Book 2 | Chapter 9 | What's Coming Again?

This was the second time in a row that the Dungeon had hit Lillia with the objective [Survive], which, considering the flexibility she’d seen within things like the Castle Siege and the Plains, was just beginning to feel repetitive and uncreative.
Of course, she wasn’t about to vocalize that, on threat of tempting the Dungeon to add something else as an objective. In a vacuum, [Survive] was easy. Sure, survival was difficult, but [Survive] was a side effect of every other objective she could be given—unless the objective was [Die]. Lillia would just have to hope that wasn’t coming next.
Caelum leapt backward when Lillia summoned Vianaffir to her hand. Rain ran down the blade, spraying off the cutting edge as she swung it wide out to her side, prepared for whatever she was going to need to [Survive] in the coming moments.
Or take over the ship, she supposed, but that was probably going to involve fighting as well.
In fact, taking over the ship would likely help her with anything that came alongside [Surviving].
Summoning Vianaffir was always Lillia’s default. She still didn’t have a weapon that she preferred to it, despite having several crafted by Havoc since defeating Eisel. Nothing he’d made could match the power of the Legendary Weapon.
Even if, by the Dungeon’s definition, it wasn’t a Legendary Weapon. It had a name, and it was legendary to her.
“Caelum, I need you to help me get everyone to work for me.”
“Miss?”
“Princess,” Lillia corrected to leverage her authority. Seeing the Dungeon’s objective had made the air feel lighter, had made the storm feel less oppressive and more like it was part of the atmosphere instead of something battering her directly.
“Princess. You’re asking me to help you take over the ship?”
“Yes.”
If a woman on the ship was bad luck, that meant that Lillia needed to look less like a woman if she was going to get everyone to listen to her. She pulled out one of the pieces of fine silk she’d gotten from her battle with the Silencer and began tying back her hair, folding it over into a bandana and trying not to wince at the idea of soaking silk in rain and seawater the second she’d brought it out.
“Miss, I’m not going to commit a mutiny!”
“We’re—” She brought out and ‘crushed’ shards of Captain’s Plate, summoning the Court Commander’s Uniform. Her dress folded in on itself over and over again, layering into solid plates of metal. The skirt split down the middle, wrapping tight around each leg as Lillia tried to ignore how strange that felt.
“Did you just change clothes?”
“We’re not committing a mutiny. We just need everyone to listen to us,” Lillia said. “Something is about to happen. I just don’t know what it—”
“How did you do that? You’re dressed all different—”
“Magic,” Lillia offered as a dismissal.
“Sorcery,” Caelum said. As he spoke, he reached to his side, resting his hand on a small dagger tucked tight into his belt.
Lillia spun at the sight of him going for a weapon. Before he could decide whether he was pulling his dagger on her, Vianaffir was already pointed his way, almost pressing against his sternum.
“Princess—”
“Caelum,” Lillia began. The text was still at the forefront of her vision.
[New Objective — Seize the Ship or Survive What’s Coming]
She summoned the Guard Captain’s Saber to her hand. She had to seize the ship, or at least get the ship to work with her to survive what was coming.
Caelum looked down at the blade that was nearly piercing his jacket and then slowly back up to Lillia. His eyes were wide and darting from side to side, looking for an explanation she’d already given.
“Caelum,” she said. “Just help me here.” Her hair began to stand on end as the rain chilled and the sea spray abated. “We—”
“Captain!”
“Shit!” Lillia pressed the blade further against Caelum, but considering he wasn’t against a wall or a railing, he simply leaned away from it.
“What are you doing, Caelum?” she asked. “I just need your help!”
“You’re trying to take over the ship,” he said. “Captain!” he called again a moment later, stepping backward as he did.
“I was only asking for you to—”
“To help me take over the ship for you!”
“To get everyone to work for me,” Lillia corrected.
“You can’t just say that when threatening someone with a sword!”
“You went for your dagger first!”
“Because you made a sword appear out of nowhere!” he said. “And the Captain doesn’t very much like—”
“Why is there a woman on the ship?” one of the other sailors said as they came to check on the commotion.
Was that really his first question? She was standing there with a sword to—
“She’s threatening Caelum!” The man drew his weapon. Unlike Caelum’s adorable dagger, he had a proper machete.
“Oh, by the Wheat and Silk,” Lillia cursed. “Caelum, explain what’s going on.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. Unfortunately for Lillia, it seemed like he was telling the truth.
Had she butchered this? No. Surely it was his fault.
“Just tell them that they just need to listen to me because something bad is about to—” No, no. That didn’t sound right. That sounded like a threat again. “Something bad is going to happen, and we need to work together to—”
“Of course something bad is going to happen. There is a woman on the ship.”
Lillia pulled Vianaffir away from Caelum and pointed the Captain’s Saber toward the man who’d just said that. As she swung the blade, the wind howled even louder, the ship beginning to toss in the waves again as more and more of the sailors left their stations, leaving the sailing at the mercy of the elements to check what was going on.
Caelum pulled his dagger from his belt, pointing it toward Lillia just as she dismissed Vianaffir.
More of the sailors drew their blades. Some were rusted, thin things that wouldn’t have been acceptable on any vessel of Lillia’s kingdom, and others were simply cruel hatchets meant for hacking rope and freeing sails.
Lillia was surrounded.
This was all a bust.
[New Objective — Seize the Ship or Survive What’s Coming]
She certainly wasn’t in a position from which she could seize the ship. There was a chance that this fight—her versus the entire crew—was what was coming that she was supposed to survive, but…
Unless she had a lot more authority than she thought and could summon [A Princess in Her Castle] faster than they could swing a blade, it didn’t seem like that was happening either.
No. From her current position, Lillia only had one option that at least gave her a decent chance of survival.
Lillia raised her hands, putting the blade away into the ether as she did. For a moment, she struggled to stay upright as the ship rocked heavily to one side.
The Admiral approached from the bow of the ship.
“We have a woman on board for only a few moments, and everyone’s left their stations,” he said. Despite the howling wind, the sound of his boots stomping on the deck rang clear. “This is why the gods call it bad luck to have a woman sailing.”
Lillia did her best to soften her expression and look as much like a soft, innocent princess as she could.
“Caelum, I thought I told you that this woman was your responsibility.”
“Well, she was! But then she did some sorcery and was trying to take over the ship and…” Caelum cleared his throat. “And I will stop talking before I make it all sound even worse, Admiral.”
The Admiral stepped forward slowly, reaching the point where he could have drawn his own blade on Lillia. She still didn’t summon Vianaffir or any of her other weapons to her hand.
“Okay, this has all gotten out of hand,” she said, “but something bad is going to happen, and I just need everyone to hear me out.”
He stopped with his hands on his hips and ran his tongue over his teeth. He reached out for Lillia’s raised hand, but she pulled it away.
She wasn’t about to let him touch her. Sure, she was on his ship, but there were rules about ranking, and she certainly—
“Take them both to the brig,” he said.
“What?” Lillia said.
“WHAT?!” Caelum yelped.
Before Lillia could take a step forward and pull out her sword, two of the men behind her had already grabbed her wrists, yanking them backward and almost throwing her onto her back in the thick layer of water. She kicked, trying to pull away, but while she was a lot feistier than either of them expected, she wasn’t about to escape without a weapon.
She flexed her hand, going to summon something before balling it into a fist and grinding her teeth. She could talk her way out of the brig. She could summon items and escape if she needed to, but this fight?
The goal was to survive. Adding the Admiral to the people surrounding her hadn’t made her chances any better.
“Hey! What are you doing? I’m your crewmate! She just had a sword to my ne—well, chest! Come on, guys, this isn’t funny!” Caelum was flailing as three men grabbed him.
It was almost offensive that they’d sent one more man to handle him than they had Lillia. Had they seen them? There was no way they were stronger than—
The two men who had grabbed Lillia heaved her up, picking her straight off the deck and nearly up onto their shoulders. Rain and seawater splashed in her face as they began to drag her below into the hold.
She began to shout-whisper at the two men carrying her. “I hope you know the second that this is all cleared up, I will have you thrown overboard for daring to manhandle me.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re a princess,” the man to Lillia’s right said.
“Yeah. A princess in pants,” the one on the left pointed out.
“Hey, maybe all the princesses where she’s from wear pants.”
“I’ve never seen a pant-wearing princess.”
“You’ve never seen a princess at all.”
“Yes, I have! There was this one time on the isle of—”
Lillia rolled her eyes as another man in front of them opened the hatch to reveal the lower decks. A waft of rancid air welcomed them into the hold. The deep stench of mold and rot immediately began to cling to Lillia’s skin as they dragged her down the stairs, her heels slapping against each step on the way down.
Above, a lantern swung wildly on a hook, threatening to come loose more often than it should. The light it cast around the room came with long shadows in corners stacked high with barrels and burlap sacks that had been cut open.
At the back of the room, there was a series of large, rusty cages. There was already a man in one of them, sitting in the inch of seawater on the floor and murmuring to himself. His long hair was matted down and flecked with salt, like he’d tried to wash in the spillage but had given up.
One of the men let go for a moment to open the door. That was her chance.
Lillia yanked her wrist free of the other man’s grip and spun. There was a blade at her back before she could try to escape, but she didn’t want to.
“I’m going in. I just didn’t want to get thrown,” she said. The bars at the back of the cage were dyed a deeper red with a hundred layers of rust. Some of it had seeped into the water.
The man who’d opened the gate, the one holding the blade, drooped as Lillia said she wasn’t going to put up a fight.
If she had to fight her way out of here, he was dying first.
Caelum didn’t manage the same combination of escape and compliance that Lillia had. He was still thrashing against his comrades as they swung him twice and heaved him into the cell. The poor boy smashed against the back bars before flopping down onto the floor and splashing in the polluted tide covering the cell floor.
He tried to say words. They just came out as blubbering. That was a familiar feeling to Lillia, almost shamefully so.
Well, it wouldn’t be shameful unless he cried about it, but that was feeling more and more likely.