“How about Morgan?” Sigrid said.

  Everybody was looking around at each other, mentally assessing their teammates as potential Captains. “She’s been our strategist all this time, she’d make an awesome leader.”

  I didn’t have to have any social skill to know that Sigrid must have been one of the no votes for Arthur.

  “I’ll second that,” Byron said. Gonna guess he was a no too.

  “I’ll third it,” Jane added.

  “That’s not a thing,” Sigrid said in a husky pretend whisper.

  “It is now,” Jane shot back in the same sotto voce.

  Was Jane another no vote? No, couldn’t be. It was her idea to elect Arthur in the first place. Unless that had been a smoke screen and her goal all along had been to definitively rule out Arthur as Captain by having him lose the election. I looked over at Jane and was struck, as I always was even after all this time, by how stupidly attractive she was. Sure, she was categorically hot, but was she also that devious and manipulative?

  Jane turned and caught me staring at her. I surprised myself by not immediately looking away like usual. The continued eye contact must’ve surprised her too because her eyebrow went up and her face broke out into a wide smile. Eep. So hot. Too hot. Must look away.

  Morgan was a smart choice, not only because she would make a great leader in general and was already planning and coordinating battles, but also because she was from the Round Table, and choosing her would immediately mend any rifts that may have started to form when Arthur was voted down.

  Another vote was quickly taken and Morgan got unanimous approval. “Thanks everyone,” she said. “I’ll do my best until I die or you find someone better for the job.”

  “That’s not funny,” Nina said. “Don’t even joke about that.”

  “Sorry,” Morgan said. “I was just quoting a movie.”

  Wayne’s deep voice rumbled. “These are the rules. Everybody fights, nobody quits. If you don't do your job I'll kill you myself. Welcome to the Roughnecks!” he said, earning knowing smiles from Morgan and those who knew the film.

  “So then, how about taking on Vice-Captain, Jane?” Morgan said.

  “Did you get any Reward Tokens for being made Captain?” Jane said.

  “Sadly no,” Morgan said.

  “I think I just got them for being the first,” Sam said.

  “Then fuhgeddaboudit,” Jane said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

  “How about you, Sigrid?” Morgan said.

  “Nuh uh,” Sigrid grunted, and took a little step closer to me.

  “Right,” Morgan said, “of course.” That one little step was all it took to communicate that Sigrid still hoped to find a way onto Team Player and didn’t want any strings holding her down.

  “Well shit,” Sam said. “Does anybody want to nominate themselves?"

  Nobody said anything, then Arthur surprised everyone by speaking up. “I’d be good with you, Nina,” he said. Several more voices sounded their agreement.

  I was impressed. I’d half-expected Arthur to sulk for a while after losing his vote, but he rolled with the punches like a champ. I was still pissed at him, but it made me happy that he was doing things that would help me like him again.

  “What me?” Nina said. “Oh my.”

  “You okay with that?” Morgan said.

  Nina looked over at Byron and he nodded encouragingly. “Well,” Nina said. “I guess I’m up for it.”

  Another vote was taken, and Nina was made Vice-Captain by another unanimous vote.

  “Okay then, it’s settled,” Jane said. “Morgan is our Queen, with big sis Nina as backup Princess. Moving on, what’s next on the agenda?”

  Everyone looked at Morgan. Morgan looked at me. “Daniel, do you think you could lend us a hand with finding new members? You’re the only one who can see other people’s Statuses.”

  “Actually,” I said. “I can do one better.”

  It was the second time I’d use my Need A Hand? power and the second time I’d shared a power with Morgan. Still, she seemed shocked to see that she could now use All Can Be Revealed.

  Jane’s brow furrowed as she glanced back and forth between me and Morgan. “He just did something ludicrous again, didn’t he?”

  “Can I tell them?” Morgan said, and after I nodded she explained what I’d done, earning me quite a few dubious looks from the others.

  “You’re joking, right?” Jane said. “When did you get the ability to share powers? It wasn’t in your Status thingy when...”

  “How do you know what his Status looks like, hmmm?” Sam said, breaking out into a grin.

  “I bet Sigrid’s seen it too,” Kay said. “You have, haven’t you. What’s it like?”

  “Of course I’ve seen it,” Sigrid said, then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone, “and it’s huuuuuuuge.”

  “Pervert,” I said, elbowing her. Then I noticed rather a lot of eyes looking at me, but not at my face, and I had a sudden urge to shout my eyes are up here! “She’s joking,” I said instead, moving my hand down to cover my groinal region.

  “No,” Jane said. “It is huge. Ridiculously huge.”

  “Almost painfully so,” Sigrid said, nodding.

  “It’s definitely something that takes some getting used to,” Jane said. “It's a lot to wrap yourself around."

  “I wanna see it,” Chika said, and all those eyes that were on me snapped over to gape at her. “What?” Chika said, then her eyes widened. “Wait, we are still talking about his Status, right?”

  “Hold on,” Kay said. “Morgan, you said he just shared his ability to see Statuses with you.”

  “Uh huh,” Morgan said, staring off at nothing.

  “So doesn’t that mean you can use it on him?”

  “I’m right here,” I mumbled.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Uh huh,” Morgan said again.

  Kay’s face broke into a grin. “You’re looking at it right now, aren’t you?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And?”

  “It’s monstrous,” Morgan said.

  "Told ya," Jane said looking smug for no good reason.

  It would have been criminally disingenuous of me to complain about Morgan looking at my Status without asking, given my proclivity for doing the same thing to everyone else, but I still felt awkward about it. I had a lot to hide.

  We all watched Morgan as she continued to gaze over my head with glazed eyes.

  “How long is she gonna stare at it, do you think?” Byron said.

  “Let her have it,” Nina said. “It’s not really a secret she’s been aching to get a good look at it for some time.”

  “We are still talking about his Status, right?” Byron said, earning quite a few chuckles.

  "Sure," Nina said, "let's run with that," earning a few more.

  “Hang on,” Morgan said, raising her finger. “Almost done.”

  “Seriously? How long does it take?” Lancelot said. “How big is it?”

  Sigrid spread her arms. “Huge.”

  “Holy fuck,” Morgan said, looking pained. "There’s more. I don't know if I can take this."

  Jane and Sigrid exchanged looks. “She just learned about his skills,” Jane said.

  ”He does have an impressive skillset,” Sigrid said.

  “She only just got to the skills?” Byron said. “Dude! How long is it?”

  “I’m afraid to ask but how many skills does he have?” Kay said.

  Jane and Sigrid exchanged another look. “All of them, I think,” Sigrid said.

  “Come on,” Byron said. “Now you’ve got to let us all see.”

  Morgan closed her eyes and let her head drop.

  “You wanna know why I don’t like sharing my Status, Byron?” I said.

  Morgan raised her head and opened her eyes, then stared at me with a complicated look that was different to how she looked at me before.

  I sighed. “That’s why,” I said. “That look right there. Like I’m some kind of monster.”

  Morgan’s nibbled her lower lip and she looked down again. “Sorry, Daniel, it’s just...”

  Sigrid went over and put her arm around Morgan’s shoulders. “I know, honey. I know.”

  "Been there, done that," Jane said.

  “If we’re all done with that,” I said, giving Jane what I hoped was a sharp look but which made her laugh. Not sharp enough, apparently. I continued on unabated. “I have an idea about how to make recruiting for Team Maple Leaf easier.”

  “You really think it’ll work?” Morgan said after I’d explained my idea.

  “Absolutely. Even if we can both evaluate people we can’t be everywhere checking out Statuses, so why not make it easier by bringing everyone to one place?”

  My idea was to have all the members of the team, as well as some of the more gossipy NPCs, go around town talking to people and posting notices that Team Maple Leaf — masters of the Shadow Dungeon — would be holding an open house for potential recruits the next morning.

  An open house was more their style than formal interviews and would give everyone on the team the chance to screen candidates. Above and beyond abilities, having a personality that fit with the team’s dynamic would be critical.

  If what I wanted to talk to Chow Li about was already in operation it would have been much easier to spread the word, but if everyone worked together it should be possible to let enough people know about it.

  “Daniel’s right,” Morgan said. “We have an advantage. There aren’t many other teams who can brag about controlling a dungeon, and the other ones who can are all asshats so we should make the most of it.”

  “Gee thanks, Morgan,” I said. I almost made a comment about being downgraded from fixer-upper to asshat, then remembered where we were. I’d rather not have other people know about that.

  I really did have a lot of secrets. It was exhausting keeping them all, especially with the crippling guilt I felt about, well, pretty much everything. I’ve gotta come clean about everything soon.

  “You know I didn’t mean you,” Morgan said.

  Sigrid snorted. “Asshat.”

  “Et tu, Sigrid?” I said, putting my hands over my heart like I’d just been shot.

  Arthur chimed in. “Daniel, I hate to ask given how much you’ve already done for us—”

  “And after specifically excluding him from our dungeon raid,” Sigrid muttered.

  “Yeah, that too I guess,” Arthur said. “But while you’re going around looking for your new member, think you can invite anyone who might be a good match for Maple Leaf to our open house?”

  ”New member,” Jane giggled.

  “Of course,” I said after giving Jane a why-don’t-you-just-grow-up glare. “I already have an idea who I’ll try to recruit anyway so I was already planning on spending the time helping you.”

  That earned me a few new looks, especially a surprised one from Sigrid. "Who?" she mouthed at me, but I just shook my head a tiny bit and telepathically messaged her “Later.”

  “Thanks,” Arthur said.

  “You should go talk to your fan club at the brothel, Daniel,” Jane said. “I’m sure they’d be able to spread the word faster than gonorrhea.”

  It was obvious she was joking about the VD but Galahad and Bruce both glanced down, and it didn’t take a mind reader to know what they were thinking. While I'd remained in the lobby performing ill-advised Monty Python sketches they'd both gone upstairs to sample the wares.

  “You know, Annabelle made a good point that we should use this as an opportunity to fix gaps in the team,” Wayne said.

  “I have been thinking it would be nice to have someone who could fill Andy’s role as a core damage dealer,” Morgan said. People started nodding in agreement.

  “That’s a solid idea,” I said, “but everyone will be looking for frontline melee Players and most of the decent ones are already on teams. If I were you, I’d focus on finding the diamonds in the rough. People whose abilities don’t immediately jump out but who have the potential for greatness in other areas.” I noticed Jane looking at me. “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said, smiling to herself. I tried to think of how she could find a double entendre in what I’d said and came up empty. So what was with that look?

  “Like what do you mean, Daniel?” Nina said.

  “Like you,” I said. “Your healing power’s obviously amazing, but your ability to buff the whole team can’t be understated. If we can find more people who can help make everyone else stronger, that’s worth more than one single frontline fighter.”

  “That makes a lot of sense,” Kay said. “Someone who can debuff the enemy and make them weaker would be just as valuable, if not more.”

  “I like the idea of having more crowd control,” Wayne said. “I’ve been using my summons as meat shields mostly, but your suggestion to use them to hit the enemy’s flanks and herd them where we wanted was very effective in the dungeon.”

  Morgan's eyes flickered toward me, probably wondering if she should tell them that had been my idea. I gave my head another subtle shake. It was better if they thought it was hers. I noticed Jane watching us and when our eyes met she rolled hers, no doubt she'd figured out whose idea it was.

  “You're right, Wayne,” Morgan said, “and we could use some decent area effect damage, too. We’re pretty good at taking on opponents one-on-one, but I’ve been wishing we had a trump card that can affect a large area at once.”

  “Right on,” I said. “We shouldn’t waste any time. Other teams will be out there recruiting already, we should send everyone out now and start spreading the word that Team Maple Leaf’s open for business.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Sigrid said. “It might be weird having you out there alone recruiting for another team.”

  We locked eyes for a moment. I figured she was really thinking I might still want help approaching people, but had politely used the fact that I wasn’t on the team as an excuse. Or maybe she just wanted to get me alone so she could grill me on who I was thinking of asking to join Team Player in her stead.

  “Yes please,” I said. I was definitely better at talking to people now than I was when all this started, but I still had a long way to go before I would be comfortable approaching strangers.

  “Alright alright alright,” Jane drawled. “We’ve got ourselves a plan, people.”

  We divided the city into sections and split up into groups of two or three, each one targeting a different area. Because they’d both trained with all the other clans and developed some relationships there, I suggested that Shashu and Farrah should go around and ask people from the other clans to help spread the word among the NPCs. Anything that could potentially get the open house news into unaffiliated Players’ ears would help.

  Sigrid was ready to go, but I asked her if she could hang on for just a little bit.

  “What's up?” Sigrid said.

  “I really, really need to talk to Chow Li right now.”

  “I’ll wait. I know you have your secrets,” she sighed.

  “It’s not like that. You can join me if you want.”

  She perked up. “Then let’s go.”

  As we made our way to Chow Li’s office, Sigrid suddenly burst out with a question.

  “Okay, I can’t keep it in any longer. I’m dying to know who you’re thinking about asking to take my place on your team.”

  Nailed it.

  “You don’t know her,” I said.

  "Her?” She sighed and shook her head slowly. “Yet another woman. Figures.”

  Up next: I finally meet with Chow Li