Sigrid glared at Arthur and opened her mouth to say something, then appeared to change her mind and I heard a clack when she clamped her mouth shut. I’d never seen her look so angry. She turned to me. “Do you wanna tell him or shall I?” she said through gritted teeth.

This was not a conversation I wanted to have. I couldn’t believe we were even having it. How could they all not know? Had everyone been thinking all along that I was a selfish jerk?

Then Arthur stood up. “Wait,” he said. “Let me do it.”

“What’s going on, Arthur?” Galahad said, his bitter fury now dampened somewhat by confusion.

Arthur took a deep breath. “I asked Daniel not to come with us,” he said.

Well, he actually told me I wasn’t invited to come, but this wasn’t the time to quibble over semantics.

“I don’t understand,” Chika said. “You told him not to come with us? Why the fuck would you do that?”

Bless you Chika, you clever girl. You got it right. Because of that I won’t even chide you about swearing. But I will try to talk her off the ledge.

“It’s okay, Chika. He just wanted to make sure that it was Team Maple Leaf who would get the dungeon. There’s no way I should have been given the Light Dungeon, that should have been Maple Leaf’s." If I'm being honest, that's what I used to think, but after hearing what Stratos said about how the labyrinth was supposed to be solved, and my role in finding the hidden quest and figuring out the puzzle, I could see now why the dungeon was awarded to me. Probably best not to mention that, though. "And the Nature Dungeon was a combined effort with some of the team, too, yet I still got that, too. Arthur didn’t want it to happen again. He was just looking out for the team.”

"But he's not on the team either!" Chika said, still perched precariously high on an emotional ledge. "What gives Arthur the right to make a decision like that? He's not actually a King, you know."

Nobody could say she didn't have some credible points there. Lord knows those same thoughts had swirled around in my head many times.

"What she said," Sigrid muttered.

I knew Sigrid suspected that wasn’t Arthur’s only motivation and the fact that he chose not to tell anybody except his sister gave a lot of credibility to her suspicions, but I wasn’t about to bring that up. He hadn’t needed to tell Jane, she was there when he talked to me and knew everything, I wasn’t about to bring that up either. I didn't know if Jane had agreed with him or was simply going along with it because of their relationship, but that didn't sound like Jane. I'd never seen her by shy about expressing her opinion.

With or without Jane's complicity, no matter how you sliced it his decision to not tell anybody else was dubious. The only reason Sigid knew was because Jane told her, which was a wise move on her part because if the truth had come out and Sigrid learned that Jane had kept it hidden from her, I would not have wanted to be Jane.

“But that’s not right,” Nina said.

“You have to admit though, Honey, it is a valid concern," Byron said. "Between what he did to Team Overgeared that night—”

I raised my hand to object. “Allegedly did! And it was only half of Overgeared.”

“—and we all saw what he did to that Silver Sword cocksucker,” Byron continued.

Objection overruled, I suppose.

“I can follow Arthur’s thinking," Nina said, "but what he did isn't right. You’ve been at least as much a part of the team as the Round Table, Daniel. The idea of you being excluded like that does not sit well with me. You must have been so hurt.”

“Thanks, Nina. I appreciate that, I truly do.” And I truly did. “But unlike the Round Table folks I actually am on a different team. The Round Table are the unofficial members of Team Maple Leaf, I’m a rival. A friendly one, but still a rival.”

"Still," Nina said. "I don't like it, and I especially don't like the way it was done."

“I can see Arthur’s point, too,” Bruce said, "and I probably would've agreed with asking Daniel if he would sit this one out." Ask...tell...whatever. "Daniel is a force to be reckoned with. I mean, he just beat an entire dungeon by himself. Who the hell solos dungeons here?”

"You should ask him about what happened at the Cathedral," Sigrid said.

"You mean when it blew up?" Bruce said. "I heard that was part of a quest that both Team Spice and Team Legion had."

"It was," Sigrid said, "but he...oh hell, you tell them, Daniel."

"I'd rather not," I said. "It's not relevant here."

"Yes it is," Sigrid said. "Daniel was at the arena when it happened and went to help and ended up tagging along on the quest. Daniel told me about it, but when I heard the same story from Tiff I realized how much he'd left out of it."

"Who's Tiff?" Byron muttered to Nina.

"Team Spice leader," she replied.

"Tiff wouldn't tell me the details," Sigrid said, "she said she promised not to say what Daniel did exactly, but she was pretty insistant that without his help they never would've completed their quests."

"You're not helping your argument, Sigrid," Kay said.

"That's because I haven't told you the important part. Tiff told me that Daniel specifically left the important actions for their teams to do. He helped — a lot, according to her — but mostly in a supporting role. She said he told them that it was their quest and purposefully let them finish it. He didn't even get a share of the rewards."

"Is that true?" Morgan said.

"I really didn't do that much," I said.

"That's not what Tiff said," Sigrid said. "But the point is, you did a lot but not too much specifically because you wanted to make sure they got the credit for completing their quests. He could’ve done the same thing with us, if Arthur would’ve allowed it.”

"Daniel, your modesty is endearing, but also exasperating, so enough with it," Morgan said.

"Preach, sister," Jane said.

Morgan looked me straight in the eyes. "Is what Sigrid said true?"

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"More or less," I said. Actually, it was 100% true.

"And you didn't get any quest rewards?" Nina said.

"No, but I still got a lot from the experience." That was also 100% true. What I got from the catacombs was worth way more than a few reward boxes. I met Akari, I deepened my relationship with Annabelle as well both teams, and I got the grimoire with the skill to use it. I was more than fairly compensated for my efforts, I thought.

Chika's scowl was so deep it was almost comical, but the anger smoldering behind it was anything but funny. "I wonder what King Arthur would say if one of the Round Table had done most of the work and was awarded the dungeon like Daniel was," she said.

Another good point. That Death Girl might have a future as a lawyer.

Nina took a deep breath. ”Arthur, you had no right to make that kind of decision by yourself. That's something for the whole team to decide."

There were a lot of people nodding in agreement. Arthur couldn't meet anybody's eyes, he just stood there staring at the ground. "You're right," he said. "I'm sorry."

Everyone was quiet, their brains working on rationalizing things in a way that would let them accept it all without painting Arthur as the bad guy. More than anything the team needed to come together and not allow themselves to be torn apart by this. That said, I was glad nobody thought I was the bad guy anymore.

Personally, I thought they were missing the real point. Or maybe they weren't, maybe it was just that nobody seemed to want to address the elephant in the room: if I really was that capable, a true force to be reckoned with, then if I had been in the Shadow Dungeon with them Andy might still be with us.

I wondered if any of them had also considered that if they had let Kenji use his skills to reconnoiter first, maybe their raid wouldn’t have gone so far off the rails and that also might have changed Andy’s fate.

“Peronally,” Jane said, using her god-tier social skills to redirect the conversation and defuse the tension, “I for one am glad that the idiot over there went after the Void Dungeon without us. As someone who was in there myself once, I’d rather face a dozen Shadow Demons than go against the big blob thingy that almost ate us.”

“Big what?” Lancelot said.

“Daniel, what’s it called again?” Jane said.

“Shoggoth,” I said.

Just like with the bombshell about why I was absent from the Shadow Dungeon raid, I could tell immediately who was familiar with H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos and who wasn’t by their reactions. Nina clearly knew nothing about it.

“What’s a Shoggoth?” Nina said.

When I’d told them about my experience in the Void Dungeon I’d skipped some details, then after that we’d all been mourning Andy and dungeon talk wasn’t high on anyone’s list so I never actually finished the story. That meant I hadn’t introduced anyone to Pinky yet. I’d left my familiar in the Void Dungeon’s tower but I had the ability to call it to me whenever I wanted.

“Imagine this,” I said, summoning the little horror onto my outstretched hand, “only about a thousand times larger.”

Everyone lurched back from the atrocity as it lurked there, quivering slightly, pustules erupting all over its amorphous mass into eyes which stared at everyone at once. I bent down and let it ooze off my hand onto the ground then stepped back a bit and telepathically told it to get bigger. Pinky swelled from the size of a Chihuahua into that of a large Guernsey. Its slithering appendages slapped the ground as they wriggled and its myriad eyes bulged and popped unpleasantly.

“Jesus Christ, Daniel,” Byron said. “Put that thing away!”

“That’s what she said,” Jane muttered.

I returned Pinky to the tower with a telepathic apology. What I received back through our Great Sage familiar connection let me know exactly how annoyed it was at me for summoning it only to scare people then send it back. Pretty prickly for a little blob.

“Is that really the sort of monster that’s in the Void Dungeon?” Kay said, blanching.

I shivered instinctively thinking about the other atrocities that populated the Void. “You literally do not want to know. Let’s just say I’m really glad I managed to sneak past without alerting any of them.”

Hint hint. If I can do that in the Void, surely Kenji could sneak into the Shadow to scope things out.

“And to think, you control them now,” Byron said.

“Now that’s scary,” Jane said.

“I think we’re getting off topic.” I said. “If anyone really wants I’ll take you there so you can see for yourself later, but right now we’re talking about how you’re going to go back and beat the Shadow Dungeon.”

Galahad was opening his mouth to say something but I didn’t give him a chance and plowed ahead.

“Regardless of why, I wasn’t there, so like Galahad said I don’t know exactly what you all faced, but that doesn’t matter because I do know you guys. I know that with proper preparation and teamwork there isn’t a dungeon you can’t beat.”

Hint hint.

“Easy for you to say,” Galahad said. I figured that was as close to an apology as I was going to get from him, but at least he wasn't ready to skin me alive anymore.

“Does that mean you’re coming with us next time?” Nina said.

I glanced over at Arthur. He was still avoiding eye contact.

“No,” I said. “This is still your dungeon to beat. I’ll help with whatever preparations I can before you go, but this was something you started without me so it will only feel right if you finish it without me.”

Jane leaned over to Morgan. “In other words, he’s too afraid to come.”

“Is it possible that he’s actually smarter than he looks?” Morgan said.

Arthur finally met my gaze for a moment, then he nodded. “I agree with Daniel,” he said. “We need to finish what we started. I’m going back to win this time. If anyone doesn’t want to come along, I’ll understand. I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll understand.”

“Oh don’t be a pompous ass,” Morgan said. “Of course we’re coming too.”

“So what’s our new strategy then?” Lancelot said to Morgan, ignoring Arthur.

“Let’s not rush into it,” she said. “We’ll take a day to think about it, then meet back up here tomorrow and plan out our attack, together, as a team.”

“You heard the lady,” Sam said. “We’ll take whatever time we need to prepare properly before going back and conquering that fucking dungeon.”

“Hell yeah,” Lancelot said. “Let’s show that Shadow Demon who the real boss is.”

The impromptu meeting ended on a considerably more positive note than what it had started on. People began to get up and wander off. Jane got up from where she’d been beside Arthur and came over to where Sigrid and I were sitting.

“Daniel,” Jane said. “How are you able to suddenly make one of those shoggerts appear? Why can’t I do that with Squishy?”

It must have heard its name because an inquisitive bulge of slime poked out of a pouch on Jane’s hip.

“It’s called a Shoggoth, and it’s my familiar.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a creature that I share a bond with, like a witch and her black cat.”

“So it’s not a pet, like that slime you gave to Jane and not me?” Sigrid said.

“Someone’s jealous,” Jane said.

“It’s more than a pet,” I said. “It’s more like a minion. I have a telepathic link with it and because it's from the void I can summon it like that. It came with the title of Great Sage I got when I beat the dungeon.”

“What does it do besides pop disgusting eyes all over itself and terrify anyone who sees it?” Sigrid said.

“It can change size and shape, and can grow as many tentacles as it wants. With enough of them they’re more efficient than arms and hands. Oh, and if you feed it a potion there’s a small chance it can produce more of them, but the method it uses to deliver those replicated potions is a bit, um, obscene.”

Sigrid shuddered. “That is so creepy I can’t even. Maybe next time you whip it out can you keep it to a manageable size and change its shape to something a little less horrifying?”

Jane and I looked at each other. “That’s what she said,” we both said at the same time, then started giggling.

“Oh grow up,” Sigrid said, but she was smiling as she said it. That was the first time I’d seen her smile since Andy didn’t come back.