"Wow," said Burt, when Rutlege finished talking. "That was hysterical."

"And how," said D.J., wiping his eyes.

"Uh, don't get me wrong," Turk said, "but what does that wonderful story have to do with why we aren't gaming tonight?"

"Hey, don't look at me, I was invited," said Rutlege, huffily.

"Okay," said Larry, walking into the living room from the dining room with several battered sheets of paper in his hand. "Now, here's where we come in."

Everyone watched as Larry paced around the room, talking slowly. "Rob, the warehouse you mentioned, that's the LegendMasters headquarters, in Tempe, Arizona, right?"

"Right," he said.

"Dry, hot, sandy Arizona," Larry mused. "And these modules, they were in cardboard boxes? How did they get into the ground?"

"The warehouse guys shrink-wrapped the pallets of books, then they drove them into the pit, pallets and all."

"I see," said Larry. "So, there's a layer of shrink wrap, followed by a layer of cardboard, then the individual modules themselves were shrink-wrapped, right?"

"Uh huh."

Larry had his back to them all. "And how big was the pit?" he asked.

"Huge. I don't remember how wide, but it was deep enough to hold the five foot tall pallets, and then get covered up and smoothed over."

"Get to the goddamn point, Lar," said Turk.

"Jack Burton, Big Trouble in Little China," echoed Burt, his tone of voice betraying his own impatience at Larry's theatrics.

"My point is this, gentlemen," said Larry, turning to face them with a predatory smile, "many of you no doubt have heard of the larger fish eating the smaller fish."

"Huh?" said Burt.

"He's talking about that collectible card game company from Spokane, Washington that recently bought out Gamesmen, Ltd." D.J. said. Then, to Larry: "So what?"

"So, this." Larry held up one of his printed pages triumphantly. "Now that MageWorks Game Company has bought Gamesmen, they are moving the Gamesmen offices to Spokane. And it's happening this weekend!"

"The end of an era," quipped Rutlege.

"And again, I say, so?" said D.J.

Larry looked at each of his friends, his eyes wide. "Those modules are still there, buried in the sand. We can go get them."

"And do what? Play 50,000 of them all at once?" asked Burt.

"No, I think he wants to sell them," mused D.J. as he tugged on his lower lip.

"Thank you," said Larry, flourishing his hand at D.J. "Finally, someone with some vision."

Turk cocked his head. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Hell yes, I'm serious!" Larry's eyes flashed. "Deej, how much do out-of-print LegendMaster books go for online?"

"Well, the core books, those go for anywhere from fifteen to thirty dollars a whack, depending on the condition."

Larry spun around and pointed his finger at D.J. "Except?"

"What? Oh, right, except for the first edition of the Pantheons of Legend book, which had material that was under someone else's copyright. They pulled that book, and reissued a cleaned up second edition. The first edition goes for around seventy-five bucks, when you can find it."

"Seventy-five bucks," said Turk, his eyes glazing over.

Larry smiled. "And the module in question went for a hundred and fifty bucks, and that was ten years ago."

"I see where you're going with this," said D.J., rising from the butt-eating couch. "We would be the only people on the planet with access to this out-of-print, exclusive, one-of-a-kind thing. We would be rich."

"Not to mention, famous," added Larry, thinking only in terms of the convention circuit.

"A module about sex," said Turk with a far away look in his eyes.

"Hold on," said Burt. "You guys are smoking crack." The tone of Burt's voice pulled everyone out of their own personal reveries, and as a group, they all turned to face him. "Do you have any idea what you're talking about? We're in San Fran, they're in Tempe. And they are moving this weekend. And we all have lives here, and jobs, and mid-terms, and stuff -- what are you doing?" Burt said to Larry, who was bending over to peer at Burt's knees.

"Just checking to see if you're wearing a dress."

"Oh, I'm sorry for that bucket of realism, there, but you three are dopes if you're seriously considering this."

Turk turned on Larry. "Yeah, man, how the hell do you expect us to pull something like that off?"

D.J. sat back down. "Wednesday is new comics day. I can't miss it. No excuses, or I'm fired."

Larry stared gape-mouthed at his friends. "What the hell is all this? I can't believe you guys!" He waved the papers for emphasis. "I've got it all worked out here. It's a fool-proof plan."

"How do you know it's a fool-proof plan?" asked Rutlege.

Larry favored the older man with a knowing look. "I've been a game master for over ten years now. I can plan for anything."

Turk looked up at Larry. "Larry, man, it's a cool idea, but I don't know how you think you can pull it off."

"Yeah, Larry, nice thought, but it wouldn't work," said D.J. "Why don't we just sack the temple like we had planned to?"

Larry put his hands on his hips. "Okay, sure, let's just go back to role-playing. Fine, D.J., you can run your thief who out-thinks every guardsman, Fred can play his suave combat-priest, and Burt can run his man-at-arms, and we'll all be safe in the real world and not take any chances."

"Sounds good to me," said D.J., reaching for his backpack.

"Sit down," barked Larry, "I'm not through talking yet."

D.J. slowly put his hand back in his lap. Larry took a deep breath and continued.

"Don't you guys see? This is a chance to do something cool, for once. This is an adventure, a real adventure that we can go on. Is it risky? Hell, yeah. Will it be dangerous? Sure, probably. But we have to try. It's our obligation. Opportunities come along like this only once in a lifetime. You've got to look at yourselves in the mirrors every morning, from this day forward, and you alone will say, 'I took that chance,' or 'I like my life as a shoe salesman.'

"But listen to me, and listen good. I'm going, with or without you. And I never, ever want to hear from any of you ever again that you're bored, or that some complicated heist in whatever movie we're watching couldn't possibly work, or anything else like that. Because you have a chance, right here and right now, to be the heroes of the story. This thing I'm talking about doing is a cool thing. It's not lame. It's the chance of a lifetime! And if you don't take it, then you forfeit your bitching privileges around me for the rest of our lives."

Larry stalked off to the kitchen and came back with a Mountain Dew in a can. He poked a hole in the bottom with his lucky pen, raised the can to his mouth, and shotgunned the soda with a deft pop of the top. He threw the can on the ground and stomped on it with a combat boot. "Well?"

The guys were slow to answer, each of them lost in their own thoughts. D.J. was the first to speak.

"Okay, I'm in."

Burt looked up quickly. "Me, too."

"Sure, what the hell," said Turk.

"I want ten percent," said Rutlege.