Alchemist's Cookbook

Page 1b

Page 1 B

Mix in 1 mall:

1 novice youth

2 young ladies

2 government agents

       1 Strange man

Let the contents sit until the strange man mixes with the young ladies. Apply electricity.

       

       Two days ago I decided to test the prototype. I live pretty far from any large city or anything, so I told my folks that I was going to be going to the mall. I may have implied that I was having some friends come with me, but I wasn’t. I was just testing if the device worked the way I thought it did.

       It was a two hour drive to the mall, plenty of time to review the plan. 

       The theory behind the prototype is very hard to explain, but it uses subtle waves of some sort of energy in order to cloak itself and the user.  If while talking on a cellphone a driver fails to observe the brake lights of another car it is not that he failed to see the other car, so much as his brain considered the call more important and so he just didn’t notice the other car. The prototype works in reverse of it, lowering its importance, so that even a small distraction will call others attention away from itself.

       As I walked from my car, a tan Ford Escape, I examined the device one last time. I had made it using another device I found in the tome called a cold forge. I do not know how the thing works; it resembles some sort of occult circle made from metal filings and some other electronics I found lying around in my mother’s workshop. Anyhow, the prototype needed to be housed so the inner workings wouldn’t get jammed. For that the hero in the tome placed it in a glass orb, something that was apparently common wherever he was, or she, the tomes wasn’t very specific. I decided to go with an old pocket watch my grandfather had left me. The old thing hadn’t worked in years, so I figured it would be ok. Besides, while I was fixing the prototype I was able to fix it.

       The idea was simple enough, walk around the mall and see if anyone notices me. Of course, by the time I actually got there I realized no one would notice me anyhow, but I was at the mall so I might as well look around. Besides, if a clerk noticed that I was looking at something I’d know the device didn’t work.

       I started with a videogame store, though some stray passages from the translated tome seemed to call me to an electronics store. For some reason I had a strange urge to buy some wires, as well as a few capacitors and 8 D batteries. Truth be told I had never been the DIY kind of guy, but recent events had changed things.

       Eventually I decided that the device worked, maybe because I had to catch the cashier’s attention three times while checking out.

       As I was leaving I glanced across the parking lot and noticed an odd looking man. Perhaps it was that hat, a wide brimmed cowboy hat, or perhaps the tan coat he wore like a mantle. Maybe it was something more subtle, but I knew that he was bad news. Just as I was thinking of following him I heard a click. Apparently the pocket watch had just worn down. The clock itself was powered by a small watch battery, but the other machine within worked on clockwork.

       “Hey Jason, what’s up?”

       I whipped around. Before me stood two friends from my old high school, Tina and Anna Sundered. Both had long brown hair, Tina’s strait Anna’s not, and both bore a pair of attractive brown eyes. They were both slender, though Tina was slightly more curved. Both wore jeans, though Tina had gone with a blue tee and a vest, while Anna had a pink tee and a green jacket. I knew that Tina, like me, was on break from college, while Anna was a junior in high school.