39. Locke
LOCKE
We’re back in the snow and no one is fucking happy about it. The safehouse in The Howling Wind Plains isn’t far from the next blacked out region on the map, so I assume we’ll leave it behind soon. There’s only one problem.
We have to find the Minor Boss first.
There’s also a Major Boss here, one that I know we’re not ready to tackle. As Tier Ones, we don’t have much to offer. Not yet. As if to reiterate that fact, I pop open my stat menu and check it again. Shit, I’ve probably checked it five times since we left the Ice Hotel of Horrors.
TIER 1 - KNUCKLE DREG
Wastrel, entry-level
STRENGTH: 12
AGILITY: 10
VITALITY: 11
WILLPOWER: 10
CHARISMA: 9
LUCK: 10
FRACTURE POINTS: 0%
CORRUPTION: 5%
CURRENT BUFFS: immune to cold damage for another 10 hours and 45 minutes
Nothing. I’m a little stronger than a regular human, a little less charismatic, and honestly, the rest is just plain sad.
Being a Tier One is better than a Tier Zero, but I’m looking for the real power that comes with leveling up.
And I can’t do that if I die attempting to kill a Major Boss before I’m strong enough.
“This region is a fucking nightmare,” Vesper says, distaste in every word.
I can’t even disagree with her. I took the last serving of my winterberry wine just over an hour ago, which means I’m severely limited on how long we can stumble around looking for this Minor Boss.
The Minor Boss is marked on the map, but we can’t see exactly where it is, only a general area that we’ll be forced to look around in.
And with the snow running off into the distance for as far as the eye can see, I don’t have high hopes.
We’d decided that once my buff fell down past three hours, we’ll just start heading for the border.
That’s the best we can do. It’s better to come back to the Minor Boss later than freeze to death out in the Shatterlands.
“As I’ve been saying,” Svetlana’s voice responds from inside Vesper’s cloak. “This cold is the devil.”
For once, the bug and I agree. Dross was always a sweltering heat, sometimes worse when you were moving through a section where the sun shields had completely failed. I’d hated the heat then. Apparently, now that it’s blisteringly cold, I can hate that, too.
“You think there’s a region in the Harrow where it’s just the right temperature?” I ask. The snow is getting deeper. Every step I take, I sink halfway up my shins now. It won’t be long before we’re sinking up to our knees. “One where it’s not too hot, not too cold?”
“That would be amazing,” Vesper groans. “But I doubt we’re gonna be so lucky.”
“Yeah,” I grumble. “Cipher wouldn’t be that nice.”
“You humans are so sensitive to temperature,” Cipher chirps, as if my moaning amuses him.
“It does,” he replies, reading my thoughts.
“Get out of my head,” I grunt, stomping through the snow a little harder.
Cipher chuckles. “Make me get out, if you so wish. Vesper can do it.”
I try. I’ve been trying since we got here.
I imagine building a wall brick by brick, but after a few bricks, the image fades and I can’t seem to keep building.
Vesper had tried to explain how she does it, how she imagines the wall so high, and I apparently can’t do that.
My mind wanders away before the job is done and once another thought sneaks in, the wall disappears and I have to start all over again.
I don’t understand how she just . . . holds it.
“I fucking hate you,” I mumble under my breath, knowing that Vesper won’t be able to hear me over the howling winds.
Apparently, she can have conversations with Cipher inside her mind as well.
I can’t really. Sometimes, Cipher speaks to my mind, but when I try to respond directly to him in my own head, he doesn’t seem to get the words.
That, or he’s being an asshole. There’s really no telling with the system.
He’s always half helpful, half sabotage.
At least to me.
“I do not hate you in return, as that emotion is reserved for very specific humans. However, I do have considerable disdain for you,” Cipher replies.
“Is that because you genuinely don’t like me or because I can actually touch Vesper flesh to flesh?” I goad, feeling a bit stabby after the Ice Hotel safehouse we’d left. The scene we’d left behind . . . I’m glad Vesper had killed Anders. If she hadn’t, I might have.
Cipher pauses before answering, as if giving my question weight I didn’t intend. I was being a dick, but that doesn’t seem to matter as he weighs his answer. When he replies, I’m surprised at the honesty.
“Both,” Cipher finally says. “I find your general make up to be wholly disappointing, but . . . your ability to touch Vesper . . . I find I know true jealousy for the first time in all my existence.”
That makes me pause in my steps. A system machine shouldn’t be able to be jealous of a human, but .
. . Cipher isn’t just a system. I can’t even pretend to know anything about that sort of tech, about what our ancestors created and allowed to run loose.
Cipher is so other and foreign, I don’t know how to ask the correct questions.
Though he likely wouldn’t answer anyway. Not me, at least.
Before I can respond to the rare bit of honesty from the fucker, the sound of another voice interrupts me.
“You three are so boring,” Steve says suddenly, reminding me that he’s still floating along behind us like some sort of brightly glowing dog. “Like, when are we going to get to the good stuff?”
I glance at the biblically accurate Ophanim, whatever that is. I just know when I look at him, a menu pops up beside him.
STEVE (A.K.A. STEVIE)
Biblically accurate Ophanim, unaligned
I can’t see any of his stats, if he has them, but I imagine they’re larger than I’m expecting.
It’s hard to think of the thing that speaks with such an unhinged accent and lives for the drama as being powerful, but I think it would be a brilliant way to hide strong stats.
After all, Anders had been afraid of him, enough to imprison him at the top of that tree somehow.
And now here we are, travelling with the thing.
“If you’d like to start a fight with the snow,” I grunt at him, “be my guest.”
“Oh my god, you’re such a buzzkill, Lockey Poo,” Steve replies.
“If I was a different Ophanim, cough cough, Michael, I’d have to smite you just to create a little drama.
” Steve’s rings spin rapidly and then stop as his many eyes look at me.
“Lucky for you, I’m not the incredibly square Michael. I’m just Steve.”
“There are others like you?” Vesper asks curiously, falling back a little so she can walk next to Steve.
“Of course there are, silly goose,” Steve says, as if it’s the wildest question he’s ever heard. “There are many humans. Why would there not be many Ophanim?”
“We’ve just never seen anything like you,” Vesper replies. “You’re so unique.”
Steve’s light pulses and I get the feeling he’s blushing. “Oh my god, Vesper. Stop. You’re embarrassing me,” he coos, and then those rings spin fast. “Just kidding! Keep going. I’m such a sucker for compliments.”
Vesper laughs as if we’re not travelling with some unknown monster that’s probably powerful enough to kill us without effort.
Somehow, we’ve managed to form a tentative alliance with the thing after the safehouse, but there’s no telling how long that will last. As it is, I plan to keep a close eye on it.
Steve seems friendly now, but Anders was scared of it for a reason, and anything that makes another evil being scared is something to be wary of.
“I am impressed with your sudden ability to reason,” Cipher pops in. “It is very out of character for you.”
“Are you still listening?” I grumble.
“I am always listening.”
Great. I’m going to die when the winterberry wine wears off in this frozen asshole of a place and all I have is a bastard of a machine and a biblically accurate Steve. What an end to a shitty life.
My eyes flick to Vesper. She’s tromping through the snow just as I am, her cloak swirling around her.
Her cheeks and nose are slightly red, but it looks like it’s more from exertion rather than the cold.
We would have never made it across the Shatterlands had she not been rewarded that thing.
I would have given her all of the winterberry wine had she needed it, and then she would have been alone in that safehouse.
Half of this place is luck. The other half is just sheer desperate survival.
Though I suppose it helps if Cipher actually likes you.
If it had been anyone else Cipher favorited, I’d have been bitter about it.
But . . . I can’t blame the system for liking her.
Because I like her, too. For years of my life in Dross, I’d been held in limbo by Mother Remainder, never making enough to earn my freedom, but making just enough to keep me fed.
There were many who would kill for the position I’d found myself in, to be coveted by Mother Remainder, but .
. . I’d hated her touch. It was always cold, emotionless, a chore.
I was one of many, marked with the same barcode across all our faces.
I’d grown to hate her touch while simultaneously yearning for it.
I feel as if I’m starving for true touch now, and every time Vesper presses her flesh against mine, whether because she’s checking my pulse or pressed against me, I yearn even more for it.
I’m hungry for it.
Fuck, I’d do anything for it.
And perhaps that makes me a risk in this place. Maybe it makes me an idiot falling for a woman who just wants to survive the same as I do.
But I think she feels it, too.
She’s had every opportunity to leave me for dead. She could have backstabbed me a number of times, left me to my demise. Instead, she’s risked her life to save me, stuck by my side . . .
. . . smiled at me.
Harrow, she fucking smiles at me. Genuine smiles.
And I’ve never wanted anything more than to keep making her smile.