Between There and Here/Quotes

**The following is a partial transcript of the *Mountain of Mystery* episode "Between There and Here"**:

## Between There and Here

**SADO**:  The food is very good, Master Aboukir. You are quite good with the fire.

**ABOUKIR**:  Well thank you, lad. I do appreciate the praise.

**SADO**:  When I left the, uh, party with Prints’s mother, Sound of Bells, she took me to the Master like Qhore said. From there, we managed to travel to a Shrine, which is where I started my training. Although brief, I did get in very rigorous training. Master is tough, but firm. And—

**QHORE**:  He’s getting a little more used to taking a punch.

**ABOUKIR**:  Unlike the Liondrake!

**LAZARUS**:  That’s—oh, that’s good.

**SADO**:  And, uh, let’s say a couple weeks into the training, the Master comes to me, and he says you guys had changed directions. And from when I had left, you were headed in the complete opposite direction from where you had gone to. And then the next thing I know, I’m flying through the air on a spell is what I assume, uh, Master Qhore had cast, at an accelerated rate.

**QHORE**:  Yeah. Always buy your—your scrolls at a premium.

**LAZARUS**:  It was so cool.

**QHORE**:  Words of wisdom, kids. Words of wisdom.

**SADO**:  Pretty sure I swallowed a couple of birds. Might have hit a bird on the way. I meant bugs. Sorry.

**QHORE**:  No. No, that one was definitely a bird.

**SADO**:  Yeah, alright.

**ABOUKIR**:  It was, in fact, birds.

**SADO**:  Yeah, I—I must have ate a bird. I’m not as full. Or: quite full already.

**PRINTS**:  It was just a canary. You know, just a small little thing.

**QHORE**:  It’s alright. You’re just jet-lagged, kid. Uh, you’ll get over it in about a couple of hours. That’s—that’s a really—

**TROUBLE**:  Is that what they call it when you’re jettisoned across country?

**PRINTS**:  Ah, that makes more sense! Good job!

**QHORE**:  It’s, uh—

**SADO**:  I prefer it over teleportation, actually.

**QHORE**:  Uh, uh, me too.

**SADO**:  Teleporting makes me sick.

**QHORE**:  Me too! Why do you think I bought a bunch of these? Well, that and I like to get around.

**TROUBLE**:  I’ve only—

**QHORE**:  Huh?

**TROUBLE**:  I’ve only been teleported once. It was wild! And I made a friend.

**QHORE**:  Oh. But you didn’t get to see anything between there and here. You didn’t get to see the country.

**TROUBLE**:  No, I’m *still* not sure where I am.

**QHORE**:  Well, fair. Fair.

**LAZARUS**:  You’re—you’re here.

**PRINTS**:  You have the map.

**TROUBLE**:  Oh, right. You did show me, didn’t you? Well I still don’t know.

**LAZARUS**:  It’s alright.

**PRINTS**:  We’ll work on it. Map-reading’s—map reading is hard.

**LAZARUS**:  That’s why we hired Mister Aboukir.

## Darker Things in Store

**QHORE**: Well: thank you for a wonderful lunch. Stay safe. Trouble: if you start feeling… off, don’t hide it. Let someone know.

**TROUBLE**: I’m *going* to need you to be more specific.

**LAZARUS**: Before you go—

**QHORE**: Haven’t you learned yet, kid?

**LAZARUS**: Say “hi” to Jean for us.

**TROUBLE**: Well, no: but here’s the problem. I’m *always* off. I never feel the same from moment to moment.

**QHORE**: Oh, well, that does…

**TROUBLE**: When I said I need you to be more specific, that’s not just not liking riddles. I’m not bad with riddles; I’m quite good at them, actually. But, um, no: if you’re giving me instruction, I actually need better instruction.

**QHORE**: Alright…

*"Qhore steps over to you, and about right now, you guys are kinda of a height. He steps up to you, sticks his hand out, and just pokes you right in the center of the forehead. You feel a lot of the world just kind of lurch around you, almost like teleporting. That weird feeling. And you see at first just this open field. Nothing around. Much, actually, like where you guys are now. But ahead of you, you can see this ball of darkness. Just this sphere of utter black. For a moment, when you look at it, it’s almost like it takes a breath; like it expands and contracts. When it does that, I need a Constitution saving throw.*"
**LAZARUS**: Don’t poke my friend in the head.

"*Uh, so with my plus-two, that’s four.*"
"*Makes total sense. You—you heave and heave; you cannot throw up. Your ears are ringing; your eyes are stinging. You can’t—you can’t swallow; you can’t throw up. Your body is just almost ripping itself apart, and then it stops. You look over, and that bead of darkness just sits there floating only, like, this far off the ground, and stays—and doesn’t—doesn’t do that again. Next thing you know, you’re looking at Master Qhore.*"
**QHORE**: Now do you understand the feeling?

**TROUBLE**: Yes. When my body matches my mind. Got it!

**PRINTS**: That’s depressing.

**QHORE**: You’ll be alright, kid. We’re working on solutions as quickly as we can. Speaking of which…

**LAZARUS**: Tell Jean that all of us but Cash said hi.

**TROUBLE**: Oh, wait! But from me, tell him to go… fuck himself. Is that right, Cash?

"*Cash just lights his cigar and just gets a little grin. Doesn’t say anything.*"
**TROUBLE**: I think I said it right! I think I said it right.

**KAHLAN**: You did. You d—you did.

**QHORE**: So…

**SADO**: What have you taught her?

**KAHLAN**: Oh, so much.

**CASH**: Just the essentials.

**PRINTS**: Ooh! I have an idea! So, Sado: we’ve learned what you did. I think we need to have Trouble tell you what we’ve done while you were gone.

**SADO**: Oh?

**ABOUKIR**: Notice, I’ve just been…

**TROUBLE** (1:03:28): I’m going to be quite honest: we haven’t done all that much since you left, right? Because you left to go help him. When did you leave? When did you leave? Because you left. Were you—no, you were there with the Sound of Bells. Right. So, Sound of Bells came with her whole *barrage* of arrows, and I really wanted her to teach me how to do that, but she said I might not be able to, and that’s quite sad, actually. I’m not quite fond of that. But anyway: she left, and then we went on with our business. Oh! We met this fucking *mammoth* of a man, and he's actually turned out to be quite nice. Um, he’s a very interesting fighter: I like his style. Um, and he—no, so you don’t understand. So, like, we met him along the way. He was, like, chasing some bandit or other through the forest, and then, um, Laz and—and, um—um, Kahlan were on watch, and they found him, and they brought him back, and they’re like: “Oh, hey! Here’s this man and a prisoner! Put him in our prison-box!” And we were all like: “Alright. I guess we’ll take him in the—the thing.” So we went on to town, and then basically we were in town and we were going: “Well, you know, we—we *could* go on and do what we were hired to do, *or* we could deal with the shadow-people haunting us.” And this whole, like, demon-person that’s, like, *definitely* coming for Prints — which I am *still* not happy with, that we will talk about later — but, um, anyway: so—so we decided we were going to go off and do that. So we went and asked the person who hired us, I think— Am I right? Is that who we were talking to? I don’t remember who we talked to. We talked to *somebody*, and basically said, like: “Hey, we’re not going to do what you paid us to do.” We’re just—it’s—we weren’t even paid yet. We’re like: “Nah! Not really.” So we sent somebody else—they sent somebody else on to finish that mission. Anyway: we hired Mister Aboukir over here, um, to come with us and show us through the pass, because we’re going to…

**LAZARUS**: Zadash.

**TROUBLE**: Somewhere? Zadash! We’re going somewhere, um, for some reason that I do not fully understand. Anyway: we’re traveling through, and we saw this—the—like—we—when we were camping—let me back up a little bit. I’m skipping ahead. While we were traveling, um, we sat by a fire and we were talking for a little while, and then Prints got, like, this thousand-yard stare, and we’re like: “Shit’s here, isn’t it?” And she was like: “Yeah. It’s definitely here.” And then Laz got the brilliant idea to mind-meld with her, and decided to like, try and see the thing, saw the thing, and it fucking *killed* him! But not really killed. He wasn’t, like, dead-dead, but he looked dead. He was, like—he was breathing; he was fine. But he apparently ended up in some, like, waiting room of death, which was interesting. He hasn’t fully told us that story, but that’s as much as I know on that front, and, like, isn’t that the most terrifying thing you’ve ever heard of? That death has a waiting room! More than anything else, like, that is a problem! Because you think—no—okay, yes, I’m dead. I’ve died. I’ve moved on. We’re going on with our lives. Well: not with our lives, but with our death. It’s fine. But all of a sudden you’re in a *waiting room*?  And you just have to *hold on*? Why would the—why is this designed th—I don’t know. Anyway! So—Oh, if you’re in a coma, do you just sit in the waiting room until someone can revive you? Later exploration!

**LAZARUS**: The Catholics call it purgatory, but go on.

**TROUBLE**: I wonder if that has anything to do with cats. Anyway! So while *that* happens, Prints also went fucking down into, like, this comatose state, um, and, uh, I don’t remember much of what happened, but, um—during that moment, but afterwards she came back and she told us that this *thing*, uh—it was, um, training—wanting her to be its replacement, and that she agreed when she saved *my* life, which she *should* not have done. Again: we will talk about this. Um, and so when she saved its li—or, when she saved my life, it made a deal with her, and so now she’s training to be its replacement, which is *wild*! But… Oh. If you’re it’s replacement… what does your name become? Fascinating! We’ll talk about this later! Anyway: so it calls itself the Endless, and then we talked with it for a while, and were like: “You’re super-creepy, my guy.” And he was like: “Yeah, I get that a lot.” And then he went away, and then we continued on our journey, and we saw this fucking lion-thing, um, which was delicious, by the way. Mister Aboukir: seasoning. That’s all you needed. Fabulous! But, um, anyway: so we saw this liondrake, and we—we tried to—we—we didn’t really want to fight it, but it, like, fucking, bit Prints and was taking her away but Mister Aboukir once again comes in with a hit that causes it to stay. Um: Laz manages to talk to it; it asked if it, like—it—it—it basically told us we have to leave something behind if we were to go away, and I went: “I can make a sheep!” So I made a sheep! And, uh, the sheep was—looked *extra* delicious, um, and very cute, and would just, like, baa at the right time. Like, just a cute little baa. Anyway! So, it—it ate the sheep; I think Kahlan did something to make it, like, extra chewy, `cause it was working on it for a minute, and we were able to get away, and, well, the rest you know because you were there! 1:08:14 (1,019 words; 4:46)

**QHORE**: Well…

**LAZARUS**: That was *three days*.

**QHORE**: If you all don’t continue with the adventurer lifestyle, uh, I have an idea for a great job for you, Trouble.

**TROUBLE**: Taxidermy!

**QHORE**: Not quite.

**ABOUKIR**: *Exactly* what I was thinking.

**QHORE**: But… Alright. Well, um, I’m…

**LAZARUS**: You tried. You did your best.

**QHORE**: I feel like I am leaving you in very capable hands, Sado.

**SADO**: Yes, sensei.

**ABOUKIR**: Well, does—does Sado think you’re leaving him in capable hands?

**TROUBLE**: Yes!

**LAZARUS:** He’s great a punching people, but he is a *shit* judge of character.

**QHORE**: I will be along, uh, hopefully in a few weeks to give an update. Jean is currently in talks with a wizard friend of his. As far as I know, they’re not going terribly. Me? I will be headed home. I will confer with the other monks, and we will see if there’s anything in our archives that gives us any hints towards what we can do for you. Until then: continue avoiding the shadows as much as possible. Also: if there ever becomes a feeling, a pull, Trouble… go the other way. The last thing we need is more than one piece to come together.

**LAZARUS**: That was creepy.

**ABOUKIR**: This is foreboding.

**QHORE**: It should be, friend.

**LAZARUS**: Friend.

**QHORE**: Sometimes, this word ha—this world has darker things in store, and there is no way to lighten it.

**ABOUKIR**: That’s—that’s depressing—

**QHORE**: Except with tea.

**LAZARUS**: I have the *Light* spell?

**QHORE**: There you go.

**TROUBLE**: It’s been a minute.

**QHORE**: Alright! Well: good luck everyone! Don’t die!

**TROUBLE**: I do not promise!

"*Qhore takes off like a comet*"
**LAZARUS**: That’s pretty cool…