Chapter 160: Book Three Chapter Twenty: Makeshift Meeting Space

Finally! Qube was a massive fan of explanations!

 

“So,” the Chosen One said, clapping his hands together.

 

That was about as far as he got into his explanation before he got stuck. Which was also around the same time Qube remembered that the Chosen One, for all his many virtues, was terrible at explaining things.

 

“You have a solution,” she prompted, helpfully.

 

“Yes,” he said. He clapped his hands again, as if trying to reset himself. “Mana pool. Y’know how the mana pool, with the Devs, not enough of it?”

 

“Yes, the continuous spell being cast to keep our world running might at any minute run out of power, this is a thing I am very aware of.” Qube was doing her best to sound casual, but she could sense that she wasn’t sounding very cool, calm, and collected about the end of the world.

 

“Right,” the Chosen One said, grimacing slightly. “Well, I told the Devs, and they got in touch with the person who … decides how much mana they get? That doesn’t quite work.” He covered his mouth as he thought, before snapping his fingers. 

 

“I got it!” he said. “So you know how tax works, right? And how the king or whatever decides how much tax goes to each department, like the head of the guards and head of repairing things, and stuff? Right, so, think of the Devs as, like, a part of the kingdom that reports to the guild of Building Things With Mana, and they were given a certain amount of money, or mana, to build things with. And now they need to talk to the person in charge of the Building Things With Mana to ask for more!”

 

The Chosen One wiped his forehead.

 

“Phew!” he said. “Does that make sense?”

 

Qube was horrified. So the Devs, the beings that had made her entire world, were just a small cog in a kingdom, subject to bureaucratic nonsense? She’d known that there were others above them, but from the way the Chosen One was talking, it was as if they were no different from a division of the Alchemists’ Guild. What could the guilds above them create? How high up did it go? How mind-meltingly powerful was the Royalty of the Devs’ Realm?

 

“And the ‘guild master’ in charge of distributing mana/money wants to see what they’ve produced with the mana and why they need more, so he’s asked to meet you specifically before he agrees to give them any more resources,” the Chosen One finished in a rush.

 

“Me?” Qube asked, her voice lost under the explosion of noise as everyone spoke at once.

 

“Well of course he would want to meet our adorable Healer,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said like it was the most natural thing in the world.

 

“Only her?” Sewer Bard asked calmly.

 

“I must request that we be present for this interrogation,” Definitely Bad Guy insisted.

 

“I agree,” Sewer Bard said, instantly adding to the Mage’s statement. “You said it yourself; there were to be no secrets between us, so naturally we shall be joining you.”

 

“Wait, you think they’re going to interrogate our sweet little innocent?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady reared up on her legs to her full height.

 

“If they have any wisdom, they shall not dare harm her,” Definitely Bad Guy replied, an unspoken threat in his voice.

 

All in all, it was chaos as the rest of the party worked themselves up into a frenzy. The Chosen One raised a hand, cutting them off.

 

“Look,” he said, before he lowered his hand and sighed. “This is something Alex is in charge of, and apparently the lieutenant or brigade or whatever only wants to meet her.” 

 

The Hero looked surprisingly serious as he continued; “These aren’t people I can argue with, okay? This dude is already doing us a huge favour by agreeing to meet so soon and Alex was already freaking out about making the place ‘look right,’ and gave me a bunch of instructions which I actually wrote down.”

 

The impact of the Chosen One actually bothering to remember to write things down was strong enough that everyone paused.

 

“I promise you, this isn’t me keeping secrets, or trying to [fiddle] you guys over or anything. But she’s the one who got their attention first, and this guy is apparently old school enough that throwing curveballs at him—” here his gaze flickered over to Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, who was still towering over the party— “isn’t going to do us any favours.”

 

The Hunter lowered herself. There was a moment of silence as her claws slowly curled and uncurled.

 

“I can wait outside,” she said eventually, with no hint of her normal playfulness. Her eyes were downcast as she regarded her arms with a mournful expression. Even the children’s faces attached to her sides seemed subdued.

 

“It’s not just you,” the Chosen One clarified, “although you absolutely would scare the [snack] out of him,” he said with an amused smirk. “Everyone else, just their names alone…” he trailed off, his smirk transforming into a look of embarrassment. “Well, let’s just say it’ll be easier to start with Qube,” he finished eventually.

 

“Is there something wrong with our current names?” Sewer Bard asked. “Perhaps you should give us back our old ones?”

 

“Wait, you remember your old name?” the Chosen One exclaimed in astonishment.

 

“You changed our names?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady asked, confused.

 

“I have always been known as Definitely Bad Guy,” Definitely Bad Guy said.

 

“It’s not that I completely changed your names,” the Chosen One said sheepishly, “more that the Devs know you guys by different names. But I — well, look, the important thing is that lots of people have lots of different names and this guy wouldn’t understand the complex history behind your current names and would probably just get confused so we should move on from this topic and also I need to give her all of Alex’s instructions before the meeting starts,” he finished in a rush.

 

“What complex history is there to my current name?” Definitely Bad Guy asked.

 

“But my name so perfectly embodies me; how can I not have been born with it?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady mused. “I suppose I wasn’t always a spider.”

 

Squiggles worriedly chewed the edges of her flag-rope.

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“So, I gotta go. Sewer Bard, you seem to remember your Dev-assigned name, which I gotta ask you about later, so I’ll leave this to you, okay I gotta go or we’re gonna be late bye!” The Chosen One grabbed Qube’s hand and almost dragged her into the mansion before them. She felt the tell-tale stagger of teleportation.

 

The interior of the mansion, or wherever they’d arrived, was nothing like anything Qube had ever seen before.

 

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. There was a table, and chairs, both of which were items she’d seen before, but instead of the normal wooden browns and subtle reds of furniture they were various shades of grey and black.

 

Rather than the standard corridor, living areas, and stairs to bedrooms, the entire mansion appeared to be contained within a single, grey room. Much like when they’d faced off against the leader of Construct Crossroads, there were no doors leading out of the room; however, there were also no knick-knacks to hide secret entrances behind. It was just an odd-looking table, three chairs with cushions on them, and some mugs with dark liquid in them. There was also a warped jar with what looked like water in it sitting on the table, but Qube didn’t have time to think about that because she was somewhat distracted by the woman sitting on the table.

 

It was Ruth, the Rogue, from back in the village.

 

Or, well, it was her body. It was clearly not Ruth herself. Her face had a cynical sneer on it that had never graced the professional potential Chosen One’s face, and the way she was sitting was odd, spreading her legs out as she sat on the edge of the table, ignoring the perfectly good chairs, leaning forward so that she looked slightly hunched.

 

The Chosen One stopped, letting go of Qube’s hand as he stared at the woman in confusion.

 

“Wait, where’s Alex?” he asked.

 

“Setting things up with the old guy,” the woman who looked like one of Qube’s childhood companions said in a strange voice. The Chosen One jerked his head back like he’d been hit.

 

“What the [fiddle] are you doing here?” he asked angrily.

 

“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Not-Ruth asked, clumsily sliding off the table. “This thing’s got my career riding on it, so why the [fiddle] wouldn’t I want to see it before it wrecks our chances with the higher-ups?”

 

“She’s not an it,” the Chosen One said, setting his jaw.

 

Not-Ruth’s sneer deepened.

 

“I don’t want to lose the last five years of my life on your sick waifu fantasy,” she snarled.

 

“So you come to stir up trouble just before we meet with the dude in charge of your funding?” the Chosen One shot back.

 

“No, I’ve come to make sure your weird little messiah complex doesn’t blow the whole thing. You and Alex are just as bad as each other, whinging about ‘free will’ and ‘sentience.’ It’s going to do what I tell it to do, or else we’re all in danger of getting this whole project axed. And I know you barely care about that, but I worked my [fiddling apples] off to get where I am, and I’m not letting it all get blown up by some [fiddling] amateur who doesn’t understand [snacks] about tech.”

 

Qube had some idea what was going on. Enough, at least, to realise that Not-Ruth was referring to her, every time she said it.

 

Qube did not particularly enjoy being called an it.

 

“Okay, is it listening to me?” Not-Ruth said, snapping her fingers in front of Qube’s face. Qube resisted the urge to smack the Dev’s hands away.

 

“Hello, Dev,” Qube said pleasantly. “What’s your name?”

 

“Urgh! How does it know I’m a dev? That’s so creepy!” Not-Ruth complained.

 

“You in that body is creepy,” the Chosen One replied.

 

“What, is this not what you’re into?” Not-Ruth sneered, distracted for a moment. There was a strange sound that Qube realised was the Chosen One grinding his teeth.

 

“My name is Qube,” Qube said before things could escalate, a well-practised smile pinned firmly in place.

 

“Your name is a joke,” Not-Ruth snapped at her, before closing her eyes. “Great, now I’m responding to it like it’ll understand.”

 

“Mate,” the Chosen One said, in a tone that very much implied Not-Ruth and him were not, in fact, mates, “I’m giving you one last warning. She’s a she. You call her it one last time, and we're going to have problems.”

 

Not-Ruth’s eyes gleamed. “Ah, but that’s not for you to tell me, is it?” she said. She looked at Qube and, for the first time, made brief eye contact with the Healer before looking back at the Chosen One. 

 

“Your precious little side-project is the one messing everything up because it thinks it’s human, doesn’t it?” she continued. “So if it objects to being called that, then it’s not your job to tell me. It’s this thing’s job.” Not-Ruth waved a hand towards Qube.

 

Qube didn’t think she was a human at all. She knew very well that she was a half-elf. But she didn’t want to correct this Dev. The other Devs had been strange, and scary because of how powerful they were, but this Dev was something else entirely.

 

This Dev didn’t like her. And she didn’t even know how to begin to process the fact that one of the creators of her world didn’t like her.

 

Unless… was this an Evil Dev? That would explain why the Chosen One was so upset by her presence! The Devs had introduced Evil into the world for a reason, and Qube had suspected that part of the reason was so that the inhabitants would be able to recognise Evil when they came across it.

 

However, something Qube had picked up on was that it sounded like the Evil Dev was also involved in the creation of the world, if this was the ‘project’ Not-Ruth was talking about. Depending on how much power the Evil Devs had in the Devs realm, the Devs might not have even had a choice about including Evil in their world. 

 

No wonder the Good Devs needed the party to ascend and help them once they defeated the Evil Emperor. If this Dev was anything to go by, the Evil Devs were real jerks!

 

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