This morning, you stepped out into your back garden to catch a little early sun. Curiously enough, a little envelope lay on the ground adorned with one of those rather official wax seals. It was a gleaming shade of red, very pretty on the eyes to the point that you hesitated to open the letter at all. It was a peculiar place for a letter, why would the postman not just leave it at the front door as any sane person would? Either he threw this very skilfully over the head-height fence or, even weirder, hopped over himself to place it down.

Regardless of the details of it, you elected to open the thing. With a mug of warm tea and some delicious digestive biscuits, you sat out on the cast-iron bench in the garden, the one that’d been there since you moved in. Very ornate and befitting of the letter. Sliding it out of the envelope carefully, beige-daubed parchment was made clear to you. Very fanciful, like a scroll or some kind of mockup pirate map. The penmanship on this letter was immaculate and almost unbelievable. Surely it was just printed on with a good choice of font? Nobody has this skill with their hand, no way!

At the forefront, a grand title in extravagant cursive: YOU’RE INVITED TO THE RED SPIRAL!

Following that, a much smaller line of text read:

>This invitation extends to Wallace Whitehorse, one of the top detectives at the acclaimed Hopper Agency

>This invitation extends to Emil Elridge, best-selling science-fiction author of the decade

>This invitation extends to Hank H. Halloran, the esoteric mind at the forefront of the Hall of The Curious & Crazy

>This invitation extends to Mariah Milner, the mind behind the most successful cartoons made at Hearthaver Studio

>This invitation extends to Alice Amanatia, the talented mycologist at the forefront of the medical field