Chapter 91: Chapter Ninety: Shadow Temple Intro

Having left behind the ever-sinister Mr. Igma, Qube returned to the normality that was the Chosen One trying to break the world. She watched him take the final ring off of the table, and then half put it back as the worlds switched. He watched it fling itself off into a corner with glee.

 

Having finished what was (judging from the multiple objects strewn about the place and Definitely Bad Guy’s riveted attention) an obviously very fruitful experiment, the Chosen One scooped up a few of the closer objects, and turned to Qube.

 

“Oh hey, where’d you go?” he asked her casually.

 

“Over there,” Qube said, waving in the general direction she’d just come from. “Did you see the messages the slime and salamanders have been writing to each other?” She couldn’t pinpoint why, exactly, she didn’t want to tell the Chosen One about what she’d just been doing, but she knew she had to direct his thoughts elsewhere if she wanted to stop him from going and investigating the mysterious, shadowy door.

 

The Chosen One, she knew, was incapable of keeping his attention on two things at once, and was always easily distracted. It was, she considered, his fatal flaw. That, and his dislike of taking anything too seriously.

 

Right on cue, he followed where she was pointing and read the rose-wig salamander’s message.

 

Sometimes, it occurred to Qube that it was a good thing that she was Good. Otherwise someone in her position, with her understanding of the Saviour of All’s mind, would be exceptionally dangerous.

 

Rather than amused, interested, or determined to mess with the messages, (these being his default responses to anything new) the Chosen One just looked stunned. A frown gathered on his brow as he looked around, noting the lines upon lines of messages carved on every surface.

 

“I thought it was very sweet, them finding a way to communicate,” Qube explained, almost defensively. Something about his silence made her uncomfortable.

 

“It sure is something,” he said eventually. Abruptly, he turned and started towards the portal. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “This place is starting to hurt my eyes.” He stepped through the portal, and the world tilted.

 

Coming out the other side of the portal, Qube looked around for Scaley-waley. Still no sign of him. She hoped he hadn’t run away. The Chosen One waved a hand through a Save Point, and immediately resummoned his mount. He must have unsummoned the wyvern just before they went into Death Volcano, and she’d somehow missed it.

 

Rather than flying, though, the Chosen One instead pointed Scaley-waley towards the shadows of the mountain range and nudged him into a walk. This left him slightly elevated above his companions, but not as much as if he’d been flying. He seemed deep in thought, letting Scaley-waley amble through the Forest and striking out across the plains. It wasn’t his ‘make travel go fast’ meditation, as he would occasionally look around, but it was clear that there was something on his mind.

 

They skirted around Lake Fear, keeping on the Cobblestone side, before heading to the eternal shadow cast by the mountain range that held the Air Temple. As they approached the shadowed valley, Qube felt as if fingers of coldness were reaching out and wrapping themselves around the group. The Chosen One blew out a breath, visible in the chill. He looked at it, momentarily distracted from his thoughts.

 

“Some good attention to detail,” he said, enchanted.

 

Qube tried to blow out her own breath of air, but couldn’t seem to get the trick of it. Frowning, she started huffing as quickly as she could to try and make the breath clouds.

 

“Stop that, you’ll hyperventilate,” the Chosen One said absentmindedly. He was looking ahead at the thin, twisted architecture before them.

 

“How did you know this was the place to go?” Qube asked quietly.

 

“On my map,” he replied. “It’s the Shadow Temple.”

 

Qube’s mind pulled up a mental picture of the Golden Prophecy. And fight the darkness deep inside.

 

There must be some terrible beast lurking in the heart of the Shadow Temple. She suppressed a shiver, determined to keep a brave front before the rest of the group. When she thought about all the dark and daunting creatures they had already faced, she couldn’t even begin to imagine how much worse something the Golden Prophecy explicitly called out could be.

 

Actually, the problem was that she could imagine. Very vividly. It was probably some kind of Deep One, mixed with a giant spider, that melted everything in sight and had intense personal problems. With lightning powers.

 

This delightful thought in mind, she followed the Chosen One into the shadows.

 

---

 

The Shadow Temple was well named. The valley between two of the mountain ranges seemed to coalesce into a triangle, lined with thin pillars that looked like they’d been twisted in on themselves. In the centre of the triangle was a triangle entrance, for all the world like an open mouth on a strange face.

Scaly-waley refused to go inside. Qube wasn’t sure she could blame him. The instant the Chosen One led him onto the first of the level steps towards the triangle, Scaly-waley unsummoned himself.

 

The Chosen One grabbed onto his necklace and attempted to resummon him. Instead of appearing underneath him, like he had before, Scaly-waley reappeared just before the first step.

 

“[Follow],” the Chosen One said, taking a step backwards up the stairs.

 

Scaly-waley didn’t move.

 

“[Walk],” the Chosen One tried. Scaley-waley instead snorted, and pulled back his lips to reveal his teeth. It was the exact same expression he’d shown when Qube had tried to pat him. The Chosen One stepped down off the stairs, and got behind Scaley-waley.

 

“Help me push,” he ordered the others.

The rest of the party looked at each other. Then, with a collective shrug, they all started pushing the wyvern up the stairs. Putting both her hands on the wyvern’s butt, Qube wondered if this was going to make it into the epic saga about their adventures.

 

Sneaking a glance at Sewer Bard, she saw how deeply unhappy he looked as he tried to stop Scaley-waley’s tail hitting him in the face.

 

Probably not, she reasoned.

 

The instant the wyvern’s front claw touched the top of the first step, he vanished. Qube supposed it made sense — not everyone was as ethical as the Chosen One and co., and some of the mounts may have ended up with owners who put them in dangerous situations. In such cases, it would only be sensible for the mount to return to the stables, and safety.

 

In a way, a part of Qube was glad that the owners at the Royal Bestiary cared enough about their charges to protect them.

 

A much larger part of her was now extremely worried about how dangerous the monsters inside the Shadow Temple were, if they could frighten a fearsome wyvern so much.

 

The Chosen One tried resummoning a few more times from various places, but even when the wyvern landed in the very middle of the stairs, he still disappeared the instant he made contact with the stairs.

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Eventually, the Chosen One gave up.

 

“Guess they don’t want me bringing a mount in. Would probably break it,” he said as he resumed climbing the stairs. Qube nodded. The staff at the Royal Bestiary must have told their animals about dangerous spaces, and how they could get hurt, or even killed.

 

But breaking a wyvern? What was the Chosen One afraid of facing?

 

Needless to say, Qube was feeling substantial trepidation as they entered the Shadow Temple. Hands ready to cast at a moment’s notice, she tried to shake off the second of disorientation that always happened whenever they entered a Temple.

 

The Chosen One gave an exclamation of surprise.

 

“[Lesser Shield]!” she cried, her mana springing out of her and wrapping around the Chosen One. Then she registered what they were looking at.

 

It was a small, flat-stoned space, with several standing torches and an elevated platform in the middle of the room. And on that platform there was…

 

An otter?

 

But not any normal otter. It was a strange, wispy otter that seemed to be made from living shadow. It looked at them, its eyes flaring purple, and hissed.

 

“Clam-clams for my tum-tums!” it hissed, and bared a mouth full of canines.

 

“Is… is that Otto?” Qube asked, confused. The Chosen One, however, having spent a few seconds staring at not-Otto, was looking around the room. 

 

“Ah, over there,” he said, pointing at an unlit hurricane lantern hanging up high in one of the corners. Quickly scanning, he pointed out two others. “There and there. Okay.”

 

Then Qube heard another hissing sound.

 

From the platform, a form arose.

 

“Squiggles!” Qube cried. “What are you doing up there?”

 

“She’s the team pet,” the Chosen One replied as he inspected the closest unlit lantern. A rope was hanging off of it. He tugged it, causing the lantern’s doors to shift position, pointing it towards the platform. As soon as he released it, though, it slowly started reverting to its original position. “She replaced the otter. Or became him? I’m not really sure. So she’s gotta face off against him. Come help me with these things.”

 

“They no love you,” the shadow-creature snarled at Squiggles. “They just think you annoying!”

 

“But she could be injured!” Qube exclaimed, before coming to her senses. “[Lesser Shield]!” she cast, protecting Squiggles. Squiggles wriggled as the shield wrapped around her.

 

“She’ll be fine,” the Chosen One said dismissively. “Okay, I need one of you to go to the other side of the room, and another over there.”

 

“Be careful, Lady Squiggles!” Sewer Bard called, sounding genuinely distressed. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady pulled out her crossbow and lined up a shot at the shadow-otter.

 

“Hey, she’ll be fine. Lanterns. Go,” the Chosen One waved them to their places. “I wanna see if this works and then we can try messing about. Here, take this,” and he thrust the lantern’s rope at Qube. Automatically, she took it. “When I say now, all of you pull at once.” Definitely Bad Guy and Sexy Screamy Spider Lady had the other lanterns’ ropes.

 

The Chosen One took a few steps back, eyeing the three lanterns as he pulled out his bent stick.

 

On the platform, Squiggles had wrapped her tentacles around the shadow-otter and was attempting to eat him.

 

“No one ever love you!” came some garbled yelling from inside Squiggle’s maw.

 

“Now!” the Chosen One said. They all pulled, and he flung his bent stick through one of the standing lit torches. It caught alight then continued spinning, hitting each of the three lanterns in turn and lighting them.

 

The light spilled out of the lanterns like a beam of golden justice, piercing the shadowy otter currently being chewed on by Squiggles. The instant all three beams made contact with him, he seemed to solidify, just in time to be crunched on.

 

Qube winced, and looked away from the gruesome sight. The Chosen One, meanwhile, watched with morbid fascination.

 

“Now that,” he said, “is not something you see every day.”

 

“I should certainly hope not, Chosen One,” Qube said.

 

“Well, now I know how this place works, we can mess about with the next one a bit more,” the Chosen One strolled towards a space that had opened up in the wall behind the platform the instant Squiggles had finished chewing.

 

Squiggles, meanwhile, was teleported back to the Chosen One’s side. She looked very pleased with herself as she licked her lips. The Chosen One reached out and petted her on the head.

 

“Good monster,” he said affectionately.

 

“Chosen One, please do not call our team mascot a monster! She is a very good girl who fought that shadow very bravely! Aren’t you?” Qube asked. The sharktopus responded by wagging her tail furiously and slorping up Qube, wrapping her tentacles around her head and giving her a strong hug.

 

“Very good girl,” Qube confirmed from behind the wall of flesh.

 

Reunited with her beloved pet, they walked through the dark entrance, and deeper into the Temple.

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