Walking upstairs was a little more challenging than he’d expected, so instead of immediately heading out, he ged his mind and decided to take a quiap in the innkeeper’s bedroom sihat was the safest part of the whole inn. He slept fitfully as he struggled with his regret at how he’d hahe situation, his anger about Freya’s fate, and the vague ay about the hazard he’d introduced into the world.

  By the time he’d finally sobered up and gone downstairs, the slime had reduced Breena’s body to bones and was w on another corpse. Simon leased to see that it hadn’t turned into some pile of ic sludge, and instead, it was its translut, gooey self, and as soon as he got close enough to reach up from its partially digested meal with a pseudopod to try snag on him as well.

  “I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” he chided, pulling out his freezing sword. “Not unless you want aime out.”

  The creature stopped as soon as it felt the chill of the bde aracted its pseudopod. It wasn’t particurly smart, but it knew what it didn’t like. Besides, it hardly needed him. There were literally dozens of corpses waiting to be devoured just outside the windows. Ideally, Simon wondered how big the thing would get when it had eaten them all, but he didn’t stress it too much. That was a ter problem.

  “Well, you just keep doing what you’re doing,” Simon said, bag away slowly, “and I’ll che you… well, I’m sure we’ll see each other around.”

  With that, he was off. From the sed story, he climbed out onto the peak of the tiled roof and carefully started walking down it, mindful of the way it creaked under him. Weight was a factor, but even more than that, he cursed the body he was trapped in right now for its ck of agility. He just couldn’t move like he knew he was capable of, and that irked him.

  “Is a there?” he called, certain that there was. “I’m looking to help the survivet out before the umm… the itsy bitsy spider gets out and makes everyone else’s life hard!”

  There was no immediate response, but that didn’t surprise Simon. He wasn’t sure he’d respoher if a crazy person started to yell in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. When he reached the edge of the building, he stood there for a couple minutes, just watg the milling mob of undead beh him in a way that was almost bse.

  It should have been terrifying, but he just couldn’t make himself care too muymore. Instead, he just had to resist the urge to burn them down because, ultimately, that would undermine his current pn. There was no way he could kill them all like that. He was sure of it. Even if he burhe whole city down, someone ied would escape and start it all ain, just like in the movies.

  It was only when he didn’t see anyone cautiously peer out of the windows that he decided he o get across the street to where he’d seen those lovers fall so long ago. “Oo,” he whispered, using magic to give him enough strength to force leap across the six-foot gap to the building.

  The building had been a bakery, and it arent that there had been survivors here at one point, but sometime after that, the front door had been broken down, and it was nothing but a sughterhouse now.

  The building had fared er. He could see that from the windows without even going inside. He would have just skipped it and gone across the street as he’d pnned, but the way the zombies groped for him out of the windows made the sloping roof too dangerous to ce, and he wasn’t about to throw this run away because he slipped off ao the street to be devoured. So, he forced his way in and bludgeohe six zombies that were milling about the sed floor and then climbed out the window on the far side before more from outside could e up and join their little party.

  As he did so, he pointedly ignored what was obviously the room of a little girl and the dollies sitting on the bed that had been bathed in blood. Something terrible had happened here, but he was too te to do anything about it.

  “Why is that?” he asked himself as he walked to the edge to gauge the distance. “Why do you keep sendio the event after something terrible has already happened? Couldn’t I have gotten here - like… the night the adventurers showed up - or maybe beeo the neancer’s ir to deal with them directly?”

  There was no answer, but Simon had never really expected one. Now, he kind of wao see where all this started once he finished purging the zombies, though he had no idea where he would go about looking for that.

  “Oo!” he said louder this time as some of the anger about how stupid this was entered his voibsp;

  This time, he didn’t make another one of the little jumps he’d been making over the four and six-foot wide alleys. This time, he lept across the cobblestoreet, which was wide enough that a carriage could navigate it without difficulty. He was fairly sure he’d be able to navigate it, and almost fiftee, but even so, it was a scary moment. He wasirely sure.

  When he did, though, something he hadn’t expected happened: he fell right through the roof. The buildings here weren’t as strong as he would like, aween his weight and momentum, he punched right through the tile, nding on his ass in a cloud of debris.

  “Spider-Man, I am not,” he said, coughing as he pulled his mace free and readied himself to strike any mohat might be about to sna him.

  There weren’t any, though. Instead, he caught the briefest glimpse of movement running away from him as he staggered to his feet. “Helva, hurry - they’re ing!” someone yelled down the hallway even as Simon staggered after them.

  “Wait,” he yelled. “Slow down. I’m on your side!”

  They didn’t listen, though, and he didn’t bme them. If he’d been cooped up in this city for days or weeks, he’d be pretty jumpy, too. By the time he reached the hall, they were scrambling out a window, and by the time he got to the window, they were already on the roof. That was when he saw them fall.

  The st time he’d seen this se py out, he retty sure it had been the man who had fallen oher side of the jump. This time, it was the woman that was fallen before they’d ever even made the leap, and Simon was certain that was all his fault. He’d tried to stop something bad he thought was about to happen, and somehow, he made it worse.

  Even as he watched, though, the woman’s partried to save her, aarted to fall, tht after her. They were about to be ripped to pieces, hand in hand, and that was too much for Simon. He couldn’t bear to be the oo crush the only fragile flower that had bloomed in this whole rotten city.

  “Gervuul Oo!” he yelled out as they fell, and he focused.

  This visualization was a plex one, but all the stupid indie games he’d pyed once upon a time had to e in handy for something, right? As they fell, they stretched taunt a shimmering, imaginary wall of force that came ience for a moment before snapping taunt and sending them back up into the air.

  It wasn’t high enough to send them to the roof on the far side of the street - he cked the math to tie things up quite so ly. No - this was just to get them clear of what happened . As they sprang several feet further up into the air, that shockwave of their impact solidified and sprayed out in all dires, severing the heads of every zombie in the viity at head level and causing all the corpses to drop to the ground.

  The exertion winded him, and he felt his throat starting to get sore from the repeated use of magic, but that wasn’t enough to stop him as he yelled out, “Get in that building and bar the door. I’ll be right there!”

  The couple got to their feet, terrified at everything that had just happened, and they looked on dumbly, even as the zombies started to pay attention to the otion and lurch toward the helpless couple. Simon was fairly sure they were still going to die if he didn’t do anything to stop it. So, this time, he used minor force to absorb the impact as he jumped down to the street level and ran to them. For a sed, he thought they were about to bolt away again, but instead, they just stood there frozen as he barged past them and used his bulk to sm open the door across the way, which was the same Dress shop he’d already mostly cleared earlier.

  Then, even as the zombies surged forward, he pulled them both inside and smmed the door shut behind them. “Grab those and put them here,” Simon said, gesturing to some nearby crates and corpses. He didn’t do anything, though. Instead, he stared at his partner in horror. It was only after looking for a few seds as the door he was holding shut started to rattle that he realized why. She’d been bitten on the leg already.

  “It’s fine,” Simon yelled. “I save her, but not until we stop these monsters!” He wasn’t a hundred pert sure he could, of course, but he retty sure he could, even though he really should probably take a break from casting any more spells. He’d already burned almost a year and a half, and he’d only been on this level for a few hours.

  That was enough to get them into motion. W together, they grabbed everything they could that wasn’t nailed down and started stag it in front of the door. It was only several mier that Simo safe enough to release his grip ao the bleeding woman.

  “What’s your name?” Simon asked, examining the wound. It was deep. A whole mouthful of flesh had been removed at the bottom of her left calf, and given how slow Brenna had ged, the way she was bleeding was holy the bigger short-term problem.

  “H-helva,” she whimpered. Simon could have kicked himself as he realized he already khat.

  “Okay, Helva,” he said, trying to figure out the best way to hahis so no one wanted him dead. “Well - I’ve got… holy powers from the gods, and I’m trying to save everyone I , so if you could—”

  “Just please save her!” her partner demanded as he clutched the woman’s hand. “I couldn’t keep living without my Helva!”

  That much Simon uood, so when he whispered “Aufvarum Hyakk,” it was with a heart full of uanding and a solid visualization of the muscle tissue knitting back together and the blood vessels reeg. He did what he could for the nerves, but he wasn’t optimistic there. He had trouble imagining them. So, in the best case, she’d have a dead spot, and in the worst, she’d have a little trouble walking, but either of those was better than dying.

  Within seds, the skin began to cover the area, and the flesh began to fill in. In the end, there was only the fai scar around the new, pink tissue to show that there had ever been a wound. That wasn’t the end of this, though. Simon knew from bitter experiehat just healing a zombie bit wasn’t enough to stop it from taking effect. Holy, he wasn’t even sure that his cure word would be enough for this, but he retty sure it would work.

  “Delzam,” he whispered, willing the toxins or bacteria that caused the people to go mad to vanish.

  In the end, they both looked on in shock as he leaned back, exhausted. Simon had pnned to go out and save more people, but just this much had left him gasping.

  “Alright, do you think you two keep them out for a couple hours while I grab a nap?” he asked, not b to expin anything as he walked upstairs.