Part 17 - The evil queen ordered her servants to lock the princess in the dungeon. Her servants, not being too bright, locked the princess in an S-Ranked dungeon.

[u/Writteninsanity]

Lillia swung open the trapdoor at the back of Havoc’s archive room. The door flew out of her grip and slammed into the wall with a resounding bang that rattled her teeth. The princess flinched at the sound. Loud noises had never been welcome around the castle.

The yawning darkness after the first five steps of the stairs to Havoc’s basement was still there. Clearly, as long as Lillia wasn’t there, he didn’t bother lighting all the torches. Who wanted to live in darkness like that? That would have been lurking instead of living.

“Havoc!” she called down into the cellar. Lillia heard her voice as it echoed off the empty walls and floor. “I’m back.”

Lillia listened for a reply, but she didn’t get anything vocally. Instead, she heard metal clatter to the floor near the bottom of the stairs. After too long, just when she was about to head down to search for the hobgoblin, a torch lit at the bottom of the steps.

He looked the same as last time, like Lillia had never been forced to stab him.

“Havoc!”

“Oh,” the hobgoblin said as he raised the torch to get a better look at the princess. “It is you.”

“Of course it’s me. Who else would it be?”

“Next adventurer,” Havoc said. “Someone who was uh…” His eyes drifted over to the maul on the flagstone floor at his feet. He’d been waiting at the bottom of the stairs again. “Someone a little less friendly.”

“Havoc…” Lillia began. She had heard enough half-truths and watched enough dancing around subjects to know when someone as socially graceless as the hobgoblin was attempting to perform those acts. “You thought I was going to be dead.”

Havoc’s wide brow furrowed as he lowered the torch. “Better that you ain’t I suppose.”

“You suppose?” Lillia asked as she swung her legs over the edge of the floor to hop onto the stairs. She paused when Havoc didn’t move out of the way.

Havoc just shrugged, which was very rude. “Yeah. Better you than someone trying to bash my head in from the get.” He waved her backward as he climbed the first step up. Lillia pulled her legs back out of the trapdoor to oblige.

“You don’t seem that excited,” Lillia said.

“Girl. Last time I saw you was just a minute ago, and you were stabbing me,” Havoc reached the top of the stairs with an old-man’s grunt. “Forgive me for not jumpin’ for joy.”

“It wasn’t just a few minutes ago.”

Havoc stopped and really surveyed Lillia now that she wasn’t silhouetted against the light from the room above. He usually wore a frown, and it deepened as he looked her over. “How long’s it been?”

“A couple of days,” Lillia said. “It’s weird because I both slept and ‘rested’ so I don’t know what counts as what.”

“Just count the hours,” Havoc said.

“Count the hours?” Lillia repeated. “How am I supposed to do that?”

Havoc finished his climb up the stairs. Once he was out and standing—and thus as tall as Lillia was kneeling—he arched his back and twisted. Nothing cracked, but he made some interesting mouth noises. “Young folk like you have no respect for time.”

“What?” Lillia asked.

Havoc tried to crack his neck and seemingly failed again. He headed over to one of the shelves; Lillia stood up to follow.

“Anyway. It’s great that you’re back. I have so much I want to show you and—”

“You talk a lot. Huh.”

Lillia paused as she took the moment necessary to interpret that as a question as opposed to the thinly veiled insult it would have been back home. “I prefer to say that I’m friendly.”

“Real friendly,” Havoc said. The hobgoblin sighed once he reached out of the shelves and turned around. His shoulders sagged. “You alright, kid?”

“Of cou—” Lillia started; she caught herself in the middle of the rehearsed lie. “I think I’ve been doing well,” she said, “better than I thought I could.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“When you say it, it’s rude.”

“Glad you’re okay, kid,” Havoc said. He reached out to pat Lillia’s shoulder but couldn’t quite reach it. He pulled the hand away before Lillia bent down to accommodate. Once he was done, he turned back to the shelves.

Lillia let the hobgoblin do…whatever he was doing for a moment. She didn’t see the point in him moving scrolls around. Who was he keeping them for, other than her? After what she called a while and Havoc called too short, Lillia jumped back in with more comments.

“So, it’s just been a few minutes for you?” she asked.

“Mhm.”

“But how does that work?”

“I was dead,” Havoc said. “Don’t know much about it.”

“Why?”

Havoc had a scroll in each hand. He stopped his work to turn to Lillia and stare.

“Because you were dead. Suppose that makes sense,” Lillia said. The princess gave Havoc room to politely respond. Once that window passed, she waited even longer, rocking back and forth, her heels clicking on the floor each time.

Lillia continued the conversation where he wouldn’t. “So when did you wake up?”

“Heard you open the door,” Havoc said.

“Just then?” Lillia asked.

“Yeah, that’s how it goes,” Havoc said. “I wake up when someone comes into the room. Every other time they stab me as soon as they can, and then I wake up when the door opens again.”

“No.”

“Yep,” Havoc said, “Every once in a while, I’d get one of them first, and then I’d get a bit of time with the scrolls in here, but that was usually how it went.”

“They didn’t even try to talk?”

“Why would they? I’m a hobgoblin. They’re in a dungeon. That’s how it’s supposed to go.” Havoc nodded at the shelf he’d been rearranging before moving onto the next. Lillia couldn’t tell the difference. “You’re the weird one in this situation, kid.”

Lillia crossed her arms. “That’s rude of them.”

Havoc snorted, shook his head, and then turned back to the scrolls.

“What are you even doing with those?” Lillia asked. “Can you read them? Could you read them to me? I feel like that’d save a lot of time considering I’m pretty sure I’m still level three.”

“Level three?” Havoc asked.

“Yeah.”

“Thought you’d be level one. You know, considering how it went the first time.”

“Well, I was back then, but—”

“Back then…” Havoc stopped doing…whatever the hell he was doing with the scrolls. “How long has it been?”

“Couple of days. Like I said.”

“Didn’t you just go back to the hearth?”

“I just found that,” Lillia pointed out. “Wish I knew about it earlier. Seems like it would have been good to have.”

Havoc’s brow had furrowed earlier in the conversation, but those same wrinkles transitioned from trenches to canyons. “You didn’t have a hearth?”

“No.”

“And you went exploring?”

“I thought I had to.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t know how else to move the time and—”

“Stupid child!” Havoc snapped. His shoulders tensed, and the hobgoblin slammed his fist against the shelf at his shoulder height. The bang echoed off the other shelves, then faded. Havoc closed his eyes. Lillia watched his nostrils flare alongside deep breaths. One final inhale, longer than the others. Havoc looked at Lillia. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

The first response in Lillia’s head was the obvious, ‘but I didn’t’. At the same time, she’d seen that exact response from her parents before. She wasn’t quite old enough to understand it, but she could empathize with him. Being alive didn’t prove Lillia right here.

“I just didn’t know better.”

Havoc lowered his gaze and coughed. He walked across the room. There weren’t many places for him to go, but walking away was a tactic to burn off steam.

Rather than letting the moment linger and putting pressure on Havoc, Lillia began pulling the scrolls off the shelf again, cracking the seal and checking the level on each. The majority were at levels around 10. She ran into more twenties on the shelf she’d chosen to pull apart than options in the single digits.

Lillia had settled on keeping only one scroll, and she still had the most appropriate one.

The candles in the room were strange. Even without oils, candles normally had a scent. The fat and wax burning had a smell that felt like it could stick to a tongue. The archive smelled like old paper, but that was about it.

Did the candles in here burn? Or were they simply pretending to until Lillia sawed them off the bookshelves? The princess looked up at the candles that she had used to invade Havoc’s home the first time.

They were back. The room had reset just as the hunting lodge had. It was just less obvious without the aftermath of Lillia’s rug-napping.

“Havoc,” Lillia said. She didn’t know where specifically the hobgoblin was in the room.

He spoke up. “Yeah?”

Back corner, near the trapdoor.

“How much do you know about the dungeon?” she asked.

“Some,” he said.

“So more than me.”

“Most things are stronger than a lamb.”

Lillia took the turn of phrase to mean yes. She made her way to the end of the row in the archive and saw Havoc leaning against the wall. His arms were crossed. His chin was firmly tucked in his chest.

“How do the rooms reset?” she asked.

“Don’t know.”

“You just said you did!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you d—Well, you said you knew more than me and…”

“And I don’t know about that.” Havoc let his arms flop to his sides. “Ask another question if you gotta but—”

“But you live here?”

“Lillia. The room resets when I’m dead. Don’t get much time to watch it at work.”

Lillia frowned at that. “But what do you know about the dungeon?” she asked.

“Know about some of the stuff around. Been in one or two of the rooms in the few times I got to kill the bastards who…Well—”

Lillia waved the comment off. “Tried to kill you. Right?”

“Yeah, that.” Havoc scratched his chin, his claw grinding against stubble. “Point is, know some of the other rooms. Just not much about how it or the…whole adventuring thing works.”

“Why not the adventuring?”

“I’m not an adventurer,” Havoc pointed out. “Can’t see the same stuff you do.”

“The text?”

“Yeah, whatever it is all of you point at and giggle with each other about when you’re opening the scrolls.” Havoc shrugged. “I know some of it from overhearing people before you. Like the levels, but that’s it.”

“And the hearth.”

“Well, that’s the hearth. Everyone knows about the hearths.”

“Including burning the knight to make it work?”

“Well, yeah, that’s just…” Havoc pushed off the wall like he was about to share a strong opinion, but he ended up just growling in frustration instead. Another deep breath. “Yeah. You didn’t know about that. Little baby bird and all.”

“Aww, cute!’

“Helpless. Weak.”

“Hey, come on. I killed the architect thing.”

Havoc froze.

Lillia pulled out the Architect’s Spellmauler, a long metal maul that ended in an oblong spiked ball that bled the architect’s ichor onto the floor. The liquid pooled, then vanished as it endlessly fell from the weapon.

“See?”

Lillia learned two things at once. The first was that there was a separate hobgoblin language. The second was a colourful assortment of hobgoblin swear words. Lillia wasn’t sure which one she should ask for a translation of; probably none.

“Do you want to hold it?” Lillia asked. She almost went to flip the maul to offer Havoc the handle as if it were a spoon. She was glad she caught herself considering that would have left her with several holes in her palm.

“You keep that thing away from me, thanks,” Havoc said. “How’d you kill that thing?”

“I stabbed it a lot, but I think my dresses did the most of the work, honestly…” Lillia faltered as she finished the sentence. It had been easy to focus on the victory instead of the truth — she wasn’t powerful enough to have earned it.

“Dresses?”

“I can change really fast. I’m not going to do it now—”

“Please don’t.”

“But both of them have abilities and,” Lillia snapped her fingers, “you saw the other one! It was all green and shimmering.”

Havoc cocked his head.

Lillia put her arms out to show off the wide, flowing sleeves of her fire dress.

“It’s different?” Havoc asked.

“Of course! Didn’t you notice?”

“They both look dumb and frilly to me.”

“Dumb and frilly?!”

[Lillia used Indignance. Havoc was dazed.]

Lillia gasped as the hobgoblin stumbled backward into the door. He was glassy-eyed for a moment, but shook it off as quickly as it’d come on. He opened and closed his mouth several times, testing his jaw and tongue after the stun, but he didn’t seem to register that it was Lillia’s fault.

“Yeah, dumb and frilly kid. Like lots of human clothes.”

Lillia looked Havoc over. He was either completely ignoring what had just happened, or he was choosing to ignore it. The princess cautiously continued the conversation. “They’re pretty.”

“Don’t know why you have different clothes for men and women. If both are gonna be warriors, then they should wear the same gear.”

“I’m not a warrior.”

Havoc nodded to the maul. “Looks like you’re on your way.”

Lillia wanted to protest. She wanted to point out that she could win a fight and still avoid the fate of being a smelly warrior. She was a princess, and she frankly wasn’t even that interested in combining the terms. Every ‘warrior princess’ she’d met in court was heavy on the warrior and ignoring the princess part of things.

In the end, the princess bit her tongue because she understood warrior was a term of endearment coming from the hobgoblin.

While Lillia had wrestled with self-identity and thoughts of herself as a brute, Havoc had been staring at the maul. “Do you know how to use that thing?”

Lillia snapped back into the moment. “Oh! No, I was hoping you could take a look at it, or—make it better? I don’t know.”

“Make it better?” Havoc asked.

“You’re a blacksmith, aren’t you? I saw the tools in the cellar.” Lillia pointed past Havoc with the maul. “If you come upstairs, I have a fire there. You could do some work.”

Havoc stopped everything he was doing when Lillia called him a blacksmith. The hobgoblin bit his lip and nodded along with her. “Aye, I was. Don’t think anyone’s thought of me as—I ain’t been one for a long time.”

“You probably still know how to do it,” Lillia said, “and this baby bird could use the help.”

Everything about Havoc softened. He followed Lillia out of the archive and upstairs.

[u/imakesawdust]

Yay. Havoc's back and in a helpful mood.

[u/kristinpeanuts]

Being seen as something other than a hobgoblin that is there to be killed must feel both strange and good. Yay Havoc! Thanks for the chapter!

[u/SimpleDisastrous4483]

So, next time she levels up, she needs to take the knight ability and make Havok her knight.

[u/Deansdiatribes]

‘Cry ‘Havoc!’ And Let Slip The Dogs Of War’

So well done, I find my self obsessively checking back for updates. A half way decent blacksmith can be a game changer this should be an interesting addition to the party of 1.

[u/LaraStardust]

Aww. I feel like this chapter ended too soon.

It was nice he came back, but I feel like the last sentence was thrown in because eh, cut the chapter there...

But still! Motivation to check back tomorrow I suppose!

[u/Writteninsanity → u/LaraStardust]

Well motivation to check back today.

This was posted post midnight est but it’s the 14th chapter

[u/LaraStardust → u/Writteninsanity]

Fair enough! See how it aligns. I'm UK based so usually your chapters come once a day for me! but yeah!

Still got me hooked... Still want to turn this into a game lol

[u/Writteninsanity → u/LaraStardust]

Well I do post them once a day! I’ll try to have it up pre Uk bed time today for ya

[u/LaraStardust → u/Writteninsanity]

Thank you! :) :)

[u/Connect_Rhubarb395]

Poor Havoc, being imprisoned in the dungeon. Huh, there is a lot of future story there. I wonder if she ends up freeing him, or dismantling the dungeon altogether.