Lillia stood on the landing and stared at the words floating in front of her until they didn't look like words anymore. They were a pale apparition in the middle of the air, both impossible and something that Lillia understood existed within dungeons. Or at least, she'd read about interfaces before. She'd never been old enough to meet the adventurers when her parents were in charge, and her aunt certainly wasn't going to dangle the prospect of saving a princess in front of a heroic paladin or two.
Wasn't that what was supposed to happen? Wasn't the knight on the ground 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, and it was her only lifeline.
[Class: Princess]
[Level: 1]
[Equipped: Vianaffir - You are not high enough level to use this weapon.]
Lillia glared at the words. "Level one? After all this time? What kind of class is princess?"
[Lillia used 'Indignance - Level 1' - There was no target!]
The princess half stumbled backward and almost stepped onto the corpse below her. "Sorry, Sir."
Okay. 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.
The more important point, at least as far as a plan was concerned, was that Lillia had four options. Unmarked door number one. Unmarked door number two. Down the stairs into the void or back where she'd come from.
Going back and sitting in her little pit under the door didn't feel like it would be helpful. If her aunt came to get her, she wouldn't appreciate the sword. She rarely appreciated anything Lillia did.
Down the stairs was over-dark, and Lillia couldn't reach the sconce above the stairway. Beyond that, Lillia didn't know much about dungeons, but she'd read a storybook or two, and going down always meant going further in.
It was unlikely, based on the grim nature of the unnamed knight's letter, that there was a door to the surface behind either of the doors, but Lillia figured she was more likely to find something useful on this level than further down.
In the end, the princess chose door number two to try to trick the dungeon, and because the numbers were arbitrary anyway.
Lillia took a deep breath and went to open the door, but then thought better of it. What if there were something behind the door? What if that something had heard her apologize to the corpse? Was it waiting for her? Was she ready for that? Was—
There was also the issue of the floating text that was taking up a non-insignificant part of her vision. Lillia waved at it with her free hand. It persisted.
"Oh, this is really helpful. Just sitting there."
[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.
A deep breath. The text went away. Lillia could do this. She'd ignored more persistent people in the past. More than one man, much too old to be talking to a child, had vied for her attention in her younger years. Look past them and only call them a creep under your breath later. All because they own a barony and calling them one to their face would cause an 'incident.'
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 Lillia's spine as a chill.
The room beyond door number two was lit by flickering candlelight that didn't seem to come from anywhere. It was as dim as the stairway, with light barely enough for Lillia to read by. She could see her direct surroundings, but anything further took focus and squinting.
In the dim light, the room looked quaint, almost cozy. Wooden chairs were draped in thick and strange furs. Most of the old creaking floorboards were covered similarly, with skins sewn into plush rugs. Before the princess could settle into anything close to comfort, the smell of stale oak, alcohol, and beast caught in her nose.
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. It would have been lovely to see all the horses in the stables, but they certainly weren't the perfumed halls of Lillia's tower.
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 understood that she was doing it wrong. It was supposed to feel steadier than this. At least it definitely wasn't supposed to bob along with each step.
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. Considering the lack of options in the mostly empty room, the princess approached.
She didn't have to press her ear to the door to hear that there was something on the other side. Whatever it was, it didn't seem like it was trying to keep quiet.
Lillia turned heel. After all, there might have been a better option in the room! Why walk into the scary door when you still hadn't ensured that all the empty tables were, in fact, empty.
As she tried to sneak away, Lillia stepped on the exposed floorboards between the skin-rugs that covered most of the floor. The old wood groaned under her weight to an almost offensive degree. The princess pulled her foot off the creaking wood and continued her journey along the carpets.
Once she walked over to the tables, Lillia understood that she'd been technically wrong on the 'empty' front. All 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.
Lillia grabbed one knife off the table. She turned it over in her hands. As she examined it, 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.
[Equipment: Rusty Knife - This Equipment is not compatible with your current class.]
[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.]
[This weapon is not compatible with the Princess class as it has the 'dirty' property.]
Lillia sighed. On one hand, that was going to be a problem if everything was covered in six inches of dust and decay. On the other hand, at least she wouldn't be stuck using a dirty weapon.
The latter thought meant the text's judgment was probably correct.
Lillia put the knife down and the interface disappeared. Then, stuck on one of the words, Lillia grabbed it off the table.
[Maybe you could throw it at someone.]
Lillia's throat went dry. Throw it at someone? Not something? Were there other people down here? Were they going to try to fight her? Were they going to try to 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.
The princess replaced the knife in its spot on the table, slotting it back into its indent in the dust. 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, like an unwashed drunkard, but there was also silence where she'd been able to hear the scratching on the other side of the door.
Considering this was the first time she'd ever had to worry about something physically threatening, Lillia didn't know if that was good.
The fur rugs hushed Lillia's approach to the door. She avoided the open floorboards and kept her breaths shallow as she got close enough to press her ear against the wood grain. The only breathing she could hear was her own.
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 and the confidence that came with it from her.
Maybe the sound was like the flickering light upstairs, and all she would find on the other side of the door was a dead knight and another free sword.
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 she heard the latch release, and she began to push into the next room. She held Vianaffir out first, poking it into the room before she'd offered as much as a pinky.
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. For a brief moment, she tried to count them, but the barrels seemed to extend up past the edge of her vision and onward forever. 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. Sadly, Lillia had been wrong.
The light crashed down on a multi-segmented insect that was several feet long.
Lillia screamed and threw Vianaffir at the thing. The bug didn't move out of the way. She missed.
The knight's blade clattered uselessly on the floor beside the thing, which reared up to look at the screaming princess. It had so many legs. Too many for her to count and way too many to be okay.
Lillia caught the door handle she'd thrown open a moment before and slammed the door shut hard enough that the antlers above her shook. Whatever that thing was, it chased after her, slamming itself into the door to match. The wood buckled inward, and Lillia pressed against it.
"Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew," she kept saying until it stopped being a word and began being a noise stuck on loop. The princess braced against the door. That thing was on the other side. It was going to ram the door over and over again. It was going to break through. It was—
None of that happened. The bug didn't slam into the door again. Eventually, Lillia let her hand slide off the door handle. Her chest was heaving. Her lungs hurt. Her jaw hurt too for some reason. Once she was sure the door was alright, Lillia threw up her hands and stalked across the room.
Door number two was a wash. Door number one would be a winner. She could feel it. She'd named it number one for a reason. She would just go back to the landing and pick a better door. One without a gigantic gross bug behind it.
When Lillia tried to grab the handle of the metal door that had shoved her in here, she realized that there wasn't one at all.
The text returned.
[The Hunting Lodge - Level 1 - incomplete]
"You're kidding. Right?"
[Lillia used 'Indignance - Level 1' - There was no target!]
Lillia didn't have a good comeback. Lillia screamed. The bug ran into the door. She screamed again.
The princess knocked on the door. "Hey! Sir Knight. You said you had a shade, right? Whatever that means. There is a literal princess in here that needs saving. Isn't that your job? To come in here and save the princess from that thing?"
Lillia pressed her ear against the metal door. It was cold. For the first time, Lillia realized how comfortable the temperature was in the hunting lodge room.
The silence dragged. She was being ignored.
"Fine! Whatever. I'm glad my great-grandfather killed your king person!" Lillia slammed her fist into the door, which hurt. Her tantrum lingered in the quiet.
"I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."
There was still no answer, but the feeling didn't need an answer's permission to keep gnawing.
"Fine. I'll get your sword."
Lillia pushed off the door and stomped back across the room to each table, picking up each knife as she did. By the end of the process she looked like a maid. A common server carrying too many soiled knives that would have never been allowed within several miles of Lillia's castle.
The princess had kept muttering to herself during her knife gathering, but none of the hissing had formed a proper sentence. Once she was in front of the door, she took a knife in each hand and found words again.
"Stupid aunt and a big stupid bug. I hope you're happy, Mr. Knight."
Lillia turned the handle until it clicked and then kicked open the wooden door for a second time. Light swept across the room and revealed the creature. Its clicking mandibles. Its vacant eyes.
The princess froze. It chittered at her. Lillia threw the rusty knife and missed. At least she had more.
The bug twitched on its myriad of legs as it sized her up. Lillia took a step back. Its chitinous shell gleamed in the candlelight. Another step backward; any further and she wouldn't be able to close the door anymore.
It scuttled forward, just an inch. Lillia screamed. Her lungs were tight. Her hands were shaking. Her feet were unsteady. The bug moved closer. Vianaffir gleamed behind the hind legs of the segmented creature.
"Why did it have to be a big bug? This is so unfair!"
The bug stopped, twitched, and then fell over backward on itself.
[Lillia used 'Indignance - Level 1' - Highly Effective!]
What?
[Chitterpede was stunned!]
Lillia didn't know what the hell had happened, but she knew what stunned meant. The princess dove forward for the sword, her dress billowing out behind her as she flew through the air. She overshot and slammed into the oak barrels, but managed to find the Vianaffir with her left hand. It wasn't perfect, but it would do.
There was a world where she raised the blade high and posed heroically. This was not that world. Lillia flailed wildly, bouncing off chitin several times before finally catching something with a sickening squelch. Lillia screamed and started stabbing.
"Ew. Ew. Ew. ew.ew.ewewewew."
Green guts splattered across the kegs and most of the room by the time Lillia convinced herself that it was okay to open her eyes. She could feel the damp residue of the bug and chunks of its shell stuck to her dress. Bile built up in the back of Lillia's throat.
[Chitterpede defeated! Yay!]
Lillia wasn't allowed to cry, so she did what she did best. She screamed. At first, it was catharsis. Then it was frustration. Then it was a curse.
Then it was frustration again, because her dress was not salvageable.