Death After Death

Chapter 94: The Long Way

Some part of him considered killing himself right there on the pier as he watched the ship sail off into the distance. A quick reset would definitely be faster than waiting around to catch the next ship, he told himself. Still, he resisted, grinding his teeth in frustration as he stormed his way back down the docks to get a drink in the tiny, overpriced tavern.

“Miss your ship?” the barkeep asked as he poured Simon a pint. “The view from up top is good, but maybe not that good.”

“It’s fine,” Simon grumbled. “Now you get a paying customer, and I get a week to enjoy it.”

“A week?” The old man laughed, walking off to chat with some of the locals at the other end of the bar. “At least!”

Simon ignored the man. Instead, he kicked himself for his cockiness. He’d been so sure that he’d been in Helades head about this that he’d walked straight to the damn arch that had taken him to the owl bear level, and there he’d found nothing but a throne room that had long since been picked clean of anything of value, and evidence that someone occasionally used it as a sheep pen. He’d spend hours scouring the grounds and other nearby buildings, looking for an arch that contained a portal.

It was only when he’d walked outside and seen the ship raising its sails that he realized how long his wild goose chase had taken. A quick run down the mountain, which resulted in a close call at one of the sharper corners on the path, got him down the cliffside in ten minutes instead of the hour it had taken him to hike up it, and he arrived at the pier just a few minutes too late.

Even as he watched the thing lumber toward the mouth of the harbor, he was sure he could have made it with the judicious use of force magic. He also knew that wouldn’t have ended well. At night, he might have risked it, but in broad daylight? Well, there was no way people would miss that.

So, instead, he was stuck waiting for the next ship, whenever that was, but he had no idea what he would do from there. All he knew now was that the portal wasn’t here, so it was either at his destination or on the ship he’d just been on. The ship seemed to be the more likely choice, of course, but the world was a big place. He might never catch the ship again.

“Does that mean I’m stuck here the rest of my life?” he muttered to himself.

“Probably not the rest of your life,” the sailor sitting two stools down from him said with a laugh. “But certainly longer than you want! Me, I’ve wanted off that tub for too damn long, and Ionar is as good a place as any for a break. Figure I’ll crew up for the next ship that is not run by Captain Darnis and make my fortune elsewhere.”

“What’s wrong with the Captain?” Simon asked. The only thing he was the least bit interested in was changing topics, but a little insight into the man wouldn't hurt.

“The man’s a bloody fool,” the drunken sailor roared. “Who takes refugees instead of paying cargo? Huh? Answer me that. Women at sea, too! Mark my words, that kind-hearted Captain will run the Sea Seraph aground any day now. This voyage or next will be the last that that fine ship ever takes.”

“Bold words,” Simon said, not knowing how much of any of it to believe.

“Indeed,” the man said, treating his skepticism like a toast. “To bold words and the bold men that wield them. You ask me, you’re lucky you missed that ship. What is it you do anyway, stranger? You look a little well-fed for a mercenary and a little too tough to be a merchant.”

“Simon,” he volunteered. “I do a little of this and a little of that. Let’s just say I come from a distant land, and I’m learning more about the area.”

“Well met Simon. I’m Arrion, and there ain’t much to be learned around here,” the sailor answered. “If you want to see interesting sights you should stay north in places like Brin or Nigh. Or maybe across the seas in distant Thay. Lots of places more interesting than these parts.”

“I’ve really got to work on my swimming,” he said as he coughed up water and caught his breath.

As he made his way down to the Sea Seraph, no one challenged him. There were other boats at the dock, and some of them had obvious crews aboard, but those did not have a gangway down, and they menaced him with weapons as he walked by as if he might try to come aboard.

“What happened here!” Simon yelled. “Where is everyone!”

“If you don’t know yet, then you best jump back in the water and start swimming,” an old sailor yelled. “Because the bloody pox will infect you just the same!”

“Great, another fucking plague,” Simon said to himself as he kept walking. That was no danger to him, of course, but he couldn’t exactly spend weeks or months healing thousands of people as it worked its way through the city.

Why does it always have to be diseases, Simon wondered.

Honestly, it was a dumb question, and he knew it as soon as he thought about it. Disease and war were pretty much what drove all of history, and he was probably going to see a lot more levels related to those things than little caves filled with goblins.

As he crept on board the abandoned boat, he realized his mistake, though. That ship, or someone on it, was almost certainly the cause of this. If Helades had wanted him to deal with the plague or the aftermath, she would have sent him here. She sent him to the ship, which pretty much had to mean he’d had a chance to save all these people, and he’d blown it.

With a sigh, Simon navigated his way across the slightly leaning deck toward the Captain’s cabin. There were bodies here and there, and the smell from the hold was even more foul than it had been before. The Captain’s cabin door opened without issue, and as usual, it unfortunately contained no portal. Instead, it showed him Captain Darnis's well-appointed cabin. The man had died and was lying face down in his logbook.

Despite the gross red sores on the man’s arms, Simon picked him up off the book to see if there were any clues to be gleaned about what might have happened, but the pages were blurred and fused by pus and blood that had leaked out of the slowly putrifying body. The man had been dead for days.

“But I was on here for three days and saw nothing like this,” Simon told himself as he looked around in the room in confusion to see if there was anything else he could scavenge.

Thinking back, a couple of the kids did have small red sores on their bodies, but Simon had merely assumed that those were lice or something similar. Had he inadvertently cured the most advanced cases with fevers but left a Typhoid Mary or two left to spread whatever this pox was far and wide?

He wasn’t sure, but as he borrowed the Captain’s cutlass, he decided it was a decent operating theory to start with. Next time he came through here, he’d be more diligent.

Simon moved to the door. He’d decided that he’d go out into the city and do what he could while he looked for the way to the next level. That’s not what happened. Instead, the door opened to reveal a shadowy forest.

He sighed. “So the portal only appears here if you approach it from this side. Or, does it only appear if the boat is moored here? Make up your damn mind!”