Death After Death

Simon was not in good enough shape to run with such a load, and after a hundred yards, he was forced to put Millie down. When he did so, he sheltered both of them behind a low wall so he could stop and look for trouble.

He spotted no other predators, which made sense to him. A troll would eat all comers, so eventually, it would be the last one left. A little fire won’t keep it away forever either, he reminded himself. In hours to days, it would be back to try for another taste, and next time his timing might not be as good. He could only imagine how easy it would have been to be crushed to death by the monster’s flaming bulk during its last attack.

If it were anything else that they faced, they’d probably be in the clear already, but a troll would just keep coming, and eventually it would catch them unaware, or worse, asleep, and that would be the end for Millie.

He looked at her again as they crouched there in hiding. He could really only see her silhouette against the utter blackness of the cave, but he didn’t need to see even that much to see the fear that consumed her aura. She’d been through a lot recently. First, she’d been sent to work for vampiric monsters, then that situation had been turned upside down, only for her to end up in a fresh hell that wasn’t of her own making.

Simon sympathized. He could not clearly recall his earliest days in the Pit, but he remembered the fear and the confusion, and it was those murky yellows and browns that played across her aura now. Back then, I blamed Helades, Simon reflected. Is it the gods she blames now? Or does she know this is all my fault?

It didn’t matter. What mattered was finding a way out. So, after she stopped panting, they started moving again. This time, they proceeded directly away from the lake where the troll had gone, and after a few false starts, they found themselves walking down a wide street strewn with rubble.

“Where are we?” Millie eventually asked.

Simon shook his head. Then, when he recalled that she couldn’t actually see that, he said. “I wish I knew. Don’t worry, though, we won’t be staying for long.”

“Will you use magic to get us free?” she asked. Simon flinched. Just the way she said the word magic made it clear what she thought of it, and probably of him.

He was silent for a long moment before he agreed. “I’ll use whatever I have to in order to get you home safe.”

Even those whispers echoed, and as they continued on, Simon occasionally glimpsed the troll. It was keeping its distance, but it hadn’t disappeared entirely. When they reached the edge of the city, they started circling along the wall, looking for an exit from the cavern.

Simon found many interesting details worthy of study, but that wasn’t going to happen this visit. Even during rest breaks, he was too busy looking for an ambush or some other unexpected event. Traps certainly aren’t impossible, he reminded himself whenever his footing seemed strange.

They spent an hour walking methodically before Simon slowly reached the conclusion that they weren’t going to find their way out that easily. He didn't say anything, but he did begin to rack his brain. For a while, he tried to focus, looking for some essence currents that might indicate surface flows. When that failed, he felt for a breeze, but he struck out there, too.

Simon only had a breakthrough when he checked on Millie and noticed her small pendant glittering in the light of his dimming blue flame. It was a plain bronze charm, but it reminded him that divination was an option too, and probably perfect for their current circumstances.

“I need to borrow that, Millie,” he whispered.

She asked why, but only as she started to undo the knot. It might have been the most precious thing in the world to her, but she wasn’t about to argue with him. He doubted she would have done so under normal circumstances, but right now, he held her life in her hands.

When he held the small medallion, he made sure that the troll was nowhere close, and then he started to carve the word of location, Karesh, onto the backside with the point of his dagger. Working in the dark, with poor tools, didn’t produce the best results. When he was finished, he could see that the thing would bleed far more power than it should.

Pity I don’t have the space to add distant or lesser, he thought as he studied it. This would work, but it would get hot fast, and it wouldn’t reach as far as he liked.

Before Simon started using the pendulum, he explained to Millie that he was going to need to concentrate for several minutes. “I’m going to try to use magic to find us a way out, and I’m not to be interrupted unless you think our lives are in jeopardy, do you understand?”

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She flinched at the word magic, but nodded, and seemed to understand. So, after one last look around, Simon started to breathe deeply and focus. First, he chose a known target to make sure it worked, and searched for the troll. That didn’t even take ten seconds before he felt the familiar tug pointing the way off to his left somewhere. He could have tried to determine its exact range this way, but he resisted the urge and released the magic instead.

Now that it’s tested, I need to look for something that matters, he decided, turning his attention to the exit.

That was harder for him to fix on. It was easy for him to imagine a burned troll and instantly find it, but what did an exit look like? Was it a cave entrance? Was it fresh air? Ultimately, he decided it was light, and when he didn’t find that after a couple of minutes of focus, he looked for other things. Grass, animals, and insects were his next targets.

Simon found no animals or plants of any kind, but insects triggered some weak readings that were generally up and to his right. That might indicate a passage, but it also might just indicate whatever it was that the troll had been eating until they’d arrived, and honestly, Simon didn’t feel like checking.

Instead, he looked for his last option and targeted the portal. This one produced a reaction immediately, but an indistinct one. It was here, but something about how he visualized it was making it unclear and hazy.

So, Simon spent the next minute or so playing the hot and cold game with the damn thing, and as he did so, he felt the metal of the pendant he was using start to heat up. He pictured it as a tunnel, then a door, and finally an arch. That was when the pendant really responded and pointed almost straight ahead, toward the lake.

It figures, he thought sullenly. Of course, Helades would want us to go right toward the troll.

That was fine. He had a direction, and he had a good idea of what it looked like. There could only be so many arches down here. He—

As Simon opened his eyes, he moved to grab the pendant, but he pulled his hand away immediately as he made contact with the burning metal, and dropped it with a metallic tinkle as he shoved his scorched finger into his mouth.

“Are you okay?” Millie asked.

“Fine,” Simon lied, unwilling to admit his stupid mistake. “What matters is I found our way out.”

“You did?” This time, there was excitement in her voice. There might have even been hope, too. That was harder to judge.

Simon spent a moment explaining where they would go and what the arch looked like. After that conversation, he tried to hand her back her necklace, but she refused.

“Keep it,” she told him. “You might, ah... Need it again.”

That was a lie, of course, but one he could hardly blame her for. These superstitions ran deep, and if he’d used it for magic, it was probably cursed now. She probably thinks she’s cursed now, too, he realized, but he didn’t say anything. That was a problem for later.

For now, they started to move again. Simon might not be able to see far, but he had a pretty good idea of the cavern’s layout now, so they were able to walk swiftly and with a minimum amount of detours, aside from their efforts to find a way around the lake that didn’t involve getting his boots wet.

At one point, the troll started to move closer to them, but Simon took out his sword and banged the hilt hard against the closest crumbling wall, sending it scurrying away. He’d use magic if he had to, but for as long as it was weak, a bluff would be enough.

Still, that approach gave Millie a heart attack, and he had to pause a moment to soothe her. “I was just scaring it off again,” she explained.

𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

“It got close?” she asked, clinging to him tighter. “The monster was going to attack?”

Simon patted her head, but eventually forced her to start moving again, and the two of them skirted the edge of the lake, approaching the arch that was his goal. When they arrived, the troll was nowhere to be seen. That meant it got to live another day, but Simon didn’t regret that at all. As long as the bastard lived, he could come back to this level in another life and explore it more fully.

Next time I’ll skewer you to the stone and use you to power a set of magical lanterns, Simon thought. It was a random idea, but the idea of troll-powered magic was a good one. Given the way they regenerated, he could probably harvest far more than a single human lifetime from them. He made a mental note to experiment with it sometime.

All thoughts of experimentation vanished from his mind, though, when the portal started to open. Simon watched the edges of the frame ripple with bursts of cyan and white light. Such wonders were invisible to Millie, but to him they were lovely. What was less beautiful was the burst of cold air that accompanied them. The way ahead was nearly as dark as the cavern they were leaving, but it was much colder, and that concerned him.

It’s not like we have any other options, he reminded himself as they moved quickly for the exit. Cold was less dangerous than trolls, and it also meant that wherever they were going, it was close to the surface.

Close to the surface was, in this case, an understatement. As soon as the pair turned the corner, the darkness became gray twilight, and then, a dozen feet later, real light could be seen from the entrance, along with fresh air, cold and crisp.

Simon was blinded by that light momentarily, but still he searched for goblins, or whatever it was they were here to fight. He appreciated the fresh air, though, even if it told him nothing about where they were as he approached the mouth of the cave, and gazing out on the snowstorm sweeping through the unfamiliar valley, he realized he couldn’t just tug Millie along into the next level. There was no way of knowing where they even were at this point.

“Are we safe now?” she asked.

“Safer,” he answered with a nod as he looked around at the near-whiteout conditions. “There won’t be any more trolls, at least.”

She smiled at that, even as the slender woman started to shiver. She’d looked pale before the frigid air, but now she looked like she was about to faint.

“Come on,” Simon said, taking her by the shoulder. “Let’s get you warmed up, and then I’ll find some wood and start us a fire.”