And in its place… was a scene from his childhood.

This again?

But as he took in the scene, Logan felt a pang of heartache.

His grandfather.

He had to be in his late 60s, back before his thinning hair had turned white. His body was thin and lithe. To a young, pimply faced Logan, he had seemed like a giant, but in reality, he’d only been six foot two.

The System was showing him the willow tree again. The tree’s branches drooped over a scruffy, dirty mini-Logan. A Logan who had to be six or seven who was digging between the tree’s roots. The roots were bursting from the ground like a gnarled maze.

This time, it was later in the day—the sun was dipping on the horizon and creating a haze. Not a haze of smoke—since back then, it was rare to have wildfires in the summer. Rather, it was the haze of heat that simmered in the air like a living, breathing thing.

Over little Logan’s bent over bare back, the weeping willow drizzled moisture.

And strangely enough, Logan could feel it. It was as if he were this Logan, only he was looking at this scene from afar. With the knowledge of time. The drizzling moisture felt like mist from a sprinkler drifting in the wind.

Ladybugs crawled down the willow tree roots; bright red bugs that made mini-Logan’s eyes light up with glee.

Logan remembered this. It had shaped his relationship with Lara for years.

“Logan,” said his grandfather, looking down at him with his hands on his hips. Then he seemed to reconsider. He shuffled forward before crouching, his long beige dress pants stretching across his knees. “I can see you’ve put together quite the army.”

Mini-Logan looked up from his trench digging, his dirty, tiny fist clutching a twig soldier. He’d imagined each root as an army road, and he’d stacked the twig soldiers on the raised roots, ready for an ambush. He’d tried to field the ladybugs into the trench, imagining them as monsters attacking the army below.

“I’m winning,” said mini-Logan with a grin, his freckles standing out on his nose as he looked up at his grandfather.

“And yet no room for your sister in this battle, hmm?”

Mini-Logan’s mouth twisted with indignation. “Did she tattle?” He dropped his twig-soldier as he yelled, “She’s a tattletale!”

His grandfather gave him a deep frown of disappointment. “No tattling. She was crying so much she couldn’t talk. Even when she calmed down, she wouldn’t tell me anything.”

Logan paused. “…Crying?” he whispered.

“I don’t know what happened, but whatever you did deeply affected her.”

“B-but…” Logan rubbed his bare arms as if he were cold. “She wanted to play, but she always ruins my fun, wanting to insert icky girly princesses and queens.” Mini-Logan was suddenly indignant. “Why should I let her!”

“Logan Hart, Lara is your only sibling. Many friends will pass through your life, but they’ll be fickle, there and gone relationships. Eventually, something may happen, and those boys that you surround yourself with will abandon you for better prospects. But your sister will always be there. She’ll never abandon you. But family isn’t guaranteed. You have only one sister. If you ruin that relationship, although she’ll be there for you in the future, you’ll never be close.”

Mini-Logan furrowed his brow. He was young; these concepts were difficult for him to grasp. But unlike mini-Logan, adult Logan could see that his grandfather understood his difficulty. And adjusted.

Running his hand over his chin, he gave Logan a considering look and peered down at his make-believe army. “Soldiers and kings are heroic, hmm? They do what’s right and save the innocent and punish evil doers?”

Logan glanced down at his stick soldiers and nodded.

“As a brother, you have a responsibility to protect your sister. She needs to know that you’ll always be in her corner. You’ll do that by having her back, by supporting her, by listening to her when she wants to inject a bit of femininity into a battle like this, hmm?”

Logan’s face grew red. “She wants to be a queen.”

His grandfather smiled. “That’s a lofty goal. She can be the queen of one kingdom; you can be the king of the other. A battle to see who comes out on top sounds fun, doesn’t it?”

Mini-Logan bit his lip. Adult Logan knew that he was thinking of Lara bringing her barbies to battle and dreading it.

His grandfather sighed. “Give it a try, Logan. Give her a chance.”

“But—”

Just like that, the scene faded, mini-Logan disappearing where the memory belonged. The noxious reek of slaughtered snakes and the rotting snail swamped his senses, and Logan blinked at the world around him.

Ernie had stopped swatting the grass and had instead jumped into the lake, wiggling through the water as he tried to get rid of green goo and blood.

What the hell was that? This time, the scene had been even longer. Why was the System showing him these memories? Brothers and sisters didn’t always get along, and for Lara and Logan, it had taken a while to get close. But that was in the past.

Now, they were closer than ever.

Wait… what if this was a way for the System to tell him that something was wrong with Lara? That she was in trouble.

Logan had convinced himself that she would be fine. Hope’s End wasn’t on fire, they were on the same schedule. But his cell phone was dead, and for all he knew, Lara might have tried to get in touch with him.

The kids could be in trouble.

They might need him.

Anxiety was eating away at his stomach, his adrenaline surging, his heart racing. Why had he thought slaughtering snakes was a priority over finding Lara?

Logan had justified it in a way that seemed absurd—to save Lara, he’d thought he’d need to unlock [Life Fabricator] so he wouldn’t get into another situation like the fight with the Silverdagger Clan, but the System had ranked Logan second in the world. Second in the world. Surely that had to be enough to handle whatever he encountered in the city?

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Looking back on it while his anger was less hot, it made no sense. He’d let his emotions make his decisions for him, swaying him towards killing rather than saving.

Up above, the Cursed Rope was pursuing the remaining flying snakes, still greedy, still rabid in its need to kill. Wrapping around the last snake and squeezing it with its acid fibres, it sucked in the snake’s green blood like sucking from a straw until the body was nothing but a husk.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 60 Flying Hunting Snake!]

Glee glee glee, sent the rope before slithering back to Logan.

The user is strong, it purred and then transformed into its regular fibre rope, back to a harmless looking…

Harmless looking…

Logan blinked.

Then blinked again.

Even in the tactician trial right before the blob battle, he’d been angry. He’d justified that anger when he’d heard about the skill rings—after all, anyone would be angry if they’d learned that people were boiling feeling, thinking, sentient animals alive. It was like boiling people. But looking back on it now, Logan began to wonder.

He wondered if that anger was organic, or whether it was fed from something… else.

The Cursed Rope.

The Silverdagger Clan had warned him that it was an insidious rope, that it would corrupt the person who wielded it, but Logan had discounted everything they said. Believing that even if someone from the Silverdagger Clan had been ‘corrupted’ in the past, that Logan would never have the same problem.

He’d believed that Ernie would have sensed that something was wrong, that he would have warned him. After all, he’d used the Cursed Rope when they’d fled from the snake swarm. All Ernie had expressed was envy that the rope could fly, and he couldn’t.

But Ernie was crazy. Crazy for slaughter. Would he pick up on the fact that the rope was doing something to Logan, or would he just go with the flow, happy that Logan was eager to slaughter?

Logan had never been quick to anger. Although he’d never been in an apocalypse situation, and there was no comparison between a road rage incident and all this undead minion, monster crap, he’d always been rational. To be so rage-filled that he’d prioritized leveling up over finding his sister? It was nuts.

Looking down at the Cursed Rope, Logan ran a hand through his gore crusted hair.

The damn thing was called a ‘cursed rope.’

“Fuck,” he muttered.

But if it were influencing him, at least he’d picked up on it.

Logan had two options here. He could destroy the rope, or he could keep it. There was no guarantee that throwing it into his spatial collar would do shit, since he’d been angry back in the tactician trial before he’d taken the rope out of his spatial collar to ‘flay’ the evil blobs. It was possible that it could influence Logan even when it was in a pocket dimension.

He could leave it, throw it away. Kick it over the side of the island into the water, bury it in the ground, or just walk away, but he was convinced that wouldn’t work. It would be like leaving a puppy. The damn thing would inflate and follow Logan. It could even swim!

To truly get rid of it, he would have to destroy it.

And it was a heck of a valuable weapon. It had helped to slaughter the snakes and without it, Logan might not have been able to kill 500 snakes in ten minutes.

But if he kept it, who’s to say it wouldn’t influence him again.

Logan blew out a breath of air and willed the Cursed Rope inside his spatial collar.

He wouldn’t make a decision now. He could afford to wait. Killing so many snakes had satisfied his anger, and he was rational enough to have figured out that there was a problem. That meant that the Cursed Rope might be on a trigger. If Logan were killing monsters and leveling up, it was happy. Satisfied. But if Logan took too long between kills, he suspected that his anger would rise once again.

But he was meeting someone who could help and who never withheld her opinion. Lara. If something were wrong, Lara would let him know.

He needed to find her. Besides, if killing 500 snakes and a stinky snail over level 100 wasn’t enough to unlock [Life Fabricator], it could wait.

It was time to leave.

Logan pulled up the description of [Life Fabricator].

[Through intricate and highly precise work, this skill allows you to build, repair and control the life cycle of beings by cutting, bending, and assembling. Level is commensurate with your Karma pool and Karma regeneration rate. KarmaCoin awarded is based on carbon capture impact.]

His Karma regeneration rate was high enough to unlock the skill.

Fuck yes! Logan fist pumped the air. Finally. And this skill wasn’t [Life Cycle Master], it was better. That meant he could grow trees and plants again, and even more. Based on the description, he could create something out of nothing. That would help him with the Save Humanity Quest.

But that was tomorrow.

For today, the sun was dropping, and it was time to find out if his new portal generation crystal was worth its name. Either it would transport him to Hope’s End, or tomorrow he was going to use his newly earned strength, agility, and endurance to power his way to the city.

Logan made sure to will the chains back into his spatial collar, and then scanned the rest of the island. The snail smelled like a rotting corpse mixed with skunk and sewage, but it would be short-sighted to discount the metal shell. It might come in handy.

But the smell…

Ugh.

Making a snap decision, Logan willed the metal shell into his collar and then jumped over the side of the island and into the lake. The water splashed around him. Logan activated [Deepwater Explorer] as he moved out of the shallow area and into the depths. Around him, the water turned brown and green as goo and guts washed off his armour.

He scrubbed his hair, trying to get out the gunk.

Ernie shot past him like a bullet, still high on slaughter. “Is it time to kill more? More! More! More!”

“Nope, it’s time to go. We…” Logan gave Ernie a considering look. “I never asked if you want to come with me. I know you were okay coming with me to Hope’s End to find my sister before, but that was… well, before… everything. Before the queen serpent. You’re a different octopus now. A stealthy Liche. And for all I know, you have different priorities.”

Ernie stopped zooming through the water and hovered in front of Logan. Gradually, he calmed, his tentacles swimming rather than dancing. “We are bonded companions, yes? There was a reason I bonded with you, Logan. We stick together! I will help you save your brethren, and then you will help me save mine, yes? And we will defeat the queen serpent together, and I will become the ruler of the world.”

Logan blinked. Ruler of the world? The crazy thing was that Logan suspected that Ernie was serious.

Holding back a smile, Logan nodded. “Okay, then meet me back on the island. We need to get out of here.”

He waited until Ernie had climbed out of the water and onto the island and then willed out the hunk of ship shell, depositing it into the depths. Counting for five minutes straight, he let the current wash away as much gunk and crap as possible before he willed it back inside his collar.

At least this way the next time he took it out, it wouldn’t stink so bad.

***

Standing on top of Rattlesnake Island surrounded by piles of snake carcasses, Ernie inside the pouch on his back, Logan removed the portal generation crystal from his spatial collar.

The crystal was the size of Asthea’s communication marble, blue in color and shining with a faint light as if the System had trapped a firefly inside.

Logan scrutinized it with [Idiot’s Inspect].

[A continuous portal generation crystal. A Grade.]

He didn’t know how this worked, but if it were anything like the communication crystal, it should seep into his skin and then become a permanent skill.

Shit. Did that mean that it would count as a skill? That he’d be forced to lose another one? Shit, shit, shit!

Grudgingly, Logan was starting to come around to the value of skill rings. They were despicable, but if by wearing one, you managed to bypass the System’s ten skill limit, he could see how a society could talk themselves into overlooking the moral problems.

Holding his breath, Logan rubbed the marble like trying to dissolve a sugar cube. It was smooth, like glass. The light inside flared like a flickering candle, but it didn’t dissolve into his skin.

Huh.

How the hell did this thing work?

Furrowing his brow, Logan considered the problem. Once again, he was beyond frustrated that he had to figure everything out through trial and error. In a sane world, there would be an instruction manual, or some kind of voice to guide his way. Holy crap, this sucked!

“System, why are you such an asshole? An instruction manual would be nice! After all the shit your AI minion put me through, a bit of information is the least you can do.”

[What information would you like?]

Logan hissed in a shocked breath. The hair on the back of his neck standing on end, he glanced up at the sky. Back on the first day of the System Integration, asking questions had never worked. But then again, he’d been dealing with the glitchy AI minion.

“How does this crystal work?”

[Would you like to absorb the crystal for permanent use? Or would you like peripheral use only?]