I couldn’t see the door leading down to the catacombs, it had been entirely blocked by the pieces of roof that had crushed the cultists guarding it.

“Oops,” I said.

With no more cultists left to shoot at us, we could move out from behind our cover. The remaining members of Team Legion ran over to join their leader with us. There were only two of them left, plus Achmed.

“Better get started clearing the way,” Annabelle said, then held out her staff. A magic circle glowed in front of her and a chunk of rubble rose slowly into the air, glided away, then dropped to the floor with a thunk.

Telekinesis now. Just how much could she do with sorcery?

I suppose I could’ve joined in. I could use the telekinesis I still had copied and help clear the door, but I suddenly recalled a scene from one of my favorite anime where two mages spent all day laboriously clearing a road blocked by a rockslide by telekinetically moving each chunk of rock one by one. It was surprisingly relaxing in that context, but we didn’t have that kind of time. The three Legionnaires went to help move the rubble manually, but I held Achmed back.

“Achmed, is that the only way to the catacombs?” I said.

“No clue,” he said. “But that door seemed to be the only one the cultists were defending, so I’m gonna guess it’s the only one.”

“Then we’ll just need to make our own way.”

“Go nuts,” Achmed said, then went over to help his comrades and Annabelle clear rubble.

Time to put my Great Architect abilities to the test. I took a deep breath, then started to closely examine the structure around me. It was a total mess, but that didn’t matter. Using the Architecture and Construction skills I’d picked up from Daedalus’ inheritance, I started reconstructing the place in my mind. My skill level was pretty low, but I found I still had some knowledge about how Cathedrals like this were built historically.

The design of a classic Cathedral was symbolic, and most of them shared similar elements. I overlaid what I knew from my skills with what I could see in this place, and got a sense for how the catacombs under us were likely laid out.

“Yahello Daniel, are you gonna help us with this or not?” Annabelle said, still moving pieces of rubble.

“There’s something I want to try,” I said.

She clicked her tongue at me and went back to her telekinetic work.

I went over to an area which should’ve, by my estimations, been directly above the catacombs. I knelt down and placed my hand on the floor. One of the many powers I’d seen used by another Player was I’ll Find You, which was basically radar. When people think of radar they usually envision detecting airplanes or catching speeding cars on the highway, but ground-penetrating radar is also a thing. I sent some radio wave pulses into the floor under me, and sure enough my guess was on the money: there was an open space below me.

I started moving around, testing the ground every few feet, and quickly mapped out what seemed to be a large underground room.

“Hey guys,” I called out. “I think I found a better way down.”

“Good,” Annabelle said, “because this is gonna take forever.”

They all stopped clearing debris and came over to where I was.

“Did you find a secret door or something?” Achmed said, staring at the solid tiled floor under us. “I don’t see anything.”

“Not quite,” I said. “Everyone stand back.”

We all took a few steps away, then I focussed everything I had on channeling Earth through Affinity Control. I used it to start boring a hole straight down.

“Holy crap,” Achmed said. “I thought your affinity was Fire. You have a second one with Earth too?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Get ready. As soon as this gets through we’re gonna go down. Just in case there are any bad guys down there, I want to get the jump on them.”

Achmed grabbed his mace in both hands. “Ready. But, um, how far down will it be?”

“Twenty-three feet, five inches,” I said.

“That’s curiously precise,” Annabelle said.

“Yeah, well. I have my ways. Remember to give the person ahead of you a few seconds to get out of the way before you jump down.”

I could feel immediately when the hole had breached the open space below. “Allons-y!” I cried and, after giving my agility a boost with My Body Is A Finely Honed Weapon — a power synthesized from several physical augmentation powers including Andy’s I Have The Power ability to direct qi to various attributes — I wasted no time leaping into it.

I’ll admit it. I’ve watched too many superhero movies. The landing pose was ingrained into my psyche, so when I hit the ground I went into a classic four-point crouch: one foot, one knee, and the knuckles of both fists on the floor. Ironically, though I did it to look cool, I never would have done it had I known there would be anyone watching. That would’ve been way too embarrassing. And yet, after landing, I looked up and saw several very surprised people gawking at me from the other end of the underground room.

Thank heavens I went for the Superman pose and not the Black Widow pose with one leg stretched out to the side along with both arms. That would’ve pushed embarrassing into mortifying territory.

I had landed at one end of a narrow, rectangular chamber that had been carved out of the bedrock under the Cathedral. It had been used as an ossuary, its long walls lined from floor to ceiling with rows of niches packed full of human skulls and bones.

The people I’d surprised, five of them in total, were all at the other end of the room in front of an arched doorway. A similar archway was behind me leading in the opposite direction.

A lot of things happened in rapid succession.

Knowing that momentarily someone else was about to drop down onto that spot, I rolled to the side.

Then, fearing an attack, I raised my personal shield.

Then, preparing to fight back, I raised my hand, ready to use what had become my go-to ranged attack for when I wanted to hurt something: my Second Amendment gun fu power tuned to create a plasma blast through a synthesis of Light, Fire, and Air affinities.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Then an arrow zinged at me. The shield I’d just raised hummed as the arrow struck it, stopping it dead.

Then one of them shouted, “Stop shooting!”

I used All Can Be Revealed to evaluate the people in front of me, starting with the woman who'd spoken.

Tiff Gardner

Team Spice (Leader)

Affinity:

Darkness

Gifts:

I’ll Outlive You All - Remarkable vitality

Sleep Is For Suckers - Does not require sleep

Powers:

All Shall Be Revealed - Expert: See any Status

Beware My Power - Expert: Create and manipulate dark energy constructs

We Are One - Adept: Share senses with an ally

Whip It Good - Competent: Strike with precision using the tip of a whip; Requires: Whip (Expert)

Skills:

Art - Competent

Bow - Competent

Fitness - Adept

Kickboxing - Adept

Knife - Competent

Music - Adept

Whip - Expert

We’d met before, a long time ago. She was the one who’d been a fan of Sigrid’s back home and had tried to poach her that first time we went running. I’d found Tiff Gardner imposing then, but she’d clearly been working hard and now exuded an aura of power and confidence that was so intimidating it almost made me take an instinctive step back.

The other four were all members of Team Spice, including Grace, the archer who’d been with Tiff that first time we'd met and who’d just tried to shoot me. All of them were women. Tiff had assembled the only all-female team and they were good, always near the top of the team rankings. Achmed’s Team Legion always hung near the bottom.

“I know you,” Tiff said. “You’re that guy who beat the elves. Sigrid’s friend.”

“I wouldn’t say I beat the elves, exactly.”

“If you can’t beat them, join them?” Tiff said.

“Something like that,” I said, lowering my shield. “What are you doing down here?”

“I should ask you the same thing.”

Tiff’s eyes glazed for a flash and I knew I’d just been evaluated. Her reaction was neutral, which meant that the illusory Status that hid my real abilities was working. She would’ve had a much different reaction if she’d seen a [Hidden] for each of my real affinities, gifts, powers, and skills. Thankfully, she’d only seen the reasonable number of [Hidden]s I wanted people like her to see.

At that moment, Achmed landed with a thud in the spot I’d vacated just a moment before. I couldn’t help but notice he too struck a heroic pose. Such a nerd.

“Is that Achmed from Team Legion?” Tiff said.

“What the hell?” Achmed said, still crouching in his superhero landing pose with a look of shock on his face. “Tiff?”

“What’s going on?” she said, strolling over and holding out her fist.

“We’re on a quest,” Achmed said, standing up and bumping her fist with his own.

“So are we.”

“Cultists?”

“Yeah,” she said. “We’ve been following these underground tunnels. The cult’s headquarters is down here somewhere, under the Cathedral. Where’d you come from?”

“Our quest led us to the Cathedral too, but from up top.”

Speaking of dropping in, I realized Achmed hadn’t moved since he landed. I used a light jolt of telekinesis to shove him out of the way a split second before one of his teammates would have landed on top of him.

“Hey!” Achmed started to complain, then realized what had happened.

“Sorry,” I said. “There wasn’t time to warn you.”

He pulled himself to his feet. “S’all good, buddy.” Then he took his teammate — who was staring at Team Spice with his mouth hanging open — by the arm and gently pulled him out from under the hole above.

“What’s happening up there?” Tiff said. “This whole place shook not long ago.”

“That was the cult blowing up half the place,” Achmed said.

I mentally thanked him for glossing over my role in the Cathedral’s destruction. Odds are the shaking she felt was when I caved the roof in and not from the initial explosion.

“We were trying to get to the catacombs, but the door leading down got blocked so, ah,” Achmed looked up at the hole I’d bored in it, “we made our own way down.”

“Let me get this straight,” Tiff said. “Both our teams got quests that brought us here to fight cultists, but from completely different directions? That’s new.”

“Is it a competition to see who solves it first?” Achmed said.

“Maybe,” Tiff said, scratching her cheek. “If so, I think we might lose this one.”

“Why do you say that? You always beat us when we faced off before.”

“That was different. Those were like silly reality show challenges. This quest has been...well, see for yourself.” Tiff gestured at the women around her. “We’ve already lost half our team. This has been a really hard one.”

“Tell me about it. But I think you might still have us beat,” Achmed said.

“Why? How many Legionnaires have you got left?”

As if on cue, the other Legionnaire dropped down.

“He’s the last one,” Achmed said, and guided his teammate out of the way.

“That really sucks,” Tiff said. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” Achmed said. “Me too. This really has been a hard one.”

I’d remained quiet and let them talk. This was their quest, after all. I was starting to wonder if I should be there at all.

“So what do we do now?” Tiff said.

Achmed surprised everyone by turning to me. “Daniel, what do you think?”

“Why are you asking him?” Tiff said. “No offense, er, Daniel, but do you have this quest too?”

“No,” I said. “I happened to be nearby when the Cathedral exploded and came to help.”

“Well thanks,” she said, “but aren’t you just a team of one? I’m not sure you can be of much help alone.”

“I'll have to disagree with you there, Tiff,” Achmed said. “If it wasn’t for him we never would’ve made it this far.”

At that moment, Annabelle came gliding majestically down, the magic circle glowing under her feet. She landed softly and the circle vanished, evaporating in a mist of purple sparkles.

“Besides,” Annabelle said, “he’s not alone.”