The first time he’d been in this cave, he’d stumbled through the darkness toward the same sounds of chanting as he was now, but he’d been cocky. He hadn’t thought the mage, warlock, or whatever the old man was hadn’t looked like much, and that had almost cost him a death with the giant stone golem rumbling out of the darkness.
This time, he was more circumspect, and no matter how much his anger made him want to go deeper into the pit and skip over this petty bullshit, he forced himself to wait in the darkness and let his eyes adjust as he tried to understand what was happening. Nothing was different from last time. The Black-robed man still had a scraggly beard and was still gesticulating to the roof of the cavern while he offered the gods whatever it was they wanted if only they would grant him his wish.
“You have but to grant me my boon, and I will not stop with the village. I will burn the whole kingdom to the ground in your name…” the man begged, sounding like he was ready to grovel as his tone went from haughty to pleading instantly, like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Simon shook his head. This dude did not look like an all-powerful wizard. He would have likely just shot him in the back again had it not been for his knowledge that the strange-looking rock formation across the room from him was capable of murdering him in a heartbeat.
There were many things Simon would eventually have to kill that he didn’t completely understand, like the Wyvern. He was sure he’d figure out a way eventually as he continued to learn new tricks, though. The troll was a good example of that. Simon was sure he’d never be able to beat anything so big, but burning it alive in a barn had worked just fine.
This, though, he wasn’t sure about. How in the hell was he supposed to kill five tons of limestone in the shape of a man? It didn’t exactly have any weak points he could take advantage of. He’d have to trick it off the edge of a cliff or something and see if the fall shattered it.
Or he could just skip it, he thought, hopefully. The stairs were right over there, and if he was quick and quiet, he was sure he could get past them without too much trouble. But if he took the easy way out, then he wouldn’t get a chance to steal that book, and that could be a gold mine of information if this creepy old guy really knew how to do more than just rant to the gods and beg them for eternal life or whatever he was doing.
Simon thought about it for a minute and then drew his dagger, advancing on the wizard from behind. When he reached him, he covered the old man’s mouth with his left hand while he held the knife very pointedly against his back with the right.
The golem rumbled to life as soon as the old man was threatened, but it stopped moving closer the second Simon had his hostage. It was a sensible precaution. There was no way the stone giant could crush him without smashing both of them.
“You try to utter a single word of power, and I’ll slice right through your heart before you can think to say the healing words. Do you understand?” Simon growled.
The old man struggled briefly before he nodded emphatically.
“Remember,” Simon reminded him as he let go of his mouth. “If you try to kill me, I’ll come right back, but you’ll stay dead forever.”
“Y-you know the words too?” the wizard asked. “And the secret of eternal life? How did you come by such knowledge?! My master said—”
“Before we start playing twenty questions, why don’t you tell that thing to back off.” Simon interrupted.
The mage was silent for a moment, then uttered the phrase, “Be still until you have been given further orders.” The thing froze into a literal statue immediately, but the man who gave the order might have been reciting a dead language. He was like a student struggling with a bit of Latin, and it was clear he had no idea what he was saying. This only deepened the mystery to Simon. Why would a crackpot that presumably created a golem barely be able to control it?
“The guardian will not interfere now,” the man said, with a voice full of fear. “Now, can you tell me—”
“I’m the one with the knife, so I’m the one that will be asking the questions,” Simon talked over him. “Now tell me. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
“My name is Andronican,” he answered, shifting uncomfortably from the way Simon held him. "I was the student of the great Festauvian until his untimely death, and I seek the mysteries of the…”
The man continued to go on and on about irrelevant details, but Simon let him babble while he tried to work things out. Was it possible that his master had done all the magic to create the golem and everything else, or was something else going on here? Each level was supposed to be some terrible event, but this guy had gone down pretty easy last time, so he hardly seemed to be capable of controlling his golem, let alone starting a zombie apocalypse.
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“How were you going to slaughter the village you mentioned earlier,” Simon asked finally. “Were you going to raise the dead or start a plague?”
The old man cackled at that. “I wish I knew how to do such wonderful things, but those secrets are locked away in my master’s grimoire, and I don’t read the old language as well as he did, so they are forever lost to me.”
“I’m pretty good with languages,” Simon said. “I could check it out for you.”
“Why shouldn’t I turn you to ash the moment you release me?” Andronican asked with a sneer, suddenly remembering to at least pretend to be the bad guy, but there was something seriously off here to Simon.
“Well, if you kill me, you’ll burn the book, and you’ll be out the secret of eternal life,” Simon said, wondering if this guy would be dumb enough to bite.
“Very well,” he said after a moment, prompting Simon to relax his grip. “Show me your magic, and I will let you glimpse my master’s terrible wisdom. Make me young again.”
Everything about this guy’s body language made Simon sure that the wizard was just itching to betray him. He just oozed comic-book villain vibes, but despite that, Simon decided to play along a little, and he released the old man.
“Alright,” Simon said, bringing the knife to his forearm and cutting deep enough with his knife to make himself bleed immediately. “Watch closely. You will see me channel pure life force to close this wound.”
“Ä̴̮̦̯́̅ű̸̡̙̩͛f̶͈̦́̃v̸͚̬̀̕ả̷̩͙̼r̶̦̀͊ú̶̪̮̉͝m̷͔͔̃͋ ̷̩̯̈́Ḣ̸̲̗̲̽̚j̸̺͔̓͘͜a̸̢̘̎̋k̶̞̀k̴̤͇̏̑̈́” he muttered under his breath, making the wound close instantly before he wiped away the blood to prove it had vanished without so much as a scar.
If this wannabe wizard knew healing magic, Simon would be in trouble, but as he watched the other man’s face light up with undisguised glee, he knew that it was not a spell the old man knew. He had him.
“Marvelous,” Andronican muttered. “Simply marvelous. Tell me - what is the secret? Did you get time to loop upon itself, or did you steal the energy from the earth? If only I knew the secret, perhaps my blood magic could be…?”
“Nope,” Simon answered flatly as he looked at the altar and the human remains that cluttered it with distaste. “I’ve shown you mine. Now you show me yours.”
The mage looked like he was about to protest, but instead, he sighed and said, “Fine, fine. Take a look, but be quick about it!”
That was all the permission Simon needed, and under the watchful eye of the twitchy and erratic old man, he opened the cover and began to leaf through the pages of the ancient tome.
If it was written in different languages, Simon couldn’t tell. It all looked the same to him, and though some of the handwriting bordered on the illegible, everything but the strange symbols he’d noted previously in the chapel were perfectly understandable.
Some of the words stood out a lot more than others, though, and he knew those were the words of power he’d been searching for.
V̸̨̄r̴̡͒ä̸͖́z̸͍͊i̸͇̋ğ̶̤ , ̵̳́D̸̰̈n̷̰̑a̸̢̕r̴̻͋ẗ̵̝́ḧ̸͖́, and Ó̷̙o̸̺̓n̵͓̾b̶̠̒ě̴̪t̷̳͠ỉ̸̘ṫ̵̼ stood out right away, but he glimpsed others, and as he read them, he felt the powerful symbols dig into his mind. Simon’s eyes widened as he realized that he could use lightning and pure force as well as fire now, but there was an even bigger revelation.
̵̳́D̸̰̈n̷̰̑a̸̢̕r̴̻͋ẗ̵̝́ḧ̸͖́ was a word that meant distant. It was a modifier, and if that was the case…
Simon’s mind boggled at the implications, and it was just as he realized that he’d had the means of casting a more controlled version of the fire spell the whole time that Andronican slammed the book shut. Simon had let his excitement show too much, and the other man now realized he had more than a little leverage here.
“See? Did I not tell you my master was an intellect without equal? Without compare?” Andronican asked. “Before I can allow you to explore more of his wisdom, though, we must first come to a bargain, you and I.”
“What do you propose,” Simon asked, curious what this lunatic thought was fair.
“Well, after you have given me your secret words and I have restored my youth, we will complete the slaughter that I promised to the gods as thanks for bringing you here,” he answered with a smile, “and then you shall become my apprentice.”
“Your apprentice, huh?” Simon asked, doing his best to keep his face neutral like he was taking any of this seriously. “I suppose we might be able to work something out.”
“Of course,” he said. “You can transcribe the words I cannot read into some more modern language, and then the two of us can complete my master’s great work and—”
The strange old wizard was taken completely by surprise as Simon delivered a short sharp jab to his throat. His eyes went wide at the sudden turn of events, and he collapsed to his knees while Simon’s eyes flicked to the golem, which didn’t appear to be moving, thankfully. Simon picked up the tome and bent down to look the old man in the eye.
“No one is dying today,” he said smugly. “Not even you, since you were so helpful. Granted, there’s not much a bitter old man like you can do, but just between you and me, I think you should have studied under your master a bit harder before he passed. It’s clear to me there are… gaps in your education.”
Simon strolled toward the stairway, unconcerned about either threat he was leaving behind. He could have just killed the old guy, but something about him made it feel like it was a bigger punishment to let him keep breathing.
“Gha. Dddhefend your master you…” the mage gasped and choked in his awkward fantasy Latin before he switched to a language he was obviously more fluent in. “You useless stone monstrosity.”
Simon heard the thing grind to life once more, but it would never catch him now. He’d proven last time this thing couldn’t get anywhere close to the door because of how much it weighed. Even as it charged toward him, Simon was running up the stairs, and before it had managed to rip out more than the first few, he was already opening the door and stepping onto the next level.