Simon woke slowly, unsurprised, to find himself in his own bed. He didn’t even leap to his feet to check the mirror. He already knew what he’d see. His hair would no longer be gray, his hands would no longer be wrinkled, and his life would no longer be at its end.

The ring he’d worn since his wife had been murdered would be missing, though, and he couldn’t bear that disappointment just yet. Instead, he lay there contemplating what the goddess had told him while it was still fresh in his mind. Magic was fueled by life force. Specifically, it was fueled by his life force. It was a grisly but not entirely unexpected outcome.

“A year seems kinda steep, though,” he mumbled to himself as he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

Miracles apparently did not come cheap, but Simon wasn’t really sure if that was going to change how he did anything. That realization hurt. A moment ago, he’d assuaged his rising grief with the fact that at least he’d asked a more useful question than demanding the truth about Freya. It wasn’t, though.

Dead was dead as far as he was concerned, and there were a lot worse ways to go than old age. He still didn’t know the truth, though, and it was going to eat at him until he did, which made getting to level 30 the priority. The sooner he got there, the sooner Helades could tell him the truth.

Getting on his feet and moving around was a chore and a half, though. He could barely squeeze into the leather armor that he’d had to bring in with some tighter lacing and a few alterations months ago. Now he really needed to cut some slits into the damn thing just so he could move right, not that he could really move right until he dropped 40 pounds.

“I’m like that dude in Hades, only instead of pushing that boulder up the hill, I gotta just keep losing weight for fucking ever,” he sighed.

It was a frustrating and, at this point, undeserved punishment. He’d already gotten into great shape twice in the last year or two, and now he was going to have to do it all over again.

“Fucking sucks,” he complained as he belted on his sword, grabbed a few odds and ends, and tried to remember if he was forgetting anything.

At least he didn’t have to lug around that damn crossbow anymore, he thought with a smile. It was then his eyes fell on the mirror.

At first, all he could see was himself and just how much he’d let himself go to shit before he ended up here. After a moment of looking at his stupid fat face, though, he looked past it to the mirror itself. When was the last time he’d talked to the thing? The last death? The death before? It felt like years.

It was with that thought in mind that he decided he didn’t need to be in that much of a hurry and sat back down. “Okay, mirror, show me my character sheet,” he said calmly, not sure what he would find.

As always, it wordlessly came to life in a series of faintly glowing blue letters.

‘Name: Simon Jackoby

Level: 20

Deaths: 32

Experience Points: -1,000,074

Skills: Archery [Above Average], Armor (light) [Great], Armor (medium) [Below Average], Athletics [Average], Cook [Average], Craft [Below Average], Deception [Below Average], Escape [Poor], Healing [Below Average], Investigate [Above Average], Maces [Average], Ride [Average], Search [Average], Sneak [Average], Spears [Average], Spell Casting [Above Average], Steal [Poor], Swimming [Below Average], and Swords [Great].

Words of Power: Gervuul (greater) Meiren (fire) Aufvarum (minor) Hyakk (healing) Vrazig (lightning) Dnarth (distant) Oonbetit (force) Zyvon (transfer) Gelthic (ice) Karesh (protection) Uuvellum (boundary) Barom (light) Delzam (cure)’

Simon’s eyes widened as he saw just how much everything had changed. It was a lot to take in. He’d shaved almost two hundred thousand experience points off his debt, and it was hovering at just under minus a million. He’d brought up almost every skill, at least one, but even more than that, he’d learned a ton of new spells.

“And now I even know that they’re modular,” he sighed, shaking his head in disbelief that he hadn’t noticed that for such a long time. He hadn’t even tried half the words or ten percent of the combinations yet. It wasn’t like he was running out of time or anything, though.

“Alright, mirror, I see my experience has gone up an awful lot. Can you tell me what’s up with that?” Simon asked.

‘I do not understand the question,’ the thing typed because, of course, it did.

This time, Simon didn’t let himself get frustrated, though. He’d been expecting it. This thing was stupid, but despite that, it was entirely likely that it still knew things that he didn’t know yet because he hadn’t figured out how to ask the question just yet.

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“My experience went up 200,000 points,” Simon said slowly and patiently. “Can you tell me why that is? Where did I gain those experience points from?”

‘I do not know what you do in the pit, but presumably, over the course of your last life, you performed actions that merited the increase,’ it typed, completely unhelpfully.

“Can you list some examples of what might cause experience to increase?” he asked, reaching for the wine bottle as he made an effort not to curse at the stupid thing.

‘Acts of bravery, heroic deeds, major accomplishments, events that cause you a great deal of satisfaction, events that make the world better for one or more people, selfless acts, things that…’ it typed, going on and on in a list that was likely going to be endless unless he intervened.

“Okay, I get the idea,” Simon said. “You can stop now. Thanks.”

As the mirror stopped mid-word, he took a moment to reflect on what else he might ask about besides why they hadn’t just bothered to call experience Karma. He was basically still at negative one life, but again, that wasn’t something that seemed to actually matter.

“Okay, Simon, what does it actually matter then?” he asked himself, looking for any thread that might engage him enough to keep him from dwelling on Freya and her end again.

Fortunately, there were a lot of loose threads for him to pursue. There were the missing floors, the strange aura, and, of course, all the new magic information he’d picked up. Though he doubted the thing would tell him anything about crafting magical items, which, quite frankly, seemed like a terrible idea right now, he wondered if maybe it would tell him more about the words of power on display.

“Well, I’ve got all of these new spells,” Simon said to himself. “Hey, mirror, what can you tell me about my spells? Can you offer any more details there?”

‘You do not have any spells,’ the mirror displayed indifferently.

“Okay, fine - Words of Power then,” Simon sighed, annoyed at just how pedantic this thing could be. “Can you tell me anything else about my words of power?”

‘All words known are displayed,’ it answered unhelpfully.

“Yeah - I can see that, but can you tell me… I don’t know - what the…” Simon faltered because he realized if he said the word out loud, he would cause an unintended effect. “What does the word of protection do? Or maybe what other words there are that I don’t know?”

‘I cannot,’ the mirror showed quickly. ‘I can only show what you already know in this regard.’

“I see…” Simon said, taking another drink. “God, this thing is so stupid.”

“Can you tell me about my aura, at least?” Simon asked. “I think it’s from casting spells, but…”

His words trailed off as he read off the screen, ‘Magic is very damaging to the people that cast it frequently, so that is a possibility.’ it agreed.

“But you can’t say for sure?” he asked. “What about the experience points. Could that be causing it? Negative a million experience is kind of a lot, and Helades compared experience to Karma, I think, didn’t she?”

‘I cannot see the aura you describe,’ the mirror typed. ‘So, I cannot say for certain.’

“Well, you once told me there were 99 levels,” Simon quipped, getting annoyed by the way it was stone-walling him. Some part of him felt that it was on purpose.

For a moment, he considered appealing to Helades directly but decided against it. She’d literally just talked to him, and her response was certain to be much less kindly than it had been only a few minutes ago, so he followed up on this point instead. “What else can you tell me about the levels I have visited? Can you tell me why some of them seem to be missing?”

“No levels are missing,” the mirror declared.

“Well, the one in the woods with the kids… it’s right after the volcanic level, so I guess that makes it level 11,” Simon said, thinking for a moment. “It was there every other run, but this time it was missing. What happened to it?”

‘Completed levels are not required to be repeated,’ the mirror told him.

To Simon, it was like a slap in the face. “Com-completed levels don’t have to be repeated? Are you saying I’ve only completed 1, no 2 levels so far? That’s not possible! I’ve completed twenty levels so far. You said so yourself. It’s right there in the character sheet.”

‘That is incorrect,’ the mirror answered.

“What is?” Simon demanded. He was exasperated now. “Which part?” He’d tried so hard to be patient with this thing, but the longer this went on, the thinner that patience was wearing. “Which part?”

‘All of it,’ the mirror answered, infuriating him enough that his grip tightened on the wine bottle. He might have thrown it, too, if the thing had left it there. ‘It does not say that on your character sheet, you have reached level 20, but you have not beaten all of them, and you have not beaten 2 levels.’

Simon fumed silently for a moment. He’d had just about enough of this thing, but he forced himself to stay calm and focus on what he’d just learned. He’d known there were levels, but until just now, he hadn’t known you could skip or complete them. That altered the whole equation in ways he didn’t fully understand.

He did understand one thing, though: suddenly, The Pit had gotten a lot easier.

Simon spent a few more minutes in his verbal duels with the mirror, trying to get any more answers about the levels, but he was unable to do so. It wouldn’t tell him how levels were completed in general, what levels he’d completed, or even how he’d managed to complete them specifically.

“There’s no way this is a game,” he said finally as he set down his bottle and pulled aside his bed. “Because if it was, it would be designed a hell of a lot better than this. Take note of that, Helades - if you want people to die a thousand times and beat a hundred levels, maybe you should include a quest log in all this!”

With that, he pulled aside the bed, opened the trap door, lit a torch, and stepped into the pit to do this all over again. After all - the surest way to get more answers was to do it on his own. Hints were nice and all, but the true answers were always waiting in a deeper level. He was sure of that.