MapleStory/Dual Blade


 * Availability: KoreaMS (February 25 to May 9, 2010), JapanMS, GlobalMS, ChinaMS (x to November 30, 2010), TaiwanMS, ThailandMS and MapleSEA
 * Maximum level: 200

Dual Blade is a dual-wielding class that was released on February 25, 2010 in KoreaMS. Dual Blade is not a Hero class; it is considered the third branch of the Adventurer job, Thief. In KoreaMS, Dual Blades were only available to be created from February 25, 2010 to May 9, 2010. In ChinaMS, Dual Blades were only available until November 30, 2010. However, MapleSEA, GlobalMS, JapanMS, ThailandMS and TaiwanMS do not have this time limitation. Unlike with Cygnus Knights, Aran and Evan, an extra character creation slot is not given with the release of Dual Blade. In MapleSEA, an extra character creation slot is given with the release of Dual Blade.

Dual Bladers start off the same as Adventurers, on Maple Island. They use kataras (blades) in one hand and daggers in the other. The Katara is a weapon type specific to the Dual Blade job. Dual Bladers have six distinct stages, though they still have four job advancements, like traditional Adventurers (see table below). The hideout of Dual Blade (Secret Flower Garden) is found in Kerning City.

Backstory
The Dark Lord. It’s an unfortunate name, for it brings up images of evil and fear. Yet the one who bears that title does so not because he is evil, but because he spends so much time in the dark, battling against the things that would bring Maple World down. It’s a high and lonely destiny, one borne well by all those who have carried the title.

The former Dark Lord was a great man who spent his life fighting against the forces of darkness. As all Dark Lords must, he had carefully groomed possible successors. His two greatest students were a young man named Jin and his own daughter, who is known to us now only as Lady Syl. Both were excellent students, people of great strength and moral character and he cherished and loved both of them. In turn, Lady Syl and Jin revered their teacher and developed a great affection for each other. Times were happy as they all trained and worked together.

The trouble began with an urgent request from Tristan, the Dark Lord’s friend. It seemed that Balrog had been resurrected and was destroying Victoria Island. The Dark Lord immediately headed out to help but when he arrived in Sleepywood, his friend Tristan was nowhere to be found. He eventually tracked down Balrog and faced him in mortal combat. Alas, Balrog is a foe not so easily beaten for his evil is not merely physical, but spiritual as well. The Dark Lord lost his focus for a split second and allowed Balrog’s evil to slip past his shields – and he lost his soul. The Dark Lord had become one of the very monsters he had spent his life defeating and began attacking Kerning City.

Jin, who had followed his master against his wishes, witnessed everything. In despair and agony, he tried to appeal to the thing that was his former master, trying to get it to remember the man of virtue and honor he once was. Alas, it was no use! Jin knew what he would have to do, what his true master would have wanted and he defeated the monster that wore his master’s beloved face. Tears stinging his eyes, Jin carried the body back home to bury him in honor and succeed him as Dark Lord.

As it happened, Balrog claimed two victims that day. Lady Syl, her mind and soul shattered by the loss of her beloved father, blamed Jin for not protecting him. In time she came to believe that Jin had even engineered her father’s death in order to take his position as Dark Lord. Nothing Jin could say or do could convince her that she was mistaken, that he would have given anything to save her father’s life and that he never wanted to become Dark Lord in this way. It did not work. Lady Syl’s heart grew cold and bitter, hating the man she had loved with a cold fury that was like a wall of ice between them.

The last time they saw one another, Jin made one last entreaty to Lady Syl, begging her to remember her father’s honor and greatness and the love they had once shared. Lady Syl merely promised him that when the end came, his death would rival her father’s in pain and anguish.

Now there is a secret war raging in the heart of Kerning City. Lady Syl and her Dual Blades continue her struggle against the Dark Lord from an unknown location simply known as the ‘Secret Garden.’ Her new organization is growing in strength and more and more skillful Rogues are disappearing. The Dark Lord knows that Lady Syl is getting ready to make her move, though he does not yet know what that move will be.

Meanwhile, a man named Ryden in a back alley of Kerning City begins talking to travelers here and there, making an interesting offer.

At the Secret Garden, Lady Syl takes care of her plants, gathers her forces and nurses her ever-growing rage and bitterness towards the Dark Lord.

Yet in the silence of her empty heart, a tiny ember of something she’d long thought extinguished remains. Whether it can burst into flame before she and the Dark Lord destroy one another, no one knows.