Jaded Series (Books 1-2)

Jin felt nervous as she approached the designated spot near the stream where they had promised to meet the Workers at Midday. She was grateful that her [Poker Face] Talent let none of those nerves outwardly show. Jin had been practicing it more over the past week with the others, getting used to the odd dissonance it made her feel when she activated it. She knew it would come in handy with meetings like this one, though.

As the Midday Tally came and went, Jin was starting to consider that perhaps the Workers had either forgotten their promise or had decided the risk of a meeting with Champion-killers wasn't worth the risk.

The rest of her party was watching from a distance but was hidden in the brush. She wanted to appear alone and test the Workers on their trustworthiness. The effort would be moot, though, if they simply didn't show up.

After a half hour of waiting, Jin was about to return to her team when she saw Darya approach from the other side of the stream. She wasn't alone, but her hands were raised in surrender and only Liraz was the unexpected addition.

"I know you said only one, but can I bring her across, too? She's got the bag to carry things back," the Worker leader called out before attempting to cross the waist-high water of the creek.

"That's fine," Jin replied with a nod. "I might have to make a few trips back and forth to swap out my bag. We got quite a few pelts to trade along with some extra monster parts and some seeds Alim managed to collect. He wasn't certain how well you were all doing with establishing a garden or something."

"We've been doing okay in that regard," Darya said, and bent slightly to pick up Liraz as they carefully crossed the water.

Jin took the minor risk, and helped them both get out on the Servant's side. Liraz was light, which wasn't a surprise considering her height, while Darya was the opposite, being taller and broader than Jin by a good amount.

"I should have had Willoughby make a bridge over here earlier," Darya muttered as she took the time to dump the water from her shoes.

"That your builder Worker?"

"Carpenter, yeah," the older woman replied as she surprised Jin by sitting on the grass to mess with the simple shoes they had all gotten to start with.

Jin observed her a bit closer and noticed the harried look and bags under her eyes. "Are you all doing okay? You look… um, tired."

Darya sighed and nodded, glancing back across the creek at the treeline before lowering her voice and admitting, "I've not been sleeping well on account of…" She paused and looked at Liraz for a moment before shaking her head. "Well, never mind that. Let's just say I don't like letting this one out of my sight for too long. Sit and show me what you've brought. I don't mind taking a few moments to relax while we barter a bit."

After a moment of contemplating the risks, Jin shrugged and sat down, pulling her pack forward to show the pelts and some monster claws, teeth, and bones they had managed to salvage. "There's more of the same in another pack back by the trees. I can signal for one of the others to bring it down if you want it."

"Yes, please. Osman would be thrilled to have some pelts without acid holes in them…"

"Acid?"

Darya huffed and Jin noticed the sidelong look the woman gave Liraz. "Our main source of monster kills at the moment uses acid attacks which have a tendency to melt things a bit. It's made some areas of crafting slow down for us. On the flip side, we've started making some salves and potions that we can trade instead of points if you want."

"Alim mentioned you might, but he wasn't positive how you were going to get the vials or containers for proper potions." Jin replied, giving her own pointed look at Liraz.

The smaller girl shrank even more under her gaze and scooted closer to Darya as she knelt in the grass.

Taking the risk she had debated on earlier if they ever met in here again, Jin tried to see if Liraz was more a Whisper like her half-brother than the Workers she was helping. Using the Whisper signs, she said, "I got your note. Thanks for giving it to me. Is it safe to assume you're on his side?"

Liraz's eyes got as wide as saucers and she hesitantly looked between her and Darya before answering back with cautious hands, "Yes."

"Are the other Workers?"

"No."

"Do you want to stay with them?"

Liraz paused, looking uncertain as her bright blue gaze found Darya again. The older woman looked between them as well for a moment before pointedly turning her head to look in the other direction. A clear indication that she wouldn't interfere or ask.

"No. The others don't like me and it's causing problems. Darya hasn't slept much because she's protecting me at night. I think she suspects the others don't want me to stay."

Jin frowned at that information. She had kind of expected something like that based on the way their last meeting with the group of Workers had gone, but if this kid was their storage power and potentially that acid hunter Darya mentioned, they likely couldn't afford to just get rid of her.

She'd need to ask the others for their thoughts on how to help Liraz—if there was even anything they could do. At the very least she could try setting up their next meeting to give an opportunity to see her again.

"I also have information to trade," Jin said aloud this time to Darya. "The location of an Aspect Trial. The rest of my group said that information is worth at least twenty points, but we'd drop it to half that if you'd ally with us to take it on all together."

"A temporary alliance to get everyone another Aspect?" Darya said in surprise, but she smiled a moment later. "I think my entire group would be grateful for the opportunity. Despite our advantage in building up our base, we're not very suited at the moment to explore the floor much. Many of my people are saving up their points in the hopes an Aspect shows in the shop. Do you know the challenge that awaits inside the Trial?"

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"Just a riddled writing on the door. It looks like three tasks. One for body, mind, and soul, but what they actually are is a guess at this point."

"I'll need to double check with the others about the alliance portion. Meet here tomorrow, say two hours before the Midday Tally and I'll either trade for the location if they decline, or we'll all follow you to the location and take on the Trial together."

Jin nodded in acquiescence. The others had mentioned that might happen as the Workers would want to weigh the risks. She and Darya finished bartering and ended up not trading points at all. Jin walked away with alternate seeds and quite a few potions instead, silently vowing to bring back the vials to re-trade if possible. They hadn't needed the healing kind much with Karam's ability usually being plenty, but the others had told her mana and stamina potions would likely be helpful for taking on the Trial.

The last thing Jin had managed to secure was an item she was fairly positive had been smuggled into the Tower, but it was something she had desperately wanted: a sewing kit. It was small and only had so much thread to work with, but she really wanted to mend the holes in her clothing caused by the Ironhorn that almost killed her. While the material had been slowly repairing itself, it was taking forever on such a large hole, and she kept scratching herself while damaging the edges more as they walked through the underbrush.

Jin was almost disappointed in herself for allowing Liraz to go back across the creek with Darya. It was obviously a fairly hostile environment for the girl over there, but she needed an actual plan to get her out instead of the half-brained idea to kidnap her while everyone watched.

Once she made it back to her party, she began recounting everything she had learned while walking back. The only thing she kept quiet about was Liraz's relationship to Pax and by extension the rebellion as a whole. While she was pretty sure Hadia would vote to join that, Jin wasn't so sure about the others in their party. She'd need to talk to them about it soon though, at least to help explain her growing concern for the strange blue girl.

When they arrived back at their base, Hadia went to work on another monster carcass they had gotten on the way back, and Jin had almost caused Karam to have a heart attack when she brazenly stripped off her shirt and handed it to him with the sewing kit.

"I'm complete shit at sewing anything, Kar. Trust me, I've tried and it did not go well," Jin had openly admitted. "Everyone in the city has also already seen all of us topless while changing in the prep room so it's not like there's anything riveting going on."

Karam just nodded and continued to avert his eyes like the adorable cinnamon roll he was and quickly retreated to his room to work on it.

Jin was slightly surprised by the blush on Basima's face as the other woman's eyes roved over her. That did cause Jin to blush in return before turning and grabbing Alim's hand to lead him back out the front door.

She led him to their little makeshift garden area and handed over the small bag of seeds she had gotten along with a moderately sized bag of fertilizer that she updated Alim about. "Darya said her alchemist is a woman named Scarlet that you might know. Scarlet wanted you to know that the fertilizer will vastly improve the growth rate of whatever you plant in it."

Alim looked surprised for a moment then grinned as he signed, "That's fantastic. Definitely worth the trade."

Jin sat on a nearby trunk like she often would when watching Alim work in the garden and signed, "Darya said that Scarlet wants to meet with you too. Do you think we can trust her?"

He shrugged in response as he looked through the seed pouch with one hand and wrote in the air with the other. "She was nice enough when she visited Lady Shahara, but I don't know much more about her."

She leaned back for a moment, watching Alim's completely unconcerned reaction to her nudity that she couldn't help but prod. "Are you ace?"

"Ace?"

"I guess that slang isn't translating properly, but it's short for asexual, and I'm mainly asking if you're not attracted to anyone," she explained and then pointedly gestured to her chest. "You're not freaking out like Kar was."

"Oh… No. Not ace. Just not really into women," he replied with another shrug and started moving to plow a small row in the ground and lining it with the fertilizer.

"So it won't be weird if I ask you to join me under the bed covers tonight, right?"

That made him pause and raise an eyebrow at her.

She chuckled and said, "Just need to give you some secrets and ask your opinion on them. I'll be doing that for everyone else too."

He snorted a laugh. "Just don't do that with Kar until you have a shirt back on. Otherwise he won't listen properly."

"Wouldn't dream of it," she replied, laughing as well at that mental image. "He's not really my type, just like I'm not yours."

"Not a pretty blonde woman?" he quipped and gave her a teasing smirk.

She huffed. "Seriously, am I that obvious?"

"Yes. I thought you were practicing that [Poker Face] Talent more. You might start needing to use it around Basima if you don't want it to be so obvious. Pretty sure it's too late, though. I think all of us and the rest of the city knows you're attracted to her."

"Dammit," Jin grumbled to herself. Then she shook her head and pointedly changed the subject. "So, do you think we can trust the Workers to do this Trial with us? Assuming they agree, that is."

Alim shrugged again but was still smiling at her put-out expression. "Not much choice if you're actually wanting us to keep up with the other groups. We can try doing it on our own, of course, but Basima wasn't wrong that an alliance will help all of us beat it. You said they seem to only have a single combatant and the rest are crafters. Sounds like they need us even more than we might need them so it'd be dumb for them to try and betray us."

"They outnumber us still, but I'm also pretty confident their single combatant won't fight us."

He looked at her for a long moment at that information, and she could practically see the wheels turning in his mind before he simply asked, "Part of those secrets we'll discuss later?"

"Yeah. We can go discuss it as soon as you're done here if you want."

"I do. So, come help me, lazybones. You can get your hands dirty with me."

Jin laughed, shaking her head as she moved to help him. "I've already gotten my hands plenty dirty in this tower. You mind giving me a rain shower after?"

Alim smirked. "I think that'll get you the popularity points this round."

She rolled her eyes. "Have I mentioned this city seems full of degenerates?"

"Don't judge the rest of us based on the actions of the few in power," he retorted but didn't actually seem mad. He even glanced up and smirked as he wrote, "I, for one, wouldn't vote for your chesticles."