CHAPTER 1

  Nobody moved.

  The white stretched in every direction. Not bright, not dark — just absence. Like someone

  had erased everything beyond the carpet’s edge and forgotten to draw what came next.

  Eric’s hand was still on the table. The felt was warm under his fingers. Real. The dice were

  still in his tray from the last roll. The terrain pieces sat where Ethan had placed them — the

  ruined temple, the shattered pews.

  But the shadow figures were gone. Every dark miniature that had been crowding the temple

  board moments ago had simply vanished. The player figures stood alone on the terrain like

  survivors of something they hadn’t seen happen.

  Everything beyond the table was gone too.

  “Okay.” Jess’s voice came out small. “Okay. Okay.” She wasn’t talking to anyone. She was

  trying to get her brain to restart.

  Allen had backed away from the table. Three steps, then stopped — like his body had

  decided on its own that distance from the edge of the carpet was the smart play. His eyes moved

  methodically across the void. Left to right. Up. Down. Cataloguing nothing.

  Josh hadn’t let go of his chair. His knuckles were white around the armrest and his mouth

  was open but nothing was coming out. The half-finished Mountain Dew sat on the table beside

  him, still sweating condensation onto Ethan’s felt. Proof that two minutes ago the world made

  sense.

  “Do you guys smell that?” Eric said.

  Jess looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Smell what?”

  “Exactly.”

  One by one they breathed in. The pizza was gone — not the box, the box was still on the

  side table, but the smell. Jess’s coffee. The old carpet. Five people in a closed room for three

  hours. All of it absent. Not masked. Removed. Like the concept of scent had been deleted from

  the world.

  “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” Josh said. His voice had the forced lightness of

  someone holding panic at arm’s length.

  Nobody laughed.

  Ethan hadn’t said a word. He stood behind his DM screen, hands gripping the edge, staring

  at something the others couldn’t see. Eric watched him. Twenty years of reading that face and he

  couldn’t find a label for what was on it now. Not fear. Not confusion. Something closer to

  recognition.

  “Ethan? You good, man?”

  Ethan didn’t answer.

  Allen reached into his dice tray and picked up a d6. Without a word he tossed it underhand

  off the edge of the carpet and into the void.

  It bounced. Twice. Then rolled to a stop on nothing, sitting on empty white the same way it

  would sit on a hardwood floor. Four facing up.

  Everyone stared at it.

  Before anyone could speak, something appeared in the void.

  ? ? ?

  A d20 materialized ten feet from the table, hovering at eye level. Not a normal die — massive,

  maybe two feet across, glowing with a soft pulsing light that cycled through colors. White to

  blue to green to gold and back again. It rotated slowly in the void, catching light that had no

  source.

  Eric’s chest tightened. Then loosened. The pulse seemed to match his breathing, or his

  breathing was matching it. The panic behind his ribs eased without his permission.

  “Please do not be afraid.” The words formed in his mind — gentle, clear. Not a voice

  exactly. More like thought arriving from somewhere outside himself. He looked at the others.

  They’d all heard it too.

  “You are between places. Where you were has closed. Where you are going requires

  preparation. Each of you will choose a new form — a translation of who you are into the physics

  of the world that is waiting for you.”

  “Translation?” Jess’s voice was small but steady. “We can’t exist there as we are?”

  “Not as you are now. The rules are different. But you will still be yourselves. Your minds,

  your memories, your choices — those remain. Only the vessel changes.”

  “And if we say no?” Eric asked.

  The d20’s colors shifted to something cooler. “Then you remain here. In the space between.

  This is not a threat. It is simply the nature of what is. The door behind you has closed.”

  Silence. The die pulsed steadily, patient.

  As it spoke again the air in front of the table rippled. Something formed — tall, rectangular,

  framed in the same cycling light as the d20. A mirror. But not glass. The surface moved like still

  water held vertical, reflecting nothing yet.

  “This will show you what is possible and what you become. When you are ready, step

  forward and the mirror will present the forms available to you. Choose, and you will watch the

  translation happen. When it is complete, the mirror will show you who you are now.”

  The mirror waited. Its surface rippled once, then went still.

  “What are the options?” Allen’s voice was quiet. Steady.

  “Step forward and see.”

  Nobody moved. The mirror reflected empty void.

  Eric looked at his friends. Jess had her arms folded, thinking. Allen was studying the mirror

  the way he studied everything — edges first, then center. Josh was staring at it with his mouth

  slightly open. Ethan hadn’t moved from behind his screen.

  “I’ll go first,” Eric said.

  He stepped off the carpet onto the void floor. It held. He walked to the mirror.

  The surface shifted. Nine figures appeared in the reflection — not behind him, not beside

  him. In the mirror itself, standing in a gentle arc. A human. An elf. A dwarf. A gnome. A drakari.

  An umbrin. A marai. An ashborn. An etherial. Each one detailed, breathing, alive. And in the

  center of the arc, Eric’s own reflection looked back at him.

  As his eyes moved from figure to figure, his reflection changed. He looked at the elf and

  watched himself stretch taller, leaner, ears tapering to points. He looked at the drakari and scales

  rippled across his reflection’s skin. Each race previewed on his own face, his own body, showing

  him what he would become.

  His eyes settled on the dwarf. His reflection compressed. Broader. Shorter. Thick beard,

  heavy brow, hands like stone. It looked like Dorian. It looked right.

  “Dwarf,” Eric said.

  “You are certain? The choice is permanent.”

  “I’ve been playing one for two years. I know the strengths. I know the weakness.” Magic

  Inert — can’t be healed by magic. He’d built entire strategies around it. “I’m certain.”

  “Very well.” The other eight figures faded from the mirror. Only Eric and the dwarf

  reflection remained. Then the reflection reached forward — not out of the mirror but into Eric.

  The glass rippled and the change began.

  He watched it happen. His fingers compressing in the reflection as he felt them densify in

  his actual hands. Knuckles broadening. Skin roughening. The calluses from years of weight

  training deepening into something earned over decades.

  His perspective shifted downward. In the mirror he watched himself shrink and widen

  simultaneously — six-foot-two compressing to five-four, five-five at most. Every bit of lost

  height redistributed into width, density, solidity. His shoulders widened with soft pops he felt

  more than heard. Ribcage expanded.

  His face itched. Coarse hair sprouted from his chin — thick, full, the kind of beard he’d

  never been able to grow. The reflection staring back at him was his but transformed. Broader.

  Rougher. Carved from something that didn’t break.

  Thirty seconds. The whole thing took thirty seconds.

  Eric stood breathing hard. Not from exertion. From the overwhelm of watching himself

  become someone new.

  He flexed his hands. The reflection flexed with him. Broad, powerful, scarred. Everything

  worked. Everything felt strong, solid, grounded. His body felt quiet in a way it hadn’t in years.

  His eyes swept the void over the mirror’s edge. Left to right. Checking the perimeter before

  he was conscious of doing it.

  Still him. All of it.

  The mirror’s surface rippled and text appeared beside his reflection. Clean, glowing softly.

  Eric Strava — Level 1 Dwarf

  STR: 6 | NIM: 7 | END: 8 | WIS: 7 | INT: 5 | ARC: 3 | LCK: 2

  “Now your skills and equipment,” the d20 said.

  “Base skills — athletics, perception, intimidation. Weapon skills — three points in heavy

  maces.”

  A warhammer materialized in the mirror first — his reflection gripping it before the real

  one appeared in his hand. Standard. Unadorned. His hand knew what to do with it. Muscle

  memory from two years of imagining this exact motion at a table. It wasn’t special. It was just a

  tool. But it felt familiar.

  “Crafting skill?”

  “Cooking.”

  Behind him, Jess let out a startled laugh. He glanced back. “Everyone needs to eat.”

  Shield. Chain shirt. Backpack. The equipment formed on his reflection as it formed on his

  body — the mirror showing him the complete picture. A dwarf warrior at Level 1 with a cooking

  skill and a standard-issue warhammer.

  The mirror held his image for a moment longer, stats glowing beside the reflection. Then

  the text faded and the surface went still again. Waiting for the next person.

  Eric walked back to the table on legs that weren’t quite coordinating yet and caught himself

  on the edge. His friends stared at him.

  “Dude,” Josh breathed. “You’re a dwarf. You’re an actual dwarf.”

  “Yeah,” Eric said. Even his voice was different. Deeper. Rougher. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  ? ? ?

  “Jessica Greer. Please step forward.”

  Jess stood slowly. Her hands were shaking. She folded them together and walked toward

  the mirror.

  The surface rippled as she approached. Nine figures appeared in their arc, her own

  reflection at the center. She looked at them longer than Eric had. The elf was graceful and

  familiar — two years of Sindarin lived in that shape. But she kept coming back to the human

  figure. Plain. Adaptable. No crippling weaknesses.

  “Human,” she said quietly.

  “You are already human. Your physical form will change minimally. Are you certain?”

  “Yeah. I’m certain.”

  The human figure dissolved. The other eight faded. Jess watched herself in the mirror as the

  change moved through her. Not the dramatic compression Eric had gone through. More like her

  entire body became fluid for a moment and then resolidified according to slightly different

  specifications. Muscles more defined. Senses a fraction sharper. When it finished she was still

  five-foot-six, still herself. Just harder. Like a pencil sketch gone over in ink.

  The mirror rippled. Text appeared.

  Jessica Greer — Level 1 Human

  STR: 6 | NIM: 6 | END: 4 | WIS: 8 | INT: 5 | ARC: 3 | LCK: 5

  “As a human you may add one point to two different attributes.”

  “Nimbleness and luck.”

  Her reflexes sharpened another notch. Something loosened in her joints. And something

  else — a sense of potential, like the odds had tilted slightly in her direction.

  “Now your skills.”

  Jess took a breath. The race was just a container. The skills were who you actually were.

  She’d been turning this over since Eric’s transformation, watching the process, thinking three

  steps ahead the way she did with lesson plans.

  “Base skills — stealth, perception, survival. One point each.”

  A year and a half of playing Sindarin as a chaos agent, all instinct and fire. That was fun at

  a table. This wasn’t a table anymore. Stealth kept you alive when you were outmatched.

  Perception kept you from walking into the thing that would outmatch you. Survival kept you

  breathing when both of those failed.

  “Weapon skills?”

  “Light swords. All three points.”

  She wasn’t strong enough to swing something heavy and she knew it. Endurance of four

  meant she’d tire fast in a prolonged fight. So don’t fight prolonged. Fight smart. Quick. Get in

  and get out.

  A shortsword materialized in the mirror and flew to her hand. Lighter than she expected.

  The grip fit her palm like it had been made for it. She gave it a careful swing and her body

  moved in a way it never had before — the skill points settling into her wrists and shoulders like

  muscle memory she’d never earned. It startled her. She almost dropped it.

  “Crafting skill?”

  She thought about it. She’d played an alchemist in the campaign but she had zero actual

  chemistry knowledge. She needed something she actually knew how to do.

  “Sewing,” she said. “Clothing repair, making things from cloth. Bandages that hold.”

  Studded leather armor formed around her. Buckler on her arm. The equipment pack

  materialized at her feet. She adjusted the straps, surprised at how natural it felt.

  Jess looked down at herself. Armor, sword, buckler, practical skills. Nothing flashy.

  Everything chosen for a reason. She looked like someone who could handle what came next. She

  wasn’t sure she believed it yet.

  She walked back to the table. Eric’s dwarf face cracked into something that might have

  been a grin. “You look terrified.”

  “Little bit,” Jess said. But she was smiling.

  ? ? ?

  “Allen Wickham. Please step forward.”

  Allen stood and walked toward the mirror. Measured steps, careful and deliberate — a pace

  he had learned when his sight had started to fail.

  The surface rippled as he approached. Nine figures appeared in their arc, his own reflection

  at the center. The tumor pressed against the inside of his skull the way it always did. Constant

  pressure behind his eyes. Six months, Dr. Peterson had said. Maybe a year. His vision would go

  first.

  Allen looked at each figure the way he looked through a camera viewfinder — taking in

  details, composition, the story each form told. As his eyes moved, his reflection shifted. Human.

  Gnome. Drakari. Each one previewing on his face, his body.

  He stopped.

  “Which races live the longest?”

  The d20 pulsed. “Elves. Five hundred years on average. Etherial are ageless but fragile. The

  rest fall between fifty and three hundred.”

  Allen looked at the elf reflection. His own face staring back at him, stretched taller, sharper,

  ears tapering to points. Five hundred years.

  “The elf,” he said quietly. “I choose elf.”

  The other eight figures faded. Allen and his elf reflection stood alone in the mirror. The

  reflection reached forward.

  The change was more than Eric’s. Allen felt himself growing — three, four inches. His

  frame becoming leaner, muscles redistributing into something built for speed rather than

  endurance. Bones lighter. Not weaker. Different. His face sharpened in the mirror, features

  becoming more defined. Ears lengthening, tapering to points he could feel forming.

  His senses opened. He could hear his friends breathing at the table. Could see gradations in

  the void that had been pure white a minute ago — a thousand shades of pearl and cream and

  silver, shifting like liquid light. Could smell everything the void had taken. His own skin. The

  leather of Eric’s new armor. The faintest trace of Knolla’s pizza still on Josh’s fingers.

  And his eyes. The pressure behind them was gone.

  Not masked. Not managed. Gone. Like it had never been there. Colors became richer. The

  mirror’s surface showed details he couldn’t have seen thirty seconds ago. The reflection looking

  back at him had eyes that could see things his old eyes never would.

  Allen gasped. Then it settled. His new senses found equilibrium.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He looked at his hands in the mirror. Long-fingered. Graceful. Hands with time.

  He smiled. The first genuine smile in months.

  The mirror rippled. Text appeared beside his reflection.

  Allen Wickham — Level 1 Elf

  STR: 7 | NIM: 4 | END: 5 | WIS: 2 | INT: 8 | ARC: 7 | LCK: 3

  “Your racial bonus grants one point to Nimbleness automatically. You may also choose one

  point to either Wisdom or Arcana.”

  “Arcana.”

  Before the System could ask about weapons, Allen spoke. “Light bows. Three points.”

  He hadn’t been asked about skills yet. Didn’t care. A longbow materialized in the mirror.

  His reflection gripped it and Allen felt the real one form in his hands. The moment his fingers

  closed around it something slid into place — not just in his grip but somewhere deeper. He drew

  the string and his arms knew the motion the way his hands had always known where the shutter

  button was. Automatic. Right.

  “And your remaining skills?”

  “Base skills — investigation, perception, nature knowledge. One point each. Crafting skill

  — woodcarving.”

  Leather armor formed on his reflection and on his body simultaneously. Light, flexible. A

  quiver of arrows appeared at his hip.

  The mirror held his reflection. An elf looked back. Young-looking. Pointed ears. Sharp

  features. Eyes that held depths they hadn’t had five minutes ago.

  “Allen?” Jess’s voice was soft. “You okay?”

  Allen turned from the mirror. He was smiling. Couldn’t seem to stop.

  “Yeah,” he said. And meant it for the first time in months. “Yeah, I think I’m going to be.”

  ? ? ?

  “Josh Kenderson. Please step forward.”

  Josh wiped his palms on his jeans and walked to the mirror. Every step felt like walking

  onto a stage without knowing his lines.

  The surface rippled. Nine figures appeared. His own reflection waited at the center.

  He’d played a different character every campaign. Human rogue, dwarf cleric, gnome bard,

  drakari warlock. Always reinventing himself at the table because he was still trying to figure out

  who he was away from it. Twenty-three. Janitor. Musician in an empty gym after hours. Still

  waiting for something to click.

  His eyes moved across the figures. The drakari was impressive — scales, power, presence.

  The gnome was clever and small. Each one a costume he could put on and disappear into the way

  he always had.

  His gaze settled on the human figure. Plain. Adaptable. No special abilities beyond the

  willingness to learn. Just a person.

  “Human,” Josh said quietly.

  The d20 pulsed. “Of everyone in your group, you have by far the most adaptability. You

  could become anything here. Why human?”

  Josh looked at his reflection in the mirror. Same face. Same guy.

  “Because it’s time I tried being me for a while.”

  The other figures faded. Josh watched his reflection in the mirror as the change moved

  through him — muscles tightening, senses sharpening, a tune-up more than a rebuild. He looked

  down at his hands and saw his hands. Same calluses from guitar strings and mop handles. But

  they felt more coordinated. Like they could do things he’d never quite managed before.

  The mirror rippled. Text appeared.

  Josh Kenderson — Level 1 Human

  STR: 4 | NIM: 7 | END: 5 | WIS: 7 | INT: 4 | ARC: 3 | LCK: 7

  “As a human you may add one point to two different attributes.”

  “Strength and nimbleness.”

  “Now your skills.”

  “Crafting skill first.”

  “You may choose in any order.”

  “Musical instruments.”

  Behind him, Jess made a small surprised sound.

  “It’s the one thing I know is mine.” Josh’s voice was quiet but certain. “Not borrowed from

  someone else’s story. I want to start there.”

  He felt it settle into his hands — not new knowledge but existing knowledge made sharper.

  The way his fingers found chords, the way rhythm lived in his body. Now it was recognized.

  “Base skills — performance, perception, survival. One point each.”

  “And your weapon skills?”

  Right. Weapons. His eyes found the spears in the mirror. The simplest weapon. The oldest.

  One-handed or two-handed, throw it if needed. A peasant’s weapon. The kind of thing someone

  who was still figuring things out would carry.

  “Spears. Three points.”

  A simple spear appeared in his reflection’s hand first, then materialized in his own. Basic.

  Unadorned. It felt right. Balanced. Honest.

  Leather armor formed around him — jerkin, bracers, basic protection. A buckler.

  Equipment pack. The mirror showed him the full picture.

  Josh looked at his reflection. Leather armor, spear, buckler. No flash. No costume. Just

  him.

  He walked back to the table feeling lighter than he had in years. Like something heavy he’d

  been carrying without knowing it had been set down.

  “You good?” Eric asked, his dwarf voice gruff but concerned.

  “Yeah,” Josh said, and surprised himself by meaning it. “Yeah, I think I actually am.”

  ? ? ?

  The d20 rotated one final time, its light pulsing steadily. Then the colors shifted. The warm gold

  that had accompanied the others cooled to something more formal. More significant.

  “Ethan Jessup. Please step forward. Your path is different.”

  Ethan stood slowly from behind his DM screen. He’d watched all four of them. Watched

  Eric become something solid and grounded. Watched Jess sharpen into something dangerous and

  practical. Watched Allen ask the question that mattered most and choose five hundred years.

  Watched Josh look at everything he could become and decide he was enough.

  He walked toward the mirror. The surface rippled as he approached, but the nine figures did

  not appear. His reflection stared back at him. Just him. Just Ethan.

  “You are not here to choose a race. You are being offered a role.”

  The mirror shifted. His reflection remained but the space around it changed — layers of

  light folding behind the glass, showing depth that hadn’t been there before. Maps. Data. Lines of

  connection between points of light. A view from above rather than from within.

  “The world your friends are entering is one of many. The scope of what exists beyond this

  moment is nearly infinite. It requires someone who understands the rules, who sees patterns, who

  can maintain the integrity of the system across all of it.”

  “You’ve been preparing for this role for years, though you did not know it. Every campaign

  you built. Every rule you adjudicated. Every world you crafted and every story you guided. You

  have been training to see the larger pattern.”

  The mirror showed it — his reflection surrounded by the architecture of a system. Not a

  player in the world. The person who held the world together.

  “You will not walk beside your friends. You will observe. Maintain. Ensure the system

  functions as it should. And over time, your abilities will grow.”

  “No.” Eric’s voice cut through the void. “No, absolutely not. We’re not separating.”

  Ethan turned to look at his best friend. The dwarf’s body was tense, every muscle coiled.

  “Twenty years, man.” Eric’s voice was rough. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

  “Eric.” Ethan’s voice was quiet. Steady. “Let me hear what this is.”

  Eric’s jaw clenched. But he stopped.

  Ethan turned back to the d20. “You said I’m being offered a role. Not assigned one.”

  “That is correct. The role is yours if you choose it. If you decline, you will enter the world

  as your friends have — choose a race, roll your attributes, walk through the portal beside them.”

  “And if I decline, who holds the role?”

  “No one. The system will function without an administrator. But it will function less. Your

  friends will have no observer. No guide. No one watching for threats they cannot see. The world

  will not be less dangerous. They will simply be more alone in it.”

  Ethan looked at the mirror. His reflection stood in the center of the architecture — the

  maps, the data, the patterns. Twenty years behind a DM screen. He knew what it meant to hold

  the space while others lived the story. He knew what it cost and he knew what it gave.

  He looked at Eric. “I’m not being left behind. I’m choosing where I can do the most good.”

  Eric stared at him. The same look he’d given Ethan a thousand times — the one that meant

  I don’t like this but I trust you.

  “You better be right,” Eric said.

  “I’ll do it,” Ethan said to the d20. “I choose the role.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I have questions first.”

  The d20 pulsed. “You may ask three.”

  Ethan didn’t hesitate. “Will I see them again? And if so, when?”

  A soft chuckle rippled through the void. Warm. Genuine. “That is two questions.” A pause.

  “Every time they level, you will see them again. A space between the world and here. You will

  reunite, review their progress, guide their growth. This I can promise you.”

  Ethan nodded. Two questions left. The administrator had chosen to answer both.

  “If they die, do they respawn?”

  The warmth left the d20’s light. The colors went still.

  “No.”

  The word sat in the void. No explanation softened it. No reassurance followed. Just the

  single syllable and the weight of what it meant.

  Ethan absorbed it. His friends were about to walk into a world where death was permanent

  and he would be the one watching from the other side of a screen. He looked at Eric, at Jess, at

  Allen, at Josh. They didn’t know. He could tell them. He could say it right now and let them

  carry it together.

  He turned back to the d20. That was a decision for later.

  “Last question.” Ethan looked at the mirror — his reflection standing in the architecture of

  a system built on rules he’d been studying for two years without knowing they were real. “Why

  not just assign us playable characters? You could optimize us. Place us exactly where we’d be

  most effective. Why let us choose?”

  The d20’s light shifted. Something deeper moved through it — not the administrator’s

  warmth but something older. Something foundational.

  “Choice is a fundamental construct of the system. Forced service is not service. It is

  slavery.” A pause. “Neither is coercion.”

  Ethan stared at the d20. The game designer in him recognized elegant architecture when he

  heard it. A system built from the ground up on a single principle. Every mechanic, every rule,

  every interaction flowing from one idea — that the choice had to be real or it meant nothing.

  He filed it away the way he filed everything away. Quietly. Without writing it down.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  “Then welcome, Administrator.”

  The mirror blazed. Not the gentle cycling light of the transformations. Something sharper.

  Ethan felt it start in his spine — a tingling that spread outward like lightning through water,

  following every nerve pathway in his body.

  “Ethan!” Allen’s voice, sharp with alarm.

  He couldn’t respond. The sensation was overwhelming. His nervous system lighting up,

  each nerve fiber becoming a conduit for something vast and incomprehensible. In the mirror he

  watched his skin begin to glow — faint at first, then brighter. Traceries of light following his

  veins and nerves, mapping his entire body in luminescent lines. Lightning frozen in flesh.

  Information flooded in. He could feel his friends. Not see them — his eyes were closed —

  but feel their presence. Eric, solid and grounded. Jess, quick and sharp. Allen, bright and

  wondering. Josh, steady and musical.

  He could feel the System. Vast. Ancient. Patient. A mechanism. A set of rules given form.

  And he was being wired into it.

  He could feel the space beyond the void. Layers of reality stacked like transparencies. The

  white void. The gaming room beneath it. And somewhere else — green, alive, dangerous —

  waiting on the other side of a threshold he couldn’t quite perceive.

  The sensation focused. The flood of input snapped into clarity. Still everything, but

  organized now. Manageable. Filing into structures that felt both alien and natural.

  The glow faded. The tracery dimmed. He looked exactly as he had before.

  Except his eyes. When he opened them and looked at the mirror, the reflection showed him

  as he was — human, unchanged, standing in the center of an architecture only he could see. And

  when he focused on Eric’s reflection behind him, knowledge arrived. Not numbers floating in the

  air. Simply awareness.

  Eric Strava. Level 1 Dwarf. HP: 10/10. Concerned. Protective instincts heightened.

  Ethan blinked and it faded to background. Still there. Not overwhelming.

  “Holy shit,” Josh breathed. “You were glowing.”

  “I felt everything,” Ethan said. His voice sounded the same. Human. Normal. But he was

  different in ways he was only beginning to understand.

  The mirror went still. A portal began to form beyond the table — a tear in the void showing

  green on the other side. Grass. Trees. Sky.

  “Your friends must go now,” the d20 said. “The window is brief. But every level, you will

  see each other again. This is not goodbye forever. It is goodbye for now.”

  “How long?” Eric demanded. “How long until we see him again?”

  “Until you level. The exact time depends on your choices and your success.”

  Eric was in front of Ethan before anyone else moved. The dwarf grabbed his shoulders —

  had to reach up to do it now — and stared at him with fierce intensity.

  “You listen to me. I’ve had your back since we were twelve years old. That doesn’t change.

  I don’t care what this System says, you’re my brother. And I’m coming back for you.”

  “I know.” Ethan’s voice caught. “I know you will.”

  Eric pulled him into a hug. Brief. Fierce. Twenty years in it.

  Jess grabbed Ethan’s hand and squeezed hard enough to hurt. Her eyes were bright. “Keep

  us safe.”

  “I will.”

  Allen’s hug was gentle. “Thank you. For the campaign. For tonight. For everything.”

  Josh was quick and tight. “Weirdest session zero I’ve ever been to.”

  Ethan laughed despite everything. “Production values are insane though.”

  The portal pulsed.

  Eric went first. Because of course he did. He stopped at the edge and looked back once.

  Then he stepped through and vanished into the green.

  Jess followed. Allen moved with his new elf grace toward an unknown future. Josh gave

  one last wave and walked through, spear held ready.

  Ethan stood alone in the void with the d20 and the mirror that now showed only him.

  “Watch,” the d20 said.

  The void shifted. Colors bled back in. The gaming table transformed — terrain pieces

  dissolving as the wood became something new. A map. Living, moving, impossibly detailed. A

  grassy plain in perfect miniature. Trees swaying. A river running silver under a sun that didn’t

  exist in this room.

  And four figures. Moving. Breathing. Real.

  Ethan reached toward the table and information flooded his awareness. Their positions.

  Their stats. The terrain around them. Threats in soft red at the edges of his perception. Resources

  in green.

  His friends stood in a new world with wonder and fear and determination on their faces. He

  could see it all.

  The d20’s presence began to fade. Its last words were quiet.

  “You are exactly where you need to be.”

  Ethan sat down in his chair. Behind his screen. Where he’d always been.

  But this time the screen showed him everything.