Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty-Three

It took Logan a week to get used to his new body, and it took another couple weeks until the other faculty, students, and staff stopped looking at him funny. A lot of the cores at the school simply didn’t recognize the tall, dark, and handsome mushroom man strutting his stuff all over campus.

Logan loved the glares he got from Chadrigoth and the First Cohort. It wasn’t so much his size; couldn’t be because Logan was still far smaller than either the abyss lord or Jimi Magmarty. It was the fact that Logan had leapt over four ranks to go from a C-Class Rank 3 to a B-Class Rank 10 dungeon core. No one had ever done that in the history of the school. Some of it was Logan’s tireless work ethic, but in the end, he couldn’t have worked himself up four ranks. No, it was about letting go and letting the Apothos do the work for him.

The Forevergreen Festival itself was fun, and the Golden Serpent Hall had been decorated to perfection with green trees, flickering candles, red bows, and golden spheres that floated here and there. It was the most festive time of year, but Logan noticed that Marko stayed with the non-alcoholic Forevergreen Fizzies rather than the wide array of flowing booze—including Enrico’s newest flavor of Liverkill, apple pumpkin beef.

Marko still hung out with the Gelatinous Knight and Nemoy, though, and the three of them seemed to have as much fun with a sober Marko as with a drunk one. Logan knew why Marko was taking it easy—he had bad memories of the Forevergreen Festival. It had led to his friend dying and Marko siding with reaping dungeon against some very foul dungeoneers. It was why Marko was at Shadowcroft in the first place. Marko wanted to prove to himself that he could get through those bad memories without numbing himself with beef-flavored liquor. It was admirable.

At the big party, Melvin was as awkward was ever. He followed Logan and his friends around—when he wasn’t with the First Cohort. Tet was still coalescing in Ned and Zed’s rosebush infirmary, a heated greenhouse in one of the lower floors of the castle.

Logan and Inga had visited her, but the cat woman tired easily. Lying in a bed, surrounded by cheery red roses, Tet held her dull emerald gem core in her hands. It was a sickly green color and though it would glow with happiness when she saw Logan and Inga, the light soon faded.

Tet just confirmed what Logan had been told. She’d smelled sweet pastries. She’d felt an intense heat. And then she’d been knocked unconscious.

Logan wasn’t surprised that Chadrigoth hadn’t visited. Magmarty and Lady Elesiel did, though, every day. Tet had never been close with her cohort.

Logan and Inga had asked the cat woman if she thought Chadrigoth might be up to no good, but she honestly didn’t seem to know. Chadrigoth had never been the type to overshare and though he held tremendous animosity for Logan and the Terrible Twelfth, she couldn’t believe he would do something like this. It wasn’t out of character exactly—he was ruthless when it came to getting ahead—but her accident made the First Cohort look bad. And that made him look bad. Chadrigoth would never knowingly do that to himself. He was far too vain.

Inga was told that Melvin R. Chevalier’s esoterica cookbook Runes, Roux, and Remoulades was a very rare book indeed. It would take weeks for it to get to the Codex Athenaeum through an intra-library loan. The wait was making Inga crazy. She had the paranoid suspicion that mysterious forces were trying to prevent the flow of books.

That was just one possible conspiracy they were facing. The other was with the academy itself. They asked Professor Arketa about the investigation into the attacks. She said Shadowcroft was looking into it, and that the Cruelwood, the Blasted Barrows, and the Submerged Hell would all remain closed for the time being. She also said there would be severe consequences for any students who trespassed, but she didn’t reveal any more than that. Another dead-end, it seemed.

They also weren’t making much progress digging up info on the Four Cardinal Dungeons. Inga couldn’t read more than a paragraph of The Stone Hermeneutic at a time without falling fast asleep. Marko tried to read a sentence and claimed it caused him physical harm. Treacle grew nauseated. Logan had made the attempt. He got lost around the first semi-colon—there were so many semi-colons. He had no idea how Inga could suffer through a whole paragraph.

If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve said the book had been hexed to prevent inquisitive minds from looking too closely at the contents. But they couldn’t prove that either. So many questions, so many suspicions, so precious few answers.

Eventually, Logan had caved and asked Rockheart about the murders and the attack, but the Griffin Gargoyle couldn’t be bothered with a few dead students. In his eyes, the weak deserved to die. He and Darwin could’ve gone bowling with each other.

Logan and his friends also looked into learning more about Chadrigoth, but their queries didn’t yield much. The abyss lord didn’t have friends other than Magmarty and Lady Elesiel—and even they were more followers than friends. Tet had been right, he wasn’t an oversharer. In fact, he didn’t share anything other than the most superficial things. He was meaningless small talk all the way down. Inga was working to get a few gossip magazines from Eritrea on the rich and famous. Chadrigoth’s family was both rich and famous. However, Madam Gamma wasn’t thrilled about doing an intra-library loan on both a weird cookbook as well as trashy periodicals that dished out elite dungeon gossip.

In other news, Logan finally thanked Professor Moonbow Rainsap at the Forevergreen Festival party. The naga professor just shrugged. “It wasn’t me, Logan Murray, it was the mighty wind blowing sweet feelings into the sails of your heart.”

That made Logan wince, but he didn’t roll his eyes. If Rainsap suggested something else, he was going to try it no matter how absurd it sounded on the surface. Life was hard enough at Shadowcroft without having a closed mind. Maybe if he’d tried to have an open mind sooner, he could’ve saved himself some pain and suffering.

The Forevergreen Festival party in the Golden Serpent Hall was winding down when Logan gathered his friends at a back table near the Stairwell of True Seeing. “Okay, I’ve been waiting a bit now, but tonight, I want to know what happened to you all at the Sacred Hollow. What good stuff did you get?”

Marko had been carrying something around in his vest pocket, but he’d been very secretive about it. Steve was nearby, gazing at his master with his sightless plaster eyes. The satyr fished a finger into the pocket and came out with a miniature guitar-looking toy. “Okay, guys, you’re never going to believe it, but I went to the forests—Sacred Hollow south—with every intention of communing with nature, drinking up the Apothos, finding my inner spirit donut or whatever. But no—and don’t judge me—but I found a bar.”

Inga was sitting across from Logan and Marko. She threw her head back and gasped. “We were inside the Tree of Souls, and you found a bar. Why am I not surprised? Should I be surprised?”

“No, no, you definitely should not be surprised,” Treacle was next to her, chewing his special Forevergreen Festival cud, which was the cuddiest cud of all cud.

“Wait!” Marko held up a hairy-wristed hand. “This was like a sacred bar. Probably. I think. Everyone was so cool, and happy, and there was a musician there. I can’t remember all the details—there was copious amounts of drinking involved so things are a little hazy—but he was spider. Or maybe it was a she. Hard to tell with giant musical spiders. Anyway, it was a spider musician, but not like a scary spider. More like an infinitely cool spider. And she absolutely jamming on this bad boy right here.” He thrust the little toy guitar out for everyone to see, his ears practically quivering in excitement. “Guys, its Jeff Luden’s lute. Can you believe it? Jeff Luden!”

Logan titled his head. “Ah. So this is what being on the other side of a culturally specific reference feels like.” He glanced at Inga. “Not good. Not good at all. I’m assuming I’m supposed to know who Jeff Luden is?”

The satyr sighed and gave him a very Inga look. “Obviously. Jeff Luden. The mystical bard who travelled the universe creating planets with his power cords. Jeff Luden the legend who got his start in his mother’s garage, working on his uncle’s carriage, and then he picked up his lute, and the rest? History. That Jeff Luden? Yeah, Logan, you should know.”

Treacle either laughed or grunted. Hard to know. “Jeff Luden seems like a minor character in the music industry. He might’ve had a few little hits. He was short on talent.”

Marko wiggled his finger at the minotaur. “I get your puns, my bovine friend. You are making fun of the size of the lute. But just you watch.” A second later, the tiny lute expanded into a full instrument. Marko strummed the strings, and the sound was odd, unnerving, and put a bad feeling in Logan’s belly. A full song just might snap his mind completely.

Marko grinned. “Isn’t it great? Don’t answer. I know how great it is. And it augments my Shadow Betrayal ability. You’ll remember… that skill allows me to turn people’s shadows into my minions. However, this luscious lute summons forth monsters from the actual shadows. Eldritch Shadow Play. Lots of tentacles and eyes and mouths and stuff. Super creepy. I’d show you, but it would totally be a buzzkill to the mood we’re cultivating here.”

Logan shook his head, chuckling. “So you’re telling me you can summon eldritch horrors from the shadows?”

“Yeah, I guess.” In a flash, Marko was holding the harmonica sized guitar. “And the lute collapses into a handy travel size. On top of that, you’re looking at an Iron Trunk Cultivator; C Class, Rank 4. Went up a rank. Partied with a spider. And she, or it maybe—again, so hard to say—gave me a lute. Awesome night.”

Logan glanced around making sure Chadrigoth wasn’t anywhere nearby. But the coast was clear. The tables surrounding them were empty, though the dance floor was filled with bodies, all moving and grooving in time to the snappy tune that was drifting through the air. Well, everyone was moving in time except for Nemoy, the elderly undead mermen. He mostly flopped around like a fish out of water. Honestly looked like he was having a seizure, but that was just Nemoy for you.

Logan dropped his voice low and suggested a Symbiotic bond. “Guys, if I release my Symbiotic spores, I can take a look at your matrices and see what changed.”

Marko and Treacle agreed, and soon they were all connected like they’d been during the finals the year before. There was a rush of sound and mental noise as the connection formed. Whenever he bonded with someone, it lowered their mental barriers and gave Logan an opportunity to get a glimpse at their history and life and thoughts. A brief snapshot of the soul. It was a disorienting and invasive process and Logan was finally strong enough to shut the process down before he saw something best left unseen. After a few seconds the mental haze faded, then Logan pulled up Marko’s guardian form matrix with a thought.

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Marko Laskarelis

Guardian Core Matrix

Base Race:Dungeon Satyr

Current Evolution: Dark Muse

Cultivator Class: Iron Trunk Cultivator; C-Class, Rank 4

Primary Elemental Affinities: Aqua/Umbra

Racial Abilities:

Silver Tongued, Blood of the Fae

Racial Skill:

- Spectral Song

- Unrelenting Debauchery

College of Rhetoric:

- Vicious Insult

- Ventriloquist

- Language of Dance

o Nataraja’s Wretched Rhythm

o The Dumbshow of Burguk

College of Shadows:

- Living Artistry

- Shadow Betrayal

o Eldritch Shadow Play

- Summon Feast

College of Form:

- Mannequin

- Mimic Form

                                                                                 <<< ۝ >>>

Logan had to laugh. “Marko, you’re this horror show of a dungeon core, and yet, you’re such a good guy. It’s funny.”

“Enjoy the irony, mortal, for it shall be your last meal.” Marko summoned his dark muse persona. The shadows lengthened around him, forming into a halo of dark energy. His face turned monstrous, eyes burning with bloody hellfire. From somewhere, strange piping music trilled. He was a frightening sight. Until he grinned, the music faded, and the satyr laughed. “It’s a living.”

“Who’s next?” Logan asked.

Inga raised a hand. “I’m still C-Class, but I did advance to Rank 1. I felt something shift inside my core during my time at the Sacred Hollow and I firmly believe I’m right on the cusp of true ascension. I know this isn’t a surprise, but I found a library in the Wat of the Golden Bark. I’ll have you know, I stayed away from the silverware books. Actually, I perused some books on the Astral Moth class—the mothmancer evolution to be exact. When I opened a book called The Loveliness of the Lepidoptera, a silver-winged moth crawled out. Then another. Then another. The book was infested with the creatures. But then, and this is quite strange, the moths started conversing with me. They gave me the secret of a very unique minion magic called Lunar Horror Creations. Here, let me show you.”

Marko eyes were glittering with interest.

Treacle sighed. “I thought I’d get some sleep tonight, but I guess I’ll have to suffer through another skills fest again. And look, I’ll have to go last. Not surprising. I’ll keep it short.”

Inga glanced worriedly at the minotaur. “We could do this another time.”

“No, let’s see your moths,” Treacle said rolling his eyes.

“Wonderful!” Inga nearly giggled from excitement. “I’m so extremely glad, for I find my new minions quite fascinating. I’ll let them be the showstopper—let me show you my matrix first.”

Logan’s vision blurred for a second and then he was perusing Inga’s stats:

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Inga Thosa Therian

Guardian Core Matrix

Base Race:Astral Moth

Current Evolution: Mothmancer

Cultivator Class: Iron Trunk Cultivator; C Class, Rank 1

Primary Elemental Affinities:Vita/Luminosus

Racial Abilities:

-  Flight, Astral Migration

Racial Skill:

- Breed

- Golden Centipedes

- Spike Flies

- Tsuki Ants

Mothal Abilities:

- Chrysalis Swords

- Metamorphosis

- Reflective Sight

Mothal Propagation:

- Insect Infection

- Lepidoteral Reflex

Lunarmancy

- Moonlance

- Lunar Aura

- Lunar Horror Creations

                                                                                <<< ۝ >>>

Logan was amazed at the varied skills his friends. Some of Inga’s abilities they’d not really explored even with all their practice together.

“Notice under Lunarmancy, I have my new ability.” Inga opened her hand. A single moth fluttered above her palm. “I can equip it with steel armor, and spiked legs, or improve the jaw strength and bite force. Remember in our Minion Management class when we could adjust our minions? The Lunar Horrors are like that. Watch.” Focusing, on the insect, Inga channeled a hair fine flow  Apothos into the creature. The moth grew a hundred times larger, becoming a fluttering dog-sized moth, with metal wings, six steel spikes for legs, and bejeweled eyes. But Inga wasn’t done.

With a flick of her wrist, she sent the monster soaring across the room, where it grew into a creature the size of a car. It was Mothra given life. Thankfully, the Golden Serpent Hall was large enough that she could send it soaring to the rafters, without the dancers taking notice.

Inga snapped her fingers, and the Lunar Horror disappeared altogether. “I can adjust the size of the moths, but I can’t make multiple insects that big. I’ll have to choose. However, this is such a wonderful new aspect of my minion arsenal. I feel very fortunate.”

So far, all of them had made out like bandits during their trip to the Sacred Hallow.

Treacle was no exception.

“You’re up next. Big guy,” Logan said.

“Fine.” The minotaur dourly swallowed his cud. “Let me show you the matrix first. Not much has changed. Not really. You all had a fine time at the Sacred Hallow, but I’m afraid my experience was far less enjoyable. I was buried alive, almost died, met a nice gnome, but mostly, I had to work. You know. Crafting. Which was fine, I guess. I like crafting, though I thought I’d at least get a few days off.”

Logan found himself looking at Treacle’s matrix:

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Treacle Glimmerhappy

Guardian Core Matrix

Base Race:Minotaur

Current Evolution: Alchemic Machinist

Cultivator Class: Iron Trunk Cultivator; C Class, Rank 3

Primary Elemental Affinities: Mallus/Fulgur

Racial Abilities:

Beast of Burden

Racial Skill:

- Gore

- Labyrinth Sense

Internal Alchemy:

- Clockwork Organs

- Engineered Anatomy

External Alchemy:

- Rabid Mutagen

o Ugknot Calflings

- Electric Alchemist

o AFS Core Improvement

- Arcane Transmutation

Machinist Mastermind:

- Blacksmith Marvel

- Engineered Weapons

- Mechanical Monsters

                                                                            <<< ۝ >>>

Logan saw the change immediately. “What’s an AFS Core Improvement?”

Treacle exhaled. “Humph. I’m honestly surprised you noticed. Kinda nice you did.”

Marko didn’t seem to be listening. He was waving at the ice imp of the Ninth Circle, who was motioning him on to join the dancers. It was only a matter of time before Marko was lured away. However, he’d heard every word the depressed cow man had said. “Treac, what happened in the Sacred Hollow?” he asked. “How did you almost die?”

Treacle nodded. “Yeah. It was terrible. I went to the mountains, found a mine, but then fell down a shaft as the tunnels collapsed. I was gravely wounded and buried alive. But other than that it wasn’t so bad, I suppose. Sort of peaceful. Although, I might also have claustrophobia now. I hope not. That would be bad, since I’m minotaur and hope to have a labyrinth of my own someday.” More deep sighs followed.

“And the gnome?” Marko prompted.

“Right. The gnome. Well, he came wriggling through the stone, but I knew he was some manifestation of the Tree. He didn’t know much about Aldaleeran chocolates, which was a dead giveaway. You know, there’s an interesting thing about Aldaleera—”

It was Inga that cut him off. “How did you ever get out of the cave-in?”

Treacle pulled his leather jerkin to the side to reveal his core gem. It gleamed a titanium silver, the colors swirling around in a maelstrom of power. “The gnome showed me the secrets of the Augmented Fulgur Stone, a deep-rock ore that I was able to process into my core. Watch.”

His gleaming core crackled energy up his body and into his hands. They buzzed with electricity, arcs of yellow lightning crawled along his skin. A ring on the minotaur’s right ring came lose and clattered onto the table. The ring then sprouted legs and expanded to grow arms as well. Spinning sawblades erupted from the end of the miniature limbs, and the little monster cut its way through the wood and onto the floor. It then went racing across the ground, growing bigger, until like Inga’s Lunar Horror, it was this giant saw-armed creation.

Treacle half-smiled. “The AFS in my core works with my Mechanical Monsters ability, so I can create deadlier creatures and power them with additional Fulgur Apothos.”

Logan had to laugh. “So, Treac, now you really are a bovine Iron Man. Let me guess, your new AFS core pumps one point twenty-one gigawatts of energy.”

“I don’t understand a thing you just said,” the minotaur replied. “Also, your math is entirely wrong.”

Marko pointed at the moth woman before she could say a word. “Hold it, Inga, let Logan have this one. He didn’t know who Jeff Luden was.”

She had to nod. “You’re right. He can have this one.”

Treacle’s monster ring clattered over on the metal legs and leapt into the air. It shrank back into jewelry that Treacle caught. “Me and the gnome, Mr. Sprinkles—or that’s what he called himself, but I’m dubious—came up with a digger design to tunnel out of the cave-in. Did I not mention my near-death experience? I guess not. The second time dying just isn’t as exciting I guess.”

Marko leapt to this feet. “So, this is great, don’t get me wrong, but I’m going to go dance with Fractilla. Bye, guys!”

Fractilla was the ice imp in the Ninth Circle.

Marko clattered over on his hooves and started dancing. Steve joined them, but it was best not to watch Steve dance. It was as unnerving as the lute’s song in the hands of the dark muse.

Logan ended the Symbiotic bond he had with Marko and Treacle.

Inga touched the minotaur’s hand. “That’s really great, Treacle. I’m so glad you’re alive.”

Treacle leaned into her. “Glad too. Which kind of surprises me.”

Logan smiled warmly at the depressed minotaur. Then he turned as they all watched Marko dance, which was quite a sight to behold. That dungeon satyr could move like an angel, but he also had a little devil inside him.