Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

Goldie clung to the nameless knight's shoulder, her deepening fear and desperation manifest in the frantic grip of her body.

She felt the man wince. He was already on edge, standing near the sheer drop that led from the tunnel's entrance down into a seemingly bottomless black pit. Even for a professional soldier, he had endured a lot. It probably made him even more uneasy having a big spider making these small but violent moves right beside his neck.

Goldie forced herself to relax, to make the life of the knight carrying her a little bit easier. Samson was safe at least. He rested on the shoulder of another knight, a man who had gone off to report the status of the escape to Frederick and William. Having led the retreat, they were further into the cave, making way for the later arrivals.

The spider could not imagine there would have been much to report yet. The escape was still ongoing.

The party was in the entrance tunnel now. Somehow the young lords had managed to navigate their way back to it. Goldie had only realized the location because, despite the slowly failing light of the level outside, she could still see the gleam of gold on the floor of this cave. Despite the level outside seemingly self-destructing, this tunnel appeared to be almost fully untouched. That seemed to give everyone who reached this place a near certainty of escaping the dungeon alive.

There were still some knights urgently streaming in, climbing down from the cliffside and stepping into the shared refuge—though the flow of people had noticeably slowed.

Others of their party were less fortunate. Goldie saw a few plummet downward, to seemingly certain death in the boundless darkness below. They were heavily outnumbered by fallen ants, though that provided little comfort to her.

The ants did not need each of their number nearly as much.

The lighting of the outside world—the world of the level—kept dimming as the exodus continued. Goldie knew what that was. The blue lichen that lined the ceiling had been the light source once the illusionary false sun was extinguished—no, had always been the true light source, masked behind the illusion of an artificial sun.

The world had become unglued; the roof had begun to fall in on itself.

Goldie occasionally saw pieces of rock drift by, even more often than she saw ants and far more frequently than humans fell. Many of those rocks glowed with the bioluminescent lichen that had been the level's light source. Once the ceiling had fully caved in, there would probably be no more light coming from the level at all.

Then we will know it is truly over.

Fortunately, the light was still enough for her to make out shapes and figures outside of the cave. She could identify who was entering the tunnel and who was falling to their deaths.

But she had seen nothing of Adon and Rosslyn.

He said he was going to go help her, Goldie thought uneasily. Could it have been that hard for the two of them to fight their way down here?

As she had that thought, a shape flashed by. A female knight—no, it was the Princess!

At the same time that realization hit her, a male shape shot past, moving slightly faster than Rosslyn had been falling—a humanoid figure with giant butterfly wings. Goldie knew that was Adon, but the thought made her quiver.

Both of them. Both of them are going into that darkness…

It felt like a permanent move.

Goldie felt the sudden wish to join them. Adon was her dearest friend, and the Princess—despite the spider's reluctance to grow attached to the Kingdom at all, Rosslyn had been nothing but kind to her. And Goldie could not deny that she had felt wounded when she saw the Princess's face drift past.

Yes, I care for the Princess as a friend, too. Maybe it was all the food.

Behind her, much too late to do anything about what had just happened, Goldie heard the heavy footfalls of Lord William charging forward.

"Well, do not just stand there!" he half-hissed, half-shouted. "Someone do something! Grab her! Did no one else see the Princess falling just now?"

There were murmurs from the young lord's own men, to the effect of, "What could we possibly do, sir?"

Goldie privately agreed with them, of course. She had seen a few people closer to the exit, or hanging off the cliffside, try to reach out to catch the Princess, but they were too slow and she was too far away, having somehow tumbled some distance from the cliff face. Even William had been too slow to take any action, and his entire stake in this expedition depended on Rosslyn remaining alive. William was either going to come out of this place with a royal match or at least with a Princess who badly owed him. Those gains would both disappear if something happened to the Princess.

There was the sound of another pair of feet crossing the tunnel. Goldie recognized, without turning, the calmer frequency of Frederick's body moving through the space. He approached until she could see him at the edges of her vision.

"Goldie," he said quietly. "Are you all right?"

As well as I could be, she replied telepathically. Our friends are…

Frederick gave a single sharp, understanding nod.

"Yes."

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He silently extended an arm, and Goldie climbed on.

Thank you, she sent to the knight. My friend's last act was saving me and my Sammy—before he threw himself after the Princess. You helped him achieve what he wanted.

The man nodded and smiled with what Goldie thought she could sense was unfeigned pleasure, and she knew she had chosen good words.

Goldie was quietly pleased that her social skills seemed to have come back into their own. She had been so rusty for so long.

The light dimmed visibly behind them once more, and Goldie knew that they were that little bit nearer the end.

Frederick took her away from that view. He led her deeper into the cave, to the base of the stairs that the group had descended to get to this level. He sat down at the foot of those steps and he waited.

Finally, William arrived, along with a couple of knights from Rosslyn's retinue. Samson was also there, riding on William's shoulder.

The young lord looked pinched, annoyed, as if this situation was testing his patience.

Goldie sensed that the young lords were about to make some decisions, and she wondered if she would have a role to play. The brothers had not been in the position to make decisions on their own in this dungeon thus far. They had always deferred to some extent to the Princess whose Kingdom they were currently fighting to assist.

"We failed the level," William said in a bitter tone, not bothering to keep his voice low. "We did not find the exit, and our dungeon quest has to end here."

The two knights of Rosslyn's who had been brought over to take part in this council looked stricken, and one sucked in a sharp intake of breath in surprise.

"What are you saying?" the man asked suddenly, interrupting.

"That the floor completely collapsed, and the dungeon cannot be completed as planned," Frederick said, simultaneously candid and soft-spoken.

"And it is likely that the floor collapse killed every single monster—" There William paused for a moment and set his mouth in a line before continuing, "human, and mystic beast who is not presently among us."

His suspicion of us completely went away, at least, Goldie thought.

"We saw the Princess fall past, and she was just fine," said the other of her two knights who William had brought to consult.

"Sir Baen, please be reasonable," said Frederick calmly. "Everyone is fine when they are falling. It is the landing that kills you. She was unconscious, and if she had not been, she would not have been falling. No one here could survive a fall like the one she took while unconscious. It would be a hard thing even if you were awake, unless the seemingly bottomless pit below us is much shallower than it looks."

"What will the two of you do, then?" the first of the two knights asked, his voice hostile.

"I cannot say I care for your tone, Sir Humphrey," replied William. He spoke firmly, in a tone of natural command and assumed superiority. "You have likely just lost your future sovereign, so I will forgive it. As for what we will do, naturally the Dessian leadership is taking command of this expedition. We will bring a quick end to the journey. We have to make decisions on the basis of what we have witnessed. We have never encountered a dungeon that destroyed large parts of itself in this way before. No one who writes on this subject has either. I believe that this place is badly broken, the core has crippled itself in order to make it impossible for us to destroy it. But at the same time, it is unlikely that it will pose a near term threat to the outside. The dungeon opened prematurely and then broke itself trying to defend against us. It will need to rebuild before a dungeon break can occur. In that time, the more pressing threat that you need to worry about is the Demon Empire. If the Empire conquers Wayn, will it even matter what happened here?"

"My family, my love, still live in this land, my lord," Sir Humphrey objected. "Even if, Goddess forbid, the Demon Empire were to conquer it, the common people would still need to be kept safe from natural disasters like this dungeon."

"That is no longer my concern," William said icily. "I am telling you as plainly as I can. This is not our land. Without the Princess here, the objective changes from extermination to pure survival. Our responsibility is to return the force to the surface, as intact as we possibly can, so that what is left of you can do battle with the Demon Empire." He gestured at the knights all around them. "I ordered a head count taken once the last man managed to get inside this tunnel. You have lost almost half of your number since we entered this dungeon. I was under the impression that the Kingdom did not have a surplus of knights to fritter away on tasks like this. That there was a reason adventurers were sent to do this work before us?" He practically spat the word "adventurers."

Sir Humphrey slumped. "My lord, we should at least take a vote or a read of the group's feelings on this matter. There will be a number of us who wish to search for Princess Rosslyn. She was—is—very important to the Kingdom, as you well know."

William perceptibly thawed a bit. "I know. You also know that the mystic butterfly descended into the darkness with her." He looked annoyed for a moment, before continuing, "He will do whatever is possible to save Rosslyn. If I am wrong and they survive this, that will be the reason why. Not because we sent a few ill-equipped, un-provisioned knights down into endless darkness to try and find a needle in a haystack. It would be irresponsible of me to let you have a say in this decision, when your understandable emotions are running so high. None of us wants to let the Princess go. But understand that this is a decision that must be made. Every knight's life matters. Returning to the surface in a reasonable amount of time, before the Kingdom is overwhelmed by the Empire, matters a great deal. This will be even more difficult if the floors above us are partially collapsed and require some excavation, which I suspect is likely. Most importantly, the good of the Kingdom must outweigh the survival of any one member of the Royal Family. You know that Princess Rosslyn would agree with me on that."

Slowly, reluctantly, Sir Humphrey nodded.

This was it, Goldie recognized. This was the strong, firm leadership that made people want to follow a man like William—stubborn, a bit aggressive, sometimes outright unpleasant—into danger.

"Very well," Frederick said, picking up the thread of the conversation. "You have my brother's decision. Please communicate it to the rest of your side of the group." He lowered his voice confidentially. "If you can, do not just communicate the idea. Sell it. We can strongly discourage and even order men and women not to throw good lives after lost ones, but ultimately, we cannot watch you all the time. If knights wish to sneak off and martyr themselves, we cannot prevent it. But I hope you will understand that it is not in your country's best interests that members of your group embark on such ill-fated ventures."

Sir Humphrey and Sir Baen bowed their heads at that addition and said that they would do their best. And Goldie found that they seemed to be telling the truth. At least, those were the telepathic waves she felt. Frustrated resignation and bitter honesty.

Goldie herself wondered if survival was possible in the depths of the dungeon, but she had no illusions about going off by herself for a rescue attempt. She knew she was slower and weaker, smaller and less efficient at moving, compared to any of the knights. She could only go and attempt to save Adon if she had the whole party with her, or at least a group of people to carry her along with them.

Who will protect you now, Adon? Goldie thought. After you spent all that time protecting me and Sammy, and you threw yourself into the pit to protect Rosslyn. Who will look after you?