After the announcement, we all stopped and looked at each other. Silent understanding passed between us, then I opened a portal to the dojo and Sigrid gave me a meaningful nod before stepping through without a word. Lianna and I took the next portal to the elf village to clean up and prepare. Less than an hour later we were both in my tree house, fully suited up, well fed to start things off with fully full mana, and ready to go.

  “So what now?” she said. “We’re a bit early.”

  “Since we have time, let’s stick with the plan and go check out our future guild headquarters.”

  “One thing first,” Lianna said, and gestured at herself. “I like the all-white outfit, but it sticks out like a cue ball.” She used the Be The Rainbow power on her suit to change its color to the deep, mottled, forest green the elves favored for their clothing. If she was simply gonna make it green I could’ve just thrown on the basic power from the elven cloaks, but then again at least this way she still had options.

  Lianna rested her hands on the grips of her pistols. “Let’s go.”

  “Don’t you mean Assemble?” I said, with a tiny — probably creepy — smile.

  “Nerd,” she said, shaking her head, but I saw her smile too.

  I had only been in the Cathedral one time since I helped wreck it, after I had the idea to use it as the guild house and came to survey how much of the original building could be saved and used for my purposes. I’d found the original plans for the Cathedral in Daedalus’ study, so I deconstructed them to match the ruined building’s current state, then reconstructed them to fit the guild’s needs using the skills I’d also acquired from the Great Architect.

  The knowledge I’d gained from knowing Architecture and Engineering included the full history of human design, so inspired by Frank Gehry’s dreamlike buildings and the contemporary addition made to the Royal Ontario Museum in the real Toronto, I decided not to rebuild it exactly and designed it as a fusion of the original Gothic with distinctly futuristic Postmodern stylings. The original stone structure that remained would be restored while the parts that had been burned down or mysteriously collapsed somehow (ahem) would blend sharp acute angles with flowing curves built using unconventional materials.

  I liked to think I had a good eye for aesthetics but I knew some people would find it hideous and anachronistic. Whatever. When they get to redesign a Cathedral however they want, they can make the look however they like.

  Approaching the Cathedral ruins from the gazebo all I could see was how I pictured the end result looking. By the way Lianna gazed at the ruins, I knew she was doing the same thing.

  A few fighters from the city’s martial arts clans stood guard to discourage people from going inside, ostensibly for safety’s sake, but they all acknowledged me with a respectful nod and let us go right in.

  The sparsity of footprints in the dust covering the floor tiles told how effective the guards had been at keeping people out.

  “Did you notice?” Lianna said.

  “Notice what?”

  “All those guards wore armbands with several colors braided together. Most of the clan members in town only wear one color, like the Dragon clan’s green. But there’s a lot who have multiple colors, some just a few, others more. It must mean something. Like a rank thing, maybe.”

  Oh crap.

  “Also,” Lianna continued, “every one of the fighters who were there when we trained with Sifu, you know, the ones who treated us so strangely, they all wore the multi-colored armbands. What is up with that?”

  I came to an abrupt stop and Lianna continued for a couple of paces before she realized I wasn’t beside her anymore. She looked back at me over her shoulder.

  “What now?” she sighed. “God, you make me feel like Dana Scully sometimes.”

  I held my left arm out and reached with the other hand to open a concealed slit built into my shirt at the bicep. It revealed an armband with all six colors intricately braided together tied around my arm under the shirt.

  “Get out! So you must know what it’s all about then,” she said, turning and coming over to take a closer look.

  “Well, I think I kinda started it,” I said.

  Resting bitch face. “Explain.”

  “You know how I want you to learn all six of the city’s martial arts? Well, that’s because I did that myself. At first I was just collecting skills, but then it sort of grew into something else. Each time I learned a new martial art I added its armband to the collection and braided them all together into one.”

  “I see. Knowing you, I doubt it’s that simple.”

  “There is more.”

  Jane may have ruled the eye roll universe, but Lianna was the Padishah Empress of sighs. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Once I knew them all I merged them into a single skill. Omni-do. Then I started merging other fighting skills into it, making it just a little bit better each time.”

  “I’m afraid to ask how many fighting skills you’ve combined into it.”

  “All of them?”

  Cue eye roll. “Sweet Jeebus.”

  “Anyway, I kept a simplified version that only combines the six original martial arts so that anyone who worked hard enough would be able to learn it. Chika knows it, and I taught a few of the Dragon clan people as well. And while those guys were working their way through all the clan dojos like I did, they told people about Toron-do — that’s what I called the learnable skill that combines just the six fighting styles.”

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  “Of course you did. Let me guess. People from other clans started making the rounds and learning all the other martial arts and pretty soon you were teaching your custom skill to everyone.”

  I scoffed at that. “Oh no. I only taught it to those few to start, then I taught them the Teacher skill so they could train everyone else themselves. I don’t have the time for that.”

  Lianna shook her head slowly. “You really are an idiot.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Do you really not see? That’s why those guys got out of your way at the training session. They were letting their Master through.” Her brow furrowed and she nibbled on her thumbnail. “But wait, they did it to me too. Am I Master-By-Association?” She thought about it a bit more, then shook her head, chasing the thought away. ”That’s not the point, though. The point is you are an idiot because you didn’t realize that’s why they did that, and also because you didn’t tell me about this secret little personal army you’ve built for yourself like Paul with the Fremen.”

  Whoah now. Personal army? I tried to object but she plowed on.

  “Seriously. Do you even realize what you’ve done? You’ll have all the Players on board with the Players Guild, and you’ll have all the NPCs under your control too through this ridiculous custom mixed martial art nonsense. Did you plan this?”

  “Well yes, but it’s not like that. It’s not about control. Sheesh, you make it sound like I’m trying to rule the place. I just wanted a skill I could teach Chika and Andy so we could have fun fighting each other, then once I got to know all the different clanspeople as I trained with them I thought it might unite the clans and make all the NPCs stronger if they could learn it too. I told you, all I want to do is make everyone stronger together.”

  She wore her skeptical face again. “You mean to say you never once thought about yourself being in charge? Just, everyone gets stronger together. End of message.”

  “Right. Well...I mean I did set the whole thing in motion with a push in a certain direction, so in a sense I have some responsibility and influence, but I never wanted to be King or anything.”

  She glanced over at the guards and I followed her gaze. They had been watching us over their shoulders and when we looked over they immediately looked away from us and tried to appear appropriately guardy.

  “Well, Tyler Durden, I’m afraid that ship might have already sailed,” Lianna said. “Oh my god what have you got me into?”

  “You’re blowing this all out of proportion. Look, I know those guys,” I said, gesturing at the guards. “I asked them and some others to keep an eye on the place for us.”

  She sighed a sigh the bards shall sing about for generations. “So you’re saying they’re not your Fedaykin, even though they wear your sacred armband and will do whatever you say and kowtow to you when you walk into a room.”

  “First, they aren’t just doing it because I said so. I am paying them for their work.”

  “Did they agree to do it before you mentioned compensation?”

  “Well, yes.”

  She nodded smugly. “So that’s your first argument fact-checked and refuted. What’s second?”

  “The armband doesn’t mean anything. It’s not sacred. Sure, I baked some symbolic rituals into learning Toron-do when I first started teaching it, but that was done kind of as a lark because I thought every good martial art needed something like that. As it turned out, the ones I taught really seemed to like it so I kept doing it.”

  “So you created your own philosophy and taught it to your followers, and now they all wear your insignia.”

  “Noooo, I never said that.”

  “I’m paraphrasing.”

  “You’re making too much of the armband. It only caught on because it lets them recognize each other as part of the group and...” Now it was my turn to sigh. “And that’s what an insignia is, isn’t it?”

  “Dude, you’ve created a secret society built around a warrior cult.”

  “Nooooooo.”

  She quirked her eyebrow at me questioningly.

  Damn it, she had a point. But still.

  “I take issue with the cult label,” I said.

  She laughed. “But you’ll accept the secret society one.”

  “I never thought of it that way before, but, well, yeah. But you have to admit that’s actually pretty cool, though. A secret society!”

  “Well, yeah, I think it’s wicked cool, but that’s not the point!”

  She was starting to get more worked up and I was starting to get exasperated. “Well what is the point?”

  “Well I don’t remember because this is all a lot to take in, Daniel. You could’ve mentioned this when you asked me to join.”

  “Would it have changed your mind?”

  “Well, no. But it would have shown you at least recognized that it’s a pretty important part of this, this, this whatever you’re doing, and I’d at least have known what I was saying yes to.” She glared at me.

  I raised my hands, fingers spread, and gave them the jazz-hands waggle. “Ta da! At least now we both know.”

  “Idiot. And I don’t mean that in the cute flirty way Jane says it, I mean you really are an idiot, Daniel.”

  “Okay, so I’ll agree the whole Muad-dib Fight Club aspect is unexpected and troubling, but the rest I did for a reason.”

  “I thought making everyone strong was your endgame.”

  “It is, but there’s a reason.”

  “Which is?”

  I was about to answer her but then I realized this was something I’d never expressed out loud before, and the walls had ears. I opened the door to my Fortress of Solitude. “Let’s continue this in there.”

  “Where does this go?” Lianna said.

  “It’s the portal to my inventory space. It’s Void on the other side so most people will die painfully of the Withers if they go in there, but you’ve got the affinity now so you’ll be fine.”

  “Sounds like a lovely place.” She poked her head around to see through it and gasped. “Why is there a cottage on a lake in there?”

  “Must you question everything?”

  “Yes,” she said, and hesitantly stepped through. I could see her on the other sides gazing around with her mouth open. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

  I followed her, then led her to a pair of red Muskoka chairs on a dock overlooking the serenity of the lake. We sat down.

  “So this is where you come to craft things, huh?” she said, leaning back into the big chair. “It’s not what I expected.”

  I made some cold drinks appear from the ample supply I had stored away. She picked hers up and took a sip, peering around at the scenery. “This is so surreal, I gotta say. Why are we here exactly?”

  “Privacy.”

  “From whom?”

  “System is always listening but I think it’s on our side so that’s okay.” She opened her mouth, most likely to ask what I meant by this, but I cut her off. “It’d take too long to explain now, but there have been several times when it felt like System was actively trying to help me. However, there are others who might try to interfere with our plans if they knew everything. I am not sure if they can watch us in here or not, but it’s worth a try.”

  “What do you mean others? Who’s watching us?”

  “Stratos for one. They appeared in the Void Dungeon after I won it so I don’t know if coming here will stop them from hearing us, but I do know there are other observer entities who don’t seem to be able to spy in the Void. While I’ve benefited from them in the past, I still don’t trust them. Actually, I’m not sure if they’re around anymore. I haven’t heard from them in a while and I don’t know if it’s because they’re not there anymore or have lost interest or, most likely, have been banned from communicating because they tried to break the rules again.”

  “If you say so,” she said, ice tinkling in her glass as she took a sip. Then she put her glass down on the wide arm of her chair and twisted in its seat, tucking her feet up under herself, and looked at me expectantly. “So what is it you want to say that’s too important to be overheard, then?”