The Temple of Pain: Convergence.

The third and final month of Chris Alan’s training had come to an end. Autumn was now fully three months pregnant and it was showing a little.

On his last bright morning on the surface of Ge, Toa looked upon his young student with immense satisfaction. Having just completed his training in the Master Sword Form, Chris Alan Starbright was now fully trained in the fundamentals of Eastern Blademastery; and he had remained humble before the Lord and his *Sifu*, as Edwin of old had not. That humility and the love of God and fellow creatures that empowered it was the greatest weapon Chris Alan had, and now he was fully aware of the fact.

< Truly, Lord, > Toa prayed within himself, < this one was worth waiting for. You spoke the truth: none like him has come before, and none like him shall ever come again. He is a credit to his Tribe and the crowning glory of my Grandmastership. Blessed be Your glorious name for letting me serve him before my departure. >

It was time for Toa’s final lesson, a verbal one. Chris Alan stood at attention as Toa spoke.

“Your very self is connected to your Starblade; use it wisely,” Toa explained. “To unsheathe it is to bare your very being – to allow the core of your spirit to be exposed to all of life’s darkness, which eventually stains you. It means to bear the suffering of others along with your own. To take a life, no matter how evil, is never pleasant, nor should it be. Cleaning our blades in the traditional manner with a white cloth is symbolic of the Lord’s cleansing of our spirits after we have stained them by unsheathing our blades. Always clean your blade after a battle, young cub, even if it appears clean. We use our Light to cleanse our blades in a practical way in battle, but afterward the ceremony must be performed in order to finish the cleansing.

“It costs men like us in particular to draw our Starblades. Sometimes it costs us everything emotionally. But as we are what we are, we must draw them – for no one else can, nor is willing. Those like Slate and maybe even your wife may never truly understand what it means to be you, to be Blademaster: to be at one with all, yet seeking to be one with yourself. The Blademaster readily turns his sword on others, yet is reluctant to turn his blade on himself or allow the blades of others to touch him; perhaps this also is symbolic of our minds. We are unwilling to turn our own spiritual power on ourselves, nor to allow the spiritual power of others to affect us. In that way we all remain ever changing, yet ever unchanged – for we Adamim as a species are the great Catalysts among created beings. Yet we too must change; this is why we continue on our journey, never satisfied until we have found our own ‘perfect’ path to inner peace. And sometimes the way to peace is simply to lay down our blade and look into its shiny surface. When we do, we see another enemy: our own face. Yet we are forbidden by the Lord and His law to use our Starblade to cut down *that* enemy. So we clean it and return it to its place as the Lord cleanses us and returns us to Himself.