A Girl, A Legend, and A Sword
"You think you can sneak up on me and steel my stuff? Not with out a fight" the gruff female voice shout at me from the shadows, sword leveled at my chest.
"What? No. No. No. I'm not trying to steal your stuff, I'm just trying to get over the mountain. It was getting dark and I thought I would stay here for the night and move on tomorrow." I said thinking of a way to disarm her should she attack.
"Oh," she said in a different tone, "In that case sorry for scaring you." She sheathed the sword and stepped forward revealing that she was an earth pony that had a grey coat of fur with dark brown hair on her head. She had large yellowish orange eyes a similar color to that of fire. she wore a pack and had an anvil as a cutie mark.
"It's alright, I wasn't expecting to be threatened, or for anyone else to be up here." I thought for a minute, "What are you doing up here anyway?"
"Well it's a long story and I don't know what your doing up here," she started to walk away and the said, "You can stay with me if you like, I have a fire and it's going to rain soon."
"Oh thank you very much, I don't suppose you have food do you?"
"I do, and you can have a little if you like, but I'm not giving you all of it so save it wisely." she quipped, "My names Honey Smith"
"Right my name is Ma..." I had to think of a cover name quickly, then I had an I idea, " My name is Manna."
I followed Honey back to her camp site, where she had a bed roll, a small fire, a few pots full of food and water boiling over the fire, maps shrewd about everywhere, and an extra pack full of tools and rags. We sat on opposite sides of the fire. It danced between us as I asked her what I could eat and couldn't which lead to a full conversation on who I was and where I came from, I gave her a vague description on my story since I had been in Equestria, as for what happened to me before I lied and told I couldn't remember because I had hit my head. When I had finished my tale we ate and drank some clean water. After we finished we told stories that we thought were awesome, funny, scary, or anything else we could think of. I started telling a story about me and my friends and the things we used to do, the reminiscing made me feel solemn again and I was silent for a long time, I then broke the silence and asked her where she was from and if she had any friends waiting for her back home. A little reluctant to answer at first, Honey then told me she was the black smith for a small village hidden away in another valley in the opposite direction, she had a brother and two sisters of which she was the oldest. It was her job to take care of them and that she was here looking for gold and other things to sell. Honey then also mentioned some thing about an old legend surrounding the cave and some powerful sword in the heart of the mountain. She then reached into her bag and produced an old piece of parchment that read as follows: Heed these words as true and heed them well, inside the heart of Eyoa Hvelfingu is a sword of unmatched power, to venture inside is to over come many hard ships and to be the one of legend. Inside you will face peril that will test you mind, body, soul, and character. Whence you have over come these trials the blade Eldur Innan will yield to you. With it at your side, may none over take you, the weapon shall not bend nor will it break, never will it dull nor will it heat, only one of pure heart may wield such power. With this power comes the ability to vanquish evil and cleanse the sun of impurity. The message has been delivered, take from it what you will, on the day of red sun the prophecy will come to pass. I found the whole thing quite odd seeing as such a powerful sword would no doubt be where it was left. But seeing as how the traps the parchment spoke of still might be active I offered to go through the cave with Honey. She was reluctant at my motives, but after showing the caves map of the back that went all the way through the mountain and out the other side, she agreed that it would be good to have an extra set of eyes. With that settled we went to sleep and would plan out our next moves the following morning.
It was dark as only a few rays of light entered the cave but it was no doubt morning. I sat up groggily after a painful night on the hard ground. My whole body was stiff so I stood and stretched as best as I could, every thing cracked, my muscles loosened and I felt better. I ate my breakfast quickly and silently as to not waste and time while Honey made torches for us to carry on our way through Eyoa Hvelfingu. Once done Honey helped me to understand how to hold things with my hooves and then secured the torch the extra pack she was letting me carry, I secured her torch to her pack, and then we moved deeper into the cave. We moved slowly and silently not knowing what to look out for or what to expect. As we moved I could see though the darkness with a keenness that I had acquired when I was a human. Suddenly in a hushed tone Honey called me over to look at "strange letters" carved into the wall. I looked and in Nordic Runes it spelled out what danger lied ahead of us, pressure plates that would shoot off poison darts, I then checked the tiles on the floor and saw which ones were labeled safe and which were labeled dart. With me leading we crossed the floor of plates and got safely to the other side where more instructions were. These spoke of a test of strength, which we ended up pushing large stones around, then a maze in which we had to solve puzzles and riddles in order to go the right way. Then finally we found a large door blocked by a stone that had to weigh at least three tons. After trying from all angles to move this stone to no avail we were about to give up when Honey noticed a series of releases on the wall. Upon further inspection I confirmed that they would indeed release enough of the floor to make the stone fall and not so much that we would fall too. I looked to see what would be the best way to release the straps and decided it would be best to run along fast and cut them all with Honey's sword. She did and that side of the floor fell causing the stone to become too heavy and fall with it. Excited as our journey was coming to an end we opened the large door and move quicker down the last hallway. We entered a large chamber filled with gold and gems, light source of the room was a single pool of lava underneath a large metal grate, it gave everything a thick orange color. In the center of the room was a large pedestal with a jeweled sword with a hilt of gold and a blade of silver floating in a beam of magic light. We looked around more to see what inscriptions would worn us about and what to expect. We only found two words that read Final Test. As we looked for more words I found a large saddle bag that I then emptied and started filling with gold. Honey commented on how that was a good idea and started doing the same. I would need the gold in Ponyville and it was just sitting there, and we were the first ponies to ever make it that far into the chamber, so it was basically ours. While we dug through the gold I found a sword that had a brown handle, a dark grey blade, and the pummel and hoof guard were both black. Like Honey's sword it clipped into my hoof so that it was easier to wield. On the blade read Runes but they were worn off, I then hitched the harness of the sheath around myself, and continued collecting the gold and gems. After we had as much as we could carry we went up to the sword. As Honey reached for the sword a booming voice bellowed from behind us.
"Let the final test begin!"