Fastball o/` The Way o/`

[Brian]

Ezmereth eyes the lot of you consideringly, as though estimating your usefulness.  "I see," he says quietly, turning to Victor.  "And you?"

"Yeah, well," Victor says, shrugging.  "I got a bit carried away.  How you doing, old man?"

[Dracos]

Dracos whistles softly under his breath.

Dracos

[Brian]

"Now, Children," Ezmereth says in a somewhat commanding voice, "you must be ever watchful."  The college kids nod in unison, all of them pulling on their furs, and quickly vanishing into the darkness outside of the bonfire's circle of light.

"Victor," Ezmereth says plainly.  "What happened to the dreamer?"

[Brian]

Victor coughs quietly.  "Well, I was a bit irritable, and he ... well, he was ... it ... I ... look, it was an accident, alright?"

"Victor," Ezmereth repeats.  "What happened to the dreamer?"

"I kind of snapped at him, and, well, I kind of killed him," Victor says, fidgeting slightly.  "But, uh, I still have his body, and his spirit's bound to it!  You can use that, right?"

Ezmereth just hangs his head and sighs.  "Victor, Victor, Victor," he chides.  "Bring his body here, then."

[Bjorn]

"While he's doing that," Bjorn asks, quietly, "do you mind if I ask why you want us here at all?"

[Huitzil]

Paul sees the college kids vanish into the darkness and starts to mutter something, but cuts himself off. Instead, he just edges a bit closer to Bjorn, since he's the one with the invisible sword.

[Brian]

"That shall be..." he trails off.  "No, no need to be vague, now.  Suffice to say that it was a lucky chance which brought you here indeed."  He nods, and cuts himself off as Victor emerges from the darkness, carrying Shade's body.

Surprinsgly enough, after all this time, the body looks like Shade was just mouthing off a moment ago -- save his pale cast, and the bite-sized chunk missing from his neck.  "Here," Victor mumbles.  "I brought it."

[Ginrai]

Though having a few questions of his own to ask, Ginrai decides to wait until the current situation is resolved before asking them.

[Brian]

Dracos: When you look at Shade's body, it's got black lines wrapped around it, like it's holding another Shade inside the Shade-corpse.  Maybe you're seeing his spirit, and it's trapped.

"Well," Ezmereth mumbles.  "This is unfortunate.  Well, actions speak louder than words...."  Sighing, Ezmereth picks up Shade, and places him in the center of the roaring bonfire.  There's a loud *CRACK* and his body vanishes, and your minds (all of them) are filled with the following memories:

   You are standing in the clouds over the Ryu-Kyu islands.  You constantly appear to be growing taller, until you're able to peer down at the polar ice-cap.  You can see something, buried in clouds, that you know is making the storms.

   Your vision becomes diminished, until you're merely standing on a cloud as it zooms eastward.  Your companion is a small monkey with a red staff and a golden crown -- Goku.  He motions you to be silent, as the cloud zooms over to Honshu.

   The scale is completely wrong, but you see Fuji rising in the distance.  Not the quaint (if large) mountain you've seen in your travels across Japan, but instead a titanic monolith that seems to fill the horizon.  Goku again makes a shushing motion, as your cloud zips upward, and you can see down into the mountain itself.

   Larger than life, more vivid than anything, with the clarity of dream, you see slumbering serpents nested in the cauldron, but from here you can also see the clouds that envelop the pole ... and they seem to be pushed back by the slumbering majesty of the mountain.

   Goku nods at you, and the cloud picks up speed, descending to skim the surface of the ocean, fleetingly dancing across a handful of islands before you reach what you know is San Francisco.

   You haven't seen it since the twin quakes devastated it, but from what you can remember, almost no one lives there nowadays.  In dream, though, the city is a living thing, long decayed, dying, and with sickly spider-webs of infection spreading across it.  The clouds from the north practically seem to be drawn to this mess, straining to reach the city as though called.

   Your cloud dips low enough to see ... something ... scurrying about behind the webs.  Goku doesn't seem to want to see more here, so the cloud shoots forward, and you can see America streaming below you into a single, quickly vanishing blur.  In almost no time you're skimming the surface of the Atlantic ocean, and then you see Spain.  You pass over it quickly, and spiral around the rock of Gibraltar, which seems (like Fuji) to be impossibly larger than life.

   Goku again motions you to silence, and you see the stone as a giant, curled up and asleep.  He, too, pushes back the clouds from the north, even in sleep.  Goku nods at that, and you quickly shoot across the Mediterranean.  In almost no time, you reach Italy, and then, Rome.

   The Vatican is below you, illuminated by the light of the moon.  You see two massive shadows struggling within it, as though to gain control.  A window opens, and Goku leaps from his cloud, striding through a hallway.  You're not certain how, but you follow him, and he walks quickly through a maze of doors and corridors.  When you reach the end of your journey, you're standing before a massive, and ancient stone room.

   There is an altar, also of stone, and a woman in white ancient Greek dress is chained to it, sleeping.  In a flash of light, a lanky youth appears, wearing a glove of shining silver.  He looks around warily, but does not see you, and breaks the woman's chains before bearing her away in a flash of light.

   Goku's staff holds the flash of light open long enough for him to motion you through, and you follow.  You emerge above the ground, falling quickly, but without fear.  Goku makes a gesture, and his cloud reappears, catching you both.

   Below you is a city, and Goku points out to what you guess to be the south, judging by the monstrous storm-clouds that are again occupying the horizon.  But when you look more closely, you can see that there is land beneath those clouds, and another something stirs beneath them.  Something dark and ominous....

   Your cloud swerves away from the clouds, and shoots away, across a moonlit desert.

   In the distance, you see, diminished from Gibraltar and Fuji, a stone monolith.  One which the Australian natives have asked not be shown on television or in photographs.  Far reduced from its former glory, is the ruined and shattered remnants of Ayer's Rock.  Within its depths, a feathered serpent lies, breathing slowly, and mortally wounded.  Its eye is half-open, and it gazes directly at you for a moment.

   Goku sweeps his staff across the southern sky, over your head, and tries to force the clouds back, but he cannot slow them down.  Beneath you, the feathered serpent stirs, blood pooling beneath it, and makes a sound of longing and desperation....

   ...and the dream ends.

   ***

   You see the woman who was trapped in the Vatican, and her rescuer in a room.  You cannot tell what kind of room it is, as it is too indistinct.  The rescuer looks panicked and frustrated, running his silver-and-golden gauntlet through his hair.

   The woman is awake, and appears both pleased and saddened.  She brushes a hand across his face, and he is instantly armored in silver chain.  He nods grimly, and turns, leaving the room.  The woman allows a tear to run down her face, and clasps her hands together, as though in prayer....

   ...and the dream ends.

   ***

   You see the clouds, ominous and overbearing as always, but now you are actually beneath them, and they hammer the Earth mercilessly, driving towards a single man who stands on the horizon, wreathed in flame.

   You are suddenly standing before this fiery man, dressed in the rags of a beggar ... but beneath those rags, you see glinting of something.  He yells, and speaks a tongue you can't recognize, and throws a lance of fire into the heart of the raging storm.

   The storm howls in anger and closes in, pressing at him ominously.  The storm doesn't touch you, and you see behind him, looking at you, a woman with forty arms, who mouths something at you that cannot be heard over the roar of the storm, and the man who's trying to fight it.

   The storm suddenly subsides, driven away, and you see another man.  Lanky, he walks with a certain skill that names him a warrior, bearing a shining hoop of silver, which sheds a blue light, driving the storm back.

   The lancer of fire reaches for the hoop, but is taken down by an arrow from the darkness of the storm.

   Kannon gestures, and you see a massive black bird bearing a dark-haired woman with dark eyes staring at you in astonishment.  Your vision wavers for a moment, and you see a young blonde woman in a helicopter.  You don't know how, but you know that both of these are the same woman, but the vision fades, as the warrior stares at the fallen lancer of fire, then turns and runs away....

   ...and the dream ends.

   ***

   You are standing in the streets of San Francisco, a tall warrior with a katana standing near you.  As Goku, he motions you to be silent, and points at one of the buildings.

   You can see ... something ... stir within the building.  You don't know what it is, but it's massive, and something tells you that you can't  let it see you, under any circumstances.  The warrior makes a gesture, and you're not sure HOW, but you know that you are invisible, as he is, too.

   From the depths of the decaying building, something emerges.  You cannot bear to look directly at it, because you think if you do, it might see you, as well.  It is large, and dark, and it calls to the clouds from the north ... but it also sends something ... you're not sure what, but it sends something to the northeast.

   You blink, dizzily, and realize that you're being hauled along as the warrior runs.  He's clearing the clouds currently, but these are normal clouds, not the ominous polar clouds.  He's headed northeast, and you see he's chasing whatever was sent from San Francisco to the northeast.

   You come down next to a sign that says 'Welcome to Albany'.  Your warrior friend tugs on your sleeve, and you find yourself on a carport roof, looking down at a house.  Something is stirring in the darkness, underneath the snow.

   There is a single person in the house, and you think that he knows of the danger, because he's headed towards the back door of his house.  Your view shifts, and you realize you're now standing on another roof.  The man opens the back door, and stumbles outside.  There's a circle in the snow, and in it, a large, silver-furred wolf is asleep.  The man cannot see the wolf, and struggles through the snow, accidentally breaking the circle, causing the wolf to vanish.  Shortly after that, the darkness emerges from the snow.

   Your friend shields your vision with his robe, and you find yourself standing before a temple on a cloud, Fuji visible in the distance beneath you.  He motions you into the temple.

   You aren't aware of actually walking, but suddenly find yourself in the temple, gazing up at Kannon.  The real Kannon, you think, as though the last you saw was merely her shadow.  "You must not let this thing happen," she says to you.  "You must tell him not to break that circle.  You must...."

   ...and the dream ends.

You don't know how you know this ... but you know that those memories were Shade's dreams.

[Rezantis]

"Well."

Rez gradually reorientates himself after that, er, deluge.

"That . . . some of that doesn't look like how it actually turned out.  I recognized . . . well, the Oracle, and I guess that was the Rainbow Serpent under Uluru . . . but . . . the scenes with the Oracle were pretty abstract, but I have to ask if you realize she died.  I mean, there's another incarnation of her now, but that incarnation in the dream - Ayame - she died."

[Brian]

"I'm no seer," Ezmereth says, shaking his head.  "I'm merely an old friend of Grandfather Thunder.  But these memories are older than you, perhaps, are able to realize.  They tell you what happens to Sister Earth.  That we are allowing her to die ... I know nothing of the people who imprisoned me, before I was freed.  They are merely men.  But they have the power to heal their mother, and they'd rather trap me here."  Ezmereth shakes his head sadly.  "It is an ill time when such happens."

[Bjorn]

"That... bastard knew..." Bjorn grates, under his breath.  Visibly, he shakes himself, and reestablishes his composure, though it's clear that there's an unhappy tension behind the calm.

"Okay.  Can you explain anything about those dreams, though?  Some of it is obvious, more to others than some," Bjorn nods at Rez, "but most of it is pretty unclear, I'd say.  For example... why did Ashnod want this?"  He hefts his bracelet, as if that wasn't clear.

[Brian]

"I can guess," Ezmereth says slowly.  "Ashnod, with that bracelet, would have had more power ... with the Warriors of Dream protecting him, he could have resolved the Contest."  There is no mistaking the capital 'C' in 'Contest'.

[Bjorn]

"Well, then.  This bracelet has something to do with these... Wizards of the Dream?  And what is the Contest?"

[Brian]

"Warriors," Ezmereth corrects you.  "They've long roamed the dreaming, shying away from the waking world, and protecting those who sleep from the hazzards of the deep.  I myself can dream, but not so well as they."  He looks thoughtful for a moment, while Victor coughs a bit.

"Um, if you don't mind," Victor hedges.  "It's been a while, so...."

Ezmereth starts, scowls at Victor, but at length nods, and hands the man a bone pipe and pouch of what looks like tobacco.  The vampire grins, and sets about having a smoke.

"The Contest is an inevitability that the world faces in times of crisis," Ezmereth says thoughtfully.  "Always, always, warriors have fought and striven, though of late, no one remembers why.  It was to become mighty, to live on in the world of dreams after death, and fight to protect Sister Earth, and Mother Sun, to see that your children flourished and you protected them.

"But no more.  So few join the hunt to protect her, and the Warriors of Dream, those above those in the Eternal Hunting Grounds, do not have the strength to protect us forever.

"When this happens, there is a Contest, to decide the fate of Sister Earth.  The winner will choose how those who have died fight for her.  They may choose to bear all away, and begin anew ... or they may choose to awaken that which has long lain sleeping, and remind everyone what they have allowed themselves to forget.

"Or perhaps, they will choose to simply cull the weak, and allow only the strong to survive.  The Enemy, that which lives beyond the bounds of knowing, they wouldn't bother with us, were there few enough of us."

He shrugs.  "This is the Contest.  It is a part of life when the circle breaks."