Qube eyed Zincy with growing suspicion. Qube knew how long it took to write. She'd witnessed Alderman crouched over his books, his quill hovering back and forth over a single page for days at a time before a single line would suddenly appear. And Alderman was the wisest village elder in the village! There was simply no way someone could whip up a letter that fast.

However, the Chosen One, having a much more innocent and naive view of literature, seemed unfazed by this clear trickery. This was exactly why he needed Qube around to guide him! The Hero never had spent much time with Alderman, and so was simply less experienced in the world of literature that had tipped the much more worldly Qube off.

“Chosen One,” Qube whispered to the Hero as he did an about face from Zincy and marched right back to Slate, “there is something very suspicious about that Zincy.”

The Chosen One looked at her in surprise. “I wouldn’t have thought your hint system would still be active,” he said. “Or is this a logic thing you’ve figured out?”

Qube wasn’t sure why, but she felt vaguely insulted. She also wasn’t entirely sure what he meant.

“I have good reason,” she started to say, when the Chosen One turned to the other party members.

“Hey, any weird vibes from the metal chick?” he loudly asked. The group all looked at each other, then around. Sure enough, over next to one of the steam vents, there was a small metal chicken pecking at the air above the street. Was that what he meant by chick? Qube examined the chick carefully, looking for signs of weird ‘vibes’.

“Like all women, I believe she should be treated with delicate and loving respect,” Sewer Bard said stiffly.

“If you wish, I can try to take her apart and see what we can discover,” Definitely Bad Guy shrugged.

“My Dear, are your sweet Healer and I going to have to get jealous?” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady shot the Chosen One a smouldering look.

It seemed that, rather than admitting none of them knew quite what the Chosen One meant, they’d all fallen back on their standard responses. Qube struggled to try and think of a reply that expressed the strange thoughts whirling in her head. The Chosen One seemed to have nearly lost interest, given the party’s generic responses.

“Huh, probably nothing then,” he started to say.

“Don’t touch the chickens, Chosen One! If you do, you’ll be reminded of your place in the ‘pecking order’, tee hee!” she managed. She shook her head. Why had that popped up? The Chosen One would never be foolish enough to mess with chickens, even a strange metal one. Everyone knew what happened to you when you hurt a village chicken. A brief memory of the Chosen One being chased up and down the main street, pursued by vengeful fowl, flashed through her mind’s eye.

That had been long before the Chosen One had been Awoken by the Golden Prophecy. Back when they had been Children Friends, rather than Childhood Companions. He’d been so different back then, so carefree, always living within an acceptable risk limit. There’d been no standing on bonfires, throwing her into the sky, or using her to (maybe?) rob shopkeepers.

But then it was to be expected that changing from a Potential Chosen One to the actual Chosen One would affect him. Qube just hadn’t thought it would be so drastic. The sheer confusion he was looking at her with was pretty priceless, though. Then his confusion melted away into an expression of unholy glee and she had to stop herself from groaning.

“Wait, you’re saying messing with chickens does something?” he started to say, before accidentally walking into Slate. The giant Rockie took a couple of steps away, forced back by the Chosen One’s proximity.

“Did you give her my letter?” Slate asked eagerly. He waited a beat before continuing, “I can’t believe it, that a girl like her is willing to talk to a guy like me.” The letter Zincy had written flickered in front of the Chosen One for a brief moment. Slate pulled an identical looking letter out of thin air and thrust it towards the group. “Here, take this back to her. I need to make sure she knows what she’s getting in for, with a guy like me.”

There was definitely no way that he had been able to read and reply to Zincy’s letter! Qube was willing to concede that maybe, maybe Zincy had written a letter declaring her love for Slate, and had merely been waiting for confirmation that he was interested before sending it, but there was no conceivable way Slate could have made a personalised reply to a letter he hadn’t had a chance to even see.

No, there was something fishy going on here. Qube didn’t know what game these two were playing, but she didn’t appreciate them wasting the Chosen One’s valuable time. Sure, he was currently trying to circle around Slate for some reason and she was reasonably certain they weren’t going to be allowed to leave this place until they’d visited every shop, but the point remained that his (and, by proxy, Qube’s) time was extremely precious.

At least Slate seemed to have a modicum of respect for the Chosen One. Every time the Chosen One got too close, the Rockie would take a step or two back in order to keep the appropriate amount of distance between them. It was very rare that anyone ever crowded the Chosen One. Instead, they would just stare unblinkingly at him whenever he got within exactly thirty feet of them.

Although… why was the Chosen One slowly but continuously walking towards Slate? He’d circled around the Rockie, so Slate’s back was to the plaza (and he had been made to stop staring wistfully at Zincy), but the way he kept advancing on Slate was forcing him towards the open space and Zincy herself. It was almost as if —

“Chosen One, are you herding Slate?” Qube asked incredulously.

The Chosen One, Saviour of all Human and Human Adjacent Beings, was using the social pressure to keep a respectful distance from the Hero to slowly force Slate across the plaza and into place next to Zincy.

“Traveller!” Zincy cried, ignoring her loverlorn suitor standing next to her. “Did he read it? Did he accept my feelings in return? Oh, I am aquiver with anticipation!”

Once again a letter flashed in front of the Chosen One, only for Zincy to mime taking it and holding her hands to her chest.

“Oh! He says that he wants to marry me, but fears that the divide between our two families is too great and so we will be unable to be together! Oh, Traveller, please, bring him my answer!”

The Chosen One turned to Slate. Who was standing so close to Zincy that they were practically touching. Slate’s hands rose and fell, a flicker of white appearing in them.

“She accepted! A guy like me! Traveller, you have to give her my letter! We’ll meet at the plaza tonight and run away —”

The Chosen One pivoted on his heel and faced Zincy.

“He wants to elope with me! Oh Traveller, we never could have — ”

The Chosen One turned.

“She agreed! Please come see us off tonight, for good luck —”

Turn.

“I can’t wait to start a family together — “

“What is wrong with these two?” Qube finally couldn’t contain herself anymore. Knowing that they couldn’t see her, she gestured at the two lovers standing side by side.

“I think it’s lovely that these two crazy kids want to get hitched and dedicate their entire lives to their mutual passion,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said, almost defiantly.

“Any fair maiden, be she metal, wood, or flesh, deserves the right to pursue her heart’s desire,” Sewer Bard also said. While he still wasn’t able to exactly look at Qube, clearly he was getting better at hearing her. Hopefully that meant that when Qube [Heal]ed him, he wouldn’t have such an alarming reaction as the others. Maybe she should leave him a little longer, see if it was possible for someone to overcome the curse just by being in her presence long enough. But also —

“That’s not the point,” Qube almost squeaked in frustration. “They are right next to each other! Why are they wasting the Chosen One’s time with this letter nonsense? Even if they don’t know exactly who he is, they should know that people have more important things to do than run back and forth across a plaza delivering fake letters! And yes, I know they’re fake!” she snapped at the unhearing rock and metal constructs. “It’s simply impossible for you two to have written them! Even with magical assistance, Alderman couldn’t have read or written so fast! And all he did was read and write! I don’t know what scheme you two are playing at, but this kind of deception is starting to seem pretty Evil to me!”

Qube stopped, panting from the effort of her rant. The other three companions were staring at her in shock, while the Chosen One… The Chosen One was crouched, holding his sides as he gasped with laughter.

“Oh, that was beautiful!” he cried. “Man, I want to unleash you on the internet. That would be amazing to witness.” He stood up, wiping tears from his eyes then pulling Qube into a hug.

“I’ve never been happier with a glitch in my entire life,” he declared. “You are the gift that keeps on giving.”

Qube went bright red, and hugged the Chosen One back. Definitely Bad Guy glared at the Hero, the Mage’s tattooed hands suddenly wreathed in flame. Sewer Bard and Sexy Screamy Spider Lady looked at each other before both of them shrugged (it took Sexy Screamy Spider Lady a lot longer to shrug than Sewer Bard) and joined in on the hug.

Qube wasn’t exactly sure what a glitch was, but she did know that this squishy hug with far too many arms was one of the happiest moments in her life. Even the two love-struck morons making googly eyes at each other in front of the group hug couldn't ruin this.

“Why did you two join in? Argh, I can feel her fur-spine-things rubbing against me!” The Chosen One flailed about wildly, pulling himself free of their touching bonding moment. “Anyway,” he said, once he had gotten loose from the hug and brushed himself off, “we’ll come back to get the reward from these two tonight.”

“How do you know that they will give you a reward? And they are clearly Evil! It could be a trap!” Qube exclaimed.

The Chosen One stretched his hands over his head as they walked away from the plaza, leaving Zincy and Slate looking each other directly in the face and giving obnoxiously loud sighs.

“Meh, there’s always some kind of reward with social quests like that,” he explained. Even from a street away, Qube could still hear the pair of them sighing at each other. “Sometimes it’s something good, but given how easy that was, it’ll probably just be some trash-tier trinket. Still, loot is loot,” he grinned down at her. “And even here I gotta live up to my motto, y’know?”

“...No,” Qube admitted.

The Chosen One’s grin widened. “I know; that’s why it’s so much fun,” he said. Qube narrowed her eyes at him, which only made him laugh. “Now, come on; it’s time to go shopping!” he crowed, stopping in front of a large storefront with a stylised image of a sword etched onto a slab of rock above the door.

“Halt, Traveller!” an authoritative voice came from a metal tube in the middle of the store’s door. “Before you may peruse my wares, you first must prove yourself to me by solving this riddle!”

“Oh [fiddle],” the Chosen One groaned.

“My goods are too powerful for the common bandit, so to set a bar must be my mandate!” the voice squawked.

The Chosen One rested his forehead against the stone door and sighed.

“I’m going to burn this whole place down,” he said miserably.

“It would make a good next verse for my epic saga!” Sewer Bard said cheerfully.

“I’m always in favour of heating things up,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady mused.

The fireballs in Definitely Bad Guy’s hands reignited. “I would be very interested to find out the melting point of constructs,” he said, his eyes bright red.

Well, Qube supposed, at least this would make shopping more interesting. Maybe she would get a chance to show the Chosen One how quickly she could solve the riddles now!

After all, Qube liked puzzles.