Death After Death Ch. 41-43 (Patreon)

Alright Death After Death is now 5 chapters ahead, as promised! This number will continue to rise by about 1 a week until we are 10 full chapters ahead in about a month. Thanks for reading!

Ch. 41 - Keeping Him Safe

For Simon, killing goblins was easy. Staying safe while he did it was a little more complicated, but that hadn’t been important before now. After all, he could always come back and try again, but that wouldn’t be an option for young Gregor. The kid had looked pretty strong for 16. Still, there was a softness about him that told Simon he hadn’t done anything more dangerous than sparring with his father’s men or maybe a fox hunt or whatever the upper class did for fun around here. So, even after returning to his room, Simon lay awake as he wrestled with his misgivings.

Those worries invaded Simon’s dreams as his subconscious explored all the grisly fates that awaited the entitled young noble while he tossed and turned. The first time they were both ripped to pieces in an ambush that Simon hadn’t spotted, but on the second attempt, even though he knew it was coming, they were still completely overwhelmed by the number of goblins, and the young scion in his care was maimed and disfigured. Simon could heal him, of course, but the boy’s arm grew crooked and scarred, and Simon was certain he would hang for it after everyone learned about his dark powers.

He woke up in a cold sweat shortly before dawn, uncertain of what to do. His dreams had been extra vivid since he’d become unstatued. Even taking that into account, though, this felt somehow more prophetic to him. They’d died repeatedly, separately as well as together, as he’d overcome this group only to be killed by that one or defeated all the warriors only to be burned alive by the shaman. In most versions of that recurring nightmare, he never made it out. Still, the ones he returned to the Baron bearing a corpse or a disfigured child were the worst of all as his subconscious went into overdrive.

Simon was filled with trepidation when he finally started to get ready that morning as he racked his mind for some way to keep the kid that was being entrusted to his care and complete this mission. If he could just do that much, then he could finally take a break and try to figure some things out about this crazy world and come up with a plan. Maybe he could even figure out how to rein in his fire spell or learn to use an actual bow instead of the crossbow he’d been stuck with so far.

When he arrived at Baron’s manor shortly after sunrise, he was informed that they were still having breakfast and he could wait in the servants’ kitchen. Simon would have been offended at that, but the biscuits and gravy they served him mollified him until his charge had eaten and dressed.

When Simon saw the Baron’s son, his heart sank further. The kid was wearing real armor in the form of a breastplate and chain mail, at least, but it was obviously a little too big for him and much too heavy to explore a cave. When Gregor moved, it was awkward and unbalanced, and Simon worried that if he took too large a swing, he would fall over.

“Handsome little devil isn’t he,” Baron Corwin announced. “Ready to go win a war all by himself.”

“Well, Mr. Corwin, Sir… the armor is really nice… it’s nicer than anything I could hope to afford, but I’m afraid if we go out like this, it will put your son in real danger,” Simon said, trying very hard not to sound like a jerk.

“What do you mean?” the Baron asked in a puffed-up way that made Simon sure that this was a mistake.

“I mean that… well… Gregor - Caves can get pretty tight; why don’t you crawl under that table for me,” Simon asked, trying to shift the noble’s intense stare to anyone but him.

The boy looked uncertainly from Simon to his father, who snapped, “Go on, son, it’s like I told you. In all other things in life, commoners like this will obey your orders, but in their area of expertise, listening to those you employ will save your life.”

Simon was pleased and annoyed by the backhanded compliment as he watched the man’s heir get on his hands and knees and try to crawl under the end table. On the one hand, it was nice that someone thought he had expertise in something, but on the other, this whole ‘better than everyone else because of the family you were born into’ routine was about 200 years out of date as far as he was concerned.

They both watched how awkwardly the boy moved, and when he was halfway under, Simon pointed out, “See how stiffly he moves and how loud his armor is? In the pit… I mean the mine shaft, we won’t even be able to hear the goblins coming.”

“I see,” the Baron said in grudging agreement, “what would you suggest then?”

“Do you have something like this?” Simon asked, gesturing at his own armor. “It offers decent protection from their teeth, but… it’s a lot easier to move in.” Here at least, Simon spoke from experience. He’d tried the suit of chain mail in the cabin several times, and it very rarely came in handy.

“That’s not really the sort of thing that a Baron or his heir would need to wear,” Baron Corwin answered, shaking his head. “The only ones around here that might have something like that would be our guards, our huntsman.”

“Well, are any of them about the size of your son?” Simon asked, unaware of what an argument that would turn into. Apparently, it was insulting to expect the boy to wear the armor of some commoner. In the end, Simon apologized grudgingly and offered to take care of the problem himself, but the Baron wouldn’t hear of that either.

In the end, they spent the next several hours looking for someone on the grounds with armor that could fit his precious son, but then they had him wear a nice jacket on top of it even though the day was already starting to get warm. Only after all that was finally done did they set off toward the mine on horseback.

Simon hadn’t ridden a horse since a particularly awful summer camp when he was fourteen, but the animal was docile enough. So, he followed the young man, and they made pleasant conversation. Gregor asked Simon about his travels and his battles, and Simon mixed just enough falsehood with his truths to keep the conversation going, but in truth, he felt a little lost by the end of it. He’d expected someone a bit more childish, but it was clear to Simon that this was nothing but an adult in a child’s body the way he picked up on the inconsistencies in his meandering tale.

They tethered the horses when they arrived, and Simon looked at the tunnel. And the forest hills beyond. This was definitely the sort of place where Goblins might choose to hang out, though he didn’t smell them yet. Simon went in a few feet until the light of day started to peter out and sniffed, but smelled only rock dust. The next step was, of course, to light some torches and start exploring, but something about the dreams from the night flashed before his eyes, and he knew that, in good conscience, he couldn’t take the boy with him. He might be grown up for his age or whatever, but it was obvious to Simon he’d never been in a life-or-death struggle like this before.

“I think we’re going to smoke them out. The infestation here is too bad,” Simon said lied as he came out of the cave.

“But Father had some adventurers try that last year, and the goblins just came back,” the boy protested. “Surely such evil creatures do not mind the fumes of hell.”

Simon smirked at the boy’s lack of knowledge regarding basic knowledge, reminding him of just how backward these people really were. “Is that what those events tell you?” Simon asked, trying not to sound too smug. “Then today, we will teach you something new.”

They spent the next 30 minutes building a small fire at the entrance to the mine and a large pile of green branches to go with it. Then, after Simon felt a twinge of jealousy after he watched Gregor light the fire with some flint, they started to pile the green branches onto the small blaze until the whole place was nothing but a cloud of smoke.

“So, do we just wait for the goblins to come out then?” Gregor asked.

“We’d be waiting a long time, I think,” Simon said, looking at the giant blaze they’d created. “You see how the smoke goes into the mine? That means there’s airflow.”

“Well, of course, there is,” the boy shrugged. “How else would you vent such a large mine.”

“And how else would the goblins get in?” Simon answered, pretending he’d already known that.

After that, they started tromping through the forest on foot, looking for any sign of their prey. After half an hour, they found the first vent from the trickle of pine-scented smoke coming out of it, but there was no sign of goblins. So, they continued on to the second and the third vent shaft. Each time the smell got fainter, but it was still noticeable.

“That’s as far as it goes,” the boy said finally, not bothering to hide his disappointment. “Are you sure you’ve really killed goblins before?”

Simon seethed at that but bit back the caustic words on the tip of his tongue. Instead of insulting the boy, he just said, “Gregor, when you’ve been in as many caves as I have, you’ll know that there’s always more entrances and exits than you think there are.”

With that cryptic response, he continued in the same direction they’d been traveling for a while before he turned and started heading toward the sound of running water. That was when he caught the first hint of sulfur and filth that told him that goblins were nearby. The scent of burning wood and pine tar was perfume by comparison.

“Shhhhh,” Simon whispered as he drew his blade and started to slowly go toward’s the scent. The boy quickly followed his example.

When they reached the treeline, they found a crevice not so far from the shore of a river with five agitated goblins milling about in what shade they could find. There was no way they would willingly be out in the daylight, which meant that his smoke trick had worked, he congratulated himself. Simon’s biggest concern was that they would scatter when they attacked in such an open area or even attempt to flee underground.

So they split their assault and charged from two different directions at once. Simon was hesitant to leave Gregor on his own, but he told the lad to just yell loudly because goblins were fairly cowardly, and to Simon’s eternal surprise, it worked.

They both charged, but only Gregor screamed a bloodthirsty battle cry, so the goblins charged Simon, and he made quick work of the first three. He decapitated the first one to reach him, ran the next one through, and bashed the third one with his shield hard enough to crack its skull. After that, he played with the last two, giving his young charge ample time to make his own kills.

In the end, none of them got away, and as they sat on the bank drinking water and congratulating themselves for their victory, Simon felt like maybe this was what his dungeon experience had been missing the whole time. He’d killed lots of things, but he’d never done it with someone, and somehow it was that teamwork that made it hit differently.

Ch. 42 - Ripple Effects

Simon brought a bag of goblin heads back as proof of their victory, and after he told the mostly truthful tale to the Baron about how his heir had charged into the action bellowing a battle cry and cutting down green skins, the man threatened to have one of the heads bronzed and put on the wall of his study. The Baron’s wife, Arys, talked him out of it, of course, but Simon was invited to a feast held in Gregor’s honor when the mine was reopened, where the lord drunkenly recounted the tale.

“There they were,” he told the other guests feigning rapt attention like they hadn’t heard all this before. “Surround by those damn goblins pouring up from the mouth of hell when my eldest son ran screaming into their midst!”

Simon successfully avoided laughing at that and had a decent night answering the silly questions of silly people that were all somehow more important than him while he sampled a variety of halfway-decent wines. He wasn’t going to let people like that bother him, though. Instead, he spent the following days berating himself for how silly it had been that he’d worried about those stupid dreams whenever he wasn’t doing anything more interesting.

After all - there’d only been five goblins down there, not some kind of goblin city. At least that’s what he thought until a few days later when he chatted with one of the men who’d worked on collapsing that entrance so that goblins wouldn’t be a problem again in the future. Apparently, there’d been dozens of the little pests just a little further in that had perished from smoke inhalation. Though he pretended like he’d always known that was the likely outcome, Simon wondered if that made him more or less crazy for wondering if his dreams were somehow true.

The Baron was true to his word and gave Simon the run of a cottage not far from the Baron’s manor for as long as he desired it, on condition that he be available for the needs of his household on occasion. Simon didn’t have a problem with that, though, when he found out that another tenant family had been evicted to make room for him, Simon did have a bit of a problem with that. No one else seemed to care, so eventually, he stopped too and focused on living something like a normal life for the first time in a long time.

He still paid a few coppers to eat and drink at the inn almost every night, but that was only because he had no idea how to cook over an open flame. Letting a soup boil in a cauldron was one thing. He tried that a couple times, but getting all the right fresh herbs and then keeping the fire at the same level for hours was a pain, and after trying it a few times just to prove to himself that he could, he became a regular at the inn instead. In the games he was used to playing, it was so easy: you picked up anything clickable, clicked the button to combine the items, and then had armor or a nice meal.

Simon spent a week trying to tan a hide before he gave up. Not only was it difficult to do, but the way you used the creature’s brains in the tanning process was also more than a little bit disgusting. In fact - the more he tried to learn about medieval life, the more disgusting he found it. Chamber pots, half-rotten food, and no real medicine to speak of made for a pretty awful life, but at least with his stash of gold, he didn’t have to spend all day laboring in the fields like his fellow man.

He frequently found himself sparing with the man’s sons, using wooden swords for lack of anything better to do. He’d noticed the last few weeks that if he didn’t keep himself busy, he tended to stop moving and just exist inside his own head in a way that sometimes felt disturbingly close to being a statue once more. He only noticed it when he was so still outside one day that a bird landed on him like he was some kind of Disney princess. Sometimes it was hard to snap out of that as he relived his traumas and berated himself for everything he could have done better and every trap of Helades that he should have seen coming.

So, he frequently resorted to swordplay with the boys and sometimes even the household guard to sharpen his skills and provide a little entertainment. Though even the Baron’s youngest was more skilled than Simon on a technical level since they’d spent their young lives drilling with actual instructors, they were able to do some interesting things with feints and reposts that he had trouble dealing with, but even with those tricks they seldom beat him. Simon had more than just raw strength on his side, even though the daily workouts were having a real impact on his body. He also had more experience against a real opponent and could spot openings better than anyone else in the sparing yard.

Still, when it came to the guards that were his age or older, all he could do was give as well as he got. He was still better than them, of course, but this was a game that they had played for as long as he’d had a controller in his hand. As much as he hated to admit it, it would take time to improve if he wanted to be able to wipe the floor with all of them as he should.

After a few weeks of this quiet, satisfying routine, just when it was starting to get too hot to be out in armor any time around midday, life was interrupted by news that the King had died. Simon had hoped that he was far enough away from whatever fighting was going to happen. That seemed unlikely, and his fears were born out a few days after the word had spread, and the kingdom was officially in mourning when a pair of riders showed up within hours of each other to deliver the news that they required the Baron to swear allegiance to the new King.

The problem, of course, was that they both disagreed on whom the new King was. The first rider said it was the King’s son, and the second said it was the King’s brother.

“What do you think I should do,” Corwin asked Simon in a rare moment of indecision.

Simon, of course, had little to say on such matters. Still, he did repeat the bar gossip he’d heard so long ago that the King’s brother, Duke Westerfall was the odds-on favorite, even if the King’s son was certainly the rightful heir.

“So you think I should declare for the Duke instead?” Baron Corwin asked. “Even if I gave a weapon to every man that could use one, I’d be hard-pressed to field much over 100 people.”

“It’s not my place to make such decisions, sir,” Simon answered.

Making that kind of choice honestly terrified him. He couldn’t handle that kind of responsibility. Really, all that mattered to him was that he would have to cut his quiet little life here short and move further south to stay ahead of current events while the Baron pledged his loyalty to the King’s Brother.

At least that was the plan until one day, Gregor chose a quiet moment after a round of archery practice to express his fears. Simon was still absolutely terrible with the bow, so he’d mostly just been watching the younger man shoot, but when Gregor said, “Father says that you’ll likely be leaving soon. You and any other man that can sell your sword for a few coins.”

“Does he now?” Simon asked. “That’s news to me. Who am I going to fight for?”

“Does that mean you’ll stay and help us when the troubles come?” the boy asked?

“Well, I’m pretty comfortable right now, so I had no plans to…” Simon’s words trailed off as the boy gave him an uncharacteristic hug. Only then did he understand the depth of the lad’s fear.

Simon let the moment linger, appreciating the first human connection that he’d had in lifetimes. Still, after a moment, he pushed the boy away and did his best to reassure him. “Leipzen is a long way from here, Gregor. I don’t think we’ll have anything to worry about for a good long while.”

Simon was wrong, though. The peace didn’t last long after that, and within a few weeks, there were already rumors of battles and raids in nearby fiefs. Slany was only spared a few more days after that, and though most of the village had fled to the Baron’s manor before the soldiers arrived, Simon could still hear screams in the night as he watched homes, including his own set ablaze from atop the hill.

The house was a large one, with an enclosed courtyard that could fit hundreds, but it was never intended to be a fortress, and like it or not, Simon would have to fight. Somehow the idea of fighting professional soldiers didn’t seem like as much fun as fighting goblins had been. That wasn’t because Simon understood their greater threat after spending so many idle afternoons dueling the Baron’s guards, though, but because of the number of crying children he could hear behind him as he watched the gates rattle under the axe blows of the invaders.

Baron had sent a messenger to the opposing army to offer a surrender. Still, Simon knew how that would end well before the boy’s head had been tossed back over the gate. These men didn’t want a victory, they wanted an example, and that meant a pile of dead bodies to put the dear into the other lords of the region.

Simon hadn’t been sure if that knowledge would put steel in the spine of the surrounding men or if it would bring them to their knees. He wasn’t very good and judging people when it came to emotions, so he just stood there at the ready, waiting for his chance to do some good. After all, he was the one man on either side who didn’t fear death, so he could go all out in a way no one else could.

They held like that for an hour or two, with a few men on the time roof harassing the force of almost 300 men with arrows while a few brave men and women put out the fires that the attackers continually tried to start. Eventually, that wasn’t enough, though, and all at once, the interminable sense of waiting was replaced by sudden violence as the gates swung inward and the attackers swarmed in.

No one ran. That was the highest compliment that Simon could give as his world narrowed to the width of his opponent. They’d expected only farmers with spears to be huddled back here, and Simon made sure the first man to face him regretted the decision as he smashed the dark-haired axe wielder hard in the face before stabbing him in the gut and moving on to his next opponent.

The fighting after that was desperate and chaotic, and Simon took more cuts from not knowing that an enemy had gotten behind him than from anyone that had dared to face him directly. He was certainly on the losing side, though, he decided, as he stepped back from the fray to whisper, “Ä̴̮̦̯́̅ű̸̡̙̩͛f̶͈̦́̃v̸͚̬̀̕ả̷̩͙̼r̶̦̀͊ú̶̪̮̉͝m̷͔͔̃͋ ̷̩̯̈́Ḣ̸̲̗̲̽̚j̸̺͔̓͘͜a̸̢̘̎̋k̶̞̀k̴̤͇̏̑̈́” as he imagined the muscles on his sword arm knitting back together. All the little wounds were adding up, and even the extra stamina he’d built over the last few months wasn’t enough to stave off exhaustion forever.

Plus, he increasingly found himself outnumbered in the back and forth that had taken place over the last ten minutes as the defenders sought to protect their loved ones in the face of overwhelming odds. Despite the fact that Simon was exhausted and surrounded, though, he still had one trump card left to play. “G̴̝̈́͒͠ḛ̷͕̮̕͘r̵̛̫̮̔͠ͅv̴̿̀͠ͅu̷̝͚̜̎u̴͚͈̎ḻ̸̣̈́ ̸̦̟̜̈́̍M̷̪̹̪̓̓͒e̴̪̎i̴͓̗̔̔͆ͅr̸̹͓͚͐̅è̵̛͇̱̾n̴̩̜̍” he shouted, imagining a firestorm almost as wide as the gate back by lethal intent.

Simon had enjoyed his time here, and he knew that from the way the other woman had reacted, what he was doing was likely to get a negative reaction, but sometime in the next minute, he was going down, and a minute or two after that there would be no one left to fight.

The result of his spell was a wave of incandescent fury that killed those closest to him outright as they were consumed in a blazing white inferno. Their corpses did shield those behind them for an instant, but even so, the shockwave of hellfire spread outward, engulfing almost everyone between him and the gate.

Simon tried to enjoy the sudden panicked retreat that he’d caused, but the amount of energy that the spell took from him made him waver as his vision blurred, and he threatened to lose consciousness, spoiling the moment.

“Alright, men, he called out as loud as he could as he pointed ahead with his sword. We’ve got them on the run. We just need to—”

Simon’s words were cut off by a sword that pierced his back, followed by another in his side that left him coughing up blood.

“Witchcraft!” one man shouted.

“He’s a warlock!” cried another.

Simon had hoped this wouldn’t have been the reaction, but he accepted it anyway. He spun as he fell to the ground, landing on his back, and smiled as he saw that Gregor was alive and his sword had no fresh blood on it.

At least he’d made one friend here, Simon thought as his consciousness faded to black.

Ch. 43 - Familiar Faces

Simon’s most common reaction to the pain and confusion accompanying death whenever he died was anger and frustration. Generally, he was annoyed at whatever cheap trick had been used to kill him, or he was pissed off at Helades for planning it this way just to make him suffer. The next most common was fear that something even worse than death might somehow be inflicted on him again. This time he felt neither, though.

Instead, he felt only acceptance as he lay there staring at the ceiling, trying to parse the reaction he’d seen on the faces of the men who’d killed him. Gregor had seemed sad, of course, and Simon was pleased that at least one person had decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for once in his life.

“Especially since I was, you know, saving your family from a fucking army,” he said sarcastically to no one in particular.

Martem and Viktor were people he thought he knew, though. Simon understood that superstitious villagers might not like magic. What he didn’t understand was why they had sprung on him so viscerally like that. If they’d wanted to exile or banish him after the fighting was done because they thought it was witchcraft, he could see that, but to kill him for trying to keep them alive was bullshit, and he kind of hoped they were wiped out because of it.

Well, he wanted to hope that, but he couldn’t quite make himself think something so awful, and as he got up and stretched, he hoped that the Baron’s family managed to escape, or at least if they died, he hoped that it was a clean death. They’d been good to him, after all.

Good enough to go back and try to save them again, though? He wasn’t so sure about that.

Simon reached for the wine bottle and took a long swig, noting that he’d developed enough of a palette for it that he noticed just how much it sucked compared to the vintages he was used to at the Baron’s table. That didn’t stop him from drinking it, though, as he pondered what to do next.

“If I go back, whatever I build is just going to get destroyed by the war again,” he told himself as he considered the problem. He had two options: he could try to stop the war somehow, or he could try going further away this time.

Simon had no idea how to go about stopping the war, though. Was he supposed to just assassinate some duke so that the line of succession was clearer? That might help, but it might make things worse, too, and there was no guarantee that he would survive such an attempt long enough to enjoy his newfound peace anyway. Maybe if he wandered far enough, he could find somewhere so distant and insignificant that it wouldn’t be affected.

For some reason, thinking about distant places brought Schwarzenbruck to mind. He could always go back down the mountains and try to find it. It was supposed to be somewhere to the north, but he was sure that Luken or the innkeeper who wanted him dead would know where he could find that if he asked.

He wasn’t sure why he’d want to take the long way to a zombie infestation, though. After all - getting to the eighth floor? That was easy. He just had to kill some goblins, some skeletons, a slime, and a couple zombies. And for some reason, if he was bitten, he was fairly certain he could blow his own head off with pyrotechnics well before losing control of his body again.

He felt stupid that he hadn’t thought of it last time but vowed not to make that mistake again. As long as he just kept that plan in his back pocket, Simon knew he had little to fear from another visit to that place beside a quick and relatively painless death. Well, nothing besides seeing Freya again, he thought with a sigh.

This was enough to stir him to action as he tried to move physically away from her ghost. As he did so, two things became immediately apparent to him. The first was that he longed to see her, even though he knew she wouldn’t actually be there if he visited again, and the second was how slow and out of shape he suddenly felt.

Simon turned and walked over to the mirror. He didn’t talk to it, but he did note with dismay that he’d put on a lot of weight since the last time he’d seen himself in the Baron’s manor. For a moment, Simon’s mind rejected the idea that he’d always been this fat, and a train of thought spontaneously decided that Helades must be doing this as an additional handicap to keep him from succeeding. Simon stopped that thought cold before it could grow though and took a hard look at himself.

“No wonder I was getting so much better at sword fighting,” Simon said, lifting his shirt. Not only had his leather armor fit him much better, but he was carrying around more than an extra set of chain mail with every step right now.

As he realized he’d been like this from day one, he cursed himself for never noticing until now. Simon had always considered himself to be a little thick because he was so strong, but he’d never known what real strength was until he defended that gate and held back four men at once. The vivid images of that flashback filled his mind with the smell of blood and the sounds of screaming briefly, but he pushed them out of his mind, trying to focus on the positive.

“Alright, so I’m not strong right now,” he told himself as he stared straight into his own eyes, “but I can be again, and it’s going to be soon.”

That, as much as anything, was why he decided on whim that he was going back to Schwarzenbruck. Not to stay, of course. He had no interest in fighting his way out of that inn. He was going to cut through there and then see if there was anywhere nice to settle down near the wyvern level. On his last visit, he’d seen something on the horizon, but he had no idea if it was a city or more ruins like those he’d already explored.

It was another level where he had no idea what he was supposed to do. Some made sense, at least. Kill this slime or that troll, but what the hell was he supposed to do about the wyvern? When it came to the third floor, was he supposed to kill the goblins or stop a civil war? Was it both? Even though this wasn’t a game, he felt sure a quest log would have gone a long way to making it playable.

Simon decided that he’d be happy to write one himself if he’d gotten to keep the thing as he geared up and got ready to go back into the Pit once more, but since it would just reset along with all his other accomplishments, what the hell would be the point?

Simon spent several more minutes delaying the inevitable, but once he was ready and he’d moved the bed out of the way, he turned back to the mirror to ask it the question he’d been dreading.

“Mirror - show me my stat sheet - let’s see just how fucked I am,” he said, flinching visibly as the numbers began to appear slowly in their glowing blue type on the glass.

‘Name: Simon Jackoby

Level: 20

Deaths: 31

Experience Points: -1,194,650

Skills: Archery [Below Average], Armor (light) [Good], Athletics [Below Average], Cook [Poor], Craft [Very Poor], Deception [Below Average], Escape [Very Poor], Investigate [Average], Maces [Average], Ride [Poor], Search [Below Average], Sneak [Below Average], Spears [Poor], Spell Casting [Below Average], Steal [Very Poor], Swimming [Poor], and Swords [Good].

Words of Power: Aufvarum Hjakk Gervuul Meiren’

“Well, that answers that,” he shrugged. “One lifetime of torture is worth ten lifetimes of growth. That seems about right. Easy fix.”

It was both worse and better than he thought it would be, he decided as he went downstairs and started crushing rat skulls. On the one hand, his time with the Baron’s sons had obviously paid dividends with several combat skills. His simple village life had improved everything from cooking to horseback riding, which felt nice. Still, on the other hand, he had no idea how he would ever get his experience total back into the positive numbers at this rate.

He tore through the caves as he thought about it, and the goblins came and went without issue, but this time Simon went deeper instead of walking back into the snow-covered valley. It was just as cold in the tomb of the skeleton knight, of course, but he worked up quite a sweat taking out all the little skeleton warriors before he fought the actual threat.

The knight was a good test for him, and he was pleased to see just how easily he took its head off after a complicated series of parries and ripostes. More than anything, this was what really showed him how far he’d come. It had taken a dozen deaths to bring this bastard down the first time, and now it bordered on the trivial. There was no question the knight could kill him if given the opportunity, of course. However, Simon had no intention of ever letting that happen again.

“Gregor would love to see this,” he told himself as he went to take out the slime in a burst of fire and brimstone that left nothing but ashes. He’d told the boy about some of the more exotic monsters he’d fought on his journey, but he could tell that the lad did not entirely believe his exploits.

He walked through that short, little level in less than half a minute, which was getting to be pretty par for the course. That just left three more levels, and then he could take a good look at the horizon and decide where he was off to next, he thought as he opened the door to the inn.

When he walked in, Simon anticipated the first zombie that always attacked him and brained it before it reached him. He quickly moved into the common room to get the one that was usually there too, and the Viking went down without a struggle. It only had enough time to turn toward him before it took a mace to the face.

Simon’s next step was going to be to reinforce the window that always failed, but as he strode across the room, he saw someone behind the bar. For a moment, he worried it was a zombie, or worse, zombie Freya because his mind refused to accept what it was seeing.

Standing in front of him, just as fragile and fearful as she’d been the last time, was Freya. She had the same bloody hands and held the same knife, but somehow these things only combined to make her more beautiful, and he couldn’t help but stare.

For a moment, he thought it couldn’t be real, but then she opened her mouth and said the same thing she’d said the first time they’d met, “It-it’s not mine,” she said, looking at her hands, and not at the zombie he’d just slain.

“Oh my god, is it really you?” he asked, moving toward her. “You’re alive?”

“I don’t know you, and I don’t know if you’ve been bitten,” she murmured, leveling her knife at him as his approach broke her reverie, “So you can just stay the hell away from me, okay?”

“What I meant was,” he said, backing off hastily as he realized the mistake he’d just made. Just because he knew her didn’t mean the reverse was true, and acting like a crazy person from her perspective wouldn’t help anything. “I’m just glad to see anyone! All I’ve seen for days have been the dead. I’m so glad to find another survivor!”

“Well, be grateful from over there, please.” She seemed to buy that somewhat, but none of the suspicion left her eyes. “I—”

As she started speaking, the board that kept the zombies from climbing through the window finally gave way, and she looked away from him to the window and back again. This time Simon didn’t rush things. He knew they had a little time before the zombies were a real threat.

“You mind if I get that, or are you going to stab me if I try to fix the window?” he asked, unable to entirely suppress his smile as his heart soared with joy. Freya was alive. For the first time in however many trips through here, he could finally see her again, and that was worth dealing with any amount of bullshit while they built some kind of familiarity and trust again.