The Last Experience Point

Chapter 42: Adamus

With a grunt, the boy known as Zachys Calador smashed his way through the metal exit door labeled B7->B8 and then wasted no time in resuming his wild, frantic dash down eleven flights of stairs and towards the next floor. In this case, he was heading to the pirate level. He was unlikely to fight anything on this floor. In fact, of all challenges he had yet faced, this alone was likely to be the simplest, as the more open nature of this floor and the positioning of the mobs here would present Zachys with the opportunity to easily keep out of aggro range of the mostly level 12- to level-15 mobs and continue on to B9, which would require him to take down a gatekeeper—which he would most likely succeed at doing.

Zachys was refreshed. His stamina had been fluctuating constantly, but the proportion of it that came from willpower was far outside of the normal range. Given his relative newness and his previous, mostly docile lifestyle, it was not on its own surprising that Zachys' willpower constituted a larger share of his stamina pool. But as he exerted himself over time, it should have become less and less a factor. Yet here he was, storming his way through another floor, and it was only growing!

It was rare for someone’s willpower to flare so strongly that they could actually pull themselves out of an E-debt, yet three times since entering the Catacombs of Yorna, Zachys had done just that. This time, however, the biometrics, unfortunately, were pretty clear: his prognosis was terminal—or at least it would have been if not for the unexplained quest tampering. Otherwise, in twelve minutes and forty-five seconds, he was going to suffer death by heart failure.

“Pirates?” the thin, wavy-haired boy asked aloud. “Really? With hooks on their hands and shit? What kind of idiot thought this one up? Great Ones, huh? My ass.”

It was surprising. He actually did strike a few down. He was tunnel-visioning, though. He could have saved a few valuable seconds if he had only seen the path off to his right which would have completely negated having to burn his way through the grouping of large wooden pirate ships floating in the indoor lake. Zachys leapt from one to the next, dueling with the mobs awaiting him and dispatching them with ease. Incredibly, his stamina barely budged. Was this because knowing of his imminent death had given him some kind of superhuman resolve? Clearly, his determination was at a level that was simply uncanny. It was impossible not to root for him.

Zachys’ ability, Unleashed Phase, was beyond fascinating. Had anyone ever seen anything like this before? Sure, ‘unique’ was ‘unique,’ but many unique abilities were similar, bearing only minor differences that only technically qualified them as being unique. This, on the other hand…this was different. Ember-filled smoke rose up into the air from the boy’s hands and feet while a dim, but noticeably glowing energy covered his skin, providing him what was currently a +40 boost to his armor. Therefore, it was wholly unnecessary for him to block, parry, or dodge the sword strikes from the red-outfitted, tricorn-wearing mobs with whom he dueled. What little stamina he did use was totally wasted. Even still, it was heartening to see his courage and persistence.

He frowned as he ignored yet another drop. He clearly knew that he did not even have the time to pick it up, but he likely still felt a pang of disappointment at leaving something that could potentially be valuable or useful behind. It was totally understandable.

Leaping from ship to ship, he hopped down onto the docks and said, “I think that’s the exit door! Wow, already? All right, I need to

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ERROR 941

Signal Lost! Attempting to Reestablish Connection with Host #410-A56R

“Worthless piece of junk!” Prila snapped, slapping the side of her monitor despite knowing it would do little to help fix the issue. All at once, fifteen of her colleagues gathered around her released a collective moan of disappointment. They were supposed to be at their desks working, but the news of Zachys had spread from orbital station to orbital station, and now everyone was likely watching his progress.

“I hope he makes it,” Miza said. She was a sweet girl with a small, soft face. She was short with orange-dyed hair that sort of went well with her freckles. Prila thought it cruel that she’d been assigned to monitoring, as she wept openly whenever one of her candidates perished. Prila, on the other hand, had become desensitized to it. That kind of thing sort of just happened over time. Half of them just wouldn’t make it. That was just the way things were.

I do hope Zachys pulls through, though, she thought. Though not quite emotionally attached, this was the closest she’d come in a decade.

She found she could empathize with him. She, too, had been born in the Whispery Woods. She too had longed for a life outside of the bounds of the hand she’d been dealt. But unlike Zachys and those similar to him, she was not fit for danger, fighting mobs, or leveling.

But they found me anyway.

Typing furiously into a command prompt, Prila attempted to reestablish a connection by using a different access point. The system had become more and more difficult to maintain as all but two of the Great Ones had vanished thousands of years before Prila was even born. Now, the OMP—Orbital Monitoring Platform—as well as the bastards she refused to name were the last two groups of sentient life who still bothered to work around the clock maintaining, preserving, and upholding this ancient system built on a combination of long-lost technology and forbidden Elemental Magic.

“It’s not working. We need repairs. Why can’t we ever fix a fucking thing?” Prila growled.

“Because we don’t have the resources,” Garoth said. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, green-skinned Lizard Folk with a forked tongue who looked out of place among the geeks here in the OMP. Yet looks could be deceiving, because Garoth was their most highly skilled engineer; his skills were unlikely to be surpassed by anyone. Though his yellow eyes and black pupils could often intimidate, as well as the ridges on his head or the folds under his chin, he was a gentle, caring man who gave his life to preserving Galterra.

“When are we going to get the resources?” Prila asked. “It’s always the same story. I feel like we’re fighting a losing battle.”

He shrugged. “Things”—he dragged along the pronunciation of the letter ‘s’—“are what they are, Prila.”

He was standing beyond and to the right of her desk. Behind him was catwalk that led to the bridge, through which a large viewport in front of the ship's piloting systems granted them a magnificent view of Galterra. From space, it truly was the most beautiful sight she had ever beheld. Even after ten years, she did not tire of seeing it. Apparently, Earth had also once been just as beautiful. Yet Prila had a hard time believing it. Galterra was a green-blue world with white clouds and a blue sky. It was a paradise planet. She was skeptical that the wasteland known as Earth had ever been quite so remarkable.

She had actually been to Earth once, come to think of it. It reminded her a great deal of Mars with the exception that, despite both planets being very reddish in nature, Earth still had a breathable atmosphere and a few pockets of life here or there—though it was mostly tribal, unsophisticated remnants of the previous human civilization that had wiped itself out. It seemed the only regions that had survived the end of civilization had been some place called “Ireland” and another called “Australia.” The rest of humanity had either been evacuated to Galterra or fated to perish.

As Prila tried desperately to get the feed back up and running, her coworkers goaded her on, all of them ganging up on her and demanding she “hurry her ass up” because they “wanted to see what Zachys did next." It was insensitive, sure, but after working in monitoring long enough, it all became just a show. Other than Miza, Prila did not know a single sentient being who could go more than a year without losing their emotional capacity to care about the candidates they monitored.

“I’m doing everything I can,” Prila said to the group gathered around her. “If you would just calm down and…huh? Why’s everyone gone so quiet?”

Prila had been so focused on staring at her screen that it actually took her a moment to realize that every single one of the chorus of impatient voices surrounding her had gone absolutely silent and in a way that was oddly unnerving. Frowning, she rolled backwards on her swivel chair and spun around. “Now what’s gotten into all you damned—?”

Her eyes widened, and her breath caught in her lungs. She immediately stood up, stepped forward, and dropped to her knees in submission as fear and wonder raced through her chest. This was not something she’d expected—or anyone had expected, she imagined. He was here. He was actually here! And he, their Lord, was standing right before them. God had actually come to Station 9 of the OMP. This was an honor so great that no words existed to describe it. She felt her eyes well up with tears. She’d never seen him before in person. But there he was. She trembled. Miza, who knelt next to her, also trembled, which Prila could tell as their elbows were touching.

“My Lord,” Prila said, bowing her head down in subservience. “Forgive me. I did not know you had come. Oh, my Lord, I beg you forgive my horrific and rude display of—”

“Please,” he whispered. “Stop that.”

Confused, awed, and shaking with fear, Prila said absolutely nothing as Adamus extended his hand in her direction as if actually wanting her to take it—as if actually deeming her worthy to touch the actual hands of a God.

“You don’t have to fear me,” he said.

“I d-do not fear you, my Lord,” Prila said.

He smiled. “You do, but that’s okay.”

He was tall, nearly seven feet in height, with thick white patches of silver hair and dark green eyes. Though wrinkled and aged, his face did not lack whatsoever in the appearance of power and strength. His gaze looked as though it could cut diamonds. He wore a white robe made of a material that seemed to glow and emit a soft buzzing hum. His ears were pointed like the Elvish, and it was believed he shared some similarity to their kind, though to what extent, Prila was not definitively certain, as her knowledge was the subject of religious speculation. All she did know was that, right now, she was in the presence of the Great One, Adamus Vayra.

Her hand shaking with fear and nerves, she accepted his, and with a powerful grip, she felt herself pulled back up to her feet. Then, with a smile, he gestured towards her chair. “Please, sit. And the rest of you, stand.”

Upon his word, all of her coworkers shot up to their feet and stood with their arms to their sides. This, despite Adamus then requesting they be at ease. That was one order they seemed incapable of obeying. Hell, Prila also could not bring herself to “be at ease” in the presence of a Great One.

“I’ve said this to so many people over the years,” he whispered, his voice soft but somewhat hauntingly sharp. He spoke as if the words were intended more for himself than Prila and the others. “Why do they never listen? I am not a God. Why do you insist on this antiquated ritual?”

Not a God? Prila thought. She feared her heart might stop as he continued to speak, as it contradicted what she had been told about him.

“Every few decades I return, and it is always the same. You are my people, but you are not my subjects. I am no more your God than you are mine. Please. I ask you to cease this display of worship. I am just a half-elf who has lived a very, very long life.”

Walking almost casually, he stood to the right of Prila’s chair and placed a hand on her shoulder. Despite his words, the sense of honor she felt was so powerful it nearly overwhelmed her. Tamping down her fear and excitement, she nervously said, “We’re trying to restore the link, My Lord.”

“Please, child, call me Adamus,” he said, his voice quiet yet still somehow so powerful. Prila nodded, though she knew it would be difficult to force herself to actually do such a thing. “Tell me,” he continued. “What of this boy?”

Prila, finding her courage, explained the situation with Zachys Calador, the boy whom she had personally picked to receive the Will of the Favored, just as she had once picked Alex Oren, his sponsor. She had a sense about her—something that superseded even the best of her peers. There was just something about the biometric data that called out to her. Sifting through tens of thousands of candidates a day, she would occasionally come across someone whose readings just touched her in a way. It was almost like a form of intuition.

As she recounted the boy’s journey up until this point, she did not dare ask him why he wanted to know this information or if that was the reason he had awakened from his sleeping chamber. For reasons unknown to Prila, it was said that Adamus, the Great One, tended to go into prolonged periods of sleep lasting anywhere from days to centuries. Supposedly—and Prila would not dare ask such a question—both of his parents had also been Great Ones, too.

Compared to others, she was not as knowledgeable in religious matters as she ought to have been, but she did know it was widely believed that Adamus’s father was an Elvish God that had perished in a war among the Great Ones many millennia ago, and his mother, a human Goddess known only as Redemption, was a woman not originally from this universe, and that she had departed it eons ago to return to her own. Why she had come and why she had then left was not something anyone who spoke of this could answer.

If he is not a God, then who or what even is? Prila thought, refusing to accept that the being standing beside her was anything less than a divine entity even if he himself denied such. A humble God was still a God, after all. I must not displease him.

Under an immense pressure, with the hand of a God gripping her shoulder, Prila struggled to restore the link. She could not possibly allow herself to fail. How could she live with the shame of appearing so incompetent before a Great One? Thankfully, however, she at last managed to restore a connection, and once more, the image of Zachys Calador running down several flights of stairs to B9 filled their view.

“I believe he will succeed,” Adamus whispered softly. “I do not like to interfere. But…I have given him a chance.”

Prila gasped. Then, forgetting herself, she asked, “You’re the one who altered the quest?” She immediately covered her own mouth, ashamed of her insolence. To her surprise, Adamus not only did not reprimand her, but he answered her question immediately and politely, too.

“I did,” he said, smiling. “I am the one who altered the rewards.”

In the catacombs of Lorna, if an adventurer was foolish enough to attack Moldark on B5, it was taken as a sign that they were unbefitting and unworthy, and they were sent to B10 to await a certain death. There was an exception, however. If one or more of their party were wise enough to realize the error of such an impatiently carried out attack, they would be spared and given a quest to save their comrades. The reward for this quest was a paltry 50 gold coins and a bag of Skelly Chips.

In truth, it was not intended for the surviving party members to attempt to rescue their comrades. To do so would require them to achieve the herculean task of rushing down to B10 in three hours, which was almost impossible. Yet Zachys Calador had taken off after them. His sponsor, Alex Oren, made no attempt to stop him, either, as it appeared—at least from her observations—that like Zachys, he did not know that the point of the quest was for the adventurer to realize that they could not save their friends, and that sometimes, it was important to cut one’s losses even at the cost of great loss or emotional suffering. Thus, the quest rewarded nothing but pocket change so as not to further encourage or incentivize rescue attempt. If anything, the insultingly small reward was to serve as a clue.

But something was different this time around. The quest rewards, they…they had been altered. Prila could not understand how or why until now. If Zachys actually succeeded, he would be rewarded with two Red Rejuvenation Stones and, even more outrageously, a Purple Rejuvenation Stone to go along with it. These were items that very high-level adventurers would risk their lives for in places far, far, far more dangerous than the Catacombs of Yorna. The purple one in particular was one of the most coveted items in the world. It was partially why the political guilds tolerated the existence of the adventuring guilds. The purple stones in particular were used to repair internal organs and to eliminate most forms of cancer. The boy’s debt would be reversed and his heart repaired if he managed to acquire and use one on himself.

“I can see the look on your face,” Adamus whispered. “You want to know why, child, yes?”

Swallowing nervously, Prila nodded. “I…My Lord, forgive my questioning and spare me my insolence, but I merely struggle to understand why you would…”

“Tamper?”

Prila did not nod. She wouldn’t dare. But this was indeed what she had wanted to ask. As though understanding this, she felt his grip tighten on her shoulder, but not in a painful or uncomfortable way: it was more reassuring than anything else.

“I don’t like to interfere, child,” he said. Now, his voice turned sad, which Prila found odd. “Our system—the one you work to protect—was always intended to be the fairest, most meritocratic method of power distribution. So long ago, my dear girl, well before the earliest entry of your oldest history textbook, our planet was engulfed in constant war and chaos. A few all-powerful mages waged battle against one another using the lives of the innocent as pawns for their ambitions. People lived in total disharmony both with themselves and with one another.”

He closed his eyes as he spoke, and Prila felt a chill run down her spine. “We destroyed everything. Billions of lives, ended. When the smoke cleared, only a few-hundred beings remained on the planet, and of those, only twenty or so—myself included—managed to set aside our hatred as we saw what our wars had done to our world and all those we loved.”

Reopening his eyes, he fixed her with a hard stare. “Individually, we were vastly powerful, but together, we found we could achieve a power of a near-infinite nature. And so we decided to remake the world from scratch. No longer would power be born to those few lucky mages capable of wielding it. We would create a world full of danger that would unite its people together in pursuit of a common enemy. Where anyone brave enough could grow and become stronger. Not all would be born of equal ability, but all would contain at least some potential.”

Now, he removed his hand from her shoulder, and he turned to face the catwalk. He seemed to be staring out of the wide viewport in the bridge and at the planet of Galterra. “For thousands of years, our image of a better world came to be just as we’d hoped—even better than we’d hoped. But…” He sighed. “Eventually, things reverted into a mirror of what they once were. The Galterra of today is not far removed from the Galterra of my youth.”

He looked at her. “Once again, an elite class has formed, and once more, power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of people.”

Prila’s mouth fell as understanding dawned on her. “So that’s why,” she said. “That’s why you created the Will of the Favored.”

Although he was a being of immense, immeasurable power, Prila could not help but notice Adamus had very kind eyes, which he half-closed as he smiled at her. “That’s exactly it,” he whispered. “That’s why I have asked you. All of you to do your part in restoring some semblance of fairness to our world.”

Only now did Prila realize that everyone not just in the monitoring room, but the entire Gods-damned orbital station had now come to listen to him speak. Hundreds of people of various races were crowded around her desk and the two of them. In fact, Prila was fairly certain that every last soul had come to hear what he had to say. For how long had they been listening in on the conversation?

Lifting his finger and pressing it against her monitor, Adamus said, “If he succeeds, he deserves to live. That is why I altered the quest.”

“Couldn’t you just…”

“Yes?” he asked her.

The more she spoke with him, the less she feared him. Prila found herself amazed to discover that Adamus really was okay with being questioned. It was not a quality she’d expected to see in a Great One. Speaking with a bit more courage and less shakiness, she asked, “Couldn’t you just help him?”

“I could, my child.”

“Why don’t you?”

At this, he inhaled and then released a slow, drawn-out sigh as though exhausted. “Even interfering as much as I already have is uncomfortable to me. The Will of the Favored, the altering of the quest. These things…they go against the principles of fairness. We aren't supposed to interfere in individual conflicts. That was always against our principles.”

“May I ask you one last question?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“What if things don’t work out?”

“In what regard?”

“What if the system continues to break and the political guilds end up torching the world in another global war? Especially now with your descendent throwing her hat into the ring. What will you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

He bowed his head. “Correct. Nothing. The system was intended to be Galterra’s final chance. The Great Ones who designed it with me have all moved on to other worlds and other interests. The only two who remain are myself and the one who opposes me. Even if we were to become united and end our bitter rivalry, the two of us combined do not have the power to implement any more major system updates. Even altering that quest has drained me. I’ve only just awoken and soon I will once again need to rest. I am an old man, and I am not immortal like my mother.”

The implications of what he was saying troubled her to the point that a sense of impending doom caused her to shift uneasily in her chair. As if noticing her turmoil, he asked, “You are troubled?”

Prila licked her bottom lip, unsure of how to reply. “I’m just…I thought the Great Ones would return if things continued to deteriorate.”

“I’m afraid not, child. The spawn points that are gone are never returning. The dungeons have mostly been preserved, though like B7, there are floors that are no longer intact. Even still, the means exist for a counter force to rise up and topple the elite. The system is still strong enough to endure if the people of Galterra can manage to embrace it. It either will happen or it won’t happen. I leave Galterra to its fate—and to you.”