In the end, the Chosen One got bored of playing in the snow before Qube did.

“Come on,” he said, standing up and letting all of the snow roll off him. “Let’s go see what these people want.”

Qube reluctantly pulled herself out of the snowdrift she’d been burrowing into. Snow was so much fun! She didn’t have any memory of snow, but from the way the Chosen One acted, he’d definitely been around it before. He’d even made a snowball and thrown it at Definitely Bad Guy, who’d just been quietly lying on his back in the snow, letting it slowly pile up over him.

The Mage hadn’t moved, just gave the Hero a withering look of disdain from his position on the ground. It wasn’t very effective at chastising the Chosen One, unfortunately, who proceeded to try and bury the Mage in snow and claimed that he was just “helping nature along” when the other man activated his [Fire Wall].

Oddly enough, no matter how much snow fell, it never seemed to cover the path, nor add to the snow drifts. Some kind of magic keeping it from building up, probably.

The Hero reached out a hand to help Qube up, then reached out another hand to assist Definitely Bad Guy. The Mage looked at the offered limb in silence, before standing up on his own.

The Chosen One didn’t seem offended by this deliberate slight; instead, he just grinned.

“Nervous about meeting your old teachers?” he asked sympathetically. “I’m pretty sure some of my first year tutors would absolutely try and eat me if I skived off then tried to come back.”

Qube stared at the Chosen One in absolute horror. What kind of monstrous beings were these tutors, that they would try and eat people? What kind of study was required of someone to become a Chosen One in the Devs’ realm? She’d thought the training to become a Companion had been stressful!

Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears as she clasped at the Chosen One’s hands.

“Don’t worry! When I ascend, I’ll make sure to be by your side as you defeat them!” she exclaimed. “They won’t be able to get through my [Lesser Shield], you have my word! I’ll even find some way to upgrade it to [Shield]!”

The Chosen One gave her a startled look, before bursting out laughing.

“No, no,” he said, “they wouldn’t actually. They were just super intense about making sure we took it seriously, and wouldn’t be happy if I left midway. Oh, I love how serious you look about this! They wouldn’t know what hit them!”

“Oh,” Qube said, digesting this. “But Definitely Bad Guy was kidnapped by the Evil Emperor, so I’m sure his teachers will be very understanding!”

“Also, I don’t know how spells like your shield stuff will work when you ascend,” the Chosen One said. “You’ll have to talk to the Devs about that; I dunno how they’re planning on playing that.”

Definitely Bad Guy, who had been grimly looking at the rapidly approaching Wizard’s Tower with a Save Point sparkling next to the doorway, snapped his head towards the Hero.

“What do you mean?” he asked, an edge to his voice. “Are you suggesting that they will be more powerful, or different kinds of spells?”

“I don’t know, man,” the Chosen One said with a shrug. “I’m not fully sure what’s going on with the ascending angle. I didn’t even know it was possible until Alex mentioned it. I thought we were years away from that kind of thing.”

Definitely Bad Guy and Qube exchanged glances. They were both magic users to their very core. The idea that ascending would change spells was unsettling, to say the least.

“I can see if someone would be able to talk to you about it, if you want?” the Chosen One unexpectedly offered. “Although they’re starting to crunch so I dunno how much time they’ll have.”

It wasn’t just Qube’s imagination. The Chosen One really was trying to comfort them and be more supportive! He was learning from her guidance! Qube felt her heart swell with emotion. She was so overcome that she didn’t even stop to ask what crunch was before they reached the tower, and the Chosen One passed his hand through the Save Point, then threw open the door.

“I would appreciate it,” Definitely Bad Guy said, before a child’s voice cut across their conservation.

“Who dares enter my domain?” the high-pitched voice half-squeaked, half-screeched, the noise bouncing down the open space between the spiral staircases.

“Me!” the Chosen One called back, before looking around.

Unlike the first Wizard’s Tower, which had opened directly into the main room that the Head Mage had been dwelling in, the only concession to the tower’s tower-ness being stairs in the back leading upwards, this one was more like Definitely Bad Guy’s back in Cobbletown. Which meant only stairs.

Lots and lots of stairs.

The Chosen One groaned. “Oh, come on,” he whined, “my legs hurt so much after these. They’re not even supposed to but somehow they still do!”

“Step onto the platform!” the voice squeak-screeched.

In the middle of the tower’s floor there was a wooden platform, with complex runes carved into it. The Chosen One started to step onto it, then paused. His eyes narrowed as he considered the platform.

Qube felt her stomach start to sink as she registered his expression. She knew that face. That was the face of someone looking to make things much more complicated than they needed to be.

“Hey,” the Hero said in a wheedling tone. Qube stifled her instinctive response to just shout the word no. “Sparky, step onto this, will you?”

The Mage stepped forward without a moment’s hesitation. The Chosen One stood next to the platform, and waited.

“Step onto the platform!” the same voice repeated in the same cadence.

“Now you,” the Hero said to Qube.

“Chosen One, what are you trying to do?” she asked, not moving.

“I want to test something,” the Chosen One said. “Come on, it’ll be fun! I just saved, so nothing too bad can happen. Even if you remember, it’ll be okay.”

“That isn’t as reassuring as you think it is,” Qube said but, with much trepidation, she stepped forward onto the platform.

Nothing happened.

“Okay, now don’t move,” the Chosen One said, carefully eyeing the platform as if he expected it to charge at him. Standing next to it, he slowly reached out a foot, and tapped the top of it, before quickly jumping back.

Still nothing happened.

“Hmm,” the Chosen One rubbed his chin as he contemplated the platform. Shuffling forward, he jumped onto the edge of the platform, then jumped away again. The platform’s runes lit up, before instantly going dark again as soon as he moved off of it.

Qube wasn’t sure if the owner of the voice was watching them from the top of the spiral staircase, waiting for the Hero of All Human and Human-Adjacent Beings to get his act together and stop messing around with the floor. Glancing up into the dark recess above them, she could almost feel the impatience spreading.

“Chosen One, please don’t forget that the people running the Wizards’ Academy are probably very prestigious and powerful Mages,” Qube quietly reminded her Companion. He looked up from his study of the platform to grin at her.

“Is that your way of telling me to hurry the [fiddle] up?” he asked cheerfully, his voice distorting as it always did whenever he said the word fiddle. Qube suspected that this was because he was using the language of the Devs, or something of that ilk, which was too powerful for her mind to comprehend.

“A little, yes,” she confessed, which only made him grin. Her heart rate calmed down as he seemed pleased by her rudeness. “I just wouldn’t want to upset someone we have come to ask a favour from, is all,” she clarified.

“Okay, okay,” the Chosen One said, stepping fully onto the platform. Once both of his feet were within the runes, they once again lit up, and the platform slowly started to rise through the air.

Then the Chosen One stepped off, and it gently sank back down again.

“Chosen One!” Qube exclaimed, annoyed. The Chosen One laughed at her.

“No, that was just a test, hold on,” he said, stepping back onto the platform and instantly crouching. As the platform activated for the third time, Qube reached out and put a hand on the Chosen One’s shoulder. Not that she would have been able to stop the much larger man from jumping off if he chose to do so. But just to remind him that she was there, and waiting for him to do the simple task of staying still.

The platform rose past the spiral staircases, now some distance from the floor.

She wasn’t sure quite what the Chosen One’s fascination with breaking the world around them was, but it was certainly a very powerful compulsion. Sometimes it worked out! Other times, it led him to do strange things like —

He gripped the side of the platform, and swung off the side.

“[Lesser Shield]!” Qube instantly cast to protect him from hurting himself as he fell.

But he didn’t fall. Instead he stayed gripped to the side of the platform, and planted his feet on the underside. The runes stayed lit up, and the platform continued its ascent, undeterred by the Hero clinging to its side. It didn’t even wobble or slant, which Qube would have found a lot more impressive if she hadn’t been busy yelling at the Chosen One.

“Get back up here!” she ordered the darling of the Golden Prophecy.

“Look! One hand!” the Hero replied, letting go with his left hand.

“Stop that!” she yelled.

“Stop holding on to the side? Okay,” he said, moving the fingers still holding on.

“No! Hold on!” Qube, now incredibly flustered, shouted.

“So you want me to hold on to the side?” the Chosen One called back. “Okay!”

“Chosen One!” She resisted the urge to stamp a foot. She was better than that. She was a mature, guiding light who would help save the world.

“I’m just doing what you wanted!” he replied.

She stomped her foot.

“Get back up here right now!” she said, stomping again to emphasise her point.

“We are approaching the top,” Definitely Bad Guy interrupted their argument. Qube stopped glaring down at the kingdom’s saviour and glanced at the Mage Advisor, before following his gaze upwards. There was a wooden floor with a round hole in it, just the right size to fit their platform.

“Chosen One, you’re going to get squashed,” she said worriedly, watching the fast approaching floor.

“All right, all right,” the Chosen One said, swinging himself back onto the platform just before they reached the hole. The silver light of Qube’s [Lesser Shield] shimmered as he moved to the centre of the runes. “That was fun, though.”

Qube pressed a hand to her forehead. It seemed the Chosen One’s supportive, more sensitive side was still developing.

Hopefully it would develop faster, before she had a heart attack. Or Definitely Bad Guy was finally able to secretly teach her how to curse people, and she bound the Hero in place so he couldn’t go running about, causing her stress.

Not that she would ever do that, of course!

Not unless she really needed to.

Putting such thoughts aside, the Healer looked around the newly revealed room. The platform’s runes had gone blank, but it still stayed in place, fit snugly in the floor. The owner must have let down the platform when they realised the trio (or duo, from their perspective) were approaching; otherwise they would be in constant danger of falling down the hole.

Speaking of which, where was the owner of that strangely child-like voice?

“Who dares enter my domain?” the voice squeaked from behind them.

Qube turned around and saw the Mage who had been charged with helping them unlock the spell to defeat the Evil Emperor.

She blinked, as she tried to make sense of what was before her.

“Why is the Wizard’s Academy Mage so young?” she asked Definitely Bad Guy.

The Chosen One covered his face.

“Oh sweet [Golden Prophecy], no,” he groaned.