Gleam - Chapter 137 (Patreon)

Chance pushed through the crowd and arrived at the cracked streets of the Old City just a few moments later. After casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure nobody was paying too much attention to him, Chance stepped into the alley.

I’m not sure why I bother checking to see if someone is paying attention. It’s not like I’m doing something illegal. If anything, it would be more dangerous for them if they followed me in here than it would be for me. I’m not so sure the Old City lets other people leave it alive.

The dull purple haze in the air above Chance and the old, cracked walls of the buildings surrounding him felt oddly comforting as he continued through the darkness. A tiny grin tugged at his lips.

If someone had told me that a bunch of old, musty alleyways full of bloodthirsty monsters would feel like home a few months ago, I would have bust out laughing. But, if it wasn’t for Yamish possibly planning to eat me and consume my Essence, the Old City would actually be a pretty calm.

Well, aside from the Soothounds.

Chance turned down several more streets, wandering blindly as he waited for the Old City to bring him to – well, whatever it was trying to bring him to. He wasn’t actually sure.

He wandered for several more minutes and was mildly surprised to find that he hadn’t seen a single Soothound yet. It wasn’t completely unheard of, but he’d still expected to find at least a few of the monsters.

I was under the impression that Ocie wanted me to get rid of them. Maybe I finally killed enough?

Chance’s musings were interrupted as the alleyway he was heading down finally came to an end in a small square. There was a stone statue in the shape of a girl his age sitting in the center of it, locked in a thoughtful pose.

The statue’s features weren’t quite where they should have been. Her nose was just a bit too small, and her eyes a little too far apart from each other. One of the ears hung slightly askew, and she had six fingers on one of her hands.

A grin stretched across Chance’s lips. “Ocie! Is that you?”

Stone cracked and ground as the statue shifted, its eyes opening as its head raised to look into his eyes. It was something of a pointless exercise, because the statue’s eyes were still stone beneath its eyelids, but it was the thought that counted.

“Hello, Chance,” Ocie said. She sounded a little tired, but the fact that she was speaking to him made Chance’s smile grow even wider.

“I thought you weren’t going to be able to do anything for a lot longer,” Chance said. “Are you okay? I never meant for you to get hurt when–”

“I know you didn’t,” Ocie said, shaking her head. She looked down at her hand, then plucked one of the extra fingers off and popped it into her mouth like a French fry. “I said this before, and I’ll say it again. It was a damn stupid thing to do. An artifact as incredible as me – the embodiment of Gleam itself – nearly killing herself because you were trying to save a few mortals.”

“It wasn’t my best plan.” Chance’s gaze shifted and he rubbed the back of his neck. “But you saved a lot of people. Me too, probably. We all would have died without you.”

“I know, I know,” Ocie grumbled. “You don’t have to butter me up. I made the decision myself, even if you’re the reason my logic was screwed enough to make such a terrible call.”

“I don’t think helping people is ever bad.”

“That’s because you’d give the shirt off your back if some idiot asked you for it without even finding out if they needed it.”

Chance cleared his throat. “Well, if I didn’t need the shirt that much, I think it’s better to believe in the goodness of people and trust that helping them when it’s within your power is the right thing to do. I’d rather help a hundred assholes and one good person than refuse to help and end up screwing someone who actually needed the help over. Besides, helping the asshole might make them be a better person.”

“You’re hopeless, but I’m glad you’re still so eager to help everyone,” Ocie said. She stepped down from her spot on the rock and rolled her shoulders. “Because you’ve still got to pay up. I’m not healed, and I’m going to need to eat some powerful artifacts if I want to repair myself completely.”

“You aren’t? I was really hoping you were doing better,” Chance said with a worried frown. “Is it urgent? Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m not going to die, but it’s not exactly comfortable,” Ocie said. She let out a grating, rocky sigh. “It kind of feels like there’s a hole in my chest. It doesn’t hurt, but not having power that you used to have is really frustrating. I can’t manifest myself outside the Old City anymore, and I won’t be able to until you can get me some stuff to feed on.”

“Well, I was already planning on doing that,” Chance said. “Just any artifacts, right?”

Ocie started to nod, then paused. She reached up, pulling on her nose to get it a little closer to the size of a normal human nose, then squeezed her eyes together and shifted their positions until they mirrored Chance’s.

Huh. She’s actually getting pretty good at making that humanoid model of herself. This is pretty darn detailed, and it doesn’t even look completely uncanny.

“This is the problem, Chance.”

“Huh? What is?”

“Do you have any idea how easy it would have been to just tell you, oh, I don’t know. Just keep feeding me artifacts until I’m healed? You’d do it without an instant of hesitation, wouldn’t you?”

“I mean, yeah. That’s what I said I’d do.”

“And it’s why you’re an idiot,” Ocie grumbled. “Get me one artifact to start with. Something fairly strong, preferably. It doesn’t have to be the most powerful thing you’ve ever seen, but something that costs around two or three thousand gold should be great. That will probably be enough to heal a lot of the damage. If it isn’t, one more will be.”

“That’s it?” Chance asked, blinking in surprise. “I thought you’d need more.”

“And it was really tempting to say I would, but the artifacts you already fed me were pretty powerful,” Ocie admitted. “To be honest, getting that much power was well worth the risk of what I did. It’s a temporary setback.”

“Well, that’s good. I was kind of worried you were seriously hurt.”

“I am. I’m just seriously hurt in the short term. I’m an Artifact. I think in the long term. The short term is barely a blip. At least, it used to be.”

“Used to be? What do you mean?” Chance asked. “Did something change?”

Ocie’s stone eyes bored into him. “Never mind. Just get the artifact. In the meantime, I’m going to try to find a way to do more with your urumi. Bella was right – it’s not really that great of a weapon. I scammed you a bit.”

“Seriously? I love it!” Chance exclaimed.

“You are too easy to please. That’s normally great, but I’d prefer you stay alive if you ever get into a fight with someone too strong to defeat with your normal means. I know what happened with Vex, even if I wasn’t able to help.”

“You could make something strong enough to let me contend with him?”

Ocie laughed and shook her head, causing tiny stones to rain down her body. “No, of course not. But you keep getting into conflict with people stronger than you, and that means you need every edge you can get.”

“That’s true enough,” Chance said with a nod. “Well, is there a way I can help in the meantime? It might take me a while to get enough gold to buy an artifact like the one you need.”

“Probably by doing what Yamish has had you doing all this time. My streets are still overrun by filth, and the less of them chewing at my Essence, the better it’ll be for me. I already feel better than I have in years, but you can never get rid of too many monsters. It’s like getting a bath after spending weeks out in the field.”

“I can do that,” Chance said. “More Soothounds?”

“Among other things, but I’ll keep the really dangerous ones away from you,” Ocie promised. She paused for a moment, then scratched at the side of her head. “Well, most of them. I’m not messing with Yamish.”

“I don’t think anyone with a brain does that.”

“Which is precisely why you did it, right?” Ocie laughed at the look on Chance’s face, then waved her hand. The wall at the back of the town square cracked and split apart, revealing a pathway leading deeper into the Old City behind her. “If you’re up to working tonight, I wouldn’t say no.”

Chance shrugged. His bracelet unfurled, snapping out into its urumi form in his palm. “Might as well. Do you happen to know if Yamish is about? I’ve kind of been expecting to hear from him since he got to the city. I did technically pass the test he gave me.”

“He’s definitely here,” Ocie said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up at some point, but I’m not nearly stupid enough to go seek him out. Unlike you, I don’t have a death wish.”

“Hey, he said he’d teach me. We have an agreement.”

“Right,” Ocie said, not sounding convinced in the slightest. “Trust me. Having the attention of someone as dangerous as Yamish is never a good thing. I guess being dead later on is better than being dead now, but don’t go thinking he actually cares about you in the slightest.”

“I’m sure everything will work out.”

“Your attitude is unbelievably infuriating,” Ocie said. A stone bucked beneath Chance’s feet, pushing him toward the open alleyway. “I’m not sure if I should be jealous of your optimism or thankful that I’m not a fool.”

“It’s not being a fool if this is how my Essence works,” Chance said with a wry grin as he started toward the waiting alley. “That’s just having faith.”

“I hate Karma cultivators,” Ocie grumbled. “Get out of here before I get sick and go kill some Soothounds. I can feel one of them pissing on me right now, and I do not like it.”

Chance raised his hand in salute. It was a relief to see that Ocie was – for the most part – fine. And, better yet, she seemed to be in pretty good spirits. Chance didn’t recall her being nearly this willing to banter back when they’d been traveling.

“Have a good night. Take care,” Chance said.

“You too.” Ocie froze when she realized that she’d accidentally been kind when she was meant to be annoyed, but Chance had already set off into the alley, his laughter fading as he continued into the darkness.