Death After Death-Chapter 217: A Final Secret

Though his chest was still heaving from the run, Simon drew his blade and started chopping through the wall, eager to push through to the next floor. Well, perhaps eager wasn’t the word. He was not eager to run up another flight of steps, but he would do so anyway. He urgently needed to.

He had less than a half hour between now and when the creature he was hunting woke up, and things would get ugly if he didn’t get this resolved. Unfortunately, that didn’t turn out to be as easy as he’d hoped, even with a fancy magic sword that could cut right through stone. On the other side of the brick wall, someone had very creatively placed another brick wall, and he saw it as soon as he cut a hole wide enough to look through.

“Well, would you look at that,” he complained. “Someone thought ahead.” The second brick wall wasn’t the problem, of course. It was the idea that there might be more. Even if it only took a minute or two to get through each one, those minutes started to add up after a while, and after his exhaustive search of the dungeons, he was running out of them.

He was more sure than ever that this was the right way, now, but he was unable to say what other obstacles might exist between here and there. How many more walls would he have to cut through between here and where he was going? How many traps would he have to evade? Would he have enough time for all that?

“Well, what other options do I have? I definitely don’t have time to run away and try again another day,” he asked himself as he raised his sword again. Then he stopped and considered it. “Maybe I could try going in from above. That’s almost certainly how this Dark Mistress lady gets in and out. So, maybe it’s easier to get in from the top.”

It was a precarious plan. Not only would it burn more magic, but he might very well misjudge the target. It had been a long time since he tried to use force magic like this. He considered that, and after he’d decided that it was worth the risk, he ran back down to the floor below and opened the window. Then he looked up to the top of the tower that rose four more stories above him.

It was a simple, tapering structure without any obstacles, but if he was right, the way was probably blocked for the next two floors, which meant that he had to go all the way up to the fifth floor, then go down into the fourth, or maybe even the third. Still, it looked doable. He could probably get up there with two or three words of force, depending on where the window was.

“What if the window is barred too?” he asked himself as he gazed out at the blood-red sunset, trying to weigh all of his options. “Then I’m coming in through the tile roof, and if that doesn’t work… well, then I guess I’m killing myself and trying again next life.”

That was always an option, of course. Simon didn’t like to think about it these days. It went against his worldview, but if he was ever in a situation where he was completely fucked, then he could always just off himself and try again. It would be a shame for the people of this valley, but no one could say he hadn’t done his best.

Focus on the positive, he told himself as he shook his head to clear it of all the spiraling doubts. Believe in success, for now. Worry about failure when I’m falling to my death.

With that settled, he stepped out onto the large stone window sill, lined up his trajectory, and calmed his racing mind. No amount of what-ifs and worries about how low and red the sun was getting in the sky would help him now. Now, he needed to focus.

Just as Simon was about to speak the word of power, the image of the last time he’d used the spell in Ionar so long ago came to his mind unbidden. There he’d been, half on fire and trying desperately to arrest his ever-increasing momentum as he edged toward terminal velocity.

Stop. This is different, he told himself. And even if I fall and die, it’s not like a vampire can reanimate pavement pizza.

With that comforting thought, Simon said the word and soared skyward like he’d leaped off of a springboard. Once he was in the air, it actually reminded him of the time he hopped around Schwarzenbruck more than the volcano. Back then, he’d treated his entire lifetime like a mana bar for a single level of the Pit. These days, he tended to be more careful because he’d long ago discovered that life was for living, not for speed running.

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Simon slowed as he reached the apex of that impossible leap and took in the scene. The castle was still empty save for the bodies that were still scattered in the courtyard far below him for only a moment before he chose his next target and said, “Oonbetit,” to execute a double jump and arc up again, toward the nearest window.

That window, at least, was not barred or bricked up. It was just an open window with panes of bubbly glass in it. So, he put away his sword he’d kept out in case he needed it, and when the arc terminated just under the window, he grabbed the window sill and pulled himself up and over it.

That, as it turned out, was the hardest part of the whole thing, and he grunted and struggled so much that he’d briefly considered using a word of lesser force to put him over the top. Then he lay on the wood floor for half a minute, resting from the exertion, before he forced himself to his feet.

Here, there was a trapdoor, and it was not bricked up. Hell, it wasn’t even closed. It was just lying there, with a steep set of wooden stairs on the other side. Suddenly, just like that, the impossible obstacle he’d faced had been bypassed.

Simon hurried down the steps and was rewarded by the sight of an empty room and a coffin. “Thank god,” Simon sighed as he went down into the small room below and finally saw the coffin he’d been looking everywhere for.

This one was different from the others. They’d been made of plain wood, but this one had been covered over in a layer of hammer brass, which made it look much more intimidating. “Definite Boss-level vibes,” Simon whispered as he moved to open it. “It’s a shame that you went to all this effort to avoid your fate, and it’s still going to happen. Better luck next life.”

Well, at least he tried to. The thing didn’t budge. Simon dropped the clever dialog and grabbed the lid with both hands, pulling with all his might, but it didn’t move.

“Huh, locked from the inside, huh?” he asked. “Good thing I brought a key.”

He shook the handle harder for good measure, just to make sure, but once he was sure that there wasn’t another way to open it, he gave up on trying and pulled out his sword. No matter how it was locked, it wouldn’t stand up any better than the gate had.

Simon thrust the blade through the coffin, just under the lid, and sliced it from one end to the other, taking out locks, hinges, armor, and anything else that might be in his way. He’d been tempted just to cut it in half, but he knew that wouldn’t kill the vampire inside, and he didn’t really want to get splashed with vampire blood if he didn’t have to. He had no idea what the consequences of that would be, but he didn’t exactly want to find out.

Definitely do not want to spend a run as a vampire, he told himself after he’d opened the thing like a soup can. Then he put away his sword, took out a stake, and pushed the lid off onto the floor. “Better you than me, I…” he said as he raised the weapon up. What he saw, though, stopped him cold.

Simon froze. Despite the fact that he only had minutes, or perhaps even less, he couldn’t move. It wasn’t some dread power of the vampire’s hypnotic gaze, either. He was just utterly shocked.

The woman he’d been looking for the last few hours, the Dark Mistress of all the other vampires he’d slain, was someone he recognized. It wasn’t some evil creature for the pits of hell. It was Freya. She looked nearly the same as when he last saw her, except for the deathly pallor that made her already pale skin nearly translucent.

“What the actual fuck,” he gasped. “What? How? This is impossible.”

He knew that this changed nothing and that he should still kill her while he had the time, but knowing and doing were entirely separate things. He couldn’t even begin to conceive of how such a thing might be possible, and the shock that ran through him in that moment was as powerful as any spell he knew.

That shock cost him his moment. In those last few seconds, while he stood there, completely dumbstruck, the last limb of the sun disappeared below the horizon. That was when her eyes flew open then and snapped him out of it.

He drove the stake down with all his might then, using both hands. The vampiress, though, on the other hand, reached up languidly with a single hand and stopped his best efforts cold. It shouldn’t be possible, but there was more strength in her slender fingers than there was in his whole upper body.

She looked at him then, not in anger or hunger, but with a sense of faint recognition. “I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” she asked, almost ignoring the stake hovering only inches above her heart. As calm as she was, he could see that she thought he had no chance to hurt her, but that overconfidence was something he could take advantage of. He just needed to get her out of his head.

This isn’t Freya! He screamed at himself. Even if it was once, she’s dead now!

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Finally, after several seconds, her eyebrows knitted in irritation as she sucked in her breath and said, “It’s you!”

Simon opened his mouth. He didn’t do it to respond, though. Instead, he growled, “Gervuul Oonbetit!” and directed all the force he could into staking this bitch’s heart to the bottom of her coffin like he had her minions.