Simon sat up as he always did after another defeat by the pit and reached for the witle. He was beginning to think that the bottle was the most important mei the whole damn game. He raised the bottle to his lips to he sting of the realization that there would be no way out besides going all the way to the bottom of this damn pce before he stopped himself.

  “Mirror - how many floors are there i?” he asked, setting the bottle down. The tract had said less than a hundred hadn’t it? Did that mean fifty or y hough?

  ‘There are 99 levels i,’ the mirror wrote out in its glowing script.

  “And I’ve gotten to the fourth flht?” He did the math quickly. “Rats, bats, goblins, and skeleton’s. That’s four. y up my character sheet?” The mirror did as it was bidden and brought the sheet up immediately.

  Name: Simon Jackoby

  Level: 4

  Deaths: 10

  Experience Points: -7260

  Skills: Archery [Very Poor], Armor (light) [Poor], Athletics [Very Poor], Cook [Very Poor], Craft [Very Poor], Deception [Very Poor], Escape [Very Poor], Iigate [Very Poor], Maces [Very Poor], Ride [Very Poor], Search [Very Poor], Sneak [Poor], Spears [Very Poor], Spell Casting [None], Survival [Very Poor], Steal [Very Poor], Swimming [Very Poor], and Swords [Below Average].

  “So there’s been a little improvement I see,” Simon nodded, satisfied. He was especially gratified to see that his swordwork had improved after all the fighting he’d been doing on floors three and four. “ you tell me how many skill points I get per level? I choose them or are they assigned by the game?”

  ‘I do not uand the question,’ the mirror typed slowly.

  “Of course you don’t. You don’t uand anything. What else you tell me about?” he asked, lifting the bottle again. “ you tell me what lowest level someone has ever had when they’ve beee is?”

  He took a drink as the mirror started typing, but he almost spit it out when he read the answer. ‘No one has ever beate.’

  “Excuse me? No one? Sounds like a broken game to me.” Simon said, trying to keep a brave face for this revetion. If no one had ever beaten it before, then maybe it wasn’t possible to beat. If that was the case he might be stuck here an awful long time while he ground out levels. Maybe not many people have pyed it before, he thought hopefully. “If no one has ever beate, then are you allowed to tell me how many other people are pying it right now?”

  ‘There are currently 4,683,946 souls attempting to beat the pit.’ The unned Simon. There were about that many pyers on his favorite MMO. It was hard to imagihat not one of them had mao beat the final raid boss for loot at least a few times, even if they didn’t have it on farm.

  “That sounds like bullshit to me,” Simon grumbled, taking another drink of wine. “So you’re tellihat right now I’m pying a game that no one has mao beat, and I’m stuck here dying over and over until I do? How is that fair? What kind of scam is this?” With every word he got a little angrier, as he started to uand just how terrible that answer was. The mirror kept trying to answer his question, but with eaew question its aarted over, basically rendering it speechless.

  The lo took the more frustrated Simon became, until finally his rage boiled over aook the only thing at hand which was the witle, and threw it hard at the mirror. He immediately regretted the decision, because now he wouldn’t have any more wiil after he’d picked how he wao die again. The bottle didn’t shatter when it hit the mirror though. Instead it went right through the silvered gss as the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces, revealing what looked like a doorway into darkness. Mounted on the wall where it was, Simon knew for a fact that there was only a yer of logs, and then the meadow, but the fantasy world didn’t seem to care much about physics, or things making sense. So, even though it was impossible, there was a secret door behind his mirror, and holy that suited him just fine.

  Simon stood up and walked forward. Tentatively poking his head into the darkness and looking around. What he saw was a darker and more somber version of the room he’d st seen Hedes in, and as his eyes adjusted, he leased to see her sitting ohrone looking bored. “Finally,” he sighed, as he started walking towards her. “Someone who I actually pin to.”

  He strode up the dias, taking the stairs two at a time until he reached the top. “Your majesty,” he said, trying not to sound out of breath. “After a few days in your lovely pit. I think we’re going to have to look at other options.”

  “Oh, are we now?” she smiled, but uhe uanding she’d shown him in their st visit, this smile was cold and cruel. “This I’ve got to hear.”

  “Y-you see,” Simon faltered. Her iy put him on his back foot, and he couldn’t help but think that even if he was totally in the right she was going to find some way to screw him ain. “The mirror informed me that The Pit ’t be beaten, and—”

  “ be beaten and have beeewo entirely different things Simon. Please don’t prevaricate.” She interrupted. “Yes, millions have tried, and yes no one has succeeded, but that doesn’t mean it ’t be beaten, and it does nothing to alter the tract you signed.”

  “But if no one has—” he tried to interrupt her, but she tio speak over him, giving him a gre that suddenly made him feel very small.

  “Truth be told I only think of a handful of heroes who’ve ever gotten past level 50, but you insisted this was the ination you wanted, and now there’s nothing I do. My hands are tied here Simon.” She frowned as she said that st bit, obviously mog him.

  “You’re not sorry,” he said, g his fists to try to avoid doing something stupid.

  “You’re right. I’m not,” she agreed. “I thought you still had potential. I thought maybe a few dozen more lower inations might yet moderate that imperable sense of self importahat you have, but maybe The Pit was the best choice after all.”

  “Why’s that,” he asked quietly, almost afraid of the answer she’d give him.

  “Well, the simple version is like this,” she said, looking right through him. “inally this pit was something else. It was… I guess you could say an attempt to fix a broken world, but it never quite worked unfortunately. Now it’s not that anymore. Now it’s just a garbage .”

  “A garbage ?” Simon swallowed hard, not sure he wao hear the rest of this.

  “Yeah. You knoce where you put garbage.” She smiled, and though she didn’t quite e out and say it, he khat she was calling him garbage right now. “There’s millions of different people in their own version of the pit, but almost all of them have ohing in on: they’re weeds that I’ve plucked from the garden of life to allow other pnts to bloom in their absence.”

  “That’s monstrous,” he said, staggered by the revetion.

  “It is, she agreed. Truly monstrous. Fortunately I only ence the devils that never quite mao make their way to hell to give it a try. Their pain and suffering - their bad karma to use a term of your world lets me make everyone else’s lives that much better.”

  “You put me in here just to make me suffer?” Simon asked, practically boiling over with rage. He was having a hard time listening to her after that revetion.

  “No,” she shook her head, but she didn’t stop smiling. “I didn’t put you here. You did that. I even tried to disce you, not that you’ve ever listeo good advi your life, and now here you are. Suffering for the greater good of everyohat liook all the force out of his anger. In a single moment he went from wanting to punch the goddess, to wanting to cry. He might not agree with anything else she said, but she was right about ohing: this was his fault. That wasn’t something he was going to let her see through.

  “Fine, what’s done is done. You aren’t going to let me out. I get that, but I’m going to beat The Pit anyway, with or without your help. I’ve never met a game I couldn’t beat.” Simon spoke with certainty, but he’d never been less sure of anything.

  “Now that’s not fair.” she preteo pout. “I’d love to help you if you e with a problem that actually needs help, but you’ve only gotten to level 4. You’ve only dipped your toes ier, so it’s hardly something I o bother with, now is it?”

  “Well maybe you could tell me what level I o be to get past the skeletons on the fourth floor at least.” If she said she was willing to help him, then maybe he could weasel a little bit of information out of her to make her prove it. “It kind of feels like the room is full of fifth level skeletons, but their leader might be level eight or ten? Is that abht?”

  Hedes did something pletely ued to them. She didn’t mock or rebuff him. She didn’t answer his question. She just ughed. Long and loud, until she was doubled over and there were tears in her eyes.

  “Levels?” she asked finally when she’d finally mao stop the hysterics. “Simon. This isn’t one of your video games. You don’t level up. The levels the mirror shows you are just as deep as you’ve mao get i. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “No levels?” Simon asked, crushed more by this than anything else she’d told him so far. “But if there are no levels then how am I supposed to beat the awful monsters you’ve filled your dungeon with?”

  “Have you tried being less pathetic?” she asked flippantly.

  That was the st straw for Simon. Rather than punch her or yell at her or draw the sword he’d fotten t with him, he turned on his heel and started walking dowairs. He told himself it was because attag a divine being was never a good idea, but really it was that he couldn’t stand to let her see him cry, and right now all he wao do was gret his life choices in private.

  “When you find a real problem, and you aren’t just looking to pout, you’re wele to e back,” she shouted behind him as he walked back towards the door that led to his , “But if you e back just to waste my time, I’ll find some very creative and painful ways to make you learn your lesson. Good luck Simon!”

  As she finished speakirode across the threshold into the . No sooner had he done so than the shattered fragments of the mirror all spiraled up into pd reassembled like it had never been broken in the first pce. The only thing that had ged was that he’d lost his witle and his optimism that he was starting to turn a er.