The Chosen One’s eyes lit up at the sight of the four medallions. Still standing back in accordance with Sewer Bard’s subtle shoo-ing, it was obvious that it was taking everything he had not to leap forward and grab the loot.

“You are correct,” Sewer Bard said, continuing to hold one of Zakora’s hands. Only someone who knew him very well would be able to pick up on the tremor of excitement that had passed through him at the sight of the treasured tokens. “Will you tell us what they do, server of sustenance?”

Qube personally thought Sewer Bard was going the tinest bit overboard with the flattery, but she couldn’t argue with the results as the half-orc nodded.

“This one is the pharaoh’s,” she said, shoving one of them forward with her free hand, “will take you to the Royal Artificer, who will enhance a treasure you’ve found. The other one I was instructed to give only if you returned with Akela’s symbol.” The half-orc gave the party a steady look. “I don’t know how I know this, but I can tell that the item you’ve given me is the pharaoh’s.”

She stared at the second token, as if seeking the reason why she could sense such things within its small frame. The token, predictably, did not enlighten her.

“This one, Akela’s one, will grant you access to the Royal Museum, where you can find an ancient artefact that will help you.”

“So we wouldn’t miss out on epic loot if we chose the Akela’s route,” the Chosen One mused. “Kinda makes the sacrifice pointless though, doesn’t it?”

“I doubt the Royals selected their medallions to compensate for such a thing,” Qube said. The Hero gave her an ironic look.

“The final two,” Zakora continued, sliding the remaining tokens across the counter, “I was supposed to keep until after you’d returned from the last Temple, but they would probably serve you better now. This one is for the Royal Armoury to protect yourself for the final charge, and this last one is for the Royal Guardhouse, to allow you to recruit the guards still loyal to the crown for the final charge against the castle.”

The Chosen One rubbed his chin as he considered the plethora of places that had just become available to the party.

“Huh,” he said. “If we didn’t need the end item, we’d totally be able to skip the last Temple. Or maybe it’ll think we’ve already completed it? Interesting.”

“Thank you, kind mistress,” Sewer Bard said, attempting to release Zakora’s hand. There was a slight struggle to get her to let go before he retrieved his limb, and offered her a deep bow. “Your assistance will be woven into the epic saga of the saviour of the kingdom,” he promised grandly. The Chosen One swept the tokens into his hand, disappearing them, and the party turned to leave.

“Those tokens,” she said, halting the party’s exit, “will you be using all of them?”

“Yeah, probably,” the Chosen One said, before Sewer Bard loudly overrode him with a: “But of course, maiden of mead.”

The barkeep stared wistfully out of the open door of her inn.

“When you’re done with them, can I borrow some?” she asked longingly.

This time it was Sewer Bard’s turn to hesitate, while the Chosen One immediately reached into his pocket.

“Here you go,” he said, casually dumping the tokens they’d fought so hard for onto the counter. “I’m keeping a couple, cuz we still need them, but once we’re fully stocked up on stuff I’ll come back and give you the others. You gotta give them back if it turns out we gotta get more things though, okay?”

Zakora stared at the medallions erratically spinning on the counter, tokens that could only be obtained with Royal permission for completing Temples that had never been defeated.

Or at least that was the only way Qube knew how to get them. She had to assume that there were other ways of gaining access to the various Royal places, otherwise they would have long since gone out of business. Granted, given how the Chosen One talked about his notions of economy, it sounded like most of these places should have already gone out of business, so she could only assume there must be some kind of Royal subsidy for all Royal locations. Otherwise why would they be called Royal?

Having concluded the matter to her own mental satisfaction, Qube was returned to the present by Zakora reverently reaching over and touching the pile of tokens.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice cracking slightly.

The Chosen One gave her his trademark lopsided smile. He looked rather sad.

“Enjoy exploring,” he said to her, before leaving the inn. As he walked away, the rest of the party hurried to catch up with him.

“That was very kind of you,” Sewer Bard said quietly as soon as he reached the Chosen One’s side.

“Hey, so was what you said about me back there!” the Hero replied. “Mostly, anyway,” he added.

“I would not have thought you likely to give up such powerful items to a mere barkeep. Especially not unique ones,” the Bard continued. The Chosen One shrugged, but didn’t elaborate.

“As for my comments back there,” Sewer Bard said, once it became obvious that the Hero wasn’t going to explain himself, “it seemed necessary to reassure the barkeeper. I could sense that there was something different about her from the last times we’ve met, and I wanted her to feel safe.”

“Yeah, there’s definitely something different about this place,” the Chosen One said meaningfully, looking around. A townsperson was practising some kind of teleportation spell, as they teleported back and forth across the main plaza too quickly for Qube to make out their features. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that —” he caught himself, and coughed slightly— “that the mana pool the world was drawing from couldn’t handle the load?” he continued, sounding uncertain of himself.

“Does that track?” he asked the party, who just stared at him blankly.

“You mean the pool of mana the Devs drew from to create this world?” Qube clarified.

“Yeah, that one,” the Chosen One said.

“Wait. Our world continues to draw mana from that pool?” Qube asked, horrified.

“Yeah,” the Chosen One confirmed.

She’d thought the Devs had cast some kind of spell, or done a Grand Working on a scale she couldn’t even begin to contemplate, but the fact that the world continued to use mana, to the point where the mana pool couldn’t handle it (by which she assumed he meant it was running low) why, that would imply that the mere existence of this world was a continuous spell, similar to [Fire Wall], that was incapable of self-sustaining!

Which meant that any interruption to the Devs’ realm’s mana pool could potentially cause the destruction of her entire world.

The Devs’ Realm that only the Chosen One had access to.

Which housed the mana pool that the Devs had admitted they hadn’t even made, but rather’d been created by someone even higher up than them.

Qube felt like she was going to be sick. She’d thought she’d been stressed before, but that was nothing compared to the crushing realisation that her entire world could stop working any moment, and there was nothing she could do about it.

“Don’t worry,” the Chosen One said, noticing how pale she’d gone, “I have a plan!”

“Oh good,” Qube said weakly.

“And, worst case scenario, the world just gets a little stranger. Plus, I don’t even know if that’s the reason stuff is being weird or if that’s just, y’know, stuff being weird.” The Chosen One was clearly trying to reassure Qube, so she gave him a watery smile.

“Yes, please find out what’s happening with the mana pool,” she said as calmly as she could.

Everything would be fine. The Chosen One would find out what was going on, and she would guide him to a satisfactory solution. She wouldn’t allow herself to dwell on the fact that everything could end any second.

She wasn’t sure why this felt so much more threatening than when the Devs had offered to finish the quest they were on with a wave of their hand. Perhaps because that had been a person, and it would have had to have been a deliberate action. But a mana pool running dry for no known reason, that was a completely different matter.

Not to mention there was a substantial difference between a quest being prematurely finished and the end of whatever spell was keeping her world running.

Qube, it should be noted, wasn’t panicking. She was merely mildly, and rightly, alarmed.

The other party members didn’t seem to be matching her level of perfectly logical alarment, however. Even Definitely Bad Guy, who should have been well aware of the dangers of existence running on a finite source of mana, seemed more interested in examining the rapid teleportation happening in front of them than thinking through the implications of what the Chosen One had just revealed.

Even the Hero seemed to have moved on in his thinking, and was now looking at Sewer Bard with a whimsical expression.

“You know, it’s funny, but I kinda used to think that you didn’t like me,” he said to the Bard. The Bard turned towards the Chosen One, his face perfectly smooth.

“Does it matter to you that I like you?” he asked neutrally.

The Chosen One’s head jerked back like he’d been slapped.

“Of course!” he said in astonishment. “What kind of question is that? I’d expect it from Mr. Dark and Brooding, but not from you, Sing-Song.”

Sewer Bard tilted his head to the side, a gesture similar to one Qube sometimes made.

“Ah,” the Bard said, still in that light, casual voice. “I just thought that, being the Hero destined to save the world, someone’s personal opinion of you wouldn’t matter terribly much.” His eyes crinkled slightly. “I can’t imagine where I got that impression from.”

The Chosen One looked caught between concern and confusion, before he finally gave a small laugh.

“Fair,” he said, reaching out and slinging an arm around Sewer Bard. “Yeah, I get your point. But no. You, and all the rest of this party, you’re all my mates now. Which means that I like you, so you gotta like me back. Wait, that doesn’t sound right,” the Hero said, waving a hand. “Ignore that last part. Undo, undo!”

Almost despite himself, the mask of neutrality that Sewer Bard was wearing cracked and he chuckled.

“You make it difficult to take anything too seriously,” Sewer Bard said, smiling slightly. The Chosen One grinned at him.

“That’s my job!” he said. “Well, not really, but you know what I mean.”

The party had started walking again, and at this point happened to walk past the Adventurerer’s Board. Qube glanced over it, and stopped in shock.

“Chosen One!” she exclaimed, inadvertently breaking the nice bonding moment between the Hero and the Bard. “There’s a child in danger!”

The Chosen One dropped his arm from around Sewer Bard and instantly readied his shield.

“Where?” he asked, all business.

The Healer pointed at the board, her eyes wide.

“It says here that a little boy has fallen into a well! He must be in grave danger of drowning! Or worse, if there’s no water, he could very well be horribly injured!”

Qube couldn’t believe that the battle music hadn’t kicked in, this was such a serious situation! Why had this Lassie put up a notice, rather than immediately rounding up the city folk or guards to get them to haul this poor little Timmy out?

To her shock the Chosen One actually relaxed on hearing this.

“Oh, little Timmy’s fallen down the well, has he?” he said, sounding almost amused at this extremely perilous probability.

“We have to save him!” Qube said, her fists bunching up her robes in frustration at the slowness with which the Hero approached the board and looked at the notice.

“Sure,” the Chosen One said, much to her relief. “In fact, if you want, we can take all these social quests and just do them. Might give me a better idea of what’s going on around here, too.”

Qube was ready to tear her hair out with impatience. Who knew how long ago this notice had been posted? They might already be too late!

“Yes, of course. Come on!” she said, twirling around in place, trying to remember where Cobbletown’s well was. She spotted Squiggles across the plaza, still chasing some silent children. Squiggles had just been all around the city; she must surely know!

“Squiggles!” she shouted, causing the sharktopus to skid to a stop. “Take us to the well! We have a child to rescue!”