New Teacher (Dissonance/Closed)

[MetalDrago]

Closed to Wynken
“You want me to do what?!” The scream echoed through the hallways of Mosil Z’sarug, followed by a loud crashing sound. Drago’s bodyguards stepped forward slightly, but their master put up his hand and shook his head. The Paladin ran a hand over his scaled face as he looked at the man before him. It was amusing to see a man of such great power looking so unhappy. The man across the table continued, his blue eyes focusing in on the orchid colored orbs of MetalDrago. “Has this been your plan for me all along, you insufferable bastard?”

Drago laughed openly at Terramat, now. “Indeed it has. You’re arguably the most powerful member of Dissonance, and I require a trainer who can outmaneuver even our best students. Unfortunately, you’re the only one qualified enough for the position.” While Terramat was ten times as old as Drago, and more than ten times as powerful, he was bound by his duty to N’Jal, the Dark Thayne, to carry out the will of her Paladins. He had not realized what this would entail, however. “If you have any other objections, please voice them and get over them.” Not only was the assignment degrading, but the Dragonian Paladin’s almost jovial attitude was unbearable, assuming that the usually grim and serious Paladin even had a sense of humor.

While there was an immense respect between the two servants of the Dark Goddess, oftentimes there would be an underlying enmity between them. Drago often forced Terramat to go on mind numbingly boring missions for weeks at a time while he remained behind to look over the municipal affairs of Mosil Z’sarug. Terramat knew his superior officer could have him doing much different tasks, but why now the change to trainer?

As if following his line of thought, Drago spoke, “You’ve trained me, and just look how I’ve turned out. I’m sure most of our membership can benefit from your training methods. As long as you don’t kill or maim them, you have free reign to train each of your pupils in any way you see fit. This means that for once you have my complete and total permission to act freely on a matter. This is the task I always envisioned you in, and now that I’ve had my fun with you, it’s time for you to fulfill that purpose.” Drago waved Terramat out of his office.

______

Terramat waited within the newly constructed training grounds. The Captain-Commander of the Dark Dragon Corps had the foresight to have a room built to Terramat’s preferred specifications, with a few added perks thrown in. The room had little furniture, and what was there would be easily replaced at negligible cost. There were a few wooden benches for resting on the walls, but there would be no rest for the one soon to face the Deceitful Assassin. Wynken Vanaril would not find this master a kind one.

The dark elf looked through the room to make sure everything that would be needed was there in case he got carried away. Medicine cabinets lined the walls in one of the adjacent rooms. The room was made of stone, so breaking a bone or two was quite likely. Terramat paced out the room next, counting a nearly perfect one thousand, actually one thousand and three, steps from one side of the room to the other. Overall, the ageless dark elf was fairly pleased with his commander’s foresight. Drago had made it clear that if Terramat needed anything additional for his training room, he was to inform one of the Paladins at once, and he would have it. He smiled wickedly.

“Perhaps this won’t be all that bad after all…” he mused as he awaited his student with a questionable amount of anticipation.

[Wynken]

Though he was still a young man, it had been many years since Wynken had undergone any formal training. The thought was unappealing.

“How long has it been”, he asked, into the mirror upon the wall of his bedchamber. He recalled training as a boy, no more than a child, with his father’s weapon master and the other assassins in The Hand of Azrael.

‘I would have been twelve’, he thought in silent reply recalling that, as a rite of passage, he was expelled from the mansion upon his thirteenth birthday. His time on the streets of the city’s vicious underbelly had made him a killer, a master in his own right. However, there was no arguing that the dungeon in which he had spent the better part of two years had stolen much of his prowess.

Wynken stared into his own gray eyes as they reflected upon the silvered mirror, and they burned with a dedicated hatred that the man had carried for all his days. He allowed all of the negative emotions known through his twenty year existence to surface. His disdain for his father, his failures in assuming control of his troupe, the strength and skill lost to chains, and now the humbling event that was about to transpire. He focused on it. He dwelled upon it. And he savored it as it lingered controllably beneath the surface of his dull orbs.

Walking briskly from his room, Wynken turned toward the training hall.

It was time to rebuild.

*

Even by the most enthusiastic smith, the darkest priest, or the most gruesome warrior the Mirror Root was seldom described as a thing of beauty. Though its craftsmanship was both masterful and detailed, its delicate and meticulously set inlays reached ominously upward from the realistically stump-shaped hilt as if to entangle and strangulate the blade. The sword’s imagery foretold only the bondage of death and decay, but, as he stood before his dark elven trainer, Wynken held the weapon as casually as one may a gift or a letter which heralds the news of good fortune. One of his three eight-inch throwing blades occupied his other hand, and they had both been there before he had even entered the room.

“Well”, he growled after having barely come to a halt near the room’s center. “What are you waiting for?”

[MetalDrago]

“What am I waiting for?” Terramat seemed to ponder this question as he studied the polished wooden floor beneath his feet. From behind Wynken, his voice rang out. “I was waiting for you, of course…” Terramat’s speed was legendary, the very feat for which he had earned the Assassin part of his alias. Looking at Wynken with a half lidded gaze, the dark elf wasn’t quite impressed with what he saw. “We’ll begin with something simple, I suppose.”

Terramat drew his twin wakizashi blades, a pair of mythril swords of great quality, and held them up in a mockery of a defensive stance. “Now, young man, I’d like you to strike the flats of my blades with all the strength you can muster.” This wasn’t a trick, like when Terramat had been testing Elthas Belthazar. This was what he wanted the young man to do. Terramat had used this exact same method when he trained MetalDrago, many years ago, to gauge the man’s strength. From the distance of ten feet which he stood back from his current pupil, Terramat would be able to discern the young man’s speed and physical strength. The rest would come in due time.

Drago watched the display from a hidden balcony near the ceiling of the room in which the two were. He brought his gauntleted hand up to his hair and brushed through the silver threads. “This should prove most interesting. I was Terramat’s pupil, but I’ve never actually had a chance to just watch him teach another.” He chuckled under his breath as he took a glass of wine to his lips and quenched his thirst.

It would take much training further to reach the level of aptitude Terramat had reached over his many centuries, but it would be well worth the extra effort. The dark elf had proven himself a most useful commodity, and having powers similar to his would be a great boon to the goals of Dissonance. Drago placed his wine glass down upon the table before him and continued to watch the spectacle from above, even as Terramat continued to wait upon Wynken’s first attack.

Don’t underestimate Terramat… would have been Drago’s only piece of advice for the young man. Terramat, on the other hand was thinking to himself, Don’t underestimate this kid. There’s something about that blade… something I know I’ve felt before from the blade of another…

[Wynken]

Wynken had sized the man up as he entered the training room, though he likely had his number several paces down the hall. He had faced trainers and weapons masters before, and he had squared off with assassins of varying skill and rank. The man would be powerful and agile, a master of the blade and a veteran to the dual weapon style. It wasn’t an overestimation, but rather a calculated conclusion based on historical evidence. Wynken readily accepted that the trainer would be far better than he, and, having witnessed his blinding speed, he was certain that his every estimation was accurate.

With an inward sense of disappointment, Wynken slid his throwing blade away. ‘I suppose my father’s methods were a bit unconventional’, he considered as he recalled his earlier training. That first meet with the trainer those many years ago saw an eight year old in a no holds barred sparring match with a seasoned killer, and damn did Wynken learn several lessons that day. He wondered now what was more degrading: the humiliation of defeat at the hands of a superior fighter, or the dishonor in being disallowed to try? Silently, he determined that performing children’s routines upon instruction was worse, but, harboring no malice toward his trainer or to MetalDrago, Wynken surrendered in full cooperation. “This is necessary”, he intoned perhaps too loudly.

Wynken wasn’t a powerful man, certainly not by the standards of a warrior. Even at his peak, he had relied upon skill and cunning rather than brute force. His skill too had dwindled, but, though the prison had withered his body, his mind remained sharp. With all the speed and strength and anger he could rally behind a controlled and precise strike, Wynken quickly crossed the room and pushed out with a thrust. Rather than hit the center or base of the trainer’s sword, Wynken aimed for a place nearer the tip in order to exploit the greatest possible leverage.

Before the impact, Wynken determined that, if the trainer’s sword were to give under the force, he would spin in the opposite direction of his swing in order to position himself at the master’s flank. If not, he would simply set his feet with nothing lost and nothing gained. He was certain that the drow’s speed and ability would invalidate each effort regardless, but there was no harm in displaying some follow though and forward thinking.

Just before impact, Wynken considered the possibility of a counter attack, and then the ring of metal echoed within the empty hall.

[MetalDrago]

Terramat watched as the boy sized him up, and then as he seemed to go back into his mind to bring forward some lessons he had learned in the past. Good, at least he knows how to prepare himself beforehand. Whoever his last teacher was must have had him learn that lesson the hard way. The elven lord thought back to his own past, how he had come into his powers virtually from birth, how his mother had passed on her supernatural abilities to him upon her death. Then he smiled. It wasn’t a smile of happiness or remorse. It was just a smile. He had long ago learned to train himself to appear to be feeling something that he was not. “The Deceitful Assassin...” he said to himself, almost chuckling at the name.

He had earned the name, ironically enough, by being a lying assassin, so much for originality. The boy seemed to compose himself and said something half under his breath that the older man didn’t quite catch. Finally, he began to charge forward. “About time...” Terramat said silently, his mouth moving but no sound escaping his lips. The boy’s footsteps echoed off the walls, as did the clash of steel on mythril. As Terramat’s sword hand bent back, allowing Wynken to pass him, he stood still and felt the young man’s sword biting into his clothing, ripping it across the back and scraping against something much harder beneath.

As the sword passed through the air on the other side, having not drawn a single speck of blood, the imposing figure turned around and looked at the man before him. “You cut through my coat and dress shirt.” His eyes seemed to scream bloody murder at the kid, and then he laughed and said, “Oh well, not like I ever planned to wear it again.” He sheathed his blades as he spoke.

He slowly unbuttoned his jacket and shirt and tossed them aside like so much garbage. The real shock wasn’t that he treated such expensive clothing with disdain, but what he wore underneath the clothing. While he fixed the dress gloves on his hands, Terramat allowed the young man to survey his true defense against the blades of others, a suit of mythril mesh. While it was true that he had much stronger vestments at his disposal, Terramat was still extremely vain, and mythril was a highly reflective metal that was still relatively strong. Adamantine was a virtual waste, considering how heavy and thick the material was.

“Now, young man, let me tell you what I’ve learned from you maneuvering here. You prefer speed and precision over brute strength. You have a rather decent mind for tactics, and you don’t panic when faced with a particularly powerful foe. Your weaknesses, you don’t think fast enough on your feet to consider everything before you have to attack, and in your haste, you forgot that I actually have two swords, so if I blocked with one, I could have disarmed or sliced through one of your legs with my other sword.” Terramat said, analyzing with brutality his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. “Thankfully, I know how to train a fighter like you, since you remind me so much of a younger, more foolish MetalDrago Scorpio.”

As if struck by lightning, Drago leaned over on his balcony to hear. “That’s right, Scorpio! I know you’ve been watching this whole time.” Terramat appeared in front of Drago on the balcony and said in a slightly jovial voice, “...but you didn’t pay the price of admission. One Nocturne!” He grabbed Drago’s sword faster than the man could react and dropped down to the floor, landing without so much as a sound.

“Now, Wynken...” Terramat said, unsheathing the Nocturne, and being immediately enveloped within it’s dark aura. “Let’s see if you can handle the weapon of the big man himself...” Terramat was beginning to show the effects of the blade, but instead stuck the sword in the ground, the blade biting through the stone floor with a satisfying crunch, and jumped back by about ten feet.

“Go ahead, Wynken... take the sword in hand.” Terramat almost hissed as he entreated the young man. The sword radiated a dark aura in a five foot radius that was slowly growing in size. MetalDrago shook his head, but continued to watch. He could easily intervene if the sword proved to be too powerful for the novice to handle.

[Wynken]

Watching the man move through a wide series of emotions, Wynken backed a step and continued to survey the dark elf. He liked to gauge his opponent’s mental and emotional state, but struggled to determine that of his drow trainer.

‘Why was he smiling before my maneuver’, he contemplated while the drow rid himself of his clothing. ‘And is he angry or pleased that I tore his over shirt?’ Wynken hadn’t expected his strike to be at all effective, and was shocked to have slipped through the master’s defense with relative ease. ‘He’s toying with me, surely.’

He continued to watch the man with wary eyes as he recounted his analysis. Wynken accepted it in stride, keeping the thought fresh in his mind that this was needed. He had witnessed well the affects of pride throughout his time upon the streets. He had watched the haughty fall for their inability to truly and accurately assess their own abilities. ‘Success is to know your own limits and to mitigate, avoid, or accept them.’ He hoped to reduce as many of those limits as possible throughout his time with Terramat, and the first step to doing so was to fully discover them. Of course, a nice suite of mail would go a long way in that regard, and Wynken looked upon his trainer’s with an envious gaze.

Even as he beheld the lithe armor of his drow opponent, Wynken blinked in disbelief at the man’s speed as he merely vanished from sight. He was somewhat shocked and greatly disappointed to discover the existence of a balcony within the hall. He had often considered himself to be observant and aware. “Another limitation, apparently”, he muttered to himself.

He hadn’t caught the entire exchange as the two briefly conversed, and, before he even had time to fully consider it, Terramat had returned. The weapon he held was marvelous, and Wynken noted well its ability to so effortlessly cut stone. More intriguing, however, was the aura of dark that had surrounded its wielder. Taking a tentative step forward, Wynken could feel the blade’s power beckon to him – calling him to traverse the few steps and to take it in his hand. The familiar warmth of the Mirror Root flowed through Wynken’s body as his own sword communicated with him. He thought to feel a subtle conflict there, a sense of apprehension where he typically experienced clarity. Without further thought, he walked to the Nocturn and took it into his free hand.

Outwardly, Wynken’s appearance was of brief detachment. Each of his previously honed muscles simultaneously relaxed, and, for a split second, his eyes vacated all expression. It was as if they were fixed upon a point impossibly far away and infinitely small. Though he looked in the direction of the drow, it was clear that he momentarily stared through him.

In that brief moment, the previous sense of warmth was replaced by immeasurable cold. It was an internal cold, more a thought or a concept than anything physical, though it was tangible just the same. Wynken saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing, but experienced everything on a level and with a clarity that cannot be achieved through the human senses. Though still unfeeling, he was aware of an immense pulsation as a great power passed through the core of his very being. He imagined it to be the firing of synapses as if he could literally hear himself think. But it wasn’t himself. It was something greater and far removed, though incredibly near.

With a rush, as if he had been riding upon an unnaturally swift steed or perhaps the tail of a comet, sight and sound returned to Wynken as though they had previously been outrun. His recollection of that brief moment occupied a large expanse of memory, almost as though it occurred over the course of several days, and he could feel that all previous sense of conflict had been retired within him. Each arm was bathed in a dull and appealing warmth which spread to the base of his neck and upwards. He felt - immortal.

[MetalDrago]

Terramat and MetalDrago both watched as the young man took the Nocturne of Madness into his possession. While he seemed mostly unaffected, the two hardened warriors could feel the aura emanating from the sword as it clashed with the aura of the boy’s own sword. The dark elf laughed silently to himself. “I knew it. That other sword has powers all its own. Now, are the swords going to cooperatively use their powers or seek to best each other?” It seemed rather harsh to put anyone through the test of the Nocturne, but it was Terramat’s own gleeful discontent for restraint that led him to this action. The Nocturne was made of a material only slightly weaker than mythril, and could therefore stand up more readily to any attacks he would wage against the young man.

Drago looked at his mentor with a scowl. He knew he would be given the sword back when the training session was over, but he still had a problem with letting that particular possession leave him even for a moment. The sheer fact of the matter was that the sword, while a dangerous weapon, even to the wielder, had still belonged to the Dragonian Paladin’s father. However, strangely, the young one seemed to be having no problem at all controlling the power of the Nocturne. “What a surprise…” he said, even as he watched the energy being given off by the two swords.

The Nocturne of Madness was an extremely dangerous blade that could trace its history back many thousands of years. Very few knew of the truth behind its crafting, and not many more even knew of the sword’s existence. The sword was forged by Lorenor himself, though it would be many years coming before the N’Jalian priest would be able to forge it. By some strange twist of fate, the sword ended up in the past, where many dangerous men, psychotics, and tyrants would wield it, until it came to Drago’s own father. Through the many years it existed, it would strengthen and absorb the energy of the wielder’s madness, its power ever growing. When Serza the Draconian Tyrant found and began to wield the weapon, it began to intensify and feed off of his paranoia.

Many years yet would pass, until Serza found himself upon the top of a mountain in Salvar. He had grown fearful of the blade, and sought to be rid of it for all time. He drove it into a cliff and dropped the sheath in the snow before it. On the way down the mountain, back to his homeland, he suffered at the hands of a great blizzard which robbed him of his strength and killed him. No one would learn of his death for some years, until Drago himself found the Nocturne embedded in the ice upon that very mountain.

Terramat knew of all this, and despite Drago’s obsession with using the blade for his own ends, and never letting it out of his possession, had still decided to take the blade to see if he could prove a theory. As the energy from the blades began to calm somewhat, he approached Wynken with a half smile. “Now, we can begin in earnest. I want to see what you can do with your power, and once that is complete, we can really begin to get into your training.” The dark elf didn’t mention that after this “test” was over, the young man would very likely need at least ten hours of bed rest, but he didn’t much care about the details at this point.

[Wynken]

Wynken was undaunted by the unnatural sensation of wielding such a powerful and demanding weapon as the Nocturne. He had become used to such probing intimations from his own blade, the Mirror Root, and so he felt no fear at the intrusion and as the dark aura about him grew. On the surface, he appeared to be calm, and he most certainly was. The mental disturbance had passed, and he had regained conscious control of his mind and body. However, within and throughout every thread of his soul, just beyond the horizon of cognitive awareness, something unprecedented and unspeakably arcane was taking place.

Prior to his wielding the Mirror Root, Wynken had been a philosopher and a skeptic, unwilling to accept the world for what it appeared to be. While the blade had utterly consumed its every previous wielder, Wynken’s strong will and unconventional disbelief had made him the perfect host. Over time, the blade had entirely subverted his personality and replaced it with the persona he now lived. Even his memories had been subtly fabricated or altered by the devious sword, for that was its ruse. The sword’s sole purpose was to mirror in us the base and vile instinctual traits which we consciously suppress out of social need. Wynken now existed in a delicate balance, undestroyed by the cancerous assault upon his psyche and yet unable to master his own will nor that of his sentient blade.

Upon taking the Nocturne of Madness, Wynken had again displayed the properties of a perfect host. For that blade as well intensifies and stirs the psychoses of its wielder. However, Wynken’s mind and body acted as a mere conduit, a communication medium, by which the two blades could directly interact. Both ancient powers, preferring subtle psychological attacks, probed each other warily. Each sought to understand the weaknesses and strengths, the intentions and motivations, of the other. Torrents of energy threatened to sunder the man’s soul as untold power and countless ages of sentient knowledge were transferred, some willingly and still more under sheer force of will. Through it all, Wynken’s physical body exhibited no signs of the epic battle being waged below his placid exterior.


‘Now, we can begin in earnest’, Wynken considered, though he didn’t know where the thought had come from.

The words of Terramat had sounded within his ears even before they had fallen from the dark elf’s mouth. Once they had been uttered, Wynken heard and understood them more vividly than he had ever comprehended anything. Even as he assumed a defensive stance, the powerful weapons had settled their conflict. Each no longer held back, keeping knowledge and power hidden in an attempt to master the other. Instead, they played to each other’s strengths through willing submission. With a sly grin, Wynken held the swords at the ready as if to invite his trainer.

[MetalDrago]

How very interesting… Terramat thought to himself, narrowing his eyes slightly as he forced his body to relax in the wake of being affected by the Nocturne’s power. “Unaffected by the power of the Nocturne. Could it be that he’s one of those so-called perfect hosts?”

Up on the balcony, Drago was following a virtually identical line of thought. He scratched the claws of his gauntlet slowly against the wood grain of his chair, his eyes not leaving the battle. Only a single thought was running through his head as he contemplated the scene before him. I wish I’d brought a pen and some parchment. He wanted badly to write down what he was witnessing before him, so as not to forget anything when recounting it later.

“Terramat, don’t you dare overdo it and kill this kid.”

As if intentionally disobeying the Paladin, Terramat disappeared once more from sight, though he did not reappear anywhere near the kid. Looking up, the Dragonian Paladin saw that Terramat had climbed the walls and was hanging from one of the lights on the ceiling. “Damn it. He’s going to start using magic.”

It might have seemed strange that such a random action produced that kind of response from the Dragonian Paladin, but he had trained with the Deceitful Assassin himself, and knew that when the dark elf was planning something, he would do it in the loudest and most flamboyant way possible. While he was a damned good assassin, he loved showing off when not “on duty.”

A black energy surrounded Terramat as he extended his hands to either side. Crap, was all that ran through Drago’s mind as he threw his chair back and hit the ground to avoid the torrents of magical energies that would soon pour out of the dark elf’s hands.

The air in the room seemed to grow still and quiet as the light dimmed in anticipation of a powerful magical blast, a blast that never came. Terramat dropped from the lighting fixture on the ceiling, his body surrounded by crackling black lightning. He drew his swords and directed the current into the blades.

“Alright, kid. We’re going to have a little fun. If you can manage to hit me just once, you’ll pass the first day’s training.”