A bright flash of lightning burst its way through the clouds. As dark as it was, morning had clearly arrived. This was how things always were on Tempest Island; many of the floating cloud continents were pleasant places, warm and sunny with an abundance of rainbows, but this one was different. Buried within turbulent storm clouds, Tempest Island was known throughout the land of Altairus for its rather unpleasant weather. No matter the season, the island was always wracked with sleet, lightning, and high winds. Wherever it drifted, it brought its weather with it, pouring down its misery on the lands below. Most folks would agree; Tempest Island is no place for any creature, great or small.

But for a small being just stirring from his sleep, it was the perfect place to call home.

Jack Thunder threw off his covers and strolled up to the window. He was a storm gremlin, a race of fun-loving but ill-tempered Air faeries that were well-known for creating mischief throughout the land. They built their homes on cloud continents like Tempest Island, hardly minding the hostile weather.

Jack Thunder was no exception; despite the dreary weather, he couldn't help but smile. He loved how the raindrops falling from the sky resembled gemstones when the lightning flashed. He stared at them for a good while before turning his attention to the left. As much as he loved watching the rain, he couldn't do it all day; today was going to be one of his busy days.

He began to talk to himself as he dressed himself. "Yet another morning. Another gloomy, grey morning," he mused as he pulled his gloves on. "Not a speck of sunshine around." He put on his boots. "That is how I know..." he turned his gaze up towards his own reflection in the mirror as he shouted, "Today's gonna be a great day!"

Indeed, in his book, every day was a great day. And that was because he worked hard to make sure that every day was a great day. While older storm gremlins may have been content to spend their lives on the island, Jack Thunder loved going to the surface and exploring the lands that Tempest Island passed over the night before. It seemed like every day there was something new to discover. When he wasn't venturing down to the ground, he devoted his time to studying and practicing magic. That was what he was doing today; he had just mastered a new spell and was ready to move on to the next level. To perform spells at this level, however, he would need more raw energy. He was going to go to Mt. Tempest to see if he could find any Air crystals. Those would provide the power he needed for his practice.

"Frosti!" he shouted. "I'm going out! I'm gonna explore Mt. Tempest. See if I can find any Air crystals," he continued as he packed his lunchbox.

He waved goodbye to his sister as he stepped out the front door into the rain. The storm gremlin village itself sat in a grassy glen filled with hardy grasses and spear-leaved trees. Around him were blue stone huts not unlike his own house. As Jack Thunder inhaled the aroma of ozone, he looked around for Mt. Tempest. He didn't have to look far; Mt. Tempest was impossible to miss. He would have had to have been blind to miss a massive purple mountain so tall that it scraped the wild storm clouds of Tempest Island. He turned and headed in the direction of the mountain.

Jack Thunder stood at the rocky foothills of Mt. Tempest. He could already see exactly what he was looking for. Dotting the craggy cliff side were hundreds upon hundreds of tiny blue crystals. If there was one resource that Mt. Tempest was known for, it was Air crystals. Having been exposed to the abundance of Air magic on the mountain, these crystals acted as batteries of Anima to use for powerful Air spells. As if to reflect this, they glowed faintly in the low light.

Jack Thunder got to work on collecting them. Most of them were too small for him to use; there was only so much energy an Air crystal could contain, and most of the crystals on the mountain were barely bigger than a grain of sand. Whenever he saw a larger one, he picked it up and inspected it, getting a feel for how much Anima it contained. He gathered the ones that met his standards into his knapsack, throwing the rest back to the ground.

It wasn't long before he'd made a considerable distance up the mountain, and it was becoming harder and harder to balance. One wrong move of his foot later, he was sliding down the mountain, scattering Air crystals all across where he'd fallen. Startled but unharmed, he picked himself back up, groaning as he gathered the scattered Air crystals one by one. He wondered if he had gathered enough crystals for the day when something caught his eye.

Right behind him was a cave he had never seen before. Strange, he thought. I thought I knew every cave and cliff on this mountain. Even stranger, there seemed to be an eerie green glow emanating from the entrance.

Now, if Jack Thunder had been cautious, he would have stayed away from that cave. Perhaps he would have even gotten his sister to help him investigate.

But Jack Thunder was not that way. He was growing up, and he couldn't afford to have Frosti keep doing everything for him. He wanted to be like the heroes he'd read about in the stories. He wanted to be brave. And moreover, he really wanted to know what was in there.

So he entered the cave. Immediately, he could see that the path ahead was a steep drop, boulders piled up in a way that formed makeshift stairs for him to climb down from. And at the very bottom, he could spot faintly the source of the glow coming from an unseen enclave. Slowly as not to slip and fall again, he hopped downward from boulder to boulder. It wasn't easy with how slippery and wet some of the boulders were, but he managed to make it down to the bottom without falling.

He wasn't sure what he'd find at the bottom of the cave. At first, he thought it might be a massive Air crystal, previously hidden from him and the other storm gremlins with how deep inside Mt. Tempest it was. Then he thought it might be a colony of glow fungi; he had seen them in the caves before. But glow fungi didn't glow that brightly, and they certainly didn't glow green, at least the last time he checked. That's when he began to worry; what if it was some sort of trap? Uneasily, he peeked around the corner at the source of the glow.

Nothing could have prepared him for what he found.

Wedged between several piled-up boulders was what looked like a trident. In the center of it, a smooth, round gemstone emanated the same eerie light he had seen at the entrance of the cave. In spite of how long it had likely been sitting there, wedged between those rocks, Jack Thunder could see that there really wasn't that much damage to the trident. Wait a minute, he thought. This isn't a trident. It's a staff! A magical staff!

As he picked it up, he could feel the raw power from the staff lacing through his bones. It was made of blackmetal, bearing a strong resemblance to iron and reflecting a bluish grey in its own glow. The staff ended in three prongs from which serrated steel blades jutted out. In fact, it looked a lot like...

No. That was impossible. He had read the stories about the War of the Wendigoes and the heroes who defeated the Heart of Darkness all those years ago. He had read about Stormbringer, the legendary staff that the hero of Air had used to help defeat the wendigoes. As the story went, it had been forged from the lightning atop Mt. Tempest, and it had the power to summon a powerful tornado with just one swipe of the hand.

But... Stormbringer didn't glow green, did it? And besides, Stormbringer and the other Fragments of Anima had been scattered to the far corners of Altairus after the rift was sealed. There was no way that this was the same staff. But if that was the case, why did he keep thinking "Stormbringer?" And why did it look almost exactly like the staff described in the tales? Perhaps it was just what he wanted to believe; he wanted to believe that he was destined to become a great hero himself, and that this was the first step on that journey.

In any case, he couldn't just leave such a powerful magical artifact lying in a cave to rot. Grabbing the staff, he summoned a cloud with his magic and rode back to the entrance of the cave with it in his hand. Perhaps when he got back home, he could figure this out.