Freya tried asking him questions several times as they navigated the small, slippery ledge through the vile sewers, but each time Simon shushed her. He’d already done his best to expin to her that these corpses weren’t zombies, but she obviously didirely believe him, and he didn’t have the time to expin it tain. He couldn’t even hold her hand because he was carrying his crossbow in his right hand and his sa his left.

  It wasn’t that he wao blow her off, of course, but this was exactly the wrong pce to get distracted. Even if that awful worm was almost always in its stack of bodies if it ambushed and paralyzed them, he would have to y there fod knows how long and watch the vermin devour his girl.

  He’d rather be a zombie again than be forced to withat. Of course, he’d also rather not have to cast a fire spell if he didn’t o. He’d already freaked out Freya enough, and the st thing he wanted was to send her screaming into the night at the first ce she had to escape from him.

  Just before he rouhe final er where he could usually see it, he whispered to Freya. “Stay calm. The thing I was talking about before? It’s right there.”

  No sooner did he round the er than he saw the pale wiggling thing g itself on the bloated body of a young man. It didn’t see him yet, so Simon carefully lined up his shot. That pn was interrupted wheook a look and screamed bloody murder as soon as she saw the slimy, tentacled thing dev corpses.

  It charged them immediately after that, and Simon waited until it was much closer than usual before he put a bolt in its belly just to be sure he wouldn’t miss. For a moment, that felt like a mistake as he thought the thing might just keep going, and he almost threw his crossbow ier, so he could free a hand to draw his sword. Fortunately, that proved unnecessary, and with its usual screech, it turned and fled bato the pile of bodies it had built by the main sewer grate.

  “No way I’m getting any closer to that thing! What in all the hells was that?” Freya asked as she resisted Simon’s efforts t her forward.

  “It-it’s a carrion crawler,” Simon said slowly, wishing he could take the time to reload his crossbow, but he had o set down his bundle. For a moment, he really missed the fine backpack he’d had made the st go around, and he wondered how adventurers ever did without that sort of thing. “And it’s not really ied in us. It eats corpses.”

  “So if it kills us, then it will bee ied?” she asked skeptically.

  “Well, when they’re wouhey tend to steer clear, but if we stick around too long….” Simo his words linger, both because he didn’t want to say anything too awful and because he’d had to suppress his o be a know-it-all and expin to her that they would be perfectly happy to paralyze the two of them and then devour them both while they were frozen in pbsp;

  Eventually, she accepted the o move, which caused a dilemma. Simon wao send her up the dder first, but he feared what would happen to her if he wasn’t physically holding the portal open. So ultimately, he climbed up, set his bundle down, and then sat in the opening with his legs dangling while he helped her up. They’d been intimate several times now, so there shouldn’t have been anything embarrassing about toug her. Somehow, though, the bination of closeness and ess that was currently between them made the whole thing incredibly awkward.

  Still, she’d made it through, and the carrion crawler hadn’t killed them, so what else could they ask for?

  “Where are we now?” she asked in a voice full of wonder while he was bent over, reloading his crossbow. Her words reminded Simon she’d probably never seen somepce tropical or even heard the word jungle in her life. Though her rea to a desert might have been just as extreme.

  “We’re in a warmer sort of pce that…” Simon’s words trailed off as he looked up and saw her approag the vine-covered wall, i on one of the rge e and pink blossoms that dotted the virewn masonry.

  “Be careful!” he yelled, dropping everything he was doing and running to her so that he could drag her away before she got too close. He didn’t think that was one of the blossoms that uhe darts at him, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “It’s just a flower,” she said, shaking him off. “What the hell is your problem. You apletely calm when monsters charge at us, but you freak out when it’s a flower? What the hell!”

  Simon shook his head. He tried to see her point, but really all she was showing off was her own ignorance, and he wasn’t about to expin it tht now and fuck things up even more.

  “Look, I’ll tell you ter whe somewhere safe, but first, we have to climb that!” he answered grumpily as he poi the rgest ziggurat in the ruined city.

  “What in the name of the gods is that thing?” Freya asked. “It’s like a mountain but shaped very strangely. Did people make that?”

  “Probably,” Simon answered. “I’m not really sure.”

  They took a small break by the river so that they could both drink plenty of water before Simon filled his skin back up, and Simon’s heart fluttered as he saw her lovely pale skin in the sunlight for the first time. That made him smile. They’d never actually been outside together before.

  Did that make this their first date, he wohe idle thought made him smile. What a terrible first date that would be: a walk through a sewer filled with rotting corpses and a city slowly being devoured by pnts. Real nightmare fuel right there. It kind of made him wonder what sort of retionship could be built on such a fucked up foundation.

  This time when they set off again, he had her take the lead. He’d never seen anything dangerous in this pce that wasn’t pnt-based, so he felt like she would be safest where he could keep an eye on her. After that, things went fast, aually, the icy distaweehawed somewhat as he expio her how some parts of the world were warmer than others and that in the warmest parts of all were jungles, which were like forests but filled with far more life.

  This time when she peppered him with questions about all the new sights, he didn’t mind answering. He did his best, of course, iing what he remembered from history css about the Mesoameri civilizations, but ultimately he ended up telling her more about Tehouacti than he did about wherever this pce was. After all - he had some idea of where Schwarzenbruck was pared to a number of other cities and portals he had access to. He was evey sure that the wyvern ruins weren’t so far from that area just based on the way it looked. He could be way off, though, given that New Engnd and actual Engnd also looked pretty simir.

  They took a break when they reached the giant ziggurat and agaihey were half the structure. Freya seemed to be in slightly better shape than Simon, but to be fair, she wasn’t hauling ara thirty pounds of armor and onry. When they reached the top, they just sat there food long while enjoying the setting sun, aually, she id her head on his shoulder, aook that as permission for him to put his arm around her as they admired the reds and es dang above the jungle opy.

  “It just goes on forever,” she said

  “It does,” he agreed, “Jungles are generally pretty huge pces.”

  “No,” she corrected him, “these strange portals of yours. They just keep ing oer another, don’t they? I’ll bet there’s another one just past this one and another past that, right?”

  “There is,” he agreed, unsure of where she was going in all this.

  “And somehow, you don’t just summon these portals or know where they’re going to go, but you already know what’s oher side, like you’ve been here before.” she tinued.

  “And if I have?” Simon parried, answering her question with a question.

  “It’s… I don’t uand, and I’m not sure if I want to, but… I’m not sure what that says about you, you know?” This time she looked away from the suo look at him directly. “You wield magid walk through the same moments twice, so does that make you a god or a demon?”

  “her,” he answered truthfully. “I’m just a man trying to be a hero.”

  “Well, you’re my hero at any rate,” she said. He was about to thank her, but when he saw that she was moving in for a kiss, he decided that seemed like a better idea. So, they shared a long, tender moment together.

  Afterward, there was more talk, aold her what he could without fusing things further, but really all he could say was that he was on a quest to help a goddess fix a few things, which seemed to satisfy her. As long as Simon wasn’t in league with dark forces, it seemed that she could tolerate the rest.

  Freya was quiet after that. Eventually, after they’d crossed into the level and found a nice spot to make camp he edge of ruins, she finally asked a question that had obviously been on her mind for the better part of the day. “Does that mean we’ve dohis before?” she asked. “Is all this just a part of your secret quest?”

  “This? No, we’ve never dohis before, Freya. I-I promise you that,” he said, briefly choking on his words. “I've met you before this, but we didn’t even escape from the inn together. This is all uncharted territory. As to if you’re important to my mission - I holy don’t know, but I know that you’re important to me.”

  She smiled at that, and it was only afterward while Simon was w why a cheesy pickup line like that would have worked so well that he realized she’d never seen a romantiedy in her life. He hadher, of course, not all the way through, but he’d probably listeo a hundred of them in the background while he pyed his swit the living room and his mom watched some sappy show. That was a skill that he hought would e in handy, but as he watched her suspielt away while she g to him, he hoped this might work out yet.

  That night they slept he embers of a fire that he’d actually mao make without res to magid between Freya’s body heat and the stone wall behind them to keep away the wind, it was actually one of the night’s he’d had in the wild ever. It certainly beat the chilly trip down from the goblin cave. He was sure that, eventually, he would lose a couple toes to frostbite on that trip.

  In the m, before they started down the mountain, holding hands. There was no trail to speak of, and the way was more than a little rocky. It wasn’t so bad, though. In the distance was another small town on a river, which seemed to be a theme for this part of the world, and it seemed like as good a pce as any to take a break before they found somewhere they could put down roots.