"Honestly, I'd feel better if you gave me some shit about this." The lad was already packing for their little "field trip" to conquer the heavens. He'd managed to pack more resoluteness into the whole affair in the last ten minutes than Dargan had managed over a lifetime.  

"My kind only responds to noble quests. If you'd asked me to give you money or floss your teeth, I'd have cut off your head." He was stuffing hand carved jewelry and sacred mementos into his bag. They were beautiful. Dargan couldn't decide if they had occult meaning, or if the monk just didn't go anywhere unless he was prepared to be in drag.  

"Really? Because I'm rather at peace with even a modicum of money and the occasionally flossed teeth," Dargan said. 

The monk restrained his latest smirk. "Stop trying to get me to like you. You don't need to win me over."  

"It might help if I knew I had some leverage over you. Zeal for an undertaking is good, but it has been my experience it quickly fades after a couple battles." 

"You're certain we're going to die. I'm certain we're going to die. For my people, that's as close to marriage as you get." 

"Maybe you wouldn't mind telling me your real, preferred name, then?" 

"My people do not reveal their true names. Doing so makes us vulnerable. You can call me Sartok."  

"Well, Sartok, I could do with knowing a little more of what your people can and can't do. A good general doesn't go..." 

Sartok morphed into a winged creature: half man, half hawk, his flapping wings throwing up enough wind to knock Dargan flat on his back. He as quickly morphed into female form, green-skinned with jeweled highlights that seemed to glow from bioluminescence. Strange, but fetching.  

She smirked and helped Dargan to his feet. He wondered if he still had what it took to seduce a woman of her beauty. His bald, domed head was a lovely shape, he thought. His body firm, though his skin was admittedly a bit weathered. His eyes and nose hawkish, like the predator he was. He stood tall at six foot two, though he liked to think his larger than life presence made him look a bit taller.  

"We are Venturi, what you would have called on your world shamen. Full of magic and wonder, power enough to stymie most adversaries coming at us one at a time, several if we manipulate well enough. Maybe even large crowds given enough time to seduce; we can be quite the charmers. But not enough psychic power to blow up entire armadas or planets, which is exactly the kind of firepower you'll need where we're going. No, my friend, like you, I'm more sideshow entertainment these days than anything. You could have saved yourself the trek across the heavens to find me by simply upgrading to the latest nano." She turned back into male form when she realized she was simply distracting him. 

"You shouldn't underestimate yourself," Dargan said. He permitted himself a moment to size up how he'd been living, out in the open, like an eagle perched on top this mountainside with a view of the four directions for as far as the eye could see. "I grant you the location has strategic advantage, but, out in the open like this, not even a hut to keep out the rain..."  

Sartok smiled soulfully. "Maybe you can tell me exactly what we're up against. I've been out of the loop for the last five hundred years."  

Dargan gulped. "I can only bring you up to speed on the last fifty - or so." Suddenly he was feeling like the kid in the group. "Why do you need me to tell you anything? You clearly read minds." 

"Why drain myself pulling information out of your mind when you so love to hear yourself talk?" 

"I promise to catch you up if you can tell me how we're getting off this Godforsaken world." 

"One thing at a time." 

"Very well." Dargan honestly didn't know where to begin. "I guess I can start with how Mortok plays into all this." 

"Please do. If I am the pupae for my species, she is the butterfly. Much older, and much more powerful." 

"I see hope is just as pricey on this planet."