “I’ve never met a mage who can cast like that.”

“Tess is unrelenting when it comes to training,” he told him. “And you get pretty fast at casting, especially a shield, after you get a dagger in the thigh.”

Matt looked at Tess. “You trained him by throwing daggers at him?”

“It barely got him and I’m a good shot and I’d never seriously hurt him,” she said in a rush. “And he has a healing spell and it—”

“I was going to say: good thinking,” he cut in, his look calling her crazy. “Fear is a very effective tool.”

“Oh. Well... yeah.”

Ayden nodded. “And it’s better to be hit in practice by a friend than to not be quick enough in a real fight with things that wanna kill you.”

“True,” Matt agreed as he led the way forward. He stopped several feet into the next room, which was almost identical to the last—though this one had more sand and no arrow traps. “Here’s some more adventure for you,” he said lightly, obviously enjoying it as much as the others. He pointed to the sand near the center of the room. Something was moving beneath it.

Suddenly, the thing pushed up through the sand and lifted itself high above them. It was a massive tan snake with brown and black spots and three heads.

“I don’t think they want this key found,” Tess mused.

Matt smirked. “What fun would it be if they did?”

“True,” she said as she eyed the snake. It stayed back for a moment, hissing and flicking out its black forked tongues at them. “I’m guessing cutting their heads off will work?”

“Yeah, that should about do it,” Ayden agreed. “And this.” He shot a six inch long ice shard from his hand and hit one of the heads. The snake’s heads lashed at Ayden.

Matt swung, hitting the one on the right and tearing a long gash in its scaly skin.

Tess slashed at another and it lunged back. She dodged its attack, but the middle one immediately slammed its head into her as soon as she stood up straight. The strength of the monster sent her flying back. Ayden moved a hand out toward her and cast his feather fall spell, so that when she landed it was as if she had fallen from the height of a couple of feet instead of almost twelve.

Matt was getting up from the ground himself, but not before he severed the far right head. He ran to the creature’s body and plunged his blade into it. When its middle head came down toward him, Tess quickly threw one of her daggers at it. The weapon sunk into the snake’s eye until only the hilt was visible.

Ayden shot a lightning bolt at the left head while Matt pulled out his sword from the body and swung at the neck. The snake whipped its head around, thrashing wildly, and struck a magic shield that Ayden quickly put up in front of Matt.

“Back up,” Ayden told them as he cast a final lightning bolt. They moved just before the monster fell heavily to the ground, the weight of it causing the place to shake slightly for a moment.

Tess pulled her dagger from the monster’s eye and turned to the others. “Whew! Ready for more?” she asked with a smile, nodding toward the next doorway.

“A girl eager for action. I like that,” Matt said with an approving grin.

She grinned back.

“You know,” Ayden commented, “the books say these things are only fifteen to twenty feet long, but I think this one was more like thirty.”

“You should take notes,” Tess said. “You could write your own book someday.”

He smiled. “Yeah... maybe I will,” he agreed, following her into the next room.

They stopped only a few feet in because the floor ended. On the other side, fifty feet away, was another ledge and a doorway. The rest of the room was taken up by a wide abyss, with only a skinny two-inch beam connecting one side to the other.

“No flipping across this,” Ayden told Tess.

“I could do it.”

“Don’t.”

“I won’t,” she assured him. “Too risky to take the chance of falling... even if that chance is very slim.” When Matt looked skeptical, she told him, “I’ve spend time in the jungle every year with Tikki, a gnome, since I was twelve. I learned most of my acrobatics from her and I can make it through the treetops almost as fast as she can.” She smiled when he looked impressed again. She had worked hard to become as good as she was, and was quite proud of her abilities.

For Tess, walking across would be trivial, but Ayden, on the other hand, wouldn’t be able to make it. Balance was not a strength for him. She looked around for anything useful. There was nothing—the room was bare, and the ceiling was so high they couldn’t even see it. They had no choice but to use the extremely narrow bridge.

“Come on,” Matt said.

“Wait,” Tess told him. “Ayd, rope.” She held out a hand. Pulling it from his bag, he gave it to her. She handed Matt one end of it. “Hold this. I’m gonna get to the other side with my end. Ayd, you can hold on to the rope when you cross.”

Matt rolled his eyes, apparently annoyed with Ayden’s limitations, but he took the rope anyway.

“Be nice,” Tess grumbled at him. “You might be athletic guy, but Ayd kicks ass magically.”

“Go already,” he told her impatiently.

When she took a step onto the bridge, a fire suddenly roared to life below her. She paused, surprised, but the flames weren’t high enough to burn her—just made it hot, though bearable. It was probably meant to startle her into losing her balance, but she was fine and continued across with no difficulty. She pulled the rope tight and eyed Matt. He wrapped his hand around his end and nodded.

“Alright, Ayd,” she said.

She wasn’t surprised when he slipped four times on his way across, but Matt held firm, and Tess was glad that Ayden didn’t weigh that much, so she was able to keep her end of the rope steady enough. Once he was across, Matt followed. He was slower than Tess and was very focused on not falling, but he had good balance and made it just fine. Ayden returned the rope to his bag before they continued.

The next room looked like a natural cavern, with rough walls and stalactites spiking down from the ceiling. It was vast and almost completely filled with an underground lake. There was no way around it and no other doors or tunnels that they could see. So, figuring that there must be something underwater, Ayden picked up a rock the size of his fist and cast a lesser, green light spell on it, keeping his white orb at full power floating above him. When he threw the rock into the lake, the water lit up with an eerie green glow. On the other side of the lake, just below the surface, was a tunnel.

Tess put one of her daggers under her belt, against her hip, and then removed her boots and bracers. Ayden, knowing what she was doing, grabbed her hand and cast his shield spell on her in case there was anything in the water, perhaps lurking in the shadows around the edges.

“What are you doing?” Matt asked.

She gave him a look that said: Are you stupid? “Swimming. Stay here. I’ll give you guys a signal once I see what’s over there.” Matt didn’t look as though he liked the plan, but before he could argue, she dove into the water.

It was a nice, warm temperature, like a bath. She swam across the lake, passing over a floor covered with vines, and then into the tunnel. She emerged a little ways in, where the tunnel sloped up and came partly out of the water.

As soon as her head broke the surface, she heard the sounds of a fire starting, and then could see the soft glow of a torch in the distance. She swam closer and, after fifteen feet, the tunnel opened into a circular room with a small island in the middle. She pulled herself up onto it, and then looked down at the small wooden chest that lay in the island’s center. It was no more than eight inches long and four inches deep and wide.

Crouching beside it, she glanced around the room—there were no holes or slits in the walls, and nothing on the ceiling. This seemed too easy. Was there some trap? She inspected the box carefully, looking for tripwires or anything strange, but she found nothing. Perhaps the chest sprayed acid or something when you opened it?

There was only one way to find out.

Hoping Ayden’s shield worked against acid, she touched the box gingerly. Nothing happened, so she picked it up. Still nothing. She glanced around again, then looked back at the box and bit the inside of her cheek, thinking. It might be safer to take it back unopened. At least until Ayden could detect if there were any magical traps on it and be ready with his healing spell in case something got through the shield. But then, what if the box was a decoy, and there was nothing inside?

She took a deep breath, and then slowly opened the lid. Nothing happened. Inside was a silver key and a small scroll. She unrolled the parchment and found a map similar to the first with some strange characters written across the bottom of it. She smiled. This had to be a clue that would lead them to the Spirit Dagger. She rolled the scroll up and returned it to the chest, which looked like it would keep it dry enough. Box in hand, she jumped back into the water.

She had just reached the other side of the tunnel when something lashed out at her, making a sound like something slapping against glass. It was hitting the shield; she could only hear it because the spell had been cast around her. She looked down to see one of the vines from the bottom of the lake whipping toward her. It hit her shield again, making it glow blue for a moment, though the effect looked greenish in Ayden’s lesser light spell. She ignored the vine and swam away.

Here was the trap she had worried about. She wasn’t sure whether the vines were enchanted or if it was some kind of natural creature, but she didn’t care at the moment as the rest of the vines began to move toward her. As they did so, she could see the skeletons littered across the lake floor.

Now she felt panic.

She forced herself to stay calm and swam faster. The vines caught up with her and threw themselves against the shield until it finally broke. Several wrapped themselves around her legs, and the chest was pulled from her hands. As soon as it landed amid the bones on the floor, the vines began to recede.

Oh, no you don’t! Tess thought and dived deeper. She reached the chest quickly, but as soon as she grabbed hold, she was immediately covered in more vines. She pulled her dagger from her belt and slashed at them, but they kept coming and she was running out of air. She kicked as hard as she could and sliced as fast as she was able.

She made it to the surface and breathed in deeply, but she was only halfway across the lake, and more vines had already latched on to her ankles. She threw the box as hard as she could and saw it land on the ground near the guys just before she was pulled under again. She struggled as she sank deeper; more and more vines snaking around her, dragging her down. One slithered around her throat, strangling her.

Then Ayden came into view. He swam to her and helped cut away the vines with her other dagger. He put one of his arms around her waist, holding tight and cast his wall shield below them, causing the plants to hit against it again and again, making blue-green spots of light appear here and there. He tugged at the rope that was tied around his waist, then cast another shield when the first broke under the vines’ attacks.

They were pulled out of the water a minute later. Tess rolled onto her back and took a deep breath. She looked at Matt, who was holding the other end of the rope. “Guess those muscles do come in handy.”

“How do you think I got them?”

“You pull people out of lakes often, then?”

He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

She turned her head to smile at Ayden, who was lying next to her. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling himself.

“Fun, huh?”

Ayden nodded. “And tiring.”

“You can’t be tired,” Matt said incredulously, looking between the two.

“Not me,” Tess said, grinning as she sat up.

“She never is,” Ayden said, sitting up as well and chuckling. “Even when she sleeps, I’m sure she dreams of action.”

She smiled. She didn’t actually remember any of her dreams, but he was probably right. “Well, speaking of action...” She reached for the chest. “Here’s to more of it,” she said happily.

Matt held out his hand expectantly.

She took out the key and scroll. “Pick one,” she told him. “You hold one, we’ll hold the other.”

He looked at her oddly, though also amused. “Why?”

She shrugged. “It’s only fair. Then we can hold some of the glory too,” she said dramatically.

He smirked and took the key. “Then I’ll take the better one.”

“Maps are better,” she told him. “Locks can be broken.”

“Not all of them,” he argued, “but they can all be found.”

“Give me the key, you take the map,” she said, changing her mind.

Ayden rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

Tess just smiled and handed Ayden the scroll before putting her boots and bracers back on.

“We should ride back to the city and celebrate,” Matt suggested.

“Sounds good,” Tess readily agreed.

“It’ll be dark by the time we get there,” Ayden pointed out.

“Prefect time for some fun,” Matt told him with a half-grin.

Ayden sighed. He was outnumbered.