Death After Death Ch. 88 and 89 (Patreon)

Ch. 88 - What in the Hell

This time, when they arrived, the miller was already hard at work, using the gusty winds to turn wheat into flour. He was an earnest, hardworking fellow, and he didn’t seem nearly as sinister with the sun out, and though he seemed a little concerned when Simon stepped into his windmill armed and armored, the man’s demeanor quickly softened when he saw Simon had two children with him.

“I found them at the site of a … well, let’s call it a battle,” Simon explained. “Owlbears. They were the only survivors.”

“May the Gods preserve us,” the old man said as he turned his attention to the children.

Simon let them do the talking for a bit, but when Eddik was about to brag about what a big shot his father was, Simon cut in, saying, “his family are merchants. Doubtlessly, when they find the caravan wreckage, there will be some small reward for the good person that takes care of them in the interim.”

“I don’t need no reward to do a good turn for those who have already been through so much,” the miller said with a shake of his head.  “Now, let's find all of you something to eat before you all pass out in front of me.”

Simon had been about to make his exit, but a little warm food wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. He’d powered through several unexpected levels now, and he had no idea whether or not he was going to have to fight the troll next.

He kind of hoped that he would, to be honest. He could use the chance to get some of the aggression out of his system. A little rest before that would probably be warranted, though.

Inside the man’s house, they met his almost equally old wife, but after a few whispered words, she got the message and turned the conversation to brighter topics. She’d obviously almost been finished cleaning up their breakfast but quickly started some new oats boiling when she saw the traumatized, bloodstained children.

She didn’t take a liking to Simon right away, but after Eddik explained how Simon had slain the owlbear in single combat to save them, she was friendlier. When the boy explained afterward that he’d struck down the second with lighting, she gave Simon a worried glance. However, when he started laughing and playing it off as a bit of childish exaggeration, she did too, fortunately, and the situation resolved itself.

So, after some porridge and the last of the bacon, Simon decided to take a short rest in the hay loft of the man’s barn, where he got a couple of hours of shut-eye. It might have been that he pulled the ladder up after him, but no one tried to murder him in his sleep, and when he made his way back to the miller sometime after noon, the girl no longer looked at him like he was a bad case of stranger danger.

“You’re a good man,” Simon told the miller as he pressed a gold coin into the palm of my hand. I’d stay around to help out, but there’s a troll not far from here that isn’t going to slay itself.”

“Troll?” he bristled as he pocketed the coin. “No one told me about a troll in the area. Do you think I should bring in the sheep?”

“Nah,” Simon said as he went to say goodbye to the kids. “I’ve got a ways to go before I get where I’m going. You should be fine.”

Eddik was just as clingy as he'd been the last time. He promised Simon a great reward if only he’d wait until his father fetched them. Part of him was tempted to see wherever it was they were off to. It was a new adventure, but when he thought about his more urgent mission, he decided that it didn’t rank. Kaylee was stiff and formal when she thanked him and curtsied only very slightly, but he’d take it.

Simon walked down the hill toward the covered bridge, whistling tunelessly a few minutes later. The location was familiar, but the fact that he couldn’t see a village on the other side told him everything he needed to know.

“No troll today, huh?” he said after he cast a minor light spell and noticed the closed doors of the church on the far side of the bridge. “Shame.”

For the longest time, he hadn’t realized that the town between the bridge and the church was a different level, but it was the only way for the count to make sense if you tried to figure out which levels lay between the tenth and twentieth floors.

Inside this level, at least, hadn’t changed. The area around the altar and the wall behind it was still hopelessly shattered, and only the distorted chalk ring that looked like it was about to burst held it back. Inside the demon that was always there was painting instead of eating, and he didn’t look up as Simon approached.

“You’ve been gone quite a long time this time, my friend,” he said, not taking his eyes away from the canvas.

“Time doesn’t start on a level until I get close to the portal,” Simon said as he got as close to the boundary as he dared. “So you’ve got to be guessing.”

“Am I?” the devil asked as it turned to face him for the first time. “No, I don’t think I am. I can see it in your eyes. Years and years of your life since you last paid me a visit. A few setbacks, a victory or two, and, of course, a terrible loss. It really has been a while.”

Simon had watched a few videos on cold reading. He knew this was just a trick, but the sincerity with which the well-dressed demon delivered those lines made certainty harder.

In the end, despite trying his very hardest to hold his sorrowful gaze, so he looked past the questioner to his painting. The oil painting was well executed, but Simon didn’t recognize the location. It was of a wealthy foreign city that he’d never been to that was in the midst of burning down. For a moment, he thought it might have been the volcano level, which would have made for a clever bit of taunting, but the harbor was all wrong, and the mountain behind the oceanfront palace wasn’t nearly tall enough.

“Very nice work,” he told the demon. “Is that where demons like you go on vacation?”

“It’s a place I haven’t been in a very long time,” the demon said wistfully, “but I hope one day to go again. Perhaps if you were to let me out of this cage, I could take you there. We’d have a wonderful time.”

“I’m sure,” Simon said, turning away to study the binding circle. “But somehow, I don’t think that would be a very good deal for me.”

“You like deals, do you?” the devil asked, suddenly sounding eager. “We could make one of those. A very good deal, too, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” he mumbled as he focused on the chalk symbols. “Demons are known for offering wonderful deals.”

“Well, wherever you come from, I trust we are known for delivering exactly what we promise,” he said with a flourish. “It’s a point of pride for us, you know.”

“It’s not a point of pride,” Simon said, making sure he didn’t get too close to the line. “It’s your nature; at least, that’s how it is in the story. You give people exactly what they ask for, and in the end, that’s what damns them.”

“Oh, our reputation precedes us then,” the demon smiled. “Hell’s reach is vast, after all. I'm not surprised.”

“Just like I wouldn’t be surprised if you offered to help get me out of the Pit, and that the only way to do that was a path through hell,” Simon sighed as he continued his conversation without looking up from the hastily sketched binding ring.

“Well, actually, Hell is the only way out of the Pit,” the demon said with a shit-eating grin, but Simon already knew that he would. That might be true, but there was at least one other way out, and that was to beat it, which is what he was focused on right now. This was a knot he would need to unravel eventually, and it wasn’t something he could guess at.

Even trying to read the binding circle was challenging, though. The symbols had been written sloppily, and in places, they were distorted, which made them all but impossible to read. Though he understood many of them at this point, there were a few that he either didn’t know or which were illegible. For just a moment, he was tempted to say that if he erased the root symbol or crossed out the main transfer sigil, the whole thing would collapse, but even as he reached toward it, he pulled away, unsure.

“Oh, I definitely wouldn’t touch that one,” the demon taunted. “Terrible things would happen if you touched that rune.”

Simon strode and walked away. He should just keep going toward his goal, but part of him told him that this would be an easy win if he could just figure it out. He felt so close, but he was certain that fucking this up would be just as bad, if not worse, than zombie level. Getting sucked into hell because he cut the red wire instead of the blue wire would be a mistake he’d get to regret for a very long time.

In the end, he decided he couldn’t do either, so while the devil tormented him, he walked over to the baptismal pool, which was bone dry, and poured in his water skin.

“Can you hear me mirror?” he asked, feeling slightly stupid. “You told me this would work. Where are you?”

A few seconds later, to his eternal surprise, blue letters wavered on the surface of his reflection. “Moving between places and times in search of you is more challenging than you know.”

“That’s fine,” Simon said. “I’m going to need you to record some symbols for me to research later. Can you do that if I inscribe them one at a time?”

‘Of course,’ the mirror wrote simply.

Simon wrote down the first few off the top of his head, and the water glowed in bright blue streaks like some primitive touch screen as he made the marks on its calm surface. After that, he was forced to make half a dozen trips over to the binding circle to investigate the next group to make sure he got them right.

Each time he did so, the devil would tease him. “Well, that’s not a technique you see very often,” he said, sounding slightly less confident than he usually did after the first trip.

On the second and the third, he tried to distract Simon with subtle insults, but Simon just ignored the demon and focused on the task at hand. After that, the devil appeared to go back to painting, but Simon could feel the thing fuming and smiled slightly to himself as he finished documenting the circle.

When that was done, he said, “Alright, mirror, show me the big picture.”

Slowly, the individual runes he’d drawn came into view, and each snapshot assembled itself into the larger whole until he could see the ring in full. It was still distorted and ugly, but all the critical details were there. One day, when he had more time, he could draw it out without the distortions onto paper or vellum and then put the corrected version back into the mirror for further study.

That was not a today goal, though. He didn’t need to solve this right now. He just needed a way to study it so he could be sure of the solution once he came upon one. That was the only way to keep from being dragged into hell as far as he was concerned.

When Simon was finished, he walked slowly toward the exit, and when the demon said nothing, he asked, “Aren’t you going to give me some cryptic goodbye?” he asked, but the demon did nothing but glare at him until he stepped into the warlock’s cave.

Ch. 89 - In Over Your Head

The dank cavern was just as he left it the last few times he’d been here. There was no way that anything he’d done the last time he’d been through would have counted as “beating it” in his mind, so he wasn’t surprised to see it. The real question in his mind was whether he wanted to beat it yet.

Rivenwood was probably gone after his decisive victory over the orcs, and he’d stayed there long enough last time to be fairly sure that they hadn’t been the vanguard of a much larger force. That meant that finding a place to study the book was going to be dicey.

While he let his eyes adjust to the darkness, he considered the layout of the next few levels. With the orcs defeated, that meant that the next level was the ice level and then the plague level. While he hoped that the ice level was defeated because he certainly wasn’t prepared for it again in what he was wearing, it was a shame that he wouldn’t be visiting Hurag again any time soon. Despite the stench, it would have made the perfect spot to study an evil tome for reasons related to the quiet as much as the hideous decor. Plus, if he did some experiments, no one but him would get hurt.

After that came which level exactly? He wondered. Simon had to start counting them off on his fingers because it had been so long. Two more levels, what could it… oh, lizards, twice in a row. That’s right.

First came the swamp, which had been completed for a long time even though he’d barely done anything, and then the Basilisk, which he was fairly certain was behind him for good. The last thing he wanted to do was risk being turned to stone again.

Which meant he had no idea what came after that. If he cleared this level and then died to something crazy, then the opportunity to study the tome would be lost to him forever. Well, probably forever, he thought to himself in annoyance. He’d thought the same thing about Schwarzenbruck, but now he was forced to deal with it all over again.

Simon had almost convinced himself that he shouldn’t try to clear this level when he heard the apprentice-cum-warlock ranting to his evil deity and promising to torture the children in the village above in their name. In return for more power. That did it. Even if it cost him the opportunity to read a book he’d already read and reread several times, it would be worth it. There was no way this scum was going to be allowed to go around one more time on this insane merry-go-round.

“You called, and I have come!” Simon said, feeling a little theatrical as he stepped into the circle behind the warlock. As he did so, he whispered a word for lesser light to give himself a malevolent glow.

The golem rumbled to life immediately, but since Simon was so near to its master now, all it could do was stand there menacingly while the warlock turned around in surprise.

“Call off your toy Andronican, lest I break it by accident when I play with it,” Simon bluffed.

“Y-you know my name?” the warlock said, raising a hand to the golem to stop it in its tracks. “Who are you?”

“You know my name,” Simon said, not sure exactly which evil god he was pretending to be, “but you are afraid to speak it.”

Andronican considered these words and then nodded vigorously instead of speaking. Then he bowed as low as his arthritic form would allow before he finally continued. “So you’ve come to grant my boon? Have I done enough to finally earn your favor?”

“Why else would I be here, for a student of Festauvian?” Simon said, trying his best to speak like an over-the-top, mustache-twirling villain. “But first, I have some questions. Do you recall how old you are, Andronican?”

“Of course, dark one,” the warlock smiled with a crooked, yellowed grin. “At the equinox, I will have lived for nineteen summers.”

“Nineteen summers of life, and yet you’ve spent nearly seventy,” Simon chided, though that was mostly because he’d been taken aback and was playing for time. He’d put together the pieces on his last trip through here. “If I gave you seven, or even seventy more, how would you spend them?”

Not only was the warlock unable to read his own grimoire, but he obviously didn’t understand the words he used to command his golem. Andronican might as well have been saying abracadabra when he commanded it to kill Simon. It would have been laughable if it weren’t so tragic. The one lingering question that Simon still had was whether he’d killed his master or whether he’d gone wild once his master had died some other way.

Either way, this was an apprentice playing with matches, and he’d burned his whole life down. Simon had known that he would be much younger than he appeared, but to be practically a child and have wasted his whole life powering spells. It was almost enough to make him feel bad for the warlock. Almost.

“I’ve killed more than two dozen men in your name!” the apprentice boasted. “I have burned down temples and sacrificed children. I—”

Simon slapped him, as much in annoyance as anything else, as if these were achievements to boast. He wasn’t sure if that was in character for the demon he was supposed to be playing, but he didn’t care.

Really, if I had that black cloak from my performance with the Prince, almost anything would be in character, he thought ruefully.

“Do not lie to me,” Simon said as Andronican flinched and held his stinging cheek. “How many have you killed without the aid of your stone guardian.”

The warlock looked at him for a moment like he was about to cry before he finally said, “One, sire, but that life was—”

“Was already mine to have!” Simon countered, feigning anger he didn’t really feel. He was happy that he finally had his answer. This little creep had killed his master and used his eight-foot-tall immortal warrior to kill kids once he was let off the leash. No wonder everyone who found out he could use magic wanted to kill him. If this was the average warlock, then he absolutely agreed that they should all be killed on sight.

“I’m sorry!” he whimpered, shielding himself from a blow that never landed.

Andronicus shrank from his faux wrath, but the golem continued to stay motionless. Simon noticed that his glow was starting to fade a little but decided that was okay. This was going to be over soon, one way or the other.

“I don’t want your apologies,” Simon said, walking past him to examine the golem. In all this time, he’d never gotten a good look at it, but right now, the one thing he wanted even more than Festauvian’s tome was to know what was powering this thing. That was a secret that would be worth eating another death for. “I want to know what you will do if I grant you the favor you’ve beseeched me for. Do you think I would give such a gift to a man who would use this to do his killing for him?”

Simon only started to smile once he’d turned away from the warlock. Pretending to be such an evil caricature was easy, it was keeping himself from busting up laughing that was the hard part.

“I… no… but…” Andronicus was completely frazzled by this point. For a moment, Simon thought he might have gone too hard on the guy. He clearly thought he was consorting with dark powers, and that could put anyone on edge. He was way off, though. “My… my lord, how did you leave my summoning circle?”

Simon swallowed, finally aware that he’d fucked up. He could see the runes on the creature’s back now, and given a moment of study, he was sure he could parse some of them out. He might not have a moment, though, he thought to himself as he turned to face the warlock.

“Your circle was enough to draw me into this world,” he explained, “But there are gaps, you see, here between the—”

“You are not the Reaper of Souls!” Andronicus screamed, no longer buying the act. “Tell me who you are before my guardian crushes you like an egg!”

Simon didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he shouted “Oonbetit” and used the word of force to cleave a line in stone between the portion of the magical circuit that brought the golem to life and the portion that powered the spell as he stepped behind its leg.

“Rise up, my pawn, and defend your Master!” the warlock yelled.

It was a tense moment. Simon realized the thing would really just have to fall backward to crush him, but that didn’t happen. Instead, it simply stood there now that its spell was broken. Simon looked up at the damaged runes, but before he could do much more than determine that most of them were still legible before, he heard the warlock shouting the word for fire.

Simon responded almost instinctually, moving closer to cover as he whispered, “Karesh Meiren,” to protect himself from the gout of flame that shot out of both sides of the pillar-like stone leg he was sheltering behind.

When Simon saw he was uninjured, he laughed and said, “Is that all you got there, Andy?” as he bolted for the stalagmites on the floor that would offer more cover and drew his sword.

Simon knew that the right move was to blast this guy instead of taunting him, but he couldn’t help it. Besides the goblins, which didn’t really count, he’d never faced another mage before, and that made this a valuable experience. He would have probably let this fight linger just to get that perspective, but something about this guy just got under his skin, which was enough all on its own.

“When I am done with you, there will be naught left but ashes!” Andronican screamed.

Simon didn’t have to wait long. The apprentice was hardly imaginative, and he followed fire up with greater fire.

The blast that followed was intense, and Simon noted, substantially different from the way it looked when he used it. When Simon used greater fire, it looked like some kind of superhero beam attack, but when Andronican cast it at him, it was like a wave of liquid fire crashing toward his target. Simon thought it was almost pretty, but he quickly hunkered down behind the rocks and let the wave pass over him.

This time, distance better cover did as much as the lingering effects of his protection spell and dissipated the heat harmlessly around him. Simon smiled as he popped his head back up. This dude was definitely no fire elemental.

“You wasted a year of your life for that?” he said with a laugh. “No wonder you’re down to scraps. Why don’t you quit while you’re ahead!”

“Never!” The warlock screamed before yelling, the last thing that Simon would have expected. “Gervuul Gervuul Meiren!”

Simon had only a moment to ponder those words. Greater, greater fire? Does that double or multiply the effect? Would it take two years or—

That was as far as he got before the room was awash in flame. This time, it wasn’t like a wave of flame. It was like the beginning of a powerful explosion, but that only lasted for an instant. Then, instead of blowing everything apart and burying him under tons of stone, it just stopped.

While dust continued to rain down on him, Simon stood cautiously and surveyed the dark, dusty room. He couldn’t see shit until he used a word of lesser light and advanced on the place where the warlock had stood.

Simon didn’t know what to expect. His gut told him the body would be burned to a crisp, or that it would have been blown apart so thoroughly that there was nothing left. Instead, he found the warlock curled up in a fetal position. Not only was he the only thing in the area that was unscorched, but he was practically mummified.

Simon couldn’t say exactly how much a spell like that took out of the man, but looking at him, it was hard to say just ten years. The corpse in front of him appeared to age decades in the final moments of its life.

“And that, kids, is why you never play with matches,” he said to himself as he turned away and went to check on the book. It was an interesting experiment, but it would still be terribly ironic if he’d done all this only to lose his shot to do some more light reading.