𝔐EMORANDUM

𝔏ETTER ONE

 Your job was rather simple.

 Anyone struggling with a problem of any kind could send you a letter detailing their issue and requesting help. You'd read them, and if you deemed one of them worthy of your time, you'd complete them. For a price, of course. Usually, it was in the form of money, but for more dangerous requests, you didn't take currency as payment. Depending on the situation, you'd ask for anything the requestor considered valuable. Be it family heirlooms, a scarf given to them by their ex, or even a drawing they made in elementary.

 To tell the truth, you weren't exactly the purest of people. You delved into more...taboo things. Such as black magic.

 To increase your business, and therefore your profits, you had cast a spell long ago to ensure your total and utter success in any mission. Unfortunately for you, this spell only lasted for the first few months. It required an object that was valuable to someone to work. You didn't know why, and you had never particularly cared for the reason. All you cared about was increasing your business and wealth. So, you started the 'precious item' payment. It was a win-win situation for both you and your clients. They got whatever they wanted completed, and you got your money or precious item to help future clients.

 You'd been running this service for around a decade now. Overtime, the letters' contents had gotten less and less interesting...You hummed as you rummaged through the stack of requests on your desk. As to be expected, most of them were about trivial matters. A lost pet, a cheating spouse, a power outage...Safe to say, there wasn't anything of value.

 The inevitable groan escaped your lips.

 In the beginning, you'd been dealing with more adventurous jobs. Rescuing fair maidens, slaying dragons, traveling the world in search of treasure, and the like. It was so fun, so exhilarating! It gave you a sense of satisfaction, one you couldn't seem to get nowadays.

 You pushed the letters off the table and into the bin next to it labeled 'boring.' You'd just have to wait awhile, it appeared.

 Until your eye caught sight of a certain ocean-themed paper.

 It intrigued you, since most of the mail you'd get wasn't styled much, if at all. This one, on the other hand, was incredibly personal. Tiny seashell doodles on the corners, squiggly lines presumably meant to represent seaweed connecting them. There were circles of various sizes that reminded you of bubbles. The light blue color of the paper shifted into darker shades, with a line of beige on the bottom to look like sand. And to top it all off, the handwriting was all in cursive, though littered with typos and grammatical issues.

 Whoever wrote this clearly put a lot of time and effort into this. Perhaps too much...

 The problem this person was having had something to do with a prince, Adrien—a merman, (while it was weird to think fish-humans could exist, you'd definitely seem weirder, and besides, it could just be a typo) and a strict father. The sender signed off as 'Prince Adrien' and listed their location as 'Atlantis.'

 You had your suspicions about its validity. It was highly likely this was just some joke, orchestrated by some annoying children. Still, you were curious, and you had nothing better to do. Why not write back?

 "Dear 'Prince Adrien',"

 You started to draft your response. You wanted to be as clear and concise as possible, so you used a pencil to erase any mistakes.

 "I appreciate you writing to me. As you can likely assume, your request has caught my interest! It's not often I get an odd letter such as yours. I would absolutely adore helping you out, but first you need to elaborate. My apologies, but your writing isn't the most legible, so it was hard to make out the details...When and where could we set up a meeting, and what's your problem, exactly?