“Okay, here’s the plan,” the Chosen One said, still dramatically dual wielding his harpoons. “I need you to gather as many mana potions as you have and hold on to them.”

“Most of them are in your backpack, Chosen One,” Qube reminded him helpfully.

“Oh. Right.” The Chosen One looked rather sheepish. He turned around and looked over his shoulder at Qube. “Help a mate out?”

With a sigh, Qube reached into the Hero’s backpack and rummaged around, pulling out an armful of glittering blue mana potions. And then another armful. And another.

“Chosen One, why did you buy so many mana potions?” Qube asked, carefully laying them out according to size and strength. Fortunately potion bottles were standardised across the realm, making it easy to tell at a glance what the potion was, and how strong. If each alchemist had just done what they wanted, or used whatever bottles they had to hand, it would have been an organisational nightmare!

“Oh, I didn’t actually pay for any of those,” the Chosen One said shamelessly. Qube gave him a withering look. “Hey!” he said weakly. “We need them to save the world! That makes it okay!”

“Does it?” Qube asked dryly, taking out the last armful of mana potions.

“I mean we were just helping them fulfil their civic duty. Especially that one shopkeeper dude. Mr. Eggman was it? He creeps me out.”

Qube instinctively cringed and looked around, trying to put the last bottles down as quietly as possible. Even in the middle of the Water Temple, you could never be too sure.

“Chosen One,” she hissed, “there are so many potions here! You must have cost him a fortune!”

“Meh, I doubt this place has a working system of economics,” the Chosen One waved her away. “How many of those will completely refill you?”

Qube eyed the various potions. “One of these,” she said, picking up a medium sized bottle filled with light blue liquid. “This should be more than enough.”

Qube had never actually consumed a mana potion before (they were far too expensive to go around drinking just to test them out), but she had a rough understanding of how much mana it would replenish based on the colour of the potion and the shape/size of the bottle. It had been one of the things Alderman had taught her when she had first learned about [Identify]-ing ingredients.

A memory of his face when she had asked him where mana came from suddenly popped into her mind. She had never seen him look so uncomfortable before! She suppressed a giggle — they were in the middle of a quest! Focus!

“Cool,” the Chosen One said, “we’ll leave two out, just in case.”

“Then why did you make me take all of them — sure thing!” Qube swallowed her indignation and packed the mana potions away. The Chosen One shuffled back around into his original position, harpoons still ready to fire.

“Okay, you ready? Mana full?” he asked her, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

“Yes, Chosen One,” she said patiently. “But what are we doing?”

“When I give the order, you’re going to revive one of these two, take a mana potion, then revive the other one. That way, we can hit both and no one dies!”

Qube looked at the Hero standing in front of her, brandishing his harpoons haphazardly, his backpack slightly askew.

“Chosen One… you are truly amazing,” she said with total and utter sincerity. “I never would have thought of that!”

“Let’s hope they haven’t either,” he said, and fired both harpoons simultaneously.

Qube gasped, pivoted, and faced the Deep One. The harpoon slammed into its one giant eye, causing a massive black tear to explode out of it. Inside her mind she felt it scream in agony.

“[Revive]!” she ordered. The spell burst out of her, ripping out every last drop of mana. She staggered, and for a moment felt bereft, like a limb was missing. Then the Chosen One was there, pressing a mana potion into her hand, and she quickly drank it. The magic immediately hit her mana pool, which greedily absorbed it.

The second she finished drinking she spun to face the Mermaid Princess, and blinked as everything blurred. Through the blurriness she could see that the harpoon had just struck the Mermaid Princess in the chest. The Princess cried out, one long note, a large pearl tear springing forth.

“[Revive]!” Qube cast again. Once again her silvery mana was torn from her, feeding the spell that was racing towards the Mermaid Princess. It hurt more this time, as if she was straining an already sore muscle. She staggered, the complete emptying of herself twice in such rapid succession making her head spin.

The whole process had taken less than five seconds.

The Chosen One opened the second potion and held it to her lips. As soon as she began to drink, she felt herself start to recover. She’d had no idea that potions were this incredible! No wonder they cost so much. These two had even been blueberry-flavoured.

“That was… very intense,” she said, once she was finally able to speak again. She looked at the Chosen One, his outline still a little fuzzy. “I think that spell may have been a bit too strong for me in my current state. I’ll have to train to become stronger.”

The Chosen One grimaced.

“We can deal with that nightmare later,” he said. “I don’t even know if you can get stronger.”

Qube carefully kept her expression pleasant, to hide how much that remark had stung.

“I’ll do my best,” she said with trained cheerfulness.

Before they could continue their conversation, the two enemy combatants moved, drawing their attention.

“Almost forgot,” the Chosen One said, darting over and grabbing the two tears. They both disappeared in a flash of light. As he stood back up, he was frozen in place by one of the Deep One’s long black tentacles touching his forehead. His eyes went wide before a vision slammed into the group.

The feeling of gratitude flooded through Qube, and a now fully-realised mental image of the Chosen One placing the tear onto the turtle egg appeared before her. Grief was painted over the image of the egg; a loss, keenly felt. But as the image moved and the Chosen One placed the tear on top of the egg a feeling of hope blossomed.

Qube was surprised to find that the “accent,” for lack of a better word, of the vision was different from the other Deep One’s visions. Similar to different voices, this image felt unique. The intelligence behind it was leagues older and wiser. There seemed to be millennia of existence that brushed up against Qube’s mind, an awareness of things that she could not even begin to comprehend. Ancient, but wondrous.

It was like looking up at the night sky, and suddenly realising that it was watching you.

The contact was broken. The Deep One had withdrawn. A large black pearl and a white feather floated along the top of the tentacle and hovered before the still-dazed Hero.

Before he could take them, though, the Mermaid Princess spoke, instantly drawing all attention to her.

“I thank you; you have saved my people,” she sang. With a magnificent gesture she brought her hands in front of her mouth and sang one long, beautiful note. A large white pearl and a black feather formed in her cupped hands, and, with a puff of breath, they floated over to the Chosen One.

“I explain: the pearl will help you defeat the Evil Emperor, and the feather will let you soar above your troubles,” she said, her long golden locks of hair sinuously coiling around her. “I ask, please place the Deep One’s tear onto the egg, so that our land may be reborn.”

Her dark eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“I lament; the loss of life has been great.” In a confusingly rapid change of mood, she shot a speculative look at the Chosen One. “I state: my population will need to rebuild. I suggest: you should come visit us once you finish your quest…” she trailed off, her gaze lingering on the Hero. Out of the corner of her eye, Qube saw Sexy Screamy Spider Lady bristle.

“Uh, thanks, but no thanks,” the Chosen One said awkwardly. “That’s just… so many levels of wrong.” Qube had rarely seen the Chosen One look so awkward.

Sexy Screamy Spider Lady preened. The Mermaid Princess didn’t seem at all put off by this blunt rejection, instead continuing to eye the Chosen One as if she was thinking about how cake-like he was.

Ignoring the strange tension, the Chosen One stepped up to the egg, both tears appearing in his hands. He glanced up at Qube, a look of pure glee on his face.

This was why he did it, Qube realised. Sure, saving the kingdom was his sworn duty, but this moment here, where he was about to do something no one had ever done before, when he was about to break the world in new and exciting ways… this was why he kept eagerly charging forward.

He smashed the two tears down onto the egg at the same time. There was a massive explosion of golden light as the shell cracked open and a tiny baby turtle tumbled out. The two tears were absorbed into its forehead, and it started to grow impossibly fast. It practically sprouted, its rapidly-growing flippers scooping up the party and spilling them onto the top of its shell. As it expanded, it raced towards the shield protecting them all from the tonnes of water overhead.

Qube opened her mouth, whether to cast or cry out she could not say, but before she could speak they had rammed into the shield. Only this time, instead of breaking, it wrapped around them all, as the turtle sped up through the bottom of the lake, speeding towards the surface.

Behind it, Qube saw the Deep Ones’ city magically rebuild itself, decaying wrecks healing within moments. The remains of the previous turtle’s shell crumbled away as sunlight reached long-dark places. The Deep Ones stopped their battling and looked to the skies, soaking in long-denied rays of life.

The water colour cleared too, taking on the slightly murky dappled quality from the Deep One’s memory vision.

As the turtle continued towards the surface, the merfolk were dragged in its wake, even the red haired one who had been chained up in the grotto suddenly appearing in the slipstream. About halfway towards the surface, the water suddenly became crystal clear and sapphire blue. Qube stared at the very clearly delineated line between the Deep Ones’ murkiness and the mermaids’ sparkling domain, but before she could analyse it the turtle breached the surface of Lake Fear.

It snorted, great big torrents of water shooting out of its nostrils, before landing back on the surface of the lake with a splash. Somehow it had picked up the merfolks’ entire city and, as the magical shield disappeared with a pop, the entire city settled down onto its back, with the Chosen One and his party standing in the middle of the coliseum.

All the merfolk who had been caught in the turtle’s journey were flung onto its back within the city. As they flew out of the water their bodies changed, losing their tails and gills and once again returning to the beautiful elves they had been before the sinking of their home. The merfolk, the spell that made them half fish seemingly broken, started wandering around their city. However, as one of them jumped into the lake, Qube watched as they once again transformed back into mermaids.

The Chosen One, however, appeared unmoved by this magical homecoming. Instead he was looking around, clearly searching for something.

Before he could find whatever it was, though, the Mermaid Princess appeared before them. Qube gulped at the sheer power of the Royal in her true form. The Mermaid Princess had been beautiful before, yes, but here, in her full elf form, she was absolutely stunning. Or maybe it was just the fact that they were no longer in a life or death situation that allowed her full regal aura to wash over the group.

“I thank you again; you have restored us to our home. I promise you, we have learned our lesson, and will strive to live in harmony with our environment, and not overburden our new friend.”

The Chosen One grabbed Sewer Bard and thrust him at the Mermaid Princess.

“Deal with her,” he said, and wandered over to a Save Point.

Sewer Bard gave the Mermaid Princess a deep bow.

“Your majesty, it has been a privilege and an honour to serve one as beautiful as yourself. If there is anything else I can do to be of assistance, anything at all, please do not hesitate to ask me.” Sewer Bard gave the Mermaid Princess a smouldering look.

Qube nodded vigorously in the background. Sewer Bard would be the perfect candidate for helping them rebuild — after all, he knew all about the histories of various cities, and would be more than capable of helping them reform whatever systems they needed help with. Certainly a much better choice than the Chosen One who, she had to admit, didn’t seem interested in city building or governance.

Sewer Bard noticed her nodding and blushed. She gave him an encouraging smile.

“Hey,” the Chosen One called to Qube. She immediately turned to him. He was standing next to a Save Point. “Come here.”

She hurried over to him.

“What is it, Chosen One?” she asked. “What can I help you with?”

He gave her a surprisingly serious look.

“I meant what I said earlier,” he said. “I… I’m going to go get the questions. And actually write them down and do them properly this time. I...” he looked away and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

He was trembling slightly. Qube reached out and touched his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” she said, not sure what she was reassuring him about, but knowing that he needed her. “No matter what, we’ll get through it together. It’s our destiny, after all!”

He gave her a smile, sad and slightly bitter, before removing her hand from his shoulder. He lightly squeezed her hand, as if in comfort, and let go.

Then he touched the Save Point.

A long, slow blink of time passed. Nothing moved, nothing changed, nothing happened.

He finished passing his hand through the Save Point. It fell to his side, slack. The Chosen One turned and looked at Qube.

She stared into his eyes, into the face of the man she had known her entire life, and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“Hello, Qube,” he said, and smiled.