Shadowcroft Year 3 - Chapter Sixteen

In the end, Shadowcroft was right—as he was so much of the time. Rockheart did indeed love having Chadrigoth’s statue standing tall at the center of the practice fields. He ended up using the iron abyss lord as a coat and scarf rack during practice. Very convenient.

Logan also enjoyed having him around, though for a different reason.

Over the next three months, Logan would go and sit next to the Chadrigoth trapped in carbonite to work on his twine, or to practice his cultivation techniques, and to generally ponder his life. It was strange. For the first two years at Shadowcroft, Chadrigoth had been such a thorn in his side, the stereo-typical bully/homicide suspect that made Logan’s life, and the lives of the Terrible Twelfth miserable.

Then the craziness of their second year happened, and Chadrigoth had become Logan’s friend—hell, one of his best friends even. That was a plot twist he’d never seen coming. The hole the abyss lord left behind was surprisingly hard for them all to bear, and Tet took it as hard or harder than all of them.

Logan would often come and see Tet standing by the statue, talking to him, which was something Logan would do as well.

Inga admitted to doing the same thing—when working on the audit became too much, or when archiving Shadowcroft’s office was driving her crazy.

No one knew when Chadrigoth might emerge from his metallic cocoon and after the first few weeks, Logan had to admit he was giving up hope. Which was exactly when Rockheart reminded him that dungeon cores could exist for thousands of years, it not indefinitely, and that advancing to A-Class would take some time.

The days stretch on, quickly turning to weeks, weeks giving way to months, and before long the Forever Green Festival was right around the corner.

It was Marko’s idea to throw a winter party for Chadrigoth, which was amazing, since the goat man wasn’t the biggest fan of the Forever Green Festival in general. He had past trauma. Losing a friend and getting killed during the festive season would give anyone holiday woes. Also, Marko had to plan the party while cleaning all of the bathrooms, which had become kind of an obsession for him. If silverware almost broke Inga the year before, the constant scrubbing just might snap Marko’s already fragile mind.

Still, the Forevergreen Festival party was a big hit. Most of the school came, even though it was cold and snowy, and bit windy, which was odd since Arborea was flat and didn’t actually have any kind of weather system. However, the bonfires kept them warm, the air was filled the smell of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and there was plenty to drink. Not only were the Gelatinous Knight and Nemoy in charge of drinks, Enrico Kagster had created a new flavor of Liverkill, Abyss Lord Blues, which tasted like blueberries left out in the sun and then coated in gasoline and chocolate. It was a truly terrible flavor combination.

Marko drank far too much of it.

In truth, Marko said the Liverkill flavor tasted better than the Blue Divine Philter. Since it was designed to help C-Class cores cultivate better, both Treacle and Marko had been steadily drinking as much of the stuff as Logan could brew. It was a slow and tedious process—although Marko constantly said that it wasn’t a slow enough process. He stated in no uncertain terms that if he never had to drink another drop of the vile stuff, he could die and happy and fulfilled goat man. As a B-Class Cultivator it couldn’t do anything to improve Logan’s core, but he’d tried it anyway and found it to be pungent yet refreshing.

Although, admittedly, he did now enjoy the taste of moldy dumpster water.

Unfortunately, the brews didn’t seem to be doing a whole lot to help Treacle or Marko advance either and it was having some rather… odd side effects.

Treacle had become rather obsessed with crocheting and had started creating cute scarves and colorful jackets for his metal murder machines.

As for Marko, he’d become more than a little twitchy and had grown infatuated with Dark Matter Multiverse Radio, a conspiracy talk show that covered everything from Elvis sightings to your stereo-typical grey skin aliens—known as Zeta Reticulans—probing cattle. Listening to DMMR wasn’t easy, since the multiverse was a big place, and radio waves weren’t known to travel all that far. To solve the problem, Marko had to use a special DMMR tuning fork, smack it against the wall, and then let the sound reverberate through a video crystal. The entire process was wildly inefficient and impractical. It also happened to be extremely problematic and deeply, deeply stupid.

The DMMR conspiracy theories wasn’t helping Marko’s mental health any, and it certainly wasn’t helping him advance his core.

Needless to say, everyone in the Terrible Twelfth was frustrated in their progress—especially since their specialized cultivation training didn’t seem to be helping either.

Logan could relate. He’d hit another plateau, this time at B-Class, Rank 4. No matter how hard he pushed his body, it wasn’t enough. And it didn’t help that he’d made significant progress on his ball of twine, while seeing no tangible gains in power.

A-Class never felt so far away.

At least Chadrigoth would get there, hopefully.

                                                                                  ***

With the Forevergreen Festival firmly in the rearview mirror and classes starting back up once more, Logan found himself on one of the four stone benches that Rockheart had placed around Chadrigoth, absently contemplating his life and the Miami Vice sweat bands encircling his oversized wrists. He’d put them on, but so far, they didn’t seem to be doing anything.

Either that, or Logan was having trouble accessing their power.

Inga, Marko, and Treacle found him just before dinner, the sky the hazy purple of twilight, a fine mist hanging in the air. It was a bit cold, and very damp, which Logan enjoyed.

Even from a distance, Inga grimaced as she tromped across the Colosseum grounds. “Logan, could you put the terry cloth bracelets away. I can’t handle the smell.”

Marko laughed. “Phft, that’s nothing. I know you guys don’t want to hear it, but someone in the Crystal Tiger Clan did something unspeakable in their freshman dorms bathrooms. It was a crime against humanity that will forever haunt my dreams and live on in my darkest memories. But yeah, sure, the wrist bands smell gross.”

“Who hurt you Marko,” Inga asked, laying a hand on his forearm. “Was it GK?”

“I don’t want to talk about he,” he said. “But what I do want to talk about is our new classes! Huh! Away from Arborea. No toilets to clean. Who has two thumbs and is excited for that? This satyr.”

Treacle spit out the jawbreaker. “Unique classes start. Knowledge drips like sweet honey. New kids on the block.”

Logan grinned. He was excited to get off world—his uncle Bud used to say, sometimes a change is as good as a break. He could definitely use a change in his routine—he was in a rut and needed something to jar him out of it. “Yeah, I honestly can’t wait. Marko has his clown school—”

“Clown college!” the satyr insisted, “let’s not be demeaning. And at least I don’t have a bug class.”

“Cosmic Entomology,” Inga corrected. “Are you excited to meet Ronnalg Crucible’s brother, Treacle?” she asked, turning toward the minotaur.

He nodded stoically. “Well, to be honest, I don’t know if I am or not. Might be, Professor Crucible and his brother don’t get along. From what I’ve gathered, Professor has a very big family with a lot of siblings and they all have a very… complicated family dynamic. Not unlike this jawbreaker. There are layers to it. But I do like armor and Professor Donnalg Crucible is supposed to be the best of the best. We’ll see. I am trying to keep an open mind, but I’ll probably hate it.”

“Naw! It’s going to be aces, big guy. Going off-world!” Marko did a little dance. “And we’ll be alone. Time to get in some serious trouble!”

“Please don’t,” Inga said. “We need to really do well. Despite our inclusion in the interschool tournament, the Azure Dragon Clan is in last place this year.”

Marko shot her an accusing finger. “Because of points! Yes! Points! It’s the points that are the problem. I heard all about this on Dark Matter Multiverse Radio. It’s a whole thing. How can we lead the leaderboard if the points are against us?”

Inga let out an exasperated sigh. “How many times do I have to tell you, that show is utter rubbish. Just admit that you have no idea how the leaderboard work.”

Marko squinted at her. “No, no, no—you have no idea how it works, which you would if you just tuned in and listened to the show for once. That’s the problem. That and the points.”

Treacle had popped his jawbreaker back into his mouth. He didn’t seem to have an opinion on the issue.

Despite Marko’s protests, there was no conspiracy to uncover.

The truth was, the Azure Dragon was in last place because of simple math. Chadrigoth was out of the picture and the Terrible Twelfth had stalled in their advancement progress. It also didn’t help matters that the Azure Dragon freshmen were looking pretty lackluster while the Backstories had been making amazing progress, mirroring what Logan had done his freshman year. Which meant the Onyx Tortoise Clan was breathing down the Crystal Tiger's neck, and both the Vermilion Phoenix and the Azure Dragon were trailing.

True, Logan had won some points for his clan, since he and Inga had made it into the Semi-Finals, but even Rockheart pointed out how lackadaisical his clan seemed this year. Even Tet had slowed her progress.

Logan reached out and touched the metal statue of Chadrigoth. “Well, I’m just hoping that the second semester brings some kind of change. I should learn something from other fungaloid dungeon cores, right?”

Treacle spit his candy into his palm. “Something should grow on you. I made a mold joke. Something moldy. No, things are going to get better. They have to. Right? I’m new to optimism. I don’t quite understand it.”

Marko sighed. “Hope, my minotaurial friend, is never off the menu of the buffet that we call our lives. Speaking of buffest, let’s go eat! I have to hit some public restrooms in Vralkag. Ain’t no rest for the wicked, nor is there no rest for people who clean restrooms. There’s some irony there.”

The next day, Logan took off for Nightfall University and his Mastering Mushrooms Magic: Protecting the Multiverse One Spore at a Time.

If hope was on the menu, then so was strangeness, disappointment, and all the other flavors of emotion of what we call life.