Death After Death Ch. 37-38 (Patreon)

Ch. 37 - Achievement Unlocked

Ultimately, his plan was a simple one: bring what he needed, kill a few goblins, and chill out for a few months or years. “Lifetimes, maybe,” he mumbled as he laced up his armor again.

In between inventing Saturday morning cartoons that should have existed but never did and trying to remember what color Freya’s eyes were, he’d given a lot of thought about the mistakes he’d made in the dungeon, and the biggest ones was abandoning his search to find somewhere else to be rather than going ever deeper into the madness.

After all, he knew for a fact that the zombie level was huge. He’d wandered for dozens and dozens of miles in it. Surely other levels were like that too. So, now that he could summon fire on command, he was going to do what he could have done a long time ago. Grab some food from level one, some gold from level two, and use fire magic on level three to survive the freezing cold long enough to get down from those damn mountains and find some nice little medieval city to chill in for a while. He had no idea how long a pile of gold would keep him in women and wine, he thought with a shrug as he belted on his sword and scabbard, and wadded up his blankets into a satchel, but he was sure the food and the company would be better than here.

Killing the rats was almost a nostalgic experience for Simon. “Did you miss me,” he asked as he stomped the last one into oblivion before he picked through the potatoes and the turnips by torchlight. The root cellar was a dusty one, and much of the contents of both sacks were well on their way to spoiling, but he managed to find a few pounds of good vegetables and combined them into the sturdiest sack before he continued on his way to level two.

In his past few attempts, he’d gotten to the point where he could get through these traps in just a few minutes, but that was because he’d memorized each trap so thoroughly that he could identify each of them by the small scuffs and scrapes from the previous times they’d been triggered. He no longer trusted his memory, though. So, this time he took his time, slowly killing bats and searching hallways as he went. He still managed to avoid all of them, of course, and it took less than half an hour to scoop up a double handful of gold. In the end, all it cost him was a second torch, and that was immensely preferable to falling in that damn spike pit or getting crushed to death.

After that, the goblins were easy. His scabbed-over knuckles throbbed as he ran the first one through. It wasn’t a clean kill, and the little bastard had a chance to scream before he was silenced forever, which led to Simon being briefly pinned down by that damn archer until he took it out with the crossbow, but after that, it was a bloodbath in his favor, and though he was worn out by the time he’d finished chopping goblins into pieces, it was a good sort of tired, and he was grateful for the workout.

“You guys have had years to get your act together,” he gasped for breath as he berated the corpse of his final opponent. “But in all that time, you still haven’t figured out how to kill me or how to put an extra guard back in your cave. Pathetic.”

It was funny. Up until yesterday, he’d hated the idea of exercise and avoided it whenever possible, but something about being turned into a statue for years and years changed that. He might still hate the getting out of breath or the sweating part when he overdid it, but for the movement itself, he was very grateful.

Simon’s gaze drifted over to the stone door that led to the skeleton crypt before he got up and started walking down through the snow. He felt a little bad that he couldn’t go try that fight out on this run. It would be the best way to determine how rusty he’d gotten, but there was no way back, so once he was there, he pretty much had to keep going until at least the zombie level, which wasn’t happening. Not only did he have no wish to dredge up those memories again, but the next off-ramp from all the awful was what? The wyvern level?

“No thanks,” he chuckled to himself. “I already have a mountain, and I don’t need another.”

The day passed slowly, and that night he was able to make himself a fire, but it was still harder than he would have liked. Even trying to think of literally anything else, an outrageous amount of fire belched out of him when he whispered, “G̴̝̈́͒͠ḛ̷͕̮̕͘r̵̛̫̮̔͠ͅv̴̿̀͠ͅu̷̝͚̜̎u̴͚͈̎ḻ̸̣̈́ ̸̦̟̜̈́̍M̷̪̹̪̓̓͒e̴̪̎i̴͓̗̔̔͆ͅr̸̹͓͚͐̅è̵̛͇̱̾n̴̩̜̍.” For a moment, he thought he was going to burn the tree he’d planned on using for shelter down, but those flames quickly went out, and after a few minutes, he had a nice little campfire to try to roast a potato over.

“Honestly, I can’t wait to get,” some other spell to handle this shit, he said, berating the fire even as it kept away the cold. “Like - why can’t we just have fire or even lesser fire. He’ll - I’d take spark right about now. Anything but pyroclastic conflagration of doom!”

He could feel the spell pulling a ton of mana from him, even on the near miscast he’d tried to accomplish. He was both looking forward to and dreading what would happen the next time he cast the spell at full strength. He’d made it detonate pretty strongly in the past, but it was clear that his time spent meditating while made of stone had turned his imagination or whatever it was that made these spells work even higher than it had been before.

The next day he made good times and rewarded himself with frequent rest breaks, even as the sky began to darken and the wind began to pick up. The second night was fine, too, except for the blizzard, of course. He knew it was going to happen, though, so he built up quite a stash of firewood before the snow started to fall, which was just enough to get him through the night. After that, the snow was deeper, and travel was slower, but he didn’t mind too much because now he could see the snow line. Another day, or maybe two, and he would be clear of this winter weather and thin air, and then he could make real progress.

“I might even be able to find something to hunt with my crossbow,” he said hopefully. It was just too wintery up here to find any small animals, and he understood that, but he was getting really sick of eating potatoes that were half burned and half raw, but that was all going to end soon, he was sure of it.

The best part about his current view, of course, was that he could see a road, and where it crossed a river in the distance to his left, he could just barely make out what might be a town or a village. If there were people, then there had to be an inn, right? That was how fantasy worlds worked. So, in two or three days, he’d be kicking his feet up by the fire and eating roast pork or rotisserie chicken while he listened to a bard sing about whatever it was bards sang about.

It turned out he didn’t have to wait three days to meet people in this world. He’d barely had to wait two. Simon had been on the main road for less than an hour when he encountered bandits, of all things.

“Sorry, sir, but we’re going to need for you to pay a toll for the upkeep of this fine road if you want to travel any closer to Wellingbrooke,” a thin-lipped man in patched green robes said, stepping out into the road. Simon took some small joy as he intuitively knew that he wasn’t being spoken to in English; he might know what the language was called, but that didn’t stop him from knowing how to speak it.

Simon hadn’t noticed them a moment ago, but now that he knew what he was looking for, he could see three more in the brush ahead. Two had bows, but one just seemed to be watching. That probably meant that there were just as many as he couldn’t see, which made this eight-on-one. He didn’t like their attitude, but he liked those odds even less, so if they just wanted a coin or two, it was a simple enough decision.

“Sure,” he said, looking around at the ruts and the weeds. It was clear that this road had seen very little maintenance for a long time. “And how much is it that the roads require today?”

“For a smart, well-armed man like you?” the bandit smiled, “A mere half-shilling. Six pence will see you on your way with no harm done.”

“Fine,” Simon said, setting down his sack and pulling out a gold coin as he realized the real problem here was that he had no small change. He made a mental note to fix that even as he stood up. “I doubt you have any intention of making change, so why don’t you take this and call it a tip.”

He knew he’d made a mistake as soon as he saw the greed in the other man’s eyes. The bandit licked his lips before announcing unnecessarily loudly, “What’s that then? A gold sovereign? Maybe you should just hand over your whole purse so we can do the math for you.”

Simon had naively hoped that paying too much would save him some trouble, but it turned out to have exactly the opposite effect. He saw a fourth man move in the bushes not far from the first three at the mention of gold, and he heard a bowstring tightening. Since he wasn’t feeling like getting shot right now, he didn’t refuse the demand. Instead, with a shrug, he reached forward, offering the sack to the other man, feigning fear even as his rage began to bubble beneath the surface.

When Simon reached out to hand the other man the bag, he dropped it just before the bandit could grab it, and as the other man’s gaze watched it fall to the path, he reached up and grabbed him by the hair, bringing his head down hard against the other man’s forehead. He’d been aiming for the bridge of his nose, but he hadn’t exactly headbutted anyone before, so his aim was a little off. The bandit crumpled, but Simon held him up, intending to use him as a human shield for arrows that never came.

“Alright,” a voice called out from the bushes. “It’s clear that Luken underestimated you. If you’ll put him down, we can—”

“G̴̝̈́͒͠ḛ̷͕̮̕͘r̵̛̫̮̔͠ͅv̴̿̀͠ͅu̷̝͚̜̎u̴͚͈̎ḻ̸̣̈́ ̸̦̟̜̈́̍M̷̪̹̪̓̓͒e̴̪̎i̴͓̗̔̔͆ͅr̸̹͓͚͐̅è̵̛͇̱̾n̴̩̜̍,” Simon spat, letting his incandescent rage out in the form of rippling white fire that expanded out from his fingertips like a wave, instantly starting the whole section of forest that the men were hiding in on fire.

There were screams after that, but Simon ignored them. Instead, he dropped his hostage to the ground, and, ignoring the wave of exhaustion that passed through him from the spell, he drew his sword and moved to the nearest tree, using it for cover while he looked for any survivors.

Ch. 38 - A Room of One’s Own

Simon peered around his tree looking for anyone else that might be trying to murder. Over the sounds of screaming and burning it was hard to make much out, but after half a minute he decided the coast was clear. That decision almost cost him a death as an arrow embedded in the tree trunk inches from his eye.

Though he couldn’t see who it was that tried to shoot him, he ran in the direction that the arrow came from which was the next best thing. He groped for his shield, trying to get it up in case there was another arrow, but continuing to charge heedlessly, he body checked his would be assassin in the underbrush, sending them both sprawling.

The bandit was on his feet before Simon, and pulled a dagger from a boot, but he held back, and Simon really understood why after he rose to his feet, towering over him. His attacker was little more than a malnourished child. The feral little thing practically snarled at him as it slashed the air with the dagger to keep him back.

“Why don’t you just run for your life you little bastard,” Simon growled, pretending to swing his sword hard enough to make his opponent flinch and jump back. “The last thing I want is to add killing kids to my list of achievements.” The bandit listened to him suspiciously, like a trick was being played on him, and then, after a couple of cautious steps backwards he turned and ran off into the forest, leaving Simon to walk back to the road without so much as the neeed to look over his shoulder.

Why should he after all. He’d won, big time. However hard some of the monsters Helades had him face, underfed country bandits were no match for a high end, top 1% adventurer like him.  “Well Luken,” Simon asked, nudging the prone man with his boot. Rather than lash out at him as Simon had expected, the bandit instead cringed fearfully and shrank from his touch.

“I’m sorry, master mage sir, I didn’t realize… we didn’t realize that you could—” the man babbled before SImon interrupted him.

“That I could kick your ass up and down the street?” Simon Gloated, still holding his sword in a threatening way that didn’t quite promise the other man death.

The bandit’s eyes had a hard time leaving it though, and he swallowed hard before he managed to say, “quite right my lord, quite right. If you could see it in your heart to—”

“Go on, get out of here,” Simon said waving the man away dismissively as he sheathed his sword. “If I ever see you again I’ll gut you.”

“Yes my lord, sir, thank you sir!” Luken said scampering backwards and only rising once he was a safe distance away. He took off running the same way Simon was planning on going, which was awkward because he might actually see him again, but that was a problem he could deal with later if he had to.

With the immediate danger gone, Simon walked over to the smouldering corpses and after a moment of thought he put each of the ones that was still moving out of their misery with a single thrust of his sword. He didn’t enjoy killing people that weren’t trying to kill part of him of course, but after everything he’d been through he knew that he would much rather hit the reset button than continue to lie there suffering. Once that was done he briefly considered searching their corpses for anything useful, but that was too disgusting, so he left them to rot and started walking down the road in search of civilization.

A day and a night later he finally found the small village he was searching for. Except for the smell, and how dirty the people were it was pretty much exactly what he’d been expecting. He thought about asking the first person he could find where there was an inn, but feeling shy, he just kept walking until he saw a sign in the shape of a mug of beer above the door of a large building. Obviously there wasn’t a lot of writing happening in this place, so it could hardly be that complicated, he told himself as he walked inside.

Of course things quickly got complicated when he walked inside and the bar keep asked him “Well, what can I get you?” She looked at him like he had shit on his shoes and had tracked it inside her establishment, but once he started to explain the sob story he’d rehearsed on the way her, she quickly relented.

The bandits had attacked him as soon as they thought he was rich after all, so since he hadn’t brought any coins that weren’t gold, when he presented it to her he made a big deal about how it was his only coin left. “I kept it in my boot you see - just in case, but the bandits to the east robbed me blind and took damn near everything else I had.”

The look she gave him wasn’t exactly sympathetic, but when he was finally done, she said “Well, you can stay here for a night or two until you continue on to Liepzen or Hurag or wherever you’re going, but this ain't no charity operation. It’s still going to cost, you understand?”

He smiled at that, and quickly listed all the things he wanted: a room for three nights to recover from his harrowing ordeal, meals for the days he was here, and a drink to soften the harsh blow that left had dealt him. She nodded, and then looking at his coin muttered, “damn foreign money,” before biting it to make sure it was real. In the end she gave him a handful of coppers and silvers and had the cute bar maid direct him to his room after telling him what time they started serving dinner.

He watched the young woman’s ass as he walked up the stairs, but the unavoidable comparison to Freya’s kept him from ogling it, and as soon as he reached the small room, she was gone with little more than a quick curtsy.

The room itself was underwhelming, but no matter how dingy or claustrophobic it was, it was somewhere new and safe, and in his life those were the only two things that really mattered to him anymore. Maybe once he got used to walking and talking and eating, he could worry about finding somewhere nicer to stay. For now, he was just content to lay on his lumpy mattress, stare up at the ceiling, and listen to the noises coming from the common room below. Simon was sure that the novelty would wear off eventually of course, but that was tomorrow or the next day.

When he finally started to get bored, he examined the coins she’d given him. Counting the silver coins, she thought that the woman might have given him too much change, but when he counted the copper he realized the problem. She’d given him 11 small copper coins and 9 slightly larger silver ones, which was evidence that she couldn’t count, or that base-10 wasn’t exactly something they valued in their monetary system. Simon had played games like that before, and he hated them. It was so much more difficult to do the math in his head if it was twenty coppers to the silver, but a platinum coin was only worth five gold ones. He didn’t see why everyone couldn’t just standardize that sort of thing, but games had to have their little quirks, right?

As Simon put away the coins he reminded himself “This isn’t a game - this is some history garbage which honestly makes the whole thing worse, but you don’t need to worry about that right now.” It made the whole thing even dumber, of course, since there was no way he was going to be able to figure out the logic behind that one, but he wasn’t about to ask Heledes to help him with history lessons the same way she’d helped him with language. He shuddered at the thought, and then. Shaking his head, he got up and hid his real wealth under the bed, before spreading the rest of his belonging around to distract any would be thief. Then he went downstairs to get a bite before it got too late.

He smelled the scent of roasting meat and savory spices as soon as he left his room. They only intensified, along with the noise as he made he way down to the common room where he was served boiled potatoes, some sort of minced bread dumplings, and a thick cut of pork loin drenched in a brown gravy. Compared what Simon had subsited on up until now in The Pit, this was a feast, and even if it wasn’t something he would have usually ordered, he ate it with gusto. The proprietor gave him evil looks from time to time, like he was about to dine and dash at any moment, but everyone else was amiable enough.

After his second pint of dark brown Ale Simon regaled his fellow drinkers with a story about how he had once very bravely run from wyvern after accidentally stumbling across her nest, and was met with gales of laughter. During those stories, and later attempts to guess where Simon was from, he learned much about the world, but other than the fact that the nearest large city was Liepzen, he forgot almost all of it, because he was working on his fourth pint.

By then he wasn’t good for much besides laughing at bad jokes and losing money at dice as he got to know the locals. It was a new sensation for him since he almost always won at games, of course, but he didn’t mind too much since it mostly seemed to come down to luck and bluffing. If it were mostly based on skill he had no doubt he would have won. Not that he needed to. Simon didn’t need the money, so there was no need to clean out peasants for coppers. After all, Thomen was just a bargeman, and Yars was a woodsman, and the sovereign that he’d spent earlier was as much as both of them made in a year. Combined.

By the end of the night it was just him and five or six other drunks singing songs. He didn’t know most of their names, and he had no idea what the words ot the songs were, but he did his best. No one seemed to mind since he’d bought the last round of the night, spending the last of his copper pence. He figured he’d probably do pretty much the same thing tomorrow night before he got on the road the following day to go somewhere bigger and better than this little berg. He had the money after all, and he was sure he could find something nicer there.

That was Simon’s last thought as he went to sleep with a drunken smile on his face. His sleep was restful and uneventful, and in the morning he stretched when the first rays of the sun shot through the shutters and forced him from his slumber. He turned and covered his head with the pillow, trying to sleep a little longer to avoid the hangover he was sure he’d have after last night. But curiously, as his brain began to wake up more and more he realized that there was no hangover.

Simon opened his eyes and sat up, tying to figure out what was wrong, because something was definitely off. It took a second, but when his gaze finally met his own eyes in the mirror across from him, he finally realized the truth.

“Mother fucker,” he exclaimed in disappointed frustration. Sometime last night while he’d been asleep he’d died and had restarted back in the damn cabin.