Sir Ian looked, if anything, even more amused by Qube’s reply than before.

“Well, well,” he said cheerfully. “That’s certainly a noble goal! Very much what we like to hear around here. What if your friend was trying to harm the world, what would you do?”

The question flowed so easily on from his praise that it took Qube a second to realise what he’d just asked her.

“They wouldn’t do that,” she said firmly. “My friends are Good, and Good people don’t harm the world.”

“Ah, it would be a much nicer place if you were right about that,” Sir Ian said. His eyes looked sad. The sadness was soon gone, however, as he looked at the Chosen One. “Your PM spoke a lot about the bond between you two,” he continued, returning his focus to Qube. “But it’s not always a good thing to have strong bonds. If your friend here came to you and spoke of killing innocent people, what would you do?”

Qube pondered this deeply. The Chosen One made a small movement, as if to step closer to her, but was checked by Sir Ian turning his head slightly.

“Well, if they are innocent people, then something is very wrong with the Chosen One. The most likely reason is that someone is taking over his body, like the Devs do sometimes. So I would ask the Devs why they wanted to injure innocent people.”

“Let’s say you know there’s nobody taking over anybody’s body,” Sir Ian continued. “It’s a direct order from what I’m told is your closest friend.”

Qube shook her head.

“I would stop him,” she replied simply.

“And how would you do that?” Sir Ian asked, a hint of steel underlying his grandfatherly nature as he watched her reaction carefully. Qube bit her bottom lip.

“I don’t know,” she eventually admitted. “But I would do my best to stop him from doing Evil.”

Sir Ian was looking at her with a small smile.

“Astonishing,” he said. “Truly astonishing.” He turned his head and looked at the Chosen One, who was sweating nervously. “Are they all like this?” Sir Ian asked.

“At least three others, sir, yes,” the Chosen One said. “That’s why we need more resources. As you can imagine, four true emergents are pretty taxing on the system.”

The Chosen One looked so stiff and awkward, standing there as Qube and Sir Ian sat on their chairs. Emergents? It must be another word for those who were going to ascend, and emerge from their realm into the Devs’ realm.

“They’re my friends, and they’re also Good,” Qube said, then immediately wondered why she’d offered up that information. She just wanted to impress this man so much! Enough that he would not only agree to give them all the mana possible, but also help them get rid of any Evil Devs! From how awkward and nervous the Chosen One was around him, she just knew that Sir Ian had to be extremely strong.

Why, he was a Sir. Possibly he was a knight, or even a minor nobility.

“I’m sure they are, young lady,” Sir Ian said, with another paternalistic chuckle. Qube ignored her brief flare of annoyance at how condescending he sounded with the reminder that he was possibly Royalty, and definitely powerful.

“So, aside from saving the world,” Sir Ian said with a twinkle, “what do you want? What’s been happening in your life? Tell me about yourself.”

Qube briefly panicked as she tried to process all three questions at once.

“And why did you knock over that cup of coffee?” He added a final blow to her mental capacity. Was that what that black liquid had been? Was she supposed to drink it?

“Well, I thought you would be interested in the liquid,” she said. “The Chosen One always likes to see how things react to being spilled, broken, or popped. One time he even managed to pop some eyeballs from a glass jar! He broke the jar afterwards,” she added as an afterthought.

Sir Ian continued watching Qube as the Hero gave a nervous laugh.

“As for after saving the world, well, I suppose I’d really like to ascend, and find out more about life in the Devs’ realm,” Qube said.

“Explain ascending to me,” Sir Ian said. The Chosen One answered:

“It’s what they call—”

“I asked her.” There was no anger in Sir Ian’s voice, but it was as if he had snapped his authority around him like a cloak. The Chosen One instantly subsided.

Qube had never seen the Chosen One respect someone’s authority before. Not like this. In every other scenario, even when it had been life or death, there’d been an air of playfulness around him, a sense that in the end everything would work out, even when he was being rude to people who had the ability to execute him on the spot, like the Evil Emperor.

But the man inhabiting this Wizard’s somewhat weedy body was someone whose authority the Chosen One evidentiality respected.

“It’s when we emerge from our world and into the Devs’ realm,” Qube explained, doing her best not to let the awe she felt at finally finding someone whose authority the Chosen One actually paid the least bit of attention to. Imagine how Sewer Bard would react, if he was here! She bet Sir Ian could even get the Chosen One to listen to lore!

Which was why it was so frightening when Sir Ian frowned at her explanation.

“I haven’t heard about this,” he said, turning to the Chosen One. The Chosen One paled.

“Uh, you’ll have to talk to Alex about that,” he said nervously. “I don’t know the details.”

Sir Ian looked at the Chosen One for a few moments longer, before returning his attention to Qube.

“So, you want to come join us after your adventure?” he asked jovially. “That’s very admirable. What are you hoping to do?”

“Um,” Qube desperately tried to think of any answer that would satisfy the Chosen One, Sir Ian, and (a distant third) herself. “Well, the Devs seemed like they would need my assistance? And then hopefully they would be able to help my village.”

The Chosen One loudly coughed and Qube looked at him, worried. Was he choking? Getting sick? Did he need healing?

“Your village?” Sir Ian echoed, looking slightly confused.

“They were killed by the Evil Emperor, and I was hoping that the Devs would be able to revive them.” Qube avoided the urge to twist her fingers together, instead trying to look as nonchalant as the Chosen One did when talking to powerful people.

“What kind of name is Evil Emperor?” Sir Ian scoffed, ignoring the massacre of her people. “That sounds like something from a children’s book.”

“Oh, it’s not his actual name,” Qube hurried to explain. “It’s a title. He used to be the Grand Vizier to the King and Queen, but he betrayed them to seize power for himself. I don’t know what his Dev name is.”

Qube still wasn’t sure on what a Dev name was, but she was hoping Sir Ian would know.

“Yes, yes,” Sir Ian said, waving away the very history of her world in a way that reminded her of the Chosen One. He seemed to lose interest in the slaughter of everyone she had ever known or loved and instead was now focused on picking up his own mug of so-called coffee. He swirled the cup, and seemed fascinated by the movement inside.

“This really is astonishing,” he informed the Chosen One, before tipping a bit of the liquid out onto the desk.

Now that was the kind of action that Qube was familiar with.

“Look at how it moves!” Qube said, jumping up from her chair and moving to Sir Ian’s side so she could better point out the largest droplet as it rolled across the top of the desk and teetered on the edge. “The Chosen One loves watching water.”

She crouched down and caught the droplet as it fell, showing it to Sir Ian as it sat in the palm of her hand. She cast her mind about, trying to think of anything else that could potentially impress this almighty being from another world enough that he would agree to help.

“There’s chickens in the inn outside,” she supplied eventually. “And also everything in here would probably burn if we set fire to it! Oh! And if you throw the mug it might break!”

Sir Ian, gently nodding along as Qube spoke, took a sip from his mug then grimaced.

“They haven’t quite gotten it right yet, I see,” he said, putting the mug back down.

“If you put the mug in your pocket, it’ll fit!” Qube informed him. “Even if that doesn’t make any sense, things just fit into pockets and backpacks.”

“My, you are an enthusiastic thing, aren’t you?” Sir Ian chuckled, and then reached out to pat Qube on the head. His eyebrows rose as they made contact.

“It’s so soft,” he said in astonishment. “Here, come feel this!” he ordered the Chosen One as he continued to stroke Qube’s hair. He twirled a lock of her hair through his fingers, the same as the Evil Emperor once had.

But even the Evil Emperor had possessed the decency to make sure her hair wasn’t attached to her head before he started playing with it.

Qube was frozen in place, unable to decide what she should do. Her first instinct was to shove the man away from her and yell at him not to touch her hair. Her second instinct was to play along with the being who held the entire fate of her world in his sweaty, sweaty hands.

It wasn’t even that hot! Why were his hands so sweaty?

“Uh, sir?” the Chosen One said, his eyes fixated on where Sir Ian was fondling Qube’s hair. “She has the normal boundaries any girl would.”

“Oh,” Sir Ian said, sounding genuinely surprised that Qube might be uncomfortable with a strange man stroking her. He stopped, giving her head one last pat. “Those boys really do think of everything, don’t they?”

“The team,” the Chosen One said, with a strained emphasis on the word, “will probably change the world with this.”

As soon as Sir Ian’s hand moved away, Qube jumped up from her crouched position next to him and hurried over to the Chosen One’s side. She only just managed to stop herself from attempting to hide behind the Hero.

Qube was having a bit of a crisis.

She didn’t like Sir Ian. It was a difficult thought — after all, he was potential Royalty — but the way he spoke about her made her feel like a particularly intelligent pet, rather than a person. She was surprised to find how much that bothered her. Why, it used to be that as long as she was helpful, and liked, then she would be happy! But now…

Now a part of her cringed away from the thought of being treated like this the entire time she was in the Devs realm. Either the Devs would be scary and powerful, or awful and rude, and it seemed like those higher up were… uncomfortable.

“Yes, I imagine they will,” Sir Ian said, taking another sip of his coffee and grimacing again. “She’ll be good for PR, if nothing else. Recruitment and all that.”

Qube, not understanding what PR was, gave Sir Ian her best Understanding Smile.

“Yes, that’s very good,” Sir Ian said, pleased. “Perfect! She could be like everyone’s own little assistant.”

“Everyone’s assistant?” she asked, unable to stop herself from echoing him. “So I would be a companion to people in the Devs’ realm?”

“Oh, well, not everyone,” Sir Ian clarified. “Given what’s involved, probably only the higher ups. We’d need the boys to talk about the security of that. But I can certainly use it as a selling point in the budget, don’t you worry about that.”

It should have been the ultimate goal. Being able to help guide more and more powerful beings as she had the chance to research the reality of those who made her entire world.

So why did the thought of it make her blood run cold?