The Trade Town of Barter
October 15th, 2005 by Salem
Chapter 7 – The Gemini Twin HexBlade Masters, Salem and Selene with new Blade Master Christina and the Human form of death named Jarody are riding their horses to the trade town of Barter. Pawn is asleep as usual on Salem’s shoulders as Rook races the GullBlade in the air. The twins are leading the way discussing between themselves a plan to find masters for the remaining 4 Blades they have with them before leaving for Cragorus where Terra’s cave is located. Jarody and Christina are taking up the rear as Christina continues to question Jarody to find out any more cool information about him and the twins. “You have a birthday?” asked Christina. “Been so long since I last thought about it, I’ve forgotten when it was,” answered Jarody. The group of 4 ride past a long pile of rocks that have obviously been moved to make way for the dirt road. Behind the wall of rocks moves a shadowy figure holding a glowing staff that is humming with energy. “You dared evoke the wrath of a C’Tan?” it says to itself with a robotic creaking voice, “Foolish beings.”
The four Blade Masters are about to pass the end of the rock pile when the ground begins to rumble and shake. The air becomes static, as the dark figure jumps out from behind the rocks and stands before them with his staff of light in hand. “Who is this?” said Selene. “Hey! I was wondering where you went. This is the guy that got involved in the fight between me and Death,” she said to her sister, “I did not catch his name.” The strange cloaked figure now stood upright then said, “You will pay for your foolishness!” “GullBlade!, attach!,” ordered Christina to her GullBlade as she jumps off Skyclap. The GullBlade’s main body opens up to reveal the 5 point metallic harness. It attaches to Christina as the GullBlade’s head folds into its body while the expanding straps crosses her body until they were all secure. The straps then expand to cover her chest becoming a full silver and gold breast plate. The wings then transform and expand until they were at their full size making Christina look like a silver metallic winged angel with gold feathers. Salem pulls her GunBlade out of its leather scabbard. “Sister.” she calls as she throws the GunBlade to Selene next to her. Selene activates her WitchBlade, her left hand gets covered in a metallic liquid until it forms into a gauntlet and long sharp knives on each of her 5 fingers. Selene catches the GunBlade by its blade with her WitchBlade gauntlet and starts to infect the GunBlade. A section on each of Christina’s wings detaches revealing a hilt on each. Christina grabs the hilts and pulls out matching swords from each wing.
The dark figure jumps back quite a distance leaving a lot of ground between him and the four Blade Masters. “You think it easy to beat me?” says the stranger, “You will find it hard to bring this C’Tan to death!” “Well now, I wouldn’t say that,” said Jarody as he continued to sit on his horse, Raptor and just watch. “Again, your foolishness will be your end!” yelled the strange cloaked C’Tan as he raised his staff of light and held it out over the ground before him. The air becomes static once again as an all consuming green light flashes. When the light dims, a small army of 24 beings were floating before them with large serrated swords. The C’Tan began to say with a hint of a laugh, “My soulless army of Necron wraiths will!” “Did you say soulless?” asked Salem. “Yes! Soulless,” answered the C’Tan, “So you can’t reason with!” “Pawn!” ordered Salem as the small ferret woke up and jumped off his master’s shoulders to land on the ground in front of her and Syntax.
Salem points at the small army and gives the order, “ThievesBlade’s void!” Pawn opens his mouth as far as he can get it as the pitch black void opens up 2 feet in front of the small animal with the sound of heavy winds flowing around it. The Necron wraiths start to get pulled into the void as easy as a house of cards would get blown away. Getting over the shock, the C’Tan gives the order, “Stand your ground!” and the remaining 17 Necron wraiths drive their large serrated swords into the ground holding them in place. The WitchBlade infection is now covering the GunBlade, “Salem,” says Selene as she tosses the GunBlade back to her sister then calls for Rook and points at the small army, “TalonBlade lift!” Rook swoops down over the Necron wraith army as his gold covered talons give off a bright golden light. Rook grabs two of the wraiths and pulls them up with the ground their large swords were buried in. Rook only takes the 2 up a few inches before letting them go allowing the wind from the void to pull them in. Rook continues to do this with the other wraiths. “Kill that bird!” yells the C’Tan as 5 of the now remaining 13 Necron wraiths pull their swords out of the ground to swipe at Rook only to be sucked into the ThievesBlade’s void as soon as they did. “NO!” With your free hand!” screamed the C’Tan as he jumped up and down with frustration.
Salem jumps off Syntax and plants her feet into position to throw the WitchBlade infected GunBlade. Christina swoops low over the C’Tan, nicking him with one of her twin swords as Salem pulls the trigger on the infected GunBlade as she throws, it giving the GunBlade the extra kick it needs to turn into its Death Disc mode. The Infected GunBlade flies over the Necron wraith army cutting off the hands of the wraiths who were trying to grab Rook. Rook grabs two more wraiths and lets them loose to be sucked into the void, ground and all. Pawn begins to get tired and tries to keep his little jaw open but the void starts to get smaller. The C’Tan fires off several particle shots from the staff of light to the meddlesome bird, but the shots are blocked by the silver and gold wings of Christina. The particle shots begin to heat her wings and a fire ignites on the tips of a few of her feathers. Christina quickly lands as the GullBlade detaches and transforms back into its seagull form as the fire starts to spread.
Jarody jumps off his horse and pulls out his curved blade dagger. Jarody takes the dagger in both hands and extends the handle until it was a long staff and then he started to wave the staff around as a green fire ignites on the small curved blade now glowing red. Jarody continued to spin the green fire tipped staff around him as the green flame starts consuming him. Jarody was inside a large fireball of green flame with only the small red glowing curved blade to be seen as Jarody continued to wave the staff around from inside. The red glowing curved blade grows in size until it was its full four foot length and the green fire ball explodes to reveal Death in his black hooded cloak and tall fleshless skeletal body with the all powerful ScytheBlade in hand. “I have a better idea” said the Grim Reaper as he plunges the curved ScytheBlade into the ground breaking it and the ground in front of him completely uprooting the Necron wraith army. With no more solid ground to grab onto, the last of the Necron wraith army gets pulled into the ThievesBlade’s void as a now very tired Pawn closes it.
The cloaked C’Tan then quickly got out a power claw and starts to energize it as Christina points at the C’Tan and yells, “GullBlade, Phoenix Fire attack!” The GullBlade, almost completely covered with yellowish fire now, bursts into flame and rushes to its target. The C’Tan brings up his crackling energized power claw and swipes at the fire covered GullBlade only to find out that it was not covered with fire at all. The GullBlade had turned into fire. The GullBlade in Phoenix Mode hit its target lighting the C’Tan on fire then turned and came back to Christina, back to normal and landed to come to rest on her left shoulder. Death was surrounded in an explosion of green flame to become Jarody once again as the C’Tan screamed and twisted as he took his cloak off. “Looks like some kind of robot,” said Jarody when the full body of the C’Tan was now able to be seen.
Christina quickly reached up to her GullBlade and removed its wings to attach them together to become a battle wing. “That is the second largest boomerang I’ve ever seen,” comments Jarody as Christina takes a big turn on her heels and launches the battle wing to the C’Tan’s direction. The C’Tan easily sidesteps and avoids the attack. Laughing, the C’Tan says, “You will have to do more then that to beat!” The C’Tan is interrupted again as the GunBlade strikes him dead on his back in the return trip back to Salem. The GunBlade slices through the mid torso of the C’Tan as the infection passes from the GunBlade to its target. Salem runs to the left and ducks low when the GunBlade arrives to her as she twists her body to match the spin of the GunBlade, instinctively grabbing the hilt and bringing the GunBlade to a stop. The C’Tan starts to get covered with the infection being controlled by Selene as the battle wing also making a return trip back to it’s owner slices the C’Tan length wise as Christina runs to the right and grabs the end of her battle wing. The wing’s inertia pulls Christina off balance as the other end of the wing gets buried in the ground and throws Christina over it and lands on her back next to the wing.
The only thing holding the C’Tan together now is the metallic infection now creating vein like branches all over his body. The C’Tan gives out a loud scream as it bursts into flames and leaves only the infection still in the form of the now missing C’Tan, like an artist’s sculpture. The women look back at Jarody who responds with, “Wasn’t me.” Jarody helps Christina up off the ground and starts to dust her off paying particular attention to her chest as Salem puts her GunBlade back into its leather scabbard and Selene deactivates her WitchBlade. “He was a nice fellow,” comments Selene. “Indeed. I wonder what his name was,” continues Salem. “Enough Jarody, I am dusted off now,” says Christina as she now tries to pull her battle wing out from the ground. “Just helping out,” answers Jarody as he helps her pull out the battle wing allowing her to separate it into two and reattach it to the body of the GullBlade. “You will get better at catching the battle wing in time with a little more practice, Christina,” says Selene, “Took Salem a while until she was able to catch her GunBlade.” Salem was too busy picking up the tired Pawn, placing him on her shoulders and getting back on Syntax to say anything. Rook too was tired and decided to rest on the back of Selene’s saddle as Christina gets back on Skyclap and Jarody mounts up on Raptor.
“Nothing else to do now but get to Barter,” says Salem as she gets her bearings straight. The four Blade Masters continue to the town in the distance going down a hill. From where they were they could see the many roads that led to the trade city. Fishermen traveled the road they were on to sell their catch in the town for other goods from other villages and towns. The road coming from the left is from the farming village of Yasur, the road from the right is from the mining town of Ulong, and the forth road near Koror’s road led to the livestock village of Pagong. The last and largest road led to the capital city of Boneham. Barter was not only a place where people from other towns, villages, and cities traded goods; it is also full of artists and poets. “Finally, a room with a bed and a warm bath,” says Christina as they enter the town’s front gates. The Blade Masters all dismount as they look at the people passing by trading their goods. “I will find a stable to put the horses,” says Salem as she takes the reins of both Syntax and Darkwind and takes them with her as Skyclap and Raptor follow behind. “The rest of us better find an inn,” says Selene. “Wanna share a room?” asks Jarody to Christina. “She is staying in our room Jarody,” says Selene as she take Christina by the arm and leads her through the busy streets. “I just wanted to save her money!” yells Jarody as he realizes that he is being left behind and starts to chase after them through the dense crowd.