Chapter 53 - A Stupid Plan

[Return to the Hearth?]
[Accept!]
[You will wake at the Cathedral Hearth]
[Your Companions Rested Safely and Completely]
[You have Leveled Up! You are now Level [9]]
[Please Choose an Ability - Run the Court - Level 2 Selected]
[Gained Sub Ability - Princess in Her Castle]
[It is now day [7] of your quest.]

 
Lillia thought she was getting better at this. She still awoke with a start. She managed to settle down and close her eyes again.
Back in the cathedral. Back in the chandelier. Back under a pile of animal skins, which meant that Havoc had wrapped her up at some point.
The voice was less familiar.
“Ah, there she is. Think she’s awake. Bout time. Heavy sleeper, that girl.”
“Tell me about it,” Havoc said. “Had to wait for her like this each time she died.“
Lillia’s eyes were still closed, but she knew the voice. Thorne.
“Yeah, we’re talking about you. Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”
Lillia sat up, holding the furs tight against her chest to keep herself modest. Thorne and Havoc were by the fire. They had chairs.
Havoc was also sporting a new set of clothes: a woven tunic and trousers made with layered strips of the same thin tulle cloth the invaders wore.
If he wore that into the invasion, arguing on his behalf had just gotten a lot harder.
Thorne was still in her usual get-up. Leather and royal blue with a long, cruel knife sticking out of her boot. She was leaning her chair back, only balancing by resting her feet on a third, currently unoccupied, chair. Lillia didn’t know if that chair had been brought up from the lodge for Thorne’s boots or for her.
“Hello, Huntsmaster.”
“Stating with the title is so polite. See, this is why I like the girl,” Thorne said as she pulled her boots off the open chair and leaned forward. Her chair fell forward, back onto all four legs. “Good morning, princess.”
“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Lillia asked as she stood. By the time the furs fell away, Lillia was already covered in dust and scales. Thorne relaxed into her chair after the transformation.
“Well, originally, I came out to talk to ya because the new day brought the hunting grounds back after your little wildfire.“
“That’s nice to hear. Hope you didn’t feel the need to hunt me in the meantime.”
“Well, Havoc explained to me how often you died. Sounds like I would have had to get in line.”
Lillia slowly looked over to Havoc. He was chuckling.
“How kind of Havoc to keep you updated,” Lillia said after a moment. “So you are aware of my repeated attempts.”
“Diagrams helped,” Thorne said. The bee-woman looked over her shoulder to the soot on the ground.
While her attention was drawn away, Lillia looked over at Havoc to try get anything from him. Had they just been exchanging pleasantries, or was Thorne here to help? Should she be knighting Thorne today to find out if that even worked? Or should she bring Havoc in on her plan and what had happened with Eisel.
Nothing on Havoc’s face, not even his impressively expressive brow, gave Lillia any of the information she needed. He just seemed to be having a good time.
Of course, him having a good time looked slightly grumpy. But that was the Havoc of it all.
“Havoc is telling me he went with you, but he neglected to mention how he managed to do so.”
“I didn’t neglect to mention it. I just hadn’t got there yet.”
“I asked you twice.”
“In the middle of the story. No respect.”
Thorne turned back to Lillia. “You feeling more chatty about it than he was? I’m curious.”
Lillia hopped back and forth in her head between the two options in the second she had before she needed to respond. She had a potential plan for Havoc and herself, but getting Thorne on their side might have been even more useful.
Keyword might. No need to offer to show Thorne how it worked.
“I have an ability that can add Havoc to my party like an adventurer.”
“What the hell?”
“That’s what I said,” Havoc chimed in.
“I don’t think it was supposed to work that way, but the dungeon lets me do it. If I add someone to my party, they can die outside of their room and respawn.”
“Well, that’s a cute little bargain right there, ain’t it?” Thorne asked. “We get a little more freedom, but we have to join your party.”
“That is how it works.”
“Well, damn, cause color me interested, but right now we’re more friendly than friends.”
Lillia nodded once she caught Thorne meant friendly, not friends, and not anything more complicated.
The Huntsmaster rapped her knuckles against the chair between her legs. “Damn though, I do wanna take that sort of power for a test drive. Come see me once you’re offering something more fun to hunt than random guards.” She stood up. “We’ll see if we can’t trade some labor for my submission as a temporary member of your party, little princess.”
“I’ll come see you after, Thorne.”
“Good.” She turned to head back to the second floor. “the chitterpede in the back room is still there if you want to kill it today. Chitterpede’s good eating if you haven’t tried it.”
Havoc raised his eyebrows at Lillia. She just shook her head.
“Thanks, Thorne,” Lillia said.
“Always a pleasure to see a pretty face,” she said. As she spoke, Thorne walked down the stairs. Once she was below the landing and out of view, Havoc turned back to Lillia.
“Thought for sure you were gonna push harder to have her come with you.”
“She’d be a good person to have on our side if she agrees to it,” Lillia said. “But first I have a real dumb idea I want to try.”
“You’re calling it dumb?”
“I’m just getting ahead of you,” Lillia said. “Because your calling my idea dumb would be improper and I would prefer to avoid that conversation.”
“I’ve called you dumb before.”
“It was improper then. It would be improper again now,” Lillia said.
“Does your dumb idea exist because you didn’t get my equipment back?”
“No, it exists because of something I discovered when I did.”

 
“What are you doing there, soldier? Defend these walls!”
Lillia flinched backwards to avoid getting shoved into the wall of soldiers awaiting the siege tower. “There is a critical defector to the invaders’ cause who is with me today.”
The captain didn’t seem to register what she said. “What are you doing? Get out there and defend those walls.”
Lillia shook her head. She’d told Havoc to follow her in a couple of seconds to avoid what happened last time she’d brought him. Time to stop being polite.
“You question me, peasant? A commoner like you?”
The captain flinched, like he’d just been shaken awake. “I’m sorry, your highness, I didn’t hear you.”
It was like Lillia had figured out. She was cast in a part. As long as she played the correct role, the world around her would play along.
“The hobgoblin behind me is a traitor to their cause. He joined us and will fight alongside me today as a personal guard.”
“What? A hobgoblin? Impossible.”
The guard captain looked over Lillia’s shoulder to see Havoc as he stepped into the scene. Luckily for the both of them, they’d remembered to have him change out of the literal invader’s garb he’d had on.
“And yet there he is,” Lillia said.
“You shouldn’t be on the walls at all, princess, let alone with something like that.”
Havoc growled, but to his credit, didn’t swing.
Lillia took a step toward the guard captain. The soldiers were watching them. “Are you questioning my family’s authority?”
“N—”
“You would die for the crown, but you won’t let me defend my own castle?” Lillia pressed.
“Uh—” the guard captain stumbled. He was already beaten, already willing to give Lillia what she wanted, but when was the last time someone had to listen to her?
“Will the men not fight thrice as hard knowing that their princess requires their aid?”
“I—uh.”
[The Guard Captain bows to Lillia’s Authority.]
[Gained - Guard Captain’s Sabre x 1]
Lillia stopped herself just short of saying the ‘what’ out loud.
Right after the text came up, the prompt changed.
[The Princess Class can leverage its Authority stat to force enemies to submit instead of killing them. If defeated this way, you gain rewards as normal and the enemy will cower instead of continuing to do battle.]
Lillia nodded along with the text as if this was not an alarming thing to learn about herself.
[This effect only works on creatures with enough intelligence to understand authority.]
The limitation meant that killing the chitterpede would still be a bloody affair.
At least Havoc could mostly take care of that now.
Rather than joining the line to take out the siege towers, Lillia scooted past the guard and motioned for Havoc to follow. While the men were stacked deep trying to get into position to fight the invaders, they had left a thin line at the back of the wall-walk that Lillia and Havoc could move along.
[Quest - Defend the Walls!]
Lillia kept moving. Behind her, the drawbridge of the siege tower slammed open, hooking onto the wall. The rallying cries from both sides were almost deafening.
Havoc took two quick steps to catch up to Lillia.
“We’re just skipping those?”
“That’s the plan,” Lillia said as she pressed thin against the wall to allow more soldiers by.
“Think it’s gonna work?”
“Maybe. I just need time. I hope skipping those doesn’t mean we fail and get kicked out or something.”
Havoc offered a non-committal ‘hrm’.
With the soldiers yelling behind them, it suddenly felt like there was noise on the wall again. It had always been noisy. Trebuchet fire howled as it flew overhead. Fire crackled and buildings snapped back in the city. War chants rose and fell along the wall and within the army below.
As Lillia had come here again and again, all of that had faded into background noise. Now there was something new to pay attention to. It felt uncharacteristically loud.
Lillia tried to shut it out.
Now that they hadn’t bothered to stop and break the siege towers with the ballista, with Cathria, or by suicidally jumping off the edge, the pair reached the top of the stairs quickly. Lillia turned to descend.
“Ain’t the wall walk faster?” Havoc asked.
“Yeah, but I can’t do what I need to do up here,” Lillia said. “Gotta be down there.”
“There’ll be guards down there too.”
“The assassins got them. Get them. Whichever one it is,” Lillia said. She broke the conversation by slipping down the stairs. Unlike last time she was here, she kept checking over her shoulder. Previously, she had been the hero who had smashed multiple siege towers. Now?
At the bottom of the stairs, once they were out of sight from the top of the wall, Lillia pulled Havoc into the same alleyway where she’d seen the guard’s corpse before.
“Change.”
“Here?” Havoc asked.
Lillia motioned to the guard on the ground. “I don’t think anyone’s watching.”
By the time Havoc had finished considering whether he wanted to continue arguing, Lillia was already in the Invader’s Tulle Gown. The light fabric swirled with her as Lillia turned to ensure that nobody was coming.
The plan was simple. The dumb part was that it relied on Lillia interpreting the mechanics correctly.
As long as the trigger was timed and not talking to Eisel or something else she hadn’t realized, she could do it.
Havoc grunted several times behind Lillia. Havoc’s outfit wasn’t the easiest thing to put on. Lillia at least had experience with complicated, layered clothing. She doubted Havoc had ever needed a handmaid to help him get ready.
Lillia settled into the quiet. She picked up on the soft crackling fires where trebuchets had landed deeper in the city and waited for footsteps or clanging armor.
Her breathing slowed. Something that was knotted in her chest unwound itself.
She needed to go back to the Hearth of Memory and have an actual relaxing bath.
“Done,” Havoc said. He didn’t sound happy about it.
Lillia checked each way and then stepped out into the street, scurrying across to hug close to the wall and avoid any prying eyes. They weren’t far now, but a single wandering gaze could sound the alarm and ruin everything.
A moment later, Lillia was at the bottom of the stairs. Havoc slipped in beside her. He was very quiet when he wanted to be.
He leaned in to whisper. “You sure those assassin guys are gonna like me?”
“Don’t know. That’s why I’m going in first, but you’re wearing the right clothes.” She started up the stairs at the end of her answer to avoid further questions. When she’d explained the plan to Havoc, she had made sure she sounded confident.
It was all guesses. Lillia just needed that confidence to convince herself that the plan was worth trying.
The pair reached the guards’ room above the gate. Lillia pushed open the door and went inside.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Once she was sure the guards had been assassinated, Lillia stood up straight and proud in the center of the room. She drew Hooke out of her inventory and held it to her side.
There was a light tap behind her, as one assassin dropped from the ceiling. Lillia looked over her shoulder. Nodded to the assassin.
“The hobgoblin’s with me.”
“A hobgoblin?” the second assassin said from the rafters before they slipped down, out of the pure shadow and into the half-light.
“You question the Dread Heiress?” Lillia asked. She didn’t know what the title meant, but she knew it was what her blessing was called when she wore this gown.
The assassin that had questioned Havoc shrunk backward. “No, your highness.”
“Dismissed.” Lillia waved a hand, and the assassins followed her orders. They slipped out through the window again, dropping into the throng of invaders defending the battering ram with shields from the arrows above.
Havoc joined Lillia in the room.
“So now we—”
“We wait,” Lillia said. “The last time I was here, being in this costume long enough updated the quest. And—”
Upon saying the words, the text reacted.
[You are an INVADER - Quest Updated]
[Siege Castle Varian]
Eisel had dismissed the text before she could read it last time, but that had been Lillia’s guess. By embracing her role as an invader, the dungeon played along.
The name Varian picked at her mind, but she wasn’t sure where from.
“Okay,” Lillia said. “Quest updated.”
“So now we’re—”
“Now we’re attacking,” Lillia explained.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“We can’t stay in here because they eventually break the gate and we would fall to our deaths.”
“Learned that last time?”
Lillia nodded to answer before speaking. “You climb down. I am going to Run the Court to take a leadership position.”
“What?”
She found the mage who had torched her two attempts ago, then looked to the man at the mage’s side.
“My name is Dread Heiress Ashvalin,” Lillia said. Her voice carried further than she thought it would. “I run this court, and you will go where I tell you.”
Before Havoc had a chance to push past Lillia and climb out the window, she was gone. She stood within the invading army, shoulder to shoulder with the shadowed figures pouring from the siege towers.
Lillia, as the dread heiress, took a sip of the siegecraft potion and marched forward.
[Destroy the Gates]