Milo sat up, gasping, which caused Derek to leap out of bed. “What? What is it?”

The mana fusor was already scrambling out of his sleeping bag. “Shhh! Don’t wake up your family.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Milo walked out of the room. Derek was too curious not to follow.

“Something happened. Something changed.” Milo grabbed his suspenders that were dangling around his hips before slapping them back on his shoulder. The light of discovery was in his eyes. “I sense it. I’ve done enough research on this place that it can’t change like that without me noticing.”

Derek rubbed the sleep from his eyes, already prepared to have another large caffeine day tomorrow morning. “What are you talking about?”

Milo threw open the front door and scrambled down the stairs. He dropped to his knees in the dirt, grabbing fistfuls of it and letting it run through his fingers. A wide smile was on his face. “There you are. How did you show up?”

Derek checked the time. It was almost one thirty in the morning. “Milo, you gotta give me something, pal.”

Milo smiled as he gathered more dirt into vials. “Mana. Your earth is finally producing mana.”

Derek frowned and was about to ask a question when something popped into his vision.

Side quest complete: Find mana.

New side quest: Distill mana to its different colors.

Derek blinked as ten more experience points tumbled into Milo’s bar. Derek couldn’t help but keep staring, even as the bar disappeared. He mentally pulled up the quest bar that was there. “We have quests?” He saw the old quest crossed out. As Milo kept filling the vials with dirt, Derek looked more at the quest bar.

When he created a mana fusor, he wanted to push himself to understand the lore and the magic system of CCNC. It was so deep and rich. There were always options to buy different colors of mana in the store, and they were only helpful if you knew about it. Some characters, like druids and the occasional cleric, could meditate the mana out of a land in a tight pinch, but it was useless unless you knew about which spell was associated with what color. White was an ultra rare color to find in nature. In all his years of playing, the only time he heard of anyone stumbling upon white mana in the wild was in the heart of the fae forest. And even that was untrustworthy, because no one could trust the fae, and the character who talked about it had gone crazy.

Honestly, even though things were pretty bad here, he was glad Milo hadn’t blown up in any portion of the fae forest. Torraq was bad enough. They did not need any fae.

Derek looked through the five different colors in his side quest bar. Black, red, green, blue, and gold. Each mana came from different terrain. It would be harder for Milo to pull the mana from a terrain compared to Clarissa, but that never stopped him. Clarissa meditated, Milo scienced. Not only that, but Milo could pull mana from dead bodies, too. Not that he would ever do that in front of Clarissa.

From his studies, Derek knew deserts had gold mana. Gold was known most for healing spells, which was always helpful to have a nice stockpile of gold mana. That way, after a battle, if Ezekiel had run out of white mana from all his spell casting, he could down a couple bottles of gold mana and still cast cure wounds. There was a limit, even with that. Too many people would have kept void bags with hundreds of gold mana stockpiled for such an occasion. Instead, the rules were spell casting characters could only drink six color mana bottles a day before it took a blow to their hit points. Which, considering some of the higher level spells required three different color manas to work, sometimes it just wasn’t worth it. Gold mana was always handy to have. And while adventuring, Milo could always sell his mana at a fair price, often helping the group financially.

Not that he could do that here.

Derek left Milo to his discovery and returned to bed. He had school tomorrow, after all. He settled in bed, once again calling up the quest tab. There were no experience points next to any of the colors, but he had a feeling they would each give him something once Milo created them. Gold would be easy. He wasn’t sure about the others.

It was then that he noticed another tab on the quest bar. One was labeled side quests, the other was labeled main quest. He wondered if everyone had the same quest, or if it was different for everyone. He mentally chose the main quest tab, just to see what it said.

Figure out if you can get home.

Derek didn’t know why that sounded so foreboding. It wasn’t figuring out how to get them home; it was figuring out if they could get home.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Derek tried not to dwell on it too much. He closed his eyes and tried to get back to sleep.

***

Clarissa was happy to explore more of the desert at night, but promised to stay in the backyard. Evelyn sighed as she returned to her bed. She didn’t want to know what time it was. What with Clarissa more on her feet, she was still worried about how Grizzizzik and Clarissa would feel about staying in the same house. Those two fought a lot, even though she could tell it was mostly out of a sibling-like love. Maybe. Honestly, sometimes the rogue got on her nerves, but Nick always seemed to notice when it got too much and would scale back. Evelyn did the same. Like with turning off the ability to shed flower pedals wherever Clarissa walked. It’d been a while since she’d done that.

She smiled at the memory and wondered if Clarissa still had that ability. It was almost worth a try, but she wasn’t sure what it would do now that she was a desert elf. Perhaps it was sand that fell off her instead of flower pedals.

Evelyn noticed she had a message on her phone. It had been delivered at eleven at night. She must not have heard it while she was doing her nighttime skin routine. It was from Rafael. His name alone made her stomach roll.

Her thumb hesitated before she tapped on it, her eyes scanning the brief message with a pounding heart.

Do you need me to find an excuse to get out of the meeting tomorrow?

Evelyn’s arms filled with goosebumps. Derek must have asked Rafael to come to the early morning meeting. Bile crept up her throat. Her mind snapped her back two and a half years ago, smelling the alcohol on Rafael’s breath, hearing him somehow laugh and cry at the same time. Mentioning how his parents were divorcing. How it was the best thing that could happen, but how much it hurt. How much he wanted the pain to go away. Evelyn was so uncomfortable, having never been alone with someone so drunk before. Let alone someone so young and so drunk. He must have gotten into his parents hard liquor.

He was only fourteen.

At first, she felt sorry for Rafael, one that had a touch of pity. Listened to him talking about how much pain he was in. How he’d have to hide the bruises he got from his dad. How much it killed him inside to put makeup over the bruises Alejandra couldn’t reach. Jack was smart enough not to hit their faces, and they were too terrified to be discovered. Afraid Jack would kill them all before authorities got to them in time.

Rafael’s drunken stories turned her from pity to unease fast. She didn’t think her friend would tell her all this when he asked to meet with her alone. Everything was safe now. Rafael even said they were going to be alright. The police got involved. More importantly, Mariana’s family found out and got involved. Jack would never touch them again. But Rafael was still hurting. He was sobbing. Then he laughed.

Then he kissed her. Ignored her struggles, her pleas to stop. His hands disappearing under her shirt. He didn’t stop until she screamed at him that he was assaulting her. It made him hesitate long enough for her to punch him hard in the teeth before she ran as fast as she could to the middle of nowhere and sobbed.

She was only twelve.

Evelyn’s eyes filled with tears as she absently scrolled through the messages above. Ones spanning years of friendship. The jokes they made. The GIFs they sent. Looking forward to CCNC sessions where they would promise to outdo each other in life saving stunts. She thought she was talking to a friend. Rafael must have been thinking of her differently. For god’s sake, she was only twelve.

Nick assumed Rafael had stopped being friends with them because he found football. The truth was Evelyn swore if Rafael ever came to another game, she would tell Nick what he did to her. It was spoken in anger. Out of fear. She needed the time away from him to cope. She also knew she could never tell her brother. It happened a few months after his run in with the police. The one that started Nick being imprisoned in his own house until he turned eighteen. Evelyn was seriously afraid if she told Nick, he would soon be arrested for attempted murder. Or actual murder.

For a year afterwards, when she’d find herself in a depressive funk, she got angry. She told herself that it wasn’t like he raped her. He was drunk. He was out of his mind. She had struggled so much that he hardly even touched her bra.

And then she got angry at herself all over again. It was still wrong. Still dreadfully wrong. And every day she never had to see him was a good day. It was easier to have their friendship dissolve rather than face the truth. Easier for everyone else to believe Rafael left for football. Left for popularity. Evelyn knew how much Rafael loved CCNC, but Evelyn couldn’t have him around anymore. Couldn’t have that reminder that she had been so violated by someone she once considered a friend.

The familiar anger returned, pumping through her blood. She was both angry at Rafael and at herself. But it had changed over the years. Most of her anger came from knowing she couldn’t hide this anymore. She couldn’t go on ignoring that it didn’t happen. Part of her wanted to tell everyone everything that had happened because she wanted to see Rafael get hurt. But every time she thought of revenge, she remembered the stories he had told while completely wasted. Not of getting hurt, but of the fear of getting discovered with the bruises. Of how much it would hurt everyone else. Of how much it would kill Mariana. She needed Rafael to be a horrible person before she justified getting revenge.

Once again, Evelyn’s thumbs hesitated. She sniffed, wishing the memories could disappear.

These people need to return home, and we are the only ones who can help them.

She sent it, then felt herself panic. She didn’t want to see Rafael again. It was hard enough to pretend he wasn’t there on Saturday.

But you will keep ignoring me like you did on Saturday, and you will never touch me again.

She sent that too, not caring if it sounded harsh. She needed peace of mind and for him to know their friendship would never recover after he pulled something like that.

To her surprise, despite it almost being two in the morning, she saw the three dots of him typing something out. He must not have gotten much sleep tonight, either.

Understood

Evelyn turned off her phone, having no interest in texting him anymore. There was a toxic hate she had inside, and the only way it could come out was to face what happened and talk about it.

Losing a friend was easier.