The Last Experience Point

Zach awoke to realize he'd missed basically all of the fun—but he didn't really care, either. He slowly opened his eyes and yawned. With his seat reclined all the way back so that it formed a kind of bed, he kicked out his legs and stretched his arms as the plane began to decrease in altitude. Then he raised it back up into a seating position. Rubbing some crust out of his eyes, he stood up and looked behind him where the others were all sitting at a large round table surrounded by screens and fancy pieces of leather furniture.

Maybe I don't hate flying after all, he thought. Not on a jet like this.

The People of Virtue had the nicest private passenger jets in all of Galterra: that much had always been known. But until someone actually traveled aboard one, it was impossible to truly understand just how crazily luxurious these 100-million-gold jets actually were.

That smells good, Zach thought as his nose detected the pleasant scent of expertly cooked food.

Zach ambled over to the table and took a seat. There was a space in the middle of the round table where the man in the chef's outfit resided; at the moment, he was cooking up yellow rice and seafood while lobsters boiled in a pot. "Last chance if you want anything, Sir Calador," the chef said to him. "We're landing in thirty minutes."

"I've never had lobster before," he said. "I'm from the Whispery Woods. We can't afford that."

"Would you like to try some, then? It'd be my honor to serve you your very first."

He nodded enthusiastically. "Sure. I've always been curious."

Ten minutes later, as he sucked an admittedly delicious piece of meat out of the claw, he found himself hungrier than when he'd started to eat the thing. It was like a job trying to consume the lobster. It tasted really good, but it required genuine effort to eat. There were also a lot of gross looking bits he had to avoid. Overall, though? Not bad. But…certainly not worth the 35 gold a pound these things went for. No, what he really enjoyed were the various pieces of seafood cooked over rice. Now that he found really good. Jimmy seemed to agree as well.

"Oh, fuck," Jimmy said, rubbing his belly after downing an entire plate of the stuff. "I missed that so much. I had no idea ya'll knew how to make Spanish food here. That hit the spot."

"Spanish?" the chef asked. "Come again?"

Jimmy pointed at his plate, which now contained just a few grains of rice and some breadcrumbs from a roll with butter. "This, my dude, is a dish from Spain."

"I'm afraid that's simply not true, good sir. This is a recipe from Varda's Lair."

"I know you think that," Jimmy said. "But it's not. This is from Madrid."

"Is that somewhere in South Bastia? I've never heard of it."

"Yeah, nobody but me has."

The chef gave him a very strange look, then eyed the others as though to gauge their reaction; it was as if he was attempting to find out if he was the crazy one in this situation. Rian shrugged in response, Lienne chuckled, and the Elves remained blank in their expressions.

"I'm guessing Spain is someplace from your underground colony, Jimmy?" Lienne asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. The part of the colony we call 'Europe'. I've only been there twice, though."

"Why only twice?"

Zach could see him struggle to come up with an answer to that question. "Because…my colony was big: like really big. It went on for miles under the ground so uh, you can't just go to different parts whenever you want. You had to plan it out weeks in advance and save up money to get there."

Lienne scratched her head. "I just can't believe there was this huge colony on Earth and we didn't know about it."

"What's Earth?" the chef asked. "Where's that at?"

Following the man's question, everyone just kind of glanced at one another as though wondering what they should say or if they should say anything. It ended up being Rian who spoke.

"So…you wouldn't believe us even if we told you what it was. And I'm not even sure we're allowed to tell you. You're probably not allowed to know."

The chef laughed. "Now you've got me really curious. Hey, I won't tell nobody."

"Okay, then." Rian sat up straighter. "The Earth is a far-away planet where all human life originated. And every now and then, we like to visit it."

The chef rolled his eyes. "Okay, you could just tell me it's a guild secret. No need to be a dick about it."

Rian sighed. "Told ya you wouldn't believe me."

As the six of them continued to chat with one another around the table, Zach noticed that one member of their group was staying absolutely silent, and in a way that was disconcerting. "Tyson, are you all right?" Zach asked the man.

Tyson hadn't said a single word since Zach had woken up. But that on its own wasn't the problem. It was his facial expression that really bothered Zach. The man looked…content. Very, very content. He also looked like he was kind of out of it and half asleep. He was sitting back in his chair with a half-smile on his face, his eyes open but only partially, though they were unfocused.

"Tyson?" he asked again. He snapped his fingers in front of the guy's face. "Hey! What's wrong with him?"

Rian and Lienne turned their heads, and so too did Trelvor and Seiley. "I don't know," Rian said, now sounding equally alarmed. "I wasn't paying that much attention to him. He looked fine to me."

"You think this is fine?" Zach asked, getting out of his seat and waving his hands in front of Tyson's face. "Is he even alive?"

Jimmy began cackling, which annoyed him. "How is this funny?"

"Dude's fine," Jimmy said, "he's just high as fuck."

"Wait, what?"

"I saw him go into the bathroom earlier and come out that way. He must've had a stash on here of something pretty strong."

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Zach paused a moment to consider what Jimmy was saying. He had no experience with drugs—nor did he want any—and so he had no idea what he was witnessing here. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yep. I wish I looked like that."

Zach slowly shook his head. "Why, Jimmy? You think this is good? Look at him. Really look at him. He's like not even alive."

"Exactly. Sometimes that's how you wanna feel. Numb. On a cloud. No more pain, no more worries."

Seiley made a look of disgust. "That is what death is for."

The more Zach snapped his fingers in front of Tyson's face, the more worried he became. The man was completely out of it. "I don't care what you say, Jimmy, I don't like this."

Jimmy, as if becoming annoyed, got up from the table, walked over to Tyson, and pressed two of his fingers into the man's neck. Abruptly, Jimmy's face filled with what looked like doubt. He pursed his lips, his movements suddenly becoming faster as he began to shake Tyson. "Wake up, dude. Wake up." A moment later, he looked at Zach and said, "Okay, maybe he's not all right after all."

"Why?" Zach demanded. "What happened? What did you just do?"

"I felt his pulse through his neck. It's like, really weak. The hell did he take?"

His level of alarm rising from a 2 to a 10, Zach asked, "Should we give him a red or purple stone or something?"

"Neither of those will work," Jimmy replied. "You probably need to give him a yellow since this has to do with chemistry. Unless he's wounded or has some kind of organ damage, a red or purple's not gonna do nothing."

Zach frowned. "Shit. I don't have any stones left. Do you?"

"Nope," Jimmy replied promptly. "Rian? Lienne?"

"I've got nothing," Rian said. "Li?"

"I've still got all mine from the item shop! I can give him a yellow!"

"But wait," Rian said. "Are we absolutely sure he needs it?"

Zach leaned close and placed his ear near the man's mouth. He was breathing, but his breaths were shallow. Zach didn't know how serious that was or wasn't, as nobody here was a doctor. The chef also indicated he had no idea if the man was simply high or on the verge of death. No one among them knew what was dangerous or not dangerous. Gods, this was pissing him off. Was he okay or not?

The question was answered on its own as Tyson made a choking sound and fell onto his side.

"Lienne!" Zach shouted. "Give me the yellow! Hurry!"

"Okay!"

She raised her hand, presumably having called upon Bank and Storage, and then an instant later, one of the yellow stones appeared in her palm. She quickly handed it to Zach, who slapped it down over the man's back. It crumpled into pieces then vanished. The fact that it was accepted meant it was clearly worth being used. Something was obviously very wrong with him.

An instant after use, foam began to pour out of Tyson's mouth. It started as just a trickle, but before long, it looked like he'd swallowed a bar of soap. Briefly, Zach wondered if the man was getting worse, not better. Finally, however, he began coughing and gasping. Then he clutched at his throat wildly, his eyes enlarged with fear. He gasped again, choking up spittle. Then he took one more breath before he finally started to pant. Now, he looked confused and like he didn't know where he was.

"What happened?" he asked them. "Why am I…what just happened to me?"

"You don't know?" Rian asked.

"I've no idea." The fear was slowly fading from his face. "I think I had a bad dream."

Zach scowled at him. "I'll tell you what 'happened,' Tyson," he replied. "What happened is that you just fucking OD'd on whatever it was that you took, and you would've died if I hadn't noticed."

Tyson swallowed as though nervous. "Thanks for being a friend."

"We're not friends. I don't even like you. Everything about you sickens me."

The man nodded as though he agreed. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

Shaking his head, Zach muttered a few swear words under his breath while resisting the urge to slap the man across his face. "If that ever happens again," he said, "I'm not helping you. And if I ever find you doing any kind of drugs at all, I'm sending you back to your guild. I'm serious. You're just such a piece of shit!"

"I know, I know."

"Do you?" Zach shouted at him. "Do you know?"

"Zach, calm down," Lienne said to him. Then Rian, Jimmy, and even the Elves tried to get him to ease off.

But Zach ignored all of them, and as Tyson continued to show no appreciation for the gravity of his actions, it caused Zach to snap. Now, giving in to his worse instincts, he backhanded the idiot across the face with enough force that his whole head turned. Zach regretted it immediately as he caused the man's nose to gush blood and a tooth to fly out of his mouth. It also caused him to shed several tears, which turned into quiet sobbing.

"Zach!" Seiley and Lienne yelled at him as though in disbelief of his violent behavior. Even Rian, who normally sided with him on most things, moved to put himself between Zach and Tyson as though worried Zach would strike him a second time.

"I…I shouldn't have done that," Zach whispered, though it was mostly to himself.

"Ya think?" Rian asked. "Holy shit, man. You can't do shit like that. You knocked one of his teeth out! What's wrong with you?"

"Seriously," Lienne said as she used a piece of gauze given to her by the chef to slow some of the blood trickling out of his mouth. "How would you feel if Jascaila knocked one of your teeth out every time you messed up or made a mistake?"

"Way to turn this around on me, everyone," Zach grumbled, dismissing himself from the table and storming his way back over to his seat.

There's no helping someone like Tyson, he thought. The man really is just pure shit.

Nevertheless, Zach couldn't deny that there was a big pit of guilt in his stomach that was burning away at him like a form of corrosive acid. He looked down at his hand, which had a bit of blood on it from Tyson's face. The man was more than a decade his senior, but even putting that aside, Zach knew he had no right to do that to someone. It was just…it was just that all the shit he'd done recently, and all the people he killed—it was making violence feel so much easier and more natural to him. The old him would never have done something like that.

That's not who I am.

In the distance behind him, barely audible amid the roar of the plane's engines, Zach could hear Tyson saying, "It's fine, it's fine. I'm fine. I honestly deserved that. Really, I did."

Zach balled his hands into fists and squeezed as the rage welled up within him. But he was mad at himself. He was angry that he'd allowed someone like Tyson to bring out his inner demons. Gods, why had he done that? It wasn't like he didn't know it was wrong to just hit people. Of course, he knew that was wrong. So why would he do that? Why? Was Tyson simply toxic to a person like Zach? Was it possible that the man just naturally brought out the worst in him?

Maybe I should just get rid of him.

But this created a whole separate dilemma, because Zach didn't think the man was exaggerating or fibbing when he said he'd be killed if Zach tossed him away. And while it might feel good to get rid of him in the moment, Zach knew that, if a week or two from then, he read in the news that Tyson Revel had passed away, it would pile more guilt onto him than he could handle right now. It would feel different from the usual guilt, too. He would deeply regret it.

Jimmy has addictions too, Zach thought, but he doesn't fuck up that bad!

No matter how bad Jimmy's vices might have been, Zach was one-hundred-percent certain that Jimmy would never slam down drugs to the extent that he ended up on the verge of death. He wouldn't even get anywhere near that point. Tyson's problems were on a whole different level. That man had real, deep, serious problems. Problems that couldn't be compared with the issues he or Jimmy faced in their own lives. And Zach, being 17, was not qualified to fix them. He could barely fix himself. Tyson was almost 30. This shouldn't be his fucking responsibility!

As he stewed over the events that had only just taken place, he realized they were just about to land. Frustrated, he stood upright and began pacing despite the pilot warning everyone to remain in their seats.

I can't be killed in a plane crash, he thought, disregarding the warning. Even if the plane smashed right into the ground and exploded, I doubt I'd be scratched.

Still on his feet, he looked out the window and saw that they were flying only a few-hundred feet above a snow-topped mountain, but then, as they pulled away, the terrain became lower and lower until they were once more flying well above ground level—even as the jet descended towards the airport in Drake's Wing in the region of Dragon Squire.

Zach decided to shake off what just happened. He needed to focus on finding whatever clue it was he was meant to discover. But the thing with Tyson left him feeling troubled, his soul unclean. It was a distraction he really didn't need right now.

Maybe he really should just get rid of him. Maybe he should wipe his hands clean and let the man die if that was what fate had in store for Tyson. Morally, it really wouldn't be Zach's fault, right? It would be the fault of those who'd killed him.

A moment after having this thought, Zach's phone vibrated in his pocket. He'd received a news alert. He quickly read the headline. It seemed that, just one hour ago, Tyson Revel's father had finally passed away in his sleep.

And now, the feelings of guilt became truly heavy.