RULES AND THE ASPECT: THE FIVE SECRETS

Tenauris

"Stop with the haggling, Gelko. We both know I'm leaving here with that blade at no more than three-hundred kwen."

"Milady, this blade was forged from true Galoran germerhon by the infamous smiths of Selmerdina. It is the only one of its kind in all the five major kingdoms of the three reaches..."

"You said something like that last I was here." Teshkah complained, a scowl forming as she tried to remember. "Ah yes!" she exclaimed, her pretty face lighting up with laughter at the memory. "You said that," she paused to laugh a little, "with enough force, this blade," she pulled half a blade from its sheath, "could cut right through even one of sister Sherona's stone fighters –Ha! What a joke! It snapped like a twig and she laughed at me; it was supposed to be my best effort too. At least I made her laugh. She never laughs."

Gelko the merchant cackled along. He was a spry old man, smallish with deep facial lines and a jovial manner that made him seem likeable. His shop was located at the heart of the Shelangri market, the biggest market on Heres. The market was a trade monster. Anyone could buy and sell in the Shelangri market; anything and anyone could be bought and sold in the Shelangri market; anyone, and anything could be lost, and...or found, in the Shelangri market. Deuran, the capital city of Tenauris, boasted the largest economy in the world thanks to the Shelangri market. It was rowdy and loud, as markets tend to be, but despite the noise, it was also a place of whispers where word traveled faster than beasts and boats, or never traveled at all. One did not survive here by being nice, and Gelko thrived.

"That was unfortunate, milady, but this is different. Just look at it! The stone alone is priceless –that rare shade of deep blue– and the blade... have you ever seen such white? Milady this is nothing like the last one..."

"You're saying this one would cut through and not break?" she asked, squinting at the little man. Teshkah unbelted the snapped blade –sheathe and all– and let it drop to a wooden crate at her feet. A pair of arm-guards caught her attention as her eyes wandered Gelko's wares. She could tell by the cost note beneath them that the pair cost fifty kwen.

"You know better than I that this is a piercing weapon, milady, not a cutting one. I shall make you my best offer in light of the last...exaggeration." He said that last part with a coy smile. "I shall give you this blade for four hundred and fifty kwen –no more, no less– and should you at a later date be less than satisfied with it, then you could trade it in for any other blade of your choice in my shop – I believe this is fair."

"Hmm..." Teshkah pondered, pouting and fingering her chin. "Even those?" she pointed to the floor at the back of the shop with a smirk on her fair face, one eyebrow raised. "What? You thought I didn't know about those? So?" she pressed, leaning forward, down and closer to the smaller tan man. Close enough to his head of thinning black hair to smell the stench of sweat underneath that of polished germerhon and perfume made from the wild tasic flower, her blue eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Of course, milady." Gelko said, a stiff smile crossing his lips. "For you, anything." He knew from her raiment that she was a Tenauri priestess of the fourth order. He just hadn't anticipated that she would be able to sense the material of the two blades hidden in the pit beneath floorboards at the back of the shop. Last time she came in plain clothes, so he had assumed she was merely one of the temple's voluntary retainers training with sister Sherona of the first order to become a windspeaker. No loss; four hundred and fifty kwen is more than I would have got for a dark blade anyway, he thought as he raised his eyes to meet hers, and deepened his smile.

"Very well, here you go." She tossed him a pouch that clinked and chinkled as he caught it. "That's five hundred kwen. I'll be taking these matching arm-guards too." The leather arm-guards were adorned on the outer forearm part with thin metal plates that were as much protective as they were decorative, and of the same white as the blade she had just obtained, encrusted with a blue stone of the same shade as that of the stone set into the guard of the blade's hilt. So, abandoning the destroyed blade, she slid the newer longer pointy one into its sheathe that now hung on her left hip. She fancied the arm-guards just as much as the blade and thought, not bad for one hundred kwen a piece, as she slipped them on, each middle finger through a corresponding hoop, a perfect fit. She turned around and left, cheerfully skipping in the direction of Deuran's grand temple.