Prophecy Approved Companion

Book Three Chapter Forty Seven: TT_Boss

The party returned to the mausoleum, all of them blinking at the sudden brightness as the fourth and final gem lit up on the coffin. Basic pattern recognition told Qube that the coffin was probably a chest filled with whatever weapon they would need to defeat the Boss. The shape of it as a coffin was in rather poor taste but then the Temples did like to match everything to their themes whenever possible.

A small whirring sound from within maybe chest made her nervous, but she didn’t flinch, waiting for the Hero to step forward. The four glowing gems rose up from where they were embedded in the corners, almost like they were unscrewing themselves. They were taller than Qube would have expected and, once she looked closer, she realised that they were actually four glowing hourglasses, each filled with golden sand.

It wasn't exactly acting like any chests they'd come across before. Still, despite its design and elaborate nature it could still contain the Chosen One's favourite thing: treasure. It just had to open up and give them their weapon so they could get on with completing this odd Temple and saving the world.

But the coffin didn’t open.

Instead, dozens of the previously unopenable drawers lining the walls flung open, and a horde of ghosts poured out.

“Aaah! They’re in my hair! They’re in my hair!” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar screamed despite the fact that the ghosts were A: not in her hair and B: ghosts, and thus incorporeal. The Hunter seemed to quickly realise this as she shook her head clear, stepped back, pulled out her crossbow and shot at the closest cluster of ghosts.

Qube, having become wise in the nature of shooting at things that shouldn’t be hurt by being shot at, nodded her approval at the action. Only to immediately have her approval betrayed by the crossbow bolt sailing through the ghost and falling harmlessly to the floor.

“What?” she gasped, looking at the fallen bolt as if it had personally offended her.

“They’re ghosts! We can’t hurt them in this form!” Sencha Bard loudly declared.

“But we could attack fire elementals with fire in the Fire Temple! Why wouldn’t we be able to attack these?”

“Looks like we’ll have to flip the script!” Sencha Bard added, even more loudly than before.

“I don’t know if we’ll have time for our date,” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar said then stopped, confused. “What date?” she asked herself.

Squiggles, ignoring her inability to touch the ghosts, was attempting to grab them. When they proved too fast for her, she simply stood on the tips of her tentacles and opened her mouth, trying to eat any spirits that accidentally drifted through her.

A ghost skimmed past, brushing against her snout. The sharktopus jerked back, and gave a pained whimper, slapping a tentacle over her nose.

“Squiggles!” Qube gasped as she saw a cut suddenly open on the beloved mascot’s face. “[Lesser Heal]!”

The sharktopus, now pouting and poking at her healed face, slorped over to Qube and curled up around her as more ghosts whizzed about.

“Hey, can you grab one of those and turn it over?” the Chosen One calmly asked Qube, pointing at the golden hourglasses still attached to the coffin.

“Of course!” Qube said, instantly realising that she was about to deliver a bunch of hourglass twins. To avoid thinking about herself as mother to many neglected treasures, she tried to feel as Healer-like as possible. She was merely assisting the birthing process.

Sure enough, a moment later she had a brand new baby hourglass in her hands.

“Here you go!” she said cheerfully, delivering the newly-birthed twin into the Chosen One’s waiting arms.

“Yes,” the Chosen One said, less like a proud father and more like a burgeoning villain. He elongated the word until it became a pleased hiss. “Yes! Oh this is going to be so easy! Give us another?”

He flicked the golden hourglass and the ghosts suddenly turned into black blobs that plunged down, each of them hitting the ground with a loud splat. Gobs of black ooze sprayed out from their impact points, covering the areas around them with an oily substance. Qube, busy birthing another hourglass twin, shrank away.

“That looks flammable,” the Hero said, sounding very pleased with himself. He hesitated. “Wait, didn’t one of the starters have fire? Why was the forest so easy, then? Man, they need to balance that. Or are they dynamically shifting things to account for starter choices?”

“Chosen One, please focus on the fight!” Qube said, trying very hard to drown out the battle music. The spooky ghost music had been bad enough, but now it had changed to a weird, wet sound, like a puddle of mud was being vigorously slapped.

“Ah, yeah, sure!” The Hero blinked as he focused. “Right, ethics check! Any of you feel like not attacking us? We can be your friends.”

The blobs didn’t seem interested in friendship.

“Sencha Bard, you wanna try your magic on them?” the Chosen One asked. The Bard, who was frantically playing his lute as he cast [Haste] on the party, took a step back as a blob attacked.

“Noble Patron,” the Bard replied, his annoyance obvious, “they’re merely blobs of some kind of oil.”

“Sure, but the lava slimes were just blobs of lava, and they were still sentient,” the Hero replied with impeccable logic. The Bard sighed and jumped onto the coffin lid, buying himself a bit of space.

“Cover your ears!” he ordered, before his hand rose, ready to play. Qube, unbothered by the blobs that streamed towards her friends, obediently covered her pointy ears.

She felt the power of the song in her very bones.

But the former ghosts didn’t even hesitate, instead continuing to attempt to jump onto the party members.

“I gotta say, I’m pretty disappointed in you guys,” the Chosen One informed the non-sentient blobs of oil attempting to attack him. “I really thought we could be friends.”

“Chosen One, please stop trying to befriend the oil!” Qube exclaimed. “[Lesser Shield]!” One of the blobs splattered against her shield protecting the Hero’s back.

“But I thought you loved friendship and compromise!” the Chosen One said, grinning at her.

“Not with oil!” Qube squeaked as a blob splattered near her.

“All right Sparky, time to end this diplomatic venture. Light ‘em up,” the Chosen One said, jumping up on top of the coffin next to Qube and holding out a hand to her. Qube stared at his hand. Was she supposed to take it?

“More treasures please,” he requested.

“Oh.” Qube flushed slightly in embarrassment and quickly bent down to make another twin.

“[Fireball],” Definitely Bad Guy cast, and everything exploded.

Fire roared through the whole room, a massive concussive blast that flung everyone around like dolls in a storm. Qube, tumbling wildly, couldn’t see well enough to shield anyone.

“[Lesser Shield]!” she cast on herself, just before smacking into a wall of drawers. She dropped to the ground, her shield instantly destroyed by the force of her flight.

Even the floor was on fire, the oil from the blobs burning as the flames danced. Her head swam, and she realised that the entire ground was alight, the flames rushing towards her.

“Equip your wings!”

The Chosen One suddenly hovered above Qube, the mechanical wings he’d used in the Air Temple whipping the flames into a frenzy as he reached out and grabbed the Healer, hauling her up into the air. There wasn’t a lot of space between the top of the flames and the ceiling, but at the very least it stopped the pair from actively being on fire.

The others shot up out of flames, Squiggles firmly wrapped around Sexy Screamy Spider Briar as the singed party met in midair.

Surprisingly, after the initial blast, there wasn’t a lot of smoke. Qube would have expected choking amounts of it in this confined space, but instead it just turned into white clouds, which slowly cleared away as the flames died down.

No blobs remained.

In fact, not a lot of anything remained.

The once-pristine coffin looked like someone had thrown several bags of soot on it, only the still-golden hourglasses remaining in place like madly determined soldiers. The walls, which had never looked particularly good, now resembled a popsicle left out in the sun. Melted and warped, even the drawers' names were unrecognisable.

As the flames died, leaving only scorch marks in the wake, the party slowly drifted down to the ground, Qubei already casting [Lesser Heal] on everyone to try and fix any injuries from the explosion.

“Well, that was—” the Hero was cut off as soon as his feet touched the ground. The sooty coffin slid away from them, suddenly floating upright in the air. The four hourglasses, despite remaining firm from an explosion that had knocked over a Fighter in full plate armour, were dislodged by this movement, and tumbled to the floor. They flowed together, morphing into a treasure chest.

“Wait, were the ghosts not the Boss?” the Hero asked, looking at the chest in confusion. “Man, what is going on with this Temple?”

The coffin violently contorted itself, making a horrible crunching sound as it was rearranged. It flew a short distance away from the party and then smashed one end into the ground. Rivers of wall and marble flowed towards it, as it continued its horrifying transformation.

The Chosen One decided to open the treasure chest.

“Why would four hourglasses turn into one?” he yelled, looking up at the coffin. But the coffin, being busy, didn’t reply. Instead, several metal cogs emerged from it, the white of the marble spreading out into a circle.

“Are you turning into a giant clock?” the Hero asked, sounding genuinely offended at the notion. “No. No! I refuse to fight a giant clock in the Time Temple! That’s stupid! Look, it’s even got legs! And arms! No.”

The coffin turned clock responded to the Chosen One’s surprising stance by slamming a marbled fist into a wall. The wood, having been warped, burned and battered, instantly withered away to dust. Golden energy flowed from the fist up to the giant clock face, causing the minute and hour pointers stemming from the middle of its face to shudder.

“Pick that up,” the Chosen One said to Qube, pointing at the hourglass in the treasure chest.

“Looks like we’ll need to time our attacks!” Sencha Bard said, already playing.

“Looks like this will be the most difficult Boss we’ve ever faced,” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar said.

Both the Bard and the Hunter paused after their lines and blinked.

“Nope,” the Hero replied, flipping over the hourglass Qube had just handed him. The coffin-clock froze, but the sand flowed so quickly that the Hero had to flip it back over within ten seconds. josei

This time, however, the sand wasn’t stuck, and flowed back into the bottom chamber. The downside was that the coffin-clock Boss instantly started attacking again as soon as the hourglass flipped.

The Hero deliberately re-flipped the hourglass, freezing the giant timepiece mid-punch.

“I refuse,” he said. He gestured to Qube to keep handing him hourglasses. She started pulling as many as she could, the Hero stepping away and waving at the others to continue collecting as many as they could.

“I absolutely refuse to fight a giant death clock,” he said. “It’s even got a second set of smaller hands or arms or whatever they’re called for moustaches! That doesn’t even work from a clock perspective! This is ridiculous!”

The hourglass he was holding ran out. Instead of being forced to juggle the time, he just flipped another hourglass, locking the giant clock back in place as he advanced. Circling around the clock, he called out: “Yup! Key in the back is the weak spot! Guys, get your [snacks] together!”

Partially obscured from sight by the body of the death clock, he slashed at the Boss’s back with his sword. Every time the Hero hit the back with his sword the clock would jump then refreeze, and several small cogs would spring out of it in various directions. They weren’t attack cogs; more like the clock was shedding them.

At one point Qube considered suggesting trying to talk to the giant clock and see what it had to say about its life, but the Hero had seemed so offended by the Boss that she wasn’t sure she wanted to put him through that.

In the end, it took about five hourglasses’ worth of time to murder the giant coffin-clock Boss. It died an ignoble death, never even having a chance to put up a fight, and dissolved into the traditional three Bestowal pedestals, and a sparkly circle of teleportation.

The Chosen One had been right. The final Temple really was weird.