Chapter 60: Chapter Sixty: Temple_Choice_Loadin

The Chosen One, Qube, and Squiggles touched the pedestals at the exact same time. The same painful rush that she’d experienced at the Forest Temple jolted through Qube, as a powerful spell was carved into her mind. Her mana flared from her for a second, as if embracing the new spell. It was strong, no doubt about that. Much stronger than the last spell she’d been Bestowed. Was it just luck?

 

She came out of her musing just in time to see the Chosen One stretch out his Sacred Sword and begin rapidly spinning in place. After about three rotations he stopped, staggering slightly from the inertia.

 

“Why would they give [Spin Attack]?” he asked the room, looking rather green.

 

“[Lesser Heal],” Qube said soothingly, the silvery light of her mana soaking into his skin almost making him glow. The Chosen One shuddered as it took effect.

 

“Right, not doing that again,” he said, rather grumpily. “What a waste. What about you, what did you get?”

 

Qube sighed, barely even phased by the Chosen One’s deeply personal question. 

 

“[Revival],” she replied, and shivered when even speaking the name of the spell made her tongue tingle slightly. “It’s… “ She paused, trying to think of how best to explain it to the non-magical Fighter. “It’s very powerful. I think it would take a lot out of me to cast. Almost all of my mana.” 

 

She pondered this, slightly worried. With so many party members, her limited mana pool was being stretched thin. Even with Sewer Bard helping out, if it took all of her mana just to cast [Revival], she wouldn’t be able to [Heal] during the conflict at all. But if she didn’t [Heal], then she would definitely need to use the bigger spell.

 

She knew there was a way to increase your mana pool. She remembered Warwick bragging about it, back when they were children. Ironically, Qube had always had a much larger mana pool than the magic-focused Potential Chosen One but, of course, had never drawn attention to that fact. 

 

All of the Potential Companions had been stronger than the Potential Chosen Ones. Presumably that’s why the Golden Prophecy had given the Chosen One such a boost to his ability.

 

Maybe she should go back to the village and ask Warwick how to increase — oh, wait. Qube flushed as she realised that she was standing next to one of the most powerful Mages in the Kingdom. Granted, he wasn’t that powerful, once he was removed from his Wizard Tower, but his researching skills were next to none! Yes, she would need to ask Definitely Bad Guy, to make sure that she would remain useful to the group, and the Chosen One.

 

Said Chosen One was practically dancing in place in glee at the news.

 

“You can revive people?” he crowed, eyes gleaming. “This is awesome! Oh man, this opens up a whole new world of possibilities!” He turned to Squiggles. “What about you, what spell did you get?”

 

Squiggles looked at the Chosen One.

 

The Chosen One looked back at the sharktopus.

 

Squiggles blinked her little black dolls eyes at him, and wagged her shark’s tail slightly.

 

The Chosen One looked at Qube.

 

“I didn’t really think that through, did I?” he asked.

 

Qube looked at the team mascot, who was happily wriggling in place, tentacles writhing in a complicated celebration.

 

“No,” Qube replied. After a few moments of watching Squiggles dance, she added: “She seems pleased by it, though.”

The pair resumed watching their pet dance. It was strangely hypnotic. Not in a spell kind of way, but more the interweaving of all the tentacles created a kind of ripple effect...

 

They were interrupted by a polite cough from behind them. The Chosen One jumped, while Qube guiltily turned around.

 

“Noble Patron,” Sewer Bard said in his most diplomatic of tones. “A portal has opened up. Perhaps we should continue saving the world?”

 

“Probably, yeah,” the Chosen One said dismissively. A thought seemed to strike him, and he focused on Sewer Bard.  “Oh, hey, how’s the whole fish-chick bard-quest song going? Made any progress?”

 

It was as if, denied of his chance to interrogate Squiggles, he had instead decided to terrorise someone else. Sewer Bard blushed, but kept his smile in place in what Qube recognised as the Bardic variation of an Understanding Smile.

 

“I feel as if I have been inspired by the mermaid’s song, Noble Patron. With just a bit more time, I should be able to attempt to recreate it. Of course,” he added, with a pseudo-modest laugh, “I could not hope to perfectly recreate the mind-melting beauty of her performance.”

 

The Chosen One wrinkled his nose in displeasure. “If you end up with some kind of mind control spell, you’re not allowed to test it out anywhere near me.” He seemed to turn in on himself, muttering; “I don’t want my brains dribbling out of my ears or anything like that.”

 

“I shall endeavor to remember that,” Sewer Bard said rather stiffly.

 

“Don’t worry, Chosen One, if he does melt your brain, I can just [Revive] you!” Qube hurriedly reassured him. The Chosen One blinked at her, as if he had forgotten where he was for a moment.

 

“Huh? Oh! Yeah, you mean here.” The Chosen One gave a little laugh. “Of course you meant here. That’s an adorable mental image.”

 

Qube wouldn’t have classified her ability to reach beyond the veil and pull a mortal back into this realm in defiance of death itself as adorable, but she was too busy being pleased at having successfully cheered him up to dwell on that.

 

Much. For the moment, anyway.

 

“Of course, Chosen One!” she chirruped, grabbing his arm and gently steering him towards the portal outlined with splashing fountains. “I’ll always be happy to help pick you up, no matter what the problem!”

 

“I’ll hold you to that,” he laughed as, together, they stepped through the portal.

 

---

 

The first thing Qube noticed when they teleported into the room was the Save Point conveniently located right next to them. The second was all the sand. The party had been teleported to the base of a giant hill made entirely of sand. There were small handholds where it looked like they were supposed to scramble up the slope. At the very top there appeared to be something glowing white, but they were too far down to get a good look at whatever was up there.

 

Qube turned to her companion just in time to see the Chosen One absent-mindedly reach for the Save Point. Qube snatched her hand off of his arm just before he made contact.

 

“Chosen One!” she exclaimed in horror. The Chosen One looked at her, frowning in contemplation. “Please be more careful! We nearly had another Save Point Incident!”

 

“Sorry,” the Chosen One said, but it was clear that his thoughts were elsewhere. The motion-sickness-induced paleness had been replaced with his normal healthy complexion, and the fog of fatigue seemed to have been lifted. He pointed at Squiggles.

 

“Who told you her name was Squiggles?” he asked abruptly. “Do you think that’s the name of her species?” Qube blinked at him rapidly.

 

“No one told me that was her name. I just named her that. I tried a couple of other names first, but she seemed to like Squiggles the best.” As if to prove Qube’s point, Squiggles wriggled. The Chosen One rubbed his face.

 

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“Yeah, but why did you name her?” he asked.

 

“Because she needed a name! I couldn’t very well go around not addressing a companion by name for the rest of my days, Chosen One!” Qube shook her head at him. The Chosen One shot her a darkly amused look.

 

“Sure,” he said, dismissively. “That would be super rude, wouldn’t it?”

 

“At the very least impolite,” Qube informed him seriously.

 

“All right then, what’s my name?” the Chosen One asked her.

 

Qube looked at him like he’d grown another head.

 

“You’re the Chosen One, Chosen One,” she said very carefully. Was this some kind of test?

 

“Nah, that’s a title, isn’t it? I wasn’t always the Chosen One, cuz there were two others. The wizard dude and the…” the Chosen One wrinkled his brow with the effort of memory. “Hunter chick? Or Rogue?”

 

“You mean Warwick and —” there was a tiny pause as Qube scrambled to remember the name of a girl she had known her entire life; “Cassandra?”

 

“Probably. So they’ve got names, yeah?’

 

Qube’s head was starting to hurt. She wasn’t sure what the Chosen One was driving at but it felt… bad. Very bad.

 

“Of course, Chosen One. Although we mostly referred to them as the Potential Chosen Ones, out of respect.”

 

The Chosen One quirked an eyebrow at her.

 

“You did? That’s interesting,” he said.

 

Qube had once read about a tidal wave. The author had described standing on a beach, watching the water recede, and experiencing a terrible premonition.

 

She felt that now.

 

“Chosen One, you know this,” she said, giving a shaky laugh. “What’s going on? Are you trying to test my memory or my patience? Teehee!”

 

She was trembling, like Sexy Screamy Spider Lady in the library. He continued to look at her unblinkingly.

 

“So Chosen One is a title,” the Chosen One continued remorselessly. 

 

“Yes,” Qube said numbly. In her mind’s eye she helplessly watched the massive wall of water come towards her.

 

“So I have a name. A name my childhood companion would know.”

 

Why was he doing this?

 

“Yes,” Qube whispered from the shadow of the tidal wave.

 

“Then what’s my name?”

 

“I don’t know,” Qube breathed. Tears sprang to her eyes at this realisation. “Chosen One, I don’t know your name!” She stared at him in shock, her mind whirling. She noticed that he didn’t seem surprised. “You knew, didn’t you?” she gasped. “By the Words, this is like the invisibility curse all over again!”

 

She gasped again as retaliation hit her.

 

“He did this to me, didn’t he?” she said, anger flaring. Now the Chosen One did look surprised. “The Evil Emperor!” she snapped. “This is all part of his curse, isn’t it? He attempted to erase my usefulness to you by making me invisible and damaging my memories of you!”

 

The Chosen One continued to look at her. Qube was too busy pacing backwards and forwards to pay any attention to his facial expression.

 

“When I get my hands on him — making me invisible is one thing; any good Companion knows how to deal with that. But messing with my memories of you? That’s too far!” She spun and pointed a finger at the Chosen One. “I’ve decided! I don’t care whether or not he’s being controlled by his own Evil Prophecy. We’re going to stop him! And if he doesn’t undo this spell on his own, well, then we’ll just have to deal with him!” She puffed her cheeks out. “By force, if needs be!”

 

The Chosen One gave her one long, slow blink.

 

“I don’t know whether to be depressed, or impressed,” he said eventually. “That was some truly spectacular logic.”

 

“I’m so sorry that I forgot your name!” Qube cried, grabbing the Chosen One’s hands. She then immediately dropped them to press her hands to her cheeks as another thought occurred to her.

 

No wonder the Chosen One had seemed so different from how she remembered him! Her memories of him had literally been damaged by the Evil Emperor! That explained why she could only see the Save Points after they had regrown part of their bond as well! So many strange things suddenly made sense!

 

“Oh, it must have been so hard for you, having me not properly remember you! It must have taken you this long just to be able to try and talk to me about it! Assuming the curse didn’t make me forget other attempts! Chosen One! I’m sorry for making you wait for me to catch up!” Qube attempted to clasp the large Fighter to her soothingly, but only succeeded in dragging herself towards him.

 

“I promise you, I will do everything within my power to right this wrong,” she said, her face planted into his chest. “Don’t worry, Chosen One, I will fix this!”

 

She felt the Chosen One shaking and for a moment she thought he was going to cry. Instead, he slapped his palm into his face and started laughing.

 

“Of course!” he said, still laughing. “Of course this is how you cope.” He suddenly returned her embrace, giving her a big bear hug and holding her off the ground for a moment before dropping her.

 

“I think we made some progress, at least,” he said. “You came pretty close to breaking there, though, so I’m not going to push it.” He looked at her, his expression somewhere between laughing and crying. “I don’t want …” He trailed off, searching for words. “I don’t want to do anything that might permanently break you.”

 

“Don’t worry Chosen One,” Qube said reassuringly. “Even the Evil Emperor’s curse can’t stop me from being your friend! And once we defeat him, everything will be back to normal!”

 

“Normal, huh?” the Chosen One asked, smiling down at her. He gestured at the giant sand hill next to them. “Sure, let’s continue on our journey to normality.”

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