Chapter 124: Chapter One Hundred and Twenty One: LT_Item

Sewer Bard carefully scouted ahead to the next room. After a few seconds he returned, smiling triumphantly.

 

“Come,” he said happily, before returning to the new room. Still thinking about how to avoid violence, Qube wandered in after the others. 

 

“Oh!” she said, giving an involuntary gasp at the sight before her.

 

It was another mirror room! However, instead of a gem on a wall guarding a closed entrance, there was a giant sandstone chest in the middle of the room with a tiny clear gem on it. Like the last room, there was no closed door, just an empty entranceway to the next room.

 

“This is definitely a puzzle, yes?” Qube asked their current leader, Sewer Bard. Sewer Bard nodded at her. Sweeping the room with her eyes, Qube instantly solved the mirror and light puzzle.

 

“Sewer Bard, if you could move that mirror a little bit to the left —” Qube started giving out instructions immediately, and the others moved to obey. Within thirty seconds the puzzle was complete, and the top of the sandstone slid up on a hinge, revealing a glowing …

 

“Jam jar?” Qube asked, staring at the object. “Why is there an empty jar in this chest?” She reached out and grabbed it, and heard a soft pop as the jar gave birth. Stumbling back a little, she stared at the newborn glass in her hands. There was a strange symbol scratched onto the lid: a small stylised version of a whirlwind. 

 

“Huh,” she said, inspecting it. Instinctively, she unscrewed the lid. The instant she removed it, a small vortex tried to suck her face in. She slammed the lid back on, cutting off the suction. She blinked a few times, trying to figure out what had just happened. She turned the jar around so the opening was pointed away from her and unscrewed the lid again. It kicked back into her stomach as it started sucking in a huge amount of air.

 

Putting the lid back on, she contemplated the jar, only to realise that the rest of the party were quiet. Looking up, she saw that everyone was staring at her in dead silence.

 

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she said, flustered. “Here!” She handed her jar over to Sewer Bard, before reaching out and grabbing the original chest jar. As soon as the chest jar had another baby, she passed the newborn over to Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, who looked entirely confused.

 

“My darling, how are you doing —” she started, before Qube grabbed a new jar and yanked it into existence. Handing it over to Definitely Bad Guy, the Mage started examining it closely.

 

“It appears,” he said, as Qube made another jar and gave it to Squiggles, “to be a vortex jar. This will no doubt prove useful as we progress.”

 

“Perhaps there will be an enemy we can use it against,” Sewer Bard said in an oddly formal tone. He shook his head slightly, then continued more naturally: “Although we have yet to encounter anything of that ilk, the Temples have always given us useful items in the past.”

 

If the Bosses were, in fact, made from people who had grown swollen with hubris, perhaps the Temple was giving the Chosen One these tools in order to get rid of said Bosses? But then how did the Bosses get their hands (claws? paws?) on the Bestowals?

 

Sometimes Qube felt like she was so close to truly understanding the Temples, if only she had just a bit more information. She was distracted from her breakthrough by a tap on her leg. Squiggles was looking up at her with her little black button eyes, blinking adorably. She reached out a tentacle for the jar Qube had just helped bring into the world.

 

“You’ve already got a jar, Squiggles,” Qube said absentmindedly. Squiggles tapped again. “Don’t be greedy,” Qube said. Squiggles tapped a third time, more insistently.

 

“Fine,” Qube said with a sigh, giving in. “You know I can’t say no to you when you’re being so adorable.” Once again she reached into the mystical chest and plucked another child from the magical jam jar.

 

Squiggles happily grabbed her second jar, and curled a tentacle around it. Moments later, Qube felt another tap on her leg.

 

“Squiggles,” she said warningly. Squiggles opened her mouth and drooled a little, her eyes glistening with hope. This time Qube held out for a full half a minute before giving in.

 

Which is how, five minutes later, Squiggles had a small pyramid of jars, and was happily trying to pry the lid off of one of them. Frustrated by her lack of progress, she started chewing on it.

 

“Squiggles!” Qube said, “if you try to eat those, I’ll take them off you!”

 

Squiggles pouted, but stopped gnawing on the jar.

 

Qube eyed the parent vortex jar still in the chest. 

 

“I think we’ll have to leave that one for the Chosen One,” she said. “Unless you want me to pull some more?” Sewer Bard rubbed his chin, an action Qube had seen the Chosen One do many times while thinking. 

 

“Excuse me, please,” he said, politely brushing past Qube and plucking the jar from the chest. It easily came away, making no children. Sewer Bard frowned in frustration.

 

“It seems her Healer ability is what allows her to do it,” Definitely Bad Guy said. Sewer Bard’s brow cleared.

 

“Of course!” he said, suddenly cheerful again. “That makes more sense.” He bowed to Qube, and presented her with the jar. “Please take care of this until we must awaken our Noble Patron from his well-earned slumber.”

 

“Makes more sense than what?” Qube asked, slipping the parent jar into her backpack. “Also, how long are the side effects of the song supposed to last?” This was edging a little too close to personal information, but she wanted to know how long the music she was still faintly hearing would continue. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was concerning that even her brief exposure meant she was still hearing it.

 

“I do not know, fair woman of worth,” Sewer Bard said, looking at Definitely Bad Guy. The Mage straightened up, trying to appear taller.

 

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“It is still a work in progress,” the Mage said somewhat stiffly. “We require additional research before we can make any definitive statements. Preferably with a subject who can articulate what is occurring.”

 

Sexy Screamy Spider Lady shifted positions. Something about what he’d just said made Qube feel uneasy too.

 

“Just on the monsters in the Temples, right?” she asked. “So we can avoid injuring them. And there’s no negative side effects, you said?” She looked at Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, hoping her logical interjection had helped soothe her. The Hunter and all her screaming children’s faces looked disgusted, although whether that was with the spell, the monsters, or the moral implications was unclear.

 

“I have not projected any unexpected negative side effects,” Definitely Bad Guy replied.

 

Clink, clink, clink. The tension in the room was cut as Squiggles clinked past them. Somehow, she had managed to not only open all eight jars, but she’d also succeeded in attaching them to the ends of each of her tentacles. So, rather than her usual slorp, she was now skittering around the sandstone floor, precariously balanced on the flat sides of the jars.

 

“Squiggles!” Qube said, exasperated. She reached out to grab the sharktopus and take off her new shoes, only to have Squiggles noisily tap-dance out of range. “Young lady you get back here and let me take those weapons off of your feet!” Qube ordered, chasing after her pet. Squiggles just hissed, and skittered faster, trying to stay out of grabbing distance.

 

“Squiggles!” Qube yelled, now thoroughly cross. She raced after the team mascot, who hissed louder and bolted, the glass making loud clink-clink-clink sounds as she smashed them onto the ground. 

 

“Right!” Qube cried, before jumping and tackling the sharktopus to the ground. Squiggles hissed and flailed wildly, trying to protect her new toys. “Stop being so naughty!” Qube grunted, capturing one of her tentacles and wrapping her legs around it to hold it in place. She grasped the jar on the end of it, nearly getting hit in the face several times.

 

She could hear some kind of moaning sound, which she ignored. The others were probably trying to talk to Squiggles and get her to behave. She could hear them shuffling closer.

 

“These. Are. Not. For you to play with!” Qube continued yanking on the jar. The vortex unleashed by the removal of the lid was strong enough that she would have struggled to pull Squiggles’s feet out even if she hadn’t been twitching the tip of her tentacle about to try and get it out of Qube’s grip.

 

Finally, Qube managed to get her fingers under the lip of the jar and rip it off Squiggles. The unexpected force sent her arm flying backwards, causing her to accidentally throw the jar across the room.

 

“Sorry!” Qube called over her shoulder at the others. “Could you find the… lid… for… that…” Qube trailed off as she realised that the shuffling and moaning had not, in fact, been her friends. Nor was she still in the same room as before.

 

Squiggles and Qube had been so busy racing that they’d ended up in the next room. Glancing the way they’d come, Qube could see the others standing at the doorway, looking shocked. Advancing towards them, however, were several humanoid creatures wrapped from head to toe in bandages. They appeared to have emerged from some upright coffins stacked next to each other along the walls.

 

“Oh no!” Qube said, her Healer instinct kicking in. “Are you injured?”

 

The suffering people ignored her, what with Qube being invisible to them and all. They also didn’t seem terribly interested in Squiggles, although one or two of them did turn their heads to look at her as they moved. Instead they were very, very slowly shuffling their way towards the main party.

 

Oddly, the jar that Qube had de-Squigglesed had stopped sucking shortly after it had finished rolling, leaving it peacefully sitting near the middle of the room, for all the world like a normal holder of jams or fruit.

 

“Huh, it must have run out,” Qube said quietly to Squiggles. “I’ll go grab it, since they can’t see me, while you very carefully go back to the others. These people seem really, really hurt, so we don’t want to scare them with any sudden movements, or have them trip over your jar.”

 

Squiggles, picking up on Qube’s serious tone, tried to skitter as discreetly as she could on a bunch of jam jar shoes. Which, as it turned out, wasn’t very discreet at all.

 

Clink-clink-clink.

 

Qube resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands, and instead reached down and scooped up the jam jar just before one of the potential patients could step on it. The instant she lifted it up, however, it activated, suddenly pulling in a tremendous amount of air.

 

And then, horrifyingly, it pulled in more than just air. The bandaged being before them moaned as the jar yanked at its bandages and started to unravel them.

 

“Oh no!” Qube cried, distressed. “I’m so sorry! I know you can’t hear me but I’m really sorry!” She tried to step away, twisting the jar so it wasn’t facing the poor person, but that only made things worse. The additional movement seemed to invigorate the jar, and it sucked harder, pulling the bandages off the person so violently that they started to spin in place as their protection unspooled.

 

Qube was about to try and give more apologies she intellectually knew couldn’t be heard but emotionally needed to give, when the whole person unravelled. Before she could say anything, she realised that there were no injuries underneath the yards of bandages.

 

There was, in fact, nothing under the bandages.

 

The whole person had been made of bandages. Or were they invisible? Qube stuck her hand in the space where the patient had been, before realising just how rude that was of her. How would she have liked it if someone shoved their hand inside her? Not that it ended up mattering, since she felt nothing, but still. It was the principle of the politeness. What if they were a ghost, and she was inside them right now?

 

Qube snatched her hand away, flushing.

 

“Sorry,” she said quickly, just in case they could hear her. Hurrying back to the others, she snatched the lid that Sewer Bard was holding out to her and slammed it onto the jar.

 

“What are those?” she asked, turning and staring at the approaching bandage monsters.

 

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