Logan raised his phone high in the air and stared at the network bars. Still the same. No data. He tried texting Lara: The sky is full of smoke. Forest fire. Is it anywhere near you? Are you okay??

Only for the message to come back with an undeliverable notification.

Logan gripped his phone in frustration, and then he had to calm himself down as the device started to creak under his newfound strength.

Ernie let out an aggrieved sigh before crawling over to Logan’s blanket, his tentacles soaking it with slime. He plopped down on top of the blanket and then rummaged through the supplies Logan had pulled out of his spatial collar. “No fish,” he mumbled, throwing a water bottle to the side with one tentacle. “Where’s the fish…”

Logan took in the scene, feeling numb, like watching a person walk down the street wearing a Halloween costume in in the summer. A curiosity, but meaningless in the scheme of things. Every fibre of his being was in panic mode as the possibilities of what had happened to Lara ran through his mind. He couldn’t lose Lara and the kids, not to this, not this day.

In desperation, he tried Tasha. A ring tone. So far, so good.

“Logan?” she said as the call connected. Relief filled him when he heard her voice, but his worry for Lara and the kids was still racked up to the ninth degree. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you until you were on your way back. What’s wrong?”

“There’s wildfire smoke in the air,” he said, voice tense. “You know how bad that could be for everyone. I can’t get through to my sister. Something’s wrong. And my shitty phone won’t connect to data; there’s no way to look up what’s going on. I need to know they’re okay.”

“Okay,” she said in a soothing voice as if she were talking him off a ledge. “Stressful situation here, for sure! Maybe I can help alleviate your worry. Not that we’ll ever stop worrying.”

Logan ran a hand through his hair and paced around his blanket while Ernie watched him with curious eyes.

“The Wi-Fi worked this morning. For about five minutes before it went down again. Still no cellular data, but Jack was able to access one of the local sites. The fire is bad, a big one, but it’s 100 miles out from Hope’s End. Still in the forest. The wind is moving the smoke in our direction, but he said the fire is moving away from the city. If your sister is in Hope’s End, she should be safe. For now.”

Logan slumped to the ground, his legs going boneless in relief. For a second, he’d really thought Hope’s End was on fire. In a city that large, with buildings packed so close together, fire would be a death sentence.

“This is so messed up, though. Why would the System blow up everything that could fight fires? It caused the very thing it was supposedly trying to prevent. Carbon. And if it’s happening here, it’ll happen everywhere. California, Washington, Quebec. Don’t Europe and Australia get fires too? It’ll feed itself.”

“Armageddon,” Logan whispered.

“No, it won’t get that bad. The weather will turn around, eventually it’ll get cold.” It sounded as if Tasha were trying to reassure herself rather than Logan.

What she wasn’t saying was that by the time that happened, all the homes anywhere close to the forests would be burned to a crisp. Jack’s cabin wasn’t even safe. Even though the property was by the water, all it took was one flying ember. And the situation could change on a dime. Wind would be their enemy. A forest fire during calm weather was one thing—it would move, but slowly. Suddenly, add wind to the mix and you had a firestorm on your hands.

“This is so fucked!” Tasha cried. “The System is evil! Is it trying to kill us all?!”

Logan was starting to suspect it might be. It had given an incentive for killing other people, after all.

Logan sighed. “I can’t do anything here, but you can prepare. Prevention will be the way we survive this. Clear away any loose pine needles, anything on the ground. Bring in the patio furniture, the outdoor mats. Anywhere an ember could land. Cut down the pine trees close to the property; hell, even carve out a ditch around the cabin as a fire barrier. Then, have Jack show everyone the garden hoses. There should be an extra one inside the supply shed.”

Tasha was quiet. “Do you really think we need all that?”

Logan pinched his nose. “I’d be organizing it myself if I was still there.”

Logan heard a text message come in. “Hold on.”

Turning Tasha’s call on speakerphone, he navigated to his text messages and then slumped in relief. A text message had come through from Lara.

Lara: Hey little brother, I don’t know if you tried to call, but cell service here is getting spotty. We might not be able to talk today. All good here. The schedule is still a go.

“She’s okay,” Logan said, and then laughed in relief. That had been hell. It reminded him of that time when Lara had gone through her divorce, and she’d asked him to pick up the kids from school. He’d agreed to do it, arrived at the school, and yet he hadn’t found Sawyer or Hunter anywhere. While he’d searched, that frantic twenty minutes had been one of the worst of his life. Every horrible possibility imaginable had gone through his mind.

It had turned out that since Logan had arrived at the wrong entrance, the kids had assumed he was late, and they had gone to the gym to watch the basketball team play. His worry had been for nothing; he could only hope it was the same this time.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Logan ended the call with Tasha and then turned his attention to Ernie, who was watching him with inquisitive eyes.

Ernie crawled closer and waved a tentacle. “I sensed a tremendous degree of emotion, a wellspring of worry. This ‘Lara’ means a lot to you?”

Logan gave him a gentle smile. “Lara is my sister. You could say she means a lot, yeah.” It was Logan’s turn to look at Ernie in curiosity. “Do you have siblings, Ernie?”

“Over 20,000 of them! But many of them are eaten by now.”

Logan blinked. “You weren’t very close, I take it?”

“I saw them once, when I hatched! After that, we went our separate ways.” Ernie’s expression became faraway and one of his tentacles twitched. “Back then, it seemed normal. The right thing. A natural parting of the ways, never to see each other again. But now, I can’t help but look back on it with uncertainty.” Ernie’s voice took on a wistful tone. “It would have been nice to be close to a sibling like your Lara.”

Logan gave him a considering look. Leveling up had given Ernie the ability to talk, but had it also done something else? For all he knew, the more levels beings received, the more self-aware they became. Eventually, they might have a spider rat scholar on their hands. Logan shuddered at the thought.

Ernie nudged him with a tentacle. “Is the emotional siesta over? We have slaughtering to commence.”

Logan held back a grimace. “When we met, I was on my way to my sister. She has two kids and they’re stranded in Hope’s… stranded in a city.” Did Ernie even know what a city was? “A large place where humans live. She’s in danger, and I need to pick her up and bring her back here.” Ernie was still looking at him with curious eyes. “Does this… do you understand what I’m saying?”

Ernie slimed his way closer to Logan, resting a tentacle on the top of his shoe as he raised himself up with his other tentacles and peered at Logan’s face. Being an octopus monster, you’d assume Ernie would smell like rotten fish or something equally unpleasant. But up close, Logan got the faint whiff of fish and seaweed, like the smell of freshly harvested oysters.

Ernie’s eyes were black pools. “How will you save your sister if you’re a weakling?”

Wait. “…What?”

“I chose you due to your creativity! And smarts! And your ability to use the magic mirror! As well as to get me tasty treats. But you’re weak, Large Human Logan! I could squeeze you into mush with one swipe of a tentacle! You must save your sister, yes, yes.” Ernie bobbed his head. “A noble quest. But you must also get strong!”

“I know that, but I still—”

“You must slaughter!” Ernie huffed. “I will be magnanimous. We will partake in your noble quest and save your sister, but you must meet me half-way.”

Logan stared. Unreal. “You sound like my ex-girlfriend.”

“She was also a Murderous Octopus?”

Logan snorted.

Ernie lowered himself down to the ground and crawled back to Logan’s blanket. He latched onto the empty water bottle again and then shook it forlornly before throwing it into the bushes. “We must also make time to fish during this noble quest.”

It wasn’t that Logan needed to be talked into leveling. Having the advantage of a Level 55 companion wasn’t something he was going to discount. But at the same time, each day, the situation around him got worse. Today it was a forest fire, what would happen tomorrow? If today followed the same pattern as the others, they had yet another System purge to look forward to. Could Logan take the time needed to slaughter monsters with Ernie when Lara’s situation was a ticking time bomb?

But could he afford not to? To save Lara and the kids, to keep Tasha and Jack safe, he needed to be strong. As he stood there, people were murdering other people for levels. Logan was getting weaker just talking to Ernie. Since he would never take part in the killing of innocent human beings, he was already disadvantaged. He had no idea how high these people’s levels were, but based on the newscast, it was possible that a handful of people were killing hundreds, even thousands. With exponential XP, that meant a potential level that was so high it was uncomfortable to even consider.

And yet, the System was giving out bonus XP to despicable people, but did those people have a companion who was triple their level to help them along? Logan would bet his entire supply of green beans, hell, even his spatial storage collar, that they didn’t.

There had to be a happy medium here.

“What if I do meet you half-way, Ernie?”

The octopus paused in rummaging through Logan’s belongings and gave him an attentive look. “Oh?”

“We kill things. We kill the hell out of things, but we also travel to Hope’s End. We can travel in my boat during the day, I’ll swing one of my fishing nets over the side and catch you fish, then, before we turn in for the night, we go swimming. We’ll find you sturgeons, monsters; we’ll kill everything we come across that wants to kill us.”

Ernie’s eyes brightened. “And slaughter…?”

“I’ll give you slaughter. I’ll give you so much carnage you’ll be swimming in blood.”

***

Logan spent time completing his daily cheats, triggering his agility and dexterity bonuses, but he left strength and endurance for the boat. He’d be paddling like a madman once they left in the canoe, so it made sense to save time when he’d already earn bonus attributes on the journey anyway.

But before they left, there was something he needed to do. Throughout this whole ordeal, Logan had done his best to handle whatever came at him, but many times, he’d squeezed by only through luck or the skin of his teeth. Instead of reacting, he wanted to prepare. Strategy. Strategy would get him through this.

Unlike when he’d first encountered the undead minions, he had a huge advantage. His spatial storage collar gave him a leg up on monsters and other people, since whatever he found, he could store. The current contents were a pittance, but as he found supplies, he had the ability to throw them all in there and will them out as needed. Plus, there were things in his environment he could use right now. He had no idea if this would work, but in a pinch, in a life-or-death fight, why not?

Whenever he willed an item out of the collar, he could pin-point where he wanted that item to land to within a few feet. Take out his baseball bat? It arrived in his hand. Deposit the supply shed? In an area he’d designated.

What if he used that targeting ability as a weapon?

“Hold on, Ernie,” he said to the octopus while he grabbed his baseball bat. “I’ll be right back. There’s something I need to try before we go.”

One of Ernie’s tentacles twitched. “Yes, I will wait here like a footstool and not slaughter anything,” he said, glowering. “At all.”

Logan grimaced. He was starting to suspect Ernie became grumpy when he was hungry. “Um, yeah. Won’t be long at all.”

Logan gave the octopus a cautious glance and then went back to the beach. Around the lake, the waterfront varied depending upon the quality of the property. You could just as easily find a beach with spotless sand that resembled a resort in Mexico as you could find one that was unusable.

The shoreline he’d camped next to seemed to be a happy medium between the two. The sand was still beach-level sand, but there was also gravel in spots and washed-up logs littered the shore. Most of these logs were rotting and brittle, but many of them were massive and nowhere close to something he could’ve lifted before the System Integration.

Logan walked down the length of the beach and willed logs inside his spatial collar like picking up trash. Log after log, as many as he could find. And it was effortless, like throwing twigs into a bag. Would there ever be a limit?

Logan paused and held up the nametag dangling from the collar. It still listed his name. The same as before. But if he ever encountered someone who recognized what it was, he might be in for a fight. As far as he was concerned, it was more valuable than a vault of gold.

Logan returned to Ernie, having cleared out the beach. All told, he’d found over a dozen logs.

But he wasn’t finished at logs. His next task? Boulders.