Logan was able to get his cohort back in the Akros Coliseum that night after dinner, but no one was happy about it. Even Inga was less than thrilled and she loved training and unnecessary work. But she insisted they’re normal routine was to study in the library in the evenings, and adding a second cultivation session would cut into her reading time.

Logan, though, wasn’t going to get mired in theory. They needed to cultivate and spar, since Rainsap’s class was going to be a waste of time.

Instead of pure cultivation, they worked combat forms, pairing off against one another, and switching partners frequently, until no one could stand. Fighting with Inga was always a challenge, but he knew her like the back of his hand—especially because they were bonded through symbiosis. But the others were far trickier. Marko, for all his goofing off, was actually a powerhouse of a Guardian, and he was remarkably skilled with both throwing daggers and a rapier. Part of his training as a noble before coming to Shadowcroft. As for Treacle… the former Gnome prince was a beast. Physical domineering with his Mallus ability and enough high-tech gradatory tucked away to make Ironman blush.

Logan was technically at a higher Rank than the minotaur now, but one on one it was really no contest—Treacle won.

The next morning, Logan sat alone on the stone seats of the coliseum, still sore from night before. He wore his Azure Dragon robes, the hood pulled over his mushroom cap. Clouds drifted overhead in a midnight blue sky . He’d slept, fitfully, but he was eating well. Ed the Rot Troll had somehow found a rabbit, and it was currently in Logan’s digestion pit. Tasted like chicken.

Logan watched the silvery clouds drift across the plum-colored sky, felt the fall chill, and then had to wonder about how weather worked on Arborea. It wasn’t like there was a natural climate. Maybe it mimicked the environment of a nearby world? That was as good an explanation as any.

The magnificent Shadowcroft Castle rose up into the new morning’s sky. The arms of the dormitories and common rooms created a cross on the grounds. Logan sat in the northeastern arena, appreciating the architecture and wondering if he was pushing his cohort too hard. He quickly dismissed the thought. They were tough, those three. They’d proven they could endure almost anything last year. They might complain, but it was like when he ran landscaping crews, back when he’d been human. Complaining crews would work. It was when they stopped complaining that you had real trouble on your hands.

Back then, Logan would get to the job site first to set the example and to get things ready.

Logan rarely thought about his human life anymore, but sometimes he did miss his house in Colorado and his dogs. So, today, he was going to give himself a treat. He let spores leak out of his gills. The white mist coalesced on the dirt of the running track. The spores thickened into three fungal masses, half-made and lumpy. Logan added a touch more Apothos, thanks to the Bugs Bunny in his pit, then released Rapid Growth Spores. Four legs and a tail emerged from the masses followed by a head, stuck to the body on a thick neck. Bat-like ears grew out of the sides of the heads of his Spore Wargs. They were pale, squat and beefy. They didn’t have eyes, but they did have wide smiling mouths with lots of teeth.

He named the three Spore Wargs after his three puppers back on Earth. Noodle Doodle, Princess Peach, and Booker DeWitt.

The Wargs seemed rudimentary, but they were oddly smart and seemed to remember their former lives even after being re-absorbed. They bounded up onto the stands, short tails waggling. All three demanded love in the form of scratches, chin scritches, and ton of petting.

Logan laughed, feeling better.

He almost missed the form that came flying out of the sky.

The rector prime, Yullis Rockheart, landed in the dirt. The griffin-shaped gargoyle stood on his proud lion legs and frowned. Today he wore a pristine doublet over his barrel chest and a knitted scarf in the colors of his clan, the Azure Dragons. As sharp dressed as ever. For a monster, at least. “Good. I see you are preparing yourself for Professor Arketa’s class on minions. I think the name she’s chosen is ridiculous, of course—Best Friends Forever: Your Minions and You—but I’m sure she’ll do a fine job teaching it.”

The rector prime stood with his wings closed and his hands behind his back. His face looked like a cloudy day wanting to thunder. But the bleak expression cracked into an approving smile as the rest of Logan’s cohort arrived with Marko and Steve leading the way. “Don’t start without us!” the satyr called, one hand cupped around his mouth.

Logan was relieved. He wasn’t sure if his cohort would be up for another session—not after last night. Maybe Inga was right and they should stick to one extra cultivation session per day. Recovery was an important part of growth, too.

Rockheart nodded. “I suspected I might find the rest of you here as well. Your work ethic was one of the things I begrudgingly admired about you misfits last year.”

The Spore Wargs bounded off the stands to sniff the gargoyle, but he must not have smelled very friendly because they ran off to get pets from Marko. They avoided Steve completely. The mannequin tried to pet one, and the fungal pup growled at the mannequin. The dummy looked dejected. Aw. Poor Steve.

Logan stood. “Thank you, Professor, we do like our work, but may I ask what you’re doing here?”

“What do you mean, Mr. Murray? Did you really think we were done, you and I?” Rockheart asked, eyeing the fungaloid. “I told you I would hone you into a weapon of unimaginable power and that doesn’t stop just because a new school year has begun in earnest. Especially not since, unfortunately, I’m unable to teach your Pain and Torture class this year. Shadowcroft and I find ourselves in a bit of a disagreement, this time on the credentials of Moonbow”—Rockheart had to swallow his gorge—“Rainsap, the Snake Sage of Solitude.”

It was pretty clear what Rockheart thought about the hippy snake guy.

“So, I will be personally attending to these morning sessions of yours,” the gargoyle continued matter-of-factly. “And you, at least, Mr. Murry, will be spending your free period under my expert tutelage. Now, prepare yourself. We have training to do.”

Logan wanted to ask him more about his work in the Xiru Forest, and to get more info on Moonbow Rainsap, but the fungaloid never had the chance.

Rockheart lifted a hand. Nearly a dozen black-fire portals spun into existence. And what did emerge? Not doomhounds. Not hellhounds. But something completely different. And bigger.

At some point, Inga had mentioned pit-hounds. These were definitely those. They rushed forward like magma flows, growling like dire wolves crossed with ogre dogs dipped in hell sauce. Their skin was midnight ink, but instead of tails, they had the black fire, snapping back and forth like a Balrog’s whip. Their claws leaked oil onto the Iceblade grass. The grease ignited, so with every step they left a trail of burning footprints. Their mouths were full of bright yellow teeth. Their eyes were black holes that put a bad feeling in his gut. Literally pit eyes.

Okay, great, stare too long into the abyss and the abyss stares into you before chewing through your skull like a rottweiler with a Cabbage Patch doll.

Logan triggered his Corry rings, named after Flynn Corry, the now deceased dungeoneer he’d killed during the Winnowing. They still had to figure out what the third ring did, but the other two he had down pat. In a flash, Logan was clad in powerful armor. An enormous leather war belt, covered in opal glyphs, concealed his gemstone core. The belt worked with a fur-lined leather skirt called a pteruges—Marko swore by them, both for their maneuverability and for the breeze. Logan also had light leather greaves and matching fur-lined bracers to cover his vulnerable legs and forearms. A single spiked pauldron also decorated his right shoulder.

Looking at the formidable creatures, he wasn’t sure how much good the armor would do. But the twin silver short swords that appeared in his hands might seemed to deter the creatures for half a heartbeat.

“Now this is training!” Logan called out to his friends, grinning ear to ear. “Terrible Twelfth! Let’s show Rockheart how we do things!”

Inga took wing, cutting high above the stadium, and summoned her giant centipedes. The minions started off as only wriggling worms but as they fell like cannonballs toward the earth, leaving impact craters in the ground. In seconds, they charged one of the pit-hounds in a mass of writhing legs and snapping mandibles. Rockheart’s minions responded in kind. One let loose a gout of scorching blue-black flames, charbroiling one of Inga’s critters, while another pit hound snapped through armored centipede legs with reckless abandon. But the centipedes weren’t going down without a fight, swarming one of the hellish ogre wolves.

Inga landed and immediately transformed into giant heavy metal caterpillar using her Metamorphosis ability. She was a behemoth of segmented steel plates and crushing jaws. Chrome mandibles snapped through one pit-hound and ripped the head off another. Boiling hot blood splashed onto the grass.

Good ol’ Inga had taken out three of the hounds but there were at least another half-dozen.

Treacle strode forward, chewing cud like a major leg pitcher chawing on tobacco in game seven of the world series. Goggles, hiding away in his skull, snapped across his eyes. His right arm opened up and a spring-loaded contraption put a hammer into his hand—and not just any mallet, but a magical Terran hammer made of enchanted stone. Treacle slammed the weapon into the ground, unleashing a shockwave that sent two pit-hounds sprawling before they exploded in a gout of magma and stone. A third was stunned but not slain.

Treacle’s left hand flipped open and various cogs, gears, and gizmos came spilling out. The items whirled and buzzed, coming together like something out of a Lego video game. The machinery snapped into place, while at the same time growing skin, muscle, and horns in a frightening display of technomancy. Treacle’s minions, his Ugknot Calflings, came to life, clutching ball-pean hammers, box cutters, and giant wrenches. The miniature minotaurs stampeded toward the stunned pit-hound.

While his minions ended the ogre wolf, Treacle summoned his Fulgur Apothos and let fly a lightning attack which sizzled another pit-hound into charcoal.

Marko grinned. “Wow. You guys are awesome. Get ‘em, Steve.”

Steve took a step forward and was immediately stepped on and ground into the dirt underneath the massive paws of a pit-hound.

Marko winced. “Dude. Ouch. Sorry.”

Luckily, Marko was far from powerless. He conjured a wooden flute from thin air and started up a mesmerizing dance—pipping merrily at his instrument as he shuffled his feet. The hellish wolf couldn’t tear his eyes away from the Dark Muse. With one hand, Marko effortlessly plucked his trio of magical throwing knives from his bandoliers and let them fly. One disappeared into an abysmal eye, doing zero damage. The pit eyes weren’t the key. Luckily, the other knives peppered the chest of the pit-hound. One found the thing’s heart and it slumped forward. The blades reappeared in the bandolier, ready for another round.

Another dog sped toward Marko, mouth open to reveal fangs capable of reducing the satyr into gyros meat. However, the sun had risen, which meant shadows.

Marko laughed, his eyes wide, his horned head thrown back. His flute vanished in a glimmer of inky black and he seemed to grow bigger, darker, as if possessed by an evil power. He clenched his hands into fists and flung them up into the air.

The pit-hound’s shadow leapt on the hound itself, shredding it into Purina dog chow.

All the while, Marko’s eerie laughter filled the coliseum like rolling thunder. He was going to kill it in his Advanced Dungeon Sounds and Music Design class.

It was Logan’s turn. His Spore Wargs ripped into the front legs of the nearest pit-hound, vicious teeth ripping through pebbled skin and into the muscle below. The pit hound was too powerful for the Spore Warg to take down alone, but his pup made for one heck of a distraction. Logan dashed forward, blurring with speed thanks to his Pneumacity ability. With his cells full of air and power, running almost felt like flying. At the last moment, he released Pneumacity, activating Exoskeleton instead. Bony plates sprouted along his arms and legs, covering his body in natural armor. He sideswiped the pit-hound, knocking the creature off balance, then drove his dual swords into the beast’s exposed ribs.

He drew fiery red-black blood with his blades, but the creature retaliated, slamming a blocky head into Logan’s chest—hurling him back several feet. This time, he released Exoskeleton, and siphoned air into every cell, becoming light, though brittle. Logan backpaddled, releasing a wave of deadly spores as he moved. The pit hound charged into the invisible mist. Big mistake. Black snot erupted from the thing’s nose, and it flopped onto the ground, sneezing, eyes dripping, having a total allergic reaction thanks to Logan’s Pollinic Affliction power.

Noodle, Peach, and Booker charged, swarming the downed creature in a wave of tearing teeth and snapping jaws, ripping the creature apart at the seams.

Logan turned, grinning. “And that was without my Waddlers, Rockheart. You’re lucky Mariah Carey wasn’t here, or you and your pit-hounds would’ve been in real trouble.”

Rockheart nodded grimly. “I do not know of this Mariah Carey—but she sounds formidable. However, you did well with round one. Perhaps you might survive round two. Or perhaps not.” Thirty portals opened up and thirty pit-hounds came charging out.

Logan frowned. Well crap. This… This was gonna hurt. At least he’d get to use his Replicate skill. Logan steeled himself for what was to come and rushed headlong into the fray, swords swinging, spore blazing. He and his friends lasted all of three minutes.

After the fight, which the Terrible Twelfth lost soundly, they staggered to breakfast, scorched, torn, and basically ruined. They sat proudly, though, while the other dungeon cores eyed them askew, obviously wondering what had happened to them. Who’s bad side did you get on, those looks said. Very few would believe that this was actually what Rockheart’s goodside looked like. And the thing was, as painful as the experience had been, Logan was genuinely grateful for it. Sure, having your arms and legs torn off is never fun, but it was still better than Rainsap’s sappy contemplation lectures any day of the weak.

Inga and Treacle left their breakfast early to get to their electives. Inga wanted to wash up before heading to Nekhbet’s next snooze fest. Treacle had to get to the DIE Pavilion so he could teleport up north to the World Forge Wastes for Crucible’s blunt weapons class. Rockheart had told Logan in on uncertain terms that he would be spending his free periods receiving more hands-on training, but Rockheart let him off the hook considering how badly he’d obliterated them all this morning.

So instead, Logan dragged Marko, and newly healed Steve, down the Stairwell of True Seeing, through the Undercroft Lobby, and to the Codex Athenaeum for a little studying. They survived a pit trap in the library and avoided some poison darts, though Logan didn’t have to worry about toxins. It was just one of the many bonuses of being a fungaloid that had survived his first year. Heck, at this point, he could toss back poisons like cocktails—most of them even tasted pretty good thanks to his new fungaloid sensibilities. Marko read through some more contemporary books on sounds design—trying to get a leg up for his class with Arketa the Hellgazer—while Logan looked for more books on Arborea and the Four Guardians.

Professor Nekhbet’s class was tedious, but the content itself had Logan intrigued. Many of the people in this school already knew about Cultivation and the Tree of Souls long before ever stepping foot here, but not Logan. Earth, a world once rich in Apothos, had withered over the past several thousand years—only a husk of what it had once been. Only bits of a pieces of the true history remained, all passed down in myths and legends from various cultures around the world. Logan was eager to learn all that had been lost.

Unfortunately, he was no Inga when it came to the library and all he managed to find were generic intro guides that seemed to be aimed primarily at five-year olds. Admittedly, the pop ups were great.

They all met back in the Golden Serpent Hall for lunch.

Inga sat at the table, pale and shaking.

“What in the hell happened?” Logan asked, worried. She’d been less rattled after being nearly torn apart by the demonic pit-hounds.

“I, uh, my elective, is going to be…” Inga’s face lost all expression. She looked like a vet with a bad case of PTSD. Logan had seen soldiers with that same thousand-yard stare, glassy-eyed and hazy.

Even Marko seemed genuinely concerned. “Inga, come on, tell us. Steve is worried.”

The mannequin sat motionless with zero expression in its face. Nothing in its eye impressions. Nothing noticeable on its ink stain of a mouth.

“I cannot discuss it yet,” Inga said quietly. She listlessly pushed her honey and spaghetti noodles around her plate. Supper gross combo, though who was Logan to judge? “I appreciate the concern, really I do. But I just need for time to process it all. Treacle,” she said, eyeing the minotaur, “how as your elective?”

“Blunt force trauma creates interesting bruises,” he said, crunching hay. “Some cultures see bruises as an art form. In other news, I do like blueprints probably a bit more than I should.” He then went back to chewing.

It was nice to see the minotaur being a little less dour than usual. Crucible was probably as hard on Treacle as Rockheart was on Logan, but the extra crafting classes were doing him some serious good.

Marko frowned as he ate his shrimp burrito. Growing up on the storied beaches of Sangretta, the satyr loved seafood only a little less than he loved booze. “Come on, Inga, please. Even I’m getting worried, and I don’t worry—terrible for your completion. If not for Logan and the others, do it for my fabulously immaculate skin.”

Inga sighed, opened her mouth to speak, but was promptly interrupted.

The big-bellied, stick-limbed kitchen ghast that had been staring at them since orientation sat down, uninvited, and tipped his fedora. His nasally voice grated on every nerve Logan had. “Greetings and salutations, my fellow Shadowcroft students! Oh, my, Inga, what about that cutlery class?” He snorted, and grinned, showing his serrated steel teeth. “Wow. I like some complexity, but come on? Did you guys know that during a full moon, in Vrahoh—the month of sorrow—that it’s unheard of for the Eritrean Elite to use a two-pronged fork for their shrimp? No, you can’t do it. I mean”—another snort—“you could, but then everyone would be laughing at you until the Forevergreen Festival. And don’t get my started about the soup spoons during the Feast of the Lily Oracle.”

Steve’s head creaked to take in the intruder who had just unloaded on them after the hat tip.

“Words,” Marko said, mystified. “Snorting. Something about two-pronged forks? Spoons what? And, please, don’t mention the Forevergreen Festival. I’m allergic to the holiday. I break out in drunks. Multiple.”

Logan blinked for a minute, the remembered his manners. “Uh, hi. Sorry for being so rude. You’re one of the transfer students right? And apparently the other person who signed up for Nekhbet’s cutlery class?”

“The Cutlery of Eritreus!” Mr. Fedora said grandly, annunciating every syllable. “I suspect our dear Inga here might be a bit unsettled. Understandable.” Insert snort. “After I read Eliza P. Perfect’s first book, The Dinner Party of the Polite God, I couldn’t sleep for a week. Not an ounce of shuteye, no, no, no. The subtleties can be disconcerting.”

Inga let out a shaky breath. “For the first time in my life, I fear I might be in over my head. The fifty butter knives caught me off guard. I mean, Bart alluded to them in his masterpiece, but I simply thought it might be hyperbole. Surely there cannot be fifty different types of butter knives.”

“Hyperbole?” Mr. Fedora tipped his hat and shook his head in glee. “Not a bit. And speaking of manners, please allow me to properly introduce myself. My name is hyperbole. Ha, not really. I am called Melvin R. Chevalier, a kitchen ghast of the highest order. As you mentioned, I’m a transfer student, hailing from Nightfall University. Just one of those lucky enough to be chosen by the most wonderful school in the multiverse. Aren’t you all just dizzy to be here?”

Marko raised a hand. “Dizzy. Right here. Marko Laskarelis. Pleased to meet me.”

The kitchen ghast pushed his hat back to show sparse greasy hair clinging to the mottled flesh of his dead scalp. “Mr. Laskarelis, you need not introduce yourself to me, sir. I know all about the Terrible Twelfth. Why, you are the very reason I wanted to transfer. I could’ve gone anywhere. Not to brag, but I could brag—a great deal of boasting, not that I would boast—but I could.” He waved a long, pale fingers at them. Everything about him was long and thin except for his bloated belly, his chubby chin, and his wide face. Pale blue eyes sat above a thin nose and chapped lips cracked to show his jagged metal teeth. The guy was genuinely unnerving and Logan dissolved chicken in a pit of digestive acid.

Honestly, Logan had no idea what to make of the kitchen ghast. “Why are you here for us, Melvin?”

“You can call me Mel or Vin or Melv or Melvin,” the guy said. “Just don’t call me late to dinner. Gosh, I was nervous, but you four are the greatest.”

Treacle hadn’t said a word. He sat chewing, staring with dull eyes at Mr. Fedora.

Melvin chuckled. “Oh, Treacle, you’re hilarious. Now I would love to hear about your classes,” he said, neatly sidestepping Logan’s question. “And again, don’t worry, Inga, if you need to look at my notes, maybe we can study together in the library. A little private time, you and I.”

Inga wasn’t so pale anymore. Now, she looked pissed. “I doubt I’ll need the help, Mr. Chevalier.”

“Mr. Chevalier was my dad! It’s just Melvin, milady.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

“I most certainly will not ever call you that.” Inga pushed her plate away.

The kitchen ghast killed appetites like he’d kill a party—with extreme prejudice. It was super awkward, and Logan knew why. You couldn’t force friendliness, and that was what Melvin was doing. It would’ve been world’s better if he’d have eased himself into the conversation without trying to hijack it.

Worse, he wasn’t leaving. Maybe the guy could read The Dinner Party of the Polite God, but, boy, he could not read a room. Lunch was more painful than fighting the pit-hounds.

Even Marko couldn’t hack it. He grabbed Steve and loudly dismissed himself so he could chat with GK and Nemoy.

Melvin was going on about some kind of special long fork you used for an Eritrean holiday called the Wretched Hallow, when Nemoy started making armpit farting sounds. Classic Nemoy.

Marko silenced the dining hall with his laughter. Easy audience.

Inga excused herself, mumbling something about getting ready for their afternoon minion class with Professor Arketa. She looked both angry at Melvin but also oddly disappointed in herself.

When she rose, Melvin did as well. He tipped his hat. “Milady.”

She winced, smiled weakly, and left grasping her grimoire to her chest.

That left Logan and Treacle trapped with their unwanted table guest—who still had told them why he was so interested in the Terrible Twelfth.

Still the ghast sat. “So, Mr. Murray, rumor has it that you and Inga are, as they say, romantically inclined.” Another eyebrow waggle.

“Just friends,” Logan said uneasily. Watching the kitchen ghast hit on Inga had put a bad feeling in his gut. “This has been awesome, but I was really hoping we could circle back around to the part about you coming to Shadowcroft for us?”

Melvin didn’t answer. He waved over at Chef Treegee, who was gesturing to the kitchen ghast from across the room. Chef Treegee was a tall willowish creature with drooping branches he kept tied up above his thin head, held in place by a twine hairnet. He wore chef’s whites splashed with grease, kinda like Melvin, only Melvin’s whites were brilliant bright—as bright as his overly large tennis shoes, which matched his fedora not at all.

“If you’ll excuse me, gentleman,” Melvin squeaked, “but I believe I am being summoned by our very talented cook.” He stood, tipped his hat, and left them with a quip. “I’ll show myself out.”

He waltzed away with happy steps, light as a feather despite his weight and odd proportions.

Logan sighed. “That was painful.”

Treacle chewed, staring straight ahead.

“You okay, Treac?” Logan asked.

The minotaur turned his head. His neck was filling out and he wasn’t so gaunt anymore. That was nice.

More chewing.

“You’re not talking,” Logan pointed out.

Treacle Glimmerhappy swallowed. “I’ve spent the last twenty minutes in my happy place. And what is my happy place? Blueprints and hay fields and a recreation of my Plimpkinny workshop, which I am putting together in my current residence. That Melvin R. Chevalier is a bore.”

Logan couldn’t agree more. But what was Melvin doing at Shadowcroft? Add it to the growing pile of mysteries. Well, outside of their history class, it seemed their second year was shaping up to be an interesting one indeed.

Logan and Treacle grabbed Marko and they hurried off to their afternoon minion class.