Welcome to Hell

"To who?" Skull asked, finally getting to his feet and approaching the side of the cell that the man - Gunther, if he had heard the name right - was closest to. He suspected that the conversation between the two had meant to be private, but it was one of the benefits of going through a rift. Language barriers were instantly shattered by the powers of magic he couldn't quite explain.

"His master," Kratzer growls, as though the mere mention of this "Boomslang" leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

"And yours, if you had any loyalty," he spits in retort. "But you don't and you never did, Silberfuchs!"

"I saved your g**d*** life, G-"

"It's Sieben!" he snapped. "My name is Sieben!"

Kratzer just grunted and went silent, arms crossed and metallic gaze still furious.

Skull smirked. "The last time I checked, I'm pretty sure Kratzer called you Gunther."

"Last I checked his own name isn't even Kratzer," Sieben snapped. "Isn't that right, Engel?"

The vampire in question didn't dignify this with a response.

"That might be true," Skull said, pressing his face up against the bars and meeting Gunther's gaze, "but it's far more entertaining to mock you than to mock him, Gunther."

Sieben rolled his eyes and leaned back against the wall, surveying the cages. "You're all f***ed anyways, you know."

"Jokes on you," Skull said, keeping his lips curled up into a smirk. "Don't you know? I'm immortal. No matter what you do to me, I'll survive. And then someday I'll come back and make you regret the day you were born."

"There's more than one way to die, Skull," he answered evenly. "I'm sure Dreizhen can tell you all about it."

His smirk dropped to something a little more neutral. "No, I'm pretty sure there's just the one."

"That's your own undoing," Sieben answered evenly. "You'll figure out you're wrong soon enough, I'm sure."

Skull just raised an eyebrow and continued to stare at him. He knew that Kratzer was a vampire, and he was probably guessing that this Gunther guy was too. Was that what he meant? No, it couldn't be. He had been poisoned, once. It hadn't worked. His body had destroyed the enemy toxins, and he was sure that the process to make him a vampire - if that was what was going on - would suffer the same fate.

Carter had quietly listened as Skull engaged Sieben in conversation. It was clear that Sieben and Kratzer - or Engel - had a clear connection. They knew each other. But Skull and himself seemed to be from... very different worlds.

"So what you're saying is, our purpose here is... what. To be in pain for an indeterminable amount of time and die or be turned to some vampiric fate?" Carter asked. "And how did your master, Boomslang, come to find Skull and myself? Did you arbitrarily pull straws at who, among the many, has done wrong in the universe?"

"I don't know, and, frankly, I don't really care. All I know is that whatever it is won't be pleasant and that she really wants you three to stay put," Sieben replies.

"Good luck with that, then," Skull declared, promptly sitting back down when he realized that Gunther wasn't going to tell them anything useful. "I'm going to escape from this place, whether your precious Boomerang wants me to or not."

"Boomslang, and feel free to try, I've been needing an excuse to feed," Sieben spits, eyes flashing like Kratzer's.