Chapter 45 - Tutorial Over

Cathria’s summon lasted longer than she thought, something she commented on several times, but shorter than anyone else hoped. Her best theory, something she managed just before she shattered, was that her ability to retain her form was balanced by the dungeon against both her effort and her usefulness.
Talking didn’t take much. Giving advice somehow took more out of her.
That, and they also learned that Cathria’s decay was fast, while Lillia had used Heiress’ blessing to almost completely stave off the Glass Spellmite’s decay during the puzzle. The ability didn’t offer Cathria the same longevity.
Her theory on that was that her passive magic de-aging already did more than Lillia’s level three skill ever could.
Which was somewhat offensive and perhaps Cathria’s theory that Lillia liked second least.
Of course, the “theory” that Lillia liked least was Cathria’s explanation of the upcoming stage of the dungeon.
Cathria had called it a theory because “nothing is really provable until you’ve been in the room yourself,” but she had echoed Rickshaw’s implied point.
Everything Lillia had fought on the first and second floors was considered the tutorial of the Five Point Fall. Her entire journey, thus far, had been the dungeon’s way of explaining its mechanics.
It had been the setup so the dungeon would consider their game fair.
That was why, upon stepping on the third floor, upon facing Eisel, Lillia had been utterly outclassed.
Numbers weren’t everything. It wasn’t a simple matter of levels standing between Lillia and conquest of the third floor. Cathria had been insistent that with strategy, Lillia could punch above her weight. After all, by stacking several buffs all at once, Lillia had been able to strike down an Archmage. A lessened one. But a powerful mage nonetheless.
Had Lillia been actively trying to stack up the Usurper’s Cloak and Hooke’s damage bonus to restricted targets? No.
But it had worked, and for the time being that meant it could at least be an option.
Still, for Lillia hearing that she had been bleeding and dying in the dungeon’s “polite explanation of how it works,” hadn’t exactly been a pleasant experience. Even when Cathria tried to reframe the new difficulty as a “novel way to discover things about yourself.”
“Time to discover new and novel ways to die,” Lillia said as she stood at the third floor landing.
Nennia’s large black door stood in the middle of the platform. Since Lillia had last seen it, long silver strands of…something had been drawn across the barred window at the top.
To Lillia, it looked like spider webs. She did not like what that implied. She already had zero intent of going through Nennia’s door second, but if there had been a debate, a spider web would have sealed it.
Luckily, if the goal was avoiding Eisel and Nennia’s potential den of spiders, the third door on the landing now had a handle.
Whether that was because Lillia had finally completed the tutorial, or whether Lillia had beaten the second level of the Spellmite challenge, was a mystery she had no chance of solving.
Questions for Cathria, maybe. If nothing else, the Archmage would enjoy them. From what Lillia knew, archmages loved staring at the unanswerable and pondering the possibilities.
“You just about ready?” Havoc asked.
Considering the longest part of resetting would be getting Havoc back into the party, and they were still short on equipment, they had settled on a plan. Lillia would scout the new room while Havoc created what equipment he could from the Spellmite Architect’s drops. As long as Lillia stuffed the Hooke in her inventory before dying and did her best to also drop down to a single piece of chitterpede chitin before death, they wouldn’t be losing much.
It was a plan that only relied on Lillia…You know, dying.
That, and there was the potential of Lillia running into one of the boss rooms on the way. Which came with a frightening reality.
As Havoc had put it: “If it feels like something that will kill you permanently is in there, just turn Hooke around on yourself before walking in.”
There had been extremely brief moments in the past when Lillia had considered whether that was an option for her. She’d never thought that suicide would ever be something she preformed en masse for efficiency’s sake.
Ickier and ickier bridges.
“Lillia?” Havoc asked.
“Think I’m ready as I’ll ever be, Havoc,” Lillia said. “Don’t know what’s on the other side of that door, but I don’t think I’m gonna like it.”
“Unfortunately, we know what’s on the other side of the other two doors, and the other options aren’t great.”
“I think they’re inevitable.”
“You dying to tackle that Eisel guy again now?” Havoc asked.
Lillia tensed at the mention of the name. As far as Havoc knew, Eisel had just been a difficult boss that had cleaned her clock. He didn’t have the larger context of the cloak…and Lillia hadn’t shared the rest of the dynamic with him.
She wasn’t 100% sure why. She wasn’t forbidden from sharing it, but it still felt forbidden to talk about.
“Not looking forward to seeing him again, Havoc,” Lillia finally said. “Maybe whatever is on the other side of this door is easier.”
“Doubt it.”
Lillia sighed. “Thank you, Havoc. Inspirational as always.”
“I might be old and ‘uncourtlike’,” he said the latter word like it was fake, which it was, “but I can understand sarcasm, Lillia.”
“Do you plan on becoming inspirational any time soon, Havoc?”
“No. Not by your standards.”
“Lovely.”
Lillia shook out her hands. Then waggled her feet. Once she was loose, she took out a single piece of chitterpede chitin and smashed it between her palms. The scales rolled out across her body, and Lillia was back in her comfort dress.
“If you’re just gonna stand there all day, I’ll get back to work,” Havoc said. “Luck, kid.”
“Thanks, Havoc,” Lillia said. She started speaking under her breath while he was still in earshot. He at least had the courtesy to ignore it. “Stupid dungeon, making me be the stupid scout for the stupid third stupid floor.”
The rant stopped being anything other than a repeated ‘stupid’ by the time Havoc was on the second landing and out of earshot.
Lillia put her hand on the door handle and pushed.
The door slid directly inward instead of swinging. It pushed into the wall, then faded away just as it should have passed completely through.
The sound of rushing wind and the smell of smoke poured from the black void where the door had been. Lillia stared for a moment. Closed her eyes. Then reached out to the void. The second her fingers would have touched the black, her body jolted.
Skipped.
Her feet touched solid ground before Lillia realized they hadn’t been.
Brimstone. Wind. Cacophony.
A voice.
“What are you doing there, soldier? Defend these walls!”
Lillia snapped her eyes open into the biting wind. It was night, but the sky was alight with the burning light of a thousand fires and clouded with plumes of smoke. She was on a rampart. High on the walls above—
Above an invasion in progress.
Lillia knew what siege towers and trebuchets were, but she had never seen them in action. Now she saw them in their rawest form, held within the throng of a massive army, sieging the wall she was standing on.
The soldier that had been speaking to her, a gruff man a head taller than Lillia and nearly twice her width, grabbed her by the shoulder.
“Get out there and protect your king, dammit. Is this militia made of cowards?”
The man threw Lillia past himself and away from the dungeon door as if there was a line behind her that she’d been holding up. Lillia stumbled forward, almost running into some of the other defenders on the wall.
All of them were heavily armored with their visors down.
“Hello?” Lillia asked.
None of them acknowledged her.
Far below, ladders struck the stone like claws. Men screamed as oil burned. Somewhere beneath the smoke, a gate groaned under a ram’s steady heartbeat.
A shadow cut through the burning horizon out over the seiging army. A massive tower of wood and iron that was approaching the wall.
Lillia knew what a siege tower was. She hadn’t understood how massive and intimidating they were when you were on the wrong side of one. The damned thing was a monolith in front of her. The fact that it was moving seemed impossible, seemed wrong.
The guardsmen around her shifted and drew blades as the tower approached the wall by feet at a time.
Something whistled overhead. Firelight gleamed off the soldiers’ helmets as a massive flaming ball of stone careened over their heads and crashed somewhere in the city beyond the walls. Lillia watched its flight. She saw the explosion as it landed. She waited for screams she never would have been able to hear over the chaotic din around her anyway.
So much talk of glory and honor when it came to defending a castle. Lillia didn’t know how those words fit into anything of what she saw right now.
“Brace, men. Your wives and children are in the city behind you!”
The call snapped Lillia’s attention back to the siege tower swallowing the horizon in front of the walls as the shadow fell over her.
Inside the tower, something clanged to unlock the door. It reminded Lillia of the bolt on the dungeon door.
The siege tower’s door fell outward. Lillia could hear a rally cry from both sides.
White text appeared in front of her.
[Quest 1 - Defend the Walls]