With spots of semi-permanent blindness still in your vision, you stare at the Orb-orb in a jar at your desk, You managed to scourge up some stale cookies to feed it, and it seems to enjoy drops of water every once in a while. So it is sentient enough to actually need food to survive… noted.

But as you get a chance to look carefully at the Orb-orb itself, you see that it is smaller compared to the other orbs you saw making the shield. You reason that perhaps this Orb-orb is a youngster, and did not have the speed of the other Orb-orbs to get out of your way when you tried to catch one. Given that you now know Orb-orbs need to eat and presumably grow in size, this seem plausible.

But that doesn't solve the problem of speech. The Orb-orbs in the foyer were eager to offer you all scones and tea before; they talked a little too much, in fact. So why is it that this Orb-orb doesn't say anything? Why does it have to be the one you caught? It's so… so… infuriating!

You carefully open the jar, and not so carefully shout “WHAT ARE YOU” into it in your commanding tone. You see the Orb-orb shrink to one side of the jar. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU,” you repeat. Still… nothing.

You get up to find some other materials to probe the Orb-orb with. Perhaps it will respond to pain, or maybe you can attempt to see if it can swim. Having a water proof shield could be highly useful, you think as you search. After all, you never know the terrains you will have to face, and really-

But then your train of thought is interrupted by an erupting, male voice: “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU”.

You whip your head back, and see the Orb-orb floating gently above its jar. “What the fuck did you just say to me?” You reply threateningly.

Silence.

“WHAT ARE YOU,” the Orb-orb eventually replies in your previous grating tone. Wow, you do sound pretty aggressive, huh. You can see why some people don't get along with you now. But more importantly, the Orb-orb does talk! But it seems to, at least for now, only repeat things you say. “Can you speak other words?” You ask, a little more softly this time - as much as you can manage that, anyway.

After some bumbling around, fully pushing your pen off the table, the Orb replies “WHAT speak words FUCK” with emphasis on the first and last word. You think perhaps this little shit is goading you.

“Listen here you glowy ball of nonsense, if you don't answer my questions I have all the power in the world to put you back in the jar! Do you understand?”

“Listen here you glowy ball of nonsense, if you don't answer my questions I have all the power in the world to put you back in the jar! Do you understand?” The Orb-orb repeats, exactly in your voice.

You're floored. It is repeating what you say to it. Does that mean that the offers for tea and scones from the other Orb-orbs were merely just recollections of things they'd heard, perhaps from past customers?

“Power speak words glowy ball FUCK jar.” The Orb-orb says.

Ok, so that was the closest thing to a sentence that the Orb-orb has managed to say yet. And again in your tone of voice, no less. It seems to not like the jar very much

“Are you a mimic?”

“Mimic.”

“Okay… if you can mimic sentences, does that mean you can understand me?”

“Understand power listen speak. Does understand.”

“Good ok, if you can understand me then I'll ask one more time, what… are you?”

“FUCK YOU.”

You slam your fist on your filing cabinet and the Orb-orb zips back into the jar, cowering. This thing is really getting on your nerves, but at least with this string of insults you are able to deduce that it can understand you, and has the ability to use words you have said to it to make sentences. But it just comes out so aggressive when its in your tone of voice.

Luckily fear isn't in your repertoire of emotions.

“So, you can make shields right? How do you do this?”

The Orb-orb continues to cower. You sigh and break off a bit of a cookie and drop it into the jar. As the Orb-orb absorbs it, a glimmering, bubble like surface forms over the jar, and the Orb-orb and cookie consequently disappear from said jar.

“Good. Okay. Interesting.”

So, sustenance fills the Orb-orb's ability to form itself into a shield-like structure. You wonder if there is a calorie minimum to make a shield, and if amount of sustenance provided and shield size scales linearly.

You poke the transparent bubble lining. It depresses against your finger, but you do feel some strain. So, the shield is not unbreakable. You also note that this little shield feels weaker than the one around Amar's Bookshop. Al-Dimashqi told you he had to push rather hard to get the shield to pop open. So you reason that more Orb-orbs perhaps can make a stronger shield.

“You have been useful Orb-orb, finally” You remark

“Useful Orb-orb”

“Yes, useful. I wish to use you to save a lot of people one day.”

“Save people,” the Orb-orb repeats, floating out of its jar. It hovers close to your arm and, with a flicker faster than your can blink, you see it disintegrate into a transparent sheet wrapped around your forearm. It looks like your arm is encased in a thin sheet of plastic.

You poke it, it feels like the bubble shield around the Library, but now it's around… you.

Hurriedly, you take a glass of water and pour it over your arm, it drips of, like water off a duck's back.

“Remarkable…”

“Remarkable…” The Orb-orb repeats, still in the form of a sheet around your arm. When it collapses back into it's Orb-shaped self, you give it another piece of cookie.

You find that after some trial and error, you learn that the Orb-orb has the potential to be useful as a command-deployed waterproof shield, with the possibility of increased strength and size depending on number of Orb-orbs and their food source.

This could be unstoppable in your own time.

Except…

You find that you are unable to control this little Orb-orb. It seems to stick around you, but do little more than mimic your swear words and scream at you in your own voice. Once in a while it, does do as its told and makes a waterproof mask, or a force field in front of you, but it is not consistent. Perhaps your training methods are just too harsh.

After talking at it for a while, however, it had enough words to remix back to you that it, like the snake and yourself, are sentient between Libraries, which is how it managed to follow you through the mirror and into the Hubworld in the first place, though its brethren are not here within this space.

As you talk and feed the Orb-orb, it grows in size too. Now, it takes up the entire bottom of the jar, and its girth only seems to be increasing.