Death After Death

This time his first order of business, even before he built a place to stay was to establish an alias. Though the Oracle had mentioned it casually, there were indeed a lot of Simons in the world lately, and all of them were him, at some point in time. Right now, there was an herbalist in Ionar named Simon, and the last thing he wanted someone to do was make that association.

So, he went around the village, introducing himself as Ennis instead. It was only once that was done that he started the hard work of getting a roof over his head and a bed underneath him. That took a few days and started out as a lean-too. Once he’d made it clear he was setting up shop, he went into the city to the lower market, which the past version of himself used, and he bought the mule he’d been craving, along with a few tools he was missing and a stout axe.

The axe was for timbers, which he would need if he wanted to build something that resembled an actual shop again instead of just a forge. He made two trips into the mountains for two-inch thick pines that were the right size. Simon chose the straightest ones he could find. Then, he delimbed and debarked them before he brought them back to continue his progress.

After that, his trips into the mountains were for something entirely different: coal. He’d discovered several small seams of the stuff on his previous explorations in the area, and it wasn’t hard to find one of them again.

The people of Ionia largely seemed to frown on the stuff for reasons that were as much related to the smell and to superstitions about how rocks shouldn’t burn, but Simon didn’t care about that. He just knew that hauling a ton of coal would get him a lot more bang for his buck than a ton of waterlogged driftwood, and he was all in favor of that.

It took months to set things up to a level where he was happy with them. Even then, it still wasn't as nice as his long-lost cabin, but that was fine. He was in no hurry, and the customers in this out-of-the-way place were few and far between. Sometimes, he might mend a chain or shoe a horse, but mostly, his days were his own to do whatever he wanted with, and he spent much of that time sketching, though occasionally, after everyone went to bed, he would do some magical experimentation.

Most of his art projects involved charcoal and a whitewashed wall that he would scrub after each attempt as he erased the face he had worked so hard to create. Paper was expensive, after all. The experience was ephemeral, but then, that was the point. He wasn’t trying to paint something that would hang in a gallery. He was trying to replicate the tiny features and imperfections that made someone seem like a real person rather than a plastic surgery victim or a cartoon character.

That was the only way he’d ever be able to use magic to disguise himself, and that was an ability he badly wanted. As much as part of him liked the idea of every city he saved having a different statue of him, he was fairly sure that people like the Unspoken would put that together eventually, complicating future levels.

“I’ll also need it if I want to go for a seamless transition between old me and new me,” he said aloud as he sketched. “Though, I’m not sure that’s the best approach.”