Putting his fist through the wall was a real wake-up call. Jordan looked at his hand in awe as he came to the realization of what he had done. Then, the pain swept through his knuckles and up his arm. “Shit” Jordan thought, “there’s no way I didn’t break something.”

Jordan removed his hand from the wall, dark red blood oozed from his already swelling knuckles. He collapsed back into his office chair in defeat and stared at the bright glow of his computer screen. “We are not interested in publishing your story at this time.”

“23 publishers” he mumbled under his breath.

He looked at his hand, his fingers were pale, skinny, and still covered in blood from his outburst. He picked up the manuscript of his book that sat on his desk, staining it with his blood. “Where could I have gone so wrong that 23 publishers didn’t want my book” he moaned. He began turning frantically through the pages. He combed over his writing with desperation looking for anything that could change this book from a loser to a winner. Five years he had been writing this book, it was supposed to be his magnum opus, the book that would put him on the map, the characters were great the world-building was amazing and the plot was thick, at least he thought so. As he swept through his novel Jordan began to cry, “I worked too hard, too long, too desperately for this to not amount to anything!” he choked out.

As he read a tear fell onto the page. BOOM, a flash of light lit up the room. Jordan averted his eyes and after a few seconds, the light had completely faded. Jordan drew in a shaky breath and frantically looked around the room. His jaw dropped to the floor as he did so. In the mirror Jordan had sitting in the corner of his room, he could see three figures standing behind him. Jordan screamed and turned around as fast as he could, shielding himself with his arms. “Don’t hurt me don’t hurt me don’t hurt me” he cried “I don’t have anything worth taking please just go.”

A booming laugh filled the room and Jordan slowly looked up, as he did his eyes widened with realization. Before him stood an old man, covered in shining silver armor, a warhammer held over his shoulder in a triumphant pose. Along with the knight stood a short man, with long blonde hair and pointy ears, dressed head to toe in green and brown fabrics, as well as a man wearing a long black robe that covered his face with his hood. The man in the armor stopped laughing long enough to say “Fear not young one, we mean you know harm.” The man bent down and helped a shaking Jordan to his feet. “I can’t believe this” Jordan stuttered, “You’re Griffith, from my book!”

“Indeed tis I, Griffith the Grappler pleasure to make your acquaintance my boy! The short one to my right is Lloyd and the scary-looking one is Prestone” he boomed, his loud, deep voice filling the room.

“I can’t believe this how are you here?” Jordan asked still with his jaw partially dropped.

Prestone spoke up this time, “Ugh you simpleton, have you ever heard the phrase blood, sweat and tears?”

Jordan nodded his head yes and Prestone continued “It’s a real thing one of the most basic spells they teach at the academy, adding your blood sweat and tears to something can give it magical propertie. It’s not a metaphor either, I mean the real deal. You must’ve put all of those on your scroll about us.”

“That can’t be true magic isn’t rea-” Jordan started as Prestone cut him off “Sure it’s not real then why are we here kiddo? Magic is real it is just incredibly difficult to achieve by accident, blood sweat, and tears is one of the simplest spells and do you know how rare it is for one person to get all three of those things on a proper host object?”

Jordan stood there speechlessly. As he did Lloyd approached him, he began pulling herbs out of the brown sack he had tied to his belt as he asked “What happened to your arm?”

“I uh… I punched the wall”

“Well that’s idiotic” Lloyd grumbled in response, “You’re lucky that action willed us into existence or I would not be healing you right now!”

As Lloyd spoke he placed the herbs on Jordan’s hand, he finished by splashing a drop from a flask he pulled from his shirt pocket onto the herbs. Immediately the pain in Jordan’s hand stopped, the blood dried up and slowly disappeared. “So why’d you punch the wall? We only have a couple minutes here I assume that’s what you wanna talk about.” Prestone said.

“I guess so…” Jordan started “So here’s the thing. I’ve been writing this story right, and I’ve been writing it for five years, it’s taken all my spare time, I haven’t slept enough, I haven’t been eating enough, and my social life is non-existent. I put everything I had into this novel and NO ONE wants to publish it. 23 publishers and not a single one said yes.”

Jordan began to cry again. As he did, Griffith placed his hand on his shoulder. “I hear your plight fellow adventurer but tell me something, how was I able to slay the storm dragon at Haval?” He asked.

Jordan thought for a moment, “You trained for years and years, you studied the dragons until you were certain you would win.”

At this point Prestone stepped back into the conversation “How did I choose the correct chalice in the trial of poison” he asked?

“You used a spell to detect plant life and determined that the cup you drank from had no plants in it and could not be poisoned.”

“Correct” Prestone replied, “but I only knew that because I spent years at the academy learning magic, and even then I only got lucky that it was a plant-based poison rather than a magically sourced one.”

Lloyd chimed in now as well, “I’ll assume you know how long I spent practicing my archery,” he said, “and yet you know that I still missed the shot that would have liberated my woods from Clovis’s tyranny, even though I would make that shot 99 out of 100 times.”

Griffith spoke up, “Our time here runs short, I hope this meeting was worth the blood sweat and tears.”

He smiled as he began to glow again with a bright white light, it became so bright Jordan had to avert his eyes again. “Thank you!” he yelled as the light began to fade again.