Lillia took a deep breath at the bottom of the stairs with Havoc beside her. They couldn’t have much of a battle plan, knowing that the Architect would be different from when Lillia last fought it, but they at least had something.
That something was ‘Lillia keep healing me’ and ‘don’t get killed in one hit’ but it was something, and that was better than what she’d had going in last time.
Lillia once again bunched the knife-covered sleeve of the level 2 battlegown in her hands and read the text over. Between it and the Usurper Lord’s cloak, the best place for her to be was on the edge of death.
What a lovely place to be, she should vacation there sometimes.
They’d agreed that, upon testing her new options, the level 2 battlegown was the best place for Lillia to start. Shifting the battlegown up or down one level was faster than swapping outfits entirely.
Thank goodness it was all magical, Lillia couldn’t begin to think how painful the process of extricating herself from a dress made of knives would have been.
The archway into the Architect’s room was the same, but now it seemed to loom over Lillia in the moment. The darkness within was smothering and oppressive instead of simple shadow. Deep within the void of it, Lillia was sure she could see the inky skin of the Architect bulging out to meet her.
“I am my own champion,” Lillia said. She felt the cool presence of her power wash over her.
Havoc looked over. “What the hell does that do?”
“It helps, okay?” Lillia said. “Like finding a mirror and saying something positive about yourself.”
“Sounds dumb.”
“Thanks, Havoc.”
The hobgoblin nodded. He had been awake for a long time after Lillia had opted into resting and had managed to adjust some of Sir Nobody’s armor to fit him better.
Not well, but better.
Alongside the adjusted armor, Havoc now carried the result of his work: a long, clawed battle-hammer. It was made of black steel, and reminded Lillia of the weapons she’d seen the enemies of the kingdom wielded in illustrated history texts.
Now it was on her side, and what did history mean anyway?
After they rested, Lillia had needed to recast Emergency Knighting on Havoc to welcome him back into her party.. The past hours of testing dresses and occasionally Havoc offering some advice to Lillia on how to swing her sword had all been waiting for the cooldown.
Luckily for the pair of them, that training had been going well.
Or, similarly to the armor, not well, but better.
There was no concrete number to what Lillia’s “stat increase” had done for her. She still certainly wasn’t a swords woman—the extent of her training was ‘pointy end toward the enemy’ and ‘try to hit them with the sharp side—But now, as Havoc tried to walk her through the motions her stumbles and misses were less about tripping over herself now and more about not knowing the flow of movements a practiced warrior would glide through.
In the brief moments when she found the rhythm, where she fell back into the feeling of her dance fighting with the knights, Lillia could almost keep up with Havoc. Almost.
Luckily, Havoc had trained enough hobgoblin children to stop a swing halfway before it did any real damage to the trainee.
They trained, tested dresses, took breaks, and waited for the cooldown. Unfortunately, “a long time” apparently meant somewhere between “how long it had been” and “forever.”
At least Lillia knew it wasn’t once per day, because the dungeon was happy to explain what abilities had that restriction.
Havoc tried and failed to crack his lower back for the hundredth time since they had entered the room before the Spellmite Architect’s lair. Once he sighed at the end of it, he looked to Lillia. “About time to try again?”
Lillia matched Havoc’s sigh. “Havoc, I bestow upon you the title of Knight of House Ashvalin, alongside all the titles and honors that come with that station.” The words felt ridiculous before she said them. Then they gathered weight on her tongue, old and royal and nothing like a joke.
Something happened.
More than something happened.
Something rumbled deep within the dungeon’s core. The walls around them groaned under a strain they couldn’t see.
The rumble built, steadied, stopped. Lillia had put her hands over her head, like it would have stopped a brick from smashing her into paste.
As the ground settled, she stood up straight. “Havoc,” she said. “Did you feel that?”
“ Did I feel that?” Havoc answered the question in a way that Lillia know it had been dumb.
“Uh. Well, what else did you feel?”
“I was focused on the entire place almost coming down on us,” Havoc said. He looked around the room, checking that all of the walls were still intact. “Maybe something. My gut feels all funny, but that might be the fear o’ death.”
“Fear of death?” Lillia asked.
“Yeah.”
“I thought you were over that.”
“You grow more fine with the fear o’ death. You don’t get over it,” Havoc said. “Everything wants to live. That’s how it goes.”
Lillia sighed. It was soft. Hopefully quiet enough that Havoc didn’t notice.
“Maybe it didn’t work and I just need to try again.”
Lillia placed her hand back on Havoc’s shoulder. “I name you knight. With all the rights and status that entails.”
The second Lillia stopped speaking, both of them looked around in a quick panic, checking that the walls weren’t shaking again.
[Emergency Knighting is on cooldown!]
“Huh,” Lillia said. “So it did something.”
“Well, it certainly did something, kid. The question is if it did anything to me.”
“It was supposed to. I read most of the text in the mirror,” Lillia said as she waved back to the wall she thought the Hearth of Memory was back through “You’re supposed to be stronger to protect me and work alongside me.”
“That’s specific,” Havoc said.
“All I know is what it said. You’re the one who doesn’t feel anything different.”
“It’s your skill. How is it my fault?”
“You should be using my skill.”
“Now, you sound like a princess. Telling other people to take the blame for—”
“Hey!”
“What?”
“Are you an anti-monarchist?”
“Of course, kings and queens are stupid.” He said it with the calm certainty of someone explaining that rocks were hard and fire was hot.
“What do hobgoblins have to lead?”
“The Tribal Chieftain.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“No, the Tribal Chieftain kills the old chieftain in martial combat to assume the—”
“That’s how kings work like half the time,” Lillia pointed out. “It’s considered a breakdown in the system, but it happens surprisingly often when you go into the histories of the kingdoms.”
Havoc nodded. “Maybe there’s more merit to those kings than I thought. You gonna kill your dad?”
Lillia bent over to check the buckle on her Thunderstep heels, which couldn’t come undone as far as she could tell. “No.” She swallowed. “Though I suppose I might be taking the throne from my aunt by force once we get out of here.”
“If you get out,” Havoc said.
“When and we,” Lillia corrected.
Havoc looked at her for a second longer than the correction deserved. Then he snorted.
“Sure, kid. How about we see if we kill this Architect thing first?”
Lillia turned to the gaping maw of the stairway up to the Architect’s lair. Another deep breath.
“Do you remember what we talked about, Havoc?”
“All the useless stuff you said about it having too many limbs?” Havoc answered. “Yeah, got that all squared away.”
“I said the fireball too.”
“We’ll try to keep you and your fancy fire dress in the way of that when it comes our way,” Havoc said. “You remember what I said?”
“Big means slow. If it’s looking at you, I should swing. If it’s looking at me, I should focus on not getting hit.”
Havoc sighed. Lillia couldn’t tell if it was directed at her or working up courage in the same way she had to. “Good listening, kid.”
“I don’t really think “don’t get hit” is revolutionary advice.”
“Yeah, but I thought you oughta hear it.”
Lillia nodded. No need to argue against that considering how last time had gone. Havoc at least hadn’t mentioned, “Don’t celebrate too early,” so that part was nice.
“You ready, kid?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Lillia said. She took a step away from Havoc as she spoke, allowing space for the knives in her dress to fan out as she walked forward.
The approach to the Spellmite Architect’s lair began slowly. Each of them took cautious steps before using the confidence gained from one another. It turned into a determined march. Torches lit on either side of the stairway as they reached the bottom step, casting long shadows behind the pair as they drew near.
Lillia clenched her fist. Her nails dug into her palm until Hooke appeared in her hand. She squeezed the handle tight, and the scales of her gloves dug into the leather.
They climbed wordlessly. Havoc walked in complete silence. Each of Lillia’s steps rang out with the click of her heel and the clatter of chitterpede knives on her gown.
The air grew colder with every step, as the walls began to shift from stone to the opaque glass Lillia had seen below. Something within the walls ticked softly, as if the room was counting down.
When they reached the top, the room was already lit. It was so different from last time. While last time the room had been filled with the occasional pillar and the discarded corpses of broken statues, there was now an order to the madness.
The room had previously looked abandoned. This time, it looked prepared.
The four pillars in the center of the room rose up together to make a large platform with opaque black glass stairs that ascended to it from each side. The stairs did not quite touch the platforms they led to. The glass simply decided the gap did not matter.
Several more glass platforms floated in the air around the central platform, holding steady despite the lack of support.
The platforms above were clear. It was the ground where Lillia and Havoc stood that was covered in the broken glass statues.
Most importantly, the Spellmite Architect did not need to arrive from the ceiling this time. It was already there on the center platform. Its six limbs were extended. The maul Lillia had seen before had transformed into a wondrous staff that ended in a black and gold eclipse.
“That’s it?” Havoc asked.
“Yeah.”
“You killed that thing?”
“Once.”
“Damn.”
The Architect raised four limbs into the air and turned its torso without moving its hips. There was a horrific cracking as a single red eye split open across the top of the Architect’s head.
Havoc held his hammer out in front of him. Lillia matched his stance.
The text interjected itself.
[SLAY THE SPELLMITE ARCHITECT]
[YOUR PARTY]
[LILLIA]
[NOBODY]
[NO—]
Havoc shifted half a step in front of her without seeming to realize he had done it.
The text flickered, shifted, stuttered, and then locked into place.
[SLAY THE SPELLMITE ARCHITECT]
[YOUR PARTY]
[LILLIA]
[SIR] [NOBODY]