Book 2 - Chapter 12 - Now This She Can Do 3/3

Lillia flopped down face-first into the Spellmite challenge, almost rolling completely over before skidding to a stop. Before her, the altar stood in the centre of the room, unbroken.
She looked back to the door which still hadn’t slammed behind her.
“Come on. Come on. Come on.”
“Lillia. Darling dear. You’re just making this last longer,” Nennia said from further up the stairs.
The altar cracked down the middle, dust pluming into the air above it as the text announced that she’d entered the second level of the challenge. On the far wall, one of the many black-glass tiles fell out of the wall.
Just as the door was about to slam shut, Nennia’s leg appeared in the gap and blocked it. The groaning sound of struggling hinges echoed around the room as the Spider Queen fought against the Dungeon’s will and forced her way into the challenge behind Lillia.
“Come on!” Lillia shouted. “You can’t do that!”
[Lillia used Indignance! Level 3 - Effective Against Nennia]
It wasn’t much. Others had flown when hit with the third level of Indignance, and she barely faltered, but it was enough. Nennia lost her footing for a moment and the door slammed into her, shoving her back out onto the landing while Lillia picked herself up off the floor.
Scrambling to her feet, Lillia brought Vianaffir back into her hand and turned to face the door, awaiting the moment when Nennia would bash back through it. When she would tear through the black metal and come screaming into the challenge with her impaling legs outstretched.
Any moment now.
Lillia adjusted her grip on the blade. Sweat beaded on the back of her neck. Something moved behind her. The Amalgam.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the door. Could she? The second she did, Nennia would be there. She was just waiting for the opportunity.
The amalgam pounded its glassy fists into the floor and charged. As it broke into a run, the smell of a coming storm permeated the room.
The next time she turned around, Nennia was going to be there. She knew it.
But the spellmite amalgam was getting closer. The clink of each step let her count the tiles as it charged her.
Nennia was going to come through that door. She was going to kill Lillia. She was going to torture her first. She was—
Lillia turned on her heel, whipping around in the second before the amalgam reached her, but even then she wasn’t quite fast enough, her gaze lingering on the door too long as her body refused to commit to a turn away.
The amalgam caught her before the blade bit into it. Its fist drove into Lillia’s chest and sent her flying backward. Something cracked around her lungs and pain crashed through her as the amalgam shattered, covering her in a thousand shards of glass.
Lillia landed on her back to the sound of a resounding clang that actually came through the door. The flagstone around the doorframe shook and dust fell from the ceiling and Lillia tried, once again, to struggle to her feet.
This was impossible. She’d taken too much. Today had been too long. She’d been beaten and drowned and battered and thrown too many times. She couldn’t—
[Your prize? More Amalgams! Yay!]
Across the room, more of the black glassy tiles fell out of the far wall and shattered against the floor, breaking out and reforming into a new set of amalgams for Lillia to fight.
The door broke, flying off its hinges into the room with Nennia crashing in behind it. Black blood ran down her knuckles as she scanned the room for Lillia and then locked onto her with all eight eyes.
“There you are,” she said. “Am I so boring that you’re trying to fight other things between? Come here, Lillia. I promise I can impress you this time.”
Nennia’s words were enough to spur Lillia to her feet. She climbed up as the amalgams erected themselves on the far side of the room. Nennia didn’t bother looking at the other enemies; she only had eyes for the princess.
“You know you’re just making it worse for yourself by running,” she said. “Every second you make me wait is just going to make it worse.” She said the last part in a sing-song voice, the same one that her mother used to use when singing Lillia a lullaby.
Right now? It did not make her feel better.
Thunder cracked on the other side of the room and Lillia glanced to the left to see the amalgams—three—charging at them. In the brief moment she was distracted, Nennia struck.
As large as she was, Nennia moved with impossible speed, crossing the gap before Lillia understood that the fight had begun. Three legs were set to chest height, ready to skewer her.
Lillia danced backward from the blow in a way she never could have before, sliding across the tile using her poise from the Vibrant Dawn. As she slipped back, she threw a Guard Captain’s Plate down on the ground behind her and stomped down on it, shattering it into dust.
[Guard Captain’s Greaves]
[Boots - Princess Class Exclusive - 1 x Guard Captain’s Plate]
[Raises the Princess’ Authority for the purposes of summoning and controlling allies.]
Just when Nennia was about to charge forward, Lillia raised Vianaffir to the sky. “Dance for me, knight!”
Between her and the Spider Queen, a knight assembled in the ether, pieces of plate snapping together in midstep as Bronle lunged forward with the gusto of a knight desperate to finally see the field of battle.
Nennia caught the knight’s blade in her bare hand and ripped it out of his hands, pulling a gauntlet with it that went scattering across the floor. Then, she pulled out a thick rope of silk, which lashed around his waist. She yanked.
Just as Nennia tried to pull Bronle apart, Lillia jumped in beside him, slashing through the braided silk with a shining Vianaffir. Even without the bind, he was still too close to the Spider Queen who was about to—
“You! Go where I tell you!”
Bronle flashed across the room and the amalgam Lillia’d pointed at flashed into his place, crashing down to the ground just in time to eat one of Nennia’s kicks, which immediately shattered it into a fine glass dust that sprayed across Lillia once again.
Nennia shook her head, getting her bearings and giving Lillia what she thought was an opening, but when she lunged,
Nennia already had a leg in the way. Vianaffir sparked off the thick chitin shell with a quick flash, and suddenly Lillia was falling over.
“Got you!” Nennia snatched Lillia by the collar and hoisted her off the ground, but she tore a piece of the burnmite cloth and her outfit melted away into the skimpy tropical set she hated, leaving the spider queen nothing to hold onto.
Lillia barely caught herself as another amalgam threw itself at Nennia, this time striking true. Lightning danced off its fists as it smashed her face over and over again. The first two punches knocked her to the side, but the third barely dented her cheek.
“Pathetic little creature.”
Nennia grabbed the amalgam by one of its arms as it continued to flail at her. This time there was no dramatic flair to the kill; she simply threw the amalgam across the room, where it slammed into and shattered against the wall.
Lillia held out her palm.
[Tantrum]
A Captain’s Sabre flew end over end. It should have hit Nennia in the cheek. From this close she couldn’t miss. She’d done it. She’d—
The blade bounced off Nennia’s skin as she chuckled. “Oh, Princess,” she tsked. “When do you run out of little tricks?”
Out of the shadows, the third amalgam charged. It didn’t make it more than a couple steps before Nennia shot out a rope of silk, which ensnared it, and then wound tighter and tighter until the amalgam shattered.
[3 x Spellmite Amalgam Defeated! Yay x 3]
Lillia took a step back. With how the fight had fallen, Nennia was between her and the door back to the hallway.
“I have to admit, Princess, you’ve done more than I thought you could.” Nennia took a painfully slow step forward and Lillia had to match it with three of her own. “Defeating my daughters? Impressive. Holding out this long? I didn’t think you could.”
“What can I say? I’m slippery,” Lillia said as she continued to backpedal toward the next room.
“Yes, that will be fun. How many times will you throw yourself at my domain?”
“I’ll just skip over it.”
“Will you now?” Nennia asked.
“I can use the Hearth to get to the Fourth now. I never need to wake you up again if you…” Lillia understood that she was grasping at straws, but she only needed a little more time.
“See, there’s one part you’re forgetting, little princess.”
“What is it?”
“See, this time, when I drag you back to my lair, I’m going to keep you awake until you give me every little sword and dress in your inventory,” she said. “You’ll have no way to keep going unless you throw your body at me again and again and again.”
“Well—”
“And don’t try to say you’d stop, Lillia. I think this fight has proven that you will grind against the impossible. See, Eisel would have been this wall for you if I hadn’t stepped in. If I hadn’t been there, you’d be trapped at his side.” Lillia glanced behind her once. Nennia didn’t bother following her gaze into the shadow.
“Now, instead, you get to be my plaything.”
“Bronle!”
The knight that Lillia sent across the room earlier leapt up behind Nennia, climbing onto the back of the spider and holding his blade high. Before he could plunge it down, she reared up to throw him off, opening her chitinous belly to Lillia.
She ignored the opening.
Instead, Lillia sprinted towards the dark opening to the room of pillars. As she ran, she rifled through her inventory, checking every option she had.
If the worst came to worst, she could use a siege-craft potion to smash her way down and discover what was below the dungeon floor. Until then, she summoned and uncorked a health potion to try and mask the pain.
Behind her, Bronle clattered to the ground and Nennia drove a foot through his helmet.
“Come back, Lillie Princess.”
Lillia reached the break in the darkness and the first pillar appeared in front of her, breaking as she drew closer, revealing the form of the original Glass Spellmite she’d used as a guide during her first encounter with Cathria.
A thick band of silk snapped around Lillia’s ankle and tore her feet out from under her. She crashed to the ground, exposed midriff burning against the flagstone as she slid.
The pillar shattered, and the Spellmite cocked its head at her.
“I run this Court! And you will go where I tell you!”
Lillia flashed through space and found herself on the pillar, staring down at the Glass Spellmite, which was now hopelessly snared.
Catty squeaked at her.
“Sorry! Talk later!”
Nennia reeled the Spellmite in, but Lillia didn’t have the time—or the stomach—to watch.
No, she was so close now. She could see the pillar cracking in front of her. Just a few more steps and—
Another rope of silk, this time around Lillia’s arm. She spun, cutting through the rope and allowing herself to stumble further forward. Another snagged her, this time around the neck, then pulled tight.
“Gods. You really are an annoying little brat,” Nennia hissed. “And I was such a kind host.”
The top of Cathria’s hat was visible through the cracking pillar as another band of silk ensnared Lillia’s waist. Despite her struggle, she began to lose ground.
She could barely gurgle, but she didn’t know how audible the skill needed to be.
“Cathria, I name you as my champion.”
A rose-gold shimmer danced along the hat, and a single smoky crack tore down the center of the pillar.
Nennia yanked Lillia off her feet.
The pillar split open and the Archmage of the Castellan tower stepped off her pedestal.
“Hello, Lillia,” Cathria said. “Thanks for the wake-up call.”