He didn’t reply. In fact, he acted like he didn’t hear me at all. I could’ve understood if he’d been dazzled by all the gold in front of him, but he didn’t seem at all interested in it. If anything, he seemed annoyed by it.

“Um, my shirt?”

“I don’t know where it is,” he said. “You weren’t wearing one when they brought you here.”

That’s not good.

He retrieved a vial from a shelf holding dozens of potions and handed it to me. “The antidote.”

I was about to quaff it down when I had a thought. “There’s no extra charge for this, is there?”

“It was included in the holding fees.”

I drank it down, then tried to sit up. No nausea. Thank god. I threw my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. The first thing I did was reach into my inventory for a fresh shirt, but the only article of clothing I found in there was the shirt I’d been wearing before. At least that solved the mystery of where it went, but the jury was still out on when and why it was removed. The shoulder was torn to hell and caked in blood, but it was better than nothing, so I put it on then started counting coins. There were exactly one thousand in the chest. I took eighty-seven and put them into my inventory, then closed the chest and gave it to Joe.

“Paid in full. Now how do I get the hell out of here?”

I followed Joe out of the room into a hallway lined with similar doors, no doubt a similar infirmary room was behind each one. The hallway opened into a huge chamber, the Cathedral’s nave. There were several Players there, most nursing various injuries and in conversation with NPC Cathedral aid workers about payment of fees. All the aid workers, male and female, were as plain and nondescript as Joe. They all had the same red hand pin and, I noticed, they also all had the same Thaumaturgy skill. As much as I wanted to get the hell out of there, I wanted even more to see someone using the skill so I could learn it, but Joe deftly ushered me toward the exit like an Australian shepherd, and the next thing I knew I was standing outside the Cathedral, blinking in the late afternoon sunlight. I saw a few people giving me strange looks, then realized I was holding the bloody corpse of a Jackalope in my hand. I quickly tucked it away in my inventory and made my way back to the Dragon clan.

Instead of going directly into the courtyard by our dorm, I went through the main clan house and found Sifu so I could give him the dead Jackalope. He and Chow Li were having tea in a small garden I’d never seen before.

“I expected to see you like this,” Chow Li said with a coquettish smile. “I’d heard you made a bit of a fuss at the Eastern gate.”

“You did?” She quirked an eyebrow at me. “Of course. You heard from the Wolf Clan.”

“You have been the topic of conversation several times recently.” She inclined her head toward the blood-soaked armband I wore with all six colors of the different clans braided together. “Nobody has ever joined multiple clans before.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed.”

“It’s not that it isn’t allowed, it just hasn’t been done before.”

I shrugged. “I wanted to learn.”

“You’re lucky. Had anyone else showed up at the gate and done what you did, they would have found themselves locked up.”

I winced at that, then bowed deeply. “I apologize for my behavior. I ran into another Jackalope, and this time it bit me.”

“Ah, that would explain it. I’m glad to see you’ve recovered.”

“It wasn’t cheap, but I’m fine now. And that’s actually why I’m here.” I produced the Jackalope’s body. For the first time since I arrived, Sifu reacted. His eyes widened and he licked his lips.

“The Cathedral’s services are expensive, yes,” Chow Li said. “The payment for the Jackalope parts should help offset that.”

I waved my hand. “Please, after my dishonorable behavior at the gate, and after all you’ve done for me and the other Players, I couldn’t possibly accept payment.”

It was Chow Li’s turn to shrug. “If you wish.”

She sipped her tea while Sifu stared greedily at the dead monster. I took that as my cue to leave. I bowed again and backed away to the door.

When I got back to the dorm, most of Team Maple Leaf was training in the courtyard, but The Round Table had gone out of the city in search of adventure shortly after I’d left for the forest and hadn’t yet returned. Most of them were practicing, in one way or another.

Shannon, the girl I’d rescued on my first night here, was tending the garden. She’d been taken in by the clan and had adopted the duties of gardener. Nina was with her, listening raptly while Shannon explained the medicinal uses of some of the herbs planted. They were the first to see me come in, and Nina’s face immediately pursed into a frown.

“Getting into trouble again, I see,” Nina said. Right, the bloody shirt. She came over to heal my injuries, but I waved her away.

“It’s okay, I’m already healed.”

“Oh?” Now she looked at me like a jealous girlfriend who’d found lipstick on my collar. “Find yourself a better healer, did you?”

I had to laugh. “Nina,” I said, “if only you knew. I will never let anyone else heal me but you.”

I left her with a confused look on her face and trudged toward my room.

“I don’t know how to explain it!” Jane said from across the courtyard. She was with Byron, Sam, and Chika, and as I watched she swirled her hands around then thrust them out. “You just sort of...foom, you know?”

Byron’s face betrayed a combination of bewilderment and frustration as he tried to copy her hand-swirls, while Sam stood there looking at his own hands. Chika just looked angry.

Wayne saw me watching Jane struggle and came over to me. “She’s been trying to teach Affinity Control to the ones who still don’t have it yet. It’s not going well.”

“Foom?” Chika roared. “What the heck does foom even mean?”

“I don’t know how else to explain it!” Jane said.

Jane noticed me trying to sneak past them into my room. “Daniel,” she called to me. “I’m tapping out. You show them.”

“Sure, let me show you how it’s done,” I said, and took her place.

After a minute or two, Sam used his Nature affinity to make a sunflower burst out of the ground from between two paving stones. “I did it!”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“What the hell?” said Jane. “I’ve been trying to show him how to do this for ages and you waltz in here and poof, now he gets it?”

I shrugged. “More like foom and they got it, but yeah.” I pointed at myself. “Teacher, remember?”

“Yeah yeah,” said Jane. “Nobody likes a show off.”

“Okay Chika, Mistress of Death,” I said, and that made the teenage girl smile in a slightly disturbing way, “focus on that sunflower and picture it wilting. Suck the life out of it.”

She stood there, hands curled in tight fists as she shot a literal death-glare at the flower. The edges of its bright yellow petals began to brown and crinkle, then the decay spread as entire blossom withered and drooped.

“Ha!” shouted Chika. “Suck it, flower.”

“That’s my girl,” I said, holding my hand up for a high five. Chika slapped it with a grin.

Jane threw her hands up and stalked away, giving me a soft shoulder check as she passed and mumbling something I couldn’t make out.

While Sam and Chika picked it up right away, Byron struggled a bit more with controlling his affinity, but only because it was hard to visualize the manifestation of Void. I used my experience in the Void dungeon with Jane to recreate the swirling mist of color around my feet, and it wasn’t too long before he managed to do it too.

“And there you go,” I said. “Affinity Control. Now practice it until you’re out of mana, have a snack, then practice some more.”

Sigrid noticed me trying to sneak into my room again.

“You were gone a while. Where have you been?” she said.

“Out and about,” I said.

“Picking up new skills, no doubt. Jeez, Daniel. How many do you need?”

I turned around and smiled at her. “I’m trying to collect the whole set.”

“Can I see?”

This is not going to go well.

I grudgingly opened my Status and shared it.

Daniel Lamont Affinity:

Air - Adept

Darkness - Competent

Death - Competent

Earth - Competent

Fire - Adept

Ice - Adept

Life - Adept

Light - Adept

Nature - Adept

Shadow - Competent

Void - Adept

Water - Competent

Gifts:

Good at Everything - Player can develop Affinity with all elements; Restriction: cannot evolve mastery in any Affinity, Power, or Skill beyond Adept level

Hands Off My Stash - Extra-dimensional storage space

I Can Keep Going And Going - Mana battery

Jack of All Trades - Learn any Skill through brief observation

Murder Hobo - Better chance to get better loot

Powers:

All Shall Be Revealed - Adept: See any status

Synthesize - Competent: Combine abilities

Skills:

Affinity Control - Adept

Aikido - Competent

Archery - Competent

Axe - Novice

Blacksmith - Novice

Brawling - Competent

Butchery - Competent

Cartography - Competent

Capoeira - Competent

Climbing - Novice

Cooking - Competent

Crossbow - Novice

Drawing - Novice

Eidetic Memory - Competent

Fitness - Competent

Hunting - Competent

Jiu Jitsu - Competent

Judo - Competent

Karate - Competent

Kickboxing - Novice

Knife - Adept

Kung Fu - Adept

Laying On Hands - Competent

Lockpicking - Competent

Muay Thai - Competent

Negotiation - Competent

Ninjitsu - Competent

Omni-do - Adept

Polearms - Novice

Puzzles - Novice

Sneak - Adept

Spear - Novice

Staff - Novice

Sword - Adept

Tae Kwon Do - Competent

Teaching - Adept

Throwing - Novice

Trivia - Competent

Wrestling - Competent

“How are things here?” I said as she worked her way through my Status, hoping to distract her.

“Oh, you know,” she said, “pretty good. What the hell?”

Here it comes.

“You jerk! This is what you call a few skills?”

“Hey, it’s just more stuff I can teach everyone else.”

I wonder if she’ll buy that?

“I suppose that’s true. Looks like you’ve managed to get everyone using Affinity Control now, so that’s good. Both Jane and Nina have got their Laying On Hands, shame you have to have Life affinity to use that...still, you’ve been a busy beaver, haven’t you?”

Huh. What do you know, she bought it.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s workout,” I said.

She put her hands on her hips and smirked. “Someone’s feeling pretty confident all of a sudden.”

I banged my fist on my chest a few times. “Thanks to this Player’s body.”

“Thanks to me, you mean.”

“True. Since I got your Fitness skill I can almost feel my body getting better.”

“Not what I meant,” Sigrid said.

Jane sauntered over. “Better. Stronger. Faster. We have the technology. Um, where’d you get all those Gifts, dude? And holy shit, what’s with the Skills?”

Oops. I guess I shared my status openly instead of just with Sigrid.

“He’s been a busy beaver,” Sigrid said.

“What’s this omni-do thing?” Jane said.

“You haven’t seen that yet?” Sigrid said. “It’s his special project.”

“What special project?” Byron said. After Jane’s outburst everybody was coming over to take a look.

This was getting uncomfortable.

“That status is insane,” Andy said, shaking his head. “Skills are not Pokemon, dude.”

“Pokemon?” Chika appeared out of nowhere. “Where?”

“Just talking about Daniel’s skills,” Andy said. “You know, gotta get them all?”

“It’s gotta catch ‘em all,” said Chika, rolling her eyes as only a teenage girl can.

“When were you so interested in that stuff? I thought your brother was the otaku.”

“Nerd osmosis,” Chika said.

“That’s not a thing,” Andy said.

“Sure it is,” Jane said. “Right Daniel?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

Chika was showing a particular interest in my status, narrowing her eyes as she stared at it. “Omni-do? What is that?”

“A special secret project,” Jane said, “so secret that he hasn’t even told me. But not so secret that he hasn’t told his buddy Sigrid about it.”

Sigrid stuck out her tongue. “Guess you’re not buddies.”

“It’s a martial art,” I said to Chika, ignoring the others.

“Never heard of it.”

“That’s because I made it up.”

She scoffed. “Really?”

“Want me to show you?”

She looked at me for a few moments, then a wide grin spread across her face and she stepped back to the area of the courtyard we used for hand-to-hand training. “Bring it, old man.”

Several people laughed, none more enthusiastically than Jane. I joined Chika on the mats while the others found good places to watch.

“You do remember that I am the tournament champion,” she said.

“I am well aware. Are we using powers as well?”

She shook her head. “No cheating. Just skill.”

“Then I might stand a chance.”