*** BlackHat has joined 333.07.333.06 <BlackHat> ^J help <BlackHat> help <BlackHat> J <BlackHat> Official business with Black Hat only. Don't waste my time.
[Jack's been having A Time. Ever since those wishscapes...he just hasn't been quite himself. Lots of time locked in his lab or his workshop, lots of time ranting to his raccoon, lots of time at the Red Room getting human and smashed. And lots of time idly entertaining new and interesting ways to kill people.]
[But he's too social a creature to just keep all his thoughts to himself. Besides, he has some questions that maybe some of his buddies are better equipped to answer. Which is why Black Hat gets a text mail alert at ass o'clock at night.]
hey do u think if u stuffed a dude full of really dry hay n grass n reely flammable shit n then tied him out liek on top of a mountin in the middle of summer undr a glass lens, he'd burst in2 flames?
[Fortunately, Black Hat has been awake for a few minutes, roused from his sleep by the discomfort of old bandages wrapped around raw skin. He's in the midst of peeling them off gingerly, allowing the flesh a chance to air, when he notices the new message alert. Fumbling with the technology and cursing quietly so as not to awaken the minions, he manages to open his inbox and puzzle out who is messaging him.
He takes a moment longer to parse what he's seeing on the screen - somehow, the text is even more atrocious than Demencia's.]
I haven't established consultation hours yet, but I suppose I can make an exception for this.
[Normally he'd charge for his time, but the question is so minor and the distraction from his current pains is welcome.]
In the manner of a child with an ant and a magnifying glass, I take it.
Are you stuffing the grass in his clothes and igniting that, or force-feeding it to him?
this isnt a consult this is me bored n thnkin abut shit n i figured ud have thots
yeah same kinda deal. cuz im thnkin both. just stuff that mofo full of dry grass n crap
n do u thnk itd work better on an old dude? cuz whenever u get storys about spont humn combusting its always old ppl. yea yea 1/2 the time its cuz they fell asleep smokin n sum1 made a kewler story outta it but theres sum weird 1s out there
[Right. Well, he is correct about one thing - Black Hat always has thoughts on horrific and agonizing deaths. Once again, there's a notable delay as Black Hat makes sure he's reading what Jack's written accurately.]
He'd be long dead from burns before the grass in his stomach could ignite, but stuffing him with dry plants beforehand would be entertaining, so long as you don't kill him from that.
Soak it in kerosene to really make sure it lights. Age won't matter all that much, all humans go up eventually.
[He taps his chin, smiling faintly at memories.]
Spontaneous means there's no clear cause. I would consider myself a cause.
[So he's snapped his fingers and set a few humans on fire once. Or twice. Or many, many times.]
The fuel simply makes it faster. You'd get the same results from burning someone at the stake.
[Is this an invitation out? Black Hat takes time to think on it - it has been a while since he's gone on a real spree, the business has seen to that, but beating a man to death in a Bavanite alleyway with a cane had been a thrill he'd forgotten. And this would be even better, for no reason other than murder!]
It shouldn't be too hard to come across. I haven't had ample opportunity to set fire to anyone in a while.
After the fog, perhaps. What, precisely, do you have in mind? [Because he's a bit keenly aware that toying with open fires while wearing bandages on all exposed skin is a recipe for disaster, and ideally this will have healed up by then.]
Truth's a slippery concept, I find. I trust him to be honest with me. I don't necessarily trust him to be correct, and I should hate to take action on misinformation.
But he is a very dear friend of mine, and I watched him die, so I hope you appreciate that without mitigating context, it isn't precisely a flattering story for you.
[Regulus's hesitance is largely cosmetic. If he'd wanted to be anonymous, he would have chosen a different username from the one he uses publicly online. This is more a matter of when to yield ground, even a little of it.]
Regulus Arcturus Black. I run the cat café in Bavan.
If you wish to have this conversation face-to-face, that can be arranged, too. Would that set your mind at ease?
So you can tell him how to guard himself in the future? If you wanted to know that, you wouldn’t have told me your affection for him. I’m not going to give up that information to someone who will use it against me.
As for what he actually died of - starvation, I presume. His dearest Fog god didn’t care for his well-being enough to stop it.
I want to know how you did that to someone who was already dead. I want to know how you made it so that he could starve to death while gorging himself.
But if you aren't going to tell me that, I suppose we're back to the why.
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