Logan felt the raider’s weight shift. He let the Cavalier go.
Sir Rosencrantz Brandybutter fell face forward into the soot-covered spikes. “Curses! Foiled again!”
Inga fluttered over the pit, looking down, the ghost of a smile on her lips. Logan crawled over. He wanted to see the impaled dungeoneer.
Before he was given a gory sight to remember, both he and Inga were spit out into the undercroft lobby. Their gems were back in their bodies as they slid across the floor. Logan’s shield and dagger came clattering after them. The doors slammed shut. A second later, the doors reopened. A severed arm and leg hurtled out, smacking Logan’s face.
“I do apologize,” the turtle fountain said. “But it’s midnight, I am tired, and so I had to close the Tartarucha Cells. Congratulations on besting the dungeoneer. I witnessed the whole exciting encounter.”
Logan fell backward onto the ground, holding his severed leg. He was breathing hard. “Inga, we did it. It was close, but we got him.” Talking felt so inconvenient now. He missed their immediate telepathic connection.
“For our first time?” Inga giggled. “We did amazing. And that was without your Braincaps and all the other various enhancements at our disposal.”
“Inga, what were your swords made out of? Also, what is Metamorphosis? Or Insect Infection?” Logan had a thousand questions and two thousand ideas to improve their dungeon.
He couldn’t stop smiling. This was a thousand times better than playing a video game. Yes, he was going to have to find medical help in the middle of the night since he still wasn’t quite skilled enough to reattach or regrow limbs, but that seemed like a minor detail. His stumps throbbed but not as bad as when he’d been human. All in all, it had been one of the best nights of his life. He’d made the right decision with Inga.
Chapter Eighteen
PROFESSOR YULLIS ROCKHEART stood on the Iceblade grass of the Akros Coliseum. A light snow covered the ground. Winter had come, and while that meant fires and hot cocoa, it also meant snow. Rockheart crossed his arms, a tad chilly and silently regretting that he’d left his embroidered scarf back in his office.
Logan went screaming by on the dirt track, waddling as fast as his legs could carry him. It wasn’t fast enough. A doomhound pounced on him. Golden spores leaked from the fungaloid’s gills, which caused the devil dog to sneeze. A burst of flame hit Logan, scorching half his face and a good portion of his toadstool head.
“Yes, Logan, I’m sure if you keep giving the doomhound a runny nose, you will be able to repel A-Class dungeoneers.” Rockheart shook his head and shooed away the doomhound before it could again dismember the pathetic dungeon core.
The rest of his students in the Core Calisthenics class had already handled their doomhounds. The satyr had produced a flute and was piping a song that had his dog on the ground, paws over his ears, whining. The astral moth had wrapped her dog in a silky chrysalis. Even the minotaur had used some of the moth’s thread to bind his own dog on the ground. The minotaur’s muscles bulged nicely as the doomhound threw Rockheart a pleading look.
The First Cohort had already graduated from doomhounds to actual hellhounds, which were bigger, hairier, and could hurl lava with their tails. Even with the greater challenge, Chadrigoth and the other three master students were sitting on the stone seats waiting patiently. There was some laughter and some eye-rolling as Logan struggled with the level-one monsters.
Logan got up on his feet. He wiped some of the soot off his forehead. “You know, Professor, I’m only two ranks away from getting my next evolutionary form. Then we’ll just see how we do.”
Rockheart knew exactly where Logan was in his levels. The gargoyle-griffin had been tracking both the Terrible Twelfth and its leader, the worst student in the school. However, Logan had jumped from being a Rank 9 Deep Root cultivator to a Rank 4. He would move into his next body when he reached Iron Trunk.
Five ranks in two months was impressive. Rockheart couldn’t help but be moved by the dedication and the work ethic of the fungaloid. Logan and his cohort were waking up early six days a week, practicing their cultivation techniques, and spending each evening in the library before it closed. Then, on Monday nights, Logan and Inga had their usual time in the Tartarucha Cells. That, though, was troublesome. Two cores working together? It wasn’t natural. However, it had become a phenomenon at the school. All of the professors—from Shadowcroft to Arketa the Hellgazer to John Toothbyte—all of them were fascinated by the antics of the two.
Rockheart had his own opinions.
Yes, the astral moth had promise, yet she lacked focus as well as social skills. She was not well liked. And yes, perhaps the minotaur, Treacle, wasn’t so bad—he had managed to get some time in the simulation dungeons, and he was progressing quickly in his crafting class. But their satyr friend was unbearable. He did the bare minimum unless it involved trips to the Wayfarer Inn or boozy adventures in the town of Vralkag.
Rockheart was scowling when Logan approached, walking on the Iceblade grass and making a number of annoying sounds. “Oof. Ouch. Ack.”
The toadstool came up and put his hands on his little hips. “Listen, Professor, I hope to do better when I go from a Toadstool to a Shroomian Acolyte.” The fungaloid seemed cheerful despite the burns, the missing limbs, and the heinous slashes from the bladed grass.
The gargoyle-griffin sniffed. “Yes, yes, your progress is amusing, and I do appreciate your efforts. In fact, the entire Azure Dragon Clan is mildly impressed. At least you haven’t actively lost us any points. However, the same cannot be said of your satyr friend. He is late, he is obnoxious, and he takes nothing seriously. Any points you have won for the Azure Dragons have been taken away by the satyr.”
“I’ll talk to him,” the mushroom man said solemnly. “But my progress is weighed in the ranking. I’ve been doing my part.”
“You’ve studied hard in all your other classes,” Rockheart agreed begrudgingly. “Too bad you are failing in this one, which is the single most important class of all, Mr. Murray. As a dungeon core, it’s critical that you be a living weapon. In the real world, you won’t have your astral moth friend to help protect a Celestial Node.”
Logan shook his head. “Maybe not, but I’ll find someone to partner up with. Here’s the thing. I don’t want to do this stuff alone, and I don’t have to. So I’ll suffer through your class, Professor, because in the end, I will pass it. No matter what. I’m not going to be winnowed out during finals.”
Rockheart bent down on both eagle knees so he could lock eyes with the fungaloid. The gargoyle-griffin kept his voice low. “Oh, but you will fall to the Winnowing. And you shouldn’t blame yourself. The Reaper Box should’ve known better. You don’t have the Apothos to succeed here, and you never should’ve been selected. And if you were to succeed? It might encourage others of inferior stock to attend this fine school. Rest assured that I will not allow that to happen. Not under my watch.”
The fungaloid had the audacity to laugh in his face. “Professor, I didn’t ask for this, but now that I’m here? I like it. And I like the idea of protecting the Tree of Souls. I’m going to fight to stay, so you better get used to the idea of me being here.”