Death After Death

Chapter 11: Another Way Out

When he left the cabin that day he planned on never coming back. If that path looped around then he would just take a different route that got him out of this crazy hall of mirrors. He checked the satchel on the end of his spear to make sure he wouldn’t lose anything, and then he started walking.

“There has to be a way out somewhere,” he mumbled to himself as he walked to the ruins of the temple. It was as good a place as any to get started. As he headed for the stream that would lead him there he decided that there had to be more to the ruins. Maybe a tunnel underneath, or a city further back amongst the trees. He couldn’t say precisely what he hoped to find, but he was sure he’d find something. Games like this always had shortcuts and secret paths, and so far the only thing he’d found that remotely qualified was a watery grave on the third floor. There was no way that was a secret passage, it was just a dick move.

He got to the ruins quickly enough, and spent an hour searching, but found nothing new. There were some inscriptions that were still legible, but it was in a language that he was pretty sure had never been written on earth, so whatever it was trying to tell him was lost to time. There was one spot next to the temple that was caved in that might have once led to a basement or a lower story of some kind - but he’d need a crane to find out. Reluctantly he abandoned the place and started heading further south along the river.

Simon wasn’t really sure that the river was south of course, but that fit the map he’d laid out in his mind. The river went north and south, and the path went east and west, so if this really was as small a world as he thought, he should be able to get back to the path in a few hours if he just stayed in the same direction.

A few hours came and went though, and he found nothing familiar. There was no path, no ruins, and no other signs of civilization. Just a few small animals, some song birds, and endless trees. The only consolation was that this deep into the forest, the canopy was high and thick so there was very little in the way of underbrush. He tried to keep an eye out for goblin tracks, but that was difficult since he wasn’t too sure what they were supposed to look like. Around the middle of the day he reached a point of no return and spent a few minutes trying to decide if he wanted to turn around and sleep in a warm bed tonight, or if he wanted to keep going and sleep in the woods where anything might get him.

In the end he decided that it had to be the woods. He’d never find a way out if he could only ever walk half a day out from his cabin. So towards nightfall he walked away from the river to an ancient live oak. It looked very climbable, and he thought it might be a good place to spend the night. He was half right. After eating about half his remaining food, he tried to sleep. The lower branches were indeed wide enough for him to sleep on without serious fear of falling off, but it was incredibly uncomfortable. He tried to do it several different ways, but no matter how he maneuvered, he definitely wasn’t getting any sleep. In the end he climbed down in the dark and slept at the base of the tree. Whatever happened, happened he supposed.

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At first he thought it was the armor that was tiring him out, but even after he took it off and continued without it, he was still sucking wind before he’d walked another half mile. At first he figured that this was some sort of debuff he was getting as punishment for not doing what he was supposed to, but after admiring the snow capped mountains on his third break he came up with a second more likely theory. He was somewhere way above sea level, like Denver or the Himalayas, and the air was just really thin. That made him feel a little better. At least it was this screwed up game’s fault and not his.

He made good progress throughout the day, and even found a pond to refill his water from after he broke the thin sheet of ice that covered it. Things were looking good. That was until it was time to try to find somewhere to sleep. As the sun started to set it got cold. It quickly got so cold that before he lost the light Simon could see his own breath fogging up. The last two hikes seemed like summer camping trips in comparison to this. Simon used his blanket and a bed of pine needles as best he could to stay warm, but he was soon shivering. He slept fitfully, but he managed to survive the night.

Simon started walking at sunrise, and had to warm his water skin under his shirt to melt it before he could drink. When he finished all his food he actually managed to shoot a rabbit with his crossbow when he was stopped for a break, but the triumph from the momentous success was short lived when he realized he had no way to cook it. He carried it with him anyway, in case he found a fire along the way. He watched the sky with some trepidation as it slowly turned to lead, and the temperature never really rose enough for him to feel halfway warm. He regretted tossing the armor now to save weight, because that would have kept him a little warmer. Sometime in the midafternoon, it started to snow lightly. It was impossible to know when because the sun was hidden behind the clouds all day.

“Come the fuck on!” Simon yelled. “Can’t I catch a break even one damn day!”

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, Simon realized, but somehow it still did. That bitch Helades had obviously designed every last aspect of this game to make him miserable, and it was working. He walked on, desperate to find any sort of shelter, because he definitely wasn’t dressed for a blizzard. Over the next few hours it started snowing harder and harder until he had trouble continuing. Simon huddled for warmth under the oldest, largest tree he could find, and after a couple hours of misery he finally fell asleep. Sometime during the night he froze to death and he found himself once again in the cabin.

“Well,” he sighed, “So much for a way out.”