Hours past as the sleepers took their time to recuperate their losses after the dreadful battle they had found themselves in that morning after first storming the gate, they were exhausted and bruised with little hope of actually making it out of here alive, yet overtime their feeling were slowly shifting, becoming more positive as their courage slowly built with every second that passed.
Jest had firmly believed that his aspect was pretty much useless compared to everyone else's in every way that mattered, with it providing him with no real offensive or defensive capabilities as well as very little utility, the ability to amplify the emotions of others as well as himself was overall ill suited for the types of situations they had found themselves in. Paired with his inability to wield memories like every other sleeper could and it practically made him a sitting duck waiting to be picked off by the next monster they came across yet somehow he had ended up as part of the inner circle of the group of survivors he happened to stumble across.
On top of that he had been trusted with quite possibly one of the most important roles of all, making sure his fellow sleepers kept in good spirits, usually he would have done this by making a joke or ten but the people here seemed to have no sense of humour at all so his creative genius was wasted on them, all but Jasper and that beautiful shieldmaiden of course, they seemed to understand Jest's vision but that wasn't enough.
So in the end he had devised a plan with the help of the dashing young knight and Damian to lift the spirits of others in a more subtle way, one of Jest's attributes allowed him to sense the emotions of others like a sixth sense, it was hard to explain how to others who did not possess something similar how it truly felt but they seemed to get the basic idea. By using that and strategic use of his dormant ability he could sense the most frightened or cowardly sleepers and give the opposite of what they felt a boost to make them relieved of their unneeded feeling.
Even now as they rested he was still using his ability to amplify the emotions of a number of sleepers, and whilst it had been working so far he knew he couldn't keep it up forever and that within the next day or two, perhaps three at best he would no longer be able to keep this going. He was already worn out from what they had done so far and they had barely managed to make any progress as they camped out in the remnants of an old building.
The feeling of so many emotions crammed into a single place was rather overstimulating to him as he tried his best to ignore them as he selected which ones to focus on, with so many distinct sources he felt like it would be near impossible for someone to stand out in this crowd and yet two people did.
The first was the Galliant Knight who had saved his life when they first met. That man seemed sane on the surface but Jest knew that the handsome young man had a screw or twelve loose in that dashingly beautiful head of his. Unlike all other sleepers he did not seem to possess a single drop of fear within his emotions, as if he was fully confident that they would succeed, of course Jest had a hunch that it had to do with the man's flaw in some way.
The second one was Damian, whose emotions he had been trying to sense since the two first met when he walked into the main hut with prophet the same day Jest did with the knight, unlike all the other creatures he had encountered so far Damian was the only one whose emotions were shielded from Jest's senses as if he wasn't even there at all. This did not mean that the older man was immune to his Dormant ability as he had found out against the terrible root like creature which had destroyed their first camp but it did take a lot more focus than it did for others, which was why he had decided to always keep an eye on the man, for he as far as Jest knew, was the sole creature who could sneak up on him.
If it was his choice Jest would love nothing more than to kill the older man, yet there was a number of reasons why that was a terrible idea, for one the man was the only one currently capable of reliably taking down the undead behemoths wandering the streets from a distance, the knight could as well but that was only by way of his shiny new toy he had received at the gate.
The second reason was that the man was much better trained than him, if he had to wager a guess the man was a part of the military force of the regime that had ruled over NQSC and most of Europe before its destruction, this alone would make him a terrifying threat but it didn't end there, he was also the second most saturated sleeper out of the lot with the most saturated just so happening to be his closest travelling companion so even if he could kill the man, he doubted he could last against Jasper who was a monster in his own right.
Even then there was also the fact that the man's Aspect was simply unfair, he had briefly explained it to him and the knight whilst on the boat heading towards the castle, so if Damian ever felt threatened he could simply disappear into thin air and kill Jest with him being unable to defend himself as he would have no idea of where he was.
Yet despite all of this he was still working on a plan to dispose of them when needed, this plan had started just after Damian saved his life and after witnessing his power then he realised that it would be better if the man was dealt with sooner rather than later. In the meantime he had to try to build up as much strength as possible in order to stand a chance against him, using the soul shards given to him as the boon of being so close to the leader of the group as well as seeming like the weakest link.
Damian and Jasper were adamant on the idea that all sleepers should receive shards starting from the weakest getting the most and the strongest getting the least, that way each of them could become more reliable instead of just being protected by the stronger members. As such their own saturations had slowed massively whilst the weaker members gained more and more every day, even then it wasn't enough, so during the chaos of the battle for the boats lead by prophet and his loyal followers Jest had taken the opportunity to absorb some more essence directly from the source, the essence gained from killing other humans was far more potent than the shards so his power had skyrocketed massively, allowing his aspect much more power.
In fact he wagered he was likely the fourth most saturated sleeper of the bunch with a saturation just over sixty whilst most had around twenty to thirty at this stage, but by pretending he was so weak he had managed to keep himself at the bottom meaning he was growing at an incredible rate compared to the others. The only ones above him where Damian, Jasper and the knight as far as he knew, looking over them all he couldn't help but focus on Damian as he looked over the battlefield with a hint of something gleaming in his eyes, even without the ability to sense his emotions Jest knew that look all to well.
A brilliant new idea crossed his mind as he focused as much of his Dormant ability on Damian as he could spare, knowing he just needed that little push to get him moving, that look in his eye was the same one he had seen before on those he once shared a room with, his family which had long since been slaughtered by an unknown infected who had failed in their nightmare, the look of compassion.
Jest's plan was a simple one, to push Damian over the edge mentality to get his to go gather those lingering shards, if he succeeded then he would become stronger as a result, if he failed then there was one less problem for Jest to worry about it was a win win situation no matter the outcome, it was the perfect plan.