Death After Death Ch. 149-150

Ch. 149 - Impossible

Simon charged through the knots of people on the road where he couldn’t run around them, outrunning the insults and the outrage even before he could really hear them. None of that mattered. There was no time for politeness. While part of him hoped this was a false alarm, the rest of him was sure this was an emergency, and he charged heedlessly toward it. 

He wasn’t thinking about how, if he failed, he could do this all again. He wasn’t thinking about the hundreds of hours he’d spent making the perfect tools for this encounter. He wasn’t even thinking about saving Ionar, not really. He’d like to, of course, but that was secondary to something even more important: finding out what in the fuck was going on. 

Right now, all he could think about was that damn paper crown and those mocking notes that monopolized his mind as his legs rose and fell and his lungs began to strain. Normally, it would take him half an hour to walk up the steep street that led past the palace and to the uppermost reaches of the city. This time, he did it in less than five. 

Even before he reached the end of the street, he could see someone up ahead, where the wide streets with their dark paving stones turned to a narrow goat path that led up to the strange little shrine halfway up the volcano. The fact that whoever it was that was up there had gone past anywhere that made sense so late in the day only deepened his certainty that he’d been right to throw caution to the wind. Whatever happened was going to happen right now. 

That gave him the motivation to keep pushing himself, and he made it to the trail before the other man made it to the altar. After that, he had to move a little slower, but he went as fast as he could. By the time Simon reached his quarry, though, it was too late. Well, it might have been; he wasn’t sure. 

The man had produced a dark orb, and then, after a little fidgeting, the thing began to glow. First, there were dull orange lines, but then, gradually, they began brightening to a violent yellow. That light was bright enough to reveal some familiar designs to Simon as well as make him wince and shade his eyes.

“Stop… Whatever you’re doing… ”Simon gasped, completely out of breath. 

The man ignored him and instead tossed it up in the air. Simon fumbled with the words of force to slice the thing into pieces, but by the time he got them out, the man must have used a similar spell because it rocketed into the air and toward the caldera, making his spell miss entirely. Instead of being dashed to pieces, the thing arced high into the air and over the top of the caldera, where it disappeared from sight.

Well, not entirely. The man was wearing a dark cloak, and the gust that came with a spell that had so much force behind it blew the man's hood back, revealing the crown that Aikolas mentioned. That was enough to make him ready another spell. This time, he’d use lightning to smite the man, and then… 

That resolution failed, and the words died on his lips as the stranger turned to face him, and Simon saw that it was indeed himself. Well, someone that looked a lot like him, for sure. The face was a little older, the hair was a little longer, and the smile was a little more malicious, but all the other details… well, the man was even wearing the same sword that Simon was so used to. 

“Well, look who it is,” the other Simon said with a knowing smile. “I didn’t expect to see you quite so soon; we grow up so fast, don’t we?”

“What did you just do?” Simon asked, ignoring the bait. 

“Me? I just started a thermal cascade event that will dump a lot of fire into this old mountain and wake up some friends,” the other Simon said, willingly giving away his plan in a way that made Simon very uncomfortable. The villain typically didn’t do that unless they were lying or unless you had no way to stop them. “You could charge in after it, of course. You might even manage to save the city if you wanted.”

“Why wouldn’t I want that?” Simon asked. That’s the whole point!

“You think that’s the point of the Pit?” the other man asked, openly laughing now. “That’s very nearly the opposite of the point. Not everyone can be saved, Simon, no matter what you do. It’s impossible.”

“Maybe,” Simon agreed, “But how many more people need to die just because you need to blow up a volcano?”

“Trust me,” the other Simon said with a small shake of his head. “The world is better off without Ionar. This event disrupts trade throughout the world! You’ve seen the plagues. How much worse do you think they’ll be with more ships going here and there and everywhere.”

“So you’re just like Helades,” Simon spat. “You—”

“Do not use that bitch’s name so casually,” the other Simon shot right back. “Fuck Helades and the horse she road in on. She’s a devil in disguise, man. I don’t want her plan, and I don’t want yours either.”

“But this doesn’t make any sense,” Simon protested, still struggling with all of this. “The volcano has always exploded on this level, and if I … if you were always the cause, then why would the portal even come here. There wouldn’t even be a problem if I wasn’t in the Pit!”

“All good questions,” the other Simon smiled. “But all beside the point. The Pit doesn’t have to make sense! It never has, and it never will. It’s not a puzzle that can be solved. It's just a waste heap. A cosmic fucking meat grinder.”

Simon didn’t believe any of that, of course. He didn’t understand half of the rules in the place, but so far he didn’t see anything that violated them. Well, nothing happened until I found myself, he corrected himself. Until now, it had just been a matter of learning and preparing, but this… He wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

Another version of him from the future or some alternate timeline or any other bullshit like that seemed unlikely, but what did that leave? Would an enemy mage have enough knowledge of where he’d be to fuck with him? Could it be a devil escaped from hell? Some sort of crazy mimic or doppelgänger. He had no clue, and it pissed him off. He’d spent months preparing and years waiting. He’d come here to fight a god-damned volcano, which was crazy enough. The last thing he needed was an extra dollop of madness on top, like the cherry on the world's most insane hot magma Sunday. 

Still, he set all of that aside and said, “Look, there’s still time to stop this. If you didn’t want me to stop it, you would have already killed me, or—”

“Stop it, you say, what an interesting proposal,” the other Simon smiled. “And tell me, what would you stop it with? Maybe a convenient sword of ice? Perhaps some armor custom-made for the occasion?”

A chill went down Simon’s spine at the mockery. This asshole really did know everything. Or, maybe he didn’t, he realized, looking again at the crown. Maybe that thing has some crazy magic that lets him read my mind, and this is all some kind of put on… 

The other Simon didn’t react to that thought. Instead, he continued, pretending to look around as if he were missing something. 

“Only, I don’t see it anywhere up here. You didn’t really run off half-cocked and leave all that home, did you?” the other Simon taunted, making Simon ball up his fists in anger. “That would be embarrassing. Running all the way up a mountain, walking back down to get your shit together, and then walking all the way back up while…”

He paused as a distant rumble somewhere deep in the mountain made itself known. “Well, you know.”

“If I stop the asshole that causes the eruption, then I don’t need the armor to fight the volcano, now, do I,” Simon said defensively. 

“Well, that’ ship has sailed,” the other Simon smirked. “You could try to kill me, but… well, that would just be murder, wouldn’t it.”

Simon was tired. He was tired from the run, and he was tired of the mind games and the new crazy he kept discovering. More than any of that, though, at this moment, he was tired of the moral bullshit. He wasn’t a superhero, and this wasn’t an arch-nemesis that needed to be arrested so he could just escape and kill more people. This was a murderer that detonated a mountain, and if he was responsible for this in every run… well… he had more blood on his hands than Simon ever would, and there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong with killing him. 

“Vrazig,” Simon whispered, aiming to kill this asshole as quickly as possible. That’s not what happened, though. Instead, the lightning arced briefly around his target before it fizzled and faded. 

“Lightning, huh?” the other Simon said. “Not a bad choice. Fast, deadly, and efficient. It's not going to work on me, though. I… well, if you haven’t met the whisperers yet, you will. Maybe after that, you’ll understand.” 

“How…” Simon demanded, torn between wanting to know what in the hell was happening and drawing his dagger to stab this guy before there were any more surprises. 

“You’ll see. One day. That’s not what matters right now, though. What you should be caring about right now isn’t me. It’s your armor. You still keep it in the same spot, don’t you?” the other version of him said with a smile. Then, he began to whisper something under his breath. 

Simon tensed. Should he lash out at the man again? Could it really be that he was fighting himself or some alternate version of himself? He wasn’t sure. Before he could be sure about anything, though, something familiar appeared in front of him. It was his herb chest and several feet of the floor underneath it. It just popped into existence. One second, there was nothing, and the next, well, it just was. 

Simon looked from that back to the face of the other version of himself, trying to determine how this was even possible, but he had no answers. Greater and Distant definitely had to be used, he thought to himself, but is there a way to say Transfer that causes actual fucking teleportation? 

The man before him obviously had some tricks that Simon had not yet conceived. He didn’t seem like he was about to use them to strike Simon down, either. Instead, he stood there with a shit-eating grin on his face. 

“Pretty cool, right?” the other Simon said to himself. “Don’t worry, you’ll learn how to do that one day, I’m sure. We usually do. We…”

The other Simon’s words trailed off as the volcano rumbled deeply, and the sound of a minor eruption took place somewhere deep inside of it. Whatever this man had done. It was starting. 

“You can’t be me,” Simon said finally. “I would never do something like this.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself for someone who still has a lot to learn,” the other Simon said smugly. “You haven’t even found the mazes yet or the queen. Talk to me again when you get past level 50.”

“Why would I cause a disaster?” Simon shot back. “Specifically, why would I cause this disaster? The people of Ionar have been very kind. I would never—”

Simon stopped speaking as the other version of him started to chant again. “Oonbetit!” This time, he punched out with a word of force that took the form of a fist, hoping to knock the man out before he could do anything else. 

This time, his spell wasn’t dissipated by whatever mystery technique the whisperers used, but only because the other Simon was gone before the blow landed. Instead, it struck the stone behind where he’d been standing, fracturing the hard igneous rock. The volcano rumbled again in sympathy to the blow and erupted again louder this time. Whatever happened, it was… well, it was happening. 

“What the fuck is going on,” Simon muttered to himself as he looked up at the rising smoke, then down at the piece of his floor that held his armor. “Am I really going to do this?”

Ch. 150 - Blow Off

He really was, he decided as he crouched down and pushed the chest of rare and expensive herbs off the chunk of stone floor that had come with it and let it clatter down the slope, scattering the contents everywhere. As much as he hated to waste them, they didn’t matter anymore. Win or lose, he was done with this town as soon as this fight was done. 

If he lost, he was going to die painfully, and if he won… well, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He was probably going to try to track that asshole down, even if he was fairly certain that was impossible. 

No way, that was me, he told himself as he bent down and started putting on his armor, starting with his sabatons and greaves. Never in a million years would I wipe out a whole damn city. 

It was more than that, he realized, though, as he got dressed as quickly as he could and did his best to ignore the sound of volcanic rumblings. The crown that man had been wearing, whoever he was. That was the crown from the barrow mounds, which meant he’d caused at least two disasters. He might have even been the one to leave the message on the wall in the foothills near Crowvar, and if he was… well… Simon’s mind boggled at the thought.

Suddenly, he stopped putting on his armor as he realized something. “Fuck… if I beat this thing, then this spot is going to be gone. I won’t be able to come back here and try to ambush the asshole.”

That was a painful choice as he realized he could either leave and come back to try again or he could handle this right now. That asshole wanted him to solve this level made the whole thing that much worse. 

“He definitely knows how the levels work, at least,” Simon grumbled as he agonized over the decision. As he struggled to put on his armor a piece at a time, the encounter replayed over and over in his mind. Had he done everything he could? What should he have done differently? 

Now he thought that maybe the crown protected the wearer in some unspecified way instead of giving him some perverse telepathy. He didn’t say anything when my lightning spell failed, did he? He wondered. 

It didn’t matter, he decided, tugging the straps on his breastplate tighter before belting on his sword. The guy might have put up a protection from lightning spell before Simon got there. If he really was half the mastermind that he claimed to be, then he knew all the details before they happened and could have prepared for everything a hundred different ways. 

The volcano erupted louder this time. Simon looked up and saw the first hints of magma coming over the rim, blazing red and orange against the night. It doesn’t matter, Simon told himself. He might have had a codpiece of enhanced insulation or a holocaust cloak. All that mattered was that he needed to destroy that orb. 

Simon took a second to swap a cloth around his face to block out the worst of the ash. He would have wet it down, but he didn’t have a water skin with him and… It occurred to him he could use a word of minor water to do that, but he decided against it. He wasn’t wasting magic on anything so frivolous. He was already tired enough, and the real challenge hadn’t even started yet. 

“Stop the orb, stop the eruption,” He told himself. “Not what I planned at all, but we’ll go with it.” 

“Aufvarum Oonbetit!” he yelled, using a word of lesser force to propel him up to a likely ledge a dozen feet above his head. Climbing was impossible in this thing, and spending any time in the caldera full of toxic gasses, heat protection or not, was probably a no-go, but then, he hadn’t planned it like this. 

In his mind, some big magma beastie like the one that had killed him once upon a time would climb out of the volcano, and he’d kill it in single combat at the edge of town and save the city. It would be like the worst possible action remake of Mount Vesuvius. 

Violence at Vesuvius, he joked to himself as he stuck the landing on his first hop, landing hard enough to make his teeth rattle in his skull. No, no, no, Man Vs. Mountain. Swords and Sharkanos?

As much as the thought of what terrible name he’d give his doomed action movie, he dropped it as he continued up the mountain like this was some kind of deranged platformer instead of a real-life or death situation. 

It took another half a dozen leaps before he was anywhere close to the top, and by that point, the smoke was getting thick enough that he couldn’t tell if it was the words or the ash that was making his throat hurt. Still, in spite of the terrifying lighting and the truly precarious leaps he was making, he didn’t feel any warmth. If anything, it was starting to get a little chilly, but that suited him fine. 

Plate mail was not something that one was supposed to perform acrobatics in, and even with magic assisting his jumps, he was working up a sweat. That didn’t really change once he got to the top, though. Simon had been to this spot enough times to have a pretty good idea of how it was supposed to look, and this wasn’t it. The view had always been picturesque, but now it took his breath away, and not in a good way. The view was apocalyptic. 

Before, the caldera had been filled with rubble and hardened lava from previous eruptions. Now, it was a lake of bubbling lava, at least a couple of acres in size. And it was swarming with the wispy fire elementals he’d seen before. They weren’t the flimsy creatures of steam and ash he’d seen before. Now, they were flaming and even more clearly man-shaped than before. But there were none of the magma giants he’d died so violently to once before now.

The lava was already close to the lip, and rising visibly, and for a moment, Simon thought he was screwed. He might be cool as a cucumber standing here mid-eruption, but he couldn’t breathe lava, and he doubted his plate mail would work for very long once magma started leaking in through the cracks. It wasn’t a wetsuit. 

Then, he saw the orb. He’d worried the thing was somewhere down there at the bottom of the lake, but it wasn’t. Instead, it was floating there in midair, close to the center of the volcano. 

Though it was almost lost in the glare of the eruptions, the billowing smoke could do nothing to hide a light that bright. Simon coughed hard, drawing in a fearful breath. Whatever he was breathing in was not good for him.  

He took careful aim with his mind and even drew his frost blade so he could aim down the line of the thing. When he was ready, he finally said “Oonbetit” before coughing again. When he’d tried this with the wyvern, it had taken several tries for the paper-thick lines of force to intersect with his target. This time, it only took one.

Simon cut the orb neatly in half, and both sides hung there a moment longer before they stopped glowing and fell into the lava. Part of him hoped that it would end the eruption immediately, but that was not the case. Instead, the volcano erupted again. This time, it was harder, and the ground shook violently enough that he almost lost his footing. That would have been ugly, given that if he fell forward, he’d take a bath in lava, and if he fell backward, he’d fall for hundreds of feet before he hit the ground. 

He didn’t, though. Instead, as lava began to overflow the lip of the volcano, he said, “Oh no, you don’t! Gervuul Gelthic!”

The greater word of ice burned as Simon forced it from his raw throat, freezing the wave of lava that had been coming toward him in place. For a moment, the whole landscape was lost in a violent steam explosion, and when he could see again, Simon saw about what he'd expected. His spell had made the wall on this side of the volcano that much higher. So now lava was still spilling out, but instead of going south, it was mostly going west, toward the sea, and north down the far slope. 

Simon smiled at that and took a moment to take pride in the sight. Even if he was struck dead right now, and this would have been all he’d accomplished, he would have said that he’d solved the level, but the moment he saw the large, oozing hand of some giant magma beast climbing up out of the molten pool, he knew this wasn’t over yet. 

Breathing as slowly and calmly as he could to avoid triggering another coughing fit from the sulfurous gasses, Simon moved over to where the beast was rising. He’d planned to strike the thing’s head off its shoulders, but when he saw how thick its tree trunk-like neck was, he decided that was impossible. 

Instead, as the creature’s eyes fixed on him, and it raised one of its giant fists, Simon thrust his blade three feet into the thing’s eye. The sword instantly cooled the thing’s magma body, striking it dead, or at least dying in a single blow, but Simon couldn’t keep hold of the blade after it froze into place and had to let it go as the monster slipped back into the giant pool of magma. 

Simon spent the next half a minute looking around and trying to decide the best way down before he died of smoke inhalation. He was shivering as he did so and knew that right now, he was taking way more heat than he should. He couldn’t feel it, but the metal could, and he knew that sooner or later, the metal would heat up enough that all of his hard work would start to fail. However, before he could find the most graceful way to make his exit, he was interrupted when the beast he thought he’d slain rose up from the lava a second time. 

This time, it burst from the molten pool with a strangled roar and swung at Simon. Half of its face was turned to stone, but the other half was a mask of rage. Simon staggered back, both to stay out of reach and because he started coughing again. All the magic wasn’t very useful if you couldn’t breathe. 

The monster followed, swinging wildly, and never quite willing to get out of the pool, which frustrated Simon. Perhaps it can’t, he wondered, backing out onto the widest part of the rim he could find to stay just out of reach as he tried to figure out the best way to kill it. He would have thought that the sword would have done more than it was doing. Honestly, he’d long considered the sword to be a secret weapon against this level, but it wasn’t doing what he’d hoped. Sure, it was slowly turning this thing’s head to stone, but even that wasn’t enough to kill it.

Should I try to freeze its body, or shatter its skull? He wondered, not sure what the right choice was. In a perfect world, he’d do both, but with the air being what it was, he didn’t have that many more words in him. He could feel it. He could probably do one more major spell and maybe a couple smaller ones after that, but then he’d be out. 

Hell, I’ll be lucky to keep standing, after that, he thought. 

It was that thought that finally made him decide what it was he needed to do. Simon waited for the thing to lean as far forward as it dared. Then, once it was as over-extended as possible, he shouted, “Gervuul Gelthic!” freezing the rest of its head and most of its arms and torso with a thin layer of cold that was enough to freeze it in place for a moment. He was under no illusions about how little time that would give him. This monster would thaw out again in a minute or two. It might even be less than that. As long as it had the infinite heat of the volcano, there was little Simon could do about that.  

Which is why he needed to separate the two of them. With the giant frozen in place, he ran toward it and leaped up, grabbing the hilt protruding from its stony skull with both hands. He still couldn’t pull it free, but his weight, combined with the weight of its partially frozen body, was enough to make the lava of its midsection sag lower. Once that happened, and his feet were again on the ground, he started pulling backward with all his strength. 

He was essentially trying to turn his opponent into an avalanche, and though Simon didn’t like the odds he would manage to survive something so stupid, he was pretty sure he could pull it off. Even now, as it thawed out, it was completely off balance and slowly sliding out of the caldera. Simon could tell, because the more the lava giant slid out of the pool, the more precarious Simon’s position became. Soon, he was hanging over empty air, and then he was hanging several feet below the caldera’s rim. 

Then, just like that, he transitioned from hanging to falling. For a moment, he feared the sword had finally come free, but it had not. He was falling, and a half-molten giant was falling with him. It was an impossible scene, and Simon kicked free of the thing’s grasp. He’d rather die from the impact than from getting burned to death on the way down. After all, there was nothing to fear from a sudden fall like this. It was an easy way to go compared to some of his other deaths. 

Still halfway down, as he watched the monster slowly return to fiery life and reach for him, Simon suddenly decided he wanted to live. That wasn’t a sure thing, of course, not after falling two hundred feet in the last few seconds, and certainly not while he was quickly approaching terminal velocity. It wasn’t impossible, though, not with magic up his sleeve. 

“Aufvarum Oonbetit,” he rasped. “Aufvarum Oonbetit. Aufvarum Oonbetit. Aufvarum Oonbetit. Aufvarum Oonbetit.”

Simon had never tried using minor words over and over like this, but there was no reason it shouldn’t work. Well, there was no reason it shouldn’t work besides the coughing fit that seized him after the fourth one. 

Still, each word of lesser force was enough to slow him a little while the giant kept falling at the same rate. After a few seconds, even though they’d fallen from the same height, he was dozens of feet above the magma giant and falling noticeably slower. That was just enough to let Simon see the thing splatter beneath him into a pool of rocks and lava, but not enough that he had any confidence he’d survive the impact that was about to happen. 

“Oonbetit!” he gasped one final time, shaking his whole body as the word of force hit him like a ton of bricks. After that, he hit the ground hard, but before he could decide how badly he was hurt, he hit his head, and the whole world went black.