Prophecy Approved Companion

Book Three Chapter Seventy One: Castle_Setup_Cost

“Right, put him down there,” Qube said, indicating the space between the two empty treasure chests that had previously been the illusions of her friends. Sexy Screamy Spider Briar gently placed the Hero on the ground.

Qube took a deep breath and knelt down next to the Chosen One. At some point in the short journey he’d either fallen asleep, or passed out. Neither option was good. Qube was well aware that falling asleep outside of a bed only led to bad dreams, and they couldn’t afford to have the Hero passing out right before the final battle. The realm couldn’t afford to have him passing out before the final battle.

“[Lesser Heal], [Minor Cleanse],” Qube watched as her spells sunk into the unconscious form before her. He didn’t move. For all her outward control, Qube was struggling to know what to do. It wasn’t as if they’d covered how to cope with interrupted possession while she’d been learning how to be a Healer. That, combined with the fact she’d just told some of the most powerful beings in the realm what to do, meant that a large part of her was panicking.

She was also, she realised with a shock, incredibly angry.

“The Chosen One has been pushing himself too hard,” her dispassionate Healer side said, taking control. “We’re going to let him rest and recover here for a while. Once he wakes up, we’re going to have him interact with the Save Point.”

She knew that if the Chosen One had been in her situation, he would have found a safe way to make sure the person touched the Save Point. Probably by dropping them from a height, throwing them, ‘think-fast’-ing them, or some other horribly undignified thing. And he would laugh, and say something silly, and it would all work out, because that was what he did. He took hopeless situations and made them fun.

But the clock was ticking. The guardians wouldn’t stay still for long, not on her orders alone. And who knew if the Evil Emperor had sensed that they’d escaped. Given what Definitely Bad Guy had been saying, it seemed likely that the tyrant could sense everything that happened within his castle.

“Well then,” the polite companion, raised to guide others, rose from where she had been kneeling next to the Chosen One, and carefully dusted off her robes. “Would someone care to inform me about what these reforms are?”

“My dear, we don’t have to discuss it right now. You’re clearly upset,” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar said, reaching a claw out to the half-elf.

“Please tell me what the reforms are,” the Chosen One’s childhood companion repeated. “When the Chosen One wakes up, I don’t want to waste time, so if we can sort it out now, then we can help do things faster.” To soften the blow of her insistence, she smiled cutely.

Sexy Screamy Spider Briar withdrew her outstretched arm.

“It was but an idea,” Sencha Bard said, stepping into the breach. “Clearly there were problems with how the kingdom was run before, that allowed someone like the Evil Emperor to rise up, and overthrow the King and Queen. We merely wanted to discuss ways to avoid the same thing from happening, by preventing such concentrations of power. We’d hoped to have everyone’s agreement when we rescued the Royal family from the dungeon.”

“You know, it’s funny, I thought the King and Queen were killed by the Evil Emperor,” Qube said, shaking her head. “But they were in the dungeon all along. I guess Mr. Clockwork was wrong.”

The rest of the party exchanged very worried looks.

“But of course, with the Exiled Prince and Exiled Princess being the prince and princess, I should have known that the king and queen were still alive. Otherwise they’d be the king and queen, wouldn’t they?” She tilted her head back to look up at the uninteresting ceiling. “There’s so much in this world that just doesn’t make sense, you know? So much I want to understand. That’s why I went to Construct Crossroads, to try and understand everything, just a little bit.”

Her eyes started to swim, and her head felt heavy. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

“The Chosen One pushed himself to the very limit, to take me there. I knew it was going to cost him, but I asked for it anyway. He even turned down taking a short cut into the castle, just so we could have more time. I should have said no. I should have insisted he rest. I know it costs him, to be in this world for too long. I know this. I know there’s a deadline approaching. He’s trying to do something, but I don’t know what it is.”

She was crying now. Not sobbing, or gasping, but tears traced themselves down her cheeks as she continued to stare at the ceiling. Anger and sadness fought within her, leaving chaos in their wake.

“All I know is that I want more time here, having fun, going on adventures. Asking for that will only harm him more. But I want it.” She gave a shuddering breath, and finally looked at the others. Squiggles had wrapped herself around Qube’s boots, but the others were all standing a short distance away, watching her.

“What kind of Healer asks someone to harm himself so that she can be happy?” she asked, her throat working as she struggled to keep her voice calm.

“One who seeks to understand,” Definitely Bad Guy said, stepping forward. “We crave knowledge. It is the nature of Mages to do so. This is a price that must be paid.”

“Not by him,” Qube replied. “He shouldn’t pay that price for me.”

“Worthiest of hearts, blame not yourself for this,” Sencha Bard said. He took Qube’s place, kneeling by the Chosen One’s side. “Neither you nor he have anything to feel guilty of in this matter. Both of you have acted with the purest of intentions.” Sencha Bard looked down at the Chosen One, and gave a small laugh. “Though I must confess, the more I discover about our Hero’s secret nobility, the more surprised I am.”

“He’s right, my love,” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar had recovered from her shock. “You must blame the ones who caused this storm in the first place, not those of us doing our best to navigate the troubled waters. You can’t insist that the Chosen One not sacrifice himself for his friends — any of us would do the same. You can’t be angry at him for doing what we all would. That’s not fair.”

“You’re right,” Qube said, drying her eyes. She took a few more deep breaths. “All of you are right. None of us is to blame. We’re all just doing our best. And we need to know more.” She glanced at her boots, where the team mascot was tightly clutching onto her. She crouched down next to the sharktopus, and scratched her head.

“Squiggles, can you please watch over the Chosen One?” she asked. “You’re a good, clever girl, so if he wakes up, come let me know, please.”

The party was right. This wasn’t their fault. And Qube knew exactly who was to blame for this mess. She tilted her head back again and looked up, as the Chosen One had so many times before, when complaining at the sky about various things.

“Evil Emperor!” she declared. She didn’t know how he was spying on them, or if he even was, but it felt right to copy the Chosen One in yelling upwards. “Prepare yourself!”josei

***

The time had come for Qube to do the thing she feared most: take charge. The Chosen One was having a medical emergency, and she’d temporarily dealt with his symptoms, but she had to clear the cause. Which was the room full of incredibly powerful people she had no authority over, several of whom she was sure could kill her on the spot.

“Please follow me,” she said to the rest of the party, before preparing herself. She straightened up, threw back her shoulders, and marched into the banquet room, leaving Squiggles to guard the Hero.

“Thank you for waiting,” she said to the gathered guardians, because she was nothing if not polite.

“You dare—”

Qube lifted a hand, cutting off the various seething comments. “It was a medical emergency, and I’m the Chosen One’s Healer,” she said, her calm air of authority shielding her. “No one can question my right to make decisions for his health.”

Her heart quailed slightly as she waited to hear how they would respond to her statement. After all, plenty of them could question her right. They’d be wrong, but they could make the whole thing a lot more unpleasant.

The wolf by the Dryad Queen’s side stepped forward and licked the back of her hand. His show of support seemed to nudge the other guardians into acceptance.

“We suppose in such matters, the Healer rules,” the Akela said begrudgingly. “The Hero certainly was acting in a very odd manner. Illness that could cause such behaviour is serious indeed.”

“We agree, he was clearly with delirium fever,” the Mermaid Princess nodded, her hair independently swirling around her. “We speculate, his strangeness is explained.”

“That does explain its impertinence, in sitting before us without permission,” the griffin mused.

The floodgates were opened, and all the guardians were agreeing at once, several of them saying that the Hero must have a disease that flared from time to time that rendered him mildly delirious. How perfectly it explained his disrespect towards them!

None of the Chosen One’s party members made a move to disabuse the guardians of this curious notion.

“Right,” Qube said, now she had the balance of approval on her side. “So that means I’m going to be acting in capacity as his Healer. Which means I need to get this situation cleared out as quickly as possible, so he can recover.”

The Evil Emperor had gathered all the guardians here for a reason. She didn’t know if he was aware of the impact [The Bard’s Ballad] had on people, or if he had known that they were all infected. She hadn’t seen him since she’d [Heal]ed him, so she didn’t have any information on how he’d reacted to the spell.

“We’re not going to discuss reforms,” she said, making the unilateral decision. “That is something we can discuss one on one later on, when we’re not in the heart of enemy territory.”

Had he gathered them there in the hopes of slowing the party down? He’d been mimicking the Temples’ various trials; perhaps it had been a misguided belief that the presence of the guardians was a necessary step? Qube almost felt sorry for the tyrant. How little he’d understood about the realities of the world, if he thought this was how things were supposed to go! If anything, the guardians were more likely to assist them than hinder the party.

Unless… had that been his intention? No, it wasn’t possible. Unless he was trying to make them think that he had brought them there to help them so that they wouldn’t fight him as hard. How devious was he? Were those kinds of manipulative moves likely?

“Do any of you know why you’re here?” Qube asked, stuffing down her rising panic at the thought of the Evil Emperor’s mind games.

“I don’t know why I was summoned,” the Dryad Queen gave Qube a chilly look. The beast returned to the former Mother Gothel’s side, and nuzzled her hand. The stiffness of the dryad’s face eased somewhat. “But I sensed that the gem I gifted has been corrupted. Each of us is linked to the gems we gave you, and our life force powers them.”

“Wait, so the gems are a part of you?” Qube asked.

“Each gem is a pledge of our power,” the Dryad Queen replied. “Only with all our powers combined could you have hoped to overcome the Evil Emperor. But he has consumed them, and placed them upon a dark crown, taking our power for himself.”

The Dryad Queen’s eyes dimmed, until they were only wisps of light. She lost all traces of anger as she looked past Qube in the direction of where the Chosen One was resting.

“He’s more powerful than ever, now,” she said. “Without those gems, there’s nothing you can do to stop him. The world is doomed.”