And there was a butcher who lived on Ransom. Being a butcher was a bit like therapy for him. He liked carving up nuts and gardening worms. Remember these are bird people? Anyway, that has nothing to do with the story. Once upon a time, society built a robot. Wait, that's no good either. It wasn't a robot, more of an synthetic yet organic lifeform. I'm getting way ahead of myself. People, er, birds went from interviewing the lava god after giving him some native Ransom reading material to somehow featuring him on his own call in radio show every week. They still didn't have a name for their planet.

"Hi, yes, I have a question for the volcano god .."

"Go ahead chirper, you're on the air - ask away."

"What should we call our planet?"

YOU DON'T HAVE A NAME FOR IT?

"Heh, not really VG, no one can ever decide on one."

THAT'S PRETTY WEIRD

"I guess it is-"

WE USED TO CALL IT RANSOM

"What? Wait, what did you say? Ransom?"

The volcano god paused for a minute, turned around nervously, as nervous as a creature made from lava can be, and then answered. More quickly than normal.

OOPS

"Ransom, why that? Who's we?"

NOT SUPPOSED TO TELL YOU

"Why not? Are we in trouble -"

NO MAN, THEY'RE ALL DEAD

"Dead? Why did you-"

LEADERS PAID OFF SOME GUYS ONCE WITH IT

"Paid-"

THEY WERE BAD GUYS

"B-"

PLANET WAS EMPTY BACK THEN

"Are you-"

NAW MAN YOU GUYS DIDN'T COME FROM THEM

"How are you answering so f-"

I CAN GO FASTER, IT'S JUST NOT CHILL

"C-"

HARSHES ME OUT

"Who were these bad guys?"

LONG GONE

"Why can't you tell us more?"

TOO DANGEROUS

"You are? The planet is?"

KNOWLEDGE IS

Carl piped in. "This is too weird. I need to lie down."

"Shut up Carl we're rolling! V- Where'd he go?" But he'd disappeared into the base of the volcano. No one saw him for the next week. "Ransom eh? That kind of sucks."

"Well it's better than nothing, plus it's what they called it, whoever or whatever they were."

"I guess so."

Word spread quickly. The planet was officially ratified as being named "Ransom" within three days.

That's how it started. Like a pinprick, a little mosquito bite. Just a tidbit of information. Then, they thirsted for more.