Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Thirty-Three

Logan noticed that the little candy creatures and some of the sentient stuffed animals were tottering out of the cathedral, which was as much a set for a music video as it was the inner sanctum of a fearsome Arcandor dungeon core. The pink fluffy unicorns were also leaving along with the Pegasi ponies, swinging their very fluffy white tails.

Ji-Soo had her mallet resting on her shoulder. “Okay, everyone, it’s not so very complicated. I’m sure that ZZ has gone over the basics of offensive dungeon design. And gosh, I can’t get over the dungeon satyr and what he did in his mid-terms! So scary!”

“It was,” Marko was dazed. “It was. Would you like to hear me play one of my town-clearing songs? I have the Luden lute.” He suddenly had the full-size lute in his hands.

Logan winced. He didn’t want to hear that thing play a note.

“That’s okay, sweetie,” the fox fiend said with a wink. “Don’t be the guy with the guitar at the party. It generally isn’t a good look. And we do need to get to work. Now, you know, the Arcandor, that’s a bounty hunger dungeon, which is me. Back in the day, it was ZZ and me, against the world. We were both recruited by the Council of Dungeons for our ability to track and manipulate Null Arenas. Can everyone say Null Arena?”

Everyone was stunned for a minute.

Fractilla, the ice imp from the Ninth Circle did shout out, “Null Arena!”

Chadrigoth sighed flames. “We’re college students and not elementary students.”

“Spoken like an Eritrean stick in the butt,” Ji-Soo giggled. “Points to the ice imp for joining in! Yay, you!”

“Null Arena!” Both Marko and Melvin were late to the party—Marko, because he was so smitten, and Melvin because he never missed a chance to be awkward.

Both stood there shamelessly smiling.

Steven put a squeaky hand to his face and shook his head in mannequin embarrassment.

Tet groaned. “That is the appropriate reaction, Steve. Very well done.”

Ji-Soo continued. “Some dungeon cores are more adept at creating Null Arenas than others. Just like some cores are more playful than others. Or more handsome, in a fungal way.” She glanced at Logan over one shoulder.

Logan was a little shocked to hear that. Could mushroom men blush?

Inga laughed a little at his reaction.

Ji-Soo paced back and forth in front of the students. “A Null Arena is a large interdimensional corridor that exists slightly outside of space and time, connecting the entrance of one dungeon to another. It is, in essence, a temporary worm hole between two Celestial Nodes, a temporal anomaly that isn’t so different than the way the BYE portal works. Since you’re all from Arborea, you even have a local version—the DIE network.

“Your headmaster would’ve made a great Arcandor himself. Those portals move you from one dungeon location to another instantaneously. As dungeon guardians, we can do the same with a little effort. Most dungeons don’t practice the skill much, since there really is no reason to establish an inter-dungeon connection. Other than for malicious or predatory purposes. But that is why this class is so important. Establishing an unauthorized inter-dungeon connection is universally considered an act of aggression.”

“Then why teach us about it at all?” Inga asked. “Aren’t you basically giving us the tools to break dungeon law?”

“Of course we are!” Ji-Soo chirped. “But you would learn this your own anyway. Eventually. And the reality is, any dungeon core that is around for long enough will eventually tangle with a predatory dungeon. It’s inevitable. And they often target the very young or newly graduated. Dungeons without much experience make easy targets because they don’t know how to properly defend themselves. This will give you a fighting chance—especially since the predatory dungeon will be attacking from a position of power. You see, the dungeon that goes on the offensive first has a significant advantage—much like the player who has the first move in a game of chess—because they get to dictate the shape and general form of the Null Arena. I’m pretty good at that part.”

“You’re amazing,” Marko gasped. He was having trouble breathing around her.

“Aww, you’re sweet.” Ji-Soo fluttered her eyelashes at him.

Marko nearly had a heart attack.

Zantho flew in between Marko and the fox fiend. “And that, Maggots, is an example of false modestly. Ji-Soo can create the best, most diabolical Null Arenas around.”

“I can believe it,” Marko muttered under his breath.

Zantho raised a finger. “Shut it, goat boy. Let the fox fiend talk.”

Inga raised her hand.

Ji-Soo giggled. “Gosh, I haven’t done the teacher thing in ages. You all are so lucky to have ZZ, and I hope Samgath Goblinwhimper has some game. He doesn’t. But a fox girl can dream. Ask your question, pretty mothmancer.”

Inga blushed a little at that. “Ms. Ji-Soo, how does one track down a predatory dungeon in the first place?”

Ji-Soo stopped, blinked, and smiled. Her eyes were hazy and distant. “Sorry, pretty moth, but if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to my entrance. Our Samgath is powering down a wing of his dungeon, and I want to establish the tether while he’s unaware and I need my guardian form for that. It's a little time sensitive, so let me just swap forms real quick...”

Ji-Soo turned away and waved over a ten-foot-tall cloud-blue teddy bear. The demonic fox fiend’s guardian form hurried out of the candy-walled cathedral. Other giant teddy bears followed close on her heels, all of them different colors. It was like the Care Bears had fallen into a vat of radioactive material and then grew into giants. How they were going to attack with plush claws, Logan had no idea.

The blue bear spoke with Ji-Soo’s voice, even though her guardian form was scurrying out of sight. “Okay, gosh, Inga, that’s a great question. How does one track down a bad dungeon?”

“How did you know my name” the mothmancer asked.

The blue bear rolled her doll eyes. “You’re Inga Thosa Therian. I have friends on Toriopa. I have friends everywhere,” she said. “You’re so smart! So glad you’re at the Shadowcroft Academy. It’s a great fit for someone with so much promise.”

“Right, but why exactly do you know so much about us?” Chadrigoth hissed.

The teddy bear laughed in the same happy sweet laughter as the fox girl. “Gosh, your majesty, I have to know who is in the various schools. I actively track who might be graduating and who might be a problem. That way, if they go rogue, I can hunt them down and shatter their core, silly. Like you, sweetie. If you turn, you’ll die.” The bear giggled, but there was an ominous threat lingering beneath the mirth.

Logan felt a chill race up his spine… if he had a spine. His rubbery fungal flesh quivered.

Chadrigoth frowned and crossed his arms.

“Back to the pretty moth’s question!” the blue bear said. “Actually, tracking down a predatory dungeon is one of the most difficult and dangerous parts of an Arcandor’s job. You see, although a dungeon may have multiple dungeon locations, they only ever have one core. They control all of their ancillary Celestial Nodes from the Prime Dungeon Location. In order to truly defeat a predatory dungeon, it is not enough to merely capture the secondary location— you have to find the location of the Prime Dungeon and crack that core like a happy ol’ bear cracks open a pot of honey. I love honey! Who here loves honey?”

Inga raised her hand, but Marko was faster. “Me, Ji-Soo, I love honey!”

Logan wasn’t too sure about that.

The bear playfully knocked Marko’s face with a soft paw. “Aww, you’re sweet.”

Ji-Soo then returned to Inga’s question. “Here’s the thing, moth girl, predatory dungeons often conceal their true locations. I leave the Pink Rink all the time, to follow clues which ultimately help me find these Prime Dungeon Locations. Actually, I bopped over to Nightfall University about six weeks ago, tracked Samgath who just graduated from there, and found he preferred your stereotypical wasteland environments. We’ll be opening a Null Arena to the Blane Wastes of Tull. I hate Tull. It’s so dry there, almost as bad as the Dry Desert here on Bharoosh, so dusty and windy. And so orc-y, you know? I took the BYE there, asked around the town, listened to some old piano music in an old bar. Most of the humans were friendly, if a little startled by a fox fiend in a cloak. I didn’t wear my cloak today. I look very mysterious when I do!”

“I am so sure you do!” Marko burst out. Steve went over and put a hand on the satyr’s shoulder to calm him down.

The blue bear laughed at the dungeon satyr. “Anyway, Samgath killed the dungeon who’d been there before, a poor wereboar who had gone to town on a very pig-themed dungeon. Old Bill called it the Pigsty of Swinery, not the best name, but the dungeon design itself was solid. Old Bill, though, chose the wrong time work on some of his stables. And Samgath caught him unaware. Wiped out Bill, took his Apothos, and set up shop with all these big plans on taking over all of Tull. There were five other dungeons that Samgath has sights on. So the Council called me.”

The bubblegum gemstone on the altar flashed, showing them the front entrance of the Pink Rink. However, instead of the stone steps leading to the surface, a colorful corridor of ornate wooden walls stretched out into a cathedral similar to Ji-Soo’s inner sanctum.

Ji-Soo’s voice was coming from all around them now.

“So, guys, this is the Null Arena. Notice, I have the columns and such because I want to hide my forces. Also, I included a ton of alcoves! Look at the all the alcoves!”

Ji-Soo’s collection of cuteness had run into the alcoves, glitter kitties, stuffed-animal soldiers, candy warriors, and marshmallow marauders. Her big hulking teddy bears were hiding behind columns. The precious winged ponies circled through the cathedral, flying high above the cobblestone ground. They finally found perches—rock ledges big enough to handle their girth. A herd of pink fluffy unicorns were still in a vestibule on the fox fiend’s side of the arena.

So far, nothing had come creeping out on Samgath Goblinwhimper’s side, which was your stereotypical abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter-herehuge wooden doors with rusted iron fittings. Not a pig theme, just your typical unimaginative dungeon entrance.

Logan took a minute to realize the power involved here. Not only was Ji-Soo running the Pink Rink, keeping the corridors, rooms, and traps full of Apothos, but she had also created the cathedral, the Null Arena, connecting her entrance to Goblinwhimper’s. At the same time, she had her many minions locked and loaded, but how deadly could marshmallow marauders and candy warriors be? Maybe a lot. The warriors had licked their candy canes down to sharpened points—like Christmas spears hungry for blood.

Chadrigoth looked on, sneering. “Let’s just go up there and kill this Samgath guy. I mean, we have some of the best dungeon cores at the school here. The fungus included. I’d love to see Professor Zantho use her gold dust to annihilate some orcs.”

Everyone turned to look at the abyss lord. Then they turned to look at Professor Zantho.

Logan was a little confused by the compliment.

The Fairy Fetch glanced at the big blue bear. “Well, Ji, what do you think about that? I wouldn’t mind seeing Shadowcroft’s best and brightest rip apart some orcs.”

The blue giant looked like she had eaten Grumpy Bear. “Are you kidding? This won’t take long. For one, Samgath likes to think of himself as an offensive dungeon expert. He’s going to be throwing the stone giant he summoned first. In three, two, one…”

The iron-clad doors burst open and a twenty-foot-tall grotesque creature, part stone, part flesh, came shambling out dragging a tree branch. The stone giant ripped off one of the big rocky growths on his arm. He hurled the boulder a column. It exploded into fragments.

The entire Null Arena shook, but the ceiling held. Probably because it wasn’t exactly moored in reality—like Ji-Soo had said, Null Arenas were slightly outside of space and time. The Null Arena followed its own rules, which probably had allowed Ji-Soo to form ledges up so high for her pretty winged ponies.

The Pegasi waited up there as a hundred orcs came howling and running behind the stone giant, following him through the cathedral. Orc wizards were mixed in with the orc minions and orc chieftains, all heavily armored and wielding giant axes. The biggest of the chieftain orcs had enormous yellow tusks, and carried two wicked scimitars.

The blue bear pointed. “This is where Samgath got it all wrong, people. Oh my gosh, how wrong? So wrong! And I prepped my little babies to charge into the barracks and spring his traps, and he had a few slime pits. Big blobby slimes, kind of wonderful, actually. I like a good slime. Now, he’s going to waste most of his minions on this one attack. Big show of force, like he’s trying to scare me off. He has no idea who he’s dealing with. Watch now. Gonna take out the big stone giant so it doesn’t hurt my babies.”

The fox fiend in the yellow tracksuit rushed into the cathedral with her giant mallet. She had some kind of speed spell and enhanced dexterity—she moved like the wind. The fox fiend also seemed to have some kind of mirror skill because she split into nine different women in yellow as she ran. Eight of them slammed into the orc army while the ninth laid that mallet onto the leg of the stone giant, breaking apart his kneecap and sending him to the floor. She then hurled herself into the air and mashed the giants head into the ground.

She landed on the body, threw a V with her fingers, and then laughed. “V for victory!”

Her minions left their secret alcoves and hit like a wave of deadly cuteness.

Glitter kittens exploded into showers of sparkles—they were suicide troopers, meowing wildly before blasting apart orc after orc. The pink fluffy unicorns thundered forward on hooves, their glowing horns like conical disco balls, which gave the battlefield a certain razzle dazzle. Those horns burned off the black blood of the orcs as the razor-sharp hooves ripped open armor and skin to the bone. The blood hit the unicorn’s fluffy fur. But like with their horns, the unicorns burned the gore from their bodies, leaving them shiny and clean.

Marshmallow marauders let out tiny war cries. They didn’t really attack to kill, but they did slow down the enemy. The marauders ran right into the legs of the orcs, gumming them up so they couldn’t move. That was when the candy people waded in with their candy cane spears, overwhelming orcs. The stuffed animal horde followed, growing steel wolverine claws from their plush paws.

The orcish monsters tried to stab or bash the candy people, but they just were too small and too quick. And the stuffed animals were too pliant.

Inga gazed at the carnage and nodded. “Like my Tsuki ants. Sometimes bigger is not always better. Multiple smaller minions can ravage just as well as larger creatures.”

“You’re so right, pretty mothmancer! Gosh! This is exciting!” The blue bear giggled like the fox fiend had. “Notice, I’m holding back my happy little winged ponies because I’m assuming Samgath isn’t going to stop. He’ll have ogres. Probably a dozen. They’ll be big and ugly and full of his Apothos, flavored like Umbra and Vita. I mean, he summons life from the shadows. Funny, his last name is Goblinwhimper, but he doesn’t do anything with goblins, hob or otherwise.”

The giant teddy bears lumbered forward, each step shaking the floor. Their heads flipped back. From their necks shot a dozen writhing tentacles that snatched up orcs and drew them forward. The teddy bear tummies split open to reveal vertical mouths with gigantic fangs. The orcs were rudely stuffed into the bears and those chomping teeth took care of them in an instant. Logan was reminded of the Sarlacc Pit that Melvin carried around in his stomach under his chef whites.

“I’m so in love,” Marko said with a dazed look on his face.

The yellow fox girl, the main one, not her shadowy mirror-images, did a complicated series of movements. It took a minute, but then Logan saw that some of the orcs around her were mimicking her choreography.

Marko howled, “She can mirror dance! That orc chieftain is dancing along with her!”

It was true. The orc leader with the scimitars was mirroring her every movements. She hit a pose, and so would the leader, swinging his scimitars, and matching her.

“It’s my Happy Choreography skill,” Ji-Soo explained. “You’ll be able to do it better than me in no time, Mr. Scary Goat Man. And I love your mannequin!”

The orc leader was doing so much dancing, he couldn’t fend off the marshmallow marauders, who could unglue themselves from the legs of the dead, to go bounding across the growing corpses on the floor of the Null Arena.

The orc leader was quickly caught up in a gooey mess, as several unicorns galloped over him, leaving behind a bloody pile of pulped meat and twisted limbs.

With the leader dead, the other orcs retreated, but the nine fox fiends weren’t going to let that happen. Between them, the exploding glitter kittens, the stuffed-animal soldiers, and he candy warriors the battle was soon over. Not one single enemy minion remained.

“This was the first crucial step in any dungeon duel. The attacker establishes the Null Arena and stages their forces. If at all possible, this is the best place to stop the attack—before it ever gets inside your dungeon. Like I said, the attacker has the advantage because they get the first crack at establishing the Null Arena, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. It’s possible through a battle of sheer will, to claim the Null Arena, reshape it, and launch a counterattack. But that has many dangers of its own. The main goal is to survive the onslaught and push them back. Then the Council will send someone awesome and super-sweetly lethal like me to deal with them.”

“But it is possible to launch a counter assault and possibly claim the predatory dungeon’s core?” Logan asked.

“Yes. Dangerous for a thousand reasons, but yes. Now, I’m going to leave my pretty Pegasi on their ledge, but I’ll take the rest of my minions into the dungeon,” Ji-Soo explained.

Her core gem continued to show them the action in real time. The marshmallow marauders ran headlong into traps, springing them easily. There were assassin orcs that fell from murder holes in the ceiling, and yes, they did kill a few of the candy warriors, but the fluffy unicorns impaled them on their disco horns. In one of the more natural looking caves, there was another stone giant in a room all by itself. The giant teddy bears with their tentacles and stomach mouths made short work of it. Logan had to do a quick sanity check. He was watching teddy bears eat a giant.

“Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” he muttered.

It wasn’t long before Ji-Soo, mallet on her shoulder, found the inner sanctum of Samgath Goblinwhimper. His cave was what you’d expect from a mid-level summoner, lots of lava pools and pits of boiling mud. Big candelabras burned black candles around a central pedestal that looked like a sacrificial alter. Lots of black curtains covered the rock walls.

Marko screwed up his face in obvious distaste. “Really? That’s just sloppy. I mean, come on. The black curtains? With the black candles? And the pits of boiling black mud? Bet you a hundred gold pieces that Samgath is wearing a hooded black cloak and has these really skinny arms and hands like claws.”

A robed figure apparated out of the darkness flanked by wizard orcs and the last of his ogres—two giant twisted flesh monsters who wielded spike clubs. And yes, the cloaked figure had skinny arms and claws for hands with twin eyes sparkling from the depths of his hood.

“Die, fox girl, die!” the rogue dungeon screamed.

Ji-Soo stuck her tongue out at the summoner. “Gosh. That’s not very nice, silly. And I’m pretty sure you’re going to be the one to die. Sorry, not sorry!” She split into her nine selves, which drew the magical fire from the orc wizards. By that time, the herd of unicorns galloped through the room, deftly leaping over the lava and other dangers. The ogres were overwhelmed in moments by the pink fluffiness and disco horns.

Ji-Soo’s many selves sped into the wizard orcs and went to work with their mallets. There was a great deal of black blood and frantic screaming. Marauders and candy warriors rushed into the summoner himself. Several of the marshmallow people gloomed onto his legs, miring him in place. Others flung themselves onto his face, sealing his mouth shut, so he couldn’t summon anything else. Stuffed bunnies pulling a chariot with more warrior bunnies in the back ran him down. He dropped onto his back as the bunnies spun their chariot around and ran him over again.

The candy warriors followed, impaling his skinny frame with their sharpened candy canes. Samgath’s guardian form was no more. But his black gemstone still floated over the inner sanctum’s pedestal.

That is until the fox fiend’s real self leapt in front of the pedestal and brought her mallet down on the black gem floating there. There was a loud pop as she cracked the gem. The Apothos flooded out of the dungeon, destabilizing the place.

The fox fiend deftly scooped up the gemstone and sped out of there, her minions flowing in her wake. In a heartbeat, the inner sanctum was completely undone; the black curtains vanished, the lava dissipated, and the mud pools boiled away, leaving behind bare stone.

“Good riddance. Worst dungeon ever!” Marko sniffed.

Ji-Soo led her forces back into the Null Area as the Dread Summoner’s Caves returned to nothing but natural caverns—the Celestial Node had returned to its natural form.

The blue bear pointed. “Watch, now. So, Samgath is over. I’ll be adding his cracked core to my own pedestal. If I were a predatory dungeon, I could establish a permanent tether to this location and put one of my floor bosses into the Inner Sanctum. There are some misguided dungeons that do this, believing they are more capable of protecting to Tree of Souls than any other dungeon, while others do it in order to increase their own Apothos and advance in rank. Since, I’m not a predatory dungeon core, though, I’ll alert the Council and they’ll find a replacement Guardian to fill the vacancy.”

The Null Arena’s walls, columns, and the ledges all wavered as Ji-See removed the Apothos, unmaking the arena. The winged horses flew back into Ji-Soo’s dungeon as did her surviving minions. In seconds, the ornate wooden entry way was back connected to the stone steps leading up to the nocturnal flora of Bharoosh’s Shipwreck Prairie. Ji-Soo walked right over and stuck the cracked black gem of Samgath Goblinwhimper into the frosting covering the side of the pedestal.

The fox fiend turned and wagged her bushy tail happily. “Any questions?”

“Will you marry me?” Marko asked.

Logan was pretty sure he was serious.

Before Professor Zantho could slap Marko into tomorrow with her gold dust hand, Ji-Soo chased up to Logan and touched his chest with her blood-stained mallet. “I hope you ‘ve appreciated what you’ve seen today, Logan Murray. I’ll be watching you.”

It wasn’t even a veiled threat. No veil to speak of.

“Me?” Logan asked, slightly shocked.

Ji-Soo nodded. She didn’t wink. She didn’t say “Gosh” Or “Awoo.” She just looked into his eyes before walking by Marko. “And the answer is no, Marko Laskarelis. Arcandor hunters are married to the job, silly!”

The weird encounter soon ended as Inga had a series of questions, which Ji-Soo answered cheerfully. After what they’d just witnessed, the offensive portion of the dungeon curriculum made a lot more sense. Raiding a town didn’t sit right with Logan, but invading a hostile dungeon was a different story entirely. Once the questions were all answered, Professor Zantho lead the class back to surface and stood with the sun just rising over the eastern horizon. The dizzying array of moons still filled the sky.

Melvin pointed. “The bigger ones will stay throughout the day. The lesser ones will disappear from sight. Ahh, Bharoosh. Bittersweet memories, definitely. I had some great times here. I did some terrible things. Not sure if it’s good to be back or not!” He tried to laugh at his overshare, but the sound died in his throat.

Logan didn’t understand what all that meant.

The BYE portal which brought them here from Arborea still had residual energy from their first trip. Logan found the scent of his Morta and Toxicus Apothos. Right before he left, he saw Chadrigoth holding a palm of red powder. He blew that powder at Logan when Logan entered the Bye Portal. Was that Psuche Powder?

Right away, Logan felt like something was wrong. Instead of zipping through the cosmos and back to Arborea, he found himself rolling across a dusty, sand-filled landscape beneath a blazing sun. There were any number of moons in the sky, but he didn’t know the geography of Bharoosh to really know where he was.

He pushed himself upright and slowly gained his feet. Was this Chadrigoth? Or was it Ji-Soo? She’d tried to intimidate him, as if he’d ever go rogue, and Logan didn’t understand why. There was a story there, definitely. He was pondering that when the demons appeared around him. Familiar demons, he’d fought before in his Core Calisthenics class the year before.

Seemed like Chadrigoth was up to his old tricks again. Good to know that some things never changed.