Preparation time was where factions showed their religion.
Gold Hall believed in rooms.
Private rooms. Assigned chairs. Quiet consultations with tea, ink, and doors that closed softly enough to make exclusion feel civilized.
Piety Circle believed in circles.
Prayer circles. Whisper circles. Moral reflection circles. Anything round enough to hide hierarchy by pretending everyone faced the same center.
Obsidian believed in corners.
Not because corners were safe.
Because corners let you watch two directions.
Team Seven received a supply closet.
That was not an insult.
Probably.
The closet suited us too well.
That was the problem.
Gold Hall could pretend strategy belonged to polished rooms because polished rooms had always opened for them. Piety Circle could pray in circles because no one asked whether the center had been chosen fairly. Obsidian knew corners because corners were what remained after better spaces were claimed by better names.
A closet had no romance.
