Death After Death

Chapter 14: Level Five

Simon rushed back down to join the fight again, delaying only long enough to take down the same gear he’d brought the previous time. His second fight went almost as well as the first and he succeeded at knocking a few of the knight’s teeth loose before his head was struck from his shoulders. So he went down a second, and a third, and a fourth time. This wasn’t about finishing the level, or even about beating the skeleton at this point. This was about improvement. Simon could feel the movements becoming more natural and his reflexes speeding up with every bout he had with the unholy warrior.

After a while, Simon lost count of the number of times he’d fought and died to the grim skeletal warrior and he was only able to reconstruct it afterward when he took a break and reviewed his character sheet after a fight where he had come within an inch of finally shattering that nightmare warrior’s vertebrae.

Name: Simon Jackoby

Level: 4

Deaths: 23

Experience Points: -8265

Skills: Archery [Poor], Armor (light) [Below Average], Athletics [Poor], Cook [Very Poor], Craft [Very Poor], Deception [Very Poor], Escape [Very Poor], Investigate [Very Poor], Maces [Poor], Ride [Very Poor], Search [Very Poor], Sneak [Poor], Spears [Very Poor], Spell Casting [None], Steal [Very Poor], Swimming [Very Poor], and Swords [Average].

He’d died eight times. He was pretty sure. Eight more deaths, but his experience points had only dropped another four thousand. “That means if I'm losing a thousand experience points a death, I’m gaining more than I lose with every level now, right?” he asked himself before taking another mouthful of cheese. In the end it didn’t really matter. He couldn’t actually spend the experience on anything. It was just a gauge of progress. It was also likely one more way that Helades thought of to twist the knife, he thought grimly. It didn’t matter. On either this attempt or the next one, Simon was sure he’d defeat the knight and be one step closer to shoving the whole thing in her face.

Simon stood up and stretched before he started gearing up again. He had a good feeling that this time was going to be it. He was going to take that asshole’s head and show him how it felt to die for once.

It took him several minutes to realize what a stupid thing he’d said, but by the time he’d opened the trapdoor, he was shaking his head with disgust at his own thoughtlessness and looking forward to a little murder as a pallete cleanser. “Why would skeletons need to know what it felt like to die, dumb ass,” he muttered as he went down the stairs to stomp some rats. “They already died at least once to become skeletons.”

This time his trip to the skeleton was practically a speed run. Simon’s improvement on his character sheet was definitely mirroring the results he was seeing in the real world. This time he didn’t suffer a single scratch, and on top of that he managed to decapitate two goblins with a single slash. He wished he could save a screenshot of that. It was an epic moment.

It had only taken him perhaps ten minutes to go from the cabin to the skeleton’s tomb, and it took less than half that time to crush the skulls of all the lesser skeletons into a fine powder. Then he was finally alone with his nemesis. Simon tossed away the mace and pulled out his shield. Normally in video games he never went with a sword and board. As far as he was concerned, it was just weakening your character, when you could choose two swords or a giant badass sword instead. Right now Simon didn’t have a giant two handed weapon, and he’d learned in previous fights he wasn’t really coordinated enough to use two swords at once effectively yet, so it was more like using one sword and then the other for him. The shield was easy though. It had saved his life a dozen times so far.

Simon wanted to keep his victory streak alive, so as soon as he was ready he barreled into the knight. This was something he’d learned in the last fight. The skeleton warrior was slow, and didn’t do as well when you were really aggressive with it. So that’s just what he did: he played rough. Even with the steel armor, the skeleton weighed less than Simon, so he shield checked it when it raised its sword to strike hard. It worked almost as well as a good feint for keeping its sword anywhere but where it should be. The fourth time Simon did this he almost managed to impale the bastard through the skull, but at the last moment the skeleton jerked its head, which succeeded in avoiding what might have been a fatal blow at the cost of losing its helmet.

After that it was all over. Simon rained down overhead blows against the skeleton’s now uncovered weak spot until the tenth or twelfth strike scored a glancing blow. It only resulted in a glowing crack that went from the left orbital through the temporal plate, but leaked more of that evil blue light. After that strike the knight just got slower and weaker, and thirty seconds later Simon succeeded in striking the thing’s cursed head from its shoulders. It was a good thing too, because he definitely wasn’t in the shape he needed to be to keep this up much longer.

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“That’s right!” Simon yelled, his chest heaving. “That’s the last time you get to kill Simon Jackoby, bitch!”

With his opponent dead, Simon did a little victory dance and kicked the skull away from him, noting that it still had a small glimmer of that evil light left in its eyes, and he wanted nothing to do with it. God only knew what kind of crazy respawn mechanics a monster like that might have. He did reach down to pick up the sword. Anything that looked that good after being down here for decades or centuries had to be magical.

“Fuck!” Simon cried out, dropping the hilt as soon as he picked it up. The thing was still so cold that it burned him. He tried warming it with the torch, but it didn’t seem to do much good, which was a shame, because he desperately wanted to wield a magical sword. He supposed he could always pick it up next time. By this point he had to admit to himself there was almost certainly going to be a next time, but that didn’t bother Simon. If he could beat an undead skeleton knight, he could beat just about anything. At this point he’d take getting through a floor or two on the first try, he decided as he bent down to pick up the key to the next level. That would be a real victory.

The key turned in the lock easily enough, and as the wrought iron gate creaked open, it forced Simon to make a quick look around. The sound was straight out of a horror movie, so it wouldn’t have surprised him in the least if all the skeletons he had just killed rose up as one for the second phase of the fight. They didn’t though. For once the game, no, not the game he corrected himself. For once the pit hadn’t tried to screw him over. He smiled as he started walking down the hallway. Things were looking up.

Even though he knew he should take things slow on his first trip through a new floor like this, he just couldn't slow down the frantic pace he’d set for himself on this run so far. It was working great. As long as he stayed on the offensive, he felt like nothing could take him down. At least that was the plan, but as the hallway slowly morphed into a cavern, he suddenly found himself walking into a cave that was so beautiful that it stopped him in his tracks while he bathed in its beauty.

The cave was the product of a sinkhole somewhere just below the surface, and through the large hole in the center of the roof almost 40 feet above him sunlight streamed through the opening in such a way that the cavern walls danced with small rainbows as the sunbeams cut through the spray. It was a magical sight that was pretty much the opposite of the horrors he’d faced on the last level, which was strange enough to make Simon suspicious. Stranger still though was that there didn’t seem to be anything to fight. This was just a cave cut down the middle by a stream, and on the opposite side of the cave was a door. So, it was obvious where he needed to go, but other than a small crystal clear stream that he wouldn’t even have to jump over to get across, what wasn’t clear was what was going to be trying to stop him.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Simon yelled, banging the pommel of his sword against the wall several times to try to attract whatever monster was bound to be waiting for him.

Nothing came rushing from some dark crevasse to kill him though, and when the echo of his challenge died it was silent again, save for the pleasant noise of the waterfall and stream. Could whatever was supposed to be here to fight him have wandered off, he wondered? Was it invisible and lying in wait, or was it crouched on the cliff above just waiting to jump down and pounce on him? Simon couldn’t say, but he was extremely wary as he walked halfway into the cavern for a look around.

At least he was for another minute. After that he just felt stupid. Why was he worried so much? Even if there was a monster waiting to pounce he’d come right back to life, and with the surprise gone, the thing wouldn’t stand a chance. Even with his immortality inspired bravado he still didn’t move forward though. Maybe this room wasn’t about monsters at all - maybe it was an environmental hazard of some sort. That was what the trap room was, right?

So if this room was a trap, then what was going to kill him? Was the thing going to cave in? Was the stream poisonous or made of acid? Simon slowly walked up to it, sniffing the air for any sign of gas, but all he could smell was nature. Goblins had definitely never lived in this cavern before. Tentatively he prodded the stream with his sword, looking for any sign of bubbling that might indicate it really was made of acid. Nothing happened though.

He shrugged and pulled the sword out, and then he leaned down to take a closer look. That was when the thing lying in wait lashed out at him. Suddenly a clear pseudopod of slime shot from the water and wrapped around Simon’s face. He pulled back immediately, but the thing followed him, extending even as more and more of the slime’s bulk emerged from where it was hiding in the stream.

Simon tried to scream, but he couldn’t. He stabbed the thing repeatedly, even trying to slice it in half before he dropped his sword and tried to claw the goo from his face to free his airway. He couldn’t though. It was too awful. It was like the time he drowned, but somehow this was worse, because he could feel the thing crawling down his throat even as his skin started to burn and his vision began to fade. The thing was devouring him whole like a formless and nearly invisible anaconda, and every time he fought it, it just found another bit of flesh to wrap around.

When he finally blacked out from lack of oxygen, Simon was more than grateful.