Simon shed out with the pike twice as he slowly backed up. The on wasn’t just a big spear, though. It was a giant spear. It was heavy enough that the only way he could wield it effectively was to leave the butt of it on the ground behind him.

  Both strikes missed the Owlbear as it danced back away from him. It was a bloodthirsty monster, for sure, but it was also more than a little skittish, and didn’t seem nearly as ied in him out and in the open as it had been in the underbrush.

  The result of all that, was as Simon backed away to the far side of the road it backed away into the shadows beh the trees. Simon didn’t feel any safer ohe thing had vahough. That just made him jumpy.

  Now that it vanished, it could be anywhere, and it could spring out at him at any time. Simon stooped to retrieve and sheath his sword, while he still held onto the pike with his other hand. The st thing he wao do was walk very far holding this heavy ass piece of junk, but it was better that thaing his throat torn out by that thing’s razor beak, he decided as he lifted the thick shaft of his giant spear and started to walk slowly dowh.

  He’d thought about looking through the remains of the wagons. There robably something he could use in there, but it was dark and rainy, and the st thing he o do was dig through the remains of people and animals for a few s or a new sword.

  Especially not with that thing still out there.

  As Simon walked, he heard it screech occasionally, and he kept thinking that he was in one of those dinosaur movies where it's not the raptor you were looking at that gets you, but the ohat sneaks up on you from behind that rips you to pieces.

  There was no evidence of a seonster of that size out here, though, and Simon retty sure that it was a solo predator. As long as he kept a hold of his pike ahe road betweewo of them, the thi him alone. Simon would be happy to stab it if it came back out, but there was no way he was going into the woods after it. He had no idea what effect a lone owlbear was going to have on history, but he didn’t really care. His mission wasn’t to fix this alleged hero’s fuck-ups. It was just to get to the end.

  Once he did that, he would get his dream ination and leave Hedes to up her own mess.

  As the woods tapered off, Simon saw a windmill on a bluff overlooking a river off to his right. He thought about going for it, but the pce looked creepy as hell iorm, and after a particurly theatrical bolt of lightning silhouetted the pce, he took it as a sign not to go check it out. He had no doubt that the headless horseman, or something equally awful, was over there waiting for him.

  Instead, he kept on the road and walked to the covered bridge. It was almost as creepy, holy, but it was basically just a hallway, so there was less searg involved.

  “e out, e out wherever you are,” Simon said as he stepped inside.

  Te in, Simon uood why they didn’t make bridges like this anymore. They were pretty much tailor-made for serial killers and horror movies, but it’s not like he had any other choice right now. Halfway through, when he was worried that maybe he should have taken a right on the main road he’d found instead of a left, he noticed there was a vilge on the far side. With the weather and the lighting the way it was, he couldn’t say for sure if it had always been there and he hadn’t seen it through the rain, or if he’d just mao cross another level boundary, but it didn’t matter.

  Civilization was civilization, and he would take it. The pce looked a little run down, and there wasn’t a light to be seen. It was the middle of the night though, and that could be poverty as much as anything, so he tried not to overreact to that.

  Keeping his calm worked pretty well, until he was most of the way through to the far side, and he heard the timbers start to shift and creek. Simon worried that the thing was less stable than it looked and that it all might crashing down on him, at least until he saw the silhouette appear on the far side. This thing was less bear and more ape, he decided, which made it, what? An ork? Weren’t those supposed to be pig creatures?

  “I’m armed,” Simon yelled, swallowing hard to keep his fear down. “e any closer, and I’ll fuck you up.” The thing might be big, but it wasn’t any bigger than his mega spear. Orcs might be scarier than goblins, but one or two would be manageable. Simon was fident that he could take it out uhe thing had a whole warband to back it up.

  At least, that was the case until it raised itself to its full height, and roared. It was a terrifying sound that could have easily fit into Jurassic Park. At that moment, Simon sidered dropping his on and running as fast as he could instead. The only reason he didn’t, was that he could tell, from how fast it was moving, he’d never get to the other end of the bridge in time.

  The thing indeed had green skin, but at ht feet tall, it was a bit big for an or Simon’s eyes, that left only oion: a troll. It was a bit of a cliché to use on a bridge, but no one was ever going to accuse Hedes of being inal and creative.

  Not like Simon.

  The moment he figured out what he was fighting, he formuted a pn. He braced his spear, and prepared to cast a spell as he imagihe creature lighting into a r bohat would… it was only just before the monster reached him that Simon realized he couldn’t cast the fire spell in here. He’d catch the troll on fire, and that was their weakness. He remembered that much, but he’d also burn the bridge down while he was still inside.

  No, the fireworks had to wait until they were out in the open.

  None of Simon’s hesitancy or indecision was mirrored by the horrifying troll that was charging him, though. It just kept barreling forward, as it alternated between terrible gibbering hat were almost speech, and bloodthirsty howls of huhe made were almost as frightening as the noises uhe wood beh its feet, and Simon was worried the whole thing was going to give way before he had the ce to fight his way clear.

  When the creature voluntarily impaled itself on Simon’s pike, that didn’t surprise him. He’d expected that much. To a creature that could regee as well as a troll, wounds like that were meaningless. He’d braced the but against the wood to dey the thing. inally he’d po use that dey to melt its face off, but instead he used it to dive uhe creature’s grasping hands, pick himself up off the wood and run as fast as he could.

  He heard the haft of the on before he’d even reached the end of the bridge. The wood had been almost as thick as his wrist, and Simon had thought that the thing would slow down the brute a little lohan it did. When it was free of the bridge, he spared a gnce over his shoulder, but wished that he hadn’t.

  Simon’s sed pn had been to turn around when he reached the end of the bridge and burn the whole thing down with the troll still ihere was no way that was happening now, though, because the creature ractically right behind him. His head would be ripped off before he had the ce to say the two words that might save his life.

  So he did what he did best: he ran. Simon sprinted in a zigzag path across the town square, screaming for help.

  “There’s a troll!” he yelled. “Someone! Anyone!”

  No oirred, and no help made itself known. To all appearahe town had beeirely deserted. He was all on his own, just like always. Which was fih him. Help would have beeer, but a quick mind like his robably the best help he was going to get. Simon quickly realized that this thing was fast as hell, but only in straight lines. It had trouble turning, and even more trouble stopping, so he led it on a random path through the area. His winding path at least was a little more effective than running in a straight line had been. The troll was simply too big, but it would never be as smart as him. With each turn it’s bellows of frustration came from slightly further behind him.

  In their path, the troll left a trailed of ruined awnings, overturned, carts, and even a knocked over anvil as Simon darted through the bcksmith shop. It was only then that Simon saw that the small whitewashed church had a little light ing from the windows. Was that a sign, he wondered? Was there some kind of sanctuary effect he could get there that would keep evil monsters like this at bay?

  Simon wasn’t sure, but he didn’t have aer ideas, and with his legs starting to give out, he couldn’t stay in front of this lumbering behemoth much longer. So, with a final burst of speed, Simon crossed a dangerously open street and tried the door. He realized that if it didn’t open, he would be a dead man, but at the same time, he could bring himself to care too much. He was on level 11 or 12 now, and had collected more than enough information to justify another death or two, as long as they weren’t too painful.

  The door was unlocked though, and as he dove inside, her smmed the door behind him. It was only whe up, he realized that he definitely wasn’t where he had been a moment ago. The church he’d entered had been a colle of whitewashed timber and cpboard, with a few high windows and a tiny little bell at the top of the steeple. Where he was standing now wasn’t a church… it was a temple or a cathedral or something.

  None of that was the strange part, though. Simon had long since accepted that the crazy goddess in charge to reect the world however she wanted, but he’d never been a level that was defying the ws of physitil now.

  At the front of the pews, where the altar usually would be in a pce like this, there ing fiery hole in the ground, and the sheets of fire that erupted from it seemed to stop at very well-defined lines, like some kind of graphical glitch. The more he studied it, though, the wronger everything got, though. The stained-gss windows he front of the chapel had broken and were in the process of shattering, but hung together in mid shockwave. This level had glitched out and frozen pletely somehow.

  At least that’s what he thought until someone walked out of one of the sheets of fire and said, “Oh, look - a new pyer in our little game.”