Prophecy Approved Companion

This was it. It was happening. As the Chosen One started his “make travel go fast” method, she held in her heart the knowledge that this might be the last time they fast travelled anywhere. She wasn't sure what would happen with ascension and whether or not there would be some time to go check on everyone before they visited the Devs’ realm. Or, in fact, if the Chosen One would even stick around once they defeated the Evil Emperor. And if there was no Chosen One, then how could there be fast travel?

She wanted to make this time count.

… She couldn’t think of anything to say. This was the point her entire life had been leading up to, and she’d had a million ideas about what kind of heroic or supportive things things she might utter as they approached the lair of the Evil Emperor, but none of her wildest fantasies had involved anyone like Sexy Screamy Spider Briar (who was paging through the book the Chosen One had gotten her while she jogged), or Squiggles (who kept looking back over her shoulder at the town they’d left behind and making tiny whimpering sounds).

“So, we’re going to go defeat the Evil Emperor and restore peace to the land,” she said, then instantly wanted to slap herself. Really? That was the best she could come up with? At least there was no teehee. “What do you guys think about that?”

All right, maybe someone else in the group could come up with a deep and insightful last fast travel conversation.

But the others seemed just as stumped as she was for what to say.

So it was, against all reasonable expectations, the party approached Cobbletown for the last time in complete silence. Not because her friends had been returned to their weird meditative states, but more because… well, what does one say when they’re about to fulfil their destiny? “Sure hope we don’t mess it up at the last moment and doom the world!”

It was almost a relief when the snapping flags of Cobbletown appeared on the horizon.

The Chosen One staggered slightly as he left his fast travel trance. Qube was so surprised that she didn’t get a chance to steady him before he took a couple of steps forward and righted himself.

“Are you all right, Chosen One?” she asked, instantly worried.

“Yeah, just a bit tired,” he said, turning around and smiling at her. She examined him carefully, noting the paleness that was slowly leeching the colour out of his skin.

“We can take a rest at the inn, if you wish,” she said.

“Ah, if you guys want to rest, go ahead, but it doesn’t really do much for me,” he said. He looked over the group and furrowed his brow slightly. “Did you have a bad conversation during your alone time? You all seem kinda grim.”

“I merely am concerned that the Evil Emperor will still be … publicly indisposed,” Definitely Bad Guy said cautiously, which was perhaps the politest way Qube had ever heard someone refer to another person standing in the middle of a town plaza and screaming as their world was fundamentally reshaped.

“I used the time to study a little bit,” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar confessed. “I wouldn’t want to appear ignorant when we ascend, after all.”

“I have nothing to say,” Sencha Bard paradoxically said.

Squiggles just whimpered.

“Hey,” the Chosen One said as they approached the gates, “don’t cry, Squiggles. I don’t even know if you can cry. Do you miss your friend?”

Squiggles nodded. The Hero reached out and stroked her back.

“But you wouldn’t want to make him stop dancing with all his friends just to come on your adventure, would you?” he asked the sharktopus.

Squiggles nodded emphatically. Yes, she absolutely would.

“Squiggles, no,” the Chosen One said, echoing a phrase Qube so often used. “You don’t want to make him go and do what you want, just so you don’t get lonely. You have to let him live his own life, and be glad that he’s found what makes him happy. A good friend supports, just like your mama always supports.”

Qube felt the absurd urge to intervene in the discussion between the Chosen One and his mascot and point out that maybe the giant scorpion should have thought about how not stopping his silly dancing and joining Squiggles on her much more important adventure would make the sharktopus feel.

“Support comes in many forms,” she managed eventually.

Before they could continue this strange conversation, however, the party reached Cobbletown’s gates. The same wooden signs waved in the breeze, the same two blue-clad city guards exited the same wooden guard hut to give the same welcome speech they always did, and there was no sign of the Evil Emperor. The party relaxed. Everything was back to normal.

“Ah! You’re come to lead us into battle, Hero!” the closest blue-clad city guard said, saluting the Chosen One.

“I’ve come to what the who now?” the celebrated Hero replied intelligently.

“We are willing to die for you, Hero!” the other guard loudly declared.

“Wait, no, no dying!” The Hero was now looking very confused. “Who’s dying? Why? Is this cuz of the Evil Emperor?”

“Yes!” the original proclaimed. “You have come to free us from the Evil Emperor!”

The two guards had puffed out their chests until they looked practically ready to burst out of their uniforms. They both vibrated in place, passion oozing from their every pore as they stared at the Chosen One.

It was odd, but for some reason Qube had been under the impression that the city guards were on the Evil Emperor’s side. But here they were, ready and eager to risk their lives by joining the Chosen One’s quest!

Granted, they weren’t exactly going to become his companions like the rest of the party, not with them only joining in at the last minute, but it was still very nice of them to offer. So they weren’t joining the quest properly, not like Qube and the others had the very first time each of them had met the Chosen One.

And she wasn’t at all put off by them having met the Chosen One multiple times and, despite the fact that he was on a desperate quest to save the kingdom, offered absolutely no assistance, only to decide right when he was about to seize victory that they were willing to die for a cause they’d been more than happy to ignore for possible months.

No, she was just grateful that they were willing to lend aid. No matter how last-minute, and seemingly unprompted by anything other than his being close to completing his goal.

“The captain said that we’re to follow you into the mouth of the castle itself!” the first guard continued.

Ah. So they weren’t even trying to latch onto the Chosen One’s quest at the last minute of their own free will. They were just following orders from their higher-ups, whom (to her knowledge) the Chosen One had never even met. A higher-up that they would probably obey if said captain changed their mind and said the two were to leave the cause at the most inopportune moment.

Again, not that Qube was bitter! She was, naturally, still very grateful that an official of the city taken over by the Evil Emperor had, after a decade or two, finally decided to lift a finger and send others to die in their stead!

“I mean, one of the tokens was

for the guards or something,” the Chosen One said, squinting at the effort of trying to remember what he’d been given by the barkeep for promising to go and destroy the Time Temple. “So I guess it makes sense that I was supposed to recruit them or something. Still, I wasn’t expecting them to be this gung ho about the whole thing.”

“The entire city guard is pledged to your cause, Hero!” guard one said.

“Can you please find out what their names are?” Qube asked. She couldn’t keep mentally referring to the duo as guard one and guard two; it was getting too confusing.

“Our names are Eddie and Raul, ma’am,” guard one, or Eddie, replied directly to Qube. She nearly jumped out of her own skin in shock.

“Wait, you can hear me?” she asked Eddie.

“Yes, ma’am,” Eddie replied.

“How long have you been able to hear me?” she asked, astonished.

“As long as you’ve been talking, ma’am,” Eddie replied.

“No, I mean, how long have you been able to see me?” Qube clarified hurriedly.

“As long as I’ve seen you there,” Eddie replied, not missing a beat.

“It seems [The Bard Ballad] has spread to here,” Definitely Bad Guy said.

The Chosen One, who’d been looking between the two city guards and Qube with a gathering frown, suddenly snapped his attention over to the Mage.

“It’s possible,” he said quietly. He looked over at Eddie and Raul. “Hey, do either of you remember hearing a song? Ever seen a giant scorpion? Or this Healer before today?”

“We hear lots of songs,” Raul replied.

“Never seen a giant scorpion, though,” Eddie added.

“And we see lots of people come into Cobbletown,” a third voice suddenly cut through. A tall, broad-shouldered woman in a bright blue uniform with big, golden buttons stepped forward. She was wearing a cone-shaped helmet, with stiff blue bristles sticking out of it. “Captain Major, at your service, Hero,” she said, saluting with her free hand.

“Captain Major? What kind of name is that?” the Chosen One asked in disbelief, ignoring the fact that he was travelling with people named Definitely Bad Guy and Sexy Screamy Spider Briar.

“Chosen One, please!” Qube hissed. She glanced at the captain, only to find that Captain Major was studying her with an air of disinterest. Behind the captain, five more guards were standing at attention.

“We’ve heard about your deeds, Hero, and know that the time has come for order to be restored to the land. You shall have our blades.”

“Now ain’t that funny?” A familiar voice interrupted. Qube, astonished that yet another person had managed to sneak up on them at the honestly rather open area around the gate, was even more surprised when she realised it was the leader of the Thieves Guild. “Us lowly members of the Thieves Guild also heard of your deeds, and figured it was time to shake up the boring stuffiness that’s suffocating our business. After all, what’s life without a little chaos?”

The captain of the guards and the leader of the Thieves Guild eyed each other. Once, Qube had suspected that in order for the Thieves Guild to operate as openly as they did, with absolutely no reprisal for their robbery, they must be in cahoots with the city guard, but the open dislike with which the two leaders looked at each other somewhat dispelled that belief.

Of course the fact that the captain of the city guard wasn’t immediately trying to arrest someone who’d just declared himself a member of the Thieves Guild was a bit suspicious. Perhaps the seven other lethal-looking figures lurking behind the thief leader, including what appeared to be the hooded grate guard, and the half a dozen giant, mutated rats, had stayed the captain’s hand. Several of the rats had belts wrapped around them with various smoke bombs and knives attached.

“The rats have overrun the sewers!” Raul said, pointing at the latest recruits of the Thieves Guild. He turned and looked at the Chosen One. “If you can clear the rats out and let us know, we’d be grateful to you. Thieves are bad enough; I draw the line at giant mutant rats.”

“Ain’t no one gonna come after our little fishies,” the second-in-command of the Thieves Guild said, a hand drifting to a crossbow strapped to their back.

“Do they think the rats are fish?” Qube whispered to the Chosen One.

“Nah, that’s just slang,” the Hero said, looking surprisingly serious. “But if either of them think they’re coming with us to the castle, they’ve got another thought coming!”