Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Forty-Eight

Tet vaulted through the air using her Feline Agility, and slammed a shoulder into Logan’s side, throwing him out of the path of the explosion. Plaster dust hung in the air, which made the old-timey sign look even more eerie. The only reason why Steve could have electric lights was because of Treacle Glimmerhappy’s amazing crafting abilities.

Along with the carnival music, they could hear the rattle of what sounded like rollercoaster clacking around down there in the Sorrow Circus’s entrance. Tet was right. After what Steve had done to the dungeon, it couldn’t be called the Winterdark Halls—it was some new, twisted thing.

Tet offered Logan and hand. He stood and absently wiped the dust from his spongey shoulders.

“I’m happy to help, but I wasn’t joking when I said you couldn’t have picked a worse time. I have my personal attacks, combat skills, and spells, but I don’t think I can provide you with minions. I simply don’t have the Apothos.” Her bathrobe fell open so he could see her gem. It glittered weakly in the ambient light from the theater.

“I got the minions covered, but I could definitely use a second set of eyes. Are you game to bond with me? That way, we can communicate without Steve listening, plus we’ll be able to anticipate each other’s movements.”

The cat woman agreed. The second they were connected, Logan could feel the vast emptiness inside the cat woman. She hadn’t been lying—she was running nearly on ‘E’. Even activating some of her more Apothos-intense personal skills would be a challenge.

Logan couldn’t worry about that, though.

<Alright, here’s what we’re going to do?> He laid out his master plan. <We don’t have time to unravel Steve’s traps, and I think his circus is mostly going to be traps. I’m betting Steve took ninety-nine percent of his minions on the offensive, then left behind Marko, Inga, Treacle, and a skeleton crew to protect the dungeon. From what I’ve felt of him, it’s like Steve is really relying on the Terrible Twelfth’s power. He didn’t open the fourth seal, so he doesn’t have a real core, just a proto-gem.>

Tet’s ears twitched as she listened. She was as focused as a feline laser beam. She nodded. <So what do you need from me?>

<Honestly? Protection. Even weakened, you’re faster and stronger than me. You’re going to be my eyes and ears while I’m handling the dungeon itself.>

<That, at least, I can do,> she said, flashing her obsidian claws. <Nothing will get close enough to so much as ruffle your gills—not if I have anything to say about it.>

<That’s all I can ask for.> Logan summoned his ruby shield, a silver sword, then decked himself out in full armor. Spiked pauldron, leather battle skirt, and oversized war belt holding it all together.  With Tet taking point, they headed through the entrance, down a set of icy wooden steps, and into the first chamber, which was like the Blood Rock’s lava river ravine, only with a lot more freezing rock, ice, and snow.

A spattering of snowflakes blew around on a light breeze, the wind moaning softly in the distance. Bare electric bulbs flickered here and there, casting the cavernous space in eerie, unsteady illumination. Campy carnival murals covered the walls. A stilted version of Marko as a carnival barker, Inga as a showgirl wearing a bright red feather boa, and Treacle as the sad clown. The white makeup didn’t work with his hair, though the single blue tear on his cheek was a nice touch, if a little on the nose. It was kinda cool that Inga’s mural was wearing Melvin’s fedora.

Ahead was a wide ravine and an endless chasm stretching out below. That feature, at least, had stayed the same.

Steve had, however, removed the arching stone bridge Logan had created, opting instead for a pair of rollercoaster tracks, all rusty steel rails and rickety wooden slats. The tracks met at a loading station on Logan’s side of the chasm, then split in the middle of the ravine, one set of tracks peeling off to the left, the other veering right. The right-side track disappeared into a set of giant red clown’s lips, painted onto the rockface. The tracks on the left snaked between the legs of a cartoon version of Steve the Dummy, with a look of surprise widening his eyes and his hands to his mouth.

An empty car clattered away into the left tunnel, as another car—this one full of Inga’s Golden Centipedes—emerged from the nightmarish clown lips and lumbered toward them. These weren’t enhanced minions, or floor bosses, just your standard cannon fodder troops. Seeing Inga’s run-of-the-mill centipedes was actually a relief, because it meant there was some limit to Steve’s abilities. The living dummy was powerful, but not impossibly so. If they paced themselves and worked smarter, not harder, they might just have a chance yet.

While car with the giant centipedes rattled closer to the loading station, empty cars continued to race around the ravine through a light snowfall. At intervals, the tracks sparked. Treacle’s upgraded AFS Core Improvement had to be powering the whole setup.

Though she was tired, Tet’s eyes glittered with the thrill of the game. <This is a trap. The empty cars are tempting—but the certainty lead to death. I would imagine we’ll want to kill those centipedes and ride those cars across the ravine, taking the tunnel on the right.>

Logan agreed. <Yeah, that’s what would I think. Besides, Treacle always puts his traps on the left side—it helps him remember where to put traps when he’s building out a labyrinth. This whole room screams Treacle, so the tunnel on the right is probably safe. Or at least safer.>

Logan bent and summoned a spore warg, a simple one, to save on Apothos. He layered on the Gem-studded Puffballs. The warg stood panting loudly, tongue dangling and tail wagging.

Logan felt like he had to apologize. “Sorry, guy, but you’re not going to make it. Don’t worry, next time I summon you, I’ll be sure to have a decayed snacks for you.”

The spore warg didn’t seem perturbed by his imminent death in the least. He offered Logan a doggy grin and dipped his head. I’s a good boi, that nod said. I’ll do the thing. Logan sent it running toward the loading station just as the cart full of centipedes pulled into the station. Logan was half-sure that at least one of those murals of his old buddies might spring to life—Marko did have that Living Artistry ability—but they didn’t twitch. Just macabre painting after all.

The spore warg leapt, turning into a temporary airborne missile, before slamming into the front end of the railroad car. The Gem-studded puffballs exploded in a shower of spore and crystal shards, deadly shrapnel chewing through the centipedes and peppering the nearby mural. Only two of the centipedes survived the attack. With a chittering screech, the giant bugs raced toward Logan and Tet on dozens of legs.

They didn’t make it more than ten feet.

The feline sandmaster raised a fur-covered hand and let loose a Cryptonic Missile. The javelin of necrotic green energy ripped into one of the centipedes, tearing it in two and killing it on the spot. Tet waited until the other insect was in range, and then triggered her Leap Strike skill. That elegant maneuver took her into the air—she floated there for a second, arms folded back like something out of The Matrix—before coming down claws first into the bug monster. She ripped through it like a tomcat in heat going to town on a leather sofa.

All that remained when she finished her grisly work was golden segments of shell and a steaming pile of bug viscera. Tet looked annoyed more than anything else.

Logan ran to the back car that was still coupled to the destroyed cars. <Throw the two centipedes into the back of the car, Tet!>

The fungaloid bent and unhitched the back car with a flick of her claws. Right in front of his face was another cartoon Steve painted on the side with a creepy shadow smile stretching across his face. The mannequin was giving him the thumbs up.

While Tet cleared the wreckage, Logan used his Level Four Proto-Spore ability to turn the dead centipedes into Corpsebombs. It would take a bit for the internal organs of the insects to liquify and build up the gases. They weren’t ready yet, but once the spores did their work, if anything came close to the dead bodies they’d detonate, and that heavy gold exoskeleton would become extra-deadly shrapnel.

<Alright, Tet, help me push the cart.>

The cat woman helped him shove the car down the tracks, building up momentum as they ran. They avoided the metal rails—no use risking electrocution—and moved on the wooden boards across the ravine and into the clown’s mouth. It was unsettlingly dark, but that didn’t bother Logan and Tet since both could see with zero light.

To their left, the empty cars went speeding through a series of huge blades that would’ve cut any riders into meat scraps. Ha! Logan had called it. Treacle always put his traps on the left-hand side!

After being run through the Ginsu slicer, the empty cars clattered over the edge of an unfinished track, dropping into an endless pit. Logan and Tet’s track continued straight as an arrow into a tunnel, painted to look like the Golden Serpent Hall. Or a twisted version of it.

Carnival decorations had been plastered all over the feasting hall’s walls—old-timey posters, red-and-white stripe crepe paper, with a few pictures of lions, elephants, and clowns trying not to be creepy. Sitting at the tables were different students: the Gelatinous Knight, Nemoy the elderly undead merman, Ed the Rot Troll, Melvin, Professor Thozz Grimemaw. Still others had been painted at the tables sitting all chummy with more of the creepy plaster mannequins. It was nightmarish version of their hall where the colors were dull and the shadows a bit too dark.

The carnival music grew louder, setting Logan on edge.

<Hey, Tet, let’s pause here for a second.> Logan and the cat woman pulled the car to a stop. <So I’m betting at least one of those paintings is going to attack us,> he sent, surveying each painting in turn. <But, they probably won’t attack the centipedes. Marko said his Living Artistry paintings have a certain amount of artificial intelligence. Ideally, we could trigger them somehow. We might be able to use my minions, but I’d like not to waste them if we can help it.>

Tet let out growl. <It’ll cost me, but Professor Rainsap helped me unlock a new ability under my Mistress of the Spectral Sand skills. It’s called Sand Sculpture.>

Tet swirled one hand through the air, transforming raw Terra Apothos into sand. With her Morta Apothos, she imbued the sand with unlife. The sand danced and twirled, coalescing into two lifelike statues—one of her in her bathrobe and the other of Logan in his armor. She set the conjured statues into the cart, draped the dead centipedes across their laps, then gave the car a big shove.

The wheels creaked and clacked as the cart slow lurched down the track and into the mural tunnel.

A dozen dummies, with daggers and long-tined forks, peeled away from the mural to attack the sand statues. They didn’t even try to avoid the Gold Centipede Corpsebombs. The explosions wiped out the tracks, the cars, and the mural in one fell swoop. It didn’t cause a cave in, thankfully.

Way cleared, Logan and Tet sprinted down the tracks where another series of stations waited for the cars to stop and let passengers off.

A corridor to the left ushered Logan and Tet into a cave, which had formally contained Logan’s Crimson Coral Labyrinth. That was gone. Instead, Steve had manifested a carnival midway. The music was louder here, but this still wasn’t the source of the piping. Carnival games lined the walls, the stalls empty and lifeless and foreboding. Since Steve was almost as narcissistic as Chadrigoth, all of the games were naturally based around him.

A twisted version of ring toss, where you had to toss rings into a sea of slender Steve fingers, all jutting up from the ground. Bean bag toss, where you had to throw the bags through a series of Steve’s big open mouths. Pop the Balloon Steve, Pick-A-Steve, Fishing Steve, Steve Dig. Bobbing for Steves, Spin the Steve Wheel. Each of them lined up on either side of a main avenue.

A frosty wind, full of fat snowflakes, howled through the midway, making several signs rattle and creak. A few of the booths sparked with Treacle’s energy signature. Professor Arketa would NOT have been happy with that. She was always on Treacle about hiding his Fulgur Apothos.

Some of the booths did appear a little too well constructed—crammed full of metal and wires, all hidden behind cheap plywood, hastily painted with cartoon Steves and more capering images of the Terrible Twelfth.

Tet sighed wearily. <I do not want to walk down this place. And did I mention I never liked Marko’s minion? I always found him so unsettling and a bit too focused on death. Just so morbid, and I was in a death cult.>

<I understand that,> Logan agreed. <Thankfully, you don’t have to worry about this, Tet. I’ve got it covered.> He raised his arms high, unleashing a flurry of spores. Apothos flowed out of his core, running down his arms and swirling into the air as he released Rapid Growth. A platoon of Spore Wargs rose around him, pawing at the ground and raising slick muzzles to sniff at the air. Pink tongue lolled from their mouths, just happy to be there. He seeded his wargs with Corpsebomb spores, then loaded them down with Gem-studded Puffballs for good measure.

“God speed, you brave doggos.” With a wave, Logan sent his dogs running into booth after booth.

Good thing Logan had gone the mass destruction route—every one of the games of chance were traps. The Beanball Throw blasted spiked bean bags out of Steve’s mouth holes. The ring toss rings turned into saw blades and rose off the protruding Steve fingers, slicing through the air. Metal arms grabbed the plastic fishing poles and threw out hooks to try and snag a spore warg. The balloons for the balloon pop inflated and exploded with a crackle of potent Fulgur energy.

The wargs, though, expertly dodged the various missiles before slamming into the booths with reckless abandon. Explosion after explosion rocked the midway, blasting apart traps and sending showers of plywood spitting into the air. The combination of Corpsebomb and Gem-studded Puffball was a deadly combination.

Chadrigoth’s voice filled Logan’s head. <Oh, hi, Tet. I didn’t know you were at this party. You guys better hurry. Just wanted to let you guys know that Steve made it out of the Shame Maze, and the rest of his army right on his heels. Turns out the octopus-heads have a tonof self-confidence. Gotta go. But hurry. I’ll hold him off as long as I can and try to get corpses into your digestion pit.>

Still connected to the Bloodrock, Logan saw Steve rushing into a field of Eyelash Stinkhorn. The dummy let out a yell, “Oh… Oh god, what’s that smell? Gross!”

Many of the octopus-head crossbow dummies turned tail and sprinted back into the Shame Maze to avoid the stench. Which is precisely when the Gem-Studded Puffballs started going off, taking out whole colonies of Tsuki ants and blowing lightning spike flies out of the air. A chitinous Calfling tank stumbled into a whole patch of Ghoul’s Snare and Blister Wart. Tendrils of black fungi held the tank while all the skin not protected by his exoskeleton swelled to horrifying proportions.

Logan refocused on the madness filling the midway. Logan grabbed Tet’s hand and coaxed her into motion. “Now’s our chance,” he whispered. They took off at a run.

Tentacles reached out from a painting of Shadowcroft wearing a pointed dunce cap. Logan activated Pneumacity and turned on a burst of Apothos-fueled speed. Tet bounded forward with effortless Feline Agility, dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and dodging—again—

the grasping purple coils.

Just up ahead, Tsuki ants poured out of the Steve Dig booth, but by that point, Logan and Tet had already skidded into another corridor, where mannequin parts had been attached to the walls.

Tet slid to a stop—uncertainty written into the lines of her face—but Logan kept right on trucking. He knew Marko better than Marko knew Marko, and this had bluff written all over it. Logan braced for the worst and charged through the body part hallway... Nothing reached out for him. Marko had learned from Professor Arketa well. This was just decorations meant to slow the dungeoneers down and put them on edge. It would’ve worked against anyone other than Logan.

Still, the fungaloid faltered at the next cavern, which was filled with metal-barred animal cages. Plaster animal dummies, with varying degrees of biological accuracy, paced back and forth over hay. More hay was scattered around the outside of the cages as well.

Oddly enough, this is where a puppet, who looked shockingly like Marko, played a huge wooden pipe organ with brass pipes reaching for the ice-covered ceiling. Trailing down from the ceiling were thin white strings, all attached to the Marko puppet. The strings bobbed and dipped, forcing the puppet to play with herky-jerk movements.

A light dusting of snow and hay blew around the room.

Tet cinched up her bathrobe. “I loathe the cold,” she hissed. If it wasn’t for his exceptional hearing, Logan would’ve missed the remark entirely—the music was nearly deafening.

Beyond the zoo hall was a one last stone corridor that led to a treacherous frost-slick staircase. That staircase would dump them right into the inner sanctum. They were almost there, but Logan was starting to feel the hard edge from the Psuche Powder ebb and fade. He was running out of juice, and with Tet running low on Apothos, they needed a little boost.

<Chadrigoth! Are you there!> Logan reached out. <Can you get one of Steve’s minions into my digestion pit?>

No answer. Chadrigoth was still alive—Logan would definitely feel it if the abyss lord’s gem had been shattered—but he sensed intense focus, mixed with tightly controlled panic, radiating from the bond. The abyss lord was in the fight of his life and things weren’t going well. Curious, Logan threw his consciousness back to his gem. In an instant, he saw a battlefield of epic proportions taking place on the western side of the lava moat. Chadrigoth’s flaming whip rose out of the clouds of smoke. Steve blocked the whip attack with Treacle’s shield, which whirled like a sawblade.

Logan’s digestion pit on the eastern side of the lava moat was empty. He probably should’ve put it on the western side.

<Don’t… waste… time…> Chadrigoth sent, even as he batted away Steve’s shield and planted a foot in the dummy’s chest, pushing him back. <I’ve… got… this…>

The abyss lord was right. The only thing Logan could do to help Chadrigoth at this point was finish this thing. Time to curb stomp Steve’s gem.