Karyn had almost no recollection of her afternoon classes. She remembered being scolded for being late, but the teacher seemed to see she wasn't feeling right and let her off with only a warning. Other than that, she didn't recall listening to the teacher at all. Her thoughts were occupied by Sarah. She thought a lot about what to do, she had many ideas, but everyone of them had drawbacks that made her hesitate. In the end, she decided to wait to talk to Jon after school. She couldn't do anything without him and the stone anyway.
And so, here she was. Heading toward Jon's house with him. They didn't talk much, both lost in their thoughts. They knew whatever they could talk about, it would always come back to Sarah and the rock, and neither wanted to bring up the subject before they had to.
Soon, they arrived at Jon's house. It was empty, but it wasn't unusual. His father worked and his mother was gone to pick up his little brother Mikey from school, his sister was probably hanging out with her friends, too. They made their way into Jon's bedroom, still the same boring room as before. Jon didn't have much decoration, and the few that he owned were gifts from his friends and family.
"So..." Jon began, "Sarah..."
"Yeah..." Karyn simply responded. She thought it would be easier to talk about it once they were here, but she realized she was wrong. Jon stayed silent, so Karyn continued "Any idea?"
"None that I like... You?"
"Same..." The silence came back. It was so awkward Karyn almost wanted to get out of the room. We won't be able to do anything if this continues. She thought. "We have to do something." She tried in a weak attempt to get the conversation started.
"Yeah..." Mission failed... Karyn sighed. Of course it wouldn't be that simple, but Karyn was determined to get this conversation started. She opened her mouth, but couldn't say anything as Jon asked, "What do you say we try to get more info about the stone before we talk about Sarah?"
Karyn had to take a second to register what he said, but then she smiled a little. She was so focused on Sarah that she hadn't thought about anything else. "Sure! That's a great idea." But then her smile faltered, "You'll use the wish you made yesterday, right?" Karyn had resolved herself in the morning, knowing it would happen, but it slipped her mind after everything that happened.
"Yeah. Sorry again about that..." Jon said awkwardly. "But I think we can't make a decision without knowing what the stone can or can't do."
"I know..." Karyn sighed. "Let's just get on with it." She had forgiven him the night before, but she had planned on making it a little harder on him, probably by making a small time-limited wish to teach him to be more prudent. She thought a lot about what to wish during the night, and she still had some ideas she wanted to try later, for a future revenge. Sadly, she was the first to admit that now wasn't the time for any of that... At least not until they figured out what to do with Sarah.
What followed was pretty boring for Karyn. Jon was the one who had lots of theory on the stone, and her role was mostly to tell him when he said something false. She tried proposing some ideas but Jon already thought of them most of the time. The automatic response was pretty disturbing at the beginning, but as time passed, she began to get used to it. She also began noticing she could somehow predict when she would answer. She couldn't explain how, but she just knew the moment Jon finished his sentence if she would respond or not. That led to her experimenting with it. She quickly noticed that if she consciously answered when she knew she had to, it didn't feel weird at all, it was just like she talked normally. She soon began always responding by herself, not letting the wish making an automatic response like in the beginning. And in doing so, she almost immediately discovered that she could word her response how she wanted as long as she was still telling Jon he said something wrong.
Karyn then began to use more and more convoluted sentences to answer Jon. He quickly noticed, and while he was a little frustrated at the beginning, he soon began to laugh with her at her weirder answers. Earlier's awkwardness seemed to have disappeared, and they were even having fun right now, but they still continued learning about the stone. They discover that the stone wasn't actually limited in range, it was a something his grandfather wished to prevent him for making too big mistakes. This restriction would disappear after some conditions were met but Jon wasn't able to guess what they were. His grandfather had nothing to do with the irreversibility of the wishes, though. They also learned what happened to Karyn during the wish with the lipstick. When the stone couldn't proceed something, its answer was to send the problem to a parallel universe, even if it needed to create it in the process. That was what happened with Karyn. The stone created a parallel universe where it stopped working before the wish with the lipstick and send Karyn there, before bringing her back once the time-limit was passed.
Following that, Karyn made Jon swear to never make another time limited wish with her on the phone.
They also decided to abandon wishes on the mind for now. Karyn hadn't denied it when Jon said it was dangerous, but they couldn't guess how exactly, and they didn't want to find out by testing. The rest was pretty much expected. The stone couldn't affect its own power, create something that would affect it or be duplicated.The wish would always be granted the closest to the wording of the wishes, not what the wisher meant, etc.
"Alright!" Said Jon after maybe an hour, "I think that's all for now."
"About time! I was running out of ways to say 'it's not true'." Karyn responded with a smirk.
"I might have more theory later, so you better find more before that." Jon said with a wink. Karyn laughed, she didn't resent Jon anymore for the wish now that she learned to control it a little. But then, Jon sighed a little. "For now, though, we have to talk about Sarah."
