~Character Chat~

(Really? It always felt so 80's like to me...Oh well.)
Riddle: Sounds like a great Idea...I don't much fancy musical montages OR death...and together they're just squicky. or...depending on the music, totally awesome...(Riddle keeps ranting nonsensically as everyone continues quickly out of sight of the Sybek dudes.)
August: So were they like dark wizards or something? I don't understand...(Once they have got at least fifty yards of cardboard between The Sybek guys and themselves.) They were scary...and had funny accents...
Riddle: So, basically All that it would take to scare the crap out of you is an Austrailian with an axe? That's pathetic. August, You are pathetic.(is laughing about the mental image.I have no Idea why she knows about Austrailia...)
T.Mor:(Chuckles at Riddle. Then turns toward Peter while walking.) What's up with the one hit kill thing? That's a bit extreme isn't it?
Riddle: And the death sentence for stealing tinned meat isn't?
T.Mor: That's different.
(They've hit the edge of the cardboard slums, and there's a clearly cut line asto where people live and where people don't. The cardboard houses stop immediately and about 10 feet beyond that there's a huge grey expanse of land that is reminiscent of a junkyard. Completely uninhabited, cold, and covered in abandoned anachronism stew. It seems to go on until the end of the planet.)
T.Mor: This is the wasteland. (Explains somewhat unnecessarily.) So...Let's go find a safe looking pile of crap to spend the night behind, so everyone can eat and stuff.
August: Won't we get caught? I mean...The city is RIGHT THERE. (Points behind him. The city is looming somewhat anthropormorphically over his shoulder.)
T.Mor: No. The wasteland is considered uninhabitable. We're trained to just let people run if they come out here. They never come back.
Riddle: Probably because they're all partying at SInk Pump.
T.Mor: No, It's cos they die here.(tersely.)
Riddle: I liked my ending better.

Peter: The Sybek aren't wizards or anything; they have the same powers that we do. What he was doing to me before wasn't magic. Na'arsif, like Senet, is a wind type. He was halting the air around me so I couldn't move. It's almost like the air becomes solid, but it's really just immobile. I couldn't breathe.
Sarah: Na'arsif hates Peter. Like, a lot.
Peter: I really did give him that scar. It was self-defense, though. Anyway, he wants to kill me now because I've permanently marred his face.
Nike: It's rather disproportional retribution.
Peter: As for your one-hit kill question, you don't die right away. We say that contact is death because the second a Sybek touches you, you're effectively dead. The Sybek shifts away with you to the nearest academy where you actually die. Academies are bases of Sybek operations. They do everything from there.

T.Mor: oh. I see. It still sounds unfair though. They ought to give you a sporting chance. How do they kill you? Do you guys know? or is it just...unknown?
Riddle: Wait- you're allowed to get revenge on people for them doing stupid things to your face?(Is suddenly quite angry.) How come noone told me that? I could of punched that guy's eyesockets out with his left nostril!!! That one time! MAN.
T.Mor: That's exactly why no one told you that. Preceisely for that reason.
August: So, now can we eat? Now that we hit the wasteland?
T.Mor: Fine. (He starts off to a big pile of discarded stuff and then starts setting up a fire.) I reccommend about half a can of food per person... Heat by the fire until the can sorta cracks.
(Riddle and T.Mor both sit comfortably on the ground. Riddle massages her tendonless arm. It seems to be bothering her.)
T.Mor: So...that was my home city...

(The team goes to sit as well.)
Peter: We're bonders. We're their enemies. You kill enemies, don't you? (He gives a humorless laugh.) And as for how they do it, they hook you up to a machine that takes your energy. It kills you in the process. See, the energy is what they're really after. It's more about that, and less about the killing. It's the energy they take that enables them to destroy universes.

T.Mor: Human batteries? egh. That's not a pleasant thought...
Riddle: (Philosophically.) I wonder if the batteries we use on a daily basis feel the same way.
T.Mor: Batteries aren't alive Riddle.
Riddle: How do you know that? Have you ever asked one?
T.Mor: That doesn't even make sense.
Riddle: You could be committing battery genocide already and not even know it! And you say I'm...uhh...crap. I'll remember it later...
August: How come everyone is so chill about everything that just happened? Like in the past 2 hours or so? Am I the only one that's going to get nightmares from all this?
Riddle: YES. Someone help me open this packet. (Chucks a powdered formaldehyde tablet packet into the circle.) So, T.Mor, Bet's on how long before everyone breaks down back there and releases the duct tape?
T.Mor: Probably three more weeks or so...(Tries to open the packet. Fails miserably.) You can't just do it yourself? (Remembers the arm.) Oh. Right...Anyone know how to open these things?

Peter: I could try. (He opens it with a grunt and hands it back to her.) There you go.
Sarah: August, this our day-to-day life. We do stuff like this all the time.

Riddle: YES! (Takes the packet back and dumps it into a waterbottle. She shakes it like instant lemonade, And drinks like half of it.) The powdered stuff is just not as good. (Pulls out the rest of the chem lab that she packed and adds miscellaneous other preservatives to the now half empty bottle.)
August: Seriously? Don't you ever get...tired of it? or like...post-traumatic stress disorder?
T.Mor: I tend to just block out the really hideous things...I mean...I know I'm not a bad person. My job did not make me a bad person. You get over it.
Riddle: Am I the only one here who enjoys a good axe battle to the death? Everyone here seems so...moral-y. Like T.Mor.

Peter: T.Mor's right. You just...get used to it. Once you've killed someone for the first time...well, I hate to say it, but it's easier the second time around.

Riddle: Just like molecular gastronomy.(With a smile.)
T.Mor: No...Not anything like that. Riddle that's cooking.
Riddle: Oh. Sorry, wasn't really paying attention...
August: (Somewhat shocked.) But that's so...cruel. I mean..aren't you good guys? I thought the good guys never kill people...
T.Mor: Good is relative. Morality is a sliding scale...the way I see it. You never really get over killing innocent people though...they really don't deserve it.
Riddle: Everyone has it coming to them though. You all will end up dead eventually...And I mean, seriously the nerve you all will have- to go off and die somewhere...and leave me here alone. Gosh.
T.Mor: you're saying that a starving seven year old who stole a mouldy cupcake so she wouldn't die of starvation deserves it?(Is sort of shocked by Riddle's coldness.)
Riddle: She probably put salt on a slug when she was littler or something. Maybe she stole the cupcake from a blind guy. (Terrifyingly logical.)
(Both T.Mor and August stare in revulsion.)

Peter: (defensively) And we are the good guys. We kill Sybek, and only when we're provoked.
Senet: What about zat guy fhrom--
Peter: No, he wasn't a Sybek, but that was different. Come on! He was coming at two eight-year-olds with a knife! It's not like I had any control over my powers back then anyway...
Senet: Yeah...

August: Oh. Well...I guess that's ok then...Because they're evil...or killing small children...
Riddle: Yeah, if anyone is going to be a real bad guy here... It's T.Mor. He killed small children.
T.Mor: Just rub it in won't you? (Biting.)
Riddle: What? (defensively.)
T.Mor:I didn't kill them... I just kidnapped them...and then they died. There's a difference. (He's actually quite upset about that.)
August: I think Riddle would be the bad guy. If we had to choose. Just because she likes axes...and her lack of morals scares the crap out of me.
Riddle: Actually, that sounds about right...

Peter: Yeah, probably. But I dunno, about what you said before. Just because they're on the bad side of the spectrum...I'm not sure if that makes killing them okay. I've done it anyway, but... (He looks at his hands, doubt on his face.) I mean, it's easier to think about it when you know that they're new life somewhere else. But are they better off that way?

T.Mor: Wait...new life somewhere else?(This is a new concept to T.Mor.)
Riddle: (Is thinking about Peter's question seriously. She just assumes that since she normally wakes up somewhere else when she dies, that that's what he must mean.) Well, There's sort of a lot of variables to that aren't there? Better off dead somewhere else than doing bad crap where they are? How do we know that they're not doing doing bad crap wherever else they went? And what about where they end up? I mean if they wake up here then- hey. Murderers probably deserve this city...but if they wake up in someplace lovely like Shinyland...That's unfair, and they should be hung by their toes and left to dry in the rain while being strangled by an axe. It's all relative really on where they wake up, and what they do when they get there.(Has completely missed the point.)
T.Mor: Riddle, dead people don't do things. (Seriously.)
Riddle: I'm offended.
T.Mor: They're not dead like you. They're dead...like...dead.(Doesn't really know how to explain this.) They don't wake back up Riddle, you know that.
Riddle: duh. (As if T.Mor was making her out to be an idiot.) But Peter said "new life somewhere else".... So how do we know that people don't just go show up somewhere else? How do we know that's not how August got here?
August: Because I don't have maggots.(pointedly.)
Riddle: Neither do I...anymore...
T.Mor: (Has decided that Riddle and August aren't really getting it. Moves over to be nearer to Peter and the rest of the Team.) I can only hope that everyone that I killed off ends up somewhere less sucky than this place. I have to. Because...(is having a hard time getting things out a bit.) otherwise...where are my parents? you know? It's like...if all those people aren't there...wherever there is...then...then my parents didn't deserve to get there either...I mean....I'm the same people who killed them.(Frustratedly.)

((It's funny, because despite her not understanding it at all, Riddle really inadvertently got the point that Peter was trying to make. Y'know, the doing bad crap in the next life, ending up somewhere shiny, that thing.))

Peter: I can tell you right now that it's highly likely that your parents and everyone else became new life somewhere much better...because it's hard to get worse from here. Most of the planes are quite nice.
Sarah: See, there's no Heaven or Hell. They don't exist. You're just reborn on a different plane. The Center circulates all the life and energy.

(Really?! Wow. She had a case of...oh what is it...not insane troll logic but similar- where you get to the right answer for a completely different reason...I can't remember the trope...)
T.Mor: Wait...(Snaps out of angsty mode.) Riddle just said that...Are you saying that Riddle was right?
Riddle: OH YES! HA! MASTER OF THINGS AND OTHER THINGS! AND SOME STUFF! I AM ALWAYS RIGHT!!(Has jumped up and started doing her whole 'I'm right' thing.) I AM ALWAYS RIGHT!
T.Mor: tell me about quadratics then.(Knowing the answer she'll give.)
Riddle: Quadratics are squares...Duh.
August: (laughs at the wrongness of that.)Quadratic equations? They make parabolas.
Riddle: I did not know that math could make dinner plates.(surprised.)I thought only the internet could do that...
T.Mor: Parabolas aren't...nevermind. (Tries to return too the earlier, more serious conversation...It's difficult after the parabola peroblem.) So, let me get this straight- It would be entirely possible for me to shoot August in the head right now, and have him come back as, like, a tree (He hasn't had the chance to throw his new vocablulary around yet...)on the same plane that he started out at? That's kind of awesome.
August: No- You are not going to shoot me in the head so I can come home as a tree. (Protestingly.)
T.Mor: It was a hypothetical question.

((That would be Right For The Wrong Reasons ))

Peter: Actually, no. You could shoot him, and he'd come back as some intelligent life or other on a completely different plane. The odds of him coming back on the same plane are like, one in...in... (He can't really think of an accurate ratio) ...in nearly infinity. He'd defintely be something intelligent; he could end up as a human again, or he could be vreshnik, dragon, or something totally different that we haven't discovered yet. And we suspect that there's a lot that we haven't discovered.

(Ok...Yes. Good. Thank you! It was bugging me all day.)
T.Mor: So, since he isn't from this plane- he could end up back on his plane...just not as a tree. But the probablility of that is like...one in a billion. Ok.
Riddle: Well then how come I always come back to the same plane? I WANNA TRAVERSE THE MULTI-VERSE WHILE DECEASED!
T.Mor: And what if you were in the middle of doing something important?
Riddle: like what? I never do anything important.
T.Mor: I dunno...building a peanut butter chainspork.
Riddle: Oh. That would SUCK. Nevermind.
August: So...Nobody's going to shoot me...right? Is that decided? (Cautiously.)
Riddle: I want to shoot you. (Seriously.)
August: But you can't- because T.Mor disarmed you...
Riddle: I have BOTH of my arms RIGHT here. (Waves them about.)
August: Not what I meant.
T.Mor: (Pulls a cracked can out of the fire. It reads MEAT in sharpie on a white label.) Anyone wanna split with me? It's genuine artificial MEAT flavoured gelatin...I think...
August: Ew. Can I have a sandwich?
T.Mor: we don't have sandwiches...We have artificial meat, artificial veggies, artificial corn syrup, artificial...pretty much anything artificial you can imagine.
Riddle: And peroxide, Formaldehyde. That Thermite stuff Peter was so happy about, heavy duty cleaning bleach. maggot repellant, (She lists all the chemicals she brought. pretty much the only element that wasn't on the list was the element of surprise.) Yeah. I'm willing to share.
August: And all that stuff went into that water bottle?(somewhat appalled.)won't that eat a hole in your stomach? Shouldn't that be eating a hole in your water bottle?
Riddle: Eh. I left my stomach back at the compound.(casually.)And I don't know about the water bottle...I'm immortal, not a chemist!
August: (is squicked out.) Uhm...ok...erm...ok.

((No problem ))

Senet: (giving the food a disgusted look, much like the rest of the team) Ahre zehre any aneemals zat luhrk ahround 'eehre?

T.Mor: Pancake bunnies. Good luck catching one.
Riddle: you can eat the pancake too!

Senet: Wait...what?

T.Mor: Pancake bunnies. You've never heard of them? They're bunnies...with pancakes on their heads...
Riddle: There are also rumours of philosiraptors roaming the wastelands, but everyone knows that the science of thinking became extinct ages ago.

Senet: (raising an eyebrow) Maybe I'll steeck to ze fake stuff.

T.Mor: It's definitely less...erm...breakfasty.
Riddle: Man- If we can find a pancake bunny for breakfast and just take the pancake- keep me a slice. I love pancake.
August: Where does the pancake come from?
Riddle: The bunny. Duh.
August: HOW?
Riddle: It has a pancake gland...or something...I dunno.
T.Mor: yeah...nobody really knows. they're a mystery of science. Here. Have some tinned MEAT. (Hands half the can and a fold out spork.) It's not as bad as it sounds...in most cases. This is the better quality stuff...the peasantry sometimes end up with...erm... questionable stuff in their tinned foods. or it's just really old.

Sarah: Blech! This stuff looks nasty!
Peter: Better than starving, though. You might as well eat it.
Sarah: I think those frogs from that mission looked more appetizing.
Senet: Fhrogs ahre quite deleecious!
Sarah: (snickering) It's funny 'cause you're French...

T.Mor:(Was raised on overprocessed tinned foods.) What? It's not mouldy or anything is it? I'll trade you.
Riddle: Frog? What is that? (Is probably going to learn a new vocab word.)
August: You don't know what a frog is...but you know what a velociraptor is?
Riddle: You're mispronouncing it. PHILOSiraptor. And you know what a frog is?
August: Yeah...
T.Mor: Enlighten us.(intrigued.)
August: it's like a jumpy thing...um...and it's an anphibian...uhh...this is hard.