Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Twenty-Four

The holidays passed, the new year began, and Monday morning, Logan found himself at his Offensive Dungeon Design class with Melvin, the First Cohort, and the Ninth Circle cohort.

Professor Zantho had them assemble in the Golden Serpent Hall, which was strange, but no one was going to say word one against the fairy fetch. They’d all learned that lesson early on. Even Marko.

Professor Zantho was dressed in her Greek warrior gear, wings buzzing and throwing colorful sweet-smelling dust in the air.

Logan waited with the Terrible Twelfth—and Melvin, who they couldn’t completely ditch. The guy could teach even a mushroom a thing or two about sticking around in unwanted places. Like a mushroom, he was also starting to grow on them a little. Marko had warmed to him as well, though Inga still loathed him with every fiber of her being. Logan wanted to like him, but any sort of real friendship with the kitchen ghast was impossible with the cloud of suspicion hanging over his head. It was possible that he had tried to kill Tet, and until Logan couldn’t move past that—not until he ruled Melvin out as a suspect.

Professor Zantho got down to it. “Okay, Maggots, mid-terms are next week. Yes. We’ve finished half the school year already, and most of you still make me want to puke. However, I have high hopes that the next set of war games we play will help me with my nausea. Now, follow me.”

Professor Zantho led them down the Stairwell of True Seeing, and Logan was kicking himself. He was stuck in the back with Melvin. He would’ve loved to see what Zantho and the First Cohort had looked like before they’d died and chosen their dungeon core forms. Even seeing Frieda, the ice imp and head of the Ninth Circle would’ve been interesting. But it just wasn’t meant to be. He did get an eyeful of Melvin’s former self, though. In his past life, the kitchen ghast had been an affable round-bellied dwarf, far shorter, a bit rounder, with a thick beard and a happy round face. Melvin tipped his fedora on his kitchen ghast head.

“It took me a bit to get used to being so tall,” he said, regarding Logan’s guardian form, “so I can relate to your current predicament, friendo.”

“Friendo.” Logan closed his eyes and tried not show a reaction. “I was tall before I died.” Looking into his human face was like looking into the face of a stranger. But seeing that missing leg did fill him with an old sense of embarrassment.

Melvin picked up on that and charged ahead with it. “Wow, you only had three and a half-limbs. Did you levitate yourself around back then? Or”—he paused to snort—“did you hop around?”

The guy wasn’t being mean, just clueless.

Logan shrugged it off. “I had a prosthetic leg. I won’t need that anymore. I’m a B-Class cultivator, and even before I could grow new limbs. Now? I can turn my severed limbs into monsters.”

“That’s neat!” Melvin said enthusiastically. “You know, reaching B-Class is a huge accomplishment. I remember when I finally ranked up. It changed how I saw things. I used to be this big dork, so unsure of myself, so worried about what other people thought. But when I became an Azure Branch Cultivator, I figured I didn’t need to care if I was popular or not. I knew that eventually I would wind up in a dungeon, that I’d bake my own minions in ovens of warm love, and that I’d have friends forever. I figured I might as well be myself, as awkward as that can be sometimes.” Another snort.

Logan didn’t know what to say to the confession. For a minute, he was certain that Melvin was completely innocent of the murders.

Then the kitchen ghast ruined that. “You should’ve seen me when I was C-Class. I was a bloodthirsty cultivator who would’ve cut my own mother’s throat to advance. I mean, I got very good at baking poison into dishes, just in case I needed to get serious about taking out the competition.” Melvin shrugged. “Glad those days are behind me. We better get going. Speaking of bloodthirsty, Professor Zantho will murder us if aren’t down there in time.”

With his new long legs, Logan had no problem keeping up with the pot-bellied kitchen ghast.

Zantho fluttered up to the turtle fountain decorating the undercroft. The doors to the right led to the Tartarucha Cells. The Codex Athenaeum’s doors stood open on the left. Logan couldn’t help but think the turtle fountain looked familiar—the turtle part at least. This place had to be sacred to the Onyx Tortoise. He was sure of it.

Zantho talked with the fountain turtle, and for once she wasn’t yelling or calling anyone any names. She seemed reserved and oddly respectful, which was weird. Even Shadowcroft got lip off her. But not the fountain turtle. Finally finishing her hushed conversation, the fairy fetch pushed open the doors to right. The Tartarucha Cells were not in their normal configuration.

The professor turned and ushered them in. “Come on, maggots. Close your mouths so the flies don’t get in. Flies eating maggots? That’s cannibalism. What kind of sickos are you? Yes, we are in a magical world full of wonder. That stuff will soon wear off because, surprise, it’s kill or be killed in this magical world of wonder.”

“Just change wonder into murder,” Marko whispered. “It’s a magical world of murder.”

Logan was too surprised to admonish his friend. Instead of stone hallways and glittering caverns, the practice dungeon had been transformed into a copy of Vralkag. It was the same huddled collection of half-timbered houses and cobblestone streets, but above arched a ceiling of stone, lit by a central glowing light source. Logan recognized the market stalls, the town hall, even the teetering five stories of Enrico’s Bar and Fry Kitchen.

Zantho kept them moving at a brisk pace. “Now you know why I wanted you maggots to visit Vralkag so much. Now, keep up.” She went zooming away in a cloud of golden glitter. They walked through the town, which must’ve been pushing the Tartarucha Cells to their limits. The professor guided them out the front gate and down a set of stone steps. This was more like how the practice dungeon normally looked. Rock steps, cut stone walls, torches burning in sconces. She ushered them into the inner sanctum of the dungeon, a simple round room with a single round pedestal.

Logan’s heart filled with warm memories of practicing here, every Monday night, with Inga. They had come up with some very ingenious ways to kill Sir Rosencrantz Brandybutter over and over. It had been quite a shock to Logan when he’d realized that the simulated dungeoneers were the Apothos cores of old raiders. Basically, they were programmable ghosts.

Zantho deftly tossed her core onto the pedestal and took over the dungeon with practiced ease. The place immediately turned into a fairy forest with a variety of trees, flowers, and climbing vines. A pond appeared around the pedestal. She could create the dungeon so quickly because for one, she was powerful, and for two, this was a practice dungeon not a real sanctum. It took very little Apothos to manifest things here—which was the only explanation for how a mirror copy of Vralkag had gotten into the Cells. Even so, Logan couldn’t even fathom the kind of power it would take to do something like that.

Zantho snapped her fingers. “I know this place is beautiful. It’s also deadly. Don’t touch nothing. However, this class is about taking a dungeon on the offensive. For your mid-term exams, you will be unleashing your minions on our simulation of Vralkag. The town will be filled with simulated dungeoneers as well as real men, women, children, and other noncombatants. Your job is to eliminate the village by capturing key strategic objectives. In essence, you will kill the town and make sure no one, and I mean no one will ever set foot in it again.”

Logan thought about his time in the army, the training he’d gotten on interacting with civilians, and how precarious it could be. He immediately saw the problem. He raised his hand.

Zantho growled at him and crossed her arms. “From the look on your face, fungaloid, you’re about to ask me a question that is sure to piss me off. I can already guess what it is.” She put her hands on her face and feigned shock. “Oh, but professor, what about the children? Haven’t we dedicated our afterlives, such as they are, to protecting the Tree of Souls? How does destroying a helpless widdle city defend the Tree?”

Logan nodded. “Yes actually. That’s exactly right. I’m all for protecting the Tree of Souls against dungeoneers who are attacking us, but what you’re talking about sounds a lot like war crimes. Isn’t there some kind of Geneva Convention for the Ashvattha multiverse?”

“Culturally specific!” Inga hissed.

Zantho knew what he meant. Her eyes glowed gold. “I’ve seen dungeoneers infiltrate a city near a dungeon core, pretend to be shopkeepers, and then go into the dungeon and kill that core dead. I’ve seen settlements start near a node being protected by one of our kind, and in six months, Bob’s your uncle, the settlement sends down an army of raiders to destroy the core and drink that node dry of Apothos. There might come a time when you will need to eliminate a town, camp, or otherwise semi-permanent settlement with extreme prejudice. When that time comes, you will thank your fungal butt for this class.”

Logan probably should’ve backed down from the fight, but he couldn’t help himself. This felt wrong. “I can see some of what you are saying, Professor, but I can’t condone wiping out an entire village to get to a single party of raiders. That would only help the dungeoneering guilds get more recruits. They’d be all, ‘Look at how evil these dungeons are! They need to be killed and the heroes of our guild are the only ones to do it.’ This is only perpetuating the cycle of violence.”

“Did I suggest mass murder, maggot?” Zantho erupted. “No. I said key objectives. You will follow this assignment, Murray, and if you fail, there will be serious consequences! You will do as you are told. I didn’t spend a thousand years hunting down rogue dungeons to argue ethics with some new B-Class fungaloid who still has C-Class spores behind his ears.”

Logan laughed. “Yeah. Good one, professor. I don’t even have ears.”

Marko grimaced. “Don’t, man. You’re embarrassing me. And yourself. But mostly me.”

Zantho’s eyes flashed a final time. “We are done, Murray. Watch and learn.”

Crawling out from underneath the trees were stout warriors made of mud and weeds, covered in wooden armor and armed with glowing silver weapons. The mud Spartans didn’t look so tough, only about three feet tall, but they were soon joined by the trees themselves, huge, twisted trunks covered in a mixture of moss and glowing gold dust. Webbed creatures emerged from the pond with gleaming golden eyes.

For the next hour, the class followed the mud Spartans, the moss trents, and the Black lagoon goldeneyes on a rampage through the simulated cities. Rather than slaughtering whole families, Zantho created diversions, burned a few buildings so the inhabitants pulled out civilians, and then focused on winning the town hall—Vralkag’s version of a dungeoneering guild, which was actually a barracks for the town militia, and two adventurer’s inns to the south, the Unlikely Unicorn and the Game of Bones Inn. Those were for adventurers. Enrico’s were for locals.

Zantho had her moss trents destroy both inns, which were in the bad part of town where wandering dungeoneers would stay. Zantho explained that adventurer’s inns were breeding grounds for raiders, and they needed to be destroyed like any sort of monster generator.

By the time her run was finished, Logan had to admit that Zantho’s strategy had been sound. Brutal and ruthless, but sound. It had been an instructive class. While her monsters ran amuck in the simulated Vralkag, Zantho explained that you had to balance Apothos usage, your AOI, or Area of Influence, and any Exogenous Apothos Manifestations. Even though Logan had just advanced, he could still see how this could be a challenge.

After class, Zantho kept Logan behind, so again, he wasn’t able to see what the First Cohort’s real selves looked like, or at least their birth selves.

The second they were alone, the professor blasted Logan like a shotgun to the face, made some damning accusations about his parents, and then finally let him go. He walked up the Stairwell of True Seeing and into the Golden Serpent Hall, where he found Tet sitting alone at a table, drinking a bowl of what looked like cream.

He dropped down next to her with a groan. His face was still burning from the utter reaming the fairy fetch had given him. Logan glanced at the cat woman. She had just been released from the infirmary. This was her first day back, and he could see she was troubled. It was in the gloomy cast of her eyes and the slouch of her shoulders. She looked defeated.

She turned on him after a long beat. “I’ll never pass our Offensive Dungeon Design mid-term, Logan. I don’t have the Apothos. The attack didn’t exactly crack my core, but it untied two knots. I’m so much weaker. You gained four ranks. I lost three. I could probably get my minions to the market, maybe the town hall. But the barracks and both the inns?” She grimaced and shook her head. “I won’t pass. Which means I’ll lose points for my cohort, our clan. That will not be tolerated for long. If Chadrigoth came after me for no reason—not that I’m saying he did—but he would definitely kill me if I couldn’t perform for our cohort.”

Logan would’ve liked to think she was overacting, but with everything that had happened so far this year, he had to take her seriously.

“I trained my whole life for this, and now it’s all going to be for not.” She folded in on herself.

An idea hit Logan like a baseball bat to the back of the head. She was in a bad situation, but maybe there was a way out. His idea was more than a little desperate, but he was getting used to taking risks. Ever since the reaping dungeon had eaten him, he’d been on the edge of getting his core cracked. It had gotten so he couldn’t tell his courage from his fear.

“What if we take the mid-term together?” Logan asked. “I’d have to check with Inga, but she’s been doing really well in Zantho’s class. So has Marko and Treacle, especially Treacle. For being a super-depressed former gnome, he does have the spirit of a conqueror.”

Tet licked cream off her lips and daintily wiped off her whiskers with a napkin. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. Especially since Professor Zantho is going to really try and test you. I overheard Chadrigoth saying something about Zantho reinforcing the simulated Vralkag with some of her own special designs, just to prove a point to you. I don’t want to slow you down and I would.”

Logan didn’t know Tet’s rank, but it had to be either Iron Trunk or, more likely, Azure Branch. She hadn’t changed forms, so she couldn’t have lost a whole Cultivation level. He wasn’t even sure that was possible. Then something hit him. “Tet, you won’t slow me down. And if we symbiotically bond, I might be able to access memories of when you were attacked—er, assuming you feel comfortable with that. It might help us narrow down who might be behind the murders here. And, you’ve also had to spend a lot of time with Chadrigoth. He might’ve let something slip about his past. Something that might give us a clue as to whether or not he’s behind the attacks. If you’re willing to join with me, I think we can help each other.”

Tet let a sly little smile slip across her face. “It will help us get to know each other better as well. Maybe you’re just doing this to flirt.”

He thought about Melvin and his dumb idea of Team Inga and Team Tet.

Lucky his mushroom body was a mycelium created by a web of tiny filaments called hyphae, or he might’ve blushed.

He kept his features flat. “Not flirting, Tet. We just have a common purpose, that’s all.”

Tet narrowed her eyes. “Will it be okay with Inga.”

Logan had no idea, but he was going to ask her.