Call me Viper. It's my hacker name.

Everyone should have That One Friend.

That One Friend is the guy you call when you’re lost in the middle of Amarillo and need someone to look up directions to your hotel. She’s the friend who calls you on your shit when you can’t see past your own nose to the obvious solution that’s right in front of you.

Maybe, just maybe, he’s the friend you turn to when the world is ending.

In our story, That One Friend is named Paul. You can call him Viper. Viper Apex.

If Alex is the hero of our story (and ultimately, he is), then Viper is his sidekick. He’d describe himself as Obi Wan Kenobi, but let’s be honest – he’s probably more like Jar Jar Binks.

(Just kidding. Nobody in this story is like Jar Jar.)

Viper, it must be noted, can be a complete idiot. He’s a computer geek, a science fiction geek, a roleplaying geek. He’s usually the smartest person in the room, if only because he’s often the only person in the room. He claims that he’s not allowed to leave the state due to some “outstanding legal issues that led to his unfortunate incarceration some time ago.” In truth, he’s still on probation for hacking the university mainframe in an effort to change a girl’s GPA. He not only got caught, the girl never even knew his name.

So, yeah. He’s that guy. But he’s a solid friend, and he always has been. When Alex needs help, he knows that Viper is the one person he can turn to without hesitation. They’ve been friends for almost 20 years, and honestly I don’t know how they originally met. River and I were talking about this relationship a while ago, and it occurred to me that if they’ve been friends since they were 10…well, you don’t really need a reason for being friends at that age. That’s one of the best parts about being that age.

He fills an interesting role in our universe. It's been said that everyone is the hero in his (or her) own story, but I'm not so sure that this is true for Viper. He's one of those rare people who is content to be a supporting character. He's like the character actor who always plays That One Guy - you might not remember the actor's name, but you'll remember that you liked him in that one movie that you can't reliably remember the name of.

The thing is, Viper may be bad with women. He may be a complete dork. He may speak in codes that only he understands. But in his way, he's incredibly competent. That "Call and ask for directions in the middle of Amarillo" thing? That's the tip of the iceberg. If you want to know where something is, you call Viper. If you want a 2 minute summary of the best way to lose someone tailing you, you call Viper. If you need to borrow his truck on no notice because it's time to hit the road and find someone to sucker into taking over the job that you were born to do, Viper will give you his keys without a second thought. His ideas might be brilliant or they might get you into more trouble than you were in to begin with, but he'll always be able to tell you which episode of McGuyver he stole the idea from.

From a storytelling standpoint, Viper is a great character for one simple reason. We like Viper, a lot. River and I are both a bit more like him than we should probably admit, and that makes him pretty easy to write, and our readthroughs with him are great fun. We're also very protective of him - as we would be in real life, come to think of it - and I suspect that choosing someone to voice Viper will be a challenge. I suspect this will be the only character for whom we would not accept bribes in exchange for serious consideration for the role. It's good to know that we have some standards, anyway.

On bats and rhubarb

Hey, y'all. It's my birthday. I have officially arrived at the midway point of my 30s. Jason will arrive here six weeks from now - which, as I often remind him, makes me six weeks wiser than he is.

My friend M. gave me a fantastic book called The Bathhouse at Midnight: Magic in Russia, by W.F. Ryan, as a birthday present. It's part of the "Magic in History" series by Penn State Press, which makes it rather respectable. The language is definitely academic and research-based, but that doesn't make it any less of an interesting read - at least in my admittedly biased opinion.

I couldn't believe our luck! This was the perfect gift as far as the podcast is concerned. Recently, Jason and I decided to devote more of the story mythos to Slavic mythology. Alex and his family are Russian after all, and there really aren't all that many stories out there that work with this particular pantheon or world view. Plus, Russians are just plain awesome when it comes to sympathetic magic. What other group of people would have you wear a hawk's head next to your belly in order to win the affections of the one you love? This is only slightly less complicated than Plan B: "...you can take a bat, put it into a new pot, cover it with a new cloth, put the pot into an anthill, go home without looking back and with your ears stopped so as not to hear the squeaks of the bat, and return after three weeks for the bones, with which you will be able to draw the object of your desire to you."

Yeah, but who has that kind of time?

(Let it be said that my ancestors, the Czechs, used a frog instead of a bat, and that a similar process is used to make yourself invisible.)

The herbal magic section has all sorts of great suggestions. Rhubarb, for instance, has been known to roar and groan at sunset. (Now I have to go over to my friend J's house sometime in the early evening to listen to her garden, since I don't recall this happening in my grandmother's rhubarb patch. But maybe I wasn't listening hard enough.) You can do a lot with rhubarb... if you take some in your mouth, you can easily swim against the current. If you meet someone blighted by the Evil Eye, give them some rhubarb, and they have to reveal who blighted them. In the same regard - feed it to your wife and she'll tell you the names of her lovers. It's also a powerful laxative... but that doesn't seem quite as exciting or relevant.

Expect to see some of this stuff like this pop up throughout the podcast - especially where Olga is concerned. My mind is already swimming with possibilities of where to add bits and pieces of this treasure trove of information. (Thanks, M.!)

Meanwhile, if you're looking to get me a birthday gift, please avoid the following: bones of any kind (particularly bat), your sweaty clothes (apparently perspiration magic was big... big enough to be banned by the church), or a bouquet of rhubarb.