"Prove it. Give me a reason to trust you," Jin retorted, lifting the tip of her spear towards Rayyan as he kept walking closer.

The blonde glanced at the obvious threat and lifted his hands in surrender. "I'm not sure how you want me to accomplish that," he replied, stopping his approach a few feet away from the weapon. With a raised eyebrow and a nod toward Liraz, who was partially hidden behind Karam, he asked, "How did Miss Liraz do that?"

Jin glanced at the small blue girl as well, before replying, "She had a note from her brother, who I know is part of it."

Rayyan gave a slightly indulgent smile and asked, "And you knew it was from him and not someone else? How do you know Miss Liraz didn't write it herself?" At Liraz's narrowed eyes and lifting her pillowy slime as though she were about to toss it at him and melt the man where he stood, Rayyan quickly added, "Not to say she's a liar! I'm just pointing out that you'll just have to take my word for it, like you did with her and her brother."

Jin watched him for a long moment before ordering, "Just stay right there while we talk in private for a few minutes."

"Of course, take your time. It's not like we're in a hurry standing here in the middle of a monster-infested bog," he replied with a polite smile.

The whole group carefully backed away from him about a dozen yards before Jin turned to everyone, shuffling them around to form a circle of them standing shoulder to shoulder, and kept her back to Rayyan as she signed in front of her so he couldn't see her hand movements, just in case he knew the Whisper signs as well. "Well? Does everyone believe him?"

Karam and Hadia both shrugged as Liraz fervently shook her head in the negative, and Alim simply stood with a hand on his chin while contemplatively looking past her toward the Lover Champion.

Liraz began signing, "I've never seen him before!" She hesitated, looking down at her feet for a moment before reluctantly adding, "But I've also only been with them for a few quarterhalves after Brother rescued me and then learned the Worker wanted to use my storage Talent to sneak materials in. I've only met Brother's handler."

Jin rubbed a hand down her face in frustration before signing, "So you're a rebel newbie. Wonderful." She turned to Hadia. "I know you weren't part of the rebellion before, but do you know him from your time as a Lover? You seemed to understand more than I did back there," she pointed out with a gesture towards Rayyan.

"I mean… I don't really know him," Hadia slowly signed back. "I know of Blossom because she was the Captain of the Courtesan Coterie last I heard. Rumors had been floating around for quite a while that she was hoping to replace Petal as the Sect Representative, but that's rather difficult for her to justify when he's already a high-level Sapphire Caster."

"How do you know he's a Courtesan if you've never met him?" Jin asked, more curious than actually needing that piece of information.

"Mainly his clothing and manner of speech," Hadia replied, glancing over Jin's shoulder toward the blonde who seemed to be cleaning his nails. When Hadia turned back, to the group she shrugged and said, "If he's not really a Courtesan, then he's a very good Actor from the Theater Coterie. But honestly, I think Blossom probably brought him in for the daily pleasure points they can rack up without ever leaving their base." She frowned then and added, "While it would make sense for him to want to claim his own base, I'll admit it's odd he'd try to do it alone. They don't give extra points for…"

Hadia paused to look down at Liraz, who innocently blinked back up at her, tilting her head in confusion when she didn't continue. With a small sigh, Hadia covered the little girl's ears and whispered slowly for Alim to lipread, "No points for self-pleasure. You need to have a partner and be visible for the Sense Stones. What was he planning to do alone in the base?"

"Maybe he just wanted to start feeding it tribute points to upgrade it and not get hurt by the Fighters," Karam pointed out, whispering slowly himself while struggling with the one-handed signing. He had gotten much better after reaching Crystal Caste, but it was still slower to spell out the words that required two hands to sign.

Turning to meet Jin's eyes, Karam added, "Every friend begins as a stranger, Miss Jin. Like Mister Rayyan sort of implied, you have to take a risk whenever you trust someone's words." He then simply looked over Jin's head towards the patiently waiting Lover. "Plus, his actions haven't contradicted those words. He hasn't tried to hurt us, nor even said a mean word towards any of us." Karam looked back down to meet each of their gazes before saying, "We can always just try and see how it goes. If he doesn't, um, fit in well, we can always just bring him back here and let him go it alone."

Jin nodded in understanding, even if she wasn't so sure about trusting an outsider at the moment. Turning to Alim, who stood to her left, she gently nudged his shoulder with hers and signed with a teasing smirk, "You're awfully quiet."

Alim simply rolled his eyes at her terrible joke and signed back, "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. If you're asking my opinion on whether we should have him join us and come stay at our base or not, I think it's a risk not worth taking."

"You think he's lying?" Jin asked.

Alim's brows furrowed as he clarified, "I believe some of what he says is true, like being a Lover, and probably even about what happened with the Fighters, considering what we've seen of them so far. But even if he is telling the truth about being a rebel, we don't need to risk our safety on a stranger's words, especially when we've been able to handle this floor so far. Maybe if we get to know him and see what he's capable of, like we did with the Workers, we could have him join us like Li did. We can still work with him without letting him into our home."

"But he's all alone, Al," Karam pointed out with a frown. "What if those goblins find him? What if he can't get enough points alone to buy the weekly rations? Are we just going to leave him to die out here?"

Jin shook her head, realizing everyone had valid points. With a decisive slash of her hand through the air to get everyone's attention, she signed, "We put it to a vote then. Raise your hand if you think we should let him come with us."

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Karam and Hadia raised their hands.

"Raise your hands if you think we should leave him here to fend for himself."

Alim and Liraz raised their hands.

Jin gave a frustrated sigh and gave a third option. "Raise your hand if you think we should just kill him, loot the body, and eliminate the threat."

Karam looked at her with wide eyes, surprised by the added option, while Liraz seemed to perk up and began bouncing on her toes to raise her hand even higher than before, and Hadia looked contemplative for a moment as if weighing the idea.

Alim simply gave her a look and signed, "We are not the Fighters, Jin. While I know we've made choices like that before, and…" He paused for a moment, his mouth pursing into a thin line before forcing himself to continue. "And while I know I may seem heartless at times when pushing you to loot people we care about, I don't think we should begin slaughtering people who haven't done anything to harm us."

"I think I agree with that as well," Hadia interjected with reluctant hands. Giving Liraz a slightly wary look, she added, "I may be more than willing to end people who have earned it, but I don't think I want any of us to become the type of person who kills random strangers just because they happened to cross our path, even in here."

Jin looked up to the endlessly gray sky above them, needing a minute just to think through everything herself before ending the tied vote. On the one hand, Alim had a good point that they could still work with Rayyan without leading him to their base. On the other hand, she didn't think the courtesan would survive for long without them needing to go out of their way to make sure he at least met the daily upkeep cost for the Guardian and kept himself fed as well. It would be easier to just have him stay at their base and help feed it, like the Fighters seemed to be doing with the rest of the Lovers.

With a thought directed toward the bond Jin could feel between her and Clover, she mentally asked the Familiar, "Do you have a vote, O Magnificent One?"

"I don't like voting on interpersonal relationships like that," the little dragon replied, and Jin could swear she sensed the tiny beast fiddling around in her [Treasure Hoard]. "That's sort of an unofficial rule for most Familiars. We're meant to serve our Summoners, and while we might give advice, when it comes to relationships, we tend to try to avoid interfering at all. Too many times has it ended up with Familiar contracts being broken because the Familiar gets blamed for some wrong the other person involved did." Clover's mental voice seemed to go up an octave as they complained, "Seriously, how is it my fault that he cheated on her just because I said he had nice hair, so she might as well go for it?"

Jin snorted a laugh. "Got it. No relationship advice from the centuries-old dragon Familiar." She glanced at Karam and cautiously asked, "Do you think you could keep an eye on him while we sleep with your [Candlelit Vigil] Talent?"

The larger man seemed to perk up and nodded vigorously. "Of course! We can sleep—" He cut himself with a frown, before pivoting with, "Actually, we might have to rearrange who's sleeping where since we replaced those extra beds in our room with the desk and—"

"I'll sleep with the girls," Alim interjected with a few quick hand signs. At Hadia and Jin's raised brows, Alim rolled his eyes and gave Jin a pointed look as he explained, "I already told you I'm not interested in women, and if Jin's going to let him stay, then I don't want him thinking I'm interested in helping him gain those extra points Hadia was talking about."

Jin snorted a laugh and couldn't help but tease him a little. "What's wrong? Are pretty boys not your type either?"

With a heavy sigh, Alim pinched the bridge of his nose as though trying to hold off an oncoming migraine before signing, "It takes a lot more than a pretty face to make me interested at all, and so far I'm not impressed with Mister Fancy Silks. Now, let's focus on how we're going to stay safe if we're letting a complete stranger join us."

Jin looked over her shoulder at Rayyan, who had remained standing on the water while seeming completely at ease as he brushed a little dirt off one of the soft slippers he wore. Turning back to Karam, she pointed a finger at him and said in a hushed voice, "You're on babysitting duty. Promise me that you'll make sure he doesn't whine when he inevitably breaks a nail or decides to kill us all in our sleep, and then I'll vote that he can stay with us."

Karam grinned broadly as he nodded and replied, "I promise, Miss Jin. I'll be sure to let you know if he starts to become a problem or does anything suspicious."

"Glad you can read between the lines, Kar," Jin said with an approving nod, then turned around to head back towards the rebel courtesan.

Rayyan seemed to perk up as they approached and asked with that same polite smile, "So, have you decided to believe me or kill me?"

"Are you giving me a reason to kill you? Because that was definitely one of the options," Jin quipped back.

"I shall strive never to create a reason for that," he replied, placing a hand over his heart and giving a small bow of his head. "I am waiting with bated breath, though, if you've decided to accept my offer or will at least assist me in claiming my Sect's base."

"You can come with us if you really want, but I have a few stipulations," Jin said, pausing as she reached the water's edge. "First, you tell us what abilities you have—including Talents. Second, you stick with Kar unless you're bathing or we've discussed otherwise. Third, don't complain about not getting kill points or whatever regarding the point gains. We've been trying to share tower points as evenly as possible to keep all of us gearing up together by pooling our points, no matter who's actually landing killing blows or getting a popularity point."

Jin paused as she looked Rayyan up and down, taking in his non-uniform clothing again and his unusual level of hygiene, and firmly stated, "We're also only spending points on things that will help us survive and fight monsters. We're not buying you more pretty clothes like that." She gestured up and down the length of him, then bluntly asked, "Do you have any trade skills that don't involve sleeping with other people?"

Rayyan's polite smile never faltered as he nodded along to all of her rules, but his smile turned a little more wicked, and his soft brown eyes filled with mirth as he answered, "While that is my primary skill, I'm also quite adept at playing the flute and Monarch's March. Some clients prefer a little entertainment before getting down to business."

Jin glanced over her shoulder and adjusted slightly to sign as she asked the others, "What's Monarch's March?"

"A popular one-on-one strategy game," Alim replied. Looking at Rayyan curiously, he added, "I'm a little surprised he plays. He didn't strike me as the tactical sort, but maybe losing is part of how he gets clients to enjoy their time."

Jin simply nodded in understanding, turning back to Rayyan. "Last rule is pretty simple," she said, spending a trickle of her mana into her boots to walk out onto the water herself, right up into his personal space. As she looked up into his surprised eyes, she said in barely more than a whisper that held every ounce of deadly sincerity she could muster, "If you betray us, I won't just kill you, I'll make you beg for a quicker death."

Rayyan's polite smile faltered for a moment, and she could see him swallow before repeating his earlier vow, "Then I shall strive never to create a reason for that, Wayfarer Jin."

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