Chapter 19 – The Hunting Grounds

Lillia and Havoc stood three steps down from the second-floor landing, staring into the darkness below.

The fourth step would not let her exist on it.

She hadn’t been shoved back. She didn’t bounce off anything. She simply stayed in place when she intended to move forward.

It wasn’t so much a wall as the universe clearing its throat and suggesting she try something else.

“See, I told you,” Havoc said. He had a small pack slung over his shoulder and several burnt-out sticks from the fire tucked under one arm, prepared either way.

“Wish I could just walk down to the exit,” Lillia said. “Six floors isn’t that far.”

“Six floors, not counting the rooms.”

“I know, I can’t count the rooms.”

Lillia wasn’t carrying a bag. Being an adventurer apparently meant having an infinite abyss somewhere inside her, one that currently held dresses, chitin, leather bandages, and two of Havoc’s small hammers.

Her hammerspace.

With the other options closed to her, Lillia turned to the fields door. It was wooden and towering, far larger than the door to the Spellmite Architect’s challenge.

Lillia could not remember if it had always been that large.

Worse, she could not decide which answer would be more comforting.

Lillia looked to the hobgoblin, then the door, then Havoc, then the door again. When she tried for one more glance at him, he cut her off.

“Kid,” Havoc said, “you said you’d go in there if the stairs didn’t work.”

“Yes.”

“The stairs didn’t work.”

“Also yes.”

“So you’re ready to go into that room. Right?”

“That makes sense,” Lillia said. Lillia didn’t move to walk forward.

Havoc stared. Not blankly. His eyes searched her from hat to heels, hunting for any sign that the stock-still princess planned to become less stock-still.

Eventually, Havoc huffed. “You’re not waiting for some sort of speech, are you?”

“What?” That was enough to break Lillia out of her stupor.

“I don’t know. I’d hear it through the trapdoor all the time. There’d be some guy talking to the girl and telling her how she could really do this. How she was so brave and courageous and strong.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah, it was a bunch of bullshit. They always said it to the one who was about to go down first.”

Lillia’s smile became a frown. “That was not the moral I wanted.”

It was Lillia’s turn to stare at the hobgoblin, but she became uncomfortable first. She adjusted her garish yellow hat. She fixed the neckline of her red dress. She bent down to check the strap on her heel.

“Are you seriously wearing those shoes?”

“They’re the only shoes I have!” Lillia said. “My other ones are ruined.”

“They’re probably not that good for a field.”

“They’re surprisingly comfortable.”

“They might get stuck in the mud.”

“Ew. Do you think there’s going to be mud?”

Havoc looked at the field door.

“Kid,” Havoc said, looking at the field door, “I think that room likes hearing questions like that.”

Then the hobgoblin’s swear words returned.

Lillia gave him the space to finish. She took two deep breaths while staring at the towering door. Havoc had said there was tall grass inside, but she didn’t know anything else. There could be a monster in there. There could have been nothing in there. Rickshaw could be in there.

Havoc had explained the room upstairs. It had not helped. Her throat had gone tight. Her palms were damp. Even the inventory inside her seemed to be holding its breath.

The princess closed her eyes, counted to ten, then fifteen, then twenty. Then there was a heavy hobgoblin hand on her shoulder. Lillia cracked open one eye to see Havoc reaching up for the reassuring gesture. The princess stared into his bulbous eyes. Maybe he didn’t want to show it, but there was care somewhere under all that thick, leathery skin.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Kid,” Havoc said, “even if you die, you come back.”

Lillia opened her eyes.

What?

That was it?

Those were the motivational words?

“Havoc…I suppose I appreciate the sentiment.”

“You’ll be fine. Just stick far back and spray the goo like we talked about. Hit him with that shouty thing.” He patted her twice on the shoulder before letting go. “You’ll do fine, kid. Hopefully. Maybe.”

“If you’d left the last part there out, that would have been nice.”

“You want me to lie to you?”

“I want you to believe in me,” Lillia said. “More than I do, just… Yeah, lie to me a little next time.”

“Why would you want me to lie to you?”

“Because I grew up in court, Havoc. Everyone lies constantly, and somehow it works. Right now, I need you to say I’m going to be fine, that the hour we spent swinging this dumb maul mattered, and that killing the architect was not a fluke because I am obviously tremendously talented.”

“But none of that’s true.”

“None of this is true!” Lillia said. “This should not be working, Havoc. I should not be working.” Lillia grabbed the hobgoblin’s shoulders. “I am not supposed to be here. But I am, and I have to deal with that. So lie to me!”

Havoc looked off to the side, then scratched behind his long ear. Lillia could hear his nails scraping against flaky, cracked skin. “Uh, yeah, you’re gonna do great in there.”