Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Thirty-Two

Logan couldn’t wait for their field trip. The time seemed to drag through their boring classes and their usual routines but in less than forty-eight hours, Logan and his friends stood at the BYE Portal—a hulking branch of the Tree of Soul, which connected the realm of Arborea to the universe. They were waiting for the Fairy Fetch to show. It was rather odd that Professor Zantho was late. Inga launched into any number of conspiracy theories while they milled around in their cohorts, waiting for the Professor.

Logan and the Terrible Twelfth waited together, along with Melvin, who was perpetually the odd man out. Emphasis on the odd. The Ninth Circle and the First Cohort had congregated together, talking while they ate their cherry triangles.

Melvin had sold out. He always sold out, though, so that was no surprise. Despite how strange he was, the ghast could cook. Now he waited with a happy grin plastered across his face and a his fedora tilted at a rakish angle on his head. He’d had come prepared for an adventure adding a long duster and a gnarled walking staff to the ensemble. It was like he was unironically cosplaying Harry Dresden.

“I’ve heard stories about The Pink Rink of Awoo,” the kitchen ghast, nearly buzzing with excitement. “We are in for such a treat. I mean, I grew up on Bharoosh, I know how powerful Ji-Soo is. She’s had several features in Dungeon Politicore.”

Inga arched an antennae. “You read Dungeon Politicore?”

Melvin tipped his hat. “I do indeed, milady. I like to keep up on current events.”

Marko had a confused look on his goat face. “I’m assuming I shouldn’t care about this. I think that’s the right answer. Come on, Steve, let’s go spit off the edge of the world.”

Steve creaked and pointed at his weird non-mouth.

The satyr slapped his back. “Good point. I’ll do the spitting for the both of us.” Both moved off to the low rock wall that marked the edge of Arborea. On the other side was a misty nothingness. Farther down were the Bogbottom Falls.

Inga frowned. “Marko might have matured some, but I fear he will never grow up.”

Treacle had his hands thrust into the pockets of his duster. “Perhaps expectorating is less fraught than dungeon politics.”

“Is that what Dungeon Politicore is?” Logan asked.

Melvin immediately rattled off an answer. “Oh, yes, it’s the official periodical that tracks the decisions of the Council of Dungeon Cores. That is the loose governing body of all dungeon cores in the Ashvattha Multiverse. Our very own Skip Shadowcroft is on the council—as one would expect—as well as other various guardians from across the various realities. We should be proud. There is only one other headmaster on the Council.”

Inga grimaced. “Lolozi Webbs. She’s the headmistress at Nightfall University. She has a very checkered reputation.”

“That she does,” Melvin said solemnly. “We’ve met. She’s very… arachnine. Arachnidine? I feel like there’s a better, more malicious word than spidery. Oh, fecal matter, my vocabulary has failed me.”

“I’m assuming Lolozi Webbs is spider dungeon core?” Logan asked.

Inga nodded. “But she’s on the Council. A lot of people think the Council is a waste of time, since dungeon cores really can’t be governed. However, the Council does run the Arcandor Initiative that Professor Zantho discussed with us. Also, the Council has a lot of experience. They are there to offer suggestions and to pass on our collected knowledge. Dungeon cores have a rich history. I think there is value in that.”

Melvin gazed upon the moth woman with a look of adoration. “I agree, your highness. So very, very, very much.”

Treacle belched. “Politics, of every kind, gives me gas.”

Tet eased on over, wearing a thick furry cloak that matched her own fur. She nodded at Logan. He nodded back.

Melvin put up a pudgy hand to cover his mouth full of the jagged shark teeth. “Awkward. I mean, here’s Tet, coming over, when Logan and Inga are standing so close together. I can feel the tension.”

Logan couldn’t his disgusted. “Dude. Why?”

Tet squinted at Inga. “Do you feel tension, Inga?”

Inga’s antennae turned toward the feline sandmaster. “Not a single Aldaleeran ounce.”

“You know, I have a funny story about Aldaleera—” Treacle started.

Inga cut him off. “So, Melvin, we shall not be engaging in any form of romantic geometry, triangles or otherwise. That is not our destination, nor will it ever be. We are, however, going to Bharoosh it seems. What can you tell us about the Pink Rink of Awoo?”

The kitchen ghast never had the chance to answer.

Professor Zantho came bursting out of thin air in a shower of gold dust. She spun around, flinging more glowing pollen. “I apologize, maggots, for being late. I had some last-minute preparations. The Arcandor we’re visiting had a bit of trouble finding the Dread Summoner’s Caves. It’s run by a predatory B-Class dungeon—goes by the name of Samgath Goblinwhimper. A truly unfortunate name for any number of reasons. But my colleague is ready for us. Now hop to it. Go through the BYE. You know the drill.”

Logan and the Terrible Twelfth, along with Tet and Melvin, were the closest. In a matter of steps, they were flung across the universe. This time, Logan didn’t have any kind of vision. And he didn’t scream. There was the rush of reality extending basically forever, and the branches of the Tree of Souls permeated everything. Apparently, he could withstand interdimensional travel much better now that he was a B-Rank Cultivator.

Before they arrived, however, Logan caught a glimpse of what could only be Nightfall University. The dead giveaway was the giant, gaudy sign that read ‘Nightfall University – the Number One Dungeon Academy! Bar none!’. Real subtle.  The campus was beautiful, though. There were a number of white towers and bridges and wide halls of shining white stone built into black cliffs of the Onyx Ravine, deep underground. The size of the cavern boggled the imagination. But it also made sense for a dungeon academy to be built underground.

They’d left Arborea in the day, but here they arrived on the Shipwreck Prairie of Bharoosh in the dark. Logan wasn’t entirely sure why it was called the Shipwreck Prairie, since there wasn’t a sea around. Anyway. They appeared in a meadow of bioluminescent flowers. The petals were open, reaching toward a sky littered with moons. There must’ve been twenty. The flowers came in a every hue of pastel, from pink to blue to the softest of reds with some purples thrown in for good measure. There was a stone archway entangled with the colorful nocturnal blossoms.

Logan smelled the sweet perfume of the flowers. He could sense a variety of spores lingering in the air. This place was a biological wonder—the pinnacle of flora. And like Eritreus, Bharoosh thrummed with Apothos. “Do you smell that?” Logan asked. “That smells so good!”

Treacle tried to exhale through his big black nostrils, but his sinuses were too stuffed. “Smell what? The pollen that’s trying to kill me? Or the mold on the flowers?”

He wasn’t kidding. Black mold speckled some of the neon flowers.

Melvin wandered over to the archway. He pointed his walking staff to the runes engraved deep into the stone. “Why, I’m amazed. There are ancient Bharooshian runes. They basically say that a person is only as happy as they choose to be. Oh, and there’s something about happy terrific parties and pink wonderful unicorns.” He squinted, brow furrowed. “Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but I think that’s what it means.”

Logan and Inga exchanged glances. Melvin had written his cookbook in Bharooshian runes, which very few people knew. One person knew them, of course, and that was whoever was casting spells in Arborean dungeons.

The rest of the students came staggering out of the lightshow that was BYE travel. Marko carried Steve in his arms like a distraught toddler. “It’s okay, buddy. I know BYE travel is hard on a guy. But we’ll get through this together.”

Professor Zantho buzzed out of thin air to flutter over Marko and his minion. “Oh, good, the goat boy brought his creepy mannequin friend. Let me do a quick count to make sure no one exploded in the BYE.” She took a minute. “Yep. Thirteen maggots. The three cohorts and the social awkward kitchen ghast. Fourteen if you include the dummy.”

“Which you should,” Marko said indignantly.

The Fairy Fetch gave him a disgusted look and then zipped through the arch. “Come on, maggots. We need to get to the inner sanctum. The predatory dungeon isn’t going to destroy itself.”

Logan walked with his cohort and Tet through the arch and down a set of weather-beaten stone steps until they came to the entrance of the dungeon itself. The entryway was set into a stone rockface, but the dungeon itself looked like a Japanese-style shrine, built from gleaming hardwood, painted a vivid red, and golden bamboo poles. They had to slide back a paper wall, painted with black runes.

Like outside, the place smelled great. This was a completely different experience compared to their field trip the year before to Kyvandry Spencer’s Slaughter Pits. While the Blade Ghoul had been a great guy, his dungeon was grade-A nightmare fuel pulled straight out of a Hollywood monster flick. That field trip had been far more eventful than it probably should’ve been—mostly because Chadrigoth, under Rockheart’s instructions, had tried to kill the Terrible Twelfth.

Just one more reason why Chadrigoth was probably behind the murders—the abyss lord seemed to have had no problem throwing Logan and his cohort into a secret room and right into the path of a party of evil dungeoneers.

Hopefully this year’s trip would be more educational and less life threatening.

Logan wouldn’t hold his breath.

A field trip was the perfect way to get rid of an inquisitive dungeon investigating the crimes in the Arborean dungeon. Inga had several theories about the attacks, and she wanted to visit the Cruelwood, the location of the first murder. However, the Cruelwood was locked down tight. But even without getting a definitive look at the first crime scene, they were still fairly certain either Chadrigoth or Melvin were involved. Or maybe it was both of them? The two did have some kind of strange relationship. Tet said it was Melvin hero-worshipping the abyss lord and Chadrigoth tolerating the kitchen ghast’s presence—barely.

Suffice to say, Logan was going to be on guard.

Professor Zantho led the way. Marko still carried Steve, as they walked across the wooden floors inside the dungeon proper.

Marko’s has having a hard time keeping his mouth closed. His goat eyes were the size of tea-saucers as he stared around in wonder. “This place… man… this place is next level.”

“Glad you like it, maggot,” the fairy grunted.

Logan too was blown away.

The Pink Rink of Awoo was the strangest dungeon he’d ever seen, so drastically different from the Slaughter Pits. The walls were wood, a gorgeous deep color, set into the rock. The general architecture reminded Logan of some sort of a Kyoto temple. Except for the fact that someone had spray-painted cute little animals, flowers, and different runes across every surface. All the paintings just looked so… happy. Cute, even. It wasn’t dark or ominous—at all. Honestly, all of those paintings looked like a fourteen-year-old-girl’s school notebook.

They passed through a room with a unicorn statue, only this unicorn had a glitter fountain erupting out of the horse’s horn. Glittery kitten statues lined the fountain and seemed to be dressed in a variety of trendy outfits. One kitten wore a single sequined glove. A girl squirrel wore a black and pink dress. They passed through a confusing sections of rooms where Zantho had her gold dust hand opening sliding paper walls. Plastered all over the sliding walls were happy scenes of teddy bears dancing, all done in a rainbow riot of colors and sparkles. Stuffed animals were everywhere.

Marko kept nodding. “Yeah, the dungeon core here is using different gauges of sparkles. You’d think all sparkles were created equal, but oh no, there’s a whole variety. She’s using a ten-gauge sparkle, and that unicorn? That’s not pink, actually, it’s chewed bubblegum, which is just a bit darker than out-of-the-wrapper bubblegum.”

“I never liked bubblegum,” Treacle said behind them. “Once the flavor is gone, it’s a form of jaw torture. Now, I’m fairly certain bubblegum would kill me. Oh, I didn’t bring any vomit bags.”

“I was kidding,” Professor Zantho growled.

The fairy led them through a merry-go-round room with mirrored walls. The whole room was a carousel, where most of the seats were happy winged ponies, like a cuter version of a Pegasus. There were more unicorns here, more kittens, and some grinning bunnies pulling a chariot. The room rotated while a happy K-pop-style jingle played.

Treacle, being the master of contraptions he was, saw the truth of the place. He let out a low whistle. “This is a trap. That central motor is much too large to simply turn the platform. I would imagine it would fling them into the mirrored walls.” A monocle erupted out of his temple to cover one eye. The minotaur nodded. “It’s a thin glass covering spikes. So the glass cuts you, but the spikes are the stuff that do the real damage.”

Marko clopped past a pair of bright-eyed bunnies pulling a chariot, where the kiddies would sit. He motioned to the mouth of a bunny. “Big fangs there. I wouldn’t be surprised if those rabbits came alive and did some damage.”

“Nice observations, maggots,” Zantho growled.

They passed through more trap rooms, found a colorful staircase, where the walls were a mixture of early Disney drawings, Brooklynn spray-paint art, and K-Pop videos.

The stairs let out into the inner sanctum. It felt like walking into a cathedral dedicated to the saint of Fruity Pebbles. The whole dungeon had been an experiment in color, but the heart of the dungeon took that color and applied it to a vast hall like a church crossed with a candy store. There were little candy people scurrying about, only a few inches tall, made of marshmallow or sugar. There was movement everywhere. And so many stuffed animals. A few live unicorn, cute and fluffy, galloped by, rainbow manes fluttering behind them.

Under the flying buttress, at the center of the columns, sat the central pedestal which seemed to have made out of frosting and gingerbread, but looking closer, Logan realized that there were gems set into the frosting. Not just gems. Cracked soul gems. An enormous collection of them.

The dungeon was active, given the fact a bubblegum-pink gem floated above the pedestal. That would be the dungeon core in charge. Was that a chewed bubblegum or the fresh-out-of-the-wrapper color? Logan didn’t know, but this whole place made him deeply uncomfortable. Like the color of the bubblegum, he wasn’t sure what to make of anything. On the surface, it was all happiness and colors and Notre Dame grandeur. But he knew this was a dungeon. There was a central mind at work here with unimaginable power. And this power had killed a lot of dungeons.

Marko set Steve on his own two feet. The mannequin was glancing around—he seemed more on edge than anyone.

“What in the seven hells is this place?” Chadrigoth cursed.

Magmarty shook his big stone head. “I’m getting cavities, and I don’t even have teeth.”

Lady Elesiel picked up a pink teddy bear wearing sparkly sunglasses. “I want to burn this sanctum. I find it afront to all good taste. It truly is terrible.”

“Terrible? I think you mean terribly brilliant.” Marko whirled around. Craning his neck. Flinging his arms out wide. “It’s unsettling. It’s a study in sweet horror. I can feel the sweetness turning sour in my mouth.”

Marko was too excited to simply stand. He risked death by running up to Professor Zantho with his hooves clapping like gunshots. “Who created this masterpiece? Who must I thank for this wonderful, inspired madness?”

Tet came close to Logan. “Is your goat friend going to be okay?”

“Maybe.” Logan wasn’t sure. It seemed Marko might explode from sheer excitement.

One of the stuffed animals scattered around the sanctum came to life with a laugh. She was moving fast—dancing, twirling, then somersaulting across the floor. It seemed like a she—based on the pitch of her laughter and her hips. She was wearing a bright yellow track suit—Kill Billyellow—with big black boots.

She had a big bushy tail, a bright coppery red, that matched her pointed fox face. Her red ears were lined in black fur. It was a kitsune, or a kumiho, depending on which side of the Sea of Japan you were on.

She had a giant mallet about ten times too big for her, but she swung it around like it was soup spoon. Hanging out with Inga so much, Logan couldn’t get silverware out of his head.

“Zuzanna!” the fox core shouted.

“Ji-Soo!” the professor spun over and lifted a tiny hand, which the fox core slapped. Then followed a more complicated handshake, fists bump, and some very unprofessional butt shaking. They ended the greeting with a shouted, “Arcandors Forever!”

“Heck yeah, my friend,” Professor Zantho then lost her smile. She fluttered above the pedestal. “If you counted, maggot, you’d see that there are over a five-hundred gems here on this altar to dungeon-dungeon combat.”

“ZZ!” Ji-Soo gasped loudly. “Don’t embarrass me in front of the cores. Gosh!”

Zantho then, honest to goodness, rolled her eyes. “Girlfriend, I couldn’t embarrass you if I tried. There was that one Council Conference in Sebastian Sands where we drank far too much go-go punch.”

Ji-Soo giggled. “I think Skip is still pulling drink umbrellas out of his flower beard. Does he still have the flower beard?”

“Mossier,” Zantho said. She then cleared her throat. “Maggots, this is Ji-Soo, she’s a rare Demonic Fox Fiend, and she’s the best Arcandor around. Well, now that I retired from the life.”

Ji-Soo stuck out her tongue. “You wish, ZZ. I was always better. But then we were both so good.”

Marko fell down on his knees in front of the fox fiend. “You, you, you. What you have wrought here… at every turn, the layers of meaning, the color, the grand cruelty of the sugar, the cuteness that hides the fangs, the wonder.”

Ji-Soo waved him away with a paw. “Oh, gosh, stop it. You must be the Dark Muse, Marko Laskarelis, a dungeon satyr. What you did in Vralkag? Now that was some work. Are you sure you’re from Sangretta? Really?”

“Really,” Marko said breathlessly.

The fox fiend smiled to show bright white teeth. “I took out a spider dungeon there a few hundred years back. Replaced it with a very charitable slime dungeon. Nice place, Sangretta. Nice beaches.”

Marko was stunned into rare silence.

Chadrigoth wasn’t impressed. “Are we going to hear about Null Arenas or not?” He asked, folding his beef-slab arms.

Ji-Soo laughed. “Spoken like Eritrean royalty.” The fox girl took them all in. “Let’s take a look at Shadowcroft’s finest. We have the abyss lord, sure, sure, not surprising. Tell your father Norman I said hello. I thought we might have trouble with him, but he’s been fine. Toddrick, though, I can see that meanie butt going rogue. Oops.” She put a delicate paw to her snout. “Forget I said that.”

The fox fiend went through them all, commenting on their powers and how they handled their mid-term, until she stepped up to Logan. She was about a foot shorter than he was, and it was a little odd, since the fox fiend had such an enormous presence. The mallet helped.

“Logan Murray, the Fungaloid! You know, back in the day, mushroom dungeons were the worst. Those spores? The digestion? The smell? -Happy gosh and I don’t mean tosh, I’ve tangled with some bad mushroomy-room-rooms all right. How in the gosh did you survive last year?” Ji-Soo’s very blue eyes sparkled as she weighed and measured him.

It was Logan’s turn to be embarrassed. “I, uh, had help. From my friends.”

“Symbiotic help, obvi!” the fox fiend said loudly. “Such power in that. Such danger…” She let that last word linger in the air like a promise of violence to come.

Professor Zantho spun over in a flash of gold dust. “Now, Ji, weren’t you about to attack the Dread Summoner’s Caves?”

Ji-Soo coughed like she was trying to clear a hairball. “Ugh. That guy. The worst. Believe me, it won’t last long. He has a thing for your typical minion classes. Boring. Yawn. Yuck. You have your orc foot soldiers, your orc mages, your orc chieftains. Orcs, orcs, ogre, stone giant. Rinse and repeat. Here he could’ve summoned some truly unique monsters, and he went the Saruman route. Yawn! Like he wishes he was a Saruman.”

“How do Null Arenas work?” Logan asked. “We all have questions about this whole process. I’m not seeing it.”

Ji-Soo’s tail grew even bushier and brushed Logan face. “Oh, aren’t you cute in a very spongey dank way. Sure thing, my fungal friend, let’s get talking dungeon destruction! Gosh, I love this stuff. I really, really, really do! It’s a calling more than a job. You know what they say, if you do what you love you’ll never work a day in your life. And I love killing rogue dungeons, awoo.”

Marko stood on his hooves, but he might as well be floating a foot off the ground. He was staring in rapture at the demonic fox fiend.

Ji-See seemed to get serious. Then she winked at them. “So. Let’s go visit a Null Arena.”