Chapter 15 – Out of the Hole

It took Lillia an embarrassingly long time to get out of the hole that she was in. The ceiling had opened up in the aftermath of her battle, but despite that, it still took her a while to escape the bowels of the Spellmite Architect’s lair.

Lillia had an unfortunate case of noodle arms, even in the best of times. Those had not been the best of times. After the adrenaline had worn off and the princess was alone in a room with a pile of loot she’d collected without understanding, Lillia was simply sore, tired, and lacking the upper body strength to climb a ladder.

When Lillia was finally out of the hole she was in, she found that she exited back onto the landing out of a trapdoor. She didn’t know where the door to the Spellmite Challenge had gone, and she didn’t care enough to ask. Not that anyone could have answered her.

Lillia lay there on the floor, feeling the black ichor slowly seep through her hat. If only she’d had the foresight to only sell Rickshaw a single hat, then she could have had one as a backup when she got inevitably dirty. At least the new dress was clean.

The new dress was much more intricate than the chitin battle gown. In terms of shape, though not in construction, the dress itself was made of a shimmering red fabric sewn together with an impossible thread that glowed under the flickering torchlight of the staircase. Layered, complicated fabric folded together around her waist to create an intricate skirt pattern. The beauty of which would be utterly lost on anyone in this dungeon outside of Lillia.

For her part, Lillia had not had time to check the rules of her new armour, nor any of the items she’d gathered from the architect itself. All of that could wait. Right now, what Lillia desperately needed more than anything else was a nap, a rest…

Havoc.

Lillia didn’t shoot up. She didn’t have the energy to, but she would have if she could have. The thought was there. The princess creaked up to her feet, checking her joints several times along the way. Everything was sore. She kept having to remind herself that she hadn’t actually gotten hurt. She just wasn’t used to doing this much work.

Once Lillia was up, she managed her way back up the stairs toward the first landing, the home of the chitterpede and Havoc’s room. She knew from the message yesterday that they should both be back. Did Havoc know what was downstairs? Would he be proud of her for what she’d done with the Spellmite Architect? Did Lillia care that Havoc would be proud of her? It took her a moment, but she settled on yes.

Lillia rested her hand on the door handle to Havoc’s room, and after one breath to remind herself to keep calm and stay graceful as a princess should, she pulled open the door. Congealed blood smeared across the landing, painting a fresh coat over the dried splatter that Lillia had spread before.

Havoc was starting to smell. Lillia gasped at the sight of his corpse and then immediately regretted inhaling. The princess gagged. She doubled over, but pulled back once that put her closer to a corpse than she wanted to ever be.

Covering her mouth, Lillia opened the door as wide as she could to look around it.

[Room Cleared! Opens in [1] Day]

Oh.

That was okay. Lillia would just go to sleep, and then everything would be fine. Havoc would be back, and she could talk about all the cool things she’d done. She could have him take a look at all the items she’d gotten from the architect. He could explain what was going on.

Except Lillia didn’t need to sleep; Lillia needed to rest. So far, the only place she’d been able to do that was in the middle of the Spellmite Challenge after Rickshaw’s market. Was she going to have to find Rickshaw again? Did you only get to rest when you found a merchant? How common were merchants? Was it usual to find them on the second floor, or had Lillia just been lucky?

She was putting a lot of faith in a hobgoblin, wasn’t she?

Lillia slowly shut the door. Gently, as if somehow slamming it could hurt a corpse.

There were scrolls in there. There were probably scrolls that Lillia could use right now, now that she was level three, but until Havoc was back, it felt better to leave the level four scroll as the lone one in her pocket.

Lillia put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot, careful to avoid Havoc’s blood on the landing. If waiting for Havoc was her current goal, then she was going to need to find the merchant again. The only place she had found the merchant was through one of the doors on the second floor, which meant going back down.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Going down seemed to be the constant theme in the dungeon’s progression. All roads led to the capital.

All of that said, if she was going to hunt for a merchant, she might as well try to see if there was anything else in this area she could sell. She doubted he wanted the burned sticks from the fire, but there was one thing that Lillia could think of that Rickshaw might appraise kindly. The princess’s gaze lingered on the knight, his rotting but still solid armour.

He said he left it to her. Was it grave robbing if it was a gift?

No. Still gross though.

As she considered desecrating a corpse, Lillia’s attention drifted to the chitterpede’s door. It was supposed to come back after one day, which meant it could give her more chitin, which she could sell to Rickshaw as well.

Maybe she could buy a new scent of soap. Lillia was starting to understand why adventurers did this whole thing.

Given the choice between pulling the armour off the skeleton or killing a bug, Lillia turned to the chitterpede’s door. She sighed. “I’m not saying I won’t do it, Mr. Knight. I’m just taking a minute to think about it.”

Despite having conquered this room already, Lillia’s hand trembled as she reached for the doorknob. She had killed the chitterpede, but the chitterpede was gross and icky and sticky and potentially slimy. Of course, the Spellmite Architect had been some of those things, and she…