Simon sat there on someoable for several minutes before he noticed the screams. They were faint, from somewhere outside, but as soon as he caught his breath, they were unmistakable.

  He walked to the window and opehe shutters to reveal a vilge on fire. He had no idea if this was the vilge the evil warlock he’d just killed had talked about sacrifig downstairs, or if this was the challenge of the new floor, but it didn’t matter, because from here he could see the gateway. That meant it wasn’t his problem.

  This house had a anding view of the vilge from the hill it was on, and from the window Simon could see a particurly strange doorway in one of his neighbors houses. Many of the buildings were on fire, but only one of them had snow blowing out its front door. It was close enough that Simon wouldn’t even have to join the fighting against whatever was attag the town.

  If it was the Warlock’s doing, Simon would have said demons, but if this was the level, his money was on orcs. It didn’t matter either way, because there was little point in him stig his neck out whehing he was looking for was right here.

  “I ’t save everyone,” he reminded himself in attempt to overshadow the twinge of guilt he felt as he iigated the chilly doorway. “And even if I did, they’d just die agaiime.”

  With that thought in mind, Simon walked through the door. He started shivering oher side almost immediately, as he wondered what terrible monster he’d have to fight here. Aal? A yeti? It didn’t matter much. If he didn’t get through this pce pretty quick, the cold would kill him just as easily.

  That looked to be what had happeo everyone else. Tucked amidst the snow drifts were a few bodies that had frozen solid without a mark ohe buildings were in er shape, ahickly crusted in ice, even if nothing about them seemed to indicate they’d been build for harsh winters. It seemed to be a quaint European vilge that had just frozen over one day, which was obviously ridiculous.

  After a few minutes of looking, though, his target became fairly obvious. In a sea of white, there was only one spot of color, iemple at the end of the street. At first Simon thought that the baleful red color ainting, but as he walked towards it, he watched it shift slowly from the e red it started at to a slightly dimmer purple red.

  It was definitely a su, and it was almost certainly somewhere warmer, which meant that it was the pce to be, whether it was the floor or not. Simon tie dowreet, and by the time he got to the temple the light was ing from it had practically faded to the dark indigo gray of twilight. Simon didn’t think he was going that slow, but in the begging, the drifts had only been as high as his shins. By the time he reached the temple steps, they were all the way to his thighs, which made even a few steps fairly exhausting.

  Simon barely spared a g the people that had died frozen in p prayer, clustered around the altar. If it hadn’t been so freezing, he might have iigated it a bit more thhly, sihere were a lot of them, but right now he couldn’t be bothered.

  It wasn’t until he’d practically reached the door though that he realized there roblem. The doorway had frozen over pletely with translut ice, so he could see the way forward, but he couldn’t reach it. Simon tried to shoulder check it a couple of times, but it didn’t budge. It had gotten thiough that it was at least as strong as bank plexigss, which meant that his sword would be almost as useless.

  Fortunately, he still had one on that should be reasonably effective on ibsp;

  Simon stopped for a sed, stilling his mind. Uhe st few times he’d cast this spell, this time he really o do a good job. He was already feeling tired, and while he had trouble feeling his fingers, his toes were already pletely numb. He o get through this level fast, or he’d have to start all over, and he was not ready to find Freya dead on the flain.

  So Simon imagined a bst of fire that would have been more appropriate to a ic book than a fantasy novel. He pictured a rippling fme thrower-like stream of pure heat rippling with heat even in the current cold, and when he was ready - when he could see the icy barrier melt in his mind's eye, he finally ihe words, “Gervuul Meiren.”

  The result was extreme. The gout of fire that Simon summoned from whatever dark pit it came from vomited ience even as the words tore themselves out of Simon’s throat. It sprayed against the ice with enough fury that for a moment the world was lost in steam. That was warm at least, and Simon was grateful for the reprieve. A few seds ter, wheeam finally died away, the ice was ed and obviously thinner, but still standing.

  “Fuck!” Simon yelled in frustration, not sure what to do. His vision had dimmed around the edges during the st spell, and he was fairly sure that he’d pass out if he tried to cast it again.

  In frustration, he leaned against the barrier, banging his head against it lightly as he struggled to think of what he should do . He didn’t have to think long. After only a few seds of leaning on it, he felt the whole thing begin to lean forward. It occurred to his frostbitten mind too slowly that while he hadn’t melted through the barrier, he’d melted enough around the edges that it was no lotached to anything, and that it was nothing but a freestanding block of ice which he rode ungracefully to the ground.

  Simon shook his head to clear it of the cobwebs and slowly stood up. It was a chilly night, but pared to where he’d just been, it ractically a sauna, and he basked iive warmth, even if he might have pined about it at any other time.

  It was only after he appreciated the fact that he wasn’t going to freeze to death that Simon slowly looked around. He was in a town somewhat bigger than a vilge, or maybe the rural part of a small city. He wasn’t sure. Iher case, though, it had a ghetto, and he was in it.

  Maybe it was worse than that, he realized, as he looked around. Maybe it wasn’t a ghetto. Maybe everyone was dead. The doors to several houses stood open, and many others had a red X painted across them.

  Simon walked over to the closest building with an open door, and knocked gently. “Hello,” he called out softly into the darkness, but there was no response.

  If no one was actually here, then this would be a good pce for Simon to take a little nap, he decided, as he slowly shut the door behind him.

  “Hello,” he called out again, a little louder this time, “Anyone here? Anyone?” He couldn’t see maails, but the pce looked pretty run down. There were stains on the walls and floors, and trash ying at random by the walls. The pce stank too, but not like goblin bad or anything. He didn’t care, though. He was only got to here for a few hours. He could tolerate anything that long.

  After a quick search of the two room hovel, Simon quickly decided that no one would mind if he stayed here, so he put a chair against the door to give him warning for any uninvited guests, and passed out in the bed.

  He’d intended only to sleep for a couple of hours, but it wasn’t until the sun shining through a cra the shutter nced painfully into his eyes that he finally woke up.

  “That fire spell really takes it out of you,” he said to himself, stretg. It was kind of stupid, though, he decided as he thought about it. Mana and stamina were supposed to be two entirely separate systems, but every time he cast one big spell, he felt pletely worn out.

  When Simon sat up, he was only barely able to stifle a scream, and all his thoughts on system design disappeared. What he’d taken to be a pile of trash or clothes against the far wall was a deg human corpse. A shiver went through him as he realized he was almost certainly sleeping a dead man’s bed. It didn’t get aer when he looked around and saw suspicious dark stains on the bs he’d just spent the night using.

  Simon jumped out of bed. He o leave now, before he could think about this anymore. He was definitely going to be sick if…

  There were two more corpses in the living room. One was a child, curled up by the hearth, and one was a man slumped over the far side of the table. As Simon bolted for the door, it dawned on him where he’d seen X’s like that on doors before. In a game he’d pyed about the pgue.

  It wasn’t that thought that made him vomit, but it was what he thought about as he heaved his guts out ireet. He hadn’t just been staying in the house of a dead man. He’d been sleeping in the bed of a dead family… while their corpses slowly moldered in the dark. It was vile, but for once he couldn’t bme Hedes.

  If she hadn’t frozen him solid, he would have reized the signs, of course, but he was the ohat had slept in that bed without giving everything a thh look. Simohe few mirying to assure himself that even if he got ied by the worst pgue imaginable, he’d still leave it behind when some monster ripped him in half.

  “Keep it together. It’s gross, but it’s not ygest problem,” Simon told himself as he paced the streets. After half an hour of walking and seeing nothing made of stone or over two stories, he finally decided that he was walking through a town, or at least the remnants of ohe buildings might be standing, but everything that made it a living pce was already dead.

  At first, he was merely searg for the gate, but after a while he would have settled for finding anyone alive at all. There was no ohough. He hoped that eventually he would at least find the fantasy equivalent of pgue doctors and corpse collectors, but the closest he got was a cart full of corpses he end of a muddy street.

  Even the people who were supposed to be pig up the pieces had perished.

  Simon finally found his way to the temple. But it, too, was crowded with bodies. “Jeez,” he said, trying to pick his way through without stepping on any of them, “You know your fantasy world suck when your divine magi’t even cure the pgue. I mean, zombies I get, but the pgue?”

  He finally found the way out of this awful p the ter shrine of the temple to the Goddess Ethryes, whoever that was. The rest of the room ristine white, except for the corpses on the floor, but the other door didn’t lead to the rear of the building. Instead, it led to a s. Normally Simon would have hated the idea of tramping through the mud, but somehow today it seemed er thay of the dead he was in now, and so he stepped through without aation.

  “Well, I have no idea where I’m going,” Simon said as he looked around the sandbar and took in the shallow mu every dire. “But I’m getting there in a hurry.” He smiled. His streak was back up to at least four, and by his t he was on level 18 or 19, which made him feel like a badass.