[Congratulations! You have unlocked the skill [Lodestone Creationist]!]

Logan blinked, shocked. What the hell? [Lodestone Creationist] had been locked since he’d received his [Fabled Creation] class, and as far as he was concerned, he hadn’t done anything to unlock the skill. For once, was his high luck score paying off? But the System didn’t give out freebies; he must have done something to deserve it.

The only thing he could think of had to do with the empire building description of [Fabled Creation]:

[A class that gives the user the power over life and death. The world is in the palm of your hand. You only have to will it, and you shall have it. All shall tremble at your feet for a snap of your fingers will be their undoing. This class has empire building possibilities.]

Strictly speaking, the description of [Lodestone Creationist] had been locked since he’d received the skill. He hadn’t known what it did, but it stood to reason that if [Fabled Creation] had empire building possibilities, [Lodestone Creationist] had to be directly related.

Empire building could be a lot of things, but Logan had picked it because he’d struggled with money all his life. There was an undeniable thrill involved with the possibilities of building something that he could term an ‘empire,’ something tempting and irresistible to someone who’d barely held onto his career and struggled to pay the bills.

But until now, everything had been nothing but a race to find Lara and the kids. Speculation about building an empire had been the last thing on his mind.

And to build an empire, you needed people. By Chase thanking Logan, by offering his loyalty, had that prompted the System to unlock the skill?

With a surge of excitement, Logan focused on the description of [Lodestone Creationist].

[This rare skill allows you to craft lodestone access points and create private markets outside of the System Market.]

The hell? Logan scrunched his eyebrows, uncertainty eating away at his stomach. Until now, all his skills had been utility and combat focused; this was the first time he’d received something that looked foreign. It definitely wasn’t what he’d been expecting.

If he took it at face value, a lodestone is what had given him access to the Tree Fridge. Logan had done nothing to craft the lodestone… the System had given it to him after Eleanor’s death, but it stood to reason that it would be the same.

So, the skill let him create more Tree Fridges? Perhaps it was a way for him to access the Tree Fridge while in a different location. But still, frustration festered inside his gut. [Threshold Shift] gave him the ability to teleport anywhere he wanted. He no longer needed to create lodestones! All he had to do was shift back to the cabin to find the Tree Fridge!

Logan felt short changed, as if his [Fabled Creation] class had let him down. Or hell, was the System fucking with him yet again? It had been ages since he’d thought about the glitchy AI minion, but even though his System messages had been boring and staid, he didn’t trust it. He didn’t think he’d ever trust it again. For all he knew, it—

Ding!

[You’ve received the quest, Build an Empire! Craft ten lodestone access points and sell 100 items within 48 hours.]

[Reward for completing the Quest: Lord status. Lord status will allow you to declare yourself the lord of your community, receive pledges of loyalty, and Karma tax.]

[Penalty for not completing the Quest: All future KarmaCoin earnings will be reduced by fifty percent. In perpetuity.]

Logan gaped, his speculation about his new skill doing a 180. Perhaps his new skill didn’t just allow him to create Tree Fridges for himself, but for other people. Holy shit, did that mean that Logan could create his own System Market? Asthea had mentioned the System Market, but Logan had no idea when everyone would receive it. It was yet another mystery.

But Pied’s agents had known how much a skill ring cost, they’d mentioned that they were going to sell them. Hell, that squirrely little asshole, Peter, had even pulled out a slice of pizza from nothing!

Logan was betting that Pied had the ability to grant access to a market to his contract workers and agents. Was Logan’s new skill related?

It was beyond intriguing, but for fuck’s sake, he already had too many priorities as it was! If he only had 48 hours to complete the quest, he’d have to do it while taking Lara and the others to safety.

Safety was the question. Originally, he’d been planning to take them back to the cabin, but after he’d received Tasha’s text messages, he knew that Matt could be a problem. Logan wasn’t going to take them to the cabin until he knew it was secure.

Shit, fuck, and shit! So he needed to transport the octopuses, Lara, the kids and the others back to the Okanagan, find a safe place for them to stay, take care of the Matt problem, while at the same time tackling this new empire quest. Not to mention that he only had six days before he’d be taken to this mysterious Integration Tournament, and to top it off, he hadn’t made any progress on the Save Humanity Quest!

There was no way he could skip the empire building quest, not when doing so would screw him. Anything that said ‘perpetuity’ couldn’t be anything good. KarmaCoin wasn’t that important right now, but it would be in the future. It had to be.

Without the internet, with spotty data, no one would be accessing their bank accounts. That meant that human currency was a thing of the past. Soon, very, very soon, KarmaCoin would take over. If he failed the quest and received a fifty percent penalty on everything he earned in the future, that would be a kick in the balls.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Logan wanted to slam his fist through the wall, but not when his nieces were looking at him with wide eyes. He couldn’t even express his anger. He had to be rational, reasonable Uncle Logan, not crazy, slaughter loving Logan who wanted to burn the world to the ground.

“Uncle Logan?” questioned Sawyer while clutching Frank in a tight grip.

“Yeah, honey?”

“Are we going home now?”

“To a place even better.” To the woods. Wincing, Logan collapsed his armour, letting the sandstone turn into sand. Although he couldn’t do anything about his new muscles, at least he could make himself look less scary.

Surveying everyone, he sucked in a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. Time was ticking, and he needed to get everyone out of here before they encountered any more of Pied’s agents. He hadn’t forgotten that he still had a bounty, and that anyone who’d leveled up [Identify] would be able to see his hidden name. Just because Chase was grateful didn’t mean that everyone would be.

He needed to grab the octopuses, return here, and then teleport everyone out.

“Lara,” he said, giving her a look. “Stay here. I’ll be gone for less than five minutes, then I’ll come right back.”

“What? Where are you going?”

“Just hold on. Two minutes tops.”

“Logan—”

Logan didn’t give her time to protest, knowing that by the time he did, he could grab the octopuses and return. He didn’t like leaving her, not when he just found her, but there was no way he was going to leave the complex, return to the Okanagan, and then come back. Not after Pied’s threats.

He needed to do everything at once.

Deploying [Threshold Shift], he concentrated on the octopus prison. As if he’d just stepped into a freezer, with a feeling of abrupt cold, in less than a blink, Logan materialized on the floor.

Ernie scrambled out of his pouch, his eyes alight, the horns on top of his head jumping up and down. “Yes, yes, yes, a jailbreak, a rescue! For we rival all, and we never leave an octopus behind!” Jumping to the floor, he slimed over to the glass aquarium, pressing a tentacle against the glass, his colors fluctuating like a kaleidoscope.

Fuck. Logan had forgotten how many he was dealing with here. There had to be a thousand! No wonder Pied didn’t want to give them up, since each octopus would be a skill ring lost.

“Ernie, can they survive out of the water?”

“Pfft! Of course!”

Logan was worried that the aquarium would be like Lara’s glass prison, keeping [Threshold Shift] at bay, but as Logan concentrated on the octopuses behind the glass, he got the sense that moving them would be like child’s play. All he had to do was focus on what he wanted to transport, and the skill would obey.

“Back into the pouch, Ernie.”

Ernie caressed the glass, crooning, “Soon, soon. Logan will take you far away, and my minions will keep you safe! You will join my army, and we will get revenge upon the—”

“Ernie.”

He jumped away from the glass, his eyes glinting in satisfaction. The prospect of rescuing his brethren had given him new life, that bright personality that Logan was so used to returning.

Scooting up Logan’s leg and then crawling towards his pouch, Ernie ducked inside. Just like that, Logan deployed [Threshold Shift], clenching his fist, feeling pressure behind his nose as he wrenched and took a thousand octopuses with him down below.

With a snap, Logan materialized in the prison corridor with an explosion of water and a clatter of bodies, octopuses of various sizes and colors piling together. A smell like rotting seaweed wafted through the air, water pouring in a deluge.

Some of the octopuses made indignant noises, but others just flopped to the floor, their tentacles barely twitching. Logan couldn’t imagine that the conditions inside of the glass box aquarium had been good; Pied had needed to keep them alive, but that didn’t mean healthy.

Lara gasped while Sawyer jumped and then opened her mouth in surprised pleasure, her expression eager. Unlike Logan, Sawyer had always been excited by biology and by science, and seeing a mass of octopuses must remind her of Frank. Logan was glad to see that the last week hadn’t frightened her to the point that any animal reminded her of a monster.

“Holy shit!” said Chase, and he searched for a weapon he no longer had.

The others made sounds of startlement, some screamed, but Logan didn’t give them a chance to react, already concentrating on every living thing within the vicinity, making sure that he fixed Lara and the kids in his mind more than anything, and then deployed [Threshold Shift] to send everyone to Richton’s Tomb.

***

As they materialized on the beach, the adults in Brooke and Chase’s group screamed, while others leaned over and retched, their faces washed of all color. Behind him, the octopuses materialized half on the beach and half in the water, but their faces were just as pale as the humans.

Everything was dark, only the light of the moon illuminating Richton’s Tomb, the smell of wildfire smoke in the air. It was hard to believe that it had been only a day since he’d left Lara’s house. He’d spent so much time inside of Pied’s Kingdom that it was evening, well into the evening.

As Lara looked around in confusion, Logan scrubbed the back of his head, pulling on his hair. They were out in the wild, with too many people and not enough creature comforts for the kids. But the alternative was worse. He wasn’t going to take them to Jack’s cabin in the dark. Who knew what Matt was up to and what they’d be going into.

As far as anywhere else, it wasn’t an option. Everything was suspect, especially since Lara and the kids were relying on him to keep them safe.

“My poor brethren!” said Ernie, squawking as he jumped off Logan’s shoulder. “Logan, they’re not moving!” Scrambling down the beach, he crept up to them, poking one in the shoulder with a tentacle.

“What,” said Lara, swallowing and staring. “What the…” She cleared her throat. “Logan, why is an octopus talking? And calling you by name?”

Logan rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s Ernie.”

“Ernie,” she said, deadpan.

“Oooh!” exclaimed Sawyer, dropping Frank to the ground and taking a step towards Ernie. “Can I have him, mom? Can I keep him?”

Hunter rolled her eyes and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s a frigging monster, Saw. You don’t keep it; it keeps you.”

Ernie stopped poking the octopuses and turned back to them, his mouth dropping open. “Did your brethren just call me a monster, Logan?” he asked like an offended cat.

Logan gave him a weak smile. “Ernie is my bonded companion. He’s not a monster, he’s just… well, Ernie.”

Ernie scrambled up the beach, his horns jumping up and down in curiosity. “Yes, yes, yes! I’m Ernie, little squishy humans! Logan has told me many things about you, how he struggled so, trying to find you! How he worried and cried and blubbered and—”

Hunter smiled as if despite herself. She was in that teenage rebellion phase, rolling her eyes at everything Lara said. Despite the rips in her jeans and a worry-lined face, at least she hadn’t lost her attitude. If she’d turned into someone meek, then Logan really would have worried.

“Mother!” chirped Shoot, bounding up to Logan, her tail in the air.

Logan gave her a look of confusion. Her armour was gone. Somewhere between the prison and here, he must have lost the thread that connected [Mimicry Armour] to her suit.

Lara gasped and clutched Sawyer by the shoulder, pulling her back.

Logan could see why. Without the armour, Shoot was in all her glory. Her green vines writhed around her cat body like a living plant, her tongue a green shoot, flowers blooming on the end of her tail.

Shoot looked from Logan to Lara, her ears drooping, and just like that, the writhing vines stopped wiggling. Instead, what looked like green fur started spreading throughout her body and covering the vines.

Sawyer wiggled in Lara’s grip, trying to get away.

“Mother?” panted Shoot.

Lara looked from Shoot to Logan in disbelief. “Logan…?”

“Er.”