Jake and I stopped outside the Primordial Shrine, and he turned to me.
“Alright, so you need nine more armor shards to make an orb, but I have several complete orbs, including an armor one. If it’s alright with you I can just just bring them all over and you can make your decision, sound good?”
“Oh, yeah, that sounds good.”
“Okay, one sec I’ll go get some of mine.” Jake walked toward the shrine and Wiggles followed him. When he reached the door he didn’t stop, and to my surprise he passed through it like it wasn’t there, leaving Wiggles. She glared at the door and gave it a sharp bark, and then, satisfied she had taught the door a lesson, turned and walked toward me. She pushed her head into my chest seeking pets that I slightly nervously supplied. Intellectually I knew it was just Wiggles, but those teeth were no lie, and my brain was still coming to terms with the fact that the giant metallic wolf was not a threat, but I was definitely getting more used to it.
A minute later Jake emerged, and shrugging off the backpack with a clink revealed its contents, six glowing orbs.
“That's a lot of orbs.”
“Yeah, I have one or two just about every local shard, but only these orbs at the moment.”
“Do I just… grab one and feel it?”
“Yeah pretty much.” Jake said, and so I got started. The first orb was yellowish, and unlike with the shard I could feel its power when I held it. When I felt it I didn’t just watch a scene, I was fully transported there. I was in a dimly lit dirt tunnel, yet I could see perfectly. A beetle was trying and failing to take a step off of a yellowish orange goo, unable to lift its limbs from where they were stuck. Meanwhile an ant crawled along the ceiling with little bits of the same sappy glue that covered its feet.
“Glue attunement?” I asked, still reeling from how vivid the vision was.
“Yeah, it's from the newest layer.”
“What dropped glue attunement?”
“You ever heard of a nasute termite?”
“No…”
“Neither had I, they’re termites that spray glue from their face.”
“Huh.” I’d have to look that up once we left the dungeon.
The next Orb I grabbed was off white, and when I let it envelop me I found myself on the branch of the giant maple. A person in a loosely flowing cape faced a massive hornet. The hornet bolted toward the figure but the person seemed to vanish with a flourish of their cape. They reappeared behind the hornet and greeted it with a knife in the head.
This one was harder, it felt like maybe wind, but my gut said something much odder.
“Cape aspect?”
“Yeah it's not very useful on its own, but paired with good attunement I’ve seen it be pretty useful. Its kinda funny that you pulled those two first, the rest are much less odd.”
The next orb was yellow green, and the vision was another wasp facing a person with a greenish sword, both grazed each other, and both collapsed, their veins turning black. The image made me a bit uncomfortable.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Poison attunement.”
The next orb I selected was so gray it was almost black.
----------------------------------------
In the end there was also club aspect, tough attunement, and of course the armor aspect. I considered the club aspect, but then I remembered being bit and decided to still go with the armor aspect. Now that I had chosen all that was left to get started.
“Alright, so I just go in there? Is there anything I need to know first?”
“Nothing that won’t be explained there. don’t worry, it's easy to start.” I took the armor aspect orb in both hands and stepped toward the door. Unlike Jake when Jake approached it the door reacted to me, opening inwards down the middle to expose… nothing, just a white void. I turned to Jake and he gave me a reassuring smile and a thumbs up.
“Why didn’t it open for you?” I asked, and a confused expression appeared on his face for a moment before realization dawned on his face.
“Ah, that would look odd. The shrine is instanced, basically every person has their own version of the shrine separate from the real one. It makes it so no one is ever in the same shrine as anyone else, which is important because there is one shrine and thousands of people who need to use it.” I looked back toward the white void and mentally prepared myself, and once again stepped toward it. When I was only a step from the door a blond girl around her mid 20’s appeared in the doorway midstep. I nearly bumped into her but I hit nothing. and I stumbled, barely catching myself on the doorframe. Turning back I saw her standing several feet to the side, and Jake was laughing. The girl’s clothes were somewhat obscured by a mottled brown cloak she wore.
“Ah, sorry about that.” she said simply, and then she noticed Jake, and to my surprise she addressed him formally.
“Captain Alexander, shouldn’t you be on layer three?” The girl asked. How did she know Jake, and why was she calling him Captain? Jake’s response was much less formal.
“Yeah, that was the plan, but I had to request an extra day for special circumstances.”
“And what were those special circumstances?” She seemed slightly irritated, though it could just be me projecting emotion where there was none.
“My friend just got back.” He said, pointing to me, and Ann turned in surprise, having previously dismissed me as unimportant, a fair judgment.
“Oh. Alright, you got this approved at HQ right”
“Of course.”
“Very well, I expect to see you at layer three tomorrow.”
“Yes Commander.” and with that the lady left toward the exit of the dungeon, and I noticed a badge like Jakes but bold pinned to her cloak's shoulder. I turned toward Jake, letting my dumbfounded expression ask my question for me.
“That was Ann, leader of the dungeon guard. What were the odds she was in the shrine today- actually no, that's no surprise, but it's pretty crazy she came out right before you came in." I nodded and agreed that it was in fact pretty crazy. I was still slightly reeling from how casual he was with the leader of the dungeon guard, Jake was more important than I had thought. Then something the captain had said hit me.
“You were supposed to leave today?”
“Well yeah, but I wanted to have a bit more time with my friend before I had to go.”
“No I mean, why didn’t you tell me, I could probably figure this out later without wasting your time. If you want, we can still hang out.”
“What, no, you're fine. We are hanging out, don’t worry.”
“Well yeah, but, well. I just feel like you went out of your way so we could hang and I’m wasting that effort.”
“You're not wasting anything, I’ve enjoyed everything, I get to share some of the cool things that have changed, and I even get to see the beginning of your avatar. Honestly I should be the one apologizing for dragging you somewhere you don’t like.”
“What? I volunteered to be here, you're fine.”
“Well in that case we're both fine with this.”
“So you're really fine with this?”
“Of course I am. Now quit stalling, the sooner you make your avatar the more time there is for everything else today.”
“Alright, you win.” I would have to process that more later, there was more to that conversation that I felt like I was missing, but for now I went with what Jake said. I looked back one last time to Jake who gave me double thumbs up. I took a deep breath, and clutching the light gray orb I stepped into the white void.