Atlanta, Georgia. Hollywood of the South. Shining example of an American big-city. And, once a year, it became the single nerdiest place on Earth. DragonCon was the place to be for fantasy and sci-fi fans of every kind in September. That was where Zachary found himself.

He sidestepped half the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, searching the crowd for the other half of his group. Carl followed him closely, more interested in the eye-blistering signs and advertisements over the nearest booth. Luckily for him, a voice shouted over the roar of the hundreds in the convention center to lead him to the right spot.

"Zach! Carl! Guys, over here!"

Zach hastily shifted his soda over to his other hand while trying not to spill it on his doublet, full-body plastic armor clattering, already overloaded with swag from the showfloor. Up ahead, their de-facto Dungeon-Master and trip-sponsor Brian, waved them over. Brian had spent a lot of money to set up the whole experience, and it was looking pretty worth it.

Which was basically all that was stopping Zach from pointing out that Brian's fake leather shoulderpad-slash-cheststrap-thing really accentuated his manboobs.

"Sup, dude?" Carl greeted as they pushed their way over to the booth full of older-edition tabletop game manuals, dropping his sandwich wrapper into his impractically large wizard's hat.

Brian held up a battered book. "Check this out! It's a 1979's AD&D Player's Handbook someone had bound! Real leather! Eeh? Eeh?!"

Zach sucked noisily from his straw, trying very hard to show his lack of enthusiasm. Carl voiced his thoughts for him.

"Broskie, we don't play Advanced. We play 'three-point-five.'"

"Mostly." Brian's sister Amy appeared beside them, flipping back her white-and-red healer's hood with a scowl. "And Pathfinder. Or whatever homebrew Zach thinks he can test."

Carl shrugged, reaching into his hat and coming out with a handful of Doritos. "Which don't usually work, so we go back and play vanilla again."

Zach finished getting the last drop out of his watered-down cola, just watching them. On paper, each of them was the biggest freak he knew in their category. Carl steadfastly refused to stop being stereotypical as he rubbed at his acne and rummaged through his wizardly belt pouches for his can of Mountain Dew, beady eyes magnified by his glasses as he squinted. Brian and Amy couldn't be any greater opposites as siblings: a chubby, cheerful dark-haired boy with a penchant for Metal and all things fantasy wearing ninja garb, and a thin-faced, thin-lipped and thin-tempered girl bundled up in angst and sheer hatred of the world.

Zach was fairly sure one of them was adopted.

To be fair, Zach thought he was the most "normal" out of the bunch, and he was homeschooled and had gone for literal weeks at a time without speaking to another person, only thanks to his parent's insistence that he socialise that he even met Brian at the after-school chess club. Then again, he was a eighteen-year-old wearing plastic armor over period clothes, so then maybe "normal" was stretching the definition a bit. The lot of them had mini-character-sheets describing the characters they were dressed as stapled to their convention lanyards.

It had taken them months of planning and nearly all of their life-savings, but they had made it, and Zach couldn't be happier. He reached for his wallet. "I'll buy it for you, mate. Call it an early birthday gift."

Brian's ear-to-ear grin was all worth it. Zach leaned over the booth counter, looking for the owner.

"Hello? I wanna pay you for stuff!"

"Appeal to greed, that always works," Amy muttered, flipping her hood back up and glaring at a group of scantily-clad elf-girl cosplayers as they passed.

"Greed only works when you think you are missing something, my dear."

Zach jumped as he turned back, barely aware that he had looked away, right into eye contact with a short, sharp-edged man inside the tiny booth. And it was the man's eyes that really unnerved him, either disturbingly dark-colored, or so dilated it was a wonder he wasn't wearing heavy shades.

Either way, the strong impression for Zach was Shark. Run.

"My friend wanted the, uh, leather D&D book. It says thirty bucks." Zach held out the cash, and the man smiled and took it. He was relieved to see the merchant's teeth weren't pointed. That much creepy at once would have had him outta there.

"I think your friend will find it useful." The merchant nodded slowly. "There is something else you want."

"Umm, no, we're good, I think," Brian said, patting his pocket. "Kinda strapped for cash. Inventory space, too, by the looks of it, Carl, could you stuff this somewhere?"

Carl wordlessly took the book and dropped it in his hat, causing the bulge to grow. Zach was eyeing the rest of the merchant's goods as it hit him. "Hey, uh, you didn't really have a question mark on the end of that sentence, sir. What else is it that I want?" he joked, or tried to. The Merchant did smile again.

"I sell experiences. Or swords, I can never tell the difference. Seems having a good sword is an experience in and of itself."

Amy snorted. "Helluva sales pitch."

Zach wasn't listening as the Merchant produced a long, slim package from under the table and unwrapped it to reveal a beautiful two-handed sword in a polished, copper-and-rosewood sheath. He slid it partway out, revealing a long ricasso before the actual edge and fuller begun, unadorned by any decoration but gleaming in the poor lighting of the showfloor. Zach was completely smitten.

Carl grumbled to himself, leaning in to get a look. "Uug. So much want. Very poor. No moolah. Can't have."

The Merchant shook his head slowly, sliding the sword fully back into its sheath. "This will not cost you any material money, friends."

"So, what, sexual favors?" Amy sniped, prompting a withering glare from the Merchant, the first real emotion Zach had seen reach his eyes, in fact. The boys, however, each perked up. A free sword from DragonCon? How could anyone pass that up, even if there was a catch? Suspicion stirred between all of them, but desire was very much winning.

"It only costs you one thing if you want it. If you could go anywhere, 'real' or not, where would it be?"

None of them even had a chance to blink before the Merchant proffered the sword to Zach hilt-first. Zach looked at the others. He didn't actually intend to walk away with it, really, just get a good look. "And the boy... is... fast. You've chosen and been chosen in turn."

"Umm..." Zach stepped back, bumping a random Con-goer. This whole encounter was passing from unnerving to truly disturbing. How did he know I made up my mind? "Do... do I have to say where I'd go?"

The Merchant chuckled as Zach watched his own hand wrap around the sword hilt almost of it's own accord. That smile revealed a set of jagged, pointed teeth under his glittering black eyes.

"Oh, I'm sure they'll figure it out."

* * *

Zach was looking at a tree. His arm fell under the sudden and heavy weight of the sword and sheath in his hand, tip thudding to the ground.

He blinked, expecting the creepy Merchant, the Con, anything he had just been seeing, to reappear.

The silence after the crush of people on the showfloor pounded on him. He heard a soft crunch of boots-on-leaves and turned to see Carl standing in exactly the same spot relative to him, looking around wildly at the forest. Brian was just past him, mouth agape. He whirled around to see Amy, breathing heavily with closed eyes, open them only to screw them shut again, her lips moving quickly as she talked to herself.

Brian was the first to find his words. "What the actual-"

To Be Continued In Chapter 1: Finish That Sentence, I Dare You

Author's Note

Things Mr. Welch is No Longer Allowed To Do In RPGs #1688: Just because he starts every game in a tavern doesn't mean the Barbarian needs rehab.

So this is a thing. I ask is you not judge based on preconceived notions and judge me by the story I tell, not those that have sucked before me. After all, I have somthing to prove.

Oh! And corrections/edits via PM, not in the comments section, please.