Derek watched, fascinated, as Milo got to work in the kitchen. From what he could tell, Milo had pulled out a lot of the vital essence from the hell hound and placed it in separate beakers or vials while out there in the scorching sun. But then he also placed the entire carcass in his inventory to bring home. The entire thing vanished when Milo placed it behind his back. It was the strangest thing. Derek doubted anyone else could smell it, because no one else commented on the sulfur smell drifting through the air of their home.

Milo got to work on the stove, heating the magma back up. He fiddled with the stove, and something below it glowed. That was definitely not electricity.

“Do you…” Derek started to say before he wondered if he was breaking Milo’s concentration. Derek glanced around and saw his little brother Antonio working on homework, completely oblivious to Milo. Derek got up and walked closer to the mana fusor. “Do you remember what it was like in… the Shrouded Domain?” Derek still kept an eye on Antonio, but he wasn’t listening to Derek, focused completely on his assignments with his head phones in. Derek grabbed an apple just to look like he was here for a snack.

“Of course I remember home,” Milo said as the beaker glowed. Derek was now afraid of being so near Milo. He may only be in AP biology, but he knew enough not to stick a beaker straight onto a stovetop. At least they were Milo’s, so perhaps they had some sort of magical protection.

Until he thought about the reason Milo and the others traveled to earth in the first place.

“Could you tell a difference? Going from a level five and reverting to level one?”

“I figured it must have something to do with this new atmosphere. Makes some skills not coming to me as easily,” Milo said.

“It’s just you’re acting a lot like an alchemist, and I thought… are you still interested in being an artillerist like before?”

“Every mana fusor at his core is an alchemist, but I have no intentions of making that a career.” Milo tapped the beaker with his magical wrench, and it glowed a dark red color. “I know how weak I am compared to the others. I’ve always been… what’s the word…”

“Squishy?” Derek ventured.

Milo shrugged. “Sure. Squishy. I don’t like it. Especially since I can remember what it was like at home. The air thick with mana. Being able to channel it into my inventions. Being able to wipe out enemies more efficiently even than Hraktar with my cannon. I have no intention of staying behind in my lab, but I certainly appreciate it for the weapons it gives me.”

Derek nodded, then was struck with an idea. “Do you know why Alejandra had car trouble today?” Derek had a feeling that Antonio would hear if he said hell hound. He didn’t get the full story from Alejandra, but cars were a thing of technology, and perhaps Milo had an idea how a magical being could touch technology. The world slowed down, and Derek glanced around, curious.

Roll for insight.

“Huh,” Derek said as he took the d20. He rolled it and smiled when it landed on twenty. That had to be good.

Time resumed. Milo kept his fingers hovered around the beaker. His brows furrowed in thought. “That man that we went to go visit. The one who used to court your sister.”

“Tyler?” Derek said, feeling his heart hammering.

“Yes. Tyler. The only people who can see us are those who have a part to play in protecting your realm,” Milo said.

“Protecting… my realm? What are you talking about?” Derek said.

“We are adventurers. We go where we need to be. Sure, we mess things up at times, but we do our best. We’re almost guided to protect those who can’t protect themselves. We’re needed here. No one else wants to admit it, but something sinister is afoot,” Milo said.

Derek resisted the urge to crack a joke. A lot of what Milo was saying was making sense, and he didn’t like it.

“This is beyond Grizzizzik’s father. Even beyond Torraq. It’s best to discover why we showed up in the first place before figuring out how to get back. There might be something we need to do to protect this realm before we return to ours, and your friend Tyler is the key.”

Derek felt a chill creep through his body. With everything he’d experienced, he almost wouldn’t have believed it. But he rolled a nat twenty. Milo told him everything he knew about the subject, and he was deeply uncomfortable about the answer.

His main quest tab pulled open by itself, and writing appeared in there.

Figure out what Tyler knows.

Derek pushed off from the counter, pulling out his phone and called Tyler. He didn’t answer, his voicemail popping up.

“Hey Tyler. It’s Derek.” There was an obvious tremor in his voice that he could not force to be calm. “Um… we need to do a CCNC sesh. As soon as possible. With everyone. Call me back, please.”

***

“You believed it?” Nick asked.

He heard Alejandra’s laughter on the other side of the phone. “Of course I believed it! Billy isn’t one to lie!”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Nick laughed again. “That’s all Billy does. He must have been worse in elementary school.”

“Don’t blame nine-year-old me for wanting to see a flying iguana. Blame Billy for getting my hopes up.”

Nick couldn’t help but chuckle, but it quickly ended when he heard the knock at the door.

“Nick? It’s ten o’clock,” Walt said.

All the mirth left his body. Ten o’clock was his deadline for his phone. Nick’s nostrils flared. “Uh, Alejandra? I’ve… um, I’ve got to go.”

“Oh. I guess it is getting late, isn’t it?”

He got off his bed. “Yeah. It is. I’m really glad your car’s fine.”

“Me too. Thank you again. I’ll see you tomorrow at school,” Alejandra said.

“See you tomorrow.”

Nick opened the door as he ended the call. Walt was there, and Nick tried not to react as he also saw Grizzizzik leaning against the wall, still working on making a dagger out of the hell hound’s tooth.

“Who was that?” Walt asked, taking the phone.

“Alejandra Walker,” Nick said, as Walt checked the phone to make sure he wasn’t lying. Alejandra once told him that her name was a specific request from her mother. Since Mariana took Jack’s last name, she wanted to give her children more Hispanic names. From what he heard, it was the only request Jack allowed.

“Walker? Is that Rafael Walker’s little sister?” his father asked.

“Um, yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Walt’s face noticeably relaxed, which made Nick’s stiffen. “Rafael’s a good kid. You should invite him around more often.”

Nick was glad Walt was more focused on the phone, because he was sure his eye twitched. He resisted the urge to touch the scar across his eyebrow. It was never a good idea to remind Walt about how he got that. “He’s too busy nowadays.” And is as unforgiving as you when he learned about the car crash.

“No doubt. It’s what makes him such a good kid. Though it looks like you’re going to be having a CCNC session with him on Saturday.”

Nick frowned. “What?”

Walt showed him the small screen of his phone, which didn’t help. “Derek texted about an hour ago.”

Nick took the phone, noticing the group text.

CCNC sesh with Tyler this Saturday! No one miss it! (I’m looking at you, Rafael)

Derek’s reply had an emoji of gigantic eyes. He scrolled through his friends’ replies. There was more to this. He was grateful Derek and everyone else pretended this was a session instead of the obvious that it was figuring out their current situation.

“So can I go?” Nick asked.

“Sure, sure. Say hello to Rafael for me.”

“Right,” Nick said through a clamped jaw as Walt took the phone back.

“So why were you talking to Alejandra so much today?” He paused, his fingers on the phone history. “Missed call from her. Then you called her back. During work.”

“She had car trouble. I left to help her. I was calling her tonight to make sure she got home alright,” Nick said.

Walt glanced up, eyes narrowing. “What was wrong with her car?”

“Her battery was dead. I helped her jump it,” Nick said.

“How long did it take?”

Nick shrugged. “An hour, tops. There, jump the battery and chat for a bit, back to work.”

“And Ike knew about this?” his father asked.

Nick knew Walt would call his boss, so he had to be as truthful as possible. “When she called, she was stuck in the car. I left without saying anything because it was dangerous. But I explained the whole situation to Mr. Morgan, and he found nothing wrong with that.”

Walt’s suspicion was there, like he knew it would. “I shall get back to you if I have questions,” he said before leaving the room with his phone. The glare settled over Nick’s face. Grizzizzik watched the encounter with curiosity before glancing back at Nick, smiling.

“Lovely father you have.”

Nick said nothing, heading into his room. Grizzizzik followed, closing the door behind him. “No offense, man, but you’re not exactly the best person to go to for father son relationship advice.”

Grizzizzik settled against the wall. “I could help you get rid of him.”

“That’s what I mean.” Nick checked the door again to make sure Walt was far enough away. “In this world, it’s in fact frowned upon for kids to kill their parents.”

“Who said anything about killing?” Grizzizzik asked.

Nick gave him a look. “Yeah, that’s my bad. I guess I can’t imagine you suggesting anything different when you’re sharpening the tooth of a hell hound you recently pulled from its corpse.”

Grizzizzik smiled lovingly at the tooth. “You got me there.”

“Once I turn eighteen, I’m moving out. I just need to make it to April tenth,” Nick said.

“And then what?” Grizzizzik asked.

Nick glanced at Grizzizzik. The snake man was rubbing something on the tooth, looking focused, but the question hung in the air. He expected an answer.

“And then what… what?” Nick asked.

“You move out of this house, and then what?” Grizzizzik asked.

Nick blinked. “Move into an apartment. Get my own place. Keep working so I can pay rent.”

“An apartment where?”

“Um, not sure. I probably won’t have a car, so it’ll have to be within a bikes ride to school and work,” Nick said.

“Okay.” Grizzizzik felt the tooth. “And then what?”

“Well, I’m going to finish school. It’d be stupid to drop out a month before the year ends.”

“Okay. And then what?” Grizzizzik asked.

Annoyance crept through him. “You don’t really seem like the kind of person who actually cares.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Grizzizzik blew something off the tooth. “But I am interested. Interested to see what kind of person you are, partially for self-preservation.” He set the sharp tooth to one side before pulling out a femur bone. Inventories in CCNC were never logical. Grizzizzik just reached behind himself and pulled out an entire femur. He pulled out a bottle and opened it. “Are you the dreamer? A man who always believes there’s something better for him once he achieves the thing he thinks he wants? Waits patiently on someone else’s deadline to escape a prison he doesn’t deserve?” He pulled out a rag, placing it over the top of the bottle, turning the bottle to the side. “Or are you the man who pulls a dream from sleep and grapples with it, demanding it work for him now?”

Nick frowned, watching the rogue wipe down the bone. “Again, Grizzizzik, I’m not killing my father.”

“You’re the one who created me, right?” Grizzizzik asked.

Nick didn’t know why that thought made him so uncomfortable. Grizzizzik was literally just a person he thought of before placing pencil to paper. Somehow, Grizzizzik was brought to life. “I suppose.”

“Then what’s my backstory?” Grizzizzik asked.

Nick understood why Grizzizzik was questioning him. The rogue rarely told his backstory. The only reason the others knew was because Hraktar forced the backstory out of him like… well, like a rogue pulling teeth out of a hell hound carcass. Grizzizzik wouldn’t volunteer this information. He was going to see how much Nick knew about it.

Which was an interesting idea. Grizzizzik certainly looked like how Nick imagined. Definitely acted like it. But what if there was something in his backstory that didn’t line up? What if Grizzizzik just looked like him, but wasn’t him somehow? There had to be a way to check, but for now he was curious to know how the rogue would react to Nick knowing the entire backstory.

Nick paused, then went over to his desk. He opened a drawer and riffled through it before finding his Grizzizzik notebook he used to keep when he was younger. Different drawings of his face, different drawings of weapons. He never planned on showing anyone this, and he hadn’t opened it in years. But if Grizzizzik wanted proof, he would give it to him.