Jaded Series (Books 1-2)

Antoni tried not to show his annoyance as he listened as patiently as possible to the rest of the Fighters spread around the room, deliberating their next moves as if they had some actual choice in the matter. He leaned against the large table in the center of the room that displayed the map of everywhere they had scouted so far. The white pedestal was flush against the table as well, acting as both the controls for the main structure and the map. It would provide him with the status of the other stations in each corner, but didn't control them directly, so he needed his people to completely man the massive base to its full potential as a siege engine.

"We should attack the floor boss before the Servants or Workers figure out the objective and upgrade their base high enough. With the Lovers helping gather the gold shit on top of all our hunting, we're close to upgrading this thing," Abrar said, leaning back at one of the stations in the southwest corner. That particular station controlled one of the massive arms that had grown out of the tree's trunk when they had chosen the war room option.

Each station had a similar kind of functionality that they had learned over time. Aside from Abrar's corner along the back wall, Dannie sat to the southeast, controlling the second arm. Like Abrar, who had taken the Mace Aspect originally and eventually became a Carrion Warrior, Dannie had chosen the Ax Aspect and became another melee specialist as a Gambit Reaver.

Hasan, who was normally their ranged specialist as a Gale Archer, was currently using his station in the northeast, which acted as a scouting unit, giving him a bird's eye view above the base to call out positioning and threats.

In the last corner, Trecia, their trap specialist as an Umbral Saboteur, was curled in the chair at the station designed to control the tree's roots. Right now, it seemed limited to acting as a trapping mechanism with a root able to burst from the ground to grab a target, but they believed it would eventually allow them to control its movement across the swamp, just like they had seen the Goblin Chief's base do.

"We don't know for sure that this thing will move after the upgrade," Nawal argued from the other side of the map table from him. She had become a Path Mage after getting her last Aspect, and most of the map they were currently looking over was thanks to her exploration capabilities. It went a long way in getting him to forgive her blunder with the Servants.

Noticing him looking at her, she added, "For all we know, this thing might need multiple upgrades before it can look like what we saw with that goblin horde. We should focus on getting the rest of those points before deciding any kind of attack."

Fifty-three points were all they needed to finish the upgrade. It felt so close he almost wanted to end this strategy meeting right now to go hunt more golden tributes.

They had wasted a lot of time in those first couple of weeks on this floor, since the base kept rejecting them. The vines continuously tossing them away ended up making them erect a temporary camp on the other side of the moat. Attacking the tree had also been a struggle. Aside from its ludicrous amount of health, once they had gotten it down to five percent of its health total, they received a Bane for attacking it that made it very clear that they weren't meant to attack it.

Once they had spotted the Floor Boss roaming during the night, it finally clicked that the aggressive tree was the base. After that, they discovered it simply took some kind of beneficial effect being put on it, like a heal or a Boon, to get it to stop attacking them as soon as they got near it. They were lucky that Farideh, one of their two mages, had managed to unlock one that could go on another target because most of them were simply built for damage or boosting themselves.

Antoni was simply glad that they had the foresight to save up the weird gold items they had been finding during those frustrating weeks so that they weren't completely behind. He had wished for the War Room selection to also give him some information about the status of other bases, but he hadn't been that lucky. It seemed that Rabbit was pissed off at him for some reason.

The thought of checking the status of the other bases made Antoni compulsively check his bracelet for the latest ranking update, since it was the only clue they had about unclaimed bases.

His eyes widened slightly as he saw it say five instead of four bases had been claimed. Just this evening, he had checked it like he usually did when he awoke. They had primarily been hunting at night when the goblins were awake to be able to catch them in motion. It had been easier for their group to pick them off when the goblin scouts were roaming or the camps were moved. The goblins here never liked staying in one place for long, it seemed.

He continued reading, scowling in annoyance at the pair who kept staying ahead of him in points. Their larger group meant he was getting fewer killing blows than he would have preferred. Even if he could ensure landing it when there was only one or two monsters at a time, when there were more, he inevitably lost out—made evident by Hasan and his bow quickly climbing the ladder with his Myriad Aspect granting him a lot more ranged attacks at once than Antoni had as a Sunsteel Praetor. It had gotten so bad lately that he had mentally started referring to the man as a Gale Killstealer.

If they could get this base moving and be able to cover more ground in a single excursion, then they could clear the rest of the map in no time. Killing Jin and Liraz to get them off the board would likely solve any threat towards their victory, but they hadn't been lucky enough to spot their base yet, with how big this floor was.

They had only found the Workers and one of the unclaimed bases before today, though Nawal had returned, saying she spotted the Speakers' base after spotting Zendri outside it. As of right now, he didn't have much use for the nobles, who were more likely to try to interfere and take over command of his group, which could result in annoying repercussions once they left the tower, so he preferred avoiding them and letting the monsters take care of them. After the traitors had killed off half of them, the Speakers weren't even a threat when it came to points either.

"Hey, boss!" a shout came from beside him, causing him to jump and turn to Roxana, who was leaning against the wall between Dannie and Hasan's stations. When he raised an eyebrow at her, she just grinned and said, "You ain't payin' attention to Farideh's question."

He let out a sigh and turned to the opposite wall from Roxana to see the Twilight Arbiter leaning against her staff, which was made of pure light. With a silent gesture for her to speak, Farideh repeated, "I asked if you were still considering Dannie's idea of just going on foot to attack the Servants. Then we don't need to feel so pressured—"

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"You think I feel pressured by a handful of Servants?" he growled out, interrupting her assumption, especially when they were constantly being recorded. Even if it was true, they were representing the Fighters and should always portray strength. "They're nothing to us. They might have been… lucky to get a Wayfarer on their team that seems to have some aptitude for monster hunting, but she and the Worker traitor are likely the ones carrying the others, and two people have no chance against a single one of us."

Farideh huffed in obvious annoyance that he wanted to slap off her face as she snapped, "That's not the point. We need a strategy, instead of you just staring at the map and not listening to any of us during this strategy meeting. I don't care what you pick, just hurry up and choose—"

"Alright! I'll give you a fucking strategy!" Antoni yelled, shooting a glare and flexing his Aura against hers. His volume dropped, but his tone remained hard as steel as he proclaimed, "In three days, we're going to use this Guardian to crush the floor boss, then we'll move on the Servants when they're asleep during the day and take them completely by surprise."

"And if we don't have the fifty-three points we need by then, or the upgrade doesn't give us the ability to move this thing?" Dannie asked from his corner, apparently not observant enough to realize how Antoni was reaching the limits of his patience.

"Then we update the damn strategy!" he barked, turning to make his way around the map table and leave.

"Wait, where are you going?" Nawal asked after him in surprise.

He simply shouted back over his shoulder as he headed toward the crowded bedroom they had graciously allowed the Lovers to use, "To stab something!"

Jin let Alim lead the way today as the group traveled through the swamp towards the Lovers' base. It had been almost two weeks since Rayyan had joined them, and they had all finally agreed it might be worth claiming the base just to get any supplies from the free customization for the main room, and it would give Rayyan some easy points.

She had honestly been surprised by how useful Rayyan had been in combat so far, thinking his powers would have leaned more towards… well, sleeping. However, she realized that when it came to magic powers, there could be a lot of potential overlap, especially with Boons that raised their attributes.

He never really attacked anything himself, though he did have a couple of Banes and Spells that could hinder their enemies and make them less aggressive.

"I wonder if the Speakers or Whispers all made it," she heard Karam say from in front of her as he chatted with Rayyan. "Tomorrow's the last day, and there's still another base that hasn't been claimed by someone, aside from yours."

"My money would be on the Speakers getting wiped out, but it would be rather suicidal to simply stay on the first floor instead of risking this one. We haven't seen any notifications since Muffin died," Rayyan replied, frowning while watching his steps.

Hadia had pointed out to Jin a few days ago that the Lover had been becoming paranoid about stepping into one of those muddy equivalents of quicksand after Karam had recounted Jin's unfortunate encounter with it. Now that she was paying attention to him, it was a little funny to see in action, though she had probably been doing the same since then.

"I can't believe it's already been a whole quarterhalf since we all entered the tower," Karam continued. "Sometimes it feels like barely a week ago when the opening ceremonies happened."

Rayyan chuckled and asked, "You mean the day I got to watch a couple of Servants insulting the gods directly to their faces? Yeah, that was a surprisingly unpredictable day for everyone, I think."

Jin's thoughts lingered on Karam mentioning a 'quarterhalf,' since it always tripped up her brain to remember that they didn't measure in months here like she was used to. She remembered him explaining that they were thirteen weeks long, which was roughly three months back on Earth. The calculations made her realize what month it would have been back there, and she ended up saying out loud, "Oh, shit. I think I missed my birthday."

The others paused to look back at her, Alim stopping a beat behind and tilting his head curiously.

Hadia began signing to him, as Karam excitedly said, "We should celebrate! You're nine years old now, right?"

"Seriously sounds weird when you put it like that, since I'd be eighteen in my old world, but I guess you're right," she replied, looking down at her hands like they might suddenly look older. They didn't, but it felt odd to think she didn't even notice getting older. She wondered if this was how most adults ended up feeling when they weren't kids waiting to unlock new features… great, now she was even thinking of her old life as a game.

Age was just a new level that came with its own challenges and unlocked content. Back in her old life, she would have been able to vote now, or smoke, or join the military—well, if they would even take someone like her. She'd be a legal adult who could actually be in control of the major choices in her life, like declining more chemo even when her parents kept insisting.

"Sky Girl! Hello? You there?" Hadia's voice said, and a hand rested on her shoulder.

She looked up again to see the others giving her varying degrees of sad or pitiful smiles, and Alim signed what she had probably missed the first time. "Did your old world do anything special to celebrate birthdays? Here, we usually get the whole day off from our duties and a large dinner with cake to celebrate." A teasing smile lit up his face and eyes as he added, "Though, I'm sure you remember experiencing one firsthand when you arrived."

Jin rolled her eyes, realizing she preferred his teasing over all the pity, and recalled, "I literally landed in a royal cake and almost got executed, so I don't think I'm ever going to forget how this place celebrates birthdays." She thought about that party again now, this time focusing more on the actual elements of the party—rather than the swords that had been pointed at her face—and it made her ask, "Wait, isn't it a little weird that your world and my world both celebrate birthdays with cake? Do you also do presents or other birthday surprises? Do you put candles on the cake, too? I don't remember getting burnt or covered in wax."

That last part seemed to cause some confusion as they looked at each other before Alim tentatively asked, "Why would you put candles on a cake? That seems both unsanitary and unappetizing."

"You don't eat the candles; you just put enough on the cake to match how many years you're turning, light them, sing a song, then the birthday person blows them all out while making a wish," Jin signed back while speaking out loud for Rayyan's sake.

"I thought you said your world didn't have magic or gods?" Liraz asked, looking adorable as she tilted her head in confusion, making her large-brimmed, blue [Slime Witch's Hat] tilt and exaggerate the movement.

"We don't, as far as I saw."

"Do you just sing any song, or is there a specific genre?" Rayyan asked curiously.

"No, it's a specific song, but I'm pretty sure I can't sing it for you without infringing on some kind of copyright law…"

"What do you do with the candles afterwards if you don't eat them?" Karam asked, his brow furrowing at the mental picture.

"You just throw them away. They're, like, really small and cheap, so they don't really last for reusing at all."

"That seems really wasteful," Rayyan pointed out with a frown.

Jin held her hands up in surrender before signing, "Hey, I'm with you all on this. I didn't make the tradition, but every kid I know was pretty sold on the event and would cry if some brat blew out their candles and stole their wish. All I know is that my wishes never really came true, and it was obnoxious whenever the wax dripped onto the frosting. And when I was in the hospital, nobody wanted to eat cake that had been blown all over by the kid with a cold."

Most of their faces wrinkled in disgust with that mental image, and she didn't blame them.

Hadia scratched her head, then asked, "You mentioned presents and birthday surprises, but what kind of surprises were you talking about that would be separate from presents?"

"Well, the most common one was the whole surprise party thing."

That seemed to confuse Hadia more as she pointed out, "But people know when their birthday is. It's not like the day changes, right?"

"True, but it usually involved tricking the person into thinking they wouldn't get a party, or like everyone forgot about their day."

"That seems a bit cruel," Rayyan interjected.

"Well, it would just be for the morning-ish until they arrived at the party place, and everyone would jump and yell, 'Surprise!'" Jin said, then mimicked the movement of crouching down and jumping out to scare them.

Of course, that was when most of them heard a large splashing noise occur, followed by a high-pitched scream coming from Rayyan, and a large shadow suddenly engulfed them from behind Jin. As she turned around, she almost wanted to join in with Rayyan as a huge tentacle monster emerged from the murky water.