The Last Experience Point

Chapter 37: The World Reacts

Zach snickered, made an audible “awwh”, and then, with a sharp exhalation of breath, yelped and dropped down to his knees as an arrow fired by a level-6 “Skelly Archer” from across a vast chasm made a plunk as it lodged itself into the rocky wall behind him. This was followed by a glare from both Rian and Lienne, the first of whom grunted as he stepped in front of Zach and held out his shield, blocking another arrow while Lienne sent multiple Flamestrikes sailing across a several-hundred-foot gap and over what quite literally looked like a bottomless drop.

One after the next, Lienne’s magical attacks pummeled into Skelly Archer B, who made a loud, echoing “Frrruughhh!” as it was actually knocked off its feet, dropping its bow—which was also made of bones—in the process. As far as Zach could tell, the only visible differences between Skelly Grunts and Skelly Archers were that the grunts were level 5, wielded a scimitar, and wore a red bandana, whereas the archers were level 6, used a bone-made bow, and seemed to prefer a green bandana.

“I’ll finish it off,” Rian said, annoyance in his voice. He threw his axe at the Skelly Archer even as it wriggled on the ground as though unable to return to its feet. Zach watched as it sailed across the wide gap across from them and towards its prey.

[2/60]

Skelly Archer B

Level 6

For a moment, Zach kept attention on the axe, watching as it came closer and closer to the struggling Skelly Archer. Then, slowly, all on their own, his eyes lowered back down to the phone in his hand. Sneakily turning around to face away from Rian and Lienne, he very quickly typed a message onto his screen.

>Nah, I’m not busy. I can talk. So cute!

>I know, right? Her name is Nila, and she’s only three months old. I got jealous! I mean, you have Fluffles, so I wanted to get a cat too.

>Look at those ears! BRB 1 second.

Zach, gripping his blade in one hand, stepped to the side as a Skelly Grunt tried to decapitate him. “Fuck off,” he growled at it, striking out several times in quick succession and destroying the creature. He was only hitting for 15 a swing, but with only 45HP, his three fast strikes were more than enough to dispatch the annoying pest. Honestly, these things weren’t even a threat to him anymore. They were barely worth the energy required for a measly 5xp. At least the archers gave 8. Earlier, Rian and Lienne had explained to Zach that, when partied with others who were at least two levels higher than the thing you were killing, there was an experience penalty, and as the grunt crumpled into a heap of bones and then soon after vanished, Zach once again puzzled over why this particular floor had followed B3. It just didn’t feel like a natural progression.

I really thought we’d end up on another dangerous planet or something. This just makes no sense.

He’d known the moment they’d entered B4 that they were still on Galterra. It was immediately apparent as the humid, somewhat musty-smelling quality of the air did not change between the door leading out of the stairwell and into this new floor which, at first glance, looked remarkably similar to B1 with regards to the gravel- and rock-covered ground and granite walls. Unlike B1, however, the entrance to this place presented them with two cave-like tunnels spaced evenly apart on the left and right side of an otherwise pentagonal-shaped area. Though not obvious at the time, both seemed to lead out into equally narrow ledges on opposite sides of a vast chasm that, for all Zach knew, could contain a ten-thousand-foot drop. It was too dark to know how deep it actually ran, and he certainly wasn’t willing to find out. Interestingly, though, one side definitely seemed more treacherous than the other.

Rian, seemingly choosing at random, had taken them through the left path, where a decent number of Skelly grunts were dotted unevenly throughout. The one on the right, however, contained Skelly Archers, who seemed to have a pretty tremendous aggro radius, as evident by the fact that they’d been peppered with arrows from pretty much the moment they’d exited the left tunnel. Had they chosen the right tunnel, they would instead have only had to fight the archers, as Zach knew that the grunts lacked both the aggro range and the physical capability of attacking across such a wide distance.

Luckily, none of this seemed to matter, as for whatever reason, floor B4 was a pretty heavy step down in terms of relative difficulty from B3. Had they—or at least Lienne and Rian—not leveled twice before coming here, it might have actually posed some risk. But as things were, they were tearing through this floor like a sheet of paper.

Darting his head to his left, Zach spotted Rian and Lienne easily and effortlessly dealing with six more Skelly Grunts, which had run straight at them the moment they entered into aggro range. Zach moved in to assist.

“You guys okay?” he asked.

“By all means, Zach, finish your conversation,” Rian grunted in reply.

“Hey, you were the one who said I should start talking to her again.”

“Yeah, when we’re not in combat.”

“Okay, but in fairness, she just got a new cat, and she only picked out a name for it today.”

“Amazing, Zach,” he said dryly as he cracked a Skelly Grunt in the side of its jaw with the sharp end of his axe. Another Skelly Grunt on his opposite side took a wild swing at him in return—which connected with his face. The result was a thin scratch that didn’t even bleed. It was just sort of like a…a tiny red little line on his chin that he probably didn’t even feel. Who knew four more points into constitution could make such a difference?

Zach, jumping into the air, made a flashy, showy, and in his honest opinion, cool-looking demonstration as he killed Skelly Grunt C, thwacking it right across the face in a one-handed slash for 25 damage, then thrusting forward and piercing it for another 18. Pulling his sword out actually managed to do enough damage to finish it off. The moment it died, Zach jumped back, gained some distance, and then…then glanced down and began typing into his phone.

>I know you don’t want to argue, but it would mean so much to me if you could come to Angelica’s. I don’t want to let this little…disagreement change things.

>I don’t either, she replied almost immediately.

>But look, Zach…

>Here’s the thing.

>I know how important this is to you that you do it your way. I just fuwh

Zach peeled the bottom-right corner of his lip back in confusion as he read her message twice over, having no idea what she’d just sent him.

>WTF Kal? You having a brain aneurism?

>No! Nila jumped on my phone!

>LOL! Fluffles did that to me a few times. Well, at least your cat doesn’t try to justify it. Fluffles actually tries to come up with logical reasons why he was correct in ah shit BRB 1 sec.

“Gods-dammit,” Zach growled. “Annoying ass-skeleton.”

He was forced to deal with yet another as more of the things seemed to drop down from the ceiling as some kind of “trap.” It might’ve actually mattered if they presented any kind of real challenge. Though Zach was only marginally more powerful than he’d been the last time he’d taken these foes on, he had the benefit of knowing each and every one of their attacks by heart—and also his skill with his sword seemed to increase each time he used it. He really felt like he had some kind of affinity for blades.

“Having a good chat?” Rian asked, using his Bully on one of the skeletons and causing it to run off the ledge and to its death.

“Cut me some slack,” Zach said sourly. “The situation is crazy right now. You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on since we’ve been in this dungeon.” Though Zach knew he was clearly making an excuse for himself, what he was saying might actually have been an understatement. Things really were going wild in Galterra.

“To be fair, it is kind of crazy,” Rian whispered in agreement, suddenly appearing to be a bit more understanding. He only knew part of what was going on, and Zach planned to fill him in as he himself came to learn more with each moment.

Lienne, for her part, had not yet voiced any protest, but her facial expression told Zach all he needed to know about the way she felt about things. She averted her gaze as Zach caught her staring daggers at him, and then she whacked a skelly grunt over the head with her staff, dealing just enough damage to finish it off.

>You’re not fighting anything while we text, are you, Zach?

>Nah, we’re taking a break right now.

Zach stared in awe as he looked down at her profile picture in the top-left corner of the messaging application. Pressing his finger against it, he was taken to her social media profile, and once more, his entire body shook in sheer disbelief at the transformation Kalana had undergone in the short time they’d been apart.

For starters, she’d updated her image to look more like her natural self. Her hair was now the color of pure gold, and her ears were more pointed, and what’s more—she boldly wore actual equipment, publicly revealing her identity. Gone were the modest and long skirts and plain-looking dresses. Now, she wore rough, hide armor that revealed her thighs and arms up to her shoulders, as well as her midriff. Yet this was actually the least shocking change to her profile.

What really stunned Zach was that, now, she apparently had amassed over seventy-million followers. It seemed that, at some point in the past few days, she had publicly revealed herself to the world—and boy, had it thrown things into chaos. This was what she had meant when she told Zach that “so much had happened,” because now, not only did the general public know that the Elves were not, in fact, extinct, but the things Kalana had revealed in a post introducing herself had roiled the entire political establishment, who had strangely chosen not to censor it.

Right now, from what Zach could gather, Kalana and her story was apparently the only thing being spoken about on the news. Zach had become so far removed from society lately that he hadn’t even had a clue about any of this until an hour or so ago.

In somewhat graphic detail, Kalana had revealed what Peter IV had done to her and her family. Given that the man was already so reviled, it wasn’t a shock that the public at large did not require much convincing to believe it; no, what surprised Zach more was that the typically shy and reserved Kalana had revealed herself to the world at all—and the world was certainly reacting.

From the little time Zach had been given to piece together events, it seemed like somewhere around two-and-a-half days had come and gone following Kalana’s social media post, during which there was radio silence from the political guilds and the media—even as she quickly became one of the top trending hashtags in the world. Then, at some point early yesterday morning, a single, mid-ranking officer from the Children of Order made a post on his social media profile tagging Kalana, in which he apologized for her treatment and condemned the Guild of Gentlemen.

And then that had been it. That was when it happened. Just like that, the dam had been broken and the floodgates opened.

What followed was a veritable fucking stampede of activity from every guild in North Bastia. A chorus of voices from every region and every guild all seemed to compete with one another to be the loudest and most visibly upset as they condemned and displayed outrage over the “vile, unfathomable cruelty” of “the tyrant-king.” It was at this point the media jumped on board, and now, from what Zach could see, there was near twenty-four-hour coverage of the “hidden Elf genocide” that had “taken place right under our noses.”

Sincere or otherwise, the outrage was so vast and so extensive that, by yesterday in the early afternoon, at a time when Zach and his friends were waking up in their rooms in Angelica’s, the Chief Engineer of the Dwarves—who Zach supposed was sort of like their king—had issued a public statement decrying Peter IV’s cruelty and claiming to “stand in solidarity” with the Elvish kind. Soon after, the Orcish queen put out a similar statement, and in her case, Zach found it to be genuine, as the Orcs over the past few decades had collectively become more and more “socially conscious” and were now generally regarded as a race of college professors and justice advocates.

Rather than release a letter of support for Kalana and a declaration of condemnation for Peter IV, they instead released something closer to a fifty-page missive of pure moral outrage and scorn, in which they derided the Guild of Gentlemen for “still refusing to properly atone for the role their leadership played in acceding to Peter IV’s reign of terror.”

The Lizard Folk, on the other hand, were apparently so incensed that there was talk of them joining the Royal Roses in their war against the Guild of Gentlemen. Actually, come to think of it, public sentiment had shifted dramatically regarding the current conflict, and now large majorities of citizens in both Varda’s Lair and Giant’s Fall—at least according to opinion polls—approved by 70 vs. 30 percent the war effort against the Plains of Mist and Shadowfall Coast. Even more bizarrely, a slim majority—51%—now claimed they would support a return to conventional warfare if Sir Alistair Morrison of the Dark-Water Depths did not surrender or agree to mutual, open-field combat in less than two weeks’ time.

Unsurprisingly, the Guild of Gentlemen now stood alone as the only guild that did not go along with the chorus of indignation and, quite to the contrary, released a harsh rebuke against Kalana in the form of a statement that simultaneously denied all of her claims while somehow also claiming no involvement, which sort of contradicted the denial.

Everything is just going crazy, Zach thought.

Yet, as crazy as all this was, it wasn’t even the most shocking part. What really dropped Zach’s jaw was that the various human guilds—except the Guild of Gentlemen—had actually come together and had unanimously reached an agreement on something other than issues concerning currency. All on its own, it was rare for the guilds in North Bastia to agree on anything, but now, the human guilds had come together to sign a document declaring that the Elvish hunting grounds in South Bastia, where Kalana was currently living with her father, were the sole, complete, and total sovereign property of the Elvish people, and that no human may interfere in their domain or step foot on it uninvited. Really, this truly was—at least in Zach’s opinion—the craziest part of everything. The fact that the girl he loved and crushed on had gone from a shy nobody into a—

“Zach!” Lienne screamed at the top of her lungs. “You’re about to walk off the Gods-damned cliff!”

Zach abruptly stopped short as the tips of his sneakers dangled precariously over the edge. With his eyes widened, his mouth agape, and his heart thudding powerfully in his chest, he shuffled backwards and moved away from the ledge. Then he put his phone in his pocket, shook his head, and apologized.

“Okay, no more phone during combat. I’m acting like a child. I’m sorry.”

Rian nodded. “I’m cutting you slack because you’re my new best bud, but also because I know how crazy this is…and I understand what she means to you.”

“Same,” Lienne agreed with a smile that didn’t even look remotely sincere. Then, making an openly biting remark, she added, “I think it’s great you two have reconnected. I just wish you guys would discuss your love for fascism when we’re not in the middle of a dungeon floor.”

Zach frowned. “Kalana’s not a fascist. Don’t say that.”

“Why? It’s true.”

“No it’s not. You don’t even know her. Please stop.”

Lienne narrowed her eyes at him. “I like you a lot, Zach, but you need to wake up. You heard what she said. She wants to—”

“Li,” Rian said to her with a threatening glare. “Stop.”

“Seriously?” she asked him. “I’ve only kept my mouth shut this whole time because I thought you’d say something, Rian.”

“Say what?” he asked. “What should I say? I mean what the hell?”

“Oh, piss off,” Lienne said to him as she turned around and began walking away. Then, with a sympathetic expression on his face, Rian shrugged at Zach.

“She’s not a fascist, Rian,” Zach said to him. “She’s just…I’m going to talk to her about this. She’ll listen to me. I know her better than anyone. I mean, you know how girls can get, right?”

“Yeah,” Lienne called from a bit ahead of them. “Tell us how we get, Zach,” she added with a snort. “Every now and again we get a bit upset and try to declare war on human civilization. You know, just to relieve some of the stress.”

“None of that is going to happen,” Zach said, doing his best to keep his tone even. “I know her. When I see her, I’ll talk her out of it. I promise you. This isn’t just some random girl we’re talking about. I mean, maybe to you she is, but to me, she’s everything. And no matter what she said, she hasn’t actually done anything wrong yet. And she won’t.”

Lienne laughed scornfully. “You’re right. Why are we worried that the Elvish Princess who in a week just became more powerful than most humans can become in a lifetime might make good on her threats? I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. I’m sure she’s just—”

“Li, cut it out!” Rian shouted at her, his tone heated. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you. For fuck’s sake! None of this matters. We’re adventurers, remember? It’s not our concern who’s at war or who’s capturing what. Someone’s always at war. If you care so much, go join a political guild.”

“You’re such an ass, Rian.”

“Because you’re getting worked up over nothing.”

“Over nothing?” she asked, her nostrils flaring. “Oh, excuse me, Rian. I’m sorry I don’t feel like being ruled by Elves. Excuse me for caring about humanity.”

For some reason, her words seemed to spark an even greater anger in her brother. “Spoken like a true citizen of the Shadowfall Coast. Dad would be so proud. Congratulations!”

“Ugh!” she replied with disgust. “Don’t even. Don’t. Even.”

“Why? Guessing I struck a nerve?”

“No, Rian. It’s just that that’s really low. Even for you.”

“Well, Li, it’s how you always act when anything involving humans comes up as a topic. You just get so crazy and it’s embarrassing.”

“Why? Because I don’t think there’s a crime in being proud to be a human being? That doesn’t mean I support…you know what? I’m so over this. Just keep moving. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Not with you, anyway.”

Zach frowned as he watched the two siblings fight. When had Lienne become so sharp-tongued and mean? Was this some kind of jealousy because she’d told Zach that she likes him? Somehow, he doubted that was it—or at least that it was anything more than a tiny part of it. When Zach had first made contact with Kalana, Lienne had looked saddened, disappointed, but not at all angry. But then, as Rian whispered into her ear, filling her in on the “gossip” he’d gleaned from eavesdropping on almost all of their conversation—including even the parts when he’d headed up the stairs to speak privately—she seemed to grow more and more visibly upset.

Everyone knew that people from the Shadowfall Coast and Tomb of Fire weren’t the biggest fans of other races. It wasn’t even a secret, either. The media in those regions were constantly putting out stories about how Dwarven engineering was outcompeting human engineering, the Orcs were taking over the universities, the Lizard Folk were all evil, and so on and so on—but surely Lienne and her brother were above that, right? Rian, at least, seemed to be. Lienne never struck him as the type to care much about that stuff.

Zach sighed. Even in this secluded floor deep below the surface of the planet, Kalana was causing an uproar. At some point in the very near future, he needed to see her again. If he begged her to reconsider, he knew she’d listen to him. That was assuming, of course, she wasn’t just exaggerating in the first place. He didn’t care what level she became: a girl and her father were not about to conquer land all by themselves.

Either way, whether she could make good on her desires or not, Zach was going to talk her out of it. If she really loved him, she’d listen. He knew she would.