Death After Death

Chapter 28: The Bridge

Simon lashed out with the pike twice as he slowly backed up. The weapon wasn’t just a big spear, though. It was a giant spear. It was heavy enough that the only way he could wield it effectively was to leave the butt of it on the ground behind him.

Both strikes missed the Owlbear as it danced back away from him. It was a bloodthirsty monster, for sure, but it was also more than a little skittish, and didn’t seem nearly as interested in him out and in the open as it had been in the underbrush.

The result of all that, was as Simon backed away to the far side of the road it backed away into the shadows beneath the trees. Simon didn’t feel any safer once the thing had vanished, though. That just made him jumpy.

Now that it vanished, it could be anywhere, and it could spring out at him at any time. Simon stooped to retrieve and sheath his sword, while he still held onto the pike with his other hand. The last thing he wanted to do was walk very far holding this heavy ass piece of junk, but it was better that than getting his throat torn out by that thing’s razor beak, he decided as he lifted the thick shaft of his giant spear and started to walk slowly down the path.

He’d thought about looking through the remains of the wagons. There was probably something he could use in there, but it was dark and rainy, and the last thing he needed to do was dig through the remains of people and animals for a few coins or a new sword.

Especially not with that thing still out there.

As Simon walked, he heard it screech occasionally, and he kept thinking that he was in one of those dinosaur movies where it's not the raptor you were looking at that gets you, but the one that sneaks up on you from behind that rips you to pieces.

There was no evidence of a second monster of that size out here, though, and Simon was pretty sure that it was a solo predator. As long as he kept a hold of his pike and left the road between the two of them, the thing left him alone. Simon would be happy to stab it if it came back out, but there was no way he was going into the woods after it. He had no idea what effect a lone owlbear was going to have on history, but he didn’t really care. His mission wasn’t to fix this alleged hero’s fuck-ups. It was just to get to the end.

Once he did that, he would get his dream incarnation and leave Helades to clean up her own mess.

As the woods tapered off, Simon saw a windmill on a bluff overlooking a river off to his right. He thought about going for it, but the place looked creepy as hell in the storm, and after a particularly theatrical bolt of lightning silhouetted the place, he took it as a sign not to go check it out. He had no doubt that the headless horseman, or something equally awful, was over there waiting for him.

Instead, he kept on the road and walked to the covered bridge. It was almost as creepy, honestly, but it was basically just a hallway, so there was less searching involved.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Simon said as he stepped inside.

He heard the haft of the weapon break before he’d even reached the end of the bridge. The wood had been almost as thick as his wrist, and Simon had thought that the thing would slow down the brute a little longer than it did. When it was free of the bridge, he spared a glance over his shoulder, but wished that he hadn’t.

Simon’s second plan had been to turn around when he reached the end of the bridge and burn the whole thing down with the troll still inside. There was no way that was happening now, though, because the creature was practically right behind him. His head would be ripped off before he had the chance to say the two words that might save his life.

So he did what he did best: he ran. Simon sprinted in a zigzag path across the town square, screaming for help.

“There’s a troll!” he yelled. “Someone! Anyone!”

No one stirred, and no help made itself known. To all appearances, the town had been entirely deserted. He was all on his own, just like always. Which was fine with him. Help would have been better, but a quick mind like his was probably the best help he was going to get. Simon quickly realized that this thing was fast as hell, but only in straight lines. It had trouble turning, and even more trouble stopping, so he led it on a random path through the area. His winding path at least was a little more effective than running in a straight line had been. The troll was simply too big, but it would never be as smart as him. With each turn its bellows of frustration came from slightly further behind him.

In their wake, the troll left a trail of ruined awnings, overturned carts, and even a knocked over anvil as Simon darted through the blacksmith shop. It was only then that he saw that the small, whitewashed church had a little light coming from the windows. Was that a sign, he wondered? Was there some kind of sanctuary effect he could get there that would keep evil monsters like this at bay?

Simon wasn’t sure, but he didn’t have any better ideas, and with his legs starting to give out, he couldn’t stay in front of this lumbering behemoth much longer. So, with a final burst of speed, Simon crossed a dangerously open street and tried the door. He realized that if it didn’t open, he would be a dead man, but at the same time, he couldn't bring himself to care too much. He was on level 11 or 12 now and had collected more than enough information to justify another death or two, as long as they weren’t too painful.

The door was unlocked though, and as he dove inside, he slammed the door behind him. It was only when he got up, he realized that he definitely wasn’t where he had been a moment ago. The church he’d entered had been a collection of whitewashed timber and clapboard, with a few high windows and a tiny little bell at the top of the steeple. Where he was standing now wasn’t a church... it was a temple or a cathedral or something.

None of that was the strange part, though. Simon had long since accepted that the crazy goddess in charge had the power to reconnect the world however, she wanted, but he’d never been on a level that was defying the laws of physics until now.

At the front of the pews, where the altar usually would be in a place like this, there was a gaping fiery hole in the ground, and the sheets of fire that erupted from it seemed to stop at very well-defined lines, like some kind of graphical glitch. The more he studied it, though, the more wrong it all became. The stained-glass windows near the front of the chapel had broken and were in the process of shattering, but hung together in mid shockwave. This level had glitched out and frozen completely somehow.

At least that’s what he thought until someone walked out of one of the sheets of fire and said, “Oh, look - a new player in our little game.”