Salman turned out to be an older man who took one look at Jin and sighed, “Well, at least she has all her limbs. Any unseen disadvantages? Mute? Deaf? Slow to respond?” He paused and took in her glare before adding, “Annoying stubbornness?”

  Petal snorted a traitorous laugh and said, “I can’t honestly say no to that last one, but no other disadvantages that I’ve observed so far.”

  “Prick,” she muttered under her breath, and both men rolled their eyes at her.

  “It’s like Hadia all over again,” Salman bemoaned. “I swear, I’m going to start requesting to be allowed a larger roster for Champions if they keep sending me disobedient servants…”

  Petal scowled at the other man. “Champions shouldn’t be chosen by your apparent criteria, Salman. They’re meant to be our strongest—”

  “I need my strongest outside of the Tower to help serve during the Season. Surely you understand how taxed our Sects, in particular, become as the Speakers and high rankers watch the climb.”

  “Perhaps if your strongest were inside the Tower serving the other Champions, then the Season wouldn’t last so long, and we wouldn’t be taxed so much.”

  Salman scoffed. “Please, you and I both know how the Fighters and Whispers see my Servants,” the older man glanced back at Jin and said with a sneer, “Easy points.”

  He turned back to Petal and added, “What I do, who I choose, is for the betterment and strengthening of my Sect. If you don’t approve and think this Wayfarer will be a candidate for my criteria, then take her into the Pleasure Sect and let us be done here.”

  Petal looked at her for a long moment, obviously contemplating the idea further, but finally sighed. “She has been declined by all but the Servants. Take her and teach her your ways.”

  Jin contemplated making a run for it, but if what Petal had said about the desert was true, that meant she needed an actual plan instead. She was slightly distracted from plan-making however as Salman began to lead her from the dungeons, through some sparse corridors, then through the city.

  It was like she had been dropped in a mixture of ancient Egypt and the mythical city of Atlantis. Buildings were carved from cream-colored sandstone and blue aquamarine, water features were everywhere, and the structures were massive on a scale she was having difficulty comprehending.

  There was abundant plant-life scattered throughout that were a mixture of palm fronds and cacti that made her feel like they were in some sort of massive oasis. She could barely see the sky from the brick street they were walking down. If she still had any lingering doubts about being in another world, they were completely blown away by this insane architecture.

  The streets were also packed at the moment with people obviously still celebrating. She could only assume it was also for the prince’s birthday, but maybe it was also some other holiday, either way it was crowded and loud.

  Few people paid her any attention, though she did catch some curious glances from some of the more important-looking people. She guessed these ones were the Casters with aura senses Petal had mentioned would be able to tell she was a Wayfarer. Looked like any hope for anonymity was already dead in the water… or sand in this case.

  Even though the sun was setting and the air was heavy with the humidity of the oasis water, it was sweltering. She had no doubt they were in a desert climate, at least.

  “What are we to call you by?” Salman finally asked her once they broke free from the crowds into a quieter part of the oasis city.

  She thought about that yet again. Having gone back and forth with the idea since Petal mentioned picking one. She had always preferred going by her family name, Jin, instead of her given name, Chae-Yeong.

  Growing up in America and being part of the public school system of a mostly English-first district had given her years of mispronounced name-induced trauma. Jin was simpler for others, and she liked both the sound and meaning behind it. She had always loved dragons, and the fact that her name actually translated to that reinforced her love of both.

  Jin had thought about maybe going with something more fantastical, or maybe even her gamer tag, JadeDragonEmpress, but figured that wouldn’t really lend to her blending in.

  “Can I use my family name?” she asked.

  Salman shrugged. “I don’t care what you choose, so long as we can pronounce it. We don’t have family names here, though. ‘Sect before Self’ includes any familial ties one might have had.”

  “In that case, my name’s Jin.”

  “Then I welcome you to the Service Sect, Jin. Here, it is our purpose to assist the other Sects as well as this city as a whole. We are the custodians and caretakers of Qutbi and its Tower of Polarity.”

  “Quo—Qutbi is the name of the city?” she tried clarifying. Salman nodded, and she asked, “I keep hearing about this Tower. What exactly is it?”

  “An ancient gift of the life-giving wellspring. Without it, we would all quickly perish to the merciless desert.”

  “So… it’s a magic fountain?” she asked in confusion.

  “It provides all the fresh water for the city,” he clarified, giving her a disdainful look. “It’s much more than just some magic fountain, however. That’s not something you need to concern yourself with at the moment, though. You’ll be starting much smaller.”

  He finally came to a stop in front of a non-descript door and he pressed a palm to the stone plate engraved with runes beside it. There was a soft click and he pushed it open and gestured for her to enter as he explained, “This will be your new home for now. It may change if we find a more suitable position for you in the future that might require relocation but that will likely be a while as we learn more about what you are capable of.”

  Jin cautiously glanced through the door first before stepping inside, uncertain if some weird trap might be awaiting. It was barely a step up from the prison cell she had been in all day. A mat of some kind of woven reed served as a bed in a corner and there was a stone chest in another. The best news was there seemed to be a bathroom attached which she made a beeline for.

  It was the closest interpretation of a “water closet” she had ever actually seen in person. There was only a hole in the ground and one of those rune plates on the inside beside the door. Touching a single finger to the stone slab brought up another of those weird holograms that she wasn’t entirely sure if other people could see too or if it was just her.

  It seemed that magic helped fill in the gaps of a lot of technological and mechanical features here in this world, and she didn’t mind so long as it was convenient to use.

  After relieving herself in the ground hole, she quickly learned that there was also a hole in the ceiling where both the “flushing” and “showering” water came from as it mercilessly drenched her.

  Jin glared at the ceiling like it had personally offended her… which it had.

  She just sat there and glared for a long while as she contemplated just sleeping in here so she wouldn’t have to see Salman’s reaction to her trial-and-error style of learning.

  A soft knock at the water closet door made it obvious that she wouldn’t get to hide but also wouldn’t need to feel humiliated as Salman mercifully said from the other side, “I have a towel out here when you’re finished showering and have laid out some food on the chest. Inside the chest are some basic self-care items. I will be taking my leave, and Karam will come by in the morning to help explain how everything works and show you around. Then, I will find you at dinner to inform you of where you will be stationed first. Did you catch all that?”

  “Yes,” she replied, then waited for the soft click of the front door before stepping out of the shower to dry herself. She devoured the simple meal of some variant of flatbread, dried dates, a fresh pomegranate, and some cheese, but none of them looked or tasted exactly like she remembered on Earth.

  Even the pouch filled with water tasted slightly different, still clean and refreshing, but had a subtly different undertone. Jin often remembered thinking water had a metallic tang to it, but this was almost like a sweet citrus. She wondered if it was an effect of something added to it or just the result of the magic.

  The bed was terrible, though. Wrapped in a towel with her tunic left to dry over the chest, she tried to sleep on it but it was little better than the dungeon floor. Morbidly she wondered if dying in a comfy hospital bed would have been a better fate than being trapped in a magic world to live as some kind of slave. Her last thought before drifting to sleep was of her best friend whispering that at least she would live.

  “Hey, Jin?” Phoenix prompted her as they lay beside each other in the hospital bed. “When we both get out of here and can, like, get our own place—”

  “Need to live long enough to see graduation for that first,” she snarkily interjected.

  “Hey! I’m trying to do what my mom suggested and make a single plan for the future!” the younger teen retorted, then squeezed the turtle plushie closer to her and snuggled into Jin’s side in a way that tickled her nose with those red curls and caused her cheeks to flush with forbidden desire.

  “Sorry, what kind of plan were you thinking of? Getting some kind of apartment and job?” Jin asked.

  Phoenix glanced up at her with those innocent green eyes and smiled. “I just thought it would be nice to live together. Spending every day with my best friend is really the only thing I could think of wanting in order to have a good life.”

  “You want to live together? Like roommates, until we get rich enough for our own places?” she clarified, not wanting to get the wrong idea that her racing heart was suggesting.

  Phoenix chuckled and blushed slightly, trying to tuck one of those curls behind an ear and asking, “Can’t we live together even after that? I don’t really want to stay alone forever. I want to be with you.”

  Jin’s body moved on its own as she bent in the bed to kiss her best friend directly on those soft lips that were speaking such tempting words.

  Her panic awoke Jin from the dream as her new reality came crashing back down on her. Phoenix was in a different world, probably believing she was dead. Jin was here in some unsettling desert dystopia that kept making her feel like a complete newb at every turn.

  Exercise. That’s what she needed to work off the remnants of her dream that would have likely ended in disaster if it had been real.

  She slipped the white tunic back on and began working through the routine she would do when trying to put muscle back on after getting released from the hospital and cleared for activity again. A few squats, lunges, and push-ups helped her get the feeling for her current capabilities. She’d start slow and cautious, making sure that no sickness was actually lingering, but she was pretty certain she was completely healed.

  About three-quarters through her starting routine, a knock on the door interrupted her, and she cracked open the door to see who it was, only to find a wall of gray and brown. It was a massive guy that must have been at least six feet tall. He had dark brown twisted locs that barely went past his ears and the barest dusting of a beard that made him look slightly older than her.

  His clothing was to blame for all the gray, as it consisted of a gray tunic, gray pants, and a gray cloak covering the right half of his body. His demeanor was cautionary as he looked at the ground and said, “Good rise, Miss Jin. I’m Karam, and I’m supposed to show you around today. Do you need assistance with anything first?”

  “Assistance?” she questioned.

  “I live to serve,” he stated quietly, giving an awkward bow with that large body and reminding her of a beaten dog.

  “You can drop the Miss,” she said. “And please no more bowing at me… or serving. I’m apparently going to be a Servant like you for now, so it seems a little redundant to try serving each other.” Jin gestured to the bundle in his hand and asked, “Did you bring me something?”

  “Ah, yes, a set of Servant garb. I’ll be showing you where the laundry gets done later and you can get more sets there, in a better size if this one isn’t quite right but Salman said this size should work for today,” he replied, shyly holding out the bundle.

  His behavior made her wonder if he was actually younger than she had thought originally. As she grabbed the bundle and gestured for him to come inside, she asked, “How old are you, Karam? I’m a few months past seventeen.”

  “What?! Seventeen? You look no more than half that,” he replied incredulously. She paused to look back at him as he shut the door behind him.

  “Exactly how does time get measured here?” At his confused look she clarified, “Please tell me I don’t have to learn some weird time keeping system to understand what a minute, hour or day here means. I know you at least have days since it was night earlier.”

  “Oh, um, yes,” Karam replied, suddenly nervous. “Uh, sixty seconds make a minute, sixty minutes makes an hour, twenty four hours in a day, seven days in a week, thirteen weeks in a quarterhalf, and eight quarterhalves in a year.”

  “Wait, what about months?” she asked, noting the year length was about double Earth’s.

  “What’s a month?”

  Jin wasn’t sure what to make of that at first, and after thinking about her answer, cautiously asked, “Do you not have any moons here?”

  “Oh, um, no. I’ve heard some really old stories about them, though.”

  She gave a sigh and shook her head at yet another basic thing she’d have to adjust to. “I guess that actually means I’m about eight and a half? That sounds so weird to me.”

  “Then you’re about a half year older than me,” he replied, and she mentally equated that to him being around sixteen, which really was younger than she had thought.

  Jin pulled out the pair of loose gray pants that had been in the bundle and slipped them on under her tunic. She turned her back on Karam as she lifted the tunic over her head, and she heard him sputter, “What are you doing?!”

  “Changing,” she muttered with a roll of her eyes at the far wall, and it was only another few seconds of being topless before the new gray tunic replaced the white one. “Done,” she announced when she turned back and saw that he had also turned away.

  When he turned back to look, she tossed the empty sack back to him, and he seemed to panic momentarily before catching it one-handed. The awkward movement dislodged his cloak enough that she suddenly realized that he was missing his right arm completely.

  “Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I didn’t realize—”

  “It’s fine,” he murmured, then gave her an adorable smile as he readjusted the cloak. “I was just surprised. I can catch fine if I know to expect it.”

  She smiled in return. “That’s actually pretty badass.”

  “What?” he asked in confusion.

  “That you can smile and still do things that others take for granted,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve never known someone with a missing limb like that, but I’m sure it was a struggle to adapt to a world that probably doesn’t care about those struggles. Just let me know if there’s something particular you need help with; otherwise, I’ll just assume you’re good, okay?”

  His smile brightened as she spoke, and he replied, “Okay. Thanks, Miss Jin.”

  “No problem,” she replied with a shrug, then gave a light smack on his left shoulder as she said, “Now, show me where the grub is. I am starving.”