There was nothing like being scolded by your big sister to feel normal again. Lara had listened to his story with disbelief and not a little shock, then she’d scolded Logan for being reckless, for almost getting killed by the queen serpent, for getting trapped in the trial dungeon in the first place, and finally, for taking so much frigging time to find them. In her words, not Logan’s.
But for all her bluster, Logan knew that was Lara’s way of telling him that she cared and that she was glad that he’d survived.
As for the state of Lara’s house when he’d arrived—the blood on the walls, the overflowing sink—her tale practically gave him a heart attack.
“What did happen?” asked Logan. “I arrived at your house and the scene… it scared me to death. Blood in the kitchen, blood smears on the floor. It looked like something out of a horror movie.”
“Yeah, that was fun,” she said with a sigh. “I injured one of the creeps, a contract maker. Stabbed him with a kitchen knife while Hunter hit him with a frying pan.”
Logan grinned. “I’m surprised you didn’t hit him with an arrow.”
Lara blew out a breath and lowered her voice, looking towards where the kids had settled down before rubbing her eyes. “That’s another story.” Her eyes were red and sore, a consequence of the wildfire smoke. The poor air quality didn’t bother Logan anymore, but anyone lowered leveled was struggling. Logan worried about the kids, but there was nothing for it. Not until he found them real, secure shelter.
To their delight, Logan had taken out their beds (bedding and all) from his spatial storage. Lara couldn’t get over how he’d managed to turn a cat collar into a Houdini collar. But setting up a makeshift bedroom in the middle of the woods was something his nieces could get excited about. In this fucked up world, anything he could do to make the world special, make it seem less doom and gloom and more like a fairytale… that would be the way to keep them sane.
Unfortunately, beyond the other blankets Lara had stored inside of her home, he couldn’t do the same for the others. He wanted to; they had kids as well, but his priority would always be his family. But at least Logan could give them back what he’d taken in Hope’s End when they’d fled from the condo. They’d had barely any belongings, but it was something.
“Another story?” Logan questioned.
“I found my bow downstairs, even used it on Annabelle to level up the first time.” Annabelle was Lara’s quaker parrot. Logan winced. Damn, the kids wouldn’t have liked that. Lara had essentially killed their pet. “But I lost it once the rat army took us. The contract worker took our weapons, cell phones, even Hunter’s frying pan. I don’t know where I’m going to get another. Besides… I don’t know if I should.”
Logan had already rummaged through his spatial collar, searching for Asthea’s crossbow, but then he paused, blinking. “Why wouldn’t you?” Lara was a natural at archery; to pick another weapon made no sense.
Lara snorted. “The System made me boring. I was boring in life, and now I’m boring in the apocalypse. My class lets me negotiate, persuade. I think there’s a hidden compulsion in one of my skills, but I need to level up more to find out.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t need a weapon. To level up, you have to kill things.”
“Not necessarily…” Lara hedged. “I received XP just by negotiating with Ruler Pied. I’m only 50 points away from the next level.”
What. Logan felt a prickling sensation on his scalp. He didn’t know why he was surprised, since he already knew it was possible to level up in different ways. Peter, that jerk he’d killed back in Hope’s End, had leveled up after talking children into signing contracts. Hell, even Shoot had the ability to level up by obtaining acceptance from others. Logan thought he knew where his discomfort was coming from though.
He didn’t like the idea of his sister leveling up in any way other than through brute force. Peter had been disgusting, taking advantage of others for his own gain. Since that encounter, Logan had already begun to classify anything with alternative methods of leveling up as ‘other.’ But then again, hadn’t Lara always been smart? If there was a way to level up just by being a negotiator, that would be his sister.
“You still need to level up the traditional way,” said Logan, firm. It was one thing to have an ability that let you level up without fighting, but another if she were so weak that she wouldn’t get the chance to even start negotiating.
With a blink, Logan removed Asthea’s crossbow, feeling a pang of heartache. This was the first of many gifts that he intended to give her and the children. He still had the Silverdagger spatial storage bracelets to hand out, but something told him to wait. Lara was too low leveled, and if he gave her a spatial storage device out in the open, one of the others might try to get on Logan’s bad side and take it from her.
Lara looked down, her hands hesitant as she examined the weapon.
[Silverdagger Crossbow. A Grade. Your aim will always be true.]
She gasped. “Shit. How…? Do you know how rare it is to have an A grade item? They said it was like finding a pile of gold.”
“I want you to have it. The person who owned it was brave, stood her ground, and took no crap from anyone. She reminded me of you.”
Lara’s expression was gentle. “I sense a story there. Logan, what really happened to you? I can tease all I want about your appearance and about your high level, but you’re not my brother anymore.”
“Lara—”
“No, just listen to me. You’re Logan, I know you’re Logan, but the person looking at me right now isn’t the same person who parked his butt on my couch to watch marathon sessions of the Walking Dead.”
Logan licked his lips, his mouth dry. “I had to kill people. A lot of people. Most of them deserved it, but…” His voice cracked. “I was put into a difficult position. Between a rock and a hard place. If I hadn’t done what was necessary, it would have meant that you could have been in jeopardy, the kids would have been in jeopardy. It was no contest, but it was hard.”
Logan remembered what [Foresight] had shown him, an army of Silverdagger warriors facing off against a line of humans. And Lara, looking battle worn, facing off against Asthea. If he had let Asthea live, that could have been their reality.
But fuck, Logan had tried his best to avoid thinking of it in the first place because he knew it would make his emotions slosh all over the place. If there was one thing he needed to be, it was firm in his resolve. There was no room for regret or should-have-beens when he had the fate of billions of people in his hands.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Not to mention that already, he’d fallen further behind on the Save Humanity Quest:
[Quest: Save Humanity! Save 5.9 billion people in less than one year by catching and storing 930 billion tons of carbon. This is a running Quest, and your progress can fluctuate up and down.]
[Reward for completing the Quest: You will save 5.9 billion people.]
[Penalty for not completing the Quest: You will kill 5.9 billion people.]
[Quest Progress: -5% complete. 354 days remaining.]
What the hell? The last time he’d checked, it had been negative one percent, and now it was sitting at five! Logan felt his anger surge, a vein on his forehead throbbing.
There was something FUBAR here. There was no way that much carbon had ended up in the atmosphere in less than one day. No way. Crap, was the glitchy AI minion back, screwing with his System messages and sabotaging his quests? Worst of all, he had no one to ask. Asthea had been his only lifeline to the mysterious ‘System Admins’ and it wasn’t like Logan could submit an error report.
Running a hand through his hair, Logan paced, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists. His aggravation was real, but more than anything, he felt frustration. One step forward, two steps back. The Save Humanity Quest was the only way he could guarantee that Lara and the kids survived the purge. But he couldn’t go off trampling over the countryside, growing monster tree after monster tree. He couldn’t. There was no reason to worry about a quest that would save Lara and the kids in a year if he didn’t save them now.
First, he needed to secure Jack’s cabin so he could utilize the array that Pied had given him. And he had yet another mini-quest to complete, his Build an Empire quest, and time was ticking. He had only two days to figure out how to craft 10 lodestone access points, whatever that meant. How could he—
Wait a minute.
To secure Jack’s cabin and figure out what was going on with the Matt situation, he would need to leave Chase and Brooke’s group here. There was no reason to transport them to the cabin before he knew what he was transporting them into. Why not create a lodestone access point here, and let them use it? There weren’t a hundred people here, but it would be enough to start.
“You should go to bed,” he said to Lara.
“Don’t think this conversation is over. But I’m tired. What about you?”
Logan gave her a half smile. He would have to sleep eventually, but Logan had the advantage of [Undead Stamina] to keep him going where the others didn’t. “I’m going to talk to Ernie first and keep an eye out for monsters. But I’m working out an alert system with Chase, so that we can cycle guards to make sure someone is always watching. Eventually, my shift will end, and I’ll get some sleep.”
Lara hesitated and then lowered her voice. “What do you think about Chase? Do you trust him? Trust the group?”
Logan shrugged. “I don’t trust anyone, not anymore. Only you and Ernie.”
Logan would like to say that he trusted Jack and Tasha, but did he really? He hadn’t forgotten the way Jack had been acting when this all started. Back then, Logan had been a different person. He’d been looking at the situation from a different perspective, and now, he was a more jaded man, but Jack had still abandoned him at the resort when he could have waited.
As for Tasha, Logan would like to say that he trusted her, but he’d only known her for a day. How much could you learn about someone in a day?
“You trust an octopus,” Lara muttered as she walked towards Hunter and Sawyer.
Logan held back a sigh. Ernie had been excited to meet Lara and the kids, but Lara would take time to come around.
Walking to the edge of the lake, Logan winced. Ernie had tried his best with the rescued octopuses, but half of them had been too far gone. On top of what he had to go through when he saw his brethren boiled alive, he now had to say goodbye to hundreds of his kind.
“How’s it going?” asked Logan, stepping into the lake, his feet submerging in the water. The only light was from the moon, but with the smog, it was tinted orange. Orange light reflecting on the surface of the water made it seem like they were on an alien world. The smog and the flare of candling pine trees off in the distance didn’t help with the picture.
Apocalypse indeed.
Ernie gave him a frantic, furtive glance, his mouth parted, his eyes wide in desperation. He swung his tentacles back and forth in the water as if he didn’t know what to do with himself. “Pied must die, Logan! He must die! This indignity cannot be borne! First, kidnapping my brethren, then housing them in conditions not worth your worst enemy. I read about the Geneva convention in the underwater garbage lands! I know he has done wrong! Despicable wrong!”
“I know, buddy. But you know we can’t do anything about that now. He’s too strong.”
In the water, tentacles flashed by in a blur, too many to count. It reminded Logan of a flock of fish. The octopuses who had survived were a mix between small, tiny octopuses barely the size of his fist, to a huge Pacific Octopus that was three times the size of Ernie. Their colors were dull brown to vibrant, tropical greens and yellows. Some had spots, others were solid, but just like Ernie, their colors could fluctuate by deploying [Mimicry].
“How many of them survived?” asked Logan as he looked at the swarm. They were different levels, but unlike Ernie, none of them were past level 40. Logan didn’t know if that were due to their captivity, or because Ernie had named himself I Rival All. Logan would find it difficult to picture another octopus who was as bloodthirsty and eager for slaughter as Ernie. Plus, Ernie had another advantage.
He was a Liche.
“Only a hundred or more,” said Ernie, glum, his tentacles drooping. Then he brightened. “But all is not lost! The ones that did not survive are now minions.”
“…They are?” Logan would have thought that Ernie would have hesitated, torn over turning his own brethren into thralls. Essentially, he’d be turning them into undead zombies, but unlike Ernie, they’d truly be that way. If Logan were in the same situation, there was a moral complexity that he would have struggled to reconcile. By making them undead, Ernie was taking away their free will.
Ernie bobbed his head. “It was their wish, Logan. Their dying wish. Like me, they seek revenge and want to bring Pied down. Some decided to become fish food, as is their right, but the majority, each one, asked to join my army to build the horde. They will continue to level up, and we will become an army like nothing else.”
“There you go,” said Logan, trying to be encouraging. “That’s a bright spot, isn’t it?”
Ernie drooped. “But they still died. I would return all my minions, go to an army of you and I only, if I could restore them and return them to their home. Home, Logan, home. You are my home, and I am yours, but the survivors wish to return to the ocean. I can deploy [Portal Generation], but that might not be so smart, yes?”
[Portal Generation] had both a huge KarmaCoin and Karma cost. On top of that, using it to go barely a few miles had almost killed Logan. He had no idea how much it would cost to go to the ocean, but it would be a lot. Possibly a fatal cost.
“I can take care of it with [Threshold Shift]. Anyone that wants to return. But Ernie… I hate to state the obvious, but although Pied agreed to free them, he didn’t agree to stop catching them. If they go back, they could be captured again.”
“Yes,” Ernie grumbled. “That’s why he needs to die. But for now, it’s their choice. They know the risks and they choose to return.”
“Tell the ones who want to go to meet me here in the morning. For now, I have something else to try.” Logan gave Ernie a firm look. “Can you monitor the group, have your minions keep watch and warn me if Lara and the kids are in danger?”
The horns on top of Ernie’s head jumped up and down. “Yes yes yes. For my army rivals all.” Splashing a tentacle, he bobbed in the water before sobering. “There’s something else. Larry, my mighty steed, brings word that mushrooms are on the move.”
Logan blinked. “…mushrooms?”
“Larry cannot talk, only send images. But yes, mushrooms, climbing out of the lake, onto the shore, spreading. He sent an image of mold, creeping and crawling.”
“Shit.” Logan didn’t like that, since it reminded him of the mycelian saturated ground back at the resort. More of that shit could spread and infect anyone on the shore. Infect Lara and the kids.
That damn queen serpent was spreading her zombie infection.
Growling, Logan bashed his fist over the surface of the water, sending a huge splash in a deluge. He’d just finished listing his priorities, and the serpent queen hadn’t been on the list. But fuck, he would have to make her a priority if she were going around infecting humans. His worst nightmare would be Lara and the kids turning into those flower minions. He would never forgive himself.
For now, Logan backed out of the lake, trying to keep quiet as he moved past the sleeping group, and over to his monster carbon capture tree.
It was time to make a lodestone.