A few years ago I wrote this story as a writing exercise, a challenge to myself to go in the opposite direction from some of my normal writing habits. Instead of trying to be a full novel it's a short story. Instead of a “secondary world” fantasy this is a “regular people transported to a surreal fantasy land” story. Instead of outlining I just followed the story where it took me. And instead of trying for gravitas I gave myself permission to go for comedy. I'm trying to see if I can muster the courage and energy to get back into writing fiction again, so I decided to dust this off, clean it up, and post it.

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The Princess Scam

by Dan Maruschak

John Bozinsky walked into the offices of Alien8 Entertainment. According to their website, Alien8 brought the world earth-shattering games. In reality, Alien8 brought the world slapped-together video games intended as tie-ins to Hollywood movies. Unfortunately, the games were invariably late, and missed out on the hype machine that accompanied the film's release. The studios eventually noticed this pattern and now they generally only got tie-in deals with films that tended to be box-office disappointments. Working in this environment was slowly killing John's creative spirit, of course. He longed to make tediously derivative video games based on their own original IP.

John made his way over to his cubicle, which was lovingly decorated with posters, knick-knacks, figurines, and action figures from a variety of pop-culture sources that were considered cool at the time, or else so lame that they circled back around to being cool again. He set his cup of Starbuck's down, sat in his ergonomically correct chair, logged into his workstation, and brought up his e-mail. As he stared balefully at the seven bug reports waiting for him, Mark from the next cubicle over walked up, sipping a cup of Starbuck's of his own.

“Reading e-mail, huh? Anything good?”

“Dude, don't look at my e-mail. That's creepy.”

“Hey, you've got a hundred and eighty six mails in your spam folder. You should check those out, those things are hilarious.”

“You actually read your spam?”

“Not all of it. You know, none of that herbal viagra stuff. But you get some awesome stuff in there, like people asking for your bank account number so they can wire you a million dollars. Stuff like that. Seriously, check it out.”

Skeptical, but willing to be proven wrong, John opened his spam folder. He selected a likely candidate and began to read aloud. “Dear Mr. Bozinsky, my name is Ulyssa, and my research has shown that you are a trustworthy person. For many years I have been a princess in the nation of Jennara. As a government official, I had access to substantial amounts of wealth. Unfortunately, a recent change in government has resulted in my inability to access these funds. However, I have information which will allow these funds to be transferred to you. If you will take possession of the funds in question, and then transfer them to me, I would be pleased to allow you to keep fifteen percent for your trouble.”

As he was reading, John began to sense to that something was wrong. He also began to hear that something was wrong, because a horse galloped up behind him. John and Mark turned around. Instead of the offices of Alien8 Entertainment, John's desk now appeared to be situated in the middle of a lush green field. And on the horse, which had ceased galloping by now, sat what can most accurately be described as a knight in shining armor.

“Have either of you fellows seen a dragon hereabouts?” the knight inquired.

“Uh, no,” answered John.

“You wouldn't think that giant lizards would be so hard to find, what?” he said, and galloped away.

“That was weird,” offered Mark.

“This is insane. Where the hell are we?” asked John.

“I don't know, maybe we should ask at the castle.”

“Castle?”

In response, Mark just pointed to a large, pink fairy-tale-style castle. And not from a cool, edgy fairy tale either. It looked like the kind of place that one might reasonably expect to have a tea party with a unicorn. The two programmers started walking toward it.

“You know,” proposed Mark, “I think we must have been somehow transported inside your subconscious.”

“Why would there be a pink fairy tale castle in my subconscious?”

“Maybe you're gay.”

“Dude, first of all, I am not gay. Second of all, that is a total stereotype.”

“Hit a little too close to home there, eh?”

“No. And why would you think we were inside my subconscious? That's just stupid.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So, seriously, where are we?”

“I don't know, that subconscious thing was my best idea.”

As they crossed the drawbridge over the tiny moat filled with decorative goldfish, two guards with handlebar mustaches and big fur hats snapped them a smart salute.

“So, do we just go in, or what?” John asked them.

They did not reply.

“I think these are the kind of guards that aren't allowed to talk,” suggested Mark. “Like in England.”

“Makes as much sense as anything else,” John observed, and strolled past them into the castle.

Although it deeply compromised the castle's effectiveness as a military fortification, the gates opened to a large hallway which led directly to a throne room. On a grand, golden throne sat an elderly man with snow white hair and a long beard, with an ermine-trimmed robe and a large golden crown on his head.

“Where did they dig up that old fossil?” Mark quipped.

“We are not amused,” grumbled the old man.

“Humor is subjective,” Mark answered. “Shouldn't you let everyone make up their own mind?”

John leaned over and whispered, “I think he's using the royal 'we'. Plus, what you said was barely even funny, it's just a Star Wars reference, so I wouldn't be surprised if nobody else was amused either.”

“We are not pleased when supplicants whisper about us,” boomed the king. “Nor are we pleased when our lands are trespassed upon.”

“Wow, I think you might be right about the royal 'we' thing,” whispered Mark. He peered at the soldiers standing at attention along the walls of the room. “But then again, they all seem pretty grim, so I guess the jury's still out.”

“We will punish you for your insolence. Guards! To the dungeon with them!”

They were escorted downstairs and thrown into a cell, which was suitably atmospheric, with plenty of dust and cobwebs. As they explored their new surroundings Mark picked up an iron mask chained to the wall.

“Oh, man,” he exclaimed. “He's got one of these and he didn't lock us up in it? He's totally dissing us!”

“Mark, we're locked in a dungeon in some kind of parallel universe. How can you react to this shit so calmly?”

“Well, I think of it like it's happening to you, and I'm just your ironically detached sidekick.”

“What?”

“I thought that was kind of obvious.”

“Well, I can see how it would make sense for me to think of you that way, but how can you think of yourself that way?”

“Through a lens of ironic detachment, mostly.”

“I mean how can you see yourself as a secondary character in what's happening in your own life?”

“It lets me justify spending all day goofing off and talking to you instead of doing any work.”

Bowing to the self-evident truth of Mark's statement, John began to examine the cell more closely. The dungeon door was three inches of solid oak, and securely locked. A small barred window, maybe a foot wide and a few inches tall, let in sunlight from ten feet above the floor. There was a bucket in the corner near the iron mask, but John preferred not to think about what it was for. “Any ideas?” he asked Mark.

“Well, if this was Dungeons and Dragons, standard operating procedure at this point would be to find a secret passage out of here.”

“Why would there be a secret passage out of the dungeon?”

“So that people can escape.”

“But the point of a dungeon is that people aren't supposed to escape.”

“I think you need to start looking at this as a glass half full situation,” Mark suggested.

With nothing else to occupy his time, John began pushing stone blocks on the wall, hunting for the elusive secret passage. In short order he found it. One of the blocks depressed under his hand, and with a grinding, rumbling sound a large section of wall slid backwards. As John had noted earlier, the existence of a secret passage out of a dungeon was preposterous on its face, and the notion that the passage would be concealed by an elaborate mechanism that could slide a heavy wall away was more preposterous still. A mechanism like that would require frequent maintenance, and to what end? The existence of such a thing seemed to defy all logic. Still, John wasn't willing to stand around arguing the point, and walked into the secret passage with Mark.

The passage was tall, wide, and had oil lamps spaced evenly along the wall, providing excellent lighting. Beyond that, the decor was modern and minimalist, which John found quite appealing. The passage ended with some stairs that led up to one of those hatch doors that some people use to get into their basements from outside. Outside, the door was concealed by a small group of hedges, expertly trimmed to look like a variety of zoo animals. John found this to be overly ornate, and not something he'd ever have in his yard, if he ever got one. Regardless, they were now a good distance from the castle, near some woods. A neat little stone-lined path led into the woods, and there was a wooden sign shaped like an arrow that read “Woods.”

Before John and Mark could ponder the significance of this, the knight rode up on his horse. “Oh, it's you fellows again. Still no sign of the dragon, what?” he asked.

“Not as yet, no,” said John.

“Say,” said Mark. “We're new around here. We come from another dimension, and we were wondering if there was anybody around here who could help us out with that.”

“Well,” said the knight, pondering, “the only person around here who would know anything about that sort of thing would be Malivore. He lives in the dark castle beyond the woods. He's a powerful wizard, but evil to the core. You'll get nothing but treachery and deception from him.”

“But he's the local expert on alternate dimensions?” asked Mark.

“Yes. But beware, he is a subtle and devious fiend. If you treat with him, expect the unexpected.”

“Will do,” said Mark. “Good luck with the dragon.”

“Thank you,” said the knight, and he rode away.

“So I guess we go see Malivore, then,” said John.

“Absolutely,” said Mark.

They set off down the path and started walking through the woods. The woods themselves were lovely, although neither dark nor deep. There was surprisingly little undergrowth, and the wildlife seemed to be the cute and frolicsome kind, rather than the bite you and give you rabies kind. After a half an hour of walking they emerged from the woods and saw Malivore's castle. It was made of jet black stone, and had spires and towers that reached up for the sky like the fingers of some skeletal hand. The sky itself was deeply overcast, which was unusual since it had seemed sunny while they were walking through the trees. As they approached the castle they noticed that there was a wrought-iron spike motif in evidence.

“I guess he's really into the goth scene,” said Mark.

“The knight implied that he was pretty evil,” said John. “Deception, treachery, expect the unexpected, and so forth.”

Around the castle was a large moat, filled with what they assumed was human blood. Ominous black shapes swam in it, and eyestalks poked out from beneath the surface, connected to who knew what. Across the moat was a large drawbridge, made from black wood, reinforced with giant iron bands. At the end of the bridge were two large men fully encased in matte black armor, with a disturbing red light glowing from their helmets, as if they had hot coals instead of eyeballs. As John and Mark approached, the guards lowered their giant battle axes to form an imposing 'X' in front of the gates.

“Hey, we're, uh, here to see Malivore?” offered John. “About alternate dimensions?”

The guards withdrew their axes, and the path into the castle was clear. Shrugging agreeably, John led the way inside. The floorplan of the castle was nearly identical to the one they had been in earlier, and John wondered if they had been built by the same developer. The wrought-iron spike theme was continued inside the castle, and complemented here and there by paintings of demons, devils, and people in extreme pain. They entered the throne room, and Malivore sat on a giant chair made of human bones, with cool skull handrests on the end of the arms. Malivore himself was albino, dressed in black velvet robes and a flat-topped round hat. He constantly licked his lips and fidgeted in the chair.

“Hi, I'm John Bozinsky, and this is my friend Mark. We're from another dimension or something. Earth? Have you heard of it? We heard that you were definitely the guy to talk to about this.”

“Oh, you think you're some kind of chosen one, destined to destroy me, eh?” Malivore said. “It's always the same with you goons, traipsing into alternate realities and trying to undermine established authority figures.”

“We're not here to undermine anything,” John protested. “We just want to get back home.”

“Ah, so you're one of those trickster heroes, eh? Well your lies won't work on me,” he said. “Guards! Seize them! Take them to the dungeon!” Within milliseconds, the viselike grip of the armored guards closed around John and Mark's arms.

“Man, I can't believe the exact same thing is happening to us again,” said John.

“Well,” said Mark, “to be fair, we were expecting the unexpected. If we had been expecting the expected, then I think we would have seen it coming.”

“Probably,” agreed John.

They were manhandled down several flights of stairs, and rudely shoved into the dungeon. As the door slammed shut on them, John said, “here we go again.” Their attention quickly turned, however, to a beautiful young woman in a pink ball gown sitting on a cot in the corner, quietly brushing her long blond hair.

“Whoa, co-ed prisons. This guy is very progressive,” Mark observed.

“Dude, the guy is pure evil. And not in the cool way.”

“I'm just saying, when this guy gets overthrown, they shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

John gave a friendly wave to the woman and said, “Hi, I'm John.”

The woman's eye's lit up, and she asked, “John Bozinsky? The one I asked for help?”

“Well,” John answered, “I am John Bozinsky.”

“Oh, I knew you were a trustworthy person!”

“Wait,” said Mark. “Are you Ulyssa?”

“Yes! Yes! And the two of you have come to help me!”

“Mark,” whispered John. “Who the hell is Ulyssa?”

“The princess of Jennara.”

“The what of what?”

“You know, from the spam.”

John pondered the woman's dark-ages vibe. “You sent me an e-mail?”

“Yes, John Bozinsky. I stitched it into my embroidery hoop, and gave it to an ether-sprite to deliver into your own hand.”

“I see,” said John.

“Wait,” said Mark. “Ether-sprite? Ethernet? I figured it out! We're inside a computer!”

“That's ridiculous,” said John. “That's an even worse idea than the subconscious thing you were pushing earlier.”

“I guess you're right. Why would there be castles and stuff inside a computer? If we were inside a computer, it would be like Porn Land.”

“Dude, don't be stupid. If we were inside a computer it would be like Tron.”

“Oh, awesome. Hey, the next guy we meet, we totally need to say 'greetings, program.'”

“But he'll have no idea what that means.”

“That's what makes it so funny,” Mark declared. “Hey, but if it turns out we are inside a computer, we should figure out if there's like a portal to Porn Land or something. Or maybe if there's someone here who's the anthropomorphic representation of all internet porn. She would have to be totally hot, right?”

“I guess.”

“Well, it stands to reason.”

“There you go, then.”

Mark turned to Ulyssa. “Hey, you're pretty hot. You're not the anthropomorphic representation of porn by any chance, are you?”

“I don't think so,” she answered.

“Bummer.”

“So,” asked John. “What are you doing in here?”

“Malivore came into my father's castle and kidnapped me, and I have been locked in here ever since,” said Ulyssa.

“Wait, was it the pink castle?”

“Yes.”

“We've been there,” John said proudly. “So, Malivore just waltzed in and snatched you, huh?”

“Yes. I believed I was under my father's protection, you see, but now my father is under a wicked spell that makes him care only about himself.”

“Is that why he was such a dick to us?” asked Mark.

“That I do not know,” said Ulyssa. “But he lifted not a finger to protect me when Malivore came to steal me away.”

“So if your dad doesn't care about you, doesn't that kind of put a crimp in Malivore holding you for ransom?” asked John.

“Malivore does not intend to ransom me to my father, but to give me to a fearsome dragon, who will eat me up.”

“Why does he want to feed you to a dragon?”

“I know not,” said Ulyssa.

“So what did you want with me?”

“I had hoped that you would bring to me the treasure in my father's castle. If I had access to my wealth I could hire a champion to slay the dragon and rescue me from Malivore. As I indicated in my letter, I would be happy to share fifteen percent of the wealth with you, for your trouble.”

“Hmmm,” John whispered to Mark. “This whole thing started out when we read that spam e-mail. Maybe if we went through with the whole thing, we'd go home.”

“Are you sure? Those things are usually scams,” said Mark.

John looked around at the dungeon. “I think I'm willing to take that chance,” he said. “OK, Princess, what's the plan, we get you out of here?”

“Alas, no,” she said, and pulled back her skirts to reveal that her ankle was chained to the wall. “Only Malivore's magic can break this chain. I am afraid that I am unable to leave the dungeon. But if you can bring the treasure back to me here, I will be able to contact a champion.”

“OK,” said John, “if this castle has the same layout as the one we were in before, we've probably got the same secret passage. What do we do after we get out?”

“If you can make your way inside my father's castle, go to the treasury at the base of the easternmost tower. I know a secret that will enable you to get to all of my father's wealth.” She looked around furtively for a moment, leaned in, and whispered to John, “My PIN number is seven, seven, seven, five.”

John considered this development. “You know,” he said, “the N in PIN stands for number, so when you say PIN number, it's like you're saying 'number' twice.”

“Oh,” she said. Then, “sorry.”

“That's OK,” he said magnanimously. “A lot of people make that mistake.”

John went over to the dungeon wall and pushed on one of the stone blocks. It sank into the wall, and he was rewarded with the familiar rumbling noise of a stone wall sliding away. As he stepped toward the secret passage, however, a big hairy mass the size of a beach ball flew at his face. He swatted it away with his hand, and deflected it into one of the walls.

“Jesus Christ, what was that?” he shouted.

“I think it's a spider,” said Mark.

Sure enough, when John looked more closely he saw that it had eight long spindly legs and eight tiny eyes, and fangs dripping with something that John was prepared to assume was poison. If he had more time, and a better understanding of parallel world arachnid taxonomy, he might have identified it as Cosmophasis Dungeonaris, but as it was he only had time to react as it jumped again. He grabbed a front leg in either hand, but the momentum knocked him backward to the floor. The rest of the spiders legs brushed furiously against his body, as the spider scrambled for purchase and tried to push its fangs closer to his face. His eyes wide in terror, John shifted his weight and rolled over, pushed up with his hands and then let his full weight fall onto the spider, in a particularly disgusting body slam. Yellow, pudding-like goo spurted out of the creature's ruptured body as it flattened under him, and a few moments later the legs stopped twitching.

“Uh, good work,” said Mark.

“Shut up,” said John, standing and trying to wipe the yellow goo from his clothes. Knowing where it had come from, John expected the goo to smell truly disgusting, but it didn't. It had a faint buttery, oniony scent which, in it's own way, John found even more disturbing. He sat against the wall recovering his breath, and turned accusing eyes toward the princess. “Did you know that was in there?”

“No, John,” she said.

After a minute of tense silence, he stood and said, “Let's go.”

“We should probably watch out for more spiders,” said Mark, following John into the secret passage.

“You're a genius,” John replied.

They followed the passage, and it again led to some stairs and a hatch door to the outside. The door was again surrounded by topiary hedges, but these hedges were all dead and leafless, which substantially spoiled the camouflage effect they were meant to have. John and Mark headed back to the path through the woods, and once they were out from under the overcast gloom and saw the sun beaming down through the trees their mood lightened considerably.

“So, how do you think we can get into the castle?” asked John.

“Well, last time we just walked in and nobody stopped us. I say we try that again,” said Mark.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. If they do stop us, what are they going to do, throw us in the dungeon?”

“Good point.”

As Mark predicted, the guards remained stoically silent as they walked past. They wandered around for a bit before they realized that neither one of them had the slightest idea which way was east, which made the easternmost tower rather more difficult to find than expected. But they did find it eventually. Another guard with a big fur hat stood in front of the door, with a shiny gold chain leading from one of the buttons on his uniform to a small pocket, with a conspicuous key-shaped bulge in it. John glanced around and whispered the PIN number into the guard's ear. The guard stared at him for a minute, and then ostentatiously pulled the golden key from his pocket, put it in the lock on the door, and let them inside.

John and Mark walked into the royal treasury, and sitting on a wooden pallet was a near perfect cube of stacked and wrapped twenty dollar bills. John did some quick calculations and determined that there was twenty billion dollars there. He did the calculations more slowly, and determined that it was really four hundred million.

“Why is it on a pallet?” Mark asked. “The only door into here is too small for a forklift.”

“Also, we're in a pseudo-medieval world that presumably doesn't have any forklifts,” John added.

“True,” acknowledged Mark.

“I'm kind of surprised they use US currency,” said John.

“You were expecting euros?”

“I was thinking more like gold pieces, or something.”

“Ah, I see what you mean.”

“So how the hell are we supposed to carry that much cash?” John asked.

“Make a lot of trips?” suggested Mark.

“How do they do it in heist movies?”

“Hmmm. We could burn the money, and just make them think we took it.”

“Yeah. But we actually want the money.”

“Right.”

Being too lazy to make lots of trips, they spent several hours searching the castle. They found a small horse-driven cart, but realized that neither one of them knew the slightest thing about horses, other than that they were big and could easily break your foot if they stomped on it. Also, visions of the horse galloping off over the horizon with a cart full of money soured them on the idea of learning through experimentation. They unhooked the cart from the horse, a story which would be an adventure in itself, and placed it outside. They found a small wheelbarrow in a garden, and used it to transport the money out to the cart, bit by bit. Every time they passed the guards John felt sure they were going to be stopped, but everybody seemed to treat this as business as usual. With a lot of effort invested into pushing, pulling, and cursing, they got the cart back to the outside entrance to the secret passage to Malivore's dungeon. There they discovered that taking a wheelbarrow down stairs was more difficult than it sounded. Finally, breathing heavily and soaked with sweat, they collapsed on the dungeon floor.

“Alright, Ulyssa, there's your cut,” said John. “You can send us home now.”

“I thank you, John, but the fifteen percent that you kept for yourselves fulfills my end of the arrangement. I do not know how to send you home.”

“Damn,” said John. “I really expected that to work.”

“Yeah,” Mark agreed. “I wish we had known it wouldn't before we did all that work.”

“Tell me about it.”

They fell asleep from sheer physical exhaustion, and John had a dream that he was back in high school, but instead of the people from high school the people he worked with were there, and instead of classes they attended meetings in conference rooms, and everyone kept reminding John that he had forgotten to sign up for jazz band. He learned precisely nothing from this dream, which was disappointing since he had been hoping for some sort of prophecy or something, or at least some strong symbolism. Also, it was odd because he didn't play any instruments, so why would people expect him to sign up for jazz band?

When John woke up he saw Ulyssa asleep on her cot, next to the big pile of money they had hauled in, which was now crudely concealed with a blanket. John sat and thought for a while, and when Mark woke up, John said, “well, playing out the scenario from the spam didn't work. Any other ideas for how we get out of here?”

“Hmmm,” Mark said. “A couple of people have mentioned a dragon. Maybe we should track that down.”

“No,” John said. “Don't play their game. This place is insane. Everyone here is insane. If we start acting like them, that makes us insane, too.”

“OK, so what do you want to do?”

“I think our best bet is to focus on this Malivore guy. He's supposed to be a wizard, right? I say we figure out how to force him to send us home.”

“Sounds good. How do you propose we do it?”

“I was hoping you'd have some ideas,” said John.

“We could try just walking in the front door again, like we did at the other place.”

“I don't know, the guards here seem to be a lot more on top of things. Plus, they're like a million times more badass.”

“We could do that thing where one of us pretends to be sick, and when the guard comes in to check, the other guy jumps him.”

“Have you ever even been in a fight?” asked John.

“What are you, Tyler Durden now?” said Mark.

“I'm just saying these guys are like seven feet tall. And evil.”

“So you can be the guy who jumps him.”

“What? No way!”

“I thought you were trying to be Mr. Bigshot because you killed that spider.”

“Dude, do not remind me about the spider. But I think I had an idea while we were talking.”

John pulled one of the stacks of twenties out of the pile under the blanket, and then called for the guard through the bars in the dungeon door. When the guard arrived, John flashed his cash, and said, “There's something in it for you if you let us out of here.” The guard stood there for a minute, John growing more and more disconcerted by the glowing red eyes, until finally the guard unlocked the door and swung it open. John dropped the bills into the guard's outstretched hand, and they quickly disappeared into a seam in the guard's armor, somewhere around the waist. “Come on,” John said to Mark, creeping out into the hallway. They wandered through the castle, ducking behind corners when they heard the heavy, clanking footsteps of guard patrols. John stopped short when Malivore opened a door and stepped into the corridor, just as surprised to see John as John was to see him. “Get him!” John yelled.

Malivore turned to run, but John grabbed him from behind with a bear hug. Malivore flung his head backwards, bashing John in the face. John released his grip and staggered backwards, his hands trying to stop the blood that was now streaming from his nose. Mark threw a punch. Malivore ducked it, and counter-punched Mark in the gut, but that made Mark topple over on top of Malivore, sending them both tumbling to the floor. Mark rolled off, trying to recover the wind that had been knocked out of him, and John tried to lock Malivore down with an approximation of a wrestling hold. The hold was not very effective, however, and Malivore delivered a vicious elbow to John's side. Malivore scrambled away, but John got a hold of his ankle and Malivore went smashing down again, on his face this time. Mark crawled forward and sprawled on top of Malivore. John had gotten back to his feet and delivered a kick to Malivore's ribs and said, “stay down. We just want to talk.”

“What do you want?” Malivore snarled.

“Do you remember us?” John asked. “We're the guys from another dimension. We're not interested in defeating you, or overthrowing you, or killing you, or anything like that. We just want to go home. If you send us home, we're happy, and we can't do anything else to you, so you're happy. If you just send us home, everybody's happy. Right? Can we make a deal here? Mark, let him up.”

Malivore stood, and dusted himself off. “I would be glad to never see your faces again, but breaching the walls between worlds is beyond my power.”

“Shit,” said John.

“But,” added Malivore, “my dark master has limitless power. If I were to summon him, perhaps something could be arranged.”

“You could have said that first, dude,” said John. “Let's do it.”

Malivore led them into the summoning chamber, a dark windowless room lit only with candles. Occult objects hung from the walls, and mystic runes were inscribed in blood on most of the available surfaces, like evil graffiti. Malivore picked up a bucket full of blood and an old horsehair paintbrush and painted a giant star on the floor, surrounded by a circle. He placed a black candle at each point of the star, sat cross-legged on the floor, and began to chant, “Master, I summon you, dark master hear my call.”

The ground shook, the lights inexplicably dimmed, and the bloody lines of the pentagram began to glow with a hellish light. The ground at the center of the pentagram split open and peeled back, like an especially evil banana. A being rose from the center: seven feet tall, red skin, goat legs, barbed tail, horns, pointy beard. John couldn't be one hundred percent sure, but he was willing to lay odds that it was the devil. There was an intense blast of heat, as if the very fires of hell had been unleashed, and they all had to turn away a moment. When they looked back the floor looked as it had before the ritual began, but the devil stood there, looking at them contemptuously.

“Oh, Prince of Darkness, Father of Lies,” said Malivore. “These two wish to be returned to their own world. We beg you to use your unholy power to make it so.”

The devil spoke, his voice surprisingly deep, even accounting for the fact that he was the devil. “I do not give gifts. I enter bargains. Do you two wish to trade your souls for this boon?”

John and Mark turned around and entered a huddle. “I think I've got a plan,” John whispered. “Do you trust me?”

“What's the plan?” asked Mark.

“I call it Operation Charlie Daniels,” said John.

“I'm in,” said Mark.

They turned back around to face the ruler of hell. “Devil, we're not offering a trade. We're offering a bet. If we win, you send us home. If you win, you get both of our souls.”

“An interesting proposal,” said the devil. “When I win I shall have your souls, without lifting a finger. Muahahaha. I agree to your wager.”

“We challenge you to a game of Big Heist Kart Racers!” said John.

Mark pulled John back into the huddle. “Dude,” he said, “you're challenging the devil to one of the stupid games we developed? There weren't even any go-karts in Big Heist.”

“There were in an early draft of the script. You know how in the beginning of the movie, the mobsters are chasing Scarlet Johansson, and she gets away on a motorcycle?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, originally it was a go-kart instead of a motorcycle, and there was like a five minute chase scene.”

“Ah. Our game would have made a lot more sense if they had left that part in the movie.”

“Right. But by the time they cut that out we were too far along in production to change the game design.”

“But why do you want to play it now?”

“Don't you remember all those exploits we found in playtesting but didn't fix before we shipped? We're going to smoke this chump.”

They turned back around, and the devil had somehow produced a big couch, a game console, and a giant flat-screen TV. He was on the character selection screen. “I choose to race as... Scarlet Johansson!” he announced in his booming devil-voice.

“I'll go with... Scarlet Johansson with red hair,” said John.

“Scarlet Johansson with green hair for me,” said Mark.

The race began, and the devil pulled into the lead off the line, but fell behind when he went too wide on the first corner. “Foolish mortals,” the devil said, “you may be ahead for now, but in the end your souls will be forfeit.”

“Suck it, red man!” said Mark.

“Maybe you should ease off on the smack talk when the devil's involved,” suggested John. “And also that one sounded a little bit racist.”

“But he's actually red,” protested Mark.

Things were tight around the second curve, and then the devil's superior skill allowed him to take the lead on the straightaway. On the third curve John angled his car to graze the track's wall and pressed the brakes and accelerator at the same time. The powerslide particle effects started emanating from the wheels and his car zipped diagonally in front on the devil's. John let off the accelerator, clipping the corner of the devil's kart.

“You spun me out!” said the devil. “I didn't know you could do that!” He scrunched his face up in concentration. “Crap, now I'm stuck in this corner. How do I get out of this?” he said, switching furiously between forward and reverse. By the time the devil recovered it was already too late, John and Mark had lapped him and rolled in for an easy victory.

“You have bested me this day, mortals, and you have won the stakes we agreed to. But I will not forget this humiliation. You have not heard the last of me!” With that, the devil disappeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke, and John and Mark were transported back to Alien8 Entertainment. The couch was not transported with them, so they fell on their butts when they arrived. And John's desk was presumably still in the middle of the field in front of the pink castle, so his cubicle was uncomfortably empty. But they were home, none the worse for wear... if you don't count the revenge the devil was secretly plotting.