Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Forty-Two

Logan crept out of the archway and into the Null Arena. He didn’t have much time, since Steve’s minions—a weird mixture of Inga’s, Marko’s, and Treacle’s powers—were hot on his tail.

However, Logan had to be careful. Steve was a powerful opponent with lots of tricks up his sleeves and he had no idea what kind of nasty surprises the mannequin had filled the Null Arena with. The fungaloid stood on the stage of an auditorium. Red curtains hung open, the flood lights cast a blazing light into Logan’s eyes, and he might’ve been blinded, if he wasn’t using his spores to see. The audience, all mannequins, sat on rows of seats that stretched up a couple hundred feet toward an emergency fire exit—which was actually the entrance to the Bloodrock.

The sea of plaster dummies were all utterly motionless, but Logan knew that was a ruse. Not all of the minions sitting in the auditorium would be lifeless—some would attack. Logan just didn’t know which ones were safe and which ones were murderous mannequins.

On the stage itself, there were other figures, also made of plaster. Logan looked at each of the figures in turn and couldn’t help but shiver.  He was staring at plaster versions of the Terrible Twelfth, all frozen in various states of torture. It was like seeing a bad papier-mâché version of his friends in a Sawmovie. Logan’s plaster form had been beheaded in a guillotine. A rough effigy of Inga hung from a noose. The plaster minotaur had been pulled apart on the rack. As for Marko, there were pieces of his plaster body spread around the stage.

The flood lights winked off and a single spotlight shone on a plaster goat head, sitting on a spike, in the middle of the stage.

Steve’s arrogant voice echoed through the auditorium. “Now that’s some theater right there, Urothling. Whatcha think? It was Marko’s idea. I have access to all his twisted thoughts, you know. Treacle can go dark as well, though that’s not a surprise since he’s Mr. Depression. As for Inga, I am genuinely surprised at how bloodthirsty she can be.”

Logan didn’t have time for banter. He had to get to Chadrigoth’s inner sanctum and somehow convince the abyss lord to work with him. Like that wouldn’t be hard.

Chadrigoth’s angry voice exploded from the Bloodrock’s entrance. “Hey, wait, those dummies have Marko Laskarelis written all over them. No fair! Am I fighting all four of you Terrible Twelfth morons?”

“No!” Logan shouted. “Chadrigoth, you have to listen to me. There’s another player on the field. We have to talk. Don’t kill me until you hear what I have to say!”

Logan then summoned a half-dozen spore wargs, and he loaded them down with Gem-studded Puffballs. He hated making minions just to kill them, but he was in a bind and there was a lot of ground to cover. With a thought, he sent one racing across the stage, leaping from the edge and ploughing into the mannequin audience. The fungaloid puppy careened into the front row of dummies, and the puffball grenades erupted in a blaze of heat and glass shards. The explosion scattered bits of seat, plaster, and rusted metal across the second and third rows.

Logan sent his next warg bounding off the stage, up the stairs, and into the fourth row. Another explosion rocked the make-shift stadium, blasting apart more mannequins and more plush seating.

Logan activated Pneumacity and raced through the swirling cloud of debris. Most of the dummies merely sat there, but others sprang to life, trying to get to the fungaloid. He didn’t have time to fight them, though—if he let himself get caught up in a one-on-one battle, the plaster dummies would quickly overwhelm him. Instead, Logan dispatched a suicide warg to obliterate the living mannequins the moment they revealed themselves. Others he sent ahead to the upper seats, carving a path of destruction through the theater—a clear path leading straight to the exit.

Logan charged up the main aisle, skipping over toppled seats, smoldering cushions, and plaster body parts. Smoke and plaster dust hung thick in the air like a cloud, but his Fungal Vision allowed him to navigate through the destruction without missing a beat.

Steve, though, was having more trouble. “Hey, no, you have to fight fair! That’s not fair!”

“Fair fights are for suckers,” Logan called back over one shoulder as he raced past the last row. A host of dummy hands strained for him, until his last warg exploded behind him. A thin crack spread across the wall near the exit, spreading and zigzagging upward as it transformed into an enormous fissure. The growing fissure dislodged a car-sized slab of red rock that came crashing down, half-obscuring the entrance to the Bloodrock.

Steve, with some help from Treacle’s corrupted core, would easily be able to clear away the debris, but it would buy Logan some time Exactly how long, Logan wasn’t sure. It would have to be enough. He burst into the heat of Chadrigoth’s entrance, which was a bare room, except for a towering statue of Chadrigoth himself, standing with his black marble legs spread over stairs descending into the rock. The statue had its arms crossed, enormous wings spread from wall to wall. Shadowy flames flickered off his horns.

The statue looked incredibly smug.

Two of the abyss lord’s Dungeonauts stood on either side of the statue’s  legs. They too had their bone-spike arms crossed. However, their heads were just solid bone, so they couldn’t manage the smirk. They made up for that by being absolutely terrifying. Each was a dozen feet tall—a wall of thick muscle, gray skin, exposed white bone, and cruel spikes, all fueled by am unseen fount of Ignis and Umbra Apothos. Logan mightbe able to take one out in a straight up fight, but the two behemoths would snap him in half without breaking a sweat.

Not that they could sweat, of course.

Logan plucked his gem core from his belly and held it up. “Chadrigoth! I know you’re listening. I know the final has started, but this isn’t about the final. I don’t know the specifics yet, but Marko’s minion Steve has been taken over by a powerful entity. He’s taken control of the Winterdark Halls, and he’s somehow created a Symbiotic bond with Inga, Marko, and Treacle. Steve wants to get break the fourth seal in the Bloodrock’s inner sanctum, and he’ll crack your gem to do it. Something has been trapped underneath Arborea for ten thousand years. Might be William of the Scales. Might just be a ton of his Apothos. We don’t know. But Steve is bad news, and we have to stop him!”

The abyss lord didn’t respond. All Logan could hear was that dry wind howling through the halls of the red rock dungeon.

Logan marched forward, his gem held high. “I know you don’t trust me, but I wouldn’t be here if I had any other choice. I’m coming down. I suppose if you want to kill me, here’s your chance. But if you kill me, you’re not going to survive this war against Steve. I’ve felt him—felt the power he has access to. He’s S-Class at least. You’ll need my help. And everyone else will need our combined help.”

Finally, snide laughter from the abyss lord. “You must think I’m dumb. You and that stupid moth girl realized you’d never beat me, so you’re trying to play some kind of head game with me. Get me to invite you into my inner sanctuary and then you’ll stab me in the back. It’s not going to work. I’m smarter than anyone—especially my mother—gives me credit for. Steve is just a squeaky dummy. He’s not some Heartwood cultivator…” he faltered for a moment. “Still, I am curious about why you blew up your own minions in the Null Arena. I don’t mean your stupid fungal dogs, but Marko’s dummies.”

“Because they’re not Marko’s dummies, man! I’m telling you, they’re Steve’s!” Logan walked right up to a Dungeonaut.

The hulking monstrosity fell into a defensive stance, spikes raised high. It didn’t attack.

Logan took that as a great sign. “Chadrigoth, we need to work together. I know you’ve been working on some secret plan, but it won’t matter if you’re dead. Together we have a chance against Steve. Alone, we’re toast. If you don’t believe me, have your Dungeonaut crack my core. If this is a trick, it’s a dumb one because you and I both know I would never stand a chance against you on my own, especially without my minions.”

The Dungeonaut lowered a bone-spike arm. “Fine, Logan, climb on. But if you’re messing with me, I’ll turn your core into a powder and snort your essence like a line of Psuche powder.”

This was a terrible idea and Logan was ninety percent sure that Chadrigoth was going to betray him and throw him into a lava flow, but he had no choice. Muttering a silent prayer, Logan scurried onto the bone behemoth’s back. The creature turned and lumbered down the stairs then built-up speed as it trundled through the Bloodrock. The Dungeonaut wasn’t fast exactly, more it was a force of nature; a freight train that would run down anything that got in its way.

Logan could’ve made better time using his Pneumacity ability, but he needed to save up his Apothos—plus, riding along on the Dungeonaut allowed him to get a better look at Chadrigoth’s dungeon layout.

Logan was struck by two things about the abyss lord’s dungeon. First, it was just so uninteresting. Chadrigoth went for grand rooms, studded with columns, statues, and side alcoves where his Unleashed Pit Spawn waited like junkyard dogs, ready to attack at the drop of a hat. The aesthetic was cool in its way—all the crumbling stone and weathered bone made the Bloodrock look like an ancient tomb from some forgotten age. But it was so simple. There were no lures. No twists or turns or mazes. Chadrigoth was a one trick pony.

Second, the entire dungeon was built around brute force.There wasn’t a single trap room, save for a single a cavern with the stone bridge arching over a lava river. Hellion imps, hidden behind invisible walls, waited to shove raiders into the burling magma below. Lazy and unimaginative. He had a metric butt-load of powerhouse minions, but that was it. Chadrigoth was the strongest dungeon in their year, and his dungeon reflected that. He was strong, powerful, and intended to win the day by pulverizing anything that got in his way.

Since there wasn’t much else to look at, Logan studied the statutes filling the room. He noticed that many of those statues looked like people from their school, which was a bit unnerving.

It was like the plaster Terrible Twelfth but done in deteriorating stone. In a cathedral-like room with an arched ceiling, there was a statue of Rockheart, though  his wings were missing and his clothes had turned to pebbles. A likeness of Professor Arketa stood next to him, but the scarf on her head was gone revealing a tangle of hissing, serpentine hair. Then there was a big Skip Shadowcroft himself, though all of his flowers had been seemingly worn away by time and the elements.

Statues of Jimi Magmarty and Lady Elesiel, however, were totally fine—untouched by age of weather. Naturally, in every room was a statue of Chadrigoth himself.

The biggest one resided in the inner sanctum, twice the size of the statue in the entry hall.

The Dungeonaut carried Logan through the clichéd entrance of a dragon’s mouth, complete with stalactites and stalagmites. The behemoth of bone finally slowed then dropped the fungaloid in front of one last row of statues, which stood sentry in front of a lava moat separating Logan from Chadrigoth. The blue bully demon was sitting on his throne of bone and fire. Beside the gaudy throne was the dungeon’s pedestal, where Chadrigoth’s gem spun lazily in the air.

A statue of Chadrigoth stood facing the throne, so that the abyss lord could stare at his own likeness. The other statues—a mixture of humans and big demon lords—were all smaller and faced the entranced.

It only took a second for Logan realized those other statues were of Chadrigoth’s brothers—Toddrick the demon, Braddrick the demon, Alddrick some skinny guy with a big nose in fancy robes, and Brian, who stood as a sharply dressed knight, very handsome, but tiny. He recognized them all from the trashy tabloids Inga was constantly reading. This whole place was a psychiatrist dream. The vanity. The self-obsession. All hiding a fragile ego in desperate need of love and validation.

Logan had to ignore the mental illness on display—the fate of his friends hung in the balance, and he was running out of time. He leapt over the slow-moving lava using his Pneumacity and floated down, landing in front of the throne.

The abyss lord regarded him from beneath a crown of shadow flame, which rested on his blue forehead. On his lap sat a stone chest, inlaid with golden filigree. “I don’t know what you’re doing, Logan, but leaving Inga and coming here is d-u-m-b. That spells dumb. Because you’re dumb.”

“Not as dumb as ignoring me would be. I know it seems unlikely, but you have to listen…” Logan squeezed his eyes shut and quickly ran over the situation again. He told the abyss lord about the Melvin, and the Cardinal Dungeons, about the Bharooshian runes, and the history of Arborea, all culminating with Steve the dummy taking control of the Winterdark Dungeon.

The abyss lord listened, eyes squinted, forehead furrowed in disbelief, mouth slightly agape. “What your saying is so completely insane I almost want to believe you. But even if what you’re saying is true, it doesn’t matter. Steve’s a floor boss and I’m telling you right now, idiot, that no floor boss is going to beat me.”

“That’s the part you’re not getting. He’s not just a floor boss.” Logan still gripped his gem. “I don’t know what exactly he is, but he’s powerful. More powerful than you could possibly imagine. I told you I can prove it and I can. If you let me form a Symbiotic bond with you, you’ll see what we’re facing for yourself. You’ll know that I’m telling the truth and exactly how serious this is.”

Chadrigoth looked disgust. “Yeah, right. I talked with Tet. If I join with you, only you can break our bond. Like I would ever put myself at your mercy. Not going to happen.” He shook his fiery head.

Logan couldn’t hold his anger in any longer. “Do you want to protect the Tree of Life or not?” he snapped, balling his hands into fists. “Are you really at the academy to help save worlds, or are you just here to prove something to your family?”

In the blink of an eye, the abyss lord leapt from his throne and covered the distance between them. He may have had a dump truck worth of family problems, but damn was he fast. The abyss lord snatched Logan from the floor with one clawed fist and wrapped his other hand around Logan’s core.  The stone chest he’d been holding a second before lay on the floor. The lid was open wide, inside was a ton of red powder—Psuche powder.

What the heck?

Chadrigoth thundered right in Logan’s face. “I don’t have anything to prove! I’m the best!”

The fungaloid looked Chadrigoth right in his black, abyss lord eyes. “Then prove you’re the best. Join with me and help save Arborea. You ‘ll see. You’ll know I’m right. Or are you too much of a coward?”

The abyss lord’s eyes narrowed, and his gaze suddenly became distant. Hazy. “Some kind of dancing centipede thing just wriggled into my entrance room. It has like lighting saws for hands.” He faltered for a beat. “Huh. That’s weird. My Dungeonaut is fighting it, but it’s tougher than you’d think a dancing centipede would be. A lot tougher.”

“That’s just the first of many monsters.” Logan clutched Chadrigoth’s beefy wrist, but his arms were getting tired.

“You better be telling me the truth, Logan.”

“You literally have my life in your hands.”

The abyss lord nodded and growled. “Okay. Fine. But I don’t have anything to prove to you, Mother—I mean, Logan. What do I have to do?”

“Just breathe,” Logan said and released his Symbiosis spores. He could only hope that he wouldn’t wind up in therapy after connecting his mind to a demon with such obvious issues.

The abyss lord inhaled and winced. “Smells like stupid to me.”

Ready or not, Logan was about to take a trip through Chadrigoth’s inner life. It should prove to be…interesting. But they didn’t have much time. More of Steve’s menagerie of minions would be arriving any minute.

Logan was hit with the introductory message immediately, much to his relief.

Chadrigoth Nobleblade has accepted Symbiotic Bonding!

Notice: As the Infecting Agent, you alone can terminate the Symbiotic bond. In addition, you will receive 10% of all Apothos cultivated by Chadrigoth Nobleblade from this point forward. Bonding initiating in 3… 2… 1…

The abyss lord grunted, “Nothing is happening. What’s supposed to happen? No, wait, I’m getting stupider and uglier and nerdier and…”

The abyss lord stopped talking, his mouth abruptly going slack, his pupils widening.

Time to get personal. Some might even say too personal…