Last day before the weekend.

John woke up to his alarm. Despite technically needing little sleep, he did not wake up early this morning. He was alone too, which was strangely feeling new rather than what had been all his life before the past two weeks. He decided to deal with a few things and go to his house to prepare for the day.

He noticed a peculiar scene when he entered his vault. Dargon was laying on the ground on a pile of coins next to an empty chest and was piling them in stacks of various sizes, regardless of their denomination.

"Forty-nine, forty-ten, forty-twelve, forty-eleven, forty-thirteen, forty-fifteen... No, no, this is not it... The count isn't correct!" he mumbled before racking the stacks back in the pile and started making new ones.

"Hello, Dargon, counting the treasure?"

"Ohhhhhhh, hi! Of course. You see, how can I be sure that none of it is missing if I don't know how much there is? I have to count it to guard it."

"I'll leave you to it then. It's good that you take your task so seriously," John couldn't avoid smiling. The task was hopeless, and he had no idea what the little creature could possibly do to guard the treasure if someone was after it, but it would at least keep him occupied and out of trouble.

John entered his private room at the back of the vault and recovered the Drider chrysalis from it. If, as both Tricia and he thought, the aggressive behavior of the previous one was due to the infection, then it would be a good idea to let it mature. He had a secure place for it now; the fused quartz panels of the confinement area of the lab were one inch thick, and there was little that could break this, especially directly after hatching and without being fed.

"Dargon, I think we have it under control, but try not to venture outside today," he told the little creature, busy counting coins, on his way out.

"We have an outside? Wahoo, this is a big place! Can I see it? I like outsides," John heard from behind himself. He turned around and saw Dargon standing in front of the closed vault door.

"How did you get out?"

"I walked... Can I see the outside?"

"Did you just hear me tell you not to go outside?"

"But I like outsides, there's a lot of things there."

"Follow me, but once you get a look at it, you'll go back inside!" John climbed the stairs and stopped in front of the entrance of his castle, only to have Dargon bump in the back of his legs. "There it is, the outside. Now, remember: you should not go out alone for now!"

The small creature ran out and thankfully stopped a few feet from the entrance.

"Woooooo, you got floaty rocks and birbsneks! This is the best outside ever! Mountains! You got mountains! And tons of creatures! Can I go on the floaty rocks? It looks cool! Can I? And the mountains, the mountains seem cool, I want to see them... Is that a lake? You have a lake! And a forest? I want to see, can I see? This is really the best outside..." said the little Guardian before John could intervene.

"Dargon, I told you that it could be dangerous for now. Besides, if you go around to explore who will count and guard the treasure?" he tried to argue. It seemed effective; Dargon came back to the entrance, and John put a knee on the ground to pat the head of his newest subject (not officially, sadly) to reward him for showing some sense.

"Yayyyy, pats! But you'll show me, right? When it's not dangerous, you'll show me everything? Will the nice lady come back? The one with the huge mammaly globes, who draws things... She was nice and gave me pats too," asked Dargon.

"She will come back, but she doesn't live here, so she won't be here all of the time. And yes, I will take you to visit things later. Just don't go explore by yourself. Come on now, go back to the vault. Some people will be back at the castle today, just tell them if you are hungry. There are toilets on the first basement if you need one."

John left the little red creature walk downstairs as he got to the lab. He opened the door of the containment unit he had just finished assembling last night and recovered the large chrysalis from his inventory. Some tubes were connecting the cell to the machines lent by Tricia and would regulate the temperature and recycle the air inside of it.

John left the huge silk covered lump here and made sure that the door was closed once he left. He sent a message to Cali and Sylvia to tell them he was leaving for school and to keep an eye on Dargon if possible, but also to warn him in case of trouble.

His mother had prepared breakfast, knowing that Anna had gone home last night. Over a plate of fresh waffles, John explained what happened last night and asked his mom to make sure not to leave the castle if she visited, at least for the day. This new incident was put on the already long list of things that John had to deal with.

Once at the academy, he finally understood what Anna had said about the condition of the locker rooms. There was a strange smell in the hallways, the floor was dirty, and there was even a huge stain left by a spilt soda that had dried and had various footprints and bits of food wrappers on it.

John had one hour of Geography to go through, followed by one hour of free study before his weekly two hours test. During the first class, he texted Tricia to see if she could get a look at the new lab during his free period. As soon as the bell rung, he left class to find a secluded place to meet Tricia and take a short trip to the kingdom.

He turned around a corner in a hallway and bumped into someone in his haste.