The rats attacked him seds after his feet found the dirt floor of the basement. The heavy smoke in the air and the ck of preparation took their toll on him. Even though he stomped the beasts into a bloody ruin as always, they bit him several times before he mao pletely sughter them. Ohat was over he put on his boots and the armor in the dark, using his socks as makeshift bao deal with the bleeding as best he could.

  “God damn, that hurts,” he swore, kig a rat after he’d finished belting everything else on. This run obviously wasn’t starting ht, but at least he didn’t have to worry about iion, because the way things had been going he wasn’t likely to survive another hour.

  The sed floor was better. By now he was so used to the traps and the minor variations that he could probably walk through this floor in the dark if it weren’t for the bats. Not that he was willing to try of course. That would be almost as frightening as the skeletons. The goblin cave oher hand, was something he should holy be trying to walk through in the dark, but the idea terrified him. Simon knew where to go now, but just thinking about that lorol and those awful teeth made him shiver. He’d never feel fortable ohird floor of this madhouse without a mae gun or a few spells up his sleeves. As he crept down the dark passage, trying to remember where he saw the lone goblin st time, his miurned again and again to magic. He’d seen it twiow i. The first time was in the eyes of the skeleton king or whatever that thing was, and the sed was the goblin caster that had been outside his .

  It was definitely a real force - something that he should be able to use to beat this game eventually, but he didn’t have the slightest idea how he was supposed to learn it. Hesitantly Simon tried to repeat the word he’d heard the goblin utter when the fireworks started a few times, “Ger-vulmenen. Gerulever-min. Garvul-manin.” There was no storm of sparks or sudden fires as he tried to nail down the pronunciation of the unfamiliar word. Ihe only evidehat anything had happe all was a bad taste in his mouth. His brow furrowed at that. Why should saying a word make his mouth taste like sulfur? That train of thought was quickly derailed as - he heard a sudden scream of arm. That damned goblin had found him again while he was distracted.

  Simon made quick work of the little ball e when it charged him, along with the first ohat came after him. Fighting goblins wasn’t the hard part. They were vicious, but not very strong. It was seeing the little bastards before they snuck up on him that was the hard part. Whehird one mao stab him in the back of his thigh, he cursed, and crushed its head to paste against the wall. Then he charged forward, swinging his sword in one hand and his tor the other. He wasn’t going to fight these things in the dark. He was going to do it in the light of their bonfire where he could at least see them ing.

  As a strategy, it was ugly as hell, but it was effective. The goblins scattered before him as he charged forward, and he mowed them down without issue. It was a glorious feeling to see them fall before him, but when he was finally done and their small corpses y strewn around him, he sat gasping at the mouth of the cave. Even in as good a shape he was in, he was certain that if there had been more than five, he would have run out of gas before he’d cleared them all out.

  Once he caught his breath, Simon appreciated the view. The cave was fairly high up on the side of a mountain, overlooking a subalpine forest. It was a view that would have been on a postcard anywhere oh. “e visit Goblinndia,” he joked to himself while he appreciated it. If there was any sign of a city he’d probably just abandon this stupid trip down into the pit and explore that instead, but there were only trees and rocks as far as the eye could see.

  Relutly he got up aered the skeleton cave with a little less effort than it had taken st time. The stairs were just as cold, but as he stood there ihreshold he suddenly lost all appetite for a fight. He tried to tell himself it was because the bination of bite wounds on his feet and the stab wound on his thigh were making it hard to move, and that if his footwork was promised he didn’t stand a ce against that terrifying knight, but even he khat wasn’t the whole story. Simon was afraid. He was so afraid he worried he might piss himself if he had to face that thing again, and he was looking for any excuse not to.

  In the eried a promise position. He hobbled through the crypt for the gate. It took these things a little bit of time to get up, aggro on him, and bee a real threat. So, even though it robably hopeless, he through the room as fast as he could to the gate on the far side. It was only whe close that he realized that this might not be the exit, but with skeletourning to life all around him it was too te to ge his mind. “It’s fine,” he told himself. “Worst es to worst I’ll just take a quick trip home for lunch. Skeleton swords aren’t nearly as painful as traps oblih.”

  The fort from that reassuranly sted as long as it took him to reach the gate and find it locked. “Oh e on!” Simon yelled as he rattled the bars. The etal might be half made of rust by this point, but there was no way he was breaking through this without a cutting torch or a truck with a big bumper. That was when he felt someone walk over his grave, and he knew for certaihat the horrid knight was staring at him. Maybe it was even advang on him. Even turning around to face it was a test of his will though.

  He wondered if this was what it felt like when you failed a saving throw before he chastised himself. He couldn’t afford to be defeatist like that. He o turn around and face his fear or he’d never get past this floor! Simon turned around and raised his sword just in time to receive three feet id steel i. He gasped, in both shod pain. This was so much worse tha time. It was indescribably bad, and the pain wasn’t even the worst part. He looked down and saw iing on his armor, spreading out slowly from there.

  “What the fuck?” he asked in disbelief, surprised to see the breath fog as it came out of his mouth. He wasn’t dying… this thing wasn’t trying to kill him. It was trying to steal his soul, or something worse. With the rest of the crowd of skeletons bearing down on their intimate embrace, Simht his sword down against the unarmored neck of this thing with almost hysterical strength. The first blow did nothing, and the sed shattered the bde against the spaulders like the sword was suddenly frigid and brittle leaving Simon with nothing but a few inches above the hilt. For a momeared at it in disbelief. Then he plu into his own ned pulled the frigid piece of steel sideways, severing both of his carotid arteries in a single painful motion.

  For Simon it was the hardest thing he’d ever dohe st thing he wao do was kill himself again, but it felt like his soul was leaking out through that terrible bde, and he didn’t like the idea of spending the rest of his life imprisoned in ice, or whatever this thing po do to him. In that strange peaceful momeween life ah he noticed that the skeleton had a key that looked to be about the right size for the gate on a neckce around its neck. As he felt his life spsh out in hot gushes across the face of the frigid knight he mao smile in defiance as everything faded to bbsp;

  Moments ter he woke up in his bed, but somehow the darkness between his st life and this one seemed longer and more frightening than normal, like his trip through the afterlife to get back to his starting point had been a longer, harder climb than usual. His teeth chattered for a few seds while he regained his posure before he felt the strength to finally sit up and look around the room that was fast being a sort of prison cell.

  “What the hell was that thing going to do to me?” he asked himself. The mirror started to answer his question, but when Simon saw it was just asking him to rephrase his question for the tenth time he ig. That gag was definitely getting old. Even if the mirror wasn’t any help, he wasn’t sure that he would have woken up again if he had died to that skeleton’s evil chill.

  “Mirror - I die i?” Simon asked finally. He had to know.

  ‘Of course you die i,’ it answered. ‘You have now died seven times.’

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” Simon crified, ahat this thing was so dumb he had to spoo everything. “I mean I die in such a way that makes me stay dead.”

  ‘That is not possible,’ the mirror typed out in its blue cursive script. ‘All deaths will result in a reset to starting ditions.’ Simon was surprised to get such a definitive answer from the hunk of junk, holy. It might have been a first, but even if what it said was true, the st thing Simon ever wanted was to die at the hands of that thing. It was a terrifying experience. Last time he had seen it as he bled out on the skeleton’s bdes it had been bad enough, but its frigid embrace had been a huimes worse.

  At this moment Simon was sure of only ohing, and that it was that he couldn’t go back down into the pit. He had to find another way out. He didn’t know where he would find one. He didn’t know if oed, but he had to find one, because the only thing worse than staying here and waiting for the goblins to burn him alive in a night or two was going back down there and trying to get past that nightmare. He got up and started getting ready. The first thing he o do was to cook all his food, because he knew more than ahat there was no guarantee he’d be able to make fire. After that he was going to fold up his bedding and use it as a crude sack so he could… Simon’s head began to spin with possibilities. If he could just get out of this hell hole then he’d have it all - a fantasy world to explore and a strange sort of immortality.

  The life of his dreams was still within his grasp he decided, and he didn’t even have to fight that damon!