Seth looked around at the destruction of the mana well. The sealed doors above the stairs had crashed down along with most of the ceiling.

"Mau?" Seth called. She'd been on the creature's head the last time he'd seen her. He ducked around what was left of the mana bush by the entrance to the chamber with the exit tunnel. Behind him Selendrith had collapsed to her knees and was taking deep breaths.

"Mau?" Seth called again, creeping cautiously into the destroyed chamber, watchful of any sign of the wyvern. He was on the verge of panic when he realized he was being stupid. The familiar link would tell him if she was all right.

"Mew," he heard to his enormous relief, before he could focus on the link. She jumped onto one of the doors that had fallen from the ceiling, and looked up at the tower above. Seth glanced up at what she was looking at and saw that this whole thing was going to come down any minute.

And sticking out from the rubble, Seth could see the tip of the wyvern's tail. It had been crushed and buried.

"Let's get out of here," Seth said and helped Selendrith up. Although he could now see the sky, the narrow tunnel the chickens used was still the only way out.

One by one they crawled out, helped by Booth and Blaise. Once outside, they trudged up to the now gaping hole in the bottom of the ruin. They could still see the tip of the wyvern's tail in the rubble.

"It looks like you killed it." Booth said.

Owen stared at it and sat down heavily. Then he began to laugh until he was lying on the ground gasping for air.

Blaise stared at him, incredulous. "I think you've lost it. There's nothing funny about this. That thing was about to eat you."

Seth knew Owen wasn't laughing because it was funny. "Give him a bit. He'll calm down."

Booth stepped away from the hole and looked everyone over. "Why are you all covered in shit?"

Seth looked down at himself. Yeah, that wasn't clay in there, was it?

"Ewww!" Duvessa looked like she was going to cry. Seth thought it bizarre that she seemed more upset about the 'clay' than nearly dying to the wyvern.

"Why did you bring the tower down?" Blaise asked Selendrith, changing the subject. "You could have crushed everyone inside."

"I was trying to open the doors by breaking the seal," Selendrith said. "I didn't mean to break the tower."

"That would have just let it outside. How would that have made anything better?" Blaise asked.

"I thought the mages in town would be much better equipped to deal with it than us."

"Your plan was to release a monstrously sized wyvern onto the city several weeks before the typical little ones arrive?" Blaise asked. "When no one would be prepared for it?"

"Better them than us," Booth said. "You're lucky to be alive, you know."

"And if it decided to stay here and eat you?"

"Not so lucky, then," Booth answered. "It's dead now though, right?"

"Buried in the rubble," Seth said and gestured to the tower. One of the corners was leaning inwards precariously, giving the whole structure a saggy look. "And that will probably come down any minute." He turned to Owen. "Let's take a look at that shoulder."

Owen shook his head. "Let's get to the guard house first at least. If that thing isn't actually dead, I want to be far away."

Blaise had a bitter expression as she gazed at the destruction. The previous damage to the tower was exacerbated, and there was now an open hole into the basement of the tower where the wyvern was buried. If there was another chamber below the one the wyvern lived in, none of them knew. "We're not going to get anything out of being here anymore."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Duvessa exclaimed. "We were supposed to try for you to get your mana back! The bottom of the well is way too dangerous now." She turned to Seth. "What can we do? There's something else that'll work, right?"

"I don't think so," Seth said. "It was only inside the well that we were getting any good amounts of mana. Out here, there just isn't enough."

"Then we go to another one!" Duvessa declared.

"That will get complicated," Seth said. "Once the authorities see this, all the wells will be locked down. For a while, at least. Getting permission through the Circle Tower might be the only bet."

"We're going to have to tell someone about this," Owen said as he sat on a boulder and held a torn bit of his shirt to his bleeding shoulder. "That was dangerous."

"This was a secret mission," Duvessa said. "We didn't tell anyone we were doing this. It'll be bad if anyone knew we were here now."

"It's not secret anymore," Booth said. "Anyone who looks up here is going to see the tower fell down. I don't know how a dust cloud didn't alert the whole city. Here, this is the last of the water." He handed Seth the last waterskin. "You should at least wash that before we go. A few minutes shouldn't make a big difference."

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

"All right, shirt off," Seth said to Owen. Owen shot an awkward glance at Duvessa who was looking down at the city before grumbling and pulling the torn garment off with help from Seth.

"They'll come up and investigate and find the dead wyvern then," Blaise said.

"We should just leave," Booth said. "We don't need to do anything."

"We're not going to report this?" Owen asked, a bit incredulous.

"Owen, what do you think is going to happen if one of the royals finds out a bunch of students went to a mana well, discovered a giant wyvern, and collapsed the well?" Blaise asked.

"Oooh, yeah. Bad stuff!" Duvessa said. "We'd be expelled, locked up, and yelled at! It would be a very bad day."

"Yeah. Getting yelled at. Such a bad day," Booth said, shaking his head.

"We have to report the wyvern," Owen argued. "It'd be wrong not to. It's dangerous."

"It's dead. It ain't dangerous no more and there ain't nothing anybody is gonna get by reporting this," Booth said.

"The right thing to do is make sure the authorities know about the wyvern," Seth agreed with Owen. "But the guards are probably already on the way up here. They'll find it. No one will be getting hurt, and no one will get in trouble. Besides, I'm on probation, Owen. Even if they decide we didn't do anything wrong, and did the right thing by notifying them about the wyvern, I'll probably be kicked out anyway."

"Fine," Owen capitulated, resigned. "We don't report it ourselves. Duvessa, can you put a sparrow here and make sure the guards come?"

"Of course," Duvessa said and summoned a shadow sparrow.

"Leave it over there," Blaise said, pointing to a rocky outcropping on the edge of the mountaintop. "It probably won't be noticed over there. Your power is well known in school and by the guards. We don't want anyone knowing we were here."

Seth let go of Owen's shoulder and his pendant stopped glowing. "The best I can do is stop the bleeding. I used up everything in my amulet so we'll need to bandage that so it holds. I can give you more later."

Blaise helped Seth fashion a bandage and tie it in place. Owen was blushing and staring at the ground when Blaise reached around him to tie the bandage. When she was done he shot a look over at Duvessa, but she was looking down at the city.

"We've got a little more than an hour of daylight left," Seth said. "If we are going to make a camp somewhere, we need to find a place really soon."

"Why would we camp?" Duvessa said. "There's the guardhouse just down the way."

"Do you think guards will come up tonight?" Blaise asked.

"Can we risk it if they do? We'll be caught and blamed for the destruction here," Seth answered.

"I need a bath," Duvessa declared.

"Send Reginald to find water somewhere. A stream or pond or something. We'll hike there and camp for the night," Seth suggested. "Booth, let's divide up Owen's camping gear. He shouldn't be carrying anything."

"Fine. I have no idea how you plan to heat that water for my bath," Duvessa said.

"I'm injured, not broken," Owen protested. "I can still carry my share."

Seth and Booth ignored them both and divided Owen's gear. They spread it out amongst everyone else to Duvessa's loud complaints.

Before they headed out, Seth went looking for Mau. He found her on the path just outside the tunnel. She had a small bag full of the magic berries.

"You did this on your own? Do you think these berries are safe to eat?" Seth asked.

Mau nodded authoritatively, looking smug and pleased with herself.

"Yeah, Duvessa will try them either way. All right, I'll pack them up. We can try them after we make camp."

They hiked as quickly as they could down the mountain and followed Reginald. It was just after dark when he led them to a narrow clearing below the tree line with a shallow pool and sheltered by evergreens.

With light provided by Mau and Seth they had a basic camp set up. No one allowed Duvessa to bathe in the spring, but everyone got to wash themselves off and clean their clothes using a bucket Booth had taken from the guardhouse. Seth used the Breeze spell to dry their clothes more quickly.

"Hey Seth, where is the sword I gave you?" Owen asked as they were eating.

"I, uh, lost it," Seth said as he handed Duvessa a piece of bread.

"Aw. That's a school sword! I'm responsible for that." Owen looked up the mountain. "Do you think we should look for it tomorrow?"

"No!" Everyone responded.

"It was the best one," Owen muttered sullenly.

"It was the worst! I don't think I could cut paper with that thing. It was old and dull and almost completely useless!" Seth exclaimed. "It's crazy that your power likes the crappy weapons best. Why can't you make newer weapons sharper?"

"I don't know. They just don't work as well unless they're well used," Owen defended himself.

"You came up with a sword though," Booth said. "Why not just return that one?"

"Because it's a different type of sword. And it looks a lot different from the school swords. Here, look." Owen pulled the sword out and held it so everyone could see it in the firelight. It was once a magnificent sword. The blade had once been silvered steel, but was now coated in a layer of corrosion. The golden hilt was also encrusted with grime, but looked to have once had a phoenix motif.

"Do you think a blacksmith could clean that up?" Blaise asked.

"Use a weaponsmith," Booth said. "You'd get more value back on the sword."

"I don't care about what it's worth," Owen said. "It's a really good sword. It feels better than the school swords too."

"You mean it's older and duller than the practice swords used by a magic school?" Booth sniggered. "Even a weaponsmith might not be able to fix it then."

"Shut up. This crappy sword kept that wyvern from biting anyone," Owen protested.

"Until you fell off the stairs," Selendrith said quietly. "Then it was Duvessa's shadows and my barriers."

Seth looked over to where Selendrith sat a little ways away from everyone. Her fists were clenched.

"We're okay. All of us are okay," Seth said, and tried to be reassuring. "We all did what we could when it counted. Owen stood right in front of that thing and kept its attention for as long as he could," Seth said. "If he likes that sword, it's his. You and Duvessa did a fantastic job too. Nobody died even though that thing wanted to eat all of us very badly."

Selendrith wrapped her arms around herself and hid her face in her knees.

"Eh, fine," Booth said. "Keep the sword, Owen, and don't worry about returning anything. I'll take care of it."

"Blaise, we didn't get to do the mana collection ritual," Seth said, "but these have a lot of mana in them, and the chickens were eating them. Do you think we should try them?" Seth pulled out the sack of berries Mau had collected.

"Oh! Me! I want one!" Duvessa stood up and practically danced. "I want to eat the glowing berries!"