The second year at the Hogwash Affiliate Academy began with its usual mixture of enthusiasm, misplaced confidence, and explosive ad-spend.
The Forbidden Funnel Forest had always loomed behind Hogwash Affiliate Academy like a warning no one wanted to read. Dark, twisting, and filled with failed marketing experiments, it wasn’t technically alive… but it certainly wasn’t dead either.
Barry Profiter found that out the hard way.
⚡ Whispers of a Legendary Funnel
Hermoney Granger slung her bag over her shoulder as they walked down the corridor. “There’s a legend,” she whispered, “about a funnel hidden deep inside the forest. The Funnel of Relentless Conversions. No one’s ever made it to the centre and come back… sane.”
Ronny Weaselist winced. “Great. Just what we need. A funnel that eats people.”
Before Barry could answer, someone shoved him hard enough to spill his quills.
Drayco Malprofit.
Hair perfect. Cloak immaculate. Smirk insured.
“I hear you lot are going funnel-hunting,” Drayco said, inspecting his nails. “Try not to embarrass yourselves. The forest rejects weak marketers.”
Barry clenched his jaw. “We’re not going.”
Ronny blinked. “We’re not?”
Hermoney folded her arms. “We’re absolutely not.”
Drayco smirked wider. “You’re scared.”
Barry snapped back, “We’re not—”
“Good,” Drayco said. “Because I am going. And when I return with a funnel that converts at ninety percent, I’ll have the whole academy in my pocket.”
And with that, he sauntered off.
Barry groaned.
Ronny said, “We’re going after him, aren’t we?”
Barry nodded. “Obviously.”
🌫 Into the Forest of Failure
The moment they stepped into the Funnel Forest, the air changed.
The canopy twisted into winding spiral shapes, funnel-shaped hollows leading downward into darkness. Every step triggered whispers — not wind, but old ads trying desperately to convert:
“WAIT! DON’T LEAVE!”
“LIMITED TIME ONLY!”
“ONE-TIME OFFER!”
Ronny clutched his ears. “Make it stop!”
Hermoney read her map. “These are abandoned ad spirits. They cling to whoever enters. Keep your minds focused.”
Barry tried. He really did. But the forest seemed determined to sell him something — anything:
- A glowing boulder pulsed with ‘FREE BONUS CHECKLIST.’
- A bush tried to upsell him a twig.
- A squirrel followed him for ten minutes whispering, “Early bird discount…”
But the deeper they went, the darker the forest grew.
And then — they heard it.
A low rumble.
A roar that shook the ground.
Hermoney froze. “That’s not Drayco.”
🐉 The Dragon of Burnout Appears
It burst through the ruins of an old squeeze page: enormous, smokey, eyes glowing the colour of deadlines.
The Dragon of Burnout.
It dragged with it mountains of unfinished projects, abandoned funnels, ghost leads and half-written emails — the debris of every marketer who had ever given up.
Ronny squeaked, “We’re gonna die under a pile of unread autoresponders!”
The dragon reared its head and bellowed:
“YOU HAVEN’T POSTED IN SIX DAYS.”
Barry jumped behind a stump. “It can smell procrastination!”
Hermoney hissed, “Don’t move. It attacks whenever it senses overwhelm.”
Ronny immediately tripped over his own foot.
The dragon swung toward him.
Barry:
“Oh brilliant, Ronny . Let’s all die together.”
⚔ The Chase Through the Funnels
They ran.
The forest funnels warped around them, narrowing, spiralling, sucking them downward like a badly optimised marketing campaign.
Pop-ups exploded in their faces:
“WAIT — SPECIAL BONUS!”
“ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO LEAVE?”
“WHAT IF WE LOWER THE PRICE?”
Barry shouted, “This forest is pure desperation!”
Hermoney yelled back, “It’s responding to your mindset!”
Barry nearly tripped. “My WHAT?”
“You’re thinking like a panicked marketer! STOP IT!”
“HOW?”
“Have confidence!”
“I’M TRYING BUT THE POP-UPS ARE ATTACKING ME—”
A giant animated CTA button bounced from a tree and chased Ronny like a deranged trampoline.
Barry shouted, “DON’T CLICK IT!”
Ronald screamed, “I’M NOT TRYING TO!!”
🏆 The Heart of the Forest
They finally burst into a clearing.
There, glowing in a furious, pulsing light:
The Legendary Funnel.
Headline shimmering. Opt-in form hovering. Testimonial ghosts floating.
But it wasn’t beautiful.
It was angry.
It was absorbing Drayco Malprofit.
Half his body was pixelated.
He hissed, “It thinks I’m a lead magnet! Help me!”
Barry stepped forward — then froze as the funnel turned its spotlight on him.
And projected across the forest canopy:
“NEW LEAD DETECTED: BARRY PROFITER.”
Hermoney whispered, “It wants you too.”
The dragon appeared behind them again, flames curling.
Ronny whined, “Why is everything in this forest trying to target Barry?”
Barry shouted, “BECAUSE I NEVER CLEARED MY COOKIES!”
Hermoney slapped her forehead. “Oh for—”
🎇 The Climax: A Funnel Gone Wild
The funnel unleashed:
- exploding scarcity timers
- testimonial ghosts chanting “BUY NOW”
- countdown clocks ticking backward
- abandoned carts rolling like boulders
- a hurricane of CTA buttons
Barry fought through them like a man swatting offers from a particularly aggressive JV zoo.
Hermoney yelled instructions:
“DON’T CLICK ANYTHING!
DON’T ENTER YOUR EMAIL!
AND WHATEVER YOU DO —
DON’T ACCEPT A FREEBIE!”
Ronny, dangling from a tree after being hit by a three-tier pricing table, added:
“And don’t trust anything glowing!!”
Barry reached Drayco, grabbed his arm, and with the biggest magical shove he could muster, blasted the funnel’s core with a spell Hermoney made him practise every day:
“Clarius Intenticus!”
The funnel flickered.
The CTA buttons froze mid-air.
The dragon stopped breathing fire.
And then —
BOOM.
The funnel collapsed into harmless sparkles of marketing dust.
Drayco stumbled free, mortified.
Ronny fell out of the tree.
Hermoney wiped soot from her cloak.
Barry lay on the ground staring at the sky.
He laughed — exhausted, bewildered, and relieved — until Hermoney said:
“Barry… you realise you’ve now got 2,000 new subscribers after that explosion?”
Barry frowned. “How?”
Ronny held up a scroll. “They all signed up while you were saving Drayco.”
Barry groaned.
“Brilliant. A forest tries to eat me and I still have to write a welcome sequence.”
✨ To Be Continued…
😅
Back at Hogwash, a new rumour spreads:
Somewhere deep in the academy, ancient scrolls are awakening… scrolls that can split-test anything they touch — even people.
Next up: Barry Profiter and the Scrolls of Split-Testing Sorcery.
