Silver: Chapter 175

Book Three Chapter Thirty Nine: TT_Stretch_Effects

Having declared themselves leaders of their own lives, the group stood around for a bit, trying to figure out what they should do. It didn’t seem right, somehow, going immediately from such a dramatic break up and discovery about the timeline of their world, to rummaging around another drawer.

Predictably, the Chosen One broke the moment.

“So, you guys don’t feel like you’re being controlled anymore?” he asked.

“Only sometimes,” Briar said. The Hunter gave a small smile. “But I can always tell when it tries to force me back on track.”

“I am not sure,” Definitely Bad Guy said, looking off to the side. “I will need to do an inventory of myself, and see if I can detect any outside influence. Given the Evil Emperor has laid a curse over me, I must also catalogue my actions to see if he could be manipulating me through them. Other influences,” he paused, and cleared his throat, twin spots of pink appearing on his cheeks, “will also have to be accounted for, and controlled.”

“I don’t think I’m being controlled by the Golden Prophecy anymore,” Qube said, wracking her memories to try and recall when she’d last felt the punishment dealt out by the rigid text. “I don’t think I’ve had a headache or anything like that in quite some time.”

“The way you guys’re talking about it makes it sound like it was really painful,” the Chosen One said, worried.

“Well, yes, sometimes it felt like my brain was on fire, but it needed to do that to help guide us!” Qube said, giving the Hero a reassuring pat on the shoulder. He didn’t look reassured.

“It wasn’t the fun kind of pain,” Briar mused. “Not my sort of thing at all.”

“What about you, Sencha Bard?” Qube asked, looking at the surprisingly quiet Bard. “Is the Golden Prophecy still bothering you?”

The Bard drew in a breath.

“There’s something we should consider,” he said, not answering the question. “While we’re all familiar with the punishing side of the Golden Prophecy, we must also be aware of how it rewards us to also shape our behaviour. Have none of you ever felt a rush of pleasure at doing something you know it wants?”

“I—” Qube had been about to refute the suggestion out of hand, when she forced herself to stop and think about it. “How would we tell?”

“Have you ever felt an intense rush of pleasure, fair Healer? Something that seemed out of the ordinary, far more powerful than the situation called for?”

“No,” Qube said, thrown off by the Bard’s intensity. “I mean, yes, I’ve felt happy before, but not in the way you’re talking about.”

“Is that how the Golden Prophecy has manifested for you?” Definitely Bad Guy asked, narrowly observing Sencha Bard. “I have felt such intensity before, but I had not considered it to — that is to say, I had not attributed the source to the Golden Prophecy.”

For some reason the Mage’s response amused the Bard, breaking him out of his serious mood a little.

“There are other reasons for intense emotion, former advisor,” he said wisely, sneaking a glance at a confused Qube. A small smirk played across his lips as Definitely Bad Guy started blushing. The Bard looked at Briar, who shrugged.

“My pleasures are my own,” she said. “But I shall certainly keep an eye out to look for undue influence the next time I get overly excited.”

Sencha Bard looked at Briar. He’d been watching her ever since she’d broken up with the Chosen One, sneaking glances at her, or just straight up staring. Was he hoping that he’d have a chance with her now that she was single? But he didn’t look like he was thinking of romance.

Not that Qube apparently knew what “thinking about romance” looked like. It had turned out that Qube knew a lot less about romance than she’d thought. Definitely Bad Guy’s passionate declaration of protection of her had not, as she’d so firmly believed, been a result of him instantly falling in love with her at first sight. Chalk that one up to her being misled by the few romance stories she’d managed to read from the village library.

Which meant that all his subsequent behaviours that she’d categorised as romance (getting jealous of the Chosen One, blushing a lot, trying to talk to her one-on-one) were all just him trying to get to know someone he viewed as his master’s lover or to stop others from making her fall out of love with the Evil Emperor.

She felt two conflicting emotions emerge within her as she realised how badly she’d misinterpreted the Mage’s intentions. The first was embarrassment that she had assumed someone was desperately in love with her. Fortunately she’d never told anyone her thoughts on the matter, so no one would ever know that she’d thought the Mage Advisor was little more than a love-sick puppy.

The second emotion was an easing of an odd feeling of pressure in her heart that she hadn’t even noticed. He wasn’t in love with her. He didn’t expect her to run away with him after they’d saved the world, or do any of that romantic stuff the Hunter had told her about. He wasn’t waiting for her to answer his declaration, or give him her hand in marriage, or die during childbirth, or whatever it was couples did. There were no expectations.

It felt wonderful, to be free of even one of the expectations placed upon her.

There was the fact that he had, in an alternative timeline, sworn his loyalty to her and her alone, but that a) technically hadn’t happened and b) was probably not romantic. Having accidentally thought Definitely Bad Guy had feelings for her for pretty much the entire time she’d known him, Qube wasn’t about to fall back into the same trap.

Given Definitely Bad Guy couldn’t remember his declaration of loyalty, she couldn’t exactly ask him what his thoughts had been, but once he’d fully come to terms with his freedom from the Evil Emperor, she expected he would explain where he’d ended up, loyalty-wise.

The subject of her intense thoughts was oblivious to her scrutiny. Instead, he’d caught the eye of Sencha Bard, who subtly nodded at Briar, then tilted his head at the Mage questioningly. Definitely Bad Guy examined Briar who, to show there were no hard feelings about their break up, was accompanying the Chosen One as he searched the walls for another red-gemmed drawer. Squiggles was helping.

The Mage gave a single, slow nod as he watched the arachnid.

“Why are you watching her?” Qube whispered to the two men, not wanting to assume their intentions. They froze, and looked guilty.

“Look, my love, over there!” Briar said, sashaying over to a red gem on the bottom-most drawer off in the corner. The Hunter threw a look over her shoulder at Sencha Bard. “I believe this is yours, sir,” she said demurely, peeking at him from under her eyelashes.

The Chosen One was unusually quiet as the trio approached. For all his understanding words to Briar, he had obviously been affected by it. Qube would have to wait until they had a bit of privacy, and offer him her emotional support. She’d never had a friend be broken up with before, so she wasn’t quite sure what the etiquette was, but she was already considering how she could co-opt Squiggles into giving the broken-hearted Hero lots of hugs.

However, it was Definitely Bad Guy that the Chosen One was watching as they clustered around the drawer. He glanced over at where “The Mage” urn’s alcove was still visible. Harsh lines appeared briefly on the Hero’s face, before disappearing as he returned to his normal amiable expression as they reached the wall, only his fingers drumming against his sword hilt betraying any agitation.

Sure enough, the drawer had a small red gem and said “The Bard”, although its inconvenient placing meant everyone had to stoop to read it.

“Interesting,” Definitely Bad Guy said. “We have had two memories and one future sight. I would be interested to see what it believes the future has in store for you,” he said, nodding at the Bard. Sencha Bard returned a rather grim smile.

“As would I,” he replied.

“Before we hit this drawer, I just gotta go outside real quick,” the Hero said, suddenly decisive. “I just gotta go check something. You lot wait here.” He turned and strode out of the Temple.

Naturally, Qube followed him.

It turned out the mausoleum was deceptively long. Qube didn’t realise just how deep into it they’d gone until she was hurrying to try and catch up with the Chosen One before she left. She’d originally thought it was just a simple, rectangular room, but it seemed to have expanded as they’d travelled down the walls looking for drawers. The coffin in the centre of the room that she’d been using as a marker was also longer than she’d thought, creating a strange distortion in her sense of scale.

“Chosen One,” she said as she reached his side. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure if anything is wrong,” he said as they passed through the shadowy doorway. Qube felt her stomach lurch as they were teleported outside the mausoleum and into the cemetery. The Chosen One started heading towards the Save Point, but Qube put a hand on his arm.

“Please trust me,” she said simply. “Even if I can’t help you, I’d still like to know what’s going on.”

The Hero stood completely still, indecision evident. He glanced back at the doorway they’d come through, then at the Save Point next to him.

“I’m trying to decide if the Devs are idiots or not,” he said abruptly.

That was not what Qube had been expecting.

“Look, I’m not supposed to tell you this,” he said to her. “But they know certain things are going to happen. Not everything, obviously, but things like that curse? There’s no way they wouldn’t know about that. Which means,” he continued heavily, “that they either forgot to tell me about it, or just assumed I would find some way around it and didn’t bother to let me know it was coming.”

None of this was news to Qube. Of course the Devs knew of big events — that was how the Golden Prophecy worked.

“Maybe they don’t know everything about the Evil Emperor,” she said. “After all, if everyone's so sure that, no matter what, he was going to kill Definitely Bad Guy, then doesn’t that indicate that it was part of his Dark Prophecy? Isn’t that controlled by the Evil Devs?” She tapped her lips with a finger. “Ah, I see what you mean,” she mused. “Since the Evil Emperor knew about our prophecy, then the Devs should have known about his. Would they be allowed to warn us about what was on his prophecy, though?”

The Chosen One was staring at her, utter confusion writ large on his face.

“What on earth are you talking about?” he asked, not in an accusatory manner, but rather in total bewilderment.

She looked back at him, now also confused.

“Which part?” she asked.

“The Dark Prophecy and Evil Devs parts,” he replied.

“The… well, all right, yes, the Dark Prophecy is more of a theory I have,” Qube confessed. “Basically, the Evil Emperor kept going on about how our prophecy was false, remember?” The Hero nodded. “Well, I was thinking, what makes him so confident that our Golden Prophecy was false? The most logical explanation is if he has his own prophecy that he’s working off. I tried asking Definitely Bad Guy about it, but he didn’t know whether or not there was one, so there’s not exactly a lot of evidence for my theory, but I feel like he has to be working off of something.”

“You asked Definitely Bad Guy about this…” the Chosen One echoed faintly.

“Of course!” Qube chirruped. “After all, he was the Mage Advisor, and presumably would be in the castle a lot, as well as potentially advising the Evil Emperor on prophecy-related matters, so it would make sense that he’d know about it.”

“Makes sense,” the Hero said, looking bewildered. “When… I mean, that is… when did you first come up with this theory?”

“Oh, pretty soon after we left the village,” Qube said, flinching away from the thoughts of that time.

“That early?” The Chosen One looked rather pale. “You were making theories like that right after the village. And you didn’t mention it to me?”

“I didn’t want to talk to you about it until I was sure, you see,” Qube said.

“Sure,” the Chosen One said, before abruptly sitting on the ground. “I… just give me a minute.”

Qube sat down next to him on the steps outside the vault of the dead.

“Of course, Chosen One,” she said. “Do you need healing?”

“No,” he replied. “Just need to think.”

They sat in silence for quite some time. Qube had to fight the urge to fidget. She wasn’t sure when the others would start wondering what had happened to them, and come out to check on the pair. The Hero buried his head in his hands, his fingers tousling his hair as he stared at the ground. Suddenly, he looked up, and stared at Qube.

“Wait, what do you mean Evil Devs?”