The next ten days pass in relative quiet, until the morning of the tenth day.
This day sees that Price's new construction golem (he's smaller than Samson, and looks a bit slower, too, but otherwise is similar in design) is complete. Everyone has had ample time to practice and refine their skills.
It's once more morning, and now that Parthipan (being the last) has finished mentally reliving the Earth Dream, Relm's ready to speak with everyone.
Since everyone's awake that means either waiting until later that night, or going to see Victor.
It is July 14th, at about 10:00 AM EST.
"I vote we start now," comments Tom, slamming down his now-empty glass of breakfast milk. "For there is nothing else for the doing."
"I'm in agreement there." Dracos shrugged. "Let's go." He gets up.
Dracos
"I don't see a problem with that," Tim concurs, stretching a bit as he stands to follow Philip out.
Finishing his breakfast, Ginrai gets up and stretches out his arms. "Yeah, let's go. It's definitely a good idea to get this done as early as possible."
Everyone in agreement, the trek towards the mines is a short one. As he's been since practically the day he knew about the server room, Jim is at once of the consoles. Text scrolls past his screen, but he doesn't actually touch any of the keys.
Across the room, at his much larger desk, Victor is still working on polishing his hunt-and-peck skills.
"Morning." Dracos heads in, leading the group. "Relm up?" He said jestingly.
Dracos
"Yes," Victor answers after a moment, looking up from his screen. "Did you need to chat with her?"
"Hopefully," Tim replies. "She finished with Parthipan's dream last night, so we're hoping she's got some results for us."
Victor nods, and gestures vaguely towards the unocupied terminals.
Bjorn eyes the keyboard uncertainly, slightly ahead of Victor's gesture. "I'm not sure I'm up to typing yet. Somebody else can take the lead."
"I think I can manage that much," Tim replies.
Settling down at the terminal, he types for the group.
> Morning, Relm. Any progress on the dreams?
After a moment, Relm replies:Somewhat. I've got an idea of what you should look out for. Of the people in their group, the three you met specifically....
Well.
Vanessa is obviously an assasin. She's willing to work with others, but not always trustworthy; she'll do probably almost anything to achieve her goals, and if that means backstabbing you.... I expect that's not news to you, though.
Mark Smith is (more) obviously a cyborg. From what I can glean, he's basically just a heap of martial prowess and dangerous machinery. He'd probably be succeptible to any kind of EMP. I've got Jim over there trying to design an EMP gun or grenade or something. Such would be useful anyway.
Stephen Riley is a researcher of the arcane and occult. His personality is very timid; he'd be easily cowed, and for that reason, I'd expect they probably keep him on a relatively short leash.
I've gotten nothing new on the two you never saw, though.
"Cabal?" Bjorn prompts.
Tim passes the query on to Relm, who quickly replies:It's very hard to get details on people who are only possessing people. And especially when I don't think you came directly into contact with people who knew who the Cabal was when they went through. Also, I think they primarily contacted the bad guys.
You know.
The dead ones.
But! My speculation is that either they've only got one person to do their people-skills stuff, or that they've all got the same personality. Or they're all really awesome conversationalists. Which could be possible, but given what they left behind, I'd expect them to use something aside from "words" as their primary weapon.
Honestly, they're the ones who worry me more. Their approach SEEMS more reasonable, after all....
"They're winning," Bjorn says. "They're hidden. As far as I can see, they have more influence over the current world, and they've won the Contest most often in the past. Yes, they're the ones to be worried apart." He cocks his head. "Any leads on them in our world?"
Tim passes this query on as well.Who they are? Not specifically, no.
I've got ideas; people hinted at in the Workshop's old database. But I'm not sure where they're operating from, or how they've managed to orchestrate things so that they've gotten as far ahead as they've been.
It should have taken them years to figure out how to stack the Earth Dream against you ... but from a look at things, I think that's what Ayame was used for. That kind of makes sense, except that Pax and the Cabal both had access to Ayame, and something that complex couldn't be run without the other side noticing.
So I'm pretty sure I didn't do it.
And if Manos were....There's a pause here, though the cursor has not yet reappeared to let Tim type in anything else.
After a moment, more text appears:Okay. This is kind of an odd theory, but hear me out.
I think that Ayame wasn't actually put away in the Vatican. I think her memories were just scrubbed out.
What I think really happened is that since both factions had access to Ayame, she could perform more powerful queries -- once the Oracles were in digital form, anyway. The only problem was since anyone could use her as a resource, it would just up the stakes of the entire Contest. Both sides would benefit (and suffer).
Then Manos was placed where Ayame was, in the Vatican. Ayame was kidnapped, and used to get very precise instructions on the dream of the Earth. Meanwhile, Manos, posing as Ayame, gives bad or just useless information to his enemies, and then the Cabal also has Ayame to themselves. Since it looks like Ayame is still in place, Pax has no reason to act against them; they assume that Manos is giving the same kind of feedback to both sides.
Once they had the information they needed, they switched the Oracles again, after Ayame was effectively ... er ... mothballed.
Then Rezykins rescued Ayame! Hooray!
But that's what I think.
"So Cabal, at least temporarily, had two Oracles to Pax' one? They get all the information that Pax was feeding to 'Ayame,' Pax gets garbage back, and the Cabal gets unlimited use out of both Manos and Ayame."
Bjorn scratches his head. "Some issues with that, like: why switch back? Why not keep the ruse going? But I guess a bigger immediate issue is: does knowing this help us?"
"And the question I have is, why use Ayame? Why did she have access to the information if Manos didn't? Or is it the fact that she could devote all of her time to analyzing the Earth Dream without having to deal with the extra details of the Cabal's affairs?" Tim muses.
"it makes reasonable sense, Tim. We've seen the oracles are neither all seeing nore omnipotent. Nor, I suspect, could they afford to have their own Manos taking his eyes off their enemies for that long. IF that's the case, it wouldn't have mattered if it was Ayame or any other oracle. It was just having something of that magnitude dedicating all processes to it. Bjorn, maybe they didn't intend to switch back? Or more specifically, perhaps just enough garbage went down the lines to red flag it?"
Dracos
"So why did Ceran hand me Ayame? Or was it someone else entirely?"
EDIT: WAIT. Ceran was the -Pax- oracle, wasn't he?
"Might have been Manos," Bjorn says. "Pose as Ceran for the sake of confusion, getting Ayame out of our hands. Doesn't make much sense, though -- if we'd gone to Pax peacefully, they would have found this all out."
"Hmmm...Well, there's a couple of things there. One, if they'd done their background research, they may have had a strong guess that we wouldn't. Two, by that point in the game, would it had mattered? They would've already wasted a noticible amount of time and given the nature of this game, that could be significant enough as a gain."
Dracos
Bjorn shakes his head. "Too many options. Besides, the Cabal, not Pax, came after us. Why bother posing as Pax in the first place, give us a warning that they were after us? More or less as a direct result of Ayame being sent to Nathan, the Workshop got blown up. That's a pretty crappy result for master planning."
"Hum, true. You're right, they'd be watching closely. Maybe...the reverse? Ceran finds out about it from too much bad data, figures out where Ayame is and tries to calculate how to cause the most damage since she's not in the highly protected Vatican network? Sends her to us based on those calculations? Still a stretch though."
Dracos
"You're making the assumption that the Workshop was valulable to them," Victor notes.
"Yeah, I was thinking something along the same lines," Tim opines. "If they didn't value the Workshop, or if it was becoming troublesome, why not take the risk of exposing it to you guys? At best they've got control of you, and at worst they've lost something unimportant."
"I know that I don't know enough -- or didn't -- to warrant being held somewhere more important, but if you pretend to be a mindless engine of fear and death, people tend to respect that pretention. Even if it was a very small deciet, in truth." Victor smiles coldly. "Now, don't overestimate your enemy, but any time you think you've caught them doing something stupid, question their motivation for doing what they've done."
After a pause, he asks, "What does Relm think about the Workshop incident, anyway?"
"Good question," Tim replies, relaying the question on to Relm.
> What are your thoughts on the collapse of the Workshop? It doesn't seem to make sense on the surface, since the Cabal ended up losing the Workshop as a direct result of our interference.
Relm clears the screen before replying, since it was getting pretty full.I'm not certain what value the Workshop had. I know that Manos (Uncle Raspy!) wasn't very valulable to the Cabal, or else he'd have been kept somewhere more secure.
If the Workshop were established with a few premises, only one of them actually needs to be true, though. It's possible the people behind the Workshop only needed some relatively simple thing -- maybe a complex calculation, or a test that could be easily run in that size of facility.
It's also possible that at some scale, the Workshop was large enough to become a threat to the Cabal. Maybe a Cabal agent was swept up on accident.
Or, considering the Pax infiltrators, maybe not-so-accidentally.
Dracos frowned, trying to figure it out.
Dracos
After a bit, Relm posts: If it's all the same, I think I need to tell Pinkie something. But it's personal-like, and can probably wait.
Anyway: I think the Workshop setup was a trap, and Rasputin wasn't really valulable anymore -- they'd gotten the information they really needed from Ayame anyway. From the Cabal PoV, the Workshop is expendable; a decoy.
From the Pax PoV, the Workshop is a nuisiance, sweeping up potential recruits, and generally being annoying. Following this line of thought, Manos was left there specifically to be found. His existance there would cast doubt on any speculation that Ayame and Manos had been switched; especially if Manos had managed to kill Ayame first.
The Cabal will give up people it can't control easily, so they don't hang on too tightly to the prisoners, who they don't expect Pax to use. How come this trap fails? Pax decides to recruit you based on (according to Pandora) a spell that was cast using the life of someone you all knew. Their spies knew that something was up with the Workshop, and this is where the Cabal dropped the ball.
They didn't catch the Pax spies (I'm really hoping they didn't plan on us establishing New Delphi), so they decided to make it look like someone entirely separate from themselves is responsible. Normally this would cause the Cabal to flip out and try and track the unknown element.
Here, it may have played in our favor that the Cabal was expecting the loss, but not expecting who they lost to.
Of course, this is all just speculation.
"More than just idle speculation, from the mouth of an oracle," Victor opines.
"that could make sense but... don't they need an oracle?"
Dracos
Tim relays this question to Relm, who replies: Of course. And by arranging for the death of their own while they were already ahead, they've made sure that their oracle will be at peak condition in the end-game.
As I'm sure you've noticed, we don't usually stay dead.
"And they weren't figuring on Ayame making a difference, since the Order doesn't have the existing powerbase of either Pax or the Cabal," Tim muses. "So putting her in the same position as Manos is no big deal.
"As far as tracking us goes, though, do you know of anything like that going on?" Tim mostly addresses this question to Victor. "I expect you wouldn't have information on flyovers or anything like that if they've gone that far, but has there been anything odd in the way of people looking around the area?"
Tim also relays the question to Relm:
> Speaking of which, have you noticed anyone sniffing around for New Delphi? I'd assume not from your answer before, but I'd rather be sure myself.
And that brings up another thing I meant to ask. Do you have any idea of how much Pax and Cabal make use of the Dream? I've seen the Brotherhood there, obviously, and you, and even another person who's not affiliated with anyone, near as I can tell. But no evidence of anyone else. From what I understand of the way the separate dreams work, they must have a Dreamer, but it sounds like they don't particularly care much about the Dream outside of that.
But I might just be misinterpreting things.
"You might remember that we were also told," Rez weighs in, "that if an oracle fell, they'd return better suited to the task they originally failed at - so Manos is likely to return as a much better hunter of other oracles. I can see -that- being useful if they don't need any more information out of him . . . so yes, this does make a disturbing amount of sense."
"And stop calling me that."
Dracos quickly latched on. "Hum, sounds reasonable, pinky. That would be a pretty valid strategy."
Dracos
Bjorn has been silent, thinking things through. Finally, though, he shakes his head. "Still doesn't make sense to me," he confesses. "But a much more relevant question in the end is: what tactical information does this give us? The question of how we got into this, as interesting as it is, is much less important than how we can win.
"Even if this all was some Cabal set-up to take out their own front organizations and confuse Pax, we can hardly go to either with this news and expect 'em to join us. If there's something we can exploit here, I'm missing it."
"It's insight into their methods," muses Tom. "Pax and Cabal have been at it for a long time, right? If they managed to confuse Pax this time, they might try to do the same sort of thing again... especially if Pax hasn't figured out what they did.
Could they be going for another setup? Did they have other front organisations?"
"I believe they both had their talons thick in a few terrorists groups. And Pax had Interpol or at least a sizable chunk of it unless I'm mistaken."
Dracos
"Curious," Victor murmurs. "Still, the practical application of this is to relay their method of operation to some key players on our own side. Namely, this 'Bigfire' Jim has told me of."
The man nods, not really looking up from his keyboard. "I don't think I know where they are," he says, "but if we see their handiwork, we'll be sure to muck it up."
"It also lets us know what to watch for, and realize that people may still be attempting to use you. While I doubt that we've come here at the behest of anyone's master plan, one must always remain watchful," Victor adds.
"Amen to that. Having an idea of how your enemies view you is always useful - it gives you an idea of how they're likely to react, and that'll enable us to plan better to catch them off guard. As it stands, I'd guess Pax views us as temporarily useful but unimportant overall, and unless they were monitoring the Earth Dream themselves I'd imagine Cabal doesn't see us as much of a threat either. After all, from what you've told me Pax went in with the same goals, and they may attribute any success in the Earth Dream to them, not you - they're the ones with experience at the Contest, after all. But that's only if they didn't bother to monitor events in the Earth Dream, and simply set them into motion."
"Well, IF that was so, there's no way it'd work twice. I also don't think it wise to even remotely think we're being discounted. They know one thing right now for certain: We've stepped into the contest and therefore represent another player on the board to keep an eye on."
Dracos
"This is reactive thinking," Bjorn says, crossing his arms, "which we can't afford. Pax and Cabal can outpower us. Once we start letting them set the pace, then we're guaranteed to lose."
He rolls his head from side to side, considering for a second. "Right now our advantage is that they don't consider us to be worthwhile. That means that with a certain amount of caution on our parts, any actions we take against Cabal will be assumed to have come from Pax, and vice versa. By the time they figure out it's us, we want them to be unsure of just how powerful we are." He grins. "And, of course, at that point, we'd like to be stronger than them.
"Okay. So now we have, we think, insights into how the Cabal and Pax work. Now, how do we imitate that?
"All right. This is the first thing that comes to my mind. We know of at least two other fronts for the Cabal -- Home Guard and Forge. Now, let's say one of the two has been infiltrated by Pax. First we make sure Cabal knows about the infiltrators. Then we arrange to both blow up the front, and kill the infiltrators. Make a big ol' mess, so no one's sure exactly what happened.
"Cabal is going to automatically assume it was Pax responsible. On the other hand, Pax is going to assume that it was a Cabal trap, that taking out the infiltrators was worth taking out their whole front, since that fits the Cabal M.O. Both sides end up weaker and even unhappier with each other, which suits us just fine."
He looks around the room. "Of course, that assumes we can find an appropriate front. Still, that's the general idea we need to shoot for. Sound workable, or am I missing something?"
"Only one problem: We have to actually find infiltrators for Pax in one of the Cabal's fronts," Tim interjects. "It's not enough to spread the rumor to Cabal, as Pax will know it's not their doing if something goes haywire there. While I don't doubt Cabal would still blame Pax in that case, it'd draw Pax's attention away from Cabal.
"But if we DO find legitimate infiltrators, then yes, we're in business. Doing that, I think, will be the hardest part."
Bjorn shrugs, and then points at the terminal. "So why not ask our dear Oracle?" He grins wryly. "I'll go kill a lamb, if it'll help.
"But seriously, it's a valid criticism to the example. We should be able to come up with other ideas, though. That was the original question I asked Relm, way back... whenever it was by this timeline. What are Pax and Cabal doing in the world? Where are their operations in such a place that we can push them up against each other?"
"Knowing what they're doing at all would be nice," muses Tom. "All we can be completely certain of is that they want to get inside the Fire Dream and the Wind Dream.. but the Cabal has already done the Wind Dream, so we can't push them there.
Hmm. We're the only ones who know where the Fire Dream is, right? I'm not saying we should do this right away, but when we get.. er, in there, would we be able to find away to push them against each other there?"
"If Earth was any suggestion, rigging a dream is a phenomenially poor idea for us." Dracos answered.
Dracos
"That might be an overstatement," Bjorn says, "but it'd be difficult to do at best, and no way to predict it. What we're better off trying to do is hiding the Fire Dream from them, which means that when we head there, we make sure they're not watching us."
"We've had some time," Jim says in answer to this. "Sterling's leading us out in two teams at the end of today -- me and Carlos are going to try and figure out who's in charge of the Forge and Home Guard. I expect we'll be able to make a lot of noise, that way...."
Bjorn nods at that. In fact, he nods before Jim speaks, but this isn't an important issue. "Unless the Oracle has something else to contribute, then, I'd say our plans are as developed as they can get for the information we have."
He frowns. "So what we need, more than anything, is more information. Home Guard and Forge are definitely the right places to start on that. Cabal should be the top priority for now; Pax seems comparatively easy to flush out.
"In the meantime, though, I think we need to head for the Fire Dream, as soon as Bigfire," with a nod at Jim, "can set up a smokescreen."
"Sounds acceptable to me." Dracos agreed.
Dracos
"We're leaving today, and going in two directions. If you're willing to wait, we can probably just have Ryan get you all to Japan in a day, though, it wouldn't be through any legal means." Jim shrugs at that. "Your call."
"I have a fake passport," Bjorn points. "Wasn't really going to be legal means no matter what."
"Anything that spares a 24-hour plane trip is pretty good," replies Tom, nodding.
"I'd say any plane trip that does not involve fighter jets tailing us is a good plane trip. Query: Does this not so legal means involve not having fighter jets tail us?"
Dracos
"No, Drac. That only happens if we do something silly, like teleport into an airbase. Which, I might add, is *not* outside the realm of possibility."
"It involves dark magic," Jim says. After an uncomfortable pause, he explains, "'cause, you know. Shadows are literally dark." Victor blinks at Jim and raises an eyebrow. "Anyway," Jim continues, "for those of you who aren't familiar with it, you'll step in one shadow, and out in Japan. He'll probably take two or three people at a time to avoid wearing himself out, and then leave you someplace dark and reasonably close to where you want to be."
He frowns. "You'll need to let us know when to get you back, and if you're spotted after Ryan drops you off, that could also end up revealing the fact that we're working together," he adds.
"Well, unless they've got super shadowtransmission sensing powers, which isn't entirely out of the question, I don't see how warping into a shadow in an alley somewhere will be picked up. And yeah, that sounds like it'd work. We could get rather close to fuji and possibly make the whole trip from here to the dream entrance in a day?"
Dracos
"Doesn't seem like an unreasonable plan," Tim replies. "Where at Fuji do we go, though, or do we have any idea?"
"It's a volcano, isn't it? If it's a fire dream, we should go where it's hottest. Probably underground somewhere. Or maybe the crater."
Tom shrugs.
"That would be the best thing to do." Thinking something over, Ginrai then adds, "Though weren't we told to first meet up with some people in Japan, or would we be able to do that later on?"
"Well, you need to find the guide for that dream, first," Victor reminds everyone. "Ezmereth's older brother. I do have some good news in that regard...."
"You know where he is?" Ginrai asks, hopeful that this will only be as simple as meeting with the other person.
"Not exactly," Victor says, shaking his head. "He's not hiding in a cave somewhere, but he doesn't come into the spotlight, either. You'll need to track him down."
"Where should we start?" asks Tom.
"So what's the good news?" Bjorn asks Victor drily.
"Well," Victor temporizes. "I'm not sure. Even though you know where the dream of Fire is, thanks to ... our friend's dream ... it's not yet been revealed to you by the oracle. If you're ready for it, ask Relm where the next path opens. She should be able to provide a useful clue."
"Sounds like as good a suggestion as any I've heard," Tim agrees.
Turning back to the terminal, he types again.
> As far as the Fire Dream goes, any idea where we can find the guide for it? Since that's probably our next destination, we'd better get all our ducks in a row.
Dracos watched the screen patiently from behind Hal.
Dracos
>_> <_<
After a long, quiet pause, Relm returns:
In Japan, at the head of an arm of vast shadow, he awaits.
The guide to advancement is not without overreaching.
There is no height he cannot aspire to, and no low to which he cannot sink.
While others bide their time and hide, he mocks the Contest by surrounding himself with protection.
Shade knew where Ezmereth was hiding, and Ezmereth was hidden by his brother. This means Japan, probably in Tokyo. The shadowy arm is probably the Yakuza. I think that Prometheus is hiding himself behind them for the moment.
"So," Bjorn says, "Tetsuo is the key. We go to Japan, court the Yakuza," he cannot hide a faint grimace at that, "and find out what they know about Prometheus."
"Prometheus in Japan guarding the dream of fire?" Dracos just had to repeat. "Hum... Let's talk with Tetsuo then. Only a couple though so we don't have him getting paranoid."
Dracos
Jim nods absently, then says, "Wallace told me that he was fine. His sister's going to need a long time to completely heal, but she's stable, and I know she was awake yesterday. Mark and Tetsuo went off into the rocks to practice fighting, I hear. Mark was bored, and the kid had rage to burn."
"Tetsuo's looked or been angry for about as long as I've seen him." Dracos shrugged and nodded.
Dracos
"Well, as long as his anger is pointed at someone else, I'm happy," comments Tom. "Yakuza, huh. Sounds dangerous. We know if those other groups have a hand in there?"
"The yakuza seem to deal with some of the Cabal's front groups, at least," Bjorn replies.
"His friends on the plane were definitely not Yakuza." Dracos agreed.
Dracos
"From what Relm's told me so far," Jim says, squinting at something on his console, "I believe that neither faction has an established foothold in Japan. Both have tenative inroads, but the Yakuza comes down hard on people who go against them. If there are any dealings, within Japan, at least, it's entirely at the behest of the Yaks."
He frowns for a moment, and adds, "Of course, our information comes from old Workshop servers, so...." Then he shrugs.
"Six months in other words could easily transform inroads to footholds, but we don't know anything for sure."
Dracos
Ginrai nods. "Well in this case we should talk with Tetsuo as soon as we can. I can help out with that."
"huh?" Dracos blinked, surprised.
Dracos
"Hmm? Anything wrong?"
"eh, nothing. Anything else?" Dracos shrugged, looking over the group.
Dracos
"I have an issue with all of this," Nathan finally says, "Can I have that chair? I want to talk to Relm."
Once seated, he starts typing.
>Alright, oh Oraculous one, I'm not sure I entirely agree with this course of action. Why are we even going to Fuji in the first place, exactly? They don't know where it is; going there no matter -how- carefully is just going to give them an opening. Maybe they can scry us somehow, maybe they'll be able to detect that shadow-walking or whatever. Is there seriously no way that we can tackle Uluru first?
>There are issues with handling Uluru first, I realize, and it's not as simple, but on the plus side we've got much better odds of having everyone else remain stuck until we've cleared our second dream . . . and we'll have to handle those issues now anyway. Besides which there's a third point; if we can even keep the fact that we -know- secret for a while longer it'll give us a nice head-start timewise when we do go to Fuji as our third stop . . . because if they find out some other way, they were going to find out anyway and we haven't lost anything.
> You can do anything you want, Rezykins. But you have to know what you want to do. If you want Uluru first, that's fine, but you'll need a plan to handle the radiation. I believe that the ward of Fire will protect you, and I know that the ward of Water would allow you to heal fast enough.
> But any other approach will require resources, time among them. What would you like to do?
"Ward of water?" reads over Rez's shoulder. "Hum, I thought we knew of three. How many are there?"
Dracos
After Nathan passes on this question, Relm replies:
> There are four wards. One for each of the Dreams. You have the Ward of Earth currently.
"Hum. We know fire is at fuji. We know where earth is because we've hit it already. We know where wind is. Where's water?"
Dracos
The screen clears itself before Relm replies.
> No one knows yet. And from what I can tell, we know more than anyone else. No one else knows about Fuji, which makes it an inherently easier target. At least, we hope. We know for certain that the Workshop knew nothing of it. None of the Vatican archives mention it, either.
"Probably somewhere at the bottom of the ocean," grouses Tom. "Bah, we can't worry about that now."
> Ah, that makes sense then. It didn't occur to me that the other wards might protect us.
> Got any idea what we might be expecting inside the fire dream, then?
> Personally? High technology. It's the Advancement Realm. What it'll actually be like ... I'm not sure. If you're lucky, you won't have to start or stop a war. Maybe you'll get off easy, and only need to cure cancer.
> Saving the world is sure a lot of work, huh?
"Not me," says Bjorn.
"Anyhow, if we're decided, let's get planned and moving."
Dracos
"So," Jim asks, when no one seems to offer any suggestions, "what is your plan, anyway? Far as I can figure, you guys are in charge...."
"Fuji, through the shadow trick, fast as we can. Makes the most sense, I guess."
Nathan looks around the room for disagreement.
"Let's do it." Dracos agreed.
Dracos
Jim nods, and looks distant for a moment. "Carlos will let him know to get ready," he says. "He'll wait up in the mines here, since this is where it's darkest."
"Excellent. Any idea how long that'll be?" asks Tom, shrugging.
"Five, maybe ten minutes," Jim says with a shrug. "You guys planning on leaving right this second?"
"I have no pressing business," admits Carthrat. "All I've got to do is grab my stuff, really. Or, well, take some stuff, and say it's mine."
"Eh, get supplies together, make sure all is in order, and then head out."
Dracos
"Gear. Arrows. It's worth remembering that anything in the Warbag's available for temporary use once we get to where we're going. And did Relm want to talk to me about something? I can't remember."
Nathan rubs the side of his head.
"I have a headache."
"Talk to Wallace," Jim says. "He'll clear up the pain, even if the stress is still there."
"Grab a bit of travel food? If we can avoid having to go convert to yen anywhere, that'd be just one less potential flag point. Though its been long enough since I've done such things that I don't recall if they care about id."
Dracos
"Travel food?" Jim asks, raising an eyebrow. "This is Japan, not the deep jungle. I dunno what to offer there, I just got here."
After a pause, Victor adds, "Don't look at me. I don't eat normal food."
"Was a thought more so we wouldn't have to pick up yen there." Dracos shrugged. "Old travel habit, bah, let's just get moving. Get there, get into the dream, and from there we'll take it how we do." Dracos started moving out of the computer room, assuming no one stopped him.
Dracos
Phil runs into Ryan at the mine entrance. Ryan has both hands in his pockets, and is walking along amiably. He just nods when he catches sight of Phil, without actually saying anything.
"Wow, this soudns familiar. Half-way across the world with no definable plan and a nice brick wall waiting at the other end. If there's nothing else, ladies, I'm chasing Phil!"
Nathan pulls himself out of his chair, and heads after Dracos.
"Hey, if the plan ain't broke, don't fix it," comments Tom, sauntering after the other two, because, well, it's clearly the cool thing to do.
"Hey Ryan, have you heard the plan yet?" Dracos asked as he stopped. "We'd like to head over to Fuji as soon as every is ready."
Dracos
"News to me," he says after a moment. "Ready when you are."
"Okay."
Dracos headed off, first ensuring that they had a days worth of clothes and supplies, then heading over to let the community heads know that they'd be vanishing and would touch base hopefully here when they got back. If willing, he tries to get the japanese guy to come along and provide aid finding their goal. Making sure everyone was together and that they their tasers/swords were in good condition/packed in case of need, he explained the plan to Ryan.
"So when we get there, while we're getting the primary objective, you guys can work with Relm to distract, disrupt, and otherwise just keep the two other groups off guard. Any last bits before we get moving to try and get into the fire dream?"
Dracos
The server room has been chosen as the meeting place for New Delphi's Inner Circle, primarily because that's where Relm tends to be. Ryan nods from the doorway, digging through a duffel bag of trail mix, granola bars, and what looks like a few dozen C-rations. Jim is ... interfacing with a terminal, but not actually touching the keyboard.
Tetsuo is with Wallace, but joins everyone else in the mine without hesitation once asked. "The Yakuza betrayed me also. I don't think that my parents would betray my sister, so I assume they are dead." He grimaces, then. "Or traitors, also. My loyalties are to those who can be trusted with my sister. I know Japan, or at least ... I know Tokyo. Probably you know it, too. But there is a darker city beneath the one you may know of."
Mark is also there, under the impression that he'll be brought along, regardless of if it's true or not.
Once Drac's done speaking, Tom approaches him.
"Yo, Drac-Phillip, whatever, I'm curious- do you have any, er, guns handy? You guys might all be hardcore swordmasters or whatever, but I'm, well, not."
"We should be able to manage one. You know how to use one?" Dracos asked digging for one in the bags.
Dracos
"Yeah, sort of," replies Tom. "They had shooting near a place I used to work, and I'd head in there sometimes. It was kinda cool."
Dracos hands Carthrat one of the guns. "Well, here you go. Rez, you're carrying my stuff as usual. Bjorn can hide his or similar. Anything else to handle? And Tetsuo, I appreciate that. It'll be a big help."
Dracos
"Thanks," replies Carthrat, checking the weapon out somewhat.
"Those weapons are not common in Japan," Tetsuo warns. "You should be certain to conceal them."
"Planning to," replies Tom, nodding. "Hoping I don't have to use it, really, but better I have it and not need it than need it and be without."
"Admittingly, I've never been there...anything else we should keep in mind, Tetsuo, to try to avoid standing out well, more than this many foreigners already will?"
Dracos
"Use your gaijin invisibility powers," he says dismissively. "No one pays attention to tourists. Only people who think they can blend in."
"Duly noted," replies Tom. "You can wear the hawaiian shirt, Drac. I'll wear a cowboy hat."
"I thought you were the token black guy. Anyhow, let's get moving...hmm, before we start. Have you heard of a man named Prometheus? I know Ezmereth was over there, and we have to find his brother before the next trial can be opened."
Dracos
"I do not know anyone with that name," Tetsuo says, shaking his head.
"Mythical Greek god of pottery or something?" Mark hazards.
"Titan," Jim says from his terminal. "Titan who had the gift of foresight. He gave fire to men ... stole it from the gods. In punishment, he was supposedly staked to a boulder and an eagle ripped out his intestines every day."
"Lucky guy," Mark notes.
"Some stories say Heracles rescued him during one of his golden-apple hunts," Jim offers with a shrug. "But really, Greek mythology places him in Europe, not Japan. Victor?"
"Relm has been working on this," the vampire says after a moment, frowning. "But she has had little luck. She advises going to 'a blue room marked with the passions beneath the grand temple'."
Tetsuo makes a face at this. "I know that place. But I've never been, I only know where it is."
"Is it a brothel under a temple?" asks Tom, his mind instantly going down the path of least resistence.
"Among other things," Tetsuo says, shaking his head. "Anything that can be bought can be found there for the right price. Including information."
"The odds are good then that they'll have ears there. We likely won't have much time between managing to get to him and getting into the dream. Hmm... Hey Relm, they aren't working with Ezmereth...were they? If we need a guardian to get in, what do they need?"
Dracos types that in.
Dracos
Victor blinks. "That's a good question." He glances at Jim, who shrugs.
After a moment, Relm's reply scrolls across Jim's terminal:
I hadn't even thought about that, since it was already done. But you may have something. If I can figure out how they got into dreams without the guides-
Hmm. The Brotherhood of Morpheus could find the Dreams but not touch them, and they wouldn't work with Pax or the Cabal. Pandora's been lost to them, so even if they wanted to, it wouldn't be much of an option for them.
I'm going to guess that someone in the Dream, either the Wanderer or Charrel helped them. Manos wasn't just for hunting other oracles, he was for moving through the Dream better. I don't think he was as good as Pandora should be, but now it's hard to tell. I don't know where he is, but Ayame and Manos 'died' at the same time, so if I'm back, it stands to reason that he is too.
"Concept, Manos manages to travel through dreams, touch base with troublemakers inside who in turn provide the link to yank themselves into dreams without the trouble of having to get the guide. Work?"
Dracos
The screen refreshes.
That sounds quite likely. This means that if they play their cards correctly ... they may not need any assistance from the Brotherhood of Morpheus to find the final ward.
"Since we're aware of it...is there anything we could do to distort, disrupt, delay such things?"
Dracos
Not that I'm aware of. But as long as you can keep in contact, I will try to let you know if anything changes. Anything I do learn, I'll let you know. Another branch of the tree....
"Okay... Well, if there's nothing else, we should get moving." Dracos looks pointedly at the shadow teleporter guy.
Dracos
"Okay," he says, walking into a dark part of the mine. "Whenever."
Dracos follows.
Dracos
Ryan leads everyone into shadow, and then ... elsewhere ... one-by-one.
This thread now closes as we move to: Tokyo Girl (http://pishoque.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=59097#59097).