My head swam, vision so blurred I could barely make out the cascade of System notices popping up.

System: Daedalus’ Notebook acquired

System: Quest complete - You have solved the Light Dungeon

System: Distributing quest rewards - Reward Tokens - 15 (+5)

System: You are the first to solve a Dungeon - Reward Tokens: 25 (+10)

System: Transferring Light Dungeon control – Error

What the hell was going on?

System: Error – Player has no team affiliation

System: Error – Dungeons can only be owned by teams

System: Resolution found – Player must form a team

System: Please input team name

I heard Sigrid’s voice nearby. “Daniel? Are you okay?”

“I, uh...maybe?”

I wanted to explain more but the same message kept popping up, preventing me from doing anything until I’d dealt with it.

System: Please input team name

Could this be my chance to join them?

“Team Maple Leaf,” I said.

System: Error – Team name already in use

System: Please input new team name

Crap. Team name. Team name. What’s a good team name?

I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Team Player.”

System: Team Player formed

System: Transferring Light Dungeon control to Team Player

System: Light Dungeon control transferred to Team Player

“Uh, Daniel,” Arthur said. “What’s going on?”

System: Light affinity detected

System: Confirming affinity match

System: Light affinity confirmed

System: Hidden quest requirements met

System: New title granted

My head was flooded with sudden knowledge. Visions flitted around me, an overwhelming deluge of ideas and thoughts and memories that weren’t mine but sort of felt like they were. I saw the labyrinth being designed and built and instantly knew its every secret. I saw the Minotaur’s rebellion through Daedalus’ eyes; not the part where it stole the poisonous blood from the Hydra, and not the part when it snuck it into Daedalus’s food, but only after that, once the poison had taken effect and the Mintaur had chained him to the lump of adamantium and given him the choice between the apple and the notebook. I understood his reasoning: biting the apple wouldn’t solve anything, the Minotaur would just kill him anyway. Better to leave a clue for someone like me to take the notebook and wrest the dungeon away from the usurping monster. Although the Minotaur had overthrown Daedalus, it did not properly control the dungeon because it didn’t know the secret of the notebook. I did. And I saw it all.

It was sensory overload as images and sounds came rushing at me a hundred miles a second. I saw the ecosystem of the labyrinth with communities of creatures sharing the space both inside and outside the mountain, including a lot of nasty monsters I was very happy we had not encountered along the way. From the rats and bugs that acted as the maze’s janitors, cleaning up the waste, to the higher-ranking boss monsters like the Gorgon, Chimera, and Hydra, and everything in between. An entire village of Doppelgangers in a subterranean grotto that dwarfed the Gorgon’s. A herd of centaurs roaming the fields around the mountain. Another herd of creatures at the mountain’s summit.

I controlled them all, because control of the dungeon meant control over a large area of land and all that was in it. I'll let you guess what shape that area was.

Mixed in with the flood of images were confusing flashes showing the labyrinth’s denizens fighting other monsters, including a horde of giant ants like the ones I’d battled against with Team Legion, as well as another tantalizing glimpse of the same person I’d seen riding the queen ant. The black hair and silver eyes were unmistakable, and wait, were those horns? It happened too quickly. Did this thing have rewind?

It felt like it lasted for hours, but they told me afterward that it had only been only a few seconds. As soon as I’d touched the notebook my eyes had rolled into the back of my head and my body had gone rigid and wobbly, then as quickly as it had started it was over. When I came to myself, my view was crammed with System messages.

System: You know Architecture

System: You know Construction

System: You know Drawing

System: You know Engineering

System: You know Mechanics

System: You know Sculpture

System: You have gained a title: The Great Architect

Once the System notices stopped coming I did my best to explain it all.

“Looks like you’ve got a team after all,” Sigrid said, a decidedly sour expression on her face.

“Yeah, a team of one,” I said. “Hold up. Hey Arthur, do you guys want to join Team Player?”

Arthur looked around at his group. They all nodded enthusiastically. “That’s a big fat affirmative, team leader.”

“System, please add Players Arthur, Morgan, Lancelot, Galahad, and Kay to Team Player.”

System: Error – Team composition may not be altered at this time

“Ah well. It was a good try,” Arthur said.

“Would’ve been nice,” Morgan said, smiling at me.

“So...” Jane said, “you really control this whole dungeon now? All by yourself?”

A new System message appeared, and this one everyone could see.

System: Global notification – the Light Dungeon has been solved and is now controlled by Team Player

“I guess you really do,” Jane said. “That’s wild.”

“I'm really sorry guys,” I said, “I had no idea this would happen. It should’ve been Team Maple Leaf who got control.”

“What does it mean to control a dungeon?” Nina said.

“For starters, it means we can untie the Doppelgangers,” I said.

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Everyone looked skeptical.

“It’s okay, they won’t hurt anyone.” I turned to the Doppelgangers. “You won’t, right guys?”

“We obey the Great Architect, Lord of Light,” they all said at the same time.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jane said.

“Holy bonkers,” Sigrid said, gawping at me. “For reals?”

“For reals,” I said with a lame shrug.

“Okay then, Lord of Light,” Morgan said with a wry grin.

“No way I am calling him that,” Jane muttered.

Morgan flashed a glare at Jane but I had the distinct impression she was stifling a laugh at the same time. Then Morgan continued: “How the hell do we get out of here?”

“Piece of cake,” I said, then went over to the wall that would have been behind the desk, before the desk had been shoved aside. I made the sign of the horns with my hand and pressed it against the wall, where a door appeared, just like the ones that had brought us into the labyrinth. I turned around and gave Morgan a flourishing bow. “Your exit, milady.”

"Thank god," Chika said. "One more second here with this smell and I'm gonna pull a Kenji and hurl."

Kenji grimaced, but Chika just threw her arm around him and laughed, ruffling his hair with her free hand. She'd been fully briefed on her little brother's escapades and was brimming with sisterly pride. Kenji, for his part, endured her attention. It didn't seem too difficult for him to to do so, either. I knew it. He was a total siscon.

People began filing through the door quickly, all eager to escape the stench, and as Jane passed me she gave me a strange look. “You are full of surprises,” she said, then stepped through the door and vanished.

I was just happy she didn’t seem to know that I’d seen her naked. I had tried to be noble and not peek, but, well, as Sigrid liked to point out: I am only just a guy.

I was the last to go through the door, but first I apologized to the Doppelganger who had pretended to be Chika. The lanky, grey-skinned creature seemed genuinely confused by the gesture at first, but it made me feel better. I knew that now I had replaced Daedalus it had a certain unnatural loyalty to me, but still. I had done it wrong and I needed to take responsibility.

Before I followed my friends, I left the Doppelgangers in charge of the dungeon while I was away, with instructions to give Daedalus a proper burial then clean up the office, making sure to get rid of the smell. Once the housekeeping details had been taken care of I made to go through the door, but I couldn’t. Something was blocking me. Then I heard the voice behind me.

“Oh Daniel, whatever shall we do with you?”

I felt my shoulders slump, then I turned to face Stratos. “You could let me join a proper team for starters.”

“I did have other plans, but your unexpected and, frankly, miraculous resolution of this dungeon has thrown a bit of a kink in them.”

“Oh, was this dungeon supposed to be hard to solve?”

“Do not get cocky,” Stratos said. “Players were meant to find dungeons but not be able to solve them just yet. It should have taken you a long time and a respawn or two before you found this room. That would have given you time to discover the clues that would help you unlock Daedalus’ diary, but you cut right to the pursuit.”

It took me a few seconds to figure out what they were saying.

“Chase,” I said. “The phrase is cut to the chase.”

“I will never fully understand the nuances of your human languages. You seem to overly complicate everything.”

I studied the alien's face. It never showed much expression at the best of times, but I felt like I was getting better at reading it. “You don’t seem that upset,” I said.

“About you solving the dungeon early? It makes little difference. The problem is this Team Player business.”

“That wasn’t my fault, System made me.”

System: System was simply following the rules

“Technically, the rules do say that a dungeon is controlled by the team that solves them,” Stratos said. “It hadn't been considered that an unaffiliated Player could solve one. System’s resolution was...logical.”

System: Of course it was

“It is fine,” Stratos said, waving a hand lazily. “I can adapt. All I have to do is make things a lot harder for you from now on. Try not to die too often, okay?”

Then Stratos vanished, but reappeared after a few moments.

“By the way, did I do better with the little details this time? Better than the arena?”

It blinked a few times as I tried to figure out what they were talking about, then it hit me. “You mean the smell? Yeah, you nailed it.”

Looking inordinately pleased with themself, Stratos vanished again. I waited, but they didn’t come back.

Was it just me, or were they were acting strangely? They'd seemed quite antagonistic last time we'd spoken, and while the words just now like the warning not to die too often weren't friendly, I got the distinct feeling Stratos hadn't been upset at all. Just pretending.

I stood there looking at the doorway my friends had all gone through. The secret doorway I had known was there and how to open because I was now the master of this dungeon.

“This is all wrong,” I muttered to myself. The Doppelgangers, who'd been waiting patiently in some sort of NPC idle sequence while Stratos had been here, all snapped their adoring gazes upon me at the sound of my voice. My loyal minions. "So wrong."

I knew I should be feeling elated, but all I felt was dejected.

This should have been Team Maple Leaf's dungeon. Jane should've been made the Great Architect, not me. Her original affinity was Light, this should be hers. She was the hero, she should have gotten the title, not me. How did things go so wrong?

To rub salt into the wound, a new System message appeared.

System: Team rankings have been updated

1. Team Player 500 points

2. Team Invictus 440 points

3. Team Maple Leaf 425 points

4. Team Spice 360 points

5. Team Droogs 310 points

6. Team N3m3sis 285 points

7. Team Ninja 245 points

8. Team Overgeared 215 points

9. Team Happy 175 points

10. Team Legion 150 points

11. Team Karma 135 points

Well that’s just great.

With one last glance back at Daedalus’s study — my study — I finally went through the secret door and appeared back in the cavern with the three doors. I took one look at the crumbled remains of the statues we’d destroyed when we arrived and waved my hand. The rubble disintegrated, and like magic all the statues were back whole, standing sentinel once again around the perimeter of the room. It was my dungeon, after all.

Everyone had left this area already so thankfully nobody had seen that. I jogged back to join them in the cavern with the fancy portico and the circle of braziers. Most people were still here, but some people had started filing back down the tunnel to leave the way we’d originally come. I called out to stop them.

“There’s a much faster way back,” I told them. “Everyone go into that circle.” I pointed to the ring of braziers. The oil in the bowls was lit now and blazed with a strange white fire that shone clear and bright throughout the entire space.

Sigrid was standing next to me, and as everyone was filing into the circle Jane approached us. ”Okay, I’ve been dying to ask. What’s with the snazzy new armor, Sigrid?”

Sigrid struck a pose. “You like it?”

“Hell yeah, that looks amazing.”

“It doesn’t just look amazing,” I said. “Watch this.”

Sigrid grinned and stood up straight, arms spread, and extended her wings.

“Holy mother of dragons,” Jane said. “Amazing doesn't even cut it!”

“Impressive, am I not?” Sigrid said. Then she lifted off the ground a few feet and triggered the Back Off power, flapping the powerful wings to create a strong wind that would have knocked Jane over if I hadn’t been ready for it and caught her. The gust had attracted some attention, so Sigrid swooped away to show everyone else her new tricks.

“I don’t know what to say,” Jane said.

“I find that hard to believe,” I said.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s just an expression. I have oodles I want to say, but I’m just gonna let Sigrid have her moment. She deserves it.”

Jane and I watched Sigrid spiral up to the very top of the dome and fold the wings in tight to her body, plummet, then extend them again at the last moment to zoom out of the dive and rise into the air again.

“Yes she does,” I said.

“Dammit,” Jane said a few moments later.

“What is it?”

“I want a legendary item too. Jane Anders’ Rapier of Doom or something.”

“That does have a nice ring to it,” I said.

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t worry, I am sure your time will come.”

Once everyone had congregated in the circle, Arthur called to me. “What now?”

This wasn’t the first ring of objects with affinity markings on them we’d seen. There was one outside the Void Dungeon, and the gazebo at the center of town had one too. Now that I knew all the secrets of the Light Dungeon I knew what these were: they were teleportation circles. Every dungeon had one. With them, anyone could travel instantly between two circles, as long as they’ve been to the destination before, and as long as they had the mana to fuel the trip.

I couldn’t stop people from using the ring here if they'd been to it before, but I could make them regret it if I wanted to. After all, I controlled all the monsters here. I could mount a much more enthusiastic defence than the one we'd faced. And it was okay if the monsters were killed. I could choose to respawn any of the monsters killed in the dungeon, ready to defend against the next invaders. I got to do that because I controlled the dungeon.

But as Great Architect, I got even more. It wasn't just a title, it was influence. This labyrinth was my domain. More than controlling the monsters there, I now understood them and their complex roles in the dungeon ecosystem. My appreciation for the insane depth of this game had grown considerably, but I also felt that there was something else going on here. Something weird.

Dungeon control was weird. This crazy title was weird. Stratos had been weird. Hell, that talk with Morgan had been weird.

At the time I had no way of knowing for sure, but I felt sure that I was on the cusp of a major shift in the way things were going to be for me on Crucible. Not to brag or anything, but I totally nailed it.

I took one last look back at my dungeon -- my dungeon! -- before showing the others how the teleportation circle worked, making us all vanish en masse.