“So anything that heals or helps normal, living people hurts the undead,” the Chosen One explained. Qube waited a beat to see if anyone else would jump in to add to this, but instead everyone else seemed preoccupied with their various tasks.

“But surely the fact that [The Bard’s Ballad] utilises part of my [Heal] already means it should have hurt the pharaoh,” Qube pointed out.

“I dunno about that,” the Chosen One admitted freely. “I don’t know how spells work.”

“Of course!” Qube said. “That’s my role, after all!” She considered forcing the conversation to continue, to hide her ignorance, but instead gathered her courage.

“I don’t really know anything about how spells are made,” she admitted. “But Definitely Bad Guy will hopefully help teach me, so I can learn more and be more useful to the group.”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” the Chosen One said casually. “I don’t expect you to know how the whole system works. After all, you’re more my moral guide than my technical guide, right?”

“I—well—that is to say—” Qube spluttered, “I am supposed to help teach you about things, too.”

“Nah,” the Chosen One said, dismissing one of Qube’s core values with a wave of his hand. “That was back in the village. No one would expect you to know about life outside of the village. After all, had you ever even left that small place before I arrived?”

Once again it was a stark reminder that the Chosen One wasn’t her childhood companion. He didn’t actually know anything about her, or how she’d grown up.

In fact— Qube looked up at the ceiling as a strange idea took hold of her.

She could lie.

She could say that she’d left the village hundreds of times! That she’d been wildly popular, and that she’d even been the village Mayor! None of the others had known her until after she’d met the Chosen One, so they wouldn’t be able to say she wasn’t telling the truth!

A whole new vista of possibilities suddenly opened up before her.

She could be anyone!

She could even say that her name wasn’t originally Qube! That she was named something long and complicated, evocative, yet threatening! Something like Sexy Screamy Spider Lady!

Her heart raced as she contemplated her totally imaginary self.

On the other hand, she was demanding honesty from the other party members, and pretending to be someone as prestigious as the village Mayor would take a toll on her. Especially as the Chosen One had already met Alderman.

With a sigh, Qube gave up her lofty dreams of pretending to be a kingdom-trotting Mayor.

“No,” she said sadly to the Chosen One, “I didn’t ever leave the village before you were Chosen.”

“There you go!” the Chosen One said reassuringly, unaware of the mental journey his conversation partner had just been on. “So it would be unreasonable to expect you to know everything about the outside world!”

“I suppose so,” Qube replied uneasily. In the spirit of honesty, she continued: “but it still feels like I’m supposed to be able to explain everything to you.”

The Chosen One’s neck muscles visibly tightened.

“You’re right, though!” Qube quickly said, trying to soothe his anger. “I just need to learn more so I can help guide you better!”

“That’s not—!” the Chosen One burst out, before visibly pulling himself back. He took a few deep breaths, before continuing in a calmer tone: “if you want to learn things because you like learning things, go ahead. That’s great.” He took another breath, as if carefully trying to navigate his words. “But if it’s because you feel like you have to, to teach me things, then you can tell that feeling to—” he paused again, “—go away,” he finished. “Don’t let yourself be controlled by the urge to help.”

Qube became aware that Sewer Bard and Sexy Screamy Spider Lady were watching their conversation. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady was nodding along to what the Hero was saying, while Sewer Bard…

Sewer Bard was looking at the Chosen One like he’d never really seen him before. The Hero, noticing Qube’s attention had faltered, looked over at the duo.

“I wanted to free the pharaoh,” Sewer Bard said to the Chosen One. Qube frowned slightly, but waited to see where the Bard was going with this.

“I know,” the Chosen One replied carefully.

“Would you have done the same?” the Bard asked. The Chosen One, for once, took the question seriously.

“No,” he replied eventually. Sewer Bard nodded to himself, and started to turn away. “But I think you did the right thing,” the Hero added, stopping the Bard in his tracks. “I would have thought it pointless to try. That he would have just done—” the Chosen One vaguely waved about, indicating the pacing pharaoh and his Mage and sharktopus followers, “—exactly this.”

“So you knew my mission to free the pharaoh from his controls was pointless,” Sewer Bard said flatly.

“I’ve been wrong before,” the Chosen One said lightly. “And discounted, or missed, important chances. So no, I probably wouldn’t have tried exactly what you did. But that doesn’t mean it was pointless.”

Sewer Bard opened his mouth, then closed it again and licked his lips.

“I will not give up,” he said, his tone half asking for permission, half challenging. “I will attempt to free all from the ties that bind them into unnatural action.”

“That’s fair!” the Chosen One replied cheerfully, as his easy acceptance took the wind out of one of his companion’s sails for the second time that day. “And I’ll help clean up the mess afterwards! Deal?”

The Hero held out a hand to the Bard, who looked at it for a long moment, before solemnly shaking it. The Chosen One grinned down at the smaller man, before turning to Qube.

“So,” he said, “back to the undead!”

---

“There’s other stuff as well,” the Chosen One said, looking into the tomb but not crossing the threshold. “Fire tends to not be their friend, but it’s mostly the healing and blessing stuff that really hurts them.”

“But why would [Heal] hurt the undead?” Qube asked, confused. As soon as the Chosen One had told her this fact, she instantly knew that it was true, but she also couldn’t figure out why it was true. “Surely it would just repair them?”

“I dunno,” the Chosen One admitted.

“After all, [Revive] brings people back from the dead, and that is part of the [Heal] family. Wouldn’t [Heal] being painful to the undead and injuring them mean that [Revive] harms corpses, rather than fixing them?”

“The tales say it is because the spirit of Goodness harms the unnatural Evil of the undead,” Sewer Bard offered.

“Are undead intrinsically Evil?” Qube asked, alarmed. “Wait, if you knew this, why did you try and question the pharaoh?”

“Ah,” Sewer Bard said, his eyes widening, “no, my ever-sharp flower, no, I did not know the pharaoh was undead until our Noble Patron informed us just now.”

“I think it has something to do with holy and unholy stuff?” the Chosen One said uncertainly. “But this place doesn’t have gods, does it? Like, not proper ones?”

“There are gods.” Even as she said it, Qube felt uneasy. The Devs were like gods, weren’t they? She knew what gods were, after all. But not in any kind of solid way. It was more like it was something she’d been told at some point, and just remembered. She knew gods helped people out with things when they made Sacred Oaths and stuff like that.

“There are many sagas about Heroes working together with the gods,” Sewer Bard added.

“Sure, what are their names?” the Chosen One asked.

“Um,” Sewer Bard said. “The gods’ names?”

“Yeah, what are the gods named?” The Chosen One was starting to smile.

“They’re named… The Gods,” Sewer Bard answered lamely.

The Chosen One just laughed.

“Gotta love the attention to detail,” he said. “Eyeballs in jars and foam on top of drinks? They got it covered. Names of the gods? No clue.”

“Chosen One, the gods don’t have names,” Qube said, jumping to help Sewer Bard. The Bard gave her a grateful look.

“Who would dare name the gods?” he murmured. “I suspect,” he continued, louder and more confidently, “that the gods are simply the way normal folk understand the Devs.”

The Chosen One stopped laughing.

“Don’t like the thought of that,” he said, pulling a face. “Anyway, something to do with that is why life stuff messes with undead stuff. Something about the undead not being brought back fully, but still moving about.”

“Right,” Qube said dubiously. “We’ll have to ask Definitely Bad Guy about it when he’s finished.” They looked over at the Mage, who was trying to stop Squiggles from knocking over a particularly delicate-looking golden vase.

“It’s nice that they’re finally getting along,” Qube said happily. The Chosen One looked at her out of the side of his eye.

“Sure,” he said, “yeah. That’s a good thing. He’s a good influence to have on a sharktopus. This is a thing we want to encourage.”

Qube nodded thoughtfully. “She’s also a good influence on him,” she noted. “Look at how gentle and patient he’s being with her.” Struck by the truth of this statement, the Chosen One looked back at the Mage and mascot.

“Redemption by sharktopus?” he murmured. “Who would have thought?”

“When you have all quite finished with your little chat,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady interrupted, “I would like to remind you that we have a tyrant to kill.”

Qube gulped as she was reminded of her duty.

“I think the seal is key,” she said to the group. “The desert dwellers said in their poem that if we reinforced the seal, the pharaoh would be crushed. So, if we get the pharaoh to go back into his sarcophagus, and then use the dagger to complete the seal, he should be destroyed and we won’t have to worry about him taking over the kingdom.”

“And how should we do that?’ the Chosen One asked, interested.

Qube licked suddenly dry lips.

“Well,” she said, “it’s going to require a lot of planning. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady and Sewer Bard, I’m going to need both of you to use all your diplomatic wiles to get the pharaoh to go back into his sarcophagus. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady can use her romance on him, and Sewer Bard can continue acting like he’s the pharaoh’s friend.”

Qube tried to stop her rapid breathing.

“I know I’m asking a lot of both of you, to deceive someone in such a terrible way—”

“No trouble at all, my heart,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said easily, running a claw through her hair.

“Consider it done, fair maiden,” Sewer Bard said with a bow.

“Oh.” Qube was moved by the bravery of her companions. Also mildly disturbed by their ease of lying. It was for a worthy cause, though, which was saving the kingdom, so that made it Good.

Right?

“Meanwhile, Definitely Bad Guy will restore the seals, or quickly find some way to weaken the support structure of the tomb.” This was the part Qube was less certain about. But the Temples never really locked them out of a choice, they would only ever try and trick the party into thinking that. She just had to believe that the Temples acted as guardians in good faith, and would try and help them do whatever was best for everyone.

It just so happened that in this case it involved freeing, re-capturing, and killing a pharaoh.

“I’ll also ask Squiggles to take any items that Definitely Bad Guy says are of any worth,” Qube added, which made the Chosen One grin in appreciation. Qube deliberately took a deep breath, trying to keep her heart rate under control. She would need to find some way to tell their parts of the plan to the other two discreetly.

“Then, if anything goes wrong when everyone else tries to leave the tomb, I’ll use [Heal] on the pharaoh to stun him in place. Once everyone is out, Chosen One, I’ll need you to use the dagger to complete the seal.”

“Sounds like a plan,” the Chosen One said, and with a mental thud Qube realised that he was being supportive of her, and encouraging her leadership. She gave him a watery smile as tears suddenly welled up in her eyes.

“All right,” she said, stuffing her emotions back down. “Let’s begin!”