The Secret World: That magical little world existing just below the surface of the world of man and usually unnoticed by mankind. Also my paycheck, considering how I’m a mercenary who specializes in the weird jobs. Take today’s round of crap, for instance. I got hired by a gnome to avenge the death of his brother, who was eaten by a gargoyle. Easy job, just not the kind you usually hear about in the papers.

Gargoyles are what happens when an Earth Spirit decides to live inside the statue of something, usually one of those ugly-ass statues you see on buildings. Not all gargoyle statues are Gargoyles, and not all Gargoyles are those things. Some are in statues of people, some are in statues of lions. The condition is that it has to be stone. This makes them strong, gives them a body to move around in, and they don’t have to make a body themselves. The downside to all this is that sunlight paralyzes them. That’s because of some crap reason involving the magic they have to use to take over the statue. And once they’re in it, they can’t leave. It dies, they die. So it tends to only be the morons who are stupid enough to become Gargoyles.

Finding this particular one was really easy. The gnome hiring me told me that the statue of the city founder on top of the local library was the guy. So I waited until the afternoon, walked over to the library, snuck up to the roof, and blew the damn thing to kingdom come before going on my merry way. Piece of cake.

Blew crap up, got paid, got lunch. Easy day.

This job is concluded.

Ok, so here’s what happened while I was in NYC. I got hired by a few gnomes to come to town and deal with a little dragon problem. A small one had gotten loose in the sewers the gnomes live in and had commenced eating them. Apparently, gnomes are like pringles. Dragons can’t just stop at one.

So I had to stalk through the New York City sewers, which reeked of filth and shame, to find something the size of a car that was gonna try to eat me the second it saw me. Thank God I was getting paid for this!

When I finally found the thing, I was just walking through a tunnel and following the smell of burnt gnome meat when BOOM! The scaly bastard comes out of nowhere and almost knocks me in the water! Fortunately, I was able to save myself. Falling into the water of a sewer in NYC? I’d rather die.

I managed to grab onto the dragon’s neck and rode the damned thing through the sewers, like the roller coaster from hell. Finally, I was able to fire my grappling hook directly into its eye and into the brain, killing the stupid thing. Sadly, this meant there was nothing keeping me out of the water. Thankfully, I was able to break free of the grappling hook and leap to safety while the dragon’s corpse incinerated. Yeah, dragon corpses incinerate. Weird, huh? Tends to only leave some bones. After a long walk back to the gnomes to collect my pay, I crashed at a cheap hotel and just relaxed for a few days until I came back home.

Punting a gnome through a window and into a dumpster, and getting paid to do it.

Are Unicorns real? No, not any more. They used to be, though. I read some of the old legit books on them, and it turns out that they were smarter than humans, and real good with magic. Eventually, they became so powerful that they left this dimension. Supposedly, they did something to the world to give it magic. That doesn’t exactly fly with me, because if that’s true, then where did their magic come from? But yeah, supposedly there used to be unicorns.

Damn, work’s been slow the last few days! Must be why I’ve got the time to throw back a few drinks and ramble on about unicorns. Sometimes, I’ll see some old plant elemental or something at a bar mention them, always with respect. Says there’s nothing like the unicorns and there never will be. If they really are responsible for all the world’s magic, then they kind of screwed up. All people mostly seem to use it for is being dicks to each other.

I just woke up at my desk to find this all typed. Good God, what was in that drink?! Damn Secret World bars. They never seem to understand how much alcohol a human can handle! I went out to drink after the golem thing YESTERDAY! That’s how long I was out for! I’ve been blacked out for 24 HOURS! The elves are telling me they brought me right back here after I picked a fight with a gnome. That would explain why my foot hurts. Gnomes are all assholes who like to stab you in the foot. Apparently I typed on the computer and passed out. Looks like that was when I wrote the thing about unicorns. Yesterday. Well shit. And I actually had studying to do this weekend. Now my head feels like an elephant is gonna burst out of it. I’m gonna go lay in bed and whimper in pain now. Damn Secret World alcohol. Worst. Hangover. Ever.