Amity tripped, falling down the desert hills as the disheveled leader followed, grabbing his side to call upon something…
As Amity sat down at her table for breakfast, Amity sighed. Today was probably the third day since her parents went for their vacation, and there would still be a while longer. She was getting bored of her usual routine spent mostly alone until school, meaning a few hours spent mostly in silence. She stood up and placed her plate in the sink, then headed up to her bedroom. She checked her calendar, seeing if there was anything special. Today was nothing different than typical, a standard September 18th, but she still marked it off. She put on a short skirt, nice red shirt, and a pair of over the knee socks. Grabbing her necklace, a chunk of a blue rock she found on the ground that she sanded down to a nice smooth charm with a star shape and engraved with her initials, she stepped downstairs. Amity grabbed a paper bag from the fridge, a lunch prepared the previous day, and placed it into her pin-lined backpack before heading off to school.
On Amity’s walk to school, she noticed a red shimmer coming from the grass near the sidewalk. Leaning down to grab the source of it, she noticed it felt very similar to the rock on her necklace, similar size and weight, so she pocketed it, planning to make a red counterpart to what she’s wearing. As she reached the school, all the gates were locked, and she couldn’t get in. Checking the schedule revealed that it was an employee planning day, meaning she didn’t have to go today. She turned back, and as she entered her neighborhood, she inspected the red rock, comparing its size to that of the star hung from her neck, and noticed that if she put the newer rock near the one on her neck, they seemed to pull together, but she assumed they were just magnetic or something.
As Amity thought that though, she tripped into a puddle and fell nearly directly onto the two rocks she had been holding, chipping both of them. As she got up, she noticed a bit of a glow in the spot she fell. She tried reaching into it, but it gave her arm a bit of a shock, running blue and red light up her arm. Amity grabbed a rock and chipped a bit of one rock into the water. Then the other one. Then both, and the glow happened again. Amity’s mind nearly instantly began to flicker and dart around, coming up with explanations as to what could be happening.
Amity returned home, and placed the rocks on the counter, before going to change. When she came back, she grabbed a cup and filled it with water, as well as her phone so she could document her results, and an eyedropper so she could use it for the water.
She turned on her camera, and began her first procedure, chipping away a tiny bit of the blue rock into a prepared space, and doing the same with the red. She mixed the two colored powders in the middle of her workspace, and dropped a tiny drop of the water right onto the powder, which immediately illuminated a bright purple, and the thick purple sludge was able to be spread around and remained a shimmering purple color. She took some of it, and added more of the blue powder, resulting in the glow shifting blue.
Recalling some of her favorite cartoons, she spread it into a circle. Immediately, a glow appeared in the middle, tracing a design faster than Amity’s eye could follow. She grabbed her phone, slowed the footage down, and began to sketch the design on a piece of paper, intricately following every detail until she had what she saw. Amity chose to run the paper through her parents’ copier so she could have a backup and adjust if something was off. Returning with one of the copies, she pulled out a container with the scraps from when she carved out her necklace, and used them alongside the red rock to make enough magical goop to trace the glyph, which was seemingly divided into 3 segments, only connected by the outline of the circle.
Finishing the glyph, nothing seemed to happen. Amity tried to tap it, first in one segment, then all three, then the center, and it finally worked. The glyph brightly glowed in three colors. A red segment, a blue section, and a blinding white section. She saw the red section dim itself first, followed by the other two in unison, before a slow pillar of ice ascended, stopping at roughly 3 inches. Amity was first amazed, and then realized what had happened. She had discovered magic!
Amity tried to connect the dots on how the glyph worked with little success, but she managed to understand a small amount of how to control it. If you add more blue, the result will be a strong ice block, and if you add more red it would be a medium strength fire blast. They only activate if the entire glyph is drawn well, and then it begins when you tap the center.
Eventually, Amity gave up trying to master her existing glyph, but she did still want to get magic into a practical state, so she got to thinking. Using different amounts of these rocks caused different effects… I’ve seen some other shiny rocks like these… Maybe I can find some more! I’m a bit hungry too, maybe I can go to a fast food place and grab a burger while trying to find some.Amity headed out, and near immediately spotted a new rock. Oh, wow, already. That was quick, this might be a quick walk. She grabbed the rock and pocketed it, a buzzing yellow rock with bright white streaks, and continued on her way. The fast food place was probably only 15 minutes away, so she didn’t see a new rock at all on the way there.
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Amity’s order was simple, a double cheeseburger with large fries, so she was going to grab it and dip before she was called over by a familiar voice.
“Hey! Amity!”
She turned to see who it was, and immediately spotted a few of her friends sitting down at a table, with just enough free space for another person, so Amity went over and sat down.
“Yo, Himiko! What’s up girl! Why didn’t you tell me you were meeting up here?” she asked.
“Oh, shoot, sorry, I thought I told someone to text you to come over…”, said as Himiko lightly elbowed the person sitting beside her, Raleigh.
“Hey, relax, I told you I didn’t bring my phone and you said you would do it!”
“Don’t worry about it Ray, I still made it here, seemingly pretty early into your meal too, so it’s fine.”
Amity stood back up at the beckoning of the cashier to grab her food, and as she came back Raleigh was laughing while Himiko was getting frustrated.
“Yo, what’s up? What joke did I miss?”
“It wasn’t a joke, it was just mean! He was telling me I’ll never be a witch, that magic doesn’t exist.”
Himiko pouted. Amity thought about whether to reveal what she had found just a half hour earlier but she decided against it as it would probably get them kicked out of the restaurant.
“Raleigh, stop being mean. Himiko, are you guys doing anything after this?”
Himiko responded with “Uh, I don’t think so… Katie? Did you have anything planned?”
Katie looked up from her phone and shook her head,
“No, I didn’t have anything. Amity, were you gonna ask us to do anything?”
“I was gonna have you guys come over, it’s semi-related to what you guys were saying while I was grabbing my stuff. Is that cool with you all?” They all responded with general approval. Probably 20 minutes after Amity grabbed her food, they all finished with their food and went out to make their way to her house. Himiko was the first to talk after they left,
“So, why are we going to your house? What are we doing?”
“You’ll see…” Amity noticed a smooth, deep green rock in the grass on the sidewalk. Picking it up, she continued with “Here’s a hint; this is probably gonna be important.”
They arrived at the doorstep, and the sole key holder unlocked the door to let her friends in, instructing them to wait in the kitchen. Once Amity was inside, she pulled out the two rocks she grabbed, and threw them onto the counter as she went to the cabinet to pull out a shot glass and she filled it halfway with tap water.
“Yo, Amity, what are you doing?”
“Just give me a sec.”
She placed it onto the counter and grabbed the still dirty paring knife dropped on the desk. Amity chipped away a bit of the red rock, and then a bit of the blue. She crushed them, then used her finger to brush the powder onto the knife to pour it into the shot glass. The girl stuck her finger into it, and stirred it, fighting the small shock running up her arm as the group saw the light run up it.
“Holy crap, what is that? How is it glowing?” were just some of the questions running through their minds. Eventually, Amity grabbed one of the sheets of paper stacked on the counter and began to use her finger to trace what was on it. Everyone watched, the distinct design slowly coming to life, then Amity tapped it. She stepped back, and eventually everyone but her freaked out as they saw a pillar of ice, this time probably a foot tall and half that wide, rose up from the paper, sucking all the ink off of it to fuel its progress.
“Holy Fucking Shit Amity, what WAS that?” was heard from Raleigh.
“Oh, you know what that was? Magic. You know what that means? You were wrong.”“Amity. What the fuck. When did you find this?” Himiko asked.
“Like an hour ago,” Amity chuckled, “I was holding that rock but I tripped into a puddle and it chipped into some water, as well as my necklace.”Amity grabbed her necklace, as well as the remains that had cracked off one of the corners, and showed it to them.
“My necklace cracked, but it’s probably fine, maybe I can fix it and it’ll look even cooler.” They all stood there for a second before Raleigh remembered something.
“Oh, shoot, I just remembered - Himiko, here.” Raleigh handed Himiko a $20 bill.
“Nice, never thought this bet would pay out.”
Amity handed Himiko a few sheets of paper printed with the glyph, then turned back to fill a small sandwich bag with some of the blue chips from the original carving process and then she used the bottom of the paring knife to crack the red rock to drop in there too. She did the same with the yellow and green rocks, then zipped the bag closed and handed it to Himiko,
“Here you go, have fun with it. You can use a bit more of the red rock to have fire come out too, it’s a bit dangerous though so be careful with it.”
“Wait, for real, you’re giving me some of this stuff? Thanks!”
“Yeah, no problem! I’ve got plenty. Alright, that’s pretty much all I had you all over here for, do you guys want to stay?”
“Oh, I might try to convince them to come over to my house, I got a new game and I want them to play it with me. Wanna come?”
“Eh, I kinda want to get how this whole magic bull-crap works nailed down, maybe if you’re still playing in a bit I may come over, I’m pretty sure I know where your house is."
Himiko agreed, and they made their way out.