Simon reached up and rubbed his eyes in frustration. “Fug politics, man,” he groao himself.

  He sat up and unsciously rubbed his throat as he tried to figure out what their deal was, but sadly, he hadn’t even paid enough attentiohey’d introduced themselves to remember the names of the people who had killed him this time. He’d walked into the versation expeg some additional political maneuvering or perhaps an increased tax levy, and instead, he’d been assassinated.

  “Why would they bother to kill me?” he wondered aloud, but he had no answers. His mind started to race with secret spiracies a, shadowy forces that were secretly opposed to his efforts, but all that faded away as soon as he stood a how much heavier he was than he’d been only a moment ago.

  “Damn it,” he cursed softly. On the bright side, he didn’t feel old or tired anymore, but that was hardly a win sinow he o drop fifty pounds of rd and gain thirty or forty pounds of muscle all ain. He sidered that but pushed it aside. More important things o be done first.

  “Mirror, is the ship level still accessible?” Simon demanded.

  The mirror instantly sprang to life and asked, ‘Could you be more specifi your request? Many floors of the Pit tain ships.’

  “Oh, for fuck's sake…” Simon sighed, ting the floors off on his fingers. “Level 23, the level I was just at. Is it still accessible?”

  ‘It is not,’ the mirror typed, ‘That level is currently pleted and not required to be repeated.’

  “Well, at least there’s that,” Simon smiled as he reached for the wine. “What about levels 24, 26, 27 and... You know what… just show me the list of levels that are currently accessible, please.”

  The mirror plied, bringing up the same ever-shrinking list it always did.

  ‘Level 4 - Skeletons in a cryptLevel 6 - Zombies in an innLevel 10 - Fire elementals in IonarLevel 13 - A demon in a churchLevel 25 - Bck swarmer on a farmLevel 28 - Poisoned OasisLevel 29 - Cultists in a vilgeLevel 31 - Dragon in the mountains’

  Simon noticed that the rat level was gone, which meant that his attempt to burn them out worked. Something in that basement had been evil, and now it would no longer spread. He’d never mao figure that out, but that was good enough for him. Eveer, solving it didn’t appear to have opened up anythihe taur level also appeared to be gone, which was something he’d been hoping for but not something he’d been eveely sure about, given how Schwarzenbruck kept ing up like a bad penny.

  He took a long swing off the bottle before he put it back down and sidered his steps. He could try to fix Freya’s level again. He could skip it and finally see if all his hard work on the demon in the church had paid off, or he could move on and try to make progress.

  “What I should probably do is take care of the damn fire elementals so I take out the zombies, but…” As he spoke, his words trailed off as he remembered that giant magma monster. He wasly feeling up to fighting that thiher.

  To do that, I’d have to make a fe a some armor, then I’d have to engrave wards of fire prote, and… Simon shook his head. That wasn’t what he needed. What he needed was to figure out what the frost sword and some of the other things he’d seen. Surely the only way to pic items in this world wasn’t by using himself as a battery, was it?

  “Well, it’s not like you’ve seen very many around, have you,” he quipped to himself.

  It was a fair point. He had not. Why was that, though? Was that because they were hard to make, greatly coveted, or feared by simpletons that thought that all magic was evil. Holy, I’m going to go with D, all of the above, he thought to himself.

  Simohe half hoing through things with the mirror to make sure everythihought he’d saved was still there. Fortunately, it hadn’t fotten any of his maps or notes about medie or the words of power. It occurred to him that given that some of these insights occurred to him only when a given word was written in a different nguage or written in a different way that he saw them from anle, he should probably try writing them down in saying them in every nguage that he knew.

  Such a task would be easier said than done, of course, sihey were all hopelessly jumbled together, and he had nothing to write with. Still, the ime he went to a trade city, he resolved to try to listen carefully to the differeo see if there was some way he could undo this terrible tangle in his mind. Hedes had given him a wonderful gift, but it was also a curse now that he needed a little fine trol over it.

  It didn’t matter; he scolded himself fetting too ive. He’d figure it out. It was just another long-term projebsp;

  Short-term projects were simpler. He could either take the most effit move and go after the volo, he could take the easy win and see if he really had figured out the devil’s summoning circle, or he could try getting to the dragon again and see what it was that awaited him there since he had almost no clue what actually happened in that level.

  “Holy, I don’t eveo kill the volo or whatever,” he told himself as he relit the stone from the hot coals and started cooking up his sausages. “The doors lead from the market pza to the pace, so the goal is somewhere around there. I probably just o get the survivors to safety.”

  Well, one particur survivor, he thought to himself, annoyed with how lightly Hedes treated the average person in her world.

  Simohat lunch trying to digest his meal and trying to digest the idea that he could just cheap out and do the level the easy way, but that didn’t go down as easy as the sausage. He wasn’t just going to sacrifice the city because Hedes didn’t care about it. What he really needed, he decided, was to get there before the eruption somehow, and stop it.

  Was that even possible? Simon had no idea. It really depended on what started it. If it was just some natural event, then he probably didn’t have a very good ce. However, if there was some evil cultist, he could stop… Well, that was something to think on.

  Simon was in no hurry to get on the road that day. He let all these thoughts percote in his head as he tried to decide what he wao do, and he went to bed early.

  In the m, he woke and was surprised to decide that his answer was none of the above. What he wao do more than anything was stop the volo, but there were too many steps and too many unknowween here and there, so he was going to take a break from all that and do something else. He was going to figure out where this was on his map.

  It was a small goal, but given how much of his little world he’d already charted, it was an important one. Hedes tried to make it seem like going deeper i was all that mattered, but the longer he was here, the more he decided that uanding how all the pieces fit together was what was really important. He could probably never know everything, but with some effort, he could learn enough to see the big picture, and that would probably be enough.

  After all, he decided as he got up and started pag just enough for a little wilderness exploration. That meant he brought all of his basic gear and his leathers, but he was only going t his sword, his knife, and his bow. As much as he loved his shield and appreciated having a mad axe, just thinking about carrying that much without a proper pack was exhausting at this point.

  Getting ready for this made him think about the st time he’d tried this particur trip. That, in turn, forced him to flush with shame as he recalled dying of exposure twice, trying to find his way out of there. It wasn’t even like the goblin level where he’d died in the blizzard. Here, he just… ran out of water and walked in circles until his fbby body succumbed to dehydration.

  That wasn’t going to happen this time. He promised himself that as he started heading toward the highest point, he could see on the horizon. He wasn’t sure if he was actually going to try to summit the snoed peak. If he found a nice pass, or ns of civilization, it would be a hell of a lot easier to go around.

  Still, aside from him getting winded after less than a quarter mile of stomping through the brush, the day went well. Simon pushed hard on the first day to make sure he got as far as possible from the one goblihat he knew about. That was no guarahat there weren’t others, of course. Goblins were like roaches, and they rarely traveled alone.

  That night, he slept without a fire, and the day, he finished off his bread. It was only when the woods started to thin out into scrubby foothills that he started looking fame to hunt for dihat night. The st time he’d been here, the woods seemed to go on forever, but this time, keeping more or less in a straight line, he’d gohrough them in perhaps fifteen miles. That raised other questions, of course. Who would build a in the middle of nowhere? It was something he’d probably never know the ao, but it was somethihought about as he tried and failed to find some measure of civilization.

  That night, Simon almost went hungry, but toward su, he found a snake small enough that killing it was easy and big enough that it might have meat worth eating. He lopped its head off quickly enough. Gutting it was harder and messier, but eventually, he had it ed around a stid roasting over a low fme.

  It wasn’t the best food he’d ever eaten. It was tough and gamey, and he kept having to pick out little bohat said, It was better than going hungry, and it was a reminder of how far he’d e. Old Simon would have rather starved thaen this, but even a shitty meal would give him the strength to keep going, and he had a feeling that he would have a lot of walking to do before he finally got his answer about his current location in the world.