Logan had encountered a lot of crazy things since this whole ordeal started, but this was the first time he was presented with something that had to be alien technology. Even if it were human in origin, there was no explanation for why he’d found it at the bottom of a remote Canadian lake. This said ‘the System’ all over it.
Not to mention that it looked so far advanced it was on another stratosphere. Rather than something you’d see out of the film Stargate, this thing was… Logan didn’t know how to describe it. If Lara had said to him, tell me what you’re looking at, Logan. Logan would have to answer, the trippiest portal of your dreams.
It was as if it were alive. An orb that was tall enough for a full-grown person to walk through without ducking, the sides fluctuating and shimmering as starlight rushed by. And each time he glanced at it, it looked different. Now, it wasn’t dark space with bright starlight, but a gaseous nebula rushing past at the speed of light; the next time, a black hole, sucking everything inside a bottomless pit.
It gave him a feeling of awe, but also trepidation. This thing had an aura of danger to it. It wanted to suck him into the sphere, but Logan wasn’t sure he’d survive if he took it up on its invitation.
Logan tried to use [Idiot’s Inspect] on it.
[##!#!##!##!]
And received nothing but scrambled text. Either it was so overpowered that his skill couldn’t recognize it, or Logan had stumbled onto something he wasn’t supposed to see.
Ernie swam around the portal like a squirrel on steroids, his skin taking on the wild fluctuating space and starlight as he rushed past.
“Did I not tell you that I rival all? Stick with me, Logan, and we shall go far!” The horns on his head were sticking straight up. Zooming closer, he swam in front of Logan, his skin mirroring the sphere as the shimmering surface fluctuated into a black hole. “Are we going to use the powerful magic orb?”
Ernie’s eyes gleamed in greed as he gazed at it dreamily.
Logan crept closer to the lodestone while keeping a wary eye on the sphere. The lodestone looked like the one from the Willow Tree, practically twins. If he placed his hand in it, he suspected he’d activate the portal, but that feeling of doom persisted.
There was something wrong here.
It reminded him of the fight with the undead minions and how Logan had managed to intimidate Brad into backing down by projecting his aura outwards. The portal’s aura of danger could be a failsafe to help warn monsters away, but somehow, Logan didn’t think so.
If he tried to use it, he might not make it out alive.
“No,” he said finally, backing away with a kick to the wall and propelling himself into the water and away from the portal. “We’re not going to use it. Not now. It might work, it might not. But even if it does, there’s no way to know where it’ll send us. I can’t afford to go anywhere other than to Lara and to Hope’s End.”
It was tempting though, so tempting. For all he knew, he could be looking at the solution to his problem. There could be another portal in the lake in front of the city, and Lara and the kids could be on the other side. Was he really going to throw that chance away?
Ernie’s horns deflated. “Humph.” He ran an avid eye over the sphere. “Your words have wisdom, but somehow, the lure of the shiny orb has only grown stronger!” Ernie hesitated and then twitched in the water, his tentacles jumping in startlement as fear overtook his greed. He was like a tentacle monster as his limbs flew everywhere, eventually making a beeline for Logan. He overtook him in the water and then circled around, latching onto Logan’s back, his suction cups feeling like hundreds of tiny vacuum cleaners as he clung on with desperation.
“Ernie, what…”
Ernie was peering around Logan’s shoulder and using him as a shield. “It’s like the magic mirror! It’s luring me forward, wanting to suck me into its endless depths! Depths of doom!”
That did it. It wasn’t just an overactive imagination. If Ernie felt that menacing aura too, the portal was dangerous. Logan kicked with his feet, propelling himself backward and taking Ernie with him. “So you feel it too.”
“It’s a murderous sphere!”
“Maybe. Possibly. We don’t know enough yet to tell for sure. But whatever it is, it’s not safe.” Logan craned his head, trying to get a look at the octopus. “Come on, don’t be scared.”
Ernie huffed and pushed away from Logan with an offended scowl. “Scared! Scared! Bah!” Then, mumbling, “It was a tactical retreat.”
Logan gave him a soft smile. “Sure. Come on, we have slaughtering to do, remember? But good job finding this thing. This could be huge. We’ll come back to it eventually.”
Mentioning slaughter seemed to do the trick. Ernie’s horns reappeared and he used his tentacles to spring forward in the water and jump away from the sphere, grumbling all the while. “Scared, I’ll show you scared. Ernie rivals all! Enemies cower in front of my mightiness, prostrating at my heels, my mighty tentacles, my…” He raised his mental voice. “Let’s use the other tunnel, Logan!”
Other tunnel? Logan didn’t have much time left before he ran out of air; his [Deepwater Explorer] skill was about to be exhausted, and he wasn’t looking forward to going through the agony of another level increase. Each time, the agony increased, beyond anything he’d ever experienced or imagined possible. What’s worse, [Idiot’s Paradox] did nothing to reduce the pain since Logan suspected that skill leveling was outside of its purview.
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“We might need to take a break before we venture further. I need a shot of actual oxygen.”
“To the surface? Hah! Then Ernie rivals all. The tunnel goes up!”
Ernie darted away too quickly for Logan to question. Holding back a sigh, he kicked off from the chamber wall and followed, keeping a close eye on the hanging stalactites as he darted through the chasm and ended up on the opposite side. Ernie had said the caves he’d encountered in the ocean were a breeding ground for life, but so far, they’d yet to encounter any fish. Either the portal’s aura of danger had scared them away, or… something else.
Logan tightened his grip on the Cursed Rope at the thought.
Ernie was clinging to the cave wall, the suction cups on his tentacles keeping him in place as he waited.
Huh. Another tunnel. Slightly narrower, but still wide enough to fit a small compact car. Unlike the other tunnel, which had a gradual, twisting decline, this one shot straight up as if someone had drilled through the earth at a 180-degree angle.
Logan peered up. “You think that goes to the surface?”
Ernie’s skin turned dark grey with hints of emerald green pulsing through as he turned his head towards the tunnel and did… something. Logan’s octopus knowledge ended at the nature documentary he’d watched with his ex-girlfriend. For all he knew, they had a sonar capability, or hell, an enhanced perception attribute skill from the System.
“It goes up, all the way up!” One of Ernie’s tentacles latched onto Logan’s armour-covered arm and started to tug. “Onwards!”
With a last tug, Ernie let go and then darted into the tunnel, back to being a murderous ping pong ball. Logan grumbled and rolled his eyes but followed. Even though he’d only known Ernie for a little over two days, he trusted him. That’s what fighting for your life together did.
If he knew anything, Ernie wanted to win, and winning meant Logan had to succeed. He wouldn’t do anything to intentionally risk Logan’s life. Plus, Logan had become fond of the little bugger. His drive to succeed and excel was off the charts and being around him motivated Logan to go that extra mile. It was like having a rambunctious devil in your ear whispering, just one more kill, one more kill, come on, just one.
This was a serious tunnel. No twists, no turns, going directly up and up. Logan kept swimming, eyes cautious at first, but when all he encountered was rock and yet more rock, he kicked his swimming into high gear. Although he’d had no way to time how long it had taken to reach the chamber, he could tell they’d swum way longer than in the previous tunnel. Would this thing lead all the way to the surface?
Damn. Logan strained, his calf muscles burning. If he hadn’t already earned his daily endurance point, he would have gained it from this swim alone. Up and up, kick after kick.
With one last final kick, the tunnel suddenly narrowed.
“Yes yes yes, I rival all,” Ernie communicated as he suddenly… disappeared.
But he hadn’t disappeared.
He’d breached the surface.
The tunnel had ended. Logan shot through the surface of the lake, his head popping into a cavern that was full of real oxygen. Taking a deep breath, his chest moving like a racehorse, a rush of relief surged through him as [Deepwater Explorer] deactivated. That had been cutting it close.
He peered around in confusion.
Stale air. And a damp stench, like mold and algae left to rot. Everything was dark, only a narrow beam of sunlight illuminating the cavern around them. What the hell was this?
Keeping a careful grip on the Cursed Rope, Logan grabbed the sides of the ledge and lifted himself out of the water.
The cavern was the size of a den, with hardly enough space for a full-grown person to stand. With Logan being as tall as he was, he had to hunch his back and watch his head as he inched over, shuffling over ground that felt moist and soft with moss. As he moved farther away from the tunnel entrance, the cave ceiling rose--enough for Logan to stand without crouching.
“Ernie, this isn’t the surface.” At least not quite. His voice echoed in the cavern, an acoustic sound effect making it seem louder than it was.
They were above ground, but they weren’t home free. There was no exit other than a narrow, narrow opening thirty feet above which let in a beam of sunlight. There was no way Logan would fit through that even if he managed to find a way up.
As Logan’s feet disturbed the earth, tiny dust and mold particles danced in the light.
Ernie made a startled sound. “Treasure!” He’d slimed his way over to the end of the cave, right above the sunbeam.
Logan squinted, and then his eyes opened wide.
At first, he thought he was looking at a pile of metal, nothing but scraps. It was the size of a large garbage can turned over on its side. But something glittered from amongst the pile, something that reflected the light. Logan crept forward, and as he got a better look, excitement surged.
Talk about stumbling over a pile of gold.
Holy shit! That wasn’t a pile of junk! It was a pile of jewels! Gold and silver rings and earrings, diamond rings, necklaces full of gems! Hundreds of them! Dirt and algae covered the pile, so much algae that it was as if he were looking at an underwater shipwreck left to rot. Some, like the diamond ring that had sparkled, looked brand new, but others…. Logan crouched down in front of the pile and rummaged through it with a hesitant hand. The further he dug through the pile, the older they got. They looked like old-fashioned jewelry, something that belonged on Antiques Roadshow. And as he…
Something golden.
Fucking hell. It was a gold bar the size of a brick!
Logan rubbed the dirt away from the back of the bar, staring, not knowing what to think.
1858 Fraser River.
It was from the Cariboo Gold Rush.
How the hell did a bar of gold from the 1800s end up in a pile of jewels in the Okanagan Lake? It was as if a hoarder had squirrelled it away, year after year. And yet, that didn’t make any sense. If it were the same person that did this, they would have had to locate jewelry from all over the lake for the last two hundred years.
Logan’s excitement started to fade. This was an amazing find, and in a normal world, it would have meant he was rich, but was a pile of jewels going to help him in the apocalypse? Maybe. It might be more valuable than money for trading purposes, but Logan suspected that KarmaCoin would be the real powerhouse in the future. For now, Logan willed the pile into his spatial collar, a pile of dust and mold kicking into the air as it disappeared.
“Ernie, that was a good find, but—”
Something was coming up the tunnel.
A shudder went through the cave, as if they were being hit by an earthquake. But this was no earthquake. A massive animal was clawing its way up the edges of the tunnel. Logan tightened his grip on the Cursed Rope, taking a step back and away from the pool of water, ducking behind a slight bend in the cave and half-hiding his body.
The first thing he saw was green, snake-like scaly skin, gleaming with water. The monster’s face was rounded, feminine, with high cheekbones and full, green lips. Instead of hair, dozens of green, blind snakes with foggy eyes wiggled, as if scenting the air around them. Water poured from the snake heads in rivulets, trailing down the serpentine body, which was long and the width of a manhole.
The thing kept coming, crawling out of the pool of water, its body never ending. It was so long that half of its body must still be in the water tunnel.
“Logan!” Ernie hissed in his mind, sounding frantic.
Panic surging, Logan deployed [Idiot’s Inspect].
[Queen Naitaka: Level ??? A water serpent, known colloquially as the Ogopogo. Queen of all within her domain and commander of the Undead Minion Army.]
[Highest Stat: Intelligence.]