Fastball o/` The Way o/`

[Bjorn]

"Then we all agree?"  Bjorn says, looking around, but not yet putting out his hand.  "To stand in for the Order of Symmetry?  To fight against Pax Arcana and the Seventh Cabal, and to restore magic and balance to the world?"

[Ginrai]

"Absolutely."

Ginrai puts out his left hand.

[Huitzil]

"Balance, at the least. We have to.

"If half the things about these... these people, the Cabal and Pax Arcana, are true, then we have to destroy them. Game aside, Enemy aside. They have to be destroyed. Brick by brick, molecule by molecue if we have to. They have to be obliterated.

"And if they win this, this contest, I don't think it would make a world any of us would want to live in. Even if it's predetermined, if it's my destiny to do this... I want to do it."

[Dracos]

""G'damn ye guys are fuckin' into this crap.  Anyhow, as I said, in for the round, in for the game.  It's not like I can walk out on this easily.  I don't like Cabal and I don't like Pax either.  Rez ain't walking out of this.  He's too far in and I don't particularly care for playing bets on letting friends take fire for my own gain.  I don't give a fuck about the world at large and likely never will.  But hey, might as well see where this path leads at the end, for better or worse."

Dracos shrugs, stretching out his left hand.

Dracos

[Rezantis]

Rez shrugs.

"I follow the Oracle, which sort of makes this a moot point.  And thanks, Drac, I appreciate that."

Rez reaches out his left hand.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn eyes the four with oustretched hands.  "I don't really think most of you understand what you're getting yourselves into."   Suddenly, he grins.  "Of course, I don't, either, so who am I to say anything?  So."  The smile fades from his face, and he reaches forward with his left hand.

[Brian]

As your hands touch, you feel something tingling through them, almost like your hands were asleep, and are just now waking up.  There's a flash of light, and then, like little tiny silver-link (or iron, to Dracos's eyes) serpents , four more bracelets crawl out of Bjorn's, and wrap themselves around your wrists, one at a time, until you're each wearing a Bjorn-bracelet.

Bjorn: Your defense now feels much weaker, but it's like taking off a face-mask and being able to breathe fresh air again, only, you'd forgotten what fresh air was like.

"And so it begins," Ezmereth intones.  Victor merely nods impassively.

[Bjorn]

The sudden freedom is both exhilirating and frightening.  The analytical part of his mind begins to speculate how much of what he's done so far was him, how much was the bracelet, and what, exactly, he has left -- and it's a scary sort of thought.  I didn't get into this expecting to be safe, though.

Looking over at Ezmereth, Bjorn says, "Well.  I'm unsealed, apparently, and now it's begun.  So what's the next step?"

[Brian]

"For that, consult the Oracle.  She will guide you."  Ezmereth nods to himself, then adds, "And Victor should be able to help you find your friends."

[Dracos]

"An idle query, Ezmereth.  Why do I see these bracelets as Iron, where the others see silver?  Rez's arm as silver, when before it was obviously gold.  Is  there something to the magic around them?"

Dracos

[Brian]

"Silver is the color of the old magic, and iron is the power of those that destroyed the men of stone," Ezmereth replies.  "Both are old.  One is a guardian, and one is an armor."

[Bjorn]

"I don't want to be pushy," says Bjorn, with nary a hint of irony in his voice (I hope), "but you said you'd be better able to figure out what I am -- or was, or whatever -- once I'd shared the bracelet.  Could you explain?"

[Brian]

Ezmereth shrugs, and squints at Bjorn, giving the impression he's trying to see through Bjorn to whatever it is he really wants to see.

After a nod, he says, "You were a part of many people.  The one in a battle who knows the places of the others.  The one who calls quarter or none ... in a cold, wet land.  One of your deaths came by poison.  You were once a servant of the conquerer who rode East until the land ended, and his armies wept to be lead home.  These, and others ... what you are is the warrior who excels not at war, but at battle."  He nods to himself.

[Rezantis]

"I have another question . . . who was it who freed you from the workshop?  The Seventh Cabal refers to him as the Wanderer, but . . ."

[Brian]

Victor sets his pipe down at this, and looks at Ezmereth expectantly.  The ancient man takes the pipe from Victor, and takes a puff from it before offering it to Nathan.  "You ask of the Wanderer," he muses.  "I know ... very little of him.  He is like the Enemy, but he was originally of this world.  He went outside of the dream, beyond the borders of what we were meant to know ... like the Warriors of Dream, but he ranged further, deeper than they would dare, past the nest of the Thunderbird, beyond ... even the reach of Mother Sun.  He journeyed out that far, and unlike the Warriors of Dream ... found a way back.  I do not know why he freed me.  And he was mighty ... mighty enough to throw spears, perhaps, with Grandfather Thunder."