The forest they teleported back into was not the same one they’d left. Gone were the twisted nightmares; instead the party were greeted by tall, proud looking wood elves.

“Oh, it is so good to be back in my own skin again.” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said, stretching her upper arms over her head, and thrusting forward her hairy sternum. “We’ll be celebrating our freedom tonight. If you choose to leave now, I’m yours, but otherwise if you want to get to know the forest dwellers, then why not take this time to explore? They’re all very eager to get up close and personal to such a great Hero.”

“Lady, I told you to knock it off with the innuendo stuff.” The Chosen One frowned. All of Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s screaming children’s faces stitched to her pouted at once. Qube very carefully avoided flinching. ‘Inner beauty, inner beauty,’ she chanted to herself, ‘I have to see the inner beauty.’

“Aw yeah, let’s go get some social quests.” The Chosen One said, rubbing his hands together in glee.

Walking into the Forbidden Forest’s main village, there were about twenty elves celebrating. Bonfires had been lit (it was daytime a minute ago, when did that happen?), barrels had been rolled out in the main area (but no one seemed to be doing anything with them), and people (for a given value of people) were dancing. The female wood elves seemed to be the more active dancers, with a lot of twirling and pelvic thrusting, while the male wood elves seemed more restrained, mostly standing in place and swaying backwards and forwards.

When the Chosen One got close enough to various clusters of people they would swivel around in place to face him and start singing, often mid verse, but otherwise would just stand there, waving foam covered wooden mugs back and forth.

The Chosen One walked up to the wood elf sitting in a giant tree-like throne overseeing the gyrations.

“Do you have any quests for me?” The Chosen One asked, not bothering to introduce himself or his party.

“We are celebrating our freedom. All such worries can wait until tomorrow.” The possible leader of the wood elves said.

“Urgh.” The Chosen One threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. Is there like an inn or something where we can sleep until morning?”

“You have done our people a great service. You may sleep in the royal guest house.” Qube couldn’t help but notice the female wood elf standing next to the leader. She was wearing what looked like a similar outfit to Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, only it fit a lot better on her humanoid form.

“I’ll also be sleeping in the royal guest house then.” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said to the pair, almost defiantly.

The regal woman looked at Sexy Screamy Spider Lady disapprovingly. The seated man merely nodded a dismissal.

As they walked away, Qube looked back at the couple. They were not nearly as attractive or overpowering as the Exiled Prince and Princesses in Cobbletown. Why, she had only felt very uneasy and out of place in front of them, not at all like her mind was being torn to shreds! Truly, the difference in royal power between rulers of a small forest and heirs to the entire country was nothing to joke about.

...Also they hadn’t told them where the royal guest house was.

Qube had never actually been to a celebration party before. In the village they’d had festivals and anniversaries and such like, but a big impromptu party to celebrate being freed from a curse was an entirely new experience.

It was, she found after about ten minutes, both far too loud and far too dark.

“Do you have any special items you want to give me, or special party only quests?” The Chosen One asked the fourth partier.

“Come! Have a drink! You hunted well today!” The wood elf replied. The Chosen One sighed, and stepped into the bonfire.

“Chosen One no! Please! Someone, anyone, give him a quest!” Qube cried as the Chosen One looked down at the fire he was standing in in surprise.

“Hey, this actually kinda hurts.” He said, his skin blistering.

“We still have the Golden Prophecy to fulfil! Please, do not throw your life away!” Qube yelled. Unfortunately, she was still invisible to everyone else, and no one seemed to be particularly alarmed by the fact that a man was catching on fire in front of their very eyes.

“Sewer Bard, help!” Qube screamed. Sewer Bard looked up from where he was attempting to woo three wood elf ladies at once and vaguely looked around, as if he had heard a faint sound.

“[Lesser Shield]!” Qube cast. The fire was snuffed out as the protective spell encircled the Hero. “Chosen One if you don’t get out of that fire right now I will… I’ll … I’ll come in there and push you out myself!”

Sewer Bard’s attention was caught by the shield appearing around the Chosen One. He frowned and blinked a few times.

“Noble Patron, that does not seem like a safe place. Please move to a different location.” He said, stepping towards the fire.

This, in turn, caught Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s attention.

“Looks like you boys are getting all hot and bothered.” She said, scuttling up to the bonfire. The hairs covering her body didn’t seem to like the heat, appearing to recoil from the flames. Qube wasn’t entirely sure why she was still a spider, and hadn’t turned back like everyone else. Unless this was her true form after all?

The Chosen One calmly hopped out of the fire.

“Well that was interesting. Didn’t expect the fire to actually hurt. Good to know.” He said, then looked at Qube. “Hey. I’m injured. Heal me.”

As Qube cast [Lesser Healing], she wondered if there was a spell that could cure stupidity.

After the Chosen One had spoken to each of the twenty villagers for a few seconds each, and then searched the entire village looking for “collectibles”, he appeared to lose interest in the entire thing.

“Right, time to find this royal guest house.” He said.

The royal guest house was a hut like all the others, just slightly bigger. Looking at the mats on the floor, Qube realised that she had no idea when the last time she slept was. Or ate. And yet she didn’t feel at all tired.

Frowning, she tried to remember how long it had been since they’d left the village. It had been days at least. Normally she went to bed at the same time every night, and awoke at exactly 6am every morning. She could remember eating at least once a day, and always having food on the table just in case.

Was this a side effect of being on a quest? Was that why the Chosen One was always so obsessed with them? None of the other party members had seemed to need sleep, so it must be. Or did it mean that the Golden Prophecy was changing their bodies?

“Right, time to sleep.” The Chosen One said.

On his command, Qube immediately got into bed, and instantly passed out.

She opened her eyes. It was now morning. She felt no different. The Chosen One sprung up, stretching.

Sewer Bard was still fast asleep, cuddling his lute. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady appeared to have absorbed part of her blanket into her body, patches of the blanket popping in and out of sight as she shifted.

“Bonus to experience for eight hours, nice!” The Chosen One said incomprehensibly. “I should try sleeping more often.” Without checking to see if the others were awake, he wandered out of the royal guest house and into the village. Qube went to wake the sleeping pair up, realised she was still invisible, so kicked both of them and then ran after the Hero.

She got outside just in time to see the Hero finish talking to an important looking wood elf. Well, his version of talking anyway. Judging by the ‘First Exposure to Chosen One’ expression on the elf’s face, the Chosen One had been his usual diplomatic self.

“Seems like there’s some social quests, a couple of fetch quests that go into the woods, and a delivery one that takes us back to the main hub.” The Chosen One said to Qube, as if she understood what any of that actually meant. The Chosen One paused, as he watched her try to figure out what he’d said. He tilted his head to the side slightly and grinned, and Qube felt a shiver run down her spine. Nothing good had ever come from that facial expression.

“Hey,” He said, and Qube sighed. Yup. He was about to try to ‘break’ something. “you have opinions, yeah? And can do some basic logical thinking. Which, to be honest, is pretty impressive.”

Qube struggled to keep a calm smile. She heard Sewer Bard and Sexy Screamy Spider Lady come up behind them, complaining about weird aches and pains they'd awoken from.

“Of course, Chosen One. How can I help guide you?”

“Which quest do you think we should do?” The Chosen One grinned.

Qube blinked a few times, then widened her smile.

“Why, whatever you think best, Chosen One!” She said cheerfully.

The Chosen One looked at her in silence for a moment.

“Which quest should I pick?” He asked.

“Whichever you want!” Qube replied. The Chosen One narrowed his eyes at her.

“Choose a quest to do.” He ordered.

Qube felt oddly panicky as she tried to think. She didn’t want to directly refuse him, but she also couldn’t pick which quest he could do! She just… couldn’t. Her head throbbed as she tried to think it through. She couldn’t - she couldn’t interfere so directly with his path. Not when the Golden Prophecy was involved. She didn’t know why, couldn’t think about the why right now, but it was just wrong.

But she could advise, she could guide him. She just needed it phrased differently or rather, she needed to think about it differently. Yes, that would work. He still had the ultimate say in whether or not they did what she advised, so she was not directly altering his fate.

The crushing sensation in her head eased as she set her mind on this more productive line of thought.

The social quests he was referring to sounded similar to what he had done in the village, where he had been ‘helping’ everybody. Useful for gathering goodwill and various items, but ultimately low priority things that the villagers could have either done themselves or gotten someone else to assist them with. There had been nothing that required the Chosen One’s specific help.

Fetch quests that go into the woods. She puzzled about that for a second, before coming to the conclusion that there must be dangerous creatures in the woods. Either they had always been there, or, like Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, were beings that had not transformed back after the curse was lifted. Most of the wood elves looked to be capable warriors, but they were no doubt exhausted from their long time transformed, and might need to refamiliarize themselves with their old forms. Therefore if there were items of particular importance in the woods, they would have a medium amount of difficulty retrieving them in the immediate future.

The delivery quest to the main hub, she wasn’t entirely sure where the main hub was. Was he talking about the main city, Cobbletown? If so, they could certainly do a delivery, provided it wouldn’t slow them down. Qube was uneasily aware of the fact that it had taken them days to complete the first temple. While the Evil Emperor had been ruling for years and years already, it did seem somewhat urgent to save the world.

Although if the Evil Emperor had already been ruling for so long, what had caused the Chosen One to suddenly Awaken? Where was this sense of urgency coming from? Was this need to rush just a result of her being impatient from so many years waiting?

Why hadn’t the Chosen One Awoken when the Evil Emperor had staged his coup?

More to the point, why hadn’t he Awoken to stop the Evil Emperor from ever starting his coup?

Qube felt questions pressing against her, crowding her out. She was locking up again, starting to spiral into her own thoughts.

“Don’t worry about it.” The Chosen One interrupted her suddenly. Startled, she snapped out of her spiral. “I don’t want you entirely breaking.”

“Oh no Chosen One!” She said, “I was just thinking.” She glanced at Sewer Bard and Sexy Screamy Spider Lady. Sewer Bard was strumming his lute, Sexy Screamy Spider Lady was idly shifting her weight from one set of feet to the other, causing her body to distort and wobble.

“We would benefit from learning to work as a team. I noticed that our coordination was somewhat lacking while we were fighting the Boss, so perhaps if we go into the woods to fetch some items, we would be able to improve our teamwork. However, before we do that, we should go to Cobbletown to buy supplies for Sexy Screamy Spider Lady more suited to her … abilities.” She coughed discreetly.

“Given they were incapable of lifting the curse on their own and seem unable to outfit Sexy Screamy Spider Lady correctly, I suspect there are neither specialty shops nor powerful Mages here. So returning to Cobbletown would also allow me to find a powerful Mage to remove the curse placed upon me, which I feel is key to our success as a team.”

This would also potentially enable her to actually speak to the Exiled Prince and Exiled Princess to see if she could determine whether this pressing need for urgency was all her, or Prophecy related.

“So if the delivery is to Cobbletown, and won’t cause us any issues, then we should first do that, before returning to deal with any other issues.” Qube finished up her speech with a slight feeling of triumph, as if she had managed to pass some kind of unknown test, or overcome something. She looked directly at the Chosen One, only to find him watching her with an inscrutable expression.

Instantly her good feeling crumbled away. Had she made the wrong decision? Had her logic been off? Why was he looking at her like that?

“To Cobbletown, then.” He said quietly.