When Simon woke up this time, he opened his eyes immediately and looked down at his feet out of habit. He khey’d be back, of course, but he also khat the longer he let his eyes stay shut, the more he would think about the horrible image of watg his legs being turned into hamburger by that thor grinder.

  It hadn’t been a bad death, he thought to himself. He hadn’t suffered, at least. He hadn’t drowned or suffocated. In a se had been almost peaceful, but peaceful or not, being forced to watch it happen was enough to make him resent the younger version of himself for actually enjoying horror movies.

  “Well, we aren’t going back there for a while,” he told himself as he sat up and grabbed for the bottle of wine, gratified to hear his voice worked once more, too.

  It would be ohing if he’d found something iing, like a thread he could follow, to make the suffering worthwhile, but he had no leads there, so he might as well skip it for now, he decided as he stood and downed half the bottle of wine.

  “I mean, the main reason to beat that pce would be so I don’t have to keep climbing those stairs,” he said with a ugh. It was a joke, though, mostly. He he exercise, and walking up and down a step pyramid was a lot han some of the other ways he could spend his time.

  “Hey, mirror, you tell me anything about the jungle level? The oh the pnts that just ate me?” Simon asked.

  ‘I ot.’ the mirror responded.

  “Nothing? Not even a little hint?” Simon asked, trying to wheedle something out of it. “How about what it’s called, or if it’s even on the same ti as all the other pces.”

  ‘But I ot tell you that all of the levels you have visited are on the same ti,’ it typed.

  “But I thought you couldn’t tell me about the other levels?” he said, feeling like he’d caught it in a lie.

  ‘I ot,’ it agreed in glowing blue text.

  “But you just said—” he sputtered.

  ‘All I told you was what I ot tell you,’ it typed infuriatingly.

  Simon sighed. “Of course, you fug ’t. That would be too fug easy.”

  This time, he remembered the axe as he got ready, but he put it back as he tried to figure out how to really move the needle. “I’d bet I killed that troll food with the fire. The Basilisk, too. What else are some other simple seek-aroy type levels I could tackle?”

  The first ohat came to mind was the wyvern level. It was frightening, but holy, probably doable as long as he used magi a distance. After that was what? The volo? He retty sure he couldn’t take that down with the frost sword, but he’d think about it if he survived the wyvern.

  Simon worked his way through the initial levels on autopilot as he stayed lost in thought. Now, he was dividing the levels into three categories: those he thought he’d beaten, the ones he thought he knew how to beat, and those that were still a plete mystery.

  In the first category, he pced the troll level, the level with the Rivenwood, and the frozen shrihey were easy enough. It was the st category that bothered him more. What was he supposed to do on the hell level ihedral? Presumably, he should shut the gate, but he had a feeling that even the lightest misstep on his part would break it wide open instead, but who knew if that was the right answer.

  The same thi for the haunted castle or mansion or whatever it was. Was he supposed to find someone? Defeat someone? Maybe it was just a rescue mission, like with the kids. He certainly hoped that was the case on the Pompeii level. He couldn’t imagihat Hedes meant for him to fight a whole damn volo, could she?

  Nothing new or unusual happeo Simon as he sank ever deeper into the pit. When he reached level seven, he was disappoio find the sewer was still there. That probably meant that he o dig through the pile of corpses at the end and see what that shining thing was that he’d actally flushed st time.

  He would have do, too, if his force spell to squash the corpse crawler like the i it was against the roof of the tunnel hadn’t iently triggered a cave-in of the rotting brick that made up the sewers.

  The sed the ceiling started to colpse, he ran for his life. Simon didn’t stop until he reached the ruiher. It was only then, when he was well away from all the danger of both being crushed to death while he drowned in sewage and the vihat would try to ahetize him so that they could mulch him to death, that he finally rexed and tried to brainstorm a pn.

  The aurned out to be retively straightforward, and so, o was decided, he turned and made the long, slow walk up the giant temple at the ter of the city. Once he reached the top, five rest breaks, and oer skin ter, he took the time to review the surviving pictographs up here sihey were something he hadn’t trated on too mu the past.

  It was mostly creation myth stuff about how the sun and moon were brothers and warred with each other before finally agreeing to share the sky for half the day each. In this culture, darkness was the enemy, and it was symbolized by the jungle growing in until it blocked out all the light so that the evil could sneak in and devour everyone while they hid from the light.

  “I guess death by pnts is sort of a divine punishment, then,” he ughed as he looked down at the vine-riddled city. The jungle proper still haden it, but Simon doubted it would ever find a way to dispce all the stone pzas and megalithic structures. Still, as he looked at the ivorous pnts in the light of su, he couldn’t help but think that they looked like a sort of cer surging through the streets.

  He retty sure he’d peed all the way to the heart of that ugly green knot st time, but he didn’t feel like going down to check just now. He could do that aime when the memories of his most ret death weren’t so visceral.

  That was Simon’s st thought before he turned and walked onto the old, chy snow of the wyvern’s mountain. There, the nostalgia hit him almost as hard as the cool, crisp air.

  Had he been here since… what had happened before? Simon wondered. He realized immediately that he hadn’t. This was the deepest he’d gone since Freya died sically. Not that he’d learned anything sihen that could have saved her.

  For a moment, he wao go visit her grave, but he realized immediately that it wouldn’t actually be there, no matter how much he might wish it were. That wouldn’t stop him from going to kill Varten, though, he realized. With a little effort, he could probably pull that rickety tower that loomed over their manse and kill their household.

  For a moment, he eaihe idea, taking some dark pleasure in the idea of being the personal curse of the Raithewaits feion after geion. He dismissed it as he heard the distant screech, auro see the Wyvern wheeling high overhead. It was hunting something beside him, though, so he ig and instead looked off into the distance, w how far it was to Sny.

  “The Baron said that he knew Gregor,” he muttered to himself, “so it ’t be too far away, right? Somewhere to the north, maybe?”

  It would take a trip down the mountain to the closest vilge, but he imagi wouldn’t be too far. He was seriously sidering it si would be o see a familiar face. He let the idea py through his mind as he watched the wyvern dive and e back up with a rge elk struggling in its cws.

  It was an effortless hunt on the giant lizard’s part. It just swooped down, intercepting its giant prey the way a hawk or an eagle might snatch a hare, and then it was off again. It hadn’t even o use that giant stinger like it had tried to on Simon. More than once, actually, now that he thought about it.

  Part of him wao slice that terrifying wreg ball of a on off with a word of force, but that wasn’t the real weakness of that monstrosity.

  He drew his sword, and, sighting down it like it was the sights of a gun, he whispered, “Dnarth Oo.” Distant force. As he spoke, he imagined a long, invisible lireaking from him straight to the wing of the creature. Nothing happehough. Not at first.

  Simon would have bet mohat even adding distant to force hadn’t been enough to reach a target that was so far away. If that was the case, though, it wouldn’t have swerved in midair or dropped its dinner as it started to look around for what had happehe force he’d used must have clearly geed a breeze that the sensitive predator could feel, or else he’d nded a gng blow.

  “Well, missed is better thaernative,” he said with a shrug, even though he was greatly disappoihat this spell didn’t have some sort of heat-seeking fun. Even more than fire, force required very precise imagination si was literally just a li was even smaller than a bullet in that sense, and he was trying to hit a moving target that had to be almost half a mile away.

  He tried again and again, uerred. With a word like this, it didn’t take too much effort, so he had lots of opportunities. He wasn’t worried, but even so, it took four shots as he thought of it to see any real result. It was thehe predator turoward him and fred its wings to dive bomb a arget, that Simon’s invisible blow finally nded. His spell sliced right through the rgest membrane of the creature’s left wing, and then, just like that, it wasn’t flying anymore. It was falling.

  With a shriek of arm, the wyvern began to flounder and then fell out of the sky in an untrolled corkscrew flight that went faster and faster as it approached the ground with a wet thwaeat and bone, meeting rod snow.

  He walked over to it, a few hundred yards away, where its evil green blood started to hiss and boil in the snow, which scratched the idea out a wyvern steak right off the menu.

  “Well,” he shrugged, “That was… easier than expected.”

  Part of him had expected some epic fight sequeh the weakened creature, and though he wasn’t sure he had the balls to get up close and personal with a wounded wyvern while he was this out of shape, he’d expected he’d have to bst the thing with lighting a couple of times at least, but gravity seemed to have dohe work for him.

  However, even after it stopped moving, he decided not to go stab it and make sure it really was dead. Even if it ying possum, there was no way it would ever fly again. That had to be enough, right?

  “Well,” he said, sheathing his sword as he gave the corpse a wide berth. “Might as well find that elk and make lunch. Waste not, want not.”