Jaded Series (Books 1-2)

Alim's mind was not as quiet as the rest of the world around him. If it wasn't racing with new ideas on alchemy or philosophical musings, it had a tendency to focus on a singular task. Whether it was to read the lips and body language of the person he was trying to converse with, the order of books to put back on the shelf, or the clear night sky that he gazed upon from the isolated roof of his empty home, his attention would fully devote itself to that task.

In this fatal tower, however, that singular focus would get him killed.

He needed to observe everywhere at once and on every person at the same time. He had to focus on being observant to an extreme amount and not get caught fixating. Without his ears to alert him like the others, he needed to focus on his new companions' reactions to help him be aware of what might try to sneak up on them.

It wasn't that he needed to suddenly gain the ability to hear, though that would likely be helpful, it was that he needed to adapt more. He needed to be more like Hadia, who he noticed kept her head on a constant swivel. Alim needed to keep his eyes open and remain vigilant.

He wouldn't let his disadvantage be what killed him.

To that end, he made sure to keep scanning everything as they bolted from the underbrush at Jin's urging and the sight of the monster charging. He wasn't sure if she gave other orders after that initial one to run, but he assumed the destination was their base the bracelet had helpfully tugged him towards.

Just as Celia reached the door to the cabin first and threw it open, Alim looked back to see Basima catching up with Karam and beyond that Jin getting impaled by the slightly smaller monster. He felt his heart stutter at the sight. After all she had done to try to save him from getting beaten and make him feel included, was she really going to die this soon?

It would be their fault. He knew in his gut that if Jin died on this first level, it would be because she was trying to protect all of them. Because all of them would have died to the first monster they had run into.

Alim's legs were moving before his brain fully caught up to the fact he was running toward Jin instead of the safety of the cabin. His only relief was that it looked like Jin had managed to kill the monster at the same time as she looted it.

He stumbled from a protruding root and felt a shudder of fear pass through him as the larger monster bellowed and charged at the girl who had fallen to her knees. A rush of air and a blur of silver and white passed him as Daren arrived at Jin's side before him.

Alim was impressed by the fearlessness of the boy, who quickly reacted to shield Jin from harm and then charged after the beast. He started moving again, getting to Jin and trying to help her stand so they could retreat to Karam, who could heal her. His shield had been on Daren still so he hoped it would last long enough for the others to come help him fight.

He struggled to lift her as she seemed unresponsive to his movements, but when her face twisted in sheer agony, he turned to look back at what had caused her so much despair. His own heart sank at the sight of a hero's death. A boy who had given his life to protect others. Another sacrifice to the gods…

Alim clenched his teeth in anger at the tribute. No doubt the crowds had enjoyed the thrilling show. He had seen similar scenes over the last year since he had been allowed access to the unedited recordings of past Seasons. Too many heroes had already fallen, and he already knew Daren wouldn't be the last.

Managing to lift Jin after she had fallen unconscious wasn't too difficult for him to manage, but he thought he might break his neck with how much he was twisting it to make sure no other monsters were upon them. Noticing the odd absence of loot on the ground as well, he focused on carrying Jin, grateful that she was smaller than he was, and moved to reach the cabin where Karam could hopefully heal her in time.

He could see Hadia yelling at Basima and Karam as they reached the cabin entrance as well, but he couldn't make out any of what she was saying from this distance. Her agitation was obvious, though, and something must have been wrong as she slammed the door shut again. That's when he noticed that Celia was missing. She had reached the cabin door first, so why was Hadia shutting it?

Alim frowned, hoping it wasn't another monster, but already assuming it was. This place was a death trap, and placing a monster in a place they thought should be safe seemed like an obvious move. Glancing down, he began to get worried as Jin's body shuddered and blood pooled around her stomach from the twin wounds.

Luckily, Karam noticed him and cast that healing mist to begin closing Jin's wounds and regenerating her lost health.

Basima was sobbing beside Hadia, who gave him a frustrated look that he was all too familiar with as she faced him and tried to force herself to speak slowly for him.

"Flying monster inside. Celia's dead. Carrot pocket the place."

He blinked at that last part and reparsed it as, "Can't protect the place."

So there was something that killed Celia and would try to attack them as they tried to turn on the protective enchantments. He nodded and carefully set Jin down, sitting her back against the cabin wall.

Alim cursed not having his writing tablet at the moment, and hoped Karam would remember enough of the Whisper signs as he tried both signing and moving his mouth for them to attempt to read. "I'll focus on the enchantments if Hadia and Basima focus on the monster."

He did it a few times before they were all nodding their heads in understanding and Hadia lifted her mace in a show of being ready to pummel the creature. It was easier for him once she seemed to take over, moving Karam over to Jin's side to focus on healing her, giving him time to make sure everyone's [Mana Barrier] was still up, then lifting a few fingers to countdown for Basima and him.

As the door opened and the girls rushed into the even darker interior, he followed them, actually grateful for the silence around him as his eyes searched for the device they needed. He saw Hadia swing at a large bat-like thing as her barrier flickered with blue light from the impact, and Basima's flash of brilliant blue arrow illuminating the room. It was enough to let him see the blood splattered everywhere and also find what he was looking for: the mana generator.

Alim had watched many of the previous Tower Seasons before on Sense Stone recordings. It was a common enough pastime for most of the adults in the city that even if he hadn't been particularly interested in the violent trials they called a sport, he knew enough about what they could potentially expect. The mana generator was a small golden machine shaped like a large pinecone and would be the center of the protection enchantments, he would just need to activate it.

However, when he found it on the low desk in the middle of the open sitting room, he frowned at the incomplete ritual diagram surrounding it. It was missing the ley lines between the runes that were already carved directly into the wood.

He looked around desperately searching and saw a small kitchen area where a knife lay upon a larger table. Alim rushed to retrieve it and slipped in the wet blood coating the floor. He almost lost his head the next moment as his shield shattered when the bat monster swooped into it, only to get knocked off course and blasted in one of its wings by another magic arrow.

Pushing down his rising panic, he leveraged his singular focus to get what he needed to do done. He knew he couldn't fail this because he also knew nobody else knew enchantments or rituals well enough to complete the puzzle that had been left for them.

Alim was currently their best hope for survival, and he wasn't about to mess this up.

Grabbing the knife, he practically slid back across the room, kneeling at the low table and slamming the knife into the first rune circle. It was mostly done, he just needed to connect the right runes together before pouring some starter mana into it. The small mana generator itself would then activate and start pulling from the ambient mana to continually power the enchantments around the cabin.

When he was certain every line was drawn and was about to activate it, a sharp pain slammed into his shoulder as the monster's sharp teeth buried itself into him. He didn't scream, used to sudden pain coming from nowhere by this point, but this was definitely worse than he normally had to deal with. It was almost worse than that time Lady Shahara had broken his hand from slamming a heavy metal bar directly atop it because he turned the heat on the vial burner up too high.

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Pushing himself to focus beyond the pain, he finished the last piece of the puzzle by slamming his Servant's bracelet against the matching rune and pouring his mana through it and into the ritual.

It was like a firework as the magic swept through him, a bright golden light ripping the monster from his shoulder and killing it as it was crushed against the wall of the cabin. The mana generator wasn't just fueling the protection enchantment, it seemed, as the glowstones in the ceiling suddenly illuminated as well, letting them clearly see within the gloomy, gore-covered cabin.

With the sun already set, it had almost become impossible for them to fight in the dark, and Alim breathed a heavy sigh of relief to have made it in time before losing any more lives. He had done it. He had managed to protect them.

Alim jumped when a hand touched the arm of his injured shoulder, and he turned to see Karam looking at him with worried eyes. He didn't even bother to try reading the man's lips this time as he tugged at the silvery shirt covering his chest but struggled to completely remove it with the pain shooting through that arm whenever he moved it.

Karam helped as best he could, their cooperation managing to remove it so Kar could see the nasty wound. Alim just prayed that the monster wasn't venomous. His friend seemed hopeful though as he offered a small smile and mouthed some words, which caused the healing mist enveloped them, smelling minty and refreshing.

For the first time since waking up this morning, Alim finally relaxed as he leaned against the sofa behind him, ignored his pain and sorrow, and closed his eyes to rest.

Jin was almost surprised to wake up again. She was in an unfamiliar room, staring up at the wooden beams of a log cabin, and she was actually still alive. The others must have been able to retrieve her once the monster was dead and get her to the safety of their base.

With a groan, she tried to sit up. "Careful," Basima's voice said from somewhere. "You got hurt pretty bad, and Karam isn't sure how well his ability fixed up your lung despite casting it a couple times."

The blonde was sitting in a simple wooden chair beside the small bed and watching her anxiously. Jin took a deep tentative breath but everything seemed to be working properly. She still felt a bit stiff and tired but that was likely just the aftereffects of their panicked dash to safety.

"I think I'm okay now. I saw Daren die, but did everyone make it here okay? This is our base thing, right?"

Basima shook her head. "Celia died to a monster that was hiding in the cabin, waiting for us. Alim was amazing, though, and managed to activate the protection enchantments before the rest of us died, too. Apparently, this season, they thought it would be funny to add a knowledge test to it, so he really saved us."

"That's messed up, but I'm glad you and the others are safe now," she replied, moving to try and get out of the bed. She wanted to make sure Daren and Celia got proper burials, at least, if they were all protected for the moment.

"You don't need to get up," Basima said. "It's late, and everyone else is asleep already."

Jin raised an eyebrow at her. "Why not you then?"

The girl blushed slightly, which made Jin's stomach do completely unnecessary flips at the sight. "I just didn't want you to wake up feeling alone or confused," Basima quietly explained, not meeting her eyes. "I can go now—"

"No!" Jin interrupted a bit louder than she should have but quickly corrected, "It's fine. Thanks. I'm glad you're here. I was just… um… wanting to bury the dead and worried about how long we have to complete the floor," she lamely supplied.

Looking around the room, she noticed it was rather small, fitting just the bed and a small desk near the end of it with a wooden chest in the opposite corner. She nodded at the chest and asked, "Anything in those, or is that a mimic that's gonna try to eat me?"

Basima snorted a laugh. "It's not a monster, if that's what you mean, but there wasn't much in it. Just some warmer clothes, a camouflage cloak, water flask, and backpack, etcetera. Hadia's pretty sure finding food and water is part of the biome challenge."

The girl then surprised her by moving to sit much closer to her on the bed, making Jin's cheeks heat with her sudden proximity, but Basima explained it the next minute as she lifted Jin's arm up and pressed one of the runes on the bracelet.

"This is the Ladder rune. It'll show how much time is left to complete the floor. Look." She moved her arm more so that the little hologram was between their faces now and Jin could read it.

"See? You're already in third place! But we have time now. We can relax a bit, and—"

"Relaxing will get us killed," Jin replied bluntly. She hated to ruin that hopeful look on Basima's face, but she had learned enough about the tower already and had seen enough movies to know that there would be no relaxing in a death game like this.

After a tense moment, she added, "But you're right that we're not really pressed for time now. We can breathe a bit and plan to move carefully." Basima merely nodded, and Jin tried to shift the topic slightly. "What's a Shade Gulper? And how exactly do those points work? Why do they show after someone dies?"

"I think the Shade Gulper was a type of water monster, but I don't really remember for sure," the blonde replied, bringing her knees closer to her chest as she rested a cheek on them. "I'm also not positive about the point amounts, but I know we got some for the monsters we killed, and Alim got a handful for capturing this base, plus the monster he finished off by doing so. The points remain after death to count towards our Sect total."

"You mentioned Celia died to another monster, but you all still killed it?"

"Yeah, there was a Fangwing waiting inside here, guarding the mana generator that triggered the protection enchantments. Hadia and I got a few good shots in, but only killing blows count for points."

Jin snorted a laugh. "Guess that makes us at the top look like kill-stealers."

Basima gave her a sad smile. "I know sometimes that's a strategy Champions will use to win. I heard a story one time about a Season long ago where a Fighter got so mad at the rest of his team for not letting him get the killing blow on a floor boss that he killed all of them to make up the points."

"That is fucked up," she said with pure disdain. Basima merely nodded, and Jin asked, "So once we kill the floor boss, we'll get a new timer, right?"

"Yeah. We get one quarterhalf for the first floor, then two more quarterhalves get added to whatever time is left over for floor two, then three more for the third, and so on. Usually, the time limit isn't what ends a Season, but it's a constant encouragement to keep pushing."

"What happens if we run out of time?"

"Instant death," Basima said with a heavy sigh. "An Emerald Keeper will come in to finish us off, and the Season is considered a wipe like last time. But everyone just ended up dying to monsters last time. That's much more common."

Jin tried to figure out that time math in her head, but trying to also account for their weird double-length year was giving her a headache, and she ended up asking, "So, what's the record for longest Season then?"

"Around six years, I think? That was always talked about as a really weird one where they went super slow to reduce the Champion death count and got an insane amount of points built up during it. The Whispers won that one, I think."

Jin was appalled by the idea of spending over a decade of her life trapped in this tower fighting monsters and constantly fearing getting stabbed in the back by the other Sects.

"Hey, Jin?"

"Yeah?"

"This might sound weird, and you can totally say no," Basima started saying, looking nervous and blushing furiously, "but can I sleep in here with you tonight? I… I'm just really scared still. I keep jumping at every sound, thinking it's another monster…"

Jin felt her ears heat, but she understood Basima didn't mean anything romantic by it. Bas was just a scared kid at the moment who didn't want to be alone in the dark. She slowly nodded and moved over toward the wall side of the bed to let her slip under the blanket.

She almost forgot to breathe as Basima slipped her arms around her and pushed their bodies together in a warm hug. "Thank you for saving us, Jin," the girl whispered. "I'm so glad you didn't leave me behind."

Jin relaxed slightly and returned the hug. "I'm never going to abandon you, okay? We'll beat this stupid tower, and I'll get you back home."

Basima nodded and snuggled closer before quickly drifting off to sleep.