34. Locke
LOCKE
“To get to the other zone, we’re going to have to get out of the Frostbit Sea without running into any orcas, leopard seals, or some other nightmare first. Then we have to go past The Broken Caldera—”
“Where your Leech is at,” I interrupt.
She sighs. “Where the Leech could potentially be waiting for us. We enter the last zone and find the Minor Boss without running into the Major Boss that’s potentially there.”
I lean back against the bed and sigh. “At least all these Minor Bosses are good for grinding. I should be able to level up soon.” I pop open my stat menu.
“I need one thousand XP, five shards, twenty Harrow Coins, and a femur bone. I have five Harrow Coins right now since it cost three for the warming potion, but I haven’t opened the loot crate from the boss battle yet.
I have three shards. I’m at six hundred and one XP and I have no idea where I’m going to get the femur bone from. ”
Vesper raises her brow. “You have to get a femur bone? That seems strange.”
I shrug. “I’m a Bone Breaker. It makes sense to me to need bones for upgrades. It doesn’t specify where the bone comes from either so I can just . . . take one from something dead we find, I guess.” I meet her eyes. “What do you need to level up?”
“Similar to yours. One thousand XP, five shards, fifty Harrow Coins, and five animal byproducts,” she shrugs. “I’m only at five hundred and fifty-two XP, though. I have three shards like you and only fourteen Harrow Coins.”
“The animal byproducts?” I ask, not even sure what that means.
“I have two, I think. One more strip of the arapaima jerky and then the macaw feathers.” She frowns. “I’m not sure if the man-eating houseplant I’ve been carrying around counts, so I’m not counting it.”
My brows shoot up. “You’re still carrying that thing around?”
“What else am I supposed to do with it?” she asks, shrugging. “I wasn’t going to leave it behind. I figure I’ll pull it out and address it at some point. Maybe it’ll be good for trading. Either way, it doesn’t help with us leveling up.”
I nod. “Looks like we have no choice but to grind then. The quicker we level up, the safer we’ll be.”
We’ve been on the RMS Titanic safehouse for two days now, picking through the slop, reminding Svetlana that we can’t chop anyone’s head off in the safehouse without consequences.
Both of us still had to heal some more and we’d had to spend more coins on some weak healing ointment for Vesper’s arm.
Now, the two of us are mostly healed up.
Vesper’s arm where Svetlana cut her way out is still is little worse for wear, but it’s far better than it had been two days ago.
It’s still in the process of healing despite the ointment.
Apparently, it had been the ultra-slow healing kind.
At least according to the description we’d read after we purchased it.
Everything here always comes with stipulations.
Vesper keeps chiding me for not reading everything and I’m starting to admit it’s a bit of a fault.
Any option is better than having no option, so often, I choose before I think. It hasn’t steered me wrong yet, though.
Instinct is king.
“This shit is extra disgusting today,” I say as I spoon some of the slop up and let it drip back down. It hits with a plop-plop-plop that grosses me out more. “What do you say we find the rich level today instead of pretending we’re okay with this shit?”
“There could be Tier Three or highers in there,” she points out.
“This is a safehouse. What are they gonna do? Stab us?” I shrug. “They can’t without getting blown up or something. I need some halfway decent food if we’re going to leave tomorrow.”
We’d decided it’s a good idea to get off the RMS Titanic and head for the next Minor Boss.
While a safehouse is a safehouse, this one is trash, and we’re literally floating in the middle of a bunch of nightmares.
In fact, if we could get out of the Frostbit Sea and never return, I’d be happier. I hate it here.
Vesper sighs. “Worth a shot, I guess. I could use some better food.”
“Finally!” Svetlana declares. “I’m not cut out for the peasant life. I need some meat in my stomach. Do you think they’ll have borscht? I could really use some.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Vesper tells her.
“Oh, you would love it,” Svetlana gushes. “It’s a soup, very sour, that’s bright red like the blood of my enemies. Do not worry though. It is not actual blood. It is from beets. My mamochka used to make it with potatoes and sauerkraut. It was delectable and it’s been so long since I’ve had it.”
“Ah,” Vesper says, as if she knows what half of the ingredients the bug says are. Sometimes, I wonder who Svetlana is and what the fuck she’s talking about. Often, its things we’ve never heard of. “We’ll look if they have some of the . . .
“Borscht,” Svetlana encourages. “Yes. We should ask once we fight our way into the room.”
Finding the “rich level” of the ship isn’t difficult.
Where the healing rooms are, we’re below the top of the ship, down in the underbelly that’s mostly bare and metal.
The higher we go, the fancier things get, until we’re standing in a large entryway.
Above us hangs a glittering crystal lantern that shimmers with the light.
In front of us, there’s a large staircase that splits into two, a clock at the top of it that seems to be stuck at 2:20 and no longer ticks.
Mother Remainder had fancy rooms like this, though none of hers had lighting of course.
None of Dross did. Instead, she had candle tenders, people whose sole purpose was to keep the candles burning. She hated the dark.
There are well-dressed people milling around the room, mostly NPCs. They look at us with turned up noses as we step inside, reminding me how much we’re going to stick out in our clothing. Who gives a fuck though? I want decent food.
In front of us, there’s an open doorway.
We can see round tables set up inside with plate settings and more crystal, along with people in fancy clothes seated around them.
The tables are not nearly full, and there are plenty of seats for us.
At the doorway, there are three men dressed in black and white outfits, their arms crossed over their chests as they stand there all broodily.
“What do we do?” Vesper whispers.
“When in doubt, just pretend like you belong,” I say. Then I roll my shoulders back, tilt up my chin, and stride toward the doorway. Just before I go to pass through, one of the men stops me with a hand to my chest.
“This room is for Tier Three or highers,” he says. “The peasant section is below deck.”
“Yeah, well the food is gross down there, so I came up here to eat,” I tell him. “There’re seats available. Just let us through and—”
“The peasant section is below deck,” he repeats, staring at me. “Come back when you’ve leveled up, lad.”
I shrug his hand off me and glare at him. “If there weren’t rules about punching you in the face—”
“Come on,” Vesper says, rolling her eyes. “They’re not letting us in.”
“This is bullshit,” I growl, letting her drag me backward. “I hope you—”
“Knock it off,” Vesper whispers, dragging me across the lobby and glancing around.
Quietly, she pushes through a small doorway I hadn’t seen and we find ourselves in a massive cooking room.
Waiters move around, picking up plates and carrying them out to the tables.
Cooks rush around the room, shouting orders at each other.
“We don’t have to go into the eating room,” she declares with a grin.
“Fuck yeah,” I say, reaching for a plate one of the cooks sets on the counter. “Grab what you can.”
The two of us stack up plate after plate, stealing what was meant to go out into the other room for the assholes to eat. Neither of us care about chaos we might be causing and none of the NPCs say anything to us at all, like they can’t see us stealing the plates.
“No borscht,” Svetlana says sadly. “But what did I expect from a ship flying the British flag?”
With out arms full, we rush out of the room and up the fancy staircase, laughing as we try our best not to drop any of the food.
Still, a few rolls of bread are lost to the adventure, rolling off of plates and disappearing with the rocking of the ship.
We only slow down once we’re up on the deck in the blistering cold, the wind whipping our hair around our faces.
“Oh fuck!” Vesper says. “I forgot we’re in the middle of the Frostbit Sea.”
Laughing, I gesture for her to follow me and we find our way to a small secluded room at the front of the ship out of the cold.
It’s there we spread out our spoils across the table and start to pick at them.
Svetlana immediately leaps down from Vesper’s shoulder and starts slicing up meat with gleeful shouts before she picks one up and starts to nibble at it.
I avoid her plate and stick to the ones she’s not focused on.
I hide my smile, preferring to pretend I still hate the thing.
But she’s growing on me.
“Look at that,” Vesper whispers, pointing out the small window.
Outside, we watch as a woman in a blue dress slowly walks toward the front railing. Her hand is laced with a man’s. The two of them are clearly from different levels, the woman from the rich and the man from the peasants.
“Are they NPCs?” I ask curiously, watching as they reach the front of the ship and then climb over the safety lines.
“Not sure,” Vesper says. “They look like they’re in love.”
I lean closer to her, both of us watching as they stand at the very front point of the ship. The man braces behind her and together, they spread their arms out to the sides, letting the wind whip at their clothing. Like they’re—
“Flying,” Vesper breathes. “They’re pretending they’re flying.”
I can tell that Vesper thinks it’s romantic by the way her expression softens.