Shadowcroft Year 3 - Chapter Forty-Eight

Marko’s level, The Circus Disaster, was exactly what it sounded like. A circus nestled inside of the concrete hallways of the coliseum. The food stalls, though, weren’t so different than normal arena cuisine and the aroma of the hamburgers, hot dogs, polish sausages, pizza and nachos were heavenly. Of course everything smelled so good because of Marko’s Summon Feast skills.

His faceless mannequins manned the food booths, but the dummy fun didn’t end there. All across the level were cages filled with weird mannequin-faced animals—a plastic zebra with a mannequin face. A lion made of plaster wearing a mannequin mask. A trained sealion with a vacant, haunting expression that would surely haunted Logan’s nightmares for years to come. That kind of thing. Above the stalls and cages were an assortment of trapezes. Trapezes everywhere. Thousands of them, which was an impressive feat all on its own.

Unfortunately, the trapeze maze had turned out to be a terrible idea. Marko had originally designed them so that bomb-hurling, mannequin-monkeys could attack from the air. But it turned out that the Grand Jester was a former high-flyer and could navigate the things even better than Marko’s faceless carnival chimps. Logan watched as she swung from to another, hurling hilariously oversized cartoon bombs.

A pile of chimp corpses lay below. They were dead. All of them.

Lifeless monkey mannequins certainly weren’t going to help make his bad dreams any less bad.

Marko’s face was streaked with sweat and soot, and even his Jaunty Beret of Hat Trickery was scorched. He stood near a cart full of die pies, half empty, because he’d been throwing so many at the clown woman.

Jester dodged every one of acid pies, swinging from one trapeze to the next. They struck the walls, which had a variety of circus posters up, and the acid melted right through the cement.

Jester giggled. “This is so much fun, goat man! But if I don’t get down those stairs, my boss is gonna be awful mad at me!”

Protecting the stairs was a gigantic sprawling eldritch abomination, obviously summoned by Marko and his Luden Lute.

The Grand Jester tried to get past the unfathomable horror, but there were far too many flailing tentacles. She’d nearly get snagged by a grasping tendril covered with eyes, teeth, and nostrils, before she was able to swing away to safety. A pie sailed toward her, but she executed a perfect backflip, neatly dodging the pie, then landing perfectly with another bar lodged behind her knees.

It was kind of amazing to watch.

Logan burst out of a food stall as a Destroying Angel—a tall, thin androgenous mushroom made of midnight mycology. The creature had a high-peaked mushroom cap and six fingers instead of four. That was a lot of fingers, but the Destroying Angels needed all those digits to throw their unholy Morta Bolts. The other great thing about the Destroying Angels was that they had access to all of Logan’s Spore Halos.

One of the cages contained three giant centipedes—Inga specials coated in Treacle candy armor—that burst forth from the cage. Logan’s Angel rode one like a multi-legged pink surfboard across the destroyed concrete floor, scattered with hay, pie debris, and bomb fragments.

Logan slung Morta bolts as he rode, but the Grand Jester dodged every one of them.

Marko flung his magical throwing knives, but even with his Wicked Aim ability, he couldn’t hit her. She was too fast and too dexterous.

Jester swung by a painted circus poster of a demon elephant. It was a trap. The painted elephant sprang to life and reached out with its trunk, but she evaded that as well and then bashed the wall with her mace, destroying the poster and most of the wall. Stone fragments rained down onto the seats below.

She somersaulted to the floor just as Lou Shador charged out of the staircase.

“Oh, this is great!” Marko yelled. “Now we have another joker in the party!”

“We don’t talk about him!” Jester screeched. She came forward doing a full Olympic gymnast floor routine like Simone Biles in greasepaint.

Whirling throwing stars—painted red and blue—came whizzing out of nowhere, peppering Marko.

He ducked behind a wooden pushcart just as the stars hit his pies, turning the whole cart into an acid bath. He staggered away. “See? She’s super talented and not very nice.”

Marko whirled and hurled his Beret of Krulling at Jester, but Shador’s cloak stretched and effortlessly knocked it away. The bladed beret returned to the satyr’s hand. He flung his knives, but the wrestler smacked them away with his wrist wrap tentacles.

“Okay, pal!” Marko yelled. “Let’s you and me melee. Time for some poetry because that’s what we do when we melee. We haiku it up!”

The satyr cleared his throat. As he spoke the poem, runes appeared on his body, transforming into hardened candy armor. “The power of goats. A joke in time saves nine lives. Humor as armor!”

He got the poem just right, and suddenly Marko was covered in pink bubblegum armor, full breast plate, pauldrons, and gauntlets. He pulled his spear mop from the beret.

Logan wasn’t sure he could watch Marko actually go up against the S-Class warrior. If the Markalo hatchets had failed to pierce the villain’s skin, the spear mop probably wasn’t going to do much either.

Logan rode the centipede right by the Jester because there was no way they were going to be able to hit her with normal weapons. Instead, he let his Psychedelic spores leak out of the Angel’s gills, filling the air.

The Jester staggered forward. “Oh, I’m suddenly so dizzy. And I’m in the mood for a mojito and a long nap.”

Shador caught Marko’s spear mop, snapped it in two, then flung both pieces away in obvious contempt. He darted forward, quick for a man his size, and punched Marko right in his face, knocking away his bubblegum helmet.

With Marko still swaying from the blow, Shador took the unfortunate satyr in his hands, turned him upside, and then it was piledriver time.

Marko wound up on the ground, both horns broken, barely conscious. “Jester, Jester are you there?”

Shador advanced, on hand raised in a judo chop that would surely end Marko. But before he could launch the attack, he was suddenly overrun with mannequin-faced animals. Other than the shuffle of feet, the creatures moved silently which was extremely unnerving. Shador easily dispatched the stampeding zoo animals away, but then the mannequin vendors showed up carrying trays of pepperoni pizzas, plates of filled with fully-loaded hot dogs, or nachos dripping with cheese and peppers.

The hazy of enticing aromas made Shador pause for just an instant.

It was long enough for the mannequin heads to explode.

The wrestler let out a yell. “Not fair, brother!” He wasn’t affected by the explosions, but he was clearly disappointed. He wiped nacho cheese off his mask. “I was just about to snap into a Slim Jim! Or get myself a hot dog. Either way. Now I’m outta here!”

He turned away from Marko and sprinted with superhuman speed toward the tentacled elder beast guarding the staircase.

He ran right through Logan’s Psychedelic cloud, but the wrestler didn’t seem affected by it at all. A mannequin-masked lion leapt out of his carriage, but Shador manhandled the beast, snapping its spine over one knee without even breaking stride. He was man on a mission, and clearly he would not be deterred.

Logan froze, not sure if he should help Marko or go after Shador.

Jester was blinking. “Oh, I’m not feeling so good at all. The pink armor is so loud!”

How susceptible was she to the Psychedelic infection?

“Jester!” Marko called from the ground. “Jester, I know… I know we got off to a rocky smart. But I have something for you.”

The Jester’s eyes filled with tears. “Something for me that’s not an acid pie or knife to the face? Aww, that’s so sweet.” She was clearly not in her right mind.

She went to Marko and bent down, totally exposed. “What is it, goaty? What do you have for me?”

Marko ripped away his bubblegum breastplate. “A pretty flower that smells like life itself.”

“It is pretty!” Jester leaned forward to get a whiff, which was a colossally bad idea.

That’s when she got a face full of acid that ate through the makeup and most of her skull. She slumped to the side with most of her face gone—another casualty in the war to protect the Tree of Souls.

Marko laughed. “No, the pretty flower smells like death itself. I always get those two things confused.” The goat man’s voice burst into Logan’s head. <Go after the bad guy, broham! I did my job and took out the crazy clown lady. I’ll try to pull myself together, but you have to help Inga. That Edna of the Three Rings is no joke.>

<Logan! Hurry!> Inga called out frantically, as though to emphasize Marko’s point.

Logan nodded in reply, then surfed the centipede through the Circus Disaster which really and truly was a disaster at this point. He had Morta bolts burning in his palms at the ready. However, Shador had already bashed his way through the eldritch horror. There were bits of tentacle and Cthulhu guts everywhere, but no sign of the masked wrestler.

Logan banked on the stairwell and road the Destroying Angel down around the landing and then into the Dewey Decimator System, which was the name of Inga’s library-inspired level. They thought it would be perfect for Edna. Inga would shelve books in the wrong place, talk in loud a voice, and make lots of geometry errors.

Yeah… Edna didn’t care about any of that. Not even a little.

***

Logan emerged from the stairwell into an labyrinth composed of towering bookcases and ample tables with lamps on them. There were any number of places to sit and read. Or there had been. Now there were bug corpses and the charred books pages everywhere. Shelves were in flames. Spiders were curled up into burnt husks.

In the middle of the devastation stood Edna of the Three Rings with a hurricane of paper flying around her. Origami warriors had pinned Roy Boy into a corner, where the brave Spartan Centipede captain fought bravely, fending off four of Edna’s folded paper monstrosities. His muscles were swollen from the Spindle Wig, and Braincaps sprouted along his shoulder and arms. Roy Boy was tough, but he was heavily outnumber, and the Origami warriors were able to slice through his chitinous exterior with Paper-Cut blades.

Logan met Roy Boy’s desperate gaze and knew what he needed to do.

“Fateful tables turned. Trap laid in buggy visage. The end comes for you.” As he finished speaking the words through an alien mouth, runes flashed and blindingly bright light erupted between the plates of Roy Boy’s exoskeleton. The light grew brighter, then the heat of the sun rolled out as an inferno of fire roared through the cavern, enveloping Edna’s Oragami minions.

Edna somehow managed to survive the blast, though she hadn’t come out completely unscathed. Her sweater had been shredded in the process, she’d lost her glasses and one shoe, and her remaining sock was in tatters. Ribbons of smoke rose from her wild hair. But even with all that, she looked more annoyed than truly hurt. She stood on top of a pile of books with her three rings swirling around her head like the halos of three avenging angels.

Tsuki ants tried fruitlessly to scuttle up the pile of books, but the rings flashed golden and cut them apart like one of Treacle’s buzzsaws. Spike flies descended, covered in candy armor, but those were swept away with a wave of her hand and a flash of steel.

Inga was even more battered, bruised, and bloody than her nerdy opponent. One wing had been half severed by one of those deadly spinning rings and a flurry of paper cuts covered her arms, legs, and chest. But the brave moth woman wasn’t out of the fight yet.

She gulped down some Spindle Wig, dramatically increasing her strength and speed. Then she raised a fist and summoned her haiku armor. “Archive my feelings. Shelve the fear and shelve the doubt! Embrace candied strength!”

She summoned her armor at the exact same time she triggered her Metamorphosis ability. Her body swelled outward, transforming into an enormous chrome caterpillar, coated in industrial strength candy armor. She opened her jaws wide, mandibles straining, and taffy sprayed out—all thanks to Treacle’s marvelous engineering. The taffy gummed up at least six of the origami warriors and caught the swirling paper hurricane in a whole mess of stickiness.

“Holy Slim Jim, brother,” Shador spat. “Not gonna stick around to fight that.”

He swept off his cloak and dropped it onto the floor. But when he tried to jump through it and portal himself away, the latent runes they’d imbed into the floor stopped him short. He let out a roar of frustration and pumped a fist at the ceiling.

With a thought, Logan guided his centipede mount toward the guy, hoping that his three bugs and maybe his Destroying Angel powers might slow the wrestler down. But the masked luchador had other ideas. He swept up his cloak from the ground and tossed it into the air with a flick of his wrist. The cloak hung there for a moment as the wrestler vaulted through it.

The garment seemed to serve as a short-range teleporter. The masked menace appeared by the stairwell leading down, now nearly covered by an avalanche of burning books. In seconds, he was gone, racing down toward Chadrigoth’s level.

Damn. The man was moving faster than he could catch up.

Logan took a minute to feed his centipede mount and his buggy escorts some Spindle Wig. Their bodies expanded dramatically and they each screeched out their ‘roid rage.

“Go, my masked master!” Edna screamed at the wrestler. “Break the cores. Kill this world. I will feed off this wretched universe until I am immortal. Then I will leave this husk of a reality behind and not give it another thought ever! I’m going to take the Tree of Souls and make the biggest campfire ever. Then I’m going to make smores out of all creation! Because I freakin’ love smores!”

Logan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Edna wasn’t just some shy schoolgirl duped by villains. She was far more of a monster than Logan could ever hope to be. And she was powerful. Exceedingly so.

She merely grinned at the gargantuan candy armored caterpillar monster rushing for her.

Edna’s three rings spun around in a cyclone of power that deflected Inga’s attack. She thrust frail, pale hands forward and the rings grew larger and larger, spinning even faster. They hit Inga like circular saw blades, slicing into the summoned armor and sending up a shower of sparks in the process. The preternaturally sharp blades would’ve hacked her to pieces, if not for Treacle’s runeic candy armor.

With an abrupt lurch, Inga shrank back down, shifting into the familiar form of a four-armed astral moth woman. All four of her Chrysalis swords appeared in a blink. She bolted forward, “No one set’s my books on fire.” She lashed out with a flurry of lightning-fast thrusts and slashes.

Edna caught two of her rings and used them to deflect every blow. The third ring swung around and struck Inga’s back, severing the wing that hadn’t been wounded. No flying for her.

Logan knew she wouldn’t last much longer. Inga was good, but Edna was better.

But Edna was also alone. Her teammate had bailed on her the second he had a chance, and that was the difference between them. They were a real team and were ride or die. And speaking of ride or die, Logan rode his ’roided out centipede mount straight toward Edna, knowing that it would likely end with his death. He raised his spongy hands and hurled Morta bolts the entire way. She deflected them with the rings even as she fought Inga.

Wow, but they had underestimated the nerdy schoolgirl. What a rookie mistake.

Once he was in range, Logan leapt off the centipede. He was going just fast enough, and the Destroying Angel was just light enough, he was able to neatly somersault over Edna. He rained down Pollinic Affliction spores on the cardigan-wearing spellcaster below. His centipede steed paused but his companions sped onward—an incoming tide of flashing legs, crushing mandibles, and gleaming exoskeletons.

Edna’s eyes immediately watered, and she sneezed. The rings wobbled uncertainly in the air.

“Hey!” What gives! No fair! I can hardly see!”

She flung out her hands. One of her rings hit Inga’s lower right arm, severing it. Another ripped through her chest. In that instant, Logan knew that Inga’s guardian form wasn’t going to make it. Not for much longer.

Edna laughed. “Luckily, I have my magic inhaler. That’ll clear me up in a second.” From her pocket, she fished out the applicator. She didn’t have it for long, though…

One of the giant pink centipedes lunged forward and plucked the inhaler out of her hand, gulping it down.

Edna sneezed and her mucus struck the bug like acid. The creature was suddenly writhing in pain. Edna closed one nostril and farmer blew on the other giant bug. Her snot had the same effect on the other centipede.

It was so gross, but she just laughed. “That was a little mid-B-Class upgrade. I got the snot, so why not use it?” But then her laughter turned into gasping. Her inhaler was now in the belly of the bug, and trying to get it out while blinded was going to be a tricky endeavor.

“Darn it all! I can’t freakin’ breathe!” The three rings fell to the floor, clinking and clattering.

Free of the rings, Inga used the last of her strength to charge the nerdy, gasping girl. She raised a glittering Chrysalis sword and rammed it right through Edna’s foul little heart. “I believe in women’s rights, Edna,” she hissed, “and I believe in women’s wrongs. But you are too wrong for me to let you live.”

Edna collapsed onto a pile of books.  Her paper hurricane subsided, pages fluttering listlessly to the ground. All of her origami warriors slumped to the ground. The three rings found their way back into the notebook, and the whole thing flew down within Edna’s reach.

She grabbed it, sighing. “So much for Armageddon smores and immortality. Murdering all those worlds was just so much fun. I regret nothing.”

She died gripping her notebook close to her chest.

Inga lay next to her, her guardian form on its very last legs. The mothmancer closed her eyes as her body died. She fought well, and her real self wasn’t gone. She was just temporarily out of commission. <Hurry, Logan!> Inga sent, through their link. <Chadrigoth needs your help and the help of my predaceous arthropods. Go! And quickly! Let your feet be wings!>

Logan once more mounted his trusty centipede and urged the beast through the burning library and toward the steps. Things hadn’t gone quite according to plan, but they’d managed to take out three of the four members of the Glow Brigade and Logan was hoping that Lou Shador had taken at least a little damage on his trek through the dungeon. Still, the masked man was incredibly dangerous.

Logan reached out to Chadrigoth with his mind. There was no response.

Was the Ascended Torment Lord dead? Logan didn’t know, but he was about to find out…