It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining behind the maple, leaving me with ample shade as I made my way to maple lane. Despite that I was feeling anxious as I walked down the sidewalk. I didn’t want to mess this up, Will and Rose had been nice yesterday, but what if that was just because I was clearly distressed. What if I messed that up and they realized I didn’t fit into their group? I needed to be perfect if I wanted to stay a part of the group. I got there in fifteen minutes and the delvers guild in five more. The usual large guy was working reception again, but I still couldn’t remember his name. I tried my best to mask this fact as he greeted me.
“Hi again Ethan, here for some rentals?”
“Yeah.” It felt like I should say more, but I couldn’t think of anything more to say.
“Alright, go on ahead. And have a great day.”
“You too.” I said back, and then quickly made my way to the rental armory. I need to get some stuff of my own soon, and not only because it would reduce how much I have to talk to people I don’t know. The rentals were all good quality, but they were also all completely normal. Last time my shield had gotten damaged, and there was a simple solution I had realized on the way here. I needed an enchanted shield. From what I had heard you enchanted things with attunement shards and they basically got that attunement. If I could get a shield attuned to something like toughness then I would be a whole lot safer. Of course this didn’t do much for me right now. I didn’t know how much an attuned shield would cost, not to mention where to get one in the first place. If I could find the right attunement I could do it myself, but I didn’t think it could be found on the first layer so that didn’t mean much.
I grabbed my usual hammer and a less damaged shield like my usual one, thanking the receptionist on my way out. Man I wish he had a nametag. I checked the time on my phone. 12:13. So close! Anyways, that meant that I still had some time to burn, but at least I wasn’t late. I started toward the dungeon to visit Prim. I had been planning on maybe visiting the shrine after delving yesterday, but then Will had started talking, and I didn’t want to seem rude. Plus I hadn’t wanted to miss Rose coming out of the shrine, she had seemed so excited and I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t care.
Anyways, that was fine, I could visit them this morning, and I had enough time that that shouldn’t be a problem. It only took a few minutes to reach the dungeon, which was about as busy as usual, some people were viable, and many more were probably deeper in the dungeon out of sight. Part wondered what the next layer was like, and a larger part of me didn’t want to answer that question. Too bad I didn’t have a choice, I would need to get deeper eventually, it was the only reason I was doing this.
With that unpleasant thought I stepped into the shrine, barely flinching when the windows exploded to animate Prim. As usual I gave Prim a moment to stretch before talking.
“Hey Prim, what's my avatar at?” Prim looked into me for a moment before responding.
“Hello Ethan, your sync has reached 89%. You will be able to sustain it for twenty six and a half minutes. Congratulations, you have made significant progress on your avatar this week.” They said with a smile. Alright, that's great to hear. Though at this rate I needed to get another orb today or tomorrow if I don’t want to start stalling. I took a breath, that wasn’t a problem yet. I was pulled out of my thoughts by Prim
“Would you like to do anything else while you are here?” Prim asked, and I found I wasn’t sure. I still had plenty of time, but what would I do? I know my sync and I’m happy with my avatar. I guess I could start by asking Prim.
“I don’t know, is there anything you can think of?”
“I’ve noticed you have been carrying around several shards, eight to be exact. I can store them in the shrine for you if you would like?” Prim explained, and I nodded.
“Oh yeah, that sounds great… Do I just hand them to you?”
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“Yes, that is sufficient.” I pulled off my backpack and pulled out the shards one by one. Prim extended a hand and they floated over to them and then entered their chest like it wasn’t there, not even a ripple. When the last shard was gone they turned back to me with a smile
“I have stored the shards. If you wish to see them again just ask.”
“Alright, thanks Prim.” That hadn’t taken as long as I had hoped. It had been barely two minutes, and I still had… I checked my phone, forty minutes to go until one.
“I guess that's all for now.” I guess I would have some free time after all. Prim smiled and waved.
“ Very well. Have a nice day!” I exited the shrine. Prim silently returned to just a statue as I left. Looking around a bit I decided to just wait here. I had never seen any monsters get near the shrine so I should be safe. I took a seat on the short root I had sat on yesterday with Will and just tried to decide what to do with my avatar next. I don’t know enough to make a decision. Should I try to make it more defensive, stronger? Should I invest in another aspect and make the shield actually pointed, or should I invest in something else? Maybe nature, that had looked much different from everything else. Was it worth it?
Maybe I should consult the web. I pulled out my phone only to be greeted by the not so surprising message that I had no service in the magic tree dimension. I could just stay here, but I need to do something about this sooner rather than later. Deciding it was my best option I stepped out of the dungeon. There were several benches outside the dungeon, so I took a seat and opened my phone. I was pleasantly surprised to find that maple lane had free (albeit slow) wifi. Opening safari I started surfing the web.
{dungeon crystal aspects}: results turned up too vague, with stuff about dungeons all over the place
{Maple tree dungeon crystal types?}: much better, but everything was talking about the lower floors and interesting and new attunements like stickiness and dirt. Maybe I was asking the wrong questions?
{attunements or aspects for avatar second tier}: This search was less than useless. It just filled the browser with videos of avatar reveals. I was surprised that it was a thing, but upon further thought it made sense. Why not, I clicked on a video called Restarting from scratch. Its thumbnail was a guy with a larger, more armored version of them standing behind him. The video opened up to show the thumbnail avatar fighting what looked like a fire tiger, with drift phonk playing over it. They wore sparse armor and a full helmet on their head, and they had a spear dripping flames of its own. A voiceover began playing as the music receded:
“Hi, I’m Liam Palmer, professional delver.” the camera changed to face the speaker, a blond man in his mid twenties in front of a green screen. “For the last four years I’ve been doing the same as everyone else, delving and improving my avatar.” The image of his avatar in armor with a burning spear appeared in the corner. “Earlier this week I finally reached tier seven, the illusive tier that requires new, better shards from deep in the dungeon. Other videos have already been made that go in depth on the subject. I’ll link them in the description but suffice it to say that at tier seven your avatar is locked. This means that the first seven orbs consumed are unable to be changed, and altering anything from before tier seven is very difficult. Now we haven’t had any tier eights quite yet, but according to the primordial shard-” an image of Prim was pulled up on the screen” “-the first seven shards lock won't affect additional shards added. Now initially I was delighted, but then something happened. I found the illusive hidden shrine-” a hazy outline of a white shrine appeared“-gaining a second avatar. The only problem? I can’t change my avatar to match it. That is why I’ve decided to do the insane. I am going to fully reset my tier seven avatar to start again from scratch. It will be difficult, possibly deadly, but I feel confident I can do it. Stay tuned for updates.”
The video ended, with a peppy song starting as supporters' names zoomed past, and then the video ended. That wasn’t quite what I had been looking for, but maybe they were what I needed. They seemed to know what they were talking about, and they said they were going through the process again. I checked their channel to see if they had any new videos up, but that had been their latest video. I was going to click off when I noticed the other videos they had. “So you want to be a delver”, “how to build a powerful avatar”, “what are attunements and aspects?”. Maybe this was what I needed. I clicked on the third video, and watched the intro, another fight with monsters of the dungeon before sliding back to Liam in front of a green screen.
“Hi, I’m Liam Palmer, and this is episode two of my new series, Avatar Ace. In this series I answer common and uncommon questions about avatars. How to build them, how to train them, and how to use them. In this episode we are covering what attunements and aspects are, and why you should care about what they are and what they do… I had forty minutes left, and the video was thirty minutes long, just what I needed.