Chapter 13 – Where the Hearth Can’t Reach

[Heiress’ Blessing – Supportive Selected! Don’t forget to anoint your champion!]

[Experience used. You are now level 3]

[It is now day [2] of your quest]

[Wake up?]

Lillia considered the question. There really wasn’t anything else she could do. Her thoughts were there to feel the text, but she herself wasn’t anywhere.

There was nothing. No Lillia. No dungeon. Nothing but the system.

An existential crisis for another time. Lillia accepted the offer to wake up.

Lillia had either slept standing up or she hadn’t slept at all. She was back in the room where she’d met Rickshaw, standing on the hardwood where the chair would have been.

The princess tried to blink away the tiredness but there was nothing to blink away. It was as if her body had just been standing there waiting for her to return to it.

Not only that, but Lillia felt good, great even, better than she had been coming out of the bath. The princess dragged her teeth across her bottom lip. It was smooth, plump, unmarred by her chewing.

Lillia hopped back and forth between her feet. She was bouncy. If all of this was worth an existential crisis—which it almost certainly was—at least it was a good one. Lillia felt like she hadn’t been sleeping in the dungeon. Lillia felt like she’d had a proper bath instead of the wrestling match from before the rest…

The princess snapped her hand under her hat to check her hair. It was neatly folded over on itself. When she pulled the hat up for a moment, it tumbled out in nearly untangled cascades. Lillia hopped several times in place before replacing the hat, letting her hair remain down for the time being.

It took several deep breaths for Lillia to stop beaming. Several more to calm herself down enough to examine her surroundings. On the far side of the room, across from the now missing stairs she’d used to climb up, there was a full stairway carved out of the wall.

The other stairs in the ‘challenge’ had all followed along the wall, running along the lines that the flagstone had set on the floor before it. These stairs smashed through where the structure had been, as if they were thrown in at the last minute as opposed to planned and incorporated.

As Lillia looked at the stairs, runes lit on stone banisters on either side, followed by a torch above the archway that had been punched into the wall. The flame was blood red. Lillia pulled Vianaffir out. The room cooled.

Whatever joy and confidence she’d gained in the past minutes retreated into the background as she stared at the door. That was obviously the end of the challenge and…and—

Lillia shook her head to try and throw the nerves onto the floor around her. She’d managed her way through all the spellmites coming up here, and she was level 3 now! That was three times as powerful as she’d been this morning.

She didn’t know what that literally meant, but it had to mean something good. Didn’t it?

She was ready for this. Lillia was ready for this. She…

Lillia’s hand was shaking on Vianaffir’s hilt. She squeezed tighter to quell the tremble and allowed herself a chance to pace and prepare. Back. Forth. Back.

Whatever was up those stairs. She was going to have to face it at some point. There was quite literally nowhere to run, and even if she could have, that wouldn’t have gotten her any closer to getting out of here. Without climbing the stairs, Lillia couldn’t even leave this room, let alone the dungeon.

Maybe Rickshaw would come back and welcome her to—

No. Lillia started marching toward the stairs before she could convince herself to stand still and wait again.

If the dungeon said there was one way forward, Lillia had to take it. At least until she figured out how to knock down some walls. At that point she’d remodel the whole damn place before walking into a place that was so obviously ominous.

The second Lillia’s foot touched the first step a shock shot up her spine that corrected her posture. The princess jumped back and then tested the step again. No repetition. She tapped Vianaffir on the second step. There were no sparks. Nothing to indicate that what she’d felt was anything more than anticipation building to a point of overflow.

That was just what Lillia needed. More reasons to turn around to rethink what she was doing. She took several steadying breaths and tucked her hair back behind her ears. She wasn’t going to let something like that stop her. Lillia pressed on.

Halfway up the staircase the lights on either side of Lillia dimmed, like her vision was narrowing in on the shadow at the summit. Each step allowed the darkness further into the edge of her vision, vignetting even as Lillia slowed her climb. There was no light above for her to hold onto, but somehow she still understood where the center of her vision was.

The text intervened before she would have been in true darkness. Which was good, because that would have been the last straw.

[The shadows darken. The hearth cannot reach here. Death stays with those who die.]

It was an ominous message, but meaningless. Lillia rolled her eyes at the attempt to scare her. Of course death was deadly. She didn’t want to die, but she didn’t need someone to remind her that it would be bad to.

Still.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

[Death stays with those who die.]

Lillia had been facing horrible things so far. She’d been hit by lighting and attacked by a bug for the altar’s sake. That said, so far things had been horrible as opposed to feeling…final in the way that message carried.

Sure she’d been helpless in front of Havoc after getting walloped, but there was an abstraction between getting hit and what could come after it. When it had happened she’d been worried about the pain. She’d been worried about getting hit again. She hadn’t really been worried about what happened when too many of those stacked up.

Lillia bit her lip even though there was no peeling skin to pull on. This place was pretty horrible, maybe moving onto the land of wheat and silk would have been better anyway.

Of course even a princess was barred from the wheat and silk if she died doing nothing when something needed to be done. It was never supposed to be her fate, but if Lillia was going to go down, Lillia was going to go down fighting.

Lillia couldn’t see either of them, but it turned out there were only two steps before her and the top floor. The princess almost tumbled as she stepped up toward a third stair that wasn’t there. Her heel clattered against the flagstone floor and the sound echoed out into the shadows.

The text—the warning, faded away into nothing.

Lillia’s eyes hadn’t been closed, but the world flashed into light as if she’d opened them.

There was a third altar in the center of the massive room she’d found herself in, but that was the only similarity to the other arenas she’d fought in below. The floor here was littered with debris. Statues that had been sculpted from the same glassy black stone as the floor lay shattered across the ground by the dozens. Multiple large piles of the same discarded art had been shoved against the walls. Gleaming glittering piles of trash.

Where there weren’t piles, the walls glowed red hot. Something simmered beneath the surface of the black. Lillia checked behind her to ensure there was only a stairway.

“Alright, Lillia. Three of them this time. Probably. You just need to avoid tripping and you’re good.”

Lillia nudged one of the statue pieces on the ground with her foot. It didn’t come loose. Lillia bent down and saw that something had melted the glass together. As she checked the seam, she found what would have been the ‘face’ of the statue.

It was screaming.

A bead of sweat dripped down Lillia’s back. It was warm in here, despite the chill in Lillia’s spine.

Lillia stood up, stepping carefully around the discarded glass limbs. She weaved her way to the center of the room, looked at the altar awaiting her.

A hand print. Her hand print. Perfected and adjusted for the fact that the overnight rest had fixed the places where she’d chewed her nails. Lillia lowered her hand into the slot. Hesitated.

The text had even reminded her.