Derek abandoned thoughts of sleep. Tomorrow, he’d chug some energy drinks, because too many mysteries had his attention. He had gone to bed at eleven, but woke up at midnight after hearing a thunk in his room. Seeing Milo surprised him, but Hraktar’s face made him scream. Derek apologized profusely afterwards, because the fighter was touchy about his half-orc heritage. Hraktar tried to seem human by keeping black hair cropped, but it was impossible to hide his green skin and lower tusks, let alone his six foot five muscular body. It was Hraktar’s mangled right ear that stood out to him, since Derek forgot he had that.

If it was only Milo, Derek would have thought an intruder broke in who was the spiting image of his mana fusor. However, there weren’t half-orcs on earth. Hraktar was the oldest of the CCNC group, at forty years old. Technically Clarissa was a hundred and fifty, but she acted like someone in their early twenties, same as Milo and Ezekiel.

A soft snore emanated from Hraktar, lounged out on Derek’s bed. Derek’s spine ached, hunched over his desk, studying the dice Milo gave him. As a nerd himself, Milo turned Derek’s phone over and over, studying it with his magnifying glass. It entertained him for a good half hour. Milo wore one of Derek’s CCNC shirts and the shorts he came with. It was strange to look at Milo and not see suspenders and rolled-up sleeves.

The house was quiet again. His mother checked on him after he screamed, but everyone went back to sleep for the night. Mark and Antonio were probably sneaking some video games before school started Monday, but Derek didn’t bother them.

Milo set Derek’s phone on the floor and walked to the desk. He leaned against it and folded his arms, using his chin to gesture at the dice. “What are they?”

“Dice. For CCNC.” Derek lifted the d20 to the lamp over his desk. The die was a midnight blue with gold numbers. It looked similar to his other dice sets, but different on one key thing. At the center of his new midnight blue dice was a soft, swirling portal of red, black, gold, green, and blue. The colors of mana in the Shrouded Domain.

“CCNC?” Milo touched the letters on his borrowed shirt.

“The game we played while controlling… you.”

Curious, Milo reached forward to pick up the d8, but his fingers moved past it. It didn’t discourage him, and caused his science mind to churn. His fingers moved through the rest of the dice on the desk before bumping into the empty red velvet bag. “You and your friend were the giants I saw while running through Torraq’s lair.”

Derek straightened his spine as he mulled over Milo’s words. He had tried to understand how these characters appeared on earth, let alone existed. Nick’s teasingly dirty twenty existential crisis he’d given Milo momentarily slipped his mind. So far, Derek’s theory was the AI caused this somehow, but Milo’s stroke of genius was another clue.

“So… you are Gods?”

It was innocent enough, but it still made Derek snort. “Not at all. No, we’re a bunch of teenagers playing a tabletop RPG. And yet…”

“And yet we’re real,” Milo finished.

In the past three hours since Milo appeared, Derek caught himself occasionally staring at Milo in awe, and he found himself once again doing that. His character, the one he thought lived in his imagination, was here with his brown eyes and brown hair that, for now, was nice and combed. In the heat of the battle, it always gave off “mad scientist” vibes. A green number appeared above Milo’s head.

HP 11/11.

Eleven was low, which meant Milo was at level one. Somehow, they reset their levels when they traveled to earth. He returned to studying the dice, picking up the d6. Words materialized in front of him, almost like a HUD system filtered into his vison. They glowed a green color, the same green as Milo’s HP.

Roll for your character?

Derek raised an eyebrow at that. His eyes darted around, but the words followed his gaze in the middle of his vision.

“What the hell,” Derek whispered.

Seeing his agitation, Milo tried to follow Derek’s gaze, but didn’t see the words. “What? What is it?”

“I think I need to roll for your character. Like when I first created you.”

The mana fusor tilted his head to one side, taking in Derek again. “Are you sure you’re not a God?”

“One hundred percent positive.” Derek squinted, trying to get a better look at the d6. Milo handed him back the magnifying glass Derek let him borrow. “Thanks.” Even with a magnified gaze, the die looked like a regular d6, except for the swirling portal in the middle.

Since Milo and Ezekiel were best friend, Milo became semi-religious. The thought of a teenager being his creator didn’t bother Milo. How Derek understood this was one of the many mysteries piling up.

The words in his gaze melted from his vision, and a table popped into it instead. It had a dropdown menu, and he felt excited. It was like CCNC, except in real life and connected to his brain somehow. He wondered how to choose Milo’s inventory when it popped up with nothing inside.

Start from scratch, or auto build from previous character sheet?

The words were there again in his vision, but nerves trickled in. He didn’t want to ruin Milo, so he wanted to choose the previous character sheet, but how? Maybe he needed to think it?

With a thought, the words melted away.

“Whoa.” Milo’s quiet exclamation pulled Derek’s focus to Milo, seeing him completely dressed. He wore long brown pants. Milo grabbed the shirt Derek gave him and eased it off to reveal the suspenders and the cream-colored shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Derek gasped. It was clothes, but his character finally looked like everything he imagined.

Derek focused on the list of things in Milo’s inventory. It was much fuller. “You have your crossbow now?”

His mana fusor’s gaze bounced around, then he reached behind him near the small of his back. He pulled out a crossbow. With his other hand, he reached in the same place and pulled out a crossbow bolt. Excitement filled his eyes. “Sweet! I wonder…” He reached behind him, placing the crossbow and the bolt back in the… whatever place was clearly back there. He pulled out an empty vial and an empty beaker, the light filling his eyes far brighter. “YES!” Of course the twenty-four-year-old would be far more excited about his ability to do some science than the crossbow. His weapon, too, had reverted to a smaller level crossbow, as Milo didn’t have the skill or experience to buff it again.

With a thought, Derek pulled up Milo’s inventory and studied it. Milo got a basic starter kit for mana fusing, as well as his magical wrench. There were some basic rations and gear for surviving, not that he would need it in the modern world. Milo sat cross-legged on the ground, taking out everything from his inventory to inspect it. He pulled out a lot of things, and Derek wondered if there was a void near the small of his back holding all these things.

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While Milo looked through his gear, Derek sifted through Milo’s character traits. He opened a drawer and pulled out Milo’s physical character sheet and compared the traits. It was all there. Word for word. The loyalty to Ezekiel, the love of science and invention, the way he often got lost in unlocking the secrets of mana to fuse it with objects. Derek didn’t know why he got so teary-eyed, but he did. His character was here, in his room, and not as a figurine. All the adventures they had gone on, they were real.

Derek looked at Milo’s list of feats. He was an investigator with a law enforcement background, which meant he could pull some weight around with the local law enforcement if needed. Derek didn’t know how that would translate to earth. As far as he could tell, no one else saw them. His sixteen-year-old sister Camilla asked him why he screamed, and if she had seen Hraktar, she would have screamed, too. But no one had. The only people who might see Milo and Hraktar would be him, Nick, Alejandra, and Evelyn. Possibly Rafael.

Either way, an investigator didn’t end up being as helpful in adventuring as Derek thought. It was mostly to get Grizzizzik out of trouble, as long as they did it behind Ezekiel’s back. Ezekiel only knew a fraction of Grizzizzik’s crimes they’d done while adventuring. It was a running joke for Milo to sneak Grizzizzik out of prison without Ezekiel knowing.

When Derek had created Milo, he wanted his mana fusor to be a powerful addition to a party. And he would, as long as he survived past level three. Until then, mana fusors were squishy. He gave Milo the crossbow expert feat to make him deadly from a distance. With the feat, Milo didn’t have to worry about taking time to load a crossbow and it didn’t have disadvantage at close range. He could also attack with a weapon using an action, then use the crossbow as a bonus action, even at level one. True, Milo’s only other weapon was a dagger, but in a tight spot, damage was damage.

His second feat was the spell sniper, which meant his spells ignored the cover rule. Even if the person was hiding, Milo could disregard the rule of disadvantage and hit them without rolling twice and taking the smaller number. Also, the range of the spell doubled. He just needed a powerful cantrip.

Spells.

A bubbly excitement lightened Derek’s chest, to where he would have giggled if it wasn’t so late. Did they have spells and mana now that they’ve traveled to earth? He mentally searched the main dropdown page to find spells. He tried selecting it when words sprang to his vision again.

Roll for your character.

Derek glanced at the dice on his desk. If he remembered right, he needed to roll four d6’s, but he only had one. He picked up the d6 and shook it a bit before letting it drop. It landed on four, and a green four appeared in his vision. Derek raised an eyebrow, then shook the dice again, landing on a one. The one appeared in his vision with the four, and he kept going. He got a five, then a three.

The one in his vision melted away, then the four, five, and three combined to twelve. The number became small and zoomed to the corner of his vision.

Roll again.

A smile flickered across his face, then he did the same thing again. He rolled the dice four more times, and this time got a sixteen. That number, too, zoomed in the corner to join the twelve. He kept rolling until he got six total numbers, the worst being eight. That was a poor set of rolls. Milo sat cross-legged on the floor, studying the contents of his pack.

The numbers zoomed to the forefront of his vision again, and six boxes with words underneath joined the strange HUD system.

Choose the numbers for your abilities. Suggestions will be highlighted.

Derek had created so many characters in his life that this was second nature to him. His lowest number was an eight, which he didn’t love, but sometimes the roll was bad. He had two sixteens, and when he mentally chose one of them, the box marked Intelligence became highlighted. That was the stat needed for spell casting for a mana fusor, so the best choice for the highest number. He slid that number in.

Calculating…

Derek waited, then saw a +3 appear in the bigger section of the box. It was the modifier, which meant every time he rolled the dice with an intelligence skill or a saving throw, he’d get three more points to the roll.

“Sick,” Derek whispered. He rushed through the other numbers, feeling a sense of elation as he did so. The phone nabbed Milo’s attention again, especially now that it was charging. Electricity fascinated him.

In ten minutes, Derek leaned back to look at the stats.

Strength: 8 (-1)

Dexterity: 14 (+2)

Constitution: 16 (+3)

Intelligence: 16 (+3)

Wisdom: 12 (+1)

Charisma: 12 (+1)

It didn’t let him rest. Each main six abilities had multiple related skills. Skills like nature, medicine, intimidation, sleight of hand. They began to auto fill with the modifier numbers.

With an investigator’s background, choose INSIGHT or INVESTIGATION to be proficient in.

Derek stared at the extensive list of skills, then chose insight for now. If Milo could help them figure out their situation about teleporting to earth, that’d be helpful.

Choose MEDICINE or NATURE to be proficient in.

The sure smile was back as he chose nature. The strange words in his vision asked him a few more questions, and Derek made his choices. Overall, he had chosen Arcana, Insight, Investigation, Nature, and Perception to have a +2 bonus. True, it would do little if he had crappy rolls, but any bonus helped. He had done this so many times, he forgot these were Milo’s stats. A man sitting next to him. What would he be rolling against?

“Is mana in this realm?” Milo asked.

It was like Milo, too, could sense Derek’s thoughts. Derek mentally chose the mana option on the character sheet and saw the list of cantrips and spells his mana fusor could learn.

“Um… not really. No. Earth isn’t a magical place.”

Milo frowned, pulling out his wrench from his inventory. It was his magic tool, like Ezekiel’s medallion from the Great Lady of Light. Milo touched the wrench against Derek’s phone, but nothing happened.

With a mental flick, Derek searched through the cantrips and level one spells. Milo had two mana slots for his level one spells, and didn’t use slots for his cantrips. Derek made some decisions based on playing this character for a few years now. He didn’t feel stress as he chose a spell, knowing they could change tomorrow, so he chose a fire bolt cantrip and shocking grip. He choose three level one spells, and decided on cure wounds, arcane weapon, and disguise self. After he decided, he wondered why Milo needed disguise self when no one could see him.

He gave the stats one more glance. Hit points were on the character sheet, too, even though it was also above Milo’s head. Everything was set.

“Alright, you can choose a spell if you’d like,” Derek said.

Milo nodded, then pulled out his crossbow. He whacked it with his wrench, a yellow light filling it and making it sizzle. Derek’s eyes widened. Milo was in the mad scientist’s portion of his focus now. Without even thinking about it, he loaded a bolt, raised it, and shot.

“Wait!”

The bolt slammed into the wall. Hraktar shot out of bed, reaching for a weapon himself. “What? What happened?”

Electricity sizzled over the wall before dying out. The bolt disappeared, as did the hole. There was a mark above level one, showing he’d used a mana slot to cast his spell. Milo lowered the crossbow with a frown on his face. “Something isn’t right.”

Derek’s fingers ran over the perfect wall near his bed. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t… I don’t quite know how to explain it…” Milo rubbed his head, then his hand froze. Derek blinked, but Milo didn’t move. He glanced at Hraktar, but he, too, looked frozen in time. Derek looked down at his hands. Were his characters frozen somehow?

Roll for insight.

The words confused him. He tried to walk toward the desk, but his legs were stuck in whatever made the rest of his characters frozen. How could he get to the dice if he could only move his upper body?

The dice on the desk dissolved into particles of light and dark. He tilted his head to one side, then grew in alarm as the particles rushed into his gut. He tried to jerk his legs out of the time freeze, but it was too late. Whatever they were hit. Before Derek had time to truly panic, the d20 popped in front of him, floating in midair. He stared at it, then reached out, grabbing the die. It was no longer a bunch of particles, but felt like any other dice.

He shook the d20, then dropped it in front of him. Instead of it landing on the floor, it landed on some invisible table about chest high. The die skidded and tumbled before landing on a seventeen. A green +3 appeared. The +3 and the seventeen melted and a new number appeared.

20

Hraktar and Milo unfroze, and Derek jumped. The surprise of it all made him look down at his legs, happy he was unfrozen, too. Milo approached the wall, pulling out his magnifying glass. Hraktar got out of bed, his lids heavy but too curious to give them what they needed. Derek grabbed his lamp to give Milo some light as he inspected the perfectly fine wall. It was a few moments before Milo straightened, glancing at Derek.

“I have whatever mana I brought to this realm, but it can’t regenerate while I rest. The mana reserve my friends and I enjoyed in the Shrouded Domain are cut off.”

The words brought a tightness in Derek’s chest. He studied the wall, then Milo’s face. His mana fusor allowed himself to feel bad for thirty seconds before throwing his shoulders back. “It doesn’t matter. I’m a mana fusor and love research. We will figure out how to create mana.”

What could be more terrifying? Milo getting cut off from mana, or for him to science his way into magic coming to earth. The adrenaline left him at once, leaving him feeling very, very tired.