The dagger slammed home into the pharaoh’s chest. Qube had expected there to be some sort of resistance, but instead the dagger slid through the gold-painted flesh easily. She felt sick. She had no time to think about what she’d just done, though. She had to concentrate.

The blade required sacrifice.

Qube brought up her hand and sliced her palm along the edge of the blade, cutting deep. The crown slid down her arm and touched her wrist.

Magic flared.

There was power beyond their world. Something she’d witnessed before, if only in glimpses. She felt like the numbers she sometimes saw were a way of her mind trying to comprehend that power. She’d seen it when the Chosen One had interacted with the Save Point while she’d been touching him. In the Air Temple, where she’d used the information the Temple had hidden in the feathers to elevate the lion into both griffin and bird.

She didn’t understand what it was. Not in any solid way. Not yet. Perhaps she’d looked into the realm of the Devs, set foot in the threshold between her world and theirs and borrowed just a slice of their power.

However, even though she couldn’t comprehend it, she knew it was there. She knew she could use it to fix things, to see more, to go beyond her own limits. Perhaps her ability to access this space, even just a little, was part of what made her [Heal] so special, and what caused people to react so strongly to it.

She didn’t know how to easily invoke that realm. But the Temple artefacts and the Save Points were her best bets.

So she would use the tools of the Temples to prove her worthiness.

The dagger cut deeper into her hand, a sensation like lightning sparking down her arm. She could sense the numbers; they were there but insubstantial, like spots after she stared at the suns for too long. She couldn’t access them.

She pushed the dagger harder. The pharaoh was still, his unmoving mask gazing at her, expressionless as always.

He wasn’t bleeding. Neither was she.

He was already dead. But why wasn’t she bleeding?

He was undead, so he shouldn’t bleed. But she should be bleeding. Was she also undead? No, then she wouldn’t be able to use healing spells. Her heart was racing as her mind refused to function. All she could see was the dagger sticking out of his chest, the dagger she’d thrust into him, the tool she had killed him with. Re-killed. Un-killed?

Desperate now, she grabbed the pharaoh’s slack hand with her own cut one, and pressed them both against the dagger. She rested her forehead against his mask, and stared into his painted eyes.

She had to fix this. She had to fix him. She had to find the peaceful option, and save them all!

“[Revive],” she whispered, and the balance of the world shifted.

Connected through the dagger, crown, and cut, she saw equations flare around the pharaoh as she once again stepped into a world beyond her own, and felt the power of change course through her.

But whereas the lion had been connected to two trees, both of equal size and beauty, the pharaoh had only one fully formed branch. The second path was a blackened stump.

There was nowhere she could take him. Nothing new she could give him. There were no missing pieces in the dagger, nothing beyond the veil but death.

She could see where he’d been unanchored by first [The Bard’s Ballad] and then her [Revive], his connections to both paths corrupted. The strict flow of the pharaoh’s self, for lack of a better way to describe it, had been loosened, and even now she could see him slowly spilling out from both paths and falling through the cracks to something beneath. But she couldn’t see any way to elevate him beyond the fate of a tyrant, or death.

She grabbed at the shape of the pharaoh and tried to pull him up to a midway point, like she had with the lion, but there just wasn’t enough information to create another option. There weren't enough numbers, or mana, or Dev power, or whatever it was she was using. It was all too set in stone.

This was what defeat looked like. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t solve the final Temple puzzle, and find some way to make sure everyone was happy. Both of these paths were —

Again. She’d nearly fallen for the same trap again.

Trembling with excitement, she reached out to where the pharaoh’s connections to his two paths were at their weakest. Where her ability, however it worked, had damaged his rigid adherence to his own ways and, if they’d had the luxury of time, might have eventually allowed him to be something else.

If both of his options lead to death, then she would remove them.

She swept her hand through the tethers, severing them. The digits flared, the equations rioted, and the being before her that had once been the pharaoh shuddered.

Those two paths, tyranny or death, dissolved, revealing a network of numbers underneath them. The numbers were spread out like a massive spiderweb, incomprehensibly huge and interconnected, congregating in hubs that then webbed out again and again, layers upon layers of cross-referencing and connection constantly feeding into each other.

The closest webs to where the linear paths had been latched onto the pharaoh. Words and numbers flashed, names of spells, places, ‘player disposition’, all drawn from the nearest hubs, frantically scrambling to fill the void she’d deliberately created.

He had no set route now. Only potential.

She’d done it. She’d saved him. Disconnected from the two paths that controlled him, he would be free of his hate-filled past, and predetermined future. She watched as the numbers blurred, and the former pharaoh was —

A hand grabbed her shoulder, and yanked her away from her embrace with the pharaoh. The Chosen One spun her around to face him.

“What are you doing?” the Chosen One shouted, and she heard genuine panic in his voice. “Why did you cut yourself? What did you do to him?”

Violently pulled out of the world of numbers, Qube swayed on her feet, trying to reorient herself.

“I saved him,” she slurred. She heard a clatter behind her as two objects hit the floor.

“Grab those,” the Chosen One ordered someone. Qube started to turn to see what had happened to the pharaoh, but the Chosen One held onto her shoulders, forcing her to continue looking at him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes searching her face.

She blinked at him. It still felt like she was a long, long way away from them, but she was slowly coming back.

“I… think I will be,” she answered eventually.

“Okay,” the Chosen One said, as she mechanically noted that he was breathing extremely quickly. “Okay, good, yes. You’ll be okay. Stay with me, okay?”

“I’m right here,” she answered. Her mind still felt sluggish, but she was rapidly returning to normal. “Don’t worry, I won’t be going anywhere.”

“Welcome to SandBright Desert,” a voice rasped from behind her. She broke away from the Chosen One and turned to see the pharaoh on one knee, his hand shading his painted-on eyes as if from a non-existent sun or wind.

He also, incidentally, still had the dagger sticking out of his chest.

“You’ll want to stay low, green-lover,” he rumbled, tilting his head up at the ceiling of the tomb and then wiping imaginary sweat off his helmet-clad brow. “Helps stop the sand getting in your eyes.”

“That’s not how sand works,” the Chosen One said, diverted from his examination of Qube. “Also, green-lover? I have so many questions.”

“How about I tell you how things work here?” the pharaoh practically growled. “Come on, I’ll take you to meet the Akela. Stick close to me; sandstorms can spring up any moment.”

The frown on the Chosen One’s face abruptly cleared.

“Oh,” he said, as if enlightened. He looked at the pharaoh, then back at Qube. “How on earth did you manage that?” he asked her.

“I erased his paths,” she explained incoherently.

“Erased his paths? Like his character subclass?” The Chosen One, still with a hand on Qube’s shoulder, resumed his study of the pharaoh. “Oh, wait, hang on, they mentioned this with the big cat thing. Superclass? No, that sounds stupid.” Releasing Qube, he rubbed his forehead.

“Oh man, I really should have made them actually explain that better,” he muttered. “The dagger description said it could cut through any resistance. Were they actually stupid enough to—? No, but that doesn’t make any sense. Hang on. Okay, they’re definitely going to have to hear about all of this. Oh man, they’re going to freak out. I don’t know if I can deal with that tonight. Maybe tomorrow? No. This weekend. I’ll do the report then. I straight up can’t handle anything more before the weekend.”

Qube now felt fully present.

“I freed him from his pain,” she said softly. “I erased his connections to vengeance and death, and used [Revive] to bring him back from the realm of the undead. I have given him a new beginning. Perhaps he’s returned to who he was before he became pharaoh. Or who he could have been, had his path not taken such a dark turn.”

“Yeaaah,” the Chosen One said slowly, “let’s go with that. It’s kinda accurate. I think.”

Unheeding of the conversation involving him, the pharaoh, still crouched low to the ground, shuffled out of the tomb and into the scales room, where a portal had appeared. The pharaoh ignored everyone and everything in the room and shuffled to a corner where he stood, facing away from everyone, patiently waiting for them to follow.

The Chosen One followed him.

“So why green-lover?” he asked the pharaoh.

“You soft lot always love green things like grass and leaves,” the pharaoh said with a husky laugh.

“So Akela, are they the leader of the desert folk?” the Chosen One asked the pharaoh.

“She is the wise leader of the SandBrights, her mind polished to diamond by the coarse passage of a thousand sandstorms,” the pharaoh replied with a sneer.

“So she’s your leader?” the Chosen One asked, nodding to himself.

“The desert suns have no time for such obvious questions,” the pharaoh said, his sneer deepening. “Come, let’s find some shade.” He shuffled off to another corner.

The Chosen One turned and looked at Qube.

“Well,” he said, miming dusting off his hands. “Mystery solved!” He started towards the tomb’s treasures then paused. “Oh yeah, you got any theories about how you managed to do any of this?” he asked the half-elf.

“Of course!” Qube said with desperate cheerfulness. “Um, just give me a minute!”

“Sure thing!” the Chosen One said, clapping her on the back and causing her to stagger slightly. “Go hang out with Goldilocks over there while you think of one!”

As the Chosen One started poring over all the items in the tomb, Qube timidly approached the pharaoh, who had stopped in another corner and crouched on the ground.

“Um,” she said, not quite knowing how to start. “Sorry about stabbing you,” she offered. The pharaoh looked down at his chest, and seemed surprised to see a dagger’s hilt sticking out of it.

“That doesn’t look right,” he said, puzzled.

“Should I just… take care of that for you?” Qube hesitantly reached for the dagger.

“We don’t have time for games,” the pharaoh brushed her off before she could de-dagger him, and crab-walked over to another corner.

“What about your quest for vengeance?”

Qube jumped as Sewer Bard asked the question from right behind her. The pharaoh stopped mid-shuffle, and looked at the Bard.

“If you can reinforce the seal, and end any possibility of vengeance, then we shall owe you a great debt. And the SandBright people honour their debts,” he said, before continuing his shuffle.

“I like him better now,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said, watching the once-ruler crab-walk away. “Much more agreeable. Good job, my sweetling.” She patted Qube on the back.

Qube put her head in her hands.