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‘Of course,’ it replied as Simon sat up and reached for the same tired bottle of wine as he reviewed the new data.

‘Experience Points: -987,341’

“So last time it was 2,000 experience points in a couple of months, and this time it was 4,000 experience in close to six months,” Simon said to himself as he considered the number. “Not exactly linear, is it?”

The mirror didn’t respond to that question, but he continued to mull it as he started getting ready. A lot of his time had been used in very similar ways in both cases. So, did that mean that the war was bad for experience or simply less good than leading a quieter life?

It might not have been either, he realized. He might have simply gotten more from saving Gregor, and the rest had been a wash. The only way he’d ever really know for sure would be to conduct very controlled experiments where he went and lived the same month over and over again and compared the results, and that sounded truly awful.

At least this time, what he had to do wasn’t in doubt. Well, whether or not he’d give the whole try-to-stop-a-war thing another shot was up for debate. That seemed to be a complete waste of time. One thing that wasn’t, though, was that there were some people who needed to be fed, and he knew just where to get some food.

Simon dispatched the rats on the first level, and then, one bag at a time, he transferred the remainder through the door to the trap floor. Once that was done, he stopped and tried to decide if it was really worth it. 4 trips through the levels to carry all this, and then somehow he’d have to drag it through the snow?

“Maybe just one would be enough,” he said to himself, but he knew it wouldn’t. There was at least a month before the snows melted, and something like 40 mouths to feed in that village. They’d need every scrap of food he could bring them and more, probably.

So grudgingly, Simon killed all the bats and tripped all the traps before he brought each bag of lumpy potatoes and moldering turnips to the goblin cave. That gave the little beasties ample warning that something was amiss, and fighting them took twice as long as usual, but Simon got through it with no more than a couple scrapes and one nasty cut.

After that was harder. With no more than the rope he carried and a small hatchet, he had to turn a couple small pine saplings into a sledge so he could drag all of these supplies uphill to Maritin. In theory, that seemed simple enough, but between the unexpected goblin attack that night and actually trying to build something that was way outside of his meager experience, it quickly turned into three days of his life he’d never get back.

Simon didn’t mind fighting goblins at this point. It was kind of fun even when it was on a familiar playing field, but to do it when woken up from a sound sleep because one of the fuckers was trying to rip his throat out in the night? That was awful, and he made sure to sleep with the bonfire between him and the tunnel deeper into the cave after he’d finished crushing their mushy little skulls.

To make matters worse, by the time he was finally ready, the snow storm arrived, so by the time he was finally ready, he was forced to spend another day in that cave waiting for another attack that never came.

Simon took advantage of that time as best he could, and by the time the weather cleared up, he’d made himself a rough set of snowshoes out of green pine branches. They helped somewhat, but dragging his sledge full of potatoes to the starving village was still awful in his bloated, out-of-shape body, and in the end, he opted to take a shortcut across the frozen lake just to make it that much easier as he huffed and gasped across the snowy ground.

“If I hear it cracking, I can just refreeze it,” he told himself.

Really, he didn’t care if he died this way. It would probably be easier than hauling the damn potatoes. He definitely wasn’t going to do that again.

He didn’t think he’d have to, of course. He was pretty sure his extra night in the cave had flushed out the remaining goblins, and that had been the missing piece of the puzzle. Well, Either that was the missing piece, or this food was. He was increasingly sure that the King’s death and the war had nothing to do with it.

Maritin was even bleaker than it had been the first time under the new blanket of snow. This time, when he came into town, there was no one to greet him. That didn’t stop him from going up to the old man who had done the cooking last time and pounding on the door.

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“Brannin, get out here and start boiling some water,” he said, shoving a crust of bread in the man’s face. “This soup isn’t going to make itself.”

Simon went hunting just like before, and this time, he was able to find a fine stag that was practically waiting for him when he went looking for those mountain goats again. Simon brought it down with a shot through the lungs and then cursed his luck for having to drag it a quarter mile back to the village. Still, it was easier than the sledge had been.

The subdued villagers were more lively when he returned, and food loosened their tongues the same as it did the first time. “After the late snow, I thought we was done for,” Vermina explained as she greedily slurped her bowl before filling up another one for her oldest.

He was celebrated as a hero, but he still didn’t plan on staying more than a night. He was sure that a hundred pounds of root vegetables and almost as much venison would be enough to last them until that wretched pass thawed open.

That night, Simon stayed on Brannin’s floor, where he put his bedroll down near the man’s fire. Several of the villagers had offered him their bed, and Vermina had offered him her children’s bed, but he declined. Instead, he lay awake on the hard wooden floor, wondering what he should do.

Honestly, he was getting pretty tired of causing new and more interesting wars and wasn’t sure he had it in him to do that one more time. He certainly wasn’t assassinating the Duke or tricking the Prince again. Not only had both experiences left a bad taste in his mouth, but neither had made things any better.

By morning, he decided he had to do something, though, and then he had to go save Gregor one more time. If he really had solved this level by killing the goblins, then how could he lock in such an awful fate for his young friend.

He’d already tried to tip the scales in favor of both sides to avoid conflict, without success. What was he supposed to do now. Simon pondered that long and hard on his trip through the pass, but it wasn’t until he’d repurchased his nag and decided that he should make her a little faster that he finally knew what it was he should try next.

The best answer would of course be the King’s survival. No death, would mean no power struggle. He’d considered healing the man initially, but magic could only do so much where old age was concerned, at least, that’s what he’d thought at the time. Just because he cured whatever ailed the man this time didn’t mean he wouldn’t die of pneumonia next month.

Age, not illness, was the root of the problem; he was sure of it, and now he had a tool if he wanted to use it. Simon spent the afternoon waiting to decide what the consequences of that might be, but in the end, he decided to go for it. The Prince would certainly make for a poor ruler in a few years, but would he do more damage than a war for the crown would do? That didn’t seem likely. Even Nero would do less damage than burning the kingdom down and starting from scratch.

Besides, he reasoned as he got ready to breach the castle come nightfall, perhaps if the boy had his father a little longer, he’d grow up into a better ruler one day and surprise them all.

Breaking into the castle was easier to do the second time than it had been the first. A light drizzle made the guards loathe to leave their little shelters, and Simon easily made his way to the King’s quarters, which were on the same floor as his son’s but on the opposite side of the building.

The harder part was actually getting the king alone. Some things like healing worked much better with touch, but he wasn’t climbing through the window as long as the doctors and servants were fussing with the comatose man, who was practically a corpse already.

Simon shivered out there in the rain for hours, and at one point, he was almost caught when someone came over and opened the window. Once it became apparent that he hadn’t been seen, and Simon could smell the man, he almost vomited.

The cloying scent of flowers and incense billowed out of the room, and beneath that, there was a sickly sweetness that was absolutely repellant. One did not cover up the other; it merely magnified it by contrast, and Simon wondered if his initial thesis had been correct. Was the man simply old, or was this a longer-term health problem, like diabetes or gout? Simon didn’t know. He also didn’t know how well his magic would work on chronic conditions. He hadn\'t had to learn about such things since health class, a long, long time ago.

Shortly before dawn, Simon finally got his chance, as the footman who had been watching him for the last few hours slipped away for a break. Simon darted into the room and peeled back the blankets to reveal infected wounds that had almost certainly been caused by physicians who had decided that bleeding the dying man was the best treatment, along with open bed sores and worse.

He dealt with each of these in turn with a few whispered words of minor healing, but even once his body was whole, Simon still didn’t like the rattling sound of the man’s breathing. He used the words of both cure and healing on the King after that, but the man\'s pallor and breathing improved only marginally.

“Old age it is, then,” Simon muttered, watching the gray-haired man stir in his sleep.

With the sounds of distant footsteps echoing up the hallway, Simon decided to go for a word of greater transfer. “Gervuul Zyvon,” he intoned quietly for the first time, noting that the words hurt worse than usual as he felt energy flood out of his body, leaving him weak in the knees.

Helades told him that a greater word cost him a year of his life, but to be honest, it felt like more than that this time. Still, whatever it had cost Simon was worth it. After all, he was only a death away from getting it all back again.

Color returned to the King’s cheeks, and his breathing eased, but thankfully, his gray hair and wrinkles remained. Suddenly becoming young might have been rather hard to explain. The man began to stir as the servant approached the door, but Simon had already retreated to the window and was bounding off into the last shadows of twilight. With any luck, he could get back to his inn before dawn and snag a few hours of sleep before he had to start riding to Slany.