Death After Death

Simon sat there on someone’s table for several minutes before he noticed the screams. They were faint, from somewhere outside, but as soon as he caught his breath, they were unmistakable.

He walked to the nearest window and opened the shutters to reveal a village on fire. He had no idea if this was the same village that the evil warlock he’d just killed had been referring to, or if he was already on a new floor, but it didn’t matter, because from here he could see the next gateway. That meant that none of this was his problem.

This house had a commanding view of the village from the hill it was on, and from the window Simon could see a particularly strange doorway in one of his neighbor's houses. Many of the buildings were on fire, but only one of them had snow blowing out its front door. It was close enough that Simon wouldn’t even have to join the fighting against whatever was attacking the town.

If it was the Warlock’s doing, Simon would have said demons, but if this was the next level, his money was on orcs. It didn’t matter either way, because there was little point in him sticking his neck out when the thing he was looking for was right here.

“I can’t save everyone,” he reminded himself in attempt to overshadow the twinge of guilt he felt as he investigated the chilly doorway. “And even if I did, they’d just die again next time.”

With that thought in mind, Simon walked through the door. He started shivering on the other side almost immediately, as he wondered what terrible monster he’d have to fight here. An elemental? A yeti? It didn’t matter much. If he didn’t get through this place pretty quick, the cold would kill him just as easily.

That looked to be what had happened to everyone else. Tucked amidst the snow drifts were a few bodies that had frozen solid without a mark on them. The buildings were in no better shape, and were thickly crusted in ice, even if nothing about them seemed to indicate they’d been built for harsh winters. It seemed to be a quaint European village that had just frozen over one day, which was obviously ridiculous.

After a few minutes of looking, though, his target became fairly obvious. In a sea of white, there was only one spot of color, in the temple at the end of the street. At first Simon thought that the baleful red color was a painting, but as he walked towards it, he watched it shift slowly from the orange red it started at to a slightly dimmer purple red.

It was definitely a sunset, and it was almost certainly somewhere warmer, which meant that it was the place to be, whether it was the next floor or not. Simon continued to trudge down the street, and by the time he got to the temple the light was coming from it had practically faded to the dark indigo gray of twilight. Simon didn’t think he was going that slow, but in the begining, the drifts had only been as high as his shins. By the time he reached the temple steps, they were all the way to his thighs, which made even a few steps fairly exhausting.