The Aerodon landed in the airport. Concord exited wearily, stumbling forward. It had been a tiring flight, especially because he had never flown before.

He bought a map of Moraindia, rented a bicycle, and rode it to the Denecay Dunes. After all, the dunes were hard to miss on the map, and he was constantly pulled towards them. So it wasn't hard to find them.

Concord leaned his bike against a pole. He wasn't sure exactly what he should have done with the bike, but he figured that somebody would take it and put it where it needed to go. Then he checked his materials and set out into the dunes. He didn't know exactly where he was going, but he figured that he should just follow the magical pull. His powers had never let him down before, after all.

Concord had no time to lose. His adventurous spirit could not be contained any longer.

He sped along the sand at a quick pace. He had recently figured out how to control the sand in a safe enough way to move him around fast. It had taken a few tries, and many falls and mistakes, but eventually he had gotten it.

I do wish that it didn't have to be sand, though. It's really not my strength.

His small, moving sand dune collapsed and Concord fell face down into the sand. "What happened?" he asked nobody in particular. I must have just lost control of the sand. "Oh."

Concord created the mound of sand again and sped off once more.

The pull stopped. What? I'm not being pulled towards somewhere anymore.

Concord looked around. There was a huge dune in front of him, but that was it. Hmm. I wonder if that dune has anything to do with it.

Concord tried to climb the dune, scrambling upwards, but slid back down. After a moment, he realized that he didn't need to climb the dune. Oh. Heh.

Concord shifted the sand to reach the top of the dune.

"AAH!" Concord cried out, swinging his arms in circles as he tried to maintain his balance. He had almost knocked himself over the edge.

But what is this the edge of?

Concord was standing at the top of the dune, but there was a steep drop in front of him, leading down to what seemed to be a bottomless pit. Concord tried to lift a piece of earth from the bottom of the pit. It didn't work. He tried again. It still didn't work. Concord was confused.

That always works. Maybe it's too far away?

Concord took a piece of solid earth out of the walls that were closer to him in the strange pit, and slid down the dune onto it.

Concord lowered the slab of earth at a medium pace. He didn't want to go too slowly, because it might take too long. And he didn't want to go at a fast pace because there would be a possibility of him hitting the bottom of the pit before he even knew it was there.

I certainly don't want that to happen.

Omar heard the whooshing of a large object approaching from the sky. But it didn't sound like it was falling. No, no. It was descending much slower than that. Omar tried to sense the air around him. A slab of earth? There's something on top of it? Is it a person?

He rushed towards the sound. He heard the object touch down.

"Hello?" Omar asked.

"Hello," Concord replied.

"How did you get here?"

"Well... um... I traveled to the Denecay Dunes because I had a vision and then came down here on a slab of earth? Does that sound crazy?"

"No... it doesn't, actually. I had the vision too."

"Really?" Concord peered around in the dim light. He was in a circular room, with a large rune carved in the floor. There were symbols and letters, carved into the stone walls in a language that he had never seen before. There was a hallway to his right which led to rows and rows of bookshelves.

"Yes." Omar smiled. "But I have a question."

"Yes?"

"Can you control earth and stones and rocks and... that type of thing?" I need to know. I don't see how else that slab could have been descending so slowly.

Concord was confused. "You're not frightened? I mean, yes, I can." He sighed. That was the first time he had admitted it to a stranger.

"Of course I'm not frightened! I can control the air. Well, sort of. I'm still practicing. More like... I can shift it... a little." Omar made an uncertain gesture in the air.

"Really? I didn't know there were more people like me- us."

"I didn't either. But I wonder why we were both drawn here. What do we have in common?"

"Maybe if you can control elements, then you're drawn here," Concord suggested.

"You have seen the vision, right?"

"Yeah. A picture of dunes that has the words 'Denecay Dunes' written on them."

"Exactly. So you have seen it. Who knows what other people have?"

"Well, if it's all the people with elements, then maybe we do know who else is getting the visions. Somebody who can control water, and somebody who can control fire." Concord looked thoughtful.

"That's a good point. But I suppose all we can do is wait." Omar sighed. Like I've been doing.

"Well, what have you found in here?" Concord looked pointedly at the runes on the walls.

"I've found a rune on the floor, and I don't really know what it means. And I can't read the books."

"Why-" Concord looked confused.

"I'm blind." Omar explained, anticipating what Concord was going to say.

Concord's confused expression faded to a more sympathetic one. "Oh. That's impressive, though - that you made it this far with... that... uh... challenge."

"Yeah. The blindness certainly does not help with getting tasks done, such as jumping into temples which have drops of unknown lengths. I guess my element helps with that." Omar grinned. Then it faded. But I wish I wasn't blind. It does make me weaker. Concord seems more powerful than me; what if he rejects me because of my weakness?

No. I doubt it. He seems nice... maybe we could be friends. "What's your name?"

"Concord. What's yours?"

"Omar."

They both smiled. Omar felt his hopes soar. I hope we can be friends. I think we will be. If he takes me for who I am, I know we'll get along wonderfully. 

"There's so many shelves." Concord shook his head as they walked through the aisles of shelves.

"Yeah. I could figure that out just by the fact that the lines of books never seemed to end."

Concord laughed. "That's pretty accurate. These shelves go on for so long I can't see the end of it. Of course, there's no light in here, so I can't see very far ahead anyhow, since we're underground. The lanterns are not lit, obviously. If they were, there wouldn't be a fire still in there anyway." He picked up a lantern and turned it in his hands, then reached into his bag for a half-filled box of wooden matches, quickly lighting it. He looked around, relieved that there was light.

"Hmm. I wonder what kind of information these books have." Omar made five random books shoot out from the shelves and fly over to Concord. "What do these have to say?" he asked.

Concord opened the first book and quickly skimmed through a few random pages. "Oh. Wow." He stopped walking.

"What is it?"

Concord did not reply. He picked up another book and skimmed through a few pages. He let out a deep breath. He skimmed through the other three books, which only served to confirm his suspicions.

"What is it?" Omar asked again impatiently.

"Each of these books is the life of a person who is living on Zenaria, or who has lived on Zenaria. For example, one of these, on the last page, is writing by itself. It is continuing the story of a person who is alive right now. That's why there's so many shelves. There's just so many people who have lived here."

Omar's jaw fell open. "Wow," was all he had to say. Well that's not what I expected 'The Temple of All Knowledge" to contain.

"I bet if we tried, we could find ourselves," Concord added.

"We'd have to learn to navigate this place first. There must be some sort of order. Like, maybe alphabetical? Do you think that's how they're ordered?"

"Well, that might make sense. But they might be ordered by time, too. Or.. I don't know... height?"

"Yeah, I don't think the people are ordered by height, Concord!" Omar laughed.

"That's a good point." Concord laughed sheepishly. "I was just throwing out ideas. I should probably start checking the books to see what the order is."

So they stopped going down one row of shelves and went back to the start, where the aisles were.

"Oh." Concord sighed.

"What's 'Oh'?" Omar asked in confusion.

"The aisles are labeled. By letter. A is all the way on the left, Z is all the way one the right. We probably could have checked that before we entered the aisle." Concord chuckled.

"Yeah, we probably could've," Omar replied. "Well, who are we going to look for?"

"I think... maybe ourselves. I have a feeling that there's a lot more to our backstories than we were told."

A look of longing entered Omar's eyes, and his smile lit up the room. Maybe I'll finally find out my past. Who my parents are. Where I came from. "Yes. I have a feeling about that too."

Concord slid Omar's book out of the shelf. He coughed as dust cascaded down on him. Then he grabbed his book, which he had placed on the floor, and ran down the hallway.

Omar waved towards Concord as he approached, and smiled. "What'd you find?"

"I'm not sure. Let's find out." Concord opened his own book first, squinting at the minuscule print on the pages. He skimmed through it quickly, skipping whole sections of months - or even years, if he thought they didn't provide needed or interesting information.

Concord flipped through the pages for fifteen minutes, Omar fidgeting next to him. He finally stopped reading when he reached a point at which he could remember the events written. Then Concord closed the book.

"Well? What's it say?" Omar grinned and shuffled closer to his companion.

"Well, from combining what I remember and what I read, I found..." He paused, letting the suspense build for a moment.

"What'd you find? What'd you find?" Omar was bursting with curiosity. I wonder what his past is like. I wonder what mine is like. Are they similar?

"Well," Concord spoke again, "I was raised in a small town in Armain, an only child, until I was seven. I lived in a loving household, and they put in their best efforts to help me control my powers. My parents died of a disease called Sigiriya, and so I was sent to an orphanage, as we didn't really have any other close family."

"Do you remember being sent to the orphanage?" He had such a normal, good life...

"Yes... I think I do." Concord nodded thoughtfully. "I remember a small, green trijalopy opening its doors for me to get in, and me stepping inside. It was wintertime, and the ground was covered with snow. They took me to a strange, large building, and I never left it again... that is, until about a week ago."

"Whoa."

"I'll read yours now." Concord smiled at Omar, seeing the way that he kept fidgeting, wanting to move on.

Concord read through the pages of Omar's book at the same rate he had done with his own. But after only six minutes, he stopped.

"What is it?" Omar asked, confused. "Why'd you stop? Did you read up to the present already?" Did he read through it that fast? Or is it something else...

"Omar... I... are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes, I want to know!" Omar became anxious. What's in my past? What happened that makes Concord so worried? I must know! He can't deny me knowledge of my own past.

"Okay, then..." Concord started hesitantly. "Omar... you didn't really have much of a life before the orphanage."

"What do you mean? Was I poor?" Why would that matter?

"What I mean is... you were given to the orphanage at birth. Your parents... they gave you away because you were blind."

"What?" Omar's face fell. No, no, it can't be true...

"I'm afraid it's true." Concord put a hand on Omar's shoulder.

"Nobody liked me at the orphanage, but my parents... they- they didn't either?"

Concord shook his head. What should I say?

Omar froze, almost not able to handle what he had just heard. His eyes filled with tears. No... no one ever loved me. Not even my family.

"If-"

Omar pulled away from Concord. "I just... need some time alone." So he stood and walked into one of the long corridors of shelves. There, he dropped to his knees and began to weep silently, ashamed of his tears, yet unable to stop them.