Chapter 155: Book Three Chapter Fifteen: En.igma

In a world that was constantly changing, some things remained the same. Fire still burned, grass still grew, and Mr. Igma still scared Qube. The Chosen One, for once, was not attempting to haggle with the taciturn man, or arguing about economic theory. Instead he was doing something far more dangerous.

 

He was trying to get to know him.

 

“So, your name’s Mr. Igma, right?” the Chosen One asked the shopkeeper.

 

“Yes,” Mr. Igma replied, his frown deepening. “Is that all you have to sell? There’s always more things to buy.”

 

“So is Mister your name, or do you have an actual first name?”

 

For some reason, it’d never occurred to Qube to ask the man she’d known her entire life what his first name was. Such a thing wasn’t done! But then, this wasn’t her Mr. Igma, the one who’d terrorised the entire village without ever leaving his shop. Perhaps this brother, or cousin, of her Mr. Igma, was more open to socialisation than the village Mr. Igma.

 

“If you’ve got goods to sell, I’ve got the coin to buy.” Mr. Igma looked downright furious at the Chosen One’s overstepping, but none of that anger showed in his voice.

 

Did this Mr. Igma know that his relative was dead? Had Mr. Clockwork told him? He hadn’t reacted to her attempting to give him a letter for the village, so perhaps he didn’t know. Or he was just hiding his emotions, like all those who battled in the world of bartering had to.

 

“What if I wanted to buy something?” the Chosen One asked in a tone of deep cunning.

 

Oh no. The Chosen One was trying to be clever to Mr. Igma. Qube was immediately snapped out of her musings and hurried past the rest of the party clustered by the doorway (most of them having now been banned from the store for one reason or another) and skidded to a stop next to the Chosen One just in time to hear the bushy-eyebrowed man’s reply.

 

“If you’ve got goods to buy, I’ve got goods to sell,” Mr. Igma replied warily.

 

“Chosen One, I don’t know what you’re doing, but please be careful,” Qube interjected worriedly.

 

“What’s for sale?” the Chosen One asked.

 

“Everything’s for sale,” Mr. Igma replied, as he normally did.

 

The Chosen One pulled out a pouch of coins.

 

“How much is it to buy your first name?” he asked triumphantly.

 

Mr. Igma looked at the pouch of coins. Then he looked at the Hero. Then back at the coins.

 

“You said everything’s for sale, right?” the Chosen One asked, far too smugly for his own safety. “I wanna buy the knowledge of your first name, if you have it.”

 

There was a slow draining away of all expression from Mr. Igma’s face as he looked at the Chosen One. He seemed to unfocus, like the Hero did when consulting with higher powers, although thankfully the shopkeeper didn’t start drooling on himself.

 

“That item is on the list, but has no price,” he said eventually.

 

“Well I guess that means it’s free, isn’t it?” the Chosen One said cheerfully, before wincing. “Oh, I just became that kind of customer, didn’t I? My bad. So, name your price, I guess.”

 

This, Mr. Igma did respond to. He gave the Chosen One a look of undisguised fury and disgust.

 

“Assign a price?” the shopkeeper said, like the Chosen One had just suggested he do something filthy. “Assign a price not on the list?”

 

“Well, sure, it’s your list, isn’t it?” the Chosen One said, but even he seemed a little taken aback by the righteous rage of a general store owner asked to improvise.

 

“No,” Mr. Igma said, with conviction strong enough to build a house on.

 

“So you’re refusing to sell this to me?” the Chosen One asked, looking to close the conversation. “Guess not everything’s for sale then.”

 

“Wait,” Mr. Igma said, grooming his eyebrows as he thought. “There is no price on this item, but it is on the top of the list. So it can be traded, if not bought.”

 

The Chosen One looked politely confused, but waited for the other man to continue.

 

“I will make a trade. A name for a name. I will give you my name, and take yours in return.” Mr. Igma’s eyes started to glow with an unsettlingly enthusiastic light. “It will be the ultimate transaction.”

 

“I mean, yeah, sure, I can give you my name as well,” the Chosen One said. The shadows in the store seemed to throb with excitement. Qube eyed said shadows with increasing panic.

 

“Chosen One, I don’t think this is a good idea,” she said. Sewer Bard, one of the only people not to be banned from the store, also joined them.

 

“With all due respect, Noble Patron, there is much power to names, and it would be unwise to give yours up so easily,” he cautioned the Hero.

 

“What’s he going to do with it? He’s just going to know my name…” the Chosen One narrowed his eyes as he slowly stopped talking. He turned to the shopkeeper and gave him a stern look.

 

“Waaait a minute,” he said, suddenly suspicious. Darkness seemed to thicken around Mr. Igma’s form. “If I give you my name, you’re going to take it, aren’t you?”

 

“That is how trade works,” Mr. Igma said, leaning forward.

 

“Which means you’re going to give me your name!” the Chosen One said accusingly.

 

“That is what you asked for,” Mr. Igma was starting to look a little less certain.

 

“Mate, this is way too sus, you’re gonna do some weird stuff and mean that everyone’s gonna walk around calling me something stupid like En, or N, rather than Chosen One, aren’t they?”

 

The shop shuddered and the shadows abruptly vanished. For the first time in her life, Qube saw Mr. Igma look afraid.

 

“How did you know my name?” he whispered.

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“I don’t even know if it’s possible for you to do that, but there’s no way I’m taking that risk,” the Chosen One announced, ignoring Mr. Igma’s horror. “Chosen One is bad enough; I would go mental if people started calling me En One or however they figure it out.”

 

Mr. Igma just stayed behind his counter, staring at the Chosen One.

 

“Anyway, that was all I had left here, so, I guess, have fun with your shopping list?” the Chosen One said, waving a hand at the shopkeeper. Qube glanced at the shelves, and saw a crop of new books had appeared, but there was no way she was going to encourage the Chosen One to stick around in this store for a second longer than he had to.

 

Not when Mr. Igma was looking at him like that.

 

“Thanks for that, Sewer Bard,” the Chosen One said, clapping the Bard on the back.

 

“Think nothing of it,” the Bard replied dryly. “I well know the value of names.”

 

Hustling out of the store to where the others were waiting, Qube leaned back and took in a breath of fresh air, clean of the salted despair that permeated Mr. Igma’s shop. Even knowing the man couldn’t see her, she was still much happier away from him.

 

Especially since she hadn’t found a way to repay him for all the items the Chosen One had tricked her into stealing from him. Or any of the other shopkeepers, for that matter. This included the blacksmith, whose shop they were crossing the plaza to.

 

Several children silently ran past them, chased by a handful of squirrels local to the woods just outside Cobbletown. A few seconds after the children disappeared around a corner, the sound of giggling reached Qube’s ears, the acoustics of the space making it sound like the children were still inside the empty plaza.

 

Squiggles made tentative motions to follow the children, looking up at Qube with begging eyes. There were few things Squiggles liked more than playing with kids, chasing them around and making them scream with delight, or having them swarm over her and demand to give her “brushies.” Given Squiggles didn’t have any fur, Qube could never quite determine the purpose of brushing her, but it seemed to make everyone happy so she let it be.

 

“Chosen One, after the shops, can we go to the inn to hand in that thing?” Qube quietly asked the Hero. She didn’t want word getting back to the Evil Emperor that the same inn he’d burned down to kidnap the Exiled Prince and Exiled Princess from was once again being used to house the items capable of destroying him.

 

Come to think of it, they probably shouldn’t be handing over the Light Temple gemstone at all. If even Royalty had been unable to protect it, what was the chance that Zakora would? A mighty half-orc she might be, but she was still just a bartender. But they had to give her the items in order to be given more access by Royalty.

 

Which, far be it for Qube to criticise Royalty, but that still seemed like a very strange and risky way to do things.

 

“Yeah, sure, we can do that,” the Chosen One said easily.

 

“And maybe get some rest?” Qube added, keeping in mind that it’d been at least several days since any of them had eaten or slept.

 

This time the Chosen One actually paid attention to her, slowing his steps as they walked towards the blacksmith’s shop.

 

“Sure, if you want,” he said, the breeziness of the words betrayed by the underlying curiosity he couldn’t quite conceal.

 

“Well, Squiggles, did you hear that? You can go play, but if you can’t find us at the shops, we’ll be at the inn. Do you remember where the inn is?” Qube asked their team mascot. Squiggles opened her mouth and drooled in response.

 

“Come on, show me where the inn is!” Qube said encouragingly. Squiggles started wagging her tail happily.

 

“Come on Squiggles! Point to the inn so that you can go play!” Qube said. After a moment, she gently pushed Squiggles’s face towards the still smouldering wreckage that was the inn. Squiggles chomped at the inn.

 

“That’s right!” Qube enthused. “Good job! All right, you can go play now!”

 

Squiggles gave a brief dance, to show her appreciation, before slorping off after the children. Another burst of giggles came from the centre of the empty plaza as the party, minus one pet, walked up to the blacksmith’s forge.

 

“Whatcha lookin’ for?” the blacksmith asked, wiping sweat off their impressive brow.

 

Qube was expecting to be able to have some time to think, since the haggling and trading of weapons was of little use to her, allowing her mind to wander, when the Chosen One surprised her.

 

“I got a friend who’s a Healer,” he said to the blacksmith, who once again wiped more sweat off of their brow. Their brow didn’t seem to be getting any less sweaty, though, so Qube really questioned the effectiveness of such a strategy. “What kind of weapon would work for her?”

 

“‘ealer type, huh?” the blacksmith asked, pausing halfway through another brow swipe. “They tend to like staffs. Use ‘em to cast spells, or, when all else fails, whack their enemies in the ‘ead.”

 

For a moment, Qube thought the Chosen One was referring to the Healer in the Royal Garden who they’d encountered before. It was only after a brief second that she connected the dots to realise that he could be referring to her.

 

“Chosen One, I don’t need a weapon,” Qube said, frowning at him. “I’m a Healer, not a Fighter.”

 

“Yeah but you should still have something to protect yourself with,” the Chosen One said, looking at a rack full of magical staffs. 

 

“But I’m the Healer, it’s my job to protect you—uh—everyone!” Qube said, slipping back into her Understanding Smile.

 

“Still, you should have a weapon,” the Chosen One insisted.

 

Qube wanted to protest that she never wanted to hurt anyone and that, as a Healer, it wasn’t in her nature to ever injure. But before she could speak, she remembered that she had recently stabbed someone in the heart. Granted, they’d already been dead, but still.

 

When she’d started this quest, she never would have thought she’d have been able to overcome her Healer instincts enough to stab a living being. Although thanks to visiting the Mage of Life she’d at least learned that her desire to curse people wasn’t as un-Healer-like as she’d thought.

 

‘Oh,’ she thought, as it clicked into place, easing a worry she hadn’t even realised was nagging at her. 

 

Two sides of the same coin. No wonder her ‘inner self’ looked dead. It wasn’t her inner self at all.

 

It was her other half. As much a part of her as the other side of a coin.

 

“You know what?” she said, startling the Hero. “You’re right. I do need to take care of myself. All of myself.”

 

Which is how Qube ended up walking out of the blacksmith’s forge, holding a bright, white, and ridiculously tall staff. 

 

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