The world dissolved into numbers around her. She had to master this spell. She had to send it to the castle. She wrestled with the terrifying power that was within her, a storm of equations that made her head ache just to look at.

The Grand Working was supposed to go to the castle. It was designed to nullify the magical shield around the dungeon. It should want to go to the castle.

She shouldn’t have had to do this. It should have been Definitely Bad Guy casting this spell to save the king and queen, not being forced to use it on himself.

They shouldn’t have had to fight the guardian. The guardian shouldn’t have had to sacrifice itself.

The Devs shouldn’t have made Sorcerer Sara look like someone the Chosen One knew.

It shouldn’t have been this way.

Should, shouldn’t, should, shouldn’t.

The world was made up of endless rules, all being broken one at a time. She was breaking apart. She’d gone too far, too deep into this realm. She had to get out.

She tried to direct the spell towards the castle, towards the shield, but it pulled fragments of her along with it. It was just like in her dream in the Light Temple, only sometimes the numbers swapped between digits and images. She was shattering, being pulled into a thousand pieces. She needed something to ground herself, something to hold on to.

Nothing was like it should have been.

She was so angry.

The rage drove her. Anger at the Head Mage, anger at the guardian, anger at the Evil Emperor, anger that the Chosen One had a life she knew nothing about, that she didn’t want to know anything about, but was being forced to learn about anyway.

It was like a terrible pressure in her head, mixing with the tiredness she’d felt ever since the cushion show in that tower, pressing down on her thoughts and flattening them.

The anger helped her control the spell, as it flew towards the shield, where a giant 0 flipped to a 1, and a million equations spilled out from that change like a box full of ribbons. She sank into the rage, using it to stabilise herself, the numbers fading as the world around her took on the hazy forms of reality.

She could sense the Evil Emperor was nearby, and that he was disturbed by the sudden drain of power as the shield went down.

She could feel the pull of the empty space beside his throne, the void that called to her.

But it wasn’t a void. Not any more.

A reflection of Qube flickered into existence within that tear in the fabric of reality, distorted and ugly, with dead white hair and a lethal gash across its neck.

She’d seen that visage before, back in the village, when she’d nearly lost herself to grief.

As the anger roiled with Qube the reflection stopped flickering and grew more solid. It turned and looked at her, at the endless numbers streaming out of her, twisting and turning.

The reflection reached out and, feather-light, brushed a finger against one of the streams of numbers connected to Qube. The not-Qube looked up, and from across the vast expanse, Qube saw its expression.

Sheer, naked hatred.

Qube jolted as she came back to herself still sitting on the floor of the final Wizard’s Tower. Her entire mana pool was empty, and she wanted to either throw up or cry. Possibly both.

“Did it work?” Definitely Bad Guy asked her, looking down at her from where he was standing.

“I think so,” Qube said, rather dazed. She still felt the aftershock of that momentary connection to her other self, and the raw emotion reflected therein. To think that such a being was lurking in that other space. She didn’t know what to make of it. “Did yours?”

“I believe it did,” Definitely Bad Guy said cautiously, patting at his chest. There was no sign of the awful blue colour that had been spreading before, but it was clear that there had been some kind of damage done. His normally red tattoos were streaked through with white still, and there was a faint blue tinge to the rims of his eyes and the edges of his hair.

“Oh, good,” Qube said, and collapsed. Definitely Bad Guy immediately crouched down next to her, alarmed.

“Are you all right?” the Chosen One asked, hurrying over to where she was lying on her back on the floor. Qube gave him a thumbs up.

“I’m fine, Chosen One,” she said weakly. “Just really, really tired. Can we please go find somewhere safe to sleep?”

“Sure thing, my favourite student,” the Chosen One said, scooping Qube up off the floor into his arms and smiling down at her. Qube narrowed her eyes at him and Definitely Bad Guy rose up from his crouch.

“Definitely Bad Guy, please kick the Chosen One for me,” she requested with awful dignity.

“I see you have chosen your path, Apprentice,” the Head Mage interrupted before the Mage could follow out Qube’s very reasonable orders. Definitely Bad Guy’s face seemed to shutter closed, all traces of humanity wiped from his expression.

“Indeed,” he replied.

“May it bring you what you desire,” the Head Mage said, in a tone of voice that implied he very much expected the opposite to happen. “I shall leave you with your companion, then. When you have discussed everything you need to, meet me back in my Wizard’s Tower.”

With that, the Head Mage swept out of the room, his robe trailing behind him as it dragged along the floor. Qube struggled slightly, and the Chosen One carefully placed her back on her feet.

“Chosen One, there is something I must confess to you,” Definitely Bad Guy said suddenly. He still looked remote, and slightly inhuman, as he stared intently at some space just to the left of the Hero’s head. “There is something you do not know about me. A terrible secret. Something that I have struggled with for some time.”

“What, that you’re secretly a double agent for the Evil Emperor? Yeah, we all know that, pick something more interesting to confess to,” the Chosen One scoffed, waving a hand.

“Chosen One! Don’t be so rude!” Qube scolded him. Really, interrupting Definitely Bad Guy with a joke in such poor taste when the Mage was in the middle of saying something serious! The Mage looked at the Hero, no doubt stunned into silence by his awful joke. Qube expected the Mage to spontaneously combust, or scowl, or any of the other things he tended to do when upset.

Instead, Definitely Bad Guy started to laugh.

“Of course!” the Mage said, still laughing. “Of course that would be your response!”

The Chosen One started laughing too. Even Qube giggled, not because the joke was particularly funny, but from the release of emotion after everything that had just happened.

“Like I said, Sparky,” the Chosen One said, calming down somewhat and putting a hand on the Mage’s shoulder. “Whatever you need to do, that’s fine, just let me know how I can help you and I’ll try. As long as you’re working for the good of our team, who cares about anything else? Whatever you did in the past, that’s done.”

Definitely Bad Guy slowly stopped laughing, the edge of hysteria fading away.

“Thank you,” he said, calmer than Qube had ever seen him. “I think I believe you now.”

“Well that’s good, because I am the guy in charge of you. So, y’know, a good person to believe,” the Chosen One said with a smirk.

Qube smiled at the two men, pleased that they had reached an understanding. Even if a small, teeny-tiny part of her was very, very mildly vexed that the Chosen One had interrupted Definitely Bad Guy before he could tell them what his terrible secret was.

Not that she would judge him for whatever it was! And she was glad that the Chosen One had made that joke to show Definitely Bad Guy that no matter how bad he thought his secret was, it wasn’t something truly unforgivable, like Definitely Bad Guy being a bad guy the entire time and secretly working for the Evil Emperor.

The absurdity of someone even thinking that Definitely Bad Guy could be anything other than Good made her giggle a little more to herself.

But still. It would have been nice to know. After all, there weren’t supposed to be major secrets between party members.

While Qube was still trying to think of a way to ask what the secret was without undermining the message of acceptance that the Chosen One had just given, the Hero kicked the last few embers of the burned books, frowned at them in confusion, and gave the room one more look over.

“Right, I think that’s everything,” he said, dusting off his hands. “Everything disappears when we leave this academy anyway, don’t it?”

“Indeed,” Definitely Bad Guy said. “It does.”

“Then we got nothing else to hang around for. Come on, let’s go see if the others have managed to burn down that old guy’s place.”

“So you noticed it was a fire hazard too?” Qube exclaimed, distracted from her delicate task. “It’s so dangerous! I know he probably has his mind on greater, more mystical things, but the sheer amount of paper and potentially explosive liquids in such a messy, confined space is just asking for trouble!”

“Oh, I more meant because we left both Squiggles and Sexy Screamy Spider Lady unattended,” the Chosen One said casually, as they exited the tower and started trudging through the snow back to the main Wizard’s Tower. Fortunately, because the towers had been arranged in a semicircle around the main one, it was only a short walk, although Qube couldn’t see any fresh footprints from the Head Mage.

Qube was about to defend her friends when reality reminded her of past experiences. The most she could muster was: “Well, I’m sure Sewer Bard could burn things down too, if he wanted.”

The Chosen One’s only reply was to laugh as he pushed open the Head Mage’s door.

The rest of their party looked up. Surprisingly the majority of things were intact, although Squiggles had clearly been making inroads with the various beakers lying around. There were several parts of the floor that were a different colour than what they’d been originally. Sexy Screamy Spider Lady appeared to have given up on the armchair, and was concentrating deeply on a book labelled “Magical Laws,” and Sewer Bard was skimming through a collection of short sagas.

“My loves, you’re both safe!” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said, tossing aside the tome she was reading. She embraced Qube and the Chosen One simultaneously, wrapping them in her many arms. “I was so worried for the pair of you.”

“No, too many arms!” the Chosen One said, struggling.

“Our returning Heroes,” Sewer Bard said warmly from behind the arachnid. “I don’t know how the spouses of the olden days suffered through such an ordeal, sitting and waiting while their loved ones went into danger. It was surprisingly difficult to remain put. I think, if I were ever to compose a saga dealing with an adventuring Hero, I’ll make sure to include a section about those poor beings left behind!”

Qube sank into the warmth of being surrounded by her party, feeling the joy chase off the last lingering traces of ice from both the ordeal they’d just gone through, and her brush with her other self.

She wasn’t sure how to contextualise that experience. She’d heard about people turning into angry versions of themselves, or giving in to their inner sadness, but she’d never thought it would be quite so unpleasant to come face to face with your inner self. She also wouldn’t have expected her inner reflection to look so… dead.

Well, she would just have to make extra sure that she didn’t give in to sadness or anger, and try and keep herself out of that other realm as much as possible! That way she could continue being her surface self, rather than that scary inner Qube!

All she had to do was stay positive and everything would be just fine!