Chapter 184: Book Three Chapter Forty Three: The Little Princess

Leaving the child who had probably just learned entirely the wrong lesson about how to be a support companion, the rest of the party stepped through the unlocked gate into the backyard of the house guarded by Royal Guards. 

 

The first thing that drew Qube’s attention was the shining lute in the bay window. Even though the world was still somewhat grey, it was as if a beam of light had been specifically coaxed from the sun so it could fall upon the instrument. It probably wasn’t very good for the wood to be in direct sunlight like that, but Qube had to admit that the effect was spectacular. She glanced between Sencha Bard’s trusty lute and the one in the window. They were clearly the same.

 

“Okay, everyone get ready for a fight,” the Chosen One said, rolling his shoulders as he limbered up.

 

“I don’t see anyone around,” Qube said cautiously. “It looks like we just need to sneak in through the back door and get the lute. Maybe we should try and detect traps or magic?” The music in her head hadn’t changed to battle music, so she wasn’t sure why the Hero was so sure of an ambush.

 

“Of course there’s going to be a fight,” the Hero said. “There’s been one in every other room.”

 

“There’d been plenty of other rooms in Temples that haven’t had fights,” Qube protested. “Like ones that required us to solve puzzles, or jump on platforms. The fact that we were able to sneak into the house is probably a sign that this is just us solving the puzzle.”

 

“Unlocking a few doors isn’t solving a puzzle,” the Chosen One said scornfully.

 

“Well then maybe the Temple was expecting us to fight the Royal Guards,” Qube countered. “Or try and shove past them or foolishly provoke them.”

 

“Do you think they’d drop some unique loot?” the Chosen One asked wistfully, before looking guilty. “Not that I would fight them just for their cool outfits,” he hastily added.

 

Sencha Bard had ignored this by-play, instead spending the time strumming a few notes on his lute. His green mana shot out across the backyard just as the Hero declared his firm moral stance against murdering people for their clothes. The Bard paled.

 

“Ah,” he said, cutting off Qube and the Chosen One’s conversation. “This place is…” he squinted, as if trying to bring the garden into focus, “not trapped?” he finished uncertainly. “But everything within me is saying it’s trapped. Something is very strange about this. Wait. [Detect Magic],” he sang.

 

Everything lit up purple. The colour stood out shockingly against the dull palette of the memory, almost obscene in its brightness.

 

“I don’t understand,” the Bard muttered, looking around. Definitely Bad Guy scoffed, and closed his eyes. When he opened them they were their familiar blood red, the veins throbbing with power as he looked around.

 

“The Bard is right,” he said reluctantly. “Something is very strange about this place. I advise we proceed with caution.”

 

Honestly, the whole Temple had been strange. For all Qube protested that non-combat rooms were the norm, and they’d already had two fights (well, one traditional fight and one instance of Squiggles being a tad overprotective and massacring a bunch of otters), she felt like they’d been missing something about the various memories they’d delved into. Things just didn’t seem right.

 

She just didn’t know what they were missing.

 

“Huh, maybe they forgot to put the traps in?” the Chosen One said, looking around at the glow that signified powerful magic at work.

 

“The Temples themselves are also magic, so maybe that’s interfering with the detection of magic?” Qube offered.

 

“Nah, I think it’s just cuz it’s the last Temple,” the Chosen One said, stepping out onto the brightly-coloured grass. 

 

“[Lesser Shield],” Qube instantly cast, desperately trying to protect the Hero from any consequences to his rash action.

 

But nothing happened. The silver-protected Hero paused for a second, as if waiting for something to attack him, before shrugging and continuing towards the back door. The others, naturally, clustered behind him as he forged a path through the purple grass.

 

“This one looks like it’s got a rune on it or something,” he said. He frowned. “Which would be almost impossible to deal with if you hadn’t been here,” he said to Definitely Bad Guy, who lagged behind the Bard and Briar. Squiggles lagged even further behind, seemingly reluctant to leave the child Bard, who was claiming that her bright green ribbon perfectly matched her flat, black eyes.

 

“Just like the locks would have been almost impossible if we hadn’t had Sencha Bard,” Qube said, loyalty sticking up for the Bard in the hopes of bolstering his battered self esteem. The Bard gave her a brilliant smile, before approaching the rune.

 

“The rune is within my capabilities. It also appears to have a traditional lock,” he said, peering at it. The Mage looked put out. 

 

“Oh, that’s how they did it,” the Chosen One said obscurely.

 

Sencha Bard looked at the Mage, then back at the lock.

 

“Your speciality means it would be faster if you deactivated the rune,” the Bard offered magnanimously.

 

“I would not waste my efforts on such a petty thing,” the Mage said with a sneer, “save that I know it would take you a terrible length of time to remove even so simple a rune as this. Very well. Observe, and you may learn something.”

 

“Why would the fact that it’s the last Temple mean that magic was everywhere?” Qube asked the Chosen One as Sencha Bard and Definitely Bad Guy worked on the lock. Despite his sniping, the Mage was actually taking the time to explain to the Bard how he was removing each layer of protection the rune had, pointing out the optimal way to depower each aspect of it.

 

The former Sexy Screamy Spider Lady continued to be oddly quiet. The air of contemplation that had clung to her since they had met her child self had yet to fully leave and, aside from making several implications as to the personal life of the nobility, she had gone back to pondering whatever occupied her thoughts.

 

The Chosen One stopped watching the two men breaking into the house to look at the Healer.

 

“Typically the final Temple is the one they had the least time to make,” he said. “So it tends to not be as polished as the others. Especially cuz I know they were running into some pretty nasty deadlines.”

 

“What were the deadlines for?” Qube asked. “Why were they given deadlines?”

The Hero grimaced. “That’s something we can talk about later,” he said as the back door clicked open.

 

Right. They were in an active Temple that might throw enemies at them at any moment and, more specifically, right in the middle of breaking into a house guarded by a crony of the Evil Emperor, if not the tyrant himself. They should probably concentrate on being stealthy.

 

“Okay, lute time!” the Chosen One said happily, stepping into the back room, picking up a blue-patterned vase. “Also, loot time! Ah, wordplay.”

 

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It was a pity the Chosen One was terrible at being stealthy.

 

“Oh my!” a breathy voice said from a majestic oak bookcase across the room.

 

“Oh, that is very weird,” the Chosen One said, horrified. “They just kinda shrunk her down, didn’t they?”

 

Qube sucked in a breath as she looked at the child the Chosen One was disparaging.

 

“That’s the Exiled Princess!” she practically gasped.

 

“Yeah I know. I don’t think they did it right, though. Look, even her dress is exactly the same, just smaller. Even her face is that of an adult. Oh man, that’s so weird. They must’ve been really pushed for time.”

 

“Sencha Bard, please stop the Chosen One from insulting the Exiled Princess, at least to her face,” Qube begged her more diplomatically inclined party member.

 

“Ah, such fresh, pure beauty! I see that even as a flowerbud yet to open your petals you were —” Sencha Bard started.

 

“Lady Briar, please help!” Qube cut the Bard off before he could continue down that line of compliments. The Hunter, the only member (aside from Squiggles) who’d never actually been formally introduced to the Exiled Princess, took it all in stride.

 

“Boys,” the seductive spider stepped forward, brushing past the others. “Please remember yourselves.” She looked at the Exiled Princess and gave an exaggerated sigh. “They can be a bit much, but they mean well,” she informed the Royal child. Not by so much as a twitch did she reveal any of the awe one might expect of speaking to Royalty, or that the only time she’d met the princess had been when she was abducted by the Evil Emperor.

 

Sometimes the potential heir to the Thorny Crown really showed her training.

 

“Please, save me!” the Exiled Princess heaved. Qube, while still a staunch loyalist to the throne, couldn’t help but notice that the Chosen One was right with his cutting observation regarding the Exiled Princess’s appearance. While most of her body was covered in excessive amounts of bows and lace, no doubt designed to stop crossbow bolts and stabbings, it didn’t take much to realise that she was a fully-formed adult female, just child-sized.

 

It was a little bit uncanny.

 

“I have been separated from my brother, the Exiled Prince, and am being held prisoner in this house! Please, free me!” The princess’s chest continued to rapidly rise and fall in a very unhealthy manner. She was probably trying not to panic, the poor thing.

 

“Tell her to take deep breaths, or else she might hyperventilate,” Qube instructed Sexy Screamy Spider Briar, who gave the Healer a cynical look.

 

“She’s fine,” the Hunter said bitterly, a world unsaid existing between the lines. “This is normal.”

 

Qube didn’t press the issue.

 

“Okay, well, I guess we just… take her out the back way?” the Chosen One said, frowning slightly as he cleared out a display cabinet. “Man this Temple really is weird. Maybe we really were supposed to fight those guards out front. I feel like I’m missing something, but I don’t know what.”

 

“Chosen One, please put those plates back,” Qube said. The Hero stopped his looting.

 

“I have secured the lute,” Sencha Bard said from the bay window.

 

“Okay, well, come with us, I guess?” the Hero said in less than heroic tones to the tiny princess.

 

“I can’t go that way! It’s full of traps!” the princess said as soon as they got to the back doorway.

 

“Check for traps,” the Chosen One ordered Sencha Bard.

 

“I did but a moment ago,” the Bard said, sounding mildly offended.

 

“Yeah but there might be traps now,” the Chosen One replied.

 

“No one has — ah, the saturation of magic. Yes, perhaps you’re right. It could very well be primed to create a series of traps the moment the princess leaves the house,” Sencha Bard said. He gave the Chosen One a rare look of respect. “I wouldn’t have thought of such a thing,” he admitted.

 

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” the Chosen One said, slipping a full-sized vase into his pocket.

 

“The Devs pay you in large male deer? How is that practical?” Qube asked, instantly intrigued, only to have her attention dragged away by Sencha Bard giving an exclamation of surprise.

 

“It appears our theory was incorrect,” he said, taking co-ownership of the Chosen One’s idea, possibly in an attempt to soften the blow about it being wrong. “There’s still no traps.”

 

The Hero shrugged. “Eh, it was worth checking,” he said, turning to the princess. “Okay cupcake-dress, time to go.” He started ushering her out the back door.

 

“I can’t go that way! It’s full of traps!” the princess exclaimed again.

 

“My darling, there’s no need to be frightened, Sencha Bard is an expert,” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar cooed, reaching out to soothe the princess. “Come, shall I carry you?” As the Hunter approached the princess she took a tiny step backwards to get away from her, inadvertently getting closer to the backyard. She swivelled and stared at the purple, but otherwise clear, lawn.

 

“I can’t go that way! It’s full of traps!” she stated in the exact same cadence as her other two declarations.

 

“Right,” the Chosen One said, stepping carefully around the Hunter and picking up the princess. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

 

And, heaving the tiny Royal behind his head for a wind-up, he threw the princess over the garden wall.

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