Shadowcroft Year 3 - Chapter Five

A NEW SHADOWCROFT CHAPTER EVERY MONDAY!

Hiro “Hardclaw” Shirazi had known the truth about dungeons, dungeon cores, and Apothos ever since he’d first joined the dungeoneering guild. Hardclaw was a Ferox, a cat man, from far-off Kitterxob. He’d had a happy childhood until his parents died running a local thunder lizard’s dungeon.

Hardclaw had sworn revenge, but he’d been a relatively weak cultivator, so he’d teamed up with a mysterious team of raiders led by a man named Marky Softscale. Hardclaw hadn’t known that Marky was actually a rogue dungeon—a Crimson Void Viper—who’d wanted his old life back. Sometimes being a dungeon core just wasn’t all that much fun, according to Marky. And so, Mr. Softscale had wanted to start a dungeoneering guild. The most prestigious and successful of all dungeoneering guilds.

Marky’s goal had been as simple as it was audacious: to accumulate enough Apothos to transform himself back into a human. If such a thing were even possible. And once he accomplished his task, he had plans to return home to the very plain world of Humania, where he would eventually die among strangers, since all of his family and friends had already perished of old age long ago. To choose to be mortal was strange wish, but then, Marky was strange man. Well, dungeon core with mannish aspirations.

They’d lost their entire party against that thunder lizard, but it glued Hardclaw to Marky, and Marky told the Ferox cat man everything—including the real story behind dungeons and dungeoneers. That Apothos was a finite resource and that harvesting it in vast quantities from the Tree of Souls was slowly leading to the death of all reality. The energy they absorbed into their cores and cycled through their Apothos channels came from somewhere. Distant worlds. Worlds that slowly withered and died on the vine as their Apothos dwindled, guttered, and eventually failed.

Softscale? He didn’t care. He wanted his humanity returned and the price was irrelevant, especially since he would be dead and buried long before the universe ever experienced its own demise. Hardclaw hadn’t cared either. Although, he hadn’t been Hardclaw back in those early days. He’d just been Hiro. But he picked up the nickname because Hardclaw and Softscale was funny, and kinda ironic.

They’d started the Scarlet Paradox together—again, ironic—and it did well, but Marky eventually met his untimely end in an ill-fated raid on a skeleton king’s inner sanctum. The walls had burst forward with a thousand skeletons. Marky might’ve been a gigantic snake that sweated venom and had thick skin—no matter what his last name was—but scales, venom, and a plucky can-do attitude was only going to take you so far against that many skeletons

So Hardclaw had taken over. But he’d had problems of his own.

During another disastrously unlucky dungeon raid, Hardclaw had lost his left leg. For a cat man with a warrior-rogue hybrid class, that made any sort of dungeoneering difficult. Hardclaw had replaced the missing limb with a magical mace, so he was a warrior again, but he could never rogue again. And that had been his first love—rogueing.

Still, Hardclaw’s life wasn’t bad. He’d found a nice home on Eritreus, in Aurora, the grand city of the dungeoneers. It was home to the thousand guilds and the Castinus Dynasty. He lived in the same guildhall where he worked, right on the Golden Harbor. Sunrises on the Dawn Sea were lovely, especially in the winter.

Some guilds were in the downtown area, with fancy buildings and lots of overhead. The Sages of the Golden Thread, for example, had spent a ton of their loot on the marble statues adorning their courtyard. Idiots.

Other guilds, like The Sun Fist, had remote mountain hideaways where they missed out on revenue from townies coming to buy merchandise or have a drink with famous raiders.

That was why Marky and Hardclaw had decided to build their guildhall among the harbor taverns, popular with sailors and tourists alike. Most of the time, going to work felt like a party.

These days—with his best raiding years behind him—most of Hardclaw’s job consisted of researching dungeons, organizing raiding parties, and then collecting on treasure, since the guild got a percentage of profits accrued, and that included Apothos, which Hardclaw divided among his staff. At night, he bartended and chatted with guildmembers and tipsy drunks. Overall, he had a nice little life, teetering around on his magical mace and making money off the death of worlds…

That, however, was all about to change.

It was the first night of autumn at the guild. Various adventurers were drinking at the bar as usual. There were handful of tourists as well, bending their elbows and spilling out coin. Yes, they knew it was a dungeoneering guild, but most folks thought that destroying dungeons was a good thing. After all, the Dungeon Guardians were ferocious looking beasts. Monsters of the worst sort who preyed on the unwitting and the luckless. Killing monsters was good, right?

Ha. Hardclaw knew there was a fine line between monster and greedy maniac.

The Scarlet Paradox’s tavern was on the first floor. Administrative offices were above. At the very top, they had some suites they rented out to off-world adventurers who needed a place to stay before they travelled to one of the very powerful dungeons on Eritreus. That was also where Hardclaw lived. Every room boasted a full set of Eritrean silverware because they weren’t animals, after all. They needed the basics. Like both a sweet cream spoon and a summer strawberry spoon.

Dwarf Ray drank at the bar with Elf Ray. Ray wasn’t an Eldarian elf, but a Sylvarian point-ear. Big difference. Which he would talk about at an ungodly length if he was allowed.

Aquinas drank with both the Rays. Aquinas was a priest in the Order of Blinding Light; they worshiped a relatively popular goddess on a world that was mostly night. Aquinas was a good sort, though, and liked beer. He really liked beer. You could tell by the sway of his belly. It was hard to find armor to cover that swell.

In the corner was Denise. She was a vicious sword maiden from the realms of outer Swedeway. She had three sword on her at all time. They matched the three golden braids on her head. Just to keep her numbers straight, she sat with three Swedewaygian shieldmaidens. They had shields and spears. Those three kept jamming the tips into the floor. He’d told them to rest their spears butt-side down. What was wrong with people?

Hardclaw was behind the bar, pouring drinks, when the doors burst open.

The intruder walked in wearing a red cloak and white boots. Well, they used to be white. Now, they were splattered with blood. The red of the dried blood did notmatch the cape.

The intruder had the cowl of his cloak pulled down, but there was something terribly wrong with his face. There were strange patterns there. Tattoos, probably, though Hardclaw had never seen anything quite like it.

The warrior-rogue turned barman just sighed. He was going to have to mop up the guy’s bloody footprints. Not like it would be the first time. That sort of thing came with the territory, even if it was the worst part of the job.

Then Hardclaw noticed that the intruder had Matt’s gore-splattered helmet in his hand. That set off a few alarm bells. Matt was the half-ogre who guarded the front door. This man could be dangerous and looking for trouble. He would have to play his cards right to avoid a scuffle and it was a shame about Matt. Luckily, ogres were pretty easy to find. Feed ‘em fried swamp cheese, and they would do almost anything.

“Hiro Shirazi!” The intruder’s voice was thunderous. “Oh yeah, you’re gonna wanna getta new guard for your guild. The old one is gone, oh yeah, and I don’t wanna kill anyone else, but I kinda do. Listen, brother, I’ve come to change things for you and your guild. Nothing is ever gonna be the same again.”

Elf Ray sprang to his feet in a flash, using the power surging through his core to increase his speed. With three twangs of his bowstring, three arrows streaked through the air.

The intruder somehow managed to deflect all three feathered shafts with a lightning-fast swing of his huge forearm. It wasn’t clear if the arrows bounced off that hairy piece of meat or if he had merely smacked them away. Or was the white tape wrapped around his wrists magical? Hardclaw had seen magical gauntlets capable of deflecting projectile weapons before, though they were a rarity. Amazing Woman had a trademark set that were known across the realms.

Honestly, the how of it didn’t much matter at the moment. Several of the non-dungeoneer patrons went screaming out of the room. One poor drunk guy slipped on the blood and had to crawl away on all fours like a dog.

Dwarf Ray snatched up his shield and his hammer, his face a thunderhead of rage. Two more hammers appeared over each shoulder, hovering in the air like avenging angels. When he hit, he’d hit with the full force of all three blunt weapons.

But he never got the chance.

Red, white, and blue tendrils—like colorful smoke—erupted from the man’s cowl, slapping the war hammer out of Dwarf’s Ray’s hand then unceremoniously batting away the other two weapons. The cloaked intruder bolted forward like a greased pig and grabbed Dwarf Ray with beefy, calloused fingers. In a whirl of red cloak, the intruder hurled the dwarf into Denise’s shieldmaidens.

Poor Dwarf Ray didn’t survive the impact.

Elf Ray issued a bloodcurdling cry of defiance and ditched his bow for a his fabled curved short swords, Worldslayer and Deathbringer, respectively. He closed on the interloper in an eyeblink, dancing across the stool and tabletops before descending like an avalanche with twirling blades.

The cloaked invader seized Worldslayer—the blade that had felled the Dread Titan Zophos—and snapped it in one big hairy-knuckled fist.

Elf Ray slashed at the intruder with Deathrbinger, but the intruder literally caught the blade under his armpit. He jerked it out of the elf’s hand with a twist of his torso, then smashed his forearm into the elf’s chest.

Spinning in a wave of crimson, a white boot slammed into Elf Ray’s neck.

But the cloaked menace wasn’t done. He picked up the elf and dropped him on his head. The fall didn’t kill Ray, but he laid there on the floor, groaning. “Healer! Is there a healer in the house?”

Aquinas was a healer, but he didn’t answer the call. He finished off his beer and slunk away. The goddess of the brightest light probably wouldn’t be too pleased. She didn’t comment though.

Denise didn’t leave, but she didn’t attack either. She wasn’t an idiot.

This red cloaked guy had taken out Matt, and then proceeded to treat both Rays like they were E-Class noobs. He’d snapped Worldslayer like a toothpick—a feat that Hardclaw would’ve thought impossible.

Hardclaw stood frozen behind the bar. This was an outrage. And yet, if anything, Hiro Shirazi was a realist. It was why he could work for an organization that would eventually drain the universe of all life. Yeah, sure, engineering the apocalypse was terrible, but until Armageddon hit, Hardclaw would be rich. And it might not be as dire as the goody-goody dungeon cores made it out to be. There was a ton of Apothos in the universe. The dungeoneers were only taking a little. And in the process, they were paying Hardclaw and the Scarlet Paradox guild handsomely for helping them.

Hardclaw put down a shot glass and then uncorked his best brandy. The sweet aroma of the liquor filled the bar. It was top shelf hooch. “You probably didn’t need to kill Matt. Or Dwarf Ray. Thanks for not killing…”

The intruder stepped on Elf Ray. There was a crunch. Well, like Dwarf Ray, Elf Ray’s Apothos rejoined the Tree of Souls? See? Lives recycled. There had to be plenty of Apothos.

Denise had two of swords in her hand. She looked like she was wishing she could draw the third one.

Hardclaw poured the brandy. “As I was going to say, thanks for killing Elf Ray. Terrible customer. You know how arrogant Sylvarian point-ears can be. Right? Right. Plus he never tipped. Now, when you came in, you said something about something. How can we help you here at The Scarlet Paradox?”

The intruder calmly walked over to the bar and leaned against the dark wood counter. Though he was close, Hardclaw still couldn’t see what was wrong with the guy’s face. It almost looked as though he were wearing a mask of some sort.

“Oh yeah, brother, you don’t know me, but I know about you. And about your old pal, Marky Softscale. He was an old school dungeon core that went rogue. He had connections, though. Oh yeah he did, and you better have them connections, too. Connections to the dungeon core universities. They have this interschool tournament, and I’m gonna bust in on that action, brother.”

Hardclaw averted his gaze and got a glimpse of the body underneath the crimson cloak. Something clicked into place and suddenly he realized exactly who this was. And he knew he’d better help him. If he wanted to finish out his days in relative peace and health, at least. “Yes, Mr. Shador. I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you without your escort. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Why, I’d like to make you an honorary member of the guild, if that would be okay?”

The very famous intruder grinned. “Now we’re understanding each other, brother. But I’m thinking of myself as more of a co-owner. Now what do you have for me?” He picked up the brandy and drank it down.

Hiro “Hardclaw” Shirazi would survive the night after all. After all, he had information on the interschool tournament. He hadn’t known how to use that information, but it turned out that Mr. Shador did.

Hardclaw knew there was a good chance that an alliance with the famous dungeoneer would kill him, but the cat man with a mace for a leg wasn’t about to walk away from such a fantastic marketing opportunity.