Feathers held up her puny stick, but the caterpillar smashed her like a pesky fly, crushing the harbinger beneath her steely bulk. Feathers was dead in seconds, and the spell-caster followed shortly, as Inga’s mandibles finished off what the Spore Wargs and Blister Wart had started.
Logan couldn’t believe the carnage. Then he remembered, unlike him, Inga had chosen a powerful guardian form, and this was why he had teamed up with her in the first place. Sure, he could grow a bunch of mushrooms, but for pure physical power? That was all Inga... all the time.
Inga inched her way into the sanctum and wrapped herself around the pedestal in a gorgeous if creepy display of victory.
Logan watched the tableau she created. Their gems glowed, creating shadows in the mushroom forest even while her chrome caterpillar body glowed, ghostly and grotesque, covered in the blood of the raiders.
PROFESSOR YULLIS ROCKHEART watched the astral moth’s victory dance for the tenth time with an uneasy feeling in his stony belly. He sat at his pristinely clean desk, in his perfectly ordered office, near the top of the Shadowcroft Castle. His office was packed with books, statues of his ancestors, portraits of former students who had become Heartwood-level dungeons, and of course, the paperwork that went with being the rector prime of the best dungeon core school in the multiverse. Everything had its place. Excellence required order and discipline.
Rockheart was alone for a moment, though he’d been meeting with other professors all day long, to go over grades, to evaluate students, and to review footage from the Placement Exams in the Tartarucha Cells. The exams were finally finished—the last student, Treacle Glimmerhappy, had run his course over an hour ago. Rockheart should’ve been relieved that the testing was done, but he wasn’t. He’d been shaken.
Nothing had prepared him for Inga Thosa Therian’s dance. It was impressive... as was the sanctum itself, with its fungal threats and those Spike Flies. Both proved deadly.
Yes, technically, Arfgar of the Hill People had made it to the inner sanctum, but he’d been killed almost immediately. All in all, the dungeon had been mediocre at best, without much style or pizzazz, except, of course, for that sanctum, which was the stuff of nightmares.
Far more impressive was how the two dungeon cores had used their resources. Their strategies had been impeccable, especially killing the rogue first. Their performance had been exemplary. And troubling.
Could he be wrong about these poor, Apothos-starved students? Without a doubt, Logan Murray had helped the Azure Dragon Clan on the leaderboards. The fungaloid had proven himself, again and again, as being a most worthy opponent. He’d passed the Threshing and even defeated the dungeoneers in the Slaughter Pits, which was no small feat. After that, Rockheart had pushed them to the limit in Core Calisthenics, forced them to endure a grueling level of training, all in a bid to break the Terrible Twelfth. Yet exactly the opposite had happened.
They’d grown closer together, worked harder, and exceeded even Shadowcroft’s expectations for the quartet. And yet Rockheart couldn’t let go of his utter disdain. True, the Terrible Twelfth had improved, but they shouldn’t have come to Shadowcroft in the first place. Shadowcroft needed to recruit the best and the brightest. What should happen if word got out about Logan and the others? Their unorthodox tactics could result in the besmirching of the vaunted Shadowcroft name. It was unseemly and unbecoming for a school as prestigious as this. Perhaps it would even push potential candidates to consider other, inferior schools.
That he could not abide by.
Still... He was reluctantly coming around to the possibility that he’d been wrong about Logan. And most certainly about Inga. If there was one he hadn’t been wrong about, though, it was that disgusting satyr, Marko.
His performance had been a disgrace.
A knock at his door brought Rockheart out of his reverie. He waved a hand, opening the door with magic.
The clan leaders all rushed in: Professor Arketa of the Vermillion Phoenix, Professor Suresh the Merciless from the Crystal Tiger Clan, and lastly, Professor John Toothbyte of the Onyx Tortoise.
Arketa’s headscarf bulged with her excitement, and she kept having to adjust her sunglasses.
John Toothbyte’s normally dead shark eyes actually glittered enthusiastically. Even the haughty and distant Suresh the Merciless appeared to be blown away. The tiger-headed man kept twitching his ears, and by the Tree, the rakshasa was purring.
“Did you see what those two did?” Arketa cried. “And we both know Daggers McFinn was unusually adept today. Still, it was a complete murder, and I daresay Inga could’ve taken on another few raiders. Yes, Logan had to sacrifice his guardian form, and yet if these had been real raiders, he would’ve been able to heal himself, because each kill would’ve given him Apothos. Plus, his possession of the minions was brilliantly executed. That bit with the Spore Warg at the end was inspired.”
Professor Ronnalg Crucible ambled into the room. “I have to disagree, Ms. Hellgazer. The mushroom man was diced up into Eritreus stroganoff.”
“Aye,” John Toothbyte agreed. “Besides, is it fair for the pair to be running a dungeon together? They have pluck to try it, but it bends the rules, if not breaks them altogether.”
Suresh the Merciless nodded his feline head. “I agree. And why are we even talking about these less-than-stellar students? Your other Azure Dragon students did very well, did they not?”
Rockheart didn’t need to comment. All of the First Cohort had passed the Placement Exam. Prince Chadrigoth and the others rightly knew that they could easily take out the raiders in their inner sanctums, and they did, personally, with very minimal risk. In a way, their performance had been dreadfully average.
On the other hand, Logan and Inga had utilized every resource brilliantly.
Crucible frowned so deeply his forehead wrinkled into green hills. “None of us had doubts about the First Cohort. They’re fine. They did fine. I’d like to mention how well I thought one Treacle Glimmerhappy did. Nothing fancy. Just a finely crafted dungeon. That’s what we need more of.”
Rockheart had to admit that the minotaur’s dungeon had also been superior. He’d created a number of ingenious traps that had wiped out half the party before they reached the inner sanctum. Treacle had by grown leaps and bounds over the past few months, spurred on by Logan’s exemplary leadership. However, the final battle had been close.
Treacle’s sanctum had been a death trap of whirring gears and random sawblades buzzing out of the floors. The last two raiders—Sir Mediocritus and his wizard friend Hallsee the Sad—had won their way to the sanctum’s pedestal.
Treacle had fought them off with the last of his minions, two Ugknot Calflings. The short minions, half calf, half machine, had overwhelmed Sad Hallsee while Treacle plunged his battle-axe into the skull of Sir Mediocritus.
Suresh stopped purring to growl, “The minotaur did passably well, I suppose. I would like to return to this Logan creature and his moth girlfriend.”
“They’re just friends,” Arketa chimed in.
Rockheart sighed and shook his head at the Hellgazer.
Suresh pressed on. “I care nothing about the romantic lives of our students. I am more worried that this might become a precedent. Dungeon cores working together? It is a travesty, Rockheart. A travesty. Why anyone would want to work together is beyond me. Nevertheless, it is happening, and on your watch, no less.” He paused and regarded his claws. “Perhaps you’ve gone soft, Rockheart ol’ boy. Maybe Shadowcroft will consider a new rector prime come next year.”