My Village is Number One

[Bjorn]

"Anybody else," Bjorn says over his shoulder as he heads for the door.  "If not, it was nice meeting all of you.  Talk to you guys later."

To all of the Order, as well as Bart and Lazarus, he adds, I'll be listening.  Call me if you need me.  Lazarus, I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to sit down and go over things yet.  Soon, I promise.

[Carthrat]

"Time is indeed what we could use," says Tom, following Tim's lead. "There's heaps to think over, but until we're done with the thinking, I don't mind helping out here and there."

[Brian]

Tom and those with him now go to In a Town.

This includes all of Bigfire except for Sterling, Mark, and David, who remain behind.

[Dracos]

Dracos leans back, finishing up his meal.  "So what's the story with you guys anyhow?"

Dracos

[Brian]

Bart left to follow Bjorn.  David and Mark don't say much of anything, but Sterling asks, "Who are you asking?"

[Dracos]

"You guys." Dracos shrugged.  "You're running around the country and such.  I've heard Hal's story, you've heard a touch of mine.  What's yours?"

Dracos

[Brian]

"Eh, well," Sterling muses, rubbing his chin.  "Basically, it all started like this.  So, we're all in town, hanging around, and we get letters from Brian.  Envelope-type letters.  They say he wants to meet us on Mount Hamilton, which has an observatory.  Said it was because he wanted to see a meteor shower or something."

"Normally, I wouldn't have bothered, but it was his birthday, after all," David adds.

"So we get onto the mountain about ten minutes before the nuke goes off," Mark continues.  "Very bright."

"And of course, Brian wasn't around," Sterling picks up.  "Anyway.  We stumble around for a while, start finding out we've got awesome and weird new powers, and then all of the sudden some guys in a blackhawk helicopter start shooting at us.  Jim screams like a little girl and the chopper just shuts down.  Drops a good seventy feet onto some rocks, and we all run like hell."

"Wally and I left after Sean killed Nick," Mark grumbles.

"Let's not talk about Sean," David says, shaking his head.

"Yeah.  Well.  Anyway.  So we lost two of our boys, and two more decided that they were just going to part ways and hide," Sterling goes on.  "So.  We spent a few years trying to learn about the guys chasing us, and eventually got pretty good at making them mad.  At least, I think we have."  He shrugs.  "Really, I can't relate every fight we've been in, but they've been pretty constant for the last few years.  At least every three days, I think."

"We had that two weeks in Maui," David counters, shaking his head.

"Right, well, aside from that," Sterling says, rolling his eyes at David.  "We'd recently split up so that some of us could get a bomb that was in Australia and stop it, and the rest could rescue Daniel from his impending demise.  After that, we teleported to Austin, found Tom, and went to Australia so we could regroup.

"That's where we ran into Tim.  And then Kyle was picked up with Tom, and Phae -- the little girl -- we stole in Mexico from some tourists."  He grins at this, and then quickly adds, "Nah, we rescued her from an ogre.  I think she was supposed to be in a coma, or something.  After that, we end up getting together with Wallace and Mark again, and then we run across the dream-world for about six months before we end up here."

[Dracos]

"neat...but how'd you know about the stuff?  One of you a seer?" Dracos nodded, doing one of his favorite pasttimes, listening to stories.

Dracos

[Brian]

"Other stuff?  Well, we met an oracle in the dream-place, but, uh, I don't know anything else," Sterling replies.  Pointing to Kyle, he explains, "Apparently he does, though."

[Dracos]

"Ah yes...hum,  Tim mentioned it.  Pandora?  Who is she really?" He turned to Kyle, seeing what they knew.

Dracos

[Brian]

"Pandora is the Brotherhood's oracle," Kyle offers.  "Alan and Pandora told me what I knew.  Which is mostly that a spell is responsible for drawing everyone together."

[Dracos]

Dracos nodded.  "Anyhow, nice meeting you blokes and welcome to new delphi.  I'll see you around but I'm going to go hunt down Rez now."

Dracos, waiting a moment to see if they stopped him, heading to go find Rez.

Dracos

[Ginrai]

Ginrai was about to go and meet with Rez as well until a sudden thought came upon him. "The letters that Brian gave - were those given directly to you guys by him? With the mention of him having possibly been a sacrifice to get us all together I'm getting the idea that those could've been faked."

[Brian]

"Well, come to think of it," David muses, "he didn't give them to us himself, no."

"And he didn't have a printer, and his handwriting was bad," Mark adds helpfully.

Sterling raises an eyebrow.  "The letters were hand-written.  Come to think of it, I don't think I'd ever seen him use a pen outside of signing his name."  He frowns at this.

Dracos rises and heads off in search of Nathan.

[Ginrai]

Thinking over what he had just heard, Ginrai then asks, "This might sound strange, but do any of you still have a copy of the letter?"