James A. Hunter
patreon
Shadowcroft Year 3 - Chapter Forty-Seven
🕑 Added 2023-01-04 18:00:01 +0000 UTCSince Marko was busy squaring off against the Grand Jester on the third level, Logan took over announcing responsibilities. A wired microphone descended from the ceiling far above, lost in the fluorescent lights. In his best "Mean" Gene Okerlund voice, he shouted into the microphone, now clutched in his four-fingered fungal hand. “Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to the first ever, the inaugural, the unforgettable, the Fungal Candy Clown Caterpillar Slam Fest!”
Logan waited in a wrestling ring complete with ropes, turnbuckles, and a canvas floor. The pedestal of the dungeon—a small folding card table—stood in the middle of the ring, with five gems twirling above it in a slow circle. The wrestling ring was on the bottom level at the center of an arena, which took inspiration from the ruined coliseum above. It was structured to look like pretty much every other sports stadium Logan had ever visited, with a few notable exceptions. Many, but not all, of the seats were empty, and the enormous concrete hallways were bursting at the seams with monsters, traps, and other dungeon-y fun.
Edna had been right all along. Each of the outer levels of the stadium were themed and painstakingly designed to deal with a specific raider. To advance through the elaborate coliseum of doom, each dungeoneer would have to battle their way halfway around the coliseum and overcome the “floor boss” guardian form standing guard over the stairs that led down to the next level. Divide and conquer was the plan of action. And the hope was that Logan’s friends would deal with the separated members of the Glow Brigade long before they ever made it to the inner sanctum.
At the very top was Treacle’s Candypunk Roller Rink of Madness. A mishmash of candy, diabolical steampunk mechanization, and a 1997, neon-illuminated roller rink.
The floor motto? Welcome to Hell on Wheels.
In the arena, a full wall of jumbotron screens blinked to life, showcasing snippets of the action for all to see. Treacle—thanks to Professor Kobold’s film appreciation class—had really become adept using the video crystals, and he’d even managed to hardwire the video feed into the BYE portal network, so the images were being broadcast wide and far across the cosmos. There was a two-minute delay built into the external broadcast, just to make sure the images couldn’t somehow be used to help Lou Shador and his teammates.
At this very moment, Treacle, Inga, Marko, and Chadrigoth were already using every trick in the playbook to take down the raiders. Logan’s job was to offer backup support. He had mushroom minions scattered throughout each level of the dungeon, and thanks to his Brain Caps, he could manually take control of any mob located within the dungeon.
So far things were going mostly according to plan. But only mostly. Unfortunately, Lou Shador had managed to avoid Logan’s industrial-sized digestion pit and was now on the first level with Cruelli DeKill—exactly where he was not supposed to be.
Which meant that was exactly where Logan needed to reinforce.
Cruelli DeKill rolled out of the slide backwards but then gracefully spun around, an arrow already knocked on her bow. She screeched to a stop next to Shador, who stood there gripping his cloak, shocked into immobility.
The entire top level had polished wood floors, sloped like a roller derby rink. The walls were covered in swirls of fluffy pink cotton candy. It looked like a sugar cloud had descended from heaven, except those fluffy tangles concealed some deadly surprises. A wide array of nasty, serrated candy hooks would catch any skater that got too close to the walls. Meanwhile, the polished floorboards were studded with trapped compartments that hid razor-sharp candy spikes and whirling, oversized candy saw blades.
There were several exits that led into a neon-bright arcade lined with a variety of food stalls, all stocked with sweet treats and sugary goodies, but the Exploding Chiclets and the Poprock Caltrips were also on sale.
On each level, there was a digestion pit in the bathrooms, which sparkled thanks to Marko’s diligence. Logan couldn’t wait to start gnawing on adventurer Apothos.
Logan savored the shocked looks of the two raiders’ faces. This sophisticated dungeon had to be a surprise following the ridiculousness of the Party City dungeon.
Treacle came storming around a bend in the ring. Instead of hooves he had had steel rods connected to huge pink roller skates. He’d turned his right arm into a jawbreaker machine gun. His black duster flapped behind him like a superhero’s cape as he skated forward, horns lowered. His goggles were firmly in place as he roared toward Cruelli and Shador, standing together, mouths agape.
Treacle wasn’t alone. With him were dozens of his Candypunk Calflings, on skates, with taffy cannons, jawbreaker machine guns, long pink spears, or candy-striped battle axes. Their wheels thundered like war drums against the wood floorboards.
Cruelli shock seemed to melt away and she just smiled. “Do you really think you can out derby girl me, huh? I’m the queen of the skate! Heck, I come with my own team built in!”
She grabbed arrow after arrow, firing them in the air. At first, Logan thought they were going to be flame arrows, or the explosive arrows he’d seen before. Nope. Shadowy figures took shape, each holding an arrow of their own. There were two dozen of them, easy, each a perfect shadow replica of Cruelli. Not only was she an archer and a ranger, she was also a summoner.
Then the action was on. Arrows and jawbreakers rained down as the two sides exchanged fire.
Shador burst out laughing. “Finally found the fight. Good!” He reattached his cloak with nimble fingers. And then, his wrist wrap tentacles whipped out and lifted him off the floor, while his own white boots transformed into rhinestone cover roller skates. The flailing tentacles propelled him forward, muffin top jiggling, meaty forearms pumping like mad, as he joined the fray with a battle cry.
“Hey, freakshow! You’re going NOWHERE!” He bellowed, flying through the air like a muscled trapeze artist. “I got’cha for three minutes! Three minutes of playtime!”
One of Logan’s new Mycotic Shambles had been hanging back near the bathroom, behind their enemies, but now it was time to fight. The giant mushroom entity had been conjured from stone, dirt, sand, and bits of Treacle’s leftover candy. It was all glued together with an iron-hard fungal chitin. It looked like the Swamp Thing rolled in sugar and mixed with bread mold. Braincap mushrooms dusted its mishappen head and shoulders and Treacle had outfitted the gigantic bruiser with roller skates of his own.
Good thing Logan once had a crush on Debbie Jacobs in middle school because he’d spent a ton of time at Skate City, practicing to Backstreet Boys, Hanson, and 98 Degrees. He’d also become ridiculously good at the Big Buck Hunter Pro arcade game.
All that practice was now serving him well as he raced forward, looking to shoulder check Shador and Cruelli right in their backsides.
Already, the battle was something to behold.
Calflings died by in a hail of exploding arrows. Shadow derby girls had their wheels tangled in taffy. Held in place, they were battered and bludgeoned to bits by jawbreaker bullets. A few of the shadow roller women found themselves skewered on the candy cane hooks or impaled my spikes that exploded upward from the floor. One truly unfortunate shadow lay on the ground, missing an arm and leg—cleanly severed by a buzzing sawblade.
Treacle had his Cavity Smasher out—a big round candy Morningstar studded with Hershey Kiss spikes. Wreathed in electricity, it was a single kill weapon for the shadow girls.
One of the shadow skaters edged too close to one of Logan’s Sunflower Pods, and it ignited in a gaseous blast, killing her immediately. Other derby girls strayed too close to one of the food stalls, and the whole thing ignited, splashing the polished wood floor in front of it with caltrops that took down other skaters.
But for every shadow derby girl they destroyed, Cruelli’s just brought another to life with a magical arrow. It seemed she had a hard cap at two dozen, but she could seemingly spawn endless replacements so long as she didn’t go past that number.
Logan’s wade into the fight, lashing out with fists that were crafted from huge slabs of solid rock. He punched down one shadow girl and then hip-checked another, sending her into a hook. She sagged there, dead as a doornail.
But Logan wasn’t going to mess around with the cannon fodder. He needed to focusing on taking out the cannons. He skated up behind Shador and took a swing with his stone club fist.
Shador’s cloak shoved Logan away, saving his master’s life. It was a very Dr. Strange moment.
Shador himself pirouetted on his roller skates with surprising ease, then latched onto a wall hook with a wrap tentacle, and propelled himself toward Logan like a rocket.
The wrestler grinned. “No, brother, Lou Shador ain’t going down like that!” He forearm smashed Logan’s Mycotic Shamble square in the chest. The single blow landed like a battering ram of pure force and flames raced out on contact, chewing through the fungal colony animating the behemoth creature. The Shamble crumpled a second later, dead before it hit the floor. It was a devastating blow that showcased just how powerful Lou Shador really was.
The deadly attack forced Logan out of the minion and back into his guardian form standing in the ring next to the card-table pedestal. The jumbotron showed him Treacle, who had shed his black duster.
Skating with break-neck speed, the minotaur’s voice rose above the fray. “A gnome not at home. The bull with a belly full. The power of Friends!”
Glimmering runes appeared all across his furry pink body. Magical armor chinked into place, chunk, chunk, chunk, matching the sigils. In seconds, he was a candy-coated bull man with both arms flinging jawbreakers.
But Cruelli was uncannily quick. She dodged every jawbreaker, moving with unnatural speed and agility, almost too quick for the eye to catch. She leapt over downed Calflings, and peppered Treacle’s armor with every kind of arrow she possessed.
Fire, ice, acid, explosions.
His armor held against the onslaught. But for how long? Even from below, Logan could smell the burning sugar.
Treacle stormed forward, and swung at her with his Cavity Smasher. The attack missed, and then had to do a wide-turn, to chase after her. She was heading toward the stairs leading down to the next level where Marko was already facing off against the Grand Jester.
Treacle’s AFS Core Improvement glowed white hot as his skates were super-fueled in a turbo burst of pure velocity. He zoomed past her. As he did, the backside of his armor opened up, sprinkling the floor with Poprock Caltrips.
At the speed Cruelli was moving, there was simply no doging them. She ran right into the sizzling candy bombs.
Those sweet explosions ripped through the air with concussive force and sent her flying, head over heels, her long legs flashing in the neon lights.
At the same time, gummy bulls and peep golems came rolling out like a tsunami. They swarmed the last of the shadow derby girls in a wave of candied nightmares. The peeps detonated in mushroom clouds of scalding hot sugary goop. The gummy bulls crashed into unlucky derby girls, mashing them against the candy walls, and holding them there.
Several of the peeps and bulls targeted Shador, but he merely vaulted over than and landed nimbly on his skates. A shockwave of incredible force burst out of his feet on impact and engulfed the minions in raw Apothos. They disintegrated on the spot. When the energy finally dissipated nothing remained of the candid cows other than fine flecks of powdered sugar.
Shador unleashed his tentacles once more, and this time he managed to get a hold of Treacle. The villain flung treacle into a wall where he was trapped by the burnt remnants of his own marshmallow minions.
With Treacle out of the way, both the luchador and Cruelli quickly beelined across the rink and toward the descending staircase. They had to dodge dead Calflings and the shadowy corpses of derby girls, but they were going to make it.
<I can’t stop them!> Treacle roared.
<Guys!> Marko called out in panic. <I’m having trouble with the Grand Jester. She’s beautiful but oh man oh man is she crazy, so crazy!>
Inga chimed in. <Edna is… not what I expected either. I’m going to need help, Logan. I don’t think I can do this on my own…>
Chadrigoth was more direct. <What is wrong with his Hawt Tawpic woman! Why are her pants so big! Why does she have so many chains! No one should like pain this much—its just not natural!>
It sounded like the torment lord was going to cave at any minute. That wasn’t good.
<On it!> Logan called out. <Hold tight everyone. I have to help Treacle first.>
He pushed his consciousness outward, away from his guardian form, than swan dove into the one of Marko’s standby minions, positioned as backup in case things really went south. Like right now. Thanks to a proliferation of Braincap Mushrooms, Logan abruptly found himself inhabiting one of many minions of Marko’s Crazy Clown Posse.
The CCP was made up of two kinds of minions, collectively known as the Markalos. One set of Markalos were rather tall and thin, and the others were rather short and pudgy. They had clown makeup, lots of fishnet, and loads of denim. They wielded spray paint and hatchets in equal quantities, and they all smelled vaguely of Orange Faygo, Old Spice, and the Detroit Lion’s locker room.
Logan had just possessed one of the shorter Markalos, who just so happened to be squished into the backseat of the lowrider of medieval carriages. The carriage came rolling down the derby track, careening directly towards Cruelli and Shador, who were making a break for the steps that would take them down to Marko’s level—the Circus Disaster.
It sounded like Marko and the rest of his team weren’t doing very well against their opponents. This was not good. Logan knew a solid victory up top would only benefit the morale of his friends fighting against the fiends on their own level.
The lowrider carriage streaked toward the villains.
Treacle had managed to pull himself out of the peep goo. He took to his skates in hot pursuit, chasing after the villains with the last of his Calflings, a Peep Golem who had zero control on skates, and a gummy bull who was having trouble building up enough speed. Four skates on four gummy legs wasn’t easy to negotiate.
The Markalo next to Logan threw out the heavy metal sign. “Honk, honk, mother lover. Time to get down and clown around!”
The carriage skidded a stop. From out of the sides unfolded twin six-barreled jawbreaker gatling guns. The barrels spun up unloading an unholy barrage of jawbreakers at the incoming dungeoneers. But Shador simply slung his cloak over his shoulder and somehow managed to suck up every one of those round candy bullets.
Cruelli fired two arrows which erupted on impact, disabling both gatling guns. Looked like they were going to have to do this the hard way. The carriage doors popped open and a comical number of Markalos spilled out from the certified clown car.
The Markalos whooped madly as they sprinted toward the dungeoneers, hatchets raised with no thought of dignity or self-preservation in mind. Logan kept paced, though it was tough with his stubby legs. “Let’s get down and clown around! Get down and clown around!”
Shador slammed a foot down on the ground, which took out half of the clowns in another one of his Apothos-fueled shockwaves. Logan found himself on his back for a minute, weaponless. He rolled over to see the rest of the posse attack in a haze of spray paint and dull blades. They might’ve been odd looking, but the Markalos were fierce fighters and just as crazy as their name implied.
One leapt impossible high into the air, flipping head over heels. “This is for the Markalos and Markalettes. Whoop, whoop!” As he flew, the Markalo dosed himself in what smelled like kerosene before promptly setting himself on fire. A flaming cannonball of greasepaint makeup and denim smashed into one of Cruelli’s legs, nearly taking her out.
Treacle joined them, and he swung his Cavity Smasher at Cruelli, who ducked and fired an exploding arrow point blank at the pink minotaur. It blew a hole in his chest, shattering the pink armor in the process.
Cruelli leapt back, but Treacle had managed to glue her skates to the wood floor with his taffy cannon. The minotaur hurled a handful of Exploding Chiclets directly into her smug face. The blast knocked her right out of her skates, which remained transfixed to the floor.
She managed to gain her feet quickly, but her power had been neutralized. She went to run but she wasn’t fast enough to get away from the Peep Golem. The sugar-coated menace sideswiped her, wrapping huge, molten arms around her in an unbreakable bearhug. She screamed as marshmallow goo burned her skin. Now that she was immobilize, the Markalos were only emboldened. They descended as one, hacking at her with rusty blades while unleashing sprays of acidic spray paint.
Logan joined the massacre, sinking his own hatcher into her chest.
She was on her last legs, but she wasn’t going down without a fight. Somehow, got her arms free and nocked one last arrow. With a cry she loosed the shafted, which streaked straight and true… Right into Treacle’s bare chest.
“Cruelli DeKill always gets her kill,” she mumbled, blood seeping from her lips before her eyes fluttered shut and the life left her body. She was dead, but she wasn’t wrong. The damage had been done.
Treacle dropped to his knees. <I’m out, but I did my bit. That archer is at least two kinds of dead.>
<You did good, Treac,> Logan sent as the Markalos finished hacked up the archer just to be on the safe side. <We’ll take it from here.>
Logan’s pudgy clown reached into one of the pockets of his cargo pants and pulled out a fistful of Spindle Wig. He wolfed down the mushrooms. They were sweet and chewy, but better than that, he felt his muscles swell and his bones pop as he grew larger and larger and larger. In an eyeblink he stood seven feet tall, towering over the other Markalos. He snatched up weapons then, jacked out of his mind on the powerful mushroom steroid, he charged Lou Shador.
Logan screamed out the CCP war cry as he sprinted, “Time to get down and clown around!”
Shador spun at the thunderous approach of Logan’s heavy footfalls. Logan didn’t care. He leapt into the air with a can of black spray paint in one hand and a hatchet in the other. He sprayed the luchador in the face, and then tried to chop Shador’s collarbone into kindling.
The hatchet connected, but bounced off the hairy flesh as though the blade were made of rubber. As for the spray paint, that mask was magical. The acid had no effect.
Shador’s wrist wrap tentacles wrapped around Logan and body slammed him onto the floor. The wrestler brought his foot down once more, this time onto Logan’s throat. Power rushed out from the masked wrestler’s boot, blowing the remaining Markalos into pieces and exploding Logan’s head in the process.
With the last whiff of resistance eliminated, Shador slowly skated to the stairwell, turned off his wheels, and sped down the steps in his white boots.
<Guys!> Marko shouted, panicked. <I think I’ve met someone crazier than me. I did not think this would ever be a bad thing! I need some assistance, and I mean pronto!>
<I’m coming, Marko!> Logan found himself back in his guardian form with his Kurrybooboos in the seats around the ring. He motioned to them. “Okay, little guys, you know what to do.”
Logan didn’t stay in his guardian form for long. His friends were in trouble, and that was about to go double for Marko now that Lou Shador had made it to the second level. Logan pushed his thoughts out, questing for the next minion to inhabit. He found just the right body, then took off at a sprint.
It was time to show this Harley Quin knock-off who the real boss was.
Comments
Luke DeMink
This had me on the edge of my seat. I look forward to the next chapter!
