Chapter 112: Chapter One Hundred and Nine: Avatar Collision Corruption

Qube couldn’t have said how she knew Sewer Bard was lying. There was not one moment where he’d twitched, given an Evil laugh, twirled a moustache, or any of the other things that would have alerted her to something being not quite right.

 

But that smooth, detached manner he’d adopted was blatantly false, and almost everything he’d said rang hollow. A part of her was surprised the Devs hadn’t picked up on it, but then, they probably didn’t expect one of their creations to lie to them.

 

Even now, Qube couldn’t say with one hundred percent certainty that he had been lying to them. It had just felt off.

 

Qube wished the Chosen One was here. She didn’t understand why they’d removed him. There were still so many questions she had to ask, and she felt like he would have picked up on things she’d missed. Even if he couldn’t talk to her about anything connected to the Devs, just his reactions would have told her a lot.

 

Unlike the Bard, the Hero wasn’t very good at hiding his true feelings.

 

“By the way,” Bianca said to Qube, as the duo of Devs walked towards the Save Point, “have you been noticing anything weird lately?”

 

Qube looked at the Dev inhabiting the body of one of her childhood friends. The giant arachnid next to her was playing with her hair, idly winding it around one of her claws, and her sharktopus pet continued to press against her calves.

 

“What do you mean?” she asked.

 

Bianca leant in, staring directly into Qube’s eyes.

 

“Like with that lion at the Air Temple,” the Dev breathed in a whisper. “That shouldn’t have happened. What did you do?”

 

“Bianca!” Alex snapped, grabbing her shoulder.

 

“No, don’t!” Bianca yelled, but Alex had already made contact. Rather than just touching her shoulder or, in the more ordinarily horrifying possibility, popping into her inner secret shoulder pocket, his hand passed through her, and came out the other side.

 

With her shoulder still attached.

 

Her skin and clothes seemed to stretch, stuck to his hand as he started yelling and frantically waving it about.

 

“Stop it!” Bianca shouted as her shoulder was yanked around. “Ow! Why does it hurt? [By the Words] dampen the [baddie] pain feedback, you masochist!”

 

The thought darted through Qube’s mind that every time the Chosen One or Devs had that strange, underwater sound to their words, they were actually using some kind of obscuring magic. Either that, or they were speaking some kind of elevated Dev language, and her mind was automatically translating it.

 

Either way, this was something she was going to have to experiment with later. For now, she was too busy watching the nightmare unfold before her. 

 

Alex wrenched his hand hard, but that just made Bianca’s shoulder stretch out like a spiky pyramid as it remained attached to his palm.

 

“Stop pulling!” Bianca screamed.

 

“Get off me!” Alex screamed back, flailing wildly.

 

“This is why I told you not to touch anything! The avatar mod can’t—” Bianca started trying to run away from the other Dev, perhaps hoping to break free of him. Instead her shoulder just stretched further, until she suddenly snapped back, crashing into Alex. Their bodies merged, turning the Devs into a monsterous chimera that rolled around, yelling at itself.

 

“Now look at what you’ve done! This is why I wanted to do this in a copy!” the Alex voice screamed from the monster.

 

“Oh great, yeah, let’s make more problems!” the Bianca voice screamed back. “Let’s make a huge fuss to get a full copy made, and then oh! Maybe we can destroy them when we’re done! Yay us! Good job!”

 

“A better job than this mod!” The monster spun in place, limbs flailing and merging with each other.

 

“Do you have any idea how hard this is to —”

 

“Please, let me help,” Qube said, stepping forward and holding out a hand. Maybe she could pull one of them free?

 

“Don’t!” Bianca’s voice rang out from inside the beast, before the pair of them slammed into the Save Point and were gone.

 

For a moment there was silence in the clearing outside the Bandit cave. Qube blinked.

 

In the time it took her to blink, the Chosen One appeared next to the Save Point, his trademark happy-go-lucky expression in place. As soon as his hand moved away from the circle of blue, Qube launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around him in a fierce hug. It had been so scary with him gone!

 

“Welcome back, Chosen One!” she said, her face smushed into his chest. The Chosen One, sturdy enough that he only staggered back a little at her friendship attack, patted her on the shoulder, then briefly returned the hug.

 

“Good to be back,” he said, before stepping back. Squiggles, who had been hiding behind Qube the entire time, slorped up to him and sat on his feet, wrapping her tentacles around his ankles as if trying to stop him from leaving again. “Good to see you too, Squiggles,” the Chosen One said, reaching down and very gingerly scratching behind her ribbon. Squiggles drooled onto his shins. She’d clearly been eating some of her lip-paints again, leaving wet blue smears down his boots.

 

“So,” the Chosen One said, giving up on keeping his feet clean. “How was your meeting?”

 

“It has given us much hope, Noble Patron,” Sewer Bard said, smiling to himself. “They seem to have big plans for the future.”

 

“One of them was fascinated by me,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said, flicking back her hair. “Not that I blame her. I have that effect on people. She seemed enamoured with my duality. We had quite a nice, private conversation.”

 

“They wished to gather more information on us, and our thoughts,” Definitely Bad Guy said, reading through one of his books. “Perhaps they did not trust your judgement on the matter?”

 

If the Mage had been trying to get a reaction out of the Chosen One, then he failed. The Hero just smiled.

 

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“They accidentally turned into a giant mush monster,” Qube said, sticking to what she knew was most interesting to the Chosen One. “Then they shouted a bunch, and disappeared.”

 

The Chosen One laughed.

 

“Is that why they were both so cross?” he asked, delighted. “I thought Bee was going to have an absolute fit.”

 

Qube’s eyes widened as she registered that the Chosen One was so close to one of the all mighty Devs that he even had a nickname for her! That was the kind of powerful heights he had risen to, one that she could only hope to aspire to.

 

“They talked about our ascension,” she said, grabbing hold of the Chosen One’s hand. “Maybe after we save the kingdom, we can all become Devs!”

 

The Chosen One choked.

 

“Wait, what?” he asked, eloquently.

 

“I do not think, fair Healer, they plan to elevate us to such a status,” Sewer Bard said.

 

“Yeah, no, you’re not going to be Devs,” the Chosen One said bluntly. Qube winced, but hid it behind a smile.

 

“Oh! Of course, how silly of me, I meant we can all work closely with the Devs!” she quickly corrected herself. “They even want Sewer Bard to perform for them! He might get to sing in front of the Devs themselves!” She gave the Bard an anxious smile. “They should consider themselves very lucky! The Devs, that is, to hear you perform, they should consider — not you should — oh dear.”

 

Once again, Qube had managed to lose herself in a bog of half-sentences and awkwardness.

 

“Don’t worry, my sweet,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said, brushing aside the half-elf’s anxiety. “We all know the Devs would be delighted to have us around.”

 

The Chosen One coughed violently.

 

“Don’t mind me,” he said with a gasp, his eyes watering. “Just picturing how some of them would react to all of you popping up next to them.” He finished coughing, and sighed. “What a glorious mess that would be.” He gazed off into the distance, as if envisioning said mess, before turning to the group.

 

“First things first, though, let’s go check out this cave and see if the bear’s back.” He pivoted on his heel, and headed to the shadowy entrance.

 

“Do you really think we’ll be taken to the Dev’s realm when we finish the quest?” Qube asked the others as they followed their leader.

 

“I would not object to entering their realm,” Definitely Bad Guy said to Qube with a strangely meaningful smile. “But I suspect the reason they have dangled this offer of ascension is to keep all of us, but especially you, in line.”

 

“For once, we are in agreement,” Sewer Bard said, his mouth twisting as if the words he’d just spoken were sour. “Any Bard worth their salt knows to be wary of being offered their heart’s dearest wish. Especially if a cost is not mentioned.”

 

Sexy Screamy Spider Lady shook her head. “I can’t speak for the male Dev, but Bianca and I made a real connection,” she said.

 

The Chosen One stepped into the shadows, and the party was swallowed up. 

 

After a few seconds, they were in the cave. The bear had not reappeared, confirming Qube’s theory that the Bear Mage had managed to reconnect with their Bandit friends. At least she hoped the Bear Mage had been able to find the Bandits. She couldn’t imagine how awful she would feel if she got separated from Squiggles and wasn’t able to find her again.

 

Just the thought of such a thing made her try to pick up Squiggles and hug her. Squiggles, never one to turn down hugs, whipped around and covered Qube in tentacles, hugging for all she was worth.

 

“If we ever get separated,” Qube wheezed as Squiggles squeezed, “we’ll meet at Aurora Abode. There should be plenty for you to eat and you can sleep in the Chosen One’s room.”

 

Ideally, once the party was able to return to the village, Qube would introduce Squiggles to everyone (she just knew they would all adore her!) and be able to direct her there, but for now it was the safest place Qube could think of.

 

After all, Squiggles was just an innocent little baby. She couldn’t be wandering out in the world on her own!

 

The Chosen One, having overturned a few likely-looking rocks in the hopes of finding a bear hidden underneath them, gave a disappointed sigh and trudged out of the cave.

 

“Gonna fast travel now,” was all the warning he gave to Qube before his eyes glazed over and he started jogging back towards Cobbletown. Qube smiled at his consideration. He really was learning to communicate better!

 

However, that meant she couldn’t talk to him about all the thoughts swirling through her head. As the party jogged over the rolling hills, she looked up at the approaching twilight. 

 

Joining the Devs… ascending… could it really happen? As she looked up into the faintly glowing pinpoints of light in the sky, she once again felt that surge of joy she’d experienced when flying with the Chosen One. The idea of ascending into that night sky, or of moving beyond the limits of what she had always known, was almost overwhelming.

 

It was hard to reconcile the glittering majesty spiralling above her with the mush monster that had rolled around yelling at itself earlier that day, but one had only to look at the Chosen One to realise that even the seemingly strangest people were capable of great deeds. It was their actions, rather than their ability to display any kind of social grace, that determined a person’s true worth.

 

But Qube’s admiration of the Devs’ glorious work was interrupted by a dark cloud of doubt. She looked back at the other party members. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady and Definitely Bad Guy were both in the same meditative state as the Chosen One, but Sewer Bard was looking around. She dropped back from her place by the Chosen One’s side and started jogging next the Bard.

 

“Sewer Bard,” she asked, gathering her courage, “do you really think the Devs are just offering us what we want?”

 

The Bard didn’t break step as he looked down at her. He seemed to be thinking, perhaps trying to figure out how best to proceed, or weighing up what he should tell her.

 

“Though it pains me to admit it, I must confess, fair maiden, that this is not a possibility we should dismiss out of hand,” he said, with his customary smoothness. “And, though it pains me even more to admit to this, I am pleasantly surprised to find that Definitely Bad Guy is not instantly throwing himself at their feet in a bid for power. In this, if nothing else, his opinion—” Sewer Bard swallowed hard, as if trying to keep down bile, “—may have some merit.”

 

Truly, these were mysterious times.

 

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