The room was gorgeous. There were thousands of tiny seats, some with little ladders to climb up to them. Massive columns held up the rock ceiling, and a golden rug led to an empty pedestal next to a giant golden throne.

And on that massive throne there was a tiny little black lizard, speckled with yellow, star-like markings. It was looking at the Chosen One, who was still admiring all the riches. It flickered its tongue out at him, a hint of flame sparking from its triple-forked tongue. On its head was a teeny-tiny golden crown, adorably askew due to the creature lacking ears.

The Chosen One, shoved by Qube so Sexy Screamy Spider Lady could squeeze her way down the ladder, finally paid attention to the little lizard leader.

“Greetingssss, Light-Bringer,” the tiny lizard said in a surprisingly loud voice. “You have come to fulfil the Golden Prophecy, yesss?”

Qube was impressed with the reptile’s intuition. To know that the Chosen One was the Chosen One just from a glance-! Clearly they were dealing with a very wise being.

Then, to her total surprise, the Chosen One kneeled before the lizard royal! Qube gasped, only to realise that he was actually just rolling up the golden rug.

“Yeah, steal fire’s start or something, right?” the Chosen One said, as if he wasn’t trying to stuff this creature’s rug into his backpack.

“Yesssss. You undersssstand,” the little lizard… king? It sounded pretty masculine, but then Qube wasn’t sure about lizard genders, hissed. Then it reared up onto his hind legs and called out: “Court Announcer!”

Another tiny lizard scurried out from behind one of the throne’s legs.

“You called, my liege?” it squeaked. It was wearing an adorable ruff around its neck.

“Gather the noblesss,” the crowned-lizard commanded.

“At once, your majesssty,” the Court Announcer chirped, before running directly up the leg of the giant golden throne. Once it was on the arm of the chair, it suddenly puffed itself up and bellowed.

“Court is now in sssesssion!”

The walls of lava began to writhe. In a heartbeat, a thousand strips of red-hot magma splashed onto the ground, and began racing towards the throne. As they moved, the magma sloughed off of them, revealing little lizards, their bodies glowing white from the heat.

Qube cast [Lesser Shield] on the Chosen One almost by reflex, but the wave of creatures split before the party, flowing around them like a school of fish. As they reached the mini chairs, little rivulets splintered off from the main group to start climbing them, but the main mass swarmed up the giant golden throne, lifting the tiny king as they collectively formed a humanoid body, the little monarch sitting where the head would be.

Qube looked around at the now-filled court. Each chair had a somewhat-dressed lizard sitting upright in it, staring at the king intently as the multitude of bodies cooled, slowly turning black.

“Welcome, Light Bringer, to the Court of the Sssalamandersss,” the head lizard - or, salamander, maybe? hissed.

The Chosen One wrinkled his nose at the body mass. “Gross. Again.” He dragged forward Sewer Bard, who was still staring at the King Salamander in awe. “This guy is the one in charge of all my missions, tell him whatever.” He flashed a smile at Qube. “See? Now you can hear everything about what’s going on.” And, with that, he wandered over to the golden pillars, trying to see if he could scrape off any gold.

“This humble Bard would be honoured to be of service, your majesty,” Sewer Bard said, bowing until his nose practically touched the floor.

“The Golden Prophecy has told usss of your arrival, Light Bringer,” the King Salamander said, ignoring Sewer Bard. From her vantage point Qube saw a spasm of irritation cross Sewer Bard’s face, but his expression was that of a veteran royal courtier by the time he was facing the King Salamander again.

“How may we be of assistance?” Sewer Bard asked the King Salamander, once again bowing. It was hard to tell where exactly the King Salamander was looking, given he had beady little salamander eyes on the sides of his head, but it certainly didn’t look like he was paying any attention to the beautiful floofy man before him.

“You are an agent of order, Light Bringer, and can put an end to thisss chaosss that threatensss usss.” The body mass shifted slightly. “Our enemy is crasss and ssseeksss to keep usss from our dessstiny.”

“You know that hissing thing is getting real old,” the Chosen One remarked from halfway across the room. “Also, that gold does not come off.”

“We would gladly help you in any way we can,” Sewer Bard said, bowing yet again at the King Salamander only to once more be ignored.

“We have not yet achieved our final form,” the King said, almost sulkily. “We need the True Fire before we can embrace what we are meant to be.” The Chosen One tried to pick up one of the smaller court chairs. One of the tiny salamander nobility clung to the arm rests and hissed at him.

“We all of us are gladly risking our lives to save the world,” Sewer Bard said in the exact same tone of voice, before bowing the exact same depth as before. Qube was starting to get worried that he would make himself dizzy with all that bowing. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady had taken to bouncing backwards and forwards, and Definitely Bad Guy was idly weaving fire through his fingers. The Chosen One had gotten a better grip on the tiny noble’s chair and was trying to wrench it free of where it had fused to the floor.

They didn’t exactly look like a group of intrepid heroes, Qube thought guiltily. But the King Salamander, being a professional royal, powered on regardless.

“Our ancestors gave us the True Fire, the First Breath of every dragon. But those plebeian lava slime tried to claim it. And so, when we went to reclaim what was ours, they awoke a strange creature that now won’t let us finish our pilgrimage. And so we are frozen, unable to evolve, stuck in this weaker form.”

Qube idly noticed that the King Salamander had stopped hissing. The Chosen One was so powerful he could even change other species's speech impediments. Either that or the King had been putting on the hiss before - possibly trying to fit in with what he thought that was what a salamander was supposed to sound like? Actually, now she thought about it, how did a salamander even know how to speak? … Probably an inherited ability, she decided. Dragons were well known for their cunning speech, and given salamanders were some kind of dragon babies, it made sense.

“Cool, cool, defeat boss, give fire to you, dragons,” the Chosen One said, giving up on wrenching the tiny golden chairs free, much to the little noble salamander’s obvious relief.

“It will probably be quite hot in the volcano,” Qube reminded the Chosen One helpfully. The Chosen One looked at her suspiciously, searching for a hint of sarcasm. Qube just smiled.

“Okay, so, entrance?” the Chosen One said to King Salamander, still side eyeing Qube. The King Salamander lifted an arm, the multitude of salamanders that made up its body writhing with the effort. In the middle of the room a segment of the floor slid away, revealing another wooden ladder.

While Qube had no architectural experience, given how expensive their Fireproof clothing had been, surely it would have been more economical to just build their ladders out of stone rather than having to individually coat the wooden ladders? It also would have been a much more plentiful supply source, given they were in a volcano made out of rock, with a long trip to get to the Forbidden Forest and its wood source.

And why were they even making humanoid sized ladders anyway? Shouldn’t they have been either salamander or dragon sized ladders? How did the regular salamanders get around the volcano? Unless they always used the wall magma to travel around. Actually, now Qube thought about it, that made much more sense and would explain why the magma travelled up and down the walls rather than just oozing everywhere: they were how salamanders (and, presumably, dragons) travelled from level to level. The ladders then must be for visitors, who would most likely be humanoid shaped. Possibly they even had different holes that would open for different sized visitors.

So, on top of being adorable, King Salamander was also incredibly considerate. Even knowing he couldn’t see her, Qube smiled at him. She couldn’t wait to help them get their True Fire/Fire Breath back, watch them turn into dragons, and help save the world!

---

Descending down the ladder, the next room was another wide open space. The walls still shifted with magma, but now Qube thought she could pick out tiny yellow stars and pitch black eyes as various salamanders used these heated pathways.

In the middle of the circular room, there was a shallow well with some kind of clear liquid in the bottom of it. Surrounding it were several unlit standing torches, similar to the ones outside the Forbidden Forest, and on the ground was a long wooden stick.

Once the last of the party, Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, had managed to flail her way down the stairs (watching her descend was somewhat terrifying, with her multitude of limbs waving about and trying to find purchase), Qube was horrified to see their ladder retreating back to the ceiling!

“Wait!” she cried, reaching out to grab the ladder. The Chosen One glanced at the disappearing ladder, but went back to studying the well. None of the others seemed particularly interested in the fact that they were now trapped inside of a fire temple with no exit. Qube fought the urge to yell at them for not helping her grab at the ladder, and forced herself to focus on the mission at hand.

“Bring light to the room,” Sewer Bard read the inscription etched on the side of the well.

The room was already well lit, from Qube’s perspective. She wouldn’t have thought that magma could give them so much light, but it was more than enough to read by and also why had someone bothered to carve such vague instructions onto the well?

The Chosen One picked up the large wooden stick and gave it a few experimental swings. Somehow it seemed to have grown, and was now almost the size of a fighting staff. He looked at the magma walls, then back at the stick. The party waited for a moment, seeing what he would do.

Qube was about to offer her expert Childhood Companion based opinion when-

“The text would seem to suggest that if we can find some way to light these torches, we will be able to move forward,” Definitely Bad Guy told the Chosen One. Qube frowned at Definitely Bad Guy. The Chosen One hadn’t asked for his opinion! She was supposed to be the Chosen One’s guiding light!

“Maybe there is something you can find to heat things up,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said, with only her default amount of suggestive winking and abdomen swaying.

Again, Qube thought, this was her job. The Chosen One asked her when he needed advice. Why was Sexy Screamy Spider Lady telling him what to do?

“Noble Patron, I believe I recall a story I once read about similar circumstances-” Sewer Bard started saying.

“Make Definitely Bad Guy throw fireballs! Burn the torches and the well,” Qube snapped, causing Sewer Bard to stop, puzzled by the feeling that he’d been interrupted. Sewer Bard looked over at Qube’s vague direction. Qube ignored him.

She was the Childhood Companion, Prophecy plague them! This was her job!

And, By the Words, if she had to make them burn everything in this room in order to be the Chosen One’s guiding light, so be it!

This was her destiny!