When he’d heard Festuvian try and fail to set off the magical equivalent of a fuel-air bomb, Simon had thought that it was dumb, but deep down, he knew he’d have to use it someday; he just didn’t expect it to be so soon.

  He khat it would be hard on him, even at full strength, but truthfully, he’d beeirely unprepared. Using greater twi a row had filled him with such tension that he was barely able to get the familiar word of fire out of his mouth. It was a force of will to do so, and he felt like every sylble cost him.

  He wouldn’t know how much for a while yet, though. Not until the spell ran his course. Instead, he colpsed there as he imagined a fiery nova rippling outward away from him to burn away the dark.

  That’s exactly what happened, fire tore through the darkurning night into day, and burning away the massed wall of spirits that had been chasing him like the vengeful hand of god. They evaporated in an instant, with no more than silent screams to mark their passing.

  For a moment, the world was awash i and light, and to Simon, it felt like the end of the world. To him, it might be, he realized. Even as he watched the magic he’d unleashed echo outwards, igniting grass of fire and knog over tombstones, his sciousness began to fade.

  Simon tried to force himself to stay awake, but he couldn’t even make himself stand and slipped off into the blissful embrace of unsciousness.

  Simon had expected to never wake up at all or perhaps to wake up ba his . Instead, he woke sometime ter, ying there at the ter of a crater that he’d made while the stars still twinkled in the sky above him.

  The graveyard was a mess, but he couldn’t do much more than turn his head. Even reag for his sword was exhausting, and for several long minutes, he y there simply gauging his pain and exhaustion.

  It took much lohan it should to wonder where the fog had gohat ’t be it,” he croaked, regretting it instantly.

  Simohe half minute coughing up a lung, and when he moved his hand from his mouth he saw fresh blood. It wasn’t a good sign.

  While he y there, he wondered just how many years he’d used in that little bst. If a greater word uses a year, it’s uhat two greater words use just two, though, he thought to himself. It might eveen. Blowing a decade on a spell seemed kind of io him, but he wouldn’t put it past Hedes. Not when he felt this bad.

  With some effort, Simon rolled onto his bad looked up at the stars in the sky as they began to fade. The idea that he’d solved the level with a single explosion seemed unlikely, but the fact that he wasn’t being torn apart made it seem possible.

  If it had been so easy, though, then why hadn’t the townspeople do ages ago? A few bonfires would have been more than enough to erode them to nothing, wouldn’t it?

  There were too many questions, aually, he got tired of asking them. Eventually, he pulled himself to his feet, sheathed his sword, and walked toward the door to the level. It was only whe there that he stopped. “I’m in no shape to fight off a—” he rasped before a rasping cough stole the rest of his words.

  His exhausted brain had been leading him on autopilot to the destination, but there was no way that was going to happen. So, instead, he staggered past it and toward the cemetery gate, where he left himself out into the unfamiliar city. It was a rge pce, though perhaps not quite se as Liepzen. There was ay market square a rge temple, and most of the buildings in the area seemed to be two stories. All told it was quite nice. Most of the streets were even cobblestone instead of mud, and there were even gutters along the main thhfares.

  Slowly, Simon made his way to the inn, but the door was locked for the night. He should have pounded on the door, but he was too weak to yell, so instead, he just sat there ooop and waited for dawn.

  He was only woken up once during the night when a vagrant seemed like he was about to roll Simon’s unscious body for whatever he could steal, but the moment Simon started to draw his bde, the other man apologized and ran for his life. That was just as well because there was no way that Simon had the energy to actually fight someht now. He was as weak as he’d ever been, probably since he had to spend a week sleeping off his head injury from the orc raid.

  It wasn’t until m that he uood why, though. Eventually, the innkeeper opened up for breakfast, and traveling guests left to get on the road. Simon skipped meals and gossip. Instead, he had a couple tankards of beer to take the edge off, and then he paid for a room so he could sleep the day away.

  It was only when he was stripping aing his things aside that he noticed how differently he looked in his tiny mirror. Though not quite wrinkled, his face was certaiched by years he hadn’t lived, and there rinkling of gray amidst his normally dark hair.

  His weakness persisted even after he woke up. His voice was still shot, too. He tried to use a word of lesser healing to fix that, at least, but just the idea of starting to speak words of pave him vertigo, and he decided against it. He had definitely screwed himself up pretty well with what he’d done, and both his body and his soul were unhappy with him.

  Fortunately, the proprietor was happy to take his silver and keep Simon in food and beer for as long as he felt the urge to lie around and recover. Holy, for the few weeks, it wasn’t a bad life. All he did was sleep and self-medicate with alcohol for the first few days, but after that, when his voice had recovered to some degree, he started to be social with the uests who came a in the evenings.

  He learhat he was in a city called Darndelle. It wasn’t a pce he’d been to before, but he was fairly sure that it was somewhere he bck swarmer level, though he wasly sure where that was either. Talking to people he heard the names of lots of familiar pces, but he didn’t pick up a lot. Nht away at least. All the details just swam together.

  Over time, he learhat Darndelle was the capital of the Kingdom of Montain and that it was just to the south of the Kingdom of Brin. Things fell together a little better after that. He could imagine Schwarzenbruewhere far to the northwest, Leipzig to the north, and Crowvar somewhere betweewo. Ionar robably to his south or maybe his southwest. He wasn’t sure, and he vowed to find a map to better uand the yout of the world as soon as he was feelier.

  Gettier didn’t e quickly, though. It was two more weeks before he felt well enough to even heal his voice. Ohat was done, he waited a few days before he ced a word of healing on his body, but even that left him feeling weak and sidering more drastic steps.

  He took some walks among the ocher brick buildings that domihe city when the weather was nice, but even that felt like aion for far too long. At least I’m finally losi, he thought one day when he saw his refle in the mirror. Sadly, uhe st few times he’d shed the pounds, he wasn’t gaining a lot of muscles to go with it. This left him looking somewhat melted and sallow looking, and he couldn’t decide how much of that was the magical damage he’d inflicted on himself and how much was just lying around for weeks and weeks.

  Simon stayed at the Blind Owl long enough to eat all of their dishes, and to grow tired of most of them before he looked for work. He’d burned years of his life, but ying in bed indefinitely aing drunk every ht at the bar wouldn’t fix that. Especially not after he heard the rumor that the fog in the graveyard had returned.

  Two weeks after his stay, he’d heard about the curse being lifted, but it had taken him some time to put the facts together. Apparently, the graveyard was cursed and had been uo enter by night for decades. Simon had solved that problem, but only for a month or so. Then they’d found a widow stone cold not far from the grave of her husband. She’d stayed there after dark and apparently paid the price for it.

  That was what finally got his ass into gear as he started to move among the people of the city and learn what the hell was going oried and failed to gain employment as a caravan guard and even a merary for the city watch. He couldn’t fault them, he supposed. He did have a bit of an evil look about him right now.

  It wasn’t until he was returning to the inn one night after attempting to gather clues about the cemetery’s history that all that ged. Two muggers suddenly fnked him on a narrow side street and gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse at knifepoint. “What’s it going to be, man, your purse or your life?”

  Simon sidered drawing his bde, but he didn’t like his odds against both of them. He robably good for a normal word of power, but he didn’t really want to cause a otion that would force him to leave this city, not when he was making progress in uanding the nature of the mist and the curse of Darndelle.

  So instead, he moved to hand the first man a heavy purse with a shaking hand, but as the rogue reached for it and grinned, Simon dropped it and whispered, “Gervuul Zyvon,” as he grabbed the man’s hand.

  A greater word was a bad idea. He khat, still, there was ance or hesitation, and it flowed effortlessly from his lips even as the face of the other ma pale. For a moment, Simon could feel pieces of the other man’s life flowing into his own. He could feel his hunger and his desperation. More than that, though, he could feel the mugger’s youth and vitality flowing in to him.

  In that moment, Simo strong for the first time in over a month, and even as the other man fell backward and scrambled to get away, Simon turo face his friend. The man lu Simon with his dagger, but now that he no longer felt like he was in the body of a geriatrian, Simon had no trouble gripping his wrist and twisting it hard enough to break the thief’s arm before using the leverage to swing the man face-first into the brick wall.

  The would-be mugger went limp from the force of the blow a a bloody smear on the bricks. Simon wasn’t sure if he was dead, but he didn’t really care. He just gloried in being able to move again before he stooped to pick up the dagger that the man had dropped as he turo face the first man again.

  He was already staggering away from Simon, of course, and normally, Simon would have been willing to let him go, but he couldn’t help but notice that the man had scooped up Simon’s purse before making himself scarce. That was enough for him to throw the dagger, making it spin end over end into the other man’s thigh, sending him tumbling to the ground.

  “Please, mercy,” the man said, rolling over and tossing Simon the purse.

  He looked down at it, hefted it for weight, and then stepped over the man and tinued on his way. By the time he reached the main street, a tune had sprung to his lips, and he was whistling merrily away. He didn’t o take the thief’s life; sepsis would do that fine all on its own.