Simon dropped the stone immediately lest it attach to his other hand, too, and he scrambled away to the other side of the fountain. For a moment, it was lost in the murky water, but as soon as the cloud of his blood dissipated, he finally uood what it was.

  It wasn’t a stone, he thought pintively. It was a seed!

  Suddenly, a variety of questions were answered. He now knew where the sewers were and why the level with the ruins had been missing. It was because those ivorous pnts weren't there anymore. They were here with him, and they were growing.

  Already it had tched the bottom off the fountain, and its roots had begun to fan out, digging into the stone just as easily as they had dug into his hand. As he watched, transfixed, a stalk began to grow out of the top of the thing, and as soon as it was free from the water’s surface, leaves began to unfurl.

  Simon filed ba a panic as that stalk shot upward and began to branch out. It wasn’t that he was ed that he might hurt him. It was too small for that. The rate that it was growing at was shog, though, and in another few minutes, it might be able to grow flowers or sprout teeth. He wasn’t sure.

  Simon staggered out of the fountain pletely naked and ran across the hot stoo where he’d left his sword propped up, and drew it immediately. Once he had it in hand he immediately sshed off the top of the creeping vine, and then reversed his grip and brought it down hard on the nodule of the seed, splitting it in two.

  For a moment, that seemed like it would be enough. The thing's insane level of growth stopped, and the debris just floated there. After a few seds, though, two new shoots started t up. One from each side of the seed.

  “Mother. Fucker,” Simon cursed.

  Fire was the obvious answer, but that was uo be very effective uer as it was. So, instead, he tried cold. He didn’t know if being frozen solid would be enough to kill something like this, but it should at least give him some breathing room to think.

  “Gelthic!” he yelled, instantly turning the fountain’s water to solid ice. It happened so quickly that the arcs of water froze midair, and the stone pool cracked from the force of the expanding ibsp;

  He didn’t care about that. Instead, he…

  Simon looked down to tend to his own wound and saw a few tiny leaves sprouting from the wound that had siopped bleeding.

  “What iual fuck?!” he hissed as he dropped the sword.

  He could see the roots starting to radiate out uhe skin. Simoed immediately, grabbing the small sprout and pulling it out along with several of the roots before tossing them on the ibsp;

  It hurt, but he’d gotten some of them out. Some wasn’t good enough, not with this thing, though. He could see that. Even a speck would be enough to devour him whole eventually.

  So, f himself to calm dowudied the wound, he imagined eae of those tiny little roots as they probed and grew, and when he had all of it fixed in his mind he whispered, “Aufvarum Meiren,” sending liquid fire c through a small part of his flesh.

  Visually, it wasn’t very impressive. He’d expected something like that se in an aovie where the hero uses gunpowder to cauterize a wound. In this case, it had been the opposite. There had been no fsh. Instead, one sed, he had a root-shaped tumor, and the , he had a terrible burn.

  Simon followed up on that with a word of cure and a word of healing before he coughed and had to clear his throat from the strain. After all that, though, all that was left to show what had happened was a li li-shaped scar spreading out from his left palm.

  He watched it for a moment, suspicious that it would sprout again, and he’d have to cut his whole hand off to stop it, but instead, it just sat there. That was when he heard the ice crabsp;

  Simon looked up just in time to see a tendril force its way out of the ice, and a thick bulb began opening to reveal a familiar e blossom. Before it could pletely, though, he cut it off. It wasn’t the only one, and Simohe several minutes hag away at each stalk while the va closed in.

  The version he’d fought amongst the ruins had taken days tee, while this one was happening in seds? What makes it different? He woo himself.

  “Because that’s what happens when you open Pandora’s box!” he grumbled.

  Simon put down his sword wheiced the things were beginning to sprout from the ashen cobblestones where the sliced off stalks were scattered. He didn’t have time for this. The va was going to reach them ihan five minutes and he was still running around hat devil guy was already a prick, and the st thing Simon wao do was let the thing see him in such disarray.

  So, he used a word of greater fire to burn away all the small bits and sprouts, and then he used another word of ice to stop the big one from growing for a couple minutes so he could put his clothes ba. It was a miserable experience.

  From the soaking clothes and waterlogged armor to the choking air and the sehat, at any moment, more leaves were going to burst out of his skin, everything was just as awful as it could be. It also made everything take twice as long as it should have.

  By the time the thing was growing again, Simon still didn’t have his armor or his boots on, so he shoved them in his sad slowly backed away. The va was almost here anyway, and it would finish this.

  Simon used a word of force to bound to a nearby rooftop, where he watched the mutant pnt grow and flourish over the en minutes, being even talled that Simon itself. It climbed all the way to the top of the fountain, and had exteendrils toward the nearby buildings, but none of those was going to be fast enough to escape the tide of va.

  He sat there on the roof for several minutes, even after he’d gotten fully dressed, watg the whole thing burn, and he didn’t leave until the water and ice of the fountain had been buried under a slow tide of va and stopped steamiirely. That was enough for him to believe that this was finally put to bed.

  So, with o look at the scar on his palm to make sure it wasn’t sprouting, he started to make his hill toward the pace. The way there was trickier than usual because he had lingered so long, but he made it work. He walked on rooftops where he could and used words of lesser ford force where he had to. There was only one spot where he o freeze the va to have a pce to nd, but that was enough to get him oairs and head up to the rise the pace was seated on.

  By the end of all that, he was so hoarse that he could barely talk. Both the words of power and the worsening air quality had done a number on his throat. By the time Simoered the throne room, he could see the portal to the demon-ied church floating there, but part of him was afraid to e.

  What if I wake up in the m and that fug thing is growing out of my hand agaihought to himself.

  It didn’t seem likely, but it did seem possible. He’d gotten really lucky that he’d opehat tainer right o a volo where his mistake could be ied, but if he was already inated like the victim of a zombie movie, then couldn’t he start the whole thing all ain?

  Simon imagined one of the cities that he actually liked gripped in those awful vines. It was a terrible thought that kept him paralyzed as the eruption tio worsen. It was only when he’d waited the better part of an hour, and a serious earthquake sheered part of the roof of, that he finally went through.

  It had been hours. That was enough time to be sure, right? He reassured himself.

  The beautiful stone church hadn’t ged at all. This time, the demon was sitting at a desk writing away. As if he didn’t notice his guest.

  Simon was happy to py along with that, of course, a down on one of the pews at the back of the church to ter himself. He looked like shit, he felt like shit, and unless something ged, the level was that damery that had almost killed him st time. He wouldn’t survive that in his current state. He needed a pn.

  So, still wary that the devil’s sing bonds might let him free at any point, he crossed his arms on the pew in front of him and y his head down at least until he caught his breath. That moment of rest became something much longer as his exhaustion caught up with him, aook an actal nap.

  Simo peacefully, and it was only after he realized he slipped off that he bolted upright in his chair.

  “You’re a bold man,” the demon chuckled. “Not many dare sleep while a rift to hell s only a few feet away.”

  Simon shrugged as he got up and approached the thing. “What are you going to do to me when you’re trapped in there and I’m out here?”

  The demon smiled, but said nothing, so Simon looked past him, to the portal, and the broken floor. It didn’t seem any bigger than any of the other times, and he was fairly certain that the monster was bluffing. That’s what they did iories, anyway.

  “Have you tired of the eternal torme?” the demon asked, finally. “There is a way out if you would like to make a—”

  “Pass,” Simon said. He sidered examining the runes again, but he already had a copy, and he was in no state to try to finish this level. “Anything that yoing to offer me is oher side of that line, which is exactly the opposite of where any sane person should be, right?”

  “Well, Sanity only sts so long here,” the demon agreed. “You’ll ge your miually. They all do.”

  Simon rolled his eyes and pulled out his small silver mirror, then he spent the few minutes going through the fracturing circle of prote line by line and symbol by symbol. It was only when he was satisfied that nothing had ged since his st visit that he turo the demon and said, “My sanity probably won’t st forever, but sooner or ter, I’m going to figure out how to close this rift, and then you’ll have to go find someone else to tempt.”

  “We shall see,” the red-skinned man said as he sat back down at his desk, opened his book, and started writing again. Simon thought it was iing that the demoiny scorch marks on the page instead of ink, but not so ied that he stuck around for very long before he looked around to see what he could do to prepare for the level.