MMMM Chapter 3 Penny Paper's Perfect Plan

Melman left without bothering to read the care instructions for the cauldron. He had bigger things to worry about. Namely: beer. And Brodin. The two were connected in the sort of way that often led to dramatic retellings, medical bills, and banned posters in at least three taverns. 

He had promised to meet Brodin, his old academy roommate and an unrepentant frat dwarf from the Underbelly Mountain Kingdom, at Drunk ’n’ Profits for their quarterly tradition of regret, volume, and terrible decisions. It was a sacred ritual, not to be interrupted by things like cursed cookware warnings or mild doom prophecies.

Melman shuffled down the cobbled street, robe flapping behind him like an underachieving cape, one bunny slipper squeaking mournfully in protest with every other step. That’s when he noticed them.

Two figures. Behind him. Walking in rhythm. Close enough to make the hairs on his statically-charged neck rise like they’d been cursed by a low-grade lightning elemental.

He turned down a narrow alley that reeked of damp brick and cat ambition. They followed.

He picked up the pace. They did too. It wasn’t exactly a chase, more of a suspenseful shuffle-off.

Melman cursed softly and, with more agility than he liked to admit, dove into a nearby trash bin. The lid thudded shut above him, leaving only silence... and the faint, unmistakable smell of sardine-scented regret, expired spells, and what might have been haunted mustard.

Meanwhile…

Penny Papers of the Papers family who was a serious journalist. Her father, Patent Papers, had always told her so. And he was never wrong. (Except about soup. He was always wrong about soup. No, peas do not belong in bisque.)

She squinted down the street from behind her magical monocle lens, brushing back an ambitious strand of bright red hair that kept trying to narrate things on its own. There. That man. Robe. Slippers. Wheezing like a haunted accordion with asthma.

He matched the description exactly. The angle of his stoop. The puff of his breath. The faint trail of unease he left in his wake like a man who once tried to bake a memory-enhancing pie and succeeded far too well.

The Mage Mangler.

At least, that’s what the adults called him. But Penny knew better. He didn’t mangle anyone. He wangled. Wizard Wangler was a far more accurate headline. And once she had the story, she’d prove it, win an award, and maybe, just maybe, be allowed to use the big camera again.

Her porter jogged to catch up. And by "porter," she meant Porter, a lawyer. That was the correct term now. (You couldn’t call them orcs anymore. That was racist. They had sued the world and won. Now, the term 'lawyer' was the official racial designation. But not all lawyers were orcs, and not all orcs were lawyers. It was really gumming up the system when people assumed you practiced law just because of your species. Courtrooms were a mess. Fantasy HR departments were in open revolt.)

Porter was her best friend. He was also carrying seventeen metric tons of her stuff in his enchanted backpack of holding. (Okay, yes, the H might have been glued on over an F, but there was no way it was one of those bags of folding. The amount of stuff he was hauling would've killed a man twice his size, and Porter was a beefy 6'9" ten-year-old.)

The backpack held her travel studio, her makeup setup, a small dressing room, a collapsible chaise lounge, three different lighting crystals, a typewriter that only accepted compliments as input, and what may have been a collapsible gazebo if she could ever find the release button again. You couldn’t do journalism without proper lighting. Or hydration. Or snacks. Or comfort. Or seventeen pairs of backup suits. That was just science.

Porter was sweating, but that was just Porter. He was basically a mobile sauna. Porter didn’t want to be a lawyer. He just wanted to be, well, a porter. It was a huge scandal in his family. His mother was the current Chief Counsel of the United Cities Coalition (and by Chief, I mean Chief of what was once a roaming warband, now rebranded as a highly litigious, power-suited bureaucratic juggernaut with battle chants turned into mission statements). His father was the war-crimes prosecutor for two continents and a floating island. His grandmother had invented the Philbusted, an ancient legal tradition she pioneered after declaring one too many family debates a constitutional crisis during breakfast. So when Porter said, "Actually, I’d rather carry bags than file writs," the fallout cracked three dinner tables and an heirloom battle gavel.

“Oh bother,” Penny muttered, scanning the street. “We lost him.”

Porter wheezed. “Good.”

She ignored him. “It’s fine. We’ll go to Betty. Betty always knows. I’ll pay whatever it takes. Information wants to be free, but gremlins rarely agree.”

That was one of the perks of being the daughter of the two best newscasters in the world, and being filthy rich.

And by newscasters, she didn’t mean anchors. She meant casters. Like, actual spell-slingers who conjured up headlines with arcane bursts of narrative clarity and projection spells tuned to Channel 9¾. They didn’t just report the news. They cast it. Got it?

With a flick of her wrist, she adjusted her monocle, set her jaw, and marched forward with all the confidence of a ten-year-old girl born into magical celebrity and determined to prove she had more than just a famous name and an enormous, occasionally sarcastic hairbrush collection.

She was going to find the Wizard Wangler. Even if she had to rewrite the whole front page herself.

It was lucky for Melman that Drunk ’n’ Profit was a goblin-run bar, and Pretty Patty didn’t give a shit about what customers smelled like, looked like, or muttered under their breath. Patty only cared about two things: gold and spell dancing.

It didn’t matter if the Boulder-ball finals were on, if the Mage Olympics were mid-duel, or if it was the Talladega 500, yes, the actual NASCAR race. For some reason, it's wildly popular among the magical communities. Probably the explosions. Or the massive wrecks. Or the fact that nothing screams gnomish engineering like a high-speed left turn into flaming chaos. But if spell dancing was on, and you were in the Drunk ’n’ Profit, then you were watching spell dancing. No arguments. No exceptions. And absolutely no backtalk.

No one messed with Pretty Patty.

Also luckily for Melman, he loved spell dancing. So did Brodin. The three of them, Melman, Brodin, and Patty, had bonded over it across many years, many mugs, and many extremely poor life decisions in the smoky corners of this goblin dive bar turned cultural cathedral.

Of course, if anyone asked Brodin, Captain of the Underbelly Kings, reigning Boulderball Grand Champions, and sponsor of at least three keg-powered festivals, he would swear up and down that he’d never watched a second of spell dancing. Never heard of a triple-double pair of whips. Didn’t even know what the Iron Lotus was.

Which, of course, was a lie.

Everyone knew the Iron Lotus. It was the most dangerous move in all of spell dancing, only ever performed successfully by the legendary duo of Michaels and MacElroy, former rivals turned reluctant partners, whose explosive chemistry on the dance rune was only matched by their tendency to duel backstage between routines. Their choreography had once been classified as a tactical weapon by three nations and banned by four. The last time they pulled it off, they set an entire arena on fire.

Brodin knew it, Melman knew it, and Pretty Patty definitely knew it. Most of the bar knew it, at least, those who weren’t new or could still remember the names. It was an unspoken bond, one forged not in fire, but in neon glyphs, hovering platforms, and the synchronized swirl of arcane flips.

It probably helped to know that Brodin was, in fact, Lord of the Bros. King of the Underbelly. A walking mountain of charm and chest hair, with a personality so laid-back it practically reclined. He wore a truly magnificent afro, one so well-maintained it had its own moisture shield enchantment and a dedicated grooming familiar named Clive. His royal crown, meanwhile, was worn as a wristband, gleaming proudly on one meaty forearm. A fro pick jutted from his hair at a perfect angle, enchanted with major defensive wards and excellent taste, and beneath that, a sweatband enchanted with cooling runes.

He didn’t strut. He glided. He didn’t talk. He vibed. And he would never, ever admit how much he adored the subtle technical excellence of a reverse wand toss into a flaming backflip.

So when Melman finally slid into their usual booth, panting, sweating, and still wearing a wig cap under his hood, it was to find Brodin already there, sipping a mug of something that glowed faintly blue and muttering criticisms at the dancers under his breath.

“Bro that triple cow-toss was off-center,” Brodin grunted, eyes glued to the screen. “And that summoning circle wasn’t tight. Amateur hour.”

Melman flopped into the seat beside him. “You’re such a liar.”

Brodin shrugged. “Don’t know what you mean. Just here for the drinks Bro. Don’t even know what a wand is.”

Pretty Patty slid a plate of something vaguely food-adjacent onto the table. Her voice, when it came, was like an alligator that smoked thirty packs of cigarettes an hour and gargled gravel between shifts. And even that didn’t do it justice. Somehow, it was still lovely, raspy, warm, and weirdly comforting, like a lullaby composed by chaos and bourbon. “You boys better not start crying again during the finals.”

Melman gave her a salute. “No promises.”

She grinned, teeth sharp and gold-tipped. “Good. Means you’re watching it right.”

Patty narrowed one eye at Melman and rasped, "You do somethin’ different, sugar?"

Melman instinctively tucked a suspiciously lustrous lock of hair back into the wig cap. Had it grown shinier since this morning? Possibly. Probably. Damn it.

"You smell nice," Patty added with what might’ve been affection. "Like hot garbage on a hot summer’s day."

"She’s right, you know," Brodin rumbled. "You do look a bit different. But I didn’t call you here to talk about your new cologne."

He leaned forward, grin spreading. "Elfia and I are finally gettin’ married after I graduate, you know."

Melman blinked. "Sixty years in school and you're just now graduating?"

"Pfft, you know how it is," Brodin said with a proud shrug. "Elves and dwarves take forever to get through the system. I’m basically college-aged by our standards. You’ve been there the whole ride, Mel bro. So yeah... I want you to be my best man."

[Author’s Note: Yes, dwarves and elves take longer to graduate. Yes, this has led to some fairly epic class reunions that require diplomatic clearances and arena-sized banquet halls. And also, humans and wizards? Absolutely not even the same species. Magic doesn’t even work around humans. It just fizzles out. There’s a reason humans are considered walking disasters with terrible fashion sense. We’ll get to that later.]