Welcome to Gaia! ::

Joe raised an eyebrow. Given the current situation, a mental instability was more than likely. He decided to treat it like shellshock.
"Siber," he said, talking slowly. "You OK, bud?" Realizing how foolish he must appear, he resumed his original topic, albeit slowly. He didn't want to worsen the condition.
"Well, for now, I don't want to try to do anything...invasive. If it wanted me to know where it was, then I would know. But I'm not going to try to trace it on the off chance that it, ah...destroys me. You know?"

((S'ok. Like I said, it happens to all of us. Although that doesn't answer m question.))

((Whaaaaaat? Not fair, Siber gets equipment from cyNet3, spells from the Druids, and now contact with the 12th? All I get is...Avatar powers from the Djinni. Hmm.
I retract my complaint. ninja ))

Paul sighed mightily. He didn't like car trips. Or air trips. Nothing good every came of flights, and he'd just taken one a couple days ago. He drove, deep in unthought. Every thought he had stopped before it developed; he was trapped in his own head with nothing else there. He was alone. Absolutely alone.

Except for one other person. Robert was there. Somehow an image developed in front of his third eye, clouding the magical view it had. He was sitting under an immense black dome. Across the way there was a man. He looked to be in his thirties or forties. His hair was a shade of reddish brown. Clothing-wise, he was dressed simply; a tunic sort of affair combined with long, loose leggings. He was considering Paul oddly.

"You haven't given much thought to how you feel, have you?" Robert asked.

"Yes, I have. It's simple. I'm a warlock and I have to defeat Legion in the long run. Given much, much is expected," Paul responded simply.

"You haven't thought about it at all," Robert told Paul. This was not an accusation, nor a question; it was a statement. "You haven't thought about it at all. You're away from your wife, you've been forced into a battle that was never yours, and you're expected to put your life on the line regularly. You wouldn't mind, but you're married. You can't afford to take risks, there are people who need you. Somewhere, you wish I weren't here. You haven't given it enough thought, but you wish I weren't here. You should've been able to finish college and get on with your life, but now that chance is gone. Believe me, I know. I've been in your mind here this whole time and I've seen it growing.You accept it but you don't like it. If there were another way you'd gladly accept it. If somehow you could remove me from you you would. But you can't. Your life has been dragged into this hellhole and although you don't admit it, you want out. You've had enough. You're through. The only reason you won't fold is because you can make a difference. You can save lives, and because you can you must. That makes it not quite as bad, because you know you're doing the right thing, but you wish it were easier."

Paul stared at Robert dumbfounded. "How do I know you're not just telling me this?" In retrospect, he would think it was a terribly stupid question to ask.

"I'm in your head, Paul. I am essentially you. I don't like doing this sort of thing either. In fact, I didn't in the original Cabal because I was too lazy. I made excuses. I was too scared. I wasn't strong enough. The truth was, it would've been too inconvenient. To rally all the dissenters, join the Hunters, get protection... it would've been hard, and my life was easy. I had it easy! So I did nothing. I ignored my conscience, and now I'm finally getting a chance to make that up. But you don't want to. It's hard. I understand."

"I have to!" Paul countered quickly, unwilling to give.

"You have to, yes, but that doesn't make you happy about it. Not at all. That just makes it worse. Being forced into something... it's not good, never was. But I need this, Paul. I need this."

Paul could only stare, unable to come up with words. Robert was... right. Oh so right. But... Paul couldn't accept that. He couldn't be that way. Was he really so self-centered?

"No, Paul. No. If you were really so self-centered, you wouldn't be here. You would've run away from your wife, found shelter. You would've refused to fight. You might've taken shelter with the Hunters, but you'd never have come out onto the field. You're just stopping to think about what you really want at the moment. Perhaps that's not important; perhaps it is best to forget about yourself and drive yourself into the work. But you can't never acknowledge your complaints. You have to learn them and conquer them. That's how you become better, Paul. That's how you become greater than you are.

"But why am I telling you this? You know this already, Paul. You've known it your whole life. I just had to force you to see it. I'm your conscience now. I'm you, but older, wiser. You've gained years of experience without living them. For that, fighting this fight for me seems an easy price to pay, doesn't it?"

Paul stared as the room faded away and his third eye came back into focus. Now his thoughtlessness was filled. The flight might not be as bad as he had presumed...

((Ha, Joe, you've got it good. All I've got is an assault rifle that penetrates shields. Which isn't bad. But you know. Eventually I'll have more, though... I just need a good time to pull Darius in... which I suspect won't come for a while.))

((Fyrin and Renard don't really have the means to effectively locate them unless Takeshi's group unless they use magic.
EDIT: They meaning Takeshi, Agnese, or Keilven.

And character development? I approve heartily.))

((I smelled no cheese. At the very least, none of the pungent variety; no cheddar or bleu or anything.))

((To save us time...))

Joe consulted with Roland and repeated what he was told. "The Twelfth Pillar is the only dimensional area with altered physical laws; it's the source of the Sages' Physics Beams. Nobody has ever gone there and returned, and any attempt to scry it results in whatever was being used to scry turning into that green exploding stone."

Perhaps there are more relevant questions.

Siber barely had time to wonder what it meant.

What is sorrow? He saw out the window her, in the arms of another man.

What is anger? He saw a pile of the bodies of children, Legion sitting atop them.

What is fear? He saw a ghostly imagine moving towards him, a knife entering him. And then, for a terrifying moment, nothingness. He felt in that instance the eternity of nothing that would follow death by the Ghoster's knife of the Silence.

Nothing is more terrifying than ultimate, eternal oblivion.

What am I? What are you? What are we?

I am of the Dreamshell.

We came before. We come after. We are the truth, the lie. We are fear and anger and sadness and comfort and calm and happiness. We are thought and reflex.

Do you fear oblivion?

((And another part of the Council takes action. The Dreamshell became part of the Council after the Cabal's first run, thus the unfamiliarity of your warlocks. In fact, they don't yet know the Dreamshell is part of the council.