Prophecy Approved Companion

The wildlife was singing again. The Chosen One was meditating as they travelled to Construct Crossroads so they weren’t able to follow the strange song that haunted the woods.

“You hear that, right?” Qube asked the others as the birdsong grew louder.

“It’s certainly a familiar tune,” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar said, tilting her head to the side as she listened. “Uplifting, yet somehow still haunting.”

The Hunter, having recovered from her brief spell of stillness earlier, had taken to hovering protectively near Qube. The fast travel had forced her to fall back, but she still shot the oblivious Hero several narrow looks from time to time.

“Familiar indeed,” Sencha Bard said, sounding very pleased. “I believe it’s a variation on [The Bard’s Ballad].” His smile lit up his face brilliantly in the dappled light.

“Oh! They must have heard you perform it. That’s amazing!” Qube said. The Bard nodded happily.

“It’s every Bard’s greatest desire, to hear their work on the lips of an adoring public,” he said. Qube wasn’t sure if the birds singing had lips, but she took his words in the spirit intended.

“One wonders if its magical effect spreads as the tune does,” Definitely Bad Guy said thoughtfully, eyeing the darkness of the woods as if he wanted nothing more than to dive into them and demand answers from the wildlife. A rhythmic crashing sound from deep in the woods made Qube glad that his self-control was too strong to let him go off on his own. She wasn’t sure what was in that darkness, but it sounded angry.

“Their song doesn’t appear to be affecting us,” the Hunter countered the Mage. “Not that we ever managed to determine if it affected those of us who’d been touched by our Healer’s special spell.”

Sometimes Qube thought the Hunter deliberately chose to say things in the weirdest possible way.

“Possibly they lack the magical ability to actively cast, or their ignorance to the deeper magical complexities means they see it as just a song. The possibilities suggested of a spell able to completely hide in a song and not requiring intent to cast it is, however, intriguing,” Definitely Bad Guy pondered. “Would it be possible to create a song-spell capable of infecting an entire population without their knowledge?”

Whereas with the Mage, Qube knew that he didn’t deliberately say things in a sinister manner. He just thought in very sinister ways.

She wasn’t sure which was worse.

In the distance she saw the walls protecting Construct Crossroads, and was annoyed at herself to realise that they’d spent their entire fast travel time talking about Sencha Bard’s song rather than planning whatever they were going to do when they arrived at the town. What would they do if there was outright warfare? What if they showed up and everyone was already dead? What if the Constructor had replaced all of his creations with a new generation of constructs, ones without their crippling affinities?

And what did any of those outcomes mean for the party’s future?

As it turned out, she hadn’t needed to worry about any of those scenarios. As the Chosen One dropped out of his meditative state and rudely breezed past the rusted greeter, the true insanity of Construct Crossroads was laid bare before the party.

They’d left Construct Crossroads on the brink of civil war. Fueled by the mistaken belief that Zincy the metal construct and Slate the rock construct had both died, the materially divided citizens had last been seen peacefully heading to work while promising bloody revenge on the other side. The Constructor, the creator of said constructs, had abdicated all responsibility of his creations to the Chosen One, and the two lovers at the heart of this drama had been standing in the centre of the plaza, both perfectly healthy thanks to Qube’s quick thinking, loudly sighing at each other.

That had been months ago. Or maybe weeks. It was hard to tell, sometimes. But it’d definitely been quite some time ago. Long enough for war to have started, ended, and then started again. All kinds of horror-filled potentials had filled Qube’s mind.

What she hadn’t expected was that nothing had changed.

The two love-struck time wasters were still standing in the middle of the plaza, loudly sighing at each other. Several metal and stone constructs were going about their day, cheerfully shouting death threats at their neighbours as they passed by. Even the Constructor was aimlessly wandering about, uselessly wringing his hands as everyone peacefully coexisted.

“Okay!” the Chosen One said cheerfully, standing next to the not-dead duo. “What did you guys want to do?”

“I was expecting a bit more… turmoil,” Qube managed. “Hello, can you hear me?” she asked Zincy and Slate.

“Oh Zincy,” Slate sighed.

“Oh Slate,” Zincy sighed back.

Qube covered her face. She took a deep breath, pulling herself together, before looking up to see the rest of her party watching her, waiting for her to direct them. Internally she cringed under their expectations, but she steeled herself. She’d come to this place to find answers and, By the Words, answers she would find!

“Oh, hang on, lemme check something,” the Chosen One said, flicking his hand through a Save Point. As soon as he finished, he nodded seriously. “Right, so, if you guys want, we can go to that stone bookstore and grab some books. Apparently they managed to do a text swap, so the insides should match up with what you guys asked for.”

Qube gasped, the oddly polite civil war before her forgotten as she was swept away with the image of books from the Devs’ realm, filled with new and secret knowledge!

“Let’s go,” she said instantly. After all, if the town hadn’t devolved into war in the weeks (months?) they’d been away, then surely it wouldn’t turn into a fight in the time it took them to go to the bookstore?

Bolstered with her own logic, her reservations about her leadership forgotten, Qube led the charge as she raced off towards the stone bookstore.

---

It was fortunate that there were no new riddles to enter the bookstore. Firstly, because it would have delayed Qube getting her hands on books, and secondly because it wouldn’t have been very effective, given Definitely Bad Guy had burned down the door to the shop last time the store owner had tried to give them a riddle.

To his credit, the store owner didn’t seem to hold a grudge against the Mage, happily greeting the party.

“May their oil coat the streets!” he said cheerfully.

“Given the Devs gave us these books, do we still need to pay for them?”

Qube, trained by the Chosen One, instantly recognised what was likely to be the most contentious part of this transaction and thoughtfully pondered the Chosen One’s question. “Maybe ask the shopkeeper if the Devs gave it to him for free,” she said.

The Hero grimaced. “They did a text swap, so … he would still view them as his books, probably,” he said sadly. Qube bristled.

“If you already knew the answer to that, why did you ask me?” she asked.

“Cuz I wanted you to give me permission to steal them,” he replied with a grin.

Qube puffed up in indignation. “Chosen One, please pay the shopkeeper so we can get our books,” she haughtily requested.

“Sure,” the Chosen One said, sounding amused. “Gimme a second, I gotta try and remember what the titles were.”

He turned away from the shopkeeper to see Qube already pulling the heavy tomes off the shelves and flicking through them. She glanced up as she felt him look at her.

“I thought I’d help you get started,” she said, all wide-eyed innocence before diving back into the book she was skimming through. While the book title had been something called “Children’s Book Name Later,” the story was riveting. It was all about a hungry caterpillar attempting to take a bite out of everything delicious.

The Chosen One reached over her shoulder and plucked the book from her hands.

“That,” he said, “is for Squiggles.”

He carefully lay the stone tome on its back, and gestured for the sharktopus to come forward. Squiggles picked up the book, looked at Qube and the Chosen One… and immediately tried to eat the book.

“No!” the Chosen One said, grabbing the book and getting into a tug of war with the team’s mascot. “No eating! It’s for you to read!”

Squiggles tugged back on the book, her mouth opening even wider.

“Bad!” the Chosen One said. “This is a gift! A reading gift! Not an eating gift! This is not for eating!”

Squiggles narrowed her eyes as she attempted to assimilate this forgein concept. Slowly, with obvious reluctance, she released her grip on the book and allowed the Chosen One to once again place it on the floor of the store. The Hero helpfully flipped over a heavy page, and pointed at the text.

“You read it. With your eyes. Not with your mouth. Okay?” he said sternly. Squiggles tentatively reached out and touched the edge of a page with her tentacle. She lifted up the page.

“No tearing out the page and eating it,” the Chosen One said immediately.

Squiggles put the page back down. Then, after some intense thinking, she slowly reached out and picked up the edge of the page again. With several glances at an encouraging Chosen One, she gently flipped over the page. It made a small thunk sound as the stone page landed. Her nostrils flaring, she pushed her blunt nose into the book and carefully scanned the text, turning her head this way and that so she could examine every word.

“There, now that’s sorted!” the Chosen One said cheerfully as the sharktopus became fully absorbed in her present. Qube wasn’t sure if the mascot could actually read, but she was certainly enjoying herself. “Now, let’s find the others.”

A heavy tome labelled “Lorem Ipsum” he handed over to Definitely Bad Guy.

“This is the science of anatomy,” he said. “Not exactly what you asked for, but the closest they could find in the time they had. Or maybe it was the anatomy of science? I don’t really remember, sorry.”

“Is that what the title means?” Qube asked, eyeing the gold lettering of the stone tome.

“Nah, they didn’t change the appearance, just the content,” the Chosen One said, already looking for the next gift. “Ah, here you go,” he said, handing over a book titled “Attracted to my Secret Admirer”.

The arachnid paused before accepting the gift from her former boyfriend.

“I’m accepting this platonically,” she said, eyeing him. Which, given how many eyes she had, was a lot of eyeing. The Chosen One just looked confused.

“Sure,” he said, “I’m giving everyone a book cuz… you guys asked for them? What’s going on here?”

The Chosen One clearly didn’t know about the rules of dating. Qube remembered all too well how Sexy Screamy Spider Briar had explained the importance of gift giving in forcing someone to fall in love with you.

Sexy Screamy Spider Briar slowly nodded at him, then accepted the gift.

“So this contains the laws of the Devs’ realm?” she asked, opening and starting to read it.

“Uh, well, technically just for the section that we live in,” he said. “It’s from my first year, so it should be basic enough, but lemme know if there’s anything you don’t understand.”

“Your first year?” Qube asked, standing on the tips of her toes to try and see what the Hunter was reading.

“Of studying,” the Chosen One said. “So you can read it too if you wanna know what I’ve been studying. I also got you a book on economics, I thought you might like it.”

That sounded more like something the Chosen One would like than her, but Qube still gratefully accepted the book entitled “Broccoli Casserole Recipe”.

“Last, but not least, this is a bunch of fairy tales from some old people,” the Chosen One said, cheerfully handing over a book titled: “Reincarnated as a Void”. “Some of them are super famous and they keep adapting them, so I figured that would be something you’d want. I dunno how many of these stories are ones you already know, though.”

“This is the anatomy of the Devs?” Definitely Bad Guy asked in horror from the corner he was reading in. The Chosen One froze.

“Whoops,” he said, looking sheepish. “Uh, time to go solve that civil war!”