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The Stormdrain Tower sits at the end of the Haunted Cave where Angus was pretty sure that he had come here before but can’t quite remember. Standing at the entrance with a hand on the handle instead of entering, Angus just ends up leaning heavily against the door with his forehead pressed against it. When Angus first arrived in Wizard City, things were so cool and being able to learn magic? Even cooler until he took that stupid quiz.
Ending up in the Death School was less than fun.
There’s no school, another student is the teacher, and now he's stuck trying to save the world or something. It’s stressful and harmful. Angus just wants to go home and be with his parents and hang out with his friends and forget about all of this. Dino would have tensed him about all of this but Angus doesn’t care.
With a heavy sigh, Angus opens the door and steps inside.
A Field Guard is hanging around with another undead grim reaper-looking guy pouring over some books that are clearly stolen. Angus pocketed his wand and went straight to where the Lord or whatever was sitting and takes a seat on the ground while grabbing one of those stolen books. Both have stopped their chatter and could only stare at him.
Not that Angus cares.
This is the closest to doing actual schoolwork he managed to do since coming here.
“Uh,” the Undead throws the book back onto the pile and stands up quickly. “You truly think to face me, Wizard? Do you have any concept of what I am?” The Lord’s wings puff out to make himself look bigger and from where Angus is sitting on the ground, it does the job. “No mere ghost lost in the ether, I am Darkness.” He lifts his staff and points it straight in Angus’s face. “King of the Dead, Lord of the Nightshade, Master of the things in the dark which float and scream.”
A dark chuckle comes from the creature in front of him as the staff is removed from Angus’s face and Nightshade’s eyes appear to darken.
“And now you have the honour of becoming one of my subjects.”
“Okay.”
There’s a startle caw from the crow on the Field Guard while Nightshade sputters and reels back from what Angus just said. Both are in shock and Angus shuts the book, setting it back into the pile, before standing up.
“This place sucks,” Angus said. “And I just want to go home but no one have been able to help me yet so you think this Malistaire might be able to?”
Sure, Malistaire did attack him but Angus is pretty sure that the guy does that with everyone that suddenly shows up in the Spiral. However, Ambrose hasn’t even taken Angus’s request to return home seriously and Malron has no clue. Angus doubts any of the other teachers are going to be willing to help either. The most Professor Greyrose did was talk about how great of a student Angus’s mom was instead of actually listening to him.
“Uh…” Lord Nightshade and the Field Guard look at one another. “Possibly.”
“Cool, where can I find him than?”
“In Nightside but you won’t be able to get there easily without help, only the dead can see it and you are very much not dead.” Lord Nightshade set his staff off to the side while thinking; forgetting about the whole attacking thing. “Even though you are studying Death Magic, you still won’t be able to see the place clearly at least.”
There’s a caw from the raven and Nightshade nods in agreement.
“Yes, that could work, Garth.”
“Their name is Garth?” Angus couldn’t help but question. “I mean lovely name but really?”
Lord Nightshade told Angus to wait for a second and went about looking around the place.
Angus and Garth look at one another; giving Angus the creeps a little bit at the way the bird is watching him but the pumpkin is following Nightshade around. He gives a nod and gets a call back before Angus focus on the Lord again.
“Ah, here it is!” Lord Nightshade comes floating back over with a pair of boots and a necklace with a circle at the end that has an image of a raven in the center. “Take this, it should help you understand Garth.”
Angus shrugs; lowers his hood and shakes out his hair. He only dyed it recently but the pink will faded in time; maybe there’s some way to keep the colour, even just a little while longer. He slips the necklace over his head but nothing seems to be different. No jingle, no hum, just silence. Until he heard the caw and looked over at Garth.
“You are quite an odd one, Young Wizard.”
“Okay, now that’s cool.” Angus couldn’t help but look up at Lord Nightshade; earning an unreadable expression back. “Oh! My name is Angus Glade, a Death Student.” Angus gestures to himself before holding a hand out for each creature to shake, which they do even though it is strange to shake just some straw and a bony hand.
Lord Nightshade suddenly shoved the boots into Angus’s hands before heading towards the door with Garth following shortly after. Angus pulled the boots away and noted the name on them: Lord Nightshade’s Boots. With a shrug, Angus switch out his other boots for these ones before quickly catching up to the duo.
Neither one really cared for the sidewalk and went down the middle of the street. Angus stuck close to the two of them and surprisingly nothing decided to attack him.
“Now, there are a few ways of letting you into Nightside but one of those ways you won’t like.” Lord Nightshade gives half waves and greetings to other Undeads as they make their way down the street. It seems that the guy wasn’t kidding when he said that he was the ruler of the underworld. “There was a book about how to go about it but I didn’t manage to grab that one.”
“I know someone that would maybe have it,” Angus said. “You two wait right here.”
Angus got them to stop at the corner before Daisy Willowmancer could spot them. He doesn’t mind her as much as the others do. She’s just curious about the world around her and Angus gets that because he was like that too until being asked (cough forced cough) to save the world. It’s quite cruel to ask a random child to do something that the adults should be handling.
“Hey!” Angus made sure to keep Daisy facing away from the streets. “I managed to defeat Lord Nightshade and got you this!” He pulls out some random ring that he already had on him. Daisy doesn’t seem to notice that it wasn’t actually from the Lord but Angus doesn’t really care at the point. “Anyways, do you know anything about Nightside?”
“Nightside!” Daisy pockets the ring so fast for the change in topic. “The under-plane that sits between the realms of Life and Death, which can’t be seen by mortal eyes? Or do you mean a different Nightside?”
Angus just looked at her and made sure to hold his tongue.
“No, that’s the one you mean.” Daisy didn’t even notice anything and continued on. “Yeah, I’ve read about it. All about it. It’s a real physical place somewhere. We just can’t see it.”
‘I thought it was a giant pair of doors underneath the waterfall?’ Angus thought. ‘Probably because I’m a Death Student I can see the doors but can’t entered because I won’t be able to see the rest of it. Maybe…’
“Ghost can, so you’d need ghost eyes. Ooh, or the fiery gaze of something possessed by spectral energy. Like those Field Guards.” Daisy points towards the Field Guards floating around, completely missing Lord Nightshade and Garth just hanging around. Not the worst outcome to have. “Defeat Field Guards and get their Pumpkin Heads, than I can do a thing and reveal Nightside.”
“Okay, great, thanks Daisy.”
Angus runs back over to the others and relied upon what Daisy has just told him.
“It makes sense,” Garth said. “Go on, whack a few of them around. They have been causing mindless chaos this whole time without a single thought between those eyes.”
Angus did what Daisy asked of him and found that now that he understands the Field Guards, it became more of a game than an actual fight. Especially when Garth clarified that the Crows could just make another Guard and be back in action without a moment's notice. This is the same for the other Undeads as well; being sent back to the Underworld before coming right back since the door is still open.
With two pumpkins in hand, Angus went back to Daisy.
“Wowzer, you did a great job.” Daisy takes one of the pumpkins and looks it over as if it’s a stack of gold. “These Pumpkin Heads are perfect.” Suddenly, she looks sheepish as she lowers the pumpkin back down. “Unfortunately, I can’t do the thing.”
Over Daisy’s shoulder, Lord Nightshade holds his staff in front of Garth to stop the Raven from attacking. Though it’s obvious that the Undead isn’t happy with this outcome either.
“I thought I could – I read all about it while you were gone – but I can’t.” Angus would feel bad about how defeated Daisy is looking right now but he’s way too tired to care anymore. Foulgaze really had put Angus into a bad mood, having to fight the guy more times than he should have. “Headmaster Ambrose knows about things. All things. You ask him for help!”
“Cool, thanks, Daisy.”
Angus walks to the other side of the street to meet up with Lord Nightshade and Garth. Garth is muttering and throwing out curses; mostly because it was a waste of time listening to someone like that. Doesn’t even know what she is doing but claims that she does.
“I can’t stand those kind of people,” Garth grumbles. “Prancing around acting like a know-it-all just because they read one lousy book about the thing.”
Angus leans a bit towards the Lord. “Are they always like this?”
“All the time,” Lord Nightshade said but it’s more fondness than anything. “Now, we can go to your Headmaster or I know someone else who can help us twice as quickly.”
“Or I go and ask Headmaster Ambrose to do the thing?”
Garth let out a squawk in laughter with Lord Nightshade’s bone-chilling one mixed in. If Angus wasn’t hanging out with the duo, he might be frightened. Instead, Angus is starting to see them more like a comedy duo from some sitcom that his parents would watch while making dinner. Man, he’s really missing his mom’s cooking right now.
Lord Nightshade suddenly went serious.
“You can go to Ambrose if you want but like you said, he never takes your request seriously.” There’s that unreadable expression again. “I have fought so many wizards before you and I never realized that they could very well not be from the Spiral. Stealing children from their homes is the cruellest thing someone could do…and that’s saying something.”
“Okay, what’s the plan then?”
“We have to go speak with an old friend of mine.”
Lord Nightshade takes the lead with Angus and Garth following close behind. The only thing is that Angus hopes that this old friend isn’t someone that he had already beaten up once before; things would get quite awkward if that were the case.
…
Unicorn Way hasn’t changed since Angus came through a few months ago; Lost Souls still wander the streets and the only ones to be found roaming around are students of Ravenwood. Mostly newcomers. Angus pinpoints a few Storm wizards and at least three Myth wizards hanging about. There is an odd trio made out of a Balance, Ice, and Life wizard but Angus just doesn’t care anymore about any of this.
(He keeps saying that but is it really true if he keeps repeating it?)
“How do you and Lady Blackhope know one another?” Angus questions, after Lord Nightshade returns to them after speaking with a few Lost Souls about something. “I mean you don’t seem like the type to have many friends.”
“Neither do you,” Lord Nightshade snaps back. “Anyways, Blackhope and I play poker once a week because there’s really nothing else to do down there. Which is why I’m not surprised there’s so many Undeads roaming around, a chance to spend on a vacation or something.”
Angus wants his vacation would come to an end.
“Hmm,” Garth’s head tilts about as if trying to hear something, “we haven’t heard from Lady Blackhope in a while actually. Not even Jeffery.” The Raven notices Angus’s confusion and continues. “That the Lady’s minion, every ‘boss’ has one or two depending on the fight.”
Jeffery and Garth.
Strange.
“I don’t think Lady Blackhope is going to want to help me,” Angus said. “I mean I did defeat her a while back.”
Lord Nightshade waves a hand back and forth; almost like he’s waving away Angus’s concern. “Nonsense, Blackhope would be more impressed than upset. That’s how we Undeads work, you know.” The reaper looks back at Angus. “It’s like a rite of passage or something, proving that you are worthy.”
“I feel like you are just saying that to make me feel better.”
The trio reached the tower and headed straight inside but something felt very wrong. It was far colder than the first time Angus had entered the place and Lady Blackhope wasn’t hanging around the place like she was in the beginning. Even when Angus had defeated her, she stuck around for any rematches.
Suddenly, smoke fills the room and stretches out across the circle on the floor before another grim reaper-looking Undead comes up from the floor. Time froze before Lord Nightshade and Garth had moved in front of Angus; placing themselves in harm’s way for the young wizard that they just met.
“Well, it seems that Lady Blackhope and Jeffery had moved on at some point.”
“Or were forced out by this Wraith.”
There’s something off about this Undead. All creatures have some kind of feeling or a spark. Undead Creatures are no different with the feeling of rushing chills and an embrace that mimics comfort. However, this Wraith feels closer to a creature of Life than one of Death. A soft thumping of magic and something close to the feeling of being healed after a battle; something that Angus is very familiar with.
Angus steps around the two but the Wraith disappears beneath the floors once more before he can say anything.
“Whelp,” Lord Nightshade withdraws from attacking, “I guess that leaves Wormguts.”
“There is Foulgaze who could help.”
Garth’s suggestion was given looks from Angus and Lord Nightshade.
“I also fought him and he seems quite petty.”
“I owe him twenty gold.”
The Raven sighs; making the pumpkin's head shake in disappointment. “Fine, Wormguts it is.”
…
Firecat Alley is one of the worst areas because of the overwhelming heat; even Nightshade and Garth are struggling a bit even though they aren’t even alive. Angus led the way to Wormguts’ Stronghold, completely ignoring the guard standing there, and walked past both Undead and Fire Creatures just to reach the place.
Once they did, Angus couldn’t stand it anymore and summon Snow Serpent just to give them from breathing room.
Snowflakes flatter down after the Serpent finishes it’s ‘attack’ but quickly melts away. However, the cold winds were what Angus was really aiming for, having done this many times while making his way through this place the first time.
“This is so much worse than I thought it would,” Lord Nightshade said.
Angus wonders if there’s a way to keep spells out longer but that’s something to figure out later.
The trio heads to Wormguts’ Stronghold with Angus opening the door once the countdown finishes. Nothing has been changed since the last time Angus had come through here; though most locations holding a ‘mini-boss’ look about the same. Clearly, no one has thought about decorations or…personality.
“What’s this?” Wormguts has his back turned to them, aiming for something more frightening. “Did that coward, Shelus, send a child to fight his battles?” The ghoul whips around as he ready himself for a fight. “Ahah!” Suddenly, Wormguts stops. “Wait, you’re that Wizard child from before, damn it!”
Lord Nightshade nudge Angus with his wing while moving past; “impressive that you managed to get a reaction like this out of him.” He gives a dramatic flair as Nightshade gets Wormguts’ attention. “Wormguts, have you seen Lady Blackhope?”
“Lord Nightshade,” Wormguts said with a hinge of despair. “Should have known you would only seek me out when you want something.”
“Nonsense.” Lord Nightshade cringed back because it seemed that Wormguts was right. “Anyways, Angus needs help getting into Nightside, wondering if you could help us out with that.”
Wormguts agrees and leads the way back out of Firecat Alley, surprising the trio a little.
Angus walks in pace with him but is unsure of what to say; can’t apologize, can’t ask anything.
Without warning, the Ghoul ruffle his hair.
“You’re odd compared to the other wizard children, why?”
“Because I want to go home,” Angus said. “But no one will listen to me.”
It was cool in the beginning but each quest has worn on him and dragged him down until Angus went to Ambrose…asking to be sent home. Instead, the Headmaster turned him away and said that he’d get used to it as if Angus asked for this! He was happy and accidentally ended up here and no one is listening to him!
“Yeah, I can get how that could anger anyone but you seem to have someone in your corner now.”
Angus looks back at Nightshade and Garth, both warp up in their conversation. How much longer will these two follow him around? A few more hours, a week, more? It’s hard to say and Angus doesn’t want to be alone again.
“Ah, here it is!”
They got back to the Commons and to the waterfall where the door is. Angus remembers discovering this door a while back before being told what it is, no one really bothered with explaining though. Instead, everyone just wants something and Angus carelessly accepts because he just wants something...
Wormguts almost drowns while the trio watches from the bridge.
Angus cast Snow Serpent to create a hole so Garth and Nightshade to pass through; Wormguts complained loudly about what happened before opening the door; creaking and groaning as if it haven’t been opened in a very long time. Wormguts stands on one side of the door while playful bowing and motioning for Angus to walk through; causing a laugh to slip through.
Angus thanks the Ghoul before doing as asked; his eyes slowly adjust to the other side but things are still a little hazy and out of focus. Better than nothing and maybe Angus could see properly if he had gone to the Headmaster.
“A wizard?” Angus snaps towards the voice, noting that this must be the Death Tree. “It has been so long.”
Angus looks back to check on the others but Nightshade just wave him off, wanting him to continue on with them since this conversation doesn’t involved them. He gives a nod and walks towards Mortis, who seems to still be in shock at the sight of a new wizard. Not only a wizard but a Death student at that.
“Have you come seeking the School of Death magic? You have found it and much more.” Mortis appears bitter and revengeful for the events that had caused this, not that Angus really wants to hear any of this but he was taught better. “The Death School and I once sat above in the Ravenwood under the shade of the Grandfather Tree. But in his rage and sorrow, Malistaire stole us.”
Angus looks back at the trio, wanting some support in being info dumped on, but none of them are paying attention. Wormguts and Nightshade found themselves in a deal, being stupid and throwing careless insults at one another, while Garth watched from the sidelines. The scarecrow gives a wave when they notice Angus, who waves back.
“From this haven, he conducts his research.” Whoops, Angus did not mean to skip that. “Into what, I do not know.” Wasn’t it because of a wife or something? Angus is pretty sure he heard about that somewhere. “All I could do was sit and wait for Bartleby to see us and send help.”
“About that…” Angus went on to explain the situation.
“His Eye of History was stolen?” If Mortis wasn’t a tree, Angus was pretty sure that the tree would have beaten Malistaire up himself. “No! Malistaire must have done this. He is in the School now. You must fix what he has broken.”
Angus gives a thumbs up before heading straight inside the school; slamming the door open and startling both Malistaire and the other guy. “Are you able to help me get home?” Straight and to the point which startled Malistaire again.
“I’m afraid now.”
Angus throws his hands up before turning around to leave; “than what use are you!”
The words are harsh but Angus doesn’t care as he storms out of the school and back towards the trio, who isn’t fighting anymore. Angus can feel his legs shake and tears running down his face but he continues marching forward until Nightshade stops him, placing a hand on his shoulder and isn’t expecting a hug from Angus like his life dependent on it.
All of this was one spontaneous adventure, something that Angus was really hoping to lead him to an answer to get home but instead…it’s hopeless. He’s stuck here with no way home and no one willing to listen to him. Angus wishes he never came here in the first place…and that maybe he could burn this place to the ground to make sure no one else ends up like him.
“Lord Malistaire,” Wormguts said hesitantly. “We thought you would be gone by now.”
“The wizard? What’s wrong with him?”
Nightshade place a hand on Angus’s back; “Angus here is searching for way home, he never wanted to come to school here.”
“I see…”
Angus pulls away – wiping away his tears – and faces Malistaire.
“There might be a way but the one who knows is long dead.” Angus deflates at the answer. “However, I believe it’s possible to bring back Sylvia, my wife, to get what we both want.”
“And if you can’t?”
Malistaire looks determined but that can only get you so far. “I will, that’s a promise.” He holds his hand out towards Angus. “Do we have a deal of some kind?”
Angus looks back at Nightshade, Garth, and Wormguts. Each one has every right to back out of this but for some reason, they haven’t and even seem willing to follow Angus through this…which is quite surprising from Wormguts.
“What do my friends get?” Angus asks, standing protectively in front of the trio.
Malistaire is surprised by this but chuckles while pulling his hand away. “Whatever they want as long as they help.” Though he seems unconvinced about them.
Angus looks back to them – getting some form of agreement from each of them – before agreeing to Malistaire’s deal. However, the Snow Serpent appears unmoving around Malistaire’s feet but ready to lash out with a simple command from Angus.
“If you back out of our deal then we’ll have a problem.”
“Then I better uphold my end than.”