NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ciaran" data-source="post: 715414" data-attributes="member: 756">Shou Ren twists his body as he soars through the air, altering his trajectory sufficiently to avoid being skewered.  The blade barely nicks him, staining itself with blood along a few inches beneath its tip, as it continues its lazy arc through the thick sea air.The wizard thuds against the ground, then rolls spryly to his feet.  “Very good,” he rasps in reply to Nekokaburi’s oration, “my little samurai.  But what are your centuries and your generations to me?  Your blade now bears my taint, and it shall never be removed.”  He raises his hands and begins to chant the words of a spell.  The blood on the sword begins to glow a dull, sullen red, the only color visible beneath the leaden moon, and swirls into strange, mazelike patterns upon the blade.  The sword hesitates for a moment; and then, it begins to dance.The wind sighs as the sword spins and whirls in gyrating arcs, its edge flashing with starlight, tracing a labyrinthine path through the air between the two combatants.  Its movements seem hauntingly familiar to Nekokaburi, and it takes him only a moment to recognize them: these are the katas of the Blackfist Style, the elegant techniques of his ancestors, echoed by the blade with gleaming, inhuman grace.As the wizard chants, the blade moves faster and faster, singing as it carves the salty air.  For a moment, the wind and sea grow quiet, as if even the elements were hypnotized by the beauty of the dance.  Then he reaches forth into the maze of its movements, and the air ripples as it does in a desert’s heat.  The sword continues to dance, but it seems strangely diminished, as if seen from a distance.  It continues to dwindle, taking on a translucent sheen, until the wizard, uttering the final word of his incantation, enfolds it in one gauntleted fist.Chuckling, Shou Ren opens his hand; the transformed blade glitters there, a glassy thing, shrunken to no more than a dagger by his arts.  “The honor of a samurai,” he says, “is such a fragile thing, when it is invested in an object.  Much like this.”  And with that, he clenches his fist upon the blade.  It seems to shriek as it fractures within his grasp; but then he tightens his grip, and it gives way in silence.  When he opens his hand, nothing remains of the sword but pebbles and grit, a powdery residue much like desert sand, which sifts through his fingers and drifts away on the wind.  The dagger becomes one with the desert; redirects the beauty of the maze!</blockquote>

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