Qube stared at the Chosen One, trying to figure out where he had pulled a fully sized broom from.

“So, who do we fight next?” he asked. “And also, could I get a heal? I’m kinda still on fire.”

“Oh! Of course!” she said, blinking rapidly as she looked at his charred and raw chest. “[Lesser Healing]!”

The normal silvery light from her was shot through with streaks of red. It splashed against his chest, soaking into his skin as his wounds closed before her eyes. He shuddered as the magic took effect, rippling along his body as it searched for injuries.

“Okay. So. That was surprisingly uncomfortable,” he said.

“Was that not massively painful?” Qube asked, gobsmacked. His whole chest had been on fire! And not a little bit on fire, like he was singed, he took a full fireball directly to the chest! In fact parts of him were still smouldering, but he seemed to ignore that, instead wandering back to the training circle.

“I mean it wasn’t great. But it didn’t exactly hurt,” he said, opening the buckets that held the weapons and looking at them. “Still, I would prefer to avoid getting set on fire again. It was not cool.”

“No, it was hot.” Once again Qube felt the Prophecy grip her head like a vice. She wasn’t even being sassy that time! He had literally been set aflame! Generally people had a bit more of a reaction to being on fire!

Although she’d never seen someone react to being set on fire in a combat situation. Maybe the “battle fever” she’d heard people talk about stopped him from feeling it properly until he was safe. Huh. Yeah, that made sense. What was the point of being crippled by pain while you could still fight? That seemed like it would just get you killed. Far better to be aware that you were injured but able to carry on, rather than rolling around screaming in agony and getting stabbed by the enemy.

Qube looked at the Chosen One with admiration. To think that he was taking his training so seriously it stopped him from feeling pain! Truly he was impressive. She smiled, proud to be the Chosen Companion to such a stalwart Champion.

A Champion, she just now noticed, who was carefully inserting a broom back into his pocket.

“Chosen One, please… please stop breaking the law of physics,” she said faintly.

“No, it’s fine. I did this before.”

Everything within Qube wanted to shout “HOW?” but she managed to stop herself. She couldn’t reveal her shameful lack of understanding of how pockets worked to the Saviour of All. How could she expect him to trust her to guide him if she couldn’t even wrap her head around pockets? She couldn’t declare it was impossible to put broomsticks in your pockets. She’d seen him do it. No. There had to be some sort of deeper secret here. Perhaps even some kind of pocket based magic that she had just missed.

She would study this pocket magic and become its mistress. Maybe she could put not just inanimate objects in her pockets, but living things too! Maybe even monsters! Imagine that: You get into a fight and just pull a bunch of monsters out of your pockets and fling them at your enemies. She could change the world!

“True, yes, pockets are very handy for things like that!” she said, laughing inanely. Once she got back home she was going to try cramming as many things into her pockets as she could. “But I meant that we haven’t finished training yet, teehee! You’ve still got one match to go! And I warn you, these two are masters of stealth!”

She was so perky she made herself sick.

And she was still teehee-ing.

Damn it.

Ruth the Rogue was lounging in the training circle with her friend, Quince the Hunter. The Chosen One glanced at them, then walked around the training circle, making sure not to cross into it.

“Hello, Hero,” Ruth said. She tilted her head, following the Chosen One as he circled behind her.

“So what, exactly, starts the sparring?” he asked.

“You take a weapon out of the bucket and enter the ring! Once the sparring session begins, the first group to all yield or go outside the circle loses!” Qube chirruped.

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“Once I take a weapon?” the Chosen One clarified.

“Of course! This training is for you!”

The Chosen One chewed on his bottom lip, looking thoughtful. “Hey, you,” he said, gesturing at Qube, “can you go stand in the ring?”

‘Does… does he not know my name?’ Qube thought. No. Impossible. Wait. Should she have made herself a nametag?

Then he started to act like a lunatic.

Still standing outside the circle, he picked up one of the weapon buckets and threw it, weapons and all, into the training circle. It hit the ground with a loud crack and split open, vomiting its contents into the ring. Ruth and Quince jumped at the unexpected noise, but otherwise didn’t move.

The Chosen One nodded, like this had confirmed a theory for him.

“Hey, you two, come over here,” he said. Ruth and Quince, having been his friends their entire life, naturally walked over to him, stopping at the very edge of the training circle’s line. He grinned, then forward rolled past them, entering the training circle, picking up one of the training swords and immediately shoving both Ruth and Quince in the back, sending them stumbling out of the ring.

“I win!” he yelled.

Ruth spun around, furious. “What?! You can’t win by shoving! That defeats the entire purpo-” Her eyes suddenly went blank. For just a split second, Qube had the horrible sensation that there was no one home inside her head. Then, just as fast, Ruth was back.

“Dishonourable. You would have made a good Rogue.” She smirked. “Well, that’s your sparring sessions done.” Her gaze flicked to Qube, then away. “You and the elf princess over there should probably head back home.”

The Chosen One just stood in the training circle, seemingly turning his focus inwards. Everyone waited.

And waited.

After a bit of him ignoring them and just sort of staring into space, Qube wandered over to Warwick and Quinton.

“Any damage?” she asked.

“Only to my heart,” Quinton said, looking at her soulfully. “I can’t believe you’re going to leave me for a guy who shoves people around.”

“So that’s a no,” she said, turning to Warwick.

“I’m fine,” he said quietly. “Sorry for threatening to set you on fire.”

“Eh,” she shrugged, “that’s okay. That’s what sparring is for.”

“Still think it was a cheap shot,” Quince said, as he and Ruth joined them. “What’s he doing, anyway?” He nodded at the Chosen One, who had started to drool a little.

“Oh, you know. Prophecy things,” Qube said casually, not wanting to admit that she had no idea what the guy she was the magically proven best friend of was doing. “It’s a little bit complicated to explain.”

They watched as some more drool escaped from The Chosen One’s half open mouth.

“Very complicated.”

---

It was nearly an hour later by the time the Hero had woken up, put all the training weapons in his pockets, taken half of them out and thrown them to the ground in disgust while ranting about “[balderdash] arbitrary lack of space” and then walked back to the village. On the way he had only managed to poison himself twice, which Qube was counting as a win.

“So how many times can you heal in a row?” he’d asked the second time Qube had fished a toxic plant out of his mouth.

“Depends on how much damage there is,” she replied, discreetly wiping her saliva covered fingers on the grass. “If it’s something like a small cut, then I can just do a minor cleanse. Anything more than that and I need to do a lesser healing.”

Qube had decided there was no point being embarrassed by the Chosen One’s questions. After all, she was supposed to be his guide. So what if they were intrusive and incredibly rude? This was for saving the world, after all.

“So how strong’s your lesser healing?”

That didn’t mean she had to like it though.

“I don’t know exactly. It depends on lots of things. Like if I’ve just healed, or just cast another spell, or what kind of attack hit you. If you want, we can go back and get Warwick to hit you with as many fireballs as he can and I can see how long I can keep healing them for?” she offered. For some strange reason, he didn’t seem keen on that.

“No, no, that’s fine! Imprecise is fine. I can work with that. I’m sure I’ll get enough data once we set off. I just thought that you would… explain how it all works to me. The whole fighting and magic system.”

“Oh.” Qube flushed. “Of course! I would love to explain everything to you! That’s what I’m here for, tee-” Qube clamped her mouth shut, ignoring the throbbing in her head. No! She refused to teehee any more! She was the Prophecy Approved Companion to the Saviour of All Human and Human-Adjacent Beings! She would not teehee at him! She. Refused!

The side of her mouth slowly opened itself against her will, a small, dying “heeeee” escaping.

Noooo!

“You know what? I’m good,” the Chosen One said carefully, watching her twitch with rage. “It looks like I’m supposed to learn about it later. Although...” He trailed off just as they arrived at the village. “You’re a really strong Healer.”

“Thank you,” Qube said modestly, controlling her temper tantrum. Truth be told, she was the strongest Healer in the entire village. In fact, in terms of raw mana, she was probably the strongest Mage full stop. Of course, part of being a Prophecy Approved Companion was avoiding rubbing the fact that she was better than the normal villagers in their face, but that didn’t mean she was oblivious to the fact that her, Quinton and Quince were easily the three most powerful people in the village. It was part of what made them in such a good position to be guides to their respective Chosen Ones.

“-especially for a starting area-” the Chosen One continued.

Granted, she’d never really interacted with the Rogue and Wizard. Companions tended to get a little touchy about you talking to their particular Chosen One. In fact, she hadn’t even remembered that the Wizard and Rogue had had names until this morning.

...Had they even had names until this morning?

Of course they’d had names! She mentally scoffed, leading The Chosen One through the village. Everyone had names! She just couldn’t remember them having had names before! That was normal. Everyone forgot things. It was probably… probably some Prophecy magic thing. It generally was. Suddenly she realised that she’d been completely ignoring The Chosen One.

“-nervous when their level is too high, it’s never a good sign, you know what I mean?”

“Yes,” She agreed, not wanting to reveal she hadn’t been paying attention, “fortunately we don’t have to worry about that right now. The tallest building here is the Town Hall and no one likes going up there because the pressure is so high that sometimes you get stuck. So you can relax.”

He looked at her in silence for a moment.

“Thank you?” he said dubiously.

Qube smiled. She wouldn’t have thought the Hero of All would be afraid of heights, but she was glad she had been able to reassure him. At least she was doing something right! As she looked at the building they’d stopped in front of her smile slowly slid away. Oh. Right.

“Actually, I don’t think you should relax just yet,” she warned. “This… this is gonna hurt.”

You would little think that the place before them could exude so much sinister energy. The small sign above the doorway was a scarred wooden plank with a carrot, a heart and a potion vial etched onto it. It smelt of varnish, salt, and despair.

“This… is Mr Igma’s shop.”