Death After Death

The screams didn’t last long. At least, the ones begging to be let in didn’t. Their silence spoke volumes about the state of things happening outside the mine they’d sealed themselves up into, Simon. His heart went out to them, and in those dark moments, part of him wished he’d used that horrible life-draining magic to end them. Only the knowledge that it hadn’t solved the level and that he’d just have to keep doing that over and over again strengthened his resolve. He’d saved as many people as he could, and he had to try other things if he wanted to resolve this.

After that, there were other screams from time to time as different homes were finally breached by bugs. Soon enough, though, there was nothing but the buzzing. It came and went, but it was so strong near the entrance sometimes that he was certain the things were about to break through, but that never happened.

Though he’d never heard of these insects outside this level, they didn’t seem to be a new hazard for the region. “They rarely come this far from Mount Hizarth,” Millen said softly, filling Simon in on the particulars of the hazard they faced. “My dad said there was a swarm like this when he was young, but—”

“We couldn’t have known!” the headman growled, interrupting their conversation with preemptive words of self-defense. “I couldn’t have known that he wasn’t just a crackpot.”

That was growing to be a habit for the man, who was certainly feeling the guilt keenly as each new group succumbed to the tiny monsters in a dull chorus of screams. He had to know that if he’d only given the word, everyone would have joined them down here. Now, he was going to live while so many had died. Simon could tell from the sharp looks the old man got that everyone else had those thoughts, too, and for once, he didn’t do anything to try to soften the group up.

Instead, he talked to them about their stories and learned what he could about the dark swarm. There were many stories to tell, apparently. In some versions of the myth, they were the children of a demon bound beneath a large boulder that reached out into the world for some way to free their sire, and in others, they were the curse of a farmer who had died of starvation amidst his locust ravaged fields cursing the gods.

The topics were interesting, and placed the monsters outside somewhat closer to the boogieman than a hurricane. Everyone knew about the vicious little bugs, but no one expected them to actually have to deal with them; they existed mostly to scare disobedient children. After he learned all he could about the dark swarm outside, though, and no signs that goblins or giant spiders were about to crawl up out of the underworld and attack them, Simon’s thoughts slowly became fixated on the evil version of himself and everything that had happened after that.

With so many people and animals crowded around him, most of the time, he couldn’t produce a mirror and ask it any questions, but that didn’t stop his thoughts from churning. For the next day or so, whether he was trying to reassure frightened villagers or chat with the young boy, Aaric, his mind was a million miles away as he tried to untangle that lifetime and figure out what he should do about any of it.

The obvious thing would be to go to the barrow mounds before him and steal the crown. That would cause some kind of time travel paradox by keeping him from existing, though, wouldn’t it? He thought.