Gleam - Chapter 145 (Patreon)

Before heading out that night, they returned to the Whiteheart house to find that the pay for their Soothound-retrieval job, as accidental as completing it had been, had arrived. It wasn’t much gold, but it was enough to outfit themselves with several vials of healing pills each. Chance was tempted to buy even more cultivation aids, but he needed more money if he wanted to do that.

As night crept closer, Chance sat on the edge of his bed and pondered. He needed money to get cultivation pills. He needed money for artifacts to feed to Ocie. He needed money if he ever wanted to find out if his parents were somewhere in this world. That thought brought a wince to his face.

It had been so long since he’d thought about them. They’d been his first goal in this world after survival, but he had new responsibilities now. Bella and Yeo – and not just them. He knew firsthand how powerful Karma magic could be. Leaving someone like Acen running around with the marble in his possession could cause disastrous consequences.

And even if I magically had the money to spend, would it even be safe? Yamish or one of the other people I’m wrapped up with could use them against me.

A small laugh slipped unbidden from Chance’s lips and he laid back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling through his hands. It was an amusing issue to have. Whining about money trouble while he’d actively gone out of his way to avoid pay and taking artifacts several times already.

Perhaps that hadn’t been the smartest decision, even though it had worked out well. And yet, the mere thought of trying to take more than what he needed made Chance’s Essence wrench in his stomach.

I can’t play this for the short term. Karma excels in the long game, not the short one. If I prioritize trying to get rich and everything I want now, it’s going to draw on Karma rather than give back to it, and I get the feeling that’ll lead straight to the path of Bad Karma if I go down it too far, constantly finding that I always need something more.

It’s not like I can remember a single time I haven’t needed something. There’s always something, so I might as well control the only thing I can. Myself.

His words sounded great in his head, but that didn’t really make them fell any better. Chance let out a sigh. It was a lot easier to sound cool than it was to actually be cool.

Chance wasn’t sure how long he laid there, staring up at the ceiling. But, at some point, he felt the bed dip slightly beside him. Chance lowered his hands, looking over at Bella as she sat down beside him.

“You doing okay?” Bella asked.

“Just thinking,” Chance replied. “Trying to figure out the right way to do things.”

A small smile flitted over Bella’s face. “Ah. Maybe I’m not the one to reassure you there, then. It took me three whole tries just to figure out what my Essence was, and I had so much help that sometimes I wonder if I even deserve it.”

“Having help doesn’t disqualify you from deserving anything,” Chance said. “We all need help sometimes.”

“Then why aren’t you asking for it?” Bella gave him a gentle prod in the side. “What’s bothering you? It’s got to be more specific than just things.”

“I’m wondering if I’m prioritizing the right stuff. I’m actively avoiding making some decisions that could make us stronger – like the artifacts back in the ancient realm. If we’d had Ocie eat those, we wouldn’t have drawn the attention of any other cultivators. And, if she’d eaten them, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten as badly injured by the monster she baited.”

“Maybe,” Bella allowed, pausing for a moment to think. She wasn’t trying to just give him an answer that made him feel better, but was actually searching for one that she believed. A wave of appreciation passed through Chance. After a few seconds, Bella inclined her head. “You know, I won’t lie. I thought that was pretty stupid for a long time. I mean, I get being nice. There are levels of nice, you know?”

Chance raised an eyebrow, a small smile flitting across his face. “Yeah?”

“There’s normal nice. That’s like some random dude you meet in a street giving you directions. Then there’s someone that goes a bit out of their way to help you. After that would be someone like Pete, who genuinely cares about us and really doesn’t get much in return. And then there’s you, the guy that cares about other people so much that he doesn’t even pursue his own goals.”

“I’m not sure if this is a compliment or an insult.”

“Both,” Bella said honestly. She reached down to give his hand a squeeze. “You’re an idiot, but I think the world could use more idiots like you. So I don’t think I can say if you did the right thing or not. All I can say is you definitely acted true to yourself. At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, I feel like being yourself is much more important than making the optimal move. I mean, what does your Essence say? That’s the manifestation of what you really want.”

Chance didn’t even need to check. His Essence was firmly on her side. Even though it hadn’t been the smart move, Karma had absolutely nothing to do with smart. Sure, a lot of Karma was the way one looked at it, and his view of Good was very likely different than Yamish’s.

Unfortunately, that didn’t matter. He couldn’t change his views, and going against them was pointless. A small sigh slipped from his lips, but it carried with it the weight of the thoughts that had been on his mind.

“Thanks, Bella.”

She gave his hand another squeeze, then let go and stood up. “It’s almost night. Are we still going hunting?”

Chance sat up. He drew in a slow breath and let it out, letting his Essence center him. A faint spark of joy danced deep within him as the Essence waited for release. He wasn’t getting any readier by sitting around.

“Yeah, we are.”

“Good. Yeo’s pacing up and down the hall like a caged cat, and it’s been driving me up the wall.”

Chance burst into laughter. “Did you come in here to check on me just because he was bothering you?”

Bella leaned in to give him a kiss. “I may have had ulterior motives.”

“I like those. We probably shouldn’t keep Yeo waiting, though.”

“We could.”

“We could, but it wouldn’t be nice.”

Bella scrunched her nose and sent Chance a glare. “This is what I mean. Let’s go then. I want to stab something.”

They both laughed and headed out of his room, nearly walking straight into Yeo as he completed his circuit at the end of the hallway and started toward them.

“Finally!” Yeo exclaimed. “Do you have any idea how bored I was out here? I was wondering if you weren’t going to come back out tonight.”

“We considered it, if only to piss you off,” Bella said.

Yeo paused, then smirked. “Okay, I have to admit that might have been funny, but only after the fact. I’ve been waiting to do something cool for so long, and we didn’t even get to fight Acen properly.”

Sometimes, I start thinking that Yeo has changed since we last met him. Then he goes and says something like that, and it feels just like how everything was when we first met.

“No more waiting,” Chance promised. “Not tonight, at least. Let’s go.”

They headed out of the Whiteheart house and down the street, passing by Shikari Lane. Yeo’s longing eyes latched onto Hounds’ as they passed by it, even though they’d eaten there not all that long ago.

A few minutes later, they stood at the edge of a dark alleyway. Yeo glanced around, then cleared his throat. “Er… Chance? You aren’t planning on robbing us, are you? I don’t think there’s anything good back there.”

“There’s something all right,” Chance said. He pressed his hand against the stone. “Ocie, do you think you could let us in?”

Something in the darkness shifted. The stones at the end of the alley changed, turning worn and cracked. Faint traces of purple mist shifted in the distance, almost like a welcoming wave.

Yeo squinted into the alley. “Wait. Isn’t this the same place we fought a whole bunch of Soothounds in?”

“Yes,” Chance replied, walking into the alley. “Come on. And don’t fall behind, or it’s going to be really hard to find you in time.”

“In time?” Yeo matched his and Bellas’ pace. “In time for what?”

“Before something nasty finds you first, probably,” Chance replied. He turned the corner of the alley, stepping onto the familiar cobblestone. Bella kept close to him, already aware of the Old City’s existence. But, even in spite of that, her shoulders were hunched and her hands tight at her sides, ready to jump into action at the first sign of trouble.

Yeo looked far more confused than anything else, but when he looked over his shoulder to find that the end of the alley was now just a flat stone wall, lines of concern creased his brow.

“Okay. I’m going to say it, Chance. This place is creepy. Where are we? What happened to the exit?”

“It’s the Old City,” Chance said. “And it’s the fastest way I know to travel through Gleam. It spans the entire city, kind of like a magical maze. When I first arrived on Centurion, I think I spent about a month wandering through it. Maybe more – I’m not really sure.”

“A month?” Yeo exclaimed. “Holy shit. No wonder your head’s screwed on backwards, man! What did you do for a whole month?”

“Wandered around, mostly. Tried to avoid getting eaten.”

“Okay, that’s kind of cool.” Yeo rubbed at his chin. “Imagine that being how you introduce yourself. You step into an old tavern, a huge scraggly beard on your face and scars covering you. Then you strike a pose while everyone looks at you and go, I’m back. I bet that would make a great impression.”

Chance and Bella both turned to look at him.

“What?” Yeo asked. “It’s cool.”

“Your definition of cool and mine are very different,” Chance said with a laugh. “But if you want to avoid the scars, you should definitely stay aware. There are a lot of monsters wandering around in the Old City.”

“Wait. You mentioned that before, but I think it flew over my head.”

“Most things do,” Bella muttered.

“There are monsters just… walking around in Gleam?” Yeo asked, ignoring Bella. “I mean, I know there are monsters. But there are enough that we can just randomly stumble into one?”

“There are tons,” Chance confirmed. “The Old City is Gleam, but it also isn’t. It’s hard to explain, and it’s not my secret to spill. What matters is that I can traverse it safely, and we can get wherever we want to go pretty quickly. We could probably cross the whole city in just an hour or so if we wanted to.”

“Okay, that’s really damn useful,” Yeo admitted. “So, where are we going? And if it’s just a bunch of Soothounds rolling around here, that’s not too much of a problem at all.”

Chance stopped at the end of the alleyway they were headed down. It widened out into a small, rubble-filled town square. Prickles ran down the back of his neck. A strandwalker stood in the center of the square, its long, spiny limbs poking out from its bulbous body.

Yeo spotted it a moment after Chance did and drew in a disgusted breath.

“The hell is that?”

“A problem,” Chance drew his urumi, letting his Essence flow through him. It looked like they were going to be hunting more than one target tonight.