Melkor steeples his fingers, but before he can utter some truly droll philosophizing about the nature of bullshit, he’s interrupted by dry heaving. For like, easily 15 seconds. Once he recovers he considers steepling his fingers again, but then he rolls his eyes and sighs.

”Yeahhhh you got me. I’m on the run from some mad powerful badasses who aren’t from around here. And if they find me and bring me in, they will kill me, or worse. They can do some of the same kooky-ass magic that I can, so they’re about as dangerous as a hurricane full of hypodermic needles when they want to be. But I’m playing with a handicap because anytime I so much as conjure a koala, A) this shitty body I’m in starts falling apart at the seams, and B) the tracker they hooked into my skull calls them collect with my last known location.”

He clears his throat.

“I guess that was a lot of deets, but still pretty vague. Vague deeting. Hope that’s not a, uh, dealbreaker for you guys. There are some things I’ve done which could make me sound like a pretty bad guy, if you take them out of context. I’ve been more open than this in the past, and I got burned real bad by it. Hope you can forgive me my paranoia.”