“Well, that sort of thing is really something — I mean, that’s very much a work in progress,” the Chosen One said, cutting off Sir Ian and Qube’s conversation before Qube could figure out why the whole idea of being a companion to Devs and above horrified her so much.

Qube still had questions, so much that she wanted to know, but couldn’t bring herself to ask any of them. Even the Cazza Dev, who she was reasonably certain had been drunk, hadn’t made her feel as uneasy as Sir ian.

“I’ll authorise the forms, and send them to the IT department,” Sir Ian said, waving a hand at the Chosen One. “They should be able to fulfil it in a couple of weeks.”

“A couple of weeks?” the Chosen One exclaimed. “Sir, this is —” he checked himself again, glancing at Qube — “this isn’t something that we can just leave for a couple of weeks. We can’t progress without it and the demonstration is in a few months.”

Sir Ian drummed his fingers against the top of the desk as he pondered the Chosen One.

“You understand that I am doing young Alex a favour,” he said eventually. “Even arranging this meeting on such short notice.”

The Chosen One inhaled sharply.

“I know,” he said unhappily.

“General Perton and I are quite good friends,” Sir Ian said, and the Chosen One winced. “So I thought it prudent to help his nibling out.”

“I know Alex appreciates it—” the Chosen One started to say, before Sir Ian lifted up his fingers, staying the Hero’s speech.

Sir Ian resumed his drumming and looked at Qube, regarding her with a steady gaze. Qube took a deep breath, and gathered her courage.

“While I don’t understand quite what's going on,” she said, plunging into the deep end, “I do know that you’re helping us, and that you’ll be able to help my world. I know it might not seem like much to you, but this is my home, and my friends and I are struggling without enough mana. Please, if you can, we need more power.”

She bowed her head to Sir Ian.

Please don’t pat my head again, please don’t pat my head again, that was really weird, please no pat, her internal monologue shouted. She saw Sir Ian’s hand twitch as her soft hair swept forward, but he restrained himself.

“You, young lady, are dangerous,” Sir Ian said, but in a much lighter tone than before. “After such a heartfelt plea, how could I say no?”

“She is an unstoppable force,” the Chosen One said, giving his companion a fond smile as Sir Ian practically melted in front of her joyful response to his agreement. “Weaponised cuteness.”

Sir Ian raised an eyebrow at that, but leaned back in his chair as he thought.

“At the end of last year, General Perton held a gathering for many of the young sparks,” the man said conversationally. “One of them was a man in charge of requisitions and assets, the gentleman who will be processing this form. An abrasive, lazy young man, but with a passion for collecting unusual liqueurs. His office practically looks like a cocktail bar, he has so many. He was ranting about a particular one he wanted, but had been unable to find.” Sir Ian’s eyes twinkled with mischief.

“Okay…” the Chosen One said, furrowing his brow. Sir Ian gave him a gentle smile.

“The reason I remember this particular encounter,” he continued, “is because General Perton confided to me afterwards that he had, sequestered away in his cellar, a bottle of said liqueur that he’d never opened. As far as I know, he still has it. If one were to bring said bottle along with a physical copy of the requisition form and budget approval, I imagine the young man’s characteristic laziness might be overcome almost instantly.”

“Oh,” the Chosen One said, nodding along slowly. “Right. Right! Thank you so much, sir!”

“Think nothing of it,” Sir Ian said, “for all I have done is tell you a rather dry anecdote about a party I was once at. Nothing more, nothing less. Understand?”

“I understand,” the Chosen One said.

Qube didn’t understand. That sounded like bribery! Was this potential Royal honestly suggesting that the Chosen One, or the Alex Dev, bribe this other man into doing his job? Sir Ian was powerful! Why couldn’t he just order the man to do the work immediately? What was even the point of being Royalty if you had to bribe people to do things for you? They were supposed to just do things for you because you were better than them! There was no way Sir Ian could be a Royal, not if he had to resort to such measures. Unless things were different in his world? No wonder the Chosen One didn’t hold much respect for normal authority figures, then!

The more she found out about the Devs’ realm, the more she started to question their almighty status.

“I’ll make sure Alex gets the forms,” Sir Ian said. He looked around, suddenly lost. “Now, how do you get out of this place?”

“Put your hand through this,” the Chosen One said, indicating the Save Point by the door.

“As, yes, I remember now,” Sir Ian said, walking over to the blue orb. He looked back at Qube. “It was very nice to meet you, young lady. Very nice indeed.”

Qube didn’t return the compliment.

With a flick of his hand, he was gone.

The Chosen One gave a massive sigh as soon as Warren’s body disappeared. He shot a guilty look at Qube.

“I’m just gonna go check that everything went all right,” he said, and passed his own hand through the Save Point.

Qube existed for an eternal moment.

He finished passing his hand through the Save Point and straightened up, rolling back his shoulders. The strain of the conversation with Sir Ian seemed gone, and, Qube realised, the fog of tiredness had lifted from her mind.

“It’s good to be back!” the Chosen One said cheerfully, looking around. “Okay, so, let’s see if it worked,” he continued, opening the mansion door and stepping out onto Cobbletown’s streets.

Qube had wanted a moment with just the two of them, so she could discuss her thoughts about what had happened, but by the time she gathered herself to ask, the Chosen One was gone. She looked around the room one last time, taking in every detail.

Something historic had happened in this space today. She couldn’t tell how far the ramifications would spread, but it had the weight of something that would change the world. Possibly two.

But even the knowledge that she had been instrumental for such an important event didn’t help warm the cold, sick feeling in her stomach.

With a sigh, she left the room and stepped out into the shadows after the Hero.

“What occurred?” she heard Sewer Bard ask as the Chosen One and Qube appeared.

“They fixed the problem,” the Chosen One said. He paused, then added: “I hope.”

Sewer Bard gave up on getting anything useful from the Chosen One and turned to Qube.

“I beg of you, tell us all that happened in there,” he said, his voice slightly strained. Qube could sympathise — she would have been almost frantic if the Chosen One had taken someone else and left her behind on one adventure, and now Sewer Bard and Sexy Screamy Spider Lady had been left behind twice in a row. She would have to find some way to make it up to them.

Quite why it was her job to make it up to them for events that she had no control over never occurred to her.

“It wasn’t very exciting,” she told the trio, trying to downplay the adventure so that they wouldn’t feel too left out. “One of the Devs appeared in Ruth’s form — ah,” she interrupted herself, realising that none of them knew who Ruth was, “—appeared in the same form as the Bee Dev that we met that one time, and they were…”

“Dan is an [apple],” the Chosen One supplied helpfully.

The rest of the party all looked at each other in confusion. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady, however, was frowning at Qube and slowly moving closer.

“My darling, are you all right?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady asked, now right next to the Healer. “You look positively done.”

“They weren’t very nice,” Qube finished in a tiny voice.

The Hunter tucked a lock of Qube’s hair back in place, and looked at the half-elf. Every single child’s face stitched into the Hunter’s body was now angrily screaming.

“Shall I eat him?” the arachnid asked seriously.

“You can’t eat a Dev!” Qube gasped at her audacity. “Even if they are Evil!”

“You met an Evil Dev?” Sewer Bard asked, ignoring the Hunter’s focus on Qube’s mental state to dig into the facts. “This could be vital to our efforts! Quick, tell us everything you can.”

“Sewer Bard!” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady exclaimed, looking at him in disgust. “Can’t you see the poor girl’s shaken? Give her a moment!”

“I would not press, except that we can use this in our battle against Evil!” Sewer Bard protested. “Every detail matters!”

“This is unworthy of you,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said. She gestured a claw towards Definitely Bad Guy. “I would expect this from him — no, actually, even he has more sensibility than to jump in asking her questions about Devs when anyone can see that the poor thing is shaken.” Sewer Bard came as close to glaring at the Hunter as he ever had. Definitely Bad Guy, sensibly, was hanging back and simply watching events unfold. The Chosen One was looking at Qube with a worried expression.

Qube realised that she was, in fact, literally shaking.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” she lied.

“You don’t have to be,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said, and pulled the Healer in for a hug.

Surrounded by a multitude of arms, pressed against parts of the arachnid’s body that would occasionally try to consume her, Qube broke.

“They were awful,” she sobbed into Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s thorax. “The Dev kept calling me it and Sir Ian kept calling me a thing and—and—and—he stroked my hair and I didn’t like it but I was afraid that he wouldn’t give us the mana if I did anything and then it would doom the world and it would be all my fault and the Dev was so mean and they made even the Chosen One scared and I don’t want to be their companion in the Devs’ realm!” she finished with a wail.

Great big tears rolled down her cheeks as she hiccuped and tried to stem the crying. Shame coursed through her, and she felt her other side, the curse to her heal, awaken in the distance, the anger activating and trying to replace the fear with rage.

But the Hunter just held her closer, the warmth and strength of her body drawing Qube in, allowing her to release the shield of protective anger, and let the fear and sadness wash over her, sweeping the rage up and soothing it.

A coin needs both sides.

Definitely Bad Guy stepped forward and reached out to Qube, almost placing a hand on her back. He pulled away before making contact, looking at the icey blue and blood red flames swirling around his fingers.

“I swear to you,” he said, red and blue mana pulsing from his body. “They will suffer for their actions.”

“Why didn’t you protect her?” Sewer Bard growled, turning to the Chosen One and placing his hand on the hilt of his rapier.

“And then the Chosen One punched them and I was supposed to [Heal] them but I refused and am I now the Evil one but they were probably Evil so does that make it Good and—and—and I hated it,” Qube finished incoherently.

“There, there,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said soothingly, stroking Qube’s back. “There, there, you did your best, my love. That’s on them, not you.” The Hunter looked over at the Chosen One, but didn’t ask him to clarify any of the gibberish Qube had just blurted out.

Squiggles, not understanding anything but that Qube was upset, intertwined herself with Qube’s legs, and hugged as hard as she could. She raised her terrible maw and bit at the world in an act of defiance, her teeth shining.

The Chosen One ran his hand through his hair, looking at his party. Without realising it, they’d all clustered around Qube, and were looking at the Hero.

Waiting.

“It… didn’t quite go according to plan,” he confessed, lowering his hand.