"Thanks, it's nice to meet you too. I don't know what the etiquette at this point in meeting the only other person in the world might be. I guess we friend each other on Simbook at least?"

"Yeah," he says, popping his phone out of his inventory. "Let's exchange numbers, too."

"Sure." She accepts his number and exchanges hers for it. "What else have you tried, looking for people?"

"...there's... a few different things. Uh." There's a bench over there, Peter walks over to it after making sure Elspeth is following him. "I've occasionally posted to Simmit and chan4 and Simbook, I've been travelling around places and seeing if I can run into anyone at random, I've—have you watched any SimTube videos? They're just depressing. I've also been watching the recent edits to Simpedia articles to see if there's anyone doing anything interesting."

"I haven't checked SimTube, no. I tried finding my family, at first, and I tried asking the people who sold me the house if they had anything on me, but that didn't turn up anything."

"That would've been a good idea, yeah, I just kind of figured that there was no way I would have such a completely blank online profile. That actually freaked me out more than just the memories, I felt like the only way I could possibly have an empty contact list and no existence anywhere on the internet like that would've been either some strange targeted hacker attack or very convincing and persistent hallucinations. I had... a lot of opinions about what kind of person I am for someone without any memories."

"I didn't think I'd have a blank profile either but I sort of figured I might have been interrupted by having a stroke before I could fill it in."

"I think the more... damning... part of it all is how much useful stuff exists that lots of people seem to take no interest in. Take spellcasting," and here's his magic wand. "I've been doing it since I came to be and I can already teleport places. It's extremely powerful. And no one seems to want anything to do with it! As far as I can tell, the literal only drawback of being a spellcaster is if you do too much magic in a row and ignore the warning alarm buzzing in your head about it you might die, but it takes several hours of continuous magic to get to that point."

"You can't be both a spellcaster and a vampire though."

"...really? Why not?"

"I don't know! I don't even know why I know that!"

".......weird. Well, I got created with a lot of engineering knowledge that as far as I could tell was legit, maybe whatever made us just filled us in with that stuff. Or maybe we did exist before and something else is going on."

"Does being a spellcaster seem better than being a vampire?"

"I haven't actually looked into being a vampire in detail but overall it does seem to be. Vampires do seem to need blood to survive and get burnt by sunlight and die to sufficient exposure to a wooden stake, but they might have amazing advantages that outweigh those. They do get the agelessness and overall immortality for free whereas spellcasters need potions for those."

"Doesn't everyone die if staked?"

"They do it more dramatically, turn to dust and all. But there's a potion called 'Potion of Prompt Resurrection' that is meant to be able to just instantly bring you back to life no matter what kills you, and if vampires can't become spellcasters I do wonder about whether it'll work for them."

"Well, you should try giving one a potion, I guess."

"Once I can make one, yeah. Beyond my skill level right now. Oh, you'll probably find this useful," wand gone, here's a vial of dark purple liquid. "This one is a 'Potion of Plentiful Needs' and it—I've been calling it a potion of 'make everything better' in my head, it seems to entirely replace a need for food or sleep and it makes you and your clothes clean like you just took a shower and stepped into fresh laundry. It, ah, does have a couple of mental effects that would probably not make everyone so happy about it, like it makes you feel sort of—hard to describe—socially fulfilled? Like you just had a nice chat with someone you like, sort of the opposite of being lonely, except not quite since it doesn't, you know, replace any actual social content and I still very much miss talking to real people even though I probably never have annnnnd I'm rambling."

"It's understandable." She accepts the potion. "Why do you buy groceries, then?"

"Sometimes food tastes nice," he says, shrugging. "This potion replaces your need for sustenance and nutrients but chocolate's good."

"Fair enough." She inventories the potion. "Where do you live?"

"Glimmerbrook! The town with the portal to the Realm of Magic. I came to existence there with the memory of having moved there to become a spellcaster. How about you?"

"I live in San Myshuno, which I ostensibly moved to in order to be a journalist."

"Oh, have you gotten a job yet? 'Cause that one freaked me the fuck out."

"Yeah, I got the first one I applied for instantly to start the next morning. Why did it freak you out, had you not noticed the person-thing yet?"