------------------- Back to Jon ----------------------
A few minutes earlier
On the way to the bathroom Jon realized for the first time how utterly terrifying the stone could be.
AS Jon went towards his classroom ( and probably a lecture about tardiness), he couldn't help but wonder what really had Victoria looking so spooked. But it was surprisingly hard to ask someone 'Are you turning into some fish-monster?' if you were actually face to face with them. Even when Victoria had asked him directly if she looked different he hadn't had the stones to risk sounding like a lunatic. Not with his only proof that magic was real lying in ruins and a myriad of more sensible answers to choose from.
In the end he had just blurted out one of these sensible answers at random, and made a fool out of himself anyway. Then he had tried to salvage the situation and dug himself in deeper, and by the time Victoria offered him an easy out he had been so flustered he had taken it by instinct.
In theory he could still turn around and start a new conversation, but Jon knew himself well enough to know that wouldn't happen.
At the moment he barely had the energy to do anything but fight down the urge to sit down in the middle of the hallway and wallow in despair. The only reason he had come out of his stupor was when he realized that the broken stone wasn't interesting. An absolute disaster? Oh yes! But interesting? So there had to be something else .
That thought had brought back the confused expression on Victoria's face, before she had stumbled into him. He hadn't really paid attention, back then but he was pretty sure she mentioned something about an urgent need to visit the bathroom. Something weird happening to one of his acquaintances, especially without the effortless damage-control the stone offered, things would certainly be interesting.
And his fruitless attempt to find anything weird going on with Victoria, hammered home hoe absolutely terrifying a reality-altering stone was. For all he knew the ancestors of humanity never lost their fur, and Victoria was freaking out because she was the only one who remembered. No, such a fundamental change to humanity wouldn't really work with the stones limited range. But it could turn the entire town into a bunch of hairless mutants, whose sudden appearance would astonish the much fuzzier rest of humanity. Among the dozen other scenarios Jon could think off of the drop of his hat, this was actually one of the less nightmarish ones.
Trying to fight down his rising panic Jon ducked into an empty class-room, and started surfing the web on his smartphone. What he found did a lot to help him regain his peace of mind: famous actors still looked exactly as he remembered, and a quick spot-check didn't reveal any major changes to historic events.
Since he was already late, Jon decided to take one last look at the stone. When it broke he had just kinda cradled the shards in his hand, trying to come to grips with the idea that this morning his life held unlimited possibilities and now it held .. far far less possibilities.
But he always had a tendency to give up far too easy, perhaps there was still something he could do. Fishing out a few of the bigger fragments he examined them more closely.
The red specks had been some kind of crystal radiating out from the walls of a small geode in the middle of the stone, so each piece had a clearly defined outer and inner section which made it a bit easier to determine how they fit together.
Two frustrating minutes later Jon had only managed to find two pairs of rock splinters that fit snugly together. All the others fit somewhat but there were obviously smaller pieces missing. The sight of over a dozen grain-sized splinters still lying at the bottom of the bag, drove home the sheer scale of the work required to restore the stone. And even then there was no guarantee that it would work again. Jon angrily wiped away the tears of frustration that gathered at the thought.
Even if it took years the effort would be worth it! Especially if the stone really did do something to Victoria. Or Karyns wish had some unintended side-effects like her being adopted, to explain why she was blonde while both her parents had dark hair.
Yes, Jon swore to himself, this was the one thing where he wouldn't try to be reasonable about it. He wouldn't give up even if it seemed foolish to continue. Besides he always played a Wizards at game-night. Now he'd put his money where his mouth was, shut himself off from the world, pour over tomes and try to decipher the secrets of the universe, for real!
"To be a Magus is to walk with Death"
the quote from one of his favorite shows rose suddenly and forcefully to the front of his mind. Jon blinked half in surprise half to because his left eye had started to itch.
Unexpected or not, the idea that tampering with a broken reality-altering device might very well result in death was a sobering thought. But neither the prospect of death nor his eye tearing up from some irritant, could dampen the heady feeling of having a purpose.
oOIf that is what it takes I'll walk with death! Heck I'll even dance with him.Oo Jon swore to himself, when something about the shards caught his eye. He had been to focused on how the edges fit together, to pay much attention to the small hollow in the middle. But there was a definitive pattern to the crystals studding the walls. He brought one of the biggest shards closer to get a better look, and following a hunch closed his right eye.
Even slightly blurred by the tears he could make out the pattern clearly now, it was
---------------------- Interlude ----------------------
The Gifting Flame hadn't really planned for the last bearer of the stone to get dust from the stone into his eye, but sometimes random chance was a generous muse.
The original purpose of the stone was to allow the entity to shift it's perception closer to human, but that was not necessarily a one-way street. It would be most interesting to see a human mind trying to cope with the new perspective. And the added challenge of using an improvised and damaged tool for the job made the prospect even more exciting.
But the experiment would be quite risky for the subject, so the wandering flame thought it only fair to ask if the bearer also thought the risk might be worth the potential entertainment and generated data-points.
