"Kill...you?"

The voice that came out of that yawning black hole of a face sounded different now. A little closer, a little more focused, a little less imposing...and a lot more confused. 

He stepped over to the filthy girl, his movements slow but strangely fluid, like lava sliding down a mountainside. His feet landed tombstone heavy on the damp cement and he knelt down to face her, the lightless chasm feet away from her dirt-streaked face. 

"Who said anything about killing anybody? Nobody's here to kill anybody, right?" He looked around as if seeking confirmation from everyone present: from his fellow travelers (who had abandoned him, he saw, in favor of prying open a door to shelter) and from the other two Rats, the bruiser and the sour man whose faces showed a mix of fear, anger and acceptance. 

"Life's precious," he said, stretching his arms out as if to grasp the whole of the city and the ruinous moon above, "this is all a gift. You haven't done anything here that you can't take back, so you don't need to worry."

He rose to his full height then, slow and steady as the tide washing away the shore, and considered the glowing capsule that Hafadac had tossed him as if just noticing it. With a little shrug - the rumble of wet stone against itself - he tilted back his head and dropped it into the abyss, sighing contentedly a few moments later. 

"A gift," he repeated fondly, the words so unlike the crackling, distant buzz from before, "that shouldn't be wasted. Tell me your names, new friends. Tell me where I am. There's so much that I want to know."

"My name is-" he began, but when he spoke the Name, what came out was wrong; sounds layered and interwoven, contrasting and conflicting, disharmony conjoined. 

"Gregor," said the man.

"Forever" said the serpent.

"Let's get inside with the others. It doesn't seem safe out here."