Text Conversations During Work.

Kirk: You think you could make a tube so long that you could siphon the oceans into space?
Wayne: Personally, no. Generally, yes.
Kirk: We should build one. Hold the world hostage.
Wayne: What do we need from the world? A bigger garden?
Kirk: Mo Money.
Wayne: Bah! Mo money, mo problems.
Kirk: How about this for a plot device. Alchemist discovers the stuff of life, and the solvent for it.
Wayne: Mmmmm. Now we are talking my language.
Kirk: Our heroes hear a rumor like these coming from traders to an out of the way city.
Wayne: The alchemist is the hero?
Kirk: Maybe. He and his colleagues must decide what to do with this new found power. But for all intents and purposes have acquired immortality.
Oh, our story takes place in the roaring 20s. Alchemy is only practiced by quacks except for a few who can see other shades of reality.
Wayne: Go on.
Kirk: Most people dismiss the claims as a hoax and bland rumor. Science has moved forward into the pre-atomic age. Our hero is a French alchemist gifted with this second sight.
He is known simply as monsieur le marc.
His colleagues include a James Beckworth, Bradford von Helmstead, Marie de la Bourbon, and their mysterious benefactor, Countess Anna Borisovana Chelya.
This second sight allows the see to glimpse into other shares of reality and with meditation and practice to grasp the true nature of a substance.
Wayne: Name of substance?
Kirk: It is known by many names. The philosopher's stone, grand panacea, the tree of life, phlogesten, midichlorians. Le Marc has named his discovery "the net."
Wayne: "The net"?
Kirk: It binds all life together. It is basis for it and as such is a net of sorts. Simply called "net" in usage.
Wayne: Are you making some sort of internet metaphor here?
Kirk: No. I'm looking through wiki for good alternative names. Help me out.
Wayne: Le Marc's Miracle whip!
Brings life to every recipe and death to your enemies!
Kirk: No, the anathema to life is know as azoth. The great colvent.
Wayne: That's not very science-y.
Kirk: It's alchemy. It's mystical!
There is no scientific formula for the miracle whip.
To try and creat eone would cause blindness at best and maddening at worst. Brain bits would trickle from your ears like stew from a kettle reading the thing. It is forbidden knowledge.
Wayne: Yet someone figured it out.
Kirk: He has the gift!
And who is to say that he isn't mad already?
Wayne: So there is a forumla, it isn't mystical, but you may have to go mad to figure it out.
Kirk: I should say that to tread the path to enlightenment risks one's sanity and life.