Prophecy Approved Companion

“Well, lots of great questions for the crown-folk,” the Chosen One said, eyeing the group nervously. “But, uh, we did have a quest, and time is ticking on, so did we maybe want to save the chit-chat for later?”

“Why do they want to retire?” Qube asked, still shocked at the announcement.

Sencha Bard, rather than the Chosen One, carried her question to the king and queen. “I must ask, what do you hope to achieve by retiring?” he asked.

The king and queen ignored him. They’d returned to staring at the Chosen One.

Qube was breathing very rapidly now.

“Chosen One,” she said in a faint voice. “Chosen One, they’re ignoring their subjects.”

“No they’re not!” the Chosen One said hurriedly, rubbing his forehead. “They’re just shy! You, king, you’re just shy, aren’t you? Answer Sencha Bard’s question.”

“They can’t be shy, they’re Royalty!” Qube said, hysteria edging into her voice.

“Uh, it’s their humanising trait!” the Chosen One countered desperately. He looked exhausted. “Makes them more relatable for the common folk!”

“That’s not how that works!” she replied, now tap-dancing on the precipice of full blown panic.

The world had gone mad. The Chosen One was vigorously defending someone in power, and the king and queen she’d waited so long for were acting… acting…

No! She couldn’t even think the word.

If [The Bard’s Ballad] had managed to reach them in this reality, she would have blamed that. She would have assumed they were struggling to adjust to having their minds forcibly opened to the world. And some small, eternally loyal part of her was willing to argue that somehow, similar to how she could remember things that she shouldn’t be able to, their sheer majestic power meant that some part of them was affected by the spell.

But the rest of her knew. She knew.

The Royals… were being rude.

“What are your plans to avoid this happening again?” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar asked the Royal family pointedly.

They ignored her.

“I presume I will be able to keep my position as Mage Advisor, given my service to the kingdom,” Definitely Bad Guy addressed the Exiled Prince and Exiled Princess. The two younger Royals glanced at him, before returning their attention to the Chosen One.

Who still hadn’t stolen anything.

“Anyway, they’ve been in the dungeon for ages so their social skills are probably rusty and they need some time to get used to talking to people again!” the Chosen One said, moving to usher everyone out of the room. “So we should probably let them all recover and give them some time to come around.”

“What are you doing?”

The question, though it burned in Qube’s heart, was not spoken by her. Instead, it was verbalised by a disgusted-looking Sencha Bard. The Bard glared at the Hero.

“Though we’ve had our disagreements in the past, I‘d never thought you capable of this servile snivelling before ones more powerful than yourself,” the Bard continued. “I’d thought you a man of honour, with the integrity to stand up against those who would mistreat the common folk.”

The Chosen One glared back at Sencha Bard, the serious expression ill-suited to his normally happy-go-lucky face.

“I’m trying,” he said through gritted teeth, “to do the right thing.”

“How is this the right thing?” Sencha Bard asked, gesturing at the cells, and the upset party members.

“Because,” the Chosen One ground out, “the Royal family is very important to some people, so I don’t want to ruin it. Even if they’re [fiddling] stupid monarchs that couldn’t rule their way out of a paper bag.”

“Chosen One…” Qube said, her hand covering her mouth as the implications of what he was saying sank in. He’d been behaving himself so well… for her? Because he knew how much she respected Royalty? He’d gone against his very instincts of being a socially-abrasive looter, just so she wouldn’t be distressed by his characteristic rudeness.

And then he’d tried to conceal the true nature of the Royal family from them all, just because he knew it would upset her. He’d even offered feeble excuses in their defence! Had anyone ever had a friend who went above and beyond so much?

“It must have been so hard for you,” she said passionately, uncovering her mouth and pressing a hand against her heart. “And I appreciate it, I really do.”

She looked at the four members of the Royal family who, for so long, had been her beacon of leadership and grace. They were all staring at the Chosen One. She looked back at the Hero, and gave a gentle smile.

“But it’s all right. Really. Whether it’s because of the years in prison, or an aftereffect of [The Bard’s Ballad] in another timeline, or some other reason, I now know the truth. And I’m grateful, truly grateful, that you tried to shield me from the harsh reality. But you don’t need to do that anymore. I’m strong enough now to face facts that would have shattered me at the start of our journey.”

She took a deep breath as she allowed the painful knowledge to fully permeate her mind.

That’s right. She could accept this. She could hold this dark, terrible truth, and not break.

The Royal family… were not one hundred percent totally and utterly perfect.

She let out her breath, and felt peace settle over her.

“Thank you,” she said. “I… have accepted this.”

“Oh thank [the words],” the Chosen One said, slumping slightly from relief. Qube reached out and took his hands. They were shaking. She gave a small chuckle. Not a tee-hee, just a little laugh at how worked up he’d been about concealing this from her.

“In all our adventures together, haven’t we had this, time and time again? It’s better to face a hard truth, than try to live an easy lie. You know this.”

The Chosen One looked at her. He was swaying slightly, in a way that concerned her.

“Better a hard truth, yeah,” he said. He swayed a bit more.

“That’s what we promised,” she replied.

He stared at her.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” he blurted out.

Qube blinked at him. The entire party blinked at him.

“Also this whole world is a simulation for the military,” he added.

Qube blinked some more.

“What?” she managed eventually.

The Chosen One let go of her hands, and started pacing back and forth in front of the silent party in a not-very-straight line. “So, Sencha Bard was kinda right with the whole ‘this is a narrative’ stuff. And what I said before about mana pools was kinda correct. Basically, this whole world was made to show off tech — that’s pretty much the same as spells in our world.”

“Yes, and they draw from the mana pool to keep the spell running, we’ve discussed this,” Definitely Bad Guy said cautiously. All of the party looked unsettled at this abrupt turn of events, and how erratic the Chosen One’s pacing was.

“Right! Well, the mana pool was made by the military, and some people they hired. And then they hired my friends to make this world, so they could test a bunch of tech AKA spells and see how they integrated. Or something.”

“Darling, did you hit your head? This isn’t much of a revelation,” Sexy Screamy Spider Briar said, all her faces scrunched in concern. “The fact it’s for the military rather than Royalty is the only truly new thing you’ve said.”

“Which means this whole world exists in a bunch of boxes full of tech-AKA-magic and you’re all just made from coding which I guess is spells,” the Chosen One continued. “So all of this is inside some boxes the size of, I dunno, a few rooms or something? A house?”

“Oh. That… is a bit of a revelation,” the Hunter admitted. The Hero paced faster, now practically weaving figure-eights.

“Right, and because they made this world to show people, there’s a kind of story to it, so Sencha Bard was kinda right, but a lot of stuff is happening outside of the story and not all of it planned. For example, you guys have minds of your own, rather than being like the constructs and following the basic stories each of you were given. You’ve gone and made your own stories.”

Qube was still blinking.

“I’m supposed to be dead?” she squeaked out.

The Chosen One swung around and looked at her somewhat sheepishly.

“Yeah, that was supposed to be part of the main story,” he admitted. “When all the other villagers died. I figured it out from the prophecy. But that seemed [snacks], plus you were a really overpowered Healer so I exploited a loophole in the, uh, tech-spell, and trapped you outside the story during the part you were supposed to die.”

Ah. That must have been when he’d stuck her in the sky.

Was the sky not part of the main story?

“Anyway, since everyone has the main story in their heads, cuz that was how they were made, no one could see you because you weren’t a part of the story. But somehow you’re able to break through the — I guess restrictions? — and force people to see outside their own Dev-given stories, and give them freedom. Probably because you weren’t ever supposed to be here, so the tech-spell had to adapt in weird ways when you used your spells on them.”

The Chosen One drew himself upright.

“That’s what a glitch is. It’s when the tech/spell can’t cope, and things break in weird ways. That’s how I break things. That’s why almost everyone can think for themselves now that the Bard spell’s hit them. And that’s why the Royals seem like stuck-up [apples]. Their scripts are super tight, so they stay in character, cuz it would ruin the main story if they started acting weird, which means they can’t react well to anything not in the stories they were given. That and I’m pretty sure they’re not entirely finished. Kinda half-baked, y’know?”

If Qube had been asked how she wanted the news broken to her that she was A) dead and B) in some kind of weird story made for people who weren’t even Royalty, this wouldn’t have been one of her top ways to choose to have it related to her. It wouldn’t have even made the top ten.

If, however, someone had told her that the Chosen One was going to be the person to break the news to her, this probably would have been pretty much exactly how she’d have predicted it would go. Rambling, near-incoherent, and with a lot of assumptions made about how much she understood.

“And the Devs told me I couldn’t tell you because of whatever but I don’t care anymore, man, you deserve to know, so, there, I’ve told you. Also they won’t tell me anything about the final battle because they said I’d ruin it and that makes me want to vomit but I’m in too deep to do anything but play along until I can pull off what I need to.”

“I… thank you.” Qube was absolutely stunned. She didn’t know what else to say, so she fell back on good manners to get her through this wholly new situation.

The Hero made a small pfft-pfft noise, and wiped the back of his hand across his nose and mouth. “Aw, man,” he said. “I think my nose is bleeding.”

And with that, he crumpled to the floor.

---

Was it possible to have emotional whiplash? If it was, that was what Qube was experiencing right now. She’d just had a massive amount of information thrown at her by the Chosen One, who’d then promptly removed the option for her to ask him follow-up questions by dramatically passing out.

“[Heal]!” she cast, and watched as her magic settled into him. There was no sign of a nosebleed, but she assumed that meant his physical form in the Devs’ realm was suffering. “[Heal],” she then cast on herself, just in case it could help with the emotional whiplash.

It didn’t.

It didn’t make sense that his nose would be bleeding. He’d just had a big break from their world to recover from any physical effects. Shouldn’t he be completely healed by now? What were the Devs’ realm Healers doing?

She may have been fixated on the wrong thing but she was, in the end, a Healer first.

“Right,” she said, gathering her wits. There were more pressing issues to deal with than figuring out how she felt about what the Hero had just unloaded. “We need to take him to a Save Point. There’s one in the guardian’s room.”

They would get the Chosen One to safety, and then… then she would hopefully have a moment to think. She reached over to help Sexy Screamy Spider Briar load up the Chosen One, only to be stopped by a hand on her wrist.

“I think,” Sencha Bard said, his hand still stopping her, “there’s something we should do first.”