Princess Lillia didn't just fall through the doorway, she fell down. To the guards above, it looked as if she had disappeared into an infinite black. To her? She felt her teeth rattle as she found the cold stone floor.
"No. No. No. No. Please!" She slurred the words, all of them breaking open in her shaking skull.
Above, the door creaked as it slammed shut.
"No! Please don't—"
The bolt clicked into place. The sound of Lillia's doom echoed off the stonework.
"Please…"
The princess remained on her knees at the bottom of the pit. She adjusted her dress to ensure she kept modest. She stared up at where she thought the door was. They would be back for her. They had to come back to her. Her aunt was just trying to teach her a lesson—scare her a little. She wasn't going to be left down here.
Lillia's knees were getting sore. She could taste the blood where she'd bitten her cheek on the way down. How long had it been? Was she even looking at the door?
"Hello?" she squeaked.
The princess changed positions, getting off her knees and moving to sit on the floor. Lillia paused. She didn't want to sit directly on the dirty stone, but she certainly couldn't ruin her dress by sitting on it. What would everyone back in court say?
A droplet of water landed beside her and broke the silence. Lillia's chest was tight. It was hard to breathe. How much air was in here? Could she—
"Anyone?" she asked. Echoes answered.
Sitting and kneeling were cold, so Lillia stood. Her feet grew sore standing still, so she paced. At first, it was small circles to ensure she could look out into the black where the door should have been. Over time—she didn't know how long—her circuit grew. Back. Forth. Back. Forth.
She'd certainly missed the start of the daily council by now. How embarrassing. What was she going to say?
Back. Forth. Back. Forth.
It had been too long. Hadn't it? Did they forget about her? No. Of course not. Maybe it was simply the opposite of having fun. Time was just dragging. It had probably only been a couple of minutes.
Back. Forth. Back. Forth.
Lillia was getting hungry. Asking for food the second someone came for her wouldn't be appropriate for her station. She'd have to wait until the next meal. Had the chef mentioned what they were making for dinner?
Back. Forth. Back. Forth.
Lillia's growing path found the stone wall. She stopped pacing and prodded it again with her toe before reaching out and resting her palm against the brickwork. It was freezing. It was all so cold down here.
God, the fire would be nice this evening.
The princess lengthened her pacing again, this time walking the entire stretch from wall to wall. Tracing the width of the room was as good a way to pass the time as any.
And goodness. She'd been here a while. Or she just couldn't feel the seconds slip by as well as she'd thought.
She'd count! That would help her keep her wits.
One. Two. Three. Four sheep. Five. Six.
What was she going to say to her aunt? Was she going to apologize? Her throat went dry at the thought. She wasn't sorry for what she said, but…
Back. Forth. Back. Forth. Two hundred and thirty-eight. Two hundred and thirty-nine.
She was right to speak her mind! Her father had told her so. Soon she would be Queen and her aunt would lose her title of stewardship. Lillia had to prepare to stand up to her again and again once she had her rightful title.
One thousand.
Goodness gracious. Lillia had been trying to count along with the seconds, but she must have been counting too quickly. Right? Of course, that was the answer.
Back. Forth. Back.
Two thousand.
She was hungry now. Properly hungry.
Back. Forth.
Eight thousand and thirty-six.
Back.
Twenty thousand. Eight hundred. Ninety-two.
Lillia stopped pacing and slumped against the stone wall. She could feel her slippers cutting into her heels and a blister where they pressed her toes together. She could feel the raw skin where she'd started biting her lip in the early ten-thousands. She could feel the pressure behind her eyes as they strained to see something—anything.
Twenty thousand. Eight hundred. Ninety-three.
"Twenty thousand. Eight hundred…ninety…"
Lillia pulled her knees to her chest. Her dress scraped along the stone floor as she pressed herself against the wall. The princess hunched over. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't supposed to cry. Her mother had told her that she needed to be strong. Even when it was hard.
At the time, those words had seemed stupid and hollow. She'd scraped her knee and needed to stop sniffing away her tears behind her father's throne. At that point, it had just been the kind of thing you say to kids. Something that someone might write in a letter, but never truly mean. Empty advice that bore repetition.
Those words had been tested over the course of Lillia's time under her aunt. She had bent, but she hadn't broken yet. She would sob. She would cry out. There would never be tears.
It just hurt…trying to hold them back.
Once she'd stopped counting, Lillia lost track of the seconds again as they settled in the pit of her stomach. The princess curled in on herself in the darkness. She held the sobs at the back of her throat.
She couldn't just stay in the corner.
Lillia knew the castle. She knew every wall and secret tunnel that cut through its foundation. Right now she knew she wasn't in the castle's dungeon—there would have been a convenient secret passage in the northwest corner if she were—but that didn't mean she couldn't discover the secrets of a new dungeon for herself.
After all, someone would have built this prison. If someone built it, they probably slipped in a way for them to escape if their ruler had a change of heart. That was just good practice.
Lillia stood up and began to feel her way around the room. She tested each stone on the edge of the floor and the base of the wall with her heel. None of them were moving, but that just meant she needed to try others. After that she would look for something other than a pressure plate and—
The stones stopped, and Lillia found wood. She patted around and found the edge of the door. Just when she considered whether she was going to need to learn to kick in a door, she found the handle.
More surprising still, the handle worked. The door swung inward. The light beyond was dim, but it burned Lillia's starving eyes. She turned away from the source, staring at the floor and her shadow that now stretched across the room.
Lillia blinked away the spots from her eyes. Her chest tightened. There was a chance her aunt was coming back for her. Maybe she just hadn't waited long enough. Maybe she just needed to be patient and good things would come to her…Maybe.
Maybe a lot of things.
Lillia took a deep breath to steel herself against whatever was coming. If her aunt wanted to come and apologize, she could come and find her. Lillia wasn't about to give that woman the satisfaction of seeing the princess cry. She turned.
The light was coming from a single torch on the far side of a cathedral-like chamber. A sprawling staircase was below the sconce, delving deeper into the ground. On either wall, there were massive stained glass windows that were dark with the earth pressing in on them.
Lillia took a cautious step into the room. Her heel echoed on the stone floor and bounced off the empty walls. The room should have been impressive; there should have been chandeliers hanging from the empty chains that rattled above the princess.
Rot had replaced grandeur. Each of the princess's more confident steps came with billows of dust as she crossed the room. Lillia was almost running by the time she reached the top of the stairs.
There was a void beneath her. The stairway stretched out to a landing, two doors, and then far beyond. The stairs delved deep into the earth. Impossibly so. Lillia checked over her shoulder, as if someone could confirm that what she was seeing was real.
The grand cathedral at the gate. The lone stairway down into the maw of the earth. They hadn't thrown Lillia into a prison. They'd thrown her into a dungeon. The kind meant for adventurers. That should have been a terrifying thought, and eventually it would be, but other questions lingered. This dungeon was impossible. It was too big and too close to the castle. She would have heard about it…
Lillia bent over and pressed her palm against the cold flagstone. There was so much dust here. How many years had passed since anyone else had been here?
The flame above danced, disturbed by wind that wasn't there. Lillia jumped at her shadow and turned back to the main room.
There was nothing. Of course there was nothing. There was nobody else down here.
When Lillia turned back to the stairs, there was a twisted shape on the landing. A skeleton that hadn't been there before. The princess leapt backward and stared at the thing on the landing. She sighed. Dead, thankfully. The bones were wearing armor. In its open 'palm' sat a still gleaming blade.
"Hello?" the princess called out to whoever had placed the corpse there. Her voice echoed through the darkness. The flame above her was steady again. Whatever had gifted her…a dead body…was gone.
Lillia figured that approaching a skeleton was a possible death sentence. Staying upstairs was a certain one. Grabbing the sword from the skeleton was her best chance of survival, but it was the ickiest option.
The corpse was old. The skeleton had browned over time, and the leather within the armor was the only fabric that hadn't rotted away to tatters over the years. Lillia checked over her shoulder before crouching down beside the corpse. Now that she was close and less grossed out, it was clear that this man hadn't gotten killed in a fight and left here. Someone had placed him on the stairway, or he'd laid down there himself.
Neither of those were that reassuring. At least he came with a weapon.
Lillia reached over the man, whispering a quiet sorry as she grabbed the sword out of his silver gauntlet. The blade was heavy in her palm. Good steel. The kind she'd needed to sneak off to play with. Her father had chided her for it. He always told her that knives were a proper woman's weapon, that the surprise they allowed was more than any great blade. All of those lessons, and in the end a sword would have done her some good back on the surface.
There was something inscribed on the handle, but the clatter of a glass bottle pulled Lillia's attention away as it fell out of the knight's pocket. Something to drink would have been fantastic, but there was a note inside.
Lillia laid the sword down beside its former owner and uncorked the bottle. She read.
Adventurer.
I wish I were there to see a friendly face. To be a guide, as I was guided in my early days. Alas, I was not strong enough.
This dungeon has not killed me, but it has beaten me.
I long for the sun. I long for the wind. I long for the welcome of my brothers in a life beyond this one. I do not understand how many years I have dedicated to exploring this place, but I understand my fellows will be old warriors telling ghost stories of my past heroics while I am yet young due to the dungeon's challenge.
You are brave for coming here. This place dares your challenge. It welcomes those willing with as many chances as they need.
The count stopped mattering to me. I am sorry that I couldn't wait for you. It simply felt like so long.
Instead of my guidance, I offer a gift. I leave my armor and my blade near the entrance for you to find. If we are lucky, my shade will have revealed them to you when the time is right.
Lillia checked over her shoulder at the mention of a shade. The torchlight was steady above, barely enough to read by.
The blade is called Vianaffir. My mentor would chide me for such an advantage in your hands. He would also chide me for leaving you alone.
In my last moments, I seek mercy as you judge me for my cowardice. May my arms guide you in my stead.
A nameless knight.
There was a crudely drawn recreation of a royal seal at the bottom of the page. It was amateur and wrought from memory, but Lillia recognized the wings from her early lessons. Her great-grandfather had overthrown that house. The least she could do was to honor the knight.
Lillia lowered the visor of the knight's helm, figuring it was the closest thing she could do to closing his eyes. His armor wouldn't fit her, not in the slightest. But she was thankful he hadn't listened to his mentor about the sword.
The blade was lighter the second time. She looked for a scabbard, but there wasn't one. She was going to have to tuck it into her belt and be careful about her dress.
Lillia swung the blade once to test it and almost leapt backward as she was barraged with an array of information.
[You are not high enough level to use this weapon]
[Current Level: 1]
[Current Class: Princess]