He's found it.

Finally, after searching for thousands of years, he has found it!

Well, sort of, anyway. The door is here - he needs the others to help him open it.

He scribbles notes on four separate sheets of paper, then, using another trick he picked up from a witch when he lived on the Isle of Mists, he magically sends all four notes to the other memebers of the circle.

That having been accomplished, he sits at the base of the tree and begins to focus on the doorway he has found. It occurs to him that, since he had been, for the longest time, the last remaining of the Guardians, he would not be able to find the doorway into their quarters. Of course, the opposite is true, as well - no one else would be able to unless five Guardians were chosen, and once the circle had been broken, the door could not be opened unless all five Guardians were present to perform the ceremony to re-forge the circle. Once the door was opened, of course, any one of them could enter the quarters at any time, until the circle was broken - then the door would close again, waiting for the Guardians to remake their circle once more.

So many rules. When he had first been introduced to magic, he had been astounded to find that magic always has certain rules to follow, and that without certain things being set it could not be performed. Now, of course, he's used to it, but still, it fascinates him as much now as it did then the sometimes strict rules that are set in place.

As he focuses, the amulet at his throat begins to glow with brilliant, amethyst-shaded light. After a moment, a mist begins to form, seeming to swirl in from the very air itself, surrounding the tree at which he sits with a thick, almost impenetrable fog...

He is sitting in a seedy little bar in WestEnd, not far from his doss, when the letter falls out of midair in front of him and lands on top of his beer.

He's not unfamiliar with magic, of course - where he comes from, you have to be used to it, and he even has a bit of it himself. Still, he's not used to having letters drop out of the thin air and on his drink. That may take some getting used to.

He picks the note up off of his drink and unfolds it, taking a look at what is written on it, and grunts an acknowledgement to no one in particular.

Wel...about time we got things movin', then. I hate just coolin' mah heels.

He finishes the beer in a single draught, crumpling up the paper and dropping it on the floor as he stands and heads for the door, stepping out into the daylight. Most would say it's too early in the day for a drink, but what does he care? No one has ever said that he was a saint, and why he was picked for this, he doesn't know, except that he truly does want to help. He hates seeing good people suffer when there's no need for it, and it seems that his entire life has been aimed toward that purpose.

As the door shuts behind him, he takes a breath and walks forward, summoning the wind. The first time he had to do this, it took a bit of bit of concentrating to get him where he needed to go. Normally, he travels with the wind, letting it carry him where he needs to go but not directing it, instead - if you'll pardon the pun - letting the winds of fate and chance take him where they will. Now, though, he has complete control over it, letting him travel wherever he will, though he still has to focus a bit on his destination.

It is, in some ways, he thinks as the wind comes and picks his form up, like going to sleep - there is a brief, dream-like shifting of colors and places that seems to fly past, far too fast for his human senses to process, a blurring of color and sounds that are chaotic and make no sense, but at the same time is oddly soothing. A few moments later, he feels things start to slow, a sudden gust of wind against his face, and solid ground under his boot heels, and he opens his eyes to find himself standing in the marketplace

He looks around to get his bearings, spying the northern entrance to the marketplace and heading towards it, following the road past the city wall of RhyDin and entering the woods. A couple hundered feet later, he sees exactly what the note had talked about - a thick wall of fog that looks impenetrable. With a smirk on his lips, he summons the wind again and directs it to blow at the fog.

As he suspected, the fog doesn't even budge - just swirls a little, but remains as thick and opaque as before. He shakes his head and walks into it, five steps...

...a moment later, he sees a vague, slight shape of a girl just ahead, and he moves to stand next to her. "So...you get the note too, then, little lady?"

He's the last to arrive, mostly because he can't use his own powers of teleportation as well as the others in the daylight - after all, the shadows during the day are smaller and fewer than they are at night. Besides, it wouldn't do to let himself get out of shape if he can avoid it, so the walk turns out to be good for him.

He arrives at the market place and takes the north road out of RhyDin, emerging in the woods. Here, there are more shadows, but Lupinius had cautioned him not to try shadow-walking (as he called it) into this area, as the magicks around it could have some potentially disasterous effects. He hadn't specified what those were, but Wraith had dealt enough with magic in the Sixth World to know that that sort of warning shouldn't go unheeded.

As he approaches, he sees the other three Guardians waiting in the fog, ghostly shapes he can just barely make out. One of them, McCarty, he recognizes and gives a respectful nod of greeting to. The otehr two, though, he hasn't met yet - but they have the other two amulets around their necks, and that means they're supposed to be here, all right.

"So...the gang's all here, then? What're we waiting for?"

He's used to foggy places - after all, he had been born, raised and living in a place where fog - even as thick as this - is nearly an every day occurence. Still, though, he can tell that this is not your ordinary, every-day mist. He can feel the nebulous, wavery feeling of this area - as if there were a doorway just out of sight, a passage to another place, that he can feel but not see or touch.

He's come across other places like this in his time as a 'runner, but never this strongly. Nor was there this feeling he has now - as if it were something that is connected to him, specifically. Well, him and the other four individuals assembled here.

As he looks around at the mist around him, he can see vague shapes - trees, he thinks, but what might be animals, as well, or perhaps living beings of another kind. But they always stay just out of sight, and out of habit, he switches his vision to the astral plane to see if he can get a better make on those ghostly figures just out of range of his vision.

What he sees causes him to take a step back - all around them is a collection of what looks like dark, ghostly forms in suits of armor of varying styles, standing around them in a rough circle. None of them move towards them - rather, they are all just standing there. And each of them is outlined in an aura of one of five colors. It takes him a moment to realize that the five colors - violet, blue, green, red, or gold - are the same colors that each of their amulets give off.

He looks around at the rest of them. "Do any of you...? Wolfe, who are they...?"

He looks around the group, at the circle surrounding them. He can see them quite clearly, as he already knows exactly what to look for. He sses others - Wraith, Valeria - tensing, getting ready for a fight. He holds up a hand to them, his gaze and demeanor calm.

"Hold it, you two. These are not your enemies - they are the shades of the Guardians who came before. They are our allies, our friends, here to witness the completing of the Circle once more."

His own eyes travel around the circle of warriors, noting the myriad of different styles of armor adorning the knights. Four of them are familiar to him - Justin, Aaron, Gareth, and Michael. His brothers, his friends, the first family he had ever had. He has missed them all these years, has thought of them quite often, in fact. They had been his truest friends, the first real friends he had ever had.

Lost in those recollections once again for a moment, he almost forgets that, now, these new Guardians with him are his new family. These are the living, the present, and he should now let the past go.

Goodbye, my friends...and godspeed.

He turns back to the others and walks towards them, stopping when he is only a couple feet away. Solemnly, he places one hand, his left, on his amulet, and extends his right towards them, palm down. "It is time to complete the Circle, my new friends," he intones, reciting the beginning words of the incantation. "And in order to complete the Circle, we must form one of our own. Place your left hand on your amulets, and your right on top of mine, and stand in our Circle."

He steps forward next, placing his hand on top of Kaleb's and the other on his amulet, as the others had done. He can feel a sudden warmth that fills his frame as he joins this circle.

He's never been part of any kind of magical ritual before, though he's seen a couple done when he was a kid, mostly by the native Amerinds he was raised with. He'd always wanted to get in on it, as a child, but the elders had forbidden it. They always told him he had a different kind of magic, something that would be useful in its own way, one day, but not there, or then.

That was then, though...and this is the here and now. He can feel the momentous, nebulous feeling of magic in the air, just as he did then, and as he takes his position, he can feel - almost as if there had been an audible click! - another piece falling into place.

She is the last to take her place in the Circle.

She feels almost out of place here, amongst these men, all of whom look like they are able warriors, and around them, the shades of even more. What's more, as near as she can tell, nearly all of those shades are men. It is a little hard to tell, of course, but the point is that all of them are warriors, and while she and her family line are protectors of a kind, none of them have ever been warriors, that she knows of. Even given the awareness, strength, knowledge and actual skill of combat, she feels like she doesn't really belong. But then, the way Gabriel had explained it, she had been chosen, right? Why would she be chosen if she didn't belong here?

She places her hand on her own amulet and places her other on Wraith's, taking her place in the circle. She notes, as she does so, there is a sudden silence, and the strength of the light from all five of their amulets is much more intense, casting a brilliant glow into the foggy gloom around them. She can feel the world, and indeed herself as well, holding their collective breath, waiting for the next step.

Wraith has his eyes on Lupinius from the moment the silence descends, and it takes a great deal of his self-control not to pull away when that beam of light shot out from the man's amulet and onto their hands. Interestingly, there is no heat...not burning sensation...no change at all, just a brilliant beam of violet-white light that is now projected onto their connected hands. For a moment he is unsure, not knowing what to say, but as he meets Lupinius' eyes, the words come to him.

His own voice fills the Circle as he speaks, the words coming out strongly, without hesitation. "I am Michael Edward Stanton, also known as the Wraith, wielder of the sword Nagamasamune, keeper of the Fifth Amulet of Avalon, gifted to me by the demon Lupinius, and first of the new Guardians. I call upon the spirits of those who have come before to grant us, the new Circle, access."

The effect is instantaneous - as soon as the last word passes his lips, the golden lights floating about them move in a sudden flurry, converging on his amulet until it flares with brilliant light, and a shaft of golden light flares from his amulet, joining the light from Lupinius' amulet. His own eyes glow with golden light as his gaze settles on Fred McCarty.

Out of all of them, she is the one with the most magical prowess, the best sense of it - she is the only one that can control it effectively, outside of the couple of tricks that Kaleb and Lupinius know, at any rate. This, here...this is something major. If she translated Lupinius' words correctly when he got this started, what they are going to attempt is the opening of a portal to another place, like a pocket dimension - this will be no small feat. As Fred looks at her, she knows it is her part of the ritual.

"I am Valeria Raxollen, Master of the Elements, keeper of the Fourth Amulet of Avalon, gifted to me by the demon Lupinius, and the third of the new Guardians. I call upon the spirits of those who came before to grant us, the new Circle, access."

Once more, the lights move as one, all the green pinpoints of light swirling inwards to coalesce on her amulet, and shooting forth a brilliant ray of green-white light to join the other three already directed upon their joined hands. Her eyes are filled with green light of their own as she turns her gaze upon Kaleb, to close the ritual...

For a moment, there is no sound, no indication that anything is going to happen...then suddenly, the world stops.

All of time and the world seems frozen in place around them - there is no movement from anything. Even the constantly swirling mist has come to s standstill, so frozen that the individual water particles can be seen. The complete halt in movement lasts for a moment that seems to stretch out into eternity, and in that moment, at the place where the shafts of light from their amulets meet, an orb of scintillating, brilliant white light forms.

And as suddenly as time stopped, it speeds up again. As soon as it does, the orb in beteeen them suddenly expands, transforming into a shaft of pure, clean white light that shoots down into the ground at their feet first, then, finding nowhere to go that way, fires straight up into the air and expands. At the very same instant, the five of them are enveloped in the light from their own amulets, a protective magical field that wraps them in its embrace as the shaft of light swallows them all whole, transforming them each into a being of pure light that is exactly the shade of their own amulets.

The shaft of white light shoots into the atmosphere, a magical event that can be felt and seen all over Rhydin, growing brighter...larger...a cylindrical shaft of brilliance as bright as the sun that pierces the clouds above, driving its way into space...

...which just as suddenly vanishes a few moments later.

At the same moment, in four places in Rhydin, patches of the same mist that is now swirling where the Guardians had been performing their ritual appear literally out of the air itself, strange, stationary patches of thick mist that do not move or spread, not even seeming to be disturbed by the wind.

The first appears right in the middle of WestEnd, not far from the Thompson Apartments.

The second appears at the site of an old ruin between the Temple of the Gods and the Temple of Divine Light.

The third patch shows up just to the north of the Ravensheart Academy.

The fourth, and final, shows up on the rocky stretch of shoreline not far from the Scathachian Sanctuary.

A moment later, the five of them are standing in a cavernous, well-lit, pentagonal room. The five walls of this room are adorned with a variety of items, all suitable for waging war - axes, knives, swords, bows and arrows, shields, suits of armor, helms, and other assorted martial tools. What's more, the items in each section of this room - which looks as if it has been hewn out of the very earth itself - seem to be customized for each of them individually, as if the room had known who was coming and prepared accordingly. And in the middle, a simple, large, round table, made of polished, dark oak and, carved into its surface, a pentacle whose points touch each place which has a seat, the oldest symbol of protection there is. In the middle of each wall is an ornate archway, but instad of a lit room beyond, these instead open into what look like a grey, swiling mist, so that all five doors show only fog in their depths.

Lupinius looks around with pride, seeming to stand taller, prouder in his bearing. It has been long and long since he had last set foot in this room with his brothers, so very, very long ago, and even though the items are subtly different, the room is exactly the same. He turns back to his new brethren, smiling, that amethyst glow flickering one more time in his eyes. "Welcome, my friends, to the Guardian's Chamber."