Spell Or High Water

US Cover (left to right: Phillip, Martin)

US Back

German Cover (Title Translation: Come on out Magic?)

#### **A New Arrival**

Two months after the events of Off To Be The Wizard, Pete the barman sent his boy to fetch Phillip and tell him that another wizard had arrived in Leadchurch. Leadchurch was the most logical place for a time traveler to come because it was the closest town to one of England's most famous natural landmarks, The White Cliffs of Dover. The newly elected chairman Phillip was busy doing important chairman things (not doing anything at all), so he sent Martin in his stead. Phillip also thought it would be fitting for Martin to meet his first trainee in the same exact place he himself was met as a trainee. Much like the first time he visited the Rotten Stump, Martin thought he knew the situation he was walking into. He was expecting to meet someone who was much like himself when he arrived and imagined himself getting to do to the new arrival what Phillip did to him. When Roy had arrived, he got on very well with everyone in the bar, especially Pete and Gert. The Patrons basically gave Roy an entire history lesson on the town, the wizards and the last wizard to arrive, Martin. Roy immediately had a bad attitude towards Martin from the start and Martin exude superiority. After they were introduced, Martin asked Roy that they spoke in private to which Roy responded "after I finish my beer". They bickered back and forth and eventually left. Roy, who was in his sixties, continually referred to Martin as "Kid" and asked to speak to an adult. Martin waited until they got to a more public place to use part of his salutation. Giant Martin picked up Roy in one hand and told him that his 2 choices were to accept the training or to go back to his own time and being cut off from the file. Roy agreed to the training and informed Martin that both the CIA and DOD were after him.

#### **Roy's Story**

They teleported to Martin's house in Camelot which was less of a house and more of a barn. Before Martin bought the property, i was used as a dry place to store hay. Roy was bewildered by the 10 foot statues in the 4 corners of Martins home. There was Optimus Prime, Boba Fett, Grimace and The Stig. Separating the entrance from the living area was a red velvet curtain that Martin stole from a movie theater he was once employed at. Roy was unfamiliar with the 4 characters which prompted Martin to ask what year Roy was from. Roy was happy to learn he was the first person to find the file, coming from 1973. When he noticed a large Monolith looking device in the middle of the living area, he asked Martin what it was. Martin responded "Thats my TV" prompting Roy to ask "What year are you from?". Roy began telling Martin his story. He worked on the skunk works project at Lockheed; specifically on the SR-71 Blackbird. Lockheed purchased an IBM 360 Mainframe computer and Roy was in charge of finding ways to apply it. He wanted to see what other divisions were using it for, so he loaded up all of the tapes and started snooping. Roy encountered a file that was much to large too fit on one of the magnetic tapes which only held 170MB, so his interest was piqued. After figuring out what he was looking at, he considered giving himself a ton of money but then realized it was a quick way to get caught. He began using the repository file to improve the specs on his plane. Roy was moved to another project but Lockheed was still trying to make more blackbirds. They failed to get anywhere near the same results as Roy, so they came for him. Earlier that year, Roy had read a book by Gilbert Cox called The Best years to live in Medieval England. When the CIA and DOD came looking for Roy, he panicked and traveled back to 1150. The IBM 360 isn't the type of computer that you can take with you, so this was a one way trip for Roy. He planned on surviving using his engineering skills.

#### **The Chairman**

Being the chairperson was hard work. Phillip woke up and teleported to his shop, where he went through his daily task list.

Chairperson Task List

1. Item 1: Get Up
2. Item 2: Eat Breakfast
3. Item 3: Think up some busy work and delegate it to a wizard who will make a lot of noise about it.
4. Item 4: Do whatever you like for the rest of the day

The first two items were easy but the third required a little bit of effort. He looked at his Gorf machine and noticed scratches and dents on the coin door where Magnus was trying to break in to steal quarters two months prior. In that moment, he came to a decision and phoned up Magnus, asked how Magnus was doing and gave him a job. Phillip tasked Magnus with taking a census of their wizarding community. He was to make a list of all the wizards in medieval Europe that he knew, call everyone on that list and ask them to make the same list. If there were any irregularities (a wizard on someone else's list that was not on his list) he was to go interview that wizard. Soon after, Phillip heard a chime coming from the bottom of the stairs. Considering the protective spells he had placed, this shouldn't have been possible. He got up and carefully peaked outside the door and found it...a salad bowl.

#### **The Cato Protocol**

The next morning, Martin awoke and made breakfast for himself and Roy the way wizards make their breakfast: by pulling it out of their hats. Roy, who believes McDonalds is for kids, wasn't too happy about his bacon egg McMuffin but ate it all the same. Prior to the events of Off To Be The Wizard (OTBTW) and the Battle of Camelot, the wizards of medieval Europe had a policy to not share technology with people before their time. After the events of OTBTW, this policy was nixed because they realized it gave certain people an unfair advantage. Martin showed his laptop to Roy and promised he would get his own if he made it through the trials.Considering the last computer Roy worked on was the size of bedroom, Roy was understandably amazed. Since the Battle of Camelot,

   the Leadchurch wizards regularly meet in a clearing outside of town to share and practice new defensive spells. Martin took Roy with him to be part of the exercise and to meet the guys. It wasn't until Martin and Roy were being chased by a Black, Grey and Purple blurs that Martin had remembered something he just agreed to not long before. During their last meet, Gary had the bright idea to surprise attack each other to keep everyone on their toes. This was referred to as The Cato Protocol, in reference to the character, Cato Fong, from The Pink Panther. {In the Pink Panther, Cato was instructed to surprise attack Inspector Clouseau to keep him alert and in fighting condition. The fights between Cato and Clouseau often ended with shocked guests and destroyed furniture.} Martin screamed "TIME OUT!!!!" and everyone stopped. It wasn't fair to attack Roy, someone who didn't know what was going on. While Jeff explained the concept to Roy, Gary and Tyler resumed chasing Martin. Martin demonstrated one of his new abilities, "bamf" and the beanbag. Martin would throw a bean bag and then after saying "bamf", would immediately teleport to that bean bag's location with the beanbag back in his hand, leaving black smoke in his wake. {The word "bamf" is a reference to the sound Nightcrawler, from the X-Men, makes when he teleports (we can only hope that Martin programmed the macro to leave behind the smell of sulfur as well).} Gary demonstrated a new ability where he would hit someone with an object and that object would shoot smoke out with such force that it would cause the person to spin incredible fast. The smoke had a terrible odor and sounded like a whoopee cushion being deflated. Tyler demonstrated a new ability which he partly stole from Martin. When Martin arrived in medieval England, his own repository interface had 3 functions, one of which was a crude form of levitation that caused him to vibrate uncontrollably several feet in the air. Tyler's new macro could do this to another person and obviously Gary was the best choice to demonstrate it on.

#### **"Help Me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope"**

Soon after the guys met back up with Jeff and Roy, Martin got a hand call from Phillip who asked him to come over...alone. Of course, Martin couldn't shake everyone, so they ended up tagging along. Everyone but Gary went upstairs to Phillip's rumpus room; Gary was not invited so it was impossible for him to enter. When the wizards entered the Rumpus Room, everyone's attention was drawn to a beautiful, crystalline, salad bowl. Phillip told everyone how he found the salad bowl. There was a disc inside the salad bowl with illustrated instructions. It showed two people holding the bowl up on either side. Underneath the illustrated people were the names Phillip and Martin. Supporting the bowl were legs in the form of dolphins, which prompted Phillip to say "No it did not say So long and thanks for all the fish", a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series. {In the *Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*, the dolphins leave a message to humans just before they flee Earth's destruction. The message was, "So long and thanks for all the Fish." This was also the title of the fourth book in the *Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* 'Trilogy.'} Martin and Phillip debated on whether to follow the instructions or not. Following the instructions could possibly mean death. Had someone needed a way to kill both Phillip and Martin at the same time, this method would be perfect. Not following the instructions would mean a lifetime of wondering what would have happened. If you are a curious person by nature, you know this is practically torture, so they decided on the dangerous option. Phillip called Gary into the room. If they were all going to die, might as well use it as an opportunity to kill off Gary as well. Then Phillip and Martin picked up the bowl on both sides. After the light show, a holographic video of Gwen appeared and she said "Hello Phillip". Phillip responded only to be interrupted by Gwen telling him that she cannot hear him because its a recording.The message from Gwen was an invitation to attend a meeting with the leaders of all other known magical communities in the sunken city of Atlantis. The purpose of the meeting was to lay the groundwork for cross community policy. The agenda for the two week meeting consisted of:

1. chronological pollution
2. the ethical treatment of non-time travelers
3. prevention of abuse of power

The invitation was for the chairperson, Phillip, and a second representative. Martin was specifically requested to be that second representative. When Phillip and Martin were ready to go to the meeting, they were to recite the spell "transporto unua atlantis kunveno" (translation: transport first Atlantis meeting). As an added treat for the Leadchurch wizards, Gwen put her hood up, looked from left to right and said "Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" in reference to the famous scene from Star Wars where R2D2 plays a hologram of Princess Leia for Luke and Obi Wan.

### **2012 AD**

#### **Walter and Margerita Banks**

Jimmy, who was now in his 60s spent 30 years without his abilities, without television, radio, automobiles etc. Any piece of technology with an integrated circuit would stop working as soon as Jimmy was near. The other wizards had edited the file to put a disruptive magnetic field around him. He had to learn how to survive this new lifestyle. He traveled through South America on his bicycle and at some point, he started to form a plan. He knew Martin was from 2012, so once the time was near, he started heading towards Seattle. From a distance, he witnessed Martin running from the federal agents to the banks residence. He watched the federal agents leave and saw Martin return. He copied down the information from the cab that Martin took and rode his bicycle back to his base of operations, also known as the homeless shelter. Jimmy reviewed his notes using a flashlight since the ballast of the flores​​​​​​​cent lights had a microchip. The next morning, Jimmy sold his bicycle to a panhandler for 30 dollars and decided to go shopping.He went to a thrift store and bought a suit, a shirt, a tie and a briefcase. Jimmy went back to the banks residence and knocked on the door since he couldn't use the doorbell. He introduced himself as a friend of Martin's who was also tied to Martin's current predicament. Martin's parents were hesitant at first but Jimmy is a master manipulator. He knows what to say, what facial expressions to make and how long to make them when trying to convey a specific idea. Jimmy made sure Martin's parents knew that what Martin had done was not illegal and that the government was after him because of something he discovered.After Walter and Margerita Banks began to Trust Jimmy, he popped the question. Jimmy asked for the contact information for the US treasury agents that were after Martin.