Alia watched the clone strain as he pulled Alaric out of bed. The creation of her master circulated aether through its body, reinforcing what she'd now believed to be the weightless form of its body to carry the nearly Stone rank body of her master.

It started well with the Little Prince managing to crawl to the edge, only for the pair to tumble at the first step and collapse in a heap on the other side of the bed. Alia had flinched at the sight, but held her tongue.

She could tell from the emotions coming from Alaric that he was aware of her presence and was not about to ask for her help getting to the bathroom.

The clone wasn't even Glass Temper Rank, so by nature, he was a bad choice, and yet Alaric had called on him for this task, so he would let him be.

"What was that?" Alaric groaned along with the clone, "I remember you doing better than this."

"You're heavier than you think," the clone grumbled, "And this time, you're not even putting in much effort."

"I am putting in effort. Don't you see my twitching toes?" Alaric screeched, putting more effort into moving the barely-functional extremities, "Can barely even feel them."

The clone rolled its eyes, but didn't complain further. Instead, he tried to get the boy up again, hoisting him up with a hand over his shoulder.

Sweat beaded the white creature's forehead as he gritted his teeth, "Alright. Let's take this slow."

The Little Prince nodded, then looked at his feet with a frown. They felt like jelly and showed no signs of improvement.

It took him forever to lift a foot—which was more of him swinging his body to send the foot forward— and make the first step, and on the third, he was using a fraction of energy more than he needed, placing his numb foot ahead of the other and essentially tripping both of them. The pair went tumbling down in a mass of entangled limbs.

They struggled to get up and start again… and again… and again.

Alia locked eyes with Alaric once, but all she saw was a profound sense of determination. He would see this through without her help, and so she stood and watched as the injured prince got back up, fire burning in his eyes, and continued the journey to the bathroom. It was both comical and inspiring to watch as he achieved this form of locomotion that involved more falling walking.

……………

Alaric managed to get into the bathtub… after falling fifteen times, a number which had to be some sort of record. Still, though, his body denied all attempts at being useful. His arms, legs and other muscles were stiff, the aether channels beneath them pulsing with a dull ache.

"How much longer until I can move again?" Alaric asked the white clone, gently washing his back.

"A few more days… I think… I hope," the clone replied, unsure, "According to Kair'ak, you're lucky to be alive."

The boy sighed, staring at the foam floating in the water. The soothing scents of soap and the warmth of the water here were a welcome consolation, but even he was new to the sensation of being immobilised this badly. He moved his arm and noted how much his muscles strained, like they weren't his anymore.

His fever was coming down a bit, but that was not much of a consolation if it was only going to come back later.

'A few more days, huh,' he thought to himself.

He finished bathing and got into the struggle of drying himself and dressing up in new clothes. Outside, he found Alia fluffing a new set of pillows and smoothing out a fresh set of sheets, "Back to bed for you, Little Prince."

Alaric glared at the bed, a prison he was now starting to dislike, but allowed his clone to help him over to it. The return journey had fewer falls as his muscles tried to wake up, but it wasn't enough to give him hope that he could soon go outside.

Comfortably back in bed, he sighed. Boredom raked at his mind, so he sought a distraction. With his decision made, he leaned against the massive headboard and summoned a silver orb into his palm, wincing at the pain as aether flowed into his damaged channels.

"No aether for you," his guardian commanded.

"Will you do it then?" Alaric tried.

"That thing only listens to you, if you haven't noticed. I'm assuming only a Keeper can use one," the guardian responded with a shrug.

Alaric sighed. He didn't have many options, but he had an idea. Placing the orb down and away from him, he commanded, "Almanac, pull up everything you have on the Dungeon of the Sun."

There was a period of silence. Alaric held his breath, hearing a slight hum from the orb, almost as though it was considering his command. Part of him had always thought the device responded due to a connection he was unaware of when he was wearing the Storage Bracelet. This would be the first time he'd be ordering the bracelet when it wasn't on his person.

The silence was almost embarrassing before the strange mechanical voice echoed out, "Understood, Keeper Candidate Alaric."

Blue panes filled the room, spilling out of the silver orb and floating about the room, spanning its entirety with an Introductory Pane right in front of Alaric's face, showing a picture of the Dungeon of the Sun, a pyramid-like dungeon located somewhere in the Yellow Desert, east of the Barren Mountains.

The Almanac hadn't drawn on his aether to produce the information, which caused a large, smug grin to bloom on Alaric's face as he slowly turned to his guardian.

The armoured knight snorted, "Ugh, fine. Bury yourself in books for all I care."

And with that, she vanished into the shadows. Alaric called after her, "I love you, too…"

[ whatever… ] she rolled her eyes, but failing to mask the fondness that flowed through their bond.

Alaric chuckled to himself and turned his attention to the floating panes of information. He'd been bored beyond measure, but with this, he would not be.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

…………

Two hours later, Alaric stared with his jaw open at a particular pane. On the blue hologram was an image depicting a particularly powerful creature. It had the body of a lion, horns that framed its head and more scorpion tails than he could count.

'The Seven-Tailed Manticore.' The page read, and yet, Alaric counted more than seven tails. Curious as he was to ask that question, Alaric was stunned by the sheer enormity of the monster he was looking at.

It made no sense to read the words as they were written on the page, "Am I reading this right?"

"Pretty much," Alistair, his clone, answered, staring at the creature on the translucent pane.

"Tall as a hill? With the offensive power of a mountain?" Alaric gaped, "The dungeon won't let slayers beyond the Stone Rank in, and there is something that powerful inside it?"

Alistair didn't look particularly disturbed by the information, so he shrugged, "Maybe there is some other way through that's not fighting?"

Alaric stared at the creature a little longer before dismissing the pane to pinch the bridge of his nose, "We'll think about that another time… I've heard enough of the Dungeon of the Sun for one day."

He couldn't go over another pane describing the method with which a creature found inside the dungeon liked to hunt and devour its victims, so he let the panes float out about him. In the distance, he saw one seemingly unfinished with information that only came down half the page.

He put out his hand and willed it to him. Hoping to find that it was the end of some volume, Alaric gleaned information on the page that made him crack a brilliant smile.

In bold letters, the page read, { Records of the Keeper Candidate Alaric. }

This was the page with Alaric's findings on how Storm Orbs came into existence. Curiosity tugging at him, he decided to play around with the page. Rather than just read it, he meant to interact with it. He willed the words to change to take on a more pronounced prose, refined to sound like something out of a fantasy novel.

The clone laughed at the words Alaric was using, trying to sound like a distinguished scholar, but rather than shame him for it, the clone offered suggestions. 'Try a more active tense here… and postulate where you're not sure of the details,' he would say.

Together, they rewrote the contents on the page and formatted them to resemble the professional format they'd seen on the other panes.

Alaric didn't know how the other Seekers and Keepers had placed images on their panes, but he did his best to make their first work appear professional and informative, then grinned to himself as he sent the refined pane back into the orb.

"What's the time?" he yawned.

Alistair walked up to the window and pulled the curtains open to reveal the light outside. This window looked out to the fields surrounded by the light visage of a storm. Light still streamed in as though the sun was shining brightly above them, yet all they could see was a billowing vortex twisting endlessly into the sky.

"It's still evening," Alistair noted.

The white clone had been diligently tending to him ever since he'd called him out to help him bathe. Never complaining, and even going as far as to help him with his research on the Dungeon of the Sun. The rewriting bit had been fun, but the clone didn't need to do all that. And then there was the vexing matter of the information they had on the Sun Dungeon. So far, he could see no patterns to the way the dungeon was designed. It felt like each recount of the creatures inside it was new and entirely different.

Ah, but his thoughts were straying. He was trying to think of a way to repay his trusty clone for his kindness. Perhaps researching more on the magic of Names would allow him to grant the white clone a name. Going by Alistair usually meant he was calling on the Face Mask and not the clone himself. It was a weak replacement for a name, and he would see this rectified.

He held his hand out, and a pane from a volume diving deep into this topic floated to him. However, before he could truly dive into this topic, his door clicked open and a silver-haired girl walked in. Alaric locked eyes with her, her face going red.

She gasped and turned around to leave, "I'm sorry I didn't knock."

"Lucy," Alaric called, forcing her to freeze at the doorway, "Do-over?"

She nodded and closed the door behind her. A second later, a gentle knock resounded through the room. Alaric dismissed the blue panes with a grin, "Come in."

She opened the door and shuffled inside. Flicking her eyes to him and back to the ground, she whispered, "I interrupted something, didn't I?"

"I was studying," Alaric responded nonchalantly, "A good use of my time considering my situation. Did you want something?"

"You've been sleeping for a while now. I didn't expect you to be awake when I came in," she replied, "How are you feeling? Kair'ak and I have been taking time casting healing spells and feeding you the Bases Troy's been giving us."

"Troy's been giving you bases?" Alaric raised a brow.

"It's a convenient replacement for food when tending to someone unconscious. It has all the necessary nutrients. Won't even induce the need to use the toilet," Lucy spoke like it was no big deal.

Alaric was very astonished by this bit of information. If anything, Lucy was just ignoring the shocked expression on his face.

"Umm… how are you feeling?" The girl took a step closer, searching his body for clues. Her eyes glossed over the silver orb on his bed, but ignored it as she met his gaze, "You bathed…?"

"Yeah…! My clone helped me with that. Alia did the sheets. Everything hurts. Not that I'm surprised," Alaric answered with a chuckle, "I can barely move. My aether channels hurt at the slightest bit of aether flow, but since I'm in good hands, I'm not worried."

"That's good to hear," she answered, though Alaric could see the battle in her eyes, as though she had more to say but decided against it.

With a sigh, he changed the subject, "Mind filling me in on what's happening out there?"

The girl nodded, "Rail'ak's followers are rattled. The Duel of Wind disorganised them, and from what I gather, the prince is not in the mood to offer them guidance either—for those that remain loyal to him, anyway. Without him, they've disbanded, and it's chaos out there."

Alaric furrowed his eyebrows, "How come? There is so much to do in the demiplane."

The girl laughed, "That's actually what's causing the chaos. The demiplane offers them so much. Before, with Rail'ak in the picture, many were looking to become Stormrunners. But now, more than half of them have dropped out of Covert training."

"Covert training?" Alaric scrunched his eyebrows.

"Yeah, it's umm… 'Stormrunner training'. To become a Stormrunner, they have to know how to behave like humans, and that involves knowing their customs, the different towns, cities, myths, legends and things like that. They start with Flintstone Quarry," Lucy explained, "The displaced Stormrunners have been hitting up various places looking for a change of pace, but one in particular is suffering the most."

Alaric sighed deeply, "Morn'ak and the Spinmasters."

"Yes," she responded, "Your demonstration beat the norm. Using enchantments to bridge the power gap between the Wood Rank and Steel Rank got everyone excited—even though they don't realise the cost. The Textile District's been a mess for a while now."

Alaric shook his head, "What about Troy?"

"Troy…? Right, Troy. He is making a lot of progress. He says the Stone Pills should be ready within five days… at this rate," she explained, sounding distracted as she did. "He should be basking in the glory of his little harem by now."

Alaric raised a brow at her, "Harem?"

"Yeah," she chuckled, "Well, sort of. He's become a little star of his own. The girl who gave you that Amber Honey joined the five helping him, along with three of her friends. Scarlett and LionHeart are drawing eyes, too. Rumours are going around that LionHeart uses a fighting style similar to the High Sentinel."

Alaric nodded. So far, none of what the girl had said surprised him. There were bound to be consequences to the Duel of Wind, but thankfully, there had been no life-threatening escalation. "What about Rail'ak?"

"Rail'ak is still undergoing treatment. The Healing Elixirs here are only Three-Star, which makes the Healers a better option. Spines are a lot harder to cure, so his departure has been extended until he manages to heal. Hopefully, that will be in five days."

Alaric chuckled at the grimace on the girl's face. She had gone over everything he wanted to know in a tight summary, leaving most for him to see once he was well enough to walk.

A sinking feeling he'd gotten during his bath, however, returned to him. Now that he was talking to one of his Healers, his suspicions started to feel more accurate.

Her tone was dark, and her mood was low. He could understand the broken bond he'd not yet repaired, but this was more than that.

"I won't be able to move freely any time soon, will I?"

Lucy looked to the side, not able to keep eye contact with him, stretching out a long silence in which Alaric sighed.

"No, you won't," she answered, "Not until your Tempering Ritual is complete."

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