~Character Chat~

"See. It's sentences like that. Pessimism. Stop making sentences that end unhappily. If you're not normally this whiny...Why are you whiny NOW?" T.Mor asked, feeling like he was jumping on a train to Riddle-Land with his sentence structure.
"Seriously. WHERE IS YOUR SHRINE?" Riddle asked, again. The loading screens were never like this at home...

"It's just like I said she worries...she wants me to cross over...she thinks it's wrong to keep me here....what if I want to be here? And then along comes that idoit (Ezra)."

"Then STAY...No one can TELL you what to do. Just do it and don't take any crap from anyone about it. DUH." Riddle was still looking for the shrine, but had paid enough attention to Andrew's sentence to reply. "Anyway...WHERE ON EARTH IS YOUR SHRINE?" Riddle started up the stairs to look for it.

"GAH! Don't go up there!" said Ezra.

"I know that...I told her I was staying...but that idoit."

"Why can't I? I just want to go ask the internet for less lag-time. I brought my own sacrifices and everything..." Riddle said, still half on the steps.

"Don't have a shrine and you're not supposed to be here."

T.Mor and Riddle both froze. "WHAT?!" They exclaimed in perfect synchronicity. "YOU DON'T HAVE A SHRINE??!!!" Riddle was the first to become coherent enough to form a sentence. "HOW DO YOU...HOW...How do you LIVE?!"

"We don't worship...technology..."

"The internet is like the god of their world," Peter explained. "If they want things, they have to sacrifice other things of equal value to the internet. The internet then gives them what they want, often in a cardboard box on their doorstep...as far as I know." To T.Mor, he asked, "Is that about right?"

"Well, lag-time works a bit different...Sometimes you can fix it just by getting closer to a Shrine box. Other times you have to go to all the trouble of finding and coding something to get it to acknowledge your request." Riddle explained.
"And it's not actually on people's doorsteps anymore...Those were the old days. Now you have to go pay a fee to the government to pick up your boxes from the warehouse. The citizens think he's stockpiling the stuff people can't afford the fee on. And using it to keep people from getting dangerous things." T.Mor extrapolated.
"You mean like the catholic church back in the 1500's?" August asked, intrigued.
"What's a catholic church?" T.Mor asked.
"Nevermind then..."

"Catholicism was never really prominent on my plane," Peter started, "so I can't relate, either. Come to think of it, Christianity itself was a small minority."

"What is that I don't even..."T.Mor expressed his confusion inarticulately, he'd never heard Christianity either.
"It's like...like...Do you guys have different religions? or just the internet?" August asked, double checking before he got into an extended metaphor.
"We have lolcats..." T.Mor said, uncertain if this counted.
"Uhh...Do people treat them the same way as the internet?"August asked uncertainly.
"No. That would be stupid. Lolcats don't give you things."

"Didn't you mention that different programming languages were like factions of religion?" Peter asked.

"They're not factions per se, but depending on what you want, you definitely want to use the more universal ones. Binary gets you big things...Like...immortality according to some people. Anything involving Hexadecimal systems is pretty high up there too. The peasants are normally stuck learning something outmoded and obsolete. There are 8-bit programmers in the slums. It's frightening." T.Mor explained. "I'm a fan of C++ personally...But I only ever learned C++."

((*enjoys programming*))

"Huh, interesting," Peter said. "And hey, even the 8-bit programmers have more programming knowledge than most people. I really have no idea how that stuff works."

"I'm catholic." said Andrew.

(Most irish imigrints were catholioc so it would make sense.)

"Actually me neither...It takes them ages though...To ask for something. I had a friend in school who was chiseling for three weeks straight into a non load bearing wall so that his family could trade it for a bathtub." T.Mor remembered his brief time in school. "It was hysterical. I could have put in the proper commands in like 6 lines."
"What is catholic? Does it hurt?" Riddle asked interestedly.

"No, it's a branch of christianity."

"IS CHRISTIANITY A TREE THEN?" Riddle asked excitedly, jumping to conclusions.
"No. It's a religion. Like the internet...but with no immediate gratification." August finally managed to explain.
"Oh..."

"Christianity means you believe in Jesus Christ."

"WHO'S---?"Riddle began.
"It's not important. You don't need the logistics." August cut her off.

Andrew relized he was still covering Liz's ears, he removed his pallid hands and kissed her gently on the forehead.

"Dude!" Izzy called. "P-D-A!"

"Seconded..."Riddle said, still searching for the shrine she knew wasn't there.
"Look- why don't you just ask for access to their internet? They clearly have one...Maybe you can sort it out with your...Riddle-ness." August suggested, seeing her search for faster load screens.
"YOU HAVE THE INTERNET HERE?"Riddle seemed shocked.

"Riddle," Peter explained patiently, "almost everyone in the world has the internet in their home."