Chapter 6 – The Power of Friendship

The creature worked wordlessly. After helping—dragging—Lillia further into the cellar, it lit a set of torches around the room, revealing a small living area carved out of the rock. Thankfully, the ceiling was higher than the one where Lillia had come down.

It was a humanoid thing, but it obviously wasn’t any sort of human. The creature was stout, and what little skin showed through its rough iron armor was a burnt orange colour and covered in unseemly bumps. It was strange, gangly, and off-putting to a woman of the court, but it was helping.

The space down here smelled of a blacksmith’s apron and old dog. Lillia had made a point of avoiding both back in the castle. If that was what the creature smelled like, she’d prefer it kept its distance.

Lillia took her time recovering her breath and figuring out how dizzy she was supposed to be. Whenever the princess felt better, she’d shake her head to test it, which was never a good idea.

She could have talked to it. Hell, she wanted to talk to anyone other than the text in front of her, but the creature wasn’t talking and Lillia knew her manners well enough to allow the host to speak first.

The creature finished its work by grabbing the metal club it’d bashed Lillia with and bringing it back over to his little campsite. There was a cruel spike on one end. Lillia figured she was lucky that he was holding it the right way.

With the work done, the creature sat in front of Lillia and scrutinized her. Its wide and thick brow was expressive, rising and falling with each frown as it looked her over.

“Can you talk?” it asked.

Of all the things men had said after leering at her, that was at least original. “Yes.”

“You human?”

“Of course?”

The thing nodded and then picked its teeth. Impolite.

“Are you?” Lillia asked.

It stopped picking with a nail deep in its mouth. Its brow furrowed. “Of course not.”

“But you can talk.”

“Lots of things can talk,” the creature said. “You ain’t never seen a goblin before?”

Lillia shook her head. She’d heard of them around the border towns but never near the castle.

“Well, you still haven’t. I ain’t one. Hobgoblin.” He pounded the armor on his chest with that title.

“Pardon. What does Hob mean?”

“Hob?”

“Well, there are goblins. Which you certainly are not…” Lillia didn’t know if that was right, but it was impolite to argue. “So, hob is the difference.”

“Hob…” the thing chuckled. It was a resounding sound that stuck in its throat and gurgled up between its pursed lips.

Lillia politely joined in, but covered her mouth with her hand to hide the lack of a smile.

“I didn’t make the name. That’s human work.”

“Okay.” Lillia shifted on the floor. The hobgoblin hadn’t offered a chair, and her hips were getting stiff. “I don’t know either. So what do you call yourself?”

“What?”

“Well, if hobgoblin was a human name, what’s the other one?”

“Well…” the creature’s brow furrowed. It cast down its gaze and clicked its thick tongue. “You can call me Havoc.”

“Havoc?”

“Yes.”

“That’s your name?”

“Yeah,” Havoc resumed picking his teeth.

That was a very strange name. It would have been rude to mention that, though. “I’m Lillia.”

“Lillia?” Havoc dragged out the word as if he was trying to sound it out. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“That’s your name?”

“Yeah.”

“Weird fucking name.”

Lillia recoiled at the comment. “What do you mean?”

“Lillia? What’s that mean?”

“It was my grandmother’s name.”

“Lily, I’d understand. That’s a flower,” Havoc said. “But where’s the Eugh coming from?”

“It’s not an Eugh, it’s an uh,” Lillia said, “and you don’t just name people after words. That’s what names are for.”

“My name’s Havoc. That’s a word.”

“Havoc is a strange name.”

He scoffed and waved a hand. Lillia bristled at the dismissal. “You’re just saying that because I called your name weird.”

“No, I’m not!”

“You didn’t say it until I did.”

“Because I was being polite!” Lillia said. “You don’t just go around calling people’s names weird. Even when they have weird names.” Just as she started to raise her voice, Lillia got dizzy again. The world didn’t quite spin, but it lost its balance for half a second.

“Polite?” Havoc grunted. It sounded satisfied. “Certainly ain’t any adventurer.”

“Being polite matters.”

“Here?” Havoc asked.

Lillia crossed her arms instead of giving in on that point. Politeness mattered within the realm of politics. At least as long as you were being practical. “It’s called being nice.”

“Here?” Havoc repeated. He grinned as he said it. Lillia watched the fangs, but she knew the look from a thousand courts. Havoc was proud of how clever he was being.

“You could have hit me again,” Lillia said, “but you didn’t.”

“Still considering it.”

“No, you’re…” Lillia watched the hobgoblin. She was good at reading people, and Havoc seemed close enough for the skill to apply. She should know, right? “Not.”

Havoc looked around the room for a moment instead of responding. Tools hung from iron pegs driven into the rock. Useful things: a whetstone, a coil of wire, something that looked like a comb but, based on his hair, definitely wasn’t. It was tidy in its own special way, not clean, but organized.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Quiet swept in as Havoc got up from his seat in front of Lillia and began collecting the burned-out candles she’d thrown down into the cellar. He grabbed three or four at a time and brought them back up the steps. Lillia was dizzy again, so she lay down. Havoc’s footsteps up and down the stairway became how she could tell time.

What did all of this mean? Because the last room had the giant bug in it, Lillia guessed that the ‘giant bug’ in this room was Havoc, but he wasn’t a bug at all. He was even being nice to her.

Had the door closed behind her when she came in here? Was she locked in until she killed Havoc? She didn’t want to do that. She wasn’t sure she could do that.

Morally first. Havoc was strange-looking, but so were lots of people. Orange skin wasn’t that much worse than a crooked nose, was it?

Physically second. Based on their last experience, Lillia was confident Havoc would make a fool of her if she tried to kill him.

Did that mean she was trapped in this room forever?

Havoc came back down the stairs. Grabbed more of the candles.

Back. Forth. Back.

The hobgoblin was leaning over Lillia. She didn’t quite know when she had closed her eyes. She flinched as he sniffed her.

“You smell clean.”

“I’m not.”

Havoc sniffed again. Lillia was sure that she didn’t like that.

“Still smell it. Used to be clean, maybe.”

“I was spotless before I ended up down here. Thank you very much,” Lillia mumbled before she closed her eyes again. Partly because watching Havoc sniff her was an experience she didn’t need to relive. Partly because her head was still spinning.

“Head hurt?”

“What gave it away?”

“You’re lying on the floor with your eyes closed after hitting your head,” Havoc said the obvious. “Plus, humans have soft skulls. Ain’t good for hitting.”

Lillia wasn’t sure how to respond to the last part of that, so she simply didn’t.

“Should get back to the pyre. Take a rest.”

Lillia cracked open an eye at that comment. She was already resting here. Sure, it was colder than she would have liked, and smelled worse, but most of the dungeon smelled terrible. Still, there was something specific about the way he spoke about it.

Havoc’s brow furrowed. “You said you’re not an adventurer. How much of not adventurer are you?”

“A lot.”

“Been in a dungeon before?”

“No.”

“Used an item?”

“Today.”

“Fought a monster?”

“Killed a bug. It was a chitterpede.”

Havoc’s eyes were bulbous at the best of times, but they went wide. “The one across the hall?”

“Yeah.”