TOURNEY OF TERROR

The Danger Club faces a dangerous plot during a sports tournament in this sequel.

After the events of No Humans Allowed! (2021), Zelli’s dreams are plagued by cryptic nightmares sent by the defeated necromancer, Lord Carrion, held captive in the Dungeon Academy detention room. While the adults, including secretly human Zelli’s adoptive minotaur mothers, tell her to leave it to the grown-ups, she’s not convinced they’re doing enough. She enlists the Danger Club to help research Lord Carrion’s clues. But then the school’s thrown into chaos, hosting the Waterdeep Dragons for the Tourney of Terror, a monstrous sporting event. Aside from the sports rivalry, there’s interspecies tension between the dragons and the monsters. Investigating portals while everyone’s distracted, black-haired Zelli discovers a dragon who’s actually a human boy. From their shared secret knowledge of each other’s identities, Zelli forms a bond with blond Tavian (in a storyline handled with all the subtlety of a brick to the face), and soon he’s ignoring the dragons’ snobbery to join the Danger Club’s investigation. Though the themes are heavy-handed at times, the action delivers on epic battles (especially against skeletal foes), and the storyline gives the characters real stakes and costs along with solid twists, all fitting seamlessly into the humorous Dungeons & Dragons setting. Final art not seen.

Readers will want to level up quickly to tackle the cliffhanger ending.