When Seth got to the meeting place, Mau was already there, along with most of the others. She was lounging up a tree, with her paws dangling on either side of a big branch. He was glad she found a different perch. It was starting to get uncomfortable for her to ride on his shoulder. Another few weeks and she'd be too big.

On another smaller branch, Reginald the Second was sprawled, as much as a raven could be, in the same position as Mau. It looked weird.

The meeting area was beyond the coliseum, behind an unused building. The grass was well-kept, and there were benches beneath a pair of trees, but the area was little used and felt private.

Blaise was lying on her back on one of the benches, tossing a large mushroom high in the air and catching it. Every time she did, a little puff of spores exploded out. Selendrith was sitting on the other bench with a notebook in her lap, watching Blaise disapprovingly. Booth was leaning against a tree, fiddling with a small knife. Duvessa held a blanket and poked her foot at a spot on the ground. Then she moved to a different spot and poked again.

"Ugh! Everywhere is wet!" Duvessa declared.

"It rained all day yesterday, stupid," Booth said.

"I am not stupid," Duvessa said haughtily. "I know why the ground is wet. I am upset that it is still wet. The sun has been out all day today."

"Hey everyone," Seth greeted them. "No Owen today? I thought he was coming."

"Probably just late. Like you," Booth said and put his knife away. "Actually, there he is now. Is that your brother, Blaise?"

Blaise looked over without sitting up. A young man in his early twenties with the same reddish brown hair as Blaise walked next to Owen. "Yup. That's him." She threw the mushroom up again.

"Quite the crowd here," Blaise's brother said when he got close. "Hello Blaise's friends. I'm Brand." Everyone introduced themselves to him, and Duvessa introduced Mau and Reginald. After that was done, Brand headed over to Blaise's bench and watched her throw the mushroom. "Why are you doing that?" he asked.

"For like a year, I couldn't even touch a mushroom without it getting soggy and slimy. I'm enjoying the dust."

"You're getting filthy," Brand said, indicating the spores that covered her in a thin layer of brown.

Blaise tossed the mushroom to the ground and sat up. "Good. I like baths."

Brand shook his head. "I was looking for you. I'm heading out today, and–"

"You're leaving? Did Dad come home?" Blaise interrupted.

"No, he didn't, he–"

"Is Mom still in Mariglade then?" Blaise interrupted again.

"Yeah, she hasn't left, she–"

"I don't have to go home yet, do I? I thought I could stay at least until exams!"

"Blaise!" Duvessa said sharply. "Let the man speak!"

"But–"

"Blaise!" Duvessa repeated. Then she looked at Selendrith. "Have you got a muffler on you?"

"Don't you dare muffle me!" Blaise said.

"Leave me out of this," Selendrith said.

Brand looked from Blaise to Duvessa in amused confusion.

"It is rude to interrupt," Duvessa declared. "Be polite or be muffled."

"If you're muffled, can you hear what people say outside the muffled zone?" Seth asked.

"Yeah, that works fine. Mufflers only stop sound out," Booth said.

"There you have it," Duvessa said. "Please continue," she said to Brand.

Brand's amused smile widened. "All right. I am heading to the East Well to join an expedition. I've been looking for you since noon."

There was a sudden tension in the group.

"An expedition?" Blaise couldn't quite keep her voice from getting higher pitched. She glanced around at everyone else. "Why there?"

"When the well collapsed, it opened a passageway into caverns inside the mountain. It might connect to the Below, and I volunteered to join the first explorer team," Brand said. "You don't need to worry about it being an entrance. Even if it does connect, beasts won't exit there. It's too high up the mountain," he explained, misinterpreting everyone's apprehension.

"Wasn't there a beast or something already there?" Seth asked.

Brand nodded. "There had been something there. It looks like it came up to the bottom of the well and collapsed the fortress when it tried to escape. It's gone back into the Below now, so you don't need to worry about that."

Booth was furiously shaking his head at the others from behind the tree. Mau had lifted her head and had both ears and eyes pointed at Brand. Duvessa had a hand over her mouth.

"So, there was a beast there," Blaise said.

"Yeah, it's gone now, though," Brand said reassuringly.

"There was no body?" Owen asked.

"Like, a monster body? No, none that I heard of," Brand said. He looked around at the silent teenagers. "It's okay, you don't need to be worried about it. The Palace has a team there already, and they've recruited a couple of professors, and a bunch of the elemental crews. I'm heading up with the Fire Brigade, and I hear the Wing Guard has been there from the beginning. They even let some of the student groups go up, like the sparkies, wingnuts, and blockheads."

Seth figured the Fire Brigade was probably the charheads that Ace had talked about, or at least the post-school group the charheads joined. That meant the wingnuts were Ace's Wingmen. Sparkies were probably a Lightning Tower based group, and the blockheads would be stone or metal. Every group had disparaging nicknames from the other groups.

But all that didn't matter nearly as much as the fact that Chicky-Chicky was alive and had escaped into the Below.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Booth was still shaking his head. Owen was staring at the ground and rocking slightly on his heels. Selendrith was hugging herself.

"Hey, it's okay," Brand tried to reassure his sister who was staring at him in horror. "The Below isn't that scary. Here, I got this for you." He pulled out an inkwelll. "It's an Everfull that's been twinned. I've got the other bottle so you can write to me anytime. Just don't use it for your homework or anything. I won't have that much paper on me."

"Twinned?" Blaise asked.

"Yeah. These can be pricey, but they're worth it," Brand said. "Basically, anything you write with the ink in this bottle, the ink in the twinned bottle will reproduce the next time it's opened. The range is pretty short, like only a few miles, so it's not good for long-distance communication, but it's really handy for short-range stuff. If you need anything, you can write me a letter with this, and I'll get it almost right away."

Selendrith latched onto the topic. "They are often used for communication relays through distant towns," she explained. "But they are expensive, and the twinning isn't permanent, so they are expensive to maintain. My grandfather makes them occasionally."

Brand perked up at that. "Is your grandfather an alchemist?"

"No, a carver. He makes the inkwells for the alchemist to put the enchanted ink into."

"Nice. So you know all about this stuff and can help Blaise out if she needs it," Brand said. "Blaise, you can write to me every night and I'll write back. You'll see that the Below isn't that dangerous to an experienced team. We've got several crack teams checking it out."

"I– I'm worried about wyverns," Blaise said. "It's wyvern season soon, right?" She looked over at Owen and Seth.

"Wyverns like the wells around here," Seth said.

"I've fought wyverns before," Brand said dismissively. "I can handle them." He looked around at the other teenagers with his sister. "I'm going to trust all of you to keep her out of trouble until I get back, so don't do anything stupid."

"Didn't Mom say you have to stay with me at school?" Blaise asked.

"I'll still be in Rosia, like Mom wanted and I'm getting bored just sitting around. This way, I'll still be nearby while doing something productive. Trips into the mountain should only take about a week, so I'll be back before you miss me." Brand mussed his sister's hair and strode away.

"Well, shit," Booth said softly.

"That thing isn't dead," Blaise said. "How can it not be dead? We dropped a building on it!"

"We gotta tell someone about it now," Owen said. "We can't leave it."

"And how exactly is that conversation supposed to go?" Booth demanded. "Oh, you destroyed the Mana Well, released a giant wyvern, and opened a hole into the Below! No prob, we got it, you kids go back to class!"

"We'd be lucky if all they did was lock us up," Seth said.

"They won't send us in after it, will they?" Selendrith asked. She pulled her feet up on the bench. "I don't want to fight that thing again. That was really scary."

"No, they won't," Booth said. "Because we ain't doing nothing. We ain't telling no one."

Seth agreed. "We have to trust that the people there are smart." He tried to sound as reassuring as he could. "You remember the piles of poop in the cave? The adults there would have seen that too, and they'd know what it was. Faster than we did. They know more spells and can do more than all of us put together. It's their job, so let them do it."

"I dunno man," Owen said. "It feels slimy letting anyone go into that hole knowing that thing is in there somewhere and not telling them about it. What if it evolves into a dragon down there?"

"It won't," Seth said, his voice higher than he intended.

"It needs the well for that, right?" Blaise asked. "It can't do it while in the Below, can it?"

"They go up mountains for that," Seth said, more hopeful than convinced himself.

"It is wounded now, yes?" Duvessa asked. "The explorers would have the advantage then. We held it off, so surely they could too."

"We put it to a vote then," Booth said.

"No, not a vote, that won't work," Seth said. "It has to be an agreement, and it has to be unanimous. Otherwise the people outvoted would feel pressured to tell anyway. If anyone decides to tell, we should make a plan together on how to do that."

"I say don't tell," Booth said.

"I say not," Selendrith said.

"No for me, too," Seth said.

"I don't see how it would make a significant difference," Duvessa said.

Owen nodded. "Alright. If y'all reckon no, I'll agree."

"Blaise?" Duvessa asked.

Blaise was staring at her hands and slowly brushing the mushroom spores off. Finally she looked at Duvessa. "Would it be bad if I just told Brand?"

"Yes, it would!" Booth exclaimed. "He'd have to tell his team, and then everyone would know. It'll come back and bite us."

"Is there a better way to let people know about it?" Seth asked. "Some way we can reveal it without anyone knowing it was us?"

"I dunno, I think the big piles of wyvern crap is probably the only reveal they need," Booth said.

"That's true," Seth said. Soon everyone was watching Blaise.

Blaise finally nodded. "Yeah. That's probably enough. I won't tell Brand."

"Or anyone else," Booth pushed.

"Or anyone else," Blaise agreed.

"Okay," Seth said. "We've all agreed. If someone does change their mind, they need to let the group know. This could go very badly for some of us, so we'd need to plan it carefully."

"I forget you're on probation, Seth," Blaise said. "Yeah, that would be very bad for you."

Seth took a deep breath. "And since we're talking about serious stuff anyway, I have another thing we all need to discuss." He looked up at Mau who was now sitting on her branch, perched like a gargoyle. Reginald was perched on his branch with his wings forward, doing his best to copy Mau. He was a weird bird.

"Duvessa, do you know anyone else who has a similar shadow summoning power as you do?" Seth asked.

"Nope. No one else. Just me and my grandma."

"Your grandma is someone else, Duvessa," Booth said.

"Of course. But I already knew about her. I don't know anyone else."

"Duvessa," Seth said, trying to head off an argument or tangent. "The reason I'm asking, is because we were attacked by shadow dogs last night. The exact same type of shadow summons that you can do."

"Nope! My grandma would never do that," Duvessa said confidently.

"We don't think it was her, stupid," Booth said.

"You need to stop calling me stupid, stupid," Duvessa said angrily. She faced Booth with her hands on her hips, the blanket still in one hand.

"Yeah, enough of the name calling, Booth," Owen said. "Duvessa ain't stupid. Don't say that again."

"I call it like I see it," Booth said.

"Then you're not seeing," Blaise said, arching her eyebrows. "We're all mage students. None of us are stupid or we wouldn't be in this school. So knock off the name calling. It's disrespectful."

Booth glared back at everyone glaring at him. For a moment, Seth thought Booth was going to leave. He probably felt like everyone was dogpiling on him for no reason.

"Tsch," Booth said, stomped over to the furthest of the two trees, and plopped down on the damp ground.

Seth sighed. While he was relieved Booth didn't just stalk off in a huff, there was still a fair bit of tension in the group and Seth didn't know how to relieve it. They were all still new as friends, and had only known each other for less than a month. The group could still fracture at any time. On top of that, Seth felt like he'd have more success getting Mau to obey him than keeping this pack of opinionated teenagers on task.

Duvessa walked over to Booth and there was a pregnant pause. But she just handed him the blanket. "The ground is wet," she said quietly. "You'll get muddy."

Booth stared at the blanket and then at her, uncomprehending.

"Take it, say 'thank you', and then we never mention this again," Duvessa said.

Booth took the blanket and mumbled at Duvessa. He then sat on the still-folded blanket. Duvessa walked over to Blaise, sat down next to her, and crossed her hands on her knee. "Continue, please," Duvessa said regally and looked to Seth.

"Right." Seth had to gather his thoughts. "As I said, last night three shadow dog summons attacked Booth, Owen, Isaac, and me. They were particularly after Booth and tried to drag him away."

"You don't think I had anything to do with that," Duvessa said. It wasn't quite a question.

Owen shook his head, and Seth said, "Of course not. We discussed it last night and we think something might be happening to your power."

"Like what?" Duvessa asked.

"Like it's getting stolen," Seth said.