Chapter 186: Book Three Chapter Forty Five: TT_Creature2

Qube shook her head slightly as she tried to comprehend what she’d just witnessed. The Chosen One, watching her confusion with a pleased expression, flipped the hourglass again and suddenly they were back in the colourful, pit-filled version of the Temple. A few grains of sand had settled in the empty glass and, despite the fact the hourglass was now near-empty side up, they didn’t seem to be moving back into the lower globe.

 

The Hero’s mouth quivered downwards as he noticed this, and then tapped the glass a few times. The grains stubbornly remained in their gravity-defying place.

 

“All right, so we can’t get time back,” he muttered. “That’s annoying.”

 

“Oh, it’s a puzzle room!” Qube said, the pieces suddenly clicking into place. “We need to use the maze to trace a path through the grey version and rescue Otto!”

 

The Chosen One clicked his fingers and pointed at her. “You got it!” he said cheerfully. “Although I think they might have messed up a bit. They probably meant to only show us this room in bursts, and we were supposed to spend most of our time in the grey room. Otherwise, what’s to stop us just following this path to the end and then flipping the hourglass? In fact…”

 

He stepped out onto the precarious pathway, only to have his foot plunge through the illusion and nearly pitch him into the pit. He managed to stagger back onto solid ground just in time, the action so quick that none of the party had time to react.

 

“Oh you sneaky little [apples],” the Hero hissed, sounding impressed. “You lot actually managed to think something through for once. Well, that’ll just make this even more satisfying.”

 

Qube couldn’t share in the Hero’s pleasure. She was too busy shaking at the idea that the Saviour of All had nearly plunged into a massive pit of darkness, potentially lost to them forever. Sure, he might have had time to use his [Save Scum Attack] spell, but that was no guarantee. And there would have been nothing she could have done other than jump in after him and hope she could shield him from enough damage that he’d survive any potential impact. 

 

But the Hero, being the bravest person she knew, wasn’t at all bothered by his brush with death, and was instead studying the pathway.

 

“Okay, can you just memorise this pathway? Ah, also, maybe check for traps too.” He threw the instruction over his shoulder at Sencha Bard. With a nod, the Bard cast, then pointed out several sections of the path. The Hero paused, then raised a finger. “Ah, maybe you won’t want to join us,” he said to the giant spider looming over his shoulder. “I dunno how your centre of gravity works. Same with you, Squigs.”

 

Qube was snapped out of her contemplation of how close they’d come to disaster by the sheer word crime that had just been committed against the team’s mascot.

 

“Her name,” she said with awful politeness, “is Squiggles. Not Squigs.” The Hero, refusing to be chastened by her wrath, just grinned.

 

“She likes it!” he claimed, based on no evidence whatsoever. “Anyway, so it’s all memorised everyone? Qube, have you done your homework? We only have limited time in the other world!”

 

“What’s homework?” Qube asked, only for the Hero to flip the hourglass and transport them back to the grey-land.

 

“Otto just want to be left alone!” a familiar squeak bounced across the seemingly intact floor before them.

 

“Okay, so I’ve already forgotten where I’m supposed to start,” the Hero started to say, before Squiggles activated. Faster than should have been possible the sharktopus slorped along the pathway Qube had just memorised, neatly feathering turns and avoiding certain areas that the Bard had pointed out, arriving in the mob of bullying otters in a matter of seconds.

 

The massacre that followed was as swift as it was bloodless. All bullies were consumed by the ribboned pet within moments, leaving the baby version of Otto alone with the sharktopus.

 

“Me thank you,” he said timidly. “They no like me, cause me talk.”

 

Qube still wasn’t sure why Otto the otter’s memory was inside the Time Temple. He hadn’t even been someone they’d interacted with very much, yet he’d shown up in the Shadow Temple and now this one too. It was just one of the many things she didn’t understand about the Temples that she was hoping to answer with her TIMES research.

 

The otter smiled at the mascot towering over him, watching some glittering drool drip between her sharp, white teeth and splash onto the ground in front of him.

 

“You’re pawesome,” he squeaked, reaching out and gently placing a paw on Squiggles’s blunt snout. “Thank you,” he said, and dissolved.

 

“Hey!” the Chosen One yelled from across the invisible ravine. “Hey, I’m not even over there yet! Did it drop anything? Oi!” His indignation at not being present to watch the otter disappear was nothing compared to how put out he appeared when the hourglass he was holding dissolved into sand.

 

“That was mine!” he yelled at the Temple, before giving a deep sigh. “This is the price I pay for being a genius at breaking things,” he said sadly.

 

“Chosen One, Squiggles did this, not you,” Qube said scrupulously, determined to give credit where credit was due.

 

“So good at breaking things that I train others to do it for me,” the Hero said, continuing to stare off into the distance. Before Qube could rebut this, the world around them disintegrated and the party was once again back in the mausoleum. 

 

Rather than flickering to green, the gem fixed to the Creature drawer flickered, then went clear. The Chosen One flicked it with the back of his finger and stared at it contemplatively. Behind them, a small, clear crystal that Qube hadn’t even noticed lit up on one corner of the coffin. The Hero spun around and smiled.

 

“Oh, that makes sense!” he said cheerfully. 

 

After which he went over to the drawer marked “The Mage.” The fact that they’d come so close to losing Definitely Bad Guy still frightened Qube, and she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and patting the Mage on his shoulder. He gave her a startled look, his eyes instantly flooding with red as he searched for a threat.

 

“Is something wrong?” he asked her.

 

“Oh, no, sorry!” Qube said, “I just wanted— that is, I’m just glad you’re not dead. And… that we’re still friends. That you picked us, rather than Evil.”

 

The Mage searched her face, perhaps looking for lingering ill will. Whatever he found satisfied him, as he silently nodded, and turned back to staring at his funerary urn.

 

“It was merely the most logical decision,” he said, the tips of his ears turning a tell-tale red. “I have full faith in our ability to complete our quest, and ascend to the Devs’ realm.” His cheeks were now becoming pink. “You and the Chosen One already have a rapport with the Devs, as well as enough power that they will tread carefully when dealing with us. It was a choice any sensible person would have made.”

 

“It’s okay to say you’re happy too,” Qube said as the Chosen One picked up the Mage’s urn and it crumbled to dust.

 

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“I am also happy that we remain… friends,” the Mage said stiffly.

 

“Ah, gross, people-dust,” the Hero said, oblivious to the moment between them. Another gem lit up gold on the top left corner of the coffin as the Mage panel slid back into place and its gem went dull. The Chosen One clicked his fingers, a puff of dust rising from the gesture. 

 

“Nailed it,” he said, pointing at the two remaining gems on the top and bottom right corners. “We just need to hit up the last two, and then we’re gonna have to fight whatever’s in there,” he said.

 

“Well then, I suppose we’ll have to see what traps lie in my memories,” Briar purred, flicking her hair back with a claw. “I hope I don’t catch any of you.”

 

But, rather than going to the very obvious Hunter drawer, the Hero went to the Bard drawer further on ahead.

 

“But don’t you want to see what happens if we do it out of order?” he asked the arachnid. Briar pondered this, her multitude of eyelashes sweeping down to conceal her eyes before opening wide.

 

“You’re not going to force a girl to come last, are you?” she asked the Hero in far too innocent a voice. “I don’t know how Sencha Bard would feel about that.”

 

The Hero made a strangled choking noise, and slammed his hand against the Bard’s panel, before smacking the broken look inside. As everything fell away the only sound was his indignation, and Briar’s throaty laugh.

 

---

 

“You’re not supposed to like me anymore!” the Hero spluttered as they once more stood in the memory of Cobbletown. “Why’re you still saying weird stuff like that?”

 

“Darling, please don’t think how I act has anything to do with you,” the Hunter replied, showing fang.

 

“I don’t think Chosen One made you go last just because you’re a woman,” Qube said earnestly, leaning a hand against one of Briar’s arms. “After all, he went first with Squiggles, and she’s a girl.” She looked worriedly up at the Hunter.

 

“Oh you’re just too pure and precious!” Briar squealed, as her childrens’ faces scrunched up in delight. She flung some arms around a now very confused Qube.

 

“Stop corrupting her!” the Hero said, all righteous fury. The effect was rather ruined by him adding: “That’s my job. She’s my student!”

 

“Chosen One I’m supposed to guide you,” Qube protested, muffled by the former Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s body briefly eating her and showing her the other woman’s inner pockets.

 

It was unpleasant to see the arachnid’s insides, but lacked the shocking novelty of the first time she’d been consumed by her companion. A part of Qube was mildly concerned by how used she was getting to the strangeness of her life, but then if she freaked out over every strange thing she never would have made it out of the village.

 

Instead she did what every childhood companion was trained to do, and focused on what was important: telling the Hero when he was wrong.

 

“You’re much more like my student than me being yours,” she argued as they walked across a now fully-coloured Cobbletown plaza. The Hero snorted, but was too busy pulling another tiny hourglass out of his backpack to argue with her. There was no sign of the young Bard, but a quick flick of the hourglass was enough for them to catch a glimpse of the grey-coloured version of their singer lurking in the past.

 

“Hey, I’m gonna do another flick, can you grab onto the kid? I wanna see if we can drag him into the future,” the Chosen One asked Qube, ignoring her logic. At least this time he refrained from commenting on how odd-looking the child version of Sencha Bard was.

 

“I don’t— oh, okay,” Qube interrupted herself as the urchin appeared. Quick as a flash, she reached out and grabbed the child’s hand. “I hope this doesn’t scare him,” she said, before the Hero unturned the hourglass.

 

Time tore itself apart as she fell through memory into a world of grey. Still clasping Sencha’s hand, she staggered and landed on one of her knees, hard, dragging the child down with her. Unable to catch himself, he fell flat on his face on the cobblestone streets, and started wailing.

 

“I’m so sorry!” Qube said as his face instantly acquired several cuts and bruises. “[Lesser Heal]!”

 

The grey child went rigid on the ground, before his little feet started drumming against the cobblestones. Qube, still holding onto him, tried desperately to roll him onto his side so she could examine him.

 

“I’m sorry!” she exclaimed again. “Oh no, oh dear.”

 

She was so distressed that she didn’t even notice the world bursting into colour as she was dragged back into the future.

 

“Almost entirely according to plan!” the Hero said triumphantly at Qube and the child before him.

 

“Our Healer disappearing was part of your plan?” Sencha Bard asked, unable to entirely conceal the anger in his voice.

 

“I said almost,” the Hero replied, unchastened. “Look, baby-you is here, isn’t he? That’s good!”

 

The urchin, now rolled onto his side, relaxed. He looked up at Qube with big, soft eyes.

 

“Hewwo,” he said, reaching out and taking her hand. “Who are you, pwetty wady?”

 

“I accidentally smashed his face in, so I had to heal him,” Qube explained to the group. “So now he can see me.”

 

“Yup,” the Hero said, sounding a bit more strained than before. “Almost according to plan.”

 

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