Jade was nervous to join in the excursion right from the beginning, but when Lucius and his cohorts came to her and Desmond, there was no way they could reject them. She would not be given any special permissions to avoid participating in the work-studies, and it was unlikely that anyone would take her in.
Since Desmond would not join anyone without bringing her along as well, he also would have been left out. That would have meant the two of them would be doing the work alone and that would present a lot of risk. Though uncommon, it was not unheard of for senior students to go missing or die on the work-studies. That was why only the senior class participated.
If it was only the two of them, the risk of them being among the negative statistics were higher. On top of the practical reasoning, Jade was also acting a little selfish on behalf of Desmond. She knew that he had been trying desperately to get closer to Lucius and though she did not know the reason, she wanted to help her brother achieve his task.
However, once they started the actual journey, she found herself oddly comforted. Jade was fearful of what they would run into, but out in the field, Rena and Lucius exuded such absolute confidence that it washed away her worries. They revealed prior experience traveling as adventurers, so that was likely the reason for their calm.
Everything was also going well for Jade, until she messed up. Lucius requested they file out of their carriage, which was more like a glorified wagon cart, and she tripped and ended up wrapped around him. The entire incident was mortifying. From the outside, it looked like she was making moves on a married man, and that was terrifying.
For her part, Jade could not hide the blush on her face remembering the incident as they were led into the rapidly growing village named Spire Hollow. His piercing multi-colored eyes haunted her every thought and his brooding expression heated her cheeks.
"Jade, are you alright?" the kind voice of the wife of the very man violating her private thoughts called out to her.
"Oh yes, Lady Kane, I am fine." Jade answered hurriedly. "I apologize for my behavior earlier; I assure you it was entirely an accident."
Rena simply giggled. "It's fine. I promise you that you are far from the first to 'make a move on him' and in comparison to what Kalliope tries to pull... your efforts are rather tame."
Their de facto leader, Lucius returned and passed a room key to Desmond while keeping another for himself. "Anyone pick up any rumors yet?" he asked sitting down.
"Just that the researchers apparently have a camp set up right in the ruins that they stay in when not needing any supplies. Tomorrow is supposed to be one of their scheduled runs to town for a refresh, so we can probably link up with them then." Rena answered.
Jade looked at her incredulously. She had no clue how the woman had picked up on such a rumor while she was engrossed in conversation with Desmond. Jade was only half-paying attention to her brother's conversation with Rena and she still had not been able to pick out anything among the roar of voices.
"You..." An angry, deep voice called out to them. It came from a large man with crazy eyes and a scraggily beard who stepped up behind Lucius.
Lucius sighed and put down his ale Rena had ordered for him earlier. He lazily turned around to address the man, "What is it?"
"I knew it. I recognize those eyes." The angry man said through clenched teeth. "You were the one responsible for that day. Awfully stupid of you to show up here. Did you know that most of this village is full of men and women from Watcher's Retreat?"
"And?" Lucius's expression was one of complete boredom, however the man addressing him clenched every muscle in his body. He looked like a person on the verge of murder.
"You will pay for what you did. Step outside. Now."
It was by this point that Jade had realized the entire floor had grown quiet and watched their interaction. Several among the crowd had looks of anger, realization, and fear in their eyes when they settled on Lucius. On Lucius's part, he maintained his look of boredom up until the moment a challenge was issued. He accepted the challenge with a huge, toothy grin on his face.