Literature / Prophecy Approved Companion

"What are you doing? Wake up! You’re going to be late!" she yelled and felt everything click into place as if she had been waiting her whole life to say exactly that. As if...
Her story had finally begun.

Qube is an NPC in an AI-driven Virtual Reality RPG, trained since childhood to be the companion and Guiding Light to the Chosen One who will save the world from the Evil Emperor. Unbeknownst to her, she is also doomed, scripted to die at the hands of the Evil Emperor and send the Hero out of their small village on his quest for justice.

Except that that doesn't happen.

At the hands of a Player who loves Loophole Abuse and breaking the system, she avoids her scripted death, surviving and blithely following him out into the wider world. As she tries to make sense of the normalised nonsense of fantasy RPGs, she accidentally glitches out the world in stranger and stranger ways as she seeks to be the very best Childhood Companion ever.

Basically, it takes every trope from bad video games, and chews it into pieces.

Prophecy Approved Companion is a LitRPG told not from the perspective of the game breaking player full of meta knowledge, but instead from the POV of his tutorial friend from their Doomed Hometown. Created by Tevagah and hosted on Amazon and Royal Road. Book one and two can be found on Amazon here, and book three on Royal Road here.

---

Tropes:

• A.I. Breaker: What the player character seems determined to do. He's actually been asked by the developers to test it out and see what he can break, and he finds it great fun. Until Qube becomes sentient enough that he knows things like half-reviving their home village's population and having animated body parts scuttle around would upset her.
• Anaphora: What happens after the prophecy's revealed from Qube's perspective "it was":
  It was glorious. It was shining. It was… currently being shoved in the Hero's backpack.
• A Taste of Power: Qube provides the player with shielding and healing abilities that he's then supposed to lose upon her death, until he has completed the first few temples and gained access to another healer. (After preventing her death, he cackles at the discovery that low-level monsters simply can't get through her shields, and that he can save a fortune on the healing potions that he was supposed to buy.)
• Battle Theme Music:
  • The player actually exploits the shifts in music to determine whether unidentified creatures are threats or not; if the music stays calm, he knows they're nothing to worry about.
  • As Qube becomes more attuned to him and deviates further and further from her original scripting, she starts to hear the background music too. The player is rather startled by this.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Qube, while normally a very fluffy character, can really frighten the others when she gets pushed too far. Since she's designed to be Good, though, she can only really weaponise things like her Understanding Smile.
• Black Mage: Definitely Bad Guy is very much on the fire and curses side.
• Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous:
  • Each elemental temple invites the player to make a choice between two competing sides, each aligned with either the Exiled Princess (order) or Exiled Prince (chaos), but either way, the loser is getting a raw deal. Naturally, he's chaotic enough to Take a Third Option and claim both sets of rewards.
  • The Shadow Temple manifests a dark copy of the player, who is supposed to play on his insecurities, including chastising him for whichever path he took. Sadly, the effectiveness of the speech is rather diminished by hearing both the order and chaos dialogue at the same time; the player bursts out laughing.
• Casanova Wannabe: Poor, poor Sewer Bard attempts to romance every female he meets, only to be turned down.
• Chekhov's Gun: Whenever a temple gives the party an odd item, like a jar that creates a temporary vortex sucking air into itself, you know it will be just what's needed to defeat the boss. In that particular case, the boss was surrounded by a sand tornado that needed to be sucked into the jar before the boss itself was exposed.
• Childhood Friends: What Qube and the Chosen One have been forced to be, and part of why she completely trusts him. And then she eventually finds out that her actual friend, Felix, was erased at the start when the player took over his body.
• Doomed Hometown: As soon as the player takes up his magical sword, the Evil Emperor appears, delivers a monologue, and slaughters the village, leaving the hero alive because he's bored. However, Qube has been stashed out of the way beforehand, and doesn't see the slaughter happening — and the player isn't inclined to tell her. By the time she finally discovers it, she's developed into a full person, and doesn't react well to the news, nor to him having lied about it.
• Double Entendre: Almost everything said by Sexy Screamy Spider Lady carries innuendo — with italics on selected words, just in case it wasn't obvious enough. The player initially asks her to stop, but it's so integral to her scripting that she basically can't, and he gives up.
  Sexy Screamy Spider Lady: We'll be celebrating our freedom tonight. If you choose to leave now, I’m yours, but otherwise if you want to get to know the forest dwellers, then why not take this time to explore? They're all very eager to get up close and personal to such a great Hero.
• Eldritch Abomination: Mr. Igma is the pawn of a greater entity that cares more about The List than saving the world...
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Sexy Screamy Spider Lady's dark mirror in the Shadow Temple tries to undermine her self-esteem by claiming that the party only likes her for her looks. If she were a sensual wood elf, this might have had an impact, but since she's a monstrous spider covered in the silently screaming faces of children...
  • Upon learning that the devs created the world, but are afraid of what is happening to it now, Qube comes to the conclusion that there must be evil devs working against them. After all, what else could frighten beings who have the power to reshape the world?
• Evil Overlord: Evil Emperor is the ultimate Evil Overlord, even getting his start as a Vizier.
• Extreme Omnivore: It's unclear just what the limits of Squiggles' digestive system are, but her diet has included saucepans, makeup bottles, and unique historical artefacts. Getting her to spit out a set of magical wings took a lot of persuading.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief:
  • The three Prospective Chosen Ones (ie player character options) are a fighter, rogue, and mage. The two characters not selected by the player pose the first combat tutorial, then die in the Doomed Hometown. (In this case, the player chose a fighter.)
  • The game then provides permanent party members of each type: Sewer Bard the rogue, Sexy Screamy Spider Lady the fighter, and Definitely Bad Guy the mage.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Only Qube likes Definitely Bad Guy, and she can see the good in everyone.
• Genre Savvy: When the player is offered a magical sword and told that he can leave the village once he has it, he immediately knows that it will make something bad happen, and won't pick it up until he's ensured that Qube won't get killed by whatever is coming. He's right, of course.
• Glitch Entity: Qube wasn't supposed to leave the starting village, so her presence is disruptive — and it's spreading. She's also unable to level up, can't properly interact with clothing (since she only has one set of artwork), and is increasingly sapient.
• Healer Signs On Early: The player wasn't supposed to have a healer until much later, but thanks to keeping Qube alive, he has her help right from the beginning. Considering how much he likes to poke and prod everything, it's probably just as well.
  "Well that was interesting. Didn't expect the fire to actually hurt. Good to know," he said, then looked at Qube. "Hey. I'm injured. Heal me."
  As Qube cast [Lesser Healing], she wondered if there was a spell that could cure stupidity.
• I Know Your True Name: Since Mr Igma the shopkeeper insists that "everything is for sale", the Chosen One asks how much it would cost to find out his first name. Mr Igma almost glitches out since that doesn't have a specified price, but eventually manages to offer a trade whereby the two of them would take — ie remove — each other's names. Sewer Bard, who knows stories about the power of names, persuades the Chosen One not to go through with it.
• Kill It with Fire: After an incident involving a basement full of skeletons, Sewer Bard composes a song that he calls, "Fire Solves Everything". The other party members are quite impressed by it.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: The Chosen One can and will steal everything not nailed down, and had no problem tricking Qube into doing the same thing until she calls him on it.
  "Why would someone put coppers in a pot?" Qube asked, then looked at the Hero just in time to see his expression shift into a kind of frenzied greed.
  "LOOT!" He bellowed, tearing into the pots; flinging them against walls, smashing them with his sword and kicking them open. "LOOT!"
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Given she lives in a video game, Qube just thinks that all lava is painful water, given even wooden ladders can survive inside it.
• Literal Maneater: From the way Sexy Screamy Spider Lady talks about men, some people are starting to wonder if she might be this...
• Literal-Minded: Qube is extremely literal, even before taking Earth idioms like "That's cool" into account.
  Chosen One: Okay, time to level up!
  Qube: But Chosen One, we're staying on the same plane —
• LitRPG: Qube is fully aware of the nature of her programming within the rules of the game.
• Loophole Abuse: The player lives for this, starting with keeping a broom in his pocket (due to his Hammerspace inventory) as a backup weapon and going from there.
  • Combat will start when he picks up a weapon and enters the ring? He throws the bucket of weapons into the ring so he can get a quicker start.
  • Two star-crossed lovers need to exchange letters, but the back-and-forth will take all day? He pushes one of them over to the other and stands between them, so their whole exchange happens in seconds.
• Meaningful Name: Since the Player/Chosen One can rename all his party members, they tend to have meaningful names. No one around him blinks an eye at companions called "Definitely Bad Guy" or "Sexy Screamy Spider Lady".
• Morality Pet: She wasn't really intended for the role, but Qube's irrepressible optimism and devotion to Good leads her to curb the player's kleptomaniac murderhobo tendencies. Especially once he discovers that she's sentient enough to count as a person with real feelings.
• Narrative Profanity Filter: The player gets literally filtered by the game interface, substituting words whenever he curses.
  Chosen One: It's a good thing I've got you with me, otherwise I’d be completely [fiddled].
• No Name Given: The Chosen One is never called by the player's name. Qube is later alarmed to realise that despite being Childhood Friends, she doesn't know his name; she assumes that the Evil Emperor must have erased her memory of it.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Due to Qube's irrepressible optimism, she completely misunderstands her conversation with Definitely Bad Guy. He thinks she's accepting his Heel–Face Turn, that she was the Evil Emperor's concubine but has had a similar change, and is promising to face the Evil Emperor alongside him. She thinks he's seeing the world differently, getting a more complex understanding of Good and Evil, as a result of travelling with the Chosen One, and that she's promising to help him talk to the Chosen One.
  The Mage smiled again, a dazzling sight, and Qube felt a warm glow as she contemplated just how wonderful it was that there were no more secrets between them.
• Our Sirens Are Different: The water temple contains mermaids with enthralling voices and even more euphoric touch. The player is surprised and quite concerned about how strongly he's affected by it through the game interface. Then Sewer Bard learns to copy the song, which concerns the player even more. And Sewer Bard then works with Definitely Bad Guy to weave elements of it into a new spell that releases mobs from their scripting — and it's contagious.
• Paradox Person: What Qube becomes after she's glitched. This causes the game's AI to ignore her, making her think she's been cursed with invisibility.
• The Pollyanna: Qube is irrepressibly optimistic, deeply trusts the Chosen One, sees the best in everyone around her, and has completely Black-and-White Morality. She does start to crack, however, upon learning that her home village was massacred and the Chosen One lied to her about it — and isn't really her childhood friend.
• The Prophecy: The Chosen One's quest is described in the Golden Prophecy, summarising the temple challenges and hinting at Qube's intended fate. Until the player enters the game, all the pronouns in the prophecy are placeholders, becoming "he" once a character is picked.
  The placeholders had been replaced! Qube's eyes shimmered with unshed tears as she finally saw the Golden Prophecy, the text that had dictated her entire life, unveiled before her.
  It was glorious. It was shining. It was… currently being shoved in the Hero's backpack.
• Quirky Bard: Sewer Bard was originally designed as this. He develops into a more complete person over time, including handling most of the Chosen One's diplomacy, because he actually likes all the lore and backstory that people want to dump on them.
• Railroading: A large part of the player glitching the game is him attempting to subvert, avoid, or break this. He gets quite annoyed at one point when he runs into invisible walls that prevent him from exploring further in a particular direction.
  Chosen One: I was hoping to check out the area before starting the main, but I guess nothing will activate until I do.
• Reference Overdosed:
  • Kingdom Hearts II and its sea-salt ice cream popsicles: As confirmed in the Discord, the mention of the prophecised companions splitting popsicles in the first chapter is a reference to that game's tutorial segment with Roxas.
• Reforged into a Minion: There are indications that the Evil Emperor was supposed to kill Qube and then raise her as his (possibly undead) concubine, which the player will have to fight. Qube herself doesn't readily pick up on this, even when the Evil Emperor leaves the player a lock of her hair.
• Sequence Breaking: The player loves doing this, and Qube's presence makes it much easier, eg being ignored means that she can push her way past guards who would attack him. When she shows that she's starting to grasp the idea, he laughs at how he's rubbing off on her.
  • It's also how Sexy Screamy Spider Lady came to be in her spider form- the player mixed up the order of events and disrupted the breaking of her curse.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Sexy Screamy Spider Lady frequently takes up abdomen-jutting poses that would probably work much better if she were a wood elf, instead of a giant monstrous spider.
• Take a Third Option: The Chosen One is so consistent about defying the Sadistic Choice at every temple he encounters, and taking both rewards, that Qube begins to think that that is the proper way to complete them, and that if it looks like they'll only get one reward, then they're failing to truly meet the temple's challenge.
  • Killing a boss makes three pedestals appear, offering different power-ups, but they'll all disappear once one is taken? Have three different party members each take one simultaneously!
  • The Deep Ones and the Mermaids each need to slay the other's champion and take a tear from them, in order to claim a magical egg for themselves and preserve their civilisation at the cost of the other's? Have Qube revive each of them after they're killed, taking mana potions in between, and apply both tears at once!
  • Releasing the vengeful Pharaoh will doom his people, but crushing him will render his treasure room inaccessible? They release him so they can talk to him and get his side of the story, then once it's clear he can't be talked down from vengeance, they Take a Third Option again by erasing his unique class, stripping away the two options of genocide and death, and reverting him into a regular citizen.
• Token Evil Teammate: Definitely Bad Guy is called out as this as soon as the player meets him.
• Team Pet: The party is supposed to collect a talking otter, but Qube is suspicious of his demands for clams; surely they can find someone Good enough not to require bribery? Instead, she befriends a baby sharktopus she calls Squiggles — but the game still thinks that their pet is an otter.
• Video Game Physics: Can cause endless problems as Qube tries to apply logic to video game reality. She's baffled by the Chosen One's ability to accept items without his hand being close enough to take them, the fact that the party members sometimes float behind him in mid air, and he stashes her in a glitched-out space above the town hall, where she floats helplessly in the sky, to escape her death cutscene.
  Qube: Chosen One, please… please stop breaking the law of physics.
  Chosen One: No, it's fine. I did this before.
• Violation of Common Sense: Constantly causes Qube to have fits as the Chosen One runs on video game logic.
• Weirdness Censor: The limitations of the game's scripting cause characters to ignore things that aren't supposed to happen, or that are outside their scope, such as the Chosen One ignoring their quest explanation and going around the room looting everything while they speak. Qube gets this turned up to eleven; since she was supposed to be dead, she gets completely ignored by most characters, as if she were invisible.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
  • The player and the developers become increasingly alarmed as they start to realise that there may be more to Qube than meets the eye. Some of the devs want to erase her, but others insist that she is a person and that that would be unethical.
  • The player eventually becomes reluctant to even kill random monsters, knowing that they're only attacking because they're scripted to, and that there are alternatives. Qube then leads the other party members in befriending every monster in the Light Temple, up to and including the boss.
• White Mage: What Qube was originally meant to be, being outfitted with a healing spell, and the ability to recognize poisons.

---

You need to take the Sacred Trope to fulfil your Destiny! Tee-hee!