Logan spun the wheelbarrow around when he got to the stairs of the Azure Dragon dormitory. He then backed up the steps—bump, bump, bump—just as he’d done so many times before while working at his landscaping job, then rolled into the common room of the Azure Dragon. Each clan had its own residential area for the students, complete with common room and dormitories. Those dorm rooms were then split by class.

The common area was a welcoming space with gray stone floors covered by plush rugs edged in blues and golds; the colors of the Azure Dragon clan. The massive fireplace sat cold. Heat wouldn’t be an issue for another month or so. Tables, chairs, and sofas were scattered across the room with walls displaying a variety of epic battles and fantasy creatures that would’ve made J.R.R. Tolkien consider another trilogy. The best painting hung above the cold fireplace, depicting a massive blue dragon encircling the golden Tree of Souls, Ashvattha.

That painting always reminded Logan why he was here. What the point of the Academy was: To teach dungeons how to protect the celestial nodes where worlds were connected to the Tree of Souls. And not just that, but to safeguard the tree itself from the dungeoneers who would raid its finite resources for their own personal gain.

Dungeon cores stuffed the common room, and each of the monsters in their guardian form had their core gem embedded in their bellies or chests. Some wore clothes to enhance the gems—like Lady Elesiel of Everstar, for example, the lich-queen girlfriend of Chadrigoth, who wasn’t around. Lady Elesiel’s dress had been cut low to show an ample amount of undead cleavage, which wasn’t as gross as you’d think… at least if you were a fungaloid. Her core, set prominently into her chest, glowed with a green necrotic energy. Nearby was Jimi Magmarty—another member of the First Cohort— who didn’t bother to wear clothes at all. His gem was lodged in the rock and mud of his big Earth elemental frame. Tet-Akhat lingered close to the pair. Tet was a black-furred cat-headed woman in blue and gold robes. Her gem was concealed.

The cat woman gave Logan a nod and the ghost of a smile.

Logan returned both. He wasn’t close to Tet, not exactly, but of all the other dungeons outside of his cohort, Tet was the one he’d missed the most.

He threaded his way through the various people, and then walked right into a slime-y trail left behind by the Gelatinous Knight. GK was chatting with what looked like the world’s oldest merman—and not just a merman, but a zombie as well. His thin hair was falling out, his wrinkled face looked like it might drop a cheek at any moment, and the scales on his fin were flecking off. Kinda gross—and that was coming from a guy who ate his meals through a digestion pit. When the merman talked, he flashed a mouth full of shark teeth. He then turned his tail into legs. Luckily, the guys tunic covered his junk because that was a sight Logan did not want to see.

The zombie merman was probably one of the incoming first years because Logan didn’t recognize him.

He heard Marko laughter and the clip-clop of his hooves on the stone floor.

The crowed momentarily parted, revealing Logan’s friends in the corner. Inga Thora Therian sat with Treacle Glimmerhappy at the corner table. There was someone else there, but all eyes were on the satyr as he laughed and danced. Marko had a deep-seated need to be the life of the party, and with his formidable abilities as a Dark Muse, he could do so with ease.

Logan felt his heart swell. It had been so long! They’d all worked the summer away and hadn’t spent any time together. Logan had missed their camaraderie like nothing else. One of the best parts of his life, both before the strange Academy and after he’d become a mushroom mage, had been that feeling of esprit de corps. It was the feeling you got when friends were family, and family were friends.

Inga was heart-stoppingly beautiful, though she would argue day and night about that point. Once upon a time, she’d been an owl-like creature with enormous wings and curling antlers. Her lack of plumage disturbed her greatly. Instead of golden eyes and a sharp beak, she was an elegant humanoid creature with blue and black moth wings folded around her shoulders like a regal cloak.. Her antennae twirled above her dark eyes. She was pale and pretty and clothed in Azure Dragon robes. She was almost as tall as Treacle, but not as wide as the minotaur. Normally. But now? Treacle looked gaunt and a little mangy.

What had happened to him? He looked like he’d lost a hundred pounds, easy.

Besides being so thin, the minotaur had various machinery set into his brown fur, which sometimes sparked with arcane electricity. He wasn’t a steampunk minotaur—a point he drove home over and over again—but rather was an alchemic machinist. He even had the lightning and chemical reactions to prove it. Treacle sat working a screwdriver into the iron plate inset into his left forearm.

Treacle wasn’t interested in Marko’s performance, though Inga was. She smiled as the satyr boogied across the stone, waving his hands as he summoned music from the thin air. The goat man moved with natural rhythm all while effortlessly spinning a tall tale that left the gathered core’s grinning from ear to ear. Assuming they had mouths—which wasn’t always the case. Curved ram horns eased back from a furry face including a little beard sticking out of his chin. His arms and legs were also hairy, with feet ending black goat’s hooves. His fancy gem-studded robe, which he’d won during finals, was folded on a nearby bench. He wore a tunic with words on the front—THE ORIGNAL G.O.A.T.

Ha. Goat. As in the “Greatest Of All Time!”

As for the guy sitting next to Inga? The figure looked familiar, though… but no, it couldn’t be.

Logan pushed the wheelbarrow through the crowd to get to his friends.

Marko stopped dancing, spun, and a joyous light filled his weird goat eyes. “Buddy! Logan Murray! My main mushroom man! It’s been so long!”

The entire room hushed for a second, and then there was cheering, as Marko pulled Logan in a big bear hug.

Logan wasn’t sure if it was for him, or for Marko, or just an explosion of happiness. However, it was probably for the satyr, since he was one of the most popular people at the school, friends with everyone.

Treacle glanced up. “Hello, Logan. Nice wheelbarrow.” His ears flicked as he regarded the wheelbarrow more closely. “Wait.No, no, it’s not. It’s rather pathetic really. Definitely inefficient.”

“Happy to see me?” Logan asked.

“I glimmer with happiness,” Treacle said with a sigh. “It’s in the name.”

Logan snorted and rolled his eyes. Classic Treacle.

Inga got up and hugged Logan. She smelled sweet and familiar. She eased him back, holding him at arm’s length as she regarded him. “You didn’t visit me in the library once, Logan Murray. Not so much as a single time.”

Logan winced. “Sorry. Rockheart was putting me through the ringer. You know how he is—that which does not kill us makes us want to die because it nearly killed us. And maybe makes us stronger.”

“Are you stronger?” she asked.

“I did level, but—”

Inga cut him off. “The library was amazing, by the way. I created my own nest in the pit trap over in periodicals. Getting back to my nest at night was always an adventure—what with the traps and all—but it was worth every near death. Madam Orry Gammy is a true archivist, and I learned so much from her. She knows every book in that place, and most of the scrolls, though I found some indices she’s forgotten about.” She seemed to preen in happiness even though she no longer had feathers.

“So it was worth coming to Shadowcroft?” Logan asked.

Inga was already moving onto the next subject. “Marko was just telling us about a certain midsummer night. There was drinking involved.”

Marko laughed. “Not so much drinking. I’m not in full flight from reality. I dip my toe in consciousness every once in a while. It feels like a bathtub full of orphan tears. But seriously, that night was amazing. Enrico Kagster was there, and he never leaves Vralkag. He brought some of his grape-flavored Liverkill. It’s like wine, if wine were poison.”

“So, did your work-study at the Wayfarer Inn with GK go okay?” Logan asked. “Did you have fun?”

“Fun?” Marko rolled his goat eyes. “I always have fun. But it wasn’t the party it should’ve been because you’ve infected me with this miserable work ethic nonsense.”

Logan glanced over at the strange figure sitting in the chair, motionless. Up close, Logan recognized it as one of Marko’s white plaster mannequins, vaguely creepy, like the mannequins in the horror video game Layers of Fear 2. The mannequin’s limbs were connected by rusted iron joints. He didn’t have eyes, just impressions in the plaster, on either side of the slope of his nose. His mouth was an ink stain. Which didn’t make the mannequin any less creepy. And it had a tunic on that matched Marko’s only the mannequin’s said I’M NOT A DUMMY—YOUR MOM IS.

Logan grimaced. “What’s with the mom hater?”

“Who him?” Marko hooked a thumb toward the dummy. “That’s Steve! Believe it or not, but I did summer homework! Me. Summer homework. I saw a doctor, and they suggested I self-medicate. But I didn’t. Because of—yeah, you guessed it—your dumb work ethic.”

Inga returned to her seat and scooted a little farther away from Steve.

Treacle opened the metal plate in his arm. “You didn’t ask about my summer, Logan. But that’s okay. I have a feeling Steve is going to take up most of the spotlight.”

Marko came over and gripped Logan’s shoulder. “Old four stomachs isn’t wrong. Steve is hilarious. A real showman, and that’s coming from someone who was practically born on the stage.”

The mannequin just sat there.

Logan threw a glance at his astral moth friend. “Inga?”

She was already onto the next subject. “Treacle spent the summer—”

Rockheart strode into the common room, clapping his stone hands together like a thundercrack.

The sound was loud enough to silence everyone. “Greetings, my clan. Welcome to your orientation day. Your room assignments will be in your DCGs. The Treegees will be bringing your things there. You will have one hour to unpack.”

The Treegees were various plant, tree, and shrubbery creatures that acted as the staff at the Shadowcroft Academy for Dungeons. Logan wasn’t sure if they were connected to Shadowcroft or not, though they seemed to be. Maybe his minions? There was still a lot he didn’t know about how exactly Arborea—the interdimensional plane where the Academy was located—worked. Hopefully, he’d be able to fix that this year.

Rockheart pointed at him. “Murray, that wheelbarrow needs to be returned to the shed. I sent a Treegee over, but you were already gone.”

“I came here as soon as I cultivated.”

“Good answer. I would expect nothing less.” Rockheart addressed the rest of the room, his eyes narrow, his hands folded behind his back. He looked for all the world like a Drill Sergeant inspecting his recruits. “Breakfast starts at nine sharp and then we’ll discuss the year ahead. Many of you will not survive it, so please leave your suitcases, backpacks, and bags so we can ship your belongings to your next of kin. One hour!” The gargoyle griffin spun and strode out of the room.

Logan turned to find Steve the mannequin staring right at him.

Logan took a cautious step back. “So, uh, what is the story here?” he asked, eyeing the weirdo mannequin askew.

Inga shot to her feet. “Pluck my back feathers, we only have an hour, and I acquired some books over the summer. Let’s get going.”

Treacle tapped a metal plate on his arm and his grimoire popped out, unfolding with a hiss of pistons and the clank of gears. “We have rooms in the Ladder Hole.” He sighed.

Logan motioned to the plaster dummy. “Hey, Earth to everyone.” He tried to snap his fingers but failed. Stupid teenage mutant ninja turtle hands. “What are you guys not telling. What’s the deal with this the mannequin—”

The sudden squeak from Steve’s joints made Logan jump back in surprise. The plaster dummy raised a screeching arm. His thumb creaked upward. He then dropped both his hand and his arm to let it swing, eerily squeaking. Whueak-eek. Whueak-eek. Whueak-eek.

Logan felt a chill run up his spine. What was Steve? And what was the Ladder Hole?