Death After Death 204-206

Ch. 204 - The Truth Comes Out

Simon didn’t use magic to fight or hide as he rushed the soldiers in the rear of the rush, pressing toward the throne. There would be time for that once the chaos started and children weren’t looking as much at him specifically. 

For now, no one was looking at him at all. Instead, the soldiers in the front were fighting the Queen's guards while those behind them shouted angrily. “You’ve led us to this terrible crossroads!” one man cried.

“We could have had peace if only you’d allied with the Murian. Then all of this could have been avoided!” another man shouted. 

Despite wearing identical armor in identical colors, the men managed to look like a mob, somehow. That spoke to both the poor quality of the men the army was being forced to induct now as well as just how green this group was. Half of them weren’t even wearing their helmets. Simon would make them regret that. 

I would kill for some armor right about now, he sighed as he strode toward his enemies. A toga was not the best outfit to do battle in. 

No one was paying attention to him. Why should they? The throne room was filled with dead guards and the bodies of other fallen traitors. There was no one left to oppose them.

All of them had thought they’d won. Why shouldn’t they? The Queen was cornered, and the palace was under siege. The traitors had won by every measure. Unfortunately for them, Simon was a fan of lost causes, and Elthena was one cause he’d never give up on. 

He opened by burying his dagger in the neck of one of the men and holding it there, letting it drink deeply. The man screamed, causing all those around him to turn, but that was exactly what Simon had been waiting for. As soon as they turned, he lashed out in a wide slash with his long sword, taking one man in the neck, one across the face, and one in the eye, blinding him on his left side. 

Simon was very overextended by that move and would have fallen over if not for the man who he was still bleeding with his dagger. Instead, he used him as an anchor and, after a moment, as a shield. Several men struck out at Simon as he retreated two steps, but they only struck their friend in the process. 

As his human shield slumped to the floor, Simon gauged the room. There were ten people in front of him, but six were still facing the other way, fighting their own fight. That left four, and two of those were pretty substantially wounded. Simon chose where to move next, based on those wounds, and moved into theblind spot of the man who had lost an eye, using another broad slash to keep people back. 

He wasn’t trying to take any more of these assholes out. Even with the flood of life energy that was roaring through him, he was still far too old to take out four armed and armored men by himself. Even with the arrows that were bouncing off their armor here and there, that was a losing battle. What he needed to do was break the deadlock around the Queen and get those four soldiers back into the fight to even things up. 

“What are you thinking, old man!” the largest soldier yelled. “I’m going to make it slow for not knowing when to stay out of things!”

Simon ignored the threats. His only response to the man was a feint to keep him at bay, but even as he did so, his mind was racing, watching the ebb and flow of battle. 

Once he figured out the best way to break this conflict open, he whispered, “Vosden,” and thrust into the scale mail of the man in front of him. The man had been guarding high, expecting another blow to his unprotected face, but Simon knew that. Instead, he used a word of strength to go right through the armor that covered both his chest and back, along with the back of the soldier who had been standing behind him, fighting another foe. 

Simon's sword should have deflected harmlessly at such a clumsy strike. Instead, it went right through.

And just like that, their line started to collapse. Simon was forced to give ground after that, both because he was outnumbered three on one, as well as the fact that he no longer had a sword, but the blow he’d struck had already been fatal. A moment ago, eleven men had dominated the throne room. Now, only eight were standing, and half of them were wounded, their chokehold was already evaporating. Suddenly, the battle for the throne was not a one-sided affair, and the green soldiers were being cut down like grass by her veteran bodyguards. 

Simon smiled grimly at that, even as he moved further back into the corner to protect the children from his assailants. Part of him was trying to figure out the right spell to unleash in this moment, but before he needed to do that, the traitors broke. Reduced to only half a dozen men, they fled like the rats they were toward the courtyard, leaving only blood and death in their wake as Simon and his class approached the throne. 

“I had no idea you could fight like that,” one of the Queen’s bodyguards joked. “Pretty good moves for an old man.”

“The children keep me young,” Simon answered automatically. His mind wasn’t on what people might think of him or how well he’d fought. It was on getting the Prince safely to Elthna. She was moving quickly toward them, too, and he met her at the foot of the stairs. She didn’t sweep Seyom into her arms, though. It was Simon that she hugged, which took him by surprise. Normally, she would have never done such a thing in public, but after this, he supposed that he couldn’t blame her. She was a woman with an iron will, but everyone had a breaking point. 

“You kept him safe!” she gasped. “You kept him safe, and you came for me despite everything! I can’t believe how dashing you still are after all these years.”

“I would never let the Prince of Ionar be harmed while in my care,” he said very carefully as he tried to pull away. 

“The Prince is it?” she chided. “If this is to be our last day, do you think he does not deserve to know the truth?”

“My Queen,” the bloody captain of her guards cut in, “We have to get you and the Prince somewhere safe. The palace is not safe, and it may yet fall.”

Simon’s heart sang at the very idea of what she was saying, but the idea that she might regret it later, along with the sober words of the guard, held him back. “I think the time for talk can wait until the battle is won,” he shot back. 

She searched his eyes, and then nodded, and pulled away. “No, she insisted, pulling away from her guard’s grip, even as she held to Simon. I will wait no longer.”

“The truth about what?” Seyom asked, finally figuring out that they were talking about him. The other children milled around still, and past them, the guards. 

Everyone was listening, but at this point, events were out of Simon’s hands. There was nothing he could do as the Queen released him and hunched down to look her son in the eye. “Remember that I told you your father was a brave warrior who saved the city from Brogan and the tides of lava that almost washed over the city?” she explained. “I could not marry him because of the curse, but the Oracle herself told me that I should keep him close to you. She didn’t tell me why, but I am sure it was for this moment.”

“Wait…” the boy said, looking back and forth between the two of them in shock. “Master Ennis is my father?”

She nodded, with tears in her eyes. “He is, I promise you, and a more heroic one than any of us deserve.”

Simon wasn’t sure of that. He felt like something he’d done altered the timeline to cause this war. It might have just been the thorough way he’d cleaned up the zombies this time. A few zombies going north might have been enough to delay these hostilities for years or decades. It might not even have been me. It might have been my doppelgänger who caused this, he realized. 

Ultimately, the why didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he needed to solve this. Even if they weren’t his family, he would need to save these people. The love that he had for them both, though, only increased that urgency, and it was impossible not to see that love reflected when he looked at young Seyom once more. He was still so young, but his dark eyes shone with intelligence, and even now, Simon knew he would grow up into a fine young man. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before now,” Simon said, wishing he had time to allow this moment to linger, but the longer he waited, the more dire things would become. “I would have, but it was your mother’s wish.”

“I understand,” he nodded. There was an awkward moment then, as the boy obviously wasn’t sure what to do, but Simon erased it by kneeling and hugging both the boy and his mother. 

“I love you both,” he said, “And when I am done we shall all talk about a great many things, but now I have at least one more fight to win, and need you both to do something for me.”

“What’s that?” Elthena asked.

“I am too old to fight what comes next without extraordinary means. So, no matter what you see me do, no matter what powers I unleash on our enemy, remember that I have not sold my soul to hell for dark powers,” he said very soberly. “I have learned all these things over a very long time, and today, I will have to put them to use whether I want to or not.”

“Magic?” Seyom asked. “What are you going to do?”

“It’s going to be quite the show,” Simon said, forcing a smile as he mussed the boy's hair and rose to his feet again. “You should go to the tower for the best view.”

Then he turned to the captain of the Queen’s guard and said, “You’ll see to it then? I’ll retake the gate, and I can count on you to keep them safe?”

The man nodded and then started shouting orders. At that moment, everything started happening at once. Simon wanted to kiss Elthna. He wanted to tell his son a hundred things, but there was no time. Simon might have a chance against a hundred men with magic, but if hundreds more showed up, he’d tap out long before they ran out of bodies to throw at him. 

So, instead, he watched them leave the room, and then he turned and picked out the best-looking sword from the carnage and focused on it for a moment. He thought back to all the illustrations and the sketches and designs he’d made over the last few years, and then when he had the pattern in mind for the rune blade of sharpness, which was supposed to work much like the one he’d taken from the dragon’s horde, he said, “Celdura Vosden,” and used the planning magic to embed the magical design into the metal permanently. 

The former was a weapon he’d wanted to make for some time, but he’d never gotten around to it. The technique, though, was something he’d practiced several times since the botched assassination attempt on him. It worked fairly flawlessly, transforming part of the steel in his blade to a gleaming silver directly without all the steps he’d used to create his dagger. So, as much as he liked to work metal, that was probably a skill he’d need less and less as time went on. 

Physically, the sword didn’t look that much different, but as he slashed it through a candelabra and the metal candleholders parted cleanly before his blade, he knew that it worked. “Now I’m ready,” he told himself, gripping both magical weapons tightly as he started to walk to the courtyard. 

While he would have loved to run back to his rooms and grab his leather armor, there was no more time for that than there had been to kiss Elthana. It was time to fight and save the whole Kingdom of Ionia or die in the attempt.

Ch. 205 - Enemies at the Gate

By the time he reached the palace steps, it was worse than he feared. There were almost no defenders left, though in the swirling scrum of combat, it was hard to say for sure. Everyone was wearing the same uniforms. 

Simon didn’t worry about that yet though. Instead, he looked around for anyone that looked strange. There were certain to be other mages here, and as soon as he made himself a target, he would be a dead man unless he found them first. 

So, instead of opening up with pyrotechnics and killing the men nearest to him, he stood there, content to look like an old man with a sword who was way out of his depth as he studied the crowd. It took only a moment to find a dark-skinned man in robes near the gatehouse. He stood out like a sore thumb against the armored units that filled the plaza, and Simon instantly muttered, “Dnarth Vrazig,” striking him down with a bolt of distant lightning. 

The bolt from the blue did little besides kill a few other men near the enemy warlock, but the explosion that engulfed the warlock when he died knocked back dozens more men, tossing them like rag dolls. Simon had been counting on that strange death-activated magic. However, even as the inferno caused combat to cease for a moment and everyone wondered what happened, Simon ignored it. Instead, he was already searching for his next opponent. 

He found him across the yard near one of the walls. This one had figured out what was going on and had locked eyes with Simon in his final moment. He was too slow, though, and even as he opened his mouth, another lightning bolt was racing down from the sky. This one was also followed by an explosion. 

Suddenly, the attacker’s momentum was gone as they tried to figure out who was attacking them and from where. A moment ago, they had been moments from victory, and now that was in doubt. 

As all of this happened, Simon realized that he should probably be standing behind cover himself. True combat was not yet joined, but he was already in a sniper’s duel of sorts. 

It was only after another minute had passed and he found no other targets that Simon entered the fray on his own. He had to. Not only were there dozens and dozens of men already in the courtyard, but the legion he’d seen earlier was approaching the main gate, and he needed to drop the portcullis. 

There was no way for him to do that from hundreds of yards away, though. Even a major, distant word of force wouldn’t bite through the thick chains of the gates with this much distance between them. He didn’t have a mathematical model for magic yet, but there was definitely a sharp fall-off past a certain point, which meant he needed to cut a bloody swath through the field and get closer. 

At first, this was accomplished with his sword. He cleaved right through the first few men to cross his path in quick, casual strokes that severed heads and arms. He saved real magic until the alarm was raised, and he faced a wall of swords and shields. That was when he unleashed his true fury. 

“Gervuul Oonbetit!” he called out, using a greater word of force. 

This was not to blast them all away, though. This was a guillotine, and it rippled out and away from him in all directions like a drop of water in a still pond. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the twenty men arrayed against him came apart at the seams. 

Simon couldn’t enjoy their looks of terrible surprise as the survivors lost limbs and friends. Instead, he immediately cast a boundary of force to deflect the arrows that would certainly be fired at him next. He would have preferred to carve that one in the stone of the courtyard to make it longer lasting, but he could hardly stand still and wait for people to come to him. He was still only halfway across the corpse-strewn courtyard.

That was the sixth spell he’d cast in almost as many minutes, though, and even as Simon whispered his seventh, which was a word of lesser healing, to soothe his already aching throat, he could feel it taking a toll. 

How long has it been since I let loose like this? He wondered as he cut down another man brave enough to face him with his enchanted sword. 

There was only one answer to that question, of course, and that was the dual on the volcano rim so long ago. In this timeline, it was about a decade and a half in the past, but for Simon, it was decades and one life in the rearview mirror. 

It felt good to flex his muscles like this, but it was worrying too. Even in all his lives, he could still count the number of times he’d fought like this on one hand, and he knew well how unsustainable it was. He’d probably already slain fifty people, but because more kept coming, little had changed, except that now everyone was focused on him. 

Still, there was nothing he could do but watch arrows deflect harmlessly away from him as he cut down foes and continued to advance. When he neared the gates and could see the chains, he saw another warlock advancing alongside the unit that was already entering, and he wasted a precious moment, along with another month of his life, to strike that bastard down, too. This one must have known that there was some trouble because he had some sort of protective magic up, and it deflected the bolt wide, killing a swath of armored men instead. 

Simon blinked at that. Well, that’s new, he thought, even as he switched tactics. He cast again, but this time, he used a greater word of distant fire. The result was a tiny tornado of flames that descended on the man. He’d cast some kind of flame spell, too, but he either didn’t know the distant word or he’d chosen not to use it because the enemy warlock's flame fell well short of Simon even as the enemy caster was consumed by fire. 

That one did enough damage to his throat that he coughed up blood for a moment and very nearly lost his life when a brave young soldier tried to take advantage of his moment of distraction. He didn’t succeed. 

One could not parry a sword with an infinitely sharp edge. So, he lost his life right as the secondary explosion sent the unit marching toward Simon into chaos. He died bravely, at least, which was more than Simon could say about almost everyone else at this point. Few people dared to approach him now. He didn’t blame them. 

When he finally reached the gatehouse, his chest was heaving from exhaustion, but he let that delay him only a moment before he said the painful words of greater force in an attempt to shear them in half and bring the portcullis down. 

It didn't work, though, and he only coughed up blood for his effort. I thought that would be enough, he told himself, looking at the arm thick steel links. The giant chain was only cut through on one side, but somehow it still held. 

One side was cut clean through, and that seemed to be enough to force the other side to bend, yet it didn’t. It was too high for him to reach with his blade, too, and if he leaped up with a word of force, the enemy would definitely spot him and redouble their focus on him. 

Annoyed, he used a word of lesser healing on his throat as he contemplated his options. Another greater word is out, he told himself. And a regular word of force won’t cut it. What does that leave me. I don’t really need to cut it. I just need to weaken in a little and…

Simon’s words trailed off as he realized that if he needed to weaken metal, then he could just use the words of weaken metal and watch the thing warp and corrode over several seconds.  Then he said the painful words, “Vrazig Vosden.” 

The spell had no visual effect, but the entropy was apparent immediately as the steel began rapidly corroding. After that, all he needed to do was hold the line and wait for it to fail under its own weight. 

I’ve won, he thought to himself. No, we won.

Even if the gate hadn’t dropped yet. It would. He could already hear the chain creaking under the heavy weight, and even if someone struck him down right now, he would still seal the palace away from the advancing forces long enough to let the defenders regroup. 

But will that be enough? He wondered. 

The three Murani warlocks he’d struck down already had surely been central to whatever conspiracy was happening here, but what if there were more. When Simon was spent, couldn't they just force the gates back open? Part of him thought that he should stride out there and continue to do battle for as long as he could. It thought he should purge the city of every last traitor, but the rest of him knew that he was approaching his limits and that he should lie down.

He couldn’t do that yet, either. All he could do was stand at that threshold, fighting and waiting for the damn gate to drop. 

“He’ll be a good King,” Simon told himself as he stopped relying on his sword even a little. Instead, he switched to purely destructive magic. Even a blood-sucking dagger or a sword that could slice through steel bordered on useless when they were wielded by arms of lead. 

So, instead, he used lightning and fire. He didn’t even bother to try to use major words anymore. He was too spent for that. Instead, his world narrowed to a simple rhythm. Simon would shout a word of power and then whisper the words of lesser healing to fix his throat. 

Simon had done a lot of things before. One thing he’d never done, though, was use so much magic in such a short period of time, and it was taking a toll. Still, he promised himself he would stand there forever until the damn gate closed. It would be any second now. He could see the chain link starting to stretch and deform as it parted. 

No matter how good his pronunciation or how precise he imagined the effects, every word burned as he spoke it now. Still, the men opposing him died by the score, and the few arrows shot in his direction scattered off the boundary of force protection he’d established earlier. 

Simon couldn’t keep fighting, though, not forever. No one could. Eventually, he couldn’t even gasp another light healing spell to soothe his burning throat. He’d burned so brightly and for so long that when the portcullis finally slammed shut inches in front of him, he had no strength left to him. First, his dagger slipped from his grasp, and then after one more slash from his sword, it fell as well, tumbling end over end until it embedded in the stone of the courtyard. 

I couldn’t have used thirty years of power in this battle, could I? He wondered, staggering against the gatehouse. 

A few men still alive in the courtyard eyed him warily, like he might have some trick left up his sleeve. He didn’t, of course. The only trick he had left was to stay standing. 

“If you run… If you jump the walls and flee the city, I may not send you straight to hell with the rest of your friends,” Simon croaked with a ruined voice. As painful as speaking was, at least these words didn’t burn his fraying vocal cords when he said them.

That was all it took. Suddenly, the few scattered survivors were running for their lives. Simon had nothing left, but how could they know that. He’d slain hundreds of men, and those few who remained wanted to live. 

As the retreat of the men arrayed against him threatened to become a rout, he finally lost the ability to stand as well, and he slowly sank against the wall until he was just sitting there, leaning against the cool stone. As he sat there, he took in the carnage of what he’d done, but even that wasn’t enough to make him regret it. If this makes me a murderer, then so be it, he decided.  

His only regret was that he hadn’t locked in this level in a way to save the progress. That meant that everything he’d done to raise Seyom was gone, and the idea of reliving all of this just to try to raise him even better was too heartbreaking and complicated. “If only I’d killed that damn wyvern,” he whispered to himself as the darkness took him.

Ch. 206 - The End of the Beginning

After he collapsed at the end of the last battle, as disappointing as it was, Simon expected to wake up in his cabin all over again. That’s not what happened.

Instead, he drifted in and out of sleep in a bed that was much more comfortable and far too white to belong to him. It occurred to him only after several days that he was not, in fact, dreaming it. He was lying in a bed somewhere in the palace. He could barely move, and even opening his eyes was too much work at first, but in time, he could feel Elthena’s dry, cool hands holding his. Eventually, he could even squeeze them back, but only softly. 

It turned out that she’d been talking to him the whole time, but it took days to differentiate that from the background birdsong or other people speaking in the same room. He had to focus to a painful degree to understand even part of what she was saying. He didn’t need to understand her to know that they’d won, though. If they hadn’t, the sound of birds would have been replaced by the sound of battle, and the smell of Elthena’s perfume would have been lost in the smell of burning. 

In a way, the fugue state he was trapped in felt like brain damage, and that idea sent a chill down his spine. Given that he could still think and reflect when he was half asleep, though, it was probably something closer to exhaustion, complete and utter exhaustion.

He was certainly tired. He’d burned through years, or perhaps decades, of life in a single hour. He’d channeled enough energy that he should have become a bonfire himself, but somehow, he did not. Somehow, he didn’t even die, but he was dying now; he was sure of that much. 

In the days that followed, even as some parts of him healed and his mind became clearer, other parts of him, like his heart and his lungs, labored ever harder to keep up. He’d burned through an entire season of his life just to win a single fight. But I did win it, he told himself. That’s all that matters. I won. It would have been worth it at twice the price. 

It took days for him to be able to meaningfully interact with the woman who should have been his wife or the boy that was his son. Each of those moments was brief because sleep was always chasing at his heels, but they were still nice. Most times, he would wake up to find Seyom or Elthena sitting by his bedside. Whether this meant that they were always there or he only awoke when they were, Simon couldn’t say, but he found their presence infinitely comforting. 

All he could do was bask in their affectionate words or listen to them offer updates on the situation. One thing he couldn’t do, though, was answer them. His efforts had completely fried his vocal cords, and when he tried to talk now, only hacking coughs came out. 

So, he stopped trying to answer. Part of him regretted that he couldn’t tell them to burn his papers or destroy his weapons, but he didn’t let that bother him too much. His notes were cryptic enough that copying them would be difficult. Instead of worrying about what he wanted to say or do, he simply did his best to bask in the time they had left together because he knew it would be over soon. 

Then, one day, he fell asleep, and he never woke up again, at least not in Ionar. He lingered there between life and death, lost in the darkness for a long time. Or, at least, long enough to be frustrating. Eventually, though, when he woke up, it was on the same lumpy bed that it always was. 

He felt whole and rejuvenated when that happened, but he also felt greatly saddened by it. He’d finally gotten a perfect sort of life, and then he’d lost it. “That’s just the way of these things,” he muttered, testing his voice even as he reached for the bottle of wine. 

He sat there in silence for a long time this time. He didn’t ask the mirror questions, nor did he try to drown his sorrows. Instead, he just reflected on his life and what he might have done differently. Would it have been worth pressing myself less hard to spend more time with them? He wondered. If he could have been victorious with less effort, then maybe. He supposed that his real mistake in all of this might have been urgency, but if he’d pushed himself less hard, he still would have been laid up for days or weeks. If our enemies would have regrouped in that time, well… 

He let that question linger. He had no good answer for it, and the more lives he lived, the less interested he was in second-guessing himself. Even if he made a mistake, fixing it would be difficult or impossible, and getting caught in that loop was a trap. In this case, at least, he couldn’t revisit that moment because it no longer existed. All those years spent in Ionia were like they’d never happened. He’d never solved that level, which made things easier but also that much more heartbreaking. 

For a moment Simon tried to think constructively about his last moments, and any lessons he might have learned. He considered the tactics of the Murani, and what the consequences of Ionar’s fall might be. Ultimately, his mind kept drifting back to his Son’s face, though, and not even thinking about the consequences of the over use of magic was enough to shake those looks of love and respect that Seyom had given him while he lay dying. 

Simon studied his socks with an intensity usually reserved for facing down dire opponents in that moment as he struggled not to cry. Then, when he’d mastered the emotion, he got up and said, “Okay, enough of that. Note to self, even if you have the years, if you spend them all at once, you’re going to have a bad time.” For a moment he thought about the time he’d cast greater greater fire, and decided he’d just done the same thing with extra steps in his last life. Then he said, “Alright, mirror, you know the drill, show me my character sheet.”

The mirror complied and brought up the sheet in its faint blue writing. 

‘Name: Simon Jackoby

Level: 33

Deaths: 43

Experience Points: 3,084

Skills: Agriculture [Below Average], Archery [Below Average], Armor (light) [Below Average], Armor (heavy) [Poor], Armor (medium) [Below Average], Art [Excellent], Athletics [Below Average], Baking [Below Average], Cooking [Below Average], Craft [Excellent], Deception [Below Average], Escape [Poor], Fishing [Average], Healing [Excellent], History [Excellent], investigate [Excellent], Maces [Average], Navigation [Above Average], Research [Excellent], Ride [Average], Search [Average], Sneak [Average], Spears [Below Average], Spell Casting [Excellent], Steal [Poor], Swimming [Below Average], and Swords [Above Average].

Words of Power: Aufvarum (disperse, minor), Barom (illusion, light), Celdura (plan, shape), Delzam (cure, order), Dnarth (connection, distant, hidden), Gelthic (ice, death, weakness), Gervuul (greater, power), Hyakk (flesh, healing), Karesh (location, protection, understanding), Meiren (creation, fire, life), Oonbetit (focused, force, motion), Uuvellum (anti-, null, boundary), Vosden (earth, growth, metal, strength), Vrazig (lightning, ruin, quickening, wind), Zyvon (transfer, plants, water)’

He reviewed the whole sheet with passing interest, but his mind wasn’t really on it, so it took a while to notice that his experience total had finally turned positive. “Huh, well, that’s not the silver lining I was expecting,” he said to himself, “but I’ll take it.”

Truthfully, he still had no idea what that was for beyond an indicator of how miserable he was. He occasionally thought about asking Helades, but after the last way she’d cut him to ribbons with the mirror, well, he’d wait until it was more important. He’d long since learned the truth. The mirror showed him these things because he thought that they were important. What she thought was important, and the Pit thought were important, though, were entirely different. 

Other than clearing levels, he wasn’t sure exactly what either of them thought were important. He didn’t need the mirror to show him what he needed to do there, at least. He had to decide when he was going to purge the Blackheart on level 4, which would certainly unlock several or perhaps many levels after that. Then he had to kill a wyvern and deal with the fallout of helping Aaric escape. After that, it was back to the dragon and the vampire, along with whatever else unlocked as a result. In theory, it was a short list, but there was nothing simple about it. 

“The real problem is the Blackheart,” he said aloud as he worked through the problem. “The right thing to do is to do all of the floors in order so they can’t reset and screw me over later, but if I do that, I’ll probably reset all of Ionar. Am I really okay with that? Am I really okay with the queen not knowing who I am? Am I okay with the idea that my son will never exist?”

A lot of the people that Simon had known no longer knew him. Almost all of them, really, but this one stung more than most. 

It had to be done someday, but even if he never got to relive the life he’d just finished living, the idea of erasing it in his quest to go deeper struck him as entirely too soon. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet, and for as long as he wasn’t ready to do that, going deeper into the Pit was probably a fool's errand. 

“I could go try to learn more about the dragon,” he suggested to himself before taking another sip of wine. “That at least would be useful. Maybe this time, instead of trying to kill it, I can try to save it and see what that does.”

The idea of trying to save a dragon made him chuckle, which was useful in that it finally cracked the feeling of despair that he was shrouded in. He’d probably get cooked for his trouble if he tried, but he was kind of in the mood for a throwaway life anyway. 

“If I’m going there, though, I need to get in better shape because I’ll never make it in time like this.”

Simon had no idea why the start of the level was so far away from the finish, but it certainly made it an oddity. Most levels had entrances and exits within fifty feet of each other. Only a few, like the owlbear level, were spread out, and that was presumably to make sure that he found the wreckage of the caravan on his way to the covered bridge. 

“If I had one level to go back and do again, it would probably be that one,” he decided as he put on his boots and forced himself from bed. “Saving them wasn’t enough. Something bad happened to those kids down the road, and fixing that would do a world of good.”

He didn’t feel that way about a lot of levels, of course. Usually, it was just the places where he’d left loved ones behind that stuck with him, but in a few, he felt like he could have done more. His most recent life made even that outlook more complicated. 

After all, all of his good deeds had allowed a war to happen that he was pretty sure hadn’t happened before. If it had, it would certainly have been smaller in scope before his meddling. That further reinforced that the good and evil of everything he did was ambiguous at best. It also further drew into question what Helades’ whole point was.

Simon wasn’t about to get bogged down into that quagmire, though. He’d already decided on his current quest: get his fat ass in shape. That was going to be done with magic, of course, but given how much power he’d channeled recently, he was still feeling a bit fragile. It was probably all in his head, of course, but he wanted to try some new things he’d decided against in the battle for Ionar, and he had a ready supply of goblins he could burn, which would certainly take his mind off of everything that had just happened.