Chapter 40 - Cathria the Architect

Havoc had been wrong. There were at least five people in the dungeon who could think and speak, not counting the dungeon itself. Lillia had now stabbed three of them. One had forgiven her. The second was a bastard. Cathria was still up in the air.
The statue let the comment hang in the air and then broke out into a smile. “Can’t say I blame you for taking care of business up there. I can be rather uppity when unleashed like that.”
“Oh,” Lillia felt her throat tremble as she spoke. “Thanks for understanding.”
“Plus, you were willing to free me despite that, which was rather trusting of you,” Cathria waved her staff behind her, and the glass chunks of her foot remaining on the pedestal vanished. “Most are not so kind.”
“He told me to,” Lillia said, pointing to the Glass Spellmite.
“Most are not kind enough to listen to a spellmite,” Cathria said. She pointed her staff to the spellmite and the cracks across his healed again. “Those who come through here are usually happy to ignore those who they deem beneath them.”
There was a tone to the comment. Something buried in her words about the similarities to royalty outside of the dungeon. Lillia let it slide.
“But then. Here you are, princess. Lovely to be here.”
“Lovely to have you,” Lillia said. “It is always lovely to host a master of the arcane arts. I wish it were under better circumstances.” She motioned to the surrounding room. The statue looked around to match. Lillia didn’t know if it could even see through its opaque glass eyes.
“Work with what you’re given. Not with what you wish you had,” Cathria said as she spun her staff once. It was a comfortable motion, a small trick she’d clearly preformed as a tic a thousand times in the past. “One of the few rules of magic.”
“I didn’t know magic had rules like that.”
Cathria tapped the staff twice and began walking to the pillar Lillia had been unable to shatter. “Magic is a strange beast. Without rigorous study, you won’t know any of the guidelines,” she said. “Within the laws of adventuring and the interface, there are rules. Outside of those, it’s all guidelines. That’s why we call it magic.”
“Pardon?”
“It would stop being magical if it were all understood,” Cathria said. She said it like a recitation, repeating the words of someone long dead. “Then it would be the arcane arts. Or skills. Mystery is a requirement of magic.”
Lillia paused as Cathria reached the pillar. The woman tapped the base with her staff, and spiderweb cracks began to appear across it.
“What about something like my blessing?” Lillia asked. “The one I used on the spellmite there?”
“A skill,” Cathria said.
The pillar shattered apart. The statue revealed within was a Cathria once again. This time she was couched low to a spellmite in front of her. Her face was flat, like the sculptor had forgotten how she was supposed to feel in the moment.
By the order of all but Cathria, the Spellmites were called to war. Their purpose was no longer their own.
Cathria—the one that Lillia was talking to—kept her attention on Lillia as she read the inscription.
Lillia wanted to say something to reassure the woman in front of her. The archmage spoke first.
“It’s ancient history,” she said, “and I was only sculpted after the fact. Hard to feel too sore about all of that.”
Lillia reread the text. The spellmites she’d fought had obviously been more than willing to try to kill her, but…if they had been saviors before, what was preventing them from being that again.
“You’re not going to linger on this all day, are you?” Cathria asked. “A few more of these pillars matter, and this is going to take a while if we blither about at each of them.”
Lillia straightened her posture. “Sorry. I suppose.” She read it all one last time. “I just felt like this would matter.”
“Oh. It did to me at some point,” Cathria said. “Well, a version of me. The creature upstairs doesn’t have many emotions outside of rage left within it.”
The pronoun was pointed. ‘It’
“Does it matter for the puzzle?” Lillia asked. “Is that why the history is here?”
“The history is here because, at some point, I wanted to share it. At least that’s my best guess,” Cathria was leaning over Lillia’s shoulder to match her gaze on the text.
“Is it the solution to the puzzle?”
“Heavens, no. The solution is the rune pattern from the original spellmite floors. Choose wrong and the spellmites wake up cross.”
Cathria started walking. “Thankfully, I am very clever and already dead.”
Lillia stayed in place. “Wait. Are you part of the room and have seen people solve it? Or did you make this puzzle?”
“I didn’t craft the entire thing. The dungeon has a hand,” Cathria said. “But there was a version of me that put this all into place when I took up residence.”
“Well—”
“Before you ask,” Cathria cut in. “I don’t remember anything about the process of becoming part of the dungeon itself.”
“Oh,” Lillia said as the Glass Spellmite pulled on the hem of her skirt to get her to follow Cathria. “That’s horrible.”
“Horribly fascinating,” Cathria corrected. “What a process? Even with an interior view and my original arcane protections, this…” Cathria stretched out one of her arms, the long sleeves of her robe flowing under her, spiderweb cracks appearing across the glass. They stayed this time.
“This was the closest thing I could manifest as a port of observation, and most people just smash it when they stumble on the room.”
A thin crack appeared across Cathria’s wrist as she lowered her arm. She looked at it with scholarly interest rather than alarm as she stopped one of the pillars at random. She had led Lillia past three at this point.
“I’m sorry,” Lillia said.
“Sorry?” she asked. “It’s fascinating, and you don’t seem to be part of the smashing issue.” She looked Lillia over as she tapped the bottom of the pillar with her staff. The glass cracked as she spoke. “You also don’t seem to have brought many tools for smashing in the first place.”
Lillia held out her hand, and Hooke appeared. She caught it, but was barely able to hold the weight of the blade with her arm fully extended. Lillia lurched forward.
Glass cracked as Cathria raised an eyebrow. “A hobgoblin Makreaver?” she asked. “I can’t say I would have guessed that accessory to the dress.”
Lillia looked down at the sword. A Makreaver.
“It was made for me, by the same friend I need to get back to.”
“And that is why my friend there is still pulling on the aforementioned dress,” Cathria said. She tapped the pillar one more time, and it shattered into pieces. The statue was Cathria again. This time on her knees, looking up at something that they hadn’t bothered to depict within the glass.
Torn between her two duties. Cathria lamented her station of archmage. She swore to bring the world back toward peace, and the problems she’d spent her life trying to solve.
Lillia’s throat was dry as she read. She had read about the history of the land, but those had all been books about statistics. It was one thing to read about wars and how many people died in one of them. It was another to read about the pressure one person was in when war came.
There was a reason to be thankful to her great-grandfather and the seventy years of peace.
“It’s all a little morose, isn’t it?” Cathria asked. She was hovering over Lillia as she read again. “People died. She was sad. She made dramatic decisions. History does love making everyone sound terribly composed.”
“Isn’t that you?” Lillia asked.
“People died. I was sad,” Cathria corrected. “Sorry if that seems callous, just a story I’ve lived a few…” Her opaque gaze somehow grew distant. “Hundred times? Something around there.”
“A hundred times,” Lillia repeated.
“Yes.”
“But don’t adventurers usually smash you?”
“Good listener, too? You’ll make a fantastic regent.”
“How long has it been?” Lillia asked.
The statue didn’t respond right away. She tapped her staff on the ground in time with music only she could hear before she sat on the edge of the pedestal, beside her lamenting self. She whispered small nothings to herself as she worked on the problem.
The Glass Spellmite grabbed Lillia’s dress again, this time trying to pull it along with a run around her. Lillia twirled to keep from getting tangled. To the Glass Spellmite, that made it a game. It tried to go again and hopped up and down in place when Lillia didn’t play along.
“You know, I don’t know the answer to that,” she said. “I should be able to figure it out based on equipment trends over time but—Fascinating,” her smile grew as she realized what she didn’t know. “I think the dungeon is preventing me from coming to a concrete conclusion about my timeline within.”
“What?”
“I think it might be utilizing the aspect of our deal that allowed it to obfuscate the deal itself to prevent me from solving a problem that I should be able to solve. Ingenious!”
“Ingenious?” Lillia echoed as a question.
“In a devilish sort of way, yes,” Cathria said. “I feel as if every time I awaken I discover a new way this dungeon has locked me down.”
“That’s horrible.”
“That was my choice,” Cathria pushed herself off the pedestal.She tested her neck, which literally cracked in either direction.
“Lillia, I believe I am running out of time here. As much as I appreciate the sympathy, I won’t have been worth the respect of a bow if I cannot help you finish this.” Cathria continued to walk. This time, Lillia followed right away. As much as she wanted to press the statue about her past, there was no way she was solving this puzzle alone.
At least, having someone take care of a job for her, Lillia finally felt at home again.
“Can I ask a question?” Lillia asked.
“As long as I am able to keep walking. Running out of glass here,” Cathria said. Another crack split through the glass at her ankle.
Lillia had a solution to that problem. She held out a hand. Before she could say the words, Cathria raised her staff into the air.
“Hold off on that, young princess,” she said. “You and I will face one another soon enough. No need to show me what you can do in advance.”
Lillia slowed, but kept following. “If you’re helping me now. Why would we fight once I’m upstairs?”
“Now, Lillia. Did I seem that reasonable when you previously met me?” she asked.
“…No.”
“Exactly. Unfortunately for the pair of us. We share a memory.” Cathria stopped at another one pillar at seemingly random, and tapped it with her staff. This one didn’t break right away. “I have the pleasure of remembering their blinding rage and getting stabbed. They receive pleasant conversations in return. Hardly seems fair to me.”
“Doesn’t seem fair at all,” Lillia said as she caught up with the glass archmage. “And sorry for stabbing you. As well as…sorry that I’m going to be stabbing you. Again.”
“Nothing to be done about it, young princess.” Now that Lillia was closer, Cathria tapped the pillar again with her staff, and it shattered open. “I hope you manage.”
The statue within the pillar was one of the amalgams, recreated in the same glass they had shattered into upon contact with Lillia’s blade. It looked as if it were being torn apart. Jagged edges that ran down the middle of the thing shone bright in the room’s light.
When torn between two purposes, the spellmites morphed. Becoming more powerful but losing themselves in the process.
Cathria tapped her foot as Lillia read. “There is probably a lesson somewhere in there if you think about it for long enough,” she said. “Never learned that lesson then, and now…” She held out her hand, showing the ends of her glass fingers beginning to crumble. “I never get the time to think about it myself.”
“Can’t I—”
“Onward!” Cathria raised her staff to direct the party. Shards rained down from her sleeves.
The next wasn’t far away. Which was good. As Cathria walked, one of her feet began to come apart. She used her staff for support until they were close to the pillar.
The Glass Spellmite had slowed as well. Something heavy settled deep in Lillia’s stomach as she watched the thing hobble along after being told not to use her skills in front of Cathria.
Cathria tried to tap the pillar with her staff, but almost lost her balance as she made the attempt. The spellmite tried to take her weight first and failed.
Lillia swept in.
Which was the reverse of what was supposed to happen to a princess.
The glass was cool. A reminder that, despite speech and animation, the statue wasn’t alive in the same way Lillia was.
“Sorry about that, Your Highness. Never get too much time here.”
She unveiled the pillar. Cathria was the focus again. This time she was recoiling from the amalgam in front of her. Her staff held up as if to keep it away.
If the spellmites were a mirror of their creator. Cathria knew her fate.
The archmage looked afraid in the statue. Meanwhile, the version with Lillia was smiling despite literally breaking apart.
“Your highness. We should get a move on before I lose a second leg here,” she said. “Only two more to go. I can point you to the last if I’m not going to make it.”
“I could carry you,” Lillia said.
“Ah, the reckless positivity of youth,” Cathria answered as she began to lead-hobble for Lillia. The princess carried her on her shoulder, feeling the glass dust grinding between the statue woman and the fabric of the mini-dress.
“Just a little further there, dear,” Cathria said as a large split formed down the middle of her hat. On second glance, it reminded Lillia of those that the spellmites wore. “To the left.”
Lillia positioned the archmage near the pillar, and she revealed the second to final statue. It was obvious she wasn’t going to make the last.
Cathria stopped using Lillia for support and used her staff to slowly lower herself to the floor. There was a sickening crack as she split at the hips, a chunk of glass fell from her and powered on the ground.
“There I go,” she said. “Shame really. This one is always my favorite.”
Lillia looked up at the statue and didn’t understand why the archmage would like it. The image was of her skewering herself on her own staff. Blood poured out of her back, shaped out of red molten glass as opposed to the rest of them.
“Macabre. I know. Just like seeing some colour is all.”
Lillia half expected there to be a wretched cough at the end of the statement. Of course there wasn’t; she couldn’t breathe; she was made of glass.
Unwilling to continue corrupting her creations, Cathria undid herself in the only way she knew how. Spectacularly.
Lillia got down beside the broken statue and offered a hand. Cathria took Lillia’s hand with her right, the less broken of the two. Her glass fingers were cool and spiderwebbed with cracks.
In that moment, Lillia knew what she needed to do.
She reached inside herself and produced the piece of the Amulet of the Creator.
But when Lillia tried to place it in Cathria’s crumbling hand, Cathria closed Lillia’s fingers around it instead.
“Clever idea, little princess, but that is not how the item works.”
Cathria ran one finger along the edge of the amulet. The text above it changed.
[Amulet of the Creator - 2/3]
“I can give it. I cannot take it back.”
Her fingers crumbled as she pulled away.
“You’re clever,” Cathria said. “You know what you need to do for the third?”
Lillia nodded. “Thank you for helping me.”
“Don’t get too choked up. I’m just a statue. I’ll be back next time someone comes around.” Cathria’s smile cracked with the rest of her. “Just don’t pay too much mind to anything I say when we meet again. I won’t mean half of it.”
Lillia looked up at the statue in front of them, and then at the pillars on either side.
“Oh. Our little friend here will guide you to the end. The last statue isn’t too far. End of the story is a touch drab for my tastes anyway,” Cathria said. “Give this little Spellmite the time of day, won’t you?”
Lillia expected a slower, softer death for the image of Cathria in front of her. Instead, the statue split down the middle, a crack cutting across her face like a bolt of lightning across the empty night sky.
Cathria fell into two pieces. Both half-melted into the ground.
Lillia righted herself and took a deep breath. The Glass Spellmite pulled at the hem of her skirt. She could feel its fingers getting sharper as it broke down.
“Come, little spellmite, you can be my champion again.”
Lillia’s rose-gold magic washed over the spellmite, and it jumped for joy again, almost stomping on the body of its former master before it led Lillia three pillars to the right. The pillar cracked and broke as they approached.
It was the Spellmite Architect.
The archmage became a weapon of infinite war. Destined to fight the same battles again and again to conquer the House of Ash. There would be no conquest. There would be no victory. There would be no loss. Pointless sacrifice for a forgotten war.
Lillia stared at the six limbs of the Architect on the statue as it writhed in pain.
Pointless. Useless. Hopeless. The dungeon kept pointing to the same things over and over.
Somewhere in the darkness beyond the pillars. Stone shifted against stone. A stairway appeared.
Lillia stared into the darkness beyond the pillars. The Glass Spellmite pulled on her sleeve this time instead of her skirt.
When Lillia looked down, it leapt up.
It dissolved before it reached her.
Unbidden, the half-completed amulet was back in Lillia’s hand.
[Amulet of the Creator - 2/3]
[Bond Added: The Glass Spellmite]
[An item that begs for completion.]
[Can be activated once per day to summon the Glass Spellmite as a familiar for a short time.]
Lillia closed her hand around the amulet.
“Oh,” she said. “You little thing.”