When I was a kid, I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons (and you thought I was just a computer geek). One of my favorite characters was a “gnome illusionist.” At first, he was very difficult to play because all of his spells were neither offensive or defensive. Everyone would often moan, “What good is this little guy?”

But as soon as I realized that every problem could be solved simply by knowing what someone (or something) wanted more than what it had, it could then be easily manipulated by conjuring a mirage. The only trick was making it believable. Enchantments of delusory sex, food and money were the staples of my trade.

Since discontent is the cornerstone of our existence, aren’t we all manipulated by vanishing gnomes casting illusory spells? The gnomes of desire…

… Grizzly and I finally caught up with the goblins late at night, and since there were so many of them, they were pretty brave and didn’t bother much with their sneaky usualness. They still had Tam, who was bound hand and foot, just outside of the firelight.

“You don’t ‘pose they’d be fixin’ to eat ol’ Tam, do ya?” Grizzly asked.

“Nah… at least, not yet. They’ve got plenty of provisions that can’t walk by itself and need to be carried. They’ll save Tam for last,” I replied. Ol’ Griz didn’t respond much to my blunt answer. Just as well, as I had just come up with a plan…

“Ok, Griz, head on down to the river and get the boat ready. I’ll be down in a few with Tam. Let’s just hope he can run…”

“You havin’ me on? I’d be pretty worn after takin’ these blokes on, but I’m not sure you’d fit in mah boot,” Grizzly whispered with obvious concern.

“I know, I’m not much to look at, but that sometimes works to my advantage. Now get going, and if you hear a lot of commotion, don’t bother as that’s part of the plan.”

“But what happens if they shiz’kabob-ilate you?” Griz did always like making up words whenever he thought he could.

“If I’m not down in 1/2 hour, then you can come back and rescue me.” He raised an eyebrow, but finally snuck off into the trees. Meanwhile, I got to work on a little eye-candy. A minute later, one of the goblins got off and started heading into the woods.

“Whar d’ya dink you be off ta?” queried another of his comrades.

“Nuttin’ … Pee…” the first replied.

“Don’t believe yer or yer shiftin’ eyes… Ahoy! I be a-seein’ what ya be a-seein’! Ya got yerself a bit o’ gold stashed up in dat tree dere, d’ya now. Dun ya know ya got to share with the party?”

While the goblins got into a bit of an argument, they sufficiently caused enough of a distraction for me to do a little more prestidigitation and cut Tam loose. By the time the party got going and the inebriated goblins started connecting fists to eyes, Tam and I had snuck off into the trees and down to the river where Grizzly was anxiously waiting for us with the boat…