Surprise!

“I brought cake. Every party needs a cake.”

“Excuse me? Who are you?”

“I'm hurt, The StoryMaster. After all my years on WDC, how could you not remember me?”

“I'm The StoryMistress, not —“

“Whoops! The beard must've thrown me off. Sorry about that. Anywho, where should I set this cake? And where's everyone else? I must be early...”

“Early for what?”

“The birthday party, of course! Or...was it supposed to be a surprise party?”

“We're not having a party, um —“

“Genipher. But the WDC site clearly said y'all were turning eighteen this week. Though now that I look at you, y'all don't look eighteen...”

“We're not eighteen. The website is turning eighteen.”

“Well that's just silly. How can an inanimate object age? Oooooh! Look at all the Merit Badges! Do you think I could, you know, have a couple of these since I'm here and it's your birthday and all? They'd make great party favors!”

“No, you can only get them if you spend gift points —“

“Hmm. I only have a couple of dollars on me. The plane ticket to WDC, USA pretty much blew my budget. But it's worth it to meet all the writers from the site. And y'all, of course. You guys are like, rock stars!”

“Thanks but —“

“I can't wait to see everyone face-to face. bobturn, LJ hiding under the bed, Sophurky —“

“They're not coming.”

“What! But...but everyone was supposed to come! Shaye was supposed to bring balloons, Dragon is hiding was bringing non-bacon hors d'oeuvres, ♥HOOves♥ was going to act as DJ, and Schnujo's NOT Doing NaNoWriMo was in charge of decorations!”

“Are you sure this was to happen here and not on the website?”

“Of course! We can't eat virtual cake and non-bacon foods! This was supposed to be the real deal!”

“What time was this, er, event supposed to take place?”

“Three 'o clock in the afternoon. On the dot. WDC time, of course.”

“There's your problem. WDC Headquarters travels around the United States in a wibbly-wobbly ball of timey-wimey. Our sphere of reality isn't quite the same as the rest of the country's. Not only are you twenty-four hours early, but I'm a little amazed that you found us. We're supposed to be untraceable!”

“Oh, that wasn't me. It was BlackAdder. He's all into sci-fi and stuff and cracked your little time bubble code.”

“I knew we should have banned sci-fi from the site...”

“Now that I'm here, can I stay? I don't have the funds for a hotel but I can pay you in cake!”

“That depends. What kind is it?”

“Chocolate. And strawberry. And vanilla. Actually, it's whatever you want it to be. It's called “Wish Cake” because it turns into whatever flavor you wish it to be. Lilli 🧿 ☕ shared the recipe with me. Your profiles don't share what kind of cake you like — you really should fix that— so I had to go with this. So, can I stay?”

“Well...”