James A. Hunter
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Shadowcroft Year 3 - Chapter Forty-Six
🕑 Added 2023-01-02 18:00:01 +0000 UTCIt wasn’t fifteen minutes later that the Terrible Twelfth—five strong now—felt a Hell-Oh Portal open on the sands of the crumbling coliseum. Lou Shador and his Glow Brigade had finally arrived and they’d come ready to rumble.
Logan—both core and guardian form—stood alone in the F-Triple-C Slam Fest’s true inner sanctum. The guardian forms of the rest of his friends, including the newly ascended Chadrigoth, were already positioned on their levels of the dungeon. Even with Chadrigoth, they were likely outmatched and outgunned, but their odds were now better than hopeless. Logan was more than a little surprised that the Abyss Lord had emerged from his rocky cocoon in time to participate, but according to Chadrigoth the timing was no accident.
It was a godsend. Literally.
After stepping aside to let Logan compete in the tournament, Chadrigoth had experienced a genuine spiritual revelation. He’d realized the purpose of serving as a guardian form was just that: to be of service. To be of service to the school, to his friends, and most importantly of all, to the Tree of Souls that sustained the multiverse. While swaddled away in his cocoon, he’d meditated on that singular truth, connecting with the tree in a way that let him experience the vastness of reality. As his consciousness spread outward, touching the edges of creation, he’d finally gained the perspective necessary to overcome his own self-doubt and deeply rooted insecurities.
Lou Shador’s ascension had changed all that.
While communing with the Tree of Souls, Chadrigoth had felt a ripple go out, like a boulder tossed into the endless, still waters of a peaceful lake. But then the ripple morphed into something else. Something worse. It wasn’t a stone thrown carelessly into a pond, No, it was a spark igniting an unstoppable wildfire. Lou Shador was an existential danger both to the universe itself, but also to Logan and the Terrible Twelfth. Although Chadrigoth had been hesitant to leave from the peaceful embrace of the cocoon, he knew his job was to serve.
And so, he emerged.
It was a beautiful story. Marko wept openly as the newly-evolved Ascended Torment Lord spoke. Logan appreciated the sacrifice and the sentiment, but the one thing he couldn’t understand was why Chadrigoth was being allowed to help them. He’d previously bonded with Tet-Akhat, yet she hadn’t been given a pass to lend them aid.
So why Chadrigoth?
Rockheart—and a good portion of Shadowcroft’s faculty—hadn’t wanted the demon lord to get involved at all, but strictly speaking they couldn’t stop him. It seemed Chadrigoth’s involvement was a bit of a gray area. But it turned out that when needless bureaucracy was involved, gray areas were actually a good thing. Because Chadrigoth had originally qualified to participate in the tournament, there were no rules expressly stating that he couldn’t continue his involvement in the process.
Yes, he’d stepped aside to let Logan compete, but his name was still technically listed on the roster of backup tournament candidates. Chadrigoth couldn’t form his own dungeon. However, since he’d previously bonded with Logan the year before, that demonstrated a pattern of behavior that could arguably justify his inclusion in the final event. Honestly, it was a brilliant and elegant bit of legal jujitsu that Shadowcroft himself had devised and submitted to the board of the Department of Universal Dungeon Efficiency.
The Department would have to examine the case and issue a ruling. They’d called an emergency meeting, but by the time they passed down their decree on the matter, the tournament would be over one way or the other.
Logan pushed thoughts of Chadrigoth and the bureaucratic red tape that had saved their butts to the back of his mind. Right now, he needed focus. Lou Shador was the most dangerous threat they’d faced by far and his Glow Brigade were not to be underestimated.
<Okay, team, the bad guys are here,> Logan sent. <We have at least twenty minutes before they hit the fake sanctum. It’s going to be longer, though, because they don’t know that they’re not in a real dungeon.>
<It is a real dungeon,> Marko protested. <My centipede trap is going to scare them to death. Glad I reset it.> The satyr then switched gears. <Just putting the final touches on the clown level of our F-Triple-C Slam Fest. And we can’t be the Terrible Twelfth anymore because we have five members now. How about the Quaint Quint?>
Chadrigoth responded immediately. <I’m trying to keep an open mind when it comes to idiots, morons, and ne’er do wells. However, bro, if you insist on the Quaint Quint, I will leave. How about the Friendly Five?>
<We’re not exactly being friendly,> Inga sent from her level of the Slam Fest. <We are actively trying to murder the people coming into our elaborate death trap.>
Treacle ’s grunts came over loud and clear. <Murder is such an ugly word. We’re not killing them. We’re defending our dungeon. If they happen to get in the way, then that’s on them.> Treacle was at the top level, directly below the sorting chamber. <Five of them. Five of us. This will be certainly interesting. I suppose we could be the Fearsome Five. Or is that too on the nose?>
They went back and forth, but Logan didn’t offer any suggestions. Possible names included the Freaky Five, Five Finger Hate Punch, A Handful of Horrors, the Curious Quintuplets, Logan’s Lackeys—which no one liked at all—or Chadrigoth’s Cheeseheads which didn’t even make sense, but the alliteration was good at least.
Eventually, Logan just tuned them out. Especially once he caught his first glance of Lou Shador in the flesh. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
For the first time, the dungeoneer had the cowl of his cloak fluing back. His face was covered with luchador mask. And he was eating one of those Mexican popsicles. He was a paunchy wrestler, kinda hairy, with a definite muffin top hanging over the sides of his brightly-colored spandex leotard. His wrists were taped. His wrestling boots were pristine white. He was literally just a luchador wrestler.
It had literally been there in front of their faces the entire time.
This had to be a joke. There was no way this was the S-Class dungeoneer coming to destroy them. Except, Logan could feel the energy radiating off the man and there was no mistaking or denying his power.
Cruelli DeKill was their roller derby archer in heavy armor except she wore a very 21st century crash helmet. Take away the dungeoneering trappings, and she could’ve been a woman at your local derby arena in San Francisco.
The Grand Jester was obviously a bad medieval Harley Quinn cosplay—just throw in a huge mace painted in her signature colors, while Hawt Tawpic could’ve been a twenty-year-old mall crawler. Such big jeans— Jinco Jeans for sure—so many chains, and enough emo makeup to black out the sun.
The real mystery was Edna of the Three Rings. From all appearances, she seemed to be a meek girl in sensible shoes, khaki slacks, and a largish off-green cardigan over a white blouse buttoned up to her neck. She clutched a three-ring notebook to her chest. She was definitely the “before” girl in an ugly duckling teen movie.
But Logan had to remind himself that looks could be deceiving. These were the same evil dungeoneers that had killed Wintersylver with ease. Every single one of them was at least B-Class, if not A, and Shador was now an S-Class Crown Cultivator.
Shador’s betrayal must’ve been a bitter pill for Wintersylver to swallow. Well, play with the luchador and get body slammed. Or so the old saying went.
<Logan?> Inga sent. <Are you okay?>
<Yeah. It’s just… these guys are from Earth. Or they spent time on Earth. He’s a luchador… that’s a kind of Mexican wrestler.>
<It’s genius!> Marko burst out. He was positioned on the second level of the dungeon, ready to face off with the Grand Jester. <Lou Shador is an anagram for luchador!>
<Not genius,> Treacle sent. <Not an anagram. It’s a homophone. And not a very good one because it’s rather obvious.>
Logan groaned as he finally put the pieces together and figured out what the Glow Brigade stood for. < Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. The Glow Brigade. That’s an acronym, Marko.> > It had literally been there in front of their faces the entire time. How could they have missed something so obvious? And so obviously stupid? He sighed. Maybe that was a question, better left unanswered.
<Let’s cut the chatter,> Inga sent from the third level. <It looks like they are about to enter our Party City dungeon. Best we prepare ourselves.> If things went well in the sorting chamber, Inga would fight Edna of the Three Rings in a battle of schoolgirl versus schoolgirl.
<Agreed.> Chadrigoth was on the fourth level. <Let’s protect the Tree of Souls with peace, love, and most importantly, violence.> He’d be facing Hawt Tawpic. Who better to fight a goth than a demon?
Logan was rather surprised that the torment lord hadn’t insisted on protecting the inner sanctum itself. That was Logan’s job, though he was hopeful that by the end, he wouldn’t have to fight Lou Shador alone. In direct combat, even with his A-Class abilities, he wasn’t as powerful as the others.
With Chadrigoth, they had two Jade Leaf cultivator cores. They had a chance. Especially since, they were going up against Mr. Muffin Top and his gorgeous ladies of wrestling.
Logan watched as Harley Quinn bopped down one set of stairs before waltzing over to another. She came back out and told her boss the news. “I think they all lead to the same hallway, Mr. S. But you’re not gonna believe what these jokers have for us to fight.”
“Yeah, sister, don’t matter one bit,” Lou Shador growled. “We’re here to break cores. Not just one, though, we’re gonna get four cores. Maybe you sisters will ascend a little.”
Edna pushed her glasses up her nose. “I hope so, Mr. Shador. I’m hoping a good ascension will help with my allergies. There sure is a lot of pollen in the air.” She coughed some and then took a deep pull from her inhaler.
She had to be in the wrong place and with the wrong people. Logan knew she was the magical support for the group, and he had an understanding of her basic abilities, but she looked so innocent and dorky. What was her backstory he wondered? He couldn’t think about how Edna might be simply naïve. Innocent or not, she was traveling with people who would kill Logan and his friends without a second thought.
“Okay, people, let’s kill some monsters!” Cruelli DeKill shouted and went skating around the sand—those had to be some magical roller skates to glide through that grit.
Shador started down the steps, followed by Cruelli, then Hawt, with Edna of the Three Rings bringing up the rear. She was reading from her notebook, or seemed to be.
When Shador came to the hallway full of paper spiders, he frowned. “Those ain’t real bugs. This smells like a trap. Cruelli, light ‘em up.”
A single fire arrow cleared the entire corridor.
The Grand Jester danced down through the ash, flames, and smoke. She’d magicked up a gas mask, which was painted with bright clown colors.
<I’m in love,> Marko whispered. <I know I’m supposed to take her out, but how can I? She’s an angel!>
<You can do better,> Chadrigoth sent. <Believe me, you don’t want to get stuck in a loveless relationship. I’m so glad I met you guys. There’s so much love in this dungeon.>
Logan didn’t know about that, but he did know that Shador was moving slowly. “This can’t be what they have for us. No way, sisters, and no how. Won’t be long before we’ll be dodging traps, mashing monsters, and chewing bubblegum. And we’re all out of bubblegum.>
Marko sighed. <I love him and his muffin top.>
The Grand Jester, though, knew the real score. “I don’t know, Mr. S. I think it’s all just decorations. It’s like that one festival of the dead on Uroth. Helloween.”
<Actually, that’s an old German power metal band,> Logan mused.
Shador stood in the entrance corridor, scowling. “Can’t just be decorations, sister! This fungaloid is tricky. Best if we take it slow!”
“We can,” Edna said. “This is the last stop in our itinerary today. First, kill Wintersylver. Next, kill Logan Murray. Before we do, though, I’d like to talk to him about his hand lotion. Since he’s a Colorado native, he might have something that can help me with my dry skin.”
“No talking. Just killing,” Shador growled.
“Oh my god, I’m so bored!” Hawt complained. “Let’s just go already. I’m like, so over this.”
They slowly crept through the MothalMania 39, but when they got to the graveyard cavern, that’s when Marko did his stuff. He threw his voice around the room, mimicking the echo of an announcer. “You’ve seen the rest, now you’re going to see the best! Welcome, welcome, welcome, to MothalMania 39! You are lucky to have made it this far, but will you discover MothalMania’s secrets? Who is the best? Who is the brightest? Who can survive?”
That last word echoed around and around, bouncing off the walls and ceiling.
Edna flipped a page in her notebook. “Last I checked, there were thirty-eight WrestleManias back on Uroth. This does suggest that Logan Murray knows that you are, in fact, a luchador, Mr. Shador. It could be that this has all been a ruse. This Inga Thosa Therian could’ve researched us, since she was originally an Okitori from Toriopa. That is a mountainous world with an assortment of very impressive libraries. If Therian is as thorough as her reputation suggests, she might’ve customized this dungeon, or at least the next part of it, to kill each of us in very specific ways.”
“Don’t matter, won’t matter!” Shador roared, thumping a fist against his chest. The power of the blow sent a ripple through his pudgy muffin top. “Oh yeah, we’re gonna stick together and not get tricked.”
<Oh, they’ll get tricked,> Marko said.
Inga, though, sounded worried. <I don’t know. Edna already figured us out. We just have to hope that the sorting chamber works. If it doesn’t, we could be in real trouble…>
<Keep hope alive,> Chadrigoth encouraged. <Logan, I’m almost done with my level. Can you keep them distracted just a bit longer?>
<No problem.> Logan dropped the fake walls in the graveyard cavern.
He and his friends had gone all out and bought fifty remote control plushy moths, which was easily the most expensive part of their dungeon. At nineteen gold pieces a pop, that was nearly a thousand coins worth of toys. Marko did get a bulk discount and he got free shipping.
Treacle-made fans blew the remote-controlled moths into the room, but the toys couldn’t actually fly, just scuttled about. They all crawled around aimlessly, looking adorable and entirely unthreatening. Treacle had reconfigured them to move on their own, though there was no discernible pattern.
Edna emitted an “eek” and ran over and jumped on Shador’s back.
The wrestler was disgusted. “Dammit, sister, they won’t hurt us. They’re just toys!” He stomped on a fuzzy moth, obliterating it immediately.
Jester giggled and went around kicking the moths and bashing them with her mace. She also destroyed a bunch of the gravestones as well.
Cruelli skated through the chaos until she found the wide steps leading down. With her bow, she tapped the ceiling.
All of Marko’s fake centipedes came falling out. “This place is bogus. I’m wondering if there’s a real dungeon here at all. Maybe this whole thing was a ruse and they’re actually offworld entirely.”
Shador set Edna on her feet.
The nerdy girl was clearly embarrassed. “Sorry, while I don’t suffer from lepidopterophobia, the toy insects did surprise me. I will cling to my dignity.” She sniffed and readjusted her glasses. “I believe that there is a dungeon, but we haven’t found it yet. And the minute we let our guard down, we’ll stumble upon the real danger.”
Shador strode forward. “Then let’s find the real danger, sister. ‘Cause I’m losing my patience with this dumb place. I ain’t gonna take it slow no more.”
“That would be a mistake!” Edna said in a sing-song voice.
Shador grinned. “If I’ve made one mistake, I’ve made two.” He reached into his cloak and pulled out another popsicle.
In the fake sanctum, Shador ripped apart a tube man with a single hand. Cruelli rolled in and destroyed the other with a fire arrow. “This is pretty worthless.”
The Grand Jester skipped and twirled through the room, took a look at the claw bowl and Christmas ornaments, and then lifted the pedestal a bit to see the spiral staircase drilling down into the earth like a corkscrew.
The claw immediately activated and mashed the ornaments down into the bowl. A mechanical voice intoned, “Happy Halloween.”
Jester rolled her eyes and went right to the place in the wall hiding the secret door. “Ha, Mr. S! There’s a metal staircase under the pedestal, but we oughtta prolly not go that way, since that’s what the monsties want. There’s a secret door that might be fun.”
Shador lost control and drove a foot into the Googazon boxes. The claw bowl went flying. Any surviving ornaments crashed onto the floor. A piece of duck tape clung to his boot heel, and he ripped it off with a snarl. But when he saw the staircase, he smiled. “Let’s get to the real fun now. ‘Cause I’m with Hawt Tawpic. This is boring.”
“So boring,” their big-jeaned healer agreed. “Let’s take the secret passageway, shall we? Because that ladder feels like such a trap.”
“I wish,” Jester spouted. “No traps are anywhere! So I’m gonna find one.”
“Wait!” Shador roared.
“Too late!” Jester danced over and was halfway down the spiral staircase that lay under the ruined pedestal.
Shador and the rest of the party followed.
Treacle sounded nervous. <This is it. The sorting chamber. Either the staircase or the secret passageway would work.>
Logan had to smile. The sorting chamber was also known as the tailgate room. He sent out a message. <It’s gonna work. The design is perfect. We just need to be ready when it does, because that’s when things are going to get interesting.> These creeps wanted excitement? They were about to get so much it just might kill them.
Jester emerged from the spiral staircase. It was a bigger room than the others, but she faced a whole room full of Marko’s mannequins. They were arranged in an eerie, motionless tableau. A few were barbecuing. Others sat on folding chairs next to coolers. More were perched on the tailgates of trucks, like they were outside Mile-Hi Stadium, and it was the middle of Bronco season.
Jester titled her head and wrinkled her nose. “Hey? What’s goin’ on here?”
Edna adjusted her glasses. “This appears to be the first real room of the dungeon. If I’m not mistaken, this was crafted by the satyr—half man, half goat, all idiot. Still, I would proceed with extreme caution for these mannequins might not be as inert as they seem.”
“Good!” Shador yelled. “That means I’ll finally get to fight something, sister. Oh yeah! My Action Sense is going off, but I don’t freakin’ care. What’s the use of being Jade Leaf if you ain’t jading or leafing?”
<Man, I love that guy,> Marko sent with a sigh.
It was time to trigger the trap. Like they’d planned, Shador truly didn’t care what happened next as long as he got to rumble.
Logan started things off. <Edna’s standing on the trapdoor. Let’s grab her first. Maybe we can talk some sense into her.>
Too late.
Treacle activated the first trap. The floor dropped opened underneath the nerdy girl’s feet like a yawning mouth and she went sliding down a slick tube.
At the same time, Treacle threw a lever and the entire room lurched and titled to a sixty-five degree angle.
Cruelli went sliding backward and right into a swiveling wall, which would whisk her down one level to face Treacle.
Ever the lucky one, Jester leapt onto a truck to keep from falling. That’s when Marko’s mannequins sprang to life. They swarmed her en masse and pulled her into the truck, which didn’t have seats. The interior was just one massive chute that would transport her to Marko’s level.
Treacle had one last surprise to offer.
“The eyes can deceive,” the minotaur said, his words booming through the chamber. “The floor, a trap most wicked. Time to meet your end.”
It was runic haiku at its finest.
At first, the idea behind runic haiku had seemed absurd to Logan, but once Treacle explained it, he saw it for the pure genius it was. The caster inscribed a complex series of interconnected runes—almost like lines of code creating a basic program—and each rune was, in turn, then connected to a spoken syllable. When activated, all of the individual runes worked together to unleash a powerful chain of magical effects, which were far greater than the sum of their individual parts. But it was important that the spell wasn’t accidentallyactivated before its appointed time by an ill-timed word from a careless tongue.
The solution? The runes were daisy chained together. Linked. Hence the haiku. The short poem acted as a quick, easy to remember spoken spell trigger that no one would accidentally recite.
The entire room rumbled and bucked and jagged golden runes swam through the air. A heartbeat later, the floor dissolved into nothing but a fine, choking powder. Meanwhile, all of the objects scattered throughout the room—the trucks, the barbecues, the chairs, the coolers, and all the mannequins—floated in mid-air thanks to Marko’s Gravitatious Clownocity.
The floor twisted into a descending stone tunnel that should’ve dropped Shador into an enormous underground digestion pit, filled with razor-tipped spikes and enough acid to eat through an M1 Abrams Tank. Logan didn’t expect the digestion pit to kill Lou Shador—he was an S-Class Cultivator after all—but the hope was that it would keep him busy for just long enough for the others to separate and defeat the rest of the Glow Brigade. Then, once Shador’s crew was dispatched, Logan and the rest of his friends could lay a tag-team smack down on the wrestler.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
Shador’s wrist wrap tentacles lashed out like striking whips and latched onto one of big side mirrors jutting of the side of the truck, saving himself from tumbling down. He hung there for a long moment, suspended in mid-air.
Marko had planned for that. The heads of his mannequins started exploding, popping off, and filling the room with smoke and debris.
Shador was almost knocked loose, but aAt the last minute, he whisked off his cloak and threw it underneath him. It hung there, suspended, like a flying carpet. “Nice trap, brothers and sisters, but you’re dealing with an S-Class hombre. Let’s see what’s down a level.”
Shador then dropped down into his cloak. He vanished and appeared on Treacle’s level where Cruelli Dekill would soon be rolling out to meet him.
<You’re on, Treacle,> Logan sent.
<Wish me luck!> the minotaur sent. < Do you all remember your trigger haiku?>
<As if I could ever forget!> Marko yelled. <And don’t worry, if things get dire, you have my Crazy Clown Posse ready to back you up!>
Logan couldn’t help but be excited to see the CCP in action. And he’d actually be able to watch some of the action for a change because unlike the others, he was the only guardian without a raider to face.
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