So its Saturday now and it’s officially been over a week since I’ve been back to driving. I started to look back at the moments I had and I noticed a pattern. Every other day something sort of magical happens to me or at least around me. Today was no different. Enter Doug and his friends, Noah and Mickey; three guys who all look like average Blaumonte citizens, maybe a little nerdy but that’s okay. They got in the car wearing backpacks like they were going hiking or something. Doug sat in the middle while Noah sat to the left of him. They were cheery and playful with each other. With the jokes they threw around, it seemed like they knew each other for a long time. Like since elementary school or something.
They’ve been talking to themselves for most of the ride. But then something changed. They started to whisper and look at me. I felt like I was transported into a horror movie for a second, but then they started to giggle.
I raised my eyebrow and glanced back at them. “What? What happened?” I asked. “You guys put a kick me sign on my shoulder?”
“Nah, man,” Noah said. “You’re fine.”
“Yeah? Then what’s going on? You guys were legit grilling me back there.”
“Nothing.”
They kept laughing. It set off a panic internally, but I didn’t let it show. “Mhm.” What did they know! I repeated in my mind. My mind was super paranoid today. My eyes shuffled and switched between the rearview mirror and the road as quick as possible.
Seconds later, I caught movement. Sparks? I asked myself. I looked intensely at the mirror until finally, something ignited in Doug’s hand. “Whoa!” I shouted as I swerved the wheel a tiny bit, but I got control of it again. Luckily no cars were on the road in this residential area. I glanced at them as they laughed harder. They had a death wish that I didn’t have. But I was curious. “What the heck is that?”
Noah lifted the object out of Doug’s hand and showed me a big marble that had a weird glowing yellow symbol on it. “See,” Noah said. “Doug is a mage. Technically a coder, according to the sacred post.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“He can create glyphs, spells, what ever involves mage stuff. He writes stuff down and it makes stuff happen basically. Makes bank, dude. People crave quick and easy magic without having to put work into learning anything.”
Noah leaned back, then took out two more from his pocket and started juggling them. They were also on fire. Scared, I kept watch. I didn’t really trust their antics. They proved that I shouldn’t. I didn’t want to stop them though and risk being a dick. “So… you can write spells, huh? And you sell them. Is that taxed or what?”
Noah laughed. “What? Oh shh…” He dropped the three marbles, and I whipped my head back, then quickly pulled the car over.
“Oh crap!” I said as I stopped. I turned back to them. “Are they gonna explode or something?” I shouted.
They started laughing again. Noah casually picked flaming marbles up, then lifted them to the roof of the car. “It’s not real fire. It’s just a light illusion thing. It doesn’t burn or explode.”
I relaxed my face and glared at them. “Oh, so you guys were just planning on messing with me the entire time? What a cool little premeditated suicide pact you guys have that I was included in against my will.”
“Relax, dude, you’re fine,” Mickey said. “You look like you’ve been driving for like, what, ten years?”
I looked up. “Holy crap, wow. I know you guys are young, but how old do you think I am?”
Noah leaned in and looked me up and down. “You’re shaved, so you could be anywhere from 22 to 48 with grandkids.”
I turned around. “Oh, I am legit offended right now. I am so gonna call all of your parents when this ride is over. You guys are rude.” I started to drive again.
“Nah, we’re cool,” Doug said. “You’re cool. We’re not gonna mess with you again.”
“Thanks for the peace treaty… So where are you guys going anyway? A Code Lyoko convention?”
“A what?” Noah asked.
“You know? That show…”
“Ima stop you right there, fam. No.”
“So what… You guys got stuffed book bags, your friend is a mage, Mickey has glasses. Where are we going?”
“So?” Mickey complained.
“A DnD party with a few friends,” Doug said.
“Oh, I wasn’t so far off then,” I said.
“Dude, we don’t go to cons,” Noah responded. “Bunch of no deodorant wearing sweaty nerds fawning over slightly out of shape cosplay girls.”
“You are just the rudest boy, aren’t you? Cosplay girls are hot.”
Mickey butted in to say, “No one compares to Tomicz, but she just like dropped off the face of the planet. I hope nothing happened to her, especially with all this magic stuff. Dudes can get creepy.
“Yeah,” Noah added. “There’s probably some dude whipping out some invisible suit as we speak to grope everyone…” I noticed his eyes widen and shift to his friend Doug before he turned back and mouthed “no.”
“Wait, Tomicz?” I asked. “That actually sounds familiar. That’s that tall blonde chick with the…” At that moment I had a sharp realization and my mind exploded. My body went into autopilot mode as I drove silently and thought about it intensely. I knew who Tomicz was and why she disappeared. She stepped away from it to become an actual hero. A good one at that.
“Yeah, with the huge tits… Yo? You have a stroke or something there?”
I came to and glanced around for a second. “No, I was just… remembering something… So, Dungeons and Dragons, huh? Some nerve you have for calling others a nerd.”
“Dude, DnD is the tightest shit, don’t even try to lie,” Noah tapped my shoulder and continued. “And dude, look, Doug the Dungeon Master here spent weeks scripting a magic board to play on so it’s gonna be crazy lit! Dude, we got a bunch of action figures since he made it so we can import them into the board and play as them. They’re gonna move and everything. Doug is a straight genius.”
“No way? You can do that?”
“My boy, Doug is nice. Do you doubt his power? You know what?” Noah pointed forward. “Let me see that swan thing.”
“What. Why? What are you gonna do to it?” I felt a bit defense over this swan for some reason.
“Just lemme see it.”
At the stoplight, I took the paper swan off the mirror and handed to him. Noah whispered in Doug’s ear. I was a bit cautious of these mischievous boys but I didn’t think they were crazy enough to be homicidal… intentionally.
“Pawa: Imprint menu,” Doug said. A yellow glow flashed quickly, and I barely caught it at the corner of my eye. “Pawa: Source,” he continued. I watched as a yellow line emerged from the swan. It rose then slid open both ways like a supermarket door. A yellow outline of a rectangle sat in front of him and he brought his finger to it. He began moving it and it looked like he was writing as yellow lines were left in his finger’s wake.
The spells he said before were spells no doubt. His spell casting was way different from the few wizards I saw. It wasn’t a sentence like theirs were or a shortened one like that other guy mentioned. It was just a collection of unrelated words it seemed. I didn’t think the distinction between mages and wizards was much, but I began to see the differences and possibilities.
“I’m going to be Sir. Macho Man,” Noah said before out of his bag, he pulled out a wrestling figure in metal leg plates. He held it up in front of me, then went back. “And we got a bunch of zombie monsters in here, some dawn of war sets, some anime stuff. I’m telling you… lit!”
“You couldn’t do like some jump into the game thing? We have VR stuff, immersive sound devices, and with magic now… is it still not possible?”
“No, we decided no cheesy movie plot BS, where we get trapped inside. No. Not happening. I wanna be able to get up and take a piss.”
I glanced back at them. “I guess that’s smart. That would be scary, right?”
Noah sucked his teeth. “No, it’d be cool but stupid—”
“You in the game, you die for real!” Mickey yelled.
“Welcome back to Mickey throws outdated memes. I’m your host…”
“Shut up.”
I chuckled, but I was still curious about the DnD thing. “So, you’re a wrestler knight. What about you two?”
Noah tapped Doug and said, “Doug is the DM, so he can’t make one. He can, but he can’t play since he designed the story. Mickey is… Show him,” he said before letting out a brief chuckle.
I glanced back as Mickey took out a humanoid dog-girl figurine that held a giant red sword and had very revealing armor. “What is that?” I asked.
“It’s his fursona.”
“Shut up,” Mickey replied. “It’s a custom made figure. Our friend at the house we’re going to makes figures. I sent him a drawing of my fighter and he made it 3D. I can’t wait to see her actually move. Thank you so much, Doug.”
“Ah… touching, touching. You’re getting weird again, Mickey,” Doug said.
“Dude, our friend actually has this really cool looking Kenku hybrid rogue-wizard too,” Noah added.
“Didn’t he say he was making something new? Probably something crazy.”
“He also said Tasha and Phonzo are gonna be there.”
Doug and Mickey threw their head back and sighed. I raised an eyebrow and said, “What was that? You guys seem upset.”
“Two things,” Noah said. “Phonzo has this annoying ass needy dog he has to bring everywhere. And Tasha… ugh. Where there are no problems a female will create them, right?”
“What really? I asked. “Well, if you go in there with that mindset, something will happen. You’re bringing that energy into it.”
“Dude, I’m telling you, we tried. There’s always something. And there’s this weird tension because Tasha used to date our other friend Jared, but they broke up. And we always invite Jared because he’s hilarious.”
“Who invited them?” Mickey asked.
“Iunno, but its guaranteed to be awkward. Oh damn, we’re here already?” Noah asked as I pulled over. “Let me take a moment to breathe and prepare for this tomfoolery.” He turned and asked, “You done with the thing, Doug?”
“Almost,” he replied.
I looked out the window and at the home. It was pretty big and looked luxurious. Seemed like a bachelor pad. It was strange, and not what I expected for a group about to play DnD. “Your friend owns this house?”
“Yep,” Noah said as he exited the car.
“How old are you guys? You all look no more than 17 and you’re friends with someone who owns a house like this?”
“The Internet is a great place, isn’t it?” Mickey answered.
I looked at the yellow menu Doug was writing on. It had a long transcript of words that looked like computer code. At least, from behind it did. Doug squished together his hands and the yellow energy closed. He brought his hand down and the energy dropped into the origami swan. “What did you do?” I asked. Doug flicked the swan away, and to my surprise, the paper wings flapped. It was flying. The swan flew around in a circle and never lost altitude as it did. “Wow … that’s awesome, man. How did you even?”
Doug shrugged. “It’s magic.”
“Let’s go, team. Squad out!” Noah yelled from outside, and they filed out the car and left me staring at this swan.
I tried to roll down the window, forgetting that it’s broke. I stood out of my car like a crazy person and waved at them. “Thanks for the gift. Try to get along and not start any fights!”
“We don’t fight, we argue!”
I chuckled, then grabbed the swan by the string as it flew around. I hung it back around the mirror, and it continued to fly around in circles, leashed to the string. Probably not a good idea to have something moving in my peripheral vision like that, but it was so cool that I had to keep it there. If I ever become distracted I’ll take it off immediately, I thought. A little vain, but I couldn’t wait to see what people thought of it. I loved the fact that, little by little my passengers added a little magic to my life… and to my car.
Magoch 