Athanasius Spagnum Pirates a Car

18 Apr, 2026

After indulging in the delicacies of the great fraudster McDonald, I remembered my vow to obtain one the metal vehicles Earthlings use for transportation, and dissect it for the purposes of understanding what alchemical fires drive its engines. I soon located one such chariot, parked in front of a building with the cryptic placard reading, "Taco Bell". Seeing as no one was currently using this vehicle, I began the ritual that would open a portal beneath the machine and send it back to my world.

I decided to cast Grompo's Progronbulation Portal---a simple yet delightful dimensional door spell. First, simply draw a pentacle around the item you wish to transport using the blood of an ogre, or some such, and mark the points of the pentacle with the glyphs Խ, ߝ, ૹ, Ж, and ȸ. (I ran out of ogre's blood, but the Taco Bell was kind enough to provide me with a similar substance called "salsa". Or at least, they didn't stop me from procuring it.) Next, take out your wand, staff, or whatever you use to cast ( I prefer a nicely gnarled hazel branch for this kind of magic) and wave it over the object in the center of your pentacle, while chanting the Nine Verses of Arcane Manipulation (do NOT mix your "abracadabra"s with your "arbacadarba"s).

At this point, you may start attracting attention from passers-by.

Finally, it's time to engage the cosmic trans-dimensional portal key. (And you're gonna want to make this quick, because by now there are probably constables approaching you and telling you to "put down the club" and "stop yelling gibberish" or else they'll "taze" you. Clearly Earth has no respect for the artistry of a spellmaster like myself.) If you successfully engage the cosmic trans-dimensional portal key, you will open a neat portal in the ground underneath the item you wish to transport, sending it safely back to your home realm. If you don't successfully engage the cosmic trans-dimensional yadda yadda, you will open a jagged rift in reality itself, swallowing large swaths of the landscape, including vehicles, Taco Bells, and innocent bystanders. Hypothetically.

The constable was struck speechless for a moment as he watched a sliver of the world disappear into the abyss. Then he "tazed" me, which turned out to be nothing more than a normal lightning cantrip. Once I recovered, I turned his bones inside out¹. Bastard.

I stepped to the edge of the rift and gazed into it. A gash, dark and silent as space, gazed back at me like the pupil of a colossal eye. A chunk of pavement broke off and tumbled into the empty blackness. The severity of what I'd done began to dawn on me.

From the depths of the rift, I heard a noise. A scratching sound, like little claws on stone...

To be continued...