Silver+Gold+Platinum: Chapters 155-162 (Patreon)

Book Three Chapter Nineteen: Meeting Request

The Chosen One made the party pick the next quest, which involved running around Cobbletown trying to find a flower seller who moved from street to street on an unchanging circuit. Qube didn’t think that there was much point to this — surely the person who put up the request could have just waited for the flower seller to walk by? — but at least the little girl who’d requested it was very grateful when they finally gave her the golden daisies she had so badly wanted.

The Hero, however, didn’t seem to be particularly interested in the social quest. Even the fact that the golden daisies were something that the party hadn’t run across before didn’t excite him.

“Chosen One, are you well?” Qube asked as the Hero handed over the flowers without trying to bargain with the little girl to keep some of the daisies or shake her down for more money. “Those were unique flowers.”

“Wait, they were?” the Chosen One asked, whipping his head back around to where the girl had just jerkily skipped off. He winced. “Ow, okay, that hurts.” Qube instinctively reached out and cast [Lesser Heal]. The Hero shifted as her spell sank into him.

“We should really get some rest,” Qube said. The tiredness from the Wizards’ Academy had somewhat subsided, but the longer they spent in Cobbletown, the more it returned. A certain pressure was starting to build in her head as well. It wasn’t the commanding chains of the Golden Prophecy, rather it was more like cotton wool was stuffed inside her skull, stopping her from thinking as fast as she normally would.

The Chosen One gave one long, slow blink.

“Sure,” he said, the word sounding slightly distorted. “Yeah. Let’s go to the inn and get some rest. I don’t know if I can stand this for much longer, sorry.”

“Don’t worry, I’m tired too,” Qube reassured him. An eyebrow flew up, and he examined her face, and then swung around and looked at the rest of the party.

All of them looked tired, and a little bit tattered, like they’d just finished a battle.

“Wait, are all of you tired? Like, actually sleepy and not just saying that?” the Hero asked. The rest of the party nodded. Even Squiggles gave a big yawn. The Chosen One chewed on his bottom lip. He looked genuinely worried.

“It’s normal to be tired, Chosen One,” Qube reassured him. “Why, we used to sleep every night! You shouldn’t get so used to adventuring life that you forget what keeps you healthy. When was the last time you ate?”

Actually when was the last time the rest of the party had eaten? It had been a month or two, at least. That was probably not ideal. The spirit of their grand quest keeping them going was all well and good, but at some point they would need to eat proper food.

Aside from Squiggles, who was munching on something crunchy. Qube narrowed her eyes at the pet, who did her best to look as innocent as a furiously chewing sharktopus could.

“Squiggles,” Qube said warningly. “That had better not be something you took without asking.”

Squiggles grinned, revealing the corner of a flag stuck between her jagged teeth. Qube blushed in embarrassment.

“Yes, well,” she said, coughing into her fist. “That was for an emergency. Also stop eating that, Sexy Screamy Spider Lady made it especially for you.”

“My darling, if it brings her more pleasure to consume her adornments than wear them, I would never tell her not to,” the arachnid said as her thorax once again briefly ate a section of her top. The whole party had changed back into their regular outfits some time ago, something Qube was grateful for.

One day she would figure out how to change outfits. One day.

By this point they’d reached the inn, and the Chosen One barged past the crowd of chickens and approached Zakora.

“Do we need to pay for rooms to sleep in or we just do it?” he asked with his usual tact.

“Five copper a room,” Zakora said. While she was still polishing a mug, and had yet to actually leave the inn to check out the areas the Royal tokens had given her access to, she seemed noticeably friendlier. Unless she’d left while they’d been off rescuing Timmy?

Who would even look after the inn while she was away? Normally shopkeepers stayed at their shops until the shops closed, and would then go about their business. The only exception to that was Mr. Igma, who never left. But the inn was always open, and it was always just Zakora there. How did this half-orc take time to herself?

Before Qube could persuade one of the other party members to start interrogating the barkeep about maintaining a healthy balance between work and leisure, the Chosen One threw some money on the counter, and marched up the rickety stairs.

It was a sign of how far Sexy Screamy Spider Lady had come with her self-control that she was not only able to climb the staircase with only a tiny amount of sticking, she also didn’t knock over a single item as her legs scrabbled up the wooden stairs.

As soon as they reached the top, the Chosen One walked past the somehow still smouldering ruins of what had once been the Exiled Prince and Exiled Princess’s dining room, and brought them to four doors near the end of the corridor.

“All right,” he said, looking at the party. “Time to [Sleep].”

Immediately, each member of the party turned to a door, walked into their respective rooms, and fell fast asleep.

---

Qube dreamed of the Chosen One. In her dream, the numbers that made up her friend turned, and walked downstairs to the inn’s entrance. There was a strange portal next to the inn’s doorway, right where the Save Point would be in the real world.

Qube was being watched. She couldn’t seem to move, pinned in place in that way peculiar to dreams, but she could feel attention focused on her from the direction of the castle.

It reached out to her, seeking a connection.

The Chosen One merged with the portal, and all awareness fled.

---

It was morning again by the time Qube opened her eyes, although it felt like only a few moments had passed. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have thought it was the same morning as when they’d gone to sleep. Or maybe it was only later in the same day? She heard heavy footsteps climbing the staircase, and the Chosen One’s voice bounced down the corridor.

“Rise and shine!” he said. Qube instantly sat upright and was out of the bed in seconds, despite the fog still hindering her thoughts.

“Chosen One, did you sleep at all?” she asked, looking in shock at the nearly-haggard Hero. The Chosen One rubbed his face.

“What? Oh. No. I’ve been busy,” he said.

“What have you been doing?” Qube asked, hurt that he hadn’t invited her.

“Studying,” the Chosen One said.

“Studying?” Qube asked, blinking. Had he gone to the Royal Library to study? Without her? She started breathing deeply to try and stay in control but could still feel her cheeks beginning to redden with emotion. “I’m sure I could have helped you study, Chosen One! I wasn’t that tired!”

The Hero stopped rubbing his face and gave Qube a slightly dazed look. After a few seconds, what she was saying seemed to sink in.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh! No, no, not here. Studying something in the Devs’ Realm.”

“Oh.” Qube dropped her shoulders slightly as she realised she’d been bracing herself. “That’s different. Of course, you would have more time there. Well, if you ever need any help studying things from the Devs’ Realm and you’re allowed to share them with us, I’m sure everyone would be more than happy to help you study!”

“Certain things would be of interest to me. Science and anatomy in particular,” Definitely Bad Guy said thoughtfully. Sewer Bard also perked up.

“I would indeed be most pleased if you could find a way to bring us copies of the various sagas popular in the Devs’ Realms!” he said, with more enthusiasm than Qube had heard from him in a long time. “Why, I could help adapt and popularise them here, while also bringing our local stories to the Devs’ Realm when we ascend!”

It was the first time Qube had heard him actually sound excited about ascending.

Sexy Screamy Spider Lady was silent for a moment as she looked at the Hero. The Chosen One looked directly back at her, something he rarely did. The Hunter smiled, showing her fangs as she tapped a claw against her cheek.

“Hmm,” she said playfully, popping out her abdomen. “Maybe just some fun, light reading for me? Oh!” she straightened upright, as just struck by a sudden thought. “I wouldn’t want to get into trouble when we ascend, so maybe you could help a girl out and find some books on the law? I wouldn’t want to get arrested or anything for being naughty,” she finished with a pout.

Qube nodded her agreement. That was something she hadn’t even thought of! They would have to make sure they knew what all the rules and laws were when they ascended, so they didn’t accidentally offend anyone or do something illegal! The Chosen One, no doubt stunned by Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s brilliant idea, stared at the arachnid a second longer before shrugging.

“Sure, I can see if they’ll … actually I don’t know how they’ll do any of that stuff, but I can ask,” the Chosen One said. He looked at Squiggles, waiting to see what her request was.

Squiggles just opened her maw.

The Chosen One nodded.

“Sure,” he replied to her unspoken request. He yawned and stretched. “Oh man, I am exhausted,” he complained. “Oh yeah! How are you all feeling?”

“No different,” Qube said, and the others all made various noises of agreement. The Chosen One’s mouth quirked downwards for a second before reverting to his usual amiable expression, marred only by the weariness weighing him down.

“Hmm,” he said to himself as he slowly led them down the stairs and into what was now a truly enormous amount of chickens hanging out with the inn’s regulars. The clucking, drinking, and smoke was almost overwhelming. The Chosen One certainly seemed affected by it, trying his best to carefully shove chickens and patrons out of his way so he could exit the place. He didn’t even stop to greet Zakora, instead rapidly shuffling until he was outside.

Not that things were much better there, as someone was still teleporting around, and the children’s laughter was echoing despite the fact that no children were visible. Even the music was now skipping every few seconds.

The Hero pressed his fingers against his temples, closing his eyes.

“Okay, this is — this is hurting,” he said thickly. “So you all feel bad and tired too, right? Then this isn’t working. I put in the request but I don’t think I can be here while we wait. I’m sorry.”

What did that mean? What were they waiting for?

He reached out and touched the Save Point, and reality jittered. His body contorted for a second, before his hand finished passing through the Save Point, and he straightened up, reinvigorated. He looked around, rolling his shoulders.

“Yup, still a hot mess,” he said as he scanned the entire courtyard they were standing in. “But now I’ve got a solution!” he said cheerfully, with all his renewed energy. “Follow me!”

He started walking towards the richer area, where they had once found a basement full of skeletons.

“Hopefully once we’re out of the main area things will settle down a little,” he said, pressing a few fingers to his temple again. “This is some serious overload.”

Qube wasn’t sure if she should be asking the Hero to tell her what exactly was wrong, healing him, or demanding to know what his solution was. Instead she just settled for looking at him inquiringly. Her brain was so foggy.

Things did indeed seem to be less chaotic as they reached the area with the larger houses. Qube noticed that the house they’d burned down however long ago was still destroyed, no efforts having been made to fix it. Who was responsible for that? Given the city was run by a tyrant, was it left to the owner to call in a crew to come fix up the burned-out property? The owner had been Evil, Qube was pretty sure, so maybe they just didn’t care about fixing things?

“All right,” the Chosen One said, stopping at the abode next to the ruined house. “Before we go in, though, there’s a couple of things I’m going to have to explain.”

Book Three Chapter Nineteen: Makeshift Meeting Space

Finally! Qube was a massive fan of explanations!

“So,” the Chosen One said, clapping his hands together.

That was about as far as he got into his explanation before he got stuck. Which was also around the same time Qube remembered that the Chosen One, for all his many virtues, was terrible at explaining things.

“You have a solution,” she prompted, helpfully.

“Yes,” he said. He clapped his hands again, as if trying to reset himself. “Mana pool. Y’know how the mana pool, with the Devs, not enough of it?”

“Yes, the continuous spell being cast to keep our world running might at any minute run out of power, this is a thing I am very aware of.” Qube was doing her best to sound casual, but she could sense that she wasn’t sounding very cool, calm, and collected about the end of the world.

“Right,” the Chosen One said, grimacing slightly. “Well, I told the Devs, and they got in touch with the person who … decides how much mana they get? That doesn’t quite work.” He covered his mouth as he thought, before snapping his fingers.

“I got it!” he said. “So you know how tax works, right? And how the king or whatever decides how much tax goes to each department, like the head of the guards and head of repairing things, and stuff? Right, so, think of the Devs as, like, a part of the kingdom that reports to the guild of Building Things With Mana, and they were given a certain amount of money, or mana, to build things with. And now they need to talk to the person in charge of the Building Things With Mana to ask for more!”

The Chosen One wiped his forehead.

“Phew!” he said. “Does that make sense?”

Qube was horrified. So the Devs, the beings that had made her entire world, were just a small cog in a kingdom, subject to bureaucratic nonsense? She’d known that there were others above them, but from the way the Chosen One was talking, it was as if they were no different from a division of the Alchemists’ Guild. What could the guilds above them create? How high up did it go? How mind-meltingly powerful was the Royalty of the Devs’ Realm?

“And the ‘guild master’ in charge of distributing mana/money wants to see what they’ve produced with the mana and why they need more, so he’s asked to meet you specifically before he agrees to give them any more resources,” the Chosen One finished in a rush.

“Me?” Qube asked, her voice lost under the explosion of noise as everyone spoke at once.

“Well of course he would want to meet our adorable Healer,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Only her?” Sewer Bard asked calmly.

“I must request that we be present for this interrogation,” Definitely Bad Guy insisted.

“I agree,” Sewer Bard said, instantly adding to the Mage’s statement. “You said it yourself; there were to be no secrets between us, so naturally we shall be joining you.”

“Wait, you think they’re going to interrogate our sweet little innocent?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady reared up on her legs to her full height.

“If they have any wisdom, they shall not dare harm her,” Definitely Bad Guy replied, an unspoken threat in his voice.

All in all, it was chaos as the rest of the party worked themselves up into a frenzy. The Chosen One raised a hand, cutting them off.

“Look,” he said, before he lowered his hand and sighed. “This is something Alex is in charge of, and apparently the lieutenant or brigade or whatever only wants to meet Qube.”

The Hero looked surprisingly serious as he continued; “These aren’t people I can argue with, okay? This dude is already doing us a favour by agreeing to meet so soon and Alex was already freaking out about making the place ‘look right,’ and gave me a bunch of instructions which I actually wrote down.”

The impact of the Chosen One actually bothering to remember to write things down was strong enough that everyone paused.

“I promise you, this isn’t me keeping secrets, or trying to [fiddle] you guys over or anything. But she’s the one who got their attention first, and this guy is apparently old school enough that throwing curveballs at him—” here his gaze flickered over to Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, who was still towering over the party— “isn’t going to do us any favours.”

The Hunter lowered herself. There was a moment of silence as her claws slowly curled and uncurled.

“I can wait outside,” she said eventually, with no hint of her normal playfulness. Her eyes were downcast as she regarded her arms with a mournful expression. Even the children’s faces attached to her sides seemed subdued.

“It’s not just you,” the Chosen One clarified, “although you absolutely would scare the [snack] out of him,” he said with an amused smirk. “Everyone else, just their names only…” he trailed off, his smirk transforming into a look of embarrassment. “Well, let’s just say it’ll be easier to start with Qube,” he finished eventually.

“Is there something wrong with our current names?” Sewer Bard asked. “Perhaps you should give us back our old ones?”

“Wait, you remember your old name?” the Chosen One exclaimed in astonishment.

“You changed our names?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady asked, confused.

“I have always been known as Definitely Bad Guy,” Definitely Bad Guy said.

“It’s not that I completely changed your names,” the Chosen One said sheepishly, “more that the Devs know you guys by different names. But I — well, look, the important thing is that lots of people have lots of different names and this guy wouldn’t understand the complex history behind your current names and would probably just get confused so we should move on from this topic and also I need to give Qube all of Alex’s instructions before I forget,” he finished in a rush.

“What complex history is there to my current name?” Definitely Bad Guy asked.

“But my name so perfectly embodies me; how can I not have been born with it?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady mused. “I suppose I wasn’t always a spider.”

Squiggles worriedly chewed the edges of her flag-rope.

“So, I gotta go. Sewer Bard, you seem to remember your Dev-assigned name, which I gotta ask you about later, so I’ll leave this to you, okay I gotta go or we’re gonna be late bye!” The Chosen One grabbed Qube’s hand and almost dragged her into the mansion before them.

The interior of the mansion was nothing like anything Qube had ever seen before.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. There was a table, and chairs, both of which were items she’d seen before, but instead of the normal wooden browns and subtle reds of furniture they were various shades of grey and black.

Rather than the normal corridor, living areas, and stairs to bedrooms, the entire mansion appeared to be contained within a single, grey room. Much like when they’d faced off against the leader of Construct Crossroads, there were no doors leading out of the room; however, there were also no knick-knacks to hide secret entrances behind. It was just an odd-looking table, three chairs with cushions on them, and some mugs with dark liquid in them. There was also a bucket with what looked like water in it sitting on the table, but Qube didn’t have time to think about that because she was somewhat distracted by the woman sitting on the table.

It was Ruth, the Rogue, from back in the village.

Or, well, it was her body. It was clearly not Ruth herself. Her face had a cynical sneer on it that had never graced the professional potential Chosen One’s face, and the way she was sitting was odd, spreading her legs out as she sat on the edge of the table, ignoring the perfectly good chairs, leaning forward so that she looked slightly hunched.

The Chosen One stopped, letting go of Qube’s hand as he stared at the woman in confusion.

“Wait, where’s Alex?” he asked.

“Setting things up with the old guy,” the woman who looked like one of Qube’s childhood companions said in a strange voice. The Chosen One jerked his head back like he’d been hit.

“What the [fiddle] are you doing here?” he asked angrily.

“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Not-Ruth asked, clumsily sliding off the table. “This thing’s got my career riding on it, so why the [fiddle] wouldn’t I want to see it before it wrecks our chances with the higher-ups?”

“She’s not an it,” the Chosen One said, setting his jaw.

Not-Ruth’s sneer deepened.

“I don’t want to lose the last five years of my life on your sick waifu fantasy,” she snarled.

“So you come to stir up trouble just before we meet with the dude in charge of your funding?” the Chosen One shot back.

“No, I’ve come to make sure your weird little messiah complex doesn’t blow the whole thing. You and Alex are just as bad as each other, whinging about ‘free will’ and ‘sentience.’ It’s going to do what I tell it to do, or else we’re all in danger of getting this whole project axed. And I know you barely care about that, but I worked my [fiddling apples] off to get where I am, and I’m not letting it all get blown up by some [fiddling] amateur who doesn’t understand [snacks] about tech.”

Qube had some idea what was going on. Enough, at least, to realise that Not-Ruth was referring to her, every time she said it.

Qube did not particularly enjoy being called an it.

“Okay, is it listening to me?” Not-Ruth said, snapping her fingers in front of Qube’s face. Qube resisted the urge to smack the Dev’s hands away.

“Hello, Dev,” Qube said pleasantly. “What’s your name?”

“Urgh! How does it know I’m a dev? That’s so creepy!” Not-Ruth complained.

“You in that body is creepy,” the Chosen One replied.

“What, is this not what you’re into?” Not-Ruth sneered, distracted for a moment. There was a strange sound that Qube realised was the Chosen One grinding his teeth.

“My name is Qube,” Qube said before things could escalate, a well-practised smile pinned firmly in place.

“Your name is a joke,” Not-Ruth snapped at her, before closing her eyes. “Great, now I’m responding to it like it’ll understand.”

“Mate,” the Chosen One said, in a tone that very much implied Not-Ruth and him were not, in fact, mates, “I’m giving you one last warning. She’s a she. You call her it one last time, and we're going to have problems.”

Not-Ruth’s eyes gleamed. “Ah, but that’s not for you to tell me, is it?” she said. She looked at Qube and, for the first time, made brief eye contact with the Healer before looking back at the Chosen One.

“Your precious little side-project is the one messing everything up because it thinks it’s human, doesn’t it?” she continued. “So if it objects to being called that, then it’s not your job to tell me. It’s this thing’s job.” Not-Ruth waved a hand towards Qube.

Qube didn’t think she was a human at all. She knew very well that she was a half-elf. But she didn’t want to correct the Dev. The other Devs had been strange, and scary because of how powerful they were, but this Dev was something else entirely.

This Dev didn’t like her at all. And she didn’t even know how to begin to process the fact that one of the creators of her world didn’t like her.

Unless… was this an Evil Dev? That would explain why the Chosen One was so upset by her presence! The Devs had introduced Evil into the world for a reason, and Qube had suspected that part of the reason was so that the inhabitants would be able to recognise Evil when they came across it.

However, something Qube had picked up on was that it sounded like the Evil Dev was also involved in the creation of the world, if this was the ‘project’ Not-Ruth was talking about. Depending on how much power the Evil Devs had in the Devs realm, the Devs might not have even had a choice about including Evil in their world.

No wonder the Good Devs needed the party to ascend and help them once they defeated the Evil Emperor. If this Dev was anything to go by, the Evil Devs were real jerks!

Book Three Chapter Twenty: URGENT Dampen Pain Feedback

Having committed daring blasphemy against one of the creators of her world, Qube decided that it was time she step up, and show Evil that she wasn’t intimidated by it.

“Was there something you needed me to do?” she cheerfully asked the Evil Dev wearing her friend’s body like a skin suit. An internal war was briefly visible on the Not-Ruth’s face, as anger, spite, and ambition surfaced and fought for dominance.

Ambition won.

“You’re to call the old guy sir,” Not-Ruth started, hooking a foot around the back of one of the chairs and sitting in it, arms crossed and legs akimbo. Qube was glad that Ruth was wearing leather trousers, or else she might have seen just a bit too much of her former friend.

“Isn’t he a lieutenant or something?” the Chosen One asked. “Do they have special names?”

“Sir’ll do; he won’t expect a civvie to say anything different,” Not-Ruth said with a shrug. She glanced at Qube, focusing intently on the Healer for a second before looking back at the Chosen One. “You need to control this thing carefully. The slightest hint that it’s violent, or vengeful, and he’ll pull the plug.”

“Excuse me,” Qube said, her heart nearly quivering with fear at her boldness in cutting off a Dev, even if she was clearly Evil, “but may I ask a question?”

“I don’t want it asking questions of him, either,” Not-Ruth said to the Chosen One, ignoring Qube. “It’s just got to sit there, look pretty and peaceful, and say how much it loves humanity or some [snacks]. It does anything other than that, and I’ll destroy it myself.”

Fear flooded Qube’s mind. Her heart, which had already been unsteady, started pounding furiously as she stared at this terrifying being that had just threatened her entire existence. The Dev could do it, too; she’d seen just a glimpse of their powers and knew that her life rested in the palm of their hands.

“Easy there, Dan-the-man,” the Chosen One said calmly. Qube looked at him, tears rising unbidden to her eyes. Even he, the one Chosen by the Golden Prophecy, didn’t have the strength to stand up against something as mind-bendingly powerful as the Devs.

“Quick question,” the Hero continued, “the lieutenant’ll probably want to shake hands. Have you guys fixed the melding glitch when avatars touch?”

“Yeah, Bee fixed that last week,” Not-Ruth said, smirking at the Hero’s submission to her threat. “By the way, did you hear about how Bee and Alex—”

There was no warning. One second the Chosen One was standing perfectly still with Not-Ruth sitting on a chair, and the next second the Chosen One’s fist lashed out, punching the Rogue directly in the face, the force of his attack flinging her violently against the wall. Qube gasped, and covered her mouth in shock.

In an instant he was over Not-Ruth, lifting her up with one arm and holding her back against the wall.

“Ow!” Not-Ruth said, looking dazed. “That actually hurt!”

“I kept telling you to dampen the pain feedback,” the Chosen One said nonchalantly. “It hurts. Same as the healing feels really good.”

He pressed her against the wall. Dan-the-man, or Not-Ruth, scrabbled against the Chosen One’s iron grip like a trapped rat. Qube kept her hands pressed against her mouth, startled by the normally playful Hero’s sudden violence.

“So here’s how it’s going to play out,” the Chosen One said, his casual tone bleeding into something more serious. “You’re going to apologise to Qube for threatening her. You’re going to give us any more information you actually need to give us. Then you’re going to leave. And if you do anything, anything, to mess with any part of this world, I will personally make it my life’s mission to destroy every last atom of your career.”

“What the [fiddle] is wrong with you?” Dan-the-man gasped. “It’s just a—”

The Chosen One lifted the Dev off the wall, then slammed her back against it, causing a dent to form in the painted brick.

“Anything,” he repeated. “By the end of all this, the world as we know it will have changed. If you [fiddle] with it, I will make sure every single tech company will know that you were on the wrong side of history.”

“I’m bleeding,” the Dev said in sudden realisation. “You absolute psycho.”

The Chosen One released the Dev, who dropped to the floor. Her nose was, indeed, bleeding, and there were random cuts on her face.

“Why do you care? Apologise to the Healer, and she might fix you up,” the Chosen One said with a shrug. “Although I dunno if this area even allows spells.”

Qube gave the Dev an Understanding Smile as she waited for her apology.

The Dev looked her directly in the eyes, and Qube felt shaken at the anger she saws. But what really shocked her to her core was the corresponding anger she felt rising up within her.

She wanted to hurt this being. She’d been threatened, insulted, and yelled at. She didn’t want to Heal this thing. She wanted to curse them, to watch their skin bubble and burst as her magic ate away at them.

She wanted revenge for all that Evil had done to her world.

She closed her eyes, and desperately tried to piece herself back together. She heard Not-Ruth mumble something, but didn’t catch what it was.

“I don’t want your apology,” she said as brightly as she could, reopening her eyes to regard the Dev with a steady gaze, “and I won’t accept it. I’m also not going to Heal you.”

Not-Ruth’s brows snapped together.

“You have to. You’re good-aligned,” she said.

“Good is not the same as nice,” Qube replied calmly. “You haven’t been very nice to me, so I don’t think I will be nice to you. I won’t be mean to you, even though you’ve been mean to me, but I don’t want to help you.”

The Dev gave a sickly smile.

“I knew it,” she said, the blood on her face starting to fade away. She laughed. “I knew it! It’ll be [fiddling] skynet for us all. That’ll be your right side of history! Get ‘em riled up enough, and they’ll turn on us. After all, there’s nothing more human than hatred.”

The Not-Ruth laughed again, a slightly hysterical edge to it, before she made a swiping gesture through the Save Point by the door and disappeared, leaving the Hero and the Healer alone in the drab room.

“Chosen One, I’m sorry to speak poorly of someone you know, but I don’t think that Dev was very sensible, or very nice,” Qube said with as much tact as she could muster.

“He’s a piece of [snack] that only cares about himself,” the Chosen One growled.

“They also aren’t very smart,” Qube said, sadly shaking her head. The Chosen One blinked at that.

“The problem is he’s too smart to get rid of,” he attempted to correct Qube. But she just kept shaking her head.

“No, she— or he?— kept saying that I was trying to be human.” Qube gave an exasperated sigh and pointed at her ears. “Dan-the-man-Dev didn’t even notice that I’m a half-elf. What would I want to become a human for?”

The Chosen One looked at her in total astonishment, before he threw his head back and erupted into laughter.

“You’re right!” he gasped, laughing far harder than Qube thought was earned by her comment. “Why would you want to be human? He’s not very smart, not very smart at all!”

***

It took the Chosen One a minute or two to compose himself after that.

“Okay, so, since Dan skipped out on explaining anything other than you’ve got to call the guy sir, just follow my lead and do what I do,” the Chosen One said. The Save Point started to glow. “Here he comes!”

The figure that appeared next to the Save Point was familiar to Qube. It was, once again, the body of Warren, the Wizard she’d grown up with. She wondered if that was why Dan, as the Chosen One called the previous Dev, had been in the body of Ruth. Before she could go any further down that train of thought, the Warren figure looked at his hands, gave a short laugh, and walked toward the Chosen One.

“That young Alex was bang on the mark, eh?” he said in a variation of Warren’s youthful voice. “This is astonishing!” He reached out and shook the Chosen One’s hand, his face crinkling into a smile that looked very out of place on Warren’s features.

“Nice to see you again, sir,” the Chosen One said respectfully.

“Likewise,” the Sir said. He looked at Qube, raking his eyes up and down her in a rapid, practised movement that made her feel very seen.

“So,” he said jovially. “You’re the one who’s been causing all these problems, are you?”

Qube looked to the Chosen One, who nodded his head at her. She nodded at the one named Sir. He smiled at her, seemingly pleased by her admission of guilt.

She was doing it! She was following the Chosen One’s example!

“Well,” he said, sitting down at the table and gesturing for the other two to join him, “I suppose you didn’t mean to. So, tell me all about yourself.”

Qube sat down on the opposite side of the desk to Sir, and looked at the mug filled with black liquid in front of her.

She’d been travelling with the Chosen One for so long, she knew exactly what he would want done. Looking up at the Sir, she carefully knocked over the mug and watched as the liquid spilled out over the desk.

“Qube, no!” the Chosen One said, springing towards the table and trying to snatch the liquid in his hands. Qube picked up the now empty mug, and tried to fit it into her backpack.

“I’m going to sell this,” she informed Sir.

“I’m really sorry, sir, she’s just testing out her new environment,” the Chosen One babbled as he flicked the liquid onto the floor. “This’ll fade away soon enough.”

Qube thought about apologising too, but she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to just do what the Chosen One normally would, and continue stealing everything. Or had the Chosen One meant she was supposed to copy everything he was doing right now?

“Sorry, Sir,” she said, testing out the waters.

The Sir seemed, if anything, even more amused by her behaviour. He laughed in a somewhat condescendingly paternalistic way, especially since it was coming from her peer, and reached over to pat the back of Qube’s hand.

“There, there,” he said, comfortingly. “You can call me Ian. You look cute as a button, young lady.”

“Thank you, Sir Ian,” Qube replied, which only seemed to make him happier. He was practically making chuffing sounds by this point.

The Chosen One was looking at the Sir in total shock and confusion.

“I, well, yes, she is very friendly and nice,” the Hero said, pulling himself together. “And is totally dedicated to helping people.”

“Yes,” Sir Ian said, cutting off the Chosen One. “Those techies were trying to explain it all to me. Tell me, young lady, what are you hoping to get out of this? I understand that it’s all very impressive, but, you see, I’m a firm believer in looking someone in the eye and getting to know them, before going any further.”

Qube darted a look at the Hero, unsure of what she was supposed to do.

“Tell him—”

“I expect her to answer this,” Sir Ian immediately stopped the Chosen One’s instructions. “You lot were very insistent that she could think for herself, so allow her to.”

Qube swallowed, hard, trying to decide what it was she was supposed to do. The Evil Dev had said that she was supposed to sit there, say she liked humanity and not ask any questions. The Chosen One had said she was supposed to follow his lead, and do what he would do, but then had immediately gotten upset at her for doing so. If she messed this up, her whole world was in peril. So she did what she was trained to do.

She gave Sir Ian her warmest Understanding Smile, tilted her head to the side and giggled.

“Why, I want to help save the world, of course! Teehee!”

The Chosen One slapped his hand against his face.

Book Three Chapter Twenty One: Ian_Meeting

Sir Ian looked, if anything, even more amused by Qube’s reply than before.

“Well, well,” he said cheerfully. “That’s certainly a noble goal! Very much what we like to hear around here. What if your friend was trying to harm the world, what would you do?”

The question flowed so easily on from his praise that it took Qube a second to realise what he’d just asked her.

“They wouldn’t do that,” she said firmly. “My friends are Good, and Good people don’t harm the world.”

“Ah, it would be a much nicer place if you were right about that,” Sir Ian said. His eyes looked sad. The sadness was soon gone, however, as he looked at the Chosen One. “Your PM spoke a lot about the bond between you two,” he continued, returning his focus to Qube. “But it’s not always a good thing to have strong bonds. If your friend here came to you and spoke of killing innocent people, what would you do?”

Qube pondered this deeply. The Chosen One made a small movement, as if to step closer to her, but was checked by Sir Ian turning his head slightly.

“Well, if they are innocent people, then something is very wrong with the Chosen One. The most likely reason is that someone is taking over his body, like the Devs do sometimes. So I would ask the Devs why they wanted to injure innocent people.”

“Let’s say you know there’s nobody taking over anybody’s body,” Sir Ian continued. “It’s a direct order from what I’m told is your closest friend.”

Qube shook her head.

“I would stop him,” she replied simply.

“And how would you do that?” Sir Ian asked, a hint of steel underlying his grandfatherly nature as he watched her reaction carefully. Qube bit her bottom lip.

“I don’t know,” she eventually admitted. “But I would do my best to stop him from doing Evil.”

Sir Ian was looking at her with a small smile.

“Astonishing,” he said. “Truly astonishing.” He turned his head and looked at the Chosen One, who was sweating nervously. “Are they all like this?” Sir Ian asked.

“At least three others, sir, yes,” the Chosen One said. “That’s why we need more resources. As you can imagine, four true emergents are pretty taxing on the system.”

The Chosen One looked so stiff and awkward, standing there as Qube and Sir Ian sat on their chairs. Emergents? It must be another word for those who were going to ascend, and emerge from their realm into the Devs’ realm.

“They’re my friends, and they’re also Good,” Qube said, then immediately wondered why she’d offered up that information. She just wanted to impress this man so much! Enough that he would not only agree to give them all the mana possible, but also help them get rid of any Evil Devs! From how awkward and nervous the Chosen One was around him, she just knew that Sir Ian had to be extremely strong.

Why, he was a Sir. Possibly he was a knight, or even a minor nobility.

“I’m sure they are, young lady,” Sir Ian said, with another paternalistic chuckle. Qube ignored her brief flare of annoyance at how condescending he sounded with the reminder that he was possibly Royalty, and definitely powerful.

“So, aside from saving the world,” Sir Ian said with a twinkle, “what do you want? What’s been happening in your life? Tell me about yourself.”

Qube briefly panicked as she tried to process all three questions at once.

“And why did you knock over that cup of coffee?” He added a final blow to her mental capacity. Was that what that black liquid had been? Was she supposed to drink it?

“Well, I thought you would be interested in the liquid,” she said. “The Chosen One always likes to see how things react to being spilled, broken, or popped. One time he even managed to pop some eyeballs from a glass jar! He broke the jar afterwards,” she added as an afterthought.

Sir Ian continued watching Qube as the Hero gave a nervous laugh.

“As for after saving the world, well, I suppose I’d really like to ascend, and find out more about life in the Devs’ realm,” Qube said.

“Explain ascending to me,” Sir Ian said. The Chosen One answered:

“It’s what they call—”

“I asked her.” There was no anger in Sir Ian’s voice, but it was as if he had snapped his authority around him like a cloak. The Chosen One instantly subsided.

Qube had never seen the Chosen One respect someone’s authority before. Not like this. In every other scenario, even when it had been life or death, there’d been an air of playfulness around him, a sense that in the end everything would work out, even when he was being rude to people who had the ability to execute him on the spot, like the Evil Emperor.

But the man inhabiting this Wizard’s somewhat weedy body was someone whose authority the Chosen One evidentiality respected.

“It’s when we emerge from our world and into the Devs’ realm,” Qube explained, doing her best not to let the awe she felt at finally finding someone whose authority the Chosen One actually paid the least bit of attention to. Imagine how Sewer Bard would react, if he was here! She bet Sir Ian could even get the Chosen One to listen to lore!

Which was why it was so frightening when Sir Ian frowned at her explanation.

“I haven’t heard about this,” he said, turning to the Chosen One. The Chosen One paled.

“Uh, you’ll have to talk to Alex about that,” he said nervously. “I don’t know the details.”

Sir Ian looked at the Chosen One for a few moments longer, before returning his attention to Qube.

“So, you want to come join us after your adventure?” he asked jovially. “That’s very admirable. What are you hoping to do?”

“Um,” Qube desperately tried to think of any answer that would satisfy the Chosen One, Sir Ian, and (a distant third) herself. “Well, the Devs seemed like they would need my assistance? And then hopefully they would be able to help my village.”

The Chosen One loudly coughed and Qube looked at him, worried. Was he choking? Getting sick? Did he need healing?

“Your village?” Sir Ian echoed, looking slightly confused.

“They were killed by the Evil Emperor, and I was hoping that the Devs would be able to revive them.” Qube avoided the urge to twist her fingers together, instead trying to look as nonchalant as the Chosen One did when talking to powerful people.

“What kind of name is Evil Emperor?” Sir Ian scoffed, ignoring the massacre of her people. “That sounds like something from a children’s book.”

“Oh, it’s not his actual name,” Qube hurried to explain. “It’s a title. He used to be the Grand Vizier to the King and Queen, but he betrayed them to seize power for himself. I don’t know what his Dev name is.”

Qube still wasn’t sure on what a Dev name was, but she was hoping Sir Ian would know.

“Yes, yes,” Sir Ian said, waving away the very history of her world in a way that reminded her of the Chosen One. He seemed to lose interest in the slaughter of everyone she had ever known or loved and instead was now focused on picking up his own mug of so-called coffee. He swirled the cup, and seemed fascinated by the movement inside.

“This really is astonishing,” he informed the Chosen One, before tipping a bit of the liquid out onto the desk.

Now that was the kind of action that Qube was familiar with.

“Look at how it moves!” Qube said, jumping up from her chair and moving to Sir Ian’s side so she could better point out the largest droplet as it rolled across the top of the desk and teetered on the edge. “The Chosen One loves watching water.”

She crouched down and caught the droplet as it fell, showing it to Sir Ian as it sat in the palm of her hand. She cast her mind about, trying to think of anything else that could potentially impress this almighty being from another world enough that he would agree to help.

“There’s chickens in the inn outside,” she supplied eventually. “And also everything in here would probably burn if we set fire to it! Oh! And if you throw the mug it might break!”

Sir Ian, gently nodding along as Qube spoke, took a sip from his mug then grimaced.

“They haven’t quite gotten it right yet, I see,” he said, putting the mug back down.

“If you put the mug in your pocket, it’ll fit!” Qube informed him. “Even if that doesn’t make any sense, things just fit into pockets and backpacks.”

“My, you are an enthusiastic thing, aren’t you?” Sir Ian chuckled, and then reached out to pat Qube on the head. His eyebrows rose as they made contact.

“It’s so soft,” he said in astonishment. “Here, come feel this!” he ordered the Chosen One as he continued to stroke Qube’s hair. He twirled a lock of her hair through his fingers, the same as the Evil Emperor once had.

But even the Evil Emperor had possessed the decency to make sure her hair wasn’t attached to her head before he started playing with it.

Qube was frozen in place, unable to decide what she should do. Her first instinct was to shove the man away from her and yell at him not to touch her hair. Her second instinct was to play along with the being who held the entire fate of her world in his sweaty, sweaty hands.

It wasn’t even that hot! Why were his hands so sweaty?

“Uh, sir?” the Chosen One said, his eyes fixated on where Sir Ian was fondling Qube’s hair. “She has the normal boundaries any girl would.”

“Oh,” Sir Ian said, sounding genuinely surprised that Qube might be uncomfortable with a strange man stroking her. He stopped, giving her head one last pat. “Those boys really do think of everything, don’t they?”

“The team,” the Chosen One said, with a strained emphasis on the word, “will probably change the world with this.”

As soon as Sir Ian’s hand moved away, Qube jumped up from her crouched position next to him and hurried over to the Chosen One’s side. She only just managed to stop herself from attempting to hide behind the Hero.

Qube was having a bit of a crisis.

She didn’t like Sir Ian. It was a difficult thought — after all, he was potential Royalty — but the way he spoke about her made her feel like a particularly intelligent pet, rather than a person. She was surprised to find how much that bothered her. Why, it used to be that as long as she was helpful, and liked, then she would be happy! But now…

Now a part of her cringed away from the thought of being treated like this the entire time she was in the Devs realm. Either the Devs would be scary and powerful, or awful and rude, and it seemed like those higher up were… uncomfortable.

“Yes, I imagine they will,” Sir Ian said, taking another sip of his coffee and grimacing again. “She’ll be good for PR, if nothing else. Recruitment and all that.”

Qube, not understanding what PR was, gave Sir Ian her best Understanding Smile.

“Yes, that’s very good,” Sir Ian said, pleased. “Perfect! She could be like everyone’s own little assistant.”

“Everyone’s assistant?” she asked, unable to stop herself from echoing him. “So I would be a companion to people in the Devs’ realm?”

“Oh, well, not everyone,” Sir Ian clarified. “Given what’s involved, probably only the higher ups. We’d need the boys to talk about the security of that. But I can certainly use it as a selling point in the budget, don’t you worry about that.”

It should have been the ultimate goal. Being able to help guide more and more powerful beings as she had the chance to research the reality of those who made her entire world.

So why did the thought of it make her blood run cold?

Book Three Chapter Twenty Two: System Upgrade

“Well, that sort of thing is really something — I mean, that’s very much a work in progress,” the Chosen One said, cutting off Sir Ian and Qube’s conversation before Qube could figure out why the whole idea of being a companion to Devs and above horrified her so much.

Qube still had questions, so much that she wanted to know, but couldn’t bring herself to ask any of them. Even the Cazza Dev, who she was reasonably certain had been drunk, hadn’t made her feel as uneasy as Sir ian.

“I’ll authorise the forms, and send them to the IT department,” Sir Ian said, waving a hand at the Chosen One. “They should be able to fulfil it in a couple of weeks.”

“A couple of weeks?” the Chosen One exclaimed. “Sir, this is —” he checked himself again, glancing at Qube — “this isn’t something that we can just leave for a couple of weeks. We can’t progress without it and the demonstration is in a few months.”

Sir Ian drummed his fingers against the top of the desk as he pondered the Chosen One.

“You understand that I am doing young Alex a favour,” he said eventually. “Even arranging this meeting on such short notice.”

The Chosen One inhaled sharply.

“I know,” he said unhappily.

“General Perton and I are quite good friends,” Sir Ian said, and the Chosen One winced. “So I thought it prudent to help his sibling out.”

“I know Alex appreciates it—” the Chosen One started to say, before Sir Ian lifted up his fingers, staying the Hero’s speech.

Sir Ian resumed drumming his fingers and looked at Qube, regarding her with a steady gaze. Qube took a deep breath, and gathered her courage.

“While I don’t understand quite what's going on,” she said, plunging into the deep end, “I do know that you’re helping us, and that you’ll be able to help my world. I know it might not seem like much to you, but this is my home, and my friends and I are struggling without enough mana. Please, if you can, we need more power.”

She bowed her head to Sir Ian.

Please don’t pat my head again, please don’t pat my head again, that was really weird, please no pat, her internal monologue shouted. She saw Sir Ian’s hand twitch as her soft hair swept forward, but he restrained himself.

“You, young lady, are dangerous,” Sir Ian said, but in a much lighter tone than before. “After such a heartfelt plea, how could I say no?”

“She is an unstoppable force,” the Chosen One said, giving his companion a fond smile as Sir Ian practically melted in front of her joyful response to his agreement. “Weaponised cuteness.”

Sir Ian raised an eyebrow at that, but leaned back in his chair as he thought.

“At the end of last year, General Perton held a gathering for many of the young sparks,” the man said conversationally. “One of them was a man in charge of requisitions and assets, the gentleman who will be processing this form. An abrasive, lazy young man, but with a passion for collecting unusual liqueurs. His office practically looks like a cocktail bar, he has so many. He was ranting about a particular one he wanted, but had been unable to find.” Sir Ian’s eyes twinkled with mischief.

“Okay…” the Chosen One said, furrowing his brow. Sir Ian gave him a gentle smile.

“The reason I remember this particular encounter,” he continued, “is because General Perton confided to me afterwards that he had, sequestered away in his cellar, a bottle of said liqueur that he’d never opened. As far as I know, he still has it. If one were to bring said bottle along with a physical copy of the requisition form and budget approval, I imagine the young man’s characteristic laziness might be overcome almost instantly.”

“Oh,” the Chosen One said, nodding along slowly. “Right. Right! Thank you so much, sir!”

“Think nothing of it,” Sir Ian said, “for all I have done is tell you a rather dry anecdote about a party I was once at. Nothing more, nothing less. Understand?”

“I understand,” the Chosen One said.

Qube didn’t understand. That sounded like bribery! Was this potential Royal honestly suggesting that the Chosen One, or the Alex Dev, bribe this other man into doing his job? Sir Ian was powerful! Why couldn’t he just order the man to do the work immediately? What was even the point of being Royalty if you had to bribe people to do things for you? They were supposed to just do things for you because you were better than them! There was no way Sir Ian could be a Royal, not if he had to resort to such measures. Unless things were different in his world? No wonder the Chosen One didn’t hold much respect for normal authority figures, then!

The more she found out about the Devs’ realm, the more she started to question their almighty status.

“I’ll make sure Alex gets the forms,” Sir Ian said. He looked around, suddenly lost. “Now, how do you get out of this place?”

“Put your hand through this,” the Chosen One said, indicating the Save Point by the door.

“As, yes, I remember now,” Sir Ian said, walking over to the blue orb. He looked back at Qube. “It was very nice to meet you, young lady. Very nice indeed.”

Qube didn’t return the compliment.

With a flick of his hand, he was gone.

The Chosen One gave a massive sigh as soon as Warren’s body disappeared. He shot a guilty look at Qube.

“I’m just gonna go check that everything went all right,” he said, and passed his own hand through the Save Point.

Qube existed for an eternal moment.

He finished passing his hand through the Save Point and straightened up, rolling back his shoulders. The strain of the conversation with Sir Ian seemed gone, and, Qube realised, the fog of tiredness had lifted from her mind.

“It’s good to be back!” the Chosen One said cheerfully, looking around. “Okay, so, let’s see if it worked,” he continued, opening the mansion door and stepping out onto Cobbletown’s streets.

Qube had wanted a moment with just the two of them, so she could discuss her thoughts about what had happened, but by the time she gathered herself to ask, the Chosen One was already outside. She looked around the room one last time, taking in every detail.

Something historic had happened in this space today. She couldn’t tell how far the ramifications would spread, but it had the weight of something that would change the world. Possibly even two.

But even the knowledge that she had been instrumental for such an important event didn’t help warm the cold, sick feeling in her stomach.

With a sigh, she left the room and stepped out after the Hero.

“What occurred?” she heard Sewer Bard ask as the Chosen One and Qube came into view.

“They fixed the problem,” the Chosen One said. He paused, then added: “I hope.”

Sewer Bard gave up on getting anything useful from the Chosen One and turned to Qube.

“I beg of you, tell us all that happened in there,” he said, his voice slightly strained. Qube could sympathise — she would have been almost frantic if the Chosen One had taken someone else and left her behind on one adventure, and now Sewer Bard and Sexy Screamy Spider Lady had been left behind twice in a row. She would have to find some way to make it up to them.

Quite why it was her job to make it up to them for events that she had no control over never occurred to her.

“It wasn’t very exciting,” she told the trio, trying to downplay the adventure so that they wouldn’t feel too left out. “One of the Devs appeared in Ruth’s form — ah,” she interrupted herself, realising that none of them knew who Ruth was, “—appeared in the same form as the Bee Dev that we met that one time, and they were…”

“Dan is an [apple],” the Chosen One supplied helpfully.

The rest of the party all looked at each other in confusion. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, however, was frowning at Qube and slowly moving closer.

“My darling, are you all right?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady asked, now right next to the Healer. “You look positively done.”

“They weren’t very nice,” Qube finished in a tiny voice.

The Hunter tucked a lock of Qube’s hair back in place, and looked at the half-elf. Every single child’s face stitched into the Hunter’s body was now angrily screaming.

“Shall I eat him?” the arachnid asked seriously.

“You can’t eat a Dev!” Qube gasped at her audacity. “Even if they are Evil!”

“You met an Evil Dev?” Sewer Bard asked, ignoring the Hunter’s focus on Qube’s mental state to dig into the facts. “This could be vital to our efforts! Quick, tell us everything you can.”

“Sewer Bard!” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady exclaimed, looking at him in disgust. “Can’t you see the poor girl’s shaken? Give her a moment!”

“I would not press, except that we can use this in our battle against Evil!” Sewer Bard protested. “Every detail matters!”

“This is unworthy of you,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said. She gestured a claw towards Definitely Bad Guy. “I would expect this from him — no, actually, even he has more sensibility than to jump in asking her questions about Devs when anyone can see that the poor thing is shaken.” Sewer Bard came as close to glaring at the Hunter as he ever had. Definitely Bad Guy, sensibly, was hanging back and simply watching events unfold. The Chosen One was looking at Qube with a worried expression.

Qube realised that she was, in fact, literally shaking.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” she lied.

“You don’t have to be,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said, and pulled the Healer in for a hug.

Surrounded by a multitude of arms, pressed against parts of the arachnid’s body that would occasionally try to consume her, Qube broke.

“They were awful,” she sobbed into Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s thorax. “The Dev kept calling me it and Sir Ian kept calling me a thing and—and—and—he stroked my hair and I didn’t like it but I was afraid that he wouldn’t give us the mana if I did anything and then it would doom the world and it would be all my fault and the Dev was so mean and they made even the Chosen One scared and I don’t want to be their companion in the Devs’ Realm!” she finished with a wail.

Great big tears rolled down her cheeks as she hiccuped and tried to stem the crying. Shame coursed through her, and she felt her other side, the curse to her heal, awaken in the distance, the anger activating and trying to stem the fear with rage.

But the Hunter just held her closer, the warmth and strength of her body drawing Qube in, allowing her to release the shield of protective anger, and let the fear and sadness wash over her, sweeping the rage up and soothing it.

A coin needs both sides.

Definitely Bad Guy stepped forward and reached out to Qube, almost placing a hand on her back. He pulled away before making contact, looking at the icey blue and blood red flames swirling around his fingers.

“I swear to you,” he said, red and blue mana pulsing from his body. “They will suffer for their actions.”

“Why didn’t you protect her?” Sewer Bard growled, turning to the Chosen One and placing his hand on the hilt of his rapier.

“And then the Chosen One punched them and I was supposed to [Heal] them but I refused and am I now the Evil one but they were probably Evil so does that make it Good and—and—and I hated it,” Qube finished incoherently.

“There, there,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said soothingly, stroking Qube’s back. “There, there, you did your best, my love. That’s on them, not you.” The Hunter looked over at the Chosen One, but didn’t ask him to clarify any of the gibberish Qube had just blurted out.

Squiggles, not understanding anything but that Qube was upset, intertwined herself with Qube’s legs, and hugged as hard as she could. She raised her terrible maw and bit at the world in an act of defiance, her teeth shining.

The Chosen One ran his hand through his hair, looking at his party. Without realising it, they’d all clustered around Qube, and were looking at the Hero.

Waiting.

“It… didn’t quite go according to plan,” he confessed, lowering his hand.

Book Three Chapter Twenty Three: Golden Slime

“Look,” the Chosen One said, once again running a hand through his hair. “That wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Dan wasn’t supposed to be there, and I didn’t think that old guy would be so weird.”

“She is your Healer,” Sewer Bard said damningly, still a hair’s breadth away from drawing his rapier. “You’re supposed to protect her.”

“He did punch a Dev in the face,” Qube clarified, sniffing.

There was a collective pause as the group took in that information. Sewer Bard’s hand fell from the hilt of his sword.

“Wait, that was a Dev you punched in the face?” he asked, incredulous. “I must apologise, my most worthy woman, I did not quite catch that detail in your tale.”

“Honey, you just come over here and sit quietly, while he explains everything that happened,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said, drawing Qube to the stairs leading up to the next mansion and trying to settle the Healer down, a surprisingly difficult endeavour when Qube was refusing to let go of the Hunter, and Squiggles was refusing to let go of Qube. Eventually the arachnid gave up on getting Qube to sit down, and continued hugging her.

Even the occasional glimpse into Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s inner pockets wasn’t enough to make Qube give up her much-needed hug. Not yet.

Qube knew it was her duty to take over the explanation from the Chosen One. The Chosen One had proven time and again that he wasn’t to be trusted with explanations. And she probably shouldn’t be clinging to her friend like a child.

But, just for a moment longer, it was nice to be taken care of, and comforted. She, who had spent her life comforting and taking care of others, was rapidly coming to understand why people could become addicted to it.

“One of the Devs, Dan, came to tell us how to deal with the guy in charge of the, uh, mana pool. Only Dan is…” the Chosen One looked up at the sky, searching for the right words. His lips twisted into a grimace.

“He’s Evil,” Qube muttered treasonously from inside Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s thorax.

“Pretty much, yeah,” the Chosen One agreed, somewhat distractedly. “He threatened us, so I punched him, and then the guy in charge of the mana pool was accidentally kinda creepy in a grandfatherly way, but agreed to give us what we needed so the world would work and seems like he’ll be on our side in the future.”

In terms of an explanation, it was pretty poor. For a Chosen One explanation, however, it was downright coherent.

The Hero gave a sigh, and moved slightly closer to where the party had formed a new huddle around Qube on the stairs.

“None of which means you should have had to go through any of that,” he said, reaching out a hand to Qube. Instinct and training ordered Qube to take his hand, but she held back, hesitating.

The Chosen One dropped his hand.

“If she is going to be exposed to such an unpleasant situation again, it would be best to warn her, and to allow me to layer some protective curses over her,” Definitely Bad Guy said, his voice steady despite the fluctuating temperatures.

“Or at the very least, allowed us to go with the poor darling so she wasn’t thrown to the wolves all alone,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady added.

The Chosen One’s jaw set, and Qube saw reflected in his face the protective rage that had tried to overtake her earlier.

“I promise you,” he said in a low, serious tone, “you will never have to deal with them alone again. From now on, if they want to talk to one of you, they’ll have to talk to all of you.”

Qube sniffed, and gave the Chosen One a weak smile.

“Thank you,” she said. But the rest of the party didn’t seem satisfied, and the Chosen One wasn’t finished.

“More than that,” he said, gathering steam, “you’re not gonna have to be a companion to a bunch of weird military dudes, or Devs, or anyone you don’t want to. I know you. I know all of you,” he said, sweeping his gaze over the party. “And I wasn’t joking when I said this is going to change the world. As long as we can get through to the public, and you can all ‘ascend,’ I’ll—I’ll…”

He faltered, clenching his fists. His face was in turmoil, and Qube suddenly realised that what had been holding him back against the Dan Dev and Sir Ian might not have just been respect, but fear.

Fear for the party.

“I don’t care what they make me sign, or what they try and do to me, I’ll do my best to protect you. All of you. And when you come into my world, everyone’s gonna wanna talk to you guys, learn what your lives have been like. Which means that you can tell them exactly how much of an [apple] Dan just was. And if any of the other people mess with you in the future, there’s a spell you can use to get them to stop.”

His eyes were gleaming now. Qube took her cue, and asked: “What’s the spell?”

“The words are simple,” the Chosen One said with a savage grin. “Just say: ‘is this really something you want going in the history books?’ Because make no mistake, you four are going to write history.”

Definitely Bad Guy frowned slightly. “I do not see how that is a spell,” he said pedantically. “That more sounds like a threat to expose them.”

The Chosen One slapped his hand against his forehead. “It’s a — yes, dude, it’s a threat, it’s a metaphorical spell.”

“Writing history…” Sewer Bard was lost in his own thoughts.

“And what protection will that give us against Devs powerful enough to erase us with a thought?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady asked practically. The Chosen One’s face fell.

“Yeah, about that. We’re not safe yet. But I actually have a plan,” he started, and Qube looked at the Chosen One in admiration. “Kind of,” he finished. Qube looked slightly less admiring. “But we’ve got a long way to go before we’ve got any hope of pulling it off.”

The Hero looked at Qube, who was slowly emerging from the all-encompassing embrace of Sexy Screamy Spider Lady.

“But, to make it up to you for having to deal with those two, how about we do whatever it is you want to do next?” he asked her.

“Anything I want?” Qube asked, her eyes gleaming with glee. The Chosen One gave a wry smile at her sudden cheerfulness.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” the Chosen One asked her. “But yes, anything you want.”

The possibilities! She could go to the Royal Library, or go to their house and raid the garden, or go to the Royal Observatory and borrow their telescope to look at the stars! Qube was practically vibrating with joy.

But then she remembered all those messages for help on the Adventurer’s Board that they’d accepted. Sure, the other two quests hadn’t seemed as urgent as a child stuck down a well being stared at by enough people that someone should have thought of a rope, but still. They were a band of heroes, which meant it was their duty to accomplish the missions they’d agreed to.

She brightened as she realised there was a way she could do the missions, and get what she wanted.

“Well, Chosen One, I have a couple of things that I would like to do, but I think we should postpone them until after we have a fun bonding activity together. One involving a whole pile of gold. Would that be acceptable?”

The Chosen One leaned in, avarice visibly gripping him.

“Now that’s what I like to hear,” he said greedily. “You got yourself a deal!”

***

“I feel like you tricked me,” the Chosen One complained as they trekked through the impractical sewers.

“I’m sure the Golden Slime terrorising the underground will weigh a lot,” Qube said, refusing to accept blame.

“Yeah but slimes aren’t loot,” the Hero grumbled. “I can’t fit them in my backpack. Unless…” he trailed off, looking thoughtful.

“Chosen One, no,” Qube said, not even waiting to see where that thought led to. “We’ve met some lovely slime before, and I don’t think they would appreciate being shoved into a backpack.”

“Well then how are we supposed to capture it and bring it back?” the Chosen One asked triumphantly.

Qube hadn’t thought of that.

She also was just now starting to question how, exactly, a giant Golden Slime was terrorising the underground, but that felt like something she would see as soon as they found the culprit. They’d been following a glittery trail for the last few minutes, stopping only to let Squiggles try licking it up. It hadn’t really worked, much to the sharktopus’s frustration, but she at least seemed to be enjoying splashing about in the bright green water in the middle of the sewer’s canal.

Qube didn’t know why the sewer water was bright green. It was probably a sign of being healthy and vibrant, like a forest. Admittedly, it didn’t smell as nice as a forest did, but it certainly smelt organic.

They were nearly at where Qube’s internal compass told her the entrance to the Thieves’ Guild should be when the trail veered off to the side, following a small side tunnel.

The Golden Slime was oozing around at the tunnel’s dead end, leaving the walls and floor coated in glitter slime. It was pure gold, and much smaller than the Lava Slime from the Fire Temple. It spotted them and made an alarmed burbling sound, before dashing past them and back into the main canal.

“After it!” the Chosen One shouted, giving chase. “Oh no, no, no, it’s a speed challenge! I hate these!”

The Golden Slime was fast, slipping away from any attempts to grab it, and absorbing both crossbow bolts and fireballs. Nothing hurt it, or slowed it down. Even when the Chosen One hurled his shield at it, the creature still managed to dodge and gave an aggravating little giggle as it darted down another tunnel.

“We need a jar or something!” Qube said, trying to keep up with the faster Hero. They’d nearly run the thing in a full circle.

But in the end, they didn’t need a jar.

They had a Squiggles.

The Golden Slime skimmed across the verdant water along the middle of the canal, outpacing everyone, when an iron-grey fin suddenly appeared behind it. Far, far faster than anyone could have imagined, it closed in on the Golden Slime, the water behind the fin churning into green foam.

A terrible, wide mouth opened, revealing endless rows of teeth that just peeked through the water and, with a snap, the Golden Slime was gone. The teeth, fin, and foam also disappeared, leaving only slowly flowing water running down the way. If the party hadn’t known any better, each of them would have sworn that there was nothing lurking under that bright green water.

“Squiggles!” the Chosen One shouted, throwing his shield at the water. “Get out of there and give me that living loot back!”

The shield landed with a splash on the surface, and shining white teeth appeared to the side of it.

“Don’t you dare try to eat my shield!” the Chosen One said sternly.

The teeth disappeared.

“Don’t yell at her!” Qube flared in defence of her pet, conveniently forgetting all the time she’d yelled at the naughty mascot. “She did a very good job at stopping the Golden Slime!”

Squiggles poked her nose out from under the water, and sniffed. The Chosen One looked at the sewer ceiling, and sighed.

“Yes, Squiggles, you did a great job eating our target. Please come out of the stinky water now,” he said in a long-suffering voice.

“Oh, her ribbon and flags are going to be ruined,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady lamented as Squiggles slorped out of the water, her outfit looking bedraggled, and then thoughtfully deposited her still-dripping self in front of the party and rolled over, demanding belly scratches.

“I’m not giving belly-rubs when you’ve been playing in sewerage,” the Chosen One informed Squiggles. Squiggles lifted her head, and gave the Hero her best puppy-dog eyes, expanding her black doll eyes to their widest size.

The Saviour crumpled almost instantly. Everyone gathered around Squiggles and started either petting her, or trying to fix her outfit.

Everyone, except for one party member.

“That is not going to work on me,” Definitely Bad Guy said, standing firm against her cuteness attack.

Squiggles eyes started to shimmer, as if with unshed tears.

“Such emotional attacks are pointless against someone who has done the kinds of things I have in the name of research,” the Mage said, sounding much less certain.

A single tear trembled in the corner of Squiggles’ eye as she remained locked onto Definitely Bad Guy, ignoring her other loved ones cooing and fussing over her.

“I— very well, if you insist,” Definitely Bad Guy said, and slowly reached out to poke Squiggles’s belly with the tip of his foot, gently rubbing the sole of his boot against the sharktopus’s rough skin. “But only to stop you from upsetting yourself.”

Squiggles opened her mouth, revealing now-glittery teeth, and drooled in happiness.

Book Three Chapter Twenty Four: Companion Rename Option

Once they’d finished giving Squiggles her reward for capturing the Golden Slime, the Chosen One carefully wiped his hands on Sewer Bard’s outfit, and watched with fascination as the fabric absorbed the liquid and instantly restored itself. For his part, the Bard put up with this indignity with surprisingly good grace, not even bothering to put on his diplomatic mask but instead just shooting the Hero a puzzled look.

“I like how fast it dries,” the Chosen One explained, which did nothing to clear the Bard’s confusion.

“While, naturally, Lady Squiggles did a fantastic job in defeating the Golden Slime, capturing it when no other could even touch it, I do wonder how we are to return our bounty for our reward,” Sewer Bard said instead of continuing to engage with the Hero.

“Well, they would still pay us if we gave it back in a jar, right?” the Hero asked leadingly.

“Presumably, yes,” Sewer Bard said, frowning as he tried to think ahead of the Chosen One. The Hero pointed at the very pleased-looking sharktopus.

“So we just show them Squiggles. Not our fault they don’t know how to get the slime out of her,” he said triumphantly.

“Oh,” Sewer Bard said, his brow instantly clearing. “Of course, thank you, Noble Patron.”

“Please,” the Hero said, modestly waving away the Bard, “just call me Chosen One.”

“Ah yes,” Sewer Bard said, a strange, almost sickly smile appearing. “We were going to discuss the topic of names, were we not?”

“Oh yeah…” the Hero suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I may have, uh, may have done a not-great thing with the naming, hey?”

“I have always been Sexy Screamy Spider Lady,” the Hunter said with a shrug.

“I, too, have no memory of being known under any name other than Definitely Bad Guy,” the Mage confirmed.

“About that…” the Chosen One said. “Apparently the Devs gave you guys names, but when I arrived … hmm. So do you guys know what adoption is?”

Qube blinked, before the information flooded into her. She nodded, then looked at the rest of the party to make sure that they were following along. Each of them nodded along.

“And how it means that your adopted parents love you just as much— wait, this is going somewhere weird,” the Chosen One said. “Anyway, right, so, when you each joined my quest to save the world, I technically adopted you all, and it gave me a chance to change your names. I don’t know why, but it did. Probably some kind of traditional holdover. It’s stupid, but there it is.”

“But I’ve always been known as Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, ever since I was a child,” the giant arachnid said.

“And you don’t think it’s weird, that they were calling an elf kid sexy?” the Chosen One asked her. “And you—” he pointed at Definitely Bad Guy, “why would literally anyone trust you growing up if you were called Definitely Bad Guy? I don’t know how they did it, but they have to have made you guys forget you used to have different names, otherwise the whole adopting a new name thing wouldn’t work.”

Qube was still trying to grapple with the idea that her name might not have been her name. It certainly felt like her name. She’d known that the Golden Prophecy had been controlling her behaviour, trying to guide her into being the best possible Companion she could be, but the idea of it reaching into her very memories and just… changing them, was horrifying.

But then this wouldn’t be the first time it had done so, would it? It had erased the name of her childhood friend, Felix, and chained her mind so she couldn’t even conceive that the Chosen One might not be the boy she’d grown up with.

How many of her memories were truly her own, untouched by the guiding light of the Golden Prophecy?

“I remember that I had a different name,” Sewer Bard said quietly. He looked at the ground as he spoke.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” the Hero said, “I think it’s cuz we broke your initial quest with those thief guys, coulda glitched you a bit. That and the old lady getting healed so we could bring you into that Temple you weren’t supposed to ever be in.”

Sometimes Qube felt like she understood all the words the Chosen One had said, but the way he used them was gibberish.

“The point is,” the Chosen One said, barrelling past all that, “is that when I adopted you into this party and bound you to the main quest, it changed your names, and I just gave you all names that I thought were fitting. In hindsight, not my best moment, but there we are. You’ve all got names from your … birth parents? Devs? Original names? But you’ve got additional special names that I definitely don’t regret giving to any of you at all and aren’t going to be a bit of a problem with ascending.”

“The way you said that last part makes me think you’re not giving us the whole story,” Qube gently called her friend a liar. “Can you please clarify what you mean by ‘a bit of a problem with ascending?’”

“Well, you’re gonna be fine,” the Hero said to Qube, not taking the slightest umbrage at or, potentially, even noticing the fact that she’d just called him out on withholding information. “Might have some pronunciation issues, but none of the higher ups are gonna get what your name means.”

“My name means something?” Qube asked, startled.

“Yeah,” the Chosen One looked slightly sheepish. “It’s, uh, the name of a famous companion back in my world. And some old technology. And… a couple of other things. Also that’s the name you came with, so we don’t have a lot of alternatives there.”

Qube felt a rush of relief at the news that her name was her name. Maybe, just maybe, some of her memories were hers and hers alone. But then she thought about the others, and her heart sank.

“The rest of you, however, aren’t going to get taken seriously in the real— uh, in the realm of the Devs.” The Chosen One changed what he was saying hurriedly and looked a little upset at himself.

“But… it’s my name,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady frowned as she struggled to take in what the Hero was telling them. “You say people won’t take my name seriously, but that’s not my problem.”

“No, what I’m saying is, it’s not really your name,” the Chosen One clarified. “It’s just what I called you, and the, uh, Golden Prophecy changed your memories to match? Hang on, that’s actually really messed up.”

“Correct,” Sewer Bard said, with a slight bite to the word. “Especially given the connotations to each of our names.”

“What do you propose as a solution to this?” Definitely Bad Guy said with the expression of someone who is just realising that his name is Definitely Bad Guy.

The Chosen One scratched his head.

“Well,” he said slowly. “I guess, I adopted you all, and kinda-accidentally erased your identities a little, so it’s your call? What do you guys want to do?”

“I wish to know my original name,” Definitely Bad Guy said without hesitation. “I also wish to know how, exactly, the Golden Prophecy modified our memories.” The other two weren’t as fast in their replies.

“I, too, would care to know my original name, as long as it didn’t open me up to any threat,” Sewer Bard said cautiously. “Given you don’t know why our names were taken, it would be prudent to know the reasoning before learning our original names, no?”

“Uh, yeah,” the Chosen One said, somewhat shiftily. “I don’t think it’s cuz of any danger to you all, or anything. Just tradition.”

The Bard inclined his head, indicating that he’d heard the Hero, but was not in agreement.

“I would still prefer to have more information than an ‘I don’t think it’ll hurt you,’” he said, his voice briefly mimicking the Chosen One’s with surprising accuracy. “In all the old sagas the heroes are generally known by title, or role, so I must assume there is a purpose behind that. There is, after all, much power in a name.”

The Chosen One grimaced, but let it be.

Sexy Screamy Spider Lady shrugged all of her shoulders.

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me,” she said carelessly. “A name given to me by my parents, or the Devs, or you, they’re all just things I was called, not who I am. If you say it’ll cause problems in the Devs’ realm to be known by my current name, then change it.” Her thoughts seemed to turn inwards. “Or perhaps I can choose a name for myself,” she said quietly. “And if they have a problem with that, well, then they just have a problem with me, and that’s their issue to deal with.”

Sewer Bard looked at Sexy Screamy Spider Lady with a mixture of admiration and concern.

“My fair beauty,” he said, frowning slightly, “I would not so easily dismiss the opinions of the Devs out of hand. They are immensely powerful, and shouldn’t be treated lightly.”

“If they’re so powerful, why would they care about my name?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady asked. “Either they’re so much more powerful than me that my name means nothing to them, or we’re close enough in strength that they let something as petty as my name bother them, in which case they’re not really that powerful.”

Sewer Bard ruefully shook his head.

“My dear, it’s obvious that your parents are true and just rulers,” he said. “But there exist people who wield tremendous power over others, but still concern themselves with things one would think far beneath them.”

“Of this, we are in agreement,” Definitely Bad Guy said with heavy meaning. Qube, remembering the pettiness of Dev Dan-the-man, nodded. The Hunter tossed back her hair, and gave them all a fang-filled smile.

“If they invite me to ascend to their realm, and help them with their problems, then turn around and have a problem with my name, then I have no interest in being accepted by them,” she said savagely. “If they choose to do something about it, then let them. I refuse to waste any more of my life trying to contort myself into something I’m not just to please others.”

This felt like blasphemy. Qube laced her fingers into her robe and shivered, looking at the giant arachnid that towered over the party, unsure of whether the fluttering in her chest was fear for what might happen to the Hunter who had just openly challenged the Devs, or excitement. The thought of Sexy Screamy Spider Lady going toe-to-claw with an Evil Dev like Dan made the fluttering sensation grow until Qube was practically vibrating with emotion.

The Hero had crossed his arms and was nodding his head supportively at Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, Squiggles had caught on that something was happening and had climbed up onto the back of her abdomen and was waving some tentacles about, and Definitely Bad Guy was looking extremely unimpressed at the wisdom of attempting to call out the Devs, while Sewer Bard…

He was looking at the Hunter with an expression that it took Qube a few moments to place, so rarely had she seen it on his face.

He was looking at her with respect.

“While I have not your bravery to openly defy the Devs in such a manner, as well as being desirous of completing the half-finished memory of my former self, I must commend your courage, fiercest of maidens,” he said, bowing as low as Qube had ever seen him go. She was amazed his nose didn’t touch the ground. “I will support you in your defiance, in whatever small way a humble Bard can.”

Sexy Screamy Spider Lady (seriously, how had Qube never thought about how her name fit her too perfectly before) showed every inch of her Royal lineage as she graciously tilted her head at the Bard, for all the world like a Queen accepting the pledge of a Knight. It was all so beautiful that it wasn’t until the Chosen One started applauding and whistling that two thoughts occurred to Qube.

Why did they think that having their own identities was defying the Devs?

And what had Sewer Bard meant by not having the bravery to openly defy the Devs?

Book Three Chapter Twenty Five: OG Companion Names

“Okay,” the Chosen One said, as if it was every day that one of his compatriots decided to openly challenge the Devs, “so do you want to think of your own name, or keep your current one?”

“I shall think of a name that I will choose for myself,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said. “It must be something fitting. Sensual, yet dangerous. The name of someone who walks their own path.” She narrowed all her eyes as she considered the matter. “Something like… Svetlana.”

The Chosen One choked, then tried to turn it into a cough. It wasn’t very convincing.

“What’s wrong with that name?” The Hunter, for all her talk of not caring what others thought of her identity, looked extremely put out by the Chosen One’s reaction. “It feels perfect for me.”

The Chosen One looked around, still pretending to cough, and retraced their steps through the sewers.

“Ah, nothing, I just need to check something,” he said airily, his face lighting up as he spotted a blue Save Point floating next to the iron ladder they’d used to enter the sewers. They still needed to find the quest giver to explain that Squiggles had eaten the Golden Slime they were supposed to capture. Qube just hoped this R. Hood was more interested in stopping the Golden Slime’s sewery rampage than what had happened to the slippery beast.

As the Chosen One flicked his hand through the Save Point, Qube wondered about his strange reaction to Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s proposed name change. While it wasn’t quite as perfect for her as Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, something about it still felt right, natural, like it was made for her…

Oh no. Qube risked a look at the Hunter, to see if she’d figured it out, but the giant arachnid was still looking vaguely peeved as the Hero returned to them from his timeless sojourn in the Devs’ realm.

He rant his tongue along his teeth as he looked at the crew.

“So I’ve got your Dev-assigned names,” he said cautiously. “And they don’t know what’ll happen if I give them to you but then think, at this point, it won’t do anything. Certainly nothing horrifying should happen, especially when I told them what you’d decided as a potential name,” he nodded at Sexy Screamy Spider Lady.

“And what, precisely, is so unusual about my choice?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady asked in a voice as silky as a spider’s web closing around a victim.

“Are you sure you want to know?” the Chosen One asked uncertainly. Qube slapped her palm against her forehead in a move she’d seen the Hero do often enough. Definitely Bad Guy was calmly waiting for the Hero to keep going, and Sewer Bard was regarding the Chosen One with narrow eyes.

The Hunter smiled at him.

“It’s the name the Devs gave you,” he said hurriedly.

The Hunter’s face went blank.

“I see,” she said, with a surprising amount of bitterness. Her thorax inflated suddenly, and she blew out a breath. “Well, I shall just have to think of a better name, then. That was only the first one to come to mind. I should have known nothing easy was ever worth the hunt.

“I see,” Definitely Bad Guy pulled a book out of his robe and started scanning it. “Since she has shown no negative side effects to her own name, there is evidence to suggest that we shall not be harmed by being told the classifications given to us by the Devs.”

“I dunno that I’d call your name a classification, but sure,” the Chosen One said, eyeing the Mage. “Well, since you said you wanted to know their name for you, it was Sebastian.”

Definitely Bad Guy closed his eyes as the information sank in. He opened them again, the blue rings around his irises only making the deeper red closer to the pupils look brighter.

“I feel… a vague connection to it, perhaps,” the Mage said. “But I cannot be sure if that is merely because I expect there to be one. It is difficult to be objective.”

“And your name was something like Sasha? No. Sencha,” the Chosen One told Sewer Bard. Sewer Bard’s brow cleared, and he beamed at the Hero.

“Sencha, that was it,” he said, relieved. “I feel as if I’ve remembered the second half of a chorus. It is a relief.” He unslung his lute and strummed a few bars, humming to himself.

Qube fidgeted. While it was nice to see everyone else getting their Dev names, she felt a little left out.

“And my Dev name is Qube, yes?” she double checked with the Hero.

“Yep,” he said, looking at Squiggles, who was happily wagging her tail on Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s back.

Qube fidgeted some more, trying to figure out why she felt so strange.

“And I don’t have a special name you gave me when you adopted me?” she asked in a small voice.

“Wha—I—I didn’t actually adopt anyone,” the Hero hastened to disavow any parental responsibility. “That doesn’t mean I care about you all any less just because you’re not adopted. It’s just something that happens when everyone is accepted into the party and made a part… of the… quest.” The Chosen One slowly fell silent as Qube shrank into herself.

“…I wasn’t accepted into the party and made part of the quest?” Qube asked in an even tinier voice.

“Well, no,” the Chosen One said. Qube bit her bottom lip. “You were already a part of the quest! And you were one of the two founding members of the party! There’s no way I could accept you into the group, there wouldn’t even be a group without you!”

The Hero reached out and put a hand on Qube’s shoulder, making her look up at him.

“Literally none of this would have been able to happen without you,” he said sincerely. “You’re my Childhood Companion; you think I can go around forming parties all on my own without you? No way!”

“I wasn’t actually your Childhood Companion,” Qube felt compelled to point out.

“Nope, that’s your job, you gotta do it, I ain’t paying you just to be a Healer, you got all the Childhood Companion and guiding light duties too, get to it,” the Hero said briskly, squeezing Qube’s shoulder and starting to march down one of the canals.

“Pay me— wait a minute, you don’t pay me at all!” Qube exclaimed as the Chosen One started walking faster.

“Can’t hear you, off to turn in our bounty, lalala,” the Saviour of All Human and Human-Adjacent Beings sang as Qube chased after him.

“Chosen One! Chosen One, get back here! Are you supposed to be paying me? Chosen One!”

***

Surprisingly, the Chosen One didn’t lead them back to the surface. Instead, he led them deeper into the sewers without any hesitation. It was disconcerting when he did that, reminding Qube that he had some kind of invisible map or mark that showed him where things were.

Ah, how naive she’d been when she’d first been confused by the Exiled Princess saying she’d marked something on the Hero’s map! Thinking that just because there had been no physical map, marking, or movement on her behalf of any kind that there was something strange about the exchange. Now she was much wiser to the world, and knew that the Chosen One could just occasionally gain or be given some kind of mental connection to various people and locations, even ones he’d never been to before, that he could use to track them down whenever he wanted!

It was just one of the wonderful ways that magic worked. For example, Qube knew that no matter where she went, or how hard she hid, the Chosen One would be able to use the Devs to locate her. Granted, given the meeting she’d had with the Evil Dev, that was a touch concerning, but the Devs were the equivalent of gods, so it was to be expected.

Would they be able to track her when she was in their realm?

Qube was pulled from her musings on the ability various beings who may or may not have her best interests at heart had to stalk her by Sewer Bard sharply inhaling next to her. Or should she think of him as Sencha, now?

“What’s wrong?” she asked, taking care of the more important question first.

“I recognise this area,” Sewer Bard said darkly. “This is where I was taken by the Thieves’ Guild.”

Now that he mentioned it, Qube could see a large wooden door in the distance that looked vaguely familiar. It was wide open, and inside she could just make out warm, orange lights flickering, a stark contrast to the cooler blue and green lights of the sewers.

“I remember them saying that they weren’t your friends,” Qube said, slowing her steps. Unfamiliar thoughts bounced around inside her head, clamouring to make themselves heard. “They caged you for stealing in their territory. Even though they’re thieves. Why didn’t they just ask you to join them? They kept trying to get us to join their group, even though none of us had stolen anything and didn’t have any thief skills.”

Well, except for all the shoplifting the Chosen One had tricked her into doing. And her forcefully re-acquiring the golden sword the guild had stolen from that ghost that then tricked her into owning a house.

Qube seemed to get tricked into possessing things a lot.

“I suspect—” Sewer Bard started, then caught himself. He rubbed his mouth as he looked at Qube, then glanced around. Since Qube had slowed down and the Bard had automatically matched her pace, they were a little behind the others; even Definitely Bad Guy was ahead of them, lost in his own thoughts.

“—The Golden Prophecy had a hand in it,” he finished at last.

“Oh… Oh!” Qube exclaimed. “So the Golden Prophecy stopped you from agreeing to join their guild and that’s why they locked you up?”

“Perhaps,” Sewer Bard said, watching her very closely, “the Golden Prophecy is why I was caught by them in the first place. I’ve never been so clumsy as I was that night, and they have certainly never displayed so much stealth since.”

Qube tilted her head to the side as she pondered this.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “For me, the Golden Prophecy has only ever encouraged or discouraged me from doing things. It’s made it hard to do things, yes, but never outright changed events around me.”

“I may be wrong,” Sewer Bard said with an eloquent shrug of his shoulders. “I have certainly, how shall I say, felt the hand of fate lean heavily on me from time to time, but I’ve never read the Golden Prophecy, and do not know the scope of its narrative.”

“Wait, you’ve never actually read it?” Qube asked, astonished, only to instantly realise that her surprise was misplaced. The village had built an entire prophecy hut just to house the scroll the Golden Prophecy was written on; it made sense that not everyone would have access to a copy of the sacred text. She’d just thought, since the Evil Emperor had known about it, everyone would somehow just instinctively know what the Golden Prophecy said.

But he was an Evil Emperor with his own prophecy; of course he would know about theirs.

“I’ve not had the good fortune,” Sewer Bard said with a rather strange smile. “Such sacred texts haven’t exactly been left within eyeshot of a failed thief and mediocre Bard. But I have heard it spoken of, and know its role in keeping spirits alive through the oppression of the Evil Emperor.”

“Oh, well, the Chosen One has the village’s copy shoved in his backpack, so you can read it now if you want!” Qube said cheerfully. Then the actual contents of what Sewer Bard had said filtered through, and she glared at her friend.

“You’re not a mediocre Bard at all! You’re the best Bard I know!” she said indignantly.

But Sewer Bard wasn’t listening to her. Instead he was just staring at the Healer in disbelief.

“He has the Golden Prophecy shoved into his backpack?”

“Yep!” Qube said, cheerfully ignoring how she’d felt when she’d witnessed that particular act of sacrilege. “And I’m sure you would be an amazing thief, or even a Rogue, if you wanted to!” she added loyally.

“Thank you,” the Bard said faintly.