The Last Primal

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Focusing his mind, Aiden decided to go with his gut feeling and chose the second option from the offered fusion list. As soon as he did, the floating, transparent screen flickered for a moment and vanished from sight. 

The strange reaction cause Aiden to look in front of him incredulously. However, before he could do anything, suddenly a new window appeared, with the never-before-seen the last step in the Fusion menu.

Although, even not seeing this particular part before, Aiden had a suspicion that the text was not the regular, but just as before it was altered to his strange situation.

Just as in the previous screen, the text still had sections that were unreadable. However, he noticed something different than before; the strange glyphs that covered the text and turned it into some garbled mess were flickering differently than the floating window itself. As if it was an additional layer on top of it. 

He had the urge to reach out for the closest in front of him, but before he could do so, a text tinted in the same light-blue tint as the menu itself began to slowly appear at the bottom, providing additional details of the process and giving a… warning?

'Huh… so that strange black leathery cocoon is called Primal Egg? Never knew.' He smirked with the newly gained tidbit as he read through the text. As he reached the last part, he looked up with a mix of surprise and slight confusion.

'Wait! Shouldn't there be additional options available? I remember Enya mentioning back then, that I should be able to alter the end result by choosing and discarding certain traits. Is that not available this time?' He asked inwardly, although he himself wasn't sure why. There was nothing and nobody there to answer…

Sighing at the thought, Aiden shook his head as he returned his focus to the still proudly dancing campfire for the time being. Although the constantly flickering and floating screen blocked most of his vision, by now he had no difficulty in ignoring it. Besides, his hearing was sharp enough, so if anything would attempt to get a jump at them, he would hear and even smell from far away. 

Luckily the place they picked was quite hidden, the chances of being spotted were minimal at best. 

After around a minute, the floating, blue-tinted screen blinked and the bell-sound informing Aiden that a process was completed rang inside Aiden's mind. Focusing on the window once more, he looked at the bottom section of the text.

Below the text, a single button appeared with the text 'Begin' written on it with bright green. The 2 hours were relatively short, but it was still long enough that he couldn't just start it without waking one of the girls in the process to trade places with them. Looking up at the dark, night sky, the time would be just barely enough to complete the fusion and re-emerge from his cocoon by the time they would need to head out.

Looking at two erected tents once again, Aiden found himself in a strange, but as he continued to think about it, a serious dilemma. Who should he wake up? Sarah or Naybeah? When they set up camp, they both offered to create an hourly shift which he boldly discarded and offered to stand guard for the entire duration of their rest saying that he could meditate to recuperate and still retain his awareness in the process.

Whilst that was true, at the time, he didn't think such events would play out forcing him out of commission for 2 full hours! He just wanted to check up the options with the new forms he gained since his last check on this mysterious system function!

Letting out a large breath of air, Aiden sighed in defeat. He couldn't do anything now, he needed to go through with the fusion, and go to rest.

He continued to look from left to right, looking, measuring both entrances, trying to come up with a reasonable solution to this problem, sadly to no avail. Whoever he would pick, he would be subjected to their questionings, which he couldn't properly answer at all, and would also risk offending the other woman in the process as well.

There was no good way forward at all, there were no good answers! 

'What should I do?' He lamented at his own self-caused misery. All the events that happened with the girls and him before made him uncomfortable to interact with either of them too much for the time being. 

As he was continuing to heave heavy sighs and gaze at the light, red-orange flames curling and twisting against the light breeze that flew past by, he was suddenly alerted by the sound of footsteps coming from further up north. Jumping from his seat, he immediately activated his [Dark Sense] ability, pooling some of his large pool of [Soul Power] into it. 

As the ability activated, he sent out several energy-filled mental pulses in his surroundings but keeping his focus towards the source of the footsteps coming from the north. A moment later, his theory proved correct, as the familiar, orc life essence signals appeared on his System's Map slowly, but surely sneaking towards their camp.

'Scouts? Maybe they spotted the fire? But here, so far away from their camp? What are they doing?' He frowned at the prospect… Something was not right.

Although he had several questions, Aiden knew there was no time to waste, he had to act now if he wanted to avert a potential disaster. His face turned solemn, he began slowly walking forward, approaching at the orc's direction, in a course to intercept them just a bit further away from their camp.

As he took the first step, his figure began to flicker, and the space distorted around the contours of his visage. His muscles contorting, they began to rearrange themselves, to welcome the new form they were ordered to. His skin rapidly darkening, the dark green colors replaced the creole bronze that he usually sported. His figure rapidly rearranging itself, in a manner of seconds his figure donned the goblin look he revealed to the girls just a few hours before. 

As the last step, the gnarled, gemstoned little branch that the other goblins seemed to revere and even the old orc seemed to use appeared in his right hand as he left the camp and crossed a bush, deliberately snapping a few twigs in the process and hopefully alerting the girls as well.

He couldn't waste the time to check if this attempt was proved successful or not, because as soon as he left the bushes, he spotted large, bulky figures approaching from the visible distance. 

His golden eyes shining brightly, he could clearly see the approaching uninvited guests, they were two Mountain Orcs, similar to the duo they killed during the morning when they met with the blonde amazon. They had dark skin, blending into the nightly environment expertly. Both of them had a pair of large yellowish thick tusks emerging from their lower jar reaching the heights of their wide noses. They both carried a large, but crude-looking axe on their barren backs.

The only clothing they wore was some fur that they wrapped around their waistline, covering up their delicate parts, the rest was barren, naked for the eye to see.

They were tall, almost double Aiden's current goblin form's height. Noticing the golden-eyed little fella, both orcs didn't seem surprised in the slightest, it was as if they were expecting him to show up. 

Noticing the curvature of the increasing grin on their faces, Aiden frowned. This wasn't a random, coincidental encounter. This was a deliberate set up. Someone knew they were here and sent these orcs after them. Was it the old orc?

'How did he know our location so far away?' He asked himself but had no answer to it. At least not now. 

Still, before he could continue to lament on the issue at hand, the orcs arrived in front of him, and without bowing or any form of respect, they smirked at the little dark green goblin before they averted their attention towards his campsite, licking their lips in the process.

The one on the right, pointed at the campsite as he looked at the small, frail-looking goblin. Opening his large and wide mouth he uttered some strange, unfamiliar words at Aiden.

"[Orcish] Thag, wag'rahga! Toga snarg!" 

At his words his partner to his left snorted loudly, nodding his head agreeing to his unfamiliar words.

Before Aiden, could blurt out anything in response, he heard the ever-present system's gentle bell-like sound resounding in his mind, giving a bit of clarity to the situation.