This choice: A lively time with a pile of dirt. • Go Back...Chapter #12Starting to think outside the spells by: Wordsmitty ✍️   Neither you or Caleb feel that good after school and Tilley has stuck to you all afternoon like gum from the sidewalk. You decide its best to forgo the clubhouse - at least until you can shake him and your mind stabilizes. The three of you go over to hang at the local burger shack figuring if strange lunch meat can make you feel better, then the unknown filling comprising the burgers here should fix you right up. Besides, they do have the best Oreo milkshakes anywhere.
You get a small burger and super-shake while Keith and Caleb split giant-sized fries with their sodas. Talk invariably turns to gaming and soon you're aches start fading as you sit and listen while the sugar high takes over.
"You've got to plan ahead and not just race through the level. There's uses for each bit of knowledge gained and artifact you make with it. If all you do is collect stuff to get to the next level, you'll eventually fall into a trap or worse. Always think how you can use what you have, now and later for the final goal."
"Such wise words from someone with a C- average and still at level nine," Caleb observes teasing Keith and his advice.
"Yeah, well I know what I can and can't do with the shields I posses, and each level is getting easier. I just take my time."
"Dude, you score points the quicker you go. The objective is to reach the high score."
"High score doesn't win in the real game. What good are points if you haven't made the friends and pawns to support you or taken over control of your enemies?"
"Oh, it's like school. It's not your grade but what you learn," you throw out more as satirical humor than fact, although you know it's just the opposite of how school works.
Caleb chuckles with you as he takes a few more fries, but Keith gets upset. Perhaps you pick on him because he's been struggling this year just to hang onto that C average. You're all about equal intelligence, and none is really dumber or smarter than the other. Caleb may be better at sciences and math giving him the best GPA of you three. You roll good in history which keeps you at a B- most of the time. Keith though always seems more intuitive. Unfortunately, no test gives points for that.
"You guys are just assholes and luck out in those standardized tests, but I'm the one who finishes projects on time that result in clear conclusions demonstrating the theory." Keith emphatically argues.
"OK, but games are different. They're to rack points." Caleb refutes.
"Not all." Keith comes back then postures his side of the debate. "Ever since those thinking games came out back in the '90's, like Myst. It wasn't the graphics that made the game. Those looks just helped sell it. It was the puzzle, solving the plot, joining facts, reaching conclusions, using each step along the way and knowing how. Games with just shoot 'em up crap are mindless shit like standards of learning tests. The real prize is planning and follow-through with tools you gain at each step!"
"OK, looks sell like Cindy Vredenburg. And the logical goal is to score. Ergo, rack her up - points." Caleb twists Keith's logic with a smile and stuffs the last of the fries in his mouth.
"Shit. You guys couldn't figure out what to do with a magic medallion if it fell in your lap. You'd probably use it to get more video games or pay for online time, not what it could mean to your real life."
At that Keith gets up and sighs, "I got a project to complete that has some meaning. You guys might as well go back to playing with your toys." Then he heads off.
* * *
It was an interesting dialog between your two friends on the finer points of getting ahead in the new game everyone is playing. The thing is, what Keith said made lots of sense beyond gaming, like in the context of using the book and masks. So far you had just "played" with each spell enough to get to the next. You hadn't even considered the possibilities of using the masks or what you could obtain with them. That's what is on your mind when you and Caleb meet at the clubhouse after dinner, your parents thinking you two are doing a school project.
"Maybe we're rushing into this," you offer to Caleb even as you measure the dirt into a new pile along with the other ingredients on top of a sigil you had transcribed onto a piece of paper.
"Two hours in a fucking graveyard and now you want to wait."
"Not wait. Think and plan about what we've already discovered with these masks and how we might use them."
"Yeah, we have Jeremy's secret and Lisa's brain already off limits. So how does that help us get anything?"
"Maybe not them, but perhaps others. It would be kinda cool to impersonate some folks. We just need to be able to control the information in their minds, what gets into ours. Maybe others are simpler."
"OK, I can see some benefits to becoming Javits or Black," Caleb says looking off with a big smile then back at you with a wink. "Sweet benefits."
"Yeah. That's one, but consider something less primal - recognition or smarts, moving on in the world or life, not having your ass kicked or being able to direct who gets their ass kicked."
"Or who's ass you get."
You swat his shoulder. "Come on, think with your head, the one on your shoulders."
"OK, I'm thinking we can think and talk while we watch this fucking pile burn."
With that he tosses a match on the pile of dirt you just stuck some of your hair into and poured the fuel over. The usual white flash blinds you, then your eyes see the regular bluish flames dance over the whole thing.
Pulling up a couple chairs, you each take out a mask that you'd made and start the polishing as you ask, "So seriously, who would you like to be, and not just for the sex."
"Hmmm," Caleb murmurs as he rocks back and forth gazing at the light and shadows playing on the ceiling. "That kinda makes it much harder, or maybe less hard," he chuckles grabbing his crotch as he continues to stare up.
You know that you still want Geoff Mansfield if he is the one Lisa is going to go for. If she drops him, you'll take over whoever her next guy turns out to be. Instead of making Geoff an ass so she'll drop him, you'll go with what she likes just so you can be with her. Switching any time she moves on. You'll find out exactly what she wants and then become that person. You'll just ...
"So we don't have to limit ourselves to students or school, right."
His words break your thoughts and fluster you for a few moments before answering.
"Ah, no. I guess not. We'd have to be able to get to them somehow to make a mask."
"Yeah, thought so. That'll leave out that guy in the video with the twelve inch cock." he says with one of his shit-faced grins.
"Damn, Caleb. Get serious."
* * *
"You bring any marshmallows? How long is this thing going to take?" he asks after another hour goes by and you need to get home soon.
Taking the book up again, you reread the spell. "Don't know. It just says to keep relighting until it won't."
"You think it's safe to let it burn if we leave?"
You stick you hand in the flames and wait. Nothing. Well, at least no burning. It's almost like little feathers tickling your hand. Same as the mask when you'd checked out it's flames.
"I guess it's safe. One of us should check it before school. I don't think anyone will notice since there's no windows."
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