Shadowcroft Year 3 - Chapter Twenty-Eight

Through sheer determination of will, Logan pulled himself up from the floor, body mangled, pain beating at his senses like a drum. He stood in the middle of the pile of broken conveyor belt parts. The two raiders, Hellmutt and Petula were on the platform above, looking down smugly while their tortoise friend was trying to rip Inga’s throat out.

Logan had to help her. He was missing an arm, and they were badly outnumbered and outmatched, but he couldn’t just give up and quit. There was too much on the line here—his friend most of all. He lumbered into motion like a slow-moving freight train, picking up more and more speed with every step. A jagged bolt of golden light rushed toward him, courtesy of Hellmutt, but he narrowly managed to get his ruby shield up in time to deflect the breath attack. A second later, a foul smell smacked him in the nose like a closed fist.

This was not a case of whoever smelt it, dealt it, because he knew the source—the smirking skunk woman above.

She was about to turn the air around him into an oven, and as a fungaloid, Logan was not a big fan of fire. Like, at all. It destroyed his wonderful spores and gave him such a headache.

Then a squeaky, high-pitched voice filled the air. “Centipede calvary to the rescue!” It was Mariah, astride Roy Boy the candy-covered Spartan centipede.

Mariah and Ricky, along with six more pairs of minions, charged onto the platform, bowling into the werebear and the wereskunk, knocking both into the explosions and bucking conveyor belts below. A few Kurrybooboos lobbed explosive candy at them from a safe and respectable distance.

Mariah and Roy Boy closed the distance to Shellex, and she drove her spear into a crack in the giant tortoise’s shell with a high-pitched battlecry. The spear wasn’t just sharp, being crafted from peppermint also gave it a frost-based enchantment. As the spear lodged firmly in the crack, fingers of ice appeared, rapidly spreading outward across the shell.  Shellex had no choice but to wheel on his attacker, ignoring Inga for the time being.

Mariah’s squeak rose above the din. “Lupine Fury? Why Lupine? You don’t have any freakin’ werewolves!”

“We have wolves in our hearts!” Shellex roared in response. He’d turned his back on Inga, and snapped Mariah in two with his teeth.

She let out a last squeaking ramble. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

She was being overly dramatic. Logan could summon her up again without a problem.

Roy Boy, now riderless, rose up on his dozen legs and sliced into the tortoise with his six sword arms. Shellex’s troubles were just beginning. Inga latched onto the giant tortoise’s neck, trying to chew through his tough scales to get at the arteries underneath. Logan could only assume that turtles and tortoises had some kind of carotid artery.

Meanwhile, the other members of the fungal-insect cavalry came rushing down from the platform to engage both Hellmutt and Petula.

The skunk sent putrid, roiling stink cloud straight into the oncoming bugs. The telekinetic force ripped off waddler heads and flung giant centipedes to the side. Their armor did well against slashing, but a concussive blast took most of them out.

Petula was suddenly lost in a cloud of poisonous gas. No one would be able to get through to her. To make it worse, she turned that cloud black, complete darkness, so anyone entering wouldn’t be able to see.

Darkness and poison—well now—Logan loved both.

He dropped his shield and re-summoned his silver sword. One-armed, he raced right into the heart of darkness.

“Yikes!” Petula giggled. “Giant mushroom man! Can’t use fire ‘cause he’s too close! Maybe this smell will knock you back as step or two, mushroom man.”

The next noise she made sounded suspiciously like someone suffering from a parasitic infection writhing around inside their lower intestines. Logan wasn’t going to ponder that diarrheal song for long. As for the smell? Meh. He’d smelled worse. Heck, he’d eaten worse smelling things for breakfast. And he could see just fine because he didn’t need light. While he couldn’t use his spores to do much on Sucrosia, he could use them to see.

A second later, he drove his sword in Petula’s chest.

He sniffed. “Smells like victory to me, Petula Cloudsweat.”

“That’s my line!” She let out a gurgling giggle, her eyes wide in surprise, as her legs gave out and her body dropped to the ground. She’d been the most dangerous opponent by a mile, but physically she was about as sturdy as single sheet toilet paper. The skunk woman was still giggling softly when her eyes slid shut and her Apothos rushed out, eager to rejoin the Tree of Souls.

In an eyeblink, the skunk shifter’s various clouds dissipated.

Logan turned to see the giant turtle shrinking into a very dead man, who looked human enough, except for the fact that his skin was a dark, waxy green.

Inga transformed back into her normal body. Mariah was dead, but Roy Boy was still there, and he stayed close to his mothress, as they moved across the ruins of the Conveyor Belt Hell.

Hellmutt Oso was the last raider alive, and he was completely surrounded. He stood with his claws raised in surrender. “Bitte, Lieblings, let me live. You don’t know vhat I am. I vill tell you, if you let me.”

Logan strode up. A Kurrybooboo leapt onto his back, lending him a burst of Apothos and healing his missing arm. It itched, but at the same time, it kind of felt good, as he regrew the limb.

“And what are you?” Logan asked.

<Don’t trust him,> Inga warned. <We’ve come too far to be defeated by a treacherous werebear.>

After everything they’d seen, Logan wasn’t sure Hellmutt actually was a werebear at all.

Hellmutt whipped off his helmet and tossed it to Logan. The minute the helm was off, the bear slumped back on all fours, roared, and then retreated. It found a stray candy and licked it off the floor. It then went meandering off, sniffing at things as it passed.

Logan then heard a very loud voice in his head. <You vill put me on now, mushroom man! I shall own your body and your mind. I vill call myself El Hongo.>

For reasons Logan couldn’t quite understand, donning the helmet sounded like a very cool idea. Plus, El Hongo was an awesome name. His eyelids felt heavy, his limbs numb. Before he could even think about what he was doing, he found his hand reaching for the helm as though on autopilot.

His hand wrapped around one of the horns—

Pain flooded through his body, sharp and cold, as one of Roy Boy’s razor-sharp limbs severed his arm just above the elbow.

Logan stumbled back, glancing between Roy Boy and his arm, laying on the floor, hand wrapped around the horn.

“What the heck?” Logan protested, “I just regrew that arm!”

“We had to snap you out of its spell,” Inga said, positing herself between Logan and the helmet. “It was enchanting you, ensnaring your mind. Thanks to our bond, I felt it the second his magic started to corrupt your thoughts. Don’t you see, Hellmutt never was a shifter, not like the others. That was just a regular beer possessed by a very powerful and very cursed artifact. Had you put it on, only Hellmutt would remain. We likely should’ve guessed as much from the beginning, considering the name, but we had a lot going on.”

Huh. It was kinda on the nose in hindsight.

The helmet lay on the floor, glowing, until the light faded.

That was just a ruse, though. Hellmutt would still be around, waiting to take control of whoever picked him up. They’d have to find a way to safely dispose of the helmet.

Inga turned to him. She had a weary smile on her face. Her antennae drooped. <Well, let’s get these bodies into your digestion pit. We are victorious, for now, but we might end up facing another set of raiders, yet. Let’s hope not, not until we can get healed up and reset the dungeon.>

Logan took in a deep breath. He didn’t smell any sign of Petula. All he smelled was the sweet, sweet scent of life itself. And some of the leftovers of the explosive candy.

* * *

No other raiders came.

Logan spent the rest of the week digesting the Lupine Fury and working with Inga to tweak the dungeon. They hid the stalactites, so dungeoneers wouldn’t see them in the Grand Cavern Staircase and Fun Land. They also added a moonsand and Tsuki ant trap to the Enchanted Candy Forest.

By Sunday at noon, they had as much Apothos as when they started. But one of the best parts was when Dia Betty, the Arcanus Confectionary Mage, returned and toured their dungeon, marveling over their creation. She absolutely loved it and gave both Logan and Inga a kiss and two gift baskets before they left. Betty was the best.

Logan was dying to know their score, but that would have to wait.

When he and Inga headed through the BYE portal and back into the Arena Suprema, both stood in horror.

The crowds filling the huge arena weren’t cheering. They were silent as the grave.

Everyone stared on in a mixture of shock, dread, and morbid fascination as broadcast footage streamed into the stadium through a series of enchanted video crystals. Much of it was replay and highlight reels—Logan saw a clip of himself savagely impaling Petula with his sword Some of the footage was also live. Dungeoneers had hit Lorena Quartz’s dungeon the day the Semi-Finals were supposed to end.

Logan and Inga watched with the stunned crowd as Lorena Quartz was forced up against the sandy pedestal of her crystal dungeon on Twilittia. A scarlet cloaked figure elbowed her across the face and dropped her to the ground. She wheezed, guardian form badly broken. The raider planted a white-booted foot on her chest, then reached down and effortlessly plucked her gem from her crystal belly.  He crouched, holding the gemstone right in front of Lorena’s face. Then with a gruff laugh, he cracked it her gem. Raw Apothos rushed out in a cloud, flowing into his body while her eyes flickered, the life draining out.

Nearby, Marko fell to his knees, tears running down his furry cheeks. “Lorena! No!”

There was a burst of static as the video crystal feed guttered and died. One of Twilittia’s critical Celestial Nodes had just failed. The world would die. But that wasn’t all.

There was video footage of the same crimson caped raider killing three other contestants—Woody Bone Splinters, Tommy Bugnutt, and Britta Scary. It was like that particular dungeoneer knew all about the interschool tournament and had gone form world to world, cracking cores, and draining nodes.

The only other survivor, Wintersylver Gracefreeze, watched the footage just like everyone else.

There was something off about Wintersylver, though. Maybe Logan was imagining things, but it almost looked like she was fighting to suppress a small grin. Then, she cried. But there was something off about that too. If Logan didn’t know any better, he would’ve sworn that she was faking it… In that moment Logan hated the White Wyrm.

Sure, she knew she was going to the Finals, but she shouldn’t be smiling about it. Not right then. Four dungeon cores were dead, and at least one of those worlds would die as a result.

Treacle came over and put his two big hands on their shoulders. “Welcome back. The dungeon you created. That world. All that candy.” The big minotaur shook his head as tears filled his eyes. “So many memories.”

He wiped away the tears with a crocheted hankie.

Logan was speechless. Everyone was feeling a lot of emotions right then.

Treacle cleared his throat. “Anyway. I’m glad you survived.” He slung a big arm around Logan’s shoulder. “The raider hit Woody Bone Splinters, then Scary Britta. Marched right into the necropolis and went through her minions and traps like they were nothing. I was worried. Then he took out Tommy Bugnutt, and I thought for sure…” He trailed off. “Well it doesn’t matter what I thought. I’m glad you and Inga made it.”

Logan was glad they’d survived as well, but for the moment all he could feel was shock and grief.

Who was that guy in the red cloak?

And what were they going to do about him and Wintersylver’s hidden grin?