A/N: xD How about that: two weeks, two new chapters! XD I skilled. Thanks to QuayJaquelinXeomaraZendaya for the review! I will fix that grammar thing as soon as I get a chance to. :)

The portal in the lower Basilica brought us to the Dragonspyre Academy, the crown jewel of third-tier Dragonspyre. Only the strongest were permitted to attend the prestigious school of magic, but the remains of the place were less than exemplary, for sure. The destruction in the once-proud academy was nearly total; only the Fire School and its tree still stood.

"I guess that the Dragon Titan decided to spare his own school, huh?" I glanced over at Tristan. "So, exchange student, if this place was destroyed, how do you still attend school here?" A small frown crossed the Conjurer's face.

"The Forum. It wasn't too badly hit, and there are a lot of untouched buildings there; some were overtaken by the drakes or the Undead, but Professors Blackwing and Bloodhand placed wards on ten of the buildings to reserve them for our use."

"Ten?" Erica sounded curious. Tristan nodded.

"Ten. Seven for the schools of magic, one for strategy, one for weapon fighting, one for survival skills. Those are the three classes that Ravenwood doesn't teach, I'm guessing," he added, noting the look on Erica's face. She nodded.

"Interesting."

I mused over what the younger boy had told me. The Forum … that was where my house was. I'd lived there for eight years of my life. I had been raised there, orphaned there and abandoned there. The place had its good memories, true, but the bad ones poisoned whatever fondness I had for the right wing of Dragonspyre's famous third tier.

"Okay. So, the dungeon is inside the base of the Great Spyre," Moira informed us, flipping open her notebook to a map of Dragonspyre and pointing. "There's a secret entrance in the Crystal Grove, the main entrance is in the Academy, and there's one other way in that's in the Forum. The Crystal Grove entrance is the most dangerous to reach; there are spiders there that are bigger than your mount, Firesong, and their venom is three times more potent than that of a bloodbat."

"Bloodbats have venom?" Destiny asked in surprise. Heather nodded.

"It's s-s-so corrosive that it w-will dissolve your skin s-straight to the bone in l-less than four s-seconds," the Conjurer stuttered."Th-the only reason that the bloodbat s-spell doesn't kill anyone is th-that they d-don't have the ability t-t-to release the venom. It leaks out when they're dead."

"Oh." The Theurgist shivered.

"The only perk of going that way," Moira continued, "…is that the entrance in the Crystal Grove is only known to me, and so it would be the safest way- if we can get past the spiders alive. The entrance in the Academy would be the safest to get to, since there aren't any Undead here, but it's completely possible that there are guards at the door; in fact, I know that there are, since I put them there myself." The Necromancer seemed very proud of herself.

"What kind of guards?" I asked.

"Demons." She continued to look smug. "I summoned them from a completely different plane of existence, and they are entirely undefeatable. Not even Ambrose himself could kill one." I rolled my eyes.

"Trust a Necromancerto think of guards that are immortal," Sabrina scoffed.

"What's the third option?" I asked cautiously, shooting a glare at Sabrina. "I don't know if we can handle spiders, and we definitely can't handle demons."

"It requires one student from every school," she told me after a moment. "There's a big maze that you have to pass through, and then you have to cast a spell from every single school on an orb that's waiting at the gate."

"How'd you get in, then?" Evan raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"I'm a kidnapper and a torturer, and there's a school filled with young, naive students that are easily drawn away by certain distractions. How do you think?" Moira's voice was dripping sarcasm.

"So that's who was behind the student kidnappings!" Tristan snapped. His eyes were blazing as he fixed the albino with an accusing stare. "Dozens of innocent novices, all of them with high potential and long lives ahead of them … and you killed them!"

"Correction: Kidnapped them," the Necromancer answered in a bored tone. "If you're lucky, they'll still be alive in the dungeons. That is assuming that Malistaire hasn't tossed them to the spiders, in which case he killed them, not me."

"Enough arguing!" I yelled. "We have one of every school type here except for Balance. Will it work if Erica casts a Balance spell, since it's her secondary school?" Moira shrugged.

"Probably, or if it doesn't work, you can kindly ask a Balance student from the Academy to give you a hand."

"Good. Lead the way."

"Wait … how do we know she won't lead us into a trap?" Ashley asked suspiciously. Moira threw her hands in the air and stormed a short distance off.

"I have a feeling that she won't, but if she does …" I fingered the handle of my cutlass. Ashley nodded.

-V-

Once we were inside the Forum, Moira showed us a way to a hidden path that ran behind the Academy.

"It's far from the streets, so the Undead shouldn't notice us," she informed me as we rode along the twisting path. It didn't take long for us to reach the location of the maze's entrance. I stared up at the small building in shock.

"Here?" The entrance to the maze was within my old house. Abandoned and broken down, the place seemed eerily familiar and hauntingly empty. The windows were filthy and clouded with age, but they were still entirely intact- including the curtains, surprisingly. I could still see the dragon emblems on the scarlet curtains- my father had always been quite the patriot- and the Dragonspyre flag flew high above the house, just above the flag bearing the Firesong family crest. "How long has this been the location of the entrance?!" Moira shrugged.

"I dunno. I found the maze about a year ago, and I fixed it up when Malistaire and I joined forces and turned the Great Spire into a dungeon. Why?"

"This is- was- my house," I said slowly. "This is the house that my father and I built with our own hands- there wasn't too much magic involved- and this is the house we lived in for just over a year. I was abandoned in this house, too. I left it when I was eight and somehow managed to make it to the Tower Archives. The librarian gave me directions to the Basilica, and some Thaumaturge helped me open the Spiral Door to Wizard City."

"Whoa … this is where you lived?" Evan stared up at the simple stone building. "It's definitely not as complex as the other buildings in the Forum-"

"We didn't have much money or time to rebuild after the meteor shower, and there were only two people building it, one of whom was a seven year old girl. It wasn't meant to be fancy," I snapped, surprising even myself when I defended the house. Evan held up his hands in surrender and took a step back.

"I was only stating a fact," he replied quickly. I shot him one last glare before turning back to Moira.

"Well? Lead the way." I gestured to the door. She nodded and took a few steps forwards- then paused. "What is it?"

"I don't have the key," she admitted. "It's on my key ring, which is hanging in the prison right now. I'll have to try and break the door open-"

"No, you won't." Reluctantly, I reached into my backpack, rummaged around for a moment, and slowly drew out a small iron key on a chain. "I kept it when I left. I would have worn it as a necklace, but the iron disrupted my magic too much, and so I had to leave it off." I climbed the few stairs to the door and carefully slid the key into the lock. I turned it, and it clicked softly. The door swung open at my touch. "And there you have it." Moira nodded appreciatively as she stepped past me into the house. I started to follow her, and then, as a second thought, I removed the key from the lock and put it back into my backpack. Only then did I follow the other Necromancer.