Death After Death

When Simon realized he was back in his cabin instead of his sick bed back at the inn, he sighed and rolled over to go back to sleep. This was to keep away the parts of his brain that flickered to life with a persecution complex almost instantly more than any fatigue, though.

She only killed me because I was starting to find happiness, his mind told him.

That wasn’t true, of course, probably. It was far more likely that life was short and capricious, especially in the medieval era. Even with magic to keep the perils of disease away, not all of his deaths would occur at the hands of people who were trying to kill him. Some of them would just be accidents.

But the idea that most of those accidents seemed to occur when he was happy enough to let his guard down stuck in his craw. Simon’s life in Slany hadn’t been perfect, of course, but it had been pretty great. A community full of people who knew him and thought well of him, a woman who was into him, and all the time in the world to experiment with magic. He’d been burning through his life at the rate of about a decade a year as he experimented, so he wasn’t exactly destined to lead a long and happy life by any measure, though there were solutions to that if he could stomach them.

Eventually, he dragged himself out of bed and stoked the fire in his stove so he could roast some sausages. “Alright, mirror, tell me what we’ve learned from this life.”

Simon expected it to show his character sheet or tell him it didn’t understand. Instead, when he looked over at it, his mouth fell open. There, printed on the glass, was ‘As you requested, you are to avoid the tar in Liepzen castle, and you should avoid fighting fire elementals on level ten in your next journey into the Pit.’

“Wait… How do you know that?” Simon asked. “I thought you couldn’t tell me things about the individual levels.”

‘Nor can I,’ it answered. ‘But you can tell me things, and I will remember them for you.’

“Wait, back up. Didn’t Helades say that you were supposed to help me?” he asked.

In response, the mirror played back to his last encounter with Helades. “Follow this wisp, and it will take you to the pit,” she told him pleasantly. “I’ll look forward to our next encounter, and I hope you enjoy the pit as much as you think you will.”

Simon realized then just how little he remembered of his first life here. He remembered the room that the conversation was in but very little else about it.

“How come you could tell me about that encounter but not others,” Simon asked.

‘Because I was there,’ the mirror answered instantly. ‘I am not always present for your other adventures, though I do sometimes catch glimpses.’

“You what?” Simon asked, almost annoyed by how late he was learning all this, as he was excited to finally make some headway with this freaking thing. “How can you catch glimpses of me on other levels.”

The mirror proceeded to play more clips. In one, he was fighting zombies in the bar, and in the next, he was being run through in the haunted castle. There were other ones, too. A glimpse of him from the wagon he’d rescued the children from, a quick shot of him with a volcano in the background, and one of him walking around the vine-covered ruins from a very low angle. All of these followed in quick succession, one after the other.

For a moment, Simon almost saw a pattern as he struggled to remember what each of those places would have looked like, but all the pieces didn’t quite fit together. “Wait, so you’re in all the mirrors?” he said finally, not 100% certain he was right.

‘Not all,’ it wrote in its glowing blue writing, “But many. Each offered a glimpse into your journey in other times and places. Sometimes, though, you stay in places without mirrors for an extended period of time, or you move between levels quickly. Since you never call out to me, it can make finding you difficult. Unlike the Goddess I serve, I am not omnipresent.”

Simon was stunned by this news. His first thought, though, was to curse the fact that he’d never gotten around to getting a nice mirror for the home he shared with Freya; if he had, well, he could watch a strange sort of home movies for as long as wanted. It’s probably for the best that I didn’t, though, he said, realizing that he could spend whole lifetimes doing just that.

Before he could ask the thing to show him any other snapshots of her, though, another thought struck him.

“There aren’t any mirrors on the jungle level, and yet you saw me there. How?” he snapped.

‘Mirrors are not the deciding factor,’ the mirror explained, ‘All I need is a clear enough reflection to find you.’

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“So puddles work, too. Got it. And what’s the point of all this? You just follow around behind me like some sort of notepad?” Or spy, Simon thought to himself. The idea was dumb, but honestly, it could have been useful, too. He had years and years worth of notes that he could have kept if he’d known all of this before now.

“Why did Helades give you to me?” he asked. “Are you a babysitter or a notepad?”

‘Having a spirit to watch over those who chose to brave the pit was decided long ago,’ it wrote. ‘Much like the potion that the Goddess gave you so that you might understand all the languages of the world, it was meant to be a tool for those who lose their way.’

“Lose their way?” Simon asked.

‘After spending lifetimes in the Pit, many adventurers become lost in their lives and lose track of the larger picture,’ it explained. ‘I’m here to help with that.’

“I see,” Simon said. He did, too. Even after a couple of years living another life, he found his return to the beginning more than a little disorienting. If he ever put down roots somewhere and spent decades there, well - he could see how that would be difficult. “So… you’re a Journal.”

‘I am something for you to reflect on.’ the mirror answered.

That was enough for Simon to crack a bitter smile. “Cute,” he said. “I’ll remember that. Probably.”

By the time the conversation was finished, his lunch was too, so he called up his character sheet and ate in silence while he reviewed his options.

‘Name: Simon Jackoby

Level: 20

Deaths: 37

Experience Points: -968,199

Skills: Agriculture [Below Average],Archery [Above Average], Armor (light) [Great], Armor (heavy) [Below Average], Armor (medium) [Average], Athletics [Average], Baking [Poor], Cook [Above Average], Craft [Average], Deception [Average], Escape [Poor], Healing [Above Average], Investigate [Above Average], Maces [Average], Ride [Average], Search [Average], Sneak [Above Average], Spears [Average], Spell Casting [Good], Steal [Poor], Swimming [Below Average], and Swords [Great].

Words of Power: Gervuul (greater) Meiren (fire) Aufvarum (minor) Hyakk (healing) Vrazig (lightning) Dnarth (distant) Oonbetit (force) Zyvon (transfer) Gelthic (ice) Karesh (protection) Uuvellum (boundary) Barom (light) Delzam (cure)’

He’d gained more than twenty thousand karma in the last life, which was more than he expected. He’d expected to gain perhaps half of that and wasn’t sure exactly how to account for the discrepancy. Was it because he had saved so many or because he’d killed so few? Maybe it was because he’d been really satisfied with the little life he was building or because he’d managed to remove some of the dark clouds that had been hanging over his head for a few lives now.

He couldn’t say. Ultimately, it was one more data point to be filed away, and he chewed on it as he got ready to descend again into the depths.

When Simon was all ready, he wasn’t completely surprised that the first level was still there. Part of him had thought that the food was there to prevent starvation, but part of him had decided it was the goblins he’d missed last time.

“I could be wrong on both counts,” he muttered to himself after he finished murdering the rats. “The goblin level could still be there, taunting me.”

Even if it was, though, he’d already decided he wasn’t going to try again. He’d done literally everything he could think of. It was time to get to level 30 and have a nice long talk about Freya so he could put that memory behind him one way or the other. He could figure out how to resolve other levels once he’d resolved that question.

The trap level held nothing new, save for the ending. The goblin level was, in fact, gone. In its place were the stairs that descended into the tomb of the skeleton knight.

“You know, it kind of makes more sense this way,” he said to himself as he descended the chilly stairs. An unassuming basement that led to a trap-ridden tomb with a mini-boss at the end felt like a proper dungeon, and he smiled at that as he pulled out his mace and started smashing skulls.

They no longer presented a real challenge, but they were a workout he sorely needed as soon as he lost all the muscles he’d earned over the last few years. “How did I ever let myself get this weak?!” he roared as he beheaded the boss and then stooped to pick up the creature’s gauntlet and sword.

Simon allowed himself a moment to rest, studying the coffins and other armor for any details that might give him more context about what this level was for, but anything that wasn’t magical had aged poorly and beyond an additional chance to study the runes of the sword, and especially its mystery power source, there was little here that interested him.

So, with that in mind, he unlocked the gate and prepared to enter the sewer. That wasn’t what he found, though. Instead, he found a bustling tavern waiting there for him. Simon was more than a little shocked, but as soon as people started to look at him, he quickly shut the door behind him, lest anyone see the crypt he’d come from.

This was a level that Simon had already beaten. He was sure of that. He’d memorized every detail of this cursed inn, and more than that, he’d put it behind him. So how was it back? No, how was it back and whole?

Simon left the small dining room he was in, in a daze as he walked into the common room. Where were the zombies?Where were the dead bodies? He wondered.

It was a jarring moment, and he almost stopped to ask someone about it, but before he could open he saw her smiling across the room from him, and his mind froze completely solid. Freya was alive, and stranger still; she was smiling.

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