Logan could use [Threshold Shift] to teleport them both off the tree, but he'd never tried moving someone from a high elevation to a flat surface. For all he'd know, he'd end up teleporting them into mush. Not something he was willing to risk.

Logan let his facemask and helmet dissolve and then gave the kid a smile. "Mark, is it?" he asked, his voice gentle. "If you grab my back and hold onto my shoulders, I can take you down."

"Don't do it, Mark!" the girl hissed, pointing her knife towards Logan's face.

"Kid," said Logan. "What do you think I'm going to do? I mean you no harm. Based on the fact that you were trying to escape from those beavers, and your low level compared to the monsters in the lake… it looks like you need help. Are you out here alone?"

The knife trembled in her grip. "Everybody who wants to help dies."

Logan gave them a closer look. Despite the evidence of cooking trout back at their campsite, they look malnourished, and sleep deprived. "I have a niece your age. She's safe with her mother down the shore. They're protected. With food and shelter. Even electricity and TV. There are other kids there, kids who no longer have to worry about beavers or where to find their next meal. I can take you there."

"Kate!" Mark hissed. "Let's go with him!"

"You shouldn't trust strangers," she snapped.

"But he's the octo-man!"

Logan smothered a smile. "I'm not an octo-man, but I do have a bonded companion, Ernie. He's an octopus. A talking octopus." Although Logan had to wonder where the heck they'd seen Ernie to have that impression. While Logan and Ernie were out rowing on the lake? "Did you see his tentacles? Sometimes he hitches a ride on my back."

"Is he here? Can I meet him?" Mark leaned forward, his face eager, which had the unfortunate side effect of dislodging his grip. Scrambling, he clawed the bark, kicking with his feet.

Enough was enough. "He's back at the cabin with the others. Hold on, kid." Logan dissolved his talons and gloves, then grasped Mark by the back of his shirt. Swinging him over onto Logan's back, Logan waited until he had a firm grasp with his tiny hands before with a moue of concentration, Logan activated his socks, envisioning them lifting him into the air so gently it was more like a glide.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Mark, his face alight.

Scrambling, Kate tucked the handle of the kitchen knife into her mouth, and then clambered down the tree trunk, her face frantic. Just as Logan suspected, she had to have a manoeuverability skill in addition to the invisibility, since she scaled that thing like a monkey.

Logan drifted to the forest floor, hovering over the beaver corpses until they'd reached bare soil, then set Mark down. "Here you go, kiddo. Stay here and we'll wait for your sister."

With a clatter, Kate jumped down from the tree trunk, taking a leap that had to be 15 feet at least, then rolled like she was an acrobat, the knife still lodged in her mouth. Springing to her feet, she came at him, spitting the knife out into her palm, her teeth bared, her face red.

"Hey now," said Logan, holding up his hands. "I'm not going to hurt you. There's no need for that."

She screamed and spread her legs apart, getting ready to jump.

"Kate," said Logan. "Kid, it's okay. Calm down." Logan let her rush towards him with the knife, standing motionless, trying to look harmless.

With another scream, she jumped at him, her shoulders bouncing off his armour-covered chest until she landed in a sprawl.

Tears trailed down her face and she rubbed her eyes. Kate must have nicked her mouth, since a smear of blood covered her lip. Logan sighed. If she weren't careful, she'd end up stabbing herself.

"Careful with that knife."

Glancing at Mark, Logan lowered himself to the ground and sat in a lotus position. This wasn't just a reaction from escaping a near-death experience, or from encountering Logan. Something had happened to these kids. They were alone. There was no way they'd wandered here on their own, not without an adult. This was the reaction of a teenager who was on her last legs, someone who'd built up a whole heck of negative emotions with no outlet.

Understandable if she had to act like the big sister, the grown up, to her brother. Putting on a big face, telling him everything would be okay when she knew one second of inattentiveness could mean death.

"What happened to you?" Logan asked.

Kate scooted back, her legs filthy with dirt. Curling up, she hid her tear-stained face by pulling up her knees and pressing her cheek against them. "You're not an XP harvester?" she mumbled.

"No kid. Far from it. I just want to help."

She held out a hand and reached for Mark. More solemn now, Mark scooted forward and clasped her hand, then leaned against her side.

Kate lifted her head and stared at Logan, her eyes moist. "We came out here with our dad. He was smart, escaping the city before those… things came. But rather than letting us try to level up, he made us hide. The monsters around us grew stronger and we grew weaker. We didn't do anything…" She swallowed. "Well. I went out on my own. The System gave me a skill that lets me hide from monsters, blend in with my surroundings. I kept hidden from the high leveled bears and mountain lions, and went looking for the squirrels, the ducks."

"Good job," Logan whispered. He knew that wasn't the end of the story.

She lifted her face and stared at him. "I advanced to level 12 after a day, then returned to show dad. But…" She bit her lip.

Mark swung one of his small arms around her shoulders. "It wasn't your fault."

Logan was impressed. He seemed remarkably mature for his age.

Kate gave him a soft smile that wobbled on the edges. "I thought I left them in a place that would be protected, defensible. Close to the lake. I didn't think I had to worry about fish."

Ah. Logan could see where this was going. "Something came out of the lake like those beavers?

"White eyes," Mark said, his fingers twitching with nerves. "Flower tentacles."

Kate's eyebrows drew together, and she looked at him in concern.

"Dad saved me," said Mark, rubbing his elbow against his face. "He was a hero."

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Logan couldn't help noticing that the kid was referring to his father in past tense.

"He's one of those things now," Kate spat. "If you want to help, you'll kill those monsters. Kill the monsters who made dad into a zombie."

***

It was stories like these that returned Logan to reality. It was one thing to be optimistic about the future and to believe that he could save the people in his immediate sphere, but he couldn't forget that every day, people—hell, children—were struggling to survive. Dropped into this FUBAR situation by the Collective who ran the System, subjected to the whims of arbitrary System messages and scenarios.

Fuck, Kate and Mark were just a small sample of what people were dealing with every day. Logan was betting that most people were still out there, in the city, in the wild, struggling to survive against random, mutated monsters. It was only the lucky few who managed to find a stronghold and protection. Logan was sure that half of those protected areas were like throwing lipstick on a pig. They looked fine at first glance, but like Damsel's complex, once you looked underneath the surface, you'd find a whole hell of a lot of crap.

He would like nothing better than to use [Threshold Shift] and his new socks to find each innocent person and take them to safety, but logistically, he knew it was impossible. He could do what he could to help them survive by spreading lodestone access points throughout the world and giving them access to his private market, but what was the point of saving every stranded and vulnerable person out there if in less than a year, the System eliminated them via the purge?

To truly help everyone, Logan needed to figure out his Save Humanity Quest. There were two parts to it—get Lara and the others to help him find carbon reduction methods, massive carbon reduction and not just carbon sucking trees; and figuring out why his quest status kept getting worse rather than better.

At least there was one thing he could do to make an immediate difference. He'd already resolved that he needed to take care of the queen serpent and her army; this encounter only made it a higher priority. He couldn't save everyone in the world, but maybe, just maybe, he could save other people who were hiding on the shores of Okanagan Lake. A big part of that would be making their surroundings safer.

Logan gave Kate and Mark time to grab their belongings and then wandered over to the mycelium saturated ground. The tricky part was the infected trees. Logan couldn't help but remembering that the System had saddled him with a penalty title for burning down that mutated bark ant tree.

Toggling through his Settings Mainframe, he pulled up the description of the title.

[Mass Murderer: Just like a serial killer, you revel in mass killing, slaughtering over 100 beings in less than ten minutes. This achievement results in a 10% KarmaCoin penalty to all carbon-reduction activities. What, you thought there would be no consequences for lighting a tree on fire?]

Logan snorted. In a way, looking back on the System messages he'd received when the glitchy AI minion was still in charge gave him a feeling of nostalgia. The new normal, staid System messages were just that… boring. But then again, he was happy to leave the toe cutting penalties behind him.

And yet, if the queen serpent had spread her fungi infection to the trees, how the hell would he excise it other than lightening them on fire? He could burn them down and then regrow them just as fast, but somehow, Logan didn't think the System would take that under consideration. In a way, it was better that he'd found this infection now rather than waiting until it got worse. Just like the pine tree bug, once the infection got its hooks into a tree, it would be hard to get out.

Well, if his encounter with Tasha and Jack had taught him anything, [Life Fabricator] was his ace in the hole. If he could reverse their zombie infection, couldn't he do the same with the trees?

Logan kept his senses wide open as he walked away from the kids' campsite, making sure to monitor their lifeforces while walking to the funky looking green trees. They were an odd batch of trees next to regular looking pine trees. As if someone had etched a line in the forest, injecting the batch of trees with a cocktail of moisture on steroids while everything outside of it was bone dry. Squinting, he stared at the green pine needles, looking for signs of—

They'd just moved.

They hadn't rustled in the wind or jerked from the weight of their pinecones.

Logan was convinced the branches on this tree had just crept towards him as if they were reaching. Blinking, he took a step back and then scanned the tree with [Idiot's Inspect]:

[Ponderosa Pine. Level 0.]

Huh. According to the System, it was a regular old pine tree, the kind that grew in the Okanagan, the ones more resistant to dry climates. That didn't explain why he was convinced the thing had moved.

Logan leaned forward and scrunched his eyebrows as he stared at a clump of pine needles. They looked odd, so lush and green it reminded him of green velvet. The needles had odd spots, fuzzy looking ends sticking out of…

Logan blinked and then flinched, curling his lip in disgust.

That wasn't a pine needle.

Logan deployed [Idiot's Inspect] again, this time narrowing in on that spot.

[Undead Caterpillar. Level 10. Master mimicry experts. Undead caterpillars overwhelm their prey with their numbers, using silk lines to drop onto their targets and then burrow into flesh. Minion of Queen Naitaka.]

[Highest stat: Constitution. Characteristics: Weak on their own; in a swarm, beware. Hidden name: N/A.]

Ugh. The queen serpent had expanded her repertoire. Not just fungi, but insects too? This was getting out of control. Caterpillars were one thing, but if she started infecting dragonflies or crickets, she could spread the infection up and down the shore.

At least there was one bright spot of news. He wouldn't have to burn down the trees after all.

As Logan backed up and looked at the trees with new eyes, his stomach roiled. No wonder the trees had looked unnaturally green; they were covered in hundreds of these green bugs. Yuck. And if he didn't nip this in the bud, it would be the bark ant scenario all over again. Logan wasn't blind. He'd learned to trust a warning when the System included it in [Idiot's Inspect]. Lower his guard, and he'd be fighting a nasty, creepy crawly battle.

By this point, Logan had learned to trust his instincts and to spend time on the things that made sense. Fighting the undead beavers with his sword and his physical stats, you bet your ass. But against bugs? Hell no.

Already, these things had sensed Logan and were dropping to the ground on their silk lines like a spider dropping from a web. One after another, covering the forest floor in a carpet of green. He needed to take care of this before it got worse.

Logan ran a finger over his stubble, scratching his chin as he considered a way forward. Fire was out. The trees underneath the caterpillars were healthy, and if he had any illusions that the System wouldn't penalize him for burning them down, he didn't now.

That meant [Liche Devourer].

Logan had gotten good at using the skill in the battle against the Rattuspede, and he felt confident that he wouldn't accidently suck Karma from anyone but his intended targets. The problem was concentration. He was hesitant to close his eyes and calm his mind when one second of inattention could cause a mountain of these things to fall on his head.

Oh well.

Logan removed a handful of sand from his spatial storage collar and then deployed [Mimicry Armour] to reform his helmet, facemask and gloves. If the damn things couldn't reach him through his exoskeleton, then there was nothing to worry about. Cracking his neck, Logan took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Calm. He needed calm. And yet his skin was crawling with disgust. Ugh. Give him an undead beaver any day of the week. After the dexterity trial with those creepy ass cereal bugs, if he could banish every single one of the buggers from the world, he would.

Logan sighed and then deployed [Life Fabricator] to sense the world around him. From the moss underneath his feet, to the shrubs and tall, dry grass growing at the base of the pine trees. The trees pinged on his radar like glowing balls of steady, gentle light. Timeless, untouchable. Logan sensed each pine tree as pings on his radar.

He looked deeper.

Concentrating on the bright spots of life that represented the trees, he looked for something odd like a parasite. Already, based on his experience at the cabin with the infected green beans, he knew he was looking for a feeling of wrongness, of rot. On their own, without the undead infection, the caterpillars wouldn't have felt like a disease, but there was no hiding once the infection took root.

A ping, a dull burst of deadness clinging to a tree branch.

Another ping, clinging to a bunch of pine needles.

He had it.

Logan opened his eyes and then hissed. Oh gross! Slamming his glove over the grub clinging to his armour-covered arm gave him a burst of satisfaction.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 10 Undead Caterpillar!]

It splattered into green goo, soaking his arm and dripping liquid that looked like mucous down his glove.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

With renewed determination, Logan paced, eyeing the ground behind him. Not a lot of room to work with, but he would make do.

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