The Charm of Good Luck

[Vispiela]

She rubbed the charm of good luck with her free hand, looking about her. The ruins still stood firm, and it was as nothing had changed in the world. But she knew better. It wasn't that the air was more sweet, nor that the wind caressed her hair. It was herself. She had changed, for better or worse. Her body felt like it was at the point of collapse, but she put the thought off her head. The body could wait, until she was far away from this place she stood at. The sign that warned people not to enter caught her eye for a brief moment and she rolled her eyes. It /had/ warned her, but she had not listened. The mare she had had with her was long gone. She started to drag her feet to head towards the closest village, pulling the greatsword with a bone-handle after her, creating a trail on the soft ground.

"It's a charm of good luck." the man said to her, "When there's a time of trouble, you can rub it for some confidence." he continued. She had been fascinated by the peculiar talisman that held on the leather cord. She couldn't put her mind at ease why it seemed like a interesting object. As the man handed the talisman to her, she looked at it closely. It was small enough to fit to the palm of a hand and it looked ancient. The pattern on the talisman seemed to resemble a chaotic maze, and despite the odd feeling she got from holding the item, she wore the talisman on her neck. It was pretty, it was exotic and it certainly felt like anything would be possible as long as she kept it on her neck. She felt compelled to kiss the man who had given her the item on the cheek as she was leaving, bidding him goodbye before she set to gather her belongings from her room for the road.

She pulled her horse to a halt as she saw the ruins in the distance. She had passed the ruins many times but they had never really interested her before. Today was different. She felt as if she was being pulled towards the ruins with cat-like curiosity. She lead her mare to the ruins and started to look around, only to find one entry which had been locked. There was a sign next to it, warning others to not enter the place. And a name of the man who had locked the place down. Turning her mare around, she started to wonder what exactly was inside. Madmen? Or treasures..? Drowned in the thought of something valuable within the ruins, Vispiela jumped back to the saddle and headed towards the village near the Murandy border.

"There are no treasures there, only madmen. Take the key and be gone with it." she had thought the man would say. She had been very wrong as the rowdy men had attempted to bludgeon her skull in. She was certainly glad about the training that she had received over the past years as she had ducked it almost instinctively and pulled out the sword from the sheathe to strike towards the men. Perhaps it had been her voice or the stutter that had irritated the men when they had exchanged words, but she wasn't very offended by the sudden burst of violence. She felt more home as she swung the sword at others, instead of talking. There was less to hesitate, less to worry about the wrong choice of movement or words. There was only the intention to disable the opposition, to put them down and that she had been told she was very good at. And she certainly felt proud about that, even though something inside her told not to.

It didn't take very long for the battle to last as all the men were dead in the room. Searching through the cabinets and corpses finally yielded what she had been looking for as she pulled a twisted key from the carcass of one of the dead men. Or, she assumed the man had been dead before he suddenly grasped her arm and uttered a few words which made no sense before passing out. Rubbing her arm, Vispiela hurried out of the room full of dead, or nearly dead as she thought now. The guards seemed to pay little attention to the massacre as she passed them and she was glad about that. It would have been hard to explain the sudden urge to explore a place which was supposedly full of madmen. Reining in her mare from the nearby inn's yard, Vispiela set towards the mysterious ruins once more, examining the key with interest.

Leaving her mare outside to wait for her, she unlocked the metallic lock and descended into the darkness over at the ruins. There seemed to be several hallways which lead into even more hallways from all she could tell after she had lit her lantern. Venturing into one of the hallways, she could hear rattle of others moving about. The first thought that crossed her mind was to draw her blade out of the sheathe and prepare for combat, and she was certainly not disappointed when men with raving expressions set on her, took hold of her before she could react and cast her into one of the dark hallways. Disorientated and lost, Vispiela glanced around to see the men that had thrown her but could see no sign of them, nor the exit she had just came in from. Left with no other choice but to pick her direction on random, she took a hold of the talisman she had been given and moved to locate the point she had came from, keeping a close eye to not be taken by surprise again.

Hours passed as Vispiela ventured through the hallways. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't locate where she had came from previously. She could hear voices of others which likely suffered from the same fate as she did, whispering to themselves with tones that made no sense. She had learned by this point that getting too close to them provoked them to attack anyone, so she kept her distance away from them. If they came in too close, she would strike at them. They were relentless, seemingly mindless and cared very little of physical pain. The only way to stop them was to kill them and encounter by encounter, her body certainly started to feel fatigue and she had to set down to rest. She thought a moment to close her eyes, keeping the sword close by and she fell fast asleep.

Vispiela woke up to a staff striking at her throat, muffling the voice she was about to let out. The men who had thrown her earlier were upon her, their eyes gleaming with madness as they hit her like she was a target practice. She held her hands up in vain to attempt guarding herself against the attackers, but her arms weren't enough to last long as they went limb and a staff struck her hard in the head and the world went black. She tried to use her feet as a final attempt to make herself get to a standing position before she lost consciousness completely.

She wasn't certain how long she had been out when she woke up in a dank corridor. Her body felt like it had been through a beating and it certainly hadn't been as gentle like those she had had during the practice hours within the Warder's Yard under Master Armelle's watch. Most of her belongings lay around her, but she was certain that the men must have taken at least some of them. She picked up her clothing and dressed up before she started to go through her scrip and pouch. The only items that seemed to be missing was her waterskin and some of the bread she had had with her. It brought her at least some amount of comfort to find the talisman still hanging on her neck, and she took a hold of it and rubbed it's surface slightly as it seemed to have collected dust. At that very moment, she could have sworn that walls around her shifted places. Picking herself up, Vispiela started to stride among the hallways despite the aching of her body, rubbing the talisman. The walls truly moved to create a pathway for her, and at the very end she could see a glimmer of light shining through. She followed the beckoning of the light.

At the end of the hallway, she came upon a slightly larger space. At the middle of this space, stood a man who held a sword in a casual manner. Unlike the other men she had seen in the hallways, this man had no trace of insanity in his expression. He seemed as if he was having a daydream, his eyes seemingly looking far away. In his left hand, there was a glimmer of gold and he seemed to be rubbing the item in his hand, whatever it was. As she approached him, he turned to look at her and she could feel the entire air change about the room. It was as if this man had been death himself, an aura of danger radiating from each motion that he would make. He threw his head backwards and cackled "So, Vispiela! Do you think you're a blademaster?" before he started to move towards Vispiela with high speed, "Come to me, we shall find out!" Vispiela's jaw dropped and she didn't even manage to lift a hand to her protection as the man was already in front of her, the sword of held by the man cut through the air and the next thing she noticed was some of her clothing becoming nothing but ribbons. Before she had time to react other than to blink, the man was already upon her again with the blade sweeping through the air as if it was a thunder on a ocean, fast and fierce.

She wasn't certain what had happened as she woke from a dark hallway once more. This time her body had certainly received the flat of someone's sword, and there were small trickles of blood running through her arms and legs from small cuts. While her body was certainly in pain, what was more alarming to her were the missing belongings of her, more notably, the leggings she had been wearing. Her dress was there, her boots were there as well.. only the leggings were gone. And the bracelets she had acquired so long ago from a nice man near Cairhien. She shook her head and forced herself to stand. The world was blurry, and she felt as if she was in a fever as she wandered in the hallways. The thought that was ringing in her head was that the man had to pay. He had to pay no matter what. And how had he known her name? She wasn't certain. She definitely hadn't come there to challenge anyone, but this man was taunting her by stealing her pieces of clothing and who knows what else. He had to pay. She limbered her body as she walked past the mumbling madmen and started to rub the talisman on her neck. He would pay.

Upon arriving back to the quarter where the man was, he grinned at her before he threw his head backwards, "So! You've returned! I'm Baadikar Tetrouni, Deliverer of Goaban, the Bane of Jaramide.." he held his breath for a brief moment before he added with a low tone, "Blademaster." As he spun to motion again, Vispiela couldn't help but to notice her leggings lying on a heap by the corner, and she dashed towards to her cloth piece. However, she was intercepted by the man who had an emotionless look on his face as he looked her over. She couldn't help but to feel hatred towards the man and she twisted her sword to the sheathe and pulled a dagger from her belt with her other hand, sending it towards the man's ribcage in a attempt to buy herself time. To her surprise, the man made no move to evade the incoming attack, but it merely grazed him as he lifted his hands over his head, grasping his bone-handled greatsword's hilt, and made a step to bring it to land it flat on her body, sending her reeling over to the cloth bundle on the floor.

She couldn't remember the details of what had befallen after reaching the leggings and other belongings. She felt feverish, her entire body feeling like she had received a major beating once more. The wounds which had already closed before were open once more. The man played a game with her; he pretended to take her seriously, but at the same time, it was nothing more than child's play for him. She wasn't certain how long she had been in the underground ruins, but she was certain that the fate of the other people in the place had likely been the same as hers; slowly taken over by emotions caused by that man, and then he has slowly but certainly taken away everything from them. She knew it was a trap, it seemed so clear as a day to her now.. yet she couldn't fight back the overwhelming hatred towards that man. Who knows what he had done to her.. she didn't need to know. He had to die. She knew she should have left the place with the little dignity she had in her, but she couldn't. She had to see that the man would die.. she would rather die than walk away. Pushing herself back to her feet, she set forth towards the place where she knew the man would be once more. She unsheathed her sword again, this time to attempt preparing for combat the man with her sword.. like a challenger would have done.

Hours passed. Perhaps even days. Vispiela wasn't certain of how long she had kept on doing it, but she knew each time she went back there, she did better against the man. The bladeforms which she had been taught by Master Lugal and others were easily countered by the man, and despite the emotionless look in his face she could tell he was laughing at her in his mind. These feeble attempts to overcome him seemed to amuse him, but it only showed in his eyes and nowhere else. His face was unmoving, his breathing controlled. The wound that he had received from her dagger wasn't there anymore. However, she had learned something very important, or perhaps her subconsciousness had; she had to keep away from the man after the initial strike. Only if she could keep distance to him would she be able to strike at the man again. She was improving in this aspect.. and while the man was certainly a lot better than she was with the blade, he too couldn't defend against all of her attacks as she couldn't his. His sword was deadly, but if she could stay out of it's reach, it was the same as air. The key wasn't to have better form in the moves, but to be unpredictable:

To break the pattern.

That was the only way to beat the man, and she knew it. Each time she was about to make a strike that would be lethal, the man named as Baadikar would pull back and then kick her torso so hard she would fly miles, or so it seemed in her opinion, back to the dark halls. She had also noticed the man wasn't taking her lightly anymore, and the strikes he made would have certainly beheaded her on a several occasion, if not for Dark One's Luck itself in positioning her blade just in the way by accident.

It seemed as if years had passed before she emerged from the ruins. Behind her, she pulled the bone-handled greatsword which she had taken from the bloodied man's carcass. Her own body certainly felt the same as his must have looked, torn and cut to pieces. Something had changed, she could feel it. It wasn't in the sweetness of the air, nor the wind that caressed her blood-soaked hair. It was that she had defeated the man who had humiliated her. She wasn't certain if she had killed the man or if the head she had cut off was one of the insane people within the underground ruins. However, she was certain that she had bested a maniac, man who had been good with the sword. And that pure swordsmanship wasn't what won in a fight where there were no rules; it was the will to succeed, even if it meant death.

[Aruon]

The Gaidin meandered the halls of the Warder Students, thinking of nothing and hoping Arleve was well. There was an immense amount of shouting from somewhere, cheers and howls. It piqued even his interest. Had a fight in the Yard been so great?

As soon as he saw her, and what she held in her hand, he knew. She looked exhausted, but proud. And well she should be, holding that heron belt buckle casually. But it was the smell on her that confirmed what he thought.

This Student had just killed Baadikar Tetrouni....

It was a strange feeling. A member of the Yard, taught by Sargon just as he was, had done it. He felt pride, a warmth at the thought that there would be a new Blademaster among them. And yet....

Someone had succeeded so brilliantly where he himself had come short. That thought was a terribly petty one, brought on by a self-centered desire for glory and acknowledgement. He hated himself for that brief emotion. Yet nothing about the celebration was not about Vispiela. And for that, he was happy. She was a truly amazing woman, and her skills were sharper than his own.

There's a new height on the mountain to attain.

The thoughts traveled far from his own mind once he released them. He walked over, caught her eye for a moment and, and clapped in a thunderous applause for her. In a low whisper, he mindlessly say, "A Blademaster is only as fine as the heart of the swordsman. We know another fine one..."

After congratulating her, winded his way up the steps and corridors within the Tower. He still got lost at times, but he found his room without the usual need to ask directions. As he lay back on the stiff bed, he wonder for himself, "What now? She beat me to it."

And it was then, that he laughed. Not a cold or petty one of disdain or jealousy. It was warm and happy, even though now he needed a new plan to train his skills further.

[Arleve]

Arleve tilted her head mildly at the bundle of emotions she knew to be Aruon. He continued to be troubled and there was little she could do to help him, unfortunately. He was determined to defeat this Baadikar with a fire she both admired and despised. Her war was with the Shadow. He knew that when she bonded him. His own past made it his war as well but right now, his focus was only on Baadikar. She knew he would gain a great deal from success so she did not discourage it for now, though in time that might change. She shifted her attention to the new bundle of emotions, Sargon. Samira's Warder until recently, Sargon was as different from Aruon as night to day. Calm and cool, they balanced each other. He also wanted to defeat Baadikar from what she understood but he had resigned himself to doing so in time. Together, they made a formidable force, complementing each other's skills and passions.

Sargon represented his own set of difficulties however. First, she had to speak with Samira. Sargon's end with Samira had to trouble him, even if he did not mention it. Aruon was nearly as protective of Sargon as he was of her and she felt a great anger in him. She suspected it was in consideration for how he believed things had gone with Samira as well. She couldn't allow that to cause her difficulties. Samira didn't stand as high as she in the Power but she was not inconsequential. Besides, she respected the woman and would no doubt work with her again.

Arleve glided through the Hallway toward the Yellow Ajah quarters, hiding the pain in her leg from the recent battle with the darkfriend Aradelle. She was a wilder, untrained but very strong. As strong as she herself was. Her weaves were easy enough to counter but it meant she could not finish the woman as quickly as she would like. Arleve despised these darkfriends so close to Tar Valon. She could not fathom the gall, their setting up an encampment this close to the White Tower. The Tunnels hadn't begun so large as they were now and she feared this was the Shadow's plan, to make a new stronghold and it could not be allowed. There was also the trouble with Illian. She had recently ventured there and asked for audience with both the King and a member of the Council but had been rebuffed by the Aiel who occupied the city.

The Aielman Daneidor indicated they were there to stay until they had satisfaction to their grievances. Or their one grievance, at any rate. Holding a city like Illian hostage until justice was brought to one man couldn't be allowed to go on like this. She had to convince the Hall to do something. The last thing the Tower needed was Tear using this to their advantage. Already trade was beginning to suffer. While the Aiel didn't interfere with commerce directly, fewer and fewer merchants would want to put into port with Aiel controlling the city. Illianers were not as enlightened as Cairhien and merchants from the Borderlands had had their own run ins with Aiel. who had a violent reputation besides.

Spotting her long time friend of the Yellow Ajah, Deslya rounding a corner ahead, she quickened her pace ignoring the pain in her leg and the bundles of emotion in her mind. Too much to do.