Nick was writing notes in his history class on Tuesday morning. Mrs. Billings all assumed they were faster writers than they really were. His hand was cramping up with how much he was writing.

His pencil scribbled furiously across his paper, marking down all the different explorers and the important dates. Nick was trying not to feel overwhelmed with how many dates there were in history.

He was almost done writing the notes when he realized Mrs. Billings was frozen. He frowned, then glanced ahead of him and saw a d20 hanging in front of him. He had been so focused on writing that he didn’t realize time had slowed down. Nick blinked, looking around. All his classmates and his teacher, frozen in time. The words floated in front of his eyes.

Roll for stealth.

Dread filled him. He didn’t think this would work this far away. It was somehow more worrisome that he didn’t know what Grizzizzik was doing. His rogue wasn’t supposed to be going anywhere.

Nick grabbed the dice and gave it a shake as every worst-case scenario popped into his head. It would be lunch after this class. Derek had his same lunch. He needed to see if anyone else had experienced this, or if Grizzizzik was doing something alone. The dice tumbled from his hand, landing on a nat one. Nick winced.

“Sorry, Grizzizzik. I didn’t mean it,” Nick mumbled as time resumed. He picked up his pencil as he continued to write the notes. Mrs. Billings kept lecturing, reviewing all the dates that they’d been learning the past couple weeks.

Time again slowed to a stop, and Nick hung his head, trying not to be frustrated. The primary source of his frustration was he’d have a hard time figuring out what Grizzizzik was up to. Unless Clarissa also got involved. Perhaps he could run into Evelyn in the hallway.

Roll for initiative.

“Seriously?” Nick mumbled as he grabbed the die. It landed on a nat twenty, and Nick gave a sigh. “Sorry that wasn’t for your stealth.”

Nick was interrupted again with the d20. He got eighteen total and wasn’t surprised when a d8 showed up. He paused long enough to finish writing what was on the board before shaking it again. It landed on an eight, with a +2 hovering above it. Whatever Grizzizzik was doing, he gave the enemy a very nice ten points of damage.

Nick tried to look past the words of the character sheet floating in front of his face as he kept up with Mrs. Billings’ handwriting. It was harder to ignore as the green words became more solid. Nick’s mind was split between trying to focus on the lecture and worrying about Grizzizzik.

Time once again slowed down, and Nick touched the corner of his eye to see if he could figure out Grizzizzik’s hit points even if he couldn’t see his rogue. He mentally scrolled through all the information before he saw it.

HP: 10/18

“What the hell, Grizzizzik. What are you doing?” Nick grumbled. He felt angry, but he was also worried. This couldn’t be happening. He didn’t want Grizzizzik hurt. Or worse, dragged to his father. He grabbed the d20 and his mind immediately went to Akshi. The snake man might be just outside the bubble. Tyler’s warning about lower-level minions trying to kidnap him and drag him out of the bubble made him nauseous.

He got fifteen, and he rolled another d8, giving Grizzizzik’s enemy six points of damage. Nick shook his head as time resumed. He picked up his pencil, writing as fast as he could. His adrenaline was running as he watched Grizzizzik’s hit points drop from ten to seven. Then from seven to three.

Nick covered his face as time slowed down again. “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” he repeated as he shook the dice again. There were at least two enemies. This wasn’t good. “Shit!” he swore a bit louder as he rolled a two.

His breathing was uneven as he forgot the lecture and watched Grizzizzik’s hit points. The seconds ticked on, and Nick could only hope that whoever it was didn’t get another hit in.

Grizzizzik’s hit points dropped to zero, and Nick pursed his lips together to keep a groan inside. His hand shook as he wrote notes as he waited for a death save. Grizzizzik was going to die. There was no way he was going to survive this. And Nick was helplessly stuck in history for another ten minutes.

Nick didn’t dare check his phone, since Mrs. Billings was a stickler for phones. Instead, he raised his hand, and Mrs. Billings pointed to him.

“Bathroom?”

“Go ahead,” she said.

Nick tried to look like he was calmly leaving to use the restroom, but his desk scrapped against the floor in his rush to head toward the door. Once he was out, he made his way to the bathroom because that’s how he was taught to lie. If anyone stopped him, he was on the way. But he pulled out his phone, seeing if anyone else texted about anything odd.

His heart hammered against his rib cage as he waited for the death saving throw, but it never came. No one was texting him. Would they? They all knew Walt searched his texts every night.

Time stood still, and he stood rooted in the spot.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

How long is Grizzizzik knocked out?

It was a strange sentence to receive until he saw a d4 dice hovering in midair. Whoever was attacking him didn’t want to kill him, they were knocking him out. Was a group of thugs trying to drag him to Akshi outside the bubble? He desperately needed to talk to someone.

The dice landed on a two. Two hours. Nick checked his phone and did the calculations in his mind. Grizzizzik was going to wake up at about 12:55.

Nick walked into the bathroom to splash water on his face. He hated everything about this. Hated that he was here at school and his character was getting into some sort of trouble. Hated how he had to potentially break some rules to make sure he was safe. That he would have to lie. He tried that all before, and the current hell of his life was enough to make him physically nauseous at the idea of breaking the law again.

He had no one’s schedule memorized, and he couldn’t text anyone without Walt knowing he skipped out of class ten minutes early to talk to someone.

Instead, he tried to summon Grizzizzik to him. He’d done it before to attack the hell hound, he could do it again. He was worried about his character, and it would be easier to bring his rogue to school. Concentrating on his fear, on his need to have Grizzizzik with him, he tried to pull his character to him.

He opened his eyes, words greeting him.

Cannot pull Grizzizzik from battle.

Nick covered his face with his wet hands and took a deep, steadying breath. Lunch was in less than five minutes. Derek had lunch with him. He needed to be patient, and then he could talk to Derek. Most importantly, his friend could communicate with everyone else because Derek’s father didn’t check his phone every night.

It took every amount of self-control he had to walk calmly back to class and sit back down at the desk. He wrote furiously, trying to catch up.

When the bell finally rang, Nick’s wrist was cramping, but he kept writing. Once he was done, he stuffed his book and notebook in his bag as he headed straight for the door, his shoulder knocking into someone.

“Hey!” a girl shouted.

“Sorry!” Nick called over his shoulder as he rushed toward the cafeteria. He stumbled in, looking everywhere.

His eyes landed on Derek, who was near the front of the line. He was texting while also laughing with one of his theater friends. Nick rushed forward, doing his best not to run into anyone.

“Derek?” Nick said.

He glanced up from his phone, smiling. “Hey, Nick. How—” Nick had been trying to hide his worry, but Derek picked up on it instantly. “Is everything okay?”

Nick glanced at Derek’s other friends, who gave him a strange look.

“You’re not butting in line, are you?” one of them asked.

“No. No, just a quick question,” Nick said before looking back at Derek. “Do you… ever get random dice rolls during the day?”

“Yes.” Derek’s voice was quieter. “Milo needs to spend hours working on his projects, and I get an occasional prompt for a die roll on whether it’s successful.”

Nick didn’t know this. “What about just barely? Anything prompting a battle?”

Derek’s small smile disappeared, his eyes darting over Nick’s face. “No. Never for a battle. Is…” He glanced again at his friends, and Nick dropped his voice.

“Text the others. See if they got anything about a half hour ago. From what I can gather, Grizzizzik is unconscious. Tell me if Evelyn says anything.”

Derek’s fingers were flying. “I will. See you shortly. We’ll figure something out. Is he stable?”

“Whoever attacked him must have only wanted to knock him out.”

Derek nodded. “Alright. See you soon.”

Nick moved to the back of the line, once again searching through Grizzizzik’s stats. His stomach dropped as he noticed his inventory was completely empty. Nick didn’t see any of the packs, the thieves’ tools, or the hell hound dagger. The rapier and short bow were gone, as well as the twenty arrows. The bag of coins he had was gone, too. Grizzizzik had to be in trouble, and he would still be unconscious until almost one in the afternoon.

Nick got his lunch, his knees quivering as he walked over to where Derek was texting furiously on his phone. His drama friends had gone to sit somewhere else.

“Anything?” Nick asked.

“Alejandra said she hadn’t gotten a roll. Evelyn isn’t answering. Do you know what class she has right now?” Derek asked.

“Somewhere on the other side of school.” Nick somehow felt both ravenous from stress, but too anxious that the food would sit, churning in his stomach. He ate anyway, since he couldn’t imagine going the rest of the school day without food.

“We’ll get it figured out. Don’t worry.”

“I’m trying really hard not to.” Nick grabbed the roll and stuffed it in his face.

“I’ve been meaning to ask. You two, you and Grizzizzik…” Derek struggled for the words to say. “How is it being under one roof?”

Nick gave a laugh that sounded more like a grunt. “Ridiculous.”

Derek kept glancing at his phone, but there was compassion written on his face. “Anything I can do to help?”

Nick used the excuse of the large amount of food he stuffed in his mouth to keep himself from answering right away. “We don’t get along. Grizzizzik has always been a lone wolf, and the fact that someone controls his actions in a way deeply unsettles him. All the while Evelyn and the princess are having mani-pedi’s in the next room over.”

Derek snorted, picking up his corn dog. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He took a bite.

Nick rubbed his face again before taking another large bite of mashed potatoes. As much as this sucked, his part of this was over. Derek knew, and he sent out the texts. But it still wasn’t enough.

“Hey, we’ve got to set up some sort of code system for my texting. At least for today. I need to know if anyone else got a random dice roll. Despite how much Grizzizzik annoys me, it’s for the best if we figure out what’s happening to him,” Nick said.

“On it. I haven’t heard from Evelyn, who is the most likely candidate for if she heard something.” Derek checked his phone again before setting it down. “If she didn’t get a roll, I’ll text you something generic, like ‘I love CCNC!’ If she did, I’ll say…” Derek scrunched up his face in thought. “‘Ugh, not ready for the test in AP Biology.’”

Nick nodded. “Alright. Um… if something urgent comes up…” Nick tried to think of something.

Derek watched him closely. “It’s not worth it to skip school. Your father will find out, and there will be hell to pay.”

Nick placed his elbows on the table, digging his fingertips into his forehead. “Something’s going on. Grizzizzik is trying to do his own thing. He’s so smart and cunning, unless it has anything to do with his revenge plot against his father. A group of mercenaries could very well be dragging him out of the bubble to get slaughtered by Akshi.” Nick covered his face.

Derek’s phone buzzed. It was in his hand before the end of the vibration. Nick glanced through his fingers as Derek dejectedly replied to whoever texted him. “It’s not someone in the group.” He set the phone down, looking at him. “I noticed you didn’t assure me you won’t skip school over this.”

“I won’t. I promise. It’s not worth it.” Nick shoveled some more corn on his spoon. He wasn’t sure what Grizzizzik could do to even tempt him to skip school, and he didn’t want to think about it. But for now, this was not it.

Then again, he might regret not rushing home right now.