“Ah, stop throwing my own words back at me!” the Chosen One exclaimed, retreating behind his shield.

“[Lesser Shield],” Qube cast, her mana protecting him even as she stepped behind her more combat capable compatriots. The bats, though made of lightning, were small. If the Chosen One stayed behind his shield, he should be able to make short work of them.

Qube kept her comforting illusion of an easy fight right up until the first wave hit. Her [Lesser Shield] absorbed the first part of the onslaught, but the sheer number of bats in the barrage meant that it was gone within seconds. In the moment between the spell going down and Qube casting it again, a handful of bats made it through. Which would have been fine if it hadn’t been for the fact that the Chosen One’s shield was made of metal. As the bats touched the Chosen One’s shield he would jolt in place, his whole body spasming. And, more importantly, forcing him to drop said metal shield.

“Chosen One!” Qube cried, only to watch the others spring into action. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s bolts started flying, each one piercing through the centre of a bat and causing it to explode into a ball of light. Definitely Bad Guy swept a hand in front of him.

“[Fire Wall]!” he cried, as a wall of flame sprang up before them, incinerating all the lower-flying bats. Sewer Bard was singing; a strange song, one that caused green mana to infuse them all. Some form of [Haste], no doubt. Even Squiggles was getting in on the action, her tentacles whipping out, grabbing several bats, bunching them together as her tentacles curled back to her body, and then she chomped into them, bursts of lightning crackling with each chew.

Qube was preoccupied with protecting the Chosen One, trying to give him a moment to recover. He managed to stagger back, Definitely Bad Guy’s [Fire Wall] giving him enough time to pull out one of his freshly-acquired cloud chest tubes.

The Hero pointed the tube at the bats and pressed a small button on the side. With a meaty splat sound, a giant gob of green goo spat out of the tube and caught several bats, gumming them up and plastering them to the cloud surfaces. Sweeping his arm, he blasted a full row of bats before the tube abruptly stopped producing. The Chosen One looked down at the tube, and Qube noticed the small glass cylinder inlaid in the side of it was flashing red. The Chosen One scowled at it.

“Who puts a cooldown on a goo gun?” he asked no one in particular. With a disappointed sigh he pulled out his weapon from the Forest Temple and started flinging the returning bent stick, skipping backwards to avoid being swarmed again.

Qube held off on using the last of her spells, waiting to see if anyone would get injured. She wasn’t sure what kind of damage, if any, the Chosen One would have gotten from being struck like that, and whether or not he would have any burns.

It frustrated her that she hadn’t yet learned how to develop her [Lesser Shield] spell into at least a [Shield]. The thought that her growth may have been stunted because of the Evil Emperor’s curse left a bitter taste in her mouth, and made it hard to remember that he might be just as much a victim of circumstance as a willing villain.

She looked at Definitely Bad Guy, who was continuously casting his [Fire Wall] to keep the bats back. He was already stronger than when he had left his Tower — he must be growing as well. Why wasn’t she, then?

So preoccupied with her thoughts was she, that her only warning was a crackle before she was hit by a stray bat.

It hadn’t been aiming for her. It wouldn’t have even known she was there. But it hurt. Her whole body spasmed, and formulas flashed before her eyes. The others heard her cry out, and a second after she was attacked a fireball, crossbow bolt, and bent stick all hit the lone bat, disintegrating it instantly.

The Chosen One was at her side, pushing her behind him as he pulled out the goo tube. The cylinder in it was bright green, and he once again started spraying the room. Qube shook her head, trying to get the world to refocus. She could still see faint mathematical equations, like the ones from her dream. Numbers appeared before her, ticking up or counting down, constantly shifting as her friends moved through the environment. After a few seconds, though, the numbers started to fade, and reality reasserted itself.

Qube swayed in place, trying to think straight.

“[Lesser Shield]!” she cast on the Chosen One, even though there were only a few bats left. She watched as her mana poured forth, the ghosts of tiny numbers dancing within it. She stared at it, fascinated, as the others destroyed the remaining bats.

“You okay?” the Chosen One asked her, as he started collecting all the inner loot of the bats. Strange yellow wings and eyeballs seemed to be the main thing dropped, although there was, of course, the inevitable bags of coins.

Some of the bags were bigger than the bats themselves. Truly, pocket magic was a mysterious thing that Qube was starting to suspect would have to wait until her curse was lifted before she would be able to study it properly.

“Yes,” Qube replied, somewhat uncertainly. She felt fine. There were no burns or injuries that she could sense. But that had been a very strange sensation, like she’d been halfway between the dream world and reality. Was her mana filled with numbers? An interesting thought.

She watched as the numbers slowly faded completely out of sight.

“Are you okay, Chosen One?” she returned the question, abruptly remembering her duties as Healer. “I’m sorry my shield wasn’t strong enough! There were so many of them!”

She needed to be stronger. She needed to protect everyone at once.

“Hey, that’s okay,” the Chosen One said, reassuringly. “That’s why we have a team. And this,” he looked down at the tube he was still holding. “I think we need a few more, though.”

“Chosen One, we can’t go back into that hurricane. It’s filled with flying metal! You’re still all scratched up from it,” Qube said, noting the various small cuts from their sojourn in the storm.

“Eh, it only stung a bit,” he said. “Tell you what, you lot wait here, and I’ll go get some from the whirlwind.”

“Chosen One,” she said worriedly, but he had already turned and walked back into the previous room. She stood there, uncertain of whether to follow instructions and stay or ignore him and go. After a few seconds of hesitation, she set off after him, only to feel a light touch on her shoulder.

“Was there anything else that you wished to discuss?” Definitely Bad Guy asked in an undertone. Almost like he was trying to whisper without actually whispering. She’d never heard him sound so unsure of himself before.

Her mind swerved from the Chosen One to her checklist of Topics to Discuss with Definitely Bad Guy.

“How can I learn how to curse?” she asked him. He blinked. Whatever he had been expecting her to say, it clearly wasn’t that. He recovered from his surprise quickly, though.

“Ah, yes. You mentioned your interest in learning various curses before,” he said. He was interrupted by Sewer Bard stepping next to Qube and taking her hands.

“Fair Healer, I beg of you, do not allow this monstrous cur to sully the purity of your mind with his teachings,” Sewer Bard said earnestly. “While I am a firm believer that your tender feelings might redeem him from his path of corruption and misdeeds, I cannot allow you to be corrupted by his curses.”

“Cannot allow her?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said at the same time that Qube spluttered: “I don’t have any tender feelings!” and Definitely Bad Guy exclaimed: “I would never dream of sullying her!”

“Why is everyone yelling?” the Saviour of all Human and Human-Adjacent Beings asked his closest companions. They all jumped and swung around to see him bleeding from several more cuts, but with a bundle of tubes in hand.

“[Lesser Heal],” Qube said, and watched her mana with interest. There was no sign of the numbers that had been there before. But she could almost feel them, in some strange way.

“Our fair Healer is attempting to learn forbidden magic from the Mage,” Sewer Bard said, contempt dripping from his voice at the word Mage. Qube glared at him, unimpressed with his tattling to the Chosen One.

“Curses are not forbidden, Sewer Bard,” Qube said sharply. Just merely frowned upon, she added mentally.

“So? She’s allowed to learn whatever she wants,” the Chosen One dismissed the Bard, instead turning his attention to Qube. “So you’re into curses? Not gonna lie, that is a little bit… concerning. Considering.”

“Curses are merely the reverse of healing, Chosen One,” Qube said in her most instructional voice. “If I am to understand people such as the Evil Emperor better, I should know more about their magic.”

She felt Definitely Bad Guy shift next to her, but she kept her focus on the Chosen One. He was regarding her with interest, his eyes bright, his head tilted slightly to the side. She tried to hide the resentment she felt towards Sewer Bard for ratting her out. If the Chosen One told her not to try and learn curses, she knew that she would obey him.

Because she was his Childhood Companion.

For the first time, she felt like she really understood what Sexy Screamy Spider Lady had been talking about, with the restrictions that come from having a title.

“A Healer should not debase themselves with injuring others,” Sewer Bard protested. “Especially one so fair as our Healer. It would be unconscionable to have her learn how to harm. Totally against her nature.”

“Didn’t she repeatedly kick you in the face once?” the Chosen One asked.

“Yes,” Sewer Bard replied. “But still —”

“And kick you into a pit?”

“Yes.”

“And I’m pretty sure she broke into the Royal Library.”

“I had permission!” Qube protested. “In a way.”

“And she’s definitely tried to curse me before.”

“You stuck me in the sky!” Qube cried. “I didn’t like it!”

“And all the other times,” the Chosen One pointed out. Qube flushed.

“The point is, you don’t know her nature, if you think that’s who she is. Even then, people can change and grow.” The Chosen One turned his back on Sewer Bard. The Bard took a hasty step forward, then stopped, fists clenched. The Chosen One didn’t even notice, instead putting his hands on Qube’s shoulders.

“But I don’t think you should do this. You could. But it would be a bad idea.”

Qube swallowed, hard. A hundred protests bubbled up in her. She ruthlessly suppressed them.

“Why?” she asked.

The Chosen One let go of her, and rubbed the side of his face.

“It’s kinda hard to explain,” he said. “But… I feel like you taking an interest in something that could be seen as bad would end … poorly.”

“Why?” Qube asked again.

The Chosen One gave her a look, closed his eyes, and sighed.

“The devs are watching you,” he said at last. “Not directly, as such, but if you start slinging curses around, they’re going to find out. And then ...” he trailed off. He didn’t seem to want to finish his sentence. Qube felt her stomach churn, although whether that was over seeing him so distressed on her behalf, or some other, unknown emotion, she could not tell. A part of her wanted to protest, to declare that she wouldn’t ever use the curses; Definitely Bad Guy could just teach her them. But maybe they would be able to find out if he did so. She didn’t know the true extent of their powers. All she knew was that she didn’t want to find out what would happen if the devs decided she was Evil.

“Don’t worry, Chosen One,” Qube said, and gave him a gentle Understanding Smile. “I’ll be Good. I always am.”