Chapter 2 – Down, down & down

[Class: Princess]

[Level: 1]

[Equipped: Vianaffir – You are not high enough level to use this weapon.]

“Level one?” Lillia said. “After all this time? What kind of class is Princess?”

[Lillia used ‘Indignance – Level 1’ – There was no target!]

The text pulsed once, almost offended by her incompetence.

The princess half stumbled backward and almost stepped onto the corpse below her. “Sorry, Sir.”

She knew what it was, at least. An interface.

She’d been forced to read about them during her education on the lives of the masses. Heroes had them. Adventurers. People chosen for things. People who got their hands dirty and called it character development.

Lillia had never been old enough to meet adventurers when her parents were alive, and her aunt certainly hadn’t been stupid enough to dangle a mournful princess in front of a heroic paladin.

Wasn’t a knight supposed to be sweeping her off her feet? Lillia was sure that nobody like her was supposed to be seeing the interface at all. Royal blood wasn’t compatible with the muck of adventuring.

But there it was. Her only lifeline. Right in the middle of her vision. Always hovering where she was looking. Lillia waved at it with her free hand. It persisted.

“Oh good. That’s helpful.”

[Lillia used ‘Indignance – Level 1’ – There was no target!]

Lillia hissed. She was indignant, all right. At least now she had someone—something to be mad at.

Fine. She would just have to deal with it. Lillia tried to look past the text the same way you ignored someone you didn’t feel like talking to. As soon as she looked past it, the text was gone.

Realizing the text was gone made her think of the text, which re-summoned the whole ambient-white array to the forefront of her vision.

Lillia could do this. She’d ignored worse. Much worse. Usually at dinner. Older men who looked at princesses like Lillia and mistook silence for permission. Look past them and only call them a creep under your breath later. The text vanished. Bye creep.

That was one problem solved, but there were a million more to worry about.

She was level one. She had never gotten lessons on any of the common classes, let alone something like princess, and she was in the middle of a dungeon so horrid it had made a knight lie down and die. Kill himself? Lillia couldn’t know which one of those it was, and she didn’t care to do the investigating it would take to figure it out.

Lillia had four options: the first door, the second door, the stairs into obvious murder, or crawling back into the pit and waiting for her aunt to discover she had upgraded from prisoner to armed problem.

In the end, the princess chose door number two to trick the dungeon. Everyone expected a person to pick door number one first. That was why it was called number one.

Therefore, door number two was strategy.

Lillia opened the second door. It was metal and thick, but it opened without protest or creaking. It looked like it should have been in disrepair, but someone, something had been taking care of the door. The realization settled somewhere in her spine like a chill.

The room beyond door number two was lit by flickering candlelight that didn’t seem to come from anywhere. At first glance, it looked quaint, almost cozy. Then the smell arrived: stale oak, old alcohol, and something animal that had soaked into the floorboards decades ago and decided to stay.

She’d been to the stables before. There was a reason she made the stable hand pull Pointe out before she went on a ride.

The princess turned, took a deep breath of the air outside the hunting lodge she’d found, and slipped inside. As soon as she was past the threshold, the door slammed shut behind her. Lillia gasped as the metal door shoved her into the room. She stumbled forward, righted herself, and then scrunched her nose at the smell of singed pepper lingering in the air.

White text came roaring back.

[The Hunting Lodge – Level 1]

“Oh good. It has a name,” Lillia said. Before she’d had the sword, she’d been doing her best to keep quiet, but frankly—despite it being much too early for her to be going crazy—the presence of the text made the weird world she was trapped in feel like it contained a dialogue.

Sure, if it was her interface, she was still talking to herself, but at least it was someone.

Lillia held Vianaffir out in front of her. She didn’t know how she was supposed to hold it, but she knew she was doing it wrong. It was supposed to feel steadier than this. The tip wobbled in lazy circles, threatening the furniture, the floor, and occasionally Lillia herself.

There was a door in the far wall below a set of antlers Lillia didn’t recognize. It was wooden like the rest of the room, as opposed to metal like the exit. She didn’t have to press her ear to the door to hear that there was something beyond. Whatever was on the other side scratched, clicked, and dragged itself against the floor. It did not seem interested in keeping quiet.

Lillia turned heel. After all, there might have been a better option in the room! Why walk into the scary door when she still hadn’t confirmed that all the empty tables were, in fact, empty? That was basically strategy.

The tables had been set and used at some point in the past. Food scraps sat among piles of dust. A rusty fork sat by most of the plates. Several even had a knife.

The author’s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Lillia grabbed a knife off the table. The text returned.

[Equipment: Rusty Knife – This Equipment is not compatible with your current class.]

“Why not?” Lillia asked. As soon as she’d said it, she checked over her shoulder to the door.

[Lillia used ‘Indignance – Level 1’ – There was no target!]

“I know. I know. I’ll be quiet.” Lillia tried to shove the text away as if it were in the room with her. Instead, she just flailed at the air like an idiot. “Why can’t I use the knife?”

Nothing.

“Tell me about the knife?”

Silence. The text persisted.

“Can I look at it?”

No new information.

Lillia huffed and gave up. She tried stabbing the air twice with the rusty knife. It seemed like it would work as well as any knife would. For a moment, she tucked Vianaffir into the belt loop of her dress so that she could hold the knife in both hands. Lillia winced as she felt the grime on her palm.

The text transformed.

[This weapon is not compatible with the Princess class. Reason: Dirty.]

[Additional Reason: Rusty.]

[Additional Reason: Honestly.]

[A simple rusty knife left behind by a great hunter after a hearty meal. Time has stolen its edge. Maybe you could throw it at someone.]

Throw it at someone? Not something? Lillia’s throat went dry. Were there other people down here? Were they going to fight her? Kill her?

Was she going to have to do the same? Could she?

Lillia didn’t know what was on the other side of the door. A giant rat sounded better than a “someone,” though. At least she wouldn’t be stuck using a dirty weapon. The latter thought meant the text’s judgment was probably correct. That was concerning.

The princess replaced the knife in its spot on the table. Once she’d drawn the sword she ‘wasn’t allowed to equip,’ she held her breath and closed her eyes. The smell of the room was still rancid, but there was also silence where she’d been able to hear the scratching on the other side of the door.

There had been something on the other side of the door. Lillia knew that much. Maybe it was just as scared of her as she was of it. Maybe she’d made so much noise the creature—person?—on the other side had assumed competency from her.

If nothing else, if there was another Sir Dead, Lillia hoped they’d died holding something she was allowed to equip.

The princess rested her hand on the door handle for a moment before slowly turning it.She held her breath as the latch released, then pushed the door open with Vianaffir extended in front of her.

The room beyond was inky black, and Lillia’s eyes followed the light as she spilled it into the space. At first, it looked like a storage closet. Iron-banded old-oak kegs were piled on top of one another, extending up past the edge of her vision. Now she understood where the smell of stale alcohol was coming from.

Once she was satisfied there wasn’t anything waiting for her, Lillia threw open the door.