Logan hit his moldy bed in his new room with a glad heart. He laid on his back, in the gloom, everything cast in a hazy purple light thanks to his Fungal Vision. Around him spun a world of glowing spores, hidden to the human eye. The gleaming particles allowed him to see the outlines of his furniture as well as a view of Loch Endless where massive monsters of scales and fin glided through murky depths.

His room was chilly and damp—in other words? Perfect. Before he went to sleep, he took a moment to nurture a few of his growing spore colonies. He was going to give Marko and the rest of his friends a little surprise come morning. He drifted off with his mushrooms growing around him in perfect peace. He had a few questions, sure, like who in the hell was Zuzanna Zantho and why had Chadrigoth retreated from her? Also, what was up with that weirdo in the fedora?

After the abyss lord had shouldered him down, Mr. Fedora had taken off, as if his courage had failed him. That night, at dinner, the ghast was back, though, sitting with some other transfer students. And all the while, the strange guy kept throwing shady glances over at Logan and the Terrible Twelfth.

After eating, Marko had taken off to Vralkag with Steve, GK, and Nemoy, the elderly undead merman. The satyr promised not to come in too late. He’d better not. They were going back to their normal schoolyear routine and that meant getting up and cultivating early, working on their technique, before breakfast. Logan had always said that getting up early was like stealing time. Those early morning hours when everyone else slumbered felt like a magical time without distractions or worries—a time to be wholly in the moment.

Those thoughts whisked Logan off into a deep, restful sleep.

At the crack of dawn, with the waters of Loch Endless still dark, Logan woke to find the fruits of his night’s work had come to fruition. There were a half-dozen sets of beady black eyes staring at him, which felt more than a little eerie. He’d grown a full crop of Skullcap Waddlers, and the slump-shouldered minions were all pressed together in a huddled mass. They were pale, stubby creatures, with stump-like legs, thick arms and oversized fingers that looked suspiciously like uncooked bratwurst. They’re mushroom heads were inky black, like freshly turned graveyard dirt, except for the lighter skull-shaped markings on their caps.

Skullcap was an appropriate name.

There were twenty of them, cramming his room, they’re bright black eyes blinked all unison. One opened a slit of mouth. “Master. Orders?”

“Oh, I have orders all right.” Logan stood and stretched. He was almost twice as tall as his conjured henchmen. It was strange. Now that he was awake, he could feel a connection with them—a link from his core to their bodies, and an awareness of them lingering in the back of his head. His bond with them was different than what he routinely experiences with his Spore Wargs, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was or why. He figured he’d learn more in his minions’ class.

The little guys parted without a word to let him walk past. He opened his door and glanced up the ladder shaft. “We’re going to go wake up Marko. Can you guys climb ladders?”

“Ladders?” one asked.

“Ladders. Ladders. Ladders.” They all agreed, bodies waggling back and forth, heads bobbing happily.

Except one of the minions, slightly taller than the others, cried out in a high-pitched voice, “To the heavens!”

“Shush now,” Logan warned. “I want to surprise Marko.”

They all whispered the one word, “Surprise,” except the odd man out, who once again didn’t get it right. He uttered, “Happy Birthday!” in his falsetto.

Logan ushered them out of his room. “Climb up there and wake up Marko. Don’t hurt him. Just swarm him and yell a lot.”

Whispers from the waddlers, “Yell. Yell. Yell.”

“Outside voice!” from the squeaky one.

Logan had read somewhere, at some point, that Mariah Carey could hit the highest notes of any popstar. He couldn’t help but think of the squeaky minion as Mariah Carey.

The Waddlers clambered up the ladder, which took some doing, because they were so short, their limbs fat and spongy. One opened the door, and the rest piled on. They started shouting the word, “Yell!”

Except for Mariah who screamed, “Fear, Fire, Foes!”

Marko screeched, “Mother goater! What in the goating goat is going on, here? Steve! Stevie! Help me!”

That didn’t sound good. Logan figured he’d flex another new skill. He triggered Pneumacity—one of his two Active Fungal Form abilities. Air swelled in through the gills on his skullcap, coursing through his arms and legs in a surge. In an instant, his whole body felt lighter than air and yet, he also was brimming with strength. It was a potent combination. He practically flew up the ladder, bounding from rung to rung with peerless grace and ease, then leapt through the open door.

Marko’s room was twice as large as Logan’s. A fire had burned low in the stone hearth in the corner, glowing red coals lit the space with gentle light.

Marko’s gem-entrusted robes hung on a coatrack near a baroque throne of gold and red velvet, the one he’d crafted the year before. A leather bandolier holding a trio of magical throwing daggers dangled off the rack—the loot he’d taken from last year’s final. The rest of his belongs were splayed out all over the floor without any sort of rhyme or reason. Marko’s bed was a huge, canopied wonder, as ornate as the chair. A few half-made mannequins loitered about in odd poses. Almost as though they’d frozen while dancing to some unheard tune.

Steve had been sleeping in a big easy chair near the window, but the mannequin was up, on his feet, but looking uncertainty at the bed, heaped high with Waddlers, Marko squarely in the middle of the mushroom dogpile.

The satyr butted one of them back with his curling horns. Another he grasped by their spongey shoulders. “Mushrooms?” he blurted out. “What in the holy stroganoff is going on, huh?”

Logan strode in. “A little wake up call. You know, get the day started right. What time did you get to bed?”

Steve grabbed a Waddler, picked him up. The little mushroom gazed down at the dummy. “Creepy,” Mariah said in its shrill voice.

“Yell!” Another Waddler squealed, madly flailing its arms.

“No hurt,” came another voice as the Skullcap charged the mannequin and launch an utterly ineffective tickle attack.

“That’s enough, guys,” Logan said, surveying the scene with a critical eye. His Skullcaps definitely needed a little work.

Seeing the danger had passed, Marko sank back into the Waddler bodies on his bed. “Ugh. I forgot about the waking-up-early-to-improve-ourselves part. Though, gotta say, your minions are rather comfortable. We could make mushroom mattresses and sell them for a king’s ransom.” He paused, pressed his eyes shut, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Do we really have to go cultivate?”

“Same schedule as last year.” Logan took a candle to the fireplace and lit it using the banked coals. Then he helped Marko get ready while Steve and the Waddlers all looked at each other with suspicion.

Logan figured he’d keep his minions around and show them off to Inga and Treacle, who were probably already waiting in the common room. He certainly didn’t hear any ruckus from them above.

They had to bodily toss the Waddlers from Marko’s room to the hallway, since they couldn’t make the jump. Soon they all descended the stairs and stepped out into the fresh morning day, still warm, though fall would be bringing a chill to the air soon enough.

Logan felt like a king leading his subjects as they marched down the running track of the Akros Coliseum. The rising sun cast a crimson light across the stone seats rising up around them in a ring. Inga, at the bottom of the eastern seats, was already in her meditative pose. Inga being Inga, she didn’t need the wakeup call. Treacle was there as well, with a sack of hay slung over one shoulder like an enormous duffel bag. He was already chewing, and Logan was glad—that minotaur needed to gain some weight.

Marko trudged over, dragging his steps, eyes squinted, shoulders slumped in defeat. “Okay. I’m here. It’s early. I’m miserable. But I know my misery makes you all so very happy.”

Steve let out a creaky huff and laid down on the bottom row of rock seats. His rusty joints sounded like exhausted sighs.

Inga made the right decision in completely ignoring the satyr. “Logan, your minions are adorable!” She rose and went to one of the Waddlers, scratching him under his chin.

Mariah let out a series of shrieks, “Attraction! Exhilaration! Titillation!”

“Impressive vocabulary,” she murmured, sparing a light pat on the very extra mushroom’s head.

Logan wasn’t sure he wanted adorable minions, but he begrudgingly admitted the little guys were cute in a skullcap kind of way. They weren’t nearly as unsettling as Inga’s centipede armies or her spike files, and they wouldn’t be striking fear into the heart like Marko’s disturbing mimics. But as long as they got the job done, that was all that really mattered.

Treacle swallowed noisily. “Okay, then, you have minions. Very nice. Can we get on with this? Marko was right. Our misery makes you happy, which is why you keep me around.”

“Not true, Treac,” Logan countered. “We keep you around for your bubbling personality.”

That brought a cow-eyed eye roll. Treacle made a move-it-along motion with one hand.

A disgruntled Marko plopped down in the Iceblade grass, wincing a bit as he adjusted his legs beneath him. The Iceblade grass was misery; a swaying forest of blue razor blades meant to help reinforce external meridian cultivation. “Ouch. I’ll never get used to that little pinch on my soft parts. You can sleep for the both of us, Steve.”

Logan, Inga, and Treacle joined the satyr, taking up meditative poses of their own. Logan folded his legs and sat, lotus style, opening his Apothos channels and circulating energy out from his core, through his limbs, and along the surface of his skin, reinforcing his body against the razor-sharp grass. Meanwhile, the Waddlers gathered around the sleeping mannequin like Sunday morning congregants, glassy black eyes alive and interested.

It was quiet as Logan and his cohort focused on their breathing, drawing in the vast amounts of Apothos floating around in the coliseum. It was a powerful place. All thirteen meta-energies filled the air—Ignis. Magma. Corrosivus. Toxicus. Fulgur. Glacies. Terra. Aqua. Mallus. Luminosus. Umbra. Vita. Morta.

Memorizing all of the energies hadn’t been easy, since three of the words started with the letter “M.”

However, Inga had come up with a baffling mnemonic that was surprisingly effective—I make coffee and tea for Grandfather Tiberius and make lemonade under the Velveeta moon.

Apparently, Velveeta was the goddess of dairy products on some planet, though it might be safer to call her the goddess of delicious almost-dairy products perfect for queso dip. A little salsa, a little Velveeta, and you’re in chip heaven.

The Terrible Twelve all pulled from different types of power.

Inga processed Vita and Luminosus energies, life and light, which made sense, since she was so attune with both the physical and astral planes of existence.

Treacle was all about Fulgur and Mallus—a combination of metals and raw kinetic energy fueled the lightning-based minotaur machinist.

Marko used Aqua and Umbra to power his core. As a dark muse, he was as malleable as water and as mysterious as the shadows.

Logan breathed deeply, savoring a rush of Morta and Toxicus energies. Those weren’t necessarily the happiest of the meta-energies, but death and poison served the Tree of Souls, as all things did. Just as Logan did. The Waddlers, who were swinging their thick feet on the stone belchers, were created from such power.

Any cultivator could harness and absorb any Apothos type, but that energy then needed to be processed in the core and converted into the primary strand of energy the cultivator utilized. For Logan, stripping out elemental Ignis affinity could take days and was a relatively painful process, since the energy was diametrically opposed to his race type. But even for something more benign, like Luminosus, the process was slow and rather cumbersome. That held true for dungeons and dungeoneers alike. That was also why greedy dungeoneers found dungeons attached to the Tree of Souls’ nodes that radiated the right type of Apothos for them to cultivate without needing to convert it into something else.

Logan, though, had a trick up his sleeve. With his fungaloid Digestive ability, Logan could process meta-energies instantly and without burning off too much of the Apothos itself. As a C-Class cultivator, his digestion pit instantly converted 60% of all Apothos of his Elemental Affinity into pure Apothos. Instantly. That was the key. And if Logan used Symbiosis to join with another core, their affinities augmented his own—dramatically increasing the pool of Apothos he could draw from. Just one more reason to have friends.

Logan closed his eyes and felt the power flowing into his core, or more accurately, into the knot of energy circling around his core. The Apothos danced through Logan’s knot, and from there he pushed it out to the Waddlers, who had stopped moving, as they felt the connection. They were rudimentary creatures, and yet, they had will and consciousness. They weren’t intelligent exactly, but their minds were their own. The fact that he had created them still left him in more than a little awe. It was an amazing idea, that he could somehow craft actual people.

Eyes open, Logan re-absorbed the Skullcap Waddlers. Their bodies turned from pale spongey flesh into a golden energy that whirled through the air, spinning around Logan like a dust devil before being sucked back into the knot in his body. He didn’t dump the extra Apothos into his core, but once more extended it through his body, strengthening his cells, and thickening this armor.

It was strange. Even though they didn’t talk, cultivating with his friend was simply more fun than cultivating alone. Logan glanced over at the utility shed and wondered if Rockheart would miss torturing Logan in the morning. Probably not. With the schoolyear starting, the rector prime would be busy taking care of a million different things. Still, Logan wasn’t done with the gargoyle drill sergeant just yet. The Terrible Twelfth would see him that afternoon for their Core Calisthenics II class, which involved something called soul torture. Hurray.

After spending an hour in concentrated meditation, Logan and his friends hoofed it to breakfast. The Golden Serpent Hall was teaming with students, all excited to get into the swing of things.

Inga was nearly quaking with anticipation. “I simply cannot wait for our first class this morning.”

Marko put his face in his furry hands. “Oh, no, I didn’t check my schedule, but don’t tell me. It’s gonna be the bird guy. Please. No. Anyone but the bird guy.”

Inga scowled at him, her antenna quivering in agitation.

Treacle chomped hay and nodded. “Yep. The first class of our second year is going to be Professor Bartholomew Nekhbet’s The History of Arborea and the Four Clans. I started hating the class days ago. Why wait?”

“Bart’s class?” Logan teased his friend.

Inga blushed. “It’s Professor Nekhbet.”

“Really?” Marko said with a silly smile. “I thought we were calling him Bart this year.”

Treacle grunted a laugh. “He is so dreamy after all.”

Inga leapt to her feet, arms stiff, hands curled into tight little balls. “Really. You three are insufferable! I have some things to prepare for today. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll meet you in class.”

She hurried off.

Logan winced. “Should we not tease her?”

“No, we should totally tease her,” Marko said with a laugh. “Right, Steve?”

The mannequin nodded, the squeaking of its neck joints like dusty laughter.

That didn’t make Logan feel any better. He was getting used to having Steve around, but him having shared opinions with the mannequin was disturbing to the extreme. He’d have to mend things with Inga, but first, he was going to see if he could grab some kitchen garbage for his digestion pit. Nothing like eggs shells, coffee grounds, and some moldering bread to tied him over until he could get something a bit fresher to chew on while he suffered through Professor Nekhbet’s class. It wasn’t the material itself that was the problem, as with so many things in life, it was all in the execution.