From our vantage it looked like we were on the rim of a gigantic bowl, with some kind of dark building sprouting from the middle of the hollow. Spurred on by the discovery, I found my second wind and hurried with them down the concave slope. As we got closer we saw something that looked a lot like a Japanese Shinto shrine, with a square, black inner part that was surrounded by an open area paved with dark tiles. Thick posts equally spaced along the outer edges of the tiled area supported a slate-shingled roof that covered the whole thing, curving sharply up all four sides to a single peak.

Everything was black. The stone, the posts, the tiles, all black.

I checked the map. No doubt about it, this was the Black Altar. We were right on top of the location where Chow Li had placed it, in the center of the adjacent hex Northwest of the city.

When we got closer still, we noticed that the square structure was encircled by obsidian obelisks, each only a few feet tall. When we got right up to them, we saw that there were twelve in total, each one made of the same smooth black stone as the center block, and each engraved with the name of one of the affinity elements in several languages.

Being this close we realized that the inner structure looked like one giant block of pure black stone, impossibly smooth, that rose up perfectly straight with flawlessly square corners to meet the roof. We cautiously walked the perimeter of the obelisks, looking for a way to enter the center block, but the unbroken smoothness of the stone repeated on all four sides with no visible way into it: no doors, no windows, not so much as a crack could be seen in it anywhere.

I looked at Sigrid. She looked at Jane, who looked at me. We all shrugged and took a tentative step between two posts and entered the area under the roof. As soon as we did, a fresh System notice suddenly appeared.

Quest: Beyond The Reaches Of Time And Space - Solve the [Hidden] Dungeon at the Black Altar

Reward: Dungeon control

“Are you seeing this?” Jane said. “Is this a dungeon?”

“Beats me,” Sigrid said.

“I don’t get it,” Jane said. “Aren’t dungeons, like, underground ruins or something?”

Right, they weren’t gamers.

“It’s probably not meant literally,” I said. “In some games, a dungeon can mean any specific challenge, it doesn’t have to be an actual dungeon dungeon.”

“Then why not just call it a challenge?” Jane said.

“And what does it mean to control a dungeon?” Sigrid said.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Let’s just find a way inside and see. We can argue semantics later.”

The inner block was so black it seemed to suck the light into it, but when we got closer our ghostly reflections stared back at us from the perfectly smooth surface. Without hesitation or precaution, Jane reached out and touched it.

That girl was either fearless or foolish, or maybe a bit of both. We could possibly chalk it up to naivete, but this was Jane we were talking about.

“This feels freaking weird,” Jane said, gliding her palm along the surface. Sigrid and I couldn’t resist, we touched it too. I’d never felt anything so glassy smooth, almost frictionless.

“I am so glad you wanted to go out exploring tonight,” I said with a grin.

Jane grinned back. “Stick with us, kid. We are chock full of good ideas.”

Even after a thorough inspection, the inner slab revealed no secrets. Then from the other side, I heard Sigrid say, “Hey guys, come take a look at this. I think there’s something here.”

We raced around to find her back by one of the black obelisks. The one that said Void.

Jane reached her first. “What is that, a hole?”

When I joined them I could see that there was a circle of slowly swirling colors on the outer obelisk’s edge, like water with a thin sheen of oil on top. Where had I seen that before?

“That’s strange,” Sigrid said. “It wasn’t doing that before.”

“Doing what?” I said.

She pointed into the basin. “That swirly color thing,” she said. “A second ago it just looked like an opening in the side.” I took a few steps back and the colors vanished, then started again when I stepped forward once more.

“Freaky,” Sigrid. “But, putting that aside for a moment...” She put her hands out in front of her as though lifting a box, then moved them sideways as though putting it down again. “What do you make of this writing?”

I peered closer to see what she was referring to. It took a bit of moving my head back and forth to find the right angle, but eventually I could make out shadowy words etched into the pillar just under the top edge. They weren’t like the carved words that spelled out the affinity, which were deep engravings all around the sides of the obelisk. These letters were barely there, incised so shallowly that when I ran my fingertips over them it was hard to feel anything there. You had to be looking from just the right angle to see them in the moonlight. Had only one moon been up, and if they hadn’t both been full moons, and if the moons weren’t both in the right part of the sky, and if you weren’t looking at them just right, even knowing they were there the words would have remained completely undetectable.

That was pretty darned lucky. What were the odds?

The words read: Only a treasure token can open the Void.

“What do you suppose that means?” Sigrid said.

“Beats the hell out of me,” I said. “If I had to guess, that’s the void.” I pointed at the impenetrable black block in the middle.

“And we need some sort of token to open it,” Jane said. “Anybody got a TTC token?”

“I doubt it wants a token for the subway,” I said, which earned me an eye roll. Of course she’d been joking.

“Do you think it means those Reward Tokens we got before?” Sigrid said.

“I don’t think so, either,” I said. “Those aren’t physical things, and I think they’re used in something called the Reward Shop.”

“What’s that?”

I explained about the shop and it getting unlocked after Tutorial.

We stood around the column trying to solve the clue when Jane had an idea. She pointed at the circle of swirling colors. “Sigrid, didn’t you say that this looked like an empty hole at first?”

“Yes.”

“Well then there’s only one thing to do,” Jane said, reaching out towards the obelisk.

“Wait!” I shouted, but it was too late, she’d already thrust her hand into the circle. Her fingers broke through the oily sheen and disappeared.

“What?” she said.

“I was going to suggest testing it with something that isn’t a body part first.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“That would’ve been a good idea,” Jane said, her entire hand vanishing inside the hole. “Next time say something sooner.”

“Next time just don’t do something like that without thinking first.”

“Thinking first has never been Jane’s forte,” Sigrid said with a smile and a wink. “What do you feel?”

Jane grimaced and cried out. “Pain! Ah, the pain! It burns!”

“What?” Sigrid said in a panic. “Take your hand out, quick!”

Jane pulled her hand out of the hole. Then she smiled and wiggled her fingers. They were all still there and appeared dry and undamaged. Jane laughed. “Just kidding. It didn’t hurt, just cold.”

Watching Jane’s hand disappear into the hole, it finally clicked in what the hole reminded me of: the black circle of my extra-dimensional inventory.

Sigrid said, “Let me try,” and attempted to put her hand in too, but couldn’t go beyond the surface. “It won’t let me,” she said.

“That’s odd,” I said, and gave it a try. My hand slipped in easily up to the wrist and I felt an unnatural chill spread from my fingertips almost to my elbow. That was new, my inventory didn’t have the same coldness. I withdrew my hand and the warmth began to return.

“Daniel, your ring,” Jane said. “Didn’t that used to be silver?”

When it had gone into the hole with my hand, my formerly tarnished ring had been the bright silver color it became after I’d buffed it, but when it came out it had turned black with faint colors swirling around on the surface of the dark metal.

“What the hell?”

I used All Shall Be Revealed on it to see if anything else about it had changed.

Void Ring

Made of an unknown metal, this ring possesses the essence of the Void

Powers:

Void Key - Opens gate to the Void Dungeon

“It changed,” I said.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Jane said.

“No, I mean its properties changed. It used to be called Untarnished Ring and had a power similar to your stiletto. Now...” I shared its Status. “See? The old power is gone, but now it’s a dungeon key.”

Void Dungeon, eh? Let’s see.

Quest: Beyond The Reaches Of Time And Space - Solve the Void Dungeon at the Black Altar

Reward: Dungeon ownership

Yup. As I thought. The [Hidden] in the quest name didn’t refer to the dungeon’s location, it was hiding its identity. The clues were everywhere, though, and now we knew for sure what it was: the Void Dungeon. Did this mean all affinities had their own dungeon?

“Try touching the thing in the middle there now,” suggested Sigrid. I went back up to the central block and reached out to touch it. My hand slipped right through the surface, and again I felt that chill run up my arm. I quickly withdrew it. My hand appeared normal, and the chill drained away.

I held my hand up to display the ring. “Treasure token.”

“Looks like we found the way into the dungeon,” Sigrid said. She came over and tried to reach into the block, but couldn’t. It was as smooth and impenetrable as before. I tried again and my hand slipped inside. She tried again when my hand was inside but she still couldn’t get past the glassy surface.

“I guess everyone needs their own key,” I said. I took the ring off and offered it to her. “Here, try mine.”

Sigrid held out her hand and I placed the ring on her palm. She shrieked and dropped it, pulling her hand back and clutching it to her chest.

“It was funny when I did it,” Jane said.

“No,” Sigrid said. “I’m not faking. It’s...wow.”

“Did it actually hurt you?”

Sigrid held out her hand again and studied it. “I don’t think so. I mean, when the ring touched me I felt...not exactly pain, but...I don’t know how to explain it. It just felt...wrong?”

Oh right, they didn’t know the deal with affinities.

I stooped to pick the ring up off the black tiled floor. “Void is an affinity.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. It’s one of twelve. Here, look at this.” I took them outside the structure to open ground, then used the tip of my dagger to sketch in the dirt a diagram of the affinity wheel, as I called it.

image [https://i.imgur.com/m6GBHgq.png]

“Those are the same as what’s on all the pointy markers around the Altar,” Sigrid said.

“Exactly. The same as the fountains back in the city square.”

“Really? I never noticed.”

I explained the idea of opposite affinities. “Sigrid, you have affinity with Air, right? Look, Void sits directly opposite Air. That might have something to do with why you can’t hold the ring or put your hand in the basin.”

Jane gave it a try, and had no trouble putting on the ring and shoving her arm inside the central black block.

“Jane and I both have special affinities that cover all of them, including Void. That must be it.”

“I want a key too,” Jane said. “I need a treasure token, anybody got anything?”

Since money is the most basic of all treasures, she tried putting a copper coin into the basin (“No sense wasting gold,” she said) but nothing happened. She tried again with silver, then gold, still nothing.

“Does it have to be jewelry then?” Sigrid said. Nobody else had any, though.

I had an idea. “Jane,” I said, “try your stiletto.”

“Huh?”

“My ring had a special ability, it boosted my speed.”

Jane snorted. “Holy shit, you mean you’ll be even slower now without that boost? We’re doomed.”

I ignored her. “Maybe it has to be something like that, something with an ability. Maybe that’s the kind of treasure it wants.”

“Right.” She slid the agility-boosting knife out of the scabbard hanging off her belt, then pushed it into the hole. It shouldn’t have been deep enough for the whole thing to fit straight in, but she was able to shove it in past the hilt. “Damn.”

“That’s kind of freaky,” Sigrid said.

When Jane pulled the stiletto out again, her stiletto had turned black with swirling colors, just like my ring. I evaluated it.

Void Blade

Made of an unknown metal, this stiletto contains the essence of the Void

Powers:

Void Key - Opens gate to the Void Dungeon

“That did it,” I said.

“It still doesn’t help me, though,” Sigrid said.

“It’s possible this dungeon’s only accessible to people with the Void affinity.”

“That would also explain why that thing didn’t react until someone with Void got close,” Jane said, pointing at the obelisk.

Sigrid pouted. “Bummer.”

“But I don’t have affinity with Void yet,” Jane said.

“Me neither,” I said. “Maybe having the potential is enough.”

Jane grabbed my arm. “Let’s go in.”

“What, now?”

“Yes now! When else?”

I was about to argue that it was a bad idea, that we should wait until we were stronger and knew more, but all it took was one look at her face and all resistance evaporated.

“Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”

“Wait, no!” Sigrid said, putting her hand on my arm. “You’re just going to leave me alone outside here?”

“We’ll just pop in and take a quick look,” Jane said. “Come on, we have to at least see what’s in there.”

Sigrid sighed. “This is one of those things you won’t give up on isn’t it? Fine. It’s just to take a look, right? A quick in and out?”

“I promise,” said Jane. “Just the tip,” she added with a sly smile.

Sigrid shoved her, then took my wrist and locked eyes with me. “I know I can’t trust her so I’m counting on you, Daniel. You come right back out again and bring her with you.”

I returned her gaze and nodded once. She let go.

Jane was positively giddy as she waited by the smooth surface of the gate. “Together on three,” she said. “One. Two. Three.”

Together, we stepped through the surface of the black block and disappeared into the Void.