The creature worked wordlessly. Having helped—dragged—Lillia further into the cellar before lighting a set of torches around the room, revealing the space to be a small living area carved out of the rock of the cellar. Thankfully, with a higher roof than where Lillia had come down.
It was a humanoid thing, but it obviously wasn't any sort of human. The creature was stout, and what little skin showed through its rough iron armor was a burnt orange colour and covered in unseemly bumps. It was strange, gangly, and off-putting to a woman of the court, but it was helping.
The space down here smelled of a blacksmith's apron and old dog. Both things that Lillia pointedly avoided smelling back in the castle. If that was what the creature smelled like, she'd prefer it kept its distance.
Lillia took her time recovering her breath and figuring out how dizzy she was supposed to be. Whenever the princess felt better, she'd shake her head to test it, which was never a good idea.
She could have talked to it. Hell, she wanted to talk to anyone other than the text in front of her, but the creature wasn't talking and Lillia knew her manners well enough to allow the host to speak first.
The creature finished its work by grabbing the metal club it'd bashed Lillia with and bringing it back over to his little campsite. There was a cruel spike on one end. Lillia figured she was lucky that he was holding it the right way.
With the work done, the creature sat in front of Lillia and scrutinized her. Its wide and thick brow was expressive, rising and falling with each frown as it looked her over.
"Can you talk?" it asked.
That was one of the more original comments she'd gotten after a man leered at her. "Yes."
"You human?"
"Of course?"
The thing nodded and then picked its teeth. Impolite.
"Are you?" Lillia asked.
It stopped picking with a nail deep in its mouth. Its brow furrowed. "Of course not."
"But you can talk."
"Lots of things can talk," the creature said. "You ain't never seen a goblin before?"
Lillia shook her head. She'd heard of them around the border towns but never near the castle.
"Well, you still haven't. I ain't one. Hobgoblin." He pounded the armor on his chest with that title.
"Pardon. What does Hob mean?"
"Hob?"
"Well, there are goblins. Which you certainly are not…" Lillia didn't know if that was right, but it was impolite to argue. "So, hob is the difference."
"Hob…" the thing chuckled. It was a resounding sound that stuck in its throat and gurgled up between its pursed lips.
Lillia politely joined in, but covered her mouth with her hand to hide the lack of a smile.
"I didn't make the name. That's human work."
"Okay." Lillia shifted on the floor. The hobgoblin hadn't offered a chair, and her hips were getting stiff. "I don't know either. So what do you call yourself?"
"What?"
"Well, if hobgoblin was a human name, what's the other one?"
"Well…" the creature's brow furrowed. It cast down its gaze and clicked its thick tongue. "You can call me Havoc."
"Havoc?"
"Yes."
"That's your name?"
"Yeah," Havoc resumed picking his teeth.
That was a very strange name. It would have been rude to mention that, though. "I'm Lillia."
"Lillia?" Havoc dragged out the word as if he was trying to sound it out. "Really?"
"Yes."
"That's your name?"
"Yeah."
"Weird fucking name."
Lillia recoiled at the comment. "What do you mean?"
"Lillia? What's that mean?"
"It was my grandmother's name."
"Lily, I'd understand. That's a flower," Havoc said. "But where's the Eugh coming from?"
"It's not an Eugh it's an uh," Lillia said, "and you don't just name people after words. That's what names are for."
"My name's Havoc. That's a word."
"Havoc is a strange name."
He scoffed and waved a hand. Lillia bristled at the dismissal. "You're just saying that because I called your name weird."
"No, I'm not!"
"You didn't say it until I did."
"Because I was being polite!" Lillia said. "You don't just go around calling people's names weird. Even when they have weird names." Just as she started to raise her voice, Lillia got dizzy again. The world didn't quite spin, but it lost its balance for half a second.
"Polite?" Havoc grunted. It sounded satisfied. "Certainly ain't any adventurer."
"Being polite matters."
"Here?" Havoc asked.
Lillia crossed her arms instead of giving in on that point. Politeness mattered within the realm of politics. At least as long as you were being practical. "It's called being nice."
"Here?" Havoc repeated. He grinned as he said it. Lillia watched the fangs, but she knew the look from a thousand courts. Havoc was proud of how clever he was being.
"You could have hit me again," Lillia said, "but you didn't."
"Still considering it."
"No, you're…" Lillia watched the hobgoblin. She was good at reading people, and Havoc was kind of a person. She should know, right? "Not."
Havoc looked around the room for a moment instead of responding. Tools hung from iron pegs driven into the rock. Useful things: a whetstone, a coil of wire, something that looked like a comb but, based on his hair, definitely wasn't. It was tidy in its own special way, not clean, but organized.
Quiet swept in as Havoc got up from his seat in front of Lillia and began collecting the burned-out candles she'd thrown down into the cellar. He grabbed three to four at a time and brought them up the steps back up top. Lillia was dizzy again, so she lay down. Havoc's footsteps up and down the stairway became how she could tell time.
What did all of this mean? Because the last room had the giant bug in it, Lillia guessed that the 'giant bug' in this room was Havoc, but he wasn't a bug at all. He was even being nice to her.
Had the door closed behind her when she came in here? Was she locked in until she killed Havoc? She didn't want to do that. She wasn't sure she could do that.
Morally first. Havoc was a little ugly, but so were lots of people. Orange skin wasn't that much worse than a crooked nose, was it?
Physically second. Based on their last experience, Lillia was confident Havoc would make a fool of her if she tried to kill him.
Did that mean she was trapped in this room forever?
Havoc came back down the stairs. Grabbed more of the candles.
Back. Forth. Back.
The hobgoblin was leaning over Lillia. She didn't quite know when she closed her eyes. She flinched as he sniffed her.
"You smell clean."
"I'm not."
Havoc sniffed again. Lillia was sure that she didn't like that.
"Still smell it. Used to be clean, maybe."
"I was spotless before I ended up down here. Thank you very much," Lillia mumbled before she closed her eyes again. Partly because watching Havoc sniff her was an experience she didn't need to relive. Partly because her head was still spinning.
"Head hurt?"
"What gave it away?"
"You're lying on the floor with your eyes closed after hitting your head," Havoc said the obvious. "Plus, humans have soft skulls. Ain't good for hitting."
Lillia wasn't sure how to respond to the last part of that, so she simply didn't.
"Should get back to the pyre. Take a rest."
Lillia cracked open an eye at that comment. She was already resting here. Sure, it was colder than she would have liked, and smelled worse, but most of the dungeon smelled terrible. Still, there was something specific about the way he spoke about it.
Havoc's brow furrowed. "You said you're not an adventurer. How much of not adventurer are you?"
"A lot."
"Been in a dungeon before?"
"No."
"Used an item?"
"Today."
"Fought a monster?"
"Killed a bug. It was a chitterpede."
Havoc's eyes were bulbous at the best of times, but they went wide. "The one across the hall?"
"Yeah."
"That was the first thing you killed?"
"Is that bad?" Lillia shot up, which was a bad idea. "Was it your friend?"
The princess was almost nose to nose with Havoc before she fell back over. He stood up to give her some space; his knees cracked as he did. "I'm gonna ignore the part where you thought I was friends with a bug and just say this is…fuckin' wild."
"Pardon?"
"You've never been in a dungeon before?" he asked.
"No."
Havoc went to respond but couldn't manage words. The hobgoblin just cackled, first laughing and then fully doubling over as he struggled to compose himself. "Ho-ho-holy shit."
He swore too much. It was uncouth. Lillia frowned. Havoc was too busy losing it to notice. The hobgoblin snorted several times between deep, rumbling laughs.
By the time Havoc had settled down to chuckling, Lillia was back sitting up. The hobgoblin wiped a tear from his eye. It was sticky and yellowed. "This is so messed up," he said before walking back over to Lillia. He offered her a hand. "Alright. Come on."
Lillia stared down the clawed hand incredulously. "What's so funny?"
Havoc's chest shook as the laughter tried to take over again. "Look. I'm—I can explain it—" He lost the fight for a second. "I can explain it later."
Lillia narrowed her eyes and scrutinized the offered hand again. She still wanted to know what was so funny, and there was way more dirt under Havoc's fingernails than she wanted to touch.
She accepted, and Havoc pulled her to her feet. What other choice did she have? It wasn't as if Lillia was drowning in people offering to help her.
Or people hard stop.
Havoc didn't let go of Lillia's hand until they were at the stairs, which was probably the one point where she needed it most. To the hobgoblin, the stairs were perfectly spaced for his stout legs, and the railing was at a comfortable height for his gangly arms. At least on these stairs, Lillia looked like the haphazardly proportioned creature.
The exit from the archive was shut. As soon as Lillia poked her head out from underneath the floor, she saw the echo of blurred white text over the door.
Havoc, for his part, was standing with his hands on his hips, shaking his head. After a deep sigh that rumbled deep down in his belly, Havoc turned to Lillia as she extricated herself from the trapdoor.
"You made one hell of a mess." Havoc stamped forward and kicked one of the discarded scrolls. "You're supposed to read these things, you know."
"I'm not allowed to read any of them."
"What?"
"They all just say I'm not allowed."
The laughter was back. Havoc struggled to stay still as he fought for breath. Every step crunched scrolls and bindings underfoot. For all the chiding about making a mess, he didn't seem to care about the damage. "You're telling me. Ooh, boy."
Lillia pulled herself the rest of the way out of the trapdoor while Havoc calmed down. She crossed her arms and waited for him to be done.
Havoc wiped another tear from his eye and then had to adjust his gaze when he tried to look back at Lillia. "You're taller than I thought."
"It's a short cellar."
"You're so tiny though."
"Thank you."
"Weak."
"Thin," Lillia corrected.
Havoc sneered at the word. "If you're a princess, you shouldn't be thin. You should have strong muscles and a thick layer of fat for the winter." Once he'd finished his lecture, Havoc continued marching through Lillia's scroll pile.
Whatever he said. Sure.
"You're level one?" Havoc asked.
"I think so."
"Think so?"
"I don't know how to check," she said.
Havoc stifled the laugh this time; the conversation would drag on too long otherwise. "Well, I can't tell you that much, but young lady—a kid like you shouldn't be here."
"I'm not a kid. Thank you."
Havoc didn't turn around, but he glanced back. "You're young."
"I am in my twentieth year. I am nearly the age to take the throne," Lillia was surprised by how defensive she sounded. She'd been told she was too young to take her mother's place so many times that she figured she was used to hearing it.
"So, you're not old enough to take the throne?" Havoc asked.
"Well—"
"Kid," Havoc said. The hobgoblin stopped at the door and shook his head. "Look. Don't be sore about that. Soon you'll be old and wishin' you had youth ahead of ya. S'why I'm so chatty too, got a couple kits myself back home."
Lillia paused at the word home. Didn't he live here?
"Let the door close, eh, kid." Havoc cleared his throat, then sighed as he rested his hand on the wood.
"It closed behind me."
"Alright then. We're gonna have to finish this conversation later," he said. Havoc took a step away from the door and motioned for Lillia to try. The text told her no exit before she could reach the handle.
"Um."
"Door's closed. Means you can't leave until you've beaten the room." Havoc clicked his tongue and drummed his hand on one of his stalwart thighs. His nails clicked against his metal armor. "Do you know how you beat a room, Lillia?"
She didn't like the answer. "I killed the chitterpede last time and now it's—"
"Yeah. I'm the monster in the room by the dungeon's counting so…Talk later. Get stabbin'."
A cascade of feelings crashed through Lillia in that moment. She wasn't going to kill Havoc! He was being so nice. She wasn't sure she could kill him. Why was he okay with this? Was he really old or just acting old? When would she find a bath?
Her mouth settled on the simplest answer. "What?"
"Just do it quick."
"Do you want to die?"
Havoc cocked his head at Lillia. The frown was slow to spread across his face, etching along his brow at a snail's pace. "Oh. Monsters respawn."
Lillia was halfway through getting Vianaffir off her belt to follow instructions. "Respawn?"
"We come back. Give it a day and you can open the door again. We'll be back."
"How does that work?"
"You're going to need to read so many scrolls," Havoc sighed. "Well. Let's start the timer." He beckoned her over.
Lillia recoiled. "I don't want to stab you."
"Ain't a bucket of piglet cheek for me either, kid. Just gotta do it."
Lillia took a moment to consider how many piglet cheeks it would take to fill a bucket, and why a bucket would be at a feast. "Okay. I guess. Does it hurt?"
"Like a bitch."
Lillia turned the point of Vianaffir away from Havoc.
"What?"
"You could have lied about that!"
Havoc took a step forward. Lillia kept the sword away from him.
"I'm not going to lie to you, kid, you just have to do—"
Lillia screamed and swung. Havoc dove to the side.
"Why'd you move?!"
"That wasn't going to kill me!" Havoc roared. "You were just gonna chop my leg off and—" he growled. It was long, complicated, and probably a language Lillia didn't understand.
"I'm sorry. I don't really know how to use this thing."
Havoc kept grumbling and rolled over on the floor so that he was lying on his back. He waved Lillia over again. Once she was standing over him, he reached to his side and undid a buckle in his armor. Once there was a gap of bare orange skin; he pointed. "Blade tip here."
Lillia swallowed. That didn't seem like a good place to get stabbed.
"Come on."
"I don—"
Havoc grabbed for the blade. Lillia tried to pull away, but the hobgoblin was actually competent. He pressed the tip against the flesh on his side. "Just stab."
"But—"
"Kid."
Lillia squeezed her eyes shut and thrust. Havoc gasped. Coughed. Lillia squealed.
"Fuckin' deeper."
"Sorry!"
Vianaffir plunged deep into Havoc's chest. His breathing stopped after two last gasps. Blood seeped from the wound and began pooling at his side. It got worse once Lillia pulled Vianaffir free.
He was going to come back. He said he'd come back. It was alright. This was fine. It was good. It was right. He'd said so.
Lillia had to take a step back to avoid the blood as it seeped into the gaps in the floorboards. Bile built up in the back of her throat. Her hands trembled. She wiped away tears before they could appear.
He'd said so.
[Havoc - Status: Friend defeated! Yay!]