Kiki looked at me like I’d lost it. “A bee?”

  “Do you trust me, Kiki?”

  She snorted. “Should I?”

  She sounded convincingly dubious, but the way she fondled the new rings on her fingers suggested that she had doubts about her doubts.

  “Do you wanna know what they’re up to in there or not?” I said.

  “Sure, but how?”

  I explained how I’d left a bee inside the dome to spy on people.

  “That’s how you knew about where we were and how many tokens we had,” Ai said. “You had a spy follow us.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be. It was a smart move.”

  I then explained how I could borrow the bee’s senses to see and hear everything it did, and could even share it with other people. Ai joined Kiki in looking dubious, but Tiff would’ve got it. It was a tweaked version of her power to share her senses with others I was using, after all.

  “How can you do that?” Kiki said.

  I told her what I had decided to tell everyone when they asked about an ability I didn’t want to explain: “Magic item.”

  I saw out of the corner of my eye Lianna trying to hide a smile. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

  “What are you smirking about?” Kiki said to her.

  “Oh, just remembering the first time I looked through the bee’s eyes,” Lianna covered quickly.

  “He let you do it?” Kiki said, her cheeks puffing.

  Lianna nodded, an impish smile teasing on her lips. “Oh yeah. He’s let me do aaaall sorts of things. It’s pretty wild.”

  Kiki’s eyes flared before she huffed again. “Fiiiine. Let’s see.”

  “Count me in too,” Ai said, looking a bit overwhelmed.

  I took a peek through the bee’s senses and shared it with Kiki, Ai, and Lianna, and sure enough Troy and his team were there.

  “What the?” I heard Kiki say. “Is this really how a bee sees things?”

  “Shhh,” I said. “I can’t hear what they’re saying.”

  The Droog leader Warren was explaining the situation, and how he thought they should wait in the dome for me to arrive and take me out.

  “Not like we can get out anyway,” Warren said. “The damned door won’t open.”

  “You can’t open the door?” Troy said.

  “We can’t even figure out how it’s locked,” Warren said sheepishly.

  Troy sighed and went over to check. He tried jostling the handle, tried pushing, tried pulling, and of course nothing happened. He scanned all around, looking for any sign of a lock or other mechanism to release the door.

  “Well fuck,” Troy said, giving the door a half-hearted kick.

  Warren nodded. “That’s what I said. But it has to work somehow. All the other teams before us got out.”

  “Did you try blowing on it?” one of Troy’s lackeys said.

  “Does it look like a fucking Nintendo cartridge?” Warren barked back.

  Troy grunted, then kneeled down and peered at the slender gap under the door. He pulled out a thin-bladed knife and slid it under, poking a few times.

  “There’s something in the way,” he said.

  “Those fuckers,” Warren said. “They blocked us in.”

  Troy stood up and put his knife away, then started swatting at the air. “What is it with this fucking bee? How’d it even get in here?”

  Uh oh.

  I tried making the bee fly further away but I was too late. I don’t know who killed it or how, but I suddenly lost the connection with my intrepid little black and yellow spy.

  “Nuts,” I said, blinking as I got used to seeing normally again.

  “That was...strange,” Ai said, rubbing her eyes. “But how did you get the bee in there in the first place? You did promise to tell me how you’re here before you’re supposed to be.”

  “I’d like to know that too,” Kiki said. “How did you get here? Nobody even knows where this Citadel is.”

  “It’s four hexes Northeast of the city,” I said.

  “Hexes?” Kiki’s brow furrowed for a few moments, then it dawned on her. “Like a game board. Holy shit, this whole place is a big game board!”

  “You only just figured that out?” Ai said smugly and got a stern look from Kiki in return. Ai ignored it and turned to me. “You can add how you know exactly where we are on the map to the list of questions you promised to answer.”

  “I did promise,” I said with a sigh.

  Lianna put her hand on my arm. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “They were bound to find out eventually. Besides, I can’t really expect them to trust me if I don’t trust them, can I? Is it okay with you?”

  “You’re the Captain, you don’t need my permission.” She started pulling her hand away, but I put mine over hers to stop her.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Maybe not,” I said, “but I won’t do it without your agreement.”

  She glanced down at her hand where it rested on my arm covered by mine and tugged it free. “Stop hitting on me, jerk. Just go ahead and tell them.”

  I waved Achmed and Tiff over.

  “What’s up?” Achmed said.

  “I have something to tell you,” I said. “So, when I got the Void Dungeon I got this magic item...” then launched into a brief overview of the TTC Control Card’s powers and how we were able to teleport into the dome before the first team arrived. I left out as much as I could about how it worked exactly and all the implications of the control it gave us, but I was surrounded by smart people.

  “You know where all the dungeons are, don’t you?” Ai said.

  “You figured that out pretty quickly,” I said. “Yes. I know where all the dungeons are.”

  “Well that’s just great,” she said, flopping her arms. “Now you’ll get them all.”

  “You’ve got it wrong,” Lianna said. “If he wanted to take them he would have done it by now.”

  “She means we,” I said. “We’re a team, honestly.”

  “That makes no sense. Why wouldn’t you want them?” Tiff said.

  “That’s a bit of a longer story,” I said.

  “Well if you don’t want the dungeons then why not tell us where they are?” Ai said. “The Shadow Dungeon’s gone and we couldn’t make a dent in the Death Dungeon, but I wouldn’t mind knowing where Water or Ice are to give them a try.”

  “What do you offer in return?” Lianna said.

  “Say what?”

  “That’s valuable information. It’s only fair that you compensate Team Player for it.”

  I noticed Tiff’s eyes glaze as she looked at Lianna, then she laughed. “Dammit, Daniel.”

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  She was still checking out Lianna’s Status. “How’d you know?”

  I grinned. “Know what? That Lianna here was an unpolished gem?”

  “Excuse me?” Lianna said, looking ready for a fight.

  “It’s okay, you’re good now, I polished you,” I said, thinking I was saying something nice.

  “You did what?!” Kiki blurted.

  “That’s even worse!” Lianna said, and Tiff laughed.

  “I truly mean no offense, Lianna,” Tiff said, “and as bad as it sounded I don’t think Captain Oblivious did either. It’s just that I remember seeing your Status before and didn’t realize your potential. That was my mistake.”

  Lianna took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s okay,” she said. “Neither did I, honestly.”

  I raised my hand. “I did.”

  “Jeez,” Kiki said. “Brag much?”

  “What? I’m just saying, as soon as I saw her I knew I had to have her.”

  “Don’t say it like that, idiot!” Kiki wailed. “Had to have her. Sheesh.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  With a sigh that was half-hiss, Lianna wrinkled her nose like what I’d just said smelled like spoiled kimchi then turned to Tiff.

  “How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?” she said, and Tiff laughed again.

  “You secure that shit, Hudson,” I said, pointing at Lianna. Then I made a fist and held it out expectantly. “Come on.” Lianna looked at it for a second, then sighed and bumped it with hers.

  Achmed grinned at me and said, “Isn’t this where you hop into your power loader and glare at Tiff and say: get away from her you bitch?”

  “Damn straight,” I said, and bumped his fist too.

  “I can’t believe you got that reference,” Lianna said.

  “Come on, that was an easy one.”

  “So if I were to ask you what is best in life?”

  “To crush your enemies,” I began with a bored sigh.

  “See them driven before you,” Kiki continued.

  “And hear the lamentation of their weak-assed men,” Tiff freestyled.

  Achmed made fists with both hands and bumped them together in front of himself. “Like two snakes coming together.”

  “Okay, maybe that was a bit too easy too,” Lianna said. “How about this, then: where’s the best place to watch attack ships on fire?”

  “Okay, you got me there,” Kiki said.

  “Off the shoulder of Orion, of course,” I said. “You know, even if my dad wasn’t a huge nerd — huge — and made me watch all the classics from the moment I was born, I do also have the Trivia and Eidetic Memory skills. You could quote the frigging Notebook or Bridges to Madison County and I’ll still get it. Sadly.”

  Lianna turned to Tiff again. “Please. Save me.”

  “I’d take you away if I could, but I think maybe you’re better off where you are. Although,” Tiff said, tapping her chin before nudging me with her shoulder, “if they ever allow teams to merge, wanna hook up?”

  “What?!” Kiki shrieked.

  “You think I should spice things up?” I said, which earned me a few groans.

  “Hey now,” Achmed said, “I’ve got dibs. I knew him first.”

  “Technically,” Kiki said, flipping her hair, “I knew him first.”

  “Does this mean you want to merge with me, Kiki?” I said.

  She flushed a satisfyingly bright red and looked down at the paving stones. “I wouldn’t be opposed, I guess,” she mumbled, and it was so cute that without thinking I reached out to ruffle her hair again.

  Kiki’s body stiffened but her chin dropped to give me better access to the top of her head. I couldn’t help noticing that the dark roots had recently been dyed back to bleached blonde. Lianna’s salon friend must’ve been busy.

  “Get a room,” Lianna teased, and I snatched my hand back.

  “Whoops, sorry,” I said, then turned to Tiff, who was watching me with a bemused smirk. “Actually, remember that long story about why we didn’t go grab more dungeons once we knew where they all were? Lianna and I are working on something that I think you’ll be interested in. All of you, really. At least I hope you’ll all be interested.”

  “That sounds intriguing,” Achmed said. “Care to share?”

  “What, and ruin the surprise?” I said, flashing my best carnival huckster smile.

  “Ever the mystery man, eh?” Tiff chuckled.

  “You won’t have to wait long,” I said. “And it will affect everybody so I think everybody should learn about it at the same time. We’ll make the big reveal to everyone after the quest is over.”

  “We will?” Lianna said, then breathed out the most magnificent sigh. “Daniel, you have to tell me these things.”

  Achmed bro-clapped me on the shoulder. “I’m sure whatever it is, it’ll be awesome.”

  “Ugh,” Kiki said, waving her hands in front of herself. “Somebody open a window, I can’t breathe with all the testostrogen these two are off-gassing.” Achmed stuck out his tongue so Kiki stuck hers out back at him.

  “Now if we can maybe finally get back to actually finishing the quest, what do we do now?” Ai said.

  We all turned our attention back to the dome, inside of which Invictus and the Droogs were doing who-knew-what?

  Achmed scratched his head. “You want to wait them out?”

  “We could smoke ‘em out,” Tiff said.

  Kiki huffed and put her hands on her hips. “Don’t they need an actual way to get out first?”

  Everyone then turned to me with expectant looks.

  “If you want to know what I think,” I said, “I say what’s the rush? Wouldn’t it be way more fun if we just wait and see how they manage to make their own way out?”

  “That’s...not what I was expecting,” Ai said.

  “It’s pretty much exactly what I was expecting,” Lianna said.

  “So what’ll we do in the meantime?” Kiki said. “I’d rather not go collect room tokens until we’ve dealt with those jokers.”

  “Anybody got a deck of cards?” Achmed said.