**[Two Weeks Later]**

Aiden stood with his team as they stared out across the rugged ground towards the massive wall in front of them. The last two weeks had gone by very quickly in a haze of endless marching and constant worry. His group had taken turns reading the two books Horace had saved, and Rita had trained Horace in meditation whenever they stopped. They were all seeing gains from their efforts. It hadn’t been easy to make time and force himself to be productive with the sometimes debilitating anxiety coursing through his body, but they had all been able to push past their fears to make the most of the time they had left. He smiled proudly at the knowledge that Rita had gained the leadership skill and a level in mathematics while Horace had learned and leveled his sword skill as well as meditation. He was pleased that their plans were seeing results in such a short period of time and grinned at his own status sheet.

Skills:

Cooking: Lvl 5

(bonus: “making meals from mutton”: enhanced flavor of sub-par ingredients)

Knife Proficiency: Lvl 3->4

Gossip: Lvl 3->4

Butcher: Lvl 2

Anatomy: 0->2

Manipulation: 0->2

Mathematics: 0->1

Unarmed Combat: 0->1

He had improved a lot in his skills. Horace had been sparring with him in the afternoons when they rested from the heat, and Rita had been tutoring him in strategy after she read each new chapter of her book. Aiden had tried to read it on his own, but the concepts were too advanced for him to understand without Rita simplifying it down for him. However, his book on basic anatomy made much more sense, and he could work through it despite having less of an education than Rita. The majority of the information came easily, yet the actual healing was very technical and only briefly mentioned in the details about each part of the body. His anatomy skill might have been aided by his people person trait if he were to guess at why it made more sense to him.

The book Horace had saved was meant to be used with an actual medicinal text, and with just it alone, he did not see himself gaining a skill such as healing. Honestly, he was amazed he had gotten any skills from it at all. He could tell the other two were disappointed by his failure to make it work from what information was available, but he wasn’t mad at himself; his talent had never been with learning and school, so he had been discreetly working on what did come easily: his gossip skill. He focused on leveling it by chatting with the other draftees, especially those from different areas. It had the added benefit of keeping him centered and calm. Meditation wasn’t his cup of tea. It might work for the more introverted Horace. Still, he needed interaction with people and dreaded being isolated in the dungeon for that reason, along with the thousands of others he had.

The new manipulation skill came accidentally and was the most welcome improvement so far. It had happened after the fourth day when Horace was getting in trouble with the guards because of his awkwardness. He had accidentally offended a female guard’s boyfriend with a poor word choice when he was requesting access to the bathroom during an afternoon break. Aiden had always done subtle manipulations in the past, but that had never triggered a skill gain for some reason. This time subtle wouldn’t have cut it, and he had to call out the male guard or risk the situation escalating. They could not risk Horace being injured. It took all the intel he had gathered from eavesdropping on the guards at night and talking with them during the march to pull it off. He only had a minute to enact his hasty plan before the guard would act. He had to simultaneously undermine the offending guard’s confidence and turn sympathy to Horace to get someone with status to intervene. He did this by heckling the guard for picking on a ten-year-old while pointing out some rumored 'shortcomings' of his and ended with a pregnant pause meant to make everyone uncomfortable before abruptly leaving.

As a child, he had learned the value of silence and sudden disruptions to winning an argument. People always got uncomfortable when things went quiet, and his exit made all the onlookers feel ashamed for watching without helping or speaking up themselves. The gods must have agreed that he had done a good job because the manipulation skill came immediately and leveled again a few days afterward. He expected to improve it at least one more level before they were deployed to their dungeon since he had a lot of experience with people he could exploit for some easy levels. Most groups would have to wait for teams of guards to return from placing the first couple groups before they would get sent out, and he planned to use that time wisely.

Rita’s sharp jab to his ribs brought his attention back to the front. The barren land between them and the wall had been filled with new soldiers wearing bland beige uniforms. A slim female soldier with a silver star pinned to her breast took a step forward to address them, “I am Commander Fox, leader of the dungeon prevention task force for this region of the wall. I will be selecting each group’s dungeon in the next few minutes.”

Aiden felt his jaw go slack as she pulled out a worn box and began to point to teams and pull a dungeon name for them. “Isn’t it supposed to be more official?” he asked Rita quietly.

“I don’t know. Maybe they decided not to bother with the ceremony since most will die soon anyway, and there is no one else here to witness it?” Rita’s voice was monotone and held zero surprise on the raffle's casual nature that would be a huge determining factor for their well-being in the next few months.

The Commander moved along the line of people causing some to collapse to the ground and others to cry with joy as they received a rank one or two dungeons. Aiden tried to block out the noise around him to focus solely on the woman and crossed his fingers tight behind his back until it hurt. He willed with everything he had to both the gods and his luck for them to pull a rank two. It would be a challenge they could handle and was more statistically likely than getting a rank one. The woman raised her hand, showing a card with a two on it, and read off its name, “Cain’s retreat,” to a group down the row from them. The group sagged into each other at the news, and Aiden felt his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

She neared them, and suddenly at about ten feet away, they locked eyes. The woman placed her hand in the box once again. His lungs stopped suddenly in the middle of an inhale, causing him to gasp out. Horace’s resulting wack on his back caused him to lose sight of the Commander for a second as his shoulders were forced forward. All he could hear was “Jesting Joy” before he raised his eyes and saw her strut over to the next person whose fate rested in her hands. He frantically glanced at Rita to see what rank they had pulled. Her stoic gaze told him little, and Horace had his nails digging deep into his thigh, but neither of them spoke for a second. They were processing the information, unaware that he was about to scream from their lack of reaction.

The news, once they recovered enough to share it, sent them on their path. They were whisked away with others whose dungeons were located near theirs and outside of the safe zone for the first time in their lives. As their destination was straight past their current location, they would arrive quicker than he felt ready for. It would take only a day or two before they were abandoned to their own devices inside a hostile entity named Jesting Joy. Aiden felt like the name mocked them and sincerely doubted any joy would come from their experience. Anyone that had chosen such a title could only have done it ironically. Death, not joy, awaited them at their destination, and he resented anyone who would try and convince him otherwise.