Stepping through the darkness, Qube gave a sigh of relief as she registered that she was still on the ground, rather than a raised platform. It looked like her secrets were safe for another day.

Wait a minute, this meant — she looked up and, sure enough, there was the Chosen One standing on top of the platform, facing off against his shadow self. It was dressed in the outfit the Chosen One had been wearing back in the village, but with the Sacred Sword and shield that he was currently using. The Chosen One’s normally easygoing, humoured expression was replaced with one of cold hatred.

The Chosen One looked over his shoulder at Qube and the others and waved, before immediately trying to jump off the platform. Instead of gracefully leaping to the ground, however, he smashed face first into some kind of invisible shield.

“Oh, for crying out loud!” he said, his face smushed against the unseen wall.

“All hail the great Hero!” the shadow Chosen One said scornfully.

“That’s not what I talk like,” the Chosen One instantly replied.

“Do you really think you have what it takes to save the world?” the shade continued after a moment’s hesitation.

“Nope!” the Chosen One said cheerfully.

“Then you are a … coward?”

“Yeah, probably,” the Chosen One agreed even more cheerfully.

The false Chosen One was now sporting the traditional First Exposure to Chosen One face. On the Chosen One’s face. It was extremely disorienting.

“So do you just have my sword and shield, or do you have the other weapons I have, too?” The Chosen One pulled out his bent stick. “Like, do you have a shadow boomerang?”

A shadow what? Qube looked at the Chosen One’s bent stick. He’d named his weapon? It made sense, she supposed; all great and powerful weapons needed names.

“I only need these to defeat someone as weak as you,” the shadow said, lifting his sword.

“That means no,” the Chosen One said, nodding his head. “A pity, but there you go. I really wanted to try and steal the shadow boomerang off of you.”

“Chosen One, you can’t touch it!” Qube called up to him. “Physical attacks won’t work!”

“We’ll see about that,” the Chosen One said, rolling to the side as his shadow struck at him. He jumped up out of his roll and struck out, grabbing at his shadow’s chest.

His hand passed harmlessly through the shade.

“Aww, man,” he pouted.

“Stop that,” the shade said crossly.

“Stop that,” the Chosen One mimicked himself. “Hey, do you get dizzy when you do the spin attack too? Or is that just a human thing?”

“Is this a game to you?” the shadow snapped.

“Sometimes,” the Chosen One replied.

“Is this how you want to spend your life?” the shadow’s tone shifted away from the more spontaneous rage that often came from prolonged interaction with the Chosen One to a more… scripted style of speech. Like when Qube would practice reading off of her cue cards.

Maybe this meant that the Temple was accessing the Chosen One’s fears!

“Chosen One, look out!” Qube cried, before stopping and realising that she wasn’t entirely sure how he could defend himself against this psychic attack. If only there was some way she could protect him... “[Lesser Shield]!”

It couldn’t hurt at least.

The Chosen One shot her a confused look before rolling out of the way of another attack.

“How many hours are you going to waste playing?” the shade hissed. “Are you going to waste your whole life? Think of how much you could have done if you’d actually applied yourself rather than messing around.”

“Ooo, nice, nice, often a hot button to hit,” the Chosen One said as he continued to roll around the platform. The shadow’s face rapidly shifted through several expressions.

“Bootlicker,” it said at the same time as it also shouted, “Selfish!”

The Chosen One stopped rolling around and stood up.

“Wait, what?” he said, blinking at his enemy.

“Blindly following what anyone in authority tells you to do, are you so afraid of having an original thought?” the shadow hissed at the same time it snarled: “Do you care nothing for those less fortunate than yourself? You don’t care who you hurt as long as you get what you want.”

“Oh,” the Chosen One said, his eyes lighting up. “Oh yes.”

“Every single time you pick single minded order over any individual situation,” the shade stabbed at the Chosen One, only to have its attack deflected by Qube’s shield. “Not once have you stopped to think about who will fix the chaos you leave behind,” it said at the exact same time.

The Chosen One started laughing.

“I love this!” he exclaimed. “This is beautiful!”

By the Words, what was going on?

“Okay, okay,” the Chosen One said, trying to catch his breath. “Do you like, have lines for each dungeon I did?”

Had they ever gone into a dungeon? What was he talking about? Even the shadow didn’t seem terribly sure about the whole situation, and it was the one speaking in confusing doubles!

“Which side will you choose in the end?” it said, but without much conviction behind it.

“Can you all get into position around the lanterns?” the Chosen One called to the party. “Once he’s solidified I’m gonna try and steal the sword.”

“Take this seriously!” the false Chosen One nearly screamed in rage, slashing at the Chosen One’s shield.

“No,” the Chosen One replied.

“This is why you will fail,” it screeched.

“I never fail at anything,” the Chosen One said confidently.

Qube decided this was not the time to remind him about his various low-level failures.

She could do that after the fight.

“Oh, but you have,” the shade practically purred as the companions all reached their assigned ropes.

“Okay, not a fan of when you make my voice do that,” the Chosen One said, pulling a face. “That’s just creepy.”

“Even from the very start, you failed,” it continued, venom dripping from every word.

“This is definitely getting too weird for me,” the Chosen One said, with a trace of uneasiness. He looked at the group. “When I count to three, everyone pull your ropes and I’ll initiate Operation Get-A-Cool-Shadow-Sword.”

“You failed to protect your village,” the shadow continued. The Chosen One’s head snapped back to the shade.

“Don’t,” he ordered the shadow.

“How many died —”

“Pull the ropes! Now!” the Chosen One suddenly yelled, totally abandoning the count to three plan. Everyone pulled, then started running to the rope on their right.

“— because you were too weak to protect them?”

“Hurry up!” the Chosen One shouted. Qube grabbed at the next rope and desperately yanked on it. There had been real panic in the Chosen One’s voice just then.

“People you’d known your whole life, who trusted you —”

The Chosen One dropped his shield, pulling out his newly-named boomerang.

“Move it!” he bellowed.

“— she trusted you —”

The lanterns were in position. The Chosen One threw his bent stick. The lanterns flared.

“And yet you let her die —”

The Sacred Sword rammed into the false Chosen One’s mouth. The Chosen One pulled it out, then rammed it in again.

“Shut up,” he hissed as his shadow died. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

“Failure,” the shade sighed, and unravelled.

The platform started descending as Qube tried to figure out what had just happened.

“Chosen One,” she started inquisitively.

“Hey, so, what are these herbs?” the Chosen One interrupted her abruptly. He pulled out a handful of juniper berries from his backpack.

“Those aren’t herbs, Chosen One, they’re juniper berries. I already told you they’re safe to eat. What was your shadow talking about when —”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that this Temple is so different?” the Chosen One cut her off again.

“I — yes, but —”

“What are your top three theories on why there haven’t been any treasure chests?” the Chosen One asked her. He sounded almost manic.

Qube’s brain temporarily stopped working as she tried to process everything at once. She needed to prioritise! She mentally earmarked the shadow’s discussion, and focused on answering the Chosen One’s inquiry for knowledge.

“There are a few reasons I can think of for this Temple being so different and not yet giving us a chest,” she started, desperately trying to think of at least one. “Possibly rather than testing our mental or physical ability, it’s testing our emotional ability.”

“That sounds great,” the Chosen One said brightly. “I love that theory. What else?”

As he spoke, he hustled the group towards the newly created entrance to (presumably) the next section of the Temple.

“Well, the next has to do with the fact that there’s been no treasure chests,” Qube continued, pleased that she seemed to be putting together some good theories.

“Normally, the Temple gives us the key to winning the battle in the treasure chest — this is actually part of what makes me think that the Temples themselves want someone worthy to kill whatever is at the heart of them. The fact that we have yet to encounter a chest makes me think that either we have only just started the Temple, which seems unlikely given how many rooms we’ve been through, or that we won’t need anything to defeat the Boss.”

“The Temples want to be defeated, huh?” the Chosen One murmured, stepping through the archway.

“Yes, which makes me think the next room will be —”

Empty.

After a moment Qube realised that this wasn’t strictly accurate. While there wasn’t any raised platform in the middle, there was a puddle of shadow in the centre of the room, as well as the requisite lanterns and lit torches. Once they’d all entered, a hooded figure slowly rose up out of the circle of grey. Given it was wearing the fashionable hood of Cobbletown, Qube couldn’t tell much about them, but they seemed humanoid at least.

Then they laughed, a high, strange sound, and dozens of small shadow figures exploded out of them in a move frighteningly similar to the Evil Emperor’s.

“Lanterns, now, all of you, even Squiggles,” the Chosen One snapped. He warily eyed the hooded figure, then reached out and pushed Qube towards the furthest lantern. “Go.”

The swarms instantly started attacking the party, ignoring only Qube as they formed smaller mobs around each companion, trying to slow them down.

The central figure didn’t attack, just lifted up their arms, revealing each shadow monster was attached to a thread connecting back to their fingers. While there was absolutely no way they could have had the dexterity to control each and every shade individually with only ten fingers, it still looked extremely impressive. Probably some kind of conduit for their mana, Qube reasoned as she raced across the room.

“[Lesser Shield],” she cast behind her as she ran, glancing over her shoulder to see the mobs finally reaching the Chosen One. He had his shield out, and his attacks actually seemed to be connecting with the small shadow beings.

In fact, unlike the one-on-one battles, all of the companions seemed able to inflict damage on the small monsters. Not just Squiggles, who had, somehow, managed to grab a dozen shadows and was busy cramming them into her ever-widening maw.

Qube just hoped she didn’t give herself a stomach ache by eating so much Evil.

Sexy Screamy Spider Lady was firing bolt after bolt, Definitely Bad Guy was tossing flames around, and even Sewer Bard was cutting through swathes of enemies with his rapier.

It was chaos, but they were all getting into position. As soon as Qube reached the other end, the Chosen One called out.

“Ready? Go!”

Desperately Qube pulled on her rope, and raced to the next one, mentally noting that once again the room was even bigger and with even more lanterns than the one before. Presumably each shadow was even stronger than the one before, and so required more lanterns to defeat, but this was getting ridiculous.

It also added more fuel to her TIMES data — the only reason the shadows would stay in the middle of the room in the one place they would be hit by the only thing that could defeat them would be if they were somehow in cahoots with the Temple and this was all a giant test.

Who was ‘she’? Why had the Chosen One gotten so angry?

Focus!

She grasped the next rope and pulled it, before running on again. She spared a quick look around, and saw the others navigating their way through the swarms. All of them looked like they’d taken injuries. She put on an extra burst of speed.

As she grabbed and yanked on the final rope, the Chosen One sheathed his Sacred Sword and, using both Qube and his shields to keep the swarm at bay, threw his boomerang. It spun around the room, lighting everything. As soon as all the lanterns were lit, the shadow strings snapped, and the smaller shadow monsters fled, diving into the corners of the room and then sinking into the darkness.

The figure in the middle was totally silent as the lights hit them and their summoned creatures abandoned them. Instead, it simply twisted up into itself and sank back into the puddle with a puff of grey smoke.

The puddle itself lengthened, then three grey, gnarled pedestals rose up from it. Sure enough, they had the carrot, potion vial, and sword on them. The Chosen One gave them a long-suffering look.

“Shadow Temples,” he said with a sigh.