... Melts When Exposed to Sufficient Pyromancy

It turned out that while he was ridiculous, the King of the Lilies was also a fey of considerable power. In raw strength, Marci knew she had him outmatched, but in terms of 'skill' it didn't make any sense to compare them. He wasn't a wizard, and neither were his guards, and instead of proper spells he just hurled around destructive energy and weird charms that made no sense and he didn't have to cast in the traditional, proper sense.

A bolt of blue-white energy struck Marci's shield, and the entire thing just burst into soap bubbles, forcing her to jerk to one side to avoid being hit by another shimmering ribbon of energy that struck the wall behind her and turned the entire thing lurid green.

"Surrender, Princess! You cannot hope to defeat me, for I am the King of the Lilies!" shouted the King. "Sovereign of Salientopolis! Ruler of the Vodyanoy!"

Marci hated fey. Marci really, really hated fey.

Saoirse was also having little luck, and had failed five more riddles that the brassy vodyanoy face that guarded the reliquary they needed to enter to get a stupid book that would stop everyone being a Lord and Lady, and thus 'free them'—or something.

Why was she even doing this again? Oh, right, to spite Anke.

"Hurry up!" shouted Marci.

"I'm trying!" replied Saoirse. "Please door, another."

"'Within me cities dwell, but neither house nor hotel,'" said the brassy face. "'Mountains rise, but no trees in any guise; water is abundant, but fish are redundant.'"

"Um, err…" said Saoirse. "No fish and… um… that's a… that's a… book?"

"What a fool!" chortled the door. "A map was what you wanted, you tool!"

"Hey, that's mean!" said Saoirse.

Marci clapped her hands, and with a pulse of considerably more power than once she would have had several hunks of stone floor shattered and reformed, assuming the rough shape of humanoids to intercept the rushing guards. The short-lived golems wouldn't last long, but hopefully Saoirse would hurry up and get through the door.

There was another blast of fey-lightning that all just ignored her shield, and made her hiss in pain as she barely dodged it. She riposted with a fireball, which was somehow transfigured into a ball of water, that immediately collapsed, coating the already damp floor with more liquid.

The researcher in her found that fascinating, and wanted to study the magic involved—many spells had been reverse engineered from things that fey did unconsciously—but the rest of her was just infuriated by how annoying the vodyanoy were to fight.

"'Look ye at a boat, full of people and yet does still float; but glance again at this barge, and you will see not a single person at large,'" said the door. "Why?"

"That… what?" said Saoirse. "How does- I don't even understand how that's a riddle!"

"Saoirse!" shouted Marci as a spell flickered through her barrier and turned all her clothes lurid pink, orange and lime.

"Let's see… there are- there are people on the boat, but then there aren't…" muttered Saoirse, before she snapped her finger. "Oh! Oh I've got this! Oh 'single!' They- they're all in relationships!"

"Although not fast, you've got it—at last!" said the door, and with a great groan of metal began to roll sideways.

Even looking away, Marci could see the glow of gold spilling from the room, and Saoirse, who as the equivalent of a Princess of the Hells and thus must have been used to wealth, gasped.

"No! Stop them!" shouted the King of the Lilies, launching a spell that cut straight through Marci's shield—some kind of flickering light?—struck her, and hurled her back against the wall so hard she saw stars. "Stop them!"

Marci struggled to raise another shield, for all the good the damn things were doing her, drawing back a little from her own body, diminishing the sensation of pain, and becoming a bit more aware of the Shardfort, which had always been in the back of her mind, but she had been largely ignoring.

Jolanda seemed to be bossing demons around, Rafferty was drilling soldiers on the battlements, and the kobolds were having a... union meeting? No, a strike meeting. They were making signs…

Images of placards reading of 'We wants more works!' and 'No to eight hours!' and a large banner that read 'We is Kobolds! We strikes for long hours!' flashed through her mind, and Marci almost lost control of the shield spell as she groaned in annoyance. She focused a bit more on her aching body and they faded back into the background. She would have to deal with that madness later, assuming she didn't end up smeared over the floor.

Another powerful spell was only partially blocked by her barrier, knocking her against the wall hard enough that she shouted in pain. She was about to use her Shard powers to see what the fuck Saoirse was doing when the demon's polite but firm voice rang out through the long, slightly damp hallway.

"Hey, your majesty, um… back off!" said Saoirse. "Or- or I'll end feudalism!"

Marci turned her aching head to see that Saoirse was holding up an ornate, gilded book encrusted with gems in one hand, and had cherry red fire swirling around her other fist. Why she wasn't immediately burning it, Marci had no idea.

"No! Not the Tome!" said the King of the Lilies, redoubling his efforts to break her barrier.

"I'll do it!" said Saoirse, holding the book up higher. "I will! Don't think I won't! Back off!"

"Saoirse, we're here to destroy it!" wheezed Marci. "Stop threatening him, and just do it!"

Saoirse cleared her throat and lowered her voice so only Marci could hear. "But he only thinks this is what gives him power, right?" said Saoirse. "I mean, I know titles are important, but I think the capacity for a ruler to enact violence is more relevant to ongoing power than any legalistic framework-"

"This is the Feywilde, just go with it!" said Marci.

"But- but-" stammered Saoirse, glancing between Marci and the tome. "It's a book! I- I can't-"

"Fucking burn it already!" screamed Marci.

"Well, um, OK," said Saoirse, grimacing and leaning back and away, closing one of her eyes as she held her conjured flames to the pages, as if she was performing some kind of terrible crime. "I'm- I'm really sorry about this! I swear, I don't normally burn books!"

The flames took, and the succubus hastily dropped the tome as it began to smoulder and burn, fire washing over and consuming the extremely flammable material.

"Nooooooooo!" screamed the King of the Lilies, dramatically falling to his knees as his golden crown literally melted off his head: gems clattering to the ground as the gold sloughed away in great rivulets, running off him and pooling on the ground around him. "Nooooooooo!"

The guards, who had been hacking away, rather successfully, at Marci's golems, stopped their froggy eyes wide as they stared down at their halberds with looks of incredulity. Then their gazes hardened, and then turned towards where the King, or, perhaps, ex-King was scooping up handfuls of the liquid gold and gems, trying futilely to put it back together in the shape of a crown.

"No Lords!" shouted one, raising his weapon.

"No Masters!" shouted another.

"No Kings!" shouted a third.

"A free Salientopolis!" shouted a fourth.

"A free Feywilde!" shouted a fifth.

"Ahhh!" shouted the King, again extremely dramatically, as he was skewered from multiple angles. "I am defeated!"

The halberds were withdrawn, and he slumped forward and sprawled on the floor, his bright red blood mixing with the gold and spreading out across the rough flagstones. He reached out a hand and opened his mouth to say one last thing, before the light faded from his eyes and he twitched once, then twice, before falling totally still.

If Marci had seen this in a theatre, she would have thought it all rather hammy and overwrought. But, apparently, that was just how the Feywilde rolled.

"The King is dead!" shouted one of the vodyanoy.

"Long live the People's Republic of Salientopolis!"

"Long live the People's Republic of Salientopolis!"

"Well, uh…" said Saoirse, staring down at the smouldering remains of the book as the guards began to cheer and hug one another. "That escalated quickly." She frowned. "And resolved itself quickly, too—I guess?"

"I hate the Feywilde," muttered Marci, picking herself up.