Protect Life

[Bjorn]

"He speaks?"  Bjorn raises his eyebrows in momentary startlement.  "You'll have to excuse my surprise, but I've heard him utter no words."

He frowns then, in thought.  "You say he's strong -- but how strong is he?  And, conversely, how resistant is he to damage?"

[Brian]

Derrick winces.  "He's stone and iron," he says after a moment.  "And ... he doesn't speak, as such.  Except to me.  He is able to understand people who speak to him, though.  As for his strength, he's now carrying the axe that the ... the Dwarf you killed was wielding."

[Bjorn]

Bjorn considers that for a moment, and then asks quietly, "What role did you plan to fill in coming here, might I ask?"

[Brian]

"I honestly wasn't certain," Derrick admits, sighing.  "But I knew that there had to be some purpose that was better than simply waiting for this siege to be over."

[Bjorn]

Bjorn nods and makes a thoughtful noise.  "A commendable attitude," he says, and then sighs.  "Thank you for speaking with me, Master Derrick.  If you'll excuse me, I must be off."

Unless Derrick stops him, Bjorn again starts off on his inspection of the men, again keeping an eye out for Mirallia, Nathan, Radagast, or the alchemist.

[Brian]

You don't see any sign of Qurral, Mirallia, or Radagast.  Nathan is found participating in the tryouts for the Hunter-Hunted tournaments, though you'd need to pull him out of a game to speak with him.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn watches the game for a few minutes, but then shrugs to himself and turns away.

Walking slowly through the grounds, he ponders.  What do I need to do?  Too much.  Don't know how to find the assassin, though, and can't find the other people I need to talk to.  He nods decisvely to himself.  Should go catch up on sleep, and wake up early.  Help with the last minute preparations this time.

That plan established, he heads into the Keep and to his quarters.

[Brian]

The quarters are abandoned when you get there, except for two vassals of Hammar you don't recognize watching the door.  They nod at you, but say nothing when you approach.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn frowns faintly as he nods and enters the quarters.  How many vassals are there now?  That makes, what, ten now?  A lot...

Making his way to the antechamber, Bjorn settles himself carefully down to a light, cautious sleep.

[Brian]

<Nick> Bjorn!
<Nick> You are having a dream.  You suspect this, because you'd like to think that you'd wake up if someone moved you to the room you find yourself in.
<Nick> The first thing you see when you look up is that someone's plastered a mural involving kittens and multiple Dragon Ball Z characters (most of them seem to be King Kai) across the ceiling, along with a number of smaller pictures of catgirls in various states of undress.
<Nick> The walls to your left and right are invisible, completely blocked off with piles of random gaming books, video-game boxes, and random pieces of paper.  There's a ceiling fan hanging just past the end of the mural, at a slight angle, and a clean sock appears to have been draped over one of the blades.
<Nick> At the head of the bed, if you look up, the entire wall has been painted in black, and has a huge yellow glow-in-the-dark smiley face on it.  Except it's a smiley face with three eyes.
<Nick> At the foot of the bed, there's a folding card-table, with one of the legs missing.  It's currently being supported by a stack of what look like third and fourth grade text books.  The table is covered with various collectable card game cards.
<Nick> Atop the cards is what looks like a Tandy, and there's a young man (couldn't be older than nineteen at the most) sitting on a lawn-chair at this desk, typing away at the Tandy.
<Nick> The man's clothing is casual -- blue jeans, a black T-shirt that says, "DOES NOT PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS" in white block letters, and a faded black 'Squaresoft' baseball cap.  His hair is black, about twelve cm long, and all over the place beneath the hat.
<Nick> After a few seconds of typing, he looks up, blinks at you, and then says, "Hello, and welcome to the dream world.  My name is Nick, and I'll be your Brother of Morpheus for the evening."
Bjorn glances down at himself quickly before answering.
<Nick> You are once more in your original body.  Wearing cargo pants and a tank-top.
<Bjorn> 'A sight I've missed -- minus the fashion sense.'
<Bjorn> "Hello," Bjorn replies, swinging his feet off the bed and coming to a sitting position.  "I'd introduce myself, but I'm betting you already know who I am."
<Nick> "Sure.  You're," he pauses, briefly, and checks his screen, "Durant, right?"
<Bjorn> "No," Bjorn replies, rather succinctly.
<Nick> "Oh."  He seems at a bit of a loss.
<Nick> Scratching his head, he says, "Buh...jorn?"
<Bjorn> "Beorn," Bjorn corrects reflexively.
<Nick> "Natch," he says, tapping a few keys on the Tandy's keyboard.  "Okay.  So, you want to talk to your oracle, right?"
<Bjorn> Bjorn blinks.  "That would be nice," he says, a bit dubiously.  "I also have some questions for you, I think."
<Nick> "Well, that's cool," he says, shrugging.  "But, some good news and bad news.  What do you want first?"
<Bjorn> "The bad news," Bjorn replies.
<Nick> "Your oracle's actually kind of busy right now," he says apologetically.  "Helping Alan find, uh, Pandora."
<Bjorn> Bjorn frowns at that, rolling his neck to loosen a kink.  "Pandora?"
<Nick> "Our oracle," he replies, grinning.  "Anyway.  The good news is you can ask me questions."
Bjorn snorts faintly in amusement, but then turns serious, and looks steadily at Nick. "The bracelet," he says, without immediate explanation.
<Nick> "Alan sent it to you," he says without skipping a beat.
<Bjorn> "Why?"
<Nick> "Well, actually, it was Alan's predecessor," he adds, frowning.  "As for the 'why', he was dying, and needed every ally he could get.  The bracelet was meant to protect you until he could get into contact with you again.  Unfortunately, he died before that happened."
<Bjorn> "Again?"  Bjorn says, raising an eyebrow.  "Who was he?"
<Nick> "Alan's just Alan.  Not even he's sure who he really is," Nick says apologetically.  "And he'll be fucked if he knew who his predecessor was.  But he remembers what his predecessor did.  At least, some things."
<Nick> "He brought me here after the incident with Sean," he adds, grimacing.
<Bjorn> "Which incident with Sean who?" Bjorn asks, patiently.
<Nick> "Oh," Nick says, shrugging his shoulders uncomfortably.  "Sean was one of the Communists.  He killed me."
Bjorn narrows his eyes as he studies Nick. "Why do I think you're not using the term 'Communists' the same way I would?"
<Nick> "The Communists were my roommates," he adds.  "That's what Brian called us."
Bjorn blinks at that, a long-ago memory stirring. "Brian... Brian Randall?"
<Nick> "Yeah.  He was this guy we knew back on Earth ... all we got in common when we ended up here, anyway."  He rubs his chin thoughtfully.  "He didn't make it -- he died for good, as far as we can tell."
<Nick> "Wait, you knew him?" Nick asks, raising an eyebrow.
<Bjorn> "I met him online," Bjorn replies, frowning and scrubbing at his chin -- thankful for the absence of beard.  "When you say 'we knew' -- who all is 'we'?"
<Nick> "Hey!  I know you!" Nick exclaims.  "You're the super bad-ass martial artist and brain-surgeon guy he was watching in that AR campaign!  Man.  That campaign sucked ass."  He shakes his head, and frowns again.  "Most of the new Brothers of Morpheus, actually."
<Nick> "He knew me, Bryce Ericson, Mike Nickey, Eric Carlson, both of the Patricks, and the Communists -- though, I'm the only Communist left here."
Bjorn raises an eyebrow at that. "I think," he says with reserve, "that I might be considerably less impressive than the campaign character you're thinking about." He thinks for a few minute more. "So, the other Communists used to be Brothers of Morpheus? What happened to them?"
<Bjorn> "And, for that matter -- why are all the Brothers of Morpheus guys from the Valley who used to know Brian?"
<Nick> "Nah, the other Communists were kind of a team.  Before the Silicon Valley nuke, Brian sent us all a letter saying to meet him on Mt. Hamilton, at the observatory.  It seemed really stupid, but it was his birthday, so we humored him.
<Nick> "While we were there, waiting for him to show up, we saw the nuke get dropped.  We kind of panicked, and ran down to Merced, where Wallace had some family.  Then we started finding out we had freaky abnormal powers.
<Nick> "What we figured was that somehow, I could open gates to other dimensions.  So we thought this was awesome, and we'd go on an adventure, find whatever we needed to fix the world and undo the damage.  Of course, since Brian was nowhere around, and he had named our team in that game 'BigFire', we called ourselves that in honor of him.
<Nick> "But Sean killed me before we ever got a chance to leave."  Nick sighs.  "I'm not sure what happened after that....  Anyway.  I asked Alan about why we all knew Brian.  Alan seems to think that Brian is somehow responsible for all of the Communists developing abnormal abilities, and all of his other friends ending up here.
<Nick> "Alan thought that he was the Wanderer for a while, but then said no, it was this other guy wandering around the Dream that Alan's been trying to kill for a few years."
Bjorn scrubs at his forehead tiredly for a second, trying to process that.
<Nick> "Some ... what did he call himself ... Charrel, something.  Some gay ass name."  He shrugs.  "That's all I got on that -- though if it turns out that Brian's responsible for our lives getting fucked up like this, I'm pretty sure that Bigfire will kill him, 'cause their lives were pretty fucked up after the bomb."
<Nick> "I mean really fucked up," he adds, shrugging.
<Bjorn> "On the other hand," Bjorn points out dryly, "their lives would be over if they hadn't gone to the observatory, right?"
<Bjorn> He frowns then.  "Charrel.  Not... Qurral?"
<Nick> "Yeah ... but I'm sure he could have gotten us all out of trouble without making us turn into targets for freaky secret societies."  He pauses.  "Though, I guess he might not have known about them.  Anyway. ...no, Qurral is one of the independents.  Charrel's got no body -- he's dead like me."
<Bjorn> "Right," Bjorn nods.  "There's no chance that Brian was Alan's predecessor?"
<Nick> Nick blinks at this.  "He doesn't look much like Brian," he says.  "Or act the same, really.  Brian was kind of a lazy guy.  Alan has to be the most driven guy I've ever seen.  Though, they got the same hair color."
Bjorn cocks an eyebrow. "So being Alan's predecessor is more than having the same job?"
<Nick> Nick leans back in his lawn chair, and chews his lip thoughtfully.  "You know ... Alan said that when he got here, there was just the older Brothers of Morpheus.  Saul, Lan, and Ezikiel.  None of those three were really in charge...."  He frowns.  "I always assumed that when he was talking about his predecessor he meant who he was before he died.  But, anyway, I knew Brian, and Alan is pretty different from him.
<Nick> "The only way they could be the same person was through the Constants."
<Bjorn> "The Constants?" Bjorn inquires.
<Nick> "Eh ... the precepts....  Okay.  So, basically, here in the Dream, which is the shell that reality nests in, there is really only ONE constant.  'There is no constant.'"
<Nick> Nick looks thoughtful for a moment, and starts shuffling some random cards.
<Nick> "The two Extensions are 'Nothing last forever', and 'Nothing can be done that cannot be undone'."
<Nick> "From there, the Extrapolations are: 'Will defines reality,' 'What's beneath reality is nothing,' and 'we exist because we will it'."
<Nick> "Then we go on into Alan's whole explanation about how nature abhors a vacuum, and then, the Enemy isn't real, it's just nothing.  But it's trying to destroy reality because it doesn't mesh with the uniform non-existence between pockets of reality."
<Nick> Nick shrugs again, pushing the cards away.  "The long and short of it is that you're in the Matrix, but we're all in the Matrix, and chicken tastes good, so why worry?"
<Bjorn> "Because," Bjorn says a touch flatly, "I'm fighting in the Contest, and I'd like to know why."
<Bjorn> "For example," he continues, his tone filling with curiosity, "what exactly is the relationship between the Brotherhood and the Contest?  Both, one way or the other, are trying to hold back the Enemy, right?"
<Nick> "Of course," Nick says, nodding.  "We're in the Dream, fighting the Enemy.  Only not too many people know or really understand what the Enemy is.  It's ... okay.  People are like atoms, right?  In outer space?"
<Bjorn> "Very few and far between?" Bjorn hazards.
<Nick> He leans forward on his chair, propping his elbows on the table, and makes a gesture with his hands that could indicate anything.  "That's right.  So, okay.  Now, people are here, like atoms, and they bond together in social structures and stuff.  You can say that protons are their physical selves, or whatever.  Anyway, the electrons represent their thoughts."
<Nick> "When they make links, those bonds are bridged, the electrons are swapped around ... and the electrons are dreams.  Something like that.  So a social structure is a molecule, and a complex molecule will often share a dream."
<Bjorn> "All right," Bjorn replies, leaning forward in turn, "with you so far."
<Nick> "Anyway, when it starts to get too big, it doesn't hold up -- it explodes.  I guess real atoms don't spontaneously do that, but bear with me," he says, flipping cards over more-or-less at random.
Bjorn shrugs, and watches the cards as he listens.
<Nick> "The thing is, you've got, say, a cloud of gas.  None of the molecules are really bound together, but they're all in the same place.  This only works if there's borders, like, say, in a tank of compressed helium."
<Nick> "If you try to have a cloud of gas in outer space, it's going to get dispersed by the vacuum.  Now, you could, in theory, have an atom or two chilling together and drinking atom beer, and that'd be okay.  You could probably have a string of molecules around, and they could party.  That'd be cool too.
<Nick> "But when there's too many in a single place, reality intrudes, and then --boom!-- they all get dispersed."
<Nick> He sets the card down and looks at you levelly.  "So now, Earth got big enough that it should have blown into separate tiny realities and dreams a looooong time ago.  But it didn't.
<Nick> "And here's where we get into a problem -- what happens when there's so many atoms in a single place that they all start clinging together, and not being separated by the vacuum?"
<Bjorn> "Vacuum starts pulling at it," Bjorn guesses.  "The Enemy."
<Nick> "That's right."  He suddenly sweeps all the cards up into three neat, separate decks.
<Nick> "So."  A pile of cards gets spread across the table.  "Here's the original world as it started in the Fertile Crescent."
<Nick> "It spread and then grew to encompass the Mediterranean.  And that's where Lan came in.  So, there were a ton of atoms."  The cards multiply, until their weight threatens to buckle the table.
<Bjorn> "Lan?" Bjorn interrupts.
<Nick> "Lan was the first Brother of Morpheus," he adds, smiling, and looking up from the cards.  "Then, we also got the Order of Symmetry, which the Brothers of Morpheus created."
<Bjorn> "I see," Bjorn says, and then falls quiet again, listening intently.
<Nick> He holds up his hands and waggles his fingers.  "Can't change what's on the cards," he points out.  "But can rearrange the way they work."  He stacks the cards neatly, and they somehow become a much smaller and shorter stack.  "Learn to live with the world you've become a part of," he instructs the cards.  "Happy, shiny cards.  All holding hands."
Bjorn nods, frowning.
<Nick> "So.  This is good.  But, hey, tier two, 'nothing lasts forever', and 'nothing can be done that can't be undone'."  The cards suddenly spill out across the table.
<Nick> "Then, we've got problems.  But this time, even the cards are aware of what's going on, and our atoms take a step before we can guide people again."  The cards writhe, throwing the majority of the cards off of the table, where they drift to the floor and vanish.  "Problem solved?" Nick asks.
<Bjorn> "Temporarily," Bjorn says, with grim humor.
<Nick> "Exactly," Nick says, grinning.  The cards multiply again.  "So, we're blocked off, the Order of Symmetry is destroyed, their oracle stolen, and then they make us forget where our own is."  He shrugs helplessly, as his hands can now no longer move the cards at all.
<Nick> "Another solution," he says, taking one of the untouched stacks of cards, and tossing it into the air next to the table.  Another table appears beneath it (this one of marginally better quality, as the primary table is quite beaten up from the abuse of the weight on it).
<Bjorn> "Created a new molecule, and who cares about the last one," Bjorn states rather than asks.
<Nick> The cards migrate from the table before Nick, and spread their weight evenly across both tables.  "And once more, the problem is 'solved'."  He shakes his head.
<Nick> The original deck of the second table is all but hidden.
<Nick> "Only now, we've got an interesting new problem."  He looks up.  "The Dream didn't grow.  At all.  The world became much larger -- but it wasn't one table -- it was a good dozen.  But the Dream was stretched across them in the waking world.
<Nick> "No more mass for the Dream to take with it."
Bjorn frowns.
<Bjorn> "So what does that mean?"
<Nick> "So we've become increasingly crippled as time goes on.  We can't FIND the other Dreams to wake them up, and bring them into this place ... legends, cultures, lores ... it's now all part of something ... smaller.  And that's not how it should be at all....  But what's really pressing is THIS."  Nick frowns, and then the room is suddenly filled to bursting with cards, which form a massive mound between you and him.
<Nick> "What happens when you have so many atoms that they can bond together without fear of being dispersed by the vacuum?"
<Bjorn> "Gravitational collapse?" Bjorn guesses again.
<Nick> "Exactly," he says, as everything around you vanishes, except for the cards, which collapse into a bright star.  You're now hovering over a field of nothingness, with a golf-ball sized sun between you and Nick.
<Nick> "Obviously," he says, "something needs to be done before it gets to this point.  Killing a whole bunch of people would fix it, but let's be honest, that doesn't help the Dream at all, and it's a fucked up solution anyway."
<Nick> "But then, running away and making the world bigger just guarantees the collapse.  Fleeing will only save those who run."
<Nick> Nick snaps his fingers, and his room is restored to its original (messy) state.
<Bjorn> "So," Bjorn says, "each of the created new worlds *should* have its own Dream, but doesn't.  So, somehow, we need to awaken the Dreams of the created worlds?"
<Nick> "That's OUR goal," Nick says, nodding.  "And what you are in right now is what's left of one of the Dreams -- the Battle-Realm.  If you defeat it, and we sponsor you, then we can use your victory to reclaim that much more of the Dream.  The real concern, though, is that the world might not LAST long enough.  The Enemy -- the vacuum -- is coming soon, and we're about to get exploded by it."
<Bjorn> "So we have a time limit."  Bjorn frowns more deeply, crossing his legs.  "But that's a trick, isn't it, given we have little control over how long things take in the Dreams?  How much time do we have?"
<Nick> "Well, there's nothing like a clock ... the truth of the matter is that it's a force of nature, and it's already working against the world.  Remember that will dictates reality?"
Bjorn nods. "Okay...."
<Nick> "Well, this is where the secret society bullshit is really screwing things up -- people believe that change is coming.  Almost every person in the real world you meet knows that it's going to happen.  The end of the world, colonies on the moon, time machines, or the advent of utopia.  But what do people have to believe in most when they look at the world around them?"
<Bjorn> "Materialism," Bjorn guesses.  
<Nick> "Well, yeah, they have lost the Dream.  But what it is, is mostly that it's going to end," Nick says, frowning.
<Nick> "And while you're doing the Contest, we're going to harness their belief and forge it into the reality they live in.  The seeds are there already for massive outbreaks of disease, war, and famine.  It's not too hard to believe in the good, either.  Maybe hyperspace travel.  Remember, it used to be insane to think the world was round....  We just need to remind them that there's more to the world than doom and gloom or escape."
<Bjorn> "Okay," Bjorn says, slowly.  "So while the Order of Symmetry tries to repair the fundamental damage -- to awaken the lost Dreams, and to... stabilize the thought-molecule -- the Brotherhood of Morpheus is trying to set-up a positive feedback loop of belief?  Take what people believe in, give it to them, and make them believe in it more, so they exert more will, and thus make themselves more real?"
<Nick> "Yes," he says, jumping up and smacking a fist on the table.  "That's exactly right!  That puts everything into alignment -- people become aware of their world enough to hold it within its limitations without the risk of destroying another Dream, or killing themselves completely off!  Maybe it's idealistic, but it's what we've always striven for."
<Bjorn> "All right," Bjorn says, his brow clearing.  "That's something I can understand -- and something I can believe in."  He frowns, then, again.  "Now for the next question.  What determines our goal when we enter a Dream?
<Bjorn> "For example," he continues, "imagine if we'd been the first into the -- Battle-realm? -- and not the Seventh Cabal.  What would we have had to do?"
<Nick> "Well, my personal theory about that is that it's based on what the Dream is of," he says, righting his lawn chair and sitting down again.  "Basically ... I think these Dreams really ARE the other Dreams that didn't join us.  Their ... volume or something doesn't match up, which is why WE can't enter them."
<Nick> "So we need to get their attention enough to try and join with our own Dream.  As far as what your goal would have been, it's simply that -- to get attention.  For what it's worth ... I think the Dreams are reflections of what went on before the world supporting the Dream was stolen from it."
<Nick> "Generally, as far as I can tell, the Dreams like to see what their worlds should have been like.  Realistically, you need to fundamentally change the way that the world works, or advance it in some way."
<Nick> "The Battle-Realm is always fighting ... so you'd need to bring an end to the wars -- or at least one of the major causes."
Bjorn nods. "So in this case, we have to stop the Dreadmarch not because that goal is fixed, but because if the Dreadmarch wins, all other wars are eliminated, so we'd have no way to draw attention," he says, half to himself.
<Nick> "Well, actually, if the Dreadmarch wins, the Elder Gods destroy all life and just start the entire thing over again.  To really win, you need to either free the Younger Gods, or drive away the Elder Gods."
<Bjorn> "Wait," Bjorn says, looking up sharply.  "So it's not enough to simply *beat* the Dreadmarch.  We have to make sure the Dreadmarch never happens again?"
<Nick> "Yep," Nick says gravely.
<Bjorn> "What do you mean by 'freeing the Younger Gods'?" Bjorn asks.  "Do the Archonae have them bound somehow?"
<Nick> Nick grabs a second edition Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide, and starts flipping through it.  "Okay.  But this is OOC information, so don't metagame or nothing," he says with a wink.  "The Younger Gods are sealed in crystals.  If you can wake them up, they'll kick some Elder God ass, and all will be well.  Alternately, you need to get the Elder Gods' attention, and convince them to leave."
<Nick> "As far as we can tell, the Dream is not actually capable of imagining the Elder Gods wanting to leave without the Younger Gods making them do it."
Bjorn grunts at that. "The crystals are the Younger Gods? That puts an entirely new spin on what happened."
<Bjorn> He ponders for a long second, and then nods.  "That clears up a lot.  Thank you.  Do you mind if I ask another question or two about the bracelet?"
<Nick> "Not at all," he says.
<Bjorn> "Well," Bjorn smiles faintly, "what exactly is it?"
<Nick> "It's designed to protect whoever wears it from ... the paranormal," Nick says after a moment.  "Of course, stretched between five people, it's really only got enough power to be a symbol.  Which is pretty powerful in a normal Dream.  You can use it as a key, a shield, a weapon, or whatever else you imagine.  It won't work that way in the Battle Realm, though, because it's part of OUR Dream, not theirs."
Bjorn nods slowly. "So in the waking world, the bracelet doesn't provide any protection to any of us anymore?"
<Bjorn> As he says that, he looks down at his wrist.  If the bracelet isn't there, he imagines it being there -- and once there, he visualizes it becoming a seven-foot spear.
<Nick> This happens as soon as you imagine it.  Nick seems unfazed.
<Nick> "Not much," he says, shaking his head.  "Unless all five of you concentrate on it protecting one specific person, in which case, there you go.  Only problem is it's a really GOOD protection, so it can actually end up blocking you from using whatever abilities you've picked up on your own."
<Bjorn> "I noticed," Bjorn says drily.
<Bjorn> He hums thoughtfully.  "I spent some time experimenting with it," he remembers.  "And I noticed that it seemed like... I had *two* shields.  One I had to concentrate on bringing into being, that glowed, and kept me from moving.  The other was automatic, and didn't limit me at all.
<Bjorn> "Were they both from the bracelet?  I... don't seem to have either now, though I haven't had people trying to set me on fire to make sure."
<Nick> "It responds to your will to a limited degree," he says, eyeing the spear thoughtfully.  "It responds to your perception.  If you imagine that you're in serious peril, it'll do what it can to protect you.  If you're afraid of the dark, it'll make light."
<Nick> "Anyway," he says, glancing at a wristwatch which wasn't there a moment ago.  "Okay.  I've got one important bit of information for you, before you go.  One of your enemies has cheated -- one of the Generals you're fighting can't be beaten.  At all."
Bjorn grunts. "Elric."
<Nick> "Actually, no," he says, shaking his head.  "Elric isn't part of the Seventh Cabal plot.  Basically ... the Seventh Cabal gave their ward, the ward of this Dream itself, to someone IN the dream.  The Jotun."
Bjorn blinks. "That's... okay. Wait. Ward?"
<Nick> "The Dream gives whoever gets its attention a prize.  The Ward of Earth amounts to complete invulnerability when combined with the Jotun's heritage.  The Seventh Cabal figured this out before they left.  So ... you're going to need to cheat BACK to get rid of him."
<Bjorn> "Cheat," Bjorn echoes, slowly.  "Cheat by whose rules?  And what's the penalty for cheating?"
<Nick> "You'll be destroyed by the Dream," Nick says bluntly.  "I don't suggest doing it personally.  The trick is to get someone to enter the Dream, pull the Jotun out, and kill it by changing the rules."
Bjorn frowns, again -- the wrinkles will set in soon. "How did the Cabal manage to cheat, then? And how do we do all of that?"
<Nick> "You can return to a Dream after you've earned the Ward.  They chose to re-enter the Dream, give the Ward to the Jotun, and then left."
<Nick> "Alan can't enter the Dream for long, but if he's called by enough people in the Dream -- his friends, the wolves -- he can do it.  It's about all we CAN do directly, in all honesty."  Nick looks a bit glum at this last.
<Bjorn> "Huh," Bjorn sounds.  "So we call in Alan, he pulls the Jotun out, and...?"
<Nick> "Kills it between the Dream you're in, and our own," Nick says resolutely.
Bjorn scratches at the back of his neck thoughtfully. "What happens to the Jotun's Ward at that point?"
<Nick> "That's the suck-ass part," he says, shaking his head.  "It becomes dissolved back to the Seventh Cabal to take for their own.  I kind of suspect that they set it up that way so they'd know, really."
<Bjorn> "Nothing to do about that, I guess," Bjorn sighs, and the studies Nick a tad sharply.  "You said this was cheating," he points out bluntly.  "Who bears the price for it?"
<Nick> "That'll be Alan, actually," Nick says, frowning.  "But he's died once.  He thinks he can take it again."
<Bjorn> "One more question, actually, if we have time," Bjorn says suddenly, as a though occurs to him.  "Has anyone from this Dream escaped it?"
<Nick> Nick raises an eyebrow.  "Yeah, actually.  We tried to grab him to ask him questions -- he got past all of us, though.  Now he's one of the Wanderer's thralls."  He frowns.  "Though, he sent his shadow back to the Dream of Earth.  Alan wanted us to ask him about how he did what he did....  But I guess from a different Dream we seemed too alien.  Either way, the Wanderer told us not to fuck with his thralls, so it's out of our hands now."
<Bjorn> "So his shadow -- a copy of him? -- is still in the Dream with us?"
<Nick> "Yeah -- I haven't figured out who yet, though.  I THINK he got killed by Solariat, and his bones were made into Mattias's base."
<Bjorn> "Mattias has some memories of a knight in golden armor with a halberd," Bjorn says slowly, trying to recall.  "That seems to be linked somehow to who he used to be."  He eyes Nick.  "I don't suppose you can tell me how to break Solariat's wards on Mattias?"
<Nick> Nick chews on his lip.  "Huh," he says.  "Hm."  He shakes his head slowly.  "Mattias only showed up a little while ago, relativistically speaking.  I'm going to have to look into that.  For now, I've got no clue."
Bjorn nods, and shifts, uncrossing and then re-crossing his legs. "All right. How much can you help us, anyways? Without breaking the rules of the Contest, I mean."
<Nick> "Quite a bit," he says, nodding.  "Basically, the only judges are the Dreams themselves, which we can't usually enter."
<Bjorn> "So how does this work?" Bjorn says, waving a hand about the cluttered room.  "How am I touching this Dream from the Battle-realm?"
<Nick> "That's how we're cheating, a bit," Nick says.  "You're at the edge of our Dream, and your own Dream.   You can't see it, but there's a boundary between us.  Sure, you've got your fetish with you ... but it's just a dream.  If you imagine yourself to be a car, you will be.  This is the weakest level of a Dream.  Good for communication, though."
<Bjorn> "I see," Bjorn says -- and he does, too.  Stretching his arms, he asks, "So there's no chance of speaking with my Oracle?"
<Nick> "Not tonight," he says apologetically.  "We're kind of really pressed to use her help to get Pandora back -- then we'll have two oracles, between the two of us."
<Bjorn> "Pandora," Bjorn says.  "Not *the* Pandora, I'm guessing?"
<Nick> "Well, she's OUR light of hope, but no, she's not that old.  I think Lan said she was born about 400 B.C.  Though, it took me a while to figure the math on that, so I could be waaaay off."
<Nick> "Anyway.  You're about due to wake up -- time for one last question."
<Bjorn> Bjorn makes a noise, not quite a laugh.  "You say, just as I run out of questions," he says dryly, and then a thought occurs to him.  "Actually.  Bit afield, but... our Oracle seems to have... forgotten a lot of what she once knew, I think.  Is there a way to help her with that?"
<Nick> "That's going to be Pandora's job," he says nodding.  "Rest well!"
<Nick> And then everything becomes darkness.

[Brian]

Bjorn is awoken sometime later by a knock at the door.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn gets to his feet a little slower than normal, running over the dream he's just had and trying to fix all the details in his memory.  Only when he's close to finished (which doesn't take very long, vivid as it was) does he make a move to go and open the door.

[Brian]

Mirallia eyes you sleepily from the doorway that's just opened, smiles at Bjorn, and says nothing, heading directly for her room.

Bjorn's not certain of the time, but suspects it actually hasn't been that long yet.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn closes the doorway, and then turns back.  "Mirallia," he calls out in  a low voice (so as not to be overheard by the vassals outside), trying to stop her before she gets into her own room.

[Brian]

She pauses at the doorway, and turns to face Bjorn.  "Yes?" she asks tiredly.  "Is something amiss?"