The Hub-Man was a little flabbergasted. Usually those that made their way up to his sanctum were the revering type, or at least respectfully demanding, so he didn't quite know what to make of this group.
'You are searching for the Infinity stone, you have come to the right place' He laughed manically.
'Nope, what's an infinity stone?' Blomar responded instantly and interrupted his laughter.
'Maybe that's a stone that makes more stones?' someone said.
'No, the infinity stone holds the power of the UNIVERSE! It is one of the greatest treasures there are.'
'Cool story, but actually we are just here to ask for directions.'
'Oh'
'We were told by this moron here.' He pointed at Fenton Claptrap, 'That you could tell us the location of a guy that is calling himself the Noobmaster9000'
'Well, I have never heard of such a person'
'Don't play dumb with me ghost man, you'll regret it.'
'I AM THE HUB MAN! I GUARD THE SOUL STONE BE GONE MORTALS ... '
He wanted to say more, but Sybil had had enough, and while his body might have been intangible and ghostly, his robes were not. Sybil grabbed them like one would his roommates dirty undies and flung them, including the very surprised Hub-Man over the cliff. He fell like a feather, gently, not quite floating, not quite falling all the way down down down.
'Well Sybil you could have talked to us first. What now?'
Jorge who had been staring at the unlikely situation with barely concealed disbelieve, found his way back to actuality.
'He will be back soon I think. He is immortal after all.'
'Yea but do we have to wait until he climbs all the way back up?'
They kept discussing the merits and downsides of Sybil's spontaneous not quite murder for a while, but without coming to a conclusion, when suddenly the Hub-Man reappeared before them, again.
'Oh there you are again, you want to talk now?' Blomar immediately took control of the conversation, but Sybil was just as quick.
' AOSDIJHFGPÖOAJDFGSB!!!! '
'What did throw him over for this time?'
'Just making sure we understand the phenomenon correctly Sir.'
Schrotti looked at his watch, he was one of these people that carried an old style mechanical wristwatch (in his case it was inside his amorphous blob body rather than on a limb, which he didn't really have ), and thought about the things he would rather be doing than this silly bit of adventuring. Things needed doing and his time was finite.
'If I may make a suggestion here captain?' He asked.
'Yes?'
'How about you just let me talk to the Hub-Man while you people stand back over there, so he doesn't get overwhelmed, and I can figure out what we can do to bargain with him.'
'Sounds good to me, except, since I am the Captain of this crew, I will be present in the negotiations. Everyone else, step back to the stairway.'
Sybil grabbed Fenton Claptrap by the ear and took him and Jorge with her back to the stairs where they sat down and had a smoke.
After a longer than necessary period of time had passed the Hub-Man, who, even though he was immortal wasn't quite impervious to annoyance or losing part of his robes, not to mention keeping his ghostly atoms together in a coherent cloud, made his way back up the mountain and reformed himself into his prior form. His problem was that while the soul stone kept him alive here, it wasn't doing so when he left its sphere of influence around the tower. Continuously reforming himself after being thrown off was taking a toll off him. Blomar and Schrotti of course knew nothing about this but who was to say that they wouldn't continue what this Barbarella had done before them. In any case, he decided to adopt a somewhat more lenient and compromise oriented approach to the upcoming negotiations in the hopes of being able to keep his atoms together. He reformed.
'State your wants and I shall state my price' The Hub-Man opened up the third attempt at conversation.
'You are a bit daft, aren't you? We already told you we are looking for this Noob kid.' Schrotti opened the negotiation.
'Ah Yes, Kevin.'
'Oh so he has a real name that good to know. So how do you know about him?'
'He came up here once or twice looking to get the Soulstone but never really had any means of paying the price so by the third time he came up we just sat here for a while and talked about his childhood. He is a good boy.'
'I'll be the judge of that.' Blomar instantly cut in.
'What do you want from him anyway?'
'That's none of your business'
'So, as part of my deal with the Soulstone I cannot grant you anything for free. Someone will need to pay for this information by.... I guess technically you are not really gaining anything of value from me and certainly not the stone ... hmm how about we present a challenge to one of you?'
'No, thank you. It goes against my code of ethics to pay for things.'
'Yes but someone has to, it's the rules!'
'I guess, but usually for a pirate, which we all are, it's the enemy that is paying the expenses.'
'Hmm that makes sense. State the name of your enemy so that he may be summoned here to complete the Soulstone's challenge on your behalf.'
'Sounds like a deal to me. Shake on it?'
'If your enemy fails the trial of combat and ingenuity you will have to take his place...'
Blomar thought for a moment, then came up with the perfect person to deal with this BS, smiled, and agreed to the deal.
The Hub-Man slid forward and touched Blomar's chest and then somewhere quite far away from all of this, a man fell asleep and woke in a nightmare ....