Nick dipped his chip into the salsa, prepared for the heat this time, when Derek gasped. “The hospital? They’re taking you to the hospital?”

The news caused Nick’s eyebrows to jump upward as he ate his chip. That didn’t sound good. Derek’s jaw fell open, then he clamped his jaw shut, his lips pressed into a line as Tyler kept talking.

“But… but a fender bender isn’t bad, right?” Derek said.

“That’s what I said!” Tyler Clarke’s voice came through the phone. “But they’re worried about a possible concussion. Maybe I sprained my wrist, but it doesn’t feel sprained. I’d feel if something was off, right?”

“Dude, you’ll be stuck there forever! Get out of it! We need to attack the MED!” Derek said.

The smallest sigh escaped Nick before he gestured for Derek to hand him the phone. He placed it against his ear, trying to smile. “Tyler, listen to me. Go. To. The. Hospital. It’s a CCNC game, not the end of the world. A concussion might be the end of your world, though, so please get it checked out. You’re too good of a GM for us to lose.”

Bringing reality to these games always fell on Nick’s shoulders. Tyler would crawl into the house with a broken leg to be their game master if no one stopped him. Derek would, too. When both of them got together, they went to insane lengths for the game.

“It’s really not that bad. I don’t feel that bad. I’ll get out of it. You guys are facing Torraq and possibly Akshi! No spoilers from me, though, whether Akshi’s there.”

“We appreciate what you put into this campaign, but you got in a car crash. Get yourself checked out.” Nick never thought he’d have to remind someone to go to the hospital after a car crash. Maybe to a child, but not Tyler, who turned twenty years old last month.

Tyler groaned in pain. Nick couldn’t tell if it was related to the car crash or from missing a session of CCNC. “Fine. I’ll make it up to you guys. I promise.”

Their game master couldn’t see Nick, which was why he wore a wry smile. “We’ll be fine, Tyler.”

“We’ll be fine!” Derek added in a way that made it sound like he was not fine at all. Nick pinched his lips together and shot Derek a glare. He didn’t want to return the phone in case Derek tried to change Tyler’s mind. It wouldn’t take much.

“Keep us updated,” Nick said.

“Bye.” Tyler sounded far more dejected. Nick ended the call, handing the phone back to Derek. His friend gripped it like it was single-handedly responsible for Tyler’s crash.

“So… reschedule?” Derek asked.

It was a mistake to place another chip in his mouth. He’d eaten way too many in a row. “Derek, I know you love this game,” Nick started. Derek rubbed his lower lip and whimpered, bracing himself to talk about a death in the family. “We’ve been rescheduling this game for months. Our senior year starts Monday. If we couldn’t find time this summer, how could we during school?”

To Nick’s horror, his friend’s eyes swam with tears. “No, no. Yeah. It… makes sense.”

Nick dropped his gaze, not wanting to witness Derek’s misery. It wasn’t like Nick did anything. Their last session was almost six months ago. And two months before that one. He picked up his character sheets. He’d taken over Rafael’s cleric character when their old friend used his mediocre talents for football and dropped their friend group. After the ‘incident’, Rafael found any excuse not to hang around Nick, which was fine. Rafael not being at CCNC sessions crushed Derek more than he let on.

“I guess… I guess we’ll…” Derek hesitated, then gathered the other character sheets on the table into a pile. He went to take Nick’s two character sheets, but he kept a firm grip, glancing at his friend.

“Nah, if it doesn’t happen tonight, it probably won’t happen at all. So it has to happen tonight.”

“Tonight?” He let go of Nick’s character sheets and glanced around the empty table meant to seat five people. “How?”

“Come on. We’re playing a game called Choice, Chance, and Consequence. A choice is before us. We’ll improv. Roll with the punches. You have everyone’s character sheets here.” Derek’s sniff was quiet as he glanced at the table. Nick drained the rest of his soda before setting it down. “I’m already used to playing two characters. What’s one more? That leaves you with your character and another.” He opened the pizza box and took out a cold slice. “What do you say?”

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A smile finally grew on Derek’s face as he slid Evelyn’s elf princess character sheet over to him. The paper was relatively newer than the others. Where Nick’s had various erase marks and pencil linings, hers was crisp and organized. Despite forgetting it a lot, she had kept hers in top condition. About three years ago, she wanted to update her character sheet with a new one since her handwriting changed. The only difference was she no longer dotted her ‘i’s and ‘j’s with hearts. It took her a surprisingly long time to give up that writing quirk.

“We could even call Tyler to have him guide us!” Derek said.

Nick’s smile faltered. “No, we shouldn’t do that. He’s getting his head checked. Don’t you have a CCNC subscription? Didn’t they release the AI game master?”

The hope dancing in Derek’s eyes vanished. “If Tyler found out we replaced him with AI, he’ll stuff our character sheets into our mouths and bury us alive.”

Nick steepled his fingers, bouncing them against his chin. “Here’s the deal the two of us will make. We’ll try to reschedule another session, but I think all of us know it won’t…” A wetness formed in the corner of Derek’s eyes, and Nick changed his phrase, “…it’ll be a while before it happens. We’ll do a session to give ourselves closure. If another one does happen, we’ll consider this session a practice run.”

The suggestion caused Derek’s lips to purse as he hummed some broadway song Nick didn’t know. Despite Derek’s mind mulling this over, he stood up and got his laptop. “You must be suggesting this because you don’t want to go home.”

“I would do anything not to go home,” Nick mumbled. Not quietly enough, judging by the knowing yet sad smile crossing Derek’s face. “It’s a good thing I love this game.”

Hope returned to Derek’s face, and his smile grew. Yes, Nick wasn’t as passionate about CCNC as Tyler or Derek, but it was still a fun game.

Derek returned to his seat and opened his laptop. Tapping keys was the only sound for a bit. “I chose a one-shot with Torraq and Ashki in a dungeon, but we’ll see what happens. Ugh, it’s got to load.” He placed the laptop near Tyler’s spot. A loading bar blinked and crept forward, and Derek tapped his fingers against the table. “Oh! I forgot! Now that you’re here, I need to prep my dice!” He rushed into his room.

Nick watched him go before he pulled out his cylinder container of CCNC dice and unscrewed the lid. The seven CCNC dice poured out and clattered on the table. The most popular die was the twenty-sided one, but there was also a twelve, ten, eight, six, and four-sided ones as well. There was a second ten-sided dice used for percentages, but he rarely used that one. His dice were a solid black with flecks of gold sprinkled over them. He had picked it out at the store because they reminded him of Grizzizzik’s scales.

He straightened all three character sheets in front of him. Maybe he bit off more than he could chew. Could he role-play a druid elf princess created by his little sister? He wasn’t sure he could do it justice.

With a grunt, Derek returned. There was a 3D-printed dice tower resembling a tower from a castle, and it teetered on his huge container of dice. “Do you love it? I made it especially for the end of this campaign!”

Nick scooped up his d20. “May I?”

“Go ahead!”

He dropped the d20 down the top. The die clinked down the tower before exiting the bottom. Curious, Nick leaned over to see it had landed on a twelve.

Derek shrugged. “I mean… it’s not bad. Wanna do some pre-rolling with me?”

The smile Nick wore didn’t have any sincerity behind it. “I’m good.” He retrieved his d20 and watched Derek settling into his seat. His friend opened the clear container, showing off his seven different dice sets. And these were Derek’s favorite. No doubt there were hundreds of dice in his room. The dice sat in a hexagon shape and, one by one, Derek pulled them out and began his pre-game rolling. He muttered to himself as he rolled, either by hand or dropping them down the dice tower. Whatever Derek did, Nick left him to it.

Evelyn once resisted the lingo of CCNC until she grew into it. One of the first things she caved to was “d20”, since it was easier to say than “twenty-sided dice.” Derek’s superstition with dice was something neither she nor Nick would ever understand. But they respected his rituals, since it made him happy.

Derek pulled out a small cage with ‘dice jail’ inscribed on top. A plain white d20 lived in there. Derek randomly gave it sharp glares throughout sessions. Nick didn’t know what that dice did to deserve an eternity in dice jail. It must have happened when Derek was younger. Once, when Derek had rolled two natural twenties in a row, he grabbed the cage and pointed it at the twenty. “See! That’s how you behave!”

At this point, Nick was too afraid to ask what happened. It was one of those mythical stories he’d never understand.

“Do you think Grizzizzik is finally going to slit Akshi’s throat tonight?” Derek asked as he dropped a d8 and a d6 down the tower.

Nick pinned a d8 with his right thumb and pointer finger, using his left thumb to spin it. “There’s no closure until it happens.”

“Many people call this game cheap man’s therapy, you know.” Derek tossed more dice down the tower. He made faces at the numbers he saw, scooped them up, and tried again.

With a forced smile, he met Derek’s gaze. “In case you need verbal confirmation, I never want to slit my own father’s throat.”

“I’m happy to hear that out loud.”

The laptop chirped, the AI loaded and ready. Derek let out a nervous breath as he picked up Alejandra’s half-orc fighter sheet. Despite standing at six and a half feet tall, Hraktar the half-orc was a gentle giant. It was sweet to watch. Unless the half-orc fighter and his snake rogue ever interacted. Those two hated each other.

Derek placed the character sheet next to his mana fusor’s. “Also, seriously, Tyler can never know about this.”

Nick popped a pretzel in his mouth. “Oh, come on. What’s the worst that can happen?”

With a shout of alarm, Derek pounced to cover his exposed dice. “Don’t say that in front of them. You know how sensitive they are to that kind of language!”

Nick ignored him, taking a huge bite of pizza. “Let’s find Grizzizzik’s dad!”