After leaving the terminal room, Bjorn sees a faintly glowing light switch. That's easily ignored, now, though. The mine itself is easy to sense, as is the ground -- both stone and dirt. But some things aren't showing up to this new sense, like the wooden support beams, or electrical cabling. After a cursory inspection, not even metal objects can be detected unless they're either large, or have been stationary for a long time.
But Bjorn can sense occasional pockets of ... gas? No way to tell what's inside, really ... throughout the mine.
There'll be time to explore later. For now, Bjorn simply tries to remember Lazarus' map, and makes his way down to New Delphi.
It doesn't take long for Bjorn to get out of the mine, and into view of the town itself. The majority of the old buildings have been taken down, replaced with very similar looking buildings that everyone is probably using as makeshift barracks in the meantime.
The new buildings are all numbered, and number eight seems to look just like the others. Very square, two stories high. It's also got a light on the front, which is how the number on the door is visible.
The proper thing to do would be to get in touch with Lazarus and say hello, but at this point Bjorn can't really find it in himself to talk to another person.
Instead, hoping against common sense, he checks to see if house number eight is unlocked.
The door is unlocked. The front room is a hall, with a little shoe-rack on the floor next to the entry. Stairs lead up, and it looks like there's a living room and kitchen to the right.
The walls look like some material that was probably only intended to be used temporarily -- the entire thing has a very hastily assembled feel, and unfinished look ... though it seems to do what it was built for, and no cold air is getting in through walls or windows.
There's pretty much nothing in the way of furnishings visible from the hall.
Kicking off his shoes and putting them neatly in the rack, Bjorn ascends to the second floor in silence.
The second floor seems to have a bathroom, and a multitude of unnocupied bedrooms. The bedrooms each contain a single bed (blankets are in plastic bags at the foot), and a set of drawers in the closet. There's outlets on the walls, but nothing is using them currently.
Picking one of the unoccupied bedrooms at random, Bjorn sprawls out on the bed (not bothering with the blanked), and... stares, wide-eyed, at the ceiling.
His body doesn't really need sleep -- after all, he's been asleep for the past six months. But the events of the past twenty-four hours have been too much, and so he lies there, trying to find his center again.
In time, Bjorn actually manages to fall asleep. As he has for the past few days, however, he manages to fall not into a normal dream, but instead finds himself within his Waking Dream. Like the other times he's done this, he finds himself with a physical avatar within the mists, in contrast to somehow being linked to the mists.
He immediately sets about continuing his experiments on the properties of Dreaming. Keeping the concentration both to maintain this particular lucid dream and to manipulate it helps him to calm himself.
Bjorn's meditations are disturbed some time later by the front door opening downstairs.
The transition from dream to awake is smooth, nowhere near as abrupt as simply waking up. Quietly, Bjorn rolls to his feet. Grabbing Shinmyouken (good to be back -- Breke's blades weren't my style), he moves quietly out of his bedroom and towards the noise.
As he does so, he tries to reach, in the Dream, to the oddly flickering statue of his dream-self. As the mists wrap around it, he tries to connect to the awareness of surroundings that Breke taught him.
Nathan walks through said front door, dumps his sneakers into the shoe-rack, and goes looking to see if there's anything to eat in the kitchen.
Dracos follows suit, but instead looks for an unclaimed room, taking in the place for the moment.
Dracos
Dropping off his shoes at the rack, Ginrai stretches his arm and yawns. "Night, guys." He looks for an empty room with a bed.
Bjorn only gets halfway down the stairs before running into Philip and Pathipan. "You're back," he greets them. "That was quick."
"Yeah, Rez volunteered to be Relm's love slave in his dreams, and that sort of killed the rest of the conversation." Dracos quipped.
Dracos
"I HEARD THAT!"
Bjorn gives Philip a long look, and then half-snorts, shaking his head and --for the first time in a few hours -- smiling slightly. "Well, that answers my other question," he observes. "If you're looking for beds, there's a bunch just up the stairs -- the bedroom with the closed door is mine."
He presses himself to the side of the stairwell, to let Philip and Parthipan pass.
"Sounds good to me. Though we probably should get practicing tomorrow. Figure out just what we're capable of....and how much more trackable this makes us to the powers that be." Dracos started off upstairs.
Dracos
"Figured out some of it already," Bjorn says. Once Philip and Parthipan have passed him by, he heads downstairs himself and into the kitchen.
"Hey," he says to Nathan, opening the cupboards nearest the sink.
"Hey yourself," Nathan turns around to lean against the sink, "Penny for your thoughts?"
His hand on a glass, Bjorn pauses, staring off into the distance, and then sighs deeply. "Save your money," he says. "Mostly depressing things."
Leaning against the counter himself, he frowns a bit. "You know, this is going to sound really shitty of me, but as sad as I am, I actually blame Paul more than Liandral, you know? I mean, Liandral was just trying to avenge his teammate. That's stupid, but I can see where he was coming from. Paul..." He fiddles with the glass, turning it around and staring through it. "I can understand where Paul was coming from, too, but he could have told us. It might not have changed anything, but at least we could have tried. And," he grimaces, "I'd really like to know how he did whatever the hell he did."
Sighing again, he glances at Nathan. "But mostly, honestly, I'm just feeling tired. Thirteen days of siege and back to this. How 'bout you? How are you holding up?"
"I would have done that to Lindsey if I could, but the mouthing off wasn't smart . . . but . . ."
Nathan sighs.
"You seem pretty certain he's dead."
Fishing in his pocket, Bjorn pulls out the bloody bracelet bits and holds them up for Nathan to see. "There's also what Ezmereth said," he adds. "If Paul had been alive to return to us, I'm pretty sure Ezmereth could have done it."
"There's no body, and that wasn't a normal place. If Ezmereth could move us like that, I doubt the fall killed Paul. If anything . . . I think he might be back in the dream. But either way, out of the contest . . . and given that Ginrai apparently had a chat to Shade while we were dreaming, well . . ."
".. Even death might not mean he's gone?" Bjorn finishes.
"Mmm." Nathan nods slightly.
"It's good to be home . . . I think I'm going to miss a few people from that dream, you know?"
"Well, we'll be headed back," Bjorn points out drily. Leaning over to fill his glass from the tap, he suddenly frowns. "If we can find a Dreamer to send us, that is." He sighs. "You're supposed to talk to Relm tonight, right? You'd better ask her to put us in touch with the Brotherhood."
"We will?" Nathan blinks, then shakes his head, "Yeah, she says it's easier to do readings if she can go through someone's memories and poke them for details on the topic. I'll ask her."
"All right." Sipping from his glass, Bjorn says, "We should probably get to sleep, then."
"Why did you say we'd be heading back?"
Bjorn's brow furrows. "Didn't I mention this?" He hums to himself. "No, maybe I let it slip. Sorry about that.
"The short version is that the Brotherhood of Morpheus wants us to end all war in the Earth Dream, not just the Dreadmarch. To do that, we need to go back and help finish off Solariat and the Archonae." He shrugs. "The long version is a lot longer. I can tell it to you in the morning if you want."
He scratches his head, trying to think. "I really didn't tell you about this before? Did I mention anything about talking to Alan?"
"Oh! I guess we really . . . huh. I didn't make the connection. But you told me about Alan."
Nathan shakes his head.
"Yeah, I really need sleep. I'll see you tomorrow."
Rez promptly turns, makes for the stairs, and goes to find an empty bedroom!
Taking his glass of water with him as he follows Nathan upstairs, Bjorn returns to his own bedroom and prompty returns to his dreaming.
Everyone finds themselves exhausted once they make their beds and collapse in them. And after searching through the bare cupboards of building number eight, sleep seems like a reasonable alternative.
Nathan dreams of the Dreadmarch, a long dream replaying most of the entire conflict out in fast-forward in his mind. After this, he dreams of sleeping in a tiny boat on an endless sea.
That ends with a dream everyone shares, finding themselves sitting on a large picnic blanket down the slope from the temple that Relm is always at whenever the Brotherhood of Morpheus calls her. She's not in sight herself, and the sky indicates a pre-dawn glow. Paul is not present.
These abrupt dream translations are becoming par for the course, so it takes little time to adjust.
Making a thoughtful noise in his throat, Bjorn looks around, peering at the temple to find any sign of life. "Should we go looking for her, do you think?" he wonders.
"The oracle does not need to be looked for," a voice (Relm's voice) assures from the temple. She emerges looking a bit tired, and bearing a large bronze covered tray. "I just thought we might all like to sit down and have a quick talk before we woke up for the day."
She's still wearing the little gown that she was wearing when Ayame vanished and she woke up, though it's grown to fit her, and is now a medium gown. Relm looks to be about twelve years old, instead of eight.
After padding to the picnic blanket, she sets the tray in the center. "So. I've done some digging, and am trying to go through Raspy's notes. I can tell you that Pax's five weren't known to the Workshop, for now. For the rest, they're heavily warded to be hard to find."
Bjorn nods at that. "All right. Hm." He scratches his forearm thoughtfully, then shifts over to make space for Relm to sit down. Setting it down, he continues, "I'd like to talk to you more about that warding -- see if we can do something similar -- but let's leave that for later, eh? Why don't you go ahead?"
Dracos nods in agreement, listening first. "A picnic is a fine welcome home."
Dracos
"Right," Relm says, pulling the bronze cover from the platter, and revealing row upon row of ... chocolate chip cookies. "Anyway, as far as warding goes, I've been doing what I can, and Pandora's been doing a bit more than I can." Relm looks faintly annoyed. "And way bossy. But I guess if I get to be her age locked in a sphere in the farthest reaches of Dream, I'd get impatient, too.
"Anyway. It's going to take me a while to put everything together -- the way that Nathan sees things, you did a really great job, though. Until I'm done calculating all the variables, from what I can tell ... Vanessa -- that would be 'Lindsey's' actual name -- got out of the Dream of Earth not long ago. So Paul didn't kill her." She frowns, and shakes her head. "But Paul is dead. I found him in the Dream -- one of the Brotherhood of Morpheus grabbed him before he could diffuse entirely, just like Shade. So now I guess he's part of the Brotherhood of Morpheus. Or will be, probably. He'll probably need some time to get used to being dead, though."
Bjorn frowns. "So Li... Vanessa was only trapped in the Dream for a couple of hours or so? That could only make a couple of minutes from her perspective, right?"
"Well, when Paul said he fouled her up, she couldn't leave until she talked to Kevin. He just set things up so that all of the servants he'd gotten loyal to him just happened to not pass on messages until she went to see Kevin herself. I imagine it was a few hours from her perspective. If ... if Mark Smith had waited a few more minutes, she would have shown up before Paul died," she says, sighing. "But then ... maybe he would have done it anyway. Reality is a cause people are willing to kill over."
Bjorn nods at that. "So. We have Mark Smith, Jack Merrick, Scott Lewis, Stephen Riley, and Vanessa...?"
Deciding not to interrupt Bjorn, Dracos took the priorities in hand....acquiring cookies!
Dracos
Nathan takes a cookie and munches on it quietly, looking off into the distance.
"So he didn't actually do anything much at all, he was just trying to bait the guy."
"Probably thought he'd accomplished more," Bjorn points out. "The time difference is a bit confusing."
"A few hours was never going to equate to much. He just wanted to gloat. Fuck."
Rez takes another cookie.
"I don't think anyone's ever directly threatened me, but I do remember how Ayame felt," Relm says. "I could understand wanting revenge, even if it was petty. I don't think it would be wise to let that drive a person, but I think ... well. No matter." Relm clears her throat, and pulls a manila folder from one sleeve of her gown. It's the size of an icon on a monitor at first, and then stretches into a fully sized envelope.
"Right now, this is almost empty. But this is the file I'm building to update what information we have on Pax's five. I don't know Vanessa's last name yet ... or if that's even a real name. I have what Nathan saw in the dream to try and glean their personalities and natures, but those aren't much to go on. I could gather more information..." she says before trailing off, and setting the folder on the picnic blanket.
Raising an eyebrow, Bjorn prompts, "If?"
"You're willing to relive the entirety of your time in the dream-world over, so I can try and see more from other points of view," Relm says, taking a cookie and nibbling on the edge for a moment. "But it would take me an entire night, and you wouldn't feel rested after that dream. So it would take time to get information from everyone, and you'd have to ... go through everything over again ... but we could do it."
Relm grimaces, and sets her cookie on the envelope. "I gather a lot of it was unpleasant. I only really glimpsed at Nathan's memory of it. You might wish to wait before re-experiencing it."
Bjorn sighs, looking over his shoulder down at the temple. "No," he says after a few seconds, "speaking for myself, I'd rather it be over with." He shrugs. "It wasn't all bad, but I'm certainly not going to start relaxing knowing that I'm going to have to relive it soon, if you see what I mean."
"Mmm," Relm says, looking at Bjorn quietly. "Well, I don't need everyone's impressions, just as much information as you're able to get me. If anyone doesn't want to do it, I can still get something from anyone who does."
"I'll do it," Bjorn confirms. "I probably spoke with 'Vanessa' more than anyone else, so I suspect my impressions'll be useful."
He starts to reach for a cookie, and then instead rests his hand on his knee -- nervous habits from trying to keep his weight down. "So no luck at all on the Cabal end of things?"
Thinking it over, Ginrai says, "If it's only for the night I can help out. You might be able to find out more about Stephen Riley through what I experienced." He then grabs a couple of cookies and starts munching on them.
"Casual sleeplessness and dreaming of yet more warfare? Why not? Not like I have something better to do with my time." Dracos responded, swiping more cookies.
Dracos
"None yet," Relm says, shaking her head. "I ... don't think you've ever actually run into a Cabal agent yet. Except for possibly Jessica and Dr. Peterson. If you're willing, then that's fine, but it'll be tomorrow. I've got a lot to do today. Unless you want to talk a bit, I should let you catch some real sleep."
"Hm, crafty as ever. Anyhow, you're right. We should get some rest if it's not going to be tonight. Anything you can tell us that we should know and might not about the ward we're now sharing?"
Dracos
"You can use it to see stone and metal in the dark, though metal will be harder, at first. After a while you should be able to see concrete and cement, too. Using it to make yourself more dense will also make you more durable ... let's hope you don't need to rely on that," Relm says, winking, and retrieving the cookie she set aside earlier. "Beyond that, it won't do much, though you may find you're all better at pottery than you thought."
"What about our other selves? Do you know what happened to them?" Dracos considered. "And I see night training is in store for us."
Dracos
Going for getting said knowledge IC! =)
"You mean who you were in the Dream?" Relm asks. "They'll stay behind in some form. You'll usually dream about what they've been up to."
"Hum, that may get to be busy dreams if we survive all this." Dracos responded.
Dracos
Making a thoughtful noise in his throat, Bjorn asks, "Is there any way you can put me in touch with the Brotherhood, please?"
"Actually, no, but not because I can't," Relm says, smiling. "It's more because you need to wake up and keep your new allies from destroying half of the city."
And then everyone wakes up.
It's late morning. Everyone feels oddly refreshed despite the lack of real rest.
Snatching Shinmyouken, Bjorn rolls out of bed and heads straight for the door, trusting that the others will follow. As he bustles down the stairs (make a mental note to get a change of clothes soon), he lets the mists of his Dream wrap around the Lazarus-anchor. Lazarus? The Oracle said something about new allies showing up, and implied that they might be rambunctious. Anything going on?
Stretching his arms, Ginrai slowly gets up and trudges to the bathroom for a quick wash after which he heads down to the kitchen for something to eat.
Dracos rolls out of bed and promptly whacks himself on both sides of the head to make sure he's completely awake. "Fun, it never ends."
Dracos quickly gets dressed and heads downstairs. Spotting Bjorn already on the move, he called out, working on the assumption that bjorn would get information faster than him, "Status?"
Dracos
Parthipan seems to be bumbling around upstairs, and Bjorn is on the doorstep.
After a heartbeat, Phil finds himself drawn into a mental conversation with Lazarus and Bjorn. He missed the first question, but can guess, based on Lazarus's reply: Victor says that he sees someone on the camera, but can't really help right now.
Not a problem, Bjorn says confidently. He notes Philip's anchor coming to life, and then addresses both. They are supposed to be allies, so if we get out there and talk to them, everything should be all right. And if not... well, the four of us have had a good amount of practice in handling armies already. We should be in good shape.
As he's heading out the door and towards the newcomers, he adds, But get a welcome party ready. One way or the other, we'll probably need one, eh?
Works for me. Let's get moving. Where are they currently?
A new voice comes through Lazarus's half of the mental network, one it takes Bjorn a moment to identify Bart, I've got them in my binoculars. I think they know they're being watched. No visible weapons except ... let's see ... two swords, and a staff. One of their guys has a bunch of knives. Though, they could easily be concealing more weapons....
Bartholomew, Lazarus instructs, prepare a few volunteers to greet our guests at the gate. Bjorn and his cohorts will meet these newcomers, but remember -- Relm says they are allies. Let's try and start out on the right foot.
Roger, Bart replies.
The mists tap slightly on Bart's anchor, to let him know that he's connected to Bjorn directly as well. Thanks, guys.
Wrapping his dream-hold more tightly around Nathan and Parthipan's anchors, trying to get them to catch up, he says privately to the Order, Alright, shall we?
After taking his quick bath, Ginrai dresses up and heads downstairs. Noticing Phil and Bjorn, he asks, "So I take it our new allies are already here?"
"Maybe," Bjorn says. "Open your mind, and let's go find out."
Ginrai concentrates for a moment. So what's going on?
You know as much as we do, Bjorn says patiently. Some new allies are out there, and we need to meet with them before a misunderstanding happens.
At least they aren't walking around with assault rifles. We going to go out appearing armed or unarmed? Dracos questioned.
Dracos
How many weapons do we have right now? Bjorn asks, somewhat rhetorically. Dumping Shinmyouken's sheath on the ground, he adds, I'll bring my sword, and if you've got anything concealable it wouldn't be a bad idea. Otherwise, we'll just rely on the welcome team to back us up.
Peering out at the path to the edge of town, he says, Looks like we still have a few minutes, but not many.
Fine with me. Let's hope to keep to not having to fight though.
Dracos lead the way out towards the path.
Dracos
Nathan drops the warbag onto the ground and buckles on his quiver, before zipping the bag back up and offhanding the bow.
"It doesn't look particularly threatening, so let them wonder. I'd rather be prepared than not."
Bjorn glances back at Nathan. Push the quiver around to your back, he advises. Makes it a little less obvious.
Looking around at the rest of the Order, he nods. All right. Let's go greet the neighbours, eh?
With that, he follows Philip up the path.
Nathan pushes it around a little to make the concession, but not so far he can't still easily grab an arrow.
Prepared to turn into a wolf if necessary, Ginrai follows the others.
Incidentally, we have a lot of weapons. A couple of spare swords, tazers, stunguns, batons, arrows, a few pistols . . . hey, what happened to that crate of assault rifles, anyway?
Left it here, Bjorn recalls. Imagine it probably got put to good use.
He thoughtfully eyes the barely visible newcomers. Anyways, let's not go out there armed to the teeth -- I'd rather not end up provoking something. Worst come to worst, I ought to be able to provide enough distraction for you guys to arm yourself. He grins a bit wolflishly at that, and the mists of his Dream whip around as if stirred by a sudden wind.
Oh, agreed. I was just letting you know.
Nathan closes his eyes and . . . tries to pull some combat skill from his dream-self, the same way he pulled the gauntlet from his real self while in the dream.
Nathan gets a vague impression of his otherself already being busy using those skills, and thus unable to lend them.
The new arrivals haven't come into sight yet, but the dust of their passage advertises their approach.
Well, then, Bjorn says, let's get going.
With that, he makes his way down to the approaching dust cloud.
This thread now moves to My Village is Number One (http://www.pishoque.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=54695#54695).