I see the tiny marker on your chat window, dancing its soft bleeping motion. Are you asleep on the other side of that blink? Are you dreaming of starlight and cotton candy? Are you waiting for something?

Or maybe you're looking at the night outside on the roof. The soft sounds of the sleeping city echoing. You see the leaves rustling in the dark.

It's lonely, isn't it?

We're all leaving.

There's the constant fear of never actually being okay. That you'll keep hurting others, and everything about you is wrong, from head to toe.

And I can't hold you. Not tonight. I'm just these letters on a page.

Take a deep breath, and I'll grab your hands. I'll be the spot to place your wary mind.

Try to find beauty in the shadows around you. In the sleeping birds and the sky stars and the ground stars. Write poems about dust dancing in front of the stage lights.

Of fairy homes and warm blankets. Christmases in the middle of April, and New Year's Eve in July. Paint strokes and soft melodies played on an old piano.

Feel the ridges on my fingernails, and the scars on my skin. Tousled hair on playful eyes.

We aren't our pain, but the steps we take away from it. Trying to find meaning in how we interact with others, how we connect.

Go to sleep, I'll carry you inside.

You're safe at home, at least for now.

“Mornin’ Ralph.”

“Mornin’ Sam. Sam, I said a lot of things last night I shouldn’t have said. I feel real bad about it. It wasn’t right, and I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“No Ralph, everything you said last night was right. You gave me my comeuppance, and I rightly deserved it.”

“Sam, you look like you’re gonna cry.”

“I’ve been crying since the minute you left. I love you Ralph. I love you dearly, as if you were my own flesh and blood, and I ain’t saying that as some washed up, wanna be father.”

“I love you too Sam. I really do. Now, let’s get them sheep. What time we meeting Tom Junior on Thursday?”

“Ain’t decided yet.”

“What do you mean you ain’t decided yet!? What are you waiting for, the Canadian crows to fly south for the winter? Goddamnit Sam! Can’t butter up Tom Junior ’till we know when we’re meeting him!”

“Maybe I already buttered him up on the side.”

“Why you gotta do it on the side?”

“Because you don’t know him like I do. You can’t go talk to him like I can.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know him a little. You don’t.”

“What do you mean you know him? What are you, friends with Tom Junior Sam?”

“For God’s sake, no Ralph! We ain’t no friends. I just know him a little, that’s all. I’ve been working on the farm a long time. You can’t help but talk with people.”

“I see. So what do you two love birds talk about?”

“Jesus Ralph, stop it! You’re acting like we’re in cahoots or something.”

“Well, are you?”

“No!!! I just told Tom Junior that he was a good little boy, and that we’d like to take him out for drinks. Said we’d come up with a time later.”

“It’s getting later all the time Sam.” “Alright, I’ll go talk with him now.”

*****

“Eight o’clock. He said he’d meet us Thursday night at eight o’clock.”

“Where?”

“Jude’s Tavern. Let’s get there a little early to plot strategy, say 7:30.”

“Alright, 7:30 then.”

*****

“Well, you made it here old boy, right on time, 7:30.”

“I ain’t feeling so good about this Sam.”

“Why not?”

“It still bothers me you didn’t set this up a little more beforehand. Why’d you have to wait so long to see when Tom Junior wanna meet?”

“Don’t call him Tom Junior. He don’t like it.”

“Since when you care what Tom Junior likes?”

“I don’t. I just mean don’t call him that when we meet. Well, here comes little ol’ Tom Junior now. ‘Tom! How you doing ol’ boy?”’

“Right fine, I guess. Didn’t expect you and Ralph to take me out for drinks.”

“Why not, Tom? You and I been working here together for a long time. Ralph is my colleague and my dear friend. You can trust the both of us.”

“Question is Sam, can we trust him?”

“Fair question. Can we trust you, Tom Junior?”

“Don’t call me Tom Junior Sam!”

“Alright, sorry Tom. Won’t happen again. Will it Ralph?”

“I didn’t call him Tom Junior. You did.”

“Yeah, you can trust me. I ain’t got nothin’ on ya.”

“Alright then. Getcha a beer, Tom?”

“Sure.”

“Ralph, how ’bout you step up to the bar there and get us a few beers?”

“How ’bout you do it Sam?”

“Alright, alright… It’s too fine a night and too many pretty girls to be wrangling. ‘Hey hon, bring us a few beers over here, will ya?’ So, Tom. I've been working for your father a long time. You notice things. And I can’t help but notice that you bust your ass around here, and you don’t get nothin’ for it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well Tom, seems to me when someone puts in a hard day’s work, they should get something out it. Don’t you agree?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t get paid nothin’ for what you do on the farm. Do you Tom?”

“No.”

“Don’t that make you a little mad son? Don’t that get you a little hot under the collar sometimes?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Would me, too. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen your father give you the time of day, much less pay you anything.”

“He don’t.”

“No, he don’t, do he? Man, them beers taste real good on a hot summer’s night. Real good. Alright, so where were we?”

“Yeah Sam, where were we?”

“C’mon Ralph. I’m just trying to help Tom Junior here see things a little more clearly.”

“Goddamnit Sam! Don’t call me fucking Tom Junior! I don’t like it!”

“Yeah Sam, don’t call him fucking Tom Junior! He don’t like it!”

“Tom, you know I don’t think of you that way. I’m just trying to make a point.”

“Well, make it then.”

“Tom, I’ve been working on the farm for 28 years, and it’s plain as the ass on an orangutan that your father keeps you under his thumb, every goddamn minute, of every goddamn day. He treats you like a child when you’re all but a man. Ain’t that right? You’re a whisker away from being a full-grown man, ain’t ya Tom?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“That’s right. Well, don’t you think maybe you should be man enough to do something about your father?”

“Like what Sam? Shoot him in the back?”

“Hell, boy, shoot him in the front!”

“I ain’t shooting nothing! Jesus Christ Sam! You brought me here to ask me to kill my father!?”

“No Tom, of course not. I ain’t asking you to kill your father. Man signs my checks. Pays me at least.”

“Fuck you, Sam!”

“Alright, now hold on, hold on. Calm down. I ain’t talking nothin’ about shootin’ your father. I believe he’s leaving town soon anyway, going with your mama, bless her little heart. What’s that, maybe a week or so from now?”

“Week and a half.”

“And you’ll be here running the farm pretty much by yourself, wontcha Tom?”

“Yeah.”

“Won’t get paid nothing for it, will you?”

“No.”

“All that wasted potential. You could run the whole goddamn kit and caboodle yourself. There’s a lot of money on that farm Tom, especially the sheep. Beaucoup dollars.”

“What? You want me to give you a good deal on some sheep Sam?”

“No Tom. I ain’t lookin’ to buy your sheep. Why would I? Your father pays Ralph to steal ’em. Now you might not know this son, but there’s a long-standing feud between your family and the McCoys, going way far back.”

“So? There ain’t no McCoys around here no more.”

“Oh yes there are Tom. Not the original ones of course, but their flesh n’ blood. The Hatfields up and gone a while back, but some of the McCoys still around. I don’t think even your father knows that. But I do. I even sees one or two of ’em occasionally. And I just happened to be talking with one of ’em the other day. You see Tom, the reason your family even have them sheep is ’cause your great grandfather stole them, at least their forebearers, from the McCoys. The real McCoys. ’Course that never set right with them, and they’d sure like to get ’em back. Not just for the money, though there’d be a lot of it, not to mention the lamb chops, but to wave their middle finger in your daddy’s eye. It’s personal Tom. But it ain’t so easy stealin’ flocks of sheep in this day and age. There’re all sorts of cameras, electric wires, booby traps all over that farm, even some you don’t know about. ’Course your daddy pays off the law to make sure there ain’t no thieves getting in. Hell Tom, they even arrest the wolves. Put little wolf handcuffs on them. You never see no wolves

on the farm, do you Tom? Point being, only way the McCoys could get them sheep is if it were an inside job. You see what I’m gettin’ at here boy?”

“There ain’t no way my pa let them get away with it, McCoys or anyone else. My pa ain’t scared of nothin’. He’d hunt them down, shoot ’em, and hang ’em himself.”

“Not if weren’t in town he wouldn’t. Couldn’t if he wanted to, could he Tom?”

“No. He couldn’t. But why should I want to do this anyway?”

“Them sheep worth a lot of money Tom. A lot. I’ll make sure the McCoys give you a cut. How much you want?”

“Jesus, I ain’t doing this!”

“Could be a couple hundred dollars Tom.”

“Couple hundred dollars!?”

“Yeah Tom, I’m telling you, them sheep are worth a lot of money! I’m in good with the McCoys. They know they can’t get ’em without you. I’ll make sure they take care of you. Of course, that’s not the only reason you want to do this Tom.”

“Yeah, what’s the other?”

“Ah, c’mon Tom, what do you think? We both know how much you resent your pa, and you should too, rightly so. Get some revenge. Now I know revenge is a dirty word Tom, and it don’t exactly capture what’s in your heart, though maybe it does, but you’d get some satisfaction out of it, probably a lot. A little grin, grin, grin, under your chinny, chinny, chin. You’d carry that secret with you the rest of your life. You could dangle your middle finger at your pa any time you want, in your mind of course, but that’s where all our feelings are.”

“Yeah, but he ain’t gonna believe the McCoys did it.”

“Be funny if he did. What’s he gonna do? Round up a posse to chase down the McCoys? He’d be laughed outta town.”

“No, c’mon Sam, he’d know I was in on it. And I would be.”

“Yeah, I know Tom. That’s why we’re here.”

“My pa be spittin’ bullets! He’d kill me for it! I ain’t lying.”

“Oh, c’mon Tom…”

“He would Sam! You’ve never seen him in a fury. You’ve never seen him when he drinks. When my pa drinks, he can scare the coil off a rattlesnake’s ass. He’d fly off the handle and beat me with the pan, right there on the stove. He’d burn me too before he’d kill me. Push my hand to the gridle, throw boiling water on my face, just to hear me squeal like a pig. You don’t know him like I do Sam. He already tried to kill me once, I mean for real. If my ma weren’t there he’d a done it too. Hell, he’d kill her if he could.”

“Oh Tom, Tom, Tom. You really believe your father would think you were in on it? That you helped plan it? Little Tom Junior? Your father thinks you’re a stone butt idiot and you know it, more than I do. He ain’t gonna suspect you Tom, c’mon.”

“I don’t care what he thinks of my brains, he’d have to figure I was in on it.”

“Alright Tom, how about this? Let’s say we roughed you up a little. Not real hard of course, just enough to make it look like you tried.”

“Fighting off the McCoys?”

“Jesus Tom, there ain’t no McCoys around here no more!”

“Why’d you say there were Sam?”

“Yeah, why’d you say there were Sam?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been in the business a long time. I know plenty of folks be real happy to have them sheep. Pay good money for ’em.”

“I ain’t doing this shit Sam!”

“What, you afraid boy? Man can take a punch.”

“It ain’t that Sam.”

“Well what then?”

“It ain’t gonna work! It just plain out ain’t gonna work!”

“You don’t think so, huh Tom? Maybe you’re right. I don’t think you’re right, but maybe.”

“I ain’t talking about this no more Sam! I ain’t doing it, and that’s it!”

“I see. Well then let me ask you something, Tom.”

“Yeah?”

“This conversation never happened, did it?”

“Nah.”

“Ain’t gonna tell your pa nothin’ about it?”

“No Sam, of course not.”

“Sure about that Tom?”

“Yeah Sam, I’m sure about it. What are you, threatening me now?”

“No Tom, I can’t believe you’d ask me that. Now I know we ain’t confidants. As your father’s employee, wouldn’t make no sense that we were. But we’ve never had a squabble. Even had a few laughs now and again. I even think of you as a friend sometimes. Dontcha ever think about me that way? Just a little?”

“Yeah, I do Sam. I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright son. I know you’re a man, and you know you’re a man. I think you’re making a big mistake Tom. I really do. But you gotta make your own way in life. Your own

decisions, your own actions, all of it. I don’t know what more to say. Let’s shake like men. Feels good to be a man, don’t it Tom?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“You’re a good boy Tom. Get you another beer? My treat of course.”

“Nah, I best be going.”

“Alright then. Not a word.”

“Not a word Sam. I give you mine.”

“That’s good. Now go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

“You too Sam. You too Ralph. Good to see you outside the job.”

*****

“Goddamnit Sam! What the fuck! Why’d you let him get away like that! He done up and left! He ain’t gonna do it!”

“Yeah, I know Ralph. I was sitting at the same table as you.”

“You said you were sure as shit he’d go along with the plan!”

“I don’t think I put it quite that way, but yeah, I did say something like that.”

“You traitor!”

“Traitor!? You callin’ me a traitor! I outta knock your ass to the floor, right here in public! I tried every goddamn thing I could think of to get Tom Junior to do it! Didn’t I?”

“You shouldn’t have said nothing about beatin’ him up. I think that’s why he didn’t do it.”

“Nah, that ain’t why.”

“Why then?”

“I overestimated Tom Junior. I gave him too much credit.”

“For what?”

“For his determination to get out from under his daddy’s thumb. But he couldn’t do it. I guess Tom Junior just ain’t a man.”

“You knew it wasn’t gonna work, didn’t you? The whole time.”

“I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected it might not. It’s a tall order for a boy to cross his father, especially a father like Tom Junior’s. I figured it’d be hard to win him over.”

“Did you even want to win him over?”

“I wanted you to think I did.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted you to think I had the guts to quit the job. So I gave it a try, and I left it up to fate.”

“Fate? You believe in fate?”

“Sure want to.”

“Why?”

“Because then I’m absolved.”

“Of what?”

“Of failure. If I try and fail, I’m not chagrined. If I don’t try, I’m not ashamed. Ain’t no hangdog either way. It’s all in the hands of fate. Que sera, sera.”

“So fate gives you an excuse.”

“It gives me a reason not to care.”

“I don’t understand Sam. What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m afraid of everything Ralph. I’m afraid of life. You said it yourself. You said I wanna be your father, so I can live my life through you. You’re right. I do wanna be your father. But I don’t wanna be the father that raised me. That father was a cruel man. He hated himself, and he hated me for knowing it. You said I want you to succeed, so I can be proud you’re my son. My father didn’t want me to succeed because I was his son. He didn’t want to live his life through me; he wanted to stop me from livin’ mine. He wanted me to fail, not to excuse his failings, but to take me down with him. And I’m afraid I’m trying to take you down with me Ralph. That’s the thing I’m most afraid of. I’m terrified at the thought of it. But I won’t do it. I’d burn in hell before I’d let that happen. Thank God for that. ’Least the good Lord got something right. He got another thing right too: He gave you the wherewithal, so that neither me nor anyone else could take you down, including the Almighty Himself. You’re not bound by fate Ralph. You’re alive. You’re truly alive.

My father was afraid that God would send him to hell. He wished he was younger because he was afraid to die. I wish I was older because I’m afraid to live. He tried to cheat death. I try to cheat life. I was never gonna quit the job Ralph. I’d rather stay with what I know, even if it don’t ask much of me. Because it don’t ask much of me. That way, I can accept my lot in life and never fall short of reaching the stars. I’m lost in a netherworld of my own creation, more dead than alive, and I ain’t got neither the guts nor the brains to get out. That’s how I am. That’s how I’ll always be.”

“Stop it, Sam! You are alive! More than me sometimes. You got more guts and more brains than you know. I’ve seen ’em both. I’ve seen you take chances I would never take, wouldn’t have even thought to take. Hell, the way you masquerade them sheep sometimes confounds me. Yeah, you lose a few more than you win, but you take the chance, and the pay cut that comes with it. You’d get a lot more out of life Sam if you thought you deserved it. You’re not scared of losing Sam; you’re scared of winning. Thing you’re most afraid of in life is gettin’ your cake and eatin’ it too. You don’t try gettin’ it, ’cause you wouldn’t eat it. You wouldn’t eat it, so you don’t try gettin’ it.

You can’t think like that Sam, especially about Deborah. She’s a damn fine woman, and more prettier than not. Dumbest thing ever come out of your mouth, ’least the dumbest thing I ever heard come out of it, is that you don’t deserve her. You do Sam! You deserve her as much as anyone deserves anything.”

“Deborah is a wise woman Ralph. Wise beyond her years. Don’t know anyone wiser.”

“Then she ain’t no dumbass for liking you.”

Dear Initiate,

Congratulations upon making it to, and possibly surviving, the Third Level Initiation!

We realize that after the many dreadful oaths; the threats of fates so far worse than death that human languages, in self-defense, have never found words to describe; the utter secrecy; the repeated recitation that permitting a single Mere Human know a single one of our Sacred Actions which would make the average Borgia say, “Hey, now, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?”—that in light of all that stuff, it’s odd that you’re now getting your instructions from public posts on the Internet.

The fact is, the early stages of your Cthulhu Culthood are tests of sincerity, of ability to keep a secret, of not being some sort of meddling do-gooder, and also, of whether or not, if we really need someone to jump on the sacrificial altar, you’ll do your part and push someone else onto the damn thing.

But the truth is, all of the Order’s more important secrets are freely available on the Internet. We simply call them ‘fiction’. You’ve seen this before; people think that the writer is simply playing out the tired trope of pretending that their fiction is reality pretending to be fiction, but in fact, it is the lively and dynamic trope of pretending that one’s reality is fiction pretending to be reality pretending to be fiction pretending to be reality.

Got it? Great.

Now, as usual, we’ll explain the esoteric meaning of yet another seemingly-harmless not-for-the-public piece of knowledge which has now penetrated mainstream culture. As usual, they believe there are Secret Monsters everywhere; as usual, they are right; and as usual, they are terrible at detecting the actual monsters. But it keeps them too busy to find us, and they seem to enjoy it, so, hey, more power to them, eh?

While this one goes out to the writers, it’s become so prevalent (good on us!) that even most readers are aware of it: “If you’ve got writer’s block, then one cure is to sit down for 15 minutes a day, every day, and write down 15 minutes of whatever comes into your head. Even if it’s silly, even if it’s nonsense. You’ll break through the writer’s block, and start writing freely again!”

Now, those of you of the Fifth Level or higher are already chuckling, of course. Like every joke, it’s not as funny if you explain it, but we feel like you deserve to know:

All humans, as you’re aware, are capable of performing magic. It is the Psychic Censor, the part of our consciousness which isn’t mapped in our brains, but hangs out near our astral centers of projection, which saves us from ourselves. It’s why you can say “DAMN YOU!” without immediately opening up a rift between here and Hell and sucking your enemy straight down to the 9th Level and automatically enslaving you to Something unspeakable an appropriate tax. It’s why we don’t all win the lottery, thus bankrupting whatever state might have provided the lottery ticket. It’s why most attempts to wield The Force end up as nothing more than foolish wand-waving.

Now we, ourselves, aren’t exactly interested in Magic in general, except (as with everything else in this world) as a means to an end. Obviously, we want to use sorcery to bring about the thing we’ve wanted for millennia: an opening of the gates between Here and There, which will bring our Eldritch Masters through the Purple Spiral and into this world.

But we just can’t find the right combination of words to do it.

Every time we try, we go mad.

People keep talking about the brilliant Abdul Alhazred, and, of course, we all revere him, so much as we revere any members of the puny race whose only purpose is to be extinguished that we may feed the hunger of the Great Old Ones. But, like most people who managed to disable his Psychic Censor sufficient to intentionally write something monstrous, he went mad and was, as we all know, shredded by invisible demons in broad daylight.

Don’t worry. It won’t happen to you. You’ll be different.

But in the meantime, the best thing for us would be for some human who is ignorant of That Which Lurks Beyond to do the summoning for us.

And many have come close. Many writers, doing this exercise day after day for a few weeks, begin feeling peculiar emotions and hearing strange sounds; most of all, cats and dogs and other household pets (unless they’re snakes, obviously) begin to act very alarmed during the writing process.

So far, none have quite succeeded. Either they’ve broken the writer’s block just before opening the gate, or they’ve opened it only long enough for the writers, themselves, to be sucked through—and then it shuts again. This scarcely ever happens, and when it does, we try to provide homunculi as substitutes. (Sorry about Mr. Martin; we were looking forward to reading the end of that series as much as you were.)

But if you keep encouraging people to just relax, sit down, and write or type, and let whatever’s within come out…

…as you know, that’s one invitation magic can never resist. So far, it’s mostly just made the world a lot more surreal, but that’s okay. We’ve waited for millennia.

We can wait a little longer.

In conclusion, if you ever have writer’s block, it’s definitely your mind torturing you with a lack of words because it’s mean, and certainly not your mind trying to save you from yourself. So break through the…barrier. That way you can do lots and lots of writing. You can write ’til the end of the world, if you want.

That’s just an expression, of course.

“Okay, look. Mark is really, really, sorry he dumped you the way that he did. The thing is, Toby has had a crush on you since forever and Mark decided to step aside and let him take his shot.” Carla asks Gina.

“What?! Are you saying that Mark never loved me!” Gina demands.

“I don’t know if Mark ever loved you or not, but Toby does.” Carla answered.

“Did you know Mark was going to break up with me?” Gina continues.

“Of course I didn’t. If I would have known, I would have given you a heads up.” Carla insists. Gina studies Carla face for several minutes.

“You did know!” Gina decided, “So, the three of you are planning a way to get me to like Toby. Is that why he was your ‘date’ on Saturday.”

“It’s not like that. I only wanted what was best for you and Mark isn’t it.” Carla explained.

“Is that why you were worried about whether I was going to break up with him, because you wanted him to break up with me first!” Gina accused.

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Carla shot back.

“You are my best friend” Gina says as she starts crying. Gina felt a strong sense of betrayal. Like when you find out you thought you knew someone, but you really didn’t.

“I am your best friend.” Carla assures, “I would have never let this happen if I didn’t think it was for the best.”

“Get away from me, it’s like I don’t even know you.” Gina declared. Gina was hurt. Her boyfriend whom she loved had dumped her and her best friend was in on it and didn’t tell her. She had to take some time to process everything. Carla had always had her back. If she couldn’t trust Carla, who could she trust?

While Gina’s life was falling apart, Toby was trying to find someone capable of creating a potion to counteract a powerful spell. He tried entering some search terms into Google, but he didn’t get anything back worth mentioning. He knew it wasn’t going to be that easy though. Someone capable of that kind of power wouldn’t want to attract a lot of attention. Toby decided to take a different approach.

Mark decided to check out a meeting of the “Wizards and Warlocks” gaming club. Anyone who would be interested in that type of role-playing game might know something. Mark entered the classroom designated for the meeting and all the activity in the room stopped. You know when something just looks out of place, like it doesn’t belong? That is what Mark looked like. Mark was invading a space reserved for social outcasts and students who had tastes that were to say the least odd.

Everyone was eyeing Mark suspiciously. Mark wasn’t a social outcast. There was some unwritten but understood rule that people like Mark didn’t belong here. The truth was that Mark himself had served as a knight and knew more about wizards and warlocks than anyone else in the room.

The teacher who presided over the class was one of the school’s counselors. He kept his hand on the pulse of the student body and didn’t leave out those deemed invisible by others.

“Can I help you?” The counselor said to Mark as he made his way into the classroom.

“Yeah, I’m interested in learning how to role play.” Mark answered in as disarming a voice as he could muster.

“You’ve come to the right place.” The counselor responded, “The best way to learn is to observe. We’re in the middle of a campaign right now and you’ve come at an exciting point.”

“How does it all work?” Mark asked.

“Well, everyone creates a character that they use to interact with in the game. There is a narrator, which right now is me, who decides what happens based of character decisions.”

“That sounds great, is there magic in the game?” Mark asks.

“There are characters that wield magic.” The counselor admitted.

“It would be cool if magic existed in real life.” Mark offered.

“There is magic all around us.” The counselor responded, “The rays of the sun, the beauty of a flower. The cycle of rainfall and the miracle of birth”

“All those things can be explained by science” Mark answered.

“We understand the processes of nature through the lens of science, but that doesn’t make it any less magical.” The counselor corrected.

“But what about real magic?” Mark asked.

“What do you mean?” The counselor followed up.

“Well, I kind of screwed things up for a friend and this girl he likes now hates him. If Magic existed, I could make her fall back in love with him.” Mark explained.

“Relationships can be difficult,” The counselor agreed, “In fact, that’s the whole reason I have a job. Your friend doesn’t need a shortcut, if he really wants her to like him again, he’s going to have to put in the work.”

“You’re right, of course. I just feel horrible about it, that’s all” Mark replied.

“I get that.” The counselor responded, “You want to be a good friend. I wish I could help but there’s no magic when it comes to relationships that last, only hard work.”

“Thanks anyway.” Mark answered.

Mark stuck around and watched the game unfold. The adventurers had stumbled upon a nest of giant wasps and had to fight for their very lives. There were a lot of dice rolled and action dramatized. One character did die but the rest managed to survive.

After the session was over, Mark left to go home. He wasn’t exactly sorry he came but he didn’t get any information that helped him get Gina’s memories back. As he was leaving the school grounds, he heard someone calling to him. The voice was faint, and he turned to see where it was coming from. It was one of the students.

“You need a love potion?” The student asked.

“You got one?” Mark shot back.

“Maybe.” The student answered.

“Where did you get it?” Mark inquired.

“I know a guy” The student responded.

“I actually need a potion to restore someone’s memory.” Mark confided.

“That’s a little harder but I do know a guy that can do it.” The student said.

“Then let’s do it.” Mark continued.

“It’s gonna cost you.” The student explained.

“That’s not a problem.” Mark assured.