“Of course!” Qube replied enthusiastically, glad that the Chosen One seemed pleased. She wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by her being able to replicate things — she hadn’t cast any spells or anything like that; the magical bent stick had just … split into twins. For all she knew, that was the natural way magical bent sticks reproduced.

“We are going to have to test this,” the Chosen One said, the fire still burning in his eyes. “I can’t believe I missed this before. I’ll have to review the logs.” He seemed to look inwards for a moment. “But after this temple,” he said, blinking as he refocused on Qube. “For now, we should probably go see what’s waiting for us on the other side.”

He waved his hand through a Save Point that Qube had missed before in her musings. As he did so, she felt the world shudder and tilt. She saw herself following the Chosen One down the ladder into the next room, and heard echoes that sounded like death. She reached out to steady herself, the sensation —

The Chosen One was still standing in front of her, rubbing his chin.

“Not that way,” he said thoughtfully. “Hang on.”

He absentmindedly waved his hand through the blue ball of light that was a Save Point again, and this time Qube was in a giant stone room, spinning in place, trying to find where it was — was it in the walls? The metal box was squealing in fright, something was moving, they were going to —

The Chosen One was still standing in front of her.

“You know what they say, third time’s the charm!” he said cheerfully. Without thinking, he touched the Save Point again.

She saw Sewer Bard die. Something was in the walls around them. It exploded out, and Sewer Bard was thrown against the stone ceiling with a sickening crack. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady was crushed, and the Chosen One —

The Chosen One was still standing in front of her.

“Or maybe it was supposed to be the fourth time?” he said ruefully. Qube, sick with dizziness, reached out and grabbed his arm before he could touch the Save Point again. He nearly dropped the metal box he was holding in surprise.

“Chosen One,” she said, her voice suddenly hoarse. “Please… please don’t touch that Save Point again.”

The Chosen One seemed utterly stunned for a second. She almost dreaded the moment when he looked at her, and she could once again feel his attention focused fully on her. It was as if she wasn’t an actual thinking creature but some toy, to be pulled apart to see what made her tick. She was starting to recognise that look, although she never knew what would provoke it.

“What’s wrong?” the Chosen One asked her, his light and casual tone at odds with the scalpel-like interest he watched her with. If it had been Definitely Bad Guy looking at her like that, she would have blushed, but she had seen this mix of blankness and burning in the Chosen One before, and it was almost inhuman and utterly detached from any emotion she could name.

It made her afraid of her closest friend, if only for a moment.

“I just… something about that Save Point is wrong,” Qube said. “It makes me feel… wrong.” The Chosen One’s eyes narrowed, before —

The Chosen One was still standing in front of her.

“How’s that?” he asked. Qube blinked at him.

“I… you just moved places?” She couldn’t quite understand what had happened there. The other members of the group (except for Sewer Bard) looked between the two of them, confused. Sewer Bard just looked confused.

“Did any of the rest of you feel anything strange just then?” the Chosen One asked, his tone almost professional. The rest of the group shook their heads, mystified. The Chosen One looked back at Qube, tilting his head slightly. “What do you think is happening?” he asked almost gently.

Qube closed her eyes as she tried to think through the answer.

“The only reason I can see the Save Point is because of the strength of our bond. It’s clearly connected to how well I’m doing as your guiding light. But now it’s causing problems whenever you interact with them. So...The Save Point must be corrupted,” she said eventually.

“Something is wrong with it,” she pondered. “Possibly something to do with whoever has put the traps and puzzles around? Or whatever is beneath us. It’s causing some kind of dissonance, a disruption to our bond as Chosen One and Childhood Companion.” She huffed in rage at the thought. “They’re trying to stop us from working together! They’re threatened by our teamwork and so are trying to break our bond!” She opened her eyes to see the Chosen One grinning at her.

“I won’t let them disrupt our bond!” she declared to him. “Come on, let’s go defeat that monster and teach it a lesson about the power of Prophecy Ordained Friendship!”

And, with that, she jumped down the wooden ladder, into the room below.

---

The first thought that flashed through Qube’s mind was that this was not the smartest thing she had ever done. The second was that whatever this beast has been doing to disrupt her bond with the Chosen One, it had at least been accurate in its depiction of this room. It was exactly like those brief flashes she’s glimpsed.

The walls were the ubiquitous red, thin rivers of magma peeking through the stone floor like exposed veins. The room was stone, and torches blazed everywhere. And, in the middle of the room, there was a giant reptile-like beast, made entirely of lava and stone. It stood on four legs, a long disjointed tail whipping back and forth. Its eyes were made of rubies, and it towered over Qube.

The Chosen One dropped to the ground behind her as she took in the giant monster before them. It turned what may have been its head to the Chosen One, and seemed to politely wait a moment for the other members of the party to arrive behind him. Then, once they were all in position, it roared.

Boiling hot steam poured over the party, and Qube instantly cast [Lesser Shield] on the Chosen One, before dancing to the back of the group. Each stone tooth in that giant’s mouth was the size of her arm.

Each party member snapped into action without needing instruction. Sewer Bard started strumming, Sexy Screamy Spider Lady started slinging arrows, Definitely Bad Guy conjured up fireballs (which seemed to have worked against the living flame so why not here, Qube supposed) and the Chosen One…

The Chosen One was watching her, waiting to see what she would do. For a second her brain locked up — surely he was supposed to be doing something? Why hadn’t he drawn his sword and shield? He was supposed to be attacking. That was how these fights went? Then the giant fire and rock monster dove forward and curled up into a ball, spinning directly at them. The Chosen One, still looking at Qube, stepped out of its path without breaking eye contact. He grinned wildly at her look of astonishment.

“Yup,” he announced to the room, “this is definitely new.”

Ten tonnes of death whirled past them, causing the ground to tremble, before slamming into the magma wall and … disappearing? There was no impact or remains, just smooth magma moving. The Chosen One didn’t seem surprised though. Instead he just pulled out the metal box, which was squealing in excitement. As he swung it around the room its squeals increased in pitch and volume, before suddenly decreasing again.

Was it trying to communicate with them? Was this monster trying to talk to them, like the giant lava slime had been? Perhaps this had just been a massive misunderstanding…

The monster burst out of the wall behind them and clipped Definitely Bad Guy, sending him flying. He hit a patch of magma and instantly caught fire. The beast rolled to the side of the room and disappeared again.

“[Heal]!” Qube screamed, pouring her mana out towards the fallen mage as she ran to his side.

“Chosen One!” she yelled as she helped Definitely Bad Guy slowly back up. The Chosen One looked up from the noisy metal box. “Kill that thing!”

“Working on it,” the Chosen One replied calmly, like his fellow party member hadn’t just been on fire. Instead, he seemed to be tracing something with the metal box, pointing it this way and that until its squeals were at their loudest and then—

“Move aside,” he said, stepping back just in time to avoid the beast exploding out of one of the lava veins on the floor. How was it even managing that without ripping the whole place apart? That didn’t even make any magical sense — it wasn’t casting spells! The whole thing was impossible!

The Chosen One twirled the metal box in his hands and then pointed at it.

“Vibrations,” he said to Qube, as if that a) explained anything and b) was remotely important when they were engaged in a fight to the death with a giant magic-defying monster.

“Please pay attention to the death part!” Qube screamed at him. He just grinned at her again.

If they got out of this alive, she was going to kill him. This time for sure.

“Here,” the Chosen One said, once again stepping out of the path of the rampaging beast of stone and fire. The rest of the party scrambled to get out of the way, Qube pulling Definitely Bad Guy up and with her. The Chosen One once again focused on the box, but seemed to be getting mildly frustrated.

“I can’t switch gear fast enough while using this,” he said, almost to himself. “How am I supposed to…?” He frowned as he side stepped another pass of the monster. If Qube hadn’t been so preoccupied with saving her own life and making sure everyone was clear of the path of destruction, she would have found it almost comedic, watching this tiny human almost dancing with this force of nature.

As it was, she wanted to curse him until his face fell off. As she was just figuring out how to cast such a specific curse (maybe some kind of reversal on a beauty enhancement cantrip? She was sure she would be able to find a book on that in Cobbletown), the Chosen One looked up from the box and grabbed her arm.

“Use this,” he said, thrusting the metal box into her hands. “Wave it around until it makes a loud noise. That’s where the enemy is. Get out of the way.”

“Of course,” Qube said calmly, like she’d been born to use magical artefacts which told you the location of lizard-like golems lurking within volcanoes. Which, in a strange way, she kind of had been. She swung the box around, and felt it jolt and light up the closer to the wall on her left it got. As she pointed it at the section of wall directly next to her, it almost jumped in her hands, its squeals sharp and piercing.

“Get back!” the Chosen One yelled, drawing his sword and shield.

Then, several things happened very rapidly.

The first was that the beast exploded out of the wall next to Qube. Magma and rock flew everywhere, but seemed to disappear almost instantly. Perhaps pulled into the beast’s form?

The second was that Qube managed to jump out of the way of the beast, accidentally knocking Definitely Bad Guy into the small moat of magma that ringed the room.

The third was that the Chosen One jumped up onto the back of the beast’s head, and was now running on the spinning ball of death.

All in all, Qube was beginning to get the idea that the visions from the room above hadn’t been so much attempted psychological warfare, as they were premonitions of the madness that was about to occur.