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“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.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

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.