Today's Earth date: December 4, 1991

[Redacted] got me an early Christmas present: a guitar. I mentioned to her that I played a little bit, and she picked one out all on her own.

We sat on the bridge overlooking the Cuts, and she just listened to me play while we watched mist rise up from the valley. The Cuts really are beautiful from this high up. I think I could spend the rest of my life here.

Horcus hasn't come back, so maybe I will get to stay.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

Luke's mother lived in a small apartment above an empty storefront. The sign over the big window was only half-intact, but enough remained for Wayne to know the last occupant was a grocer. The interior looked like it had been empty for some time, and the neighborhood as a whole reflected a similar fate. This wasn't a well-traveled part of Vientuls, and the few who did live here were quick to avoid eye contact and to close curtains as Wayne and Fergus followed Luke down the streets.

Tulip–that was Luke's mother's name–apologized for the state of her apartment as she led the group inside. The space was tight with small rooms and narrow hallways, all made tighter by various boxes and stacks of long-untouched books.

As it was with Luke, Tulip's apparent age matched the timeline of the Chosen Heroes.

She had to be nearing her 80s if she wasn't in them already. She was thin and her wrinkles did little to disguise the veins and liverspots visible against her paperwhite skin. Her movements were slow and hesitant, as if she tested the ground ahead of herself before each step to be sure the floor didn't give way. Her voice quivered and strained when she spoke, but overall, Wayne was impressed by Tulip's poise.

Where many elderly people slowly bent to the unrelenting weight of gravity, Tulip carried her head high. Her hair retained hints of its original red, her eyes were sharp and lucid, and she had the glow of someone who was exceptionally beautiful when they were younger.

She sat in a rocking chair while Wayne and Fergus squeezed into a small loveseat. Wayne's elbows folded into his body awkwardly to make enough space for his friend.

Luke went to the kitchen, and it sounded as though he were cleaning up and doing dishes.

"At least the gods gave you a decent body," Tulip said. "Being the Zero Hero and troll-butt ugly would have been unfortunate."

"Please don't," Fergus said. "His ego is big enough as it is."

Tulip smiled at the joke. "Lucas says you believe our story. Wish you had been around forty years ago. Having the Zero Hero speak on our behalf might have helped."

"Helped?" Wayne asked.

"Fathers run out on their families all the time. Nothing new about that. But if you go around claiming your baby bump is from a Chosen Hero, folks get upset."

"I'm sorry you went through that. Sounds pretty awful."

Tulip shrugged. "We got by."

"Did Laszlo know he had a son?"

"He was back on the road before I knew about the baby," Tulip said. "I sent letters to every town on their route and sent several dozen to the Capital over the years. Only response I got was a warning about what happened to people who harassed the royal family. I like to think he never knew. He was too kindhearted to abandon us intentionally like that, even if his journal suggests differently."

Wayne saw Luke standing at the sink, shaking his head as his mother spoke. He had a less optimistic view of his father, it seemed.

"Lucas says you're working on something to do with the Diary of the Gods? Is that true?"

Wayne unfolded a catalog page–the one featuring Quicken; of all his Pages of Power, he was most okay with losing that one–and handed it to Tulip. She put on a pair of gold wireframed glasses and squinted to inspect it.

"My Diary access was broken when I arrived, which it sounds like you already know. This project started as a search for more of those pages, but that's evolved quite a bit. We're finding that whatever broke my Diary is potentially affecting monsters as well. The snail attack is the latest incident."

"We're Royal Scholars, you see," Fergus added. "We are no strangers to discretion, but we'd also like to bring more truth to the world where we can. For example, we learned that the Lady Rebecca at the center of the Cuan necromancer incident wasn't a kidnapping victim like the stories say. She was in a forbidden romance that turned tragic."

Tulip nodded as she listened.

"I wish we could tell you exactly what we're hoping to find by speaking to you," Wayne continued, "but the best answer we have is anything that might not be in the official record. What we ultimately share with others, however, is up to you. We can understand why your family wouldn't want the attention and have no problem honoring your privacy."

"He was lovely," Tulip said wistfully, her eyes losing focus as she slipped into her memories. "At first, he talked about abandoning his quest altogether, but his party convinced him they should save the world first. Then he could come back. Wilmond and Rathain were nice enough. Horcus was a lecher, though. I always hated when he was around."

"Lecher? How so?" Wayne asked.

"Always staring, always finding excuses to touch or press into me. He spoke to me like I was a prop in a stage production instead of a real person."

Wayne cringed. "I know it was a long time ago, but do you remember them talking about their Diaries or about their old world?"

"They talked about Earth all the time, mostly things they missed or wanted to do when they got back. They spoke often about two stories… Umm…" Tulip called over her shoulder into the kitchen, "Do you remember the names of the stories I told you about that your father liked?"

Luke yelled back. "The Wonderful Years and Dookie House."

Tulip nodded. "Yes, those were the ones."

Wayne surmised she meant The Wonder Years and Doogie Howser, M.D. Those were popular shows that matched the late 80s timeline of the Chosen Hero's summoning. In his own mind, Wayne released a brief sigh at the memory of Winnie Cooper, one of his childhood crushes. Winnie was the ultimate dream girl for the majority of boys in Wayne's generation, and every kid wished they were as smart as the kid-genius doctor played by a young Neil Patrick Harris.

But Winnie. Oh Winnie.

Outwardly, Wayne asked, "That's helpful. Does anything else stick out?"

"Horcus always wanted to talk about training. He would go off by himself to hunt a lot."

"What sort of things did he mention when he spoke about training?"

The old woman thought for a moment. "I'm not sure how much I actually remember. He talked about 'kill screens' and 'cheating' a lot, though. Laszlo tried to explain what those were, but the terms made me uncomfortable. A strange man saying 'kill screen' again and again in a conversation was disturbing."

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Wayne looked at Fergus, a silent acknowledgement that there might be something to be had in discussing those terms later.

"Were those general conversations or did they talk about specific stories?"

"Packed Man and Double Dragons, I think," Tulip answered. "Horcus knew those stories really well and compared them to their quest pretty often."

"Did they mention anything else about their Diaries that comes to mind?" Fergus asked. "It's okay if not. You've been very kind to us already."

"Not really. When it was just me and Laz, we talked a lot about what Earth was like and all the things he wanted to show me. New York City, Paris, these faroff cities full of beautiful adventures."

"Were those musings or plans?"

"Sounded like plans to me, but I was obviously incredibly naive. I believed him, though. He said when he went back to Earth, he'd take me with him."

"One more question if you don't mind," Wayne said. He pointed at the Quicken page in Tulip's hand. "Did Laszlo have anything like this page with him?"

"Lucas, honey. Can you grab the letter for me?"

Luke didn't reply, but he disappeared into another room right away. He emerged with a catalog page and handed it to Wayne.

It was page 23 and 24 of the Christmas Catalog. One side featured games for the Turbografx-16, an attempted competitor to the NES and Genesis that bet big on recreating a high quality arcade experience. The only title he recognized was Splatterhouse because it had become a bit of a cult classic horror game. The other side featured PC games, and he knew three of the four: The Secret of Monkey Island, Golden Axe, and Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday. The last was a game called Mega Fortress, which looked like yet another fighter pilot simulator. Mega Fortress was covered in ink though, so much so that he doubted he could unlock it.

Wayne had sunk hours into Golden axe and The Secret of Monkey Island, but he never played Buck Rogers. The aliens on the box art looked too "demonic" for his mother to allow it in their house.

Out of habit, he activated his Resource Values skill.

E.B. 1990 Christmas Catalog Page (Mint), Average Value of 3,109 gold coins.

The value had gone up. The last page he assessed came in at 2,800 gold coins or so. Was that because he was aggressively collecting them or could the ratmen interest in the pages affect the value as well?

Laszlo had written a note to Tulip on the Turbografx-16 side of the page. At first, Wayne thought it was a simple lover letter, but the words sounded familiar…

Oh. Because they were lyrics. He borrowed lines from I'll Be Loving You (Forever), an overplayed New Kids on the Block track. Laszlo probably would have left her a mixtape if he had the option, but this was the next best thing. That sounded cheesy, but it also sounded like what Wayne might have done had he been in Laszlo's shoes. Understanding and expressing affection at eighteen was all sorts of awkward and challenging.

Sometimes the song you recorded off the radio said all the things you wished you could.

"You can keep it," Tulip said, pushing it into Wayne's hand when he went to give it back.

"Ma," Luke said, concerned.

Wayne and Fergus had similar worries. "This must have great sentimental value for you," Fergus said.

"Going back through these memories makes me see I've waited for him for far too long." Tulip leaned back in her chair and slowly started to rock. "He left. He never came back, but he gave me a wonderful son. For all Laszlo's flaws, I'm grateful for that." She smiled at Lucas.

Luke and Tulip's eyes went wide when Wayne activated his Quicken skill to withdraw 3,000 gold, the currency appearing in his hand like it poured out of an invisible dispenser.

"I should have brought a pouch or two," Wayne said as coins bounced onto the floor. He carefully dumped the rest of the gold onto an end table.

"We don't–"

"M'am," Fercus interrupted. "As I said, we are Royal Scholars and conduct ourselves accordingly. This page is valuable. Whether you knew that or not, taking it from you without compensation would be behavior unbecoming."

Luke put his hand on his mother's shoulder. "Thank you," he said. "This will help her a lot."

"It's the right thing to do," Fergus said, standing to shake Luke's hand and to pat Tulip's.

Wayne didn't offer as much fanfare as Fergus, but he thanked the pair for their kindness and their time.

When Wayne stood in the open door, about to leave, Luke stopped him. "Is Laszlo alive?"

"I don't know," Wayne said, honestly.

Heroes were said to treasure solitude when their quest concluded. Their whereabouts were a closely guarded secret and attempting to violate the privacy of the Chosen Heroes was a crime. So only a select few in the world would know if Laszlo or his party members were still alive.

Jason and Tammi weren't. Wayne saw that with his own eyes, but they quit the party before the quest even began.

"If you find him, could you tell him about me? Please?"

Wayne looked at the fifty year-old man before him, and despite his wrinkles and sandpaper stubble, he looked every bit like the young Laszlo Perris had shown him. Relationships with fathers had a way of doing that, Wayne realized.

"I promise I will."

Wayne and Fergus debriefed on their way to dinner.

"I would like this story better if we knew for certain Laszlo was unaware he was a father," Fergus said. "It's a little less sad that way."

"Yeah, you'd like to think a Paladin would take care of their kid."

"Indeed." After a few more steps, Fergus asked, "Can you explain what a 'kill screen' is to me? You seemed to bristle when Tulip mentioned that."

That was an interesting challenge for Wayne. How could he explain the concept of a kill screen to someone who had never seen an arcade machine?

"Do you remember that swordfighting tournament you took me to? I was here for maybe a year."

Fergus nodded.

"They kept score with flip numbers. Someone scored a point, they flipped the next number plate over the ring. Each ring had plates for zero through nine."

"Yes. With you thus far."

"What happens when you count higher than nine for any one digit?"

"Resets to zero."

"Correct, but there are only so many numbers, right? At a certain point, you can't count any higher and your only option is to go back to zeroes for each digit. Old games on Earth didn't really have stories or endings, so if you played long enough, you got to the point where the system ran out of digits to flip.

"Designers never really expected that to be an issue because it was very hard to do, so the game just kind of breaks at that point. The screen looks a lot like our glitched Diary menus and the game ends because there are no more numbers to flip. Seeing someone reach a kill screen meant that they were really really good."

"And Horcus often spoke of our world as if it were nothing more than a game," Fergus added.

"Correct. They may have been bullshitting about nerd stuff, or maybe Horcus thought there might be a way to push the Diary to a kill screen. I don't know how that would work though."

"Or what would happen if the Diary of the Gods was forced to reset like that."

Wayne nodded vigorously. "That too. Cheating is just what it sounds like. A lot of games had hidden codes that made you invincible or design flaws that you could use to do something the developer didn't intend."

"Do you have any immediate ideas of how those terms could apply to the Diary?"

"I don't, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. At the same time, the Heroes weren't very far along at this point. They were most likely just reminiscing."

"Fair," Fergus said, looking ahead aimlessly as he thought. "How about the new catalog page? Is it any good?"

Grinning, Wayne answered, "I think it's very good. As soon as we get back to the inn, I'm unlocking Buck Rogers and Golden Axe."

For Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, the catalog had this to say:

It's 2456 and the Russo-American Mercantile is out to enslave the solar system. Help Buck Rogers and the New Earth Organization defeat the RAM and restore the Earth to its former glory.

And Golden Axe:

Death Addeer has invaded Vuria, imprisoned the King, and stolen the Golden Axe. Choose your hero and your weapons carefully. The fate of Vuria is in your hands!

A sci-fi RPG and a high-fantasy beat 'em up? Wayne had high hopes for these unlocks.

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