Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Fifty

Logan was in trouble, but he wasn’t powerless by any stretch of the imagination.

One, he’d made it all the way into the inner sanctum. Two, Chadrigoth was still holding out, which was a small miracle. And, three, he had Tet-Akhat—one of the top dungeon cores at the academy—fighting in his corner. It wasn’t a perfect situation, though. Chadrigoth was probably hanging on by the skin of his teeth, Logan had only a fraction of Apothos left, and Tet had pushed herself right to the edge of her formidable abilities.

Good thing he had Mariah Carey. She rallied the waddlers along with the Kurrybooboos, and they stormed Marko, throwing him down onto the table. Mariah, herself, grabbed the Luden Lute and smacked Marko across his chops.

Marko bleated like an actual goat. “Hey, Mariah, don’t break my lute, man. And don’t break my heart. Actually, you may need to unbreak my heart!”

“Wrong pop star!” Steve thundered, his voice reverberating all around the room.

His proto-gem exploded with fresh shadows and the cartoon Steves decorating the circus posters seemed to take on a more malicious hue to them. At the same time, a shadowy figure took shape—a knight in twisting violet armor carrying a big shield and an even bigger sword. Oversized anime weapon to the max.

Steve had to be William of the Scales—his helmet had a dragon motif going on, as did the hilt of his sword, and the armor itself shimmered like the scales of a dread dragon. But the shape was indistinct, fading and flickering in and out existence. This wasn’t the real deal. It was a shadow of what Billy Scales had once been.

Chadrigoth reached out to Logan, gasping and growling, <Bad news, buddy. Steve just broke my whip. I hate that guy. Too tough.> He was breathing hard, his thoughts clouded and tired. <Can’t hold out much longer. Whatever you’re going to do, you need to do it quick>

With that the connection guttered and the abyss lord was drawn back into the fight.

Logan used the last of his Apothos to release his Pollinic Affliction right into Treacle’s face. Normally, Treacle might’ve snapped on a gas mask, but the minotaur wasn’t really acting much like himself at the moment. Treacle inhaled a whole cloud of glimmering spores and promptly began coughing and sneezing.

Logan just hoped that his gnome buddy didn’t succumb to mortal sneezing and die.

While the minotaur wheezed and staggered about drunkenly, Logan hit him with a potent dose of Narcotic spores, which he fanned toward both Treacle and Marko.

Logan wasn’t sure whether the Narcotic spell would have any effect on the satyr, given his weekend activities, but the effects on the minotaur were immediate. Treacle sneezed once more, then promptly toppled off the dais and crashed to the floor. He touched one of his horns, pupils dilated to the size of teacups. “Am I really a bull?” he muttered. “Or am I cow with horns? At what point does grass become cud? What if instead of four stomachs, I had four brains?”

Perfect. Treacle was out of the action for the moment.

The Narcotics didn’t seem to hold sway over Marko, but Logan’s minions were doing an admirable job of keeping the satyr busy. While the Kurrybooboos were not made for combat, the little guys were great as distractions. They bounded and floated through the air, giggling softly as they hurled handfuls of molten cheese into Marko’s eyes. At the same time, the waddlers pounded on the satyr with serving dishes.

The mimic pizza was closing in on Logan, though, climbing up the staged tables, coming to help his goat buddy. Tet was still at the bottom of the tables battling Tsuki ants and mannequins. She fought like a whirl wind of sand and teeth and fur, but Logan could see she was slowing down with every passing second. She’d pushed herself to the breaking point and now she was just trying to keep her head above the metaphorical water—which was unfortunate since cat’s hated water. That meant Logan was on his own and even with Treacle and Marko temporarily accounted for, the biggest threat still remained: Inga.

Inga’s shadowy eyes narrowed, a snarl turning down the corners of her lips. “Prepare to die, fungaloid.”

He blasted another dose of Narcotic spores straight into her face, but she didn’t even pause her advance.

“After all the time we’ve spent bonded,” she said coolly, “I’ve developed an immunity to all of your toxins and spores. They won’t do any good against me, I’m afraid. Or rather, you should be afraid.”

She brought a chrysalis sword shrieking down toward his head. Logan danced back and raised his shield, narrowly deflecting the blade. He had to shake his friends out of the spell controlling them. But how? They seemed completely under Billy Scales’s control.

Logan dismissed his sword and instead grabbed a cherry turnover off a silver plate. With a warcry, he flung the pastry at Inga; she cut it in half with a flick of her wrist. Too bad Melvin wasn’t with him. The kitchen ghast would have some of those exploding pastries he could use.

<Logan! I can’t stop him!> Chadrigoth’s voice erupted in his head, here than gone in a flash.

White-hot fear raced through Logan’s body. He knew something terrible had just happened, but he couldn’t transfer his consciousness back to the Bloodrock.

Wait a minute. They were running out of time! He didn’t want to hurt his friends—and wasn’t even sure he could hurt them, considering how weak he was at the moment—but there had to be something he could do. He glanced down at the table. More Cherry Turnovers, but nothing else he could use to his advantage. Or…

Or maybe that wasn’t quite true after all. The Cherry Turnovers were carefully arrayed on fine china, flanked by a dizzying array of silverware. Logan immediately thought about the elective Melvin and Inga had shared. The Cutlery of Eritreus. The key was in the silverware. “Did you set the table, Inga?” he yelled, backpaddling away from a vicious sword thrust.

Shadow Billy’s laughter shook the room. “Have a thing for bread knives, mushroom man? If you must know, your friend did this all by herself while she was waiting for you. Moved Marko’s stuff down to the lower tables and crafted those Endogenous Apothos Manifestations herself.”

He meant the silverware and other place settings.

“Pretty sure she’s completely insane,” Shadow Billy sneered. “I’ve never seen anyone care so much about where to put a spoon.”

Inga stole forward, no expression on her face. She stabbed at Logan, forcing him back onto his heels.

Logan ducked beneath a lightning-fast slash and snatched up a two-pronged shrimp fork, actually known as a crustacean twok. He moved it to the top of a plate. “You’ve got your place setting all wrong, Inga! Don’t you know the cantaloupe fork goes at the top of the plate near the summer fruit bowl?”

He’d made several mistakes there. Most notably, there was no such thing as a cantaloupe fork. And on Eritreus, cantaloupes were an autumn melon and not a summer fruit at all.

Inga’s antennae grew a bit more rigid with annoyance. She still wasn’t talking, but her eyes bored into him like a Aldaleeran corkscrew.

Logan started grabbing soup spoons from the plate settings and sent them clattering into the bowls. “And everyone knows you keep the soup spoons in the bowls, not on the table. What a rookie mistake. And who needs soup spoons anyway? You can use a Zamzir fisking spoon a problem.”

The mothmancer’s antennae were now sticking straight out in fury. Inga was trying to talk, but Billy Scales still had her locked down. Her gemstone, on the altar though, started to sparkle a bit, fighting back against the darkness.

The Shadow Billy stormed forward, gathering creeping shades to him as he moved. “My Steve self is about to cross the moat, mushroom boy. I’m gonna grab a gem, crack it like a walnut, and then I’ll be back, baby. I’m going to rip apart all thirteen of Arborea’s dungeon. Then I’m going to finish what I started with the Onyx Tortoise. I’ll slurp down his essence like an oyster.”

Logan ignored the villain and started tossing butter knives off the table. “It’s so stupid to even have a salad fork in the classic setting. You can use a spring threek for both the salad and the cheese courses. I’ve always asked myself why there needs to be so much silverware at all—why not just use a single spork. Or maybe your fingers. I’ve always said the hands are the forks of the body.”

Inga made a long series of angry bleating noises, not unlike Marko, who was now locked in combat against both Tet and the Waddlers. The cat woman had managed to dispatch the mannequins and the ants, but she three knives protruding from her chest and a tentacle covered in pizza sauce wrapped around her throat.

Treacle had finally stopped drawing pictures in the cheese and was getting to his feet, hammer in his hand. Looked like the Narcotic spores had run their course.

Chadrigoth’s voice was weak. <I… I hope this helps. Had… nothing else… he’s about at the pedestal. Might grab your gem, but I hope he grabs mine. Either way, we were ride or die, Logan. Right to the very end.”

Shadow Billy’s helmet was back, and his face flickered in and out of the light. Was he human? Or something more reptilian? It was hard to tell. “You think you and your friend are going to beat me? Ha! I’ve had friends before. And once they turn on you, they won’t turn back. People are going to let you down, like Inga. You’re not going to turn Inga with this silverware stuff. It’s just a joke. Nekhbet’s class is a joke, just like Nekhbet himself. Pompous, stuffy old fool. This is ridiculous!”

Inga wasn’t lashing out at Logan. Her swords were unraveling, turning back into silk. She limped toward him.

Logan hit her with the big guns. “Yeah, you’re right Steve, Professor Nekhbet is ridiculous! He wrote a whole book on butter knives. You don’t even need a butter knife. Just use a bread knife!”

“No!” Inga thundered. The darkness disappearing from her eyes. “A bread knife doesn’t have the right spreading surface! And the serrated edge will leave patterns in the butter! You must have smooth butter patterns! What are we? Animals! And I love Professor Bartholomew Nekhbet with all my heart and soul!”

Her gem burned with silver radiance, searing off the shadows. It was like staring at a star right on the edge of exploding. It pulsed and throbbed with angry light.

“What?” Shadow Billy screamed. “That worked? But how? What in the Aldaleeran hell is going on!”

Logan felt Apothos rush into him, and he could taste what it was—a mixture of Ignis and Umbra. Those were Chadrigoth’s’ energies. Then Logan realized what that crazy demon had done. He’d thrown his own guardian form into the digestion pit over in the Bloodrock. It wouldn’t kill him forever, not so long as his core remained intact, but it would be a painful death all the same.

In a blink, Logan went from zero to hero.

Mariah, was still battling against Marko, but she was badly wounded, and not even the Kurrybooboos could mend the damage. But Logan could. What Mariah needed was an upgrade and Logan was only too happy to give her one. He’d been experimenting with a new Boss Build for the Waddlers—he’d been reluctant to pull the trigger because once a Boss was created it was permanent. But he might not ever get another chance. He funneled a huge portion of his Apothos into the Waddler, merging her with a nearby Kurrybooboo, then pumping her full of Ashvein, Crimson Coral Fungus, all augmented with Pneumacity.

Would You Like to Create a Crimson Ash Shrieker? Yes/No?

Logan hastily rushed through the pop ups, accepting one after the other.

Golden light enveloped the struggling waddler in a halo. When the brilliance faded, the stumpy mushroom was gone. In its place was a willowy fungoid mushroom with a bloody cap that looked almost like a witch’s hat and Crimson Coral armor that covered long legs and slender arms. She had skin like flawless porcelain, eyes that glowed like chips of gold, and she carried a gnarled shepherds crook with glimmering Ashvein Mushrooms sprouting from the crook’s curled head.

Treacle was closing in on Logan, ready to bash him with his hammer, but instead, he faced a newly evolved Mariah. She intercepted the inbound minotaur with incredible speed, turned his hammer with a flick of her crook, then opened her mouth and unleashed a shriek that shook the cavern. Glimmering Ashvein spores hit Treacle in the face while the force of the shriek itself sandblasted him halfway across the hall. Without missing a beat, she twirled and bounded toward Marko using Pneumacity. Wow. Maybe he should’ve upgraded her sooner. She was no longer a semi-ridiculous little mushroom person but a full-on screaming warrior.

Treacle grew green as the nausea hit him—at high levels, Ashvein could cause nausea and vomiting as well as having a narcotic effect. The minotaur wasn’t going to be his normal self anytime soon. He looked liked he’d eaten a bad taco at a Phish concert.

With Mariah facing off against Treacle, Logan could focus on the real threat: Steve. Or rather Billy Scales.

Inga was already dashing toward the pedestal, cold fury burning in her face. Not only had Billy taken over her gem, corrupted her friends, and ruined her perfectly staged final, but he’d committed the gravest sin of all. He’d insulted Professor Nekhbet. She wouldn’t let that go unpunished. She leapt, her wings spread wide, and soared over to the pedestal. She seized Billy’s proto-gem off the pedestal. Marko’s and Treacle’s gems were still caught up in the shadows. They simply didn’t see the importance of a well-set table. Sad.

Shadow Billy turned and unleashed a flurry of shadowy tentacles, but she ducked each of them with a dancer’s grace, then tossed the proto-gem over to Logan. He snagged it from the air like a beer-slick softball on kegger night—the power in the gem pulsed beneath his fingers. From his Ring of Pockets, Logan pulled free the rusty dagger that had been so important during their last final.

“Let them go, Billy!” Logan thundered, pressing the tip of the dagger into the stone. “Or I crack your core. One wrong move and you’re as dead as Melvin, may he find rest in the Tree of Souls.”

The shadowy knight froze, his smugness gone, replaced by some that might have been fear. Or, at the very least uncertainty. “Let’s not do anything rash here, Logan,” he said, holding up his hands. “We don’t need to be enemies. I can help you. You have a spark of greatness. You could go on to be more powerful even than I ever was—you just need a little guidance is all. I can show you the way.”

“How about you show me the way to saving my friends,” Logan snapped back, digging he dagger even deeper into the core. He felt the stony surface give way, letting free a thin thread of Apothos. He inhaled through his gills, energy rushing into his body, surging along his meridians and buzzing around the knots in his core like a race car.

“Right. Yes. Of course,” Billy replied, no longer glib. He raised his fingers and snapped, the sound reverberating throughout the room. Instantly, the inky fingers gripping his friends’ cores retreated back into the proto-core in Logan’s hand.

Treacle’s blinked dumbly, staring around in wide eyed fascination. “Whoa. My name is Glimmerhappy. It’s ironic, you know? And Treacle? More irony. I get it now. Funny.” Clearly he was still high as a kite from the Ashvein spores, but at least he wasn’t under Billy’s wicked influence any longer.

As for Marko, the satyr dropped onto the table beside Tet with a groan. “Woof, anyone catch the name of the Stone Giant that kicked my teeth in? This hangover is way worse even than Liverkill—reminded me not to party with you Logan. You go too hard.”

Tet looked equally banged up, though she’d managed to survive the battle.

Still gripping the proto-gem in an iron-clad grip, Logan switched his consciousness back to the Bloodrock. Steve the mannequin was about three steps from the pedestal. Those three steps would mean all the difference between life and death.

“You slimy little creep,” Logan snarled, fingers pressing down even tighter on the gem. “Trying to buy time to finish your work. You’d better call the dummy back right now or your core dust—”

Before Logan could complete the threat, though, a scalding-hot cherry turnover came swirling out of nowhere and struck Steve the dummy like a thermite grenade. The cherry filling, superheated to microwave-Hot-Pocket-levels—easily hotter than the surface of the sun—burned through Steve’s head, his arms, his legs. The dummy collapsed into a puddle of liquefied plaster and steamy cherry filling. Where in the heck had that come from? Logan wondered. Melvin was gone, yet that cheery turnover had his name written all over it. That was a question for later, though.

Shadow Billy held up his ghostly gauntlets. “Wait, now, Logan. You can’t blame me for trying—the scorpion’s nature is to sting. But let’s not forget that I let your friends go, and I wasn’t lying about being able to make you the best. I’m older than Shadowcroft, I’ve seen the birth and death of planets. I can raise your power beyond your wildest dreams, so you can save your little planet and Disney+. Do it for the mouse, man. Do it for the Mouse.”

The steady stream of Apothos leaking from the proto-core surged out, filling Logan with a rush that surpassed even what the Psuche powder had been able to do. More than that, the Apothos showed him something, as though it were somehow self-aware. Logan saw an image—the flash of an arcane pattern. A cultivation blueprint. The influx of Apothos mixed with his own, but instead of cycling through the familiar steps of Boundless Wheel, the energy zigzagged through his meridians, unlocking new energy nodes in passing.

Pain raced through his the center of his being, but only for the briefest moment. When the agony passed, the heady buzz of energy was gone, and in its wake was a new knot in his core. Three knots, all braided together in an intricate design that reminded him of Celtic trefoil knot. Logan’s eyes bulged in his head. That… That wasn’t possible.

“Oh, it’s totally possible,” Billy said as though reading his thoughts. “I was a Crown Class Cultivator. That’s double S-Class. The secrets of ranking up to A and even S class are child’s play to me. I only have a fraction of my power back, and even with a fraction of thatpower I just bumped you up to B-Class Rank 5 and taught you a new pattern. Just a little gesture of goodwill to show what’s possible. We could be partners. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. That sort of thing.”

Logan paused, thinking about the offer longer than he wanted to admit. He’d struggled so hard. Been the underdog for so long. Always on the verge of death. Instead of climbing, inch by painful inch to the top of the mountain, he could take the ski-lift. This was the easy button. And with that kind of power at his fingertips he could protect his friends, make sure no one like Melvin had to die again, while also protecting the Tree from people just like Billy. And yeah, he could save Earth. But not because of anything Disney.

But at what cost?

He thought back to his Cousin Connie. She’d grown up poor in the alleys of Aurora—always struggling to pay the rent, always one step ahead of the bill collector, and always just one scheme away from being a millionaire. Her retirement strategy was the lotto, which was a terrible plan—expect for the fact that she won at the age of forty-two. Twenty-one million dollars. She should’ve been set for life. Yet, as so often happened in situations like that, she burned through the money and was back living in a trailer on the outskirts of Commerce City, worse off than she’d been before, after only two years.

When you didn’t work for power—and money was just another form of power—you didn’t know how to use it wisely when you finally got a hold of it. Logan liked to think that wouldn’t happen to him, but everyone assumed they would be the exception to the rule. Besides, if Logan compromised here, team up with this evil, what other compromises would he justify in the future? Billy hadn’t always been evil—he’d ended up there through choices just like this one.

“Inga, get the cores, please.”

“So that’s the way it’s gonna be, huh?” Billy said, shadowy hands balling into fists.

“That’s the way it was always going to be. You said it yourself—the scorpion’s nature is to sting. My nature is to stop you.”

The mothmancer padded over to the pedestal and grabbed her own gem, sliding it back into her belly, then plucked the other two cores off the altar. With no cores attached, the Winterdark Halls lost all the Apothos powering it. The decayed ruins of Logan’s mushrooms, the table, the cheese, even Inga’s perfectly organized table all vanished in a swirl of raw power. The final was over.

Logan was still connected to the Bloodrock. He felt the Null Arena vanish. The entrances to both dungeons had been restored.

Chadrigoth’s laughter hit the fungaloid. <Hell yeah! We won! We won! Hey, sorry it took me so long to get something into your digestion pit. Turned out, I had throw myself into it. My guardian form was basically thrashed anyway. You gonna kill Billy Scales now?>

Honestly, Logan wasn’t sure what to do.

Tet was finally getting to her feet, thanks to a little help from the newly evolved Mariah. Well, her and the remaining Kurrybooboos who were patching up her legion of wounds. Marko was tending to Treacle, but the minotaur was hyperventilating. “I have horns, but they don’t honk, Marko,” he bleated. “How can that be? Horns honk! And I’m having a really hard time with my hooves. I really enjoyed shopping for boots when I was a gnome. I’ll never go boot shopping again.”

Marko patted the minotaur reassuringly on the shoulder. “Boots and shoes are dumb, Treac. Here, have a Kurrybooboo to hug.” He eased one of the happy little mushroom people away from Tet, and gave the minotaur a fungal healer to hold. It seemed to calm the minotaur.

Before Logan could decide on what to do with the proto-core, Professor Zhen Ikgix came storming into the room. The Threshing Turtle’s cracked gem flashed, zipping away from his belly and lighting down upon the top of the dais. His power surged through the dungeon as he took control. “What is the meaning of this!” he snapped. “Why did you keep me locked out of your final? And who is that?” The old turtle’s eyes were both angry and confused.

Then a dim recognition filled them. “No… You. Impossible. We… we killed you, I’m certain of it.”

“Hey, Zhen, long time, no murder.” Shadow Billy’s armor flickered and vanished, reverting to a more familiar form: Marko’s minion, Steve.

The Threshing Turtle blinked. “I could’ve sworn I saw him, an old enemy. But no. It couldn’t be.”

“It wasn’t,” the Shadow Billy turned Shadow Steve smirked, his face still covered in swirling ink. “You’re seeing things, Professor.”

The Threshing Turtle seemed completely stymied.

It allowed Marko to stagger over and grab the proto-gem out of Logan’s hand. From the look on his face, Marko was beyond upset.

The Shadowy Dummy threw out his hands in desperation “Wait, Marko, you and I have gone through so much together. We’re still friends, right?”

Marko turned weepy. “Friends? I don’t even know who you are anymore, Steve. You’re breaking my heart!”

“I can fix it!” Steve insisted. “With tons of evil. I mean, with love. Tons of love. I didn’t comment on the bad Star Wars prequel dialogue.”

“You were the best of us, Steve!” Marko had tears on his furry cheeks. “And you were the worst! You killed Ed. Melvin. Ozzy. You cracked Tet’s core and almost killed my friends. And that’s on me. Last year I slacked off and almost got us all expelled, and this year I tried to be proactive, and it almost destroyed all of Arborea. I can’t win. But I can make sure you lose. I brought you into this world, Steve, and I take you out of it!”

A look of dawning horror flashed across Professor Ikgix reptilian face.

Logan was closest, but even he wasn’t fast enough.

Inga let out cry. “Marko, no!”

Too late. Marko flung the proto-gem to the floor and slammed a hoof down on it. The black crystal cracked. A storm of Apothos, of all flavors, swirled out in a cyclone of midnight. Without even trying, a torrent of Apothos flooded into Logan’s core. God, but there was so much power. He wasn’t the only one affected either. Inga screamed, clutching her core. Marko dropped to his knees, Treacle rolled onto his side, and Tet writhed on the floor. Only Professor Ikgix seemed unmoved by the release of energy.

“No!” Steve, a.k.a Billy Scales a.k.a. William of the Scales shouted. But his body joined the swirl of black energy that disappeared into the cold stones around them. It was over.

The Threshing Turtle erupted, “Marko! You moron! All that Apothos in the gem has now dissipated back into universe. We could’ve kept it, studied it, perhaps even confirmed the identity of that shade. Now? We have no idea who it was, or where he has gone.”

Marko winced and stood. “I think most of him went into me.” He rubbed at his gem. “I think I might be sick.” He wasn’t the only one who looked seriously ill. Inga was covering her gem with one hand; it was vibrating with the power of her coming advancement.

Professor Ikgix sniffed. “Of course, it didn’t all go into you, you dolt of a satyr! Even the combined might of all your cores couldn’t process the depths of that power.”

“But he’s like dead, right?” Marko asked. “I mean, no gem means death, right?” The goat man looked very confused. “Break a core and the dungeon goes bye-bye. That’s like dungeon-core 101 stuff.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Logan said, trying to comfort his friend. “I about destroyed the gem myself. We’ve all been through a lot, and you made the best choice you could.”

“What is done is done,” Professor Ikgix declared, rapping his staff on the floor sharply. “Chances are the shade is gone, though who can know for sure with such a power as that? But there is still the matter of your final. This is all very irregular. It was Logan and Inga in the Winterdark Halls versus Chadrigoth in the Bloodrock. But now, I sense Logan and the abyss lord have joined forces. And what is Tet Akhat and all these other students doing there? This will not do! I will have to discuss this matter with Shadowcroft. All very irregular.”

Logan tuned out the turtle, grabbed Marko and pulled him into a tight hug. He let go and slung an arm around Inga’s shoulders. His friends were alive. They’d stopped Billy Scales, and no other cores had been cracked. They might have to retake their final, but that didn’t much matter now.

The current threat had been foiled.

Inga pushed herself away, doubling over. Her pulsating gem exploded in silk that covered her, from her bare feet to the fedora resting on the top of her head. She would’ve fallen on her face if Logan and Marko hadn’t caught her.

The mothmancer had finally advanced. Suddenly, they had a cocoon on their hands.

Marko grunted with exertion. “Hey, Tet, Treac, don’t supposed to can lend us a hand with Inga? She’s really heavy!”

But the minotaur and the feline sandmaster were sleeping, both cuddled around Kurrybooboos. Logan had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. This sure had been quite the final, and they all deserved some rest.