Waiting.
And waiting.
And then Karen proved herself to be much less patient than Kyla. "Okay, I'm tired of this," she declared out of the blue. "Calling the little sister and telling her to hurry up," she announced to the Discord Call, and then did just that. Of course it just went to voicemail. "Damn...." Karyn put away her phone. "Welp. It's official: I have a Bad Feeling about this."
"Sh-she didn't answer either?" Kyla asked.
"Nope. Now it's two in the Gibson house that've gone MIA." Karyn sighed. "We really need to go check on them now."
Kyla muttered in agreement. "Maybe, uh, we should go t-together, too?" She suggested. "For safety..."
"Buddy system. Good idea. Let's meet up at Jay's place and go," Karyn said decisively. "You think you'll have logged off by then, Jay?"
"Hum?" Jay looked up from the game he was still playing. "What is being suggested?"
"Your house is closest to Jon's. Kyla and I going to head there, then the three of us are going to group up and check on Jon. If you're in, I'd start looking for a place to log off."
"...You think that's necessary?" Jay asked, trying to hide the disappointment inherent in being torn away from a beloved video game. "Whatever issue Jon's having, it's improbable that it's so serious as to warrant the whole posse..."
"Yes, I do think it's necessary, Jay," Karyn asserted. "We sent Zoe in by herself, and now she's lost contact too... whatever's going on over there, it can't be good, can it? So, buddy system."
"Hmm... That certainly is curious..." Jay's took on that far-away tone it often did when he was thinking hard about something... and then, of course, he swore, and returned his attention to the game he'd made the mistake of looking away from for a moment.
"N-not to be rude, but, it uh, it is better to be safe than sorry," Kyla added. "Besides, um... I-I... do think it... would... um... your house... m-maybe..." Kyla's speech was devolving into just embarrassed stammering. Suggesting that she'd like to be invited to Jay's house more often was just scary enough to do that to her.
At any rate, Jay tuned out once Kyla started stuttering anyway. "Alright, alright, so be it," he interjected. "For peace of mind, we rendezvous and make a house call together. But, let that actually mean peace of mind, here. Let's not worry ourselves overmuch about the worst scenarios possible here, shall we?"
"Jay, my man, the 'worst possible scenarios' here are SOOO much worse than you think," Karyn sighed. "I'll explain once I'm over there."
A silence hung in the air as the trio made their way down Jon's street. "Well... I must say..." Now it was Jay's turn to struggle for words. "I had thought the source of your fears regarding Jon would have been more... shall I say... plausible?"
"You can call me 'fucking insane' if you like, Galaxy Brain," Karyn replied, "I'd figured you'd be skeptical."
"I'm not calling you that, Karyn, but frankly, 'skeptical' seems to me to be much more charitable than the response I'd expect from such a tale."
Even self-conscious little Kyla muttered in agreement. "It... doesn't sound possible. Karyn."
"No shit it doesn't, but I saw the Stone in action with my own two eyes," Karyn replied, unfazed. "Honestly I didn't think you two would believe it if you hadn't seen it either, and I'm not asking you to. Just keep an open mind, okay? Jon and his sister both going radio silent so suddenly like that... it's got me nervous."
"You don't seem nervous," Jay observed.
"Just because I'm not stammering and shrinking like I'm constantly on the edge of a fucking breakdown doesn't mean I'm not nervous, Jay!" Karyn snapped. Kyla silently shrunk a little smaller at what was obviously a description of her. "Jon and I have been stressed about that thing all fucking week, after he made that stupid wish for something interesting!"
Somehow, Kyla ended up curling close under Jay, like a frightened bear cub around its mother. "Oh, my apologies. I see it now," Jay said, putting himself between Kyla and Karyn.
"I'm sure you do." Karyn rubbed her temples. For being the smartest person she knew, Jay could painfully oblivious sometimes. "Separately, you two should hold hands and lock arms like you're going to see the Great Wizard of Oz. Dorothy looks terrified over there."
Kyla yoinked herself away from Jay's hands and stood up straight before the latter even knew what was happening. Jay just looked at her and shrugged. "Personally, I'm expecting there to be some much more mundane and logical explanation behind the Gibsons not answering their phones," he insisted. "I must repeat, there may be some need for caution here, but not paranoia. We're still ultimately just going to his house to see how he's doing, yes?"
"... Sure." Karyn sighed. The group turned just past the Gibson's mailbox, almost there. "Just keep the Stone thing between us for now, okay? We don't want word of THAT getting out."
"I can't imagine why not, though," Jay protested, "if it were a legitimate archaeological find it might've brought Jon's grandfather fame and prestige even without the supernatural powers you-"
"JAY." Karyn stopped just short of ringing the Gibson doorbell, and turned severely to face him. "Are you keeping it secret or not?"
Jay sighed. "If you insist."
Karyn nodded. "And you, Kyla?"
Kyla, put on the spot, was at a loss for a bit before just nodding. Being a woman of very few words, Karyn wasn't actually all that worried about her, but still, it was probably better to get her word anyway.
"Good." Then she rang the doorbell and forced a smile. "Hey, Miss Linda!" Karyn chirped genially when Jon's mom answered the door. "We thought we might play LAN with Jon a bit this Friday night; can we come in?"
"Of course, Miss Karyn," Linda replied just as genially, ushering them in. "He should still be in his room, gaming as usual. Have fun, but not too much fun, alright?"
"Of course, Miss Linda!" Karyn thanked her enthusiastically, and then she, Jay, and Kyla went up together to Jon's room.
The door was ajar, and he wasn't there.
"..."
"..."
"... FUCK." As usual, it was Karyn that broke the silence. Jon wasn't there!
"Arcade Portal..." Jay read aloud, looking at his computer monitor, still flashing. "Karyn, I don't think we've told you this, but I believe Jon was booting up a game called Immersion Arcade when he disconnected from the call?"
"Yeah, sure, that's great, Jay, just great, but if you haven't noticed? Jon isn't here!" Karyn fired back without listening at maybe a million words per minute, evidently trying very hard not to just completely freak out right then and there.
"Ah, but I have noticed, and Karyn, I'm confident we'll find him soon enough," Jay reassured. "We can try retracing his steps, for starters. We can try finding his sister, too. We could even try wishing him back with your Stone, assuming said Stone does indeed work as advertised, if you like. Do you know where he keeps it?"
Karyn sprang into action. "It's a metallic, reddish stone, flat and round like a hockey puck, and about as big as a bouncy ball," she said, looking through Jon's nightstand quickly. "He keeps it in this funny wood box too, like it's a wedding ring or something, with some unintelligible stuff carved in the sides. I know he kept it in here at school..." Karyn had moved on from the dresser to Jon's backpack, unzipping it and looking through his schoolbooks. After a moment, though, she realized that Jay and Kyla weren't moving, and paused a moment for a glance back over at them. "What are you waiting for? Help me find it!"
Kyla's look was one of concern. Jay's was one of skepticism. "With all due respect, Karyn," the latter said, "I think it wiser to look for the man rather than his allegedly magic stone." And I don't want to start just ransacking his room, was left unsaid. "I'll ask his mother about his little sister, alright?"
"Fine. Her name is Zoe, by the way." And then Karyn resumed her quest for the all-important Stone.
Jay stepped out, and then Kyla was left to her own devices. Naturally, she ended up drifting in front of Jon's computer, tried figuring out just what he was doing on it. Enter through headphones...? Kyla thought. There were no headphones plugged in at the moment, although a headset had formed a heap just below and beside the chair, as if the jack had been yanked out of its port and the whole thing had then just been dropped there carelessly. Instinctively cleaning up a little, Kyla picked them up and set them aside on his desk for now. Then she started just clicking around on what she assumed was some sort of screensaver. Sure enough, a simple prompt came up as soon as she did, and straightaway she hit Exit Fullscreen to see if anything else had obviously changed about Jon's computer. The answer to that seemed to be no; Immersion Arcade was just running in a window now. So she returned her attention to that, and started navigating through menus and icons as they came up.
Strangely enough, there wasn't any obvious option she could find to actually start playing the video game as she assumed it was. There was, however, a View Players option that seemed to bring up streams from other games to view? Immersed Players: 2, said a little text box up in one corner of the window, and there were 2 streams to view, in a sort of split screen configuration at first. Both were labeled; one stream was evidently called First Person Spellcaster, and the other, This Sinful World, both footage from what were clearly distinct games. Both were using a First Person Camera just then and it was difficult to tell much about the players besides what their character's hands looked like, but still, Kyla couldn't help but wonder... Two players. Maybe Jon and Zoe somehow? But where the hell would they be streaming from? And why would that stop them from calling back?
Kyla got a partial answer to the second one when a phone on the floor started buzzing, not far from where she'd picked up the headphones. It was a call from a contact named "Mom"? Jay reappeared in the doorway and blanched.
"Well, that's not good," he said, picking up the phone and answering it. "No ma'am, this is Jay. It seems Zoe left her phone in Jon's room ... Yes, I'll have it back to you in a moment." Then he hung up and sighed. "Ms. Gibson thought Zoe would be in her room, but she wasn't there, and evidently, she doesn't have her phone with her. Any luck on your end?"
"Well, I found the box," Karyn grumbled, holding up a fairly unimpressive dark wooden box. Then she opened it up to reveal nothing but an old letter. "The Stone isn't in it. I can't find it."
Jay took the letter to read nonetheless, which he then shared with Kyla after a quick glance through. "What about you?" he asked Kyla. "Has Immersion Arcade presented anything illuminating?"
"N-No, uh... the opposite, a-actually..." She turned her attention to the screen after reading the letter. "I thought it was a video game of some kind, but... I'm not sure how you actually start playing? There's nothing in this menu with anything like 'play game', 'load save', 'Create New World', anything like that. Honestly I'm having trouble understanding what I'm even looking at."
"Hm... Very curious indeed." Jay rubbed his chin. "What about that 'Enter Through Headphones' message? Was there any important audio to hear?"
"W-well, uh... I haven't checked that yet," Kyla admitted. "The headphones weren't even plugged in, though, so I doubt it," she added, holding up the set. "I guess there's no harm in checking though..." Headphone jack in one hand, she slipped the set over her head, and then didn't even get as far as plugging it in.
Over on the computer screen, the counter incremented to Immersed Players: 3, and a 3rd video feed had appeared before the headset had finished clattering to the ground again.
