They left Calawit’s tent as it got darker. The flower petals were soft enough to never be restrictive. Almost comfortable, but Nick was more than happy to get out of the tent and leave the petals behind. The petals exploded off him, like he’d hit a wall only he could go through. Nick didn’t care to follow and see where the petals ended up. He just wanted to get out of there. He glared at the darkness, shaking out his arms. Evelyn’s phone vibrated, and she pulled it out to answer it. Once Nick’s hands were free, he dug them deep into his pockets and headed straight for the minivan.

“Dad, come on. I’m not… no. Just trust us, okay?” Evelyn said.

Nick shot Evelyn a look that was already dirty because of how horrible this session was going. They hadn’t even reached the demon rats.

“No, dad. I’m not doing it. Don’t call me again.” Evelyn hung up and silenced her phone.

Derek glanced at both of them as he unlocked the minivan. His phone went off, and he pulled it out before giving Evelyn a panicked look.

“You don’t have to answer.” It was the most dry Evelyn’s voice had ever been.

Derek winced, then cleared his throat before sliding his finger across the phone and placing it against his ear. “Hey Mr. Larsen.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes before climbing into the van.

“Yeah…. Yeah…. No…. Yeah…. Of course….” Derek was squirming as a bead of sweat appeared on his forehead. He lowered the phone to his chest, bracing himself. “Hey, um, Rafael? Mr. Larsen wants to talk to you.”

Rafael frowned, looking at Derek before getting distracted by the CCNC characters climbing into the van. “Why?”

“He wants to ask you questions about how the session is going.” Rafael was confused, but took the phone. Derek lowered his voice. “Be as honest as possible. It makes it easier.”

Rafael was still confused, bringing the phone up to his ear. “Hi. Um, hi, Mr. Larsen.” Nick shook his head, following the characters into the minivan. He folded his arms, his blood roaring through his ears.

“Yeah. Of course. We’ve—” Rafael glanced at Derek and Tyler. “We’ve figured out from… from the shopkeeper where we need to go to fight the demon rats infesting the fantasy town.” He cleared his throat. “Yeah. CCNC is… wild.”

Tyler gave an enthusiastic thumbs up as Alejandra climbed in next to Nick. She took his arm, forcing him to unfold them before sliding her hand into his. It was incredible how good that felt. She leaned over, close to his ear. “You’re a good guy. I’m sorry it takes people a while to see that.”

Nick closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose. To distract himself, he thought of the different apartments he found in Elmwood. They were small, run down places, but they were a symbol of escape. Less than a year, and Walt wouldn’t call any of his friends like this again.

“Yep. I’m having a great night. Good to talk to you too, Mr. Larsen. Yeah, see you later. Bye.” Rafael ended the call, handing Derek’s phone back to him. “Why was I talking to Mr. Larsen again?”

“He checks up on us on occasion. Makes sure… Nick is really here. That CCNC is going how he expected,” Derek said.

Rafael took this in, then gave the barest glances in Nick’s direction before looking back at Derek and Tyler. For an answer, he grunted before climbing into the back of the van. A vein in Nick’s eye was about to burst with the effort it took to not roll them.

Derek climbed in as Tyler got around to the other side. Tyler buckled himself and tightened the seat belt. “Calawit is pretty certain about where these demon rats are. She’s also afraid they’ve been multiplying, so… we need to be careful.”

“Exactly how many rats are there?” Alejandra asked as Derek started up the van.

“There were a hundred regular rats in the dungeon.” Tyler put the address into his phone as Derek pulled onto the road. “Whether they came with the blast, we’ll see. Demon rats, however, those are more mythical, and there were fifteen of those creatures hanging out in the dungeon.” Tyler scrolled through the list of monsters. “All of them are an extremely low challenge rating, so it’s an excellent start for Ezekiel to get experience points.”

“There’s just going to be a lot of them,” Clarissa said.

Tyler nodded. “No one’s afraid of rats, are they?”

No one said anything. The GPS chirped at Derek to turn left.

“They could bite ankles,” Milo said, then glanced at Ezekiel. Nick understood the concern. Everyone else had hit points in the twenties, and in Hraktar’s case, the thirties. Ezekiel was at ten. Nick didn’t know the bite attack on demon rats, but he assumed it wouldn’t take too many to knock Ezekiel out.

Hraktar’s hand came up from the back, patting Ezekiel. “If needed, you can climb on my shoulder to get away from the rats.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I might take you up on that offer,” Ezekiel said.

The nerves of the upcoming encounter made Nick need to ask his question to put his mind at ease. He didn’t look at Rafael or Ezekiel, but still asked his question. “You’ve got spells prepared now, right?”

“Yes, we prepared some spells,” Ezekiel said.

“Good.”

The silence descended on the car.

“Nick,” Alejandra started to say.

He had the distinct impression he was in trouble, and he didn’t know why anyone thought that. “What?”

“You’re…” Alejandra trailed off, then glanced away.

He shrugged, her hand slipping from his. “I’m making sure we’re as prepared as we can be.”

“You can certainly ask again without making me feel incompetent,” Rafael said with a surprising bite.

Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We haven’t played together in a while, and the last time we did this, it seemed like you failed to remember what a cleric actually does.”

There was a lot of noise that came out of many people, and Nick had a hard time deciphering it.

“Come on, Nick,” Alejandra said next to him. “Rafael and Ezekiel spent an hour creating holy water for this mission.”

Evelyn and Derek were saying something, but he couldn’t understand them.

Rafael’s voice seemed to cut through at Nick. “It’s only been a few years. It’s not like I was gone forever.”

Nick turned himself around to face Rafael. “The way you played Ezekiel last month certainly made it feel like you were gone forever.”

“HEY!” Tyler said, loud and long. The noise in the van subsided as Tyler stared at them all again. He gave a sigh. “Come on, guys. I know tension is high, but… but we’ve got to work together. I understand the hurt runs deep in this group, but your characters are relying on you. We’ve got to get them home.” He seemed to deflate. “Pretend? Pretend you’re friends again?” He rubbed his face as though he, too, knew how stupid that sounded.

Nick folded his arms tightly over his chest. Silence again descended among the people in the van, except for the occasional chirping of the GPS.

The silence might have gone the entire stretch, but Ezekiel straightened in his seat. “So… are we talking about hard things? Because we need to discuss something.” The entire van held its breath. Nick braced himself for whatever Ezekiel had to say. This couldn’t be good. He’d played Ezekiel long enough to know the cleric spent way too much time reading books instead of interacting with people. His social cues weren’t the best. “Milo, Princess, Grizzizzik. You slaughtered some of Hraktar’s orc tribe—”

“Ezekiel!” There was panic in Hraktar’s voice.

“—and he’s been in a weird funk about it all week. We need to figure this out before we focus on destroying some demon rats.”

Milo and Clarissa exchanged glances. Hraktar, who was in the back of the van, sunk further into himself.

“So… you didn’t want us to kill those orcs?” Milo asked.

Hraktar didn’t say anything. Then a defeated sigh came from him. “I don’t know. It just felt…”

“Icky?” Alejandra suggested.

The fighter nodded. “Icky.”

Grizzizzik was inspecting his hell dagger. “Did you want to be there with us? Cracking the heads of the people who wronged you?”

“No.” Hraktar’s answer came in fast. “Or… I don’t know.”

Clarissa turned to see Hraktar. “Perhaps it was wrong of us not to check with your first. Please accept our apology.”

“It’s not… I mean…”

The druid shook her head. “You’ve clearly been hurt by what we did. And I’m sorry. You are figuring some things out, so my suggestion is we all leave the orcs alone until you’ve come to terms with it.”

“Leave the orcs alone?” Milo asked.

Grizzizzik glanced up from his hell dagger. “But… they could gather in strength. It would be better to keep whittling them away while they’re not as strong instead of waiting for them to gain strength.”

Clarissa nodded. “It would, yes. But Hraktar’s our friend.”

The rogue waited for more explanation, but none came. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“He has to know we have his back,” Ezekiel said.

“Give him time and space to work through things. He’s got more of a history with the orcs, so he needs to mentally prepare himself better,” Clarissa said.

Grizzizzik sighed, but said nothing.

Nick rubbed the scar across his eyebrow, still feeling the lingering hate in his system, when Derek slammed on the brakes. There was a chorus of groans. Nick straightened and saw the problem.

“That’s more than fifteen,” Derek whispered.

A migration of flesh, fur, and skin made their way across the road, inches from the minivan’s wheel.

“How many are there?” Nick asked.

“More than fifteen.” Derek was stuck on that phrase.

“Can you run them over?” Alejandra asked.

“I doubt it. Since they’re mythical creatures, they wouldn’t—hey!” Tyler was cut off as Derek floored it. Nick instinctively threw his arms out to protect both Alejandra and Evelyn as the minivan hit many, many rats.

Derek drove further before pulling off to the side of the road.

Tyler spun around, a hand on the handle. “Stay in here.” He threw open the door and slipped out of the minivan.

The problem with that was Nick didn’t know if Tyler was talking to everyone, or only the CCNC characters. Since he didn’t specify, Nick unbuckled himself. He climbed to the front and got out of Tyler’s door.

He walked over to Tyler, who had his phone in hand with the flashlight on. Nick pulled himself to a stop when he saw the scene. A trail of dead rats remained where the wheels had driven over. Some of the injured were scuttling away. Those who weren’t dead squealed in the night.

“What is it?” Nick asked.

“This is… the worst feeling,” Tyler said, holding his stomach.

“What? Why?”

“We shouldn’t have been able to kill the rats. They’re mythical.”

The squeaking came near. Nick glanced behind him, trying to find where the squeaking was coming from. “Unless… some of them aren’t mythical demon rats.”

The huge cluster of rats appeared, like they were checking their dead. “That’s impossible.” Tyler held the flashlight up higher. “The CCNC world and the real world can’t coexist. A bunch of rats from our earth couldn’t interact with demon rats, that would…” Tyler trailed off.

“Start a problem so big that whatever game master is up there is probably warning you by giving you a really, really bad feeling?” Nick asked.

Tyler froze, then glanced at Nick, his eyes wide. “Shit.”

Now that Nick was looking for it, he guessed that a third of them were regular rats. All the others were demon rats. He could tell by the small, glowing red light emanating from the centers of their bodies, pulsing with their rapid heartbeats.

“There’s still a lot more than fifteen,” Nick whispered.

At Nick’s words, the mass of fur turned as one. Nick and Tyler both took a few stumbling steps back. Far faster than Nick could comprehend, the mass ran toward them, squeaking ferociously.

If it was the daytime, he would have found it almost comical. But at night, when he could see them by the pulsing red light and the phone flashlight, all he saw was a horde headed straight for them. He was pretty sure some of them were from earth, too. The earth rats acted as violently as the ones from the Shrouded Domain, and they could actually bite him.