Simon wasn’t even mad that he’d died this time. It hadn’t hurt too bad in parison to all the other ways the pit had made him suffer so far. The worst it had done was ruin his streak, he thought as he sat up, but he could always get that baother time.

  “Mirror - show me my character sheet,” Simon said while he reached for the wine. Getting a reak started would be even easier now that he knew what was on all the early levels.

  ‘Name: Simon Jackoby

  Level: 14

  Deaths: 29

  Experience Points: -136900

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

  Words of Power: Aufvarum Hjakk Gervuul Meiren’

  He noted with approval that he’d only gotten to level 14, and that ractically level 20. He’d only been at this for like a week, and he was already basically halfway to the halfoint.

  “Eat your heart out, newbs,” he said, taking another swig of wine.

  When Simon noticed the experience lihough, he spat the mouthful of alcohol back out.

  “What the hell! Why is the experience line like a huhousand lower than before,” he demanded. “It was almost back to zero the st time I checked.”

  ‘The experieegory takes into at all of the as you have uaken since your Entry into The Pit. It—’ the mirror typed.

  “Hey. Stop tellihings I already know. I know how it works, I want to know what I did to cause it to drop like that? Is this pce bugging out even more than usual?” Simon asked.

  ‘I am not aware of the specifics that drive the total higher or lower. I only dispy the number. Perhaps you did something terrible, or were very upset by something your as caused.’ the mirrgested.

  That shut Simht up.

  The mirror's words reminded him of the glimpse at that book that summarized his life in Hedes’ temple. It dinged him five experience for every wasted day, and there had been a lot of those. How much had a few weeks as a zombie cost him? How much had murdering those poor people while he was an undead mohe world might have reset so that it never happened, but his soul certainly remembered.

  If that was ihe case, then it would take a long time to dig himself back out of that hole. That was fi really didn’t seem to have any meical effect. It was just one more way to measure progress.

  Simon looked over the rest of his sheet, noting with approval that several of his skills had actually improved, including spell casting. It was now listed as only ‘poor’. That might help expin why his fire spell had been nuking everything tely. Simon just wished he had some way to turn that dial down a bit. He’d love to have the spell for just burning instead of mega burning.

  He cracked his knuckles and rose to his feet. He o head back down. Not to beat this pce, or do anything stupid like that. The only thing he was in a hurry for was to see Freya again, and if it really was a 50-50 shot between her and Brenna then she was due to be there, and he didn’t want to keep her waiting.

  Simon geared up in the way he’d gotteo, and headed down into the first level. Except for the slime and the skeleton knight, nothing was really a challenge here anymore. Now that he’d learned how to make the sword do what he wanted, and he held his shield up when the goblins tried to shoot him, everything retty easy.

  This time, his duel with the skeletons cost him a cut on his forearm that was deep enough to bleed like crazy. When the knight was ying in pieces on the floor, Simon removed the bracer and cast his healing spell.

  “Aufvarum Hjakk,” he intoned, visualizing his arm without the wound, like it had never been. The words were mostly successful, but even after the skin closed up and he wiped away the blood the wound still ached, and there was still some weakness.

  At least there wasn’t an ugly bck scar like the zombie bites had left behind, though.

  What he sat there and tried to get his armor ba, he talked to himself about his options. “The way I see it,” he opined, “either my healing spell is too low of a level to restore all my hitpoints, or it’s so plicated that it’s basically broken.”

  “Well what do you mean by that Simon?” he said, using a slightly different voibsp;

  “I’m gd you asked, Simon,” he tinued, ughing at his joke. He hoped that that omnipotent bitch was enjoying how quickly he’d figured out another fw in her little game. “When I cast the spell, I only imagihe skin closing up, so that was the only part that healed. Sihe pit is so pointlessly plicated, it's possible that the damaged tissue beh the skin didn’t actually get healed at the same time.

  “Well, that sounds fug stupid,” Simon told himself, tinuing to py devil's advocate.

  “I agree,” Simon nodded. “That’s pletely dumb, and whoever desighis system should have their godhood lise revoked. If the problem is just a level issue then I fix that, but it's the ter… well, I’d have to spend months studying the anatomy of cadavers and practig improving, and that sounds pretty disgusting to me.”

  Once his armor had been put bato pce, and he’d finished his criticism of Hedes, Simon stood up and stretched, eyeing the frost sword not far from him. It was just one mame breaking bug as was he was ed. If he could wield that sword, then he wouldn’t have any problem fag whoever was supposed to be the boss of the Pompeii level. Sadly, it was one more casualty of bad desighought with a shrug as he walked to the slime’s cave.

  The only problem with the slime was that Simon’s fire spell was still a bit much. It wasn’t quite the bst it had been st time he fought it, but it was still more thaight ray of fire he tried to visualize as he cast the spell. He didn’t even wait for the thing to pletely stop moving. O was burning, Simon was already walking past its corpse to the inn, hoping against hope that his Freya would be there this time.

  The first person he saw in the inn was the same zombie that always seemed to attack him from the right. This time, Simon brained him before he even got close, and the corpse fell on the ground in a heap. The sed person he saw was unfortunately Brenna, but this time she wasn’t wielding a pitchfork, she just barged through the door and lunged for him.

  She was already a zombie, he realized slowly as he pushed her away. He could easily kill her, of course, and put her out of her misery. It was without a doubt the right thing to do, but for some reason he had trouble raising his fnged mace against her. It wasn’t just the fact that he’d been trained his whole life not to hit a girl, either, he realized. It was that he might have to do the same thing to Freya in a couple of minutes when he explored the inn more pletely.

  It was only the idea that if she bit him again, he would have to live as a monster like her for who knew how long all ain. The fear that he would ever have to spend another minute as an undead monstrosity is what finally brought his arm to life, and it only took one good blow to the side of her beautiful faake her crumple like a mariohat had suddenly had her strings cut.

  His chest heaving from the emotional effort more than the physical one, Simon stopped and studied her body after that, because the first thiiced was that she didn’t have a bandage on her arm where he presumed she’d been bitten before.

  He eventually found an ied looking wound on her shoulder that was almost certainly the cause, but he still had no idea why such details would ge. Why would one girl alive or both of them end up dead before he got here. Why was the bartender he survivor, but the same zombie always attacked him first on arrival.

  He had no answers, but for once he retty sure it was more than just Hedes screwing with him. If he knew what kind was behind how these levels were geed, then it would give him some kind of edge.

  He didn’t have that, though, so instead he searched the bar for Freya. He found her with her skull crushed on the sed floor, and almost let the zombies overrun the pce while he was busy sobbing over her covered corpse.

  Simohe wenty minutes killing the eight zombies that had mao get inth the window before he could move the table into pce. Then, once he barred the back door just in case, he spent the rest of the day in the basemeing rip rly drunk.

  Simon normally didn’t care for too much drinking, but right now he cared even less for thinking, and he happeo have the spell of ‘cure light hangover’, so why the hell wouldn’t he get bsted.

  One day turned into three, though, as he wallowed in self-pity and mourhe loss of a romahat had never really been. He drank the tapped barrel dry, and made quite a mess trying to opeapped ones, and he spent the whole time castigating the stupid goddess who caused this whole mess.

  “None of us would be in this mess if you tried to make your precious hero a bear,” he yelled out of the third story window one night. “Not me, not Freya, and not any of the other poor saps you tricked into getting on this ride, you bitch!”

  The zombies didn’t seem to mind his antics, but three days seemed like he ushing his luck, so on the fourth day after he made his hangover disappear with two little magic words, he finally opened up the front door to face the carrion crawler.

  It turned out that the slimy little bastard was a lot less ied in him when he shot first with the crossbow. O had a bolt buried in its wiggly torso, it disappeared into its pile of corpses, o be seen again.

  Likewise, the pnts didn’t try to do anything with him as loayed away from the rgest blossoms, that were easy to spot by daylight. This time he was able to strht to the pyramid, and then take his time climbing the thing. He reached the top well before su and took his time to enjoy the view. The jungle tinued as far as he could see in all dires, and the opy was only broken in two pces: a river, and another distant pyramid. He was uo tell if the city on the horizon was also merely ruins, or if people still lived there, but it didn’t matter. With maing pnts on the loose, the st thing was doing ending a few days traipsing through the juo find out.

  The wyvern level was as anticlimactic as anything he’d ever experienced. Since he didn’t try to wander over to its his time, no angry mother tried to devour him. Indeed, nothing tried to attack him. Simon walked to the ruins of the castle pletely ued, and even poked around a bit before he made his to the shattered tower.

  It wasn’t a very iing pce though. Anything worth taking had long been stolen from the empty rooms, and the weather had rotted away the rest. Now the only thing of value it had was the anding view. Well, that and the portal he corrected himself.

  The city on fire in the wannabe Vesuvius level definitely seemed a little further along than st time, but not four days further along. Simon had wondered about that on his way here. Theoretically, if he’d wasted days in the zombie floor, he should have arrived to find a wall of cooling va blog his way, but instead it seemed about the same before as he slowly walked to the pabsp;

  In the end, the only real difference was that the goddess wasn’t waiting for him ohrohis time. He’d expected that, though. She only did that st time to tease him with hope.

  The joke was on her. He’d left his hope ba level six with Freya’s corpse. Everything he did from now on was just spite.