Jaded Series (Books 1-2)

Jin felt herself drifting further down, and part of her was almost ready to let herself simply sink to the bottom. The tower would claim her just like the friends she had lost. Even before she had come to this strange and dangerous world, Jin had just been… tired.

Tired of fighting sickness. Tired of watching friends die. Tired of waking up just to try and fail again.

I still think living is better than just… giving up!

Phoenix's voice echoed in Jin's mind, reminding her of the last time she had felt this tired and argued with her best friend. Then more voices echoed in her mind of the people she had lost in this world.

Keep running and live!

Don't ever give up!

A hero doesn't leave friends behind!

I am not going to die. I'm not going to give up and will fight back.

At the memory of Basima repeating the mantra that Jin had made her say over and over again, she realized what a hypocrite she would be to not follow her own advice. What kind of person would she be by dishonoring the last words of the elders who had died so that she could live? She might never be the kind of hero Daren was, but she could keep fighting like he did, couldn't she? Until her final breath was taken from her, she could fight to keep breathing.

She would live for them.

Jin moved her arms again, and she felt Clover tugging on her shoulder, trying to drag her armored dead weight up to the surface. She needed air. She needed to breathe. She could feel her lungs burning. Even her sightless perception seemed to be shrinking in range as her brain was becoming deprived of oxygen. She was drowning, her lungs overriding her attempt to hold them back, and she gasped, dirty water flooding her mouth and lungs.

A pair of arms slipped under her own, hooking around her shoulders from behind, and she felt herself being forced upwards.

She wasn't going to make it, though. Only water was filling her panicking lungs.

At least I tried to live, was the last thought she had before her mind slipped into the void.

"Breathe, you stubborn pain in my ass!" a voice she vaguely remembered shouted in Jin's mind before she felt her chest practically cave in, and she violently coughed up a whole lake of water.

"Oh, thank fucking Hen, she's alive," Hadia said from somewhere as Jin slowly came back to herself.

"I think you mean, thank the Aether," Karam corrected with a nervous laugh that seemed full of relief.

Jin opened her eyes to find six faces staring down at her from all sides. She almost wished she could take a picture of it, as it reminded her of so many cliché movie shots.

Five of the faces belonged to her team, which she would reluctantly include Rayyan as part of now. The sixth face, however, was less of a face and more just black cloth. All she could make out between the black cowl and mask covering the lower half of his face was a pair of golden eyes that she recognized.

"Pax?" she finally asked after clearing her lungs and taking a few deep breaths.

Those eyes crinkled with mirth, and he reached up to remove the mask from his face to show her the smile underneath. "In the flesh, Killer. I just happened to be walking by and thought I'd go for a nice swim."

"You pulled me out?" she asked, slowly sitting up to take stock of herself. Her chest armor had been ripped off her and tossed aside, and she, along with both Pax and Alim, was soaking wet. She looked up into Alim's worried face and signed, "Please tell me you were the one who saved me because I really don't want to keep owing this guy my life."

His worry shifted to amusement as he replied, "He got to you before I did, but I helped him pull you to shore. He did the chest compressions, though, so if something's broken, blame him."

"Hey, a broken bone or two is better than being dead, so I'll take my 'thank you' and add to your growing life debt," Pax signed at both of them while standing back up.

"Are you going to come home with us now, Brother?" Liraz signed, looking up at him with hopeful eyes.

Pax moved to pat her head, but paused before touching the large slimy Witch's Hat and shifted to pat her shoulder instead. Liraz gave him a visible pout, and he said, "Sorry, Li-Li, but I really was just passing by when I saw Jin take out that monster and crash into the water. I've got Zendri waiting for me back at the Speakers' base we claimed and just learned some very important information while spying on the Fighters."

"On the Fighters?" Karam asked with wide eyes. "But you could have been killed if they caught you."

"I'm very good at hiding," Pax replied with a cheeky grin.

"You're also very good at killing based on the deaths we saw on the first floor," Hadia pointed out, warily observing Pax like she wasn't sure she was ready to trust a Whisper yet.

Pax grinned at her and cheerfully replied, "Thank you. Not to brag, but I am rather excellent at my job." He clapped his hands and then signed while speaking aloud, "I need to go and rush to finish upgrading our base. The Fighters chose the War Room for their base and believe it will be able to move like the floor boss's can. Have you seen the boss roaming at night?"

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Jin shook her head and replied, "We sleep at night and hunt during the day. The goblins are easier to kill in their camps when they're sleeping. We're close to upgrading our base, but we chose the Greenhouse to try farming those tribute points and the food plants we brought from the first floor."

"I saw it when the Fighter made us go out to help search for those golden items," Rayyan quietly admitted. "It looked like a small army of goblins on that moving tree."

Jin turned to look at the Lover with narrowed eyes and asked, "Why didn't you say anything earlier?"

He shrugged but held up his hands placatingly as he replied, "No one asked, and I honestly didn't think you were planning to fight it. Or rather, I didn't believe we should fight it. There are only six of us, Jin, while there must have been a hundred of them. We would get slaughtered."

Jin wasn't sure if she believed his reason for not telling them, but she could tell he truly believed that fighting the boss was a death sentence. The fear in his eyes was palpable, like he was afraid she might drag them all off to fight the horde tonight.

She turned back to Pax and bluntly asked, "By the way, this is Rayyan. He said he's a rebel like you. Was he telling the truth, or should we have you stab him and toss him in the water?"

Karam gasped from beside Rayyan, and Jin noticed the Lover blanch at the very real threat she just gave him. "He hasn't done anything wrong, Miss Jin!" Kar argued, stepping forward and slightly in front of the potential spy.

Pax's smile dropped, and his golden eyes narrowed as he looked Rayyan up and down. His smile returned a moment later as he signed and said, "We've met before, actually, back on the first floor. I was told that there was a blonde Lover who was part of the rebellion that got chosen as a Champion. I'm surprised you didn't say anything back then, but I guess I was in a bit of a compromising position."

Rayyan gave a nervous laugh, running one of his hands through his short blonde hair before dropping both hands to his sides and shrugging as he said, "Well… You did just assassinate Cinnamon while she was bathing—which she completely deserved, of course—and it didn't really seem like the right time if you were still busy on your, um… mission."

"Fair enough," Pax replied with a shrug. "Glad to see it worked out, though, and you managed to get to our Wayfarer instead of ending up like Muffin."

"Whoa, wait a minute," Jin interjected, raising a finger at Pax. "First, I'm not your Wayfarer. I don't belong to—"

"Are you going to help the rebellion or side with the current system?" Pax interrupted, and the look on his face took Jin by surprise. He wasn't smiling and joking; instead, he seemed deadly serious, and she wondered if this was what his victims saw before death.

After simply staring each other down for a moment, she said, "I don't know if I'm going to join your rebellion, but I do know that I'm going to burn the current system to the ground as soon as I get out of here."

That bright grin returned instantly on Pax's face as he smugly replied, "Then you're definitely our Wayfarer. If that's your goal, then we are aligned, and I, for one, am willing to keep backing you up like I've been doing, whether the rebellion leaders ask me to or not. Now, what was your second point?"

Jin was slightly thrown off by not only how quickly Pax's demeanor had shifted but by how certain he seemed about being on her side instead of just the rebellion's. "Um, my second point was just asking if you knew what happened to Muffin. We saw she was killed by the monster we just fought, but Rayyan said all the Lovers were with the Fighters, so we thought they'd at least be safe from monsters."

Pax frowned slightly and looked towards Rayyan as he said, "I didn't see what happened, but from what I heard while spying, the monster appeared while the Lovers had been left to gather with only a pair of Fighters to watch over them. The guards crippled and left Muffin behind as bait while the rest fled."

"Why does that not surprise me?" Jin muttered, then answered her own question. "Oh, right, it's because they're all assholes who need to die." She looked up at Pax and asked, "And didn't you just say something about being very good at killing people?"

"Very good does not mean I'm comfortable with taking on nine Fighters at once, and it's not like I'm spying on them all the time," he replied with a roll of his eyes. Pax then pulled his mask back up, and she was startled when she heard his voice in her head, saying, "Which reminds me that I must run along and get back to my base. The Fighters said they're going to try taking down the boss three nights from now and then come for all of you. I'm going to try and talk Zendri into interrupting those plans somehow, but you all should focus on getting your own base up and moving."

Jin watched as Pax turned to Liraz and lowered himself to eye level, and the way they moved without speaking or signing made her fairly certain they were using whatever telepathic power the Whisper had. Liraz nodded, and Pax patted her shoulder again before standing and looking at Alim.

Alim stiffened slightly as he stared back at Pax with surprise written all over his face. They stared at each other for a long moment before Pax winked at him, then turned to sprint off, and Jin almost laughed at the blush creeping across Alim's cheeks.

"What'd he say to you?" she signed at him.

He shook his head, rubbing a hand across his face before signing, "He just thanked me for helping pull you from the water."

Jin was pretty sure it was more than just that, but she had already experienced how much of a tease Pax could be during their short time together, so she didn't push further. She took a deep breath, grateful for it even if the bog still smelled like sewage, and she refocused on what their group needed to do next.

"What you need to do next is go through the loot, obviously," Clover said in her head before manifesting on her shoulder. The tiny dragon gave her a wide grin and lifted up three Spirit Gems clutched against their chest. "We won the lottery with that one!"

Jin rolled her eyes and held out her hand to take the Spirit Gems and analyze which ones they were. A few moments later, she announced to the group, who were all watching her already, "Looks like on our way back home, we can discuss who gets the Miasmire Kraken, the Involution, or the Decay Spirit Gems."

Liraz started bouncing up and down with her hand raised, and Jin let out a sigh as she lifted up the Spirit Gem that was a swirl of purple and green and cut in an octagon shape, asking, "I'm guessing you want the monster one, right, Li?"

The small girl nodded vigorously, holding a new slime pillow to her chest and trying to look adorable. Jin knew she was doing it on purpose now, like so many other kids who managed to get away with stuff like that. She shook her head and held it out, muttering, "We're gonna get some creepy slime octopus, aren't we?"

Hadia laughed and clapped her on the back as Liraz quickly swiped the gem from her. "Hopefully, it will be cuter than the one we just fought. Let's head back. We can talk about the other gems, and you can also explain to everyone why you thought that jumping towards the monster instead of to the rest of us was a good idea."

"Because it died and we got loot?" she asked with a hopeful lilt that Hadia would accept that answer.

"What happened to you always saying 'Don't run off on your own,' and 'We're stronger working together,' and don't forget the 'Anyone who tries being a hero has dish duty for a week.'" Hadia tried to impersonate in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Jin. Then Hadia gave her a wicked grin and asked, "Guess who's on dish duty for the next week?"

Jin groaned and stomped off towards their base and the dishes she knew awaited her.